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  13  <h1>
  14      <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/">Petter Reinholdtsen</a>
  15
  16  </h1>
  17
  18 </div>
  19
  20
  21     <h3>Entries tagged "debian".</h3>
  22
  23     <div class="entry">
  24       <div class="title">
  25         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Browser_plugin_for_SPICE__spice_xpi__uploaded_to_Debian.html">Browser plugin for SPICE (spice-xpi) uploaded to Debian</a>
  26       </div>
  27       <div class="date">
  28          1st November 2013
  29       </div>
  30       <div class="body">
  31         <p><a href="http://www.spice-space.org/">The SPICE protocol</a> for
  32 remote display access is the preferred solution with oVirt and RedHat
  33 Enterprise Visualization, and I was sad to discover the other day
  34 that the browser plugin needed to use these systems seamlessly was
  35 missing in Debian.  The <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/668284">request
  36 for a package</a> was from 2012-04-10 with no progress since
  37 2013-04-01, so I decided to wrap up a package based on the great work
  38 from Cajus Pollmeier and put it in a collab-maint maintained git
  39 repository to get a package I could use.  I would very much like
  40 others to help me maintain the package (or just take over, I do not
  41 mind), but as no-one had volunteered so far, I just uploaded it to
  42 NEW.  I hope it will be available in Debian in a few days.</p>
  43
  44 <p>The source is now available from
  45 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/spice-xpi.git;a=summary">http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/spice-xpi.git;a=summary</a>.</p>
  46
  47       </div>
  48       <div class="tags">
  49
  50
  51         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
  52
  53
  54       </div>
  55     </div>
  56     <div class="padding"></div>
  57
  58     <div class="entry">
  59       <div class="title">
  60         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Teaching_vmdebootstrap_to_create_Raspberry_Pi_SD_card_images.html">Teaching vmdebootstrap to create Raspberry Pi SD card images</a>
  61       </div>
  62       <div class="date">
  63         27th October 2013
  64       </div>
  65       <div class="body">
  66         <p>The
  67 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/v/vmdebootstrap.html">vmdebootstrap</a>
  68 program is a a very nice system to create virtual machine images.  It
  69 create a image file, add a partition table, mount it and run
  70 debootstrap in the mounted directory to create a Debian system on a
  71 stick.  Yesterday, I decided to try to teach it how to make images for
  72 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/RaspberryPi">Raspberry Pi</a>, as part
  73 of a plan to simplify the build system for
  74 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">the FreedomBox
  75 project</a>.  The FreedomBox project already uses vmdebootstrap for
  76 the virtualbox images, but its current build system made multistrap
  77 based system for Dreamplug images, and it is lacking support for
  78 Raspberry Pi.</p>
  79
  80 <p>Armed with the knowledge on how to build "foreign" (aka non-native
  81 architecture) chroots for Raspberry Pi, I dived into the vmdebootstrap
  82 code and adjusted it to be able to build armel images on my amd64
  83 Debian laptop.  I ended up giving vmdebootstrap five new options,
  84 allowing me to replicate the image creation process I use to make
  85 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Raspberry_Pi_based_batman_adv_Mesh_network_node.html">Debian
  86 Jessie based mesh node images for the Raspberry Pi</a>.  First, the
  87 <tt>--foreign /path/to/binfm_handler</tt> option tell vmdebootstrap to
  88 call debootstrap with --foreign and to copy the handler into the
  89 generated chroot before running the second stage.  This allow
  90 vmdebootstrap to create armel images on an amd64 host.  Next I added
  91 two new options <tt>--bootsize size</tt> and <tt>--boottype
  92 fstype</tt> to teach it to create a separate /boot/ partition with the
  93 given file system type, allowing me to create an image with a vfat
  94 partition for the /boot/ stuff.  I also added a <tt>--variant
  95 variant</tt> option to allow me to create smaller images without the
  96 Debian base system packages installed.  Finally, I added an option
  97 <tt>--no-extlinux</tt> to tell vmdebootstrap to not install extlinux
  98 as a boot loader.  It is not needed on the Raspberry Pi and probably
  99 most other non-x86 architectures.  The changes were accepted by the
 100 upstream author of vmdebootstrap yesterday and today, and is now
 101 available from
 102 <a href="http://git.liw.fi/cgi-bin/cgit/cgit.cgi/vmdebootstrap/">the
 103 upstream project page</a>.</p>
 104
 105 <p>To use it to build a Raspberry Pi image using Debian Jessie, first
 106 create a small script (the customize script) to add the non-free
 107 binary blob needed to boot the Raspberry Pi and the APT source
 108 list:</p>
 109
 110 <p><pre>
 111 #!/bin/sh
 112 set -e # Exit on first error
 113 rootdir="$1"
 114 cd "$rootdir"
 115 cat &lt;&lt;EOF > etc/apt/sources.list
 116 deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ jessie main contrib non-free
 117 EOF
 118 # Install non-free binary blob needed to boot Raspberry Pi.  This
 119 # install a kernel somewhere too.
 120 wget https://raw.github.com/Hexxeh/rpi-update/master/rpi-update \
 121     -O $rootdir/usr/bin/rpi-update
 122 chmod a+x $rootdir/usr/bin/rpi-update
 123 mkdir -p $rootdir/lib/modules
 124 touch $rootdir/boot/start.elf
 125 chroot $rootdir rpi-update
 126 </pre></p>
 127
 128 <p>Next, fetch the latest vmdebootstrap script and call it like this
 129 to build the image:</p>
 130
 131 <pre>
 132 sudo ./vmdebootstrap \
 133     --variant minbase \
 134     --arch armel \
 135     --distribution jessie \
 136     --mirror http://http.debian.net/debian \
 137     --image test.img \
 138     --size 600M \
 139     --bootsize 64M \
 140     --boottype vfat \
 141     --log-level debug \
 142     --verbose \
 143     --no-kernel \
 144     --no-extlinux \
 145     --root-password raspberry \
 146     --hostname raspberrypi \
 147     --foreign /usr/bin/qemu-arm-static \
 148     --customize `pwd`/customize \
 149     --package netbase \
 150     --package git-core \
 151     --package binutils \
 152     --package ca-certificates \
 153     --package wget \
 154     --package kmod
 155 </pre></p>
 156
 157 <p>The list of packages being installed are the ones needed by
 158 rpi-update to make the image bootable on the Raspberry Pi, with the
 159 exception of netbase, which is needed by debootstrap to find
 160 /etc/hosts with the minbase variant.  I really wish there was a way to
 161 set up an Raspberry Pi using only packages in the Debian archive, but
 162 that is not possible as far as I know, because it boots from the GPU
 163 using a non-free binary blob.</p>
 164
 165 <p>The build host need debootstrap, kpartx and qemu-user-static and
 166 probably a few others installed.  I have not checked the complete
 167 build dependency list.</p>
 168
 169 <p>The resulting image will not use the hardware floating point unit
 170 on the Raspberry PI, because the armel architecture in Debian is not
 171 optimized for that use.  So the images created will be a bit slower
 172 than <a href="http://www.raspbian.org/">Raspbian</a> based images.</p>
 173
 174       </div>
 175       <div class="tags">
 176
 177
 178         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network</a>.
 179
 180
 181       </div>
 182     </div>
 183     <div class="padding"></div>
 184
 185     <div class="entry">
 186       <div class="title">
 187         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Good_causes__Debian_Outreach_Program_for_Women__EFF_documenting_the_spying_and_Open_access_in_Norway.html">Good causes: Debian Outreach Program for Women, EFF documenting the spying and Open access in Norway</a>
 188       </div>
 189       <div class="date">
 190         15th October 2013
 191       </div>
 192       <div class="body">
 193         <p>The last few days I came across a few good causes that should get
 194 wider attention.  I recommend signing and donating to each one of
 195 these. :)</p>
 196
 197 <p>Via <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2013/18/">Debian
 198 Project News for 2013-10-14</a> I came across the Outreach Program for
 199 Women program which is a Google Summer of Code like initiative to get
 200 more women involved in free software.  One debian sponsor has offered
 201 to match <a href="http://debian.ch/opw2013">any donation done to Debian
 202 earmarked</a> for this initiative.  I donated a few minutes ago, and
 203 hope you will to. :)</p>
 204
 205 <p>And the Electronic Frontier Foundation just announced plans to
 206 create <a href="https://supporters.eff.org/donate/nsa-videos">video
 207 documentaries about the excessive spying</a> on every Internet user that
 208 take place these days, and their need to fund the work.  I've already
 209 donated.  Are you next?</p>
 210
 211 <p>For my Norwegian audience, the organisation Studentenes og
 212 Akademikernes Internasjonale Hjelpefond is collecting signatures for a
 213 statement under the heading
 214 <a href="http://saih.no/Bloggers_United/">Bloggers United for Open
 215 Access</a> for those of us asking for more focus on open access in the
 216 Norwegian government.  So far 499 signatures.  I hope you will sign it
 217 too.</p>
 218
 219       </div>
 220       <div class="tags">
 221
 222
 223         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
 224
 225
 226       </div>
 227     </div>
 228     <div class="padding"></div>
 229
 230     <div class="entry">
 231       <div class="title">
 232         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Videos_about_the_Freedombox_project___for_inspiration_and_learning.html">Videos about the Freedombox project - for inspiration and learning</a>
 233       </div>
 234       <div class="date">
 235         27th September 2013
 236       </div>
 237       <div class="body">
 238         <p>The <a href="http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/">Freedombox
 239 project</a> have been going on for a while, and have presented the
 240 vision, ideas and solution several places.  Here is a little
 241 collection of videos of talks and presentation of the project.</p>
 242
 243 <ul>
 244
 245 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukvUz5taxvA">FreedomBox -
 246 2,5 minute marketing film</a> (Youtube)</li>
 247
 248 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzW25QTVWsE">Eben Moglen
 249 discusses the Freedombox on CBS news 2011</a> (Youtube)</li>
 250
 251 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ae8SZbxfE0g">Eben Moglen -
 252 Freedom in the Cloud - Software Freedom, Privacy and and Security for
 253 Web 2.0 and Cloud computing at ISOC-NY Public Meeting 2010</a>
 254 (Youtube)</li>
 255
 256 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNaIji_3xBE">Fosdem 2011
 257 Keynote by Eben Moglen presenting the Freedombox</a> (Youtube)</li>
 258
 259 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bDDUyJSQ9s">Presentation of
 260 the Freedombox by James Vasile at Elevate in Gratz 2011</a> (Youtube)</li>
 261
 262 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQTmnk27g9s"> Freedombox -
 263 Discovery, Identity, and Trust by Nick Daly at Freedombox Hackfest New
 264 York City in 2012</a> (Youtube)</li>
 265
 266 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkbSB4Ba7Ck">Introduction
 267 to the Freedombox at Freedombox Hackfest New York City in 2012</a>
 268 (Youtube)</li>
 269
 270 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-P2Jaeg0aQ">Freedom, Out
 271 of the Box! by Bdale Garbee at linux.conf.au Ballarat, 2012</a> (Youtube) </li>
 272
 273 <li><a href="https://archive.fosdem.org/2013/schedule/event/freedombox/">Freedombox
 274 1.0 by Eben Moglen and Bdale Garbee at Fosdem 2013</a> (FOSDEM) </li>
 275
 276 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1LpYX2zVYg">What is the
 277 FreedomBox today by Bdale Garbee at Debconf13 in Vaumarcus
 278 2013</a> (Youtube)</li>
 279
 280 </ul>
 281
 282 <p>A larger list is available from
 283 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/TalksAndPresentations">the
 284 Freedombox Wiki</a>.</p>
 285
 286 <p>On other news, I am happy to report that Freedombox based on Debian
 287 Jessie is coming along quite well, and soon both Owncloud and using
 288 Tor should be available for testers of the Freedombox solution. :) In
 289 a few weeks I hope everything needed to test it is included in Debian.
 290 The withsqlite package is already in Debian, and the plinth package is
 291 pending in NEW.  The third and vital part of that puzzle is the
 292 metapackage/setup framework, which is still pending an upload.  Join
 293 us on <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC
 294 (#freedombox on irc.debian.org)</a> and
 295 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
 296 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
 297
 298       </div>
 299       <div class="tags">
 300
 301
 302         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
 303
 304
 305       </div>
 306     </div>
 307     <div class="padding"></div>
 308
 309     <div class="entry">
 310       <div class="title">
 311         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Recipe_to_test_the_Freedombox_project_on_amd64_or_Raspberry_Pi.html">Recipe to test the Freedombox project on amd64 or Raspberry Pi</a>
 312       </div>
 313       <div class="date">
 314         10th September 2013
 315       </div>
 316       <div class="body">
 317         <p>I was introduced to the
 318 <a href="http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/">Freedombox project</a>
 319 in 2010, when Eben Moglen presented his vision about serving the need
 320 of non-technical people to keep their personal information private and
 321 within the legal protection of their own homes.  The idea is to give
 322 people back the power over their network and machines, and return
 323 Internet back to its intended peer-to-peer architecture.  Instead of
 324 depending on a central service, the Freedombox will give everyone
 325 control over their own basic infrastructure.</p>
 326
 327 <p>I've intended to join the effort since then, but other tasks have
 328 taken priority.  But this summers nasty news about the misuse of trust
 329 and privilege exercised by the "western" intelligence gathering
 330 communities increased my eagerness to contribute to a point where I
 331 actually started working on the project a while back.</p>
 332
 333 <p>The <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/freedombox/">initial
 334 Debian initiative</a> based on the vision from Eben Moglen, is to
 335 create a simple and cheap Debian based appliance that anyone can hook
 336 up in their home and get access to secure and private services and
 337 communication.  The initial deployment platform have been the
 338 <a href="http://www.globalscaletechnologies.com/t-dreamplugdetails.aspx">Dreamplug</a>,
 339 which is a piece of hardware I do not own.  So to be able to test what
 340 the current Freedombox setup look like, I had to come up with a way to install
 341 it on some hardware I do have access to.  I have rewritten the
 342 <a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/freedom-maker">freedom-maker</a>
 343 image build framework to use .deb packages instead of only copying
 344 setup into the boot images, and thanks to this rewrite I am able to
 345 set up any machine supported by Debian Wheezy as a Freedombox, using
 346 the previously mentioned deb (and a few support debs for packages
 347 missing in Debian).</p>
 348
 349 <p>The current Freedombox setup consist of a set of bootstrapping
 350 scripts
 351 (<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/freedombox-setup">freedombox-setup</a>),
 352 and a administrative web interface
 353 (<a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/Plinth">plinth</a> + exmachina +
 354 withsqlite), as well as a privacy enhancing proxy based on
 355 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/privoxy">privoxy</a>
 356 (freedombox-privoxy).  There is also a web/javascript based XMPP
 357 client (<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/jwchat">jwchat</a>)
 358 trying (unsuccessfully so far) to talk to the XMPP server
 359 (<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/ejabberd">ejabberd</a>).  The
 360 web interface is pluggable, and the goal is to use it to enable OpenID
 361 services, mesh network connectivity, use of TOR, etc, etc.  Not much of
 362 this is really working yet, see
 363 <a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/freedombox-todos/blob/master/TODO">the
 364 project TODO</a> for links to GIT repositories.  Most of the code is
 365 on github at the moment.  The HTTP proxy is operational out of the
 366 box, and the admin web interface can be used to add/remove plinth
 367 users.  I've not been able to do anything else with it so far, but
 368 know there are several branches spread around github and other places
 369 with lots of half baked features.</p>
 370
 371 <p>Anyway, if you want to have a look at the current state, the
 372 following recipes should work to give you a test machine to poke
 373 at.</p>
 374
 375 <p><strong>Debian Wheezy amd64</strong></p>
 376
 377 <ol>
 378
 379 <li>Fetch normal Debian Wheezy installation ISO.</li>
 380 <li>Boot from it, either as CD or USB stick.</li>
 381 <li><p>Press [tab] on the boot prompt and add this as a boot argument
 382 to the Debian installer:<p>
 383 <pre>url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-wheezy.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-wheezy.dat</a></pre></li>
 384
 385 <li>Answer the few language/region/password questions and pick disk to
 386 install on.</li>
 387
 388 <li>When the installation is finished and the machine have rebooted a
 389 few times, your Freedombox is ready for testing.</li>
 390
 391 </ol>
 392
 393 <p><strong>Raspberry Pi Raspbian</strong></p>
 394
 395 <ol>
 396
 397 <li>Fetch a Raspbian SD card image, create SD card.</li>
 398 <li>Boot from SD card, extend file system to fill the card completely.</li>
 399 <li><p>Log in and add this to /etc/sources.list:</p>
 400 <pre>
 401 deb <a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox</a> wheezy main
 402 </pre></li>
 403 <li><p>Run this as root:</p>
 404 <pre>
 405 wget -O - http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/BE1A583D.asc | \
 406    apt-key add -
 407 apt-get update
 408 apt-get install freedombox-setup
 409 /usr/lib/freedombox/setup
 410 </pre></li>
 411 <li>Reboot into your freshly created Freedombox.</li>
 412
 413 </ol>
 414
 415 <p>You can test it on other architectures too, but because the
 416 freedombox-privoxy package is binary, it will only work as intended on
 417 the architectures where I have had time to build the binary and put it
 418 in my APT repository.  But do not let this stop you.  It is only a
 419 short "<tt>apt-get source -b freedombox-privoxy</tt>" away. :)</p>
 420
 421 <p>Note that by default Freedombox is a DHCP server on the
 422 192.168.1.0/24 subnet, so if this is your subnet be careful and turn
 423 off the DHCP server by running "<tt>update-rc.d isc-dhcp-server
 424 disable</tt>" as root.</p>
 425
 426 <p>Please let me know if this works for you, or if you have any
 427 problems.  We gather on the IRC channel
 428 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">#freedombox</a> on
 429 irc.debian.org and the
 430 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">project
 431 mailing list</a>.</p>
 432
 433 <p>Once you get your freedombox operational, you can visit
 434 <tt>http://your-host-name:8001/</tt> to see the state of the plint
 435 welcome screen (dead end - do not be surprised if you are unable to
 436 get past it), and next visit <tt>http://your-host-name:8001/help/</tt>
 437 to look at the rest of plinth.  The default user is 'admin' and the
 438 default password is 'secret'.</p>
 439
 440       </div>
 441       <div class="tags">
 442
 443
 444         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
 445
 446
 447       </div>
 448     </div>
 449     <div class="padding"></div>
 450
 451     <div class="entry">
 452       <div class="title">
 453         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Intel_180_SSD_disk_with_Lenovo_firmware_can_not_use_Intel_firmware.html">Intel 180 SSD disk with Lenovo firmware can not use Intel firmware</a>
 454       </div>
 455       <div class="date">
 456         18th August 2013
 457       </div>
 458       <div class="body">
 459         <p>Earlier, I reported about
 460 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_fix_a_Thinkpad_X230_with_a_broken_180_GB_SSD_disk.html">my
 461 problems using an Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB disk</a>.  Friday I was
 462 told by IBM that the original disk should be thrown away.  And as
 463 there no longer was a problem if I bricked the firmware, I decided
 464 today to try to install Intel firmware to replace the Lenovo firmware
 465 currently on the disk.</p>
 466
 467 <p>I searched the Intel site for firmware, and found
 468 <a href="https://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&ProdId=3472&DwnldID=18363&ProductFamily=Solid-State+Drives+and+Caching&ProductLine=Intel%c2%ae+High+Performance+Solid-State+Drive&ProductProduct=Intel%c2%ae+SSD+520+Series+(180GB%2c+2.5in+SATA+6Gb%2fs%2c+25nm%2c+MLC)&lang=eng">issdfut_2.0.4.iso</a>
 469 (aka Intel SATA Solid-State Drive Firmware Update Tool) which
 470 according to the site should contain the latest firmware for SSD
 471 disks.  I inserted the broken disk in one of my spare laptops and
 472 booted the ISO from a USB stick.  The disk was recognized, but the
 473 program claimed the newest firmware already were installed and refused
 474 to insert any Intel firmware.  So no change, and the disk is still
 475 unable to handle write load. :( I guess the only way to get them
 476 working would be if Lenovo releases new firmware.  No idea how likely
 477 that is.  Anyway, just blogging about this test for completeness.  I
 478 got a working Samsung disk, and see no point in spending more time on
 479 the broken disks.</p>
 480
 481       </div>
 482       <div class="tags">
 483
 484
 485         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
 486
 487
 488       </div>
 489     </div>
 490     <div class="padding"></div>
 491
 492     <div class="entry">
 493       <div class="title">
 494         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_fix_a_Thinkpad_X230_with_a_broken_180_GB_SSD_disk.html">How to fix a Thinkpad X230 with a broken 180 GB SSD disk</a>
 495       </div>
 496       <div class="date">
 497         17th July 2013
 498       </div>
 499       <div class="body">
 500         <p>Today I switched to
 501 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">my
 502 new laptop</a>.  I've previously written about the problems I had with
 503 my new Thinkpad X230, which was delivered with an
 504 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Intel_SSD_520_Series_180_GB_with_Lenovo_firmware_still_lock_up_from_sustained_writes.html">180
 505 GB Intel SSD disk with Lenovo firmware</a> that did not handle
 506 sustained writes.  My hardware supplier have been very forthcoming in
 507 trying to find a solution, and after first trying with another
 508 identical 180 GB disks they decided to send me a 256 GB Samsung SSD
 509 disk instead to fix it once and for all.  The Samsung disk survived
 510 the installation of Debian with encrypted disks (filling the disk with
 511 random data during installation killed the first two), and I thus
 512 decided to trust it with my data.  I have installed it as a Debian Edu
 513 Wheezy roaming workstation hooked up with my Debian Edu Squeeze main
 514 server at home using Kerberos and LDAP, and will use it as my work
 515 station from now on.</p>
 516
 517 <p>As this is a solid state disk with no moving parts, I believe the
 518 Debian Wheezy default installation need to be tuned a bit to increase
 519 performance and increase life time of the disk.  The Linux kernel and
 520 user space applications do not yet adjust automatically to such
 521 environment.  To make it easier for my self, I created a draft Debian
 522 package <tt>ssd-setup</tt> to handle this tuning.  The
 523 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/ssd-setup.git">source
 524 for the ssd-setup package</a> is available from collab-maint, and it
 525 is set up to adjust the setup of the machine by just installing the
 526 package.  If there is any non-SSD disk in the machine, the package
 527 will refuse to install, as I did not try to write any logic to sort
 528 file systems in SSD and non-SSD file systems.</p>
 529
 530 <p>I consider the package a draft, as I am a bit unsure how to best
 531 set up Debian Wheezy with an SSD.  It is adjusted to my use case,
 532 where I set up the machine with one large encrypted partition (in
 533 addition to /boot), put LVM on top of this and set up partitions on
 534 top of this again.  See the README file in the package source for the
 535 references I used to pick the settings.  At the moment these
 536 parameters are tuned:</p>
 537
 538 <ul>
 539
 540 <li>Set up cryptsetup to pass TRIM commands to the physical disk
 541     (adding discard to /etc/crypttab)</li>
 542
 543 <li>Set up LVM to pass on TRIM commands to the underlying device (in
 544     this case a cryptsetup partition) by changing issue_discards from
 545     0 to 1 in /etc/lvm/lvm.conf.</li>
 546
 547 <li>Set relatime as a file system option for ext3 and ext4 file
 548     systems.</li>
 549
 550 <li>Tell swap to use TRIM commands by adding 'discard' to
 551     /etc/fstab.</li>
 552
 553 <li>Change I/O scheduler from cfq to deadline using a udev rule.</li>
 554
 555 <li>Run fstrim on every ext3 and ext4 file system every night (from
 556     cron.daily).</li>
 557
 558 <li>Adjust sysctl values vm.swappiness to 1 and vm.vfs_cache_pressure
 559     to 50 to reduce the kernel eagerness to swap out processes.</li>
 560
 561 </ul>
 562
 563 <p>During installation, I cancelled the part where the installer fill
 564 the disk with random data, as this would kill the SSD performance for
 565 little gain.  My goal with the encrypted file system is to ensure
 566 those stealing my laptop end up with a brick and not a working
 567 computer.  I have no hope in keeping the really resourceful people
 568 from getting the data on the disk (see
 569 <a href="http://xkcd.com/538/">XKCD #538</a> for an explanation why).
 570 Thus I concluded that adding the discard option to crypttab is the
 571 right thing to do.</p>
 572
 573 <p>I considered using the noop I/O scheduler, as several recommended
 574 it for SSD, but others recommended deadline and a benchmark I found
 575 indicated that deadline might be better for interactive use.</p>
 576
 577 <p>I also considered using the 'discard' file system option for ext3
 578 and ext4, but read that it would give a performance hit ever time a
 579 file is removed, and thought it best to that that slowdown once a day
 580 instead of during my work.</p>
 581
 582 <p>My package do not set up tmpfs on /var/run, /var/lock and /tmp, as
 583 this is already done by Debian Edu.</p>
 584
 585 <p>I have not yet started on the user space tuning.  I expect
 586 iceweasel need some tuning, and perhaps other applications too, but
 587 have not yet had time to investigate those parts.</p>
 588
 589 <p>The package should work on Ubuntu too, but I have not yet tested it
 590 there.</p>
 591
 592 <p>As for the answer to the question in the title of this blog post,
 593 as far as I know, the only solution I know about is to replace the
 594 disk.  It might be possible to flash it with Intel firmware instead of
 595 the Lenovo firmware.  But I have not tried and did not want to do so
 596 without approval from Lenovo as I wanted to keep the warranty on the
 597 disk until a solution was found and they wanted the broken disks
 598 back.</p>
 599
 600       </div>
 601       <div class="tags">
 602
 603
 604         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
 605
 606
 607       </div>
 608     </div>
 609     <div class="padding"></div>
 610
 611     <div class="entry">
 612       <div class="title">
 613         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Intel_SSD_520_Series_180_GB_with_Lenovo_firmware_still_lock_up_from_sustained_writes.html">Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB with Lenovo firmware still lock up from sustained writes</a>
 614       </div>
 615       <div class="date">
 616         10th July 2013
 617       </div>
 618       <div class="body">
 619         <p>A few days ago, I wrote about
 620 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">the
 621 problems I experienced with my new X230 and its SSD disk</a>, which
 622 was dying during installation because it is unable to cope with
 623 sustained write.  My supplier is in contact with
 624 <a href="http://www.lenovo.com/">Lenovo</a>, and they wanted to send a
 625 replacement disk to try to fix the problem.  They decided to send an
 626 identical model, so my hopes for a permanent fix was slim.</p>
 627
 628 <p>Anyway, today I got the replacement disk and tried to install
 629 Debian Edu Wheezy with encrypted disk on it.  The new disk have the
 630 same firmware version as the original.  This time my hope raised
 631 slightly as the installation progressed, as the original disk used to
 632 die after 4-7% of the disk was written to, while this time it kept
 633 going past 10%, 20%, 40% and even past 50%.  But around 60%, the disk
 634 died again and I was back on square one.  I still do not have a new
 635 laptop with a disk I can trust.  I can not live with a disk that might
 636 lock up when I download a new
 637 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> ISO or
 638 other large files.  I look forward to hearing from my supplier with
 639 the next proposal from Lenovo.</p>
 640
 641 <p>The original disk is marked Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB,
 642 11S0C38722Z1ZNME35X1TR, ISN: CVCV321407HB180EGN, SA: G57560302, FW:
 643 LF1i, 29MAY2013, PBA: G39779-300, LBA 351,651,888, LI P/N: 0C38722,
 644 Pb-free 2LI, LC P/N: 16-200366, WWN: 55CD2E40002756C4, Model:
 645 SSDSC2BW180A3L 2.5" 6Gb/s SATA SSD 180G 5V 1A, ASM P/N 0C38732, FRU
 646 P/N 45N8295, P0C38732.</p>
 647
 648 <p>The replacement disk is marked Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB,
 649 11S0C38722Z1ZNDE34N0L0, ISN: CVCV315306RK180EGN, SA: G57560-302, FW:
 650 LF1i, 22APR2013, PBA: G39779-300, LBA 351,651,888, LI P/N: 0C38722,
 651 Pb-free 2LI, LC P/N: 16-200366, WWN: 55CD2E40000AB69E, Model:
 652 SSDSC2BW180A3L 2.5" 6Gb/s SATA SSD 180G 5V 1A, ASM P/N 0C38732, FRU
 653 P/N 45N8295, P0C38732.</p>
 654
 655 <p>The only difference is in the first number (serial number?), ISN,
 656 SA, date and WNPP values.  Mentioning all the details here in case
 657 someone is able to use the information to find a way to identify the
 658 failing disk among working ones (if any such working disk actually
 659 exist).</p>
 660
 661       </div>
 662       <div class="tags">
 663
 664
 665         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
 666
 667
 668       </div>
 669     </div>
 670     <div class="padding"></div>
 671
 672     <div class="entry">
 673       <div class="title">
 674         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/July_13th__Debian_Ubuntu_BSP_and_Skolelinux_Debian_Edu_developer_gathering_in_Oslo.html">July 13th: Debian/Ubuntu BSP and Skolelinux/Debian Edu developer gathering in Oslo</a>
 675       </div>
 676       <div class="date">
 677          9th July 2013
 678       </div>
 679       <div class="body">
 680         <p>The upcoming Saturday, 2013-07-13, we are organising a combined
 681 Debian Edu developer gathering and Debian and Ubuntu bug squashing
 682 party in Oslo.  It is organised by <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">the
 683 member assosiation NUUG</a> and
 684 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">the Debian Edu / Skolelinux
 685 project</a> together with <a href="http://bitraf.no/">the hack space
 686 Bitraf</a>.</p>
 687
 688 <p>It starts 10:00 and continue until late evening.  Everyone is
 689 welcome, and there is no fee to participate.  There is on the other
 690 hand limited space, and only room for 30 people.  Please put your name
 691 on <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/BSP/2013/07/13/no/Oslo">the event
 692 wiki page</a> if you plan to join us.</p>
 693
 694       </div>
 695       <div class="tags">
 696
 697
 698         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
 699
 700
 701       </div>
 702     </div>
 703     <div class="padding"></div>
 704
 705     <div class="entry">
 706       <div class="title">
 707         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">The Thinkpad is dead, long live the Thinkpad X230?</a>
 708       </div>
 709       <div class="date">
 710          5th July 2013
 711       </div>
 712       <div class="body">
 713         <p>Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a
 714 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thank_you_Thinkpad_X41__for_your_long_and_trustworthy_service.html">replacement
 715 for my trusty old Thinkpad X41</a>.  Unfortunately I did not have much
 716 time to spend on it, and it took a while to find a model I believe
 717 will do the job, but two days ago the replacement finally arrived.  I
 718 ended up picking a
 719 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_x230">Thinkpad X230</a>
 720 with SSD disk (NZDAJMN).  I first test installed Debian Edu Wheezy as
 721 a roaming workstation, and it seemed to work flawlessly.  But my
 722 second installation with encrypted disk was not as successful.  More
 723 on that below.</p>
 724
 725 <p>I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most
 726 important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never
 727 listed in the feature list.  But I did get good help from the search
 728 feature at <a href="http://www.prisjakt.no/">Prisjakt</a>, which
 729 allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other
 730 requirements.  A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks according
 731 to that search interface, so I had to drop specifying the number of
 732 disks from my search parameters.  I also asked around among friends to
 733 get their impression on keyboards and robustness.</p>
 734
 735 <p>So the new laptop arrived, and it is quite a lot wider than the
 736 X41.  I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is
 737 significantly wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my
 738 hand a lot more to reach the edges.  But the key response is fairly
 739 good and the individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope
 740 I will get used to it.  My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really
 741 needed a new laptop now. :)</p>
 742
 743 <p>Turning off the touch pad was simple.  All it took was a quick
 744 visit to the BIOS during boot it disable it.</p>
 745
 746 <p>But there is a fatal problem with the laptop.  The 180 GB SSD disk
 747 lock up during load.  And this happen when installing Debian Wheezy
 748 with encrypted disk, while the disk is being filled with random data.
 749 I also tested to install Ubuntu Raring, and it happen there too if I
 750 reenable the code to fill the disk with random data (it is disabled by
 751 default in Ubuntu).  And the bug with is already known.  It was
 752 reported to Debian as <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/691427">BTS
 753 report #691427 2012-10-25</a> (journal commit I/O error on brand-new
 754 Thinkpad T430s ext4 on lvm on SSD).  It is also reported to the Linux
 755 kernel developers as
 756 <a href="https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=51861">Kernel bugzilla
 757 report #51861 2012-12-20</a> (Intel SSD 520 stops working under load
 758 (SSDSC2BW180A3L in Lenovo ThinkPad T430s)). It is also reported on the
 759 Lenovo forums, both for
 760 <a href="http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/T400-T500-and-newer-T-series/T430s-Intel-SSD-520-180GB-issue/m-p/1070549">T430
 761 2012-11-10</a> and for
 762 <a href="http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/X-Series-ThinkPad-Laptops/x230-SATA-errors-with-180GB-Intel-520-SSD-under-heavy-write-load/m-p/1068147">X230
 763 03-20-2013</a>.  The problem do not only affect installation.  The
 764 reports state that the disk lock up during use if many writes are done
 765 on the disk, so it is much no use to work around the installation
 766 problem and end up with a computer that can lock up at any moment.
