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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/Freedombox_on_Dreamplug__Raspberry_Pi_and_virtual_x86_machine.html">Freedombox on Dreamplug, Raspberry Pi and virtual x86 machine</a>
  26       </div>
  27       <div class="date">
  28         14th March 2014
  29       </div>
  30       <div class="body">
  31         <p>The <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">Freedombox
  32 project</a> is working on to providing the software and hardware for
  33 making it easy for non-technical people to host their data and
  34 communication at home, and being able to communicate with their
  35 friends and family encrypted and away from prying eyes.  It has been
  36 going on for a while, and is slowly progressing towards a new test
  37 release (0.2).  And what day could be better than the Pi day to
  38 announce that the new version will provide "hard drive"/SD card/USB
  39 stick images for Dreamplug, Raspberry Pi and VirtualBox (or any other
  40 virtualization system), and can also be installed using a Debian
  41 installer preseed file.  The Debian based Freedombox is now based on
  42 Debian Jessie, where most of the needed packages used are already
  43 present.  Only one, the freedombox-setup package, is missing.  To try
  44 to build your own boot image to test the current status, fetch the
  45 freedom-maker scripts and build using
  46 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/vmdebootstrap">vmdebootstrap</a>
  47 with a user with sudo access to become root:
  48
  49 <pre>
  50 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/freedombox/freedom-maker.git \
  51   freedom-maker
  52 sudo apt-get install git vmdebootstrap mercurial python-docutils \
  53   mktorrent extlinux virtualbox qemu-user-static binfmt-support \
  54   u-boot-tools
  55 make -C freedom-maker dreamplug-image raspberry-image virtualbox-image
  56 </pre>
  57
  58 <p>Root access is needed to run debootstrap and mount loopback
  59 devices.  See the README for more details on the build. If you do not
  60 want all three images, trim the make line.  But note that thanks to <a
  61 href="https://bugs.debian.org/741407">a race condition in
  62 vmdebootstrap</a>, the build might fail without the patch to the
  63 kpartx call.</p>
  64
  65 <p>If you instead want to install using a Debian CD and the preseed
  66 method, boot a Debian Wheezy ISO and use this boot argument to load
  67 the preseed values:</p>
  68
  69 <pre>
  70 url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat</a>
  71 </pre>
  72
  73 <p>But note that due to <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/740673">a
  74 recently introduced bug in apt in Jessie</a>, the installer will
  75 currently hang while setting up APT sources.  Killing the
  76 '<tt>apt-cdrom ident</tt>' process when it hang a few times during the
  77 installation will get the installation going.  This affect all
  78 installations in Jessie, and I expect it will be fixed soon.</p>
  79
  80 Give it a go and let us know how it goes on the mailing list, and help
  81 us get the new release published. :) Please join us on
  82 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC (#freedombox on
  83 irc.debian.org)</a> and
  84 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
  85 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
  86
  87       </div>
  88       <div class="tags">
  89
  90
  91         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>.
  92
  93
  94       </div>
  95     </div>
  96     <div class="padding"></div>
  97
  98     <div class="entry">
  99       <div class="title">
 100         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_home_and_release_1_0_for_netgroup_and_innetgr__aka_ng_utils_.html">New home and release 1.0 for netgroup and innetgr (aka ng-utils)</a>
 101       </div>
 102       <div class="date">
 103         22nd February 2014
 104       </div>
 105       <div class="body">
 106         <p>Many years ago, I wrote a GPL licensed version of the netgroup and
 107 innetgr tools, because I needed them in
 108 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a>.  I called the project
 109 ng-utils, and it has served me well.  I placed the project under the
 110 <a href="http://www.hungry.com/">Hungry Programmer</a> umbrella, and it was maintained in our CVS
 111 repository.  But many years ago, the CVS repository was dropped (lost,
 112 not migrated to new hardware, not sure), and the project have lacked a
 113 proper home since then.</p>
 114
 115 <p>Last summer, I had a look at the package and made a new release
 116 fixing a irritating crash bug, but was unable to store the changes in
 117 a proper source control system.  I applied for a project on
 118 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/">Alioth</a>, but did not have time
 119 to follow up on it.  Until today. :)</p>
 120
 121 <p>After many hours of cleaning and migration, the ng-utils project
 122 now have a new home, and a git repository with the highlight of the
 123 history of the project.  I published all release tarballs and imported
 124 them into the git repository.  As the project is really stable and not
 125 expected to gain new features any time soon, I decided to make a new
 126 release and call it 1.0.  Visit the new project home on
 127 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/ng-utils/">https://alioth.debian.org/projects/ng-utils/</a>
 128 if you want to check it out.  The new version is also uploaded into
 129 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/n/ng-utils.html">Debian Unstable</a>.</p>
 130
 131       </div>
 132       <div class="tags">
 133
 134
 135         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>.
 136
 137
 138       </div>
 139     </div>
 140     <div class="padding"></div>
 141
 142     <div class="entry">
 143       <div class="title">
 144         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_sysvinit_from_experimental_in_Debian_Hurd.html">Testing sysvinit from experimental in Debian Hurd</a>
 145       </div>
 146       <div class="date">
 147          3rd February 2014
 148       </div>
 149       <div class="body">
 150         <p>A few days ago I decided to try to help the Hurd people to get
 151 their changes into sysvinit, to allow them to use the normal sysvinit
 152 boot system instead of their old one.  This follow up on the
 153 <a href="https://teythoon.cryptobitch.de//categories/gsoc.html">great
 154 Google Summer of Code work</a> done last summer by Justus Winter to
 155 get Debian on Hurd working more like Debian on Linux.  To get started,
 156 I downloaded a prebuilt hard disk image from
 157 <a href="http://ftp.debian-ports.org/debian-cd/hurd-i386/current/debian-hurd.img.tar.gz">http://ftp.debian-ports.org/debian-cd/hurd-i386/current/debian-hurd.img.tar.gz</a>,
 158 and started it using virt-manager.</p>
 159
 160 <p>The first think I had to do after logging in (root without any
 161 password) was to get the network operational.  I followed
 162 <a href="https://www.debian.org/ports/hurd/hurd-install">the
 163 instructions on the Debian GNU/Hurd ports page</a> and ran these
 164 commands as root to get the machine to accept a IP address from the
 165 kvm internal DHCP server:</p>
 166
 167 <p><blockquote><pre>
 168 settrans -fgap /dev/netdde /hurd/netdde
 169 kill $(ps -ef|awk '/[p]finet/ { print $2}')
 170 kill $(ps -ef|awk '/[d]evnode/ { print $2}')
 171 dhclient /dev/eth0
 172 </pre></blockquote></p>
 173
 174 <p>After this, the machine had internet connectivity, and I could
 175 upgrade it and install the sysvinit packages from experimental and
 176 enable it as the default boot system in Hurd.</p>
 177
 178 <p>But before I did that, I set a password on the root user, as ssh is
 179 running on the machine it for ssh login to work a password need to be
 180 set.  Also, note that a bug somewhere in openssh on Hurd block
 181 compression from working.  Remember to turn that off on the client
 182 side.</p>
 183
 184 <p>Run these commands as root to upgrade and test the new sysvinit
 185 stuff:</p>
 186
 187 <p><blockquote><pre>
 188 cat > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/experimental.list &lt;&lt;EOF
 189 deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ experimental main
 190 EOF
 191 apt-get update
 192 apt-get dist-upgrade
 193 apt-get install -t experimental initscripts sysv-rc sysvinit \
 194     sysvinit-core sysvinit-utils
 195 update-alternatives --config runsystem
 196 </pre></blockquote></p>
 197
 198 <p>To reboot after switching boot system, you have to use
 199 <tt>reboot-hurd</tt> instead of just <tt>reboot</tt>, as there is not
 200 yet a sysvinit process able to receive the signals from the normal
 201 'reboot' command.  After switching to sysvinit as the boot system,
 202 upgrading every package and rebooting, the network come up with DHCP
 203 after boot as it should, and the settrans/pkill hack mentioned at the
 204 start is no longer needed.  But for some strange reason, there are no
 205 longer any login prompt in the virtual console, so I logged in using
 206 ssh instead.
 207
 208 <p>Note that there are some race conditions in Hurd making the boot
 209 fail some times.  No idea what the cause is, but hope the Hurd porters
 210 figure it out.  At least Justus said on IRC (#debian-hurd on
 211 irc.debian.org) that they are aware of the problem.  A way to reduce
 212 the impact is to upgrade to the Hurd packages built by Justus by
 213 adding this repository to the machine:</p>
 214
 215 <p><blockquote><pre>
 216 cat > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/hurd-ci.list &lt;&lt;EOF
 217 deb http://darnassus.sceen.net/~teythoon/hurd-ci/ sid main
 218 EOF
 219 </pre></blockquote></p>
 220
 221 <p>At the moment the prebuilt virtual machine get some packages from
 222 http://ftp.debian-ports.org/debian, because some of the packages in
 223 unstable do not yet include the required patches that are lingering in
 224 BTS.  This is the completely list of "unofficial" packages installed:</p>
 225
 226 <p><blockquote><pre>
 227 # aptitude search '?narrow(?version(CURRENT),?origin(Debian Ports))'
 228 i   emacs                   - GNU Emacs editor (metapackage)
 229 i   gdb                     - GNU Debugger
 230 i   hurd-recommended        - Miscellaneous translators
 231 i   isc-dhcp-client         - ISC DHCP client
 232 i   isc-dhcp-common         - common files used by all the isc-dhcp* packages
 233 i   libc-bin                - Embedded GNU C Library: Binaries
 234 i   libc-dev-bin            - Embedded GNU C Library: Development binaries
 235 i   libc0.3                 - Embedded GNU C Library: Shared libraries
 236 i A libc0.3-dbg             - Embedded GNU C Library: detached debugging symbols
 237 i   libc0.3-dev             - Embedded GNU C Library: Development Libraries and Hea
 238 i   multiarch-support       - Transitional package to ensure multiarch compatibilit
 239 i A x11-common              - X Window System (X.Org) infrastructure
 240 i   xorg                    - X.Org X Window System
 241 i A xserver-xorg            - X.Org X server
 242 i A xserver-xorg-input-all  - X.Org X server -- input driver metapackage
 243 #
 244 </pre></blockquote></p>
 245
 246 <p>All in all, testing hurd has been an interesting experience. :)
 247 X.org did not work out of the box and I never took the time to follow
 248 the porters instructions to fix it.  This time I was interested in the
 249 command line stuff.<p>
 250
 251       </div>
 252       <div class="tags">
 253
 254
 255         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>.
 256
 257
 258       </div>
 259     </div>
 260     <div class="padding"></div>
 261
 262     <div class="entry">
 263       <div class="title">
 264         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_chrpath_release_0_16.html">New chrpath release 0.16</a>
 265       </div>
 266       <div class="date">
 267         14th January 2014
 268       </div>
 269       <div class="body">
 270         <p><a href="http://www.coverity.com/">Coverity</a> is a nice tool to
 271 find problems in C, C++ and Java code using static source code
 272 analysis.  It can detect a lot of different problems, and is very
 273 useful to find memory and locking bugs in the error handling part of
 274 the source.  The company behind it provide
 275 <a href="https://scan.coverity.com/">check of free software projects as
 276 a community service</a>, and many hundred free software projects are
 277 already checked.  A few days ago I decided to have a closer look at
 278 the Coverity system, and discovered that the
 279 <a href="http://www.gnu.org/software/gnash/">gnash</a> and
 280 <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/ipmitool/">ipmitool</a>
 281 projects I am involved with was already registered.  But these are
 282 fairly big, and I would also like to have a small and easy project to
 283 check, and decided to <a href="http://scan.coverity.com/projects/1179">request
 284 checking of the chrpath project</a>.  It was
 285 added to the checker and discovered seven potential defects.  Six of
 286 these were real, mostly resource "leak" when the program detected an
 287 error.  Nothing serious, as the resources would be released a fraction
 288 of a second later when the program exited because of the error, but it
 289 is nice to do it right in case the source of the program some time in
 290 the future end up in a library.  Having fixed all defects and added
 291 <a href="https://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/chrpath-devel">a
 292 mailing list for the chrpath developers</a>, I decided it was time to
 293 publish a new release.  These are the release notes:</p>
 294
 295 <p>New in 0.16 released 2014-01-14:</p>
 296
 297 <ul>
 298
 299   <li>Fixed all minor bugs discovered by Coverity.</li>
 300   <li>Updated config.sub and config.guess from the GNU project.</li>
 301   <li>Mention new project mailing list in the documentation.</li>
 302
 303 </ul>
 304
 305 <p>You can
 306 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/frs/?group_id=31052">download the
 307 new version 0.16 from alioth</a>.  Please let us know via the Alioth
 308 project if something is wrong with the new release.  The test suite
 309 did not discover any old errors, so if you find a new one, please also
 310 include a test suite check.</p>
 311
 312       </div>
 313       <div class="tags">
 314
 315
 316         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/chrpath">chrpath</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>.
 317
 318
 319       </div>
 320     </div>
 321     <div class="padding"></div>
 322
 323     <div class="entry">
 324       <div class="title">
 325         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_chrpath_release_0_15.html">New chrpath release 0.15</a>
 326       </div>
 327       <div class="date">
 328         24th November 2013
 329       </div>
 330       <div class="body">
 331         <p>After many years break from the package and a vain hope that
 332 development would be continued by someone else, I finally pulled my
 333 acts together this morning and wrapped up a new release of chrpath,
 334 the command line tool to modify the rpath and runpath of already
 335 compiled ELF programs.  The update was triggered by the persistence of
 336 Isha Vishnoi at IBM, which needed a new config.guess file to get
 337 support for the ppc64le architecture (powerpc 64-bit Little Endian) he
 338 is working on.  I checked the
 339 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/chrpath">Debian</a>,
 340 <a href="https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/chrpath">Ubuntu</a> and
 341 <a href="https://admin.fedoraproject.org/pkgdb/acls/name/chrpath">Fedora</a>
 342 packages for interesting patches (failed to find the source from
 343 OpenSUSE and Mandriva packages), and found quite a few nice fixes.
 344 These are the release notes:</p>
 345
 346 <p>New in 0.15 released 2013-11-24:</p>
 347
 348 <ul>
 349
 350   <li>Updated config.sub and config.guess from the GNU project to work
 351    with newer architectures.  Thanks to isha vishnoi for the heads
 352    up.</li>
 353
 354   <li>Updated README with current URLs.</li>
 355
 356   <li>Added byteswap fix found in Ubuntu, credited Jeremy Kerr and
 357    Matthias Klose.</li>
 358
 359   <li>Added missing help for -k|--keepgoing option, using patch by
 360    Petr Machata found in Fedora.</li>
 361
 362   <li>Rewrite removal of RPATH/RUNPATH to make sure the entry in
 363    .dynamic is a NULL terminated string.  Based on patch found in
 364    Fedora credited Axel Thimm and Christian Krause.</li>
 365
 366 </ul>
 367
 368 <p>You can
 369 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/frs/?group_id=31052">download the
 370 new version 0.15 from alioth</a>.  Please let us know via the Alioth
 371 project if something is wrong with the new release.  The test suite
 372 did not discover any old errors, so if you find a new one, please also
 373 include a testsuite check.</p>
 374
 375       </div>
 376       <div class="tags">
 377
 378
 379         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/chrpath">chrpath</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>.
 380
 381
 382       </div>
 383     </div>
 384     <div class="padding"></div>
 385
 386     <div class="entry">
 387       <div class="title">
 388         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_init_d_boot_script_example_for_rsyslog.html">Debian init.d boot script example for rsyslog</a>
 389       </div>
 390       <div class="date">
 391          2nd November 2013
 392       </div>
 393       <div class="body">
 394         <p>If one of the points of switching to a new init system in Debian is
 395 <a href="http://thomas.goirand.fr/blog/?p=147">to get rid of huge
 396 init.d scripts</a>, I doubt we need to switch away from sysvinit and
 397 init.d scripts at all.  Here is an example init.d script, ie a rewrite
 398 of /etc/init.d/rsyslog:</p>
 399
 400 <p><pre>
 401 #!/lib/init/init-d-script
 402 ### BEGIN INIT INFO
 403 # Provides:          rsyslog
 404 # Required-Start:    $remote_fs $time
 405 # Required-Stop:     umountnfs $time
 406 # X-Stop-After:      sendsigs
 407 # Default-Start:     2 3 4 5
 408 # Default-Stop:      0 1 6
 409 # Short-Description: enhanced syslogd
 410 # Description:       Rsyslog is an enhanced multi-threaded syslogd.
 411 #                    It is quite compatible to stock sysklogd and can be
 412 #                    used as a drop-in replacement.
 413 ### END INIT INFO
 414 DESC="enhanced syslogd"
 415 DAEMON=/usr/sbin/rsyslogd
 416 </pre></p>
 417
 418 <p>Pretty minimalistic to me... For the record, the original sysv-rc
 419 script was 137 lines, and the above is just 15 lines, most of it meta
 420 info/comments.</p>
 421
 422 <p>How to do this, you ask?  Well, one create a new script
 423 /lib/init/init-d-script looking something like this:
 424
 425 <p><pre>
 426 #!/bin/sh
 427
 428 # Define LSB log_* functions.
 429 # Depend on lsb-base (>= 3.2-14) to ensure that this file is present
 430 # and status_of_proc is working.
 431 . /lib/lsb/init-functions
 432
 433 #
 434 # Function that starts the daemon/service
 435
 436 #
 437 do_start()
 438 {
 439         # Return
 440         #   0 if daemon has been started
 441         #   1 if daemon was already running
 442         #   2 if daemon could not be started
 443         start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $DAEMON --test > /dev/null \
 444                 || return 1
 445         start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $DAEMON -- \
 446                 $DAEMON_ARGS \
 447                 || return 2
 448         # Add code here, if necessary, that waits for the process to be ready
 449         # to handle requests from services started subsequently which depend
 450         # on this one.  As a last resort, sleep for some time.
 451 }
 452
 453 #
 454 # Function that stops the daemon/service
 455 #
 456 do_stop()
 457 {
 458         # Return
 459         #   0 if daemon has been stopped
 460         #   1 if daemon was already stopped
 461         #   2 if daemon could not be stopped
 462         #   other if a failure occurred
 463         start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --retry=TERM/30/KILL/5 --pidfile $PIDFILE --name $NAME
 464         RETVAL="$?"
 465         [ "$RETVAL" = 2 ] && return 2
 466         # Wait for children to finish too if this is a daemon that forks
 467         # and if the daemon is only ever run from this initscript.
 468         # If the above conditions are not satisfied then add some other code
 469         # that waits for the process to drop all resources that could be
 470         # needed by services started subsequently.  A last resort is to
 471         # sleep for some time.
 472         start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --oknodo --retry=0/30/KILL/5 --exec $DAEMON
 473         [ "$?" = 2 ] && return 2
 474         # Many daemons don't delete their pidfiles when they exit.
 475         rm -f $PIDFILE
 476         return "$RETVAL"
 477 }
 478
 479 #
 480 # Function that sends a SIGHUP to the daemon/service
 481 #
 482 do_reload() {
 483         #
 484         # If the daemon can reload its configuration without
 485         # restarting (for example, when it is sent a SIGHUP),
 486         # then implement that here.
 487         #
 488         start-stop-daemon --stop --signal 1 --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --name $NAME
 489         return 0
 490 }
 491
 492 SCRIPTNAME=$1
 493 scriptbasename="$(basename $1)"
 494 echo "SN: $scriptbasename"
 495 if [ "$scriptbasename" != "init-d-library" ] ; then
 496     script="$1"
 497     shift
 498     . $script
 499 else
 500     exit 0
 501 fi
 502
 503 NAME=$(basename $DAEMON)
 504 PIDFILE=/var/run/$NAME.pid
 505
 506 # Exit if the package is not installed
 507 #[ -x "$DAEMON" ] || exit 0
 508
 509 # Read configuration variable file if it is present
 510 [ -r /etc/default/$NAME ] && . /etc/default/$NAME
 511
 512 # Load the VERBOSE setting and other rcS variables
 513 . /lib/init/vars.sh
 514
 515 case "$1" in
 516   start)
 517         [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_daemon_msg "Starting $DESC" "$NAME"
 518         do_start
 519         case "$?" in
 520                 0|1) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 0 ;;
 521                 2) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 1 ;;
 522         esac
 523         ;;
 524   stop)
 525         [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_daemon_msg "Stopping $DESC" "$NAME"
 526         do_stop
 527         case "$?" in
 528                 0|1) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 0 ;;
 529                 2) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 1 ;;
 530         esac
 531         ;;
 532   status)
 533         status_of_proc "$DAEMON" "$NAME" && exit 0 || exit $?
 534         ;;
 535   #reload|force-reload)
 536         #
 537         # If do_reload() is not implemented then leave this commented out
 538         # and leave 'force-reload' as an alias for 'restart'.
 539         #
 540         #log_daemon_msg "Reloading $DESC" "$NAME"
 541         #do_reload
 542         #log_end_msg $?
 543         #;;
 544   restart|force-reload)
 545         #
 546         # If the "reload" option is implemented then remove the
 547         # 'force-reload' alias
 548         #
 549         log_daemon_msg "Restarting $DESC" "$NAME"
 550         do_stop
 551         case "$?" in
 552           0|1)
 553                 do_start
 554                 case "$?" in
 555                         0) log_end_msg 0 ;;
 556                         1) log_end_msg 1 ;; # Old process is still running
 557                         *) log_end_msg 1 ;; # Failed to start
 558                 esac
 559                 ;;
 560           *)
 561                 # Failed to stop
 562                 log_end_msg 1
 563                 ;;
 564         esac
 565         ;;
 566   *)
 567         echo "Usage: $SCRIPTNAME {start|stop|status|restart|force-reload}" >&2
 568         exit 3
 569         ;;
 570 esac
 571
 572 :
 573 </pre></p>
 574
 575 <p>It is based on /etc/init.d/skeleton, and could be improved quite a
 576 lot.  I did not really polish the approach, so it might not always
 577 work out of the box, but you get the idea.  I did not try very hard to
 578 optimize it nor make it more robust either.</p>
 579
 580 <p>A better argument for switching init system in Debian than reducing
 581 the size of init scripts (which is a good thing to do anyway), is to
 582 get boot system that is able to handle the kernel events sensibly and
 583 robustly, and do not depend on the boot to run sequentially.  The boot
 584 and the kernel have not behaved sequentially in years.</p>
 585
 586       </div>
 587       <div class="tags">
 588
 589
 590         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>.
 591
 592
 593       </div>
 594     </div>
 595     <div class="padding"></div>
 596
 597     <div class="entry">
 598       <div class="title">
 599         <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>
 600       </div>
 601       <div class="date">
 602          1st November 2013
 603       </div>
 604       <div class="body">
 605         <p><a href="http://www.spice-space.org/">The SPICE protocol</a> for
 606 remote display access is the preferred solution with oVirt and RedHat
 607 Enterprise Virtualization, and I was sad to discover the other day
 608 that the browser plugin needed to use these systems seamlessly was
 609 missing in Debian.  The <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/668284">request
 610 for a package</a> was from 2012-04-10 with no progress since
 611 2013-04-01, so I decided to wrap up a package based on the great work
 612 from Cajus Pollmeier and put it in a collab-maint maintained git
 613 repository to get a package I could use.  I would very much like
 614 others to help me maintain the package (or just take over, I do not
 615 mind), but as no-one had volunteered so far, I just uploaded it to
 616 NEW.  I hope it will be available in Debian in a few days.</p>
 617
 618 <p>The source is now available from
 619 <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>
 620
 621       </div>
 622       <div class="tags">
 623
 624
 625         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>.
 626
 627
 628       </div>
 629     </div>
 630     <div class="padding"></div>
 631
 632     <div class="entry">
 633       <div class="title">
 634         <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>
 635       </div>
 636       <div class="date">
 637         27th October 2013
 638       </div>
 639       <div class="body">
 640         <p>The
 641 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/v/vmdebootstrap.html">vmdebootstrap</a>
 642 program is a a very nice system to create virtual machine images.  It
 643 create a image file, add a partition table, mount it and run
 644 debootstrap in the mounted directory to create a Debian system on a
 645 stick.  Yesterday, I decided to try to teach it how to make images for
 646 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/RaspberryPi">Raspberry Pi</a>, as part
 647 of a plan to simplify the build system for
 648 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">the FreedomBox
 649 project</a>.  The FreedomBox project already uses vmdebootstrap for
 650 the virtualbox images, but its current build system made multistrap
 651 based system for Dreamplug images, and it is lacking support for
 652 Raspberry Pi.</p>
 653
 654 <p>Armed with the knowledge on how to build "foreign" (aka non-native
 655 architecture) chroots for Raspberry Pi, I dived into the vmdebootstrap
 656 code and adjusted it to be able to build armel images on my amd64
 657 Debian laptop.  I ended up giving vmdebootstrap five new options,
 658 allowing me to replicate the image creation process I use to make
 659 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Raspberry_Pi_based_batman_adv_Mesh_network_node.html">Debian
 660 Jessie based mesh node images for the Raspberry Pi</a>.  First, the
 661 <tt>--foreign /path/to/binfm_handler</tt> option tell vmdebootstrap to
 662 call debootstrap with --foreign and to copy the handler into the
 663 generated chroot before running the second stage.  This allow
 664 vmdebootstrap to create armel images on an amd64 host.  Next I added
 665 two new options <tt>--bootsize size</tt> and <tt>--boottype
 666 fstype</tt> to teach it to create a separate /boot/ partition with the
 667 given file system type, allowing me to create an image with a vfat
 668 partition for the /boot/ stuff.  I also added a <tt>--variant
 669 variant</tt> option to allow me to create smaller images without the
 670 Debian base system packages installed.  Finally, I added an option
 671 <tt>--no-extlinux</tt> to tell vmdebootstrap to not install extlinux
 672 as a boot loader.  It is not needed on the Raspberry Pi and probably
 673 most other non-x86 architectures.  The changes were accepted by the
 674 upstream author of vmdebootstrap yesterday and today, and is now
 675 available from
 676 <a href="http://git.liw.fi/cgi-bin/cgit/cgit.cgi/vmdebootstrap/">the
 677 upstream project page</a>.</p>
 678
 679 <p>To use it to build a Raspberry Pi image using Debian Jessie, first
 680 create a small script (the customize script) to add the non-free
 681 binary blob needed to boot the Raspberry Pi and the APT source
 682 list:</p>
 683
 684 <p><pre>
 685 #!/bin/sh
 686 set -e # Exit on first error
 687 rootdir="$1"
 688 cd "$rootdir"
 689 cat &lt;&lt;EOF > etc/apt/sources.list
 690 deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ jessie main contrib non-free
 691 EOF
 692 # Install non-free binary blob needed to boot Raspberry Pi.  This
 693 # install a kernel somewhere too.
 694 wget https://raw.github.com/Hexxeh/rpi-update/master/rpi-update \
 695     -O $rootdir/usr/bin/rpi-update
 696 chmod a+x $rootdir/usr/bin/rpi-update
 697 mkdir -p $rootdir/lib/modules
 698 touch $rootdir/boot/start.elf
 699 chroot $rootdir rpi-update
 700 </pre></p>
 701
 702 <p>Next, fetch the latest vmdebootstrap script and call it like this
 703 to build the image:</p>
 704
 705 <pre>
 706 sudo ./vmdebootstrap \
 707     --variant minbase \
 708     --arch armel \
 709     --distribution jessie \
 710     --mirror http://http.debian.net/debian \
 711     --image test.img \
 712     --size 600M \
 713     --bootsize 64M \
 714     --boottype vfat \
 715     --log-level debug \
 716     --verbose \
 717     --no-kernel \
 718     --no-extlinux \
 719     --root-password raspberry \
 720     --hostname raspberrypi \
 721     --foreign /usr/bin/qemu-arm-static \
 722     --customize `pwd`/customize \
 723     --package netbase \
 724     --package git-core \
 725     --package binutils \
 726     --package ca-certificates \
 727     --package wget \
 728     --package kmod
 729 </pre></p>
 730
 731 <p>The list of packages being installed are the ones needed by
 732 rpi-update to make the image bootable on the Raspberry Pi, with the
 733 exception of netbase, which is needed by debootstrap to find
 734 /etc/hosts with the minbase variant.  I really wish there was a way to
 735 set up an Raspberry Pi using only packages in the Debian archive, but
 736 that is not possible as far as I know, because it boots from the GPU
 737 using a non-free binary blob.</p>
 738
 739 <p>The build host need debootstrap, kpartx and qemu-user-static and
 740 probably a few others installed.  I have not checked the complete
 741 build dependency list.</p>
 742
 743 <p>The resulting image will not use the hardware floating point unit
 744 on the Raspberry PI, because the armel architecture in Debian is not
 745 optimized for that use.  So the images created will be a bit slower
 746 than <a href="http://www.raspbian.org/">Raspbian</a> based images.</p>
 747
 748       </div>
 749       <div class="tags">
 750
 751
 752         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>.
 753
 754
 755       </div>
 756     </div>
 757     <div class="padding"></div>
 758
 759     <div class="entry">
 760       <div class="title">
 761         <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>
 762       </div>
 763       <div class="date">
 764         15th October 2013
 765       </div>
 766       <div class="body">
 767         <p>The last few days I came across a few good causes that should get
 768 wider attention.  I recommend signing and donating to each one of
 769 these. :)</p>
 770
 771 <p>Via <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2013/18/">Debian
 772 Project News for 2013-10-14</a> I came across the Outreach Program for
 773 Women program which is a Google Summer of Code like initiative to get
 774 more women involved in free software.  One debian sponsor has offered
 775 to match <a href="http://debian.ch/opw2013">any donation done to Debian
 776 earmarked</a> for this initiative.  I donated a few minutes ago, and
 777 hope you will to. :)</p>
 778
 779 <p>And the Electronic Frontier Foundation just announced plans to
 780 create <a href="https://supporters.eff.org/donate/nsa-videos">video
 781 documentaries about the excessive spying</a> on every Internet user that
 782 take place these days, and their need to fund the work.  I've already
 783 donated.  Are you next?</p>
 784
 785 <p>For my Norwegian audience, the organisation Studentenes og
 786 Akademikernes Internasjonale Hjelpefond is collecting signatures for a
 787 statement under the heading
 788 <a href="http://saih.no/Bloggers_United/">Bloggers United for Open
 789 Access</a> for those of us asking for more focus on open access in the
 790 Norwegian government.  So far 499 signatures.  I hope you will sign it
 791 too.</p>
 792
 793       </div>
 794       <div class="tags">
 795
 796
 797         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>.
 798
 799
 800       </div>
 801     </div>
 802     <div class="padding"></div>
 803
 804     <div class="entry">
 805       <div class="title">
 806         <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>
 807       </div>
 808       <div class="date">
 809         27th September 2013
 810       </div>
 811       <div class="body">
 812         <p>The <a href="http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/">Freedombox
 813 project</a> have been going on for a while, and have presented the
 814 vision, ideas and solution several places.  Here is a little
 815 collection of videos of talks and presentation of the project.</p>
 816
 817 <ul>
 818
 819 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukvUz5taxvA">FreedomBox -
 820 2,5 minute marketing film</a> (Youtube)</li>
 821
 822 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzW25QTVWsE">Eben Moglen
 823 discusses the Freedombox on CBS news 2011</a> (Youtube)</li>
 824
 825 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ae8SZbxfE0g">Eben Moglen -
 826 Freedom in the Cloud - Software Freedom, Privacy and and Security for
 827 Web 2.0 and Cloud computing at ISOC-NY Public Meeting 2010</a>
 828 (Youtube)</li>
 829
 830 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNaIji_3xBE">Fosdem 2011
 831 Keynote by Eben Moglen presenting the Freedombox</a> (Youtube)</li>
 832
 833 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bDDUyJSQ9s">Presentation of
 834 the Freedombox by James Vasile at Elevate in Gratz 2011</a> (Youtube)</li>
 835
 836 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQTmnk27g9s"> Freedombox -
 837 Discovery, Identity, and Trust by Nick Daly at Freedombox Hackfest New
 838 York City in 2012</a> (Youtube)</li>
 839
 840 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkbSB4Ba7Ck">Introduction
 841 to the Freedombox at Freedombox Hackfest New York City in 2012</a>
 842 (Youtube)</li>
 843
 844 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-P2Jaeg0aQ">Freedom, Out
 845 of the Box! by Bdale Garbee at linux.conf.au Ballarat, 2012</a> (Youtube) </li>
 846
 847 <li><a href="https://archive.fosdem.org/2013/schedule/event/freedombox/">Freedombox
 848 1.0 by Eben Moglen and Bdale Garbee at Fosdem 2013</a> (FOSDEM) </li>
 849
 850 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1LpYX2zVYg">What is the
 851 FreedomBox today by Bdale Garbee at Debconf13 in Vaumarcus
 852 2013</a> (Youtube)</li>
 853
 854 </ul>
 855
 856 <p>A larger list is available from
 857 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/TalksAndPresentations">the
 858 Freedombox Wiki</a>.</p>
 859
 860 <p>On other news, I am happy to report that Freedombox based on Debian
 861 Jessie is coming along quite well, and soon both Owncloud and using
 862 Tor should be available for testers of the Freedombox solution. :) In
 863 a few weeks I hope everything needed to test it is included in Debian.
 864 The withsqlite package is already in Debian, and the plinth package is
 865 pending in NEW.  The third and vital part of that puzzle is the
 866 metapackage/setup framework, which is still pending an upload.  Join
 867 us on <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC
 868 (#freedombox on irc.debian.org)</a> and
 869 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
 870 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
 871
 872       </div>
 873       <div class="tags">
 874
 875
 876         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>.
