1 <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC
"-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
2 "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
3 <html xmlns=
"http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" dir=
"ltr">
5 <meta http-equiv=
"Content-Type" content=
"text/html;charset=utf-8" />
6 <title>Petter Reinholdtsen: Entries Tagged debian
</title>
7 <link rel=
"stylesheet" type=
"text/css" media=
"screen" href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/style.css" />
8 <link rel=
"stylesheet" type=
"text/css" media=
"screen" href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/vim.css" />
9 <link rel=
"alternate" title=
"RSS Feed" href=
"debian.rss" type=
"application/rss+xml" />
14 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/">Petter Reinholdtsen
</a>
21 <h3>Entries tagged "debian".
</h3>
25 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Experience_and_updated_recipe_for_Using_the_Signal_app_without_a_mobile_phone.html">Experience and updated recipe for Using the Signal app without a mobile phone
</a>
32 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_use_the_Signal_app_if_you_only_have_a_land_line__ie_no_mobile_phone_.html">I
33 wrote how to get the Signal Chrome/Chromium app working
</a> without
34 the ability to receive SMS messages (aka without a cell phone). It is
35 time to share some experiences and provide an updated setup.
</p>
37 <p>The Signal app have worked fine for several months now, and I use
38 it regularly to chat with my loved ones. I had a major snag at the
39 end of my summer vacation, when the the app completely forgot my
40 setup, identify and keys. The reason behind this major mess was
41 running out of disk space. To avoid that ever happening again I have
42 started storing everything in
<tt>userdata/
</tt> in git, to be able to
43 roll back to an earlier version if the files are wiped by mistake. I
44 had to use it once after introducing the git backup. When rolling
45 back to an earlier version, one need to use the 'reset session' option
46 in Signal to get going, and notify the people you talk with about the
47 problem. I assume there is some sequence number tracking in the
48 protocol to detect rollback attacks. The git repository is rather big
49 (
674 MiB so far), but I have not tried to figure out if some of the
50 content can be added to a .gitignore file due to lack of spare
53 <p>I've also hit the
90 days timeout blocking, and noticed that this
54 make it impossible to send messages using Signal. I could still
55 receive them, but had to patch the code with a new timestamp to send.
56 I believe the timeout is added by the developers to force people to
57 upgrade to the latest version of the app, even when there is no
58 protocol changes, to reduce the version skew among the user base and
59 thus try to keep the number of support requests down.
</p>
61 <p>Since my original recipe, the Signal source code changed slightly,
62 making the old patch fail to apply cleanly. Below is an updated
63 patch, including the shell wrapper I use to start Signal. The
64 original version required a new user to locate the JavaScript console
65 and call a function from there. I got help from a friend with more
66 JavaScript knowledge than me to modify the code to provide a GUI
67 button instead. This mean that to get started you just need to run
68 the wrapper and click the 'Register without mobile phone' to get going
69 now. I've also modified the timeout code to always set it to
90 days
70 in the future, to avoid having to patch the code regularly.
</p>
72 <p>So, the updated recipe for Debian Jessie:
</p>
76 <li>First, install required packages to get the source code and the
77 browser you need. Signal only work with Chrome/Chromium, as far as I
78 know, so you need to install it.
81 apt install git tor chromium
82 git clone https://github.com/WhisperSystems/Signal-Desktop.git
85 <li>Modify the source code using command listed in the the patch
88 <li>Start Signal using the run-signal-app wrapper (for example using
89 <tt>`pwd`/run-signal-app
</tt>).
91 <li>Click on the 'Register without mobile phone', will in a phone
92 number you can receive calls to the next minute, receive the
93 verification code and enter it into the form field and press
94 'Register'. Note, the phone number you use will be user Signal
95 username, ie the way others can find you on Signal.
</li>
97 <li>You can now use Signal to contact others. Note, new contacts do
98 not show up in the contact list until you restart Signal, and there is
99 no way to assign names to Contacts. There is also no way to create or
100 update chat groups. I suspect this is because the web app do not have
101 a associated contact database.
</li>
105 <p>I am still a bit uneasy about using Signal, because of the way its
106 main author moxie0 reject federation and accept dependencies to major
107 corporations like Google (part of the code is fetched from Google) and
108 Amazon (the central coordination point is owned by Amazon). See for
110 <a href=
"https://github.com/LibreSignal/LibreSignal/issues/37">the
111 LibreSignal issue tracker
</a> for a thread documenting the authors
112 view on these issues. But the network effect is strong in this case,
113 and several of the people I want to communicate with already use
114 Signal. Perhaps we can all move to
<a href=
"https://ring.cx/">Ring
</a>
115 once it
<a href=
"https://bugs.debian.org/830265">work on my
116 laptop
</a>? It already work on Windows and Android, and is included
117 in
<a href=
"https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/ring">Debian
</a> and
118 <a href=
"https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ring">Ubuntu
</a>, but not
119 working on Debian Stable.
</p>
121 <p>Anyway, this is the patch I apply to the Signal code to get it
122 working. It switch to the production servers, disable to timeout,
123 make registration easier and add the shell wrapper:
</p>
126 cd Signal-Desktop; cat
<<EOF | patch -p1
127 diff --git a/js/background.js b/js/background.js
128 index
24b4c1d.
.579345f
100644
129 --- a/js/background.js
130 +++ b/js/background.js
135 - var SERVER_URL = 'https://textsecure-service-staging.whispersystems.org';
136 + var SERVER_URL = 'https://textsecure-service-ca.whispersystems.org';
137 var SERVER_PORTS = [
80,
4433,
8443];
138 - var ATTACHMENT_SERVER_URL = 'https://whispersystems-textsecure-attachments-staging.s3.amazonaws.com';
139 + var ATTACHMENT_SERVER_URL = 'https://whispersystems-textsecure-attachments.s3.amazonaws.com';
141 window.getSocketStatus = function() {
142 if (messageReceiver) {
143 diff --git a/js/expire.js b/js/expire.js
144 index
639aeae..beb91c3
100644
150 - var BUILD_EXPIRATION =
0;
151 + var BUILD_EXPIRATION = Date.now() + (
90 *
24 *
60 *
60 *
1000);
153 window.extension = window.extension || {};
155 diff --git a/js/views/install_view.js b/js/views/install_view.js
156 index
7816f4f.
.1d6233b
100644
157 --- a/js/views/install_view.js
158 +++ b/js/views/install_view.js
161 'click .step1': this.selectStep.bind(this,
1),
162 'click .step2': this.selectStep.bind(this,
2),
163 - 'click .step3': this.selectStep.bind(this,
3)
164 + 'click .step3': this.selectStep.bind(this,
3),
165 + 'click .callreg': function() { extension.install('standalone') },
168 clearQR: function() {
169 diff --git a/options.html b/options.html
170 index dc0f28e.
.8d709f6
100644
175 <h1
>{{ installWelcome }}
</h1
>
176 <p
>{{ installTagline }}
</p
>
177 -
<div
> <a class='button step2'
>{{ installGetStartedButton }}
</a
> </div
>
178 +
<div
> <a class='button step2'
>{{ installGetStartedButton }}
</a
>
179 +
<br
> <a
class="button callreg"
>Register without mobile phone
</a
>
182 <span class='dot step1 selected'
></span
>
183 <span class='dot step2'
></span
>
184 <span class='dot step3'
></span
>
185 --- /dev/null
2016-
10-
07 09:
55:
13.730181472 +
0200
186 +++ b/run-signal-app
2016-
10-
10 08:
54:
09.434172391 +
0200
192 +
userdata="`pwd`/userdata"
193 +if [ -d "$userdata" ] && [ ! -d "$userdata/.git" ] ; then
194 + (cd $userdata && git init)
196 +(cd $userdata && git add . && git commit -m "Current status." || true)
198 +
--proxy-server="socks://localhost:
9050" \
199 + --user-data-dir=$userdata --load-and-launch-app=`pwd`
201 chmod a+rx run-signal-app
204 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
205 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
206 <b><a href=
"bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
</a></b>.
</p>
212 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>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance
</a>.
217 <div class=
"padding"></div>
221 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Isenkram__Appstream_and_udev_make_life_as_a_LEGO_builder_easier.html">Isenkram, Appstream and udev make life as a LEGO builder easier
</a>
227 <p><a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">The Isenkram
228 system
</a> provide a practical and easy way to figure out which
229 packages support the hardware in a given machine. The command line
230 tool
<tt>isenkram-lookup
</tt> and the tasksel options provide a
231 convenient way to list and install packages relevant for the current
232 hardware during system installation, both user space packages and
233 firmware packages. The GUI background daemon on the other hand provide
234 a pop-up proposing to install packages when a new dongle is inserted
235 while using the computer. For example, if you plug in a smart card
236 reader, the system will ask if you want to install
<tt>pcscd
</tt> if
237 that package isn't already installed, and if you plug in a USB video
238 camera the system will ask if you want to install
<tt>cheese
</tt> if
239 cheese is currently missing. This already work just fine.
</p>
241 <p>But Isenkram depend on a database mapping from hardware IDs to
242 package names. When I started no such database existed in Debian, so
243 I made my own data set and included it with the isenkram package and
244 made isenkram fetch the latest version of this database from git using
245 http. This way the isenkram users would get updated package proposals
246 as soon as I learned more about hardware related packages.
</p>
248 <p>The hardware is identified using modalias strings. The modalias
249 design is from the Linux kernel where most hardware descriptors are
250 made available as a strings that can be matched using filename style
251 globbing. It handle USB, PCI, DMI and a lot of other hardware related
254 <p>The downside to the Isenkram specific database is that there is no
255 information about relevant distribution / Debian version, making
256 isenkram propose obsolete packages too. But along came AppStream, a
257 cross distribution mechanism to store and collect metadata about
258 software packages. When I heard about the proposal, I contacted the
259 people involved and suggested to add a hardware matching rule using
260 modalias strings in the specification, to be able to use AppStream for
261 mapping hardware to packages. This idea was accepted and AppStream is
262 now a great way for a package to announce the hardware it support in a
263 distribution neutral way. I wrote
264 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_appstream_with_isenkram_to_install_hardware_related_packages_in_Debian.html">a
265 recipe on how to add such meta-information
</a> in a blog post last
266 December. If you have a hardware related package in Debian, please
267 announce the relevant hardware IDs using AppStream.
</p>
269 <p>In Debian, almost all packages that can talk to a LEGO Mindestorms
270 RCX or NXT unit, announce this support using AppStream. The effect is
271 that when you insert such LEGO robot controller into your Debian
272 machine, Isenkram will propose to install the packages needed to get
273 it working. The intention is that this should allow the local user to
274 start programming his robot controller right away without having to
275 guess what packages to use or which permissions to fix.
</p>
277 <p>But when I sat down with my son the other day to program our NXT
278 unit using his Debian Stretch computer, I discovered something
279 annoying. The local console user (ie my son) did not get access to
280 the USB device for programming the unit. This used to work, but no
281 longer in Jessie and Stretch. After some investigation and asking
282 around on #debian-devel, I discovered that this was because udev had
283 changed the mechanism used to grant access to local devices. The
284 ConsoleKit mechanism from
<tt>/lib/udev/rules.d/
70-udev-acl.rules
</tt>
285 no longer applied, because LDAP users no longer was added to the
286 plugdev group during login. Michael Biebl told me that this method
287 was obsolete and the new method used ACLs instead. This was good
288 news, as the plugdev mechanism is a mess when using a remote user
289 directory like LDAP. Using ACLs would make sure a user lost device
290 access when she logged out, even if the user left behind a background
291 process which would retain the plugdev membership with the ConsoleKit
292 setup. Armed with this knowledge I moved on to fix the access problem
293 for the LEGO Mindstorms related packages.
</p>
295 <p>The new system uses a udev tag, 'uaccess'. It can either be
296 applied directly for a device, or is applied in
297 /lib/udev/rules.d/
70-uaccess.rules for classes of devices. As the
298 LEGO Mindstorms udev rules did not have a class, I decided to add the
299 tag directly in the udev rules files included in the packages. Here
300 is one example. For the nqc C compiler for the RCX, the
301 <tt>/lib/udev/rules.d/
60-nqc.rules
</tt> file now look like this:
304 SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ACTION=="add", ATTR{idVendor}=="
0694", ATTR{idProduct}=="
0001", \
305 SYMLINK+="rcx-%k", TAG+="uaccess"
308 <p>The key part is the 'TAG+="uaccess"' at the end. I suspect all
309 packages using plugdev in their /lib/udev/rules.d/ files should be
310 changed to use this tag (either directly or indirectly via
311 <tt>70-uaccess.rules
</tt>). Perhaps a lintian check should be created
314 <p>I've been unable to find good documentation on the uaccess feature.
315 It is unclear to me if the uaccess tag is an internal implementation
316 detail like the udev-acl tag used by
317 <tt>/lib/udev/rules.d/
70-udev-acl.rules
</tt>. If it is, I guess the
318 indirect method is the preferred way. Michael
319 <a href=
"https://github.com/systemd/systemd/issues/4288">asked for more
320 documentation from the systemd project
</a> and I hope it will make
321 this clearer. For now I use the generic classes when they exist and
322 is already handled by
<tt>70-uaccess.rules
</tt>, and add the tag
323 directly if no such class exist.
</p>
325 <p>To learn more about the isenkram system, please check out
326 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram/">my
327 blog posts tagged isenkram
</a>.
</p>
329 <p>To help out making life for LEGO constructors in Debian easier,
330 please join us on our IRC channel
331 <a href=
"irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">#debian-lego
</a> and join
332 the
<a href=
"https://alioth.debian.org/projects/debian-lego/">Debian
333 LEGO team
</a> in the Alioth project we created yesterday. A mailing
334 list is not yet created, but we are working on it. :)
</p>
336 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
337 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
338 <b><a href=
"bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
</a></b>.
</p>
344 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>.
349 <div class=
"padding"></div>
353 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_draft_Norwegian_Bokm_l_edition_of_The_Debian_Administrator_s_Handbook_now_public.html">First draft Norwegian Bokmål edition of The Debian Administrator's Handbook now public
</a>
360 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_a_Norwegian_Bokm_l_edition_of_The_Debian_Administrator_s_Handbook.html">started
361 to work
</a> on a Norwegian Bokmål edition of the "open access" book on
362 how to set up and administrate a Debian system. Today I am happy to
363 report that the first draft is now publicly available. You can find
364 it on
<a href=
"https://debian-handbook.info/get/">get the Debian
365 Administrator's Handbook page
</a> (under Other languages). The first
366 eight chapters have a first draft translation, and we are working on
367 proofreading the content. If you want to help out, please start
369 <a href=
"https://hosted.weblate.org/projects/debian-handbook/">the
370 hosted weblate project page
</a>, and get in touch using
371 <a href=
"http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/debian-handbook-translators">the
372 translators mailing list
</a>. Please also check out
373 <a href=
"https://debian-handbook.info/contribute/">the instructions for
374 contributors
</a>. A good way to contribute is to proofread the text
375 and update weblate if you find errors.
</p>
377 <p>Our goal is still to make the Norwegian book available on paper as well as
384 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>.
389 <div class=
"padding"></div>
393 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Coz_can_help_you_find_bottlenecks_in_multi_threaded_software___nice_free_software.html">Coz can help you find bottlenecks in multi-threaded software - nice free software
</a>
399 <p>This summer, I read a great article
400 "
<a href=
"https://www.usenix.org/publications/login/summer2016/curtsinger">coz:
401 This Is the Profiler You're Looking For
</a>" in USENIX ;login: about
402 how to profile multi-threaded programs. It presented a system for
403 profiling software by running experiences in the running program,
404 testing how run time performance is affected by "speeding up
" parts of
405 the code to various degrees compared to a normal run. It does this by
406 slowing down parallel threads while the "faster up
" code is running
407 and measure how this affect processing time. The processing time is
408 measured using probes inserted into the code, either using progress
409 counters (COZ_PROGRESS) or as latency meters (COZ_BEGIN/COZ_END). It
410 can also measure unmodified code by measuring complete the program
411 runtime and running the program several times instead.</p>
413 <p>The project and presentation was so inspiring that I would like to
414 get the system into Debian. I
415 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=
830708">created
416 a WNPP request for it</a> and contacted upstream to try to make the
417 system ready for Debian by sending patches. The build process need to
418 be changed a bit to avoid running 'git clone' to get dependencies, and
419 to include the JavaScript web page used to visualize the collected
420 profiling information included in the source package.
421 But I expect that should work out fairly soon.</p>
423 <p>The way the system work is fairly simple. To run an coz experiment
424 on a binary with debug symbols available, start the program like this:
427 coz run --- program-to-run
428 </pre></blockquote></p>
430 <p>This will create a text file profile.coz with the instrumentation
431 information. To show what part of the code affect the performance
432 most, use a web browser and either point it to
433 <a href="http://plasma-umass.github.io/coz/
">http://plasma-umass.github.io/coz/</a>
434 or use the copy from git (in the gh-pages branch). Check out this web
435 site to have a look at several example profiling runs and get an idea what the end result from the profile runs look like. To make the
436 profiling more useful you include <coz.h> and insert the
437 COZ_PROGRESS or COZ_BEGIN and COZ_END at appropriate places in the
438 code, rebuild and run the profiler. This allow coz to do more
439 targeted experiments.</p>
441 <p>A video published by ACM
442 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jE0V-p1odPg
">presenting the
443 Coz profiler</a> is available from Youtube. There is also a paper
444 from the 25th Symposium on Operating Systems Principles available
446 <a href="https://www.usenix.org/conference/atc16/technical-sessions/presentation/curtsinger
">Coz:
447 finding code that counts with causal profiling</a>.</p>
449 <p><a href="https://github.com/plasma-umass/coz
">The source code</a>
450 for Coz is available from github. It will only build with clang
452 <a href="https://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=
55606">C++
453 feature missing in GCC</a>, but I've submitted
454 <a href="https://github.com/plasma-umass/coz/pull/
67">a patch to solve
455 it</a> and hope it will be included in the upstream source soon.</p>
457 <p>Please get in touch if you, like me, would like to see this piece
458 of software in Debian. I would very much like some help with the
459 packaging effort, as I lack the in depth knowledge on how to package
466 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/nice free software
">nice free software</a>.
471 <div class="padding
"></div>
475 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Unlocking_HTC_Desire_HD_on_Linux_using_unruu_and_fastboot.html
">Unlocking HTC Desire HD on Linux using unruu and fastboot</a>
481 <p>Yesterday, I tried to unlock a HTC Desire HD phone, and it proved
482 to be a slight challenge. Here is the recipe if I ever need to do it
483 again. It all started by me wanting to try the recipe to set up
484 <a href="https://blog.torproject.org/blog/mission-impossible-hardening-android-security-and-privacy
">an
485 hardened Android installation</a> from the Tor project blog on a
486 device I had access to. It is a old mobile phone with a broken
487 microphone The initial idea had been to just
488 <a href="http://wiki.cyanogenmod.org/w/Install_CM_for_ace
">install
489 CyanogenMod on it</a>, but did not quite find time to start on it
490 until a few days ago.</p>
492 <p>The unlock process is supposed to be simple: (1) Boot into the boot
493 loader (press volume down and power at the same time), (2) select
494 'fastboot' before (3) connecting the device via USB to a Linux
495 machine, (4) request the device identifier token by running 'fastboot
496 oem get_identifier_token', (5) request the device unlocking key using
497 the <a href="http://www.htcdev.com/bootloader/
">HTC developer web
498 site</a> and unlock the phone using the key file emailed to you.</p>
500 <p>Unfortunately, this only work fi you have hboot version 2.00.0029
501 or newer, and the device I was working on had 2.00.0027. This
502 apparently can be easily fixed by downloading a Windows program and
503 running it on your Windows machine, if you accept the terms Microsoft
504 require you to accept to use Windows - which I do not. So I had to
505 come up with a different approach. I got a lot of help from AndyCap
506 on #nuug, and would not have been able to get this working without
509 <p>First I needed to extract the hboot firmware from
510 <a href="http://www.htcdev.com/ruu/PD9810000_Ace_Sense30_S_hboot_2.00
.0029.exe
">the
511 windows binary for HTC Desire HD</a> downloaded as 'the RUU' from HTC.
512 For this there is is <a href="https://github.com/kmdm/unruu/
">a github
513 project named unruu</a> using libunshield. The unshield tool did not
514 recognise the file format, but unruu worked and extracted rom.zip,
515 containing the new hboot firmware and a text file describing which
516 devices it would work for.</p>
518 <p>Next, I needed to get the new firmware into the device. For this I
519 followed some instructions
520 <a href="http://www.htc1guru.com/
2013/
09/new-ruu-zips-posted/
">available
521 from HTC1Guru.com</a>, and ran these commands as root on a Linux
522 machine with Debian testing:</p>
525 adb reboot-bootloader
526 fastboot oem rebootRUU
527 fastboot flash zip rom.zip
528 fastboot flash zip rom.zip
532 <p>The flash command apparently need to be done twice to take effect,
533 as the first is just preparations and the second one do the flashing.
534 The adb command is just to get to the boot loader menu, so turning the
535 device on while holding volume down and the power button should work
538 <p>With the new hboot version in place I could start following the
539 instructions on the HTC developer web site. I got the device token
543 fastboot oem get_identifier_token 2>&1 | sed 's/(bootloader) //'
546 <p>And once I got the unlock code via email, I could use it like
550 fastboot flash unlocktoken Unlock_code.bin
553 <p>And with that final step in place, the phone was unlocked and I
554 could start stuffing the software of my own choosing into the device.
555 So far I only inserted a replacement recovery image to wipe the phone
556 before I start. We will see what happen next. Perhaps I should
557 install <a href="https://www.debian.org/
">Debian</a> on it. :)</p>
563 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/opphavsrett
">opphavsrett</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet
">sikkerhet</a>.
568 <div class="padding
"></div>
572 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_use_the_Signal_app_if_you_only_have_a_land_line__ie_no_mobile_phone_.html
">How to use the Signal app if you only have a land line (ie no mobile phone)</a>
578 <p>For a while now, I have wanted to test
579 <a href="https://whispersystems.org/
">the Signal app</a>, as it is
580 said to provide end to end encrypted communication and several of my
581 friends and family are already using it. As I by choice do not own a
582 mobile phone, this proved to be harder than expected. And I wanted to
583 have the source of the client and know that it was the code used on my
584 machine. But yesterday I managed to get it working. I used the
585 Github source, compared it to the source in
586 <a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/signal-private-messenger/bikioccmkafdpakkkcpdbppfkghcmihk?hl=en-US
">the
587 Signal Chrome app</a> available from the Chrome web store, applied
588 patches to use the production Signal servers, started the app and
589 asked for the hidden "register without a smart phone" form. Here is
590 the recipe how I did it.
</p>
592 <p>First, I fetched the Signal desktop source from Github, using
595 git clone https://github.com/WhisperSystems/Signal-Desktop.git
598 <p>Next, I patched the source to use the production servers, to be
599 able to talk to other Signal users:
</p>
602 cat
<<EOF | patch -p0
603 diff -ur ./js/background.js userdata/Default/Extensions/bikioccmkafdpakkkcpdbppfkghcmihk/
0.15.0_0/js/background.js
604 --- ./js/background.js
2016-
06-
29 13:
43:
15.630344628 +
0200
605 +++ userdata/Default/Extensions/bikioccmkafdpakkkcpdbppfkghcmihk/
0.15.0_0/js/background.js
2016-
06-
29 14:
06:
29.530300934 +
0200
610 - var SERVER_URL = 'https://textsecure-service-staging.whispersystems.org';
611 - var ATTACHMENT_SERVER_URL = 'https://whispersystems-textsecure-attachments-staging.s3.amazonaws.com';
612 + var SERVER_URL = 'https://textsecure-service-ca.whispersystems.org:
4433';
613 + var ATTACHMENT_SERVER_URL = 'https://whispersystems-textsecure-attachments.s3.amazonaws.com';
615 window.getSocketStatus = function() {
616 if (messageReceiver) {
617 diff -ur ./js/expire.js userdata/Default/Extensions/bikioccmkafdpakkkcpdbppfkghcmihk/
0.15.0_0/js/expire.js
618 --- ./js/expire.js
2016-
06-
29 13:
43:
15.630344628 +
0200
619 +++ userdata/Default/Extensions/bikioccmkafdpakkkcpdbppfkghcmihk/
0.15.0_0/js/expire.js2016-
06-
29 14:
06:
29.530300934 +
0200
623 - var BUILD_EXPIRATION =
0;
624 + var BUILD_EXPIRATION =
1474492690000;
626 window.extension = window.extension || {};
631 <p>The first part is changing the servers, and the second is updating
632 an expiration timestamp. This timestamp need to be updated regularly.
633 It is set
90 days in the future by the build process (Gruntfile.js).
634 The value is seconds since
1970 times
1000, as far as I can tell.
</p>
636 <p>Based on a tip and good help from the #nuug IRC channel, I wrote a
637 script to launch Signal in Chromium.
</p>
644 --proxy-server="socks://localhost:
9050" \
645 --user-data-dir=`pwd`/userdata --load-and-launch-app=`pwd`
648 <p> The script start the app and configure Chromium to use the Tor
649 SOCKS5 proxy to make sure those controlling the Signal servers (today
650 Amazon and Whisper Systems) as well as those listening on the lines
651 will have a harder time location my laptop based on the Signal
652 connections if they use source IP address.
</p>
654 <p>When the script starts, one need to follow the instructions under
655 "Standalone Registration" in the CONTRIBUTING.md file in the git
656 repository. I right clicked on the Signal window to get up the
657 Chromium debugging tool, visited the 'Console' tab and wrote
658 'extension.install("standalone")' on the console prompt to get the
659 registration form. Then I entered by land line phone number and
660 pressed 'Call'.
5 seconds later the phone rang and a robot voice
661 repeated the verification code three times. After entering the number
662 into the verification code field in the form, I could start using
663 Signal from my laptop.
665 <p>As far as I can tell, The Signal app will leak who is talking to
666 whom and thus who know who to those controlling the central server,
667 but such leakage is hard to avoid with a centrally controlled server
668 setup. It is something to keep in mind when using Signal - the
669 content of your chats are harder to intercept, but the meta data
670 exposing your contact network is available to people you do not know.
671 So better than many options, but not great. And sadly the usage is
672 connected to my land line, thus allowing those controlling the server
673 to associate it to my home and person. I would prefer it if only
674 those I knew could tell who I was on Signal. There are options
675 avoiding such information leakage, but most of my friends are not
676 using them, so I am stuck with Signal for now.
</p>
682 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>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance
</a>.
687 <div class=
"padding"></div>
691 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_new__best__multimedia_player_in_Debian_.html">The new "best" multimedia player in Debian?
</a>
697 <p>When I set out a few weeks ago to figure out
698 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_the_best_multimedia_player_in_Debian_.html">which
699 multimedia player in Debian claimed to support most file formats /
700 MIME types
</a>, I was a bit surprised how varied the sets of MIME types
701 the various players claimed support for. The range was from
55 to
130
702 MIME types. I suspect most media formats are supported by all
703 players, but this is not really reflected in the MimeTypes values in
704 their desktop files. There are probably also some bogus MIME types
705 listed, but it is hard to identify which one this is.
</p>
707 <p>Anyway, in the mean time I got in touch with upstream for some of
708 the players suggesting to add more MIME types to their desktop files,
709 and decided to spend some time myself improving the situation for my
710 favorite media player VLC. The fixes for VLC entered Debian unstable
711 yesterday. The complete list of MIME types can be seen on the
712 <a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/DebianMultimedia/PlayerSupport">Multimedia
713 player MIME type support status
</a> Debian wiki page.
</p>
715 <p>The new "best" multimedia player in Debian? It is VLC, followed by
716 totem, parole, kplayer, gnome-mpv, mpv, smplayer, mplayer-gui and
717 kmplayer. I am sure some of the other players desktop files support
718 several of the formats currently listed as working only with vlc,
719 toten and parole.
</p>
721 <p>A sad observation is that only
14 MIME types are listed as
722 supported by all the tested multimedia players in Debian in their
723 desktop files: audio/mpeg, audio/vnd.rn-realaudio, audio/x-mpegurl,
724 audio/x-ms-wma, audio/x-scpls, audio/x-wav, video/mp4, video/mpeg,
725 video/quicktime, video/vnd.rn-realvideo, video/x-matroska,
726 video/x-ms-asf, video/x-ms-wmv and video/x-msvideo. Personally I find
727 it sad that video/ogg and video/webm is not supported by all the media
728 players in Debian. As far as I can tell, all of them can handle both
735 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>.
740 <div class=
"padding"></div>
744 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_program_should_be_able_to_open_its_own_files_on_Linux.html">A program should be able to open its own files on Linux
</a>
750 <p>Many years ago, when koffice was fresh and with few users, I
751 decided to test its presentation tool when making the slides for a
752 talk I was giving for NUUG on Japhar, a free Java virtual machine. I
753 wrote the first draft of the slides, saved the result and went to bed
754 the day before I would give the talk. The next day I took a plane to
755 the location where the meeting should take place, and on the plane I
756 started up koffice again to polish the talk a bit, only to discover
757 that kpresenter refused to load its own data file. I cursed a bit and
758 started making the slides again from memory, to have something to
759 present when I arrived. I tested that the saved files could be
760 loaded, and the day seemed to be rescued. I continued to polish the
761 slides until I suddenly discovered that the saved file could no longer
762 be loaded into kpresenter. In the end I had to rewrite the slides
763 three times, condensing the content until the talk became shorter and
764 shorter. After the talk I was able to pinpoint the problem
–
765 kpresenter wrote inline images in a way itself could not understand.
766 Eventually that bug was fixed and kpresenter ended up being a great
767 program to make slides. The point I'm trying to make is that we
768 expect a program to be able to load its own data files, and it is
769 embarrassing to its developers if it can't.
</p>
771 <p>Did you ever experience a program failing to load its own data
772 files from the desktop file browser? It is not a uncommon problem. A
773 while back I discovered that the screencast recorder
774 gtk-recordmydesktop would save an Ogg Theora video file the KDE file
775 browser would refuse to open. No video player claimed to understand
776 such file. I tracked down the cause being
<tt>file --mime-type
</tt>
777 returning the application/ogg MIME type, which no video player I had
778 installed listed as a MIME type they would understand. I asked for
779 <a href=
"http://bugs.gw.com/view.php?id=382">file to change its
780 behavour
</a> and use the MIME type video/ogg instead. I also asked
781 several video players to add video/ogg to their desktop files, to give
782 the file browser an idea what to do about Ogg Theora files. After a
783 while, the desktop file browsers in Debian started to handle the
784 output from gtk-recordmydesktop properly.
</p>
786 <p>But history repeats itself. A few days ago I tested the music
787 system Rosegarden again, and I discovered that the KDE and xfce file
788 browsers did not know what to do with the Rosegarden project files
789 (*.rg). I've reported
<a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/825993">the
790 rosegarden problem to BTS
</a> and a fix is commited to git and will be
791 included in the next upload. To increase the chance of me remembering
792 how to fix the problem next time some program fail to load its files
793 from the file browser, here are some notes on how to fix it.
</p>
795 <p>The file browsers in Debian in general operates on MIME types.
796 There are two sources for the MIME type of a given file. The output from
797 <tt>file --mime-type
</tt> mentioned above, and the content of the
798 shared MIME type registry (under /usr/share/mime/). The file MIME
799 type is mapped to programs supporting the MIME type, and this
800 information is collected from
801 <a href=
"https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/desktop-entry-spec/">the
802 desktop files
</a> available in /usr/share/applications/. If there is
803 one desktop file claiming support for the MIME type of the file, it is
804 activated when asking to open a given file. If there are more, one
805 can normally select which one to use by right-clicking on the file and
806 selecting the wanted one using 'Open with' or similar. In general
807 this work well. But it depend on each program picking a good MIME
809 <a href=
"http://www.iana.org/assignments/media-types/media-types.xhtml">a
810 MIME type registered with IANA
</a>), file and/or the shared MIME
811 registry recognizing the file and the desktop file to list the MIME
812 type in its list of supported MIME types.
</p>
814 <p>The
<tt>/usr/share/mime/packages/rosegarden.xml
</tt> entry for
815 <a href=
"http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/shared-mime-info-spec">the
816 Shared MIME database
</a> look like this:
</p>
819 <?xml
version="
1.0"
encoding="UTF-
8"?
>
820 <mime-info
xmlns="http://www.freedesktop.org/standards/shared-mime-info"
>
821 <mime-type
type="audio/x-rosegarden"
>
822 <sub-class-of
type="application/x-gzip"/
>
823 <comment
>Rosegarden project file
</comment
>
824 <glob
pattern="*.rg"/
>
827 </pre></blockquote></p>
829 <p>This states that audio/x-rosegarden is a kind of application/x-gzip
830 (it is a gzipped XML file). Note, it is much better to use an
831 official MIME type registered with IANA than it is to make up ones own
832 unofficial ones like the x-rosegarden type used by rosegarden.
</p>
834 <p>The desktop file of the rosegarden program failed to list
835 audio/x-rosegarden in its list of supported MIME types, causing the
836 file browsers to have no idea what to do with *.rg files:
</p>
839 % grep Mime /usr/share/applications/rosegarden.desktop
840 MimeType=audio/x-rosegarden-composition;audio/x-rosegarden-device;audio/x-rosegarden-project;audio/x-rosegarden-template;audio/midi;
841 X-KDE-NativeMimeType=audio/x-rosegarden-composition
843 </pre></blockquote></p>
845 <p>The fix was to add "audio/x-rosegarden;" at the end of the
848 <p>If you run into a file which fail to open the correct program when
849 selected from the file browser, please check out the output from
850 <tt>file --mime-type
</tt> for the file, ensure the file ending and
851 MIME type is registered somewhere under /usr/share/mime/ and check
852 that some desktop file under /usr/share/applications/ is claiming
853 support for this MIME type. If not, please report a bug to have it
860 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>.
865 <div class=
"padding"></div>
869 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Isenkram_with_PackageKit_support___new_version_0_23_available_in_Debian_unstable.html">Isenkram with PackageKit support - new version
0.23 available in Debian unstable
</a>
875 <p><a href=
"https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/isenkram">The isenkram
876 system
</a> is a user-focused solution in Debian for handling hardware
877 related packages. The idea is to have a database of mappings between
878 hardware and packages, and pop up a dialog suggesting for the user to
879 install the packages to use a given hardware dongle. Some use cases
880 are when you insert a Yubikey, it proposes to install the software
881 needed to control it; when you insert a braille reader list it
882 proposes to install the packages needed to send text to the reader;
883 and when you insert a ColorHug screen calibrator it suggests to
884 install the driver for it. The system work well, and even have a few
885 command line tools to install firmware packages and packages for the
886 hardware already in the machine (as opposed to hotpluggable hardware).
</p>
888 <p>The system was initially written using aptdaemon, because I found
889 good documentation and example code on how to use it. But aptdaemon
890 is going away and is generally being replaced by
891 <a href=
"http://www.freedesktop.org/software/PackageKit/">PackageKit
</a>,
892 so Isenkram needed a rewrite. And today, thanks to the great patch
893 from my college Sunil Mohan Adapa in the FreedomBox project, the
894 rewrite finally took place. I've just uploaded a new version of
895 Isenkram into Debian Unstable with the patch included, and the default
896 for the background daemon is now to use PackageKit. To check it out,
897 install the
<tt>isenkram
</tt> package and insert some hardware dongle
898 and see if it is recognised.
</p>
900 <p>If you want to know what kind of packages isenkram would propose for
901 the machine it is running on, you can check out the isenkram-lookup
902 program. This is what it look like on a Thinkpad X230:
</p>
920 </pre></blockquote></p>
922 <p>The hardware mappings come from several places. The preferred way
923 is for packages to announce their hardware support using
924 <a href=
"https://www.freedesktop.org/software/appstream/docs/">the
925 cross distribution appstream system
</a>.
927 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram/">previous
928 blog posts about isenkram
</a> to learn how to do that.
</p>
934 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>.
939 <div class=
"padding"></div>
943 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Discharge_rate_estimate_in_new_battery_statistics_collector_for_Debian.html">Discharge rate estimate in new battery statistics collector for Debian
</a>
949 <p>Yesterday I updated the
950 <a href=
"https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">battery-stats
951 package in Debian
</a> with a few patches sent to me by skilled and
952 enterprising users. There were some nice user and visible changes.
953 First of all, both desktop menu entries now work. A design flaw in
954 one of the script made the history graph fail to show up (its PNG was
955 dumped in ~/.xsession-errors) if no controlling TTY was available.
956 The script worked when called from the command line, but not when
957 called from the desktop menu. I changed this to look for a DISPLAY
958 variable or a TTY before deciding where to draw the graph, and now the
959 graph window pop up as expected.
</p>
961 <p>The next new feature is a discharge rate estimator in one of the
962 graphs (the one showing the last few hours). New is also the user of
963 colours showing charging in blue and discharge in red. The percentages
964 of this graph is relative to last full charge, not battery design
967 <p align=
"center"><img src=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-05-23-battery-stats-rate.png"/></p>
969 <p>The other graph show the entire history of the collected battery
970 statistics, comparing it to the design capacity of the battery to
971 visualise how the battery life time get shorter over time. The red
972 line in this graph is what the previous graph considers
100 percent:
974 <p align=
"center"><img src=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-05-23-battery-stats-history.png"/></p>
976 <p>In this graph you can see that I only charge the battery to
80
977 percent of last full capacity, and how the capacity of the battery is
980 <p>The last new feature is in the collector, which now will handle
981 more hardware models. On some hardware, Linux power supply
982 information is stored in /sys/class/power_supply/ACAD/, while the
983 collector previously only looked in /sys/class/power_supply/AC/. Now
984 both are checked to figure if there is power connected to the
987 <p>If you are interested in how your laptop battery is doing, please
989 <a href=
"https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">battery-stats
</a>
990 in Debian unstable, or rebuild it on Jessie to get it working on
991 Debian stable. :) The upstream source is available from
<a
992 href=
"https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/battery-stats">github
</a>.
993 Patches are very welcome.
</p>
995 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
996 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
997 <b><a href=
"bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
</a></b>.
</p>
1003 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>.
1008 <div class=
"padding"></div>
1012 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_now_with_ZFS_on_Linux_included.html">Debian now with ZFS on Linux included
</a>
1018 <p>Today, after many years of hard work from many people,
1019 <a href=
"http://zfsonlinux.org/">ZFS for Linux
</a> finally entered
1020 Debian. The package status can be seen on
1021 <a href=
"https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/zfs-linux">the package tracker
1022 for zfs-linux
</a>. and
1023 <a href=
"https://qa.debian.org/developer.php?login=pkg-zfsonlinux-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
1024 team status page
</a>. If you want to help out, please join us.
1025 <a href=
"http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=pkg-zfsonlinux/zfs.git">The
1026 source code
</a> is available via git on Alioth. It would also be
1027 great if you could help out with
1028 <a href=
"https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/dkms">the dkms package
</a>, as
1029 it is an important piece of the puzzle to get ZFS working.
</p>
1035 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>.
1040 <div class=
"padding"></div>
1044 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_the_best_multimedia_player_in_Debian_.html">What is the best multimedia player in Debian?
</a>
1050 <p><strong>Where I set out to figure out which multimedia player in
1051 Debian claim support for most file formats.
</strong></p>
1053 <p>A few years ago, I had a look at the media support for Browser
1054 plugins in Debian, to get an idea which plugins to include in Debian
1055 Edu. I created a script to extract the set of supported MIME types
1056 for each plugin, and used this to find out which multimedia browser
1057 plugin supported most file formats / media types.
1058 <a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">The
1059 result
</a> can still be seen on the Debian wiki, even though it have
1060 not been updated for a while. But browser plugins are less relevant
1061 these days, so I thought it was time to look at standalone
1064 <p>A few days ago I was tired of VLC not being listed as a viable
1065 player when I wanted to play videos from the Norwegian National
1066 Broadcasting Company, and decided to investigate why. The cause is a
1067 <a href=
"https://bugs.debian.org/822245">missing MIME type in the VLC
1068 desktop file
</a>. In the process I wrote a script to compare the set
1069 of MIME types announced in the desktop file and the browser plugin,
1070 only to discover that there is quite a large difference between the
1071 two for VLC. This discovery made me dig up the script I used to
1072 compare browser plugins, and adjust it to compare desktop files
1073 instead, to try to figure out which multimedia player in Debian
1074 support most file formats.
</p>
1076 <p>The result can be seen on the Debian Wiki, as
1077 <a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/DebianMultimedia/PlayerSupport">a
1078 table listing all MIME types supported by one of the packages included
1079 in the table
</a>, with the package supporting most MIME types being
1080 listed first in the table.
</p>
1082 </p>The best multimedia player in Debian? It is totem, followed by
1083 parole, kplayer, mpv, vlc, smplayer mplayer-gui gnome-mpv and
1084 kmplayer. Time for the other players to update their announced MIME
1091 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>.
1096 <div class=
"padding"></div>
1100 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Pyra___handheld_computer_with_Debian_preinstalled.html">The Pyra - handheld computer with Debian preinstalled
</a>
1106 A friend of mine made me aware of
1107 <a href=
"https://pyra-handheld.com/boards/pages/pyra/">The Pyra
</a>, a
1108 handheld computer which will be delivered with Debian preinstalled. I
1109 would love to get one of those for my birthday. :)
</p>
1111 <p>The machine is a complete ARM-based PC with micro HDMI, SATA, USB
1112 plugs and many others connectors, and include a full keyboard and a
5"
1113 LCD touch screen. The
6000mAh battery is claimed to provide a whole
1114 day of battery life time, but I have not seen any independent tests
1115 confirming this. The vendor is still collecting preorders, and the
1116 last I heard last night was that
22 more orders were needed before
1117 production started.
</p>
1119 <p>As far as I know, this is the first handheld preinstalled with
1120 Debian. Please let me know if you know of any others. Is it the
1121 first computer being sold with Debian preinstalled?
</p>
1127 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>.
1132 <div class=
"padding"></div>
1136 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_a_Norwegian_Bokm_l_edition_of_The_Debian_Administrator_s_Handbook.html">Lets make a Norwegian Bokmål edition of The Debian Administrator's Handbook
</a>
1142 <p>During this weekends
1143 <a href=
"http://www.nuug.no/news/Oslo__Takk_for_feilfiksingsfesten.shtml">bug
1144 squashing party and developer gathering
</a>, we decided to do our part
1145 to make sure there are good books about Debian available in Norwegian
1146 Bokmål, and got in touch with the people behind the
1147 <a href=
"http://debian-handbook.info/">Debian Administrator's Handbook
1148 project
</a> to get started. If you want to help out, please start
1150 <a href=
"https://hosted.weblate.org/projects/debian-handbook/">the
1151 hosted weblate project page
</a>, and get in touch using
1152 <a href=
"http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/debian-handbook-translators">the
1153 translators mailing list
</a>. Please also check out
1154 <a href=
"https://debian-handbook.info/contribute/">the instructions for
1155 contributors
</a>.
</p>
1157 <p>The book is already available on paper in English, French and
1158 Japanese, and our goal is to get it available on paper in Norwegian
1159 Bokmål too. In addition to the paper edition, there are also EPUB and
1160 Mobi versions available. And there are incomplete translations
1161 available for many more languages.
</p>
1167 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>.
1172 <div class=
"padding"></div>
1176 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/One_in_two_hundred_Debian_users_using_ZFS_on_Linux_.html">One in two hundred Debian users using ZFS on Linux?
</a>
1182 <p>Just for fun I had a look at the popcon number of ZFS related
1183 packages in Debian, and was quite surprised with what I found. I use
1184 ZFS myself at home, but did not really expect many others to do so.
1185 But I might be wrong.
</p>
1188 <a href=
"https://qa.debian.org/popcon.php?package=spl-linux">the popcon
1189 results for spl-linux
</a>, there are
1019 Debian installations, or
1190 0.53% of the population, with the package installed. As far as I know
1191 the only use of the spl-linux package is as a support library for ZFS
1192 on Linux, so I use it here as proxy for measuring the number of ZFS
1193 installation on Linux in Debian. In the kFreeBSD variant of Debian
1194 the ZFS feature is already available, and there
1195 <a href=
"https://qa.debian.org/popcon.php?package=zfsutils">the popcon
1196 results for zfsutils
</a> show
1625 Debian installations or
0.84% of
1197 the population. So I guess I am not alone in using ZFS on Debian.
</p>
1199 <p>But even though the Debian project leader Lucas Nussbaum
1200 <a href=
"https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2015/04/msg00006.html">announced
1201 in April
2015</a> that the legal obstacles blocking ZFS on Debian were
1202 cleared, the package is still not in Debian. The package is again in
1203 the NEW queue. Several uploads have been rejected so far because the
1204 debian/copyright file was incomplete or wrong, but there is no reason
1205 to give up. The current status can be seen on
1206 <a href=
"https://qa.debian.org/developer.php?login=pkg-zfsonlinux-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
1207 team status page
</a>, and
1208 <a href=
"http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=pkg-zfsonlinux/zfs.git">the
1209 source code
</a> is available on Alioth.
</p>
1211 <p>As I want ZFS to be included in next version of Debian to make sure
1212 my home server can function in the future using only official Debian
1213 packages, and the current blocker is to get the debian/copyright file
1214 accepted by the FTP masters in Debian, I decided a while back to try
1215 to help out the team. This was the background for my blog post about
1216 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Creating__updating_and_checking_debian_copyright_semi_automatically.html">creating,
1217 updating and checking debian/copyright semi-automatically
</a>, and I
1218 used the techniques I explored there to try to find any errors in the
1219 copyright file. It is not very easy to check every one of the around
1220 2000 files in the source package, but I hope we this time got it
1221 right. If you want to help out, check out the git source and try to
1222 find missing entries in the debian/copyright file.
</p>
1228 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>.
1233 <div class=
"padding"></div>
1237 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Full_battery_stats_collector_is_now_available_in_Debian.html">Full battery stats collector is now available in Debian
</a>
1243 <p>Since this morning, the battery-stats package in Debian include an
1244 extended collector that will collect the complete battery history for
1245 later processing and graphing. The original collector store the
1246 battery level as percentage of last full level, while the new
1247 collector also record battery vendor, model, serial number, design
1248 full level, last full level and current battery level. This make it
1249 possible to predict the lifetime of the battery as well as visualise
1250 the energy flow when the battery is charging or discharging.
</p>
1252 <p>The new tools are available in
<tt>/usr/share/battery-stats/
</tt>
1253 in the version
0.5.1 package in unstable. Get the new battery level graph
1254 and lifetime prediction by running:
1257 /usr/share/battery-stats/battery-stats-graph /var/log/battery-stats.csv
1260 <p>Or select the 'Battery Level Graph' from your application menu.
</p>
1262 <p>The flow in/out of the battery can be seen by running (no menu
1266 /usr/share/battery-stats/battery-stats-graph-flow
1269 <p>I'm not quite happy with the way the data is visualised, at least
1270 when there are few data points. The graphs look a bit better with a
1271 few years of data.
</p>
1273 <p>A while back one important feature I use in the battery stats
1274 collector broke in Debian. The scripts in
1275 <tt>/usr/lib/pm-utils/power.d/
</tt> were no longer executed. I
1276 suspect it happened when Jessie started using systemd, but I do not
1277 know. The issue is reported as
1278 <a href=
"https://bugs.debian.org/818649">bug #
818649</a> against
1279 pm-utils. I managed to work around it by adding an udev rule to call
1280 the collector script every time the power connector is connected and
1281 disconnected. With this fix in place it was finally time to make a
1282 new release of the package, and get it into Debian.
</p>
1284 <p>If you are interested in how your laptop battery is doing, please
1286 <a href=
"https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">battery-stats
</a>
1287 in Debian unstable, or rebuild it on Jessie to get it working on
1288 Debian stable. :) The upstream source is available from
1289 <a href=
"https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/battery-stats">github
</a>.
1290 As always, patches are very welcome.
</p>
1296 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>.
