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  13  <h1>
  14      <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/">Petter Reinholdtsen</a>
  15
  16  </h1>
  17
  18 </div>
  19
  20
  21     <h3>Entries tagged "debian".</h3>
  22
  23     <div class="entry">
  24       <div class="title">
  25         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_life_and_death_of_a_laptop_battery.html">The life and death of a laptop battery</a>
  26       </div>
  27       <div class="date">
  28         24th September 2015
  29       </div>
  30       <div class="body">
  31         <p>When I get a new laptop, the battery life time at the start is OK.
  32 But this do not last.  The last few laptops gave me a feeling that
  33 within a year, the life time is just a fraction of what it used to be,
  34 and it slowly become painful to use the laptop without power connected
  35 all the time.  Because of this, when I got a new Thinkpad X230 laptop
  36 about two years ago, I decided to monitor its battery state to have
  37 more hard facts when the battery started to fail.</p>
  38
  39 <img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2015-09-24-laptop-battery-graph.png"/>
  40
  41 <p>First I tried to find a sensible Debian package to record the
  42 battery status, assuming that this must be a problem already handled
  43 by someone else.  I found
  44 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">battery-stats</a>,
  45 which collects statistics from the battery, but it was completely
  46 broken.  I sent a few suggestions to the maintainer, but decided to
  47 write my own collector as a shell script while I waited for feedback
  48 from him.  Via
  49 <a href="http://www.ifweassume.com/2013/08/the-de-evolution-of-my-laptop-battery.html">a
  50 blog post about the battery development on a MacBook Air</a> I also
  51 discovered
  52 <a href="https://github.com/jradavenport/batlog.git">batlog</a>, not
  53 available in Debian.</p>
  54
  55 <p>I started my collector 2013-07-15, and it has been collecting
  56 battery stats ever since. Now my
  57 /var/log/hjemmenett-battery-status.log file contain around 115,000
  58 measurements, from the time the battery was working great until now,
  59 when it is unable to charge above 7% of original capasity.  My
  60 colletor shell script is quite simple and look like this:</p>
  61
  62 <pre>
  63 #!/bin/sh
  64 # Inspired by
  65 # http://www.ifweassume.com/2013/08/the-de-evolution-of-my-laptop-battery.html
  66 # See also
  67 # http://blog.sleeplessbeastie.eu/2013/01/02/debian-how-to-monitor-battery-capacity/
  68 logfile=/var/log/hjemmenett-battery-status.log
  69
  70 files="manufacturer model_name technology serial_number \
  71     energy_full energy_full_design energy_now cycle_count status"
  72
  73 if [ ! -e "$logfile" ] ; then
  74     (
  75         printf "timestamp,"
  76         for f in $files; do
  77             printf "%s," $f
  78         done
  79         echo
  80     ) > "$logfile"
  81 fi
  82
  83 log_battery() {
  84     # Print complete message in one echo call, to avoid race condition
  85     # when several log processes run in parallell.
  86     msg=$(printf "%s," $(date +%s); \
  87         for f in $files; do \
  88             printf "%s," $(cat $f); \
  89         done)
  90     echo "$msg"
  91 }
  92
  93 cd /sys/class/power_supply
  94
  95 for bat in BAT*; do
  96     (cd $bat && log_battery >> "$logfile")
  97 done
  98 </pre>
  99
 100 <p>The script is called when the power management system detect a
 101 change in the power status (power plug in or out), and when going into
 102 and out of hibernation and suspend.  In addition, it collect a value
 103 every 10 minutes.  This make it possible for me know when the battery
 104 is discharging, charging and how the maximum charge change over time.
 105 The code for the Debian package
 106 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/battery-status">is now
 107 available on github</a>.</p>
 108
 109 <p>The collected log file look like this:</p>
 110
 111 <pre>
 112 timestamp,manufacturer,model_name,technology,serial_number,energy_full,energy_full_design,energy_now,cycle_count,status,
 113 1376591133,LGC,45N1025,Li-ion,974,62800000,62160000,39050000,0,Discharging,
 114 [...]
 115 1443090528,LGC,45N1025,Li-ion,974,4900000,62160000,4900000,0,Full,
 116 1443090601,LGC,45N1025,Li-ion,974,4900000,62160000,4900000,0,Full,
 117 </pre>
 118
 119 <p>I wrote a small script to create a graph of the charge development
 120 over time.  This graph depicted above show the slow death of mylaptop
 121 battery.</p>
 122
 123 <p>But why is this happening?  Why are my laptop batteries always
 124 dying in a year or two, while the batteries of space probes and
 125 satellites keep working year after year.  If we are to believe
 126 <a href="http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/how_to_prolong_lithium_based_batteries">Battery
 127 University</a>, the cause is me charging the battery whenever I have a
 128 chance, and the fix is to not charge the Lithium-ion batteries to 100%
 129 all the time, but to stay below 90% of full charge most of the time.
 130 I've been told that the Tesla electric cars
 131 <a href="http://my.teslamotors.com/de_CH/forum/forums/battery-charge-limit">limit
 132 the charge of their batteries to 80%</a>, with the option to charge to
 133 100% when preparing for a longer trip (not that I would want a car
 134 like Tesla where rights to privacy is abandoned, but that is another
 135 story), which I guess is the option we should have for laptops on
 136 Linux too.</p>
 137
 138 <p>Is there a good and generic way with Linux to tell the battery to
 139 stop charging at 80%, unless requested to charge to 100% once in
 140 preparation for a longer trip?  I found
 141 <a href="http://askubuntu.com/questions/34452/how-can-i-limit-battery-charging-to-80-capacity">one
 142 recipe on askubuntu for Ubuntu to limit charging on Thinkpad to
 143 80%</a>, but could not get it to work (kernel module refused to
 144 load).</p>
 145
 146 <p>I wonder why the battery capacity was reported to be more than 100%
 147 at the start.  I also wonder why the "full capacity" increases some
 148 times, and if it is possible to repeat the process to get the battery
 149 back to design capacity.  And I wonder if the discharge and charge
 150 speed change over time, or if this stay the same.  I did not yet try
 151 to write a tool to calculate the derivative values of the battery
 152 level, but suspect some interesting insights might be learned from
 153 those.</p>
 154
 155       </div>
 156       <div class="tags">
 157
 158
 159         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>.
 160
 161
 162       </div>
 163     </div>
 164     <div class="padding"></div>
 165
 166     <div class="entry">
 167       <div class="title">
 168         <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>
 169       </div>
 170       <div class="date">
 171          5th July 2015
 172       </div>
 173       <div class="body">
 174         <p>Several people contacted me after my previous blog post about my
 175 need for a new laptop, and provided very useful feedback.  I wish to
 176 thank every one of these.  Several pointed me to the possibility of
 177 fixing my X230, and I am already in the process of getting Lenovo to
 178 do so thanks to the on site, next day support contract covering the
 179 machine.  But the battery is almost useless (I expect to replace it
 180 with a non-official battery) and I do not expect the machine to live
 181 for many more years, so it is time to plan its replacement.  If I did
 182 not have a support contract, it was suggested to find replacement parts
 183 using <a href="http://www.francecrans.com/">FrancEcrans</a>, but it
 184 might present a language barrier as I do not understand French.</p>
 185
 186 <p>One tip I got was to use the
 187 <a href="https://skinflint.co.uk/?cat=nb">Skinflint</a> web service to
 188 compare laptop models.  It seem to have more models available than
 189 prisjakt.no.  Another tip I got from someone I know have similar
 190 keyboard preferences was that the HP EliteBook 840 keyboard is not
 191 very good, and this matches my experience with earlier EliteBook
 192 keyboards I tested.  Because of this, I will not consider it any further.
 193
 194 <p>When I wrote my blog post, I was not aware of Thinkpad X250, the
 195 newest Thinkpad X model.  The keyboard reintroduces mouse buttons
 196 (which is missing from the X240), and is working fairly well with
 197 Debian Sid/Unstable according to
 198 <a href="http://www.corsac.net/X250/">Corsac.net</a>.  The reports I
 199 got on the keyboard quality are not consistent.  Some say the keyboard
 200 is good, others say it is ok, while others say it is not very good.
 201 Those with experience from X41 and and X60 agree that the X250
 202 keyboard is not as good as those trusty old laptops, and suggest I
 203 keep and fix my X230 instead of upgrading, or get a used X230 to
 204 replace it.  I'm also told that the X250 lack leds for caps lock, disk
 205 activity and battery status, which is very convenient on my X230.  I'm
 206 also told that the CPU fan is running very often, making it a bit
 207 noisy.  In any case, the X250 do not work out of the box with Debian
 208 Stable/Jessie, one of my requirements.</p>
 209
 210 <p>I have also gotten a few vendor proposals, one was
 211 <a href="http://pro-star.com">Pro-Star</a>, another was
 212 <a href="http://shop.gluglug.org.uk/product/libreboot-x200/">Libreboot</a>.
 213 The latter look very attractive to me.</p>
 214
 215 <p>Again, thank you all for the very useful feedback.  It help a lot
 216 as I keep looking for a replacement.</p>
 217
 218 <p>Update 2015-07-06: I was recommended to check out the
 219 <a href="">lapstore.de</a> web shop for used laptops.  They got several
 220 different
 221 <a href="http://www.lapstore.de/f.php/shop/lapstore/f/411/lang/x/kw/Lenovo_ThinkPad_X_Serie/">old
 222 thinkpad X models</a>, and provide one year warranty.</p>
 223
 224       </div>
 225       <div class="tags">
 226
 227
 228         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>.
 229
 230
 231       </div>
 232     </div>
 233     <div class="padding"></div>
 234
 235     <div class="entry">
 236       <div class="title">
 237         <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>
 238       </div>
 239       <div class="date">
 240          3rd July 2015
 241       </div>
 242       <div class="body">
 243         <p>My primary work horse laptop is failing, and will need a
 244 replacement soon.  The left 5 cm of the screen on my Thinkpad X230
 245 started flickering yesterday, and I suspect the cause is a broken
 246 cable, as changing the angle of the screen some times get rid of the
 247 flickering.</p>
 248
 249 <p>My requirements have not really changed since I bought it, and is
 250 still as
 251 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thank_you_Thinkpad_X41__for_your_long_and_trustworthy_service.html">I
 252 described them in 2013</a>.  The last time I bought a laptop, I had
 253 good help from
 254 <a href="http://www.prisjakt.no/category.php?k=353">prisjakt.no</a>
 255 where I could select at least a few of the requirements (mouse pin,
 256 wifi, weight) and go through the rest manually.  Three button mouse
 257 and a good keyboard is not available as an option, and all the three
 258 laptop models proposed today (Thinkpad X240, HP EliteBook 820 G1 and
 259 G2) lack three mouse buttons).  It is also unclear to me how good the
 260 keyboard on the HP EliteBooks are.  I hope Lenovo have not messed up
 261 the keyboard, even if the quality and robustness in the X series have
 262 deteriorated since X41.</p>
 263
 264 <p>I wonder how I can find a sensible laptop when none of the options
 265 seem sensible to me?  Are there better services around to search the
 266 set of available laptops for features?  Please send me an email if you
 267 have suggestions.</p>
 268
 269 <p>Update 2015-07-23: I got a suggestion to check out the FSF
 270 <a href="http://www.fsf.org/resources/hw/endorsement/respects-your-freedom">list
 271 of endorsed hardware</a>, which is useful background information.</p>
 272
 273       </div>
 274       <div class="tags">
 275
 276
 277         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>.
 278
 279
 280       </div>
 281     </div>
 282     <div class="padding"></div>
 283
 284     <div class="entry">
 285       <div class="title">
 286         <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>
 287       </div>
 288       <div class="date">
 289         22nd November 2014
 290       </div>
 291       <div class="body">
 292         <p>By now, it is well known that Debian Jessie will not be using
 293 sysvinit as its boot system by default.  But how can one keep using
 294 sysvinit in Jessie?  It is fairly easy, and here are a few recipes,
 295 courtesy of
 296 <a href="http://www.vitavonni.de/blog/201410/2014102101-avoiding-systemd.html">Erich
 297 Schubert</a> and
 298 <a href="http://smcv.pseudorandom.co.uk/2014/still_universal/">Simon
 299 McVittie</a>.
 300
 301 <p>If you already are using Wheezy and want to upgrade to Jessie and
 302 keep sysvinit as your boot system, create a file
 303 <tt>/etc/apt/preferences.d/use-sysvinit</tt> with this content before
 304 you upgrade:</p>
 305
 306 <p><blockquote><pre>
 307 Package: systemd-sysv
 308 Pin: release o=Debian
 309 Pin-Priority: -1
 310 </pre></blockquote><p>
 311
 312 <p>This file content will tell apt and aptitude to not consider
 313 installing systemd-sysv as part of any installation and upgrade
 314 solution when resolving dependencies, and thus tell it to avoid
 315 systemd as a default boot system.  The end result should be that the
 316 upgraded system keep using sysvinit.</p>
 317
 318 <p>If you are installing Jessie for the first time, there is no way to
 319 get sysvinit installed by default (debootstrap used by
 320 debian-installer have no option for this), but one can tell the
 321 installer to switch to sysvinit before the first boot.  Either by
 322 using a kernel argument to the installer, or by adding a line to the
 323 preseed file used.  First, the kernel command line argument:
 324
 325 <p><blockquote><pre>
 326 preseed/late_command="in-target apt-get install --purge -y sysvinit-core"
 327 </pre></blockquote><p>
 328
 329 <p>Next, the line to use in a preseed file:</p>
 330
 331 <p><blockquote><pre>
 332 d-i preseed/late_command string in-target apt-get install -y sysvinit-core
 333 </pre></blockquote><p>
 334
 335 <p>One can of course also do this after the first boot by installing
 336 the sysvinit-core package.</p>
 337
 338 <p>I recommend only using sysvinit if you really need it, as the
 339 sysvinit boot sequence in Debian have several hardware specific bugs
 340 on Linux caused by the fact that it is unpredictable when hardware
 341 devices show up during boot.  But on the other hand, the new default
 342 boot system still have a few rough edges I hope will be fixed before
 343 Jessie is released.</p>
 344
 345 <p>Update 2014-11-26: Inspired by
 346 <ahref="https://www.mirbsd.org/permalinks/wlog-10-tg_e20141125-tg.htm#e20141125-tg_wlog-10-tg">a
 347 blog post by Torsten Glaser</a>, added --purge to the preseed
 348 line.</p>
 349
 350       </div>
 351       <div class="tags">
 352
 353
 354         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>.
 355
 356
 357       </div>
 358     </div>
 359     <div class="padding"></div>
 360
 361     <div class="entry">
 362       <div class="title">
 363         <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>
 364       </div>
 365       <div class="date">
 366         10th November 2014
 367       </div>
 368       <div class="body">
 369         <p>The right to communicate with your friends and family in private,
 370 without anyone snooping, is a right every citicen have in a liberal
 371 democracy.  But this right is under serious attack these days.</p>
 372
 373 <p>A while back it occurred to me that one way to make the dragnet
 374 surveillance conducted by NSA, GCHQ, FRA and others (and confirmed by
 375 the whisleblower Snowden) more expensive for Internet email,
 376 is to deliver all email using SMTP via Tor.  Such SMTP option would be
 377 a nice addition to the FreedomBox project if we could send email
 378 between FreedomBox machines without leaking metadata about the emails
 379 to the people peeking on the wire.  I
 380 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/freedombox-discuss/2014-October/006493.html">proposed
 381 this on the FreedomBox project mailing list in October</a> and got a
 382 lot of useful feedback and suggestions.  It also became obvious to me
 383 that this was not a novel idea, as the same idea was tested and
 384 documented by Johannes Berg as early as 2006, and both
 385 <a href="https://github.com/pagekite/Mailpile/wiki/SMTorP">the
 386 Mailpile</a> and <a href="http://dee.su/cables">the Cables</a> systems
 387 propose a similar method / protocol to pass emails between users.</p>
 388
 389 <p>To implement such system one need to set up a Tor hidden service
 390 providing the SMTP protocol on port 25, and use email addresses
 391 looking like username@hidden-service-name.onion.  With such addresses
 392 the connections to port 25 on hidden-service-name.onion using Tor will
 393 go to the correct SMTP server.  To do this, one need to configure the
 394 Tor daemon to provide the hidden service and the mail server to accept
 395 emails for this .onion domain.  To learn more about Exim configuration
 396 in Debian and test the design provided by Johannes Berg in his FAQ, I
 397 set out yesterday to create a Debian package for making it trivial to
 398 set up such SMTP over Tor service based on Debian.  Getting it to work
 399 were fairly easy, and
 400 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/exim4-smtorp">the
 401 source code for the Debian package</a> is available from github.  I
 402 plan to move it into Debian if further testing prove this to be a
 403 useful approach.</p>
 404
 405 <p>If you want to test this, set up a blank Debian machine without any
 406 mail system installed (or run <tt>apt-get purge exim4-config</tt> to
 407 get rid of exim4).  Install tor, clone the git repository mentioned
 408 above, build the deb and install it on the machine.  Next, run
 409 <tt>/usr/lib/exim4-smtorp/setup-exim-hidden-service</tt> and follow
 410 the instructions to get the service up and running.  Restart tor and
 411 exim when it is done, and test mail delivery using swaks like
 412 this:</p>
 413
 414 <p><blockquote><pre>
 415 torsocks swaks --server dutlqrrmjhtfa3vp.onion \
 416   --to fbx@dutlqrrmjhtfa3vp.onion
 417 </pre></blockquote></p>
 418
 419 <p>This will test the SMTP delivery using tor.  Replace the email
 420 address with your own address to test your server. :)</p>
 421
 422 <p>The setup procedure is still to complex, and I hope it can be made
 423 easier and more automatic.  Especially the tor setup need more work.
 424 Also, the package include a tor-smtp tool written in C, but its task
 425 should probably be rewritten in some script language to make the deb
 426 architecture independent.  It would probably also make the code easier
 427 to review.  The tor-smtp tool currently need to listen on a socket for
 428 exim to talk to it and is started using xinetd.  It would be better if
 429 no daemon and no socket is needed.  I suspect it is possible to get
 430 exim to run a command line tool for delivery instead of talking to a
 431 socket, and hope to figure out how in a future version of this
 432 system.</p>
 433
 434 <p>Until I wipe my test machine, I can be reached using the
 435 <tt>fbx@dutlqrrmjhtfa3vp.onion</tt> mail address, deliverable over
 436 SMTorP. :)</p>
 437
 438       </div>
 439       <div class="tags">
 440
 441
 442         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>.
 443
 444
 445       </div>
 446     </div>
 447     <div class="padding"></div>
 448
 449     <div class="entry">
 450       <div class="title">
 451         <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>
 452       </div>
 453       <div class="date">
 454         22nd October 2014
 455       </div>
 456       <div class="body">
 457         <p>If you ever had to moderate a mailman list, like the ones on
 458 alioth.debian.org, you know the web interface is fairly slow to
 459 operate.  First you visit one web page, enter the moderation password
 460 and get a new page shown with a list of all the messages to moderate
 461 and various options for each email address.  This take a while for
 462 every list you moderate, and you need to do it regularly to do a good
 463 job as a list moderator.  But there is a quick alternative,
 464 <a href="http://heim.ifi.uio.no/kjetilho/hacks/#listadmin">the
 465 listadmin program</a>.  It allow you to check lists for new messages
 466 to moderate in a fraction of a second.  Here is a test run on two
 467 lists I recently took over:</p>
 468
 469 <p><blockquote><pre>
 470 % time listadmin xiph
 471 fetching data for pkg-xiph-commits@lists.alioth.debian.org ... nothing in queue
 472 fetching data for pkg-xiph-maint@lists.alioth.debian.org ... nothing in queue
 473
 474 real    0m1.709s
 475 user    0m0.232s
 476 sys     0m0.012s
 477 %
 478 </pre></blockquote></p>
 479
 480 <p>In 1.7 seconds I had checked two mailing lists and confirmed that
 481 there are no message in the moderation queue.  Every morning I
 482 currently moderate 68 mailman lists, and it normally take around two
 483 minutes.  When I took over the two pkg-xiph lists above a few days
 484 ago, there were 400 emails waiting in the moderator queue.  It took me
 485 less than 15 minutes to process them all using the listadmin
 486 program.</p>
 487
 488 <p>If you install
 489 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/listadmin">the listadmin
 490 package</a> from Debian and create a file <tt>~/.listadmin.ini</tt>
 491 with content like this, the moderation task is a breeze:</p>
 492
 493 <p><blockquote><pre>
 494 username username@example.org
 495 spamlevel 23
 496 default discard
 497 discard_if_reason "Posting restricted to members only. Remove us from your mail list."
 498
 499 password secret
 500 adminurl https://{domain}/mailman/admindb/{list}
 501 mailman-list@lists.example.com
 502
 503 password hidden
 504 other-list@otherserver.example.org
 505 </pre></blockquote></p>
 506
 507 <p>There are other options to set as well.  Check the manual page to
 508 learn the details.</p>
 509
 510 <p>If you are forced to moderate lists on a mailman installation where
 511 the SSL certificate is self signed or not properly signed by a
 512 generally accepted signing authority, you can set a environment
 513 variable when calling listadmin to disable SSL verification:</p>
 514
 515 <p><blockquote><pre>
 516 PERL_LWP_SSL_VERIFY_HOSTNAME=0 listadmin
 517 </pre></blockquote></p>
 518
 519 <p>If you want to moderate a subset of the lists you take care of, you
 520 can provide an argument to the listadmin script like I do in the
 521 initial screen dump (the xiph argument).  Using an argument, only
 522 lists matching the argument string will be processed.  This make it
 523 quick to accept messages if you notice the moderation request in your
 524 email.</p>
 525
 526 <p>Without the listadmin program, I would never be the moderator of 68
 527 mailing lists, as I simply do not have time to spend on that if the
 528 process was any slower. The listadmin program have saved me hours of
 529 time I could spend elsewhere over the years.  It truly is nice free
 530 software.</p>
 531
 532 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
 533 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
 534 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
 535
 536 <p>Update 2014-10-27: Added missing 'username' statement in
 537 configuration example.  Also, I've been told that the
 538 PERL_LWP_SSL_VERIFY_HOSTNAME=0 setting do not work for everyone.  Not
 539 sure why.</p>
 540
 541       </div>
 542       <div class="tags">
 543
 544
 545         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>.
 546
 547
 548       </div>
 549     </div>
 550     <div class="padding"></div>
 551
 552     <div class="entry">
 553       <div class="title">
 554         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Jessie__PXE_and_automatic_firmware_installation.html">Debian Jessie, PXE and automatic firmware installation</a>
 555       </div>
 556       <div class="date">
 557         17th October 2014
 558       </div>
 559       <div class="body">
 560         <p>When PXE installing laptops with Debian, I often run into the
 561 problem that the WiFi card require some firmware to work properly.
 562 And it has been a pain to fix this using preseeding in Debian.
 563 Normally something more is needed.  But thanks to
 564 <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/i/isenkram.html">my isenkram
 565 package</a> and its recent tasksel extension, it has now become easy
 566 to do this using simple preseeding.</p>
 567
 568 <p>The isenkram-cli package provide tasksel tasks which will install
 569 firmware for the hardware found in the machine (actually, requested by
 570 the kernel modules for the hardware).  (It can also install user space
 571 programs supporting the hardware detected, but that is not the focus
 572 of this story.)</p>
 573
 574 <p>To get this working in the default installation, two preeseding
 575 values are needed.  First, the isenkram-cli package must be installed
 576 into the target chroot (aka the hard drive) before tasksel is executed
 577 in the pkgsel step of the debian-installer system.  This is done by
 578 preseeding the base-installer/includes debconf value to include the
 579 isenkram-cli package.  The package name is next passed to debootstrap
 580 for installation.  With the isenkram-cli package in place, tasksel
 581 will automatically use the isenkram tasks to detect hardware specific
 582 packages for the machine being installed and install them, because
 583 isenkram-cli contain tasksel tasks.</p>
 584
 585 <p>Second, one need to enable the non-free APT repository, because
 586 most firmware unfortunately is non-free.  This is done by preseeding
 587 the apt-mirror-setup step.  This is unfortunate, but for a lot of
 588 hardware it is the only option in Debian.</p>
 589
 590 <p>The end result is two lines needed in your preseeding file to get
 591 firmware installed automatically by the installer:</p>
 592
 593 <p><blockquote><pre>
 594 base-installer base-installer/includes string isenkram-cli
 595 apt-mirror-setup apt-setup/non-free boolean true
 596 </pre></blockquote></p>
 597
 598 <p>The current version of isenkram-cli in testing/jessie will install
 599 both firmware and user space packages when using this method.  It also
 600 do not work well, so use version 0.15 or later.  Installing both
 601 firmware and user space packages might give you a bit more than you
 602 want, so I decided to split the tasksel task in two, one for firmware
 603 and one for user space programs.  The firmware task is enabled by
 604 default, while the one for user space programs is not.  This split is
 605 implemented in the package currently in unstable.</p>
 606
 607 <p>If you decide to give this a go, please let me know (via email) how
 608 this recipe work for you. :)</p>
 609
 610 <p>So, I bet you are wondering, how can this work.  First and
 611 foremost, it work because tasksel is modular, and driven by whatever
 612 files it find in /usr/lib/tasksel/ and /usr/share/tasksel/.  So the
 613 isenkram-cli package place two files for tasksel to find.  First there
 614 is the task description file (/usr/share/tasksel/descs/isenkram.desc):</p>
 615
 616 <p><blockquote><pre>
 617 Task: isenkram-packages
 618 Section: hardware
 619 Description: Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)
 620  Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific packages are
 621  proposed.
 622 Test-new-install: show show
 623 Relevance: 8
 624 Packages: for-current-hardware
 625
 626 Task: isenkram-firmware
 627 Section: hardware
 628 Description: Hardware specific firmware packages (autodetected by isenkram)
 629  Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific firmware
 630  packages are proposed.
 631 Test-new-install: mark show
 632 Relevance: 8
 633 Packages: for-current-hardware-firmware
 634 </pre></blockquote></p>
 635
 636 <p>The key parts are Test-new-install which indicate how the task
 637 should be handled and the Packages line referencing to a script in
 638 /usr/lib/tasksel/packages/.  The scripts use other scripts to get a
 639 list of packages to install.  The for-current-hardware-firmware script
 640 look like this to list relevant firmware for the machine:
 641
 642 <p><blockquote><pre>
 643 #!/bin/sh
 644 #
 645 PATH=/usr/sbin:$PATH
 646 export PATH
 647 isenkram-autoinstall-firmware -l
 648 </pre></blockquote></p>
 649
 650 <p>With those two pieces in place, the firmware is installed by
 651 tasksel during the normal d-i run. :)</p>
 652
 653 <p>If you want to test what tasksel will install when isenkram-cli is
 654 installed, run <tt>DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical tasksel --test
 655 --new-install</tt> to get the list of packages that tasksel would
 656 install.</p>
 657
 658 <p><a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/">Debian Edu</a> will be
 659 pilots in testing this feature, as isenkram is used there now to
 660 install firmware, replacing the earlier scripts.</p>
 661
 662       </div>
 663       <div class="tags">
 664
 665
 666         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>.
 667
 668
 669       </div>
 670     </div>
 671     <div class="padding"></div>
 672
 673     <div class="entry">
 674       <div class="title">
 675         <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>
 676       </div>
 677       <div class="date">
 678          4th October 2014
 679       </div>
 680       <div class="body">
 681         <p>Today I came across an unexpected Ubuntu boot screen.  Above the
 682 bread shelf on the ICA shop at Storo in Oslo, the grub menu of Ubuntu
 683 with Linux kernel 3.2.0-23 (ie probably version 12.04 LTS) was stuck
 684 on a screen normally showing the bread types and prizes:</p>
 685
 686 <p align="center"><img width="70%" src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2014-10-04-ubuntu-ica-storo-crop.jpeg"></p>
 687
 688 <p>If it had booted as it was supposed to, I would never had known
 689 about this hidden Linux installation.  It is interesting what
 690 <a href="http://revealingerrors.com/">errors can reveal</a>.</p>
 691
 692       </div>
 693       <div class="tags">
 694
 695
 696         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>.
 697
 698
 699       </div>
 700     </div>
 701     <div class="padding"></div>
 702
 703     <div class="entry">
 704       <div class="title">
 705         <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>
 706       </div>
 707       <div class="date">
 708          4th October 2014
 709       </div>
 710       <div class="body">
 711         <p>The <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/">lsdvd project</a>
 712 got a new set of developers a few weeks ago, after the original
 713 developer decided to step down and pass the project to fresh blood.
 714 This project is now maintained by Petter Reinholdtsen and Steve
 715 Dibb.</p>
 716
 717 <p>I just wrapped up
 718 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/mailman/message/32896061/">a
 719 new lsdvd release</a>, available in git or from
 720 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/projects/lsdvd/files/lsdvd/">the
 721 download page</a>.  This is the changelog dated 2014-10-03 for version
 722 0.17.</p>
 723
 724 <ul>
 725
 726  <li>Ignore 'phantom' audio, subtitle tracks</li>
 727  <li>Check for garbage in the program chains, which indicate that a track is
 728    non-existant, to work around additional copy protection</li>
 729  <li>Fix displaying content type for audio tracks, subtitles</li>
 730  <li>Fix pallete display of first entry</li>
 731  <li>Fix include orders</li>
 732  <li>Ignore read errors in titles that would not be displayed anyway</li>
 733  <li>Fix the chapter count</li>
 734  <li>Make sure the array size and the array limit used when initialising
 735    the palette size is the same.</li>
 736  <li>Fix array printing.</li>
 737  <li>Correct subsecond calculations.</li>
 738  <li>Add sector information to the output format.</li>
 739  <li>Clean up code to be closer to ANSI C and compile without warnings
 740    with more GCC compiler warnings.</li>
 741
 742 </ul>
 743
 744 <p>This change bring together patches for lsdvd in use in various
 745 Linux and Unix distributions, as well as patches submitted to the
 746 project the last nine years.  Please check it out. :)</p>
 747
 748       </div>
 749       <div class="tags">
 750
 751
 752         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lsdvd">lsdvd</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>.
 753
 754
 755       </div>
 756     </div>
 757     <div class="padding"></div>
 758
 759     <div class="entry">
 760       <div class="title">
 761         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/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>
 762       </div>
 763       <div class="date">
 764         26th September 2014
 765       </div>
 766       <div class="body">
 767         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
 768 project</a> provide a Linux solution for schools, including a
 769 powerful desktop with education software, a central server providing
 770 web pages, user database, user home directories, central login and PXE
 771 boot of both  clients without disk and the installation to install Debian
 772 Edu on machines with disk (and a few other services perhaps to small
 773 to mention here).  We in the Debian Edu team are currently working on
 774 the Jessie based version, trying to get everything in shape before the
 775 freeze, to avoid having to maintain our own package repository in the
 776 future.  The
 777 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Status/Jessie">current
 778 status</a> can be seen on the Debian wiki, and there is still heaps of
 779 work left.  Some fatal problems block testing, breaking the installer,
 780 but it is possible to work around these to get anyway.  Here is a
 781 recipe on how to get the installation limping along.</p>
 782
 783 <p>First, download the test ISO via
 784 <a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.no/cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-1.iso">ftp</a>,
 785 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.no/cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-1.iso">http</a>
 786 or rsync (use
 787 ftp.skolelinux.org::cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-1.iso).
 788 The ISO build was broken on Tuesday, so we do not get a new ISO every
 789 12 hours or so, but thankfully the ISO we already got we are able to
 790 install with some tweaking.</p>
 791
 792 <p>When you get to the Debian Edu profile question, go to tty2
 793 (use Alt-Ctrl-F2), run</p>
 794
 795 <p><blockquote><pre>
 796 nano /usr/bin/edu-eatmydata-install
 797 </pre></blockquote></p>
 798
 799 <p>and add 'exit 0' as the second line, disabling the eatmydata
 800 optimization.  Return to the installation, select the profile you want
 801 and continue.  Without this change, exim4-config will fail to install
 802 due to a known bug in eatmydata.</p>
 803
 804 <p>When you get the grub question at the end, answer /dev/sda (or if
 805 this do not work, figure out what your correct value would be.  All my
 806 test machines need /dev/sda, so I have no advice if it do not fit
 807 your need.</p>
 808
 809 <p>If you installed a profile including a graphical desktop, log in as
 810 root after the initial boot from hard drive, and install the
 811 education-desktop-XXX metapackage.  XXX can be kde, gnome, lxde, xfce
 812 or mate.  If you want several desktop options, install more than one
 813 metapackage.  Once this is done, reboot and you should have a working
 814 graphical login screen.  This workaround should no longer be needed
 815 once the education-tasks package version 1.801 enter testing in two
 816 days.</p>
 817
 818 <p>I believe the ISO build will start working on two days when the new
 819 tasksel package enter testing and Steve McIntyre get a chance to
 820 update the debian-cd git repository.  The eatmydata, grub and desktop
 821 issues are already fixed in unstable and testing, and should show up
 822 on the ISO as soon as the ISO build start working again.  Well the
 823 eatmydata optimization is really just disabled.  The proper fix
 824 require an upload by the eatmydata maintainer applying the patch
 825 provided in bug <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/702711">#702711</a>.
 826 The rest have proper fixes in unstable.</p>
 827
 828 <p>I hope this get you going with the installation testing, as we are
 829 quickly running out of time trying to get our Jessie based
 830 installation ready before the distribution freeze in a month.</p>
 831
 832       </div>
 833       <div class="tags">
 834
 835
 836         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>.
 837
 838
 839       </div>
 840     </div>
 841     <div class="padding"></div>
 842
 843     <div class="entry">
 844       <div class="title">
 845         <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>
 846       </div>
 847       <div class="date">
 848         25th September 2014
 849       </div>
 850       <div class="body">
 851         <p>I use the <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/">lsdvd tool</a>
 852 to handle my fairly large DVD collection.  It is a nice command line
 853 tool to get details about a DVD, like title, tracks, track length,
 854 etc, in XML, Perl or human readable format.  But lsdvd have not seen
 855 any new development since 2006 and had a few irritating bugs affecting
 856 its use with some DVDs.  Upstream seemed to be dead, and in January I
 857 sent a small probe asking for a version control repository for the
 858 project, without any reply.  But I use it regularly and would like to
 859 get <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/lsdvd">an updated version
 860 into Debian</a>.  So two weeks ago I tried harder to get in touch with
 861 the project admin, and after getting a reply from him explaining that
 862 he was no longer interested in the project, I asked if I could take
 863 over.  And yesterday, I became project admin.</p>
 864
 865 <p>I've been in touch with a Gentoo developer and the Debian
 866 maintainer interested in joining forces to maintain the upstream
 867 project, and I hope we can get a new release out fairly quickly,
 868 collecting the patches spread around on the internet into on place.
 869 I've added the relevant Debian patches to the freshly created git
 870 repository, and expect the Gentoo patches to make it too.  If you got
 871 a DVD collection and care about command line tools, check out
 872 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/git/ci/master/tree/">the git source</a> and join
 873 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/mailman/">the project mailing
 874 list</a>. :)</p>
 875
 876       </div>
 877       <div class="tags">
 878
 879
 880         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>.
 881
 882
 883       </div>
 884     </div>
 885     <div class="padding"></div>
 886
 887     <div class="entry">
 888       <div class="title">
 889         <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>
 890       </div>
 891       <div class="date">
 892         16th September 2014
 893       </div>
 894       <div class="body">
 895         <p>The <a href="https://www.debian.org/">Debian</a> installer could be
 896 a lot quicker.  When we install more than 2000 packages in
 897 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux / Debian Edu</a> using
 898 tasksel in the installer, unpacking the binary packages take forever.
 899 A part of the slow I/O issue was discussed in
 900 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/613428">bug #613428</a> about too
 901 much file system sync-ing done by dpkg, which is the package
 902 responsible for unpacking the binary packages.  Other parts (like code
 903 executed by postinst scripts) might also sync to disk during
 904 installation.  All this sync-ing to disk do not really make sense to
 905 me.  If the machine crash half-way through, I start over, I do not try
 906 to salvage the half installed system.  So the failure sync-ing is
 907 supposed to protect against, hardware or system crash, is not really
 908 relevant while the installer is running.</p>
 909
 910 <p>A few days ago, I thought of a way to get rid of all the file
 911 system sync()-ing in a fairly non-intrusive way, without the need to
 912 change the code in several packages.  The idea is not new, but I have
 913 not heard anyone propose the approach using dpkg-divert before.  It
 914 depend on the small and clever package
 915 <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/eatmydata">eatmydata</a>, which
 916 uses LD_PRELOAD to replace the system functions for syncing data to
 917 disk with functions doing nothing, thus allowing programs to live
 918 dangerous while speeding up disk I/O significantly.  Instead of
 919 modifying the implementation of dpkg, apt and tasksel (which are the
 920 packages responsible for selecting, fetching and installing packages),
 921 it occurred to me that we could just divert the programs away, replace
 922 them with a simple shell wrapper calling
 923 "eatmydata&nbsp;$program&nbsp;$@", to get the same effect.
 924 Two days ago I decided to test the idea, and wrapped up a simple
 925 implementation for the Debian Edu udeb.</p>
 926
 927 <p>The effect was stunning.  In my first test it reduced the running
 928 time of the pkgsel step (installing tasks) from 64 to less than 44
 929 minutes (20 minutes shaved off the installation) on an old Dell
 930 Latitude D505 machine.  I am not quite sure what the optimised time
 931 would have been, as I messed up the testing a bit, causing the debconf
 932 priority to get low enough for two questions to pop up during
 933 installation.  As soon as I saw the questions I moved the installation
 934 along, but do not know how long the question were holding up the
 935 installation.  I did some more measurements using Debian Edu Jessie,
 936 and got these results.  The time measured is the time stamp in
 937 /var/log/syslog between the "pkgsel: starting tasksel" and the
 938 "pkgsel: finishing up" lines, if you want to do the same measurement
 939 yourself.  In Debian Edu, the tasksel dialog do not show up, and the
 940 timing thus do not depend on how quickly the user handle the tasksel
 941 dialog.</p>
 942
 943 <p><table>
 944
 945 <tr>
 946 <th>Machine/setup</th>
 947 <th>Original tasksel</th>
 948 <th>Optimised tasksel</th>
 949 <th>Reduction</th>
 950 </tr>
 951
 952 <tr>
 953 <td>Latitude D505 Main+LTSP LXDE</td>
 954 <td>64 min (07:46-08:50)</td>
 955 <td><44 min (11:27-12:11)</td>
 956 <td>>20 min 18%</td>
 957 </tr>
 958
 959 <tr>
 960 <td>Latitude D505 Roaming LXDE</td>
 961 <td>57 min (08:48-09:45)</td>
 962 <td>34 min (07:43-08:17)</td>
 963 <td>23 min 40%</td>
 964 </tr>
 965
 966 <tr>
 967 <td>Latitude D505 Minimal</td>
 968 <td>22 min (10:37-10:59)</td>
 969 <td>11 min (11:16-11:27)</td>
 970 <td>11 min 50%</td>
 971 </tr>
 972
 973 <tr>
 974 <td>Thinkpad X200 Minimal</td>
 975 <td>6 min (08:19-08:25)</td>
 976 <td>4 min (08:04-08:08)</td>
 977 <td>2 min 33%</td>
 978 </tr>
 979
 980 <tr>
 981 <td>Thinkpad X200 Roaming KDE</td>
 982 <td>19 min (09:21-09:40)</td>
 983 <td>15 min (10:25-10:40)</td>
 984 <td>4 min 21%</td>
 985 </tr>
 986
 987 </table></p>
 988
 989 <p>The test is done using a netinst ISO on a USB stick, so some of the
 990 time is spent downloading packages.  The connection to the Internet
 991 was 100Mbit/s during testing, so downloading should not be a
 992 significant factor in the measurement.  Download typically took a few
 993 seconds to a few minutes, depending on the amount of packages being
 994 installed.</p>
 995
 996 <p>The speedup is implemented by using two hooks in
 997 <a href="https://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/">Debian
 998 Installer</a>, the pre-pkgsel.d hook to set up the diverts, and the
 999 finish-install.d hook to remove the divert at the end of the
1000 installation.  I picked the pre-pkgsel.d hook instead of the
1001 post-base-installer.d hook because I test using an ISO without the
1002 eatmydata package included, and the post-base-installer.d hook in
1003 Debian Edu can only operate on packages included in the ISO.  The
1004 negative effect of this is that I am unable to activate this
1005 optimization for the kernel installation step in d-i.  If the code is
1006 moved to the post-base-installer.d hook, the speedup would be larger
1007 for the entire installation.</p>
1008
1009 <p>I've implemented this in the
1010 <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/debian-edu-install">debian-edu-install</a>
1011 git repository, and plan to provide the optimization as part of the
1012 Debian Edu installation.  If you want to test this yourself, you can
1013 create two files in the installer (or in an udeb).  One shell script
1014 need do go into /usr/lib/pre-pkgsel.d/, with content like this:</p>
1015
1016 <p><blockquote><pre>
1017 #!/bin/sh
1018 set -e
1019 . /usr/share/debconf/confmodule
1020 info() {
1021     logger -t my-pkgsel "info: $*"
1022 }
1023 error() {
1024     logger -t my-pkgsel "error: $*"
1025 }
1026 override_install() {
1027     apt-install eatmydata || true
1028     if [ -x /target/usr/bin/eatmydata ] ; then
1029         for bin in dpkg apt-get aptitude tasksel ; do
1030             file=/usr/bin/$bin
1031             # Test that the file exist and have not been diverted already.
1032             if [ -f /target$file ] ; then
1033                 info "diverting $file using eatmydata"
1034                 printf "#!/bin/sh\neatmydata $bin.distrib \"\$@\"\n" \
1035                     > /target$file.edu
1036                 chmod 755 /target$file.edu
1037                 in-target dpkg-divert --package debian-edu-config \
1038                     --rename --quiet --add $file
1039                 ln -sf ./$bin.edu /target$file
1040             else
1041                 error "unable to divert $file, as it is missing."
1042             fi
1043         done
1044     else
1045         error "unable to find /usr/bin/eatmydata after installing the eatmydata pacage"
1046     fi
1047 }
1048
1049 override_install
1050 </pre></blockquote></p>
1051
1052 <p>To clean up, another shell script should go into
1053 /usr/lib/finish-install.d/ with code like this:
1054
1055 <p><blockquote><pre>
1056 #! /bin/sh -e
1057 . /usr/share/debconf/confmodule
1058 error() {
1059     logger -t my-finish-install "error: $@"
1060 }
1061 remove_install_override() {
1062     for bin in dpkg apt-get aptitude tasksel ; do
1063         file=/usr/bin/$bin
1064         if [ -x /target$file.edu ] ; then
1065             rm /target$file
1066             in-target dpkg-divert --package debian-edu-config \
1067                 --rename --quiet --remove $file
1068             rm /target$file.edu
1069         else
1070             error "Missing divert for $file."
1071         fi
1072     done
1073     sync # Flush file buffers before continuing
1074 }
1075
1076 remove_install_override
1077 </pre></blockquote></p>
1078
1079 <p>In Debian Edu, I placed both code fragments in a separate script
1080 edu-eatmydata-install and call it from the pre-pkgsel.d and
1081 finish-install.d scripts.</p>
1082
1083 <p>By now you might ask if this change should get into the normal
1084 Debian installer too?  I suspect it should, but am not sure the
1085 current debian-installer coordinators find it useful enough.  It also
1086 depend on the side effects of the change.  I'm not aware of any, but I
1087 guess we will see if the change is safe after some more testing.
1088 Perhaps there is some package in Debian depending on sync() and
1089 fsync() having effect?  Perhaps it should go into its own udeb, to
1090 allow those of us wanting to enable it to do so without affecting
1091 everyone.</p>
1092
1093 <p>Update 2014-09-24: Since a few days ago, enabling this optimization
1094 will break installation of all programs using gnutls because of
1095 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/702711">bug #702711</a>.  An updated
1096 eatmydata package in Debian will solve it.</p>
1097
1098 <p>Update 2014-10-17: The bug mentioned above is fixed in testing and
1099 the optimization work again.  And I have discovered that the
1100 dpkg-divert trick is not really needed and implemented a slightly
1101 simpler approach as part of the debian-edu-install package.  See
1102 tools/edu-eatmydata-install in the source package.</p>
1103
1104 <p>Update 2014-11-11: Unfortunately, a new
1105 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/765738">bug #765738</a> in eatmydata only
1106 triggering on i386 made it into testing, and broke this installation
1107 optimization again.  If <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/768893">unblock
1108 request 768893</a> is accepted, it should be working again.</p>
1109
1110       </div>
1111       <div class="tags">
1112
1113
1114         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>.