 877
 878
 879       </div>
 880     </div>
 881     <div class="padding"></div>
 882
 883     <div class="entry">
 884       <div class="title">
 885         <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>
 886       </div>
 887       <div class="date">
 888         10th September 2013
 889       </div>
 890       <div class="body">
 891         <p>I was introduced to the
 892 <a href="http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/">Freedombox project</a>
 893 in 2010, when Eben Moglen presented his vision about serving the need
 894 of non-technical people to keep their personal information private and
 895 within the legal protection of their own homes.  The idea is to give
 896 people back the power over their network and machines, and return
 897 Internet back to its intended peer-to-peer architecture.  Instead of
 898 depending on a central service, the Freedombox will give everyone
 899 control over their own basic infrastructure.</p>
 900
 901 <p>I've intended to join the effort since then, but other tasks have
 902 taken priority.  But this summers nasty news about the misuse of trust
 903 and privilege exercised by the "western" intelligence gathering
 904 communities increased my eagerness to contribute to a point where I
 905 actually started working on the project a while back.</p>
 906
 907 <p>The <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/freedombox/">initial
 908 Debian initiative</a> based on the vision from Eben Moglen, is to
 909 create a simple and cheap Debian based appliance that anyone can hook
 910 up in their home and get access to secure and private services and
 911 communication.  The initial deployment platform have been the
 912 <a href="http://www.globalscaletechnologies.com/t-dreamplugdetails.aspx">Dreamplug</a>,
 913 which is a piece of hardware I do not own.  So to be able to test what
 914 the current Freedombox setup look like, I had to come up with a way to install
 915 it on some hardware I do have access to.  I have rewritten the
 916 <a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/freedom-maker">freedom-maker</a>
 917 image build framework to use .deb packages instead of only copying
 918 setup into the boot images, and thanks to this rewrite I am able to
 919 set up any machine supported by Debian Wheezy as a Freedombox, using
 920 the previously mentioned deb (and a few support debs for packages
 921 missing in Debian).</p>
 922
 923 <p>The current Freedombox setup consist of a set of bootstrapping
 924 scripts
 925 (<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/freedombox-setup">freedombox-setup</a>),
 926 and a administrative web interface
 927 (<a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/Plinth">plinth</a> + exmachina +
 928 withsqlite), as well as a privacy enhancing proxy based on
 929 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/privoxy">privoxy</a>
 930 (freedombox-privoxy).  There is also a web/javascript based XMPP
 931 client (<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/jwchat">jwchat</a>)
 932 trying (unsuccessfully so far) to talk to the XMPP server
 933 (<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/ejabberd">ejabberd</a>).  The
 934 web interface is pluggable, and the goal is to use it to enable OpenID
 935 services, mesh network connectivity, use of TOR, etc, etc.  Not much of
 936 this is really working yet, see
 937 <a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/freedombox-todos/blob/master/TODO">the
 938 project TODO</a> for links to GIT repositories.  Most of the code is
 939 on github at the moment.  The HTTP proxy is operational out of the
 940 box, and the admin web interface can be used to add/remove plinth
 941 users.  I've not been able to do anything else with it so far, but
 942 know there are several branches spread around github and other places
 943 with lots of half baked features.</p>
 944
 945 <p>Anyway, if you want to have a look at the current state, the
 946 following recipes should work to give you a test machine to poke
 947 at.</p>
 948
 949 <p><strong>Debian Wheezy amd64</strong></p>
 950
 951 <ol>
 952
 953 <li>Fetch normal Debian Wheezy installation ISO.</li>
 954 <li>Boot from it, either as CD or USB stick.</li>
 955 <li><p>Press [tab] on the boot prompt and add this as a boot argument
 956 to the Debian installer:<p>
 957 <pre>url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-wheezy.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-wheezy.dat</a></pre></li>
 958
 959 <li>Answer the few language/region/password questions and pick disk to
 960 install on.</li>
 961
 962 <li>When the installation is finished and the machine have rebooted a
 963 few times, your Freedombox is ready for testing.</li>
 964
 965 </ol>
 966
 967 <p><strong>Raspberry Pi Raspbian</strong></p>
 968
 969 <ol>
 970
 971 <li>Fetch a Raspbian SD card image, create SD card.</li>
 972 <li>Boot from SD card, extend file system to fill the card completely.</li>
 973 <li><p>Log in and add this to /etc/sources.list:</p>
 974 <pre>
 975 deb <a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox</a> wheezy main
 976 </pre></li>
 977 <li><p>Run this as root:</p>
 978 <pre>
 979 wget -O - http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/BE1A583D.asc | \
 980    apt-key add -
 981 apt-get update
 982 apt-get install freedombox-setup
 983 /usr/lib/freedombox/setup
 984 </pre></li>
 985 <li>Reboot into your freshly created Freedombox.</li>
 986
 987 </ol>
 988
 989 <p>You can test it on other architectures too, but because the
 990 freedombox-privoxy package is binary, it will only work as intended on
 991 the architectures where I have had time to build the binary and put it
 992 in my APT repository.  But do not let this stop you.  It is only a
 993 short "<tt>apt-get source -b freedombox-privoxy</tt>" away. :)</p>
 994
 995 <p>Note that by default Freedombox is a DHCP server on the
 996 192.168.1.0/24 subnet, so if this is your subnet be careful and turn
 997 off the DHCP server by running "<tt>update-rc.d isc-dhcp-server
 998 disable</tt>" as root.</p>
 999
1000 <p>Please let me know if this works for you, or if you have any
1001 problems.  We gather on the IRC channel
1002 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">#freedombox</a> on
1003 irc.debian.org and the
1004 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">project
1005 mailing list</a>.</p>
1006
1007 <p>Once you get your freedombox operational, you can visit
1008 <tt>http://your-host-name:8001/</tt> to see the state of the plint
1009 welcome screen (dead end - do not be surprised if you are unable to
1010 get past it), and next visit <tt>http://your-host-name:8001/help/</tt>
1011 to look at the rest of plinth.  The default user is 'admin' and the
1012 default password is 'secret'.</p>
1013
1014       </div>
1015       <div class="tags">
1016
1017
1018         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>.
1019
1020
1021       </div>
1022     </div>
1023     <div class="padding"></div>
1024
1025     <div class="entry">
1026       <div class="title">
1027         <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>
1028       </div>
1029       <div class="date">
1030         18th August 2013
1031       </div>
1032       <div class="body">
1033         <p>Earlier, I reported about
1034 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_fix_a_Thinkpad_X230_with_a_broken_180_GB_SSD_disk.html">my
1035 problems using an Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB disk</a>.  Friday I was
1036 told by IBM that the original disk should be thrown away.  And as
1037 there no longer was a problem if I bricked the firmware, I decided
1038 today to try to install Intel firmware to replace the Lenovo firmware
1039 currently on the disk.</p>
1040
1041 <p>I searched the Intel site for firmware, and found
1042 <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>
1043 (aka Intel SATA Solid-State Drive Firmware Update Tool) which
1044 according to the site should contain the latest firmware for SSD
1045 disks.  I inserted the broken disk in one of my spare laptops and
1046 booted the ISO from a USB stick.  The disk was recognized, but the
1047 program claimed the newest firmware already were installed and refused
1048 to insert any Intel firmware.  So no change, and the disk is still
1049 unable to handle write load. :( I guess the only way to get them
1050 working would be if Lenovo releases new firmware.  No idea how likely
1051 that is.  Anyway, just blogging about this test for completeness.  I
1052 got a working Samsung disk, and see no point in spending more time on
1053 the broken disks.</p>
1054
1055       </div>
1056       <div class="tags">
1057
1058
1059         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>.
1060
1061
1062       </div>
1063     </div>
1064     <div class="padding"></div>
1065
1066     <div class="entry">
1067       <div class="title">
1068         <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>
1069       </div>
1070       <div class="date">
1071         17th July 2013
1072       </div>
1073       <div class="body">
1074         <p>Today I switched to
1075 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">my
1076 new laptop</a>.  I've previously written about the problems I had with
1077 my new Thinkpad X230, which was delivered with an
1078 <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
1079 GB Intel SSD disk with Lenovo firmware</a> that did not handle
1080 sustained writes.  My hardware supplier have been very forthcoming in
1081 trying to find a solution, and after first trying with another
1082 identical 180 GB disks they decided to send me a 256 GB Samsung SSD
1083 disk instead to fix it once and for all.  The Samsung disk survived
1084 the installation of Debian with encrypted disks (filling the disk with
1085 random data during installation killed the first two), and I thus
1086 decided to trust it with my data.  I have installed it as a Debian Edu
1087 Wheezy roaming workstation hooked up with my Debian Edu Squeeze main
1088 server at home using Kerberos and LDAP, and will use it as my work
1089 station from now on.</p>
1090
1091 <p>As this is a solid state disk with no moving parts, I believe the
1092 Debian Wheezy default installation need to be tuned a bit to increase
1093 performance and increase life time of the disk.  The Linux kernel and
1094 user space applications do not yet adjust automatically to such
1095 environment.  To make it easier for my self, I created a draft Debian
1096 package <tt>ssd-setup</tt> to handle this tuning.  The
1097 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/ssd-setup.git">source
1098 for the ssd-setup package</a> is available from collab-maint, and it
1099 is set up to adjust the setup of the machine by just installing the
1100 package.  If there is any non-SSD disk in the machine, the package
1101 will refuse to install, as I did not try to write any logic to sort
1102 file systems in SSD and non-SSD file systems.</p>
1103
1104 <p>I consider the package a draft, as I am a bit unsure how to best
1105 set up Debian Wheezy with an SSD.  It is adjusted to my use case,
1106 where I set up the machine with one large encrypted partition (in
1107 addition to /boot), put LVM on top of this and set up partitions on
1108 top of this again.  See the README file in the package source for the
1109 references I used to pick the settings.  At the moment these
1110 parameters are tuned:</p>
1111
1112 <ul>
1113
1114 <li>Set up cryptsetup to pass TRIM commands to the physical disk
1115     (adding discard to /etc/crypttab)</li>
1116
1117 <li>Set up LVM to pass on TRIM commands to the underlying device (in
1118     this case a cryptsetup partition) by changing issue_discards from
1119     0 to 1 in /etc/lvm/lvm.conf.</li>
1120
1121 <li>Set relatime as a file system option for ext3 and ext4 file
1122     systems.</li>
1123
1124 <li>Tell swap to use TRIM commands by adding 'discard' to
1125     /etc/fstab.</li>
1126
1127 <li>Change I/O scheduler from cfq to deadline using a udev rule.</li>
1128
1129 <li>Run fstrim on every ext3 and ext4 file system every night (from
1130     cron.daily).</li>
1131
1132 <li>Adjust sysctl values vm.swappiness to 1 and vm.vfs_cache_pressure
1133     to 50 to reduce the kernel eagerness to swap out processes.</li>
1134
1135 </ul>
1136
1137 <p>During installation, I cancelled the part where the installer fill
1138 the disk with random data, as this would kill the SSD performance for
1139 little gain.  My goal with the encrypted file system is to ensure
1140 those stealing my laptop end up with a brick and not a working
1141 computer.  I have no hope in keeping the really resourceful people
1142 from getting the data on the disk (see
1143 <a href="http://xkcd.com/538/">XKCD #538</a> for an explanation why).
1144 Thus I concluded that adding the discard option to crypttab is the
1145 right thing to do.</p>
1146
1147 <p>I considered using the noop I/O scheduler, as several recommended
1148 it for SSD, but others recommended deadline and a benchmark I found
1149 indicated that deadline might be better for interactive use.</p>
1150
1151 <p>I also considered using the 'discard' file system option for ext3
1152 and ext4, but read that it would give a performance hit ever time a
1153 file is removed, and thought it best to that that slowdown once a day
1154 instead of during my work.</p>
1155
1156 <p>My package do not set up tmpfs on /var/run, /var/lock and /tmp, as
1157 this is already done by Debian Edu.</p>
1158
1159 <p>I have not yet started on the user space tuning.  I expect
1160 iceweasel need some tuning, and perhaps other applications too, but
1161 have not yet had time to investigate those parts.</p>
1162
1163 <p>The package should work on Ubuntu too, but I have not yet tested it
1164 there.</p>
1165
1166 <p>As for the answer to the question in the title of this blog post,
1167 as far as I know, the only solution I know about is to replace the
1168 disk.  It might be possible to flash it with Intel firmware instead of
1169 the Lenovo firmware.  But I have not tried and did not want to do so
1170 without approval from Lenovo as I wanted to keep the warranty on the
1171 disk until a solution was found and they wanted the broken disks
1172 back.</p>
1173
1174       </div>
1175       <div class="tags">
1176
1177
1178         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>.
1179
1180
1181       </div>
1182     </div>
1183     <div class="padding"></div>
1184
1185     <div class="entry">
1186       <div class="title">
1187         <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>
1188       </div>
1189       <div class="date">
1190         10th July 2013
1191       </div>
1192       <div class="body">
1193         <p>A few days ago, I wrote about
1194 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">the
1195 problems I experienced with my new X230 and its SSD disk</a>, which
1196 was dying during installation because it is unable to cope with
1197 sustained write.  My supplier is in contact with
1198 <a href="http://www.lenovo.com/">Lenovo</a>, and they wanted to send a
1199 replacement disk to try to fix the problem.  They decided to send an
1200 identical model, so my hopes for a permanent fix was slim.</p>
1201
1202 <p>Anyway, today I got the replacement disk and tried to install
1203 Debian Edu Wheezy with encrypted disk on it.  The new disk have the
1204 same firmware version as the original.  This time my hope raised
1205 slightly as the installation progressed, as the original disk used to
1206 die after 4-7% of the disk was written to, while this time it kept
1207 going past 10%, 20%, 40% and even past 50%.  But around 60%, the disk
1208 died again and I was back on square one.  I still do not have a new
1209 laptop with a disk I can trust.  I can not live with a disk that might
1210 lock up when I download a new
1211 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> ISO or
1212 other large files.  I look forward to hearing from my supplier with
1213 the next proposal from Lenovo.</p>
1214
1215 <p>The original disk is marked Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB,
1216 11S0C38722Z1ZNME35X1TR, ISN: CVCV321407HB180EGN, SA: G57560302, FW:
1217 LF1i, 29MAY2013, PBA: G39779-300, LBA 351,651,888, LI P/N: 0C38722,
1218 Pb-free 2LI, LC P/N: 16-200366, WWN: 55CD2E40002756C4, Model:
1219 SSDSC2BW180A3L 2.5" 6Gb/s SATA SSD 180G 5V 1A, ASM P/N 0C38732, FRU
1220 P/N 45N8295, P0C38732.</p>
1221
1222 <p>The replacement disk is marked Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB,
1223 11S0C38722Z1ZNDE34N0L0, ISN: CVCV315306RK180EGN, SA: G57560-302, FW:
1224 LF1i, 22APR2013, PBA: G39779-300, LBA 351,651,888, LI P/N: 0C38722,
1225 Pb-free 2LI, LC P/N: 16-200366, WWN: 55CD2E40000AB69E, Model:
1226 SSDSC2BW180A3L 2.5" 6Gb/s SATA SSD 180G 5V 1A, ASM P/N 0C38732, FRU
1227 P/N 45N8295, P0C38732.</p>
1228
1229 <p>The only difference is in the first number (serial number?), ISN,
1230 SA, date and WNPP values.  Mentioning all the details here in case
1231 someone is able to use the information to find a way to identify the
1232 failing disk among working ones (if any such working disk actually
1233 exist).</p>
1234
1235       </div>
1236       <div class="tags">
1237
1238
1239         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>.
1240
1241
1242       </div>
1243     </div>
1244     <div class="padding"></div>
1245
1246     <div class="entry">
1247       <div class="title">
1248         <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>
1249       </div>
1250       <div class="date">
1251          9th July 2013
1252       </div>
1253       <div class="body">
1254         <p>The upcoming Saturday, 2013-07-13, we are organising a combined
1255 Debian Edu developer gathering and Debian and Ubuntu bug squashing
1256 party in Oslo.  It is organised by <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">the
1257 member assosiation NUUG</a> and
1258 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">the Debian Edu / Skolelinux
1259 project</a> together with <a href="http://bitraf.no/">the hack space
1260 Bitraf</a>.</p>
1261
1262 <p>It starts 10:00 and continue until late evening.  Everyone is
1263 welcome, and there is no fee to participate.  There is on the other
1264 hand limited space, and only room for 30 people.  Please put your name
1265 on <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/BSP/2013/07/13/no/Oslo">the event
1266 wiki page</a> if you plan to join us.</p>
1267
1268       </div>
1269       <div class="tags">
1270
1271
1272         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>.
1273
1274
1275       </div>
1276     </div>
1277     <div class="padding"></div>
1278
1279     <div class="entry">
1280       <div class="title">
1281         <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>
1282       </div>
1283       <div class="date">
1284          5th July 2013
1285       </div>
1286       <div class="body">
1287         <p>Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a
1288 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thank_you_Thinkpad_X41__for_your_long_and_trustworthy_service.html">replacement
1289 for my trusty old Thinkpad X41</a>.  Unfortunately I did not have much
1290 time to spend on it, and it took a while to find a model I believe
1291 will do the job, but two days ago the replacement finally arrived.  I
1292 ended up picking a
1293 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_x230">Thinkpad X230</a>
1294 with SSD disk (NZDAJMN).  I first test installed Debian Edu Wheezy as
1295 a roaming workstation, and it seemed to work flawlessly.  But my
1296 second installation with encrypted disk was not as successful.  More
1297 on that below.</p>
1298
1299 <p>I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most
1300 important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never
1301 listed in the feature list.  But I did get good help from the search
1302 feature at <a href="http://www.prisjakt.no/">Prisjakt</a>, which
1303 allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other
1304 requirements.  A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks according
1305 to that search interface, so I had to drop specifying the number of
1306 disks from my search parameters.  I also asked around among friends to
1307 get their impression on keyboards and robustness.</p>
1308
1309 <p>So the new laptop arrived, and it is quite a lot wider than the
1310 X41.  I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is
1311 significantly wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my
1312 hand a lot more to reach the edges.  But the key response is fairly
1313 good and the individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope
1314 I will get used to it.  My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really
1315 needed a new laptop now. :)</p>
1316
1317 <p>Turning off the touch pad was simple.  All it took was a quick
1318 visit to the BIOS during boot it disable it.</p>
1319
1320 <p>But there is a fatal problem with the laptop.  The 180 GB SSD disk
1321 lock up during load.  And this happen when installing Debian Wheezy
1322 with encrypted disk, while the disk is being filled with random data.
1323 I also tested to install Ubuntu Raring, and it happen there too if I
1324 reenable the code to fill the disk with random data (it is disabled by
1325 default in Ubuntu).  And the bug with is already known.  It was
1326 reported to Debian as <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/691427">BTS
1327 report #691427 2012-10-25</a> (journal commit I/O error on brand-new
1328 Thinkpad T430s ext4 on lvm on SSD).  It is also reported to the Linux
1329 kernel developers as
1330 <a href="https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=51861">Kernel bugzilla
1331 report #51861 2012-12-20</a> (Intel SSD 520 stops working under load
1332 (SSDSC2BW180A3L in Lenovo ThinkPad T430s)). It is also reported on the
1333 Lenovo forums, both for
1334 <a href="http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/T400-T500-and-newer-T-series/T430s-Intel-SSD-520-180GB-issue/m-p/1070549">T430
1335 2012-11-10</a> and for
1336 <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
1337 03-20-2013</a>.  The problem do not only affect installation.  The
1338 reports state that the disk lock up during use if many writes are done
1339 on the disk, so it is much no use to work around the installation
1340 problem and end up with a computer that can lock up at any moment.
1341 There is even a
1342 <a href="https://git.efficios.com/?p=test-ssd.git">small C program
1343 available</a> that will lock up the hard drive after running a few
1344 minutes by writing to a file.</p>
1345
1346 <p>I've contacted my supplier and asked how to handle this, and after
1347 contacting PCHELP Norway (request 01D1FDP) which handle support
1348 requests for Lenovo, his first suggestion was to upgrade the disk
1349 firmware.  Unfortunately there is no newer firmware available from
1350 Lenovo, as my disk already have the most recent one (version LF1i).  I
1351 hope to hear more from him today and hope the problem can be
1352 fixed. :)</p>
1353
1354       </div>
1355       <div class="tags">
1356
1357
1358         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>.
1359
1360
1361       </div>
1362     </div>
1363     <div class="padding"></div>
1364
1365     <div class="entry">
1366       <div class="title">
1367         <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>
1368       </div>
1369       <div class="date">
1370          4th July 2013
1371       </div>
1372       <div class="body">
1373         <p>Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a replacement for my
1374 trusty old Thinkpad X41.  Unfortunately I did not have much time to
1375 spend on it, but today the replacement finally arrived.  I ended up
1376 picking a <a href="http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_x230">Thinkpad
1377 X230</a> with SSD disk (NZDAJMN).  I first test installed Debian Edu
1378 Wheezy as a roaming workstation, and it worked flawlessly.  As I write
1379 this, it is installing what I hope will be a more final installation,
1380 with a encrypted hard drive to ensure any dope head stealing it end up
1381 with an expencive door stop.</p>
1382
1383 <p>I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most
1384 important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never
1385 listed in the feature list.  But I did get good help from the search
1386 feature at <ahref="http://www.prisjakt.no/">Prisjakt</a>, which
1387 allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other
1388 requirements.  A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks, so I had
1389 to drop number of disks from my search parameters.</p>
1390
1391 <p>I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is significantly
1392 wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my hand a lot more
1393 to reach the edges.  But the key response is fairly good and the
1394 individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope I will get
1395 used to it.  My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really needed a
1396 new laptop now. :)</p>
1397
1398 <p>I look forward to figuring out how to turn off the touch pad.</p>
1399
1400       </div>
1401       <div class="tags">
1402
1403
1404         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>.
1405
1406
1407       </div>
1408     </div>
1409     <div class="padding"></div>
1410
1411     <div class="entry">
1412       <div class="title">
1413         <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>
1414       </div>
1415       <div class="date">
1416         25th June 2013
1417       </div>
1418       <div class="body">
1419         <p>It annoys me when the computer fail to do automatically what it is
1420 perfectly capable of, and I have to do it manually to get things
1421 working.  One such task is to find out what firmware packages are
1422 needed to get the hardware on my computer working.  Most often this
1423 affect the wifi card, but some times it even affect the RAID
1424 controller or the ethernet card.  Today I pushed version 0.4 of the
1425 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">Isenkram package</a>
1426 including a new script isenkram-autoinstall-firmware handling the
1427 process of asking all the loaded kernel modules what firmware files
1428 they want, find debian packages providing these files and install the
1429 debian packages.  Here is a test run on my laptop:</p>
1430
1431 <p><pre>
1432 # isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
1433 info: kernel drivers requested extra firmware: ipw2200-bss.fw ipw2200-ibss.fw ipw2200-sniffer.fw
1434 info: fetching http://http.debian.net/debian/dists/squeeze/Contents-i386.gz
1435 info: locating packages with the requested firmware files
1436 info: Updating APT sources after adding non-free APT source
1437 info: trying to install firmware-ipw2x00
1438 firmware-ipw2x00
1439 firmware-ipw2x00
1440 Preconfiguring packages ...
1441 Selecting previously deselected package firmware-ipw2x00.
1442 (Reading database ... 259727 files and directories currently installed.)
1443 Unpacking firmware-ipw2x00 (from .../firmware-ipw2x00_0.28+squeeze1_all.deb) ...
1444 Setting up firmware-ipw2x00 (0.28+squeeze1) ...
1445 #
1446 </pre></p>
1447
1448 <p>When all the requested firmware is present, a simple message is
1449 printed instead:</p>
1450
1451 <p><pre>
1452 # isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
1453 info: did not find any firmware files requested by loaded kernel modules.  exiting
1454 #
1455 </pre></p>
1456
1457 <p>It could use some polish, but it is already working well and saving
1458 me some time when setting up new machines. :)</p>
1459
1460 <p>So, how does it work?  It look at the set of currently loaded
1461 kernel modules, and look up each one of them using modinfo, to find
1462 the firmware files listed in the module meta-information.  Next, it
1463 download the Contents file from a nearby APT mirror, and search for
1464 the firmware files in this file to locate the package with the
1465 requested firmware file.  If the package is in the non-free section, a
1466 non-free APT source is added and the package is installed using
1467 <tt>apt-get install</tt>.  The end result is a slightly better working
1468 machine.</p>
1469
1470 <p>I hope someone find time to implement a more polished version of
1471 this script as part of the hw-detect debian-installer module, to
1472 finally fix <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/655507">BTS report
1473 #655507</a>.  There really is no need to insert USB sticks with
1474 firmware during a PXE install when the packages already are available
1475 from the nearby Debian mirror.</p>
1476
1477       </div>
1478       <div class="tags">
1479
1480
1481         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>.
1482
1483
1484       </div>
1485     </div>
1486     <div class="padding"></div>
1487
1488     <div class="entry">
1489       <div class="title">
1490         <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>
1491       </div>
1492       <div class="date">
1493         11th June 2013
1494       </div>
1495       <div class="body">
1496         <p>When installing RedHat, Fedora, Debian and Ubuntu on some machines,
1497 the screen just turn black when Linux boot, either during installation
1498 or on first boot from the hard disk.  I've seen it once in a while the
1499 last few years, but only recently understood the cause.  I've seen it
1500 on HP laptops, and on my latest acquaintance the Packard Bell laptop.
1501 The reason seem to be in the wiring of some laptops.  The system to
1502 control the screen background light is inverted, so when Linux try to
1503 turn the brightness fully on, it end up turning it off instead.  I do
1504 not know which Linux drivers are affected, but this post is about the
1505 i915 driver used by the
1506 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Packard Bell
1507 EasyNote LV</a>, Thinkpad X40 and many other laptops.</p>
1508
1509 <p>The problem can be worked around two ways.  Either by adding
1510 i915.invert_brightness=1 as a kernel option, or by adding a file in
1511 /etc/modprobe.d/ to tell modprobe to add the invert_brightness=1
1512 option when it load the i915 kernel module.  On Debian and Ubuntu, it
1513 can be done by running these commands as root:</p>
1514
1515 <pre>
1516 echo options i915 invert_brightness=1 | tee /etc/modprobe.d/i915.conf
1517 update-initramfs -u -k all
1518 </pre>
1519
1520 <p>Since March 2012 there is
1521 <a href="http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=4dca20efb1a9c2efefc28ad2867e5d6c3f5e1955">a
1522 mechanism in the Linux kernel</a> to tell the i915 driver which
1523 hardware have this problem, and get the driver to invert the
1524 brightness setting automatically.  To use it, one need to add a row in
1525 <a href="http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c">the
1526 intel_quirks array</a> in the driver source
1527 <tt>drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c</tt> (look for "<tt>static
1528 struct intel_quirk intel_quirks</tt>"), specifying the PCI device
1529 number (vendor number 8086 is assumed) and subdevice vendor and device
1530 number.</p>
1531
1532 <p>My Packard Bell EasyNote LV got this output from <tt>lspci
1533 -vvnn</tt> for the video card in question:</p>
1534
1535 <p><pre>
1536 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation \
1537     3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller [8086:0156] \
1538     (rev 09) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
1539  Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device [1025:0688]
1540  Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- \
1541     ParErr- Stepping- SE RR- FastB2B- DisINTx+
1542  Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- \
1543     <TAbort- <MAbort->SERR- <PERR- INTx-
1544  Latency: 0
1545  Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 42
1546  Region 0: Memory at c2000000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4M]
1547  Region 2: Memory at b0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
1548  Region 4: I/O ports at 4000 [size=64]
1549  Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled]
1550  Capabilities: <access denied>
1551  Kernel driver in use: i915
1552 </pre></p>
1553
1554 <p>The resulting intel_quirks entry would then look like this:</p>
1555
1556 <p><pre>
1557 struct intel_quirk intel_quirks[] = {
1558        ...
1559         /* Packard Bell EasyNote LV11HC needs invert brightness quirk */
1560         { 0x0156, 0x1025, 0x0688, quirk_invert_brightness },
1561        ...
1562 }
1563 </pre></p>
1564
1565 <p>According to the kernel module instructions (as seen using
1566 <tt>modinfo i915</tt>), information about hardware needing the
1567 invert_brightness flag should be sent to the
1568 <a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/dri-devel">dri-devel
1569 (at) lists.freedesktop.org</a> mailing list to reach the kernel
1570 developers.  But my email about the laptop sent 2013-06-03 have not
1571 yet shown up in
1572 <a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/dri-devel/2013-June/thread.html">the
1573 web archive for the mailing list</a>, so I suspect they do not accept
1574 emails from non-subscribers.  Because of this, I sent my patch also to
1575 the Debian bug tracking system instead as
1576 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/710938">BTS report #710938</a>, to make
1577 sure the patch is not lost.</p>
1578
1579 <p>Unfortunately, it is not enough to fix the kernel to get Laptops
1580 with this problem working properly with Linux.  If you use Gnome, your
1581 worries should be over at this point.  But if you use KDE, there is
1582 something in KDE ignoring the invert_brightness setting and turning on
1583 the screen during login.  I've reported it to Debian as
1584 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/711237">BTS report #711237</a>, and
1585 have no idea yet how to figure out exactly what subsystem is doing
1586 this.  Perhaps you can help?  Perhaps you know what the Gnome
1587 developers did to handle this, and this can give a clue to the KDE
1588 developers?  Or you know where in KDE the screen brightness is changed
1589 during login?  If so, please update the BTS report (or get in touch if
1590 you do not know how to update BTS).</p>
1591
1592 <p>Update 2013-07-19: The correct fix for this machine seem to be
1593 acpi_backlight=vendor, to disable ACPI backlight support completely,
1594 as the ACPI information on the machine is trash and it is better to
1595 leave it to the intel video driver to control the screen
1596 backlight.</p>
1597
1598       </div>
1599       <div class="tags">
1600
1601
1602         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>.
1603
1604
1605       </div>
1606     </div>
1607     <div class="padding"></div>
1608
1609     <div class="entry">
1610       <div class="title">
1611         <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>
1612       </div>
1613       <div class="date">
1614         27th May 2013
1615       </div>
1616       <div class="body">
1617         <p>Two days ago, I asked
1618 <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
1619 I could install Linux on a Packard Bell EasyNote LV computer
1620 preinstalled with Windows 8</a>.  I found a solution, but am horrified
1621 with the obstacles put in the way of Linux users on a laptop with UEFI
1622 and Windows 8.</p>
1623
1624 <p>I never found out if the cause of my problems were the use of UEFI
1625 secure booting or fast boot.  I suspect fast boot was the problem,
1626 causing the firmware to boot directly from HD without considering any
1627 key presses and alternative devices, but do not know UEFI settings
1628 enough to tell.</p>
1629
1630 <p>There is no way to install Linux on the machine in question without
1631 opening the box and disconnecting the hard drive!  This is as far as I
1632 can tell, the only way to get access to the firmware setup menu
1633 without accepting the Windows 8 license agreement.  I am told (and
1634 found description on how to) that it is possible to configure the
1635 firmware setup once booted into Windows 8.  But as I believe the terms
1636 of that agreement are completely unacceptable, accepting the license
1637 was never an alternative.  I do not enter agreements I do not intend
1638 to follow.</p>
1639
1640 <p>I feared I had to return the laptops and ask for a refund, and
1641 waste many hours on this, but luckily there was a way to get it to
1642 work.  But I would not recommend it to anyone planning to run Linux on
1643 it, and I have become sceptical to Windows 8 certified laptops.  Is
1644 this the way Linux will be forced out of the market place, by making
1645 it close to impossible for "normal" users to install Linux without
1646 accepting the Microsoft Windows license terms?  Or at least not
1647 without risking to loose the warranty?</p>
1648
1649 <p>I've updated the
1650 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Linux Laptop
1651 wiki page for Packard Bell EasyNote LV</a>, to ensure the next person
1652 do not have to struggle as much as I did to get Linux into the
1653 machine.</p>
1654
1655 <p>Thanks to Bob Rosbag, Florian Weimer, Philipp Kern, Ben Hutching,
1656 Michael Tokarev and others for feedback and ideas.</p>
1657
1658       </div>
1659       <div class="tags">
1660
1661
1662         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>.
1663
1664
1665       </div>
1666     </div>
1667     <div class="padding"></div>
1668
1669     <div class="entry">
1670       <div class="title">
1671         <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>
1672       </div>
1673       <div class="date">
1674         25th May 2013
1675       </div>
1676       <div class="body">
1677         <p>I've run into quite a problem the last few days.  I bought three
1678 new laptops for my parents and a few others.  I bought Packard Bell
1679 Easynote LV to run Kubuntu on and use as their home computer.  But I
1680 am completely unable to figure out how to install Linux on it.  The
1681 computer is preinstalled with Windows 8, and I suspect it uses UEFI
1682 instead of a BIOS to boot.</p>
1683
1684 <p>The problem is that I am unable to get it to PXE boot, and unable
1685 to get it to boot the Linux installer from my USB stick.  I have yet
1686 to try the DVD install, and still hope it will work.  when I turn on
1687 the computer, there is no information on what buttons to press to get
1688 the normal boot menu.  I expect to get some boot menu to select PXE or
1689 USB stick booting.  When booting, it first ask for the language to
1690 use, then for some regional settings, and finally if I will accept the
1691 Windows 8 terms of use.  As these terms are completely unacceptable to
1692 me, I have no other choice but to turn off the computer and try again
1693 to get it to boot the Linux installer.</p>
1694
1695 <p>I have gathered my findings so far on a Linlap page about the
1696 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Packard Bell
1697 EasyNote LV</a> model.  If you have any idea how to get Linux
1698 installed on this machine, please get in touch or update that wiki
1699 page.  If I can't find a way to install Linux, I will have to return
1700 the laptop to the seller and find another machine for my parents.</p>
1701
1702 <p>I wonder, is this the way Linux will be forced out of the market
1703 using UEFI and "secure boot" by making it impossible to install Linux
1704 on new Laptops?</p>
1705
1706       </div>
1707       <div class="tags">
1708
1709
1710         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>.
1711
1712
1713       </div>
1714     </div>
1715     <div class="padding"></div>
1716
1717     <div class="entry">
1718       <div class="title">
1719         <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>
1720       </div>
1721       <div class="date">
1722         17th May 2013
1723       </div>
1724       <div class="body">
1725         <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> is
1726 an operating system based on Debian intended for use in schools.  It
1727 contain a turn-key solution for the computer network provided to
1728 pupils in the primary schools.  It provide both the central server,
1729 network boot servers and desktop environments with heaps of
1730 educational software.  The project was founded almost 12 years ago,
1731 2001-07-02.  If you want to support the project, which is in need for
1732 cash to fund developer gatherings and other project related activity,
1733 <a href="http://www.linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">please
1734 donate some money</a>.
1735
1736 <p>A topic that come up again and again on the Debian Edu mailing
1737 lists and elsewhere, is the question on how to transform a Debian or
1738 Ubuntu installation into a Debian Edu installation.  It isn't very
1739 hard, and last week I wrote a script to replicate the steps done by
1740 the Debian Edu installer.</p>
1741
1742 <p>The script,
1743 <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/>
1744 in the debian-edu-config package, will go through these six steps and
1745 transform an existing Debian Wheezy or Ubuntu (untested) installation
1746 into a Debian Edu Workstation:</p>
1747
1748 <ol>
1749
1750 <li>Add skolelinux related APT sources.</li>
1751 <li>Create /etc/debian-edu/config with the wanted configuration.</li>
1752 <li>Install debian-edu-install to load preseeding values and pull in
1753     our configuration.</li>
1754 <li>Preseed debconf database with profile setup in
1755     /etc/debian-edu/config, and run tasksel to install packages
1756     according to the profile specified in the config above,
1757     overriding some of the Debian automation machinery.</li>
1758 <li>Run debian-edu-cfengine-D installation to configure everything
1759     that could not be done using preseeding.</li>
1760 <li>Ask for a reboot to enable all the configuration changes.</li>
1761
1762 </ol>
1763
1764 <p>There are some steps in the Debian Edu installation that can not be
1765 replicated like this.  Disk partitioning and LVM setup, for example.
1766 So this script just assume there is enough disk space to install all
1767 the needed packages.</p>
1768
1769 <p>The script was created to help a Debian Edu student working on
1770 setting up <a href="http://www.raspberrypi.org">Raspberry Pi</a> as a
1771 Debian Edu client, and using it he can take the existing
1772 <a href="http://www.raspbian.org/FrontPage‎">Raspbian</a> installation and
1773 transform it into a fully functioning Debian Edu Workstation (or
1774 Roaming Workstation, or whatever :).</p>
1775
1776 <p>The default setting in the script is to create a KDE Workstation.
1777 If a LXDE based Roaming workstation is wanted instead, modify the
1778 PROFILE and DESKTOP values at the top to look like this instead:</p>
1779
1780 <p><pre>
1781 PROFILE="Roaming-Workstation"
1782 DESKTOP="lxde"
1783 </pre></p>
1784
1785 <p>The script could even become useful to set up Debian Edu servers in
1786 the cloud, by starting with a virtual Debian installation at some
1787 virtual hosting service and setting up all the services on first
1788 boot.</p>
1789
1790       </div>
1791       <div class="tags">
1792
1793
1794         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>.
1795
1796
1797       </div>
1798     </div>
1799     <div class="padding"></div>
1800
1801     <div class="entry">
1802       <div class="title">
1803         <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>
1804       </div>
1805       <div class="date">
1806         11th May 2013
1807       </div>
1808       <div class="body">
1809         <P>In January,
1810 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_IRC_channel_for_LEGO_designers_using_Debian.html">I
1811 announced a</a> new <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">IRC
1812 channel #debian-lego</a>, for those of us in the Debian and Linux
1813 community interested in <a href="http://www.lego.com/">LEGO</a>, the
1814 marvellous construction system from Denmark.  We also created
1815 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">a wiki page</a> to have
1816 a place to take notes and write down our plans and hopes.  And several
1817 people showed up to help.  I was very happy to see the effect of my
1818 call.  Since the small start, we have a debtags tag
1819 <a href="http://debtags.debian.net/search/bytag?wl=hardware::hobby:lego">hardware::hobby:lego</a>
1820 tag for LEGO related packages, and now count 10 packages related to
1821 LEGO and <a href="http://mindstorms.lego.com/">Mindstorms</a>:</p>
1822
1823 <p><table>
1824 <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>
1825 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/leocad">leocad</a></td><td>virtual brick CAD software</td></tr>
1826 <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>
1827 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/lnpd">lnpd</a></td><td>daemon for LNP communication with BrickOS</td></tr>
1828 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/nbc">nbc</a></td><td>compiler for LEGO Mindstorms NXT bricks</td></tr>
1829 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/nqc">nqc</a></td><td>Not Quite C compiler for LEGO Mindstorms RCX</td></tr>
1830 <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>
1831 <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>
1832 <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>
1833 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/t2n">t2n</a></td><td>simple command-line tool for Lego NXT</td></tr>
1834 </table></p>
1835
1836 <p>Some of these are available in Wheezy, and all but one are
1837 currently available in Jessie/testing.  leocad is so far only
1838 available in experimental.</p>
1839
1840 <p>If you care about LEGO in Debian, please join us on IRC and help
1841 adding the rest of the great free software tools available on Linux
1842 for LEGO designers.</p>
1843
1844       </div>
1845       <div class="tags">
1846
1847
1848         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>.