1301 <div class=
"padding"></div>
1305 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Making_battery_measurements_a_little_easier_in_Debian.html">Making battery measurements a little easier in Debian
</a>
1311 <p>Back in September, I blogged about
1312 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_life_and_death_of_a_laptop_battery.html">the
1313 system I wrote to collect statistics about my laptop battery
</a>, and
1314 how it showed the decay and death of this battery (now replaced). I
1315 created a simple deb package to handle the collection and graphing,
1316 but did not want to upload it to Debian as there were already
1317 <a href=
"https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">a battery-stats
1318 package in Debian
</a> that should do the same thing, and I did not see
1319 a point of uploading a competing package when battery-stats could be
1320 fixed instead. I reported a few bugs about its non-function, and
1321 hoped someone would step in and fix it. But no-one did.
</p>
1323 <p>I got tired of waiting a few days ago, and took matters in my own
1324 hands. The end result is that I am now the new upstream developer of
1325 battery stats (
<a href=
"https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/battery-stats">available from github
</a>) and part of the team maintaining
1326 battery-stats in Debian, and the package in Debian unstable is finally
1327 able to collect battery status using the
<tt>/sys/class/power_supply/
</tt>
1328 information provided by the Linux kernel. If you install the
1329 battery-stats package from unstable now, you will be able to get a
1330 graph of the current battery fill level, to get some idea about the
1331 status of the battery. The source package build and work just fine in
1332 Debian testing and stable (and probably oldstable too, but I have not
1333 tested). The default graph you get for that system look like this:
</p>
1335 <p align=
"center"><img src=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-03-15-battery-stats-graph-example.png" width=
"70%" align=
"center"></p>
1337 <p>My plans for the future is to merge my old scripts into the
1338 battery-stats package, as my old scripts collected a lot more details
1339 about the battery. The scripts are merged into the upstream
1340 battery-stats git repository already, but I am not convinced they work
1341 yet, as I changed a lot of paths along the way. Will have to test a
1342 bit more before I make a new release.
</p>
1344 <p>I will also consider changing the file format slightly, as I
1345 suspect the way I combine several values into one field might make it
1346 impossible to know the type of the value when using it for processing
1349 <p>If you would like I would like to keep an close eye on your laptop
1350 battery, check out the battery-stats package in
1351 <a href=
"https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">Debian
</a> and
1353 <a href=
"https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/battery-stats">github
</a>.
1354 I would love some help to improve the system further.
</p>
1360 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>.
1365 <div class=
"padding"></div>
1369 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Creating__updating_and_checking_debian_copyright_semi_automatically.html">Creating, updating and checking debian/copyright semi-automatically
</a>
1375 <p>Making packages for Debian requires quite a lot of attention to
1376 details. And one of the details is the content of the
1377 debian/copyright file, which should list all relevant licenses used by
1378 the code in the package in question, preferably in
1379 <a href=
"https://www.debian.org/doc/packaging-manuals/copyright-format/1.0/">machine
1380 readable DEP5 format
</a>.
</p>
1382 <p>For large packages with lots of contributors it is hard to write
1383 and update this file manually, and if you get some detail wrong, the
1384 package is normally rejected by the ftpmasters. So getting it right
1385 the first time around get the package into Debian faster, and save
1386 both you and the ftpmasters some work.. Today, while trying to figure
1387 out what was wrong with
1388 <a href=
"https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=686447">the
1389 zfsonlinux copyright file
</a>, I decided to spend some time on
1390 figuring out the options for doing this job automatically, or at least
1391 semi-automatically.
</p>
1393 <p>Lucikly, there are at least two tools available for generating the
1394 file based on the code in the source package,
1395 <tt><a href=
"https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/debmake">debmake
</a></tt>
1396 and
<tt><a href=
"https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/cme">cme
</a></tt>. I'm
1397 not sure which one of them came first, but both seem to be able to
1398 create a sensible draft file. As far as I can tell, none of them can
1399 be trusted to get the result just right, so the content need to be
1400 polished a bit before the file is OK to upload. I found the debmake
1402 <a href=
"http://goofying-with-debian.blogspot.com/2014/07/debmake-checking-source-against-dep-5.html">a
1403 blog posts from
2014</a>.
1405 <p>To generate using debmake, use the -cc option:
1408 debmake -cc
> debian/copyright
1411 <p>Note there are some problems with python and non-ASCII names, so
1412 this might not be the best option.
</p>
1414 <p>The cme option is based on a config parsing library, and I found
1416 <a href=
"https://ddumont.wordpress.com/2015/04/05/improving-creation-of-debian-copyright-file/">a
1417 blog post from
2015</a>. To generate using cme, use the 'update
1418 dpkg-copyright' option:
1421 cme update dpkg-copyright
1424 <p>This will create or update debian/copyright. The cme tool seem to
1425 handle UTF-
8 names better than debmake.
</p>
1427 <p>When the copyright file is created, I would also like some help to
1428 check if the file is correct. For this I found two good options,
1429 <tt>debmake -k
</tt> and
<tt>license-reconcile
</tt>. The former seem
1430 to focus on license types and file matching, and is able to detect
1431 ineffective blocks in the copyright file. The latter reports missing
1432 copyright holders and years, but was confused by inconsistent license
1433 names (like CDDL vs. CDDL-
1.0). I suspect it is good to use both and
1434 fix all issues reported by them before uploading. But I do not know
1435 if the tools and the ftpmasters agree on what is important to fix in a
1436 copyright file, so the package might still be rejected.
</p>
1438 <p>The devscripts tool
<tt>licensecheck
</tt> deserve mentioning. It
1439 will read through the source and try to find all copyright statements.
1440 It is not comparing the result to the content of debian/copyright, but
1441 can be useful when verifying the content of the copyright file.
</p>
1443 <p>Are you aware of better tools in Debian to create and update
1444 debian/copyright file. Please let me know, or blog about it on
1445 planet.debian.org.
</p>
1447 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1448 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1449 <b><a href=
"bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
</a></b>.
</p>
1451 <p><strong>Update
2016-
02-
20</strong>: I got a tip from Mike Gabriel
1452 on how to use licensecheck and cdbs to create a draft copyright file
1455 licensecheck --copyright -r `find * -type f` | \
1456 /usr/lib/cdbs/licensecheck2dep5
> debian/copyright.auto
1459 <p>He mentioned that he normally check the generated file into the
1460 version control system to make it easier to discover license and
1461 copyright changes in the upstream source. I will try to do the same
1462 with my packages in the future.
</p>
1464 <p><strong>Update
2016-
02-
21</strong>: The cme author recommended
1465 against using -quiet for new users, so I removed it from the proposed
1472 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>.
1477 <div class=
"padding"></div>
1481 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_appstream_in_Debian_to_locate_packages_with_firmware_and_mime_type_support.html">Using appstream in Debian to locate packages with firmware and mime type support
</a>
1487 <p>The
<a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/DEP-11">appstream system
</a>
1488 is taking shape in Debian, and one provided feature is a very
1489 convenient way to tell you which package to install to make a given
1490 firmware file available when the kernel is looking for it. This can
1491 be done using apt-file too, but that is for someone else to blog
1494 <p>Here is a small recipe to find the package with a given firmware
1495 file, in this example I am looking for ctfw-
3.2.3.0.bin, randomly
1496 picked from the set of firmware announced using appstream in Debian
1497 unstable. In general you would be looking for the firmware requested
1498 by the kernel during kernel module loading. To find the package
1499 providing the example file, do like this:
</p>
1502 % apt install appstream
1506 % appstreamcli what-provides firmware:runtime ctfw-
3.2.3.0.bin | \
1507 awk '/Package:/ {print $
2}'
1512 <p>See
<a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/AppStream/Guidelines">the
1513 appstream wiki
</a> page to learn how to embed the package metadata in
1514 a way appstream can use.
</p>
1516 <p>This same approach can be used to find any package supporting a
1517 given MIME type. This is very useful when you get a file you do not
1518 know how to handle. First find the mime type using
<tt>file
1519 --mime-type
</tt>, and next look up the package providing support for
1520 it. Lets say you got an SVG file. Its MIME type is image/svg+xml,
1521 and you can find all packages handling this type like this:
</p>
1524 % apt install appstream
1528 % appstreamcli what-provides mimetype image/svg+xml | \
1529 awk '/Package:/ {print $
2}'
1553 <p>I believe the MIME types are fetched from the desktop file for
1554 packages providing appstream metadata.
</p>
1560 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>.
1565 <div class=
"padding"></div>
1569 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Creepy__visualise_geotagged_social_media_information___nice_free_software.html">Creepy, visualise geotagged social media information - nice free software
</a>
1575 <p>Most people seem not to realise that every time they walk around
1576 with the computerised radio beacon known as a mobile phone their
1577 position is tracked by the phone company and often stored for a long
1578 time (like every time a SMS is received or sent). And if their
1579 computerised radio beacon is capable of running programs (often called
1580 mobile apps) downloaded from the Internet, these programs are often
1581 also capable of tracking their location (if the app requested access
1582 during installation). And when these programs send out information to
1583 central collection points, the location is often included, unless
1584 extra care is taken to not send the location. The provided
1585 information is used by several entities, for good and bad (what is
1586 good and bad, depend on your point of view). What is certain, is that
1587 the private sphere and the right to free movement is challenged and
1588 perhaps even eradicated for those announcing their location this way,
1589 when they share their whereabouts with private and public
1592 <p align=
"center"><img width=
"70%" src=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-01-24-nice-creepy-desktop-window.png"></p>
1594 <p>The phone company logs provide a register of locations to check out
1595 when one want to figure out what the tracked person was doing. It is
1596 unavailable for most of us, but provided to selected government
1597 officials, company staff, those illegally buying information from
1598 unfaithful servants and crackers stealing the information. But the
1599 public information can be collected and analysed, and a free software
1600 tool to do so is called
1601 <a href=
"http://www.geocreepy.com/">Creepy or Cree.py
</a>. I
1602 discovered it when I read
1603 <a href=
"http://www.aftenposten.no/kultur/Slik-kan-du-bli-overvaket-pa-Twitter-og-Instagram-uten-a-ane-det-7787884.html">an
1604 article about Creepy
</a> in the Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten i
1605 November
2014, and decided to check if it was available in Debian.
1606 The python program was in Debian, but
1607 <a href=
"https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/creepy">the version in
1608 Debian
</a> was completely broken and practically unmaintained. I
1609 uploaded a new version which did not work quite right, but did not
1610 have time to fix it then. This Christmas I decided to finally try to
1611 get Creepy operational in Debian. Now a fixed version is available in
1612 Debian unstable and testing, and almost all Debian specific patches
1614 <a href=
"https://github.com/jkakavas/creepy">upstream
</a>.
</p>
1616 <p>The Creepy program visualises geolocation information fetched from
1617 Twitter, Instagram, Flickr and Google+, and allow one to get a
1618 complete picture of every social media message posted recently in a
1619 given area, or track the movement of a given individual across all
1620 these services. Earlier it was possible to use the search API of at
1621 least some of these services without identifying oneself, but these
1622 days it is impossible. This mean that to use Creepy, you need to
1623 configure it to log in as yourself on these services, and provide
1624 information to them about your search interests. This should be taken
1625 into account when using Creepy, as it will also share information
1626 about yourself with the services.
</p>
1628 <p>The picture above show the twitter messages sent from (or at least
1629 geotagged with a position from) the city centre of Oslo, the capital
1630 of Norway. One useful way to use Creepy is to first look at
1631 information tagged with an area of interest, and next look at all the
1632 information provided by one or more individuals who was in the area.
1633 I tested it by checking out which celebrity provide their location in
1634 twitter messages by checkout out who sent twitter messages near a
1635 Norwegian TV station, and next could track their position over time,
1636 making it possible to locate their home and work place, among other
1637 things. A similar technique have been
1638 <a href=
"http://www.buzzfeed.com/maxseddon/does-this-soldiers-instagram-account-prove-russia-is-covertl">used
1639 to locate Russian soldiers in Ukraine
</a>, and it is both a powerful
1640 tool to discover lying governments, and a useful tool to help people
1641 understand the value of the private information they provide to the
1644 <p>The package is not trivial to backport to Debian Stable/Jessie, as
1645 it depend on several python modules currently missing in Jessie (at
1646 least python-instagram, python-flickrapi and
1647 python-requests-toolbelt).
</p>
1650 <a href=
"https://screenshots.debian.net/package/creepy">the image to
1651 screenshots.debian.net
</a> and licensed it under the same terms as the
1652 Creepy program in Debian.)
</p>
1658 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/nice free software">nice free software
</a>.
1663 <div class=
"padding"></div>
1667 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Always_download_Debian_packages_using_Tor___the_simple_recipe.html">Always download Debian packages using Tor - the simple recipe
</a>
1673 <p>During his DebConf15 keynote, Jacob Appelbaum
1674 <a href=
"https://summit.debconf.org/debconf15/meeting/331/what-is-to-be-done/">observed
1675 that those listening on the Internet lines would have good reason to
1676 believe a computer have a given security hole
</a> if it download a
1677 security fix from a Debian mirror. This is a good reason to always
1678 use encrypted connections to the Debian mirror, to make sure those
1679 listening do not know which IP address to attack. In August, Richard
1680 Hartmann observed that encryption was not enough, when it was possible
1681 to interfere download size to security patches or the fact that
1682 download took place shortly after a security fix was released, and
1683 <a href=
"http://richardhartmann.de/blog/posts/2015/08/24-Tor-enabled_Debian_mirror/">proposed
1684 to always use Tor to download packages from the Debian mirror
</a>. He
1685 was not the first to propose this, as the
1686 <tt><a href=
"https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/apt-transport-tor">apt-transport-tor
</a></tt>
1687 package by Tim Retout already existed to make it easy to convince apt
1688 to use
<a href=
"https://www.torproject.org/">Tor
</a>, but I was not
1689 aware of that package when I read the blog post from Richard.
</p>
1691 <p>Richard discussed the idea with Peter Palfrader, one of the Debian
1692 sysadmins, and he set up a Tor hidden service on one of the central
1693 Debian mirrors using the address vwakviie2ienjx6t.onion, thus making
1694 it possible to download packages directly between two tor nodes,
1695 making sure the network traffic always were encrypted.
</p>
1697 <p>Here is a short recipe for enabling this on your machine, by
1698 installing
<tt>apt-transport-tor
</tt> and replacing http and https
1699 urls with tor+http and tor+https, and using the hidden service instead
1700 of the official Debian mirror site. I recommend installing
1701 <tt>etckeeper
</tt> before you start to have a history of the changes
1705 apt install apt-transport-tor
1706 sed -i 's% http://ftp.debian.org/% tor+http://vwakviie2ienjx6t.onion/%' /etc/apt/sources.list
1707 sed -i 's% http% tor+http%' /etc/apt/sources.list
1710 <p>If you have more sources listed in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/, run
1711 the sed commands for these too. The sed command is assuming your are
1712 using the ftp.debian.org Debian mirror. Adjust the command (or just
1713 edit the file manually) to match your mirror.
</p>
1715 <p>This work in Debian Jessie and later. Note that tools like
1716 <tt>apt-file
</tt> only recently started using the apt transport
1717 system, and do not work with these tor+http URLs. For
1718 <tt>apt-file
</tt> you need the version currently in experimental,
1719 which need a recent apt version currently only in unstable. So if you
1720 need a working
<tt>apt-file
</tt>, this is not for you.
</p>
1722 <p>Another advantage from this change is that your machine will start
1723 using Tor regularly and at fairly random intervals (every time you
1724 update the package lists or upgrade or install a new package), thus
1725 masking other Tor traffic done from the same machine. Using Tor will
1726 become normal for the machine in question.
</p>
1728 <p>On
<a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">Freedombox
</a>, APT
1729 is set up by default to use
<tt>apt-transport-tor
</tt> when Tor is
1730 enabled. It would be great if it was the default on any Debian
1737 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>.
1742 <div class=
"padding"></div>
1746 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/OpenALPR__find_car_license_plates_in_video_streams___nice_free_software.html">OpenALPR, find car license plates in video streams - nice free software
</a>
1752 <p>When I was a kid, we used to collect "car numbers", as we used to
1753 call the car license plate numbers in those days. I would write the
1754 numbers down in my little book and compare notes with the other kids
1755 to see how many region codes we had seen and if we had seen some
1756 exotic or special region codes and numbers. It was a fun game to pass
1757 time, as we kids have plenty of it.
</p>
1759 <p>A few days I came across
1760 <a href=
"https://github.com/openalpr/openalpr">the OpenALPR
1761 project
</a>, a free software project to automatically discover and
1762 report license plates in images and video streams, and provide the
1763 "car numbers" in a machine readable format. I've been looking for
1764 such system for a while now, because I believe it is a bad idea that the
1765 <a href=
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_number_plate_recognition">automatic
1766 number plate recognition
</a> tool only is available in the hands of
1767 the powerful, and want it to be available also for the powerless to
1768 even the score when it comes to surveillance and sousveillance. I
1769 discovered the developer
1770 <a href=
"https://bugs.debian.org/747509">wanted to get the tool into
1771 Debian
</a>, and as I too wanted it to be in Debian, I volunteered to
1772 help him get it into shape to get the package uploaded into the Debian
1775 <p>Today we finally managed to get the package into shape and uploaded
1776 it into Debian, where it currently
1777 <a href=
"https://ftp-master.debian.org//new/openalpr_2.2.1-1.html">waits
1778 in the NEW queue
</a> for review by the Debian ftpmasters.
</p>
1780 <p>I guess you are wondering why on earth such tool would be useful
1781 for the common folks, ie those not running a large government
1782 surveillance system? Well, I plan to put it in a computer on my bike
1783 and in my car, tracking the cars nearby and allowing me to be notified
1784 when number plates on my watch list are discovered. Another use case
1785 was suggested by a friend of mine, who wanted to set it up at his home
1786 to open the car port automatically when it discovered the plate on his
1787 car. When I mentioned it perhaps was a bit foolhardy to allow anyone
1788 capable of placing his license plate number of a piece of cardboard to
1789 open his car port, men replied that it was always unlocked anyway. I
1790 guess for such use case it make sense. I am sure there are other use
1791 cases too, for those with imagination and a vision.
</p>
1793 <p>If you want to build your own version of the Debian package, check
1794 out the upstream git source and symlink ./distros/debian to ./debian/
1795 before running "debuild" to build the source. Or wait a bit until the
1796 package show up in unstable.
</p>
1802 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/nice free software">nice free software
</a>.
1807 <div class=
"padding"></div>
1811 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_appstream_with_isenkram_to_install_hardware_related_packages_in_Debian.html">Using appstream with isenkram to install hardware related packages in Debian
</a>
1817 <p>Around three years ago, I created
1818 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">the isenkram
1819 system
</a> to get a more practical solution in Debian for handing
1820 hardware related packages. A GUI system in the isenkram package will
1821 present a pop-up dialog when some hardware dongle supported by
1822 relevant packages in Debian is inserted into the machine. The same
1823 lookup mechanism to detect packages is available as command line
1824 tools in the isenkram-cli package. In addition to mapping hardware,
1825 it will also map kernel firmware files to packages and make it easy to
1826 install needed firmware packages automatically. The key for this
1827 system to work is a good way to map hardware to packages, in other
1828 words, allow packages to announce what hardware they will work
1831 <p>I started by providing data files in the isenkram source, and
1832 adding code to download the latest version of these data files at run
1833 time, to ensure every user had the most up to date mapping available.
1834 I also added support for storing the mapping in the Packages file in
1835 the apt repositories, but did not push this approach because while I
1836 was trying to figure out how to best store hardware/package mappings,
1837 <a href=
"http://www.freedesktop.org/software/appstream/docs/">the
1838 appstream system
</a> was announced. I got in touch and suggested to
1839 add the hardware mapping into that data set to be able to use
1840 appstream as a data source, and this was accepted at least for the
1841 Debian version of appstream.
</p>
1843 <p>A few days ago using appstream in Debian for this became possible,
1844 and today I uploaded a new version
0.20 of isenkram adding support for
1845 appstream as a data source for mapping hardware to packages. The only
1846 package so far using appstream to announce its hardware support is my
1847 pymissile package. I got help from Matthias Klumpp with figuring out
1848 how do add the required
1849 <a href=
"https://appstream.debian.org/html/sid/main/metainfo/pymissile.html">metadata
1850 in pymissile
</a>. I added a file debian/pymissile.metainfo.xml with
1854 <?xml
version="
1.0"
encoding="UTF-
8"?
>
1856 <id
>pymissile
</id
>
1857 <metadata_license
>MIT
</metadata_license
>
1858 <name
>pymissile
</name
>
1859 <summary
>Control original Striker USB Missile Launcher
</summary
>
1862 Pymissile provides a curses interface to control an original
1863 Marks and Spencer / Striker USB Missile Launcher, as well as a
1864 motion control script to allow a webcamera to control the
1867 </description
>
1869 <modalias
>usb:v1130p0202d*
</modalias
>
1874 <p>The key for isenkram is the component/provides/modalias value,
1875 which is a glob style match rule for hardware specific strings
1876 (modalias strings) provided by the Linux kernel. In this case, it
1877 will map to all USB devices with vendor code
1130 and product code
1880 <p>Note, it is important that the license of all the metadata files
1881 are compatible to have permissions to aggregate them into archive wide
1882 appstream files. Matthias suggested to use MIT or BSD licenses for
1883 these files. A challenge is figuring out a good id for the data, as
1884 it is supposed to be globally unique and shared across distributions
1885 (in other words, best to coordinate with upstream what to use). But
1886 it can be changed later or, so we went with the package name as
1887 upstream for this project is dormant.
</p>
1889 <p>To get the metadata file installed in the correct location for the
1890 mirror update scripts to pick it up and include its content the
1891 appstream data source, the file must be installed in the binary
1892 package under /usr/share/appdata/. I did this by adding the following
1893 line to debian/pymissile.install:
</p>
1896 debian/pymissile.metainfo.xml usr/share/appdata
1899 <p>With that in place, the command line tool isenkram-lookup will list
1900 all packages useful on the current computer automatically, and the GUI
1901 pop-up handler will propose to install the package not already
1902 installed if a hardware dongle is inserted into the machine in
1905 <p>Details of the modalias field in appstream is available from the
1906 <a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/DEP-11">DEP-
11</a> proposal.
</p>
1908 <p>To locate the modalias values of all hardware present in a machine,
1909 try running this command on the command line:
</p>
1912 cat $(find /sys/devices/|grep modalias)
1915 <p>To learn more about the isenkram system, please check out
1916 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram/">my
1917 blog posts tagged isenkram
</a>.
</p>
1923 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>.
1928 <div class=
"padding"></div>
1932 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_GNU_General_Public_License_is_not_magic_pixie_dust.html">The GNU General Public License is not magic pixie dust
</a>
1938 <p>A blog post from my fellow Debian developer Paul Wise titled
1939 "
<a href=
"http://bonedaddy.net/pabs3/log/2015/11/27/sfc-supporter/">The
1940 GPL is not magic pixie dust
</a>" explain the importance of making sure
1941 the <a href="http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html
">GPL</a> is enforced.
1942 I quote the blog post from Paul in full here with his permission:<p>
1946 <p><a href="https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/
"><img src="https://sfconservancy.org/img/supporter-badge.png
" width="194" height="90" alt="Become a Software Freedom Conservancy Supporter!
" align="right
" border="0" /></a></p>
1949 The GPL is not magic pixie dust. It does not work by itself.<br/>
1951 The first step is to choose a
1952 <a href="https://copyleft.org/
">copyleft</a> license for your
1955 The next step is, when someone fails to follow that copyleft license,
1956 <b>it must be enforced</b><br/>
1958 and its a simple fact of our modern society that such type of
1961 is incredibly expensive to do and incredibly difficult to do.
1964 <p><small>-- <a href="http://ebb.org/bkuhn/
">Bradley Kuhn</a>, in
1965 <a href="http://faif.us/
" title="Free as in Freedom
">FaiF</a>
1966 <a href="http://faif.us/cast/
2015/nov/
24/
0x57/
">episode
1967 0x57</a></small></p>
1969 <p>As the Debian Website
1970 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/
794116">used</a>
1971 <a href="https://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/webwml/webwml/english/intro/free.wml?r1=
1.24&r2=
1.25">to</a>
1972 imply, public domain and permissively licensed software can lead to
1973 the production of more proprietary software as people discover useful
1974 software, extend it and or incorporate it into their hardware or
1975 software products. Copyleft licenses such as the GNU GPL were created
1976 to close off this avenue to the production of proprietary software but
1977 such licenses are not enough. With the ongoing adoption of Free
1978 Software by individuals and groups, inevitably the community's
1979 expectations of license compliance are violated, usually out of
1980 ignorance of the way Free Software works, but not always. As Karen
1981 and Bradley explained in <a href="http://faif.us/
" title="Free as in
1983 <a href="http://faif.us/cast/
2015/nov/
24/
0x57/
">episode 0x57</a>,
1984 copyleft is nothing if no-one is willing and able to stand up in court
1985 to protect it. The reality of today's world is that legal
1986 representation is expensive, difficult and time consuming. With
1987 <a href="http://gpl-violations.org/
">gpl-violations.org</a> in hiatus
1988 <a href="http://gpl-violations.org/news/
20151027-homepage-recovers/
">until</a>
1989 some time in 2016, the <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/
">Software
1990 Freedom Conservancy</a> (a tax-exempt charity) is the major defender
1991 of the Linux project, Debian and other groups against GPL violations.
1992 In March the SFC supported a
1993 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/news/
2015/mar/
05/vmware-lawsuit/
">lawsuit
1994 by Christoph Hellwig</a> against VMware for refusing to
1995 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/linux-compliance/vmware-lawsuit-faq.html
">comply
1996 with the GPL</a> in relation to their use of parts of the Linux
1997 kernel. Since then two of their sponsors pulled corporate funding and
1999 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/blog/
2015/nov/
24/faif-carols-fundraiser/
">blocked
2000 or cancelled their talks</a>. As a result they have decided to rely
2001 less on corporate funding and more on the broad community of
2002 individuals who support Free Software and copyleft. So the SFC has
2003 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/news/
2015/nov/
23/
2015fundraiser/
">launched</a>
2004 a <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/
">campaign</a> to create
2005 a community of folks who stand up for copyleft and the GPL by
2006 supporting their work on promoting and supporting copyleft and Free
2009 <p>If you support Free Software,
2010 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/blog/
2015/nov/
26/like-what-I-do/
">like</a>
2011 what the SFC do, agree with their
2012 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/linux-compliance/principles.html
">compliance
2013 principles</a>, are happy about their
2014 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/
">successes</a> in 2015,
2015 work on a project that is an SFC
2016 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/members/current/
">member</a> and or
2017 just want to stand up for copyleft, please join
2018 <a href="https://identi.ca/cwebber/image/JQGPA4qbTyyp3-MY8QpvuA
">Christopher
2020 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/blog/
2015/nov/
24/faif-carols-fundraiser/
">Carol
2022 <a href="http://www.jonobacon.org/
2015/
11/
25/supporting-software-freedom-conservancy/
">Jono
2023 Bacon</a>, myself and
2024 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/sponsors/#supporters
">others</a> in
2026 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/
">supporter</a>. For the
2027 next week your donation will be
2028 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/news/
2015/nov/
27/black-friday/
">matched</a>
2029 by an anonymous donor. Please also consider asking your employer to
2030 match your donation or become a sponsor of SFC. Don't forget to
2031 spread the word about your support for SFC via email, your blog and or
2032 social media accounts.</p>
2036 <p>I agree with Paul on this topic and just signed up as a Supporter
2037 of Software Freedom Conservancy myself. Perhaps you should be a
2044 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/opphavsrett
">opphavsrett</a>.
2049 <div class="padding
"></div>
2053 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/PGP_key_transition_statement_for_key_EE4E02F9.html
">PGP key transition statement for key EE4E02F9</a>
2059 <p>I've needed a new OpenPGP key for a while, but have not had time to
2060 set it up properly. I wanted to generate it offline and have it
2061 available on <a href="http://shop.kernelconcepts.de/#openpgp
">a OpenPGP
2062 smart card</a> for daily use, and learning how to do it and finding
2063 time to sit down with an offline machine almost took forever. But
2064 finally I've been able to complete the process, and have now moved
2065 from my old GPG key to a new GPG key. See
2066 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/
2015-
11-
17-new-gpg-key-transition.txt
">the
2067 full transition statement, signed with both my old and new key</a> for
2068 the details. This is my new key:</p>
2071 pub 3936R/<a href="http://pgp.cs.uu.nl/stats/
111D6B29EE4E02F9.html
">111D6B29EE4E02F9</a> 2015-11-03 [expires: 2019-11-14]
2072 Key fingerprint = 3AC7 B2E3 ACA5 DF87 78F1 D827 111D 6B29 EE4E 02F9
2073 uid Petter Reinholdtsen <pere@hungry.com>
2074 uid Petter Reinholdtsen <pere@debian.org>
2075 sub 4096R/87BAFB0E 2015-11-03 [expires: 2019-11-02]
2076 sub 4096R/F91E6DE9 2015-11-03 [expires: 2019-11-02]
2077 sub 4096R/A0439BAB 2015-11-03 [expires: 2019-11-02]
2080 <p>The key can be downloaded from the OpenPGP key servers, signed by
2083 <p>If you signed my old key
2084 (<a href="http://pgp.cs.uu.nl/stats/DB4CCC4B2A30D729.html
">DB4CCC4B2A30D729</a>),
2085 I'd very much appreciate a signature on my new key, details and
2086 instructions in the transition statement. I m happy to reciprocate if
2087 you have a similarly signed transition statement to present.</p>
2093 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>.
2098 <div class="padding
"></div>
2102 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_life_and_death_of_a_laptop_battery.html
">The life and death of a laptop battery</a>
2108 <p>When I get a new laptop, the battery life time at the start is OK.
2109 But this do not last. The last few laptops gave me a feeling that
2110 within a year, the life time is just a fraction of what it used to be,
2111 and it slowly become painful to use the laptop without power connected
2112 all the time. Because of this, when I got a new Thinkpad X230 laptop
2113 about two years ago, I decided to monitor its battery state to have
2114 more hard facts when the battery started to fail.</p>
2116 <img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/
2015-
09-
24-laptop-battery-graph.png
"/>
2118 <p>First I tried to find a sensible Debian package to record the
2119 battery status, assuming that this must be a problem already handled
2120 by someone else. I found
2121 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats
">battery-stats</a>,
2122 which collects statistics from the battery, but it was completely
2123 broken. I sent a few suggestions to the maintainer, but decided to
2124 write my own collector as a shell script while I waited for feedback
2126 <a href="http://www.ifweassume.com/
2013/
08/the-de-evolution-of-my-laptop-battery.html
">a
2127 blog post about the battery development on a MacBook Air</a> I also
2129 <a href="https://github.com/jradavenport/batlog.git
">batlog</a>, not
2130 available in Debian.</p>
2132 <p>I started my collector 2013-07-15, and it has been collecting
2133 battery stats ever since. Now my
2134 /var/log/hjemmenett-battery-status.log file contain around 115,000
2135 measurements, from the time the battery was working great until now,
2136 when it is unable to charge above 7% of original capacity. My
2137 collector shell script is quite simple and look like this:</p>
2142 # http://www.ifweassume.com/2013/08/the-de-evolution-of-my-laptop-battery.html
2144 # http://blog.sleeplessbeastie.eu/2013/01/02/debian-how-to-monitor-battery-capacity/
2145 logfile=/var/log/hjemmenett-battery-status.log
2147 files="manufacturer model_name technology serial_number \
2148 energy_full energy_full_design energy_now cycle_count status"
2150 if [ ! -e "$logfile" ] ; then
2161 # Print complete message in one echo call, to avoid race condition
2162 # when several log processes run in parallel.
2163 msg=$(printf
"%s," $(date +%s); \
2164 for f in $files; do \
2165 printf
"%s," $(cat $f); \
2170 cd /sys/class/power_supply
2173 (cd $bat && log_battery
>> "$logfile")
2177 <p>The script is called when the power management system detect a
2178 change in the power status (power plug in or out), and when going into
2179 and out of hibernation and suspend. In addition, it collect a value
2180 every
10 minutes. This make it possible for me know when the battery
2181 is discharging, charging and how the maximum charge change over time.
2182 The code for the Debian package
2183 <a href=
"https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/battery-status">is now
2184 available on github
</a>.
</p>
2186 <p>The collected log file look like this:
</p>
2189 timestamp,manufacturer,model_name,technology,serial_number,energy_full,energy_full_design,energy_now,cycle_count,status,
2190 1376591133,LGC,
45N1025,Li-ion,
974,
62800000,
62160000,
39050000,
0,Discharging,
2192 1443090528,LGC,
45N1025,Li-ion,
974,
4900000,
62160000,
4900000,
0,Full,
2193 1443090601,LGC,
45N1025,Li-ion,
974,
4900000,
62160000,
4900000,
0,Full,
2196 <p>I wrote a small script to create a graph of the charge development
2197 over time. This graph depicted above show the slow death of my laptop
2200 <p>But why is this happening? Why are my laptop batteries always
2201 dying in a year or two, while the batteries of space probes and
2202 satellites keep working year after year. If we are to believe
2203 <a href=
"http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/how_to_prolong_lithium_based_batteries">Battery
2204 University
</a>, the cause is me charging the battery whenever I have a
2205 chance, and the fix is to not charge the Lithium-ion batteries to
100%
2206 all the time, but to stay below
90% of full charge most of the time.
2207 I've been told that the Tesla electric cars
2208 <a href=
"http://my.teslamotors.com/de_CH/forum/forums/battery-charge-limit">limit
2209 the charge of their batteries to
80%
</a>, with the option to charge to
2210 100% when preparing for a longer trip (not that I would want a car
2211 like Tesla where rights to privacy is abandoned, but that is another
2212 story), which I guess is the option we should have for laptops on
2215 <p>Is there a good and generic way with Linux to tell the battery to
2216 stop charging at
80%, unless requested to charge to
100% once in
2217 preparation for a longer trip? I found
2218 <a href=
"http://askubuntu.com/questions/34452/how-can-i-limit-battery-charging-to-80-capacity">one
2219 recipe on askubuntu for Ubuntu to limit charging on Thinkpad to
2220 80%
</a>, but could not get it to work (kernel module refused to
2223 <p>I wonder why the battery capacity was reported to be more than
100%
2224 at the start. I also wonder why the "full capacity" increases some
2225 times, and if it is possible to repeat the process to get the battery
2226 back to design capacity. And I wonder if the discharge and charge
2227 speed change over time, or if this stay the same. I did not yet try
2228 to write a tool to calculate the derivative values of the battery
2229 level, but suspect some interesting insights might be learned from
2232 <p>Update
2015-
09-
24: I got a tip to install the packages
2233 acpi-call-dkms and tlp (unfortunately missing in Debian stable)
2234 packages instead of the tp-smapi-dkms package I had tried to use
2235 initially, and use 'tlp setcharge
40 80' to change when charging start
2236 and stop. I've done so now, but expect my existing battery is toast
2237 and need to be replaced. The proposal is unfortunately Thinkpad
2244 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>.
2249 <div class=
"padding"></div>
2253 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_laptop___some_more_clues_and_ideas_based_on_feedback.html">New laptop - some more clues and ideas based on feedback
</a>
2259 <p>Several people contacted me after my previous blog post about my
2260 need for a new laptop, and provided very useful feedback. I wish to
2261 thank every one of these. Several pointed me to the possibility of
2262 fixing my X230, and I am already in the process of getting Lenovo to
2263 do so thanks to the on site, next day support contract covering the
2264 machine. But the battery is almost useless (I expect to replace it
2265 with a non-official battery) and I do not expect the machine to live
2266 for many more years, so it is time to plan its replacement. If I did
2267 not have a support contract, it was suggested to find replacement parts
2268 using
<a href=
"http://www.francecrans.com/">FrancEcrans
</a>, but it
2269 might present a language barrier as I do not understand French.
</p>
2271 <p>One tip I got was to use the
2272 <a href=
"https://skinflint.co.uk/?cat=nb">Skinflint
</a> web service to
2273 compare laptop models. It seem to have more models available than
2274 prisjakt.no. Another tip I got from someone I know have similar
2275 keyboard preferences was that the HP EliteBook
840 keyboard is not
2276 very good, and this matches my experience with earlier EliteBook
2277 keyboards I tested. Because of this, I will not consider it any further.
2279 <p>When I wrote my blog post, I was not aware of Thinkpad X250, the
2280 newest Thinkpad X model. The keyboard reintroduces mouse buttons
2281 (which is missing from the X240), and is working fairly well with
2282 Debian Sid/Unstable according to
2283 <a href=
"http://www.corsac.net/X250/">Corsac.net
</a>. The reports I
2284 got on the keyboard quality are not consistent. Some say the keyboard
2285 is good, others say it is ok, while others say it is not very good.
2286 Those with experience from X41 and and X60 agree that the X250
2287 keyboard is not as good as those trusty old laptops, and suggest I
2288 keep and fix my X230 instead of upgrading, or get a used X230 to
2289 replace it. I'm also told that the X250 lack leds for caps lock, disk
2290 activity and battery status, which is very convenient on my X230. I'm
2291 also told that the CPU fan is running very often, making it a bit
2292 noisy. In any case, the X250 do not work out of the box with Debian
2293 Stable/Jessie, one of my requirements.
</p>
2295 <p>I have also gotten a few vendor proposals, one was
2296 <a href=
"http://pro-star.com">Pro-Star
</a>, another was
2297 <a href=
"http://shop.gluglug.org.uk/product/libreboot-x200/">Libreboot
</a>.
2298 The latter look very attractive to me.
</p>
2300 <p>Again, thank you all for the very useful feedback. It help a lot
2301 as I keep looking for a replacement.
</p>
2303 <p>Update
2015-
07-
06: I was recommended to check out the
2304 <a href=
"">lapstore.de
</a> web shop for used laptops. They got several
2306 <a href=
"http://www.lapstore.de/f.php/shop/lapstore/f/411/lang/x/kw/Lenovo_ThinkPad_X_Serie/">old
2307 thinkpad X models
</a>, and provide one year warranty.
</p>
2313 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>.
2318 <div class=
"padding"></div>
2322 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_to_find_a_new_laptop__as_the_old_one_is_broken_after_only_two_years.html">Time to find a new laptop, as the old one is broken after only two years
</a>
2328 <p>My primary work horse laptop is failing, and will need a
2329 replacement soon. The left
5 cm of the screen on my Thinkpad X230
2330 started flickering yesterday, and I suspect the cause is a broken
2331 cable, as changing the angle of the screen some times get rid of the
2334 <p>My requirements have not really changed since I bought it, and is
2336 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thank_you_Thinkpad_X41__for_your_long_and_trustworthy_service.html">I
2337 described them in
2013</a>. The last time I bought a laptop, I had
2339 <a href=
"http://www.prisjakt.no/category.php?k=353">prisjakt.no
</a>
2340 where I could select at least a few of the requirements (mouse pin,
2341 wifi, weight) and go through the rest manually. Three button mouse
2342 and a good keyboard is not available as an option, and all the three
2343 laptop models proposed today (Thinkpad X240, HP EliteBook
820 G1 and
2344 G2) lack three mouse buttons). It is also unclear to me how good the
2345 keyboard on the HP EliteBooks are. I hope Lenovo have not messed up
2346 the keyboard, even if the quality and robustness in the X series have
2347 deteriorated since X41.
</p>
2349 <p>I wonder how I can find a sensible laptop when none of the options
2350 seem sensible to me? Are there better services around to search the
2351 set of available laptops for features? Please send me an email if you
2352 have suggestions.
</p>
2354 <p>Update
2015-
07-
23: I got a suggestion to check out the FSF
2355 <a href=
"http://www.fsf.org/resources/hw/endorsement/respects-your-freedom">list
2356 of endorsed hardware
</a>, which is useful background information.
</p>
2362 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>.
2367 <div class=
"padding"></div>
2371 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_stay_with_sysvinit_in_Debian_Jessie.html">How to stay with sysvinit in Debian Jessie
</a>
2377 <p>By now, it is well known that Debian Jessie will not be using
2378 sysvinit as its boot system by default. But how can one keep using
2379 sysvinit in Jessie? It is fairly easy, and here are a few recipes,
2381 <a href=
"http://www.vitavonni.de/blog/201410/2014102101-avoiding-systemd.html">Erich
2383 <a href=
"http://smcv.pseudorandom.co.uk/2014/still_universal/">Simon
2386 <p>If you already are using Wheezy and want to upgrade to Jessie and
2387 keep sysvinit as your boot system, create a file
2388 <tt>/etc/apt/preferences.d/use-sysvinit
</tt> with this content before
2391 <p><blockquote><pre>
2392 Package: systemd-sysv
2393 Pin: release o=Debian
2395 </pre></blockquote><p>
2397 <p>This file content will tell apt and aptitude to not consider
2398 installing systemd-sysv as part of any installation and upgrade
2399 solution when resolving dependencies, and thus tell it to avoid
2400 systemd as a default boot system. The end result should be that the
2401 upgraded system keep using sysvinit.
</p>
2403 <p>If you are installing Jessie for the first time, there is no way to
2404 get sysvinit installed by default (debootstrap used by
2405 debian-installer have no option for this), but one can tell the
2406 installer to switch to sysvinit before the first boot. Either by
2407 using a kernel argument to the installer, or by adding a line to the
2408 preseed file used. First, the kernel command line argument:
2410 <p><blockquote><pre>
2411 preseed/
late_command="in-target apt-get install --purge -y sysvinit-core"
2412 </pre></blockquote><p>
2414 <p>Next, the line to use in a preseed file:
</p>
2416 <p><blockquote><pre>
2417 d-i preseed/late_command string in-target apt-get install -y sysvinit-core
2418 </pre></blockquote><p>
2420 <p>One can of course also do this after the first boot by installing
2421 the sysvinit-core package.
</p>
2423 <p>I recommend only using sysvinit if you really need it, as the
2424 sysvinit boot sequence in Debian have several hardware specific bugs
2425 on Linux caused by the fact that it is unpredictable when hardware
2426 devices show up during boot. But on the other hand, the new default
2427 boot system still have a few rough edges I hope will be fixed before
2428 Jessie is released.
</p>
2430 <p>Update
2014-
11-
26: Inspired by
2431 <ahref=
"https://www.mirbsd.org/permalinks/wlog-10-tg_e20141125-tg.htm#e20141125-tg_wlog-10-tg">a
2432 blog post by Torsten Glaser
</a>, added --purge to the preseed
2439 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>.
2444 <div class=
"padding"></div>
2448 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Debian_package_for_SMTP_via_Tor__aka_SMTorP__using_exim4.html">A Debian package for SMTP via Tor (aka SMTorP) using exim4
</a>
2454 <p>The right to communicate with your friends and family in private,
2455 without anyone snooping, is a right every citicen have in a liberal
2456 democracy. But this right is under serious attack these days.
</p>
2458 <p>A while back it occurred to me that one way to make the dragnet
2459 surveillance conducted by NSA, GCHQ, FRA and others (and confirmed by
2460 the whisleblower Snowden) more expensive for Internet email,
2461 is to deliver all email using SMTP via Tor. Such SMTP option would be
2462 a nice addition to the FreedomBox project if we could send email
2463 between FreedomBox machines without leaking metadata about the emails
2464 to the people peeking on the wire. I
2465 <a href=
"http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/freedombox-discuss/2014-October/006493.html">proposed
2466 this on the FreedomBox project mailing list in October
</a> and got a
2467 lot of useful feedback and suggestions. It also became obvious to me
2468 that this was not a novel idea, as the same idea was tested and
2469 documented by Johannes Berg as early as
2006, and both
2470 <a href=
"https://github.com/pagekite/Mailpile/wiki/SMTorP">the
2471 Mailpile
</a> and
<a href=
"http://dee.su/cables">the Cables
</a> systems
2472 propose a similar method / protocol to pass emails between users.
</p>
2474 <p>To implement such system one need to set up a Tor hidden service
2475 providing the SMTP protocol on port
25, and use email addresses
2476 looking like username@hidden-service-name.onion. With such addresses
2477 the connections to port
25 on hidden-service-name.onion using Tor will
2478 go to the correct SMTP server. To do this, one need to configure the
2479 Tor daemon to provide the hidden service and the mail server to accept
2480 emails for this .onion domain. To learn more about Exim configuration
2481 in Debian and test the design provided by Johannes Berg in his FAQ, I
2482 set out yesterday to create a Debian package for making it trivial to
2483 set up such SMTP over Tor service based on Debian. Getting it to work
2484 were fairly easy, and
2485 <a href=
"https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/exim4-smtorp">the
2486 source code for the Debian package
</a> is available from github. I
2487 plan to move it into Debian if further testing prove this to be a
2488 useful approach.
</p>
2490 <p>If you want to test this, set up a blank Debian machine without any
2491 mail system installed (or run
<tt>apt-get purge exim4-config
</tt> to
2492 get rid of exim4). Install tor, clone the git repository mentioned
2493 above, build the deb and install it on the machine. Next, run
2494 <tt>/usr/lib/exim4-smtorp/setup-exim-hidden-service
</tt> and follow
2495 the instructions to get the service up and running. Restart tor and
2496 exim when it is done, and test mail delivery using swaks like
2499 <p><blockquote><pre>
2500 torsocks swaks --server dutlqrrmjhtfa3vp.onion \
2501 --to fbx@dutlqrrmjhtfa3vp.onion
2502 </pre></blockquote></p>
2504 <p>This will test the SMTP delivery using tor. Replace the email
2505 address with your own address to test your server. :)
</p>
2507 <p>The setup procedure is still to complex, and I hope it can be made
2508 easier and more automatic. Especially the tor setup need more work.
2509 Also, the package include a tor-smtp tool written in C, but its task
2510 should probably be rewritten in some script language to make the deb
2511 architecture independent. It would probably also make the code easier
2512 to review. The tor-smtp tool currently need to listen on a socket for
2513 exim to talk to it and is started using xinetd. It would be better if
2514 no daemon and no socket is needed. I suspect it is possible to get
2515 exim to run a command line tool for delivery instead of talking to a
2516 socket, and hope to figure out how in a future version of this
2519 <p>Until I wipe my test machine, I can be reached using the
2520 <tt>fbx@dutlqrrmjhtfa3vp.onion
</tt> mail address, deliverable over
2527 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/personvern">personvern
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance
</a>.
2532 <div class=
"padding"></div>
2536 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/listadmin__the_quick_way_to_moderate_mailman_lists___nice_free_software.html">listadmin, the quick way to moderate mailman lists - nice free software
</a>
2542 <p>If you ever had to moderate a mailman list, like the ones on
2543 alioth.debian.org, you know the web interface is fairly slow to
2544 operate. First you visit one web page, enter the moderation password
2545 and get a new page shown with a list of all the messages to moderate
2546 and various options for each email address. This take a while for
2547 every list you moderate, and you need to do it regularly to do a good
2548 job as a list moderator. But there is a quick alternative,
2549 <a href=
"http://heim.ifi.uio.no/kjetilho/hacks/#listadmin">the
2550 listadmin program
</a>. It allow you to check lists for new messages
2551 to moderate in a fraction of a second. Here is a test run on two
2552 lists I recently took over:
</p>
2554 <p><blockquote><pre>
2555 % time listadmin xiph
2556 fetching data for pkg-xiph-commits@lists.alioth.debian.org ... nothing in queue
2557 fetching data for pkg-xiph-maint@lists.alioth.debian.org ... nothing in queue
2563 </pre></blockquote></p>
2565 <p>In
1.7 seconds I had checked two mailing lists and confirmed that
2566 there are no message in the moderation queue. Every morning I
2567 currently moderate
68 mailman lists, and it normally take around two
2568 minutes. When I took over the two pkg-xiph lists above a few days
2569 ago, there were
400 emails waiting in the moderator queue. It took me
2570 less than
15 minutes to process them all using the listadmin
2574 <a href=
"https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/listadmin">the listadmin
2575 package
</a> from Debian and create a file
<tt>~/.listadmin.ini
</tt>
2576 with content like this, the moderation task is a breeze:
</p>
2578 <p><blockquote><pre>
2579 username username@example.org
2582 discard_if_reason "Posting restricted to members only. Remove us from your mail list."