 767 There is even a
 768 <a href="https://git.efficios.com/?p=test-ssd.git">small C program
 769 available</a> that will lock up the hard drive after running a few
 770 minutes by writing to a file.</p>
 771
 772 <p>I've contacted my supplier and asked how to handle this, and after
 773 contacting PCHELP Norway (request 01D1FDP) which handle support
 774 requests for Lenovo, his first suggestion was to upgrade the disk
 775 firmware.  Unfortunately there is no newer firmware available from
 776 Lenovo, as my disk already have the most recent one (version LF1i).  I
 777 hope to hear more from him today and hope the problem can be
 778 fixed. :)</p>
 779
 780       </div>
 781       <div class="tags">
 782
 783
 784         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
 785
 786
 787       </div>
 788     </div>
 789     <div class="padding"></div>
 790
 791     <div class="entry">
 792       <div class="title">
 793         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230.html">The Thinkpad is dead, long live the Thinkpad X230</a>
 794       </div>
 795       <div class="date">
 796          4th July 2013
 797       </div>
 798       <div class="body">
 799         <p>Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a replacement for my
 800 trusty old Thinkpad X41.  Unfortunately I did not have much time to
 801 spend on it, but today the replacement finally arrived.  I ended up
 802 picking a <a href="http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_x230">Thinkpad
 803 X230</a> with SSD disk (NZDAJMN).  I first test installed Debian Edu
 804 Wheezy as a roaming workstation, and it worked flawlessly.  As I write
 805 this, it is installing what I hope will be a more final installation,
 806 with a encrypted hard drive to ensure any dope head stealing it end up
 807 with an expencive door stop.</p>
 808
 809 <p>I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most
 810 important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never
 811 listed in the feature list.  But I did get good help from the search
 812 feature at <ahref="http://www.prisjakt.no/">Prisjakt</a>, which
 813 allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other
 814 requirements.  A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks, so I had
 815 to drop number of disks from my search parameters.</p>
 816
 817 <p>I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is significantly
 818 wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my hand a lot more
 819 to reach the edges.  But the key response is fairly good and the
 820 individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope I will get
 821 used to it.  My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really needed a
 822 new laptop now. :)</p>
 823
 824 <p>I look forward to figuring out how to turn off the touch pad.</p>
 825
 826       </div>
 827       <div class="tags">
 828
 829
 830         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
 831
 832
 833       </div>
 834     </div>
 835     <div class="padding"></div>
 836
 837     <div class="entry">
 838       <div class="title">
 839         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatically_locate_and_install_required_firmware_packages_on_Debian__Isenkram_0_4_.html">Automatically locate and install required firmware packages on Debian (Isenkram 0.4)</a>
 840       </div>
 841       <div class="date">
 842         25th June 2013
 843       </div>
 844       <div class="body">
 845         <p>It annoys me when the computer fail to do automatically what it is
 846 perfectly capable of, and I have to do it manually to get things
 847 working.  One such task is to find out what firmware packages are
 848 needed to get the hardware on my computer working.  Most often this
 849 affect the wifi card, but some times it even affect the RAID
 850 controller or the ethernet card.  Today I pushed version 0.4 of the
 851 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">Isenkram package</a>
 852 including a new script isenkram-autoinstall-firmware handling the
 853 process of asking all the loaded kernel modules what firmware files
 854 they want, find debian packages providing these files and install the
 855 debian packages.  Here is a test run on my laptop:</p>
 856
 857 <p><pre>
 858 # isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
 859 info: kernel drivers requested extra firmware: ipw2200-bss.fw ipw2200-ibss.fw ipw2200-sniffer.fw
 860 info: fetching http://http.debian.net/debian/dists/squeeze/Contents-i386.gz
 861 info: locating packages with the requested firmware files
 862 info: Updating APT sources after adding non-free APT source
 863 info: trying to install firmware-ipw2x00
 864 firmware-ipw2x00
 865 firmware-ipw2x00
 866 Preconfiguring packages ...
 867 Selecting previously deselected package firmware-ipw2x00.
 868 (Reading database ... 259727 files and directories currently installed.)
 869 Unpacking firmware-ipw2x00 (from .../firmware-ipw2x00_0.28+squeeze1_all.deb) ...
 870 Setting up firmware-ipw2x00 (0.28+squeeze1) ...
 871 #
 872 </pre></p>
 873
 874 <p>When all the requested firmware is present, a simple message is
 875 printed instead:</p>
 876
 877 <p><pre>
 878 # isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
 879 info: did not find any firmware files requested by loaded kernel modules.  exiting
 880 #
 881 </pre></p>
 882
 883 <p>It could use some polish, but it is already working well and saving
 884 me some time when setting up new machines. :)</p>
 885
 886 <p>So, how does it work?  It look at the set of currently loaded
 887 kernel modules, and look up each one of them using modinfo, to find
 888 the firmware files listed in the module meta-information.  Next, it
 889 download the Contents file from a nearby APT mirror, and search for
 890 the firmware files in this file to locate the package with the
 891 requested firmware file.  If the package is in the non-free section, a
 892 non-free APT source is added and the package is installed using
 893 <tt>apt-get install</tt>.  The end result is a slightly better working
 894 machine.</p>
 895
 896 <p>I hope someone find time to implement a more polished version of
 897 this script as part of the hw-detect debian-installer module, to
 898 finally fix <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/655507">BTS report
 899 #655507</a>.  There really is no need to insert USB sticks with
 900 firmware during a PXE install when the packages already are available
 901 from the nearby Debian mirror.</p>
 902
 903       </div>
 904       <div class="tags">
 905
 906
 907         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
 908
 909
 910       </div>
 911     </div>
 912     <div class="padding"></div>
 913
 914     <div class="entry">
 915       <div class="title">
 916         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Fixing_the_Linux_black_screen_of_death_on_machines_with_Intel_HD_video.html">Fixing the Linux black screen of death on machines with Intel HD video</a>
 917       </div>
 918       <div class="date">
 919         11th June 2013
 920       </div>
 921       <div class="body">
 922         <p>When installing RedHat, Fedora, Debian and Ubuntu on some machines,
 923 the screen just turn black when Linux boot, either during installation
 924 or on first boot from the hard disk.  I've seen it once in a while the
 925 last few years, but only recently understood the cause.  I've seen it
 926 on HP laptops, and on my latest acquaintance the Packard Bell laptop.
 927 The reason seem to be in the wiring of some laptops.  The system to
 928 control the screen background light is inverted, so when Linux try to
 929 turn the brightness fully on, it end up turning it off instead.  I do
 930 not know which Linux drivers are affected, but this post is about the
 931 i915 driver used by the
 932 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Packard Bell
 933 EasyNote LV</a>, Thinkpad X40 and many other laptops.</p>
 934
 935 <p>The problem can be worked around two ways.  Either by adding
 936 i915.invert_brightness=1 as a kernel option, or by adding a file in
 937 /etc/modprobe.d/ to tell modprobe to add the invert_brightness=1
 938 option when it load the i915 kernel module.  On Debian and Ubuntu, it
 939 can be done by running these commands as root:</p>
 940
 941 <pre>
 942 echo options i915 invert_brightness=1 | tee /etc/modprobe.d/i915.conf
 943 update-initramfs -u -k all
 944 </pre>
 945
 946 <p>Since March 2012 there is
 947 <a href="http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=4dca20efb1a9c2efefc28ad2867e5d6c3f5e1955">a
 948 mechanism in the Linux kernel</a> to tell the i915 driver which
 949 hardware have this problem, and get the driver to invert the
 950 brightness setting automatically.  To use it, one need to add a row in
 951 <a href="http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c">the
 952 intel_quirks array</a> in the driver source
 953 <tt>drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c</tt> (look for "<tt>static
 954 struct intel_quirk intel_quirks</tt>"), specifying the PCI device
 955 number (vendor number 8086 is assumed) and subdevice vendor and device
 956 number.</p>
 957
 958 <p>My Packard Bell EasyNote LV got this output from <tt>lspci
 959 -vvnn</tt> for the video card in question:</p>
 960
 961 <p><pre>
 962 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation \
 963     3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller [8086:0156] \
 964     (rev 09) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
 965  Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device [1025:0688]
 966  Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- \
 967     ParErr- Stepping- SE RR- FastB2B- DisINTx+
 968  Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- \
 969     <TAbort- <MAbort->SERR- <PERR- INTx-
 970  Latency: 0
 971  Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 42
 972  Region 0: Memory at c2000000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4M]
 973  Region 2: Memory at b0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
 974  Region 4: I/O ports at 4000 [size=64]
 975  Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled]
 976  Capabilities: <access denied>
 977  Kernel driver in use: i915
 978 </pre></p>
 979
 980 <p>The resulting intel_quirks entry would then look like this:</p>
 981
 982 <p><pre>
 983 struct intel_quirk intel_quirks[] = {
 984        ...
 985         /* Packard Bell EasyNote LV11HC needs invert brightness quirk */
 986         { 0x0156, 0x1025, 0x0688, quirk_invert_brightness },
 987        ...
 988 }
 989 </pre></p>
 990
 991 <p>According to the kernel module instructions (as seen using
 992 <tt>modinfo i915</tt>), information about hardware needing the
 993 invert_brightness flag should be sent to the
 994 <a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/dri-devel">dri-devel
 995 (at) lists.freedesktop.org</a> mailing list to reach the kernel
 996 developers.  But my email about the laptop sent 2013-06-03 have not
 997 yet shown up in
 998 <a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/dri-devel/2013-June/thread.html">the
 999 web archive for the mailing list</a>, so I suspect they do not accept
1000 emails from non-subscribers.  Because of this, I sent my patch also to
1001 the Debian bug tracking system instead as
1002 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/710938">BTS report #710938</a>, to make
1003 sure the patch is not lost.</p>
1004
1005 <p>Unfortunately, it is not enough to fix the kernel to get Laptops
1006 with this problem working properly with Linux.  If you use Gnome, your
1007 worries should be over at this point.  But if you use KDE, there is
1008 something in KDE ignoring the invert_brightness setting and turning on
1009 the screen during login.  I've reported it to Debian as
1010 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/711237">BTS report #711237</a>, and
1011 have no idea yet how to figure out exactly what subsystem is doing
1012 this.  Perhaps you can help?  Perhaps you know what the Gnome
1013 developers did to handle this, and this can give a clue to the KDE
1014 developers?  Or you know where in KDE the screen brightness is changed
1015 during login?  If so, please update the BTS report (or get in touch if
1016 you do not know how to update BTS).</p>
1017
1018 <p>Update 2013-07-19: The correct fix for this machine seem to be
1019 acpi_backlight=vendor, to disable ACPI backlight support completely,
1020 as the ACPI information on the machine is trash and it is better to
1021 leave it to the intel video driver to control the screen
1022 backlight.</p>
1023
1024       </div>
1025       <div class="tags">
1026
1027
1028         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1029
1030
1031       </div>
1032     </div>
1033     <div class="padding"></div>
1034
1035     <div class="entry">
1036       <div class="title">
1037         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_install_Linux_on_a_Packard_Bell_Easynote_LV_preinstalled_with_Windows_8.html">How to install Linux on a Packard Bell Easynote LV preinstalled with Windows 8</a>
1038       </div>
1039       <div class="date">
1040         27th May 2013
1041       </div>
1042       <div class="body">
1043         <p>Two days ago, I asked
1044 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_can_I_install_Linux_on_a_Packard_Bell_Easynote_LV_preinstalled_with_Windows_8_.html">how
1045 I could install Linux on a Packard Bell EasyNote LV computer
1046 preinstalled with Windows 8</a>.  I found a solution, but am horrified
1047 with the obstacles put in the way of Linux users on a laptop with UEFI
1048 and Windows 8.</p>
1049
1050 <p>I never found out if the cause of my problems were the use of UEFI
1051 secure booting or fast boot.  I suspect fast boot was the problem,
1052 causing the firmware to boot directly from HD without considering any
1053 key presses and alternative devices, but do not know UEFI settings
1054 enough to tell.</p>
1055
1056 <p>There is no way to install Linux on the machine in question without
1057 opening the box and disconnecting the hard drive!  This is as far as I
1058 can tell, the only way to get access to the firmware setup menu
1059 without accepting the Windows 8 license agreement.  I am told (and
1060 found description on how to) that it is possible to configure the
1061 firmware setup once booted into Windows 8.  But as I believe the terms
1062 of that agreement are completely unacceptable, accepting the license
1063 was never an alternative.  I do not enter agreements I do not intend
1064 to follow.</p>
1065
1066 <p>I feared I had to return the laptops and ask for a refund, and
1067 waste many hours on this, but luckily there was a way to get it to
1068 work.  But I would not recommend it to anyone planning to run Linux on
1069 it, and I have become sceptical to Windows 8 certified laptops.  Is
1070 this the way Linux will be forced out of the market place, by making
1071 it close to impossible for "normal" users to install Linux without
1072 accepting the Microsoft Windows license terms?  Or at least not
1073 without risking to loose the warranty?</p>
1074
1075 <p>I've updated the
1076 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Linux Laptop
1077 wiki page for Packard Bell EasyNote LV</a>, to ensure the next person
1078 do not have to struggle as much as I did to get Linux into the
1079 machine.</p>
1080
1081 <p>Thanks to Bob Rosbag, Florian Weimer, Philipp Kern, Ben Hutching,
1082 Michael Tokarev and others for feedback and ideas.</p>
1083
1084       </div>
1085       <div class="tags">
1086
1087
1088         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1089
1090
1091       </div>
1092     </div>
1093     <div class="padding"></div>
1094
1095     <div class="entry">
1096       <div class="title">
1097         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_can_I_install_Linux_on_a_Packard_Bell_Easynote_LV_preinstalled_with_Windows_8_.html">How can I install Linux on a Packard Bell Easynote LV preinstalled with Windows 8?</a>
1098       </div>
1099       <div class="date">
1100         25th May 2013
1101       </div>
1102       <div class="body">
1103         <p>I've run into quite a problem the last few days.  I bought three
1104 new laptops for my parents and a few others.  I bought Packard Bell
1105 Easynote LV to run Kubuntu on and use as their home computer.  But I
1106 am completely unable to figure out how to install Linux on it.  The
1107 computer is preinstalled with Windows 8, and I suspect it uses UEFI
1108 instead of a BIOS to boot.</p>
1109
1110 <p>The problem is that I am unable to get it to PXE boot, and unable
1111 to get it to boot the Linux installer from my USB stick.  I have yet
1112 to try the DVD install, and still hope it will work.  when I turn on
1113 the computer, there is no information on what buttons to press to get
1114 the normal boot menu.  I expect to get some boot menu to select PXE or
1115 USB stick booting.  When booting, it first ask for the language to
1116 use, then for some regional settings, and finally if I will accept the
1117 Windows 8 terms of use.  As these terms are completely unacceptable to
1118 me, I have no other choice but to turn off the computer and try again
1119 to get it to boot the Linux installer.</p>
1120
1121 <p>I have gathered my findings so far on a Linlap page about the
1122 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Packard Bell
1123 EasyNote LV</a> model.  If you have any idea how to get Linux
1124 installed on this machine, please get in touch or update that wiki
1125 page.  If I can't find a way to install Linux, I will have to return
1126 the laptop to the seller and find another machine for my parents.</p>
1127
1128 <p>I wonder, is this the way Linux will be forced out of the market
1129 using UEFI and "secure boot" by making it impossible to install Linux
1130 on new Laptops?</p>
1131
1132       </div>
1133       <div class="tags">
1134
1135
1136         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1137
1138
1139       </div>
1140     </div>
1141     <div class="padding"></div>
1142
1143     <div class="entry">
1144       <div class="title">
1145         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_transform_a_Debian_based_system_to_a_Debian_Edu_installation.html">How to transform a Debian based system to a Debian Edu installation</a>
1146       </div>
1147       <div class="date">
1148         17th May 2013
1149       </div>
1150       <div class="body">
1151         <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> is
1152 an operating system based on Debian intended for use in schools.  It
1153 contain a turn-key solution for the computer network provided to
1154 pupils in the primary schools.  It provide both the central server,
1155 network boot servers and desktop environments with heaps of
1156 educational software.  The project was founded almost 12 years ago,
1157 2001-07-02.  If you want to support the project, which is in need for
1158 cash to fund developer gatherings and other project related activity,
1159 <a href="http://www.linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">please
1160 donate some money</a>.
1161
1162 <p>A topic that come up again and again on the Debian Edu mailing
1163 lists and elsewhere, is the question on how to transform a Debian or
1164 Ubuntu installation into a Debian Edu installation.  It isn't very
1165 hard, and last week I wrote a script to replicate the steps done by
1166 the Debian Edu installer.</p>
1167
1168 <p>The script,
1169 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/branches/wheezy/debian-edu-config/share/debian-edu-config/tools/debian-edu-bless?view=markup">debian-edu-bless<a/>
1170 in the debian-edu-config package, will go through these six steps and
1171 transform an existing Debian Wheezy or Ubuntu (untested) installation
1172 into a Debian Edu Workstation:</p>
1173
1174 <ol>
1175
1176 <li>Add skolelinux related APT sources.</li>
1177 <li>Create /etc/debian-edu/config with the wanted configuration.</li>
1178 <li>Install debian-edu-install to load preseeding values and pull in
1179     our configuration.</li>
1180 <li>Preseed debconf database with profile setup in
1181     /etc/debian-edu/config, and run tasksel to install packages
1182     according to the profile specified in the config above,
1183     overriding some of the Debian automation machinery.</li>
1184 <li>Run debian-edu-cfengine-D installation to configure everything
1185     that could not be done using preseeding.</li>
1186 <li>Ask for a reboot to enable all the configuration changes.</li>
1187
1188 </ol>
1189
1190 <p>There are some steps in the Debian Edu installation that can not be
1191 replicated like this.  Disk partitioning and LVM setup, for example.
1192 So this script just assume there is enough disk space to install all
1193 the needed packages.</p>
1194
1195 <p>The script was created to help a Debian Edu student working on
1196 setting up <a href="http://www.raspberrypi.org">Raspberry Pi</a> as a
1197 Debian Edu client, and using it he can take the existing
1198 <a href="http://www.raspbian.org/FrontPage‎">Raspbian</a> installation and
1199 transform it into a fully functioning Debian Edu Workstation (or
1200 Roaming Workstation, or whatever :).</p>
1201
1202 <p>The default setting in the script is to create a KDE Workstation.
1203 If a LXDE based Roaming workstation is wanted instead, modify the
1204 PROFILE and DESKTOP values at the top to look like this instead:</p>
1205
1206 <p><pre>
1207 PROFILE="Roaming-Workstation"
1208 DESKTOP="lxde"
1209 </pre></p>
1210
1211 <p>The script could even become useful to set up Debian Edu servers in
1212 the cloud, by starting with a virtual Debian installation at some
1213 virtual hosting service and setting up all the services on first
1214 boot.</p>
1215
1216       </div>
1217       <div class="tags">
1218
1219
1220         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1221
1222
1223       </div>
1224     </div>
1225     <div class="padding"></div>
1226
1227     <div class="entry">
1228       <div class="title">
1229         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian__the_Linux_distribution_of_choice_for_LEGO_designers_.html">Debian, the Linux distribution of choice for LEGO designers?</a>
1230       </div>
1231       <div class="date">
1232         11th May 2013
1233       </div>
1234       <div class="body">
1235         <P>In January,
1236 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_IRC_channel_for_LEGO_designers_using_Debian.html">I
1237 announced a</a> new <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">IRC
1238 channel #debian-lego</a>, for those of us in the Debian and Linux
1239 community interested in <a href="http://www.lego.com/">LEGO</a>, the
1240 marvellous construction system from Denmark.  We also created
1241 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">a wiki page</a> to have
1242 a place to take notes and write down our plans and hopes.  And several
1243 people showed up to help.  I was very happy to see the effect of my
1244 call.  Since the small start, we have a debtags tag
1245 <a href="http://debtags.debian.net/search/bytag?wl=hardware::hobby:lego">hardware::hobby:lego</a>
1246 tag for LEGO related packages, and now count 10 packages related to
1247 LEGO and <a href="http://mindstorms.lego.com/">Mindstorms</a>:</p>
1248
1249 <p><table>
1250 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/brickos">brickos</a></td><td>alternative OS for LEGO Mindstorms RCX. Supports development in C/C++</td></tr>
1251 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/leocad">leocad</a></td><td>virtual brick CAD software</td></tr>
1252 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/libnxt">libnxt</a></td><td>utility library for talking to the LEGO Mindstorms NX</td></tr>
1253 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/lnpd">lnpd</a></td><td>daemon for LNP communication with BrickOS</td></tr>
1254 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/nbc">nbc</a></td><td>compiler for LEGO Mindstorms NXT bricks</td></tr>
1255 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/nqc">nqc</a></td><td>Not Quite C compiler for LEGO Mindstorms RCX</td></tr>
1256 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/python-nxt">python-nxt</a></td><td>python driver/interface/wrapper for the Lego Mindstorms NXT robot</td></tr>
1257 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/python-nxt-filer">python-nxt-filer</a></td><td>simple GUI to manage files on a LEGO Mindstorms NXT</td></tr>
1258 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/scratch">scratch</a></td><td>easy to use programming environment for ages 8 and up</td></tr>
1259 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/t2n">t2n</a></td><td>simple command-line tool for Lego NXT</td></tr>
1260 </table></p>
1261
1262 <p>Some of these are available in Wheezy, and all but one are
1263 currently available in Jessie/testing.  leocad is so far only
1264 available in experimental.</p>
1265
1266 <p>If you care about LEGO in Debian, please join us on IRC and help
1267 adding the rest of the great free software tools available on Linux
1268 for LEGO designers.</p>
1269
1270       </div>
1271       <div class="tags">
1272
1273
1274         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot</a>.
1275
1276
1277       </div>
1278     </div>
1279     <div class="padding"></div>
1280
1281     <div class="entry">
1282       <div class="title">
1283         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Wheezy_is_out___and_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_should_soon_follow___newinwheezy.html">Debian Wheezy is out - and Debian Edu / Skolelinux should soon follow! #newinwheezy</a>
1284       </div>
1285       <div class="date">
1286          5th May 2013
1287       </div>
1288       <div class="body">
1289         <p>When I woke up this morning, I was very happy to see that the
1290 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2013/20130504">release announcement
1291 for Debian Wheezy</a> was waiting in my mail box.  This is a great
1292 Debian release, and I expect to move my machines at home over to it fairly
1293 soon.</p>
1294
1295 <p>The new debian release contain heaps of new stuff, and one program
1296 in particular make me very happy to see included.  The
1297 <a href="http://scratch.mit.edu/">Scratch</a> program, made famous by
1298 the <a href="http://www.code.org/">Teach kids code</a> movement, is
1299 included for the first time.  Alongside similar programs like
1300 <a href="http://edu.kde.org/kturtle/">kturtle</a> and
1301 <a href="http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/Turtle_Art">turtleart</a>,
1302 it allow for visual programming where syntax errors can not happen,
1303 and a friendly programming environment for learning to control the
1304 computer.  Scratch will also be included in the next release of Debian
1305 Edu.</a>
1306
1307 <p>And now that Wheezy is wrapped up, we can wrap up the next Debian
1308 Edu/Skolelinux release too.  The
1309 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/2013/04/msg00132.html">first
1310 alpha release</a> went out last week, and the next should soon
1311 follow.<p>
1312
1313       </div>
1314       <div class="tags">
1315
1316
1317         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1318
1319
1320       </div>
1321     </div>
1322     <div class="padding"></div>
1323
1324     <div class="entry">
1325       <div class="title">
1326         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Isenkram_0_2_finally_in_the_Debian_archive.html">Isenkram 0.2 finally in the Debian archive</a>
1327       </div>
1328       <div class="date">
1329          3rd April 2013
1330       </div>
1331       <div class="body">
1332         <p>Today the <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">Isenkram
1333 package</a> finally made it into the archive, after lingering in NEW
1334 for many months.  I uploaded it to the Debian experimental suite
1335 2013-01-27, and today it was accepted into the archive.</p>
1336
1337 <p>Isenkram is a system for suggesting to users what packages to
1338 install to work with a pluggable hardware device.  The suggestion pop
1339 up when the device is plugged in.  For example if a Lego Mindstorm NXT
1340 is inserted, it will suggest to install the program needed to program
1341 the NXT controller.  Give it a go, and report bugs and suggestions to
1342 BTS. :)</p>
1343
1344       </div>
1345       <div class="tags">
1346
1347
1348         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
1349
1350
1351       </div>
1352     </div>
1353     <div class="padding"></div>
1354
1355     <div class="entry">
1356       <div class="title">
1357         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Bitcoin_GUI_now_available_from_Debian_unstable__and_Ubuntu_raring_.html">Bitcoin GUI now available from Debian/unstable (and Ubuntu/raring)</a>
1358       </div>
1359       <div class="date">
1360          2nd February 2013
1361       </div>
1362       <div class="body">
1363         <p>My
1364 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_backport_bitcoin_qt_version_0_7_2_2_to_Debian_Squeeze.html">last
1365 bitcoin related blog post</a> mentioned that the new
1366 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin package</a> for
1367 Debian was waiting in NEW.  It was accepted by the Debian ftp-masters
1368 2013-01-19, and have been available in unstable since then.  It was
1369 automatically copied to Ubuntu, and is available in their Raring
1370 version too.</p>
1371
1372 <p>But there is a strange problem with the build that block this new
1373 version from being available on the i386 and kfreebsd-i386
1374 architectures.  For some strange reason, the autobuilders in Debian
1375 for these architectures fail to run the test suite on these
1376 architectures (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/672524">BTS #672524</a>).
1377 We are so far unable to reproduce it when building it manually, and
1378 no-one have been able to propose a fix.  If you got an idea what is
1379 failing, please let us know via the BTS.</p>
1380
1381 <p>One feature that is annoying me with of the bitcoin client, because
1382 I often run low on disk space, is the fact that the client will exit
1383 if it run short on space (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/696715">BTS
1384 #696715</a>).  So make sure you have enough disk space when you run
1385 it. :)</p>
1386
1387 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1388 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1389 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
1390
1391       </div>
1392       <div class="tags">
1393
1394
1395         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1396
1397
1398       </div>
1399     </div>
1400     <div class="padding"></div>
1401
1402     <div class="entry">
1403       <div class="title">
1404         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">Welcome to the world, Isenkram!</a>
1405       </div>
1406       <div class="date">
1407         22nd January 2013
1408       </div>
1409       <div class="body">
1410         <p>Yesterday, I
1411 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_prototype_ready_making_hardware_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">asked
1412 for testers</a> for my prototype for making Debian better at handling
1413 pluggable hardware devices, which I
1414 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">set
1415 out to create</a> earlier this month.  Several valuable testers showed
1416 up, and caused me to really want to to open up the development to more
1417 people.  But before I did this, I want to come up with a sensible name
1418 for this project.  Today I finally decided on a new name, and I have
1419 renamed the project from hw-support-handler to this new name.  In the
1420 process, I moved the source to git and made it available as a
1421 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/isenkram.git">collab-maint</a>
1422 repository in Debian.  The new name?  It is <strong>Isenkram</strong>.
1423 To fetch and build the latest version of the source, use</p>
1424
1425 <pre>
1426 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/collab-maint/isenkram.git
1427 cd isenkram && git-buildpackage -us -uc
1428 </pre>
1429
1430 <p>I have not yet adjusted all files to use the new name yet.  If you
1431 want to hack on the source or improve the package, please go ahead.
1432 But please talk to me first on IRC or via email before you do major
1433 changes, to make sure we do not step on each others toes. :)</p>
1434
1435 <p>If you wonder what 'isenkram' is, it is a Norwegian word for iron
1436 stuff, typically meaning tools, nails, screws, etc.  Typical hardware
1437 stuff, in other words.  I've been told it is the Norwegian variant of
1438 the German word eisenkram, for those that are familiar with that
1439 word.</p>
1440
1441 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-26</strong>: Added -us -us to build
1442 instructions, to avoid confusing people with an error from the signing
1443 process.</p>
1444
1445 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-27</strong>: Switch to HTTP URL for the git
1446 clone argument to avoid the need for authentication.</p>
1447
1448       </div>
1449       <div class="tags">
1450
1451
1452         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
1453
1454
1455       </div>
1456     </div>
1457     <div class="padding"></div>
1458
1459     <div class="entry">
1460       <div class="title">
1461         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_prototype_ready_making_hardware_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">First prototype ready making hardware easier to use in Debian</a>
1462       </div>
1463       <div class="date">
1464         21st January 2013
1465       </div>
1466       <div class="body">
1467         <p>Early this month I set out to try to
1468 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">improve
1469 the Debian support for pluggable hardware devices</a>.  Now my
1470 prototype is working, and it is ready for a larger audience.  To test
1471 it, fetch the
1472 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">source
1473 from the Debian Edu subversion repository</a>, build and install the
1474 package.  You might have to log out and in again activate the
1475 autostart script.</p>
1476
1477 <p>The design is simple:</p>
1478
1479 <ul>
1480
1481 <li>Add desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ causing a program
1482 hw-support-handlerd to start when the user log in.</li>
1483
1484 <li>This program listen for kernel events about new hardware (directly
1485 from the kernel like udev does), not using HAL dbus events as I
1486 initially did.</li>
1487
1488 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware modalias in
1489 the APT database, a database
1490 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=markup">available
1491 via HTTP</a> and a database available as part of the package.</li>
1492
1493 <li>If a package is mapped to the hardware in question, the package
1494 isn't installed yet and this is the first time the hardware was
1495 plugged in, show a desktop notification suggesting to install the
1496 package or packages.</li>
1497
1498 <li>If the user click on the 'install package now' button, ask
1499 aptdaemon via the PackageKit API to install the requrired package.</li>
1500
1501 <li>aptdaemon ask for root password or sudo password, and install the
1502 package while showing progress information in a window.</li>
1503
1504 </ul>
1505
1506 <p>I still need to come up with a better name for the system.  Here
1507 are some screen shots showing the prototype in action.  First the
1508 notification, then the password request, and finally the request to
1509 approve all the dependencies.  Sorry for the Norwegian Bokmål GUI.</p>
1510
1511 <p><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-1-notification.png">
1512 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-2-password.png">
1513 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-3-dependencies.png">
1514 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-4-installing.png">
1515 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-5-installing-details.png" width="70%"></p>
1516
1517 <p>The prototype still need to be improved with longer timeouts, but
1518 is already useful.  The database of hardware to package mappings also
1519 need more work.  It is currently compatible with the Ubuntu way of
1520 storing such information in the package control file, but could be
1521 changed to use other formats instead or in addition to the current
1522 method.  I've dropped the use of discover for this mapping, as the
1523 modalias approach is more flexible and easier to use on Linux as long
1524 as the Linux kernel expose its modalias strings directly.</p>
1525
1526 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-21 16:50</strong>: Due to popular demand,
1527 here is the command required to check out and build the source: Use
1528 '<tt>svn checkout
1529 svn://svn.debian.org/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/; cd
1530 hw-support-handler; debuild</tt>'.  If you lack debuild, install the
1531 devscripts package.</p>
1532
1533 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-23 12:00</strong>: The project is now
1534 renamed to Isenkram and the source moved from the Debian Edu
1535 subversion repository to a Debian collab-maint git repository.  See
1536 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">build
1537 instructions</a> for details.</p>
1538
1539       </div>
1540       <div class="tags">
1541
1542
1543         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
1544
1545
1546       </div>
1547     </div>
1548     <div class="padding"></div>
1549
1550     <div class="entry">
1551       <div class="title">
1552         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thank_you_Thinkpad_X41__for_your_long_and_trustworthy_service.html">Thank you Thinkpad X41, for your long and trustworthy service</a>
1553       </div>
1554       <div class="date">
1555         19th January 2013
1556       </div>
1557       <div class="body">
1558         <p>This Christmas my trusty old laptop died.  It died quietly and
1559 suddenly in bed.  With a quiet whimper, it went completely quiet and
1560 black.  The power button was no longer able to turn it on.  It was a
1561 IBM Thinkpad X41, and the best laptop I ever had.  Better than both
1562 Thinkpads X30, X31, X40, X60, X61 and X61S.  Far better than the
1563 Compaq I had before that.  Now I need to find a replacement.  To keep
1564 going during Christmas, I moved the one year old SSD disk to my old
1565 X40 where it fitted (only one I had left that could use it), but it is
1566 not a durable solution.
1567
1568 <p>My laptop needs are fairly modest.  This is my wishlist from when I
1569 got a new one more than 10 years ago.  It still holds true.:)</p>
1570
1571 <ul>
1572
1573 <li>Lightweight (around 1 kg) and small volume (preferably smaller
1574   than A4).</li>
1575 <li>Robust, it will be in my backpack every day.</li>
1576 <li>Three button mouse and a mouse pin instead of touch pad.</li>
1577 <li>Long battery life time.  Preferable a week.</li>
1578 <li>Internal WIFI network card.</li>
1579 <li>Internal Twisted Pair network card.</li>
1580 <li>Some USB slots (2-3 is plenty)</li>
1581 <li>Good keyboard - similar to the Thinkpad.</li>
1582 <li>Video resolution at least 1024x768, with size around 12" (A4 paper
1583 size).</li>
1584 <li>Hardware supported by Debian Stable, ie the default kernel and
1585   X.org packages.</li>
1586 <li>Quiet, preferably fan free (or at least not using the fan most of
1587   the time).
1588
1589 </ul>
1590
1591 <p>You will notice that there are no RAM and CPU requirements in the
1592 list.  The reason is simply that the specifications on laptops the
1593 last 10-15 years have been sufficient for my needs, and I have to look
1594 at other features to choose my laptop.  But are there still made as
1595 robust laptops as my X41?  The Thinkpad X60/X61 proved to be less
1596 robust, and Thinkpads seem to be heading in the wrong direction since
1597 Lenovo took over.  But I've been told that X220 and X1 Carbon might
1598 still be useful.</p>
1599
1600 <p>Perhaps I should rethink my needs, and look for a pad with an
1601 external keyboard?  I'll have to check the
1602 <a href="http://www.linux-laptop.net/">Linux Laptops site</a> for
1603 well-supported laptops, or perhaps just buy one preinstalled from one
1604 of the vendors listed on the <a href="http://linuxpreloaded.com/">Linux
1605 Pre-loaded site</a>.</p>
1606
1607       </div>
1608       <div class="tags">
1609
1610
1611         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1612
1613
1614       </div>
1615     </div>
1616     <div class="padding"></div>
1617
1618     <div class="entry">
1619       <div class="title">
1620         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_find_a_browser_plugin_supporting_a_given_MIME_type.html">How to find a browser plugin supporting a given MIME type</a>
1621       </div>
1622       <div class="date">
1623         18th January 2013
1624       </div>
1625       <div class="body">
1626         <p>Some times I try to figure out which Iceweasel browser plugin to
1627 install to get support for a given MIME type.  Thanks to
1628 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MozillaTeam/Plugins">specifications
1629 done by Ubuntu</a> and Mozilla, it is possible to do this in Debian.