1849
1850
1851       </div>
1852     </div>
1853     <div class="padding"></div>
1854
1855     <div class="entry">
1856       <div class="title">
1857         <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>
1858       </div>
1859       <div class="date">
1860          5th May 2013
1861       </div>
1862       <div class="body">
1863         <p>When I woke up this morning, I was very happy to see that the
1864 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2013/20130504">release announcement
1865 for Debian Wheezy</a> was waiting in my mail box.  This is a great
1866 Debian release, and I expect to move my machines at home over to it fairly
1867 soon.</p>
1868
1869 <p>The new debian release contain heaps of new stuff, and one program
1870 in particular make me very happy to see included.  The
1871 <a href="http://scratch.mit.edu/">Scratch</a> program, made famous by
1872 the <a href="http://www.code.org/">Teach kids code</a> movement, is
1873 included for the first time.  Alongside similar programs like
1874 <a href="http://edu.kde.org/kturtle/">kturtle</a> and
1875 <a href="http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/Turtle_Art">turtleart</a>,
1876 it allow for visual programming where syntax errors can not happen,
1877 and a friendly programming environment for learning to control the
1878 computer.  Scratch will also be included in the next release of Debian
1879 Edu.</a>
1880
1881 <p>And now that Wheezy is wrapped up, we can wrap up the next Debian
1882 Edu/Skolelinux release too.  The
1883 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/2013/04/msg00132.html">first
1884 alpha release</a> went out last week, and the next should soon
1885 follow.<p>
1886
1887       </div>
1888       <div class="tags">
1889
1890
1891         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>.
1892
1893
1894       </div>
1895     </div>
1896     <div class="padding"></div>
1897
1898     <div class="entry">
1899       <div class="title">
1900         <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>
1901       </div>
1902       <div class="date">
1903          3rd April 2013
1904       </div>
1905       <div class="body">
1906         <p>Today the <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">Isenkram
1907 package</a> finally made it into the archive, after lingering in NEW
1908 for many months.  I uploaded it to the Debian experimental suite
1909 2013-01-27, and today it was accepted into the archive.</p>
1910
1911 <p>Isenkram is a system for suggesting to users what packages to
1912 install to work with a pluggable hardware device.  The suggestion pop
1913 up when the device is plugged in.  For example if a Lego Mindstorm NXT
1914 is inserted, it will suggest to install the program needed to program
1915 the NXT controller.  Give it a go, and report bugs and suggestions to
1916 BTS. :)</p>
1917
1918       </div>
1919       <div class="tags">
1920
1921
1922         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>.
1923
1924
1925       </div>
1926     </div>
1927     <div class="padding"></div>
1928
1929     <div class="entry">
1930       <div class="title">
1931         <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>
1932       </div>
1933       <div class="date">
1934          2nd February 2013
1935       </div>
1936       <div class="body">
1937         <p>My
1938 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_backport_bitcoin_qt_version_0_7_2_2_to_Debian_Squeeze.html">last
1939 bitcoin related blog post</a> mentioned that the new
1940 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin package</a> for
1941 Debian was waiting in NEW.  It was accepted by the Debian ftp-masters
1942 2013-01-19, and have been available in unstable since then.  It was
1943 automatically copied to Ubuntu, and is available in their Raring
1944 version too.</p>
1945
1946 <p>But there is a strange problem with the build that block this new
1947 version from being available on the i386 and kfreebsd-i386
1948 architectures.  For some strange reason, the autobuilders in Debian
1949 for these architectures fail to run the test suite on these
1950 architectures (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/672524">BTS #672524</a>).
1951 We are so far unable to reproduce it when building it manually, and
1952 no-one have been able to propose a fix.  If you got an idea what is
1953 failing, please let us know via the BTS.</p>
1954
1955 <p>One feature that is annoying me with of the bitcoin client, because
1956 I often run low on disk space, is the fact that the client will exit
1957 if it run short on space (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/696715">BTS
1958 #696715</a>).  So make sure you have enough disk space when you run
1959 it. :)</p>
1960
1961 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1962 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1963 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
1964
1965       </div>
1966       <div class="tags">
1967
1968
1969         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>.
1970
1971
1972       </div>
1973     </div>
1974     <div class="padding"></div>
1975
1976     <div class="entry">
1977       <div class="title">
1978         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">Welcome to the world, Isenkram!</a>
1979       </div>
1980       <div class="date">
1981         22nd January 2013
1982       </div>
1983       <div class="body">
1984         <p>Yesterday, I
1985 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_prototype_ready_making_hardware_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">asked
1986 for testers</a> for my prototype for making Debian better at handling
1987 pluggable hardware devices, which I
1988 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">set
1989 out to create</a> earlier this month.  Several valuable testers showed
1990 up, and caused me to really want to to open up the development to more
1991 people.  But before I did this, I want to come up with a sensible name
1992 for this project.  Today I finally decided on a new name, and I have
1993 renamed the project from hw-support-handler to this new name.  In the
1994 process, I moved the source to git and made it available as a
1995 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/isenkram.git">collab-maint</a>
1996 repository in Debian.  The new name?  It is <strong>Isenkram</strong>.
1997 To fetch and build the latest version of the source, use</p>
1998
1999 <pre>
2000 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/collab-maint/isenkram.git
2001 cd isenkram && git-buildpackage -us -uc
2002 </pre>
2003
2004 <p>I have not yet adjusted all files to use the new name yet.  If you
2005 want to hack on the source or improve the package, please go ahead.
2006 But please talk to me first on IRC or via email before you do major
2007 changes, to make sure we do not step on each others toes. :)</p>
2008
2009 <p>If you wonder what 'isenkram' is, it is a Norwegian word for iron
2010 stuff, typically meaning tools, nails, screws, etc.  Typical hardware
2011 stuff, in other words.  I've been told it is the Norwegian variant of
2012 the German word eisenkram, for those that are familiar with that
2013 word.</p>
2014
2015 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-26</strong>: Added -us -us to build
2016 instructions, to avoid confusing people with an error from the signing
2017 process.</p>
2018
2019 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-27</strong>: Switch to HTTP URL for the git
2020 clone argument to avoid the need for authentication.</p>
2021
2022       </div>
2023       <div class="tags">
2024
2025
2026         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>.
2027
2028
2029       </div>
2030     </div>
2031     <div class="padding"></div>
2032
2033     <div class="entry">
2034       <div class="title">
2035         <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>
2036       </div>
2037       <div class="date">
2038         21st January 2013
2039       </div>
2040       <div class="body">
2041         <p>Early this month I set out to try to
2042 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">improve
2043 the Debian support for pluggable hardware devices</a>.  Now my
2044 prototype is working, and it is ready for a larger audience.  To test
2045 it, fetch the
2046 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">source
2047 from the Debian Edu subversion repository</a>, build and install the
2048 package.  You might have to log out and in again activate the
2049 autostart script.</p>
2050
2051 <p>The design is simple:</p>
2052
2053 <ul>
2054
2055 <li>Add desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ causing a program
2056 hw-support-handlerd to start when the user log in.</li>
2057
2058 <li>This program listen for kernel events about new hardware (directly
2059 from the kernel like udev does), not using HAL dbus events as I
2060 initially did.</li>
2061
2062 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware modalias in
2063 the APT database, a database
2064 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=markup">available
2065 via HTTP</a> and a database available as part of the package.</li>
2066
2067 <li>If a package is mapped to the hardware in question, the package
2068 isn't installed yet and this is the first time the hardware was
2069 plugged in, show a desktop notification suggesting to install the
2070 package or packages.</li>
2071
2072 <li>If the user click on the 'install package now' button, ask
2073 aptdaemon via the PackageKit API to install the requrired package.</li>
2074
2075 <li>aptdaemon ask for root password or sudo password, and install the
2076 package while showing progress information in a window.</li>
2077
2078 </ul>
2079
2080 <p>I still need to come up with a better name for the system.  Here
2081 are some screen shots showing the prototype in action.  First the
2082 notification, then the password request, and finally the request to
2083 approve all the dependencies.  Sorry for the Norwegian Bokmål GUI.</p>
2084
2085 <p><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-1-notification.png">
2086 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-2-password.png">
2087 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-3-dependencies.png">
2088 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-4-installing.png">
2089 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-5-installing-details.png" width="70%"></p>
2090
2091 <p>The prototype still need to be improved with longer timeouts, but
2092 is already useful.  The database of hardware to package mappings also
2093 need more work.  It is currently compatible with the Ubuntu way of
2094 storing such information in the package control file, but could be
2095 changed to use other formats instead or in addition to the current
2096 method.  I've dropped the use of discover for this mapping, as the
2097 modalias approach is more flexible and easier to use on Linux as long
2098 as the Linux kernel expose its modalias strings directly.</p>
2099
2100 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-21 16:50</strong>: Due to popular demand,
2101 here is the command required to check out and build the source: Use
2102 '<tt>svn checkout
2103 svn://svn.debian.org/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/; cd
2104 hw-support-handler; debuild</tt>'.  If you lack debuild, install the
2105 devscripts package.</p>
2106
2107 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-23 12:00</strong>: The project is now
2108 renamed to Isenkram and the source moved from the Debian Edu
2109 subversion repository to a Debian collab-maint git repository.  See
2110 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">build
2111 instructions</a> for details.</p>
2112
2113       </div>
2114       <div class="tags">
2115
2116
2117         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>.
2118
2119
2120       </div>
2121     </div>
2122     <div class="padding"></div>
2123
2124     <div class="entry">
2125       <div class="title">
2126         <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>
2127       </div>
2128       <div class="date">
2129         19th January 2013
2130       </div>
2131       <div class="body">
2132         <p>This Christmas my trusty old laptop died.  It died quietly and
2133 suddenly in bed.  With a quiet whimper, it went completely quiet and
2134 black.  The power button was no longer able to turn it on.  It was a
2135 IBM Thinkpad X41, and the best laptop I ever had.  Better than both
2136 Thinkpads X30, X31, X40, X60, X61 and X61S.  Far better than the
2137 Compaq I had before that.  Now I need to find a replacement.  To keep
2138 going during Christmas, I moved the one year old SSD disk to my old
2139 X40 where it fitted (only one I had left that could use it), but it is
2140 not a durable solution.
2141
2142 <p>My laptop needs are fairly modest.  This is my wishlist from when I
2143 got a new one more than 10 years ago.  It still holds true.:)</p>
2144
2145 <ul>
2146
2147 <li>Lightweight (around 1 kg) and small volume (preferably smaller
2148   than A4).</li>
2149 <li>Robust, it will be in my backpack every day.</li>
2150 <li>Three button mouse and a mouse pin instead of touch pad.</li>
2151 <li>Long battery life time.  Preferable a week.</li>
2152 <li>Internal WIFI network card.</li>
2153 <li>Internal Twisted Pair network card.</li>
2154 <li>Some USB slots (2-3 is plenty)</li>
2155 <li>Good keyboard - similar to the Thinkpad.</li>
2156 <li>Video resolution at least 1024x768, with size around 12" (A4 paper
2157 size).</li>
2158 <li>Hardware supported by Debian Stable, ie the default kernel and
2159   X.org packages.</li>
2160 <li>Quiet, preferably fan free (or at least not using the fan most of
2161   the time).
2162
2163 </ul>
2164
2165 <p>You will notice that there are no RAM and CPU requirements in the
2166 list.  The reason is simply that the specifications on laptops the
2167 last 10-15 years have been sufficient for my needs, and I have to look
2168 at other features to choose my laptop.  But are there still made as
2169 robust laptops as my X41?  The Thinkpad X60/X61 proved to be less
2170 robust, and Thinkpads seem to be heading in the wrong direction since
2171 Lenovo took over.  But I've been told that X220 and X1 Carbon might
2172 still be useful.</p>
2173
2174 <p>Perhaps I should rethink my needs, and look for a pad with an
2175 external keyboard?  I'll have to check the
2176 <a href="http://www.linux-laptop.net/">Linux Laptops site</a> for
2177 well-supported laptops, or perhaps just buy one preinstalled from one
2178 of the vendors listed on the <a href="http://linuxpreloaded.com/">Linux
2179 Pre-loaded site</a>.</p>
2180
2181       </div>
2182       <div class="tags">
2183
2184
2185         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>.
2186
2187
2188       </div>
2189     </div>
2190     <div class="padding"></div>
2191
2192     <div class="entry">
2193       <div class="title">
2194         <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>
2195       </div>
2196       <div class="date">
2197         18th January 2013
2198       </div>
2199       <div class="body">
2200         <p>Some times I try to figure out which Iceweasel browser plugin to
2201 install to get support for a given MIME type.  Thanks to
2202 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MozillaTeam/Plugins">specifications
2203 done by Ubuntu</a> and Mozilla, it is possible to do this in Debian.
2204 Unfortunately, not very many packages provide the needed meta
2205 information, Anyway, here is a small script to look up all browser
2206 plugin packages announcing ther MIME support using this specification:</p>
2207
2208 <pre>
2209 #!/usr/bin/python
2210 import sys
2211 import apt
2212 def pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
2213     cache = apt.Cache()
2214     cache.open(None)
2215     thepkgs = []
2216     for pkg in cache:
2217         version = pkg.candidate
2218         if version is None:
2219             version = pkg.installed
2220         if version is None:
2221             continue
2222         record = version.record
2223         if not record.has_key('Npp-MimeType'):
2224             continue
2225         mime_types = record['Npp-MimeType'].split(',')
2226         for t in mime_types:
2227             t = t.rstrip().strip()
2228             if t == mimetype:
2229                 thepkgs.append(pkg.name)
2230     return thepkgs
2231 mimetype = "audio/ogg"
2232 if 1 < len(sys.argv):
2233     mimetype = sys.argv[1]
2234 print "Browser plugin packages supporting %s:" % mimetype
2235 for pkg in pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
2236     print "  %s" %pkg
2237 </pre>
2238
2239 <p>It can be used like this to look up a given MIME type:</p>
2240
2241 <pre>
2242 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype
2243 Browser plugin packages supporting audio/ogg:
2244   gecko-mediaplayer
2245 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype application/x-shockwave-flash
2246 Browser plugin packages supporting application/x-shockwave-flash:
2247   browser-plugin-gnash
2248 %
2249 </pre>
2250
2251 <p>In Ubuntu this mechanism is combined with support in the browser
2252 itself to query for plugins and propose to install the needed
2253 packages.  It would be great if Debian supported such feature too.  Is
2254 anyone working on adding it?</p>
2255
2256 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-18 14:20</strong>: The Debian BTS
2257 request for icweasel support for this feature is
2258 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/484010">#484010</a> from 2008 (and
2259 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/698426">#698426</a> from today).  Lack
2260 of manpower and wish for a different design is the reason thus feature
2261 is not yet in iceweasel from Debian.</p>
2262
2263       </div>
2264       <div class="tags">
2265
2266
2267         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>.
2268
2269
2270       </div>
2271     </div>
2272     <div class="padding"></div>
2273
2274     <div class="entry">
2275       <div class="title">
2276         <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>
2277       </div>
2278       <div class="date">
2279         16th January 2013
2280       </div>
2281       <div class="body">
2282         <p>The <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/AppStreamDebianProposal">DEP-11
2283 proposal to add AppStream information to the Debian archive</a>, is a
2284 proposal to make it possible for a Desktop application to propose to
2285 the user some package to install to gain support for a given MIME
2286 type, font, library etc. that is currently missing.  With such
2287 mechanism in place, it would be possible for the desktop to
2288 automatically propose and install leocad if some LDraw file is
2289 downloaded by the browser.</p>
2290
2291 <p>To get some idea about the current content of the archive, I decided
2292 to write a simple program to extract all .desktop files from the
2293 Debian archive and look up the claimed MIME support there.  The result
2294 can be found on the
2295 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/pub/AppStreamTest">Skolelinux FTP
2296 site</a>.  Using the collected information, it become possible to
2297 answer the question in the title.  Here are the 20 most supported MIME
2298 types in Debian stable (Squeeze), testing (Wheezy) and unstable (Sid).
2299 The complete list is available from the link above.</p>
2300
2301 <p><strong>Debian Stable:</strong></p>
2302
2303 <pre>
2304   count MIME type
2305   ----- -----------------------
2306      32 text/plain
2307      30 audio/mpeg
2308      29 image/png
2309      28 image/jpeg
2310      27 application/ogg
2311      26 audio/x-mp3
2312      25 image/tiff
2313      25 image/gif
2314      22 image/bmp
2315      22 audio/x-wav
2316      20 audio/x-flac
2317      19 audio/x-mpegurl
2318      18 video/x-ms-asf
2319      18 audio/x-musepack
2320      18 audio/x-mpeg
2321      18 application/x-ogg
2322      17 video/mpeg
2323      17 audio/x-scpls
2324      17 audio/ogg
2325      16 video/x-ms-wmv
2326 </pre>
2327
2328 <p><strong>Debian Testing:</strong></p>
2329
2330 <pre>
2331   count MIME type
2332   ----- -----------------------
2333      33 text/plain
2334      32 image/png
2335      32 image/jpeg
2336      29 audio/mpeg
2337      27 image/gif
2338      26 image/tiff
2339      26 application/ogg
2340      25 audio/x-mp3
2341      22 image/bmp
2342      21 audio/x-wav
2343      19 audio/x-mpegurl
2344      19 audio/x-mpeg
2345      18 video/mpeg
2346      18 audio/x-scpls
2347      18 audio/x-flac
2348      18 application/x-ogg
2349      17 video/x-ms-asf
2350      17 text/html
2351      17 audio/x-musepack
2352      16 image/x-xbitmap
2353 </pre>
2354
2355 <p><strong>Debian Unstable:</strong></p>
2356
2357 <pre>
2358   count MIME type
2359   ----- -----------------------
2360      31 text/plain
2361      31 image/png
2362      31 image/jpeg
2363      29 audio/mpeg
2364      28 application/ogg
2365      27 image/gif
2366      26 image/tiff
2367      26 audio/x-mp3
2368      23 audio/x-wav
2369      22 image/bmp
2370      21 audio/x-flac
2371      20 audio/x-mpegurl
2372      19 audio/x-mpeg
2373      18 video/x-ms-asf
2374      18 video/mpeg
2375      18 audio/x-scpls
2376      18 application/x-ogg
2377      17 audio/x-musepack
2378      16 video/x-ms-wmv
2379      16 video/x-msvideo
2380 </pre>
2381
2382 <p>I am told that PackageKit can provide an API to access the kind of
2383 information mentioned in DEP-11.  I have not yet had time to look at
2384 it, but hope the PackageKit people in Debian are on top of these
2385 issues.</p>
2386
2387 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-16 13:35</strong>: Updated numbers after
2388 discovering a typo in my script.</p>
2389
2390       </div>
2391       <div class="tags">
2392
2393
2394         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>.
2395
2396
2397       </div>
2398     </div>
2399     <div class="padding"></div>
2400
2401     <div class="entry">
2402       <div class="title">
2403         <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>
2404       </div>
2405       <div class="date">
2406         15th January 2013
2407       </div>
2408       <div class="body">
2409         <p>Yesterday, I wrote about the
2410 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Modalias_strings___a_practical_way_to_map__stuff__to_hardware.html">modalias
2411 values provided by the Linux kernel</a> following my hope for
2412 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">better
2413 dongle support in Debian</a>.  Using this knowledge, I have tested how
2414 modalias values attached to package names can be used to map packages
2415 to hardware.  This allow the system to look up and suggest relevant
2416 packages when I plug in some new hardware into my machine, and replace
2417 discover and discover-data as the database used to map hardware to
2418 packages.</p>
2419
2420 <p>I create a modaliases file with entries like the following,
2421 containing package name, kernel module name (if relevant, otherwise
2422 the package name) and globs matching the relevant hardware
2423 modalias.</p>
2424
2425 <p><blockquote>
2426 Package: package-name
2427 <br>Modaliases: module(modaliasglob, modaliasglob, modaliasglob)</p>
2428 </blockquote></p>
2429
2430 <p>It is fairly trivial to write code to find the relevant packages
2431 for a given modalias value using this file.</p>
2432
2433 <p>An entry like this would suggest the video and picture application
2434 cheese for many USB web cameras (interface bus class 0E01):</p>
2435
2436 <p><blockquote>
2437 Package: cheese
2438 <br>Modaliases: cheese(usb:v*p*d*dc*dsc*dp*ic0Eisc01ip*)</p>
2439 </blockquote></p>
2440
2441 <p>An entry like this would suggest the pcmciautils package when a
2442 CardBus bridge (bus class 0607) PCI device is present:</p>
2443
2444 <p><blockquote>
2445 Package: pcmciautils
2446 <br>Modaliases: pcmciautils(pci:v*d*sv*sd*bc06sc07i*)
2447 </blockquote></p>
2448
2449 <p>An entry like this would suggest the package colorhug-client when
2450 plugging in a ColorHug with USB IDs 04D8:F8DA:</p>
2451
2452 <p><blockquote>
2453 Package: colorhug-client
2454 <br>Modaliases: colorhug-client(usb:v04D8pF8DAd*)</p>
2455 </blockquote></p>
2456
2457 <p>I believe the format is compatible with the format of the Packages
2458 file in the Debian archive.  Ubuntu already uses their Packages file
2459 to store their mappings from packages to hardware.</p>
2460
2461 <p>By adding a XB-Modaliases: header in debian/control, any .deb can
2462 announce the hardware it support in a way my prototype understand.
2463 This allow those publishing packages in an APT source outside the
2464 Debian archive as well as those backporting packages to make sure the
2465 hardware mapping are included in the package meta information.  I've
2466 tested such header in the pymissile package, and its modalias mapping
2467 is working as it should with my prototype.  It even made it to Ubuntu
2468 Raring.</p>
2469
2470 <p>To test if it was possible to look up supported hardware using only
2471 the shell tools available in the Debian installer, I wrote a shell
2472 implementation of the lookup code.  The idea is to create files for
2473 each modalias and let the shell do the matching.  Please check out and
2474 try the
2475 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/hw-support-lookup?view=co">hw-support-lookup</a>
2476 shell script.  It run without any extra dependencies and fetch the
2477 hardware mappings from the Debian archive and the subversion
2478 repository where I currently work on my prototype.</p>
2479
2480 <p>When I use it on a machine with a yubikey inserted, it suggest to
2481 install yubikey-personalization:</p>
2482
2483 <p><blockquote>
2484 % ./hw-support-lookup
2485 <br>yubikey-personalization
2486 <br>%
2487 </blockquote></p>
2488
2489 <p>When I run it on my Thinkpad X40 with a PCMCIA/CardBus slot, it
2490 propose to install the pcmciautils package:</p>
2491
2492 <p><blockquote>
2493 % ./hw-support-lookup
2494 <br>pcmciautils
2495 <br>%
2496 </blockquote></p>
2497
2498 <p>If you know of any hardware-package mapping that should be added to
2499 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=co">my
2500 database</a>, please tell me about it.</p>
2501
2502 <p>It could be possible to generate several of the mappings between
2503 packages and hardware.  One source would be to look at packages with
2504 kernel modules, ie packages with *.ko files in /lib/modules/, and
2505 extract their modalias information.  Another would be to look at
2506 packages with udev rules, ie packages with files in
2507 /lib/udev/rules.d/, and extract their vendor/model information to
2508 generate a modalias matching rule.  I have not tested any of these to
2509 see if it work.</p>
2510
2511 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
2512 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
2513 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
2514 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel</a>.</p>
2515
2516       </div>
2517       <div class="tags">
2518
2519
2520         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>.
2521
2522
2523       </div>
2524     </div>
2525     <div class="padding"></div>
2526
2527     <div class="entry">
2528       <div class="title">
2529         <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>
2530       </div>
2531       <div class="date">
2532         14th January 2013
2533       </div>
2534       <div class="body">
2535         <p>While looking into how to look up Debian packages based on hardware
2536 information, to find the packages that support a given piece of
2537 hardware, I refreshed my memory regarding modalias values, and decided
2538 to document the details.  Here are my findings so far, also available
2539 in
2540 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
2541 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>:
2542
2543 <p><strong>Modalias decoded</strong></p>
2544
2545 <p>This document try to explain what the different types of modalias
2546 values stands for.  It is in part based on information from
2547 &lt;URL: <a href="https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias">https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias</a> &gt;,
2548 &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;,
2549 &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
2550 &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;.
2551
2552 <p>The modalias entries for a given Linux machine can be found using
2553 this shell script:</p>
2554
2555 <pre>
2556 find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u
2557 </pre>
2558
2559 <p>The supported modalias globs for a given kernel module can be found
2560 using modinfo:</p>
2561
2562 <pre>
2563 % /sbin/modinfo psmouse | grep alias:
2564 alias:          serio:ty05pr*id*ex*
2565 alias:          serio:ty01pr*id*ex*
2566 %
2567 </pre>
2568
2569 <p><strong>PCI subtype</strong></p>
2570
2571 <p>A typical PCI entry can look like this.  This is an Intel Host
2572 Bridge memory controller:</p>
2573
2574 <p><blockquote>
2575 pci:v00008086d00002770sv00001028sd000001ADbc06sc00i00
2576 </blockquote></p>
2577
2578 <p>This represent these values:</p>
2579
2580 <pre>
2581  v   00008086  (vendor)
2582  d   00002770  (device)
2583  sv  00001028  (subvendor)
2584  sd  000001AD  (subdevice)
2585  bc  06        (bus class)
2586  sc  00        (bus subclass)
2587  i   00        (interface)
2588 </pre>
2589
2590 <p>The vendor/device values are the same values outputted from 'lspci
2591 -n' as 8086:2770.  The bus class/subclass is also shown by lspci as
2592 0600.  The 0600 class is a host bridge.  Other useful bus values are
2593 0300 (VGA compatible card) and 0200 (Ethernet controller).</p>
2594
2595 <p>Not sure how to figure out the interface value, nor what it
2596 means.</p>
2597
2598 <p><strong>USB subtype</strong></p>
2599
2600 <p>Some typical USB entries can look like this.  This is an internal
2601 USB hub in a laptop:</p>
2602
2603 <p><blockquote>
2604 usb:v1D6Bp0001d0206dc09dsc00dp00ic09isc00ip00
2605 </blockquote></p>
2606
2607 <p>Here is the values included in this alias:</p>
2608
2609 <pre>
2610  v    1D6B  (device vendor)
2611  p    0001  (device product)
2612  d    0206  (bcddevice)
2613  dc     09  (device class)
2614  dsc    00  (device subclass)
2615  dp     00  (device protocol)
2616  ic     09  (interface class)
2617  isc    00  (interface subclass)
2618  ip     00  (interface protocol)
2619 </pre>
2620
2621 <p>The 0900 device class/subclass means hub.  Some times the relevant
2622 class is in the interface class section.  For a simple USB web camera,
2623 these alias entries show up:</p>
2624
2625 <p><blockquote>
2626 usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc01ip00
2627 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc02ip00
2628 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc01ip00
2629 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc02ip00
2630 </blockquote></p>
2631
2632 <p>Interface class 0E01 is video control, 0E02 is video streaming (aka
2633 camera), 0101 is audio control device and 0102 is audio streaming (aka
2634 microphone).  Thus this is a camera with microphone included.</p>
2635
2636 <p><strong>ACPI subtype</strong></p>
2637
2638 <p>The ACPI type is used for several non-PCI/USB stuff.  This is an IR
2639 receiver in a Thinkpad X40:</p>
2640
2641 <p><blockquote>
2642 acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
2643 </blockquote></p>
2644
2645 <p>The values between the colons are IDs.</p>
2646
2647 <p><strong>DMI subtype</strong></p>
2648
2649 <p>The DMI table contain lots of information about the computer case
2650 and model.  This is an entry for a IBM Thinkpad X40, fetched from
2651 /sys/devices/virtual/dmi/id/modalias:</p>
2652
2653 <p><blockquote>
2654 dmi:bvnIBM:bvr1UETB6WW(1.66):bd06/15/2005:svnIBM:pn2371H4G:pvrThinkPadX40:rvnIBM:rn2371H4G:rvrNotAvailable:cvnIBM:ct10:cvrNotAvailable:
2655 </blockquote></p>
2656
2657 <p>The values present are</p>
2658
2659 <pre>
2660  bvn  IBM            (BIOS vendor)
2661  bvr  1UETB6WW(1.66) (BIOS version)
2662  bd   06/15/2005     (BIOS date)
2663  svn  IBM            (system vendor)
2664  pn   2371H4G        (product name)
2665  pvr  ThinkPadX40    (product version)
2666  rvn  IBM            (board vendor)
2667  rn   2371H4G        (board name)
2668  rvr  NotAvailable   (board version)
2669  cvn  IBM            (chassis vendor)
2670  ct   10             (chassis type)
2671  cvr  NotAvailable   (chassis version)
2672 </pre>
2673
2674 <p>The chassis type 10 is Notebook.  Other interesting values can be
2675 found in the dmidecode source:</p>
2676
2677 <pre>
2678   3 Desktop
2679   4 Low Profile Desktop
2680   5 Pizza Box
2681   6 Mini Tower
2682   7 Tower
2683   8 Portable
2684   9 Laptop
2685  10 Notebook
2686  11 Hand Held
2687  12 Docking Station
2688  13 All In One
2689  14 Sub Notebook
2690  15 Space-saving
2691  16 Lunch Box
2692  17 Main Server Chassis
2693  18 Expansion Chassis
2694  19 Sub Chassis
2695  20 Bus Expansion Chassis
2696  21 Peripheral Chassis
2697  22 RAID Chassis
2698  23 Rack Mount Chassis
2699  24 Sealed-case PC
2700  25 Multi-system
2701  26 CompactPCI
2702  27 AdvancedTCA
2703  28 Blade
2704  29 Blade Enclosing
2705 </pre>
2706
2707 <p>The chassis type values are not always accurately set in the DMI
2708 table.  For example my home server is a tower, but the DMI modalias
2709 claim it is a desktop.</p>
2710
2711 <p><strong>SerIO subtype</strong></p>
2712
2713 <p>This type is used for PS/2 mouse plugs.  One example is from my
2714 test machine:</p>
2715
2716 <p><blockquote>
2717 serio:ty01pr00id00ex00
2718 </blockquote></p>
2719
2720 <p>The values present are</p>
2721
2722 <pre>
2723   ty  01  (type)
2724   pr  00  (prototype)
2725   id  00  (id)
2726   ex  00  (extra)
2727 </pre>
2728
2729 <p>This type is supported by the psmouse driver.  I am not sure what
2730 the valid values are.</p>
2731
2732 <p><strong>Other subtypes</strong></p>
2733
2734 <p>There are heaps of other modalias subtypes according to
2735 file2alias.c.  There is the rest of the list from that source: amba,
2736 ap, bcma, ccw, css, eisa, hid, i2c, ieee1394, input, ipack, isapnp,
2737 mdio, of, parisc, pcmcia, platform, scsi, sdio, spi, ssb, vio, virtio,
2738 vmbus, x86cpu and zorro.  I did not spend time documenting all of
2739 these, as they do not seem relevant for my intended use with mapping
2740 hardware to packages when new stuff is inserted during run time.</p>
2741
2742 <p><strong>Looking up kernel modules using modalias values</strong></p>
2743
2744 <p>To check which kernel modules provide support for a given modalias,
2745 one can use the following shell script:</p>
2746
2747 <pre>
2748   for id in $(find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u); do \
2749     echo "$id" ; \
2750     /sbin/modprobe --show-depends "$id"|sed 's/^/  /' ; \
2751   done
2752 </pre>
2753
2754 <p>The output can look like this (only the first few entries as the
2755 list is very long on my test machine):</p>
2756
2757 <pre>
2758   acpi:ACPI0003:
2759     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/acpi/ac.ko
2760   acpi:device:
2761   FATAL: Module acpi:device: not found.
2762   acpi:IBM0068:
2763     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/char/nvram.ko
2764     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/leds/led-class.ko
2765     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/rfkill/rfkill.ko
2766     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/platform/x86/thinkpad_acpi.ko
2767   acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
2768     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/lib/crc-ccitt.ko
2769     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/irda/irda.ko
2770     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/net/irda/nsc-ircc.ko
2771   [...]
2772 </pre>
2773
2774 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
2775 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
2776 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
2777 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel</a>.</p>
2778
2779 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-15:</strong> Rewrite "cat $(find ...)" to
2780 "find ... -print0 | xargs -0 cat" to make sure it handle directories
2781 in /sys/ with space in them.</p>
2782
2783       </div>
2784       <div class="tags">
2785
2786
2787         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>.
2788
2789
2790       </div>
2791     </div>
2792     <div class="padding"></div>
2793
2794     <div class="entry">
2795       <div class="title">
2796         <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>
2797       </div>
2798       <div class="date">
2799         10th January 2013
2800       </div>
2801       <div class="body">
2802         <p>As part of my investigation on how to improve the support in Debian
2803 for hardware dongles, I dug up my old Mark and Spencer USB Rocket
2804 Launcher and updated the Debian package
2805 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pymissile">pymissile</a> to make
2806 sure udev will fix the device permissions when it is plugged in.  I
2807 also added a "Modaliases" header to test it in the Debian archive and
2808 hopefully make the package be proposed by jockey in Ubuntu when a user
2809 plug in his rocket launcher.  In the process I moved the source to a
2810 git repository under collab-maint, to make it easier for any DD to
2811 contribute.  <a href="http://code.google.com/p/pymissile/">Upstream</a>
2812 is not very active, but the software still work for me even after five
2813 years of relative silence.  The new git repository is not listed in
2814 the uploaded package yet, because I want to test the other changes a
2815 bit more before I upload the new version.  If you want to check out
2816 the new version with a .desktop file included, visit the
2817 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/pymissile.git">gitweb
2818 view</a> or use "<tt>git clone
2819 git://anonscm.debian.org/collab-maint/pymissile.git</tt>".</p>
2820
2821       </div>
2822       <div class="tags">
2823
2824
2825         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>.
