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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/New_laptop___some_more_clues_and_ideas_based_on_feedback.html">New laptop - some more clues and ideas based on feedback</a>
  26       </div>
  27       <div class="date">
  28          5th July 2015
  29       </div>
  30       <div class="body">
  31         <p>Several people contacted me after my previous blog post about my
  32 need for a new laptop, and provided very useful feedback.  I wish to
  33 thank every one of these.  Several pointed me to the possibility of
  34 fixing my X230, and I am already in the process of getting Lenovo to
  35 do so thanks to the on site, next day support contract covering the
  36 machine.  But the battery is almost useless (I expect to replace it
  37 with a non-official battery) and I do not expect the machine to live
  38 for many more years, so it is time to plan its replacement.  If I did
  39 not have a support contract, it was suggested to find replacement parts
  40 using <a href="http://www.francecrans.com/">FrancEcrans</a>, but it
  41 might present a language barrier as I do not understand French.</p>
  42
  43 <p>One tip I got was to use the
  44 <a href="https://skinflint.co.uk/?cat=nb">Skinflint</a> web service to
  45 compare laptop models.  It seem to have more models available than
  46 prisjakt.no.  Another tip I got from someone I know have similar
  47 keyboard preferences was that the HP EliteBook 840 keyboard is not
  48 very good, and this matches my experience with earlier EliteBook
  49 keyboards I tested.  Because of this, I will not consider it any further.
  50
  51 <p>When I wrote my blog post, I was not aware of Thinkpad X250, the
  52 newest Thinkpad X model.  The keyboard reintroduces mouse buttons
  53 (which is missing from the X240), and is working fairly well with
  54 Debian Sid/Unstable according to
  55 <a href="http://www.corsac.net/X250/">Corsac.net</a>.  The reports I
  56 got on the keyboard quality are not consistent.  Some say the keyboard
  57 is good, others say it is ok, while others say it is not very good.
  58 Those with experience from X41 and and X60 agree that the X250
  59 keyboard is not as good as those trusty old laptops, and suggest I
  60 keep and fix my X230 instead of upgrading, or get a used X230 to
  61 replace it.  I'm also told that the X250 lack leds for caps lock, disk
  62 activity and battery status, which is very convenient on my X230.  I'm
  63 also told that the CPU fan is running very often, making it a bit
  64 noisy.  In any case, the X250 do not work out of the box with Debian
  65 Stable/Jessie, one of my requirements.</p>
  66
  67 <p>I have also gotten a few vendor proposals, one was
  68 <a href="http://pro-star.com">Pro-Star</a>, another was
  69 <a href="http://shop.gluglug.org.uk/product/libreboot-x200/">Libreboot</a>.
  70 The latter look very attractive to me.</p>
  71
  72 <p>Again, thank you all for the very useful feedback.  It help a lot
  73 as I keep looking for a replacement.</p>
  74
  75       </div>
  76       <div class="tags">
  77
  78
  79         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>.
  80
  81
  82       </div>
  83     </div>
  84     <div class="padding"></div>
  85
  86     <div class="entry">
  87       <div class="title">
  88         <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>
  89       </div>
  90       <div class="date">
  91          3rd July 2015
  92       </div>
  93       <div class="body">
  94         <p>My primary work horse laptop is failing, and will need a
  95 replacement soon.  The left 5 cm of the screen on my Thinkpad X230
  96 started flickering yesterday, and I suspect the cause is a broken
  97 cable, as changing the angle of the screen some times get rid of the
  98 flickering.</p>
  99
 100 <p>My requirements have not really changed since I bought it, and is
 101 still as
 102 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thank_you_Thinkpad_X41__for_your_long_and_trustworthy_service.html">I
 103 described them in 2013</a>.  The last time I bought a laptop, I had
 104 good help from
 105 <a href="http://www.prisjakt.no/category.php?k=353">prisjakt.no</a>
 106 where I could select at least a few of the requirements (mouse pin,
 107 wifi, weight) and go through the rest manually.  Three button mouse
 108 and a good keyboard is not available as an option, and all the three
 109 laptop models proposed today (Thinkpad X240, HP EliteBook 820 G1 and
 110 G2) lack three mouse buttons).  It is also unclear to me how good the
 111 keyboard on the HP EliteBooks are.  I hope Lenovo have not messed up
 112 the keyboard, even if the quality and robustness in the X series have
 113 deteriorated since X41.</p>
 114
 115 <p>I wonder how I can find a sensible laptop when none of the options
 116 seem sensible to me?  Are there better services around to search the
 117 set of available laptops for features?  Please send me an email if you
 118 have suggestions.</p>
 119
 120       </div>
 121       <div class="tags">
 122
 123
 124         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>.
 125
 126
 127       </div>
 128     </div>
 129     <div class="padding"></div>
 130
 131     <div class="entry">
 132       <div class="title">
 133         <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>
 134       </div>
 135       <div class="date">
 136         22nd November 2014
 137       </div>
 138       <div class="body">
 139         <p>By now, it is well known that Debian Jessie will not be using
 140 sysvinit as its boot system by default.  But how can one keep using
 141 sysvinit in Jessie?  It is fairly easy, and here are a few recipes,
 142 courtesy of
 143 <a href="http://www.vitavonni.de/blog/201410/2014102101-avoiding-systemd.html">Erich
 144 Schubert</a> and
 145 <a href="http://smcv.pseudorandom.co.uk/2014/still_universal/">Simon
 146 McVittie</a>.
 147
 148 <p>If you already are using Wheezy and want to upgrade to Jessie and
 149 keep sysvinit as your boot system, create a file
 150 <tt>/etc/apt/preferences.d/use-sysvinit</tt> with this content before
 151 you upgrade:</p>
 152
 153 <p><blockquote><pre>
 154 Package: systemd-sysv
 155 Pin: release o=Debian
 156 Pin-Priority: -1
 157 </pre></blockquote><p>
 158
 159 <p>This file content will tell apt and aptitude to not consider
 160 installing systemd-sysv as part of any installation and upgrade
 161 solution when resolving dependencies, and thus tell it to avoid
 162 systemd as a default boot system.  The end result should be that the
 163 upgraded system keep using sysvinit.</p>
 164
 165 <p>If you are installing Jessie for the first time, there is no way to
 166 get sysvinit installed by default (debootstrap used by
 167 debian-installer have no option for this), but one can tell the
 168 installer to switch to sysvinit before the first boot.  Either by
 169 using a kernel argument to the installer, or by adding a line to the
 170 preseed file used.  First, the kernel command line argument:
 171
 172 <p><blockquote><pre>
 173 preseed/late_command="in-target apt-get install --purge -y sysvinit-core"
 174 </pre></blockquote><p>
 175
 176 <p>Next, the line to use in a preseed file:</p>
 177
 178 <p><blockquote><pre>
 179 d-i preseed/late_command string in-target apt-get install -y sysvinit-core
 180 </pre></blockquote><p>
 181
 182 <p>One can of course also do this after the first boot by installing
 183 the sysvinit-core package.</p>
 184
 185 <p>I recommend only using sysvinit if you really need it, as the
 186 sysvinit boot sequence in Debian have several hardware specific bugs
 187 on Linux caused by the fact that it is unpredictable when hardware
 188 devices show up during boot.  But on the other hand, the new default
 189 boot system still have a few rough edges I hope will be fixed before
 190 Jessie is released.</p>
 191
 192 <p>Update 2014-11-26: Inspired by
 193 <ahref="https://www.mirbsd.org/permalinks/wlog-10-tg_e20141125-tg.htm#e20141125-tg_wlog-10-tg">a
 194 blog post by Torsten Glaser</a>, added --purge to the preseed
 195 line.</p>
 196
 197       </div>
 198       <div class="tags">
 199
 200
 201         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>.
 202
 203
 204       </div>
 205     </div>
 206     <div class="padding"></div>
 207
 208     <div class="entry">
 209       <div class="title">
 210         <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>
 211       </div>
 212       <div class="date">
 213         10th November 2014
 214       </div>
 215       <div class="body">
 216         <p>The right to communicate with your friends and family in private,
 217 without anyone snooping, is a right every citicen have in a liberal
 218 democracy.  But this right is under serious attack these days.</p>
 219
 220 <p>A while back it occurred to me that one way to make the dragnet
 221 surveillance conducted by NSA, GCHQ, FRA and others (and confirmed by
 222 the whisleblower Snowden) more expensive for Internet email,
 223 is to deliver all email using SMTP via Tor.  Such SMTP option would be
 224 a nice addition to the FreedomBox project if we could send email
 225 between FreedomBox machines without leaking metadata about the emails
 226 to the people peeking on the wire.  I
 227 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/freedombox-discuss/2014-October/006493.html">proposed
 228 this on the FreedomBox project mailing list in October</a> and got a
 229 lot of useful feedback and suggestions.  It also became obvious to me
 230 that this was not a novel idea, as the same idea was tested and
 231 documented by Johannes Berg as early as 2006, and both
 232 <a href="https://github.com/pagekite/Mailpile/wiki/SMTorP">the
 233 Mailpile</a> and <a href="http://dee.su/cables">the Cables</a> systems
 234 propose a similar method / protocol to pass emails between users.</p>
 235
 236 <p>To implement such system one need to set up a Tor hidden service
 237 providing the SMTP protocol on port 25, and use email addresses
 238 looking like username@hidden-service-name.onion.  With such addresses
 239 the connections to port 25 on hidden-service-name.onion using Tor will
 240 go to the correct SMTP server.  To do this, one need to configure the
 241 Tor daemon to provide the hidden service and the mail server to accept
 242 emails for this .onion domain.  To learn more about Exim configuration
 243 in Debian and test the design provided by Johannes Berg in his FAQ, I
 244 set out yesterday to create a Debian package for making it trivial to
 245 set up such SMTP over Tor service based on Debian.  Getting it to work
 246 were fairly easy, and
 247 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/exim4-smtorp">the
 248 source code for the Debian package</a> is available from github.  I
 249 plan to move it into Debian if further testing prove this to be a
 250 useful approach.</p>
 251
 252 <p>If you want to test this, set up a blank Debian machine without any
 253 mail system installed (or run <tt>apt-get purge exim4-config</tt> to
 254 get rid of exim4).  Install tor, clone the git repository mentioned
 255 above, build the deb and install it on the machine.  Next, run
 256 <tt>/usr/lib/exim4-smtorp/setup-exim-hidden-service</tt> and follow
 257 the instructions to get the service up and running.  Restart tor and
 258 exim when it is done, and test mail delivery using swaks like
 259 this:</p>
 260
 261 <p><blockquote><pre>
 262 torsocks swaks --server dutlqrrmjhtfa3vp.onion \
 263   --to fbx@dutlqrrmjhtfa3vp.onion
 264 </pre></blockquote></p>
 265
 266 <p>This will test the SMTP delivery using tor.  Replace the email
 267 address with your own address to test your server. :)</p>
 268
 269 <p>The setup procedure is still to complex, and I hope it can be made
 270 easier and more automatic.  Especially the tor setup need more work.
 271 Also, the package include a tor-smtp tool written in C, but its task
 272 should probably be rewritten in some script language to make the deb
 273 architecture independent.  It would probably also make the code easier
 274 to review.  The tor-smtp tool currently need to listen on a socket for
 275 exim to talk to it and is started using xinetd.  It would be better if
 276 no daemon and no socket is needed.  I suspect it is possible to get
 277 exim to run a command line tool for delivery instead of talking to a
 278 socket, and hope to figure out how in a future version of this
 279 system.</p>
 280
 281 <p>Until I wipe my test machine, I can be reached using the
 282 <tt>fbx@dutlqrrmjhtfa3vp.onion</tt> mail address, deliverable over
 283 SMTorP. :)</p>
 284
 285       </div>
 286       <div class="tags">
 287
 288
 289         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>.
 290
 291
 292       </div>
 293     </div>
 294     <div class="padding"></div>
 295
 296     <div class="entry">
 297       <div class="title">
 298         <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>
 299       </div>
 300       <div class="date">
 301         22nd October 2014
 302       </div>
 303       <div class="body">
 304         <p>If you ever had to moderate a mailman list, like the ones on
 305 alioth.debian.org, you know the web interface is fairly slow to
 306 operate.  First you visit one web page, enter the moderation password
 307 and get a new page shown with a list of all the messages to moderate
 308 and various options for each email address.  This take a while for
 309 every list you moderate, and you need to do it regularly to do a good
 310 job as a list moderator.  But there is a quick alternative,
 311 <a href="http://heim.ifi.uio.no/kjetilho/hacks/#listadmin">the
 312 listadmin program</a>.  It allow you to check lists for new messages
 313 to moderate in a fraction of a second.  Here is a test run on two
 314 lists I recently took over:</p>
 315
 316 <p><blockquote><pre>
 317 % time listadmin xiph
 318 fetching data for pkg-xiph-commits@lists.alioth.debian.org ... nothing in queue
 319 fetching data for pkg-xiph-maint@lists.alioth.debian.org ... nothing in queue
 320
 321 real    0m1.709s
 322 user    0m0.232s
 323 sys     0m0.012s
 324 %
 325 </pre></blockquote></p>
 326
 327 <p>In 1.7 seconds I had checked two mailing lists and confirmed that
 328 there are no message in the moderation queue.  Every morning I
 329 currently moderate 68 mailman lists, and it normally take around two
 330 minutes.  When I took over the two pkg-xiph lists above a few days
 331 ago, there were 400 emails waiting in the moderator queue.  It took me
 332 less than 15 minutes to process them all using the listadmin
 333 program.</p>
 334
 335 <p>If you install
 336 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/listadmin">the listadmin
 337 package</a> from Debian and create a file <tt>~/.listadmin.ini</tt>
 338 with content like this, the moderation task is a breeze:</p>
 339
 340 <p><blockquote><pre>
 341 username username@example.org
 342 spamlevel 23
 343 default discard
 344 discard_if_reason "Posting restricted to members only. Remove us from your mail list."
 345
 346 password secret
 347 adminurl https://{domain}/mailman/admindb/{list}
 348 mailman-list@lists.example.com
 349
 350 password hidden
 351 other-list@otherserver.example.org
 352 </pre></blockquote></p>
 353
 354 <p>There are other options to set as well.  Check the manual page to
 355 learn the details.</p>
 356
 357 <p>If you are forced to moderate lists on a mailman installation where
 358 the SSL certificate is self signed or not properly signed by a
 359 generally accepted signing authority, you can set a environment
 360 variable when calling listadmin to disable SSL verification:</p>
 361
 362 <p><blockquote><pre>
 363 PERL_LWP_SSL_VERIFY_HOSTNAME=0 listadmin
 364 </pre></blockquote></p>
 365
 366 <p>If you want to moderate a subset of the lists you take care of, you
 367 can provide an argument to the listadmin script like I do in the
 368 initial screen dump (the xiph argument).  Using an argument, only
 369 lists matching the argument string will be processed.  This make it
 370 quick to accept messages if you notice the moderation request in your
 371 email.</p>
 372
 373 <p>Without the listadmin program, I would never be the moderator of 68
 374 mailing lists, as I simply do not have time to spend on that if the
 375 process was any slower. The listadmin program have saved me hours of
 376 time I could spend elsewhere over the years.  It truly is nice free
 377 software.</p>
 378
 379 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
 380 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
 381 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
 382
 383 <p>Update 2014-10-27: Added missing 'username' statement in
 384 configuration example.  Also, I've been told that the
 385 PERL_LWP_SSL_VERIFY_HOSTNAME=0 setting do not work for everyone.  Not
 386 sure why.</p>
 387
 388       </div>
 389       <div class="tags">
 390
 391
 392         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>.
 393
 394
 395       </div>
 396     </div>
 397     <div class="padding"></div>
 398
 399     <div class="entry">
 400       <div class="title">
 401         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Jessie__PXE_and_automatic_firmware_installation.html">Debian Jessie, PXE and automatic firmware installation</a>
 402       </div>
 403       <div class="date">
 404         17th October 2014
 405       </div>
 406       <div class="body">
 407         <p>When PXE installing laptops with Debian, I often run into the
 408 problem that the WiFi card require some firmware to work properly.
 409 And it has been a pain to fix this using preseeding in Debian.
 410 Normally something more is needed.  But thanks to
 411 <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/i/isenkram.html">my isenkram
 412 package</a> and its recent tasksel extension, it has now become easy
 413 to do this using simple preseeding.</p>
 414
 415 <p>The isenkram-cli package provide tasksel tasks which will install
 416 firmware for the hardware found in the machine (actually, requested by
 417 the kernel modules for the hardware).  (It can also install user space
 418 programs supporting the hardware detected, but that is not the focus
 419 of this story.)</p>
 420
 421 <p>To get this working in the default installation, two preeseding
 422 values are needed.  First, the isenkram-cli package must be installed
 423 into the target chroot (aka the hard drive) before tasksel is executed
 424 in the pkgsel step of the debian-installer system.  This is done by
 425 preseeding the base-installer/includes debconf value to include the
 426 isenkram-cli package.  The package name is next passed to debootstrap
 427 for installation.  With the isenkram-cli package in place, tasksel
 428 will automatically use the isenkram tasks to detect hardware specific
 429 packages for the machine being installed and install them, because
 430 isenkram-cli contain tasksel tasks.</p>
 431
 432 <p>Second, one need to enable the non-free APT repository, because
 433 most firmware unfortunately is non-free.  This is done by preseeding
 434 the apt-mirror-setup step.  This is unfortunate, but for a lot of
 435 hardware it is the only option in Debian.</p>
 436
 437 <p>The end result is two lines needed in your preseeding file to get
 438 firmware installed automatically by the installer:</p>
 439
 440 <p><blockquote><pre>
 441 base-installer base-installer/includes string isenkram-cli
 442 apt-mirror-setup apt-setup/non-free boolean true
 443 </pre></blockquote></p>
 444
 445 <p>The current version of isenkram-cli in testing/jessie will install
 446 both firmware and user space packages when using this method.  It also
 447 do not work well, so use version 0.15 or later.  Installing both
 448 firmware and user space packages might give you a bit more than you
 449 want, so I decided to split the tasksel task in two, one for firmware
 450 and one for user space programs.  The firmware task is enabled by
 451 default, while the one for user space programs is not.  This split is
 452 implemented in the package currently in unstable.</p>
 453
 454 <p>If you decide to give this a go, please let me know (via email) how
 455 this recipe work for you. :)</p>
 456
 457 <p>So, I bet you are wondering, how can this work.  First and
 458 foremost, it work because tasksel is modular, and driven by whatever
 459 files it find in /usr/lib/tasksel/ and /usr/share/tasksel/.  So the
 460 isenkram-cli package place two files for tasksel to find.  First there
 461 is the task description file (/usr/share/tasksel/descs/isenkram.desc):</p>
 462
 463 <p><blockquote><pre>
 464 Task: isenkram-packages
 465 Section: hardware
 466 Description: Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)
 467  Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific packages are
 468  proposed.
 469 Test-new-install: show show
 470 Relevance: 8
 471 Packages: for-current-hardware
 472
 473 Task: isenkram-firmware
 474 Section: hardware
 475 Description: Hardware specific firmware packages (autodetected by isenkram)
 476  Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific firmware
 477  packages are proposed.
 478 Test-new-install: mark show
 479 Relevance: 8
 480 Packages: for-current-hardware-firmware
 481 </pre></blockquote></p>
 482
 483 <p>The key parts are Test-new-install which indicate how the task
 484 should be handled and the Packages line referencing to a script in
 485 /usr/lib/tasksel/packages/.  The scripts use other scripts to get a
 486 list of packages to install.  The for-current-hardware-firmware script
 487 look like this to list relevant firmware for the machine:
 488
 489 <p><blockquote><pre>
 490 #!/bin/sh
 491 #
 492 PATH=/usr/sbin:$PATH
 493 export PATH
 494 isenkram-autoinstall-firmware -l
 495 </pre></blockquote></p>
 496
 497 <p>With those two pieces in place, the firmware is installed by
 498 tasksel during the normal d-i run. :)</p>
 499
 500 <p>If you want to test what tasksel will install when isenkram-cli is
 501 installed, run <tt>DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical tasksel --test
 502 --new-install</tt> to get the list of packages that tasksel would
 503 install.</p>
 504
 505 <p><a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/">Debian Edu</a> will be
 506 pilots in testing this feature, as isenkram is used there now to
 507 install firmware, replacing the earlier scripts.</p>
 508
 509       </div>
 510       <div class="tags">
 511
 512
 513         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>.
 514
 515
 516       </div>
 517     </div>
 518     <div class="padding"></div>
 519
 520     <div class="entry">
 521       <div class="title">
 522         <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>
 523       </div>
 524       <div class="date">
 525          4th October 2014
 526       </div>
 527       <div class="body">
 528         <p>Today I came across an unexpected Ubuntu boot screen.  Above the
 529 bread shelf on the ICA shop at Storo in Oslo, the grub menu of Ubuntu
 530 with Linux kernel 3.2.0-23 (ie probably version 12.04 LTS) was stuck
 531 on a screen normally showing the bread types and prizes:</p>
 532
 533 <p align="center"><img width="70%" src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2014-10-04-ubuntu-ica-storo-crop.jpeg"></p>
 534
 535 <p>If it had booted as it was supposed to, I would never had known
 536 about this hidden Linux installation.  It is interesting what
 537 <a href="http://revealingerrors.com/">errors can reveal</a>.</p>
 538
 539       </div>
 540       <div class="tags">
 541
 542
 543         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>.
 544
 545
 546       </div>
 547     </div>
 548     <div class="padding"></div>
 549
 550     <div class="entry">
 551       <div class="title">
 552         <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>
 553       </div>
 554       <div class="date">
 555          4th October 2014
 556       </div>
 557       <div class="body">
 558         <p>The <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/">lsdvd project</a>
 559 got a new set of developers a few weeks ago, after the original
 560 developer decided to step down and pass the project to fresh blood.
 561 This project is now maintained by Petter Reinholdtsen and Steve
 562 Dibb.</p>
 563
 564 <p>I just wrapped up
 565 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/mailman/message/32896061/">a
 566 new lsdvd release</a>, available in git or from
 567 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/projects/lsdvd/files/lsdvd/">the
 568 download page</a>.  This is the changelog dated 2014-10-03 for version
 569 0.17.</p>
 570
 571 <ul>
 572
 573  <li>Ignore 'phantom' audio, subtitle tracks</li>
 574  <li>Check for garbage in the program chains, which indicate that a track is
 575    non-existant, to work around additional copy protection</li>
 576  <li>Fix displaying content type for audio tracks, subtitles</li>
 577  <li>Fix pallete display of first entry</li>
 578  <li>Fix include orders</li>
 579  <li>Ignore read errors in titles that would not be displayed anyway</li>
 580  <li>Fix the chapter count</li>
 581  <li>Make sure the array size and the array limit used when initialising
 582    the palette size is the same.</li>
 583  <li>Fix array printing.</li>
 584  <li>Correct subsecond calculations.</li>
 585  <li>Add sector information to the output format.</li>
 586  <li>Clean up code to be closer to ANSI C and compile without warnings
 587    with more GCC compiler warnings.</li>
 588
 589 </ul>
 590
 591 <p>This change bring together patches for lsdvd in use in various
 592 Linux and Unix distributions, as well as patches submitted to the
 593 project the last nine years.  Please check it out. :)</p>
 594
 595       </div>
 596       <div class="tags">
 597
 598
 599         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>.
 600
 601
 602       </div>
 603     </div>
 604     <div class="padding"></div>
 605
 606     <div class="entry">
 607       <div class="title">
 608         <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>
 609       </div>
 610       <div class="date">
 611         26th September 2014
 612       </div>
 613       <div class="body">
 614         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
 615 project</a> provide a Linux solution for schools, including a
 616 powerful desktop with education software, a central server providing
 617 web pages, user database, user home directories, central login and PXE
 618 boot of both  clients without disk and the installation to install Debian
 619 Edu on machines with disk (and a few other services perhaps to small
 620 to mention here).  We in the Debian Edu team are currently working on
 621 the Jessie based version, trying to get everything in shape before the
 622 freeze, to avoid having to maintain our own package repository in the
 623 future.  The
 624 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Status/Jessie">current
 625 status</a> can be seen on the Debian wiki, and there is still heaps of
 626 work left.  Some fatal problems block testing, breaking the installer,
 627 but it is possible to work around these to get anyway.  Here is a
 628 recipe on how to get the installation limping along.</p>
 629
 630 <p>First, download the test ISO via
 631 <a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.no/cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-1.iso">ftp</a>,
 632 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.no/cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-1.iso">http</a>
 633 or rsync (use
 634 ftp.skolelinux.org::cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-1.iso).
 635 The ISO build was broken on Tuesday, so we do not get a new ISO every
 636 12 hours or so, but thankfully the ISO we already got we are able to
 637 install with some tweaking.</p>
 638
 639 <p>When you get to the Debian Edu profile question, go to tty2
 640 (use Alt-Ctrl-F2), run</p>
 641
 642 <p><blockquote><pre>
 643 nano /usr/bin/edu-eatmydata-install
 644 </pre></blockquote></p>
 645
 646 <p>and add 'exit 0' as the second line, disabling the eatmydata
 647 optimization.  Return to the installation, select the profile you want
 648 and continue.  Without this change, exim4-config will fail to install
 649 due to a known bug in eatmydata.</p>
 650
 651 <p>When you get the grub question at the end, answer /dev/sda (or if
 652 this do not work, figure out what your correct value would be.  All my
 653 test machines need /dev/sda, so I have no advice if it do not fit
 654 your need.</p>
 655
 656 <p>If you installed a profile including a graphical desktop, log in as
 657 root after the initial boot from hard drive, and install the
 658 education-desktop-XXX metapackage.  XXX can be kde, gnome, lxde, xfce
 659 or mate.  If you want several desktop options, install more than one
 660 metapackage.  Once this is done, reboot and you should have a working
 661 graphical login screen.  This workaround should no longer be needed
 662 once the education-tasks package version 1.801 enter testing in two
 663 days.</p>
 664
 665 <p>I believe the ISO build will start working on two days when the new
 666 tasksel package enter testing and Steve McIntyre get a chance to
 667 update the debian-cd git repository.  The eatmydata, grub and desktop
 668 issues are already fixed in unstable and testing, and should show up
 669 on the ISO as soon as the ISO build start working again.  Well the
 670 eatmydata optimization is really just disabled.  The proper fix
 671 require an upload by the eatmydata maintainer applying the patch
 672 provided in bug <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/702711">#702711</a>.
 673 The rest have proper fixes in unstable.</p>
 674
 675 <p>I hope this get you going with the installation testing, as we are
 676 quickly running out of time trying to get our Jessie based
 677 installation ready before the distribution freeze in a month.</p>
 678
 679       </div>
 680       <div class="tags">
 681
 682
 683         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>.
 684
 685
 686       </div>
 687     </div>
 688     <div class="padding"></div>
 689
 690     <div class="entry">
 691       <div class="title">
 692         <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>
 693       </div>
 694       <div class="date">
 695         25th September 2014
 696       </div>
 697       <div class="body">
 698         <p>I use the <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/">lsdvd tool</a>
 699 to handle my fairly large DVD collection.  It is a nice command line
 700 tool to get details about a DVD, like title, tracks, track length,
 701 etc, in XML, Perl or human readable format.  But lsdvd have not seen
 702 any new development since 2006 and had a few irritating bugs affecting
 703 its use with some DVDs.  Upstream seemed to be dead, and in January I
 704 sent a small probe asking for a version control repository for the
 705 project, without any reply.  But I use it regularly and would like to
 706 get <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/lsdvd">an updated version
 707 into Debian</a>.  So two weeks ago I tried harder to get in touch with
 708 the project admin, and after getting a reply from him explaining that
 709 he was no longer interested in the project, I asked if I could take
 710 over.  And yesterday, I became project admin.</p>
 711
 712 <p>I've been in touch with a Gentoo developer and the Debian
 713 maintainer interested in joining forces to maintain the upstream
 714 project, and I hope we can get a new release out fairly quickly,
 715 collecting the patches spread around on the internet into on place.
 716 I've added the relevant Debian patches to the freshly created git
 717 repository, and expect the Gentoo patches to make it too.  If you got
 718 a DVD collection and care about command line tools, check out
 719 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/git/ci/master/tree/">the git source</a> and join
 720 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/mailman/">the project mailing
 721 list</a>. :)</p>
 722
 723       </div>
 724       <div class="tags">
 725
 726
 727         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>.
 728
 729
 730       </div>
 731     </div>
 732     <div class="padding"></div>
 733
 734     <div class="entry">
 735       <div class="title">
 736         <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>
 737       </div>
 738       <div class="date">
 739         16th September 2014
 740       </div>
 741       <div class="body">
 742         <p>The <a href="https://www.debian.org/">Debian</a> installer could be
 743 a lot quicker.  When we install more than 2000 packages in
 744 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux / Debian Edu</a> using
 745 tasksel in the installer, unpacking the binary packages take forever.
 746 A part of the slow I/O issue was discussed in
 747 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/613428">bug #613428</a> about too
 748 much file system sync-ing done by dpkg, which is the package
 749 responsible for unpacking the binary packages.  Other parts (like code
 750 executed by postinst scripts) might also sync to disk during
 751 installation.  All this sync-ing to disk do not really make sense to
 752 me.  If the machine crash half-way through, I start over, I do not try
 753 to salvage the half installed system.  So the failure sync-ing is
 754 supposed to protect against, hardware or system crash, is not really
 755 relevant while the installer is running.</p>
 756
 757 <p>A few days ago, I thought of a way to get rid of all the file
 758 system sync()-ing in a fairly non-intrusive way, without the need to
 759 change the code in several packages.  The idea is not new, but I have
 760 not heard anyone propose the approach using dpkg-divert before.  It
 761 depend on the small and clever package
 762 <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/eatmydata">eatmydata</a>, which
 763 uses LD_PRELOAD to replace the system functions for syncing data to
 764 disk with functions doing nothing, thus allowing programs to live
 765 dangerous while speeding up disk I/O significantly.  Instead of
 766 modifying the implementation of dpkg, apt and tasksel (which are the
 767 packages responsible for selecting, fetching and installing packages),
 768 it occurred to me that we could just divert the programs away, replace
 769 them with a simple shell wrapper calling
 770 "eatmydata&nbsp;$program&nbsp;$@", to get the same effect.
 771 Two days ago I decided to test the idea, and wrapped up a simple
 772 implementation for the Debian Edu udeb.</p>
 773
 774 <p>The effect was stunning.  In my first test it reduced the running
 775 time of the pkgsel step (installing tasks) from 64 to less than 44
 776 minutes (20 minutes shaved off the installation) on an old Dell
 777 Latitude D505 machine.  I am not quite sure what the optimised time
 778 would have been, as I messed up the testing a bit, causing the debconf
 779 priority to get low enough for two questions to pop up during
 780 installation.  As soon as I saw the questions I moved the installation
 781 along, but do not know how long the question were holding up the
 782 installation.  I did some more measurements using Debian Edu Jessie,
 783 and got these results.  The time measured is the time stamp in
 784 /var/log/syslog between the "pkgsel: starting tasksel" and the
 785 "pkgsel: finishing up" lines, if you want to do the same measurement
 786 yourself.  In Debian Edu, the tasksel dialog do not show up, and the
 787 timing thus do not depend on how quickly the user handle the tasksel
 788 dialog.</p>
 789
 790 <p><table>
 791
 792 <tr>
 793 <th>Machine/setup</th>
 794 <th>Original tasksel</th>
 795 <th>Optimised tasksel</th>
 796 <th>Reduction</th>
 797 </tr>
 798
 799 <tr>
 800 <td>Latitude D505 Main+LTSP LXDE</td>
 801 <td>64 min (07:46-08:50)</td>
 802 <td><44 min (11:27-12:11)</td>
 803 <td>>20 min 18%</td>
 804 </tr>
 805
 806 <tr>
 807 <td>Latitude D505 Roaming LXDE</td>
 808 <td>57 min (08:48-09:45)</td>
 809 <td>34 min (07:43-08:17)</td>
 810 <td>23 min 40%</td>
 811 </tr>
 812
 813 <tr>
 814 <td>Latitude D505 Minimal</td>
 815 <td>22 min (10:37-10:59)</td>
 816 <td>11 min (11:16-11:27)</td>
 817 <td>11 min 50%</td>
 818 </tr>
 819
 820 <tr>
 821 <td>Thinkpad X200 Minimal</td>
 822 <td>6 min (08:19-08:25)</td>
 823 <td>4 min (08:04-08:08)</td>
 824 <td>2 min 33%</td>
 825 </tr>
 826
 827 <tr>
 828 <td>Thinkpad X200 Roaming KDE</td>
 829 <td>19 min (09:21-09:40)</td>
 830 <td>15 min (10:25-10:40)</td>
 831 <td>4 min 21%</td>
 832 </tr>
 833
 834 </table></p>
 835
 836 <p>The test is done using a netinst ISO on a USB stick, so some of the
 837 time is spent downloading packages.  The connection to the Internet
 838 was 100Mbit/s during testing, so downloading should not be a
 839 significant factor in the measurement.  Download typically took a few
 840 seconds to a few minutes, depending on the amount of packages being
 841 installed.</p>
 842
 843 <p>The speedup is implemented by using two hooks in
 844 <a href="https://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/">Debian
 845 Installer</a>, the pre-pkgsel.d hook to set up the diverts, and the
 846 finish-install.d hook to remove the divert at the end of the
 847 installation.  I picked the pre-pkgsel.d hook instead of the
 848 post-base-installer.d hook because I test using an ISO without the
 849 eatmydata package included, and the post-base-installer.d hook in
 850 Debian Edu can only operate on packages included in the ISO.  The
 851 negative effect of this is that I am unable to activate this
 852 optimization for the kernel installation step in d-i.  If the code is
 853 moved to the post-base-installer.d hook, the speedup would be larger
 854 for the entire installation.</p>
 855
 856 <p>I've implemented this in the
 857 <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/debian-edu-install">debian-edu-install</a>
 858 git repository, and plan to provide the optimization as part of the
 859 Debian Edu installation.  If you want to test this yourself, you can
 860 create two files in the installer (or in an udeb).  One shell script
 861 need do go into /usr/lib/pre-pkgsel.d/, with content like this:</p>
 862
 863 <p><blockquote><pre>
 864 #!/bin/sh
 865 set -e
 866 . /usr/share/debconf/confmodule
 867 info() {
 868     logger -t my-pkgsel "info: $*"
 869 }
 870 error() {
 871     logger -t my-pkgsel "error: $*"
 872 }
 873 override_install() {
 874     apt-install eatmydata || true
 875     if [ -x /target/usr/bin/eatmydata ] ; then
 876         for bin in dpkg apt-get aptitude tasksel ; do
 877             file=/usr/bin/$bin
 878             # Test that the file exist and have not been diverted already.
 879             if [ -f /target$file ] ; then
 880                 info "diverting $file using eatmydata"
 881                 printf "#!/bin/sh\neatmydata $bin.distrib \"\$@\"\n" \
 882                     > /target$file.edu
 883                 chmod 755 /target$file.edu
 884                 in-target dpkg-divert --package debian-edu-config \
 885                     --rename --quiet --add $file
 886                 ln -sf ./$bin.edu /target$file
 887             else
 888                 error "unable to divert $file, as it is missing."
 889             fi
 890         done
 891     else
 892         error "unable to find /usr/bin/eatmydata after installing the eatmydata pacage"
 893     fi
 894 }
 895
 896 override_install
 897 </pre></blockquote></p>
 898
 899 <p>To clean up, another shell script should go into
 900 /usr/lib/finish-install.d/ with code like this:
 901
 902 <p><blockquote><pre>
 903 #! /bin/sh -e
 904 . /usr/share/debconf/confmodule
 905 error() {
 906     logger -t my-finish-install "error: $@"
 907 }
 908 remove_install_override() {
 909     for bin in dpkg apt-get aptitude tasksel ; do
 910         file=/usr/bin/$bin
 911         if [ -x /target$file.edu ] ; then
 912             rm /target$file
 913             in-target dpkg-divert --package debian-edu-config \
 914                 --rename --quiet --remove $file
 915             rm /target$file.edu
 916         else
 917             error "Missing divert for $file."
 918         fi
 919     done
 920     sync # Flush file buffers before continuing
 921 }
 922
 923 remove_install_override
 924 </pre></blockquote></p>
 925
 926 <p>In Debian Edu, I placed both code fragments in a separate script
 927 edu-eatmydata-install and call it from the pre-pkgsel.d and
 928 finish-install.d scripts.</p>
 929
 930 <p>By now you might ask if this change should get into the normal
 931 Debian installer too?  I suspect it should, but am not sure the
 932 current debian-installer coordinators find it useful enough.  It also
 933 depend on the side effects of the change.  I'm not aware of any, but I
 934 guess we will see if the change is safe after some more testing.
 935 Perhaps there is some package in Debian depending on sync() and
 936 fsync() having effect?  Perhaps it should go into its own udeb, to
 937 allow those of us wanting to enable it to do so without affecting
 938 everyone.</p>
 939
 940 <p>Update 2014-09-24: Since a few days ago, enabling this optimization
 941 will break installation of all programs using gnutls because of
 942 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/702711">bug #702711</a>.  An updated
 943 eatmydata package in Debian will solve it.</p>
 944
 945 <p>Update 2014-10-17: The bug mentioned above is fixed in testing and
 946 the optimization work again.  And I have discovered that the
 947 dpkg-divert trick is not really needed and implemented a slightly
 948 simpler approach as part of the debian-edu-install package.  See
 949 tools/edu-eatmydata-install in the source package.</p>
 950
 951 <p>Update 2014-11-11: Unfortunately, a new
 952 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/765738">bug #765738</a> in eatmydata only
 953 triggering on i386 made it into testing, and broke this installation
 954 optimization again.  If <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/768893">unblock
 955 request 768893</a> is accepted, it should be working again.</p>
 956
 957       </div>
 958       <div class="tags">
 959
 960
 961         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>.
 962
 963
 964       </div>
 965     </div>
 966     <div class="padding"></div>
 967
 968     <div class="entry">
 969       <div class="title">
 970         <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>
 971       </div>
 972       <div class="date">
 973         10th September 2014
 974       </div>
 975       <div class="body">
 976         <p>Yesterday, I had the pleasure of attending a talk with the
 977 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">Norwegian Unix User Group</a> about
 978 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20140909-sks-keyservers/">the
 979 OpenPGP keyserver pool sks-keyservers.net</a>, and was very happy to
 980 learn that there is a large set of publicly available key servers to
 981 use when looking for peoples public key.  So far I have used
 982 subkeys.pgp.net, and some times wwwkeys.nl.pgp.net when the former
 983 were misbehaving, but those days are ended.  The servers I have used
 984 up until yesterday have been slow and some times unavailable.  I hope
 985 those problems are gone now.</p>
 986
 987 <p>Behind the round robin DNS entry of the
 988 <a href="https://sks-keyservers.net/">sks-keyservers.net</a> service
 989 there is a pool of more than 100 keyservers which are checked every
 990 day to ensure they are well connected and up to date.  It must be
 991 better than what I have used so far. :)</p>
 992
 993 <p>Yesterdays speaker told me that the service is the default
 994 keyserver provided by the default configuration in GnuPG, but this do
 995 not seem to be used in Debian.  Perhaps it should?</p>
 996
 997 <p>Anyway, I've updated my ~/.gnupg/options file to now include this
 998 line:</p>
 999
1000 <p><blockquote><pre>
1001 keyserver pool.sks-keyservers.net
1002 </pre></blockquote></p>
1003
1004 <p>With GnuPG version 2 one can also locate the keyserver using SRV
1005 entries in DNS.  Just for fun, I did just that at work, so now every
1006 user of GnuPG at the University of Oslo should find a OpenGPG
1007 keyserver automatically should their need it:</p>
1008
1009 <p><blockquote><pre>
1010 % host -t srv _pgpkey-http._tcp.uio.no
1011 _pgpkey-http._tcp.uio.no has SRV record 0 100 11371 pool.sks-keyservers.net.
1012 %
1013 </pre></blockquote></p>
1014
1015 <p>Now if only
1016 <a href="http://ietfreport.isoc.org/idref/draft-shaw-openpgp-hkp/">the
1017 HKP lookup protocol</a> supported finding signature paths, I would be
1018 very happy.  It can look up a given key or search for a user ID, but I
1019 normally do not want that, but to find a trust path from my key to
1020 another key.  Given a user ID or key ID, I would like to find (and
1021 download) the keys representing a signature path from my key to the
1022 key in question, to be able to get a trust path between the two keys.
1023 This is as far as I can tell not possible today.  Perhaps something
1024 for a future version of the protocol?</p>
1025
1026       </div>
1027       <div class="tags">
1028
1029
1030         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>.
1031
1032
1033       </div>
1034     </div>
1035     <div class="padding"></div>
1036
1037     <div class="entry">
1038       <div class="title">
1039         <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>
1040       </div>
1041       <div class="date">
1042         17th June 2014
1043       </div>
1044       <div class="body">
1045         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
1046 project</a> provide an instruction manual for teachers, system
1047 administrators and other users that contain useful tips for setting up
1048 and maintaining a Debian Edu installation.  This text is about how the
1049 text processing of this manual is handled in the project.</p>
1050
1051 <p>One goal of the project is to provide information in the native
1052 language of its users, and for this we need to handle translations.
1053 But we also want to make sure each language contain the same
1054 information, so for this we need a good way to keep the translations
1055 in sync.  And we want it to be easy for our users to improve the
1056 documentation, avoiding the need to learn special formats or tools to
1057 contribute, and the obvious way to do this is to make it possible to
1058 edit the documentation using a web browser.  We also want it to be
1059 easy for translators to keep the translation up to date, and give them
1060 help in figuring out what need to be translated. Here is the list of
1061 tools and the process we have found trying to reach all these
1062 goals.</p>
1063
1064 <p>We maintain the authoritative source of our manual in the
1065 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/">Debian
1066 wiki</a>, as several wiki pages written in English.  It consist of one
1067 front page with references to the different chapters, several pages
1068 for each chapter, and finally one "collection page" gluing all the
1069 chapters together into one large web page (aka
1070 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/AllInOne">the
1071 AllInOne page</a>).  The AllInOne page is the one used for further
1072 processing and translations.  Thanks to the fact that the
1073 <a href="http://moinmo.in/">MoinMoin</a> installation on
1074 wiki.debian.org support exporting pages in
1075 <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">the Docbook format</a>, we can fetch
1076 the list of pages to export using the raw version of the AllInOne
1077 page, loop over each of them to generate a Docbook XML version of the
1078 manual.  This process also download images and transform image
1079 references to use the locally downloaded images.  The generated
1080 Docbook XML files are slightly broken, so some post-processing is done
1081 using the <tt>documentation/scripts/get_manual</tt> program, and the
1082 result is a nice Docbook XML file (debian-edu-wheezy-manual.xml) and
1083 a handfull of images.  The XML file can now be used to generate PDF, HTML
1084 and epub versions of the English manual.  This is the basic step of
1085 our process, making PDF (using dblatex), HTML (using xsltproc) and
1086 epub (using dbtoepub) version from Docbook XML, and the resulting files
1087 are placed in the debian-edu-doc-en binary package.</p>
1088
1089 <p>But English documentation is not enough for us.  We want translated
1090 documentation too, and we want to make it easy for translators to
1091 track the English original.  For this we use the
1092 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/p/poxml.html">poxml</a> package,
1093 which allow us to transform the English Docbook XML file into a
1094 translation file (a .pot file), usable with the normal gettext based
1095 translation tools used by those translating free software.  The pot
1096 file is used to create and maintain translation files (several .po
1097 files), which the translations update with the native language
1098 translations of all titles, paragraphs and blocks of text in the
1099 original.  The next step is combining the original English Docbook XML
1100 and the translation file (say debian-edu-wheezy-manual.nb.po), to
1101 create a translated Docbook XML file (in this case
1102 debian-edu-wheezy-manual.nb.xml).  This translated (or partly
1103 translated, if the translation is not complete) Docbook XML file can
1104 then be used like the original to create a PDF, HTML and epub version
1105 of the documentation.</p>
1106
1107 <p>The translators use different tools to edit the .po files.  We
1108 recommend using
1109 <a href="http://www.kde.org/applications/development/lokalize/">lokalize</a>,
1110 while some use emacs and vi, others can use web based editors like
1111 <a href="http://pootle.translatehouse.org/">Poodle</a> or
1112 <a href="https://www.transifex.com/">Transifex</a>.  All we care about
1113 is where the .po file end up, in our git repository.  Updated
1114 translations can either be committed directly to git, or submitted as
1115 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/src:debian-edu-doc">bug reports
1116 against the debian-edu-doc package</a>.</p>
1117
1118 <p>One challenge is images, which both might need to be translated (if
1119 they show translated user applications), and are needed in different
1120 formats when creating PDF and HTML versions (epub is a HTML version in
1121 this regard).  For this we transform the original PNG images to the
1122 needed density and format during build, and have a way to provide
1123 translated images by storing translated versions in
1124 images/$LANGUAGECODE/.  I am a bit unsure about the details here.  The
1125 package maintainers know more.</p>
1126
1127 <p>If you wonder what the result look like, we provide
1128 <a href="http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/">the content
1129 of the documentation packages on the web</a>.  See for example the
1130 <a href="http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/it/debian-edu-wheezy-manual.pdf">Italian
1131 PDF version</a> or the
1132 <a href="http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/de/debian-edu-wheezy-manual.html">German
1133 HTML version</a>.  We do not yet build the epub version by default,
1134 but perhaps it will be done in the future.</p>
1135
1136 <p>To learn more, check out
1137 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/debian-edu-doc.html">the
1138 debian-edu-doc package</a>,
1139 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/">the
1140 manual on the wiki</a> and
1141 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/Translations">the
1142 translation instructions</a> in the manual.</p>
1143
1144       </div>
1145       <div class="tags">
1146
1147
1148         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>.