2585 adminurl https://{domain}/mailman/admindb/{list}
2586 mailman-list@lists.example.com
2589 other-list@otherserver.example.org
2590 </pre></blockquote></p>
2592 <p>There are other options to set as well. Check the manual page to
2593 learn the details.
</p>
2595 <p>If you are forced to moderate lists on a mailman installation where
2596 the SSL certificate is self signed or not properly signed by a
2597 generally accepted signing authority, you can set a environment
2598 variable when calling listadmin to disable SSL verification:
</p>
2600 <p><blockquote><pre>
2601 PERL_LWP_SSL_VERIFY_HOSTNAME=
0 listadmin
2602 </pre></blockquote></p>
2604 <p>If you want to moderate a subset of the lists you take care of, you
2605 can provide an argument to the listadmin script like I do in the
2606 initial screen dump (the xiph argument). Using an argument, only
2607 lists matching the argument string will be processed. This make it
2608 quick to accept messages if you notice the moderation request in your
2611 <p>Without the listadmin program, I would never be the moderator of
68
2612 mailing lists, as I simply do not have time to spend on that if the
2613 process was any slower. The listadmin program have saved me hours of
2614 time I could spend elsewhere over the years. It truly is nice free
2617 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
2618 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
2619 <b><a href=
"bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
</a></b>.
</p>
2621 <p>Update
2014-
10-
27: Added missing 'username' statement in
2622 configuration example. Also, I've been told that the
2623 PERL_LWP_SSL_VERIFY_HOSTNAME=
0 setting do not work for everyone. Not
2630 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/nice free software">nice free software
</a>.
2635 <div class=
"padding"></div>
2639 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Jessie__PXE_and_automatic_firmware_installation.html">Debian Jessie, PXE and automatic firmware installation
</a>
2645 <p>When PXE installing laptops with Debian, I often run into the
2646 problem that the WiFi card require some firmware to work properly.
2647 And it has been a pain to fix this using preseeding in Debian.
2648 Normally something more is needed. But thanks to
2649 <a href=
"https://packages.qa.debian.org/i/isenkram.html">my isenkram
2650 package
</a> and its recent tasksel extension, it has now become easy
2651 to do this using simple preseeding.
</p>
2653 <p>The isenkram-cli package provide tasksel tasks which will install
2654 firmware for the hardware found in the machine (actually, requested by
2655 the kernel modules for the hardware). (It can also install user space
2656 programs supporting the hardware detected, but that is not the focus
2659 <p>To get this working in the default installation, two preeseding
2660 values are needed. First, the isenkram-cli package must be installed
2661 into the target chroot (aka the hard drive) before tasksel is executed
2662 in the pkgsel step of the debian-installer system. This is done by
2663 preseeding the base-installer/includes debconf value to include the
2664 isenkram-cli package. The package name is next passed to debootstrap
2665 for installation. With the isenkram-cli package in place, tasksel
2666 will automatically use the isenkram tasks to detect hardware specific
2667 packages for the machine being installed and install them, because
2668 isenkram-cli contain tasksel tasks.
</p>
2670 <p>Second, one need to enable the non-free APT repository, because
2671 most firmware unfortunately is non-free. This is done by preseeding
2672 the apt-mirror-setup step. This is unfortunate, but for a lot of
2673 hardware it is the only option in Debian.
</p>
2675 <p>The end result is two lines needed in your preseeding file to get
2676 firmware installed automatically by the installer:
</p>
2678 <p><blockquote><pre>
2679 base-installer base-installer/includes string isenkram-cli
2680 apt-mirror-setup apt-setup/non-free boolean true
2681 </pre></blockquote></p>
2683 <p>The current version of isenkram-cli in testing/jessie will install
2684 both firmware and user space packages when using this method. It also
2685 do not work well, so use version
0.15 or later. Installing both
2686 firmware and user space packages might give you a bit more than you
2687 want, so I decided to split the tasksel task in two, one for firmware
2688 and one for user space programs. The firmware task is enabled by
2689 default, while the one for user space programs is not. This split is
2690 implemented in the package currently in unstable.
</p>
2692 <p>If you decide to give this a go, please let me know (via email) how
2693 this recipe work for you. :)
</p>
2695 <p>So, I bet you are wondering, how can this work. First and
2696 foremost, it work because tasksel is modular, and driven by whatever
2697 files it find in /usr/lib/tasksel/ and /usr/share/tasksel/. So the
2698 isenkram-cli package place two files for tasksel to find. First there
2699 is the task description file (/usr/share/tasksel/descs/isenkram.desc):
</p>
2701 <p><blockquote><pre>
2702 Task: isenkram-packages
2704 Description: Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)
2705 Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific packages are
2707 Test-new-install: show show
2709 Packages: for-current-hardware
2711 Task: isenkram-firmware
2713 Description: Hardware specific firmware packages (autodetected by isenkram)
2714 Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific firmware
2715 packages are proposed.
2716 Test-new-install: mark show
2718 Packages: for-current-hardware-firmware
2719 </pre></blockquote></p>
2721 <p>The key parts are Test-new-install which indicate how the task
2722 should be handled and the Packages line referencing to a script in
2723 /usr/lib/tasksel/packages/. The scripts use other scripts to get a
2724 list of packages to install. The for-current-hardware-firmware script
2725 look like this to list relevant firmware for the machine:
2727 <p><blockquote><pre>
2730 PATH=/usr/sbin:$PATH
2732 isenkram-autoinstall-firmware -l
2733 </pre></blockquote></p>
2735 <p>With those two pieces in place, the firmware is installed by
2736 tasksel during the normal d-i run. :)
</p>
2738 <p>If you want to test what tasksel will install when isenkram-cli is
2739 installed, run
<tt>DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical tasksel --test
2740 --new-install
</tt> to get the list of packages that tasksel would
2743 <p><a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/">Debian Edu
</a> will be
2744 pilots in testing this feature, as isenkram is used there now to
2745 install firmware, replacing the earlier scripts.
</p>
2751 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>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sysadmin">sysadmin
</a>.
2756 <div class=
"padding"></div>
2760 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Ubuntu_used_to_show_the_bread_prizes_at_ICA_Storo.html">Ubuntu used to show the bread prizes at ICA Storo
</a>
2766 <p>Today I came across an unexpected Ubuntu boot screen. Above the
2767 bread shelf on the ICA shop at Storo in Oslo, the grub menu of Ubuntu
2768 with Linux kernel
3.2.0-
23 (ie probably version
12.04 LTS) was stuck
2769 on a screen normally showing the bread types and prizes:
</p>
2771 <p align=
"center"><img width=
"70%" src=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2014-10-04-ubuntu-ica-storo-crop.jpeg"></p>
2773 <p>If it had booted as it was supposed to, I would never had known
2774 about this hidden Linux installation. It is interesting what
2775 <a href=
"http://revealingerrors.com/">errors can reveal
</a>.
</p>
2781 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>.
2786 <div class=
"padding"></div>
2790 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_lsdvd_release_version_0_17_is_ready.html">New lsdvd release version
0.17 is ready
</a>
2796 <p>The
<a href=
"https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/">lsdvd project
</a>
2797 got a new set of developers a few weeks ago, after the original
2798 developer decided to step down and pass the project to fresh blood.
2799 This project is now maintained by Petter Reinholdtsen and Steve
2802 <p>I just wrapped up
2803 <a href=
"https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/mailman/message/32896061/">a
2804 new lsdvd release
</a>, available in git or from
2805 <a href=
"https://sourceforge.net/projects/lsdvd/files/lsdvd/">the
2806 download page
</a>. This is the changelog dated
2014-
10-
03 for version
2811 <li>Ignore 'phantom' audio, subtitle tracks
</li>
2812 <li>Check for garbage in the program chains, which indicate that a track is
2813 non-existant, to work around additional copy protection
</li>
2814 <li>Fix displaying content type for audio tracks, subtitles
</li>
2815 <li>Fix pallete display of first entry
</li>
2816 <li>Fix include orders
</li>
2817 <li>Ignore read errors in titles that would not be displayed anyway
</li>
2818 <li>Fix the chapter count
</li>
2819 <li>Make sure the array size and the array limit used when initialising
2820 the palette size is the same.
</li>
2821 <li>Fix array printing.
</li>
2822 <li>Correct subsecond calculations.
</li>
2823 <li>Add sector information to the output format.
</li>
2824 <li>Clean up code to be closer to ANSI C and compile without warnings
2825 with more GCC compiler warnings.
</li>
2829 <p>This change bring together patches for lsdvd in use in various
2830 Linux and Unix distributions, as well as patches submitted to the
2831 project the last nine years. Please check it out. :)
</p>
2837 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/lsdvd">lsdvd
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia
</a>.
2842 <div class=
"padding"></div>
2846 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_test_Debian_Edu_Jessie_despite_some_fatal_problems_with_the_installer.html">How to test Debian Edu Jessie despite some fatal problems with the installer
</a>
2852 <p>The
<a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
2853 project
</a> provide a Linux solution for schools, including a
2854 powerful desktop with education software, a central server providing
2855 web pages, user database, user home directories, central login and PXE
2856 boot of both clients without disk and the installation to install Debian
2857 Edu on machines with disk (and a few other services perhaps to small
2858 to mention here). We in the Debian Edu team are currently working on
2859 the Jessie based version, trying to get everything in shape before the
2860 freeze, to avoid having to maintain our own package repository in the
2862 <a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Status/Jessie">current
2863 status
</a> can be seen on the Debian wiki, and there is still heaps of
2864 work left. Some fatal problems block testing, breaking the installer,
2865 but it is possible to work around these to get anyway. Here is a
2866 recipe on how to get the installation limping along.
</p>
2868 <p>First, download the test ISO via
2869 <a href=
"ftp://ftp.skolelinux.no/cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-1.iso">ftp
</a>,
2870 <a href=
"http://ftp.skolelinux.no/cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-1.iso">http
</a>
2872 ftp.skolelinux.org::cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-
1.iso).
2873 The ISO build was broken on Tuesday, so we do not get a new ISO every
2874 12 hours or so, but thankfully the ISO we already got we are able to
2875 install with some tweaking.
</p>
2877 <p>When you get to the Debian Edu profile question, go to tty2
2878 (use Alt-Ctrl-F2), run
</p>
2880 <p><blockquote><pre>
2881 nano /usr/bin/edu-eatmydata-install
2882 </pre></blockquote></p>
2884 <p>and add 'exit
0' as the second line, disabling the eatmydata
2885 optimization. Return to the installation, select the profile you want
2886 and continue. Without this change, exim4-config will fail to install
2887 due to a known bug in eatmydata.
</p>
2889 <p>When you get the grub question at the end, answer /dev/sda (or if
2890 this do not work, figure out what your correct value would be. All my
2891 test machines need /dev/sda, so I have no advice if it do not fit
2894 <p>If you installed a profile including a graphical desktop, log in as
2895 root after the initial boot from hard drive, and install the
2896 education-desktop-XXX metapackage. XXX can be kde, gnome, lxde, xfce
2897 or mate. If you want several desktop options, install more than one
2898 metapackage. Once this is done, reboot and you should have a working
2899 graphical login screen. This workaround should no longer be needed
2900 once the education-tasks package version
1.801 enter testing in two
2903 <p>I believe the ISO build will start working on two days when the new
2904 tasksel package enter testing and Steve McIntyre get a chance to
2905 update the debian-cd git repository. The eatmydata, grub and desktop
2906 issues are already fixed in unstable and testing, and should show up
2907 on the ISO as soon as the ISO build start working again. Well the
2908 eatmydata optimization is really just disabled. The proper fix
2909 require an upload by the eatmydata maintainer applying the patch
2910 provided in bug
<a href=
"https://bugs.debian.org/702711">#
702711</a>.
2911 The rest have proper fixes in unstable.
</p>
2913 <p>I hope this get you going with the installation testing, as we are
2914 quickly running out of time trying to get our Jessie based
2915 installation ready before the distribution freeze in a month.
</p>
2921 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>.
2926 <div class=
"padding"></div>
2930 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Suddenly_I_am_the_new_upstream_of_the_lsdvd_command_line_tool.html">Suddenly I am the new upstream of the lsdvd command line tool
</a>
2936 <p>I use the
<a href=
"https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/">lsdvd tool
</a>
2937 to handle my fairly large DVD collection. It is a nice command line
2938 tool to get details about a DVD, like title, tracks, track length,
2939 etc, in XML, Perl or human readable format. But lsdvd have not seen
2940 any new development since
2006 and had a few irritating bugs affecting
2941 its use with some DVDs. Upstream seemed to be dead, and in January I
2942 sent a small probe asking for a version control repository for the
2943 project, without any reply. But I use it regularly and would like to
2944 get
<a href=
"https://packages.qa.debian.org/lsdvd">an updated version
2945 into Debian
</a>. So two weeks ago I tried harder to get in touch with
2946 the project admin, and after getting a reply from him explaining that
2947 he was no longer interested in the project, I asked if I could take
2948 over. And yesterday, I became project admin.
</p>
2950 <p>I've been in touch with a Gentoo developer and the Debian
2951 maintainer interested in joining forces to maintain the upstream
2952 project, and I hope we can get a new release out fairly quickly,
2953 collecting the patches spread around on the internet into on place.
2954 I've added the relevant Debian patches to the freshly created git
2955 repository, and expect the Gentoo patches to make it too. If you got
2956 a DVD collection and care about command line tools, check out
2957 <a href=
"https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/git/ci/master/tree/">the git source
</a> and join
2958 <a href=
"https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/mailman/">the project mailing
2965 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/lsdvd">lsdvd
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia
</a>.
2970 <div class=
"padding"></div>
2974 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Speeding_up_the_Debian_installer_using_eatmydata_and_dpkg_divert.html">Speeding up the Debian installer using eatmydata and dpkg-divert
</a>
2980 <p>The
<a href=
"https://www.debian.org/">Debian
</a> installer could be
2981 a lot quicker. When we install more than
2000 packages in
2982 <a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux / Debian Edu
</a> using
2983 tasksel in the installer, unpacking the binary packages take forever.
2984 A part of the slow I/O issue was discussed in
2985 <a href=
"https://bugs.debian.org/613428">bug #
613428</a> about too
2986 much file system sync-ing done by dpkg, which is the package
2987 responsible for unpacking the binary packages. Other parts (like code
2988 executed by postinst scripts) might also sync to disk during
2989 installation. All this sync-ing to disk do not really make sense to
2990 me. If the machine crash half-way through, I start over, I do not try
2991 to salvage the half installed system. So the failure sync-ing is
2992 supposed to protect against, hardware or system crash, is not really
2993 relevant while the installer is running.
</p>
2995 <p>A few days ago, I thought of a way to get rid of all the file
2996 system sync()-ing in a fairly non-intrusive way, without the need to
2997 change the code in several packages. The idea is not new, but I have
2998 not heard anyone propose the approach using dpkg-divert before. It
2999 depend on the small and clever package
3000 <a href=
"https://packages.qa.debian.org/eatmydata">eatmydata
</a>, which
3001 uses LD_PRELOAD to replace the system functions for syncing data to
3002 disk with functions doing nothing, thus allowing programs to live
3003 dangerous while speeding up disk I/O significantly. Instead of
3004 modifying the implementation of dpkg, apt and tasksel (which are the
3005 packages responsible for selecting, fetching and installing packages),
3006 it occurred to me that we could just divert the programs away, replace
3007 them with a simple shell wrapper calling
3008 "eatmydata
$program
$@", to get the same effect.
3009 Two days ago I decided to test the idea, and wrapped up a simple
3010 implementation for the Debian Edu udeb.
</p>
3012 <p>The effect was stunning. In my first test it reduced the running
3013 time of the pkgsel step (installing tasks) from
64 to less than
44
3014 minutes (
20 minutes shaved off the installation) on an old Dell
3015 Latitude D505 machine. I am not quite sure what the optimised time
3016 would have been, as I messed up the testing a bit, causing the debconf
3017 priority to get low enough for two questions to pop up during
3018 installation. As soon as I saw the questions I moved the installation
3019 along, but do not know how long the question were holding up the
3020 installation. I did some more measurements using Debian Edu Jessie,
3021 and got these results. The time measured is the time stamp in
3022 /var/log/syslog between the "pkgsel: starting tasksel" and the
3023 "pkgsel: finishing up" lines, if you want to do the same measurement
3024 yourself. In Debian Edu, the tasksel dialog do not show up, and the
3025 timing thus do not depend on how quickly the user handle the tasksel
3031 <th>Machine/setup
</th>
3032 <th>Original tasksel
</th>
3033 <th>Optimised tasksel
</th>
3038 <td>Latitude D505 Main+LTSP LXDE
</td>
3039 <td>64 min (
07:
46-
08:
50)
</td>
3040 <td><44 min (
11:
27-
12:
11)
</td>
3041 <td>>20 min
18%
</td>
3045 <td>Latitude D505 Roaming LXDE
</td>
3046 <td>57 min (
08:
48-
09:
45)
</td>
3047 <td>34 min (
07:
43-
08:
17)
</td>
3052 <td>Latitude D505 Minimal
</td>
3053 <td>22 min (
10:
37-
10:
59)
</td>
3054 <td>11 min (
11:
16-
11:
27)
</td>
3059 <td>Thinkpad X200 Minimal
</td>
3060 <td>6 min (
08:
19-
08:
25)
</td>
3061 <td>4 min (
08:
04-
08:
08)
</td>
3066 <td>Thinkpad X200 Roaming KDE
</td>
3067 <td>19 min (
09:
21-
09:
40)
</td>
3068 <td>15 min (
10:
25-
10:
40)
</td>
3074 <p>The test is done using a netinst ISO on a USB stick, so some of the
3075 time is spent downloading packages. The connection to the Internet
3076 was
100Mbit/s during testing, so downloading should not be a
3077 significant factor in the measurement. Download typically took a few
3078 seconds to a few minutes, depending on the amount of packages being
3081 <p>The speedup is implemented by using two hooks in
3082 <a href=
"https://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/">Debian
3083 Installer
</a>, the pre-pkgsel.d hook to set up the diverts, and the
3084 finish-install.d hook to remove the divert at the end of the
3085 installation. I picked the pre-pkgsel.d hook instead of the
3086 post-base-installer.d hook because I test using an ISO without the
3087 eatmydata package included, and the post-base-installer.d hook in
3088 Debian Edu can only operate on packages included in the ISO. The
3089 negative effect of this is that I am unable to activate this
3090 optimization for the kernel installation step in d-i. If the code is
3091 moved to the post-base-installer.d hook, the speedup would be larger
3092 for the entire installation.
</p>
3094 <p>I've implemented this in the
3095 <a href=
"https://packages.qa.debian.org/debian-edu-install">debian-edu-install
</a>
3096 git repository, and plan to provide the optimization as part of the
3097 Debian Edu installation. If you want to test this yourself, you can
3098 create two files in the installer (or in an udeb). One shell script
3099 need do go into /usr/lib/pre-pkgsel.d/, with content like this:
</p>
3101 <p><blockquote><pre>
3104 . /usr/share/debconf/confmodule
3106 logger -t my-pkgsel "info: $*"
3109 logger -t my-pkgsel "error: $*"
3111 override_install() {
3112 apt-install eatmydata || true
3113 if [ -x /target/usr/bin/eatmydata ] ; then
3114 for bin in dpkg apt-get aptitude tasksel ; do
3116 # Test that the file exist and have not been diverted already.
3117 if [ -f /target$file ] ; then
3118 info "diverting $file using eatmydata"
3119 printf "#!/bin/sh\neatmydata $bin.distrib \"\$@\"\n" \
3121 chmod
755 /target$file.edu
3122 in-target dpkg-divert --package debian-edu-config \
3123 --rename --quiet --add $file
3124 ln -sf ./$bin.edu /target$file
3126 error "unable to divert $file, as it is missing."
3130 error "unable to find /usr/bin/eatmydata after installing the eatmydata pacage"
3135 </pre></blockquote></p>
3137 <p>To clean up, another shell script should go into
3138 /usr/lib/finish-install.d/ with code like this:
3140 <p><blockquote><pre>
3142 . /usr/share/debconf/confmodule
3144 logger -t my-finish-install "error: $@"
3146 remove_install_override() {
3147 for bin in dpkg apt-get aptitude tasksel ; do
3149 if [ -x /target$file.edu ] ; then
3151 in-target dpkg-divert --package debian-edu-config \
3152 --rename --quiet --remove $file
3155 error "Missing divert for $file."
3158 sync # Flush file buffers before continuing
3161 remove_install_override
3162 </pre></blockquote></p>
3164 <p>In Debian Edu, I placed both code fragments in a separate script
3165 edu-eatmydata-install and call it from the pre-pkgsel.d and
3166 finish-install.d scripts.
</p>
3168 <p>By now you might ask if this change should get into the normal
3169 Debian installer too? I suspect it should, but am not sure the
3170 current debian-installer coordinators find it useful enough. It also
3171 depend on the side effects of the change. I'm not aware of any, but I
3172 guess we will see if the change is safe after some more testing.
3173 Perhaps there is some package in Debian depending on sync() and
3174 fsync() having effect? Perhaps it should go into its own udeb, to
3175 allow those of us wanting to enable it to do so without affecting
3178 <p>Update
2014-
09-
24: Since a few days ago, enabling this optimization
3179 will break installation of all programs using gnutls because of
3180 <a href=
"https://bugs.debian.org/702711">bug #
702711</a>. An updated
3181 eatmydata package in Debian will solve it.
</p>
3183 <p>Update
2014-
10-
17: The bug mentioned above is fixed in testing and
3184 the optimization work again. And I have discovered that the
3185 dpkg-divert trick is not really needed and implemented a slightly
3186 simpler approach as part of the debian-edu-install package. See
3187 tools/edu-eatmydata-install in the source package.
</p>
3189 <p>Update
2014-
11-
11: Unfortunately, a new
3190 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/765738">bug #
765738</a> in eatmydata only
3191 triggering on i386 made it into testing, and broke this installation
3192 optimization again. If
<a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/768893">unblock
3193 request
768893</a> is accepted, it should be working again.
</p>
3199 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>.
3204 <div class=
"padding"></div>
3208 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Good_bye_subkeys_pgp_net__welcome_pool_sks_keyservers_net.html">Good bye subkeys.pgp.net, welcome pool.sks-keyservers.net
</a>
3214 <p>Yesterday, I had the pleasure of attending a talk with the
3215 <a href=
"http://www.nuug.no/">Norwegian Unix User Group
</a> about
3216 <a href=
"http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20140909-sks-keyservers/">the
3217 OpenPGP keyserver pool sks-keyservers.net
</a>, and was very happy to
3218 learn that there is a large set of publicly available key servers to
3219 use when looking for peoples public key. So far I have used
3220 subkeys.pgp.net, and some times wwwkeys.nl.pgp.net when the former
3221 were misbehaving, but those days are ended. The servers I have used
3222 up until yesterday have been slow and some times unavailable. I hope
3223 those problems are gone now.
</p>
3225 <p>Behind the round robin DNS entry of the
3226 <a href=
"https://sks-keyservers.net/">sks-keyservers.net
</a> service
3227 there is a pool of more than
100 keyservers which are checked every
3228 day to ensure they are well connected and up to date. It must be
3229 better than what I have used so far. :)
</p>
3231 <p>Yesterdays speaker told me that the service is the default
3232 keyserver provided by the default configuration in GnuPG, but this do
3233 not seem to be used in Debian. Perhaps it should?
</p>
3235 <p>Anyway, I've updated my ~/.gnupg/options file to now include this
3238 <p><blockquote><pre>
3239 keyserver pool.sks-keyservers.net
3240 </pre></blockquote></p>
3242 <p>With GnuPG version
2 one can also locate the keyserver using SRV
3243 entries in DNS. Just for fun, I did just that at work, so now every
3244 user of GnuPG at the University of Oslo should find a OpenGPG
3245 keyserver automatically should their need it:
</p>
3247 <p><blockquote><pre>
3248 % host -t srv _pgpkey-http._tcp.uio.no
3249 _pgpkey-http._tcp.uio.no has SRV record
0 100 11371 pool.sks-keyservers.net.
3251 </pre></blockquote></p>
3254 <a href=
"http://ietfreport.isoc.org/idref/draft-shaw-openpgp-hkp/">the
3255 HKP lookup protocol
</a> supported finding signature paths, I would be
3256 very happy. It can look up a given key or search for a user ID, but I
3257 normally do not want that, but to find a trust path from my key to
3258 another key. Given a user ID or key ID, I would like to find (and
3259 download) the keys representing a signature path from my key to the
3260 key in question, to be able to get a trust path between the two keys.
3261 This is as far as I can tell not possible today. Perhaps something
3262 for a future version of the protocol?
</p>
3268 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/personvern">personvern
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet
</a>.
3273 <div class=
"padding"></div>
3277 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/From_English_wiki_to_translated_PDF_and_epub_via_Docbook.html">From English wiki to translated PDF and epub via Docbook
</a>
3283 <p>The
<a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
3284 project
</a> provide an instruction manual for teachers, system
3285 administrators and other users that contain useful tips for setting up
3286 and maintaining a Debian Edu installation. This text is about how the
3287 text processing of this manual is handled in the project.
</p>
3289 <p>One goal of the project is to provide information in the native
3290 language of its users, and for this we need to handle translations.
3291 But we also want to make sure each language contain the same
3292 information, so for this we need a good way to keep the translations
3293 in sync. And we want it to be easy for our users to improve the
3294 documentation, avoiding the need to learn special formats or tools to
3295 contribute, and the obvious way to do this is to make it possible to
3296 edit the documentation using a web browser. We also want it to be
3297 easy for translators to keep the translation up to date, and give them
3298 help in figuring out what need to be translated. Here is the list of
3299 tools and the process we have found trying to reach all these
3302 <p>We maintain the authoritative source of our manual in the
3303 <a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/">Debian
3304 wiki
</a>, as several wiki pages written in English. It consist of one
3305 front page with references to the different chapters, several pages
3306 for each chapter, and finally one "collection page" gluing all the
3307 chapters together into one large web page (aka
3308 <a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/AllInOne">the
3309 AllInOne page
</a>). The AllInOne page is the one used for further
3310 processing and translations. Thanks to the fact that the
3311 <a href=
"http://moinmo.in/">MoinMoin
</a> installation on
3312 wiki.debian.org support exporting pages in
3313 <a href=
"http://www.docbook.org/">the Docbook format
</a>, we can fetch
3314 the list of pages to export using the raw version of the AllInOne
3315 page, loop over each of them to generate a Docbook XML version of the
3316 manual. This process also download images and transform image
3317 references to use the locally downloaded images. The generated
3318 Docbook XML files are slightly broken, so some post-processing is done
3319 using the
<tt>documentation/scripts/get_manual
</tt> program, and the
3320 result is a nice Docbook XML file (debian-edu-wheezy-manual.xml) and
3321 a handfull of images. The XML file can now be used to generate PDF, HTML
3322 and epub versions of the English manual. This is the basic step of
3323 our process, making PDF (using dblatex), HTML (using xsltproc) and
3324 epub (using dbtoepub) version from Docbook XML, and the resulting files
3325 are placed in the debian-edu-doc-en binary package.
</p>
3327 <p>But English documentation is not enough for us. We want translated
3328 documentation too, and we want to make it easy for translators to
3329 track the English original. For this we use the
3330 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/p/poxml.html">poxml
</a> package,
3331 which allow us to transform the English Docbook XML file into a
3332 translation file (a .pot file), usable with the normal gettext based
3333 translation tools used by those translating free software. The pot
3334 file is used to create and maintain translation files (several .po
3335 files), which the translations update with the native language
3336 translations of all titles, paragraphs and blocks of text in the
3337 original. The next step is combining the original English Docbook XML
3338 and the translation file (say debian-edu-wheezy-manual.nb.po), to
3339 create a translated Docbook XML file (in this case
3340 debian-edu-wheezy-manual.nb.xml). This translated (or partly
3341 translated, if the translation is not complete) Docbook XML file can
3342 then be used like the original to create a PDF, HTML and epub version
3343 of the documentation.
</p>
3345 <p>The translators use different tools to edit the .po files. We
3347 <a href=
"http://www.kde.org/applications/development/lokalize/">lokalize
</a>,
3348 while some use emacs and vi, others can use web based editors like
3349 <a href=
"http://pootle.translatehouse.org/">Poodle
</a> or
3350 <a href=
"https://www.transifex.com/">Transifex
</a>. All we care about
3351 is where the .po file end up, in our git repository. Updated
3352 translations can either be committed directly to git, or submitted as
3353 <a href=
"https://bugs.debian.org/src:debian-edu-doc">bug reports
3354 against the debian-edu-doc package
</a>.
</p>
3356 <p>One challenge is images, which both might need to be translated (if
3357 they show translated user applications), and are needed in different
3358 formats when creating PDF and HTML versions (epub is a HTML version in
3359 this regard). For this we transform the original PNG images to the
3360 needed density and format during build, and have a way to provide
3361 translated images by storing translated versions in
3362 images/$LANGUAGECODE/. I am a bit unsure about the details here. The
3363 package maintainers know more.
</p>
3365 <p>If you wonder what the result look like, we provide
3366 <a href=
"http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/">the content
3367 of the documentation packages on the web
</a>. See for example the
3368 <a href=
"http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/it/debian-edu-wheezy-manual.pdf">Italian
3369 PDF version
</a> or the
3370 <a href=
"http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/de/debian-edu-wheezy-manual.html">German
3371 HTML version
</a>. We do not yet build the epub version by default,
3372 but perhaps it will be done in the future.
</p>
3374 <p>To learn more, check out
3375 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/debian-edu-doc.html">the
3376 debian-edu-doc package
</a>,
3377 <a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/">the
3378 manual on the wiki
</a> and
3379 <a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/Translations">the
3380 translation instructions
</a> in the manual.
</p>
3386 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/docbook">docbook
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
3391 <div class=
"padding"></div>
3395 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Install_hardware_dependent_packages_using_tasksel__Isenkram_0_7_.html">Install hardware dependent packages using tasksel (Isenkram
0.7)
</a>
3401 <p>It would be nice if it was easier in Debian to get all the hardware
3402 related packages relevant for the computer installed automatically.
3403 So I implemented one, using
3404 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">my Isenkram
3405 package
</a>. To use it, install the tasksel and isenkram packages and
3406 run tasksel as user root. You should be presented with a new option,
3407 "Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)". When you
3408 select it, tasksel will install the packages isenkram claim is fit for
3409 the current hardware, hot pluggable or not.
<p>
3411 <p>The implementation is in two files, one is the tasksel menu entry
3412 description, and the other is the script used to extract the list of
3413 packages to install. The first part is in
3414 <tt>/usr/share/tasksel/descs/isenkram.desc
</tt> and look like
3417 <p><blockquote><pre>
3420 Description: Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)
3421 Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific packages are
3423 Test-new-install: mark show
3425 Packages: for-current-hardware
3426 </pre></blockquote></p>
3428 <p>The second part is in
3429 <tt>/usr/lib/tasksel/packages/for-current-hardware
</tt> and look like
3432 <p><blockquote><pre>
3437 isenkram-autoinstall-firmware -l
3439 </pre></blockquote></p>
3441 <p>All in all, a very short and simple implementation making it
3442 trivial to install the hardware dependent package we all may want to
3443 have installed on our machines. I've not been able to find a way to
3444 get tasksel to tell you exactly which packages it plan to install
3445 before doing the installation. So if you are curious or careful,
3446 check the output from the isenkram-* command line tools first.
</p>
3448 <p>The information about which packages are handling which hardware is
3449 fetched either from the isenkram package itself in
3450 /usr/share/isenkram/, from git.debian.org or from the APT package
3451 database (using the Modaliases header). The APT package database
3452 parsing have caused a nasty resource leak in the isenkram daemon (bugs
3453 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/719837">#
719837</a> and
3454 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/730704">#
730704</a>). The cause is in
3455 the python-apt code (bug
3456 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/745487">#
745487</a>), but using a
3457 workaround I was able to get rid of the file descriptor leak and
3458 reduce the memory leak from ~
30 MiB per hardware detection down to
3459 around
2 MiB per hardware detection. It should make the desktop
3460 daemon a lot more useful. The fix is in version
0.7 uploaded to
3463 <p>I believe the current way of mapping hardware to packages in
3464 Isenkram is is a good draft, but in the future I expect isenkram to
3465 use the AppStream data source for this. A proposal for getting proper
3466 AppStream support into Debian is floating around as
3467 <a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/DEP-11">DEP-
11</a>, and
3468 <a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/SummerOfCode2014/Projects#SummerOfCode2014.2FProjects.2FAppStreamDEP11Implementation.AppStream.2FDEP-11_for_the_Debian_Archive">GSoC
3469 project
</a> will take place this summer to improve the situation. I
3470 look forward to seeing the result, and welcome patches for isenkram to
3471 start using the information when it is ready.
</p>
3473 <p>If you want your package to map to some specific hardware, either
3474 add a "Xb-Modaliases" header to your control file like I did in
3475 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/pymissile">the pymissile
3476 package
</a> or submit a bug report with the details to the isenkram
3478 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram/">all my
3479 blog posts tagged isenkram
</a> for details on the notation. I expect
3480 the information will be migrated to AppStream eventually, but for the
3481 moment I got no better place to store it.
</p>
3487 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>.
3492 <div class=
"padding"></div>
3496 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/FreedomBox_milestone___all_packages_now_in_Debian_Sid.html">FreedomBox milestone - all packages now in Debian Sid
</a>
3502 <p>The
<a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">Freedombox
3503 project
</a> is working on providing the software and hardware to make
3504 it easy for non-technical people to host their data and communication
3505 at home, and being able to communicate with their friends and family
3506 encrypted and away from prying eyes. It is still going strong, and
3507 today a major mile stone was reached.
</p>
3509 <p>Today, the last of the packages currently used by the project to
3510 created the system images were accepted into Debian Unstable. It was
3511 the freedombox-setup package, which is used to configure the images
3512 during build and on the first boot. Now all one need to get going is
3513 the build code from the freedom-maker git repository and packages from
3514 Debian. And once the freedombox-setup package enter testing, we can
3515 build everything directly from Debian. :)
</p>
3517 <p>Some key packages used by Freedombox are
3518 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/freedombox-setup">freedombox-setup
</a>,
3519 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/plinth">plinth
</a>,
3520 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/pagekite">pagekite
</a>,
3521 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/tor">tor
</a>,
3522 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/privoxy">privoxy
</a>,
3523 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/owncloud">owncloud
</a> and
3524 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/dnsmasq">dnsmasq
</a>. There
3525 are plans to integrate more packages into the setup. User
3526 documentation is maintained on the Debian wiki. Please
3527 <a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/Manual/Jessie">check out
3528 the manual
</a> and help us improve it.
</p>
3530 <p>To test for yourself and create boot images with the FreedomBox
3531 setup, run this on a Debian machine using a user with sudo rights to
3535 sudo apt-get install git vmdebootstrap mercurial python-docutils \
3536 mktorrent extlinux virtualbox qemu-user-static binfmt-support \
3538 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/freedombox/freedom-maker.git \
3540 make -C freedom-maker dreamplug-image raspberry-image virtualbox-image
3543 <p>Root access is needed to run debootstrap and mount loopback
3544 devices. See the README in the freedom-maker git repo for more
3545 details on the build. If you do not want all three images, trim the
3546 make line. Note that the virtualbox-image target is not really
3547 virtualbox specific. It create a x86 image usable in kvm, qemu,
3548 vmware and any other x86 virtual machine environment. You might need
3549 the version of vmdebootstrap in Jessie to get the build working, as it
3550 include fixes for a race condition with kpartx.
</p>
3552 <p>If you instead want to install using a Debian CD and the preseed
3553 method, boot a Debian Wheezy ISO and use this boot argument to load
3554 the preseed values:
</p>
3557 url=
<a href=
"http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat
</a>
3560 <p>I have not tested it myself the last few weeks, so I do not know if
3563 <p>If you wonder how to help, one task you could look at is using
3564 systemd as the boot system. It will become the default for Linux in
3565 Jessie, so we need to make sure it is usable on the Freedombox. I did
3566 a simple test a few weeks ago, and noticed dnsmasq failed to start
3567 during boot when using systemd. I suspect there are other problems
3568 too. :) To detect problems, there is a test suite included, which can
3569 be run from the plinth web interface.
</p>
3571 <p>Give it a go and let us know how it goes on the mailing list, and help
3572 us get the new release published. :) Please join us on
3573 <a href=
"irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC (#freedombox on
3574 irc.debian.org)
</a> and
3575 <a href=
"http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
3576 mailing list
</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.
</p>
3582 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>.
3587 <div class=
"padding"></div>
3591 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/S3QL__a_locally_mounted_cloud_file_system___nice_free_software.html">S3QL, a locally mounted cloud file system - nice free software
</a>
3597 <p>For a while now, I have been looking for a sensible offsite backup
3598 solution for use at home. My requirements are simple, it must be
3599 cheap and locally encrypted (in other words, I keep the encryption
3600 keys, the storage provider do not have access to my private files).
3601 One idea me and my friends had many years ago, before the cloud
3602 storage providers showed up, was to use Google mail as storage,
3603 writing a Linux block device storing blocks as emails in the mail
3604 service provided by Google, and thus get heaps of free space. On top
3605 of this one can add encryption, RAID and volume management to have
3606 lots of (fairly slow, I admit that) cheap and encrypted storage. But
3607 I never found time to implement such system. But the last few weeks I
3608 have looked at a system called
3609 <a href=
"https://bitbucket.org/nikratio/s3ql/">S3QL
</a>, a locally
3610 mounted network backed file system with the features I need.
</p>
3612 <p>S3QL is a fuse file system with a local cache and cloud storage,
3613 handling several different storage providers, any with Amazon S3,
3614 Google Drive or OpenStack API. There are heaps of such storage
3615 providers. S3QL can also use a local directory as storage, which
3616 combined with sshfs allow for file storage on any ssh server. S3QL
3617 include support for encryption, compression, de-duplication, snapshots
3618 and immutable file systems, allowing me to mount the remote storage as
3619 a local mount point, look at and use the files as if they were local,
3620 while the content is stored in the cloud as well. This allow me to
3621 have a backup that should survive fire. The file system can not be
3622 shared between several machines at the same time, as only one can
3623 mount it at the time, but any machine with the encryption key and
3624 access to the storage service can mount it if it is unmounted.
</p>
3626 <p>It is simple to use. I'm using it on Debian Wheezy, where the
3627 package is included already. So to get started, run
<tt>apt-get
3628 install s3ql
</tt>. Next, pick a storage provider. I ended up picking
3629 Greenqloud, after reading their nice recipe on
3630 <a href=
"https://greenqloud.zendesk.com/entries/44611757-How-To-Use-S3QL-to-mount-a-StorageQloud-bucket-on-Debian-Wheezy">how
3631 to use S3QL with their Amazon S3 service
</a>, because I trust the laws
3632 in Iceland more than those in USA when it come to keeping my personal
3633 data safe and private, and thus would rather spend money on a company
3634 in Iceland. Another nice recipe is available from the article
3635 <a href=
"http://www.admin-magazine.com/HPC/Articles/HPC-Cloud-Storage">S3QL
3636 Filesystem for HPC Storage
</a> by Jeff Layton in the HPC section of
3637 Admin magazine. When the provider is picked, figure out how to get
3638 the API key needed to connect to the storage API. With Greencloud,
3639 the key did not show up until I had added payment details to my
3642 <p>Armed with the API access details, it is time to create the file
3643 system. First, create a new bucket in the cloud. This bucket is the
3644 file system storage area. I picked a bucket name reflecting the
3645 machine that was going to store data there, but any name will do.
3646 I'll refer to it as
<tt>bucket-name
</tt> below. In addition, one need
3647 the API login and password, and a locally created password. Store it
3648 all in ~root/.s3ql/authinfo2 like this:
3650 <p><blockquote><pre>
3652 storage-url: s3c://s.greenqloud.com:
443/bucket-name
3653 backend-login: API-login
3654 backend-password: API-password
3655 fs-passphrase: local-password
3656 </pre></blockquote></p>
3658 <p>I create my local passphrase using
<tt>pwget
50</tt> or similar,
3659 but any sensible way to create a fairly random password should do it.
3660 Armed with these details, it is now time to run mkfs, entering the API
3661 details and password to create it:
</p>
3663 <p><blockquote><pre>
3664 # mkdir -m
700 /var/lib/s3ql-cache
3665 # mkfs.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
3666 --ssl s3c://s.greenqloud.com:
443/bucket-name
3667 Enter backend login:
3668 Enter backend password:
3669 Before using S3QL, make sure to read the user's guide, especially
3670 the 'Important Rules to Avoid Loosing Data' section.
3671 Enter encryption password:
3672 Confirm encryption password:
3673 Generating random encryption key...
3674 Creating metadata tables...
3684 Compressing and uploading metadata...
3685 Wrote
0.00 MB of compressed metadata.
3686 #
</pre></blockquote></p>
3688 <p>The next step is mounting the file system to make the storage available.
3690 <p><blockquote><pre>
3691 # mount.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
3692 --ssl --allow-root s3c://s.greenqloud.com:
443/bucket-name /s3ql
3693 Using
4 upload threads.
3694 Downloading and decompressing metadata...
3704 Mounting filesystem...
3706 Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
3707 s3c://s.greenqloud.com:
443/bucket-name
1.0T
0 1.0T
0% /s3ql
3709 </pre></blockquote></p>
3711 <p>The file system is now ready for use. I use rsync to store my
3712 backups in it, and as the metadata used by rsync is downloaded at
3713 mount time, no network traffic (and storage cost) is triggered by
3714 running rsync. To unmount, one should not use the normal umount
3715 command, as this will not flush the cache to the cloud storage, but
3716 instead running the umount.s3ql command like this:
3718 <p><blockquote><pre>
3721 </pre></blockquote></p>
3723 <p>There is a fsck command available to check the file system and
3724 correct any problems detected. This can be used if the local server
3725 crashes while the file system is mounted, to reset the "already
3726 mounted" flag. This is what it look like when processing a working
3729 <p><blockquote><pre>
3730 # fsck.s3ql --force --ssl s3c://s.greenqloud.com:
443/bucket-name
3731 Using cached metadata.
3732 File system seems clean, checking anyway.
3733 Checking DB integrity...
3734 Creating temporary extra indices...
3735 Checking lost+found...
3736 Checking cached objects...
3737 Checking names (refcounts)...
3738 Checking contents (names)...
3739 Checking contents (inodes)...
3740 Checking contents (parent inodes)...
3741 Checking objects (reference counts)...
3742 Checking objects (backend)...
3743 ..processed
5000 objects so far..
3744 ..processed
10000 objects so far..
3745 ..processed
15000 objects so far..
3746 Checking objects (sizes)...
3747 Checking blocks (referenced objects)...
3748 Checking blocks (refcounts)...
3749 Checking inode-block mapping (blocks)...
3750 Checking inode-block mapping (inodes)...
3751 Checking inodes (refcounts)...
3752 Checking inodes (sizes)...
3753 Checking extended attributes (names)...
3754 Checking extended attributes (inodes)...
3755 Checking symlinks (inodes)...
3756 Checking directory reachability...
3757 Checking unix conventions...
3758 Checking referential integrity...
3759 Dropping temporary indices...
3760 Backing up old metadata...
3770 Compressing and uploading metadata...
3771 Wrote
0.89 MB of compressed metadata.
3773 </pre></blockquote></p>
3775 <p>Thanks to the cache, working on files that fit in the cache is very
3776 quick, about the same speed as local file access. Uploading large
3777 amount of data is to me limited by the bandwidth out of and into my
3778 house. Uploading
685 MiB with a
100 MiB cache gave me
305 kiB/s,
3779 which is very close to my upload speed, and downloading the same
3780 Debian installation ISO gave me
610 kiB/s, close to my download speed.
3781 Both were measured using
<tt>dd
</tt>. So for me, the bottleneck is my
3782 network, not the file system code. I do not know what a good cache
3783 size would be, but suspect that the cache should e larger than your
3786 <p>I mentioned that only one machine can mount the file system at the
3787 time. If another machine try, it is told that the file system is
3790 <p><blockquote><pre>
3791 # mount.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
3792 --ssl --allow-root s3c://s.greenqloud.com:
443/bucket-name /s3ql
3793 Using
8 upload threads.
3794 Backend reports that fs is still mounted elsewhere, aborting.
3796 </pre></blockquote></p>
3798 <p>The file content is uploaded when the cache is full, while the
3799 metadata is uploaded once every
24 hour by default. To ensure the
3800 file system content is flushed to the cloud, one can either umount the
3801 file system, or ask S3QL to flush the cache and metadata using
3804 <p><blockquote><pre>
3805 # s3qlctrl upload-meta /s3ql
3806 # s3qlctrl flushcache /s3ql
3808 </pre></blockquote></p>
3810 <p>If you are curious about how much space your data uses in the
3811 cloud, and how much compression and deduplication cut down on the
3812 storage usage, you can use s3qlstat on the mounted file system to get
3815 <p><blockquote><pre>
3817 Directory entries:
9141
3820 Total data size:
22049.38 MB
3821 After de-duplication:
21955.46 MB (
99.57% of total)
3822 After compression:
21877.28 MB (
99.22% of total,
99.64% of de-duplicated)
3823 Database size:
2.39 MB (uncompressed)
3824 (some values do not take into account not-yet-uploaded dirty blocks in cache)
3826 </pre></blockquote></p>
3828 <p>I mentioned earlier that there are several possible suppliers of
3829 storage. I did not try to locate them all, but am aware of at least
3830 <a href=
"https://www.greenqloud.com/">Greenqloud
</a>,
3831 <a href=
"http://drive.google.com/">Google Drive
</a>,
3832 <a href=
"http://aws.amazon.com/s3/">Amazon S3 web serivces
</a>,
3833 <a href=
"http://www.rackspace.com/">Rackspace
</a> and
3834 <a href=
"http://crowncloud.net/">Crowncloud
</A>. The latter even
3835 accept payment in Bitcoin. Pick one that suit your need. Some of
3836 them provide several GiB of free storage, but the prize models are
3837 quite different and you will have to figure out what suits you
3840 <p>While researching this blog post, I had a look at research papers
3841 and posters discussing the S3QL file system. There are several, which
3842 told me that the file system is getting a critical check by the
3843 science community and increased my confidence in using it. One nice
3845 "
<a href=
"http://www.lanl.gov/orgs/adtsc/publications/science_highlights_2013/docs/pg68_69.pdf">An
3846 Innovative Parallel Cloud Storage System using OpenStack’s SwiftObject
3847 Store and Transformative Parallel I/O Approach
</a>" by Hsing-Bung
3848 Chen, Benjamin McClelland, David Sherrill, Alfred Torrez, Parks Fields
3849 and Pamela Smith. Please have a look.</p>
3851 <p>Given my problems with different file systems earlier, I decided to
3852 check out the mounted S3QL file system to see if it would be usable as
3853 a home directory (in other word, that it provided POSIX semantics when
3854 it come to locking and umask handling etc). Running
3855 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_if_a_file_system_can_be_used_for_home_directories___.html
">my
3856 test code to check file system semantics</a>, I was happy to discover that
3857 no error was found. So the file system can be used for home
3858 directories, if one chooses to do so.</p>
3860 <p>If you do not want a locally file system, and want something that
3861 work without the Linux fuse file system, I would like to mention the
3862 <a href="http://www.tarsnap.com/
">Tarsnap service</a>, which also
3863 provide locally encrypted backup using a command line client. It have
3864 a nicer access control system, where one can split out read and write
3865 access, allowing some systems to write to the backup and others to
3866 only read from it.</p>
3868 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
3869 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
3870 <b><a href="bitcoin:
15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog
">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
3876 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/nice free software
">nice free software</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>.