1630 Unfortunately, not very many packages provide the needed meta
1631 information, Anyway, here is a small script to look up all browser
1632 plugin packages announcing ther MIME support using this specification:</p>
1633
1634 <pre>
1635 #!/usr/bin/python
1636 import sys
1637 import apt
1638 def pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
1639     cache = apt.Cache()
1640     cache.open(None)
1641     thepkgs = []
1642     for pkg in cache:
1643         version = pkg.candidate
1644         if version is None:
1645             version = pkg.installed
1646         if version is None:
1647             continue
1648         record = version.record
1649         if not record.has_key('Npp-MimeType'):
1650             continue
1651         mime_types = record['Npp-MimeType'].split(',')
1652         for t in mime_types:
1653             t = t.rstrip().strip()
1654             if t == mimetype:
1655                 thepkgs.append(pkg.name)
1656     return thepkgs
1657 mimetype = "audio/ogg"
1658 if 1 < len(sys.argv):
1659     mimetype = sys.argv[1]
1660 print "Browser plugin packages supporting %s:" % mimetype
1661 for pkg in pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
1662     print "  %s" %pkg
1663 </pre>
1664
1665 <p>It can be used like this to look up a given MIME type:</p>
1666
1667 <pre>
1668 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype
1669 Browser plugin packages supporting audio/ogg:
1670   gecko-mediaplayer
1671 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype application/x-shockwave-flash
1672 Browser plugin packages supporting application/x-shockwave-flash:
1673   browser-plugin-gnash
1674 %
1675 </pre>
1676
1677 <p>In Ubuntu this mechanism is combined with support in the browser
1678 itself to query for plugins and propose to install the needed
1679 packages.  It would be great if Debian supported such feature too.  Is
1680 anyone working on adding it?</p>
1681
1682 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-18 14:20</strong>: The Debian BTS
1683 request for icweasel support for this feature is
1684 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/484010">#484010</a> from 2008 (and
1685 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/698426">#698426</a> from today).  Lack
1686 of manpower and wish for a different design is the reason thus feature
1687 is not yet in iceweasel from Debian.</p>
1688
1689       </div>
1690       <div class="tags">
1691
1692
1693         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1694
1695
1696       </div>
1697     </div>
1698     <div class="padding"></div>
1699
1700     <div class="entry">
1701       <div class="title">
1702         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_the_most_supported_MIME_type_in_Debian_.html">What is the most supported MIME type in Debian?</a>
1703       </div>
1704       <div class="date">
1705         16th January 2013
1706       </div>
1707       <div class="body">
1708         <p>The <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/AppStreamDebianProposal">DEP-11
1709 proposal to add AppStream information to the Debian archive</a>, is a
1710 proposal to make it possible for a Desktop application to propose to
1711 the user some package to install to gain support for a given MIME
1712 type, font, library etc. that is currently missing.  With such
1713 mechanism in place, it would be possible for the desktop to
1714 automatically propose and install leocad if some LDraw file is
1715 downloaded by the browser.</p>
1716
1717 <p>To get some idea about the current content of the archive, I decided
1718 to write a simple program to extract all .desktop files from the
1719 Debian archive and look up the claimed MIME support there.  The result
1720 can be found on the
1721 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/pub/AppStreamTest">Skolelinux FTP
1722 site</a>.  Using the collected information, it become possible to
1723 answer the question in the title.  Here are the 20 most supported MIME
1724 types in Debian stable (Squeeze), testing (Wheezy) and unstable (Sid).
1725 The complete list is available from the link above.</p>
1726
1727 <p><strong>Debian Stable:</strong></p>
1728
1729 <pre>
1730   count MIME type
1731   ----- -----------------------
1732      32 text/plain
1733      30 audio/mpeg
1734      29 image/png
1735      28 image/jpeg
1736      27 application/ogg
1737      26 audio/x-mp3
1738      25 image/tiff
1739      25 image/gif
1740      22 image/bmp
1741      22 audio/x-wav
1742      20 audio/x-flac
1743      19 audio/x-mpegurl
1744      18 video/x-ms-asf
1745      18 audio/x-musepack
1746      18 audio/x-mpeg
1747      18 application/x-ogg
1748      17 video/mpeg
1749      17 audio/x-scpls
1750      17 audio/ogg
1751      16 video/x-ms-wmv
1752 </pre>
1753
1754 <p><strong>Debian Testing:</strong></p>
1755
1756 <pre>
1757   count MIME type
1758   ----- -----------------------
1759      33 text/plain
1760      32 image/png
1761      32 image/jpeg
1762      29 audio/mpeg
1763      27 image/gif
1764      26 image/tiff
1765      26 application/ogg
1766      25 audio/x-mp3
1767      22 image/bmp
1768      21 audio/x-wav
1769      19 audio/x-mpegurl
1770      19 audio/x-mpeg
1771      18 video/mpeg
1772      18 audio/x-scpls
1773      18 audio/x-flac
1774      18 application/x-ogg
1775      17 video/x-ms-asf
1776      17 text/html
1777      17 audio/x-musepack
1778      16 image/x-xbitmap
1779 </pre>
1780
1781 <p><strong>Debian Unstable:</strong></p>
1782
1783 <pre>
1784   count MIME type
1785   ----- -----------------------
1786      31 text/plain
1787      31 image/png
1788      31 image/jpeg
1789      29 audio/mpeg
1790      28 application/ogg
1791      27 image/gif
1792      26 image/tiff
1793      26 audio/x-mp3
1794      23 audio/x-wav
1795      22 image/bmp
1796      21 audio/x-flac
1797      20 audio/x-mpegurl
1798      19 audio/x-mpeg
1799      18 video/x-ms-asf
1800      18 video/mpeg
1801      18 audio/x-scpls
1802      18 application/x-ogg
1803      17 audio/x-musepack
1804      16 video/x-ms-wmv
1805      16 video/x-msvideo
1806 </pre>
1807
1808 <p>I am told that PackageKit can provide an API to access the kind of
1809 information mentioned in DEP-11.  I have not yet had time to look at
1810 it, but hope the PackageKit people in Debian are on top of these
1811 issues.</p>
1812
1813 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-16 13:35</strong>: Updated numbers after
1814 discovering a typo in my script.</p>
1815
1816       </div>
1817       <div class="tags">
1818
1819
1820         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1821
1822
1823       </div>
1824     </div>
1825     <div class="padding"></div>
1826
1827     <div class="entry">
1828       <div class="title">
1829         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_modalias_info_to_find_packages_handling_my_hardware.html">Using modalias info to find packages handling my hardware</a>
1830       </div>
1831       <div class="date">
1832         15th January 2013
1833       </div>
1834       <div class="body">
1835         <p>Yesterday, I wrote about the
1836 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Modalias_strings___a_practical_way_to_map__stuff__to_hardware.html">modalias
1837 values provided by the Linux kernel</a> following my hope for
1838 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">better
1839 dongle support in Debian</a>.  Using this knowledge, I have tested how
1840 modalias values attached to package names can be used to map packages
1841 to hardware.  This allow the system to look up and suggest relevant
1842 packages when I plug in some new hardware into my machine, and replace
1843 discover and discover-data as the database used to map hardware to
1844 packages.</p>
1845
1846 <p>I create a modaliases file with entries like the following,
1847 containing package name, kernel module name (if relevant, otherwise
1848 the package name) and globs matching the relevant hardware
1849 modalias.</p>
1850
1851 <p><blockquote>
1852 Package: package-name
1853 <br>Modaliases: module(modaliasglob, modaliasglob, modaliasglob)</p>
1854 </blockquote></p>
1855
1856 <p>It is fairly trivial to write code to find the relevant packages
1857 for a given modalias value using this file.</p>
1858
1859 <p>An entry like this would suggest the video and picture application
1860 cheese for many USB web cameras (interface bus class 0E01):</p>
1861
1862 <p><blockquote>
1863 Package: cheese
1864 <br>Modaliases: cheese(usb:v*p*d*dc*dsc*dp*ic0Eisc01ip*)</p>
1865 </blockquote></p>
1866
1867 <p>An entry like this would suggest the pcmciautils package when a
1868 CardBus bridge (bus class 0607) PCI device is present:</p>
1869
1870 <p><blockquote>
1871 Package: pcmciautils
1872 <br>Modaliases: pcmciautils(pci:v*d*sv*sd*bc06sc07i*)
1873 </blockquote></p>
1874
1875 <p>An entry like this would suggest the package colorhug-client when
1876 plugging in a ColorHug with USB IDs 04D8:F8DA:</p>
1877
1878 <p><blockquote>
1879 Package: colorhug-client
1880 <br>Modaliases: colorhug-client(usb:v04D8pF8DAd*)</p>
1881 </blockquote></p>
1882
1883 <p>I believe the format is compatible with the format of the Packages
1884 file in the Debian archive.  Ubuntu already uses their Packages file
1885 to store their mappings from packages to hardware.</p>
1886
1887 <p>By adding a XB-Modaliases: header in debian/control, any .deb can
1888 announce the hardware it support in a way my prototype understand.
1889 This allow those publishing packages in an APT source outside the
1890 Debian archive as well as those backporting packages to make sure the
1891 hardware mapping are included in the package meta information.  I've
1892 tested such header in the pymissile package, and its modalias mapping
1893 is working as it should with my prototype.  It even made it to Ubuntu
1894 Raring.</p>
1895
1896 <p>To test if it was possible to look up supported hardware using only
1897 the shell tools available in the Debian installer, I wrote a shell
1898 implementation of the lookup code.  The idea is to create files for
1899 each modalias and let the shell do the matching.  Please check out and
1900 try the
1901 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/hw-support-lookup?view=co">hw-support-lookup</a>
1902 shell script.  It run without any extra dependencies and fetch the
1903 hardware mappings from the Debian archive and the subversion
1904 repository where I currently work on my prototype.</p>
1905
1906 <p>When I use it on a machine with a yubikey inserted, it suggest to
1907 install yubikey-personalization:</p>
1908
1909 <p><blockquote>
1910 % ./hw-support-lookup
1911 <br>yubikey-personalization
1912 <br>%
1913 </blockquote></p>
1914
1915 <p>When I run it on my Thinkpad X40 with a PCMCIA/CardBus slot, it
1916 propose to install the pcmciautils package:</p>
1917
1918 <p><blockquote>
1919 % ./hw-support-lookup
1920 <br>pcmciautils
1921 <br>%
1922 </blockquote></p>
1923
1924 <p>If you know of any hardware-package mapping that should be added to
1925 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=co">my
1926 database</a>, please tell me about it.</p>
1927
1928 <p>It could be possible to generate several of the mappings between
1929 packages and hardware.  One source would be to look at packages with
1930 kernel modules, ie packages with *.ko files in /lib/modules/, and
1931 extract their modalias information.  Another would be to look at
1932 packages with udev rules, ie packages with files in
1933 /lib/udev/rules.d/, and extract their vendor/model information to
1934 generate a modalias matching rule.  I have not tested any of these to
1935 see if it work.</p>
1936
1937 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
1938 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
1939 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
1940 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel</a>.</p>
1941
1942       </div>
1943       <div class="tags">
1944
1945
1946         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
1947
1948
1949       </div>
1950     </div>
1951     <div class="padding"></div>
1952
1953     <div class="entry">
1954       <div class="title">
1955         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Modalias_strings___a_practical_way_to_map__stuff__to_hardware.html">Modalias strings - a practical way to map "stuff" to hardware</a>
1956       </div>
1957       <div class="date">
1958         14th January 2013
1959       </div>
1960       <div class="body">
1961         <p>While looking into how to look up Debian packages based on hardware
1962 information, to find the packages that support a given piece of
1963 hardware, I refreshed my memory regarding modalias values, and decided
1964 to document the details.  Here are my findings so far, also available
1965 in
1966 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
1967 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>:
1968
1969 <p><strong>Modalias decoded</strong></p>
1970
1971 <p>This document try to explain what the different types of modalias
1972 values stands for.  It is in part based on information from
1973 &lt;URL: <a href="https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias">https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias</a> &gt;,
1974 &lt;URL: <a href="http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/26132/how-to-assign-usb-driver-to-device">http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/26132/how-to-assign-usb-driver-to-device</a> &gt;,
1975 &lt;URL: <a href="http://code.metager.de/source/history/linux/stable/scripts/mod/file2alias.c">http://code.metager.de/source/history/linux/stable/scripts/mod/file2alias.c</a> &gt; and
1976 &lt;URL: <a href="http://cvs.savannah.gnu.org/viewvc/dmidecode/dmidecode.c?root=dmidecode&view=markup">http://cvs.savannah.gnu.org/viewvc/dmidecode/dmidecode.c?root=dmidecode&view=markup</a> &gt;.
1977
1978 <p>The modalias entries for a given Linux machine can be found using
1979 this shell script:</p>
1980
1981 <pre>
1982 find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u
1983 </pre>
1984
1985 <p>The supported modalias globs for a given kernel module can be found
1986 using modinfo:</p>
1987
1988 <pre>
1989 % /sbin/modinfo psmouse | grep alias:
1990 alias:          serio:ty05pr*id*ex*
1991 alias:          serio:ty01pr*id*ex*
1992 %
1993 </pre>
1994
1995 <p><strong>PCI subtype</strong></p>
1996
1997 <p>A typical PCI entry can look like this.  This is an Intel Host
1998 Bridge memory controller:</p>
1999
2000 <p><blockquote>
2001 pci:v00008086d00002770sv00001028sd000001ADbc06sc00i00
2002 </blockquote></p>
2003
2004 <p>This represent these values:</p>
2005
2006 <pre>
2007  v   00008086  (vendor)
2008  d   00002770  (device)
2009  sv  00001028  (subvendor)
2010  sd  000001AD  (subdevice)
2011  bc  06        (bus class)
2012  sc  00        (bus subclass)
2013  i   00        (interface)
2014 </pre>
2015
2016 <p>The vendor/device values are the same values outputted from 'lspci
2017 -n' as 8086:2770.  The bus class/subclass is also shown by lspci as
2018 0600.  The 0600 class is a host bridge.  Other useful bus values are
2019 0300 (VGA compatible card) and 0200 (Ethernet controller).</p>
2020
2021 <p>Not sure how to figure out the interface value, nor what it
2022 means.</p>
2023
2024 <p><strong>USB subtype</strong></p>
2025
2026 <p>Some typical USB entries can look like this.  This is an internal
2027 USB hub in a laptop:</p>
2028
2029 <p><blockquote>
2030 usb:v1D6Bp0001d0206dc09dsc00dp00ic09isc00ip00
2031 </blockquote></p>
2032
2033 <p>Here is the values included in this alias:</p>
2034
2035 <pre>
2036  v    1D6B  (device vendor)
2037  p    0001  (device product)
2038  d    0206  (bcddevice)
2039  dc     09  (device class)
2040  dsc    00  (device subclass)
2041  dp     00  (device protocol)
2042  ic     09  (interface class)
2043  isc    00  (interface subclass)
2044  ip     00  (interface protocol)
2045 </pre>
2046
2047 <p>The 0900 device class/subclass means hub.  Some times the relevant
2048 class is in the interface class section.  For a simple USB web camera,
2049 these alias entries show up:</p>
2050
2051 <p><blockquote>
2052 usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc01ip00
2053 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc02ip00
2054 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc01ip00
2055 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc02ip00
2056 </blockquote></p>
2057
2058 <p>Interface class 0E01 is video control, 0E02 is video streaming (aka
2059 camera), 0101 is audio control device and 0102 is audio streaming (aka
2060 microphone).  Thus this is a camera with microphone included.</p>
2061
2062 <p><strong>ACPI subtype</strong></p>
2063
2064 <p>The ACPI type is used for several non-PCI/USB stuff.  This is an IR
2065 receiver in a Thinkpad X40:</p>
2066
2067 <p><blockquote>
2068 acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
2069 </blockquote></p>
2070
2071 <p>The values between the colons are IDs.</p>
2072
2073 <p><strong>DMI subtype</strong></p>
2074
2075 <p>The DMI table contain lots of information about the computer case
2076 and model.  This is an entry for a IBM Thinkpad X40, fetched from
2077 /sys/devices/virtual/dmi/id/modalias:</p>
2078
2079 <p><blockquote>
2080 dmi:bvnIBM:bvr1UETB6WW(1.66):bd06/15/2005:svnIBM:pn2371H4G:pvrThinkPadX40:rvnIBM:rn2371H4G:rvrNotAvailable:cvnIBM:ct10:cvrNotAvailable:
2081 </blockquote></p>
2082
2083 <p>The values present are</p>
2084
2085 <pre>
2086  bvn  IBM            (BIOS vendor)
2087  bvr  1UETB6WW(1.66) (BIOS version)
2088  bd   06/15/2005     (BIOS date)
2089  svn  IBM            (system vendor)
2090  pn   2371H4G        (product name)
2091  pvr  ThinkPadX40    (product version)
2092  rvn  IBM            (board vendor)
2093  rn   2371H4G        (board name)
2094  rvr  NotAvailable   (board version)
2095  cvn  IBM            (chassis vendor)
2096  ct   10             (chassis type)
2097  cvr  NotAvailable   (chassis version)
2098 </pre>
2099
2100 <p>The chassis type 10 is Notebook.  Other interesting values can be
2101 found in the dmidecode source:</p>
2102
2103 <pre>
2104   3 Desktop
2105   4 Low Profile Desktop
2106   5 Pizza Box
2107   6 Mini Tower
2108   7 Tower
2109   8 Portable
2110   9 Laptop
2111  10 Notebook
2112  11 Hand Held
2113  12 Docking Station
2114  13 All In One
2115  14 Sub Notebook
2116  15 Space-saving
2117  16 Lunch Box
2118  17 Main Server Chassis
2119  18 Expansion Chassis
2120  19 Sub Chassis
2121  20 Bus Expansion Chassis
2122  21 Peripheral Chassis
2123  22 RAID Chassis
2124  23 Rack Mount Chassis
2125  24 Sealed-case PC
2126  25 Multi-system
2127  26 CompactPCI
2128  27 AdvancedTCA
2129  28 Blade
2130  29 Blade Enclosing
2131 </pre>
2132
2133 <p>The chassis type values are not always accurately set in the DMI
2134 table.  For example my home server is a tower, but the DMI modalias
2135 claim it is a desktop.</p>
2136
2137 <p><strong>SerIO subtype</strong></p>
2138
2139 <p>This type is used for PS/2 mouse plugs.  One example is from my
2140 test machine:</p>
2141
2142 <p><blockquote>
2143 serio:ty01pr00id00ex00
2144 </blockquote></p>
2145
2146 <p>The values present are</p>
2147
2148 <pre>
2149   ty  01  (type)
2150   pr  00  (prototype)
2151   id  00  (id)
2152   ex  00  (extra)
2153 </pre>
2154
2155 <p>This type is supported by the psmouse driver.  I am not sure what
2156 the valid values are.</p>
2157
2158 <p><strong>Other subtypes</strong></p>
2159
2160 <p>There are heaps of other modalias subtypes according to
2161 file2alias.c.  There is the rest of the list from that source: amba,
2162 ap, bcma, ccw, css, eisa, hid, i2c, ieee1394, input, ipack, isapnp,
2163 mdio, of, parisc, pcmcia, platform, scsi, sdio, spi, ssb, vio, virtio,
2164 vmbus, x86cpu and zorro.  I did not spend time documenting all of
2165 these, as they do not seem relevant for my intended use with mapping
2166 hardware to packages when new stuff is inserted during run time.</p>
2167
2168 <p><strong>Looking up kernel modules using modalias values</strong></p>
2169
2170 <p>To check which kernel modules provide support for a given modalias,
2171 one can use the following shell script:</p>
2172
2173 <pre>
2174   for id in $(find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u); do \
2175     echo "$id" ; \
2176     /sbin/modprobe --show-depends "$id"|sed 's/^/  /' ; \
2177   done
2178 </pre>
2179
2180 <p>The output can look like this (only the first few entries as the
2181 list is very long on my test machine):</p>
2182
2183 <pre>
2184   acpi:ACPI0003:
2185     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/acpi/ac.ko
2186   acpi:device:
2187   FATAL: Module acpi:device: not found.
2188   acpi:IBM0068:
2189     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/char/nvram.ko
2190     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/leds/led-class.ko
2191     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/rfkill/rfkill.ko
2192     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/platform/x86/thinkpad_acpi.ko
2193   acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
2194     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/lib/crc-ccitt.ko
2195     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/irda/irda.ko
2196     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/net/irda/nsc-ircc.ko
2197   [...]
2198 </pre>
2199
2200 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
2201 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
2202 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
2203 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel</a>.</p>
2204
2205 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-15:</strong> Rewrite "cat $(find ...)" to
2206 "find ... -print0 | xargs -0 cat" to make sure it handle directories
2207 in /sys/ with space in them.</p>
2208
2209       </div>
2210       <div class="tags">
2211
2212
2213         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
2214
2215
2216       </div>
2217     </div>
2218     <div class="padding"></div>
2219
2220     <div class="entry">
2221       <div class="title">
2222         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Moved_the_pymissile_Debian_packaging_to_collab_maint.html">Moved the pymissile Debian packaging to collab-maint</a>
2223       </div>
2224       <div class="date">
2225         10th January 2013
2226       </div>
2227       <div class="body">
2228         <p>As part of my investigation on how to improve the support in Debian
2229 for hardware dongles, I dug up my old Mark and Spencer USB Rocket
2230 Launcher and updated the Debian package
2231 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pymissile">pymissile</a> to make
2232 sure udev will fix the device permissions when it is plugged in.  I
2233 also added a "Modaliases" header to test it in the Debian archive and
2234 hopefully make the package be proposed by jockey in Ubuntu when a user
2235 plug in his rocket launcher.  In the process I moved the source to a
2236 git repository under collab-maint, to make it easier for any DD to
2237 contribute.  <a href="http://code.google.com/p/pymissile/">Upstream</a>
2238 is not very active, but the software still work for me even after five
2239 years of relative silence.  The new git repository is not listed in
2240 the uploaded package yet, because I want to test the other changes a
2241 bit more before I upload the new version.  If you want to check out
2242 the new version with a .desktop file included, visit the
2243 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/pymissile.git">gitweb
2244 view</a> or use "<tt>git clone
2245 git://anonscm.debian.org/collab-maint/pymissile.git</tt>".</p>
2246
2247       </div>
2248       <div class="tags">
2249
2250
2251         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot</a>.
2252
2253
2254       </div>
2255     </div>
2256     <div class="padding"></div>
2257
2258     <div class="entry">
2259       <div class="title">
2260         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">Lets make hardware dongles easier to use in Debian</a>
2261       </div>
2262       <div class="date">
2263          9th January 2013
2264       </div>
2265       <div class="body">
2266         <p>One thing that annoys me with Debian and Linux distributions in
2267 general, is that there is a great package management system with the
2268 ability to automatically install software packages by downloading them
2269 from the distribution mirrors, but no way to get it to automatically
2270 install the packages I need to use the hardware I plug into my
2271 machine.  Even if the package to use it is easily available from the
2272 Linux distribution.  When I plug in a LEGO Mindstorms NXT, it could
2273 suggest to automatically install the python-nxt, nbc and t2n packages
2274 I need to talk to it.  When I plug in a Yubikey, it could propose the
2275 yubikey-personalization package.  The information required to do this
2276 is available, but no-one have pulled all the pieces together.</p>
2277
2278 <p>Some years ago, I proposed to
2279 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg01206.html">use
2280 the discover subsystem to implement this</a>.  The idea is fairly
2281 simple:
2282
2283 <ul>
2284
2285 <li>Add a desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ pointing to a program
2286   starting when a user log in.</li>
2287
2288 <li>Set this program up to listen for kernel events emitted when new
2289   hardware is inserted into the computer.</li>
2290
2291 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware ID in a
2292   database mapping to packages, and take note of any non-installed
2293   packages.</li>
2294
2295 <li>Show a message to the user proposing to install the discovered
2296   package, and make it easy to install it.</li>
2297
2298 </ul>
2299
2300 <p>I am not sure what the best way to implement this is, but my
2301 initial idea was to use dbus events to discover new hardware, the
2302 discover database to find packages and
2303 <a href="http://www.packagekit.org/">PackageKit</a> to install
2304 packages.</p>
2305
2306 <p>Yesterday, I found time to try to implement this idea, and the
2307 draft package is now checked into
2308 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
2309 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>.  In the process, I updated the
2310 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover-data.html">discover-data</a>
2311 package to map the USB ids of LEGO Mindstorms and Yubikey devices to
2312 the relevant packages in Debian, and uploaded a new version
2313 2.2013.01.09 to unstable.  I also discovered that the current
2314 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover.html">discover</a>
2315 package in Debian no longer discovered any USB devices, because
2316 /proc/bus/usb/devices is no longer present.  I ported it to use
2317 libusb as a fall back option to get it working.  The fixed package
2318 version 2.1.2-6 is now in experimental (didn't upload it to unstable
2319 because of the freeze).</p>
2320
2321 <p>With this prototype in place, I can insert my Yubikey, and get this
2322 desktop notification to show up (only once, the first time it is
2323 inserted):</p>
2324
2325 <p align="center"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-09-hw-autoinstall.png"></p>
2326
2327 <p>For this prototype to be really useful, some way to automatically
2328 install the proposed packages by pressing the "Please install
2329 program(s)" button should to be implemented.</p>
2330
2331 <p>If this idea seem useful to you, and you want to help make it
2332 happen, please help me update the discover-data database with mappings
2333 from hardware to Debian packages.  Check if 'discover-pkginstall -l'
2334 list the package you would like to have installed when a given
2335 hardware device is inserted into your computer, and report bugs using
2336 reportbug if it isn't.  Or, if you know of a better way to provide
2337 such mapping, please let me know.</p>
2338
2339 <p>This prototype need more work, and there are several questions that
2340 should be considered before it is ready for production use.  Is dbus
2341 the correct way to detect new hardware?  At the moment I look for HAL
2342 dbus events on the system bus, because that is the events I could see
2343 on my Debian Squeeze KDE desktop.  Are there better events to use?
2344 How should the user be notified?  Is the desktop notification
2345 mechanism the best option, or should the background daemon raise a
2346 popup instead?  How should packages be installed?  When should they
2347 not be installed?</p>
2348
2349 <p>If you want to help getting such feature implemented in Debian,
2350 please send me an email. :)</p>
2351
2352       </div>
2353       <div class="tags">
2354
2355
2356         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
2357
2358
2359       </div>
2360     </div>
2361     <div class="padding"></div>
2362
2363     <div class="entry">
2364       <div class="title">
2365         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_IRC_channel_for_LEGO_designers_using_Debian.html">New IRC channel for LEGO designers using Debian</a>
2366       </div>
2367       <div class="date">
2368          2nd January 2013
2369       </div>
2370       <div class="body">
2371         <p>During Christmas, I have worked a bit on the Debian support for
2372 <a href="http://mindstorms.lego.com/en-us/Default.aspx">LEGO Mindstorm
2373 NXT</a>.  My son and I have played a bit with my NXT set, and I
2374 discovered I had to build all the tools myself because none were
2375 already in Debian Squeeze.  If Debian support for LEGO is something
2376 you care about, please join me on the IRC channel
2377 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">#debian-lego</a> (server
2378 irc.debian.org).  There is a lot that could be done to improve the
2379 Debian support for LEGO designers.  For example both CAD software
2380 and Mindstorm compilers are missing. :)</p>
2381
2382 <p>Update 2012-01-03: A
2383 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">project page</a>
2384 including links to Lego related packages is now available.</p>
2385
2386       </div>
2387       <div class="tags">
2388
2389
2390         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot</a>.
2391
2392
2393       </div>
2394     </div>
2395     <div class="padding"></div>
2396
2397     <div class="entry">
2398       <div class="title">
2399         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_backport_bitcoin_qt_version_0_7_2_2_to_Debian_Squeeze.html">How to backport bitcoin-qt version 0.7.2-2 to Debian Squeeze</a>
2400       </div>
2401       <div class="date">
2402         25th December 2012
2403       </div>
2404       <div class="body">
2405         <p>Let me start by wishing you all marry Christmas and a happy new
2406 year!  I hope next year will prove to be a good year.</p>
2407
2408 <p><a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">Bitcoin</a>, the digital
2409 decentralised "currency" that allow people to transfer bitcoins
2410 between each other with minimal overhead, is a very interesting
2411 experiment.  And as I wrote a few days ago, the bitcoin situation in
2412 <a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</a> is about to improve a bit.
2413 The <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">new debian source
2414 package</a> (version 0.7.2-2) was uploaded yesterday, and is waiting
2415 in <a href="http://ftp-master.debian.org/new.html">the NEW queue</A>
2416 for one of the ftpmasters to approve the new bitcoin-qt package
2417 name.</p>
2418
2419 <p>And thanks to the great work of Jonas and the rest of the bitcoin
2420 team in Debian, you can easily test the package in Debian Squeeze
2421 using the following steps to get a set of working packages:</p>
2422
2423 <blockquote><pre>
2424 git clone git://git.debian.org/git/collab-maint/bitcoin
2425 cd bitcoin
2426 DEB_MAINTAINER_MODE=1 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp fakeroot debian/rules clean
2427 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp git-buildpackage --git-ignore-new
2428 </pre></blockquote>
2429
2430 <p>You might have to install some build dependencies as well.  The
2431 list of commands should give you two packages, bitcoind and
2432 bitcoin-qt, ready for use in a Squeeze environment.  Note that the
2433 client will download the complete set of bitcoin "blocks", which need
2434 around 5.6 GiB of data on my machine at the moment.  Make sure your
2435 ~/.bitcoin/ directory have lots of spare room if you want to download
2436 all the blocks.  The client will warn if the disk is getting full, so
2437 there is not really a problem if you got too little room, but you will
2438 not be able to get all the features out of the client.</p>
2439
2440 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
2441 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
2442 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
2443
2444       </div>
2445       <div class="tags">
2446
2447
2448         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2449
2450
2451       </div>
2452     </div>
2453     <div class="padding"></div>
2454
2455     <div class="entry">
2456       <div class="title">
2457         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_word_on_bitcoin_support_in_Debian.html">A word on bitcoin support in Debian</a>
2458       </div>
2459       <div class="date">
2460         21st December 2012
2461       </div>
2462       <div class="body">
2463         <p>It has been a while since I wrote about
2464 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">bitcoin</a>, the decentralised
2465 peer-to-peer based crypto-currency, and the reason is simply that I
2466 have been busy elsewhere.  But two days ago, I started looking at the
2467 state of <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin in
2468 Debian</a> again to try to recover my old bitcoin wallet.  The package
2469 is now maintained by a
2470 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/pkg-bitcoin/">team of
2471 people</a>, and the grunt work had already been done by this team.  We
2472 owe a huge thank you to all these team members. :)
2473 But I was sad to discover that the bitcoin client is missing in
2474 Wheezy.  It is only available in Sid (and an outdated client from
2475 backports).  The client had several RC bugs registered in BTS blocking
2476 it from entering testing.  To try to help the team and improve the
2477 situation, I spent some time providing patches and triaging the bug
2478 reports.  I also had a look at the bitcoin package available from Matt
2479 Corallo in a
2480 <a href="https://launchpad.net/~bitcoin/+archive/bitcoin">PPA for
2481 Ubuntu</a>, and moved the useful pieces from that version into the
2482 Debian package.</p>
2483
2484 <p>After checking with the main package maintainer Jonas Smedegaard on
2485 IRC, I pushed several patches into the collab-maint git repository to
2486 improve the package.  It now contains fixes for the RC issues (not from
2487 me, but fixed by Scott Howard), build rules for a Qt GUI client
2488 package, konqueror support for the bitcoin: URI and bash completion
2489 setup.  As I work on Debian Squeeze, I also created
2490 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-bitcoin-devel/Week-of-Mon-20121217/000041.html">a
2491 patch to backport</a> the latest version.  Jonas is going to look at
2492 it and try to integrate it into the git repository before uploading a
2493 new version to unstable.
2494
2495 <p>I would very much like bitcoin to succeed, to get rid of the
2496 centralized control currently exercised in the monetary system.  I
2497 find it completely unacceptable that the USA government is collecting
2498 transaction data for almost all international money transfers (most are done in USD and transaction logs shipped to the spooks), and
2499 that the major credit card companies can block legal money
2500 transactions to Wikileaks.  But for bitcoin to succeed, more people
2501 need to use bitcoins, and more people need to accept bitcoins when
2502 they sell products and services.  Improving the bitcoin support in
2503 Debian is a small step in the right direction, but not enough.
2504 Unfortunately the user experience when browsing the web and wanting to
2505 pay with bitcoin is still not very good.  The bitcoin: URI is a step
2506 in the right direction, but need to work in most or every browser in
2507 use.  Also the bitcoin-qt client is too heavy to fire up to do a
2508 quick transaction.  I believe there are other clients available, but
2509 have not tested them.</p>
2510
2511 <p>My
2512 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Now_accepting_bitcoins___anonymous_and_distributed_p2p_crypto_money.html">experiment
2513 with bitcoins</a> showed that at least some of my readers use bitcoin.
2514 I received 20.15 BTC so far on the address I provided in my blog two
2515 years ago, as can be
2516 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">seen
2517 on the blockexplorer service</a>.  Thank you everyone for your
2518 donation.  The blockexplorer service demonstrates quite well that
2519 bitcoin is not quite anonymous and untracked. :) I wonder if the
2520 number of users have gone up since then.  If you use bitcoin and want
2521 to show your support of my activity, please send Bitcoin donations to
2522 the same address as last time,
2523 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
2524
2525       </div>
2526       <div class="tags">
2527
2528
2529         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2530
2531
2532       </div>
2533     </div>
2534     <div class="padding"></div>
2535
2536     <div class="entry">
2537       <div class="title">
2538         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Git_repository_for_song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">Git repository for song book for Computer Scientists</a>
2539       </div>
2540       <div class="date">
2541          7th September 2012
2542       </div>
2543       <div class="body">
2544         <p>As I
2545 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">mentioned
2546 this summer</a>, I have created a Computer Science song book a few
2547 years ago, and today I finally found time to create a public
2548 <a href="https://gitorious.org/pere-cs-songbook/pere-cs-songbook">Gitorious
2549 repository for the project</a>.</p>
2550
2551 <p>If you want to help out, please clone the source and submit patches
2552 to the HTML version.  To generate the PDF and PostScript version,
2553 please use prince XML, or let me know about a useful free software
2554 processor capable of creating a good looking PDF from the HTML.</p>
2555
2556 <p>Want to sing?  You can still find the song book in HTML, PDF and
2557 PostScript formats at
2558 <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's Computer
2559 Science Songbook</a>.</p>
2560
2561       </div>
2562       <div class="tags">
2563
2564
2565         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>.
2566
2567
2568       </div>
2569     </div>
2570     <div class="padding"></div>
2571
2572     <div class="entry">
2573       <div class="title">
2574         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gratulerer_med_19__rsdagen__Debian_.html">Gratulerer med 19-årsdagen, Debian!</a>
2575       </div>
2576       <div class="date">
2577         16th August 2012
2578       </div>
2579       <div class="body">
2580         <p>I dag fyller
2581 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120813">Debian-prosjektet 19
2582 år</a>.  Jeg har fulgt det de siste 12 årene, og er veldig glad for å kunne
2583 si gratulerer med dagen, Debian!</p>
2584
2585       </div>
2586       <div class="tags">
2587
2588
2589         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk</a>.