1149
1150
1151       </div>
1152     </div>
1153     <div class="padding"></div>
1154
1155     <div class="entry">
1156       <div class="title">
1157         <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>
1158       </div>
1159       <div class="date">
1160         23rd April 2014
1161       </div>
1162       <div class="body">
1163         <p>It would be nice if it was easier in Debian to get all the hardware
1164 related packages relevant for the computer installed automatically.
1165 So I implemented one, using
1166 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">my Isenkram
1167 package</a>.  To use it, install the tasksel and isenkram packages and
1168 run tasksel as user root.  You should be presented with a new option,
1169 "Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)".  When you
1170 select it, tasksel will install the packages isenkram claim is fit for
1171 the current hardware, hot pluggable or not.<p>
1172
1173 <p>The implementation is in two files, one is the tasksel menu entry
1174 description, and the other is the script used to extract the list of
1175 packages to install.  The first part is in
1176 <tt>/usr/share/tasksel/descs/isenkram.desc</tt> and look like
1177 this:</p>
1178
1179 <p><blockquote><pre>
1180 Task: isenkram
1181 Section: hardware
1182 Description: Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)
1183  Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific packages are
1184  proposed.
1185 Test-new-install: mark show
1186 Relevance: 8
1187 Packages: for-current-hardware
1188 </pre></blockquote></p>
1189
1190 <p>The second part is in
1191 <tt>/usr/lib/tasksel/packages/for-current-hardware</tt> and look like
1192 this:</p>
1193
1194 <p><blockquote><pre>
1195 #!/bin/sh
1196 #
1197 (
1198     isenkram-lookup
1199     isenkram-autoinstall-firmware -l
1200 ) | sort -u
1201 </pre></blockquote></p>
1202
1203 <p>All in all, a very short and simple implementation making it
1204 trivial to install the hardware dependent package we all may want to
1205 have installed on our machines.  I've not been able to find a way to
1206 get tasksel to tell you exactly which packages it plan to install
1207 before doing the installation.  So if you are curious or careful,
1208 check the output from the isenkram-* command line tools first.</p>
1209
1210 <p>The information about which packages are handling which hardware is
1211 fetched either from the isenkram package itself in
1212 /usr/share/isenkram/, from git.debian.org or from the APT package
1213 database (using the Modaliases header).  The APT package database
1214 parsing have caused a nasty resource leak in the isenkram daemon (bugs
1215 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/719837">#719837</a> and
1216 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/730704">#730704</a>).  The cause is in
1217 the python-apt code (bug
1218 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/745487">#745487</a>), but using a
1219 workaround I was able to get rid of the file descriptor leak and
1220 reduce the memory leak from ~30 MiB per hardware detection down to
1221 around 2 MiB per hardware detection.  It should make the desktop
1222 daemon a lot more useful.  The fix is in version 0.7 uploaded to
1223 unstable today.</p>
1224
1225 <p>I believe the current way of mapping hardware to packages in
1226 Isenkram is is a good draft, but in the future I expect isenkram to
1227 use the AppStream data source for this.  A proposal for getting proper
1228 AppStream support into Debian is floating around as
1229 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DEP-11">DEP-11</a>, and
1230 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/SummerOfCode2014/Projects#SummerOfCode2014.2FProjects.2FAppStreamDEP11Implementation.AppStream.2FDEP-11_for_the_Debian_Archive">GSoC
1231 project</a> will take place this summer to improve the situation.  I
1232 look forward to seeing the result, and welcome patches for isenkram to
1233 start using the information when it is ready.</p>
1234
1235 <p>If you want your package to map to some specific hardware, either
1236 add a "Xb-Modaliases" header to your control file like I did in
1237 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pymissile">the pymissile
1238 package</a> or submit a bug report with the details to the isenkram
1239 package.  See also
1240 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram/">all my
1241 blog posts tagged isenkram</a> for details on the notation.  I expect
1242 the information will be migrated to AppStream eventually, but for the
1243 moment I got no better place to store it.</p>
1244
1245       </div>
1246       <div class="tags">
1247
1248
1249         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>.
1250
1251
1252       </div>
1253     </div>
1254     <div class="padding"></div>
1255
1256     <div class="entry">
1257       <div class="title">
1258         <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>
1259       </div>
1260       <div class="date">
1261         15th April 2014
1262       </div>
1263       <div class="body">
1264         <p>The <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">Freedombox
1265 project</a> is working on providing the software and hardware to make
1266 it easy for non-technical people to host their data and communication
1267 at home, and being able to communicate with their friends and family
1268 encrypted and away from prying eyes.  It is still going strong, and
1269 today a major mile stone was reached.</p>
1270
1271 <p>Today, the last of the packages currently used by the project to
1272 created the system images were accepted into Debian Unstable.  It was
1273 the freedombox-setup package, which is used to configure the images
1274 during build and on the first boot.  Now all one need to get going is
1275 the build code from the freedom-maker git repository and packages from
1276 Debian.  And once the freedombox-setup package enter testing, we can
1277 build everything directly from Debian. :)</p>
1278
1279 <p>Some key packages used by Freedombox are
1280 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/freedombox-setup">freedombox-setup</a>,
1281 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/plinth">plinth</a>,
1282 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pagekite">pagekite</a>,
1283 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/tor">tor</a>,
1284 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/privoxy">privoxy</a>,
1285 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/owncloud">owncloud</a> and
1286 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/dnsmasq">dnsmasq</a>.  There
1287 are plans to integrate more packages into the setup.  User
1288 documentation is maintained on the Debian wiki.  Please
1289 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/Manual/Jessie">check out
1290 the manual</a> and help us improve it.</p>
1291
1292 <p>To test for yourself and create boot images with the FreedomBox
1293 setup, run this on a Debian machine using a user with sudo rights to
1294 become root:</p>
1295
1296 <p><pre>
1297 sudo apt-get install git vmdebootstrap mercurial python-docutils \
1298   mktorrent extlinux virtualbox qemu-user-static binfmt-support \
1299   u-boot-tools
1300 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/freedombox/freedom-maker.git \
1301   freedom-maker
1302 make -C freedom-maker dreamplug-image raspberry-image virtualbox-image
1303 </pre></p>
1304
1305 <p>Root access is needed to run debootstrap and mount loopback
1306 devices.  See the README in the freedom-maker git repo for more
1307 details on the build.  If you do not want all three images, trim the
1308 make line.  Note that the virtualbox-image target is not really
1309 virtualbox specific.  It create a x86 image usable in kvm, qemu,
1310 vmware and any other x86 virtual machine environment.  You might need
1311 the version of vmdebootstrap in Jessie to get the build working, as it
1312 include fixes for a race condition with kpartx.</p>
1313
1314 <p>If you instead want to install using a Debian CD and the preseed
1315 method, boot a Debian Wheezy ISO and use this boot argument to load
1316 the preseed values:</p>
1317
1318 <p><pre>
1319 url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat</a>
1320 </pre></p>
1321
1322 <p>I have not tested it myself the last few weeks, so I do not know if
1323 it still work.</p>
1324
1325 <p>If you wonder how to help, one task you could look at is using
1326 systemd as the boot system.  It will become the default for Linux in
1327 Jessie, so we need to make sure it is usable on the Freedombox.  I did
1328 a simple test a few weeks ago, and noticed dnsmasq failed to start
1329 during boot when using systemd.  I suspect there are other problems
1330 too. :) To detect problems, there is a test suite included, which can
1331 be run from the plinth web interface.</p>
1332
1333 <p>Give it a go and let us know how it goes on the mailing list, and help
1334 us get the new release published. :) Please join us on
1335 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC (#freedombox on
1336 irc.debian.org)</a> and
1337 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
1338 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
1339
1340       </div>
1341       <div class="tags">
1342
1343
1344         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>.
1345
1346
1347       </div>
1348     </div>
1349     <div class="padding"></div>
1350
1351     <div class="entry">
1352       <div class="title">
1353         <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>
1354       </div>
1355       <div class="date">
1356          9th April 2014
1357       </div>
1358       <div class="body">
1359         <p>For a while now, I have been looking for a sensible offsite backup
1360 solution for use at home.  My requirements are simple, it must be
1361 cheap and locally encrypted (in other words, I keep the encryption
1362 keys, the storage provider do not have access to my private files).
1363 One idea me and my friends had many years ago, before the cloud
1364 storage providers showed up, was to use Google mail as storage,
1365 writing a Linux block device storing blocks as emails in the mail
1366 service provided by Google, and thus get heaps of free space.  On top
1367 of this one can add encryption, RAID and volume management to have
1368 lots of (fairly slow, I admit that) cheap and encrypted storage.  But
1369 I never found time to implement such system.  But the last few weeks I
1370 have looked at a system called
1371 <a href="https://bitbucket.org/nikratio/s3ql/">S3QL</a>, a locally
1372 mounted network backed file system with the features I need.</p>
1373
1374 <p>S3QL is a fuse file system with a local cache and cloud storage,
1375 handling several different storage providers, any with Amazon S3,
1376 Google Drive or OpenStack API.  There are heaps of such storage
1377 providers.  S3QL can also use a local directory as storage, which
1378 combined with sshfs allow for file storage on any ssh server.  S3QL
1379 include support for encryption, compression, de-duplication, snapshots
1380 and immutable file systems, allowing me to mount the remote storage as
1381 a local mount point, look at and use the files as if they were local,
1382 while the content is stored in the cloud as well.  This allow me to
1383 have a backup that should survive fire.  The file system can not be
1384 shared between several machines at the same time, as only one can
1385 mount it at the time, but any machine with the encryption key and
1386 access to the storage service can mount it if it is unmounted.</p>
1387
1388 <p>It is simple to use.  I'm using it on Debian Wheezy, where the
1389 package is included already.  So to get started, run <tt>apt-get
1390 install s3ql</tt>.  Next, pick a storage provider.  I ended up picking
1391 Greenqloud, after reading their nice recipe on
1392 <a href="https://greenqloud.zendesk.com/entries/44611757-How-To-Use-S3QL-to-mount-a-StorageQloud-bucket-on-Debian-Wheezy">how
1393 to use S3QL with their Amazon S3 service</a>, because I trust the laws
1394 in Iceland more than those in USA when it come to keeping my personal
1395 data safe and private, and thus would rather spend money on a company
1396 in Iceland.  Another nice recipe is available from the article
1397 <a href="http://www.admin-magazine.com/HPC/Articles/HPC-Cloud-Storage">S3QL
1398 Filesystem for HPC Storage</a> by Jeff Layton in the HPC section of
1399 Admin magazine.  When the provider is picked, figure out how to get
1400 the API key needed to connect to the storage API.  With Greencloud,
1401 the key did not show up until I had added payment details to my
1402 account.</p>
1403
1404 <p>Armed with the API access details, it is time to create the file
1405 system.  First, create a new bucket in the cloud.  This bucket is the
1406 file system storage area.  I picked a bucket name reflecting the
1407 machine that was going to store data there, but any name will do.
1408 I'll refer to it as <tt>bucket-name</tt> below.  In addition, one need
1409 the API login and password, and a locally created password.  Store it
1410 all in ~root/.s3ql/authinfo2 like this:
1411
1412 <p><blockquote><pre>
1413 [s3c]
1414 storage-url: s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name
1415 backend-login: API-login
1416 backend-password: API-password
1417 fs-passphrase: local-password
1418 </pre></blockquote></p>
1419
1420 <p>I create my local passphrase using <tt>pwget 50</tt> or similar,
1421 but any sensible way to create a fairly random password should do it.
1422 Armed with these details, it is now time to run mkfs, entering the API
1423 details and password to create it:</p>
1424
1425 <p><blockquote><pre>
1426 # mkdir -m 700 /var/lib/s3ql-cache
1427 # mkfs.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
1428   --ssl s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name
1429 Enter backend login:
1430 Enter backend password:
1431 Before using S3QL, make sure to read the user's guide, especially
1432 the 'Important Rules to Avoid Loosing Data' section.
1433 Enter encryption password:
1434 Confirm encryption password:
1435 Generating random encryption key...
1436 Creating metadata tables...
1437 Dumping metadata...
1438 ..objects..
1439 ..blocks..
1440 ..inodes..
1441 ..inode_blocks..
1442 ..symlink_targets..
1443 ..names..
1444 ..contents..
1445 ..ext_attributes..
1446 Compressing and uploading metadata...
1447 Wrote 0.00 MB of compressed metadata.
1448 # </pre></blockquote></p>
1449
1450 <p>The next step is mounting the file system to make the storage available.
1451
1452 <p><blockquote><pre>
1453 # mount.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
1454   --ssl --allow-root s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name /s3ql
1455 Using 4 upload threads.
1456 Downloading and decompressing metadata...
1457 Reading metadata...
1458 ..objects..
1459 ..blocks..
1460 ..inodes..
1461 ..inode_blocks..
1462 ..symlink_targets..
1463 ..names..
1464 ..contents..
1465 ..ext_attributes..
1466 Mounting filesystem...
1467 # df -h /s3ql
1468 Filesystem                              Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
1469 s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name  1.0T     0  1.0T   0% /s3ql
1470 #
1471 </pre></blockquote></p>
1472
1473 <p>The file system is now ready for use.  I use rsync to store my
1474 backups in it, and as the metadata used by rsync is downloaded at
1475 mount time, no network traffic (and storage cost) is triggered by
1476 running rsync.  To unmount, one should not use the normal umount
1477 command, as this will not flush the cache to the cloud storage, but
1478 instead running the umount.s3ql command like this:
1479
1480 <p><blockquote><pre>
1481 # umount.s3ql /s3ql
1482 #
1483 </pre></blockquote></p>
1484
1485 <p>There is a fsck command available to check the file system and
1486 correct any problems detected.  This can be used if the local server
1487 crashes while the file system is mounted, to reset the "already
1488 mounted" flag.  This is what it look like when processing a working
1489 file system:</p>
1490
1491 <p><blockquote><pre>
1492 # fsck.s3ql --force --ssl s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name
1493 Using cached metadata.
1494 File system seems clean, checking anyway.
1495 Checking DB integrity...
1496 Creating temporary extra indices...
1497 Checking lost+found...
1498 Checking cached objects...
1499 Checking names (refcounts)...
1500 Checking contents (names)...
1501 Checking contents (inodes)...
1502 Checking contents (parent inodes)...
1503 Checking objects (reference counts)...
1504 Checking objects (backend)...
1505 ..processed 5000 objects so far..
1506 ..processed 10000 objects so far..
1507 ..processed 15000 objects so far..
1508 Checking objects (sizes)...
1509 Checking blocks (referenced objects)...
1510 Checking blocks (refcounts)...
1511 Checking inode-block mapping (blocks)...
1512 Checking inode-block mapping (inodes)...
1513 Checking inodes (refcounts)...
1514 Checking inodes (sizes)...
1515 Checking extended attributes (names)...
1516 Checking extended attributes (inodes)...
1517 Checking symlinks (inodes)...
1518 Checking directory reachability...
1519 Checking unix conventions...
1520 Checking referential integrity...
1521 Dropping temporary indices...
1522 Backing up old metadata...
1523 Dumping metadata...
1524 ..objects..
1525 ..blocks..
1526 ..inodes..
1527 ..inode_blocks..
1528 ..symlink_targets..
1529 ..names..
1530 ..contents..
1531 ..ext_attributes..
1532 Compressing and uploading metadata...
1533 Wrote 0.89 MB of compressed metadata.
1534 #
1535 </pre></blockquote></p>
1536
1537 <p>Thanks to the cache, working on files that fit in the cache is very
1538 quick, about the same speed as local file access.  Uploading large
1539 amount of data is to me limited by the bandwidth out of and into my
1540 house.  Uploading 685 MiB with a 100 MiB cache gave me 305 kiB/s,
1541 which is very close to my upload speed, and downloading the same
1542 Debian installation ISO gave me 610 kiB/s, close to my download speed.
1543 Both were measured using <tt>dd</tt>.  So for me, the bottleneck is my
1544 network, not the file system code.  I do not know what a good cache
1545 size would be, but suspect that the cache should e larger than your
1546 working set.</p>
1547
1548 <p>I mentioned that only one machine can mount the file system at the
1549 time.  If another machine try, it is told that the file system is
1550 busy:</p>
1551
1552 <p><blockquote><pre>
1553 # mount.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
1554   --ssl --allow-root s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name /s3ql
1555 Using 8 upload threads.
1556 Backend reports that fs is still mounted elsewhere, aborting.
1557 #
1558 </pre></blockquote></p>
1559
1560 <p>The file content is uploaded when the cache is full, while the
1561 metadata is uploaded once every 24 hour by default.  To ensure the
1562 file system content is flushed to the cloud, one can either umount the
1563 file system, or ask S3QL to flush the cache and metadata using
1564 s3qlctrl:
1565
1566 <p><blockquote><pre>
1567 # s3qlctrl upload-meta /s3ql
1568 # s3qlctrl flushcache /s3ql
1569 #
1570 </pre></blockquote></p>
1571
1572 <p>If you are curious about how much space your data uses in the
1573 cloud, and how much compression and deduplication cut down on the
1574 storage usage, you can use s3qlstat on the mounted file system to get
1575 a report:</p>
1576
1577 <p><blockquote><pre>
1578 # s3qlstat /s3ql
1579 Directory entries:    9141
1580 Inodes:               9143
1581 Data blocks:          8851
1582 Total data size:      22049.38 MB
1583 After de-duplication: 21955.46 MB (99.57% of total)
1584 After compression:    21877.28 MB (99.22% of total, 99.64% of de-duplicated)
1585 Database size:        2.39 MB (uncompressed)
1586 (some values do not take into account not-yet-uploaded dirty blocks in cache)
1587 #
1588 </pre></blockquote></p>
1589
1590 <p>I mentioned earlier that there are several possible suppliers of
1591 storage.  I did not try to locate them all, but am aware of at least
1592 <a href="https://www.greenqloud.com/">Greenqloud</a>,
1593 <a href="http://drive.google.com/">Google Drive</a>,
1594 <a href="http://aws.amazon.com/s3/">Amazon S3 web serivces</a>,
1595 <a href="http://www.rackspace.com/">Rackspace</a> and
1596 <a href="http://crowncloud.net/">Crowncloud</A>.  The latter even
1597 accept payment in Bitcoin.  Pick one that suit your need.  Some of
1598 them provide several GiB of free storage, but the prize models are
1599 quite different and you will have to figure out what suits you
1600 best.</p>
1601
1602 <p>While researching this blog post, I had a look at research papers
1603 and posters discussing the S3QL file system.  There are several, which
1604 told me that the file system is getting a critical check by the
1605 science community and increased my confidence in using it.  One nice
1606 poster is titled
1607 "<a href="http://www.lanl.gov/orgs/adtsc/publications/science_highlights_2013/docs/pg68_69.pdf">An
1608 Innovative Parallel Cloud Storage System using OpenStack’s SwiftObject
1609 Store and Transformative Parallel I/O Approach</a>" by Hsing-Bung
1610 Chen, Benjamin McClelland, David Sherrill, Alfred Torrez, Parks Fields
1611 and Pamela Smith.  Please  have a look.</p>
1612
1613 <p>Given my problems with different file systems earlier, I decided to
1614 check out the mounted S3QL file system to see if it would be usable as
1615 a home directory (in other word, that it provided POSIX semantics when
1616 it come to locking and umask handling etc).  Running
1617 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_if_a_file_system_can_be_used_for_home_directories___.html">my
1618 test code to check file system semantics</a>, I was happy to discover that
1619 no error was found.  So the file system can be used for home
1620 directories, if one chooses to do so.</p>
1621
1622 <p>If you do not want a locally file system, and want something that
1623 work without the Linux fuse file system, I would like to mention the
1624 <a href="http://www.tarsnap.com/">Tarsnap service</a>, which also
1625 provide locally encrypted backup using a command line client.  It have
1626 a nicer access control system, where one can split out read and write
1627 access, allowing some systems to write to the backup and others to
1628 only read from it.</p>
1629
1630 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1631 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1632 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
1633
1634       </div>
1635       <div class="tags">
1636
1637
1638         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>.
1639
1640
1641       </div>
1642     </div>
1643     <div class="padding"></div>
1644
1645     <div class="entry">
1646       <div class="title">
1647         <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>
1648       </div>
1649       <div class="date">
1650         14th March 2014
1651       </div>
1652       <div class="body">
1653         <p>The <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">Freedombox
1654 project</a> is working on providing the software and hardware for
1655 making it easy for non-technical people to host their data and
1656 communication at home, and being able to communicate with their
1657 friends and family encrypted and away from prying eyes.  It has been
1658 going on for a while, and is slowly progressing towards a new test
1659 release (0.2).</p>
1660
1661 <p>And what day could be better than the Pi day to announce that the
1662 new version will provide "hard drive" / SD card / USB stick images for
1663 Dreamplug, Raspberry Pi and VirtualBox (or any other virtualization
1664 system), and can also be installed using a Debian installer preseed
1665 file.  The Debian based Freedombox is now based on Debian Jessie,
1666 where most of the needed packages used are already present.  Only one,
1667 the freedombox-setup package, is missing.  To try to build your own
1668 boot image to test the current status, fetch the freedom-maker scripts
1669 and build using
1670 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/vmdebootstrap">vmdebootstrap</a>
1671 with a user with sudo access to become root:
1672
1673 <pre>
1674 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/freedombox/freedom-maker.git \
1675   freedom-maker
1676 sudo apt-get install git vmdebootstrap mercurial python-docutils \
1677   mktorrent extlinux virtualbox qemu-user-static binfmt-support \
1678   u-boot-tools
1679 make -C freedom-maker dreamplug-image raspberry-image virtualbox-image
1680 </pre>
1681
1682 <p>Root access is needed to run debootstrap and mount loopback
1683 devices.  See the README for more details on the build. If you do not
1684 want all three images, trim the make line.  But note that thanks to <a
1685 href="https://bugs.debian.org/741407">a race condition in
1686 vmdebootstrap</a>, the build might fail without the patch to the
1687 kpartx call.</p>
1688
1689 <p>If you instead want to install using a Debian CD and the preseed
1690 method, boot a Debian Wheezy ISO and use this boot argument to load
1691 the preseed values:</p>
1692
1693 <pre>
1694 url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat</a>
1695 </pre>
1696
1697 <p>But note that due to <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/740673">a
1698 recently introduced bug in apt in Jessie</a>, the installer will
1699 currently hang while setting up APT sources.  Killing the
1700 '<tt>apt-cdrom ident</tt>' process when it hang a few times during the
1701 installation will get the installation going.  This affect all
1702 installations in Jessie, and I expect it will be fixed soon.</p>
1703
1704 <p>Give it a go and let us know how it goes on the mailing list, and help
1705 us get the new release published. :) Please join us on
1706 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC (#freedombox on
1707 irc.debian.org)</a> and
1708 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
1709 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
1710
1711       </div>
1712       <div class="tags">
1713
1714
1715         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>.
1716
1717
1718       </div>
1719     </div>
1720     <div class="padding"></div>
1721
1722     <div class="entry">
1723       <div class="title">
1724         <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>
1725       </div>
1726       <div class="date">
1727         22nd February 2014
1728       </div>
1729       <div class="body">
1730         <p>Many years ago, I wrote a GPL licensed version of the netgroup and
1731 innetgr tools, because I needed them in
1732 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a>.  I called the project
1733 ng-utils, and it has served me well.  I placed the project under the
1734 <a href="http://www.hungry.com/">Hungry Programmer</a> umbrella, and it was maintained in our CVS
1735 repository.  But many years ago, the CVS repository was dropped (lost,
1736 not migrated to new hardware, not sure), and the project have lacked a
1737 proper home since then.</p>
1738
1739 <p>Last summer, I had a look at the package and made a new release
1740 fixing a irritating crash bug, but was unable to store the changes in
1741 a proper source control system.  I applied for a project on
1742 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/">Alioth</a>, but did not have time
1743 to follow up on it.  Until today. :)</p>
1744
1745 <p>After many hours of cleaning and migration, the ng-utils project
1746 now have a new home, and a git repository with the highlight of the
1747 history of the project.  I published all release tarballs and imported
1748 them into the git repository.  As the project is really stable and not
1749 expected to gain new features any time soon, I decided to make a new
1750 release and call it 1.0.  Visit the new project home on
1751 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/ng-utils/">https://alioth.debian.org/projects/ng-utils/</a>
1752 if you want to check it out.  The new version is also uploaded into
1753 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/n/ng-utils.html">Debian Unstable</a>.</p>
1754
1755       </div>
1756       <div class="tags">
1757
1758
1759         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>.
1760
1761
1762       </div>
1763     </div>
1764     <div class="padding"></div>
1765
1766     <div class="entry">
1767       <div class="title">
1768         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_sysvinit_from_experimental_in_Debian_Hurd.html">Testing sysvinit from experimental in Debian Hurd</a>
1769       </div>
1770       <div class="date">
1771          3rd February 2014
1772       </div>
1773       <div class="body">
1774         <p>A few days ago I decided to try to help the Hurd people to get
1775 their changes into sysvinit, to allow them to use the normal sysvinit
1776 boot system instead of their old one.  This follow up on the
1777 <a href="https://teythoon.cryptobitch.de//categories/gsoc.html">great
1778 Google Summer of Code work</a> done last summer by Justus Winter to
1779 get Debian on Hurd working more like Debian on Linux.  To get started,
1780 I downloaded a prebuilt hard disk image from
1781 <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>,
1782 and started it using virt-manager.</p>
1783
1784 <p>The first think I had to do after logging in (root without any
1785 password) was to get the network operational.  I followed
1786 <a href="https://www.debian.org/ports/hurd/hurd-install">the
1787 instructions on the Debian GNU/Hurd ports page</a> and ran these
1788 commands as root to get the machine to accept a IP address from the
1789 kvm internal DHCP server:</p>
1790
1791 <p><blockquote><pre>
1792 settrans -fgap /dev/netdde /hurd/netdde
1793 kill $(ps -ef|awk '/[p]finet/ { print $2}')
1794 kill $(ps -ef|awk '/[d]evnode/ { print $2}')
1795 dhclient /dev/eth0
1796 </pre></blockquote></p>
1797
1798 <p>After this, the machine had internet connectivity, and I could
1799 upgrade it and install the sysvinit packages from experimental and
1800 enable it as the default boot system in Hurd.</p>
1801
1802 <p>But before I did that, I set a password on the root user, as ssh is
1803 running on the machine it for ssh login to work a password need to be
1804 set.  Also, note that a bug somewhere in openssh on Hurd block
1805 compression from working.  Remember to turn that off on the client
1806 side.</p>
1807
1808 <p>Run these commands as root to upgrade and test the new sysvinit
1809 stuff:</p>
1810
1811 <p><blockquote><pre>
1812 cat > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/experimental.list &lt;&lt;EOF
1813 deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ experimental main
1814 EOF
1815 apt-get update
1816 apt-get dist-upgrade
1817 apt-get install -t experimental initscripts sysv-rc sysvinit \
1818     sysvinit-core sysvinit-utils
1819 update-alternatives --config runsystem
1820 </pre></blockquote></p>
1821
1822 <p>To reboot after switching boot system, you have to use
1823 <tt>reboot-hurd</tt> instead of just <tt>reboot</tt>, as there is not
1824 yet a sysvinit process able to receive the signals from the normal
1825 'reboot' command.  After switching to sysvinit as the boot system,
1826 upgrading every package and rebooting, the network come up with DHCP
1827 after boot as it should, and the settrans/pkill hack mentioned at the
1828 start is no longer needed.  But for some strange reason, there are no
1829 longer any login prompt in the virtual console, so I logged in using
1830 ssh instead.
1831
1832 <p>Note that there are some race conditions in Hurd making the boot
1833 fail some times.  No idea what the cause is, but hope the Hurd porters
1834 figure it out.  At least Justus said on IRC (#debian-hurd on
1835 irc.debian.org) that they are aware of the problem.  A way to reduce
1836 the impact is to upgrade to the Hurd packages built by Justus by
1837 adding this repository to the machine:</p>
1838
1839 <p><blockquote><pre>
1840 cat > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/hurd-ci.list &lt;&lt;EOF
1841 deb http://darnassus.sceen.net/~teythoon/hurd-ci/ sid main
1842 EOF
1843 </pre></blockquote></p>
1844
1845 <p>At the moment the prebuilt virtual machine get some packages from
1846 http://ftp.debian-ports.org/debian, because some of the packages in
1847 unstable do not yet include the required patches that are lingering in
1848 BTS.  This is the completely list of "unofficial" packages installed:</p>
1849
1850 <p><blockquote><pre>
1851 # aptitude search '?narrow(?version(CURRENT),?origin(Debian Ports))'
1852 i   emacs                   - GNU Emacs editor (metapackage)
1853 i   gdb                     - GNU Debugger
1854 i   hurd-recommended        - Miscellaneous translators
1855 i   isc-dhcp-client         - ISC DHCP client
1856 i   isc-dhcp-common         - common files used by all the isc-dhcp* packages
1857 i   libc-bin                - Embedded GNU C Library: Binaries
1858 i   libc-dev-bin            - Embedded GNU C Library: Development binaries
1859 i   libc0.3                 - Embedded GNU C Library: Shared libraries
1860 i A libc0.3-dbg             - Embedded GNU C Library: detached debugging symbols
1861 i   libc0.3-dev             - Embedded GNU C Library: Development Libraries and Hea
1862 i   multiarch-support       - Transitional package to ensure multiarch compatibilit
1863 i A x11-common              - X Window System (X.Org) infrastructure
1864 i   xorg                    - X.Org X Window System
1865 i A xserver-xorg            - X.Org X server
1866 i A xserver-xorg-input-all  - X.Org X server -- input driver metapackage
1867 #
1868 </pre></blockquote></p>
1869
1870 <p>All in all, testing hurd has been an interesting experience. :)
1871 X.org did not work out of the box and I never took the time to follow
1872 the porters instructions to fix it.  This time I was interested in the
1873 command line stuff.<p>
1874
1875       </div>
1876       <div class="tags">
1877
1878
1879         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>.
1880
1881
1882       </div>
1883     </div>
1884     <div class="padding"></div>
1885
1886     <div class="entry">
1887       <div class="title">
1888         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_chrpath_release_0_16.html">New chrpath release 0.16</a>
1889       </div>
1890       <div class="date">
1891         14th January 2014
1892       </div>
1893       <div class="body">
1894         <p><a href="http://www.coverity.com/">Coverity</a> is a nice tool to
1895 find problems in C, C++ and Java code using static source code
1896 analysis.  It can detect a lot of different problems, and is very
1897 useful to find memory and locking bugs in the error handling part of
1898 the source.  The company behind it provide
1899 <a href="https://scan.coverity.com/">check of free software projects as
1900 a community service</a>, and many hundred free software projects are
1901 already checked.  A few days ago I decided to have a closer look at
1902 the Coverity system, and discovered that the
1903 <a href="http://www.gnu.org/software/gnash/">gnash</a> and
1904 <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/ipmitool/">ipmitool</a>
1905 projects I am involved with was already registered.  But these are
1906 fairly big, and I would also like to have a small and easy project to
1907 check, and decided to <a href="http://scan.coverity.com/projects/1179">request
1908 checking of the chrpath project</a>.  It was
1909 added to the checker and discovered seven potential defects.  Six of
1910 these were real, mostly resource "leak" when the program detected an
1911 error.  Nothing serious, as the resources would be released a fraction
1912 of a second later when the program exited because of the error, but it
1913 is nice to do it right in case the source of the program some time in
1914 the future end up in a library.  Having fixed all defects and added
1915 <a href="https://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/chrpath-devel">a
1916 mailing list for the chrpath developers</a>, I decided it was time to
1917 publish a new release.  These are the release notes:</p>
1918
1919 <p>New in 0.16 released 2014-01-14:</p>
1920
1921 <ul>
1922
1923   <li>Fixed all minor bugs discovered by Coverity.</li>
1924   <li>Updated config.sub and config.guess from the GNU project.</li>
1925   <li>Mention new project mailing list in the documentation.</li>
1926
1927 </ul>
1928
1929 <p>You can
1930 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/frs/?group_id=31052">download the
1931 new version 0.16 from alioth</a>.  Please let us know via the Alioth
1932 project if something is wrong with the new release.  The test suite
1933 did not discover any old errors, so if you find a new one, please also
1934 include a test suite check.</p>
1935
1936       </div>
1937       <div class="tags">
1938
1939
1940         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>.
1941
1942
1943       </div>
1944     </div>
1945     <div class="padding"></div>
1946
1947     <div class="entry">
1948       <div class="title">
1949         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_chrpath_release_0_15.html">New chrpath release 0.15</a>
1950       </div>
1951       <div class="date">
1952         24th November 2013
1953       </div>
1954       <div class="body">
1955         <p>After many years break from the package and a vain hope that
1956 development would be continued by someone else, I finally pulled my
1957 acts together this morning and wrapped up a new release of chrpath,
1958 the command line tool to modify the rpath and runpath of already
1959 compiled ELF programs.  The update was triggered by the persistence of
1960 Isha Vishnoi at IBM, which needed a new config.guess file to get
1961 support for the ppc64le architecture (powerpc 64-bit Little Endian) he
1962 is working on.  I checked the
1963 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/chrpath">Debian</a>,
1964 <a href="https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/chrpath">Ubuntu</a> and
1965 <a href="https://admin.fedoraproject.org/pkgdb/acls/name/chrpath">Fedora</a>
1966 packages for interesting patches (failed to find the source from
1967 OpenSUSE and Mandriva packages), and found quite a few nice fixes.
1968 These are the release notes:</p>
1969
1970 <p>New in 0.15 released 2013-11-24:</p>
1971
1972 <ul>
1973
1974   <li>Updated config.sub and config.guess from the GNU project to work
1975    with newer architectures.  Thanks to isha vishnoi for the heads
1976    up.</li>
1977
1978   <li>Updated README with current URLs.</li>
1979
1980   <li>Added byteswap fix found in Ubuntu, credited Jeremy Kerr and
1981    Matthias Klose.</li>
1982
1983   <li>Added missing help for -k|--keepgoing option, using patch by
1984    Petr Machata found in Fedora.</li>
1985
1986   <li>Rewrite removal of RPATH/RUNPATH to make sure the entry in
1987    .dynamic is a NULL terminated string.  Based on patch found in
1988    Fedora credited Axel Thimm and Christian Krause.</li>
1989
1990 </ul>
1991
1992 <p>You can
1993 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/frs/?group_id=31052">download the
1994 new version 0.15 from alioth</a>.  Please let us know via the Alioth
1995 project if something is wrong with the new release.  The test suite
1996 did not discover any old errors, so if you find a new one, please also
1997 include a testsuite check.</p>
1998
1999       </div>
2000       <div class="tags">
2001
2002
2003         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>.
2004
2005
2006       </div>
2007     </div>
2008     <div class="padding"></div>
2009
2010     <div class="entry">
2011       <div class="title">
2012         <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>
2013       </div>
2014       <div class="date">
2015          2nd November 2013
2016       </div>
2017       <div class="body">
2018         <p>If one of the points of switching to a new init system in Debian is
2019 <a href="http://thomas.goirand.fr/blog/?p=147">to get rid of huge
2020 init.d scripts</a>, I doubt we need to switch away from sysvinit and
2021 init.d scripts at all.  Here is an example init.d script, ie a rewrite
2022 of /etc/init.d/rsyslog:</p>
2023
2024 <p><pre>
2025 #!/lib/init/init-d-script
2026 ### BEGIN INIT INFO
2027 # Provides:          rsyslog
2028 # Required-Start:    $remote_fs $time
2029 # Required-Stop:     umountnfs $time
2030 # X-Stop-After:      sendsigs
2031 # Default-Start:     2 3 4 5
2032 # Default-Stop:      0 1 6
2033 # Short-Description: enhanced syslogd
2034 # Description:       Rsyslog is an enhanced multi-threaded syslogd.
2035 #                    It is quite compatible to stock sysklogd and can be
2036 #                    used as a drop-in replacement.
2037 ### END INIT INFO
2038 DESC="enhanced syslogd"
2039 DAEMON=/usr/sbin/rsyslogd
2040 </pre></p>
2041
2042 <p>Pretty minimalistic to me... For the record, the original sysv-rc
2043 script was 137 lines, and the above is just 15 lines, most of it meta
2044 info/comments.</p>
2045
2046 <p>How to do this, you ask?  Well, one create a new script
2047 /lib/init/init-d-script looking something like this:
2048
2049 <p><pre>
2050 #!/bin/sh
2051
2052 # Define LSB log_* functions.
2053 # Depend on lsb-base (>= 3.2-14) to ensure that this file is present
2054 # and status_of_proc is working.
2055 . /lib/lsb/init-functions
2056
2057 #
2058 # Function that starts the daemon/service
2059
2060 #
2061 do_start()
2062 {
2063         # Return
2064         #   0 if daemon has been started
2065         #   1 if daemon was already running
2066         #   2 if daemon could not be started
2067         start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $DAEMON --test > /dev/null \
2068                 || return 1
2069         start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $DAEMON -- \
2070                 $DAEMON_ARGS \
2071                 || return 2
2072         # Add code here, if necessary, that waits for the process to be ready
2073         # to handle requests from services started subsequently which depend
2074         # on this one.  As a last resort, sleep for some time.
2075 }
2076
2077 #
2078 # Function that stops the daemon/service
2079 #
2080 do_stop()
2081 {
2082         # Return
2083         #   0 if daemon has been stopped
2084         #   1 if daemon was already stopped
2085         #   2 if daemon could not be stopped
2086         #   other if a failure occurred
2087         start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --retry=TERM/30/KILL/5 --pidfile $PIDFILE --name $NAME
2088         RETVAL="$?"
2089         [ "$RETVAL" = 2 ] && return 2
2090         # Wait for children to finish too if this is a daemon that forks
2091         # and if the daemon is only ever run from this initscript.
2092         # If the above conditions are not satisfied then add some other code
2093         # that waits for the process to drop all resources that could be
2094         # needed by services started subsequently.  A last resort is to
2095         # sleep for some time.
2096         start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --oknodo --retry=0/30/KILL/5 --exec $DAEMON
2097         [ "$?" = 2 ] && return 2
2098         # Many daemons don't delete their pidfiles when they exit.
2099         rm -f $PIDFILE
2100         return "$RETVAL"
2101 }
2102
2103 #
2104 # Function that sends a SIGHUP to the daemon/service
2105 #
2106 do_reload() {
2107         #
2108         # If the daemon can reload its configuration without
2109         # restarting (for example, when it is sent a SIGHUP),
2110         # then implement that here.
2111         #
2112         start-stop-daemon --stop --signal 1 --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --name $NAME
2113         return 0
2114 }
2115
2116 SCRIPTNAME=$1
2117 scriptbasename="$(basename $1)"
2118 echo "SN: $scriptbasename"
2119 if [ "$scriptbasename" != "init-d-library" ] ; then
2120     script="$1"
2121     shift
2122     . $script
2123 else
2124     exit 0
2125 fi
2126
2127 NAME=$(basename $DAEMON)
2128 PIDFILE=/var/run/$NAME.pid
2129
2130 # Exit if the package is not installed
2131 #[ -x "$DAEMON" ] || exit 0
2132
2133 # Read configuration variable file if it is present
2134 [ -r /etc/default/$NAME ] && . /etc/default/$NAME
2135
2136 # Load the VERBOSE setting and other rcS variables
2137 . /lib/init/vars.sh
2138
2139 case "$1" in
2140   start)
2141         [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_daemon_msg "Starting $DESC" "$NAME"
2142         do_start
2143         case "$?" in
2144                 0|1) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 0 ;;
2145                 2) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 1 ;;
2146         esac
2147         ;;
2148   stop)
2149         [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_daemon_msg "Stopping $DESC" "$NAME"
2150         do_stop
2151         case "$?" in
2152                 0|1) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 0 ;;
2153                 2) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 1 ;;
2154         esac
2155         ;;
2156   status)
2157         status_of_proc "$DAEMON" "$NAME" && exit 0 || exit $?
2158         ;;
2159   #reload|force-reload)
2160         #
2161         # If do_reload() is not implemented then leave this commented out
2162         # and leave 'force-reload' as an alias for 'restart'.
2163         #
2164         #log_daemon_msg "Reloading $DESC" "$NAME"
2165         #do_reload
2166         #log_end_msg $?
2167         #;;
2168   restart|force-reload)
2169         #
2170         # If the "reload" option is implemented then remove the
2171         # 'force-reload' alias
2172         #
2173         log_daemon_msg "Restarting $DESC" "$NAME"
2174         do_stop
2175         case "$?" in
2176           0|1)
2177                 do_start
2178                 case "$?" in
2179                         0) log_end_msg 0 ;;
2180                         1) log_end_msg 1 ;; # Old process is still running
2181                         *) log_end_msg 1 ;; # Failed to start
2182                 esac
2183                 ;;
2184           *)
2185                 # Failed to stop
2186                 log_end_msg 1
2187                 ;;
2188         esac
2189         ;;
2190   *)
2191         echo "Usage: $SCRIPTNAME {start|stop|status|restart|force-reload}" >&2
2192         exit 3
2193         ;;
2194 esac
2195
2196 :
2197 </pre></p>
2198
2199 <p>It is based on /etc/init.d/skeleton, and could be improved quite a
2200 lot.  I did not really polish the approach, so it might not always
2201 work out of the box, but you get the idea.  I did not try very hard to
2202 optimize it nor make it more robust either.</p>
2203
2204 <p>A better argument for switching init system in Debian than reducing
2205 the size of init scripts (which is a good thing to do anyway), is to
2206 get boot system that is able to handle the kernel events sensibly and
2207 robustly, and do not depend on the boot to run sequentially.  The boot
2208 and the kernel have not behaved sequentially in years.</p>
2209
2210       </div>
2211       <div class="tags">
2212
2213
2214         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>.
2215
2216
2217       </div>
2218     </div>
2219     <div class="padding"></div>
2220
2221     <div class="entry">
2222       <div class="title">
2223         <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>
2224       </div>
2225       <div class="date">
2226          1st November 2013
2227       </div>
2228       <div class="body">
2229         <p><a href="http://www.spice-space.org/">The SPICE protocol</a> for
2230 remote display access is the preferred solution with oVirt and RedHat
2231 Enterprise Virtualization, and I was sad to discover the other day
2232 that the browser plugin needed to use these systems seamlessly was
2233 missing in Debian.  The <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/668284">request
2234 for a package</a> was from 2012-04-10 with no progress since
2235 2013-04-01, so I decided to wrap up a package based on the great work
2236 from Cajus Pollmeier and put it in a collab-maint maintained git
2237 repository to get a package I could use.  I would very much like
2238 others to help me maintain the package (or just take over, I do not
2239 mind), but as no-one had volunteered so far, I just uploaded it to
2240 NEW.  I hope it will be available in Debian in a few days.</p>
2241
2242 <p>The source is now available from
2243 <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>
2244
2245       </div>
2246       <div class="tags">
2247
2248
2249         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>.