1115
1116
1117       </div>
1118     </div>
1119     <div class="padding"></div>
1120
1121     <div class="entry">
1122       <div class="title">
1123         <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>
1124       </div>
1125       <div class="date">
1126         10th September 2014
1127       </div>
1128       <div class="body">
1129         <p>Yesterday, I had the pleasure of attending a talk with the
1130 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">Norwegian Unix User Group</a> about
1131 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20140909-sks-keyservers/">the
1132 OpenPGP keyserver pool sks-keyservers.net</a>, and was very happy to
1133 learn that there is a large set of publicly available key servers to
1134 use when looking for peoples public key.  So far I have used
1135 subkeys.pgp.net, and some times wwwkeys.nl.pgp.net when the former
1136 were misbehaving, but those days are ended.  The servers I have used
1137 up until yesterday have been slow and some times unavailable.  I hope
1138 those problems are gone now.</p>
1139
1140 <p>Behind the round robin DNS entry of the
1141 <a href="https://sks-keyservers.net/">sks-keyservers.net</a> service
1142 there is a pool of more than 100 keyservers which are checked every
1143 day to ensure they are well connected and up to date.  It must be
1144 better than what I have used so far. :)</p>
1145
1146 <p>Yesterdays speaker told me that the service is the default
1147 keyserver provided by the default configuration in GnuPG, but this do
1148 not seem to be used in Debian.  Perhaps it should?</p>
1149
1150 <p>Anyway, I've updated my ~/.gnupg/options file to now include this
1151 line:</p>
1152
1153 <p><blockquote><pre>
1154 keyserver pool.sks-keyservers.net
1155 </pre></blockquote></p>
1156
1157 <p>With GnuPG version 2 one can also locate the keyserver using SRV
1158 entries in DNS.  Just for fun, I did just that at work, so now every
1159 user of GnuPG at the University of Oslo should find a OpenGPG
1160 keyserver automatically should their need it:</p>
1161
1162 <p><blockquote><pre>
1163 % host -t srv _pgpkey-http._tcp.uio.no
1164 _pgpkey-http._tcp.uio.no has SRV record 0 100 11371 pool.sks-keyservers.net.
1165 %
1166 </pre></blockquote></p>
1167
1168 <p>Now if only
1169 <a href="http://ietfreport.isoc.org/idref/draft-shaw-openpgp-hkp/">the
1170 HKP lookup protocol</a> supported finding signature paths, I would be
1171 very happy.  It can look up a given key or search for a user ID, but I
1172 normally do not want that, but to find a trust path from my key to
1173 another key.  Given a user ID or key ID, I would like to find (and
1174 download) the keys representing a signature path from my key to the
1175 key in question, to be able to get a trust path between the two keys.
1176 This is as far as I can tell not possible today.  Perhaps something
1177 for a future version of the protocol?</p>
1178
1179       </div>
1180       <div class="tags">
1181
1182
1183         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>.
1184
1185
1186       </div>
1187     </div>
1188     <div class="padding"></div>
1189
1190     <div class="entry">
1191       <div class="title">
1192         <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>
1193       </div>
1194       <div class="date">
1195         17th June 2014
1196       </div>
1197       <div class="body">
1198         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
1199 project</a> provide an instruction manual for teachers, system
1200 administrators and other users that contain useful tips for setting up
1201 and maintaining a Debian Edu installation.  This text is about how the
1202 text processing of this manual is handled in the project.</p>
1203
1204 <p>One goal of the project is to provide information in the native
1205 language of its users, and for this we need to handle translations.
1206 But we also want to make sure each language contain the same
1207 information, so for this we need a good way to keep the translations
1208 in sync.  And we want it to be easy for our users to improve the
1209 documentation, avoiding the need to learn special formats or tools to
1210 contribute, and the obvious way to do this is to make it possible to
1211 edit the documentation using a web browser.  We also want it to be
1212 easy for translators to keep the translation up to date, and give them
1213 help in figuring out what need to be translated. Here is the list of
1214 tools and the process we have found trying to reach all these
1215 goals.</p>
1216
1217 <p>We maintain the authoritative source of our manual in the
1218 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/">Debian
1219 wiki</a>, as several wiki pages written in English.  It consist of one
1220 front page with references to the different chapters, several pages
1221 for each chapter, and finally one "collection page" gluing all the
1222 chapters together into one large web page (aka
1223 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/AllInOne">the
1224 AllInOne page</a>).  The AllInOne page is the one used for further
1225 processing and translations.  Thanks to the fact that the
1226 <a href="http://moinmo.in/">MoinMoin</a> installation on
1227 wiki.debian.org support exporting pages in
1228 <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">the Docbook format</a>, we can fetch
1229 the list of pages to export using the raw version of the AllInOne
1230 page, loop over each of them to generate a Docbook XML version of the
1231 manual.  This process also download images and transform image
1232 references to use the locally downloaded images.  The generated
1233 Docbook XML files are slightly broken, so some post-processing is done
1234 using the <tt>documentation/scripts/get_manual</tt> program, and the
1235 result is a nice Docbook XML file (debian-edu-wheezy-manual.xml) and
1236 a handfull of images.  The XML file can now be used to generate PDF, HTML
1237 and epub versions of the English manual.  This is the basic step of
1238 our process, making PDF (using dblatex), HTML (using xsltproc) and
1239 epub (using dbtoepub) version from Docbook XML, and the resulting files
1240 are placed in the debian-edu-doc-en binary package.</p>
1241
1242 <p>But English documentation is not enough for us.  We want translated
1243 documentation too, and we want to make it easy for translators to
1244 track the English original.  For this we use the
1245 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/p/poxml.html">poxml</a> package,
1246 which allow us to transform the English Docbook XML file into a
1247 translation file (a .pot file), usable with the normal gettext based
1248 translation tools used by those translating free software.  The pot
1249 file is used to create and maintain translation files (several .po
1250 files), which the translations update with the native language
1251 translations of all titles, paragraphs and blocks of text in the
1252 original.  The next step is combining the original English Docbook XML
1253 and the translation file (say debian-edu-wheezy-manual.nb.po), to
1254 create a translated Docbook XML file (in this case
1255 debian-edu-wheezy-manual.nb.xml).  This translated (or partly
1256 translated, if the translation is not complete) Docbook XML file can
1257 then be used like the original to create a PDF, HTML and epub version
1258 of the documentation.</p>
1259
1260 <p>The translators use different tools to edit the .po files.  We
1261 recommend using
1262 <a href="http://www.kde.org/applications/development/lokalize/">lokalize</a>,
1263 while some use emacs and vi, others can use web based editors like
1264 <a href="http://pootle.translatehouse.org/">Poodle</a> or
1265 <a href="https://www.transifex.com/">Transifex</a>.  All we care about
1266 is where the .po file end up, in our git repository.  Updated
1267 translations can either be committed directly to git, or submitted as
1268 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/src:debian-edu-doc">bug reports
1269 against the debian-edu-doc package</a>.</p>
1270
1271 <p>One challenge is images, which both might need to be translated (if
1272 they show translated user applications), and are needed in different
1273 formats when creating PDF and HTML versions (epub is a HTML version in
1274 this regard).  For this we transform the original PNG images to the
1275 needed density and format during build, and have a way to provide
1276 translated images by storing translated versions in
1277 images/$LANGUAGECODE/.  I am a bit unsure about the details here.  The
1278 package maintainers know more.</p>
1279
1280 <p>If you wonder what the result look like, we provide
1281 <a href="http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/">the content
1282 of the documentation packages on the web</a>.  See for example the
1283 <a href="http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/it/debian-edu-wheezy-manual.pdf">Italian
1284 PDF version</a> or the
1285 <a href="http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/de/debian-edu-wheezy-manual.html">German
1286 HTML version</a>.  We do not yet build the epub version by default,
1287 but perhaps it will be done in the future.</p>
1288
1289 <p>To learn more, check out
1290 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/debian-edu-doc.html">the
1291 debian-edu-doc package</a>,
1292 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/">the
1293 manual on the wiki</a> and
1294 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/Translations">the
1295 translation instructions</a> in the manual.</p>
1296
1297       </div>
1298       <div class="tags">
1299
1300
1301         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>.
1302
1303
1304       </div>
1305     </div>
1306     <div class="padding"></div>
1307
1308     <div class="entry">
1309       <div class="title">
1310         <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>
1311       </div>
1312       <div class="date">
1313         23rd April 2014
1314       </div>
1315       <div class="body">
1316         <p>It would be nice if it was easier in Debian to get all the hardware
1317 related packages relevant for the computer installed automatically.
1318 So I implemented one, using
1319 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">my Isenkram
1320 package</a>.  To use it, install the tasksel and isenkram packages and
1321 run tasksel as user root.  You should be presented with a new option,
1322 "Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)".  When you
1323 select it, tasksel will install the packages isenkram claim is fit for
1324 the current hardware, hot pluggable or not.<p>
1325
1326 <p>The implementation is in two files, one is the tasksel menu entry
1327 description, and the other is the script used to extract the list of
1328 packages to install.  The first part is in
1329 <tt>/usr/share/tasksel/descs/isenkram.desc</tt> and look like
1330 this:</p>
1331
1332 <p><blockquote><pre>
1333 Task: isenkram
1334 Section: hardware
1335 Description: Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)
1336  Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific packages are
1337  proposed.
1338 Test-new-install: mark show
1339 Relevance: 8
1340 Packages: for-current-hardware
1341 </pre></blockquote></p>
1342
1343 <p>The second part is in
1344 <tt>/usr/lib/tasksel/packages/for-current-hardware</tt> and look like
1345 this:</p>
1346
1347 <p><blockquote><pre>
1348 #!/bin/sh
1349 #
1350 (
1351     isenkram-lookup
1352     isenkram-autoinstall-firmware -l
1353 ) | sort -u
1354 </pre></blockquote></p>
1355
1356 <p>All in all, a very short and simple implementation making it
1357 trivial to install the hardware dependent package we all may want to
1358 have installed on our machines.  I've not been able to find a way to
1359 get tasksel to tell you exactly which packages it plan to install
1360 before doing the installation.  So if you are curious or careful,
1361 check the output from the isenkram-* command line tools first.</p>
1362
1363 <p>The information about which packages are handling which hardware is
1364 fetched either from the isenkram package itself in
1365 /usr/share/isenkram/, from git.debian.org or from the APT package
1366 database (using the Modaliases header).  The APT package database
1367 parsing have caused a nasty resource leak in the isenkram daemon (bugs
1368 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/719837">#719837</a> and
1369 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/730704">#730704</a>).  The cause is in
1370 the python-apt code (bug
1371 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/745487">#745487</a>), but using a
1372 workaround I was able to get rid of the file descriptor leak and
1373 reduce the memory leak from ~30 MiB per hardware detection down to
1374 around 2 MiB per hardware detection.  It should make the desktop
1375 daemon a lot more useful.  The fix is in version 0.7 uploaded to
1376 unstable today.</p>
1377
1378 <p>I believe the current way of mapping hardware to packages in
1379 Isenkram is is a good draft, but in the future I expect isenkram to
1380 use the AppStream data source for this.  A proposal for getting proper
1381 AppStream support into Debian is floating around as
1382 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DEP-11">DEP-11</a>, and
1383 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/SummerOfCode2014/Projects#SummerOfCode2014.2FProjects.2FAppStreamDEP11Implementation.AppStream.2FDEP-11_for_the_Debian_Archive">GSoC
1384 project</a> will take place this summer to improve the situation.  I
1385 look forward to seeing the result, and welcome patches for isenkram to
1386 start using the information when it is ready.</p>
1387
1388 <p>If you want your package to map to some specific hardware, either
1389 add a "Xb-Modaliases" header to your control file like I did in
1390 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pymissile">the pymissile
1391 package</a> or submit a bug report with the details to the isenkram
1392 package.  See also
1393 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram/">all my
1394 blog posts tagged isenkram</a> for details on the notation.  I expect
1395 the information will be migrated to AppStream eventually, but for the
1396 moment I got no better place to store it.</p>
1397
1398       </div>
1399       <div class="tags">
1400
1401
1402         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>.
1403
1404
1405       </div>
1406     </div>
1407     <div class="padding"></div>
1408
1409     <div class="entry">
1410       <div class="title">
1411         <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>
1412       </div>
1413       <div class="date">
1414         15th April 2014
1415       </div>
1416       <div class="body">
1417         <p>The <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">Freedombox
1418 project</a> is working on providing the software and hardware to make
1419 it easy for non-technical people to host their data and communication
1420 at home, and being able to communicate with their friends and family
1421 encrypted and away from prying eyes.  It is still going strong, and
1422 today a major mile stone was reached.</p>
1423
1424 <p>Today, the last of the packages currently used by the project to
1425 created the system images were accepted into Debian Unstable.  It was
1426 the freedombox-setup package, which is used to configure the images
1427 during build and on the first boot.  Now all one need to get going is
1428 the build code from the freedom-maker git repository and packages from
1429 Debian.  And once the freedombox-setup package enter testing, we can
1430 build everything directly from Debian. :)</p>
1431
1432 <p>Some key packages used by Freedombox are
1433 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/freedombox-setup">freedombox-setup</a>,
1434 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/plinth">plinth</a>,
1435 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pagekite">pagekite</a>,
1436 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/tor">tor</a>,
1437 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/privoxy">privoxy</a>,
1438 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/owncloud">owncloud</a> and
1439 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/dnsmasq">dnsmasq</a>.  There
1440 are plans to integrate more packages into the setup.  User
1441 documentation is maintained on the Debian wiki.  Please
1442 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/Manual/Jessie">check out
1443 the manual</a> and help us improve it.</p>
1444
1445 <p>To test for yourself and create boot images with the FreedomBox
1446 setup, run this on a Debian machine using a user with sudo rights to
1447 become root:</p>
1448
1449 <p><pre>
1450 sudo apt-get install git vmdebootstrap mercurial python-docutils \
1451   mktorrent extlinux virtualbox qemu-user-static binfmt-support \
1452   u-boot-tools
1453 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/freedombox/freedom-maker.git \
1454   freedom-maker
1455 make -C freedom-maker dreamplug-image raspberry-image virtualbox-image
1456 </pre></p>
1457
1458 <p>Root access is needed to run debootstrap and mount loopback
1459 devices.  See the README in the freedom-maker git repo for more
1460 details on the build.  If you do not want all three images, trim the
1461 make line.  Note that the virtualbox-image target is not really
1462 virtualbox specific.  It create a x86 image usable in kvm, qemu,
1463 vmware and any other x86 virtual machine environment.  You might need
1464 the version of vmdebootstrap in Jessie to get the build working, as it
1465 include fixes for a race condition with kpartx.</p>
1466
1467 <p>If you instead want to install using a Debian CD and the preseed
1468 method, boot a Debian Wheezy ISO and use this boot argument to load
1469 the preseed values:</p>
1470
1471 <p><pre>
1472 url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat</a>
1473 </pre></p>
1474
1475 <p>I have not tested it myself the last few weeks, so I do not know if
1476 it still work.</p>
1477
1478 <p>If you wonder how to help, one task you could look at is using
1479 systemd as the boot system.  It will become the default for Linux in
1480 Jessie, so we need to make sure it is usable on the Freedombox.  I did
1481 a simple test a few weeks ago, and noticed dnsmasq failed to start
1482 during boot when using systemd.  I suspect there are other problems
1483 too. :) To detect problems, there is a test suite included, which can
1484 be run from the plinth web interface.</p>
1485
1486 <p>Give it a go and let us know how it goes on the mailing list, and help
1487 us get the new release published. :) Please join us on
1488 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC (#freedombox on
1489 irc.debian.org)</a> and
1490 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
1491 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
1492
1493       </div>
1494       <div class="tags">
1495
1496
1497         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>.
1498
1499
1500       </div>
1501     </div>
1502     <div class="padding"></div>
1503
1504     <div class="entry">
1505       <div class="title">
1506         <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>
1507       </div>
1508       <div class="date">
1509          9th April 2014
1510       </div>
1511       <div class="body">
1512         <p>For a while now, I have been looking for a sensible offsite backup
1513 solution for use at home.  My requirements are simple, it must be
1514 cheap and locally encrypted (in other words, I keep the encryption
1515 keys, the storage provider do not have access to my private files).
1516 One idea me and my friends had many years ago, before the cloud
1517 storage providers showed up, was to use Google mail as storage,
1518 writing a Linux block device storing blocks as emails in the mail
1519 service provided by Google, and thus get heaps of free space.  On top
1520 of this one can add encryption, RAID and volume management to have
1521 lots of (fairly slow, I admit that) cheap and encrypted storage.  But
1522 I never found time to implement such system.  But the last few weeks I
1523 have looked at a system called
1524 <a href="https://bitbucket.org/nikratio/s3ql/">S3QL</a>, a locally
1525 mounted network backed file system with the features I need.</p>
1526
1527 <p>S3QL is a fuse file system with a local cache and cloud storage,
1528 handling several different storage providers, any with Amazon S3,
1529 Google Drive or OpenStack API.  There are heaps of such storage
1530 providers.  S3QL can also use a local directory as storage, which
1531 combined with sshfs allow for file storage on any ssh server.  S3QL
1532 include support for encryption, compression, de-duplication, snapshots
1533 and immutable file systems, allowing me to mount the remote storage as
1534 a local mount point, look at and use the files as if they were local,
1535 while the content is stored in the cloud as well.  This allow me to
1536 have a backup that should survive fire.  The file system can not be
1537 shared between several machines at the same time, as only one can
1538 mount it at the time, but any machine with the encryption key and
1539 access to the storage service can mount it if it is unmounted.</p>
1540
1541 <p>It is simple to use.  I'm using it on Debian Wheezy, where the
1542 package is included already.  So to get started, run <tt>apt-get
1543 install s3ql</tt>.  Next, pick a storage provider.  I ended up picking
1544 Greenqloud, after reading their nice recipe on
1545 <a href="https://greenqloud.zendesk.com/entries/44611757-How-To-Use-S3QL-to-mount-a-StorageQloud-bucket-on-Debian-Wheezy">how
1546 to use S3QL with their Amazon S3 service</a>, because I trust the laws
1547 in Iceland more than those in USA when it come to keeping my personal
1548 data safe and private, and thus would rather spend money on a company
1549 in Iceland.  Another nice recipe is available from the article
1550 <a href="http://www.admin-magazine.com/HPC/Articles/HPC-Cloud-Storage">S3QL
1551 Filesystem for HPC Storage</a> by Jeff Layton in the HPC section of
1552 Admin magazine.  When the provider is picked, figure out how to get
1553 the API key needed to connect to the storage API.  With Greencloud,
1554 the key did not show up until I had added payment details to my
1555 account.</p>
1556
1557 <p>Armed with the API access details, it is time to create the file
1558 system.  First, create a new bucket in the cloud.  This bucket is the
1559 file system storage area.  I picked a bucket name reflecting the
1560 machine that was going to store data there, but any name will do.
1561 I'll refer to it as <tt>bucket-name</tt> below.  In addition, one need
1562 the API login and password, and a locally created password.  Store it
1563 all in ~root/.s3ql/authinfo2 like this:
1564
1565 <p><blockquote><pre>
1566 [s3c]
1567 storage-url: s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name
1568 backend-login: API-login
1569 backend-password: API-password
1570 fs-passphrase: local-password
1571 </pre></blockquote></p>
1572
1573 <p>I create my local passphrase using <tt>pwget 50</tt> or similar,
1574 but any sensible way to create a fairly random password should do it.
1575 Armed with these details, it is now time to run mkfs, entering the API
1576 details and password to create it:</p>
1577
1578 <p><blockquote><pre>
1579 # mkdir -m 700 /var/lib/s3ql-cache
1580 # mkfs.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
1581   --ssl s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name
1582 Enter backend login:
1583 Enter backend password:
1584 Before using S3QL, make sure to read the user's guide, especially
1585 the 'Important Rules to Avoid Loosing Data' section.
1586 Enter encryption password:
1587 Confirm encryption password:
1588 Generating random encryption key...
1589 Creating metadata tables...
1590 Dumping metadata...
1591 ..objects..
1592 ..blocks..
1593 ..inodes..
1594 ..inode_blocks..
1595 ..symlink_targets..
1596 ..names..
1597 ..contents..
1598 ..ext_attributes..
1599 Compressing and uploading metadata...
1600 Wrote 0.00 MB of compressed metadata.
1601 # </pre></blockquote></p>
1602
1603 <p>The next step is mounting the file system to make the storage available.
1604
1605 <p><blockquote><pre>
1606 # mount.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
1607   --ssl --allow-root s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name /s3ql
1608 Using 4 upload threads.
1609 Downloading and decompressing metadata...
1610 Reading metadata...
1611 ..objects..
1612 ..blocks..
1613 ..inodes..
1614 ..inode_blocks..
1615 ..symlink_targets..
1616 ..names..
1617 ..contents..
1618 ..ext_attributes..
1619 Mounting filesystem...
1620 # df -h /s3ql
1621 Filesystem                              Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
1622 s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name  1.0T     0  1.0T   0% /s3ql
1623 #
1624 </pre></blockquote></p>
1625
1626 <p>The file system is now ready for use.  I use rsync to store my
1627 backups in it, and as the metadata used by rsync is downloaded at
1628 mount time, no network traffic (and storage cost) is triggered by
1629 running rsync.  To unmount, one should not use the normal umount
1630 command, as this will not flush the cache to the cloud storage, but
1631 instead running the umount.s3ql command like this:
1632
1633 <p><blockquote><pre>
1634 # umount.s3ql /s3ql
1635 #
1636 </pre></blockquote></p>
1637
1638 <p>There is a fsck command available to check the file system and
1639 correct any problems detected.  This can be used if the local server
1640 crashes while the file system is mounted, to reset the "already
1641 mounted" flag.  This is what it look like when processing a working
1642 file system:</p>
1643
1644 <p><blockquote><pre>
1645 # fsck.s3ql --force --ssl s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name
1646 Using cached metadata.
1647 File system seems clean, checking anyway.
1648 Checking DB integrity...
1649 Creating temporary extra indices...
1650 Checking lost+found...
1651 Checking cached objects...
1652 Checking names (refcounts)...
1653 Checking contents (names)...
1654 Checking contents (inodes)...
1655 Checking contents (parent inodes)...
1656 Checking objects (reference counts)...
1657 Checking objects (backend)...
1658 ..processed 5000 objects so far..
1659 ..processed 10000 objects so far..
1660 ..processed 15000 objects so far..
1661 Checking objects (sizes)...
1662 Checking blocks (referenced objects)...
1663 Checking blocks (refcounts)...
1664 Checking inode-block mapping (blocks)...
1665 Checking inode-block mapping (inodes)...
1666 Checking inodes (refcounts)...
1667 Checking inodes (sizes)...
1668 Checking extended attributes (names)...
1669 Checking extended attributes (inodes)...
1670 Checking symlinks (inodes)...
1671 Checking directory reachability...
1672 Checking unix conventions...
1673 Checking referential integrity...
1674 Dropping temporary indices...
1675 Backing up old metadata...
1676 Dumping metadata...
1677 ..objects..
1678 ..blocks..
1679 ..inodes..
1680 ..inode_blocks..
1681 ..symlink_targets..
1682 ..names..
1683 ..contents..
1684 ..ext_attributes..
1685 Compressing and uploading metadata...
1686 Wrote 0.89 MB of compressed metadata.
1687 #
1688 </pre></blockquote></p>
1689
1690 <p>Thanks to the cache, working on files that fit in the cache is very
1691 quick, about the same speed as local file access.  Uploading large
1692 amount of data is to me limited by the bandwidth out of and into my
1693 house.  Uploading 685 MiB with a 100 MiB cache gave me 305 kiB/s,
1694 which is very close to my upload speed, and downloading the same
1695 Debian installation ISO gave me 610 kiB/s, close to my download speed.
1696 Both were measured using <tt>dd</tt>.  So for me, the bottleneck is my
1697 network, not the file system code.  I do not know what a good cache
1698 size would be, but suspect that the cache should e larger than your
1699 working set.</p>
1700
1701 <p>I mentioned that only one machine can mount the file system at the
1702 time.  If another machine try, it is told that the file system is
1703 busy:</p>
1704
1705 <p><blockquote><pre>
1706 # mount.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
1707   --ssl --allow-root s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name /s3ql
1708 Using 8 upload threads.
1709 Backend reports that fs is still mounted elsewhere, aborting.
1710 #
1711 </pre></blockquote></p>
1712
1713 <p>The file content is uploaded when the cache is full, while the
1714 metadata is uploaded once every 24 hour by default.  To ensure the
1715 file system content is flushed to the cloud, one can either umount the
1716 file system, or ask S3QL to flush the cache and metadata using
1717 s3qlctrl:
1718
1719 <p><blockquote><pre>
1720 # s3qlctrl upload-meta /s3ql
1721 # s3qlctrl flushcache /s3ql
1722 #
1723 </pre></blockquote></p>
1724
1725 <p>If you are curious about how much space your data uses in the
1726 cloud, and how much compression and deduplication cut down on the
1727 storage usage, you can use s3qlstat on the mounted file system to get
1728 a report:</p>
1729
1730 <p><blockquote><pre>
1731 # s3qlstat /s3ql
1732 Directory entries:    9141
1733 Inodes:               9143
1734 Data blocks:          8851
1735 Total data size:      22049.38 MB
1736 After de-duplication: 21955.46 MB (99.57% of total)
1737 After compression:    21877.28 MB (99.22% of total, 99.64% of de-duplicated)
1738 Database size:        2.39 MB (uncompressed)
1739 (some values do not take into account not-yet-uploaded dirty blocks in cache)
1740 #
1741 </pre></blockquote></p>
1742
1743 <p>I mentioned earlier that there are several possible suppliers of
1744 storage.  I did not try to locate them all, but am aware of at least
1745 <a href="https://www.greenqloud.com/">Greenqloud</a>,
1746 <a href="http://drive.google.com/">Google Drive</a>,
1747 <a href="http://aws.amazon.com/s3/">Amazon S3 web serivces</a>,
1748 <a href="http://www.rackspace.com/">Rackspace</a> and
1749 <a href="http://crowncloud.net/">Crowncloud</A>.  The latter even
1750 accept payment in Bitcoin.  Pick one that suit your need.  Some of
1751 them provide several GiB of free storage, but the prize models are
1752 quite different and you will have to figure out what suits you
1753 best.</p>
1754
1755 <p>While researching this blog post, I had a look at research papers
1756 and posters discussing the S3QL file system.  There are several, which
1757 told me that the file system is getting a critical check by the
1758 science community and increased my confidence in using it.  One nice
1759 poster is titled
1760 "<a href="http://www.lanl.gov/orgs/adtsc/publications/science_highlights_2013/docs/pg68_69.pdf">An
1761 Innovative Parallel Cloud Storage System using OpenStack’s SwiftObject
1762 Store and Transformative Parallel I/O Approach</a>" by Hsing-Bung
1763 Chen, Benjamin McClelland, David Sherrill, Alfred Torrez, Parks Fields
1764 and Pamela Smith.  Please  have a look.</p>
1765
1766 <p>Given my problems with different file systems earlier, I decided to
1767 check out the mounted S3QL file system to see if it would be usable as
1768 a home directory (in other word, that it provided POSIX semantics when
1769 it come to locking and umask handling etc).  Running
1770 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_if_a_file_system_can_be_used_for_home_directories___.html">my
1771 test code to check file system semantics</a>, I was happy to discover that
1772 no error was found.  So the file system can be used for home
1773 directories, if one chooses to do so.</p>
1774
1775 <p>If you do not want a locally file system, and want something that
1776 work without the Linux fuse file system, I would like to mention the
1777 <a href="http://www.tarsnap.com/">Tarsnap service</a>, which also
1778 provide locally encrypted backup using a command line client.  It have
1779 a nicer access control system, where one can split out read and write
1780 access, allowing some systems to write to the backup and others to
1781 only read from it.</p>
1782
1783 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1784 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1785 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
1786
1787       </div>
1788       <div class="tags">
1789
1790
1791         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>.
1792
1793
1794       </div>
1795     </div>
1796     <div class="padding"></div>
1797
1798     <div class="entry">
1799       <div class="title">
1800         <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>
1801       </div>
1802       <div class="date">
1803         14th March 2014
1804       </div>
1805       <div class="body">
1806         <p>The <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">Freedombox
1807 project</a> is working on providing the software and hardware for
1808 making it easy for non-technical people to host their data and
1809 communication at home, and being able to communicate with their
1810 friends and family encrypted and away from prying eyes.  It has been
1811 going on for a while, and is slowly progressing towards a new test
1812 release (0.2).</p>
1813
1814 <p>And what day could be better than the Pi day to announce that the
1815 new version will provide "hard drive" / SD card / USB stick images for
1816 Dreamplug, Raspberry Pi and VirtualBox (or any other virtualization
1817 system), and can also be installed using a Debian installer preseed
1818 file.  The Debian based Freedombox is now based on Debian Jessie,
1819 where most of the needed packages used are already present.  Only one,
1820 the freedombox-setup package, is missing.  To try to build your own
1821 boot image to test the current status, fetch the freedom-maker scripts
1822 and build using
1823 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/vmdebootstrap">vmdebootstrap</a>
1824 with a user with sudo access to become root:
1825
1826 <pre>
1827 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/freedombox/freedom-maker.git \
1828   freedom-maker
1829 sudo apt-get install git vmdebootstrap mercurial python-docutils \
1830   mktorrent extlinux virtualbox qemu-user-static binfmt-support \
1831   u-boot-tools
1832 make -C freedom-maker dreamplug-image raspberry-image virtualbox-image
1833 </pre>
1834
1835 <p>Root access is needed to run debootstrap and mount loopback
1836 devices.  See the README for more details on the build. If you do not
1837 want all three images, trim the make line.  But note that thanks to <a
1838 href="https://bugs.debian.org/741407">a race condition in
1839 vmdebootstrap</a>, the build might fail without the patch to the
1840 kpartx call.</p>
1841
1842 <p>If you instead want to install using a Debian CD and the preseed
1843 method, boot a Debian Wheezy ISO and use this boot argument to load
1844 the preseed values:</p>
1845
1846 <pre>
1847 url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat</a>
1848 </pre>
1849
1850 <p>But note that due to <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/740673">a
1851 recently introduced bug in apt in Jessie</a>, the installer will
1852 currently hang while setting up APT sources.  Killing the
1853 '<tt>apt-cdrom ident</tt>' process when it hang a few times during the
1854 installation will get the installation going.  This affect all
1855 installations in Jessie, and I expect it will be fixed soon.</p>
1856
1857 <p>Give it a go and let us know how it goes on the mailing list, and help
1858 us get the new release published. :) Please join us on
1859 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC (#freedombox on
1860 irc.debian.org)</a> and
1861 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
1862 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
1863
1864       </div>
1865       <div class="tags">
1866
1867
1868         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>.
1869
1870
1871       </div>
1872     </div>
1873     <div class="padding"></div>
1874
1875     <div class="entry">
1876       <div class="title">
1877         <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>
1878       </div>
1879       <div class="date">
1880         22nd February 2014
1881       </div>
1882       <div class="body">
1883         <p>Many years ago, I wrote a GPL licensed version of the netgroup and
1884 innetgr tools, because I needed them in
1885 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a>.  I called the project
1886 ng-utils, and it has served me well.  I placed the project under the
1887 <a href="http://www.hungry.com/">Hungry Programmer</a> umbrella, and it was maintained in our CVS
1888 repository.  But many years ago, the CVS repository was dropped (lost,
1889 not migrated to new hardware, not sure), and the project have lacked a
1890 proper home since then.</p>
1891
1892 <p>Last summer, I had a look at the package and made a new release
1893 fixing a irritating crash bug, but was unable to store the changes in
1894 a proper source control system.  I applied for a project on
1895 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/">Alioth</a>, but did not have time
1896 to follow up on it.  Until today. :)</p>
1897
1898 <p>After many hours of cleaning and migration, the ng-utils project
1899 now have a new home, and a git repository with the highlight of the
1900 history of the project.  I published all release tarballs and imported
1901 them into the git repository.  As the project is really stable and not
1902 expected to gain new features any time soon, I decided to make a new
1903 release and call it 1.0.  Visit the new project home on
1904 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/ng-utils/">https://alioth.debian.org/projects/ng-utils/</a>
1905 if you want to check it out.  The new version is also uploaded into
1906 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/n/ng-utils.html">Debian Unstable</a>.</p>
1907
1908       </div>
1909       <div class="tags">
1910
1911
1912         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>.
1913
1914
1915       </div>
1916     </div>
1917     <div class="padding"></div>
1918
1919     <div class="entry">
1920       <div class="title">
1921         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_sysvinit_from_experimental_in_Debian_Hurd.html">Testing sysvinit from experimental in Debian Hurd</a>
1922       </div>
1923       <div class="date">
1924          3rd February 2014
1925       </div>
1926       <div class="body">
1927         <p>A few days ago I decided to try to help the Hurd people to get
1928 their changes into sysvinit, to allow them to use the normal sysvinit
1929 boot system instead of their old one.  This follow up on the
1930 <a href="https://teythoon.cryptobitch.de//categories/gsoc.html">great
1931 Google Summer of Code work</a> done last summer by Justus Winter to
1932 get Debian on Hurd working more like Debian on Linux.  To get started,
1933 I downloaded a prebuilt hard disk image from
1934 <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>,
1935 and started it using virt-manager.</p>
1936
1937 <p>The first think I had to do after logging in (root without any
1938 password) was to get the network operational.  I followed
1939 <a href="https://www.debian.org/ports/hurd/hurd-install">the
1940 instructions on the Debian GNU/Hurd ports page</a> and ran these
1941 commands as root to get the machine to accept a IP address from the
1942 kvm internal DHCP server:</p>
1943
1944 <p><blockquote><pre>
1945 settrans -fgap /dev/netdde /hurd/netdde
1946 kill $(ps -ef|awk '/[p]finet/ { print $2}')
1947 kill $(ps -ef|awk '/[d]evnode/ { print $2}')
1948 dhclient /dev/eth0
1949 </pre></blockquote></p>
1950
1951 <p>After this, the machine had internet connectivity, and I could
1952 upgrade it and install the sysvinit packages from experimental and
1953 enable it as the default boot system in Hurd.</p>
1954
1955 <p>But before I did that, I set a password on the root user, as ssh is
1956 running on the machine it for ssh login to work a password need to be
1957 set.  Also, note that a bug somewhere in openssh on Hurd block
1958 compression from working.  Remember to turn that off on the client
1959 side.</p>
1960
1961 <p>Run these commands as root to upgrade and test the new sysvinit
1962 stuff:</p>
1963
1964 <p><blockquote><pre>
1965 cat > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/experimental.list &lt;&lt;EOF
1966 deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ experimental main
1967 EOF
1968 apt-get update
1969 apt-get dist-upgrade
1970 apt-get install -t experimental initscripts sysv-rc sysvinit \
1971     sysvinit-core sysvinit-utils
1972 update-alternatives --config runsystem
1973 </pre></blockquote></p>
1974
1975 <p>To reboot after switching boot system, you have to use
1976 <tt>reboot-hurd</tt> instead of just <tt>reboot</tt>, as there is not
1977 yet a sysvinit process able to receive the signals from the normal
1978 'reboot' command.  After switching to sysvinit as the boot system,
1979 upgrading every package and rebooting, the network come up with DHCP
1980 after boot as it should, and the settrans/pkill hack mentioned at the
1981 start is no longer needed.  But for some strange reason, there are no
1982 longer any login prompt in the virtual console, so I logged in using
1983 ssh instead.
1984
1985 <p>Note that there are some race conditions in Hurd making the boot
1986 fail some times.  No idea what the cause is, but hope the Hurd porters
1987 figure it out.  At least Justus said on IRC (#debian-hurd on
1988 irc.debian.org) that they are aware of the problem.  A way to reduce
1989 the impact is to upgrade to the Hurd packages built by Justus by
1990 adding this repository to the machine:</p>
1991
1992 <p><blockquote><pre>
1993 cat > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/hurd-ci.list &lt;&lt;EOF
1994 deb http://darnassus.sceen.net/~teythoon/hurd-ci/ sid main
1995 EOF
1996 </pre></blockquote></p>
1997
1998 <p>At the moment the prebuilt virtual machine get some packages from
1999 http://ftp.debian-ports.org/debian, because some of the packages in
2000 unstable do not yet include the required patches that are lingering in
2001 BTS.  This is the completely list of "unofficial" packages installed:</p>
2002
2003 <p><blockquote><pre>
2004 # aptitude search '?narrow(?version(CURRENT),?origin(Debian Ports))'
2005 i   emacs                   - GNU Emacs editor (metapackage)
2006 i   gdb                     - GNU Debugger
2007 i   hurd-recommended        - Miscellaneous translators
2008 i   isc-dhcp-client         - ISC DHCP client
2009 i   isc-dhcp-common         - common files used by all the isc-dhcp* packages
2010 i   libc-bin                - Embedded GNU C Library: Binaries
2011 i   libc-dev-bin            - Embedded GNU C Library: Development binaries
2012 i   libc0.3                 - Embedded GNU C Library: Shared libraries
2013 i A libc0.3-dbg             - Embedded GNU C Library: detached debugging symbols
2014 i   libc0.3-dev             - Embedded GNU C Library: Development Libraries and Hea
2015 i   multiarch-support       - Transitional package to ensure multiarch compatibilit
2016 i A x11-common              - X Window System (X.Org) infrastructure
2017 i   xorg                    - X.Org X Window System
2018 i A xserver-xorg            - X.Org X server
2019 i A xserver-xorg-input-all  - X.Org X server -- input driver metapackage
2020 #
2021 </pre></blockquote></p>
2022
2023 <p>All in all, testing hurd has been an interesting experience. :)
2024 X.org did not work out of the box and I never took the time to follow
2025 the porters instructions to fix it.  This time I was interested in the
2026 command line stuff.<p>
2027
2028       </div>
2029       <div class="tags">
2030
2031
2032         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>.
2033
2034
2035       </div>
2036     </div>
2037     <div class="padding"></div>
2038
2039     <div class="entry">
2040       <div class="title">
2041         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_chrpath_release_0_16.html">New chrpath release 0.16</a>
2042       </div>
2043       <div class="date">
2044         14th January 2014
2045       </div>
2046       <div class="body">
2047         <p><a href="http://www.coverity.com/">Coverity</a> is a nice tool to
2048 find problems in C, C++ and Java code using static source code
2049 analysis.  It can detect a lot of different problems, and is very
2050 useful to find memory and locking bugs in the error handling part of
2051 the source.  The company behind it provide
2052 <a href="https://scan.coverity.com/">check of free software projects as
2053 a community service</a>, and many hundred free software projects are
2054 already checked.  A few days ago I decided to have a closer look at
2055 the Coverity system, and discovered that the
2056 <a href="http://www.gnu.org/software/gnash/">gnash</a> and
2057 <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/ipmitool/">ipmitool</a>
2058 projects I am involved with was already registered.  But these are
2059 fairly big, and I would also like to have a small and easy project to
2060 check, and decided to <a href="http://scan.coverity.com/projects/1179">request
2061 checking of the chrpath project</a>.  It was
2062 added to the checker and discovered seven potential defects.  Six of
2063 these were real, mostly resource "leak" when the program detected an
2064 error.  Nothing serious, as the resources would be released a fraction
2065 of a second later when the program exited because of the error, but it
2066 is nice to do it right in case the source of the program some time in
2067 the future end up in a library.  Having fixed all defects and added
2068 <a href="https://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/chrpath-devel">a
2069 mailing list for the chrpath developers</a>, I decided it was time to
2070 publish a new release.  These are the release notes:</p>
2071
2072 <p>New in 0.16 released 2014-01-14:</p>
2073
2074 <ul>
2075
2076   <li>Fixed all minor bugs discovered by Coverity.</li>
2077   <li>Updated config.sub and config.guess from the GNU project.</li>
2078   <li>Mention new project mailing list in the documentation.</li>
2079
2080 </ul>
2081
2082 <p>You can
2083 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/frs/?group_id=31052">download the
2084 new version 0.16 from alioth</a>.  Please let us know via the Alioth
2085 project if something is wrong with the new release.  The test suite
2086 did not discover any old errors, so if you find a new one, please also
2087 include a test suite check.</p>
2088
2089       </div>
2090       <div class="tags">
2091
2092
2093         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>.
2094
2095
2096       </div>
2097     </div>
2098     <div class="padding"></div>
2099
2100     <div class="entry">
2101       <div class="title">
2102         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_chrpath_release_0_15.html">New chrpath release 0.15</a>
2103       </div>
2104       <div class="date">
2105         24th November 2013
2106       </div>
2107       <div class="body">
2108         <p>After many years break from the package and a vain hope that
2109 development would be continued by someone else, I finally pulled my
2110 acts together this morning and wrapped up a new release of chrpath,
2111 the command line tool to modify the rpath and runpath of already
2112 compiled ELF programs.  The update was triggered by the persistence of
2113 Isha Vishnoi at IBM, which needed a new config.guess file to get
2114 support for the ppc64le architecture (powerpc 64-bit Little Endian) he
2115 is working on.  I checked the
2116 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/chrpath">Debian</a>,
2117 <a href="https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/chrpath">Ubuntu</a> and
2118 <a href="https://admin.fedoraproject.org/pkgdb/acls/name/chrpath">Fedora</a>
2119 packages for interesting patches (failed to find the source from
2120 OpenSUSE and Mandriva packages), and found quite a few nice fixes.
2121 These are the release notes:</p>
2122
2123 <p>New in 0.15 released 2013-11-24:</p>
2124
2125 <ul>
2126
2127   <li>Updated config.sub and config.guess from the GNU project to work
2128    with newer architectures.  Thanks to isha vishnoi for the heads
2129    up.</li>
2130
2131   <li>Updated README with current URLs.</li>
2132
2133   <li>Added byteswap fix found in Ubuntu, credited Jeremy Kerr and
2134    Matthias Klose.</li>
2135
2136   <li>Added missing help for -k|--keepgoing option, using patch by
2137    Petr Machata found in Fedora.</li>
2138
2139   <li>Rewrite removal of RPATH/RUNPATH to make sure the entry in
2140    .dynamic is a NULL terminated string.  Based on patch found in
2141    Fedora credited Axel Thimm and Christian Krause.</li>
2142
2143 </ul>
2144
2145 <p>You can
2146 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/frs/?group_id=31052">download the
2147 new version 0.15 from alioth</a>.  Please let us know via the Alioth
2148 project if something is wrong with the new release.  The test suite
2149 did not discover any old errors, so if you find a new one, please also
2150 include a testsuite check.</p>
2151
2152       </div>
2153       <div class="tags">
2154
2155
2156         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>.
2157
2158
2159       </div>
2160     </div>
2161     <div class="padding"></div>
2162
2163     <div class="entry">
2164       <div class="title">
2165         <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>
2166       </div>
2167       <div class="date">
2168          2nd November 2013
2169       </div>
2170       <div class="body">
2171         <p>If one of the points of switching to a new init system in Debian is
2172 <a href="http://thomas.goirand.fr/blog/?p=147">to get rid of huge
2173 init.d scripts</a>, I doubt we need to switch away from sysvinit and
2174 init.d scripts at all.  Here is an example init.d script, ie a rewrite
2175 of /etc/init.d/rsyslog:</p>
2176
2177 <p><pre>
2178 #!/lib/init/init-d-script
2179 ### BEGIN INIT INFO
2180 # Provides:          rsyslog
2181 # Required-Start:    $remote_fs $time
2182 # Required-Stop:     umountnfs $time
2183 # X-Stop-After:      sendsigs
2184 # Default-Start:     2 3 4 5
2185 # Default-Stop:      0 1 6
2186 # Short-Description: enhanced syslogd
2187 # Description:       Rsyslog is an enhanced multi-threaded syslogd.
2188 #                    It is quite compatible to stock sysklogd and can be
2189 #                    used as a drop-in replacement.
2190 ### END INIT INFO
2191 DESC="enhanced syslogd"
2192 DAEMON=/usr/sbin/rsyslogd
2193 </pre></p>
2194
2195 <p>Pretty minimalistic to me... For the record, the original sysv-rc
2196 script was 137 lines, and the above is just 15 lines, most of it meta
2197 info/comments.</p>
2198
2199 <p>How to do this, you ask?  Well, one create a new script
2200 /lib/init/init-d-script looking something like this:
2201
2202 <p><pre>
2203 #!/bin/sh
2204
2205 # Define LSB log_* functions.
2206 # Depend on lsb-base (>= 3.2-14) to ensure that this file is present
2207 # and status_of_proc is working.
2208 . /lib/lsb/init-functions
2209
2210 #
2211 # Function that starts the daemon/service
2212
2213 #
2214 do_start()
2215 {
2216         # Return
2217         #   0 if daemon has been started
2218         #   1 if daemon was already running
2219         #   2 if daemon could not be started
2220         start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $DAEMON --test > /dev/null \
2221                 || return 1
2222         start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $DAEMON -- \
2223                 $DAEMON_ARGS \
2224                 || return 2
2225         # Add code here, if necessary, that waits for the process to be ready
2226         # to handle requests from services started subsequently which depend
2227         # on this one.  As a last resort, sleep for some time.
2228 }
2229
2230 #
2231 # Function that stops the daemon/service
2232 #
2233 do_stop()
2234 {
2235         # Return
2236         #   0 if daemon has been stopped
2237         #   1 if daemon was already stopped
2238         #   2 if daemon could not be stopped
2239         #   other if a failure occurred
2240         start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --retry=TERM/30/KILL/5 --pidfile $PIDFILE --name $NAME
2241         RETVAL="$?"
2242         [ "$RETVAL" = 2 ] && return 2
2243         # Wait for children to finish too if this is a daemon that forks
2244         # and if the daemon is only ever run from this initscript.
2245         # If the above conditions are not satisfied then add some other code
2246         # that waits for the process to drop all resources that could be
2247         # needed by services started subsequently.  A last resort is to
2248         # sleep for some time.
