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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/Using_appstream_in_Debian_to_locate_packages_with_firmware_and_mime_type_support.html">Using appstream in Debian to locate packages with firmware and mime type support</a>
  26       </div>
  27       <div class="date">
  28          4th February 2016
  29       </div>
  30       <div class="body">
  31         <p>The <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DEP-11">appstream system</a>
  32 is taking shape in Debian, and one provided feature is a very
  33 convenient way to tell you which package to install to make a given
  34 firmware file available when the kernel is looking for it.  This can
  35 be done using apt-file too, but that is for someone else to blog
  36 about. :)</p>
  37
  38 <p>Here is a small recipe to find the package with a given firmware
  39 file, in this example I am looking for ctfw-3.2.3.0.bin, randomly
  40 picked from the set of firmware announced using appstream in Debian
  41 unstable.  In general you would be looking for the firmware requested
  42 by the kernel during kernel module loading.  To find the package
  43 providing the example file, do like this:</p>
  44
  45 <blockquote><pre>
  46 % apt install appstream
  47 [...]
  48 % apt update
  49 [...]
  50 % appstreamcli what-provides firmware:runtime ctfw-3.2.3.0.bin | \
  51   awk '/Package:/ {print $2}'
  52 firmware-qlogic
  53 %
  54 </pre></blockquote>
  55
  56 <p>See <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/AppStream/Guidelines">the
  57 appstream wiki</a> page to learn how to embed the package metadata in
  58 a way appstream can use.</p>
  59
  60 <p>This same approach can be used to find any package supporting a
  61 given MIME type.  This is very useful when you get a file you do not
  62 know how to handle.  First find the mime type using <tt>file
  63 --mime-type</tt>, and next look up the package providing support for
  64 it.  Lets say you got an SVG file.  Its MIME type is image/svg+xml,
  65 and you can find all packages handling this type like this:</p>
  66
  67 <blockquote><pre>
  68 % apt install appstream
  69 [...]
  70 % apt update
  71 [...]
  72 % appstreamcli what-provides mimetype image/svg+xml | \
  73   awk '/Package:/ {print $2}'
  74 bkchem
  75 phototonic
  76 inkscape
  77 shutter
  78 tetzle
  79 geeqie
  80 xia
  81 pinta
  82 gthumb
  83 karbon
  84 comix
  85 mirage
  86 viewnior
  87 postr
  88 ristretto
  89 kolourpaint4
  90 eog
  91 eom
  92 gimagereader
  93 midori
  94 %
  95 </pre></blockquote>
  96
  97 <p>I believe the MIME types are fetched from the desktop file for
  98 packages providing appstream metadata.</p>
  99
 100       </div>
 101       <div class="tags">
 102
 103
 104         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
 105
 106
 107       </div>
 108     </div>
 109     <div class="padding"></div>
 110
 111     <div class="entry">
 112       <div class="title">
 113         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Creepy__visualise_geotagged_social_media_information___nice_free_software.html">Creepy, visualise geotagged social media information - nice free software</a>
 114       </div>
 115       <div class="date">
 116         24th January 2016
 117       </div>
 118       <div class="body">
 119         <p>Most people seem not to realise that every time they walk around
 120 with the computerised radio beacon known as a mobile phone their
 121 position is tracked by the phone company and often stored for a long
 122 time (like every time a SMS is received or sent).  And if their
 123 computerised radio beacon is capable of running programs (often called
 124 mobile apps) downloaded from the Internet, these programs are often
 125 also capable of tracking their location (if the app requested access
 126 during installation).  And when these programs send out information to
 127 central collection points, the location is often included, unless
 128 extra care is taken to not send the location.  The provided
 129 information is used by several entities, for good and bad (what is
 130 good and bad, depend on your point of view).  What is certain, is that
 131 the private sphere and the right to free movement is challenged and
 132 perhaps even eradicated for those announcing their location this way,
 133 when they share their whereabouts with private and public
 134 entities.</p>
 135
 136 <p align="center"><img width="70%" src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-01-24-nice-creepy-desktop-window.png"></p>
 137
 138 <p>The phone company logs provide a register of locations to check out
 139 when one want to figure out what the tracked person was doing.  It is
 140 unavailable for most of us, but provided to selected government
 141 officials, company staff, those illegally buying information from
 142 unfaithful servants and crackers stealing the information.  But the
 143 public information can be collected and analysed, and a free software
 144 tool to do so is called
 145 <a href="http://www.geocreepy.com/">Creepy or Cree.py</a>.  I
 146 discovered it when I read
 147 <a href="http://www.aftenposten.no/kultur/Slik-kan-du-bli-overvaket-pa-Twitter-og-Instagram-uten-a-ane-det-7787884.html">an
 148 article about Creepy</a> in the Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten i
 149 November 2014, and decided to check if it was available in Debian.
 150 The python program was in Debian, but
 151 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/creepy">the version in
 152 Debian</a> was completely broken and practically unmaintained.  I
 153 uploaded a new version which did not work quite right, but did not
 154 have time to fix it then.  This Christmas I decided to finally try to
 155 get Creepy operational in Debian.  Now a fixed version is available in
 156 Debian unstable and testing, and almost all Debian specific patches
 157 are now included
 158 <a href="https://github.com/jkakavas/creepy">upstream</a>.</p>
 159
 160 <p>The Creepy program visualises geolocation information fetched from
 161 Twitter, Instagram, Flickr and Google+, and allow one to get a
 162 complete picture of every social media message posted recently in a
 163 given area, or track the movement of a given individual across all
 164 these services.  Earlier it was possible to use the search API of at
 165 least some of these services without identifying oneself, but these
 166 days it is impossible.  This mean that to use Creepy, you need to
 167 configure it to log in as yourself on these services, and provide
 168 information to them about your search interests.  This should be taken
 169 into account when using Creepy, as it will also share information
 170 about yourself with the services.</p>
 171
 172 <p>The picture above show the twitter messages sent from (or at least
 173 geotagged with a position from) the city centre of Oslo, the capital
 174 of Norway.  One useful way to use Creepy is to first look at
 175 information tagged with an area of interest, and next look at all the
 176 information provided by one or more individuals who was in the area.
 177 I tested it by checking out which celebrity provide their location in
 178 twitter messages by checkout out who sent twitter messages near a
 179 Norwegian TV station, and next could track their position over time,
 180 making it possible to locate their home and work place, among other
 181 things.  A similar technique have been
 182 <a href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/maxseddon/does-this-soldiers-instagram-account-prove-russia-is-covertl">used
 183 to locate Russian soldiers in Ukraine</a>, and it is both a powerful
 184 tool to discover lying governments, and a useful tool to help people
 185 understand the value of the private information they provide to the
 186 public.</p>
 187
 188 <p>The package is not trivial to backport to Debian Stable/Jessie, as
 189 it depend on several python modules currently missing in Jessie (at
 190 least python-instagram, python-flickrapi and
 191 python-requests-toolbelt).</p>
 192
 193 <p>(I have uploaded
 194 <a href="https://screenshots.debian.net/package/creepy">the image to
 195 screenshots.debian.net</a> and licensed it under the same terms as the
 196 Creepy program in Debian.)</p>
 197
 198       </div>
 199       <div class="tags">
 200
 201
 202         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nice free software">nice free software</a>.
 203
 204
 205       </div>
 206     </div>
 207     <div class="padding"></div>
 208
 209     <div class="entry">
 210       <div class="title">
 211         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Always_download_Debian_packages_using_Tor___the_simple_recipe.html">Always download Debian packages using Tor - the simple recipe</a>
 212       </div>
 213       <div class="date">
 214         15th January 2016
 215       </div>
 216       <div class="body">
 217         <p>During his DebConf15 keynote, Jacob Appelbaum
 218 <a href="https://summit.debconf.org/debconf15/meeting/331/what-is-to-be-done/">observed
 219 that those listening on the Internet lines would have good reason to
 220 believe a computer have a given security hole</a> if it download a
 221 security fix from a Debian mirror.  This is a good reason to always
 222 use encrypted connections to the Debian mirror, to make sure those
 223 listening do not know which IP address to attack.  In August, Richard
 224 Hartmann observed that encryption was not enough, when it was possible
 225 to interfere download size to security patches or the fact that
 226 download took place shortly after a security fix was released, and
 227 <a href="http://richardhartmann.de/blog/posts/2015/08/24-Tor-enabled_Debian_mirror/">proposed
 228 to always use Tor to download packages from the Debian mirror</a>.  He
 229 was not the first to propose this, as the
 230 <tt><a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/apt-transport-tor">apt-transport-tor</a></tt>
 231 package by Tim Retout already existed to make it easy to convince apt
 232 to use <a href="https://www.torproject.org/">Tor</a>, but I was not
 233 aware of that package when I read the blog post from Richard.</p>
 234
 235 <p>Richard discussed the idea with Peter Palfrader, one of the Debian
 236 sysadmins, and he set up a Tor hidden service on one of the central
 237 Debian mirrors using the address vwakviie2ienjx6t.onion, thus making
 238 it possible to download packages directly between two tor nodes,
 239 making sure the network traffic always were encrypted.</p>
 240
 241 <p>Here is a short recipe for enabling this on your machine, by
 242 installing <tt>apt-transport-tor</tt> and replacing http and https
 243 urls with tor+http and tor+https, and using the hidden service instead
 244 of the official Debian mirror site.  I recommend installing
 245 <tt>etckeeper</tt> before you start to have a history of the changes
 246 done in /etc/.</p>
 247
 248 <blockquote><pre>
 249 apt install apt-transport-tor
 250 sed -i 's% http://ftp.debian.org/%tor+http://vwakviie2ienjx6t.onion/%' /etc/apt/sources.list
 251 sed -i 's% http% tor+http%' /etc/apt/sources.list
 252 </pre></blockquote>
 253
 254 <p>If you have more sources listed in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/, run
 255 the sed commands for these too.  The sed command is assuming your are
 256 using the ftp.debian.org Debian mirror.  Adjust the command (or just
 257 edit the file manually) to match your mirror.</p>
 258
 259 <p>This work in Debian Jessie and later.  Note that tools like
 260 <tt>apt-file</tt> only recently started using the apt transport
 261 system, and do not work with these tor+http URLs.  For
 262 <tt>apt-file</tt> you need the version currently in experimental,
 263 which need a recent apt version currently only in unstable.  So if you
 264 need a working <tt>apt-file</tt>, this is not for you.</p>
 265
 266 <p>Another advantage from this change is that your machine will start
 267 using Tor regularly and at fairly random intervals (every time you
 268 update the package lists or upgrade or install a new package), thus
 269 masking other Tor traffic done from the same machine.  Using Tor will
 270 become normal for the machine in question.</p>
 271
 272 <p>On <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">Freedombox</a>, APT
 273 is set up by default to use <tt>apt-transport-tor</tt> when Tor is
 274 enabled.  It would be great if it was the default on any Debian
 275 system.</p>
 276
 277       </div>
 278       <div class="tags">
 279
 280
 281         Tags: <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>.
 282
 283
 284       </div>
 285     </div>
 286     <div class="padding"></div>
 287
 288     <div class="entry">
 289       <div class="title">
 290         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/OpenALPR__find_car_license_plates_in_video_streams___nice_free_software.html">OpenALPR, find car license plates in video streams - nice free software</a>
 291       </div>
 292       <div class="date">
 293         23rd December 2015
 294       </div>
 295       <div class="body">
 296         <p>When I was a kid, we used to collect "car numbers", as we used to
 297 call the car license plate numbers in those days.  I would write the
 298 numbers down in my little book and compare notes with the other kids
 299 to see how many region codes we had seen and if we had seen some
 300 exotic or special region codes and numbers.  It was a fun game to pass
 301 time, as we kids have plenty of it.</p>
 302
 303 <p>A few days I came across
 304 <a href="https://github.com/openalpr/openalpr">the OpenALPR
 305 project</a>, a free software project to automatically discover and
 306 report license plates in images and video streams, and provide the
 307 "car numbers" in a machine readable format.  I've been looking for
 308 such system for a while now, because I believe it is a bad idea that the
 309 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_number_plate_recognition">automatic
 310 number plate recognition</a> tool only is available in the hands of
 311 the powerful, and want it to be available also for the powerless to
 312 even the score when it comes to surveillance and sousveillance.  I
 313 discovered the developer
 314 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/747509">wanted to get the tool into
 315 Debian</a>, and as I too wanted it to be in Debian, I volunteered to
 316 help him get it into shape to get the package uploaded into the Debian
 317 archive.</p>
 318
 319 <p>Today we finally managed to get the package into shape and uploaded
 320 it into Debian, where it currently
 321 <a href="https://ftp-master.debian.org//new/openalpr_2.2.1-1.html">waits
 322 in the NEW queue</a> for review by the Debian ftpmasters.</p>
 323
 324 <p>I guess you are wondering why on earth such tool would be useful
 325 for the common folks, ie those not running a large government
 326 surveillance system?  Well, I plan to put it in a computer on my bike
 327 and in my car, tracking the cars nearby and allowing me to be notified
 328 when number plates on my watch list are discovered.  Another use case
 329 was suggested by a friend of mine, who wanted to set it up at his home
 330 to open the car port automatically when it discovered the plate on his
 331 car.  When I mentioned it perhaps was a bit foolhardy to allow anyone
 332 capable of placing his license plate number of a piece of cardboard to
 333 open his car port, men replied that it was always unlocked anyway.  I
 334 guess for such use case it make sense.  I am sure there are other use
 335 cases too, for those with imagination and a vision.</p>
 336
 337 <p>If you want to build your own version of the Debian package, check
 338 out the upstream git source and symlink ./distros/debian to ./debian/
 339 before running "debuild" to build the source.  Or wait a bit until the
 340 package show up in unstable.</p>
 341
 342       </div>
 343       <div class="tags">
 344
 345
 346         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nice free software">nice free software</a>.
 347
 348
 349       </div>
 350     </div>
 351     <div class="padding"></div>
 352
 353     <div class="entry">
 354       <div class="title">
 355         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_appstream_with_isenkram_to_install_hardware_related_packages_in_Debian.html">Using appstream with isenkram to install hardware related packages in Debian</a>
 356       </div>
 357       <div class="date">
 358         20th December 2015
 359       </div>
 360       <div class="body">
 361         <p>Around three years ago, I created
 362 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">the isenkram
 363 system</a> to get a more practical solution in Debian for handing
 364 hardware related packages.  A GUI system in the isenkram package will
 365 present a pop-up dialog when some hardware dongle supported by
 366 relevant packages in Debian is inserted into the machine.  The same
 367 lookup mechanism to detect packages is available as command line
 368 tools in the isenkram-cli package.  In addition to mapping hardware,
 369 it will also map kernel firmware files to packages and make it easy to
 370 install needed firmware packages automatically.  The key for this
 371 system to work is a good way to map hardware to packages, in other
 372 words, allow packages to announce what hardware they will work
 373 with.</p>
 374
 375 <p>I started by providing data files in the isenkram source, and
 376 adding code to download the latest version of these data files at run
 377 time, to ensure every user had the most up to date mapping available.
 378 I also added support for storing the mapping in the Packages file in
 379 the apt repositories, but did not push this approach because while I
 380 was trying to figure out how to best store hardware/package mappings,
 381 <a href="http://www.freedesktop.org/software/appstream/docs/">the
 382 appstream system</a> was announced.  I got in touch and suggested to
 383 add the hardware mapping into that data set to be able to use
 384 appstream as a data source, and this was accepted at least for the
 385 Debian version of appstream.</p>
 386
 387 <p>A few days ago using appstream in Debian for this became possible,
 388 and today I uploaded a new version 0.20 of isenkram adding support for
 389 appstream as a data source for mapping hardware to packages.  The only
 390 package so far using appstream to announce its hardware support is my
 391 pymissile package.  I got help from Matthias Klumpp with figuring out
 392 how do add the required
 393 <a href="https://appstream.debian.org/html/sid/main/metainfo/pymissile.html">metadata
 394 in pymissile</a>.  I added a file debian/pymissile.metainfo.xml with
 395 this content:</p>
 396
 397 <blockquote><pre>
 398 &lt;?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?&gt;
 399 &lt;component&gt;
 400   &lt;id&gt;pymissile&lt;/id&gt;
 401   &lt;metadata_license&gt;MIT&lt;/metadata_license&gt;
 402   &lt;name&gt;pymissile&lt;/name&gt;
 403   &lt;summary&gt;Control original Striker USB Missile Launcher&lt;/summary&gt;
 404   &lt;description&gt;
 405     &lt;p&gt;
 406       Pymissile provides a curses interface to control an original
 407       Marks and Spencer / Striker USB Missile Launcher, as well as a
 408       motion control script to allow a webcamera to control the
 409       launcher.
 410     &lt;/p&gt;
 411   &lt;/description&gt;
 412   &lt;provides&gt;
 413     &lt;modalias&gt;usb:v1130p0202d*&lt;/modalias&gt;
 414   &lt;/provides&gt;
 415 &lt;/component&gt;
 416 </pre></blockquote>
 417
 418 <p>The key for isenkram is the component/provides/modalias value,
 419 which is a glob style match rule for hardware specific strings
 420 (modalias strings) provided by the Linux kernel.  In this case, it
 421 will map to all USB devices with vendor code 1130 and product code
 422 0202.</p>
 423
 424 <p>Note, it is important that the license of all the metadata files
 425 are compatible to have permissions to aggregate them into archive wide
 426 appstream files.  Matthias suggested to use MIT or BSD licenses for
 427 these files.  A challenge is figuring out a good id for the data, as
 428 it is supposed to be globally unique and shared across distributions
 429 (in other words, best to coordinate with upstream what to use).  But
 430 it can be changed later or, so we went with the package name as
 431 upstream for this project is dormant.</p>
 432
 433 <p>To get the metadata file installed in the correct location for the
 434 mirror update scripts to pick it up and include its content the
 435 appstream data source, the file must be installed in the binary
 436 package under /usr/share/appdata/.  I did this by adding the following
 437 line to debian/pymissile.install:</p>
 438
 439 <blockquote><pre>
 440 debian/pymissile.metainfo.xml usr/share/appdata
 441 </pre></blockquote>
 442
 443 <p>With that in place, the command line tool isenkram-lookup will list
 444 all packages useful on the current computer automatically, and the GUI
 445 pop-up handler will propose to install the package not already
 446 installed if a hardware dongle is inserted into the machine in
 447 question.</p>
 448
 449 <p>Details of the modalias field in appstream is available from the
 450 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DEP-11">DEP-11</a> proposal.</p>
 451
 452 <p>To locate the modalias values of all hardware present in a machine,
 453 try running this command on the command line:</p>
 454
 455 <blockquote><pre>
 456 cat $(find /sys/devices/|grep modalias)
 457 </pre></blockquote>
 458
 459 <p>To learn more about the isenkram system, please check out
 460 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram/">my
 461 blog posts tagged isenkram</a>.</p>
 462
 463       </div>
 464       <div class="tags">
 465
 466
 467         Tags: <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>.
 468
 469
 470       </div>
 471     </div>
 472     <div class="padding"></div>
 473
 474     <div class="entry">
 475       <div class="title">
 476         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_GNU_General_Public_License_is_not_magic_pixie_dust.html">The GNU General Public License is not magic pixie dust</a>
 477       </div>
 478       <div class="date">
 479         30th November 2015
 480       </div>
 481       <div class="body">
 482         <p>A blog post from my fellow Debian developer Paul Wise titled
 483 "<a href="http://bonedaddy.net/pabs3/log/2015/11/27/sfc-supporter/">The
 484 GPL is not magic pixie dust</a>" explain the importance of making sure
 485 the <a href="http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html">GPL</a> is enforced.
 486 I quote the blog post from Paul in full here with his permission:<p>
 487
 488 <blockquote>
 489
 490 <p><a href="https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/"><img src="https://sfconservancy.org/img/supporter-badge.png" width="194" height="90" alt="Become a Software Freedom Conservancy Supporter!" align="right" border="0" /></a></p>
 491
 492 <blockquote>
 493 The GPL is not magic pixie dust. It does not work by itself.<br/>
 494
 495 The first step is to choose a
 496 <a href="https://copyleft.org/">copyleft</a> license for your
 497 code.<br/>
 498
 499 The next step is, when someone fails to follow that copyleft license,
 500 <b>it must be enforced</b><br/>
 501
 502 and its a simple fact of our modern society that such type of
 503 work<br/>
 504
 505 is incredibly expensive to do and incredibly difficult to do.
 506 </blockquote>
 507
 508 <p><small>-- <a href="http://ebb.org/bkuhn/">Bradley Kuhn</a>, in
 509 <a href="http://faif.us/" title="Free as in Freedom">FaiF</a>
 510 <a href="http://faif.us/cast/2015/nov/24/0x57/">episode
 511 0x57</a></small></p>
 512
 513 <p>As the Debian Website
 514 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/794116">used</a>
 515 <a href="https://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/webwml/webwml/english/intro/free.wml?r1=1.24&amp;r2=1.25">to</a>
 516 imply, public domain and permissively licensed software can lead to
 517 the production of more proprietary software as people discover useful
 518 software, extend it and or incorporate it into their hardware or
 519 software products.  Copyleft licenses such as the GNU GPL were created
 520 to close off this avenue to the production of proprietary software but
 521 such licenses are not enough.  With the ongoing adoption of Free
 522 Software by individuals and groups, inevitably the community's
 523 expectations of license compliance are violated, usually out of
 524 ignorance of the way Free Software works, but not always.  As Karen
 525 and Bradley explained in <a href="http://faif.us/" title="Free as in
 526 Freedom">FaiF</a>
 527 <a href="http://faif.us/cast/2015/nov/24/0x57/">episode 0x57</a>,
 528 copyleft is nothing if no-one is willing and able to stand up in court
 529 to protect it.  The reality of today's world is that legal
 530 representation is expensive, difficult and time consuming.  With
 531 <a href="http://gpl-violations.org/">gpl-violations.org</a> in hiatus
 532 <a href="http://gpl-violations.org/news/20151027-homepage-recovers/">until</a>
 533 some time in 2016, the <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/">Software
 534 Freedom Conservancy</a> (a tax-exempt charity) is the major defender
 535 of the Linux project, Debian and other groups against GPL violations.
 536 In March the SFC supported a
 537 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/news/2015/mar/05/vmware-lawsuit/">lawsuit
 538 by Christoph Hellwig</a> against VMware for refusing to
 539 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/linux-compliance/vmware-lawsuit-faq.html">comply
 540 with the GPL</a> in relation to their use of parts of the Linux
 541 kernel.  Since then two of their sponsors pulled corporate funding and
 542 conferences
 543 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2015/nov/24/faif-carols-fundraiser/">blocked
 544 or cancelled their talks</a>.  As a result they have decided to rely
 545 less on corporate funding and more on the broad community of
 546 individuals who support Free Software and copyleft.  So the SFC has
 547 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/news/2015/nov/23/2015fundraiser/">launched</a>
 548 a <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/">campaign</a> to create
 549 a community of folks who stand up for copyleft and the GPL by
 550 supporting their work on promoting and supporting copyleft and Free
 551 Software.</p>
 552
 553 <p>If you support Free Software,
 554 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2015/nov/26/like-what-I-do/">like</a>
 555 what the SFC do, agree with their
 556 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/linux-compliance/principles.html">compliance
 557 principles</a>, are happy about their
 558 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/">successes</a> in 2015,
 559 work on a project that is an SFC
 560 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/members/current/">member</a> and or
 561 just want to stand up for copyleft, please join
 562 <a href="https://identi.ca/cwebber/image/JQGPA4qbTyyp3-MY8QpvuA">Christopher
 563 Allan Webber</a>,
 564 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2015/nov/24/faif-carols-fundraiser/">Carol
 565 Smith</a>,
 566 <a href="http://www.jonobacon.org/2015/11/25/supporting-software-freedom-conservancy/">Jono
 567 Bacon</a>, myself and
 568 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/sponsors/#supporters">others</a> in
 569 becoming a
 570 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/">supporter</a>.  For the
 571 next week your donation will be
 572 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/news/2015/nov/27/black-friday/">matched</a>
 573 by an anonymous donor.  Please also consider asking your employer to
 574 match your donation or become a sponsor of SFC.  Don't forget to
 575 spread the word about your support for SFC via email, your blog and or
 576 social media accounts.</p>
 577
 578 </blockquote>
 579
 580 <p>I agree with Paul on this topic and just signed up as a Supporter
 581 of Software Freedom Conservancy myself.  Perhaps you should be a
 582 supporter too?</p>
 583
 584       </div>
 585       <div class="tags">
 586
 587
 588         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>.
 589
 590
 591       </div>
 592     </div>
 593     <div class="padding"></div>
 594
 595     <div class="entry">
 596       <div class="title">
 597         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/PGP_key_transition_statement_for_key_EE4E02F9.html">PGP key transition statement for key EE4E02F9</a>
 598       </div>
 599       <div class="date">
 600         17th November 2015
 601       </div>
 602       <div class="body">
 603         <p>I've needed a new OpenPGP key for a while, but have not had time to
 604 set it up properly.  I wanted to generate it offline and have it
 605 available on <a href="http://shop.kernelconcepts.de/#openpgp">a OpenPGP
 606 smart card</a> for daily use, and learning how to do it and finding
 607 time to sit down with an offline machine almost took forever.  But
 608 finally I've been able to complete the process, and have now moved
 609 from my old GPG key to a new GPG key.  See
 610 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2015-11-17-new-gpg-key-transition.txt">the
 611 full transition statement, signed with both my old and new key</a> for
 612 the details.  This is my new key:</p>
 613
 614 <pre>
 615 pub   3936R/<a href="http://pgp.cs.uu.nl/stats/111D6B29EE4E02F9.html">111D6B29EE4E02F9</a> 2015-11-03 [expires: 2019-11-14]
 616       Key fingerprint = 3AC7 B2E3 ACA5 DF87 78F1  D827 111D 6B29 EE4E 02F9
 617 uid                  Petter Reinholdtsen &lt;pere@hungry.com&gt;
 618 uid                  Petter Reinholdtsen &lt;pere@debian.org&gt;
 619 sub   4096R/87BAFB0E 2015-11-03 [expires: 2019-11-02]
 620 sub   4096R/F91E6DE9 2015-11-03 [expires: 2019-11-02]
 621 sub   4096R/A0439BAB 2015-11-03 [expires: 2019-11-02]
 622 </pre>
 623
 624 <p>The key can be downloaded from the OpenPGP key servers, signed by
 625 my old key.</p>
 626
 627 <p>If you signed my old key
 628 (<a href="http://pgp.cs.uu.nl/stats/DB4CCC4B2A30D729.html">DB4CCC4B2A30D729</a>),
 629 I'd very much appreciate a signature on my new key, details and
 630 instructions in the transition statement. I m happy to reciprocate if
 631 you have a similarly signed transition statement to present.</p>
 632
 633       </div>
 634       <div class="tags">
 635
 636
 637         Tags: <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>.
 638
 639
 640       </div>
 641     </div>
 642     <div class="padding"></div>
 643
 644     <div class="entry">
 645       <div class="title">
 646         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_life_and_death_of_a_laptop_battery.html">The life and death of a laptop battery</a>
 647       </div>
 648       <div class="date">
 649         24th September 2015
 650       </div>
 651       <div class="body">
 652         <p>When I get a new laptop, the battery life time at the start is OK.
 653 But this do not last.  The last few laptops gave me a feeling that
 654 within a year, the life time is just a fraction of what it used to be,
 655 and it slowly become painful to use the laptop without power connected
 656 all the time.  Because of this, when I got a new Thinkpad X230 laptop
 657 about two years ago, I decided to monitor its battery state to have
 658 more hard facts when the battery started to fail.</p>
 659
 660 <img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2015-09-24-laptop-battery-graph.png"/>
 661
 662 <p>First I tried to find a sensible Debian package to record the
 663 battery status, assuming that this must be a problem already handled
 664 by someone else.  I found
 665 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">battery-stats</a>,
 666 which collects statistics from the battery, but it was completely
 667 broken.  I sent a few suggestions to the maintainer, but decided to
 668 write my own collector as a shell script while I waited for feedback
 669 from him.  Via
 670 <a href="http://www.ifweassume.com/2013/08/the-de-evolution-of-my-laptop-battery.html">a
 671 blog post about the battery development on a MacBook Air</a> I also
 672 discovered
 673 <a href="https://github.com/jradavenport/batlog.git">batlog</a>, not
 674 available in Debian.</p>
 675
 676 <p>I started my collector 2013-07-15, and it has been collecting
 677 battery stats ever since. Now my
 678 /var/log/hjemmenett-battery-status.log file contain around 115,000
 679 measurements, from the time the battery was working great until now,
 680 when it is unable to charge above 7% of original capacity.  My
 681 collector shell script is quite simple and look like this:</p>
 682
 683 <pre>
 684 #!/bin/sh
 685 # Inspired by
 686 # http://www.ifweassume.com/2013/08/the-de-evolution-of-my-laptop-battery.html
 687 # See also
 688 # http://blog.sleeplessbeastie.eu/2013/01/02/debian-how-to-monitor-battery-capacity/
 689 logfile=/var/log/hjemmenett-battery-status.log
 690
 691 files="manufacturer model_name technology serial_number \
 692     energy_full energy_full_design energy_now cycle_count status"
 693
 694 if [ ! -e "$logfile" ] ; then
 695     (
 696         printf "timestamp,"
 697         for f in $files; do
 698             printf "%s," $f
 699         done
 700         echo
 701     ) > "$logfile"
 702 fi
 703
 704 log_battery() {
 705     # Print complete message in one echo call, to avoid race condition
 706     # when several log processes run in parallel.
 707     msg=$(printf "%s," $(date +%s); \
 708         for f in $files; do \
 709             printf "%s," $(cat $f); \
 710         done)
 711     echo "$msg"
 712 }
 713
 714 cd /sys/class/power_supply
 715
 716 for bat in BAT*; do
 717     (cd $bat && log_battery >> "$logfile")
 718 done
 719 </pre>
 720
 721 <p>The script is called when the power management system detect a
 722 change in the power status (power plug in or out), and when going into
 723 and out of hibernation and suspend.  In addition, it collect a value
 724 every 10 minutes.  This make it possible for me know when the battery
 725 is discharging, charging and how the maximum charge change over time.
 726 The code for the Debian package
 727 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/battery-status">is now
 728 available on github</a>.</p>
 729
 730 <p>The collected log file look like this:</p>
 731
 732 <pre>
 733 timestamp,manufacturer,model_name,technology,serial_number,energy_full,energy_full_design,energy_now,cycle_count,status,
 734 1376591133,LGC,45N1025,Li-ion,974,62800000,62160000,39050000,0,Discharging,
 735 [...]
 736 1443090528,LGC,45N1025,Li-ion,974,4900000,62160000,4900000,0,Full,
 737 1443090601,LGC,45N1025,Li-ion,974,4900000,62160000,4900000,0,Full,
 738 </pre>
 739
 740 <p>I wrote a small script to create a graph of the charge development
 741 over time.  This graph depicted above show the slow death of my laptop
 742 battery.</p>
 743
 744 <p>But why is this happening?  Why are my laptop batteries always
 745 dying in a year or two, while the batteries of space probes and
 746 satellites keep working year after year.  If we are to believe
 747 <a href="http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/how_to_prolong_lithium_based_batteries">Battery
 748 University</a>, the cause is me charging the battery whenever I have a
 749 chance, and the fix is to not charge the Lithium-ion batteries to 100%
 750 all the time, but to stay below 90% of full charge most of the time.
 751 I've been told that the Tesla electric cars
 752 <a href="http://my.teslamotors.com/de_CH/forum/forums/battery-charge-limit">limit
 753 the charge of their batteries to 80%</a>, with the option to charge to
 754 100% when preparing for a longer trip (not that I would want a car
 755 like Tesla where rights to privacy is abandoned, but that is another
 756 story), which I guess is the option we should have for laptops on
 757 Linux too.</p>
 758
 759 <p>Is there a good and generic way with Linux to tell the battery to
 760 stop charging at 80%, unless requested to charge to 100% once in
 761 preparation for a longer trip?  I found
 762 <a href="http://askubuntu.com/questions/34452/how-can-i-limit-battery-charging-to-80-capacity">one
 763 recipe on askubuntu for Ubuntu to limit charging on Thinkpad to
 764 80%</a>, but could not get it to work (kernel module refused to
 765 load).</p>
 766
 767 <p>I wonder why the battery capacity was reported to be more than 100%
 768 at the start.  I also wonder why the "full capacity" increases some
 769 times, and if it is possible to repeat the process to get the battery
 770 back to design capacity.  And I wonder if the discharge and charge
 771 speed change over time, or if this stay the same.  I did not yet try
 772 to write a tool to calculate the derivative values of the battery
 773 level, but suspect some interesting insights might be learned from
 774 those.</p>
 775
 776 <p>Update 2015-09-24: I got a tip to install the packages
 777 acpi-call-dkms and tlp (unfortunately missing in Debian stable)
 778 packages instead of the tp-smapi-dkms package I had tried to use
 779 initially, and use 'tlp setcharge 40 80' to change when charging start
 780 and stop.  I've done so now, but expect my existing battery is toast
 781 and need to be replaced.  The proposal is unfortunately Thinkpad
 782 specific.</p>
 783
 784       </div>
 785       <div class="tags">
 786
 787
 788         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
 789
 790
 791       </div>
 792     </div>
 793     <div class="padding"></div>
 794
 795     <div class="entry">
 796       <div class="title">
 797         <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>
 798       </div>
 799       <div class="date">
 800          5th July 2015
 801       </div>
 802       <div class="body">
 803         <p>Several people contacted me after my previous blog post about my
 804 need for a new laptop, and provided very useful feedback.  I wish to
 805 thank every one of these.  Several pointed me to the possibility of
 806 fixing my X230, and I am already in the process of getting Lenovo to
 807 do so thanks to the on site, next day support contract covering the
 808 machine.  But the battery is almost useless (I expect to replace it
 809 with a non-official battery) and I do not expect the machine to live
 810 for many more years, so it is time to plan its replacement.  If I did
 811 not have a support contract, it was suggested to find replacement parts
 812 using <a href="http://www.francecrans.com/">FrancEcrans</a>, but it
 813 might present a language barrier as I do not understand French.</p>
 814
 815 <p>One tip I got was to use the
 816 <a href="https://skinflint.co.uk/?cat=nb">Skinflint</a> web service to
 817 compare laptop models.  It seem to have more models available than
 818 prisjakt.no.  Another tip I got from someone I know have similar
 819 keyboard preferences was that the HP EliteBook 840 keyboard is not
 820 very good, and this matches my experience with earlier EliteBook
 821 keyboards I tested.  Because of this, I will not consider it any further.
 822
 823 <p>When I wrote my blog post, I was not aware of Thinkpad X250, the
 824 newest Thinkpad X model.  The keyboard reintroduces mouse buttons
 825 (which is missing from the X240), and is working fairly well with
 826 Debian Sid/Unstable according to
 827 <a href="http://www.corsac.net/X250/">Corsac.net</a>.  The reports I
 828 got on the keyboard quality are not consistent.  Some say the keyboard
 829 is good, others say it is ok, while others say it is not very good.
 830 Those with experience from X41 and and X60 agree that the X250
 831 keyboard is not as good as those trusty old laptops, and suggest I
 832 keep and fix my X230 instead of upgrading, or get a used X230 to
 833 replace it.  I'm also told that the X250 lack leds for caps lock, disk
 834 activity and battery status, which is very convenient on my X230.  I'm
 835 also told that the CPU fan is running very often, making it a bit
 836 noisy.  In any case, the X250 do not work out of the box with Debian
 837 Stable/Jessie, one of my requirements.</p>
 838
 839 <p>I have also gotten a few vendor proposals, one was
 840 <a href="http://pro-star.com">Pro-Star</a>, another was
 841 <a href="http://shop.gluglug.org.uk/product/libreboot-x200/">Libreboot</a>.