2250
2251
2252       </div>
2253     </div>
2254     <div class="padding"></div>
2255
2256     <div class="entry">
2257       <div class="title">
2258         <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>
2259       </div>
2260       <div class="date">
2261         27th October 2013
2262       </div>
2263       <div class="body">
2264         <p>The
2265 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/v/vmdebootstrap.html">vmdebootstrap</a>
2266 program is a a very nice system to create virtual machine images.  It
2267 create a image file, add a partition table, mount it and run
2268 debootstrap in the mounted directory to create a Debian system on a
2269 stick.  Yesterday, I decided to try to teach it how to make images for
2270 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/RaspberryPi">Raspberry Pi</a>, as part
2271 of a plan to simplify the build system for
2272 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">the FreedomBox
2273 project</a>.  The FreedomBox project already uses vmdebootstrap for
2274 the virtualbox images, but its current build system made multistrap
2275 based system for Dreamplug images, and it is lacking support for
2276 Raspberry Pi.</p>
2277
2278 <p>Armed with the knowledge on how to build "foreign" (aka non-native
2279 architecture) chroots for Raspberry Pi, I dived into the vmdebootstrap
2280 code and adjusted it to be able to build armel images on my amd64
2281 Debian laptop.  I ended up giving vmdebootstrap five new options,
2282 allowing me to replicate the image creation process I use to make
2283 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Raspberry_Pi_based_batman_adv_Mesh_network_node.html">Debian
2284 Jessie based mesh node images for the Raspberry Pi</a>.  First, the
2285 <tt>--foreign /path/to/binfm_handler</tt> option tell vmdebootstrap to
2286 call debootstrap with --foreign and to copy the handler into the
2287 generated chroot before running the second stage.  This allow
2288 vmdebootstrap to create armel images on an amd64 host.  Next I added
2289 two new options <tt>--bootsize size</tt> and <tt>--boottype
2290 fstype</tt> to teach it to create a separate /boot/ partition with the
2291 given file system type, allowing me to create an image with a vfat
2292 partition for the /boot/ stuff.  I also added a <tt>--variant
2293 variant</tt> option to allow me to create smaller images without the
2294 Debian base system packages installed.  Finally, I added an option
2295 <tt>--no-extlinux</tt> to tell vmdebootstrap to not install extlinux
2296 as a boot loader.  It is not needed on the Raspberry Pi and probably
2297 most other non-x86 architectures.  The changes were accepted by the
2298 upstream author of vmdebootstrap yesterday and today, and is now
2299 available from
2300 <a href="http://git.liw.fi/cgi-bin/cgit/cgit.cgi/vmdebootstrap/">the
2301 upstream project page</a>.</p>
2302
2303 <p>To use it to build a Raspberry Pi image using Debian Jessie, first
2304 create a small script (the customize script) to add the non-free
2305 binary blob needed to boot the Raspberry Pi and the APT source
2306 list:</p>
2307
2308 <p><pre>
2309 #!/bin/sh
2310 set -e # Exit on first error
2311 rootdir="$1"
2312 cd "$rootdir"
2313 cat &lt;&lt;EOF > etc/apt/sources.list
2314 deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ jessie main contrib non-free
2315 EOF
2316 # Install non-free binary blob needed to boot Raspberry Pi.  This
2317 # install a kernel somewhere too.
2318 wget https://raw.github.com/Hexxeh/rpi-update/master/rpi-update \
2319     -O $rootdir/usr/bin/rpi-update
2320 chmod a+x $rootdir/usr/bin/rpi-update
2321 mkdir -p $rootdir/lib/modules
2322 touch $rootdir/boot/start.elf
2323 chroot $rootdir rpi-update
2324 </pre></p>
2325
2326 <p>Next, fetch the latest vmdebootstrap script and call it like this
2327 to build the image:</p>
2328
2329 <pre>
2330 sudo ./vmdebootstrap \
2331     --variant minbase \
2332     --arch armel \
2333     --distribution jessie \
2334     --mirror http://http.debian.net/debian \
2335     --image test.img \
2336     --size 600M \
2337     --bootsize 64M \
2338     --boottype vfat \
2339     --log-level debug \
2340     --verbose \
2341     --no-kernel \
2342     --no-extlinux \
2343     --root-password raspberry \
2344     --hostname raspberrypi \
2345     --foreign /usr/bin/qemu-arm-static \
2346     --customize `pwd`/customize \
2347     --package netbase \
2348     --package git-core \
2349     --package binutils \
2350     --package ca-certificates \
2351     --package wget \
2352     --package kmod
2353 </pre></p>
2354
2355 <p>The list of packages being installed are the ones needed by
2356 rpi-update to make the image bootable on the Raspberry Pi, with the
2357 exception of netbase, which is needed by debootstrap to find
2358 /etc/hosts with the minbase variant.  I really wish there was a way to
2359 set up an Raspberry Pi using only packages in the Debian archive, but
2360 that is not possible as far as I know, because it boots from the GPU
2361 using a non-free binary blob.</p>
2362
2363 <p>The build host need debootstrap, kpartx and qemu-user-static and
2364 probably a few others installed.  I have not checked the complete
2365 build dependency list.</p>
2366
2367 <p>The resulting image will not use the hardware floating point unit
2368 on the Raspberry PI, because the armel architecture in Debian is not
2369 optimized for that use.  So the images created will be a bit slower
2370 than <a href="http://www.raspbian.org/">Raspbian</a> based images.</p>
2371
2372       </div>
2373       <div class="tags">
2374
2375
2376         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>.
2377
2378
2379       </div>
2380     </div>
2381     <div class="padding"></div>
2382
2383     <div class="entry">
2384       <div class="title">
2385         <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>
2386       </div>
2387       <div class="date">
2388         15th October 2013
2389       </div>
2390       <div class="body">
2391         <p>The last few days I came across a few good causes that should get
2392 wider attention.  I recommend signing and donating to each one of
2393 these. :)</p>
2394
2395 <p>Via <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2013/18/">Debian
2396 Project News for 2013-10-14</a> I came across the Outreach Program for
2397 Women program which is a Google Summer of Code like initiative to get
2398 more women involved in free software.  One debian sponsor has offered
2399 to match <a href="http://debian.ch/opw2013">any donation done to Debian
2400 earmarked</a> for this initiative.  I donated a few minutes ago, and
2401 hope you will to. :)</p>
2402
2403 <p>And the Electronic Frontier Foundation just announced plans to
2404 create <a href="https://supporters.eff.org/donate/nsa-videos">video
2405 documentaries about the excessive spying</a> on every Internet user that
2406 take place these days, and their need to fund the work.  I've already
2407 donated.  Are you next?</p>
2408
2409 <p>For my Norwegian audience, the organisation Studentenes og
2410 Akademikernes Internasjonale Hjelpefond is collecting signatures for a
2411 statement under the heading
2412 <a href="http://saih.no/Bloggers_United/">Bloggers United for Open
2413 Access</a> for those of us asking for more focus on open access in the
2414 Norwegian government.  So far 499 signatures.  I hope you will sign it
2415 too.</p>
2416
2417       </div>
2418       <div class="tags">
2419
2420
2421         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>.
2422
2423
2424       </div>
2425     </div>
2426     <div class="padding"></div>
2427
2428     <div class="entry">
2429       <div class="title">
2430         <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>
2431       </div>
2432       <div class="date">
2433         27th September 2013
2434       </div>
2435       <div class="body">
2436         <p>The <a href="http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/">Freedombox
2437 project</a> have been going on for a while, and have presented the
2438 vision, ideas and solution several places.  Here is a little
2439 collection of videos of talks and presentation of the project.</p>
2440
2441 <ul>
2442
2443 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukvUz5taxvA">FreedomBox -
2444 2,5 minute marketing film</a> (Youtube)</li>
2445
2446 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzW25QTVWsE">Eben Moglen
2447 discusses the Freedombox on CBS news 2011</a> (Youtube)</li>
2448
2449 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ae8SZbxfE0g">Eben Moglen -
2450 Freedom in the Cloud - Software Freedom, Privacy and and Security for
2451 Web 2.0 and Cloud computing at ISOC-NY Public Meeting 2010</a>
2452 (Youtube)</li>
2453
2454 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNaIji_3xBE">Fosdem 2011
2455 Keynote by Eben Moglen presenting the Freedombox</a> (Youtube)</li>
2456
2457 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bDDUyJSQ9s">Presentation of
2458 the Freedombox by James Vasile at Elevate in Gratz 2011</a> (Youtube)</li>
2459
2460 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQTmnk27g9s"> Freedombox -
2461 Discovery, Identity, and Trust by Nick Daly at Freedombox Hackfest New
2462 York City in 2012</a> (Youtube)</li>
2463
2464 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkbSB4Ba7Ck">Introduction
2465 to the Freedombox at Freedombox Hackfest New York City in 2012</a>
2466 (Youtube)</li>
2467
2468 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-P2Jaeg0aQ">Freedom, Out
2469 of the Box! by Bdale Garbee at linux.conf.au Ballarat, 2012</a> (Youtube) </li>
2470
2471 <li><a href="https://archive.fosdem.org/2013/schedule/event/freedombox/">Freedombox
2472 1.0 by Eben Moglen and Bdale Garbee at Fosdem 2013</a> (FOSDEM) </li>
2473
2474 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1LpYX2zVYg">What is the
2475 FreedomBox today by Bdale Garbee at Debconf13 in Vaumarcus
2476 2013</a> (Youtube)</li>
2477
2478 </ul>
2479
2480 <p>A larger list is available from
2481 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/TalksAndPresentations">the
2482 Freedombox Wiki</a>.</p>
2483
2484 <p>On other news, I am happy to report that Freedombox based on Debian
2485 Jessie is coming along quite well, and soon both Owncloud and using
2486 Tor should be available for testers of the Freedombox solution. :) In
2487 a few weeks I hope everything needed to test it is included in Debian.
2488 The withsqlite package is already in Debian, and the plinth package is
2489 pending in NEW.  The third and vital part of that puzzle is the
2490 metapackage/setup framework, which is still pending an upload.  Join
2491 us on <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC
2492 (#freedombox on irc.debian.org)</a> and
2493 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
2494 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
2495
2496       </div>
2497       <div class="tags">
2498
2499
2500         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>.
2501
2502
2503       </div>
2504     </div>
2505     <div class="padding"></div>
2506
2507     <div class="entry">
2508       <div class="title">
2509         <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>
2510       </div>
2511       <div class="date">
2512         10th September 2013
2513       </div>
2514       <div class="body">
2515         <p>I was introduced to the
2516 <a href="http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/">Freedombox project</a>
2517 in 2010, when Eben Moglen presented his vision about serving the need
2518 of non-technical people to keep their personal information private and
2519 within the legal protection of their own homes.  The idea is to give
2520 people back the power over their network and machines, and return
2521 Internet back to its intended peer-to-peer architecture.  Instead of
2522 depending on a central service, the Freedombox will give everyone
2523 control over their own basic infrastructure.</p>
2524
2525 <p>I've intended to join the effort since then, but other tasks have
2526 taken priority.  But this summers nasty news about the misuse of trust
2527 and privilege exercised by the "western" intelligence gathering
2528 communities increased my eagerness to contribute to a point where I
2529 actually started working on the project a while back.</p>
2530
2531 <p>The <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/freedombox/">initial
2532 Debian initiative</a> based on the vision from Eben Moglen, is to
2533 create a simple and cheap Debian based appliance that anyone can hook
2534 up in their home and get access to secure and private services and
2535 communication.  The initial deployment platform have been the
2536 <a href="http://www.globalscaletechnologies.com/t-dreamplugdetails.aspx">Dreamplug</a>,
2537 which is a piece of hardware I do not own.  So to be able to test what
2538 the current Freedombox setup look like, I had to come up with a way to install
2539 it on some hardware I do have access to.  I have rewritten the
2540 <a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/freedom-maker">freedom-maker</a>
2541 image build framework to use .deb packages instead of only copying
2542 setup into the boot images, and thanks to this rewrite I am able to
2543 set up any machine supported by Debian Wheezy as a Freedombox, using
2544 the previously mentioned deb (and a few support debs for packages
2545 missing in Debian).</p>
2546
2547 <p>The current Freedombox setup consist of a set of bootstrapping
2548 scripts
2549 (<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/freedombox-setup">freedombox-setup</a>),
2550 and a administrative web interface
2551 (<a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/Plinth">plinth</a> + exmachina +
2552 withsqlite), as well as a privacy enhancing proxy based on
2553 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/privoxy">privoxy</a>
2554 (freedombox-privoxy).  There is also a web/javascript based XMPP
2555 client (<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/jwchat">jwchat</a>)
2556 trying (unsuccessfully so far) to talk to the XMPP server
2557 (<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/ejabberd">ejabberd</a>).  The
2558 web interface is pluggable, and the goal is to use it to enable OpenID
2559 services, mesh network connectivity, use of TOR, etc, etc.  Not much of
2560 this is really working yet, see
2561 <a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/freedombox-todos/blob/master/TODO">the
2562 project TODO</a> for links to GIT repositories.  Most of the code is
2563 on github at the moment.  The HTTP proxy is operational out of the
2564 box, and the admin web interface can be used to add/remove plinth
2565 users.  I've not been able to do anything else with it so far, but
2566 know there are several branches spread around github and other places
2567 with lots of half baked features.</p>
2568
2569 <p>Anyway, if you want to have a look at the current state, the
2570 following recipes should work to give you a test machine to poke
2571 at.</p>
2572
2573 <p><strong>Debian Wheezy amd64</strong></p>
2574
2575 <ol>
2576
2577 <li>Fetch normal Debian Wheezy installation ISO.</li>
2578 <li>Boot from it, either as CD or USB stick.</li>
2579 <li><p>Press [tab] on the boot prompt and add this as a boot argument
2580 to the Debian installer:<p>
2581 <pre>url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-wheezy.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-wheezy.dat</a></pre></li>
2582
2583 <li>Answer the few language/region/password questions and pick disk to
2584 install on.</li>
2585
2586 <li>When the installation is finished and the machine have rebooted a
2587 few times, your Freedombox is ready for testing.</li>
2588
2589 </ol>
2590
2591 <p><strong>Raspberry Pi Raspbian</strong></p>
2592
2593 <ol>
2594
2595 <li>Fetch a Raspbian SD card image, create SD card.</li>
2596 <li>Boot from SD card, extend file system to fill the card completely.</li>
2597 <li><p>Log in and add this to /etc/sources.list:</p>
2598 <pre>
2599 deb <a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox</a> wheezy main
2600 </pre></li>
2601 <li><p>Run this as root:</p>
2602 <pre>
2603 wget -O - http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/BE1A583D.asc | \
2604    apt-key add -
2605 apt-get update
2606 apt-get install freedombox-setup
2607 /usr/lib/freedombox/setup
2608 </pre></li>
2609 <li>Reboot into your freshly created Freedombox.</li>
2610
2611 </ol>
2612
2613 <p>You can test it on other architectures too, but because the
2614 freedombox-privoxy package is binary, it will only work as intended on
2615 the architectures where I have had time to build the binary and put it
2616 in my APT repository.  But do not let this stop you.  It is only a
2617 short "<tt>apt-get source -b freedombox-privoxy</tt>" away. :)</p>
2618
2619 <p>Note that by default Freedombox is a DHCP server on the
2620 192.168.1.0/24 subnet, so if this is your subnet be careful and turn
2621 off the DHCP server by running "<tt>update-rc.d isc-dhcp-server
2622 disable</tt>" as root.</p>
2623
2624 <p>Please let me know if this works for you, or if you have any
2625 problems.  We gather on the IRC channel
2626 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">#freedombox</a> on
2627 irc.debian.org and the
2628 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">project
2629 mailing list</a>.</p>
2630
2631 <p>Once you get your freedombox operational, you can visit
2632 <tt>http://your-host-name:8001/</tt> to see the state of the plint
2633 welcome screen (dead end - do not be surprised if you are unable to
2634 get past it), and next visit <tt>http://your-host-name:8001/help/</tt>
2635 to look at the rest of plinth.  The default user is 'admin' and the
2636 default password is 'secret'.</p>
2637
2638       </div>
2639       <div class="tags">
2640
2641
2642         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>.
2643
2644
2645       </div>
2646     </div>
2647     <div class="padding"></div>
2648
2649     <div class="entry">
2650       <div class="title">
2651         <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>
2652       </div>
2653       <div class="date">
2654         18th August 2013
2655       </div>
2656       <div class="body">
2657         <p>Earlier, I reported about
2658 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_fix_a_Thinkpad_X230_with_a_broken_180_GB_SSD_disk.html">my
2659 problems using an Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB disk</a>.  Friday I was
2660 told by IBM that the original disk should be thrown away.  And as
2661 there no longer was a problem if I bricked the firmware, I decided
2662 today to try to install Intel firmware to replace the Lenovo firmware
2663 currently on the disk.</p>
2664
2665 <p>I searched the Intel site for firmware, and found
2666 <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>
2667 (aka Intel SATA Solid-State Drive Firmware Update Tool) which
2668 according to the site should contain the latest firmware for SSD
2669 disks.  I inserted the broken disk in one of my spare laptops and
2670 booted the ISO from a USB stick.  The disk was recognized, but the
2671 program claimed the newest firmware already were installed and refused
2672 to insert any Intel firmware.  So no change, and the disk is still
2673 unable to handle write load. :( I guess the only way to get them
2674 working would be if Lenovo releases new firmware.  No idea how likely
2675 that is.  Anyway, just blogging about this test for completeness.  I
2676 got a working Samsung disk, and see no point in spending more time on
2677 the broken disks.</p>
2678
2679       </div>
2680       <div class="tags">
2681
2682
2683         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>.
2684
2685
2686       </div>
2687     </div>
2688     <div class="padding"></div>
2689
2690     <div class="entry">
2691       <div class="title">
2692         <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>
2693       </div>
2694       <div class="date">
2695         17th July 2013
2696       </div>
2697       <div class="body">
2698         <p>Today I switched to
2699 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">my
2700 new laptop</a>.  I've previously written about the problems I had with
2701 my new Thinkpad X230, which was delivered with an
2702 <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
2703 GB Intel SSD disk with Lenovo firmware</a> that did not handle
2704 sustained writes.  My hardware supplier have been very forthcoming in
2705 trying to find a solution, and after first trying with another
2706 identical 180 GB disks they decided to send me a 256 GB Samsung SSD
2707 disk instead to fix it once and for all.  The Samsung disk survived
2708 the installation of Debian with encrypted disks (filling the disk with
2709 random data during installation killed the first two), and I thus
2710 decided to trust it with my data.  I have installed it as a Debian Edu
2711 Wheezy roaming workstation hooked up with my Debian Edu Squeeze main
2712 server at home using Kerberos and LDAP, and will use it as my work
2713 station from now on.</p>
2714
2715 <p>As this is a solid state disk with no moving parts, I believe the
2716 Debian Wheezy default installation need to be tuned a bit to increase
2717 performance and increase life time of the disk.  The Linux kernel and
2718 user space applications do not yet adjust automatically to such
2719 environment.  To make it easier for my self, I created a draft Debian
2720 package <tt>ssd-setup</tt> to handle this tuning.  The
2721 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/ssd-setup.git">source
2722 for the ssd-setup package</a> is available from collab-maint, and it
2723 is set up to adjust the setup of the machine by just installing the
2724 package.  If there is any non-SSD disk in the machine, the package
2725 will refuse to install, as I did not try to write any logic to sort
2726 file systems in SSD and non-SSD file systems.</p>
2727
2728 <p>I consider the package a draft, as I am a bit unsure how to best
2729 set up Debian Wheezy with an SSD.  It is adjusted to my use case,
2730 where I set up the machine with one large encrypted partition (in
2731 addition to /boot), put LVM on top of this and set up partitions on
2732 top of this again.  See the README file in the package source for the
2733 references I used to pick the settings.  At the moment these
2734 parameters are tuned:</p>
2735
2736 <ul>
2737
2738 <li>Set up cryptsetup to pass TRIM commands to the physical disk
2739     (adding discard to /etc/crypttab)</li>
2740
2741 <li>Set up LVM to pass on TRIM commands to the underlying device (in
2742     this case a cryptsetup partition) by changing issue_discards from
2743     0 to 1 in /etc/lvm/lvm.conf.</li>
2744
2745 <li>Set relatime as a file system option for ext3 and ext4 file
2746     systems.</li>
2747
2748 <li>Tell swap to use TRIM commands by adding 'discard' to
2749     /etc/fstab.</li>
2750
2751 <li>Change I/O scheduler from cfq to deadline using a udev rule.</li>
2752
2753 <li>Run fstrim on every ext3 and ext4 file system every night (from
2754     cron.daily).</li>
2755
2756 <li>Adjust sysctl values vm.swappiness to 1 and vm.vfs_cache_pressure
2757     to 50 to reduce the kernel eagerness to swap out processes.</li>
2758
2759 </ul>
2760
2761 <p>During installation, I cancelled the part where the installer fill
2762 the disk with random data, as this would kill the SSD performance for
2763 little gain.  My goal with the encrypted file system is to ensure
2764 those stealing my laptop end up with a brick and not a working
2765 computer.  I have no hope in keeping the really resourceful people
2766 from getting the data on the disk (see
2767 <a href="http://xkcd.com/538/">XKCD #538</a> for an explanation why).
2768 Thus I concluded that adding the discard option to crypttab is the
2769 right thing to do.</p>
2770
2771 <p>I considered using the noop I/O scheduler, as several recommended
2772 it for SSD, but others recommended deadline and a benchmark I found
2773 indicated that deadline might be better for interactive use.</p>
2774
2775 <p>I also considered using the 'discard' file system option for ext3
2776 and ext4, but read that it would give a performance hit ever time a
2777 file is removed, and thought it best to that that slowdown once a day
2778 instead of during my work.</p>
2779
2780 <p>My package do not set up tmpfs on /var/run, /var/lock and /tmp, as
2781 this is already done by Debian Edu.</p>
2782
2783 <p>I have not yet started on the user space tuning.  I expect
2784 iceweasel need some tuning, and perhaps other applications too, but
2785 have not yet had time to investigate those parts.</p>
2786
2787 <p>The package should work on Ubuntu too, but I have not yet tested it
2788 there.</p>
2789
2790 <p>As for the answer to the question in the title of this blog post,
2791 as far as I know, the only solution I know about is to replace the
2792 disk.  It might be possible to flash it with Intel firmware instead of
2793 the Lenovo firmware.  But I have not tried and did not want to do so
2794 without approval from Lenovo as I wanted to keep the warranty on the
2795 disk until a solution was found and they wanted the broken disks
2796 back.</p>
2797
2798       </div>
2799       <div class="tags">
2800
2801
2802         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>.
2803
2804
2805       </div>
2806     </div>
2807     <div class="padding"></div>
2808
2809     <div class="entry">
2810       <div class="title">
2811         <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>
2812       </div>
2813       <div class="date">
2814         10th July 2013
2815       </div>
2816       <div class="body">
2817         <p>A few days ago, I wrote about
2818 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">the
2819 problems I experienced with my new X230 and its SSD disk</a>, which
2820 was dying during installation because it is unable to cope with
2821 sustained write.  My supplier is in contact with
2822 <a href="http://www.lenovo.com/">Lenovo</a>, and they wanted to send a
2823 replacement disk to try to fix the problem.  They decided to send an
2824 identical model, so my hopes for a permanent fix was slim.</p>
2825
2826 <p>Anyway, today I got the replacement disk and tried to install
2827 Debian Edu Wheezy with encrypted disk on it.  The new disk have the
2828 same firmware version as the original.  This time my hope raised
2829 slightly as the installation progressed, as the original disk used to
2830 die after 4-7% of the disk was written to, while this time it kept
2831 going past 10%, 20%, 40% and even past 50%.  But around 60%, the disk
2832 died again and I was back on square one.  I still do not have a new
2833 laptop with a disk I can trust.  I can not live with a disk that might
2834 lock up when I download a new
2835 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> ISO or
2836 other large files.  I look forward to hearing from my supplier with
2837 the next proposal from Lenovo.</p>
2838
2839 <p>The original disk is marked Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB,
2840 11S0C38722Z1ZNME35X1TR, ISN: CVCV321407HB180EGN, SA: G57560302, FW:
2841 LF1i, 29MAY2013, PBA: G39779-300, LBA 351,651,888, LI P/N: 0C38722,
2842 Pb-free 2LI, LC P/N: 16-200366, WWN: 55CD2E40002756C4, Model:
2843 SSDSC2BW180A3L 2.5" 6Gb/s SATA SSD 180G 5V 1A, ASM P/N 0C38732, FRU
2844 P/N 45N8295, P0C38732.</p>
2845
2846 <p>The replacement disk is marked Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB,
2847 11S0C38722Z1ZNDE34N0L0, ISN: CVCV315306RK180EGN, SA: G57560-302, FW:
2848 LF1i, 22APR2013, PBA: G39779-300, LBA 351,651,888, LI P/N: 0C38722,
2849 Pb-free 2LI, LC P/N: 16-200366, WWN: 55CD2E40000AB69E, Model:
2850 SSDSC2BW180A3L 2.5" 6Gb/s SATA SSD 180G 5V 1A, ASM P/N 0C38732, FRU
2851 P/N 45N8295, P0C38732.</p>
2852
2853 <p>The only difference is in the first number (serial number?), ISN,
2854 SA, date and WNPP values.  Mentioning all the details here in case
2855 someone is able to use the information to find a way to identify the
2856 failing disk among working ones (if any such working disk actually
2857 exist).</p>
2858
2859       </div>
2860       <div class="tags">
2861
2862
2863         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>.
2864
2865
2866       </div>
2867     </div>
2868     <div class="padding"></div>
2869
2870     <div class="entry">
2871       <div class="title">
2872         <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>
2873       </div>
2874       <div class="date">
2875          9th July 2013
2876       </div>
2877       <div class="body">
2878         <p>The upcoming Saturday, 2013-07-13, we are organising a combined
2879 Debian Edu developer gathering and Debian and Ubuntu bug squashing
2880 party in Oslo.  It is organised by <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">the
2881 member assosiation NUUG</a> and
2882 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">the Debian Edu / Skolelinux
2883 project</a> together with <a href="http://bitraf.no/">the hack space
2884 Bitraf</a>.</p>
2885
2886 <p>It starts 10:00 and continue until late evening.  Everyone is
2887 welcome, and there is no fee to participate.  There is on the other
2888 hand limited space, and only room for 30 people.  Please put your name
2889 on <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/BSP/2013/07/13/no/Oslo">the event
2890 wiki page</a> if you plan to join us.</p>
2891
2892       </div>
2893       <div class="tags">
2894
2895
2896         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>.
2897
2898
2899       </div>
2900     </div>
2901     <div class="padding"></div>
2902
2903     <div class="entry">
2904       <div class="title">
2905         <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>
2906       </div>
2907       <div class="date">
2908          5th July 2013
2909       </div>
2910       <div class="body">
2911         <p>Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a
2912 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thank_you_Thinkpad_X41__for_your_long_and_trustworthy_service.html">replacement
2913 for my trusty old Thinkpad X41</a>.  Unfortunately I did not have much
2914 time to spend on it, and it took a while to find a model I believe
2915 will do the job, but two days ago the replacement finally arrived.  I
2916 ended up picking a
2917 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_x230">Thinkpad X230</a>
2918 with SSD disk (NZDAJMN).  I first test installed Debian Edu Wheezy as
2919 a roaming workstation, and it seemed to work flawlessly.  But my
2920 second installation with encrypted disk was not as successful.  More
2921 on that below.</p>
2922
2923 <p>I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most
2924 important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never
2925 listed in the feature list.  But I did get good help from the search
2926 feature at <a href="http://www.prisjakt.no/">Prisjakt</a>, which
2927 allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other
2928 requirements.  A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks according
2929 to that search interface, so I had to drop specifying the number of
2930 disks from my search parameters.  I also asked around among friends to
2931 get their impression on keyboards and robustness.</p>
2932
2933 <p>So the new laptop arrived, and it is quite a lot wider than the
2934 X41.  I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is
2935 significantly wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my
2936 hand a lot more to reach the edges.  But the key response is fairly
2937 good and the individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope
2938 I will get used to it.  My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really
2939 needed a new laptop now. :)</p>
2940
2941 <p>Turning off the touch pad was simple.  All it took was a quick
2942 visit to the BIOS during boot it disable it.</p>
2943
2944 <p>But there is a fatal problem with the laptop.  The 180 GB SSD disk
2945 lock up during load.  And this happen when installing Debian Wheezy
2946 with encrypted disk, while the disk is being filled with random data.
2947 I also tested to install Ubuntu Raring, and it happen there too if I
2948 reenable the code to fill the disk with random data (it is disabled by
2949 default in Ubuntu).  And the bug with is already known.  It was
2950 reported to Debian as <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/691427">BTS
2951 report #691427 2012-10-25</a> (journal commit I/O error on brand-new
2952 Thinkpad T430s ext4 on lvm on SSD).  It is also reported to the Linux
2953 kernel developers as
2954 <a href="https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=51861">Kernel bugzilla
2955 report #51861 2012-12-20</a> (Intel SSD 520 stops working under load
2956 (SSDSC2BW180A3L in Lenovo ThinkPad T430s)). It is also reported on the
2957 Lenovo forums, both for
2958 <a href="http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/T400-T500-and-newer-T-series/T430s-Intel-SSD-520-180GB-issue/m-p/1070549">T430
2959 2012-11-10</a> and for
2960 <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
2961 03-20-2013</a>.  The problem do not only affect installation.  The
2962 reports state that the disk lock up during use if many writes are done
2963 on the disk, so it is much no use to work around the installation
2964 problem and end up with a computer that can lock up at any moment.
2965 There is even a
2966 <a href="https://git.efficios.com/?p=test-ssd.git">small C program
2967 available</a> that will lock up the hard drive after running a few
2968 minutes by writing to a file.</p>
2969
2970 <p>I've contacted my supplier and asked how to handle this, and after
2971 contacting PCHELP Norway (request 01D1FDP) which handle support
2972 requests for Lenovo, his first suggestion was to upgrade the disk
2973 firmware.  Unfortunately there is no newer firmware available from
2974 Lenovo, as my disk already have the most recent one (version LF1i).  I
2975 hope to hear more from him today and hope the problem can be
2976 fixed. :)</p>
2977
2978       </div>
2979       <div class="tags">
2980
2981
2982         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>.
2983
2984
2985       </div>
2986     </div>
2987     <div class="padding"></div>
2988
2989     <div class="entry">
2990       <div class="title">
2991         <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>
2992       </div>
2993       <div class="date">
2994          4th July 2013
2995       </div>
2996       <div class="body">
2997         <p>Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a replacement for my
2998 trusty old Thinkpad X41.  Unfortunately I did not have much time to
2999 spend on it, but today the replacement finally arrived.  I ended up
3000 picking a <a href="http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_x230">Thinkpad
3001 X230</a> with SSD disk (NZDAJMN).  I first test installed Debian Edu
3002 Wheezy as a roaming workstation, and it worked flawlessly.  As I write
3003 this, it is installing what I hope will be a more final installation,
3004 with a encrypted hard drive to ensure any dope head stealing it end up
3005 with an expencive door stop.</p>
3006
3007 <p>I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most
3008 important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never
3009 listed in the feature list.  But I did get good help from the search
3010 feature at <ahref="http://www.prisjakt.no/">Prisjakt</a>, which
3011 allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other
3012 requirements.  A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks, so I had
3013 to drop number of disks from my search parameters.</p>
3014
3015 <p>I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is significantly
3016 wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my hand a lot more
3017 to reach the edges.  But the key response is fairly good and the
3018 individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope I will get
3019 used to it.  My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really needed a
3020 new laptop now. :)</p>
3021
3022 <p>I look forward to figuring out how to turn off the touch pad.</p>
3023
3024       </div>
3025       <div class="tags">
3026
3027
3028         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>.
3029
3030
3031       </div>
3032     </div>
3033     <div class="padding"></div>
3034
3035     <div class="entry">
3036       <div class="title">
3037         <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>
3038       </div>
3039       <div class="date">
3040         25th June 2013
3041       </div>
3042       <div class="body">
3043         <p>It annoys me when the computer fail to do automatically what it is
3044 perfectly capable of, and I have to do it manually to get things
3045 working.  One such task is to find out what firmware packages are
3046 needed to get the hardware on my computer working.  Most often this
3047 affect the wifi card, but some times it even affect the RAID
3048 controller or the ethernet card.  Today I pushed version 0.4 of the
3049 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">Isenkram package</a>
3050 including a new script isenkram-autoinstall-firmware handling the
3051 process of asking all the loaded kernel modules what firmware files
3052 they want, find debian packages providing these files and install the
3053 debian packages.  Here is a test run on my laptop:</p>
3054
3055 <p><pre>
3056 # isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
3057 info: kernel drivers requested extra firmware: ipw2200-bss.fw ipw2200-ibss.fw ipw2200-sniffer.fw
3058 info: fetching http://http.debian.net/debian/dists/squeeze/Contents-i386.gz
3059 info: locating packages with the requested firmware files
3060 info: Updating APT sources after adding non-free APT source
3061 info: trying to install firmware-ipw2x00
3062 firmware-ipw2x00
3063 firmware-ipw2x00
3064 Preconfiguring packages ...
3065 Selecting previously deselected package firmware-ipw2x00.
3066 (Reading database ... 259727 files and directories currently installed.)
3067 Unpacking firmware-ipw2x00 (from .../firmware-ipw2x00_0.28+squeeze1_all.deb) ...
3068 Setting up firmware-ipw2x00 (0.28+squeeze1) ...
3069 #
3070 </pre></p>
3071
3072 <p>When all the requested firmware is present, a simple message is
3073 printed instead:</p>
3074
3075 <p><pre>
3076 # isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
3077 info: did not find any firmware files requested by loaded kernel modules.  exiting
3078 #
3079 </pre></p>
3080
3081 <p>It could use some polish, but it is already working well and saving
3082 me some time when setting up new machines. :)</p>
3083
3084 <p>So, how does it work?  It look at the set of currently loaded
3085 kernel modules, and look up each one of them using modinfo, to find
3086 the firmware files listed in the module meta-information.  Next, it
3087 download the Contents file from a nearby APT mirror, and search for
3088 the firmware files in this file to locate the package with the
3089 requested firmware file.  If the package is in the non-free section, a
3090 non-free APT source is added and the package is installed using
3091 <tt>apt-get install</tt>.  The end result is a slightly better working
3092 machine.</p>
3093
3094 <p>I hope someone find time to implement a more polished version of
3095 this script as part of the hw-detect debian-installer module, to
3096 finally fix <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/655507">BTS report
3097 #655507</a>.  There really is no need to insert USB sticks with
3098 firmware during a PXE install when the packages already are available
3099 from the nearby Debian mirror.</p>
3100
3101       </div>
3102       <div class="tags">
3103
3104
3105         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>.
3106
3107
3108       </div>
3109     </div>
3110     <div class="padding"></div>
3111
3112     <div class="entry">
3113       <div class="title">
3114         <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>
3115       </div>
3116       <div class="date">
3117         11th June 2013
3118       </div>
3119       <div class="body">
3120         <p>When installing RedHat, Fedora, Debian and Ubuntu on some machines,
3121 the screen just turn black when Linux boot, either during installation
3122 or on first boot from the hard disk.  I've seen it once in a while the
3123 last few years, but only recently understood the cause.  I've seen it
3124 on HP laptops, and on my latest acquaintance the Packard Bell laptop.
3125 The reason seem to be in the wiring of some laptops.  The system to
3126 control the screen background light is inverted, so when Linux try to
3127 turn the brightness fully on, it end up turning it off instead.  I do
3128 not know which Linux drivers are affected, but this post is about the
3129 i915 driver used by the
3130 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Packard Bell
3131 EasyNote LV</a>, Thinkpad X40 and many other laptops.</p>
3132
3133 <p>The problem can be worked around two ways.  Either by adding
3134 i915.invert_brightness=1 as a kernel option, or by adding a file in
3135 /etc/modprobe.d/ to tell modprobe to add the invert_brightness=1
3136 option when it load the i915 kernel module.  On Debian and Ubuntu, it
3137 can be done by running these commands as root:</p>
3138
3139 <pre>
3140 echo options i915 invert_brightness=1 | tee /etc/modprobe.d/i915.conf
3141 update-initramfs -u -k all
3142 </pre>
3143
3144 <p>Since March 2012 there is
3145 <a href="http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=4dca20efb1a9c2efefc28ad2867e5d6c3f5e1955">a
3146 mechanism in the Linux kernel</a> to tell the i915 driver which
3147 hardware have this problem, and get the driver to invert the
3148 brightness setting automatically.  To use it, one need to add a row in
3149 <a href="http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c">the
3150 intel_quirks array</a> in the driver source
3151 <tt>drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c</tt> (look for "<tt>static
3152 struct intel_quirk intel_quirks</tt>"), specifying the PCI device
3153 number (vendor number 8086 is assumed) and subdevice vendor and device
3154 number.</p>
3155
3156 <p>My Packard Bell EasyNote LV got this output from <tt>lspci
3157 -vvnn</tt> for the video card in question:</p>
3158
3159 <p><pre>
3160 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation \
3161     3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller [8086:0156] \
3162     (rev 09) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
3163  Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device [1025:0688]
3164  Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- \
3165     ParErr- Stepping- SE RR- FastB2B- DisINTx+
3166  Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- \
3167     <TAbort- <MAbort->SERR- <PERR- INTx-
3168  Latency: 0
3169  Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 42
3170  Region 0: Memory at c2000000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4M]
3171  Region 2: Memory at b0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
3172  Region 4: I/O ports at 4000 [size=64]
3173  Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled]
3174  Capabilities: <access denied>
3175  Kernel driver in use: i915
3176 </pre></p>
3177
3178 <p>The resulting intel_quirks entry would then look like this:</p>
3179
3180 <p><pre>
3181 struct intel_quirk intel_quirks[] = {
3182        ...
3183         /* Packard Bell EasyNote LV11HC needs invert brightness quirk */
3184         { 0x0156, 0x1025, 0x0688, quirk_invert_brightness },
3185        ...
3186 }
3187 </pre></p>
3188
3189 <p>According to the kernel module instructions (as seen using
3190 <tt>modinfo i915</tt>), information about hardware needing the
3191 invert_brightness flag should be sent to the
3192 <a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/dri-devel">dri-devel
3193 (at) lists.freedesktop.org</a> mailing list to reach the kernel
3194 developers.  But my email about the laptop sent 2013-06-03 have not
3195 yet shown up in
3196 <a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/dri-devel/2013-June/thread.html">the
3197 web archive for the mailing list</a>, so I suspect they do not accept
3198 emails from non-subscribers.  Because of this, I sent my patch also to
3199 the Debian bug tracking system instead as
3200 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/710938">BTS report #710938</a>, to make
3201 sure the patch is not lost.</p>
3202
3203 <p>Unfortunately, it is not enough to fix the kernel to get Laptops
3204 with this problem working properly with Linux.  If you use Gnome, your
3205 worries should be over at this point.  But if you use KDE, there is
3206 something in KDE ignoring the invert_brightness setting and turning on
3207 the screen during login.  I've reported it to Debian as
3208 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/711237">BTS report #711237</a>, and
3209 have no idea yet how to figure out exactly what subsystem is doing
3210 this.  Perhaps you can help?  Perhaps you know what the Gnome
3211 developers did to handle this, and this can give a clue to the KDE
3212 developers?  Or you know where in KDE the screen brightness is changed
3213 during login?  If so, please update the BTS report (or get in touch if
3214 you do not know how to update BTS).</p>
3215
3216 <p>Update 2013-07-19: The correct fix for this machine seem to be
3217 acpi_backlight=vendor, to disable ACPI backlight support completely,
3218 as the ACPI information on the machine is trash and it is better to
3219 leave it to the intel video driver to control the screen
3220 backlight.</p>
3221
3222       </div>
3223       <div class="tags">
3224
3225
3226         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>.
3227
3228
3229       </div>
3230     </div>
3231     <div class="padding"></div>
3232
3233     <div class="entry">
3234       <div class="title">
3235         <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>
3236       </div>
3237       <div class="date">
3238         27th May 2013
3239       </div>
3240       <div class="body">
3241         <p>Two days ago, I asked
3242 <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
3243 I could install Linux on a Packard Bell EasyNote LV computer
3244 preinstalled with Windows 8</a>.  I found a solution, but am horrified
3245 with the obstacles put in the way of Linux users on a laptop with UEFI
3246 and Windows 8.</p>
3247
3248 <p>I never found out if the cause of my problems were the use of UEFI
3249 secure booting or fast boot.  I suspect fast boot was the problem,
3250 causing the firmware to boot directly from HD without considering any
3251 key presses and alternative devices, but do not know UEFI settings
3252 enough to tell.</p>
3253
3254 <p>There is no way to install Linux on the machine in question without
3255 opening the box and disconnecting the hard drive!  This is as far as I
3256 can tell, the only way to get access to the firmware setup menu
3257 without accepting the Windows 8 license agreement.  I am told (and
3258 found description on how to) that it is possible to configure the
3259 firmware setup once booted into Windows 8.  But as I believe the terms
3260 of that agreement are completely unacceptable, accepting the license
3261 was never an alternative.  I do not enter agreements I do not intend
3262 to follow.</p>
3263
3264 <p>I feared I had to return the laptops and ask for a refund, and
3265 waste many hours on this, but luckily there was a way to get it to
3266 work.  But I would not recommend it to anyone planning to run Linux on
3267 it, and I have become sceptical to Windows 8 certified laptops.  Is
3268 this the way Linux will be forced out of the market place, by making
3269 it close to impossible for "normal" users to install Linux without
3270 accepting the Microsoft Windows license terms?  Or at least not
3271 without risking to loose the warranty?</p>
3272
3273 <p>I've updated the
3274 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Linux Laptop
3275 wiki page for Packard Bell EasyNote LV</a>, to ensure the next person
3276 do not have to struggle as much as I did to get Linux into the
3277 machine.</p>
3278
3279 <p>Thanks to Bob Rosbag, Florian Weimer, Philipp Kern, Ben Hutching,
3280 Michael Tokarev and others for feedback and ideas.</p>
3281
3282       </div>
3283       <div class="tags">
3284
3285
3286         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>.
3287
3288
3289       </div>
3290     </div>
3291     <div class="padding"></div>
3292
3293     <div class="entry">
3294       <div class="title">
3295         <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>
3296       </div>
3297       <div class="date">
3298         25th May 2013
3299       </div>
3300       <div class="body">
3301         <p>I've run into quite a problem the last few days.  I bought three
3302 new laptops for my parents and a few others.  I bought Packard Bell
3303 Easynote LV to run Kubuntu on and use as their home computer.  But I
3304 am completely unable to figure out how to install Linux on it.  The
3305 computer is preinstalled with Windows 8, and I suspect it uses UEFI
3306 instead of a BIOS to boot.</p>
3307
3308 <p>The problem is that I am unable to get it to PXE boot, and unable
3309 to get it to boot the Linux installer from my USB stick.  I have yet
3310 to try the DVD install, and still hope it will work.  when I turn on
3311 the computer, there is no information on what buttons to press to get
3312 the normal boot menu.  I expect to get some boot menu to select PXE or
3313 USB stick booting.  When booting, it first ask for the language to
3314 use, then for some regional settings, and finally if I will accept the
3315 Windows 8 terms of use.  As these terms are completely unacceptable to
3316 me, I have no other choice but to turn off the computer and try again
3317 to get it to boot the Linux installer.</p>
3318
3319 <p>I have gathered my findings so far on a Linlap page about the
3320 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Packard Bell
3321 EasyNote LV</a> model.  If you have any idea how to get Linux
3322 installed on this machine, please get in touch or update that wiki
3323 page.  If I can't find a way to install Linux, I will have to return
3324 the laptop to the seller and find another machine for my parents.</p>
3325
3326 <p>I wonder, is this the way Linux will be forced out of the market
3327 using UEFI and "secure boot" by making it impossible to install Linux
3328 on new Laptops?</p>
3329
3330       </div>
3331       <div class="tags">
3332
3333
3334         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>.