2590
2591
2592       </div>
2593     </div>
2594     <div class="padding"></div>
2595
2596     <div class="entry">
2597       <div class="title">
2598         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">Song book for Computer Scientists</a>
2599       </div>
2600       <div class="date">
2601         24th June 2012
2602       </div>
2603       <div class="body">
2604         <p>Many years ago, while studying Computer Science at the
2605 <a href="http://www.uit.no/">University of Tromsø</a>, I started
2606 collecting computer related songs for use at parties.  The original
2607 version was written in LaTeX, but a few years ago I got help from
2608 Håkon W. Lie, one of the inventors of W3C CSS, to convert it to HTML
2609 while keeping the ability to create a nice book in PDF format.  I have
2610 not had time to maintain the book for a while now, and guess I should
2611 put it up on some public version control repository where others can
2612 help me extend and update the book.  If anyone is volunteering to help
2613 me with this, send me an email.  Also let me know if there are songs
2614 missing in my book.</p>
2615
2616 <p>I have not mentioned the book on my blog so far, and it occured to
2617 me today that I really should let all my readers share the joys of
2618 singing out load about programming, computers and computer networks.
2619 Especially now that <a href="http://debconf12.debconf.org/">Debconf
2620 12</a> is about to start (and I am not going).  Want to sing?  Check
2621 out <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's
2622 Computer Science Songbook</a>.
2623
2624       </div>
2625       <div class="tags">
2626
2627
2628         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>.
2629
2630
2631       </div>
2632     </div>
2633     <div class="padding"></div>
2634
2635     <div class="entry">
2636       <div class="title">
2637         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatically_upgrading_server_firmware_on_Dell_PowerEdge.html">Automatically upgrading server firmware on Dell PowerEdge</a>
2638       </div>
2639       <div class="date">
2640         21st November 2011
2641       </div>
2642       <div class="body">
2643         <p>At work we have heaps of servers.  I believe the total count is
2644 around 1000 at the moment.  To be able to get help from the vendors
2645 when something go wrong, we want to keep the firmware on the servers
2646 up to date.  If the firmware isn't the latest and greatest, the
2647 vendors typically refuse to start debugging any problems until the
2648 firmware is upgraded.  So before every reboot, we want to upgrade the
2649 firmware, and we would really like everyone handling servers at the
2650 university to do this themselves when they plan to reboot a machine.
2651 For that to happen we at the unix server admin group need to provide
2652 the tools to do so.</p>
2653
2654 <p>To make firmware upgrading easier, I am working on a script to
2655 fetch and install the latest firmware for the servers we got.  Most of
2656 our hardware are from Dell and HP, so I have focused on these servers
2657 so far.  This blog post is about the Dell part.</P>
2658
2659 <p>On the Dell FTP site I was lucky enough to find
2660 <a href="ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz">an XML file</a>
2661 with firmware information for all 11th generation servers, listing
2662 which firmware should be used on a given model and where on the FTP
2663 site I can find it.  Using a simple perl XML parser I can then
2664 download the shell scripts Dell provides to do firmware upgrades from
2665 within Linux and reboot when all the firmware is primed and ready to
2666 be activated on the first reboot.</p>
2667
2668 <p>This is the Dell related fragment of the perl code I am working on.
2669 Are there anyone working on similar tools for firmware upgrading all
2670 servers at a site?  Please get in touch and lets share resources.</p>
2671
2672 <p><pre>
2673 #!/usr/bin/perl
2674 use strict;
2675 use warnings;
2676 use File::Temp qw(tempdir);
2677 BEGIN {
2678     # Install needed RHEL packages if missing
2679     my %rhelmodules = (
2680         'XML::Simple' => 'perl-XML-Simple',
2681         );
2682     for my $module (keys %rhelmodules) {
2683         eval "use $module;";
2684         if ($@) {
2685             my $pkg = $rhelmodules{$module};
2686             system("yum install -y $pkg");
2687             eval "use $module;";
2688         }
2689     }
2690 }
2691 my $errorsto = 'pere@hungry.com';
2692
2693 upgrade_dell();
2694
2695 exit 0;
2696
2697 sub run_firmware_script {
2698     my ($opts, $script) = @_;
2699     unless ($script) {
2700         print STDERR "fail: missing script name\n";
2701         exit 1
2702     }
2703     print STDERR "Running $script\n\n";
2704
2705     if (0 == system("sh $script $opts")) { # FIXME correct exit code handling
2706         print STDERR "success: firmware script ran succcessfully\n";
2707     } else {
2708         print STDERR "fail: firmware script returned error\n";
2709     }
2710 }
2711
2712 sub run_firmware_scripts {
2713     my ($opts, @dirs) = @_;
2714     # Run firmware packages
2715     for my $dir (@dirs) {
2716         print STDERR "info: Running scripts in $dir\n";
2717         opendir(my $dh, $dir) or die "Unable to open directory $dir: $!";
2718         while (my $s = readdir $dh) {
2719             next if $s =~ m/^\.\.?/;
2720             run_firmware_script($opts, "$dir/$s");
2721         }
2722         closedir $dh;
2723     }
2724 }
2725
2726 sub download {
2727     my $url = shift;
2728     print STDERR "info: Downloading $url\n";
2729     system("wget --quiet \"$url\"");
2730 }
2731
2732 sub upgrade_dell {
2733     my @dirs;
2734     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
2735     chomp $product;
2736
2737     if ($product =~ m/PowerEdge/) {
2738
2739         # on RHEL, these pacakges are needed by the firwmare upgrade scripts
2740         system('yum install -y compat-libstdc++-33.i686 libstdc++.i686 libxml2.i686 procmail');
2741
2742         my $tmpdir = tempdir(
2743             CLEANUP => 1
2744             );
2745         chdir($tmpdir);
2746         fetch_dell_fw('catalog/Catalog.xml.gz');
2747         system('gunzip Catalog.xml.gz');
2748         my @paths = fetch_dell_fw_list('Catalog.xml');
2749         # -q is quiet, disabling interactivity and reducing console output
2750         my $fwopts = "-q";
2751         if (@paths) {
2752             for my $url (@paths) {
2753                 fetch_dell_fw($url);
2754             }
2755             run_firmware_scripts($fwopts, $tmpdir);
2756         } else {
2757             print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
2758             print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
2759         }
2760         chdir('/');
2761     } else {
2762         print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
2763         print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
2764     }
2765 }
2766
2767 sub fetch_dell_fw {
2768     my $path = shift;
2769     my $url = "ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/$path";
2770     download($url);
2771 }
2772
2773 # Using ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz, figure out which
2774 # firmware packages to download from Dell.  Only work for Linux
2775 # machines and 11th generation Dell servers.
2776 sub fetch_dell_fw_list {
2777     my $filename = shift;
2778
2779     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
2780     chomp $product;
2781     my ($mybrand, $mymodel) = split(/\s+/, $product);
2782
2783     print STDERR "Finding firmware bundles for $mybrand $mymodel\n";
2784
2785     my $xml = XMLin($filename);
2786     my @paths;
2787     for my $bundle (@{$xml->{SoftwareBundle}}) {
2788         my $brand = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Display}->{content};
2789         my $model = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Model}->{Display}->{content};
2790         my $oscode;
2791         if ("ARRAY" eq ref $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}) {
2792             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}[0]->{osCode};
2793         } else {
2794             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}->{osCode};
2795         }
2796         if ($mybrand eq $brand && $mymodel eq $model && "LIN" eq $oscode)
2797         {
2798             @paths = map { $_->{path} } @{$bundle->{Contents}->{Package}};
2799         }
2800     }
2801     for my $component (@{$xml->{SoftwareComponent}}) {
2802         my $componenttype = $component->{ComponentType}->{value};
2803
2804         # Drop application packages, only firmware and BIOS
2805         next if 'APAC' eq $componenttype;
2806
2807         my $cpath = $component->{path};
2808         for my $path (@paths) {
2809             if ($cpath =~ m%/$path$%) {
2810                 push(@paths, $cpath);
2811             }
2812         }
2813     }
2814     return @paths;
2815 }
2816 </pre>
2817
2818 <p>The code is only tested on RedHat Enterprise Linux, but I suspect
2819 it could work on other platforms with some tweaking.  Anyone know a
2820 index like Catalog.xml is available from HP for HP servers?  At the
2821 moment I maintain a similar list manually and it is quickly getting
2822 outdated.</p>
2823
2824       </div>
2825       <div class="tags">
2826
2827
2828         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2829
2830
2831       </div>
2832     </div>
2833     <div class="padding"></div>
2834
2835     <div class="entry">
2836       <div class="title">
2837         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_is_booting_into_runlevel_1_different_from_single_user_boots_.html">How is booting into runlevel 1 different from single user boots?</a>
2838       </div>
2839       <div class="date">
2840          4th August 2011
2841       </div>
2842       <div class="body">
2843         <p>Wouter Verhelst have some
2844 <a href="http://grep.be/blog/en/retorts/pere_kubuntu_boot">interesting
2845 comments and opinions</a> on my blog post on
2846 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_should_start_from__etc_rcS_d__in_Debian____almost_nothing.html">the
2847 need to clean up /etc/rcS.d/ in Debian</a> and my blog post about
2848 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_missing_in_the_Debian_desktop__or_why_my_parents_use_Kubuntu.html">the
2849 default KDE desktop in Debian</a>.  I only have time to address one
2850 small piece of his comment now, and though it best to address the
2851 misunderstanding he bring forward:</p>
2852
2853 <p><blockquote>
2854 Currently, a system admin has four options: [...] boot to a
2855 single-user system (by adding 'single' to the kernel command line;
2856 this runs rcS and rc1 scripts)
2857 </blockquote></p>
2858
2859 <p>This make me believe Wouter believe booting into single user mode
2860 and booting into runlevel 1 is the same.  I am not surprised he
2861 believe this, because it would make sense and is a quite sensible
2862 thing to believe.  But because the boot in Debian is slightly broken,
2863 runlevel 1 do not work properly and it isn't the same as single user
2864 mode.  I'll try to explain what is actually happing, but it is a bit
2865 hard to explain.</p>
2866
2867 <p>Single user mode is defined like this in /etc/inittab:
2868 "<tt>~~:S:wait:/sbin/sulogin</tt>".  This means the only thing that is
2869 executed in single user mode is sulogin.  Single user mode is a boot
2870 state "between" the runlevels, and when booting into single user mode,
2871 only the scripts in /etc/rcS.d/ are executed before the init process
2872 enters the single user state.  When switching to runlevel 1, the state
2873 is in fact not ending in runlevel 1, but it passes through runlevel 1
2874 and end up in the single user mode (see /etc/rc1.d/S03single, which
2875 runs "init -t1 S" to switch to single user mode at the end of runlevel
2876 1.  It is confusing that the 'S' (single user) init mode is not the
2877 mode enabled by /etc/rcS.d/ (which is more like the initial boot
2878 mode).</p>
2879
2880 <p>This summary might make it clearer.  When booting for the first
2881 time into single user mode, the following commands are executed:
2882 "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc S; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  When booting into
2883 runlevel 1, the following commands are executed: "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc
2884 S; /etc/init.d/rc 1; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  A problem show up when
2885 trying to continue after visiting single user mode.  Not all services
2886 are started again as they should, causing the machine to end up in an
2887 unpredicatble state.  This is why Debian admins recommend rebooting
2888 after visiting single user mode.</p>
2889
2890 <p>A similar problem with runlevel 1 is caused by the amount of
2891 scripts executed from /etc/rcS.d/.  When switching from say runlevel 2
2892 to runlevel 1, the services started from /etc/rcS.d/ are not properly
2893 stopped when passing through the scripts in /etc/rc1.d/, and not
2894 started again when switching away from runlevel 1 to the runlevels
2895 2-5.  I believe the problem is best fixed by moving all the scripts
2896 out of /etc/rcS.d/ that are not <strong>required</strong> to get a
2897 functioning single user mode during boot.</p>
2898
2899 <p>I have spent several years investigating the Debian boot system,
2900 and discovered this problem a few years ago.  I suspect it originates
2901 from when sysvinit was introduced into Debian, a long time ago.</p>
2902
2903       </div>
2904       <div class="tags">
2905
2906
2907         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2908
2909
2910       </div>
2911     </div>
2912     <div class="padding"></div>
2913
2914     <div class="entry">
2915       <div class="title">
2916         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_should_start_from__etc_rcS_d__in_Debian____almost_nothing.html">What should start from /etc/rcS.d/ in Debian? - almost nothing</a>
2917       </div>
2918       <div class="date">
2919         30th July 2011
2920       </div>
2921       <div class="body">
2922         <p>In the Debian boot system, several packages include scripts that
2923 are started from /etc/rcS.d/.  In fact, there is a bite more of them
2924 than make sense, and this causes a few problems.  What kind of
2925 problems, you might ask.  There are at least two problems.  The first
2926 is that it is not possible to recover a machine after switching to
2927 runlevel 1.  One need to actually reboot to get the machine back to
2928 the expected state.  The other is that single user boot will sometimes
2929 run into problems because some of the subsystems are activated before
2930 the root login is presented, causing problems when trying to recover a
2931 machine from a problem in that subsystem.  A minor additional point is
2932 that moving more scripts out of rcS.d/ and into the other rc#.d/
2933 directories will increase the amount of scripts that can run in
2934 parallel during boot, and thus decrease the boot time.</p>
2935
2936 <p>So, which scripts should start from rcS.d/.  In short, only the
2937 scripts that _have_ to execute before the root login prompt is
2938 presented during a single user boot should go there.  Everything else
2939 should go into the numeric runlevels.  This means things like
2940 lm-sensors, fuse and x11-common should not run from rcS.d, but from
2941 the numeric runlevels.  Today in Debian, there are around 115 init.d
2942 scripts that are started from rcS.d/, and most of them should be moved
2943 out.  Do your package have one of them?  Please help us make single
2944 user and runlevel 1 better by moving it.</p>
2945
2946 <p>Scripts setting up the screen, keyboard, system partitions
2947 etc. should still be started from rcS.d/, but there is for example no
2948 need to have the network enabled before the single user login prompt
2949 is presented.</p>
2950
2951 <p>As always, things are not so easy to fix as they sound.  To keep
2952 Debian systems working while scripts migrate and during upgrades, the
2953 scripts need to be moved from rcS.d/ to rc2.d/ in reverse dependency
2954 order, ie the scripts that nothing in rcS.d/ depend on can be moved,
2955 and the next ones can only be moved when their dependencies have been
2956 moved first.  This migration must be done sequentially while we ensure
2957 that the package system upgrade packages in the right order to keep
2958 the system state correct.  This will require some coordination when it
2959 comes to network related packages, but most of the packages with
2960 scripts that should migrate do not have anything in rcS.d/ depending
2961 on them.  Some packages have already been updated, like the sudo
2962 package, while others are still left to do.  I wish I had time to work
2963 on this myself, but real live constrains make it unlikely that I will
2964 find time to push this forward.</p>
2965
2966       </div>
2967       <div class="tags">
2968
2969
2970         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2971
2972
2973       </div>
2974     </div>
2975     <div class="padding"></div>
2976
2977     <div class="entry">
2978       <div class="title">
2979         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_missing_in_the_Debian_desktop__or_why_my_parents_use_Kubuntu.html">What is missing in the Debian desktop, or why my parents use Kubuntu</a>
2980       </div>
2981       <div class="date">
2982         29th July 2011
2983       </div>
2984       <div class="body">
2985         <p>While at Debconf11, I have several times during discussions
2986 mentioned the issues I believe should be improved in Debian for its
2987 desktop to be useful for more people.  The use case for this is my
2988 parents, which are currently running Kubuntu which solve the
2989 issues.</p>
2990
2991 <p>I suspect these four missing features are not very hard to
2992 implement.  After all, they are present in Ubuntu, so if we wanted to
2993 do this in Debian we would have a source.</p>
2994
2995 <ol>
2996
2997 <li><strong>Simple GUI based upgrade of packages.</strong> When there
2998 are new packages available for upgrades, a icon in the KDE status bar
2999 indicate this, and clicking on it will activate the simple upgrade
3000 tool to handle it.  I have no problem guiding both of my parents
3001 through the process over the phone.  If a kernel reboot is required,
3002 this too is indicated by the status bars and the upgrade tool.  Last
3003 time I checked, nothing with the same features was working in KDE in
3004 Debian.</li>
3005
3006 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing Firefox browser
3007 plugins.</strong> When the browser encounter a MIME type it do not
3008 currently have a handler for, it will ask the user if the system
3009 should search for a package that would add support for this MIME type,
3010 and if the user say yes, the APT sources will be searched for packages
3011 advertising the MIME type in their control file (visible in the
3012 Packages file in the APT archive).  If one or more packages are found,
3013 it is a simple click of the mouse to add support for the missing mime
3014 type.  If the package require the user to accept some non-free
3015 license, this is explained to the user.  The entire process make it
3016 more clear to the user why something do not work in the browser, and
3017 make the chances higher for the user to blame the web page authors and
3018 not the browser for any missing features.</li>
3019
3020 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing multimedia codec/format
3021 handlers.</strong> When the media players encounter a format or codec
3022 it is not supporting, a dialog pop up asking the user if the system
3023 should search for a package that would add support for it.  This
3024 happen with things like MP3, Windows Media or H.264.  The selection
3025 and installation procedure is very similar to the Firefox browser
3026 plugin handling.  This is as far as I know implemented using a
3027 gstreamer hook.  The end result is that the user easily get access to
3028 the codecs that are present from the APT archives available, while
3029 explaining more on why a given format is unsupported by Ubuntu.</li>
3030
3031 <li><strong>Better browser handling of some MIME types.</strong> When
3032 displaying a text/plain file in my Debian browser, it will propose to
3033 start emacs to show it.  If I remember correctly, when doing the same
3034 in Kunbutu it show the file as a text file in the browser.  At least I
3035 know Opera will show text files within the browser.  I much prefer the
3036 latter behaviour.</li>
3037
3038 </ol>
3039
3040 <p>There are other nice features as well, like the simplified suite
3041 upgrader, but given that I am the one mostly doing the dist-upgrade,
3042 it do not matter much.</p>
3043
3044 <p>I really hope we could get these features in place for the next
3045 Debian release.  It would require the coordinated effort of several
3046 maintainers, but would make the end user experience a lot better.</p>
3047
3048       </div>
3049       <div class="tags">
3050
3051
3052         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
3053
3054
3055       </div>
3056     </div>
3057     <div class="padding"></div>
3058
3059     <div class="entry">
3060       <div class="title">
3061         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Perl_modules_used_by_FixMyStreet_which_are_missing_in_Debian_Squeeze.html">Perl modules used by FixMyStreet which are missing in Debian/Squeeze</a>
3062       </div>
3063       <div class="date">
3064         26th July 2011
3065       </div>
3066       <div class="body">
3067         <p>The Norwegian <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</A>
3068 site is build on Debian/Squeeze, and this platform was chosen because
3069 I am most familiar with Debian (being a Debian Developer for around 10
3070 years) because it is the latest stable Debian release which should get
3071 security support for a few years.</p>
3072
3073 <p>The web service is written in Perl, and depend on some perl modules
3074 that are missing in Debian at the moment.  It would be great if these
3075 modules were added to the Debian archive, allowing anyone to set up
3076 their own <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com">FixMyStreet</a> clone
3077 in their own country using only Debian packages.  The list of modules
3078 missing in Debian/Squeeze isn't very long, and I hope the perl group
3079 will find time to package the 12 modules Catalyst::Plugin::SmartURI,
3080 Catalyst::Plugin::Unicode::Encoding, Catalyst::View::TT, Devel::Hide,
3081 Sort::Key, Statistics::Distributions, Template::Plugin::Comma,
3082 Template::Plugin::DateTime::Format, Term::Size::Any, Term::Size::Perl,
3083 URI::SmartURI and Web::Scraper to make the maintenance of FixMyStreet
3084 easier in the future.</p>
3085
3086 <p>Thanks to the great tools in Debian, getting the missing modules
3087 installed on my server was a simple call to 'cpan2deb Module::Name'
3088 and 'dpkg -i' to install the resulting package.  But this leave me
3089 with the responsibility of tracking security problems, which I really
3090 do not have time for.</p>
3091
3092       </div>
3093       <div class="tags">
3094
3095
3096         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami</a>.
3097
3098
3099       </div>
3100     </div>
3101     <div class="padding"></div>
3102
3103     <div class="entry">
3104       <div class="title">
3105         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Norwegian_FixMyStreet_have_kept_me_busy_the_last_few_weeks.html">A Norwegian FixMyStreet have kept me busy the last few weeks</a>
3106       </div>
3107       <div class="date">
3108          3rd April 2011
3109       </div>
3110       <div class="body">
3111         <p>Here is a small update for my English readers.  Most of my blog
3112 posts have been in Norwegian the last few weeks, so here is a short
3113 update in English.</p>
3114
3115 <p>The kids still keep me too busy to get much free software work
3116 done, but I did manage to organise a project to get a Norwegian port
3117 of the British service
3118 <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com/">FixMyStreet</a> up and running,
3119 and it has been running for a month now.  The entire project has been
3120 organised by me and two others.  Around Christmas we gathered sponsors
3121 to fund the development work.  In January I drafted a contract with
3122 <a href="http://www.mysociety.org/">mySociety</a> on what to develop,
3123 and in February the development took place.  Most of it involved
3124 converting the source to use GPS coordinates instead of British
3125 easting/northing, and the resulting code should be a lot easier to get
3126 running in any country by now.  The Norwegian
3127 <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</a> is using
3128 <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/">OpenStreetmap</a> as the map
3129 source and the source for administrative borders in Norway, and
3130 support for this had to be added/fixed.</p>
3131
3132 <p>The Norwegian version went live March 3th, and we spent the weekend
3133 polishing the system before we announced it March 7th.  The system is
3134 running on a KVM instance of Debian/Squeeze, and has seen almost 3000
3135 problem reports in a few weeks.  Soon we hope to announce the Android
3136 and iPhone versions making it even easier to report problems with the
3137 public infrastructure.</p>
3138
3139 <p>Perhaps something to consider for those of you in countries without
3140 such service?</p>
3141
3142       </div>
3143       <div class="tags">
3144
3145
3146         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kart">kart</a>.
3147
3148
3149       </div>
3150     </div>
3151     <div class="padding"></div>
3152
3153     <div class="entry">
3154       <div class="title">
3155         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_NVD_and_CPE_to_track_CVEs_in_locally_maintained_software.html">Using NVD and CPE to track CVEs in locally maintained software</a>
3156       </div>
3157       <div class="date">
3158         28th January 2011
3159       </div>
3160       <div class="body">
3161         <p>The last few days I have looked at ways to track open security
3162 issues here at my work with the University of Oslo.  My idea is that
3163 it should be possible to use the information about security issues
3164 available on the Internet, and check our locally
3165 maintained/distributed software against this information.  It should
3166 allow us to verify that no known security issues are forgotten.  The
3167 CVE database listing vulnerabilities seem like a great central point,
3168 and by using the package lists from Debian mapped to CVEs provided by
3169 the testing security team, I believed it should be possible to figure
3170 out which security holes were present in our free software
3171 collection.</p>
3172
3173 <p>After reading up on the topic, it became obvious that the first
3174 building block is to be able to name software packages in a unique and
3175 consistent way across data sources.  I considered several ways to do
3176 this, for example coming up with my own naming scheme like using URLs
3177 to project home pages or URLs to the Freshmeat entries, or using some
3178 existing naming scheme.  And it seem like I am not the first one to
3179 come across this problem, as MITRE already proposed and implemented a
3180 solution.  Enter the <a href="http://cpe.mitre.org/index.html">Common
3181 Platform Enumeration</a> dictionary, a vocabulary for referring to
3182 software, hardware and other platform components.  The CPE ids are
3183 mapped to CVEs in the <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/">National
3184 Vulnerability Database</a>, allowing me to look up know security
3185 issues for any CPE name.  With this in place, all I need to do is to
3186 locate the CPE id for the software packages we use at the university.
3187 This is fairly trivial (I google for 'cve cpe $package' and check the
3188 NVD entry if a CVE for the package exist).</p>
3189
3190 <p>To give you an example.  The GNU gzip source package have the CPE
3191 name cpe:/a:gnu:gzip.  If the old version 1.3.3 was the package to
3192 check out, one could look up
3193 <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/view/vuln/search?cpe=cpe%3A%2Fa%3Agnu%3Agzip:1.3.3">cpe:/a:gnu:gzip:1.3.3
3194 in NVD</a> and get a list of 6 security holes with public CVE entries.
3195 The most recent one is
3196 <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/view/vuln/detail?vulnId=CVE-2010-0001">CVE-2010-0001</a>,
3197 and at the bottom of the NVD page for this vulnerability the complete
3198 list of affected versions is provided.</p>
3199
3200 <p>The NVD database of CVEs is also available as a XML dump, allowing
3201 for offline processing of issues.  Using this dump, I've written a
3202 small script taking a list of CPEs as input and list all CVEs
3203 affecting the packages represented by these CPEs.  One give it CPEs
3204 with version numbers as specified above and get a list of open
3205 security issues out.</p>
3206
3207 <p>Of course for this approach to be useful, the quality of the NVD
3208 information need to be high.  For that to happen, I believe as many as
3209 possible need to use and contribute to the NVD database.  I notice
3210 RHEL is providing
3211 <a href="https://www.redhat.com/security/data/metrics/rhsamapcpe.txt">a
3212 map from CVE to CPE</a>, indicating that they are using the CPE
3213 information.  I'm not aware of Debian and Ubuntu doing the same.</p>
3214
3215 <p>To get an idea about the quality for free software, I spent some
3216 time making it possible to compare the CVE database from Debian with
3217 the CVE database in NVD.  The result look fairly good, but there are
3218 some inconsistencies in NVD (same software package having several
3219 CPEs), and some inaccuracies (NVD not mentioning buggy packages that
3220 Debian believe are affected by a CVE).  Hope to find time to improve
3221 the quality of NVD, but that require being able to get in touch with
3222 someone maintaining it.  So far my three emails with questions and
3223 corrections have not seen any reply, but I hope contact can be
3224 established soon.</p>
3225
3226 <p>An interesting application for CPEs is cross platform package
3227 mapping.  It would be useful to know which packages in for example
3228 RHEL, OpenSuSe and Mandriva are missing from Debian and Ubuntu, and
3229 this would be trivial if all linux distributions provided CPE entries
3230 for their packages.</p>
3231
3232       </div>
3233       <div class="tags">
3234
3235
3236         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
3237
3238
3239       </div>
3240     </div>
3241     <div class="padding"></div>
3242
3243     <div class="entry">
3244       <div class="title">
3245         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Which_module_is_loaded_for_a_given_PCI_and_USB_device_.html">Which module is loaded for a given PCI and USB device?</a>
3246       </div>
3247       <div class="date">
3248         23rd January 2011
3249       </div>
3250       <div class="body">
3251         <p>In the
3252 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/discover-data">discover-data</a>
3253 package in Debian, there is a script to report useful information
3254 about the running hardware for use when people report missing
3255 information.  One part of this script that I find very useful when
3256 debugging hardware problems, is the part mapping loaded kernel module
3257 to the PCI device it claims.  It allow me to quickly see if the kernel
3258 module I expect is driving the hardware I am struggling with.  To see
3259 the output, make sure discover-data is installed and run
3260 <tt>/usr/share/bug/discover-data 3>&1</tt>.  The relevant output on
3261 one of my machines like this:</p>
3262
3263 <pre>
3264 loaded modules:
3265 10de:03eb i2c_nforce2
3266 10de:03f1 ohci_hcd
3267 10de:03f2 ehci_hcd
3268 10de:03f0 snd_hda_intel
3269 10de:03ec pata_amd
3270 10de:03f6 sata_nv
3271 1022:1103 k8temp
3272 109e:036e bttv
3273 109e:0878 snd_bt87x
3274 11ab:4364 sky2
3275 </pre>
3276
3277 <p>The code in question look like this, slightly modified for
3278 readability and to drop the output to file descriptor 3:</p>
3279
3280 <pre>
3281 if [ -d /sys/bus/pci/devices/ ] ; then
3282     echo loaded pci modules:
3283     (
3284         cd /sys/bus/pci/devices/
3285         for address in * ; do
3286             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
3287                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
3288                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
3289                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
3290                     id=`lspci -n -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $3}'`
3291                     echo "$id $module"
3292                 fi
3293             fi
3294         done
3295     )
3296     echo
3297 fi
3298 </pre>
3299
3300 <p>Similar code could be used to extract USB device module
3301 mappings:</p>
3302
3303 <pre>
3304 if [ -d /sys/bus/usb/devices/ ] ; then
3305     echo loaded usb modules:
3306     (
3307         cd /sys/bus/usb/devices/
3308         for address in * ; do
3309             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
3310                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
3311                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
3312                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
3313                     id=$(lsusb -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $6}')
3314                     if [ "$id" ] ; then
3315                         echo "$id $module"
3316                     fi
3317                 fi
3318             fi
3319         done
3320     )
3321     echo
3322 fi
3323 </pre>
3324
3325 <p>This might perhaps be something to include in other tools as
3326 well.</p>
3327
3328       </div>
3329       <div class="tags">
3330
3331
3332         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3333
3334
3335       </div>
3336     </div>
3337     <div class="padding"></div>
3338
3339     <div class="entry">
3340       <div class="title">
3341         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_test_if_a_laptop_is_working_with_Linux.html">How to test if a laptop is working with Linux</a>
3342       </div>
3343       <div class="date">
3344         22nd December 2010
3345       </div>
3346       <div class="body">
3347         <p>The last few days I have spent at work here at the <a
3348 href="http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo</a> testing if the new
3349 batch of computers will work with Linux.  Every year for the last few
3350 years the university have organised shared bid of a few thousand
3351 computers, and this year HP won the bid.  Two different desktops and
3352 five different laptops are on the list this year.  We in the UNIX
3353 group want to know which one of these computers work well with RHEL
3354 and Ubuntu, the two Linux distributions we currently handle at the
3355 university.</p>
3356
3357 <p>My test method is simple, and I share it here to get feedback and
3358 perhaps inspire others to test hardware as well.  To test, I PXE
3359 install the OS version of choice, and log in as my normal user and run
3360 a few applications and plug in selected pieces of hardware.  When
3361 something fail, I make a note about this in the test matrix and move
3362 on.  If I have some spare time I try to report the bug to the OS
3363 vendor, but as I only have the machines for a short time, I rarely
3364 have the time to do this for all the problems I find.</p>
3365
3366 <p>Anyway, to get to the point of this post.  Here is the simple tests
3367 I perform on a new model.</p>
3368
3369 <ul>
3370
3371 <li>Is PXE installation working?  I'm testing with RHEL6, Ubuntu Lucid
3372 and Ubuntu Maverik at the moment.  If I feel like it, I also test with
3373 RHEL5 and Debian Edu/Squeeze.</li>
3374
3375 <li>Is X.org working?  If the graphical login screen show up after
3376 installation, X.org is working.</li>
3377
3378 <li>Is hardware accelerated OpenGL working?  Running glxgears (in
3379 package mesa-utils on Ubuntu) and writing down the frames per second
3380 reported by the program.</li>
3381
3382 <li>Is sound working?  With Gnome and KDE, a sound is played when
3383 logging in, and if I can hear this the test is successful.  If there
3384 are several audio exits on the machine, I try them all and check if
3385 the Gnome/KDE audio mixer can control where to send the sound.  I
3386 normally test this by playing
3387 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20101012-chef/ ">a HTML5
3388 video</a> in Firefox/Iceweasel.</li>
3389
3390 <li>Is the USB subsystem working?  I test this by plugging in a USB
3391 memory stick and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
3392
3393 <li>Is the CD/DVD player working?  I test this by inserting any CD/DVD
3394 I have lying around, and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
3395
3396 <li>Is any built in camera working?  Test using cheese, and see if a
3397 picture from the v4l device show up.</li>
3398
3399 <li>Is bluetooth working?  Use the Gnome/KDE browsing tool to see if
3400 any bluetooth devices are discovered.  In my office, I normally see a
3401 few.</li>
3402
3403 <li>For laptops, is the SD or Compaq Flash reader working.  I have
3404 memory modules lying around, and stick them in and see if Gnome/KDE
3405 notice this.</li>
3406
3407 <li>For laptops, is suspend/hibernate working?  I'm testing if the
3408 special button work, and if the laptop continue to work after
3409 resume.</li>
3410
3411 <li>For laptops, is the extra buttons working, like audio level,
3412 adjusting background light, switching on/off external video output,
3413 switching on/off wifi, bluetooth, etc?  The set of buttons differ from
3414 laptop to laptop, so I just write down which are working and which are
3415 not.</li>
3416
3417 <li>Some laptops have smart card readers, finger print readers,
3418 acceleration sensors etc.  I rarely test these, as I do not know how
3419 to quickly test if they are working or not, so I only document their
3420 existence.</li>
3421
3422 </ul>
3423
3424 <p>By now I suspect you are really curious what the test results are
3425 for the HP machines I am testing.  I'm not done yet, so I will report
3426 the test results later.  For now I can report that HP 8100 Elite work
3427 fine, and hibernation fail with HP EliteBook 8440p on Ubuntu Lucid,
3428 and audio fail on RHEL6.  Ubuntu Maverik worked with 8440p.  As you
3429 can see, I have most machines left to test.  One interesting
3430 observation is that Ubuntu Lucid has almost twice the frame rate than
3431 RHEL6 with glxgears.  No idea why.</p>
3432
3433       </div>
3434       <div class="tags">
3435
3436
3437         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3438
3439
3440       </div>
3441     </div>
3442     <div class="padding"></div>
3443
3444     <div class="entry">
3445       <div class="title">
3446         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Some_thoughts_on_BitCoins.html">Some thoughts on BitCoins</a>
3447       </div>
3448       <div class="date">
3449         11th December 2010
3450       </div>
3451       <div class="body">
3452         <p>As I continue to explore
3453 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>, I've starting to wonder
3454 what properties the system have, and how it will be affected by laws
3455 and regulations here in Norway.  Here are some random notes.</p>
3456
3457 <p>One interesting thing to note is that since the transactions are
3458 verified using a peer to peer network, all details about a transaction
3459 is known to everyone.  This means that if a BitCoin address has been
3460 published like I did with mine in my initial post about BitCoin, it is
3461 possible for everyone to see how many BitCoins have been transfered to
3462 that address.  There is even a web service to look at the details for
3463 all transactions.  There I can see that my address
3464 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a>
3465 have received 16.06 Bitcoin, the
3466 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3">1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3</a>
3467 address of Simon Phipps have received 181.97 BitCoin and the address
3468 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt">1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt</A>
3469 of EFF have received 2447.38 BitCoins so far.  Thank you to each and
3470 every one of you that donated bitcoins to support my activity. The
3471 fact that anyone can see how much money was transfered to a given
3472 address make it more obvious why the BitCoin community recommend to
3473 generate and hand out a new address for each transaction.  I'm told
3474 there is no way to track which addresses belong to a given person or
3475 organisation without the person or organisation revealing it
3476 themselves, as Simon, EFF and I have done.</p>
3477
3478 <p>In Norway, and in most other countries, there are laws and
3479 regulations limiting how much money one can transfer across the border
3480 without declaring it.  There are money laundering, tax and accounting
3481 laws and regulations I would expect to apply to the use of BitCoin.