3881 <div class="padding
"></div>
3885 <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>
3891 <p>The <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox
">Freedombox
3892 project</a> is working on providing the software and hardware for
3893 making it easy for non-technical people to host their data and
3894 communication at home, and being able to communicate with their
3895 friends and family encrypted and away from prying eyes. It has been
3896 going on for a while, and is slowly progressing towards a new test
3899 <p>And what day could be better than the Pi day to announce that the
3900 new version will provide "hard drive" / SD card / USB stick images for
3901 Dreamplug, Raspberry Pi and VirtualBox (or any other virtualization
3902 system), and can also be installed using a Debian installer preseed
3903 file. The Debian based Freedombox is now based on Debian Jessie,
3904 where most of the needed packages used are already present. Only one,
3905 the freedombox-setup package, is missing. To try to build your own
3906 boot image to test the current status, fetch the freedom-maker scripts
3908 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/vmdebootstrap">vmdebootstrap
</a>
3909 with a user with sudo access to become root:
3912 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/freedombox/freedom-maker.git \
3914 sudo apt-get install git vmdebootstrap mercurial python-docutils \
3915 mktorrent extlinux virtualbox qemu-user-static binfmt-support \
3917 make -C freedom-maker dreamplug-image raspberry-image virtualbox-image
3920 <p>Root access is needed to run debootstrap and mount loopback
3921 devices. See the README for more details on the build. If you do not
3922 want all three images, trim the make line. But note that thanks to
<a
3923 href=
"https://bugs.debian.org/741407">a race condition in
3924 vmdebootstrap
</a>, the build might fail without the patch to the
3927 <p>If you instead want to install using a Debian CD and the preseed
3928 method, boot a Debian Wheezy ISO and use this boot argument to load
3929 the preseed values:
</p>
3932 url=
<a href=
"http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat
</a>
3935 <p>But note that due to
<a href=
"https://bugs.debian.org/740673">a
3936 recently introduced bug in apt in Jessie
</a>, the installer will
3937 currently hang while setting up APT sources. Killing the
3938 '
<tt>apt-cdrom ident
</tt>' process when it hang a few times during the
3939 installation will get the installation going. This affect all
3940 installations in Jessie, and I expect it will be fixed soon.
</p>
3942 <p>Give it a go and let us know how it goes on the mailing list, and help
3943 us get the new release published. :) Please join us on
3944 <a href=
"irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC (#freedombox on
3945 irc.debian.org)
</a> and
3946 <a href=
"http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
3947 mailing list
</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.
</p>
3953 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>.
3958 <div class=
"padding"></div>
3962 <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>
3968 <p>Many years ago, I wrote a GPL licensed version of the netgroup and
3969 innetgr tools, because I needed them in
3970 <a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux
</a>. I called the project
3971 ng-utils, and it has served me well. I placed the project under the
3972 <a href=
"http://www.hungry.com/">Hungry Programmer
</a> umbrella, and it was maintained in our CVS
3973 repository. But many years ago, the CVS repository was dropped (lost,
3974 not migrated to new hardware, not sure), and the project have lacked a
3975 proper home since then.
</p>
3977 <p>Last summer, I had a look at the package and made a new release
3978 fixing a irritating crash bug, but was unable to store the changes in
3979 a proper source control system. I applied for a project on
3980 <a href=
"https://alioth.debian.org/">Alioth
</a>, but did not have time
3981 to follow up on it. Until today. :)
</p>
3983 <p>After many hours of cleaning and migration, the ng-utils project
3984 now have a new home, and a git repository with the highlight of the
3985 history of the project. I published all release tarballs and imported
3986 them into the git repository. As the project is really stable and not
3987 expected to gain new features any time soon, I decided to make a new
3988 release and call it
1.0. Visit the new project home on
3989 <a href=
"https://alioth.debian.org/projects/ng-utils/">https://alioth.debian.org/projects/ng-utils/
</a>
3990 if you want to check it out. The new version is also uploaded into
3991 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/n/ng-utils.html">Debian Unstable
</a>.
</p>
3997 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>.
4002 <div class=
"padding"></div>
4006 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_sysvinit_from_experimental_in_Debian_Hurd.html">Testing sysvinit from experimental in Debian Hurd
</a>
4012 <p>A few days ago I decided to try to help the Hurd people to get
4013 their changes into sysvinit, to allow them to use the normal sysvinit
4014 boot system instead of their old one. This follow up on the
4015 <a href=
"https://teythoon.cryptobitch.de//categories/gsoc.html">great
4016 Google Summer of Code work
</a> done last summer by Justus Winter to
4017 get Debian on Hurd working more like Debian on Linux. To get started,
4018 I downloaded a prebuilt hard disk image from
4019 <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>,
4020 and started it using virt-manager.
</p>
4022 <p>The first think I had to do after logging in (root without any
4023 password) was to get the network operational. I followed
4024 <a href=
"https://www.debian.org/ports/hurd/hurd-install">the
4025 instructions on the Debian GNU/Hurd ports page
</a> and ran these
4026 commands as root to get the machine to accept a IP address from the
4027 kvm internal DHCP server:
</p>
4029 <p><blockquote><pre>
4030 settrans -fgap /dev/netdde /hurd/netdde
4031 kill $(ps -ef|awk '/[p]finet/ { print $
2}')
4032 kill $(ps -ef|awk '/[d]evnode/ { print $
2}')
4034 </pre></blockquote></p>
4036 <p>After this, the machine had internet connectivity, and I could
4037 upgrade it and install the sysvinit packages from experimental and
4038 enable it as the default boot system in Hurd.
</p>
4040 <p>But before I did that, I set a password on the root user, as ssh is
4041 running on the machine it for ssh login to work a password need to be
4042 set. Also, note that a bug somewhere in openssh on Hurd block
4043 compression from working. Remember to turn that off on the client
4046 <p>Run these commands as root to upgrade and test the new sysvinit
4049 <p><blockquote><pre>
4050 cat
> /etc/apt/sources.list.d/experimental.list
<<EOF
4051 deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ experimental main
4054 apt-get dist-upgrade
4055 apt-get install -t experimental initscripts sysv-rc sysvinit \
4056 sysvinit-core sysvinit-utils
4057 update-alternatives --config runsystem
4058 </pre></blockquote></p>
4060 <p>To reboot after switching boot system, you have to use
4061 <tt>reboot-hurd
</tt> instead of just
<tt>reboot
</tt>, as there is not
4062 yet a sysvinit process able to receive the signals from the normal
4063 'reboot' command. After switching to sysvinit as the boot system,
4064 upgrading every package and rebooting, the network come up with DHCP
4065 after boot as it should, and the settrans/pkill hack mentioned at the
4066 start is no longer needed. But for some strange reason, there are no
4067 longer any login prompt in the virtual console, so I logged in using
4070 <p>Note that there are some race conditions in Hurd making the boot
4071 fail some times. No idea what the cause is, but hope the Hurd porters
4072 figure it out. At least Justus said on IRC (#debian-hurd on
4073 irc.debian.org) that they are aware of the problem. A way to reduce
4074 the impact is to upgrade to the Hurd packages built by Justus by
4075 adding this repository to the machine:
</p>
4077 <p><blockquote><pre>
4078 cat
> /etc/apt/sources.list.d/hurd-ci.list
<<EOF
4079 deb http://darnassus.sceen.net/~teythoon/hurd-ci/ sid main
4081 </pre></blockquote></p>
4083 <p>At the moment the prebuilt virtual machine get some packages from
4084 http://ftp.debian-ports.org/debian, because some of the packages in
4085 unstable do not yet include the required patches that are lingering in
4086 BTS. This is the completely list of "unofficial" packages installed:
</p>
4088 <p><blockquote><pre>
4089 # aptitude search '?narrow(?version(CURRENT),?origin(Debian Ports))'
4090 i emacs - GNU Emacs editor (metapackage)
4091 i gdb - GNU Debugger
4092 i hurd-recommended - Miscellaneous translators
4093 i isc-dhcp-client - ISC DHCP client
4094 i isc-dhcp-common - common files used by all the isc-dhcp* packages
4095 i libc-bin - Embedded GNU C Library: Binaries
4096 i libc-dev-bin - Embedded GNU C Library: Development binaries
4097 i libc0.3 - Embedded GNU C Library: Shared libraries
4098 i A libc0.3-dbg - Embedded GNU C Library: detached debugging symbols
4099 i libc0.3-dev - Embedded GNU C Library: Development Libraries and Hea
4100 i multiarch-support - Transitional package to ensure multiarch compatibilit
4101 i A x11-common - X Window System (X.Org) infrastructure
4102 i xorg - X.Org X Window System
4103 i A xserver-xorg - X.Org X server
4104 i A xserver-xorg-input-all - X.Org X server -- input driver metapackage
4106 </pre></blockquote></p>
4108 <p>All in all, testing hurd has been an interesting experience. :)
4109 X.org did not work out of the box and I never took the time to follow
4110 the porters instructions to fix it. This time I was interested in the
4111 command line stuff.
<p>
4117 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>.
4122 <div class=
"padding"></div>
4126 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_chrpath_release_0_16.html">New chrpath release
0.16</a>
4132 <p><a href=
"http://www.coverity.com/">Coverity
</a> is a nice tool to
4133 find problems in C, C++ and Java code using static source code
4134 analysis. It can detect a lot of different problems, and is very
4135 useful to find memory and locking bugs in the error handling part of
4136 the source. The company behind it provide
4137 <a href=
"https://scan.coverity.com/">check of free software projects as
4138 a community service
</a>, and many hundred free software projects are
4139 already checked. A few days ago I decided to have a closer look at
4140 the Coverity system, and discovered that the
4141 <a href=
"http://www.gnu.org/software/gnash/">gnash
</a> and
4142 <a href=
"http://sourceforge.net/projects/ipmitool/">ipmitool
</a>
4143 projects I am involved with was already registered. But these are
4144 fairly big, and I would also like to have a small and easy project to
4145 check, and decided to
<a href=
"http://scan.coverity.com/projects/1179">request
4146 checking of the chrpath project
</a>. It was
4147 added to the checker and discovered seven potential defects. Six of
4148 these were real, mostly resource "leak" when the program detected an
4149 error. Nothing serious, as the resources would be released a fraction
4150 of a second later when the program exited because of the error, but it
4151 is nice to do it right in case the source of the program some time in
4152 the future end up in a library. Having fixed all defects and added
4153 <a href=
"https://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/chrpath-devel">a
4154 mailing list for the chrpath developers
</a>, I decided it was time to
4155 publish a new release. These are the release notes:
</p>
4157 <p>New in
0.16 released
2014-
01-
14:
</p>
4161 <li>Fixed all minor bugs discovered by Coverity.
</li>
4162 <li>Updated config.sub and config.guess from the GNU project.
</li>
4163 <li>Mention new project mailing list in the documentation.
</li>
4168 <a href=
"https://alioth.debian.org/frs/?group_id=31052">download the
4169 new version
0.16 from alioth
</a>. Please let us know via the Alioth
4170 project if something is wrong with the new release. The test suite
4171 did not discover any old errors, so if you find a new one, please also
4172 include a test suite check.
</p>
4178 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>.
4183 <div class=
"padding"></div>
4187 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_chrpath_release_0_15.html">New chrpath release
0.15</a>
4193 <p>After many years break from the package and a vain hope that
4194 development would be continued by someone else, I finally pulled my
4195 acts together this morning and wrapped up a new release of chrpath,
4196 the command line tool to modify the rpath and runpath of already
4197 compiled ELF programs. The update was triggered by the persistence of
4198 Isha Vishnoi at IBM, which needed a new config.guess file to get
4199 support for the ppc64le architecture (powerpc
64-bit Little Endian) he
4200 is working on. I checked the
4201 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/chrpath">Debian
</a>,
4202 <a href=
"https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/chrpath">Ubuntu
</a> and
4203 <a href=
"https://admin.fedoraproject.org/pkgdb/acls/name/chrpath">Fedora
</a>
4204 packages for interesting patches (failed to find the source from
4205 OpenSUSE and Mandriva packages), and found quite a few nice fixes.
4206 These are the release notes:
</p>
4208 <p>New in
0.15 released
2013-
11-
24:
</p>
4212 <li>Updated config.sub and config.guess from the GNU project to work
4213 with newer architectures. Thanks to isha vishnoi for the heads
4216 <li>Updated README with current URLs.
</li>
4218 <li>Added byteswap fix found in Ubuntu, credited Jeremy Kerr and
4219 Matthias Klose.
</li>
4221 <li>Added missing help for -k|--keepgoing option, using patch by
4222 Petr Machata found in Fedora.
</li>
4224 <li>Rewrite removal of RPATH/RUNPATH to make sure the entry in
4225 .dynamic is a NULL terminated string. Based on patch found in
4226 Fedora credited Axel Thimm and Christian Krause.
</li>
4231 <a href=
"https://alioth.debian.org/frs/?group_id=31052">download the
4232 new version
0.15 from alioth
</a>. Please let us know via the Alioth
4233 project if something is wrong with the new release. The test suite
4234 did not discover any old errors, so if you find a new one, please also
4235 include a testsuite check.
</p>
4241 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>.
4246 <div class=
"padding"></div>
4250 <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>
4256 <p>If one of the points of switching to a new init system in Debian is
4257 <a href=
"http://thomas.goirand.fr/blog/?p=147">to get rid of huge
4258 init.d scripts
</a>, I doubt we need to switch away from sysvinit and
4259 init.d scripts at all. Here is an example init.d script, ie a rewrite
4260 of /etc/init.d/rsyslog:
</p>
4263 #!/lib/init/init-d-script
4266 # Required-Start: $remote_fs $time
4267 # Required-Stop: umountnfs $time
4268 # X-Stop-After: sendsigs
4269 # Default-Start:
2 3 4 5
4270 # Default-Stop:
0 1 6
4271 # Short-Description: enhanced syslogd
4272 # Description: Rsyslog is an enhanced multi-threaded syslogd.
4273 # It is quite compatible to stock sysklogd and can be
4274 # used as a drop-in replacement.
4276 DESC="enhanced syslogd"
4277 DAEMON=/usr/sbin/rsyslogd
4280 <p>Pretty minimalistic to me... For the record, the original sysv-rc
4281 script was
137 lines, and the above is just
15 lines, most of it meta
4284 <p>How to do this, you ask? Well, one create a new script
4285 /lib/init/init-d-script looking something like this:
4290 # Define LSB log_* functions.
4291 # Depend on lsb-base (
>=
3.2-
14) to ensure that this file is present
4292 # and status_of_proc is working.
4293 . /lib/lsb/init-functions
4296 # Function that starts the daemon/service
4302 #
0 if daemon has been started
4303 #
1 if daemon was already running
4304 #
2 if daemon could not be started
4305 start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $DAEMON --test
> /dev/null \
4307 start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $DAEMON -- \
4310 # Add code here, if necessary, that waits for the process to be ready
4311 # to handle requests from services started subsequently which depend
4312 # on this one. As a last resort, sleep for some time.
4316 # Function that stops the daemon/service
4321 #
0 if daemon has been stopped
4322 #
1 if daemon was already stopped
4323 #
2 if daemon could not be stopped
4324 # other if a failure occurred
4325 start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --retry=TERM/
30/KILL/
5 --pidfile $PIDFILE --name $NAME
4327 [ "$RETVAL" =
2 ] && return
2
4328 # Wait for children to finish too if this is a daemon that forks
4329 # and if the daemon is only ever run from this initscript.
4330 # If the above conditions are not satisfied then add some other code
4331 # that waits for the process to drop all resources that could be
4332 # needed by services started subsequently. A last resort is to
4333 # sleep for some time.
4334 start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --oknodo --retry=
0/
30/KILL/
5 --exec $DAEMON
4335 [ "$?" =
2 ] && return
2
4336 # Many daemons don't delete their pidfiles when they exit.
4342 # Function that sends a SIGHUP to the daemon/service
4346 # If the daemon can reload its configuration without
4347 # restarting (for example, when it is sent a SIGHUP),
4348 # then implement that here.
4350 start-stop-daemon --stop --signal
1 --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --name $NAME
4355 scriptbasename="$(basename $
1)"
4356 echo "SN: $scriptbasename"
4357 if [ "$scriptbasename" != "init-d-library" ] ; then
4365 NAME=$(basename $DAEMON)
4366 PIDFILE=/var/run/$NAME.pid
4368 # Exit if the package is not installed
4369 #[ -x "$DAEMON" ] || exit
0
4371 # Read configuration variable file if it is present
4372 [ -r /etc/default/$NAME ] && . /etc/default/$NAME
4374 # Load the VERBOSE setting and other rcS variables
4379 [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_daemon_msg "Starting $DESC" "$NAME"
4382 0|
1) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg
0 ;;
4383 2) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg
1 ;;
4387 [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_daemon_msg "Stopping $DESC" "$NAME"
4390 0|
1) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg
0 ;;
4391 2) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg
1 ;;
4395 status_of_proc "$DAEMON" "$NAME" && exit
0 || exit $?
4397 #reload|force-reload)
4399 # If do_reload() is not implemented then leave this commented out
4400 # and leave 'force-reload' as an alias for 'restart'.
4402 #log_daemon_msg "Reloading $DESC" "$NAME"
4406 restart|force-reload)
4408 # If the "reload" option is implemented then remove the
4409 # 'force-reload' alias
4411 log_daemon_msg "Restarting $DESC" "$NAME"
4418 1) log_end_msg
1 ;; # Old process is still running
4419 *) log_end_msg
1 ;; # Failed to start
4429 echo "Usage: $SCRIPTNAME {start|stop|status|restart|force-reload}"
>&
2
4437 <p>It is based on /etc/init.d/skeleton, and could be improved quite a
4438 lot. I did not really polish the approach, so it might not always
4439 work out of the box, but you get the idea. I did not try very hard to
4440 optimize it nor make it more robust either.
</p>
4442 <p>A better argument for switching init system in Debian than reducing
4443 the size of init scripts (which is a good thing to do anyway), is to
4444 get boot system that is able to handle the kernel events sensibly and
4445 robustly, and do not depend on the boot to run sequentially. The boot
4446 and the kernel have not behaved sequentially in years.
</p>
4452 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>.
4457 <div class=
"padding"></div>
4461 <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>
4467 <p><a href=
"http://www.spice-space.org/">The SPICE protocol
</a> for
4468 remote display access is the preferred solution with oVirt and RedHat
4469 Enterprise Virtualization, and I was sad to discover the other day
4470 that the browser plugin needed to use these systems seamlessly was
4471 missing in Debian. The
<a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/668284">request
4472 for a package
</a> was from
2012-
04-
10 with no progress since
4473 2013-
04-
01, so I decided to wrap up a package based on the great work
4474 from Cajus Pollmeier and put it in a collab-maint maintained git
4475 repository to get a package I could use. I would very much like
4476 others to help me maintain the package (or just take over, I do not
4477 mind), but as no-one had volunteered so far, I just uploaded it to
4478 NEW. I hope it will be available in Debian in a few days.
</p>
4480 <p>The source is now available from
4481 <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>
4487 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>.
4492 <div class=
"padding"></div>
4496 <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>
4503 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/v/vmdebootstrap.html">vmdebootstrap
</a>
4504 program is a a very nice system to create virtual machine images. It
4505 create a image file, add a partition table, mount it and run
4506 debootstrap in the mounted directory to create a Debian system on a
4507 stick. Yesterday, I decided to try to teach it how to make images for
4508 <a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/RaspberryPi">Raspberry Pi
</a>, as part
4509 of a plan to simplify the build system for
4510 <a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">the FreedomBox
4511 project
</a>. The FreedomBox project already uses vmdebootstrap for
4512 the virtualbox images, but its current build system made multistrap
4513 based system for Dreamplug images, and it is lacking support for
4516 <p>Armed with the knowledge on how to build "foreign" (aka non-native
4517 architecture) chroots for Raspberry Pi, I dived into the vmdebootstrap
4518 code and adjusted it to be able to build armel images on my amd64
4519 Debian laptop. I ended up giving vmdebootstrap five new options,
4520 allowing me to replicate the image creation process I use to make
4521 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Raspberry_Pi_based_batman_adv_Mesh_network_node.html">Debian
4522 Jessie based mesh node images for the Raspberry Pi
</a>. First, the
4523 <tt>--foreign /path/to/binfm_handler
</tt> option tell vmdebootstrap to
4524 call debootstrap with --foreign and to copy the handler into the
4525 generated chroot before running the second stage. This allow
4526 vmdebootstrap to create armel images on an amd64 host. Next I added
4527 two new options
<tt>--bootsize size
</tt> and
<tt>--boottype
4528 fstype
</tt> to teach it to create a separate /boot/ partition with the
4529 given file system type, allowing me to create an image with a vfat
4530 partition for the /boot/ stuff. I also added a
<tt>--variant
4531 variant
</tt> option to allow me to create smaller images without the
4532 Debian base system packages installed. Finally, I added an option
4533 <tt>--no-extlinux
</tt> to tell vmdebootstrap to not install extlinux
4534 as a boot loader. It is not needed on the Raspberry Pi and probably
4535 most other non-x86 architectures. The changes were accepted by the
4536 upstream author of vmdebootstrap yesterday and today, and is now
4538 <a href=
"http://git.liw.fi/cgi-bin/cgit/cgit.cgi/vmdebootstrap/">the
4539 upstream project page
</a>.
</p>
4541 <p>To use it to build a Raspberry Pi image using Debian Jessie, first
4542 create a small script (the customize script) to add the non-free
4543 binary blob needed to boot the Raspberry Pi and the APT source
4548 set -e # Exit on first error
4551 cat
<<EOF
> etc/apt/sources.list
4552 deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ jessie main contrib non-free
4554 # Install non-free binary blob needed to boot Raspberry Pi. This
4555 # install a kernel somewhere too.
4556 wget https://raw.github.com/Hexxeh/rpi-update/master/rpi-update \
4557 -O $rootdir/usr/bin/rpi-update
4558 chmod a+x $rootdir/usr/bin/rpi-update
4559 mkdir -p $rootdir/lib/modules
4560 touch $rootdir/boot/start.elf
4561 chroot $rootdir rpi-update
4564 <p>Next, fetch the latest vmdebootstrap script and call it like this
4565 to build the image:
</p>
4568 sudo ./vmdebootstrap \
4571 --distribution jessie \
4572 --mirror http://http.debian.net/debian \
4581 --root-password raspberry \
4582 --hostname raspberrypi \
4583 --foreign /usr/bin/qemu-arm-static \
4584 --customize `pwd`/customize \
4586 --package git-core \
4587 --package binutils \
4588 --package ca-certificates \
4593 <p>The list of packages being installed are the ones needed by
4594 rpi-update to make the image bootable on the Raspberry Pi, with the
4595 exception of netbase, which is needed by debootstrap to find
4596 /etc/hosts with the minbase variant. I really wish there was a way to
4597 set up an Raspberry Pi using only packages in the Debian archive, but
4598 that is not possible as far as I know, because it boots from the GPU
4599 using a non-free binary blob.
</p>
4601 <p>The build host need debootstrap, kpartx and qemu-user-static and
4602 probably a few others installed. I have not checked the complete
4603 build dependency list.
</p>
4605 <p>The resulting image will not use the hardware floating point unit
4606 on the Raspberry PI, because the armel architecture in Debian is not
4607 optimized for that use. So the images created will be a bit slower
4608 than
<a href=
"http://www.raspbian.org/">Raspbian
</a> based images.
</p>
4614 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>.
4619 <div class=
"padding"></div>
4623 <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>
4629 <p>The last few days I came across a few good causes that should get
4630 wider attention. I recommend signing and donating to each one of
4633 <p>Via
<a href=
"http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2013/18/">Debian
4634 Project News for
2013-
10-
14</a> I came across the Outreach Program for
4635 Women program which is a Google Summer of Code like initiative to get
4636 more women involved in free software. One debian sponsor has offered
4637 to match
<a href=
"http://debian.ch/opw2013">any donation done to Debian
4638 earmarked
</a> for this initiative. I donated a few minutes ago, and
4639 hope you will to. :)
</p>
4641 <p>And the Electronic Frontier Foundation just announced plans to
4642 create
<a href=
"https://supporters.eff.org/donate/nsa-videos">video
4643 documentaries about the excessive spying
</a> on every Internet user that
4644 take place these days, and their need to fund the work. I've already
4645 donated. Are you next?
</p>
4647 <p>For my Norwegian audience, the organisation Studentenes og
4648 Akademikernes Internasjonale Hjelpefond is collecting signatures for a
4649 statement under the heading
4650 <a href=
"http://saih.no/Bloggers_United/">Bloggers United for Open
4651 Access
</a> for those of us asking for more focus on open access in the
4652 Norwegian government. So far
499 signatures. I hope you will sign it
4659 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>.
4664 <div class=
"padding"></div>
4668 <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>
4674 <p>The
<a href=
"http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/">Freedombox
4675 project
</a> have been going on for a while, and have presented the
4676 vision, ideas and solution several places. Here is a little
4677 collection of videos of talks and presentation of the project.
</p>
4681 <li><a href=
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukvUz5taxvA">FreedomBox -
4682 2,
5 minute marketing film
</a> (Youtube)
</li>
4684 <li><a href=
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzW25QTVWsE">Eben Moglen
4685 discusses the Freedombox on CBS news
2011</a> (Youtube)
</li>
4687 <li><a href=
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ae8SZbxfE0g">Eben Moglen -
4688 Freedom in the Cloud - Software Freedom, Privacy and and Security for
4689 Web
2.0 and Cloud computing at ISOC-NY Public Meeting
2010</a>
4692 <li><a href=
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNaIji_3xBE">Fosdem
2011
4693 Keynote by Eben Moglen presenting the Freedombox
</a> (Youtube)
</li>
4695 <li><a href=
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bDDUyJSQ9s">Presentation of
4696 the Freedombox by James Vasile at Elevate in Gratz
2011</a> (Youtube)
</li>
4698 <li><a href=
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQTmnk27g9s"> Freedombox -
4699 Discovery, Identity, and Trust by Nick Daly at Freedombox Hackfest New
4700 York City in
2012</a> (Youtube)
</li>
4702 <li><a href=
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkbSB4Ba7Ck">Introduction
4703 to the Freedombox at Freedombox Hackfest New York City in
2012</a>
4706 <li><a href=
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-P2Jaeg0aQ">Freedom, Out
4707 of the Box! by Bdale Garbee at linux.conf.au Ballarat,
2012</a> (Youtube)
</li>
4709 <li><a href=
"https://archive.fosdem.org/2013/schedule/event/freedombox/">Freedombox
4710 1.0 by Eben Moglen and Bdale Garbee at Fosdem
2013</a> (FOSDEM)
</li>
4712 <li><a href=
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1LpYX2zVYg">What is the
4713 FreedomBox today by Bdale Garbee at Debconf13 in Vaumarcus
4714 2013</a> (Youtube)
</li>
4718 <p>A larger list is available from
4719 <a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/TalksAndPresentations">the
4720 Freedombox Wiki
</a>.
</p>
4722 <p>On other news, I am happy to report that Freedombox based on Debian
4723 Jessie is coming along quite well, and soon both Owncloud and using
4724 Tor should be available for testers of the Freedombox solution. :) In
4725 a few weeks I hope everything needed to test it is included in Debian.
4726 The withsqlite package is already in Debian, and the plinth package is
4727 pending in NEW. The third and vital part of that puzzle is the
4728 metapackage/setup framework, which is still pending an upload. Join
4729 us on
<a href=
"irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC
4730 (#freedombox on irc.debian.org)
</a> and
4731 <a href=
"http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
4732 mailing list
</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.
</p>
4738 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>.
4743 <div class=
"padding"></div>
4747 <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>
4753 <p>I was introduced to the
4754 <a href=
"http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/">Freedombox project
</a>
4755 in
2010, when Eben Moglen presented his vision about serving the need
4756 of non-technical people to keep their personal information private and
4757 within the legal protection of their own homes. The idea is to give
4758 people back the power over their network and machines, and return
4759 Internet back to its intended peer-to-peer architecture. Instead of
4760 depending on a central service, the Freedombox will give everyone
4761 control over their own basic infrastructure.
</p>
4763 <p>I've intended to join the effort since then, but other tasks have
4764 taken priority. But this summers nasty news about the misuse of trust
4765 and privilege exercised by the "western" intelligence gathering
4766 communities increased my eagerness to contribute to a point where I
4767 actually started working on the project a while back.
</p>
4769 <p>The
<a href=
"https://alioth.debian.org/projects/freedombox/">initial
4770 Debian initiative
</a> based on the vision from Eben Moglen, is to
4771 create a simple and cheap Debian based appliance that anyone can hook
4772 up in their home and get access to secure and private services and
4773 communication. The initial deployment platform have been the
4774 <a href=
"http://www.globalscaletechnologies.com/t-dreamplugdetails.aspx">Dreamplug
</a>,
4775 which is a piece of hardware I do not own. So to be able to test what
4776 the current Freedombox setup look like, I had to come up with a way to install
4777 it on some hardware I do have access to. I have rewritten the
4778 <a href=
"https://github.com/NickDaly/freedom-maker">freedom-maker
</a>
4779 image build framework to use .deb packages instead of only copying
4780 setup into the boot images, and thanks to this rewrite I am able to
4781 set up any machine supported by Debian Wheezy as a Freedombox, using
4782 the previously mentioned deb (and a few support debs for packages
4783 missing in Debian).
</p>
4785 <p>The current Freedombox setup consist of a set of bootstrapping
4787 (
<a href=
"https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/freedombox-setup">freedombox-setup
</a>),
4788 and a administrative web interface
4789 (
<a href=
"https://github.com/NickDaly/Plinth">plinth
</a> + exmachina +
4790 withsqlite), as well as a privacy enhancing proxy based on
4791 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/privoxy">privoxy
</a>
4792 (freedombox-privoxy). There is also a web/javascript based XMPP
4793 client (
<a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/jwchat">jwchat
</a>)
4794 trying (unsuccessfully so far) to talk to the XMPP server
4795 (
<a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/ejabberd">ejabberd
</a>). The
4796 web interface is pluggable, and the goal is to use it to enable OpenID
4797 services, mesh network connectivity, use of TOR, etc, etc. Not much of
4798 this is really working yet, see
4799 <a href=
"https://github.com/NickDaly/freedombox-todos/blob/master/TODO">the
4800 project TODO
</a> for links to GIT repositories. Most of the code is
4801 on github at the moment. The HTTP proxy is operational out of the
4802 box, and the admin web interface can be used to add/remove plinth
4803 users. I've not been able to do anything else with it so far, but
4804 know there are several branches spread around github and other places
4805 with lots of half baked features.
</p>
4807 <p>Anyway, if you want to have a look at the current state, the
4808 following recipes should work to give you a test machine to poke
4811 <p><strong>Debian Wheezy amd64
</strong></p>
4815 <li>Fetch normal Debian Wheezy installation ISO.
</li>
4816 <li>Boot from it, either as CD or USB stick.
</li>
4817 <li><p>Press [tab] on the boot prompt and add this as a boot argument
4818 to the Debian installer:
<p>
4819 <pre>url=
<a href=
"http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-wheezy.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-wheezy.dat
</a></pre></li>
4821 <li>Answer the few language/region/password questions and pick disk to
4824 <li>When the installation is finished and the machine have rebooted a
4825 few times, your Freedombox is ready for testing.
</li>
4829 <p><strong>Raspberry Pi Raspbian
</strong></p>
4833 <li>Fetch a Raspbian SD card image, create SD card.
</li>
4834 <li>Boot from SD card, extend file system to fill the card completely.
</li>
4835 <li><p>Log in and add this to /etc/sources.list:
</p>
4837 deb
<a href=
"http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox
</a> wheezy main
4839 <li><p>Run this as root:
</p>
4841 wget -O - http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/BE1A583D.asc | \
4844 apt-get install freedombox-setup
4845 /usr/lib/freedombox/setup
4847 <li>Reboot into your freshly created Freedombox.
</li>
4851 <p>You can test it on other architectures too, but because the
4852 freedombox-privoxy package is binary, it will only work as intended on
4853 the architectures where I have had time to build the binary and put it
4854 in my APT repository. But do not let this stop you. It is only a
4855 short "
<tt>apt-get source -b freedombox-privoxy
</tt>" away. :)</p>
4857 <p>Note that by default Freedombox is a DHCP server on the
4858 192.168.1.0/24 subnet, so if this is your subnet be careful and turn
4859 off the DHCP server by running "<tt>update-rc.d isc-dhcp-server
4860 disable
</tt>" as root.</p>
4862 <p>Please let me know if this works for you, or if you have any
4863 problems. We gather on the IRC channel
4864 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:
6667/%
23freedombox
">#freedombox</a> on
4865 irc.debian.org and the
4866 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss
">project
4867 mailing list</a>.</p>
4869 <p>Once you get your freedombox operational, you can visit
4870 <tt>http://your-host-name:8001/</tt> to see the state of the plint
4871 welcome screen (dead end - do not be surprised if you are unable to
4872 get past it), and next visit <tt>http://your-host-name:8001/help/</tt>
4873 to look at the rest of plinth. The default user is 'admin' and the
4874 default password is 'secret'.</p>
4880 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>.
4885 <div class="padding
"></div>
4889 <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>
4895 <p>Earlier, I reported about
4896 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_fix_a_Thinkpad_X230_with_a_broken_180_GB_SSD_disk.html
">my
4897 problems using an Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB disk</a>. Friday I was
4898 told by IBM that the original disk should be thrown away. And as
4899 there no longer was a problem if I bricked the firmware, I decided
4900 today to try to install Intel firmware to replace the Lenovo firmware
4901 currently on the disk.</p>
4903 <p>I searched the Intel site for firmware, and found
4904 <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>
4905 (aka Intel SATA Solid-State Drive Firmware Update Tool) which
4906 according to the site should contain the latest firmware for SSD
4907 disks. I inserted the broken disk in one of my spare laptops and
4908 booted the ISO from a USB stick. The disk was recognized, but the
4909 program claimed the newest firmware already were installed and refused
4910 to insert any Intel firmware. So no change, and the disk is still
4911 unable to handle write load. :( I guess the only way to get them
4912 working would be if Lenovo releases new firmware. No idea how likely
4913 that is. Anyway, just blogging about this test for completeness. I
4914 got a working Samsung disk, and see no point in spending more time on
4915 the broken disks.</p>
4921 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>.
4926 <div class="padding
"></div>
4930 <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>
4936 <p>Today I switched to
4937 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html
">my
4938 new laptop</a>. I've previously written about the problems I had with
4939 my new Thinkpad X230, which was delivered with an
4940 <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
4941 GB Intel SSD disk with Lenovo firmware</a> that did not handle
4942 sustained writes. My hardware supplier have been very forthcoming in
4943 trying to find a solution, and after first trying with another
4944 identical 180 GB disks they decided to send me a 256 GB Samsung SSD
4945 disk instead to fix it once and for all. The Samsung disk survived
4946 the installation of Debian with encrypted disks (filling the disk with
4947 random data during installation killed the first two), and I thus
4948 decided to trust it with my data. I have installed it as a Debian Edu
4949 Wheezy roaming workstation hooked up with my Debian Edu Squeeze main
4950 server at home using Kerberos and LDAP, and will use it as my work
4951 station from now on.</p>
4953 <p>As this is a solid state disk with no moving parts, I believe the
4954 Debian Wheezy default installation need to be tuned a bit to increase
4955 performance and increase life time of the disk. The Linux kernel and
4956 user space applications do not yet adjust automatically to such
4957 environment. To make it easier for my self, I created a draft Debian
4958 package <tt>ssd-setup</tt> to handle this tuning. The
4959 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/ssd-setup.git
">source
4960 for the ssd-setup package</a> is available from collab-maint, and it
4961 is set up to adjust the setup of the machine by just installing the
4962 package. If there is any non-SSD disk in the machine, the package
4963 will refuse to install, as I did not try to write any logic to sort
4964 file systems in SSD and non-SSD file systems.</p>
4966 <p>I consider the package a draft, as I am a bit unsure how to best
4967 set up Debian Wheezy with an SSD. It is adjusted to my use case,
4968 where I set up the machine with one large encrypted partition (in
4969 addition to /boot), put LVM on top of this and set up partitions on
4970 top of this again. See the README file in the package source for the
4971 references I used to pick the settings. At the moment these
4972 parameters are tuned:</p>
4976 <li>Set up cryptsetup to pass TRIM commands to the physical disk
4977 (adding discard to /etc/crypttab)</li>
4979 <li>Set up LVM to pass on TRIM commands to the underlying device (in
4980 this case a cryptsetup partition) by changing issue_discards from
4981 0 to 1 in /etc/lvm/lvm.conf.</li>
4983 <li>Set relatime as a file system option for ext3 and ext4 file
4986 <li>Tell swap to use TRIM commands by adding 'discard' to
4989 <li>Change I/O scheduler from cfq to deadline using a udev rule.</li>
4991 <li>Run fstrim on every ext3 and ext4 file system every night (from
4994 <li>Adjust sysctl values vm.swappiness to 1 and vm.vfs_cache_pressure
4995 to 50 to reduce the kernel eagerness to swap out processes.</li>
4999 <p>During installation, I cancelled the part where the installer fill
5000 the disk with random data, as this would kill the SSD performance for
5001 little gain. My goal with the encrypted file system is to ensure
5002 those stealing my laptop end up with a brick and not a working
5003 computer. I have no hope in keeping the really resourceful people
5004 from getting the data on the disk (see
5005 <a href="http://xkcd.com/
538/
">XKCD #538</a> for an explanation why).
5006 Thus I concluded that adding the discard option to crypttab is the
5007 right thing to do.</p>
5009 <p>I considered using the noop I/O scheduler, as several recommended
5010 it for SSD, but others recommended deadline and a benchmark I found
5011 indicated that deadline might be better for interactive use.</p>
5013 <p>I also considered using the 'discard' file system option for ext3
5014 and ext4, but read that it would give a performance hit ever time a
5015 file is removed, and thought it best to that that slowdown once a day
5016 instead of during my work.</p>
5018 <p>My package do not set up tmpfs on /var/run, /var/lock and /tmp, as
5019 this is already done by Debian Edu.</p>
5021 <p>I have not yet started on the user space tuning. I expect
5022 iceweasel need some tuning, and perhaps other applications too, but
5023 have not yet had time to investigate those parts.</p>
5025 <p>The package should work on Ubuntu too, but I have not yet tested it
5028 <p>As for the answer to the question in the title of this blog post,
5029 as far as I know, the only solution I know about is to replace the
5030 disk. It might be possible to flash it with Intel firmware instead of
5031 the Lenovo firmware. But I have not tried and did not want to do so
5032 without approval from Lenovo as I wanted to keep the warranty on the
5033 disk until a solution was found and they wanted the broken disks
5040 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>.
5045 <div class="padding
"></div>
5049 <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>
5055 <p>A few days ago, I wrote about
5056 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html
">the
5057 problems I experienced with my new X230 and its SSD disk</a>, which
5058 was dying during installation because it is unable to cope with
5059 sustained write. My supplier is in contact with
5060 <a href="http://www.lenovo.com/
">Lenovo</a>, and they wanted to send a
5061 replacement disk to try to fix the problem. They decided to send an
5062 identical model, so my hopes for a permanent fix was slim.</p>
5064 <p>Anyway, today I got the replacement disk and tried to install
5065 Debian Edu Wheezy with encrypted disk on it. The new disk have the
5066 same firmware version as the original. This time my hope raised
5067 slightly as the installation progressed, as the original disk used to
5068 die after 4-7% of the disk was written to, while this time it kept
5069 going past 10%, 20%, 40% and even past 50%. But around 60%, the disk
5070 died again and I was back on square one. I still do not have a new
5071 laptop with a disk I can trust. I can not live with a disk that might
5072 lock up when I download a new
5073 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/
">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> ISO or
5074 other large files. I look forward to hearing from my supplier with
5075 the next proposal from Lenovo.</p>
5077 <p>The original disk is marked Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB,
5078 11S0C38722Z1ZNME35X1TR, ISN: CVCV321407HB180EGN, SA: G57560302, FW:
5079 LF1i, 29MAY2013, PBA: G39779-300, LBA 351,651,888, LI P/N: 0C38722,
5080 Pb-free 2LI, LC P/N: 16-200366, WWN: 55CD2E40002756C4, Model:
5081 SSDSC2BW180A3L 2.5" 6Gb/s SATA SSD
180G
5V
1A, ASM P/N
0C38732, FRU
5082 P/N
45N8295, P0C38732.
</p>
5084 <p>The replacement disk is marked Intel SSD
520 Series
180 GB,
5085 11S0C38722Z1ZNDE34N0L0, ISN: CVCV315306RK180EGN, SA: G57560-
302, FW:
5086 LF1i,
22APR2013, PBA: G39779-
300, LBA
351,
651,
888, LI P/N:
0C38722,
5087 Pb-free
2LI, LC P/N:
16-
200366, WWN:
55CD2E40000AB69E, Model:
5088 SSDSC2BW180A3L
2.5"
6Gb/s SATA SSD
180G
5V
1A, ASM P/N
0C38732, FRU
5089 P/N
45N8295, P0C38732.
</p>
5091 <p>The only difference is in the first number (serial number?), ISN,
5092 SA, date and WNPP values. Mentioning all the details here in case
5093 someone is able to use the information to find a way to identify the
5094 failing disk among working ones (if any such working disk actually
5101 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>.
5106 <div class=
"padding"></div>
5110 <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>
5116 <p>The upcoming Saturday,
2013-
07-
13, we are organising a combined
5117 Debian Edu developer gathering and Debian and Ubuntu bug squashing
5118 party in Oslo. It is organised by
<a href=
"http://www.nuug.no/">the
5119 member assosiation NUUG
</a> and
5120 <a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/">the Debian Edu / Skolelinux
5121 project
</a> together with
<a href=
"http://bitraf.no/">the hack space
5124 <p>It starts
10:
00 and continue until late evening. Everyone is
5125 welcome, and there is no fee to participate. There is on the other
5126 hand limited space, and only room for
30 people. Please put your name
5127 on
<a href=
"http://wiki.debian.org/BSP/2013/07/13/no/Oslo">the event
5128 wiki page
</a> if you plan to join us.
</p>
5134 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>.
5139 <div class=
"padding"></div>
5143 <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>
5149 <p>Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a
5150 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thank_you_Thinkpad_X41__for_your_long_and_trustworthy_service.html">replacement
5151 for my trusty old Thinkpad X41
</a>. Unfortunately I did not have much
5152 time to spend on it, and it took a while to find a model I believe
5153 will do the job, but two days ago the replacement finally arrived. I
5155 <a href=
"http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_x230">Thinkpad X230
</a>
5156 with SSD disk (NZDAJMN). I first test installed Debian Edu Wheezy as
5157 a roaming workstation, and it seemed to work flawlessly. But my
5158 second installation with encrypted disk was not as successful. More
5161 <p>I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most
5162 important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never
5163 listed in the feature list. But I did get good help from the search
5164 feature at
<a href=
"http://www.prisjakt.no/">Prisjakt
</a>, which
5165 allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other
5166 requirements. A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks according
5167 to that search interface, so I had to drop specifying the number of
5168 disks from my search parameters. I also asked around among friends to
5169 get their impression on keyboards and robustness.
</p>
5171 <p>So the new laptop arrived, and it is quite a lot wider than the
5172 X41. I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is
5173 significantly wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my
5174 hand a lot more to reach the edges. But the key response is fairly
5175 good and the individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope
5176 I will get used to it. My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really
5177 needed a new laptop now. :)
</p>
5179 <p>Turning off the touch pad was simple. All it took was a quick
5180 visit to the BIOS during boot it disable it.
</p>
5182 <p>But there is a fatal problem with the laptop. The
180 GB SSD disk
5183 lock up during load. And this happen when installing Debian Wheezy
5184 with encrypted disk, while the disk is being filled with random data.
5185 I also tested to install Ubuntu Raring, and it happen there too if I
5186 reenable the code to fill the disk with random data (it is disabled by
5187 default in Ubuntu). And the bug with is already known. It was
5188 reported to Debian as
<a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/691427">BTS
5189 report #
691427 2012-
10-
25</a> (journal commit I/O error on brand-new
5190 Thinkpad T430s ext4 on lvm on SSD). It is also reported to the Linux
5191 kernel developers as
5192 <a href=
"https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=51861">Kernel bugzilla
5193 report #
51861 2012-
12-
20</a> (Intel SSD
520 stops working under load
5194 (SSDSC2BW180A3L in Lenovo ThinkPad T430s)). It is also reported on the
5195 Lenovo forums, both for
5196 <a href=
"http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/T400-T500-and-newer-T-series/T430s-Intel-SSD-520-180GB-issue/m-p/1070549">T430
5197 2012-
11-
10</a> and for
5198 <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
5199 03-
20-
2013</a>. The problem do not only affect installation. The
5200 reports state that the disk lock up during use if many writes are done
5201 on the disk, so it is much no use to work around the installation
5202 problem and end up with a computer that can lock up at any moment.
5204 <a href=
"https://git.efficios.com/?p=test-ssd.git">small C program
5205 available
</a> that will lock up the hard drive after running a few
5206 minutes by writing to a file.
</p>
5208 <p>I've contacted my supplier and asked how to handle this, and after
5209 contacting PCHELP Norway (request
01D1FDP) which handle support
5210 requests for Lenovo, his first suggestion was to upgrade the disk
5211 firmware. Unfortunately there is no newer firmware available from
5212 Lenovo, as my disk already have the most recent one (version LF1i). I
5213 hope to hear more from him today and hope the problem can be
5220 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>.
5225 <div class=
"padding"></div>
5229 <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>
5235 <p>Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a replacement for my
5236 trusty old Thinkpad X41. Unfortunately I did not have much time to
5237 spend on it, but today the replacement finally arrived. I ended up
5238 picking a
<a href=
"http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_x230">Thinkpad
5239 X230
</a> with SSD disk (NZDAJMN). I first test installed Debian Edu
5240 Wheezy as a roaming workstation, and it worked flawlessly. As I write
5241 this, it is installing what I hope will be a more final installation,
5242 with a encrypted hard drive to ensure any dope head stealing it end up
5243 with an expencive door stop.
</p>
5245 <p>I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most
5246 important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never
5247 listed in the feature list. But I did get good help from the search
5248 feature at
<ahref=
"http://www.prisjakt.no/">Prisjakt
</a>, which
5249 allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other
5250 requirements. A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks, so I had
5251 to drop number of disks from my search parameters.
</p>
5253 <p>I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is significantly
5254 wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my hand a lot more
5255 to reach the edges. But the key response is fairly good and the
5256 individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope I will get
5257 used to it. My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really needed a
5258 new laptop now. :)
</p>
5260 <p>I look forward to figuring out how to turn off the touch pad.
</p>
5266 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>.
5271 <div class=
"padding"></div>
5275 <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>
5281 <p>It annoys me when the computer fail to do automatically what it is
5282 perfectly capable of, and I have to do it manually to get things
5283 working. One such task is to find out what firmware packages are
5284 needed to get the hardware on my computer working. Most often this
5285 affect the wifi card, but some times it even affect the RAID
5286 controller or the ethernet card. Today I pushed version
0.4 of the
5287 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">Isenkram package
</a>
5288 including a new script isenkram-autoinstall-firmware handling the
5289 process of asking all the loaded kernel modules what firmware files
5290 they want, find debian packages providing these files and install the
5291 debian packages. Here is a test run on my laptop:
</p>
5294 # isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
5295 info: kernel drivers requested extra firmware: ipw2200-bss.fw ipw2200-ibss.fw ipw2200-sniffer.fw
5296 info: fetching http://http.debian.net/debian/dists/squeeze/Contents-i386.gz
5297 info: locating packages with the requested firmware files
5298 info: Updating APT sources after adding non-free APT source
5299 info: trying to install firmware-ipw2x00
5302 Preconfiguring packages ...
5303 Selecting previously deselected package firmware-ipw2x00.
5304 (Reading database ...
259727 files and directories currently installed.)
5305 Unpacking firmware-ipw2x00 (from .../firmware-ipw2x00_0.28+squeeze1_all.deb) ...
5306 Setting up firmware-ipw2x00 (
0.28+squeeze1) ...