3335
3336
3337       </div>
3338     </div>
3339     <div class="padding"></div>
3340
3341     <div class="entry">
3342       <div class="title">
3343         <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>
3344       </div>
3345       <div class="date">
3346         17th May 2013
3347       </div>
3348       <div class="body">
3349         <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> is
3350 an operating system based on Debian intended for use in schools.  It
3351 contain a turn-key solution for the computer network provided to
3352 pupils in the primary schools.  It provide both the central server,
3353 network boot servers and desktop environments with heaps of
3354 educational software.  The project was founded almost 12 years ago,
3355 2001-07-02.  If you want to support the project, which is in need for
3356 cash to fund developer gatherings and other project related activity,
3357 <a href="http://www.linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">please
3358 donate some money</a>.
3359
3360 <p>A topic that come up again and again on the Debian Edu mailing
3361 lists and elsewhere, is the question on how to transform a Debian or
3362 Ubuntu installation into a Debian Edu installation.  It isn't very
3363 hard, and last week I wrote a script to replicate the steps done by
3364 the Debian Edu installer.</p>
3365
3366 <p>The script,
3367 <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/>
3368 in the debian-edu-config package, will go through these six steps and
3369 transform an existing Debian Wheezy or Ubuntu (untested) installation
3370 into a Debian Edu Workstation:</p>
3371
3372 <ol>
3373
3374 <li>Add skolelinux related APT sources.</li>
3375 <li>Create /etc/debian-edu/config with the wanted configuration.</li>
3376 <li>Install debian-edu-install to load preseeding values and pull in
3377     our configuration.</li>
3378 <li>Preseed debconf database with profile setup in
3379     /etc/debian-edu/config, and run tasksel to install packages
3380     according to the profile specified in the config above,
3381     overriding some of the Debian automation machinery.</li>
3382 <li>Run debian-edu-cfengine-D installation to configure everything
3383     that could not be done using preseeding.</li>
3384 <li>Ask for a reboot to enable all the configuration changes.</li>
3385
3386 </ol>
3387
3388 <p>There are some steps in the Debian Edu installation that can not be
3389 replicated like this.  Disk partitioning and LVM setup, for example.
3390 So this script just assume there is enough disk space to install all
3391 the needed packages.</p>
3392
3393 <p>The script was created to help a Debian Edu student working on
3394 setting up <a href="http://www.raspberrypi.org">Raspberry Pi</a> as a
3395 Debian Edu client, and using it he can take the existing
3396 <a href="http://www.raspbian.org/FrontPage‎">Raspbian</a> installation and
3397 transform it into a fully functioning Debian Edu Workstation (or
3398 Roaming Workstation, or whatever :).</p>
3399
3400 <p>The default setting in the script is to create a KDE Workstation.
3401 If a LXDE based Roaming workstation is wanted instead, modify the
3402 PROFILE and DESKTOP values at the top to look like this instead:</p>
3403
3404 <p><pre>
3405 PROFILE="Roaming-Workstation"
3406 DESKTOP="lxde"
3407 </pre></p>
3408
3409 <p>The script could even become useful to set up Debian Edu servers in
3410 the cloud, by starting with a virtual Debian installation at some
3411 virtual hosting service and setting up all the services on first
3412 boot.</p>
3413
3414       </div>
3415       <div class="tags">
3416
3417
3418         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>.
3419
3420
3421       </div>
3422     </div>
3423     <div class="padding"></div>
3424
3425     <div class="entry">
3426       <div class="title">
3427         <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>
3428       </div>
3429       <div class="date">
3430         11th May 2013
3431       </div>
3432       <div class="body">
3433         <P>In January,
3434 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_IRC_channel_for_LEGO_designers_using_Debian.html">I
3435 announced a</a> new <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">IRC
3436 channel #debian-lego</a>, for those of us in the Debian and Linux
3437 community interested in <a href="http://www.lego.com/">LEGO</a>, the
3438 marvellous construction system from Denmark.  We also created
3439 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">a wiki page</a> to have
3440 a place to take notes and write down our plans and hopes.  And several
3441 people showed up to help.  I was very happy to see the effect of my
3442 call.  Since the small start, we have a debtags tag
3443 <a href="http://debtags.debian.net/search/bytag?wl=hardware::hobby:lego">hardware::hobby:lego</a>
3444 tag for LEGO related packages, and now count 10 packages related to
3445 LEGO and <a href="http://mindstorms.lego.com/">Mindstorms</a>:</p>
3446
3447 <p><table>
3448 <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>
3449 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/leocad">leocad</a></td><td>virtual brick CAD software</td></tr>
3450 <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>
3451 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/lnpd">lnpd</a></td><td>daemon for LNP communication with BrickOS</td></tr>
3452 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/nbc">nbc</a></td><td>compiler for LEGO Mindstorms NXT bricks</td></tr>
3453 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/nqc">nqc</a></td><td>Not Quite C compiler for LEGO Mindstorms RCX</td></tr>
3454 <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>
3455 <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>
3456 <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>
3457 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/t2n">t2n</a></td><td>simple command-line tool for Lego NXT</td></tr>
3458 </table></p>
3459
3460 <p>Some of these are available in Wheezy, and all but one are
3461 currently available in Jessie/testing.  leocad is so far only
3462 available in experimental.</p>
3463
3464 <p>If you care about LEGO in Debian, please join us on IRC and help
3465 adding the rest of the great free software tools available on Linux
3466 for LEGO designers.</p>
3467
3468       </div>
3469       <div class="tags">
3470
3471
3472         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>.
3473
3474
3475       </div>
3476     </div>
3477     <div class="padding"></div>
3478
3479     <div class="entry">
3480       <div class="title">
3481         <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>
3482       </div>
3483       <div class="date">
3484          5th May 2013
3485       </div>
3486       <div class="body">
3487         <p>When I woke up this morning, I was very happy to see that the
3488 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2013/20130504">release announcement
3489 for Debian Wheezy</a> was waiting in my mail box.  This is a great
3490 Debian release, and I expect to move my machines at home over to it fairly
3491 soon.</p>
3492
3493 <p>The new debian release contain heaps of new stuff, and one program
3494 in particular make me very happy to see included.  The
3495 <a href="http://scratch.mit.edu/">Scratch</a> program, made famous by
3496 the <a href="http://www.code.org/">Teach kids code</a> movement, is
3497 included for the first time.  Alongside similar programs like
3498 <a href="http://edu.kde.org/kturtle/">kturtle</a> and
3499 <a href="http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/Turtle_Art">turtleart</a>,
3500 it allow for visual programming where syntax errors can not happen,
3501 and a friendly programming environment for learning to control the
3502 computer.  Scratch will also be included in the next release of Debian
3503 Edu.</a>
3504
3505 <p>And now that Wheezy is wrapped up, we can wrap up the next Debian
3506 Edu/Skolelinux release too.  The
3507 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/2013/04/msg00132.html">first
3508 alpha release</a> went out last week, and the next should soon
3509 follow.<p>
3510
3511       </div>
3512       <div class="tags">
3513
3514
3515         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>.
3516
3517
3518       </div>
3519     </div>
3520     <div class="padding"></div>
3521
3522     <div class="entry">
3523       <div class="title">
3524         <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>
3525       </div>
3526       <div class="date">
3527          3rd April 2013
3528       </div>
3529       <div class="body">
3530         <p>Today the <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">Isenkram
3531 package</a> finally made it into the archive, after lingering in NEW
3532 for many months.  I uploaded it to the Debian experimental suite
3533 2013-01-27, and today it was accepted into the archive.</p>
3534
3535 <p>Isenkram is a system for suggesting to users what packages to
3536 install to work with a pluggable hardware device.  The suggestion pop
3537 up when the device is plugged in.  For example if a Lego Mindstorm NXT
3538 is inserted, it will suggest to install the program needed to program
3539 the NXT controller.  Give it a go, and report bugs and suggestions to
3540 BTS. :)</p>
3541
3542       </div>
3543       <div class="tags">
3544
3545
3546         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>.
3547
3548
3549       </div>
3550     </div>
3551     <div class="padding"></div>
3552
3553     <div class="entry">
3554       <div class="title">
3555         <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>
3556       </div>
3557       <div class="date">
3558          2nd February 2013
3559       </div>
3560       <div class="body">
3561         <p>My
3562 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_backport_bitcoin_qt_version_0_7_2_2_to_Debian_Squeeze.html">last
3563 bitcoin related blog post</a> mentioned that the new
3564 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin package</a> for
3565 Debian was waiting in NEW.  It was accepted by the Debian ftp-masters
3566 2013-01-19, and have been available in unstable since then.  It was
3567 automatically copied to Ubuntu, and is available in their Raring
3568 version too.</p>
3569
3570 <p>But there is a strange problem with the build that block this new
3571 version from being available on the i386 and kfreebsd-i386
3572 architectures.  For some strange reason, the autobuilders in Debian
3573 for these architectures fail to run the test suite on these
3574 architectures (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/672524">BTS #672524</a>).
3575 We are so far unable to reproduce it when building it manually, and
3576 no-one have been able to propose a fix.  If you got an idea what is
3577 failing, please let us know via the BTS.</p>
3578
3579 <p>One feature that is annoying me with of the bitcoin client, because
3580 I often run low on disk space, is the fact that the client will exit
3581 if it run short on space (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/696715">BTS
3582 #696715</a>).  So make sure you have enough disk space when you run
3583 it. :)</p>
3584
3585 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
3586 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
3587 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
3588
3589       </div>
3590       <div class="tags">
3591
3592
3593         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>.
3594
3595
3596       </div>
3597     </div>
3598     <div class="padding"></div>
3599
3600     <div class="entry">
3601       <div class="title">
3602         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">Welcome to the world, Isenkram!</a>
3603       </div>
3604       <div class="date">
3605         22nd January 2013
3606       </div>
3607       <div class="body">
3608         <p>Yesterday, I
3609 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_prototype_ready_making_hardware_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">asked
3610 for testers</a> for my prototype for making Debian better at handling
3611 pluggable hardware devices, which I
3612 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">set
3613 out to create</a> earlier this month.  Several valuable testers showed
3614 up, and caused me to really want to to open up the development to more
3615 people.  But before I did this, I want to come up with a sensible name
3616 for this project.  Today I finally decided on a new name, and I have
3617 renamed the project from hw-support-handler to this new name.  In the
3618 process, I moved the source to git and made it available as a
3619 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/isenkram.git">collab-maint</a>
3620 repository in Debian.  The new name?  It is <strong>Isenkram</strong>.
3621 To fetch and build the latest version of the source, use</p>
3622
3623 <pre>
3624 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/collab-maint/isenkram.git
3625 cd isenkram && git-buildpackage -us -uc
3626 </pre>
3627
3628 <p>I have not yet adjusted all files to use the new name yet.  If you
3629 want to hack on the source or improve the package, please go ahead.
3630 But please talk to me first on IRC or via email before you do major
3631 changes, to make sure we do not step on each others toes. :)</p>
3632
3633 <p>If you wonder what 'isenkram' is, it is a Norwegian word for iron
3634 stuff, typically meaning tools, nails, screws, etc.  Typical hardware
3635 stuff, in other words.  I've been told it is the Norwegian variant of
3636 the German word eisenkram, for those that are familiar with that
3637 word.</p>
3638
3639 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-26</strong>: Added -us -us to build
3640 instructions, to avoid confusing people with an error from the signing
3641 process.</p>
3642
3643 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-27</strong>: Switch to HTTP URL for the git
3644 clone argument to avoid the need for authentication.</p>
3645
3646       </div>
3647       <div class="tags">
3648
3649
3650         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>.
3651
3652
3653       </div>
3654     </div>
3655     <div class="padding"></div>
3656
3657     <div class="entry">
3658       <div class="title">
3659         <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>
3660       </div>
3661       <div class="date">
3662         21st January 2013
3663       </div>
3664       <div class="body">
3665         <p>Early this month I set out to try to
3666 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">improve
3667 the Debian support for pluggable hardware devices</a>.  Now my
3668 prototype is working, and it is ready for a larger audience.  To test
3669 it, fetch the
3670 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">source
3671 from the Debian Edu subversion repository</a>, build and install the
3672 package.  You might have to log out and in again activate the
3673 autostart script.</p>
3674
3675 <p>The design is simple:</p>
3676
3677 <ul>
3678
3679 <li>Add desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ causing a program
3680 hw-support-handlerd to start when the user log in.</li>
3681
3682 <li>This program listen for kernel events about new hardware (directly
3683 from the kernel like udev does), not using HAL dbus events as I
3684 initially did.</li>
3685
3686 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware modalias in
3687 the APT database, a database
3688 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=markup">available
3689 via HTTP</a> and a database available as part of the package.</li>
3690
3691 <li>If a package is mapped to the hardware in question, the package
3692 isn't installed yet and this is the first time the hardware was
3693 plugged in, show a desktop notification suggesting to install the
3694 package or packages.</li>
3695
3696 <li>If the user click on the 'install package now' button, ask
3697 aptdaemon via the PackageKit API to install the requrired package.</li>
3698
3699 <li>aptdaemon ask for root password or sudo password, and install the
3700 package while showing progress information in a window.</li>
3701
3702 </ul>
3703
3704 <p>I still need to come up with a better name for the system.  Here
3705 are some screen shots showing the prototype in action.  First the
3706 notification, then the password request, and finally the request to
3707 approve all the dependencies.  Sorry for the Norwegian Bokmål GUI.</p>
3708
3709 <p><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-1-notification.png">
3710 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-2-password.png">
3711 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-3-dependencies.png">
3712 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-4-installing.png">
3713 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-5-installing-details.png" width="70%"></p>
3714
3715 <p>The prototype still need to be improved with longer timeouts, but
3716 is already useful.  The database of hardware to package mappings also
3717 need more work.  It is currently compatible with the Ubuntu way of
3718 storing such information in the package control file, but could be
3719 changed to use other formats instead or in addition to the current
3720 method.  I've dropped the use of discover for this mapping, as the
3721 modalias approach is more flexible and easier to use on Linux as long
3722 as the Linux kernel expose its modalias strings directly.</p>
3723
3724 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-21 16:50</strong>: Due to popular demand,
3725 here is the command required to check out and build the source: Use
3726 '<tt>svn checkout
3727 svn://svn.debian.org/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/; cd
3728 hw-support-handler; debuild</tt>'.  If you lack debuild, install the
3729 devscripts package.</p>
3730
3731 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-23 12:00</strong>: The project is now
3732 renamed to Isenkram and the source moved from the Debian Edu
3733 subversion repository to a Debian collab-maint git repository.  See
3734 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">build
3735 instructions</a> for details.</p>
3736
3737       </div>
3738       <div class="tags">
3739
3740
3741         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>.
3742
3743
3744       </div>
3745     </div>
3746     <div class="padding"></div>
3747
3748     <div class="entry">
3749       <div class="title">
3750         <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>
3751       </div>
3752       <div class="date">
3753         19th January 2013
3754       </div>
3755       <div class="body">
3756         <p>This Christmas my trusty old laptop died.  It died quietly and
3757 suddenly in bed.  With a quiet whimper, it went completely quiet and
3758 black.  The power button was no longer able to turn it on.  It was a
3759 IBM Thinkpad X41, and the best laptop I ever had.  Better than both
3760 Thinkpads X30, X31, X40, X60, X61 and X61S.  Far better than the
3761 Compaq I had before that.  Now I need to find a replacement.  To keep
3762 going during Christmas, I moved the one year old SSD disk to my old
3763 X40 where it fitted (only one I had left that could use it), but it is
3764 not a durable solution.
3765
3766 <p>My laptop needs are fairly modest.  This is my wishlist from when I
3767 got a new one more than 10 years ago.  It still holds true.:)</p>
3768
3769 <ul>
3770
3771 <li>Lightweight (around 1 kg) and small volume (preferably smaller
3772   than A4).</li>
3773 <li>Robust, it will be in my backpack every day.</li>
3774 <li>Three button mouse and a mouse pin instead of touch pad.</li>
3775 <li>Long battery life time.  Preferable a week.</li>
3776 <li>Internal WIFI network card.</li>
3777 <li>Internal Twisted Pair network card.</li>
3778 <li>Some USB slots (2-3 is plenty)</li>
3779 <li>Good keyboard - similar to the Thinkpad.</li>
3780 <li>Video resolution at least 1024x768, with size around 12" (A4 paper
3781 size).</li>
3782 <li>Hardware supported by Debian Stable, ie the default kernel and
3783   X.org packages.</li>
3784 <li>Quiet, preferably fan free (or at least not using the fan most of
3785   the time).
3786
3787 </ul>
3788
3789 <p>You will notice that there are no RAM and CPU requirements in the
3790 list.  The reason is simply that the specifications on laptops the
3791 last 10-15 years have been sufficient for my needs, and I have to look
3792 at other features to choose my laptop.  But are there still made as
3793 robust laptops as my X41?  The Thinkpad X60/X61 proved to be less
3794 robust, and Thinkpads seem to be heading in the wrong direction since
3795 Lenovo took over.  But I've been told that X220 and X1 Carbon might
3796 still be useful.</p>
3797
3798 <p>Perhaps I should rethink my needs, and look for a pad with an
3799 external keyboard?  I'll have to check the
3800 <a href="http://www.linux-laptop.net/">Linux Laptops site</a> for
3801 well-supported laptops, or perhaps just buy one preinstalled from one
3802 of the vendors listed on the <a href="http://linuxpreloaded.com/">Linux
3803 Pre-loaded site</a>.</p>
3804
3805       </div>
3806       <div class="tags">
3807
3808
3809         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>.
3810
3811
3812       </div>
3813     </div>
3814     <div class="padding"></div>
3815
3816     <div class="entry">
3817       <div class="title">
3818         <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>
3819       </div>
3820       <div class="date">
3821         18th January 2013
3822       </div>
3823       <div class="body">
3824         <p>Some times I try to figure out which Iceweasel browser plugin to
3825 install to get support for a given MIME type.  Thanks to
3826 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MozillaTeam/Plugins">specifications
3827 done by Ubuntu</a> and Mozilla, it is possible to do this in Debian.
3828 Unfortunately, not very many packages provide the needed meta
3829 information, Anyway, here is a small script to look up all browser
3830 plugin packages announcing ther MIME support using this specification:</p>
3831
3832 <pre>
3833 #!/usr/bin/python
3834 import sys
3835 import apt
3836 def pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
3837     cache = apt.Cache()
3838     cache.open(None)
3839     thepkgs = []
3840     for pkg in cache:
3841         version = pkg.candidate
3842         if version is None:
3843             version = pkg.installed
3844         if version is None:
3845             continue
3846         record = version.record
3847         if not record.has_key('Npp-MimeType'):
3848             continue
3849         mime_types = record['Npp-MimeType'].split(',')
3850         for t in mime_types:
3851             t = t.rstrip().strip()
3852             if t == mimetype:
3853                 thepkgs.append(pkg.name)
3854     return thepkgs
3855 mimetype = "audio/ogg"
3856 if 1 < len(sys.argv):
3857     mimetype = sys.argv[1]
3858 print "Browser plugin packages supporting %s:" % mimetype
3859 for pkg in pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
3860     print "  %s" %pkg
3861 </pre>
3862
3863 <p>It can be used like this to look up a given MIME type:</p>
3864
3865 <pre>
3866 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype
3867 Browser plugin packages supporting audio/ogg:
3868   gecko-mediaplayer
3869 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype application/x-shockwave-flash
3870 Browser plugin packages supporting application/x-shockwave-flash:
3871   browser-plugin-gnash
3872 %
3873 </pre>
3874
3875 <p>In Ubuntu this mechanism is combined with support in the browser
3876 itself to query for plugins and propose to install the needed
3877 packages.  It would be great if Debian supported such feature too.  Is
3878 anyone working on adding it?</p>
3879
3880 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-18 14:20</strong>: The Debian BTS
3881 request for icweasel support for this feature is
3882 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/484010">#484010</a> from 2008 (and
3883 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/698426">#698426</a> from today).  Lack
3884 of manpower and wish for a different design is the reason thus feature
3885 is not yet in iceweasel from Debian.</p>
3886
3887       </div>
3888       <div class="tags">
3889
3890
3891         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>.
3892
3893
3894       </div>
3895     </div>
3896     <div class="padding"></div>
3897
3898     <div class="entry">
3899       <div class="title">
3900         <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>
3901       </div>
3902       <div class="date">
3903         16th January 2013
3904       </div>
3905       <div class="body">
3906         <p>The <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/AppStreamDebianProposal">DEP-11
3907 proposal to add AppStream information to the Debian archive</a>, is a
3908 proposal to make it possible for a Desktop application to propose to
3909 the user some package to install to gain support for a given MIME
3910 type, font, library etc. that is currently missing.  With such
3911 mechanism in place, it would be possible for the desktop to
3912 automatically propose and install leocad if some LDraw file is
3913 downloaded by the browser.</p>
3914
3915 <p>To get some idea about the current content of the archive, I decided
3916 to write a simple program to extract all .desktop files from the
3917 Debian archive and look up the claimed MIME support there.  The result
3918 can be found on the
3919 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/pub/AppStreamTest">Skolelinux FTP
3920 site</a>.  Using the collected information, it become possible to
3921 answer the question in the title.  Here are the 20 most supported MIME
3922 types in Debian stable (Squeeze), testing (Wheezy) and unstable (Sid).
3923 The complete list is available from the link above.</p>
3924
3925 <p><strong>Debian Stable:</strong></p>
3926
3927 <pre>
3928   count MIME type
3929   ----- -----------------------
3930      32 text/plain
3931      30 audio/mpeg
3932      29 image/png
3933      28 image/jpeg
3934      27 application/ogg
3935      26 audio/x-mp3
3936      25 image/tiff
3937      25 image/gif
3938      22 image/bmp
3939      22 audio/x-wav
3940      20 audio/x-flac
3941      19 audio/x-mpegurl
3942      18 video/x-ms-asf
3943      18 audio/x-musepack
3944      18 audio/x-mpeg
3945      18 application/x-ogg
3946      17 video/mpeg
3947      17 audio/x-scpls
3948      17 audio/ogg
3949      16 video/x-ms-wmv
3950 </pre>
3951
3952 <p><strong>Debian Testing:</strong></p>
3953
3954 <pre>
3955   count MIME type
3956   ----- -----------------------
3957      33 text/plain
3958      32 image/png
3959      32 image/jpeg
3960      29 audio/mpeg
3961      27 image/gif
3962      26 image/tiff
3963      26 application/ogg
3964      25 audio/x-mp3
3965      22 image/bmp
3966      21 audio/x-wav
3967      19 audio/x-mpegurl
3968      19 audio/x-mpeg
3969      18 video/mpeg
3970      18 audio/x-scpls
3971      18 audio/x-flac
3972      18 application/x-ogg
3973      17 video/x-ms-asf
3974      17 text/html
3975      17 audio/x-musepack
3976      16 image/x-xbitmap
3977 </pre>
3978
3979 <p><strong>Debian Unstable:</strong></p>
3980
3981 <pre>
3982   count MIME type
3983   ----- -----------------------
3984      31 text/plain
3985      31 image/png
3986      31 image/jpeg
3987      29 audio/mpeg
3988      28 application/ogg
3989      27 image/gif
3990      26 image/tiff
3991      26 audio/x-mp3
3992      23 audio/x-wav
3993      22 image/bmp
3994      21 audio/x-flac
3995      20 audio/x-mpegurl
3996      19 audio/x-mpeg
3997      18 video/x-ms-asf
3998      18 video/mpeg
3999      18 audio/x-scpls
4000      18 application/x-ogg
4001      17 audio/x-musepack
4002      16 video/x-ms-wmv
4003      16 video/x-msvideo
4004 </pre>
4005
4006 <p>I am told that PackageKit can provide an API to access the kind of
4007 information mentioned in DEP-11.  I have not yet had time to look at
4008 it, but hope the PackageKit people in Debian are on top of these
4009 issues.</p>
4010
4011 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-16 13:35</strong>: Updated numbers after
4012 discovering a typo in my script.</p>
4013
4014       </div>
4015       <div class="tags">
4016
4017
4018         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>.
4019
4020
4021       </div>
4022     </div>
4023     <div class="padding"></div>
4024
4025     <div class="entry">
4026       <div class="title">
4027         <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>
4028       </div>
4029       <div class="date">
4030         15th January 2013
4031       </div>
4032       <div class="body">
4033         <p>Yesterday, I wrote about the
4034 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Modalias_strings___a_practical_way_to_map__stuff__to_hardware.html">modalias
4035 values provided by the Linux kernel</a> following my hope for
4036 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">better
4037 dongle support in Debian</a>.  Using this knowledge, I have tested how
4038 modalias values attached to package names can be used to map packages
4039 to hardware.  This allow the system to look up and suggest relevant
4040 packages when I plug in some new hardware into my machine, and replace
4041 discover and discover-data as the database used to map hardware to
4042 packages.</p>
4043
4044 <p>I create a modaliases file with entries like the following,
4045 containing package name, kernel module name (if relevant, otherwise
4046 the package name) and globs matching the relevant hardware
4047 modalias.</p>
4048
4049 <p><blockquote>
4050 Package: package-name
4051 <br>Modaliases: module(modaliasglob, modaliasglob, modaliasglob)</p>
4052 </blockquote></p>
4053
4054 <p>It is fairly trivial to write code to find the relevant packages
4055 for a given modalias value using this file.</p>
4056
4057 <p>An entry like this would suggest the video and picture application
4058 cheese for many USB web cameras (interface bus class 0E01):</p>
4059
4060 <p><blockquote>
4061 Package: cheese
4062 <br>Modaliases: cheese(usb:v*p*d*dc*dsc*dp*ic0Eisc01ip*)</p>
4063 </blockquote></p>
4064
4065 <p>An entry like this would suggest the pcmciautils package when a
4066 CardBus bridge (bus class 0607) PCI device is present:</p>
4067
4068 <p><blockquote>
4069 Package: pcmciautils
4070 <br>Modaliases: pcmciautils(pci:v*d*sv*sd*bc06sc07i*)
4071 </blockquote></p>
4072
4073 <p>An entry like this would suggest the package colorhug-client when
4074 plugging in a ColorHug with USB IDs 04D8:F8DA:</p>
4075
4076 <p><blockquote>
4077 Package: colorhug-client
4078 <br>Modaliases: colorhug-client(usb:v04D8pF8DAd*)</p>
4079 </blockquote></p>
4080
4081 <p>I believe the format is compatible with the format of the Packages
4082 file in the Debian archive.  Ubuntu already uses their Packages file
4083 to store their mappings from packages to hardware.</p>
4084
4085 <p>By adding a XB-Modaliases: header in debian/control, any .deb can
4086 announce the hardware it support in a way my prototype understand.
4087 This allow those publishing packages in an APT source outside the
4088 Debian archive as well as those backporting packages to make sure the
4089 hardware mapping are included in the package meta information.  I've
4090 tested such header in the pymissile package, and its modalias mapping
4091 is working as it should with my prototype.  It even made it to Ubuntu
4092 Raring.</p>
4093
4094 <p>To test if it was possible to look up supported hardware using only
4095 the shell tools available in the Debian installer, I wrote a shell
4096 implementation of the lookup code.  The idea is to create files for
4097 each modalias and let the shell do the matching.  Please check out and
4098 try the
4099 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/hw-support-lookup?view=co">hw-support-lookup</a>
4100 shell script.  It run without any extra dependencies and fetch the
4101 hardware mappings from the Debian archive and the subversion
4102 repository where I currently work on my prototype.</p>
4103
4104 <p>When I use it on a machine with a yubikey inserted, it suggest to
4105 install yubikey-personalization:</p>
4106
4107 <p><blockquote>
4108 % ./hw-support-lookup
4109 <br>yubikey-personalization
4110 <br>%
4111 </blockquote></p>
4112
4113 <p>When I run it on my Thinkpad X40 with a PCMCIA/CardBus slot, it
4114 propose to install the pcmciautils package:</p>
4115
4116 <p><blockquote>
4117 % ./hw-support-lookup
4118 <br>pcmciautils
4119 <br>%
4120 </blockquote></p>
4121
4122 <p>If you know of any hardware-package mapping that should be added to
4123 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=co">my
4124 database</a>, please tell me about it.</p>
4125
4126 <p>It could be possible to generate several of the mappings between
4127 packages and hardware.  One source would be to look at packages with
4128 kernel modules, ie packages with *.ko files in /lib/modules/, and
4129 extract their modalias information.  Another would be to look at
4130 packages with udev rules, ie packages with files in
4131 /lib/udev/rules.d/, and extract their vendor/model information to
4132 generate a modalias matching rule.  I have not tested any of these to
4133 see if it work.</p>
4134
4135 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
4136 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
4137 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
4138 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel</a>.</p>
4139
4140       </div>
4141       <div class="tags">
4142
4143
4144         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>.
4145
4146
4147       </div>
4148     </div>
4149     <div class="padding"></div>
4150
4151     <div class="entry">
4152       <div class="title">
4153         <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>
4154       </div>
4155       <div class="date">
4156         14th January 2013
4157       </div>
4158       <div class="body">
4159         <p>While looking into how to look up Debian packages based on hardware
4160 information, to find the packages that support a given piece of
4161 hardware, I refreshed my memory regarding modalias values, and decided
4162 to document the details.  Here are my findings so far, also available
4163 in
4164 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
4165 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>:
4166
4167 <p><strong>Modalias decoded</strong></p>
4168
4169 <p>This document try to explain what the different types of modalias
4170 values stands for.  It is in part based on information from
4171 &lt;URL: <a href="https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias">https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias</a> &gt;,
4172 &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;,
4173 &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
4174 &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;.
4175
4176 <p>The modalias entries for a given Linux machine can be found using
4177 this shell script:</p>
4178
4179 <pre>
4180 find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u
4181 </pre>
4182
4183 <p>The supported modalias globs for a given kernel module can be found
4184 using modinfo:</p>
4185
4186 <pre>
4187 % /sbin/modinfo psmouse | grep alias:
4188 alias:          serio:ty05pr*id*ex*
4189 alias:          serio:ty01pr*id*ex*
4190 %
4191 </pre>
4192
4193 <p><strong>PCI subtype</strong></p>
4194
4195 <p>A typical PCI entry can look like this.  This is an Intel Host
4196 Bridge memory controller:</p>
4197
4198 <p><blockquote>
4199 pci:v00008086d00002770sv00001028sd000001ADbc06sc00i00
4200 </blockquote></p>
4201
4202 <p>This represent these values:</p>
4203
4204 <pre>
4205  v   00008086  (vendor)
4206  d   00002770  (device)
4207  sv  00001028  (subvendor)
4208  sd  000001AD  (subdevice)
4209  bc  06        (bus class)
4210  sc  00        (bus subclass)
4211  i   00        (interface)
4212 </pre>
4213
4214 <p>The vendor/device values are the same values outputted from 'lspci
4215 -n' as 8086:2770.  The bus class/subclass is also shown by lspci as
4216 0600.  The 0600 class is a host bridge.  Other useful bus values are
4217 0300 (VGA compatible card) and 0200 (Ethernet controller).</p>
4218
4219 <p>Not sure how to figure out the interface value, nor what it
4220 means.</p>
4221
4222 <p><strong>USB subtype</strong></p>
4223
4224 <p>Some typical USB entries can look like this.  This is an internal
4225 USB hub in a laptop:</p>
4226
4227 <p><blockquote>
4228 usb:v1D6Bp0001d0206dc09dsc00dp00ic09isc00ip00
4229 </blockquote></p>
4230
4231 <p>Here is the values included in this alias:</p>
4232
4233 <pre>
4234  v    1D6B  (device vendor)
4235  p    0001  (device product)
4236  d    0206  (bcddevice)
4237  dc     09  (device class)
4238  dsc    00  (device subclass)
4239  dp     00  (device protocol)
4240  ic     09  (interface class)
4241  isc    00  (interface subclass)
4242  ip     00  (interface protocol)
4243 </pre>
4244
4245 <p>The 0900 device class/subclass means hub.  Some times the relevant
4246 class is in the interface class section.  For a simple USB web camera,
4247 these alias entries show up:</p>
4248
4249 <p><blockquote>
4250 usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc01ip00
4251 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc02ip00
4252 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc01ip00
4253 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc02ip00
4254 </blockquote></p>
4255
4256 <p>Interface class 0E01 is video control, 0E02 is video streaming (aka
4257 camera), 0101 is audio control device and 0102 is audio streaming (aka
4258 microphone).  Thus this is a camera with microphone included.</p>
4259
4260 <p><strong>ACPI subtype</strong></p>
4261
4262 <p>The ACPI type is used for several non-PCI/USB stuff.  This is an IR
4263 receiver in a Thinkpad X40:</p>
4264
4265 <p><blockquote>
4266 acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
4267 </blockquote></p>
4268
4269 <p>The values between the colons are IDs.</p>
4270
4271 <p><strong>DMI subtype</strong></p>
4272
4273 <p>The DMI table contain lots of information about the computer case
4274 and model.  This is an entry for a IBM Thinkpad X40, fetched from
4275 /sys/devices/virtual/dmi/id/modalias:</p>
4276
4277 <p><blockquote>
4278 dmi:bvnIBM:bvr1UETB6WW(1.66):bd06/15/2005:svnIBM:pn2371H4G:pvrThinkPadX40:rvnIBM:rn2371H4G:rvrNotAvailable:cvnIBM:ct10:cvrNotAvailable:
4279 </blockquote></p>
4280
4281 <p>The values present are</p>
4282
4283 <pre>
4284  bvn  IBM            (BIOS vendor)
4285  bvr  1UETB6WW(1.66) (BIOS version)
4286  bd   06/15/2005     (BIOS date)
4287  svn  IBM            (system vendor)
4288  pn   2371H4G        (product name)
4289  pvr  ThinkPadX40    (product version)
4290  rvn  IBM            (board vendor)
4291  rn   2371H4G        (board name)
4292  rvr  NotAvailable   (board version)
4293  cvn  IBM            (chassis vendor)
4294  ct   10             (chassis type)
4295  cvr  NotAvailable   (chassis version)
4296 </pre>
4297
4298 <p>The chassis type 10 is Notebook.  Other interesting values can be
4299 found in the dmidecode source:</p>
4300
4301 <pre>
4302   3 Desktop
4303   4 Low Profile Desktop
4304   5 Pizza Box
4305   6 Mini Tower
4306   7 Tower
4307   8 Portable
4308   9 Laptop
4309  10 Notebook
4310  11 Hand Held
4311  12 Docking Station
4312  13 All In One
4313  14 Sub Notebook
4314  15 Space-saving
4315  16 Lunch Box
4316  17 Main Server Chassis
4317  18 Expansion Chassis
4318  19 Sub Chassis
4319  20 Bus Expansion Chassis
4320  21 Peripheral Chassis
4321  22 RAID Chassis
4322  23 Rack Mount Chassis
4323  24 Sealed-case PC
4324  25 Multi-system
4325  26 CompactPCI
4326  27 AdvancedTCA
4327  28 Blade
4328  29 Blade Enclosing
4329 </pre>
4330
4331 <p>The chassis type values are not always accurately set in the DMI
4332 table.  For example my home server is a tower, but the DMI modalias
4333 claim it is a desktop.</p>
4334
4335 <p><strong>SerIO subtype</strong></p>
4336
4337 <p>This type is used for PS/2 mouse plugs.  One example is from my
4338 test machine:</p>
4339
4340 <p><blockquote>
4341 serio:ty01pr00id00ex00
4342 </blockquote></p>
4343
4344 <p>The values present are</p>
4345
4346 <pre>
4347   ty  01  (type)
4348   pr  00  (prototype)
4349   id  00  (id)
4350   ex  00  (extra)
4351 </pre>
4352
4353 <p>This type is supported by the psmouse driver.  I am not sure what
4354 the valid values are.</p>
4355
4356 <p><strong>Other subtypes</strong></p>
4357
4358 <p>There are heaps of other modalias subtypes according to
4359 file2alias.c.  There is the rest of the list from that source: amba,
4360 ap, bcma, ccw, css, eisa, hid, i2c, ieee1394, input, ipack, isapnp,
4361 mdio, of, parisc, pcmcia, platform, scsi, sdio, spi, ssb, vio, virtio,
4362 vmbus, x86cpu and zorro.  I did not spend time documenting all of
4363 these, as they do not seem relevant for my intended use with mapping
4364 hardware to packages when new stuff is inserted during run time.</p>
4365
4366 <p><strong>Looking up kernel modules using modalias values</strong></p>
4367
4368 <p>To check which kernel modules provide support for a given modalias,
4369 one can use the following shell script:</p>
4370
4371 <pre>
4372   for id in $(find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u); do \
4373     echo "$id" ; \
4374     /sbin/modprobe --show-depends "$id"|sed 's/^/  /' ; \
4375   done
4376 </pre>
4377
4378 <p>The output can look like this (only the first few entries as the
4379 list is very long on my test machine):</p>
4380
4381 <pre>
4382   acpi:ACPI0003:
4383     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/acpi/ac.ko
4384   acpi:device:
4385   FATAL: Module acpi:device: not found.
4386   acpi:IBM0068:
4387     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/char/nvram.ko
4388     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/leds/led-class.ko
4389     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/rfkill/rfkill.ko
4390     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/platform/x86/thinkpad_acpi.ko
4391   acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
4392     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/lib/crc-ccitt.ko
4393     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/irda/irda.ko
4394     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/net/irda/nsc-ircc.ko
4395   [...]
4396 </pre>
4397
4398 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
4399 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
4400 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
4401 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel</a>.</p>
4402
4403 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-15:</strong> Rewrite "cat $(find ...)" to
4404 "find ... -print0 | xargs -0 cat" to make sure it handle directories
4405 in /sys/ with space in them.</p>
4406
4407       </div>
4408       <div class="tags">
4409
4410
4411         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>.
4412
4413
4414       </div>
4415     </div>
4416     <div class="padding"></div>
4417
4418     <div class="entry">
4419       <div class="title">
4420         <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>
4421       </div>
4422       <div class="date">
4423         10th January 2013
4424       </div>
4425       <div class="body">
4426         <p>As part of my investigation on how to improve the support in Debian
4427 for hardware dongles, I dug up my old Mark and Spencer USB Rocket
4428 Launcher and updated the Debian package
4429 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pymissile">pymissile</a> to make
4430 sure udev will fix the device permissions when it is plugged in.  I
4431 also added a "Modaliases" header to test it in the Debian archive and
4432 hopefully make the package be proposed by jockey in Ubuntu when a user
4433 plug in his rocket launcher.  In the process I moved the source to a
4434 git repository under collab-maint, to make it easier for any DD to
4435 contribute.  <a href="http://code.google.com/p/pymissile/">Upstream</a>
4436 is not very active, but the software still work for me even after five
4437 years of relative silence.  The new git repository is not listed in
4438 the uploaded package yet, because I want to test the other changes a
4439 bit more before I upload the new version.  If you want to check out
4440 the new version with a .desktop file included, visit the
4441 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/pymissile.git">gitweb
4442 view</a> or use "<tt>git clone
4443 git://anonscm.debian.org/collab-maint/pymissile.git</tt>".</p>
4444
4445       </div>
4446       <div class="tags">
4447
4448
4449         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>.
4450
4451
4452       </div>
4453     </div>
4454     <div class="padding"></div>
4455
4456     <div class="entry">
4457       <div class="title">
4458         <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>
4459       </div>
4460       <div class="date">
4461          9th January 2013
4462       </div>
4463       <div class="body">
4464         <p>One thing that annoys me with Debian and Linux distributions in
4465 general, is that there is a great package management system with the
4466 ability to automatically install software packages by downloading them
4467 from the distribution mirrors, but no way to get it to automatically
4468 install the packages I need to use the hardware I plug into my
4469 machine.  Even if the package to use it is easily available from the
4470 Linux distribution.  When I plug in a LEGO Mindstorms NXT, it could
4471 suggest to automatically install the python-nxt, nbc and t2n packages
4472 I need to talk to it.  When I plug in a Yubikey, it could propose the
4473 yubikey-personalization package.  The information required to do this
4474 is available, but no-one have pulled all the pieces together.</p>
4475
4476 <p>Some years ago, I proposed to
4477 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg01206.html">use
4478 the discover subsystem to implement this</a>.  The idea is fairly
4479 simple:
4480
4481 <ul>
4482
4483 <li>Add a desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ pointing to a program
4484   starting when a user log in.</li>
4485
4486 <li>Set this program up to listen for kernel events emitted when new
4487   hardware is inserted into the computer.</li>
4488
4489 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware ID in a
4490   database mapping to packages, and take note of any non-installed
4491   packages.</li>
4492
4493 <li>Show a message to the user proposing to install the discovered
4494   package, and make it easy to install it.</li>
4495
4496 </ul>
4497
4498 <p>I am not sure what the best way to implement this is, but my
4499 initial idea was to use dbus events to discover new hardware, the
4500 discover database to find packages and
4501 <a href="http://www.packagekit.org/">PackageKit</a> to install
4502 packages.</p>
4503
4504 <p>Yesterday, I found time to try to implement this idea, and the
4505 draft package is now checked into
4506 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
4507 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>.  In the process, I updated the
4508 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover-data.html">discover-data</a>
4509 package to map the USB ids of LEGO Mindstorms and Yubikey devices to
4510 the relevant packages in Debian, and uploaded a new version
4511 2.2013.01.09 to unstable.  I also discovered that the current
4512 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover.html">discover</a>
4513 package in Debian no longer discovered any USB devices, because
4514 /proc/bus/usb/devices is no longer present.  I ported it to use
4515 libusb as a fall back option to get it working.  The fixed package
4516 version 2.1.2-6 is now in experimental (didn't upload it to unstable
4517 because of the freeze).</p>
4518
4519 <p>With this prototype in place, I can insert my Yubikey, and get this
4520 desktop notification to show up (only once, the first time it is
4521 inserted):</p>
4522
4523 <p align="center"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-09-hw-autoinstall.png"></p>
4524
4525 <p>For this prototype to be really useful, some way to automatically
4526 install the proposed packages by pressing the "Please install
4527 program(s)" button should to be implemented.</p>
4528
4529 <p>If this idea seem useful to you, and you want to help make it
4530 happen, please help me update the discover-data database with mappings
4531 from hardware to Debian packages.  Check if 'discover-pkginstall -l'
4532 list the package you would like to have installed when a given
4533 hardware device is inserted into your computer, and report bugs using
4534 reportbug if it isn't.  Or, if you know of a better way to provide
4535 such mapping, please let me know.</p>
4536
4537 <p>This prototype need more work, and there are several questions that
4538 should be considered before it is ready for production use.  Is dbus
4539 the correct way to detect new hardware?  At the moment I look for HAL
4540 dbus events on the system bus, because that is the events I could see
4541 on my Debian Squeeze KDE desktop.  Are there better events to use?
4542 How should the user be notified?  Is the desktop notification
4543 mechanism the best option, or should the background daemon raise a
4544 popup instead?  How should packages be installed?  When should they
4545 not be installed?</p>
4546
4547 <p>If you want to help getting such feature implemented in Debian,
4548 please send me an email. :)</p>
4549
4550       </div>
4551       <div class="tags">
4552
4553
4554         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>.
4555
4556
4557       </div>
4558     </div>
4559     <div class="padding"></div>
4560
4561     <div class="entry">
4562       <div class="title">
4563         <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>
4564       </div>
4565       <div class="date">
4566          2nd January 2013
4567       </div>
4568       <div class="body">
4569         <p>During Christmas, I have worked a bit on the Debian support for
4570 <a href="http://mindstorms.lego.com/en-us/Default.aspx">LEGO Mindstorm
4571 NXT</a>.  My son and I have played a bit with my NXT set, and I
4572 discovered I had to build all the tools myself because none were
4573 already in Debian Squeeze.  If Debian support for LEGO is something
4574 you care about, please join me on the IRC channel
4575 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">#debian-lego</a> (server
4576 irc.debian.org).  There is a lot that could be done to improve the
4577 Debian support for LEGO designers.  For example both CAD software
4578 and Mindstorm compilers are missing. :)</p>
4579
4580 <p>Update 2012-01-03: A
4581 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">project page</a>
4582 including links to Lego related packages is now available.</p>
4583
4584       </div>
4585       <div class="tags">
4586
4587
4588         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>.
4589
4590
4591       </div>
4592     </div>
4593     <div class="padding"></div>
4594
4595     <div class="entry">
4596       <div class="title">
4597         <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>
4598       </div>
4599       <div class="date">
4600         25th December 2012
4601       </div>
4602       <div class="body">
4603         <p>Let me start by wishing you all marry Christmas and a happy new
4604 year!  I hope next year will prove to be a good year.</p>
4605
4606 <p><a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">Bitcoin</a>, the digital
4607 decentralised "currency" that allow people to transfer bitcoins
4608 between each other with minimal overhead, is a very interesting
4609 experiment.  And as I wrote a few days ago, the bitcoin situation in
4610 <a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</a> is about to improve a bit.