2826
2827
2828       </div>
2829     </div>
2830     <div class="padding"></div>
2831
2832     <div class="entry">
2833       <div class="title">
2834         <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>
2835       </div>
2836       <div class="date">
2837          9th January 2013
2838       </div>
2839       <div class="body">
2840         <p>One thing that annoys me with Debian and Linux distributions in
2841 general, is that there is a great package management system with the
2842 ability to automatically install software packages by downloading them
2843 from the distribution mirrors, but no way to get it to automatically
2844 install the packages I need to use the hardware I plug into my
2845 machine.  Even if the package to use it is easily available from the
2846 Linux distribution.  When I plug in a LEGO Mindstorms NXT, it could
2847 suggest to automatically install the python-nxt, nbc and t2n packages
2848 I need to talk to it.  When I plug in a Yubikey, it could propose the
2849 yubikey-personalization package.  The information required to do this
2850 is available, but no-one have pulled all the pieces together.</p>
2851
2852 <p>Some years ago, I proposed to
2853 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg01206.html">use
2854 the discover subsystem to implement this</a>.  The idea is fairly
2855 simple:
2856
2857 <ul>
2858
2859 <li>Add a desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ pointing to a program
2860   starting when a user log in.</li>
2861
2862 <li>Set this program up to listen for kernel events emitted when new
2863   hardware is inserted into the computer.</li>
2864
2865 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware ID in a
2866   database mapping to packages, and take note of any non-installed
2867   packages.</li>
2868
2869 <li>Show a message to the user proposing to install the discovered
2870   package, and make it easy to install it.</li>
2871
2872 </ul>
2873
2874 <p>I am not sure what the best way to implement this is, but my
2875 initial idea was to use dbus events to discover new hardware, the
2876 discover database to find packages and
2877 <a href="http://www.packagekit.org/">PackageKit</a> to install
2878 packages.</p>
2879
2880 <p>Yesterday, I found time to try to implement this idea, and the
2881 draft package is now checked into
2882 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
2883 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>.  In the process, I updated the
2884 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover-data.html">discover-data</a>
2885 package to map the USB ids of LEGO Mindstorms and Yubikey devices to
2886 the relevant packages in Debian, and uploaded a new version
2887 2.2013.01.09 to unstable.  I also discovered that the current
2888 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover.html">discover</a>
2889 package in Debian no longer discovered any USB devices, because
2890 /proc/bus/usb/devices is no longer present.  I ported it to use
2891 libusb as a fall back option to get it working.  The fixed package
2892 version 2.1.2-6 is now in experimental (didn't upload it to unstable
2893 because of the freeze).</p>
2894
2895 <p>With this prototype in place, I can insert my Yubikey, and get this
2896 desktop notification to show up (only once, the first time it is
2897 inserted):</p>
2898
2899 <p align="center"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-09-hw-autoinstall.png"></p>
2900
2901 <p>For this prototype to be really useful, some way to automatically
2902 install the proposed packages by pressing the "Please install
2903 program(s)" button should to be implemented.</p>
2904
2905 <p>If this idea seem useful to you, and you want to help make it
2906 happen, please help me update the discover-data database with mappings
2907 from hardware to Debian packages.  Check if 'discover-pkginstall -l'
2908 list the package you would like to have installed when a given
2909 hardware device is inserted into your computer, and report bugs using
2910 reportbug if it isn't.  Or, if you know of a better way to provide
2911 such mapping, please let me know.</p>
2912
2913 <p>This prototype need more work, and there are several questions that
2914 should be considered before it is ready for production use.  Is dbus
2915 the correct way to detect new hardware?  At the moment I look for HAL
2916 dbus events on the system bus, because that is the events I could see
2917 on my Debian Squeeze KDE desktop.  Are there better events to use?
2918 How should the user be notified?  Is the desktop notification
2919 mechanism the best option, or should the background daemon raise a
2920 popup instead?  How should packages be installed?  When should they
2921 not be installed?</p>
2922
2923 <p>If you want to help getting such feature implemented in Debian,
2924 please send me an email. :)</p>
2925
2926       </div>
2927       <div class="tags">
2928
2929
2930         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>.
2931
2932
2933       </div>
2934     </div>
2935     <div class="padding"></div>
2936
2937     <div class="entry">
2938       <div class="title">
2939         <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>
2940       </div>
2941       <div class="date">
2942          2nd January 2013
2943       </div>
2944       <div class="body">
2945         <p>During Christmas, I have worked a bit on the Debian support for
2946 <a href="http://mindstorms.lego.com/en-us/Default.aspx">LEGO Mindstorm
2947 NXT</a>.  My son and I have played a bit with my NXT set, and I
2948 discovered I had to build all the tools myself because none were
2949 already in Debian Squeeze.  If Debian support for LEGO is something
2950 you care about, please join me on the IRC channel
2951 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">#debian-lego</a> (server
2952 irc.debian.org).  There is a lot that could be done to improve the
2953 Debian support for LEGO designers.  For example both CAD software
2954 and Mindstorm compilers are missing. :)</p>
2955
2956 <p>Update 2012-01-03: A
2957 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">project page</a>
2958 including links to Lego related packages is now available.</p>
2959
2960       </div>
2961       <div class="tags">
2962
2963
2964         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>.
2965
2966
2967       </div>
2968     </div>
2969     <div class="padding"></div>
2970
2971     <div class="entry">
2972       <div class="title">
2973         <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>
2974       </div>
2975       <div class="date">
2976         25th December 2012
2977       </div>
2978       <div class="body">
2979         <p>Let me start by wishing you all marry Christmas and a happy new
2980 year!  I hope next year will prove to be a good year.</p>
2981
2982 <p><a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">Bitcoin</a>, the digital
2983 decentralised "currency" that allow people to transfer bitcoins
2984 between each other with minimal overhead, is a very interesting
2985 experiment.  And as I wrote a few days ago, the bitcoin situation in
2986 <a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</a> is about to improve a bit.
2987 The <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">new debian source
2988 package</a> (version 0.7.2-2) was uploaded yesterday, and is waiting
2989 in <a href="http://ftp-master.debian.org/new.html">the NEW queue</A>
2990 for one of the ftpmasters to approve the new bitcoin-qt package
2991 name.</p>
2992
2993 <p>And thanks to the great work of Jonas and the rest of the bitcoin
2994 team in Debian, you can easily test the package in Debian Squeeze
2995 using the following steps to get a set of working packages:</p>
2996
2997 <blockquote><pre>
2998 git clone git://git.debian.org/git/collab-maint/bitcoin
2999 cd bitcoin
3000 DEB_MAINTAINER_MODE=1 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp fakeroot debian/rules clean
3001 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp git-buildpackage --git-ignore-new
3002 </pre></blockquote>
3003
3004 <p>You might have to install some build dependencies as well.  The
3005 list of commands should give you two packages, bitcoind and
3006 bitcoin-qt, ready for use in a Squeeze environment.  Note that the
3007 client will download the complete set of bitcoin "blocks", which need
3008 around 5.6 GiB of data on my machine at the moment.  Make sure your
3009 ~/.bitcoin/ directory have lots of spare room if you want to download
3010 all the blocks.  The client will warn if the disk is getting full, so
3011 there is not really a problem if you got too little room, but you will
3012 not be able to get all the features out of the client.</p>
3013
3014 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
3015 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
3016 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
3017
3018       </div>
3019       <div class="tags">
3020
3021
3022         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>.
3023
3024
3025       </div>
3026     </div>
3027     <div class="padding"></div>
3028
3029     <div class="entry">
3030       <div class="title">
3031         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_word_on_bitcoin_support_in_Debian.html">A word on bitcoin support in Debian</a>
3032       </div>
3033       <div class="date">
3034         21st December 2012
3035       </div>
3036       <div class="body">
3037         <p>It has been a while since I wrote about
3038 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">bitcoin</a>, the decentralised
3039 peer-to-peer based crypto-currency, and the reason is simply that I
3040 have been busy elsewhere.  But two days ago, I started looking at the
3041 state of <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin in
3042 Debian</a> again to try to recover my old bitcoin wallet.  The package
3043 is now maintained by a
3044 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/pkg-bitcoin/">team of
3045 people</a>, and the grunt work had already been done by this team.  We
3046 owe a huge thank you to all these team members. :)
3047 But I was sad to discover that the bitcoin client is missing in
3048 Wheezy.  It is only available in Sid (and an outdated client from
3049 backports).  The client had several RC bugs registered in BTS blocking
3050 it from entering testing.  To try to help the team and improve the
3051 situation, I spent some time providing patches and triaging the bug
3052 reports.  I also had a look at the bitcoin package available from Matt
3053 Corallo in a
3054 <a href="https://launchpad.net/~bitcoin/+archive/bitcoin">PPA for
3055 Ubuntu</a>, and moved the useful pieces from that version into the
3056 Debian package.</p>
3057
3058 <p>After checking with the main package maintainer Jonas Smedegaard on
3059 IRC, I pushed several patches into the collab-maint git repository to
3060 improve the package.  It now contains fixes for the RC issues (not from
3061 me, but fixed by Scott Howard), build rules for a Qt GUI client
3062 package, konqueror support for the bitcoin: URI and bash completion
3063 setup.  As I work on Debian Squeeze, I also created
3064 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-bitcoin-devel/Week-of-Mon-20121217/000041.html">a
3065 patch to backport</a> the latest version.  Jonas is going to look at
3066 it and try to integrate it into the git repository before uploading a
3067 new version to unstable.
3068
3069 <p>I would very much like bitcoin to succeed, to get rid of the
3070 centralized control currently exercised in the monetary system.  I
3071 find it completely unacceptable that the USA government is collecting
3072 transaction data for almost all international money transfers (most are done in USD and transaction logs shipped to the spooks), and
3073 that the major credit card companies can block legal money
3074 transactions to Wikileaks.  But for bitcoin to succeed, more people
3075 need to use bitcoins, and more people need to accept bitcoins when
3076 they sell products and services.  Improving the bitcoin support in
3077 Debian is a small step in the right direction, but not enough.
3078 Unfortunately the user experience when browsing the web and wanting to
3079 pay with bitcoin is still not very good.  The bitcoin: URI is a step
3080 in the right direction, but need to work in most or every browser in
3081 use.  Also the bitcoin-qt client is too heavy to fire up to do a
3082 quick transaction.  I believe there are other clients available, but
3083 have not tested them.</p>
3084
3085 <p>My
3086 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Now_accepting_bitcoins___anonymous_and_distributed_p2p_crypto_money.html">experiment
3087 with bitcoins</a> showed that at least some of my readers use bitcoin.
3088 I received 20.15 BTC so far on the address I provided in my blog two
3089 years ago, as can be
3090 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">seen
3091 on the blockexplorer service</a>.  Thank you everyone for your
3092 donation.  The blockexplorer service demonstrates quite well that
3093 bitcoin is not quite anonymous and untracked. :) I wonder if the
3094 number of users have gone up since then.  If you use bitcoin and want
3095 to show your support of my activity, please send Bitcoin donations to
3096 the same address as last time,
3097 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
3098
3099       </div>
3100       <div class="tags">
3101
3102
3103         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>.
3104
3105
3106       </div>
3107     </div>
3108     <div class="padding"></div>
3109
3110     <div class="entry">
3111       <div class="title">
3112         <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>
3113       </div>
3114       <div class="date">
3115          7th September 2012
3116       </div>
3117       <div class="body">
3118         <p>As I
3119 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">mentioned
3120 this summer</a>, I have created a Computer Science song book a few
3121 years ago, and today I finally found time to create a public
3122 <a href="https://gitorious.org/pere-cs-songbook/pere-cs-songbook">Gitorious
3123 repository for the project</a>.</p>
3124
3125 <p>If you want to help out, please clone the source and submit patches
3126 to the HTML version.  To generate the PDF and PostScript version,
3127 please use prince XML, or let me know about a useful free software
3128 processor capable of creating a good looking PDF from the HTML.</p>
3129
3130 <p>Want to sing?  You can still find the song book in HTML, PDF and
3131 PostScript formats at
3132 <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's Computer
3133 Science Songbook</a>.</p>
3134
3135       </div>
3136       <div class="tags">
3137
3138
3139         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>.
3140
3141
3142       </div>
3143     </div>
3144     <div class="padding"></div>
3145
3146     <div class="entry">
3147       <div class="title">
3148         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gratulerer_med_19__rsdagen__Debian_.html">Gratulerer med 19-årsdagen, Debian!</a>
3149       </div>
3150       <div class="date">
3151         16th August 2012
3152       </div>
3153       <div class="body">
3154         <p>I dag fyller
3155 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120813">Debian-prosjektet 19
3156 år</a>.  Jeg har fulgt det de siste 12 årene, og er veldig glad for å kunne
3157 si gratulerer med dagen, Debian!</p>
3158
3159       </div>
3160       <div class="tags">
3161
3162
3163         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>.
3164
3165
3166       </div>
3167     </div>
3168     <div class="padding"></div>
3169
3170     <div class="entry">
3171       <div class="title">
3172         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">Song book for Computer Scientists</a>
3173       </div>
3174       <div class="date">
3175         24th June 2012
3176       </div>
3177       <div class="body">
3178         <p>Many years ago, while studying Computer Science at the
3179 <a href="http://www.uit.no/">University of Tromsø</a>, I started
3180 collecting computer related songs for use at parties.  The original
3181 version was written in LaTeX, but a few years ago I got help from
3182 Håkon W. Lie, one of the inventors of W3C CSS, to convert it to HTML
3183 while keeping the ability to create a nice book in PDF format.  I have
3184 not had time to maintain the book for a while now, and guess I should
3185 put it up on some public version control repository where others can
3186 help me extend and update the book.  If anyone is volunteering to help
3187 me with this, send me an email.  Also let me know if there are songs
3188 missing in my book.</p>
3189
3190 <p>I have not mentioned the book on my blog so far, and it occured to
3191 me today that I really should let all my readers share the joys of
3192 singing out load about programming, computers and computer networks.
3193 Especially now that <a href="http://debconf12.debconf.org/">Debconf
3194 12</a> is about to start (and I am not going).  Want to sing?  Check
3195 out <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's
3196 Computer Science Songbook</a>.
3197
3198       </div>
3199       <div class="tags">
3200
3201
3202         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>.
3203
3204
3205       </div>
3206     </div>
3207     <div class="padding"></div>
3208
3209     <div class="entry">
3210       <div class="title">
3211         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatically_upgrading_server_firmware_on_Dell_PowerEdge.html">Automatically upgrading server firmware on Dell PowerEdge</a>
3212       </div>
3213       <div class="date">
3214         21st November 2011
3215       </div>
3216       <div class="body">
3217         <p>At work we have heaps of servers.  I believe the total count is
3218 around 1000 at the moment.  To be able to get help from the vendors
3219 when something go wrong, we want to keep the firmware on the servers
3220 up to date.  If the firmware isn't the latest and greatest, the
3221 vendors typically refuse to start debugging any problems until the
3222 firmware is upgraded.  So before every reboot, we want to upgrade the
3223 firmware, and we would really like everyone handling servers at the
3224 university to do this themselves when they plan to reboot a machine.
3225 For that to happen we at the unix server admin group need to provide
3226 the tools to do so.</p>
3227
3228 <p>To make firmware upgrading easier, I am working on a script to
3229 fetch and install the latest firmware for the servers we got.  Most of
3230 our hardware are from Dell and HP, so I have focused on these servers
3231 so far.  This blog post is about the Dell part.</P>
3232
3233 <p>On the Dell FTP site I was lucky enough to find
3234 <a href="ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz">an XML file</a>
3235 with firmware information for all 11th generation servers, listing
3236 which firmware should be used on a given model and where on the FTP
3237 site I can find it.  Using a simple perl XML parser I can then
3238 download the shell scripts Dell provides to do firmware upgrades from
3239 within Linux and reboot when all the firmware is primed and ready to
3240 be activated on the first reboot.</p>
3241
3242 <p>This is the Dell related fragment of the perl code I am working on.
3243 Are there anyone working on similar tools for firmware upgrading all
3244 servers at a site?  Please get in touch and lets share resources.</p>
3245
3246 <p><pre>
3247 #!/usr/bin/perl
3248 use strict;
3249 use warnings;
3250 use File::Temp qw(tempdir);
3251 BEGIN {
3252     # Install needed RHEL packages if missing
3253     my %rhelmodules = (
3254         'XML::Simple' => 'perl-XML-Simple',
3255         );
3256     for my $module (keys %rhelmodules) {
3257         eval "use $module;";
3258         if ($@) {
3259             my $pkg = $rhelmodules{$module};
3260             system("yum install -y $pkg");
3261             eval "use $module;";
3262         }
3263     }
3264 }
3265 my $errorsto = 'pere@hungry.com';
3266
3267 upgrade_dell();
3268
3269 exit 0;
3270
3271 sub run_firmware_script {
3272     my ($opts, $script) = @_;
3273     unless ($script) {
3274         print STDERR "fail: missing script name\n";
3275         exit 1
3276     }
3277     print STDERR "Running $script\n\n";
3278
3279     if (0 == system("sh $script $opts")) { # FIXME correct exit code handling
3280         print STDERR "success: firmware script ran succcessfully\n";
3281     } else {
3282         print STDERR "fail: firmware script returned error\n";
3283     }
3284 }
3285
3286 sub run_firmware_scripts {
3287     my ($opts, @dirs) = @_;
3288     # Run firmware packages
3289     for my $dir (@dirs) {
3290         print STDERR "info: Running scripts in $dir\n";
3291         opendir(my $dh, $dir) or die "Unable to open directory $dir: $!";
3292         while (my $s = readdir $dh) {
3293             next if $s =~ m/^\.\.?/;
3294             run_firmware_script($opts, "$dir/$s");
3295         }
3296         closedir $dh;
3297     }
3298 }
3299
3300 sub download {
3301     my $url = shift;
3302     print STDERR "info: Downloading $url\n";
3303     system("wget --quiet \"$url\"");
3304 }
3305
3306 sub upgrade_dell {
3307     my @dirs;
3308     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
3309     chomp $product;
3310
3311     if ($product =~ m/PowerEdge/) {
3312
3313         # on RHEL, these pacakges are needed by the firwmare upgrade scripts
3314         system('yum install -y compat-libstdc++-33.i686 libstdc++.i686 libxml2.i686 procmail');
3315
3316         my $tmpdir = tempdir(
3317             CLEANUP => 1
3318             );
3319         chdir($tmpdir);
3320         fetch_dell_fw('catalog/Catalog.xml.gz');
3321         system('gunzip Catalog.xml.gz');
3322         my @paths = fetch_dell_fw_list('Catalog.xml');
3323         # -q is quiet, disabling interactivity and reducing console output
3324         my $fwopts = "-q";
3325         if (@paths) {
3326             for my $url (@paths) {
3327                 fetch_dell_fw($url);
3328             }
3329             run_firmware_scripts($fwopts, $tmpdir);
3330         } else {
3331             print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
3332             print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
3333         }
3334         chdir('/');
3335     } else {
3336         print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
3337         print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
3338     }
3339 }
3340
3341 sub fetch_dell_fw {
3342     my $path = shift;
3343     my $url = "ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/$path";
3344     download($url);
3345 }
3346
3347 # Using ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz, figure out which
3348 # firmware packages to download from Dell.  Only work for Linux
3349 # machines and 11th generation Dell servers.
3350 sub fetch_dell_fw_list {
3351     my $filename = shift;
3352
3353     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
3354     chomp $product;
3355     my ($mybrand, $mymodel) = split(/\s+/, $product);
3356
3357     print STDERR "Finding firmware bundles for $mybrand $mymodel\n";
3358
3359     my $xml = XMLin($filename);
3360     my @paths;
3361     for my $bundle (@{$xml->{SoftwareBundle}}) {
3362         my $brand = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Display}->{content};
3363         my $model = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Model}->{Display}->{content};
3364         my $oscode;
3365         if ("ARRAY" eq ref $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}) {
3366             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}[0]->{osCode};
3367         } else {
3368             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}->{osCode};
3369         }
3370         if ($mybrand eq $brand && $mymodel eq $model && "LIN" eq $oscode)
3371         {
3372             @paths = map { $_->{path} } @{$bundle->{Contents}->{Package}};
3373         }
3374     }
3375     for my $component (@{$xml->{SoftwareComponent}}) {
3376         my $componenttype = $component->{ComponentType}->{value};
3377
3378         # Drop application packages, only firmware and BIOS
3379         next if 'APAC' eq $componenttype;
3380
3381         my $cpath = $component->{path};
3382         for my $path (@paths) {
3383             if ($cpath =~ m%/$path$%) {
3384                 push(@paths, $cpath);
3385             }
3386         }
3387     }
3388     return @paths;
3389 }
3390 </pre>
3391
3392 <p>The code is only tested on RedHat Enterprise Linux, but I suspect
3393 it could work on other platforms with some tweaking.  Anyone know a
3394 index like Catalog.xml is available from HP for HP servers?  At the
3395 moment I maintain a similar list manually and it is quickly getting
3396 outdated.</p>
3397
3398       </div>
3399       <div class="tags">
3400
3401
3402         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>.
3403
3404
3405       </div>
3406     </div>
3407     <div class="padding"></div>
3408
3409     <div class="entry">
3410       <div class="title">
3411         <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>
3412       </div>
3413       <div class="date">
3414          4th August 2011
3415       </div>
3416       <div class="body">
3417         <p>Wouter Verhelst have some
3418 <a href="http://grep.be/blog/en/retorts/pere_kubuntu_boot">interesting
3419 comments and opinions</a> on my blog post on
3420 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_should_start_from__etc_rcS_d__in_Debian____almost_nothing.html">the
3421 need to clean up /etc/rcS.d/ in Debian</a> and my blog post about
3422 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_missing_in_the_Debian_desktop__or_why_my_parents_use_Kubuntu.html">the
3423 default KDE desktop in Debian</a>.  I only have time to address one
3424 small piece of his comment now, and though it best to address the
3425 misunderstanding he bring forward:</p>
3426
3427 <p><blockquote>
3428 Currently, a system admin has four options: [...] boot to a
3429 single-user system (by adding 'single' to the kernel command line;
3430 this runs rcS and rc1 scripts)
3431 </blockquote></p>
3432
3433 <p>This make me believe Wouter believe booting into single user mode
3434 and booting into runlevel 1 is the same.  I am not surprised he
3435 believe this, because it would make sense and is a quite sensible
3436 thing to believe.  But because the boot in Debian is slightly broken,
3437 runlevel 1 do not work properly and it isn't the same as single user
3438 mode.  I'll try to explain what is actually happing, but it is a bit
3439 hard to explain.</p>
3440
3441 <p>Single user mode is defined like this in /etc/inittab:
3442 "<tt>~~:S:wait:/sbin/sulogin</tt>".  This means the only thing that is
3443 executed in single user mode is sulogin.  Single user mode is a boot
3444 state "between" the runlevels, and when booting into single user mode,
3445 only the scripts in /etc/rcS.d/ are executed before the init process
3446 enters the single user state.  When switching to runlevel 1, the state
3447 is in fact not ending in runlevel 1, but it passes through runlevel 1
3448 and end up in the single user mode (see /etc/rc1.d/S03single, which
3449 runs "init -t1 S" to switch to single user mode at the end of runlevel
3450 1.  It is confusing that the 'S' (single user) init mode is not the
3451 mode enabled by /etc/rcS.d/ (which is more like the initial boot
3452 mode).</p>
3453
3454 <p>This summary might make it clearer.  When booting for the first
3455 time into single user mode, the following commands are executed:
3456 "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc S; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  When booting into
3457 runlevel 1, the following commands are executed: "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc
3458 S; /etc/init.d/rc 1; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  A problem show up when
3459 trying to continue after visiting single user mode.  Not all services
3460 are started again as they should, causing the machine to end up in an
3461 unpredicatble state.  This is why Debian admins recommend rebooting
3462 after visiting single user mode.</p>
3463
3464 <p>A similar problem with runlevel 1 is caused by the amount of
3465 scripts executed from /etc/rcS.d/.  When switching from say runlevel 2
3466 to runlevel 1, the services started from /etc/rcS.d/ are not properly
3467 stopped when passing through the scripts in /etc/rc1.d/, and not
3468 started again when switching away from runlevel 1 to the runlevels
3469 2-5.  I believe the problem is best fixed by moving all the scripts
3470 out of /etc/rcS.d/ that are not <strong>required</strong> to get a
3471 functioning single user mode during boot.</p>
3472
3473 <p>I have spent several years investigating the Debian boot system,
3474 and discovered this problem a few years ago.  I suspect it originates
3475 from when sysvinit was introduced into Debian, a long time ago.</p>
3476
3477       </div>
3478       <div class="tags">
3479
3480
3481         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>.
3482
3483
3484       </div>
3485     </div>
3486     <div class="padding"></div>
3487
3488     <div class="entry">
3489       <div class="title">
3490         <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>
3491       </div>
3492       <div class="date">
3493         30th July 2011
3494       </div>
3495       <div class="body">
3496         <p>In the Debian boot system, several packages include scripts that
3497 are started from /etc/rcS.d/.  In fact, there is a bite more of them
3498 than make sense, and this causes a few problems.  What kind of
3499 problems, you might ask.  There are at least two problems.  The first
3500 is that it is not possible to recover a machine after switching to
3501 runlevel 1.  One need to actually reboot to get the machine back to
3502 the expected state.  The other is that single user boot will sometimes
3503 run into problems because some of the subsystems are activated before
3504 the root login is presented, causing problems when trying to recover a
3505 machine from a problem in that subsystem.  A minor additional point is
3506 that moving more scripts out of rcS.d/ and into the other rc#.d/
3507 directories will increase the amount of scripts that can run in
3508 parallel during boot, and thus decrease the boot time.</p>
3509
3510 <p>So, which scripts should start from rcS.d/.  In short, only the
3511 scripts that _have_ to execute before the root login prompt is
3512 presented during a single user boot should go there.  Everything else
3513 should go into the numeric runlevels.  This means things like
3514 lm-sensors, fuse and x11-common should not run from rcS.d, but from
3515 the numeric runlevels.  Today in Debian, there are around 115 init.d
3516 scripts that are started from rcS.d/, and most of them should be moved
3517 out.  Do your package have one of them?  Please help us make single
3518 user and runlevel 1 better by moving it.</p>
3519
3520 <p>Scripts setting up the screen, keyboard, system partitions
3521 etc. should still be started from rcS.d/, but there is for example no
3522 need to have the network enabled before the single user login prompt
3523 is presented.</p>
3524
3525 <p>As always, things are not so easy to fix as they sound.  To keep
3526 Debian systems working while scripts migrate and during upgrades, the
3527 scripts need to be moved from rcS.d/ to rc2.d/ in reverse dependency
3528 order, ie the scripts that nothing in rcS.d/ depend on can be moved,
3529 and the next ones can only be moved when their dependencies have been
3530 moved first.  This migration must be done sequentially while we ensure
3531 that the package system upgrade packages in the right order to keep
3532 the system state correct.  This will require some coordination when it
3533 comes to network related packages, but most of the packages with
3534 scripts that should migrate do not have anything in rcS.d/ depending
3535 on them.  Some packages have already been updated, like the sudo
3536 package, while others are still left to do.  I wish I had time to work
3537 on this myself, but real live constrains make it unlikely that I will
3538 find time to push this forward.</p>
3539
3540       </div>
3541       <div class="tags">
3542
3543
3544         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>.
3545
3546
3547       </div>
3548     </div>
3549     <div class="padding"></div>
3550
3551     <div class="entry">
3552       <div class="title">
3553         <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>
3554       </div>
3555       <div class="date">
3556         29th July 2011
3557       </div>
3558       <div class="body">
3559         <p>While at Debconf11, I have several times during discussions
3560 mentioned the issues I believe should be improved in Debian for its
3561 desktop to be useful for more people.  The use case for this is my
3562 parents, which are currently running Kubuntu which solve the
3563 issues.</p>
3564
3565 <p>I suspect these four missing features are not very hard to
3566 implement.  After all, they are present in Ubuntu, so if we wanted to
3567 do this in Debian we would have a source.</p>
3568
3569 <ol>
3570
3571 <li><strong>Simple GUI based upgrade of packages.</strong> When there
3572 are new packages available for upgrades, a icon in the KDE status bar
3573 indicate this, and clicking on it will activate the simple upgrade
3574 tool to handle it.  I have no problem guiding both of my parents
3575 through the process over the phone.  If a kernel reboot is required,
3576 this too is indicated by the status bars and the upgrade tool.  Last
3577 time I checked, nothing with the same features was working in KDE in
3578 Debian.</li>
3579
3580 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing Firefox browser
3581 plugins.</strong> When the browser encounter a MIME type it do not
3582 currently have a handler for, it will ask the user if the system
3583 should search for a package that would add support for this MIME type,
3584 and if the user say yes, the APT sources will be searched for packages
3585 advertising the MIME type in their control file (visible in the
3586 Packages file in the APT archive).  If one or more packages are found,
3587 it is a simple click of the mouse to add support for the missing mime
3588 type.  If the package require the user to accept some non-free
3589 license, this is explained to the user.  The entire process make it
3590 more clear to the user why something do not work in the browser, and
3591 make the chances higher for the user to blame the web page authors and
3592 not the browser for any missing features.</li>
3593
3594 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing multimedia codec/format
3595 handlers.</strong> When the media players encounter a format or codec
3596 it is not supporting, a dialog pop up asking the user if the system
3597 should search for a package that would add support for it.  This
3598 happen with things like MP3, Windows Media or H.264.  The selection
3599 and installation procedure is very similar to the Firefox browser
3600 plugin handling.  This is as far as I know implemented using a
3601 gstreamer hook.  The end result is that the user easily get access to
3602 the codecs that are present from the APT archives available, while
3603 explaining more on why a given format is unsupported by Ubuntu.</li>
3604
3605 <li><strong>Better browser handling of some MIME types.</strong> When
3606 displaying a text/plain file in my Debian browser, it will propose to
3607 start emacs to show it.  If I remember correctly, when doing the same
3608 in Kunbutu it show the file as a text file in the browser.  At least I
3609 know Opera will show text files within the browser.  I much prefer the
3610 latter behaviour.</li>
3611
3612 </ol>
3613
3614 <p>There are other nice features as well, like the simplified suite
3615 upgrader, but given that I am the one mostly doing the dist-upgrade,
3616 it do not matter much.</p>
3617
3618 <p>I really hope we could get these features in place for the next
3619 Debian release.  It would require the coordinated effort of several
3620 maintainers, but would make the end user experience a lot better.</p>
3621
3622       </div>
3623       <div class="tags">
3624
3625
3626         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>.
3627
3628
3629       </div>
3630     </div>
3631     <div class="padding"></div>
3632
3633     <div class="entry">
3634       <div class="title">
3635         <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>
3636       </div>
3637       <div class="date">
3638         26th July 2011
3639       </div>
3640       <div class="body">
3641         <p>The Norwegian <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</A>
3642 site is build on Debian/Squeeze, and this platform was chosen because
3643 I am most familiar with Debian (being a Debian Developer for around 10
3644 years) because it is the latest stable Debian release which should get
3645 security support for a few years.</p>
3646
3647 <p>The web service is written in Perl, and depend on some perl modules
3648 that are missing in Debian at the moment.  It would be great if these
3649 modules were added to the Debian archive, allowing anyone to set up
3650 their own <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com">FixMyStreet</a> clone
3651 in their own country using only Debian packages.  The list of modules
3652 missing in Debian/Squeeze isn't very long, and I hope the perl group
3653 will find time to package the 12 modules Catalyst::Plugin::SmartURI,
3654 Catalyst::Plugin::Unicode::Encoding, Catalyst::View::TT, Devel::Hide,
3655 Sort::Key, Statistics::Distributions, Template::Plugin::Comma,
3656 Template::Plugin::DateTime::Format, Term::Size::Any, Term::Size::Perl,
3657 URI::SmartURI and Web::Scraper to make the maintenance of FixMyStreet
3658 easier in the future.</p>
3659
3660 <p>Thanks to the great tools in Debian, getting the missing modules
3661 installed on my server was a simple call to 'cpan2deb Module::Name'
3662 and 'dpkg -i' to install the resulting package.  But this leave me
3663 with the responsibility of tracking security problems, which I really
3664 do not have time for.</p>
3665
3666       </div>
3667       <div class="tags">
3668
3669
3670         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>.
3671
3672
3673       </div>
3674     </div>
3675     <div class="padding"></div>
3676
3677     <div class="entry">
3678       <div class="title">
3679         <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>
3680       </div>
3681       <div class="date">
3682          3rd April 2011
3683       </div>
3684       <div class="body">
3685         <p>Here is a small update for my English readers.  Most of my blog
3686 posts have been in Norwegian the last few weeks, so here is a short
3687 update in English.</p>
3688
3689 <p>The kids still keep me too busy to get much free software work
3690 done, but I did manage to organise a project to get a Norwegian port
3691 of the British service
3692 <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com/">FixMyStreet</a> up and running,
3693 and it has been running for a month now.  The entire project has been
3694 organised by me and two others.  Around Christmas we gathered sponsors
3695 to fund the development work.  In January I drafted a contract with
3696 <a href="http://www.mysociety.org/">mySociety</a> on what to develop,
3697 and in February the development took place.  Most of it involved
3698 converting the source to use GPS coordinates instead of British
3699 easting/northing, and the resulting code should be a lot easier to get
3700 running in any country by now.  The Norwegian
3701 <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</a> is using
3702 <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/">OpenStreetmap</a> as the map
3703 source and the source for administrative borders in Norway, and
3704 support for this had to be added/fixed.</p>
3705
3706 <p>The Norwegian version went live March 3th, and we spent the weekend
3707 polishing the system before we announced it March 7th.  The system is
3708 running on a KVM instance of Debian/Squeeze, and has seen almost 3000
3709 problem reports in a few weeks.  Soon we hope to announce the Android
3710 and iPhone versions making it even easier to report problems with the
3711 public infrastructure.</p>
3712
3713 <p>Perhaps something to consider for those of you in countries without
3714 such service?</p>
3715
3716       </div>
3717       <div class="tags">
3718
3719
3720         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>.
3721
3722
3723       </div>
3724     </div>
3725     <div class="padding"></div>
3726
3727     <div class="entry">
3728       <div class="title">
3729         <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>
3730       </div>
3731       <div class="date">
3732         28th January 2011
3733       </div>
3734       <div class="body">
3735         <p>The last few days I have looked at ways to track open security
3736 issues here at my work with the University of Oslo.  My idea is that
3737 it should be possible to use the information about security issues
3738 available on the Internet, and check our locally
3739 maintained/distributed software against this information.  It should
3740 allow us to verify that no known security issues are forgotten.  The
3741 CVE database listing vulnerabilities seem like a great central point,
3742 and by using the package lists from Debian mapped to CVEs provided by
3743 the testing security team, I believed it should be possible to figure
3744 out which security holes were present in our free software
3745 collection.</p>
3746
3747 <p>After reading up on the topic, it became obvious that the first
3748 building block is to be able to name software packages in a unique and
3749 consistent way across data sources.  I considered several ways to do
3750 this, for example coming up with my own naming scheme like using URLs
3751 to project home pages or URLs to the Freshmeat entries, or using some
3752 existing naming scheme.  And it seem like I am not the first one to
3753 come across this problem, as MITRE already proposed and implemented a
3754 solution.  Enter the <a href="http://cpe.mitre.org/index.html">Common
3755 Platform Enumeration</a> dictionary, a vocabulary for referring to
3756 software, hardware and other platform components.  The CPE ids are
3757 mapped to CVEs in the <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/">National
3758 Vulnerability Database</a>, allowing me to look up know security
3759 issues for any CPE name.  With this in place, all I need to do is to
3760 locate the CPE id for the software packages we use at the university.
3761 This is fairly trivial (I google for 'cve cpe $package' and check the
3762 NVD entry if a CVE for the package exist).</p>
3763
3764 <p>To give you an example.  The GNU gzip source package have the CPE
3765 name cpe:/a:gnu:gzip.  If the old version 1.3.3 was the package to
3766 check out, one could look up
3767 <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
3768 in NVD</a> and get a list of 6 security holes with public CVE entries.
3769 The most recent one is
3770 <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/view/vuln/detail?vulnId=CVE-2010-0001">CVE-2010-0001</a>,
3771 and at the bottom of the NVD page for this vulnerability the complete
3772 list of affected versions is provided.</p>
3773
3774 <p>The NVD database of CVEs is also available as a XML dump, allowing
3775 for offline processing of issues.  Using this dump, I've written a
3776 small script taking a list of CPEs as input and list all CVEs
3777 affecting the packages represented by these CPEs.  One give it CPEs
3778 with version numbers as specified above and get a list of open
3779 security issues out.</p>
3780
3781 <p>Of course for this approach to be useful, the quality of the NVD
3782 information need to be high.  For that to happen, I believe as many as
3783 possible need to use and contribute to the NVD database.  I notice
3784 RHEL is providing
3785 <a href="https://www.redhat.com/security/data/metrics/rhsamapcpe.txt">a
3786 map from CVE to CPE</a>, indicating that they are using the CPE
3787 information.  I'm not aware of Debian and Ubuntu doing the same.</p>
3788
3789 <p>To get an idea about the quality for free software, I spent some
3790 time making it possible to compare the CVE database from Debian with
3791 the CVE database in NVD.  The result look fairly good, but there are
3792 some inconsistencies in NVD (same software package having several
3793 CPEs), and some inaccuracies (NVD not mentioning buggy packages that
3794 Debian believe are affected by a CVE).  Hope to find time to improve
3795 the quality of NVD, but that require being able to get in touch with
3796 someone maintaining it.  So far my three emails with questions and
3797 corrections have not seen any reply, but I hope contact can be
3798 established soon.</p>
3799
3800 <p>An interesting application for CPEs is cross platform package
3801 mapping.  It would be useful to know which packages in for example
3802 RHEL, OpenSuSe and Mandriva are missing from Debian and Ubuntu, and
3803 this would be trivial if all linux distributions provided CPE entries
3804 for their packages.</p>
3805
3806       </div>
3807       <div class="tags">
3808
3809
3810         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>.