2249         start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --oknodo --retry=0/30/KILL/5 --exec $DAEMON
2250         [ "$?" = 2 ] && return 2
2251         # Many daemons don't delete their pidfiles when they exit.
2252         rm -f $PIDFILE
2253         return "$RETVAL"
2254 }
2255
2256 #
2257 # Function that sends a SIGHUP to the daemon/service
2258 #
2259 do_reload() {
2260         #
2261         # If the daemon can reload its configuration without
2262         # restarting (for example, when it is sent a SIGHUP),
2263         # then implement that here.
2264         #
2265         start-stop-daemon --stop --signal 1 --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --name $NAME
2266         return 0
2267 }
2268
2269 SCRIPTNAME=$1
2270 scriptbasename="$(basename $1)"
2271 echo "SN: $scriptbasename"
2272 if [ "$scriptbasename" != "init-d-library" ] ; then
2273     script="$1"
2274     shift
2275     . $script
2276 else
2277     exit 0
2278 fi
2279
2280 NAME=$(basename $DAEMON)
2281 PIDFILE=/var/run/$NAME.pid
2282
2283 # Exit if the package is not installed
2284 #[ -x "$DAEMON" ] || exit 0
2285
2286 # Read configuration variable file if it is present
2287 [ -r /etc/default/$NAME ] && . /etc/default/$NAME
2288
2289 # Load the VERBOSE setting and other rcS variables
2290 . /lib/init/vars.sh
2291
2292 case "$1" in
2293   start)
2294         [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_daemon_msg "Starting $DESC" "$NAME"
2295         do_start
2296         case "$?" in
2297                 0|1) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 0 ;;
2298                 2) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 1 ;;
2299         esac
2300         ;;
2301   stop)
2302         [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_daemon_msg "Stopping $DESC" "$NAME"
2303         do_stop
2304         case "$?" in
2305                 0|1) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 0 ;;
2306                 2) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 1 ;;
2307         esac
2308         ;;
2309   status)
2310         status_of_proc "$DAEMON" "$NAME" && exit 0 || exit $?
2311         ;;
2312   #reload|force-reload)
2313         #
2314         # If do_reload() is not implemented then leave this commented out
2315         # and leave 'force-reload' as an alias for 'restart'.
2316         #
2317         #log_daemon_msg "Reloading $DESC" "$NAME"
2318         #do_reload
2319         #log_end_msg $?
2320         #;;
2321   restart|force-reload)
2322         #
2323         # If the "reload" option is implemented then remove the
2324         # 'force-reload' alias
2325         #
2326         log_daemon_msg "Restarting $DESC" "$NAME"
2327         do_stop
2328         case "$?" in
2329           0|1)
2330                 do_start
2331                 case "$?" in
2332                         0) log_end_msg 0 ;;
2333                         1) log_end_msg 1 ;; # Old process is still running
2334                         *) log_end_msg 1 ;; # Failed to start
2335                 esac
2336                 ;;
2337           *)
2338                 # Failed to stop
2339                 log_end_msg 1
2340                 ;;
2341         esac
2342         ;;
2343   *)
2344         echo "Usage: $SCRIPTNAME {start|stop|status|restart|force-reload}" >&2
2345         exit 3
2346         ;;
2347 esac
2348
2349 :
2350 </pre></p>
2351
2352 <p>It is based on /etc/init.d/skeleton, and could be improved quite a
2353 lot.  I did not really polish the approach, so it might not always
2354 work out of the box, but you get the idea.  I did not try very hard to
2355 optimize it nor make it more robust either.</p>
2356
2357 <p>A better argument for switching init system in Debian than reducing
2358 the size of init scripts (which is a good thing to do anyway), is to
2359 get boot system that is able to handle the kernel events sensibly and
2360 robustly, and do not depend on the boot to run sequentially.  The boot
2361 and the kernel have not behaved sequentially in years.</p>
2362
2363       </div>
2364       <div class="tags">
2365
2366
2367         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>.
2368
2369
2370       </div>
2371     </div>
2372     <div class="padding"></div>
2373
2374     <div class="entry">
2375       <div class="title">
2376         <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>
2377       </div>
2378       <div class="date">
2379          1st November 2013
2380       </div>
2381       <div class="body">
2382         <p><a href="http://www.spice-space.org/">The SPICE protocol</a> for
2383 remote display access is the preferred solution with oVirt and RedHat
2384 Enterprise Virtualization, and I was sad to discover the other day
2385 that the browser plugin needed to use these systems seamlessly was
2386 missing in Debian.  The <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/668284">request
2387 for a package</a> was from 2012-04-10 with no progress since
2388 2013-04-01, so I decided to wrap up a package based on the great work
2389 from Cajus Pollmeier and put it in a collab-maint maintained git
2390 repository to get a package I could use.  I would very much like
2391 others to help me maintain the package (or just take over, I do not
2392 mind), but as no-one had volunteered so far, I just uploaded it to
2393 NEW.  I hope it will be available in Debian in a few days.</p>
2394
2395 <p>The source is now available from
2396 <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>
2397
2398       </div>
2399       <div class="tags">
2400
2401
2402         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>.
2403
2404
2405       </div>
2406     </div>
2407     <div class="padding"></div>
2408
2409     <div class="entry">
2410       <div class="title">
2411         <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>
2412       </div>
2413       <div class="date">
2414         27th October 2013
2415       </div>
2416       <div class="body">
2417         <p>The
2418 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/v/vmdebootstrap.html">vmdebootstrap</a>
2419 program is a a very nice system to create virtual machine images.  It
2420 create a image file, add a partition table, mount it and run
2421 debootstrap in the mounted directory to create a Debian system on a
2422 stick.  Yesterday, I decided to try to teach it how to make images for
2423 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/RaspberryPi">Raspberry Pi</a>, as part
2424 of a plan to simplify the build system for
2425 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">the FreedomBox
2426 project</a>.  The FreedomBox project already uses vmdebootstrap for
2427 the virtualbox images, but its current build system made multistrap
2428 based system for Dreamplug images, and it is lacking support for
2429 Raspberry Pi.</p>
2430
2431 <p>Armed with the knowledge on how to build "foreign" (aka non-native
2432 architecture) chroots for Raspberry Pi, I dived into the vmdebootstrap
2433 code and adjusted it to be able to build armel images on my amd64
2434 Debian laptop.  I ended up giving vmdebootstrap five new options,
2435 allowing me to replicate the image creation process I use to make
2436 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Raspberry_Pi_based_batman_adv_Mesh_network_node.html">Debian
2437 Jessie based mesh node images for the Raspberry Pi</a>.  First, the
2438 <tt>--foreign /path/to/binfm_handler</tt> option tell vmdebootstrap to
2439 call debootstrap with --foreign and to copy the handler into the
2440 generated chroot before running the second stage.  This allow
2441 vmdebootstrap to create armel images on an amd64 host.  Next I added
2442 two new options <tt>--bootsize size</tt> and <tt>--boottype
2443 fstype</tt> to teach it to create a separate /boot/ partition with the
2444 given file system type, allowing me to create an image with a vfat
2445 partition for the /boot/ stuff.  I also added a <tt>--variant
2446 variant</tt> option to allow me to create smaller images without the
2447 Debian base system packages installed.  Finally, I added an option
2448 <tt>--no-extlinux</tt> to tell vmdebootstrap to not install extlinux
2449 as a boot loader.  It is not needed on the Raspberry Pi and probably
2450 most other non-x86 architectures.  The changes were accepted by the
2451 upstream author of vmdebootstrap yesterday and today, and is now
2452 available from
2453 <a href="http://git.liw.fi/cgi-bin/cgit/cgit.cgi/vmdebootstrap/">the
2454 upstream project page</a>.</p>
2455
2456 <p>To use it to build a Raspberry Pi image using Debian Jessie, first
2457 create a small script (the customize script) to add the non-free
2458 binary blob needed to boot the Raspberry Pi and the APT source
2459 list:</p>
2460
2461 <p><pre>
2462 #!/bin/sh
2463 set -e # Exit on first error
2464 rootdir="$1"
2465 cd "$rootdir"
2466 cat &lt;&lt;EOF > etc/apt/sources.list
2467 deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ jessie main contrib non-free
2468 EOF
2469 # Install non-free binary blob needed to boot Raspberry Pi.  This
2470 # install a kernel somewhere too.
2471 wget https://raw.github.com/Hexxeh/rpi-update/master/rpi-update \
2472     -O $rootdir/usr/bin/rpi-update
2473 chmod a+x $rootdir/usr/bin/rpi-update
2474 mkdir -p $rootdir/lib/modules
2475 touch $rootdir/boot/start.elf
2476 chroot $rootdir rpi-update
2477 </pre></p>
2478
2479 <p>Next, fetch the latest vmdebootstrap script and call it like this
2480 to build the image:</p>
2481
2482 <pre>
2483 sudo ./vmdebootstrap \
2484     --variant minbase \
2485     --arch armel \
2486     --distribution jessie \
2487     --mirror http://http.debian.net/debian \
2488     --image test.img \
2489     --size 600M \
2490     --bootsize 64M \
2491     --boottype vfat \
2492     --log-level debug \
2493     --verbose \
2494     --no-kernel \
2495     --no-extlinux \
2496     --root-password raspberry \
2497     --hostname raspberrypi \
2498     --foreign /usr/bin/qemu-arm-static \
2499     --customize `pwd`/customize \
2500     --package netbase \
2501     --package git-core \
2502     --package binutils \
2503     --package ca-certificates \
2504     --package wget \
2505     --package kmod
2506 </pre></p>
2507
2508 <p>The list of packages being installed are the ones needed by
2509 rpi-update to make the image bootable on the Raspberry Pi, with the
2510 exception of netbase, which is needed by debootstrap to find
2511 /etc/hosts with the minbase variant.  I really wish there was a way to
2512 set up an Raspberry Pi using only packages in the Debian archive, but
2513 that is not possible as far as I know, because it boots from the GPU
2514 using a non-free binary blob.</p>
2515
2516 <p>The build host need debootstrap, kpartx and qemu-user-static and
2517 probably a few others installed.  I have not checked the complete
2518 build dependency list.</p>
2519
2520 <p>The resulting image will not use the hardware floating point unit
2521 on the Raspberry PI, because the armel architecture in Debian is not
2522 optimized for that use.  So the images created will be a bit slower
2523 than <a href="http://www.raspbian.org/">Raspbian</a> based images.</p>
2524
2525       </div>
2526       <div class="tags">
2527
2528
2529         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>.
2530
2531
2532       </div>
2533     </div>
2534     <div class="padding"></div>
2535
2536     <div class="entry">
2537       <div class="title">
2538         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/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>
2539       </div>
2540       <div class="date">
2541         15th October 2013
2542       </div>
2543       <div class="body">
2544         <p>The last few days I came across a few good causes that should get
2545 wider attention.  I recommend signing and donating to each one of
2546 these. :)</p>
2547
2548 <p>Via <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2013/18/">Debian
2549 Project News for 2013-10-14</a> I came across the Outreach Program for
2550 Women program which is a Google Summer of Code like initiative to get
2551 more women involved in free software.  One debian sponsor has offered
2552 to match <a href="http://debian.ch/opw2013">any donation done to Debian
2553 earmarked</a> for this initiative.  I donated a few minutes ago, and
2554 hope you will to. :)</p>
2555
2556 <p>And the Electronic Frontier Foundation just announced plans to
2557 create <a href="https://supporters.eff.org/donate/nsa-videos">video
2558 documentaries about the excessive spying</a> on every Internet user that
2559 take place these days, and their need to fund the work.  I've already
2560 donated.  Are you next?</p>
2561
2562 <p>For my Norwegian audience, the organisation Studentenes og
2563 Akademikernes Internasjonale Hjelpefond is collecting signatures for a
2564 statement under the heading
2565 <a href="http://saih.no/Bloggers_United/">Bloggers United for Open
2566 Access</a> for those of us asking for more focus on open access in the
2567 Norwegian government.  So far 499 signatures.  I hope you will sign it
2568 too.</p>
2569
2570       </div>
2571       <div class="tags">
2572
2573
2574         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>.
2575
2576
2577       </div>
2578     </div>
2579     <div class="padding"></div>
2580
2581     <div class="entry">
2582       <div class="title">
2583         <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>
2584       </div>
2585       <div class="date">
2586         27th September 2013
2587       </div>
2588       <div class="body">
2589         <p>The <a href="http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/">Freedombox
2590 project</a> have been going on for a while, and have presented the
2591 vision, ideas and solution several places.  Here is a little
2592 collection of videos of talks and presentation of the project.</p>
2593
2594 <ul>
2595
2596 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukvUz5taxvA">FreedomBox -
2597 2,5 minute marketing film</a> (Youtube)</li>
2598
2599 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzW25QTVWsE">Eben Moglen
2600 discusses the Freedombox on CBS news 2011</a> (Youtube)</li>
2601
2602 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ae8SZbxfE0g">Eben Moglen -
2603 Freedom in the Cloud - Software Freedom, Privacy and and Security for
2604 Web 2.0 and Cloud computing at ISOC-NY Public Meeting 2010</a>
2605 (Youtube)</li>
2606
2607 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNaIji_3xBE">Fosdem 2011
2608 Keynote by Eben Moglen presenting the Freedombox</a> (Youtube)</li>
2609
2610 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bDDUyJSQ9s">Presentation of
2611 the Freedombox by James Vasile at Elevate in Gratz 2011</a> (Youtube)</li>
2612
2613 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQTmnk27g9s"> Freedombox -
2614 Discovery, Identity, and Trust by Nick Daly at Freedombox Hackfest New
2615 York City in 2012</a> (Youtube)</li>
2616
2617 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkbSB4Ba7Ck">Introduction
2618 to the Freedombox at Freedombox Hackfest New York City in 2012</a>
2619 (Youtube)</li>
2620
2621 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-P2Jaeg0aQ">Freedom, Out
2622 of the Box! by Bdale Garbee at linux.conf.au Ballarat, 2012</a> (Youtube) </li>
2623
2624 <li><a href="https://archive.fosdem.org/2013/schedule/event/freedombox/">Freedombox
2625 1.0 by Eben Moglen and Bdale Garbee at Fosdem 2013</a> (FOSDEM) </li>
2626
2627 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1LpYX2zVYg">What is the
2628 FreedomBox today by Bdale Garbee at Debconf13 in Vaumarcus
2629 2013</a> (Youtube)</li>
2630
2631 </ul>
2632
2633 <p>A larger list is available from
2634 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/TalksAndPresentations">the
2635 Freedombox Wiki</a>.</p>
2636
2637 <p>On other news, I am happy to report that Freedombox based on Debian
2638 Jessie is coming along quite well, and soon both Owncloud and using
2639 Tor should be available for testers of the Freedombox solution. :) In
2640 a few weeks I hope everything needed to test it is included in Debian.
2641 The withsqlite package is already in Debian, and the plinth package is
2642 pending in NEW.  The third and vital part of that puzzle is the
2643 metapackage/setup framework, which is still pending an upload.  Join
2644 us on <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC
2645 (#freedombox on irc.debian.org)</a> and
2646 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
2647 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
2648
2649       </div>
2650       <div class="tags">
2651
2652
2653         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>.
2654
2655
2656       </div>
2657     </div>
2658     <div class="padding"></div>
2659
2660     <div class="entry">
2661       <div class="title">
2662         <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>
2663       </div>
2664       <div class="date">
2665         10th September 2013
2666       </div>
2667       <div class="body">
2668         <p>I was introduced to the
2669 <a href="http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/">Freedombox project</a>
2670 in 2010, when Eben Moglen presented his vision about serving the need
2671 of non-technical people to keep their personal information private and
2672 within the legal protection of their own homes.  The idea is to give
2673 people back the power over their network and machines, and return
2674 Internet back to its intended peer-to-peer architecture.  Instead of
2675 depending on a central service, the Freedombox will give everyone
2676 control over their own basic infrastructure.</p>
2677
2678 <p>I've intended to join the effort since then, but other tasks have
2679 taken priority.  But this summers nasty news about the misuse of trust
2680 and privilege exercised by the "western" intelligence gathering
2681 communities increased my eagerness to contribute to a point where I
2682 actually started working on the project a while back.</p>
2683
2684 <p>The <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/freedombox/">initial
2685 Debian initiative</a> based on the vision from Eben Moglen, is to
2686 create a simple and cheap Debian based appliance that anyone can hook
2687 up in their home and get access to secure and private services and
2688 communication.  The initial deployment platform have been the
2689 <a href="http://www.globalscaletechnologies.com/t-dreamplugdetails.aspx">Dreamplug</a>,
2690 which is a piece of hardware I do not own.  So to be able to test what
2691 the current Freedombox setup look like, I had to come up with a way to install
2692 it on some hardware I do have access to.  I have rewritten the
2693 <a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/freedom-maker">freedom-maker</a>
2694 image build framework to use .deb packages instead of only copying
2695 setup into the boot images, and thanks to this rewrite I am able to
2696 set up any machine supported by Debian Wheezy as a Freedombox, using
2697 the previously mentioned deb (and a few support debs for packages
2698 missing in Debian).</p>
2699
2700 <p>The current Freedombox setup consist of a set of bootstrapping
2701 scripts
2702 (<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/freedombox-setup">freedombox-setup</a>),
2703 and a administrative web interface
2704 (<a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/Plinth">plinth</a> + exmachina +
2705 withsqlite), as well as a privacy enhancing proxy based on
2706 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/privoxy">privoxy</a>
2707 (freedombox-privoxy).  There is also a web/javascript based XMPP
2708 client (<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/jwchat">jwchat</a>)
2709 trying (unsuccessfully so far) to talk to the XMPP server
2710 (<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/ejabberd">ejabberd</a>).  The
2711 web interface is pluggable, and the goal is to use it to enable OpenID
2712 services, mesh network connectivity, use of TOR, etc, etc.  Not much of
2713 this is really working yet, see
2714 <a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/freedombox-todos/blob/master/TODO">the
2715 project TODO</a> for links to GIT repositories.  Most of the code is
2716 on github at the moment.  The HTTP proxy is operational out of the
2717 box, and the admin web interface can be used to add/remove plinth
2718 users.  I've not been able to do anything else with it so far, but
2719 know there are several branches spread around github and other places
2720 with lots of half baked features.</p>
2721
2722 <p>Anyway, if you want to have a look at the current state, the
2723 following recipes should work to give you a test machine to poke
2724 at.</p>
2725
2726 <p><strong>Debian Wheezy amd64</strong></p>
2727
2728 <ol>
2729
2730 <li>Fetch normal Debian Wheezy installation ISO.</li>
2731 <li>Boot from it, either as CD or USB stick.</li>
2732 <li><p>Press [tab] on the boot prompt and add this as a boot argument
2733 to the Debian installer:<p>
2734 <pre>url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-wheezy.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-wheezy.dat</a></pre></li>
2735
2736 <li>Answer the few language/region/password questions and pick disk to
2737 install on.</li>
2738
2739 <li>When the installation is finished and the machine have rebooted a
2740 few times, your Freedombox is ready for testing.</li>
2741
2742 </ol>
2743
2744 <p><strong>Raspberry Pi Raspbian</strong></p>
2745
2746 <ol>
2747
2748 <li>Fetch a Raspbian SD card image, create SD card.</li>
2749 <li>Boot from SD card, extend file system to fill the card completely.</li>
2750 <li><p>Log in and add this to /etc/sources.list:</p>
2751 <pre>
2752 deb <a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox</a> wheezy main
2753 </pre></li>
2754 <li><p>Run this as root:</p>
2755 <pre>
2756 wget -O - http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/BE1A583D.asc | \
2757    apt-key add -
2758 apt-get update
2759 apt-get install freedombox-setup
2760 /usr/lib/freedombox/setup
2761 </pre></li>
2762 <li>Reboot into your freshly created Freedombox.</li>
2763
2764 </ol>
2765
2766 <p>You can test it on other architectures too, but because the
2767 freedombox-privoxy package is binary, it will only work as intended on
2768 the architectures where I have had time to build the binary and put it
2769 in my APT repository.  But do not let this stop you.  It is only a
2770 short "<tt>apt-get source -b freedombox-privoxy</tt>" away. :)</p>
2771
2772 <p>Note that by default Freedombox is a DHCP server on the
2773 192.168.1.0/24 subnet, so if this is your subnet be careful and turn
2774 off the DHCP server by running "<tt>update-rc.d isc-dhcp-server
2775 disable</tt>" as root.</p>
2776
2777 <p>Please let me know if this works for you, or if you have any
2778 problems.  We gather on the IRC channel
2779 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">#freedombox</a> on
2780 irc.debian.org and the
2781 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">project
2782 mailing list</a>.</p>
2783
2784 <p>Once you get your freedombox operational, you can visit
2785 <tt>http://your-host-name:8001/</tt> to see the state of the plint
2786 welcome screen (dead end - do not be surprised if you are unable to
2787 get past it), and next visit <tt>http://your-host-name:8001/help/</tt>
2788 to look at the rest of plinth.  The default user is 'admin' and the
2789 default password is 'secret'.</p>
2790
2791       </div>
2792       <div class="tags">
2793
2794
2795         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>.
2796
2797
2798       </div>
2799     </div>
2800     <div class="padding"></div>
2801
2802     <div class="entry">
2803       <div class="title">
2804         <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>
2805       </div>
2806       <div class="date">
2807         18th August 2013
2808       </div>
2809       <div class="body">
2810         <p>Earlier, I reported about
2811 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_fix_a_Thinkpad_X230_with_a_broken_180_GB_SSD_disk.html">my
2812 problems using an Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB disk</a>.  Friday I was
2813 told by IBM that the original disk should be thrown away.  And as
2814 there no longer was a problem if I bricked the firmware, I decided
2815 today to try to install Intel firmware to replace the Lenovo firmware
2816 currently on the disk.</p>
2817
2818 <p>I searched the Intel site for firmware, and found
2819 <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>
2820 (aka Intel SATA Solid-State Drive Firmware Update Tool) which
2821 according to the site should contain the latest firmware for SSD
2822 disks.  I inserted the broken disk in one of my spare laptops and
2823 booted the ISO from a USB stick.  The disk was recognized, but the
2824 program claimed the newest firmware already were installed and refused
2825 to insert any Intel firmware.  So no change, and the disk is still
2826 unable to handle write load. :( I guess the only way to get them
2827 working would be if Lenovo releases new firmware.  No idea how likely
2828 that is.  Anyway, just blogging about this test for completeness.  I
2829 got a working Samsung disk, and see no point in spending more time on
2830 the broken disks.</p>
2831
2832       </div>
2833       <div class="tags">
2834
2835
2836         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>.
2837
2838
2839       </div>
2840     </div>
2841     <div class="padding"></div>
2842
2843     <div class="entry">
2844       <div class="title">
2845         <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>
2846       </div>
2847       <div class="date">
2848         17th July 2013
2849       </div>
2850       <div class="body">
2851         <p>Today I switched to
2852 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">my
2853 new laptop</a>.  I've previously written about the problems I had with
2854 my new Thinkpad X230, which was delivered with an
2855 <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
2856 GB Intel SSD disk with Lenovo firmware</a> that did not handle
2857 sustained writes.  My hardware supplier have been very forthcoming in
2858 trying to find a solution, and after first trying with another
2859 identical 180 GB disks they decided to send me a 256 GB Samsung SSD
2860 disk instead to fix it once and for all.  The Samsung disk survived
2861 the installation of Debian with encrypted disks (filling the disk with
2862 random data during installation killed the first two), and I thus
2863 decided to trust it with my data.  I have installed it as a Debian Edu
2864 Wheezy roaming workstation hooked up with my Debian Edu Squeeze main
2865 server at home using Kerberos and LDAP, and will use it as my work
2866 station from now on.</p>
2867
2868 <p>As this is a solid state disk with no moving parts, I believe the
2869 Debian Wheezy default installation need to be tuned a bit to increase
2870 performance and increase life time of the disk.  The Linux kernel and
2871 user space applications do not yet adjust automatically to such
2872 environment.  To make it easier for my self, I created a draft Debian
2873 package <tt>ssd-setup</tt> to handle this tuning.  The
2874 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/ssd-setup.git">source
2875 for the ssd-setup package</a> is available from collab-maint, and it
2876 is set up to adjust the setup of the machine by just installing the
2877 package.  If there is any non-SSD disk in the machine, the package
2878 will refuse to install, as I did not try to write any logic to sort
2879 file systems in SSD and non-SSD file systems.</p>
2880
2881 <p>I consider the package a draft, as I am a bit unsure how to best
2882 set up Debian Wheezy with an SSD.  It is adjusted to my use case,
2883 where I set up the machine with one large encrypted partition (in
2884 addition to /boot), put LVM on top of this and set up partitions on
2885 top of this again.  See the README file in the package source for the
2886 references I used to pick the settings.  At the moment these
2887 parameters are tuned:</p>
2888
2889 <ul>
2890
2891 <li>Set up cryptsetup to pass TRIM commands to the physical disk
2892     (adding discard to /etc/crypttab)</li>
2893
2894 <li>Set up LVM to pass on TRIM commands to the underlying device (in
2895     this case a cryptsetup partition) by changing issue_discards from
2896     0 to 1 in /etc/lvm/lvm.conf.</li>
2897
2898 <li>Set relatime as a file system option for ext3 and ext4 file
2899     systems.</li>
2900
2901 <li>Tell swap to use TRIM commands by adding 'discard' to
2902     /etc/fstab.</li>
2903
2904 <li>Change I/O scheduler from cfq to deadline using a udev rule.</li>
2905
2906 <li>Run fstrim on every ext3 and ext4 file system every night (from
2907     cron.daily).</li>
2908
2909 <li>Adjust sysctl values vm.swappiness to 1 and vm.vfs_cache_pressure
2910     to 50 to reduce the kernel eagerness to swap out processes.</li>
2911
2912 </ul>
2913
2914 <p>During installation, I cancelled the part where the installer fill
2915 the disk with random data, as this would kill the SSD performance for
2916 little gain.  My goal with the encrypted file system is to ensure
2917 those stealing my laptop end up with a brick and not a working
2918 computer.  I have no hope in keeping the really resourceful people
2919 from getting the data on the disk (see
2920 <a href="http://xkcd.com/538/">XKCD #538</a> for an explanation why).
2921 Thus I concluded that adding the discard option to crypttab is the
2922 right thing to do.</p>
2923
2924 <p>I considered using the noop I/O scheduler, as several recommended
2925 it for SSD, but others recommended deadline and a benchmark I found
2926 indicated that deadline might be better for interactive use.</p>
2927
2928 <p>I also considered using the 'discard' file system option for ext3
2929 and ext4, but read that it would give a performance hit ever time a
2930 file is removed, and thought it best to that that slowdown once a day
2931 instead of during my work.</p>
2932
2933 <p>My package do not set up tmpfs on /var/run, /var/lock and /tmp, as
2934 this is already done by Debian Edu.</p>
2935
2936 <p>I have not yet started on the user space tuning.  I expect
2937 iceweasel need some tuning, and perhaps other applications too, but
2938 have not yet had time to investigate those parts.</p>
2939
2940 <p>The package should work on Ubuntu too, but I have not yet tested it
2941 there.</p>
2942
2943 <p>As for the answer to the question in the title of this blog post,
2944 as far as I know, the only solution I know about is to replace the
2945 disk.  It might be possible to flash it with Intel firmware instead of
2946 the Lenovo firmware.  But I have not tried and did not want to do so
2947 without approval from Lenovo as I wanted to keep the warranty on the
2948 disk until a solution was found and they wanted the broken disks
2949 back.</p>
2950
2951       </div>
2952       <div class="tags">
2953
2954
2955         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>.
2956
2957
2958       </div>
2959     </div>
2960     <div class="padding"></div>
2961
2962     <div class="entry">
2963       <div class="title">
2964         <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>
2965       </div>
2966       <div class="date">
2967         10th July 2013
2968       </div>
2969       <div class="body">
2970         <p>A few days ago, I wrote about
2971 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">the
2972 problems I experienced with my new X230 and its SSD disk</a>, which
2973 was dying during installation because it is unable to cope with
2974 sustained write.  My supplier is in contact with
2975 <a href="http://www.lenovo.com/">Lenovo</a>, and they wanted to send a
2976 replacement disk to try to fix the problem.  They decided to send an
2977 identical model, so my hopes for a permanent fix was slim.</p>
2978
2979 <p>Anyway, today I got the replacement disk and tried to install
2980 Debian Edu Wheezy with encrypted disk on it.  The new disk have the
2981 same firmware version as the original.  This time my hope raised
2982 slightly as the installation progressed, as the original disk used to
2983 die after 4-7% of the disk was written to, while this time it kept
2984 going past 10%, 20%, 40% and even past 50%.  But around 60%, the disk
2985 died again and I was back on square one.  I still do not have a new
2986 laptop with a disk I can trust.  I can not live with a disk that might
2987 lock up when I download a new
2988 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> ISO or
2989 other large files.  I look forward to hearing from my supplier with
2990 the next proposal from Lenovo.</p>
2991
2992 <p>The original disk is marked Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB,
2993 11S0C38722Z1ZNME35X1TR, ISN: CVCV321407HB180EGN, SA: G57560302, FW:
2994 LF1i, 29MAY2013, PBA: G39779-300, LBA 351,651,888, LI P/N: 0C38722,
2995 Pb-free 2LI, LC P/N: 16-200366, WWN: 55CD2E40002756C4, Model:
2996 SSDSC2BW180A3L 2.5" 6Gb/s SATA SSD 180G 5V 1A, ASM P/N 0C38732, FRU
2997 P/N 45N8295, P0C38732.</p>
2998
2999 <p>The replacement disk is marked Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB,
3000 11S0C38722Z1ZNDE34N0L0, ISN: CVCV315306RK180EGN, SA: G57560-302, FW:
3001 LF1i, 22APR2013, PBA: G39779-300, LBA 351,651,888, LI P/N: 0C38722,
3002 Pb-free 2LI, LC P/N: 16-200366, WWN: 55CD2E40000AB69E, Model:
3003 SSDSC2BW180A3L 2.5" 6Gb/s SATA SSD 180G 5V 1A, ASM P/N 0C38732, FRU
3004 P/N 45N8295, P0C38732.</p>
3005
3006 <p>The only difference is in the first number (serial number?), ISN,
3007 SA, date and WNPP values.  Mentioning all the details here in case
3008 someone is able to use the information to find a way to identify the
3009 failing disk among working ones (if any such working disk actually
3010 exist).</p>
3011
3012       </div>
3013       <div class="tags">
3014
3015
3016         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>.
3017
3018
3019       </div>
3020     </div>
3021     <div class="padding"></div>
3022
3023     <div class="entry">
3024       <div class="title">
3025         <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>
3026       </div>
3027       <div class="date">
3028          9th July 2013
3029       </div>
3030       <div class="body">
3031         <p>The upcoming Saturday, 2013-07-13, we are organising a combined
3032 Debian Edu developer gathering and Debian and Ubuntu bug squashing
3033 party in Oslo.  It is organised by <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">the
3034 member assosiation NUUG</a> and
3035 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">the Debian Edu / Skolelinux
3036 project</a> together with <a href="http://bitraf.no/">the hack space
3037 Bitraf</a>.</p>
3038
3039 <p>It starts 10:00 and continue until late evening.  Everyone is
3040 welcome, and there is no fee to participate.  There is on the other
3041 hand limited space, and only room for 30 people.  Please put your name
3042 on <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/BSP/2013/07/13/no/Oslo">the event
3043 wiki page</a> if you plan to join us.</p>
3044
3045       </div>
3046       <div class="tags">
3047
3048
3049         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>.
3050
3051
3052       </div>
3053     </div>
3054     <div class="padding"></div>
3055
3056     <div class="entry">
3057       <div class="title">
3058         <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>
3059       </div>
3060       <div class="date">
3061          5th July 2013
3062       </div>
3063       <div class="body">
3064         <p>Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a
3065 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thank_you_Thinkpad_X41__for_your_long_and_trustworthy_service.html">replacement
3066 for my trusty old Thinkpad X41</a>.  Unfortunately I did not have much
3067 time to spend on it, and it took a while to find a model I believe
3068 will do the job, but two days ago the replacement finally arrived.  I
3069 ended up picking a
3070 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_x230">Thinkpad X230</a>
3071 with SSD disk (NZDAJMN).  I first test installed Debian Edu Wheezy as
3072 a roaming workstation, and it seemed to work flawlessly.  But my
3073 second installation with encrypted disk was not as successful.  More
3074 on that below.</p>
3075
3076 <p>I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most
3077 important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never
3078 listed in the feature list.  But I did get good help from the search
3079 feature at <a href="http://www.prisjakt.no/">Prisjakt</a>, which
3080 allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other
3081 requirements.  A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks according
3082 to that search interface, so I had to drop specifying the number of
3083 disks from my search parameters.  I also asked around among friends to
3084 get their impression on keyboards and robustness.</p>
3085
3086 <p>So the new laptop arrived, and it is quite a lot wider than the
3087 X41.  I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is
3088 significantly wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my
3089 hand a lot more to reach the edges.  But the key response is fairly
3090 good and the individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope
3091 I will get used to it.  My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really
3092 needed a new laptop now. :)</p>
3093
3094 <p>Turning off the touch pad was simple.  All it took was a quick
3095 visit to the BIOS during boot it disable it.</p>
3096
3097 <p>But there is a fatal problem with the laptop.  The 180 GB SSD disk
3098 lock up during load.  And this happen when installing Debian Wheezy
3099 with encrypted disk, while the disk is being filled with random data.
3100 I also tested to install Ubuntu Raring, and it happen there too if I
3101 reenable the code to fill the disk with random data (it is disabled by
3102 default in Ubuntu).  And the bug with is already known.  It was
3103 reported to Debian as <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/691427">BTS
3104 report #691427 2012-10-25</a> (journal commit I/O error on brand-new
3105 Thinkpad T430s ext4 on lvm on SSD).  It is also reported to the Linux
3106 kernel developers as
3107 <a href="https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=51861">Kernel bugzilla
3108 report #51861 2012-12-20</a> (Intel SSD 520 stops working under load
3109 (SSDSC2BW180A3L in Lenovo ThinkPad T430s)). It is also reported on the
3110 Lenovo forums, both for
3111 <a href="http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/T400-T500-and-newer-T-series/T430s-Intel-SSD-520-180GB-issue/m-p/1070549">T430
3112 2012-11-10</a> and for
3113 <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
3114 03-20-2013</a>.  The problem do not only affect installation.  The
3115 reports state that the disk lock up during use if many writes are done
3116 on the disk, so it is much no use to work around the installation
3117 problem and end up with a computer that can lock up at any moment.
3118 There is even a
3119 <a href="https://git.efficios.com/?p=test-ssd.git">small C program
3120 available</a> that will lock up the hard drive after running a few
3121 minutes by writing to a file.</p>
3122
3123 <p>I've contacted my supplier and asked how to handle this, and after
3124 contacting PCHELP Norway (request 01D1FDP) which handle support
3125 requests for Lenovo, his first suggestion was to upgrade the disk
3126 firmware.  Unfortunately there is no newer firmware available from
3127 Lenovo, as my disk already have the most recent one (version LF1i).  I
3128 hope to hear more from him today and hope the problem can be
3129 fixed. :)</p>
3130
3131       </div>
3132       <div class="tags">
3133
3134
3135         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>.
3136
3137
3138       </div>
3139     </div>
3140     <div class="padding"></div>
3141
3142     <div class="entry">
3143       <div class="title">
3144         <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>
3145       </div>
3146       <div class="date">
3147          4th July 2013
3148       </div>
3149       <div class="body">
3150         <p>Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a replacement for my
3151 trusty old Thinkpad X41.  Unfortunately I did not have much time to
3152 spend on it, but today the replacement finally arrived.  I ended up
3153 picking a <a href="http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_x230">Thinkpad
3154 X230</a> with SSD disk (NZDAJMN).  I first test installed Debian Edu
3155 Wheezy as a roaming workstation, and it worked flawlessly.  As I write
3156 this, it is installing what I hope will be a more final installation,
3157 with a encrypted hard drive to ensure any dope head stealing it end up
3158 with an expencive door stop.</p>
3159
3160 <p>I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most
3161 important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never
3162 listed in the feature list.  But I did get good help from the search
3163 feature at <ahref="http://www.prisjakt.no/">Prisjakt</a>, which
3164 allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other
3165 requirements.  A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks, so I had
3166 to drop number of disks from my search parameters.</p>
3167
3168 <p>I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is significantly
3169 wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my hand a lot more
3170 to reach the edges.  But the key response is fairly good and the
3171 individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope I will get
3172 used to it.  My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really needed a
3173 new laptop now. :)</p>
3174
3175 <p>I look forward to figuring out how to turn off the touch pad.</p>
3176
3177       </div>
3178       <div class="tags">
3179
3180
3181         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>.
3182
3183
3184       </div>
3185     </div>
3186     <div class="padding"></div>
3187
3188     <div class="entry">
3189       <div class="title">
3190         <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>
3191       </div>
3192       <div class="date">
3193         25th June 2013
3194       </div>
3195       <div class="body">
3196         <p>It annoys me when the computer fail to do automatically what it is
3197 perfectly capable of, and I have to do it manually to get things
3198 working.  One such task is to find out what firmware packages are
3199 needed to get the hardware on my computer working.  Most often this
3200 affect the wifi card, but some times it even affect the RAID
3201 controller or the ethernet card.  Today I pushed version 0.4 of the
3202 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">Isenkram package</a>
3203 including a new script isenkram-autoinstall-firmware handling the
3204 process of asking all the loaded kernel modules what firmware files
3205 they want, find debian packages providing these files and install the
3206 debian packages.  Here is a test run on my laptop:</p>
3207
3208 <p><pre>
3209 # isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
3210 info: kernel drivers requested extra firmware: ipw2200-bss.fw ipw2200-ibss.fw ipw2200-sniffer.fw
3211 info: fetching http://http.debian.net/debian/dists/squeeze/Contents-i386.gz
3212 info: locating packages with the requested firmware files
3213 info: Updating APT sources after adding non-free APT source
3214 info: trying to install firmware-ipw2x00
3215 firmware-ipw2x00
3216 firmware-ipw2x00
3217 Preconfiguring packages ...
3218 Selecting previously deselected package firmware-ipw2x00.
3219 (Reading database ... 259727 files and directories currently installed.)
3220 Unpacking firmware-ipw2x00 (from .../firmware-ipw2x00_0.28+squeeze1_all.deb) ...
3221 Setting up firmware-ipw2x00 (0.28+squeeze1) ...
3222 #
3223 </pre></p>
3224
3225 <p>When all the requested firmware is present, a simple message is
3226 printed instead:</p>
3227
3228 <p><pre>
3229 # isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
3230 info: did not find any firmware files requested by loaded kernel modules.  exiting
3231 #
3232 </pre></p>
3233
3234 <p>It could use some polish, but it is already working well and saving
3235 me some time when setting up new machines. :)</p>
3236
3237 <p>So, how does it work?  It look at the set of currently loaded
3238 kernel modules, and look up each one of them using modinfo, to find
3239 the firmware files listed in the module meta-information.  Next, it
3240 download the Contents file from a nearby APT mirror, and search for
3241 the firmware files in this file to locate the package with the
3242 requested firmware file.  If the package is in the non-free section, a
3243 non-free APT source is added and the package is installed using
3244 <tt>apt-get install</tt>.  The end result is a slightly better working
3245 machine.</p>
3246
3247 <p>I hope someone find time to implement a more polished version of
3248 this script as part of the hw-detect debian-installer module, to
3249 finally fix <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/655507">BTS report
3250 #655507</a>.  There really is no need to insert USB sticks with
3251 firmware during a PXE install when the packages already are available
3252 from the nearby Debian mirror.</p>
3253
3254       </div>
3255       <div class="tags">
3256
3257
3258         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>.
3259
3260
3261       </div>
3262     </div>
3263     <div class="padding"></div>
3264
3265     <div class="entry">
3266       <div class="title">
3267         <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>
3268       </div>
3269       <div class="date">
3270         11th June 2013
3271       </div>
3272       <div class="body">
3273         <p>When installing RedHat, Fedora, Debian and Ubuntu on some machines,
3274 the screen just turn black when Linux boot, either during installation
3275 or on first boot from the hard disk.  I've seen it once in a while the
3276 last few years, but only recently understood the cause.  I've seen it
3277 on HP laptops, and on my latest acquaintance the Packard Bell laptop.
3278 The reason seem to be in the wiring of some laptops.  The system to
3279 control the screen background light is inverted, so when Linux try to
3280 turn the brightness fully on, it end up turning it off instead.  I do
3281 not know which Linux drivers are affected, but this post is about the
3282 i915 driver used by the
3283 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Packard Bell
3284 EasyNote LV</a>, Thinkpad X40 and many other laptops.</p>
3285
3286 <p>The problem can be worked around two ways.  Either by adding
3287 i915.invert_brightness=1 as a kernel option, or by adding a file in
3288 /etc/modprobe.d/ to tell modprobe to add the invert_brightness=1
3289 option when it load the i915 kernel module.  On Debian and Ubuntu, it
3290 can be done by running these commands as root:</p>
3291
3292 <pre>
3293 echo options i915 invert_brightness=1 | tee /etc/modprobe.d/i915.conf
3294 update-initramfs -u -k all
3295 </pre>
3296
3297 <p>Since March 2012 there is
3298 <a href="http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=4dca20efb1a9c2efefc28ad2867e5d6c3f5e1955">a
3299 mechanism in the Linux kernel</a> to tell the i915 driver which
3300 hardware have this problem, and get the driver to invert the
3301 brightness setting automatically.  To use it, one need to add a row in
3302 <a href="http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c">the
3303 intel_quirks array</a> in the driver source
3304 <tt>drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c</tt> (look for "<tt>static
3305 struct intel_quirk intel_quirks</tt>"), specifying the PCI device
3306 number (vendor number 8086 is assumed) and subdevice vendor and device
3307 number.</p>
3308
3309 <p>My Packard Bell EasyNote LV got this output from <tt>lspci
3310 -vvnn</tt> for the video card in question:</p>
3311
3312 <p><pre>
3313 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation \
3314     3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller [8086:0156] \
3315     (rev 09) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
3316  Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device [1025:0688]
3317  Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- \
3318     ParErr- Stepping- SE RR- FastB2B- DisINTx+
3319  Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- \
3320     <TAbort- <MAbort->SERR- <PERR- INTx-
3321  Latency: 0
3322  Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 42
3323  Region 0: Memory at c2000000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4M]
3324  Region 2: Memory at b0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
3325  Region 4: I/O ports at 4000 [size=64]
3326  Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled]
3327  Capabilities: <access denied>
3328  Kernel driver in use: i915
3329 </pre></p>
3330
3331 <p>The resulting intel_quirks entry would then look like this:</p>
3332
3333 <p><pre>
3334 struct intel_quirk intel_quirks[] = {
3335        ...
3336         /* Packard Bell EasyNote LV11HC needs invert brightness quirk */
3337         { 0x0156, 0x1025, 0x0688, quirk_invert_brightness },
3338        ...
3339 }
3340 </pre></p>
3341
3342 <p>According to the kernel module instructions (as seen using
3343 <tt>modinfo i915</tt>), information about hardware needing the
3344 invert_brightness flag should be sent to the
3345 <a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/dri-devel">dri-devel
3346 (at) lists.freedesktop.org</a> mailing list to reach the kernel
3347 developers.  But my email about the laptop sent 2013-06-03 have not
3348 yet shown up in
3349 <a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/dri-devel/2013-June/thread.html">the
3350 web archive for the mailing list</a>, so I suspect they do not accept
3351 emails from non-subscribers.  Because of this, I sent my patch also to
3352 the Debian bug tracking system instead as
3353 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/710938">BTS report #710938</a>, to make
3354 sure the patch is not lost.</p>
3355
3356 <p>Unfortunately, it is not enough to fix the kernel to get Laptops
3357 with this problem working properly with Linux.  If you use Gnome, your
3358 worries should be over at this point.  But if you use KDE, there is
3359 something in KDE ignoring the invert_brightness setting and turning on
3360 the screen during login.  I've reported it to Debian as
3361 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/711237">BTS report #711237</a>, and
3362 have no idea yet how to figure out exactly what subsystem is doing
3363 this.  Perhaps you can help?  Perhaps you know what the Gnome
3364 developers did to handle this, and this can give a clue to the KDE
3365 developers?  Or you know where in KDE the screen brightness is changed
3366 during login?  If so, please update the BTS report (or get in touch if
3367 you do not know how to update BTS).</p>
3368
3369 <p>Update 2013-07-19: The correct fix for this machine seem to be
3370 acpi_backlight=vendor, to disable ACPI backlight support completely,
3371 as the ACPI information on the machine is trash and it is better to
3372 leave it to the intel video driver to control the screen
3373 backlight.</p>
3374
3375       </div>
3376       <div class="tags">
3377
3378
3379         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>.