4611 The <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">new debian source
4612 package</a> (version 0.7.2-2) was uploaded yesterday, and is waiting
4613 in <a href="http://ftp-master.debian.org/new.html">the NEW queue</A>
4614 for one of the ftpmasters to approve the new bitcoin-qt package
4615 name.</p>
4616
4617 <p>And thanks to the great work of Jonas and the rest of the bitcoin
4618 team in Debian, you can easily test the package in Debian Squeeze
4619 using the following steps to get a set of working packages:</p>
4620
4621 <blockquote><pre>
4622 git clone git://git.debian.org/git/collab-maint/bitcoin
4623 cd bitcoin
4624 DEB_MAINTAINER_MODE=1 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp fakeroot debian/rules clean
4625 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp git-buildpackage --git-ignore-new
4626 </pre></blockquote>
4627
4628 <p>You might have to install some build dependencies as well.  The
4629 list of commands should give you two packages, bitcoind and
4630 bitcoin-qt, ready for use in a Squeeze environment.  Note that the
4631 client will download the complete set of bitcoin "blocks", which need
4632 around 5.6 GiB of data on my machine at the moment.  Make sure your
4633 ~/.bitcoin/ directory have lots of spare room if you want to download
4634 all the blocks.  The client will warn if the disk is getting full, so
4635 there is not really a problem if you got too little room, but you will
4636 not be able to get all the features out of the client.</p>
4637
4638 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
4639 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
4640 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
4641
4642       </div>
4643       <div class="tags">
4644
4645
4646         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>.
4647
4648
4649       </div>
4650     </div>
4651     <div class="padding"></div>
4652
4653     <div class="entry">
4654       <div class="title">
4655         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_word_on_bitcoin_support_in_Debian.html">A word on bitcoin support in Debian</a>
4656       </div>
4657       <div class="date">
4658         21st December 2012
4659       </div>
4660       <div class="body">
4661         <p>It has been a while since I wrote about
4662 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">bitcoin</a>, the decentralised
4663 peer-to-peer based crypto-currency, and the reason is simply that I
4664 have been busy elsewhere.  But two days ago, I started looking at the
4665 state of <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin in
4666 Debian</a> again to try to recover my old bitcoin wallet.  The package
4667 is now maintained by a
4668 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/pkg-bitcoin/">team of
4669 people</a>, and the grunt work had already been done by this team.  We
4670 owe a huge thank you to all these team members. :)
4671 But I was sad to discover that the bitcoin client is missing in
4672 Wheezy.  It is only available in Sid (and an outdated client from
4673 backports).  The client had several RC bugs registered in BTS blocking
4674 it from entering testing.  To try to help the team and improve the
4675 situation, I spent some time providing patches and triaging the bug
4676 reports.  I also had a look at the bitcoin package available from Matt
4677 Corallo in a
4678 <a href="https://launchpad.net/~bitcoin/+archive/bitcoin">PPA for
4679 Ubuntu</a>, and moved the useful pieces from that version into the
4680 Debian package.</p>
4681
4682 <p>After checking with the main package maintainer Jonas Smedegaard on
4683 IRC, I pushed several patches into the collab-maint git repository to
4684 improve the package.  It now contains fixes for the RC issues (not from
4685 me, but fixed by Scott Howard), build rules for a Qt GUI client
4686 package, konqueror support for the bitcoin: URI and bash completion
4687 setup.  As I work on Debian Squeeze, I also created
4688 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-bitcoin-devel/Week-of-Mon-20121217/000041.html">a
4689 patch to backport</a> the latest version.  Jonas is going to look at
4690 it and try to integrate it into the git repository before uploading a
4691 new version to unstable.
4692
4693 <p>I would very much like bitcoin to succeed, to get rid of the
4694 centralized control currently exercised in the monetary system.  I
4695 find it completely unacceptable that the USA government is collecting
4696 transaction data for almost all international money transfers (most are done in USD and transaction logs shipped to the spooks), and
4697 that the major credit card companies can block legal money
4698 transactions to Wikileaks.  But for bitcoin to succeed, more people
4699 need to use bitcoins, and more people need to accept bitcoins when
4700 they sell products and services.  Improving the bitcoin support in
4701 Debian is a small step in the right direction, but not enough.
4702 Unfortunately the user experience when browsing the web and wanting to
4703 pay with bitcoin is still not very good.  The bitcoin: URI is a step
4704 in the right direction, but need to work in most or every browser in
4705 use.  Also the bitcoin-qt client is too heavy to fire up to do a
4706 quick transaction.  I believe there are other clients available, but
4707 have not tested them.</p>
4708
4709 <p>My
4710 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Now_accepting_bitcoins___anonymous_and_distributed_p2p_crypto_money.html">experiment
4711 with bitcoins</a> showed that at least some of my readers use bitcoin.
4712 I received 20.15 BTC so far on the address I provided in my blog two
4713 years ago, as can be
4714 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">seen
4715 on the blockexplorer service</a>.  Thank you everyone for your
4716 donation.  The blockexplorer service demonstrates quite well that
4717 bitcoin is not quite anonymous and untracked. :) I wonder if the
4718 number of users have gone up since then.  If you use bitcoin and want
4719 to show your support of my activity, please send Bitcoin donations to
4720 the same address as last time,
4721 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
4722
4723       </div>
4724       <div class="tags">
4725
4726
4727         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>.
4728
4729
4730       </div>
4731     </div>
4732     <div class="padding"></div>
4733
4734     <div class="entry">
4735       <div class="title">
4736         <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>
4737       </div>
4738       <div class="date">
4739          7th September 2012
4740       </div>
4741       <div class="body">
4742         <p>As I
4743 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">mentioned
4744 this summer</a>, I have created a Computer Science song book a few
4745 years ago, and today I finally found time to create a public
4746 <a href="https://gitorious.org/pere-cs-songbook/pere-cs-songbook">Gitorious
4747 repository for the project</a>.</p>
4748
4749 <p>If you want to help out, please clone the source and submit patches
4750 to the HTML version.  To generate the PDF and PostScript version,
4751 please use prince XML, or let me know about a useful free software
4752 processor capable of creating a good looking PDF from the HTML.</p>
4753
4754 <p>Want to sing?  You can still find the song book in HTML, PDF and
4755 PostScript formats at
4756 <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's Computer
4757 Science Songbook</a>.</p>
4758
4759       </div>
4760       <div class="tags">
4761
4762
4763         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>.
4764
4765
4766       </div>
4767     </div>
4768     <div class="padding"></div>
4769
4770     <div class="entry">
4771       <div class="title">
4772         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gratulerer_med_19__rsdagen__Debian_.html">Gratulerer med 19-årsdagen, Debian!</a>
4773       </div>
4774       <div class="date">
4775         16th August 2012
4776       </div>
4777       <div class="body">
4778         <p>I dag fyller
4779 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120813">Debian-prosjektet 19
4780 år</a>.  Jeg har fulgt det de siste 12 årene, og er veldig glad for å kunne
4781 si gratulerer med dagen, Debian!</p>
4782
4783       </div>
4784       <div class="tags">
4785
4786
4787         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>.
4788
4789
4790       </div>
4791     </div>
4792     <div class="padding"></div>
4793
4794     <div class="entry">
4795       <div class="title">
4796         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">Song book for Computer Scientists</a>
4797       </div>
4798       <div class="date">
4799         24th June 2012
4800       </div>
4801       <div class="body">
4802         <p>Many years ago, while studying Computer Science at the
4803 <a href="http://www.uit.no/">University of Tromsø</a>, I started
4804 collecting computer related songs for use at parties.  The original
4805 version was written in LaTeX, but a few years ago I got help from
4806 Håkon W. Lie, one of the inventors of W3C CSS, to convert it to HTML
4807 while keeping the ability to create a nice book in PDF format.  I have
4808 not had time to maintain the book for a while now, and guess I should
4809 put it up on some public version control repository where others can
4810 help me extend and update the book.  If anyone is volunteering to help
4811 me with this, send me an email.  Also let me know if there are songs
4812 missing in my book.</p>
4813
4814 <p>I have not mentioned the book on my blog so far, and it occured to
4815 me today that I really should let all my readers share the joys of
4816 singing out load about programming, computers and computer networks.
4817 Especially now that <a href="http://debconf12.debconf.org/">Debconf
4818 12</a> is about to start (and I am not going).  Want to sing?  Check
4819 out <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's
4820 Computer Science Songbook</a>.
4821
4822       </div>
4823       <div class="tags">
4824
4825
4826         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>.
4827
4828
4829       </div>
4830     </div>
4831     <div class="padding"></div>
4832
4833     <div class="entry">
4834       <div class="title">
4835         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatically_upgrading_server_firmware_on_Dell_PowerEdge.html">Automatically upgrading server firmware on Dell PowerEdge</a>
4836       </div>
4837       <div class="date">
4838         21st November 2011
4839       </div>
4840       <div class="body">
4841         <p>At work we have heaps of servers.  I believe the total count is
4842 around 1000 at the moment.  To be able to get help from the vendors
4843 when something go wrong, we want to keep the firmware on the servers
4844 up to date.  If the firmware isn't the latest and greatest, the
4845 vendors typically refuse to start debugging any problems until the
4846 firmware is upgraded.  So before every reboot, we want to upgrade the
4847 firmware, and we would really like everyone handling servers at the
4848 university to do this themselves when they plan to reboot a machine.
4849 For that to happen we at the unix server admin group need to provide
4850 the tools to do so.</p>
4851
4852 <p>To make firmware upgrading easier, I am working on a script to
4853 fetch and install the latest firmware for the servers we got.  Most of
4854 our hardware are from Dell and HP, so I have focused on these servers
4855 so far.  This blog post is about the Dell part.</P>
4856
4857 <p>On the Dell FTP site I was lucky enough to find
4858 <a href="ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz">an XML file</a>
4859 with firmware information for all 11th generation servers, listing
4860 which firmware should be used on a given model and where on the FTP
4861 site I can find it.  Using a simple perl XML parser I can then
4862 download the shell scripts Dell provides to do firmware upgrades from
4863 within Linux and reboot when all the firmware is primed and ready to
4864 be activated on the first reboot.</p>
4865
4866 <p>This is the Dell related fragment of the perl code I am working on.
4867 Are there anyone working on similar tools for firmware upgrading all
4868 servers at a site?  Please get in touch and lets share resources.</p>
4869
4870 <p><pre>
4871 #!/usr/bin/perl
4872 use strict;
4873 use warnings;
4874 use File::Temp qw(tempdir);
4875 BEGIN {
4876     # Install needed RHEL packages if missing
4877     my %rhelmodules = (
4878         'XML::Simple' => 'perl-XML-Simple',
4879         );
4880     for my $module (keys %rhelmodules) {
4881         eval "use $module;";
4882         if ($@) {
4883             my $pkg = $rhelmodules{$module};
4884             system("yum install -y $pkg");
4885             eval "use $module;";
4886         }
4887     }
4888 }
4889 my $errorsto = 'pere@hungry.com';
4890
4891 upgrade_dell();
4892
4893 exit 0;
4894
4895 sub run_firmware_script {
4896     my ($opts, $script) = @_;
4897     unless ($script) {
4898         print STDERR "fail: missing script name\n";
4899         exit 1
4900     }
4901     print STDERR "Running $script\n\n";
4902
4903     if (0 == system("sh $script $opts")) { # FIXME correct exit code handling
4904         print STDERR "success: firmware script ran succcessfully\n";
4905     } else {
4906         print STDERR "fail: firmware script returned error\n";
4907     }
4908 }
4909
4910 sub run_firmware_scripts {
4911     my ($opts, @dirs) = @_;
4912     # Run firmware packages
4913     for my $dir (@dirs) {
4914         print STDERR "info: Running scripts in $dir\n";
4915         opendir(my $dh, $dir) or die "Unable to open directory $dir: $!";
4916         while (my $s = readdir $dh) {
4917             next if $s =~ m/^\.\.?/;
4918             run_firmware_script($opts, "$dir/$s");
4919         }
4920         closedir $dh;
4921     }
4922 }
4923
4924 sub download {
4925     my $url = shift;
4926     print STDERR "info: Downloading $url\n";
4927     system("wget --quiet \"$url\"");
4928 }
4929
4930 sub upgrade_dell {
4931     my @dirs;
4932     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
4933     chomp $product;
4934
4935     if ($product =~ m/PowerEdge/) {
4936
4937         # on RHEL, these pacakges are needed by the firwmare upgrade scripts
4938         system('yum install -y compat-libstdc++-33.i686 libstdc++.i686 libxml2.i686 procmail');
4939
4940         my $tmpdir = tempdir(
4941             CLEANUP => 1
4942             );
4943         chdir($tmpdir);
4944         fetch_dell_fw('catalog/Catalog.xml.gz');
4945         system('gunzip Catalog.xml.gz');
4946         my @paths = fetch_dell_fw_list('Catalog.xml');
4947         # -q is quiet, disabling interactivity and reducing console output
4948         my $fwopts = "-q";
4949         if (@paths) {
4950             for my $url (@paths) {
4951                 fetch_dell_fw($url);
4952             }
4953             run_firmware_scripts($fwopts, $tmpdir);
4954         } else {
4955             print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
4956             print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
4957         }
4958         chdir('/');
4959     } else {
4960         print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
4961         print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
4962     }
4963 }
4964
4965 sub fetch_dell_fw {
4966     my $path = shift;
4967     my $url = "ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/$path";
4968     download($url);
4969 }
4970
4971 # Using ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz, figure out which
4972 # firmware packages to download from Dell.  Only work for Linux
4973 # machines and 11th generation Dell servers.
4974 sub fetch_dell_fw_list {
4975     my $filename = shift;
4976
4977     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
4978     chomp $product;
4979     my ($mybrand, $mymodel) = split(/\s+/, $product);
4980
4981     print STDERR "Finding firmware bundles for $mybrand $mymodel\n";
4982
4983     my $xml = XMLin($filename);
4984     my @paths;
4985     for my $bundle (@{$xml->{SoftwareBundle}}) {
4986         my $brand = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Display}->{content};
4987         my $model = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Model}->{Display}->{content};
4988         my $oscode;
4989         if ("ARRAY" eq ref $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}) {
4990             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}[0]->{osCode};
4991         } else {
4992             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}->{osCode};
4993         }
4994         if ($mybrand eq $brand && $mymodel eq $model && "LIN" eq $oscode)
4995         {
4996             @paths = map { $_->{path} } @{$bundle->{Contents}->{Package}};
4997         }
4998     }
4999     for my $component (@{$xml->{SoftwareComponent}}) {
5000         my $componenttype = $component->{ComponentType}->{value};
5001
5002         # Drop application packages, only firmware and BIOS
5003         next if 'APAC' eq $componenttype;
5004
5005         my $cpath = $component->{path};
5006         for my $path (@paths) {
5007             if ($cpath =~ m%/$path$%) {
5008                 push(@paths, $cpath);
5009             }
5010         }
5011     }
5012     return @paths;
5013 }
5014 </pre>
5015
5016 <p>The code is only tested on RedHat Enterprise Linux, but I suspect
5017 it could work on other platforms with some tweaking.  Anyone know a
5018 index like Catalog.xml is available from HP for HP servers?  At the
5019 moment I maintain a similar list manually and it is quickly getting
5020 outdated.</p>
5021
5022       </div>
5023       <div class="tags">
5024
5025
5026         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>.
5027
5028
5029       </div>
5030     </div>
5031     <div class="padding"></div>
5032
5033     <div class="entry">
5034       <div class="title">
5035         <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>
5036       </div>
5037       <div class="date">
5038          4th August 2011
5039       </div>
5040       <div class="body">
5041         <p>Wouter Verhelst have some
5042 <a href="http://grep.be/blog/en/retorts/pere_kubuntu_boot">interesting
5043 comments and opinions</a> on my blog post on
5044 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_should_start_from__etc_rcS_d__in_Debian____almost_nothing.html">the
5045 need to clean up /etc/rcS.d/ in Debian</a> and my blog post about
5046 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_missing_in_the_Debian_desktop__or_why_my_parents_use_Kubuntu.html">the
5047 default KDE desktop in Debian</a>.  I only have time to address one
5048 small piece of his comment now, and though it best to address the
5049 misunderstanding he bring forward:</p>
5050
5051 <p><blockquote>
5052 Currently, a system admin has four options: [...] boot to a
5053 single-user system (by adding 'single' to the kernel command line;
5054 this runs rcS and rc1 scripts)
5055 </blockquote></p>
5056
5057 <p>This make me believe Wouter believe booting into single user mode
5058 and booting into runlevel 1 is the same.  I am not surprised he
5059 believe this, because it would make sense and is a quite sensible
5060 thing to believe.  But because the boot in Debian is slightly broken,
5061 runlevel 1 do not work properly and it isn't the same as single user
5062 mode.  I'll try to explain what is actually happing, but it is a bit
5063 hard to explain.</p>
5064
5065 <p>Single user mode is defined like this in /etc/inittab:
5066 "<tt>~~:S:wait:/sbin/sulogin</tt>".  This means the only thing that is
5067 executed in single user mode is sulogin.  Single user mode is a boot
5068 state "between" the runlevels, and when booting into single user mode,
5069 only the scripts in /etc/rcS.d/ are executed before the init process
5070 enters the single user state.  When switching to runlevel 1, the state
5071 is in fact not ending in runlevel 1, but it passes through runlevel 1
5072 and end up in the single user mode (see /etc/rc1.d/S03single, which
5073 runs "init -t1 S" to switch to single user mode at the end of runlevel
5074 1.  It is confusing that the 'S' (single user) init mode is not the
5075 mode enabled by /etc/rcS.d/ (which is more like the initial boot
5076 mode).</p>
5077
5078 <p>This summary might make it clearer.  When booting for the first
5079 time into single user mode, the following commands are executed:
5080 "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc S; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  When booting into
5081 runlevel 1, the following commands are executed: "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc
5082 S; /etc/init.d/rc 1; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  A problem show up when
5083 trying to continue after visiting single user mode.  Not all services
5084 are started again as they should, causing the machine to end up in an
5085 unpredicatble state.  This is why Debian admins recommend rebooting
5086 after visiting single user mode.</p>
5087
5088 <p>A similar problem with runlevel 1 is caused by the amount of
5089 scripts executed from /etc/rcS.d/.  When switching from say runlevel 2
5090 to runlevel 1, the services started from /etc/rcS.d/ are not properly
5091 stopped when passing through the scripts in /etc/rc1.d/, and not
5092 started again when switching away from runlevel 1 to the runlevels
5093 2-5.  I believe the problem is best fixed by moving all the scripts
5094 out of /etc/rcS.d/ that are not <strong>required</strong> to get a
5095 functioning single user mode during boot.</p>
5096
5097 <p>I have spent several years investigating the Debian boot system,
5098 and discovered this problem a few years ago.  I suspect it originates
5099 from when sysvinit was introduced into Debian, a long time ago.</p>
5100
5101       </div>
5102       <div class="tags">
5103
5104
5105         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>.
5106
5107
5108       </div>
5109     </div>
5110     <div class="padding"></div>
5111
5112     <div class="entry">
5113       <div class="title">
5114         <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>
5115       </div>
5116       <div class="date">
5117         30th July 2011
5118       </div>
5119       <div class="body">
5120         <p>In the Debian boot system, several packages include scripts that
5121 are started from /etc/rcS.d/.  In fact, there is a bite more of them
5122 than make sense, and this causes a few problems.  What kind of
5123 problems, you might ask.  There are at least two problems.  The first
5124 is that it is not possible to recover a machine after switching to
5125 runlevel 1.  One need to actually reboot to get the machine back to
5126 the expected state.  The other is that single user boot will sometimes
5127 run into problems because some of the subsystems are activated before
5128 the root login is presented, causing problems when trying to recover a
5129 machine from a problem in that subsystem.  A minor additional point is
5130 that moving more scripts out of rcS.d/ and into the other rc#.d/
5131 directories will increase the amount of scripts that can run in
5132 parallel during boot, and thus decrease the boot time.</p>
5133
5134 <p>So, which scripts should start from rcS.d/.  In short, only the
5135 scripts that _have_ to execute before the root login prompt is
5136 presented during a single user boot should go there.  Everything else
5137 should go into the numeric runlevels.  This means things like
5138 lm-sensors, fuse and x11-common should not run from rcS.d, but from
5139 the numeric runlevels.  Today in Debian, there are around 115 init.d
5140 scripts that are started from rcS.d/, and most of them should be moved
5141 out.  Do your package have one of them?  Please help us make single
5142 user and runlevel 1 better by moving it.</p>
5143
5144 <p>Scripts setting up the screen, keyboard, system partitions
5145 etc. should still be started from rcS.d/, but there is for example no
5146 need to have the network enabled before the single user login prompt
5147 is presented.</p>
5148
5149 <p>As always, things are not so easy to fix as they sound.  To keep
5150 Debian systems working while scripts migrate and during upgrades, the
5151 scripts need to be moved from rcS.d/ to rc2.d/ in reverse dependency
5152 order, ie the scripts that nothing in rcS.d/ depend on can be moved,
5153 and the next ones can only be moved when their dependencies have been
5154 moved first.  This migration must be done sequentially while we ensure
5155 that the package system upgrade packages in the right order to keep
5156 the system state correct.  This will require some coordination when it
5157 comes to network related packages, but most of the packages with
5158 scripts that should migrate do not have anything in rcS.d/ depending
5159 on them.  Some packages have already been updated, like the sudo
5160 package, while others are still left to do.  I wish I had time to work
5161 on this myself, but real live constrains make it unlikely that I will
5162 find time to push this forward.</p>
5163
5164       </div>
5165       <div class="tags">
5166
5167
5168         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>.
5169
5170
5171       </div>
5172     </div>
5173     <div class="padding"></div>
5174
5175     <div class="entry">
5176       <div class="title">
5177         <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>
5178       </div>
5179       <div class="date">
5180         29th July 2011
5181       </div>
5182       <div class="body">
5183         <p>While at Debconf11, I have several times during discussions
5184 mentioned the issues I believe should be improved in Debian for its
5185 desktop to be useful for more people.  The use case for this is my
5186 parents, which are currently running Kubuntu which solve the
5187 issues.</p>
5188
5189 <p>I suspect these four missing features are not very hard to
5190 implement.  After all, they are present in Ubuntu, so if we wanted to
5191 do this in Debian we would have a source.</p>
5192
5193 <ol>
5194
5195 <li><strong>Simple GUI based upgrade of packages.</strong> When there
5196 are new packages available for upgrades, a icon in the KDE status bar
5197 indicate this, and clicking on it will activate the simple upgrade
5198 tool to handle it.  I have no problem guiding both of my parents
5199 through the process over the phone.  If a kernel reboot is required,
5200 this too is indicated by the status bars and the upgrade tool.  Last
5201 time I checked, nothing with the same features was working in KDE in
5202 Debian.</li>
5203
5204 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing Firefox browser
5205 plugins.</strong> When the browser encounter a MIME type it do not
5206 currently have a handler for, it will ask the user if the system
5207 should search for a package that would add support for this MIME type,
5208 and if the user say yes, the APT sources will be searched for packages
5209 advertising the MIME type in their control file (visible in the
5210 Packages file in the APT archive).  If one or more packages are found,
5211 it is a simple click of the mouse to add support for the missing mime
5212 type.  If the package require the user to accept some non-free
5213 license, this is explained to the user.  The entire process make it
5214 more clear to the user why something do not work in the browser, and
5215 make the chances higher for the user to blame the web page authors and
5216 not the browser for any missing features.</li>
5217
5218 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing multimedia codec/format
5219 handlers.</strong> When the media players encounter a format or codec
5220 it is not supporting, a dialog pop up asking the user if the system
5221 should search for a package that would add support for it.  This
5222 happen with things like MP3, Windows Media or H.264.  The selection
5223 and installation procedure is very similar to the Firefox browser
5224 plugin handling.  This is as far as I know implemented using a
5225 gstreamer hook.  The end result is that the user easily get access to
5226 the codecs that are present from the APT archives available, while
5227 explaining more on why a given format is unsupported by Ubuntu.</li>
5228
5229 <li><strong>Better browser handling of some MIME types.</strong> When
5230 displaying a text/plain file in my Debian browser, it will propose to
5231 start emacs to show it.  If I remember correctly, when doing the same
5232 in Kunbutu it show the file as a text file in the browser.  At least I
5233 know Opera will show text files within the browser.  I much prefer the
5234 latter behaviour.</li>
5235
5236 </ol>
5237
5238 <p>There are other nice features as well, like the simplified suite
5239 upgrader, but given that I am the one mostly doing the dist-upgrade,
5240 it do not matter much.</p>
5241
5242 <p>I really hope we could get these features in place for the next
5243 Debian release.  It would require the coordinated effort of several
5244 maintainers, but would make the end user experience a lot better.</p>
5245
5246       </div>
5247       <div class="tags">
5248
5249
5250         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>.
5251
5252
5253       </div>
5254     </div>
5255     <div class="padding"></div>
5256
5257     <div class="entry">
5258       <div class="title">
5259         <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>
5260       </div>
5261       <div class="date">
5262         26th July 2011
5263       </div>
5264       <div class="body">
5265         <p>The Norwegian <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</A>
5266 site is build on Debian/Squeeze, and this platform was chosen because
5267 I am most familiar with Debian (being a Debian Developer for around 10
5268 years) because it is the latest stable Debian release which should get
5269 security support for a few years.</p>
5270
5271 <p>The web service is written in Perl, and depend on some perl modules
5272 that are missing in Debian at the moment.  It would be great if these
5273 modules were added to the Debian archive, allowing anyone to set up
5274 their own <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com">FixMyStreet</a> clone
5275 in their own country using only Debian packages.  The list of modules
5276 missing in Debian/Squeeze isn't very long, and I hope the perl group
5277 will find time to package the 12 modules Catalyst::Plugin::SmartURI,
5278 Catalyst::Plugin::Unicode::Encoding, Catalyst::View::TT, Devel::Hide,
5279 Sort::Key, Statistics::Distributions, Template::Plugin::Comma,
5280 Template::Plugin::DateTime::Format, Term::Size::Any, Term::Size::Perl,
5281 URI::SmartURI and Web::Scraper to make the maintenance of FixMyStreet
5282 easier in the future.</p>
5283
5284 <p>Thanks to the great tools in Debian, getting the missing modules
5285 installed on my server was a simple call to 'cpan2deb Module::Name'
5286 and 'dpkg -i' to install the resulting package.  But this leave me
5287 with the responsibility of tracking security problems, which I really
5288 do not have time for.</p>
5289
5290       </div>
5291       <div class="tags">
5292
5293
5294         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>.
5295
5296
5297       </div>
5298     </div>
5299     <div class="padding"></div>
5300
5301     <div class="entry">
5302       <div class="title">
5303         <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>
5304       </div>
5305       <div class="date">
5306          3rd April 2011
5307       </div>
5308       <div class="body">
5309         <p>Here is a small update for my English readers.  Most of my blog
5310 posts have been in Norwegian the last few weeks, so here is a short
5311 update in English.</p>
5312
5313 <p>The kids still keep me too busy to get much free software work
5314 done, but I did manage to organise a project to get a Norwegian port
5315 of the British service
5316 <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com/">FixMyStreet</a> up and running,
5317 and it has been running for a month now.  The entire project has been
5318 organised by me and two others.  Around Christmas we gathered sponsors
5319 to fund the development work.  In January I drafted a contract with
5320 <a href="http://www.mysociety.org/">mySociety</a> on what to develop,
5321 and in February the development took place.  Most of it involved
5322 converting the source to use GPS coordinates instead of British
5323 easting/northing, and the resulting code should be a lot easier to get
5324 running in any country by now.  The Norwegian
5325 <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</a> is using
5326 <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/">OpenStreetmap</a> as the map
5327 source and the source for administrative borders in Norway, and
5328 support for this had to be added/fixed.</p>
5329
5330 <p>The Norwegian version went live March 3th, and we spent the weekend
5331 polishing the system before we announced it March 7th.  The system is
5332 running on a KVM instance of Debian/Squeeze, and has seen almost 3000
5333 problem reports in a few weeks.  Soon we hope to announce the Android
5334 and iPhone versions making it even easier to report problems with the
5335 public infrastructure.</p>
5336
5337 <p>Perhaps something to consider for those of you in countries without
5338 such service?</p>
5339
5340       </div>
5341       <div class="tags">
5342
5343
5344         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>.
5345
5346
5347       </div>
5348     </div>
5349     <div class="padding"></div>
5350
5351     <div class="entry">
5352       <div class="title">
5353         <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>
5354       </div>
5355       <div class="date">
5356         28th January 2011
5357       </div>
5358       <div class="body">
5359         <p>The last few days I have looked at ways to track open security
5360 issues here at my work with the University of Oslo.  My idea is that
5361 it should be possible to use the information about security issues
5362 available on the Internet, and check our locally
5363 maintained/distributed software against this information.  It should
5364 allow us to verify that no known security issues are forgotten.  The
5365 CVE database listing vulnerabilities seem like a great central point,
5366 and by using the package lists from Debian mapped to CVEs provided by
5367 the testing security team, I believed it should be possible to figure
5368 out which security holes were present in our free software
5369 collection.</p>
5370
5371 <p>After reading up on the topic, it became obvious that the first
5372 building block is to be able to name software packages in a unique and
5373 consistent way across data sources.  I considered several ways to do
5374 this, for example coming up with my own naming scheme like using URLs
5375 to project home pages or URLs to the Freshmeat entries, or using some
5376 existing naming scheme.  And it seem like I am not the first one to
5377 come across this problem, as MITRE already proposed and implemented a
5378 solution.  Enter the <a href="http://cpe.mitre.org/index.html">Common
5379 Platform Enumeration</a> dictionary, a vocabulary for referring to
5380 software, hardware and other platform components.  The CPE ids are
5381 mapped to CVEs in the <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/">National
5382 Vulnerability Database</a>, allowing me to look up know security
5383 issues for any CPE name.  With this in place, all I need to do is to
5384 locate the CPE id for the software packages we use at the university.
5385 This is fairly trivial (I google for 'cve cpe $package' and check the
5386 NVD entry if a CVE for the package exist).</p>
5387
5388 <p>To give you an example.  The GNU gzip source package have the CPE
5389 name cpe:/a:gnu:gzip.  If the old version 1.3.3 was the package to
5390 check out, one could look up
5391 <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
5392 in NVD</a> and get a list of 6 security holes with public CVE entries.
5393 The most recent one is
5394 <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/view/vuln/detail?vulnId=CVE-2010-0001">CVE-2010-0001</a>,
5395 and at the bottom of the NVD page for this vulnerability the complete
5396 list of affected versions is provided.</p>
5397
5398 <p>The NVD database of CVEs is also available as a XML dump, allowing
5399 for offline processing of issues.  Using this dump, I've written a
5400 small script taking a list of CPEs as input and list all CVEs
5401 affecting the packages represented by these CPEs.  One give it CPEs
5402 with version numbers as specified above and get a list of open
5403 security issues out.</p>
5404
5405 <p>Of course for this approach to be useful, the quality of the NVD
5406 information need to be high.  For that to happen, I believe as many as
5407 possible need to use and contribute to the NVD database.  I notice
5408 RHEL is providing
5409 <a href="https://www.redhat.com/security/data/metrics/rhsamapcpe.txt">a
5410 map from CVE to CPE</a>, indicating that they are using the CPE
5411 information.  I'm not aware of Debian and Ubuntu doing the same.</p>
5412
5413 <p>To get an idea about the quality for free software, I spent some
5414 time making it possible to compare the CVE database from Debian with
5415 the CVE database in NVD.  The result look fairly good, but there are
5416 some inconsistencies in NVD (same software package having several
5417 CPEs), and some inaccuracies (NVD not mentioning buggy packages that
5418 Debian believe are affected by a CVE).  Hope to find time to improve
5419 the quality of NVD, but that require being able to get in touch with
5420 someone maintaining it.  So far my three emails with questions and
5421 corrections have not seen any reply, but I hope contact can be
5422 established soon.</p>
5423
5424 <p>An interesting application for CPEs is cross platform package
5425 mapping.  It would be useful to know which packages in for example
5426 RHEL, OpenSuSe and Mandriva are missing from Debian and Ubuntu, and
5427 this would be trivial if all linux distributions provided CPE entries
5428 for their packages.</p>
5429
5430       </div>
5431       <div class="tags">
5432
5433
5434         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>.
5435
5436
5437       </div>
5438     </div>
5439     <div class="padding"></div>
5440
5441     <div class="entry">
5442       <div class="title">
5443         <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>
5444       </div>
5445       <div class="date">
5446         23rd January 2011
5447       </div>
5448       <div class="body">
5449         <p>In the
5450 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/discover-data">discover-data</a>
5451 package in Debian, there is a script to report useful information
5452 about the running hardware for use when people report missing
5453 information.  One part of this script that I find very useful when
5454 debugging hardware problems, is the part mapping loaded kernel module
5455 to the PCI device it claims.  It allow me to quickly see if the kernel
5456 module I expect is driving the hardware I am struggling with.  To see
5457 the output, make sure discover-data is installed and run
5458 <tt>/usr/share/bug/discover-data 3>&1</tt>.  The relevant output on
5459 one of my machines like this:</p>
5460
5461 <pre>
5462 loaded modules:
5463 10de:03eb i2c_nforce2
5464 10de:03f1 ohci_hcd
5465 10de:03f2 ehci_hcd
5466 10de:03f0 snd_hda_intel
5467 10de:03ec pata_amd
5468 10de:03f6 sata_nv
5469 1022:1103 k8temp
5470 109e:036e bttv
5471 109e:0878 snd_bt87x
5472 11ab:4364 sky2
5473 </pre>
5474
5475 <p>The code in question look like this, slightly modified for
5476 readability and to drop the output to file descriptor 3:</p>
5477
5478 <pre>
5479 if [ -d /sys/bus/pci/devices/ ] ; then
5480     echo loaded pci modules:
5481     (
5482         cd /sys/bus/pci/devices/
5483         for address in * ; do
5484             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
5485                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
5486                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
5487                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
5488                     id=`lspci -n -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $3}'`
5489                     echo "$id $module"
5490                 fi
5491             fi
5492         done
5493     )
5494     echo
5495 fi
5496 </pre>
5497
5498 <p>Similar code could be used to extract USB device module
5499 mappings:</p>
5500
5501 <pre>
5502 if [ -d /sys/bus/usb/devices/ ] ; then
5503     echo loaded usb modules:
5504     (
5505         cd /sys/bus/usb/devices/
5506         for address in * ; do
5507             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
5508                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
5509                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
5510                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
5511                     id=$(lsusb -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $6}')
5512                     if [ "$id" ] ; then
5513                         echo "$id $module"
5514                     fi
5515                 fi
5516             fi
5517         done
5518     )
5519     echo
5520 fi
5521 </pre>
5522
5523 <p>This might perhaps be something to include in other tools as
5524 well.</p>
5525
5526       </div>
5527       <div class="tags">
5528
5529
5530         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>.
5531
5532
5533       </div>
5534     </div>
5535     <div class="padding"></div>
5536
5537     <div class="entry">
5538       <div class="title">
5539         <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>
5540       </div>
5541       <div class="date">
5542         22nd December 2010
5543       </div>
5544       <div class="body">
5545         <p>The last few days I have spent at work here at the <a
5546 href="http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo</a> testing if the new
5547 batch of computers will work with Linux.  Every year for the last few
5548 years the university have organised shared bid of a few thousand
5549 computers, and this year HP won the bid.  Two different desktops and
5550 five different laptops are on the list this year.  We in the UNIX
5551 group want to know which one of these computers work well with RHEL
5552 and Ubuntu, the two Linux distributions we currently handle at the
5553 university.</p>
5554
5555 <p>My test method is simple, and I share it here to get feedback and
5556 perhaps inspire others to test hardware as well.  To test, I PXE
5557 install the OS version of choice, and log in as my normal user and run
5558 a few applications and plug in selected pieces of hardware.  When
5559 something fail, I make a note about this in the test matrix and move
5560 on.  If I have some spare time I try to report the bug to the OS
5561 vendor, but as I only have the machines for a short time, I rarely
5562 have the time to do this for all the problems I find.</p>
5563
5564 <p>Anyway, to get to the point of this post.  Here is the simple tests
5565 I perform on a new model.</p>
5566
5567 <ul>
5568
5569 <li>Is PXE installation working?  I'm testing with RHEL6, Ubuntu Lucid
5570 and Ubuntu Maverik at the moment.  If I feel like it, I also test with
5571 RHEL5 and Debian Edu/Squeeze.</li>
5572
5573 <li>Is X.org working?  If the graphical login screen show up after
5574 installation, X.org is working.</li>
5575
5576 <li>Is hardware accelerated OpenGL working?  Running glxgears (in
5577 package mesa-utils on Ubuntu) and writing down the frames per second
5578 reported by the program.</li>
5579
5580 <li>Is sound working?  With Gnome and KDE, a sound is played when
5581 logging in, and if I can hear this the test is successful.  If there
5582 are several audio exits on the machine, I try them all and check if
5583 the Gnome/KDE audio mixer can control where to send the sound.  I
5584 normally test this by playing
5585 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20101012-chef/ ">a HTML5
5586 video</a> in Firefox/Iceweasel.</li>
5587
5588 <li>Is the USB subsystem working?  I test this by plugging in a USB
5589 memory stick and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
5590
5591 <li>Is the CD/DVD player working?  I test this by inserting any CD/DVD
5592 I have lying around, and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
5593
5594 <li>Is any built in camera working?  Test using cheese, and see if a
5595 picture from the v4l device show up.</li>
5596
5597 <li>Is bluetooth working?  Use the Gnome/KDE browsing tool to see if
5598 any bluetooth devices are discovered.  In my office, I normally see a
5599 few.</li>
5600
5601 <li>For laptops, is the SD or Compaq Flash reader working.  I have
5602 memory modules lying around, and stick them in and see if Gnome/KDE
5603 notice this.</li>
5604
5605 <li>For laptops, is suspend/hibernate working?  I'm testing if the
5606 special button work, and if the laptop continue to work after
5607 resume.</li>
5608
5609 <li>For laptops, is the extra buttons working, like audio level,
5610 adjusting background light, switching on/off external video output,
5611 switching on/off wifi, bluetooth, etc?  The set of buttons differ from
5612 laptop to laptop, so I just write down which are working and which are
5613 not.</li>
5614
5615 <li>Some laptops have smart card readers, finger print readers,
5616 acceleration sensors etc.  I rarely test these, as I do not know how
5617 to quickly test if they are working or not, so I only document their
5618 existence.</li>
5619
5620 </ul>
5621
5622 <p>By now I suspect you are really curious what the test results are
5623 for the HP machines I am testing.  I'm not done yet, so I will report
5624 the test results later.  For now I can report that HP 8100 Elite work
5625 fine, and hibernation fail with HP EliteBook 8440p on Ubuntu Lucid,
5626 and audio fail on RHEL6.  Ubuntu Maverik worked with 8440p.  As you
5627 can see, I have most machines left to test.  One interesting
5628 observation is that Ubuntu Lucid has almost twice the frame rate than
5629 RHEL6 with glxgears.  No idea why.</p>
5630
5631       </div>
5632       <div class="tags">
5633
5634
5635         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>.
5636
5637
5638       </div>
5639     </div>
5640     <div class="padding"></div>
5641
5642     <div class="entry">
5643       <div class="title">
5644         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Some_thoughts_on_BitCoins.html">Some thoughts on BitCoins</a>
5645       </div>
5646       <div class="date">
5647         11th December 2010
5648       </div>
5649       <div class="body">
5650         <p>As I continue to explore
5651 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>, I've starting to wonder
5652 what properties the system have, and how it will be affected by laws
5653 and regulations here in Norway.  Here are some random notes.</p>
5654
5655 <p>One interesting thing to note is that since the transactions are
5656 verified using a peer to peer network, all details about a transaction
5657 is known to everyone.  This means that if a BitCoin address has been
5658 published like I did with mine in my initial post about BitCoin, it is
5659 possible for everyone to see how many BitCoins have been transfered to
5660 that address.  There is even a web service to look at the details for
5661 all transactions.  There I can see that my address
5662 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a>
5663 have received 16.06 Bitcoin, the
5664 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3">1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3</a>
5665 address of Simon Phipps have received 181.97 BitCoin and the address
5666 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt">1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt</A>
5667 of EFF have received 2447.38 BitCoins so far.  Thank you to each and
5668 every one of you that donated bitcoins to support my activity. The
5669 fact that anyone can see how much money was transfered to a given
5670 address make it more obvious why the BitCoin community recommend to
5671 generate and hand out a new address for each transaction.  I'm told
5672 there is no way to track which addresses belong to a given person or
5673 organisation without the person or organisation revealing it
5674 themselves, as Simon, EFF and I have done.</p>
5675
5676 <p>In Norway, and in most other countries, there are laws and
5677 regulations limiting how much money one can transfer across the border
5678 without declaring it.  There are money laundering, tax and accounting
5679 laws and regulations I would expect to apply to the use of BitCoin.
5680 If the Skolelinux foundation
5681 (<a href="http://linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">SLX
5682 Debian Labs</a>) were to accept donations in BitCoin in addition to
5683 normal bank transfers like EFF is doing, how should this be accounted?
5684 Given that it is impossible to know if money can cross the border or
5685 not, should everything or nothing be declared?  What exchange rate
5686 should be used when calculating taxes?  Would receivers have to pay
5687 income tax if the foundation were to pay Skolelinux contributors in
5688 BitCoin?  I have no idea, but it would be interesting to know.</p>
5689
5690 <p>For a currency to be useful and successful, it must be trusted and
5691 accepted by a lot of users.  It must be possible to get easy access to
5692 the currency (as a wage or using currency exchanges), and it must be
5693 easy to spend it.  At the moment BitCoin seem fairly easy to get
5694 access to, but there are very few places to spend it.  I am not really
5695 a regular user of any of the vendor types currently accepting BitCoin,
5696 so I wonder when my kind of shop would start accepting BitCoins.  I
5697 would like to buy electronics, travels and subway tickets, not herbs
5698 and books. :) The currency is young, and this will improve over time
5699 if it become popular, but I suspect regular banks will start to lobby
5700 to get BitCoin declared illegal if it become popular.  I'm sure they
5701 will claim it is helping fund terrorism and money laundering (which
5702 probably would be true, as is any currency in existence), but I
5703 believe the problems should be solved elsewhere and not by blaming
5704 currencies.</p>
5705
5706 <p>The process of creating new BitCoins is called mining, and it is
5707 CPU intensive process that depend on a bit of luck as well (as one is
5708 competing against all the other miners currently spending CPU cycles
5709 to see which one get the next lump of cash).  The "winner" get 50
5710 BitCoin when this happen.  Yesterday I came across the obvious way to
5711 join forces to increase ones changes of getting at least some coins,
5712 by coordinating the work on mining BitCoins across several machines
5713 and people, and sharing the result if one is lucky and get the 50
5714 BitCoins.  Check out
5715 <a href="http://www.bluishcoder.co.nz/bitcoin-pool/">BitCoin Pool</a>
5716 if this sounds interesting.  I have not had time to try to set up a
5717 machine to participate there yet, but have seen that running on ones
5718 own for a few days have not yield any BitCoins througth mining
5719 yet.</p>
5720
5721 <p>Update 2010-12-15: Found an <a
5722 href="http://inertia.posterous.com/reply-to-the-underground-economist-why-bitcoi">interesting
5723 criticism</a> of bitcoin.  Not quite sure how valid it is, but thought
5724 it was interesting to read.  The arguments presented seem to be
5725 equally valid for gold, which was used as a currency for many years.</p>
5726
5727       </div>
5728       <div class="tags">
5729
5730
5731         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>.
5732
5733
5734       </div>
5735     </div>
5736     <div class="padding"></div>
5737
5738     <div class="entry">
5739       <div class="title">
5740         <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>
5741       </div>
5742       <div class="date">
5743         10th December 2010
5744       </div>
5745       <div class="body">
5746         <p>With this weeks lawless
5747 <a href="http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/06/wikileaks/index.html">governmental
5748 attacks</a> on Wikileak and
5749 <a href="http://www.salon.com/technology/dan_gillmor/2010/12/06/war_on_speech">free
5750 speech</a>, it has become obvious that PayPal, visa and mastercard can
5751 not be trusted to handle money transactions.