3811
3812
3813       </div>
3814     </div>
3815     <div class="padding"></div>
3816
3817     <div class="entry">
3818       <div class="title">
3819         <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>
3820       </div>
3821       <div class="date">
3822         23rd January 2011
3823       </div>
3824       <div class="body">
3825         <p>In the
3826 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/discover-data">discover-data</a>
3827 package in Debian, there is a script to report useful information
3828 about the running hardware for use when people report missing
3829 information.  One part of this script that I find very useful when
3830 debugging hardware problems, is the part mapping loaded kernel module
3831 to the PCI device it claims.  It allow me to quickly see if the kernel
3832 module I expect is driving the hardware I am struggling with.  To see
3833 the output, make sure discover-data is installed and run
3834 <tt>/usr/share/bug/discover-data 3>&1</tt>.  The relevant output on
3835 one of my machines like this:</p>
3836
3837 <pre>
3838 loaded modules:
3839 10de:03eb i2c_nforce2
3840 10de:03f1 ohci_hcd
3841 10de:03f2 ehci_hcd
3842 10de:03f0 snd_hda_intel
3843 10de:03ec pata_amd
3844 10de:03f6 sata_nv
3845 1022:1103 k8temp
3846 109e:036e bttv
3847 109e:0878 snd_bt87x
3848 11ab:4364 sky2
3849 </pre>
3850
3851 <p>The code in question look like this, slightly modified for
3852 readability and to drop the output to file descriptor 3:</p>
3853
3854 <pre>
3855 if [ -d /sys/bus/pci/devices/ ] ; then
3856     echo loaded pci modules:
3857     (
3858         cd /sys/bus/pci/devices/
3859         for address in * ; do
3860             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
3861                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
3862                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
3863                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
3864                     id=`lspci -n -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $3}'`
3865                     echo "$id $module"
3866                 fi
3867             fi
3868         done
3869     )
3870     echo
3871 fi
3872 </pre>
3873
3874 <p>Similar code could be used to extract USB device module
3875 mappings:</p>
3876
3877 <pre>
3878 if [ -d /sys/bus/usb/devices/ ] ; then
3879     echo loaded usb modules:
3880     (
3881         cd /sys/bus/usb/devices/
3882         for address in * ; do
3883             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
3884                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
3885                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
3886                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
3887                     id=$(lsusb -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $6}')
3888                     if [ "$id" ] ; then
3889                         echo "$id $module"
3890                     fi
3891                 fi
3892             fi
3893         done
3894     )
3895     echo
3896 fi
3897 </pre>
3898
3899 <p>This might perhaps be something to include in other tools as
3900 well.</p>
3901
3902       </div>
3903       <div class="tags">
3904
3905
3906         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>.
3907
3908
3909       </div>
3910     </div>
3911     <div class="padding"></div>
3912
3913     <div class="entry">
3914       <div class="title">
3915         <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>
3916       </div>
3917       <div class="date">
3918         22nd December 2010
3919       </div>
3920       <div class="body">
3921         <p>The last few days I have spent at work here at the <a
3922 href="http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo</a> testing if the new
3923 batch of computers will work with Linux.  Every year for the last few
3924 years the university have organised shared bid of a few thousand
3925 computers, and this year HP won the bid.  Two different desktops and
3926 five different laptops are on the list this year.  We in the UNIX
3927 group want to know which one of these computers work well with RHEL
3928 and Ubuntu, the two Linux distributions we currently handle at the
3929 university.</p>
3930
3931 <p>My test method is simple, and I share it here to get feedback and
3932 perhaps inspire others to test hardware as well.  To test, I PXE
3933 install the OS version of choice, and log in as my normal user and run
3934 a few applications and plug in selected pieces of hardware.  When
3935 something fail, I make a note about this in the test matrix and move
3936 on.  If I have some spare time I try to report the bug to the OS
3937 vendor, but as I only have the machines for a short time, I rarely
3938 have the time to do this for all the problems I find.</p>
3939
3940 <p>Anyway, to get to the point of this post.  Here is the simple tests
3941 I perform on a new model.</p>
3942
3943 <ul>
3944
3945 <li>Is PXE installation working?  I'm testing with RHEL6, Ubuntu Lucid
3946 and Ubuntu Maverik at the moment.  If I feel like it, I also test with
3947 RHEL5 and Debian Edu/Squeeze.</li>
3948
3949 <li>Is X.org working?  If the graphical login screen show up after
3950 installation, X.org is working.</li>
3951
3952 <li>Is hardware accelerated OpenGL working?  Running glxgears (in
3953 package mesa-utils on Ubuntu) and writing down the frames per second
3954 reported by the program.</li>
3955
3956 <li>Is sound working?  With Gnome and KDE, a sound is played when
3957 logging in, and if I can hear this the test is successful.  If there
3958 are several audio exits on the machine, I try them all and check if
3959 the Gnome/KDE audio mixer can control where to send the sound.  I
3960 normally test this by playing
3961 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20101012-chef/ ">a HTML5
3962 video</a> in Firefox/Iceweasel.</li>
3963
3964 <li>Is the USB subsystem working?  I test this by plugging in a USB
3965 memory stick and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
3966
3967 <li>Is the CD/DVD player working?  I test this by inserting any CD/DVD
3968 I have lying around, and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
3969
3970 <li>Is any built in camera working?  Test using cheese, and see if a
3971 picture from the v4l device show up.</li>
3972
3973 <li>Is bluetooth working?  Use the Gnome/KDE browsing tool to see if
3974 any bluetooth devices are discovered.  In my office, I normally see a
3975 few.</li>
3976
3977 <li>For laptops, is the SD or Compaq Flash reader working.  I have
3978 memory modules lying around, and stick them in and see if Gnome/KDE
3979 notice this.</li>
3980
3981 <li>For laptops, is suspend/hibernate working?  I'm testing if the
3982 special button work, and if the laptop continue to work after
3983 resume.</li>
3984
3985 <li>For laptops, is the extra buttons working, like audio level,
3986 adjusting background light, switching on/off external video output,
3987 switching on/off wifi, bluetooth, etc?  The set of buttons differ from
3988 laptop to laptop, so I just write down which are working and which are
3989 not.</li>
3990
3991 <li>Some laptops have smart card readers, finger print readers,
3992 acceleration sensors etc.  I rarely test these, as I do not know how
3993 to quickly test if they are working or not, so I only document their
3994 existence.</li>
3995
3996 </ul>
3997
3998 <p>By now I suspect you are really curious what the test results are
3999 for the HP machines I am testing.  I'm not done yet, so I will report
4000 the test results later.  For now I can report that HP 8100 Elite work
4001 fine, and hibernation fail with HP EliteBook 8440p on Ubuntu Lucid,
4002 and audio fail on RHEL6.  Ubuntu Maverik worked with 8440p.  As you
4003 can see, I have most machines left to test.  One interesting
4004 observation is that Ubuntu Lucid has almost twice the frame rate than
4005 RHEL6 with glxgears.  No idea why.</p>
4006
4007       </div>
4008       <div class="tags">
4009
4010
4011         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>.
4012
4013
4014       </div>
4015     </div>
4016     <div class="padding"></div>
4017
4018     <div class="entry">
4019       <div class="title">
4020         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Some_thoughts_on_BitCoins.html">Some thoughts on BitCoins</a>
4021       </div>
4022       <div class="date">
4023         11th December 2010
4024       </div>
4025       <div class="body">
4026         <p>As I continue to explore
4027 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>, I've starting to wonder
4028 what properties the system have, and how it will be affected by laws
4029 and regulations here in Norway.  Here are some random notes.</p>
4030
4031 <p>One interesting thing to note is that since the transactions are
4032 verified using a peer to peer network, all details about a transaction
4033 is known to everyone.  This means that if a BitCoin address has been
4034 published like I did with mine in my initial post about BitCoin, it is
4035 possible for everyone to see how many BitCoins have been transfered to
4036 that address.  There is even a web service to look at the details for
4037 all transactions.  There I can see that my address
4038 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a>
4039 have received 16.06 Bitcoin, the
4040 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3">1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3</a>
4041 address of Simon Phipps have received 181.97 BitCoin and the address
4042 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt">1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt</A>
4043 of EFF have received 2447.38 BitCoins so far.  Thank you to each and
4044 every one of you that donated bitcoins to support my activity. The
4045 fact that anyone can see how much money was transfered to a given
4046 address make it more obvious why the BitCoin community recommend to
4047 generate and hand out a new address for each transaction.  I'm told
4048 there is no way to track which addresses belong to a given person or
4049 organisation without the person or organisation revealing it
4050 themselves, as Simon, EFF and I have done.</p>
4051
4052 <p>In Norway, and in most other countries, there are laws and
4053 regulations limiting how much money one can transfer across the border
4054 without declaring it.  There are money laundering, tax and accounting
4055 laws and regulations I would expect to apply to the use of BitCoin.
4056 If the Skolelinux foundation
4057 (<a href="http://linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">SLX
4058 Debian Labs</a>) were to accept donations in BitCoin in addition to
4059 normal bank transfers like EFF is doing, how should this be accounted?
4060 Given that it is impossible to know if money can cross the border or
4061 not, should everything or nothing be declared?  What exchange rate
4062 should be used when calculating taxes?  Would receivers have to pay
4063 income tax if the foundation were to pay Skolelinux contributors in
4064 BitCoin?  I have no idea, but it would be interesting to know.</p>
4065
4066 <p>For a currency to be useful and successful, it must be trusted and
4067 accepted by a lot of users.  It must be possible to get easy access to
4068 the currency (as a wage or using currency exchanges), and it must be
4069 easy to spend it.  At the moment BitCoin seem fairly easy to get
4070 access to, but there are very few places to spend it.  I am not really
4071 a regular user of any of the vendor types currently accepting BitCoin,
4072 so I wonder when my kind of shop would start accepting BitCoins.  I
4073 would like to buy electronics, travels and subway tickets, not herbs
4074 and books. :) The currency is young, and this will improve over time
4075 if it become popular, but I suspect regular banks will start to lobby
4076 to get BitCoin declared illegal if it become popular.  I'm sure they
4077 will claim it is helping fund terrorism and money laundering (which
4078 probably would be true, as is any currency in existence), but I
4079 believe the problems should be solved elsewhere and not by blaming
4080 currencies.</p>
4081
4082 <p>The process of creating new BitCoins is called mining, and it is
4083 CPU intensive process that depend on a bit of luck as well (as one is
4084 competing against all the other miners currently spending CPU cycles
4085 to see which one get the next lump of cash).  The "winner" get 50
4086 BitCoin when this happen.  Yesterday I came across the obvious way to
4087 join forces to increase ones changes of getting at least some coins,
4088 by coordinating the work on mining BitCoins across several machines
4089 and people, and sharing the result if one is lucky and get the 50
4090 BitCoins.  Check out
4091 <a href="http://www.bluishcoder.co.nz/bitcoin-pool/">BitCoin Pool</a>
4092 if this sounds interesting.  I have not had time to try to set up a
4093 machine to participate there yet, but have seen that running on ones
4094 own for a few days have not yield any BitCoins througth mining
4095 yet.</p>
4096
4097 <p>Update 2010-12-15: Found an <a
4098 href="http://inertia.posterous.com/reply-to-the-underground-economist-why-bitcoi">interesting
4099 criticism</a> of bitcoin.  Not quite sure how valid it is, but thought
4100 it was interesting to read.  The arguments presented seem to be
4101 equally valid for gold, which was used as a currency for many years.</p>
4102
4103       </div>
4104       <div class="tags">
4105
4106
4107         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>.
4108
4109
4110       </div>
4111     </div>
4112     <div class="padding"></div>
4113
4114     <div class="entry">
4115       <div class="title">
4116         <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>
4117       </div>
4118       <div class="date">
4119         10th December 2010
4120       </div>
4121       <div class="body">
4122         <p>With this weeks lawless
4123 <a href="http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/06/wikileaks/index.html">governmental
4124 attacks</a> on Wikileak and
4125 <a href="http://www.salon.com/technology/dan_gillmor/2010/12/06/war_on_speech">free
4126 speech</a>, it has become obvious that PayPal, visa and mastercard can
4127 not be trusted to handle money transactions.
4128 A blog post from
4129 <a href="http://webmink.com/2010/12/06/now-accepting-bitcoin/">Simon
4130 Phipps on bitcoin</a> reminded me about a project that a friend of
4131 mine mentioned earlier.  I decided to follow Simon's example, and get
4132 involved with <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>.  I got
4133 some help from my friend to get it all running, and he even handed me
4134 some bitcoins to get started.  I even donated a few bitcoins to Simon
4135 for helping me remember BitCoin.</p>
4136
4137 <p>So, what is bitcoins, you probably wonder?  It is a digital
4138 crypto-currency, decentralised and handled using peer-to-peer
4139 networks.  It allows anonymous transactions and prohibits central
4140 control over the transactions, making it impossible for governments
4141 and companies alike to block donations and other transactions.  The
4142 source is free software, and while the key dependency wxWidgets 2.9
4143 for the graphical user interface is missing in Debian, the command
4144 line client builds just fine.  Hopefully Jonas
4145 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/578157">will get the package into
4146 Debian</a> soon.</p>
4147
4148 <p>Bitcoins can be converted to other currencies, like USD and EUR.
4149 There are <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/trade">companies accepting
4150 bitcoins</a> when selling services and goods, and there are even
4151 currency "stock" markets where the exchange rate is decided.  There
4152 are not many users so far, but the concept seems promising.  If you
4153 want to get started and lack a friend with any bitcoins to spare,
4154 you can even get
4155 <a href="https://freebitcoins.appspot.com/">some for free</a> (0.05
4156 bitcoin at the time of writing).  Use
4157 <a href="http://www.bitcoinwatch.com/">BitcoinWatch</a> to keep an eye
4158 on the current exchange rates.</p>
4159
4160 <p>As an experiment, I have decided to set up bitcoind on one of my
4161 machines.  If you want to support my activity, please send Bitcoin
4162 donations to the address
4163 <b>15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</b>.  Thank you!</p>
4164
4165       </div>
4166       <div class="tags">
4167
4168
4169         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>.
4170
4171
4172       </div>
4173     </div>
4174     <div class="padding"></div>
4175
4176     <div class="entry">
4177       <div class="title">
4178         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_isn_t_Debian_Edu_using_VLC_.html">Why isn't Debian Edu using VLC?</a>
4179       </div>
4180       <div class="date">
4181         27th November 2010
4182       </div>
4183       <div class="body">
4184         <p>In the latest issue of Linux Journal, the readers choices were
4185 presented, and the winner among the multimedia player were VLC.
4186 Personally, I like VLC, and it is my player of choice when I first try
4187 to play a video file or stream.  Only if VLC fail will I drag out
4188 gmplayer to see if it can do better.  The reason is mostly the failure
4189 model and trust.  When VLC fail, it normally pop up a error message
4190 reporting the problem.  When mplayer fail, it normally segfault or
4191 just hangs.  The latter failure mode drain my trust in the program.<p>
4192
4193 <p>But even if VLC is my player of choice, we have choosen to use
4194 mplayer in <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
4195 Edu/Skolelinux</a>.  The reason is simple.  We need a good browser
4196 plugin to play web videos seamlessly, and the VLC browser plugin is
4197 not very good.  For example, it lack in-line control buttons, so there
4198 is no way for the user to pause the video.  Also, when I
4199 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">last
4200 tested the browser plugins</a> available in Debian, the VLC plugin
4201 failed on several video pages where mplayer based plugins worked.  If
4202 the browser plugin for VLC was as good as the gecko-mediaplayer
4203 package (which uses mplayer), we would switch.</P>
4204
4205 <p>While VLC is a good player, its user interface is slightly
4206 annoying.  The most annoying feature is its inconsistent use of
4207 keyboard shortcuts.  When the player is in full screen mode, its
4208 shortcuts are different from when it is playing the video in a window.
4209 For example, space only work as pause when in full screen mode.  I
4210 wish it had consisten shortcuts and that space also would work when in
4211 window mode.  Another nice shortcut in gmplayer is [enter] to restart
4212 the current video.  It is very nice when playing short videos from the
4213 web and want to restart it when new people arrive to have a look at
4214 what is going on.</p>
4215
4216       </div>
4217       <div class="tags">
4218
4219
4220         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>.
4221
4222
4223       </div>
4224     </div>
4225     <div class="padding"></div>
4226
4227     <div class="entry">
4228       <div class="title">
4229         <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>
4230       </div>
4231       <div class="date">
4232         22nd November 2010
4233       </div>
4234       <div class="body">
4235         <p>Michael Biebl suggested to me on IRC, that I changed my automated
4236 upgrade testing of the
4237 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
4238 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a> to do <tt>apt-get autoremove</tt> when using apt-get.
4239 This seem like a very good idea, so I adjusted by test scripts and
4240 can now present the updated result from today:</p>
4241
4242 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
4243
4244 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
4245
4246 <blockquote><p>
4247   apache2.2-bin
4248   aptdaemon
4249   baobab
4250   binfmt-support
4251   browser-plugin-gnash
4252   cheese-common
4253   cli-common
4254   cups-pk-helper
4255   dmz-cursor-theme
4256   empathy
4257   empathy-common
4258   freedesktop-sound-theme
4259   freeglut3
4260   gconf-defaults-service
4261   gdm-themes
4262   gedit-plugins
4263   geoclue
4264   geoclue-hostip
4265   geoclue-localnet
4266   geoclue-manual
4267   geoclue-yahoo
4268   gnash
4269   gnash-common
4270   gnome
4271   gnome-backgrounds
4272   gnome-cards-data
4273   gnome-codec-install
4274   gnome-core
4275   gnome-desktop-environment
4276   gnome-disk-utility
4277   gnome-screenshot
4278   gnome-search-tool
4279   gnome-session-canberra
4280   gnome-system-log
4281   gnome-themes-extras
4282   gnome-themes-more
4283   gnome-user-share
4284   gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
4285   gstreamer0.10-tools
4286   gtk2-engines
4287   gtk2-engines-pixbuf
4288   gtk2-engines-smooth
4289   hamster-applet
4290   libapache2-mod-dnssd
4291   libapr1
4292   libaprutil1
4293   libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3
4294   libaprutil1-ldap
4295   libart2.0-cil
4296   libboost-date-time1.42.0
4297   libboost-python1.42.0
4298   libboost-thread1.42.0
4299   libchamplain-0.4-0
4300   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0
4301   libcheese-gtk18
4302   libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
4303   libcryptui0
4304   libdiscid0
4305   libelf1
4306   libepc-1.0-2
4307   libepc-common
4308   libepc-ui-1.0-2
4309   libfreerdp-plugins-standard
4310   libfreerdp0
4311   libgconf2.0-cil
4312   libgdata-common
4313   libgdata7
4314   libgdu-gtk0
4315   libgee2
4316   libgeoclue0
4317   libgexiv2-0
4318   libgif4
4319   libglade2.0-cil
4320   libglib2.0-cil
4321   libgmime2.4-cil
4322   libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
4323   libgnome2.24-cil
4324   libgnomepanel2.24-cil
4325   libgpod-common
4326   libgpod4
4327   libgtk2.0-cil
4328   libgtkglext1
4329   libgtksourceview2.0-common
4330   libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
4331   libmono-addins0.2-cil
4332   libmono-cairo2.0-cil
4333   libmono-corlib2.0-cil
4334   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil
4335   libmono-posix2.0-cil
4336   libmono-security2.0-cil
4337   libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
4338   libmono-system2.0-cil
4339   libmtp8
4340   libmusicbrainz3-6
4341   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil
4342   libndesk-dbus1.0-cil
4343   libopal3.6.8
4344   libpolkit-gtk-1-0
4345   libpt2.6.7
4346   libpython2.6
4347   librpm1
4348   librpmio1
4349   libsdl1.2debian
4350   libsrtp0
4351   libssh-4
4352   libtelepathy-farsight0
4353   libtelepathy-glib0
4354   libtidy-0.99-0
4355   media-player-info
4356   mesa-utils
4357   mono-2.0-gac
4358   mono-gac
4359   mono-runtime
4360   nautilus-sendto
4361   nautilus-sendto-empathy
4362   p7zip-full
4363   pkg-config
4364   python-aptdaemon
4365   python-aptdaemon-gtk
4366   python-axiom
4367   python-beautifulsoup
4368   python-bugbuddy
4369   python-clientform
4370   python-coherence
4371   python-configobj
4372   python-crypto
4373   python-cupshelpers
4374   python-elementtree
4375   python-epsilon
4376   python-evolution
4377   python-feedparser
4378   python-gdata
4379   python-gdbm
4380   python-gst0.10
4381   python-gtkglext1
4382   python-gtksourceview2
4383   python-httplib2
4384   python-louie
4385   python-mako
4386   python-markupsafe
4387   python-mechanize
4388   python-nevow
4389   python-notify
4390   python-opengl
4391   python-openssl
4392   python-pam
4393   python-pkg-resources
4394   python-pyasn1
4395   python-pysqlite2
4396   python-rdflib
4397   python-serial
4398   python-tagpy
4399   python-twisted-bin
4400   python-twisted-conch
4401   python-twisted-core
4402   python-twisted-web
4403   python-utidylib
4404   python-webkit
4405   python-xdg
4406   python-zope.interface
4407   remmina
4408   remmina-plugin-data
4409   remmina-plugin-rdp
4410   remmina-plugin-vnc
4411   rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
4412   rhythmbox-plugins
4413   rpm-common
4414   rpm2cpio
4415   seahorse-plugins
4416   shotwell
4417   software-center
4418   system-config-printer-udev
4419   telepathy-gabble
4420   telepathy-mission-control-5
4421   telepathy-salut
4422   tomboy
4423   totem
4424   totem-coherence
4425   totem-mozilla
4426   totem-plugins
4427   transmission-common
4428   xdg-user-dirs
4429   xdg-user-dirs-gtk
4430   xserver-xephyr
4431 </p></blockquote>
4432
4433 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
4434
4435 <blockquote><p>
4436   cheese
4437   ekiga
4438   eog
4439   epiphany-extensions
4440   evolution-exchange
4441   fast-user-switch-applet
4442   file-roller
4443   gcalctool
4444   gconf-editor
4445   gdm
4446   gedit
4447   gedit-common
4448   gnome-games
4449   gnome-games-data
4450   gnome-nettool
4451   gnome-system-tools
4452   gnome-themes
4453   gnuchess
4454   gucharmap
4455   guile-1.8-libs
4456   libavahi-ui0
4457   libdmx1
4458   libgalago3
4459   libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
4460   libgtksourceview2.0-0
4461   liblircclient0
4462   libsdl1.2debian-alsa
4463   libspeexdsp1
4464   libsvga1
4465   rhythmbox
4466   seahorse
4467   sound-juicer
4468   system-config-printer
4469   totem-common
4470   transmission-gtk
4471   vinagre
4472   vino
4473 </p></blockquote>
4474
4475 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
4476
4477 <blockquote><p>
4478   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
4479 </p></blockquote>
4480
4481 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
4482
4483 <blockquote><p>
4484 [nothing]
4485 </p></blockquote>
4486
4487 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
4488
4489 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
4490
4491 <blockquote><p>
4492   ksmserver
4493 </p></blockquote>
4494
4495 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
4496
4497 <blockquote><p>
4498   kwin
4499   network-manager-kde
4500 </p></blockquote>
4501
4502 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
4503
4504 <blockquote><p>
4505   arts
4506   dolphin
4507   freespacenotifier
4508   google-gadgets-gst
4509   google-gadgets-xul
4510   kappfinder
4511   kcalc
4512   kcharselect
4513   kde-core
4514   kde-plasma-desktop
4515   kde-standard
4516   kde-window-manager
4517   kdeartwork
4518   kdeartwork-emoticons
4519   kdeartwork-style
4520   kdeartwork-theme-icon
4521   kdebase
4522   kdebase-apps
4523   kdebase-workspace
4524   kdebase-workspace-bin
4525   kdebase-workspace-data
4526   kdeeject
4527   kdelibs
4528   kdeplasma-addons
4529   kdeutils
4530   kdewallpapers
4531   kdf
4532   kfloppy
4533   kgpg
4534   khelpcenter4
4535   kinfocenter
4536   konq-plugins-l10n
4537   konqueror-nsplugins
4538   kscreensaver
4539   kscreensaver-xsavers
4540   ktimer
4541   kwrite
4542   libgle3
4543   libkde4-ruby1.8
4544   libkonq5
4545   libkonq5-templates
4546   libnetpbm10
4547   libplasma-ruby
4548   libplasma-ruby1.8
4549   libqt4-ruby1.8
4550   marble-data
4551   marble-plugins
4552   netpbm
4553   nuvola-icon-theme
4554   plasma-dataengines-workspace
4555   plasma-desktop
4556   plasma-desktopthemes-artwork
4557   plasma-runners-addons
4558   plasma-scriptengine-googlegadgets
4559   plasma-scriptengine-python
4560   plasma-scriptengine-qedje
4561   plasma-scriptengine-ruby
4562   plasma-scriptengine-webkit
4563   plasma-scriptengines
4564   plasma-wallpapers-addons
4565   plasma-widget-folderview
4566   plasma-widget-networkmanagement
4567   ruby
4568   sweeper
4569   update-notifier-kde
4570   xscreensaver-data-extra
4571   xscreensaver-gl
4572   xscreensaver-gl-extra
4573   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
4574 </p></blockquote>
4575
4576 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
4577
4578 <blockquote><p>
4579   ark
4580   google-gadgets-common
4581   google-gadgets-qt
4582   htdig
4583   kate
4584   kdebase-bin
4585   kdebase-data
4586   kdepasswd
4587   kfind
4588   klipper
4589   konq-plugins
4590   konqueror
4591   ksysguard
4592   ksysguardd
4593   libarchive1
4594   libcln6
4595   libeet1
4596   libeina-svn-06
4597   libggadget-1.0-0b
4598   libggadget-qt-1.0-0b
4599   libgps19
4600   libkdecorations4
4601   libkephal4
4602   libkonq4
4603   libkonqsidebarplugin4a
4604   libkscreensaver5
4605   libksgrd4
4606   libksignalplotter4
4607   libkunitconversion4
4608   libkwineffects1a
4609   libmarblewidget4
4610   libntrack-qt4-1
4611   libntrack0
4612   libplasma-geolocation-interface4
4613   libplasmaclock4a
4614   libplasmagenericshell4
4615   libprocesscore4a
4616   libprocessui4a
4617   libqalculate5
4618   libqedje0a
4619   libqtruby4shared2
4620   libqzion0a
4621   libruby1.8
4622   libscim8c2a
4623   libsmokekdecore4-3
4624   libsmokekdeui4-3
4625   libsmokekfile3
4626   libsmokekhtml3
4627   libsmokekio3
4628   libsmokeknewstuff2-3
4629   libsmokeknewstuff3-3
4630   libsmokekparts3
4631   libsmokektexteditor3
4632   libsmokekutils3
4633   libsmokenepomuk3
4634   libsmokephonon3
4635   libsmokeplasma3
4636   libsmokeqtcore4-3
4637   libsmokeqtdbus4-3
4638   libsmokeqtgui4-3
4639   libsmokeqtnetwork4-3
4640   libsmokeqtopengl4-3
4641   libsmokeqtscript4-3
4642   libsmokeqtsql4-3
4643   libsmokeqtsvg4-3
4644   libsmokeqttest4-3
4645   libsmokeqtuitools4-3
4646   libsmokeqtwebkit4-3
4647   libsmokeqtxml4-3
4648   libsmokesolid3
4649   libsmokesoprano3
4650   libtaskmanager4a
4651   libtidy-0.99-0
4652   libweather-ion4a
4653   libxklavier16
4654   libxxf86misc1
4655   okteta
4656   oxygencursors
4657   plasma-dataengines-addons
4658   plasma-scriptengine-superkaramba
4659   plasma-widget-lancelot
4660   plasma-widgets-addons
4661   plasma-widgets-workspace
4662   polkit-kde-1
4663   ruby1.8
4664   systemsettings
4665   update-notifier-common
4666 </p></blockquote>
4667
4668 <p>Running apt-get autoremove made the results using apt-get and
4669 aptitude a bit more similar, but there are still quite a lott of
4670 differences.  I have no idea what packages should be installed after
4671 the upgrade, but hope those that do can have a look.</p>
4672
4673       </div>
4674       <div class="tags">
4675
4676
4677         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>.
4678
4679
4680       </div>
4681     </div>
4682     <div class="padding"></div>
4683
4684     <div class="entry">
4685       <div class="title">
4686         <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>
4687       </div>
4688       <div class="date">
4689         22nd November 2010
4690       </div>
4691       <div class="body">
4692         <p>Most of the computers in use by the
4693 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux project</a>
4694 are virtual machines.  And they have been Xen machines running on a
4695 fairly old IBM eserver xseries 345 machine, and we wanted to migrate
4696 them to KVM on a newer Dell PowerEdge 2950 host machine.  This was a
4697 bit harder that it could have been, because we set up the Xen virtual
4698 machines to get the virtual partitions from LVM, which as far as I
4699 know is not supported by KVM.  So to migrate, we had to convert
4700 several LVM logical volumes to partitions on a virtual disk file.</p>
4701
4702 <p>I found
4703 <a href="http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM">a
4704 nice recipe</a> to do this, and wrote the following script to do the
4705 migration.  It uses qemu-img from the qemu package to make the disk
4706 image, parted to partition it, losetup and kpartx to present the disk
4707 image partions as devices, and dd to copy the data.  I NFS mounted the
4708 new servers storage area on the old server to do the migration.</p>
4709
4710 <pre>
4711 #!/bin/sh
4712
4713 # Based on
4714 # http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM
4715
4716 set -e
4717 set -x
4718
4719 if [ -z "$1" ] ; then
4720     echo "Usage: $0 &lt;hostname&gt;"
4721     exit 1
4722 else
4723     host="$1"
4724 fi
4725
4726 if [ ! -e /dev/vg_data/$host-disk ] ; then
4727     echo "error: unable to find LVM volume for $host"
4728     exit 1
4729 fi
4730
4731 # Partitions need to be a bit bigger than the LVM LVs.  not sure why.
4732 disksize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-disk | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
4733 swapsize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-swap | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
4734 totalsize=$(( ( $disksize + $swapsize ) ))
4735
4736 img=$host.img
4737 #dd if=/dev/zero of=$img bs=1M count=$(( $disksize + $swapsize ))
4738 qemu-img create $img ${totalsize}MMaking room on the Debian Edu/Sqeeze DVD
4739
4740 parted $img mklabel msdos
4741 parted $img mkpart primary linux-swap 0 $disksize
4742 parted $img mkpart primary ext2 $disksize $totalsize
4743 parted $img set 1 boot on
4744
4745 modprobe dm-mod
4746 losetup /dev/loop0 $img
4747 kpartx -a /dev/loop0
4748
4749 dd if=/dev/vg_data/$host-disk of=/dev/mapper/loop0p1 bs=1M
4750 fsck.ext3 -f /dev/mapper/loop0p1 || true
4751 mkswap /dev/mapper/loop0p2
4752
4753 kpartx -d /dev/loop0
4754 losetup -d /dev/loop0
4755 </pre>
4756
4757 <p>The script is perhaps so simple that it is not copyrightable, but
4758 if it is, it is licenced using GPL v2 or later at your discretion.</p>
4759
4760 <p>After doing this, I booted a Debian CD in rescue mode in KVM with
4761 the new disk image attached, installed grub-pc and linux-image-686 and
4762 set up grub to boot from the disk image.  After this, the KVM machines
4763 seem to work just fine.</p>
4764
4765       </div>
4766       <div class="tags">
4767
4768
4769         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>.