5310 <p>When all the requested firmware is present, a simple message is
5311 printed instead:
</p>
5314 # isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
5315 info: did not find any firmware files requested by loaded kernel modules. exiting
5319 <p>It could use some polish, but it is already working well and saving
5320 me some time when setting up new machines. :)
</p>
5322 <p>So, how does it work? It look at the set of currently loaded
5323 kernel modules, and look up each one of them using modinfo, to find
5324 the firmware files listed in the module meta-information. Next, it
5325 download the Contents file from a nearby APT mirror, and search for
5326 the firmware files in this file to locate the package with the
5327 requested firmware file. If the package is in the non-free section, a
5328 non-free APT source is added and the package is installed using
5329 <tt>apt-get install
</tt>. The end result is a slightly better working
5332 <p>I hope someone find time to implement a more polished version of
5333 this script as part of the hw-detect debian-installer module, to
5334 finally fix
<a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/655507">BTS report
5335 #
655507</a>. There really is no need to insert USB sticks with
5336 firmware during a PXE install when the packages already are available
5337 from the nearby Debian mirror.
</p>
5343 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>.
5348 <div class=
"padding"></div>
5352 <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>
5358 <p>When installing RedHat, Fedora, Debian and Ubuntu on some machines,
5359 the screen just turn black when Linux boot, either during installation
5360 or on first boot from the hard disk. I've seen it once in a while the
5361 last few years, but only recently understood the cause. I've seen it
5362 on HP laptops, and on my latest acquaintance the Packard Bell laptop.
5363 The reason seem to be in the wiring of some laptops. The system to
5364 control the screen background light is inverted, so when Linux try to
5365 turn the brightness fully on, it end up turning it off instead. I do
5366 not know which Linux drivers are affected, but this post is about the
5367 i915 driver used by the
5368 <a href=
"http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Packard Bell
5369 EasyNote LV
</a>, Thinkpad X40 and many other laptops.
</p>
5371 <p>The problem can be worked around two ways. Either by adding
5372 i915.invert_brightness=
1 as a kernel option, or by adding a file in
5373 /etc/modprobe.d/ to tell modprobe to add the invert_brightness=
1
5374 option when it load the i915 kernel module. On Debian and Ubuntu, it
5375 can be done by running these commands as root:
</p>
5378 echo options i915 invert_brightness=
1 | tee /etc/modprobe.d/i915.conf
5379 update-initramfs -u -k all
5382 <p>Since March
2012 there is
5383 <a href=
"http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=4dca20efb1a9c2efefc28ad2867e5d6c3f5e1955">a
5384 mechanism in the Linux kernel
</a> to tell the i915 driver which
5385 hardware have this problem, and get the driver to invert the
5386 brightness setting automatically. To use it, one need to add a row in
5387 <a href=
"http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c">the
5388 intel_quirks array
</a> in the driver source
5389 <tt>drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c
</tt> (look for "
<tt>static
5390 struct intel_quirk intel_quirks
</tt>"), specifying the PCI device
5391 number (vendor number 8086 is assumed) and subdevice vendor and device
5394 <p>My Packard Bell EasyNote LV got this output from <tt>lspci
5395 -vvnn</tt> for the video card in question:</p>
5398 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation \
5399 3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller [8086:0156] \
5400 (rev 09) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
5401 Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device [1025:0688]
5402 Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- \
5403 ParErr- Stepping- SE RR- FastB2B- DisINTx+
5404 Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- \
5405 <TAbort- <MAbort->SERR- <PERR- INTx-
5407 Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 42
5408 Region 0: Memory at c2000000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4M]
5409 Region 2: Memory at b0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
5410 Region 4: I/O ports at 4000 [size=64]
5411 Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled]
5412 Capabilities: <access denied>
5413 Kernel driver in use: i915
5416 <p>The resulting intel_quirks entry would then look like this:</p>
5419 struct intel_quirk intel_quirks[] = {
5421 /* Packard Bell EasyNote LV11HC needs invert brightness quirk */
5422 { 0x0156, 0x1025, 0x0688, quirk_invert_brightness },
5427 <p>According to the kernel module instructions (as seen using
5428 <tt>modinfo i915</tt>), information about hardware needing the
5429 invert_brightness flag should be sent to the
5430 <a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/dri-devel
">dri-devel
5431 (at) lists.freedesktop.org</a> mailing list to reach the kernel
5432 developers. But my email about the laptop sent 2013-06-03 have not
5434 <a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/dri-devel/
2013-June/thread.html
">the
5435 web archive for the mailing list</a>, so I suspect they do not accept
5436 emails from non-subscribers. Because of this, I sent my patch also to
5437 the Debian bug tracking system instead as
5438 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/
710938">BTS report #710938</a>, to make
5439 sure the patch is not lost.</p>
5441 <p>Unfortunately, it is not enough to fix the kernel to get Laptops
5442 with this problem working properly with Linux. If you use Gnome, your
5443 worries should be over at this point. But if you use KDE, there is
5444 something in KDE ignoring the invert_brightness setting and turning on
5445 the screen during login. I've reported it to Debian as
5446 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/
711237">BTS report #711237</a>, and
5447 have no idea yet how to figure out exactly what subsystem is doing
5448 this. Perhaps you can help? Perhaps you know what the Gnome
5449 developers did to handle this, and this can give a clue to the KDE
5450 developers? Or you know where in KDE the screen brightness is changed
5451 during login? If so, please update the BTS report (or get in touch if
5452 you do not know how to update BTS).</p>
5454 <p>Update 2013-07-19: The correct fix for this machine seem to be
5455 acpi_backlight=vendor, to disable ACPI backlight support completely,
5456 as the ACPI information on the machine is trash and it is better to
5457 leave it to the intel video driver to control the screen
5464 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>.
5469 <div class="padding
"></div>
5473 <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>
5479 <p>Two days ago, I asked
5480 <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
5481 I could install Linux on a Packard Bell EasyNote LV computer
5482 preinstalled with Windows 8</a>. I found a solution, but am horrified
5483 with the obstacles put in the way of Linux users on a laptop with UEFI
5486 <p>I never found out if the cause of my problems were the use of UEFI
5487 secure booting or fast boot. I suspect fast boot was the problem,
5488 causing the firmware to boot directly from HD without considering any
5489 key presses and alternative devices, but do not know UEFI settings
5492 <p>There is no way to install Linux on the machine in question without
5493 opening the box and disconnecting the hard drive! This is as far as I
5494 can tell, the only way to get access to the firmware setup menu
5495 without accepting the Windows 8 license agreement. I am told (and
5496 found description on how to) that it is possible to configure the
5497 firmware setup once booted into Windows 8. But as I believe the terms
5498 of that agreement are completely unacceptable, accepting the license
5499 was never an alternative. I do not enter agreements I do not intend
5502 <p>I feared I had to return the laptops and ask for a refund, and
5503 waste many hours on this, but luckily there was a way to get it to
5504 work. But I would not recommend it to anyone planning to run Linux on
5505 it, and I have become sceptical to Windows 8 certified laptops. Is
5506 this the way Linux will be forced out of the market place, by making
5507 it close to impossible for "normal" users to install Linux without
5508 accepting the Microsoft Windows license terms? Or at least not
5509 without risking to loose the warranty?
</p>
5512 <a href=
"http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Linux Laptop
5513 wiki page for Packard Bell EasyNote LV
</a>, to ensure the next person
5514 do not have to struggle as much as I did to get Linux into the
5517 <p>Thanks to Bob Rosbag, Florian Weimer, Philipp Kern, Ben Hutching,
5518 Michael Tokarev and others for feedback and ideas.
</p>
5524 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>.
5529 <div class=
"padding"></div>
5533 <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>
5539 <p>I've run into quite a problem the last few days. I bought three
5540 new laptops for my parents and a few others. I bought Packard Bell
5541 Easynote LV to run Kubuntu on and use as their home computer. But I
5542 am completely unable to figure out how to install Linux on it. The
5543 computer is preinstalled with Windows
8, and I suspect it uses UEFI
5544 instead of a BIOS to boot.
</p>
5546 <p>The problem is that I am unable to get it to PXE boot, and unable
5547 to get it to boot the Linux installer from my USB stick. I have yet
5548 to try the DVD install, and still hope it will work. when I turn on
5549 the computer, there is no information on what buttons to press to get
5550 the normal boot menu. I expect to get some boot menu to select PXE or
5551 USB stick booting. When booting, it first ask for the language to
5552 use, then for some regional settings, and finally if I will accept the
5553 Windows
8 terms of use. As these terms are completely unacceptable to
5554 me, I have no other choice but to turn off the computer and try again
5555 to get it to boot the Linux installer.
</p>
5557 <p>I have gathered my findings so far on a Linlap page about the
5558 <a href=
"http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Packard Bell
5559 EasyNote LV
</a> model. If you have any idea how to get Linux
5560 installed on this machine, please get in touch or update that wiki
5561 page. If I can't find a way to install Linux, I will have to return
5562 the laptop to the seller and find another machine for my parents.
</p>
5564 <p>I wonder, is this the way Linux will be forced out of the market
5565 using UEFI and "secure boot" by making it impossible to install Linux
5572 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>.
5577 <div class=
"padding"></div>
5581 <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>
5587 <p><a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
</a> is
5588 an operating system based on Debian intended for use in schools. It
5589 contain a turn-key solution for the computer network provided to
5590 pupils in the primary schools. It provide both the central server,
5591 network boot servers and desktop environments with heaps of
5592 educational software. The project was founded almost
12 years ago,
5593 2001-
07-
02. If you want to support the project, which is in need for
5594 cash to fund developer gatherings and other project related activity,
5595 <a href=
"http://www.linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">please
5596 donate some money
</a>.
5598 <p>A topic that come up again and again on the Debian Edu mailing
5599 lists and elsewhere, is the question on how to transform a Debian or
5600 Ubuntu installation into a Debian Edu installation. It isn't very
5601 hard, and last week I wrote a script to replicate the steps done by
5602 the Debian Edu installer.
</p>
5605 <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/>
5606 in the debian-edu-config package, will go through these six steps and
5607 transform an existing Debian Wheezy or Ubuntu (untested) installation
5608 into a Debian Edu Workstation:
</p>
5612 <li>Add skolelinux related APT sources.
</li>
5613 <li>Create /etc/debian-edu/config with the wanted configuration.
</li>
5614 <li>Install debian-edu-install to load preseeding values and pull in
5615 our configuration.
</li>
5616 <li>Preseed debconf database with profile setup in
5617 /etc/debian-edu/config, and run tasksel to install packages
5618 according to the profile specified in the config above,
5619 overriding some of the Debian automation machinery.
</li>
5620 <li>Run debian-edu-cfengine-D installation to configure everything
5621 that could not be done using preseeding.
</li>
5622 <li>Ask for a reboot to enable all the configuration changes.
</li>
5626 <p>There are some steps in the Debian Edu installation that can not be
5627 replicated like this. Disk partitioning and LVM setup, for example.
5628 So this script just assume there is enough disk space to install all
5629 the needed packages.
</p>
5631 <p>The script was created to help a Debian Edu student working on
5632 setting up
<a href=
"http://www.raspberrypi.org">Raspberry Pi
</a> as a
5633 Debian Edu client, and using it he can take the existing
5634 <a href=
"http://www.raspbian.org/FrontPage">Raspbian
</a> installation and
5635 transform it into a fully functioning Debian Edu Workstation (or
5636 Roaming Workstation, or whatever :).
</p>
5638 <p>The default setting in the script is to create a KDE Workstation.
5639 If a LXDE based Roaming workstation is wanted instead, modify the
5640 PROFILE and DESKTOP values at the top to look like this instead:
</p>
5643 PROFILE="Roaming-Workstation"
5647 <p>The script could even become useful to set up Debian Edu servers in
5648 the cloud, by starting with a virtual Debian installation at some
5649 virtual hosting service and setting up all the services on first
5656 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>.
5661 <div class=
"padding"></div>
5665 <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>
5672 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_IRC_channel_for_LEGO_designers_using_Debian.html">I
5673 announced a
</a> new
<a href=
"irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">IRC
5674 channel #debian-lego
</a>, for those of us in the Debian and Linux
5675 community interested in
<a href=
"http://www.lego.com/">LEGO
</a>, the
5676 marvellous construction system from Denmark. We also created
5677 <a href=
"http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">a wiki page
</a> to have
5678 a place to take notes and write down our plans and hopes. And several
5679 people showed up to help. I was very happy to see the effect of my
5680 call. Since the small start, we have a debtags tag
5681 <a href=
"http://debtags.debian.net/search/bytag?wl=hardware::hobby:lego">hardware::hobby:lego
</a>
5682 tag for LEGO related packages, and now count
10 packages related to
5683 LEGO and
<a href=
"http://mindstorms.lego.com/">Mindstorms
</a>:
</p>
5686 <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>
5687 <tr><td><a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/leocad">leocad
</a></td><td>virtual brick CAD software
</td></tr>
5688 <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>
5689 <tr><td><a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/lnpd">lnpd
</a></td><td>daemon for LNP communication with BrickOS
</td></tr>
5690 <tr><td><a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/nbc">nbc
</a></td><td>compiler for LEGO Mindstorms NXT bricks
</td></tr>
5691 <tr><td><a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/nqc">nqc
</a></td><td>Not Quite C compiler for LEGO Mindstorms RCX
</td></tr>
5692 <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>
5693 <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>
5694 <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>
5695 <tr><td><a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/t2n">t2n
</a></td><td>simple command-line tool for Lego NXT
</td></tr>
5698 <p>Some of these are available in Wheezy, and all but one are
5699 currently available in Jessie/testing. leocad is so far only
5700 available in experimental.
</p>
5702 <p>If you care about LEGO in Debian, please join us on IRC and help
5703 adding the rest of the great free software tools available on Linux
5704 for LEGO designers.
</p>
5710 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>.
5715 <div class=
"padding"></div>
5719 <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>
5725 <p>When I woke up this morning, I was very happy to see that the
5726 <a href=
"http://www.debian.org/News/2013/20130504">release announcement
5727 for Debian Wheezy
</a> was waiting in my mail box. This is a great
5728 Debian release, and I expect to move my machines at home over to it fairly
5731 <p>The new debian release contain heaps of new stuff, and one program
5732 in particular make me very happy to see included. The
5733 <a href=
"http://scratch.mit.edu/">Scratch
</a> program, made famous by
5734 the
<a href=
"http://www.code.org/">Teach kids code
</a> movement, is
5735 included for the first time. Alongside similar programs like
5736 <a href=
"http://edu.kde.org/kturtle/">kturtle
</a> and
5737 <a href=
"http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/Turtle_Art">turtleart
</a>,
5738 it allow for visual programming where syntax errors can not happen,
5739 and a friendly programming environment for learning to control the
5740 computer. Scratch will also be included in the next release of Debian
5743 <p>And now that Wheezy is wrapped up, we can wrap up the next Debian
5744 Edu/Skolelinux release too. The
5745 <a href=
"http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/2013/04/msg00132.html">first
5746 alpha release
</a> went out last week, and the next should soon
5753 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>.
5758 <div class=
"padding"></div>
5762 <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>
5768 <p>Today the
<a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">Isenkram
5769 package
</a> finally made it into the archive, after lingering in NEW
5770 for many months. I uploaded it to the Debian experimental suite
5771 2013-
01-
27, and today it was accepted into the archive.
</p>
5773 <p>Isenkram is a system for suggesting to users what packages to
5774 install to work with a pluggable hardware device. The suggestion pop
5775 up when the device is plugged in. For example if a Lego Mindstorm NXT
5776 is inserted, it will suggest to install the program needed to program
5777 the NXT controller. Give it a go, and report bugs and suggestions to
5784 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>.
5789 <div class=
"padding"></div>
5793 <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>
5800 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_backport_bitcoin_qt_version_0_7_2_2_to_Debian_Squeeze.html">last
5801 bitcoin related blog post
</a> mentioned that the new
5802 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin package
</a> for
5803 Debian was waiting in NEW. It was accepted by the Debian ftp-masters
5804 2013-
01-
19, and have been available in unstable since then. It was
5805 automatically copied to Ubuntu, and is available in their Raring
5808 <p>But there is a strange problem with the build that block this new
5809 version from being available on the i386 and kfreebsd-i386
5810 architectures. For some strange reason, the autobuilders in Debian
5811 for these architectures fail to run the test suite on these
5812 architectures (
<a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/672524">BTS #
672524</a>).
5813 We are so far unable to reproduce it when building it manually, and
5814 no-one have been able to propose a fix. If you got an idea what is
5815 failing, please let us know via the BTS.
</p>
5817 <p>One feature that is annoying me with of the bitcoin client, because
5818 I often run low on disk space, is the fact that the client will exit
5819 if it run short on space (
<a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/696715">BTS
5820 #
696715</a>). So make sure you have enough disk space when you run
5823 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
5824 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
5825 <b><a href=
"bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
</a></b>.
</p>
5831 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>.
5836 <div class=
"padding"></div>
5840 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">Welcome to the world, Isenkram!
</a>
5847 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_prototype_ready_making_hardware_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">asked
5848 for testers
</a> for my prototype for making Debian better at handling
5849 pluggable hardware devices, which I
5850 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">set
5851 out to create
</a> earlier this month. Several valuable testers showed
5852 up, and caused me to really want to to open up the development to more
5853 people. But before I did this, I want to come up with a sensible name
5854 for this project. Today I finally decided on a new name, and I have
5855 renamed the project from hw-support-handler to this new name. In the
5856 process, I moved the source to git and made it available as a
5857 <a href=
"http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/isenkram.git">collab-maint
</a>
5858 repository in Debian. The new name? It is
<strong>Isenkram
</strong>.
5859 To fetch and build the latest version of the source, use
</p>
5862 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/collab-maint/isenkram.git
5863 cd isenkram && git-buildpackage -us -uc
5866 <p>I have not yet adjusted all files to use the new name yet. If you
5867 want to hack on the source or improve the package, please go ahead.
5868 But please talk to me first on IRC or via email before you do major
5869 changes, to make sure we do not step on each others toes. :)
</p>
5871 <p>If you wonder what 'isenkram' is, it is a Norwegian word for iron
5872 stuff, typically meaning tools, nails, screws, etc. Typical hardware
5873 stuff, in other words. I've been told it is the Norwegian variant of
5874 the German word eisenkram, for those that are familiar with that
5877 <p><strong>Update
2013-
01-
26</strong>: Added -us -us to build
5878 instructions, to avoid confusing people with an error from the signing
5881 <p><strong>Update
2013-
01-
27</strong>: Switch to HTTP URL for the git
5882 clone argument to avoid the need for authentication.
</p>
5888 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>.
5893 <div class=
"padding"></div>
5897 <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>
5903 <p>Early this month I set out to try to
5904 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">improve
5905 the Debian support for pluggable hardware devices
</a>. Now my
5906 prototype is working, and it is ready for a larger audience. To test
5908 <a href=
"http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">source
5909 from the Debian Edu subversion repository
</a>, build and install the
5910 package. You might have to log out and in again activate the
5911 autostart script.
</p>
5913 <p>The design is simple:
</p>
5917 <li>Add desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ causing a program
5918 hw-support-handlerd to start when the user log in.
</li>
5920 <li>This program listen for kernel events about new hardware (directly
5921 from the kernel like udev does), not using HAL dbus events as I
5924 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware modalias in
5925 the APT database, a database
5926 <a href=
"http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=markup">available
5927 via HTTP
</a> and a database available as part of the package.
</li>
5929 <li>If a package is mapped to the hardware in question, the package
5930 isn't installed yet and this is the first time the hardware was
5931 plugged in, show a desktop notification suggesting to install the
5932 package or packages.
</li>
5934 <li>If the user click on the 'install package now' button, ask
5935 aptdaemon via the PackageKit API to install the requrired package.
</li>
5937 <li>aptdaemon ask for root password or sudo password, and install the
5938 package while showing progress information in a window.
</li>
5942 <p>I still need to come up with a better name for the system. Here
5943 are some screen shots showing the prototype in action. First the
5944 notification, then the password request, and finally the request to
5945 approve all the dependencies. Sorry for the Norwegian Bokmål GUI.
</p>
5947 <p><img src=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-1-notification.png">
5948 <br><img src=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-2-password.png">
5949 <br><img src=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-3-dependencies.png">
5950 <br><img src=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-4-installing.png">
5951 <br><img src=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-5-installing-details.png" width=
"70%"></p>
5953 <p>The prototype still need to be improved with longer timeouts, but
5954 is already useful. The database of hardware to package mappings also
5955 need more work. It is currently compatible with the Ubuntu way of
5956 storing such information in the package control file, but could be
5957 changed to use other formats instead or in addition to the current
5958 method. I've dropped the use of discover for this mapping, as the
5959 modalias approach is more flexible and easier to use on Linux as long
5960 as the Linux kernel expose its modalias strings directly.
</p>
5962 <p><strong>Update
2013-
01-
21 16:
50</strong>: Due to popular demand,
5963 here is the command required to check out and build the source: Use
5965 svn://svn.debian.org/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/; cd
5966 hw-support-handler; debuild
</tt>'. If you lack debuild, install the
5967 devscripts package.
</p>
5969 <p><strong>Update
2013-
01-
23 12:
00</strong>: The project is now
5970 renamed to Isenkram and the source moved from the Debian Edu
5971 subversion repository to a Debian collab-maint git repository. See
5972 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">build
5973 instructions
</a> for details.
</p>
5979 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>.
5984 <div class=
"padding"></div>
5988 <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>
5994 <p>This Christmas my trusty old laptop died. It died quietly and
5995 suddenly in bed. With a quiet whimper, it went completely quiet and
5996 black. The power button was no longer able to turn it on. It was a
5997 IBM Thinkpad X41, and the best laptop I ever had. Better than both
5998 Thinkpads X30, X31, X40, X60, X61 and X61S. Far better than the
5999 Compaq I had before that. Now I need to find a replacement. To keep
6000 going during Christmas, I moved the one year old SSD disk to my old
6001 X40 where it fitted (only one I had left that could use it), but it is
6002 not a durable solution.
6004 <p>My laptop needs are fairly modest. This is my wishlist from when I
6005 got a new one more than
10 years ago. It still holds true.:)
</p>
6009 <li>Lightweight (around
1 kg) and small volume (preferably smaller
6011 <li>Robust, it will be in my backpack every day.
</li>
6012 <li>Three button mouse and a mouse pin instead of touch pad.
</li>
6013 <li>Long battery life time. Preferable a week.
</li>
6014 <li>Internal WIFI network card.
</li>
6015 <li>Internal Twisted Pair network card.
</li>
6016 <li>Some USB slots (
2-
3 is plenty)
</li>
6017 <li>Good keyboard - similar to the Thinkpad.
</li>
6018 <li>Video resolution at least
1024x768, with size around
12" (A4 paper
6020 <li>Hardware supported by Debian Stable, ie the default kernel and
6021 X.org packages.
</li>
6022 <li>Quiet, preferably fan free (or at least not using the fan most of
6027 <p>You will notice that there are no RAM and CPU requirements in the
6028 list. The reason is simply that the specifications on laptops the
6029 last
10-
15 years have been sufficient for my needs, and I have to look
6030 at other features to choose my laptop. But are there still made as
6031 robust laptops as my X41? The Thinkpad X60/X61 proved to be less
6032 robust, and Thinkpads seem to be heading in the wrong direction since
6033 Lenovo took over. But I've been told that X220 and X1 Carbon might
6034 still be useful.
</p>
6036 <p>Perhaps I should rethink my needs, and look for a pad with an
6037 external keyboard? I'll have to check the
6038 <a href=
"http://www.linux-laptop.net/">Linux Laptops site
</a> for
6039 well-supported laptops, or perhaps just buy one preinstalled from one
6040 of the vendors listed on the
<a href=
"http://linuxpreloaded.com/">Linux
6041 Pre-loaded site
</a>.
</p>
6047 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>.
6052 <div class=
"padding"></div>
6056 <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>
6062 <p>Some times I try to figure out which Iceweasel browser plugin to
6063 install to get support for a given MIME type. Thanks to
6064 <a href=
"https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MozillaTeam/Plugins">specifications
6065 done by Ubuntu
</a> and Mozilla, it is possible to do this in Debian.
6066 Unfortunately, not very many packages provide the needed meta
6067 information, Anyway, here is a small script to look up all browser
6068 plugin packages announcing ther MIME support using this specification:
</p>
6074 def pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
6079 version = pkg.candidate
6081 version = pkg.installed
6084 record = version.record
6085 if not record.has_key('Npp-MimeType'):
6087 mime_types = record['Npp-MimeType'].split(',')
6088 for t in mime_types:
6089 t = t.rstrip().strip()
6091 thepkgs.append(pkg.name)
6093 mimetype = "audio/ogg"
6094 if
1 < len(sys.argv):
6095 mimetype = sys.argv[
1]
6096 print "Browser plugin packages supporting %s:" % mimetype
6097 for pkg in pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
6101 <p>It can be used like this to look up a given MIME type:
</p>
6104 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype
6105 Browser plugin packages supporting audio/ogg:
6107 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype application/x-shockwave-flash
6108 Browser plugin packages supporting application/x-shockwave-flash:
6109 browser-plugin-gnash
6113 <p>In Ubuntu this mechanism is combined with support in the browser
6114 itself to query for plugins and propose to install the needed
6115 packages. It would be great if Debian supported such feature too. Is
6116 anyone working on adding it?
</p>
6118 <p><strong>Update
2013-
01-
18 14:
20</strong>: The Debian BTS
6119 request for icweasel support for this feature is
6120 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/484010">#
484010</a> from
2008 (and
6121 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/698426">#
698426</a> from today). Lack
6122 of manpower and wish for a different design is the reason thus feature
6123 is not yet in iceweasel from Debian.
</p>
6129 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>.
6134 <div class=
"padding"></div>
6138 <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>
6144 <p>The
<a href=
"http://wiki.debian.org/AppStreamDebianProposal">DEP-
11
6145 proposal to add AppStream information to the Debian archive
</a>, is a
6146 proposal to make it possible for a Desktop application to propose to
6147 the user some package to install to gain support for a given MIME
6148 type, font, library etc. that is currently missing. With such
6149 mechanism in place, it would be possible for the desktop to
6150 automatically propose and install leocad if some LDraw file is
6151 downloaded by the browser.
</p>
6153 <p>To get some idea about the current content of the archive, I decided
6154 to write a simple program to extract all .desktop files from the
6155 Debian archive and look up the claimed MIME support there. The result
6157 <a href=
"http://ftp.skolelinux.org/pub/AppStreamTest">Skolelinux FTP
6158 site
</a>. Using the collected information, it become possible to
6159 answer the question in the title. Here are the
20 most supported MIME
6160 types in Debian stable (Squeeze), testing (Wheezy) and unstable (Sid).
6161 The complete list is available from the link above.
</p>
6163 <p><strong>Debian Stable:
</strong></p>
6167 ----- -----------------------
6183 18 application/x-ogg
6190 <p><strong>Debian Testing:
</strong></p>
6194 ----- -----------------------
6210 18 application/x-ogg
6217 <p><strong>Debian Unstable:
</strong></p>
6221 ----- -----------------------
6238 18 application/x-ogg
6244 <p>I am told that PackageKit can provide an API to access the kind of
6245 information mentioned in DEP-
11. I have not yet had time to look at
6246 it, but hope the PackageKit people in Debian are on top of these
6249 <p><strong>Update
2013-
01-
16 13:
35</strong>: Updated numbers after
6250 discovering a typo in my script.
</p>
6256 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>.
6261 <div class=
"padding"></div>
6265 <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>
6271 <p>Yesterday, I wrote about the
6272 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Modalias_strings___a_practical_way_to_map__stuff__to_hardware.html">modalias
6273 values provided by the Linux kernel
</a> following my hope for
6274 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">better
6275 dongle support in Debian
</a>. Using this knowledge, I have tested how
6276 modalias values attached to package names can be used to map packages
6277 to hardware. This allow the system to look up and suggest relevant
6278 packages when I plug in some new hardware into my machine, and replace
6279 discover and discover-data as the database used to map hardware to
6282 <p>I create a modaliases file with entries like the following,
6283 containing package name, kernel module name (if relevant, otherwise
6284 the package name) and globs matching the relevant hardware
6288 Package: package-name
6289 <br>Modaliases: module(modaliasglob, modaliasglob, modaliasglob)
</p>
6292 <p>It is fairly trivial to write code to find the relevant packages
6293 for a given modalias value using this file.
</p>
6295 <p>An entry like this would suggest the video and picture application
6296 cheese for many USB web cameras (interface bus class
0E01):
</p>
6300 <br>Modaliases: cheese(usb:v*p*d*dc*dsc*dp*ic0Eisc01ip*)
</p>
6303 <p>An entry like this would suggest the pcmciautils package when a
6304 CardBus bridge (bus class
0607) PCI device is present:
</p>
6307 Package: pcmciautils
6308 <br>Modaliases: pcmciautils(pci:v*d*sv*sd*bc06sc07i*)
6311 <p>An entry like this would suggest the package colorhug-client when
6312 plugging in a ColorHug with USB IDs
04D8:F8DA:
</p>
6315 Package: colorhug-client
6316 <br>Modaliases: colorhug-client(usb:v04D8pF8DAd*)
</p>
6319 <p>I believe the format is compatible with the format of the Packages
6320 file in the Debian archive. Ubuntu already uses their Packages file
6321 to store their mappings from packages to hardware.
</p>
6323 <p>By adding a XB-Modaliases: header in debian/control, any .deb can
6324 announce the hardware it support in a way my prototype understand.
6325 This allow those publishing packages in an APT source outside the
6326 Debian archive as well as those backporting packages to make sure the
6327 hardware mapping are included in the package meta information. I've
6328 tested such header in the pymissile package, and its modalias mapping
6329 is working as it should with my prototype. It even made it to Ubuntu
6332 <p>To test if it was possible to look up supported hardware using only
6333 the shell tools available in the Debian installer, I wrote a shell
6334 implementation of the lookup code. The idea is to create files for
6335 each modalias and let the shell do the matching. Please check out and
6337 <a href=
"http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/hw-support-lookup?view=co">hw-support-lookup
</a>
6338 shell script. It run without any extra dependencies and fetch the
6339 hardware mappings from the Debian archive and the subversion
6340 repository where I currently work on my prototype.
</p>
6342 <p>When I use it on a machine with a yubikey inserted, it suggest to
6343 install yubikey-personalization:
</p>
6346 % ./hw-support-lookup
6347 <br>yubikey-personalization
6351 <p>When I run it on my Thinkpad X40 with a PCMCIA/CardBus slot, it
6352 propose to install the pcmciautils package:
</p>
6355 % ./hw-support-lookup
6360 <p>If you know of any hardware-package mapping that should be added to
6361 <a href=
"http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=co">my
6362 database
</a>, please tell me about it.
</p>
6364 <p>It could be possible to generate several of the mappings between
6365 packages and hardware. One source would be to look at packages with
6366 kernel modules, ie packages with *.ko files in /lib/modules/, and
6367 extract their modalias information. Another would be to look at
6368 packages with udev rules, ie packages with files in
6369 /lib/udev/rules.d/, and extract their vendor/model information to
6370 generate a modalias matching rule. I have not tested any of these to
6373 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
6374 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
6375 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
6376 <a href=
"irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel
</a>.
</p>
6382 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>.
6387 <div class=
"padding"></div>
6391 <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>
6397 <p>While looking into how to look up Debian packages based on hardware
6398 information, to find the packages that support a given piece of
6399 hardware, I refreshed my memory regarding modalias values, and decided
6400 to document the details. Here are my findings so far, also available
6402 <a href=
"http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
6403 Debian Edu subversion repository
</a>:
6405 <p><strong>Modalias decoded
</strong></p>
6407 <p>This document try to explain what the different types of modalias
6408 values stands for. It is in part based on information from
6409 <URL:
<a href=
"https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias">https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias
</a> >,
6410 <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> >,
6411 <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> > and
6412 <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> >.
6414 <p>The modalias entries for a given Linux machine can be found using
6415 this shell script:
</p>
6418 find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -
0 cat | sort -u
6421 <p>The supported modalias globs for a given kernel module can be found
6425 % /sbin/modinfo psmouse | grep alias:
6426 alias: serio:ty05pr*id*ex*
6427 alias: serio:ty01pr*id*ex*
6431 <p><strong>PCI subtype
</strong></p>
6433 <p>A typical PCI entry can look like this. This is an Intel Host
6434 Bridge memory controller:
</p>
6437 pci:v00008086d00002770sv00001028sd000001ADbc06sc00i00
6440 <p>This represent these values:
</p>
6445 sv
00001028 (subvendor)
6446 sd
000001AD (subdevice)
6448 sc
00 (bus subclass)
6452 <p>The vendor/device values are the same values outputted from 'lspci
6453 -n' as
8086:
2770. The bus class/subclass is also shown by lspci as
6454 0600. The
0600 class is a host bridge. Other useful bus values are
6455 0300 (VGA compatible card) and
0200 (Ethernet controller).
</p>
6457 <p>Not sure how to figure out the interface value, nor what it
6460 <p><strong>USB subtype
</strong></p>
6462 <p>Some typical USB entries can look like this. This is an internal
6463 USB hub in a laptop:
</p>
6466 usb:v1D6Bp0001d0206dc09dsc00dp00ic09isc00ip00
6469 <p>Here is the values included in this alias:
</p>
6472 v
1D6B (device vendor)
6473 p
0001 (device product)
6475 dc
09 (device class)
6476 dsc
00 (device subclass)
6477 dp
00 (device protocol)
6478 ic
09 (interface class)
6479 isc
00 (interface subclass)
6480 ip
00 (interface protocol)
6483 <p>The
0900 device class/subclass means hub. Some times the relevant
6484 class is in the interface class section. For a simple USB web camera,
6485 these alias entries show up:
</p>
6488 usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc01ip00
6489 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc02ip00
6490 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc01ip00
6491 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc02ip00
6494 <p>Interface class
0E01 is video control,
0E02 is video streaming (aka
6495 camera),
0101 is audio control device and
0102 is audio streaming (aka
6496 microphone). Thus this is a camera with microphone included.
</p>
6498 <p><strong>ACPI subtype
</strong></p>
6500 <p>The ACPI type is used for several non-PCI/USB stuff. This is an IR
6501 receiver in a Thinkpad X40:
</p>
6504 acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
6507 <p>The values between the colons are IDs.
</p>
6509 <p><strong>DMI subtype
</strong></p>
6511 <p>The DMI table contain lots of information about the computer case
6512 and model. This is an entry for a IBM Thinkpad X40, fetched from
6513 /sys/devices/virtual/dmi/id/modalias:
</p>
6516 dmi:bvnIBM:bvr1UETB6WW(
1.66):bd06/
15/
2005:svnIBM:pn2371H4G:pvrThinkPadX40:rvnIBM:rn2371H4G:rvrNotAvailable:cvnIBM:ct10:cvrNotAvailable:
6519 <p>The values present are
</p>
6522 bvn IBM (BIOS vendor)
6523 bvr
1UETB
6WW(
1.66) (BIOS version)
6524 bd
06/
15/
2005 (BIOS date)
6525 svn IBM (system vendor)
6526 pn
2371H4G (product name)
6527 pvr ThinkPadX40 (product version)
6528 rvn IBM (board vendor)
6529 rn
2371H4G (board name)
6530 rvr NotAvailable (board version)
6531 cvn IBM (chassis vendor)
6532 ct
10 (chassis type)
6533 cvr NotAvailable (chassis version)
6536 <p>The chassis type
10 is Notebook. Other interesting values can be
6537 found in the dmidecode source:
</p>
6541 4 Low Profile Desktop
6554 17 Main Server Chassis
6555 18 Expansion Chassis
6557 20 Bus Expansion Chassis
6558 21 Peripheral Chassis
6560 23 Rack Mount Chassis
6569 <p>The chassis type values are not always accurately set in the DMI
6570 table. For example my home server is a tower, but the DMI modalias
6571 claim it is a desktop.
</p>
6573 <p><strong>SerIO subtype
</strong></p>
6575 <p>This type is used for PS/
2 mouse plugs. One example is from my
6579 serio:ty01pr00id00ex00
6582 <p>The values present are
</p>
6591 <p>This type is supported by the psmouse driver. I am not sure what
6592 the valid values are.
</p>
6594 <p><strong>Other subtypes
</strong></p>
6596 <p>There are heaps of other modalias subtypes according to
6597 file2alias.c. There is the rest of the list from that source: amba,
6598 ap, bcma, ccw, css, eisa, hid, i2c, ieee1394, input, ipack, isapnp,
6599 mdio, of, parisc, pcmcia, platform, scsi, sdio, spi, ssb, vio, virtio,
6600 vmbus, x86cpu and zorro. I did not spend time documenting all of
6601 these, as they do not seem relevant for my intended use with mapping
6602 hardware to packages when new stuff is inserted during run time.
</p>
6604 <p><strong>Looking up kernel modules using modalias values
</strong></p>
6606 <p>To check which kernel modules provide support for a given modalias,
6607 one can use the following shell script:
</p>
6610 for id in $(find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -
0 cat | sort -u); do \
6612 /sbin/modprobe --show-depends "$id"|sed 's/^/ /' ; \
6616 <p>The output can look like this (only the first few entries as the
6617 list is very long on my test machine):
</p>
6621 insmod /lib/modules/
2.6.32-
5-
686/kernel/drivers/acpi/ac.ko
6623 FATAL: Module acpi:device: not found.
6625 insmod /lib/modules/
2.6.32-
5-
686/kernel/drivers/char/nvram.ko
6626 insmod /lib/modules/
2.6.32-
5-
686/kernel/drivers/leds/led-class.ko
6627 insmod /lib/modules/
2.6.32-
5-
686/kernel/net/rfkill/rfkill.ko
6628 insmod /lib/modules/
2.6.32-
5-
686/kernel/drivers/platform/x86/thinkpad_acpi.ko
6629 acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
6630 insmod /lib/modules/
2.6.32-
5-
686/kernel/lib/crc-ccitt.ko
6631 insmod /lib/modules/
2.6.32-
5-
686/kernel/net/irda/irda.ko
6632 insmod /lib/modules/
2.6.32-
5-
686/kernel/drivers/net/irda/nsc-ircc.ko
6636 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
6637 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
6638 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
6639 <a href=
"irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel
</a>.
</p>
6641 <p><strong>Update
2013-
01-
15:
</strong> Rewrite "cat $(find ...)" to
6642 "find ... -print0 | xargs -
0 cat" to make sure it handle directories
6643 in /sys/ with space in them.
</p>
6649 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>.
6654 <div class=
"padding"></div>
6658 <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>
6664 <p>As part of my investigation on how to improve the support in Debian
6665 for hardware dongles, I dug up my old Mark and Spencer USB Rocket
6666 Launcher and updated the Debian package
6667 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/pymissile">pymissile
</a> to make
6668 sure udev will fix the device permissions when it is plugged in. I
6669 also added a "Modaliases" header to test it in the Debian archive and
6670 hopefully make the package be proposed by jockey in Ubuntu when a user
6671 plug in his rocket launcher. In the process I moved the source to a
6672 git repository under collab-maint, to make it easier for any DD to
6673 contribute.
<a href=
"http://code.google.com/p/pymissile/">Upstream
</a>
6674 is not very active, but the software still work for me even after five
6675 years of relative silence. The new git repository is not listed in
6676 the uploaded package yet, because I want to test the other changes a
6677 bit more before I upload the new version. If you want to check out
6678 the new version with a .desktop file included, visit the
6679 <a href=
"http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/pymissile.git">gitweb
6680 view
</a> or use "
<tt>git clone
6681 git://anonscm.debian.org/collab-maint/pymissile.git
</tt>".</p>
6687 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>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot
">robot</a>.
6692 <div class="padding
"></div>
6696 <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>
6702 <p>One thing that annoys me with Debian and Linux distributions in
6703 general, is that there is a great package management system with the
6704 ability to automatically install software packages by downloading them
6705 from the distribution mirrors, but no way to get it to automatically
6706 install the packages I need to use the hardware I plug into my
6707 machine. Even if the package to use it is easily available from the
6708 Linux distribution. When I plug in a LEGO Mindstorms NXT, it could
6709 suggest to automatically install the python-nxt, nbc and t2n packages
6710 I need to talk to it. When I plug in a Yubikey, it could propose the
6711 yubikey-personalization package. The information required to do this
6712 is available, but no-one have pulled all the pieces together.</p>
6714 <p>Some years ago, I proposed to
6715 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/
2010/
05/msg01206.html
">use
6716 the discover subsystem to implement this</a>. The idea is fairly
6721 <li>Add a desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ pointing to a program
6722 starting when a user log in.</li>
6724 <li>Set this program up to listen for kernel events emitted when new
6725 hardware is inserted into the computer.</li>
6727 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware ID in a
6728 database mapping to packages, and take note of any non-installed
6731 <li>Show a message to the user proposing to install the discovered
6732 package, and make it easy to install it.</li>
6736 <p>I am not sure what the best way to implement this is, but my
6737 initial idea was to use dbus events to discover new hardware, the
6738 discover database to find packages and
6739 <a href="http://www.packagekit.org/
">PackageKit</a> to install
6742 <p>Yesterday, I found time to try to implement this idea, and the
6743 draft package is now checked into
6744 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/
">the
6745 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>. In the process, I updated the
6746 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover-data.html
">discover-data</a>
6747 package to map the USB ids of LEGO Mindstorms and Yubikey devices to
6748 the relevant packages in Debian, and uploaded a new version
6749 2.2013.01.09 to unstable. I also discovered that the current
6750 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover.html
">discover</a>
6751 package in Debian no longer discovered any USB devices, because
6752 /proc/bus/usb/devices is no longer present. I ported it to use
6753 libusb as a fall back option to get it working. The fixed package
6754 version 2.1.2-6 is now in experimental (didn't upload it to unstable
6755 because of the freeze).</p>
6757 <p>With this prototype in place, I can insert my Yubikey, and get this
6758 desktop notification to show up (only once, the first time it is
6761 <p align="center
"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/
2013-
01-
09-hw-autoinstall.png
"></p>
6763 <p>For this prototype to be really useful, some way to automatically
6764 install the proposed packages by pressing the "Please install
6765 program(s)" button should to be implemented.
</p>
6767 <p>If this idea seem useful to you, and you want to help make it
6768 happen, please help me update the discover-data database with mappings
6769 from hardware to Debian packages. Check if 'discover-pkginstall -l'
6770 list the package you would like to have installed when a given
6771 hardware device is inserted into your computer, and report bugs using
6772 reportbug if it isn't. Or, if you know of a better way to provide
6773 such mapping, please let me know.
</p>
6775 <p>This prototype need more work, and there are several questions that
6776 should be considered before it is ready for production use. Is dbus
6777 the correct way to detect new hardware? At the moment I look for HAL
6778 dbus events on the system bus, because that is the events I could see
6779 on my Debian Squeeze KDE desktop. Are there better events to use?
6780 How should the user be notified? Is the desktop notification
6781 mechanism the best option, or should the background daemon raise a
6782 popup instead? How should packages be installed? When should they
6783 not be installed?
</p>
6785 <p>If you want to help getting such feature implemented in Debian,
6786 please send me an email. :)
</p>
6792 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>.
6797 <div class=
"padding"></div>
6801 <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>
6807 <p>During Christmas, I have worked a bit on the Debian support for
6808 <a href=
"http://mindstorms.lego.com/en-us/Default.aspx">LEGO Mindstorm
6809 NXT
</a>. My son and I have played a bit with my NXT set, and I
6810 discovered I had to build all the tools myself because none were
6811 already in Debian Squeeze. If Debian support for LEGO is something
6812 you care about, please join me on the IRC channel
6813 <a href=
"irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">#debian-lego
</a> (server
6814 irc.debian.org). There is a lot that could be done to improve the
6815 Debian support for LEGO designers. For example both CAD software
6816 and Mindstorm compilers are missing. :)
</p>
6818 <p>Update
2012-
01-
03: A
6819 <a href=
"http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">project page
</a>
6820 including links to Lego related packages is now available.
</p>
6826 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>.
6831 <div class=
"padding"></div>
6835 <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>
6841 <p>Let me start by wishing you all marry Christmas and a happy new
6842 year! I hope next year will prove to be a good year.
</p>
6844 <p><a href=
"http://www.bitcoin.org/">Bitcoin
</a>, the digital
6845 decentralised "currency" that allow people to transfer bitcoins
6846 between each other with minimal overhead, is a very interesting
6847 experiment. And as I wrote a few days ago, the bitcoin situation in
6848 <a href=
"http://www.debian.org/">Debian
</a> is about to improve a bit.
6849 The
<a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">new debian source
6850 package
</a> (version
0.7.2-
2) was uploaded yesterday, and is waiting
6851 in
<a href=
"http://ftp-master.debian.org/new.html">the NEW queue
</A>
6852 for one of the ftpmasters to approve the new bitcoin-qt package
6855 <p>And thanks to the great work of Jonas and the rest of the bitcoin
6856 team in Debian, you can easily test the package in Debian Squeeze
6857 using the following steps to get a set of working packages:
</p>
6860 git clone git://git.debian.org/git/collab-maint/bitcoin
6862 DEB_MAINTAINER_MODE=
1 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp fakeroot debian/rules clean
6863 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp git-buildpackage --git-ignore-new
6866 <p>You might have to install some build dependencies as well. The
6867 list of commands should give you two packages, bitcoind and
6868 bitcoin-qt, ready for use in a Squeeze environment. Note that the
6869 client will download the complete set of bitcoin "blocks", which need
6870 around
5.6 GiB of data on my machine at the moment. Make sure your
6871 ~/.bitcoin/ directory have lots of spare room if you want to download
6872 all the blocks. The client will warn if the disk is getting full, so
6873 there is not really a problem if you got too little room, but you will
6874 not be able to get all the features out of the client.
</p>
6876 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
6877 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
6878 <b><a href=
"bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
</a></b>.
</p>
6884 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>.
6889 <div class=
"padding"></div>
6893 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_word_on_bitcoin_support_in_Debian.html">A word on bitcoin support in Debian
</a>
6899 <p>It has been a while since I wrote about
6900 <a href=
"http://www.bitcoin.org/">bitcoin
</a>, the decentralised
6901 peer-to-peer based crypto-currency, and the reason is simply that I
6902 have been busy elsewhere. But two days ago, I started looking at the
6903 state of
<a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin in
6904 Debian
</a> again to try to recover my old bitcoin wallet. The package
6905 is now maintained by a
6906 <a href=
"https://alioth.debian.org/projects/pkg-bitcoin/">team of
6907 people
</a>, and the grunt work had already been done by this team. We
6908 owe a huge thank you to all these team members. :)
6909 But I was sad to discover that the bitcoin client is missing in
6910 Wheezy. It is only available in Sid (and an outdated client from
6911 backports). The client had several RC bugs registered in BTS blocking
6912 it from entering testing. To try to help the team and improve the
6913 situation, I spent some time providing patches and triaging the bug
6914 reports. I also had a look at the bitcoin package available from Matt
6916 <a href=
"https://launchpad.net/~bitcoin/+archive/bitcoin">PPA for
6917 Ubuntu
</a>, and moved the useful pieces from that version into the
6920 <p>After checking with the main package maintainer Jonas Smedegaard on
6921 IRC, I pushed several patches into the collab-maint git repository to
6922 improve the package. It now contains fixes for the RC issues (not from
6923 me, but fixed by Scott Howard), build rules for a Qt GUI client
6924 package, konqueror support for the bitcoin: URI and bash completion
6925 setup. As I work on Debian Squeeze, I also created
6926 <a href=
"http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-bitcoin-devel/Week-of-Mon-20121217/000041.html">a
6927 patch to backport
</a> the latest version. Jonas is going to look at
6928 it and try to integrate it into the git repository before uploading a
6929 new version to unstable.
6931 <p>I would very much like bitcoin to succeed, to get rid of the
6932 centralized control currently exercised in the monetary system. I
6933 find it completely unacceptable that the USA government is collecting
6934 transaction data for almost all international money transfers (most are done in USD and transaction logs shipped to the spooks), and
6935 that the major credit card companies can block legal money
6936 transactions to Wikileaks. But for bitcoin to succeed, more people
6937 need to use bitcoins, and more people need to accept bitcoins when
6938 they sell products and services. Improving the bitcoin support in
6939 Debian is a small step in the right direction, but not enough.
6940 Unfortunately the user experience when browsing the web and wanting to
6941 pay with bitcoin is still not very good. The bitcoin: URI is a step
6942 in the right direction, but need to work in most or every browser in
6943 use. Also the bitcoin-qt client is too heavy to fire up to do a
6944 quick transaction. I believe there are other clients available, but
6945 have not tested them.