3380
3381
3382       </div>
3383     </div>
3384     <div class="padding"></div>
3385
3386     <div class="entry">
3387       <div class="title">
3388         <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>
3389       </div>
3390       <div class="date">
3391         27th May 2013
3392       </div>
3393       <div class="body">
3394         <p>Two days ago, I asked
3395 <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
3396 I could install Linux on a Packard Bell EasyNote LV computer
3397 preinstalled with Windows 8</a>.  I found a solution, but am horrified
3398 with the obstacles put in the way of Linux users on a laptop with UEFI
3399 and Windows 8.</p>
3400
3401 <p>I never found out if the cause of my problems were the use of UEFI
3402 secure booting or fast boot.  I suspect fast boot was the problem,
3403 causing the firmware to boot directly from HD without considering any
3404 key presses and alternative devices, but do not know UEFI settings
3405 enough to tell.</p>
3406
3407 <p>There is no way to install Linux on the machine in question without
3408 opening the box and disconnecting the hard drive!  This is as far as I
3409 can tell, the only way to get access to the firmware setup menu
3410 without accepting the Windows 8 license agreement.  I am told (and
3411 found description on how to) that it is possible to configure the
3412 firmware setup once booted into Windows 8.  But as I believe the terms
3413 of that agreement are completely unacceptable, accepting the license
3414 was never an alternative.  I do not enter agreements I do not intend
3415 to follow.</p>
3416
3417 <p>I feared I had to return the laptops and ask for a refund, and
3418 waste many hours on this, but luckily there was a way to get it to
3419 work.  But I would not recommend it to anyone planning to run Linux on
3420 it, and I have become sceptical to Windows 8 certified laptops.  Is
3421 this the way Linux will be forced out of the market place, by making
3422 it close to impossible for "normal" users to install Linux without
3423 accepting the Microsoft Windows license terms?  Or at least not
3424 without risking to loose the warranty?</p>
3425
3426 <p>I've updated the
3427 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Linux Laptop
3428 wiki page for Packard Bell EasyNote LV</a>, to ensure the next person
3429 do not have to struggle as much as I did to get Linux into the
3430 machine.</p>
3431
3432 <p>Thanks to Bob Rosbag, Florian Weimer, Philipp Kern, Ben Hutching,
3433 Michael Tokarev and others for feedback and ideas.</p>
3434
3435       </div>
3436       <div class="tags">
3437
3438
3439         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>.
3440
3441
3442       </div>
3443     </div>
3444     <div class="padding"></div>
3445
3446     <div class="entry">
3447       <div class="title">
3448         <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>
3449       </div>
3450       <div class="date">
3451         25th May 2013
3452       </div>
3453       <div class="body">
3454         <p>I've run into quite a problem the last few days.  I bought three
3455 new laptops for my parents and a few others.  I bought Packard Bell
3456 Easynote LV to run Kubuntu on and use as their home computer.  But I
3457 am completely unable to figure out how to install Linux on it.  The
3458 computer is preinstalled with Windows 8, and I suspect it uses UEFI
3459 instead of a BIOS to boot.</p>
3460
3461 <p>The problem is that I am unable to get it to PXE boot, and unable
3462 to get it to boot the Linux installer from my USB stick.  I have yet
3463 to try the DVD install, and still hope it will work.  when I turn on
3464 the computer, there is no information on what buttons to press to get
3465 the normal boot menu.  I expect to get some boot menu to select PXE or
3466 USB stick booting.  When booting, it first ask for the language to
3467 use, then for some regional settings, and finally if I will accept the
3468 Windows 8 terms of use.  As these terms are completely unacceptable to
3469 me, I have no other choice but to turn off the computer and try again
3470 to get it to boot the Linux installer.</p>
3471
3472 <p>I have gathered my findings so far on a Linlap page about the
3473 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Packard Bell
3474 EasyNote LV</a> model.  If you have any idea how to get Linux
3475 installed on this machine, please get in touch or update that wiki
3476 page.  If I can't find a way to install Linux, I will have to return
3477 the laptop to the seller and find another machine for my parents.</p>
3478
3479 <p>I wonder, is this the way Linux will be forced out of the market
3480 using UEFI and "secure boot" by making it impossible to install Linux
3481 on new Laptops?</p>
3482
3483       </div>
3484       <div class="tags">
3485
3486
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>.
3488
3489
3490       </div>
3491     </div>
3492     <div class="padding"></div>
3493
3494     <div class="entry">
3495       <div class="title">
3496         <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>
3497       </div>
3498       <div class="date">
3499         17th May 2013
3500       </div>
3501       <div class="body">
3502         <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> is
3503 an operating system based on Debian intended for use in schools.  It
3504 contain a turn-key solution for the computer network provided to
3505 pupils in the primary schools.  It provide both the central server,
3506 network boot servers and desktop environments with heaps of
3507 educational software.  The project was founded almost 12 years ago,
3508 2001-07-02.  If you want to support the project, which is in need for
3509 cash to fund developer gatherings and other project related activity,
3510 <a href="http://www.linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">please
3511 donate some money</a>.
3512
3513 <p>A topic that come up again and again on the Debian Edu mailing
3514 lists and elsewhere, is the question on how to transform a Debian or
3515 Ubuntu installation into a Debian Edu installation.  It isn't very
3516 hard, and last week I wrote a script to replicate the steps done by
3517 the Debian Edu installer.</p>
3518
3519 <p>The script,
3520 <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/>
3521 in the debian-edu-config package, will go through these six steps and
3522 transform an existing Debian Wheezy or Ubuntu (untested) installation
3523 into a Debian Edu Workstation:</p>
3524
3525 <ol>
3526
3527 <li>Add skolelinux related APT sources.</li>
3528 <li>Create /etc/debian-edu/config with the wanted configuration.</li>
3529 <li>Install debian-edu-install to load preseeding values and pull in
3530     our configuration.</li>
3531 <li>Preseed debconf database with profile setup in
3532     /etc/debian-edu/config, and run tasksel to install packages
3533     according to the profile specified in the config above,
3534     overriding some of the Debian automation machinery.</li>
3535 <li>Run debian-edu-cfengine-D installation to configure everything
3536     that could not be done using preseeding.</li>
3537 <li>Ask for a reboot to enable all the configuration changes.</li>
3538
3539 </ol>
3540
3541 <p>There are some steps in the Debian Edu installation that can not be
3542 replicated like this.  Disk partitioning and LVM setup, for example.
3543 So this script just assume there is enough disk space to install all
3544 the needed packages.</p>
3545
3546 <p>The script was created to help a Debian Edu student working on
3547 setting up <a href="http://www.raspberrypi.org">Raspberry Pi</a> as a
3548 Debian Edu client, and using it he can take the existing
3549 <a href="http://www.raspbian.org/FrontPage‎">Raspbian</a> installation and
3550 transform it into a fully functioning Debian Edu Workstation (or
3551 Roaming Workstation, or whatever :).</p>
3552
3553 <p>The default setting in the script is to create a KDE Workstation.
3554 If a LXDE based Roaming workstation is wanted instead, modify the
3555 PROFILE and DESKTOP values at the top to look like this instead:</p>
3556
3557 <p><pre>
3558 PROFILE="Roaming-Workstation"
3559 DESKTOP="lxde"
3560 </pre></p>
3561
3562 <p>The script could even become useful to set up Debian Edu servers in
3563 the cloud, by starting with a virtual Debian installation at some
3564 virtual hosting service and setting up all the services on first
3565 boot.</p>
3566
3567       </div>
3568       <div class="tags">
3569
3570
3571         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>.
3572
3573
3574       </div>
3575     </div>
3576     <div class="padding"></div>
3577
3578     <div class="entry">
3579       <div class="title">
3580         <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>
3581       </div>
3582       <div class="date">
3583         11th May 2013
3584       </div>
3585       <div class="body">
3586         <P>In January,
3587 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_IRC_channel_for_LEGO_designers_using_Debian.html">I
3588 announced a</a> new <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">IRC
3589 channel #debian-lego</a>, for those of us in the Debian and Linux
3590 community interested in <a href="http://www.lego.com/">LEGO</a>, the
3591 marvellous construction system from Denmark.  We also created
3592 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">a wiki page</a> to have
3593 a place to take notes and write down our plans and hopes.  And several
3594 people showed up to help.  I was very happy to see the effect of my
3595 call.  Since the small start, we have a debtags tag
3596 <a href="http://debtags.debian.net/search/bytag?wl=hardware::hobby:lego">hardware::hobby:lego</a>
3597 tag for LEGO related packages, and now count 10 packages related to
3598 LEGO and <a href="http://mindstorms.lego.com/">Mindstorms</a>:</p>
3599
3600 <p><table>
3601 <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>
3602 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/leocad">leocad</a></td><td>virtual brick CAD software</td></tr>
3603 <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>
3604 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/lnpd">lnpd</a></td><td>daemon for LNP communication with BrickOS</td></tr>
3605 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/nbc">nbc</a></td><td>compiler for LEGO Mindstorms NXT bricks</td></tr>
3606 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/nqc">nqc</a></td><td>Not Quite C compiler for LEGO Mindstorms RCX</td></tr>
3607 <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>
3608 <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>
3609 <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>
3610 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/t2n">t2n</a></td><td>simple command-line tool for Lego NXT</td></tr>
3611 </table></p>
3612
3613 <p>Some of these are available in Wheezy, and all but one are
3614 currently available in Jessie/testing.  leocad is so far only
3615 available in experimental.</p>
3616
3617 <p>If you care about LEGO in Debian, please join us on IRC and help
3618 adding the rest of the great free software tools available on Linux
3619 for LEGO designers.</p>
3620
3621       </div>
3622       <div class="tags">
3623
3624
3625         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>.
3626
3627
3628       </div>
3629     </div>
3630     <div class="padding"></div>
3631
3632     <div class="entry">
3633       <div class="title">
3634         <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>
3635       </div>
3636       <div class="date">
3637          5th May 2013
3638       </div>
3639       <div class="body">
3640         <p>When I woke up this morning, I was very happy to see that the
3641 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2013/20130504">release announcement
3642 for Debian Wheezy</a> was waiting in my mail box.  This is a great
3643 Debian release, and I expect to move my machines at home over to it fairly
3644 soon.</p>
3645
3646 <p>The new debian release contain heaps of new stuff, and one program
3647 in particular make me very happy to see included.  The
3648 <a href="http://scratch.mit.edu/">Scratch</a> program, made famous by
3649 the <a href="http://www.code.org/">Teach kids code</a> movement, is
3650 included for the first time.  Alongside similar programs like
3651 <a href="http://edu.kde.org/kturtle/">kturtle</a> and
3652 <a href="http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/Turtle_Art">turtleart</a>,
3653 it allow for visual programming where syntax errors can not happen,
3654 and a friendly programming environment for learning to control the
3655 computer.  Scratch will also be included in the next release of Debian
3656 Edu.</a>
3657
3658 <p>And now that Wheezy is wrapped up, we can wrap up the next Debian
3659 Edu/Skolelinux release too.  The
3660 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/2013/04/msg00132.html">first
3661 alpha release</a> went out last week, and the next should soon
3662 follow.<p>
3663
3664       </div>
3665       <div class="tags">
3666
3667
3668         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>.
3669
3670
3671       </div>
3672     </div>
3673     <div class="padding"></div>
3674
3675     <div class="entry">
3676       <div class="title">
3677         <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>
3678       </div>
3679       <div class="date">
3680          3rd April 2013
3681       </div>
3682       <div class="body">
3683         <p>Today the <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">Isenkram
3684 package</a> finally made it into the archive, after lingering in NEW
3685 for many months.  I uploaded it to the Debian experimental suite
3686 2013-01-27, and today it was accepted into the archive.</p>
3687
3688 <p>Isenkram is a system for suggesting to users what packages to
3689 install to work with a pluggable hardware device.  The suggestion pop
3690 up when the device is plugged in.  For example if a Lego Mindstorm NXT
3691 is inserted, it will suggest to install the program needed to program
3692 the NXT controller.  Give it a go, and report bugs and suggestions to
3693 BTS. :)</p>
3694
3695       </div>
3696       <div class="tags">
3697
3698
3699         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>.
3700
3701
3702       </div>
3703     </div>
3704     <div class="padding"></div>
3705
3706     <div class="entry">
3707       <div class="title">
3708         <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>
3709       </div>
3710       <div class="date">
3711          2nd February 2013
3712       </div>
3713       <div class="body">
3714         <p>My
3715 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_backport_bitcoin_qt_version_0_7_2_2_to_Debian_Squeeze.html">last
3716 bitcoin related blog post</a> mentioned that the new
3717 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin package</a> for
3718 Debian was waiting in NEW.  It was accepted by the Debian ftp-masters
3719 2013-01-19, and have been available in unstable since then.  It was
3720 automatically copied to Ubuntu, and is available in their Raring
3721 version too.</p>
3722
3723 <p>But there is a strange problem with the build that block this new
3724 version from being available on the i386 and kfreebsd-i386
3725 architectures.  For some strange reason, the autobuilders in Debian
3726 for these architectures fail to run the test suite on these
3727 architectures (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/672524">BTS #672524</a>).
3728 We are so far unable to reproduce it when building it manually, and
3729 no-one have been able to propose a fix.  If you got an idea what is
3730 failing, please let us know via the BTS.</p>
3731
3732 <p>One feature that is annoying me with of the bitcoin client, because
3733 I often run low on disk space, is the fact that the client will exit
3734 if it run short on space (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/696715">BTS
3735 #696715</a>).  So make sure you have enough disk space when you run
3736 it. :)</p>
3737
3738 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
3739 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
3740 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
3741
3742       </div>
3743       <div class="tags">
3744
3745
3746         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>.
3747
3748
3749       </div>
3750     </div>
3751     <div class="padding"></div>
3752
3753     <div class="entry">
3754       <div class="title">
3755         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">Welcome to the world, Isenkram!</a>
3756       </div>
3757       <div class="date">
3758         22nd January 2013
3759       </div>
3760       <div class="body">
3761         <p>Yesterday, I
3762 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_prototype_ready_making_hardware_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">asked
3763 for testers</a> for my prototype for making Debian better at handling
3764 pluggable hardware devices, which I
3765 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">set
3766 out to create</a> earlier this month.  Several valuable testers showed
3767 up, and caused me to really want to to open up the development to more
3768 people.  But before I did this, I want to come up with a sensible name
3769 for this project.  Today I finally decided on a new name, and I have
3770 renamed the project from hw-support-handler to this new name.  In the
3771 process, I moved the source to git and made it available as a
3772 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/isenkram.git">collab-maint</a>
3773 repository in Debian.  The new name?  It is <strong>Isenkram</strong>.
3774 To fetch and build the latest version of the source, use</p>
3775
3776 <pre>
3777 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/collab-maint/isenkram.git
3778 cd isenkram && git-buildpackage -us -uc
3779 </pre>
3780
3781 <p>I have not yet adjusted all files to use the new name yet.  If you
3782 want to hack on the source or improve the package, please go ahead.
3783 But please talk to me first on IRC or via email before you do major
3784 changes, to make sure we do not step on each others toes. :)</p>
3785
3786 <p>If you wonder what 'isenkram' is, it is a Norwegian word for iron
3787 stuff, typically meaning tools, nails, screws, etc.  Typical hardware
3788 stuff, in other words.  I've been told it is the Norwegian variant of
3789 the German word eisenkram, for those that are familiar with that
3790 word.</p>
3791
3792 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-26</strong>: Added -us -us to build
3793 instructions, to avoid confusing people with an error from the signing
3794 process.</p>
3795
3796 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-27</strong>: Switch to HTTP URL for the git
3797 clone argument to avoid the need for authentication.</p>
3798
3799       </div>
3800       <div class="tags">
3801
3802
3803         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>.
3804
3805
3806       </div>
3807     </div>
3808     <div class="padding"></div>
3809
3810     <div class="entry">
3811       <div class="title">
3812         <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>
3813       </div>
3814       <div class="date">
3815         21st January 2013
3816       </div>
3817       <div class="body">
3818         <p>Early this month I set out to try to
3819 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">improve
3820 the Debian support for pluggable hardware devices</a>.  Now my
3821 prototype is working, and it is ready for a larger audience.  To test
3822 it, fetch the
3823 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">source
3824 from the Debian Edu subversion repository</a>, build and install the
3825 package.  You might have to log out and in again activate the
3826 autostart script.</p>
3827
3828 <p>The design is simple:</p>
3829
3830 <ul>
3831
3832 <li>Add desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ causing a program
3833 hw-support-handlerd to start when the user log in.</li>
3834
3835 <li>This program listen for kernel events about new hardware (directly
3836 from the kernel like udev does), not using HAL dbus events as I
3837 initially did.</li>
3838
3839 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware modalias in
3840 the APT database, a database
3841 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=markup">available
3842 via HTTP</a> and a database available as part of the package.</li>
3843
3844 <li>If a package is mapped to the hardware in question, the package
3845 isn't installed yet and this is the first time the hardware was
3846 plugged in, show a desktop notification suggesting to install the
3847 package or packages.</li>
3848
3849 <li>If the user click on the 'install package now' button, ask
3850 aptdaemon via the PackageKit API to install the requrired package.</li>
3851
3852 <li>aptdaemon ask for root password or sudo password, and install the
3853 package while showing progress information in a window.</li>
3854
3855 </ul>
3856
3857 <p>I still need to come up with a better name for the system.  Here
3858 are some screen shots showing the prototype in action.  First the
3859 notification, then the password request, and finally the request to
3860 approve all the dependencies.  Sorry for the Norwegian Bokmål GUI.</p>
3861
3862 <p><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-1-notification.png">
3863 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-2-password.png">
3864 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-3-dependencies.png">
3865 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-4-installing.png">
3866 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-5-installing-details.png" width="70%"></p>
3867
3868 <p>The prototype still need to be improved with longer timeouts, but
3869 is already useful.  The database of hardware to package mappings also
3870 need more work.  It is currently compatible with the Ubuntu way of
3871 storing such information in the package control file, but could be
3872 changed to use other formats instead or in addition to the current
3873 method.  I've dropped the use of discover for this mapping, as the
3874 modalias approach is more flexible and easier to use on Linux as long
3875 as the Linux kernel expose its modalias strings directly.</p>
3876
3877 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-21 16:50</strong>: Due to popular demand,
3878 here is the command required to check out and build the source: Use
3879 '<tt>svn checkout
3880 svn://svn.debian.org/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/; cd
3881 hw-support-handler; debuild</tt>'.  If you lack debuild, install the
3882 devscripts package.</p>
3883
3884 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-23 12:00</strong>: The project is now
3885 renamed to Isenkram and the source moved from the Debian Edu
3886 subversion repository to a Debian collab-maint git repository.  See
3887 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">build
3888 instructions</a> for details.</p>
3889
3890       </div>
3891       <div class="tags">
3892
3893
3894         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>.
3895
3896
3897       </div>
3898     </div>
3899     <div class="padding"></div>
3900
3901     <div class="entry">
3902       <div class="title">
3903         <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>
3904       </div>
3905       <div class="date">
3906         19th January 2013
3907       </div>
3908       <div class="body">
3909         <p>This Christmas my trusty old laptop died.  It died quietly and
3910 suddenly in bed.  With a quiet whimper, it went completely quiet and
3911 black.  The power button was no longer able to turn it on.  It was a
3912 IBM Thinkpad X41, and the best laptop I ever had.  Better than both
3913 Thinkpads X30, X31, X40, X60, X61 and X61S.  Far better than the
3914 Compaq I had before that.  Now I need to find a replacement.  To keep
3915 going during Christmas, I moved the one year old SSD disk to my old
3916 X40 where it fitted (only one I had left that could use it), but it is
3917 not a durable solution.
3918
3919 <p>My laptop needs are fairly modest.  This is my wishlist from when I
3920 got a new one more than 10 years ago.  It still holds true.:)</p>
3921
3922 <ul>
3923
3924 <li>Lightweight (around 1 kg) and small volume (preferably smaller
3925   than A4).</li>
3926 <li>Robust, it will be in my backpack every day.</li>
3927 <li>Three button mouse and a mouse pin instead of touch pad.</li>
3928 <li>Long battery life time.  Preferable a week.</li>
3929 <li>Internal WIFI network card.</li>
3930 <li>Internal Twisted Pair network card.</li>
3931 <li>Some USB slots (2-3 is plenty)</li>
3932 <li>Good keyboard - similar to the Thinkpad.</li>
3933 <li>Video resolution at least 1024x768, with size around 12" (A4 paper
3934 size).</li>
3935 <li>Hardware supported by Debian Stable, ie the default kernel and
3936   X.org packages.</li>
3937 <li>Quiet, preferably fan free (or at least not using the fan most of
3938   the time).
3939
3940 </ul>
3941
3942 <p>You will notice that there are no RAM and CPU requirements in the
3943 list.  The reason is simply that the specifications on laptops the
3944 last 10-15 years have been sufficient for my needs, and I have to look
3945 at other features to choose my laptop.  But are there still made as
3946 robust laptops as my X41?  The Thinkpad X60/X61 proved to be less
3947 robust, and Thinkpads seem to be heading in the wrong direction since
3948 Lenovo took over.  But I've been told that X220 and X1 Carbon might
3949 still be useful.</p>
3950
3951 <p>Perhaps I should rethink my needs, and look for a pad with an
3952 external keyboard?  I'll have to check the
3953 <a href="http://www.linux-laptop.net/">Linux Laptops site</a> for
3954 well-supported laptops, or perhaps just buy one preinstalled from one
3955 of the vendors listed on the <a href="http://linuxpreloaded.com/">Linux
3956 Pre-loaded site</a>.</p>
3957
3958       </div>
3959       <div class="tags">
3960
3961
3962         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>.
3963
3964
3965       </div>
3966     </div>
3967     <div class="padding"></div>
3968
3969     <div class="entry">
3970       <div class="title">
3971         <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>
3972       </div>
3973       <div class="date">
3974         18th January 2013
3975       </div>
3976       <div class="body">
3977         <p>Some times I try to figure out which Iceweasel browser plugin to
3978 install to get support for a given MIME type.  Thanks to
3979 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MozillaTeam/Plugins">specifications
3980 done by Ubuntu</a> and Mozilla, it is possible to do this in Debian.
3981 Unfortunately, not very many packages provide the needed meta
3982 information, Anyway, here is a small script to look up all browser
3983 plugin packages announcing ther MIME support using this specification:</p>
3984
3985 <pre>
3986 #!/usr/bin/python
3987 import sys
3988 import apt
3989 def pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
3990     cache = apt.Cache()
3991     cache.open(None)
3992     thepkgs = []
3993     for pkg in cache:
3994         version = pkg.candidate
3995         if version is None:
3996             version = pkg.installed
3997         if version is None:
3998             continue
3999         record = version.record
4000         if not record.has_key('Npp-MimeType'):
4001             continue
4002         mime_types = record['Npp-MimeType'].split(',')
4003         for t in mime_types:
4004             t = t.rstrip().strip()
4005             if t == mimetype:
4006                 thepkgs.append(pkg.name)
4007     return thepkgs
4008 mimetype = "audio/ogg"
4009 if 1 < len(sys.argv):
4010     mimetype = sys.argv[1]
4011 print "Browser plugin packages supporting %s:" % mimetype
4012 for pkg in pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
4013     print "  %s" %pkg
4014 </pre>
4015
4016 <p>It can be used like this to look up a given MIME type:</p>
4017
4018 <pre>
4019 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype
4020 Browser plugin packages supporting audio/ogg:
4021   gecko-mediaplayer
4022 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype application/x-shockwave-flash
4023 Browser plugin packages supporting application/x-shockwave-flash:
4024   browser-plugin-gnash
4025 %
4026 </pre>
4027
4028 <p>In Ubuntu this mechanism is combined with support in the browser
4029 itself to query for plugins and propose to install the needed
4030 packages.  It would be great if Debian supported such feature too.  Is
4031 anyone working on adding it?</p>
4032
4033 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-18 14:20</strong>: The Debian BTS
4034 request for icweasel support for this feature is
4035 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/484010">#484010</a> from 2008 (and
4036 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/698426">#698426</a> from today).  Lack
4037 of manpower and wish for a different design is the reason thus feature
4038 is not yet in iceweasel from Debian.</p>
4039
4040       </div>
4041       <div class="tags">
4042
4043
4044         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>.
4045
4046
4047       </div>
4048     </div>
4049     <div class="padding"></div>
4050
4051     <div class="entry">
4052       <div class="title">
4053         <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>
4054       </div>
4055       <div class="date">
4056         16th January 2013
4057       </div>
4058       <div class="body">
4059         <p>The <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/AppStreamDebianProposal">DEP-11
4060 proposal to add AppStream information to the Debian archive</a>, is a
4061 proposal to make it possible for a Desktop application to propose to
4062 the user some package to install to gain support for a given MIME
4063 type, font, library etc. that is currently missing.  With such
4064 mechanism in place, it would be possible for the desktop to
4065 automatically propose and install leocad if some LDraw file is
4066 downloaded by the browser.</p>
4067
4068 <p>To get some idea about the current content of the archive, I decided
4069 to write a simple program to extract all .desktop files from the
4070 Debian archive and look up the claimed MIME support there.  The result
4071 can be found on the
4072 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/pub/AppStreamTest">Skolelinux FTP
4073 site</a>.  Using the collected information, it become possible to
4074 answer the question in the title.  Here are the 20 most supported MIME
4075 types in Debian stable (Squeeze), testing (Wheezy) and unstable (Sid).
4076 The complete list is available from the link above.</p>
4077
4078 <p><strong>Debian Stable:</strong></p>
4079
4080 <pre>
4081   count MIME type
4082   ----- -----------------------
4083      32 text/plain
4084      30 audio/mpeg
4085      29 image/png
4086      28 image/jpeg
4087      27 application/ogg
4088      26 audio/x-mp3
4089      25 image/tiff
4090      25 image/gif
4091      22 image/bmp
4092      22 audio/x-wav
4093      20 audio/x-flac
4094      19 audio/x-mpegurl
4095      18 video/x-ms-asf
4096      18 audio/x-musepack
4097      18 audio/x-mpeg
4098      18 application/x-ogg
4099      17 video/mpeg
4100      17 audio/x-scpls
4101      17 audio/ogg
4102      16 video/x-ms-wmv
4103 </pre>
4104
4105 <p><strong>Debian Testing:</strong></p>
4106
4107 <pre>
4108   count MIME type
4109   ----- -----------------------
4110      33 text/plain
4111      32 image/png
4112      32 image/jpeg
4113      29 audio/mpeg
4114      27 image/gif
4115      26 image/tiff
4116      26 application/ogg
4117      25 audio/x-mp3
4118      22 image/bmp
4119      21 audio/x-wav
4120      19 audio/x-mpegurl
4121      19 audio/x-mpeg
4122      18 video/mpeg
4123      18 audio/x-scpls
4124      18 audio/x-flac
4125      18 application/x-ogg
4126      17 video/x-ms-asf
4127      17 text/html
4128      17 audio/x-musepack
4129      16 image/x-xbitmap
4130 </pre>
4131
4132 <p><strong>Debian Unstable:</strong></p>
4133
4134 <pre>
4135   count MIME type
4136   ----- -----------------------
4137      31 text/plain
4138      31 image/png
4139      31 image/jpeg
4140      29 audio/mpeg
4141      28 application/ogg
4142      27 image/gif
4143      26 image/tiff
4144      26 audio/x-mp3
4145      23 audio/x-wav
4146      22 image/bmp
4147      21 audio/x-flac
4148      20 audio/x-mpegurl
4149      19 audio/x-mpeg
4150      18 video/x-ms-asf
4151      18 video/mpeg
4152      18 audio/x-scpls
4153      18 application/x-ogg
4154      17 audio/x-musepack
4155      16 video/x-ms-wmv
4156      16 video/x-msvideo
4157 </pre>
4158
4159 <p>I am told that PackageKit can provide an API to access the kind of
4160 information mentioned in DEP-11.  I have not yet had time to look at
4161 it, but hope the PackageKit people in Debian are on top of these
4162 issues.</p>
4163
4164 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-16 13:35</strong>: Updated numbers after
4165 discovering a typo in my script.</p>
4166
4167       </div>
4168       <div class="tags">
4169
4170
4171         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>.
4172
4173
4174       </div>
4175     </div>
4176     <div class="padding"></div>
4177
4178     <div class="entry">
4179       <div class="title">
4180         <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>
4181       </div>
4182       <div class="date">
4183         15th January 2013
4184       </div>
4185       <div class="body">
4186         <p>Yesterday, I wrote about the
4187 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Modalias_strings___a_practical_way_to_map__stuff__to_hardware.html">modalias
4188 values provided by the Linux kernel</a> following my hope for
4189 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">better
4190 dongle support in Debian</a>.  Using this knowledge, I have tested how
4191 modalias values attached to package names can be used to map packages
4192 to hardware.  This allow the system to look up and suggest relevant
4193 packages when I plug in some new hardware into my machine, and replace
4194 discover and discover-data as the database used to map hardware to
4195 packages.</p>
4196
4197 <p>I create a modaliases file with entries like the following,
4198 containing package name, kernel module name (if relevant, otherwise
4199 the package name) and globs matching the relevant hardware
4200 modalias.</p>
4201
4202 <p><blockquote>
4203 Package: package-name
4204 <br>Modaliases: module(modaliasglob, modaliasglob, modaliasglob)</p>
4205 </blockquote></p>
4206
4207 <p>It is fairly trivial to write code to find the relevant packages
4208 for a given modalias value using this file.</p>
4209
4210 <p>An entry like this would suggest the video and picture application
4211 cheese for many USB web cameras (interface bus class 0E01):</p>
4212
4213 <p><blockquote>
4214 Package: cheese
4215 <br>Modaliases: cheese(usb:v*p*d*dc*dsc*dp*ic0Eisc01ip*)</p>
4216 </blockquote></p>
4217
4218 <p>An entry like this would suggest the pcmciautils package when a
4219 CardBus bridge (bus class 0607) PCI device is present:</p>
4220
4221 <p><blockquote>
4222 Package: pcmciautils
4223 <br>Modaliases: pcmciautils(pci:v*d*sv*sd*bc06sc07i*)
4224 </blockquote></p>
4225
4226 <p>An entry like this would suggest the package colorhug-client when
4227 plugging in a ColorHug with USB IDs 04D8:F8DA:</p>
4228
4229 <p><blockquote>
4230 Package: colorhug-client
4231 <br>Modaliases: colorhug-client(usb:v04D8pF8DAd*)</p>
4232 </blockquote></p>
4233
4234 <p>I believe the format is compatible with the format of the Packages
4235 file in the Debian archive.  Ubuntu already uses their Packages file
4236 to store their mappings from packages to hardware.</p>
4237
4238 <p>By adding a XB-Modaliases: header in debian/control, any .deb can
4239 announce the hardware it support in a way my prototype understand.
4240 This allow those publishing packages in an APT source outside the
4241 Debian archive as well as those backporting packages to make sure the
4242 hardware mapping are included in the package meta information.  I've
4243 tested such header in the pymissile package, and its modalias mapping
4244 is working as it should with my prototype.  It even made it to Ubuntu
4245 Raring.</p>
4246
4247 <p>To test if it was possible to look up supported hardware using only
4248 the shell tools available in the Debian installer, I wrote a shell
4249 implementation of the lookup code.  The idea is to create files for
4250 each modalias and let the shell do the matching.  Please check out and
4251 try the
4252 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/hw-support-lookup?view=co">hw-support-lookup</a>
4253 shell script.  It run without any extra dependencies and fetch the
4254 hardware mappings from the Debian archive and the subversion
4255 repository where I currently work on my prototype.</p>
4256
4257 <p>When I use it on a machine with a yubikey inserted, it suggest to
4258 install yubikey-personalization:</p>
4259
4260 <p><blockquote>
4261 % ./hw-support-lookup
4262 <br>yubikey-personalization
4263 <br>%
4264 </blockquote></p>
4265
4266 <p>When I run it on my Thinkpad X40 with a PCMCIA/CardBus slot, it
4267 propose to install the pcmciautils package:</p>
4268
4269 <p><blockquote>
4270 % ./hw-support-lookup
4271 <br>pcmciautils
4272 <br>%
4273 </blockquote></p>
4274
4275 <p>If you know of any hardware-package mapping that should be added to
4276 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=co">my
4277 database</a>, please tell me about it.</p>
4278
4279 <p>It could be possible to generate several of the mappings between
4280 packages and hardware.  One source would be to look at packages with
4281 kernel modules, ie packages with *.ko files in /lib/modules/, and
4282 extract their modalias information.  Another would be to look at
4283 packages with udev rules, ie packages with files in
4284 /lib/udev/rules.d/, and extract their vendor/model information to
4285 generate a modalias matching rule.  I have not tested any of these to
4286 see if it work.</p>
4287
4288 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
4289 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
4290 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
4291 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel</a>.</p>
4292
4293       </div>
4294       <div class="tags">
4295
4296
4297         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>.
4298
4299
4300       </div>
4301     </div>
4302     <div class="padding"></div>
4303
4304     <div class="entry">
4305       <div class="title">
4306         <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>
4307       </div>
4308       <div class="date">
4309         14th January 2013
4310       </div>
4311       <div class="body">
4312         <p>While looking into how to look up Debian packages based on hardware
4313 information, to find the packages that support a given piece of
4314 hardware, I refreshed my memory regarding modalias values, and decided
4315 to document the details.  Here are my findings so far, also available
4316 in
4317 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
4318 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>:
4319
4320 <p><strong>Modalias decoded</strong></p>
4321
4322 <p>This document try to explain what the different types of modalias
4323 values stands for.  It is in part based on information from
4324 &lt;URL: <a href="https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias">https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias</a> &gt;,
4325 &lt;URL: <a href="http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/26132/how-to-assign-usb-driver-to-device">http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/26132/how-to-assign-usb-driver-to-device</a> &gt;,
4326 &lt;URL: <a href="http://code.metager.de/source/history/linux/stable/scripts/mod/file2alias.c">http://code.metager.de/source/history/linux/stable/scripts/mod/file2alias.c</a> &gt; and
4327 &lt;URL: <a href="http://cvs.savannah.gnu.org/viewvc/dmidecode/dmidecode.c?root=dmidecode&view=markup">http://cvs.savannah.gnu.org/viewvc/dmidecode/dmidecode.c?root=dmidecode&view=markup</a> &gt;.
4328
4329 <p>The modalias entries for a given Linux machine can be found using
4330 this shell script:</p>
4331
4332 <pre>
4333 find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u
4334 </pre>
4335
4336 <p>The supported modalias globs for a given kernel module can be found
4337 using modinfo:</p>
4338
4339 <pre>
4340 % /sbin/modinfo psmouse | grep alias:
4341 alias:          serio:ty05pr*id*ex*
4342 alias:          serio:ty01pr*id*ex*
4343 %
4344 </pre>
4345
4346 <p><strong>PCI subtype</strong></p>
4347
4348 <p>A typical PCI entry can look like this.  This is an Intel Host
4349 Bridge memory controller:</p>
4350
4351 <p><blockquote>
4352 pci:v00008086d00002770sv00001028sd000001ADbc06sc00i00
4353 </blockquote></p>
4354
4355 <p>This represent these values:</p>
4356
4357 <pre>
4358  v   00008086  (vendor)
4359  d   00002770  (device)
4360  sv  00001028  (subvendor)
4361  sd  000001AD  (subdevice)
4362  bc  06        (bus class)
4363  sc  00        (bus subclass)
4364  i   00        (interface)
4365 </pre>
4366
4367 <p>The vendor/device values are the same values outputted from 'lspci
4368 -n' as 8086:2770.  The bus class/subclass is also shown by lspci as
4369 0600.  The 0600 class is a host bridge.  Other useful bus values are
4370 0300 (VGA compatible card) and 0200 (Ethernet controller).</p>
4371
4372 <p>Not sure how to figure out the interface value, nor what it
4373 means.</p>
4374
4375 <p><strong>USB subtype</strong></p>
4376
4377 <p>Some typical USB entries can look like this.  This is an internal
4378 USB hub in a laptop:</p>
4379
4380 <p><blockquote>
4381 usb:v1D6Bp0001d0206dc09dsc00dp00ic09isc00ip00
4382 </blockquote></p>
4383
4384 <p>Here is the values included in this alias:</p>
4385
4386 <pre>
4387  v    1D6B  (device vendor)
4388  p    0001  (device product)
4389  d    0206  (bcddevice)
4390  dc     09  (device class)
4391  dsc    00  (device subclass)
4392  dp     00  (device protocol)
4393  ic     09  (interface class)
4394  isc    00  (interface subclass)
4395  ip     00  (interface protocol)
4396 </pre>
4397
4398 <p>The 0900 device class/subclass means hub.  Some times the relevant
4399 class is in the interface class section.  For a simple USB web camera,
4400 these alias entries show up:</p>
4401
4402 <p><blockquote>
4403 usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc01ip00
4404 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc02ip00
4405 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc01ip00
4406 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc02ip00
4407 </blockquote></p>
4408
4409 <p>Interface class 0E01 is video control, 0E02 is video streaming (aka
4410 camera), 0101 is audio control device and 0102 is audio streaming (aka
4411 microphone).  Thus this is a camera with microphone included.</p>
4412
4413 <p><strong>ACPI subtype</strong></p>
4414
4415 <p>The ACPI type is used for several non-PCI/USB stuff.  This is an IR
4416 receiver in a Thinkpad X40:</p>
4417
4418 <p><blockquote>
4419 acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
4420 </blockquote></p>
4421
4422 <p>The values between the colons are IDs.</p>
4423
4424 <p><strong>DMI subtype</strong></p>
4425
4426 <p>The DMI table contain lots of information about the computer case
4427 and model.  This is an entry for a IBM Thinkpad X40, fetched from
4428 /sys/devices/virtual/dmi/id/modalias:</p>
4429
4430 <p><blockquote>
4431 dmi:bvnIBM:bvr1UETB6WW(1.66):bd06/15/2005:svnIBM:pn2371H4G:pvrThinkPadX40:rvnIBM:rn2371H4G:rvrNotAvailable:cvnIBM:ct10:cvrNotAvailable:
4432 </blockquote></p>
4433
4434 <p>The values present are</p>
4435
4436 <pre>
4437  bvn  IBM            (BIOS vendor)
4438  bvr  1UETB6WW(1.66) (BIOS version)
4439  bd   06/15/2005     (BIOS date)
4440  svn  IBM            (system vendor)
4441  pn   2371H4G        (product name)
4442  pvr  ThinkPadX40    (product version)
4443  rvn  IBM            (board vendor)
4444  rn   2371H4G        (board name)
4445  rvr  NotAvailable   (board version)
4446  cvn  IBM            (chassis vendor)
4447  ct   10             (chassis type)
4448  cvr  NotAvailable   (chassis version)
4449 </pre>
4450
4451 <p>The chassis type 10 is Notebook.  Other interesting values can be
4452 found in the dmidecode source:</p>
4453
4454 <pre>
4455   3 Desktop
4456   4 Low Profile Desktop
4457   5 Pizza Box
4458   6 Mini Tower
4459   7 Tower
4460   8 Portable
4461   9 Laptop
4462  10 Notebook
4463  11 Hand Held
4464  12 Docking Station
4465  13 All In One
4466  14 Sub Notebook
4467  15 Space-saving
4468  16 Lunch Box
4469  17 Main Server Chassis
4470  18 Expansion Chassis
4471  19 Sub Chassis
4472  20 Bus Expansion Chassis
4473  21 Peripheral Chassis
4474  22 RAID Chassis
4475  23 Rack Mount Chassis
4476  24 Sealed-case PC
4477  25 Multi-system
4478  26 CompactPCI
4479  27 AdvancedTCA
4480  28 Blade
4481  29 Blade Enclosing
4482 </pre>
4483
4484 <p>The chassis type values are not always accurately set in the DMI
4485 table.  For example my home server is a tower, but the DMI modalias
4486 claim it is a desktop.</p>
4487
4488 <p><strong>SerIO subtype</strong></p>
4489
4490 <p>This type is used for PS/2 mouse plugs.  One example is from my
4491 test machine:</p>
4492
4493 <p><blockquote>
4494 serio:ty01pr00id00ex00
4495 </blockquote></p>
4496
4497 <p>The values present are</p>
4498
4499 <pre>
4500   ty  01  (type)
4501   pr  00  (prototype)
4502   id  00  (id)
4503   ex  00  (extra)
4504 </pre>
4505
4506 <p>This type is supported by the psmouse driver.  I am not sure what
4507 the valid values are.</p>
4508
4509 <p><strong>Other subtypes</strong></p>
4510
4511 <p>There are heaps of other modalias subtypes according to
4512 file2alias.c.  There is the rest of the list from that source: amba,
4513 ap, bcma, ccw, css, eisa, hid, i2c, ieee1394, input, ipack, isapnp,
4514 mdio, of, parisc, pcmcia, platform, scsi, sdio, spi, ssb, vio, virtio,
4515 vmbus, x86cpu and zorro.  I did not spend time documenting all of
4516 these, as they do not seem relevant for my intended use with mapping
4517 hardware to packages when new stuff is inserted during run time.</p>
4518
4519 <p><strong>Looking up kernel modules using modalias values</strong></p>
4520
4521 <p>To check which kernel modules provide support for a given modalias,
4522 one can use the following shell script:</p>
4523
4524 <pre>
4525   for id in $(find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u); do \
4526     echo "$id" ; \
4527     /sbin/modprobe --show-depends "$id"|sed 's/^/  /' ; \
4528   done
4529 </pre>
4530
4531 <p>The output can look like this (only the first few entries as the
4532 list is very long on my test machine):</p>
4533
4534 <pre>
4535   acpi:ACPI0003:
4536     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/acpi/ac.ko
4537   acpi:device:
4538   FATAL: Module acpi:device: not found.
4539   acpi:IBM0068:
4540     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/char/nvram.ko
4541     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/leds/led-class.ko
4542     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/rfkill/rfkill.ko
4543     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/platform/x86/thinkpad_acpi.ko
4544   acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
4545     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/lib/crc-ccitt.ko
4546     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/irda/irda.ko
4547     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/net/irda/nsc-ircc.ko
4548   [...]
4549 </pre>
4550
4551 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
4552 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
4553 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
4554 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel</a>.</p>
4555
4556 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-15:</strong> Rewrite "cat $(find ...)" to
4557 "find ... -print0 | xargs -0 cat" to make sure it handle directories
4558 in /sys/ with space in them.</p>
4559
4560       </div>
4561       <div class="tags">
4562
4563
4564         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>.
4565
4566
4567       </div>
4568     </div>
4569     <div class="padding"></div>
4570
4571     <div class="entry">
4572       <div class="title">
4573         <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>
4574       </div>
4575       <div class="date">
4576         10th January 2013
4577       </div>
4578       <div class="body">
4579         <p>As part of my investigation on how to improve the support in Debian
4580 for hardware dongles, I dug up my old Mark and Spencer USB Rocket
4581 Launcher and updated the Debian package
4582 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pymissile">pymissile</a> to make
4583 sure udev will fix the device permissions when it is plugged in.  I
4584 also added a "Modaliases" header to test it in the Debian archive and
4585 hopefully make the package be proposed by jockey in Ubuntu when a user
4586 plug in his rocket launcher.  In the process I moved the source to a
4587 git repository under collab-maint, to make it easier for any DD to
4588 contribute.  <a href="http://code.google.com/p/pymissile/">Upstream</a>
4589 is not very active, but the software still work for me even after five
4590 years of relative silence.  The new git repository is not listed in
4591 the uploaded package yet, because I want to test the other changes a
4592 bit more before I upload the new version.  If you want to check out
4593 the new version with a .desktop file included, visit the
4594 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/pymissile.git">gitweb
4595 view</a> or use "<tt>git clone
4596 git://anonscm.debian.org/collab-maint/pymissile.git</tt>".</p>
4597
4598       </div>
4599       <div class="tags">
4600
4601
4602         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>.
4603
4604
4605       </div>
4606     </div>
4607     <div class="padding"></div>
4608
4609     <div class="entry">
4610       <div class="title">
4611         <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>
4612       </div>
4613       <div class="date">
4614          9th January 2013
4615       </div>
4616       <div class="body">
4617         <p>One thing that annoys me with Debian and Linux distributions in
4618 general, is that there is a great package management system with the
4619 ability to automatically install software packages by downloading them
4620 from the distribution mirrors, but no way to get it to automatically
4621 install the packages I need to use the hardware I plug into my
4622 machine.  Even if the package to use it is easily available from the
4623 Linux distribution.  When I plug in a LEGO Mindstorms NXT, it could
4624 suggest to automatically install the python-nxt, nbc and t2n packages
4625 I need to talk to it.  When I plug in a Yubikey, it could propose the
4626 yubikey-personalization package.  The information required to do this
4627 is available, but no-one have pulled all the pieces together.</p>
4628
4629 <p>Some years ago, I proposed to
4630 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg01206.html">use
4631 the discover subsystem to implement this</a>.  The idea is fairly
4632 simple:
4633
4634 <ul>
4635
4636 <li>Add a desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ pointing to a program
4637   starting when a user log in.</li>
4638
4639 <li>Set this program up to listen for kernel events emitted when new
4640   hardware is inserted into the computer.</li>
4641
4642 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware ID in a
4643   database mapping to packages, and take note of any non-installed
4644   packages.</li>
4645
4646 <li>Show a message to the user proposing to install the discovered
4647   package, and make it easy to install it.</li>
4648
4649 </ul>
4650
4651 <p>I am not sure what the best way to implement this is, but my
4652 initial idea was to use dbus events to discover new hardware, the
4653 discover database to find packages and
4654 <a href="http://www.packagekit.org/">PackageKit</a> to install
4655 packages.</p>
4656
4657 <p>Yesterday, I found time to try to implement this idea, and the
4658 draft package is now checked into
4659 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
4660 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>.  In the process, I updated the
4661 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover-data.html">discover-data</a>
4662 package to map the USB ids of LEGO Mindstorms and Yubikey devices to
4663 the relevant packages in Debian, and uploaded a new version
4664 2.2013.01.09 to unstable.  I also discovered that the current
4665 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover.html">discover</a>
4666 package in Debian no longer discovered any USB devices, because
4667 /proc/bus/usb/devices is no longer present.  I ported it to use
4668 libusb as a fall back option to get it working.  The fixed package
4669 version 2.1.2-6 is now in experimental (didn't upload it to unstable
4670 because of the freeze).</p>
4671
4672 <p>With this prototype in place, I can insert my Yubikey, and get this
4673 desktop notification to show up (only once, the first time it is
4674 inserted):</p>
4675
4676 <p align="center"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-09-hw-autoinstall.png"></p>
4677
4678 <p>For this prototype to be really useful, some way to automatically
4679 install the proposed packages by pressing the "Please install
4680 program(s)" button should to be implemented.</p>
4681
4682 <p>If this idea seem useful to you, and you want to help make it
4683 happen, please help me update the discover-data database with mappings
4684 from hardware to Debian packages.  Check if 'discover-pkginstall -l'
4685 list the package you would like to have installed when a given
4686 hardware device is inserted into your computer, and report bugs using
4687 reportbug if it isn't.  Or, if you know of a better way to provide
4688 such mapping, please let me know.</p>
4689
4690 <p>This prototype need more work, and there are several questions that
4691 should be considered before it is ready for production use.  Is dbus
4692 the correct way to detect new hardware?  At the moment I look for HAL
4693 dbus events on the system bus, because that is the events I could see
4694 on my Debian Squeeze KDE desktop.  Are there better events to use?