 842 The latter look very attractive to me.</p>
 843
 844 <p>Again, thank you all for the very useful feedback.  It help a lot
 845 as I keep looking for a replacement.</p>
 846
 847 <p>Update 2015-07-06: I was recommended to check out the
 848 <a href="">lapstore.de</a> web shop for used laptops.  They got several
 849 different
 850 <a href="http://www.lapstore.de/f.php/shop/lapstore/f/411/lang/x/kw/Lenovo_ThinkPad_X_Serie/">old
 851 thinkpad X models</a>, and provide one year warranty.</p>
 852
 853       </div>
 854       <div class="tags">
 855
 856
 857         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
 858
 859
 860       </div>
 861     </div>
 862     <div class="padding"></div>
 863
 864     <div class="entry">
 865       <div class="title">
 866         <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>
 867       </div>
 868       <div class="date">
 869          3rd July 2015
 870       </div>
 871       <div class="body">
 872         <p>My primary work horse laptop is failing, and will need a
 873 replacement soon.  The left 5 cm of the screen on my Thinkpad X230
 874 started flickering yesterday, and I suspect the cause is a broken
 875 cable, as changing the angle of the screen some times get rid of the
 876 flickering.</p>
 877
 878 <p>My requirements have not really changed since I bought it, and is
 879 still as
 880 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thank_you_Thinkpad_X41__for_your_long_and_trustworthy_service.html">I
 881 described them in 2013</a>.  The last time I bought a laptop, I had
 882 good help from
 883 <a href="http://www.prisjakt.no/category.php?k=353">prisjakt.no</a>
 884 where I could select at least a few of the requirements (mouse pin,
 885 wifi, weight) and go through the rest manually.  Three button mouse
 886 and a good keyboard is not available as an option, and all the three
 887 laptop models proposed today (Thinkpad X240, HP EliteBook 820 G1 and
 888 G2) lack three mouse buttons).  It is also unclear to me how good the
 889 keyboard on the HP EliteBooks are.  I hope Lenovo have not messed up
 890 the keyboard, even if the quality and robustness in the X series have
 891 deteriorated since X41.</p>
 892
 893 <p>I wonder how I can find a sensible laptop when none of the options
 894 seem sensible to me?  Are there better services around to search the
 895 set of available laptops for features?  Please send me an email if you
 896 have suggestions.</p>
 897
 898 <p>Update 2015-07-23: I got a suggestion to check out the FSF
 899 <a href="http://www.fsf.org/resources/hw/endorsement/respects-your-freedom">list
 900 of endorsed hardware</a>, which is useful background information.</p>
 901
 902       </div>
 903       <div class="tags">
 904
 905
 906         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
 907
 908
 909       </div>
 910     </div>
 911     <div class="padding"></div>
 912
 913     <div class="entry">
 914       <div class="title">
 915         <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>
 916       </div>
 917       <div class="date">
 918         22nd November 2014
 919       </div>
 920       <div class="body">
 921         <p>By now, it is well known that Debian Jessie will not be using
 922 sysvinit as its boot system by default.  But how can one keep using
 923 sysvinit in Jessie?  It is fairly easy, and here are a few recipes,
 924 courtesy of
 925 <a href="http://www.vitavonni.de/blog/201410/2014102101-avoiding-systemd.html">Erich
 926 Schubert</a> and
 927 <a href="http://smcv.pseudorandom.co.uk/2014/still_universal/">Simon
 928 McVittie</a>.
 929
 930 <p>If you already are using Wheezy and want to upgrade to Jessie and
 931 keep sysvinit as your boot system, create a file
 932 <tt>/etc/apt/preferences.d/use-sysvinit</tt> with this content before
 933 you upgrade:</p>
 934
 935 <p><blockquote><pre>
 936 Package: systemd-sysv
 937 Pin: release o=Debian
 938 Pin-Priority: -1
 939 </pre></blockquote><p>
 940
 941 <p>This file content will tell apt and aptitude to not consider
 942 installing systemd-sysv as part of any installation and upgrade
 943 solution when resolving dependencies, and thus tell it to avoid
 944 systemd as a default boot system.  The end result should be that the
 945 upgraded system keep using sysvinit.</p>
 946
 947 <p>If you are installing Jessie for the first time, there is no way to
 948 get sysvinit installed by default (debootstrap used by
 949 debian-installer have no option for this), but one can tell the
 950 installer to switch to sysvinit before the first boot.  Either by
 951 using a kernel argument to the installer, or by adding a line to the
 952 preseed file used.  First, the kernel command line argument:
 953
 954 <p><blockquote><pre>
 955 preseed/late_command="in-target apt-get install --purge -y sysvinit-core"
 956 </pre></blockquote><p>
 957
 958 <p>Next, the line to use in a preseed file:</p>
 959
 960 <p><blockquote><pre>
 961 d-i preseed/late_command string in-target apt-get install -y sysvinit-core
 962 </pre></blockquote><p>
 963
 964 <p>One can of course also do this after the first boot by installing
 965 the sysvinit-core package.</p>
 966
 967 <p>I recommend only using sysvinit if you really need it, as the
 968 sysvinit boot sequence in Debian have several hardware specific bugs
 969 on Linux caused by the fact that it is unpredictable when hardware
 970 devices show up during boot.  But on the other hand, the new default
 971 boot system still have a few rough edges I hope will be fixed before
 972 Jessie is released.</p>
 973
 974 <p>Update 2014-11-26: Inspired by
 975 <ahref="https://www.mirbsd.org/permalinks/wlog-10-tg_e20141125-tg.htm#e20141125-tg_wlog-10-tg">a
 976 blog post by Torsten Glaser</a>, added --purge to the preseed
 977 line.</p>
 978
 979       </div>
 980       <div class="tags">
 981
 982
 983         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>.
 984
 985
 986       </div>
 987     </div>
 988     <div class="padding"></div>
 989
 990     <div class="entry">
 991       <div class="title">
 992         <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>
 993       </div>
 994       <div class="date">
 995         10th November 2014
 996       </div>
 997       <div class="body">
 998         <p>The right to communicate with your friends and family in private,
 999 without anyone snooping, is a right every citicen have in a liberal
1000 democracy.  But this right is under serious attack these days.</p>
1001
1002 <p>A while back it occurred to me that one way to make the dragnet
1003 surveillance conducted by NSA, GCHQ, FRA and others (and confirmed by
1004 the whisleblower Snowden) more expensive for Internet email,
1005 is to deliver all email using SMTP via Tor.  Such SMTP option would be
1006 a nice addition to the FreedomBox project if we could send email
1007 between FreedomBox machines without leaking metadata about the emails
1008 to the people peeking on the wire.  I
1009 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/freedombox-discuss/2014-October/006493.html">proposed
1010 this on the FreedomBox project mailing list in October</a> and got a
1011 lot of useful feedback and suggestions.  It also became obvious to me
1012 that this was not a novel idea, as the same idea was tested and
1013 documented by Johannes Berg as early as 2006, and both
1014 <a href="https://github.com/pagekite/Mailpile/wiki/SMTorP">the
1015 Mailpile</a> and <a href="http://dee.su/cables">the Cables</a> systems
1016 propose a similar method / protocol to pass emails between users.</p>
1017
1018 <p>To implement such system one need to set up a Tor hidden service
1019 providing the SMTP protocol on port 25, and use email addresses
1020 looking like username@hidden-service-name.onion.  With such addresses
1021 the connections to port 25 on hidden-service-name.onion using Tor will
1022 go to the correct SMTP server.  To do this, one need to configure the
1023 Tor daemon to provide the hidden service and the mail server to accept
1024 emails for this .onion domain.  To learn more about Exim configuration
1025 in Debian and test the design provided by Johannes Berg in his FAQ, I
1026 set out yesterday to create a Debian package for making it trivial to
1027 set up such SMTP over Tor service based on Debian.  Getting it to work
1028 were fairly easy, and
1029 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/exim4-smtorp">the
1030 source code for the Debian package</a> is available from github.  I
1031 plan to move it into Debian if further testing prove this to be a
1032 useful approach.</p>
1033
1034 <p>If you want to test this, set up a blank Debian machine without any
1035 mail system installed (or run <tt>apt-get purge exim4-config</tt> to
1036 get rid of exim4).  Install tor, clone the git repository mentioned
1037 above, build the deb and install it on the machine.  Next, run
1038 <tt>/usr/lib/exim4-smtorp/setup-exim-hidden-service</tt> and follow
1039 the instructions to get the service up and running.  Restart tor and
1040 exim when it is done, and test mail delivery using swaks like
1041 this:</p>
1042
1043 <p><blockquote><pre>
1044 torsocks swaks --server dutlqrrmjhtfa3vp.onion \
1045   --to fbx@dutlqrrmjhtfa3vp.onion
1046 </pre></blockquote></p>
1047
1048 <p>This will test the SMTP delivery using tor.  Replace the email
1049 address with your own address to test your server. :)</p>
1050
1051 <p>The setup procedure is still to complex, and I hope it can be made
1052 easier and more automatic.  Especially the tor setup need more work.
1053 Also, the package include a tor-smtp tool written in C, but its task
1054 should probably be rewritten in some script language to make the deb
1055 architecture independent.  It would probably also make the code easier
1056 to review.  The tor-smtp tool currently need to listen on a socket for
1057 exim to talk to it and is started using xinetd.  It would be better if
1058 no daemon and no socket is needed.  I suspect it is possible to get
1059 exim to run a command line tool for delivery instead of talking to a
1060 socket, and hope to figure out how in a future version of this
1061 system.</p>
1062
1063 <p>Until I wipe my test machine, I can be reached using the
1064 <tt>fbx@dutlqrrmjhtfa3vp.onion</tt> mail address, deliverable over
1065 SMTorP. :)</p>
1066
1067       </div>
1068       <div class="tags">
1069
1070
1071         Tags: <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>.
1072
1073
1074       </div>
1075     </div>
1076     <div class="padding"></div>
1077
1078     <div class="entry">
1079       <div class="title">
1080         <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>
1081       </div>
1082       <div class="date">
1083         22nd October 2014
1084       </div>
1085       <div class="body">
1086         <p>If you ever had to moderate a mailman list, like the ones on
1087 alioth.debian.org, you know the web interface is fairly slow to
1088 operate.  First you visit one web page, enter the moderation password
1089 and get a new page shown with a list of all the messages to moderate
1090 and various options for each email address.  This take a while for
1091 every list you moderate, and you need to do it regularly to do a good
1092 job as a list moderator.  But there is a quick alternative,
1093 <a href="http://heim.ifi.uio.no/kjetilho/hacks/#listadmin">the
1094 listadmin program</a>.  It allow you to check lists for new messages
1095 to moderate in a fraction of a second.  Here is a test run on two
1096 lists I recently took over:</p>
1097
1098 <p><blockquote><pre>
1099 % time listadmin xiph
1100 fetching data for pkg-xiph-commits@lists.alioth.debian.org ... nothing in queue
1101 fetching data for pkg-xiph-maint@lists.alioth.debian.org ... nothing in queue
1102
1103 real    0m1.709s
1104 user    0m0.232s
1105 sys     0m0.012s
1106 %
1107 </pre></blockquote></p>
1108
1109 <p>In 1.7 seconds I had checked two mailing lists and confirmed that
1110 there are no message in the moderation queue.  Every morning I
1111 currently moderate 68 mailman lists, and it normally take around two
1112 minutes.  When I took over the two pkg-xiph lists above a few days
1113 ago, there were 400 emails waiting in the moderator queue.  It took me
1114 less than 15 minutes to process them all using the listadmin
1115 program.</p>
1116
1117 <p>If you install
1118 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/listadmin">the listadmin
1119 package</a> from Debian and create a file <tt>~/.listadmin.ini</tt>
1120 with content like this, the moderation task is a breeze:</p>
1121
1122 <p><blockquote><pre>
1123 username username@example.org
1124 spamlevel 23
1125 default discard
1126 discard_if_reason "Posting restricted to members only. Remove us from your mail list."
1127
1128 password secret
1129 adminurl https://{domain}/mailman/admindb/{list}
1130 mailman-list@lists.example.com
1131
1132 password hidden
1133 other-list@otherserver.example.org
1134 </pre></blockquote></p>
1135
1136 <p>There are other options to set as well.  Check the manual page to
1137 learn the details.</p>
1138
1139 <p>If you are forced to moderate lists on a mailman installation where
1140 the SSL certificate is self signed or not properly signed by a
1141 generally accepted signing authority, you can set a environment
1142 variable when calling listadmin to disable SSL verification:</p>
1143
1144 <p><blockquote><pre>
1145 PERL_LWP_SSL_VERIFY_HOSTNAME=0 listadmin
1146 </pre></blockquote></p>
1147
1148 <p>If you want to moderate a subset of the lists you take care of, you
1149 can provide an argument to the listadmin script like I do in the
1150 initial screen dump (the xiph argument).  Using an argument, only
1151 lists matching the argument string will be processed.  This make it
1152 quick to accept messages if you notice the moderation request in your
1153 email.</p>
1154
1155 <p>Without the listadmin program, I would never be the moderator of 68
1156 mailing lists, as I simply do not have time to spend on that if the
1157 process was any slower. The listadmin program have saved me hours of
1158 time I could spend elsewhere over the years.  It truly is nice free
1159 software.</p>
1160
1161 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1162 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1163 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
1164
1165 <p>Update 2014-10-27: Added missing 'username' statement in
1166 configuration example.  Also, I've been told that the
1167 PERL_LWP_SSL_VERIFY_HOSTNAME=0 setting do not work for everyone.  Not
1168 sure why.</p>
1169
1170       </div>
1171       <div class="tags">
1172
1173
1174         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nice free software">nice free software</a>.
1175
1176
1177       </div>
1178     </div>
1179     <div class="padding"></div>
1180
1181     <div class="entry">
1182       <div class="title">
1183         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Jessie__PXE_and_automatic_firmware_installation.html">Debian Jessie, PXE and automatic firmware installation</a>
1184       </div>
1185       <div class="date">
1186         17th October 2014
1187       </div>
1188       <div class="body">
1189         <p>When PXE installing laptops with Debian, I often run into the
1190 problem that the WiFi card require some firmware to work properly.
1191 And it has been a pain to fix this using preseeding in Debian.
1192 Normally something more is needed.  But thanks to
1193 <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/i/isenkram.html">my isenkram
1194 package</a> and its recent tasksel extension, it has now become easy
1195 to do this using simple preseeding.</p>
1196
1197 <p>The isenkram-cli package provide tasksel tasks which will install
1198 firmware for the hardware found in the machine (actually, requested by
1199 the kernel modules for the hardware).  (It can also install user space
1200 programs supporting the hardware detected, but that is not the focus
1201 of this story.)</p>
1202
1203 <p>To get this working in the default installation, two preeseding
1204 values are needed.  First, the isenkram-cli package must be installed
1205 into the target chroot (aka the hard drive) before tasksel is executed
1206 in the pkgsel step of the debian-installer system.  This is done by
1207 preseeding the base-installer/includes debconf value to include the
1208 isenkram-cli package.  The package name is next passed to debootstrap
1209 for installation.  With the isenkram-cli package in place, tasksel
1210 will automatically use the isenkram tasks to detect hardware specific
1211 packages for the machine being installed and install them, because
1212 isenkram-cli contain tasksel tasks.</p>
1213
1214 <p>Second, one need to enable the non-free APT repository, because
1215 most firmware unfortunately is non-free.  This is done by preseeding
1216 the apt-mirror-setup step.  This is unfortunate, but for a lot of
1217 hardware it is the only option in Debian.</p>
1218
1219 <p>The end result is two lines needed in your preseeding file to get
1220 firmware installed automatically by the installer:</p>
1221
1222 <p><blockquote><pre>
1223 base-installer base-installer/includes string isenkram-cli
1224 apt-mirror-setup apt-setup/non-free boolean true
1225 </pre></blockquote></p>
1226
1227 <p>The current version of isenkram-cli in testing/jessie will install
1228 both firmware and user space packages when using this method.  It also
1229 do not work well, so use version 0.15 or later.  Installing both
1230 firmware and user space packages might give you a bit more than you
1231 want, so I decided to split the tasksel task in two, one for firmware
1232 and one for user space programs.  The firmware task is enabled by
1233 default, while the one for user space programs is not.  This split is
1234 implemented in the package currently in unstable.</p>
1235
1236 <p>If you decide to give this a go, please let me know (via email) how
1237 this recipe work for you. :)</p>
1238
1239 <p>So, I bet you are wondering, how can this work.  First and
1240 foremost, it work because tasksel is modular, and driven by whatever
1241 files it find in /usr/lib/tasksel/ and /usr/share/tasksel/.  So the
1242 isenkram-cli package place two files for tasksel to find.  First there
1243 is the task description file (/usr/share/tasksel/descs/isenkram.desc):</p>
1244
1245 <p><blockquote><pre>
1246 Task: isenkram-packages
1247 Section: hardware
1248 Description: Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)
1249  Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific packages are
1250  proposed.
1251 Test-new-install: show show
1252 Relevance: 8
1253 Packages: for-current-hardware
1254
1255 Task: isenkram-firmware
1256 Section: hardware
1257 Description: Hardware specific firmware packages (autodetected by isenkram)
1258  Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific firmware
1259  packages are proposed.
1260 Test-new-install: mark show
1261 Relevance: 8
1262 Packages: for-current-hardware-firmware
1263 </pre></blockquote></p>
1264
1265 <p>The key parts are Test-new-install which indicate how the task
1266 should be handled and the Packages line referencing to a script in
1267 /usr/lib/tasksel/packages/.  The scripts use other scripts to get a
1268 list of packages to install.  The for-current-hardware-firmware script
1269 look like this to list relevant firmware for the machine:
1270
1271 <p><blockquote><pre>
1272 #!/bin/sh
1273 #
1274 PATH=/usr/sbin:$PATH
1275 export PATH
1276 isenkram-autoinstall-firmware -l
1277 </pre></blockquote></p>
1278
1279 <p>With those two pieces in place, the firmware is installed by
1280 tasksel during the normal d-i run. :)</p>
1281
1282 <p>If you want to test what tasksel will install when isenkram-cli is
1283 installed, run <tt>DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical tasksel --test
1284 --new-install</tt> to get the list of packages that tasksel would
1285 install.</p>
1286
1287 <p><a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/">Debian Edu</a> will be
1288 pilots in testing this feature, as isenkram is used there now to
1289 install firmware, replacing the earlier scripts.</p>
1290
1291       </div>
1292       <div class="tags">
1293
1294
1295         Tags: <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>.
1296
1297
1298       </div>
1299     </div>
1300     <div class="padding"></div>
1301
1302     <div class="entry">
1303       <div class="title">
1304         <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>
1305       </div>
1306       <div class="date">
1307          4th October 2014
1308       </div>
1309       <div class="body">
1310         <p>Today I came across an unexpected Ubuntu boot screen.  Above the
1311 bread shelf on the ICA shop at Storo in Oslo, the grub menu of Ubuntu
1312 with Linux kernel 3.2.0-23 (ie probably version 12.04 LTS) was stuck
1313 on a screen normally showing the bread types and prizes:</p>
1314
1315 <p align="center"><img width="70%" src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2014-10-04-ubuntu-ica-storo-crop.jpeg"></p>
1316
1317 <p>If it had booted as it was supposed to, I would never had known
1318 about this hidden Linux installation.  It is interesting what
1319 <a href="http://revealingerrors.com/">errors can reveal</a>.</p>
1320
1321       </div>
1322       <div class="tags">
1323
1324
1325         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1326
1327
1328       </div>
1329     </div>
1330     <div class="padding"></div>
1331
1332     <div class="entry">
1333       <div class="title">
1334         <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>
1335       </div>
1336       <div class="date">
1337          4th October 2014
1338       </div>
1339       <div class="body">
1340         <p>The <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/">lsdvd project</a>
1341 got a new set of developers a few weeks ago, after the original
1342 developer decided to step down and pass the project to fresh blood.
1343 This project is now maintained by Petter Reinholdtsen and Steve
1344 Dibb.</p>
1345
1346 <p>I just wrapped up
1347 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/mailman/message/32896061/">a
1348 new lsdvd release</a>, available in git or from
1349 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/projects/lsdvd/files/lsdvd/">the
1350 download page</a>.  This is the changelog dated 2014-10-03 for version
1351 0.17.</p>
1352
1353 <ul>
1354
1355  <li>Ignore 'phantom' audio, subtitle tracks</li>
1356  <li>Check for garbage in the program chains, which indicate that a track is
1357    non-existant, to work around additional copy protection</li>
1358  <li>Fix displaying content type for audio tracks, subtitles</li>
1359  <li>Fix pallete display of first entry</li>
1360  <li>Fix include orders</li>
1361  <li>Ignore read errors in titles that would not be displayed anyway</li>
1362  <li>Fix the chapter count</li>
1363  <li>Make sure the array size and the array limit used when initialising
1364    the palette size is the same.</li>
1365  <li>Fix array printing.</li>
1366  <li>Correct subsecond calculations.</li>
1367  <li>Add sector information to the output format.</li>
1368  <li>Clean up code to be closer to ANSI C and compile without warnings
1369    with more GCC compiler warnings.</li>
1370
1371 </ul>
1372
1373 <p>This change bring together patches for lsdvd in use in various
1374 Linux and Unix distributions, as well as patches submitted to the
1375 project the last nine years.  Please check it out. :)</p>
1376
1377       </div>
1378       <div class="tags">
1379
1380
1381         Tags: <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>.
1382
1383
1384       </div>
1385     </div>
1386     <div class="padding"></div>
1387
1388     <div class="entry">
1389       <div class="title">
1390         <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>
1391       </div>
1392       <div class="date">
1393         26th September 2014
1394       </div>
1395       <div class="body">
1396         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
1397 project</a> provide a Linux solution for schools, including a
1398 powerful desktop with education software, a central server providing
1399 web pages, user database, user home directories, central login and PXE
1400 boot of both  clients without disk and the installation to install Debian
1401 Edu on machines with disk (and a few other services perhaps to small
1402 to mention here).  We in the Debian Edu team are currently working on
1403 the Jessie based version, trying to get everything in shape before the
1404 freeze, to avoid having to maintain our own package repository in the
1405 future.  The
1406 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Status/Jessie">current
1407 status</a> can be seen on the Debian wiki, and there is still heaps of
1408 work left.  Some fatal problems block testing, breaking the installer,
1409 but it is possible to work around these to get anyway.  Here is a
1410 recipe on how to get the installation limping along.</p>
1411
1412 <p>First, download the test ISO via
1413 <a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.no/cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-1.iso">ftp</a>,
1414 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.no/cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-1.iso">http</a>
1415 or rsync (use
1416 ftp.skolelinux.org::cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-1.iso).
1417 The ISO build was broken on Tuesday, so we do not get a new ISO every
1418 12 hours or so, but thankfully the ISO we already got we are able to
1419 install with some tweaking.</p>
1420
1421 <p>When you get to the Debian Edu profile question, go to tty2
1422 (use Alt-Ctrl-F2), run</p>
1423
1424 <p><blockquote><pre>
1425 nano /usr/bin/edu-eatmydata-install
1426 </pre></blockquote></p>
1427
1428 <p>and add 'exit 0' as the second line, disabling the eatmydata
1429 optimization.  Return to the installation, select the profile you want
1430 and continue.  Without this change, exim4-config will fail to install
1431 due to a known bug in eatmydata.</p>
1432
1433 <p>When you get the grub question at the end, answer /dev/sda (or if
1434 this do not work, figure out what your correct value would be.  All my
1435 test machines need /dev/sda, so I have no advice if it do not fit
1436 your need.</p>
1437
1438 <p>If you installed a profile including a graphical desktop, log in as
1439 root after the initial boot from hard drive, and install the
1440 education-desktop-XXX metapackage.  XXX can be kde, gnome, lxde, xfce
1441 or mate.  If you want several desktop options, install more than one
1442 metapackage.  Once this is done, reboot and you should have a working
1443 graphical login screen.  This workaround should no longer be needed
1444 once the education-tasks package version 1.801 enter testing in two
1445 days.</p>
1446
1447 <p>I believe the ISO build will start working on two days when the new
1448 tasksel package enter testing and Steve McIntyre get a chance to
1449 update the debian-cd git repository.  The eatmydata, grub and desktop
1450 issues are already fixed in unstable and testing, and should show up
1451 on the ISO as soon as the ISO build start working again.  Well the
1452 eatmydata optimization is really just disabled.  The proper fix
1453 require an upload by the eatmydata maintainer applying the patch
1454 provided in bug <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/702711">#702711</a>.
1455 The rest have proper fixes in unstable.</p>
1456
1457 <p>I hope this get you going with the installation testing, as we are
1458 quickly running out of time trying to get our Jessie based
1459 installation ready before the distribution freeze in a month.</p>
1460
1461       </div>
1462       <div class="tags">
1463
1464
1465         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>.
1466
1467
1468       </div>
1469     </div>
1470     <div class="padding"></div>
1471
1472     <div class="entry">
1473       <div class="title">
1474         <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>
1475       </div>
1476       <div class="date">
1477         25th September 2014
1478       </div>
1479       <div class="body">
1480         <p>I use the <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/">lsdvd tool</a>
1481 to handle my fairly large DVD collection.  It is a nice command line
1482 tool to get details about a DVD, like title, tracks, track length,
1483 etc, in XML, Perl or human readable format.  But lsdvd have not seen
1484 any new development since 2006 and had a few irritating bugs affecting
1485 its use with some DVDs.  Upstream seemed to be dead, and in January I
1486 sent a small probe asking for a version control repository for the
1487 project, without any reply.  But I use it regularly and would like to
1488 get <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/lsdvd">an updated version
1489 into Debian</a>.  So two weeks ago I tried harder to get in touch with
1490 the project admin, and after getting a reply from him explaining that
1491 he was no longer interested in the project, I asked if I could take
1492 over.  And yesterday, I became project admin.</p>
1493
1494 <p>I've been in touch with a Gentoo developer and the Debian
1495 maintainer interested in joining forces to maintain the upstream
1496 project, and I hope we can get a new release out fairly quickly,
1497 collecting the patches spread around on the internet into on place.
1498 I've added the relevant Debian patches to the freshly created git
1499 repository, and expect the Gentoo patches to make it too.  If you got
1500 a DVD collection and care about command line tools, check out
1501 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/git/ci/master/tree/">the git source</a> and join
1502 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/mailman/">the project mailing
1503 list</a>. :)</p>
1504
1505       </div>
1506       <div class="tags">
1507
1508
1509         Tags: <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>.
1510
1511
1512       </div>
1513     </div>
1514     <div class="padding"></div>
1515
1516     <div class="entry">
1517       <div class="title">
1518         <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>
1519       </div>
1520       <div class="date">
1521         16th September 2014
1522       </div>
1523       <div class="body">
1524         <p>The <a href="https://www.debian.org/">Debian</a> installer could be
1525 a lot quicker.  When we install more than 2000 packages in
1526 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux / Debian Edu</a> using
1527 tasksel in the installer, unpacking the binary packages take forever.
1528 A part of the slow I/O issue was discussed in
1529 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/613428">bug #613428</a> about too
1530 much file system sync-ing done by dpkg, which is the package
1531 responsible for unpacking the binary packages.  Other parts (like code
1532 executed by postinst scripts) might also sync to disk during
1533 installation.  All this sync-ing to disk do not really make sense to
1534 me.  If the machine crash half-way through, I start over, I do not try
1535 to salvage the half installed system.  So the failure sync-ing is
1536 supposed to protect against, hardware or system crash, is not really
1537 relevant while the installer is running.</p>
1538
1539 <p>A few days ago, I thought of a way to get rid of all the file
1540 system sync()-ing in a fairly non-intrusive way, without the need to
1541 change the code in several packages.  The idea is not new, but I have
1542 not heard anyone propose the approach using dpkg-divert before.  It
1543 depend on the small and clever package
1544 <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/eatmydata">eatmydata</a>, which
1545 uses LD_PRELOAD to replace the system functions for syncing data to
1546 disk with functions doing nothing, thus allowing programs to live
1547 dangerous while speeding up disk I/O significantly.  Instead of
1548 modifying the implementation of dpkg, apt and tasksel (which are the
1549 packages responsible for selecting, fetching and installing packages),
1550 it occurred to me that we could just divert the programs away, replace
1551 them with a simple shell wrapper calling
1552 "eatmydata&nbsp;$program&nbsp;$@", to get the same effect.
1553 Two days ago I decided to test the idea, and wrapped up a simple
1554 implementation for the Debian Edu udeb.</p>
1555
1556 <p>The effect was stunning.  In my first test it reduced the running
1557 time of the pkgsel step (installing tasks) from 64 to less than 44
1558 minutes (20 minutes shaved off the installation) on an old Dell
1559 Latitude D505 machine.  I am not quite sure what the optimised time
1560 would have been, as I messed up the testing a bit, causing the debconf
1561 priority to get low enough for two questions to pop up during
1562 installation.  As soon as I saw the questions I moved the installation
1563 along, but do not know how long the question were holding up the
1564 installation.  I did some more measurements using Debian Edu Jessie,
1565 and got these results.  The time measured is the time stamp in
1566 /var/log/syslog between the "pkgsel: starting tasksel" and the
1567 "pkgsel: finishing up" lines, if you want to do the same measurement
1568 yourself.  In Debian Edu, the tasksel dialog do not show up, and the
1569 timing thus do not depend on how quickly the user handle the tasksel
1570 dialog.</p>
1571
1572 <p><table>
1573
1574 <tr>
1575 <th>Machine/setup</th>
1576 <th>Original tasksel</th>
1577 <th>Optimised tasksel</th>
1578 <th>Reduction</th>
1579 </tr>
1580
1581 <tr>
1582 <td>Latitude D505 Main+LTSP LXDE</td>
1583 <td>64 min (07:46-08:50)</td>
1584 <td><44 min (11:27-12:11)</td>
1585 <td>>20 min 18%</td>
1586 </tr>
1587
1588 <tr>
1589 <td>Latitude D505 Roaming LXDE</td>
1590 <td>57 min (08:48-09:45)</td>
1591 <td>34 min (07:43-08:17)</td>
1592 <td>23 min 40%</td>
1593 </tr>
1594
1595 <tr>
1596 <td>Latitude D505 Minimal</td>
1597 <td>22 min (10:37-10:59)</td>
1598 <td>11 min (11:16-11:27)</td>
1599 <td>11 min 50%</td>
1600 </tr>
1601
1602 <tr>
1603 <td>Thinkpad X200 Minimal</td>
1604 <td>6 min (08:19-08:25)</td>
1605 <td>4 min (08:04-08:08)</td>
1606 <td>2 min 33%</td>
1607 </tr>
1608
1609 <tr>
1610 <td>Thinkpad X200 Roaming KDE</td>
1611 <td>19 min (09:21-09:40)</td>
1612 <td>15 min (10:25-10:40)</td>
1613 <td>4 min 21%</td>
1614 </tr>
1615
1616 </table></p>
1617
1618 <p>The test is done using a netinst ISO on a USB stick, so some of the
1619 time is spent downloading packages.  The connection to the Internet
1620 was 100Mbit/s during testing, so downloading should not be a
1621 significant factor in the measurement.  Download typically took a few
1622 seconds to a few minutes, depending on the amount of packages being
1623 installed.</p>
1624
1625 <p>The speedup is implemented by using two hooks in
1626 <a href="https://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/">Debian
1627 Installer</a>, the pre-pkgsel.d hook to set up the diverts, and the
1628 finish-install.d hook to remove the divert at the end of the
1629 installation.  I picked the pre-pkgsel.d hook instead of the
1630 post-base-installer.d hook because I test using an ISO without the
1631 eatmydata package included, and the post-base-installer.d hook in
1632 Debian Edu can only operate on packages included in the ISO.  The
1633 negative effect of this is that I am unable to activate this
1634 optimization for the kernel installation step in d-i.  If the code is
1635 moved to the post-base-installer.d hook, the speedup would be larger
1636 for the entire installation.</p>
1637
1638 <p>I've implemented this in the
1639 <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/debian-edu-install">debian-edu-install</a>
1640 git repository, and plan to provide the optimization as part of the
1641 Debian Edu installation.  If you want to test this yourself, you can
1642 create two files in the installer (or in an udeb).  One shell script
1643 need do go into /usr/lib/pre-pkgsel.d/, with content like this:</p>
1644
1645 <p><blockquote><pre>
1646 #!/bin/sh
1647 set -e
1648 . /usr/share/debconf/confmodule
1649 info() {
1650     logger -t my-pkgsel "info: $*"
1651 }
1652 error() {
1653     logger -t my-pkgsel "error: $*"
1654 }
1655 override_install() {
1656     apt-install eatmydata || true
1657     if [ -x /target/usr/bin/eatmydata ] ; then
1658         for bin in dpkg apt-get aptitude tasksel ; do
1659             file=/usr/bin/$bin
1660             # Test that the file exist and have not been diverted already.
1661             if [ -f /target$file ] ; then
1662                 info "diverting $file using eatmydata"
1663                 printf "#!/bin/sh\neatmydata $bin.distrib \"\$@\"\n" \
1664                     > /target$file.edu
1665                 chmod 755 /target$file.edu
1666                 in-target dpkg-divert --package debian-edu-config \
1667                     --rename --quiet --add $file
1668                 ln -sf ./$bin.edu /target$file
1669             else
1670                 error "unable to divert $file, as it is missing."
1671             fi
1672         done
1673     else
1674         error "unable to find /usr/bin/eatmydata after installing the eatmydata pacage"
1675     fi
1676 }
1677
1678 override_install
1679 </pre></blockquote></p>
1680
1681 <p>To clean up, another shell script should go into
1682 /usr/lib/finish-install.d/ with code like this:
1683
1684 <p><blockquote><pre>
1685 #! /bin/sh -e
1686 . /usr/share/debconf/confmodule
1687 error() {
1688     logger -t my-finish-install "error: $@"
1689 }
1690 remove_install_override() {
1691     for bin in dpkg apt-get aptitude tasksel ; do
1692         file=/usr/bin/$bin
1693         if [ -x /target$file.edu ] ; then
1694             rm /target$file
1695             in-target dpkg-divert --package debian-edu-config \
1696                 --rename --quiet --remove $file
1697             rm /target$file.edu
1698         else
1699             error "Missing divert for $file."
1700         fi
1701     done
1702     sync # Flush file buffers before continuing
1703 }
1704
1705 remove_install_override
1706 </pre></blockquote></p>
1707
1708 <p>In Debian Edu, I placed both code fragments in a separate script
1709 edu-eatmydata-install and call it from the pre-pkgsel.d and
1710 finish-install.d scripts.</p>
1711
1712 <p>By now you might ask if this change should get into the normal
1713 Debian installer too?  I suspect it should, but am not sure the
1714 current debian-installer coordinators find it useful enough.  It also
1715 depend on the side effects of the change.  I'm not aware of any, but I
1716 guess we will see if the change is safe after some more testing.
1717 Perhaps there is some package in Debian depending on sync() and
1718 fsync() having effect?  Perhaps it should go into its own udeb, to
1719 allow those of us wanting to enable it to do so without affecting
1720 everyone.</p>
1721
1722 <p>Update 2014-09-24: Since a few days ago, enabling this optimization
1723 will break installation of all programs using gnutls because of
1724 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/702711">bug #702711</a>.  An updated
1725 eatmydata package in Debian will solve it.</p>
1726
1727 <p>Update 2014-10-17: The bug mentioned above is fixed in testing and
1728 the optimization work again.  And I have discovered that the
1729 dpkg-divert trick is not really needed and implemented a slightly
1730 simpler approach as part of the debian-edu-install package.  See
1731 tools/edu-eatmydata-install in the source package.</p>
1732
1733 <p>Update 2014-11-11: Unfortunately, a new
1734 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/765738">bug #765738</a> in eatmydata only
1735 triggering on i386 made it into testing, and broke this installation
1736 optimization again.  If <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/768893">unblock
1737 request 768893</a> is accepted, it should be working again.</p>
1738
1739       </div>
1740       <div class="tags">
1741
1742
1743         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>.
1744
1745
1746       </div>
1747     </div>
1748     <div class="padding"></div>
1749
1750     <div class="entry">
1751       <div class="title">
1752         <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>
1753       </div>
1754       <div class="date">
1755         10th September 2014
1756       </div>
1757       <div class="body">
1758         <p>Yesterday, I had the pleasure of attending a talk with the
1759 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">Norwegian Unix User Group</a> about
1760 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20140909-sks-keyservers/">the
1761 OpenPGP keyserver pool sks-keyservers.net</a>, and was very happy to
1762 learn that there is a large set of publicly available key servers to
1763 use when looking for peoples public key.  So far I have used
1764 subkeys.pgp.net, and some times wwwkeys.nl.pgp.net when the former
1765 were misbehaving, but those days are ended.  The servers I have used
1766 up until yesterday have been slow and some times unavailable.  I hope
1767 those problems are gone now.</p>
1768
1769 <p>Behind the round robin DNS entry of the
1770 <a href="https://sks-keyservers.net/">sks-keyservers.net</a> service
1771 there is a pool of more than 100 keyservers which are checked every
1772 day to ensure they are well connected and up to date.  It must be
1773 better than what I have used so far. :)</p>
1774
1775 <p>Yesterdays speaker told me that the service is the default
1776 keyserver provided by the default configuration in GnuPG, but this do
1777 not seem to be used in Debian.  Perhaps it should?</p>
1778
1779 <p>Anyway, I've updated my ~/.gnupg/options file to now include this
1780 line:</p>
1781
1782 <p><blockquote><pre>
1783 keyserver pool.sks-keyservers.net
1784 </pre></blockquote></p>
1785
1786 <p>With GnuPG version 2 one can also locate the keyserver using SRV
1787 entries in DNS.  Just for fun, I did just that at work, so now every
1788 user of GnuPG at the University of Oslo should find a OpenGPG
1789 keyserver automatically should their need it:</p>
1790
1791 <p><blockquote><pre>
1792 % host -t srv _pgpkey-http._tcp.uio.no
1793 _pgpkey-http._tcp.uio.no has SRV record 0 100 11371 pool.sks-keyservers.net.