5752 A blog post from
5753 <a href="http://webmink.com/2010/12/06/now-accepting-bitcoin/">Simon
5754 Phipps on bitcoin</a> reminded me about a project that a friend of
5755 mine mentioned earlier.  I decided to follow Simon's example, and get
5756 involved with <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>.  I got
5757 some help from my friend to get it all running, and he even handed me
5758 some bitcoins to get started.  I even donated a few bitcoins to Simon
5759 for helping me remember BitCoin.</p>
5760
5761 <p>So, what is bitcoins, you probably wonder?  It is a digital
5762 crypto-currency, decentralised and handled using peer-to-peer
5763 networks.  It allows anonymous transactions and prohibits central
5764 control over the transactions, making it impossible for governments
5765 and companies alike to block donations and other transactions.  The
5766 source is free software, and while the key dependency wxWidgets 2.9
5767 for the graphical user interface is missing in Debian, the command
5768 line client builds just fine.  Hopefully Jonas
5769 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/578157">will get the package into
5770 Debian</a> soon.</p>
5771
5772 <p>Bitcoins can be converted to other currencies, like USD and EUR.
5773 There are <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/trade">companies accepting
5774 bitcoins</a> when selling services and goods, and there are even
5775 currency "stock" markets where the exchange rate is decided.  There
5776 are not many users so far, but the concept seems promising.  If you
5777 want to get started and lack a friend with any bitcoins to spare,
5778 you can even get
5779 <a href="https://freebitcoins.appspot.com/">some for free</a> (0.05
5780 bitcoin at the time of writing).  Use
5781 <a href="http://www.bitcoinwatch.com/">BitcoinWatch</a> to keep an eye
5782 on the current exchange rates.</p>
5783
5784 <p>As an experiment, I have decided to set up bitcoind on one of my
5785 machines.  If you want to support my activity, please send Bitcoin
5786 donations to the address
5787 <b>15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</b>.  Thank you!</p>
5788
5789       </div>
5790       <div class="tags">
5791
5792
5793         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>.
5794
5795
5796       </div>
5797     </div>
5798     <div class="padding"></div>
5799
5800     <div class="entry">
5801       <div class="title">
5802         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_isn_t_Debian_Edu_using_VLC_.html">Why isn't Debian Edu using VLC?</a>
5803       </div>
5804       <div class="date">
5805         27th November 2010
5806       </div>
5807       <div class="body">
5808         <p>In the latest issue of Linux Journal, the readers choices were
5809 presented, and the winner among the multimedia player were VLC.
5810 Personally, I like VLC, and it is my player of choice when I first try
5811 to play a video file or stream.  Only if VLC fail will I drag out
5812 gmplayer to see if it can do better.  The reason is mostly the failure
5813 model and trust.  When VLC fail, it normally pop up a error message
5814 reporting the problem.  When mplayer fail, it normally segfault or
5815 just hangs.  The latter failure mode drain my trust in the program.<p>
5816
5817 <p>But even if VLC is my player of choice, we have choosen to use
5818 mplayer in <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
5819 Edu/Skolelinux</a>.  The reason is simple.  We need a good browser
5820 plugin to play web videos seamlessly, and the VLC browser plugin is
5821 not very good.  For example, it lack in-line control buttons, so there
5822 is no way for the user to pause the video.  Also, when I
5823 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">last
5824 tested the browser plugins</a> available in Debian, the VLC plugin
5825 failed on several video pages where mplayer based plugins worked.  If
5826 the browser plugin for VLC was as good as the gecko-mediaplayer
5827 package (which uses mplayer), we would switch.</P>
5828
5829 <p>While VLC is a good player, its user interface is slightly
5830 annoying.  The most annoying feature is its inconsistent use of
5831 keyboard shortcuts.  When the player is in full screen mode, its
5832 shortcuts are different from when it is playing the video in a window.
5833 For example, space only work as pause when in full screen mode.  I
5834 wish it had consisten shortcuts and that space also would work when in
5835 window mode.  Another nice shortcut in gmplayer is [enter] to restart
5836 the current video.  It is very nice when playing short videos from the
5837 web and want to restart it when new people arrive to have a look at
5838 what is going on.</p>
5839
5840       </div>
5841       <div class="tags">
5842
5843
5844         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>.
5845
5846
5847       </div>
5848     </div>
5849     <div class="padding"></div>
5850
5851     <div class="entry">
5852       <div class="title">
5853         <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>
5854       </div>
5855       <div class="date">
5856         22nd November 2010
5857       </div>
5858       <div class="body">
5859         <p>Michael Biebl suggested to me on IRC, that I changed my automated
5860 upgrade testing of the
5861 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
5862 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a> to do <tt>apt-get autoremove</tt> when using apt-get.
5863 This seem like a very good idea, so I adjusted by test scripts and
5864 can now present the updated result from today:</p>
5865
5866 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
5867
5868 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
5869
5870 <blockquote><p>
5871   apache2.2-bin
5872   aptdaemon
5873   baobab
5874   binfmt-support
5875   browser-plugin-gnash
5876   cheese-common
5877   cli-common
5878   cups-pk-helper
5879   dmz-cursor-theme
5880   empathy
5881   empathy-common
5882   freedesktop-sound-theme
5883   freeglut3
5884   gconf-defaults-service
5885   gdm-themes
5886   gedit-plugins
5887   geoclue
5888   geoclue-hostip
5889   geoclue-localnet
5890   geoclue-manual
5891   geoclue-yahoo
5892   gnash
5893   gnash-common
5894   gnome
5895   gnome-backgrounds
5896   gnome-cards-data
5897   gnome-codec-install
5898   gnome-core
5899   gnome-desktop-environment
5900   gnome-disk-utility
5901   gnome-screenshot
5902   gnome-search-tool
5903   gnome-session-canberra
5904   gnome-system-log
5905   gnome-themes-extras
5906   gnome-themes-more
5907   gnome-user-share
5908   gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
5909   gstreamer0.10-tools
5910   gtk2-engines
5911   gtk2-engines-pixbuf
5912   gtk2-engines-smooth
5913   hamster-applet
5914   libapache2-mod-dnssd
5915   libapr1
5916   libaprutil1
5917   libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3
5918   libaprutil1-ldap
5919   libart2.0-cil
5920   libboost-date-time1.42.0
5921   libboost-python1.42.0
5922   libboost-thread1.42.0
5923   libchamplain-0.4-0
5924   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0
5925   libcheese-gtk18
5926   libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
5927   libcryptui0
5928   libdiscid0
5929   libelf1
5930   libepc-1.0-2
5931   libepc-common
5932   libepc-ui-1.0-2
5933   libfreerdp-plugins-standard
5934   libfreerdp0
5935   libgconf2.0-cil
5936   libgdata-common
5937   libgdata7
5938   libgdu-gtk0
5939   libgee2
5940   libgeoclue0
5941   libgexiv2-0
5942   libgif4
5943   libglade2.0-cil
5944   libglib2.0-cil
5945   libgmime2.4-cil
5946   libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
5947   libgnome2.24-cil
5948   libgnomepanel2.24-cil
5949   libgpod-common
5950   libgpod4
5951   libgtk2.0-cil
5952   libgtkglext1
5953   libgtksourceview2.0-common
5954   libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
5955   libmono-addins0.2-cil
5956   libmono-cairo2.0-cil
5957   libmono-corlib2.0-cil
5958   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil
5959   libmono-posix2.0-cil
5960   libmono-security2.0-cil
5961   libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
5962   libmono-system2.0-cil
5963   libmtp8
5964   libmusicbrainz3-6
5965   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil
5966   libndesk-dbus1.0-cil
5967   libopal3.6.8
5968   libpolkit-gtk-1-0
5969   libpt2.6.7
5970   libpython2.6
5971   librpm1
5972   librpmio1
5973   libsdl1.2debian
5974   libsrtp0
5975   libssh-4
5976   libtelepathy-farsight0
5977   libtelepathy-glib0
5978   libtidy-0.99-0
5979   media-player-info
5980   mesa-utils
5981   mono-2.0-gac
5982   mono-gac
5983   mono-runtime
5984   nautilus-sendto
5985   nautilus-sendto-empathy
5986   p7zip-full
5987   pkg-config
5988   python-aptdaemon
5989   python-aptdaemon-gtk
5990   python-axiom
5991   python-beautifulsoup
5992   python-bugbuddy
5993   python-clientform
5994   python-coherence
5995   python-configobj
5996   python-crypto
5997   python-cupshelpers
5998   python-elementtree
5999   python-epsilon
6000   python-evolution
6001   python-feedparser
6002   python-gdata
6003   python-gdbm
6004   python-gst0.10
6005   python-gtkglext1
6006   python-gtksourceview2
6007   python-httplib2
6008   python-louie
6009   python-mako
6010   python-markupsafe
6011   python-mechanize
6012   python-nevow
6013   python-notify
6014   python-opengl
6015   python-openssl
6016   python-pam
6017   python-pkg-resources
6018   python-pyasn1
6019   python-pysqlite2
6020   python-rdflib
6021   python-serial
6022   python-tagpy
6023   python-twisted-bin
6024   python-twisted-conch
6025   python-twisted-core
6026   python-twisted-web
6027   python-utidylib
6028   python-webkit
6029   python-xdg
6030   python-zope.interface
6031   remmina
6032   remmina-plugin-data
6033   remmina-plugin-rdp
6034   remmina-plugin-vnc
6035   rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
6036   rhythmbox-plugins
6037   rpm-common
6038   rpm2cpio
6039   seahorse-plugins
6040   shotwell
6041   software-center
6042   system-config-printer-udev
6043   telepathy-gabble
6044   telepathy-mission-control-5
6045   telepathy-salut
6046   tomboy
6047   totem
6048   totem-coherence
6049   totem-mozilla
6050   totem-plugins
6051   transmission-common
6052   xdg-user-dirs
6053   xdg-user-dirs-gtk
6054   xserver-xephyr
6055 </p></blockquote>
6056
6057 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
6058
6059 <blockquote><p>
6060   cheese
6061   ekiga
6062   eog
6063   epiphany-extensions
6064   evolution-exchange
6065   fast-user-switch-applet
6066   file-roller
6067   gcalctool
6068   gconf-editor
6069   gdm
6070   gedit
6071   gedit-common
6072   gnome-games
6073   gnome-games-data
6074   gnome-nettool
6075   gnome-system-tools
6076   gnome-themes
6077   gnuchess
6078   gucharmap
6079   guile-1.8-libs
6080   libavahi-ui0
6081   libdmx1
6082   libgalago3
6083   libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
6084   libgtksourceview2.0-0
6085   liblircclient0
6086   libsdl1.2debian-alsa
6087   libspeexdsp1
6088   libsvga1
6089   rhythmbox
6090   seahorse
6091   sound-juicer
6092   system-config-printer
6093   totem-common
6094   transmission-gtk
6095   vinagre
6096   vino
6097 </p></blockquote>
6098
6099 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
6100
6101 <blockquote><p>
6102   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
6103 </p></blockquote>
6104
6105 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
6106
6107 <blockquote><p>
6108 [nothing]
6109 </p></blockquote>
6110
6111 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
6112
6113 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
6114
6115 <blockquote><p>
6116   ksmserver
6117 </p></blockquote>
6118
6119 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
6120
6121 <blockquote><p>
6122   kwin
6123   network-manager-kde
6124 </p></blockquote>
6125
6126 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
6127
6128 <blockquote><p>
6129   arts
6130   dolphin
6131   freespacenotifier
6132   google-gadgets-gst
6133   google-gadgets-xul
6134   kappfinder
6135   kcalc
6136   kcharselect
6137   kde-core
6138   kde-plasma-desktop
6139   kde-standard
6140   kde-window-manager
6141   kdeartwork
6142   kdeartwork-emoticons
6143   kdeartwork-style
6144   kdeartwork-theme-icon
6145   kdebase
6146   kdebase-apps
6147   kdebase-workspace
6148   kdebase-workspace-bin
6149   kdebase-workspace-data
6150   kdeeject
6151   kdelibs
6152   kdeplasma-addons
6153   kdeutils
6154   kdewallpapers
6155   kdf
6156   kfloppy
6157   kgpg
6158   khelpcenter4
6159   kinfocenter
6160   konq-plugins-l10n
6161   konqueror-nsplugins
6162   kscreensaver
6163   kscreensaver-xsavers
6164   ktimer
6165   kwrite
6166   libgle3
6167   libkde4-ruby1.8
6168   libkonq5
6169   libkonq5-templates
6170   libnetpbm10
6171   libplasma-ruby
6172   libplasma-ruby1.8
6173   libqt4-ruby1.8
6174   marble-data
6175   marble-plugins
6176   netpbm
6177   nuvola-icon-theme
6178   plasma-dataengines-workspace
6179   plasma-desktop
6180   plasma-desktopthemes-artwork
6181   plasma-runners-addons
6182   plasma-scriptengine-googlegadgets
6183   plasma-scriptengine-python
6184   plasma-scriptengine-qedje
6185   plasma-scriptengine-ruby
6186   plasma-scriptengine-webkit
6187   plasma-scriptengines
6188   plasma-wallpapers-addons
6189   plasma-widget-folderview
6190   plasma-widget-networkmanagement
6191   ruby
6192   sweeper
6193   update-notifier-kde
6194   xscreensaver-data-extra
6195   xscreensaver-gl
6196   xscreensaver-gl-extra
6197   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
6198 </p></blockquote>
6199
6200 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
6201
6202 <blockquote><p>
6203   ark
6204   google-gadgets-common
6205   google-gadgets-qt
6206   htdig
6207   kate
6208   kdebase-bin
6209   kdebase-data
6210   kdepasswd
6211   kfind
6212   klipper
6213   konq-plugins
6214   konqueror
6215   ksysguard
6216   ksysguardd
6217   libarchive1
6218   libcln6
6219   libeet1
6220   libeina-svn-06
6221   libggadget-1.0-0b
6222   libggadget-qt-1.0-0b
6223   libgps19
6224   libkdecorations4
6225   libkephal4
6226   libkonq4
6227   libkonqsidebarplugin4a
6228   libkscreensaver5
6229   libksgrd4
6230   libksignalplotter4
6231   libkunitconversion4
6232   libkwineffects1a
6233   libmarblewidget4
6234   libntrack-qt4-1
6235   libntrack0
6236   libplasma-geolocation-interface4
6237   libplasmaclock4a
6238   libplasmagenericshell4
6239   libprocesscore4a
6240   libprocessui4a
6241   libqalculate5
6242   libqedje0a
6243   libqtruby4shared2
6244   libqzion0a
6245   libruby1.8
6246   libscim8c2a
6247   libsmokekdecore4-3
6248   libsmokekdeui4-3
6249   libsmokekfile3
6250   libsmokekhtml3
6251   libsmokekio3
6252   libsmokeknewstuff2-3
6253   libsmokeknewstuff3-3
6254   libsmokekparts3
6255   libsmokektexteditor3
6256   libsmokekutils3
6257   libsmokenepomuk3
6258   libsmokephonon3
6259   libsmokeplasma3
6260   libsmokeqtcore4-3
6261   libsmokeqtdbus4-3
6262   libsmokeqtgui4-3
6263   libsmokeqtnetwork4-3
6264   libsmokeqtopengl4-3
6265   libsmokeqtscript4-3
6266   libsmokeqtsql4-3
6267   libsmokeqtsvg4-3
6268   libsmokeqttest4-3
6269   libsmokeqtuitools4-3
6270   libsmokeqtwebkit4-3
6271   libsmokeqtxml4-3
6272   libsmokesolid3
6273   libsmokesoprano3
6274   libtaskmanager4a
6275   libtidy-0.99-0
6276   libweather-ion4a
6277   libxklavier16
6278   libxxf86misc1
6279   okteta
6280   oxygencursors
6281   plasma-dataengines-addons
6282   plasma-scriptengine-superkaramba
6283   plasma-widget-lancelot
6284   plasma-widgets-addons
6285   plasma-widgets-workspace
6286   polkit-kde-1
6287   ruby1.8
6288   systemsettings
6289   update-notifier-common
6290 </p></blockquote>
6291
6292 <p>Running apt-get autoremove made the results using apt-get and
6293 aptitude a bit more similar, but there are still quite a lott of
6294 differences.  I have no idea what packages should be installed after
6295 the upgrade, but hope those that do can have a look.</p>
6296
6297       </div>
6298       <div class="tags">
6299
6300
6301         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>.
6302
6303
6304       </div>
6305     </div>
6306     <div class="padding"></div>
6307
6308     <div class="entry">
6309       <div class="title">
6310         <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>
6311       </div>
6312       <div class="date">
6313         22nd November 2010
6314       </div>
6315       <div class="body">
6316         <p>Most of the computers in use by the
6317 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux project</a>
6318 are virtual machines.  And they have been Xen machines running on a
6319 fairly old IBM eserver xseries 345 machine, and we wanted to migrate
6320 them to KVM on a newer Dell PowerEdge 2950 host machine.  This was a
6321 bit harder that it could have been, because we set up the Xen virtual
6322 machines to get the virtual partitions from LVM, which as far as I
6323 know is not supported by KVM.  So to migrate, we had to convert
6324 several LVM logical volumes to partitions on a virtual disk file.</p>
6325
6326 <p>I found
6327 <a href="http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM">a
6328 nice recipe</a> to do this, and wrote the following script to do the
6329 migration.  It uses qemu-img from the qemu package to make the disk
6330 image, parted to partition it, losetup and kpartx to present the disk
6331 image partions as devices, and dd to copy the data.  I NFS mounted the
6332 new servers storage area on the old server to do the migration.</p>
6333
6334 <pre>
6335 #!/bin/sh
6336
6337 # Based on
6338 # http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM
6339
6340 set -e
6341 set -x
6342
6343 if [ -z "$1" ] ; then
6344     echo "Usage: $0 &lt;hostname&gt;"
6345     exit 1
6346 else
6347     host="$1"
6348 fi
6349
6350 if [ ! -e /dev/vg_data/$host-disk ] ; then
6351     echo "error: unable to find LVM volume for $host"
6352     exit 1
6353 fi
6354
6355 # Partitions need to be a bit bigger than the LVM LVs.  not sure why.
6356 disksize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-disk | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
6357 swapsize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-swap | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
6358 totalsize=$(( ( $disksize + $swapsize ) ))
6359
6360 img=$host.img
6361 #dd if=/dev/zero of=$img bs=1M count=$(( $disksize + $swapsize ))
6362 qemu-img create $img ${totalsize}MMaking room on the Debian Edu/Sqeeze DVD
6363
6364 parted $img mklabel msdos
6365 parted $img mkpart primary linux-swap 0 $disksize
6366 parted $img mkpart primary ext2 $disksize $totalsize
6367 parted $img set 1 boot on
6368
6369 modprobe dm-mod
6370 losetup /dev/loop0 $img
6371 kpartx -a /dev/loop0
6372
6373 dd if=/dev/vg_data/$host-disk of=/dev/mapper/loop0p1 bs=1M
6374 fsck.ext3 -f /dev/mapper/loop0p1 || true
6375 mkswap /dev/mapper/loop0p2
6376
6377 kpartx -d /dev/loop0
6378 losetup -d /dev/loop0
6379 </pre>
6380
6381 <p>The script is perhaps so simple that it is not copyrightable, but
6382 if it is, it is licenced using GPL v2 or later at your discretion.</p>
6383
6384 <p>After doing this, I booted a Debian CD in rescue mode in KVM with
6385 the new disk image attached, installed grub-pc and linux-image-686 and
6386 set up grub to boot from the disk image.  After this, the KVM machines
6387 seem to work just fine.</p>
6388
6389       </div>
6390       <div class="tags">
6391
6392
6393         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>.
6394
6395
6396       </div>
6397     </div>
6398     <div class="padding"></div>
6399
6400     <div class="entry">
6401       <div class="title">
6402         <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>
6403       </div>
6404       <div class="date">
6405         20th November 2010
6406       </div>
6407       <div class="body">
6408         <p>I'm still running upgrade testing of the
6409 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
6410 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a>, but have not had time to spend on reporting the
6411 status.  Here is a short update based on a test I ran 20101118.</p>
6412
6413 <p>I still do not know what a correct migration should look like, so I
6414 report any differences between apt and aptitude and hope someone else
6415 can see if anything should be changed.</p>
6416
6417 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
6418
6419 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
6420
6421 <blockquote><p>
6422   apache2.2-bin aptdaemon at-spi baobab binfmt-support
6423   browser-plugin-gnash cheese-common cli-common cpp-4.3 cups-pk-helper
6424   dmz-cursor-theme empathy empathy-common finger
6425   freedesktop-sound-theme freeglut3 gconf-defaults-service gdm-themes
6426   gedit-plugins geoclue geoclue-hostip geoclue-localnet geoclue-manual
6427   geoclue-yahoo gnash gnash-common gnome gnome-backgrounds
6428   gnome-cards-data gnome-codec-install gnome-core
6429   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-disk-utility gnome-screenshot
6430   gnome-search-tool gnome-session-canberra gnome-spell
6431   gnome-system-log gnome-themes-extras gnome-themes-more
6432   gnome-user-share gs-common gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
6433   gstreamer0.10-tools gtk2-engines gtk2-engines-pixbuf
6434   gtk2-engines-smooth hal-info hamster-applet libapache2-mod-dnssd
6435   libapr1 libaprutil1 libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3 libaprutil1-ldap
6436   libart2.0-cil libatspi1.0-0 libboost-date-time1.42.0
6437   libboost-python1.42.0 libboost-thread1.42.0 libchamplain-0.4-0
6438   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0 libcheese-gtk18 libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
6439   libcryptui0 libcupsys2 libdiscid0 libeel2-data libelf1 libepc-1.0-2
6440   libepc-common libepc-ui-1.0-2 libfreerdp-plugins-standard
6441   libfreerdp0 libgail-common libgconf2.0-cil libgdata-common libgdata7
6442   libgdl-1-common libgdu-gtk0 libgee2 libgeoclue0 libgexiv2-0 libgif4
6443   libglade2.0-cil libglib2.0-cil libgmime2.4-cil libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
6444   libgnome2.24-cil libgnomepanel2.24-cil libgnomeprint2.2-data
6445   libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod-common libgpod4
6446   libgtk2.0-cil libgtkglext1 libgtksourceview-common
6447   libgtksourceview2.0-common libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
6448   libmono-addins0.2-cil libmono-cairo2.0-cil libmono-corlib2.0-cil
6449   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil libmono-posix2.0-cil
6450   libmono-security2.0-cil libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
6451   libmono-system2.0-cil libmtp8 libmusicbrainz3-6
6452   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil libndesk-dbus1.0-cil libopal3.6.8
6453   libpolkit-gtk-1-0 libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
6454   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libpt2.6.7 libpython2.6 librpm1 librpmio1
6455   libsdl1.2debian libservlet2.4-java libsrtp0 libssh-4
6456   libtelepathy-farsight0 libtelepathy-glib0 libtidy-0.99-0
6457   libxalan2-java libxerces2-java media-player-info mesa-utils
6458   mono-2.0-gac mono-gac mono-runtime nautilus-sendto
6459   nautilus-sendto-empathy openoffice.org-writer2latex
6460   openssl-blacklist p7zip p7zip-full pkg-config python-4suite-xml
6461   python-aptdaemon python-aptdaemon-gtk python-axiom
6462   python-beautifulsoup python-bugbuddy python-clientform
6463   python-coherence python-configobj python-crypto python-cupshelpers
6464   python-cupsutils python-eggtrayicon python-elementtree
6465   python-epsilon python-evolution python-feedparser python-gdata
6466   python-gdbm python-gst0.10 python-gtkglext1 python-gtkmozembed
6467   python-gtksourceview2 python-httplib2 python-louie python-mako
6468   python-markupsafe python-mechanize python-nevow python-notify
6469   python-opengl python-openssl python-pam python-pkg-resources
6470   python-pyasn1 python-pysqlite2 python-rdflib python-serial
6471   python-tagpy python-twisted-bin python-twisted-conch
6472   python-twisted-core python-twisted-web python-utidylib python-webkit
6473   python-xdg python-zope.interface remmina remmina-plugin-data
6474   remmina-plugin-rdp remmina-plugin-vnc rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
6475   rhythmbox-plugins rpm-common rpm2cpio seahorse-plugins shotwell
6476   software-center svgalibg1 system-config-printer-udev
6477   telepathy-gabble telepathy-mission-control-5 telepathy-salut tomboy
6478   totem totem-coherence totem-mozilla totem-plugins
6479   transmission-common xdg-user-dirs xdg-user-dirs-gtk xserver-xephyr
6480   zip
6481 </p></blockquote>
6482
6483 Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude
6484
6485 <blockquote><p>
6486   arj bluez-utils cheese dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop ekiga eog
6487   epiphany-extensions epiphany-gecko evolution-exchange
6488   fast-user-switch-applet file-roller gcalctool gconf-editor gdm gedit
6489   gedit-common gnome-app-install gnome-games gnome-games-data
6490   gnome-nettool gnome-system-tools gnome-themes gnome-utils
6491   gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager gnuchess gucharmap
6492   guile-1.8-libs hal libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5
6493   libavahi-ui0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7
6494   libcucul0 libcurl3 libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdmx1 libdvdread3
6495   libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1
6496   libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3 libfaad0 libgadu3
6497   libgalago3 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
6498   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
6499   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
6500   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
6501   libgtkhtml2-0 libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgtksourceview2.0-0
6502   libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
6503   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libkpathsea4 liblircclient0 libltdl3 liblwres50
6504   libmagick++10 libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmozjs1d libmpfr1ldbl libmtp7
6505   libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0
6506   libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpisock9
6507   libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8
6508   libsdl1.2debian-alsa libsensors3 libsexy2 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
6509   libspeexdsp1 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libsvga1
6510   libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0
6511   libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12
6512   libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common rhythmbox seahorse
6513   sound-juicer swfdec-gnome system-config-printer totem-common
6514   totem-gstreamer transmission-gtk vinagre vino w3c-dtd-xhtml wodim
6515 </p></blockquote>
6516
6517 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
6518
6519 <blockquote><p>
6520   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
6521 </p></blockquote>
6522
6523 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
6524
6525 <blockquote><p>
6526 [nothing]
6527 </p></blockquote>
6528
6529 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
6530
6531 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
6532
6533 <blockquote><p>
6534   autopoint bomber bovo cantor cantor-backend-kalgebra cpp-4.3 dcoprss
6535   edict espeak espeak-data eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
6536   ghostscript-x git gnome-audio gnugo granatier gs-common
6537   gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio indi kaddressbook-plugins kalgebra
6538   kalzium-data kanjidic kapman kate-plugins kblocks kbreakout kbstate
6539   kde-icons-mono kdeaccessibility kdeaddons-kfile-plugins
6540   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
6541   kdeedu kdeedu-data kdeedu-kvtml-data kdegames kdegames-card-data
6542   kdegames-mahjongg-data kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc
6543   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
6544   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdessh kdetoys kdewebdev
6545   kdiamond kdnssd kfilereplace kfourinline kgeography-data kigo
6546   killbots kiriki klettres-data kmoon kmrml knewsticker-scripts
6547   kollision kpf krosspython ksirk ksmserver ksquares kstars-data
6548   ksudoku kubrick kweather libasound2-plugins libboost-python1.42.0
6549   libcfitsio3 libconvert-binhex-perl libcrypt-ssleay-perl libdb4.6++
6550   libdjvulibre-text libdotconf1.0 liberror-perl libespeak1
6551   libfinance-quote-perl libgail-common libgsl0ldbl libhtml-parser-perl
6552   libhtml-tableextract-perl libhtml-tagset-perl libhtml-tree-perl
6553   libio-stringy-perl libkdeedu4 libkdegames5 libkiten4 libkpathsea5
6554   libkrossui4 libmailtools-perl libmime-tools-perl
6555   libnews-nntpclient-perl libopenbabel3 libportaudio2 libpulse-browse0
6556   libservlet2.4-java libspeechd2 libtiff-tools libtimedate-perl
6557   libunistring0 liburi-perl libwww-perl libxalan2-java libxerces2-java
6558   lirc luatex marble networkstatus noatun-plugins
6559   openoffice.org-writer2latex palapeli palapeli-data parley
6560   parley-data poster psutils pulseaudio pulseaudio-esound-compat
6561   pulseaudio-module-x11 pulseaudio-utils quanta-data rocs rsync
6562   speech-dispatcher step svgalibg1 texlive-binaries texlive-luatex
6563   ttf-sazanami-gothic
6564 </p></blockquote>
6565
6566 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
6567
6568 <blockquote><p>
6569   amor artsbuilder atlantik atlantikdesigner blinken bluez-utils cvs
6570   dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop imlib-base imlib11 kalzium kanagram kandy
6571   kasteroids katomic kbackgammon kbattleship kblackbox kbounce kbruch
6572   kcron kdat kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data kdeprint kdict kdvi kedit
6573   keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs kgeography kghostview
6574   kgoldrunner khangman khexedit kiconedit kig kimagemapeditor
6575   kitchensync kiten kjumpingcube klatin klettres klickety klines
6576   klinkstatus kmag kmahjongg kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmines
6577   kmousetool kmouth kmplot knetwalk kodo kolf kommander konquest kooka
6578   kpager kpat kpdf kpercentage kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler krec
6579   kregexpeditor kreversi ksame ksayit kshisen ksig ksim ksirc ksirtet
6580   ksmiletris ksnake ksokoban kspaceduel kstars ksvg ksysv kteatime
6581   ktip ktnef ktouch ktron kttsd ktuberling kturtle ktux kuickshow
6582   kverbos kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kwordquiz
6583   kworldclock kxsldbg libakode2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
6584   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
6585   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2
6586   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0
6587   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
6588   libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0 libicu38
6589   libiec61883-0 libindex0 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
6590   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1 libkdeedu3
6591   libkdegames1 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
6592   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
6593   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick10
6594   libmimelib1c2a libmodplug0c2 libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libmpfr1ldbl
6595   libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9 libpoppler-glib3
6596   libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 librss1 libsensors3
6597   libsmbios2 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90
6598   libtalloc1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 lskat
6599   mpeglib network-manager-kde noatun pmount tex-common texlive-base
6600   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended tidy
6601   ttf-dustin ttf-kochi-gothic ttf-sjfonts
6602 </p></blockquote>
6603
6604 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
6605
6606 <blockquote><p>
6607   dolphin kde-core kde-plasma-desktop kde-standard kde-window-manager
6608   kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-apps kdebase-workspace
6609   kdebase-workspace-bin kdebase-workspace-data kdeutils kscreensaver
6610   kscreensaver-xsavers libgle3 libkonq5 libkonq5-templates libnetpbm10
6611   netpbm plasma-widget-folderview plasma-widget-networkmanagement
6612   xscreensaver-data-extra xscreensaver-gl xscreensaver-gl-extra
6613   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
6614 </p></blockquote>
6615
6616 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
6617
6618 <blockquote><p>
6619   kdebase-bin konq-plugins konqueror
6620 </p></blockquote>
6621
6622       </div>
6623       <div class="tags">
6624
6625
6626         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>.
6627
6628
6629       </div>
6630     </div>
6631     <div class="padding"></div>
6632
6633     <div class="entry">
6634       <div class="title">
6635         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gnash_buildbot_slave_and_Debian_kfreebsd.html">Gnash buildbot slave and Debian kfreebsd</a>
6636       </div>
6637       <div class="date">
6638         20th November 2010
6639       </div>
6640       <div class="body">
6641         <p>Answering
6642 <a href="http://www.listware.net/201011/gnash-dev/67431-gnash-dev-buildbot-looking-for-slaves.html">the
6643 call from the Gnash project</a> for
6644 <a href="http://www.gnashdev.org:8010">buildbot</a> slaves to test the
6645 current source, I have set up a virtual KVM machine on the Debian
6646 Edu/Skolelinux virtualization host to test the git source on
6647 Debian/Squeeze.  I hope this can help the developers in getting new
6648 releases out more often.</p>
6649
6650 <p>As the developers want less main-stream build platforms tested to,
6651 I have considered setting up a <a
6652 href="http://www.debian.org/ports/kfreebsd-gnu/">Debian/kfreebsd</a>
6653 machine as well.  I have also considered using the kfreebsd
6654 architecture in Debian as a file server in NUUG to get access to the 5
6655 TB zfs volume we currently use to store DV video.  Because of this, I
6656 finally got around to do a test installation of Debian/Squeeze with
6657 kfreebsd.  Installation went fairly smooth, thought I noticed some
6658 visual glitches in the cdebconf dialogs (black cursor left on the
6659 screen at random locations).  Have not gotten very far with the
6660 testing.  Noticed cfdisk did not work, but fdisk did so it was not a
6661 fatal problem.  Have to spend some more time on it to see if it is
6662 useful as a file server for NUUG.  Will try to find time to set up a
6663 gnash buildbot slave on the Debian Edu/Skolelinux this weekend.</p>
6664
6665       </div>
6666       <div class="tags">
6667
6668
6669         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/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>.
6670
6671
6672       </div>
6673     </div>
6674     <div class="padding"></div>
6675
6676     <div class="entry">
6677       <div class="title">
6678         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_in_3D.html">Debian in 3D</a>
6679       </div>
6680       <div class="date">
6681          9th November 2010
6682       </div>
6683       <div class="body">
6684         <p><img src="http://thingiverse-production.s3.amazonaws.com/renders/23/e0/c4/f9/2b/debswagtdose_preview_medium.jpg"></p>
6685
6686 <p>3D printing is just great.  I just came across this Debian logo in
6687 3D linked in from
6688 <a href="http://blog.thingiverse.com/2010/11/09/participatory-branding/">the
6689 thingiverse blog</a>.</p>
6690
6691       </div>
6692       <div class="tags">
6693
6694
6695         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>.
6696
6697
6698       </div>
6699     </div>
6700     <div class="padding"></div>
6701
6702     <div class="entry">
6703       <div class="title">
6704         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Software_updates_2010_10_24.html">Software updates 2010-10-24</a>
6705       </div>
6706       <div class="date">
6707         24th October 2010
6708       </div>
6709       <div class="body">
6710         <p>Some updates.</p>
6711
6712 <p>My <a href="http://pledgebank.com/gnash-avm2">gnash pledge</a> to
6713 raise money for the project is going well.  The lower limit of 10
6714 signers was reached in 24 hours, and so far 13 people have signed it.
6715 More signers and more funding is most welcome, and I am really curious
6716 how far we can get before the time limit of December 24 is reached.
6717 :)</p>
6718
6719 <p>On the #gnash IRC channel on irc.freenode.net, I was just tipped
6720 about what appear to be a great code coverage tool capable of
6721 generating code coverage stats without any changes to the source code.
6722 It is called
6723 <a href="http://simonkagstrom.github.com/kcov/index.html">kcov</a>,
6724 and can be used using <tt>kcov &lt;directory&gt; &lt;binary&gt;</tt>.
6725 It is missing in Debian, but the git source built just fine in Squeeze
6726 after I installed libelf-dev, libdwarf-dev, pkg-config and
6727 libglib2.0-dev.  Failed to build in Lenny, but suspect that is
6728 solvable.  I hope kcov make it into Debian soon.</p>
6729
6730 <p>Finally found time to wrap up the release notes for <a
6731 href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2010/10/msg00002.html">a
6732 new alpha release of Debian Edu</a>, and just published the second
6733 alpha test release of the Squeeze based Debian Edu /
6734 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a>
6735 release.  Give it a try if you need a complete linux solution for your
6736 school, including central infrastructure server, workstations, thin
6737 client servers and diskless workstations.  A nice touch added
6738 yesterday is RDP support on the thin client servers, for windows
6739 clients to get a Linux desktop on request.</p>
6740
6741       </div>
6742       <div class="tags">
6743
6744
6745         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>.
6746
6747
6748       </div>
6749     </div>
6750     <div class="padding"></div>
6751
6752     <div class="entry">
6753       <div class="title">
6754         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Some_notes_on_Flash_in_Debian_and_Debian_Edu.html">Some notes on Flash in Debian and Debian Edu</a>
6755       </div>
6756       <div class="date">
6757          4th September 2010
6758       </div>
6759       <div class="body">
6760         <p>In the <a href="http://popcon.debian.org/unknown/by_vote">Debian
6761 popularity-contest numbers</a>, the adobe-flashplugin package the
6762 second most popular used package that is missing in Debian.  The sixth
6763 most popular is flashplayer-mozilla.  This is a clear indication that
6764 working flash is important for Debian users.  Around 10 percent of the
6765 users submitting data to popcon.debian.org have this package
6766 installed.</p>
6767
6768 <p>In the report written by Lars Risan in August 2008
6769 («<a href="http://wiki.skolelinux.no/Dokumentasjon/Rapporter?action=AttachFile&do=view&target=Skolelinux_i_bruk_rapport_1.0.pdf">Skolelinux
6770 i bruk – Rapport for Hurum kommune, Universitetet i Agder og
6771 stiftelsen SLX Debian Labs</a>»), one of the most important problems
6772 schools experienced with <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
6773 Edu/Skolelinux</a> was the lack of working Flash.  A lot of educational
6774 web sites require Flash to work, and lacking working Flash support in
6775 the web browser and the problems with installing it was perceived as a
6776 good reason to stay with Windows.</p>
6777
6778 <p>I once saw a funny and sad comment in a web forum, where Linux was
6779 said to be the retarded cousin that did not really understand
6780 everything you told him but could work fairly well.  This was a
6781 comment regarding the problems Linux have with proprietary formats and
6782 non-standard web pages, and is sad because it exposes a fairly common
6783 understanding of whose fault it is if web pages that only work in for
6784 example Internet Explorer 6 fail to work on Firefox, and funny because
6785 it explain very well how annoying it is for users when Linux
6786 distributions do not work with the documents they receive or the web
6787 pages they want to visit.</p>
6788
6789 <p>This is part of the reason why I believe it is important for Debian
6790 and Debian Edu to have a well working Flash implementation in the
6791 distribution, to get at least popular sites as Youtube and Google
6792 Video to working out of the box.  For Squeeze, Debian have the chance
6793 to include the latest version of Gnash that will make this happen, as
6794 the new release 0.8.8 was published a few weeks ago and is resting in
6795 unstable.  The new version work with more sites that version 0.8.7.
6796 The Gnash maintainers have asked for a freeze exception, but the
6797 release team have not had time to reply to it yet.  I hope they agree
6798 with me that Flash is important for the Debian desktop users, and thus
6799 accept the new package into Squeeze.</p>
6800
6801       </div>
6802       <div class="tags">
6803
6804
6805         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>.
6806
6807
6808       </div>
6809     </div>
6810     <div class="padding"></div>
6811
6812     <div class="entry">
6813       <div class="title">
6814         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Circular_package_dependencies_harms_apt_recovery.html">Circular package dependencies harms apt recovery</a>
6815       </div>
6816       <div class="date">
6817         27th July 2010
6818       </div>
6819       <div class="body">
6820         <p>I discovered this while doing
6821 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">automated
6822 testing of upgrades from Debian Lenny to Squeeze</a>.  A few packages
6823 in Debian still got circular dependencies, and it is often claimed
6824 that apt and aptitude should be able to handle this just fine, but
6825 some times these dependency loops causes apt to fail.</p>
6826
6827 <p>An example is from todays
6828 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing//test-20100727-lenny-squeeze-kde-aptitude.txt">upgrade
6829 of KDE using aptitude</a>.  In it, a bug in kdebase-workspace-data
6830 causes perl-modules to fail to upgrade.  The cause is simple.  If a
6831 package fail to unpack, then only part of packages with the circular
6832 dependency might end up being unpacked when unpacking aborts, and the
6833 ones already unpacked will fail to configure in the recovery phase
6834 because its dependencies are unavailable.</p>
6835
6836 <p>In this log, the problem manifest itself with this error:</p>
6837
6838 <blockquote><pre>
6839 dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of perl-modules:
6840  perl-modules depends on perl (>= 5.10.1-1); however:
6841   Version of perl on system is 5.10.0-19lenny2.
6842 dpkg: error processing perl-modules (--configure):
6843  dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
6844 </pre></blockquote>
6845
6846 <p>The perl/perl-modules circular dependency is already
6847 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/527917">reported as a bug</a>, and will
6848 hopefully be solved as soon as possible, but it is not the only one,
6849 and each one of these loops in the dependency tree can cause similar
6850 failures.  Of course, they only occur when there are bugs in other
6851 packages causing the unpacking to fail, but it is rather nasty when
6852 the failure of one package causes the problem to become worse because
6853 of dependency loops.</p>
6854
6855 <p>Thanks to
6856 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/06/msg00116.html">the
6857 tireless effort by Bill Allombert</a>, the number of circular
6858 dependencies
6859 <a href="http://debian.semistable.com/debgraph.out.html">left in Debian
6860 is dropping</a>, and perhaps it will reach zero one day. :)</p>
6861
6862 <p>Todays testing also exposed a bug in
6863 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590605">update-notifier</a> and
6864 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590604">different behaviour</a> between
6865 apt-get and aptitude, the latter possibly caused by some circular
6866 dependency.  Reported both to BTS to try to get someone to look at
6867 it.</p>
6868
6869       </div>
6870       <div class="tags">
6871
6872
6873         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>.
6874
6875
6876       </div>
6877     </div>
6878     <div class="padding"></div>
6879
6880     <div class="entry">
6881       <div class="title">
6882         <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>
6883       </div>
6884       <div class="date">
6885         17th July 2010
6886       </div>
6887       <div class="body">
6888         <p>This is a
6889 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">followup</a>
6890 on my
6891 <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
6892 work</a> on
6893 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">merging
6894 all</a> the computer related LDAP objects in Debian Edu.</p>
6895
6896 <p>As a step to try to see if it possible to merge the DNS and DHCP
6897 LDAP objects, I have had a look at how the packages pdns-backend-ldap
6898 and dhcp3-server-ldap in Debian use the LDAP server.  The two
6899 implementations are quite different in how they use LDAP.</p>
6900
6901 To get this information, I started slapd with debugging enabled and
6902 dumped the debug output to a file to get the LDAP searches performed
6903 on a Debian Edu main-server.  Here is a summary.
6904
6905 <p><strong>powerdns</strong></p>
6906
6907 <a href="http://www.linuxnetworks.de/doc/index.php/PowerDNS_LDAP_Backend">Clues
6908 on how to</a> set up PowerDNS to use a LDAP backend is available on
6909 the web.
6910
6911 <p>PowerDNS have two modes of operation using LDAP as its backend.