4695 How should the user be notified?  Is the desktop notification
4696 mechanism the best option, or should the background daemon raise a
4697 popup instead?  How should packages be installed?  When should they
4698 not be installed?</p>
4699
4700 <p>If you want to help getting such feature implemented in Debian,
4701 please send me an email. :)</p>
4702
4703       </div>
4704       <div class="tags">
4705
4706
4707         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>.
4708
4709
4710       </div>
4711     </div>
4712     <div class="padding"></div>
4713
4714     <div class="entry">
4715       <div class="title">
4716         <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>
4717       </div>
4718       <div class="date">
4719          2nd January 2013
4720       </div>
4721       <div class="body">
4722         <p>During Christmas, I have worked a bit on the Debian support for
4723 <a href="http://mindstorms.lego.com/en-us/Default.aspx">LEGO Mindstorm
4724 NXT</a>.  My son and I have played a bit with my NXT set, and I
4725 discovered I had to build all the tools myself because none were
4726 already in Debian Squeeze.  If Debian support for LEGO is something
4727 you care about, please join me on the IRC channel
4728 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">#debian-lego</a> (server
4729 irc.debian.org).  There is a lot that could be done to improve the
4730 Debian support for LEGO designers.  For example both CAD software
4731 and Mindstorm compilers are missing. :)</p>
4732
4733 <p>Update 2012-01-03: A
4734 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">project page</a>
4735 including links to Lego related packages is now available.</p>
4736
4737       </div>
4738       <div class="tags">
4739
4740
4741         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>.
4742
4743
4744       </div>
4745     </div>
4746     <div class="padding"></div>
4747
4748     <div class="entry">
4749       <div class="title">
4750         <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>
4751       </div>
4752       <div class="date">
4753         25th December 2012
4754       </div>
4755       <div class="body">
4756         <p>Let me start by wishing you all marry Christmas and a happy new
4757 year!  I hope next year will prove to be a good year.</p>
4758
4759 <p><a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">Bitcoin</a>, the digital
4760 decentralised "currency" that allow people to transfer bitcoins
4761 between each other with minimal overhead, is a very interesting
4762 experiment.  And as I wrote a few days ago, the bitcoin situation in
4763 <a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</a> is about to improve a bit.
4764 The <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">new debian source
4765 package</a> (version 0.7.2-2) was uploaded yesterday, and is waiting
4766 in <a href="http://ftp-master.debian.org/new.html">the NEW queue</A>
4767 for one of the ftpmasters to approve the new bitcoin-qt package
4768 name.</p>
4769
4770 <p>And thanks to the great work of Jonas and the rest of the bitcoin
4771 team in Debian, you can easily test the package in Debian Squeeze
4772 using the following steps to get a set of working packages:</p>
4773
4774 <blockquote><pre>
4775 git clone git://git.debian.org/git/collab-maint/bitcoin
4776 cd bitcoin
4777 DEB_MAINTAINER_MODE=1 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp fakeroot debian/rules clean
4778 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp git-buildpackage --git-ignore-new
4779 </pre></blockquote>
4780
4781 <p>You might have to install some build dependencies as well.  The
4782 list of commands should give you two packages, bitcoind and
4783 bitcoin-qt, ready for use in a Squeeze environment.  Note that the
4784 client will download the complete set of bitcoin "blocks", which need
4785 around 5.6 GiB of data on my machine at the moment.  Make sure your
4786 ~/.bitcoin/ directory have lots of spare room if you want to download
4787 all the blocks.  The client will warn if the disk is getting full, so
4788 there is not really a problem if you got too little room, but you will
4789 not be able to get all the features out of the client.</p>
4790
4791 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
4792 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
4793 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
4794
4795       </div>
4796       <div class="tags">
4797
4798
4799         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>.
4800
4801
4802       </div>
4803     </div>
4804     <div class="padding"></div>
4805
4806     <div class="entry">
4807       <div class="title">
4808         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_word_on_bitcoin_support_in_Debian.html">A word on bitcoin support in Debian</a>
4809       </div>
4810       <div class="date">
4811         21st December 2012
4812       </div>
4813       <div class="body">
4814         <p>It has been a while since I wrote about
4815 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">bitcoin</a>, the decentralised
4816 peer-to-peer based crypto-currency, and the reason is simply that I
4817 have been busy elsewhere.  But two days ago, I started looking at the
4818 state of <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin in
4819 Debian</a> again to try to recover my old bitcoin wallet.  The package
4820 is now maintained by a
4821 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/pkg-bitcoin/">team of
4822 people</a>, and the grunt work had already been done by this team.  We
4823 owe a huge thank you to all these team members. :)
4824 But I was sad to discover that the bitcoin client is missing in
4825 Wheezy.  It is only available in Sid (and an outdated client from
4826 backports).  The client had several RC bugs registered in BTS blocking
4827 it from entering testing.  To try to help the team and improve the
4828 situation, I spent some time providing patches and triaging the bug
4829 reports.  I also had a look at the bitcoin package available from Matt
4830 Corallo in a
4831 <a href="https://launchpad.net/~bitcoin/+archive/bitcoin">PPA for
4832 Ubuntu</a>, and moved the useful pieces from that version into the
4833 Debian package.</p>
4834
4835 <p>After checking with the main package maintainer Jonas Smedegaard on
4836 IRC, I pushed several patches into the collab-maint git repository to
4837 improve the package.  It now contains fixes for the RC issues (not from
4838 me, but fixed by Scott Howard), build rules for a Qt GUI client
4839 package, konqueror support for the bitcoin: URI and bash completion
4840 setup.  As I work on Debian Squeeze, I also created
4841 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-bitcoin-devel/Week-of-Mon-20121217/000041.html">a
4842 patch to backport</a> the latest version.  Jonas is going to look at
4843 it and try to integrate it into the git repository before uploading a
4844 new version to unstable.
4845
4846 <p>I would very much like bitcoin to succeed, to get rid of the
4847 centralized control currently exercised in the monetary system.  I
4848 find it completely unacceptable that the USA government is collecting
4849 transaction data for almost all international money transfers (most are done in USD and transaction logs shipped to the spooks), and
4850 that the major credit card companies can block legal money
4851 transactions to Wikileaks.  But for bitcoin to succeed, more people
4852 need to use bitcoins, and more people need to accept bitcoins when
4853 they sell products and services.  Improving the bitcoin support in
4854 Debian is a small step in the right direction, but not enough.
4855 Unfortunately the user experience when browsing the web and wanting to
4856 pay with bitcoin is still not very good.  The bitcoin: URI is a step
4857 in the right direction, but need to work in most or every browser in
4858 use.  Also the bitcoin-qt client is too heavy to fire up to do a
4859 quick transaction.  I believe there are other clients available, but
4860 have not tested them.</p>
4861
4862 <p>My
4863 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Now_accepting_bitcoins___anonymous_and_distributed_p2p_crypto_money.html">experiment
4864 with bitcoins</a> showed that at least some of my readers use bitcoin.
4865 I received 20.15 BTC so far on the address I provided in my blog two
4866 years ago, as can be
4867 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">seen
4868 on the blockexplorer service</a>.  Thank you everyone for your
4869 donation.  The blockexplorer service demonstrates quite well that
4870 bitcoin is not quite anonymous and untracked. :) I wonder if the
4871 number of users have gone up since then.  If you use bitcoin and want
4872 to show your support of my activity, please send Bitcoin donations to
4873 the same address as last time,
4874 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
4875
4876       </div>
4877       <div class="tags">
4878
4879
4880         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>.
4881
4882
4883       </div>
4884     </div>
4885     <div class="padding"></div>
4886
4887     <div class="entry">
4888       <div class="title">
4889         <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>
4890       </div>
4891       <div class="date">
4892          7th September 2012
4893       </div>
4894       <div class="body">
4895         <p>As I
4896 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">mentioned
4897 this summer</a>, I have created a Computer Science song book a few
4898 years ago, and today I finally found time to create a public
4899 <a href="https://gitorious.org/pere-cs-songbook/pere-cs-songbook">Gitorious
4900 repository for the project</a>.</p>
4901
4902 <p>If you want to help out, please clone the source and submit patches
4903 to the HTML version.  To generate the PDF and PostScript version,
4904 please use prince XML, or let me know about a useful free software
4905 processor capable of creating a good looking PDF from the HTML.</p>
4906
4907 <p>Want to sing?  You can still find the song book in HTML, PDF and
4908 PostScript formats at
4909 <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's Computer
4910 Science Songbook</a>.</p>
4911
4912       </div>
4913       <div class="tags">
4914
4915
4916         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>.
4917
4918
4919       </div>
4920     </div>
4921     <div class="padding"></div>
4922
4923     <div class="entry">
4924       <div class="title">
4925         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gratulerer_med_19__rsdagen__Debian_.html">Gratulerer med 19-årsdagen, Debian!</a>
4926       </div>
4927       <div class="date">
4928         16th August 2012
4929       </div>
4930       <div class="body">
4931         <p>I dag fyller
4932 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120813">Debian-prosjektet 19
4933 år</a>.  Jeg har fulgt det de siste 12 årene, og er veldig glad for å kunne
4934 si gratulerer med dagen, Debian!</p>
4935
4936       </div>
4937       <div class="tags">
4938
4939
4940         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>.
4941
4942
4943       </div>
4944     </div>
4945     <div class="padding"></div>
4946
4947     <div class="entry">
4948       <div class="title">
4949         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">Song book for Computer Scientists</a>
4950       </div>
4951       <div class="date">
4952         24th June 2012
4953       </div>
4954       <div class="body">
4955         <p>Many years ago, while studying Computer Science at the
4956 <a href="http://www.uit.no/">University of Tromsø</a>, I started
4957 collecting computer related songs for use at parties.  The original
4958 version was written in LaTeX, but a few years ago I got help from
4959 Håkon W. Lie, one of the inventors of W3C CSS, to convert it to HTML
4960 while keeping the ability to create a nice book in PDF format.  I have
4961 not had time to maintain the book for a while now, and guess I should
4962 put it up on some public version control repository where others can
4963 help me extend and update the book.  If anyone is volunteering to help
4964 me with this, send me an email.  Also let me know if there are songs
4965 missing in my book.</p>
4966
4967 <p>I have not mentioned the book on my blog so far, and it occured to
4968 me today that I really should let all my readers share the joys of
4969 singing out load about programming, computers and computer networks.
4970 Especially now that <a href="http://debconf12.debconf.org/">Debconf
4971 12</a> is about to start (and I am not going).  Want to sing?  Check
4972 out <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's
4973 Computer Science Songbook</a>.
4974
4975       </div>
4976       <div class="tags">
4977
4978
4979         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>.
4980
4981
4982       </div>
4983     </div>
4984     <div class="padding"></div>
4985
4986     <div class="entry">
4987       <div class="title">
4988         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatically_upgrading_server_firmware_on_Dell_PowerEdge.html">Automatically upgrading server firmware on Dell PowerEdge</a>
4989       </div>
4990       <div class="date">
4991         21st November 2011
4992       </div>
4993       <div class="body">
4994         <p>At work we have heaps of servers.  I believe the total count is
4995 around 1000 at the moment.  To be able to get help from the vendors
4996 when something go wrong, we want to keep the firmware on the servers
4997 up to date.  If the firmware isn't the latest and greatest, the
4998 vendors typically refuse to start debugging any problems until the
4999 firmware is upgraded.  So before every reboot, we want to upgrade the
5000 firmware, and we would really like everyone handling servers at the
5001 university to do this themselves when they plan to reboot a machine.
5002 For that to happen we at the unix server admin group need to provide
5003 the tools to do so.</p>
5004
5005 <p>To make firmware upgrading easier, I am working on a script to
5006 fetch and install the latest firmware for the servers we got.  Most of
5007 our hardware are from Dell and HP, so I have focused on these servers
5008 so far.  This blog post is about the Dell part.</P>
5009
5010 <p>On the Dell FTP site I was lucky enough to find
5011 <a href="ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz">an XML file</a>
5012 with firmware information for all 11th generation servers, listing
5013 which firmware should be used on a given model and where on the FTP
5014 site I can find it.  Using a simple perl XML parser I can then
5015 download the shell scripts Dell provides to do firmware upgrades from
5016 within Linux and reboot when all the firmware is primed and ready to
5017 be activated on the first reboot.</p>
5018
5019 <p>This is the Dell related fragment of the perl code I am working on.
5020 Are there anyone working on similar tools for firmware upgrading all
5021 servers at a site?  Please get in touch and lets share resources.</p>
5022
5023 <p><pre>
5024 #!/usr/bin/perl
5025 use strict;
5026 use warnings;
5027 use File::Temp qw(tempdir);
5028 BEGIN {
5029     # Install needed RHEL packages if missing
5030     my %rhelmodules = (
5031         'XML::Simple' => 'perl-XML-Simple',
5032         );
5033     for my $module (keys %rhelmodules) {
5034         eval "use $module;";
5035         if ($@) {
5036             my $pkg = $rhelmodules{$module};
5037             system("yum install -y $pkg");
5038             eval "use $module;";
5039         }
5040     }
5041 }
5042 my $errorsto = 'pere@hungry.com';
5043
5044 upgrade_dell();
5045
5046 exit 0;
5047
5048 sub run_firmware_script {
5049     my ($opts, $script) = @_;
5050     unless ($script) {
5051         print STDERR "fail: missing script name\n";
5052         exit 1
5053     }
5054     print STDERR "Running $script\n\n";
5055
5056     if (0 == system("sh $script $opts")) { # FIXME correct exit code handling
5057         print STDERR "success: firmware script ran succcessfully\n";
5058     } else {
5059         print STDERR "fail: firmware script returned error\n";
5060     }
5061 }
5062
5063 sub run_firmware_scripts {
5064     my ($opts, @dirs) = @_;
5065     # Run firmware packages
5066     for my $dir (@dirs) {
5067         print STDERR "info: Running scripts in $dir\n";
5068         opendir(my $dh, $dir) or die "Unable to open directory $dir: $!";
5069         while (my $s = readdir $dh) {
5070             next if $s =~ m/^\.\.?/;
5071             run_firmware_script($opts, "$dir/$s");
5072         }
5073         closedir $dh;
5074     }
5075 }
5076
5077 sub download {
5078     my $url = shift;
5079     print STDERR "info: Downloading $url\n";
5080     system("wget --quiet \"$url\"");
5081 }
5082
5083 sub upgrade_dell {
5084     my @dirs;
5085     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
5086     chomp $product;
5087
5088     if ($product =~ m/PowerEdge/) {
5089
5090         # on RHEL, these pacakges are needed by the firwmare upgrade scripts
5091         system('yum install -y compat-libstdc++-33.i686 libstdc++.i686 libxml2.i686 procmail');
5092
5093         my $tmpdir = tempdir(
5094             CLEANUP => 1
5095             );
5096         chdir($tmpdir);
5097         fetch_dell_fw('catalog/Catalog.xml.gz');
5098         system('gunzip Catalog.xml.gz');
5099         my @paths = fetch_dell_fw_list('Catalog.xml');
5100         # -q is quiet, disabling interactivity and reducing console output
5101         my $fwopts = "-q";
5102         if (@paths) {
5103             for my $url (@paths) {
5104                 fetch_dell_fw($url);
5105             }
5106             run_firmware_scripts($fwopts, $tmpdir);
5107         } else {
5108             print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
5109             print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
5110         }
5111         chdir('/');
5112     } else {
5113         print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
5114         print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
5115     }
5116 }
5117
5118 sub fetch_dell_fw {
5119     my $path = shift;
5120     my $url = "ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/$path";
5121     download($url);
5122 }
5123
5124 # Using ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz, figure out which
5125 # firmware packages to download from Dell.  Only work for Linux
5126 # machines and 11th generation Dell servers.
5127 sub fetch_dell_fw_list {
5128     my $filename = shift;
5129
5130     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
5131     chomp $product;
5132     my ($mybrand, $mymodel) = split(/\s+/, $product);
5133
5134     print STDERR "Finding firmware bundles for $mybrand $mymodel\n";
5135
5136     my $xml = XMLin($filename);
5137     my @paths;
5138     for my $bundle (@{$xml->{SoftwareBundle}}) {
5139         my $brand = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Display}->{content};
5140         my $model = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Model}->{Display}->{content};
5141         my $oscode;
5142         if ("ARRAY" eq ref $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}) {
5143             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}[0]->{osCode};
5144         } else {
5145             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}->{osCode};
5146         }
5147         if ($mybrand eq $brand && $mymodel eq $model && "LIN" eq $oscode)
5148         {
5149             @paths = map { $_->{path} } @{$bundle->{Contents}->{Package}};
5150         }
5151     }
5152     for my $component (@{$xml->{SoftwareComponent}}) {
5153         my $componenttype = $component->{ComponentType}->{value};
5154
5155         # Drop application packages, only firmware and BIOS
5156         next if 'APAC' eq $componenttype;
5157
5158         my $cpath = $component->{path};
5159         for my $path (@paths) {
5160             if ($cpath =~ m%/$path$%) {
5161                 push(@paths, $cpath);
5162             }
5163         }
5164     }
5165     return @paths;
5166 }
5167 </pre>
5168
5169 <p>The code is only tested on RedHat Enterprise Linux, but I suspect
5170 it could work on other platforms with some tweaking.  Anyone know a
5171 index like Catalog.xml is available from HP for HP servers?  At the
5172 moment I maintain a similar list manually and it is quickly getting
5173 outdated.</p>
5174
5175       </div>
5176       <div class="tags">
5177
5178
5179         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>.
5180
5181
5182       </div>
5183     </div>
5184     <div class="padding"></div>
5185
5186     <div class="entry">
5187       <div class="title">
5188         <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>
5189       </div>
5190       <div class="date">
5191          4th August 2011
5192       </div>
5193       <div class="body">
5194         <p>Wouter Verhelst have some
5195 <a href="http://grep.be/blog/en/retorts/pere_kubuntu_boot">interesting
5196 comments and opinions</a> on my blog post on
5197 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_should_start_from__etc_rcS_d__in_Debian____almost_nothing.html">the
5198 need to clean up /etc/rcS.d/ in Debian</a> and my blog post about
5199 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_missing_in_the_Debian_desktop__or_why_my_parents_use_Kubuntu.html">the
5200 default KDE desktop in Debian</a>.  I only have time to address one
5201 small piece of his comment now, and though it best to address the
5202 misunderstanding he bring forward:</p>
5203
5204 <p><blockquote>
5205 Currently, a system admin has four options: [...] boot to a
5206 single-user system (by adding 'single' to the kernel command line;
5207 this runs rcS and rc1 scripts)
5208 </blockquote></p>
5209
5210 <p>This make me believe Wouter believe booting into single user mode
5211 and booting into runlevel 1 is the same.  I am not surprised he
5212 believe this, because it would make sense and is a quite sensible
5213 thing to believe.  But because the boot in Debian is slightly broken,
5214 runlevel 1 do not work properly and it isn't the same as single user
5215 mode.  I'll try to explain what is actually happing, but it is a bit
5216 hard to explain.</p>
5217
5218 <p>Single user mode is defined like this in /etc/inittab:
5219 "<tt>~~:S:wait:/sbin/sulogin</tt>".  This means the only thing that is
5220 executed in single user mode is sulogin.  Single user mode is a boot
5221 state "between" the runlevels, and when booting into single user mode,
5222 only the scripts in /etc/rcS.d/ are executed before the init process
5223 enters the single user state.  When switching to runlevel 1, the state
5224 is in fact not ending in runlevel 1, but it passes through runlevel 1
5225 and end up in the single user mode (see /etc/rc1.d/S03single, which
5226 runs "init -t1 S" to switch to single user mode at the end of runlevel
5227 1.  It is confusing that the 'S' (single user) init mode is not the
5228 mode enabled by /etc/rcS.d/ (which is more like the initial boot
5229 mode).</p>
5230
5231 <p>This summary might make it clearer.  When booting for the first
5232 time into single user mode, the following commands are executed:
5233 "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc S; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  When booting into
5234 runlevel 1, the following commands are executed: "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc
5235 S; /etc/init.d/rc 1; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  A problem show up when
5236 trying to continue after visiting single user mode.  Not all services
5237 are started again as they should, causing the machine to end up in an
5238 unpredicatble state.  This is why Debian admins recommend rebooting
5239 after visiting single user mode.</p>
5240
5241 <p>A similar problem with runlevel 1 is caused by the amount of
5242 scripts executed from /etc/rcS.d/.  When switching from say runlevel 2
5243 to runlevel 1, the services started from /etc/rcS.d/ are not properly
5244 stopped when passing through the scripts in /etc/rc1.d/, and not
5245 started again when switching away from runlevel 1 to the runlevels
5246 2-5.  I believe the problem is best fixed by moving all the scripts
5247 out of /etc/rcS.d/ that are not <strong>required</strong> to get a
5248 functioning single user mode during boot.</p>
5249
5250 <p>I have spent several years investigating the Debian boot system,
5251 and discovered this problem a few years ago.  I suspect it originates
5252 from when sysvinit was introduced into Debian, a long time ago.</p>
5253
5254       </div>
5255       <div class="tags">
5256
5257
5258         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>.
5259
5260
5261       </div>
5262     </div>
5263     <div class="padding"></div>
5264
5265     <div class="entry">
5266       <div class="title">
5267         <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>
5268       </div>
5269       <div class="date">
5270         30th July 2011
5271       </div>
5272       <div class="body">
5273         <p>In the Debian boot system, several packages include scripts that
5274 are started from /etc/rcS.d/.  In fact, there is a bite more of them
5275 than make sense, and this causes a few problems.  What kind of
5276 problems, you might ask.  There are at least two problems.  The first
5277 is that it is not possible to recover a machine after switching to
5278 runlevel 1.  One need to actually reboot to get the machine back to
5279 the expected state.  The other is that single user boot will sometimes
5280 run into problems because some of the subsystems are activated before
5281 the root login is presented, causing problems when trying to recover a
5282 machine from a problem in that subsystem.  A minor additional point is
5283 that moving more scripts out of rcS.d/ and into the other rc#.d/
5284 directories will increase the amount of scripts that can run in
5285 parallel during boot, and thus decrease the boot time.</p>
5286
5287 <p>So, which scripts should start from rcS.d/.  In short, only the
5288 scripts that _have_ to execute before the root login prompt is
5289 presented during a single user boot should go there.  Everything else
5290 should go into the numeric runlevels.  This means things like
5291 lm-sensors, fuse and x11-common should not run from rcS.d, but from
5292 the numeric runlevels.  Today in Debian, there are around 115 init.d
5293 scripts that are started from rcS.d/, and most of them should be moved
5294 out.  Do your package have one of them?  Please help us make single
5295 user and runlevel 1 better by moving it.</p>
5296
5297 <p>Scripts setting up the screen, keyboard, system partitions
5298 etc. should still be started from rcS.d/, but there is for example no
5299 need to have the network enabled before the single user login prompt
5300 is presented.</p>
5301
5302 <p>As always, things are not so easy to fix as they sound.  To keep
5303 Debian systems working while scripts migrate and during upgrades, the
5304 scripts need to be moved from rcS.d/ to rc2.d/ in reverse dependency
5305 order, ie the scripts that nothing in rcS.d/ depend on can be moved,
5306 and the next ones can only be moved when their dependencies have been
5307 moved first.  This migration must be done sequentially while we ensure
5308 that the package system upgrade packages in the right order to keep
5309 the system state correct.  This will require some coordination when it
5310 comes to network related packages, but most of the packages with
5311 scripts that should migrate do not have anything in rcS.d/ depending
5312 on them.  Some packages have already been updated, like the sudo
5313 package, while others are still left to do.  I wish I had time to work
5314 on this myself, but real live constrains make it unlikely that I will
5315 find time to push this forward.</p>
5316
5317       </div>
5318       <div class="tags">
5319
5320
5321         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>.
5322
5323
5324       </div>
5325     </div>
5326     <div class="padding"></div>
5327
5328     <div class="entry">
5329       <div class="title">
5330         <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>
5331       </div>
5332       <div class="date">
5333         29th July 2011
5334       </div>
5335       <div class="body">
5336         <p>While at Debconf11, I have several times during discussions
5337 mentioned the issues I believe should be improved in Debian for its
5338 desktop to be useful for more people.  The use case for this is my
5339 parents, which are currently running Kubuntu which solve the
5340 issues.</p>
5341
5342 <p>I suspect these four missing features are not very hard to
5343 implement.  After all, they are present in Ubuntu, so if we wanted to
5344 do this in Debian we would have a source.</p>
5345
5346 <ol>
5347
5348 <li><strong>Simple GUI based upgrade of packages.</strong> When there
5349 are new packages available for upgrades, a icon in the KDE status bar
5350 indicate this, and clicking on it will activate the simple upgrade
5351 tool to handle it.  I have no problem guiding both of my parents
5352 through the process over the phone.  If a kernel reboot is required,
5353 this too is indicated by the status bars and the upgrade tool.  Last
5354 time I checked, nothing with the same features was working in KDE in
5355 Debian.</li>
5356
5357 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing Firefox browser
5358 plugins.</strong> When the browser encounter a MIME type it do not
5359 currently have a handler for, it will ask the user if the system
5360 should search for a package that would add support for this MIME type,
5361 and if the user say yes, the APT sources will be searched for packages
5362 advertising the MIME type in their control file (visible in the
5363 Packages file in the APT archive).  If one or more packages are found,
5364 it is a simple click of the mouse to add support for the missing mime
5365 type.  If the package require the user to accept some non-free
5366 license, this is explained to the user.  The entire process make it
5367 more clear to the user why something do not work in the browser, and
5368 make the chances higher for the user to blame the web page authors and
5369 not the browser for any missing features.</li>
5370
5371 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing multimedia codec/format
5372 handlers.</strong> When the media players encounter a format or codec
5373 it is not supporting, a dialog pop up asking the user if the system
5374 should search for a package that would add support for it.  This
5375 happen with things like MP3, Windows Media or H.264.  The selection
5376 and installation procedure is very similar to the Firefox browser
5377 plugin handling.  This is as far as I know implemented using a
5378 gstreamer hook.  The end result is that the user easily get access to
5379 the codecs that are present from the APT archives available, while
5380 explaining more on why a given format is unsupported by Ubuntu.</li>
5381
5382 <li><strong>Better browser handling of some MIME types.</strong> When
5383 displaying a text/plain file in my Debian browser, it will propose to
5384 start emacs to show it.  If I remember correctly, when doing the same
5385 in Kunbutu it show the file as a text file in the browser.  At least I
5386 know Opera will show text files within the browser.  I much prefer the
5387 latter behaviour.</li>
5388
5389 </ol>
5390
5391 <p>There are other nice features as well, like the simplified suite
5392 upgrader, but given that I am the one mostly doing the dist-upgrade,
5393 it do not matter much.</p>
5394
5395 <p>I really hope we could get these features in place for the next
5396 Debian release.  It would require the coordinated effort of several
5397 maintainers, but would make the end user experience a lot better.</p>
5398
5399       </div>
5400       <div class="tags">
5401
5402
5403         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>.
5404
5405
5406       </div>
5407     </div>
5408     <div class="padding"></div>
5409
5410     <div class="entry">
5411       <div class="title">
5412         <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>
5413       </div>
5414       <div class="date">
5415         26th July 2011
5416       </div>
5417       <div class="body">
5418         <p>The Norwegian <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</A>
5419 site is build on Debian/Squeeze, and this platform was chosen because
5420 I am most familiar with Debian (being a Debian Developer for around 10
5421 years) because it is the latest stable Debian release which should get
5422 security support for a few years.</p>
5423
5424 <p>The web service is written in Perl, and depend on some perl modules
5425 that are missing in Debian at the moment.  It would be great if these
5426 modules were added to the Debian archive, allowing anyone to set up
5427 their own <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com">FixMyStreet</a> clone
5428 in their own country using only Debian packages.  The list of modules
5429 missing in Debian/Squeeze isn't very long, and I hope the perl group
5430 will find time to package the 12 modules Catalyst::Plugin::SmartURI,
5431 Catalyst::Plugin::Unicode::Encoding, Catalyst::View::TT, Devel::Hide,
5432 Sort::Key, Statistics::Distributions, Template::Plugin::Comma,
5433 Template::Plugin::DateTime::Format, Term::Size::Any, Term::Size::Perl,
5434 URI::SmartURI and Web::Scraper to make the maintenance of FixMyStreet
5435 easier in the future.</p>
5436
5437 <p>Thanks to the great tools in Debian, getting the missing modules
5438 installed on my server was a simple call to 'cpan2deb Module::Name'
5439 and 'dpkg -i' to install the resulting package.  But this leave me
5440 with the responsibility of tracking security problems, which I really
5441 do not have time for.</p>
5442
5443       </div>
5444       <div class="tags">
5445
5446
5447         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>.
5448
5449
5450       </div>
5451     </div>
5452     <div class="padding"></div>
5453
5454     <div class="entry">
5455       <div class="title">
5456         <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>
5457       </div>
5458       <div class="date">
5459          3rd April 2011
5460       </div>
5461       <div class="body">
5462         <p>Here is a small update for my English readers.  Most of my blog
5463 posts have been in Norwegian the last few weeks, so here is a short
5464 update in English.</p>
5465
5466 <p>The kids still keep me too busy to get much free software work
5467 done, but I did manage to organise a project to get a Norwegian port
5468 of the British service
5469 <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com/">FixMyStreet</a> up and running,
5470 and it has been running for a month now.  The entire project has been
5471 organised by me and two others.  Around Christmas we gathered sponsors
5472 to fund the development work.  In January I drafted a contract with
5473 <a href="http://www.mysociety.org/">mySociety</a> on what to develop,
5474 and in February the development took place.  Most of it involved
5475 converting the source to use GPS coordinates instead of British
5476 easting/northing, and the resulting code should be a lot easier to get
5477 running in any country by now.  The Norwegian
5478 <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</a> is using
5479 <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/">OpenStreetmap</a> as the map
5480 source and the source for administrative borders in Norway, and
5481 support for this had to be added/fixed.</p>
5482
5483 <p>The Norwegian version went live March 3th, and we spent the weekend
5484 polishing the system before we announced it March 7th.  The system is
5485 running on a KVM instance of Debian/Squeeze, and has seen almost 3000
5486 problem reports in a few weeks.  Soon we hope to announce the Android
5487 and iPhone versions making it even easier to report problems with the
5488 public infrastructure.</p>
5489
5490 <p>Perhaps something to consider for those of you in countries without
5491 such service?</p>
5492
5493       </div>
5494       <div class="tags">
5495
5496
5497         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>.
5498
5499
5500       </div>
5501     </div>
5502     <div class="padding"></div>
5503
5504     <div class="entry">
5505       <div class="title">
5506         <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>
5507       </div>
5508       <div class="date">
5509         28th January 2011
5510       </div>
5511       <div class="body">
5512         <p>The last few days I have looked at ways to track open security
5513 issues here at my work with the University of Oslo.  My idea is that
5514 it should be possible to use the information about security issues
5515 available on the Internet, and check our locally
5516 maintained/distributed software against this information.  It should
5517 allow us to verify that no known security issues are forgotten.  The
5518 CVE database listing vulnerabilities seem like a great central point,
5519 and by using the package lists from Debian mapped to CVEs provided by
5520 the testing security team, I believed it should be possible to figure
5521 out which security holes were present in our free software
5522 collection.</p>
5523
5524 <p>After reading up on the topic, it became obvious that the first
5525 building block is to be able to name software packages in a unique and
5526 consistent way across data sources.  I considered several ways to do
5527 this, for example coming up with my own naming scheme like using URLs
5528 to project home pages or URLs to the Freshmeat entries, or using some
5529 existing naming scheme.  And it seem like I am not the first one to
5530 come across this problem, as MITRE already proposed and implemented a
5531 solution.  Enter the <a href="http://cpe.mitre.org/index.html">Common
5532 Platform Enumeration</a> dictionary, a vocabulary for referring to
5533 software, hardware and other platform components.  The CPE ids are
5534 mapped to CVEs in the <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/">National
5535 Vulnerability Database</a>, allowing me to look up know security
5536 issues for any CPE name.  With this in place, all I need to do is to
5537 locate the CPE id for the software packages we use at the university.
5538 This is fairly trivial (I google for 'cve cpe $package' and check the
5539 NVD entry if a CVE for the package exist).</p>
5540
5541 <p>To give you an example.  The GNU gzip source package have the CPE
5542 name cpe:/a:gnu:gzip.  If the old version 1.3.3 was the package to
5543 check out, one could look up
5544 <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
5545 in NVD</a> and get a list of 6 security holes with public CVE entries.
5546 The most recent one is
5547 <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/view/vuln/detail?vulnId=CVE-2010-0001">CVE-2010-0001</a>,
5548 and at the bottom of the NVD page for this vulnerability the complete
5549 list of affected versions is provided.</p>
5550
5551 <p>The NVD database of CVEs is also available as a XML dump, allowing
5552 for offline processing of issues.  Using this dump, I've written a
5553 small script taking a list of CPEs as input and list all CVEs
5554 affecting the packages represented by these CPEs.  One give it CPEs
5555 with version numbers as specified above and get a list of open
5556 security issues out.</p>
5557
5558 <p>Of course for this approach to be useful, the quality of the NVD
5559 information need to be high.  For that to happen, I believe as many as
5560 possible need to use and contribute to the NVD database.  I notice
5561 RHEL is providing
5562 <a href="https://www.redhat.com/security/data/metrics/rhsamapcpe.txt">a
5563 map from CVE to CPE</a>, indicating that they are using the CPE
5564 information.  I'm not aware of Debian and Ubuntu doing the same.</p>
5565
5566 <p>To get an idea about the quality for free software, I spent some
5567 time making it possible to compare the CVE database from Debian with
5568 the CVE database in NVD.  The result look fairly good, but there are
5569 some inconsistencies in NVD (same software package having several
5570 CPEs), and some inaccuracies (NVD not mentioning buggy packages that
5571 Debian believe are affected by a CVE).  Hope to find time to improve
5572 the quality of NVD, but that require being able to get in touch with
5573 someone maintaining it.  So far my three emails with questions and
5574 corrections have not seen any reply, but I hope contact can be
5575 established soon.</p>
5576
5577 <p>An interesting application for CPEs is cross platform package
5578 mapping.  It would be useful to know which packages in for example
5579 RHEL, OpenSuSe and Mandriva are missing from Debian and Ubuntu, and
5580 this would be trivial if all linux distributions provided CPE entries
5581 for their packages.</p>
5582
5583       </div>
5584       <div class="tags">
5585
5586
5587         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>.
5588
5589
5590       </div>
5591     </div>
5592     <div class="padding"></div>
5593
5594     <div class="entry">
5595       <div class="title">
5596         <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>
5597       </div>
5598       <div class="date">
5599         23rd January 2011
5600       </div>
5601       <div class="body">
5602         <p>In the
5603 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/discover-data">discover-data</a>
5604 package in Debian, there is a script to report useful information
5605 about the running hardware for use when people report missing
5606 information.  One part of this script that I find very useful when
5607 debugging hardware problems, is the part mapping loaded kernel module
5608 to the PCI device it claims.  It allow me to quickly see if the kernel
5609 module I expect is driving the hardware I am struggling with.  To see
5610 the output, make sure discover-data is installed and run
5611 <tt>/usr/share/bug/discover-data 3>&1</tt>.  The relevant output on
5612 one of my machines like this:</p>
5613
5614 <pre>
5615 loaded modules:
5616 10de:03eb i2c_nforce2
5617 10de:03f1 ohci_hcd
5618 10de:03f2 ehci_hcd
5619 10de:03f0 snd_hda_intel
5620 10de:03ec pata_amd
5621 10de:03f6 sata_nv
5622 1022:1103 k8temp
5623 109e:036e bttv
5624 109e:0878 snd_bt87x
5625 11ab:4364 sky2
5626 </pre>
5627
5628 <p>The code in question look like this, slightly modified for
5629 readability and to drop the output to file descriptor 3:</p>
5630
5631 <pre>
5632 if [ -d /sys/bus/pci/devices/ ] ; then
5633     echo loaded pci modules:
5634     (
5635         cd /sys/bus/pci/devices/
5636         for address in * ; do
5637             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
5638                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
5639                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
5640                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
5641                     id=`lspci -n -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $3}'`
5642                     echo "$id $module"
5643                 fi
5644             fi
5645         done
5646     )
5647     echo
5648 fi
5649 </pre>
5650
5651 <p>Similar code could be used to extract USB device module
5652 mappings:</p>
5653
5654 <pre>
5655 if [ -d /sys/bus/usb/devices/ ] ; then
5656     echo loaded usb modules:
5657     (
5658         cd /sys/bus/usb/devices/
5659         for address in * ; do
5660             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
5661                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
5662                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
5663                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
5664                     id=$(lsusb -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $6}')
5665                     if [ "$id" ] ; then
5666                         echo "$id $module"
5667                     fi
5668                 fi
5669             fi
5670         done
5671     )
5672     echo
5673 fi
5674 </pre>
5675
5676 <p>This might perhaps be something to include in other tools as
5677 well.</p>
5678
5679       </div>
5680       <div class="tags">
5681
5682
5683         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>.
5684
5685
5686       </div>
5687     </div>
5688     <div class="padding"></div>
5689
5690     <div class="entry">
5691       <div class="title">
5692         <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>
5693       </div>
5694       <div class="date">
5695         22nd December 2010
5696       </div>
5697       <div class="body">
5698         <p>The last few days I have spent at work here at the <a
5699 href="http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo</a> testing if the new
5700 batch of computers will work with Linux.  Every year for the last few
5701 years the university have organised shared bid of a few thousand
5702 computers, and this year HP won the bid.  Two different desktops and
5703 five different laptops are on the list this year.  We in the UNIX
5704 group want to know which one of these computers work well with RHEL
5705 and Ubuntu, the two Linux distributions we currently handle at the
5706 university.</p>
5707
5708 <p>My test method is simple, and I share it here to get feedback and
5709 perhaps inspire others to test hardware as well.  To test, I PXE
5710 install the OS version of choice, and log in as my normal user and run
5711 a few applications and plug in selected pieces of hardware.  When
5712 something fail, I make a note about this in the test matrix and move
5713 on.  If I have some spare time I try to report the bug to the OS
5714 vendor, but as I only have the machines for a short time, I rarely
5715 have the time to do this for all the problems I find.</p>
5716
5717 <p>Anyway, to get to the point of this post.  Here is the simple tests
5718 I perform on a new model.</p>
5719
5720 <ul>
5721
5722 <li>Is PXE installation working?  I'm testing with RHEL6, Ubuntu Lucid
5723 and Ubuntu Maverik at the moment.  If I feel like it, I also test with
5724 RHEL5 and Debian Edu/Squeeze.</li>
5725
5726 <li>Is X.org working?  If the graphical login screen show up after
5727 installation, X.org is working.</li>
5728
5729 <li>Is hardware accelerated OpenGL working?  Running glxgears (in
5730 package mesa-utils on Ubuntu) and writing down the frames per second
5731 reported by the program.</li>
5732
5733 <li>Is sound working?  With Gnome and KDE, a sound is played when
5734 logging in, and if I can hear this the test is successful.  If there
5735 are several audio exits on the machine, I try them all and check if
5736 the Gnome/KDE audio mixer can control where to send the sound.  I
5737 normally test this by playing
5738 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20101012-chef/ ">a HTML5
5739 video</a> in Firefox/Iceweasel.</li>
5740
5741 <li>Is the USB subsystem working?  I test this by plugging in a USB
5742 memory stick and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
5743
5744 <li>Is the CD/DVD player working?  I test this by inserting any CD/DVD
5745 I have lying around, and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
5746
5747 <li>Is any built in camera working?  Test using cheese, and see if a
5748 picture from the v4l device show up.</li>
5749
5750 <li>Is bluetooth working?  Use the Gnome/KDE browsing tool to see if
5751 any bluetooth devices are discovered.  In my office, I normally see a
5752 few.</li>
5753
5754 <li>For laptops, is the SD or Compaq Flash reader working.  I have
5755 memory modules lying around, and stick them in and see if Gnome/KDE
5756 notice this.</li>
5757
5758 <li>For laptops, is suspend/hibernate working?  I'm testing if the
5759 special button work, and if the laptop continue to work after
5760 resume.</li>
5761
5762 <li>For laptops, is the extra buttons working, like audio level,
5763 adjusting background light, switching on/off external video output,
5764 switching on/off wifi, bluetooth, etc?  The set of buttons differ from
5765 laptop to laptop, so I just write down which are working and which are
5766 not.</li>
5767
5768 <li>Some laptops have smart card readers, finger print readers,
5769 acceleration sensors etc.  I rarely test these, as I do not know how
5770 to quickly test if they are working or not, so I only document their
5771 existence.</li>
5772
5773 </ul>
5774
5775 <p>By now I suspect you are really curious what the test results are
5776 for the HP machines I am testing.  I'm not done yet, so I will report
5777 the test results later.  For now I can report that HP 8100 Elite work
5778 fine, and hibernation fail with HP EliteBook 8440p on Ubuntu Lucid,
5779 and audio fail on RHEL6.  Ubuntu Maverik worked with 8440p.  As you
5780 can see, I have most machines left to test.  One interesting
5781 observation is that Ubuntu Lucid has almost twice the frame rate than
5782 RHEL6 with glxgears.  No idea why.</p>
5783
5784       </div>
5785       <div class="tags">
5786
5787
5788         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>.
5789
5790
5791       </div>
5792     </div>
5793     <div class="padding"></div>
5794
5795     <div class="entry">
5796       <div class="title">
5797         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Some_thoughts_on_BitCoins.html">Some thoughts on BitCoins</a>
5798       </div>
5799       <div class="date">
5800         11th December 2010
5801       </div>
5802       <div class="body">
5803         <p>As I continue to explore
5804 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>, I've starting to wonder
5805 what properties the system have, and how it will be affected by laws
5806 and regulations here in Norway.  Here are some random notes.</p>
5807
5808 <p>One interesting thing to note is that since the transactions are
5809 verified using a peer to peer network, all details about a transaction
5810 is known to everyone.  This means that if a BitCoin address has been
5811 published like I did with mine in my initial post about BitCoin, it is
5812 possible for everyone to see how many BitCoins have been transfered to
5813 that address.  There is even a web service to look at the details for
5814 all transactions.  There I can see that my address
5815 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a>
5816 have received 16.06 Bitcoin, the
5817 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3">1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3</a>
5818 address of Simon Phipps have received 181.97 BitCoin and the address
5819 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt">1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt</A>
5820 of EFF have received 2447.38 BitCoins so far.  Thank you to each and
5821 every one of you that donated bitcoins to support my activity. The
5822 fact that anyone can see how much money was transfered to a given
5823 address make it more obvious why the BitCoin community recommend to
5824 generate and hand out a new address for each transaction.  I'm told
5825 there is no way to track which addresses belong to a given person or
5826 organisation without the person or organisation revealing it
5827 themselves, as Simon, EFF and I have done.</p>
5828
5829 <p>In Norway, and in most other countries, there are laws and
5830 regulations limiting how much money one can transfer across the border
5831 without declaring it.  There are money laundering, tax and accounting
5832 laws and regulations I would expect to apply to the use of BitCoin.
5833 If the Skolelinux foundation
5834 (<a href="http://linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">SLX
5835 Debian Labs</a>) were to accept donations in BitCoin in addition to
5836 normal bank transfers like EFF is doing, how should this be accounted?