1794 %
1795 </pre></blockquote></p>
1796
1797 <p>Now if only
1798 <a href="http://ietfreport.isoc.org/idref/draft-shaw-openpgp-hkp/">the
1799 HKP lookup protocol</a> supported finding signature paths, I would be
1800 very happy.  It can look up a given key or search for a user ID, but I
1801 normally do not want that, but to find a trust path from my key to
1802 another key.  Given a user ID or key ID, I would like to find (and
1803 download) the keys representing a signature path from my key to the
1804 key in question, to be able to get a trust path between the two keys.
1805 This is as far as I can tell not possible today.  Perhaps something
1806 for a future version of the protocol?</p>
1807
1808       </div>
1809       <div class="tags">
1810
1811
1812         Tags: <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>.
1813
1814
1815       </div>
1816     </div>
1817     <div class="padding"></div>
1818
1819     <div class="entry">
1820       <div class="title">
1821         <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>
1822       </div>
1823       <div class="date">
1824         17th June 2014
1825       </div>
1826       <div class="body">
1827         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
1828 project</a> provide an instruction manual for teachers, system
1829 administrators and other users that contain useful tips for setting up
1830 and maintaining a Debian Edu installation.  This text is about how the
1831 text processing of this manual is handled in the project.</p>
1832
1833 <p>One goal of the project is to provide information in the native
1834 language of its users, and for this we need to handle translations.
1835 But we also want to make sure each language contain the same
1836 information, so for this we need a good way to keep the translations
1837 in sync.  And we want it to be easy for our users to improve the
1838 documentation, avoiding the need to learn special formats or tools to
1839 contribute, and the obvious way to do this is to make it possible to
1840 edit the documentation using a web browser.  We also want it to be
1841 easy for translators to keep the translation up to date, and give them
1842 help in figuring out what need to be translated. Here is the list of
1843 tools and the process we have found trying to reach all these
1844 goals.</p>
1845
1846 <p>We maintain the authoritative source of our manual in the
1847 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/">Debian
1848 wiki</a>, as several wiki pages written in English.  It consist of one
1849 front page with references to the different chapters, several pages
1850 for each chapter, and finally one "collection page" gluing all the
1851 chapters together into one large web page (aka
1852 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/AllInOne">the
1853 AllInOne page</a>).  The AllInOne page is the one used for further
1854 processing and translations.  Thanks to the fact that the
1855 <a href="http://moinmo.in/">MoinMoin</a> installation on
1856 wiki.debian.org support exporting pages in
1857 <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">the Docbook format</a>, we can fetch
1858 the list of pages to export using the raw version of the AllInOne
1859 page, loop over each of them to generate a Docbook XML version of the
1860 manual.  This process also download images and transform image
1861 references to use the locally downloaded images.  The generated
1862 Docbook XML files are slightly broken, so some post-processing is done
1863 using the <tt>documentation/scripts/get_manual</tt> program, and the
1864 result is a nice Docbook XML file (debian-edu-wheezy-manual.xml) and
1865 a handfull of images.  The XML file can now be used to generate PDF, HTML
1866 and epub versions of the English manual.  This is the basic step of
1867 our process, making PDF (using dblatex), HTML (using xsltproc) and
1868 epub (using dbtoepub) version from Docbook XML, and the resulting files
1869 are placed in the debian-edu-doc-en binary package.</p>
1870
1871 <p>But English documentation is not enough for us.  We want translated
1872 documentation too, and we want to make it easy for translators to
1873 track the English original.  For this we use the
1874 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/p/poxml.html">poxml</a> package,
1875 which allow us to transform the English Docbook XML file into a
1876 translation file (a .pot file), usable with the normal gettext based
1877 translation tools used by those translating free software.  The pot
1878 file is used to create and maintain translation files (several .po
1879 files), which the translations update with the native language
1880 translations of all titles, paragraphs and blocks of text in the
1881 original.  The next step is combining the original English Docbook XML
1882 and the translation file (say debian-edu-wheezy-manual.nb.po), to
1883 create a translated Docbook XML file (in this case
1884 debian-edu-wheezy-manual.nb.xml).  This translated (or partly
1885 translated, if the translation is not complete) Docbook XML file can
1886 then be used like the original to create a PDF, HTML and epub version
1887 of the documentation.</p>
1888
1889 <p>The translators use different tools to edit the .po files.  We
1890 recommend using
1891 <a href="http://www.kde.org/applications/development/lokalize/">lokalize</a>,
1892 while some use emacs and vi, others can use web based editors like
1893 <a href="http://pootle.translatehouse.org/">Poodle</a> or
1894 <a href="https://www.transifex.com/">Transifex</a>.  All we care about
1895 is where the .po file end up, in our git repository.  Updated
1896 translations can either be committed directly to git, or submitted as
1897 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/src:debian-edu-doc">bug reports
1898 against the debian-edu-doc package</a>.</p>
1899
1900 <p>One challenge is images, which both might need to be translated (if
1901 they show translated user applications), and are needed in different
1902 formats when creating PDF and HTML versions (epub is a HTML version in
1903 this regard).  For this we transform the original PNG images to the
1904 needed density and format during build, and have a way to provide
1905 translated images by storing translated versions in
1906 images/$LANGUAGECODE/.  I am a bit unsure about the details here.  The
1907 package maintainers know more.</p>
1908
1909 <p>If you wonder what the result look like, we provide
1910 <a href="http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/">the content
1911 of the documentation packages on the web</a>.  See for example the
1912 <a href="http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/it/debian-edu-wheezy-manual.pdf">Italian
1913 PDF version</a> or the
1914 <a href="http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/de/debian-edu-wheezy-manual.html">German
1915 HTML version</a>.  We do not yet build the epub version by default,
1916 but perhaps it will be done in the future.</p>
1917
1918 <p>To learn more, check out
1919 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/debian-edu-doc.html">the
1920 debian-edu-doc package</a>,
1921 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/">the
1922 manual on the wiki</a> and
1923 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/Translations">the
1924 translation instructions</a> in the manual.</p>
1925
1926       </div>
1927       <div class="tags">
1928
1929
1930         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>.
1931
1932
1933       </div>
1934     </div>
1935     <div class="padding"></div>
1936
1937     <div class="entry">
1938       <div class="title">
1939         <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>
1940       </div>
1941       <div class="date">
1942         23rd April 2014
1943       </div>
1944       <div class="body">
1945         <p>It would be nice if it was easier in Debian to get all the hardware
1946 related packages relevant for the computer installed automatically.
1947 So I implemented one, using
1948 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">my Isenkram
1949 package</a>.  To use it, install the tasksel and isenkram packages and
1950 run tasksel as user root.  You should be presented with a new option,
1951 "Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)".  When you
1952 select it, tasksel will install the packages isenkram claim is fit for
1953 the current hardware, hot pluggable or not.<p>
1954
1955 <p>The implementation is in two files, one is the tasksel menu entry
1956 description, and the other is the script used to extract the list of
1957 packages to install.  The first part is in
1958 <tt>/usr/share/tasksel/descs/isenkram.desc</tt> and look like
1959 this:</p>
1960
1961 <p><blockquote><pre>
1962 Task: isenkram
1963 Section: hardware
1964 Description: Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)
1965  Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific packages are
1966  proposed.
1967 Test-new-install: mark show
1968 Relevance: 8
1969 Packages: for-current-hardware
1970 </pre></blockquote></p>
1971
1972 <p>The second part is in
1973 <tt>/usr/lib/tasksel/packages/for-current-hardware</tt> and look like
1974 this:</p>
1975
1976 <p><blockquote><pre>
1977 #!/bin/sh
1978 #
1979 (
1980     isenkram-lookup
1981     isenkram-autoinstall-firmware -l
1982 ) | sort -u
1983 </pre></blockquote></p>
1984
1985 <p>All in all, a very short and simple implementation making it
1986 trivial to install the hardware dependent package we all may want to
1987 have installed on our machines.  I've not been able to find a way to
1988 get tasksel to tell you exactly which packages it plan to install
1989 before doing the installation.  So if you are curious or careful,
1990 check the output from the isenkram-* command line tools first.</p>
1991
1992 <p>The information about which packages are handling which hardware is
1993 fetched either from the isenkram package itself in
1994 /usr/share/isenkram/, from git.debian.org or from the APT package
1995 database (using the Modaliases header).  The APT package database
1996 parsing have caused a nasty resource leak in the isenkram daemon (bugs
1997 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/719837">#719837</a> and
1998 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/730704">#730704</a>).  The cause is in
1999 the python-apt code (bug
2000 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/745487">#745487</a>), but using a
2001 workaround I was able to get rid of the file descriptor leak and
2002 reduce the memory leak from ~30 MiB per hardware detection down to
2003 around 2 MiB per hardware detection.  It should make the desktop
2004 daemon a lot more useful.  The fix is in version 0.7 uploaded to
2005 unstable today.</p>
2006
2007 <p>I believe the current way of mapping hardware to packages in
2008 Isenkram is is a good draft, but in the future I expect isenkram to
2009 use the AppStream data source for this.  A proposal for getting proper
2010 AppStream support into Debian is floating around as
2011 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DEP-11">DEP-11</a>, and
2012 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/SummerOfCode2014/Projects#SummerOfCode2014.2FProjects.2FAppStreamDEP11Implementation.AppStream.2FDEP-11_for_the_Debian_Archive">GSoC
2013 project</a> will take place this summer to improve the situation.  I
2014 look forward to seeing the result, and welcome patches for isenkram to
2015 start using the information when it is ready.</p>
2016
2017 <p>If you want your package to map to some specific hardware, either
2018 add a "Xb-Modaliases" header to your control file like I did in
2019 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pymissile">the pymissile
2020 package</a> or submit a bug report with the details to the isenkram
2021 package.  See also
2022 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram/">all my
2023 blog posts tagged isenkram</a> for details on the notation.  I expect
2024 the information will be migrated to AppStream eventually, but for the
2025 moment I got no better place to store it.</p>
2026
2027       </div>
2028       <div class="tags">
2029
2030
2031         Tags: <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>.
2032
2033
2034       </div>
2035     </div>
2036     <div class="padding"></div>
2037
2038     <div class="entry">
2039       <div class="title">
2040         <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>
2041       </div>
2042       <div class="date">
2043         15th April 2014
2044       </div>
2045       <div class="body">
2046         <p>The <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">Freedombox
2047 project</a> is working on providing the software and hardware to make
2048 it easy for non-technical people to host their data and communication
2049 at home, and being able to communicate with their friends and family
2050 encrypted and away from prying eyes.  It is still going strong, and
2051 today a major mile stone was reached.</p>
2052
2053 <p>Today, the last of the packages currently used by the project to
2054 created the system images were accepted into Debian Unstable.  It was
2055 the freedombox-setup package, which is used to configure the images
2056 during build and on the first boot.  Now all one need to get going is
2057 the build code from the freedom-maker git repository and packages from
2058 Debian.  And once the freedombox-setup package enter testing, we can
2059 build everything directly from Debian. :)</p>
2060
2061 <p>Some key packages used by Freedombox are
2062 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/freedombox-setup">freedombox-setup</a>,
2063 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/plinth">plinth</a>,
2064 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pagekite">pagekite</a>,
2065 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/tor">tor</a>,
2066 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/privoxy">privoxy</a>,
2067 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/owncloud">owncloud</a> and
2068 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/dnsmasq">dnsmasq</a>.  There
2069 are plans to integrate more packages into the setup.  User
2070 documentation is maintained on the Debian wiki.  Please
2071 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/Manual/Jessie">check out
2072 the manual</a> and help us improve it.</p>
2073
2074 <p>To test for yourself and create boot images with the FreedomBox
2075 setup, run this on a Debian machine using a user with sudo rights to
2076 become root:</p>
2077
2078 <p><pre>
2079 sudo apt-get install git vmdebootstrap mercurial python-docutils \
2080   mktorrent extlinux virtualbox qemu-user-static binfmt-support \
2081   u-boot-tools
2082 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/freedombox/freedom-maker.git \
2083   freedom-maker
2084 make -C freedom-maker dreamplug-image raspberry-image virtualbox-image
2085 </pre></p>
2086
2087 <p>Root access is needed to run debootstrap and mount loopback
2088 devices.  See the README in the freedom-maker git repo for more
2089 details on the build.  If you do not want all three images, trim the
2090 make line.  Note that the virtualbox-image target is not really
2091 virtualbox specific.  It create a x86 image usable in kvm, qemu,
2092 vmware and any other x86 virtual machine environment.  You might need
2093 the version of vmdebootstrap in Jessie to get the build working, as it
2094 include fixes for a race condition with kpartx.</p>
2095
2096 <p>If you instead want to install using a Debian CD and the preseed
2097 method, boot a Debian Wheezy ISO and use this boot argument to load
2098 the preseed values:</p>
2099
2100 <p><pre>
2101 url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat</a>
2102 </pre></p>
2103
2104 <p>I have not tested it myself the last few weeks, so I do not know if
2105 it still work.</p>
2106
2107 <p>If you wonder how to help, one task you could look at is using
2108 systemd as the boot system.  It will become the default for Linux in
2109 Jessie, so we need to make sure it is usable on the Freedombox.  I did
2110 a simple test a few weeks ago, and noticed dnsmasq failed to start
2111 during boot when using systemd.  I suspect there are other problems
2112 too. :) To detect problems, there is a test suite included, which can
2113 be run from the plinth web interface.</p>
2114
2115 <p>Give it a go and let us know how it goes on the mailing list, and help
2116 us get the new release published. :) Please join us on
2117 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC (#freedombox on
2118 irc.debian.org)</a> and
2119 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
2120 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
2121
2122       </div>
2123       <div class="tags">
2124
2125
2126         Tags: <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>.
2127
2128
2129       </div>
2130     </div>
2131     <div class="padding"></div>
2132
2133     <div class="entry">
2134       <div class="title">
2135         <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>
2136       </div>
2137       <div class="date">
2138          9th April 2014
2139       </div>
2140       <div class="body">
2141         <p>For a while now, I have been looking for a sensible offsite backup
2142 solution for use at home.  My requirements are simple, it must be
2143 cheap and locally encrypted (in other words, I keep the encryption
2144 keys, the storage provider do not have access to my private files).
2145 One idea me and my friends had many years ago, before the cloud
2146 storage providers showed up, was to use Google mail as storage,
2147 writing a Linux block device storing blocks as emails in the mail
2148 service provided by Google, and thus get heaps of free space.  On top
2149 of this one can add encryption, RAID and volume management to have
2150 lots of (fairly slow, I admit that) cheap and encrypted storage.  But
2151 I never found time to implement such system.  But the last few weeks I
2152 have looked at a system called
2153 <a href="https://bitbucket.org/nikratio/s3ql/">S3QL</a>, a locally
2154 mounted network backed file system with the features I need.</p>
2155
2156 <p>S3QL is a fuse file system with a local cache and cloud storage,
2157 handling several different storage providers, any with Amazon S3,
2158 Google Drive or OpenStack API.  There are heaps of such storage
2159 providers.  S3QL can also use a local directory as storage, which
2160 combined with sshfs allow for file storage on any ssh server.  S3QL
2161 include support for encryption, compression, de-duplication, snapshots
2162 and immutable file systems, allowing me to mount the remote storage as
2163 a local mount point, look at and use the files as if they were local,
2164 while the content is stored in the cloud as well.  This allow me to
2165 have a backup that should survive fire.  The file system can not be
2166 shared between several machines at the same time, as only one can
2167 mount it at the time, but any machine with the encryption key and
2168 access to the storage service can mount it if it is unmounted.</p>
2169
2170 <p>It is simple to use.  I'm using it on Debian Wheezy, where the
2171 package is included already.  So to get started, run <tt>apt-get
2172 install s3ql</tt>.  Next, pick a storage provider.  I ended up picking
2173 Greenqloud, after reading their nice recipe on
2174 <a href="https://greenqloud.zendesk.com/entries/44611757-How-To-Use-S3QL-to-mount-a-StorageQloud-bucket-on-Debian-Wheezy">how
2175 to use S3QL with their Amazon S3 service</a>, because I trust the laws
2176 in Iceland more than those in USA when it come to keeping my personal
2177 data safe and private, and thus would rather spend money on a company
2178 in Iceland.  Another nice recipe is available from the article
2179 <a href="http://www.admin-magazine.com/HPC/Articles/HPC-Cloud-Storage">S3QL
2180 Filesystem for HPC Storage</a> by Jeff Layton in the HPC section of
2181 Admin magazine.  When the provider is picked, figure out how to get
2182 the API key needed to connect to the storage API.  With Greencloud,
2183 the key did not show up until I had added payment details to my
2184 account.</p>
2185
2186 <p>Armed with the API access details, it is time to create the file
2187 system.  First, create a new bucket in the cloud.  This bucket is the
2188 file system storage area.  I picked a bucket name reflecting the
2189 machine that was going to store data there, but any name will do.
2190 I'll refer to it as <tt>bucket-name</tt> below.  In addition, one need
2191 the API login and password, and a locally created password.  Store it
2192 all in ~root/.s3ql/authinfo2 like this:
2193
2194 <p><blockquote><pre>
2195 [s3c]
2196 storage-url: s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name
2197 backend-login: API-login
2198 backend-password: API-password
2199 fs-passphrase: local-password
2200 </pre></blockquote></p>
2201
2202 <p>I create my local passphrase using <tt>pwget 50</tt> or similar,
2203 but any sensible way to create a fairly random password should do it.
2204 Armed with these details, it is now time to run mkfs, entering the API
2205 details and password to create it:</p>
2206
2207 <p><blockquote><pre>
2208 # mkdir -m 700 /var/lib/s3ql-cache
2209 # mkfs.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
2210   --ssl s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name
2211 Enter backend login:
2212 Enter backend password:
2213 Before using S3QL, make sure to read the user's guide, especially
2214 the 'Important Rules to Avoid Loosing Data' section.
2215 Enter encryption password:
2216 Confirm encryption password:
2217 Generating random encryption key...
2218 Creating metadata tables...
2219 Dumping metadata...
2220 ..objects..
2221 ..blocks..
2222 ..inodes..
2223 ..inode_blocks..
2224 ..symlink_targets..
2225 ..names..
2226 ..contents..
2227 ..ext_attributes..
2228 Compressing and uploading metadata...
2229 Wrote 0.00 MB of compressed metadata.
2230 # </pre></blockquote></p>
2231
2232 <p>The next step is mounting the file system to make the storage available.
2233
2234 <p><blockquote><pre>
2235 # mount.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
2236   --ssl --allow-root s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name /s3ql
2237 Using 4 upload threads.
2238 Downloading and decompressing metadata...
2239 Reading metadata...
2240 ..objects..
2241 ..blocks..
2242 ..inodes..
2243 ..inode_blocks..
2244 ..symlink_targets..
2245 ..names..
2246 ..contents..
2247 ..ext_attributes..
2248 Mounting filesystem...
2249 # df -h /s3ql
2250 Filesystem                              Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
2251 s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name  1.0T     0  1.0T   0% /s3ql
2252 #
2253 </pre></blockquote></p>
2254
2255 <p>The file system is now ready for use.  I use rsync to store my
2256 backups in it, and as the metadata used by rsync is downloaded at
2257 mount time, no network traffic (and storage cost) is triggered by
2258 running rsync.  To unmount, one should not use the normal umount
2259 command, as this will not flush the cache to the cloud storage, but
2260 instead running the umount.s3ql command like this:
2261
2262 <p><blockquote><pre>
2263 # umount.s3ql /s3ql
2264 #
2265 </pre></blockquote></p>
2266
2267 <p>There is a fsck command available to check the file system and
2268 correct any problems detected.  This can be used if the local server
2269 crashes while the file system is mounted, to reset the "already
2270 mounted" flag.  This is what it look like when processing a working
2271 file system:</p>
2272
2273 <p><blockquote><pre>
2274 # fsck.s3ql --force --ssl s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name
2275 Using cached metadata.
2276 File system seems clean, checking anyway.
2277 Checking DB integrity...
2278 Creating temporary extra indices...
2279 Checking lost+found...
2280 Checking cached objects...
2281 Checking names (refcounts)...
2282 Checking contents (names)...
2283 Checking contents (inodes)...
2284 Checking contents (parent inodes)...
2285 Checking objects (reference counts)...
2286 Checking objects (backend)...
2287 ..processed 5000 objects so far..
2288 ..processed 10000 objects so far..
2289 ..processed 15000 objects so far..
2290 Checking objects (sizes)...
2291 Checking blocks (referenced objects)...
2292 Checking blocks (refcounts)...
2293 Checking inode-block mapping (blocks)...
2294 Checking inode-block mapping (inodes)...
2295 Checking inodes (refcounts)...
2296 Checking inodes (sizes)...
2297 Checking extended attributes (names)...
2298 Checking extended attributes (inodes)...
2299 Checking symlinks (inodes)...
2300 Checking directory reachability...
2301 Checking unix conventions...
2302 Checking referential integrity...
2303 Dropping temporary indices...
2304 Backing up old metadata...
2305 Dumping metadata...
2306 ..objects..
2307 ..blocks..
2308 ..inodes..
2309 ..inode_blocks..
2310 ..symlink_targets..
2311 ..names..
2312 ..contents..
2313 ..ext_attributes..
2314 Compressing and uploading metadata...
2315 Wrote 0.89 MB of compressed metadata.
2316 #
2317 </pre></blockquote></p>
2318
2319 <p>Thanks to the cache, working on files that fit in the cache is very
2320 quick, about the same speed as local file access.  Uploading large
2321 amount of data is to me limited by the bandwidth out of and into my
2322 house.  Uploading 685 MiB with a 100 MiB cache gave me 305 kiB/s,
2323 which is very close to my upload speed, and downloading the same
2324 Debian installation ISO gave me 610 kiB/s, close to my download speed.
2325 Both were measured using <tt>dd</tt>.  So for me, the bottleneck is my
2326 network, not the file system code.  I do not know what a good cache
2327 size would be, but suspect that the cache should e larger than your
2328 working set.</p>
2329
2330 <p>I mentioned that only one machine can mount the file system at the
2331 time.  If another machine try, it is told that the file system is
2332 busy:</p>
2333
2334 <p><blockquote><pre>
2335 # mount.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
2336   --ssl --allow-root s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name /s3ql
2337 Using 8 upload threads.
2338 Backend reports that fs is still mounted elsewhere, aborting.
2339 #
2340 </pre></blockquote></p>
2341
2342 <p>The file content is uploaded when the cache is full, while the
2343 metadata is uploaded once every 24 hour by default.  To ensure the
2344 file system content is flushed to the cloud, one can either umount the
2345 file system, or ask S3QL to flush the cache and metadata using
2346 s3qlctrl:
2347
2348 <p><blockquote><pre>
2349 # s3qlctrl upload-meta /s3ql
2350 # s3qlctrl flushcache /s3ql
2351 #
2352 </pre></blockquote></p>
2353
2354 <p>If you are curious about how much space your data uses in the
2355 cloud, and how much compression and deduplication cut down on the
2356 storage usage, you can use s3qlstat on the mounted file system to get
2357 a report:</p>
2358
2359 <p><blockquote><pre>
2360 # s3qlstat /s3ql
2361 Directory entries:    9141
2362 Inodes:               9143
2363 Data blocks:          8851
2364 Total data size:      22049.38 MB
2365 After de-duplication: 21955.46 MB (99.57% of total)
2366 After compression:    21877.28 MB (99.22% of total, 99.64% of de-duplicated)
2367 Database size:        2.39 MB (uncompressed)
2368 (some values do not take into account not-yet-uploaded dirty blocks in cache)
2369 #
2370 </pre></blockquote></p>
2371
2372 <p>I mentioned earlier that there are several possible suppliers of
2373 storage.  I did not try to locate them all, but am aware of at least
2374 <a href="https://www.greenqloud.com/">Greenqloud</a>,
2375 <a href="http://drive.google.com/">Google Drive</a>,
2376 <a href="http://aws.amazon.com/s3/">Amazon S3 web serivces</a>,
2377 <a href="http://www.rackspace.com/">Rackspace</a> and
2378 <a href="http://crowncloud.net/">Crowncloud</A>.  The latter even
2379 accept payment in Bitcoin.  Pick one that suit your need.  Some of
2380 them provide several GiB of free storage, but the prize models are
2381 quite different and you will have to figure out what suits you
2382 best.</p>
2383
2384 <p>While researching this blog post, I had a look at research papers
2385 and posters discussing the S3QL file system.  There are several, which
2386 told me that the file system is getting a critical check by the
2387 science community and increased my confidence in using it.  One nice
2388 poster is titled
2389 "<a href="http://www.lanl.gov/orgs/adtsc/publications/science_highlights_2013/docs/pg68_69.pdf">An
2390 Innovative Parallel Cloud Storage System using OpenStack’s SwiftObject
2391 Store and Transformative Parallel I/O Approach</a>" by Hsing-Bung
2392 Chen, Benjamin McClelland, David Sherrill, Alfred Torrez, Parks Fields
2393 and Pamela Smith.  Please  have a look.</p>
2394
2395 <p>Given my problems with different file systems earlier, I decided to
2396 check out the mounted S3QL file system to see if it would be usable as
2397 a home directory (in other word, that it provided POSIX semantics when
2398 it come to locking and umask handling etc).  Running
2399 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_if_a_file_system_can_be_used_for_home_directories___.html">my
2400 test code to check file system semantics</a>, I was happy to discover that
2401 no error was found.  So the file system can be used for home
2402 directories, if one chooses to do so.</p>
2403
2404 <p>If you do not want a locally file system, and want something that
2405 work without the Linux fuse file system, I would like to mention the
2406 <a href="http://www.tarsnap.com/">Tarsnap service</a>, which also
2407 provide locally encrypted backup using a command line client.  It have
2408 a nicer access control system, where one can split out read and write
2409 access, allowing some systems to write to the backup and others to
2410 only read from it.</p>
2411
2412 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
2413 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
2414 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
2415
2416       </div>
2417       <div class="tags">
2418
2419
2420         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nice free software">nice free software</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
2421
2422
2423       </div>
2424     </div>
2425     <div class="padding"></div>
2426
2427     <div class="entry">
2428       <div class="title">
2429         <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>
2430       </div>
2431       <div class="date">
2432         14th March 2014
2433       </div>
2434       <div class="body">
2435         <p>The <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">Freedombox
2436 project</a> is working on providing the software and hardware for
2437 making it easy for non-technical people to host their data and
2438 communication at home, and being able to communicate with their
2439 friends and family encrypted and away from prying eyes.  It has been
2440 going on for a while, and is slowly progressing towards a new test
2441 release (0.2).</p>
2442
2443 <p>And what day could be better than the Pi day to announce that the
2444 new version will provide "hard drive" / SD card / USB stick images for
2445 Dreamplug, Raspberry Pi and VirtualBox (or any other virtualization
2446 system), and can also be installed using a Debian installer preseed
2447 file.  The Debian based Freedombox is now based on Debian Jessie,
2448 where most of the needed packages used are already present.  Only one,
2449 the freedombox-setup package, is missing.  To try to build your own
2450 boot image to test the current status, fetch the freedom-maker scripts
2451 and build using
2452 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/vmdebootstrap">vmdebootstrap</a>
2453 with a user with sudo access to become root:
2454
2455 <pre>
2456 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/freedombox/freedom-maker.git \
2457   freedom-maker
2458 sudo apt-get install git vmdebootstrap mercurial python-docutils \
2459   mktorrent extlinux virtualbox qemu-user-static binfmt-support \
2460   u-boot-tools
2461 make -C freedom-maker dreamplug-image raspberry-image virtualbox-image
2462 </pre>
2463
2464 <p>Root access is needed to run debootstrap and mount loopback
2465 devices.  See the README for more details on the build. If you do not
2466 want all three images, trim the make line.  But note that thanks to <a
2467 href="https://bugs.debian.org/741407">a race condition in
2468 vmdebootstrap</a>, the build might fail without the patch to the
2469 kpartx call.</p>
2470
2471 <p>If you instead want to install using a Debian CD and the preseed
2472 method, boot a Debian Wheezy ISO and use this boot argument to load
2473 the preseed values:</p>
2474
2475 <pre>
2476 url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat</a>
2477 </pre>
2478
2479 <p>But note that due to <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/740673">a
2480 recently introduced bug in apt in Jessie</a>, the installer will
2481 currently hang while setting up APT sources.  Killing the
2482 '<tt>apt-cdrom ident</tt>' process when it hang a few times during the
2483 installation will get the installation going.  This affect all
2484 installations in Jessie, and I expect it will be fixed soon.</p>
2485
2486 <p>Give it a go and let us know how it goes on the mailing list, and help
2487 us get the new release published. :) Please join us on
2488 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC (#freedombox on
2489 irc.debian.org)</a> and
2490 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
2491 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
2492
2493       </div>
2494       <div class="tags">
2495
2496
2497         Tags: <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>.
2498
2499
2500       </div>
2501     </div>
2502     <div class="padding"></div>
2503
2504     <div class="entry">
2505       <div class="title">
2506         <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>
2507       </div>
2508       <div class="date">
2509         22nd February 2014
2510       </div>
2511       <div class="body">
2512         <p>Many years ago, I wrote a GPL licensed version of the netgroup and
2513 innetgr tools, because I needed them in
2514 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a>.  I called the project
2515 ng-utils, and it has served me well.  I placed the project under the
2516 <a href="http://www.hungry.com/">Hungry Programmer</a> umbrella, and it was maintained in our CVS
2517 repository.  But many years ago, the CVS repository was dropped (lost,
2518 not migrated to new hardware, not sure), and the project have lacked a
2519 proper home since then.</p>
2520
2521 <p>Last summer, I had a look at the package and made a new release
2522 fixing a irritating crash bug, but was unable to store the changes in
2523 a proper source control system.  I applied for a project on
2524 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/">Alioth</a>, but did not have time
2525 to follow up on it.  Until today. :)</p>
2526
2527 <p>After many hours of cleaning and migration, the ng-utils project
2528 now have a new home, and a git repository with the highlight of the
2529 history of the project.  I published all release tarballs and imported
2530 them into the git repository.  As the project is really stable and not
2531 expected to gain new features any time soon, I decided to make a new
2532 release and call it 1.0.  Visit the new project home on
2533 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/ng-utils/">https://alioth.debian.org/projects/ng-utils/</a>
2534 if you want to check it out.  The new version is also uploaded into
2535 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/n/ng-utils.html">Debian Unstable</a>.</p>
2536
2537       </div>
2538       <div class="tags">
2539
2540
2541         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2542
2543
2544       </div>
2545     </div>
2546     <div class="padding"></div>
2547
2548     <div class="entry">
2549       <div class="title">
2550         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_sysvinit_from_experimental_in_Debian_Hurd.html">Testing sysvinit from experimental in Debian Hurd</a>
2551       </div>
2552       <div class="date">
2553          3rd February 2014
2554       </div>
2555       <div class="body">
2556         <p>A few days ago I decided to try to help the Hurd people to get
2557 their changes into sysvinit, to allow them to use the normal sysvinit
2558 boot system instead of their old one.  This follow up on the
2559 <a href="https://teythoon.cryptobitch.de//categories/gsoc.html">great
2560 Google Summer of Code work</a> done last summer by Justus Winter to
2561 get Debian on Hurd working more like Debian on Linux.  To get started,
2562 I downloaded a prebuilt hard disk image from
2563 <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>,
2564 and started it using virt-manager.</p>
2565
2566 <p>The first think I had to do after logging in (root without any
2567 password) was to get the network operational.  I followed
2568 <a href="https://www.debian.org/ports/hurd/hurd-install">the
2569 instructions on the Debian GNU/Hurd ports page</a> and ran these
2570 commands as root to get the machine to accept a IP address from the
2571 kvm internal DHCP server:</p>
2572
2573 <p><blockquote><pre>
2574 settrans -fgap /dev/netdde /hurd/netdde
2575 kill $(ps -ef|awk '/[p]finet/ { print $2}')
2576 kill $(ps -ef|awk '/[d]evnode/ { print $2}')
2577 dhclient /dev/eth0
2578 </pre></blockquote></p>
2579
2580 <p>After this, the machine had internet connectivity, and I could
2581 upgrade it and install the sysvinit packages from experimental and
2582 enable it as the default boot system in Hurd.</p>
2583
2584 <p>But before I did that, I set a password on the root user, as ssh is
2585 running on the machine it for ssh login to work a password need to be
2586 set.  Also, note that a bug somewhere in openssh on Hurd block
2587 compression from working.  Remember to turn that off on the client
2588 side.</p>
2589
2590 <p>Run these commands as root to upgrade and test the new sysvinit
2591 stuff:</p>
2592
2593 <p><blockquote><pre>
2594 cat > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/experimental.list &lt;&lt;EOF
2595 deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ experimental main
2596 EOF
2597 apt-get update
2598 apt-get dist-upgrade
2599 apt-get install -t experimental initscripts sysv-rc sysvinit \
2600     sysvinit-core sysvinit-utils
2601 update-alternatives --config runsystem
2602 </pre></blockquote></p>
2603
2604 <p>To reboot after switching boot system, you have to use
2605 <tt>reboot-hurd</tt> instead of just <tt>reboot</tt>, as there is not
2606 yet a sysvinit process able to receive the signals from the normal
2607 'reboot' command.  After switching to sysvinit as the boot system,
2608 upgrading every package and rebooting, the network come up with DHCP
2609 after boot as it should, and the settrans/pkill hack mentioned at the
2610 start is no longer needed.  But for some strange reason, there are no
2611 longer any login prompt in the virtual console, so I logged in using
2612 ssh instead.
2613
2614 <p>Note that there are some race conditions in Hurd making the boot
2615 fail some times.  No idea what the cause is, but hope the Hurd porters
2616 figure it out.  At least Justus said on IRC (#debian-hurd on
2617 irc.debian.org) that they are aware of the problem.  A way to reduce
2618 the impact is to upgrade to the Hurd packages built by Justus by
2619 adding this repository to the machine:</p>
2620
2621 <p><blockquote><pre>
2622 cat > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/hurd-ci.list &lt;&lt;EOF
2623 deb http://darnassus.sceen.net/~teythoon/hurd-ci/ sid main
2624 EOF
2625 </pre></blockquote></p>
2626
2627 <p>At the moment the prebuilt virtual machine get some packages from
2628 http://ftp.debian-ports.org/debian, because some of the packages in
2629 unstable do not yet include the required patches that are lingering in
2630 BTS.  This is the completely list of "unofficial" packages installed:</p>
2631
2632 <p><blockquote><pre>
2633 # aptitude search '?narrow(?version(CURRENT),?origin(Debian Ports))'
2634 i   emacs                   - GNU Emacs editor (metapackage)
2635 i   gdb                     - GNU Debugger
2636 i   hurd-recommended        - Miscellaneous translators
2637 i   isc-dhcp-client         - ISC DHCP client
2638 i   isc-dhcp-common         - common files used by all the isc-dhcp* packages
2639 i   libc-bin                - Embedded GNU C Library: Binaries
2640 i   libc-dev-bin            - Embedded GNU C Library: Development binaries
2641 i   libc0.3                 - Embedded GNU C Library: Shared libraries
2642 i A libc0.3-dbg             - Embedded GNU C Library: detached debugging symbols
2643 i   libc0.3-dev             - Embedded GNU C Library: Development Libraries and Hea
2644 i   multiarch-support       - Transitional package to ensure multiarch compatibilit
2645 i A x11-common              - X Window System (X.Org) infrastructure
2646 i   xorg                    - X.Org X Window System
2647 i A xserver-xorg            - X.Org X server
2648 i A xserver-xorg-input-all  - X.Org X server -- input driver metapackage
2649 #
2650 </pre></blockquote></p>
2651
2652 <p>All in all, testing hurd has been an interesting experience. :)
2653 X.org did not work out of the box and I never took the time to follow
2654 the porters instructions to fix it.  This time I was interested in the
2655 command line stuff.<p>
2656
2657       </div>
2658       <div class="tags">
2659
2660
2661         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>.