</p>
6948 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Now_accepting_bitcoins___anonymous_and_distributed_p2p_crypto_money.html">experiment
6949 with bitcoins
</a> showed that at least some of my readers use bitcoin.
6950 I received
20.15 BTC so far on the address I provided in my blog two
6951 years ago, as can be
6952 <a href=
"http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">seen
6953 on the blockexplorer service
</a>. Thank you everyone for your
6954 donation. The blockexplorer service demonstrates quite well that
6955 bitcoin is not quite anonymous and untracked. :) I wonder if the
6956 number of users have gone up since then. If you use bitcoin and want
6957 to show your support of my activity, please send Bitcoin donations to
6958 the same address as last time,
6959 <b><a href=
"bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
</a></b>.
</p>
6965 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>.
6970 <div class=
"padding"></div>
6974 <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>
6981 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">mentioned
6982 this summer
</a>, I have created a Computer Science song book a few
6983 years ago, and today I finally found time to create a public
6984 <a href=
"https://gitorious.org/pere-cs-songbook/pere-cs-songbook">Gitorious
6985 repository for the project
</a>.
</p>
6987 <p>If you want to help out, please clone the source and submit patches
6988 to the HTML version. To generate the PDF and PostScript version,
6989 please use prince XML, or let me know about a useful free software
6990 processor capable of creating a good looking PDF from the HTML.
</p>
6992 <p>Want to sing? You can still find the song book in HTML, PDF and
6993 PostScript formats at
6994 <a href=
"http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's Computer
6995 Science Songbook
</a>.
</p>
7001 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>.
7006 <div class=
"padding"></div>
7010 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gratulerer_med_19__rsdagen__Debian_.html">Gratulerer med
19-årsdagen, Debian!
</a>
7017 <a href=
"http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120813">Debian-prosjektet
19
7018 år
</a>. Jeg har fulgt det de siste
12 årene, og er veldig glad for å kunne
7019 si gratulerer med dagen, Debian!
</p>
7025 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>.
7030 <div class=
"padding"></div>
7034 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">Song book for Computer Scientists
</a>
7040 <p>Many years ago, while studying Computer Science at the
7041 <a href=
"http://www.uit.no/">University of Tromsø
</a>, I started
7042 collecting computer related songs for use at parties. The original
7043 version was written in LaTeX, but a few years ago I got help from
7044 Håkon W. Lie, one of the inventors of W3C CSS, to convert it to HTML
7045 while keeping the ability to create a nice book in PDF format. I have
7046 not had time to maintain the book for a while now, and guess I should
7047 put it up on some public version control repository where others can
7048 help me extend and update the book. If anyone is volunteering to help
7049 me with this, send me an email. Also let me know if there are songs
7050 missing in my book.
</p>
7052 <p>I have not mentioned the book on my blog so far, and it occured to
7053 me today that I really should let all my readers share the joys of
7054 singing out load about programming, computers and computer networks.
7055 Especially now that
<a href=
"http://debconf12.debconf.org/">Debconf
7056 12</a> is about to start (and I am not going). Want to sing? Check
7057 out
<a href=
"http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's
7058 Computer Science Songbook
</a>.
7064 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>.
7069 <div class=
"padding"></div>
7073 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatically_upgrading_server_firmware_on_Dell_PowerEdge.html">Automatically upgrading server firmware on Dell PowerEdge
</a>
7079 <p>At work we have heaps of servers. I believe the total count is
7080 around
1000 at the moment. To be able to get help from the vendors
7081 when something go wrong, we want to keep the firmware on the servers
7082 up to date. If the firmware isn't the latest and greatest, the
7083 vendors typically refuse to start debugging any problems until the
7084 firmware is upgraded. So before every reboot, we want to upgrade the
7085 firmware, and we would really like everyone handling servers at the
7086 university to do this themselves when they plan to reboot a machine.
7087 For that to happen we at the unix server admin group need to provide
7088 the tools to do so.
</p>
7090 <p>To make firmware upgrading easier, I am working on a script to
7091 fetch and install the latest firmware for the servers we got. Most of
7092 our hardware are from Dell and HP, so I have focused on these servers
7093 so far. This blog post is about the Dell part.
</P>
7095 <p>On the Dell FTP site I was lucky enough to find
7096 <a href=
"ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz">an XML file
</a>
7097 with firmware information for all
11th generation servers, listing
7098 which firmware should be used on a given model and where on the FTP
7099 site I can find it. Using a simple perl XML parser I can then
7100 download the shell scripts Dell provides to do firmware upgrades from
7101 within Linux and reboot when all the firmware is primed and ready to
7102 be activated on the first reboot.
</p>
7104 <p>This is the Dell related fragment of the perl code I am working on.
7105 Are there anyone working on similar tools for firmware upgrading all
7106 servers at a site? Please get in touch and lets share resources.
</p>
7112 use File::Temp qw(tempdir);
7114 # Install needed RHEL packages if missing
7116 'XML::Simple' =
> 'perl-XML-Simple',
7118 for my $module (keys %rhelmodules) {
7119 eval "use $module;";
7121 my $pkg = $rhelmodules{$module};
7122 system("yum install -y $pkg");
7123 eval "use $module;";
7127 my $errorsto = 'pere@hungry.com';
7133 sub run_firmware_script {
7134 my ($opts, $script) = @_;
7136 print STDERR "fail: missing script name\n";
7139 print STDERR "Running $script\n\n";
7141 if (
0 == system("sh $script $opts")) { # FIXME correct exit code handling
7142 print STDERR "success: firmware script ran succcessfully\n";
7144 print STDERR "fail: firmware script returned error\n";
7148 sub run_firmware_scripts {
7149 my ($opts, @dirs) = @_;
7150 # Run firmware packages
7151 for my $dir (@dirs) {
7152 print STDERR "info: Running scripts in $dir\n";
7153 opendir(my $dh, $dir) or die "Unable to open directory $dir: $!";
7154 while (my $s = readdir $dh) {
7155 next if $s =~ m/^\.\.?/;
7156 run_firmware_script($opts, "$dir/$s");
7164 print STDERR "info: Downloading $url\n";
7165 system("wget --quiet \"$url\"");
7170 my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
7173 if ($product =~ m/PowerEdge/) {
7175 # on RHEL, these pacakges are needed by the firwmare upgrade scripts
7176 system('yum install -y compat-libstdc++-
33.i686 libstdc++.i686 libxml2.i686 procmail');
7178 my $tmpdir = tempdir(
7182 fetch_dell_fw('catalog/Catalog.xml.gz');
7183 system('gunzip Catalog.xml.gz');
7184 my @paths = fetch_dell_fw_list('Catalog.xml');
7185 # -q is quiet, disabling interactivity and reducing console output
7188 for my $url (@paths) {
7189 fetch_dell_fw($url);
7191 run_firmware_scripts($fwopts, $tmpdir);
7193 print STDERR
"error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
7194 print STDERR
"error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
7198 print STDERR
"error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
7199 print STDERR
"error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
7205 my $url =
"ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/$path";
7209 # Using ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz, figure out which
7210 # firmware packages to download from Dell. Only work for Linux
7211 # machines and
11th generation Dell servers.
7212 sub fetch_dell_fw_list {
7213 my $filename = shift;
7215 my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
7217 my ($mybrand, $mymodel) = split(/\s+/, $product);
7219 print STDERR
"Finding firmware bundles for $mybrand $mymodel\n";
7221 my $xml = XMLin($filename);
7223 for my $bundle (@{$xml-
>{SoftwareBundle}}) {
7224 my $brand = $bundle-
>{TargetSystems}-
>{Brand}-
>{Display}-
>{content};
7225 my $model = $bundle-
>{TargetSystems}-
>{Brand}-
>{Model}-
>{Display}-
>{content};
7227 if ("ARRAY" eq ref $bundle-
>{TargetOSes}-
>{OperatingSystem}) {
7228 $oscode = $bundle-
>{TargetOSes}-
>{OperatingSystem}[
0]-
>{osCode};
7230 $oscode = $bundle-
>{TargetOSes}-
>{OperatingSystem}-
>{osCode};
7232 if ($mybrand eq $brand && $mymodel eq $model && "LIN" eq $oscode)
7234 @paths = map { $_-
>{path} } @{$bundle-
>{Contents}-
>{Package}};
7237 for my $component (@{$xml-
>{SoftwareComponent}}) {
7238 my $componenttype = $component-
>{ComponentType}-
>{value};
7240 # Drop application packages, only firmware and BIOS
7241 next if 'APAC' eq $componenttype;
7243 my $cpath = $component-
>{path};
7244 for my $path (@paths) {
7245 if ($cpath =~ m%/$path$%) {
7246 push(@paths, $cpath);
7254 <p>The code is only tested on RedHat Enterprise Linux, but I suspect
7255 it could work on other platforms with some tweaking. Anyone know a
7256 index like Catalog.xml is available from HP for HP servers? At the
7257 moment I maintain a similar list manually and it is quickly getting
7264 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>.
7269 <div class=
"padding"></div>
7273 <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>
7279 <p>Wouter Verhelst have some
7280 <a href=
"http://grep.be/blog/en/retorts/pere_kubuntu_boot">interesting
7281 comments and opinions
</a> on my blog post on
7282 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_should_start_from__etc_rcS_d__in_Debian____almost_nothing.html">the
7283 need to clean up /etc/rcS.d/ in Debian
</a> and my blog post about
7284 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_missing_in_the_Debian_desktop__or_why_my_parents_use_Kubuntu.html">the
7285 default KDE desktop in Debian
</a>. I only have time to address one
7286 small piece of his comment now, and though it best to address the
7287 misunderstanding he bring forward:
</p>
7290 Currently, a system admin has four options: [...] boot to a
7291 single-user system (by adding 'single' to the kernel command line;
7292 this runs rcS and rc1 scripts)
7295 <p>This make me believe Wouter believe booting into single user mode
7296 and booting into runlevel
1 is the same. I am not surprised he
7297 believe this, because it would make sense and is a quite sensible
7298 thing to believe. But because the boot in Debian is slightly broken,
7299 runlevel
1 do not work properly and it isn't the same as single user
7300 mode. I'll try to explain what is actually happing, but it is a bit
7301 hard to explain.
</p>
7303 <p>Single user mode is defined like this in /etc/inittab:
7304 "
<tt>~~:S:wait:/sbin/sulogin
</tt>". This means the only thing that is
7305 executed in single user mode is sulogin. Single user mode is a boot
7306 state "between
" the runlevels, and when booting into single user mode,
7307 only the scripts in /etc/rcS.d/ are executed before the init process
7308 enters the single user state. When switching to runlevel 1, the state
7309 is in fact not ending in runlevel 1, but it passes through runlevel 1
7310 and end up in the single user mode (see /etc/rc1.d/S03single, which
7311 runs "init -t1 S
" to switch to single user mode at the end of runlevel
7312 1. It is confusing that the 'S' (single user) init mode is not the
7313 mode enabled by /etc/rcS.d/ (which is more like the initial boot
7316 <p>This summary might make it clearer. When booting for the first
7317 time into single user mode, the following commands are executed:
7318 "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc S; /sbin/sulogin
</tt>". When booting into
7319 runlevel 1, the following commands are executed: "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc
7320 S; /etc/init.d/rc
1; /sbin/sulogin
</tt>". A problem show up when
7321 trying to continue after visiting single user mode. Not all services
7322 are started again as they should, causing the machine to end up in an
7323 unpredicatble state. This is why Debian admins recommend rebooting
7324 after visiting single user mode.</p>
7326 <p>A similar problem with runlevel 1 is caused by the amount of
7327 scripts executed from /etc/rcS.d/. When switching from say runlevel 2
7328 to runlevel 1, the services started from /etc/rcS.d/ are not properly
7329 stopped when passing through the scripts in /etc/rc1.d/, and not
7330 started again when switching away from runlevel 1 to the runlevels
7331 2-5. I believe the problem is best fixed by moving all the scripts
7332 out of /etc/rcS.d/ that are not <strong>required</strong> to get a
7333 functioning single user mode during boot.</p>
7335 <p>I have spent several years investigating the Debian boot system,
7336 and discovered this problem a few years ago. I suspect it originates
7337 from when sysvinit was introduced into Debian, a long time ago.</p>
7343 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>.
7348 <div class="padding
"></div>
7352 <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>
7358 <p>In the Debian boot system, several packages include scripts that
7359 are started from /etc/rcS.d/. In fact, there is a bite more of them
7360 than make sense, and this causes a few problems. What kind of
7361 problems, you might ask. There are at least two problems. The first
7362 is that it is not possible to recover a machine after switching to
7363 runlevel 1. One need to actually reboot to get the machine back to
7364 the expected state. The other is that single user boot will sometimes
7365 run into problems because some of the subsystems are activated before
7366 the root login is presented, causing problems when trying to recover a
7367 machine from a problem in that subsystem. A minor additional point is
7368 that moving more scripts out of rcS.d/ and into the other rc#.d/
7369 directories will increase the amount of scripts that can run in
7370 parallel during boot, and thus decrease the boot time.</p>
7372 <p>So, which scripts should start from rcS.d/. In short, only the
7373 scripts that _have_ to execute before the root login prompt is
7374 presented during a single user boot should go there. Everything else
7375 should go into the numeric runlevels. This means things like
7376 lm-sensors, fuse and x11-common should not run from rcS.d, but from
7377 the numeric runlevels. Today in Debian, there are around 115 init.d
7378 scripts that are started from rcS.d/, and most of them should be moved
7379 out. Do your package have one of them? Please help us make single
7380 user and runlevel 1 better by moving it.</p>
7382 <p>Scripts setting up the screen, keyboard, system partitions
7383 etc. should still be started from rcS.d/, but there is for example no
7384 need to have the network enabled before the single user login prompt
7387 <p>As always, things are not so easy to fix as they sound. To keep
7388 Debian systems working while scripts migrate and during upgrades, the
7389 scripts need to be moved from rcS.d/ to rc2.d/ in reverse dependency
7390 order, ie the scripts that nothing in rcS.d/ depend on can be moved,
7391 and the next ones can only be moved when their dependencies have been
7392 moved first. This migration must be done sequentially while we ensure
7393 that the package system upgrade packages in the right order to keep
7394 the system state correct. This will require some coordination when it
7395 comes to network related packages, but most of the packages with
7396 scripts that should migrate do not have anything in rcS.d/ depending
7397 on them. Some packages have already been updated, like the sudo
7398 package, while others are still left to do. I wish I had time to work
7399 on this myself, but real live constrains make it unlikely that I will
7400 find time to push this forward.</p>
7406 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>.
7411 <div class="padding
"></div>
7415 <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>
7421 <p>While at Debconf11, I have several times during discussions
7422 mentioned the issues I believe should be improved in Debian for its
7423 desktop to be useful for more people. The use case for this is my
7424 parents, which are currently running Kubuntu which solve the
7427 <p>I suspect these four missing features are not very hard to
7428 implement. After all, they are present in Ubuntu, so if we wanted to
7429 do this in Debian we would have a source.</p>
7433 <li><strong>Simple GUI based upgrade of packages.</strong> When there
7434 are new packages available for upgrades, a icon in the KDE status bar
7435 indicate this, and clicking on it will activate the simple upgrade
7436 tool to handle it. I have no problem guiding both of my parents
7437 through the process over the phone. If a kernel reboot is required,
7438 this too is indicated by the status bars and the upgrade tool. Last
7439 time I checked, nothing with the same features was working in KDE in
7442 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing Firefox browser
7443 plugins.</strong> When the browser encounter a MIME type it do not
7444 currently have a handler for, it will ask the user if the system
7445 should search for a package that would add support for this MIME type,
7446 and if the user say yes, the APT sources will be searched for packages
7447 advertising the MIME type in their control file (visible in the
7448 Packages file in the APT archive). If one or more packages are found,
7449 it is a simple click of the mouse to add support for the missing mime
7450 type. If the package require the user to accept some non-free
7451 license, this is explained to the user. The entire process make it
7452 more clear to the user why something do not work in the browser, and
7453 make the chances higher for the user to blame the web page authors and
7454 not the browser for any missing features.</li>
7456 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing multimedia codec/format
7457 handlers.</strong> When the media players encounter a format or codec
7458 it is not supporting, a dialog pop up asking the user if the system
7459 should search for a package that would add support for it. This
7460 happen with things like MP3, Windows Media or H.264. The selection
7461 and installation procedure is very similar to the Firefox browser
7462 plugin handling. This is as far as I know implemented using a
7463 gstreamer hook. The end result is that the user easily get access to
7464 the codecs that are present from the APT archives available, while
7465 explaining more on why a given format is unsupported by Ubuntu.</li>
7467 <li><strong>Better browser handling of some MIME types.</strong> When
7468 displaying a text/plain file in my Debian browser, it will propose to
7469 start emacs to show it. If I remember correctly, when doing the same
7470 in Kunbutu it show the file as a text file in the browser. At least I
7471 know Opera will show text files within the browser. I much prefer the
7472 latter behaviour.</li>
7476 <p>There are other nice features as well, like the simplified suite
7477 upgrader, but given that I am the one mostly doing the dist-upgrade,
7478 it do not matter much.</p>
7480 <p>I really hope we could get these features in place for the next
7481 Debian release. It would require the coordinated effort of several
7482 maintainers, but would make the end user experience a lot better.</p>
7488 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/h264
">h264</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>.
7493 <div class="padding
"></div>
7497 <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>
7503 <p>The Norwegian <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/
">FiksGataMi</A>
7504 site is build on Debian/Squeeze, and this platform was chosen because
7505 I am most familiar with Debian (being a Debian Developer for around 10
7506 years) because it is the latest stable Debian release which should get
7507 security support for a few years.</p>
7509 <p>The web service is written in Perl, and depend on some perl modules
7510 that are missing in Debian at the moment. It would be great if these
7511 modules were added to the Debian archive, allowing anyone to set up
7512 their own <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com
">FixMyStreet</a> clone
7513 in their own country using only Debian packages. The list of modules
7514 missing in Debian/Squeeze isn't very long, and I hope the perl group
7515 will find time to package the 12 modules Catalyst::Plugin::SmartURI,
7516 Catalyst::Plugin::Unicode::Encoding, Catalyst::View::TT, Devel::Hide,
7517 Sort::Key, Statistics::Distributions, Template::Plugin::Comma,
7518 Template::Plugin::DateTime::Format, Term::Size::Any, Term::Size::Perl,
7519 URI::SmartURI and Web::Scraper to make the maintenance of FixMyStreet
7520 easier in the future.</p>
7522 <p>Thanks to the great tools in Debian, getting the missing modules
7523 installed on my server was a simple call to 'cpan2deb Module::Name'
7524 and 'dpkg -i' to install the resulting package. But this leave me
7525 with the responsibility of tracking security problems, which I really
7526 do not have time for.</p>
7532 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>.
7537 <div class="padding
"></div>
7541 <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>
7547 <p>Here is a small update for my English readers. Most of my blog
7548 posts have been in Norwegian the last few weeks, so here is a short
7549 update in English.</p>
7551 <p>The kids still keep me too busy to get much free software work
7552 done, but I did manage to organise a project to get a Norwegian port
7553 of the British service
7554 <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com/
">FixMyStreet</a> up and running,
7555 and it has been running for a month now. The entire project has been
7556 organised by me and two others. Around Christmas we gathered sponsors
7557 to fund the development work. In January I drafted a contract with
7558 <a href="http://www.mysociety.org/
">mySociety</a> on what to develop,
7559 and in February the development took place. Most of it involved
7560 converting the source to use GPS coordinates instead of British
7561 easting/northing, and the resulting code should be a lot easier to get
7562 running in any country by now. The Norwegian
7563 <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/
">FiksGataMi</a> is using
7564 <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/
">OpenStreetmap</a> as the map
7565 source and the source for administrative borders in Norway, and
7566 support for this had to be added/fixed.</p>
7568 <p>The Norwegian version went live March 3th, and we spent the weekend
7569 polishing the system before we announced it March 7th. The system is
7570 running on a KVM instance of Debian/Squeeze, and has seen almost 3000
7571 problem reports in a few weeks. Soon we hope to announce the Android
7572 and iPhone versions making it even easier to report problems with the
7573 public infrastructure.</p>
7575 <p>Perhaps something to consider for those of you in countries without
7582 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>.
7587 <div class="padding
"></div>
7591 <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>
7597 <p>The last few days I have looked at ways to track open security
7598 issues here at my work with the University of Oslo. My idea is that
7599 it should be possible to use the information about security issues
7600 available on the Internet, and check our locally
7601 maintained/distributed software against this information. It should
7602 allow us to verify that no known security issues are forgotten. The
7603 CVE database listing vulnerabilities seem like a great central point,
7604 and by using the package lists from Debian mapped to CVEs provided by
7605 the testing security team, I believed it should be possible to figure
7606 out which security holes were present in our free software
7609 <p>After reading up on the topic, it became obvious that the first
7610 building block is to be able to name software packages in a unique and
7611 consistent way across data sources. I considered several ways to do
7612 this, for example coming up with my own naming scheme like using URLs
7613 to project home pages or URLs to the Freshmeat entries, or using some
7614 existing naming scheme. And it seem like I am not the first one to
7615 come across this problem, as MITRE already proposed and implemented a
7616 solution. Enter the <a href="http://cpe.mitre.org/index.html
">Common
7617 Platform Enumeration</a> dictionary, a vocabulary for referring to
7618 software, hardware and other platform components. The CPE ids are
7619 mapped to CVEs in the <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/
">National
7620 Vulnerability Database</a>, allowing me to look up know security
7621 issues for any CPE name. With this in place, all I need to do is to
7622 locate the CPE id for the software packages we use at the university.
7623 This is fairly trivial (I google for 'cve cpe $package' and check the
7624 NVD entry if a CVE for the package exist).</p>
7626 <p>To give you an example. The GNU gzip source package have the CPE
7627 name cpe:/a:gnu:gzip. If the old version 1.3.3 was the package to
7628 check out, one could look up
7629 <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
7630 in NVD</a> and get a list of 6 security holes with public CVE entries.
7631 The most recent one is
7632 <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/view/vuln/detail?vulnId=CVE-
2010-
0001">CVE-2010-0001</a>,
7633 and at the bottom of the NVD page for this vulnerability the complete
7634 list of affected versions is provided.</p>
7636 <p>The NVD database of CVEs is also available as a XML dump, allowing
7637 for offline processing of issues. Using this dump, I've written a
7638 small script taking a list of CPEs as input and list all CVEs
7639 affecting the packages represented by these CPEs. One give it CPEs
7640 with version numbers as specified above and get a list of open
7641 security issues out.</p>
7643 <p>Of course for this approach to be useful, the quality of the NVD
7644 information need to be high. For that to happen, I believe as many as
7645 possible need to use and contribute to the NVD database. I notice
7647 <a href="https://www.redhat.com/security/data/metrics/rhsamapcpe.txt
">a
7648 map from CVE to CPE</a>, indicating that they are using the CPE
7649 information. I'm not aware of Debian and Ubuntu doing the same.</p>
7651 <p>To get an idea about the quality for free software, I spent some
7652 time making it possible to compare the CVE database from Debian with
7653 the CVE database in NVD. The result look fairly good, but there are
7654 some inconsistencies in NVD (same software package having several
7655 CPEs), and some inaccuracies (NVD not mentioning buggy packages that
7656 Debian believe are affected by a CVE). Hope to find time to improve
7657 the quality of NVD, but that require being able to get in touch with
7658 someone maintaining it. So far my three emails with questions and
7659 corrections have not seen any reply, but I hope contact can be
7660 established soon.</p>
7662 <p>An interesting application for CPEs is cross platform package
7663 mapping. It would be useful to know which packages in for example
7664 RHEL, OpenSuSe and Mandriva are missing from Debian and Ubuntu, and
7665 this would be trivial if all linux distributions provided CPE entries
7666 for their packages.</p>
7672 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>.
7677 <div class="padding
"></div>
7681 <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>
7688 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/discover-data
">discover-data</a>
7689 package in Debian, there is a script to report useful information
7690 about the running hardware for use when people report missing
7691 information. One part of this script that I find very useful when
7692 debugging hardware problems, is the part mapping loaded kernel module
7693 to the PCI device it claims. It allow me to quickly see if the kernel
7694 module I expect is driving the hardware I am struggling with. To see
7695 the output, make sure discover-data is installed and run
7696 <tt>/usr/share/bug/discover-data 3>&1</tt>. The relevant output on
7697 one of my machines like this:</p>
7701 10de:03eb i2c_nforce2
7704 10de:03f0 snd_hda_intel
7713 <p>The code in question look like this, slightly modified for
7714 readability and to drop the output to file descriptor 3:</p>
7717 if [ -d /sys/bus/pci/devices/ ] ; then
7718 echo loaded pci modules:
7720 cd /sys/bus/pci/devices/
7721 for address in * ; do
7722 if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
7723 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
7724 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
7725 address=$(echo $address |sed s/
0000://)
7726 id=`lspci -n -s $address | tail -n
1 | awk '{print $
3}'`
7736 <p>Similar code could be used to extract USB device module
7740 if [ -d /sys/bus/usb/devices/ ] ; then
7741 echo loaded usb modules:
7743 cd /sys/bus/usb/devices/
7744 for address in * ; do
7745 if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
7746 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
7747 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
7748 address=$(echo $address |sed s/
0000://)
7749 id=$(lsusb -s $address | tail -n
1 | awk '{print $
6}')
7761 <p>This might perhaps be something to include in other tools as
7768 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>.
7773 <div class=
"padding"></div>
7777 <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>
7783 <p>The last few days I have spent at work here at the
<a
7784 href=
"http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo
</a> testing if the new
7785 batch of computers will work with Linux. Every year for the last few
7786 years the university have organised shared bid of a few thousand
7787 computers, and this year HP won the bid. Two different desktops and
7788 five different laptops are on the list this year. We in the UNIX
7789 group want to know which one of these computers work well with RHEL
7790 and Ubuntu, the two Linux distributions we currently handle at the
7793 <p>My test method is simple, and I share it here to get feedback and
7794 perhaps inspire others to test hardware as well. To test, I PXE
7795 install the OS version of choice, and log in as my normal user and run
7796 a few applications and plug in selected pieces of hardware. When
7797 something fail, I make a note about this in the test matrix and move
7798 on. If I have some spare time I try to report the bug to the OS
7799 vendor, but as I only have the machines for a short time, I rarely
7800 have the time to do this for all the problems I find.
</p>
7802 <p>Anyway, to get to the point of this post. Here is the simple tests
7803 I perform on a new model.
</p>
7807 <li>Is PXE installation working? I'm testing with RHEL6, Ubuntu Lucid
7808 and Ubuntu Maverik at the moment. If I feel like it, I also test with
7809 RHEL5 and Debian Edu/Squeeze.
</li>
7811 <li>Is X.org working? If the graphical login screen show up after
7812 installation, X.org is working.
</li>
7814 <li>Is hardware accelerated OpenGL working? Running glxgears (in
7815 package mesa-utils on Ubuntu) and writing down the frames per second
7816 reported by the program.
</li>
7818 <li>Is sound working? With Gnome and KDE, a sound is played when
7819 logging in, and if I can hear this the test is successful. If there
7820 are several audio exits on the machine, I try them all and check if
7821 the Gnome/KDE audio mixer can control where to send the sound. I
7822 normally test this by playing
7823 <a href=
"http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20101012-chef/ ">a HTML5
7824 video
</a> in Firefox/Iceweasel.
</li>
7826 <li>Is the USB subsystem working? I test this by plugging in a USB
7827 memory stick and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.
</li>
7829 <li>Is the CD/DVD player working? I test this by inserting any CD/DVD
7830 I have lying around, and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.
</li>
7832 <li>Is any built in camera working? Test using cheese, and see if a
7833 picture from the v4l device show up.
</li>
7835 <li>Is bluetooth working? Use the Gnome/KDE browsing tool to see if
7836 any bluetooth devices are discovered. In my office, I normally see a
7839 <li>For laptops, is the SD or Compaq Flash reader working. I have
7840 memory modules lying around, and stick them in and see if Gnome/KDE
7843 <li>For laptops, is suspend/hibernate working? I'm testing if the
7844 special button work, and if the laptop continue to work after
7847 <li>For laptops, is the extra buttons working, like audio level,
7848 adjusting background light, switching on/off external video output,
7849 switching on/off wifi, bluetooth, etc? The set of buttons differ from
7850 laptop to laptop, so I just write down which are working and which are
7853 <li>Some laptops have smart card readers, finger print readers,
7854 acceleration sensors etc. I rarely test these, as I do not know how
7855 to quickly test if they are working or not, so I only document their
7860 <p>By now I suspect you are really curious what the test results are
7861 for the HP machines I am testing. I'm not done yet, so I will report
7862 the test results later. For now I can report that HP
8100 Elite work
7863 fine, and hibernation fail with HP EliteBook
8440p on Ubuntu Lucid,
7864 and audio fail on RHEL6. Ubuntu Maverik worked with
8440p. As you
7865 can see, I have most machines left to test. One interesting
7866 observation is that Ubuntu Lucid has almost twice the frame rate than
7867 RHEL6 with glxgears. No idea why.
</p>
7873 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>.
7878 <div class=
"padding"></div>
7882 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Some_thoughts_on_BitCoins.html">Some thoughts on BitCoins
</a>
7888 <p>As I continue to explore
7889 <a href=
"http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin
</a>, I've starting to wonder
7890 what properties the system have, and how it will be affected by laws
7891 and regulations here in Norway. Here are some random notes.
</p>
7893 <p>One interesting thing to note is that since the transactions are
7894 verified using a peer to peer network, all details about a transaction
7895 is known to everyone. This means that if a BitCoin address has been
7896 published like I did with mine in my initial post about BitCoin, it is
7897 possible for everyone to see how many BitCoins have been transfered to
7898 that address. There is even a web service to look at the details for
7899 all transactions. There I can see that my address
7900 <a href=
"http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
</a>
7901 have received
16.06 Bitcoin, the
7902 <a href=
"http://blockexplorer.com/address/1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3">1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv
8MHqvwst
3</a>
7903 address of Simon Phipps have received
181.97 BitCoin and the address
7904 <a href=
"http://blockexplorer.com/address/1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt">1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt
</A>
7905 of EFF have received
2447.38 BitCoins so far. Thank you to each and
7906 every one of you that donated bitcoins to support my activity. The
7907 fact that anyone can see how much money was transfered to a given
7908 address make it more obvious why the BitCoin community recommend to
7909 generate and hand out a new address for each transaction. I'm told
7910 there is no way to track which addresses belong to a given person or
7911 organisation without the person or organisation revealing it
7912 themselves, as Simon, EFF and I have done.
</p>
7914 <p>In Norway, and in most other countries, there are laws and
7915 regulations limiting how much money one can transfer across the border
7916 without declaring it. There are money laundering, tax and accounting
7917 laws and regulations I would expect to apply to the use of BitCoin.
7918 If the Skolelinux foundation
7919 (
<a href=
"http://linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">SLX
7920 Debian Labs
</a>) were to accept donations in BitCoin in addition to
7921 normal bank transfers like EFF is doing, how should this be accounted?
7922 Given that it is impossible to know if money can cross the border or
7923 not, should everything or nothing be declared? What exchange rate
7924 should be used when calculating taxes? Would receivers have to pay
7925 income tax if the foundation were to pay Skolelinux contributors in
7926 BitCoin? I have no idea, but it would be interesting to know.
</p>
7928 <p>For a currency to be useful and successful, it must be trusted and
7929 accepted by a lot of users. It must be possible to get easy access to
7930 the currency (as a wage or using currency exchanges), and it must be
7931 easy to spend it. At the moment BitCoin seem fairly easy to get
7932 access to, but there are very few places to spend it. I am not really
7933 a regular user of any of the vendor types currently accepting BitCoin,
7934 so I wonder when my kind of shop would start accepting BitCoins. I
7935 would like to buy electronics, travels and subway tickets, not herbs
7936 and books. :) The currency is young, and this will improve over time
7937 if it become popular, but I suspect regular banks will start to lobby
7938 to get BitCoin declared illegal if it become popular. I'm sure they
7939 will claim it is helping fund terrorism and money laundering (which
7940 probably would be true, as is any currency in existence), but I
7941 believe the problems should be solved elsewhere and not by blaming
7944 <p>The process of creating new BitCoins is called mining, and it is
7945 CPU intensive process that depend on a bit of luck as well (as one is
7946 competing against all the other miners currently spending CPU cycles
7947 to see which one get the next lump of cash). The "winner" get
50
7948 BitCoin when this happen. Yesterday I came across the obvious way to
7949 join forces to increase ones changes of getting at least some coins,
7950 by coordinating the work on mining BitCoins across several machines
7951 and people, and sharing the result if one is lucky and get the
50
7953 <a href=
"http://www.bluishcoder.co.nz/bitcoin-pool/">BitCoin Pool
</a>
7954 if this sounds interesting. I have not had time to try to set up a
7955 machine to participate there yet, but have seen that running on ones
7956 own for a few days have not yield any BitCoins througth mining
7959 <p>Update
2010-
12-
15: Found an
<a
7960 href=
"http://inertia.posterous.com/reply-to-the-underground-economist-why-bitcoi">interesting
7961 criticism
</a> of bitcoin. Not quite sure how valid it is, but thought
7962 it was interesting to read. The arguments presented seem to be
7963 equally valid for gold, which was used as a currency for many years.
</p>
7969 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>.
7974 <div class=
"padding"></div>
7978 <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>
7984 <p>With this weeks lawless
7985 <a href=
"http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/06/wikileaks/index.html">governmental
7986 attacks
</a> on Wikileak and
7987 <a href=
"http://www.salon.com/technology/dan_gillmor/2010/12/06/war_on_speech">free
7988 speech
</a>, it has become obvious that PayPal, visa and mastercard can
7989 not be trusted to handle money transactions.
7991 <a href=
"http://webmink.com/2010/12/06/now-accepting-bitcoin/">Simon
7992 Phipps on bitcoin
</a> reminded me about a project that a friend of
7993 mine mentioned earlier. I decided to follow Simon's example, and get
7994 involved with
<a href=
"http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin
</a>. I got
7995 some help from my friend to get it all running, and he even handed me
7996 some bitcoins to get started. I even donated a few bitcoins to Simon
7997 for helping me remember BitCoin.
</p>
7999 <p>So, what is bitcoins, you probably wonder? It is a digital
8000 crypto-currency, decentralised and handled using peer-to-peer
8001 networks. It allows anonymous transactions and prohibits central
8002 control over the transactions, making it impossible for governments
8003 and companies alike to block donations and other transactions. The
8004 source is free software, and while the key dependency wxWidgets
2.9
8005 for the graphical user interface is missing in Debian, the command
8006 line client builds just fine. Hopefully Jonas
8007 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/578157">will get the package into
8008 Debian
</a> soon.
</p>
8010 <p>Bitcoins can be converted to other currencies, like USD and EUR.
8011 There are
<a href=
"http://www.bitcoin.org/trade">companies accepting
8012 bitcoins
</a> when selling services and goods, and there are even
8013 currency "stock" markets where the exchange rate is decided. There
8014 are not many users so far, but the concept seems promising. If you
8015 want to get started and lack a friend with any bitcoins to spare,
8017 <a href=
"https://freebitcoins.appspot.com/">some for free
</a> (
0.05
8018 bitcoin at the time of writing). Use
8019 <a href=
"http://www.bitcoinwatch.com/">BitcoinWatch
</a> to keep an eye
8020 on the current exchange rates.
</p>
8022 <p>As an experiment, I have decided to set up bitcoind on one of my
8023 machines. If you want to support my activity, please send Bitcoin
8024 donations to the address
8025 <b>15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
</b>. Thank you!
</p>
8031 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>.
8036 <div class=
"padding"></div>
8040 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_isn_t_Debian_Edu_using_VLC_.html">Why isn't Debian Edu using VLC?
</a>
8046 <p>In the latest issue of Linux Journal, the readers choices were
8047 presented, and the winner among the multimedia player were VLC.
8048 Personally, I like VLC, and it is my player of choice when I first try
8049 to play a video file or stream. Only if VLC fail will I drag out
8050 gmplayer to see if it can do better. The reason is mostly the failure
8051 model and trust. When VLC fail, it normally pop up a error message
8052 reporting the problem. When mplayer fail, it normally segfault or
8053 just hangs. The latter failure mode drain my trust in the program.
<p>
8055 <p>But even if VLC is my player of choice, we have choosen to use
8056 mplayer in
<a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
8057 Edu/Skolelinux
</a>. The reason is simple. We need a good browser
8058 plugin to play web videos seamlessly, and the VLC browser plugin is
8059 not very good. For example, it lack in-line control buttons, so there
8060 is no way for the user to pause the video. Also, when I
8061 <a href=
"http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">last
8062 tested the browser plugins
</a> available in Debian, the VLC plugin
8063 failed on several video pages where mplayer based plugins worked. If
8064 the browser plugin for VLC was as good as the gecko-mediaplayer
8065 package (which uses mplayer), we would switch.
</P>
8067 <p>While VLC is a good player, its user interface is slightly
8068 annoying. The most annoying feature is its inconsistent use of
8069 keyboard shortcuts. When the player is in full screen mode, its
8070 shortcuts are different from when it is playing the video in a window.
8071 For example, space only work as pause when in full screen mode. I
8072 wish it had consisten shortcuts and that space also would work when in
8073 window mode. Another nice shortcut in gmplayer is [enter] to restart
8074 the current video. It is very nice when playing short videos from the
8075 web and want to restart it when new people arrive to have a look at
8076 what is going on.
</p>
8082 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>.
8087 <div class=
"padding"></div>
8091 <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>
8097 <p>Michael Biebl suggested to me on IRC, that I changed my automated
8098 upgrade testing of the
8099 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
8100 Gnome and KDE Desktop
</a> to do
<tt>apt-get autoremove
</tt> when using apt-get.
8101 This seem like a very good idea, so I adjusted by test scripts and
8102 can now present the updated result from today:
</p>
8104 <p>This is for Gnome:
</p>
8106 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude
</p>
8113 browser-plugin-gnash
8120 freedesktop-sound-theme
8122 gconf-defaults-service
8137 gnome-desktop-environment
8141 gnome-session-canberra
8146 gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
8152 libapache2-mod-dnssd
8155 libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3
8158 libboost-date-time1.42
.0
8159 libboost-python1.42
.0
8160 libboost-thread1.42
.0
8162 libchamplain-gtk-
0.4-
0
8164 libclutter-gtk-
0.10-
0
8171 libfreerdp-plugins-standard
8186 libgnomepanel2.24-cil
8191 libgtksourceview2.0-common
8192 libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
8193 libmono-addins0.2-cil
8194 libmono-cairo2.0-cil
8195 libmono-corlib2.0-cil
8196 libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil
8197 libmono-posix2.0-cil
8198 libmono-security2.0-cil
8199 libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
8200 libmono-system2.0-cil
8203 libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil
8204 libndesk-dbus1.0-cil
8214 libtelepathy-farsight0
8223 nautilus-sendto-empathy
8227 python-aptdaemon-gtk
8229 python-beautifulsoup
8244 python-gtksourceview2
8255 python-pkg-resources
8262 python-twisted-conch
8268 python-zope.interface
8273 rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
8280 system-config-printer-udev
8282 telepathy-mission-control-
5
8295 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude
</p>
8303 fast-user-switch-applet
8322 libgtksourceview2.0-
0
8324 libsdl1.2debian-alsa
8330 system-config-printer
8337 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get
</p>
8340 gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
8343 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get
</p>
8349 <p>This is for KDE:
</p>
8351 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude
</p>
8357 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude
</p>
8364 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get
</p>
8380 kdeartwork-emoticons
8382 kdeartwork-theme-icon
8386 kdebase-workspace-bin
8387 kdebase-workspace-data
8401 kscreensaver-xsavers
8416 plasma-dataengines-workspace
8418 plasma-desktopthemes-artwork
8419 plasma-runners-addons
8420 plasma-scriptengine-googlegadgets
8421 plasma-scriptengine-python
8422 plasma-scriptengine-qedje
8423 plasma-scriptengine-ruby
8424 plasma-scriptengine-webkit
8425 plasma-scriptengines
8426 plasma-wallpapers-addons
8427 plasma-widget-folderview
8428 plasma-widget-networkmanagement
8432 xscreensaver-data-extra
8434 xscreensaver-gl-extra
8435 xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
8438 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get
</p>
8442 google-gadgets-common
8460 libggadget-qt-
1.0-
0b
8465 libkonqsidebarplugin4a
8474 libplasma-geolocation-interface4
8476 libplasmagenericshell4
8490 libsmokeknewstuff2-
3
8491 libsmokeknewstuff3-
3
8493 libsmokektexteditor3
8501 libsmokeqtnetwork4-
3
8507 libsmokeqtuitools4-
3
8519 plasma-dataengines-addons
8520 plasma-scriptengine-superkaramba
8521 plasma-widget-lancelot
8522 plasma-widgets-addons
8523 plasma-widgets-workspace
8527 update-notifier-common
8530 <p>Running apt-get autoremove made the results using apt-get and
8531 aptitude a bit more similar, but there are still quite a lott of
8532 differences. I have no idea what packages should be installed after
8533 the upgrade, but hope those that do can have a look.
</p>
8539 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>.
8544 <div class=
"padding"></div>
8548 <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>
8554 <p>Most of the computers in use by the
8555 <a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux project
</a>
8556 are virtual machines. And they have been Xen machines running on a
8557 fairly old IBM eserver xseries
345 machine, and we wanted to migrate
8558 them to KVM on a newer Dell PowerEdge
2950 host machine. This was a
8559 bit harder that it could have been, because we set up the Xen virtual
8560 machines to get the virtual partitions from LVM, which as far as I
8561 know is not supported by KVM. So to migrate, we had to convert
8562 several LVM logical volumes to partitions on a virtual disk file.
</p>
8565 <a href=
"http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM">a
8566 nice recipe
</a> to do this, and wrote the following script to do the
8567 migration. It uses qemu-img from the qemu package to make the disk
8568 image, parted to partition it, losetup and kpartx to present the disk
8569 image partions as devices, and dd to copy the data. I NFS mounted the
8570 new servers storage area on the old server to do the migration.
</p>
8576 # http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/
35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM
8581 if [ -z "$
1" ] ; then
8582 echo "Usage: $
0 <hostname
>"
8588 if [ ! -e /dev/vg_data/$host-disk ] ; then
8589 echo "error: unable to find LVM volume for $host"
8593 # Partitions need to be a bit bigger than the LVM LVs. not sure why.
8594 disksize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-disk | awk '{sum = sum + $
4} END { print int(sum *
1.05) }')
8595 swapsize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-swap | awk '{sum = sum + $
4} END { print int(sum *
1.05) }')
8596 totalsize=$(( ( $disksize + $swapsize ) ))
8599 #dd if=/dev/zero of=$img bs=
1M count=$(( $disksize + $swapsize ))
8600 qemu-img create $img ${totalsize}MMaking room on the Debian Edu/Sqeeze DVD
8602 parted $img mklabel msdos
8603 parted $img mkpart primary linux-swap
0 $disksize
8604 parted $img mkpart primary ext2 $disksize $totalsize
8605 parted $img set
1 boot on
8608 losetup /dev/loop0 $img
8609 kpartx -a /dev/loop0
8611 dd if=/dev/vg_data/$host-disk of=/dev/mapper/loop0p1 bs=
1M
8612 fsck.ext3 -f /dev/mapper/loop0p1 || true
8613 mkswap /dev/mapper/loop0p2
8615 kpartx -d /dev/loop0
8616 losetup -d /dev/loop0
8619 <p>The script is perhaps so simple that it is not copyrightable, but
8620 if it is, it is licenced using GPL v2 or later at your discretion.
</p>
8622 <p>After doing this, I booted a Debian CD in rescue mode in KVM with
8623 the new disk image attached, installed grub-pc and linux-image-
686 and
8624 set up grub to boot from the disk image. After this, the KVM machines
8625 seem to work just fine.
</p>
8631 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>.
8636 <div class=
"padding"></div>
8640 <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>
8646 <p>I'm still running upgrade testing of the
8647 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
8648 Gnome and KDE Desktop
</a>, but have not had time to spend on reporting the
8649 status. Here is a short update based on a test I ran
20101118.
</p>
8651 <p>I still do not know what a correct migration should look like, so I
8652 report any differences between apt and aptitude and hope someone else
8653 can see if anything should be changed.