5837 Given that it is impossible to know if money can cross the border or
5838 not, should everything or nothing be declared?  What exchange rate
5839 should be used when calculating taxes?  Would receivers have to pay
5840 income tax if the foundation were to pay Skolelinux contributors in
5841 BitCoin?  I have no idea, but it would be interesting to know.</p>
5842
5843 <p>For a currency to be useful and successful, it must be trusted and
5844 accepted by a lot of users.  It must be possible to get easy access to
5845 the currency (as a wage or using currency exchanges), and it must be
5846 easy to spend it.  At the moment BitCoin seem fairly easy to get
5847 access to, but there are very few places to spend it.  I am not really
5848 a regular user of any of the vendor types currently accepting BitCoin,
5849 so I wonder when my kind of shop would start accepting BitCoins.  I
5850 would like to buy electronics, travels and subway tickets, not herbs
5851 and books. :) The currency is young, and this will improve over time
5852 if it become popular, but I suspect regular banks will start to lobby
5853 to get BitCoin declared illegal if it become popular.  I'm sure they
5854 will claim it is helping fund terrorism and money laundering (which
5855 probably would be true, as is any currency in existence), but I
5856 believe the problems should be solved elsewhere and not by blaming
5857 currencies.</p>
5858
5859 <p>The process of creating new BitCoins is called mining, and it is
5860 CPU intensive process that depend on a bit of luck as well (as one is
5861 competing against all the other miners currently spending CPU cycles
5862 to see which one get the next lump of cash).  The "winner" get 50
5863 BitCoin when this happen.  Yesterday I came across the obvious way to
5864 join forces to increase ones changes of getting at least some coins,
5865 by coordinating the work on mining BitCoins across several machines
5866 and people, and sharing the result if one is lucky and get the 50
5867 BitCoins.  Check out
5868 <a href="http://www.bluishcoder.co.nz/bitcoin-pool/">BitCoin Pool</a>
5869 if this sounds interesting.  I have not had time to try to set up a
5870 machine to participate there yet, but have seen that running on ones
5871 own for a few days have not yield any BitCoins througth mining
5872 yet.</p>
5873
5874 <p>Update 2010-12-15: Found an <a
5875 href="http://inertia.posterous.com/reply-to-the-underground-economist-why-bitcoi">interesting
5876 criticism</a> of bitcoin.  Not quite sure how valid it is, but thought
5877 it was interesting to read.  The arguments presented seem to be
5878 equally valid for gold, which was used as a currency for many years.</p>
5879
5880       </div>
5881       <div class="tags">
5882
5883
5884         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>.
5885
5886
5887       </div>
5888     </div>
5889     <div class="padding"></div>
5890
5891     <div class="entry">
5892       <div class="title">
5893         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Now_accepting_bitcoins___anonymous_and_distributed_p2p_crypto_money.html">Now accepting bitcoins - anonymous and distributed p2p crypto-money</a>
5894       </div>
5895       <div class="date">
5896         10th December 2010
5897       </div>
5898       <div class="body">
5899         <p>With this weeks lawless
5900 <a href="http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/06/wikileaks/index.html">governmental
5901 attacks</a> on Wikileak and
5902 <a href="http://www.salon.com/technology/dan_gillmor/2010/12/06/war_on_speech">free
5903 speech</a>, it has become obvious that PayPal, visa and mastercard can
5904 not be trusted to handle money transactions.
5905 A blog post from
5906 <a href="http://webmink.com/2010/12/06/now-accepting-bitcoin/">Simon
5907 Phipps on bitcoin</a> reminded me about a project that a friend of
5908 mine mentioned earlier.  I decided to follow Simon's example, and get
5909 involved with <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>.  I got
5910 some help from my friend to get it all running, and he even handed me
5911 some bitcoins to get started.  I even donated a few bitcoins to Simon
5912 for helping me remember BitCoin.</p>
5913
5914 <p>So, what is bitcoins, you probably wonder?  It is a digital
5915 crypto-currency, decentralised and handled using peer-to-peer
5916 networks.  It allows anonymous transactions and prohibits central
5917 control over the transactions, making it impossible for governments
5918 and companies alike to block donations and other transactions.  The
5919 source is free software, and while the key dependency wxWidgets 2.9
5920 for the graphical user interface is missing in Debian, the command
5921 line client builds just fine.  Hopefully Jonas
5922 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/578157">will get the package into
5923 Debian</a> soon.</p>
5924
5925 <p>Bitcoins can be converted to other currencies, like USD and EUR.
5926 There are <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/trade">companies accepting
5927 bitcoins</a> when selling services and goods, and there are even
5928 currency "stock" markets where the exchange rate is decided.  There
5929 are not many users so far, but the concept seems promising.  If you
5930 want to get started and lack a friend with any bitcoins to spare,
5931 you can even get
5932 <a href="https://freebitcoins.appspot.com/">some for free</a> (0.05
5933 bitcoin at the time of writing).  Use
5934 <a href="http://www.bitcoinwatch.com/">BitcoinWatch</a> to keep an eye
5935 on the current exchange rates.</p>
5936
5937 <p>As an experiment, I have decided to set up bitcoind on one of my
5938 machines.  If you want to support my activity, please send Bitcoin
5939 donations to the address
5940 <b>15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</b>.  Thank you!</p>
5941
5942       </div>
5943       <div class="tags">
5944
5945
5946         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>.
5947
5948
5949       </div>
5950     </div>
5951     <div class="padding"></div>
5952
5953     <div class="entry">
5954       <div class="title">
5955         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_isn_t_Debian_Edu_using_VLC_.html">Why isn't Debian Edu using VLC?</a>
5956       </div>
5957       <div class="date">
5958         27th November 2010
5959       </div>
5960       <div class="body">
5961         <p>In the latest issue of Linux Journal, the readers choices were
5962 presented, and the winner among the multimedia player were VLC.
5963 Personally, I like VLC, and it is my player of choice when I first try
5964 to play a video file or stream.  Only if VLC fail will I drag out
5965 gmplayer to see if it can do better.  The reason is mostly the failure
5966 model and trust.  When VLC fail, it normally pop up a error message
5967 reporting the problem.  When mplayer fail, it normally segfault or
5968 just hangs.  The latter failure mode drain my trust in the program.<p>
5969
5970 <p>But even if VLC is my player of choice, we have choosen to use
5971 mplayer in <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
5972 Edu/Skolelinux</a>.  The reason is simple.  We need a good browser
5973 plugin to play web videos seamlessly, and the VLC browser plugin is
5974 not very good.  For example, it lack in-line control buttons, so there
5975 is no way for the user to pause the video.  Also, when I
5976 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">last
5977 tested the browser plugins</a> available in Debian, the VLC plugin
5978 failed on several video pages where mplayer based plugins worked.  If
5979 the browser plugin for VLC was as good as the gecko-mediaplayer
5980 package (which uses mplayer), we would switch.</P>
5981
5982 <p>While VLC is a good player, its user interface is slightly
5983 annoying.  The most annoying feature is its inconsistent use of
5984 keyboard shortcuts.  When the player is in full screen mode, its
5985 shortcuts are different from when it is playing the video in a window.
5986 For example, space only work as pause when in full screen mode.  I
5987 wish it had consisten shortcuts and that space also would work when in
5988 window mode.  Another nice shortcut in gmplayer is [enter] to restart
5989 the current video.  It is very nice when playing short videos from the
5990 web and want to restart it when new people arrive to have a look at
5991 what is going on.</p>
5992
5993       </div>
5994       <div class="tags">
5995
5996
5997         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>.
5998
5999
6000       </div>
6001     </div>
6002     <div class="padding"></div>
6003
6004     <div class="entry">
6005       <div class="title">
6006         <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>
6007       </div>
6008       <div class="date">
6009         22nd November 2010
6010       </div>
6011       <div class="body">
6012         <p>Michael Biebl suggested to me on IRC, that I changed my automated
6013 upgrade testing of the
6014 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
6015 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a> to do <tt>apt-get autoremove</tt> when using apt-get.
6016 This seem like a very good idea, so I adjusted by test scripts and
6017 can now present the updated result from today:</p>
6018
6019 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
6020
6021 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
6022
6023 <blockquote><p>
6024   apache2.2-bin
6025   aptdaemon
6026   baobab
6027   binfmt-support
6028   browser-plugin-gnash
6029   cheese-common
6030   cli-common
6031   cups-pk-helper
6032   dmz-cursor-theme
6033   empathy
6034   empathy-common
6035   freedesktop-sound-theme
6036   freeglut3
6037   gconf-defaults-service
6038   gdm-themes
6039   gedit-plugins
6040   geoclue
6041   geoclue-hostip
6042   geoclue-localnet
6043   geoclue-manual
6044   geoclue-yahoo
6045   gnash
6046   gnash-common
6047   gnome
6048   gnome-backgrounds
6049   gnome-cards-data
6050   gnome-codec-install
6051   gnome-core
6052   gnome-desktop-environment
6053   gnome-disk-utility
6054   gnome-screenshot
6055   gnome-search-tool
6056   gnome-session-canberra
6057   gnome-system-log
6058   gnome-themes-extras
6059   gnome-themes-more
6060   gnome-user-share
6061   gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
6062   gstreamer0.10-tools
6063   gtk2-engines
6064   gtk2-engines-pixbuf
6065   gtk2-engines-smooth
6066   hamster-applet
6067   libapache2-mod-dnssd
6068   libapr1
6069   libaprutil1
6070   libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3
6071   libaprutil1-ldap
6072   libart2.0-cil
6073   libboost-date-time1.42.0
6074   libboost-python1.42.0
6075   libboost-thread1.42.0
6076   libchamplain-0.4-0
6077   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0
6078   libcheese-gtk18
6079   libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
6080   libcryptui0
6081   libdiscid0
6082   libelf1
6083   libepc-1.0-2
6084   libepc-common
6085   libepc-ui-1.0-2
6086   libfreerdp-plugins-standard
6087   libfreerdp0
6088   libgconf2.0-cil
6089   libgdata-common
6090   libgdata7
6091   libgdu-gtk0
6092   libgee2
6093   libgeoclue0
6094   libgexiv2-0
6095   libgif4
6096   libglade2.0-cil
6097   libglib2.0-cil
6098   libgmime2.4-cil
6099   libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
6100   libgnome2.24-cil
6101   libgnomepanel2.24-cil
6102   libgpod-common
6103   libgpod4
6104   libgtk2.0-cil
6105   libgtkglext1
6106   libgtksourceview2.0-common
6107   libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
6108   libmono-addins0.2-cil
6109   libmono-cairo2.0-cil
6110   libmono-corlib2.0-cil
6111   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil
6112   libmono-posix2.0-cil
6113   libmono-security2.0-cil
6114   libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
6115   libmono-system2.0-cil
6116   libmtp8
6117   libmusicbrainz3-6
6118   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil
6119   libndesk-dbus1.0-cil
6120   libopal3.6.8
6121   libpolkit-gtk-1-0
6122   libpt2.6.7
6123   libpython2.6
6124   librpm1
6125   librpmio1
6126   libsdl1.2debian
6127   libsrtp0
6128   libssh-4
6129   libtelepathy-farsight0
6130   libtelepathy-glib0
6131   libtidy-0.99-0
6132   media-player-info
6133   mesa-utils
6134   mono-2.0-gac
6135   mono-gac
6136   mono-runtime
6137   nautilus-sendto
6138   nautilus-sendto-empathy
6139   p7zip-full
6140   pkg-config
6141   python-aptdaemon
6142   python-aptdaemon-gtk
6143   python-axiom
6144   python-beautifulsoup
6145   python-bugbuddy
6146   python-clientform
6147   python-coherence
6148   python-configobj
6149   python-crypto
6150   python-cupshelpers
6151   python-elementtree
6152   python-epsilon
6153   python-evolution
6154   python-feedparser
6155   python-gdata
6156   python-gdbm
6157   python-gst0.10
6158   python-gtkglext1
6159   python-gtksourceview2
6160   python-httplib2
6161   python-louie
6162   python-mako
6163   python-markupsafe
6164   python-mechanize
6165   python-nevow
6166   python-notify
6167   python-opengl
6168   python-openssl
6169   python-pam
6170   python-pkg-resources
6171   python-pyasn1
6172   python-pysqlite2
6173   python-rdflib
6174   python-serial
6175   python-tagpy
6176   python-twisted-bin
6177   python-twisted-conch
6178   python-twisted-core
6179   python-twisted-web
6180   python-utidylib
6181   python-webkit
6182   python-xdg
6183   python-zope.interface
6184   remmina
6185   remmina-plugin-data
6186   remmina-plugin-rdp
6187   remmina-plugin-vnc
6188   rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
6189   rhythmbox-plugins
6190   rpm-common
6191   rpm2cpio
6192   seahorse-plugins
6193   shotwell
6194   software-center
6195   system-config-printer-udev
6196   telepathy-gabble
6197   telepathy-mission-control-5
6198   telepathy-salut
6199   tomboy
6200   totem
6201   totem-coherence
6202   totem-mozilla
6203   totem-plugins
6204   transmission-common
6205   xdg-user-dirs
6206   xdg-user-dirs-gtk
6207   xserver-xephyr
6208 </p></blockquote>
6209
6210 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
6211
6212 <blockquote><p>
6213   cheese
6214   ekiga
6215   eog
6216   epiphany-extensions
6217   evolution-exchange
6218   fast-user-switch-applet
6219   file-roller
6220   gcalctool
6221   gconf-editor
6222   gdm
6223   gedit
6224   gedit-common
6225   gnome-games
6226   gnome-games-data
6227   gnome-nettool
6228   gnome-system-tools
6229   gnome-themes
6230   gnuchess
6231   gucharmap
6232   guile-1.8-libs
6233   libavahi-ui0
6234   libdmx1
6235   libgalago3
6236   libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
6237   libgtksourceview2.0-0
6238   liblircclient0
6239   libsdl1.2debian-alsa
6240   libspeexdsp1
6241   libsvga1
6242   rhythmbox
6243   seahorse
6244   sound-juicer
6245   system-config-printer
6246   totem-common
6247   transmission-gtk
6248   vinagre
6249   vino
6250 </p></blockquote>
6251
6252 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
6253
6254 <blockquote><p>
6255   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
6256 </p></blockquote>
6257
6258 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
6259
6260 <blockquote><p>
6261 [nothing]
6262 </p></blockquote>
6263
6264 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
6265
6266 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
6267
6268 <blockquote><p>
6269   ksmserver
6270 </p></blockquote>
6271
6272 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
6273
6274 <blockquote><p>
6275   kwin
6276   network-manager-kde
6277 </p></blockquote>
6278
6279 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
6280
6281 <blockquote><p>
6282   arts
6283   dolphin
6284   freespacenotifier
6285   google-gadgets-gst
6286   google-gadgets-xul
6287   kappfinder
6288   kcalc
6289   kcharselect
6290   kde-core
6291   kde-plasma-desktop
6292   kde-standard
6293   kde-window-manager
6294   kdeartwork
6295   kdeartwork-emoticons
6296   kdeartwork-style
6297   kdeartwork-theme-icon
6298   kdebase
6299   kdebase-apps
6300   kdebase-workspace
6301   kdebase-workspace-bin
6302   kdebase-workspace-data
6303   kdeeject
6304   kdelibs
6305   kdeplasma-addons
6306   kdeutils
6307   kdewallpapers
6308   kdf
6309   kfloppy
6310   kgpg
6311   khelpcenter4
6312   kinfocenter
6313   konq-plugins-l10n
6314   konqueror-nsplugins
6315   kscreensaver
6316   kscreensaver-xsavers
6317   ktimer
6318   kwrite
6319   libgle3
6320   libkde4-ruby1.8
6321   libkonq5
6322   libkonq5-templates
6323   libnetpbm10
6324   libplasma-ruby
6325   libplasma-ruby1.8
6326   libqt4-ruby1.8
6327   marble-data
6328   marble-plugins
6329   netpbm
6330   nuvola-icon-theme
6331   plasma-dataengines-workspace
6332   plasma-desktop
6333   plasma-desktopthemes-artwork
6334   plasma-runners-addons
6335   plasma-scriptengine-googlegadgets
6336   plasma-scriptengine-python
6337   plasma-scriptengine-qedje
6338   plasma-scriptengine-ruby
6339   plasma-scriptengine-webkit
6340   plasma-scriptengines
6341   plasma-wallpapers-addons
6342   plasma-widget-folderview
6343   plasma-widget-networkmanagement
6344   ruby
6345   sweeper
6346   update-notifier-kde
6347   xscreensaver-data-extra
6348   xscreensaver-gl
6349   xscreensaver-gl-extra
6350   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
6351 </p></blockquote>
6352
6353 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
6354
6355 <blockquote><p>
6356   ark
6357   google-gadgets-common
6358   google-gadgets-qt
6359   htdig
6360   kate
6361   kdebase-bin
6362   kdebase-data
6363   kdepasswd
6364   kfind
6365   klipper
6366   konq-plugins
6367   konqueror
6368   ksysguard
6369   ksysguardd
6370   libarchive1
6371   libcln6
6372   libeet1
6373   libeina-svn-06
6374   libggadget-1.0-0b
6375   libggadget-qt-1.0-0b
6376   libgps19
6377   libkdecorations4
6378   libkephal4
6379   libkonq4
6380   libkonqsidebarplugin4a
6381   libkscreensaver5
6382   libksgrd4
6383   libksignalplotter4
6384   libkunitconversion4
6385   libkwineffects1a
6386   libmarblewidget4
6387   libntrack-qt4-1
6388   libntrack0
6389   libplasma-geolocation-interface4
6390   libplasmaclock4a
6391   libplasmagenericshell4
6392   libprocesscore4a
6393   libprocessui4a
6394   libqalculate5
6395   libqedje0a
6396   libqtruby4shared2
6397   libqzion0a
6398   libruby1.8
6399   libscim8c2a
6400   libsmokekdecore4-3
6401   libsmokekdeui4-3
6402   libsmokekfile3
6403   libsmokekhtml3
6404   libsmokekio3
6405   libsmokeknewstuff2-3
6406   libsmokeknewstuff3-3
6407   libsmokekparts3
6408   libsmokektexteditor3
6409   libsmokekutils3
6410   libsmokenepomuk3
6411   libsmokephonon3
6412   libsmokeplasma3
6413   libsmokeqtcore4-3
6414   libsmokeqtdbus4-3
6415   libsmokeqtgui4-3
6416   libsmokeqtnetwork4-3
6417   libsmokeqtopengl4-3
6418   libsmokeqtscript4-3
6419   libsmokeqtsql4-3
6420   libsmokeqtsvg4-3
6421   libsmokeqttest4-3
6422   libsmokeqtuitools4-3
6423   libsmokeqtwebkit4-3
6424   libsmokeqtxml4-3
6425   libsmokesolid3
6426   libsmokesoprano3
6427   libtaskmanager4a
6428   libtidy-0.99-0
6429   libweather-ion4a
6430   libxklavier16
6431   libxxf86misc1
6432   okteta
6433   oxygencursors
6434   plasma-dataengines-addons
6435   plasma-scriptengine-superkaramba
6436   plasma-widget-lancelot
6437   plasma-widgets-addons
6438   plasma-widgets-workspace
6439   polkit-kde-1
6440   ruby1.8
6441   systemsettings
6442   update-notifier-common
6443 </p></blockquote>
6444
6445 <p>Running apt-get autoremove made the results using apt-get and
6446 aptitude a bit more similar, but there are still quite a lott of
6447 differences.  I have no idea what packages should be installed after
6448 the upgrade, but hope those that do can have a look.</p>
6449
6450       </div>
6451       <div class="tags">
6452
6453
6454         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>.
6455
6456
6457       </div>
6458     </div>
6459     <div class="padding"></div>
6460
6461     <div class="entry">
6462       <div class="title">
6463         <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>
6464       </div>
6465       <div class="date">
6466         22nd November 2010
6467       </div>
6468       <div class="body">
6469         <p>Most of the computers in use by the
6470 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux project</a>
6471 are virtual machines.  And they have been Xen machines running on a
6472 fairly old IBM eserver xseries 345 machine, and we wanted to migrate
6473 them to KVM on a newer Dell PowerEdge 2950 host machine.  This was a
6474 bit harder that it could have been, because we set up the Xen virtual
6475 machines to get the virtual partitions from LVM, which as far as I
6476 know is not supported by KVM.  So to migrate, we had to convert
6477 several LVM logical volumes to partitions on a virtual disk file.</p>
6478
6479 <p>I found
6480 <a href="http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM">a
6481 nice recipe</a> to do this, and wrote the following script to do the
6482 migration.  It uses qemu-img from the qemu package to make the disk
6483 image, parted to partition it, losetup and kpartx to present the disk
6484 image partions as devices, and dd to copy the data.  I NFS mounted the
6485 new servers storage area on the old server to do the migration.</p>
6486
6487 <pre>
6488 #!/bin/sh
6489
6490 # Based on
6491 # http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM
6492
6493 set -e
6494 set -x
6495
6496 if [ -z "$1" ] ; then
6497     echo "Usage: $0 &lt;hostname&gt;"
6498     exit 1
6499 else
6500     host="$1"
6501 fi
6502
6503 if [ ! -e /dev/vg_data/$host-disk ] ; then
6504     echo "error: unable to find LVM volume for $host"
6505     exit 1
6506 fi
6507
6508 # Partitions need to be a bit bigger than the LVM LVs.  not sure why.
6509 disksize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-disk | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
6510 swapsize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-swap | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
6511 totalsize=$(( ( $disksize + $swapsize ) ))
6512
6513 img=$host.img
6514 #dd if=/dev/zero of=$img bs=1M count=$(( $disksize + $swapsize ))
6515 qemu-img create $img ${totalsize}MMaking room on the Debian Edu/Sqeeze DVD
6516
6517 parted $img mklabel msdos
6518 parted $img mkpart primary linux-swap 0 $disksize
6519 parted $img mkpart primary ext2 $disksize $totalsize
6520 parted $img set 1 boot on
6521
6522 modprobe dm-mod
6523 losetup /dev/loop0 $img
6524 kpartx -a /dev/loop0
6525
6526 dd if=/dev/vg_data/$host-disk of=/dev/mapper/loop0p1 bs=1M
6527 fsck.ext3 -f /dev/mapper/loop0p1 || true
6528 mkswap /dev/mapper/loop0p2
6529
6530 kpartx -d /dev/loop0
6531 losetup -d /dev/loop0
6532 </pre>
6533
6534 <p>The script is perhaps so simple that it is not copyrightable, but
6535 if it is, it is licenced using GPL v2 or later at your discretion.</p>
6536
6537 <p>After doing this, I booted a Debian CD in rescue mode in KVM with
6538 the new disk image attached, installed grub-pc and linux-image-686 and
6539 set up grub to boot from the disk image.  After this, the KVM machines
6540 seem to work just fine.</p>
6541
6542       </div>
6543       <div class="tags">
6544
6545
6546         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>.
6547
6548
6549       </div>
6550     </div>
6551     <div class="padding"></div>
6552
6553     <div class="entry">
6554       <div class="title">
6555         <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>
6556       </div>
6557       <div class="date">
6558         20th November 2010
6559       </div>
6560       <div class="body">
6561         <p>I'm still running upgrade testing of the
6562 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
6563 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a>, but have not had time to spend on reporting the
6564 status.  Here is a short update based on a test I ran 20101118.</p>
6565
6566 <p>I still do not know what a correct migration should look like, so I
6567 report any differences between apt and aptitude and hope someone else
6568 can see if anything should be changed.</p>
6569
6570 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
6571
6572 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
6573
6574 <blockquote><p>
6575   apache2.2-bin aptdaemon at-spi baobab binfmt-support
6576   browser-plugin-gnash cheese-common cli-common cpp-4.3 cups-pk-helper
6577   dmz-cursor-theme empathy empathy-common finger
6578   freedesktop-sound-theme freeglut3 gconf-defaults-service gdm-themes
6579   gedit-plugins geoclue geoclue-hostip geoclue-localnet geoclue-manual
6580   geoclue-yahoo gnash gnash-common gnome gnome-backgrounds
6581   gnome-cards-data gnome-codec-install gnome-core
6582   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-disk-utility gnome-screenshot
6583   gnome-search-tool gnome-session-canberra gnome-spell
6584   gnome-system-log gnome-themes-extras gnome-themes-more
6585   gnome-user-share gs-common gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
6586   gstreamer0.10-tools gtk2-engines gtk2-engines-pixbuf
6587   gtk2-engines-smooth hal-info hamster-applet libapache2-mod-dnssd
6588   libapr1 libaprutil1 libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3 libaprutil1-ldap
6589   libart2.0-cil libatspi1.0-0 libboost-date-time1.42.0
6590   libboost-python1.42.0 libboost-thread1.42.0 libchamplain-0.4-0
6591   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0 libcheese-gtk18 libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
6592   libcryptui0 libcupsys2 libdiscid0 libeel2-data libelf1 libepc-1.0-2
6593   libepc-common libepc-ui-1.0-2 libfreerdp-plugins-standard
6594   libfreerdp0 libgail-common libgconf2.0-cil libgdata-common libgdata7
6595   libgdl-1-common libgdu-gtk0 libgee2 libgeoclue0 libgexiv2-0 libgif4
6596   libglade2.0-cil libglib2.0-cil libgmime2.4-cil libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
6597   libgnome2.24-cil libgnomepanel2.24-cil libgnomeprint2.2-data
6598   libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod-common libgpod4
6599   libgtk2.0-cil libgtkglext1 libgtksourceview-common
6600   libgtksourceview2.0-common libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
6601   libmono-addins0.2-cil libmono-cairo2.0-cil libmono-corlib2.0-cil
6602   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil libmono-posix2.0-cil
6603   libmono-security2.0-cil libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
6604   libmono-system2.0-cil libmtp8 libmusicbrainz3-6
6605   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil libndesk-dbus1.0-cil libopal3.6.8
6606   libpolkit-gtk-1-0 libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
6607   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libpt2.6.7 libpython2.6 librpm1 librpmio1
6608   libsdl1.2debian libservlet2.4-java libsrtp0 libssh-4
6609   libtelepathy-farsight0 libtelepathy-glib0 libtidy-0.99-0
6610   libxalan2-java libxerces2-java media-player-info mesa-utils
6611   mono-2.0-gac mono-gac mono-runtime nautilus-sendto
6612   nautilus-sendto-empathy openoffice.org-writer2latex
6613   openssl-blacklist p7zip p7zip-full pkg-config python-4suite-xml
6614   python-aptdaemon python-aptdaemon-gtk python-axiom
6615   python-beautifulsoup python-bugbuddy python-clientform
6616   python-coherence python-configobj python-crypto python-cupshelpers
6617   python-cupsutils python-eggtrayicon python-elementtree
6618   python-epsilon python-evolution python-feedparser python-gdata
6619   python-gdbm python-gst0.10 python-gtkglext1 python-gtkmozembed
6620   python-gtksourceview2 python-httplib2 python-louie python-mako
6621   python-markupsafe python-mechanize python-nevow python-notify
6622   python-opengl python-openssl python-pam python-pkg-resources
6623   python-pyasn1 python-pysqlite2 python-rdflib python-serial
6624   python-tagpy python-twisted-bin python-twisted-conch
6625   python-twisted-core python-twisted-web python-utidylib python-webkit
6626   python-xdg python-zope.interface remmina remmina-plugin-data
6627   remmina-plugin-rdp remmina-plugin-vnc rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
6628   rhythmbox-plugins rpm-common rpm2cpio seahorse-plugins shotwell
6629   software-center svgalibg1 system-config-printer-udev
6630   telepathy-gabble telepathy-mission-control-5 telepathy-salut tomboy
6631   totem totem-coherence totem-mozilla totem-plugins
6632   transmission-common xdg-user-dirs xdg-user-dirs-gtk xserver-xephyr
6633   zip
6634 </p></blockquote>
6635
6636 Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude
6637
6638 <blockquote><p>
6639   arj bluez-utils cheese dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop ekiga eog
6640   epiphany-extensions epiphany-gecko evolution-exchange
6641   fast-user-switch-applet file-roller gcalctool gconf-editor gdm gedit
6642   gedit-common gnome-app-install gnome-games gnome-games-data
6643   gnome-nettool gnome-system-tools gnome-themes gnome-utils
6644   gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager gnuchess gucharmap
6645   guile-1.8-libs hal libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5
6646   libavahi-ui0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7
6647   libcucul0 libcurl3 libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdmx1 libdvdread3
6648   libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1
6649   libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3 libfaad0 libgadu3
6650   libgalago3 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
6651   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
6652   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
6653   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
6654   libgtkhtml2-0 libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgtksourceview2.0-0
6655   libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
6656   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libkpathsea4 liblircclient0 libltdl3 liblwres50
6657   libmagick++10 libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmozjs1d libmpfr1ldbl libmtp7
6658   libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0
6659   libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpisock9
6660   libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8
6661   libsdl1.2debian-alsa libsensors3 libsexy2 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
6662   libspeexdsp1 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libsvga1
6663   libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0
6664   libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12
6665   libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common rhythmbox seahorse
6666   sound-juicer swfdec-gnome system-config-printer totem-common
6667   totem-gstreamer transmission-gtk vinagre vino w3c-dtd-xhtml wodim
6668 </p></blockquote>
6669
6670 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
6671
6672 <blockquote><p>
6673   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
6674 </p></blockquote>
6675
6676 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
6677
6678 <blockquote><p>
6679 [nothing]
6680 </p></blockquote>
6681
6682 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
6683
6684 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
6685
6686 <blockquote><p>
6687   autopoint bomber bovo cantor cantor-backend-kalgebra cpp-4.3 dcoprss
6688   edict espeak espeak-data eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
6689   ghostscript-x git gnome-audio gnugo granatier gs-common
6690   gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio indi kaddressbook-plugins kalgebra
6691   kalzium-data kanjidic kapman kate-plugins kblocks kbreakout kbstate
6692   kde-icons-mono kdeaccessibility kdeaddons-kfile-plugins
6693   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
6694   kdeedu kdeedu-data kdeedu-kvtml-data kdegames kdegames-card-data
6695   kdegames-mahjongg-data kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc
6696   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
6697   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdessh kdetoys kdewebdev
6698   kdiamond kdnssd kfilereplace kfourinline kgeography-data kigo
6699   killbots kiriki klettres-data kmoon kmrml knewsticker-scripts
6700   kollision kpf krosspython ksirk ksmserver ksquares kstars-data
6701   ksudoku kubrick kweather libasound2-plugins libboost-python1.42.0
6702   libcfitsio3 libconvert-binhex-perl libcrypt-ssleay-perl libdb4.6++
6703   libdjvulibre-text libdotconf1.0 liberror-perl libespeak1
6704   libfinance-quote-perl libgail-common libgsl0ldbl libhtml-parser-perl
6705   libhtml-tableextract-perl libhtml-tagset-perl libhtml-tree-perl
6706   libio-stringy-perl libkdeedu4 libkdegames5 libkiten4 libkpathsea5
6707   libkrossui4 libmailtools-perl libmime-tools-perl
6708   libnews-nntpclient-perl libopenbabel3 libportaudio2 libpulse-browse0
6709   libservlet2.4-java libspeechd2 libtiff-tools libtimedate-perl
6710   libunistring0 liburi-perl libwww-perl libxalan2-java libxerces2-java
6711   lirc luatex marble networkstatus noatun-plugins
6712   openoffice.org-writer2latex palapeli palapeli-data parley
6713   parley-data poster psutils pulseaudio pulseaudio-esound-compat
6714   pulseaudio-module-x11 pulseaudio-utils quanta-data rocs rsync
6715   speech-dispatcher step svgalibg1 texlive-binaries texlive-luatex
6716   ttf-sazanami-gothic
6717 </p></blockquote>
6718
6719 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
6720
6721 <blockquote><p>
6722   amor artsbuilder atlantik atlantikdesigner blinken bluez-utils cvs
6723   dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop imlib-base imlib11 kalzium kanagram kandy
6724   kasteroids katomic kbackgammon kbattleship kblackbox kbounce kbruch
6725   kcron kdat kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data kdeprint kdict kdvi kedit
6726   keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs kgeography kghostview
6727   kgoldrunner khangman khexedit kiconedit kig kimagemapeditor
6728   kitchensync kiten kjumpingcube klatin klettres klickety klines
6729   klinkstatus kmag kmahjongg kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmines
6730   kmousetool kmouth kmplot knetwalk kodo kolf kommander konquest kooka
6731   kpager kpat kpdf kpercentage kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler krec
6732   kregexpeditor kreversi ksame ksayit kshisen ksig ksim ksirc ksirtet
6733   ksmiletris ksnake ksokoban kspaceduel kstars ksvg ksysv kteatime
6734   ktip ktnef ktouch ktron kttsd ktuberling kturtle ktux kuickshow
6735   kverbos kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kwordquiz
6736   kworldclock kxsldbg libakode2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
6737   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
6738   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2
6739   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0
6740   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
6741   libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0 libicu38
6742   libiec61883-0 libindex0 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
6743   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1 libkdeedu3
6744   libkdegames1 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
6745   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
6746   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick10
6747   libmimelib1c2a libmodplug0c2 libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libmpfr1ldbl
6748   libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9 libpoppler-glib3
6749   libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 librss1 libsensors3
6750   libsmbios2 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90
6751   libtalloc1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 lskat
6752   mpeglib network-manager-kde noatun pmount tex-common texlive-base
6753   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended tidy
6754   ttf-dustin ttf-kochi-gothic ttf-sjfonts
6755 </p></blockquote>
6756
6757 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
6758
6759 <blockquote><p>
6760   dolphin kde-core kde-plasma-desktop kde-standard kde-window-manager
6761   kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-apps kdebase-workspace
6762   kdebase-workspace-bin kdebase-workspace-data kdeutils kscreensaver
6763   kscreensaver-xsavers libgle3 libkonq5 libkonq5-templates libnetpbm10
6764   netpbm plasma-widget-folderview plasma-widget-networkmanagement
6765   xscreensaver-data-extra xscreensaver-gl xscreensaver-gl-extra
6766   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
6767 </p></blockquote>
6768
6769 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
6770
6771 <blockquote><p>
6772   kdebase-bin konq-plugins konqueror
6773 </p></blockquote>
6774
6775       </div>
6776       <div class="tags">
6777
6778
6779         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>.
6780
6781
6782       </div>
6783     </div>
6784     <div class="padding"></div>
6785
6786     <div class="entry">
6787       <div class="title">
6788         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gnash_buildbot_slave_and_Debian_kfreebsd.html">Gnash buildbot slave and Debian kfreebsd</a>
6789       </div>
6790       <div class="date">
6791         20th November 2010
6792       </div>
6793       <div class="body">
6794         <p>Answering
6795 <a href="http://www.listware.net/201011/gnash-dev/67431-gnash-dev-buildbot-looking-for-slaves.html">the
6796 call from the Gnash project</a> for
6797 <a href="http://www.gnashdev.org:8010">buildbot</a> slaves to test the
6798 current source, I have set up a virtual KVM machine on the Debian
6799 Edu/Skolelinux virtualization host to test the git source on
6800 Debian/Squeeze.  I hope this can help the developers in getting new
6801 releases out more often.</p>
6802
6803 <p>As the developers want less main-stream build platforms tested to,
6804 I have considered setting up a <a
6805 href="http://www.debian.org/ports/kfreebsd-gnu/">Debian/kfreebsd</a>
6806 machine as well.  I have also considered using the kfreebsd
6807 architecture in Debian as a file server in NUUG to get access to the 5
6808 TB zfs volume we currently use to store DV video.  Because of this, I
6809 finally got around to do a test installation of Debian/Squeeze with
6810 kfreebsd.  Installation went fairly smooth, thought I noticed some
6811 visual glitches in the cdebconf dialogs (black cursor left on the
6812 screen at random locations).  Have not gotten very far with the
6813 testing.  Noticed cfdisk did not work, but fdisk did so it was not a
6814 fatal problem.  Have to spend some more time on it to see if it is
6815 useful as a file server for NUUG.  Will try to find time to set up a
6816 gnash buildbot slave on the Debian Edu/Skolelinux this weekend.</p>
6817
6818       </div>
6819       <div class="tags">
6820
6821
6822         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>.
6823
6824
6825       </div>
6826     </div>
6827     <div class="padding"></div>
6828
6829     <div class="entry">
6830       <div class="title">
6831         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_in_3D.html">Debian in 3D</a>
6832       </div>
6833       <div class="date">
6834          9th November 2010
6835       </div>
6836       <div class="body">
6837         <p><img src="http://thingiverse-production.s3.amazonaws.com/renders/23/e0/c4/f9/2b/debswagtdose_preview_medium.jpg"></p>
6838
6839 <p>3D printing is just great.  I just came across this Debian logo in
6840 3D linked in from
6841 <a href="http://blog.thingiverse.com/2010/11/09/participatory-branding/">the
6842 thingiverse blog</a>.</p>
6843
6844       </div>
6845       <div class="tags">
6846
6847
6848         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>.
6849
6850
6851       </div>
6852     </div>
6853     <div class="padding"></div>
6854
6855     <div class="entry">
6856       <div class="title">
6857         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Software_updates_2010_10_24.html">Software updates 2010-10-24</a>
6858       </div>
6859       <div class="date">
6860         24th October 2010
6861       </div>
6862       <div class="body">
6863         <p>Some updates.</p>
6864
6865 <p>My <a href="http://pledgebank.com/gnash-avm2">gnash pledge</a> to
6866 raise money for the project is going well.  The lower limit of 10
6867 signers was reached in 24 hours, and so far 13 people have signed it.
6868 More signers and more funding is most welcome, and I am really curious
6869 how far we can get before the time limit of December 24 is reached.
6870 :)</p>
6871
6872 <p>On the #gnash IRC channel on irc.freenode.net, I was just tipped
6873 about what appear to be a great code coverage tool capable of
6874 generating code coverage stats without any changes to the source code.
6875 It is called
6876 <a href="http://simonkagstrom.github.com/kcov/index.html">kcov</a>,
6877 and can be used using <tt>kcov &lt;directory&gt; &lt;binary&gt;</tt>.
6878 It is missing in Debian, but the git source built just fine in Squeeze
6879 after I installed libelf-dev, libdwarf-dev, pkg-config and
6880 libglib2.0-dev.  Failed to build in Lenny, but suspect that is
6881 solvable.  I hope kcov make it into Debian soon.</p>
6882
6883 <p>Finally found time to wrap up the release notes for <a
6884 href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2010/10/msg00002.html">a
6885 new alpha release of Debian Edu</a>, and just published the second
6886 alpha test release of the Squeeze based Debian Edu /
6887 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a>
6888 release.  Give it a try if you need a complete linux solution for your
6889 school, including central infrastructure server, workstations, thin
6890 client servers and diskless workstations.  A nice touch added
6891 yesterday is RDP support on the thin client servers, for windows
6892 clients to get a Linux desktop on request.</p>
6893
6894       </div>
6895       <div class="tags">
6896
6897
6898         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>.
6899
6900
6901       </div>
6902     </div>
6903     <div class="padding"></div>
6904
6905     <div class="entry">
6906       <div class="title">
6907         <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>
6908       </div>
6909       <div class="date">
6910          4th September 2010
6911       </div>
6912       <div class="body">
6913         <p>In the <a href="http://popcon.debian.org/unknown/by_vote">Debian
6914 popularity-contest numbers</a>, the adobe-flashplugin package the
6915 second most popular used package that is missing in Debian.  The sixth
6916 most popular is flashplayer-mozilla.  This is a clear indication that
6917 working flash is important for Debian users.  Around 10 percent of the
6918 users submitting data to popcon.debian.org have this package
6919 installed.</p>
6920
6921 <p>In the report written by Lars Risan in August 2008
6922 («<a href="http://wiki.skolelinux.no/Dokumentasjon/Rapporter?action=AttachFile&do=view&target=Skolelinux_i_bruk_rapport_1.0.pdf">Skolelinux
6923 i bruk – Rapport for Hurum kommune, Universitetet i Agder og
6924 stiftelsen SLX Debian Labs</a>»), one of the most important problems
6925 schools experienced with <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
6926 Edu/Skolelinux</a> was the lack of working Flash.  A lot of educational
6927 web sites require Flash to work, and lacking working Flash support in
6928 the web browser and the problems with installing it was perceived as a
6929 good reason to stay with Windows.</p>
6930
6931 <p>I once saw a funny and sad comment in a web forum, where Linux was
6932 said to be the retarded cousin that did not really understand
6933 everything you told him but could work fairly well.  This was a
6934 comment regarding the problems Linux have with proprietary formats and
6935 non-standard web pages, and is sad because it exposes a fairly common
6936 understanding of whose fault it is if web pages that only work in for
6937 example Internet Explorer 6 fail to work on Firefox, and funny because
6938 it explain very well how annoying it is for users when Linux
6939 distributions do not work with the documents they receive or the web
6940 pages they want to visit.</p>
6941
6942 <p>This is part of the reason why I believe it is important for Debian
6943 and Debian Edu to have a well working Flash implementation in the
6944 distribution, to get at least popular sites as Youtube and Google
6945 Video to working out of the box.  For Squeeze, Debian have the chance
6946 to include the latest version of Gnash that will make this happen, as
6947 the new release 0.8.8 was published a few weeks ago and is resting in
6948 unstable.  The new version work with more sites that version 0.8.7.
6949 The Gnash maintainers have asked for a freeze exception, but the
6950 release team have not had time to reply to it yet.  I hope they agree
6951 with me that Flash is important for the Debian desktop users, and thus
6952 accept the new package into Squeeze.</p>
6953
6954       </div>
6955       <div class="tags">
6956
6957
6958         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>.
6959
6960
6961       </div>
6962     </div>
6963     <div class="padding"></div>
6964
6965     <div class="entry">
6966       <div class="title">
6967         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Circular_package_dependencies_harms_apt_recovery.html">Circular package dependencies harms apt recovery</a>
6968       </div>
6969       <div class="date">
6970         27th July 2010
6971       </div>
6972       <div class="body">
6973         <p>I discovered this while doing
6974 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">automated
6975 testing of upgrades from Debian Lenny to Squeeze</a>.  A few packages
6976 in Debian still got circular dependencies, and it is often claimed
6977 that apt and aptitude should be able to handle this just fine, but
6978 some times these dependency loops causes apt to fail.</p>
6979
6980 <p>An example is from todays
6981 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing//test-20100727-lenny-squeeze-kde-aptitude.txt">upgrade
6982 of KDE using aptitude</a>.  In it, a bug in kdebase-workspace-data
6983 causes perl-modules to fail to upgrade.  The cause is simple.  If a
6984 package fail to unpack, then only part of packages with the circular
6985 dependency might end up being unpacked when unpacking aborts, and the
6986 ones already unpacked will fail to configure in the recovery phase
6987 because its dependencies are unavailable.</p>
6988
6989 <p>In this log, the problem manifest itself with this error:</p>
6990
6991 <blockquote><pre>
6992 dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of perl-modules:
6993  perl-modules depends on perl (>= 5.10.1-1); however:
6994   Version of perl on system is 5.10.0-19lenny2.
6995 dpkg: error processing perl-modules (--configure):
6996  dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
6997 </pre></blockquote>
6998
6999 <p>The perl/perl-modules circular dependency is already
7000 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/527917">reported as a bug</a>, and will
7001 hopefully be solved as soon as possible, but it is not the only one,
7002 and each one of these loops in the dependency tree can cause similar
7003 failures.  Of course, they only occur when there are bugs in other
7004 packages causing the unpacking to fail, but it is rather nasty when
7005 the failure of one package causes the problem to become worse because
7006 of dependency loops.</p>
7007
7008 <p>Thanks to
7009 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/06/msg00116.html">the
7010 tireless effort by Bill Allombert</a>, the number of circular
7011 dependencies
7012 <a href="http://debian.semistable.com/debgraph.out.html">left in Debian
7013 is dropping</a>, and perhaps it will reach zero one day. :)</p>
7014
7015 <p>Todays testing also exposed a bug in
7016 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590605">update-notifier</a> and
7017 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590604">different behaviour</a> between
7018 apt-get and aptitude, the latter possibly caused by some circular
7019 dependency.  Reported both to BTS to try to get someone to look at
7020 it.</p>
7021
7022       </div>
7023       <div class="tags">
7024
7025
7026         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>.
7027
7028
7029       </div>
7030     </div>
7031     <div class="padding"></div>
7032
7033     <div class="entry">
7034       <div class="title">
7035         <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>
7036       </div>
7037       <div class="date">
7038         17th July 2010
7039       </div>
7040       <div class="body">
7041         <p>This is a
7042 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">followup</a>
7043 on my
7044 <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
7045 work</a> on
7046 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">merging
7047 all</a> the computer related LDAP objects in Debian Edu.</p>
7048
7049 <p>As a step to try to see if it possible to merge the DNS and DHCP
7050 LDAP objects, I have had a look at how the packages pdns-backend-ldap
7051 and dhcp3-server-ldap in Debian use the LDAP server.  The two
7052 implementations are quite different in how they use LDAP.</p>
7053
7054 To get this information, I started slapd with debugging enabled and
7055 dumped the debug output to a file to get the LDAP searches performed
7056 on a Debian Edu main-server.  Here is a summary.
7057
7058 <p><strong>powerdns</strong></p>
7059
7060 <a href="http://www.linuxnetworks.de/doc/index.php/PowerDNS_LDAP_Backend">Clues
7061 on how to</a> set up PowerDNS to use a LDAP backend is available on
7062 the web.
7063
7064 <p>PowerDNS have two modes of operation using LDAP as its backend.