2662
2663
2664       </div>
2665     </div>
2666     <div class="padding"></div>
2667
2668     <div class="entry">
2669       <div class="title">
2670         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_chrpath_release_0_16.html">New chrpath release 0.16</a>
2671       </div>
2672       <div class="date">
2673         14th January 2014
2674       </div>
2675       <div class="body">
2676         <p><a href="http://www.coverity.com/">Coverity</a> is a nice tool to
2677 find problems in C, C++ and Java code using static source code
2678 analysis.  It can detect a lot of different problems, and is very
2679 useful to find memory and locking bugs in the error handling part of
2680 the source.  The company behind it provide
2681 <a href="https://scan.coverity.com/">check of free software projects as
2682 a community service</a>, and many hundred free software projects are
2683 already checked.  A few days ago I decided to have a closer look at
2684 the Coverity system, and discovered that the
2685 <a href="http://www.gnu.org/software/gnash/">gnash</a> and
2686 <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/ipmitool/">ipmitool</a>
2687 projects I am involved with was already registered.  But these are
2688 fairly big, and I would also like to have a small and easy project to
2689 check, and decided to <a href="http://scan.coverity.com/projects/1179">request
2690 checking of the chrpath project</a>.  It was
2691 added to the checker and discovered seven potential defects.  Six of
2692 these were real, mostly resource "leak" when the program detected an
2693 error.  Nothing serious, as the resources would be released a fraction
2694 of a second later when the program exited because of the error, but it
2695 is nice to do it right in case the source of the program some time in
2696 the future end up in a library.  Having fixed all defects and added
2697 <a href="https://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/chrpath-devel">a
2698 mailing list for the chrpath developers</a>, I decided it was time to
2699 publish a new release.  These are the release notes:</p>
2700
2701 <p>New in 0.16 released 2014-01-14:</p>
2702
2703 <ul>
2704
2705   <li>Fixed all minor bugs discovered by Coverity.</li>
2706   <li>Updated config.sub and config.guess from the GNU project.</li>
2707   <li>Mention new project mailing list in the documentation.</li>
2708
2709 </ul>
2710
2711 <p>You can
2712 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/frs/?group_id=31052">download the
2713 new version 0.16 from alioth</a>.  Please let us know via the Alioth
2714 project if something is wrong with the new release.  The test suite
2715 did not discover any old errors, so if you find a new one, please also
2716 include a test suite check.</p>
2717
2718       </div>
2719       <div class="tags">
2720
2721
2722         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>.
2723
2724
2725       </div>
2726     </div>
2727     <div class="padding"></div>
2728
2729     <div class="entry">
2730       <div class="title">
2731         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_chrpath_release_0_15.html">New chrpath release 0.15</a>
2732       </div>
2733       <div class="date">
2734         24th November 2013
2735       </div>
2736       <div class="body">
2737         <p>After many years break from the package and a vain hope that
2738 development would be continued by someone else, I finally pulled my
2739 acts together this morning and wrapped up a new release of chrpath,
2740 the command line tool to modify the rpath and runpath of already
2741 compiled ELF programs.  The update was triggered by the persistence of
2742 Isha Vishnoi at IBM, which needed a new config.guess file to get
2743 support for the ppc64le architecture (powerpc 64-bit Little Endian) he
2744 is working on.  I checked the
2745 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/chrpath">Debian</a>,
2746 <a href="https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/chrpath">Ubuntu</a> and
2747 <a href="https://admin.fedoraproject.org/pkgdb/acls/name/chrpath">Fedora</a>
2748 packages for interesting patches (failed to find the source from
2749 OpenSUSE and Mandriva packages), and found quite a few nice fixes.
2750 These are the release notes:</p>
2751
2752 <p>New in 0.15 released 2013-11-24:</p>
2753
2754 <ul>
2755
2756   <li>Updated config.sub and config.guess from the GNU project to work
2757    with newer architectures.  Thanks to isha vishnoi for the heads
2758    up.</li>
2759
2760   <li>Updated README with current URLs.</li>
2761
2762   <li>Added byteswap fix found in Ubuntu, credited Jeremy Kerr and
2763    Matthias Klose.</li>
2764
2765   <li>Added missing help for -k|--keepgoing option, using patch by
2766    Petr Machata found in Fedora.</li>
2767
2768   <li>Rewrite removal of RPATH/RUNPATH to make sure the entry in
2769    .dynamic is a NULL terminated string.  Based on patch found in
2770    Fedora credited Axel Thimm and Christian Krause.</li>
2771
2772 </ul>
2773
2774 <p>You can
2775 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/frs/?group_id=31052">download the
2776 new version 0.15 from alioth</a>.  Please let us know via the Alioth
2777 project if something is wrong with the new release.  The test suite
2778 did not discover any old errors, so if you find a new one, please also
2779 include a testsuite check.</p>
2780
2781       </div>
2782       <div class="tags">
2783
2784
2785         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>.
2786
2787
2788       </div>
2789     </div>
2790     <div class="padding"></div>
2791
2792     <div class="entry">
2793       <div class="title">
2794         <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>
2795       </div>
2796       <div class="date">
2797          2nd November 2013
2798       </div>
2799       <div class="body">
2800         <p>If one of the points of switching to a new init system in Debian is
2801 <a href="http://thomas.goirand.fr/blog/?p=147">to get rid of huge
2802 init.d scripts</a>, I doubt we need to switch away from sysvinit and
2803 init.d scripts at all.  Here is an example init.d script, ie a rewrite
2804 of /etc/init.d/rsyslog:</p>
2805
2806 <p><pre>
2807 #!/lib/init/init-d-script
2808 ### BEGIN INIT INFO
2809 # Provides:          rsyslog
2810 # Required-Start:    $remote_fs $time
2811 # Required-Stop:     umountnfs $time
2812 # X-Stop-After:      sendsigs
2813 # Default-Start:     2 3 4 5
2814 # Default-Stop:      0 1 6
2815 # Short-Description: enhanced syslogd
2816 # Description:       Rsyslog is an enhanced multi-threaded syslogd.
2817 #                    It is quite compatible to stock sysklogd and can be
2818 #                    used as a drop-in replacement.
2819 ### END INIT INFO
2820 DESC="enhanced syslogd"
2821 DAEMON=/usr/sbin/rsyslogd
2822 </pre></p>
2823
2824 <p>Pretty minimalistic to me... For the record, the original sysv-rc
2825 script was 137 lines, and the above is just 15 lines, most of it meta
2826 info/comments.</p>
2827
2828 <p>How to do this, you ask?  Well, one create a new script
2829 /lib/init/init-d-script looking something like this:
2830
2831 <p><pre>
2832 #!/bin/sh
2833
2834 # Define LSB log_* functions.
2835 # Depend on lsb-base (>= 3.2-14) to ensure that this file is present
2836 # and status_of_proc is working.
2837 . /lib/lsb/init-functions
2838
2839 #
2840 # Function that starts the daemon/service
2841
2842 #
2843 do_start()
2844 {
2845         # Return
2846         #   0 if daemon has been started
2847         #   1 if daemon was already running
2848         #   2 if daemon could not be started
2849         start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $DAEMON --test > /dev/null \
2850                 || return 1
2851         start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $DAEMON -- \
2852                 $DAEMON_ARGS \
2853                 || return 2
2854         # Add code here, if necessary, that waits for the process to be ready
2855         # to handle requests from services started subsequently which depend
2856         # on this one.  As a last resort, sleep for some time.
2857 }
2858
2859 #
2860 # Function that stops the daemon/service
2861 #
2862 do_stop()
2863 {
2864         # Return
2865         #   0 if daemon has been stopped
2866         #   1 if daemon was already stopped
2867         #   2 if daemon could not be stopped
2868         #   other if a failure occurred
2869         start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --retry=TERM/30/KILL/5 --pidfile $PIDFILE --name $NAME
2870         RETVAL="$?"
2871         [ "$RETVAL" = 2 ] && return 2
2872         # Wait for children to finish too if this is a daemon that forks
2873         # and if the daemon is only ever run from this initscript.
2874         # If the above conditions are not satisfied then add some other code
2875         # that waits for the process to drop all resources that could be
2876         # needed by services started subsequently.  A last resort is to
2877         # sleep for some time.
2878         start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --oknodo --retry=0/30/KILL/5 --exec $DAEMON
2879         [ "$?" = 2 ] && return 2
2880         # Many daemons don't delete their pidfiles when they exit.
2881         rm -f $PIDFILE
2882         return "$RETVAL"
2883 }
2884
2885 #
2886 # Function that sends a SIGHUP to the daemon/service
2887 #
2888 do_reload() {
2889         #
2890         # If the daemon can reload its configuration without
2891         # restarting (for example, when it is sent a SIGHUP),
2892         # then implement that here.
2893         #
2894         start-stop-daemon --stop --signal 1 --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --name $NAME
2895         return 0
2896 }
2897
2898 SCRIPTNAME=$1
2899 scriptbasename="$(basename $1)"
2900 echo "SN: $scriptbasename"
2901 if [ "$scriptbasename" != "init-d-library" ] ; then
2902     script="$1"
2903     shift
2904     . $script
2905 else
2906     exit 0
2907 fi
2908
2909 NAME=$(basename $DAEMON)
2910 PIDFILE=/var/run/$NAME.pid
2911
2912 # Exit if the package is not installed
2913 #[ -x "$DAEMON" ] || exit 0
2914
2915 # Read configuration variable file if it is present
2916 [ -r /etc/default/$NAME ] && . /etc/default/$NAME
2917
2918 # Load the VERBOSE setting and other rcS variables
2919 . /lib/init/vars.sh
2920
2921 case "$1" in
2922   start)
2923         [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_daemon_msg "Starting $DESC" "$NAME"
2924         do_start
2925         case "$?" in
2926                 0|1) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 0 ;;
2927                 2) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 1 ;;
2928         esac
2929         ;;
2930   stop)
2931         [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_daemon_msg "Stopping $DESC" "$NAME"
2932         do_stop
2933         case "$?" in
2934                 0|1) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 0 ;;
2935                 2) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 1 ;;
2936         esac
2937         ;;
2938   status)
2939         status_of_proc "$DAEMON" "$NAME" && exit 0 || exit $?
2940         ;;
2941   #reload|force-reload)
2942         #
2943         # If do_reload() is not implemented then leave this commented out
2944         # and leave 'force-reload' as an alias for 'restart'.
2945         #
2946         #log_daemon_msg "Reloading $DESC" "$NAME"
2947         #do_reload
2948         #log_end_msg $?
2949         #;;
2950   restart|force-reload)
2951         #
2952         # If the "reload" option is implemented then remove the
2953         # 'force-reload' alias
2954         #
2955         log_daemon_msg "Restarting $DESC" "$NAME"
2956         do_stop
2957         case "$?" in
2958           0|1)
2959                 do_start
2960                 case "$?" in
2961                         0) log_end_msg 0 ;;
2962                         1) log_end_msg 1 ;; # Old process is still running
2963                         *) log_end_msg 1 ;; # Failed to start
2964                 esac
2965                 ;;
2966           *)
2967                 # Failed to stop
2968                 log_end_msg 1
2969                 ;;
2970         esac
2971         ;;
2972   *)
2973         echo "Usage: $SCRIPTNAME {start|stop|status|restart|force-reload}" >&2
2974         exit 3
2975         ;;
2976 esac
2977
2978 :
2979 </pre></p>
2980
2981 <p>It is based on /etc/init.d/skeleton, and could be improved quite a
2982 lot.  I did not really polish the approach, so it might not always
2983 work out of the box, but you get the idea.  I did not try very hard to
2984 optimize it nor make it more robust either.</p>
2985
2986 <p>A better argument for switching init system in Debian than reducing
2987 the size of init scripts (which is a good thing to do anyway), is to
2988 get boot system that is able to handle the kernel events sensibly and
2989 robustly, and do not depend on the boot to run sequentially.  The boot
2990 and the kernel have not behaved sequentially in years.</p>
2991
2992       </div>
2993       <div class="tags">
2994
2995
2996         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>.
2997
2998
2999       </div>
3000     </div>
3001     <div class="padding"></div>
3002
3003     <div class="entry">
3004       <div class="title">
3005         <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>
3006       </div>
3007       <div class="date">
3008          1st November 2013
3009       </div>
3010       <div class="body">
3011         <p><a href="http://www.spice-space.org/">The SPICE protocol</a> for
3012 remote display access is the preferred solution with oVirt and RedHat
3013 Enterprise Virtualization, and I was sad to discover the other day
3014 that the browser plugin needed to use these systems seamlessly was
3015 missing in Debian.  The <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/668284">request
3016 for a package</a> was from 2012-04-10 with no progress since
3017 2013-04-01, so I decided to wrap up a package based on the great work
3018 from Cajus Pollmeier and put it in a collab-maint maintained git
3019 repository to get a package I could use.  I would very much like
3020 others to help me maintain the package (or just take over, I do not
3021 mind), but as no-one had volunteered so far, I just uploaded it to
3022 NEW.  I hope it will be available in Debian in a few days.</p>
3023
3024 <p>The source is now available from
3025 <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>
3026
3027       </div>
3028       <div class="tags">
3029
3030
3031         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3032
3033
3034       </div>
3035     </div>
3036     <div class="padding"></div>
3037
3038     <div class="entry">
3039       <div class="title">
3040         <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>
3041       </div>
3042       <div class="date">
3043         27th October 2013
3044       </div>
3045       <div class="body">
3046         <p>The
3047 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/v/vmdebootstrap.html">vmdebootstrap</a>
3048 program is a a very nice system to create virtual machine images.  It
3049 create a image file, add a partition table, mount it and run
3050 debootstrap in the mounted directory to create a Debian system on a
3051 stick.  Yesterday, I decided to try to teach it how to make images for
3052 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/RaspberryPi">Raspberry Pi</a>, as part
3053 of a plan to simplify the build system for
3054 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">the FreedomBox
3055 project</a>.  The FreedomBox project already uses vmdebootstrap for
3056 the virtualbox images, but its current build system made multistrap
3057 based system for Dreamplug images, and it is lacking support for
3058 Raspberry Pi.</p>
3059
3060 <p>Armed with the knowledge on how to build "foreign" (aka non-native
3061 architecture) chroots for Raspberry Pi, I dived into the vmdebootstrap
3062 code and adjusted it to be able to build armel images on my amd64
3063 Debian laptop.  I ended up giving vmdebootstrap five new options,
3064 allowing me to replicate the image creation process I use to make
3065 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Raspberry_Pi_based_batman_adv_Mesh_network_node.html">Debian
3066 Jessie based mesh node images for the Raspberry Pi</a>.  First, the
3067 <tt>--foreign /path/to/binfm_handler</tt> option tell vmdebootstrap to
3068 call debootstrap with --foreign and to copy the handler into the
3069 generated chroot before running the second stage.  This allow
3070 vmdebootstrap to create armel images on an amd64 host.  Next I added
3071 two new options <tt>--bootsize size</tt> and <tt>--boottype
3072 fstype</tt> to teach it to create a separate /boot/ partition with the
3073 given file system type, allowing me to create an image with a vfat
3074 partition for the /boot/ stuff.  I also added a <tt>--variant
3075 variant</tt> option to allow me to create smaller images without the
3076 Debian base system packages installed.  Finally, I added an option
3077 <tt>--no-extlinux</tt> to tell vmdebootstrap to not install extlinux
3078 as a boot loader.  It is not needed on the Raspberry Pi and probably
3079 most other non-x86 architectures.  The changes were accepted by the
3080 upstream author of vmdebootstrap yesterday and today, and is now
3081 available from
3082 <a href="http://git.liw.fi/cgi-bin/cgit/cgit.cgi/vmdebootstrap/">the
3083 upstream project page</a>.</p>
3084
3085 <p>To use it to build a Raspberry Pi image using Debian Jessie, first
3086 create a small script (the customize script) to add the non-free
3087 binary blob needed to boot the Raspberry Pi and the APT source
3088 list:</p>
3089
3090 <p><pre>
3091 #!/bin/sh
3092 set -e # Exit on first error
3093 rootdir="$1"
3094 cd "$rootdir"
3095 cat &lt;&lt;EOF > etc/apt/sources.list
3096 deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ jessie main contrib non-free
3097 EOF
3098 # Install non-free binary blob needed to boot Raspberry Pi.  This
3099 # install a kernel somewhere too.
3100 wget https://raw.github.com/Hexxeh/rpi-update/master/rpi-update \
3101     -O $rootdir/usr/bin/rpi-update
3102 chmod a+x $rootdir/usr/bin/rpi-update
3103 mkdir -p $rootdir/lib/modules
3104 touch $rootdir/boot/start.elf
3105 chroot $rootdir rpi-update
3106 </pre></p>
3107
3108 <p>Next, fetch the latest vmdebootstrap script and call it like this
3109 to build the image:</p>
3110
3111 <pre>
3112 sudo ./vmdebootstrap \
3113     --variant minbase \
3114     --arch armel \
3115     --distribution jessie \
3116     --mirror http://http.debian.net/debian \
3117     --image test.img \
3118     --size 600M \
3119     --bootsize 64M \
3120     --boottype vfat \
3121     --log-level debug \
3122     --verbose \
3123     --no-kernel \
3124     --no-extlinux \
3125     --root-password raspberry \
3126     --hostname raspberrypi \
3127     --foreign /usr/bin/qemu-arm-static \
3128     --customize `pwd`/customize \
3129     --package netbase \
3130     --package git-core \
3131     --package binutils \
3132     --package ca-certificates \
3133     --package wget \
3134     --package kmod
3135 </pre></p>
3136
3137 <p>The list of packages being installed are the ones needed by
3138 rpi-update to make the image bootable on the Raspberry Pi, with the
3139 exception of netbase, which is needed by debootstrap to find
3140 /etc/hosts with the minbase variant.  I really wish there was a way to
3141 set up an Raspberry Pi using only packages in the Debian archive, but
3142 that is not possible as far as I know, because it boots from the GPU
3143 using a non-free binary blob.</p>
3144
3145 <p>The build host need debootstrap, kpartx and qemu-user-static and
3146 probably a few others installed.  I have not checked the complete
3147 build dependency list.</p>
3148
3149 <p>The resulting image will not use the hardware floating point unit
3150 on the Raspberry PI, because the armel architecture in Debian is not
3151 optimized for that use.  So the images created will be a bit slower
3152 than <a href="http://www.raspbian.org/">Raspbian</a> based images.</p>
3153
3154       </div>
3155       <div class="tags">
3156
3157
3158         Tags: <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>.
3159
3160
3161       </div>
3162     </div>
3163     <div class="padding"></div>
3164
3165     <div class="entry">
3166       <div class="title">
3167         <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>
3168       </div>
3169       <div class="date">
3170         15th October 2013
3171       </div>
3172       <div class="body">
3173         <p>The last few days I came across a few good causes that should get
3174 wider attention.  I recommend signing and donating to each one of
3175 these. :)</p>
3176
3177 <p>Via <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2013/18/">Debian
3178 Project News for 2013-10-14</a> I came across the Outreach Program for
3179 Women program which is a Google Summer of Code like initiative to get
3180 more women involved in free software.  One debian sponsor has offered
3181 to match <a href="http://debian.ch/opw2013">any donation done to Debian
3182 earmarked</a> for this initiative.  I donated a few minutes ago, and
3183 hope you will to. :)</p>
3184
3185 <p>And the Electronic Frontier Foundation just announced plans to
3186 create <a href="https://supporters.eff.org/donate/nsa-videos">video
3187 documentaries about the excessive spying</a> on every Internet user that
3188 take place these days, and their need to fund the work.  I've already
3189 donated.  Are you next?</p>
3190
3191 <p>For my Norwegian audience, the organisation Studentenes og
3192 Akademikernes Internasjonale Hjelpefond is collecting signatures for a
3193 statement under the heading
3194 <a href="http://saih.no/Bloggers_United/">Bloggers United for Open
3195 Access</a> for those of us asking for more focus on open access in the
3196 Norwegian government.  So far 499 signatures.  I hope you will sign it
3197 too.</p>
3198
3199       </div>
3200       <div class="tags">
3201
3202
3203         Tags: <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>.
3204
3205
3206       </div>
3207     </div>
3208     <div class="padding"></div>
3209
3210     <div class="entry">
3211       <div class="title">
3212         <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>
3213       </div>
3214       <div class="date">
3215         27th September 2013
3216       </div>
3217       <div class="body">
3218         <p>The <a href="http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/">Freedombox
3219 project</a> have been going on for a while, and have presented the
3220 vision, ideas and solution several places.  Here is a little
3221 collection of videos of talks and presentation of the project.</p>
3222
3223 <ul>
3224
3225 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukvUz5taxvA">FreedomBox -
3226 2,5 minute marketing film</a> (Youtube)</li>
3227
3228 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzW25QTVWsE">Eben Moglen
3229 discusses the Freedombox on CBS news 2011</a> (Youtube)</li>
3230
3231 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ae8SZbxfE0g">Eben Moglen -
3232 Freedom in the Cloud - Software Freedom, Privacy and and Security for
3233 Web 2.0 and Cloud computing at ISOC-NY Public Meeting 2010</a>
3234 (Youtube)</li>
3235
3236 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNaIji_3xBE">Fosdem 2011
3237 Keynote by Eben Moglen presenting the Freedombox</a> (Youtube)</li>
3238
3239 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bDDUyJSQ9s">Presentation of
3240 the Freedombox by James Vasile at Elevate in Gratz 2011</a> (Youtube)</li>
3241
3242 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQTmnk27g9s"> Freedombox -
3243 Discovery, Identity, and Trust by Nick Daly at Freedombox Hackfest New
3244 York City in 2012</a> (Youtube)</li>
3245
3246 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkbSB4Ba7Ck">Introduction
3247 to the Freedombox at Freedombox Hackfest New York City in 2012</a>
3248 (Youtube)</li>
3249
3250 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-P2Jaeg0aQ">Freedom, Out
3251 of the Box! by Bdale Garbee at linux.conf.au Ballarat, 2012</a> (Youtube) </li>
3252
3253 <li><a href="https://archive.fosdem.org/2013/schedule/event/freedombox/">Freedombox
3254 1.0 by Eben Moglen and Bdale Garbee at Fosdem 2013</a> (FOSDEM) </li>
3255
3256 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1LpYX2zVYg">What is the
3257 FreedomBox today by Bdale Garbee at Debconf13 in Vaumarcus
3258 2013</a> (Youtube)</li>
3259
3260 </ul>
3261
3262 <p>A larger list is available from
3263 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/TalksAndPresentations">the
3264 Freedombox Wiki</a>.</p>
3265
3266 <p>On other news, I am happy to report that Freedombox based on Debian
3267 Jessie is coming along quite well, and soon both Owncloud and using
3268 Tor should be available for testers of the Freedombox solution. :) In
3269 a few weeks I hope everything needed to test it is included in Debian.
3270 The withsqlite package is already in Debian, and the plinth package is
3271 pending in NEW.  The third and vital part of that puzzle is the
3272 metapackage/setup framework, which is still pending an upload.  Join
3273 us on <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC
3274 (#freedombox on irc.debian.org)</a> and
3275 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
3276 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
3277
3278       </div>
3279       <div class="tags">
3280
3281
3282         Tags: <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>.
3283
3284
3285       </div>
3286     </div>
3287     <div class="padding"></div>
3288
3289     <div class="entry">
3290       <div class="title">
3291         <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>
3292       </div>
3293       <div class="date">
3294         10th September 2013
3295       </div>
3296       <div class="body">
3297         <p>I was introduced to the
3298 <a href="http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/">Freedombox project</a>
3299 in 2010, when Eben Moglen presented his vision about serving the need
3300 of non-technical people to keep their personal information private and
3301 within the legal protection of their own homes.  The idea is to give
3302 people back the power over their network and machines, and return
3303 Internet back to its intended peer-to-peer architecture.  Instead of
3304 depending on a central service, the Freedombox will give everyone
3305 control over their own basic infrastructure.</p>
3306
3307 <p>I've intended to join the effort since then, but other tasks have
3308 taken priority.  But this summers nasty news about the misuse of trust
3309 and privilege exercised by the "western" intelligence gathering
3310 communities increased my eagerness to contribute to a point where I
3311 actually started working on the project a while back.</p>
3312
3313 <p>The <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/freedombox/">initial
3314 Debian initiative</a> based on the vision from Eben Moglen, is to
3315 create a simple and cheap Debian based appliance that anyone can hook
3316 up in their home and get access to secure and private services and
3317 communication.  The initial deployment platform have been the
3318 <a href="http://www.globalscaletechnologies.com/t-dreamplugdetails.aspx">Dreamplug</a>,
3319 which is a piece of hardware I do not own.  So to be able to test what
3320 the current Freedombox setup look like, I had to come up with a way to install
3321 it on some hardware I do have access to.  I have rewritten the
3322 <a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/freedom-maker">freedom-maker</a>
3323 image build framework to use .deb packages instead of only copying
3324 setup into the boot images, and thanks to this rewrite I am able to
3325 set up any machine supported by Debian Wheezy as a Freedombox, using
3326 the previously mentioned deb (and a few support debs for packages
3327 missing in Debian).</p>
3328
3329 <p>The current Freedombox setup consist of a set of bootstrapping
3330 scripts
3331 (<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/freedombox-setup">freedombox-setup</a>),
3332 and a administrative web interface
3333 (<a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/Plinth">plinth</a> + exmachina +
3334 withsqlite), as well as a privacy enhancing proxy based on
3335 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/privoxy">privoxy</a>
3336 (freedombox-privoxy).  There is also a web/javascript based XMPP
3337 client (<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/jwchat">jwchat</a>)
3338 trying (unsuccessfully so far) to talk to the XMPP server
3339 (<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/ejabberd">ejabberd</a>).  The
3340 web interface is pluggable, and the goal is to use it to enable OpenID
3341 services, mesh network connectivity, use of TOR, etc, etc.  Not much of
3342 this is really working yet, see
3343 <a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/freedombox-todos/blob/master/TODO">the
3344 project TODO</a> for links to GIT repositories.  Most of the code is
3345 on github at the moment.  The HTTP proxy is operational out of the
3346 box, and the admin web interface can be used to add/remove plinth
3347 users.  I've not been able to do anything else with it so far, but
3348 know there are several branches spread around github and other places
3349 with lots of half baked features.</p>
3350
3351 <p>Anyway, if you want to have a look at the current state, the
3352 following recipes should work to give you a test machine to poke
3353 at.</p>
3354
3355 <p><strong>Debian Wheezy amd64</strong></p>
3356
3357 <ol>
3358
3359 <li>Fetch normal Debian Wheezy installation ISO.</li>
3360 <li>Boot from it, either as CD or USB stick.</li>
3361 <li><p>Press [tab] on the boot prompt and add this as a boot argument
3362 to the Debian installer:<p>
3363 <pre>url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-wheezy.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-wheezy.dat</a></pre></li>
3364
3365 <li>Answer the few language/region/password questions and pick disk to
3366 install on.</li>
3367
3368 <li>When the installation is finished and the machine have rebooted a
3369 few times, your Freedombox is ready for testing.</li>
3370
3371 </ol>
3372
3373 <p><strong>Raspberry Pi Raspbian</strong></p>
3374
3375 <ol>
3376
3377 <li>Fetch a Raspbian SD card image, create SD card.</li>
3378 <li>Boot from SD card, extend file system to fill the card completely.</li>
3379 <li><p>Log in and add this to /etc/sources.list:</p>
3380 <pre>
3381 deb <a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox</a> wheezy main
3382 </pre></li>
3383 <li><p>Run this as root:</p>
3384 <pre>
3385 wget -O - http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/BE1A583D.asc | \
3386    apt-key add -
3387 apt-get update
3388 apt-get install freedombox-setup
3389 /usr/lib/freedombox/setup
3390 </pre></li>
3391 <li>Reboot into your freshly created Freedombox.</li>
3392
3393 </ol>
3394
3395 <p>You can test it on other architectures too, but because the
3396 freedombox-privoxy package is binary, it will only work as intended on
3397 the architectures where I have had time to build the binary and put it
3398 in my APT repository.  But do not let this stop you.  It is only a
3399 short "<tt>apt-get source -b freedombox-privoxy</tt>" away. :)</p>
3400
3401 <p>Note that by default Freedombox is a DHCP server on the
3402 192.168.1.0/24 subnet, so if this is your subnet be careful and turn
3403 off the DHCP server by running "<tt>update-rc.d isc-dhcp-server
3404 disable</tt>" as root.</p>
3405
3406 <p>Please let me know if this works for you, or if you have any
3407 problems.  We gather on the IRC channel
3408 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">#freedombox</a> on
3409 irc.debian.org and the
3410 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">project
3411 mailing list</a>.</p>
3412
3413 <p>Once you get your freedombox operational, you can visit
3414 <tt>http://your-host-name:8001/</tt> to see the state of the plint
3415 welcome screen (dead end - do not be surprised if you are unable to
3416 get past it), and next visit <tt>http://your-host-name:8001/help/</tt>
3417 to look at the rest of plinth.  The default user is 'admin' and the
3418 default password is 'secret'.</p>
3419
3420       </div>
3421       <div class="tags">
3422
3423
3424         Tags: <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>.
3425
3426
3427       </div>
3428     </div>
3429     <div class="padding"></div>
3430
3431     <div class="entry">
3432       <div class="title">
3433         <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>
3434       </div>
3435       <div class="date">
3436         18th August 2013
3437       </div>
3438       <div class="body">
3439         <p>Earlier, I reported about
3440 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_fix_a_Thinkpad_X230_with_a_broken_180_GB_SSD_disk.html">my
3441 problems using an Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB disk</a>.  Friday I was
3442 told by IBM that the original disk should be thrown away.  And as
3443 there no longer was a problem if I bricked the firmware, I decided
3444 today to try to install Intel firmware to replace the Lenovo firmware
3445 currently on the disk.</p>
3446
3447 <p>I searched the Intel site for firmware, and found
3448 <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>
3449 (aka Intel SATA Solid-State Drive Firmware Update Tool) which
3450 according to the site should contain the latest firmware for SSD
3451 disks.  I inserted the broken disk in one of my spare laptops and
3452 booted the ISO from a USB stick.  The disk was recognized, but the
3453 program claimed the newest firmware already were installed and refused
3454 to insert any Intel firmware.  So no change, and the disk is still
3455 unable to handle write load. :( I guess the only way to get them
3456 working would be if Lenovo releases new firmware.  No idea how likely
3457 that is.  Anyway, just blogging about this test for completeness.  I
3458 got a working Samsung disk, and see no point in spending more time on
3459 the broken disks.</p>
3460
3461       </div>
3462       <div class="tags">
3463
3464
3465         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3466
3467
3468       </div>
3469     </div>
3470     <div class="padding"></div>
3471
3472     <div class="entry">
3473       <div class="title">
3474         <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>
3475       </div>
3476       <div class="date">
3477         17th July 2013
3478       </div>
3479       <div class="body">
3480         <p>Today I switched to
3481 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">my
3482 new laptop</a>.  I've previously written about the problems I had with
3483 my new Thinkpad X230, which was delivered with an
3484 <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
3485 GB Intel SSD disk with Lenovo firmware</a> that did not handle
3486 sustained writes.  My hardware supplier have been very forthcoming in
3487 trying to find a solution, and after first trying with another
3488 identical 180 GB disks they decided to send me a 256 GB Samsung SSD
3489 disk instead to fix it once and for all.  The Samsung disk survived
3490 the installation of Debian with encrypted disks (filling the disk with
3491 random data during installation killed the first two), and I thus
3492 decided to trust it with my data.  I have installed it as a Debian Edu
3493 Wheezy roaming workstation hooked up with my Debian Edu Squeeze main
3494 server at home using Kerberos and LDAP, and will use it as my work
3495 station from now on.</p>
3496
3497 <p>As this is a solid state disk with no moving parts, I believe the
3498 Debian Wheezy default installation need to be tuned a bit to increase
3499 performance and increase life time of the disk.  The Linux kernel and
3500 user space applications do not yet adjust automatically to such
3501 environment.  To make it easier for my self, I created a draft Debian
3502 package <tt>ssd-setup</tt> to handle this tuning.  The
3503 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/ssd-setup.git">source
3504 for the ssd-setup package</a> is available from collab-maint, and it
3505 is set up to adjust the setup of the machine by just installing the
3506 package.  If there is any non-SSD disk in the machine, the package
3507 will refuse to install, as I did not try to write any logic to sort
3508 file systems in SSD and non-SSD file systems.</p>
3509
3510 <p>I consider the package a draft, as I am a bit unsure how to best
3511 set up Debian Wheezy with an SSD.  It is adjusted to my use case,
3512 where I set up the machine with one large encrypted partition (in
3513 addition to /boot), put LVM on top of this and set up partitions on
3514 top of this again.  See the README file in the package source for the
3515 references I used to pick the settings.  At the moment these
3516 parameters are tuned:</p>
3517
3518 <ul>
3519
3520 <li>Set up cryptsetup to pass TRIM commands to the physical disk
3521     (adding discard to /etc/crypttab)</li>
3522
3523 <li>Set up LVM to pass on TRIM commands to the underlying device (in
3524     this case a cryptsetup partition) by changing issue_discards from
3525     0 to 1 in /etc/lvm/lvm.conf.</li>
3526
3527 <li>Set relatime as a file system option for ext3 and ext4 file
3528     systems.</li>
3529
3530 <li>Tell swap to use TRIM commands by adding 'discard' to
3531     /etc/fstab.</li>
3532
3533 <li>Change I/O scheduler from cfq to deadline using a udev rule.</li>
3534
3535 <li>Run fstrim on every ext3 and ext4 file system every night (from
3536     cron.daily).</li>
3537
3538 <li>Adjust sysctl values vm.swappiness to 1 and vm.vfs_cache_pressure
3539     to 50 to reduce the kernel eagerness to swap out processes.</li>
3540
3541 </ul>
3542
3543 <p>During installation, I cancelled the part where the installer fill
3544 the disk with random data, as this would kill the SSD performance for
3545 little gain.  My goal with the encrypted file system is to ensure
3546 those stealing my laptop end up with a brick and not a working
3547 computer.  I have no hope in keeping the really resourceful people
3548 from getting the data on the disk (see
3549 <a href="http://xkcd.com/538/">XKCD #538</a> for an explanation why).
3550 Thus I concluded that adding the discard option to crypttab is the
3551 right thing to do.</p>
3552
3553 <p>I considered using the noop I/O scheduler, as several recommended
3554 it for SSD, but others recommended deadline and a benchmark I found
3555 indicated that deadline might be better for interactive use.</p>
3556
3557 <p>I also considered using the 'discard' file system option for ext3
3558 and ext4, but read that it would give a performance hit ever time a
3559 file is removed, and thought it best to that that slowdown once a day
3560 instead of during my work.</p>
3561
3562 <p>My package do not set up tmpfs on /var/run, /var/lock and /tmp, as
3563 this is already done by Debian Edu.</p>
3564
3565 <p>I have not yet started on the user space tuning.  I expect
3566 iceweasel need some tuning, and perhaps other applications too, but
3567 have not yet had time to investigate those parts.</p>
3568
3569 <p>The package should work on Ubuntu too, but I have not yet tested it
3570 there.</p>
3571
3572 <p>As for the answer to the question in the title of this blog post,
3573 as far as I know, the only solution I know about is to replace the
3574 disk.  It might be possible to flash it with Intel firmware instead of
3575 the Lenovo firmware.  But I have not tried and did not want to do so
3576 without approval from Lenovo as I wanted to keep the warranty on the
3577 disk until a solution was found and they wanted the broken disks
3578 back.</p>
3579
3580       </div>
3581       <div class="tags">
3582
3583
3584         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3585
3586
3587       </div>
3588     </div>
3589     <div class="padding"></div>
3590
3591     <div class="entry">
3592       <div class="title">
3593         <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>
3594       </div>
3595       <div class="date">
3596         10th July 2013
3597       </div>
3598       <div class="body">
3599         <p>A few days ago, I wrote about
3600 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">the
3601 problems I experienced with my new X230 and its SSD disk</a>, which
3602 was dying during installation because it is unable to cope with
3603 sustained write.  My supplier is in contact with
3604 <a href="http://www.lenovo.com/">Lenovo</a>, and they wanted to send a
3605 replacement disk to try to fix the problem.  They decided to send an
3606 identical model, so my hopes for a permanent fix was slim.</p>
3607
3608 <p>Anyway, today I got the replacement disk and tried to install
3609 Debian Edu Wheezy with encrypted disk on it.  The new disk have the
3610 same firmware version as the original.  This time my hope raised
3611 slightly as the installation progressed, as the original disk used to
3612 die after 4-7% of the disk was written to, while this time it kept
3613 going past 10%, 20%, 40% and even past 50%.  But around 60%, the disk
3614 died again and I was back on square one.  I still do not have a new
3615 laptop with a disk I can trust.  I can not live with a disk that might
3616 lock up when I download a new
3617 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> ISO or
3618 other large files.  I look forward to hearing from my supplier with
3619 the next proposal from Lenovo.</p>
3620
3621 <p>The original disk is marked Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB,
3622 11S0C38722Z1ZNME35X1TR, ISN: CVCV321407HB180EGN, SA: G57560302, FW:
3623 LF1i, 29MAY2013, PBA: G39779-300, LBA 351,651,888, LI P/N: 0C38722,
3624 Pb-free 2LI, LC P/N: 16-200366, WWN: 55CD2E40002756C4, Model:
3625 SSDSC2BW180A3L 2.5" 6Gb/s SATA SSD 180G 5V 1A, ASM P/N 0C38732, FRU
3626 P/N 45N8295, P0C38732.</p>
3627
3628 <p>The replacement disk is marked Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB,
3629 11S0C38722Z1ZNDE34N0L0, ISN: CVCV315306RK180EGN, SA: G57560-302, FW:
3630 LF1i, 22APR2013, PBA: G39779-300, LBA 351,651,888, LI P/N: 0C38722,
3631 Pb-free 2LI, LC P/N: 16-200366, WWN: 55CD2E40000AB69E, Model:
3632 SSDSC2BW180A3L 2.5" 6Gb/s SATA SSD 180G 5V 1A, ASM P/N 0C38732, FRU
3633 P/N 45N8295, P0C38732.</p>
3634
3635 <p>The only difference is in the first number (serial number?), ISN,
3636 SA, date and WNPP values.  Mentioning all the details here in case
3637 someone is able to use the information to find a way to identify the
3638 failing disk among working ones (if any such working disk actually
3639 exist).</p>
3640
3641       </div>
3642       <div class="tags">
3643
3644
3645         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3646
3647
3648       </div>
3649     </div>
3650     <div class="padding"></div>
3651
3652     <div class="entry">
3653       <div class="title">
3654         <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>
3655       </div>
3656       <div class="date">
3657          9th July 2013
3658       </div>
3659       <div class="body">
3660         <p>The upcoming Saturday, 2013-07-13, we are organising a combined
3661 Debian Edu developer gathering and Debian and Ubuntu bug squashing
3662 party in Oslo.  It is organised by <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">the
3663 member assosiation NUUG</a> and
3664 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">the Debian Edu / Skolelinux
3665 project</a> together with <a href="http://bitraf.no/">the hack space
3666 Bitraf</a>.</p>
3667
3668 <p>It starts 10:00 and continue until late evening.  Everyone is
3669 welcome, and there is no fee to participate.  There is on the other
3670 hand limited space, and only room for 30 people.  Please put your name
3671 on <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/BSP/2013/07/13/no/Oslo">the event
3672 wiki page</a> if you plan to join us.</p>
3673
3674       </div>
3675       <div class="tags">
3676
3677
3678         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>.