6912 One "strict" mode where the forward and reverse DNS lookups are done
6913 using the same LDAP objects, and a "tree" mode where the forward and
6914 reverse entries are in two different subtrees in LDAP with a structure
6915 based on the DNS names, as in tjener.intern and
6916 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa.</p>
6917
6918 <p>In tree mode, the server is set up to use a LDAP subtree as its
6919 base, and uses a "base" scoped search for the DNS name by adding
6920 "dc=tjener,dc=intern," to the base with a filter for
6921 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" for the forward entry and
6922 "dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa," with a filter for
6923 "(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)" for the reverse entry.  For
6924 forward entries, it is looking for attributes named dnsttl, arecord,
6925 nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord,
6926 txtrecord, rprecord, afsdbrecord, keyrecord, aaaarecord, locrecord,
6927 srvrecord, naptrrecord, kxrecord, certrecord, dsrecord, sshfprecord,
6928 ipseckeyrecord, rrsigrecord, nsecrecord, dnskeyrecord, dhcidrecord,
6929 spfrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entries it is looking for
6930 the attributes dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord,
6931 ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord,
6932 locrecord, srvrecord, naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  The equivalent
6933 ldapsearch commands could look like this:</p>
6934
6935 <blockquote><pre>
6936 ldapsearch -h ldap \
6937   -b dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
6938   -s base -x '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
6939   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
6940   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
6941   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
6942   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
6943
6944 ldapsearch -h ldap \
6945   -b dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
6946   -s base -x '(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)'
6947   dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord soarecord ptrrecord \
6948   hinforecord mxrecord txtrecord rprecord aaaarecord locrecord \
6949   srvrecord naptrrecord modifytimestamp
6950 </pre></blockquote>
6951
6952 <p>In Debian Edu/Lenny, the PowerDNS tree mode is used with
6953 ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no as the base, and these are two
6954 example LDAP objects used there.  In addition to these objects, the
6955 parent objects all th way up to ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
6956 also exist.</p>
6957
6958 <blockquote><pre>
6959 dn: dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
6960 objectclass: top
6961 objectclass: dnsdomain
6962 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
6963 dc: tjener
6964 arecord: 10.0.2.2
6965 associateddomain: tjener.intern
6966
6967 dn: dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
6968 objectclass: top
6969 objectclass: dnsdomain2
6970 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
6971 dc: 2
6972 ptrrecord: tjener.intern
6973 associateddomain: 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa
6974 </pre></blockquote>
6975
6976 <p>In strict mode, the server behaves differently.  When looking for
6977 forward DNS entries, it is doing a "subtree" scoped search with the
6978 same base as in the tree mode for a object with filter
6979 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" and requests the attributes dnsttl,
6980 arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord,
6981 mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord, locrecord, srvrecord,
6982 naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entires it also do a
6983 subtree scoped search but this time the filter is "(arecord=10.0.2.2)"
6984 and the requested attributes are associateddomain, dnsttl and
6985 modifytimestamp.  In short, in strict mode the objects with ptrrecord
6986 go away, and the arecord attribute in the forward object is used
6987 instead.</p>
6988
6989 <p>The forward and reverse searches can be simulated using ldapsearch
6990 like this:</p>
6991
6992 <blockquote><pre>
6993 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
6994   '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
6995   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
6996   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
6997   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
6998   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
6999
7000 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
7001   '(arecord=10.0.2.2)' associateddomain dnsttl modifytimestamp
7002 </pre></blockquote>
7003
7004 <p>In addition to the forward and reverse searches , there is also a
7005 search for SOA records, which behave similar to the forward and
7006 reverse lookups.</p>
7007
7008 <p>A thing to note with the PowerDNS behaviour is that it do not
7009 specify any objectclass names, and instead look for the attributes it
7010 need to generate a DNS reply.  This make it able to work with any
7011 objectclass that provide the needed attributes.</p>
7012
7013 <p>The attributes are normally provided in the cosine (RFC 1274) and
7014 dnsdomain2 schemas.  The latter is used for reverse entries like
7015 ptrrecord and recent DNS additions like aaaarecord and srvrecord.</p>
7016
7017 <p>In Debian Edu, we have created DNS objects using the object classes
7018 dcobject (for dc), dnsdomain or dnsdomain2 (structural, for the DNS
7019 attributes) and domainrelatedobject (for associatedDomain).  The use
7020 of structural object classes make it impossible to combine these
7021 classes with the object classes used by DHCP.</p>
7022
7023 <p>There are other schemas that could be used too, for example the
7024 dnszone structural object class used by Gosa and bind-sdb for the DNS
7025 attributes combined with the domainrelatedobject object class, but in
7026 this case some unused attributes would have to be included as well
7027 (zonename and relativedomainname).</p>
7028
7029 <p>My proposal for Debian Edu would be to switch PowerDNS to strict
7030 mode and not use any of the existing objectclasses (dnsdomain,
7031 dnsdomain2 and dnszone) when one want to combine the DNS information
7032 with DHCP information, and instead create a auxiliary object class
7033 defined something like this (using the attributes defined for
7034 dnsdomain and dnsdomain2 or dnszone):</p>
7035
7036 <blockquote><pre>
7037 objectclass ( some-oid NAME 'dnsDomainAux'
7038     SUP top
7039     AUXILIARY
7040     MAY ( ARecord $ MDRecord $ MXRecord $ NSRecord $ SOARecord $ CNAMERecord $
7041           DNSTTL $ DNSClass $ PTRRecord $ HINFORecord $ MINFORecord $
7042           TXTRecord $ SIGRecord $ KEYRecord $ AAAARecord $ LOCRecord $
7043           NXTRecord $ SRVRecord $ NAPTRRecord $ KXRecord $ CERTRecord $
7044           A6Record $ DNAMERecord
7045     ))
7046 </pre></blockquote>
7047
7048 <p>This will allow any object to become a DNS entry when combined with
7049 the domainrelatedobject object class, and allow any entity to include
7050 all the attributes PowerDNS wants.  I've sent an email to the PowerDNS
7051 developers asking for their view on this schema and if they are
7052 interested in providing such schema with PowerDNS, and I hope my
7053 message will be accepted into their mailing list soon.</p>
7054
7055 <p><strong>ISC dhcp</strong></p>
7056
7057 <p>The DHCP server searches for specific objectclass and requests all
7058 the object attributes, and then uses the attributes it want.  This
7059 make it harder to figure out exactly what attributes are used, but
7060 thanks to the working example in Debian Edu I can at least get an idea
7061 what is needed without having to read the source code.</p>
7062
7063 <p>In the DHCP server configuration, the LDAP base to use and the
7064 search filter to use to locate the correct dhcpServer entity is
7065 stored.  These are the relevant entries from
7066 /etc/dhcp3/dhcpd.conf:</p>
7067
7068 <blockquote><pre>
7069 ldap-base-dn "dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no";
7070 ldap-dhcp-server-cn "dhcp";
7071 </pre></blockquote>
7072
7073 <p>The DHCP server uses this information to nest all the DHCP
7074 configuration it need.  The cn "dhcp" is located using the given LDAP
7075 base and the filter "(&(objectClass=dhcpServer)(cn=dhcp))".  The
7076 search result is this entry:</p>
7077
7078 <blockquote><pre>
7079 dn: cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
7080 cn: dhcp
7081 objectClass: top
7082 objectClass: dhcpServer
7083 dhcpServiceDN: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
7084 </pre></blockquote>
7085
7086 <p>The content of the dhcpServiceDN attribute is next used to locate the
7087 subtree with DHCP configuration.  The DHCP configuration subtree base
7088 is located using a base scope search with base "cn=DHCP
7089 Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" and filter
7090 "(&(objectClass=dhcpService)(|(dhcpPrimaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)(dhcpSecondaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)))".
7091 The search result is this entry:</p>
7092
7093 <blockquote><pre>
7094 dn: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
7095 cn: DHCP Config
7096 objectClass: top
7097 objectClass: dhcpService
7098 objectClass: dhcpOptions
7099 dhcpPrimaryDN: cn=dhcp, dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
7100 dhcpStatements: ddns-update-style none
7101 dhcpStatements: authoritative
7102 dhcpOption: smtp-server code 69 = array of ip-address
7103 dhcpOption: www-server code 72 = array of ip-address
7104 dhcpOption: wpad-url code 252 = text
7105 </pre></blockquote>
7106
7107 <p>Next, the entire subtree is processed, one level at the time.  When
7108 all the DHCP configuration is loaded, it is ready to receive requests.
7109 The subtree in Debian Edu contain objects with object classes
7110 top/dhcpService/dhcpOptions, top/dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions,
7111 top/dhcpSubnet, top/dhcpGroup and top/dhcpHost.  These provide options
7112 and information about netmasks, dynamic range etc.  Leaving out the
7113 details here because it is not relevant for the focus of my
7114 investigation, which is to see if it is possible to merge dns and dhcp
7115 related computer objects.</p>
7116
7117 <p>When a DHCP request come in, LDAP is searched for the MAC address
7118 of the client (00:00:00:00:00:00 in this example), using a subtree
7119 scoped search with "cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" as
7120 the base and "(&(objectClass=dhcpHost)(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet
7121 00:00:00:00:00:00))" as the filter.  This is what a host object look
7122 like:</p>
7123
7124 <blockquote><pre>
7125 dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
7126 cn: hostname
7127 objectClass: top
7128 objectClass: dhcpHost
7129 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
7130 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname
7131 </pre></blockquote>
7132
7133 <p>There is less flexiblity in the way LDAP searches are done here.
7134 The object classes need to have fixed names, and the configuration
7135 need to be stored in a fairly specific LDAP structure.  On the
7136 positive side, the invidiual dhcpHost entires can be anywhere without
7137 the DN pointed to by the dhcpServer entries.  The latter should make
7138 it possible to group all host entries in a subtree next to the
7139 configuration entries, and this subtree can also be shared with the
7140 DNS server if the schema proposed above is combined with the dhcpHost
7141 structural object class.
7142
7143 <p><strong>Conclusion</strong></p>
7144
7145 <p>The PowerDNS implementation seem to be very flexible when it come
7146 to which LDAP schemas to use.  While its "tree" mode is rigid when it
7147 come to the the LDAP structure, the "strict" mode is very flexible,
7148 allowing DNS objects to be stored anywhere under the base cn specified
7149 in the configuration.</p>
7150
7151 <p>The DHCP implementation on the other hand is very inflexible, both
7152 regarding which LDAP schemas to use and which LDAP structure to use.
7153 I guess one could implement ones own schema, as long as the
7154 objectclasses and attributes have the names used, but this do not
7155 really help when the DHCP subtree need to have a fairly fixed
7156 structure.</p>
7157
7158 <p>Based on the observed behaviour, I suspect a LDAP structure like
7159 this might work for Debian Edu:</p>
7160
7161 <blockquote><pre>
7162 ou=services
7163   cn=machine-info (dhcpService) - dhcpServiceDN points here
7164     cn=dhcp (dhcpServer)
7165     cn=dhcp-internal (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
7166       cn=10.0.2.0 (dhcpSubnet)
7167         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
7168     cn=dhcp-thinclients (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
7169       cn=192.168.0.0 (dhcpSubnet)
7170         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
7171     ou=machines - PowerDNS base points here
7172       cn=hostname (dhcpHost/domainrelatedobject/dnsDomainAux)
7173 </pre></blockquote>
7174
7175 <P>This is not tested yet.  If the DHCP server require the dhcpHost
7176 entries to be in the dhcpGroup subtrees, the entries can be stored
7177 there instead of a common machines subtree, and the PowerDNS base
7178 would have to be moved one level up to the machine-info subtree.</p>
7179
7180 <p>The combined object under the machines subtree would look something
7181 like this:</p>
7182
7183 <blockquote><pre>
7184 dn: dc=hostname,ou=machines,cn=machine-info,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
7185 dc: hostname
7186 objectClass: top
7187 objectClass: dhcpHost
7188 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
7189 objectclass: dnsDomainAux
7190 associateddomain: hostname.intern
7191 arecord: 10.11.12.13
7192 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
7193 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname.intern
7194 </pre></blockquote>
7195
7196 </p>One could even add the LTSP configuration associated with a given
7197 machine, as long as the required attributes are available in a
7198 auxiliary object class.</p>
7199
7200       </div>
7201       <div class="tags">
7202
7203
7204         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>.
7205
7206
7207       </div>
7208     </div>
7209     <div class="padding"></div>
7210
7211     <div class="entry">
7212       <div class="title">
7213         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">Combining PowerDNS and ISC DHCP LDAP objects</a>
7214       </div>
7215       <div class="date">
7216         14th July 2010
7217       </div>
7218       <div class="body">
7219         <p>For a while now, I have wanted to find a way to change the DNS and
7220 DHCP services in Debian Edu to use the same LDAP objects for a given
7221 computer, to avoid the possibility of having a inconsistent state for
7222 a computer in LDAP (as in DHCP but no DNS entry or the other way
7223 around) and make it easier to add computers to LDAP.</p>
7224
7225 <p>I've looked at how powerdns and dhcpd is using LDAP, and using this
7226 information finally found a solution that seem to work.</p>
7227
7228 <p>The old setup required three LDAP objects for a given computer.
7229 One forward DNS entry, one reverse DNS entry and one DHCP entry.  If
7230 we switch powerdns to use its strict LDAP method (ldap-method=strict
7231 in pdns-debian-edu.conf), the forward and reverse DNS entries are
7232 merged into one while making it impossible to transfer the reverse map
7233 to a slave DNS server.</p>
7234
7235 <p>If we also replace the object class used to get the DNS related
7236 attributes to one allowing these attributes to be combined with the
7237 dhcphost object class, we can merge the DNS and DHCP entries into one.
7238 I've written such object class in the dnsdomainaux.schema file (need
7239 proper OIDs, but that is a minor issue), and tested the setup.  It
7240 seem to work.</p>
7241
7242 <p>With this test setup in place, we can get away with one LDAP object
7243 for both DNS and DHCP, and even the LTSP configuration I suggested in
7244 an earlier email.  The combined LDAP object will look something like
7245 this:</p>
7246
7247 <blockquote><pre>
7248   dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
7249   cn: hostname
7250   objectClass: dhcphost
7251   objectclass: domainrelatedobject
7252   objectclass: dnsdomainaux
7253   associateddomain: hostname.intern
7254   arecord: 10.11.12.13
7255   dhcphwaddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
7256   dhcpstatements: fixed-address hostname
7257   ldapconfigsound: Y
7258 </pre></blockquote>
7259
7260 <p>The DNS server uses the associateddomain and arecord entries, while
7261 the DHCP server uses the dhcphwaddress and dhcpstatements entries
7262 before asking DNS to resolve the fixed-adddress.  LTSP will use
7263 dhcphwaddress or associateddomain and the ldapconfig* attributes.</p>
7264
7265 <p>I am not yet sure if I can get the DHCP server to look for its
7266 dhcphost in a different location, to allow us to put the objects
7267 outside the "DHCP Config" subtree, but hope to figure out a way to do
7268 that.  If I can't figure out a way to do that, we can still get rid of
7269 the hosts subtree and move all its content into the DHCP Config tree
7270 (which probably should be renamed to be more related to the new
7271 content.  I suspect cn=dnsdhcp,ou=services or something like that
7272 might be a good place to put it.</p>
7273
7274 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
7275 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
7276
7277       </div>
7278       <div class="tags">
7279
7280
7281         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>.
7282
7283
7284       </div>
7285     </div>
7286     <div class="padding"></div>
7287
7288     <div class="entry">
7289       <div class="title">
7290         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Idea_for_storing_LTSP_configuration_in_LDAP.html">Idea for storing LTSP configuration in LDAP</a>
7291       </div>
7292       <div class="date">
7293         11th July 2010
7294       </div>
7295       <div class="body">
7296         <p>Vagrant mentioned on IRC today that ltsp_config now support
7297 sourcing files from /usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ on the thin
7298 clients, and that this can be used to fetch configuration from LDAP if
7299 Debian Edu choose to store configuration there.</p>
7300
7301 <p>Armed with this information, I got inspired and wrote a test module
7302 to get configuration from LDAP.  The idea is to look up the MAC
7303 address of the client in LDAP, and look for attributes on the form
7304 ltspconfigsetting=value, and use this to export SETTING=value to the
7305 LTSP clients.</p>
7306
7307 <p>The goal is to be able to store the LTSP configuration attributes
7308 in a "computer" LDAP object used by both DNS and DHCP, and thus
7309 allowing us to store all information about a computer in one place.</p>
7310
7311 <p>This is a untested draft implementation, and I welcome feedback on
7312 this approach.  A real LDAP schema for the ltspClientAux objectclass
7313 need to be written.  Comments, suggestions, etc?</p>
7314
7315 <blockquote><pre>
7316 # Store in /opt/ltsp/$arch/usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ldap-config
7317 #
7318 # Fetch LTSP client settings from LDAP based on MAC address
7319 #
7320 # Uses ethernet address as stored in the dhcpHost objectclass using
7321 # the dhcpHWAddress attribute or ethernet address stored in the
7322 # ieee802Device objectclass with the macAddress attribute.
7323 #
7324 # This module is written to be schema agnostic, and only depend on the
7325 # existence of attribute names.
7326 #
7327 # The LTSP configuration variables are saved directly using a
7328 # ltspConfig prefix and uppercasing the rest of the attribute name.
7329 # To set the SERVER variable, set the ltspConfigServer attribute.
7330 #
7331 # Some LDAP schema should be created with all the relevant
7332 # configuration settings.  Something like this should work:
7333 #
7334 # objectclass ( 1.1.2.2 NAME 'ltspClientAux'
7335 #     SUP top
7336 #     AUXILIARY
7337 #     MAY ( ltspConfigServer $ ltsConfigSound $ ... )
7338
7339 LDAPSERVER=$(debian-edu-ldapserver)
7340 if [ "$LDAPSERVER" ] ; then
7341     LDAPBASE=$(debian-edu-ldapserver -b)
7342     for MAC in $(LANG=C ifconfig |grep -i hwaddr| awk '{print $5}'|sort -u) ; do
7343         filter="(|(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet $MAC)(macAddress=$MAC))"
7344         ldapsearch -h "$LDAPSERVER" -b "$LDAPBASE" -v -x "$filter" | \
7345             grep '^ltspConfig' | while read attr value ; do
7346             # Remove prefix and convert to upper case
7347             attr=$(echo $attr | sed 's/^ltspConfig//i' | tr a-z A-Z)
7348             # bass value on to clients
7349             eval "$attr=$value; export $attr"
7350         done
7351     done
7352 fi
7353 </pre></blockquote>
7354
7355 <p>I'm not sure this shell construction will work, because I suspect
7356 the while block might end up in a subshell causing the variables set
7357 there to not show up in ltsp-config, but if that is the case I am sure
7358 the code can be restructured to make sure the variables are passed on.
7359 I expect that can be solved with some testing. :)</p>
7360
7361 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
7362 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
7363
7364 <p>Update 2010-07-17: I am aware of another effort to store LTSP
7365 configuration in LDAP that was created around year 2000 by
7366 <a href="http://www.pcxperience.com/thinclient/documentation/ldap.html">PC
7367 Xperience, Inc., 2000</a>.  I found its
7368 <a href="http://people.redhat.com/alikins/ltsp/ldap/">files</a> on a
7369 personal home page over at redhat.com.</p>
7370
7371       </div>
7372       <div class="tags">
7373
7374
7375         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
7376
7377
7378       </div>
7379     </div>
7380     <div class="padding"></div>
7381
7382     <div class="entry">
7383       <div class="title">
7384         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/jXplorer__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">jXplorer, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
7385       </div>
7386       <div class="date">
7387          9th July 2010
7388       </div>
7389       <div class="body">
7390         <p>Since
7391 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">my
7392 last post</a> about available LDAP tools in Debian, I was told about a
7393 LDAP GUI that is even better than luma.  The java application
7394 <a href="http://jxplorer.org/">jXplorer</a> is claimed to be capable of
7395 moving LDAP objects and subtrees using drag-and-drop, and can
7396 authenticate using Kerberos.  I have only tested the Kerberos
7397 authentication, but do not have a LDAP setup allowing me to rewrite
7398 LDAP with my test user yet.  It is
7399 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/j/jxplorer.html">available in
7400 Debian</a> testing and unstable at the moment.  The only problem I
7401 have with it is how it handle errors.  If something go wrong, its
7402 non-intuitive behaviour require me to go through some query work list
7403 and remove the failing query.  Nothing big, but very annoying.</p>
7404
7405       </div>
7406       <div class="tags">
7407
7408
7409         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>.
7410
7411
7412       </div>
7413     </div>
7414     <div class="padding"></div>
7415
7416     <div class="entry">
7417       <div class="title">
7418         <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>
7419       </div>
7420       <div class="date">
7421          3rd July 2010
7422       </div>
7423       <div class="body">
7424         <p>Here is a short update on my <a
7425 href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">my
7426 Debian Lenny->Squeeze upgrade testing</a>.  Here is a summary of the
7427 difference for Gnome when it is upgraded by apt-get and aptitude.  I'm
7428 not reporting the status for KDE, because the upgrade crashes when
7429 aptitude try because of missing conflicts
7430 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> and
7431 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585716">#585716</a>).</p>
7432
7433 <p>At the end of the upgrade test script, dpkg -l is executed to get a
7434 complete list of the installed packages.  Based on this I see these
7435 differences when I did a test run today.  As usual, I do not really
7436 know what the correct set of packages would be, but thought it best to
7437 publish the difference.</p>
7438
7439 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
7440
7441 <blockquote><p>
7442   at-spi cpp-4.3 finger gnome-spell gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
7443   libatspi1.0-0 libcupsys2 libeel2-data libgail-common libgdl-1-common
7444   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin
7445   libgtksourceview-common libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
7446   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libservlet2.4-java libxalan2-java
7447   libxerces2-java openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
7448   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gtkhtml2
7449   python-gtkmozembed svgalibg1 xserver-xephyr zip
7450 </p></blockquote>
7451
7452 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
7453
7454 <blockquote><p>
7455   bluez-utils dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop epiphany-gecko
7456   gnome-app-install gnome-mount gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager
7457   libao2 libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libbind9-50
7458   libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcurl3
7459   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9
7460   libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3
7461   libfaad0 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
7462   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
7463   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
7464   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
7465   libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50
7466   libisccfg50 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick++10
7467   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4
7468   libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5
7469   libparted1.8-10 libpisock9 libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3
7470   libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8 libsensors3 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
7471   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1
7472   libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0 libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj
7473   libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3
7474   mysql-common swfdec-gnome totem-gstreamer wodim
7475 </p></blockquote>
7476
7477 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
7478
7479 <blockquote><p>
7480   gnome gnome-desktop-environment hamster-applet python-gnomeapplet
7481   python-gnomekeyring python-wnck rhythmbox-plugins xorg
7482   xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
7483   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
7484   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-video-all
7485   xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark xserver-xorg-video-ati
7486   xserver-xorg-video-chips xserver-xorg-video-cirrus
7487   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
7488   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
7489   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-mach64
7490   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
7491   xserver-xorg-video-nouveau xserver-xorg-video-nv
7492   xserver-xorg-video-r128 xserver-xorg-video-radeon
7493   xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd xserver-xorg-video-rendition
7494   xserver-xorg-video-s3 xserver-xorg-video-s3virge
7495   xserver-xorg-video-savage xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion
7496   xserver-xorg-video-sis xserver-xorg-video-sisusb
7497   xserver-xorg-video-tdfx xserver-xorg-video-tga
7498   xserver-xorg-video-trident xserver-xorg-video-tseng
7499   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vmware
7500   xserver-xorg-video-voodoo
7501 </p></blockquote>
7502
7503 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
7504
7505 <blockquote><p>
7506   deskbar-applet xserver-xorg xserver-xorg-core
7507   xserver-xorg-input-wacom xserver-xorg-video-intel
7508   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome
7509 </p></blockquote>
7510
7511 <p>I was told on IRC that the xorg-xserver package was
7512 <a href="http://git.debian.org/?p=pkg-xorg/xserver/xorg-server.git;a=commit;h=9c8080d06c457932d3bfec021c69ac000aa60120">changed
7513 in git</a> today to try to get apt-get to not remove xorg completely.
7514 No idea when it hits Squeeze, but when it does I hope it will reduce
7515 the difference somewhat.
7516
7517       </div>
7518       <div class="tags">
7519
7520
7521         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>.
7522
7523
7524       </div>
7525     </div>
7526     <div class="padding"></div>
7527
7528     <div class="entry">
7529       <div class="title">
7530         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">LUMA, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
7531       </div>
7532       <div class="date">
7533         28th June 2010
7534       </div>
7535       <div class="body">
7536         <p>The last few days I have been looking into the status of the LDAP
7537 directory in Debian Edu, and in the process I started to miss a GUI
7538 tool to browse the LDAP tree.  The only one I was able to find in
7539 Debian/Squeeze and Lenny is
7540 <a href="http://luma.sourceforge.net/">LUMA</a>, which has proved to
7541 be a great tool to get a overview of the current LDAP directory
7542 populated by default in Skolelinux.  Thanks to it, I have been able to
7543 find empty and obsolete subtrees, misplaced objects and duplicate
7544 objects.  It will be installed by default in Debian/Squeeze.  If you
7545 are working with LDAP, give it a go. :)</p>
7546
7547 <p>I did notice one problem with it I have not had time to report to
7548 the BTS yet.  There is no .desktop file in the package, so the tool do
7549 not show up in the Gnome and KDE menus, but only deep down in in the
7550 Debian submenu in KDE.  I hope that can be fixed before Squeeze is
7551 released.</p>
7552
7553 <p>I have not yet been able to get it to modify the tree yet.  I would
7554 like to move objects and remove subtrees directly in the GUI, but have
7555 not found a way to do that with LUMA yet.  So in the mean time, I use
7556 <a href="http://www.lichteblau.com/ldapvi/">ldapvi</a> for that.</p>
7557
7558 <p>If you have tips on other GUI tools for LDAP that might be useful
7559 in Debian Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
7560
7561 <p>Update 2010-06-29: Ross Reedstrom tipped us about the
7562 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/g/gq.html">gq</a> package as a
7563 useful GUI alternative.  It seem like a good tool, but is unmaintained
7564 in Debian and got a RC bug keeping it out of Squeeze.  Unless that
7565 changes, it will not be an option for Debian Edu based on Squeeze.</p>
7566
7567       </div>
7568       <div class="tags">
7569
7570
7571         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>.
7572
7573
7574       </div>
7575     </div>
7576     <div class="padding"></div>
7577
7578     <div class="entry">
7579       <div class="title">
7580         <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>
7581       </div>
7582       <div class="date">
7583         24th June 2010
7584       </div>
7585       <div class="body">
7586         <p>A while back, I
7587 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">complained
7588 about the fact</a> that it is not possible with the provided schemas
7589 for storing DNS and DHCP information in LDAP to combine the two sets
7590 of information into one LDAP object representing a computer.</p>
7591
7592 <p>In the mean time, I discovered that a simple fix would be to make
7593 the dhcpHost object class auxiliary, to allow it to be combined with
7594 the dNSDomain object class, and thus forming one object for one
7595 computer when storing both DHCP and DNS information in LDAP.</p>
7596
7597 <p>If I understand this correctly, it is not safe to do this change
7598 without also changing the assigned number for the object class, and I
7599 do not know enough about LDAP schema design to do that properly for
7600 Debian Edu.</p>
7601
7602 <p>Anyway, for future reference, this is how I believe we could change
7603 the
7604 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-dhc-ldap-schema-00">DHCP
7605 schema</a> to solve at least part of the problem with the LDAP schemas
7606 available today from IETF.</p>
7607
7608 <pre>
7609 --- dhcp.schema    (revision 65192)
7610 +++ dhcp.schema    (working copy)
7611 @@ -376,7 +376,7 @@
7612  objectclass ( 2.16.840.1.113719.1.203.6.6
7613         NAME 'dhcpHost'
7614         DESC 'This represents information about a particular client'
7615 -       SUP top
7616 +       SUP top AUXILIARY
7617         MUST cn
7618         MAY  (dhcpLeaseDN $ dhcpHWAddress $ dhcpOptionsDN $ dhcpStatements $ dhcpComments $ dhcpOption)
7619         X-NDS_CONTAINMENT ('dhcpService' 'dhcpSubnet' 'dhcpGroup') )
7620 </pre>
7621
7622 <p>I very much welcome clues on how to do this properly for Debian
7623 Edu/Squeeze.  We provide the DHCP schema in our debian-edu-config
7624 package, and should thus be free to rewrite it as we see fit.</p>
7625
7626 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
7627 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
7628
7629       </div>
7630       <div class="tags">
7631
7632
7633         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>.
7634
7635
7636       </div>
7637     </div>
7638     <div class="padding"></div>
7639
7640     <div class="entry">
7641       <div class="title">
7642         <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>
7643       </div>
7644       <div class="date">
7645         16th June 2010
7646       </div>
7647       <div class="body">
7648         <p>A few times I have had the need to simulate the way tasksel
7649 installs packages during the normal debian-installer run.  Until now,
7650 I have ended up letting tasksel do the work, with the annoying problem
7651 of not getting any feedback at all when something fails (like a
7652 conffile question from dpkg or a download that fails), using code like
7653 this:
7654
7655 <blockquote><pre>
7656 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
7657 tasksel --new-install
7658 </pre></blockquote>
7659
7660 This would invoke tasksel, let its automatic task selection pick the
7661 tasks to install, and continue to install the requested tasks without
7662 any output what so ever.
7663
7664 Recently I revisited this problem while working on the automatic
7665 package upgrade testing, because tasksel would some times hang without
7666 any useful feedback, and I want to see what is going on when it
7667 happen.  Then it occured to me, I can parse the output from tasksel
7668 when asked to run in test mode, and use that aptitude command line
7669 printed by tasksel then to simulate the tasksel run.  I ended up using
7670 code like this:
7671
7672 <blockquote><pre>
7673 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
7674 cmd="$(in_target tasksel -t --new-install | sed 's/debconf-apt-progress -- //')"
7675 $cmd
7676 </pre></blockquote>
7677
7678 <p>The content of $cmd is typically something like "<tt>aptitude -q
7679 --without-recommends -o APT::Install-Recommends=no -y install
7680 ~t^desktop$ ~t^gnome-desktop$ ~t^laptop$ ~pstandard ~prequired
7681 ~pimportant</tt>", which will install the gnome desktop task, the
7682 laptop task and all packages with priority standard , required and
7683 important, just like tasksel would have done it during
7684 installation.</p>
7685
7686 <p>A better approach is probably to extend tasksel to be able to
7687 install packages without using debconf-apt-progress, for use cases
7688 like this.</p>
7689
7690       </div>
7691       <div class="tags">
7692
7693
7694         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>.
7695
7696
7697       </div>
7698     </div>
7699     <div class="padding"></div>
7700
7701     <div class="entry">
7702       <div class="title">
7703         <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>
7704       </div>
7705       <div class="date">
7706         13th June 2010
7707       </div>
7708       <div class="body">
7709         <p>My
7710 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">testing
7711 of Debian upgrades</a> from Lenny to Squeeze continues, and I've
7712 finally made the upgrade logs available from
7713 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/</a>.
7714 I am now testing dist-upgrade of Gnome and KDE in a chroot using both
7715 apt and aptitude, and found their differences interesting.  This time
7716 I will only focus on their removal plans.</p>
7717
7718 <p>After installing a Gnome desktop and the laptop task, apt-get wants
7719 to remove 72 packages when dist-upgrading from Lenny to Squeeze.  The
7720 surprising part is that it want to remove xorg and all
7721 xserver-xorg-video* drivers.  Clearly not a good choice, but I am not
7722 sure why.  When asking aptitude to do the same, it want to remove 129
7723 packages, but most of them are library packages I suspect are no
7724 longer needed.  Both of them want to remove bluetooth packages, which
7725 I do not know.  Perhaps these bluetooth packages are obsolete?</p>
7726
7727 <p>For KDE, apt-get want to remove 82 packages, among them kdebase
7728 which seem like a bad idea and xorg the same way as with Gnome. Asking
7729 aptitude for the same, it wants to remove 192 packages, none which are
7730 too surprising.</p>
7731
7732 <p>I guess the removal of xorg during upgrades should be investigated
7733 and avoided, and perhaps others as well.  Here are the complete list
7734 of planned removals.  The complete logs is available from the URL
7735 above.  Note if you want to repeat these tests, that the upgrade test
7736 for kde+apt-get hung in the tasksel setup because of dpkg asking
7737 conffile questions.  No idea why.  I worked around it by using
7738 '<tt>echo >> /proc/<em>pidofdpkg</em>/fd/0</tt>' to tell dpkg to
7739 continue.</p>
7740
7741 <p><b>apt-get gnome 72</b>
7742 <br>bluez-gnome cupsddk-drivers deskbar-applet gnome
7743   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-network-admin gtkhtml3.14
7744   iceweasel-gnome-support libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libgdl-1-0
7745   libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libmetacity0 libslab0 libxcb-xlib0
7746   nautilus-cd-burner python-gnome2-desktop python-gnome2-extras
7747   serpentine swfdec-mozilla update-manager xorg xserver-xorg
7748   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
7749   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
7750   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
7751   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
7752   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
7753   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
7754   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
7755   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
7756   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
7757   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
7758   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
7759   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
7760   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
7761   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
7762   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
7763   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
7764   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
7765   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
7766   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
7767   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
7768   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
7769   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9
7770   xulrunner-1.9-gnome-support</p>
7771
7772 <p><b>aptitude gnome 129</b>
7773
7774 <br>bluez-gnome bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers dhcdbd
7775   djvulibre-desktop finger gnome-app-install gnome-mount
7776   gnome-network-admin gnome-spell gnome-vfs-obexftp
7777   gnome-volume-manager gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs gtkhtml3.14 libao2
7778   libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
7779   libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcupsys2 libcurl3 libdatrie0
7780   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20
7781   libeel2-data libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libfaad0 libgail-common
7782   libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libgdl-1-0 libgdl-1-common
7783   libggz2 libggzcore9 libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0
7784   libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libgnomeprint2.2-0
7785   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgnomeprintui2.2-common
7786   libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
7787   libgtksourceview-common libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6
7788   libhesiod0 libicu38 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 libmagick++10
7789   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmetacity0 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off
7790   libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2
7791   libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10
7792   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libraw1394-8
7793   libsensors3 libslab0 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8 libssh2-1
7794   libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10
7795   libtrackerclient0 libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0
7796   libxerces2-java libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6
7797   libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common nautilus-cd-burner
7798   openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
7799   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gnome2-desktop
7800   python-gnome2-extras python-gtkhtml2 python-gtkmozembed
7801   python-numeric python-sexy serpentine svgalibg1 swfdec-gnome
7802   swfdec-mozilla totem-gstreamer update-manager wodim
7803   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
7804   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
7805   zip</p>
7806
7807 <p><b>apt-get kde 82</b>
7808
7809 <br>cupsddk-drivers karm kaudiocreator kcoloredit kcontrol kde kde-core
7810   kdeaddons kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-bin kdebase-bin-kde3
7811   kdebase-kio-plugins kdesktop kdeutils khelpcenter kicker
7812   kicker-applets knewsticker kolourpaint konq-plugins konqueror korn
7813   kpersonalizer kscreensaver ksplash libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libkiten1
7814   libxcb-xlib0 quanta superkaramba texlive-base-bin xorg xserver-xorg
7815   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
7816   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
7817   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
7818   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
7819   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
7820   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
7821   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
7822   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
7823   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
7824   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
7825   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
7826   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
7827   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
7828   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
7829   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
7830   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
7831   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
7832   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
7833   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
7834   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
7835   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
7836   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9</p>
7837
7838 <p><b>aptitude kde 192</b>
7839 <br>bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers cvs dcoprss dhcdbd
7840   djvulibre-desktop dosfstools eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
7841   ghostscript-x imlib-base imlib11 indi kandy karm kasteroids
7842   kaudiocreator kbackgammon kbstate kcoloredit kcontrol kcron kdat
7843   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
7844   kdebase-bin-kde3 kdebase-kio-plugins kdeedu-data
7845   kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data
7846   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
7847   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdeprint kdesktop kdessh
7848   kdict kdnssd kdvi kedit keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs
7849   kghostview khelpcenter khexedit kiconedit kitchensync klatin
7850   klickety kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmoon kmrml kodo kolourpaint
7851   kooka korn kpager kpdf kpercentage kpf kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler
7852   krec kregexpeditor ksayit ksim ksirc ksirtet ksmiletris ksmserver
7853   ksnake ksokoban ksplash ksvg ksysv ktip ktnef kuickshow kverbos
7854   kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kworldclock
7855   kxsldbg libakode2 libao2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
7856   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
7857   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
7858   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0 libdatrie0
7859   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
7860   libgail-common libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0
7861   libicu38 libiec61883-0 libindex0 libiw29 libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1
7862   libkdeedu3 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkiten1 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
7863   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
7864   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 libmagick10 libmimelib1c2a
7865   libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9
7866   libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 libsmbios2
7867   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libtalloc1 libtiff-tools
7868   libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0 libxerces2-java
7869   libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 mpeglib networkstatus
7870   openoffice.org-writer2latex pmount poster psutils quanta quanta-data
7871   superkaramba svgalibg1 tex-common texlive-base texlive-base-bin
7872   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended
7873   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
7874   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
7875   xulrunner-1.9</p>
7876
7877
7878       </div>
7879       <div class="tags">
7880
7881
7882         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>.
7883
7884
7885       </div>
7886     </div>
7887     <div class="padding"></div>
7888
7889     <div class="entry">
7890       <div class="title">
7891         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">Automatic upgrade testing from Lenny to Squeeze</a>
7892       </div>
7893       <div class="date">
7894         11th June 2010
7895       </div>
7896       <div class="body">
7897         <p>The last few days I have done some upgrade testing in Debian, to
7898 see if the upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze will go smoothly.  A few bugs
7899 have been discovered and reported in the process
7900 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585410">#585410</a> in nagios3-cgi,
7901 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584879">#584879</a> already fixed in
7902 enscript and <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> in
7903 kdebase-workspace-data), and to get a more regular testing going on, I
7904 am working on a script to automate the test.</p>
7905
7906 <p>The idea is to create a Lenny chroot and use tasksel to install a
7907 Gnome or KDE desktop installation inside the chroot before upgrading
7908 it.  To ensure no services are started in the chroot, a policy-rc.d
7909 script is inserted.  To make sure tasksel believe it is to install a
7910 desktop on a laptop, the tasksel tests are replaced in the chroot
7911 (only acceptable because this is a throw-away chroot).</p>
7912
7913 <p>A naive upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze using aptitude dist-upgrade
7914 currently always fail because udev refuses to upgrade with the kernel
7915 in Lenny, so to avoid that problem the file /etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
7916 is created.  The bug report
7917 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/566000">#566000</a> make me suspect
7918 this problem do not trigger in a chroot, but I touch the file anyway
7919 to make sure the upgrade go well.  Testing on virtual and real
7920 hardware have failed me because of udev so far, and creating this file
7921 do the trick in such settings anyway.  This is a
7922 <a href="http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/debian-26/failed-dist-upgrade-due-to-udev-config_sysfs_deprecated-nonsense-804130/">known
7923 issue</a> and the current udev behaviour is intended by the udev
7924 maintainer because he lack the resources to rewrite udev to keep
7925 working with old kernels or something like that.  I really wish the
7926 udev upstream would keep udev backwards compatible, to avoid such
7927 upgrade problem, but given that they fail to do so, I guess
7928 documenting the way out of this mess is the best option we got for
7929 Debian Squeeze.</p>
7930
7931 <p>Anyway, back to the task at hand, testing upgrades.  This test
7932 script, which I call <tt>upgrade-test</tt> for now, is doing the
7933 trick:</p>
7934
7935 <blockquote><pre>
7936 #!/bin/sh
7937 set -ex
7938
7939 if [ "$1" ] ; then
7940     desktop=$1
7941 else
7942     desktop=gnome
7943 fi
7944
7945 from=lenny
7946 to=squeeze
7947
7948 exec &lt; /dev/null
7949 unset LANG
7950 mirror=http://ftp.skolelinux.org/debian
7951 tmpdir=chroot-$from-upgrade-$to-$desktop
7952 fuser -mv .
7953 debootstrap $from $tmpdir $mirror
7954 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
7955 cat > $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d &lt;&lt;EOF
7956 #!/bin/sh
7957 exit 101
7958 EOF
7959 chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d
7960 exit_cleanup() {
7961     umount $tmpdir/proc
7962 }
7963 mount -t proc proc $tmpdir/proc
7964 # Make sure proc is unmounted also on failure
7965 trap exit_cleanup EXIT INT
7966
7967 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y install debconf-utils
7968
7969 # Make sure tasksel autoselection trigger.  It need the test scripts
7970 # to return the correct answers.
7971 echo tasksel tasksel/desktop multiselect $desktop | \
7972     chroot $tmpdir debconf-set-selections
7973
7974 # Include the desktop and laptop task
7975 for test in desktop laptop ; do
7976     echo > $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test &lt;&lt;EOF
7977 #!/bin/sh
7978 exit 2
7979 EOF
7980     chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test
7981 done
7982
7983 DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
7984 DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical
7985 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND DEBIAN_PRIORITY
7986 chroot $tmpdir tasksel --new-install
7987
7988 echo deb $mirror $to main > $tmpdir/etc/apt/sources.list
7989 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
7990 touch $tmpdir/etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
7991 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y dist-upgrade
7992 fuser -mv
7993 </pre></blockquote>
7994
7995 <p>I suspect it would be useful to test upgrades with both apt-get and
7996 with aptitude, but I have not had time to look at how they behave
7997 differently so far.  I hope to get a cron job running to do the test
7998 regularly and post the result on the web.  The Gnome upgrade currently
7999 work, while the KDE upgrade fail because of the bug in
8000 kdebase-workspace-data</p>
8001
8002 <p>I am not quite sure what kind of extract from the huge upgrade logs
8003 (KDE 167 KiB, Gnome 516 KiB) it make sense to include in this blog
8004 post, so I will refrain from trying.  I can report that for Gnome,
8005 aptitude report 760 packages upgraded, 448 newly installed, 129 to
8006 remove and 1 not upgraded and 1024MB need to be downloaded while for
8007 KDE the same numbers are 702 packages upgraded, 507 newly installed,
8008 193 to remove and 0 not upgraded and 1117MB need to be downloaded</p>
8009
8010 <p>I am very happy to notice that the Gnome desktop + laptop upgrade
8011 is able to migrate to dependency based boot sequencing and parallel
8012 booting without a hitch.  Was unsure if there were still bugs with
8013 packages failing to clean up their obsolete init.d script during
8014 upgrades, and no such problem seem to affect the Gnome desktop+laptop
8015 packages.</p>
8016
8017       </div>
8018       <div class="tags">
8019
8020
8021         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>.
8022
8023
8024       </div>
8025     </div>
8026     <div class="padding"></div>
8027
8028     <div class="entry">
8029       <div class="title">
8030         <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>
8031       </div>
8032       <div class="date">
8033          6th June 2010
8034       </div>
8035       <div class="body">
8036         <p>If Debian is to migrate to upstart on Linux, I expect some init.d
8037 scripts to migrate (some of) their operations to upstart job while
8038 keeping the init.d for hurd and kfreebsd.  The packages with such
8039 needs will need a way to get their init.d scripts to behave
8040 differently when used with sysvinit and with upstart.  Because of
8041 this, I had a look at the environment variables set when a init.d
8042 script is running under upstart, and when it is not.</p>
8043
8044 <p>With upstart, I notice these environment variables are set when a
8045 script is started from rcS.d/ (ignoring some irrelevant ones like
8046 COLUMNS):</p>
8047
8048 <blockquote><pre>
8049 DEFAULT_RUNLEVEL=2
8050 previous=N
8051 PREVLEVEL=
8052 RUNLEVEL=
8053 runlevel=S
8054 UPSTART_EVENTS=startup
8055 UPSTART_INSTANCE=
8056 UPSTART_JOB=rc-sysinit
8057 </pre></blockquote>
8058
8059 <p>With sysvinit, these environment variables are set for the same
8060 script.</p>
8061
8062 <blockquote><pre>
8063 INIT_VERSION=sysvinit-2.88
8064 previous=N
8065 PREVLEVEL=N
8066 RUNLEVEL=S
8067 runlevel=S
8068 </pre></blockquote>
8069
8070 <p>The RUNLEVEL and PREVLEVEL environment variables passed on from
8071 sysvinit are not set by upstart.  Not sure if it is intentional or not
8072 to not be compatible with sysvinit in this regard.</p>
8073
8074 <p>For scripts needing to behave differently when upstart is used,
8075 looking for the UPSTART_JOB environment variable seem to be a good
8076 choice.</p>
8077
8078       </div>
8079       <div class="tags">
8080
8081
8082         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>.
8083
8084
8085       </div>
8086     </div>
8087     <div class="padding"></div>
8088
8089     <div class="entry">
8090       <div class="title">
8091         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_manual_for_standards_wars___.html">A manual for standards wars...</a>
8092       </div>
8093       <div class="date">
8094          6th June 2010
8095       </div>
8096       <div class="body">
8097         <p>Via the
8098 <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/robweir/antic-atom/~3/QzU4RgoAGMg/weekly-links-10.html">blog
8099 of Rob Weir</a> I came across the very interesting essay named
8100 <a href="http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/shapiro/wars.pdf">The Art of
8101 Standards Wars</a> (PDF 25 pages).  I recommend it for everyone
8102 following the standards wars of today.</p>
8103
8104       </div>
8105       <div class="tags">
8106
8107
8108         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>.