4770
4771
4772       </div>
4773     </div>
4774     <div class="padding"></div>
4775
4776     <div class="entry">
4777       <div class="title">
4778         <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>
4779       </div>
4780       <div class="date">
4781         20th November 2010
4782       </div>
4783       <div class="body">
4784         <p>I'm still running upgrade testing of the
4785 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
4786 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a>, but have not had time to spend on reporting the
4787 status.  Here is a short update based on a test I ran 20101118.</p>
4788
4789 <p>I still do not know what a correct migration should look like, so I
4790 report any differences between apt and aptitude and hope someone else
4791 can see if anything should be changed.</p>
4792
4793 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
4794
4795 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
4796
4797 <blockquote><p>
4798   apache2.2-bin aptdaemon at-spi baobab binfmt-support
4799   browser-plugin-gnash cheese-common cli-common cpp-4.3 cups-pk-helper
4800   dmz-cursor-theme empathy empathy-common finger
4801   freedesktop-sound-theme freeglut3 gconf-defaults-service gdm-themes
4802   gedit-plugins geoclue geoclue-hostip geoclue-localnet geoclue-manual
4803   geoclue-yahoo gnash gnash-common gnome gnome-backgrounds
4804   gnome-cards-data gnome-codec-install gnome-core
4805   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-disk-utility gnome-screenshot
4806   gnome-search-tool gnome-session-canberra gnome-spell
4807   gnome-system-log gnome-themes-extras gnome-themes-more
4808   gnome-user-share gs-common gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
4809   gstreamer0.10-tools gtk2-engines gtk2-engines-pixbuf
4810   gtk2-engines-smooth hal-info hamster-applet libapache2-mod-dnssd
4811   libapr1 libaprutil1 libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3 libaprutil1-ldap
4812   libart2.0-cil libatspi1.0-0 libboost-date-time1.42.0
4813   libboost-python1.42.0 libboost-thread1.42.0 libchamplain-0.4-0
4814   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0 libcheese-gtk18 libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
4815   libcryptui0 libcupsys2 libdiscid0 libeel2-data libelf1 libepc-1.0-2
4816   libepc-common libepc-ui-1.0-2 libfreerdp-plugins-standard
4817   libfreerdp0 libgail-common libgconf2.0-cil libgdata-common libgdata7
4818   libgdl-1-common libgdu-gtk0 libgee2 libgeoclue0 libgexiv2-0 libgif4
4819   libglade2.0-cil libglib2.0-cil libgmime2.4-cil libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
4820   libgnome2.24-cil libgnomepanel2.24-cil libgnomeprint2.2-data
4821   libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod-common libgpod4
4822   libgtk2.0-cil libgtkglext1 libgtksourceview-common
4823   libgtksourceview2.0-common libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
4824   libmono-addins0.2-cil libmono-cairo2.0-cil libmono-corlib2.0-cil
4825   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil libmono-posix2.0-cil
4826   libmono-security2.0-cil libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
4827   libmono-system2.0-cil libmtp8 libmusicbrainz3-6
4828   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil libndesk-dbus1.0-cil libopal3.6.8
4829   libpolkit-gtk-1-0 libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
4830   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libpt2.6.7 libpython2.6 librpm1 librpmio1
4831   libsdl1.2debian libservlet2.4-java libsrtp0 libssh-4
4832   libtelepathy-farsight0 libtelepathy-glib0 libtidy-0.99-0
4833   libxalan2-java libxerces2-java media-player-info mesa-utils
4834   mono-2.0-gac mono-gac mono-runtime nautilus-sendto
4835   nautilus-sendto-empathy openoffice.org-writer2latex
4836   openssl-blacklist p7zip p7zip-full pkg-config python-4suite-xml
4837   python-aptdaemon python-aptdaemon-gtk python-axiom
4838   python-beautifulsoup python-bugbuddy python-clientform
4839   python-coherence python-configobj python-crypto python-cupshelpers
4840   python-cupsutils python-eggtrayicon python-elementtree
4841   python-epsilon python-evolution python-feedparser python-gdata
4842   python-gdbm python-gst0.10 python-gtkglext1 python-gtkmozembed
4843   python-gtksourceview2 python-httplib2 python-louie python-mako
4844   python-markupsafe python-mechanize python-nevow python-notify
4845   python-opengl python-openssl python-pam python-pkg-resources
4846   python-pyasn1 python-pysqlite2 python-rdflib python-serial
4847   python-tagpy python-twisted-bin python-twisted-conch
4848   python-twisted-core python-twisted-web python-utidylib python-webkit
4849   python-xdg python-zope.interface remmina remmina-plugin-data
4850   remmina-plugin-rdp remmina-plugin-vnc rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
4851   rhythmbox-plugins rpm-common rpm2cpio seahorse-plugins shotwell
4852   software-center svgalibg1 system-config-printer-udev
4853   telepathy-gabble telepathy-mission-control-5 telepathy-salut tomboy
4854   totem totem-coherence totem-mozilla totem-plugins
4855   transmission-common xdg-user-dirs xdg-user-dirs-gtk xserver-xephyr
4856   zip
4857 </p></blockquote>
4858
4859 Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude
4860
4861 <blockquote><p>
4862   arj bluez-utils cheese dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop ekiga eog
4863   epiphany-extensions epiphany-gecko evolution-exchange
4864   fast-user-switch-applet file-roller gcalctool gconf-editor gdm gedit
4865   gedit-common gnome-app-install gnome-games gnome-games-data
4866   gnome-nettool gnome-system-tools gnome-themes gnome-utils
4867   gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager gnuchess gucharmap
4868   guile-1.8-libs hal libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5
4869   libavahi-ui0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7
4870   libcucul0 libcurl3 libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdmx1 libdvdread3
4871   libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1
4872   libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3 libfaad0 libgadu3
4873   libgalago3 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
4874   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
4875   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
4876   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
4877   libgtkhtml2-0 libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgtksourceview2.0-0
4878   libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
4879   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libkpathsea4 liblircclient0 libltdl3 liblwres50
4880   libmagick++10 libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmozjs1d libmpfr1ldbl libmtp7
4881   libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0
4882   libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpisock9
4883   libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8
4884   libsdl1.2debian-alsa libsensors3 libsexy2 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
4885   libspeexdsp1 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libsvga1
4886   libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0
4887   libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12
4888   libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common rhythmbox seahorse
4889   sound-juicer swfdec-gnome system-config-printer totem-common
4890   totem-gstreamer transmission-gtk vinagre vino w3c-dtd-xhtml wodim
4891 </p></blockquote>
4892
4893 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
4894
4895 <blockquote><p>
4896   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
4897 </p></blockquote>
4898
4899 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
4900
4901 <blockquote><p>
4902 [nothing]
4903 </p></blockquote>
4904
4905 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
4906
4907 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
4908
4909 <blockquote><p>
4910   autopoint bomber bovo cantor cantor-backend-kalgebra cpp-4.3 dcoprss
4911   edict espeak espeak-data eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
4912   ghostscript-x git gnome-audio gnugo granatier gs-common
4913   gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio indi kaddressbook-plugins kalgebra
4914   kalzium-data kanjidic kapman kate-plugins kblocks kbreakout kbstate
4915   kde-icons-mono kdeaccessibility kdeaddons-kfile-plugins
4916   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
4917   kdeedu kdeedu-data kdeedu-kvtml-data kdegames kdegames-card-data
4918   kdegames-mahjongg-data kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc
4919   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
4920   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdessh kdetoys kdewebdev
4921   kdiamond kdnssd kfilereplace kfourinline kgeography-data kigo
4922   killbots kiriki klettres-data kmoon kmrml knewsticker-scripts
4923   kollision kpf krosspython ksirk ksmserver ksquares kstars-data
4924   ksudoku kubrick kweather libasound2-plugins libboost-python1.42.0
4925   libcfitsio3 libconvert-binhex-perl libcrypt-ssleay-perl libdb4.6++
4926   libdjvulibre-text libdotconf1.0 liberror-perl libespeak1
4927   libfinance-quote-perl libgail-common libgsl0ldbl libhtml-parser-perl
4928   libhtml-tableextract-perl libhtml-tagset-perl libhtml-tree-perl
4929   libio-stringy-perl libkdeedu4 libkdegames5 libkiten4 libkpathsea5
4930   libkrossui4 libmailtools-perl libmime-tools-perl
4931   libnews-nntpclient-perl libopenbabel3 libportaudio2 libpulse-browse0
4932   libservlet2.4-java libspeechd2 libtiff-tools libtimedate-perl
4933   libunistring0 liburi-perl libwww-perl libxalan2-java libxerces2-java
4934   lirc luatex marble networkstatus noatun-plugins
4935   openoffice.org-writer2latex palapeli palapeli-data parley
4936   parley-data poster psutils pulseaudio pulseaudio-esound-compat
4937   pulseaudio-module-x11 pulseaudio-utils quanta-data rocs rsync
4938   speech-dispatcher step svgalibg1 texlive-binaries texlive-luatex
4939   ttf-sazanami-gothic
4940 </p></blockquote>
4941
4942 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
4943
4944 <blockquote><p>
4945   amor artsbuilder atlantik atlantikdesigner blinken bluez-utils cvs
4946   dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop imlib-base imlib11 kalzium kanagram kandy
4947   kasteroids katomic kbackgammon kbattleship kblackbox kbounce kbruch
4948   kcron kdat kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data kdeprint kdict kdvi kedit
4949   keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs kgeography kghostview
4950   kgoldrunner khangman khexedit kiconedit kig kimagemapeditor
4951   kitchensync kiten kjumpingcube klatin klettres klickety klines
4952   klinkstatus kmag kmahjongg kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmines
4953   kmousetool kmouth kmplot knetwalk kodo kolf kommander konquest kooka
4954   kpager kpat kpdf kpercentage kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler krec
4955   kregexpeditor kreversi ksame ksayit kshisen ksig ksim ksirc ksirtet
4956   ksmiletris ksnake ksokoban kspaceduel kstars ksvg ksysv kteatime
4957   ktip ktnef ktouch ktron kttsd ktuberling kturtle ktux kuickshow
4958   kverbos kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kwordquiz
4959   kworldclock kxsldbg libakode2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
4960   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
4961   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2
4962   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0
4963   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
4964   libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0 libicu38
4965   libiec61883-0 libindex0 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
4966   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1 libkdeedu3
4967   libkdegames1 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
4968   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
4969   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick10
4970   libmimelib1c2a libmodplug0c2 libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libmpfr1ldbl
4971   libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9 libpoppler-glib3
4972   libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 librss1 libsensors3
4973   libsmbios2 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90
4974   libtalloc1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 lskat
4975   mpeglib network-manager-kde noatun pmount tex-common texlive-base
4976   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended tidy
4977   ttf-dustin ttf-kochi-gothic ttf-sjfonts
4978 </p></blockquote>
4979
4980 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
4981
4982 <blockquote><p>
4983   dolphin kde-core kde-plasma-desktop kde-standard kde-window-manager
4984   kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-apps kdebase-workspace
4985   kdebase-workspace-bin kdebase-workspace-data kdeutils kscreensaver
4986   kscreensaver-xsavers libgle3 libkonq5 libkonq5-templates libnetpbm10
4987   netpbm plasma-widget-folderview plasma-widget-networkmanagement
4988   xscreensaver-data-extra xscreensaver-gl xscreensaver-gl-extra
4989   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
4990 </p></blockquote>
4991
4992 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
4993
4994 <blockquote><p>
4995   kdebase-bin konq-plugins konqueror
4996 </p></blockquote>
4997
4998       </div>
4999       <div class="tags">
5000
5001
5002         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>.
5003
5004
5005       </div>
5006     </div>
5007     <div class="padding"></div>
5008
5009     <div class="entry">
5010       <div class="title">
5011         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gnash_buildbot_slave_and_Debian_kfreebsd.html">Gnash buildbot slave and Debian kfreebsd</a>
5012       </div>
5013       <div class="date">
5014         20th November 2010
5015       </div>
5016       <div class="body">
5017         <p>Answering
5018 <a href="http://www.listware.net/201011/gnash-dev/67431-gnash-dev-buildbot-looking-for-slaves.html">the
5019 call from the Gnash project</a> for
5020 <a href="http://www.gnashdev.org:8010">buildbot</a> slaves to test the
5021 current source, I have set up a virtual KVM machine on the Debian
5022 Edu/Skolelinux virtualization host to test the git source on
5023 Debian/Squeeze.  I hope this can help the developers in getting new
5024 releases out more often.</p>
5025
5026 <p>As the developers want less main-stream build platforms tested to,
5027 I have considered setting up a <a
5028 href="http://www.debian.org/ports/kfreebsd-gnu/">Debian/kfreebsd</a>
5029 machine as well.  I have also considered using the kfreebsd
5030 architecture in Debian as a file server in NUUG to get access to the 5
5031 TB zfs volume we currently use to store DV video.  Because of this, I
5032 finally got around to do a test installation of Debian/Squeeze with
5033 kfreebsd.  Installation went fairly smooth, thought I noticed some
5034 visual glitches in the cdebconf dialogs (black cursor left on the
5035 screen at random locations).  Have not gotten very far with the
5036 testing.  Noticed cfdisk did not work, but fdisk did so it was not a
5037 fatal problem.  Have to spend some more time on it to see if it is
5038 useful as a file server for NUUG.  Will try to find time to set up a
5039 gnash buildbot slave on the Debian Edu/Skolelinux this weekend.</p>
5040
5041       </div>
5042       <div class="tags">
5043
5044
5045         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>.
5046
5047
5048       </div>
5049     </div>
5050     <div class="padding"></div>
5051
5052     <div class="entry">
5053       <div class="title">
5054         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_in_3D.html">Debian in 3D</a>
5055       </div>
5056       <div class="date">
5057          9th November 2010
5058       </div>
5059       <div class="body">
5060         <p><img src="http://thingiverse-production.s3.amazonaws.com/renders/23/e0/c4/f9/2b/debswagtdose_preview_medium.jpg"></p>
5061
5062 <p>3D printing is just great.  I just came across this Debian logo in
5063 3D linked in from
5064 <a href="http://blog.thingiverse.com/2010/11/09/participatory-branding/">the
5065 thingiverse blog</a>.</p>
5066
5067       </div>
5068       <div class="tags">
5069
5070
5071         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>.
5072
5073
5074       </div>
5075     </div>
5076     <div class="padding"></div>
5077
5078     <div class="entry">
5079       <div class="title">
5080         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Software_updates_2010_10_24.html">Software updates 2010-10-24</a>
5081       </div>
5082       <div class="date">
5083         24th October 2010
5084       </div>
5085       <div class="body">
5086         <p>Some updates.</p>
5087
5088 <p>My <a href="http://pledgebank.com/gnash-avm2">gnash pledge</a> to
5089 raise money for the project is going well.  The lower limit of 10
5090 signers was reached in 24 hours, and so far 13 people have signed it.
5091 More signers and more funding is most welcome, and I am really curious
5092 how far we can get before the time limit of December 24 is reached.
5093 :)</p>
5094
5095 <p>On the #gnash IRC channel on irc.freenode.net, I was just tipped
5096 about what appear to be a great code coverage tool capable of
5097 generating code coverage stats without any changes to the source code.
5098 It is called
5099 <a href="http://simonkagstrom.github.com/kcov/index.html">kcov</a>,
5100 and can be used using <tt>kcov &lt;directory&gt; &lt;binary&gt;</tt>.
5101 It is missing in Debian, but the git source built just fine in Squeeze
5102 after I installed libelf-dev, libdwarf-dev, pkg-config and
5103 libglib2.0-dev.  Failed to build in Lenny, but suspect that is
5104 solvable.  I hope kcov make it into Debian soon.</p>
5105
5106 <p>Finally found time to wrap up the release notes for <a
5107 href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2010/10/msg00002.html">a
5108 new alpha release of Debian Edu</a>, and just published the second
5109 alpha test release of the Squeeze based Debian Edu /
5110 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a>
5111 release.  Give it a try if you need a complete linux solution for your
5112 school, including central infrastructure server, workstations, thin
5113 client servers and diskless workstations.  A nice touch added
5114 yesterday is RDP support on the thin client servers, for windows
5115 clients to get a Linux desktop on request.</p>
5116
5117       </div>
5118       <div class="tags">
5119
5120
5121         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>.
5122
5123
5124       </div>
5125     </div>
5126     <div class="padding"></div>
5127
5128     <div class="entry">
5129       <div class="title">
5130         <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>
5131       </div>
5132       <div class="date">
5133          4th September 2010
5134       </div>
5135       <div class="body">
5136         <p>In the <a href="http://popcon.debian.org/unknown/by_vote">Debian
5137 popularity-contest numbers</a>, the adobe-flashplugin package the
5138 second most popular used package that is missing in Debian.  The sixth
5139 most popular is flashplayer-mozilla.  This is a clear indication that
5140 working flash is important for Debian users.  Around 10 percent of the
5141 users submitting data to popcon.debian.org have this package
5142 installed.</p>
5143
5144 <p>In the report written by Lars Risan in August 2008
5145 («<a href="http://wiki.skolelinux.no/Dokumentasjon/Rapporter?action=AttachFile&do=view&target=Skolelinux_i_bruk_rapport_1.0.pdf">Skolelinux
5146 i bruk – Rapport for Hurum kommune, Universitetet i Agder og
5147 stiftelsen SLX Debian Labs</a>»), one of the most important problems
5148 schools experienced with <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
5149 Edu/Skolelinux</a> was the lack of working Flash.  A lot of educational
5150 web sites require Flash to work, and lacking working Flash support in
5151 the web browser and the problems with installing it was perceived as a
5152 good reason to stay with Windows.</p>
5153
5154 <p>I once saw a funny and sad comment in a web forum, where Linux was
5155 said to be the retarded cousin that did not really understand
5156 everything you told him but could work fairly well.  This was a
5157 comment regarding the problems Linux have with proprietary formats and
5158 non-standard web pages, and is sad because it exposes a fairly common
5159 understanding of whose fault it is if web pages that only work in for
5160 example Internet Explorer 6 fail to work on Firefox, and funny because
5161 it explain very well how annoying it is for users when Linux
5162 distributions do not work with the documents they receive or the web
5163 pages they want to visit.</p>
5164
5165 <p>This is part of the reason why I believe it is important for Debian
5166 and Debian Edu to have a well working Flash implementation in the
5167 distribution, to get at least popular sites as Youtube and Google
5168 Video to working out of the box.  For Squeeze, Debian have the chance
5169 to include the latest version of Gnash that will make this happen, as
5170 the new release 0.8.8 was published a few weeks ago and is resting in
5171 unstable.  The new version work with more sites that version 0.8.7.
5172 The Gnash maintainers have asked for a freeze exception, but the
5173 release team have not had time to reply to it yet.  I hope they agree
5174 with me that Flash is important for the Debian desktop users, and thus
5175 accept the new package into Squeeze.</p>
5176
5177       </div>
5178       <div class="tags">
5179
5180
5181         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>.
5182
5183
5184       </div>
5185     </div>
5186     <div class="padding"></div>
5187
5188     <div class="entry">
5189       <div class="title">
5190         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Circular_package_dependencies_harms_apt_recovery.html">Circular package dependencies harms apt recovery</a>
5191       </div>
5192       <div class="date">
5193         27th July 2010
5194       </div>
5195       <div class="body">
5196         <p>I discovered this while doing
5197 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">automated
5198 testing of upgrades from Debian Lenny to Squeeze</a>.  A few packages
5199 in Debian still got circular dependencies, and it is often claimed
5200 that apt and aptitude should be able to handle this just fine, but
5201 some times these dependency loops causes apt to fail.</p>
5202
5203 <p>An example is from todays
5204 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing//test-20100727-lenny-squeeze-kde-aptitude.txt">upgrade
5205 of KDE using aptitude</a>.  In it, a bug in kdebase-workspace-data
5206 causes perl-modules to fail to upgrade.  The cause is simple.  If a
5207 package fail to unpack, then only part of packages with the circular
5208 dependency might end up being unpacked when unpacking aborts, and the
5209 ones already unpacked will fail to configure in the recovery phase
5210 because its dependencies are unavailable.</p>
5211
5212 <p>In this log, the problem manifest itself with this error:</p>
5213
5214 <blockquote><pre>
5215 dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of perl-modules:
5216  perl-modules depends on perl (>= 5.10.1-1); however:
5217   Version of perl on system is 5.10.0-19lenny2.
5218 dpkg: error processing perl-modules (--configure):
5219  dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
5220 </pre></blockquote>
5221
5222 <p>The perl/perl-modules circular dependency is already
5223 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/527917">reported as a bug</a>, and will
5224 hopefully be solved as soon as possible, but it is not the only one,
5225 and each one of these loops in the dependency tree can cause similar
5226 failures.  Of course, they only occur when there are bugs in other
5227 packages causing the unpacking to fail, but it is rather nasty when
5228 the failure of one package causes the problem to become worse because
5229 of dependency loops.</p>
5230
5231 <p>Thanks to
5232 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/06/msg00116.html">the
5233 tireless effort by Bill Allombert</a>, the number of circular
5234 dependencies
5235 <a href="http://debian.semistable.com/debgraph.out.html">left in Debian
5236 is dropping</a>, and perhaps it will reach zero one day. :)</p>
5237
5238 <p>Todays testing also exposed a bug in
5239 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590605">update-notifier</a> and
5240 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590604">different behaviour</a> between
5241 apt-get and aptitude, the latter possibly caused by some circular
5242 dependency.  Reported both to BTS to try to get someone to look at
5243 it.</p>
5244
5245       </div>
5246       <div class="tags">
5247
5248
5249         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>.
5250
5251
5252       </div>
5253     </div>
5254     <div class="padding"></div>
5255
5256     <div class="entry">
5257       <div class="title">
5258         <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>
5259       </div>
5260       <div class="date">
5261         17th July 2010
5262       </div>
5263       <div class="body">
5264         <p>This is a
5265 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">followup</a>
5266 on my
5267 <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
5268 work</a> on
5269 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">merging
5270 all</a> the computer related LDAP objects in Debian Edu.</p>
5271
5272 <p>As a step to try to see if it possible to merge the DNS and DHCP
5273 LDAP objects, I have had a look at how the packages pdns-backend-ldap
5274 and dhcp3-server-ldap in Debian use the LDAP server.  The two
5275 implementations are quite different in how they use LDAP.</p>
5276
5277 To get this information, I started slapd with debugging enabled and
5278 dumped the debug output to a file to get the LDAP searches performed
5279 on a Debian Edu main-server.  Here is a summary.
5280
5281 <p><strong>powerdns</strong></p>
5282
5283 <a href="http://www.linuxnetworks.de/doc/index.php/PowerDNS_LDAP_Backend">Clues
5284 on how to</a> set up PowerDNS to use a LDAP backend is available on
5285 the web.
5286
5287 <p>PowerDNS have two modes of operation using LDAP as its backend.
5288 One "strict" mode where the forward and reverse DNS lookups are done
5289 using the same LDAP objects, and a "tree" mode where the forward and
5290 reverse entries are in two different subtrees in LDAP with a structure
5291 based on the DNS names, as in tjener.intern and
5292 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa.</p>
5293
5294 <p>In tree mode, the server is set up to use a LDAP subtree as its
5295 base, and uses a "base" scoped search for the DNS name by adding
5296 "dc=tjener,dc=intern," to the base with a filter for
5297 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" for the forward entry and
5298 "dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa," with a filter for
5299 "(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)" for the reverse entry.  For
5300 forward entries, it is looking for attributes named dnsttl, arecord,
5301 nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord,
5302 txtrecord, rprecord, afsdbrecord, keyrecord, aaaarecord, locrecord,
5303 srvrecord, naptrrecord, kxrecord, certrecord, dsrecord, sshfprecord,
5304 ipseckeyrecord, rrsigrecord, nsecrecord, dnskeyrecord, dhcidrecord,
5305 spfrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entries it is looking for
5306 the attributes dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord,
5307 ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord,
5308 locrecord, srvrecord, naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  The equivalent
5309 ldapsearch commands could look like this:</p>
5310
5311 <blockquote><pre>
5312 ldapsearch -h ldap \
5313   -b dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
5314   -s base -x '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
5315   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
5316   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
5317   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
5318   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
5319
5320 ldapsearch -h ldap \
5321   -b dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
5322   -s base -x '(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)'
5323   dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord soarecord ptrrecord \
5324   hinforecord mxrecord txtrecord rprecord aaaarecord locrecord \
5325   srvrecord naptrrecord modifytimestamp
5326 </pre></blockquote>
5327
5328 <p>In Debian Edu/Lenny, the PowerDNS tree mode is used with
5329 ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no as the base, and these are two
5330 example LDAP objects used there.  In addition to these objects, the
5331 parent objects all th way up to ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
5332 also exist.</p>
5333
5334 <blockquote><pre>
5335 dn: dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
5336 objectclass: top
5337 objectclass: dnsdomain
5338 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
5339 dc: tjener
5340 arecord: 10.0.2.2
5341 associateddomain: tjener.intern
5342
5343 dn: dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
5344 objectclass: top
5345 objectclass: dnsdomain2
5346 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
5347 dc: 2
5348 ptrrecord: tjener.intern
5349 associateddomain: 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa
5350 </pre></blockquote>
5351
5352 <p>In strict mode, the server behaves differently.  When looking for
5353 forward DNS entries, it is doing a "subtree" scoped search with the
5354 same base as in the tree mode for a object with filter
5355 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" and requests the attributes dnsttl,
5356 arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord,
5357 mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord, locrecord, srvrecord,
5358 naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entires it also do a
5359 subtree scoped search but this time the filter is "(arecord=10.0.2.2)"
5360 and the requested attributes are associateddomain, dnsttl and
5361 modifytimestamp.  In short, in strict mode the objects with ptrrecord
5362 go away, and the arecord attribute in the forward object is used
5363 instead.</p>
5364
5365 <p>The forward and reverse searches can be simulated using ldapsearch
5366 like this:</p>
5367
5368 <blockquote><pre>
5369 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
5370   '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
5371   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
5372   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
5373   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
5374   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
5375
5376 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
5377   '(arecord=10.0.2.2)' associateddomain dnsttl modifytimestamp
5378 </pre></blockquote>
5379
5380 <p>In addition to the forward and reverse searches , there is also a
5381 search for SOA records, which behave similar to the forward and
5382 reverse lookups.</p>
5383
5384 <p>A thing to note with the PowerDNS behaviour is that it do not
5385 specify any objectclass names, and instead look for the attributes it
5386 need to generate a DNS reply.  This make it able to work with any
5387 objectclass that provide the needed attributes.</p>
5388
5389 <p>The attributes are normally provided in the cosine (RFC 1274) and
5390 dnsdomain2 schemas.  The latter is used for reverse entries like
5391 ptrrecord and recent DNS additions like aaaarecord and srvrecord.</p>
5392
5393 <p>In Debian Edu, we have created DNS objects using the object classes
5394 dcobject (for dc), dnsdomain or dnsdomain2 (structural, for the DNS
5395 attributes) and domainrelatedobject (for associatedDomain).  The use
5396 of structural object classes make it impossible to combine these
5397 classes with the object classes used by DHCP.</p>
5398
5399 <p>There are other schemas that could be used too, for example the
5400 dnszone structural object class used by Gosa and bind-sdb for the DNS
5401 attributes combined with the domainrelatedobject object class, but in
5402 this case some unused attributes would have to be included as well
5403 (zonename and relativedomainname).</p>
5404
5405 <p>My proposal for Debian Edu would be to switch PowerDNS to strict
5406 mode and not use any of the existing objectclasses (dnsdomain,
5407 dnsdomain2 and dnszone) when one want to combine the DNS information
5408 with DHCP information, and instead create a auxiliary object class
5409 defined something like this (using the attributes defined for
5410 dnsdomain and dnsdomain2 or dnszone):</p>
5411
5412 <blockquote><pre>
5413 objectclass ( some-oid NAME 'dnsDomainAux'
5414     SUP top
5415     AUXILIARY
5416     MAY ( ARecord $ MDRecord $ MXRecord $ NSRecord $ SOARecord $ CNAMERecord $
5417           DNSTTL $ DNSClass $ PTRRecord $ HINFORecord $ MINFORecord $
5418           TXTRecord $ SIGRecord $ KEYRecord $ AAAARecord $ LOCRecord $
5419           NXTRecord $ SRVRecord $ NAPTRRecord $ KXRecord $ CERTRecord $
5420           A6Record $ DNAMERecord
5421     ))
5422 </pre></blockquote>
5423
5424 <p>This will allow any object to become a DNS entry when combined with
5425 the domainrelatedobject object class, and allow any entity to include
5426 all the attributes PowerDNS wants.  I've sent an email to the PowerDNS
5427 developers asking for their view on this schema and if they are
5428 interested in providing such schema with PowerDNS, and I hope my
5429 message will be accepted into their mailing list soon.</p>
5430
5431 <p><strong>ISC dhcp</strong></p>
5432
5433 <p>The DHCP server searches for specific objectclass and requests all
5434 the object attributes, and then uses the attributes it want.  This
5435 make it harder to figure out exactly what attributes are used, but
5436 thanks to the working example in Debian Edu I can at least get an idea
5437 what is needed without having to read the source code.</p>
5438
5439 <p>In the DHCP server configuration, the LDAP base to use and the
5440 search filter to use to locate the correct dhcpServer entity is
5441 stored.  These are the relevant entries from
5442 /etc/dhcp3/dhcpd.conf:</p>
5443
5444 <blockquote><pre>
5445 ldap-base-dn "dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no";
5446 ldap-dhcp-server-cn "dhcp";
5447 </pre></blockquote>
5448
5449 <p>The DHCP server uses this information to nest all the DHCP
5450 configuration it need.  The cn "dhcp" is located using the given LDAP
5451 base and the filter "(&(objectClass=dhcpServer)(cn=dhcp))".  The
5452 search result is this entry:</p>
5453
5454 <blockquote><pre>
5455 dn: cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
5456 cn: dhcp
5457 objectClass: top
5458 objectClass: dhcpServer
5459 dhcpServiceDN: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
5460 </pre></blockquote>
5461
5462 <p>The content of the dhcpServiceDN attribute is next used to locate the
5463 subtree with DHCP configuration.  The DHCP configuration subtree base
5464 is located using a base scope search with base "cn=DHCP
5465 Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" and filter
5466 "(&(objectClass=dhcpService)(|(dhcpPrimaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)(dhcpSecondaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)))".
5467 The search result is this entry:</p>
5468
5469 <blockquote><pre>
5470 dn: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
5471 cn: DHCP Config
5472 objectClass: top
5473 objectClass: dhcpService
5474 objectClass: dhcpOptions
5475 dhcpPrimaryDN: cn=dhcp, dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
5476 dhcpStatements: ddns-update-style none
5477 dhcpStatements: authoritative
5478 dhcpOption: smtp-server code 69 = array of ip-address
5479 dhcpOption: www-server code 72 = array of ip-address
5480 dhcpOption: wpad-url code 252 = text
5481 </pre></blockquote>
5482
5483 <p>Next, the entire subtree is processed, one level at the time.  When
5484 all the DHCP configuration is loaded, it is ready to receive requests.
5485 The subtree in Debian Edu contain objects with object classes
5486 top/dhcpService/dhcpOptions, top/dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions,
5487 top/dhcpSubnet, top/dhcpGroup and top/dhcpHost.  These provide options
5488 and information about netmasks, dynamic range etc.  Leaving out the
5489 details here because it is not relevant for the focus of my
5490 investigation, which is to see if it is possible to merge dns and dhcp
5491 related computer objects.</p>
5492
5493 <p>When a DHCP request come in, LDAP is searched for the MAC address
5494 of the client (00:00:00:00:00:00 in this example), using a subtree
5495 scoped search with "cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" as
5496 the base and "(&(objectClass=dhcpHost)(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet
5497 00:00:00:00:00:00))" as the filter.  This is what a host object look
5498 like:</p>
5499
5500 <blockquote><pre>
5501 dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
5502 cn: hostname
5503 objectClass: top
5504 objectClass: dhcpHost
5505 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
5506 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname
5507 </pre></blockquote>
5508
5509 <p>There is less flexiblity in the way LDAP searches are done here.
5510 The object classes need to have fixed names, and the configuration
5511 need to be stored in a fairly specific LDAP structure.  On the
5512 positive side, the invidiual dhcpHost entires can be anywhere without
5513 the DN pointed to by the dhcpServer entries.  The latter should make
5514 it possible to group all host entries in a subtree next to the
5515 configuration entries, and this subtree can also be shared with the
5516 DNS server if the schema proposed above is combined with the dhcpHost
5517 structural object class.
5518
5519 <p><strong>Conclusion</strong></p>
5520
5521 <p>The PowerDNS implementation seem to be very flexible when it come
5522 to which LDAP schemas to use.  While its "tree" mode is rigid when it
5523 come to the the LDAP structure, the "strict" mode is very flexible,
5524 allowing DNS objects to be stored anywhere under the base cn specified
5525 in the configuration.</p>
5526
5527 <p>The DHCP implementation on the other hand is very inflexible, both
5528 regarding which LDAP schemas to use and which LDAP structure to use.
5529 I guess one could implement ones own schema, as long as the
5530 objectclasses and attributes have the names used, but this do not
5531 really help when the DHCP subtree need to have a fairly fixed
5532 structure.</p>
5533
5534 <p>Based on the observed behaviour, I suspect a LDAP structure like
5535 this might work for Debian Edu:</p>
5536
5537 <blockquote><pre>
5538 ou=services
5539   cn=machine-info (dhcpService) - dhcpServiceDN points here
5540     cn=dhcp (dhcpServer)
5541     cn=dhcp-internal (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
5542       cn=10.0.2.0 (dhcpSubnet)
5543         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
5544     cn=dhcp-thinclients (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
5545       cn=192.168.0.0 (dhcpSubnet)
5546         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
5547     ou=machines - PowerDNS base points here
5548       cn=hostname (dhcpHost/domainrelatedobject/dnsDomainAux)
5549 </pre></blockquote>
5550
5551 <P>This is not tested yet.  If the DHCP server require the dhcpHost
5552 entries to be in the dhcpGroup subtrees, the entries can be stored
5553 there instead of a common machines subtree, and the PowerDNS base
5554 would have to be moved one level up to the machine-info subtree.</p>
5555
5556 <p>The combined object under the machines subtree would look something
5557 like this:</p>
5558
5559 <blockquote><pre>
5560 dn: dc=hostname,ou=machines,cn=machine-info,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
5561 dc: hostname
5562 objectClass: top
5563 objectClass: dhcpHost
5564 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
5565 objectclass: dnsDomainAux
5566 associateddomain: hostname.intern
5567 arecord: 10.11.12.13
5568 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
5569 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname.intern
5570 </pre></blockquote>
5571
5572 </p>One could even add the LTSP configuration associated with a given
5573 machine, as long as the required attributes are available in a
5574 auxiliary object class.</p>
5575
5576       </div>
5577       <div class="tags">
5578
5579
5580         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>.
5581
5582
5583       </div>
5584     </div>
5585     <div class="padding"></div>
5586
5587     <div class="entry">
5588       <div class="title">
5589         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">Combining PowerDNS and ISC DHCP LDAP objects</a>
5590       </div>
5591       <div class="date">
5592         14th July 2010
5593       </div>
5594       <div class="body">
5595         <p>For a while now, I have wanted to find a way to change the DNS and
5596 DHCP services in Debian Edu to use the same LDAP objects for a given
5597 computer, to avoid the possibility of having a inconsistent state for
5598 a computer in LDAP (as in DHCP but no DNS entry or the other way
5599 around) and make it easier to add computers to LDAP.</p>
5600
5601 <p>I've looked at how powerdns and dhcpd is using LDAP, and using this
5602 information finally found a solution that seem to work.</p>
5603
5604 <p>The old setup required three LDAP objects for a given computer.
5605 One forward DNS entry, one reverse DNS entry and one DHCP entry.  If
5606 we switch powerdns to use its strict LDAP method (ldap-method=strict
5607 in pdns-debian-edu.conf), the forward and reverse DNS entries are
5608 merged into one while making it impossible to transfer the reverse map
5609 to a slave DNS server.</p>
5610
5611 <p>If we also replace the object class used to get the DNS related
5612 attributes to one allowing these attributes to be combined with the
5613 dhcphost object class, we can merge the DNS and DHCP entries into one.
5614 I've written such object class in the dnsdomainaux.schema file (need
5615 proper OIDs, but that is a minor issue), and tested the setup.  It
5616 seem to work.</p>
5617
5618 <p>With this test setup in place, we can get away with one LDAP object
5619 for both DNS and DHCP, and even the LTSP configuration I suggested in
5620 an earlier email.  The combined LDAP object will look something like
5621 this:</p>
5622
5623 <blockquote><pre>
5624   dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
5625   cn: hostname
5626   objectClass: dhcphost
5627   objectclass: domainrelatedobject
5628   objectclass: dnsdomainaux
5629   associateddomain: hostname.intern
5630   arecord: 10.11.12.13
5631   dhcphwaddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
5632   dhcpstatements: fixed-address hostname
5633   ldapconfigsound: Y
5634 </pre></blockquote>
5635
5636 <p>The DNS server uses the associateddomain and arecord entries, while
5637 the DHCP server uses the dhcphwaddress and dhcpstatements entries
5638 before asking DNS to resolve the fixed-adddress.  LTSP will use
5639 dhcphwaddress or associateddomain and the ldapconfig* attributes.</p>
5640
5641 <p>I am not yet sure if I can get the DHCP server to look for its
5642 dhcphost in a different location, to allow us to put the objects
5643 outside the "DHCP Config" subtree, but hope to figure out a way to do
5644 that.  If I can't figure out a way to do that, we can still get rid of
5645 the hosts subtree and move all its content into the DHCP Config tree
5646 (which probably should be renamed to be more related to the new
5647 content.  I suspect cn=dnsdhcp,ou=services or something like that
5648 might be a good place to put it.</p>
5649
5650 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
5651 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
5652
5653       </div>
5654       <div class="tags">
5655
5656
5657         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>.
5658
5659
5660       </div>
5661     </div>
5662     <div class="padding"></div>
5663
5664     <div class="entry">
5665       <div class="title">
5666         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Idea_for_storing_LTSP_configuration_in_LDAP.html">Idea for storing LTSP configuration in LDAP</a>
5667       </div>
5668       <div class="date">
5669         11th July 2010
5670       </div>
5671       <div class="body">
5672         <p>Vagrant mentioned on IRC today that ltsp_config now support
5673 sourcing files from /usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ on the thin
5674 clients, and that this can be used to fetch configuration from LDAP if
5675 Debian Edu choose to store configuration there.</p>
5676
5677 <p>Armed with this information, I got inspired and wrote a test module
5678 to get configuration from LDAP.  The idea is to look up the MAC
5679 address of the client in LDAP, and look for attributes on the form
5680 ltspconfigsetting=value, and use this to export SETTING=value to the
5681 LTSP clients.</p>
5682
5683 <p>The goal is to be able to store the LTSP configuration attributes
5684 in a "computer" LDAP object used by both DNS and DHCP, and thus
5685 allowing us to store all information about a computer in one place.</p>
5686
5687 <p>This is a untested draft implementation, and I welcome feedback on
5688 this approach.  A real LDAP schema for the ltspClientAux objectclass
5689 need to be written.  Comments, suggestions, etc?</p>
5690
5691 <blockquote><pre>
5692 # Store in /opt/ltsp/$arch/usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ldap-config
5693 #
5694 # Fetch LTSP client settings from LDAP based on MAC address
5695 #
5696 # Uses ethernet address as stored in the dhcpHost objectclass using
5697 # the dhcpHWAddress attribute or ethernet address stored in the
5698 # ieee802Device objectclass with the macAddress attribute.
5699 #
5700 # This module is written to be schema agnostic, and only depend on the
5701 # existence of attribute names.
5702 #
5703 # The LTSP configuration variables are saved directly using a
5704 # ltspConfig prefix and uppercasing the rest of the attribute name.
5705 # To set the SERVER variable, set the ltspConfigServer attribute.