3679
3680
3681       </div>
3682     </div>
3683     <div class="padding"></div>
3684
3685     <div class="entry">
3686       <div class="title">
3687         <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>
3688       </div>
3689       <div class="date">
3690          5th July 2013
3691       </div>
3692       <div class="body">
3693         <p>Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a
3694 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thank_you_Thinkpad_X41__for_your_long_and_trustworthy_service.html">replacement
3695 for my trusty old Thinkpad X41</a>.  Unfortunately I did not have much
3696 time to spend on it, and it took a while to find a model I believe
3697 will do the job, but two days ago the replacement finally arrived.  I
3698 ended up picking a
3699 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_x230">Thinkpad X230</a>
3700 with SSD disk (NZDAJMN).  I first test installed Debian Edu Wheezy as
3701 a roaming workstation, and it seemed to work flawlessly.  But my
3702 second installation with encrypted disk was not as successful.  More
3703 on that below.</p>
3704
3705 <p>I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most
3706 important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never
3707 listed in the feature list.  But I did get good help from the search
3708 feature at <a href="http://www.prisjakt.no/">Prisjakt</a>, which
3709 allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other
3710 requirements.  A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks according
3711 to that search interface, so I had to drop specifying the number of
3712 disks from my search parameters.  I also asked around among friends to
3713 get their impression on keyboards and robustness.</p>
3714
3715 <p>So the new laptop arrived, and it is quite a lot wider than the
3716 X41.  I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is
3717 significantly wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my
3718 hand a lot more to reach the edges.  But the key response is fairly
3719 good and the individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope
3720 I will get used to it.  My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really
3721 needed a new laptop now. :)</p>
3722
3723 <p>Turning off the touch pad was simple.  All it took was a quick
3724 visit to the BIOS during boot it disable it.</p>
3725
3726 <p>But there is a fatal problem with the laptop.  The 180 GB SSD disk
3727 lock up during load.  And this happen when installing Debian Wheezy
3728 with encrypted disk, while the disk is being filled with random data.
3729 I also tested to install Ubuntu Raring, and it happen there too if I
3730 reenable the code to fill the disk with random data (it is disabled by
3731 default in Ubuntu).  And the bug with is already known.  It was
3732 reported to Debian as <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/691427">BTS
3733 report #691427 2012-10-25</a> (journal commit I/O error on brand-new
3734 Thinkpad T430s ext4 on lvm on SSD).  It is also reported to the Linux
3735 kernel developers as
3736 <a href="https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=51861">Kernel bugzilla
3737 report #51861 2012-12-20</a> (Intel SSD 520 stops working under load
3738 (SSDSC2BW180A3L in Lenovo ThinkPad T430s)). It is also reported on the
3739 Lenovo forums, both for
3740 <a href="http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/T400-T500-and-newer-T-series/T430s-Intel-SSD-520-180GB-issue/m-p/1070549">T430
3741 2012-11-10</a> and for
3742 <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
3743 03-20-2013</a>.  The problem do not only affect installation.  The
3744 reports state that the disk lock up during use if many writes are done
3745 on the disk, so it is much no use to work around the installation
3746 problem and end up with a computer that can lock up at any moment.
3747 There is even a
3748 <a href="https://git.efficios.com/?p=test-ssd.git">small C program
3749 available</a> that will lock up the hard drive after running a few
3750 minutes by writing to a file.</p>
3751
3752 <p>I've contacted my supplier and asked how to handle this, and after
3753 contacting PCHELP Norway (request 01D1FDP) which handle support
3754 requests for Lenovo, his first suggestion was to upgrade the disk
3755 firmware.  Unfortunately there is no newer firmware available from
3756 Lenovo, as my disk already have the most recent one (version LF1i).  I
3757 hope to hear more from him today and hope the problem can be
3758 fixed. :)</p>
3759
3760       </div>
3761       <div class="tags">
3762
3763
3764         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3765
3766
3767       </div>
3768     </div>
3769     <div class="padding"></div>
3770
3771     <div class="entry">
3772       <div class="title">
3773         <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>
3774       </div>
3775       <div class="date">
3776          4th July 2013
3777       </div>
3778       <div class="body">
3779         <p>Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a replacement for my
3780 trusty old Thinkpad X41.  Unfortunately I did not have much time to
3781 spend on it, but today the replacement finally arrived.  I ended up
3782 picking a <a href="http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_x230">Thinkpad
3783 X230</a> with SSD disk (NZDAJMN).  I first test installed Debian Edu
3784 Wheezy as a roaming workstation, and it worked flawlessly.  As I write
3785 this, it is installing what I hope will be a more final installation,
3786 with a encrypted hard drive to ensure any dope head stealing it end up
3787 with an expencive door stop.</p>
3788
3789 <p>I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most
3790 important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never
3791 listed in the feature list.  But I did get good help from the search
3792 feature at <ahref="http://www.prisjakt.no/">Prisjakt</a>, which
3793 allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other
3794 requirements.  A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks, so I had
3795 to drop number of disks from my search parameters.</p>
3796
3797 <p>I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is significantly
3798 wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my hand a lot more
3799 to reach the edges.  But the key response is fairly good and the
3800 individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope I will get
3801 used to it.  My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really needed a
3802 new laptop now. :)</p>
3803
3804 <p>I look forward to figuring out how to turn off the touch pad.</p>
3805
3806       </div>
3807       <div class="tags">
3808
3809
3810         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3811
3812
3813       </div>
3814     </div>
3815     <div class="padding"></div>
3816
3817     <div class="entry">
3818       <div class="title">
3819         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/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>
3820       </div>
3821       <div class="date">
3822         25th June 2013
3823       </div>
3824       <div class="body">
3825         <p>It annoys me when the computer fail to do automatically what it is
3826 perfectly capable of, and I have to do it manually to get things
3827 working.  One such task is to find out what firmware packages are
3828 needed to get the hardware on my computer working.  Most often this
3829 affect the wifi card, but some times it even affect the RAID
3830 controller or the ethernet card.  Today I pushed version 0.4 of the
3831 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">Isenkram package</a>
3832 including a new script isenkram-autoinstall-firmware handling the
3833 process of asking all the loaded kernel modules what firmware files
3834 they want, find debian packages providing these files and install the
3835 debian packages.  Here is a test run on my laptop:</p>
3836
3837 <p><pre>
3838 # isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
3839 info: kernel drivers requested extra firmware: ipw2200-bss.fw ipw2200-ibss.fw ipw2200-sniffer.fw
3840 info: fetching http://http.debian.net/debian/dists/squeeze/Contents-i386.gz
3841 info: locating packages with the requested firmware files
3842 info: Updating APT sources after adding non-free APT source
3843 info: trying to install firmware-ipw2x00
3844 firmware-ipw2x00
3845 firmware-ipw2x00
3846 Preconfiguring packages ...
3847 Selecting previously deselected package firmware-ipw2x00.
3848 (Reading database ... 259727 files and directories currently installed.)
3849 Unpacking firmware-ipw2x00 (from .../firmware-ipw2x00_0.28+squeeze1_all.deb) ...
3850 Setting up firmware-ipw2x00 (0.28+squeeze1) ...
3851 #
3852 </pre></p>
3853
3854 <p>When all the requested firmware is present, a simple message is
3855 printed instead:</p>
3856
3857 <p><pre>
3858 # isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
3859 info: did not find any firmware files requested by loaded kernel modules.  exiting
3860 #
3861 </pre></p>
3862
3863 <p>It could use some polish, but it is already working well and saving
3864 me some time when setting up new machines. :)</p>
3865
3866 <p>So, how does it work?  It look at the set of currently loaded
3867 kernel modules, and look up each one of them using modinfo, to find
3868 the firmware files listed in the module meta-information.  Next, it
3869 download the Contents file from a nearby APT mirror, and search for
3870 the firmware files in this file to locate the package with the
3871 requested firmware file.  If the package is in the non-free section, a
3872 non-free APT source is added and the package is installed using
3873 <tt>apt-get install</tt>.  The end result is a slightly better working
3874 machine.</p>
3875
3876 <p>I hope someone find time to implement a more polished version of
3877 this script as part of the hw-detect debian-installer module, to
3878 finally fix <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/655507">BTS report
3879 #655507</a>.  There really is no need to insert USB sticks with
3880 firmware during a PXE install when the packages already are available
3881 from the nearby Debian mirror.</p>
3882
3883       </div>
3884       <div class="tags">
3885
3886
3887         Tags: <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>.
3888
3889
3890       </div>
3891     </div>
3892     <div class="padding"></div>
3893
3894     <div class="entry">
3895       <div class="title">
3896         <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>
3897       </div>
3898       <div class="date">
3899         11th June 2013
3900       </div>
3901       <div class="body">
3902         <p>When installing RedHat, Fedora, Debian and Ubuntu on some machines,
3903 the screen just turn black when Linux boot, either during installation
3904 or on first boot from the hard disk.  I've seen it once in a while the
3905 last few years, but only recently understood the cause.  I've seen it
3906 on HP laptops, and on my latest acquaintance the Packard Bell laptop.
3907 The reason seem to be in the wiring of some laptops.  The system to
3908 control the screen background light is inverted, so when Linux try to
3909 turn the brightness fully on, it end up turning it off instead.  I do
3910 not know which Linux drivers are affected, but this post is about the
3911 i915 driver used by the
3912 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Packard Bell
3913 EasyNote LV</a>, Thinkpad X40 and many other laptops.</p>
3914
3915 <p>The problem can be worked around two ways.  Either by adding
3916 i915.invert_brightness=1 as a kernel option, or by adding a file in
3917 /etc/modprobe.d/ to tell modprobe to add the invert_brightness=1
3918 option when it load the i915 kernel module.  On Debian and Ubuntu, it
3919 can be done by running these commands as root:</p>
3920
3921 <pre>
3922 echo options i915 invert_brightness=1 | tee /etc/modprobe.d/i915.conf
3923 update-initramfs -u -k all
3924 </pre>
3925
3926 <p>Since March 2012 there is
3927 <a href="http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=4dca20efb1a9c2efefc28ad2867e5d6c3f5e1955">a
3928 mechanism in the Linux kernel</a> to tell the i915 driver which
3929 hardware have this problem, and get the driver to invert the
3930 brightness setting automatically.  To use it, one need to add a row in
3931 <a href="http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c">the
3932 intel_quirks array</a> in the driver source
3933 <tt>drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c</tt> (look for "<tt>static
3934 struct intel_quirk intel_quirks</tt>"), specifying the PCI device
3935 number (vendor number 8086 is assumed) and subdevice vendor and device
3936 number.</p>
3937
3938 <p>My Packard Bell EasyNote LV got this output from <tt>lspci
3939 -vvnn</tt> for the video card in question:</p>
3940
3941 <p><pre>
3942 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation \
3943     3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller [8086:0156] \
3944     (rev 09) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
3945  Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device [1025:0688]
3946  Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- \
3947     ParErr- Stepping- SE RR- FastB2B- DisINTx+
3948  Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- \
3949     <TAbort- <MAbort->SERR- <PERR- INTx-
3950  Latency: 0
3951  Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 42
3952  Region 0: Memory at c2000000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4M]
3953  Region 2: Memory at b0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
3954  Region 4: I/O ports at 4000 [size=64]
3955  Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled]
3956  Capabilities: <access denied>
3957  Kernel driver in use: i915
3958 </pre></p>
3959
3960 <p>The resulting intel_quirks entry would then look like this:</p>
3961
3962 <p><pre>
3963 struct intel_quirk intel_quirks[] = {
3964        ...
3965         /* Packard Bell EasyNote LV11HC needs invert brightness quirk */
3966         { 0x0156, 0x1025, 0x0688, quirk_invert_brightness },
3967        ...
3968 }
3969 </pre></p>
3970
3971 <p>According to the kernel module instructions (as seen using
3972 <tt>modinfo i915</tt>), information about hardware needing the
3973 invert_brightness flag should be sent to the
3974 <a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/dri-devel">dri-devel
3975 (at) lists.freedesktop.org</a> mailing list to reach the kernel
3976 developers.  But my email about the laptop sent 2013-06-03 have not
3977 yet shown up in
3978 <a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/dri-devel/2013-June/thread.html">the
3979 web archive for the mailing list</a>, so I suspect they do not accept
3980 emails from non-subscribers.  Because of this, I sent my patch also to
3981 the Debian bug tracking system instead as
3982 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/710938">BTS report #710938</a>, to make
3983 sure the patch is not lost.</p>
3984
3985 <p>Unfortunately, it is not enough to fix the kernel to get Laptops
3986 with this problem working properly with Linux.  If you use Gnome, your
3987 worries should be over at this point.  But if you use KDE, there is
3988 something in KDE ignoring the invert_brightness setting and turning on
3989 the screen during login.  I've reported it to Debian as
3990 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/711237">BTS report #711237</a>, and
3991 have no idea yet how to figure out exactly what subsystem is doing
3992 this.  Perhaps you can help?  Perhaps you know what the Gnome
3993 developers did to handle this, and this can give a clue to the KDE
3994 developers?  Or you know where in KDE the screen brightness is changed
3995 during login?  If so, please update the BTS report (or get in touch if
3996 you do not know how to update BTS).</p>
3997
3998 <p>Update 2013-07-19: The correct fix for this machine seem to be
3999 acpi_backlight=vendor, to disable ACPI backlight support completely,
4000 as the ACPI information on the machine is trash and it is better to
4001 leave it to the intel video driver to control the screen
4002 backlight.</p>
4003
4004       </div>
4005       <div class="tags">
4006
4007
4008         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
4009
4010
4011       </div>
4012     </div>
4013     <div class="padding"></div>
4014
4015     <div class="entry">
4016       <div class="title">
4017         <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>
4018       </div>
4019       <div class="date">
4020         27th May 2013
4021       </div>
4022       <div class="body">
4023         <p>Two days ago, I asked
4024 <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
4025 I could install Linux on a Packard Bell EasyNote LV computer
4026 preinstalled with Windows 8</a>.  I found a solution, but am horrified
4027 with the obstacles put in the way of Linux users on a laptop with UEFI
4028 and Windows 8.</p>
4029
4030 <p>I never found out if the cause of my problems were the use of UEFI
4031 secure booting or fast boot.  I suspect fast boot was the problem,
4032 causing the firmware to boot directly from HD without considering any
4033 key presses and alternative devices, but do not know UEFI settings
4034 enough to tell.</p>
4035
4036 <p>There is no way to install Linux on the machine in question without
4037 opening the box and disconnecting the hard drive!  This is as far as I
4038 can tell, the only way to get access to the firmware setup menu
4039 without accepting the Windows 8 license agreement.  I am told (and
4040 found description on how to) that it is possible to configure the
4041 firmware setup once booted into Windows 8.  But as I believe the terms
4042 of that agreement are completely unacceptable, accepting the license
4043 was never an alternative.  I do not enter agreements I do not intend
4044 to follow.</p>
4045
4046 <p>I feared I had to return the laptops and ask for a refund, and
4047 waste many hours on this, but luckily there was a way to get it to
4048 work.  But I would not recommend it to anyone planning to run Linux on
4049 it, and I have become sceptical to Windows 8 certified laptops.  Is
4050 this the way Linux will be forced out of the market place, by making
4051 it close to impossible for "normal" users to install Linux without
4052 accepting the Microsoft Windows license terms?  Or at least not
4053 without risking to loose the warranty?</p>
4054
4055 <p>I've updated the
4056 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Linux Laptop
4057 wiki page for Packard Bell EasyNote LV</a>, to ensure the next person
4058 do not have to struggle as much as I did to get Linux into the
4059 machine.</p>
4060
4061 <p>Thanks to Bob Rosbag, Florian Weimer, Philipp Kern, Ben Hutching,
4062 Michael Tokarev and others for feedback and ideas.</p>
4063
4064       </div>
4065       <div class="tags">
4066
4067
4068         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
4069
4070
4071       </div>
4072     </div>
4073     <div class="padding"></div>
4074
4075     <div class="entry">
4076       <div class="title">
4077         <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>
4078       </div>
4079       <div class="date">
4080         25th May 2013
4081       </div>
4082       <div class="body">
4083         <p>I've run into quite a problem the last few days.  I bought three
4084 new laptops for my parents and a few others.  I bought Packard Bell
4085 Easynote LV to run Kubuntu on and use as their home computer.  But I
4086 am completely unable to figure out how to install Linux on it.  The
4087 computer is preinstalled with Windows 8, and I suspect it uses UEFI
4088 instead of a BIOS to boot.</p>
4089
4090 <p>The problem is that I am unable to get it to PXE boot, and unable
4091 to get it to boot the Linux installer from my USB stick.  I have yet
4092 to try the DVD install, and still hope it will work.  when I turn on
4093 the computer, there is no information on what buttons to press to get
4094 the normal boot menu.  I expect to get some boot menu to select PXE or
4095 USB stick booting.  When booting, it first ask for the language to
4096 use, then for some regional settings, and finally if I will accept the
4097 Windows 8 terms of use.  As these terms are completely unacceptable to
4098 me, I have no other choice but to turn off the computer and try again
4099 to get it to boot the Linux installer.</p>
4100
4101 <p>I have gathered my findings so far on a Linlap page about the
4102 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Packard Bell
4103 EasyNote LV</a> model.  If you have any idea how to get Linux
4104 installed on this machine, please get in touch or update that wiki
4105 page.  If I can't find a way to install Linux, I will have to return
4106 the laptop to the seller and find another machine for my parents.</p>
4107
4108 <p>I wonder, is this the way Linux will be forced out of the market
4109 using UEFI and "secure boot" by making it impossible to install Linux
4110 on new Laptops?</p>
4111
4112       </div>
4113       <div class="tags">
4114
4115
4116         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
4117
4118
4119       </div>
4120     </div>
4121     <div class="padding"></div>
4122
4123     <div class="entry">
4124       <div class="title">
4125         <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>
4126       </div>
4127       <div class="date">
4128         17th May 2013
4129       </div>
4130       <div class="body">
4131         <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> is
4132 an operating system based on Debian intended for use in schools.  It
4133 contain a turn-key solution for the computer network provided to
4134 pupils in the primary schools.  It provide both the central server,
4135 network boot servers and desktop environments with heaps of
4136 educational software.  The project was founded almost 12 years ago,
4137 2001-07-02.  If you want to support the project, which is in need for
4138 cash to fund developer gatherings and other project related activity,
4139 <a href="http://www.linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">please
4140 donate some money</a>.
4141
4142 <p>A topic that come up again and again on the Debian Edu mailing
4143 lists and elsewhere, is the question on how to transform a Debian or
4144 Ubuntu installation into a Debian Edu installation.  It isn't very
4145 hard, and last week I wrote a script to replicate the steps done by
4146 the Debian Edu installer.</p>
4147
4148 <p>The script,
4149 <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/>
4150 in the debian-edu-config package, will go through these six steps and
4151 transform an existing Debian Wheezy or Ubuntu (untested) installation
4152 into a Debian Edu Workstation:</p>
4153
4154 <ol>
4155
4156 <li>Add skolelinux related APT sources.</li>
4157 <li>Create /etc/debian-edu/config with the wanted configuration.</li>
4158 <li>Install debian-edu-install to load preseeding values and pull in
4159     our configuration.</li>
4160 <li>Preseed debconf database with profile setup in
4161     /etc/debian-edu/config, and run tasksel to install packages
4162     according to the profile specified in the config above,
4163     overriding some of the Debian automation machinery.</li>
4164 <li>Run debian-edu-cfengine-D installation to configure everything
4165     that could not be done using preseeding.</li>
4166 <li>Ask for a reboot to enable all the configuration changes.</li>
4167
4168 </ol>
4169
4170 <p>There are some steps in the Debian Edu installation that can not be
4171 replicated like this.  Disk partitioning and LVM setup, for example.
4172 So this script just assume there is enough disk space to install all
4173 the needed packages.</p>
4174
4175 <p>The script was created to help a Debian Edu student working on
4176 setting up <a href="http://www.raspberrypi.org">Raspberry Pi</a> as a
4177 Debian Edu client, and using it he can take the existing
4178 <a href="http://www.raspbian.org/FrontPage‎">Raspbian</a> installation and
4179 transform it into a fully functioning Debian Edu Workstation (or
4180 Roaming Workstation, or whatever :).</p>
4181
4182 <p>The default setting in the script is to create a KDE Workstation.
4183 If a LXDE based Roaming workstation is wanted instead, modify the
4184 PROFILE and DESKTOP values at the top to look like this instead:</p>
4185
4186 <p><pre>
4187 PROFILE="Roaming-Workstation"
4188 DESKTOP="lxde"
4189 </pre></p>
4190
4191 <p>The script could even become useful to set up Debian Edu servers in
4192 the cloud, by starting with a virtual Debian installation at some
4193 virtual hosting service and setting up all the services on first
4194 boot.</p>
4195
4196       </div>
4197       <div class="tags">
4198
4199
4200         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>.
4201
4202
4203       </div>
4204     </div>
4205     <div class="padding"></div>
4206
4207     <div class="entry">
4208       <div class="title">
4209         <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>
4210       </div>
4211       <div class="date">
4212         11th May 2013
4213       </div>
4214       <div class="body">
4215         <P>In January,
4216 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_IRC_channel_for_LEGO_designers_using_Debian.html">I
4217 announced a</a> new <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">IRC
4218 channel #debian-lego</a>, for those of us in the Debian and Linux
4219 community interested in <a href="http://www.lego.com/">LEGO</a>, the
4220 marvellous construction system from Denmark.  We also created
4221 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">a wiki page</a> to have
4222 a place to take notes and write down our plans and hopes.  And several
4223 people showed up to help.  I was very happy to see the effect of my
4224 call.  Since the small start, we have a debtags tag
4225 <a href="http://debtags.debian.net/search/bytag?wl=hardware::hobby:lego">hardware::hobby:lego</a>
4226 tag for LEGO related packages, and now count 10 packages related to
4227 LEGO and <a href="http://mindstorms.lego.com/">Mindstorms</a>:</p>
4228
4229 <p><table>
4230 <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>
4231 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/leocad">leocad</a></td><td>virtual brick CAD software</td></tr>
4232 <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>
4233 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/lnpd">lnpd</a></td><td>daemon for LNP communication with BrickOS</td></tr>
4234 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/nbc">nbc</a></td><td>compiler for LEGO Mindstorms NXT bricks</td></tr>
4235 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/nqc">nqc</a></td><td>Not Quite C compiler for LEGO Mindstorms RCX</td></tr>
4236 <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>
4237 <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>
4238 <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>
4239 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/t2n">t2n</a></td><td>simple command-line tool for Lego NXT</td></tr>
4240 </table></p>
4241
4242 <p>Some of these are available in Wheezy, and all but one are
4243 currently available in Jessie/testing.  leocad is so far only
4244 available in experimental.</p>
4245
4246 <p>If you care about LEGO in Debian, please join us on IRC and help
4247 adding the rest of the great free software tools available on Linux
4248 for LEGO designers.</p>
4249
4250       </div>
4251       <div class="tags">
4252
4253
4254         Tags: <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>.
4255
4256
4257       </div>
4258     </div>
4259     <div class="padding"></div>
4260
4261     <div class="entry">
4262       <div class="title">
4263         <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>
4264       </div>
4265       <div class="date">
4266          5th May 2013
4267       </div>
4268       <div class="body">
4269         <p>When I woke up this morning, I was very happy to see that the
4270 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2013/20130504">release announcement
4271 for Debian Wheezy</a> was waiting in my mail box.  This is a great
4272 Debian release, and I expect to move my machines at home over to it fairly
4273 soon.</p>
4274
4275 <p>The new debian release contain heaps of new stuff, and one program
4276 in particular make me very happy to see included.  The
4277 <a href="http://scratch.mit.edu/">Scratch</a> program, made famous by
4278 the <a href="http://www.code.org/">Teach kids code</a> movement, is
4279 included for the first time.  Alongside similar programs like
4280 <a href="http://edu.kde.org/kturtle/">kturtle</a> and
4281 <a href="http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/Turtle_Art">turtleart</a>,
4282 it allow for visual programming where syntax errors can not happen,
4283 and a friendly programming environment for learning to control the
4284 computer.  Scratch will also be included in the next release of Debian
4285 Edu.</a>
4286
4287 <p>And now that Wheezy is wrapped up, we can wrap up the next Debian
4288 Edu/Skolelinux release too.  The
4289 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/2013/04/msg00132.html">first
4290 alpha release</a> went out last week, and the next should soon
4291 follow.<p>
4292
4293       </div>
4294       <div class="tags">
4295
4296
4297         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
4298
4299
4300       </div>
4301     </div>
4302     <div class="padding"></div>
4303
4304     <div class="entry">
4305       <div class="title">
4306         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Isenkram_0_2_finally_in_the_Debian_archive.html">Isenkram 0.2 finally in the Debian archive</a>
4307       </div>
4308       <div class="date">
4309          3rd April 2013
4310       </div>
4311       <div class="body">
4312         <p>Today the <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">Isenkram
4313 package</a> finally made it into the archive, after lingering in NEW
4314 for many months.  I uploaded it to the Debian experimental suite
4315 2013-01-27, and today it was accepted into the archive.</p>
4316
4317 <p>Isenkram is a system for suggesting to users what packages to
4318 install to work with a pluggable hardware device.  The suggestion pop
4319 up when the device is plugged in.  For example if a Lego Mindstorm NXT
4320 is inserted, it will suggest to install the program needed to program
4321 the NXT controller.  Give it a go, and report bugs and suggestions to
4322 BTS. :)</p>
4323
4324       </div>
4325       <div class="tags">
4326
4327
4328         Tags: <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>.
4329
4330
4331       </div>
4332     </div>
4333     <div class="padding"></div>
4334
4335     <div class="entry">
4336       <div class="title">
4337         <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>
4338       </div>
4339       <div class="date">
4340          2nd February 2013
4341       </div>
4342       <div class="body">
4343         <p>My
4344 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_backport_bitcoin_qt_version_0_7_2_2_to_Debian_Squeeze.html">last
4345 bitcoin related blog post</a> mentioned that the new
4346 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin package</a> for
4347 Debian was waiting in NEW.  It was accepted by the Debian ftp-masters
4348 2013-01-19, and have been available in unstable since then.  It was
4349 automatically copied to Ubuntu, and is available in their Raring
4350 version too.</p>
4351
4352 <p>But there is a strange problem with the build that block this new
4353 version from being available on the i386 and kfreebsd-i386
4354 architectures.  For some strange reason, the autobuilders in Debian
4355 for these architectures fail to run the test suite on these
4356 architectures (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/672524">BTS #672524</a>).
4357 We are so far unable to reproduce it when building it manually, and
4358 no-one have been able to propose a fix.  If you got an idea what is
4359 failing, please let us know via the BTS.</p>
4360
4361 <p>One feature that is annoying me with of the bitcoin client, because
4362 I often run low on disk space, is the fact that the client will exit
4363 if it run short on space (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/696715">BTS
4364 #696715</a>).  So make sure you have enough disk space when you run
4365 it. :)</p>
4366
4367 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
4368 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
4369 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
4370
4371       </div>
4372       <div class="tags">
4373
4374
4375         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>.
4376
4377
4378       </div>
4379     </div>
4380     <div class="padding"></div>
4381
4382     <div class="entry">
4383       <div class="title">
4384         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">Welcome to the world, Isenkram!</a>
4385       </div>
4386       <div class="date">
4387         22nd January 2013
4388       </div>
4389       <div class="body">
4390         <p>Yesterday, I
4391 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_prototype_ready_making_hardware_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">asked
4392 for testers</a> for my prototype for making Debian better at handling
4393 pluggable hardware devices, which I
4394 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">set
4395 out to create</a> earlier this month.  Several valuable testers showed
4396 up, and caused me to really want to to open up the development to more
4397 people.  But before I did this, I want to come up with a sensible name
4398 for this project.  Today I finally decided on a new name, and I have
4399 renamed the project from hw-support-handler to this new name.  In the
4400 process, I moved the source to git and made it available as a
4401 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/isenkram.git">collab-maint</a>
4402 repository in Debian.  The new name?  It is <strong>Isenkram</strong>.
4403 To fetch and build the latest version of the source, use</p>
4404
4405 <pre>
4406 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/collab-maint/isenkram.git
4407 cd isenkram && git-buildpackage -us -uc
4408 </pre>
4409
4410 <p>I have not yet adjusted all files to use the new name yet.  If you
4411 want to hack on the source or improve the package, please go ahead.
4412 But please talk to me first on IRC or via email before you do major
4413 changes, to make sure we do not step on each others toes. :)</p>
4414
4415 <p>If you wonder what 'isenkram' is, it is a Norwegian word for iron
4416 stuff, typically meaning tools, nails, screws, etc.  Typical hardware
4417 stuff, in other words.  I've been told it is the Norwegian variant of
4418 the German word eisenkram, for those that are familiar with that
4419 word.</p>
4420
4421 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-26</strong>: Added -us -us to build
4422 instructions, to avoid confusing people with an error from the signing
4423 process.</p>
4424
4425 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-27</strong>: Switch to HTTP URL for the git
4426 clone argument to avoid the need for authentication.</p>
4427
4428       </div>
4429       <div class="tags">
4430
4431
4432         Tags: <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>.
4433
4434
4435       </div>
4436     </div>
4437     <div class="padding"></div>
4438
4439     <div class="entry">
4440       <div class="title">
4441         <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>
4442       </div>
4443       <div class="date">
4444         21st January 2013
4445       </div>
4446       <div class="body">
4447         <p>Early this month I set out to try to
4448 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">improve
4449 the Debian support for pluggable hardware devices</a>.  Now my
4450 prototype is working, and it is ready for a larger audience.  To test
4451 it, fetch the
4452 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">source
4453 from the Debian Edu subversion repository</a>, build and install the
4454 package.  You might have to log out and in again activate the
4455 autostart script.</p>
4456
4457 <p>The design is simple:</p>
4458
4459 <ul>
4460
4461 <li>Add desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ causing a program
4462 hw-support-handlerd to start when the user log in.</li>
4463
4464 <li>This program listen for kernel events about new hardware (directly
4465 from the kernel like udev does), not using HAL dbus events as I
4466 initially did.</li>
4467
4468 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware modalias in
4469 the APT database, a database
4470 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=markup">available
4471 via HTTP</a> and a database available as part of the package.</li>
4472
4473 <li>If a package is mapped to the hardware in question, the package
4474 isn't installed yet and this is the first time the hardware was
4475 plugged in, show a desktop notification suggesting to install the
4476 package or packages.</li>
4477
4478 <li>If the user click on the 'install package now' button, ask
4479 aptdaemon via the PackageKit API to install the requrired package.</li>
4480
4481 <li>aptdaemon ask for root password or sudo password, and install the
4482 package while showing progress information in a window.</li>
4483
4484 </ul>
4485
4486 <p>I still need to come up with a better name for the system.  Here
4487 are some screen shots showing the prototype in action.  First the
4488 notification, then the password request, and finally the request to
4489 approve all the dependencies.  Sorry for the Norwegian Bokmål GUI.</p>
4490
4491 <p><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-1-notification.png">
4492 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-2-password.png">
4493 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-3-dependencies.png">
4494 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-4-installing.png">
4495 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-5-installing-details.png" width="70%"></p>
4496
4497 <p>The prototype still need to be improved with longer timeouts, but
4498 is already useful.  The database of hardware to package mappings also
4499 need more work.  It is currently compatible with the Ubuntu way of
4500 storing such information in the package control file, but could be
4501 changed to use other formats instead or in addition to the current
4502 method.  I've dropped the use of discover for this mapping, as the
4503 modalias approach is more flexible and easier to use on Linux as long
4504 as the Linux kernel expose its modalias strings directly.</p>
4505
4506 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-21 16:50</strong>: Due to popular demand,
4507 here is the command required to check out and build the source: Use
4508 '<tt>svn checkout
4509 svn://svn.debian.org/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/; cd
4510 hw-support-handler; debuild</tt>'.  If you lack debuild, install the
4511 devscripts package.</p>
4512
4513 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-23 12:00</strong>: The project is now
4514 renamed to Isenkram and the source moved from the Debian Edu
4515 subversion repository to a Debian collab-maint git repository.  See
4516 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">build
4517 instructions</a> for details.</p>
4518
4519       </div>
4520       <div class="tags">
4521
4522
4523         Tags: <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>.
4524
4525
4526       </div>
4527     </div>
4528     <div class="padding"></div>
4529
4530     <div class="entry">
4531       <div class="title">
4532         <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>
4533       </div>
4534       <div class="date">
4535         19th January 2013
4536       </div>
4537       <div class="body">
4538         <p>This Christmas my trusty old laptop died.  It died quietly and
4539 suddenly in bed.  With a quiet whimper, it went completely quiet and
4540 black.  The power button was no longer able to turn it on.  It was a
4541 IBM Thinkpad X41, and the best laptop I ever had.  Better than both
4542 Thinkpads X30, X31, X40, X60, X61 and X61S.  Far better than the
4543 Compaq I had before that.  Now I need to find a replacement.  To keep
4544 going during Christmas, I moved the one year old SSD disk to my old
4545 X40 where it fitted (only one I had left that could use it), but it is
4546 not a durable solution.
4547
4548 <p>My laptop needs are fairly modest.  This is my wishlist from when I
4549 got a new one more than 10 years ago.  It still holds true.:)</p>
4550
4551 <ul>
4552
4553 <li>Lightweight (around 1 kg) and small volume (preferably smaller
4554   than A4).</li>
4555 <li>Robust, it will be in my backpack every day.</li>
4556 <li>Three button mouse and a mouse pin instead of touch pad.</li>
4557 <li>Long battery life time.  Preferable a week.</li>
4558 <li>Internal WIFI network card.</li>
4559 <li>Internal Twisted Pair network card.</li>
4560 <li>Some USB slots (2-3 is plenty)</li>
4561 <li>Good keyboard - similar to the Thinkpad.</li>
4562 <li>Video resolution at least 1024x768, with size around 12" (A4 paper
4563 size).</li>
4564 <li>Hardware supported by Debian Stable, ie the default kernel and
4565   X.org packages.</li>
4566 <li>Quiet, preferably fan free (or at least not using the fan most of
4567   the time).
4568
4569 </ul>
4570
4571 <p>You will notice that there are no RAM and CPU requirements in the
4572 list.  The reason is simply that the specifications on laptops the
4573 last 10-15 years have been sufficient for my needs, and I have to look
4574 at other features to choose my laptop.  But are there still made as
4575 robust laptops as my X41?  The Thinkpad X60/X61 proved to be less
4576 robust, and Thinkpads seem to be heading in the wrong direction since
4577 Lenovo took over.  But I've been told that X220 and X1 Carbon might
4578 still be useful.</p>
4579
4580 <p>Perhaps I should rethink my needs, and look for a pad with an
4581 external keyboard?  I'll have to check the
4582 <a href="http://www.linux-laptop.net/">Linux Laptops site</a> for
4583 well-supported laptops, or perhaps just buy one preinstalled from one
4584 of the vendors listed on the <a href="http://linuxpreloaded.com/">Linux
4585 Pre-loaded site</a>.</p>
4586
4587       </div>
4588       <div class="tags">
4589
4590
4591         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
4592
4593
4594       </div>
4595     </div>
4596     <div class="padding"></div>
4597
4598     <div class="entry">
4599       <div class="title">
4600         <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>
4601       </div>
4602       <div class="date">
4603         18th January 2013
4604       </div>
4605       <div class="body">
4606         <p>Some times I try to figure out which Iceweasel browser plugin to
4607 install to get support for a given MIME type.  Thanks to
4608 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MozillaTeam/Plugins">specifications
4609 done by Ubuntu</a> and Mozilla, it is possible to do this in Debian.