3482 If the Skolelinux foundation
3483 (<a href="http://linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">SLX
3484 Debian Labs</a>) were to accept donations in BitCoin in addition to
3485 normal bank transfers like EFF is doing, how should this be accounted?
3486 Given that it is impossible to know if money can cross the border or
3487 not, should everything or nothing be declared?  What exchange rate
3488 should be used when calculating taxes?  Would receivers have to pay
3489 income tax if the foundation were to pay Skolelinux contributors in
3490 BitCoin?  I have no idea, but it would be interesting to know.</p>
3491
3492 <p>For a currency to be useful and successful, it must be trusted and
3493 accepted by a lot of users.  It must be possible to get easy access to
3494 the currency (as a wage or using currency exchanges), and it must be
3495 easy to spend it.  At the moment BitCoin seem fairly easy to get
3496 access to, but there are very few places to spend it.  I am not really
3497 a regular user of any of the vendor types currently accepting BitCoin,
3498 so I wonder when my kind of shop would start accepting BitCoins.  I
3499 would like to buy electronics, travels and subway tickets, not herbs
3500 and books. :) The currency is young, and this will improve over time
3501 if it become popular, but I suspect regular banks will start to lobby
3502 to get BitCoin declared illegal if it become popular.  I'm sure they
3503 will claim it is helping fund terrorism and money laundering (which
3504 probably would be true, as is any currency in existence), but I
3505 believe the problems should be solved elsewhere and not by blaming
3506 currencies.</p>
3507
3508 <p>The process of creating new BitCoins is called mining, and it is
3509 CPU intensive process that depend on a bit of luck as well (as one is
3510 competing against all the other miners currently spending CPU cycles
3511 to see which one get the next lump of cash).  The "winner" get 50
3512 BitCoin when this happen.  Yesterday I came across the obvious way to
3513 join forces to increase ones changes of getting at least some coins,
3514 by coordinating the work on mining BitCoins across several machines
3515 and people, and sharing the result if one is lucky and get the 50
3516 BitCoins.  Check out
3517 <a href="http://www.bluishcoder.co.nz/bitcoin-pool/">BitCoin Pool</a>
3518 if this sounds interesting.  I have not had time to try to set up a
3519 machine to participate there yet, but have seen that running on ones
3520 own for a few days have not yield any BitCoins througth mining
3521 yet.</p>
3522
3523 <p>Update 2010-12-15: Found an <a
3524 href="http://inertia.posterous.com/reply-to-the-underground-economist-why-bitcoi">interesting
3525 criticism</a> of bitcoin.  Not quite sure how valid it is, but thought
3526 it was interesting to read.  The arguments presented seem to be
3527 equally valid for gold, which was used as a currency for many years.</p>
3528
3529       </div>
3530       <div class="tags">
3531
3532
3533         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
3534
3535
3536       </div>
3537     </div>
3538     <div class="padding"></div>
3539
3540     <div class="entry">
3541       <div class="title">
3542         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Now_accepting_bitcoins___anonymous_and_distributed_p2p_crypto_money.html">Now accepting bitcoins - anonymous and distributed p2p crypto-money</a>
3543       </div>
3544       <div class="date">
3545         10th December 2010
3546       </div>
3547       <div class="body">
3548         <p>With this weeks lawless
3549 <a href="http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/06/wikileaks/index.html">governmental
3550 attacks</a> on Wikileak and
3551 <a href="http://www.salon.com/technology/dan_gillmor/2010/12/06/war_on_speech">free
3552 speech</a>, it has become obvious that PayPal, visa and mastercard can
3553 not be trusted to handle money transactions.
3554 A blog post from
3555 <a href="http://webmink.com/2010/12/06/now-accepting-bitcoin/">Simon
3556 Phipps on bitcoin</a> reminded me about a project that a friend of
3557 mine mentioned earlier.  I decided to follow Simon's example, and get
3558 involved with <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>.  I got
3559 some help from my friend to get it all running, and he even handed me
3560 some bitcoins to get started.  I even donated a few bitcoins to Simon
3561 for helping me remember BitCoin.</p>
3562
3563 <p>So, what is bitcoins, you probably wonder?  It is a digital
3564 crypto-currency, decentralised and handled using peer-to-peer
3565 networks.  It allows anonymous transactions and prohibits central
3566 control over the transactions, making it impossible for governments
3567 and companies alike to block donations and other transactions.  The
3568 source is free software, and while the key dependency wxWidgets 2.9
3569 for the graphical user interface is missing in Debian, the command
3570 line client builds just fine.  Hopefully Jonas
3571 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/578157">will get the package into
3572 Debian</a> soon.</p>
3573
3574 <p>Bitcoins can be converted to other currencies, like USD and EUR.
3575 There are <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/trade">companies accepting
3576 bitcoins</a> when selling services and goods, and there are even
3577 currency "stock" markets where the exchange rate is decided.  There
3578 are not many users so far, but the concept seems promising.  If you
3579 want to get started and lack a friend with any bitcoins to spare,
3580 you can even get
3581 <a href="https://freebitcoins.appspot.com/">some for free</a> (0.05
3582 bitcoin at the time of writing).  Use
3583 <a href="http://www.bitcoinwatch.com/">BitcoinWatch</a> to keep an eye
3584 on the current exchange rates.</p>
3585
3586 <p>As an experiment, I have decided to set up bitcoind on one of my
3587 machines.  If you want to support my activity, please send Bitcoin
3588 donations to the address
3589 <b>15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</b>.  Thank you!</p>
3590
3591       </div>
3592       <div class="tags">
3593
3594
3595         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
3596
3597
3598       </div>
3599     </div>
3600     <div class="padding"></div>
3601
3602     <div class="entry">
3603       <div class="title">
3604         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_isn_t_Debian_Edu_using_VLC_.html">Why isn't Debian Edu using VLC?</a>
3605       </div>
3606       <div class="date">
3607         27th November 2010
3608       </div>
3609       <div class="body">
3610         <p>In the latest issue of Linux Journal, the readers choices were
3611 presented, and the winner among the multimedia player were VLC.
3612 Personally, I like VLC, and it is my player of choice when I first try
3613 to play a video file or stream.  Only if VLC fail will I drag out
3614 gmplayer to see if it can do better.  The reason is mostly the failure
3615 model and trust.  When VLC fail, it normally pop up a error message
3616 reporting the problem.  When mplayer fail, it normally segfault or
3617 just hangs.  The latter failure mode drain my trust in the program.<p>
3618
3619 <p>But even if VLC is my player of choice, we have choosen to use
3620 mplayer in <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
3621 Edu/Skolelinux</a>.  The reason is simple.  We need a good browser
3622 plugin to play web videos seamlessly, and the VLC browser plugin is
3623 not very good.  For example, it lack in-line control buttons, so there
3624 is no way for the user to pause the video.  Also, when I
3625 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">last
3626 tested the browser plugins</a> available in Debian, the VLC plugin
3627 failed on several video pages where mplayer based plugins worked.  If
3628 the browser plugin for VLC was as good as the gecko-mediaplayer
3629 package (which uses mplayer), we would switch.</P>
3630
3631 <p>While VLC is a good player, its user interface is slightly
3632 annoying.  The most annoying feature is its inconsistent use of
3633 keyboard shortcuts.  When the player is in full screen mode, its
3634 shortcuts are different from when it is playing the video in a window.
3635 For example, space only work as pause when in full screen mode.  I
3636 wish it had consisten shortcuts and that space also would work when in
3637 window mode.  Another nice shortcut in gmplayer is [enter] to restart
3638 the current video.  It is very nice when playing short videos from the
3639 web and want to restart it when new people arrive to have a look at
3640 what is going on.</p>
3641
3642       </div>
3643       <div class="tags">
3644
3645
3646         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
3647
3648
3649       </div>
3650     </div>
3651     <div class="padding"></div>
3652
3653     <div class="entry">
3654       <div class="title">
3655         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lenny__Squeeze_upgrades_of_the_Gnome_and_KDE_desktop__now_with_apt_get_autoremove.html">Lenny->Squeeze upgrades of the Gnome and KDE desktop, now with apt-get autoremove</a>
3656       </div>
3657       <div class="date">
3658         22nd November 2010
3659       </div>
3660       <div class="body">
3661         <p>Michael Biebl suggested to me on IRC, that I changed my automated
3662 upgrade testing of the
3663 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
3664 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a> to do <tt>apt-get autoremove</tt> when using apt-get.
3665 This seem like a very good idea, so I adjusted by test scripts and
3666 can now present the updated result from today:</p>
3667
3668 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
3669
3670 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
3671
3672 <blockquote><p>
3673   apache2.2-bin
3674   aptdaemon
3675   baobab
3676   binfmt-support
3677   browser-plugin-gnash
3678   cheese-common
3679   cli-common
3680   cups-pk-helper
3681   dmz-cursor-theme
3682   empathy
3683   empathy-common
3684   freedesktop-sound-theme
3685   freeglut3
3686   gconf-defaults-service
3687   gdm-themes
3688   gedit-plugins
3689   geoclue
3690   geoclue-hostip
3691   geoclue-localnet
3692   geoclue-manual
3693   geoclue-yahoo
3694   gnash
3695   gnash-common
3696   gnome
3697   gnome-backgrounds
3698   gnome-cards-data
3699   gnome-codec-install
3700   gnome-core
3701   gnome-desktop-environment
3702   gnome-disk-utility
3703   gnome-screenshot
3704   gnome-search-tool
3705   gnome-session-canberra
3706   gnome-system-log
3707   gnome-themes-extras
3708   gnome-themes-more
3709   gnome-user-share
3710   gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
3711   gstreamer0.10-tools
3712   gtk2-engines
3713   gtk2-engines-pixbuf
3714   gtk2-engines-smooth
3715   hamster-applet
3716   libapache2-mod-dnssd
3717   libapr1
3718   libaprutil1
3719   libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3
3720   libaprutil1-ldap
3721   libart2.0-cil
3722   libboost-date-time1.42.0
3723   libboost-python1.42.0
3724   libboost-thread1.42.0
3725   libchamplain-0.4-0
3726   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0
3727   libcheese-gtk18
3728   libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
3729   libcryptui0
3730   libdiscid0
3731   libelf1
3732   libepc-1.0-2
3733   libepc-common
3734   libepc-ui-1.0-2
3735   libfreerdp-plugins-standard
3736   libfreerdp0
3737   libgconf2.0-cil
3738   libgdata-common
3739   libgdata7
3740   libgdu-gtk0
3741   libgee2
3742   libgeoclue0
3743   libgexiv2-0
3744   libgif4
3745   libglade2.0-cil
3746   libglib2.0-cil
3747   libgmime2.4-cil
3748   libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
3749   libgnome2.24-cil
3750   libgnomepanel2.24-cil
3751   libgpod-common
3752   libgpod4
3753   libgtk2.0-cil
3754   libgtkglext1
3755   libgtksourceview2.0-common
3756   libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
3757   libmono-addins0.2-cil
3758   libmono-cairo2.0-cil
3759   libmono-corlib2.0-cil
3760   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil
3761   libmono-posix2.0-cil
3762   libmono-security2.0-cil
3763   libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
3764   libmono-system2.0-cil
3765   libmtp8
3766   libmusicbrainz3-6
3767   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil
3768   libndesk-dbus1.0-cil
3769   libopal3.6.8
3770   libpolkit-gtk-1-0
3771   libpt2.6.7
3772   libpython2.6
3773   librpm1
3774   librpmio1
3775   libsdl1.2debian
3776   libsrtp0
3777   libssh-4
3778   libtelepathy-farsight0
3779   libtelepathy-glib0
3780   libtidy-0.99-0
3781   media-player-info
3782   mesa-utils
3783   mono-2.0-gac
3784   mono-gac
3785   mono-runtime
3786   nautilus-sendto
3787   nautilus-sendto-empathy
3788   p7zip-full
3789   pkg-config
3790   python-aptdaemon
3791   python-aptdaemon-gtk
3792   python-axiom
3793   python-beautifulsoup
3794   python-bugbuddy
3795   python-clientform
3796   python-coherence
3797   python-configobj
3798   python-crypto
3799   python-cupshelpers
3800   python-elementtree
3801   python-epsilon
3802   python-evolution
3803   python-feedparser
3804   python-gdata
3805   python-gdbm
3806   python-gst0.10
3807   python-gtkglext1
3808   python-gtksourceview2
3809   python-httplib2
3810   python-louie
3811   python-mako
3812   python-markupsafe
3813   python-mechanize
3814   python-nevow
3815   python-notify
3816   python-opengl
3817   python-openssl
3818   python-pam
3819   python-pkg-resources
3820   python-pyasn1
3821   python-pysqlite2
3822   python-rdflib
3823   python-serial
3824   python-tagpy
3825   python-twisted-bin
3826   python-twisted-conch
3827   python-twisted-core
3828   python-twisted-web
3829   python-utidylib
3830   python-webkit
3831   python-xdg
3832   python-zope.interface
3833   remmina
3834   remmina-plugin-data
3835   remmina-plugin-rdp
3836   remmina-plugin-vnc
3837   rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
3838   rhythmbox-plugins
3839   rpm-common
3840   rpm2cpio
3841   seahorse-plugins
3842   shotwell
3843   software-center
3844   system-config-printer-udev
3845   telepathy-gabble
3846   telepathy-mission-control-5
3847   telepathy-salut
3848   tomboy
3849   totem
3850   totem-coherence
3851   totem-mozilla
3852   totem-plugins
3853   transmission-common
3854   xdg-user-dirs
3855   xdg-user-dirs-gtk
3856   xserver-xephyr
3857 </p></blockquote>
3858
3859 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
3860
3861 <blockquote><p>
3862   cheese
3863   ekiga
3864   eog
3865   epiphany-extensions
3866   evolution-exchange
3867   fast-user-switch-applet
3868   file-roller
3869   gcalctool
3870   gconf-editor
3871   gdm
3872   gedit
3873   gedit-common
3874   gnome-games
3875   gnome-games-data
3876   gnome-nettool
3877   gnome-system-tools
3878   gnome-themes
3879   gnuchess
3880   gucharmap
3881   guile-1.8-libs
3882   libavahi-ui0
3883   libdmx1
3884   libgalago3
3885   libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
3886   libgtksourceview2.0-0
3887   liblircclient0
3888   libsdl1.2debian-alsa
3889   libspeexdsp1
3890   libsvga1
3891   rhythmbox
3892   seahorse
3893   sound-juicer
3894   system-config-printer
3895   totem-common
3896   transmission-gtk
3897   vinagre
3898   vino
3899 </p></blockquote>
3900
3901 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
3902
3903 <blockquote><p>
3904   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
3905 </p></blockquote>
3906
3907 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
3908
3909 <blockquote><p>
3910 [nothing]
3911 </p></blockquote>
3912
3913 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
3914
3915 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
3916
3917 <blockquote><p>
3918   ksmserver
3919 </p></blockquote>
3920
3921 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
3922
3923 <blockquote><p>
3924   kwin
3925   network-manager-kde
3926 </p></blockquote>
3927
3928 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
3929
3930 <blockquote><p>
3931   arts
3932   dolphin
3933   freespacenotifier
3934   google-gadgets-gst
3935   google-gadgets-xul
3936   kappfinder
3937   kcalc
3938   kcharselect
3939   kde-core
3940   kde-plasma-desktop
3941   kde-standard
3942   kde-window-manager
3943   kdeartwork
3944   kdeartwork-emoticons
3945   kdeartwork-style
3946   kdeartwork-theme-icon
3947   kdebase
3948   kdebase-apps
3949   kdebase-workspace
3950   kdebase-workspace-bin
3951   kdebase-workspace-data
3952   kdeeject
3953   kdelibs
3954   kdeplasma-addons
3955   kdeutils
3956   kdewallpapers
3957   kdf
3958   kfloppy
3959   kgpg
3960   khelpcenter4
3961   kinfocenter
3962   konq-plugins-l10n
3963   konqueror-nsplugins
3964   kscreensaver
3965   kscreensaver-xsavers
3966   ktimer
3967   kwrite
3968   libgle3
3969   libkde4-ruby1.8
3970   libkonq5
3971   libkonq5-templates
3972   libnetpbm10
3973   libplasma-ruby
3974   libplasma-ruby1.8
3975   libqt4-ruby1.8
3976   marble-data
3977   marble-plugins
3978   netpbm
3979   nuvola-icon-theme
3980   plasma-dataengines-workspace
3981   plasma-desktop
3982   plasma-desktopthemes-artwork
3983   plasma-runners-addons
3984   plasma-scriptengine-googlegadgets
3985   plasma-scriptengine-python
3986   plasma-scriptengine-qedje
3987   plasma-scriptengine-ruby
3988   plasma-scriptengine-webkit
3989   plasma-scriptengines
3990   plasma-wallpapers-addons
3991   plasma-widget-folderview
3992   plasma-widget-networkmanagement
3993   ruby
3994   sweeper
3995   update-notifier-kde
3996   xscreensaver-data-extra
3997   xscreensaver-gl
3998   xscreensaver-gl-extra
3999   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
4000 </p></blockquote>
4001
4002 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
4003
4004 <blockquote><p>
4005   ark
4006   google-gadgets-common
4007   google-gadgets-qt
4008   htdig
4009   kate
4010   kdebase-bin
4011   kdebase-data
4012   kdepasswd
4013   kfind
4014   klipper
4015   konq-plugins
4016   konqueror
4017   ksysguard
4018   ksysguardd
4019   libarchive1
4020   libcln6
4021   libeet1
4022   libeina-svn-06
4023   libggadget-1.0-0b
4024   libggadget-qt-1.0-0b
4025   libgps19
4026   libkdecorations4
4027   libkephal4
4028   libkonq4
4029   libkonqsidebarplugin4a
4030   libkscreensaver5
4031   libksgrd4
4032   libksignalplotter4
4033   libkunitconversion4
4034   libkwineffects1a
4035   libmarblewidget4
4036   libntrack-qt4-1
4037   libntrack0
4038   libplasma-geolocation-interface4
4039   libplasmaclock4a
4040   libplasmagenericshell4
4041   libprocesscore4a
4042   libprocessui4a
4043   libqalculate5
4044   libqedje0a
4045   libqtruby4shared2
4046   libqzion0a
4047   libruby1.8
4048   libscim8c2a
4049   libsmokekdecore4-3
4050   libsmokekdeui4-3
4051   libsmokekfile3
4052   libsmokekhtml3
4053   libsmokekio3
4054   libsmokeknewstuff2-3
4055   libsmokeknewstuff3-3
4056   libsmokekparts3
4057   libsmokektexteditor3
4058   libsmokekutils3
4059   libsmokenepomuk3
4060   libsmokephonon3
4061   libsmokeplasma3
4062   libsmokeqtcore4-3
4063   libsmokeqtdbus4-3
4064   libsmokeqtgui4-3
4065   libsmokeqtnetwork4-3
4066   libsmokeqtopengl4-3
4067   libsmokeqtscript4-3
4068   libsmokeqtsql4-3
4069   libsmokeqtsvg4-3
4070   libsmokeqttest4-3
4071   libsmokeqtuitools4-3
4072   libsmokeqtwebkit4-3
4073   libsmokeqtxml4-3
4074   libsmokesolid3
4075   libsmokesoprano3
4076   libtaskmanager4a
4077   libtidy-0.99-0
4078   libweather-ion4a
4079   libxklavier16
4080   libxxf86misc1
4081   okteta
4082   oxygencursors
4083   plasma-dataengines-addons
4084   plasma-scriptengine-superkaramba
4085   plasma-widget-lancelot
4086   plasma-widgets-addons
4087   plasma-widgets-workspace
4088   polkit-kde-1
4089   ruby1.8
4090   systemsettings
4091   update-notifier-common
4092 </p></blockquote>
4093
4094 <p>Running apt-get autoremove made the results using apt-get and
4095 aptitude a bit more similar, but there are still quite a lott of
4096 differences.  I have no idea what packages should be installed after
4097 the upgrade, but hope those that do can have a look.</p>
4098
4099       </div>
4100       <div class="tags">
4101
4102
4103         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
4104
4105
4106       </div>
4107     </div>
4108     <div class="padding"></div>
4109
4110     <div class="entry">
4111       <div class="title">
4112         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Migrating_Xen_virtual_machines_using_LVM_to_KVM_using_disk_images.html">Migrating Xen virtual machines using LVM to KVM using disk images</a>
4113       </div>
4114       <div class="date">
4115         22nd November 2010
4116       </div>
4117       <div class="body">
4118         <p>Most of the computers in use by the
4119 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux project</a>
4120 are virtual machines.  And they have been Xen machines running on a
4121 fairly old IBM eserver xseries 345 machine, and we wanted to migrate
4122 them to KVM on a newer Dell PowerEdge 2950 host machine.  This was a
4123 bit harder that it could have been, because we set up the Xen virtual
4124 machines to get the virtual partitions from LVM, which as far as I
4125 know is not supported by KVM.  So to migrate, we had to convert
4126 several LVM logical volumes to partitions on a virtual disk file.</p>
4127
4128 <p>I found
4129 <a href="http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM">a
4130 nice recipe</a> to do this, and wrote the following script to do the
4131 migration.  It uses qemu-img from the qemu package to make the disk
4132 image, parted to partition it, losetup and kpartx to present the disk
4133 image partions as devices, and dd to copy the data.  I NFS mounted the
4134 new servers storage area on the old server to do the migration.</p>
4135
4136 <pre>
4137 #!/bin/sh
4138
4139 # Based on
4140 # http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM
4141
4142 set -e
4143 set -x
4144
4145 if [ -z "$1" ] ; then
4146     echo "Usage: $0 &lt;hostname&gt;"
4147     exit 1
4148 else
4149     host="$1"
4150 fi
4151
4152 if [ ! -e /dev/vg_data/$host-disk ] ; then
4153     echo "error: unable to find LVM volume for $host"
4154     exit 1
4155 fi
4156
4157 # Partitions need to be a bit bigger than the LVM LVs.  not sure why.
4158 disksize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-disk | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
4159 swapsize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-swap | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
4160 totalsize=$(( ( $disksize + $swapsize ) ))
4161
4162 img=$host.img
4163 #dd if=/dev/zero of=$img bs=1M count=$(( $disksize + $swapsize ))
4164 qemu-img create $img ${totalsize}MMaking room on the Debian Edu/Sqeeze DVD
4165
4166 parted $img mklabel msdos
4167 parted $img mkpart primary linux-swap 0 $disksize
4168 parted $img mkpart primary ext2 $disksize $totalsize
4169 parted $img set 1 boot on
4170
4171 modprobe dm-mod
4172 losetup /dev/loop0 $img
4173 kpartx -a /dev/loop0
4174
4175 dd if=/dev/vg_data/$host-disk of=/dev/mapper/loop0p1 bs=1M
4176 fsck.ext3 -f /dev/mapper/loop0p1 || true
4177 mkswap /dev/mapper/loop0p2
4178
4179 kpartx -d /dev/loop0
4180 losetup -d /dev/loop0
4181 </pre>
4182
4183 <p>The script is perhaps so simple that it is not copyrightable, but
4184 if it is, it is licenced using GPL v2 or later at your discretion.</p>
4185
4186 <p>After doing this, I booted a Debian CD in rescue mode in KVM with
4187 the new disk image attached, installed grub-pc and linux-image-686 and
4188 set up grub to boot from the disk image.  After this, the KVM machines
4189 seem to work just fine.</p>
4190
4191       </div>
4192       <div class="tags">
4193
4194
4195         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
4196
4197
4198       </div>
4199     </div>
4200     <div class="padding"></div>
4201
4202     <div class="entry">
4203       <div class="title">
4204         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lenny__Squeeze_upgrades__apt_vs_aptitude_with_the_Gnome_and_KDE_desktop.html">Lenny->Squeeze upgrades, apt vs aptitude with the Gnome and KDE desktop</a>
4205       </div>
4206       <div class="date">
4207         20th November 2010
4208       </div>
4209       <div class="body">
4210         <p>I'm still running upgrade testing of the
4211 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
4212 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a>, but have not had time to spend on reporting the
4213 status.  Here is a short update based on a test I ran 20101118.</p>
4214
4215 <p>I still do not know what a correct migration should look like, so I
4216 report any differences between apt and aptitude and hope someone else
4217 can see if anything should be changed.</p>
4218
4219 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
4220
4221 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
4222
4223 <blockquote><p>
4224   apache2.2-bin aptdaemon at-spi baobab binfmt-support
4225   browser-plugin-gnash cheese-common cli-common cpp-4.3 cups-pk-helper
4226   dmz-cursor-theme empathy empathy-common finger
4227   freedesktop-sound-theme freeglut3 gconf-defaults-service gdm-themes
4228   gedit-plugins geoclue geoclue-hostip geoclue-localnet geoclue-manual
4229   geoclue-yahoo gnash gnash-common gnome gnome-backgrounds
4230   gnome-cards-data gnome-codec-install gnome-core
4231   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-disk-utility gnome-screenshot
4232   gnome-search-tool gnome-session-canberra gnome-spell
4233   gnome-system-log gnome-themes-extras gnome-themes-more
4234   gnome-user-share gs-common gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
4235   gstreamer0.10-tools gtk2-engines gtk2-engines-pixbuf
4236   gtk2-engines-smooth hal-info hamster-applet libapache2-mod-dnssd
4237   libapr1 libaprutil1 libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3 libaprutil1-ldap
4238   libart2.0-cil libatspi1.0-0 libboost-date-time1.42.0
4239   libboost-python1.42.0 libboost-thread1.42.0 libchamplain-0.4-0
4240   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0 libcheese-gtk18 libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
4241   libcryptui0 libcupsys2 libdiscid0 libeel2-data libelf1 libepc-1.0-2
4242   libepc-common libepc-ui-1.0-2 libfreerdp-plugins-standard
4243   libfreerdp0 libgail-common libgconf2.0-cil libgdata-common libgdata7
4244   libgdl-1-common libgdu-gtk0 libgee2 libgeoclue0 libgexiv2-0 libgif4
4245   libglade2.0-cil libglib2.0-cil libgmime2.4-cil libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
4246   libgnome2.24-cil libgnomepanel2.24-cil libgnomeprint2.2-data
4247   libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod-common libgpod4
4248   libgtk2.0-cil libgtkglext1 libgtksourceview-common
4249   libgtksourceview2.0-common libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
4250   libmono-addins0.2-cil libmono-cairo2.0-cil libmono-corlib2.0-cil
4251   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil libmono-posix2.0-cil
4252   libmono-security2.0-cil libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
4253   libmono-system2.0-cil libmtp8 libmusicbrainz3-6
4254   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil libndesk-dbus1.0-cil libopal3.6.8
4255   libpolkit-gtk-1-0 libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
4256   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libpt2.6.7 libpython2.6 librpm1 librpmio1
4257   libsdl1.2debian libservlet2.4-java libsrtp0 libssh-4
4258   libtelepathy-farsight0 libtelepathy-glib0 libtidy-0.99-0
4259   libxalan2-java libxerces2-java media-player-info mesa-utils
4260   mono-2.0-gac mono-gac mono-runtime nautilus-sendto
4261   nautilus-sendto-empathy openoffice.org-writer2latex
4262   openssl-blacklist p7zip p7zip-full pkg-config python-4suite-xml
4263   python-aptdaemon python-aptdaemon-gtk python-axiom
4264   python-beautifulsoup python-bugbuddy python-clientform
4265   python-coherence python-configobj python-crypto python-cupshelpers
4266   python-cupsutils python-eggtrayicon python-elementtree
4267   python-epsilon python-evolution python-feedparser python-gdata
4268   python-gdbm python-gst0.10 python-gtkglext1 python-gtkmozembed
4269   python-gtksourceview2 python-httplib2 python-louie python-mako
4270   python-markupsafe python-mechanize python-nevow python-notify
4271   python-opengl python-openssl python-pam python-pkg-resources
4272   python-pyasn1 python-pysqlite2 python-rdflib python-serial
4273   python-tagpy python-twisted-bin python-twisted-conch
4274   python-twisted-core python-twisted-web python-utidylib python-webkit
4275   python-xdg python-zope.interface remmina remmina-plugin-data
4276   remmina-plugin-rdp remmina-plugin-vnc rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
4277   rhythmbox-plugins rpm-common rpm2cpio seahorse-plugins shotwell
4278   software-center svgalibg1 system-config-printer-udev
4279   telepathy-gabble telepathy-mission-control-5 telepathy-salut tomboy
4280   totem totem-coherence totem-mozilla totem-plugins
4281   transmission-common xdg-user-dirs xdg-user-dirs-gtk xserver-xephyr
4282   zip
4283 </p></blockquote>
4284
4285 Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude
4286
4287 <blockquote><p>
4288   arj bluez-utils cheese dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop ekiga eog
4289   epiphany-extensions epiphany-gecko evolution-exchange
4290   fast-user-switch-applet file-roller gcalctool gconf-editor gdm gedit
4291   gedit-common gnome-app-install gnome-games gnome-games-data
4292   gnome-nettool gnome-system-tools gnome-themes gnome-utils
4293   gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager gnuchess gucharmap
4294   guile-1.8-libs hal libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5
4295   libavahi-ui0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7
4296   libcucul0 libcurl3 libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdmx1 libdvdread3
4297   libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1
4298   libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3 libfaad0 libgadu3
4299   libgalago3 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
4300   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
4301   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
4302   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
4303   libgtkhtml2-0 libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgtksourceview2.0-0
4304   libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
4305   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libkpathsea4 liblircclient0 libltdl3 liblwres50
4306   libmagick++10 libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmozjs1d libmpfr1ldbl libmtp7
4307   libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0
4308   libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpisock9
4309   libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8
4310   libsdl1.2debian-alsa libsensors3 libsexy2 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
4311   libspeexdsp1 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libsvga1
4312   libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0
4313   libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12
4314   libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common rhythmbox seahorse
4315   sound-juicer swfdec-gnome system-config-printer totem-common
4316   totem-gstreamer transmission-gtk vinagre vino w3c-dtd-xhtml wodim
4317 </p></blockquote>
4318
4319 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
4320
4321 <blockquote><p>
4322   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
4323 </p></blockquote>
4324
4325 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
4326
4327 <blockquote><p>
4328 [nothing]
4329 </p></blockquote>
4330
4331 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
4332
4333 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
4334
4335 <blockquote><p>
4336   autopoint bomber bovo cantor cantor-backend-kalgebra cpp-4.3 dcoprss
4337   edict espeak espeak-data eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
4338   ghostscript-x git gnome-audio gnugo granatier gs-common
4339   gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio indi kaddressbook-plugins kalgebra
4340   kalzium-data kanjidic kapman kate-plugins kblocks kbreakout kbstate
4341   kde-icons-mono kdeaccessibility kdeaddons-kfile-plugins
4342   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
4343   kdeedu kdeedu-data kdeedu-kvtml-data kdegames kdegames-card-data
4344   kdegames-mahjongg-data kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc
4345   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
4346   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdessh kdetoys kdewebdev
4347   kdiamond kdnssd kfilereplace kfourinline kgeography-data kigo
4348   killbots kiriki klettres-data kmoon kmrml knewsticker-scripts
4349   kollision kpf krosspython ksirk ksmserver ksquares kstars-data
4350   ksudoku kubrick kweather libasound2-plugins libboost-python1.42.0
4351   libcfitsio3 libconvert-binhex-perl libcrypt-ssleay-perl libdb4.6++
4352   libdjvulibre-text libdotconf1.0 liberror-perl libespeak1
4353   libfinance-quote-perl libgail-common libgsl0ldbl libhtml-parser-perl
4354   libhtml-tableextract-perl libhtml-tagset-perl libhtml-tree-perl
4355   libio-stringy-perl libkdeedu4 libkdegames5 libkiten4 libkpathsea5
4356   libkrossui4 libmailtools-perl libmime-tools-perl
4357   libnews-nntpclient-perl libopenbabel3 libportaudio2 libpulse-browse0
4358   libservlet2.4-java libspeechd2 libtiff-tools libtimedate-perl
4359   libunistring0 liburi-perl libwww-perl libxalan2-java libxerces2-java
4360   lirc luatex marble networkstatus noatun-plugins
4361   openoffice.org-writer2latex palapeli palapeli-data parley
4362   parley-data poster psutils pulseaudio pulseaudio-esound-compat
4363   pulseaudio-module-x11 pulseaudio-utils quanta-data rocs rsync
4364   speech-dispatcher step svgalibg1 texlive-binaries texlive-luatex
4365   ttf-sazanami-gothic
4366 </p></blockquote>
4367
4368 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
4369
4370 <blockquote><p>
4371   amor artsbuilder atlantik atlantikdesigner blinken bluez-utils cvs
4372   dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop imlib-base imlib11 kalzium kanagram kandy
4373   kasteroids katomic kbackgammon kbattleship kblackbox kbounce kbruch
4374   kcron kdat kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data kdeprint kdict kdvi kedit
4375   keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs kgeography kghostview
4376   kgoldrunner khangman khexedit kiconedit kig kimagemapeditor
4377   kitchensync kiten kjumpingcube klatin klettres klickety klines
4378   klinkstatus kmag kmahjongg kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmines
4379   kmousetool kmouth kmplot knetwalk kodo kolf kommander konquest kooka
4380   kpager kpat kpdf kpercentage kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler krec
4381   kregexpeditor kreversi ksame ksayit kshisen ksig ksim ksirc ksirtet
4382   ksmiletris ksnake ksokoban kspaceduel kstars ksvg ksysv kteatime
4383   ktip ktnef ktouch ktron kttsd ktuberling kturtle ktux kuickshow
4384   kverbos kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kwordquiz
4385   kworldclock kxsldbg libakode2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
4386   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
4387   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2
4388   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0
4389   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
4390   libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0 libicu38
4391   libiec61883-0 libindex0 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
4392   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1 libkdeedu3
4393   libkdegames1 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
4394   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
4395   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick10
4396   libmimelib1c2a libmodplug0c2 libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libmpfr1ldbl
4397   libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9 libpoppler-glib3
4398   libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 librss1 libsensors3
4399   libsmbios2 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90
4400   libtalloc1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 lskat
4401   mpeglib network-manager-kde noatun pmount tex-common texlive-base
4402   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended tidy
4403   ttf-dustin ttf-kochi-gothic ttf-sjfonts
4404 </p></blockquote>
4405
4406 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
4407
4408 <blockquote><p>
4409   dolphin kde-core kde-plasma-desktop kde-standard kde-window-manager
4410   kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-apps kdebase-workspace
4411   kdebase-workspace-bin kdebase-workspace-data kdeutils kscreensaver
4412   kscreensaver-xsavers libgle3 libkonq5 libkonq5-templates libnetpbm10
4413   netpbm plasma-widget-folderview plasma-widget-networkmanagement
4414   xscreensaver-data-extra xscreensaver-gl xscreensaver-gl-extra
4415   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
4416 </p></blockquote>
4417
4418 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
4419
4420 <blockquote><p>
4421   kdebase-bin konq-plugins konqueror
4422 </p></blockquote>
4423
4424       </div>
4425       <div class="tags">
4426
4427
4428         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
4429
4430
4431       </div>
4432     </div>
4433     <div class="padding"></div>
4434
4435     <div class="entry">
4436       <div class="title">
4437         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gnash_buildbot_slave_and_Debian_kfreebsd.html">Gnash buildbot slave and Debian kfreebsd</a>
4438       </div>
4439       <div class="date">
4440         20th November 2010
4441       </div>
4442       <div class="body">
4443         <p>Answering
4444 <a href="http://www.listware.net/201011/gnash-dev/67431-gnash-dev-buildbot-looking-for-slaves.html">the
4445 call from the Gnash project</a> for
4446 <a href="http://www.gnashdev.org:8010">buildbot</a> slaves to test the
4447 current source, I have set up a virtual KVM machine on the Debian
4448 Edu/Skolelinux virtualization host to test the git source on
4449 Debian/Squeeze.  I hope this can help the developers in getting new
4450 releases out more often.</p>
4451
4452 <p>As the developers want less main-stream build platforms tested to,
4453 I have considered setting up a <a
4454 href="http://www.debian.org/ports/kfreebsd-gnu/">Debian/kfreebsd</a>
4455 machine as well.  I have also considered using the kfreebsd
4456 architecture in Debian as a file server in NUUG to get access to the 5
4457 TB zfs volume we currently use to store DV video.  Because of this, I
4458 finally got around to do a test installation of Debian/Squeeze with
4459 kfreebsd.  Installation went fairly smooth, thought I noticed some
4460 visual glitches in the cdebconf dialogs (black cursor left on the
4461 screen at random locations).  Have not gotten very far with the
4462 testing.  Noticed cfdisk did not work, but fdisk did so it was not a
4463 fatal problem.  Have to spend some more time on it to see if it is
4464 useful as a file server for NUUG.  Will try to find time to set up a
4465 gnash buildbot slave on the Debian Edu/Skolelinux this weekend.</p>
4466
4467       </div>
4468       <div class="tags">
4469
4470
4471         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
4472
4473
4474       </div>
4475     </div>
4476     <div class="padding"></div>
4477
4478     <div class="entry">
4479       <div class="title">
4480         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_in_3D.html">Debian in 3D</a>
4481       </div>
4482       <div class="date">
4483          9th November 2010
4484       </div>
4485       <div class="body">
4486         <p><img src="http://thingiverse-production.s3.amazonaws.com/renders/23/e0/c4/f9/2b/debswagtdose_preview_medium.jpg"></p>
4487
4488 <p>3D printing is just great.  I just came across this Debian logo in
4489 3D linked in from
4490 <a href="http://blog.thingiverse.com/2010/11/09/participatory-branding/">the
4491 thingiverse blog</a>.</p>
4492
4493       </div>
4494       <div class="tags">
4495
4496
4497         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
4498
4499
4500       </div>
4501     </div>
4502     <div class="padding"></div>
4503
4504     <div class="entry">
4505       <div class="title">
4506         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Software_updates_2010_10_24.html">Software updates 2010-10-24</a>
4507       </div>
4508       <div class="date">
4509         24th October 2010
4510       </div>
4511       <div class="body">
4512         <p>Some updates.</p>
4513
4514 <p>My <a href="http://pledgebank.com/gnash-avm2">gnash pledge</a> to
4515 raise money for the project is going well.  The lower limit of 10
4516 signers was reached in 24 hours, and so far 13 people have signed it.