</p>
8655 <p>This is for Gnome:
</p>
8657 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude
</p>
8660 apache2.2-bin aptdaemon at-spi baobab binfmt-support
8661 browser-plugin-gnash cheese-common cli-common cpp-
4.3 cups-pk-helper
8662 dmz-cursor-theme empathy empathy-common finger
8663 freedesktop-sound-theme freeglut3 gconf-defaults-service gdm-themes
8664 gedit-plugins geoclue geoclue-hostip geoclue-localnet geoclue-manual
8665 geoclue-yahoo gnash gnash-common gnome gnome-backgrounds
8666 gnome-cards-data gnome-codec-install gnome-core
8667 gnome-desktop-environment gnome-disk-utility gnome-screenshot
8668 gnome-search-tool gnome-session-canberra gnome-spell
8669 gnome-system-log gnome-themes-extras gnome-themes-more
8670 gnome-user-share gs-common gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
8671 gstreamer0.10-tools gtk2-engines gtk2-engines-pixbuf
8672 gtk2-engines-smooth hal-info hamster-applet libapache2-mod-dnssd
8673 libapr1 libaprutil1 libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3 libaprutil1-ldap
8674 libart2.0-cil libatspi1.0-
0 libboost-date-time1.42
.0
8675 libboost-python1.42
.0 libboost-thread1.42
.0 libchamplain-
0.4-
0
8676 libchamplain-gtk-
0.4-
0 libcheese-gtk18 libclutter-gtk-
0.10-
0
8677 libcryptui0 libcupsys2 libdiscid0 libeel2-data libelf1 libepc-
1.0-
2
8678 libepc-common libepc-ui-
1.0-
2 libfreerdp-plugins-standard
8679 libfreerdp0 libgail-common libgconf2.0-cil libgdata-common libgdata7
8680 libgdl-
1-common libgdu-gtk0 libgee2 libgeoclue0 libgexiv2-
0 libgif4
8681 libglade2.0-cil libglib2.0-cil libgmime2.4-cil libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
8682 libgnome2.24-cil libgnomepanel2.24-cil libgnomeprint2.2-data
8683 libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod-common libgpod4
8684 libgtk2.0-cil libgtkglext1 libgtksourceview-common
8685 libgtksourceview2.0-common libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
8686 libmono-addins0.2-cil libmono-cairo2.0-cil libmono-corlib2.0-cil
8687 libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil libmono-posix2.0-cil
8688 libmono-security2.0-cil libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
8689 libmono-system2.0-cil libmtp8 libmusicbrainz3-
6
8690 libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil libndesk-dbus1.0-cil libopal3.6
.8
8691 libpolkit-gtk-
1-
0 libpt-
1.10.10-plugins-alsa
8692 libpt-
1.10.10-plugins-v4l libpt2.6
.7 libpython2.6 librpm1 librpmio1
8693 libsdl1.2debian libservlet2.4-java libsrtp0 libssh-
4
8694 libtelepathy-farsight0 libtelepathy-glib0 libtidy-
0.99-
0
8695 libxalan2-java libxerces2-java media-player-info mesa-utils
8696 mono-
2.0-gac mono-gac mono-runtime nautilus-sendto
8697 nautilus-sendto-empathy openoffice.org-writer2latex
8698 openssl-blacklist p7zip p7zip-full pkg-config python-
4suite-xml
8699 python-aptdaemon python-aptdaemon-gtk python-axiom
8700 python-beautifulsoup python-bugbuddy python-clientform
8701 python-coherence python-configobj python-crypto python-cupshelpers
8702 python-cupsutils python-eggtrayicon python-elementtree
8703 python-epsilon python-evolution python-feedparser python-gdata
8704 python-gdbm python-gst0.10 python-gtkglext1 python-gtkmozembed
8705 python-gtksourceview2 python-httplib2 python-louie python-mako
8706 python-markupsafe python-mechanize python-nevow python-notify
8707 python-opengl python-openssl python-pam python-pkg-resources
8708 python-pyasn1 python-pysqlite2 python-rdflib python-serial
8709 python-tagpy python-twisted-bin python-twisted-conch
8710 python-twisted-core python-twisted-web python-utidylib python-webkit
8711 python-xdg python-zope.interface remmina remmina-plugin-data
8712 remmina-plugin-rdp remmina-plugin-vnc rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
8713 rhythmbox-plugins rpm-common rpm2cpio seahorse-plugins shotwell
8714 software-center svgalibg1 system-config-printer-udev
8715 telepathy-gabble telepathy-mission-control-
5 telepathy-salut tomboy
8716 totem totem-coherence totem-mozilla totem-plugins
8717 transmission-common xdg-user-dirs xdg-user-dirs-gtk xserver-xephyr
8721 Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude
8724 arj bluez-utils cheese dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop ekiga eog
8725 epiphany-extensions epiphany-gecko evolution-exchange
8726 fast-user-switch-applet file-roller gcalctool gconf-editor gdm gedit
8727 gedit-common gnome-app-install gnome-games gnome-games-data
8728 gnome-nettool gnome-system-tools gnome-themes gnome-utils
8729 gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager gnuchess gucharmap
8730 guile-
1.8-libs hal libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5
8731 libavahi-ui0 libbind9-
50 libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-
11 libcdio7
8732 libcucul0 libcurl3 libdirectfb-
1.0-
0 libdmx1 libdvdread3
8733 libedata-cal1.2-
6 libedataserver1.2-
9 libeel2-
2.20 libepc-
1.0-
1
8734 libepc-ui-
1.0-
1 libexchange-storage1.2-
3 libfaad0 libgadu3
8735 libgalago3 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-
3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
8736 libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-
0 libgksuui1.0-
1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-
2
8737 libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-
1 libgnomeprint2.2-
0
8738 libgnomeprintui2.2-
0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtk-vnc-
1.0-
0
8739 libgtkhtml2-
0 libgtksourceview1.0-
0 libgtksourceview2.0-
0
8740 libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
8741 libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libkpathsea4 liblircclient0 libltdl3 liblwres50
8742 libmagick++
10 libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmozjs1d libmpfr1ldbl libmtp7
8743 libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0
8744 libnm-util0 libopal-
2.2 libosp5 libparted1.8-
10 libpisock9
8745 libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-
1.10.10 libraw1394-
8
8746 libsdl1.2debian-alsa libsensors3 libsexy2 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-
8
8747 libspeexdsp1 libssh2-
1 libsuitesparse-
3.1.0 libsvga1
8748 libswfdec-
0.6-
90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0
8749 libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12
8750 libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common rhythmbox seahorse
8751 sound-juicer swfdec-gnome system-config-printer totem-common
8752 totem-gstreamer transmission-gtk vinagre vino w3c-dtd-xhtml wodim
8755 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get
</p>
8758 gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
8761 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get
</p>
8767 <p>This is for KDE:
</p>
8769 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude
</p>
8772 autopoint bomber bovo cantor cantor-backend-kalgebra cpp-
4.3 dcoprss
8773 edict espeak espeak-data eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
8774 ghostscript-x git gnome-audio gnugo granatier gs-common
8775 gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio indi kaddressbook-plugins kalgebra
8776 kalzium-data kanjidic kapman kate-plugins kblocks kbreakout kbstate
8777 kde-icons-mono kdeaccessibility kdeaddons-kfile-plugins
8778 kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
8779 kdeedu kdeedu-data kdeedu-kvtml-data kdegames kdegames-card-data
8780 kdegames-mahjongg-data kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc
8781 kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
8782 kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdessh kdetoys kdewebdev
8783 kdiamond kdnssd kfilereplace kfourinline kgeography-data kigo
8784 killbots kiriki klettres-data kmoon kmrml knewsticker-scripts
8785 kollision kpf krosspython ksirk ksmserver ksquares kstars-data
8786 ksudoku kubrick kweather libasound2-plugins libboost-python1.42
.0
8787 libcfitsio3 libconvert-binhex-perl libcrypt-ssleay-perl libdb4.6++
8788 libdjvulibre-text libdotconf1.0 liberror-perl libespeak1
8789 libfinance-quote-perl libgail-common libgsl0ldbl libhtml-parser-perl
8790 libhtml-tableextract-perl libhtml-tagset-perl libhtml-tree-perl
8791 libio-stringy-perl libkdeedu4 libkdegames5 libkiten4 libkpathsea5
8792 libkrossui4 libmailtools-perl libmime-tools-perl
8793 libnews-nntpclient-perl libopenbabel3 libportaudio2 libpulse-browse0
8794 libservlet2.4-java libspeechd2 libtiff-tools libtimedate-perl
8795 libunistring0 liburi-perl libwww-perl libxalan2-java libxerces2-java
8796 lirc luatex marble networkstatus noatun-plugins
8797 openoffice.org-writer2latex palapeli palapeli-data parley
8798 parley-data poster psutils pulseaudio pulseaudio-esound-compat
8799 pulseaudio-module-x11 pulseaudio-utils quanta-data rocs rsync
8800 speech-dispatcher step svgalibg1 texlive-binaries texlive-luatex
8804 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude
</p>
8807 amor artsbuilder atlantik atlantikdesigner blinken bluez-utils cvs
8808 dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop imlib-base imlib11 kalzium kanagram kandy
8809 kasteroids katomic kbackgammon kbattleship kblackbox kbounce kbruch
8810 kcron kdat kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data kdeprint kdict kdvi kedit
8811 keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs kgeography kghostview
8812 kgoldrunner khangman khexedit kiconedit kig kimagemapeditor
8813 kitchensync kiten kjumpingcube klatin klettres klickety klines
8814 klinkstatus kmag kmahjongg kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmines
8815 kmousetool kmouth kmplot knetwalk kodo kolf kommander konquest kooka
8816 kpager kpat kpdf kpercentage kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler krec
8817 kregexpeditor kreversi ksame ksayit kshisen ksig ksim ksirc ksirtet
8818 ksmiletris ksnake ksokoban kspaceduel kstars ksvg ksysv kteatime
8819 ktip ktnef ktouch ktron kttsd ktuberling kturtle ktux kuickshow
8820 kverbos kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kwordquiz
8821 kworldclock kxsldbg libakode2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
8822 libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
8823 libavahi-core5 libavc1394-
0 libbind9-
50 libbluetooth2
8824 libboost-python1.34
.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0
8825 libdirectfb-
1.0-
0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
8826 libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-
0 libicu38
8827 libiec61883-
0 libindex0 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
8828 libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1 libkdeedu3
8829 libkdegames1 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
8830 libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
8831 libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick10
8832 libmimelib1c2a libmodplug0c2 libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libmpfr1ldbl
8833 libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9 libpoppler-glib3
8834 libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-
8 librss1 libsensors3
8835 libsmbios2 libssh2-
1 libsuitesparse-
3.1.0 libswfdec-
0.6-
90
8836 libtalloc1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 lskat
8837 mpeglib network-manager-kde noatun pmount tex-common texlive-base
8838 texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended tidy
8839 ttf-dustin ttf-kochi-gothic ttf-sjfonts
8842 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get
</p>
8845 dolphin kde-core kde-plasma-desktop kde-standard kde-window-manager
8846 kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-apps kdebase-workspace
8847 kdebase-workspace-bin kdebase-workspace-data kdeutils kscreensaver
8848 kscreensaver-xsavers libgle3 libkonq5 libkonq5-templates libnetpbm10
8849 netpbm plasma-widget-folderview plasma-widget-networkmanagement
8850 xscreensaver-data-extra xscreensaver-gl xscreensaver-gl-extra
8851 xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
8854 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get
</p>
8857 kdebase-bin konq-plugins konqueror
8864 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>.
8869 <div class=
"padding"></div>
8873 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gnash_buildbot_slave_and_Debian_kfreebsd.html">Gnash buildbot slave and Debian kfreebsd
</a>
8880 <a href=
"http://www.listware.net/201011/gnash-dev/67431-gnash-dev-buildbot-looking-for-slaves.html">the
8881 call from the Gnash project
</a> for
8882 <a href=
"http://www.gnashdev.org:8010">buildbot
</a> slaves to test the
8883 current source, I have set up a virtual KVM machine on the Debian
8884 Edu/Skolelinux virtualization host to test the git source on
8885 Debian/Squeeze. I hope this can help the developers in getting new
8886 releases out more often.
</p>
8888 <p>As the developers want less main-stream build platforms tested to,
8889 I have considered setting up a
<a
8890 href=
"http://www.debian.org/ports/kfreebsd-gnu/">Debian/kfreebsd
</a>
8891 machine as well. I have also considered using the kfreebsd
8892 architecture in Debian as a file server in NUUG to get access to the
5
8893 TB zfs volume we currently use to store DV video. Because of this, I
8894 finally got around to do a test installation of Debian/Squeeze with
8895 kfreebsd. Installation went fairly smooth, thought I noticed some
8896 visual glitches in the cdebconf dialogs (black cursor left on the
8897 screen at random locations). Have not gotten very far with the
8898 testing. Noticed cfdisk did not work, but fdisk did so it was not a
8899 fatal problem. Have to spend some more time on it to see if it is
8900 useful as a file server for NUUG. Will try to find time to set up a
8901 gnash buildbot slave on the Debian Edu/Skolelinux this weekend.
</p>
8907 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>.
8912 <div class=
"padding"></div>
8916 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_in_3D.html">Debian in
3D
</a>
8922 <p><img src=
"http://thingiverse-production.s3.amazonaws.com/renders/23/e0/c4/f9/2b/debswagtdose_preview_medium.jpg"></p>
8924 <p>3D printing is just great. I just came across this Debian logo in
8926 <a href=
"http://blog.thingiverse.com/2010/11/09/participatory-branding/">the
8927 thingiverse blog
</a>.
</p>
8933 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>.
8938 <div class=
"padding"></div>
8942 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Software_updates_2010_10_24.html">Software updates
2010-
10-
24</a>
8948 <p>Some updates.
</p>
8950 <p>My
<a href=
"http://pledgebank.com/gnash-avm2">gnash pledge
</a> to
8951 raise money for the project is going well. The lower limit of
10
8952 signers was reached in
24 hours, and so far
13 people have signed it.
8953 More signers and more funding is most welcome, and I am really curious
8954 how far we can get before the time limit of December
24 is reached.
8957 <p>On the #gnash IRC channel on irc.freenode.net, I was just tipped
8958 about what appear to be a great code coverage tool capable of
8959 generating code coverage stats without any changes to the source code.
8961 <a href=
"http://simonkagstrom.github.com/kcov/index.html">kcov
</a>,
8962 and can be used using
<tt>kcov
<directory
> <binary
></tt>.
8963 It is missing in Debian, but the git source built just fine in Squeeze
8964 after I installed libelf-dev, libdwarf-dev, pkg-config and
8965 libglib2.0-dev. Failed to build in Lenny, but suspect that is
8966 solvable. I hope kcov make it into Debian soon.
</p>
8968 <p>Finally found time to wrap up the release notes for
<a
8969 href=
"http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2010/10/msg00002.html">a
8970 new alpha release of Debian Edu
</a>, and just published the second
8971 alpha test release of the Squeeze based Debian Edu /
8972 <a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux
</a>
8973 release. Give it a try if you need a complete linux solution for your
8974 school, including central infrastructure server, workstations, thin
8975 client servers and diskless workstations. A nice touch added
8976 yesterday is RDP support on the thin client servers, for windows
8977 clients to get a Linux desktop on request.
</p>
8983 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>.
8988 <div class=
"padding"></div>
8992 <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>
8998 <p>In the
<a href=
"http://popcon.debian.org/unknown/by_vote">Debian
8999 popularity-contest numbers
</a>, the adobe-flashplugin package the
9000 second most popular used package that is missing in Debian. The sixth
9001 most popular is flashplayer-mozilla. This is a clear indication that
9002 working flash is important for Debian users. Around
10 percent of the
9003 users submitting data to popcon.debian.org have this package
9006 <p>In the report written by Lars Risan in August
2008
9007 («
<a href=
"http://wiki.skolelinux.no/Dokumentasjon/Rapporter?action=AttachFile&do=view&target=Skolelinux_i_bruk_rapport_1.0.pdf">Skolelinux
9008 i bruk – Rapport for Hurum kommune, Universitetet i Agder og
9009 stiftelsen SLX Debian Labs
</a>»), one of the most important problems
9010 schools experienced with
<a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
9011 Edu/Skolelinux
</a> was the lack of working Flash. A lot of educational
9012 web sites require Flash to work, and lacking working Flash support in
9013 the web browser and the problems with installing it was perceived as a
9014 good reason to stay with Windows.
</p>
9016 <p>I once saw a funny and sad comment in a web forum, where Linux was
9017 said to be the retarded cousin that did not really understand
9018 everything you told him but could work fairly well. This was a
9019 comment regarding the problems Linux have with proprietary formats and
9020 non-standard web pages, and is sad because it exposes a fairly common
9021 understanding of whose fault it is if web pages that only work in for
9022 example Internet Explorer
6 fail to work on Firefox, and funny because
9023 it explain very well how annoying it is for users when Linux
9024 distributions do not work with the documents they receive or the web
9025 pages they want to visit.
</p>
9027 <p>This is part of the reason why I believe it is important for Debian
9028 and Debian Edu to have a well working Flash implementation in the
9029 distribution, to get at least popular sites as Youtube and Google
9030 Video to working out of the box. For Squeeze, Debian have the chance
9031 to include the latest version of Gnash that will make this happen, as
9032 the new release
0.8.8 was published a few weeks ago and is resting in
9033 unstable. The new version work with more sites that version
0.8.7.
9034 The Gnash maintainers have asked for a freeze exception, but the
9035 release team have not had time to reply to it yet. I hope they agree
9036 with me that Flash is important for the Debian desktop users, and thus
9037 accept the new package into Squeeze.
</p>
9043 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>.
9048 <div class=
"padding"></div>
9052 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Circular_package_dependencies_harms_apt_recovery.html">Circular package dependencies harms apt recovery
</a>
9058 <p>I discovered this while doing
9059 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">automated
9060 testing of upgrades from Debian Lenny to Squeeze
</a>. A few packages
9061 in Debian still got circular dependencies, and it is often claimed
9062 that apt and aptitude should be able to handle this just fine, but
9063 some times these dependency loops causes apt to fail.
</p>
9065 <p>An example is from todays
9066 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing//test-20100727-lenny-squeeze-kde-aptitude.txt">upgrade
9067 of KDE using aptitude
</a>. In it, a bug in kdebase-workspace-data
9068 causes perl-modules to fail to upgrade. The cause is simple. If a
9069 package fail to unpack, then only part of packages with the circular
9070 dependency might end up being unpacked when unpacking aborts, and the
9071 ones already unpacked will fail to configure in the recovery phase
9072 because its dependencies are unavailable.
</p>
9074 <p>In this log, the problem manifest itself with this error:
</p>
9077 dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of perl-modules:
9078 perl-modules depends on perl (
>=
5.10.1-
1); however:
9079 Version of perl on system is
5.10.0-
19lenny
2.
9080 dpkg: error processing perl-modules (--configure):
9081 dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
9084 <p>The perl/perl-modules circular dependency is already
9085 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/527917">reported as a bug
</a>, and will
9086 hopefully be solved as soon as possible, but it is not the only one,
9087 and each one of these loops in the dependency tree can cause similar
9088 failures. Of course, they only occur when there are bugs in other
9089 packages causing the unpacking to fail, but it is rather nasty when
9090 the failure of one package causes the problem to become worse because
9091 of dependency loops.
</p>
9094 <a href=
"http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/06/msg00116.html">the
9095 tireless effort by Bill Allombert
</a>, the number of circular
9097 <a href=
"http://debian.semistable.com/debgraph.out.html">left in Debian
9098 is dropping
</a>, and perhaps it will reach zero one day. :)
</p>
9100 <p>Todays testing also exposed a bug in
9101 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/590605">update-notifier
</a> and
9102 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/590604">different behaviour
</a> between
9103 apt-get and aptitude, the latter possibly caused by some circular
9104 dependency. Reported both to BTS to try to get someone to look at
9111 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>.
9116 <div class=
"padding"></div>
9120 <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>
9127 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">followup
</a>
9129 <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
9131 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">merging
9132 all
</a> the computer related LDAP objects in Debian Edu.
</p>
9134 <p>As a step to try to see if it possible to merge the DNS and DHCP
9135 LDAP objects, I have had a look at how the packages pdns-backend-ldap
9136 and dhcp3-server-ldap in Debian use the LDAP server. The two
9137 implementations are quite different in how they use LDAP.
</p>
9139 To get this information, I started slapd with debugging enabled and
9140 dumped the debug output to a file to get the LDAP searches performed
9141 on a Debian Edu main-server. Here is a summary.
9143 <p><strong>powerdns
</strong></p>
9145 <a href=
"http://www.linuxnetworks.de/doc/index.php/PowerDNS_LDAP_Backend">Clues
9146 on how to
</a> set up PowerDNS to use a LDAP backend is available on
9149 <p>PowerDNS have two modes of operation using LDAP as its backend.
9150 One "strict" mode where the forward and reverse DNS lookups are done
9151 using the same LDAP objects, and a "tree" mode where the forward and
9152 reverse entries are in two different subtrees in LDAP with a structure
9153 based on the DNS names, as in tjener.intern and
9154 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa.
</p>
9156 <p>In tree mode, the server is set up to use a LDAP subtree as its
9157 base, and uses a "base" scoped search for the DNS name by adding
9158 "dc=tjener,dc=intern," to the base with a filter for
9159 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" for the forward entry and
9160 "dc=
2,dc=
2,dc=
0,dc=
10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa," with a filter for
9161 "(associateddomain=
2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)" for the reverse entry. For
9162 forward entries, it is looking for attributes named dnsttl, arecord,
9163 nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord,
9164 txtrecord, rprecord, afsdbrecord, keyrecord, aaaarecord, locrecord,
9165 srvrecord, naptrrecord, kxrecord, certrecord, dsrecord, sshfprecord,
9166 ipseckeyrecord, rrsigrecord, nsecrecord, dnskeyrecord, dhcidrecord,
9167 spfrecord and modifytimestamp. For reverse entries it is looking for
9168 the attributes dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord,
9169 ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord,
9170 locrecord, srvrecord, naptrrecord and modifytimestamp. The equivalent
9171 ldapsearch commands could look like this:
</p>
9174 ldapsearch -h ldap \
9175 -b dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
9176 -s base -x '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
9177 cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
9178 rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
9179 nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
9180 rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
9182 ldapsearch -h ldap \
9183 -b dc=
2,dc=
2,dc=
0,dc=
10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
9184 -s base -x '(associateddomain=
2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)'
9185 dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord soarecord ptrrecord \
9186 hinforecord mxrecord txtrecord rprecord aaaarecord locrecord \
9187 srvrecord naptrrecord modifytimestamp
9190 <p>In Debian Edu/Lenny, the PowerDNS tree mode is used with
9191 ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no as the base, and these are two
9192 example LDAP objects used there. In addition to these objects, the
9193 parent objects all th way up to ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
9197 dn: dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
9199 objectclass: dnsdomain
9200 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
9203 associateddomain: tjener.intern
9205 dn: dc=
2,dc=
2,dc=
0,dc=
10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
9207 objectclass: dnsdomain2
9208 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
9210 ptrrecord: tjener.intern
9211 associateddomain:
2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa
9214 <p>In strict mode, the server behaves differently. When looking for
9215 forward DNS entries, it is doing a "subtree" scoped search with the
9216 same base as in the tree mode for a object with filter
9217 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" and requests the attributes dnsttl,
9218 arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord,
9219 mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord, locrecord, srvrecord,
9220 naptrrecord and modifytimestamp. For reverse entires it also do a
9221 subtree scoped search but this time the filter is "(arecord=
10.0.2.2)"
9222 and the requested attributes are associateddomain, dnsttl and
9223 modifytimestamp. In short, in strict mode the objects with ptrrecord
9224 go away, and the arecord attribute in the forward object is used
9227 <p>The forward and reverse searches can be simulated using ldapsearch
9231 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
9232 '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
9233 cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
9234 rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
9235 nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
9236 rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
9238 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
9239 '(arecord=
10.0.2.2)' associateddomain dnsttl modifytimestamp
9242 <p>In addition to the forward and reverse searches , there is also a
9243 search for SOA records, which behave similar to the forward and
9244 reverse lookups.
</p>
9246 <p>A thing to note with the PowerDNS behaviour is that it do not
9247 specify any objectclass names, and instead look for the attributes it
9248 need to generate a DNS reply. This make it able to work with any
9249 objectclass that provide the needed attributes.
</p>
9251 <p>The attributes are normally provided in the cosine (RFC
1274) and
9252 dnsdomain2 schemas. The latter is used for reverse entries like
9253 ptrrecord and recent DNS additions like aaaarecord and srvrecord.
</p>
9255 <p>In Debian Edu, we have created DNS objects using the object classes
9256 dcobject (for dc), dnsdomain or dnsdomain2 (structural, for the DNS
9257 attributes) and domainrelatedobject (for associatedDomain). The use
9258 of structural object classes make it impossible to combine these
9259 classes with the object classes used by DHCP.
</p>
9261 <p>There are other schemas that could be used too, for example the
9262 dnszone structural object class used by Gosa and bind-sdb for the DNS
9263 attributes combined with the domainrelatedobject object class, but in
9264 this case some unused attributes would have to be included as well
9265 (zonename and relativedomainname).
</p>
9267 <p>My proposal for Debian Edu would be to switch PowerDNS to strict
9268 mode and not use any of the existing objectclasses (dnsdomain,
9269 dnsdomain2 and dnszone) when one want to combine the DNS information
9270 with DHCP information, and instead create a auxiliary object class
9271 defined something like this (using the attributes defined for
9272 dnsdomain and dnsdomain2 or dnszone):
</p>
9275 objectclass ( some-oid NAME 'dnsDomainAux'
9278 MAY ( ARecord $ MDRecord $ MXRecord $ NSRecord $ SOARecord $ CNAMERecord $
9279 DNSTTL $ DNSClass $ PTRRecord $ HINFORecord $ MINFORecord $
9280 TXTRecord $ SIGRecord $ KEYRecord $ AAAARecord $ LOCRecord $
9281 NXTRecord $ SRVRecord $ NAPTRRecord $ KXRecord $ CERTRecord $
9282 A6Record $ DNAMERecord
9286 <p>This will allow any object to become a DNS entry when combined with
9287 the domainrelatedobject object class, and allow any entity to include
9288 all the attributes PowerDNS wants. I've sent an email to the PowerDNS
9289 developers asking for their view on this schema and if they are
9290 interested in providing such schema with PowerDNS, and I hope my
9291 message will be accepted into their mailing list soon.
</p>
9293 <p><strong>ISC dhcp
</strong></p>
9295 <p>The DHCP server searches for specific objectclass and requests all
9296 the object attributes, and then uses the attributes it want. This
9297 make it harder to figure out exactly what attributes are used, but
9298 thanks to the working example in Debian Edu I can at least get an idea
9299 what is needed without having to read the source code.
</p>
9301 <p>In the DHCP server configuration, the LDAP base to use and the
9302 search filter to use to locate the correct dhcpServer entity is
9303 stored. These are the relevant entries from
9304 /etc/dhcp3/dhcpd.conf:
</p>
9307 ldap-base-dn "dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no";
9308 ldap-dhcp-server-cn "dhcp";
9311 <p>The DHCP server uses this information to nest all the DHCP
9312 configuration it need. The cn "dhcp" is located using the given LDAP
9313 base and the filter "(&(objectClass=dhcpServer)(cn=dhcp))". The
9314 search result is this entry:
</p>
9317 dn: cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
9320 objectClass: dhcpServer
9321 dhcpServiceDN: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
9324 <p>The content of the dhcpServiceDN attribute is next used to locate the
9325 subtree with DHCP configuration. The DHCP configuration subtree base
9326 is located using a base scope search with base "cn=DHCP
9327 Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" and filter
9328 "(&(objectClass=dhcpService)(|(dhcpPrimaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)(dhcpSecondaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)))".
9329 The search result is this entry:
</p>
9332 dn: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
9335 objectClass: dhcpService
9336 objectClass: dhcpOptions
9337 dhcpPrimaryDN: cn=dhcp, dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
9338 dhcpStatements: ddns-update-style none
9339 dhcpStatements: authoritative
9340 dhcpOption: smtp-server code
69 = array of ip-address
9341 dhcpOption: www-server code
72 = array of ip-address
9342 dhcpOption: wpad-url code
252 = text
9345 <p>Next, the entire subtree is processed, one level at the time. When
9346 all the DHCP configuration is loaded, it is ready to receive requests.
9347 The subtree in Debian Edu contain objects with object classes
9348 top/dhcpService/dhcpOptions, top/dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions,
9349 top/dhcpSubnet, top/dhcpGroup and top/dhcpHost. These provide options
9350 and information about netmasks, dynamic range etc. Leaving out the
9351 details here because it is not relevant for the focus of my
9352 investigation, which is to see if it is possible to merge dns and dhcp
9353 related computer objects.
</p>
9355 <p>When a DHCP request come in, LDAP is searched for the MAC address
9356 of the client (
00:
00:
00:
00:
00:
00 in this example), using a subtree
9357 scoped search with "cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" as
9358 the base and "(&(objectClass=dhcpHost)(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet
9359 00:
00:
00:
00:
00:
00))" as the filter. This is what a host object look
9363 dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
9366 objectClass: dhcpHost
9367 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet
00:
00:
00:
00:
00:
00
9368 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname
9371 <p>There is less flexiblity in the way LDAP searches are done here.
9372 The object classes need to have fixed names, and the configuration
9373 need to be stored in a fairly specific LDAP structure. On the
9374 positive side, the invidiual dhcpHost entires can be anywhere without
9375 the DN pointed to by the dhcpServer entries. The latter should make
9376 it possible to group all host entries in a subtree next to the
9377 configuration entries, and this subtree can also be shared with the
9378 DNS server if the schema proposed above is combined with the dhcpHost
9379 structural object class.
9381 <p><strong>Conclusion
</strong></p>
9383 <p>The PowerDNS implementation seem to be very flexible when it come
9384 to which LDAP schemas to use. While its "tree" mode is rigid when it
9385 come to the the LDAP structure, the "strict" mode is very flexible,
9386 allowing DNS objects to be stored anywhere under the base cn specified
9387 in the configuration.
</p>
9389 <p>The DHCP implementation on the other hand is very inflexible, both
9390 regarding which LDAP schemas to use and which LDAP structure to use.
9391 I guess one could implement ones own schema, as long as the
9392 objectclasses and attributes have the names used, but this do not
9393 really help when the DHCP subtree need to have a fairly fixed
9396 <p>Based on the observed behaviour, I suspect a LDAP structure like
9397 this might work for Debian Edu:
</p>
9401 cn=machine-info (dhcpService) - dhcpServiceDN points here
9402 cn=dhcp (dhcpServer)
9403 cn=dhcp-internal (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
9404 cn=
10.0.2.0 (dhcpSubnet)
9405 cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
9406 cn=dhcp-thinclients (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
9407 cn=
192.168.0.0 (dhcpSubnet)
9408 cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
9409 ou=machines - PowerDNS base points here
9410 cn=hostname (dhcpHost/domainrelatedobject/dnsDomainAux)
9413 <P>This is not tested yet. If the DHCP server require the dhcpHost
9414 entries to be in the dhcpGroup subtrees, the entries can be stored
9415 there instead of a common machines subtree, and the PowerDNS base
9416 would have to be moved one level up to the machine-info subtree.
</p>
9418 <p>The combined object under the machines subtree would look something
9422 dn: dc=hostname,ou=machines,cn=machine-info,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
9425 objectClass: dhcpHost
9426 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
9427 objectclass: dnsDomainAux
9428 associateddomain: hostname.intern
9429 arecord:
10.11.12.13
9430 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet
00:
00:
00:
00:
00:
00
9431 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname.intern
9434 </p>One could even add the LTSP configuration associated with a given
9435 machine, as long as the required attributes are available in a
9436 auxiliary object class.
</p>
9442 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>.
9447 <div class=
"padding"></div>
9451 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">Combining PowerDNS and ISC DHCP LDAP objects
</a>
9457 <p>For a while now, I have wanted to find a way to change the DNS and
9458 DHCP services in Debian Edu to use the same LDAP objects for a given
9459 computer, to avoid the possibility of having a inconsistent state for
9460 a computer in LDAP (as in DHCP but no DNS entry or the other way
9461 around) and make it easier to add computers to LDAP.
</p>
9463 <p>I've looked at how powerdns and dhcpd is using LDAP, and using this
9464 information finally found a solution that seem to work.
</p>
9466 <p>The old setup required three LDAP objects for a given computer.
9467 One forward DNS entry, one reverse DNS entry and one DHCP entry. If
9468 we switch powerdns to use its strict LDAP method (ldap-method=strict
9469 in pdns-debian-edu.conf), the forward and reverse DNS entries are
9470 merged into one while making it impossible to transfer the reverse map
9471 to a slave DNS server.
</p>
9473 <p>If we also replace the object class used to get the DNS related
9474 attributes to one allowing these attributes to be combined with the
9475 dhcphost object class, we can merge the DNS and DHCP entries into one.
9476 I've written such object class in the dnsdomainaux.schema file (need
9477 proper OIDs, but that is a minor issue), and tested the setup. It
9480 <p>With this test setup in place, we can get away with one LDAP object
9481 for both DNS and DHCP, and even the LTSP configuration I suggested in
9482 an earlier email. The combined LDAP object will look something like
9486 dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
9488 objectClass: dhcphost
9489 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
9490 objectclass: dnsdomainaux
9491 associateddomain: hostname.intern
9492 arecord:
10.11.12.13
9493 dhcphwaddress: ethernet
00:
00:
00:
00:
00:
00
9494 dhcpstatements: fixed-address hostname
9498 <p>The DNS server uses the associateddomain and arecord entries, while
9499 the DHCP server uses the dhcphwaddress and dhcpstatements entries
9500 before asking DNS to resolve the fixed-adddress. LTSP will use
9501 dhcphwaddress or associateddomain and the ldapconfig* attributes.
</p>
9503 <p>I am not yet sure if I can get the DHCP server to look for its
9504 dhcphost in a different location, to allow us to put the objects
9505 outside the "DHCP Config" subtree, but hope to figure out a way to do
9506 that. If I can't figure out a way to do that, we can still get rid of
9507 the hosts subtree and move all its content into the DHCP Config tree
9508 (which probably should be renamed to be more related to the new
9509 content. I suspect cn=dnsdhcp,ou=services or something like that
9510 might be a good place to put it.
</p>
9512 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
9513 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.
</p>
9519 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>.
9524 <div class=
"padding"></div>
9528 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Idea_for_storing_LTSP_configuration_in_LDAP.html">Idea for storing LTSP configuration in LDAP
</a>
9534 <p>Vagrant mentioned on IRC today that ltsp_config now support
9535 sourcing files from /usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ on the thin
9536 clients, and that this can be used to fetch configuration from LDAP if
9537 Debian Edu choose to store configuration there.
</p>
9539 <p>Armed with this information, I got inspired and wrote a test module
9540 to get configuration from LDAP. The idea is to look up the MAC
9541 address of the client in LDAP, and look for attributes on the form
9542 ltspconfigsetting=value, and use this to export SETTING=value to the
9545 <p>The goal is to be able to store the LTSP configuration attributes
9546 in a "computer" LDAP object used by both DNS and DHCP, and thus
9547 allowing us to store all information about a computer in one place.
</p>
9549 <p>This is a untested draft implementation, and I welcome feedback on
9550 this approach. A real LDAP schema for the ltspClientAux objectclass
9551 need to be written. Comments, suggestions, etc?
</p>
9554 # Store in /opt/ltsp/$arch/usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ldap-config
9556 # Fetch LTSP client settings from LDAP based on MAC address
9558 # Uses ethernet address as stored in the dhcpHost objectclass using
9559 # the dhcpHWAddress attribute or ethernet address stored in the
9560 # ieee802Device objectclass with the macAddress attribute.
9562 # This module is written to be schema agnostic, and only depend on the
9563 # existence of attribute names.
9565 # The LTSP configuration variables are saved directly using a
9566 # ltspConfig prefix and uppercasing the rest of the attribute name.
9567 # To set the SERVER variable, set the ltspConfigServer attribute.
9569 # Some LDAP schema should be created with all the relevant
9570 # configuration settings. Something like this should work:
9572 # objectclass (
1.1.2.2 NAME 'ltspClientAux'
9575 # MAY ( ltspConfigServer $ ltsConfigSound $ ... )
9577 LDAPSERVER=$(debian-edu-ldapserver)
9578 if [ "$LDAPSERVER" ] ; then
9579 LDAPBASE=$(debian-edu-ldapserver -b)
9580 for MAC in $(LANG=C ifconfig |grep -i hwaddr| awk '{print $
5}'|sort -u) ; do
9581 filter="(|(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet $MAC)(macAddress=$MAC))"
9582 ldapsearch -h "$LDAPSERVER" -b "$LDAPBASE" -v -x "$filter" | \
9583 grep '^ltspConfig' | while read attr value ; do
9584 # Remove prefix and convert to upper case
9585 attr=$(echo $attr | sed 's/^ltspConfig//i' | tr a-z A-Z)
9586 # bass value on to clients
9587 eval "$attr=$value; export $attr"
9593 <p>I'm not sure this shell construction will work, because I suspect
9594 the while block might end up in a subshell causing the variables set
9595 there to not show up in ltsp-config, but if that is the case I am sure
9596 the code can be restructured to make sure the variables are passed on.
9597 I expect that can be solved with some testing. :)
</p>
9599 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
9600 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.
</p>
9602 <p>Update
2010-
07-
17: I am aware of another effort to store LTSP
9603 configuration in LDAP that was created around year
2000 by
9604 <a href=
"http://www.pcxperience.com/thinclient/documentation/ldap.html">PC
9605 Xperience, Inc.,
2000</a>. I found its
9606 <a href=
"http://people.redhat.com/alikins/ltsp/ldap/">files
</a> on a
9607 personal home page over at redhat.com.
</p>
9613 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>.
9618 <div class=
"padding"></div>
9622 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/jXplorer__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">jXplorer, a very nice LDAP GUI
</a>
9629 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">my
9630 last post
</a> about available LDAP tools in Debian, I was told about a
9631 LDAP GUI that is even better than luma. The java application
9632 <a href=
"http://jxplorer.org/">jXplorer
</a> is claimed to be capable of
9633 moving LDAP objects and subtrees using drag-and-drop, and can
9634 authenticate using Kerberos. I have only tested the Kerberos
9635 authentication, but do not have a LDAP setup allowing me to rewrite
9636 LDAP with my test user yet. It is
9637 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/j/jxplorer.html">available in
9638 Debian
</a> testing and unstable at the moment. The only problem I
9639 have with it is how it handle errors. If something go wrong, its
9640 non-intuitive behaviour require me to go through some query work list
9641 and remove the failing query. Nothing big, but very annoying.
</p>
9647 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>.
9652 <div class=
"padding"></div>
9656 <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>
9662 <p>Here is a short update on my
<a
9663 href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">my
9664 Debian Lenny-
>Squeeze upgrade testing
</a>. Here is a summary of the
9665 difference for Gnome when it is upgraded by apt-get and aptitude. I'm
9666 not reporting the status for KDE, because the upgrade crashes when
9667 aptitude try because of missing conflicts
9668 (
<a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#
584861</a> and
9669 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/585716">#
585716</a>).
</p>
9671 <p>At the end of the upgrade test script, dpkg -l is executed to get a
9672 complete list of the installed packages. Based on this I see these
9673 differences when I did a test run today. As usual, I do not really
9674 know what the correct set of packages would be, but thought it best to
9675 publish the difference.
</p>
9677 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude
</p>
9680 at-spi cpp-
4.3 finger gnome-spell gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
9681 libatspi1.0-
0 libcupsys2 libeel2-data libgail-common libgdl-
1-common
9682 libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin
9683 libgtksourceview-common libpt-
1.10.10-plugins-alsa
9684 libpt-
1.10.10-plugins-v4l libservlet2.4-java libxalan2-java
9685 libxerces2-java openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
9686 python-
4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gtkhtml2
9687 python-gtkmozembed svgalibg1 xserver-xephyr zip
9690 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude
</p>
9693 bluez-utils dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop epiphany-gecko
9694 gnome-app-install gnome-mount gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager
9695 libao2 libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libbind9-
50
9696 libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-
11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcurl3
9697 libdirectfb-
1.0-
0 libdvdread3 libedata-cal1.2-
6 libedataserver1.2-
9
9698 libeel2-
2.20 libepc-
1.0-
1 libepc-ui-
1.0-
1 libexchange-storage1.2-
3
9699 libfaad0 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-
3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
9700 libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-
0 libgksuui1.0-
1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-
2
9701 libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-
1 libgnomeprint2.2-
0
9702 libgnomeprintui2.2-
0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-
0
9703 libgtksourceview1.0-
0 libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50
9704 libisccfg50 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick++
10
9705 libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4
9706 libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-
2.2 libosp5
9707 libparted1.8-
10 libpisock9 libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3
9708 libpt-
1.10.10 libraw1394-
8 libsensors3 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-
8
9709 libssh2-
1 libsuitesparse-
3.1.0 libswfdec-
0.6-
90 libtalloc1
9710 libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0 libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj
9711 libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3
9712 mysql-common swfdec-gnome totem-gstreamer wodim
9715 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get
</p>
9718 gnome gnome-desktop-environment hamster-applet python-gnomeapplet
9719 python-gnomekeyring python-wnck rhythmbox-plugins xorg
9720 xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
9721 xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
9722 xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-video-all
9723 xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark xserver-xorg-video-ati
9724 xserver-xorg-video-chips xserver-xorg-video-cirrus
9725 xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
9726 xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
9727 xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-mach64
9728 xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
9729 xserver-xorg-video-nouveau xserver-xorg-video-nv
9730 xserver-xorg-video-r128 xserver-xorg-video-radeon
9731 xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd xserver-xorg-video-rendition
9732 xserver-xorg-video-s3 xserver-xorg-video-s3virge
9733 xserver-xorg-video-savage xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion
9734 xserver-xorg-video-sis xserver-xorg-video-sisusb
9735 xserver-xorg-video-tdfx xserver-xorg-video-tga
9736 xserver-xorg-video-trident xserver-xorg-video-tseng
9737 xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vmware
9738 xserver-xorg-video-voodoo
9741 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get
</p>
9744 deskbar-applet xserver-xorg xserver-xorg-core
9745 xserver-xorg-input-wacom xserver-xorg-video-intel
9746 xserver-xorg-video-openchrome
9749 <p>I was told on IRC that the xorg-xserver package was
9750 <a href=
"http://git.debian.org/?p=pkg-xorg/xserver/xorg-server.git;a=commit;h=9c8080d06c457932d3bfec021c69ac000aa60120">changed
9751 in git
</a> today to try to get apt-get to not remove xorg completely.
9752 No idea when it hits Squeeze, but when it does I hope it will reduce
9753 the difference somewhat.
9759 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>.
9764 <div class=
"padding"></div>
9768 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">LUMA, a very nice LDAP GUI
</a>
9774 <p>The last few days I have been looking into the status of the LDAP
9775 directory in Debian Edu, and in the process I started to miss a GUI
9776 tool to browse the LDAP tree. The only one I was able to find in
9777 Debian/Squeeze and Lenny is
9778 <a href=
"http://luma.sourceforge.net/">LUMA
</a>, which has proved to
9779 be a great tool to get a overview of the current LDAP directory
9780 populated by default in Skolelinux. Thanks to it, I have been able to
9781 find empty and obsolete subtrees, misplaced objects and duplicate
9782 objects. It will be installed by default in Debian/Squeeze. If you
9783 are working with LDAP, give it a go. :)
</p>
9785 <p>I did notice one problem with it I have not had time to report to
9786 the BTS yet. There is no .desktop file in the package, so the tool do
9787 not show up in the Gnome and KDE menus, but only deep down in in the
9788 Debian submenu in KDE. I hope that can be fixed before Squeeze is
9791 <p>I have not yet been able to get it to modify the tree yet. I would
9792 like to move objects and remove subtrees directly in the GUI, but have
9793 not found a way to do that with LUMA yet. So in the mean time, I use
9794 <a href=
"http://www.lichteblau.com/ldapvi/">ldapvi
</a> for that.
</p>
9796 <p>If you have tips on other GUI tools for LDAP that might be useful
9797 in Debian Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.
</p>
9799 <p>Update
2010-
06-
29: Ross Reedstrom tipped us about the
9800 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/g/gq.html">gq
</a> package as a
9801 useful GUI alternative. It seem like a good tool, but is unmaintained
9802 in Debian and got a RC bug keeping it out of Squeeze. Unless that
9803 changes, it will not be an option for Debian Edu based on Squeeze.
</p>
9809 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>.
9814 <div class=
"padding"></div>
9818 <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>
9825 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">complained
9826 about the fact
</a> that it is not possible with the provided schemas
9827 for storing DNS and DHCP information in LDAP to combine the two sets
9828 of information into one LDAP object representing a computer.
</p>
9830 <p>In the mean time, I discovered that a simple fix would be to make
9831 the dhcpHost object class auxiliary, to allow it to be combined with
9832 the dNSDomain object class, and thus forming one object for one
9833 computer when storing both DHCP and DNS information in LDAP.
</p>
9835 <p>If I understand this correctly, it is not safe to do this change
9836 without also changing the assigned number for the object class, and I
9837 do not know enough about LDAP schema design to do that properly for
9840 <p>Anyway, for future reference, this is how I believe we could change
9842 <a href=
"http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-dhc-ldap-schema-00">DHCP
9843 schema
</a> to solve at least part of the problem with the LDAP schemas
9844 available today from IETF.
</p>
9847 --- dhcp.schema (revision
65192)
9848 +++ dhcp.schema (working copy)
9850 objectclass (
2.16.840.1.113719.1.203.6.6
9852 DESC 'This represents information about a particular client'
9856 MAY (dhcpLeaseDN $ dhcpHWAddress $ dhcpOptionsDN $ dhcpStatements $ dhcpComments $ dhcpOption)
9857 X-NDS_CONTAINMENT ('dhcpService' 'dhcpSubnet' 'dhcpGroup') )
9860 <p>I very much welcome clues on how to do this properly for Debian
9861 Edu/Squeeze. We provide the DHCP schema in our debian-edu-config
9862 package, and should thus be free to rewrite it as we see fit.
</p>
9864 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
9865 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.
</p>
9871 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>.
9876 <div class=
"padding"></div>
9880 <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>
9886 <p>A few times I have had the need to simulate the way tasksel
9887 installs packages during the normal debian-installer run. Until now,
9888 I have ended up letting tasksel do the work, with the annoying problem
9889 of not getting any feedback at all when something fails (like a
9890 conffile question from dpkg or a download that fails), using code like
9894 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
9895 tasksel --new-install
9898 This would invoke tasksel, let its automatic task selection pick the
9899 tasks to install, and continue to install the requested tasks without
9900 any output what so ever.
9902 Recently I revisited this problem while working on the automatic
9903 package upgrade testing, because tasksel would some times hang without
9904 any useful feedback, and I want to see what is going on when it
9905 happen. Then it occured to me, I can parse the output from tasksel
9906 when asked to run in test mode, and use that aptitude command line
9907 printed by tasksel then to simulate the tasksel run. I ended up using
9911 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
9912 cmd="$(in_target tasksel -t --new-install | sed 's/debconf-apt-progress -- //')"
9916 <p>The content of $cmd is typically something like "
<tt>aptitude -q
9917 --without-recommends -o APT::Install-Recommends=no -y install
9918 ~t^desktop$ ~t^gnome-desktop$ ~t^laptop$ ~pstandard ~prequired
9919 ~pimportant
</tt>", which will install the gnome desktop task, the
9920 laptop task and all packages with priority standard , required and
9921 important, just like tasksel would have done it during
9924 <p>A better approach is probably to extend tasksel to be able to
9925 install packages without using debconf-apt-progress, for use cases
9932 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>.
9937 <div class="padding
"></div>
9941 <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>
9948 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html
">testing
9949 of Debian upgrades</a> from Lenny to Squeeze continues, and I've
9950 finally made the upgrade logs available from
9951 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/
">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/</a>.
9952 I am now testing dist-upgrade of Gnome and KDE in a chroot using both
9953 apt and aptitude, and found their differences interesting. This time
9954 I will only focus on their removal plans.</p>
9956 <p>After installing a Gnome desktop and the laptop task, apt-get wants
9957 to remove 72 packages when dist-upgrading from Lenny to Squeeze. The
9958 surprising part is that it want to remove xorg and all
9959 xserver-xorg-video* drivers. Clearly not a good choice, but I am not
9960 sure why. When asking aptitude to do the same, it want to remove 129
9961 packages, but most of them are library packages I suspect are no
9962 longer needed. Both of them want to remove bluetooth packages, which
9963 I do not know. Perhaps these bluetooth packages are obsolete?</p>
9965 <p>For KDE, apt-get want to remove 82 packages, among them kdebase
9966 which seem like a bad idea and xorg the same way as with Gnome. Asking
9967 aptitude for the same, it wants to remove 192 packages, none which are
9970 <p>I guess the removal of xorg during upgrades should be investigated
9971 and avoided, and perhaps others as well. Here are the complete list
9972 of planned removals. The complete logs is available from the URL
9973 above. Note if you want to repeat these tests, that the upgrade test
9974 for kde+apt-get hung in the tasksel setup because of dpkg asking
9975 conffile questions. No idea why. I worked around it by using
9976 '<tt>echo >> /proc/<em>pidofdpkg</em>/fd/0</tt>' to tell dpkg to
9979 <p><b>apt-get gnome 72</b>
9980 <br>bluez-gnome cupsddk-drivers deskbar-applet gnome
9981 gnome-desktop-environment gnome-network-admin gtkhtml3.14
9982 iceweasel-gnome-support libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libgdl-1-0
9983 libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libmetacity0 libslab0 libxcb-xlib0
9984 nautilus-cd-burner python-gnome2-desktop python-gnome2-extras
9985 serpentine swfdec-mozilla update-manager xorg xserver-xorg
9986 xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
9987 xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
9988 xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
9989 xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
9990 xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
9991 xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
9992 xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
9993 xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
9994 xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
9995 xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
9996 xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
9997 xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
9998 xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
9999 xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
10000 xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
10001 xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
10002 xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
10003 xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
10004 xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
10005 xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
10006 xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
10007 xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9
10008 xulrunner-1.9-gnome-support</p>
10010 <p><b>aptitude gnome 129</b>
10012 <br>bluez-gnome bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers dhcdbd
10013 djvulibre-desktop finger gnome-app-install gnome-mount
10014 gnome-network-admin gnome-spell gnome-vfs-obexftp
10015 gnome-volume-manager gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs gtkhtml3.14 libao2
10016 libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
10017 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcupsys2 libcurl3 libdatrie0
10018 libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20
10019 libeel2-data libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libfaad0 libgail-common
10020 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libgdl-1-0 libgdl-1-common
10021 libggz2 libggzcore9 libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0
10022 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libgnomeprint2.2-0
10023 libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgnomeprintui2.2-common
10024 libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
10025 libgtksourceview-common libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6
10026 libhesiod0 libicu38 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 libmagick++10
10027 libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmetacity0 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off
10028 libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2
10029 libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10
10030 libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libraw1394-8
10031 libsensors3 libslab0 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8 libssh2-1
10032 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10
10033 libtrackerclient0 libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0
10034 libxerces2-java libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6
10035 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common nautilus-cd-burner
10036 openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
10037 python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gnome2-desktop
10038 python-gnome2-extras python-gtkhtml2 python-gtkmozembed
10039 python-numeric python-sexy serpentine svgalibg1 swfdec-gnome
10040 swfdec-mozilla totem-gstreamer update-manager wodim
10041 xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
10042 xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
10045 <p><b>apt-get kde 82</b>
10047 <br>cupsddk-drivers karm kaudiocreator kcoloredit kcontrol kde kde-core
10048 kdeaddons kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-bin kdebase-bin-kde3
10049 kdebase-kio-plugins kdesktop kdeutils khelpcenter kicker
10050 kicker-applets knewsticker kolourpaint konq-plugins konqueror korn
10051 kpersonalizer kscreensaver ksplash libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libkiten1
10052 libxcb-xlib0 quanta superkaramba texlive-base-bin xorg xserver-xorg
10053 xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
10054 xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
10055 xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
10056 xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
10057 xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
10058 xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
10059 xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
10060 xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
10061 xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
10062 xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
10063 xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
10064 xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
10065 xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
10066 xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
10067 xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
10068 xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
10069 xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
10070 xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
10071 xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
10072 xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
10073 xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
10074 xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9</p>
10076 <p><b>aptitude kde 192</b>
10077 <br>bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers cvs dcoprss dhcdbd
10078 djvulibre-desktop dosfstools eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
10079 ghostscript-x imlib-base imlib11 indi kandy karm kasteroids
10080 kaudiocreator kbackgammon kbstate kcoloredit kcontrol kcron kdat
10081 kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
10082 kdebase-bin-kde3 kdebase-kio-plugins kdeedu-data
10083 kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data
10084 kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
10085 kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdeprint kdesktop kdessh
10086 kdict kdnssd kdvi kedit keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs
10087 kghostview khelpcenter khexedit kiconedit kitchensync klatin
10088 klickety kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmoon kmrml kodo kolourpaint
10089 kooka korn kpager kpdf kpercentage kpf kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler
10090 krec kregexpeditor ksayit ksim ksirc ksirtet ksmiletris ksmserver
10091 ksnake ksokoban ksplash ksvg ksysv ktip ktnef kuickshow kverbos
10092 kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kworldclock
10093 kxsldbg libakode2 libao2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
10094 libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
10095 libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
10096 libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0 libdatrie0
10097 libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
10098 libgail-common libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0
10099 libicu38 libiec61883-0 libindex0 libiw29 libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1
10100 libkdeedu3 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkiten1 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
10101 libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
10102 libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 libmagick10 libmimelib1c2a
10103 libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9
10104 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 libsmbios2
10105 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libtalloc1 libtiff-tools
10106 libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0 libxerces2-java
10107 libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 mpeglib networkstatus
10108 openoffice.org-writer2latex pmount poster psutils quanta quanta-data
10109 superkaramba svgalibg1 tex-common texlive-base texlive-base-bin
10110 texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended
10111 xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
10112 xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
10120 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>.