4610 Unfortunately, not very many packages provide the needed meta
4611 information, Anyway, here is a small script to look up all browser
4612 plugin packages announcing ther MIME support using this specification:</p>
4613
4614 <pre>
4615 #!/usr/bin/python
4616 import sys
4617 import apt
4618 def pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
4619     cache = apt.Cache()
4620     cache.open(None)
4621     thepkgs = []
4622     for pkg in cache:
4623         version = pkg.candidate
4624         if version is None:
4625             version = pkg.installed
4626         if version is None:
4627             continue
4628         record = version.record
4629         if not record.has_key('Npp-MimeType'):
4630             continue
4631         mime_types = record['Npp-MimeType'].split(',')
4632         for t in mime_types:
4633             t = t.rstrip().strip()
4634             if t == mimetype:
4635                 thepkgs.append(pkg.name)
4636     return thepkgs
4637 mimetype = "audio/ogg"
4638 if 1 < len(sys.argv):
4639     mimetype = sys.argv[1]
4640 print "Browser plugin packages supporting %s:" % mimetype
4641 for pkg in pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
4642     print "  %s" %pkg
4643 </pre>
4644
4645 <p>It can be used like this to look up a given MIME type:</p>
4646
4647 <pre>
4648 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype
4649 Browser plugin packages supporting audio/ogg:
4650   gecko-mediaplayer
4651 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype application/x-shockwave-flash
4652 Browser plugin packages supporting application/x-shockwave-flash:
4653   browser-plugin-gnash
4654 %
4655 </pre>
4656
4657 <p>In Ubuntu this mechanism is combined with support in the browser
4658 itself to query for plugins and propose to install the needed
4659 packages.  It would be great if Debian supported such feature too.  Is
4660 anyone working on adding it?</p>
4661
4662 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-18 14:20</strong>: The Debian BTS
4663 request for icweasel support for this feature is
4664 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/484010">#484010</a> from 2008 (and
4665 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/698426">#698426</a> from today).  Lack
4666 of manpower and wish for a different design is the reason thus feature
4667 is not yet in iceweasel from Debian.</p>
4668
4669       </div>
4670       <div class="tags">
4671
4672
4673         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
4674
4675
4676       </div>
4677     </div>
4678     <div class="padding"></div>
4679
4680     <div class="entry">
4681       <div class="title">
4682         <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>
4683       </div>
4684       <div class="date">
4685         16th January 2013
4686       </div>
4687       <div class="body">
4688         <p>The <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/AppStreamDebianProposal">DEP-11
4689 proposal to add AppStream information to the Debian archive</a>, is a
4690 proposal to make it possible for a Desktop application to propose to
4691 the user some package to install to gain support for a given MIME
4692 type, font, library etc. that is currently missing.  With such
4693 mechanism in place, it would be possible for the desktop to
4694 automatically propose and install leocad if some LDraw file is
4695 downloaded by the browser.</p>
4696
4697 <p>To get some idea about the current content of the archive, I decided
4698 to write a simple program to extract all .desktop files from the
4699 Debian archive and look up the claimed MIME support there.  The result
4700 can be found on the
4701 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/pub/AppStreamTest">Skolelinux FTP
4702 site</a>.  Using the collected information, it become possible to
4703 answer the question in the title.  Here are the 20 most supported MIME
4704 types in Debian stable (Squeeze), testing (Wheezy) and unstable (Sid).
4705 The complete list is available from the link above.</p>
4706
4707 <p><strong>Debian Stable:</strong></p>
4708
4709 <pre>
4710   count MIME type
4711   ----- -----------------------
4712      32 text/plain
4713      30 audio/mpeg
4714      29 image/png
4715      28 image/jpeg
4716      27 application/ogg
4717      26 audio/x-mp3
4718      25 image/tiff
4719      25 image/gif
4720      22 image/bmp
4721      22 audio/x-wav
4722      20 audio/x-flac
4723      19 audio/x-mpegurl
4724      18 video/x-ms-asf
4725      18 audio/x-musepack
4726      18 audio/x-mpeg
4727      18 application/x-ogg
4728      17 video/mpeg
4729      17 audio/x-scpls
4730      17 audio/ogg
4731      16 video/x-ms-wmv
4732 </pre>
4733
4734 <p><strong>Debian Testing:</strong></p>
4735
4736 <pre>
4737   count MIME type
4738   ----- -----------------------
4739      33 text/plain
4740      32 image/png
4741      32 image/jpeg
4742      29 audio/mpeg
4743      27 image/gif
4744      26 image/tiff
4745      26 application/ogg
4746      25 audio/x-mp3
4747      22 image/bmp
4748      21 audio/x-wav
4749      19 audio/x-mpegurl
4750      19 audio/x-mpeg
4751      18 video/mpeg
4752      18 audio/x-scpls
4753      18 audio/x-flac
4754      18 application/x-ogg
4755      17 video/x-ms-asf
4756      17 text/html
4757      17 audio/x-musepack
4758      16 image/x-xbitmap
4759 </pre>
4760
4761 <p><strong>Debian Unstable:</strong></p>
4762
4763 <pre>
4764   count MIME type
4765   ----- -----------------------
4766      31 text/plain
4767      31 image/png
4768      31 image/jpeg
4769      29 audio/mpeg
4770      28 application/ogg
4771      27 image/gif
4772      26 image/tiff
4773      26 audio/x-mp3
4774      23 audio/x-wav
4775      22 image/bmp
4776      21 audio/x-flac
4777      20 audio/x-mpegurl
4778      19 audio/x-mpeg
4779      18 video/x-ms-asf
4780      18 video/mpeg
4781      18 audio/x-scpls
4782      18 application/x-ogg
4783      17 audio/x-musepack
4784      16 video/x-ms-wmv
4785      16 video/x-msvideo
4786 </pre>
4787
4788 <p>I am told that PackageKit can provide an API to access the kind of
4789 information mentioned in DEP-11.  I have not yet had time to look at
4790 it, but hope the PackageKit people in Debian are on top of these
4791 issues.</p>
4792
4793 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-16 13:35</strong>: Updated numbers after
4794 discovering a typo in my script.</p>
4795
4796       </div>
4797       <div class="tags">
4798
4799
4800         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
4801
4802
4803       </div>
4804     </div>
4805     <div class="padding"></div>
4806
4807     <div class="entry">
4808       <div class="title">
4809         <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>
4810       </div>
4811       <div class="date">
4812         15th January 2013
4813       </div>
4814       <div class="body">
4815         <p>Yesterday, I wrote about the
4816 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Modalias_strings___a_practical_way_to_map__stuff__to_hardware.html">modalias
4817 values provided by the Linux kernel</a> following my hope for
4818 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">better
4819 dongle support in Debian</a>.  Using this knowledge, I have tested how
4820 modalias values attached to package names can be used to map packages
4821 to hardware.  This allow the system to look up and suggest relevant
4822 packages when I plug in some new hardware into my machine, and replace
4823 discover and discover-data as the database used to map hardware to
4824 packages.</p>
4825
4826 <p>I create a modaliases file with entries like the following,
4827 containing package name, kernel module name (if relevant, otherwise
4828 the package name) and globs matching the relevant hardware
4829 modalias.</p>
4830
4831 <p><blockquote>
4832 Package: package-name
4833 <br>Modaliases: module(modaliasglob, modaliasglob, modaliasglob)</p>
4834 </blockquote></p>
4835
4836 <p>It is fairly trivial to write code to find the relevant packages
4837 for a given modalias value using this file.</p>
4838
4839 <p>An entry like this would suggest the video and picture application
4840 cheese for many USB web cameras (interface bus class 0E01):</p>
4841
4842 <p><blockquote>
4843 Package: cheese
4844 <br>Modaliases: cheese(usb:v*p*d*dc*dsc*dp*ic0Eisc01ip*)</p>
4845 </blockquote></p>
4846
4847 <p>An entry like this would suggest the pcmciautils package when a
4848 CardBus bridge (bus class 0607) PCI device is present:</p>
4849
4850 <p><blockquote>
4851 Package: pcmciautils
4852 <br>Modaliases: pcmciautils(pci:v*d*sv*sd*bc06sc07i*)
4853 </blockquote></p>
4854
4855 <p>An entry like this would suggest the package colorhug-client when
4856 plugging in a ColorHug with USB IDs 04D8:F8DA:</p>
4857
4858 <p><blockquote>
4859 Package: colorhug-client
4860 <br>Modaliases: colorhug-client(usb:v04D8pF8DAd*)</p>
4861 </blockquote></p>
4862
4863 <p>I believe the format is compatible with the format of the Packages
4864 file in the Debian archive.  Ubuntu already uses their Packages file
4865 to store their mappings from packages to hardware.</p>
4866
4867 <p>By adding a XB-Modaliases: header in debian/control, any .deb can
4868 announce the hardware it support in a way my prototype understand.
4869 This allow those publishing packages in an APT source outside the
4870 Debian archive as well as those backporting packages to make sure the
4871 hardware mapping are included in the package meta information.  I've
4872 tested such header in the pymissile package, and its modalias mapping
4873 is working as it should with my prototype.  It even made it to Ubuntu
4874 Raring.</p>
4875
4876 <p>To test if it was possible to look up supported hardware using only
4877 the shell tools available in the Debian installer, I wrote a shell
4878 implementation of the lookup code.  The idea is to create files for
4879 each modalias and let the shell do the matching.  Please check out and
4880 try the
4881 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/hw-support-lookup?view=co">hw-support-lookup</a>
4882 shell script.  It run without any extra dependencies and fetch the
4883 hardware mappings from the Debian archive and the subversion
4884 repository where I currently work on my prototype.</p>
4885
4886 <p>When I use it on a machine with a yubikey inserted, it suggest to
4887 install yubikey-personalization:</p>
4888
4889 <p><blockquote>
4890 % ./hw-support-lookup
4891 <br>yubikey-personalization
4892 <br>%
4893 </blockquote></p>
4894
4895 <p>When I run it on my Thinkpad X40 with a PCMCIA/CardBus slot, it
4896 propose to install the pcmciautils package:</p>
4897
4898 <p><blockquote>
4899 % ./hw-support-lookup
4900 <br>pcmciautils
4901 <br>%
4902 </blockquote></p>
4903
4904 <p>If you know of any hardware-package mapping that should be added to
4905 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=co">my
4906 database</a>, please tell me about it.</p>
4907
4908 <p>It could be possible to generate several of the mappings between
4909 packages and hardware.  One source would be to look at packages with
4910 kernel modules, ie packages with *.ko files in /lib/modules/, and
4911 extract their modalias information.  Another would be to look at
4912 packages with udev rules, ie packages with files in
4913 /lib/udev/rules.d/, and extract their vendor/model information to
4914 generate a modalias matching rule.  I have not tested any of these to
4915 see if it work.</p>
4916
4917 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
4918 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
4919 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
4920 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel</a>.</p>
4921
4922       </div>
4923       <div class="tags">
4924
4925
4926         Tags: <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>.
4927
4928
4929       </div>
4930     </div>
4931     <div class="padding"></div>
4932
4933     <div class="entry">
4934       <div class="title">
4935         <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>
4936       </div>
4937       <div class="date">
4938         14th January 2013
4939       </div>
4940       <div class="body">
4941         <p>While looking into how to look up Debian packages based on hardware
4942 information, to find the packages that support a given piece of
4943 hardware, I refreshed my memory regarding modalias values, and decided
4944 to document the details.  Here are my findings so far, also available
4945 in
4946 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
4947 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>:
4948
4949 <p><strong>Modalias decoded</strong></p>
4950
4951 <p>This document try to explain what the different types of modalias
4952 values stands for.  It is in part based on information from
4953 &lt;URL: <a href="https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias">https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias</a> &gt;,
4954 &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;,
4955 &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
4956 &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;.
4957
4958 <p>The modalias entries for a given Linux machine can be found using
4959 this shell script:</p>
4960
4961 <pre>
4962 find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u
4963 </pre>
4964
4965 <p>The supported modalias globs for a given kernel module can be found
4966 using modinfo:</p>
4967
4968 <pre>
4969 % /sbin/modinfo psmouse | grep alias:
4970 alias:          serio:ty05pr*id*ex*
4971 alias:          serio:ty01pr*id*ex*
4972 %
4973 </pre>
4974
4975 <p><strong>PCI subtype</strong></p>
4976
4977 <p>A typical PCI entry can look like this.  This is an Intel Host
4978 Bridge memory controller:</p>
4979
4980 <p><blockquote>
4981 pci:v00008086d00002770sv00001028sd000001ADbc06sc00i00
4982 </blockquote></p>
4983
4984 <p>This represent these values:</p>
4985
4986 <pre>
4987  v   00008086  (vendor)
4988  d   00002770  (device)
4989  sv  00001028  (subvendor)
4990  sd  000001AD  (subdevice)
4991  bc  06        (bus class)
4992  sc  00        (bus subclass)
4993  i   00        (interface)
4994 </pre>
4995
4996 <p>The vendor/device values are the same values outputted from 'lspci
4997 -n' as 8086:2770.  The bus class/subclass is also shown by lspci as
4998 0600.  The 0600 class is a host bridge.  Other useful bus values are
4999 0300 (VGA compatible card) and 0200 (Ethernet controller).</p>
5000
5001 <p>Not sure how to figure out the interface value, nor what it
5002 means.</p>
5003
5004 <p><strong>USB subtype</strong></p>
5005
5006 <p>Some typical USB entries can look like this.  This is an internal
5007 USB hub in a laptop:</p>
5008
5009 <p><blockquote>
5010 usb:v1D6Bp0001d0206dc09dsc00dp00ic09isc00ip00
5011 </blockquote></p>
5012
5013 <p>Here is the values included in this alias:</p>
5014
5015 <pre>
5016  v    1D6B  (device vendor)
5017  p    0001  (device product)
5018  d    0206  (bcddevice)
5019  dc     09  (device class)
5020  dsc    00  (device subclass)
5021  dp     00  (device protocol)
5022  ic     09  (interface class)
5023  isc    00  (interface subclass)
5024  ip     00  (interface protocol)
5025 </pre>
5026
5027 <p>The 0900 device class/subclass means hub.  Some times the relevant
5028 class is in the interface class section.  For a simple USB web camera,
5029 these alias entries show up:</p>
5030
5031 <p><blockquote>
5032 usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc01ip00
5033 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc02ip00
5034 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc01ip00
5035 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc02ip00
5036 </blockquote></p>
5037
5038 <p>Interface class 0E01 is video control, 0E02 is video streaming (aka
5039 camera), 0101 is audio control device and 0102 is audio streaming (aka
5040 microphone).  Thus this is a camera with microphone included.</p>
5041
5042 <p><strong>ACPI subtype</strong></p>
5043
5044 <p>The ACPI type is used for several non-PCI/USB stuff.  This is an IR
5045 receiver in a Thinkpad X40:</p>
5046
5047 <p><blockquote>
5048 acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
5049 </blockquote></p>
5050
5051 <p>The values between the colons are IDs.</p>
5052
5053 <p><strong>DMI subtype</strong></p>
5054
5055 <p>The DMI table contain lots of information about the computer case
5056 and model.  This is an entry for a IBM Thinkpad X40, fetched from
5057 /sys/devices/virtual/dmi/id/modalias:</p>
5058
5059 <p><blockquote>
5060 dmi:bvnIBM:bvr1UETB6WW(1.66):bd06/15/2005:svnIBM:pn2371H4G:pvrThinkPadX40:rvnIBM:rn2371H4G:rvrNotAvailable:cvnIBM:ct10:cvrNotAvailable:
5061 </blockquote></p>
5062
5063 <p>The values present are</p>
5064
5065 <pre>
5066  bvn  IBM            (BIOS vendor)
5067  bvr  1UETB6WW(1.66) (BIOS version)
5068  bd   06/15/2005     (BIOS date)
5069  svn  IBM            (system vendor)
5070  pn   2371H4G        (product name)
5071  pvr  ThinkPadX40    (product version)
5072  rvn  IBM            (board vendor)
5073  rn   2371H4G        (board name)
5074  rvr  NotAvailable   (board version)
5075  cvn  IBM            (chassis vendor)
5076  ct   10             (chassis type)
5077  cvr  NotAvailable   (chassis version)
5078 </pre>
5079
5080 <p>The chassis type 10 is Notebook.  Other interesting values can be
5081 found in the dmidecode source:</p>
5082
5083 <pre>
5084   3 Desktop
5085   4 Low Profile Desktop
5086   5 Pizza Box
5087   6 Mini Tower
5088   7 Tower
5089   8 Portable
5090   9 Laptop
5091  10 Notebook
5092  11 Hand Held
5093  12 Docking Station
5094  13 All In One
5095  14 Sub Notebook
5096  15 Space-saving
5097  16 Lunch Box
5098  17 Main Server Chassis
5099  18 Expansion Chassis
5100  19 Sub Chassis
5101  20 Bus Expansion Chassis
5102  21 Peripheral Chassis
5103  22 RAID Chassis
5104  23 Rack Mount Chassis
5105  24 Sealed-case PC
5106  25 Multi-system
5107  26 CompactPCI
5108  27 AdvancedTCA
5109  28 Blade
5110  29 Blade Enclosing
5111 </pre>
5112
5113 <p>The chassis type values are not always accurately set in the DMI
5114 table.  For example my home server is a tower, but the DMI modalias
5115 claim it is a desktop.</p>
5116
5117 <p><strong>SerIO subtype</strong></p>
5118
5119 <p>This type is used for PS/2 mouse plugs.  One example is from my
5120 test machine:</p>
5121
5122 <p><blockquote>
5123 serio:ty01pr00id00ex00
5124 </blockquote></p>
5125
5126 <p>The values present are</p>
5127
5128 <pre>
5129   ty  01  (type)
5130   pr  00  (prototype)
5131   id  00  (id)
5132   ex  00  (extra)
5133 </pre>
5134
5135 <p>This type is supported by the psmouse driver.  I am not sure what
5136 the valid values are.</p>
5137
5138 <p><strong>Other subtypes</strong></p>
5139
5140 <p>There are heaps of other modalias subtypes according to
5141 file2alias.c.  There is the rest of the list from that source: amba,
5142 ap, bcma, ccw, css, eisa, hid, i2c, ieee1394, input, ipack, isapnp,
5143 mdio, of, parisc, pcmcia, platform, scsi, sdio, spi, ssb, vio, virtio,
5144 vmbus, x86cpu and zorro.  I did not spend time documenting all of
5145 these, as they do not seem relevant for my intended use with mapping
5146 hardware to packages when new stuff is inserted during run time.</p>
5147
5148 <p><strong>Looking up kernel modules using modalias values</strong></p>
5149
5150 <p>To check which kernel modules provide support for a given modalias,
5151 one can use the following shell script:</p>
5152
5153 <pre>
5154   for id in $(find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u); do \
5155     echo "$id" ; \
5156     /sbin/modprobe --show-depends "$id"|sed 's/^/  /' ; \
5157   done
5158 </pre>
5159
5160 <p>The output can look like this (only the first few entries as the
5161 list is very long on my test machine):</p>
5162
5163 <pre>
5164   acpi:ACPI0003:
5165     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/acpi/ac.ko
5166   acpi:device:
5167   FATAL: Module acpi:device: not found.
5168   acpi:IBM0068:
5169     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/char/nvram.ko
5170     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/leds/led-class.ko
5171     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/rfkill/rfkill.ko
5172     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/platform/x86/thinkpad_acpi.ko
5173   acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
5174     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/lib/crc-ccitt.ko
5175     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/irda/irda.ko
5176     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/net/irda/nsc-ircc.ko
5177   [...]
5178 </pre>
5179
5180 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
5181 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
5182 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
5183 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel</a>.</p>
5184
5185 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-15:</strong> Rewrite "cat $(find ...)" to
5186 "find ... -print0 | xargs -0 cat" to make sure it handle directories
5187 in /sys/ with space in them.</p>
5188
5189       </div>
5190       <div class="tags">
5191
5192
5193         Tags: <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>.
5194
5195
5196       </div>
5197     </div>
5198     <div class="padding"></div>
5199
5200     <div class="entry">
5201       <div class="title">
5202         <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>
5203       </div>
5204       <div class="date">
5205         10th January 2013
5206       </div>
5207       <div class="body">
5208         <p>As part of my investigation on how to improve the support in Debian
5209 for hardware dongles, I dug up my old Mark and Spencer USB Rocket
5210 Launcher and updated the Debian package
5211 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pymissile">pymissile</a> to make
5212 sure udev will fix the device permissions when it is plugged in.  I
5213 also added a "Modaliases" header to test it in the Debian archive and
5214 hopefully make the package be proposed by jockey in Ubuntu when a user
5215 plug in his rocket launcher.  In the process I moved the source to a
5216 git repository under collab-maint, to make it easier for any DD to
5217 contribute.  <a href="http://code.google.com/p/pymissile/">Upstream</a>
5218 is not very active, but the software still work for me even after five
5219 years of relative silence.  The new git repository is not listed in
5220 the uploaded package yet, because I want to test the other changes a
5221 bit more before I upload the new version.  If you want to check out
5222 the new version with a .desktop file included, visit the
5223 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/pymissile.git">gitweb
5224 view</a> or use "<tt>git clone
5225 git://anonscm.debian.org/collab-maint/pymissile.git</tt>".</p>
5226
5227       </div>
5228       <div class="tags">
5229
5230
5231         Tags: <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>.
5232
5233
5234       </div>
5235     </div>
5236     <div class="padding"></div>
5237
5238     <div class="entry">
5239       <div class="title">
5240         <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>
5241       </div>
5242       <div class="date">
5243          9th January 2013
5244       </div>
5245       <div class="body">
5246         <p>One thing that annoys me with Debian and Linux distributions in
5247 general, is that there is a great package management system with the
5248 ability to automatically install software packages by downloading them
5249 from the distribution mirrors, but no way to get it to automatically
5250 install the packages I need to use the hardware I plug into my
5251 machine.  Even if the package to use it is easily available from the
5252 Linux distribution.  When I plug in a LEGO Mindstorms NXT, it could
5253 suggest to automatically install the python-nxt, nbc and t2n packages
5254 I need to talk to it.  When I plug in a Yubikey, it could propose the
5255 yubikey-personalization package.  The information required to do this
5256 is available, but no-one have pulled all the pieces together.</p>
5257
5258 <p>Some years ago, I proposed to
5259 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg01206.html">use
5260 the discover subsystem to implement this</a>.  The idea is fairly
5261 simple:
5262
5263 <ul>
5264
5265 <li>Add a desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ pointing to a program
5266   starting when a user log in.</li>
5267
5268 <li>Set this program up to listen for kernel events emitted when new
5269   hardware is inserted into the computer.</li>
5270
5271 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware ID in a
5272   database mapping to packages, and take note of any non-installed
5273   packages.</li>
5274
5275 <li>Show a message to the user proposing to install the discovered
5276   package, and make it easy to install it.</li>
5277
5278 </ul>
5279
5280 <p>I am not sure what the best way to implement this is, but my
5281 initial idea was to use dbus events to discover new hardware, the
5282 discover database to find packages and
5283 <a href="http://www.packagekit.org/">PackageKit</a> to install
5284 packages.</p>
5285
5286 <p>Yesterday, I found time to try to implement this idea, and the
5287 draft package is now checked into
5288 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
5289 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>.  In the process, I updated the
5290 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover-data.html">discover-data</a>
5291 package to map the USB ids of LEGO Mindstorms and Yubikey devices to
5292 the relevant packages in Debian, and uploaded a new version
5293 2.2013.01.09 to unstable.  I also discovered that the current
5294 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover.html">discover</a>
5295 package in Debian no longer discovered any USB devices, because
5296 /proc/bus/usb/devices is no longer present.  I ported it to use
5297 libusb as a fall back option to get it working.  The fixed package
5298 version 2.1.2-6 is now in experimental (didn't upload it to unstable
5299 because of the freeze).</p>
5300
5301 <p>With this prototype in place, I can insert my Yubikey, and get this
5302 desktop notification to show up (only once, the first time it is
5303 inserted):</p>
5304
5305 <p align="center"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-09-hw-autoinstall.png"></p>
5306
5307 <p>For this prototype to be really useful, some way to automatically
5308 install the proposed packages by pressing the "Please install
5309 program(s)" button should to be implemented.</p>
5310
5311 <p>If this idea seem useful to you, and you want to help make it
5312 happen, please help me update the discover-data database with mappings
5313 from hardware to Debian packages.  Check if 'discover-pkginstall -l'
5314 list the package you would like to have installed when a given
5315 hardware device is inserted into your computer, and report bugs using
5316 reportbug if it isn't.  Or, if you know of a better way to provide
5317 such mapping, please let me know.</p>
5318
5319 <p>This prototype need more work, and there are several questions that
5320 should be considered before it is ready for production use.  Is dbus
5321 the correct way to detect new hardware?  At the moment I look for HAL
5322 dbus events on the system bus, because that is the events I could see
5323 on my Debian Squeeze KDE desktop.  Are there better events to use?
5324 How should the user be notified?  Is the desktop notification
5325 mechanism the best option, or should the background daemon raise a
5326 popup instead?  How should packages be installed?  When should they
5327 not be installed?</p>
5328
5329 <p>If you want to help getting such feature implemented in Debian,
5330 please send me an email. :)</p>
5331
5332       </div>
5333       <div class="tags">
5334
5335
5336         Tags: <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>.
5337
5338
5339       </div>
5340     </div>
5341     <div class="padding"></div>
5342
5343     <div class="entry">
5344       <div class="title">
5345         <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>
5346       </div>
5347       <div class="date">
5348          2nd January 2013
5349       </div>
5350       <div class="body">
5351         <p>During Christmas, I have worked a bit on the Debian support for
5352 <a href="http://mindstorms.lego.com/en-us/Default.aspx">LEGO Mindstorm
5353 NXT</a>.  My son and I have played a bit with my NXT set, and I
5354 discovered I had to build all the tools myself because none were
5355 already in Debian Squeeze.  If Debian support for LEGO is something
5356 you care about, please join me on the IRC channel
5357 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">#debian-lego</a> (server
5358 irc.debian.org).  There is a lot that could be done to improve the
5359 Debian support for LEGO designers.  For example both CAD software
5360 and Mindstorm compilers are missing. :)</p>
5361
5362 <p>Update 2012-01-03: A
5363 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">project page</a>
5364 including links to Lego related packages is now available.</p>
5365
5366       </div>
5367       <div class="tags">
5368
5369
5370         Tags: <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>.
5371
5372
5373       </div>
5374     </div>
5375     <div class="padding"></div>
5376
5377     <div class="entry">
5378       <div class="title">
5379         <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>
5380       </div>
5381       <div class="date">
5382         25th December 2012
5383       </div>
5384       <div class="body">
5385         <p>Let me start by wishing you all marry Christmas and a happy new
5386 year!  I hope next year will prove to be a good year.</p>
5387
5388 <p><a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">Bitcoin</a>, the digital
5389 decentralised "currency" that allow people to transfer bitcoins
5390 between each other with minimal overhead, is a very interesting
5391 experiment.  And as I wrote a few days ago, the bitcoin situation in
5392 <a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</a> is about to improve a bit.
5393 The <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">new debian source
5394 package</a> (version 0.7.2-2) was uploaded yesterday, and is waiting
5395 in <a href="http://ftp-master.debian.org/new.html">the NEW queue</A>
5396 for one of the ftpmasters to approve the new bitcoin-qt package
5397 name.</p>
5398
5399 <p>And thanks to the great work of Jonas and the rest of the bitcoin
5400 team in Debian, you can easily test the package in Debian Squeeze
5401 using the following steps to get a set of working packages:</p>
5402
5403 <blockquote><pre>
5404 git clone git://git.debian.org/git/collab-maint/bitcoin
5405 cd bitcoin
5406 DEB_MAINTAINER_MODE=1 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp fakeroot debian/rules clean
5407 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp git-buildpackage --git-ignore-new
5408 </pre></blockquote>
5409
5410 <p>You might have to install some build dependencies as well.  The
5411 list of commands should give you two packages, bitcoind and
5412 bitcoin-qt, ready for use in a Squeeze environment.  Note that the
5413 client will download the complete set of bitcoin "blocks", which need
5414 around 5.6 GiB of data on my machine at the moment.  Make sure your
5415 ~/.bitcoin/ directory have lots of spare room if you want to download
5416 all the blocks.  The client will warn if the disk is getting full, so
5417 there is not really a problem if you got too little room, but you will
5418 not be able to get all the features out of the client.</p>
5419
5420 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
5421 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
5422 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
5423
5424       </div>
5425       <div class="tags">
5426
5427
5428         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>.
5429
5430
5431       </div>
5432     </div>
5433     <div class="padding"></div>
5434
5435     <div class="entry">
5436       <div class="title">
5437         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_word_on_bitcoin_support_in_Debian.html">A word on bitcoin support in Debian</a>
5438       </div>
5439       <div class="date">
5440         21st December 2012
5441       </div>
5442       <div class="body">
5443         <p>It has been a while since I wrote about
5444 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">bitcoin</a>, the decentralised
5445 peer-to-peer based crypto-currency, and the reason is simply that I
5446 have been busy elsewhere.  But two days ago, I started looking at the
5447 state of <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin in
5448 Debian</a> again to try to recover my old bitcoin wallet.  The package
5449 is now maintained by a
5450 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/pkg-bitcoin/">team of
5451 people</a>, and the grunt work had already been done by this team.  We
5452 owe a huge thank you to all these team members. :)
5453 But I was sad to discover that the bitcoin client is missing in
5454 Wheezy.  It is only available in Sid (and an outdated client from
5455 backports).  The client had several RC bugs registered in BTS blocking
5456 it from entering testing.  To try to help the team and improve the
5457 situation, I spent some time providing patches and triaging the bug
5458 reports.  I also had a look at the bitcoin package available from Matt
5459 Corallo in a
5460 <a href="https://launchpad.net/~bitcoin/+archive/bitcoin">PPA for
5461 Ubuntu</a>, and moved the useful pieces from that version into the
5462 Debian package.</p>
5463
5464 <p>After checking with the main package maintainer Jonas Smedegaard on
5465 IRC, I pushed several patches into the collab-maint git repository to
5466 improve the package.  It now contains fixes for the RC issues (not from
5467 me, but fixed by Scott Howard), build rules for a Qt GUI client
5468 package, konqueror support for the bitcoin: URI and bash completion
5469 setup.  As I work on Debian Squeeze, I also created
5470 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-bitcoin-devel/Week-of-Mon-20121217/000041.html">a
5471 patch to backport</a> the latest version.  Jonas is going to look at
5472 it and try to integrate it into the git repository before uploading a
5473 new version to unstable.
5474
5475 <p>I would very much like bitcoin to succeed, to get rid of the
5476 centralized control currently exercised in the monetary system.  I
5477 find it completely unacceptable that the USA government is collecting
5478 transaction data for almost all international money transfers (most are done in USD and transaction logs shipped to the spooks), and
5479 that the major credit card companies can block legal money
5480 transactions to Wikileaks.  But for bitcoin to succeed, more people
5481 need to use bitcoins, and more people need to accept bitcoins when
5482 they sell products and services.  Improving the bitcoin support in
5483 Debian is a small step in the right direction, but not enough.
5484 Unfortunately the user experience when browsing the web and wanting to
5485 pay with bitcoin is still not very good.  The bitcoin: URI is a step
5486 in the right direction, but need to work in most or every browser in
5487 use.  Also the bitcoin-qt client is too heavy to fire up to do a
5488 quick transaction.  I believe there are other clients available, but
5489 have not tested them.</p>
5490
5491 <p>My
5492 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Now_accepting_bitcoins___anonymous_and_distributed_p2p_crypto_money.html">experiment
5493 with bitcoins</a> showed that at least some of my readers use bitcoin.
5494 I received 20.15 BTC so far on the address I provided in my blog two
5495 years ago, as can be
5496 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">seen
5497 on the blockexplorer service</a>.  Thank you everyone for your
5498 donation.  The blockexplorer service demonstrates quite well that
5499 bitcoin is not quite anonymous and untracked. :) I wonder if the
5500 number of users have gone up since then.  If you use bitcoin and want
5501 to show your support of my activity, please send Bitcoin donations to
5502 the same address as last time,
5503 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
5504
5505       </div>
5506       <div class="tags">
5507
5508
5509         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>.
5510
5511
5512       </div>
5513     </div>
5514     <div class="padding"></div>
5515
5516     <div class="entry">
5517       <div class="title">
5518         <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>
5519       </div>
5520       <div class="date">
5521          7th September 2012
5522       </div>
5523       <div class="body">
5524         <p>As I
5525 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">mentioned
5526 this summer</a>, I have created a Computer Science song book a few
5527 years ago, and today I finally found time to create a public
5528 <a href="https://gitorious.org/pere-cs-songbook/pere-cs-songbook">Gitorious
5529 repository for the project</a>.</p>
5530
5531 <p>If you want to help out, please clone the source and submit patches
5532 to the HTML version.  To generate the PDF and PostScript version,
5533 please use prince XML, or let me know about a useful free software
5534 processor capable of creating a good looking PDF from the HTML.</p>
5535
5536 <p>Want to sing?  You can still find the song book in HTML, PDF and
5537 PostScript formats at
5538 <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's Computer
5539 Science Songbook</a>.</p>
5540
5541       </div>
5542       <div class="tags">
5543
5544
5545         Tags: <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>.
5546
5547
5548       </div>
5549     </div>
5550     <div class="padding"></div>
5551
5552     <div class="entry">
5553       <div class="title">
5554         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gratulerer_med_19__rsdagen__Debian_.html">Gratulerer med 19-årsdagen, Debian!</a>
5555       </div>
5556       <div class="date">
5557         16th August 2012
5558       </div>
5559       <div class="body">
5560         <p>I dag fyller
5561 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120813">Debian-prosjektet 19
5562 år</a>.  Jeg har fulgt det de siste 12 årene, og er veldig glad for å kunne
5563 si gratulerer med dagen, Debian!</p>
5564
5565       </div>
5566       <div class="tags">
5567
5568
5569         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>.
5570
5571
5572       </div>
5573     </div>
5574     <div class="padding"></div>
5575
5576     <div class="entry">
5577       <div class="title">
5578         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">Song book for Computer Scientists</a>
5579       </div>
5580       <div class="date">
5581         24th June 2012
5582       </div>
5583       <div class="body">
5584         <p>Many years ago, while studying Computer Science at the
5585 <a href="http://www.uit.no/">University of Tromsø</a>, I started
5586 collecting computer related songs for use at parties.  The original
5587 version was written in LaTeX, but a few years ago I got help from
5588 Håkon W. Lie, one of the inventors of W3C CSS, to convert it to HTML
5589 while keeping the ability to create a nice book in PDF format.  I have
5590 not had time to maintain the book for a while now, and guess I should
5591 put it up on some public version control repository where others can
5592 help me extend and update the book.  If anyone is volunteering to help
5593 me with this, send me an email.  Also let me know if there are songs
5594 missing in my book.</p>
5595
5596 <p>I have not mentioned the book on my blog so far, and it occured to
5597 me today that I really should let all my readers share the joys of
5598 singing out load about programming, computers and computer networks.
5599 Especially now that <a href="http://debconf12.debconf.org/">Debconf
5600 12</a> is about to start (and I am not going).  Want to sing?  Check
5601 out <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's
5602 Computer Science Songbook</a>.
5603
5604       </div>
5605       <div class="tags">
5606
5607
5608         Tags: <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>.
5609
5610
5611       </div>
5612     </div>
5613     <div class="padding"></div>
5614
5615     <div class="entry">
5616       <div class="title">
5617         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatically_upgrading_server_firmware_on_Dell_PowerEdge.html">Automatically upgrading server firmware on Dell PowerEdge</a>
5618       </div>
5619       <div class="date">
5620         21st November 2011
5621       </div>
5622       <div class="body">
5623         <p>At work we have heaps of servers.  I believe the total count is
5624 around 1000 at the moment.  To be able to get help from the vendors
5625 when something go wrong, we want to keep the firmware on the servers
5626 up to date.  If the firmware isn't the latest and greatest, the
5627 vendors typically refuse to start debugging any problems until the
5628 firmware is upgraded.  So before every reboot, we want to upgrade the
5629 firmware, and we would really like everyone handling servers at the
5630 university to do this themselves when they plan to reboot a machine.
5631 For that to happen we at the unix server admin group need to provide
5632 the tools to do so.</p>
5633
5634 <p>To make firmware upgrading easier, I am working on a script to
5635 fetch and install the latest firmware for the servers we got.  Most of
5636 our hardware are from Dell and HP, so I have focused on these servers
5637 so far.  This blog post is about the Dell part.</P>
5638
5639 <p>On the Dell FTP site I was lucky enough to find
5640 <a href="ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz">an XML file</a>
5641 with firmware information for all 11th generation servers, listing
5642 which firmware should be used on a given model and where on the FTP
5643 site I can find it.  Using a simple perl XML parser I can then
5644 download the shell scripts Dell provides to do firmware upgrades from
5645 within Linux and reboot when all the firmware is primed and ready to
5646 be activated on the first reboot.</p>
5647
5648 <p>This is the Dell related fragment of the perl code I am working on.