4517 More signers and more funding is most welcome, and I am really curious
4518 how far we can get before the time limit of December 24 is reached.
4519 :)</p>
4520
4521 <p>On the #gnash IRC channel on irc.freenode.net, I was just tipped
4522 about what appear to be a great code coverage tool capable of
4523 generating code coverage stats without any changes to the source code.
4524 It is called
4525 <a href="http://simonkagstrom.github.com/kcov/index.html">kcov</a>,
4526 and can be used using <tt>kcov &lt;directory&gt; &lt;binary&gt;</tt>.
4527 It is missing in Debian, but the git source built just fine in Squeeze
4528 after I installed libelf-dev, libdwarf-dev, pkg-config and
4529 libglib2.0-dev.  Failed to build in Lenny, but suspect that is
4530 solvable.  I hope kcov make it into Debian soon.</p>
4531
4532 <p>Finally found time to wrap up the release notes for <a
4533 href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2010/10/msg00002.html">a
4534 new alpha release of Debian Edu</a>, and just published the second
4535 alpha test release of the Squeeze based Debian Edu /
4536 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a>
4537 release.  Give it a try if you need a complete linux solution for your
4538 school, including central infrastructure server, workstations, thin
4539 client servers and diskless workstations.  A nice touch added
4540 yesterday is RDP support on the thin client servers, for windows
4541 clients to get a Linux desktop on request.</p>
4542
4543       </div>
4544       <div class="tags">
4545
4546
4547         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>.
4548
4549
4550       </div>
4551     </div>
4552     <div class="padding"></div>
4553
4554     <div class="entry">
4555       <div class="title">
4556         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Some_notes_on_Flash_in_Debian_and_Debian_Edu.html">Some notes on Flash in Debian and Debian Edu</a>
4557       </div>
4558       <div class="date">
4559          4th September 2010
4560       </div>
4561       <div class="body">
4562         <p>In the <a href="http://popcon.debian.org/unknown/by_vote">Debian
4563 popularity-contest numbers</a>, the adobe-flashplugin package the
4564 second most popular used package that is missing in Debian.  The sixth
4565 most popular is flashplayer-mozilla.  This is a clear indication that
4566 working flash is important for Debian users.  Around 10 percent of the
4567 users submitting data to popcon.debian.org have this package
4568 installed.</p>
4569
4570 <p>In the report written by Lars Risan in August 2008
4571 («<a href="http://wiki.skolelinux.no/Dokumentasjon/Rapporter?action=AttachFile&do=view&target=Skolelinux_i_bruk_rapport_1.0.pdf">Skolelinux
4572 i bruk – Rapport for Hurum kommune, Universitetet i Agder og
4573 stiftelsen SLX Debian Labs</a>»), one of the most important problems
4574 schools experienced with <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
4575 Edu/Skolelinux</a> was the lack of working Flash.  A lot of educational
4576 web sites require Flash to work, and lacking working Flash support in
4577 the web browser and the problems with installing it was perceived as a
4578 good reason to stay with Windows.</p>
4579
4580 <p>I once saw a funny and sad comment in a web forum, where Linux was
4581 said to be the retarded cousin that did not really understand
4582 everything you told him but could work fairly well.  This was a
4583 comment regarding the problems Linux have with proprietary formats and
4584 non-standard web pages, and is sad because it exposes a fairly common
4585 understanding of whose fault it is if web pages that only work in for
4586 example Internet Explorer 6 fail to work on Firefox, and funny because
4587 it explain very well how annoying it is for users when Linux
4588 distributions do not work with the documents they receive or the web
4589 pages they want to visit.</p>
4590
4591 <p>This is part of the reason why I believe it is important for Debian
4592 and Debian Edu to have a well working Flash implementation in the
4593 distribution, to get at least popular sites as Youtube and Google
4594 Video to working out of the box.  For Squeeze, Debian have the chance
4595 to include the latest version of Gnash that will make this happen, as
4596 the new release 0.8.8 was published a few weeks ago and is resting in
4597 unstable.  The new version work with more sites that version 0.8.7.
4598 The Gnash maintainers have asked for a freeze exception, but the
4599 release team have not had time to reply to it yet.  I hope they agree
4600 with me that Flash is important for the Debian desktop users, and thus
4601 accept the new package into Squeeze.</p>
4602
4603       </div>
4604       <div class="tags">
4605
4606
4607         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
4608
4609
4610       </div>
4611     </div>
4612     <div class="padding"></div>
4613
4614     <div class="entry">
4615       <div class="title">
4616         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Circular_package_dependencies_harms_apt_recovery.html">Circular package dependencies harms apt recovery</a>
4617       </div>
4618       <div class="date">
4619         27th July 2010
4620       </div>
4621       <div class="body">
4622         <p>I discovered this while doing
4623 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">automated
4624 testing of upgrades from Debian Lenny to Squeeze</a>.  A few packages
4625 in Debian still got circular dependencies, and it is often claimed
4626 that apt and aptitude should be able to handle this just fine, but
4627 some times these dependency loops causes apt to fail.</p>
4628
4629 <p>An example is from todays
4630 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing//test-20100727-lenny-squeeze-kde-aptitude.txt">upgrade
4631 of KDE using aptitude</a>.  In it, a bug in kdebase-workspace-data
4632 causes perl-modules to fail to upgrade.  The cause is simple.  If a
4633 package fail to unpack, then only part of packages with the circular
4634 dependency might end up being unpacked when unpacking aborts, and the
4635 ones already unpacked will fail to configure in the recovery phase
4636 because its dependencies are unavailable.</p>
4637
4638 <p>In this log, the problem manifest itself with this error:</p>
4639
4640 <blockquote><pre>
4641 dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of perl-modules:
4642  perl-modules depends on perl (>= 5.10.1-1); however:
4643   Version of perl on system is 5.10.0-19lenny2.
4644 dpkg: error processing perl-modules (--configure):
4645  dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
4646 </pre></blockquote>
4647
4648 <p>The perl/perl-modules circular dependency is already
4649 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/527917">reported as a bug</a>, and will
4650 hopefully be solved as soon as possible, but it is not the only one,
4651 and each one of these loops in the dependency tree can cause similar
4652 failures.  Of course, they only occur when there are bugs in other
4653 packages causing the unpacking to fail, but it is rather nasty when
4654 the failure of one package causes the problem to become worse because
4655 of dependency loops.</p>
4656
4657 <p>Thanks to
4658 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/06/msg00116.html">the
4659 tireless effort by Bill Allombert</a>, the number of circular
4660 dependencies
4661 <a href="http://debian.semistable.com/debgraph.out.html">left in Debian
4662 is dropping</a>, and perhaps it will reach zero one day. :)</p>
4663
4664 <p>Todays testing also exposed a bug in
4665 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590605">update-notifier</a> and
4666 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590604">different behaviour</a> between
4667 apt-get and aptitude, the latter possibly caused by some circular
4668 dependency.  Reported both to BTS to try to get someone to look at
4669 it.</p>
4670
4671       </div>
4672       <div class="tags">
4673
4674
4675         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
4676
4677
4678       </div>
4679     </div>
4680     <div class="padding"></div>
4681
4682     <div class="entry">
4683       <div class="title">
4684         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_are_they_searching_for___PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_in_LDAP.html">What are they searching for - PowerDNS and ISC DHCP in LDAP</a>
4685       </div>
4686       <div class="date">
4687         17th July 2010
4688       </div>
4689       <div class="body">
4690         <p>This is a
4691 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">followup</a>
4692 on my
4693 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Idea_for_a_change_to_LDAP_schemas_allowing_DNS_and_DHCP_info_to_be_combined_into_one_object.html">previous
4694 work</a> on
4695 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">merging
4696 all</a> the computer related LDAP objects in Debian Edu.</p>
4697
4698 <p>As a step to try to see if it possible to merge the DNS and DHCP
4699 LDAP objects, I have had a look at how the packages pdns-backend-ldap
4700 and dhcp3-server-ldap in Debian use the LDAP server.  The two
4701 implementations are quite different in how they use LDAP.</p>
4702
4703 To get this information, I started slapd with debugging enabled and
4704 dumped the debug output to a file to get the LDAP searches performed
4705 on a Debian Edu main-server.  Here is a summary.
4706
4707 <p><strong>powerdns</strong></p>
4708
4709 <a href="http://www.linuxnetworks.de/doc/index.php/PowerDNS_LDAP_Backend">Clues
4710 on how to</a> set up PowerDNS to use a LDAP backend is available on
4711 the web.
4712
4713 <p>PowerDNS have two modes of operation using LDAP as its backend.
4714 One "strict" mode where the forward and reverse DNS lookups are done
4715 using the same LDAP objects, and a "tree" mode where the forward and
4716 reverse entries are in two different subtrees in LDAP with a structure
4717 based on the DNS names, as in tjener.intern and
4718 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa.</p>
4719
4720 <p>In tree mode, the server is set up to use a LDAP subtree as its
4721 base, and uses a "base" scoped search for the DNS name by adding
4722 "dc=tjener,dc=intern," to the base with a filter for
4723 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" for the forward entry and
4724 "dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa," with a filter for
4725 "(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)" for the reverse entry.  For
4726 forward entries, it is looking for attributes named dnsttl, arecord,
4727 nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord,
4728 txtrecord, rprecord, afsdbrecord, keyrecord, aaaarecord, locrecord,
4729 srvrecord, naptrrecord, kxrecord, certrecord, dsrecord, sshfprecord,
4730 ipseckeyrecord, rrsigrecord, nsecrecord, dnskeyrecord, dhcidrecord,
4731 spfrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entries it is looking for
4732 the attributes dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord,
4733 ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord,
4734 locrecord, srvrecord, naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  The equivalent
4735 ldapsearch commands could look like this:</p>
4736
4737 <blockquote><pre>
4738 ldapsearch -h ldap \
4739   -b dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
4740   -s base -x '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
4741   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
4742   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
4743   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
4744   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
4745
4746 ldapsearch -h ldap \
4747   -b dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
4748   -s base -x '(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)'
4749   dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord soarecord ptrrecord \
4750   hinforecord mxrecord txtrecord rprecord aaaarecord locrecord \
4751   srvrecord naptrrecord modifytimestamp
4752 </pre></blockquote>
4753
4754 <p>In Debian Edu/Lenny, the PowerDNS tree mode is used with
4755 ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no as the base, and these are two
4756 example LDAP objects used there.  In addition to these objects, the
4757 parent objects all th way up to ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
4758 also exist.</p>
4759
4760 <blockquote><pre>
4761 dn: dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
4762 objectclass: top
4763 objectclass: dnsdomain
4764 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
4765 dc: tjener
4766 arecord: 10.0.2.2
4767 associateddomain: tjener.intern
4768
4769 dn: dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
4770 objectclass: top
4771 objectclass: dnsdomain2
4772 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
4773 dc: 2
4774 ptrrecord: tjener.intern
4775 associateddomain: 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa
4776 </pre></blockquote>
4777
4778 <p>In strict mode, the server behaves differently.  When looking for
4779 forward DNS entries, it is doing a "subtree" scoped search with the
4780 same base as in the tree mode for a object with filter
4781 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" and requests the attributes dnsttl,
4782 arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord,
4783 mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord, locrecord, srvrecord,
4784 naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entires it also do a
4785 subtree scoped search but this time the filter is "(arecord=10.0.2.2)"
4786 and the requested attributes are associateddomain, dnsttl and
4787 modifytimestamp.  In short, in strict mode the objects with ptrrecord
4788 go away, and the arecord attribute in the forward object is used
4789 instead.</p>
4790
4791 <p>The forward and reverse searches can be simulated using ldapsearch
4792 like this:</p>
4793
4794 <blockquote><pre>
4795 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
4796   '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
4797   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
4798   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
4799   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
4800   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
4801
4802 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
4803   '(arecord=10.0.2.2)' associateddomain dnsttl modifytimestamp
4804 </pre></blockquote>
4805
4806 <p>In addition to the forward and reverse searches , there is also a
4807 search for SOA records, which behave similar to the forward and
4808 reverse lookups.</p>
4809
4810 <p>A thing to note with the PowerDNS behaviour is that it do not
4811 specify any objectclass names, and instead look for the attributes it
4812 need to generate a DNS reply.  This make it able to work with any
4813 objectclass that provide the needed attributes.</p>
4814
4815 <p>The attributes are normally provided in the cosine (RFC 1274) and
4816 dnsdomain2 schemas.  The latter is used for reverse entries like
4817 ptrrecord and recent DNS additions like aaaarecord and srvrecord.</p>
4818
4819 <p>In Debian Edu, we have created DNS objects using the object classes
4820 dcobject (for dc), dnsdomain or dnsdomain2 (structural, for the DNS
4821 attributes) and domainrelatedobject (for associatedDomain).  The use
4822 of structural object classes make it impossible to combine these
4823 classes with the object classes used by DHCP.</p>
4824
4825 <p>There are other schemas that could be used too, for example the
4826 dnszone structural object class used by Gosa and bind-sdb for the DNS
4827 attributes combined with the domainrelatedobject object class, but in
4828 this case some unused attributes would have to be included as well
4829 (zonename and relativedomainname).</p>
4830
4831 <p>My proposal for Debian Edu would be to switch PowerDNS to strict
4832 mode and not use any of the existing objectclasses (dnsdomain,
4833 dnsdomain2 and dnszone) when one want to combine the DNS information
4834 with DHCP information, and instead create a auxiliary object class
4835 defined something like this (using the attributes defined for
4836 dnsdomain and dnsdomain2 or dnszone):</p>
4837
4838 <blockquote><pre>
4839 objectclass ( some-oid NAME 'dnsDomainAux'
4840     SUP top
4841     AUXILIARY
4842     MAY ( ARecord $ MDRecord $ MXRecord $ NSRecord $ SOARecord $ CNAMERecord $
4843           DNSTTL $ DNSClass $ PTRRecord $ HINFORecord $ MINFORecord $
4844           TXTRecord $ SIGRecord $ KEYRecord $ AAAARecord $ LOCRecord $
4845           NXTRecord $ SRVRecord $ NAPTRRecord $ KXRecord $ CERTRecord $
4846           A6Record $ DNAMERecord
4847     ))
4848 </pre></blockquote>
4849
4850 <p>This will allow any object to become a DNS entry when combined with
4851 the domainrelatedobject object class, and allow any entity to include
4852 all the attributes PowerDNS wants.  I've sent an email to the PowerDNS
4853 developers asking for their view on this schema and if they are
4854 interested in providing such schema with PowerDNS, and I hope my
4855 message will be accepted into their mailing list soon.</p>
4856
4857 <p><strong>ISC dhcp</strong></p>
4858
4859 <p>The DHCP server searches for specific objectclass and requests all
4860 the object attributes, and then uses the attributes it want.  This
4861 make it harder to figure out exactly what attributes are used, but
4862 thanks to the working example in Debian Edu I can at least get an idea
4863 what is needed without having to read the source code.</p>
4864
4865 <p>In the DHCP server configuration, the LDAP base to use and the
4866 search filter to use to locate the correct dhcpServer entity is
4867 stored.  These are the relevant entries from
4868 /etc/dhcp3/dhcpd.conf:</p>
4869
4870 <blockquote><pre>
4871 ldap-base-dn "dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no";
4872 ldap-dhcp-server-cn "dhcp";
4873 </pre></blockquote>
4874
4875 <p>The DHCP server uses this information to nest all the DHCP
4876 configuration it need.  The cn "dhcp" is located using the given LDAP
4877 base and the filter "(&(objectClass=dhcpServer)(cn=dhcp))".  The
4878 search result is this entry:</p>
4879
4880 <blockquote><pre>
4881 dn: cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
4882 cn: dhcp
4883 objectClass: top
4884 objectClass: dhcpServer
4885 dhcpServiceDN: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
4886 </pre></blockquote>
4887
4888 <p>The content of the dhcpServiceDN attribute is next used to locate the
4889 subtree with DHCP configuration.  The DHCP configuration subtree base
4890 is located using a base scope search with base "cn=DHCP
4891 Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" and filter
4892 "(&(objectClass=dhcpService)(|(dhcpPrimaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)(dhcpSecondaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)))".
4893 The search result is this entry:</p>
4894
4895 <blockquote><pre>
4896 dn: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
4897 cn: DHCP Config
4898 objectClass: top
4899 objectClass: dhcpService
4900 objectClass: dhcpOptions
4901 dhcpPrimaryDN: cn=dhcp, dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
4902 dhcpStatements: ddns-update-style none
4903 dhcpStatements: authoritative
4904 dhcpOption: smtp-server code 69 = array of ip-address
4905 dhcpOption: www-server code 72 = array of ip-address
4906 dhcpOption: wpad-url code 252 = text
4907 </pre></blockquote>
4908
4909 <p>Next, the entire subtree is processed, one level at the time.  When
4910 all the DHCP configuration is loaded, it is ready to receive requests.
4911 The subtree in Debian Edu contain objects with object classes
4912 top/dhcpService/dhcpOptions, top/dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions,
4913 top/dhcpSubnet, top/dhcpGroup and top/dhcpHost.  These provide options
4914 and information about netmasks, dynamic range etc.  Leaving out the
4915 details here because it is not relevant for the focus of my
4916 investigation, which is to see if it is possible to merge dns and dhcp
4917 related computer objects.</p>
4918
4919 <p>When a DHCP request come in, LDAP is searched for the MAC address
4920 of the client (00:00:00:00:00:00 in this example), using a subtree
4921 scoped search with "cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" as
4922 the base and "(&(objectClass=dhcpHost)(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet
4923 00:00:00:00:00:00))" as the filter.  This is what a host object look
4924 like:</p>
4925
4926 <blockquote><pre>
4927 dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
4928 cn: hostname
4929 objectClass: top
4930 objectClass: dhcpHost
4931 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
4932 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname
4933 </pre></blockquote>
4934
4935 <p>There is less flexiblity in the way LDAP searches are done here.
4936 The object classes need to have fixed names, and the configuration
4937 need to be stored in a fairly specific LDAP structure.  On the
4938 positive side, the invidiual dhcpHost entires can be anywhere without
4939 the DN pointed to by the dhcpServer entries.  The latter should make
4940 it possible to group all host entries in a subtree next to the
4941 configuration entries, and this subtree can also be shared with the
4942 DNS server if the schema proposed above is combined with the dhcpHost
4943 structural object class.
4944
4945 <p><strong>Conclusion</strong></p>
4946
4947 <p>The PowerDNS implementation seem to be very flexible when it come
4948 to which LDAP schemas to use.  While its "tree" mode is rigid when it
4949 come to the the LDAP structure, the "strict" mode is very flexible,
4950 allowing DNS objects to be stored anywhere under the base cn specified
4951 in the configuration.</p>
4952
4953 <p>The DHCP implementation on the other hand is very inflexible, both
4954 regarding which LDAP schemas to use and which LDAP structure to use.
4955 I guess one could implement ones own schema, as long as the
4956 objectclasses and attributes have the names used, but this do not
4957 really help when the DHCP subtree need to have a fairly fixed
4958 structure.</p>
4959
4960 <p>Based on the observed behaviour, I suspect a LDAP structure like
4961 this might work for Debian Edu:</p>
4962
4963 <blockquote><pre>
4964 ou=services
4965   cn=machine-info (dhcpService) - dhcpServiceDN points here
4966     cn=dhcp (dhcpServer)
4967     cn=dhcp-internal (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
4968       cn=10.0.2.0 (dhcpSubnet)
4969         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
4970     cn=dhcp-thinclients (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
4971       cn=192.168.0.0 (dhcpSubnet)
4972         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
4973     ou=machines - PowerDNS base points here
4974       cn=hostname (dhcpHost/domainrelatedobject/dnsDomainAux)
4975 </pre></blockquote>
4976
4977 <P>This is not tested yet.  If the DHCP server require the dhcpHost
4978 entries to be in the dhcpGroup subtrees, the entries can be stored
4979 there instead of a common machines subtree, and the PowerDNS base
4980 would have to be moved one level up to the machine-info subtree.</p>
4981
4982 <p>The combined object under the machines subtree would look something
4983 like this:</p>
4984
4985 <blockquote><pre>
4986 dn: dc=hostname,ou=machines,cn=machine-info,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
4987 dc: hostname
4988 objectClass: top
4989 objectClass: dhcpHost
4990 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
4991 objectclass: dnsDomainAux
4992 associateddomain: hostname.intern
4993 arecord: 10.11.12.13
4994 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
4995 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname.intern
4996 </pre></blockquote>
4997
4998 </p>One could even add the LTSP configuration associated with a given
4999 machine, as long as the required attributes are available in a
5000 auxiliary object class.</p>
5001
5002       </div>
5003       <div class="tags">
5004
5005
5006         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
5007
5008
5009       </div>
5010     </div>
5011     <div class="padding"></div>
5012
5013     <div class="entry">
5014       <div class="title">
5015         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">Combining PowerDNS and ISC DHCP LDAP objects</a>
5016       </div>
5017       <div class="date">
5018         14th July 2010
5019       </div>
5020       <div class="body">
5021         <p>For a while now, I have wanted to find a way to change the DNS and
5022 DHCP services in Debian Edu to use the same LDAP objects for a given
5023 computer, to avoid the possibility of having a inconsistent state for
5024 a computer in LDAP (as in DHCP but no DNS entry or the other way
5025 around) and make it easier to add computers to LDAP.</p>
5026
5027 <p>I've looked at how powerdns and dhcpd is using LDAP, and using this
5028 information finally found a solution that seem to work.</p>
5029
5030 <p>The old setup required three LDAP objects for a given computer.
5031 One forward DNS entry, one reverse DNS entry and one DHCP entry.  If
5032 we switch powerdns to use its strict LDAP method (ldap-method=strict
5033 in pdns-debian-edu.conf), the forward and reverse DNS entries are
5034 merged into one while making it impossible to transfer the reverse map
5035 to a slave DNS server.</p>
5036
5037 <p>If we also replace the object class used to get the DNS related
5038 attributes to one allowing these attributes to be combined with the
5039 dhcphost object class, we can merge the DNS and DHCP entries into one.
5040 I've written such object class in the dnsdomainaux.schema file (need
5041 proper OIDs, but that is a minor issue), and tested the setup.  It
5042 seem to work.</p>
5043
5044 <p>With this test setup in place, we can get away with one LDAP object
5045 for both DNS and DHCP, and even the LTSP configuration I suggested in
5046 an earlier email.  The combined LDAP object will look something like
5047 this:</p>
5048
5049 <blockquote><pre>
5050   dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
5051   cn: hostname
5052   objectClass: dhcphost
5053   objectclass: domainrelatedobject
5054   objectclass: dnsdomainaux
5055   associateddomain: hostname.intern
5056   arecord: 10.11.12.13
5057   dhcphwaddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
5058   dhcpstatements: fixed-address hostname
5059   ldapconfigsound: Y
5060 </pre></blockquote>
5061
5062 <p>The DNS server uses the associateddomain and arecord entries, while
5063 the DHCP server uses the dhcphwaddress and dhcpstatements entries
5064 before asking DNS to resolve the fixed-adddress.  LTSP will use
5065 dhcphwaddress or associateddomain and the ldapconfig* attributes.</p>
5066
5067 <p>I am not yet sure if I can get the DHCP server to look for its
5068 dhcphost in a different location, to allow us to put the objects
5069 outside the "DHCP Config" subtree, but hope to figure out a way to do
5070 that.  If I can't figure out a way to do that, we can still get rid of
5071 the hosts subtree and move all its content into the DHCP Config tree
5072 (which probably should be renamed to be more related to the new
5073 content.  I suspect cn=dnsdhcp,ou=services or something like that
5074 might be a good place to put it.</p>
5075
5076 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
5077 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
5078
5079       </div>
5080       <div class="tags">
5081
5082
5083         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
5084
5085
5086       </div>
5087     </div>
5088     <div class="padding"></div>
5089
5090     <div class="entry">
5091       <div class="title">
5092         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Idea_for_storing_LTSP_configuration_in_LDAP.html">Idea for storing LTSP configuration in LDAP</a>
5093       </div>
5094       <div class="date">
5095         11th July 2010
5096       </div>
5097       <div class="body">
5098         <p>Vagrant mentioned on IRC today that ltsp_config now support
5099 sourcing files from /usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ on the thin
5100 clients, and that this can be used to fetch configuration from LDAP if
5101 Debian Edu choose to store configuration there.</p>
5102
5103 <p>Armed with this information, I got inspired and wrote a test module
5104 to get configuration from LDAP.  The idea is to look up the MAC
5105 address of the client in LDAP, and look for attributes on the form
5106 ltspconfigsetting=value, and use this to export SETTING=value to the
5107 LTSP clients.</p>
5108
5109 <p>The goal is to be able to store the LTSP configuration attributes
5110 in a "computer" LDAP object used by both DNS and DHCP, and thus
5111 allowing us to store all information about a computer in one place.</p>
5112
5113 <p>This is a untested draft implementation, and I welcome feedback on
5114 this approach.  A real LDAP schema for the ltspClientAux objectclass
5115 need to be written.  Comments, suggestions, etc?</p>
5116
5117 <blockquote><pre>
5118 # Store in /opt/ltsp/$arch/usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ldap-config
5119 #
5120 # Fetch LTSP client settings from LDAP based on MAC address
5121 #
5122 # Uses ethernet address as stored in the dhcpHost objectclass using
5123 # the dhcpHWAddress attribute or ethernet address stored in the
5124 # ieee802Device objectclass with the macAddress attribute.
5125 #
5126 # This module is written to be schema agnostic, and only depend on the
5127 # existence of attribute names.
5128 #
5129 # The LTSP configuration variables are saved directly using a
5130 # ltspConfig prefix and uppercasing the rest of the attribute name.
5131 # To set the SERVER variable, set the ltspConfigServer attribute.
5132 #
5133 # Some LDAP schema should be created with all the relevant
5134 # configuration settings.  Something like this should work:
5135 #
5136 # objectclass ( 1.1.2.2 NAME 'ltspClientAux'
5137 #     SUP top
5138 #     AUXILIARY
5139 #     MAY ( ltspConfigServer $ ltsConfigSound $ ... )
5140
5141 LDAPSERVER=$(debian-edu-ldapserver)
5142 if [ "$LDAPSERVER" ] ; then
5143     LDAPBASE=$(debian-edu-ldapserver -b)
5144     for MAC in $(LANG=C ifconfig |grep -i hwaddr| awk '{print $5}'|sort -u) ; do
5145         filter="(|(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet $MAC)(macAddress=$MAC))"
5146         ldapsearch -h "$LDAPSERVER" -b "$LDAPBASE" -v -x "$filter" | \
5147             grep '^ltspConfig' | while read attr value ; do
5148             # Remove prefix and convert to upper case
5149             attr=$(echo $attr | sed 's/^ltspConfig//i' | tr a-z A-Z)
5150             # bass value on to clients
5151             eval "$attr=$value; export $attr"
5152         done
5153     done
5154 fi
5155 </pre></blockquote>
5156
5157 <p>I'm not sure this shell construction will work, because I suspect
5158 the while block might end up in a subshell causing the variables set
5159 there to not show up in ltsp-config, but if that is the case I am sure
5160 the code can be restructured to make sure the variables are passed on.
5161 I expect that can be solved with some testing. :)</p>
5162
5163 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
5164 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
5165
5166 <p>Update 2010-07-17: I am aware of another effort to store LTSP
5167 configuration in LDAP that was created around year 2000 by
5168 <a href="http://www.pcxperience.com/thinclient/documentation/ldap.html">PC
5169 Xperience, Inc., 2000</a>.  I found its
5170 <a href="http://people.redhat.com/alikins/ltsp/ldap/">files</a> on a
5171 personal home page over at redhat.com.</p>
5172
5173       </div>
5174       <div class="tags">
5175
5176
5177         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
5178
5179
5180       </div>
5181     </div>
5182     <div class="padding"></div>
5183
5184     <div class="entry">
5185       <div class="title">
5186         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/jXplorer__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">jXplorer, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
5187       </div>
5188       <div class="date">
5189          9th July 2010
5190       </div>
5191       <div class="body">
5192         <p>Since
5193 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">my
5194 last post</a> about available LDAP tools in Debian, I was told about a
5195 LDAP GUI that is even better than luma.  The java application
5196 <a href="http://jxplorer.org/">jXplorer</a> is claimed to be capable of
5197 moving LDAP objects and subtrees using drag-and-drop, and can
5198 authenticate using Kerberos.  I have only tested the Kerberos
5199 authentication, but do not have a LDAP setup allowing me to rewrite
5200 LDAP with my test user yet.  It is
5201 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/j/jxplorer.html">available in
5202 Debian</a> testing and unstable at the moment.  The only problem I
5203 have with it is how it handle errors.  If something go wrong, its
5204 non-intuitive behaviour require me to go through some query work list
5205 and remove the failing query.  Nothing big, but very annoying.</p>
5206
5207       </div>
5208       <div class="tags">
5209
5210
5211         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
5212
5213
5214       </div>
5215     </div>
5216     <div class="padding"></div>
5217
5218     <div class="entry">
5219       <div class="title">
5220         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lenny__Squeeze_upgrades__apt_vs_aptitude_with_the_Gnome_desktop.html">Lenny->Squeeze upgrades, apt vs aptitude with the Gnome desktop</a>
5221       </div>
5222       <div class="date">
5223          3rd July 2010
5224       </div>
5225       <div class="body">
5226         <p>Here is a short update on my <a
5227 href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">my
5228 Debian Lenny->Squeeze upgrade testing</a>.  Here is a summary of the
5229 difference for Gnome when it is upgraded by apt-get and aptitude.  I'm
5230 not reporting the status for KDE, because the upgrade crashes when
5231 aptitude try because of missing conflicts
5232 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> and
5233 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585716">#585716</a>).</p>
5234
5235 <p>At the end of the upgrade test script, dpkg -l is executed to get a
5236 complete list of the installed packages.  Based on this I see these
5237 differences when I did a test run today.  As usual, I do not really
5238 know what the correct set of packages would be, but thought it best to
5239 publish the difference.</p>
5240
5241 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
5242
5243 <blockquote><p>
5244   at-spi cpp-4.3 finger gnome-spell gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
5245   libatspi1.0-0 libcupsys2 libeel2-data libgail-common libgdl-1-common
5246   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin
5247   libgtksourceview-common libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
5248   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libservlet2.4-java libxalan2-java
5249   libxerces2-java openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
5250   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gtkhtml2
5251   python-gtkmozembed svgalibg1 xserver-xephyr zip
5252 </p></blockquote>
5253
5254 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
5255
5256 <blockquote><p>
5257   bluez-utils dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop epiphany-gecko
5258   gnome-app-install gnome-mount gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager
5259   libao2 libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libbind9-50
5260   libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcurl3
5261   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9
5262   libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3
5263   libfaad0 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
5264   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
5265   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
5266   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
5267   libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50
5268   libisccfg50 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick++10
5269   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4
5270   libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5
5271   libparted1.8-10 libpisock9 libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3
5272   libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8 libsensors3 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
5273   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1
5274   libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0 libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj
5275   libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3
5276   mysql-common swfdec-gnome totem-gstreamer wodim
5277 </p></blockquote>
5278
5279 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
5280
5281 <blockquote><p>
5282   gnome gnome-desktop-environment hamster-applet python-gnomeapplet
5283   python-gnomekeyring python-wnck rhythmbox-plugins xorg
5284   xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
5285   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
5286   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-video-all
5287   xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark xserver-xorg-video-ati
5288   xserver-xorg-video-chips xserver-xorg-video-cirrus
5289   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
5290   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
5291   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-mach64
5292   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
5293   xserver-xorg-video-nouveau xserver-xorg-video-nv
5294   xserver-xorg-video-r128 xserver-xorg-video-radeon
5295   xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd xserver-xorg-video-rendition
5296   xserver-xorg-video-s3 xserver-xorg-video-s3virge
5297   xserver-xorg-video-savage xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion
5298   xserver-xorg-video-sis xserver-xorg-video-sisusb
5299   xserver-xorg-video-tdfx xserver-xorg-video-tga
5300   xserver-xorg-video-trident xserver-xorg-video-tseng
5301   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vmware
5302   xserver-xorg-video-voodoo
5303 </p></blockquote>
5304
5305 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
5306
5307 <blockquote><p>
5308   deskbar-applet xserver-xorg xserver-xorg-core
5309   xserver-xorg-input-wacom xserver-xorg-video-intel
5310   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome
5311 </p></blockquote>
5312
5313 <p>I was told on IRC that the xorg-xserver package was
5314 <a href="http://git.debian.org/?p=pkg-xorg/xserver/xorg-server.git;a=commit;h=9c8080d06c457932d3bfec021c69ac000aa60120">changed
5315 in git</a> today to try to get apt-get to not remove xorg completely.