8109
8110
8111       </div>
8112     </div>
8113     <div class="padding"></div>
8114
8115     <div class="entry">
8116       <div class="title">
8117         <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>
8118       </div>
8119       <div class="date">
8120          3rd June 2010
8121       </div>
8122       <div class="body">
8123         <p>When using sitesummary at a site to track machines, it is possible
8124 to get a list of the machine types in use thanks to the DMI
8125 information extracted from each machine.  The script to do so is
8126 included in the sitesummary package, and here is example output from
8127 the Skolelinux build servers:</p>
8128
8129 <blockquote><pre>
8130 maintainer:~# /usr/lib/sitesummary/hardware-model-summary
8131   vendor                    count
8132   Dell Computer Corporation     1
8133     PowerEdge 1750              1
8134   IBM                           1
8135     eserver xSeries 345 -[8670M1X]-     1
8136   Intel                         2
8137   [no-dmi-info]                 3
8138 maintainer:~#
8139 </pre></blockquote>
8140
8141 <p>The quality of the report depend on the quality of the DMI tables
8142 provided in each machine.  Here there are Intel machines without model
8143 information listed with Intel as vendor and no model, and virtual Xen
8144 machines listed as [no-dmi-info].  One can add -l as a command line
8145 option to list the individual machines.</p>
8146
8147 <p>A larger list is
8148 <a href="http://narvikskolen.no/sitesummary/">available from the the
8149 city of Narvik</a>, which uses Skolelinux on all their shools and also
8150 provide the basic sitesummary report publicly.  In their report there
8151 are ~1400 machines. I know they use both Ubuntu and Skolelinux on
8152 their machines, and as sitesummary is available in both distributions,
8153 it is trivial to get all of them to report to the same central
8154 collector.</p>
8155
8156       </div>
8157       <div class="tags">
8158
8159
8160         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>.
8161
8162
8163       </div>
8164     </div>
8165     <div class="padding"></div>
8166
8167     <div class="entry">
8168       <div class="title">
8169         <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>
8170       </div>
8171       <div class="date">
8172          1st June 2010
8173       </div>
8174       <div class="body">
8175         <p>It is strange to watch how a bug in Debian causing KDM to fail to
8176 start at boot when an NVidia video card is used is handled.  The
8177 problem seem to be that the nvidia X.org driver uses a long time to
8178 initialize, and this duration is longer than kdm is configured to
8179 wait.</p>
8180
8181 <p>I came across two bugs related to this issue,
8182 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">#583312</a> initially filed
8183 against initscripts and passed on to nvidia-glx when it became obvious
8184 that the nvidia drivers were involved, and
8185 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/524751">#524751</a> initially filed against
8186 kdm and passed on to src:nvidia-graphics-drivers for unknown reasons.</p>
8187
8188 <p>To me, it seem that no-one is interested in actually solving the
8189 problem nvidia video card owners experience and make sure the Debian
8190 distribution work out of the box for these users.  The nvidia driver
8191 maintainers expect kdm to be set up to wait longer, while kdm expect
8192 the nvidia driver maintainers to fix the driver to start faster, and
8193 while they wait for each other I guess the users end up switching to a
8194 distribution that work for them.  I have no idea what the solution is,
8195 but I am pretty sure that waiting for each other is not it.</p>
8196
8197 <p>I wonder why we end up handling bugs this way.</p>
8198
8199       </div>
8200       <div class="tags">
8201
8202
8203         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>.
8204
8205
8206       </div>
8207     </div>
8208     <div class="padding"></div>
8209
8210     <div class="entry">
8211       <div class="title">
8212         <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>
8213       </div>
8214       <div class="date">
8215         27th May 2010
8216       </div>
8217       <div class="body">
8218         <p>A few days ago, parallel booting was enabled in Debian/testing.
8219 The feature seem to hold up pretty well, but three fairly serious
8220 issues are known and should be solved:
8221
8222 <p><ul>
8223
8224 <li>The wicd package seen to
8225 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/508289">break NFS mounting</a> and
8226 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/581586">network setup</a> when
8227 parallel booting is enabled.  No idea why, but the wicd maintainer
8228 seem to be on the case.</li>
8229
8230 <li>The nvidia X driver seem to
8231 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">have a race condition</a>
8232 triggered more easily when parallel booting is in effect.  The
8233 maintainer is on the case.</li>
8234
8235 <li>The sysv-rc package fail to properly enable dependency based boot
8236 sequencing (the shutdown is broken) when old file-rc users
8237 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/575080">try to switch back</a> to
8238 sysv-rc.  One way to solve it would be for file-rc to create
8239 /etc/init.d/.legacy-bootordering, and another is to try to make
8240 sysv-rc more robust.  Will investigate some more and probably upload a
8241 workaround in sysv-rc to help those trying to move from file-rc to
8242 sysv-rc get a working shutdown.</li>
8243
8244 </ul></p>
8245
8246 <p>All in all not many surprising issues, and all of them seem
8247 solvable before Squeeze is released.  In addition to these there are
8248 some packages with bugs in their dependencies and run level settings,
8249 which I expect will be fixed in a reasonable time span.</p>
8250
8251 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
8252 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
8253 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
8254 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
8255
8256 <p>Update: Correct bug number to file-rc issue.</p>
8257
8258       </div>
8259       <div class="tags">
8260
8261
8262         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>.
8263
8264
8265       </div>
8266     </div>
8267     <div class="padding"></div>
8268
8269     <div class="entry">
8270       <div class="title">
8271         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/More_flexible_firmware_handling_in_debian_installer.html">More flexible firmware handling in debian-installer</a>
8272       </div>
8273       <div class="date">
8274         22nd May 2010
8275       </div>
8276       <div class="body">
8277         <p>After a long break from debian-installer development, I finally
8278 found time today to return to the project.  Having to spend less time
8279 working dependency based boot in debian, as it is almost complete now,
8280 definitely helped freeing some time.</p>
8281
8282 <p>A while back, I ran into a problem while working on Debian Edu.  We
8283 include some firmware packages on the Debian Edu CDs, those needed to
8284 get disk and network controllers working.  Without having these
8285 firmware packages available during installation, it is impossible to
8286 install Debian Edu on the given machine, and because our target group
8287 are non-technical people, asking them to provide firmware packages on
8288 an external medium is a support pain.  Initially, I expected it to be
8289 enough to include the firmware packages on the CD to get
8290 debian-installer to find and use them.  This proved to be wrong.
8291 Next, I hoped it was enough to symlink the relevant firmware packages
8292 to some useful location on the CD (tried /cdrom/ and
8293 /cdrom/firmware/).  This also proved to not work, and at this point I
8294 found time to look at the debian-installer code to figure out what was
8295 going to work.</p>
8296
8297 <p>The firmware loading code is in the hw-detect package, and a closer
8298 look revealed that it would only look for firmware packages outside
8299 the installation media, so the CD was never checked for firmware
8300 packages.  It would only check USB sticks, floppies and other
8301 "external" media devices.  Today I changed it to also look in the
8302 /cdrom/firmware/ directory on the mounted CD or DVD, which should
8303 solve the problem I ran into with Debian edu.  I also changed it to
8304 look in /firmware/, to make sure the installer also find firmware
8305 provided in the initrd when booting the installer via PXE, to allow us
8306 to provide the same feature in the PXE setup included in Debian
8307 Edu.</p>
8308
8309 <p>To make sure firmware deb packages with a license questions are not
8310 activated without asking if the license is accepted, I extended
8311 hw-detect to look for preinst scripts in the firmware packages, and
8312 run these before activating the firmware during installation.  The
8313 license question is asked using debconf in the preinst, so this should
8314 solve the issue for the firmware packages I have looked at so far.</p>
8315
8316 <p>If you want to discuss the details of these features, please
8317 contact us on debian-boot@lists.debian.org.</p>
8318
8319       </div>
8320       <div class="tags">
8321
8322
8323         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>.
8324
8325
8326       </div>
8327     </div>
8328     <div class="padding"></div>
8329
8330     <div class="entry">
8331       <div class="title">
8332         <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>
8333       </div>
8334       <div class="date">
8335         14th May 2010
8336       </div>
8337       <div class="body">
8338         <p>Since this evening, parallel booting is the default in
8339 Debian/unstable for machines using dependency based boot sequencing.
8340 Apparently the testing of concurrent booting has been wider than
8341 expected, if I am to believe the
8342 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
8343 on debian-devel@</a>, and I concluded a few days ago to move forward
8344 with the feature this weekend, to give us some time to detect any
8345 remaining problems before Squeeze is frozen.  If serious problems are
8346 detected, it is simple to change the default back to sequential boot.
8347 The upload of the new sysvinit package also activate a new upstream
8348 version.</p>
8349
8350 More information about
8351 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
8352 based boot sequencing</a> is available from the Debian wiki.  It is
8353 currently possible to disable parallel booting when one run into
8354 problems caused by it, by adding this line to /etc/default/rcS:</p>
8355
8356 <blockquote><pre>
8357 CONCURRENCY=none
8358 </pre></blockquote>
8359
8360 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
8361 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
8362 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
8363 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
8364
8365       </div>
8366       <div class="tags">
8367
8368
8369         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>.
8370
8371
8372       </div>
8373     </div>
8374     <div class="padding"></div>
8375
8376     <div class="entry">
8377       <div class="title">
8378         <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>
8379       </div>
8380       <div class="date">
8381         14th May 2010
8382       </div>
8383       <div class="body">
8384         <p>In the recent Debian Edu versions, the
8385 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/SiteSummary">sitesummary
8386 system</a> is used to keep track of the machines in the school
8387 network.  Each machine will automatically report its status to the
8388 central server after boot and once per night.  The network setup is
8389 also reported, and using this information it is possible to get the
8390 MAC address of all network interfaces in the machines.  This is useful
8391 to update the DHCP configuration.</p>
8392
8393 <p>To give some idea how to use sitesummary, here is a one-liner to
8394 ist all MAC addresses of all machines reporting to sitesummary.  Run
8395 this on the collector host:</p>
8396
8397 <blockquote><pre>
8398 perl -MSiteSummary -e 'for_all_hosts(sub { print join(" ", get_macaddresses(shift)), "\n"; });'
8399 </pre></blockquote>
8400
8401 <p>This will list all MAC addresses assosiated with all machine, one
8402 line per machine and with space between the MAC addresses.</p>
8403
8404 <p>To allow system administrators easier job at adding static DHCP
8405 addresses for hosts, it would be possible to extend this to fetch
8406 machine information from sitesummary and update the DHCP and DNS
8407 tables in LDAP using this information.  Such tool is unfortunately not
8408 written yet.</p>
8409
8410       </div>
8411       <div class="tags">
8412
8413
8414         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>.
8415
8416
8417       </div>
8418     </div>
8419     <div class="padding"></div>
8420
8421     <div class="entry">
8422       <div class="title">
8423         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/systemd__an_interesting_alternative_to_upstart.html">systemd, an interesting alternative to upstart</a>
8424       </div>
8425       <div class="date">
8426         13th May 2010
8427       </div>
8428       <div class="body">
8429         <p>The last few days a new boot system called
8430 <a href="http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd">systemd</a>
8431 has been
8432 <a href="http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/systemd.html">introduced</a>
8433
8434 to the free software world.  I have not yet had time to play around
8435 with it, but it seem to be a very interesting alternative to
8436 <a href="http://upstart.ubuntu.com/">upstart</a>, and might prove to be
8437 a good alternative for Debian when we are able to switch to an event
8438 based boot system.  Tollef is
8439 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/580814">in the process</a> of getting
8440 systemd into Debian, and I look forward to seeing how well it work.  I
8441 like the fact that systemd handles init.d scripts with dependency
8442 information natively, allowing them to run in parallel where upstart
8443 at the moment do not.</p>
8444
8445 <p>Unfortunately do systemd have the same problem as upstart regarding
8446 platform support.  It only work on recent Linux kernels, and also need
8447 some new kernel features enabled to function properly.  This means
8448 kFreeBSD and Hurd ports of Debian will need a port or a different boot
8449 system.  Not sure how that will be handled if systemd proves to be the
8450 way forward.</p>
8451
8452 <p>In the mean time, based on the
8453 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
8454 on debian-devel@</a> regarding parallel booting in Debian, I have
8455 decided to enable full parallel booting as the default in Debian as
8456 soon as possible (probably this weekend or early next week), to see if
8457 there are any remaining serious bugs in the init.d dependencies.  A
8458 new version of the sysvinit package implementing this change is
8459 already in experimental.  If all go well, Squeeze will be released
8460 with parallel booting enabled by default.</p>
8461
8462       </div>
8463       <div class="tags">
8464
8465
8466         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>.
8467
8468
8469       </div>
8470     </div>
8471     <div class="padding"></div>
8472
8473     <div class="entry">
8474       <div class="title">
8475         <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>
8476       </div>
8477       <div class="date">
8478          6th May 2010
8479       </div>
8480       <div class="body">
8481         <p>These days, the init.d script dependencies in Squeeze are quite
8482 complete, so complete that it is actually possible to run all the
8483 init.d scripts in parallell based on these dependencies.  If you want
8484 to test your Squeeze system, make sure
8485 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
8486 based boot sequencing</a> is enabled, and add this line to
8487 /etc/default/rcS:</p>
8488
8489 <blockquote><pre>
8490 CONCURRENCY=makefile
8491 </pre></blockquote>
8492
8493 <p>That is it.  It will cause sysv-rc to use the startpar tool to run
8494 scripts in parallel using the dependency information stored in
8495 /etc/init.d/.depend.boot, /etc/init.d/.depend.start and
8496 /etc/init.d/.depend.stop to order the scripts.  Startpar is configured
8497 to try to start the kdm and gdm scripts as early as possible, and will
8498 start the facilities required by kdm or gdm as early as possible to
8499 make this happen.</p>
8500
8501 <p>Give it a try, and see if you like the result.  If some services
8502 fail to start properly, it is most likely because they have incomplete
8503 init.d script dependencies in their startup script (or some of their
8504 dependent scripts have incomplete dependencies).  Report bugs and get
8505 the package maintainers to fix it. :)</p>
8506
8507 <p>Running scripts in parallel could be the default in Debian when we
8508 manage to get the init.d script dependencies complete and correct.  I
8509 expect we will get there in Squeeze+1, if we get manage to test and
8510 fix the remaining issues.</p>
8511
8512 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
8513 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
8514 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
8515 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
8516
8517       </div>
8518       <div class="tags">
8519
8520
8521         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>.
8522
8523
8524       </div>
8525     </div>
8526     <div class="padding"></div>
8527
8528     <div class="entry">
8529       <div class="title">
8530         <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>
8531       </div>
8532       <div class="date">
8533         27th July 2009
8534       </div>
8535       <div class="body">
8536         <p>Since this evening, with the upload of sysvinit version 2.87dsf-2,
8537 and the upload of insserv version 1.12.0-10 yesterday, Debian unstable
8538 have been migrated to using dependency based boot sequencing.  This
8539 conclude work me and others have been doing for the last three days.
8540 It feels great to see this finally part of the default Debian
8541 installation.  Now we just need to weed out the last few problems that
8542 are bound to show up, to get everything ready for Squeeze.</p>
8543
8544 <p>The next step is migrating /sbin/init from sysvinit to upstart, and
8545 fixing the more fundamental problem of handing the event based
8546 non-predictable kernel in the early boot.</p>
8547
8548       </div>
8549       <div class="tags">
8550
8551
8552         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>.
8553
8554
8555       </div>
8556     </div>
8557     <div class="padding"></div>
8558
8559     <div class="entry">
8560       <div class="title">
8561         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Taking_over_sysvinit_development.html">Taking over sysvinit development</a>
8562       </div>
8563       <div class="date">
8564         22nd July 2009
8565       </div>
8566       <div class="body">
8567         <p>After several years of frustration with the lack of activity from
8568 the existing sysvinit upstream developer, I decided a few weeks ago to
8569 take over the package and become the new upstream.  The number of
8570 patches to track for the Debian package was becoming a burden, and the
8571 lack of synchronization between the distribution made it hard to keep
8572 the package up to date.</p>
8573
8574 <p>On the new sysvinit team is the SuSe maintainer Dr. Werner Fink,
8575 and my Debian co-maintainer Kel Modderman.  About 10 days ago, I made
8576 a new upstream tarball with version number 2.87dsf (for Debian, SuSe
8577 and Fedora), based on the patches currently in use in these
8578 distributions.  We Debian maintainers plan to move to this tarball as
8579 the new upstream as soon as we find time to do the merge.  Since the
8580 new tarball was created, we agreed with Werner at SuSe to make a new
8581 upstream project at <a href="http://savannah.nongnu.org/">Savannah</a>, and continue
8582 development there.  The project is registered and currently waiting
8583 for approval by the Savannah administrators, and as soon as it is
8584 approved, we will import the old versions from svn and continue
8585 working on the future release.</p>
8586
8587 <p>It is a bit ironic that this is done now, when some of the involved
8588 distributions are moving to upstart as a syvinit replacement.</p>
8589
8590       </div>
8591       <div class="tags">
8592
8593
8594         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>.
8595
8596
8597       </div>
8598     </div>
8599     <div class="padding"></div>
8600
8601     <div class="entry">
8602       <div class="title">
8603         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_boots_quicker_and_quicker.html">Debian boots quicker and quicker</a>
8604       </div>
8605       <div class="date">
8606         24th June 2009
8607       </div>
8608       <div class="body">
8609         <p>I spent Monday and tuesday this week in London with a lot of the
8610 people involved in the boot system on Debian and Ubuntu, to see if we
8611 could find more ways to speed up the boot system.  This was an Ubuntu
8612 funded
8613 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FoundationsTeam/BootPerformance/DebianUbuntuSprint">developer
8614 gathering</a>. It was quite productive.  We also discussed the future
8615 of boot systems, and ways to handle the increasing number of boot
8616 issues introduced by the Linux kernel becoming more and more
8617 asynchronous and event base.  The Ubuntu approach using udev and
8618 upstart might be a good way forward.  Time will show.</p>
8619
8620 <p>Anyway, there are a few ways at the moment to speed up the boot
8621 process in Debian.  All of these should be applied to get a quick
8622 boot:</p>
8623
8624 <ul>
8625
8626 <li>Use dash as /bin/sh.</li>
8627
8628 <li>Disable the init.d/hwclock*.sh scripts and make sure the hardware
8629    clock is in UTC.</li>
8630
8631 <li>Install and activate the insserv package to enable
8632    <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
8633    based boot sequencing</a>, and enable concurrent booting.</li>
8634
8635 </ul>
8636
8637 These points are based on the Google summer of code work done by
8638 <a href="http://initscripts-ng.alioth.debian.org/soc2006-bootsystem/">Carlos
8639 Villegas</a>.
8640
8641 <p>Support for makefile-style concurrency during boot was uploaded to
8642 unstable yesterday.  When we tested it, we were able to cut 6 seconds
8643 from the boot sequence.  It depend on very correct dependency
8644 declaration in all init.d scripts, so I expect us to find edge cases
8645 where the dependences in some scripts are slightly wrong when we start
8646 using this.</p>
8647
8648 <p>On our IRC channel for this effort, #pkg-sysvinit, a new idea was
8649 introduced by Raphael Geissert today, one that could affect the
8650 startup speed as well.  Instead of starting some scripts concurrently
8651 from rcS.d/ and another set of scripts from rc2.d/, it would be
8652 possible to run a of them in the same process.  A quick way to test
8653 this would be to enable insserv and run 'mv /etc/rc2.d/S* /etc/rcS.d/;
8654 insserv'.  Will need to test if that work. :)</p>
8655
8656       </div>
8657       <div class="tags">
8658
8659
8660         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>.
8661
8662
8663       </div>
8664     </div>
8665     <div class="padding"></div>
8666
8667     <div class="entry">
8668       <div class="title">
8669         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/BSAs_p_stander_om_piratkopiering_m_ter_motstand.html">BSAs påstander om piratkopiering møter motstand</a>
8670       </div>
8671       <div class="date">
8672         17th May 2009
8673       </div>
8674       <div class="body">
8675         <p>Hvert år de siste årene har BSA, lobbyfronten til de store
8676 programvareselskapene som Microsoft og Apple, publisert en rapport der
8677 de gjetter på hvor mye piratkopiering påfører i tapte inntekter i
8678 ulike land rundt om i verden.  Resultatene er tendensiøse.  For noen
8679 dager siden kom
8680 <a href="http://global.bsa.org/globalpiracy2008/studies/globalpiracy2008.pdf">siste
8681 rapport</a>, og det er flere kritiske kommentarer publisert de siste
8682 dagene.  Et spesielt interessant kommentar fra Sverige,
8683 <a href="http://www.idg.se/2.1085/1.229795/bsa-hoftade-sverigesiffror">BSA
8684 höftade Sverigesiffror</a>, oppsummeres slik:</p>
8685
8686 <blockquote>
8687 I sin senaste rapport slår BSA fast att 25 procent av all mjukvara i
8688 Sverige är piratkopierad. Det utan att ha pratat med ett enda svenskt
8689 företag. "Man bör nog kanske inte se de här siffrorna som helt
8690 exakta", säger BSAs Sverigechef John Hugosson.
8691 </blockquote>
8692
8693 <p>Mon tro om de er like metodiske når de gjetter på andelen piratkopiering i Norge?  To andre kommentarer er <a
8694 href="http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/comment/2242134/bsa-piracy-figures-shot-reality">BSA
8695 piracy figures need a shot of reality</a> og <a
8696 href="http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/3958/125/">Does The WIPO
8697 Copyright Treaty Work?</a></p>
8698
8699 <p>Fant lenkene via <a
8700 href="http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/05/17/1632242">oppslag
8701 på Slashdot</a>.</p>
8702
8703       </div>
8704       <div class="tags">
8705
8706
8707         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>.
8708
8709
8710       </div>
8711     </div>
8712     <div class="padding"></div>
8713
8714     <div class="entry">
8715       <div class="title">
8716         <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>
8717       </div>
8718       <div class="date">
8719          7th May 2009
8720       </div>
8721       <div class="body">
8722         <p>Kom over
8723 <a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10216873-16.html">interessante
8724 tall</a> fra IDG om utviklingen av linuxservermarkedet.  Fikk meg til
8725 å tenke på antall tjenermaskiner ved Universitetet i Oslo der jeg
8726 jobber til daglig.  En rask opptelling forteller meg at vi har 490
8727 (61%) fysiske unix-tjener (mest linux men også noen solaris) og 196
8728 (25%) windowstjenere, samt 112 (14%) virtuelle unix-tjenere.  Med den
8729 bakgrunnskunnskapen kan jeg godt tro at IDG er inne på noe.</p>
8730
8731       </div>
8732       <div class="tags">
8733
8734
8735         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>.
8736
8737
8738       </div>
8739     </div>
8740     <div class="padding"></div>
8741
8742     <div class="entry">
8743       <div class="title">
8744         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Kryptert_harddisk___naturligvis.html">Kryptert harddisk - naturligvis</a>
8745       </div>
8746       <div class="date">
8747          2nd May 2009
8748       </div>
8749       <div class="body">
8750         <p><a href="http://www.dagensit.no/trender/article1658676.ece">Dagens
8751 IT melder</a> at Intel hevder at det er dyrt å miste en datamaskin,
8752 når en tar tap av arbeidstid, fortrolige dokumenter,
8753 personopplysninger og alt annet det innebærer.  Det er ingen tvil om
8754 at det er en kostbar affære å miste sin datamaskin, og det er årsaken
8755 til at jeg har kryptert harddisken på både kontormaskinen og min
8756 bærbare.  Begge inneholder personopplysninger jeg ikke ønsker skal
8757 komme på avveie, den første informasjon relatert til jobben min ved
8758 Universitetet i Oslo, og den andre relatert til blant annet
8759 foreningsarbeide.  Kryptering av diskene gjør at det er lite
8760 sannsynlig at dophoder som kan finne på å rappe maskinene får noe ut
8761 av dem.  Maskinene låses automatisk etter noen minutter uten bruk,
8762 og en reboot vil gjøre at de ber om passord før de vil starte opp.
8763 Jeg bruker Debian på begge maskinene, og installasjonssystemet der
8764 gjør det trivielt å sette opp krypterte disker.  Jeg har LVM på toppen
8765 av krypterte partisjoner, slik at alt av datapartisjoner er kryptert.
8766 Jeg anbefaler alle å kryptere diskene på sine bærbare.  Kostnaden når
8767 det er gjort slik jeg gjør det er minimale, og gevinstene er
8768 betydelige.  En bør dog passe på passordet.  Hvis det går tapt, må
8769 maskinen reinstalleres og alt er tapt.</p>
8770
8771 <p>Krypteringen vil ikke stoppe kompetente angripere som f.eks. kjøler
8772 ned minnebrikkene før maskinen rebootes med programvare for å hente ut
8773 krypteringsnøklene.  Kostnaden med å forsvare seg mot slike angripere
8774 er for min del høyere enn gevinsten.  Jeg tror oddsene for at
8775 f.eks. etteretningsorganisasjoner har glede av å titte på mine
8776 maskiner er minimale, og ulempene jeg ville oppnå ved å forsøke å
8777 gjøre det vanskeligere for angripere med kompetanse og ressurser er
8778 betydelige.</p>
8779
8780       </div>
8781       <div class="tags">
8782
8783
8784         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>.
8785
8786
8787       </div>
8788     </div>
8789     <div class="padding"></div>
8790
8791     <div class="entry">
8792       <div class="title">
8793         <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>
8794       </div>
8795       <div class="date">
8796          2nd May 2009
8797       </div>
8798       <div class="body">
8799         <p>There are two software projects that have had huge influence on the
8800 quality of free software, and I wanted to mention both in case someone
8801 do not yet know them.</p>
8802
8803 <p>The first one is <a href="http://valgrind.org/">valgrind</a>, a
8804 tool to detect and expose errors in the memory handling of programs.
8805 It is easy to use, all one need to do is to run 'valgrind program',
8806 and it will report any problems on stdout.  It is even better if the
8807 program include debug information.  With debug information, it is able
8808 to report the source file name and line number where the problem
8809 occurs.  It can report things like 'reading past memory block in file
8810 X line N, the memory block was allocated in file Y, line M', and
8811 'using uninitialised value in control logic'.  This tool has made it
8812 trivial to investigate reproducible crash bugs in programs, and have
8813 reduced the number of this kind of bugs in free software a lot.
8814
8815 <p>The second one is
8816 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coverity">Coverity</a> which is
8817 a source code checker.  It is able to process the source of a program
8818 and find problems in the logic without running the program.  It
8819 started out as the Stanford Checker and became well known when it was
8820 used to find bugs in the Linux kernel.  It is now a commercial tool
8821 and the company behind it is running
8822 <a href="http://www.scan.coverity.com/">a community service</a> for the
8823 free software community, where a lot of free software projects get
8824 their source checked for free.  Several thousand defects have been
8825 found and fixed so far.  It can find errors like 'lock L taken in file
8826 X line N is never released if exiting in line M', or 'the code in file
8827 Y lines O to P can never be executed'.  The projects included in the
8828 community service project have managed to get rid of a lot of
8829 reliability problems thanks to Coverity.</p>
8830
8831 <p>I believe tools like this, that are able to automatically find
8832 errors in the source, are vital to improve the quality of software and
8833 make sure we can get rid of the crashing and failing software we are
8834 surrounded by today.</p>
8835
8836       </div>
8837       <div class="tags">
8838
8839
8840         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>.
8841
8842
8843       </div>
8844     </div>
8845     <div class="padding"></div>
8846
8847     <div class="entry">
8848       <div class="title">
8849         <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>
8850       </div>
8851       <div class="date">
8852         28th April 2009
8853       </div>
8854       <div class="body">
8855         <p>Julien Blache
8856 <a href="http://blog.technologeek.org/2009/04/12/214">claim that no
8857 patch is better than a useless patch</a>.  I completely disagree, as a
8858 patch allow one to discuss a concrete and proposed solution, and also
8859 prove that the issue at hand is important enough for someone to spent
8860 time on fixing it.  No patch do not provide any of these positive
8861 properties.</p>
8862
8863       </div>
8864       <div class="tags">
8865
8866
8867         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>.
8868
8869
8870       </div>
8871     </div>
8872     <div class="padding"></div>
8873
8874     <div class="entry">
8875       <div class="title">
8876         <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>
8877       </div>
8878       <div class="date">
8879         30th March 2009
8880       </div>
8881       <div class="body">
8882         <p>Where I work at the University of Oslo, one decision stand out as a
8883 very good one to form a long lived computer infrastructure.  It is the
8884 simple one, lost by many in todays computer industry: Standardize on
8885 open network protocols and open exchange/storage formats, not applications.
8886 Applications come and go, while protocols and files tend to stay, and
8887 thus one want to make it easy to change application and vendor, while
8888 avoiding conversion costs and locking users to a specific platform or
8889 application.</p>
8890
8891 <p>This approach make it possible to replace the client applications
8892 independently of the server applications.  One can even allow users to
8893 use several different applications as long as they handle the selected
8894 protocol and format.  In the normal case, only one client application
8895 is recommended and users only get help if they choose to use this
8896 application, but those that want to deviate from the easy path are not
8897 blocked from doing so.</p>
8898
8899 <p>It also allow us to replace the server side without forcing the
8900 users to replace their applications, and thus allow us to select the
8901 best server implementation at any moment, when scale and resouce
8902 requirements change.</p>
8903
8904 <p>I strongly recommend standardizing - on open network protocols and
8905 open formats, but I would never recommend standardizing on a single
8906 application that do not use open network protocol or open formats.</p>
8907
8908       </div>
8909       <div class="tags">
8910
8911
8912         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>.
8913
8914
8915       </div>
8916     </div>
8917     <div class="padding"></div>
8918
8919     <div class="entry">
8920       <div class="title">
8921         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Returning_from_Skolelinux_developer_gathering.html">Returning from Skolelinux developer gathering</a>
8922       </div>
8923       <div class="date">
8924         29th March 2009
8925       </div>
8926       <div class="body">
8927         <p>I'm sitting on the train going home from this weekends Debian
8928 Edu/Skolelinux development gathering.  I got a bit done tuning the
8929 desktop, and looked into the dynamic service location protocol
8930 implementation avahi.  It look like it could be useful for us.  Almost
8931 30 people participated, and I believe it was a great environment to
8932 get to know the Skolelinux system.  Walter Bender, involved in the
8933 development of the Sugar educational platform, presented his stuff and
8934 also helped me improve my OLPC installation.  He also showed me that
8935 his Turtle Art application can be used in standalone mode, and we
8936 agreed that I would help getting it packaged for Debian.  As a
8937 standalone application it would be great for Debian Edu.  We also
8938 tried to get the video conferencing working with two OLPCs, but that
8939 proved to be too hard for us.  The application seem to need more work
8940 before it is ready for me.  I look forward to getting home and relax
8941 now. :)</p>
8942
8943       </div>
8944       <div class="tags">
8945
8946
8947         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>.
8948
8949
8950       </div>
8951     </div>
8952     <div class="padding"></div>
8953
8954     <div class="entry">
8955       <div class="title">
8956         <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>
8957       </div>
8958       <div class="date">
8959         29th March 2009
8960       </div>
8961       <div class="body">
8962         <p>The state of standardized LDAP schemas on Linux is far from
8963 optimal.  There is RFC 2307 documenting one way to store NIS maps in
8964 LDAP, and a modified version of this normally called RFC 2307bis, with
8965 some modifications to be compatible with Active Directory.  The RFC
8966 specification handle the content of a lot of system databases, but do
8967 not handle DNS zones and DHCP configuration.</p>
8968
8969 <p>In <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux</a>,
8970 we would like to store information about users, SMB clients/hosts,
8971 filegroups, netgroups (users and hosts), DHCP and DNS configuration,
8972 and LTSP configuration in LDAP.  These objects have a lot in common,
8973 but with the current LDAP schemas it is not possible to have one
8974 object per entity.  For example, one need to have at least three LDAP
8975 objects for a given computer, one with the SMB related stuff, one with
8976 DNS information and another with DHCP information.  The schemas
8977 provided for DNS and DHCP are impossible to combine into one LDAP
8978 object.  In addition, it is impossible to implement quick queries for
8979 netgroup membership, because of the way NIS triples are implemented.
8980 It just do not scale.  I believe it is time for a few RFC
8981 specifications to cleam up this mess.</p>
8982
8983 <p>I would like to have one LDAP object representing each computer in
8984 the network, and this object can then keep the SMB (ie host key), DHCP
8985 (mac address/name) and DNS (name/IP address) settings in one place.
8986 It need to be efficently stored to make sure it scale well.</p>
8987
8988 <p>I would also like to have a quick way to map from a user or
8989 computer and to the net group this user or computer is a member.</p>
8990
8991 <p>Active Directory have done a better job than unix heads like myself
8992 in this regard, and the unix side need to catch up.  Time to start a
8993 new IETF work group?</p>
8994
8995       </div>
8996       <div class="tags">
8997
8998
8999         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>.
9000
9001
9002       </div>
9003     </div>
9004     <div class="padding"></div>
9005
9006     <div class="entry">
9007       <div class="title">
9008         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Endelig_er_Debian_Lenny_gitt_ut.html">Endelig er Debian Lenny gitt ut</a>
9009       </div>
9010       <div class="date">
9011         15th February 2009
9012       </div>
9013       <div class="body">
9014         <p>Endelig er <a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</a>
9015 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2009/20090214">Lenny</a> gitt ut.
9016 Et langt steg videre for Debian-prosjektet, og en rekke nye
9017 programpakker blir nå tilgjengelig for de av oss som bruker den
9018 stabile utgaven av Debian.  Neste steg er nå å få
9019 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a> /
9020 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/">Debian Edu</a> ferdig
9021 oppdatert for den nye utgaven, slik at en oppdatert versjon kan
9022 slippes løs på skolene.  Takk til alle debian-utviklerne som har
9023 gjort dette mulig.  Endelig er f.eks. fungerende avhengighetsstyrt
9024 bootsekvens tilgjengelig i stabil utgave, vha pakken
9025 <tt>insserv</tt>.</p>
9026
9027       </div>
9028       <div class="tags">
9029
9030
9031         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>.
9032
9033
9034       </div>
9035     </div>
9036     <div class="padding"></div>
9037
9038     <div class="entry">
9039       <div class="title">
9040         <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>
9041       </div>
9042       <div class="date">
9043          7th December 2008
9044       </div>
9045       <div class="body">
9046         <p>This weekend we had a small developer gathering for Debian Edu in
9047 Oslo.  Most of Saturday was used for the general assemly for the
9048 member organization, but the rest of the weekend I used to tune the
9049 LTSP installation.  LTSP now work out of the box on the 10-network.
9050 Acer Aspire One proved to be a very nice thin client, with both
9051 screen, mouse and keybard in a small box.  Was working on getting the
9052 diskless workstation setup configured out of the box, but did not
9053 finish it before the weekend was up.</p>
9054
9055 <p>Did not find time to look at the 4 VGA cards in one box we got from
9056 the Brazilian group, so that will have to wait for the next
9057 development gathering.  Would love to have the Debian Edu installer
9058 automatically detect and configure a multiseat setup when it find one
9059 of these cards.</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/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>.
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/The_sorry_state_of_multimedia_browser_plugins_in_Debian.html">The sorry state of multimedia browser plugins in Debian</a>
9075       </div>
9076       <div class="date">
9077         25th November 2008
9078       </div>
9079       <div class="body">
9080         <p>Recently I have spent some time evaluating the multimedia browser
9081 plugins available in Debian Lenny, to see which one we should use by
9082 default in Debian Edu.  We need an embedded video playing plugin with
9083 control buttons to pause or stop the video, and capable of streaming
9084 all the multimedia content available on the web.  The test results and
9085 notes are available on
9086 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">the
9087 Debian wiki</a>.  I was surprised how few of the plugins are able to
9088 fill this need.  My personal video player favorite, VLC, has a really
9089 bad plugin which fail on a lot of the test pages.  A lot of the MIME
9090 types I would expect to work with any free software player (like
9091 video/ogg), just do not work.  And simple formats like the
9092 audio/x-mplegurl format (m3u playlists), just isn't supported by the
9093 totem and vlc plugins.  I hope the situation will improve soon.  No
9094 wonder sites use the proprietary Adobe flash to play video.</p>
9095
9096 <p>For Lenny, we seem to end up with the mplayer plugin.  It seem to
9097 be the only one fitting our needs. :/</p>
9098
9099       </div>
9100       <div class="tags">
9101
9102
9103         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>.
9104
9105
9106       </div>
9107     </div>
9108     <div class="padding"></div>
9109
9110     <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>
9111     <div id="sidebar">
9112
9113
9114
9115 <h2>Archive</h2>
9116 <ul>
9117
9118 <li>2015
9119 <ul>
9120
9121 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/01/">January (7)</a></li>
9122
9123 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/02/">February (6)</a></li>
9124
9125 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/03/">March (1)</a></li>
9126
9127 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/04/">April (4)</a></li>
9128
9129 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/05/">May (3)</a></li>
9130
9131 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/06/">June (4)</a></li>
9132
9133 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/07/">July (3)</a></li>
9134
9135 </ul></li>
9136
9137 <li>2014
9138 <ul>
9139
9140 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/01/">January (2)</a></li>
9141
9142 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/02/">February (3)</a></li>
9143
9144 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/03/">March (8)</a></li>
9145
9146 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/04/">April (7)</a></li>
9147
9148 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/05/">May (1)</a></li>
9149
9150 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/06/">June (2)</a></li>
9151
9152 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/07/">July (2)</a></li>
9153
9154 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/08/">August (2)</a></li>
9155
9156 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/09/">September (5)</a></li>
9157
9158 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/10/">October (6)</a></li>
9159
9160 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/11/">November (3)</a></li>
9161
9162 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/12/">December (5)</a></li>
9163
9164 </ul></li>
9165
9166 <li>2013
9167 <ul>
9168
9169 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/01/">January (11)</a></li>
9170
9171 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/02/">February (9)</a></li>
9172
9173 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/03/">March (9)</a></li>
9174
9175 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/04/">April (6)</a></li>
9176
9177 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/05/">May (9)</a></li>
9178
9179 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/06/">June (10)</a></li>
9180
9181 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/07/">July (7)</a></li>
9182
9183 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/08/">August (3)</a></li>
9184
9185 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/09/">September (5)</a></li>
9186
9187 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/10/">October (7)</a></li>
9188
9189 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/11/">November (9)</a></li>
9190
9191 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/12/">December (3)</a></li>
9192
9193 </ul></li>
9194
9195 <li>2012
9196 <ul>
9197
9198 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/01/">January (7)</a></li>
9199
9200 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/02/">February (10)</a></li>
9201
9202 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/03/">March (17)</a></li>
9203
9204 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/04/">April (12)</a></li>
9205
9206 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/05/">May (12)</a></li>
9207
9208 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/06/">June (20)</a></li>
9209
9210 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/07/">July (17)</a></li>
9211
9212 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/08/">August (6)</a></li>
9213
9214 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/09/">September (9)</a></li>
9215
9216 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/10/">October (17)</a></li>
9217
9218 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/11/">November (10)</a></li>
9219
9220 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/12/">December (7)</a></li>
9221
9222 </ul></li>
9223
9224 <li>2011
9225 <ul>
9226
9227 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/01/">January (16)</a></li>
9228
9229 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/02/">February (6)</a></li>
9230
9231 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/03/">March (6)</a></li>
9232
9233 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/04/">April (7)</a></li>
9234
9235 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/05/">May (3)</a></li>
9236
9237 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/06/">June (2)</a></li>
9238
9239 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/07/">July (7)</a></li>
9240
9241 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/08/">August (6)</a></li>
9242
9243 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/09/">September (4)</a></li>
9244
9245 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/10/">October (2)</a></li>
9246
9247 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/11/">November (3)</a></li>
9248
9249 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/12/">December (1)</a></li>
9250
9251 </ul></li>
9252
9253 <li>2010
9254 <ul>
9255
9256 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/01/">January (2)</a></li>
9257
9258 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/02/">February (1)</a></li>
9259
9260 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/03/">March (3)</a></li>
9261
9262 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/04/">April (3)</a></li>
9263
9264 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/05/">May (9)</a></li>
9265
9266 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/06/">June (14)</a></li>
9267
9268 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/07/">July (12)</a></li>
9269
9270 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/08/">August (13)</a></li>
9271
9272 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/09/">September (7)</a></li>
9273
9274 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/10/">October (9)</a></li>
9275
9276 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/11/">November (13)</a></li>
9277
9278 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/12/">December (12)</a></li>
9279
9280 </ul></li>
9281
9282 <li>2009
9283 <ul>
9284
9285 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/01/">January (8)</a></li>
9286
9287 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/02/">February (8)</a></li>
9288
9289 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/03/">March (12)</a></li>
9290
9291 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/04/">April (10)</a></li>
9292
9293 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/05/">May (9)</a></li>
9294
9295 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/06/">June (3)</a></li>
9296
9297 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/07/">July (4)</a></li>
9298
9299 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/08/">August (3)</a></li>
9300
9301 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/09/">September (1)</a></li>
9302
9303 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/10/">October (2)</a></li>
9304
9305 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/11/">November (3)</a></li>
9306
9307 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/12/">December (3)</a></li>
9308
9309 </ul></li>
9310
9311 <li>2008
9312 <ul>
9313
9314 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/11/">November (5)</a></li>
9315
9316 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/12/">December (7)</a></li>
9317
9318 </ul></li>
9319
9320 </ul>
9321
9322
9323
9324 <h2>Tags</h2>
9325 <ul>
9326
9327  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer (13)</a></li>
9328
9329  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/amiga">amiga (1)</a></li>
9330
9331  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/aros">aros (1)</a></li>
9332
9333  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bankid">bankid (4)</a></li>
9334
9335  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin (8)</a></li>
9336
9337  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem (15)</a></li>
9338
9339  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bsa">bsa (2)</a></li>
9340
9341  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/chrpath">chrpath (2)</a></li>
9342
9343  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian (111)</a></li>
9344
9345  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu (153)</a></li>
9346
9347  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/digistan">digistan (10)</a></li>
9348
9349  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/dld">dld (15)</a></li>
9350
9351  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook (13)</a></li>
9352
9353  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/drivstoffpriser">drivstoffpriser (4)</a></li>
9354
9355  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english (282)</a></li>
9356
9357  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami (23)</a></li>
9358
9359  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fildeling">fildeling (12)</a></li>
9360
9361  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture (15)</a></li>
9362
9363  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox (9)</a></li>
9364
9365  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen (16)</a></li>
9366
9367  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/h264">h264 (19)</a></li>
9368
9369  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju (42)</a></li>
9370
9371  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram (10)</a></li>
9372
9373  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kart">kart (19)</a></li>
9374
9375  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap (9)</a></li>
9376
9377  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lenker">lenker (8)</a></li>
9378
9379  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lsdvd">lsdvd (2)</a></li>
9380
9381  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ltsp">ltsp (1)</a></li>
9382
9383  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network (8)</a></li>
9384
9385  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia (35)</a></li>
9386
9387  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk (263)</a></li>
9388
9389  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug (176)</a></li>
9390
9391  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/offentlig innsyn">offentlig innsyn (18)</a></li>
9392
9393  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/open311">open311 (2)</a></li>
9394
9395  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett (52)</a></li>
9396
9397  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern (86)</a></li>
9398
9399  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/raid">raid (1)</a></li>
9400
9401  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reactos">reactos (1)</a></li>
9402
9403  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reprap">reprap (11)</a></li>
9404
9405  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rfid">rfid (3)</a></li>
9406
9407  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot (9)</a></li>
9408
9409  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rss">rss (1)</a></li>
9410
9411  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ruter">ruter (4)</a></li>
9412
9413  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/scraperwiki">scraperwiki (2)</a></li>
9414
9415  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet (41)</a></li>
9416
9417  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary (4)</a></li>
9418
9419  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/skepsis">skepsis (4)</a></li>
9420
9421  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard (47)</a></li>
9422
9423  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stavekontroll">stavekontroll (3)</a></li>
9424
9425  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stortinget">stortinget (9)</a></li>
9426
9427  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance (33)</a></li>
9428
9429  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sysadmin">sysadmin (2)</a></li>
9430
9431  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/usenix">usenix (2)</a></li>
9432
9433  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/valg">valg (8)</a></li>
9434
9435  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video (53)</a></li>
9436
9437  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/vitenskap">vitenskap (4)</a></li>
9438
9439  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web (36)</a></li>
9440
9441 </ul>
9442
9443
9444     </div>
9445     <p style="text-align: right">
9446  Created by <a href="http://steve.org.uk/Software/chronicle">Chronicle v4.6</a>
9447 </p>
9448
9449   </body>
9450 </html>