7065 One "strict" mode where the forward and reverse DNS lookups are done
7066 using the same LDAP objects, and a "tree" mode where the forward and
7067 reverse entries are in two different subtrees in LDAP with a structure
7068 based on the DNS names, as in tjener.intern and
7069 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa.</p>
7070
7071 <p>In tree mode, the server is set up to use a LDAP subtree as its
7072 base, and uses a "base" scoped search for the DNS name by adding
7073 "dc=tjener,dc=intern," to the base with a filter for
7074 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" for the forward entry and
7075 "dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa," with a filter for
7076 "(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)" for the reverse entry.  For
7077 forward entries, it is looking for attributes named dnsttl, arecord,
7078 nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord,
7079 txtrecord, rprecord, afsdbrecord, keyrecord, aaaarecord, locrecord,
7080 srvrecord, naptrrecord, kxrecord, certrecord, dsrecord, sshfprecord,
7081 ipseckeyrecord, rrsigrecord, nsecrecord, dnskeyrecord, dhcidrecord,
7082 spfrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entries it is looking for
7083 the attributes dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord,
7084 ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord,
7085 locrecord, srvrecord, naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  The equivalent
7086 ldapsearch commands could look like this:</p>
7087
7088 <blockquote><pre>
7089 ldapsearch -h ldap \
7090   -b dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
7091   -s base -x '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
7092   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
7093   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
7094   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
7095   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
7096
7097 ldapsearch -h ldap \
7098   -b dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
7099   -s base -x '(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)'
7100   dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord soarecord ptrrecord \
7101   hinforecord mxrecord txtrecord rprecord aaaarecord locrecord \
7102   srvrecord naptrrecord modifytimestamp
7103 </pre></blockquote>
7104
7105 <p>In Debian Edu/Lenny, the PowerDNS tree mode is used with
7106 ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no as the base, and these are two
7107 example LDAP objects used there.  In addition to these objects, the
7108 parent objects all th way up to ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
7109 also exist.</p>
7110
7111 <blockquote><pre>
7112 dn: dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
7113 objectclass: top
7114 objectclass: dnsdomain
7115 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
7116 dc: tjener
7117 arecord: 10.0.2.2
7118 associateddomain: tjener.intern
7119
7120 dn: dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
7121 objectclass: top
7122 objectclass: dnsdomain2
7123 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
7124 dc: 2
7125 ptrrecord: tjener.intern
7126 associateddomain: 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa
7127 </pre></blockquote>
7128
7129 <p>In strict mode, the server behaves differently.  When looking for
7130 forward DNS entries, it is doing a "subtree" scoped search with the
7131 same base as in the tree mode for a object with filter
7132 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" and requests the attributes dnsttl,
7133 arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord,
7134 mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord, locrecord, srvrecord,
7135 naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entires it also do a
7136 subtree scoped search but this time the filter is "(arecord=10.0.2.2)"
7137 and the requested attributes are associateddomain, dnsttl and
7138 modifytimestamp.  In short, in strict mode the objects with ptrrecord
7139 go away, and the arecord attribute in the forward object is used
7140 instead.</p>
7141
7142 <p>The forward and reverse searches can be simulated using ldapsearch
7143 like this:</p>
7144
7145 <blockquote><pre>
7146 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
7147   '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
7148   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
7149   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
7150   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
7151   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
7152
7153 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
7154   '(arecord=10.0.2.2)' associateddomain dnsttl modifytimestamp
7155 </pre></blockquote>
7156
7157 <p>In addition to the forward and reverse searches , there is also a
7158 search for SOA records, which behave similar to the forward and
7159 reverse lookups.</p>
7160
7161 <p>A thing to note with the PowerDNS behaviour is that it do not
7162 specify any objectclass names, and instead look for the attributes it
7163 need to generate a DNS reply.  This make it able to work with any
7164 objectclass that provide the needed attributes.</p>
7165
7166 <p>The attributes are normally provided in the cosine (RFC 1274) and
7167 dnsdomain2 schemas.  The latter is used for reverse entries like
7168 ptrrecord and recent DNS additions like aaaarecord and srvrecord.</p>
7169
7170 <p>In Debian Edu, we have created DNS objects using the object classes
7171 dcobject (for dc), dnsdomain or dnsdomain2 (structural, for the DNS
7172 attributes) and domainrelatedobject (for associatedDomain).  The use
7173 of structural object classes make it impossible to combine these
7174 classes with the object classes used by DHCP.</p>
7175
7176 <p>There are other schemas that could be used too, for example the
7177 dnszone structural object class used by Gosa and bind-sdb for the DNS
7178 attributes combined with the domainrelatedobject object class, but in
7179 this case some unused attributes would have to be included as well
7180 (zonename and relativedomainname).</p>
7181
7182 <p>My proposal for Debian Edu would be to switch PowerDNS to strict
7183 mode and not use any of the existing objectclasses (dnsdomain,
7184 dnsdomain2 and dnszone) when one want to combine the DNS information
7185 with DHCP information, and instead create a auxiliary object class
7186 defined something like this (using the attributes defined for
7187 dnsdomain and dnsdomain2 or dnszone):</p>
7188
7189 <blockquote><pre>
7190 objectclass ( some-oid NAME 'dnsDomainAux'
7191     SUP top
7192     AUXILIARY
7193     MAY ( ARecord $ MDRecord $ MXRecord $ NSRecord $ SOARecord $ CNAMERecord $
7194           DNSTTL $ DNSClass $ PTRRecord $ HINFORecord $ MINFORecord $
7195           TXTRecord $ SIGRecord $ KEYRecord $ AAAARecord $ LOCRecord $
7196           NXTRecord $ SRVRecord $ NAPTRRecord $ KXRecord $ CERTRecord $
7197           A6Record $ DNAMERecord
7198     ))
7199 </pre></blockquote>
7200
7201 <p>This will allow any object to become a DNS entry when combined with
7202 the domainrelatedobject object class, and allow any entity to include
7203 all the attributes PowerDNS wants.  I've sent an email to the PowerDNS
7204 developers asking for their view on this schema and if they are
7205 interested in providing such schema with PowerDNS, and I hope my
7206 message will be accepted into their mailing list soon.</p>
7207
7208 <p><strong>ISC dhcp</strong></p>
7209
7210 <p>The DHCP server searches for specific objectclass and requests all
7211 the object attributes, and then uses the attributes it want.  This
7212 make it harder to figure out exactly what attributes are used, but
7213 thanks to the working example in Debian Edu I can at least get an idea
7214 what is needed without having to read the source code.</p>
7215
7216 <p>In the DHCP server configuration, the LDAP base to use and the
7217 search filter to use to locate the correct dhcpServer entity is
7218 stored.  These are the relevant entries from
7219 /etc/dhcp3/dhcpd.conf:</p>
7220
7221 <blockquote><pre>
7222 ldap-base-dn "dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no";
7223 ldap-dhcp-server-cn "dhcp";
7224 </pre></blockquote>
7225
7226 <p>The DHCP server uses this information to nest all the DHCP
7227 configuration it need.  The cn "dhcp" is located using the given LDAP
7228 base and the filter "(&(objectClass=dhcpServer)(cn=dhcp))".  The
7229 search result is this entry:</p>
7230
7231 <blockquote><pre>
7232 dn: cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
7233 cn: dhcp
7234 objectClass: top
7235 objectClass: dhcpServer
7236 dhcpServiceDN: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
7237 </pre></blockquote>
7238
7239 <p>The content of the dhcpServiceDN attribute is next used to locate the
7240 subtree with DHCP configuration.  The DHCP configuration subtree base
7241 is located using a base scope search with base "cn=DHCP
7242 Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" and filter
7243 "(&(objectClass=dhcpService)(|(dhcpPrimaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)(dhcpSecondaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)))".
7244 The search result is this entry:</p>
7245
7246 <blockquote><pre>
7247 dn: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
7248 cn: DHCP Config
7249 objectClass: top
7250 objectClass: dhcpService
7251 objectClass: dhcpOptions
7252 dhcpPrimaryDN: cn=dhcp, dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
7253 dhcpStatements: ddns-update-style none
7254 dhcpStatements: authoritative
7255 dhcpOption: smtp-server code 69 = array of ip-address
7256 dhcpOption: www-server code 72 = array of ip-address
7257 dhcpOption: wpad-url code 252 = text
7258 </pre></blockquote>
7259
7260 <p>Next, the entire subtree is processed, one level at the time.  When
7261 all the DHCP configuration is loaded, it is ready to receive requests.
7262 The subtree in Debian Edu contain objects with object classes
7263 top/dhcpService/dhcpOptions, top/dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions,
7264 top/dhcpSubnet, top/dhcpGroup and top/dhcpHost.  These provide options
7265 and information about netmasks, dynamic range etc.  Leaving out the
7266 details here because it is not relevant for the focus of my
7267 investigation, which is to see if it is possible to merge dns and dhcp
7268 related computer objects.</p>
7269
7270 <p>When a DHCP request come in, LDAP is searched for the MAC address
7271 of the client (00:00:00:00:00:00 in this example), using a subtree
7272 scoped search with "cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" as
7273 the base and "(&(objectClass=dhcpHost)(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet
7274 00:00:00:00:00:00))" as the filter.  This is what a host object look
7275 like:</p>
7276
7277 <blockquote><pre>
7278 dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
7279 cn: hostname
7280 objectClass: top
7281 objectClass: dhcpHost
7282 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
7283 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname
7284 </pre></blockquote>
7285
7286 <p>There is less flexiblity in the way LDAP searches are done here.
7287 The object classes need to have fixed names, and the configuration
7288 need to be stored in a fairly specific LDAP structure.  On the
7289 positive side, the invidiual dhcpHost entires can be anywhere without
7290 the DN pointed to by the dhcpServer entries.  The latter should make
7291 it possible to group all host entries in a subtree next to the
7292 configuration entries, and this subtree can also be shared with the
7293 DNS server if the schema proposed above is combined with the dhcpHost
7294 structural object class.
7295
7296 <p><strong>Conclusion</strong></p>
7297
7298 <p>The PowerDNS implementation seem to be very flexible when it come
7299 to which LDAP schemas to use.  While its "tree" mode is rigid when it
7300 come to the the LDAP structure, the "strict" mode is very flexible,
7301 allowing DNS objects to be stored anywhere under the base cn specified
7302 in the configuration.</p>
7303
7304 <p>The DHCP implementation on the other hand is very inflexible, both
7305 regarding which LDAP schemas to use and which LDAP structure to use.
7306 I guess one could implement ones own schema, as long as the
7307 objectclasses and attributes have the names used, but this do not
7308 really help when the DHCP subtree need to have a fairly fixed
7309 structure.</p>
7310
7311 <p>Based on the observed behaviour, I suspect a LDAP structure like
7312 this might work for Debian Edu:</p>
7313
7314 <blockquote><pre>
7315 ou=services
7316   cn=machine-info (dhcpService) - dhcpServiceDN points here
7317     cn=dhcp (dhcpServer)
7318     cn=dhcp-internal (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
7319       cn=10.0.2.0 (dhcpSubnet)
7320         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
7321     cn=dhcp-thinclients (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
7322       cn=192.168.0.0 (dhcpSubnet)
7323         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
7324     ou=machines - PowerDNS base points here
7325       cn=hostname (dhcpHost/domainrelatedobject/dnsDomainAux)
7326 </pre></blockquote>
7327
7328 <P>This is not tested yet.  If the DHCP server require the dhcpHost
7329 entries to be in the dhcpGroup subtrees, the entries can be stored
7330 there instead of a common machines subtree, and the PowerDNS base
7331 would have to be moved one level up to the machine-info subtree.</p>
7332
7333 <p>The combined object under the machines subtree would look something
7334 like this:</p>
7335
7336 <blockquote><pre>
7337 dn: dc=hostname,ou=machines,cn=machine-info,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
7338 dc: hostname
7339 objectClass: top
7340 objectClass: dhcpHost
7341 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
7342 objectclass: dnsDomainAux
7343 associateddomain: hostname.intern
7344 arecord: 10.11.12.13
7345 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
7346 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname.intern
7347 </pre></blockquote>
7348
7349 </p>One could even add the LTSP configuration associated with a given
7350 machine, as long as the required attributes are available in a
7351 auxiliary object class.</p>
7352
7353       </div>
7354       <div class="tags">
7355
7356
7357         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>.
7358
7359
7360       </div>
7361     </div>
7362     <div class="padding"></div>
7363
7364     <div class="entry">
7365       <div class="title">
7366         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">Combining PowerDNS and ISC DHCP LDAP objects</a>
7367       </div>
7368       <div class="date">
7369         14th July 2010
7370       </div>
7371       <div class="body">
7372         <p>For a while now, I have wanted to find a way to change the DNS and
7373 DHCP services in Debian Edu to use the same LDAP objects for a given
7374 computer, to avoid the possibility of having a inconsistent state for
7375 a computer in LDAP (as in DHCP but no DNS entry or the other way
7376 around) and make it easier to add computers to LDAP.</p>
7377
7378 <p>I've looked at how powerdns and dhcpd is using LDAP, and using this
7379 information finally found a solution that seem to work.</p>
7380
7381 <p>The old setup required three LDAP objects for a given computer.
7382 One forward DNS entry, one reverse DNS entry and one DHCP entry.  If
7383 we switch powerdns to use its strict LDAP method (ldap-method=strict
7384 in pdns-debian-edu.conf), the forward and reverse DNS entries are
7385 merged into one while making it impossible to transfer the reverse map
7386 to a slave DNS server.</p>
7387
7388 <p>If we also replace the object class used to get the DNS related
7389 attributes to one allowing these attributes to be combined with the
7390 dhcphost object class, we can merge the DNS and DHCP entries into one.
7391 I've written such object class in the dnsdomainaux.schema file (need
7392 proper OIDs, but that is a minor issue), and tested the setup.  It
7393 seem to work.</p>
7394
7395 <p>With this test setup in place, we can get away with one LDAP object
7396 for both DNS and DHCP, and even the LTSP configuration I suggested in
7397 an earlier email.  The combined LDAP object will look something like
7398 this:</p>
7399
7400 <blockquote><pre>
7401   dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
7402   cn: hostname
7403   objectClass: dhcphost
7404   objectclass: domainrelatedobject
7405   objectclass: dnsdomainaux
7406   associateddomain: hostname.intern
7407   arecord: 10.11.12.13
7408   dhcphwaddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
7409   dhcpstatements: fixed-address hostname
7410   ldapconfigsound: Y
7411 </pre></blockquote>
7412
7413 <p>The DNS server uses the associateddomain and arecord entries, while
7414 the DHCP server uses the dhcphwaddress and dhcpstatements entries
7415 before asking DNS to resolve the fixed-adddress.  LTSP will use
7416 dhcphwaddress or associateddomain and the ldapconfig* attributes.</p>
7417
7418 <p>I am not yet sure if I can get the DHCP server to look for its
7419 dhcphost in a different location, to allow us to put the objects
7420 outside the "DHCP Config" subtree, but hope to figure out a way to do
7421 that.  If I can't figure out a way to do that, we can still get rid of
7422 the hosts subtree and move all its content into the DHCP Config tree
7423 (which probably should be renamed to be more related to the new
7424 content.  I suspect cn=dnsdhcp,ou=services or something like that
7425 might be a good place to put it.</p>
7426
7427 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
7428 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
7429
7430       </div>
7431       <div class="tags">
7432
7433
7434         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>.
7435
7436
7437       </div>
7438     </div>
7439     <div class="padding"></div>
7440
7441     <div class="entry">
7442       <div class="title">
7443         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Idea_for_storing_LTSP_configuration_in_LDAP.html">Idea for storing LTSP configuration in LDAP</a>
7444       </div>
7445       <div class="date">
7446         11th July 2010
7447       </div>
7448       <div class="body">
7449         <p>Vagrant mentioned on IRC today that ltsp_config now support
7450 sourcing files from /usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ on the thin
7451 clients, and that this can be used to fetch configuration from LDAP if
7452 Debian Edu choose to store configuration there.</p>
7453
7454 <p>Armed with this information, I got inspired and wrote a test module
7455 to get configuration from LDAP.  The idea is to look up the MAC
7456 address of the client in LDAP, and look for attributes on the form
7457 ltspconfigsetting=value, and use this to export SETTING=value to the
7458 LTSP clients.</p>
7459
7460 <p>The goal is to be able to store the LTSP configuration attributes
7461 in a "computer" LDAP object used by both DNS and DHCP, and thus
7462 allowing us to store all information about a computer in one place.</p>
7463
7464 <p>This is a untested draft implementation, and I welcome feedback on
7465 this approach.  A real LDAP schema for the ltspClientAux objectclass
7466 need to be written.  Comments, suggestions, etc?</p>
7467
7468 <blockquote><pre>
7469 # Store in /opt/ltsp/$arch/usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ldap-config
7470 #
7471 # Fetch LTSP client settings from LDAP based on MAC address
7472 #
7473 # Uses ethernet address as stored in the dhcpHost objectclass using
7474 # the dhcpHWAddress attribute or ethernet address stored in the
7475 # ieee802Device objectclass with the macAddress attribute.
7476 #
7477 # This module is written to be schema agnostic, and only depend on the
7478 # existence of attribute names.
7479 #
7480 # The LTSP configuration variables are saved directly using a
7481 # ltspConfig prefix and uppercasing the rest of the attribute name.
7482 # To set the SERVER variable, set the ltspConfigServer attribute.
7483 #
7484 # Some LDAP schema should be created with all the relevant
7485 # configuration settings.  Something like this should work:
7486 #
7487 # objectclass ( 1.1.2.2 NAME 'ltspClientAux'
7488 #     SUP top
7489 #     AUXILIARY
7490 #     MAY ( ltspConfigServer $ ltsConfigSound $ ... )
7491
7492 LDAPSERVER=$(debian-edu-ldapserver)
7493 if [ "$LDAPSERVER" ] ; then
7494     LDAPBASE=$(debian-edu-ldapserver -b)
7495     for MAC in $(LANG=C ifconfig |grep -i hwaddr| awk '{print $5}'|sort -u) ; do
7496         filter="(|(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet $MAC)(macAddress=$MAC))"
7497         ldapsearch -h "$LDAPSERVER" -b "$LDAPBASE" -v -x "$filter" | \
7498             grep '^ltspConfig' | while read attr value ; do
7499             # Remove prefix and convert to upper case
7500             attr=$(echo $attr | sed 's/^ltspConfig//i' | tr a-z A-Z)
7501             # bass value on to clients
7502             eval "$attr=$value; export $attr"
7503         done
7504     done
7505 fi
7506 </pre></blockquote>
7507
7508 <p>I'm not sure this shell construction will work, because I suspect
7509 the while block might end up in a subshell causing the variables set
7510 there to not show up in ltsp-config, but if that is the case I am sure
7511 the code can be restructured to make sure the variables are passed on.
7512 I expect that can be solved with some testing. :)</p>
7513
7514 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
7515 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
7516
7517 <p>Update 2010-07-17: I am aware of another effort to store LTSP
7518 configuration in LDAP that was created around year 2000 by
7519 <a href="http://www.pcxperience.com/thinclient/documentation/ldap.html">PC
7520 Xperience, Inc., 2000</a>.  I found its
7521 <a href="http://people.redhat.com/alikins/ltsp/ldap/">files</a> on a
7522 personal home page over at redhat.com.</p>
7523
7524       </div>
7525       <div class="tags">
7526
7527
7528         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>.
7529
7530
7531       </div>
7532     </div>
7533     <div class="padding"></div>
7534
7535     <div class="entry">
7536       <div class="title">
7537         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/jXplorer__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">jXplorer, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
7538       </div>
7539       <div class="date">
7540          9th July 2010
7541       </div>
7542       <div class="body">
7543         <p>Since
7544 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">my
7545 last post</a> about available LDAP tools in Debian, I was told about a
7546 LDAP GUI that is even better than luma.  The java application
7547 <a href="http://jxplorer.org/">jXplorer</a> is claimed to be capable of
7548 moving LDAP objects and subtrees using drag-and-drop, and can
7549 authenticate using Kerberos.  I have only tested the Kerberos
7550 authentication, but do not have a LDAP setup allowing me to rewrite
7551 LDAP with my test user yet.  It is
7552 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/j/jxplorer.html">available in
7553 Debian</a> testing and unstable at the moment.  The only problem I
7554 have with it is how it handle errors.  If something go wrong, its
7555 non-intuitive behaviour require me to go through some query work list
7556 and remove the failing query.  Nothing big, but very annoying.</p>
7557
7558       </div>
7559       <div class="tags">
7560
7561
7562         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>.
7563
7564
7565       </div>
7566     </div>
7567     <div class="padding"></div>
7568
7569     <div class="entry">
7570       <div class="title">
7571         <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>
7572       </div>
7573       <div class="date">
7574          3rd July 2010
7575       </div>
7576       <div class="body">
7577         <p>Here is a short update on my <a
7578 href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">my
7579 Debian Lenny->Squeeze upgrade testing</a>.  Here is a summary of the
7580 difference for Gnome when it is upgraded by apt-get and aptitude.  I'm
7581 not reporting the status for KDE, because the upgrade crashes when
7582 aptitude try because of missing conflicts
7583 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> and
7584 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585716">#585716</a>).</p>
7585
7586 <p>At the end of the upgrade test script, dpkg -l is executed to get a
7587 complete list of the installed packages.  Based on this I see these
7588 differences when I did a test run today.  As usual, I do not really
7589 know what the correct set of packages would be, but thought it best to
7590 publish the difference.</p>
7591
7592 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
7593
7594 <blockquote><p>
7595   at-spi cpp-4.3 finger gnome-spell gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
7596   libatspi1.0-0 libcupsys2 libeel2-data libgail-common libgdl-1-common
7597   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin
7598   libgtksourceview-common libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
7599   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libservlet2.4-java libxalan2-java
7600   libxerces2-java openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
7601   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gtkhtml2
7602   python-gtkmozembed svgalibg1 xserver-xephyr zip
7603 </p></blockquote>
7604
7605 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
7606
7607 <blockquote><p>
7608   bluez-utils dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop epiphany-gecko
7609   gnome-app-install gnome-mount gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager
7610   libao2 libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libbind9-50
7611   libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcurl3
7612   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9
7613   libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3
7614   libfaad0 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
7615   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
7616   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
7617   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
7618   libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50
7619   libisccfg50 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick++10
7620   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4
7621   libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5
7622   libparted1.8-10 libpisock9 libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3
7623   libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8 libsensors3 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
7624   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1
7625   libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0 libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj
7626   libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3
7627   mysql-common swfdec-gnome totem-gstreamer wodim
7628 </p></blockquote>
7629
7630 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
7631
7632 <blockquote><p>
7633   gnome gnome-desktop-environment hamster-applet python-gnomeapplet
7634   python-gnomekeyring python-wnck rhythmbox-plugins xorg
7635   xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
7636   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
7637   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-video-all
7638   xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark xserver-xorg-video-ati
7639   xserver-xorg-video-chips xserver-xorg-video-cirrus
7640   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
7641   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
7642   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-mach64
7643   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
7644   xserver-xorg-video-nouveau xserver-xorg-video-nv
7645   xserver-xorg-video-r128 xserver-xorg-video-radeon
7646   xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd xserver-xorg-video-rendition
7647   xserver-xorg-video-s3 xserver-xorg-video-s3virge
7648   xserver-xorg-video-savage xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion
7649   xserver-xorg-video-sis xserver-xorg-video-sisusb
7650   xserver-xorg-video-tdfx xserver-xorg-video-tga
7651   xserver-xorg-video-trident xserver-xorg-video-tseng
7652   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vmware
7653   xserver-xorg-video-voodoo
7654 </p></blockquote>
7655
7656 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
7657
7658 <blockquote><p>
7659   deskbar-applet xserver-xorg xserver-xorg-core
7660   xserver-xorg-input-wacom xserver-xorg-video-intel
7661   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome
7662 </p></blockquote>
7663
7664 <p>I was told on IRC that the xorg-xserver package was
7665 <a href="http://git.debian.org/?p=pkg-xorg/xserver/xorg-server.git;a=commit;h=9c8080d06c457932d3bfec021c69ac000aa60120">changed
7666 in git</a> today to try to get apt-get to not remove xorg completely.
7667 No idea when it hits Squeeze, but when it does I hope it will reduce
7668 the difference somewhat.
7669
7670       </div>
7671       <div class="tags">
7672
7673
7674         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>.
7675
7676
7677       </div>
7678     </div>
7679     <div class="padding"></div>
7680
7681     <div class="entry">
7682       <div class="title">
7683         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">LUMA, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
7684       </div>
7685       <div class="date">
7686         28th June 2010
7687       </div>
7688       <div class="body">
7689         <p>The last few days I have been looking into the status of the LDAP
7690 directory in Debian Edu, and in the process I started to miss a GUI
7691 tool to browse the LDAP tree.  The only one I was able to find in
7692 Debian/Squeeze and Lenny is
7693 <a href="http://luma.sourceforge.net/">LUMA</a>, which has proved to
7694 be a great tool to get a overview of the current LDAP directory
7695 populated by default in Skolelinux.  Thanks to it, I have been able to
7696 find empty and obsolete subtrees, misplaced objects and duplicate
7697 objects.  It will be installed by default in Debian/Squeeze.  If you
7698 are working with LDAP, give it a go. :)</p>
7699
7700 <p>I did notice one problem with it I have not had time to report to
7701 the BTS yet.  There is no .desktop file in the package, so the tool do
7702 not show up in the Gnome and KDE menus, but only deep down in in the
7703 Debian submenu in KDE.  I hope that can be fixed before Squeeze is
7704 released.</p>
7705
7706 <p>I have not yet been able to get it to modify the tree yet.  I would
7707 like to move objects and remove subtrees directly in the GUI, but have
7708 not found a way to do that with LUMA yet.  So in the mean time, I use
7709 <a href="http://www.lichteblau.com/ldapvi/">ldapvi</a> for that.</p>
7710
7711 <p>If you have tips on other GUI tools for LDAP that might be useful
7712 in Debian Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
7713
7714 <p>Update 2010-06-29: Ross Reedstrom tipped us about the
7715 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/g/gq.html">gq</a> package as a
7716 useful GUI alternative.  It seem like a good tool, but is unmaintained
7717 in Debian and got a RC bug keeping it out of Squeeze.  Unless that
7718 changes, it will not be an option for Debian Edu based on Squeeze.</p>
7719
7720       </div>
7721       <div class="tags">
7722
7723
7724         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>.
7725
7726
7727       </div>
7728     </div>
7729     <div class="padding"></div>
7730
7731     <div class="entry">
7732       <div class="title">
7733         <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>
7734       </div>
7735       <div class="date">
7736         24th June 2010
7737       </div>
7738       <div class="body">
7739         <p>A while back, I
7740 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">complained
7741 about the fact</a> that it is not possible with the provided schemas
7742 for storing DNS and DHCP information in LDAP to combine the two sets
7743 of information into one LDAP object representing a computer.</p>
7744
7745 <p>In the mean time, I discovered that a simple fix would be to make
7746 the dhcpHost object class auxiliary, to allow it to be combined with
7747 the dNSDomain object class, and thus forming one object for one
7748 computer when storing both DHCP and DNS information in LDAP.</p>
7749
7750 <p>If I understand this correctly, it is not safe to do this change
7751 without also changing the assigned number for the object class, and I
7752 do not know enough about LDAP schema design to do that properly for
7753 Debian Edu.</p>
7754
7755 <p>Anyway, for future reference, this is how I believe we could change
7756 the
7757 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-dhc-ldap-schema-00">DHCP
7758 schema</a> to solve at least part of the problem with the LDAP schemas
7759 available today from IETF.</p>
7760
7761 <pre>
7762 --- dhcp.schema    (revision 65192)
7763 +++ dhcp.schema    (working copy)
7764 @@ -376,7 +376,7 @@
7765  objectclass ( 2.16.840.1.113719.1.203.6.6
7766         NAME 'dhcpHost'
7767         DESC 'This represents information about a particular client'
7768 -       SUP top
7769 +       SUP top AUXILIARY
7770         MUST cn
7771         MAY  (dhcpLeaseDN $ dhcpHWAddress $ dhcpOptionsDN $ dhcpStatements $ dhcpComments $ dhcpOption)
7772         X-NDS_CONTAINMENT ('dhcpService' 'dhcpSubnet' 'dhcpGroup') )
7773 </pre>
7774
7775 <p>I very much welcome clues on how to do this properly for Debian
7776 Edu/Squeeze.  We provide the DHCP schema in our debian-edu-config
7777 package, and should thus be free to rewrite it as we see fit.</p>
7778
7779 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
7780 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
7781
7782       </div>
7783       <div class="tags">
7784
7785
7786         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>.
7787
7788
7789       </div>
7790     </div>
7791     <div class="padding"></div>
7792
7793     <div class="entry">
7794       <div class="title">
7795         <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>
7796       </div>
7797       <div class="date">
7798         16th June 2010
7799       </div>
7800       <div class="body">
7801         <p>A few times I have had the need to simulate the way tasksel
7802 installs packages during the normal debian-installer run.  Until now,
7803 I have ended up letting tasksel do the work, with the annoying problem
7804 of not getting any feedback at all when something fails (like a
7805 conffile question from dpkg or a download that fails), using code like
7806 this:
7807
7808 <blockquote><pre>
7809 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
7810 tasksel --new-install
7811 </pre></blockquote>
7812
7813 This would invoke tasksel, let its automatic task selection pick the
7814 tasks to install, and continue to install the requested tasks without
7815 any output what so ever.
7816
7817 Recently I revisited this problem while working on the automatic
7818 package upgrade testing, because tasksel would some times hang without
7819 any useful feedback, and I want to see what is going on when it
7820 happen.  Then it occured to me, I can parse the output from tasksel
7821 when asked to run in test mode, and use that aptitude command line
7822 printed by tasksel then to simulate the tasksel run.  I ended up using
7823 code like this:
7824
7825 <blockquote><pre>
7826 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
7827 cmd="$(in_target tasksel -t --new-install | sed 's/debconf-apt-progress -- //')"
7828 $cmd
7829 </pre></blockquote>
7830
7831 <p>The content of $cmd is typically something like "<tt>aptitude -q
7832 --without-recommends -o APT::Install-Recommends=no -y install
7833 ~t^desktop$ ~t^gnome-desktop$ ~t^laptop$ ~pstandard ~prequired
7834 ~pimportant</tt>", which will install the gnome desktop task, the
7835 laptop task and all packages with priority standard , required and
7836 important, just like tasksel would have done it during
7837 installation.</p>
7838
7839 <p>A better approach is probably to extend tasksel to be able to
7840 install packages without using debconf-apt-progress, for use cases
7841 like this.</p>
7842
7843       </div>
7844       <div class="tags">
7845
7846
7847         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>.
7848
7849
7850       </div>
7851     </div>
7852     <div class="padding"></div>
7853
7854     <div class="entry">
7855       <div class="title">
7856         <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>
7857       </div>
7858       <div class="date">
7859         13th June 2010
7860       </div>
7861       <div class="body">
7862         <p>My
7863 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">testing
7864 of Debian upgrades</a> from Lenny to Squeeze continues, and I've
7865 finally made the upgrade logs available from
7866 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/</a>.
7867 I am now testing dist-upgrade of Gnome and KDE in a chroot using both
7868 apt and aptitude, and found their differences interesting.  This time
7869 I will only focus on their removal plans.</p>
7870
7871 <p>After installing a Gnome desktop and the laptop task, apt-get wants
7872 to remove 72 packages when dist-upgrading from Lenny to Squeeze.  The
7873 surprising part is that it want to remove xorg and all
7874 xserver-xorg-video* drivers.  Clearly not a good choice, but I am not
7875 sure why.  When asking aptitude to do the same, it want to remove 129
7876 packages, but most of them are library packages I suspect are no
7877 longer needed.  Both of them want to remove bluetooth packages, which
7878 I do not know.  Perhaps these bluetooth packages are obsolete?</p>
7879
7880 <p>For KDE, apt-get want to remove 82 packages, among them kdebase
7881 which seem like a bad idea and xorg the same way as with Gnome. Asking
7882 aptitude for the same, it wants to remove 192 packages, none which are
7883 too surprising.</p>
7884
7885 <p>I guess the removal of xorg during upgrades should be investigated
7886 and avoided, and perhaps others as well.  Here are the complete list
7887 of planned removals.  The complete logs is available from the URL
7888 above.  Note if you want to repeat these tests, that the upgrade test
7889 for kde+apt-get hung in the tasksel setup because of dpkg asking
7890 conffile questions.  No idea why.  I worked around it by using
7891 '<tt>echo >> /proc/<em>pidofdpkg</em>/fd/0</tt>' to tell dpkg to
7892 continue.</p>
7893
7894 <p><b>apt-get gnome 72</b>
7895 <br>bluez-gnome cupsddk-drivers deskbar-applet gnome
7896   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-network-admin gtkhtml3.14
7897   iceweasel-gnome-support libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libgdl-1-0
7898   libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libmetacity0 libslab0 libxcb-xlib0
7899   nautilus-cd-burner python-gnome2-desktop python-gnome2-extras
7900   serpentine swfdec-mozilla update-manager xorg xserver-xorg
7901   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
7902   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
7903   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
7904   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
7905   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
7906   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
7907   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
7908   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
7909   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
7910   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
7911   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
7912   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
7913   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
7914   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
7915   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
7916   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
7917   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
7918   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
7919   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
7920   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
7921   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
7922   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9
7923   xulrunner-1.9-gnome-support</p>
7924
7925 <p><b>aptitude gnome 129</b>
7926
7927 <br>bluez-gnome bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers dhcdbd
7928   djvulibre-desktop finger gnome-app-install gnome-mount
7929   gnome-network-admin gnome-spell gnome-vfs-obexftp
7930   gnome-volume-manager gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs gtkhtml3.14 libao2
7931   libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
7932   libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcupsys2 libcurl3 libdatrie0
7933   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20
7934   libeel2-data libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libfaad0 libgail-common
7935   libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libgdl-1-0 libgdl-1-common
7936   libggz2 libggzcore9 libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0
7937   libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libgnomeprint2.2-0
7938   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgnomeprintui2.2-common
7939   libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
7940   libgtksourceview-common libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6
7941   libhesiod0 libicu38 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 libmagick++10
7942   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmetacity0 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off
7943   libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2
7944   libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10
7945   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libraw1394-8
7946   libsensors3 libslab0 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8 libssh2-1
7947   libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10
7948   libtrackerclient0 libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0
7949   libxerces2-java libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6
7950   libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common nautilus-cd-burner
7951   openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
7952   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gnome2-desktop
7953   python-gnome2-extras python-gtkhtml2 python-gtkmozembed
7954   python-numeric python-sexy serpentine svgalibg1 swfdec-gnome
7955   swfdec-mozilla totem-gstreamer update-manager wodim
7956   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
7957   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
7958   zip</p>
7959
7960 <p><b>apt-get kde 82</b>
7961
7962 <br>cupsddk-drivers karm kaudiocreator kcoloredit kcontrol kde kde-core
7963   kdeaddons kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-bin kdebase-bin-kde3
7964   kdebase-kio-plugins kdesktop kdeutils khelpcenter kicker
7965   kicker-applets knewsticker kolourpaint konq-plugins konqueror korn
7966   kpersonalizer kscreensaver ksplash libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libkiten1
7967   libxcb-xlib0 quanta superkaramba texlive-base-bin xorg xserver-xorg
7968   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
7969   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
7970   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
7971   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
7972   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
7973   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
7974   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
7975   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
7976   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
7977   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
7978   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
7979   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
7980   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
7981   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
7982   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
7983   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
7984   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
7985   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
7986   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
7987   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
7988   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
7989   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9</p>
7990
7991 <p><b>aptitude kde 192</b>
7992 <br>bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers cvs dcoprss dhcdbd
7993   djvulibre-desktop dosfstools eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
7994   ghostscript-x imlib-base imlib11 indi kandy karm kasteroids
7995   kaudiocreator kbackgammon kbstate kcoloredit kcontrol kcron kdat
7996   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
7997   kdebase-bin-kde3 kdebase-kio-plugins kdeedu-data
7998   kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data
7999   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
8000   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdeprint kdesktop kdessh
8001   kdict kdnssd kdvi kedit keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs
8002   kghostview khelpcenter khexedit kiconedit kitchensync klatin
8003   klickety kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmoon kmrml kodo kolourpaint
8004   kooka korn kpager kpdf kpercentage kpf kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler
8005   krec kregexpeditor ksayit ksim ksirc ksirtet ksmiletris ksmserver
8006   ksnake ksokoban ksplash ksvg ksysv ktip ktnef kuickshow kverbos
8007   kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kworldclock
8008   kxsldbg libakode2 libao2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
8009   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
8010   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
8011   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0 libdatrie0
8012   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
8013   libgail-common libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0
8014   libicu38 libiec61883-0 libindex0 libiw29 libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1
8015   libkdeedu3 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkiten1 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
8016   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
8017   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 libmagick10 libmimelib1c2a
8018   libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9
8019   libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 libsmbios2
8020   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libtalloc1 libtiff-tools
8021   libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0 libxerces2-java
8022   libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 mpeglib networkstatus
8023   openoffice.org-writer2latex pmount poster psutils quanta quanta-data
8024   superkaramba svgalibg1 tex-common texlive-base texlive-base-bin
8025   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended
8026   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
8027   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
8028   xulrunner-1.9</p>
8029
8030
8031       </div>
8032       <div class="tags">
8033
8034
8035         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>.
8036
8037
8038       </div>
8039     </div>
8040     <div class="padding"></div>
8041
8042     <div class="entry">
8043       <div class="title">
8044         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">Automatic upgrade testing from Lenny to Squeeze</a>
8045       </div>
8046       <div class="date">
8047         11th June 2010
8048       </div>
8049       <div class="body">
8050         <p>The last few days I have done some upgrade testing in Debian, to
8051 see if the upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze will go smoothly.  A few bugs
8052 have been discovered and reported in the process
8053 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585410">#585410</a> in nagios3-cgi,
8054 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584879">#584879</a> already fixed in
8055 enscript and <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> in
8056 kdebase-workspace-data), and to get a more regular testing going on, I
8057 am working on a script to automate the test.</p>
8058
8059 <p>The idea is to create a Lenny chroot and use tasksel to install a
8060 Gnome or KDE desktop installation inside the chroot before upgrading
8061 it.  To ensure no services are started in the chroot, a policy-rc.d
8062 script is inserted.  To make sure tasksel believe it is to install a
8063 desktop on a laptop, the tasksel tests are replaced in the chroot
8064 (only acceptable because this is a throw-away chroot).</p>
8065
8066 <p>A naive upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze using aptitude dist-upgrade
8067 currently always fail because udev refuses to upgrade with the kernel
8068 in Lenny, so to avoid that problem the file /etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
8069 is created.  The bug report
8070 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/566000">#566000</a> make me suspect
8071 this problem do not trigger in a chroot, but I touch the file anyway
8072 to make sure the upgrade go well.  Testing on virtual and real
8073 hardware have failed me because of udev so far, and creating this file
8074 do the trick in such settings anyway.  This is a
8075 <a href="http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/debian-26/failed-dist-upgrade-due-to-udev-config_sysfs_deprecated-nonsense-804130/">known
8076 issue</a> and the current udev behaviour is intended by the udev
8077 maintainer because he lack the resources to rewrite udev to keep
8078 working with old kernels or something like that.  I really wish the
8079 udev upstream would keep udev backwards compatible, to avoid such
8080 upgrade problem, but given that they fail to do so, I guess
8081 documenting the way out of this mess is the best option we got for
8082 Debian Squeeze.</p>
8083
8084 <p>Anyway, back to the task at hand, testing upgrades.  This test
8085 script, which I call <tt>upgrade-test</tt> for now, is doing the
8086 trick:</p>
8087
8088 <blockquote><pre>
8089 #!/bin/sh
8090 set -ex
8091
8092 if [ "$1" ] ; then
8093     desktop=$1
8094 else
8095     desktop=gnome
8096 fi
8097
8098 from=lenny
8099 to=squeeze
8100
8101 exec &lt; /dev/null
8102 unset LANG
8103 mirror=http://ftp.skolelinux.org/debian
8104 tmpdir=chroot-$from-upgrade-$to-$desktop
8105 fuser -mv .
8106 debootstrap $from $tmpdir $mirror
8107 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
8108 cat > $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d &lt;&lt;EOF
8109 #!/bin/sh
8110 exit 101
8111 EOF
8112 chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d
8113 exit_cleanup() {
8114     umount $tmpdir/proc
8115 }
8116 mount -t proc proc $tmpdir/proc
8117 # Make sure proc is unmounted also on failure
8118 trap exit_cleanup EXIT INT
8119
8120 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y install debconf-utils
8121
8122 # Make sure tasksel autoselection trigger.  It need the test scripts
8123 # to return the correct answers.
8124 echo tasksel tasksel/desktop multiselect $desktop | \
8125     chroot $tmpdir debconf-set-selections
8126
8127 # Include the desktop and laptop task
8128 for test in desktop laptop ; do
8129     echo > $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test &lt;&lt;EOF
8130 #!/bin/sh
8131 exit 2
8132 EOF
8133     chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test
8134 done
8135
8136 DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
8137 DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical
8138 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND DEBIAN_PRIORITY
8139 chroot $tmpdir tasksel --new-install
8140
8141 echo deb $mirror $to main > $tmpdir/etc/apt/sources.list
8142 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
8143 touch $tmpdir/etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
8144 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y dist-upgrade
8145 fuser -mv
8146 </pre></blockquote>
8147
8148 <p>I suspect it would be useful to test upgrades with both apt-get and
8149 with aptitude, but I have not had time to look at how they behave
8150 differently so far.  I hope to get a cron job running to do the test
8151 regularly and post the result on the web.  The Gnome upgrade currently
8152 work, while the KDE upgrade fail because of the bug in
8153 kdebase-workspace-data</p>
8154
8155 <p>I am not quite sure what kind of extract from the huge upgrade logs
8156 (KDE 167 KiB, Gnome 516 KiB) it make sense to include in this blog
8157 post, so I will refrain from trying.  I can report that for Gnome,
8158 aptitude report 760 packages upgraded, 448 newly installed, 129 to
8159 remove and 1 not upgraded and 1024MB need to be downloaded while for
8160 KDE the same numbers are 702 packages upgraded, 507 newly installed,
8161 193 to remove and 0 not upgraded and 1117MB need to be downloaded</p>
8162
8163 <p>I am very happy to notice that the Gnome desktop + laptop upgrade
8164 is able to migrate to dependency based boot sequencing and parallel
8165 booting without a hitch.  Was unsure if there were still bugs with
8166 packages failing to clean up their obsolete init.d script during
8167 upgrades, and no such problem seem to affect the Gnome desktop+laptop
8168 packages.</p>
8169
8170       </div>
8171       <div class="tags">
8172
8173
8174         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>.
8175
8176
8177       </div>
8178     </div>
8179     <div class="padding"></div>
8180
8181     <div class="entry">
8182       <div class="title">
8183         <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>
8184       </div>
8185       <div class="date">
8186          6th June 2010
8187       </div>
8188       <div class="body">
8189         <p>If Debian is to migrate to upstart on Linux, I expect some init.d
8190 scripts to migrate (some of) their operations to upstart job while
8191 keeping the init.d for hurd and kfreebsd.  The packages with such
8192 needs will need a way to get their init.d scripts to behave
8193 differently when used with sysvinit and with upstart.  Because of
8194 this, I had a look at the environment variables set when a init.d
8195 script is running under upstart, and when it is not.</p>
8196
8197 <p>With upstart, I notice these environment variables are set when a
8198 script is started from rcS.d/ (ignoring some irrelevant ones like
8199 COLUMNS):</p>
8200
8201 <blockquote><pre>
8202 DEFAULT_RUNLEVEL=2
8203 previous=N
8204 PREVLEVEL=
8205 RUNLEVEL=
8206 runlevel=S
8207 UPSTART_EVENTS=startup
8208 UPSTART_INSTANCE=
8209 UPSTART_JOB=rc-sysinit
8210 </pre></blockquote>
8211
8212 <p>With sysvinit, these environment variables are set for the same
8213 script.</p>
8214
8215 <blockquote><pre>
8216 INIT_VERSION=sysvinit-2.88
8217 previous=N
8218 PREVLEVEL=N
8219 RUNLEVEL=S
8220 runlevel=S
8221 </pre></blockquote>
8222
8223 <p>The RUNLEVEL and PREVLEVEL environment variables passed on from
8224 sysvinit are not set by upstart.  Not sure if it is intentional or not
8225 to not be compatible with sysvinit in this regard.</p>
8226
8227 <p>For scripts needing to behave differently when upstart is used,
8228 looking for the UPSTART_JOB environment variable seem to be a good
8229 choice.</p>
8230
8231       </div>
8232       <div class="tags">
8233
8234
8235         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>.