5316 No idea when it hits Squeeze, but when it does I hope it will reduce
5317 the difference somewhat.
5318
5319       </div>
5320       <div class="tags">
5321
5322
5323         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5324
5325
5326       </div>
5327     </div>
5328     <div class="padding"></div>
5329
5330     <div class="entry">
5331       <div class="title">
5332         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">LUMA, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
5333       </div>
5334       <div class="date">
5335         28th June 2010
5336       </div>
5337       <div class="body">
5338         <p>The last few days I have been looking into the status of the LDAP
5339 directory in Debian Edu, and in the process I started to miss a GUI
5340 tool to browse the LDAP tree.  The only one I was able to find in
5341 Debian/Squeeze and Lenny is
5342 <a href="http://luma.sourceforge.net/">LUMA</a>, which has proved to
5343 be a great tool to get a overview of the current LDAP directory
5344 populated by default in Skolelinux.  Thanks to it, I have been able to
5345 find empty and obsolete subtrees, misplaced objects and duplicate
5346 objects.  It will be installed by default in Debian/Squeeze.  If you
5347 are working with LDAP, give it a go. :)</p>
5348
5349 <p>I did notice one problem with it I have not had time to report to
5350 the BTS yet.  There is no .desktop file in the package, so the tool do
5351 not show up in the Gnome and KDE menus, but only deep down in in the
5352 Debian submenu in KDE.  I hope that can be fixed before Squeeze is
5353 released.</p>
5354
5355 <p>I have not yet been able to get it to modify the tree yet.  I would
5356 like to move objects and remove subtrees directly in the GUI, but have
5357 not found a way to do that with LUMA yet.  So in the mean time, I use
5358 <a href="http://www.lichteblau.com/ldapvi/">ldapvi</a> for that.</p>
5359
5360 <p>If you have tips on other GUI tools for LDAP that might be useful
5361 in Debian Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
5362
5363 <p>Update 2010-06-29: Ross Reedstrom tipped us about the
5364 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/g/gq.html">gq</a> package as a
5365 useful GUI alternative.  It seem like a good tool, but is unmaintained
5366 in Debian and got a RC bug keeping it out of Squeeze.  Unless that
5367 changes, it will not be an option for Debian Edu based on Squeeze.</p>
5368
5369       </div>
5370       <div class="tags">
5371
5372
5373         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
5374
5375
5376       </div>
5377     </div>
5378     <div class="padding"></div>
5379
5380     <div class="entry">
5381       <div class="title">
5382         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Idea_for_a_change_to_LDAP_schemas_allowing_DNS_and_DHCP_info_to_be_combined_into_one_object.html">Idea for a change to LDAP schemas allowing DNS and DHCP info to be combined into one object</a>
5383       </div>
5384       <div class="date">
5385         24th June 2010
5386       </div>
5387       <div class="body">
5388         <p>A while back, I
5389 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">complained
5390 about the fact</a> that it is not possible with the provided schemas
5391 for storing DNS and DHCP information in LDAP to combine the two sets
5392 of information into one LDAP object representing a computer.</p>
5393
5394 <p>In the mean time, I discovered that a simple fix would be to make
5395 the dhcpHost object class auxiliary, to allow it to be combined with
5396 the dNSDomain object class, and thus forming one object for one
5397 computer when storing both DHCP and DNS information in LDAP.</p>
5398
5399 <p>If I understand this correctly, it is not safe to do this change
5400 without also changing the assigned number for the object class, and I
5401 do not know enough about LDAP schema design to do that properly for
5402 Debian Edu.</p>
5403
5404 <p>Anyway, for future reference, this is how I believe we could change
5405 the
5406 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-dhc-ldap-schema-00">DHCP
5407 schema</a> to solve at least part of the problem with the LDAP schemas
5408 available today from IETF.</p>
5409
5410 <pre>
5411 --- dhcp.schema    (revision 65192)
5412 +++ dhcp.schema    (working copy)
5413 @@ -376,7 +376,7 @@
5414  objectclass ( 2.16.840.1.113719.1.203.6.6
5415         NAME 'dhcpHost'
5416         DESC 'This represents information about a particular client'
5417 -       SUP top
5418 +       SUP top AUXILIARY
5419         MUST cn
5420         MAY  (dhcpLeaseDN $ dhcpHWAddress $ dhcpOptionsDN $ dhcpStatements $ dhcpComments $ dhcpOption)
5421         X-NDS_CONTAINMENT ('dhcpService' 'dhcpSubnet' 'dhcpGroup') )
5422 </pre>
5423
5424 <p>I very much welcome clues on how to do this properly for Debian
5425 Edu/Squeeze.  We provide the DHCP schema in our debian-edu-config
5426 package, and should thus be free to rewrite it as we see fit.</p>
5427
5428 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
5429 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
5430
5431       </div>
5432       <div class="tags">
5433
5434
5435         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
5436
5437
5438       </div>
5439     </div>
5440     <div class="padding"></div>
5441
5442     <div class="entry">
5443       <div class="title">
5444         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Calling_tasksel_like_the_installer__while_still_getting_useful_output.html">Calling tasksel like the installer, while still getting useful output</a>
5445       </div>
5446       <div class="date">
5447         16th June 2010
5448       </div>
5449       <div class="body">
5450         <p>A few times I have had the need to simulate the way tasksel
5451 installs packages during the normal debian-installer run.  Until now,
5452 I have ended up letting tasksel do the work, with the annoying problem
5453 of not getting any feedback at all when something fails (like a
5454 conffile question from dpkg or a download that fails), using code like
5455 this:
5456
5457 <blockquote><pre>
5458 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
5459 tasksel --new-install
5460 </pre></blockquote>
5461
5462 This would invoke tasksel, let its automatic task selection pick the
5463 tasks to install, and continue to install the requested tasks without
5464 any output what so ever.
5465
5466 Recently I revisited this problem while working on the automatic
5467 package upgrade testing, because tasksel would some times hang without
5468 any useful feedback, and I want to see what is going on when it
5469 happen.  Then it occured to me, I can parse the output from tasksel
5470 when asked to run in test mode, and use that aptitude command line
5471 printed by tasksel then to simulate the tasksel run.  I ended up using
5472 code like this:
5473
5474 <blockquote><pre>
5475 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
5476 cmd="$(in_target tasksel -t --new-install | sed 's/debconf-apt-progress -- //')"
5477 $cmd
5478 </pre></blockquote>
5479
5480 <p>The content of $cmd is typically something like "<tt>aptitude -q
5481 --without-recommends -o APT::Install-Recommends=no -y install
5482 ~t^desktop$ ~t^gnome-desktop$ ~t^laptop$ ~pstandard ~prequired
5483 ~pimportant</tt>", which will install the gnome desktop task, the
5484 laptop task and all packages with priority standard , required and
5485 important, just like tasksel would have done it during
5486 installation.</p>
5487
5488 <p>A better approach is probably to extend tasksel to be able to
5489 install packages without using debconf-apt-progress, for use cases
5490 like this.</p>
5491
5492       </div>
5493       <div class="tags">
5494
5495
5496         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
5497
5498
5499       </div>
5500     </div>
5501     <div class="padding"></div>
5502
5503     <div class="entry">
5504       <div class="title">
5505         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lenny__Squeeze_upgrades__removals_by_apt_and_aptitude.html">Lenny->Squeeze upgrades, removals by apt and aptitude</a>
5506       </div>
5507       <div class="date">
5508         13th June 2010
5509       </div>
5510       <div class="body">
5511         <p>My
5512 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">testing
5513 of Debian upgrades</a> from Lenny to Squeeze continues, and I've
5514 finally made the upgrade logs available from
5515 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/</a>.
5516 I am now testing dist-upgrade of Gnome and KDE in a chroot using both
5517 apt and aptitude, and found their differences interesting.  This time
5518 I will only focus on their removal plans.</p>
5519
5520 <p>After installing a Gnome desktop and the laptop task, apt-get wants
5521 to remove 72 packages when dist-upgrading from Lenny to Squeeze.  The
5522 surprising part is that it want to remove xorg and all
5523 xserver-xorg-video* drivers.  Clearly not a good choice, but I am not
5524 sure why.  When asking aptitude to do the same, it want to remove 129
5525 packages, but most of them are library packages I suspect are no
5526 longer needed.  Both of them want to remove bluetooth packages, which
5527 I do not know.  Perhaps these bluetooth packages are obsolete?</p>
5528
5529 <p>For KDE, apt-get want to remove 82 packages, among them kdebase
5530 which seem like a bad idea and xorg the same way as with Gnome. Asking
5531 aptitude for the same, it wants to remove 192 packages, none which are
5532 too surprising.</p>
5533
5534 <p>I guess the removal of xorg during upgrades should be investigated
5535 and avoided, and perhaps others as well.  Here are the complete list
5536 of planned removals.  The complete logs is available from the URL
5537 above.  Note if you want to repeat these tests, that the upgrade test
5538 for kde+apt-get hung in the tasksel setup because of dpkg asking
5539 conffile questions.  No idea why.  I worked around it by using
5540 '<tt>echo >> /proc/<em>pidofdpkg</em>/fd/0</tt>' to tell dpkg to
5541 continue.</p>
5542
5543 <p><b>apt-get gnome 72</b>
5544 <br>bluez-gnome cupsddk-drivers deskbar-applet gnome
5545   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-network-admin gtkhtml3.14
5546   iceweasel-gnome-support libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libgdl-1-0
5547   libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libmetacity0 libslab0 libxcb-xlib0
5548   nautilus-cd-burner python-gnome2-desktop python-gnome2-extras
5549   serpentine swfdec-mozilla update-manager xorg xserver-xorg
5550   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
5551   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
5552   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
5553   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
5554   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
5555   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
5556   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
5557   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
5558   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
5559   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
5560   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
5561   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
5562   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
5563   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
5564   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
5565   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
5566   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
5567   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
5568   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
5569   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
5570   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
5571   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9
5572   xulrunner-1.9-gnome-support</p>
5573
5574 <p><b>aptitude gnome 129</b>
5575
5576 <br>bluez-gnome bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers dhcdbd
5577   djvulibre-desktop finger gnome-app-install gnome-mount
5578   gnome-network-admin gnome-spell gnome-vfs-obexftp
5579   gnome-volume-manager gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs gtkhtml3.14 libao2
5580   libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
5581   libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcupsys2 libcurl3 libdatrie0
5582   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20
5583   libeel2-data libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libfaad0 libgail-common
5584   libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libgdl-1-0 libgdl-1-common
5585   libggz2 libggzcore9 libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0
5586   libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libgnomeprint2.2-0
5587   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgnomeprintui2.2-common
5588   libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
5589   libgtksourceview-common libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6
5590   libhesiod0 libicu38 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 libmagick++10
5591   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmetacity0 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off
5592   libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2
5593   libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10
5594   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libraw1394-8
5595   libsensors3 libslab0 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8 libssh2-1
5596   libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10
5597   libtrackerclient0 libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0
5598   libxerces2-java libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6
5599   libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common nautilus-cd-burner
5600   openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
5601   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gnome2-desktop
5602   python-gnome2-extras python-gtkhtml2 python-gtkmozembed
5603   python-numeric python-sexy serpentine svgalibg1 swfdec-gnome
5604   swfdec-mozilla totem-gstreamer update-manager wodim
5605   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
5606   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
5607   zip</p>
5608
5609 <p><b>apt-get kde 82</b>
5610
5611 <br>cupsddk-drivers karm kaudiocreator kcoloredit kcontrol kde kde-core
5612   kdeaddons kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-bin kdebase-bin-kde3
5613   kdebase-kio-plugins kdesktop kdeutils khelpcenter kicker
5614   kicker-applets knewsticker kolourpaint konq-plugins konqueror korn
5615   kpersonalizer kscreensaver ksplash libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libkiten1
5616   libxcb-xlib0 quanta superkaramba texlive-base-bin xorg xserver-xorg
5617   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
5618   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
5619   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
5620   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
5621   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
5622   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
5623   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
5624   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
5625   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
5626   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
5627   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
5628   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
5629   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
5630   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
5631   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
5632   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
5633   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
5634   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
5635   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
5636   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
5637   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
5638   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9</p>
5639
5640 <p><b>aptitude kde 192</b>
5641 <br>bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers cvs dcoprss dhcdbd
5642   djvulibre-desktop dosfstools eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
5643   ghostscript-x imlib-base imlib11 indi kandy karm kasteroids
5644   kaudiocreator kbackgammon kbstate kcoloredit kcontrol kcron kdat
5645   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
5646   kdebase-bin-kde3 kdebase-kio-plugins kdeedu-data
5647   kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data
5648   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
5649   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdeprint kdesktop kdessh
5650   kdict kdnssd kdvi kedit keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs
5651   kghostview khelpcenter khexedit kiconedit kitchensync klatin
5652   klickety kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmoon kmrml kodo kolourpaint
5653   kooka korn kpager kpdf kpercentage kpf kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler
5654   krec kregexpeditor ksayit ksim ksirc ksirtet ksmiletris ksmserver
5655   ksnake ksokoban ksplash ksvg ksysv ktip ktnef kuickshow kverbos
5656   kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kworldclock
5657   kxsldbg libakode2 libao2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
5658   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
5659   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
5660   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0 libdatrie0
5661   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
5662   libgail-common libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0
5663   libicu38 libiec61883-0 libindex0 libiw29 libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1
5664   libkdeedu3 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkiten1 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
5665   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
5666   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 libmagick10 libmimelib1c2a
5667   libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9
5668   libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 libsmbios2
5669   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libtalloc1 libtiff-tools
5670   libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0 libxerces2-java
5671   libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 mpeglib networkstatus
5672   openoffice.org-writer2latex pmount poster psutils quanta quanta-data
5673   superkaramba svgalibg1 tex-common texlive-base texlive-base-bin
5674   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended
5675   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
5676   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
5677   xulrunner-1.9</p>
5678
5679
5680       </div>
5681       <div class="tags">
5682
5683
5684         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5685
5686
5687       </div>
5688     </div>
5689     <div class="padding"></div>
5690
5691     <div class="entry">
5692       <div class="title">
5693         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">Automatic upgrade testing from Lenny to Squeeze</a>
5694       </div>
5695       <div class="date">
5696         11th June 2010
5697       </div>
5698       <div class="body">
5699         <p>The last few days I have done some upgrade testing in Debian, to
5700 see if the upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze will go smoothly.  A few bugs
5701 have been discovered and reported in the process
5702 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585410">#585410</a> in nagios3-cgi,
5703 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584879">#584879</a> already fixed in
5704 enscript and <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> in
5705 kdebase-workspace-data), and to get a more regular testing going on, I
5706 am working on a script to automate the test.</p>
5707
5708 <p>The idea is to create a Lenny chroot and use tasksel to install a
5709 Gnome or KDE desktop installation inside the chroot before upgrading
5710 it.  To ensure no services are started in the chroot, a policy-rc.d
5711 script is inserted.  To make sure tasksel believe it is to install a
5712 desktop on a laptop, the tasksel tests are replaced in the chroot
5713 (only acceptable because this is a throw-away chroot).</p>
5714
5715 <p>A naive upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze using aptitude dist-upgrade
5716 currently always fail because udev refuses to upgrade with the kernel
5717 in Lenny, so to avoid that problem the file /etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
5718 is created.  The bug report
5719 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/566000">#566000</a> make me suspect
5720 this problem do not trigger in a chroot, but I touch the file anyway
5721 to make sure the upgrade go well.  Testing on virtual and real
5722 hardware have failed me because of udev so far, and creating this file
5723 do the trick in such settings anyway.  This is a
5724 <a href="http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/debian-26/failed-dist-upgrade-due-to-udev-config_sysfs_deprecated-nonsense-804130/">known
5725 issue</a> and the current udev behaviour is intended by the udev
5726 maintainer because he lack the resources to rewrite udev to keep
5727 working with old kernels or something like that.  I really wish the
5728 udev upstream would keep udev backwards compatible, to avoid such
5729 upgrade problem, but given that they fail to do so, I guess
5730 documenting the way out of this mess is the best option we got for
5731 Debian Squeeze.</p>
5732
5733 <p>Anyway, back to the task at hand, testing upgrades.  This test
5734 script, which I call <tt>upgrade-test</tt> for now, is doing the
5735 trick:</p>
5736
5737 <blockquote><pre>
5738 #!/bin/sh
5739 set -ex
5740
5741 if [ "$1" ] ; then
5742     desktop=$1
5743 else
5744     desktop=gnome
5745 fi
5746
5747 from=lenny
5748 to=squeeze
5749
5750 exec &lt; /dev/null
5751 unset LANG
5752 mirror=http://ftp.skolelinux.org/debian
5753 tmpdir=chroot-$from-upgrade-$to-$desktop
5754 fuser -mv .
5755 debootstrap $from $tmpdir $mirror
5756 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
5757 cat > $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d &lt;&lt;EOF
5758 #!/bin/sh
5759 exit 101
5760 EOF
5761 chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d
5762 exit_cleanup() {
5763     umount $tmpdir/proc
5764 }
5765 mount -t proc proc $tmpdir/proc
5766 # Make sure proc is unmounted also on failure
5767 trap exit_cleanup EXIT INT
5768
5769 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y install debconf-utils
5770
5771 # Make sure tasksel autoselection trigger.  It need the test scripts
5772 # to return the correct answers.
5773 echo tasksel tasksel/desktop multiselect $desktop | \
5774     chroot $tmpdir debconf-set-selections
5775
5776 # Include the desktop and laptop task
5777 for test in desktop laptop ; do
5778     echo > $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test &lt;&lt;EOF
5779 #!/bin/sh
5780 exit 2
5781 EOF
5782     chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test
5783 done
5784
5785 DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
5786 DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical
5787 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND DEBIAN_PRIORITY
5788 chroot $tmpdir tasksel --new-install
5789
5790 echo deb $mirror $to main > $tmpdir/etc/apt/sources.list
5791 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
5792 touch $tmpdir/etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
5793 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y dist-upgrade
5794 fuser -mv
5795 </pre></blockquote>
5796
5797 <p>I suspect it would be useful to test upgrades with both apt-get and
5798 with aptitude, but I have not had time to look at how they behave
5799 differently so far.  I hope to get a cron job running to do the test
5800 regularly and post the result on the web.  The Gnome upgrade currently
5801 work, while the KDE upgrade fail because of the bug in
5802 kdebase-workspace-data</p>
5803
5804 <p>I am not quite sure what kind of extract from the huge upgrade logs
5805 (KDE 167 KiB, Gnome 516 KiB) it make sense to include in this blog
5806 post, so I will refrain from trying.  I can report that for Gnome,
5807 aptitude report 760 packages upgraded, 448 newly installed, 129 to
5808 remove and 1 not upgraded and 1024MB need to be downloaded while for
5809 KDE the same numbers are 702 packages upgraded, 507 newly installed,
5810 193 to remove and 0 not upgraded and 1117MB need to be downloaded</p>
5811
5812 <p>I am very happy to notice that the Gnome desktop + laptop upgrade
5813 is able to migrate to dependency based boot sequencing and parallel
5814 booting without a hitch.  Was unsure if there were still bugs with
5815 packages failing to clean up their obsolete init.d script during
5816 upgrades, and no such problem seem to affect the Gnome desktop+laptop
5817 packages.</p>
5818
5819       </div>
5820       <div class="tags">
5821
5822
5823         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5824
5825
5826       </div>
5827     </div>
5828     <div class="padding"></div>
5829
5830     <div class="entry">
5831       <div class="title">
5832         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Upstart_or_sysvinit___as_init_d_scripts_see_it.html">Upstart or sysvinit - as init.d scripts see it</a>
5833       </div>
5834       <div class="date">
5835          6th June 2010
5836       </div>
5837       <div class="body">
5838         <p>If Debian is to migrate to upstart on Linux, I expect some init.d
5839 scripts to migrate (some of) their operations to upstart job while
5840 keeping the init.d for hurd and kfreebsd.  The packages with such
5841 needs will need a way to get their init.d scripts to behave
5842 differently when used with sysvinit and with upstart.  Because of
5843 this, I had a look at the environment variables set when a init.d
5844 script is running under upstart, and when it is not.</p>
5845
5846 <p>With upstart, I notice these environment variables are set when a
5847 script is started from rcS.d/ (ignoring some irrelevant ones like
5848 COLUMNS):</p>
5849
5850 <blockquote><pre>
5851 DEFAULT_RUNLEVEL=2
5852 previous=N
5853 PREVLEVEL=
5854 RUNLEVEL=
5855 runlevel=S
5856 UPSTART_EVENTS=startup
5857 UPSTART_INSTANCE=
5858 UPSTART_JOB=rc-sysinit
5859 </pre></blockquote>
5860
5861 <p>With sysvinit, these environment variables are set for the same
5862 script.</p>
5863
5864 <blockquote><pre>
5865 INIT_VERSION=sysvinit-2.88
5866 previous=N
5867 PREVLEVEL=N
5868 RUNLEVEL=S
5869 runlevel=S
5870 </pre></blockquote>
5871
5872 <p>The RUNLEVEL and PREVLEVEL environment variables passed on from
5873 sysvinit are not set by upstart.  Not sure if it is intentional or not
5874 to not be compatible with sysvinit in this regard.</p>
5875
5876 <p>For scripts needing to behave differently when upstart is used,
5877 looking for the UPSTART_JOB environment variable seem to be a good
5878 choice.</p>
5879
5880       </div>
5881       <div class="tags">
5882
5883
5884         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5885
5886
5887       </div>
5888     </div>
5889     <div class="padding"></div>
5890
5891     <div class="entry">
5892       <div class="title">
5893         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_manual_for_standards_wars___.html">A manual for standards wars...</a>
5894       </div>
5895       <div class="date">
5896          6th June 2010
5897       </div>
5898       <div class="body">
5899         <p>Via the
5900 <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/robweir/antic-atom/~3/QzU4RgoAGMg/weekly-links-10.html">blog
5901 of Rob Weir</a> I came across the very interesting essay named
5902 <a href="http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/shapiro/wars.pdf">The Art of
5903 Standards Wars</a> (PDF 25 pages).  I recommend it for everyone
5904 following the standards wars of today.</p>
5905
5906       </div>
5907       <div class="tags">
5908
5909
5910         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard</a>.
5911
5912
5913       </div>
5914     </div>
5915     <div class="padding"></div>
5916
5917     <div class="entry">
5918       <div class="title">
5919         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Sitesummary_tip__Listing_computer_hardware_models_used_at_site.html">Sitesummary tip: Listing computer hardware models used at site</a>
5920       </div>
5921       <div class="date">
5922          3rd June 2010
5923       </div>
5924       <div class="body">
5925         <p>When using sitesummary at a site to track machines, it is possible
5926 to get a list of the machine types in use thanks to the DMI
5927 information extracted from each machine.  The script to do so is
5928 included in the sitesummary package, and here is example output from
5929 the Skolelinux build servers:</p>
5930
5931 <blockquote><pre>
5932 maintainer:~# /usr/lib/sitesummary/hardware-model-summary
5933   vendor                    count
5934   Dell Computer Corporation     1
5935     PowerEdge 1750              1
5936   IBM                           1
5937     eserver xSeries 345 -[8670M1X]-     1
5938   Intel                         2
5939   [no-dmi-info]                 3
5940 maintainer:~#
5941 </pre></blockquote>
5942
5943 <p>The quality of the report depend on the quality of the DMI tables
5944 provided in each machine.  Here there are Intel machines without model
5945 information listed with Intel as vendor and no model, and virtual Xen
5946 machines listed as [no-dmi-info].  One can add -l as a command line
5947 option to list the individual machines.</p>
5948
5949 <p>A larger list is
5950 <a href="http://narvikskolen.no/sitesummary/">available from the the
5951 city of Narvik</a>, which uses Skolelinux on all their shools and also
5952 provide the basic sitesummary report publicly.  In their report there
5953 are ~1400 machines. I know they use both Ubuntu and Skolelinux on
5954 their machines, and as sitesummary is available in both distributions,
5955 it is trivial to get all of them to report to the same central
5956 collector.</p>
5957
5958       </div>
5959       <div class="tags">
5960
5961
5962         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary</a>.
5963
5964
5965       </div>
5966     </div>
5967     <div class="padding"></div>
5968
5969     <div class="entry">
5970       <div class="title">
5971         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/KDM_fail_at_boot_with_NVidia_cards___and_no_one_try_to_fix_it_.html">KDM fail at boot with NVidia cards - and no one try to fix it?</a>
5972       </div>
5973       <div class="date">
5974          1st June 2010
5975       </div>
5976       <div class="body">
5977         <p>It is strange to watch how a bug in Debian causing KDM to fail to
5978 start at boot when an NVidia video card is used is handled.  The
5979 problem seem to be that the nvidia X.org driver uses a long time to
5980 initialize, and this duration is longer than kdm is configured to
5981 wait.</p>
5982
5983 <p>I came across two bugs related to this issue,
5984 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">#583312</a> initially filed
5985 against initscripts and passed on to nvidia-glx when it became obvious
5986 that the nvidia drivers were involved, and
5987 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/524751">#524751</a> initially filed against
5988 kdm and passed on to src:nvidia-graphics-drivers for unknown reasons.</p>
5989
5990 <p>To me, it seem that no-one is interested in actually solving the
5991 problem nvidia video card owners experience and make sure the Debian
5992 distribution work out of the box for these users.  The nvidia driver
5993 maintainers expect kdm to be set up to wait longer, while kdm expect
5994 the nvidia driver maintainers to fix the driver to start faster, and
5995 while they wait for each other I guess the users end up switching to a
5996 distribution that work for them.  I have no idea what the solution is,
5997 but I am pretty sure that waiting for each other is not it.</p>
5998
5999 <p>I wonder why we end up handling bugs this way.</p>
6000
6001       </div>
6002       <div class="tags">
6003
6004
6005         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
6006
6007
6008       </div>
6009     </div>
6010     <div class="padding"></div>
6011
6012     <div class="entry">
6013       <div class="title">
6014         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Parallellized_boot_seem_to_hold_up_well_in_Debian_testing.html">Parallellized boot seem to hold up well in Debian/testing</a>
6015       </div>
6016       <div class="date">
6017         27th May 2010
6018       </div>
6019       <div class="body">
6020         <p>A few days ago, parallel booting was enabled in Debian/testing.
6021 The feature seem to hold up pretty well, but three fairly serious
6022 issues are known and should be solved:
6023
6024 <p><ul>
6025
6026 <li>The wicd package seen to
6027 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/508289">break NFS mounting</a> and
6028 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/581586">network setup</a> when
6029 parallel booting is enabled.  No idea why, but the wicd maintainer
6030 seem to be on the case.</li>
6031
6032 <li>The nvidia X driver seem to
6033 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">have a race condition</a>
6034 triggered more easily when parallel booting is in effect.  The
6035 maintainer is on the case.</li>
6036
6037 <li>The sysv-rc package fail to properly enable dependency based boot
6038 sequencing (the shutdown is broken) when old file-rc users
6039 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/575080">try to switch back</a> to
6040 sysv-rc.  One way to solve it would be for file-rc to create
6041 /etc/init.d/.legacy-bootordering, and another is to try to make
6042 sysv-rc more robust.  Will investigate some more and probably upload a
6043 workaround in sysv-rc to help those trying to move from file-rc to
6044 sysv-rc get a working shutdown.</li>
6045
6046 </ul></p>
6047
6048 <p>All in all not many surprising issues, and all of them seem
6049 solvable before Squeeze is released.  In addition to these there are
6050 some packages with bugs in their dependencies and run level settings,
6051 which I expect will be fixed in a reasonable time span.</p>
6052
6053 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
6054 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
6055 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
6056 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
6057
6058 <p>Update: Correct bug number to file-rc issue.</p>
6059
6060       </div>
6061       <div class="tags">
6062
6063
6064         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
6065
6066
6067       </div>
6068     </div>
6069     <div class="padding"></div>
6070
6071     <div class="entry">
6072       <div class="title">
6073         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/More_flexible_firmware_handling_in_debian_installer.html">More flexible firmware handling in debian-installer</a>
6074       </div>
6075       <div class="date">
6076         22nd May 2010
6077       </div>
6078       <div class="body">
6079         <p>After a long break from debian-installer development, I finally
6080 found time today to return to the project.  Having to spend less time
6081 working dependency based boot in debian, as it is almost complete now,
6082 definitely helped freeing some time.</p>
6083
6084 <p>A while back, I ran into a problem while working on Debian Edu.  We
6085 include some firmware packages on the Debian Edu CDs, those needed to
6086 get disk and network controllers working.  Without having these
6087 firmware packages available during installation, it is impossible to
6088 install Debian Edu on the given machine, and because our target group
6089 are non-technical people, asking them to provide firmware packages on
6090 an external medium is a support pain.  Initially, I expected it to be
6091 enough to include the firmware packages on the CD to get
6092 debian-installer to find and use them.  This proved to be wrong.
6093 Next, I hoped it was enough to symlink the relevant firmware packages
6094 to some useful location on the CD (tried /cdrom/ and
6095 /cdrom/firmware/).  This also proved to not work, and at this point I
6096 found time to look at the debian-installer code to figure out what was
6097 going to work.</p>
6098
6099 <p>The firmware loading code is in the hw-detect package, and a closer
6100 look revealed that it would only look for firmware packages outside
6101 the installation media, so the CD was never checked for firmware
6102 packages.  It would only check USB sticks, floppies and other
6103 "external" media devices.  Today I changed it to also look in the
6104 /cdrom/firmware/ directory on the mounted CD or DVD, which should
6105 solve the problem I ran into with Debian edu.  I also changed it to
6106 look in /firmware/, to make sure the installer also find firmware
6107 provided in the initrd when booting the installer via PXE, to allow us
6108 to provide the same feature in the PXE setup included in Debian
6109 Edu.</p>
6110
6111 <p>To make sure firmware deb packages with a license questions are not
6112 activated without asking if the license is accepted, I extended
6113 hw-detect to look for preinst scripts in the firmware packages, and
6114 run these before activating the firmware during installation.  The
6115 license question is asked using debconf in the preinst, so this should
6116 solve the issue for the firmware packages I have looked at so far.</p>
6117
6118 <p>If you want to discuss the details of these features, please
6119 contact us on debian-boot@lists.debian.org.</p>
6120
6121       </div>
6122       <div class="tags">
6123
6124
6125         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
6126
6127
6128       </div>
6129     </div>
6130     <div class="padding"></div>
6131
6132     <div class="entry">
6133       <div class="title">
6134         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Parallellized_boot_is_now_the_default_in_Debian_unstable.html">Parallellized boot is now the default in Debian/unstable</a>
6135       </div>
6136       <div class="date">
6137         14th May 2010
6138       </div>
6139       <div class="body">
6140         <p>Since this evening, parallel booting is the default in
6141 Debian/unstable for machines using dependency based boot sequencing.
6142 Apparently the testing of concurrent booting has been wider than
6143 expected, if I am to believe the
6144 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
6145 on debian-devel@</a>, and I concluded a few days ago to move forward
6146 with the feature this weekend, to give us some time to detect any
6147 remaining problems before Squeeze is frozen.  If serious problems are
6148 detected, it is simple to change the default back to sequential boot.
6149 The upload of the new sysvinit package also activate a new upstream
6150 version.</p>
6151
6152 More information about
6153 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
6154 based boot sequencing</a> is available from the Debian wiki.  It is
6155 currently possible to disable parallel booting when one run into
6156 problems caused by it, by adding this line to /etc/default/rcS:</p>
6157
6158 <blockquote><pre>
6159 CONCURRENCY=none
6160 </pre></blockquote>
6161
6162 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
6163 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
6164 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
6165 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
6166
6167       </div>
6168       <div class="tags">
6169
6170
6171         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
6172
6173
6174       </div>
6175     </div>
6176     <div class="padding"></div>
6177
6178     <div class="entry">
6179       <div class="title">
6180         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Sitesummary_tip__Listing_MAC_address_of_all_clients.html">Sitesummary tip: Listing MAC address of all clients</a>
6181       </div>
6182       <div class="date">
6183         14th May 2010
6184       </div>
6185       <div class="body">
6186         <p>In the recent Debian Edu versions, the
6187 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/SiteSummary">sitesummary
6188 system</a> is used to keep track of the machines in the school
6189 network.  Each machine will automatically report its status to the
6190 central server after boot and once per night.  The network setup is
6191 also reported, and using this information it is possible to get the
6192 MAC address of all network interfaces in the machines.  This is useful
6193 to update the DHCP configuration.</p>
6194
6195 <p>To give some idea how to use sitesummary, here is a one-liner to
6196 ist all MAC addresses of all machines reporting to sitesummary.  Run
6197 this on the collector host:</p>
6198
6199 <blockquote><pre>
6200 perl -MSiteSummary -e 'for_all_hosts(sub { print join(" ", get_macaddresses(shift)), "\n"; });'
6201 </pre></blockquote>
6202
6203 <p>This will list all MAC addresses assosiated with all machine, one
6204 line per machine and with space between the MAC addresses.</p>
6205
6206 <p>To allow system administrators easier job at adding static DHCP
6207 addresses for hosts, it would be possible to extend this to fetch
6208 machine information from sitesummary and update the DHCP and DNS
6209 tables in LDAP using this information.  Such tool is unfortunately not
6210 written yet.</p>
6211
6212       </div>
6213       <div class="tags">
6214
6215
6216         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary</a>.