5649 Are there anyone working on similar tools for firmware upgrading all
5650 servers at a site?  Please get in touch and lets share resources.</p>
5651
5652 <p><pre>
5653 #!/usr/bin/perl
5654 use strict;
5655 use warnings;
5656 use File::Temp qw(tempdir);
5657 BEGIN {
5658     # Install needed RHEL packages if missing
5659     my %rhelmodules = (
5660         'XML::Simple' => 'perl-XML-Simple',
5661         );
5662     for my $module (keys %rhelmodules) {
5663         eval "use $module;";
5664         if ($@) {
5665             my $pkg = $rhelmodules{$module};
5666             system("yum install -y $pkg");
5667             eval "use $module;";
5668         }
5669     }
5670 }
5671 my $errorsto = 'pere@hungry.com';
5672
5673 upgrade_dell();
5674
5675 exit 0;
5676
5677 sub run_firmware_script {
5678     my ($opts, $script) = @_;
5679     unless ($script) {
5680         print STDERR "fail: missing script name\n";
5681         exit 1
5682     }
5683     print STDERR "Running $script\n\n";
5684
5685     if (0 == system("sh $script $opts")) { # FIXME correct exit code handling
5686         print STDERR "success: firmware script ran succcessfully\n";
5687     } else {
5688         print STDERR "fail: firmware script returned error\n";
5689     }
5690 }
5691
5692 sub run_firmware_scripts {
5693     my ($opts, @dirs) = @_;
5694     # Run firmware packages
5695     for my $dir (@dirs) {
5696         print STDERR "info: Running scripts in $dir\n";
5697         opendir(my $dh, $dir) or die "Unable to open directory $dir: $!";
5698         while (my $s = readdir $dh) {
5699             next if $s =~ m/^\.\.?/;
5700             run_firmware_script($opts, "$dir/$s");
5701         }
5702         closedir $dh;
5703     }
5704 }
5705
5706 sub download {
5707     my $url = shift;
5708     print STDERR "info: Downloading $url\n";
5709     system("wget --quiet \"$url\"");
5710 }
5711
5712 sub upgrade_dell {
5713     my @dirs;
5714     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
5715     chomp $product;
5716
5717     if ($product =~ m/PowerEdge/) {
5718
5719         # on RHEL, these pacakges are needed by the firwmare upgrade scripts
5720         system('yum install -y compat-libstdc++-33.i686 libstdc++.i686 libxml2.i686 procmail');
5721
5722         my $tmpdir = tempdir(
5723             CLEANUP => 1
5724             );
5725         chdir($tmpdir);
5726         fetch_dell_fw('catalog/Catalog.xml.gz');
5727         system('gunzip Catalog.xml.gz');
5728         my @paths = fetch_dell_fw_list('Catalog.xml');
5729         # -q is quiet, disabling interactivity and reducing console output
5730         my $fwopts = "-q";
5731         if (@paths) {
5732             for my $url (@paths) {
5733                 fetch_dell_fw($url);
5734             }
5735             run_firmware_scripts($fwopts, $tmpdir);
5736         } else {
5737             print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
5738             print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
5739         }
5740         chdir('/');
5741     } else {
5742         print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
5743         print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
5744     }
5745 }
5746
5747 sub fetch_dell_fw {
5748     my $path = shift;
5749     my $url = "ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/$path";
5750     download($url);
5751 }
5752
5753 # Using ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz, figure out which
5754 # firmware packages to download from Dell.  Only work for Linux
5755 # machines and 11th generation Dell servers.
5756 sub fetch_dell_fw_list {
5757     my $filename = shift;
5758
5759     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
5760     chomp $product;
5761     my ($mybrand, $mymodel) = split(/\s+/, $product);
5762
5763     print STDERR "Finding firmware bundles for $mybrand $mymodel\n";
5764
5765     my $xml = XMLin($filename);
5766     my @paths;
5767     for my $bundle (@{$xml->{SoftwareBundle}}) {
5768         my $brand = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Display}->{content};
5769         my $model = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Model}->{Display}->{content};
5770         my $oscode;
5771         if ("ARRAY" eq ref $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}) {
5772             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}[0]->{osCode};
5773         } else {
5774             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}->{osCode};
5775         }
5776         if ($mybrand eq $brand && $mymodel eq $model && "LIN" eq $oscode)
5777         {
5778             @paths = map { $_->{path} } @{$bundle->{Contents}->{Package}};
5779         }
5780     }
5781     for my $component (@{$xml->{SoftwareComponent}}) {
5782         my $componenttype = $component->{ComponentType}->{value};
5783
5784         # Drop application packages, only firmware and BIOS
5785         next if 'APAC' eq $componenttype;
5786
5787         my $cpath = $component->{path};
5788         for my $path (@paths) {
5789             if ($cpath =~ m%/$path$%) {
5790                 push(@paths, $cpath);
5791             }
5792         }
5793     }
5794     return @paths;
5795 }
5796 </pre>
5797
5798 <p>The code is only tested on RedHat Enterprise Linux, but I suspect
5799 it could work on other platforms with some tweaking.  Anyone know a
5800 index like Catalog.xml is available from HP for HP servers?  At the
5801 moment I maintain a similar list manually and it is quickly getting
5802 outdated.</p>
5803
5804       </div>
5805       <div class="tags">
5806
5807
5808         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5809
5810
5811       </div>
5812     </div>
5813     <div class="padding"></div>
5814
5815     <div class="entry">
5816       <div class="title">
5817         <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>
5818       </div>
5819       <div class="date">
5820          4th August 2011
5821       </div>
5822       <div class="body">
5823         <p>Wouter Verhelst have some
5824 <a href="http://grep.be/blog/en/retorts/pere_kubuntu_boot">interesting
5825 comments and opinions</a> on my blog post on
5826 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_should_start_from__etc_rcS_d__in_Debian____almost_nothing.html">the
5827 need to clean up /etc/rcS.d/ in Debian</a> and my blog post about
5828 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_missing_in_the_Debian_desktop__or_why_my_parents_use_Kubuntu.html">the
5829 default KDE desktop in Debian</a>.  I only have time to address one
5830 small piece of his comment now, and though it best to address the
5831 misunderstanding he bring forward:</p>
5832
5833 <p><blockquote>
5834 Currently, a system admin has four options: [...] boot to a
5835 single-user system (by adding 'single' to the kernel command line;
5836 this runs rcS and rc1 scripts)
5837 </blockquote></p>
5838
5839 <p>This make me believe Wouter believe booting into single user mode
5840 and booting into runlevel 1 is the same.  I am not surprised he
5841 believe this, because it would make sense and is a quite sensible
5842 thing to believe.  But because the boot in Debian is slightly broken,
5843 runlevel 1 do not work properly and it isn't the same as single user
5844 mode.  I'll try to explain what is actually happing, but it is a bit
5845 hard to explain.</p>
5846
5847 <p>Single user mode is defined like this in /etc/inittab:
5848 "<tt>~~:S:wait:/sbin/sulogin</tt>".  This means the only thing that is
5849 executed in single user mode is sulogin.  Single user mode is a boot
5850 state "between" the runlevels, and when booting into single user mode,
5851 only the scripts in /etc/rcS.d/ are executed before the init process
5852 enters the single user state.  When switching to runlevel 1, the state
5853 is in fact not ending in runlevel 1, but it passes through runlevel 1
5854 and end up in the single user mode (see /etc/rc1.d/S03single, which
5855 runs "init -t1 S" to switch to single user mode at the end of runlevel
5856 1.  It is confusing that the 'S' (single user) init mode is not the
5857 mode enabled by /etc/rcS.d/ (which is more like the initial boot
5858 mode).</p>
5859
5860 <p>This summary might make it clearer.  When booting for the first
5861 time into single user mode, the following commands are executed:
5862 "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc S; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  When booting into
5863 runlevel 1, the following commands are executed: "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc
5864 S; /etc/init.d/rc 1; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  A problem show up when
5865 trying to continue after visiting single user mode.  Not all services
5866 are started again as they should, causing the machine to end up in an
5867 unpredicatble state.  This is why Debian admins recommend rebooting
5868 after visiting single user mode.</p>
5869
5870 <p>A similar problem with runlevel 1 is caused by the amount of
5871 scripts executed from /etc/rcS.d/.  When switching from say runlevel 2
5872 to runlevel 1, the services started from /etc/rcS.d/ are not properly
5873 stopped when passing through the scripts in /etc/rc1.d/, and not
5874 started again when switching away from runlevel 1 to the runlevels
5875 2-5.  I believe the problem is best fixed by moving all the scripts
5876 out of /etc/rcS.d/ that are not <strong>required</strong> to get a
5877 functioning single user mode during boot.</p>
5878
5879 <p>I have spent several years investigating the Debian boot system,
5880 and discovered this problem a few years ago.  I suspect it originates
5881 from when sysvinit was introduced into Debian, a long time ago.</p>
5882
5883       </div>
5884       <div class="tags">
5885
5886
5887         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>.
5888
5889
5890       </div>
5891     </div>
5892     <div class="padding"></div>
5893
5894     <div class="entry">
5895       <div class="title">
5896         <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>
5897       </div>
5898       <div class="date">
5899         30th July 2011
5900       </div>
5901       <div class="body">
5902         <p>In the Debian boot system, several packages include scripts that
5903 are started from /etc/rcS.d/.  In fact, there is a bite more of them
5904 than make sense, and this causes a few problems.  What kind of
5905 problems, you might ask.  There are at least two problems.  The first
5906 is that it is not possible to recover a machine after switching to
5907 runlevel 1.  One need to actually reboot to get the machine back to
5908 the expected state.  The other is that single user boot will sometimes
5909 run into problems because some of the subsystems are activated before
5910 the root login is presented, causing problems when trying to recover a
5911 machine from a problem in that subsystem.  A minor additional point is
5912 that moving more scripts out of rcS.d/ and into the other rc#.d/
5913 directories will increase the amount of scripts that can run in
5914 parallel during boot, and thus decrease the boot time.</p>
5915
5916 <p>So, which scripts should start from rcS.d/.  In short, only the
5917 scripts that _have_ to execute before the root login prompt is
5918 presented during a single user boot should go there.  Everything else
5919 should go into the numeric runlevels.  This means things like
5920 lm-sensors, fuse and x11-common should not run from rcS.d, but from
5921 the numeric runlevels.  Today in Debian, there are around 115 init.d
5922 scripts that are started from rcS.d/, and most of them should be moved
5923 out.  Do your package have one of them?  Please help us make single
5924 user and runlevel 1 better by moving it.</p>
5925
5926 <p>Scripts setting up the screen, keyboard, system partitions
5927 etc. should still be started from rcS.d/, but there is for example no
5928 need to have the network enabled before the single user login prompt
5929 is presented.</p>
5930
5931 <p>As always, things are not so easy to fix as they sound.  To keep
5932 Debian systems working while scripts migrate and during upgrades, the
5933 scripts need to be moved from rcS.d/ to rc2.d/ in reverse dependency
5934 order, ie the scripts that nothing in rcS.d/ depend on can be moved,
5935 and the next ones can only be moved when their dependencies have been
5936 moved first.  This migration must be done sequentially while we ensure
5937 that the package system upgrade packages in the right order to keep
5938 the system state correct.  This will require some coordination when it
5939 comes to network related packages, but most of the packages with
5940 scripts that should migrate do not have anything in rcS.d/ depending
5941 on them.  Some packages have already been updated, like the sudo
5942 package, while others are still left to do.  I wish I had time to work
5943 on this myself, but real live constrains make it unlikely that I will
5944 find time to push this forward.</p>
5945
5946       </div>
5947       <div class="tags">
5948
5949
5950         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>.
5951
5952
5953       </div>
5954     </div>
5955     <div class="padding"></div>
5956
5957     <div class="entry">
5958       <div class="title">
5959         <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>
5960       </div>
5961       <div class="date">
5962         29th July 2011
5963       </div>
5964       <div class="body">
5965         <p>While at Debconf11, I have several times during discussions
5966 mentioned the issues I believe should be improved in Debian for its
5967 desktop to be useful for more people.  The use case for this is my
5968 parents, which are currently running Kubuntu which solve the
5969 issues.</p>
5970
5971 <p>I suspect these four missing features are not very hard to
5972 implement.  After all, they are present in Ubuntu, so if we wanted to
5973 do this in Debian we would have a source.</p>
5974
5975 <ol>
5976
5977 <li><strong>Simple GUI based upgrade of packages.</strong> When there
5978 are new packages available for upgrades, a icon in the KDE status bar
5979 indicate this, and clicking on it will activate the simple upgrade
5980 tool to handle it.  I have no problem guiding both of my parents
5981 through the process over the phone.  If a kernel reboot is required,
5982 this too is indicated by the status bars and the upgrade tool.  Last
5983 time I checked, nothing with the same features was working in KDE in
5984 Debian.</li>
5985
5986 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing Firefox browser
5987 plugins.</strong> When the browser encounter a MIME type it do not
5988 currently have a handler for, it will ask the user if the system
5989 should search for a package that would add support for this MIME type,
5990 and if the user say yes, the APT sources will be searched for packages
5991 advertising the MIME type in their control file (visible in the
5992 Packages file in the APT archive).  If one or more packages are found,
5993 it is a simple click of the mouse to add support for the missing mime
5994 type.  If the package require the user to accept some non-free
5995 license, this is explained to the user.  The entire process make it
5996 more clear to the user why something do not work in the browser, and
5997 make the chances higher for the user to blame the web page authors and
5998 not the browser for any missing features.</li>
5999
6000 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing multimedia codec/format
6001 handlers.</strong> When the media players encounter a format or codec
6002 it is not supporting, a dialog pop up asking the user if the system
6003 should search for a package that would add support for it.  This
6004 happen with things like MP3, Windows Media or H.264.  The selection
6005 and installation procedure is very similar to the Firefox browser
6006 plugin handling.  This is as far as I know implemented using a
6007 gstreamer hook.  The end result is that the user easily get access to
6008 the codecs that are present from the APT archives available, while
6009 explaining more on why a given format is unsupported by Ubuntu.</li>
6010
6011 <li><strong>Better browser handling of some MIME types.</strong> When
6012 displaying a text/plain file in my Debian browser, it will propose to
6013 start emacs to show it.  If I remember correctly, when doing the same
6014 in Kunbutu it show the file as a text file in the browser.  At least I
6015 know Opera will show text files within the browser.  I much prefer the
6016 latter behaviour.</li>
6017
6018 </ol>
6019
6020 <p>There are other nice features as well, like the simplified suite
6021 upgrader, but given that I am the one mostly doing the dist-upgrade,
6022 it do not matter much.</p>
6023
6024 <p>I really hope we could get these features in place for the next
6025 Debian release.  It would require the coordinated effort of several
6026 maintainers, but would make the end user experience a lot better.</p>
6027
6028       </div>
6029       <div class="tags">
6030
6031
6032         Tags: <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>.
6033
6034
6035       </div>
6036     </div>
6037     <div class="padding"></div>
6038
6039     <div class="entry">
6040       <div class="title">
6041         <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>
6042       </div>
6043       <div class="date">
6044         26th July 2011
6045       </div>
6046       <div class="body">
6047         <p>The Norwegian <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</A>
6048 site is build on Debian/Squeeze, and this platform was chosen because
6049 I am most familiar with Debian (being a Debian Developer for around 10
6050 years) because it is the latest stable Debian release which should get
6051 security support for a few years.</p>
6052
6053 <p>The web service is written in Perl, and depend on some perl modules
6054 that are missing in Debian at the moment.  It would be great if these
6055 modules were added to the Debian archive, allowing anyone to set up
6056 their own <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com">FixMyStreet</a> clone
6057 in their own country using only Debian packages.  The list of modules
6058 missing in Debian/Squeeze isn't very long, and I hope the perl group
6059 will find time to package the 12 modules Catalyst::Plugin::SmartURI,
6060 Catalyst::Plugin::Unicode::Encoding, Catalyst::View::TT, Devel::Hide,
6061 Sort::Key, Statistics::Distributions, Template::Plugin::Comma,
6062 Template::Plugin::DateTime::Format, Term::Size::Any, Term::Size::Perl,
6063 URI::SmartURI and Web::Scraper to make the maintenance of FixMyStreet
6064 easier in the future.</p>
6065
6066 <p>Thanks to the great tools in Debian, getting the missing modules
6067 installed on my server was a simple call to 'cpan2deb Module::Name'
6068 and 'dpkg -i' to install the resulting package.  But this leave me
6069 with the responsibility of tracking security problems, which I really
6070 do not have time for.</p>
6071
6072       </div>
6073       <div class="tags">
6074
6075
6076         Tags: <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>.
6077
6078
6079       </div>
6080     </div>
6081     <div class="padding"></div>
6082
6083     <div class="entry">
6084       <div class="title">
6085         <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>
6086       </div>
6087       <div class="date">
6088          3rd April 2011
6089       </div>
6090       <div class="body">
6091         <p>Here is a small update for my English readers.  Most of my blog
6092 posts have been in Norwegian the last few weeks, so here is a short
6093 update in English.</p>
6094
6095 <p>The kids still keep me too busy to get much free software work
6096 done, but I did manage to organise a project to get a Norwegian port
6097 of the British service
6098 <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com/">FixMyStreet</a> up and running,
6099 and it has been running for a month now.  The entire project has been
6100 organised by me and two others.  Around Christmas we gathered sponsors
6101 to fund the development work.  In January I drafted a contract with
6102 <a href="http://www.mysociety.org/">mySociety</a> on what to develop,
6103 and in February the development took place.  Most of it involved
6104 converting the source to use GPS coordinates instead of British
6105 easting/northing, and the resulting code should be a lot easier to get
6106 running in any country by now.  The Norwegian
6107 <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</a> is using
6108 <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/">OpenStreetmap</a> as the map
6109 source and the source for administrative borders in Norway, and
6110 support for this had to be added/fixed.</p>
6111
6112 <p>The Norwegian version went live March 3th, and we spent the weekend
6113 polishing the system before we announced it March 7th.  The system is
6114 running on a KVM instance of Debian/Squeeze, and has seen almost 3000
6115 problem reports in a few weeks.  Soon we hope to announce the Android
6116 and iPhone versions making it even easier to report problems with the
6117 public infrastructure.</p>
6118
6119 <p>Perhaps something to consider for those of you in countries without
6120 such service?</p>
6121
6122       </div>
6123       <div class="tags">
6124
6125
6126         Tags: <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>.
6127
6128
6129       </div>
6130     </div>
6131     <div class="padding"></div>
6132
6133     <div class="entry">
6134       <div class="title">
6135         <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>
6136       </div>
6137       <div class="date">
6138         28th January 2011
6139       </div>
6140       <div class="body">
6141         <p>The last few days I have looked at ways to track open security
6142 issues here at my work with the University of Oslo.  My idea is that
6143 it should be possible to use the information about security issues
6144 available on the Internet, and check our locally
6145 maintained/distributed software against this information.  It should
6146 allow us to verify that no known security issues are forgotten.  The
6147 CVE database listing vulnerabilities seem like a great central point,
6148 and by using the package lists from Debian mapped to CVEs provided by
6149 the testing security team, I believed it should be possible to figure
6150 out which security holes were present in our free software
6151 collection.</p>
6152
6153 <p>After reading up on the topic, it became obvious that the first
6154 building block is to be able to name software packages in a unique and
6155 consistent way across data sources.  I considered several ways to do
6156 this, for example coming up with my own naming scheme like using URLs
6157 to project home pages or URLs to the Freshmeat entries, or using some
6158 existing naming scheme.  And it seem like I am not the first one to
6159 come across this problem, as MITRE already proposed and implemented a
6160 solution.  Enter the <a href="http://cpe.mitre.org/index.html">Common
6161 Platform Enumeration</a> dictionary, a vocabulary for referring to
6162 software, hardware and other platform components.  The CPE ids are
6163 mapped to CVEs in the <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/">National
6164 Vulnerability Database</a>, allowing me to look up know security
6165 issues for any CPE name.  With this in place, all I need to do is to
6166 locate the CPE id for the software packages we use at the university.
6167 This is fairly trivial (I google for 'cve cpe $package' and check the
6168 NVD entry if a CVE for the package exist).</p>
6169
6170 <p>To give you an example.  The GNU gzip source package have the CPE
6171 name cpe:/a:gnu:gzip.  If the old version 1.3.3 was the package to
6172 check out, one could look up
6173 <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
6174 in NVD</a> and get a list of 6 security holes with public CVE entries.
6175 The most recent one is
6176 <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/view/vuln/detail?vulnId=CVE-2010-0001">CVE-2010-0001</a>,
6177 and at the bottom of the NVD page for this vulnerability the complete
6178 list of affected versions is provided.</p>
6179
6180 <p>The NVD database of CVEs is also available as a XML dump, allowing
6181 for offline processing of issues.  Using this dump, I've written a
6182 small script taking a list of CPEs as input and list all CVEs
6183 affecting the packages represented by these CPEs.  One give it CPEs
6184 with version numbers as specified above and get a list of open
6185 security issues out.</p>
6186
6187 <p>Of course for this approach to be useful, the quality of the NVD
6188 information need to be high.  For that to happen, I believe as many as
6189 possible need to use and contribute to the NVD database.  I notice
6190 RHEL is providing
6191 <a href="https://www.redhat.com/security/data/metrics/rhsamapcpe.txt">a
6192 map from CVE to CPE</a>, indicating that they are using the CPE
6193 information.  I'm not aware of Debian and Ubuntu doing the same.</p>
6194
6195 <p>To get an idea about the quality for free software, I spent some
6196 time making it possible to compare the CVE database from Debian with
6197 the CVE database in NVD.  The result look fairly good, but there are
6198 some inconsistencies in NVD (same software package having several
6199 CPEs), and some inaccuracies (NVD not mentioning buggy packages that
6200 Debian believe are affected by a CVE).  Hope to find time to improve
6201 the quality of NVD, but that require being able to get in touch with
6202 someone maintaining it.  So far my three emails with questions and
6203 corrections have not seen any reply, but I hope contact can be
6204 established soon.</p>
6205
6206 <p>An interesting application for CPEs is cross platform package
6207 mapping.  It would be useful to know which packages in for example
6208 RHEL, OpenSuSe and Mandriva are missing from Debian and Ubuntu, and
6209 this would be trivial if all linux distributions provided CPE entries
6210 for their packages.</p>
6211
6212       </div>
6213       <div class="tags">
6214
6215
6216         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
6217
6218
6219       </div>
6220     </div>
6221     <div class="padding"></div>
6222
6223     <div class="entry">
6224       <div class="title">
6225         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Which_module_is_loaded_for_a_given_PCI_and_USB_device_.html">Which module is loaded for a given PCI and USB device?</a>
6226       </div>
6227       <div class="date">
6228         23rd January 2011
6229       </div>
6230       <div class="body">
6231         <p>In the
6232 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/discover-data">discover-data</a>
6233 package in Debian, there is a script to report useful information
6234 about the running hardware for use when people report missing
6235 information.  One part of this script that I find very useful when
6236 debugging hardware problems, is the part mapping loaded kernel module
6237 to the PCI device it claims.  It allow me to quickly see if the kernel
6238 module I expect is driving the hardware I am struggling with.  To see
6239 the output, make sure discover-data is installed and run
6240 <tt>/usr/share/bug/discover-data 3>&1</tt>.  The relevant output on
6241 one of my machines like this:</p>
6242
6243 <pre>
6244 loaded modules:
6245 10de:03eb i2c_nforce2
6246 10de:03f1 ohci_hcd
6247 10de:03f2 ehci_hcd
6248 10de:03f0 snd_hda_intel
6249 10de:03ec pata_amd
6250 10de:03f6 sata_nv
6251 1022:1103 k8temp
6252 109e:036e bttv
6253 109e:0878 snd_bt87x
6254 11ab:4364 sky2
6255 </pre>
6256
6257 <p>The code in question look like this, slightly modified for
6258 readability and to drop the output to file descriptor 3:</p>
6259
6260 <pre>
6261 if [ -d /sys/bus/pci/devices/ ] ; then
6262     echo loaded pci modules:
6263     (
6264         cd /sys/bus/pci/devices/
6265         for address in * ; do
6266             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
6267                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
6268                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
6269                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
6270                     id=`lspci -n -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $3}'`
6271                     echo "$id $module"
6272                 fi
6273             fi
6274         done
6275     )
6276     echo
6277 fi
6278 </pre>
6279
6280 <p>Similar code could be used to extract USB device module
6281 mappings:</p>
6282
6283 <pre>
6284 if [ -d /sys/bus/usb/devices/ ] ; then
6285     echo loaded usb modules:
6286     (
6287         cd /sys/bus/usb/devices/
6288         for address in * ; do
6289             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
6290                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
6291                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
6292                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
6293                     id=$(lsusb -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $6}')
6294                     if [ "$id" ] ; then
6295                         echo "$id $module"
6296                     fi
6297                 fi
6298             fi
6299         done
6300     )
6301     echo
6302 fi
6303 </pre>
6304
6305 <p>This might perhaps be something to include in other tools as
6306 well.</p>
6307
6308       </div>
6309       <div class="tags">
6310
6311
6312         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
6313
6314
6315       </div>
6316     </div>
6317     <div class="padding"></div>
6318
6319     <div class="entry">
6320       <div class="title">
6321         <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>
6322       </div>
6323       <div class="date">
6324         22nd December 2010
6325       </div>
6326       <div class="body">
6327         <p>The last few days I have spent at work here at the <a
6328 href="http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo</a> testing if the new
6329 batch of computers will work with Linux.  Every year for the last few
6330 years the university have organised shared bid of a few thousand
6331 computers, and this year HP won the bid.  Two different desktops and
6332 five different laptops are on the list this year.  We in the UNIX
6333 group want to know which one of these computers work well with RHEL
6334 and Ubuntu, the two Linux distributions we currently handle at the
6335 university.</p>
6336
6337 <p>My test method is simple, and I share it here to get feedback and
6338 perhaps inspire others to test hardware as well.  To test, I PXE
6339 install the OS version of choice, and log in as my normal user and run
6340 a few applications and plug in selected pieces of hardware.  When
6341 something fail, I make a note about this in the test matrix and move
6342 on.  If I have some spare time I try to report the bug to the OS
6343 vendor, but as I only have the machines for a short time, I rarely
6344 have the time to do this for all the problems I find.</p>
6345
6346 <p>Anyway, to get to the point of this post.  Here is the simple tests
6347 I perform on a new model.</p>
6348
6349 <ul>
6350
6351 <li>Is PXE installation working?  I'm testing with RHEL6, Ubuntu Lucid
6352 and Ubuntu Maverik at the moment.  If I feel like it, I also test with
6353 RHEL5 and Debian Edu/Squeeze.</li>
6354
6355 <li>Is X.org working?  If the graphical login screen show up after
6356 installation, X.org is working.</li>
6357
6358 <li>Is hardware accelerated OpenGL working?  Running glxgears (in
6359 package mesa-utils on Ubuntu) and writing down the frames per second
6360 reported by the program.</li>
6361
6362 <li>Is sound working?  With Gnome and KDE, a sound is played when
6363 logging in, and if I can hear this the test is successful.  If there
6364 are several audio exits on the machine, I try them all and check if
6365 the Gnome/KDE audio mixer can control where to send the sound.  I
6366 normally test this by playing
6367 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20101012-chef/ ">a HTML5
6368 video</a> in Firefox/Iceweasel.</li>
6369
6370 <li>Is the USB subsystem working?  I test this by plugging in a USB
6371 memory stick and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
6372
6373 <li>Is the CD/DVD player working?  I test this by inserting any CD/DVD
6374 I have lying around, and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
6375
6376 <li>Is any built in camera working?  Test using cheese, and see if a
6377 picture from the v4l device show up.</li>
6378
6379 <li>Is bluetooth working?  Use the Gnome/KDE browsing tool to see if
6380 any bluetooth devices are discovered.  In my office, I normally see a
6381 few.</li>
6382
6383 <li>For laptops, is the SD or Compaq Flash reader working.  I have
6384 memory modules lying around, and stick them in and see if Gnome/KDE
6385 notice this.</li>
6386
6387 <li>For laptops, is suspend/hibernate working?  I'm testing if the
6388 special button work, and if the laptop continue to work after
6389 resume.</li>
6390
6391 <li>For laptops, is the extra buttons working, like audio level,
6392 adjusting background light, switching on/off external video output,
6393 switching on/off wifi, bluetooth, etc?  The set of buttons differ from
6394 laptop to laptop, so I just write down which are working and which are
6395 not.</li>
6396
6397 <li>Some laptops have smart card readers, finger print readers,
6398 acceleration sensors etc.  I rarely test these, as I do not know how
6399 to quickly test if they are working or not, so I only document their
6400 existence.</li>
6401
6402 </ul>
6403
6404 <p>By now I suspect you are really curious what the test results are
6405 for the HP machines I am testing.  I'm not done yet, so I will report
6406 the test results later.  For now I can report that HP 8100 Elite work
6407 fine, and hibernation fail with HP EliteBook 8440p on Ubuntu Lucid,
6408 and audio fail on RHEL6.  Ubuntu Maverik worked with 8440p.  As you
6409 can see, I have most machines left to test.  One interesting
6410 observation is that Ubuntu Lucid has almost twice the frame rate than
6411 RHEL6 with glxgears.  No idea why.</p>
6412
6413       </div>
6414       <div class="tags">
6415
6416
6417         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>.
6418
6419
6420       </div>
6421     </div>
6422     <div class="padding"></div>
6423
6424     <div class="entry">
6425       <div class="title">
6426         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Some_thoughts_on_BitCoins.html">Some thoughts on BitCoins</a>
6427       </div>
6428       <div class="date">
6429         11th December 2010
6430       </div>
6431       <div class="body">
6432         <p>As I continue to explore
6433 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>, I've starting to wonder
6434 what properties the system have, and how it will be affected by laws
6435 and regulations here in Norway.  Here are some random notes.</p>
6436
6437 <p>One interesting thing to note is that since the transactions are
6438 verified using a peer to peer network, all details about a transaction
6439 is known to everyone.  This means that if a BitCoin address has been
6440 published like I did with mine in my initial post about BitCoin, it is
6441 possible for everyone to see how many BitCoins have been transfered to
6442 that address.  There is even a web service to look at the details for
6443 all transactions.  There I can see that my address
6444 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a>
6445 have received 16.06 Bitcoin, the
6446 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3">1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3</a>
6447 address of Simon Phipps have received 181.97 BitCoin and the address
6448 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt">1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt</A>
6449 of EFF have received 2447.38 BitCoins so far.  Thank you to each and
6450 every one of you that donated bitcoins to support my activity. The
6451 fact that anyone can see how much money was transfered to a given
6452 address make it more obvious why the BitCoin community recommend to
6453 generate and hand out a new address for each transaction.  I'm told
6454 there is no way to track which addresses belong to a given person or
6455 organisation without the person or organisation revealing it
6456 themselves, as Simon, EFF and I have done.</p>
6457
6458 <p>In Norway, and in most other countries, there are laws and
6459 regulations limiting how much money one can transfer across the border
6460 without declaring it.  There are money laundering, tax and accounting
6461 laws and regulations I would expect to apply to the use of BitCoin.
6462 If the Skolelinux foundation
6463 (<a href="http://linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">SLX
6464 Debian Labs</a>) were to accept donations in BitCoin in addition to
6465 normal bank transfers like EFF is doing, how should this be accounted?
6466 Given that it is impossible to know if money can cross the border or
6467 not, should everything or nothing be declared?  What exchange rate
6468 should be used when calculating taxes?  Would receivers have to pay
6469 income tax if the foundation were to pay Skolelinux contributors in
6470 BitCoin?  I have no idea, but it would be interesting to know.</p>
6471
6472 <p>For a currency to be useful and successful, it must be trusted and
6473 accepted by a lot of users.  It must be possible to get easy access to
6474 the currency (as a wage or using currency exchanges), and it must be
6475 easy to spend it.  At the moment BitCoin seem fairly easy to get
6476 access to, but there are very few places to spend it.  I am not really
6477 a regular user of any of the vendor types currently accepting BitCoin,
6478 so I wonder when my kind of shop would start accepting BitCoins.  I
6479 would like to buy electronics, travels and subway tickets, not herbs
6480 and books. :) The currency is young, and this will improve over time
6481 if it become popular, but I suspect regular banks will start to lobby
6482 to get BitCoin declared illegal if it become popular.  I'm sure they
6483 will claim it is helping fund terrorism and money laundering (which
6484 probably would be true, as is any currency in existence), but I
6485 believe the problems should be solved elsewhere and not by blaming
6486 currencies.</p>
6487
6488 <p>The process of creating new BitCoins is called mining, and it is
6489 CPU intensive process that depend on a bit of luck as well (as one is
6490 competing against all the other miners currently spending CPU cycles
6491 to see which one get the next lump of cash).  The "winner" get 50
6492 BitCoin when this happen.  Yesterday I came across the obvious way to
6493 join forces to increase ones changes of getting at least some coins,
6494 by coordinating the work on mining BitCoins across several machines
6495 and people, and sharing the result if one is lucky and get the 50
6496 BitCoins.  Check out
6497 <a href="http://www.bluishcoder.co.nz/bitcoin-pool/">BitCoin Pool</a>
6498 if this sounds interesting.  I have not had time to try to set up a
6499 machine to participate there yet, but have seen that running on ones
6500 own for a few days have not yield any BitCoins througth mining
6501 yet.</p>
6502
6503 <p>Update 2010-12-15: Found an <a
6504 href="http://inertia.posterous.com/reply-to-the-underground-economist-why-bitcoi">interesting
6505 criticism</a> of bitcoin.  Not quite sure how valid it is, but thought
6506 it was interesting to read.  The arguments presented seem to be
6507 equally valid for gold, which was used as a currency for many years.</p>
6508
6509       </div>
6510       <div class="tags">
6511
6512
6513         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>.
6514
6515
6516       </div>
6517     </div>
6518     <div class="padding"></div>
6519
6520     <div class="entry">
6521       <div class="title">
6522         <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>
6523       </div>
6524       <div class="date">
6525         10th December 2010
6526       </div>
6527       <div class="body">
6528         <p>With this weeks lawless
6529 <a href="http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/06/wikileaks/index.html">governmental
6530 attacks</a> on Wikileak and
6531 <a href="http://www.salon.com/technology/dan_gillmor/2010/12/06/war_on_speech">free
6532 speech</a>, it has become obvious that PayPal, visa and mastercard can
6533 not be trusted to handle money transactions.
6534 A blog post from
6535 <a href="http://webmink.com/2010/12/06/now-accepting-bitcoin/">Simon
6536 Phipps on bitcoin</a> reminded me about a project that a friend of
6537 mine mentioned earlier.  I decided to follow Simon's example, and get
6538 involved with <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>.  I got
6539 some help from my friend to get it all running, and he even handed me
6540 some bitcoins to get started.  I even donated a few bitcoins to Simon
6541 for helping me remember BitCoin.</p>
6542
6543 <p>So, what is bitcoins, you probably wonder?  It is a digital
6544 crypto-currency, decentralised and handled using peer-to-peer
6545 networks.  It allows anonymous transactions and prohibits central
6546 control over the transactions, making it impossible for governments
6547 and companies alike to block donations and other transactions.  The
6548 source is free software, and while the key dependency wxWidgets 2.9
6549 for the graphical user interface is missing in Debian, the command
6550 line client builds just fine.  Hopefully Jonas
6551 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/578157">will get the package into
6552 Debian</a> soon.</p>
6553
6554 <p>Bitcoins can be converted to other currencies, like USD and EUR.
6555 There are <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/trade">companies accepting
6556 bitcoins</a> when selling services and goods, and there are even
6557 currency "stock" markets where the exchange rate is decided.  There
6558 are not many users so far, but the concept seems promising.  If you
6559 want to get started and lack a friend with any bitcoins to spare,
6560 you can even get
6561 <a href="https://freebitcoins.appspot.com/">some for free</a> (0.05
6562 bitcoin at the time of writing).  Use
6563 <a href="http://www.bitcoinwatch.com/">BitcoinWatch</a> to keep an eye
6564 on the current exchange rates.</p>
6565
6566 <p>As an experiment, I have decided to set up bitcoind on one of my
6567 machines.  If you want to support my activity, please send Bitcoin
6568 donations to the address
6569 <b>15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</b>.  Thank you!</p>
6570
6571       </div>
6572       <div class="tags">
6573
6574
6575         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>.
6576
6577
6578       </div>
6579     </div>
6580     <div class="padding"></div>
6581
6582     <div class="entry">
6583       <div class="title">
6584         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_isn_t_Debian_Edu_using_VLC_.html">Why isn't Debian Edu using VLC?</a>
6585       </div>
6586       <div class="date">
6587         27th November 2010
6588       </div>
6589       <div class="body">
6590         <p>In the latest issue of Linux Journal, the readers choices were
6591 presented, and the winner among the multimedia player were VLC.