5706 #
5707 # Some LDAP schema should be created with all the relevant
5708 # configuration settings.  Something like this should work:
5709 #
5710 # objectclass ( 1.1.2.2 NAME 'ltspClientAux'
5711 #     SUP top
5712 #     AUXILIARY
5713 #     MAY ( ltspConfigServer $ ltsConfigSound $ ... )
5714
5715 LDAPSERVER=$(debian-edu-ldapserver)
5716 if [ "$LDAPSERVER" ] ; then
5717     LDAPBASE=$(debian-edu-ldapserver -b)
5718     for MAC in $(LANG=C ifconfig |grep -i hwaddr| awk '{print $5}'|sort -u) ; do
5719         filter="(|(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet $MAC)(macAddress=$MAC))"
5720         ldapsearch -h "$LDAPSERVER" -b "$LDAPBASE" -v -x "$filter" | \
5721             grep '^ltspConfig' | while read attr value ; do
5722             # Remove prefix and convert to upper case
5723             attr=$(echo $attr | sed 's/^ltspConfig//i' | tr a-z A-Z)
5724             # bass value on to clients
5725             eval "$attr=$value; export $attr"
5726         done
5727     done
5728 fi
5729 </pre></blockquote>
5730
5731 <p>I'm not sure this shell construction will work, because I suspect
5732 the while block might end up in a subshell causing the variables set
5733 there to not show up in ltsp-config, but if that is the case I am sure
5734 the code can be restructured to make sure the variables are passed on.
5735 I expect that can be solved with some testing. :)</p>
5736
5737 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
5738 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
5739
5740 <p>Update 2010-07-17: I am aware of another effort to store LTSP
5741 configuration in LDAP that was created around year 2000 by
5742 <a href="http://www.pcxperience.com/thinclient/documentation/ldap.html">PC
5743 Xperience, Inc., 2000</a>.  I found its
5744 <a href="http://people.redhat.com/alikins/ltsp/ldap/">files</a> on a
5745 personal home page over at redhat.com.</p>
5746
5747       </div>
5748       <div class="tags">
5749
5750
5751         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>.
5752
5753
5754       </div>
5755     </div>
5756     <div class="padding"></div>
5757
5758     <div class="entry">
5759       <div class="title">
5760         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/jXplorer__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">jXplorer, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
5761       </div>
5762       <div class="date">
5763          9th July 2010
5764       </div>
5765       <div class="body">
5766         <p>Since
5767 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">my
5768 last post</a> about available LDAP tools in Debian, I was told about a
5769 LDAP GUI that is even better than luma.  The java application
5770 <a href="http://jxplorer.org/">jXplorer</a> is claimed to be capable of
5771 moving LDAP objects and subtrees using drag-and-drop, and can
5772 authenticate using Kerberos.  I have only tested the Kerberos
5773 authentication, but do not have a LDAP setup allowing me to rewrite
5774 LDAP with my test user yet.  It is
5775 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/j/jxplorer.html">available in
5776 Debian</a> testing and unstable at the moment.  The only problem I
5777 have with it is how it handle errors.  If something go wrong, its
5778 non-intuitive behaviour require me to go through some query work list
5779 and remove the failing query.  Nothing big, but very annoying.</p>
5780
5781       </div>
5782       <div class="tags">
5783
5784
5785         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>.
5786
5787
5788       </div>
5789     </div>
5790     <div class="padding"></div>
5791
5792     <div class="entry">
5793       <div class="title">
5794         <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>
5795       </div>
5796       <div class="date">
5797          3rd July 2010
5798       </div>
5799       <div class="body">
5800         <p>Here is a short update on my <a
5801 href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">my
5802 Debian Lenny->Squeeze upgrade testing</a>.  Here is a summary of the
5803 difference for Gnome when it is upgraded by apt-get and aptitude.  I'm
5804 not reporting the status for KDE, because the upgrade crashes when
5805 aptitude try because of missing conflicts
5806 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> and
5807 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585716">#585716</a>).</p>
5808
5809 <p>At the end of the upgrade test script, dpkg -l is executed to get a
5810 complete list of the installed packages.  Based on this I see these
5811 differences when I did a test run today.  As usual, I do not really
5812 know what the correct set of packages would be, but thought it best to
5813 publish the difference.</p>
5814
5815 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
5816
5817 <blockquote><p>
5818   at-spi cpp-4.3 finger gnome-spell gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
5819   libatspi1.0-0 libcupsys2 libeel2-data libgail-common libgdl-1-common
5820   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin
5821   libgtksourceview-common libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
5822   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libservlet2.4-java libxalan2-java
5823   libxerces2-java openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
5824   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gtkhtml2
5825   python-gtkmozembed svgalibg1 xserver-xephyr zip
5826 </p></blockquote>
5827
5828 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
5829
5830 <blockquote><p>
5831   bluez-utils dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop epiphany-gecko
5832   gnome-app-install gnome-mount gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager
5833   libao2 libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libbind9-50
5834   libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcurl3
5835   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9
5836   libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3
5837   libfaad0 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
5838   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
5839   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
5840   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
5841   libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50
5842   libisccfg50 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick++10
5843   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4
5844   libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5
5845   libparted1.8-10 libpisock9 libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3
5846   libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8 libsensors3 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
5847   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1
5848   libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0 libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj
5849   libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3
5850   mysql-common swfdec-gnome totem-gstreamer wodim
5851 </p></blockquote>
5852
5853 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
5854
5855 <blockquote><p>
5856   gnome gnome-desktop-environment hamster-applet python-gnomeapplet
5857   python-gnomekeyring python-wnck rhythmbox-plugins xorg
5858   xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
5859   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
5860   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-video-all
5861   xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark xserver-xorg-video-ati
5862   xserver-xorg-video-chips xserver-xorg-video-cirrus
5863   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
5864   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
5865   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-mach64
5866   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
5867   xserver-xorg-video-nouveau xserver-xorg-video-nv
5868   xserver-xorg-video-r128 xserver-xorg-video-radeon
5869   xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd xserver-xorg-video-rendition
5870   xserver-xorg-video-s3 xserver-xorg-video-s3virge
5871   xserver-xorg-video-savage xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion
5872   xserver-xorg-video-sis xserver-xorg-video-sisusb
5873   xserver-xorg-video-tdfx xserver-xorg-video-tga
5874   xserver-xorg-video-trident xserver-xorg-video-tseng
5875   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vmware
5876   xserver-xorg-video-voodoo
5877 </p></blockquote>
5878
5879 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
5880
5881 <blockquote><p>
5882   deskbar-applet xserver-xorg xserver-xorg-core
5883   xserver-xorg-input-wacom xserver-xorg-video-intel
5884   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome
5885 </p></blockquote>
5886
5887 <p>I was told on IRC that the xorg-xserver package was
5888 <a href="http://git.debian.org/?p=pkg-xorg/xserver/xorg-server.git;a=commit;h=9c8080d06c457932d3bfec021c69ac000aa60120">changed
5889 in git</a> today to try to get apt-get to not remove xorg completely.
5890 No idea when it hits Squeeze, but when it does I hope it will reduce
5891 the difference somewhat.
5892
5893       </div>
5894       <div class="tags">
5895
5896
5897         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>.
5898
5899
5900       </div>
5901     </div>
5902     <div class="padding"></div>
5903
5904     <div class="entry">
5905       <div class="title">
5906         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">LUMA, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
5907       </div>
5908       <div class="date">
5909         28th June 2010
5910       </div>
5911       <div class="body">
5912         <p>The last few days I have been looking into the status of the LDAP
5913 directory in Debian Edu, and in the process I started to miss a GUI
5914 tool to browse the LDAP tree.  The only one I was able to find in
5915 Debian/Squeeze and Lenny is
5916 <a href="http://luma.sourceforge.net/">LUMA</a>, which has proved to
5917 be a great tool to get a overview of the current LDAP directory
5918 populated by default in Skolelinux.  Thanks to it, I have been able to
5919 find empty and obsolete subtrees, misplaced objects and duplicate
5920 objects.  It will be installed by default in Debian/Squeeze.  If you
5921 are working with LDAP, give it a go. :)</p>
5922
5923 <p>I did notice one problem with it I have not had time to report to
5924 the BTS yet.  There is no .desktop file in the package, so the tool do
5925 not show up in the Gnome and KDE menus, but only deep down in in the
5926 Debian submenu in KDE.  I hope that can be fixed before Squeeze is
5927 released.</p>
5928
5929 <p>I have not yet been able to get it to modify the tree yet.  I would
5930 like to move objects and remove subtrees directly in the GUI, but have
5931 not found a way to do that with LUMA yet.  So in the mean time, I use
5932 <a href="http://www.lichteblau.com/ldapvi/">ldapvi</a> for that.</p>
5933
5934 <p>If you have tips on other GUI tools for LDAP that might be useful
5935 in Debian Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
5936
5937 <p>Update 2010-06-29: Ross Reedstrom tipped us about the
5938 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/g/gq.html">gq</a> package as a
5939 useful GUI alternative.  It seem like a good tool, but is unmaintained
5940 in Debian and got a RC bug keeping it out of Squeeze.  Unless that
5941 changes, it will not be an option for Debian Edu based on Squeeze.</p>
5942
5943       </div>
5944       <div class="tags">
5945
5946
5947         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>.
5948
5949
5950       </div>
5951     </div>
5952     <div class="padding"></div>
5953
5954     <div class="entry">
5955       <div class="title">
5956         <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>
5957       </div>
5958       <div class="date">
5959         24th June 2010
5960       </div>
5961       <div class="body">
5962         <p>A while back, I
5963 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">complained
5964 about the fact</a> that it is not possible with the provided schemas
5965 for storing DNS and DHCP information in LDAP to combine the two sets
5966 of information into one LDAP object representing a computer.</p>
5967
5968 <p>In the mean time, I discovered that a simple fix would be to make
5969 the dhcpHost object class auxiliary, to allow it to be combined with
5970 the dNSDomain object class, and thus forming one object for one
5971 computer when storing both DHCP and DNS information in LDAP.</p>
5972
5973 <p>If I understand this correctly, it is not safe to do this change
5974 without also changing the assigned number for the object class, and I
5975 do not know enough about LDAP schema design to do that properly for
5976 Debian Edu.</p>
5977
5978 <p>Anyway, for future reference, this is how I believe we could change
5979 the
5980 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-dhc-ldap-schema-00">DHCP
5981 schema</a> to solve at least part of the problem with the LDAP schemas
5982 available today from IETF.</p>
5983
5984 <pre>
5985 --- dhcp.schema    (revision 65192)
5986 +++ dhcp.schema    (working copy)
5987 @@ -376,7 +376,7 @@
5988  objectclass ( 2.16.840.1.113719.1.203.6.6
5989         NAME 'dhcpHost'
5990         DESC 'This represents information about a particular client'
5991 -       SUP top
5992 +       SUP top AUXILIARY
5993         MUST cn
5994         MAY  (dhcpLeaseDN $ dhcpHWAddress $ dhcpOptionsDN $ dhcpStatements $ dhcpComments $ dhcpOption)
5995         X-NDS_CONTAINMENT ('dhcpService' 'dhcpSubnet' 'dhcpGroup') )
5996 </pre>
5997
5998 <p>I very much welcome clues on how to do this properly for Debian
5999 Edu/Squeeze.  We provide the DHCP schema in our debian-edu-config
6000 package, and should thus be free to rewrite it as we see fit.</p>
6001
6002 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
6003 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
6004
6005       </div>
6006       <div class="tags">
6007
6008
6009         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>.
6010
6011
6012       </div>
6013     </div>
6014     <div class="padding"></div>
6015
6016     <div class="entry">
6017       <div class="title">
6018         <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>
6019       </div>
6020       <div class="date">
6021         16th June 2010
6022       </div>
6023       <div class="body">
6024         <p>A few times I have had the need to simulate the way tasksel
6025 installs packages during the normal debian-installer run.  Until now,
6026 I have ended up letting tasksel do the work, with the annoying problem
6027 of not getting any feedback at all when something fails (like a
6028 conffile question from dpkg or a download that fails), using code like
6029 this:
6030
6031 <blockquote><pre>
6032 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
6033 tasksel --new-install
6034 </pre></blockquote>
6035
6036 This would invoke tasksel, let its automatic task selection pick the
6037 tasks to install, and continue to install the requested tasks without
6038 any output what so ever.
6039
6040 Recently I revisited this problem while working on the automatic
6041 package upgrade testing, because tasksel would some times hang without
6042 any useful feedback, and I want to see what is going on when it
6043 happen.  Then it occured to me, I can parse the output from tasksel
6044 when asked to run in test mode, and use that aptitude command line
6045 printed by tasksel then to simulate the tasksel run.  I ended up using
6046 code like this:
6047
6048 <blockquote><pre>
6049 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
6050 cmd="$(in_target tasksel -t --new-install | sed 's/debconf-apt-progress -- //')"
6051 $cmd
6052 </pre></blockquote>
6053
6054 <p>The content of $cmd is typically something like "<tt>aptitude -q
6055 --without-recommends -o APT::Install-Recommends=no -y install
6056 ~t^desktop$ ~t^gnome-desktop$ ~t^laptop$ ~pstandard ~prequired
6057 ~pimportant</tt>", which will install the gnome desktop task, the
6058 laptop task and all packages with priority standard , required and
6059 important, just like tasksel would have done it during
6060 installation.</p>
6061
6062 <p>A better approach is probably to extend tasksel to be able to
6063 install packages without using debconf-apt-progress, for use cases
6064 like this.</p>
6065
6066       </div>
6067       <div class="tags">
6068
6069
6070         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>.
6071
6072
6073       </div>
6074     </div>
6075     <div class="padding"></div>
6076
6077     <div class="entry">
6078       <div class="title">
6079         <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>
6080       </div>
6081       <div class="date">
6082         13th June 2010
6083       </div>
6084       <div class="body">
6085         <p>My
6086 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">testing
6087 of Debian upgrades</a> from Lenny to Squeeze continues, and I've
6088 finally made the upgrade logs available from
6089 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/</a>.
6090 I am now testing dist-upgrade of Gnome and KDE in a chroot using both
6091 apt and aptitude, and found their differences interesting.  This time
6092 I will only focus on their removal plans.</p>
6093
6094 <p>After installing a Gnome desktop and the laptop task, apt-get wants
6095 to remove 72 packages when dist-upgrading from Lenny to Squeeze.  The
6096 surprising part is that it want to remove xorg and all
6097 xserver-xorg-video* drivers.  Clearly not a good choice, but I am not
6098 sure why.  When asking aptitude to do the same, it want to remove 129
6099 packages, but most of them are library packages I suspect are no
6100 longer needed.  Both of them want to remove bluetooth packages, which
6101 I do not know.  Perhaps these bluetooth packages are obsolete?</p>
6102
6103 <p>For KDE, apt-get want to remove 82 packages, among them kdebase
6104 which seem like a bad idea and xorg the same way as with Gnome. Asking
6105 aptitude for the same, it wants to remove 192 packages, none which are
6106 too surprising.</p>
6107
6108 <p>I guess the removal of xorg during upgrades should be investigated
6109 and avoided, and perhaps others as well.  Here are the complete list
6110 of planned removals.  The complete logs is available from the URL
6111 above.  Note if you want to repeat these tests, that the upgrade test
6112 for kde+apt-get hung in the tasksel setup because of dpkg asking
6113 conffile questions.  No idea why.  I worked around it by using
6114 '<tt>echo >> /proc/<em>pidofdpkg</em>/fd/0</tt>' to tell dpkg to
6115 continue.</p>
6116
6117 <p><b>apt-get gnome 72</b>
6118 <br>bluez-gnome cupsddk-drivers deskbar-applet gnome
6119   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-network-admin gtkhtml3.14
6120   iceweasel-gnome-support libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libgdl-1-0
6121   libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libmetacity0 libslab0 libxcb-xlib0
6122   nautilus-cd-burner python-gnome2-desktop python-gnome2-extras
6123   serpentine swfdec-mozilla update-manager xorg xserver-xorg
6124   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
6125   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
6126   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
6127   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
6128   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
6129   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
6130   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
6131   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
6132   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
6133   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
6134   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
6135   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
6136   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
6137   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
6138   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
6139   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
6140   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
6141   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
6142   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
6143   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
6144   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
6145   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9
6146   xulrunner-1.9-gnome-support</p>
6147
6148 <p><b>aptitude gnome 129</b>
6149
6150 <br>bluez-gnome bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers dhcdbd
6151   djvulibre-desktop finger gnome-app-install gnome-mount
6152   gnome-network-admin gnome-spell gnome-vfs-obexftp
6153   gnome-volume-manager gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs gtkhtml3.14 libao2
6154   libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
6155   libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcupsys2 libcurl3 libdatrie0
6156   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20
6157   libeel2-data libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libfaad0 libgail-common
6158   libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libgdl-1-0 libgdl-1-common
6159   libggz2 libggzcore9 libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0
6160   libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libgnomeprint2.2-0
6161   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgnomeprintui2.2-common
6162   libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
6163   libgtksourceview-common libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6
6164   libhesiod0 libicu38 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 libmagick++10
6165   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmetacity0 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off
6166   libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2
6167   libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10
6168   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libraw1394-8
6169   libsensors3 libslab0 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8 libssh2-1
6170   libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10
6171   libtrackerclient0 libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0
6172   libxerces2-java libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6
6173   libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common nautilus-cd-burner
6174   openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
6175   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gnome2-desktop
6176   python-gnome2-extras python-gtkhtml2 python-gtkmozembed
6177   python-numeric python-sexy serpentine svgalibg1 swfdec-gnome
6178   swfdec-mozilla totem-gstreamer update-manager wodim
6179   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
6180   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
6181   zip</p>
6182
6183 <p><b>apt-get kde 82</b>
6184
6185 <br>cupsddk-drivers karm kaudiocreator kcoloredit kcontrol kde kde-core
6186   kdeaddons kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-bin kdebase-bin-kde3
6187   kdebase-kio-plugins kdesktop kdeutils khelpcenter kicker
6188   kicker-applets knewsticker kolourpaint konq-plugins konqueror korn
6189   kpersonalizer kscreensaver ksplash libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libkiten1
6190   libxcb-xlib0 quanta superkaramba texlive-base-bin xorg xserver-xorg
6191   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
6192   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
6193   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
6194   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
6195   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
6196   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
6197   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
6198   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
6199   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
6200   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
6201   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
6202   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
6203   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
6204   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
6205   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
6206   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
6207   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
6208   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
6209   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
6210   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
6211   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
6212   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9</p>
6213
6214 <p><b>aptitude kde 192</b>
6215 <br>bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers cvs dcoprss dhcdbd
6216   djvulibre-desktop dosfstools eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
6217   ghostscript-x imlib-base imlib11 indi kandy karm kasteroids
6218   kaudiocreator kbackgammon kbstate kcoloredit kcontrol kcron kdat
6219   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
6220   kdebase-bin-kde3 kdebase-kio-plugins kdeedu-data
6221   kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data
6222   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
6223   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdeprint kdesktop kdessh
6224   kdict kdnssd kdvi kedit keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs
6225   kghostview khelpcenter khexedit kiconedit kitchensync klatin
6226   klickety kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmoon kmrml kodo kolourpaint
6227   kooka korn kpager kpdf kpercentage kpf kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler
6228   krec kregexpeditor ksayit ksim ksirc ksirtet ksmiletris ksmserver
6229   ksnake ksokoban ksplash ksvg ksysv ktip ktnef kuickshow kverbos
6230   kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kworldclock
6231   kxsldbg libakode2 libao2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
6232   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
6233   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
6234   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0 libdatrie0
6235   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
6236   libgail-common libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0
6237   libicu38 libiec61883-0 libindex0 libiw29 libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1
6238   libkdeedu3 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkiten1 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
6239   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
6240   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 libmagick10 libmimelib1c2a
6241   libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9
6242   libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 libsmbios2
6243   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libtalloc1 libtiff-tools
6244   libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0 libxerces2-java
6245   libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 mpeglib networkstatus
6246   openoffice.org-writer2latex pmount poster psutils quanta quanta-data
6247   superkaramba svgalibg1 tex-common texlive-base texlive-base-bin
6248   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended
6249   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
6250   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
6251   xulrunner-1.9</p>
6252
6253
6254       </div>
6255       <div class="tags">
6256
6257
6258         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>.
6259
6260
6261       </div>
6262     </div>
6263     <div class="padding"></div>
6264
6265     <div class="entry">
6266       <div class="title">
6267         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">Automatic upgrade testing from Lenny to Squeeze</a>
6268       </div>
6269       <div class="date">
6270         11th June 2010
6271       </div>
6272       <div class="body">
6273         <p>The last few days I have done some upgrade testing in Debian, to
6274 see if the upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze will go smoothly.  A few bugs
6275 have been discovered and reported in the process
6276 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585410">#585410</a> in nagios3-cgi,
6277 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584879">#584879</a> already fixed in
6278 enscript and <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> in
6279 kdebase-workspace-data), and to get a more regular testing going on, I
6280 am working on a script to automate the test.</p>
6281
6282 <p>The idea is to create a Lenny chroot and use tasksel to install a
6283 Gnome or KDE desktop installation inside the chroot before upgrading
6284 it.  To ensure no services are started in the chroot, a policy-rc.d
6285 script is inserted.  To make sure tasksel believe it is to install a
6286 desktop on a laptop, the tasksel tests are replaced in the chroot
6287 (only acceptable because this is a throw-away chroot).</p>
6288
6289 <p>A naive upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze using aptitude dist-upgrade
6290 currently always fail because udev refuses to upgrade with the kernel
6291 in Lenny, so to avoid that problem the file /etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
6292 is created.  The bug report
6293 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/566000">#566000</a> make me suspect
6294 this problem do not trigger in a chroot, but I touch the file anyway
6295 to make sure the upgrade go well.  Testing on virtual and real
6296 hardware have failed me because of udev so far, and creating this file
6297 do the trick in such settings anyway.  This is a
6298 <a href="http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/debian-26/failed-dist-upgrade-due-to-udev-config_sysfs_deprecated-nonsense-804130/">known
6299 issue</a> and the current udev behaviour is intended by the udev
6300 maintainer because he lack the resources to rewrite udev to keep
6301 working with old kernels or something like that.  I really wish the
6302 udev upstream would keep udev backwards compatible, to avoid such
6303 upgrade problem, but given that they fail to do so, I guess
6304 documenting the way out of this mess is the best option we got for
6305 Debian Squeeze.</p>
6306
6307 <p>Anyway, back to the task at hand, testing upgrades.  This test
6308 script, which I call <tt>upgrade-test</tt> for now, is doing the
6309 trick:</p>
6310
6311 <blockquote><pre>
6312 #!/bin/sh
6313 set -ex
6314
6315 if [ "$1" ] ; then
6316     desktop=$1
6317 else
6318     desktop=gnome
6319 fi
6320
6321 from=lenny
6322 to=squeeze
6323
6324 exec &lt; /dev/null
6325 unset LANG
6326 mirror=http://ftp.skolelinux.org/debian
6327 tmpdir=chroot-$from-upgrade-$to-$desktop
6328 fuser -mv .
6329 debootstrap $from $tmpdir $mirror
6330 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
6331 cat > $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d &lt;&lt;EOF
6332 #!/bin/sh
6333 exit 101
6334 EOF
6335 chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d
6336 exit_cleanup() {
6337     umount $tmpdir/proc
6338 }
6339 mount -t proc proc $tmpdir/proc
6340 # Make sure proc is unmounted also on failure
6341 trap exit_cleanup EXIT INT
6342
6343 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y install debconf-utils
6344
6345 # Make sure tasksel autoselection trigger.  It need the test scripts
6346 # to return the correct answers.
6347 echo tasksel tasksel/desktop multiselect $desktop | \
6348     chroot $tmpdir debconf-set-selections
6349
6350 # Include the desktop and laptop task
6351 for test in desktop laptop ; do
6352     echo > $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test &lt;&lt;EOF
6353 #!/bin/sh
6354 exit 2
6355 EOF
6356     chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test
6357 done
6358
6359 DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
6360 DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical
6361 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND DEBIAN_PRIORITY
6362 chroot $tmpdir tasksel --new-install
6363
6364 echo deb $mirror $to main > $tmpdir/etc/apt/sources.list
6365 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
6366 touch $tmpdir/etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
6367 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y dist-upgrade
6368 fuser -mv
6369 </pre></blockquote>
6370
6371 <p>I suspect it would be useful to test upgrades with both apt-get and
6372 with aptitude, but I have not had time to look at how they behave
6373 differently so far.  I hope to get a cron job running to do the test
6374 regularly and post the result on the web.  The Gnome upgrade currently
6375 work, while the KDE upgrade fail because of the bug in
6376 kdebase-workspace-data</p>
6377
6378 <p>I am not quite sure what kind of extract from the huge upgrade logs
6379 (KDE 167 KiB, Gnome 516 KiB) it make sense to include in this blog
6380 post, so I will refrain from trying.  I can report that for Gnome,
6381 aptitude report 760 packages upgraded, 448 newly installed, 129 to
6382 remove and 1 not upgraded and 1024MB need to be downloaded while for
6383 KDE the same numbers are 702 packages upgraded, 507 newly installed,
6384 193 to remove and 0 not upgraded and 1117MB need to be downloaded</p>
6385
6386 <p>I am very happy to notice that the Gnome desktop + laptop upgrade
6387 is able to migrate to dependency based boot sequencing and parallel
6388 booting without a hitch.  Was unsure if there were still bugs with
6389 packages failing to clean up their obsolete init.d script during
6390 upgrades, and no such problem seem to affect the Gnome desktop+laptop
6391 packages.</p>
6392
6393       </div>
6394       <div class="tags">
6395
6396
6397         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>.
6398
6399
6400       </div>
6401     </div>
6402     <div class="padding"></div>
6403
6404     <div class="entry">
6405       <div class="title">
6406         <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>
6407       </div>
6408       <div class="date">
6409          6th June 2010
6410       </div>
6411       <div class="body">
6412         <p>If Debian is to migrate to upstart on Linux, I expect some init.d
6413 scripts to migrate (some of) their operations to upstart job while
6414 keeping the init.d for hurd and kfreebsd.  The packages with such
6415 needs will need a way to get their init.d scripts to behave
6416 differently when used with sysvinit and with upstart.  Because of
6417 this, I had a look at the environment variables set when a init.d
6418 script is running under upstart, and when it is not.</p>
6419
6420 <p>With upstart, I notice these environment variables are set when a
6421 script is started from rcS.d/ (ignoring some irrelevant ones like
6422 COLUMNS):</p>
6423
6424 <blockquote><pre>
6425 DEFAULT_RUNLEVEL=2
6426 previous=N
6427 PREVLEVEL=
6428 RUNLEVEL=
6429 runlevel=S
6430 UPSTART_EVENTS=startup
6431 UPSTART_INSTANCE=
6432 UPSTART_JOB=rc-sysinit
6433 </pre></blockquote>
6434
6435 <p>With sysvinit, these environment variables are set for the same
6436 script.</p>
6437
6438 <blockquote><pre>
6439 INIT_VERSION=sysvinit-2.88
6440 previous=N
6441 PREVLEVEL=N
6442 RUNLEVEL=S
6443 runlevel=S
6444 </pre></blockquote>
6445
6446 <p>The RUNLEVEL and PREVLEVEL environment variables passed on from
6447 sysvinit are not set by upstart.  Not sure if it is intentional or not
6448 to not be compatible with sysvinit in this regard.</p>
6449
6450 <p>For scripts needing to behave differently when upstart is used,
6451 looking for the UPSTART_JOB environment variable seem to be a good
6452 choice.</p>
6453
6454       </div>
6455       <div class="tags">
6456
6457
6458         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>.
6459
6460
6461       </div>
6462     </div>
6463     <div class="padding"></div>
6464
6465     <div class="entry">
6466       <div class="title">
6467         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_manual_for_standards_wars___.html">A manual for standards wars...</a>
6468       </div>
6469       <div class="date">
6470          6th June 2010
6471       </div>
6472       <div class="body">
6473         <p>Via the
6474 <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/robweir/antic-atom/~3/QzU4RgoAGMg/weekly-links-10.html">blog
6475 of Rob Weir</a> I came across the very interesting essay named
6476 <a href="http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/shapiro/wars.pdf">The Art of
6477 Standards Wars</a> (PDF 25 pages).  I recommend it for everyone
6478 following the standards wars of today.</p>
6479
6480       </div>
6481       <div class="tags">
6482
6483
6484         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>.
6485
6486
6487       </div>
6488     </div>
6489     <div class="padding"></div>
6490
6491     <div class="entry">
6492       <div class="title">
6493         <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>
6494       </div>
6495       <div class="date">
6496          3rd June 2010
6497       </div>
6498       <div class="body">
6499         <p>When using sitesummary at a site to track machines, it is possible
6500 to get a list of the machine types in use thanks to the DMI
6501 information extracted from each machine.  The script to do so is
6502 included in the sitesummary package, and here is example output from
6503 the Skolelinux build servers:</p>
6504
6505 <blockquote><pre>
6506 maintainer:~# /usr/lib/sitesummary/hardware-model-summary
6507   vendor                    count
6508   Dell Computer Corporation     1
6509     PowerEdge 1750              1
6510   IBM                           1
6511     eserver xSeries 345 -[8670M1X]-     1
6512   Intel                         2
6513   [no-dmi-info]                 3
6514 maintainer:~#
6515 </pre></blockquote>
6516
6517 <p>The quality of the report depend on the quality of the DMI tables
6518 provided in each machine.  Here there are Intel machines without model
6519 information listed with Intel as vendor and no model, and virtual Xen
6520 machines listed as [no-dmi-info].  One can add -l as a command line
6521 option to list the individual machines.</p>
6522
6523 <p>A larger list is
6524 <a href="http://narvikskolen.no/sitesummary/">available from the the
6525 city of Narvik</a>, which uses Skolelinux on all their shools and also
6526 provide the basic sitesummary report publicly.  In their report there
6527 are ~1400 machines. I know they use both Ubuntu and Skolelinux on
6528 their machines, and as sitesummary is available in both distributions,
6529 it is trivial to get all of them to report to the same central
6530 collector.</p>
6531
6532       </div>
6533       <div class="tags">
6534
6535
6536         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>.
6537
6538
6539       </div>
6540     </div>
6541     <div class="padding"></div>
6542
6543     <div class="entry">
6544       <div class="title">
6545         <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>
6546       </div>
6547       <div class="date">
6548          1st June 2010
6549       </div>
6550       <div class="body">
6551         <p>It is strange to watch how a bug in Debian causing KDM to fail to
6552 start at boot when an NVidia video card is used is handled.  The
6553 problem seem to be that the nvidia X.org driver uses a long time to
6554 initialize, and this duration is longer than kdm is configured to
6555 wait.</p>
6556
6557 <p>I came across two bugs related to this issue,
6558 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">#583312</a> initially filed
6559 against initscripts and passed on to nvidia-glx when it became obvious
6560 that the nvidia drivers were involved, and
6561 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/524751">#524751</a> initially filed against
6562 kdm and passed on to src:nvidia-graphics-drivers for unknown reasons.</p>
6563
6564 <p>To me, it seem that no-one is interested in actually solving the
6565 problem nvidia video card owners experience and make sure the Debian
6566 distribution work out of the box for these users.  The nvidia driver
6567 maintainers expect kdm to be set up to wait longer, while kdm expect
6568 the nvidia driver maintainers to fix the driver to start faster, and
6569 while they wait for each other I guess the users end up switching to a
6570 distribution that work for them.  I have no idea what the solution is,
6571 but I am pretty sure that waiting for each other is not it.</p>
6572
6573 <p>I wonder why we end up handling bugs this way.</p>
6574
6575       </div>
6576       <div class="tags">
6577
6578
6579         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>.
6580
6581
6582       </div>
6583     </div>
6584     <div class="padding"></div>
6585
6586     <div class="entry">
6587       <div class="title">
6588         <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>
6589       </div>
6590       <div class="date">
6591         27th May 2010
6592       </div>
6593       <div class="body">
6594         <p>A few days ago, parallel booting was enabled in Debian/testing.
6595 The feature seem to hold up pretty well, but three fairly serious
6596 issues are known and should be solved:
6597
6598 <p><ul>
6599
6600 <li>The wicd package seen to
6601 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/508289">break NFS mounting</a> and
6602 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/581586">network setup</a> when
6603 parallel booting is enabled.  No idea why, but the wicd maintainer
6604 seem to be on the case.</li>
6605
6606 <li>The nvidia X driver seem to
6607 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">have a race condition</a>
6608 triggered more easily when parallel booting is in effect.  The
6609 maintainer is on the case.</li>
6610
6611 <li>The sysv-rc package fail to properly enable dependency based boot
6612 sequencing (the shutdown is broken) when old file-rc users
6613 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/575080">try to switch back</a> to
6614 sysv-rc.  One way to solve it would be for file-rc to create
6615 /etc/init.d/.legacy-bootordering, and another is to try to make
6616 sysv-rc more robust.  Will investigate some more and probably upload a
6617 workaround in sysv-rc to help those trying to move from file-rc to
6618 sysv-rc get a working shutdown.</li>
6619
6620 </ul></p>
6621
6622 <p>All in all not many surprising issues, and all of them seem
6623 solvable before Squeeze is released.  In addition to these there are
6624 some packages with bugs in their dependencies and run level settings,
6625 which I expect will be fixed in a reasonable time span.</p>
6626
6627 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
6628 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
6629 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
6630 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
6631
6632 <p>Update: Correct bug number to file-rc issue.</p>
6633
6634       </div>
6635       <div class="tags">
6636
6637
6638         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>.
6639
6640
6641       </div>
6642     </div>
6643     <div class="padding"></div>
6644
6645     <div class="entry">
6646       <div class="title">
6647         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/More_flexible_firmware_handling_in_debian_installer.html">More flexible firmware handling in debian-installer</a>
6648       </div>
6649       <div class="date">
6650         22nd May 2010
6651       </div>
6652       <div class="body">
6653         <p>After a long break from debian-installer development, I finally
6654 found time today to return to the project.  Having to spend less time
6655 working dependency based boot in debian, as it is almost complete now,
6656 definitely helped freeing some time.</p>
6657
6658 <p>A while back, I ran into a problem while working on Debian Edu.  We
6659 include some firmware packages on the Debian Edu CDs, those needed to
6660 get disk and network controllers working.  Without having these
6661 firmware packages available during installation, it is impossible to
6662 install Debian Edu on the given machine, and because our target group
6663 are non-technical people, asking them to provide firmware packages on
6664 an external medium is a support pain.  Initially, I expected it to be
6665 enough to include the firmware packages on the CD to get
6666 debian-installer to find and use them.  This proved to be wrong.
6667 Next, I hoped it was enough to symlink the relevant firmware packages
6668 to some useful location on the CD (tried /cdrom/ and
6669 /cdrom/firmware/).  This also proved to not work, and at this point I
6670 found time to look at the debian-installer code to figure out what was
6671 going to work.</p>
6672
6673 <p>The firmware loading code is in the hw-detect package, and a closer
6674 look revealed that it would only look for firmware packages outside
6675 the installation media, so the CD was never checked for firmware
6676 packages.  It would only check USB sticks, floppies and other
6677 "external" media devices.  Today I changed it to also look in the
6678 /cdrom/firmware/ directory on the mounted CD or DVD, which should
6679 solve the problem I ran into with Debian edu.  I also changed it to
6680 look in /firmware/, to make sure the installer also find firmware
6681 provided in the initrd when booting the installer via PXE, to allow us
6682 to provide the same feature in the PXE setup included in Debian
6683 Edu.</p>
6684
6685 <p>To make sure firmware deb packages with a license questions are not
6686 activated without asking if the license is accepted, I extended
6687 hw-detect to look for preinst scripts in the firmware packages, and
6688 run these before activating the firmware during installation.  The
6689 license question is asked using debconf in the preinst, so this should
6690 solve the issue for the firmware packages I have looked at so far.</p>
6691
6692 <p>If you want to discuss the details of these features, please
6693 contact us on debian-boot@lists.debian.org.</p>
6694
6695       </div>
6696       <div class="tags">
6697
6698
6699         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>.