10125 <div class="padding
"></div>
10127 <div class="entry
">
10128 <div class="title
">
10129 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html
">Automatic upgrade testing from Lenny to Squeeze</a>
10135 <p>The last few days I have done some upgrade testing in Debian, to
10136 see if the upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze will go smoothly. A few bugs
10137 have been discovered and reported in the process
10138 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/
585410">#585410</a> in nagios3-cgi,
10139 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/
584879">#584879</a> already fixed in
10140 enscript and <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/
584861">#584861</a> in
10141 kdebase-workspace-data), and to get a more regular testing going on, I
10142 am working on a script to automate the test.</p>
10144 <p>The idea is to create a Lenny chroot and use tasksel to install a
10145 Gnome or KDE desktop installation inside the chroot before upgrading
10146 it. To ensure no services are started in the chroot, a policy-rc.d
10147 script is inserted. To make sure tasksel believe it is to install a
10148 desktop on a laptop, the tasksel tests are replaced in the chroot
10149 (only acceptable because this is a throw-away chroot).</p>
10151 <p>A naive upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze using aptitude dist-upgrade
10152 currently always fail because udev refuses to upgrade with the kernel
10153 in Lenny, so to avoid that problem the file /etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
10154 is created. The bug report
10155 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/
566000">#566000</a> make me suspect
10156 this problem do not trigger in a chroot, but I touch the file anyway
10157 to make sure the upgrade go well. Testing on virtual and real
10158 hardware have failed me because of udev so far, and creating this file
10159 do the trick in such settings anyway. This is a
10160 <a href="http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/debian-
26/failed-dist-upgrade-due-to-udev-config_sysfs_deprecated-nonsense-
804130/
">known
10161 issue</a> and the current udev behaviour is intended by the udev
10162 maintainer because he lack the resources to rewrite udev to keep
10163 working with old kernels or something like that. I really wish the
10164 udev upstream would keep udev backwards compatible, to avoid such
10165 upgrade problem, but given that they fail to do so, I guess
10166 documenting the way out of this mess is the best option we got for
10167 Debian Squeeze.</p>
10169 <p>Anyway, back to the task at hand, testing upgrades. This test
10170 script, which I call <tt>upgrade-test</tt> for now, is doing the
10186 exec
< /dev/null
10188 mirror=http://ftp.skolelinux.org/debian
10189 tmpdir=chroot-$from-upgrade-$to-$desktop
10191 debootstrap $from $tmpdir $mirror
10192 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
10193 cat
> $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d
<<EOF
10197 chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d
10199 umount $tmpdir/proc
10201 mount -t proc proc $tmpdir/proc
10202 # Make sure proc is unmounted also on failure
10203 trap exit_cleanup EXIT INT
10205 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y install debconf-utils
10207 # Make sure tasksel autoselection trigger. It need the test scripts
10208 # to return the correct answers.
10209 echo tasksel tasksel/desktop multiselect $desktop | \
10210 chroot $tmpdir debconf-set-selections
10212 # Include the desktop and laptop task
10213 for test in desktop laptop ; do
10214 echo
> $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test
<<EOF
10218 chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test
10221 DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
10222 DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical
10223 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND DEBIAN_PRIORITY
10224 chroot $tmpdir tasksel --new-install
10226 echo deb $mirror $to main
> $tmpdir/etc/apt/sources.list
10227 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
10228 touch $tmpdir/etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
10229 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y dist-upgrade
10231 </pre></blockquote>
10233 <p>I suspect it would be useful to test upgrades with both apt-get and
10234 with aptitude, but I have not had time to look at how they behave
10235 differently so far. I hope to get a cron job running to do the test
10236 regularly and post the result on the web. The Gnome upgrade currently
10237 work, while the KDE upgrade fail because of the bug in
10238 kdebase-workspace-data
</p>
10240 <p>I am not quite sure what kind of extract from the huge upgrade logs
10241 (KDE
167 KiB, Gnome
516 KiB) it make sense to include in this blog
10242 post, so I will refrain from trying. I can report that for Gnome,
10243 aptitude report
760 packages upgraded,
448 newly installed,
129 to
10244 remove and
1 not upgraded and
1024MB need to be downloaded while for
10245 KDE the same numbers are
702 packages upgraded,
507 newly installed,
10246 193 to remove and
0 not upgraded and
1117MB need to be downloaded
</p>
10248 <p>I am very happy to notice that the Gnome desktop + laptop upgrade
10249 is able to migrate to dependency based boot sequencing and parallel
10250 booting without a hitch. Was unsure if there were still bugs with
10251 packages failing to clean up their obsolete init.d script during
10252 upgrades, and no such problem seem to affect the Gnome desktop+laptop
10259 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>.
10264 <div class=
"padding"></div>
10266 <div class=
"entry">
10267 <div class=
"title">
10268 <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>
10274 <p>If Debian is to migrate to upstart on Linux, I expect some init.d
10275 scripts to migrate (some of) their operations to upstart job while
10276 keeping the init.d for hurd and kfreebsd. The packages with such
10277 needs will need a way to get their init.d scripts to behave
10278 differently when used with sysvinit and with upstart. Because of
10279 this, I had a look at the environment variables set when a init.d
10280 script is running under upstart, and when it is not.
</p>
10282 <p>With upstart, I notice these environment variables are set when a
10283 script is started from rcS.d/ (ignoring some irrelevant ones like
10292 UPSTART_EVENTS=startup
10294 UPSTART_JOB=rc-sysinit
10295 </pre></blockquote>
10297 <p>With sysvinit, these environment variables are set for the same
10301 INIT_VERSION=sysvinit-
2.88
10306 </pre></blockquote>
10308 <p>The RUNLEVEL and PREVLEVEL environment variables passed on from
10309 sysvinit are not set by upstart. Not sure if it is intentional or not
10310 to not be compatible with sysvinit in this regard.
</p>
10312 <p>For scripts needing to behave differently when upstart is used,
10313 looking for the UPSTART_JOB environment variable seem to be a good
10320 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>.
10325 <div class=
"padding"></div>
10327 <div class=
"entry">
10328 <div class=
"title">
10329 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_manual_for_standards_wars___.html">A manual for standards wars...
</a>
10336 <a href=
"http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/robweir/antic-atom/~3/QzU4RgoAGMg/weekly-links-10.html">blog
10337 of Rob Weir
</a> I came across the very interesting essay named
10338 <a href=
"http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/shapiro/wars.pdf">The Art of
10339 Standards Wars
</a> (PDF
25 pages). I recommend it for everyone
10340 following the standards wars of today.
</p>
10346 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>.
10351 <div class=
"padding"></div>
10353 <div class=
"entry">
10354 <div class=
"title">
10355 <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>
10361 <p>When using sitesummary at a site to track machines, it is possible
10362 to get a list of the machine types in use thanks to the DMI
10363 information extracted from each machine. The script to do so is
10364 included in the sitesummary package, and here is example output from
10365 the Skolelinux build servers:
</p>
10368 maintainer:~# /usr/lib/sitesummary/hardware-model-summary
10370 Dell Computer Corporation
1
10373 eserver xSeries
345 -[
8670M1X]-
1
10377 </pre></blockquote>
10379 <p>The quality of the report depend on the quality of the DMI tables
10380 provided in each machine. Here there are Intel machines without model
10381 information listed with Intel as vendor and no model, and virtual Xen
10382 machines listed as [no-dmi-info]. One can add -l as a command line
10383 option to list the individual machines.
</p>
10385 <p>A larger list is
10386 <a href=
"http://narvikskolen.no/sitesummary/">available from the the
10387 city of Narvik
</a>, which uses Skolelinux on all their shools and also
10388 provide the basic sitesummary report publicly. In their report there
10389 are ~
1400 machines. I know they use both Ubuntu and Skolelinux on
10390 their machines, and as sitesummary is available in both distributions,
10391 it is trivial to get all of them to report to the same central
10398 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>.
10403 <div class=
"padding"></div>
10405 <div class=
"entry">
10406 <div class=
"title">
10407 <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>
10413 <p>It is strange to watch how a bug in Debian causing KDM to fail to
10414 start at boot when an NVidia video card is used is handled. The
10415 problem seem to be that the nvidia X.org driver uses a long time to
10416 initialize, and this duration is longer than kdm is configured to
10419 <p>I came across two bugs related to this issue,
10420 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/583312">#
583312</a> initially filed
10421 against initscripts and passed on to nvidia-glx when it became obvious
10422 that the nvidia drivers were involved, and
10423 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/524751">#
524751</a> initially filed against
10424 kdm and passed on to src:nvidia-graphics-drivers for unknown reasons.
</p>
10426 <p>To me, it seem that no-one is interested in actually solving the
10427 problem nvidia video card owners experience and make sure the Debian
10428 distribution work out of the box for these users. The nvidia driver
10429 maintainers expect kdm to be set up to wait longer, while kdm expect
10430 the nvidia driver maintainers to fix the driver to start faster, and
10431 while they wait for each other I guess the users end up switching to a
10432 distribution that work for them. I have no idea what the solution is,
10433 but I am pretty sure that waiting for each other is not it.
</p>
10435 <p>I wonder why we end up handling bugs this way.
</p>
10441 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>.
10446 <div class=
"padding"></div>
10448 <div class=
"entry">
10449 <div class=
"title">
10450 <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>
10456 <p>A few days ago, parallel booting was enabled in Debian/testing.
10457 The feature seem to hold up pretty well, but three fairly serious
10458 issues are known and should be solved:
10462 <li>The wicd package seen to
10463 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/508289">break NFS mounting
</a> and
10464 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/581586">network setup
</a> when
10465 parallel booting is enabled. No idea why, but the wicd maintainer
10466 seem to be on the case.
</li>
10468 <li>The nvidia X driver seem to
10469 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/583312">have a race condition
</a>
10470 triggered more easily when parallel booting is in effect. The
10471 maintainer is on the case.
</li>
10473 <li>The sysv-rc package fail to properly enable dependency based boot
10474 sequencing (the shutdown is broken) when old file-rc users
10475 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/575080">try to switch back
</a> to
10476 sysv-rc. One way to solve it would be for file-rc to create
10477 /etc/init.d/.legacy-bootordering, and another is to try to make
10478 sysv-rc more robust. Will investigate some more and probably upload a
10479 workaround in sysv-rc to help those trying to move from file-rc to
10480 sysv-rc get a working shutdown.
</li>
10484 <p>All in all not many surprising issues, and all of them seem
10485 solvable before Squeeze is released. In addition to these there are
10486 some packages with bugs in their dependencies and run level settings,
10487 which I expect will be fixed in a reasonable time span.
</p>
10489 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
10490 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
10491 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
10492 list of usertagged bugs related to this
</a>.
</p>
10494 <p>Update: Correct bug number to file-rc issue.
</p>
10500 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>.
10505 <div class=
"padding"></div>
10507 <div class=
"entry">
10508 <div class=
"title">
10509 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/More_flexible_firmware_handling_in_debian_installer.html">More flexible firmware handling in debian-installer
</a>
10515 <p>After a long break from debian-installer development, I finally
10516 found time today to return to the project. Having to spend less time
10517 working dependency based boot in debian, as it is almost complete now,
10518 definitely helped freeing some time.
</p>
10520 <p>A while back, I ran into a problem while working on Debian Edu. We
10521 include some firmware packages on the Debian Edu CDs, those needed to
10522 get disk and network controllers working. Without having these
10523 firmware packages available during installation, it is impossible to
10524 install Debian Edu on the given machine, and because our target group
10525 are non-technical people, asking them to provide firmware packages on
10526 an external medium is a support pain. Initially, I expected it to be
10527 enough to include the firmware packages on the CD to get
10528 debian-installer to find and use them. This proved to be wrong.
10529 Next, I hoped it was enough to symlink the relevant firmware packages
10530 to some useful location on the CD (tried /cdrom/ and
10531 /cdrom/firmware/). This also proved to not work, and at this point I
10532 found time to look at the debian-installer code to figure out what was
10535 <p>The firmware loading code is in the hw-detect package, and a closer
10536 look revealed that it would only look for firmware packages outside
10537 the installation media, so the CD was never checked for firmware
10538 packages. It would only check USB sticks, floppies and other
10539 "external" media devices. Today I changed it to also look in the
10540 /cdrom/firmware/ directory on the mounted CD or DVD, which should
10541 solve the problem I ran into with Debian edu. I also changed it to
10542 look in /firmware/, to make sure the installer also find firmware
10543 provided in the initrd when booting the installer via PXE, to allow us
10544 to provide the same feature in the PXE setup included in Debian
10547 <p>To make sure firmware deb packages with a license questions are not
10548 activated without asking if the license is accepted, I extended
10549 hw-detect to look for preinst scripts in the firmware packages, and
10550 run these before activating the firmware during installation. The
10551 license question is asked using debconf in the preinst, so this should
10552 solve the issue for the firmware packages I have looked at so far.
</p>
10554 <p>If you want to discuss the details of these features, please
10555 contact us on debian-boot@lists.debian.org.
</p>
10561 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>.
10566 <div class=
"padding"></div>
10568 <div class=
"entry">
10569 <div class=
"title">
10570 <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>
10576 <p>Since this evening, parallel booting is the default in
10577 Debian/unstable for machines using dependency based boot sequencing.
10578 Apparently the testing of concurrent booting has been wider than
10579 expected, if I am to believe the
10580 <a href=
"http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
10581 on debian-devel@
</a>, and I concluded a few days ago to move forward
10582 with the feature this weekend, to give us some time to detect any
10583 remaining problems before Squeeze is frozen. If serious problems are
10584 detected, it is simple to change the default back to sequential boot.
10585 The upload of the new sysvinit package also activate a new upstream
10588 More information about
10589 <a href=
"http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
10590 based boot sequencing
</a> is available from the Debian wiki. It is
10591 currently possible to disable parallel booting when one run into
10592 problems caused by it, by adding this line to /etc/default/rcS:
</p>
10596 </pre></blockquote>
10598 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
10599 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
10600 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
10601 list of usertagged bugs related to this
</a>.
</p>
10607 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>.
10612 <div class=
"padding"></div>
10614 <div class=
"entry">
10615 <div class=
"title">
10616 <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>
10622 <p>In the recent Debian Edu versions, the
10623 <a href=
"http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/SiteSummary">sitesummary
10624 system
</a> is used to keep track of the machines in the school
10625 network. Each machine will automatically report its status to the
10626 central server after boot and once per night. The network setup is
10627 also reported, and using this information it is possible to get the
10628 MAC address of all network interfaces in the machines. This is useful
10629 to update the DHCP configuration.
</p>
10631 <p>To give some idea how to use sitesummary, here is a one-liner to
10632 ist all MAC addresses of all machines reporting to sitesummary. Run
10633 this on the collector host:
</p>
10636 perl -MSiteSummary -e 'for_all_hosts(sub { print join(" ", get_macaddresses(shift)), "\n"; });'
10637 </pre></blockquote>
10639 <p>This will list all MAC addresses assosiated with all machine, one
10640 line per machine and with space between the MAC addresses.
</p>
10642 <p>To allow system administrators easier job at adding static DHCP
10643 addresses for hosts, it would be possible to extend this to fetch
10644 machine information from sitesummary and update the DHCP and DNS
10645 tables in LDAP using this information. Such tool is unfortunately not
10652 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>.
10657 <div class=
"padding"></div>
10659 <div class=
"entry">
10660 <div class=
"title">
10661 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/systemd__an_interesting_alternative_to_upstart.html">systemd, an interesting alternative to upstart
</a>
10667 <p>The last few days a new boot system called
10668 <a href=
"http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd">systemd
</a>
10670 <a href=
"http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/systemd.html">introduced
</a>
10672 to the free software world. I have not yet had time to play around
10673 with it, but it seem to be a very interesting alternative to
10674 <a href=
"http://upstart.ubuntu.com/">upstart
</a>, and might prove to be
10675 a good alternative for Debian when we are able to switch to an event
10676 based boot system. Tollef is
10677 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/580814">in the process
</a> of getting
10678 systemd into Debian, and I look forward to seeing how well it work. I
10679 like the fact that systemd handles init.d scripts with dependency
10680 information natively, allowing them to run in parallel where upstart
10681 at the moment do not.
</p>
10683 <p>Unfortunately do systemd have the same problem as upstart regarding
10684 platform support. It only work on recent Linux kernels, and also need
10685 some new kernel features enabled to function properly. This means
10686 kFreeBSD and Hurd ports of Debian will need a port or a different boot
10687 system. Not sure how that will be handled if systemd proves to be the
10690 <p>In the mean time, based on the
10691 <a href=
"http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
10692 on debian-devel@
</a> regarding parallel booting in Debian, I have
10693 decided to enable full parallel booting as the default in Debian as
10694 soon as possible (probably this weekend or early next week), to see if
10695 there are any remaining serious bugs in the init.d dependencies. A
10696 new version of the sysvinit package implementing this change is
10697 already in experimental. If all go well, Squeeze will be released
10698 with parallel booting enabled by default.
</p>
10704 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>.
10709 <div class=
"padding"></div>
10711 <div class=
"entry">
10712 <div class=
"title">
10713 <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>
10719 <p>These days, the init.d script dependencies in Squeeze are quite
10720 complete, so complete that it is actually possible to run all the
10721 init.d scripts in parallell based on these dependencies. If you want
10722 to test your Squeeze system, make sure
10723 <a href=
"http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
10724 based boot sequencing
</a> is enabled, and add this line to
10725 /etc/default/rcS:
</p>
10728 CONCURRENCY=makefile
10729 </pre></blockquote>
10731 <p>That is it. It will cause sysv-rc to use the startpar tool to run
10732 scripts in parallel using the dependency information stored in
10733 /etc/init.d/.depend.boot, /etc/init.d/.depend.start and
10734 /etc/init.d/.depend.stop to order the scripts. Startpar is configured
10735 to try to start the kdm and gdm scripts as early as possible, and will
10736 start the facilities required by kdm or gdm as early as possible to
10737 make this happen.
</p>
10739 <p>Give it a try, and see if you like the result. If some services
10740 fail to start properly, it is most likely because they have incomplete
10741 init.d script dependencies in their startup script (or some of their
10742 dependent scripts have incomplete dependencies). Report bugs and get
10743 the package maintainers to fix it. :)
</p>
10745 <p>Running scripts in parallel could be the default in Debian when we
10746 manage to get the init.d script dependencies complete and correct. I
10747 expect we will get there in Squeeze+
1, if we get manage to test and
10748 fix the remaining issues.
</p>
10750 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
10751 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
10752 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
10753 list of usertagged bugs related to this
</a>.
</p>
10759 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>.
10764 <div class=
"padding"></div>
10766 <div class=
"entry">
10767 <div class=
"title">
10768 <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>
10774 <p>Since this evening, with the upload of sysvinit version
2.87dsf-
2,
10775 and the upload of insserv version
1.12.0-
10 yesterday, Debian unstable
10776 have been migrated to using dependency based boot sequencing. This
10777 conclude work me and others have been doing for the last three days.
10778 It feels great to see this finally part of the default Debian
10779 installation. Now we just need to weed out the last few problems that
10780 are bound to show up, to get everything ready for Squeeze.
</p>
10782 <p>The next step is migrating /sbin/init from sysvinit to upstart, and
10783 fixing the more fundamental problem of handing the event based
10784 non-predictable kernel in the early boot.
</p>
10790 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>.
10795 <div class=
"padding"></div>
10797 <div class=
"entry">
10798 <div class=
"title">
10799 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Taking_over_sysvinit_development.html">Taking over sysvinit development
</a>
10805 <p>After several years of frustration with the lack of activity from
10806 the existing sysvinit upstream developer, I decided a few weeks ago to
10807 take over the package and become the new upstream. The number of
10808 patches to track for the Debian package was becoming a burden, and the
10809 lack of synchronization between the distribution made it hard to keep
10810 the package up to date.
</p>
10812 <p>On the new sysvinit team is the SuSe maintainer Dr. Werner Fink,
10813 and my Debian co-maintainer Kel Modderman. About
10 days ago, I made
10814 a new upstream tarball with version number
2.87dsf (for Debian, SuSe
10815 and Fedora), based on the patches currently in use in these
10816 distributions. We Debian maintainers plan to move to this tarball as
10817 the new upstream as soon as we find time to do the merge. Since the
10818 new tarball was created, we agreed with Werner at SuSe to make a new
10819 upstream project at
<a href=
"http://savannah.nongnu.org/">Savannah
</a>, and continue
10820 development there. The project is registered and currently waiting
10821 for approval by the Savannah administrators, and as soon as it is
10822 approved, we will import the old versions from svn and continue
10823 working on the future release.
</p>
10825 <p>It is a bit ironic that this is done now, when some of the involved
10826 distributions are moving to upstart as a syvinit replacement.
</p>
10832 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>.
10837 <div class=
"padding"></div>
10839 <div class=
"entry">
10840 <div class=
"title">
10841 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_boots_quicker_and_quicker.html">Debian boots quicker and quicker
</a>
10847 <p>I spent Monday and tuesday this week in London with a lot of the
10848 people involved in the boot system on Debian and Ubuntu, to see if we
10849 could find more ways to speed up the boot system. This was an Ubuntu
10851 <a href=
"https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FoundationsTeam/BootPerformance/DebianUbuntuSprint">developer
10852 gathering
</a>. It was quite productive. We also discussed the future
10853 of boot systems, and ways to handle the increasing number of boot
10854 issues introduced by the Linux kernel becoming more and more
10855 asynchronous and event base. The Ubuntu approach using udev and
10856 upstart might be a good way forward. Time will show.
</p>
10858 <p>Anyway, there are a few ways at the moment to speed up the boot
10859 process in Debian. All of these should be applied to get a quick
10864 <li>Use dash as /bin/sh.
</li>
10866 <li>Disable the init.d/hwclock*.sh scripts and make sure the hardware
10867 clock is in UTC.
</li>
10869 <li>Install and activate the insserv package to enable
10870 <a href=
"http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
10871 based boot sequencing
</a>, and enable concurrent booting.
</li>
10875 These points are based on the Google summer of code work done by
10876 <a href=
"http://initscripts-ng.alioth.debian.org/soc2006-bootsystem/">Carlos
10879 <p>Support for makefile-style concurrency during boot was uploaded to
10880 unstable yesterday. When we tested it, we were able to cut
6 seconds
10881 from the boot sequence. It depend on very correct dependency
10882 declaration in all init.d scripts, so I expect us to find edge cases
10883 where the dependences in some scripts are slightly wrong when we start
10886 <p>On our IRC channel for this effort, #pkg-sysvinit, a new idea was
10887 introduced by Raphael Geissert today, one that could affect the
10888 startup speed as well. Instead of starting some scripts concurrently
10889 from rcS.d/ and another set of scripts from rc2.d/, it would be
10890 possible to run a of them in the same process. A quick way to test
10891 this would be to enable insserv and run 'mv /etc/rc2.d/S* /etc/rcS.d/;
10892 insserv'. Will need to test if that work. :)
</p>
10898 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>.
10903 <div class=
"padding"></div>
10905 <div class=
"entry">
10906 <div class=
"title">
10907 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/BSAs_p_stander_om_piratkopiering_m_ter_motstand.html">BSAs påstander om piratkopiering møter motstand
</a>
10913 <p>Hvert år de siste årene har BSA, lobbyfronten til de store
10914 programvareselskapene som Microsoft og Apple, publisert en rapport der
10915 de gjetter på hvor mye piratkopiering påfører i tapte inntekter i
10916 ulike land rundt om i verden. Resultatene er tendensiøse. For noen
10918 <a href=
"http://global.bsa.org/globalpiracy2008/studies/globalpiracy2008.pdf">siste
10919 rapport
</a>, og det er flere kritiske kommentarer publisert de siste
10920 dagene. Et spesielt interessant kommentar fra Sverige,
10921 <a href=
"http://www.idg.se/2.1085/1.229795/bsa-hoftade-sverigesiffror">BSA
10922 höftade Sverigesiffror
</a>, oppsummeres slik:
</p>
10925 I sin senaste rapport slår BSA fast att
25 procent av all mjukvara i
10926 Sverige är piratkopierad. Det utan att ha pratat med ett enda svenskt
10927 företag. "Man bör nog kanske inte se de här siffrorna som helt
10928 exakta", säger BSAs Sverigechef John Hugosson.
10931 <p>Mon tro om de er like metodiske når de gjetter på andelen piratkopiering i Norge? To andre kommentarer er
<a
10932 href=
"http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/comment/2242134/bsa-piracy-figures-shot-reality">BSA
10933 piracy figures need a shot of reality
</a> og
<a
10934 href=
"http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/3958/125/">Does The WIPO
10935 Copyright Treaty Work?
</a></p>
10937 <p>Fant lenkene via
<a
10938 href=
"http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/05/17/1632242">oppslag
10939 på Slashdot
</a>.
</p>
10945 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>.
10950 <div class=
"padding"></div>
10952 <div class=
"entry">
10953 <div class=
"title">
10954 <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>
10961 <a href=
"http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10216873-16.html">interessante
10962 tall
</a> fra IDG om utviklingen av linuxservermarkedet. Fikk meg til
10963 å tenke på antall tjenermaskiner ved Universitetet i Oslo der jeg
10964 jobber til daglig. En rask opptelling forteller meg at vi har
490
10965 (
61%) fysiske unix-tjener (mest linux men også noen solaris) og
196
10966 (
25%) windowstjenere, samt
112 (
14%) virtuelle unix-tjenere. Med den
10967 bakgrunnskunnskapen kan jeg godt tro at IDG er inne på noe.
</p>
10973 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>.
10978 <div class=
"padding"></div>
10980 <div class=
"entry">
10981 <div class=
"title">
10982 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Kryptert_harddisk___naturligvis.html">Kryptert harddisk - naturligvis
</a>
10988 <p><a href=
"http://www.dagensit.no/trender/article1658676.ece">Dagens
10989 IT melder
</a> at Intel hevder at det er dyrt å miste en datamaskin,
10990 når en tar tap av arbeidstid, fortrolige dokumenter,
10991 personopplysninger og alt annet det innebærer. Det er ingen tvil om
10992 at det er en kostbar affære å miste sin datamaskin, og det er årsaken
10993 til at jeg har kryptert harddisken på både kontormaskinen og min
10994 bærbare. Begge inneholder personopplysninger jeg ikke ønsker skal
10995 komme på avveie, den første informasjon relatert til jobben min ved
10996 Universitetet i Oslo, og den andre relatert til blant annet
10997 foreningsarbeide. Kryptering av diskene gjør at det er lite
10998 sannsynlig at dophoder som kan finne på å rappe maskinene får noe ut
10999 av dem. Maskinene låses automatisk etter noen minutter uten bruk,
11000 og en reboot vil gjøre at de ber om passord før de vil starte opp.
11001 Jeg bruker Debian på begge maskinene, og installasjonssystemet der
11002 gjør det trivielt å sette opp krypterte disker. Jeg har LVM på toppen
11003 av krypterte partisjoner, slik at alt av datapartisjoner er kryptert.
11004 Jeg anbefaler alle å kryptere diskene på sine bærbare. Kostnaden når
11005 det er gjort slik jeg gjør det er minimale, og gevinstene er
11006 betydelige. En bør dog passe på passordet. Hvis det går tapt, må
11007 maskinen reinstalleres og alt er tapt.
</p>
11009 <p>Krypteringen vil ikke stoppe kompetente angripere som f.eks. kjøler
11010 ned minnebrikkene før maskinen rebootes med programvare for å hente ut
11011 krypteringsnøklene. Kostnaden med å forsvare seg mot slike angripere
11012 er for min del høyere enn gevinsten. Jeg tror oddsene for at
11013 f.eks. etteretningsorganisasjoner har glede av å titte på mine
11014 maskiner er minimale, og ulempene jeg ville oppnå ved å forsøke å
11015 gjøre det vanskeligere for angripere med kompetanse og ressurser er
11022 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>.
11027 <div class=
"padding"></div>
11029 <div class=
"entry">
11030 <div class=
"title">
11031 <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>
11037 <p>There are two software projects that have had huge influence on the
11038 quality of free software, and I wanted to mention both in case someone
11039 do not yet know them.
</p>
11041 <p>The first one is
<a href=
"http://valgrind.org/">valgrind
</a>, a
11042 tool to detect and expose errors in the memory handling of programs.
11043 It is easy to use, all one need to do is to run 'valgrind program',
11044 and it will report any problems on stdout. It is even better if the
11045 program include debug information. With debug information, it is able
11046 to report the source file name and line number where the problem
11047 occurs. It can report things like 'reading past memory block in file
11048 X line N, the memory block was allocated in file Y, line M', and
11049 'using uninitialised value in control logic'. This tool has made it
11050 trivial to investigate reproducible crash bugs in programs, and have
11051 reduced the number of this kind of bugs in free software a lot.
11053 <p>The second one is
11054 <a href=
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coverity">Coverity
</a> which is
11055 a source code checker. It is able to process the source of a program
11056 and find problems in the logic without running the program. It
11057 started out as the Stanford Checker and became well known when it was
11058 used to find bugs in the Linux kernel. It is now a commercial tool
11059 and the company behind it is running
11060 <a href=
"http://www.scan.coverity.com/">a community service
</a> for the
11061 free software community, where a lot of free software projects get
11062 their source checked for free. Several thousand defects have been
11063 found and fixed so far. It can find errors like 'lock L taken in file
11064 X line N is never released if exiting in line M', or 'the code in file
11065 Y lines O to P can never be executed'. The projects included in the
11066 community service project have managed to get rid of a lot of
11067 reliability problems thanks to Coverity.
</p>
11069 <p>I believe tools like this, that are able to automatically find
11070 errors in the source, are vital to improve the quality of software and
11071 make sure we can get rid of the crashing and failing software we are
11072 surrounded by today.
</p>
11078 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>.
11083 <div class=
"padding"></div>
11085 <div class=
"entry">
11086 <div class=
"title">
11087 <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>
11094 <a href=
"http://blog.technologeek.org/2009/04/12/214">claim that no
11095 patch is better than a useless patch
</a>. I completely disagree, as a
11096 patch allow one to discuss a concrete and proposed solution, and also
11097 prove that the issue at hand is important enough for someone to spent
11098 time on fixing it. No patch do not provide any of these positive
11105 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>.
11110 <div class=
"padding"></div>
11112 <div class=
"entry">
11113 <div class=
"title">
11114 <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>
11120 <p>Where I work at the University of Oslo, one decision stand out as a
11121 very good one to form a long lived computer infrastructure. It is the
11122 simple one, lost by many in todays computer industry: Standardize on
11123 open network protocols and open exchange/storage formats, not applications.
11124 Applications come and go, while protocols and files tend to stay, and
11125 thus one want to make it easy to change application and vendor, while
11126 avoiding conversion costs and locking users to a specific platform or
11129 <p>This approach make it possible to replace the client applications
11130 independently of the server applications. One can even allow users to
11131 use several different applications as long as they handle the selected
11132 protocol and format. In the normal case, only one client application
11133 is recommended and users only get help if they choose to use this
11134 application, but those that want to deviate from the easy path are not
11135 blocked from doing so.
</p>
11137 <p>It also allow us to replace the server side without forcing the
11138 users to replace their applications, and thus allow us to select the
11139 best server implementation at any moment, when scale and resouce
11140 requirements change.
</p>
11142 <p>I strongly recommend standardizing - on open network protocols and
11143 open formats, but I would never recommend standardizing on a single
11144 application that do not use open network protocol or open formats.
</p>
11150 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>.
11155 <div class=
"padding"></div>
11157 <div class=
"entry">
11158 <div class=
"title">
11159 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Returning_from_Skolelinux_developer_gathering.html">Returning from Skolelinux developer gathering
</a>
11165 <p>I'm sitting on the train going home from this weekends Debian
11166 Edu/Skolelinux development gathering. I got a bit done tuning the
11167 desktop, and looked into the dynamic service location protocol
11168 implementation avahi. It look like it could be useful for us. Almost
11169 30 people participated, and I believe it was a great environment to
11170 get to know the Skolelinux system. Walter Bender, involved in the
11171 development of the Sugar educational platform, presented his stuff and
11172 also helped me improve my OLPC installation. He also showed me that
11173 his Turtle Art application can be used in standalone mode, and we
11174 agreed that I would help getting it packaged for Debian. As a
11175 standalone application it would be great for Debian Edu. We also
11176 tried to get the video conferencing working with two OLPCs, but that
11177 proved to be too hard for us. The application seem to need more work
11178 before it is ready for me. I look forward to getting home and relax
11185 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>.
11190 <div class=
"padding"></div>
11192 <div class=
"entry">
11193 <div class=
"title">
11194 <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>
11200 <p>The state of standardized LDAP schemas on Linux is far from
11201 optimal. There is RFC
2307 documenting one way to store NIS maps in
11202 LDAP, and a modified version of this normally called RFC
2307bis, with
11203 some modifications to be compatible with Active Directory. The RFC
11204 specification handle the content of a lot of system databases, but do
11205 not handle DNS zones and DHCP configuration.
</p>
11207 <p>In
<a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux
</a>,
11208 we would like to store information about users, SMB clients/hosts,
11209 filegroups, netgroups (users and hosts), DHCP and DNS configuration,
11210 and LTSP configuration in LDAP. These objects have a lot in common,
11211 but with the current LDAP schemas it is not possible to have one
11212 object per entity. For example, one need to have at least three LDAP
11213 objects for a given computer, one with the SMB related stuff, one with
11214 DNS information and another with DHCP information. The schemas
11215 provided for DNS and DHCP are impossible to combine into one LDAP
11216 object. In addition, it is impossible to implement quick queries for
11217 netgroup membership, because of the way NIS triples are implemented.
11218 It just do not scale. I believe it is time for a few RFC
11219 specifications to cleam up this mess.
</p>
11221 <p>I would like to have one LDAP object representing each computer in
11222 the network, and this object can then keep the SMB (ie host key), DHCP
11223 (mac address/name) and DNS (name/IP address) settings in one place.
11224 It need to be efficently stored to make sure it scale well.
</p>
11226 <p>I would also like to have a quick way to map from a user or
11227 computer and to the net group this user or computer is a member.
</p>
11229 <p>Active Directory have done a better job than unix heads like myself
11230 in this regard, and the unix side need to catch up. Time to start a
11231 new IETF work group?
</p>
11237 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>.
11242 <div class=
"padding"></div>
11244 <div class=
"entry">
11245 <div class=
"title">
11246 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Endelig_er_Debian_Lenny_gitt_ut.html">Endelig er Debian Lenny gitt ut
</a>
11252 <p>Endelig er
<a href=
"http://www.debian.org/">Debian
</a>
11253 <a href=
"http://www.debian.org/News/2009/20090214">Lenny
</a> gitt ut.
11254 Et langt steg videre for Debian-prosjektet, og en rekke nye
11255 programpakker blir nå tilgjengelig for de av oss som bruker den
11256 stabile utgaven av Debian. Neste steg er nå å få
11257 <a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux
</a> /
11258 <a href=
"http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/">Debian Edu
</a> ferdig
11259 oppdatert for den nye utgaven, slik at en oppdatert versjon kan
11260 slippes løs på skolene. Takk til alle debian-utviklerne som har
11261 gjort dette mulig. Endelig er f.eks. fungerende avhengighetsstyrt
11262 bootsekvens tilgjengelig i stabil utgave, vha pakken
11263 <tt>insserv
</tt>.
</p>
11269 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>.
11274 <div class=
"padding"></div>
11276 <div class=
"entry">
11277 <div class=
"title">
11278 <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>
11284 <p>This weekend we had a small developer gathering for Debian Edu in
11285 Oslo. Most of Saturday was used for the general assemly for the
11286 member organization, but the rest of the weekend I used to tune the
11287 LTSP installation. LTSP now work out of the box on the
10-network.
11288 Acer Aspire One proved to be a very nice thin client, with both
11289 screen, mouse and keybard in a small box. Was working on getting the
11290 diskless workstation setup configured out of the box, but did not
11291 finish it before the weekend was up.
</p>
11293 <p>Did not find time to look at the
4 VGA cards in one box we got from
11294 the Brazilian group, so that will have to wait for the next
11295 development gathering. Would love to have the Debian Edu installer
11296 automatically detect and configure a multiseat setup when it find one
11297 of these cards.
</p>
11303 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>.
11308 <div class=
"padding"></div>
11310 <div class=
"entry">
11311 <div class=
"title">
11312 <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>
11318 <p>Recently I have spent some time evaluating the multimedia browser
11319 plugins available in Debian Lenny, to see which one we should use by
11320 default in Debian Edu. We need an embedded video playing plugin with
11321 control buttons to pause or stop the video, and capable of streaming
11322 all the multimedia content available on the web. The test results and
11323 notes are available on
11324 <a href=
"http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">the
11325 Debian wiki
</a>. I was surprised how few of the plugins are able to
11326 fill this need. My personal video player favorite, VLC, has a really
11327 bad plugin which fail on a lot of the test pages. A lot of the MIME
11328 types I would expect to work with any free software player (like
11329 video/ogg), just do not work. And simple formats like the
11330 audio/x-mplegurl format (m3u playlists), just isn't supported by the
11331 totem and vlc plugins. I hope the situation will improve soon. No
11332 wonder sites use the proprietary Adobe flash to play video.
</p>
11334 <p>For Lenny, we seem to end up with the mplayer plugin. It seem to
11335 be the only one fitting our needs. :/
</p>
11341 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>.
11346 <div class=
"padding"></div>
11348 <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>
11359 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/01/">January (
3)
</a></li>
11361 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/02/">February (
2)
</a></li>
11363 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/03/">March (
3)
</a></li>
11365 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/04/">April (
8)
</a></li>
11367 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/05/">May (
8)
</a></li>
11369 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/06/">June (
2)
</a></li>
11371 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/07/">July (
2)
</a></li>
11373 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/08/">August (
5)
</a></li>
11375 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/09/">September (
2)
</a></li>
11377 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/10/">October (
3)
</a></li>
11384 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/01/">January (
7)
</a></li>
11386 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/02/">February (
6)
</a></li>
11388 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/03/">March (
1)
</a></li>
11390 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/04/">April (
4)
</a></li>
11392 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/05/">May (
3)
</a></li>
11394 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/06/">June (
4)
</a></li>
11396 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/07/">July (
6)
</a></li>
11398 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/08/">August (
2)
</a></li>
11400 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/09/">September (
2)
</a></li>
11402 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/10/">October (
9)
</a></li>
11404 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/11/">November (
6)
</a></li>
11406 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/12/">December (
3)
</a></li>
11413 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/01/">January (
2)
</a></li>
11415 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/02/">February (
3)
</a></li>
11417 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/03/">March (
8)
</a></li>
11419 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/04/">April (
7)
</a></li>
11421 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/05/">May (
1)
</a></li>
11423 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/06/">June (
2)
</a></li>
11425 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/07/">July (
2)
</a></li>
11427 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/08/">August (
2)
</a></li>
11429 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/09/">September (
5)
</a></li>
11431 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/10/">October (
6)
</a></li>
11433 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/11/">November (
3)
</a></li>
11435 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/12/">December (
5)
</a></li>
11442 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/01/">January (
11)
</a></li>
11444 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/02/">February (
9)
</a></li>
11446 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/03/">March (
9)
</a></li>
11448 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/04/">April (
6)
</a></li>
11450 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/05/">May (
9)
</a></li>
11452 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/06/">June (
10)
</a></li>
11454 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/07/">July (
7)
</a></li>
11456 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/08/">August (
3)
</a></li>
11458 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/09/">September (
5)
</a></li>
11460 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/10/">October (
7)
</a></li>
11462 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/11/">November (
9)
</a></li>
11464 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/12/">December (
3)
</a></li>
11471 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/01/">January (
7)
</a></li>
11473 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/02/">February (
10)
</a></li>
11475 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/03/">March (
17)
</a></li>
11477 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/04/">April (
12)
</a></li>
11479 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/05/">May (
12)
</a></li>
11481 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/06/">June (
20)
</a></li>
11483 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/07/">July (
17)
</a></li>
11485 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/08/">August (
6)
</a></li>
11487 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/09/">September (
9)
</a></li>
11489 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/10/">October (
17)
</a></li>
11491 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/11/">November (
10)
</a></li>
11493 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/12/">December (
7)
</a></li>
11500 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/01/">January (
16)
</a></li>
11502 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/02/">February (
6)
</a></li>
11504 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/03/">March (
6)
</a></li>
11506 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/04/">April (
7)
</a></li>
11508 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/05/">May (
3)
</a></li>
11510 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/06/">June (
2)
</a></li>
11512 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/07/">July (
7)
</a></li>
11514 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/08/">August (
6)
</a></li>
11516 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/09/">September (
4)
</a></li>
11518 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/10/">October (
2)
</a></li>
11520 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/11/">November (
3)
</a></li>
11522 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/12/">December (
1)
</a></li>
11529 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/01/">January (
2)
</a></li>
11531 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/02/">February (
1)
</a></li>
11533 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/03/">March (
3)
</a></li>
11535 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/04/">April (
3)
</a></li>
11537 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/05/">May (
9)
</a></li>
11539 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/06/">June (
14)
</a></li>
11541 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/07/">July (
12)
</a></li>
11543 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/08/">August (
13)
</a></li>
11545 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/09/">September (
7)
</a></li>
11547 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/10/">October (
9)
</a></li>
11549 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/11/">November (
13)
</a></li>
11551 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/12/">December (
12)
</a></li>
11558 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/01/">January (
8)
</a></li>
11560 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/02/">February (
8)
</a></li>
11562 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/03/">March (
12)
</a></li>
11564 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/04/">April (
10)
</a></li>
11566 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/05/">May (
9)
</a></li>
11568 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/06/">June (
3)
</a></li>
11570 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/07/">July (
4)
</a></li>
11572 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/08/">August (
3)
</a></li>
11574 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/09/">September (
1)
</a></li>
11576 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/10/">October (
2)
</a></li>
11578 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/11/">November (
3)
</a></li>
11580 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/12/">December (
3)
</a></li>
11587 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/11/">November (
5)
</a></li>
11589 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/12/">December (
7)
</a></li>
11600 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer (
13)
</a></li>
11602 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/amiga">amiga (
1)
</a></li>
11604 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/aros">aros (
1)
</a></li>
11606 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bankid">bankid (
4)
</a></li>
11608 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin (
9)
</a></li>
11610 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem (
16)
</a></li>
11612 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bsa">bsa (
2)
</a></li>
11614 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/chrpath">chrpath (
2)
</a></li>
11616 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian (
137)
</a></li>
11618 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu (
157)
</a></li>
11620 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/digistan">digistan (
10)
</a></li>
11622 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/dld">dld (
16)
</a></li>
11624 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook (
23)
</a></li>
11626 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/drivstoffpriser">drivstoffpriser (
4)
</a></li>
11628 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english (
329)
</a></li>
11630 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami (
23)
</a></li>
11632 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fildeling">fildeling (
12)
</a></li>
11634 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture (
28)
</a></li>
11636 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox (
9)
</a></li>
11638 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen (
18)
</a></li>
11640 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/h264">h264 (
20)
</a></li>
11642 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju (
42)
</a></li>
11644 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram (
13)
</a></li>
11646 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kart">kart (
19)
</a></li>
11648 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap (
9)
</a></li>
11650 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lenker">lenker (
8)
</a></li>
11652 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lsdvd">lsdvd (
2)
</a></li>
11654 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ltsp">ltsp (
1)
</a></li>
11656 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network (
8)
</a></li>
11658 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia (
39)
</a></li>
11660 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nice free software">nice free software (
8)
</a></li>
11662 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk (
279)
</a></li>
11664 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug (
182)
</a></li>
11666 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/offentlig innsyn">offentlig innsyn (
26)
</a></li>
11668 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/open311">open311 (
2)
</a></li>
11670 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett (
61)
</a></li>
11672 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern (
93)
</a></li>
11674 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/raid">raid (
1)
</a></li>
11676 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reactos">reactos (
1)
</a></li>
11678 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reprap">reprap (
11)
</a></li>
11680 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rfid">rfid (
3)
</a></li>
11682 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot (
9)
</a></li>
11684 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rss">rss (
1)
</a></li>
11686 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ruter">ruter (
4)
</a></li>
11688 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/scraperwiki">scraperwiki (
2)
</a></li>
11690 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet (
50)
</a></li>
11692 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary (
4)
</a></li>
11694 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/skepsis">skepsis (
5)
</a></li>
11696 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard (
49)
</a></li>
11698 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stavekontroll">stavekontroll (
4)
</a></li>
11700 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stortinget">stortinget (
10)
</a></li>
11702 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance (
41)
</a></li>
11704 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sysadmin">sysadmin (
2)
</a></li>
11706 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/usenix">usenix (
2)
</a></li>
11708 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/valg">valg (
8)
</a></li>
11710 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video (
59)
</a></li>
11712 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/vitenskap">vitenskap (
4)
</a></li>
11714 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web (
38)
</a></li>
11720 <p style=
"text-align: right">
11721 Created by
<a href=
"http://steve.org.uk/Software/chronicle">Chronicle v4.6
</a>
projects / homepage.git / blob