8236
8237
8238       </div>
8239     </div>
8240     <div class="padding"></div>
8241
8242     <div class="entry">
8243       <div class="title">
8244         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_manual_for_standards_wars___.html">A manual for standards wars...</a>
8245       </div>
8246       <div class="date">
8247          6th June 2010
8248       </div>
8249       <div class="body">
8250         <p>Via the
8251 <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/robweir/antic-atom/~3/QzU4RgoAGMg/weekly-links-10.html">blog
8252 of Rob Weir</a> I came across the very interesting essay named
8253 <a href="http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/shapiro/wars.pdf">The Art of
8254 Standards Wars</a> (PDF 25 pages).  I recommend it for everyone
8255 following the standards wars of today.</p>
8256
8257       </div>
8258       <div class="tags">
8259
8260
8261         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>.
8262
8263
8264       </div>
8265     </div>
8266     <div class="padding"></div>
8267
8268     <div class="entry">
8269       <div class="title">
8270         <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>
8271       </div>
8272       <div class="date">
8273          3rd June 2010
8274       </div>
8275       <div class="body">
8276         <p>When using sitesummary at a site to track machines, it is possible
8277 to get a list of the machine types in use thanks to the DMI
8278 information extracted from each machine.  The script to do so is
8279 included in the sitesummary package, and here is example output from
8280 the Skolelinux build servers:</p>
8281
8282 <blockquote><pre>
8283 maintainer:~# /usr/lib/sitesummary/hardware-model-summary
8284   vendor                    count
8285   Dell Computer Corporation     1
8286     PowerEdge 1750              1
8287   IBM                           1
8288     eserver xSeries 345 -[8670M1X]-     1
8289   Intel                         2
8290   [no-dmi-info]                 3
8291 maintainer:~#
8292 </pre></blockquote>
8293
8294 <p>The quality of the report depend on the quality of the DMI tables
8295 provided in each machine.  Here there are Intel machines without model
8296 information listed with Intel as vendor and no model, and virtual Xen
8297 machines listed as [no-dmi-info].  One can add -l as a command line
8298 option to list the individual machines.</p>
8299
8300 <p>A larger list is
8301 <a href="http://narvikskolen.no/sitesummary/">available from the the
8302 city of Narvik</a>, which uses Skolelinux on all their shools and also
8303 provide the basic sitesummary report publicly.  In their report there
8304 are ~1400 machines. I know they use both Ubuntu and Skolelinux on
8305 their machines, and as sitesummary is available in both distributions,
8306 it is trivial to get all of them to report to the same central
8307 collector.</p>
8308
8309       </div>
8310       <div class="tags">
8311
8312
8313         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>.
8314
8315
8316       </div>
8317     </div>
8318     <div class="padding"></div>
8319
8320     <div class="entry">
8321       <div class="title">
8322         <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>
8323       </div>
8324       <div class="date">
8325          1st June 2010
8326       </div>
8327       <div class="body">
8328         <p>It is strange to watch how a bug in Debian causing KDM to fail to
8329 start at boot when an NVidia video card is used is handled.  The
8330 problem seem to be that the nvidia X.org driver uses a long time to
8331 initialize, and this duration is longer than kdm is configured to
8332 wait.</p>
8333
8334 <p>I came across two bugs related to this issue,
8335 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">#583312</a> initially filed
8336 against initscripts and passed on to nvidia-glx when it became obvious
8337 that the nvidia drivers were involved, and
8338 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/524751">#524751</a> initially filed against
8339 kdm and passed on to src:nvidia-graphics-drivers for unknown reasons.</p>
8340
8341 <p>To me, it seem that no-one is interested in actually solving the
8342 problem nvidia video card owners experience and make sure the Debian
8343 distribution work out of the box for these users.  The nvidia driver
8344 maintainers expect kdm to be set up to wait longer, while kdm expect
8345 the nvidia driver maintainers to fix the driver to start faster, and
8346 while they wait for each other I guess the users end up switching to a
8347 distribution that work for them.  I have no idea what the solution is,
8348 but I am pretty sure that waiting for each other is not it.</p>
8349
8350 <p>I wonder why we end up handling bugs this way.</p>
8351
8352       </div>
8353       <div class="tags">
8354
8355
8356         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>.
8357
8358
8359       </div>
8360     </div>
8361     <div class="padding"></div>
8362
8363     <div class="entry">
8364       <div class="title">
8365         <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>
8366       </div>
8367       <div class="date">
8368         27th May 2010
8369       </div>
8370       <div class="body">
8371         <p>A few days ago, parallel booting was enabled in Debian/testing.
8372 The feature seem to hold up pretty well, but three fairly serious
8373 issues are known and should be solved:
8374
8375 <p><ul>
8376
8377 <li>The wicd package seen to
8378 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/508289">break NFS mounting</a> and
8379 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/581586">network setup</a> when
8380 parallel booting is enabled.  No idea why, but the wicd maintainer
8381 seem to be on the case.</li>
8382
8383 <li>The nvidia X driver seem to
8384 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">have a race condition</a>
8385 triggered more easily when parallel booting is in effect.  The
8386 maintainer is on the case.</li>
8387
8388 <li>The sysv-rc package fail to properly enable dependency based boot
8389 sequencing (the shutdown is broken) when old file-rc users
8390 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/575080">try to switch back</a> to
8391 sysv-rc.  One way to solve it would be for file-rc to create
8392 /etc/init.d/.legacy-bootordering, and another is to try to make
8393 sysv-rc more robust.  Will investigate some more and probably upload a
8394 workaround in sysv-rc to help those trying to move from file-rc to
8395 sysv-rc get a working shutdown.</li>
8396
8397 </ul></p>
8398
8399 <p>All in all not many surprising issues, and all of them seem
8400 solvable before Squeeze is released.  In addition to these there are
8401 some packages with bugs in their dependencies and run level settings,
8402 which I expect will be fixed in a reasonable time span.</p>
8403
8404 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
8405 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
8406 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
8407 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
8408
8409 <p>Update: Correct bug number to file-rc issue.</p>
8410
8411       </div>
8412       <div class="tags">
8413
8414
8415         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>.
8416
8417
8418       </div>
8419     </div>
8420     <div class="padding"></div>
8421
8422     <div class="entry">
8423       <div class="title">
8424         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/More_flexible_firmware_handling_in_debian_installer.html">More flexible firmware handling in debian-installer</a>
8425       </div>
8426       <div class="date">
8427         22nd May 2010
8428       </div>
8429       <div class="body">
8430         <p>After a long break from debian-installer development, I finally
8431 found time today to return to the project.  Having to spend less time
8432 working dependency based boot in debian, as it is almost complete now,
8433 definitely helped freeing some time.</p>
8434
8435 <p>A while back, I ran into a problem while working on Debian Edu.  We
8436 include some firmware packages on the Debian Edu CDs, those needed to
8437 get disk and network controllers working.  Without having these
8438 firmware packages available during installation, it is impossible to
8439 install Debian Edu on the given machine, and because our target group
8440 are non-technical people, asking them to provide firmware packages on
8441 an external medium is a support pain.  Initially, I expected it to be
8442 enough to include the firmware packages on the CD to get
8443 debian-installer to find and use them.  This proved to be wrong.
8444 Next, I hoped it was enough to symlink the relevant firmware packages
8445 to some useful location on the CD (tried /cdrom/ and
8446 /cdrom/firmware/).  This also proved to not work, and at this point I
8447 found time to look at the debian-installer code to figure out what was
8448 going to work.</p>
8449
8450 <p>The firmware loading code is in the hw-detect package, and a closer
8451 look revealed that it would only look for firmware packages outside
8452 the installation media, so the CD was never checked for firmware
8453 packages.  It would only check USB sticks, floppies and other
8454 "external" media devices.  Today I changed it to also look in the
8455 /cdrom/firmware/ directory on the mounted CD or DVD, which should
8456 solve the problem I ran into with Debian edu.  I also changed it to
8457 look in /firmware/, to make sure the installer also find firmware
8458 provided in the initrd when booting the installer via PXE, to allow us
8459 to provide the same feature in the PXE setup included in Debian
8460 Edu.</p>
8461
8462 <p>To make sure firmware deb packages with a license questions are not
8463 activated without asking if the license is accepted, I extended
8464 hw-detect to look for preinst scripts in the firmware packages, and
8465 run these before activating the firmware during installation.  The
8466 license question is asked using debconf in the preinst, so this should
8467 solve the issue for the firmware packages I have looked at so far.</p>
8468
8469 <p>If you want to discuss the details of these features, please
8470 contact us on debian-boot@lists.debian.org.</p>
8471
8472       </div>
8473       <div class="tags">
8474
8475
8476         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>.
8477
8478
8479       </div>
8480     </div>
8481     <div class="padding"></div>
8482
8483     <div class="entry">
8484       <div class="title">
8485         <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>
8486       </div>
8487       <div class="date">
8488         14th May 2010
8489       </div>
8490       <div class="body">
8491         <p>Since this evening, parallel booting is the default in
8492 Debian/unstable for machines using dependency based boot sequencing.
8493 Apparently the testing of concurrent booting has been wider than
8494 expected, if I am to believe the
8495 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
8496 on debian-devel@</a>, and I concluded a few days ago to move forward
8497 with the feature this weekend, to give us some time to detect any
8498 remaining problems before Squeeze is frozen.  If serious problems are
8499 detected, it is simple to change the default back to sequential boot.
8500 The upload of the new sysvinit package also activate a new upstream
8501 version.</p>
8502
8503 More information about
8504 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
8505 based boot sequencing</a> is available from the Debian wiki.  It is
8506 currently possible to disable parallel booting when one run into
8507 problems caused by it, by adding this line to /etc/default/rcS:</p>
8508
8509 <blockquote><pre>
8510 CONCURRENCY=none
8511 </pre></blockquote>
8512
8513 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
8514 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
8515 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
8516 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
8517
8518       </div>
8519       <div class="tags">
8520
8521
8522         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>.
8523
8524
8525       </div>
8526     </div>
8527     <div class="padding"></div>
8528
8529     <div class="entry">
8530       <div class="title">
8531         <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>
8532       </div>
8533       <div class="date">
8534         14th May 2010
8535       </div>
8536       <div class="body">
8537         <p>In the recent Debian Edu versions, the
8538 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/SiteSummary">sitesummary
8539 system</a> is used to keep track of the machines in the school
8540 network.  Each machine will automatically report its status to the
8541 central server after boot and once per night.  The network setup is
8542 also reported, and using this information it is possible to get the
8543 MAC address of all network interfaces in the machines.  This is useful
8544 to update the DHCP configuration.</p>
8545
8546 <p>To give some idea how to use sitesummary, here is a one-liner to
8547 ist all MAC addresses of all machines reporting to sitesummary.  Run
8548 this on the collector host:</p>
8549
8550 <blockquote><pre>
8551 perl -MSiteSummary -e 'for_all_hosts(sub { print join(" ", get_macaddresses(shift)), "\n"; });'
8552 </pre></blockquote>
8553
8554 <p>This will list all MAC addresses assosiated with all machine, one
8555 line per machine and with space between the MAC addresses.</p>
8556
8557 <p>To allow system administrators easier job at adding static DHCP
8558 addresses for hosts, it would be possible to extend this to fetch
8559 machine information from sitesummary and update the DHCP and DNS
8560 tables in LDAP using this information.  Such tool is unfortunately not
8561 written yet.</p>
8562
8563       </div>
8564       <div class="tags">
8565
8566
8567         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>.
8568
8569
8570       </div>
8571     </div>
8572     <div class="padding"></div>
8573
8574     <div class="entry">
8575       <div class="title">
8576         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/systemd__an_interesting_alternative_to_upstart.html">systemd, an interesting alternative to upstart</a>
8577       </div>
8578       <div class="date">
8579         13th May 2010
8580       </div>
8581       <div class="body">
8582         <p>The last few days a new boot system called
8583 <a href="http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd">systemd</a>
8584 has been
8585 <a href="http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/systemd.html">introduced</a>
8586
8587 to the free software world.  I have not yet had time to play around
8588 with it, but it seem to be a very interesting alternative to
8589 <a href="http://upstart.ubuntu.com/">upstart</a>, and might prove to be
8590 a good alternative for Debian when we are able to switch to an event
8591 based boot system.  Tollef is
8592 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/580814">in the process</a> of getting
8593 systemd into Debian, and I look forward to seeing how well it work.  I
8594 like the fact that systemd handles init.d scripts with dependency
8595 information natively, allowing them to run in parallel where upstart
8596 at the moment do not.</p>
8597
8598 <p>Unfortunately do systemd have the same problem as upstart regarding
8599 platform support.  It only work on recent Linux kernels, and also need
8600 some new kernel features enabled to function properly.  This means
8601 kFreeBSD and Hurd ports of Debian will need a port or a different boot
8602 system.  Not sure how that will be handled if systemd proves to be the
8603 way forward.</p>
8604
8605 <p>In the mean time, based on the
8606 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
8607 on debian-devel@</a> regarding parallel booting in Debian, I have
8608 decided to enable full parallel booting as the default in Debian as
8609 soon as possible (probably this weekend or early next week), to see if
8610 there are any remaining serious bugs in the init.d dependencies.  A
8611 new version of the sysvinit package implementing this change is
8612 already in experimental.  If all go well, Squeeze will be released
8613 with parallel booting enabled by default.</p>
8614
8615       </div>
8616       <div class="tags">
8617
8618
8619         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>.
8620
8621
8622       </div>
8623     </div>
8624     <div class="padding"></div>
8625
8626     <div class="entry">
8627       <div class="title">
8628         <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>
8629       </div>
8630       <div class="date">
8631          6th May 2010
8632       </div>
8633       <div class="body">
8634         <p>These days, the init.d script dependencies in Squeeze are quite
8635 complete, so complete that it is actually possible to run all the
8636 init.d scripts in parallell based on these dependencies.  If you want
8637 to test your Squeeze system, make sure
8638 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
8639 based boot sequencing</a> is enabled, and add this line to
8640 /etc/default/rcS:</p>
8641
8642 <blockquote><pre>
8643 CONCURRENCY=makefile
8644 </pre></blockquote>
8645
8646 <p>That is it.  It will cause sysv-rc to use the startpar tool to run
8647 scripts in parallel using the dependency information stored in
8648 /etc/init.d/.depend.boot, /etc/init.d/.depend.start and
8649 /etc/init.d/.depend.stop to order the scripts.  Startpar is configured
8650 to try to start the kdm and gdm scripts as early as possible, and will
8651 start the facilities required by kdm or gdm as early as possible to
8652 make this happen.</p>
8653
8654 <p>Give it a try, and see if you like the result.  If some services
8655 fail to start properly, it is most likely because they have incomplete
8656 init.d script dependencies in their startup script (or some of their
8657 dependent scripts have incomplete dependencies).  Report bugs and get
8658 the package maintainers to fix it. :)</p>
8659
8660 <p>Running scripts in parallel could be the default in Debian when we
8661 manage to get the init.d script dependencies complete and correct.  I
8662 expect we will get there in Squeeze+1, if we get manage to test and
8663 fix the remaining issues.</p>
8664
8665 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
8666 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
8667 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
8668 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
8669
8670       </div>
8671       <div class="tags">
8672
8673
8674         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>.
8675
8676
8677       </div>
8678     </div>
8679     <div class="padding"></div>
8680
8681     <div class="entry">
8682       <div class="title">
8683         <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>
8684       </div>
8685       <div class="date">
8686         27th July 2009
8687       </div>
8688       <div class="body">
8689         <p>Since this evening, with the upload of sysvinit version 2.87dsf-2,
8690 and the upload of insserv version 1.12.0-10 yesterday, Debian unstable
8691 have been migrated to using dependency based boot sequencing.  This
8692 conclude work me and others have been doing for the last three days.
8693 It feels great to see this finally part of the default Debian
8694 installation.  Now we just need to weed out the last few problems that
8695 are bound to show up, to get everything ready for Squeeze.</p>
8696
8697 <p>The next step is migrating /sbin/init from sysvinit to upstart, and
8698 fixing the more fundamental problem of handing the event based
8699 non-predictable kernel in the early boot.</p>
8700
8701       </div>
8702       <div class="tags">
8703
8704
8705         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>.
8706
8707
8708       </div>
8709     </div>
8710     <div class="padding"></div>
8711
8712     <div class="entry">
8713       <div class="title">
8714         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Taking_over_sysvinit_development.html">Taking over sysvinit development</a>
8715       </div>
8716       <div class="date">
8717         22nd July 2009
8718       </div>
8719       <div class="body">
8720         <p>After several years of frustration with the lack of activity from
8721 the existing sysvinit upstream developer, I decided a few weeks ago to
8722 take over the package and become the new upstream.  The number of
8723 patches to track for the Debian package was becoming a burden, and the
8724 lack of synchronization between the distribution made it hard to keep
8725 the package up to date.</p>
8726
8727 <p>On the new sysvinit team is the SuSe maintainer Dr. Werner Fink,
8728 and my Debian co-maintainer Kel Modderman.  About 10 days ago, I made
8729 a new upstream tarball with version number 2.87dsf (for Debian, SuSe
8730 and Fedora), based on the patches currently in use in these
8731 distributions.  We Debian maintainers plan to move to this tarball as
8732 the new upstream as soon as we find time to do the merge.  Since the
8733 new tarball was created, we agreed with Werner at SuSe to make a new
8734 upstream project at <a href="http://savannah.nongnu.org/">Savannah</a>, and continue
8735 development there.  The project is registered and currently waiting
8736 for approval by the Savannah administrators, and as soon as it is
8737 approved, we will import the old versions from svn and continue
8738 working on the future release.</p>
8739
8740 <p>It is a bit ironic that this is done now, when some of the involved
8741 distributions are moving to upstart as a syvinit replacement.</p>
8742
8743       </div>
8744       <div class="tags">
8745
8746
8747         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>.
8748
8749
8750       </div>
8751     </div>
8752     <div class="padding"></div>
8753
8754     <div class="entry">
8755       <div class="title">
8756         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_boots_quicker_and_quicker.html">Debian boots quicker and quicker</a>
8757       </div>
8758       <div class="date">
8759         24th June 2009
8760       </div>
8761       <div class="body">
8762         <p>I spent Monday and tuesday this week in London with a lot of the
8763 people involved in the boot system on Debian and Ubuntu, to see if we
8764 could find more ways to speed up the boot system.  This was an Ubuntu
8765 funded
8766 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FoundationsTeam/BootPerformance/DebianUbuntuSprint">developer
8767 gathering</a>. It was quite productive.  We also discussed the future
8768 of boot systems, and ways to handle the increasing number of boot
8769 issues introduced by the Linux kernel becoming more and more
8770 asynchronous and event base.  The Ubuntu approach using udev and
8771 upstart might be a good way forward.  Time will show.</p>
8772
8773 <p>Anyway, there are a few ways at the moment to speed up the boot
8774 process in Debian.  All of these should be applied to get a quick
8775 boot:</p>
8776
8777 <ul>
8778
8779 <li>Use dash as /bin/sh.</li>
8780
8781 <li>Disable the init.d/hwclock*.sh scripts and make sure the hardware
8782    clock is in UTC.</li>
8783
8784 <li>Install and activate the insserv package to enable
8785    <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
8786    based boot sequencing</a>, and enable concurrent booting.</li>
8787
8788 </ul>
8789
8790 These points are based on the Google summer of code work done by
8791 <a href="http://initscripts-ng.alioth.debian.org/soc2006-bootsystem/">Carlos
8792 Villegas</a>.
8793
8794 <p>Support for makefile-style concurrency during boot was uploaded to
8795 unstable yesterday.  When we tested it, we were able to cut 6 seconds
8796 from the boot sequence.  It depend on very correct dependency
8797 declaration in all init.d scripts, so I expect us to find edge cases
8798 where the dependences in some scripts are slightly wrong when we start
8799 using this.</p>
8800
8801 <p>On our IRC channel for this effort, #pkg-sysvinit, a new idea was
8802 introduced by Raphael Geissert today, one that could affect the
8803 startup speed as well.  Instead of starting some scripts concurrently
8804 from rcS.d/ and another set of scripts from rc2.d/, it would be
8805 possible to run a of them in the same process.  A quick way to test
8806 this would be to enable insserv and run 'mv /etc/rc2.d/S* /etc/rcS.d/;
8807 insserv'.  Will need to test if that work. :)</p>
8808
8809       </div>
8810       <div class="tags">
8811
8812
8813         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>.
8814
8815
8816       </div>
8817     </div>
8818     <div class="padding"></div>
8819
8820     <div class="entry">
8821       <div class="title">
8822         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/BSAs_p_stander_om_piratkopiering_m_ter_motstand.html">BSAs påstander om piratkopiering møter motstand</a>
8823       </div>
8824       <div class="date">
8825         17th May 2009
8826       </div>
8827       <div class="body">
8828         <p>Hvert år de siste årene har BSA, lobbyfronten til de store
8829 programvareselskapene som Microsoft og Apple, publisert en rapport der
8830 de gjetter på hvor mye piratkopiering påfører i tapte inntekter i
8831 ulike land rundt om i verden.  Resultatene er tendensiøse.  For noen
8832 dager siden kom
8833 <a href="http://global.bsa.org/globalpiracy2008/studies/globalpiracy2008.pdf">siste
8834 rapport</a>, og det er flere kritiske kommentarer publisert de siste
8835 dagene.  Et spesielt interessant kommentar fra Sverige,
8836 <a href="http://www.idg.se/2.1085/1.229795/bsa-hoftade-sverigesiffror">BSA
8837 höftade Sverigesiffror</a>, oppsummeres slik:</p>
8838
8839 <blockquote>
8840 I sin senaste rapport slår BSA fast att 25 procent av all mjukvara i
8841 Sverige är piratkopierad. Det utan att ha pratat med ett enda svenskt
8842 företag. "Man bör nog kanske inte se de här siffrorna som helt
8843 exakta", säger BSAs Sverigechef John Hugosson.
8844 </blockquote>
8845
8846 <p>Mon tro om de er like metodiske når de gjetter på andelen piratkopiering i Norge?  To andre kommentarer er <a
8847 href="http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/comment/2242134/bsa-piracy-figures-shot-reality">BSA
8848 piracy figures need a shot of reality</a> og <a
8849 href="http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/3958/125/">Does The WIPO
8850 Copyright Treaty Work?</a></p>
8851
8852 <p>Fant lenkene via <a
8853 href="http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/05/17/1632242">oppslag
8854 på Slashdot</a>.</p>
8855
8856       </div>
8857       <div class="tags">
8858
8859
8860         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>.
8861
8862
8863       </div>
8864     </div>
8865     <div class="padding"></div>
8866
8867     <div class="entry">
8868       <div class="title">
8869         <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>
8870       </div>
8871       <div class="date">
8872          7th May 2009
8873       </div>
8874       <div class="body">
8875         <p>Kom over
8876 <a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10216873-16.html">interessante
8877 tall</a> fra IDG om utviklingen av linuxservermarkedet.  Fikk meg til
8878 å tenke på antall tjenermaskiner ved Universitetet i Oslo der jeg
8879 jobber til daglig.  En rask opptelling forteller meg at vi har 490
8880 (61%) fysiske unix-tjener (mest linux men også noen solaris) og 196
8881 (25%) windowstjenere, samt 112 (14%) virtuelle unix-tjenere.  Med den
8882 bakgrunnskunnskapen kan jeg godt tro at IDG er inne på noe.</p>
8883
8884       </div>
8885       <div class="tags">
8886
8887
8888         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>.
8889
8890
8891       </div>
8892     </div>
8893     <div class="padding"></div>
8894
8895     <div class="entry">
8896       <div class="title">
8897         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Kryptert_harddisk___naturligvis.html">Kryptert harddisk - naturligvis</a>
8898       </div>
8899       <div class="date">
8900          2nd May 2009
8901       </div>
8902       <div class="body">
8903         <p><a href="http://www.dagensit.no/trender/article1658676.ece">Dagens
8904 IT melder</a> at Intel hevder at det er dyrt å miste en datamaskin,
8905 når en tar tap av arbeidstid, fortrolige dokumenter,
8906 personopplysninger og alt annet det innebærer.  Det er ingen tvil om
8907 at det er en kostbar affære å miste sin datamaskin, og det er årsaken
8908 til at jeg har kryptert harddisken på både kontormaskinen og min
8909 bærbare.  Begge inneholder personopplysninger jeg ikke ønsker skal
8910 komme på avveie, den første informasjon relatert til jobben min ved
8911 Universitetet i Oslo, og den andre relatert til blant annet
8912 foreningsarbeide.  Kryptering av diskene gjør at det er lite
8913 sannsynlig at dophoder som kan finne på å rappe maskinene får noe ut
8914 av dem.  Maskinene låses automatisk etter noen minutter uten bruk,
8915 og en reboot vil gjøre at de ber om passord før de vil starte opp.
8916 Jeg bruker Debian på begge maskinene, og installasjonssystemet der
8917 gjør det trivielt å sette opp krypterte disker.  Jeg har LVM på toppen
8918 av krypterte partisjoner, slik at alt av datapartisjoner er kryptert.
8919 Jeg anbefaler alle å kryptere diskene på sine bærbare.  Kostnaden når
8920 det er gjort slik jeg gjør det er minimale, og gevinstene er
8921 betydelige.  En bør dog passe på passordet.  Hvis det går tapt, må
8922 maskinen reinstalleres og alt er tapt.</p>
8923
8924 <p>Krypteringen vil ikke stoppe kompetente angripere som f.eks. kjøler
8925 ned minnebrikkene før maskinen rebootes med programvare for å hente ut
8926 krypteringsnøklene.  Kostnaden med å forsvare seg mot slike angripere
8927 er for min del høyere enn gevinsten.  Jeg tror oddsene for at
8928 f.eks. etteretningsorganisasjoner har glede av å titte på mine
8929 maskiner er minimale, og ulempene jeg ville oppnå ved å forsøke å
8930 gjøre det vanskeligere for angripere med kompetanse og ressurser er
8931 betydelige.</p>
8932
8933       </div>
8934       <div class="tags">
8935
8936
8937         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>.
8938
8939
8940       </div>
8941     </div>
8942     <div class="padding"></div>
8943
8944     <div class="entry">
8945       <div class="title">
8946         <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>
8947       </div>
8948       <div class="date">
8949          2nd May 2009
8950       </div>
8951       <div class="body">
8952         <p>There are two software projects that have had huge influence on the
8953 quality of free software, and I wanted to mention both in case someone
8954 do not yet know them.</p>
8955
8956 <p>The first one is <a href="http://valgrind.org/">valgrind</a>, a
8957 tool to detect and expose errors in the memory handling of programs.
8958 It is easy to use, all one need to do is to run 'valgrind program',
8959 and it will report any problems on stdout.  It is even better if the
8960 program include debug information.  With debug information, it is able
8961 to report the source file name and line number where the problem
8962 occurs.  It can report things like 'reading past memory block in file
8963 X line N, the memory block was allocated in file Y, line M', and
8964 'using uninitialised value in control logic'.  This tool has made it
8965 trivial to investigate reproducible crash bugs in programs, and have
8966 reduced the number of this kind of bugs in free software a lot.
8967
8968 <p>The second one is
8969 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coverity">Coverity</a> which is
8970 a source code checker.  It is able to process the source of a program
8971 and find problems in the logic without running the program.  It
8972 started out as the Stanford Checker and became well known when it was
8973 used to find bugs in the Linux kernel.  It is now a commercial tool
8974 and the company behind it is running
8975 <a href="http://www.scan.coverity.com/">a community service</a> for the
8976 free software community, where a lot of free software projects get
8977 their source checked for free.  Several thousand defects have been
8978 found and fixed so far.  It can find errors like 'lock L taken in file
8979 X line N is never released if exiting in line M', or 'the code in file
8980 Y lines O to P can never be executed'.  The projects included in the
8981 community service project have managed to get rid of a lot of
8982 reliability problems thanks to Coverity.</p>
8983
8984 <p>I believe tools like this, that are able to automatically find
8985 errors in the source, are vital to improve the quality of software and
8986 make sure we can get rid of the crashing and failing software we are
8987 surrounded by today.</p>
8988
8989       </div>
8990       <div class="tags">
8991
8992
8993         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>.
8994
8995
8996       </div>
8997     </div>
8998     <div class="padding"></div>
8999
9000     <div class="entry">
9001       <div class="title">
9002         <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>
9003       </div>
9004       <div class="date">
9005         28th April 2009
9006       </div>
9007       <div class="body">
9008         <p>Julien Blache
9009 <a href="http://blog.technologeek.org/2009/04/12/214">claim that no
9010 patch is better than a useless patch</a>.  I completely disagree, as a
9011 patch allow one to discuss a concrete and proposed solution, and also
9012 prove that the issue at hand is important enough for someone to spent
9013 time on fixing it.  No patch do not provide any of these positive
9014 properties.</p>
9015
9016       </div>
9017       <div class="tags">
9018
9019
9020         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>.
9021
9022
9023       </div>
9024     </div>
9025     <div class="padding"></div>
9026
9027     <div class="entry">
9028       <div class="title">
9029         <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>
9030       </div>
9031       <div class="date">
9032         30th March 2009
9033       </div>
9034       <div class="body">
9035         <p>Where I work at the University of Oslo, one decision stand out as a
9036 very good one to form a long lived computer infrastructure.  It is the
9037 simple one, lost by many in todays computer industry: Standardize on
9038 open network protocols and open exchange/storage formats, not applications.
9039 Applications come and go, while protocols and files tend to stay, and
9040 thus one want to make it easy to change application and vendor, while
9041 avoiding conversion costs and locking users to a specific platform or
9042 application.</p>
9043
9044 <p>This approach make it possible to replace the client applications
9045 independently of the server applications.  One can even allow users to
9046 use several different applications as long as they handle the selected
9047 protocol and format.  In the normal case, only one client application
9048 is recommended and users only get help if they choose to use this
9049 application, but those that want to deviate from the easy path are not
9050 blocked from doing so.</p>
9051
9052 <p>It also allow us to replace the server side without forcing the
9053 users to replace their applications, and thus allow us to select the
9054 best server implementation at any moment, when scale and resouce
9055 requirements change.</p>
9056
9057 <p>I strongly recommend standardizing - on open network protocols and
9058 open formats, but I would never recommend standardizing on a single
9059 application that do not use open network protocol or open formats.</p>
9060
9061       </div>
9062       <div class="tags">
9063
9064
9065         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>.
9066
9067
9068       </div>
9069     </div>
9070     <div class="padding"></div>
9071
9072     <div class="entry">
9073       <div class="title">
9074         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Returning_from_Skolelinux_developer_gathering.html">Returning from Skolelinux developer gathering</a>
9075       </div>
9076       <div class="date">
9077         29th March 2009
9078       </div>
9079       <div class="body">
9080         <p>I'm sitting on the train going home from this weekends Debian
9081 Edu/Skolelinux development gathering.  I got a bit done tuning the
9082 desktop, and looked into the dynamic service location protocol
9083 implementation avahi.  It look like it could be useful for us.  Almost
9084 30 people participated, and I believe it was a great environment to
9085 get to know the Skolelinux system.  Walter Bender, involved in the
9086 development of the Sugar educational platform, presented his stuff and
9087 also helped me improve my OLPC installation.  He also showed me that
9088 his Turtle Art application can be used in standalone mode, and we
9089 agreed that I would help getting it packaged for Debian.  As a
9090 standalone application it would be great for Debian Edu.  We also
9091 tried to get the video conferencing working with two OLPCs, but that
9092 proved to be too hard for us.  The application seem to need more work
9093 before it is ready for me.  I look forward to getting home and relax
9094 now. :)</p>
9095
9096       </div>
9097       <div class="tags">
9098
9099
9100         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>.
9101
9102
9103       </div>
9104     </div>
9105     <div class="padding"></div>
9106
9107     <div class="entry">
9108       <div class="title">
9109         <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>
9110       </div>
9111       <div class="date">
9112         29th March 2009
9113       </div>
9114       <div class="body">
9115         <p>The state of standardized LDAP schemas on Linux is far from
9116 optimal.  There is RFC 2307 documenting one way to store NIS maps in
9117 LDAP, and a modified version of this normally called RFC 2307bis, with
9118 some modifications to be compatible with Active Directory.  The RFC
9119 specification handle the content of a lot of system databases, but do
9120 not handle DNS zones and DHCP configuration.</p>
9121
9122 <p>In <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux</a>,
9123 we would like to store information about users, SMB clients/hosts,
9124 filegroups, netgroups (users and hosts), DHCP and DNS configuration,
9125 and LTSP configuration in LDAP.  These objects have a lot in common,
9126 but with the current LDAP schemas it is not possible to have one
9127 object per entity.  For example, one need to have at least three LDAP
9128 objects for a given computer, one with the SMB related stuff, one with
9129 DNS information and another with DHCP information.  The schemas
9130 provided for DNS and DHCP are impossible to combine into one LDAP
9131 object.  In addition, it is impossible to implement quick queries for
9132 netgroup membership, because of the way NIS triples are implemented.
9133 It just do not scale.  I believe it is time for a few RFC
9134 specifications to cleam up this mess.</p>
9135
9136 <p>I would like to have one LDAP object representing each computer in
9137 the network, and this object can then keep the SMB (ie host key), DHCP
9138 (mac address/name) and DNS (name/IP address) settings in one place.
9139 It need to be efficently stored to make sure it scale well.</p>
9140
9141 <p>I would also like to have a quick way to map from a user or
9142 computer and to the net group this user or computer is a member.</p>
9143
9144 <p>Active Directory have done a better job than unix heads like myself
9145 in this regard, and the unix side need to catch up.  Time to start a
9146 new IETF work group?</p>
9147
9148       </div>
9149       <div class="tags">
9150
9151
9152         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>.
9153
9154
9155       </div>
9156     </div>
9157     <div class="padding"></div>
9158
9159     <div class="entry">
9160       <div class="title">
9161         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Endelig_er_Debian_Lenny_gitt_ut.html">Endelig er Debian Lenny gitt ut</a>
9162       </div>
9163       <div class="date">
9164         15th February 2009
9165       </div>
9166       <div class="body">
9167         <p>Endelig er <a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</a>
9168 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2009/20090214">Lenny</a> gitt ut.
9169 Et langt steg videre for Debian-prosjektet, og en rekke nye
9170 programpakker blir nå tilgjengelig for de av oss som bruker den
9171 stabile utgaven av Debian.  Neste steg er nå å få
9172 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a> /
9173 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/">Debian Edu</a> ferdig
9174 oppdatert for den nye utgaven, slik at en oppdatert versjon kan
9175 slippes løs på skolene.  Takk til alle debian-utviklerne som har
9176 gjort dette mulig.  Endelig er f.eks. fungerende avhengighetsstyrt
9177 bootsekvens tilgjengelig i stabil utgave, vha pakken
9178 <tt>insserv</tt>.</p>
9179
9180       </div>
9181       <div class="tags">
9182
9183
9184         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>.
9185
9186
9187       </div>
9188     </div>
9189     <div class="padding"></div>
9190
9191     <div class="entry">
9192       <div class="title">
9193         <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>
9194       </div>
9195       <div class="date">
9196          7th December 2008
9197       </div>
9198       <div class="body">
9199         <p>This weekend we had a small developer gathering for Debian Edu in
9200 Oslo.  Most of Saturday was used for the general assemly for the
9201 member organization, but the rest of the weekend I used to tune the
9202 LTSP installation.  LTSP now work out of the box on the 10-network.
9203 Acer Aspire One proved to be a very nice thin client, with both
9204 screen, mouse and keybard in a small box.  Was working on getting the
9205 diskless workstation setup configured out of the box, but did not
9206 finish it before the weekend was up.</p>
9207
9208 <p>Did not find time to look at the 4 VGA cards in one box we got from
9209 the Brazilian group, so that will have to wait for the next
9210 development gathering.  Would love to have the Debian Edu installer
9211 automatically detect and configure a multiseat setup when it find one
9212 of these cards.</p>
9213
9214       </div>
9215       <div class="tags">
9216
9217
9218         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>.
9219
9220
9221       </div>
9222     </div>
9223     <div class="padding"></div>
9224
9225     <div class="entry">
9226       <div class="title">
9227         <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>
9228       </div>
9229       <div class="date">
9230         25th November 2008
9231       </div>
9232       <div class="body">
9233         <p>Recently I have spent some time evaluating the multimedia browser
9234 plugins available in Debian Lenny, to see which one we should use by
9235 default in Debian Edu.  We need an embedded video playing plugin with
9236 control buttons to pause or stop the video, and capable of streaming
9237 all the multimedia content available on the web.  The test results and
9238 notes are available on
9239 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">the
9240 Debian wiki</a>.  I was surprised how few of the plugins are able to
9241 fill this need.  My personal video player favorite, VLC, has a really
9242 bad plugin which fail on a lot of the test pages.  A lot of the MIME
9243 types I would expect to work with any free software player (like
9244 video/ogg), just do not work.  And simple formats like the
9245 audio/x-mplegurl format (m3u playlists), just isn't supported by the
9246 totem and vlc plugins.  I hope the situation will improve soon.  No
9247 wonder sites use the proprietary Adobe flash to play video.</p>
9248
9249 <p>For Lenny, we seem to end up with the mplayer plugin.  It seem to
9250 be the only one fitting our needs. :/</p>
9251
9252       </div>
9253       <div class="tags">
9254
9255
9256         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>.
9257
9258
9259       </div>
9260     </div>
9261     <div class="padding"></div>
9262
9263     <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>
9264     <div id="sidebar">
9265
9266
9267
9268 <h2>Archive</h2>
9269 <ul>
9270
9271 <li>2015
9272 <ul>
9273
9274 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/01/">January (7)</a></li>
9275
9276 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/02/">February (6)</a></li>
9277
9278 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/03/">March (1)</a></li>
9279
9280 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/04/">April (4)</a></li>
9281
9282 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/05/">May (3)</a></li>
9283
9284 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/06/">June (4)</a></li>
9285
9286 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/07/">July (6)</a></li>
9287
9288 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/08/">August (2)</a></li>
9289
9290 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/09/">September (2)</a></li>
9291
9292 </ul></li>
9293
9294 <li>2014
9295 <ul>
9296
9297 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/01/">January (2)</a></li>
9298
9299 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/02/">February (3)</a></li>
9300
9301 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/03/">March (8)</a></li>
9302
9303 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/04/">April (7)</a></li>
9304
9305 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/05/">May (1)</a></li>
9306
9307 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/06/">June (2)</a></li>
9308
9309 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/07/">July (2)</a></li>
9310
9311 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/08/">August (2)</a></li>
9312
9313 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/09/">September (5)</a></li>
9314
9315 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/10/">October (6)</a></li>
9316
9317 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/11/">November (3)</a></li>
9318
9319 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/12/">December (5)</a></li>
9320
9321 </ul></li>
9322
9323 <li>2013
9324 <ul>
9325
9326 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/01/">January (11)</a></li>
9327
9328 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/02/">February (9)</a></li>
9329
9330 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/03/">March (9)</a></li>
9331
9332 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/04/">April (6)</a></li>
9333
9334 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/05/">May (9)</a></li>
9335
9336 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/06/">June (10)</a></li>
9337
9338 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/07/">July (7)</a></li>
9339
9340 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/08/">August (3)</a></li>
9341
9342 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/09/">September (5)</a></li>
9343
9344 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/10/">October (7)</a></li>
9345
9346 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/11/">November (9)</a></li>
9347
9348 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/12/">December (3)</a></li>
9349
9350 </ul></li>
9351
9352 <li>2012
9353 <ul>
9354
9355 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/01/">January (7)</a></li>
9356
9357 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/02/">February (10)</a></li>
9358
9359 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/03/">March (17)</a></li>
9360
9361 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/04/">April (12)</a></li>
9362
9363 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/05/">May (12)</a></li>
9364
9365 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/06/">June (20)</a></li>
9366
9367 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/07/">July (17)</a></li>
9368
9369 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/08/">August (6)</a></li>
9370
9371 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/09/">September (9)</a></li>
9372
9373 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/10/">October (17)</a></li>
9374
9375 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/11/">November (10)</a></li>
9376
9377 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/12/">December (7)</a></li>
9378
9379 </ul></li>
9380
9381 <li>2011
9382 <ul>
9383
9384 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/01/">January (16)</a></li>
9385
9386 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/02/">February (6)</a></li>
9387
9388 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/03/">March (6)</a></li>
9389
9390 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/04/">April (7)</a></li>
9391
9392 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/05/">May (3)</a></li>
9393
9394 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/06/">June (2)</a></li>
9395
9396 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/07/">July (7)</a></li>
9397
9398 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/08/">August (6)</a></li>
9399
9400 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/09/">September (4)</a></li>
9401
9402 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/10/">October (2)</a></li>
9403
9404 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/11/">November (3)</a></li>
9405
9406 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/12/">December (1)</a></li>
9407
9408 </ul></li>
9409
9410 <li>2010
9411 <ul>
9412
9413 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/01/">January (2)</a></li>
9414
9415 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/02/">February (1)</a></li>
9416
9417 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/03/">March (3)</a></li>
9418
9419 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/04/">April (3)</a></li>
9420
9421 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/05/">May (9)</a></li>
9422
9423 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/06/">June (14)</a></li>
9424
9425 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/07/">July (12)</a></li>
9426
9427 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/08/">August (13)</a></li>
9428
9429 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/09/">September (7)</a></li>
9430
9431 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/10/">October (9)</a></li>
9432
9433 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/11/">November (13)</a></li>
9434
9435 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/12/">December (12)</a></li>
9436
9437 </ul></li>
9438
9439 <li>2009
9440 <ul>
9441
9442 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/01/">January (8)</a></li>
9443
9444 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/02/">February (8)</a></li>
9445
9446 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/03/">March (12)</a></li>
9447
9448 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/04/">April (10)</a></li>
9449
9450 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/05/">May (9)</a></li>
9451
9452 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/06/">June (3)</a></li>
9453
9454 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/07/">July (4)</a></li>
9455
9456 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/08/">August (3)</a></li>
9457
9458 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/09/">September (1)</a></li>
9459
9460 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/10/">October (2)</a></li>
9461
9462 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/11/">November (3)</a></li>
9463
9464 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/12/">December (3)</a></li>
9465
9466 </ul></li>
9467
9468 <li>2008
9469 <ul>
9470
9471 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/11/">November (5)</a></li>
9472
9473 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/12/">December (7)</a></li>
9474
9475 </ul></li>
9476
9477 </ul>
9478
9479
9480
9481 <h2>Tags</h2>
9482 <ul>
9483
9484  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer (13)</a></li>
9485
9486  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/amiga">amiga (1)</a></li>
9487
9488  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/aros">aros (1)</a></li>
9489
9490  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bankid">bankid (4)</a></li>
9491
9492  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin (8)</a></li>
9493
9494  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem (15)</a></li>
9495
9496  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bsa">bsa (2)</a></li>
9497
9498  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/chrpath">chrpath (2)</a></li>
9499
9500  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian (112)</a></li>
9501
9502  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu (153)</a></li>
9503
9504  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/digistan">digistan (10)</a></li>
9505
9506  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/dld">dld (15)</a></li>
9507
9508  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook (17)</a></li>
9509
9510  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/drivstoffpriser">drivstoffpriser (4)</a></li>
9511
9512  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english (288)</a></li>
9513
9514  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami (23)</a></li>
9515
9516  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fildeling">fildeling (12)</a></li>
9517
9518  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture (19)</a></li>
9519
9520  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox (9)</a></li>
9521
9522  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen (16)</a></li>
9523
9524  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/h264">h264 (20)</a></li>
9525
9526  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju (42)</a></li>
9527
9528  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram (10)</a></li>
9529
9530  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kart">kart (19)</a></li>
9531
9532  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap (9)</a></li>
9533
9534  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lenker">lenker (8)</a></li>
9535
9536  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lsdvd">lsdvd (2)</a></li>
9537
9538  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ltsp">ltsp (1)</a></li>
9539
9540  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network (8)</a></li>
9541
9542  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia (36)</a></li>
9543
9544  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk (264)</a></li>
9545
9546  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug (177)</a></li>
9547
9548  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/offentlig innsyn">offentlig innsyn (19)</a></li>
9549
9550  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/open311">open311 (2)</a></li>
9551
9552  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett (53)</a></li>
9553
9554  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern (86)</a></li>
9555
9556  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/raid">raid (1)</a></li>
9557
9558  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reactos">reactos (1)</a></li>
9559
9560  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reprap">reprap (11)</a></li>
9561
9562  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rfid">rfid (3)</a></li>
9563
9564  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot (9)</a></li>
9565
9566  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rss">rss (1)</a></li>
9567
9568  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ruter">ruter (4)</a></li>
9569
9570  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/scraperwiki">scraperwiki (2)</a></li>
9571
9572  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet (41)</a></li>
9573
9574  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary (4)</a></li>
9575
9576  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/skepsis">skepsis (4)</a></li>
9577
9578  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard (48)</a></li>
9579
9580  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stavekontroll">stavekontroll (3)</a></li>
9581
9582  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stortinget">stortinget (9)</a></li>
9583
9584  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance (33)</a></li>
9585
9586  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sysadmin">sysadmin (2)</a></li>
9587
9588  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/usenix">usenix (2)</a></li>
9589
9590  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/valg">valg (8)</a></li>
9591
9592  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video (54)</a></li>
9593
9594  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/vitenskap">vitenskap (4)</a></li>
9595
9596  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web (37)</a></li>
9597
9598 </ul>
9599
9600
9601     </div>
9602     <p style="text-align: right">
9603  Created by <a href="http://steve.org.uk/Software/chronicle">Chronicle v4.6</a>
9604 </p>
9605
9606   </body>
9607 </html>