6700
6701
6702       </div>
6703     </div>
6704     <div class="padding"></div>
6705
6706     <div class="entry">
6707       <div class="title">
6708         <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>
6709       </div>
6710       <div class="date">
6711         14th May 2010
6712       </div>
6713       <div class="body">
6714         <p>Since this evening, parallel booting is the default in
6715 Debian/unstable for machines using dependency based boot sequencing.
6716 Apparently the testing of concurrent booting has been wider than
6717 expected, if I am to believe the
6718 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
6719 on debian-devel@</a>, and I concluded a few days ago to move forward
6720 with the feature this weekend, to give us some time to detect any
6721 remaining problems before Squeeze is frozen.  If serious problems are
6722 detected, it is simple to change the default back to sequential boot.
6723 The upload of the new sysvinit package also activate a new upstream
6724 version.</p>
6725
6726 More information about
6727 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
6728 based boot sequencing</a> is available from the Debian wiki.  It is
6729 currently possible to disable parallel booting when one run into
6730 problems caused by it, by adding this line to /etc/default/rcS:</p>
6731
6732 <blockquote><pre>
6733 CONCURRENCY=none
6734 </pre></blockquote>
6735
6736 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
6737 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
6738 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
6739 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
6740
6741       </div>
6742       <div class="tags">
6743
6744
6745         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>.
6746
6747
6748       </div>
6749     </div>
6750     <div class="padding"></div>
6751
6752     <div class="entry">
6753       <div class="title">
6754         <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>
6755       </div>
6756       <div class="date">
6757         14th May 2010
6758       </div>
6759       <div class="body">
6760         <p>In the recent Debian Edu versions, the
6761 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/SiteSummary">sitesummary
6762 system</a> is used to keep track of the machines in the school
6763 network.  Each machine will automatically report its status to the
6764 central server after boot and once per night.  The network setup is
6765 also reported, and using this information it is possible to get the
6766 MAC address of all network interfaces in the machines.  This is useful
6767 to update the DHCP configuration.</p>
6768
6769 <p>To give some idea how to use sitesummary, here is a one-liner to
6770 ist all MAC addresses of all machines reporting to sitesummary.  Run
6771 this on the collector host:</p>
6772
6773 <blockquote><pre>
6774 perl -MSiteSummary -e 'for_all_hosts(sub { print join(" ", get_macaddresses(shift)), "\n"; });'
6775 </pre></blockquote>
6776
6777 <p>This will list all MAC addresses assosiated with all machine, one
6778 line per machine and with space between the MAC addresses.</p>
6779
6780 <p>To allow system administrators easier job at adding static DHCP
6781 addresses for hosts, it would be possible to extend this to fetch
6782 machine information from sitesummary and update the DHCP and DNS
6783 tables in LDAP using this information.  Such tool is unfortunately not
6784 written yet.</p>
6785
6786       </div>
6787       <div class="tags">
6788
6789
6790         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>.
6791
6792
6793       </div>
6794     </div>
6795     <div class="padding"></div>
6796
6797     <div class="entry">
6798       <div class="title">
6799         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/systemd__an_interesting_alternative_to_upstart.html">systemd, an interesting alternative to upstart</a>
6800       </div>
6801       <div class="date">
6802         13th May 2010
6803       </div>
6804       <div class="body">
6805         <p>The last few days a new boot system called
6806 <a href="http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd">systemd</a>
6807 has been
6808 <a href="http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/systemd.html">introduced</a>
6809
6810 to the free software world.  I have not yet had time to play around
6811 with it, but it seem to be a very interesting alternative to
6812 <a href="http://upstart.ubuntu.com/">upstart</a>, and might prove to be
6813 a good alternative for Debian when we are able to switch to an event
6814 based boot system.  Tollef is
6815 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/580814">in the process</a> of getting
6816 systemd into Debian, and I look forward to seeing how well it work.  I
6817 like the fact that systemd handles init.d scripts with dependency
6818 information natively, allowing them to run in parallel where upstart
6819 at the moment do not.</p>
6820
6821 <p>Unfortunately do systemd have the same problem as upstart regarding
6822 platform support.  It only work on recent Linux kernels, and also need
6823 some new kernel features enabled to function properly.  This means
6824 kFreeBSD and Hurd ports of Debian will need a port or a different boot
6825 system.  Not sure how that will be handled if systemd proves to be the
6826 way forward.</p>
6827
6828 <p>In the mean time, based on the
6829 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
6830 on debian-devel@</a> regarding parallel booting in Debian, I have
6831 decided to enable full parallel booting as the default in Debian as
6832 soon as possible (probably this weekend or early next week), to see if
6833 there are any remaining serious bugs in the init.d dependencies.  A
6834 new version of the sysvinit package implementing this change is
6835 already in experimental.  If all go well, Squeeze will be released
6836 with parallel booting enabled by default.</p>
6837
6838       </div>
6839       <div class="tags">
6840
6841
6842         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>.
6843
6844
6845       </div>
6846     </div>
6847     <div class="padding"></div>
6848
6849     <div class="entry">
6850       <div class="title">
6851         <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>
6852       </div>
6853       <div class="date">
6854          6th May 2010
6855       </div>
6856       <div class="body">
6857         <p>These days, the init.d script dependencies in Squeeze are quite
6858 complete, so complete that it is actually possible to run all the
6859 init.d scripts in parallell based on these dependencies.  If you want
6860 to test your Squeeze system, make sure
6861 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
6862 based boot sequencing</a> is enabled, and add this line to
6863 /etc/default/rcS:</p>
6864
6865 <blockquote><pre>
6866 CONCURRENCY=makefile
6867 </pre></blockquote>
6868
6869 <p>That is it.  It will cause sysv-rc to use the startpar tool to run
6870 scripts in parallel using the dependency information stored in
6871 /etc/init.d/.depend.boot, /etc/init.d/.depend.start and
6872 /etc/init.d/.depend.stop to order the scripts.  Startpar is configured
6873 to try to start the kdm and gdm scripts as early as possible, and will
6874 start the facilities required by kdm or gdm as early as possible to
6875 make this happen.</p>
6876
6877 <p>Give it a try, and see if you like the result.  If some services
6878 fail to start properly, it is most likely because they have incomplete
6879 init.d script dependencies in their startup script (or some of their
6880 dependent scripts have incomplete dependencies).  Report bugs and get
6881 the package maintainers to fix it. :)</p>
6882
6883 <p>Running scripts in parallel could be the default in Debian when we
6884 manage to get the init.d script dependencies complete and correct.  I
6885 expect we will get there in Squeeze+1, if we get manage to test and
6886 fix the remaining issues.</p>
6887
6888 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
6889 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
6890 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
6891 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
6892
6893       </div>
6894       <div class="tags">
6895
6896
6897         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>.
6898
6899
6900       </div>
6901     </div>
6902     <div class="padding"></div>
6903
6904     <div class="entry">
6905       <div class="title">
6906         <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>
6907       </div>
6908       <div class="date">
6909         27th July 2009
6910       </div>
6911       <div class="body">
6912         <p>Since this evening, with the upload of sysvinit version 2.87dsf-2,
6913 and the upload of insserv version 1.12.0-10 yesterday, Debian unstable
6914 have been migrated to using dependency based boot sequencing.  This
6915 conclude work me and others have been doing for the last three days.
6916 It feels great to see this finally part of the default Debian
6917 installation.  Now we just need to weed out the last few problems that
6918 are bound to show up, to get everything ready for Squeeze.</p>
6919
6920 <p>The next step is migrating /sbin/init from sysvinit to upstart, and
6921 fixing the more fundamental problem of handing the event based
6922 non-predictable kernel in the early boot.</p>
6923
6924       </div>
6925       <div class="tags">
6926
6927
6928         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>.
6929
6930
6931       </div>
6932     </div>
6933     <div class="padding"></div>
6934
6935     <div class="entry">
6936       <div class="title">
6937         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Taking_over_sysvinit_development.html">Taking over sysvinit development</a>
6938       </div>
6939       <div class="date">
6940         22nd July 2009
6941       </div>
6942       <div class="body">
6943         <p>After several years of frustration with the lack of activity from
6944 the existing sysvinit upstream developer, I decided a few weeks ago to
6945 take over the package and become the new upstream.  The number of
6946 patches to track for the Debian package was becoming a burden, and the
6947 lack of synchronization between the distribution made it hard to keep
6948 the package up to date.</p>
6949
6950 <p>On the new sysvinit team is the SuSe maintainer Dr. Werner Fink,
6951 and my Debian co-maintainer Kel Modderman.  About 10 days ago, I made
6952 a new upstream tarball with version number 2.87dsf (for Debian, SuSe
6953 and Fedora), based on the patches currently in use in these
6954 distributions.  We Debian maintainers plan to move to this tarball as
6955 the new upstream as soon as we find time to do the merge.  Since the
6956 new tarball was created, we agreed with Werner at SuSe to make a new
6957 upstream project at <a href="http://savannah.nongnu.org/">Savannah</a>, and continue
6958 development there.  The project is registered and currently waiting
6959 for approval by the Savannah administrators, and as soon as it is
6960 approved, we will import the old versions from svn and continue
6961 working on the future release.</p>
6962
6963 <p>It is a bit ironic that this is done now, when some of the involved
6964 distributions are moving to upstart as a syvinit replacement.</p>
6965
6966       </div>
6967       <div class="tags">
6968
6969
6970         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>.
6971
6972
6973       </div>
6974     </div>
6975     <div class="padding"></div>
6976
6977     <div class="entry">
6978       <div class="title">
6979         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_boots_quicker_and_quicker.html">Debian boots quicker and quicker</a>
6980       </div>
6981       <div class="date">
6982         24th June 2009
6983       </div>
6984       <div class="body">
6985         <p>I spent Monday and tuesday this week in London with a lot of the
6986 people involved in the boot system on Debian and Ubuntu, to see if we
6987 could find more ways to speed up the boot system.  This was an Ubuntu
6988 funded
6989 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FoundationsTeam/BootPerformance/DebianUbuntuSprint">developer
6990 gathering</a>. It was quite productive.  We also discussed the future
6991 of boot systems, and ways to handle the increasing number of boot
6992 issues introduced by the Linux kernel becoming more and more
6993 asynchronous and event base.  The Ubuntu approach using udev and
6994 upstart might be a good way forward.  Time will show.</p>
6995
6996 <p>Anyway, there are a few ways at the moment to speed up the boot
6997 process in Debian.  All of these should be applied to get a quick
6998 boot:</p>
6999
7000 <ul>
7001
7002 <li>Use dash as /bin/sh.</li>
7003
7004 <li>Disable the init.d/hwclock*.sh scripts and make sure the hardware
7005    clock is in UTC.</li>
7006
7007 <li>Install and activate the insserv package to enable
7008    <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
7009    based boot sequencing</a>, and enable concurrent booting.</li>
7010
7011 </ul>
7012
7013 These points are based on the Google summer of code work done by
7014 <a href="http://initscripts-ng.alioth.debian.org/soc2006-bootsystem/">Carlos
7015 Villegas</a>.
7016
7017 <p>Support for makefile-style concurrency during boot was uploaded to
7018 unstable yesterday.  When we tested it, we were able to cut 6 seconds
7019 from the boot sequence.  It depend on very correct dependency
7020 declaration in all init.d scripts, so I expect us to find edge cases
7021 where the dependences in some scripts are slightly wrong when we start
7022 using this.</p>
7023
7024 <p>On our IRC channel for this effort, #pkg-sysvinit, a new idea was
7025 introduced by Raphael Geissert today, one that could affect the
7026 startup speed as well.  Instead of starting some scripts concurrently
7027 from rcS.d/ and another set of scripts from rc2.d/, it would be
7028 possible to run a of them in the same process.  A quick way to test
7029 this would be to enable insserv and run 'mv /etc/rc2.d/S* /etc/rcS.d/;
7030 insserv'.  Will need to test if that work. :)</p>
7031
7032       </div>
7033       <div class="tags">
7034
7035
7036         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>.
7037
7038
7039       </div>
7040     </div>
7041     <div class="padding"></div>
7042
7043     <div class="entry">
7044       <div class="title">
7045         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/BSAs_p_stander_om_piratkopiering_m_ter_motstand.html">BSAs påstander om piratkopiering møter motstand</a>
7046       </div>
7047       <div class="date">
7048         17th May 2009
7049       </div>
7050       <div class="body">
7051         <p>Hvert år de siste årene har BSA, lobbyfronten til de store
7052 programvareselskapene som Microsoft og Apple, publisert en rapport der
7053 de gjetter på hvor mye piratkopiering påfører i tapte inntekter i
7054 ulike land rundt om i verden.  Resultatene er tendensiøse.  For noen
7055 dager siden kom
7056 <a href="http://global.bsa.org/globalpiracy2008/studies/globalpiracy2008.pdf">siste
7057 rapport</a>, og det er flere kritiske kommentarer publisert de siste
7058 dagene.  Et spesielt interessant kommentar fra Sverige,
7059 <a href="http://www.idg.se/2.1085/1.229795/bsa-hoftade-sverigesiffror">BSA
7060 höftade Sverigesiffror</a>, oppsummeres slik:</p>
7061
7062 <blockquote>
7063 I sin senaste rapport slår BSA fast att 25 procent av all mjukvara i
7064 Sverige är piratkopierad. Det utan att ha pratat med ett enda svenskt
7065 företag. "Man bör nog kanske inte se de här siffrorna som helt
7066 exakta", säger BSAs Sverigechef John Hugosson.
7067 </blockquote>
7068
7069 <p>Mon tro om de er like metodiske når de gjetter på andelen piratkopiering i Norge?  To andre kommentarer er <a
7070 href="http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/comment/2242134/bsa-piracy-figures-shot-reality">BSA
7071 piracy figures need a shot of reality</a> og <a
7072 href="http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/3958/125/">Does The WIPO
7073 Copyright Treaty Work?</a></p>
7074
7075 <p>Fant lenkene via <a
7076 href="http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/05/17/1632242">oppslag
7077 på Slashdot</a>.</p>
7078
7079       </div>
7080       <div class="tags">
7081
7082
7083         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>.
7084
7085
7086       </div>
7087     </div>
7088     <div class="padding"></div>
7089
7090     <div class="entry">
7091       <div class="title">
7092         <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>
7093       </div>
7094       <div class="date">
7095          7th May 2009
7096       </div>
7097       <div class="body">
7098         <p>Kom over
7099 <a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10216873-16.html">interessante
7100 tall</a> fra IDG om utviklingen av linuxservermarkedet.  Fikk meg til
7101 å tenke på antall tjenermaskiner ved Universitetet i Oslo der jeg
7102 jobber til daglig.  En rask opptelling forteller meg at vi har 490
7103 (61%) fysiske unix-tjener (mest linux men også noen solaris) og 196
7104 (25%) windowstjenere, samt 112 (14%) virtuelle unix-tjenere.  Med den
7105 bakgrunnskunnskapen kan jeg godt tro at IDG er inne på noe.</p>
7106
7107       </div>
7108       <div class="tags">
7109
7110
7111         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>.
7112
7113
7114       </div>
7115     </div>
7116     <div class="padding"></div>
7117
7118     <div class="entry">
7119       <div class="title">
7120         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Kryptert_harddisk___naturligvis.html">Kryptert harddisk - naturligvis</a>
7121       </div>
7122       <div class="date">
7123          2nd May 2009
7124       </div>
7125       <div class="body">
7126         <p><a href="http://www.dagensit.no/trender/article1658676.ece">Dagens
7127 IT melder</a> at Intel hevder at det er dyrt å miste en datamaskin,
7128 når en tar tap av arbeidstid, fortrolige dokumenter,
7129 personopplysninger og alt annet det innebærer.  Det er ingen tvil om
7130 at det er en kostbar affære å miste sin datamaskin, og det er årsaken
7131 til at jeg har kryptert harddisken på både kontormaskinen og min
7132 bærbare.  Begge inneholder personopplysninger jeg ikke ønsker skal
7133 komme på avveie, den første informasjon relatert til jobben min ved
7134 Universitetet i Oslo, og den andre relatert til blant annet
7135 foreningsarbeide.  Kryptering av diskene gjør at det er lite
7136 sannsynlig at dophoder som kan finne på å rappe maskinene får noe ut
7137 av dem.  Maskinene låses automatisk etter noen minutter uten bruk,
7138 og en reboot vil gjøre at de ber om passord før de vil starte opp.
7139 Jeg bruker Debian på begge maskinene, og installasjonssystemet der
7140 gjør det trivielt å sette opp krypterte disker.  Jeg har LVM på toppen
7141 av krypterte partisjoner, slik at alt av datapartisjoner er kryptert.
7142 Jeg anbefaler alle å kryptere diskene på sine bærbare.  Kostnaden når
7143 det er gjort slik jeg gjør det er minimale, og gevinstene er
7144 betydelige.  En bør dog passe på passordet.  Hvis det går tapt, må
7145 maskinen reinstalleres og alt er tapt.</p>
7146
7147 <p>Krypteringen vil ikke stoppe kompetente angripere som f.eks. kjøler
7148 ned minnebrikkene før maskinen rebootes med programvare for å hente ut
7149 krypteringsnøklene.  Kostnaden med å forsvare seg mot slike angripere
7150 er for min del høyere enn gevinsten.  Jeg tror oddsene for at
7151 f.eks. etteretningsorganisasjoner har glede av å titte på mine
7152 maskiner er minimale, og ulempene jeg ville oppnå ved å forsøke å
7153 gjøre det vanskeligere for angripere med kompetanse og ressurser er
7154 betydelige.</p>
7155
7156       </div>
7157       <div class="tags">
7158
7159
7160         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>.
7161
7162
7163       </div>
7164     </div>
7165     <div class="padding"></div>
7166
7167     <div class="entry">
7168       <div class="title">
7169         <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>
7170       </div>
7171       <div class="date">
7172          2nd May 2009
7173       </div>
7174       <div class="body">
7175         <p>There are two software projects that have had huge influence on the
7176 quality of free software, and I wanted to mention both in case someone
7177 do not yet know them.</p>
7178
7179 <p>The first one is <a href="http://valgrind.org/">valgrind</a>, a
7180 tool to detect and expose errors in the memory handling of programs.
7181 It is easy to use, all one need to do is to run 'valgrind program',
7182 and it will report any problems on stdout.  It is even better if the
7183 program include debug information.  With debug information, it is able
7184 to report the source file name and line number where the problem
7185 occurs.  It can report things like 'reading past memory block in file
7186 X line N, the memory block was allocated in file Y, line M', and
7187 'using uninitialised value in control logic'.  This tool has made it
7188 trivial to investigate reproducible crash bugs in programs, and have
7189 reduced the number of this kind of bugs in free software a lot.
7190
7191 <p>The second one is
7192 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coverity">Coverity</a> which is
7193 a source code checker.  It is able to process the source of a program
7194 and find problems in the logic without running the program.  It
7195 started out as the Stanford Checker and became well known when it was
7196 used to find bugs in the Linux kernel.  It is now a commercial tool
7197 and the company behind it is running
7198 <a href="http://www.scan.coverity.com/">a community service</a> for the
7199 free software community, where a lot of free software projects get
7200 their source checked for free.  Several thousand defects have been
7201 found and fixed so far.  It can find errors like 'lock L taken in file
7202 X line N is never released if exiting in line M', or 'the code in file
7203 Y lines O to P can never be executed'.  The projects included in the
7204 community service project have managed to get rid of a lot of
7205 reliability problems thanks to Coverity.</p>
7206
7207 <p>I believe tools like this, that are able to automatically find
7208 errors in the source, are vital to improve the quality of software and
7209 make sure we can get rid of the crashing and failing software we are
7210 surrounded by today.</p>
7211
7212       </div>
7213       <div class="tags">
7214
7215
7216         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>.
7217
7218
7219       </div>
7220     </div>
7221     <div class="padding"></div>
7222
7223     <div class="entry">
7224       <div class="title">
7225         <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>
7226       </div>
7227       <div class="date">
7228         28th April 2009
7229       </div>
7230       <div class="body">
7231         <p>Julien Blache
7232 <a href="http://blog.technologeek.org/2009/04/12/214">claim that no
7233 patch is better than a useless patch</a>.  I completely disagree, as a
7234 patch allow one to discuss a concrete and proposed solution, and also
7235 prove that the issue at hand is important enough for someone to spent
7236 time on fixing it.  No patch do not provide any of these positive
7237 properties.</p>
7238
7239       </div>
7240       <div class="tags">
7241
7242
7243         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>.
7244
7245
7246       </div>
7247     </div>
7248     <div class="padding"></div>
7249
7250     <div class="entry">
7251       <div class="title">
7252         <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>
7253       </div>
7254       <div class="date">
7255         30th March 2009
7256       </div>
7257       <div class="body">
7258         <p>Where I work at the University of Oslo, one decision stand out as a
7259 very good one to form a long lived computer infrastructure.  It is the
7260 simple one, lost by many in todays computer industry: Standardize on
7261 open network protocols and open exchange/storage formats, not applications.
7262 Applications come and go, while protocols and files tend to stay, and
7263 thus one want to make it easy to change application and vendor, while
7264 avoiding conversion costs and locking users to a specific platform or
7265 application.</p>
7266
7267 <p>This approach make it possible to replace the client applications
7268 independently of the server applications.  One can even allow users to
7269 use several different applications as long as they handle the selected
7270 protocol and format.  In the normal case, only one client application
7271 is recommended and users only get help if they choose to use this
7272 application, but those that want to deviate from the easy path are not
7273 blocked from doing so.</p>
7274
7275 <p>It also allow us to replace the server side without forcing the
7276 users to replace their applications, and thus allow us to select the
7277 best server implementation at any moment, when scale and resouce
7278 requirements change.</p>
7279
7280 <p>I strongly recommend standardizing - on open network protocols and
7281 open formats, but I would never recommend standardizing on a single
7282 application that do not use open network protocol or open formats.</p>
7283
7284       </div>
7285       <div class="tags">
7286
7287
7288         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>.
7289
7290
7291       </div>
7292     </div>
7293     <div class="padding"></div>
7294
7295     <div class="entry">
7296       <div class="title">
7297         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Returning_from_Skolelinux_developer_gathering.html">Returning from Skolelinux developer gathering</a>
7298       </div>
7299       <div class="date">
7300         29th March 2009
7301       </div>
7302       <div class="body">
7303         <p>I'm sitting on the train going home from this weekends Debian
7304 Edu/Skolelinux development gathering.  I got a bit done tuning the
7305 desktop, and looked into the dynamic service location protocol
7306 implementation avahi.  It look like it could be useful for us.  Almost
7307 30 people participated, and I believe it was a great environment to
7308 get to know the Skolelinux system.  Walter Bender, involved in the
7309 development of the Sugar educational platform, presented his stuff and
7310 also helped me improve my OLPC installation.  He also showed me that
7311 his Turtle Art application can be used in standalone mode, and we
7312 agreed that I would help getting it packaged for Debian.  As a
7313 standalone application it would be great for Debian Edu.  We also
7314 tried to get the video conferencing working with two OLPCs, but that
7315 proved to be too hard for us.  The application seem to need more work
7316 before it is ready for me.  I look forward to getting home and relax
7317 now. :)</p>
7318
7319       </div>
7320       <div class="tags">
7321
7322
7323         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>.
7324
7325
7326       </div>
7327     </div>
7328     <div class="padding"></div>
7329
7330     <div class="entry">
7331       <div class="title">
7332         <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>
7333       </div>
7334       <div class="date">
7335         29th March 2009
7336       </div>
7337       <div class="body">
7338         <p>The state of standardized LDAP schemas on Linux is far from
7339 optimal.  There is RFC 2307 documenting one way to store NIS maps in
7340 LDAP, and a modified version of this normally called RFC 2307bis, with
7341 some modifications to be compatible with Active Directory.  The RFC
7342 specification handle the content of a lot of system databases, but do
7343 not handle DNS zones and DHCP configuration.</p>
7344
7345 <p>In <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux</a>,
7346 we would like to store information about users, SMB clients/hosts,
7347 filegroups, netgroups (users and hosts), DHCP and DNS configuration,
7348 and LTSP configuration in LDAP.  These objects have a lot in common,
7349 but with the current LDAP schemas it is not possible to have one
7350 object per entity.  For example, one need to have at least three LDAP
7351 objects for a given computer, one with the SMB related stuff, one with
7352 DNS information and another with DHCP information.  The schemas
7353 provided for DNS and DHCP are impossible to combine into one LDAP
7354 object.  In addition, it is impossible to implement quick queries for
7355 netgroup membership, because of the way NIS triples are implemented.
7356 It just do not scale.  I believe it is time for a few RFC
7357 specifications to cleam up this mess.</p>
7358
7359 <p>I would like to have one LDAP object representing each computer in
7360 the network, and this object can then keep the SMB (ie host key), DHCP
7361 (mac address/name) and DNS (name/IP address) settings in one place.
7362 It need to be efficently stored to make sure it scale well.</p>
7363
7364 <p>I would also like to have a quick way to map from a user or
7365 computer and to the net group this user or computer is a member.</p>
7366
7367 <p>Active Directory have done a better job than unix heads like myself
7368 in this regard, and the unix side need to catch up.  Time to start a
7369 new IETF work group?</p>
7370
7371       </div>
7372       <div class="tags">
7373
7374
7375         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>.
7376
7377
7378       </div>
7379     </div>
7380     <div class="padding"></div>
7381
7382     <div class="entry">
7383       <div class="title">
7384         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Endelig_er_Debian_Lenny_gitt_ut.html">Endelig er Debian Lenny gitt ut</a>
7385       </div>
7386       <div class="date">
7387         15th February 2009
7388       </div>
7389       <div class="body">
7390         <p>Endelig er <a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</a>
7391 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2009/20090214">Lenny</a> gitt ut.
7392 Et langt steg videre for Debian-prosjektet, og en rekke nye
7393 programpakker blir nå tilgjengelig for de av oss som bruker den
7394 stabile utgaven av Debian.  Neste steg er nå å få
7395 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a> /
7396 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/">Debian Edu</a> ferdig
7397 oppdatert for den nye utgaven, slik at en oppdatert versjon kan
7398 slippes løs på skolene.  Takk til alle debian-utviklerne som har
7399 gjort dette mulig.  Endelig er f.eks. fungerende avhengighetsstyrt
7400 bootsekvens tilgjengelig i stabil utgave, vha pakken
7401 <tt>insserv</tt>.</p>
7402
7403       </div>
7404       <div class="tags">
7405
7406
7407         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>.
7408
7409
7410       </div>
7411     </div>
7412     <div class="padding"></div>
7413
7414     <div class="entry">
7415       <div class="title">
7416         <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>
7417       </div>
7418       <div class="date">
7419          7th December 2008
7420       </div>
7421       <div class="body">
7422         <p>This weekend we had a small developer gathering for Debian Edu in
7423 Oslo.  Most of Saturday was used for the general assemly for the
7424 member organization, but the rest of the weekend I used to tune the
7425 LTSP installation.  LTSP now work out of the box on the 10-network.
7426 Acer Aspire One proved to be a very nice thin client, with both
7427 screen, mouse and keybard in a small box.  Was working on getting the
7428 diskless workstation setup configured out of the box, but did not
7429 finish it before the weekend was up.</p>
7430
7431 <p>Did not find time to look at the 4 VGA cards in one box we got from
7432 the Brazilian group, so that will have to wait for the next
7433 development gathering.  Would love to have the Debian Edu installer
7434 automatically detect and configure a multiseat setup when it find one
7435 of these cards.</p>
7436
7437       </div>
7438       <div class="tags">
7439
7440
7441         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>.
7442
7443
7444       </div>
7445     </div>
7446     <div class="padding"></div>
7447
7448     <div class="entry">
7449       <div class="title">
7450         <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>
7451       </div>
7452       <div class="date">
7453         25th November 2008
7454       </div>
7455       <div class="body">
7456         <p>Recently I have spent some time evaluating the multimedia browser
7457 plugins available in Debian Lenny, to see which one we should use by
7458 default in Debian Edu.  We need an embedded video playing plugin with
7459 control buttons to pause or stop the video, and capable of streaming
7460 all the multimedia content available on the web.  The test results and
7461 notes are available on
7462 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">the
7463 Debian wiki</a>.  I was surprised how few of the plugins are able to
7464 fill this need.  My personal video player favorite, VLC, has a really
7465 bad plugin which fail on a lot of the test pages.  A lot of the MIME
7466 types I would expect to work with any free software player (like
7467 video/ogg), just do not work.  And simple formats like the
7468 audio/x-mplegurl format (m3u playlists), just isn't supported by the
7469 totem and vlc plugins.  I hope the situation will improve soon.  No
7470 wonder sites use the proprietary Adobe flash to play video.</p>
7471
7472 <p>For Lenny, we seem to end up with the mplayer plugin.  It seem to
7473 be the only one fitting our needs. :/</p>
7474
7475       </div>
7476       <div class="tags">
7477
7478
7479         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>.
7480
7481
7482       </div>
7483     </div>
7484     <div class="padding"></div>
7485
7486     <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>
7487     <div id="sidebar">
7488
7489
7490
7491 <h2>Archive</h2>
7492 <ul>
7493
7494 <li>2014
7495 <ul>
7496
7497 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/01/">January (2)</a></li>
7498
7499 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/02/">February (3)</a></li>
7500
7501 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/03/">March (3)</a></li>
7502
7503 </ul></li>
7504
7505 <li>2013
7506 <ul>
7507
7508 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/01/">January (11)</a></li>
7509
7510 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/02/">February (9)</a></li>
7511
7512 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/03/">March (9)</a></li>
7513
7514 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/04/">April (6)</a></li>
7515
7516 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/05/">May (9)</a></li>
7517
7518 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/06/">June (10)</a></li>
7519
7520 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/07/">July (7)</a></li>
7521
7522 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/08/">August (3)</a></li>
7523
7524 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/09/">September (5)</a></li>
7525
7526 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/10/">October (7)</a></li>
7527
7528 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/11/">November (9)</a></li>
7529
7530 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/12/">December (3)</a></li>
7531
7532 </ul></li>
7533
7534 <li>2012
7535 <ul>
7536
7537 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/01/">January (7)</a></li>
7538
7539 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/02/">February (10)</a></li>
7540
7541 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/03/">March (17)</a></li>
7542
7543 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/04/">April (12)</a></li>
7544
7545 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/05/">May (12)</a></li>
7546
7547 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/06/">June (20)</a></li>
7548
7549 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/07/">July (17)</a></li>
7550
7551 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/08/">August (6)</a></li>
7552
7553 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/09/">September (9)</a></li>
7554
7555 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/10/">October (17)</a></li>
7556
7557 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/11/">November (10)</a></li>
7558
7559 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/12/">December (7)</a></li>
7560
7561 </ul></li>
7562
7563 <li>2011
7564 <ul>
7565
7566 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/01/">January (16)</a></li>
7567
7568 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/02/">February (6)</a></li>
7569
7570 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/03/">March (6)</a></li>
7571
7572 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/04/">April (7)</a></li>
7573
7574 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/05/">May (3)</a></li>
7575
7576 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/06/">June (2)</a></li>
7577
7578 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/07/">July (7)</a></li>
7579
7580 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/08/">August (6)</a></li>
7581
7582 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/09/">September (4)</a></li>
7583
7584 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/10/">October (2)</a></li>
7585
7586 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/11/">November (3)</a></li>
7587
7588 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/12/">December (1)</a></li>
7589
7590 </ul></li>
7591
7592 <li>2010
7593 <ul>
7594
7595 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/01/">January (2)</a></li>
7596
7597 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/02/">February (1)</a></li>
7598
7599 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/03/">March (3)</a></li>
7600
7601 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/04/">April (3)</a></li>
7602
7603 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/05/">May (9)</a></li>
7604
7605 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/06/">June (14)</a></li>
7606
7607 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/07/">July (12)</a></li>
7608
7609 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/08/">August (13)</a></li>
7610
7611 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/09/">September (7)</a></li>
7612
7613 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/10/">October (9)</a></li>
7614
7615 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/11/">November (13)</a></li>
7616
7617 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/12/">December (12)</a></li>
7618
7619 </ul></li>
7620
7621 <li>2009
7622 <ul>
7623
7624 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/01/">January (8)</a></li>
7625
7626 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/02/">February (8)</a></li>
7627
7628 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/03/">March (12)</a></li>
7629
7630 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/04/">April (10)</a></li>
7631
7632 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/05/">May (9)</a></li>
7633
7634 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/06/">June (3)</a></li>
7635
7636 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/07/">July (4)</a></li>
7637
7638 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/08/">August (3)</a></li>
7639
7640 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/09/">September (1)</a></li>
7641
7642 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/10/">October (2)</a></li>
7643
7644 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/11/">November (3)</a></li>
7645
7646 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/12/">December (3)</a></li>
7647
7648 </ul></li>
7649
7650 <li>2008
7651 <ul>
7652
7653 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/11/">November (5)</a></li>
7654
7655 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/12/">December (7)</a></li>
7656
7657 </ul></li>
7658
7659 </ul>
7660
7661
7662
7663 <h2>Tags</h2>
7664 <ul>
7665
7666  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer (13)</a></li>
7667
7668  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/amiga">amiga (1)</a></li>
7669
7670  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/aros">aros (1)</a></li>
7671
7672  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bankid">bankid (4)</a></li>
7673
7674  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin (8)</a></li>
7675
7676  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem (14)</a></li>
7677
7678  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bsa">bsa (2)</a></li>
7679
7680  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/chrpath">chrpath (2)</a></li>
7681
7682  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian (95)</a></li>
7683
7684  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu (145)</a></li>
7685
7686  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/digistan">digistan (10)</a></li>
7687
7688  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook (10)</a></li>
7689
7690  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/drivstoffpriser">drivstoffpriser (4)</a></li>
7691
7692  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english (238)</a></li>
7693
7694  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami (21)</a></li>
7695
7696  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fildeling">fildeling (12)</a></li>
7697
7698  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture (12)</a></li>
7699
7700  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox (6)</a></li>
7701
7702  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen (11)</a></li>
7703
7704  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju (39)</a></li>
7705
7706  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram (7)</a></li>
7707
7708  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kart">kart (18)</a></li>
7709
7710  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap (9)</a></li>
7711
7712  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lenker">lenker (7)</a></li>
7713
7714  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ltsp">ltsp (1)</a></li>
7715
7716  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network (7)</a></li>
7717
7718  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia (25)</a></li>
7719
7720  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk (241)</a></li>
7721
7722  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug (161)</a></li>
7723
7724  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/offentlig innsyn">offentlig innsyn (10)</a></li>
7725
7726  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/open311">open311 (2)</a></li>
7727
7728  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett (45)</a></li>
7729
7730  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern (69)</a></li>
7731
7732  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/raid">raid (1)</a></li>
7733
7734  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reprap">reprap (11)</a></li>
7735
7736  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rfid">rfid (2)</a></li>
7737
7738  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot (9)</a></li>
7739
7740  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rss">rss (1)</a></li>
7741
7742  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ruter">ruter (4)</a></li>
7743
7744  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/scraperwiki">scraperwiki (2)</a></li>
7745
7746  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet (35)</a></li>
7747
7748  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary (4)</a></li>
7749
7750  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/skepsis">skepsis (4)</a></li>
7751
7752  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard (44)</a></li>
7753
7754  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stavekontroll">stavekontroll (3)</a></li>
7755
7756  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stortinget">stortinget (9)</a></li>
7757
7758  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance (22)</a></li>
7759
7760  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sysadmin">sysadmin (1)</a></li>
7761
7762  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/valg">valg (8)</a></li>
7763
7764  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video (39)</a></li>
7765
7766  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/vitenskap">vitenskap (4)</a></li>
7767
7768  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web (29)</a></li>
7769
7770 </ul>
7771
7772
7773     </div>
7774     <p style="text-align: right">
7775  Created by <a href="http://steve.org.uk/Software/chronicle">Chronicle v4.6</a>
7776 </p>
7777
7778   </body>
7779 </html>