6217
6218
6219       </div>
6220     </div>
6221     <div class="padding"></div>
6222
6223     <div class="entry">
6224       <div class="title">
6225         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/systemd__an_interesting_alternative_to_upstart.html">systemd, an interesting alternative to upstart</a>
6226       </div>
6227       <div class="date">
6228         13th May 2010
6229       </div>
6230       <div class="body">
6231         <p>The last few days a new boot system called
6232 <a href="http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd">systemd</a>
6233 has been
6234 <a href="http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/systemd.html">introduced</a>
6235
6236 to the free software world.  I have not yet had time to play around
6237 with it, but it seem to be a very interesting alternative to
6238 <a href="http://upstart.ubuntu.com/">upstart</a>, and might prove to be
6239 a good alternative for Debian when we are able to switch to an event
6240 based boot system.  Tollef is
6241 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/580814">in the process</a> of getting
6242 systemd into Debian, and I look forward to seeing how well it work.  I
6243 like the fact that systemd handles init.d scripts with dependency
6244 information natively, allowing them to run in parallel where upstart
6245 at the moment do not.</p>
6246
6247 <p>Unfortunately do systemd have the same problem as upstart regarding
6248 platform support.  It only work on recent Linux kernels, and also need
6249 some new kernel features enabled to function properly.  This means
6250 kFreeBSD and Hurd ports of Debian will need a port or a different boot
6251 system.  Not sure how that will be handled if systemd proves to be the
6252 way forward.</p>
6253
6254 <p>In the mean time, based on the
6255 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
6256 on debian-devel@</a> regarding parallel booting in Debian, I have
6257 decided to enable full parallel booting as the default in Debian as
6258 soon as possible (probably this weekend or early next week), to see if
6259 there are any remaining serious bugs in the init.d dependencies.  A
6260 new version of the sysvinit package implementing this change is
6261 already in experimental.  If all go well, Squeeze will be released
6262 with parallel booting enabled by default.</p>
6263
6264       </div>
6265       <div class="tags">
6266
6267
6268         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
6269
6270
6271       </div>
6272     </div>
6273     <div class="padding"></div>
6274
6275     <div class="entry">
6276       <div class="title">
6277         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Parallellizing_the_boot_in_Debian_Squeeze___ready_for_wider_testing.html">Parallellizing the boot in Debian Squeeze - ready for wider testing</a>
6278       </div>
6279       <div class="date">
6280          6th May 2010
6281       </div>
6282       <div class="body">
6283         <p>These days, the init.d script dependencies in Squeeze are quite
6284 complete, so complete that it is actually possible to run all the
6285 init.d scripts in parallell based on these dependencies.  If you want
6286 to test your Squeeze system, make sure
6287 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
6288 based boot sequencing</a> is enabled, and add this line to
6289 /etc/default/rcS:</p>
6290
6291 <blockquote><pre>
6292 CONCURRENCY=makefile
6293 </pre></blockquote>
6294
6295 <p>That is it.  It will cause sysv-rc to use the startpar tool to run
6296 scripts in parallel using the dependency information stored in
6297 /etc/init.d/.depend.boot, /etc/init.d/.depend.start and
6298 /etc/init.d/.depend.stop to order the scripts.  Startpar is configured
6299 to try to start the kdm and gdm scripts as early as possible, and will
6300 start the facilities required by kdm or gdm as early as possible to
6301 make this happen.</p>
6302
6303 <p>Give it a try, and see if you like the result.  If some services
6304 fail to start properly, it is most likely because they have incomplete
6305 init.d script dependencies in their startup script (or some of their
6306 dependent scripts have incomplete dependencies).  Report bugs and get
6307 the package maintainers to fix it. :)</p>
6308
6309 <p>Running scripts in parallel could be the default in Debian when we
6310 manage to get the init.d script dependencies complete and correct.  I
6311 expect we will get there in Squeeze+1, if we get manage to test and
6312 fix the remaining issues.</p>
6313
6314 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
6315 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
6316 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
6317 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
6318
6319       </div>
6320       <div class="tags">
6321
6322
6323         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
6324
6325
6326       </div>
6327     </div>
6328     <div class="padding"></div>
6329
6330     <div class="entry">
6331       <div class="title">
6332         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_has_switched_to_dependency_based_boot_sequencing.html">Debian has switched to dependency based boot sequencing</a>
6333       </div>
6334       <div class="date">
6335         27th July 2009
6336       </div>
6337       <div class="body">
6338         <p>Since this evening, with the upload of sysvinit version 2.87dsf-2,
6339 and the upload of insserv version 1.12.0-10 yesterday, Debian unstable
6340 have been migrated to using dependency based boot sequencing.  This
6341 conclude work me and others have been doing for the last three days.
6342 It feels great to see this finally part of the default Debian
6343 installation.  Now we just need to weed out the last few problems that
6344 are bound to show up, to get everything ready for Squeeze.</p>
6345
6346 <p>The next step is migrating /sbin/init from sysvinit to upstart, and
6347 fixing the more fundamental problem of handing the event based
6348 non-predictable kernel in the early boot.</p>
6349
6350       </div>
6351       <div class="tags">
6352
6353
6354         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
6355
6356
6357       </div>
6358     </div>
6359     <div class="padding"></div>
6360
6361     <div class="entry">
6362       <div class="title">
6363         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Taking_over_sysvinit_development.html">Taking over sysvinit development</a>
6364       </div>
6365       <div class="date">
6366         22nd July 2009
6367       </div>
6368       <div class="body">
6369         <p>After several years of frustration with the lack of activity from
6370 the existing sysvinit upstream developer, I decided a few weeks ago to
6371 take over the package and become the new upstream.  The number of
6372 patches to track for the Debian package was becoming a burden, and the
6373 lack of synchronization between the distribution made it hard to keep
6374 the package up to date.</p>
6375
6376 <p>On the new sysvinit team is the SuSe maintainer Dr. Werner Fink,
6377 and my Debian co-maintainer Kel Modderman.  About 10 days ago, I made
6378 a new upstream tarball with version number 2.87dsf (for Debian, SuSe
6379 and Fedora), based on the patches currently in use in these
6380 distributions.  We Debian maintainers plan to move to this tarball as
6381 the new upstream as soon as we find time to do the merge.  Since the
6382 new tarball was created, we agreed with Werner at SuSe to make a new
6383 upstream project at <a href="http://savannah.nongnu.org/">Savannah</a>, and continue
6384 development there.  The project is registered and currently waiting
6385 for approval by the Savannah administrators, and as soon as it is
6386 approved, we will import the old versions from svn and continue
6387 working on the future release.</p>
6388
6389 <p>It is a bit ironic that this is done now, when some of the involved
6390 distributions are moving to upstart as a syvinit replacement.</p>
6391
6392       </div>
6393       <div class="tags">
6394
6395
6396         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
6397
6398
6399       </div>
6400     </div>
6401     <div class="padding"></div>
6402
6403     <div class="entry">
6404       <div class="title">
6405         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_boots_quicker_and_quicker.html">Debian boots quicker and quicker</a>
6406       </div>
6407       <div class="date">
6408         24th June 2009
6409       </div>
6410       <div class="body">
6411         <p>I spent Monday and tuesday this week in London with a lot of the
6412 people involved in the boot system on Debian and Ubuntu, to see if we
6413 could find more ways to speed up the boot system.  This was an Ubuntu
6414 funded
6415 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FoundationsTeam/BootPerformance/DebianUbuntuSprint">developer
6416 gathering</a>. It was quite productive.  We also discussed the future
6417 of boot systems, and ways to handle the increasing number of boot
6418 issues introduced by the Linux kernel becoming more and more
6419 asynchronous and event base.  The Ubuntu approach using udev and
6420 upstart might be a good way forward.  Time will show.</p>
6421
6422 <p>Anyway, there are a few ways at the moment to speed up the boot
6423 process in Debian.  All of these should be applied to get a quick
6424 boot:</p>
6425
6426 <ul>
6427
6428 <li>Use dash as /bin/sh.</li>
6429
6430 <li>Disable the init.d/hwclock*.sh scripts and make sure the hardware
6431    clock is in UTC.</li>
6432
6433 <li>Install and activate the insserv package to enable
6434    <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
6435    based boot sequencing</a>, and enable concurrent booting.</li>
6436
6437 </ul>
6438
6439 These points are based on the Google summer of code work done by
6440 <a href="http://initscripts-ng.alioth.debian.org/soc2006-bootsystem/">Carlos
6441 Villegas</a>.
6442
6443 <p>Support for makefile-style concurrency during boot was uploaded to
6444 unstable yesterday.  When we tested it, we were able to cut 6 seconds
6445 from the boot sequence.  It depend on very correct dependency
6446 declaration in all init.d scripts, so I expect us to find edge cases
6447 where the dependences in some scripts are slightly wrong when we start
6448 using this.</p>
6449
6450 <p>On our IRC channel for this effort, #pkg-sysvinit, a new idea was
6451 introduced by Raphael Geissert today, one that could affect the
6452 startup speed as well.  Instead of starting some scripts concurrently
6453 from rcS.d/ and another set of scripts from rc2.d/, it would be
6454 possible to run a of them in the same process.  A quick way to test
6455 this would be to enable insserv and run 'mv /etc/rc2.d/S* /etc/rcS.d/;
6456 insserv'.  Will need to test if that work. :)</p>
6457
6458       </div>
6459       <div class="tags">
6460
6461
6462         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
6463
6464
6465       </div>
6466     </div>
6467     <div class="padding"></div>
6468
6469     <div class="entry">
6470       <div class="title">
6471         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/BSAs_p_stander_om_piratkopiering_m_ter_motstand.html">BSAs påstander om piratkopiering møter motstand</a>
6472       </div>
6473       <div class="date">
6474         17th May 2009
6475       </div>
6476       <div class="body">
6477         <p>Hvert år de siste årene har BSA, lobbyfronten til de store
6478 programvareselskapene som Microsoft og Apple, publisert en rapport der
6479 de gjetter på hvor mye piratkopiering påfører i tapte inntekter i
6480 ulike land rundt om i verden.  Resultatene er tendensiøse.  For noen
6481 dager siden kom
6482 <a href="http://global.bsa.org/globalpiracy2008/studies/globalpiracy2008.pdf">siste
6483 rapport</a>, og det er flere kritiske kommentarer publisert de siste
6484 dagene.  Et spesielt interessant kommentar fra Sverige,
6485 <a href="http://www.idg.se/2.1085/1.229795/bsa-hoftade-sverigesiffror">BSA
6486 höftade Sverigesiffror</a>, oppsummeres slik:</p>
6487
6488 <blockquote>
6489 I sin senaste rapport slår BSA fast att 25 procent av all mjukvara i
6490 Sverige är piratkopierad. Det utan att ha pratat med ett enda svenskt
6491 företag. "Man bör nog kanske inte se de här siffrorna som helt
6492 exakta", säger BSAs Sverigechef John Hugosson.
6493 </blockquote>
6494
6495 <p>Mon tro om de er like metodiske når de gjetter på andelen piratkopiering i Norge?  To andre kommentarer er <a
6496 href="http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/comment/2242134/bsa-piracy-figures-shot-reality">BSA
6497 piracy figures need a shot of reality</a> og <a
6498 href="http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/3958/125/">Does The WIPO
6499 Copyright Treaty Work?</a></p>
6500
6501 <p>Fant lenkene via <a
6502 href="http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/05/17/1632242">oppslag
6503 på Slashdot</a>.</p>
6504
6505       </div>
6506       <div class="tags">
6507
6508
6509         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bsa">bsa</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fildeling">fildeling</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>.
6510
6511
6512       </div>
6513     </div>
6514     <div class="padding"></div>
6515
6516     <div class="entry">
6517       <div class="title">
6518         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/IDG_mener_linux_i_servermarkedet_vil_vokse_med_21__i_2009.html">IDG mener linux i servermarkedet vil vokse med 21% i 2009</a>
6519       </div>
6520       <div class="date">
6521          7th May 2009
6522       </div>
6523       <div class="body">
6524         <p>Kom over
6525 <a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10216873-16.html">interessante
6526 tall</a> fra IDG om utviklingen av linuxservermarkedet.  Fikk meg til
6527 å tenke på antall tjenermaskiner ved Universitetet i Oslo der jeg
6528 jobber til daglig.  En rask opptelling forteller meg at vi har 490
6529 (61%) fysiske unix-tjener (mest linux men også noen solaris) og 196
6530 (25%) windowstjenere, samt 112 (14%) virtuelle unix-tjenere.  Med den
6531 bakgrunnskunnskapen kan jeg godt tro at IDG er inne på noe.</p>
6532
6533       </div>
6534       <div class="tags">
6535
6536
6537         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
6538
6539
6540       </div>
6541     </div>
6542     <div class="padding"></div>
6543
6544     <div class="entry">
6545       <div class="title">
6546         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Kryptert_harddisk___naturligvis.html">Kryptert harddisk - naturligvis</a>
6547       </div>
6548       <div class="date">
6549          2nd May 2009
6550       </div>
6551       <div class="body">
6552         <p><a href="http://www.dagensit.no/trender/article1658676.ece">Dagens
6553 IT melder</a> at Intel hevder at det er dyrt å miste en datamaskin,
6554 når en tar tap av arbeidstid, fortrolige dokumenter,
6555 personopplysninger og alt annet det innebærer.  Det er ingen tvil om
6556 at det er en kostbar affære å miste sin datamaskin, og det er årsaken
6557 til at jeg har kryptert harddisken på både kontormaskinen og min
6558 bærbare.  Begge inneholder personopplysninger jeg ikke ønsker skal
6559 komme på avveie, den første informasjon relatert til jobben min ved
6560 Universitetet i Oslo, og den andre relatert til blant annet
6561 foreningsarbeide.  Kryptering av diskene gjør at det er lite
6562 sannsynlig at dophoder som kan finne på å rappe maskinene får noe ut
6563 av dem.  Maskinene låses automatisk etter noen minutter uten bruk,
6564 og en reboot vil gjøre at de ber om passord før de vil starte opp.
6565 Jeg bruker Debian på begge maskinene, og installasjonssystemet der
6566 gjør det trivielt å sette opp krypterte disker.  Jeg har LVM på toppen
6567 av krypterte partisjoner, slik at alt av datapartisjoner er kryptert.
6568 Jeg anbefaler alle å kryptere diskene på sine bærbare.  Kostnaden når
6569 det er gjort slik jeg gjør det er minimale, og gevinstene er
6570 betydelige.  En bør dog passe på passordet.  Hvis det går tapt, må
6571 maskinen reinstalleres og alt er tapt.</p>
6572
6573 <p>Krypteringen vil ikke stoppe kompetente angripere som f.eks. kjøler
6574 ned minnebrikkene før maskinen rebootes med programvare for å hente ut
6575 krypteringsnøklene.  Kostnaden med å forsvare seg mot slike angripere
6576 er for min del høyere enn gevinsten.  Jeg tror oddsene for at
6577 f.eks. etteretningsorganisasjoner har glede av å titte på mine
6578 maskiner er minimale, og ulempene jeg ville oppnå ved å forsøke å
6579 gjøre det vanskeligere for angripere med kompetanse og ressurser er
6580 betydelige.</p>
6581
6582       </div>
6583       <div class="tags">
6584
6585
6586         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
6587
6588
6589       </div>
6590     </div>
6591     <div class="padding"></div>
6592
6593     <div class="entry">
6594       <div class="title">
6595         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Two_projects_that_have_improved_the_quality_of_free_software_a_lot.html">Two projects that have improved the quality of free software a lot</a>
6596       </div>
6597       <div class="date">
6598          2nd May 2009
6599       </div>
6600       <div class="body">
6601         <p>There are two software projects that have had huge influence on the
6602 quality of free software, and I wanted to mention both in case someone
6603 do not yet know them.</p>
6604
6605 <p>The first one is <a href="http://valgrind.org/">valgrind</a>, a
6606 tool to detect and expose errors in the memory handling of programs.
6607 It is easy to use, all one need to do is to run 'valgrind program',
6608 and it will report any problems on stdout.  It is even better if the
6609 program include debug information.  With debug information, it is able
6610 to report the source file name and line number where the problem
6611 occurs.  It can report things like 'reading past memory block in file
6612 X line N, the memory block was allocated in file Y, line M', and
6613 'using uninitialised value in control logic'.  This tool has made it
6614 trivial to investigate reproducible crash bugs in programs, and have
6615 reduced the number of this kind of bugs in free software a lot.
6616
6617 <p>The second one is
6618 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coverity">Coverity</a> which is
6619 a source code checker.  It is able to process the source of a program
6620 and find problems in the logic without running the program.  It
6621 started out as the Stanford Checker and became well known when it was
6622 used to find bugs in the Linux kernel.  It is now a commercial tool
6623 and the company behind it is running
6624 <a href="http://www.scan.coverity.com/">a community service</a> for the
6625 free software community, where a lot of free software projects get
6626 their source checked for free.  Several thousand defects have been
6627 found and fixed so far.  It can find errors like 'lock L taken in file
6628 X line N is never released if exiting in line M', or 'the code in file
6629 Y lines O to P can never be executed'.  The projects included in the
6630 community service project have managed to get rid of a lot of
6631 reliability problems thanks to Coverity.</p>
6632
6633 <p>I believe tools like this, that are able to automatically find
6634 errors in the source, are vital to improve the quality of software and
6635 make sure we can get rid of the crashing and failing software we are
6636 surrounded by today.</p>
6637
6638       </div>
6639       <div class="tags">
6640
6641
6642         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
6643
6644
6645       </div>
6646     </div>
6647     <div class="padding"></div>
6648
6649     <div class="entry">
6650       <div class="title">
6651         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/No_patch_is_not_better_than_a_useless_patch.html">No patch is not better than a useless patch</a>
6652       </div>
6653       <div class="date">
6654         28th April 2009
6655       </div>
6656       <div class="body">
6657         <p>Julien Blache
6658 <a href="http://blog.technologeek.org/2009/04/12/214">claim that no
6659 patch is better than a useless patch</a>.  I completely disagree, as a
6660 patch allow one to discuss a concrete and proposed solution, and also
6661 prove that the issue at hand is important enough for someone to spent
6662 time on fixing it.  No patch do not provide any of these positive
6663 properties.</p>
6664
6665       </div>
6666       <div class="tags">
6667
6668
6669         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
6670
6671
6672       </div>
6673     </div>
6674     <div class="padding"></div>
6675
6676     <div class="entry">
6677       <div class="title">
6678         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Standardize_on_protocols_and_formats__not_vendors_and_applications.html">Standardize on protocols and formats, not vendors and applications</a>
6679       </div>
6680       <div class="date">
6681         30th March 2009
6682       </div>
6683       <div class="body">
6684         <p>Where I work at the University of Oslo, one decision stand out as a
6685 very good one to form a long lived computer infrastructure.  It is the
6686 simple one, lost by many in todays computer industry: Standardize on
6687 open network protocols and open exchange/storage formats, not applications.
6688 Applications come and go, while protocols and files tend to stay, and
6689 thus one want to make it easy to change application and vendor, while
6690 avoiding conversion costs and locking users to a specific platform or
6691 application.</p>
6692
6693 <p>This approach make it possible to replace the client applications
6694 independently of the server applications.  One can even allow users to
6695 use several different applications as long as they handle the selected
6696 protocol and format.  In the normal case, only one client application
6697 is recommended and users only get help if they choose to use this
6698 application, but those that want to deviate from the easy path are not
6699 blocked from doing so.</p>
6700
6701 <p>It also allow us to replace the server side without forcing the
6702 users to replace their applications, and thus allow us to select the
6703 best server implementation at any moment, when scale and resouce
6704 requirements change.</p>
6705
6706 <p>I strongly recommend standardizing - on open network protocols and
6707 open formats, but I would never recommend standardizing on a single
6708 application that do not use open network protocol or open formats.</p>
6709
6710       </div>
6711       <div class="tags">
6712
6713
6714         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard</a>.
6715
6716
6717       </div>
6718     </div>
6719     <div class="padding"></div>
6720
6721     <div class="entry">
6722       <div class="title">
6723         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Returning_from_Skolelinux_developer_gathering.html">Returning from Skolelinux developer gathering</a>
6724       </div>
6725       <div class="date">
6726         29th March 2009
6727       </div>
6728       <div class="body">
6729         <p>I'm sitting on the train going home from this weekends Debian
6730 Edu/Skolelinux development gathering.  I got a bit done tuning the
6731 desktop, and looked into the dynamic service location protocol
6732 implementation avahi.  It look like it could be useful for us.  Almost
6733 30 people participated, and I believe it was a great environment to
6734 get to know the Skolelinux system.  Walter Bender, involved in the
6735 development of the Sugar educational platform, presented his stuff and
6736 also helped me improve my OLPC installation.  He also showed me that
6737 his Turtle Art application can be used in standalone mode, and we
6738 agreed that I would help getting it packaged for Debian.  As a
6739 standalone application it would be great for Debian Edu.  We also
6740 tried to get the video conferencing working with two OLPCs, but that
6741 proved to be too hard for us.  The application seem to need more work
6742 before it is ready for me.  I look forward to getting home and relax
6743 now. :)</p>
6744
6745       </div>
6746       <div class="tags">
6747
6748
6749         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
6750
6751
6752       </div>
6753     </div>
6754     <div class="padding"></div>
6755
6756     <div class="entry">
6757       <div class="title">
6758         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">Time for new  LDAP schemas replacing RFC 2307?</a>
6759       </div>
6760       <div class="date">
6761         29th March 2009
6762       </div>
6763       <div class="body">
6764         <p>The state of standardized LDAP schemas on Linux is far from
6765 optimal.  There is RFC 2307 documenting one way to store NIS maps in
6766 LDAP, and a modified version of this normally called RFC 2307bis, with
6767 some modifications to be compatible with Active Directory.  The RFC
6768 specification handle the content of a lot of system databases, but do
6769 not handle DNS zones and DHCP configuration.</p>
6770
6771 <p>In <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux</a>,
6772 we would like to store information about users, SMB clients/hosts,
6773 filegroups, netgroups (users and hosts), DHCP and DNS configuration,
6774 and LTSP configuration in LDAP.  These objects have a lot in common,
6775 but with the current LDAP schemas it is not possible to have one
6776 object per entity.  For example, one need to have at least three LDAP
6777 objects for a given computer, one with the SMB related stuff, one with
6778 DNS information and another with DHCP information.  The schemas
6779 provided for DNS and DHCP are impossible to combine into one LDAP
6780 object.  In addition, it is impossible to implement quick queries for
6781 netgroup membership, because of the way NIS triples are implemented.
6782 It just do not scale.  I believe it is time for a few RFC
6783 specifications to cleam up this mess.</p>
6784
6785 <p>I would like to have one LDAP object representing each computer in
6786 the network, and this object can then keep the SMB (ie host key), DHCP
6787 (mac address/name) and DNS (name/IP address) settings in one place.
6788 It need to be efficently stored to make sure it scale well.</p>
6789
6790 <p>I would also like to have a quick way to map from a user or
6791 computer and to the net group this user or computer is a member.</p>
6792
6793 <p>Active Directory have done a better job than unix heads like myself
6794 in this regard, and the unix side need to catch up.  Time to start a
6795 new IETF work group?</p>
6796
6797       </div>
6798       <div class="tags">
6799
6800
6801         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
6802
6803
6804       </div>
6805     </div>
6806     <div class="padding"></div>
6807
6808     <div class="entry">
6809       <div class="title">
6810         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Endelig_er_Debian_Lenny_gitt_ut.html">Endelig er Debian Lenny gitt ut</a>
6811       </div>
6812       <div class="date">
6813         15th February 2009
6814       </div>
6815       <div class="body">
6816         <p>Endelig er <a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</a>
6817 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2009/20090214">Lenny</a> gitt ut.
6818 Et langt steg videre for Debian-prosjektet, og en rekke nye
6819 programpakker blir nå tilgjengelig for de av oss som bruker den
6820 stabile utgaven av Debian.  Neste steg er nå å få
6821 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a> /
6822 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/">Debian Edu</a> ferdig
6823 oppdatert for den nye utgaven, slik at en oppdatert versjon kan
6824 slippes løs på skolene.  Takk til alle debian-utviklerne som har
6825 gjort dette mulig.  Endelig er f.eks. fungerende avhengighetsstyrt
6826 bootsekvens tilgjengelig i stabil utgave, vha pakken
6827 <tt>insserv</tt>.</p>
6828
6829       </div>
6830       <div class="tags">
6831
6832
6833         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk</a>.
6834
6835
6836       </div>
6837     </div>
6838     <div class="padding"></div>
6839
6840     <div class="entry">
6841       <div class="title">
6842         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Devcamp_brought_us_closer_to_the_Lenny_based_Debian_Edu_release.html">Devcamp brought us closer to the Lenny based Debian Edu release</a>
6843       </div>
6844       <div class="date">
6845          7th December 2008
6846       </div>
6847       <div class="body">
6848         <p>This weekend we had a small developer gathering for Debian Edu in
6849 Oslo.  Most of Saturday was used for the general assemly for the
6850 member organization, but the rest of the weekend I used to tune the
6851 LTSP installation.  LTSP now work out of the box on the 10-network.
6852 Acer Aspire One proved to be a very nice thin client, with both
6853 screen, mouse and keybard in a small box.  Was working on getting the
6854 diskless workstation setup configured out of the box, but did not
6855 finish it before the weekend was up.</p>
6856
6857 <p>Did not find time to look at the 4 VGA cards in one box we got from
6858 the Brazilian group, so that will have to wait for the next
6859 development gathering.  Would love to have the Debian Edu installer
6860 automatically detect and configure a multiseat setup when it find one
6861 of these cards.</p>
6862
6863       </div>
6864       <div class="tags">
6865
6866
6867         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ltsp">ltsp</a>.
6868
6869
6870       </div>
6871     </div>
6872     <div class="padding"></div>
6873
6874     <div class="entry">
6875       <div class="title">
6876         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_sorry_state_of_multimedia_browser_plugins_in_Debian.html">The sorry state of multimedia browser plugins in Debian</a>
6877       </div>
6878       <div class="date">
6879         25th November 2008
6880       </div>
6881       <div class="body">
6882         <p>Recently I have spent some time evaluating the multimedia browser
6883 plugins available in Debian Lenny, to see which one we should use by
6884 default in Debian Edu.  We need an embedded video playing plugin with
6885 control buttons to pause or stop the video, and capable of streaming
6886 all the multimedia content available on the web.  The test results and
6887 notes are available on
6888 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">the
6889 Debian wiki</a>.  I was surprised how few of the plugins are able to
6890 fill this need.  My personal video player favorite, VLC, has a really
6891 bad plugin which fail on a lot of the test pages.  A lot of the MIME
6892 types I would expect to work with any free software player (like
6893 video/ogg), just do not work.  And simple formats like the
6894 audio/x-mplegurl format (m3u playlists), just isn't supported by the
6895 totem and vlc plugins.  I hope the situation will improve soon.  No
6896 wonder sites use the proprietary Adobe flash to play video.</p>
6897
6898 <p>For Lenny, we seem to end up with the mplayer plugin.  It seem to
6899 be the only one fitting our needs. :/</p>
6900
6901       </div>
6902       <div class="tags">
6903
6904
6905         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
6906
6907
6908       </div>
6909     </div>
6910     <div class="padding"></div>
6911
6912     <p style="text-align: right;"><a href="debian.rss"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/xml.gif" alt="RSS Feed" width="36" height="14" /></a></p>
6913     <div id="sidebar">
6914
6915
6916
6917 <h2>Archive</h2>
6918 <ul>
6919
6920 <li>2013
6921 <ul>
6922
6923 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/01/">January (11)</a></li>
6924
6925 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/02/">February (9)</a></li>
6926
6927 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/03/">March (9)</a></li>
6928
6929 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/04/">April (6)</a></li>
6930
6931 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/05/">May (9)</a></li>
6932
6933 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/06/">June (10)</a></li>
6934
6935 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/07/">July (7)</a></li>
6936
6937 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/08/">August (3)</a></li>
6938
6939 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/09/">September (5)</a></li>
6940
6941 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/10/">October (7)</a></li>
6942
6943 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/11/">November (1)</a></li>
6944
6945 </ul></li>
6946
6947 <li>2012
6948 <ul>
6949
6950 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/01/">January (7)</a></li>
6951
6952 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/02/">February (10)</a></li>
6953
6954 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/03/">March (17)</a></li>
6955
6956 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/04/">April (12)</a></li>
6957
6958 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/05/">May (12)</a></li>
6959
6960 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/06/">June (20)</a></li>
6961
6962 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/07/">July (17)</a></li>
6963
6964 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/08/">August (6)</a></li>
6965
6966 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/09/">September (9)</a></li>
6967
6968 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/10/">October (17)</a></li>
6969
6970 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/11/">November (10)</a></li>
6971
6972 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/12/">December (7)</a></li>
6973
6974 </ul></li>
6975
6976 <li>2011
6977 <ul>
6978
6979 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/01/">January (16)</a></li>
6980
6981 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/02/">February (6)</a></li>
6982
6983 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/03/">March (6)</a></li>
6984
6985 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/04/">April (7)</a></li>
6986
6987 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/05/">May (3)</a></li>
6988
6989 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/06/">June (2)</a></li>
6990
6991 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/07/">July (7)</a></li>
6992
6993 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/08/">August (6)</a></li>
6994
6995 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/09/">September (4)</a></li>
6996
6997 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/10/">October (2)</a></li>
6998
6999 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/11/">November (3)</a></li>
7000
7001 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/12/">December (1)</a></li>
7002
7003 </ul></li>
7004
7005 <li>2010
7006 <ul>
7007
7008 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/01/">January (2)</a></li>
7009
7010 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/02/">February (1)</a></li>
7011
7012 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/03/">March (3)</a></li>
7013
7014 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/04/">April (3)</a></li>
7015
7016 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/05/">May (9)</a></li>
7017
7018 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/06/">June (14)</a></li>
7019
7020 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/07/">July (12)</a></li>
7021
7022 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/08/">August (13)</a></li>
7023
7024 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/09/">September (7)</a></li>
7025
7026 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/10/">October (9)</a></li>
7027
7028 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/11/">November (13)</a></li>
7029
7030 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/12/">December (12)</a></li>
7031
7032 </ul></li>
7033
7034 <li>2009
7035 <ul>
7036
7037 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/01/">January (8)</a></li>
7038
7039 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/02/">February (8)</a></li>
7040
7041 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/03/">March (12)</a></li>
7042
7043 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/04/">April (10)</a></li>
7044
7045 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/05/">May (9)</a></li>
7046
7047 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/06/">June (3)</a></li>
7048
7049 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/07/">July (4)</a></li>
7050
7051 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/08/">August (3)</a></li>
7052
7053 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/09/">September (1)</a></li>
7054
7055 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/10/">October (2)</a></li>
7056
7057 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/11/">November (3)</a></li>
7058
7059 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/12/">December (3)</a></li>
7060
7061 </ul></li>
7062
7063 <li>2008
7064 <ul>
7065
7066 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/11/">November (5)</a></li>
7067
7068 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/12/">December (7)</a></li>
7069
7070 </ul></li>
7071
7072 </ul>
7073
7074
7075
7076 <h2>Tags</h2>
7077 <ul>
7078
7079  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer (13)</a></li>
7080
7081  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/amiga">amiga (1)</a></li>
7082
7083  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/aros">aros (1)</a></li>
7084
7085  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bankid">bankid (4)</a></li>
7086
7087  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin (7)</a></li>
7088
7089  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem (12)</a></li>
7090
7091  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bsa">bsa (2)</a></li>
7092
7093  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian (89)</a></li>
7094
7095  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu (142)</a></li>
7096
7097  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/digistan">digistan (10)</a></li>
7098
7099  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook (10)</a></li>
7100
7101  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/drivstoffpriser">drivstoffpriser (4)</a></li>
7102
7103  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english (224)</a></li>
7104
7105  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami (21)</a></li>
7106
7107  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fildeling">fildeling (12)</a></li>
7108
7109  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture (12)</a></li>
7110
7111  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox (5)</a></li>
7112
7113  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen (11)</a></li>
7114
7115  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju (37)</a></li>
7116
7117  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram (7)</a></li>
7118
7119  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kart">kart (18)</a></li>
7120
7121  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap (8)</a></li>
7122
7123  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lenker">lenker (6)</a></li>
7124
7125  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ltsp">ltsp (1)</a></li>
7126
7127  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network (3)</a></li>
7128
7129  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia (25)</a></li>
7130
7131  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk (236)</a></li>
7132
7133  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug (156)</a></li>
7134
7135  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/offentlig innsyn">offentlig innsyn (8)</a></li>
7136
7137  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/open311">open311 (2)</a></li>
7138
7139  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett (45)</a></li>
7140
7141  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern (67)</a></li>
7142
7143  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/raid">raid (1)</a></li>
7144
7145  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reprap">reprap (11)</a></li>
7146
7147  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rfid">rfid (2)</a></li>
7148
7149  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot (8)</a></li>
7150
7151  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rss">rss (1)</a></li>
7152
7153  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ruter">ruter (4)</a></li>
7154
7155  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/scraperwiki">scraperwiki (2)</a></li>
7156
7157  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet (32)</a></li>
7158
7159  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary (4)</a></li>
7160
7161  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/skepsis">skepsis (4)</a></li>
7162
7163  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard (43)</a></li>
7164
7165  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stavekontroll">stavekontroll (3)</a></li>
7166
7167  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stortinget">stortinget (9)</a></li>
7168
7169  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance (20)</a></li>
7170
7171  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sysadmin">sysadmin (1)</a></li>
7172
7173  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/valg">valg (8)</a></li>
7174
7175  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video (39)</a></li>
7176
7177  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/vitenskap">vitenskap (4)</a></li>
7178
7179  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web (28)</a></li>
7180
7181 </ul>
7182
7183
7184     </div>
7185     <p style="text-align: right">
7186  Created by <a href="http://steve.org.uk/Software/chronicle">Chronicle v4.6</a>
7187 </p>
7188
7189   </body>
7190 </html>