6592 Personally, I like VLC, and it is my player of choice when I first try
6593 to play a video file or stream.  Only if VLC fail will I drag out
6594 gmplayer to see if it can do better.  The reason is mostly the failure
6595 model and trust.  When VLC fail, it normally pop up a error message
6596 reporting the problem.  When mplayer fail, it normally segfault or
6597 just hangs.  The latter failure mode drain my trust in the program.<p>
6598
6599 <p>But even if VLC is my player of choice, we have choosen to use
6600 mplayer in <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
6601 Edu/Skolelinux</a>.  The reason is simple.  We need a good browser
6602 plugin to play web videos seamlessly, and the VLC browser plugin is
6603 not very good.  For example, it lack in-line control buttons, so there
6604 is no way for the user to pause the video.  Also, when I
6605 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">last
6606 tested the browser plugins</a> available in Debian, the VLC plugin
6607 failed on several video pages where mplayer based plugins worked.  If
6608 the browser plugin for VLC was as good as the gecko-mediaplayer
6609 package (which uses mplayer), we would switch.</P>
6610
6611 <p>While VLC is a good player, its user interface is slightly
6612 annoying.  The most annoying feature is its inconsistent use of
6613 keyboard shortcuts.  When the player is in full screen mode, its
6614 shortcuts are different from when it is playing the video in a window.
6615 For example, space only work as pause when in full screen mode.  I
6616 wish it had consisten shortcuts and that space also would work when in
6617 window mode.  Another nice shortcut in gmplayer is [enter] to restart
6618 the current video.  It is very nice when playing short videos from the
6619 web and want to restart it when new people arrive to have a look at
6620 what is going on.</p>
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>, <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>.
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/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>
6636       </div>
6637       <div class="date">
6638         22nd November 2010
6639       </div>
6640       <div class="body">
6641         <p>Michael Biebl suggested to me on IRC, that I changed my automated
6642 upgrade testing of the
6643 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
6644 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a> to do <tt>apt-get autoremove</tt> when using apt-get.
6645 This seem like a very good idea, so I adjusted by test scripts and
6646 can now present the updated result from today:</p>
6647
6648 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
6649
6650 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
6651
6652 <blockquote><p>
6653   apache2.2-bin
6654   aptdaemon
6655   baobab
6656   binfmt-support
6657   browser-plugin-gnash
6658   cheese-common
6659   cli-common
6660   cups-pk-helper
6661   dmz-cursor-theme
6662   empathy
6663   empathy-common
6664   freedesktop-sound-theme
6665   freeglut3
6666   gconf-defaults-service
6667   gdm-themes
6668   gedit-plugins
6669   geoclue
6670   geoclue-hostip
6671   geoclue-localnet
6672   geoclue-manual
6673   geoclue-yahoo
6674   gnash
6675   gnash-common
6676   gnome
6677   gnome-backgrounds
6678   gnome-cards-data
6679   gnome-codec-install
6680   gnome-core
6681   gnome-desktop-environment
6682   gnome-disk-utility
6683   gnome-screenshot
6684   gnome-search-tool
6685   gnome-session-canberra
6686   gnome-system-log
6687   gnome-themes-extras
6688   gnome-themes-more
6689   gnome-user-share
6690   gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
6691   gstreamer0.10-tools
6692   gtk2-engines
6693   gtk2-engines-pixbuf
6694   gtk2-engines-smooth
6695   hamster-applet
6696   libapache2-mod-dnssd
6697   libapr1
6698   libaprutil1
6699   libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3
6700   libaprutil1-ldap
6701   libart2.0-cil
6702   libboost-date-time1.42.0
6703   libboost-python1.42.0
6704   libboost-thread1.42.0
6705   libchamplain-0.4-0
6706   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0
6707   libcheese-gtk18
6708   libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
6709   libcryptui0
6710   libdiscid0
6711   libelf1
6712   libepc-1.0-2
6713   libepc-common
6714   libepc-ui-1.0-2
6715   libfreerdp-plugins-standard
6716   libfreerdp0
6717   libgconf2.0-cil
6718   libgdata-common
6719   libgdata7
6720   libgdu-gtk0
6721   libgee2
6722   libgeoclue0
6723   libgexiv2-0
6724   libgif4
6725   libglade2.0-cil
6726   libglib2.0-cil
6727   libgmime2.4-cil
6728   libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
6729   libgnome2.24-cil
6730   libgnomepanel2.24-cil
6731   libgpod-common
6732   libgpod4
6733   libgtk2.0-cil
6734   libgtkglext1
6735   libgtksourceview2.0-common
6736   libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
6737   libmono-addins0.2-cil
6738   libmono-cairo2.0-cil
6739   libmono-corlib2.0-cil
6740   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil
6741   libmono-posix2.0-cil
6742   libmono-security2.0-cil
6743   libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
6744   libmono-system2.0-cil
6745   libmtp8
6746   libmusicbrainz3-6
6747   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil
6748   libndesk-dbus1.0-cil
6749   libopal3.6.8
6750   libpolkit-gtk-1-0
6751   libpt2.6.7
6752   libpython2.6
6753   librpm1
6754   librpmio1
6755   libsdl1.2debian
6756   libsrtp0
6757   libssh-4
6758   libtelepathy-farsight0
6759   libtelepathy-glib0
6760   libtidy-0.99-0
6761   media-player-info
6762   mesa-utils
6763   mono-2.0-gac
6764   mono-gac
6765   mono-runtime
6766   nautilus-sendto
6767   nautilus-sendto-empathy
6768   p7zip-full
6769   pkg-config
6770   python-aptdaemon
6771   python-aptdaemon-gtk
6772   python-axiom
6773   python-beautifulsoup
6774   python-bugbuddy
6775   python-clientform
6776   python-coherence
6777   python-configobj
6778   python-crypto
6779   python-cupshelpers
6780   python-elementtree
6781   python-epsilon
6782   python-evolution
6783   python-feedparser
6784   python-gdata
6785   python-gdbm
6786   python-gst0.10
6787   python-gtkglext1
6788   python-gtksourceview2
6789   python-httplib2
6790   python-louie
6791   python-mako
6792   python-markupsafe
6793   python-mechanize
6794   python-nevow
6795   python-notify
6796   python-opengl
6797   python-openssl
6798   python-pam
6799   python-pkg-resources
6800   python-pyasn1
6801   python-pysqlite2
6802   python-rdflib
6803   python-serial
6804   python-tagpy
6805   python-twisted-bin
6806   python-twisted-conch
6807   python-twisted-core
6808   python-twisted-web
6809   python-utidylib
6810   python-webkit
6811   python-xdg
6812   python-zope.interface
6813   remmina
6814   remmina-plugin-data
6815   remmina-plugin-rdp
6816   remmina-plugin-vnc
6817   rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
6818   rhythmbox-plugins
6819   rpm-common
6820   rpm2cpio
6821   seahorse-plugins
6822   shotwell
6823   software-center
6824   system-config-printer-udev
6825   telepathy-gabble
6826   telepathy-mission-control-5
6827   telepathy-salut
6828   tomboy
6829   totem
6830   totem-coherence
6831   totem-mozilla
6832   totem-plugins
6833   transmission-common
6834   xdg-user-dirs
6835   xdg-user-dirs-gtk
6836   xserver-xephyr
6837 </p></blockquote>
6838
6839 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
6840
6841 <blockquote><p>
6842   cheese
6843   ekiga
6844   eog
6845   epiphany-extensions
6846   evolution-exchange
6847   fast-user-switch-applet
6848   file-roller
6849   gcalctool
6850   gconf-editor
6851   gdm
6852   gedit
6853   gedit-common
6854   gnome-games
6855   gnome-games-data
6856   gnome-nettool
6857   gnome-system-tools
6858   gnome-themes
6859   gnuchess
6860   gucharmap
6861   guile-1.8-libs
6862   libavahi-ui0
6863   libdmx1
6864   libgalago3
6865   libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
6866   libgtksourceview2.0-0
6867   liblircclient0
6868   libsdl1.2debian-alsa
6869   libspeexdsp1
6870   libsvga1
6871   rhythmbox
6872   seahorse
6873   sound-juicer
6874   system-config-printer
6875   totem-common
6876   transmission-gtk
6877   vinagre
6878   vino
6879 </p></blockquote>
6880
6881 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
6882
6883 <blockquote><p>
6884   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
6885 </p></blockquote>
6886
6887 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
6888
6889 <blockquote><p>
6890 [nothing]
6891 </p></blockquote>
6892
6893 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
6894
6895 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
6896
6897 <blockquote><p>
6898   ksmserver
6899 </p></blockquote>
6900
6901 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
6902
6903 <blockquote><p>
6904   kwin
6905   network-manager-kde
6906 </p></blockquote>
6907
6908 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
6909
6910 <blockquote><p>
6911   arts
6912   dolphin
6913   freespacenotifier
6914   google-gadgets-gst
6915   google-gadgets-xul
6916   kappfinder
6917   kcalc
6918   kcharselect
6919   kde-core
6920   kde-plasma-desktop
6921   kde-standard
6922   kde-window-manager
6923   kdeartwork
6924   kdeartwork-emoticons
6925   kdeartwork-style
6926   kdeartwork-theme-icon
6927   kdebase
6928   kdebase-apps
6929   kdebase-workspace
6930   kdebase-workspace-bin
6931   kdebase-workspace-data
6932   kdeeject
6933   kdelibs
6934   kdeplasma-addons
6935   kdeutils
6936   kdewallpapers
6937   kdf
6938   kfloppy
6939   kgpg
6940   khelpcenter4
6941   kinfocenter
6942   konq-plugins-l10n
6943   konqueror-nsplugins
6944   kscreensaver
6945   kscreensaver-xsavers
6946   ktimer
6947   kwrite
6948   libgle3
6949   libkde4-ruby1.8
6950   libkonq5
6951   libkonq5-templates
6952   libnetpbm10
6953   libplasma-ruby
6954   libplasma-ruby1.8
6955   libqt4-ruby1.8
6956   marble-data
6957   marble-plugins
6958   netpbm
6959   nuvola-icon-theme
6960   plasma-dataengines-workspace
6961   plasma-desktop
6962   plasma-desktopthemes-artwork
6963   plasma-runners-addons
6964   plasma-scriptengine-googlegadgets
6965   plasma-scriptengine-python
6966   plasma-scriptengine-qedje
6967   plasma-scriptengine-ruby
6968   plasma-scriptengine-webkit
6969   plasma-scriptengines
6970   plasma-wallpapers-addons
6971   plasma-widget-folderview
6972   plasma-widget-networkmanagement
6973   ruby
6974   sweeper
6975   update-notifier-kde
6976   xscreensaver-data-extra
6977   xscreensaver-gl
6978   xscreensaver-gl-extra
6979   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
6980 </p></blockquote>
6981
6982 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
6983
6984 <blockquote><p>
6985   ark
6986   google-gadgets-common
6987   google-gadgets-qt
6988   htdig
6989   kate
6990   kdebase-bin
6991   kdebase-data
6992   kdepasswd
6993   kfind
6994   klipper
6995   konq-plugins
6996   konqueror
6997   ksysguard
6998   ksysguardd
6999   libarchive1
7000   libcln6
7001   libeet1
7002   libeina-svn-06
7003   libggadget-1.0-0b
7004   libggadget-qt-1.0-0b
7005   libgps19
7006   libkdecorations4
7007   libkephal4
7008   libkonq4
7009   libkonqsidebarplugin4a
7010   libkscreensaver5
7011   libksgrd4
7012   libksignalplotter4
7013   libkunitconversion4
7014   libkwineffects1a
7015   libmarblewidget4
7016   libntrack-qt4-1
7017   libntrack0
7018   libplasma-geolocation-interface4
7019   libplasmaclock4a
7020   libplasmagenericshell4
7021   libprocesscore4a
7022   libprocessui4a
7023   libqalculate5
7024   libqedje0a
7025   libqtruby4shared2
7026   libqzion0a
7027   libruby1.8
7028   libscim8c2a
7029   libsmokekdecore4-3
7030   libsmokekdeui4-3
7031   libsmokekfile3
7032   libsmokekhtml3
7033   libsmokekio3
7034   libsmokeknewstuff2-3
7035   libsmokeknewstuff3-3
7036   libsmokekparts3
7037   libsmokektexteditor3
7038   libsmokekutils3
7039   libsmokenepomuk3
7040   libsmokephonon3
7041   libsmokeplasma3
7042   libsmokeqtcore4-3
7043   libsmokeqtdbus4-3
7044   libsmokeqtgui4-3
7045   libsmokeqtnetwork4-3
7046   libsmokeqtopengl4-3
7047   libsmokeqtscript4-3
7048   libsmokeqtsql4-3
7049   libsmokeqtsvg4-3
7050   libsmokeqttest4-3
7051   libsmokeqtuitools4-3
7052   libsmokeqtwebkit4-3
7053   libsmokeqtxml4-3
7054   libsmokesolid3
7055   libsmokesoprano3
7056   libtaskmanager4a
7057   libtidy-0.99-0
7058   libweather-ion4a
7059   libxklavier16
7060   libxxf86misc1
7061   okteta
7062   oxygencursors
7063   plasma-dataengines-addons
7064   plasma-scriptengine-superkaramba
7065   plasma-widget-lancelot
7066   plasma-widgets-addons
7067   plasma-widgets-workspace
7068   polkit-kde-1
7069   ruby1.8
7070   systemsettings
7071   update-notifier-common
7072 </p></blockquote>
7073
7074 <p>Running apt-get autoremove made the results using apt-get and
7075 aptitude a bit more similar, but there are still quite a lott of
7076 differences.  I have no idea what packages should be installed after
7077 the upgrade, but hope those that do can have a look.</p>
7078
7079       </div>
7080       <div class="tags">
7081
7082
7083         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>.
7084
7085
7086       </div>
7087     </div>
7088     <div class="padding"></div>
7089
7090     <div class="entry">
7091       <div class="title">
7092         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Migrating_Xen_virtual_machines_using_LVM_to_KVM_using_disk_images.html">Migrating Xen virtual machines using LVM to KVM using disk images</a>
7093       </div>
7094       <div class="date">
7095         22nd November 2010
7096       </div>
7097       <div class="body">
7098         <p>Most of the computers in use by the
7099 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux project</a>
7100 are virtual machines.  And they have been Xen machines running on a
7101 fairly old IBM eserver xseries 345 machine, and we wanted to migrate
7102 them to KVM on a newer Dell PowerEdge 2950 host machine.  This was a
7103 bit harder that it could have been, because we set up the Xen virtual
7104 machines to get the virtual partitions from LVM, which as far as I
7105 know is not supported by KVM.  So to migrate, we had to convert
7106 several LVM logical volumes to partitions on a virtual disk file.</p>
7107
7108 <p>I found
7109 <a href="http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM">a
7110 nice recipe</a> to do this, and wrote the following script to do the
7111 migration.  It uses qemu-img from the qemu package to make the disk
7112 image, parted to partition it, losetup and kpartx to present the disk
7113 image partions as devices, and dd to copy the data.  I NFS mounted the
7114 new servers storage area on the old server to do the migration.</p>
7115
7116 <pre>
7117 #!/bin/sh
7118
7119 # Based on
7120 # http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM
7121
7122 set -e
7123 set -x
7124
7125 if [ -z "$1" ] ; then
7126     echo "Usage: $0 &lt;hostname&gt;"
7127     exit 1
7128 else
7129     host="$1"
7130 fi
7131
7132 if [ ! -e /dev/vg_data/$host-disk ] ; then
7133     echo "error: unable to find LVM volume for $host"
7134     exit 1
7135 fi
7136
7137 # Partitions need to be a bit bigger than the LVM LVs.  not sure why.
7138 disksize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-disk | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
7139 swapsize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-swap | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
7140 totalsize=$(( ( $disksize + $swapsize ) ))
7141
7142 img=$host.img
7143 #dd if=/dev/zero of=$img bs=1M count=$(( $disksize + $swapsize ))
7144 qemu-img create $img ${totalsize}MMaking room on the Debian Edu/Sqeeze DVD
7145
7146 parted $img mklabel msdos
7147 parted $img mkpart primary linux-swap 0 $disksize
7148 parted $img mkpart primary ext2 $disksize $totalsize
7149 parted $img set 1 boot on
7150
7151 modprobe dm-mod
7152 losetup /dev/loop0 $img
7153 kpartx -a /dev/loop0
7154
7155 dd if=/dev/vg_data/$host-disk of=/dev/mapper/loop0p1 bs=1M
7156 fsck.ext3 -f /dev/mapper/loop0p1 || true
7157 mkswap /dev/mapper/loop0p2
7158
7159 kpartx -d /dev/loop0
7160 losetup -d /dev/loop0
7161 </pre>
7162
7163 <p>The script is perhaps so simple that it is not copyrightable, but
7164 if it is, it is licenced using GPL v2 or later at your discretion.</p>
7165
7166 <p>After doing this, I booted a Debian CD in rescue mode in KVM with
7167 the new disk image attached, installed grub-pc and linux-image-686 and
7168 set up grub to boot from the disk image.  After this, the KVM machines
7169 seem to work just fine.</p>
7170
7171       </div>
7172       <div class="tags">
7173
7174
7175         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>.
7176
7177
7178       </div>
7179     </div>
7180     <div class="padding"></div>
7181
7182     <div class="entry">
7183       <div class="title">
7184         <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>
7185       </div>
7186       <div class="date">
7187         20th November 2010
7188       </div>
7189       <div class="body">
7190         <p>I'm still running upgrade testing of the
7191 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
7192 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a>, but have not had time to spend on reporting the
7193 status.  Here is a short update based on a test I ran 20101118.</p>
7194
7195 <p>I still do not know what a correct migration should look like, so I
7196 report any differences between apt and aptitude and hope someone else
7197 can see if anything should be changed.</p>
7198
7199 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
7200
7201 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
7202
7203 <blockquote><p>
7204   apache2.2-bin aptdaemon at-spi baobab binfmt-support
7205   browser-plugin-gnash cheese-common cli-common cpp-4.3 cups-pk-helper
7206   dmz-cursor-theme empathy empathy-common finger
7207   freedesktop-sound-theme freeglut3 gconf-defaults-service gdm-themes
7208   gedit-plugins geoclue geoclue-hostip geoclue-localnet geoclue-manual
7209   geoclue-yahoo gnash gnash-common gnome gnome-backgrounds
7210   gnome-cards-data gnome-codec-install gnome-core
7211   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-disk-utility gnome-screenshot
7212   gnome-search-tool gnome-session-canberra gnome-spell
7213   gnome-system-log gnome-themes-extras gnome-themes-more
7214   gnome-user-share gs-common gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
7215   gstreamer0.10-tools gtk2-engines gtk2-engines-pixbuf
7216   gtk2-engines-smooth hal-info hamster-applet libapache2-mod-dnssd
7217   libapr1 libaprutil1 libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3 libaprutil1-ldap
7218   libart2.0-cil libatspi1.0-0 libboost-date-time1.42.0
7219   libboost-python1.42.0 libboost-thread1.42.0 libchamplain-0.4-0
7220   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0 libcheese-gtk18 libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
7221   libcryptui0 libcupsys2 libdiscid0 libeel2-data libelf1 libepc-1.0-2
7222   libepc-common libepc-ui-1.0-2 libfreerdp-plugins-standard
7223   libfreerdp0 libgail-common libgconf2.0-cil libgdata-common libgdata7
7224   libgdl-1-common libgdu-gtk0 libgee2 libgeoclue0 libgexiv2-0 libgif4
7225   libglade2.0-cil libglib2.0-cil libgmime2.4-cil libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
7226   libgnome2.24-cil libgnomepanel2.24-cil libgnomeprint2.2-data
7227   libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod-common libgpod4
7228   libgtk2.0-cil libgtkglext1 libgtksourceview-common
7229   libgtksourceview2.0-common libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
7230   libmono-addins0.2-cil libmono-cairo2.0-cil libmono-corlib2.0-cil
7231   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil libmono-posix2.0-cil
7232   libmono-security2.0-cil libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
7233   libmono-system2.0-cil libmtp8 libmusicbrainz3-6
7234   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil libndesk-dbus1.0-cil libopal3.6.8
7235   libpolkit-gtk-1-0 libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
7236   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libpt2.6.7 libpython2.6 librpm1 librpmio1
7237   libsdl1.2debian libservlet2.4-java libsrtp0 libssh-4
7238   libtelepathy-farsight0 libtelepathy-glib0 libtidy-0.99-0
7239   libxalan2-java libxerces2-java media-player-info mesa-utils
7240   mono-2.0-gac mono-gac mono-runtime nautilus-sendto
7241   nautilus-sendto-empathy openoffice.org-writer2latex
7242   openssl-blacklist p7zip p7zip-full pkg-config python-4suite-xml
7243   python-aptdaemon python-aptdaemon-gtk python-axiom
7244   python-beautifulsoup python-bugbuddy python-clientform
7245   python-coherence python-configobj python-crypto python-cupshelpers
7246   python-cupsutils python-eggtrayicon python-elementtree
7247   python-epsilon python-evolution python-feedparser python-gdata
7248   python-gdbm python-gst0.10 python-gtkglext1 python-gtkmozembed
7249   python-gtksourceview2 python-httplib2 python-louie python-mako
7250   python-markupsafe python-mechanize python-nevow python-notify
7251   python-opengl python-openssl python-pam python-pkg-resources
7252   python-pyasn1 python-pysqlite2 python-rdflib python-serial
7253   python-tagpy python-twisted-bin python-twisted-conch
7254   python-twisted-core python-twisted-web python-utidylib python-webkit
7255   python-xdg python-zope.interface remmina remmina-plugin-data
7256   remmina-plugin-rdp remmina-plugin-vnc rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
7257   rhythmbox-plugins rpm-common rpm2cpio seahorse-plugins shotwell
7258   software-center svgalibg1 system-config-printer-udev
7259   telepathy-gabble telepathy-mission-control-5 telepathy-salut tomboy
7260   totem totem-coherence totem-mozilla totem-plugins
7261   transmission-common xdg-user-dirs xdg-user-dirs-gtk xserver-xephyr
7262   zip
7263 </p></blockquote>
7264
7265 Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude
7266
7267 <blockquote><p>
7268   arj bluez-utils cheese dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop ekiga eog
7269   epiphany-extensions epiphany-gecko evolution-exchange
7270   fast-user-switch-applet file-roller gcalctool gconf-editor gdm gedit
7271   gedit-common gnome-app-install gnome-games gnome-games-data
7272   gnome-nettool gnome-system-tools gnome-themes gnome-utils
7273   gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager gnuchess gucharmap
7274   guile-1.8-libs hal libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5
7275   libavahi-ui0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7
7276   libcucul0 libcurl3 libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdmx1 libdvdread3
7277   libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1
7278   libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3 libfaad0 libgadu3
7279   libgalago3 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
7280   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
7281   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
7282   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
7283   libgtkhtml2-0 libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgtksourceview2.0-0
7284   libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
7285   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libkpathsea4 liblircclient0 libltdl3 liblwres50
7286   libmagick++10 libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmozjs1d libmpfr1ldbl libmtp7
7287   libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0
7288   libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpisock9
7289   libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8
7290   libsdl1.2debian-alsa libsensors3 libsexy2 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
7291   libspeexdsp1 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libsvga1
7292   libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0
7293   libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12
7294   libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common rhythmbox seahorse
7295   sound-juicer swfdec-gnome system-config-printer totem-common
7296   totem-gstreamer transmission-gtk vinagre vino w3c-dtd-xhtml wodim
7297 </p></blockquote>
7298
7299 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
7300
7301 <blockquote><p>
7302   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
7303 </p></blockquote>
7304
7305 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
7306
7307 <blockquote><p>
7308 [nothing]
7309 </p></blockquote>
7310
7311 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
7312
7313 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
7314
7315 <blockquote><p>
7316   autopoint bomber bovo cantor cantor-backend-kalgebra cpp-4.3 dcoprss
7317   edict espeak espeak-data eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
7318   ghostscript-x git gnome-audio gnugo granatier gs-common
7319   gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio indi kaddressbook-plugins kalgebra
7320   kalzium-data kanjidic kapman kate-plugins kblocks kbreakout kbstate
7321   kde-icons-mono kdeaccessibility kdeaddons-kfile-plugins
7322   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
7323   kdeedu kdeedu-data kdeedu-kvtml-data kdegames kdegames-card-data
7324   kdegames-mahjongg-data kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc
7325   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
7326   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdessh kdetoys kdewebdev
7327   kdiamond kdnssd kfilereplace kfourinline kgeography-data kigo
7328   killbots kiriki klettres-data kmoon kmrml knewsticker-scripts
7329   kollision kpf krosspython ksirk ksmserver ksquares kstars-data
7330   ksudoku kubrick kweather libasound2-plugins libboost-python1.42.0
7331   libcfitsio3 libconvert-binhex-perl libcrypt-ssleay-perl libdb4.6++
7332   libdjvulibre-text libdotconf1.0 liberror-perl libespeak1
7333   libfinance-quote-perl libgail-common libgsl0ldbl libhtml-parser-perl
7334   libhtml-tableextract-perl libhtml-tagset-perl libhtml-tree-perl
7335   libio-stringy-perl libkdeedu4 libkdegames5 libkiten4 libkpathsea5
7336   libkrossui4 libmailtools-perl libmime-tools-perl
7337   libnews-nntpclient-perl libopenbabel3 libportaudio2 libpulse-browse0
7338   libservlet2.4-java libspeechd2 libtiff-tools libtimedate-perl
7339   libunistring0 liburi-perl libwww-perl libxalan2-java libxerces2-java
7340   lirc luatex marble networkstatus noatun-plugins
7341   openoffice.org-writer2latex palapeli palapeli-data parley
7342   parley-data poster psutils pulseaudio pulseaudio-esound-compat
7343   pulseaudio-module-x11 pulseaudio-utils quanta-data rocs rsync
7344   speech-dispatcher step svgalibg1 texlive-binaries texlive-luatex
7345   ttf-sazanami-gothic
7346 </p></blockquote>
7347
7348 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
7349
7350 <blockquote><p>
7351   amor artsbuilder atlantik atlantikdesigner blinken bluez-utils cvs
7352   dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop imlib-base imlib11 kalzium kanagram kandy
7353   kasteroids katomic kbackgammon kbattleship kblackbox kbounce kbruch
7354   kcron kdat kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data kdeprint kdict kdvi kedit
7355   keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs kgeography kghostview
7356   kgoldrunner khangman khexedit kiconedit kig kimagemapeditor
7357   kitchensync kiten kjumpingcube klatin klettres klickety klines
7358   klinkstatus kmag kmahjongg kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmines
7359   kmousetool kmouth kmplot knetwalk kodo kolf kommander konquest kooka
7360   kpager kpat kpdf kpercentage kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler krec
7361   kregexpeditor kreversi ksame ksayit kshisen ksig ksim ksirc ksirtet
7362   ksmiletris ksnake ksokoban kspaceduel kstars ksvg ksysv kteatime
7363   ktip ktnef ktouch ktron kttsd ktuberling kturtle ktux kuickshow
7364   kverbos kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kwordquiz
7365   kworldclock kxsldbg libakode2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
7366   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
7367   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2
7368   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0
7369   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
7370   libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0 libicu38
7371   libiec61883-0 libindex0 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
7372   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1 libkdeedu3
7373   libkdegames1 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
7374   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
7375   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick10
7376   libmimelib1c2a libmodplug0c2 libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libmpfr1ldbl
7377   libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9 libpoppler-glib3
7378   libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 librss1 libsensors3
7379   libsmbios2 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90
7380   libtalloc1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 lskat
7381   mpeglib network-manager-kde noatun pmount tex-common texlive-base
7382   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended tidy
7383   ttf-dustin ttf-kochi-gothic ttf-sjfonts
7384 </p></blockquote>
7385
7386 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
7387
7388 <blockquote><p>
7389   dolphin kde-core kde-plasma-desktop kde-standard kde-window-manager
7390   kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-apps kdebase-workspace
7391   kdebase-workspace-bin kdebase-workspace-data kdeutils kscreensaver
7392   kscreensaver-xsavers libgle3 libkonq5 libkonq5-templates libnetpbm10
7393   netpbm plasma-widget-folderview plasma-widget-networkmanagement
7394   xscreensaver-data-extra xscreensaver-gl xscreensaver-gl-extra
7395   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
7396 </p></blockquote>
7397
7398 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
7399
7400 <blockquote><p>
7401   kdebase-bin konq-plugins konqueror
7402 </p></blockquote>
7403
7404       </div>
7405       <div class="tags">
7406
7407
7408         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>.
7409
7410
7411       </div>
7412     </div>
7413     <div class="padding"></div>
7414
7415     <div class="entry">
7416       <div class="title">
7417         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gnash_buildbot_slave_and_Debian_kfreebsd.html">Gnash buildbot slave and Debian kfreebsd</a>
7418       </div>
7419       <div class="date">
7420         20th November 2010
7421       </div>
7422       <div class="body">
7423         <p>Answering
7424 <a href="http://www.listware.net/201011/gnash-dev/67431-gnash-dev-buildbot-looking-for-slaves.html">the
7425 call from the Gnash project</a> for
7426 <a href="http://www.gnashdev.org:8010">buildbot</a> slaves to test the
7427 current source, I have set up a virtual KVM machine on the Debian
7428 Edu/Skolelinux virtualization host to test the git source on
7429 Debian/Squeeze.  I hope this can help the developers in getting new
7430 releases out more often.</p>
7431
7432 <p>As the developers want less main-stream build platforms tested to,
7433 I have considered setting up a <a
7434 href="http://www.debian.org/ports/kfreebsd-gnu/">Debian/kfreebsd</a>
7435 machine as well.  I have also considered using the kfreebsd
7436 architecture in Debian as a file server in NUUG to get access to the 5
7437 TB zfs volume we currently use to store DV video.  Because of this, I
7438 finally got around to do a test installation of Debian/Squeeze with
7439 kfreebsd.  Installation went fairly smooth, thought I noticed some
7440 visual glitches in the cdebconf dialogs (black cursor left on the
7441 screen at random locations).  Have not gotten very far with the
7442 testing.  Noticed cfdisk did not work, but fdisk did so it was not a
7443 fatal problem.  Have to spend some more time on it to see if it is
7444 useful as a file server for NUUG.  Will try to find time to set up a
7445 gnash buildbot slave on the Debian Edu/Skolelinux this weekend.</p>
7446
7447       </div>
7448       <div class="tags">
7449
7450
7451         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>.
7452
7453
7454       </div>
7455     </div>
7456     <div class="padding"></div>
7457
7458     <div class="entry">
7459       <div class="title">
7460         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_in_3D.html">Debian in 3D</a>
7461       </div>
7462       <div class="date">
7463          9th November 2010
7464       </div>
7465       <div class="body">
7466         <p><img src="http://thingiverse-production.s3.amazonaws.com/renders/23/e0/c4/f9/2b/debswagtdose_preview_medium.jpg"></p>
7467
7468 <p>3D printing is just great.  I just came across this Debian logo in
7469 3D linked in from
7470 <a href="http://blog.thingiverse.com/2010/11/09/participatory-branding/">the
7471 thingiverse blog</a>.</p>
7472
7473       </div>
7474       <div class="tags">
7475
7476
7477         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>.
7478
7479
7480       </div>
7481     </div>
7482     <div class="padding"></div>
7483
7484     <div class="entry">
7485       <div class="title">
7486         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Software_updates_2010_10_24.html">Software updates 2010-10-24</a>
7487       </div>
7488       <div class="date">
7489         24th October 2010
7490       </div>
7491       <div class="body">
7492         <p>Some updates.</p>
7493
7494 <p>My <a href="http://pledgebank.com/gnash-avm2">gnash pledge</a> to
7495 raise money for the project is going well.  The lower limit of 10
7496 signers was reached in 24 hours, and so far 13 people have signed it.
7497 More signers and more funding is most welcome, and I am really curious
7498 how far we can get before the time limit of December 24 is reached.
7499 :)</p>
7500
7501 <p>On the #gnash IRC channel on irc.freenode.net, I was just tipped
7502 about what appear to be a great code coverage tool capable of
7503 generating code coverage stats without any changes to the source code.
7504 It is called
7505 <a href="http://simonkagstrom.github.com/kcov/index.html">kcov</a>,
7506 and can be used using <tt>kcov &lt;directory&gt; &lt;binary&gt;</tt>.
7507 It is missing in Debian, but the git source built just fine in Squeeze
7508 after I installed libelf-dev, libdwarf-dev, pkg-config and
7509 libglib2.0-dev.  Failed to build in Lenny, but suspect that is
7510 solvable.  I hope kcov make it into Debian soon.</p>
7511
7512 <p>Finally found time to wrap up the release notes for <a
7513 href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2010/10/msg00002.html">a
7514 new alpha release of Debian Edu</a>, and just published the second
7515 alpha test release of the Squeeze based Debian Edu /
7516 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a>
7517 release.  Give it a try if you need a complete linux solution for your
7518 school, including central infrastructure server, workstations, thin
7519 client servers and diskless workstations.  A nice touch added
7520 yesterday is RDP support on the thin client servers, for windows
7521 clients to get a Linux desktop on request.</p>
7522
7523       </div>
7524       <div class="tags">
7525
7526
7527         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>.
7528
7529
7530       </div>
7531     </div>
7532     <div class="padding"></div>
7533
7534     <div class="entry">
7535       <div class="title">
7536         <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>
7537       </div>
7538       <div class="date">
7539          4th September 2010
7540       </div>
7541       <div class="body">
7542         <p>In the <a href="http://popcon.debian.org/unknown/by_vote">Debian
7543 popularity-contest numbers</a>, the adobe-flashplugin package the
7544 second most popular used package that is missing in Debian.  The sixth
7545 most popular is flashplayer-mozilla.  This is a clear indication that
7546 working flash is important for Debian users.  Around 10 percent of the
7547 users submitting data to popcon.debian.org have this package
7548 installed.</p>
7549
7550 <p>In the report written by Lars Risan in August 2008
7551 («<a href="http://wiki.skolelinux.no/Dokumentasjon/Rapporter?action=AttachFile&do=view&target=Skolelinux_i_bruk_rapport_1.0.pdf">Skolelinux
7552 i bruk – Rapport for Hurum kommune, Universitetet i Agder og
7553 stiftelsen SLX Debian Labs</a>»), one of the most important problems
7554 schools experienced with <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
7555 Edu/Skolelinux</a> was the lack of working Flash.  A lot of educational
7556 web sites require Flash to work, and lacking working Flash support in
7557 the web browser and the problems with installing it was perceived as a
7558 good reason to stay with Windows.</p>
7559
7560 <p>I once saw a funny and sad comment in a web forum, where Linux was
7561 said to be the retarded cousin that did not really understand
7562 everything you told him but could work fairly well.  This was a
7563 comment regarding the problems Linux have with proprietary formats and
7564 non-standard web pages, and is sad because it exposes a fairly common
7565 understanding of whose fault it is if web pages that only work in for
7566 example Internet Explorer 6 fail to work on Firefox, and funny because
7567 it explain very well how annoying it is for users when Linux
7568 distributions do not work with the documents they receive or the web
7569 pages they want to visit.</p>
7570
7571 <p>This is part of the reason why I believe it is important for Debian
7572 and Debian Edu to have a well working Flash implementation in the
7573 distribution, to get at least popular sites as Youtube and Google
7574 Video to working out of the box.  For Squeeze, Debian have the chance
7575 to include the latest version of Gnash that will make this happen, as
7576 the new release 0.8.8 was published a few weeks ago and is resting in
7577 unstable.  The new version work with more sites that version 0.8.7.
7578 The Gnash maintainers have asked for a freeze exception, but the
7579 release team have not had time to reply to it yet.  I hope they agree
7580 with me that Flash is important for the Debian desktop users, and thus
7581 accept the new package into Squeeze.</p>
7582
7583       </div>
7584       <div class="tags">
7585
7586
7587         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>.
7588
7589
7590       </div>
7591     </div>
7592     <div class="padding"></div>
7593
7594     <div class="entry">
7595       <div class="title">
7596         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Circular_package_dependencies_harms_apt_recovery.html">Circular package dependencies harms apt recovery</a>
7597       </div>
7598       <div class="date">
7599         27th July 2010
7600       </div>
7601       <div class="body">
7602         <p>I discovered this while doing
7603 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">automated
7604 testing of upgrades from Debian Lenny to Squeeze</a>.  A few packages
7605 in Debian still got circular dependencies, and it is often claimed
7606 that apt and aptitude should be able to handle this just fine, but
7607 some times these dependency loops causes apt to fail.</p>
7608
7609 <p>An example is from todays
7610 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing//test-20100727-lenny-squeeze-kde-aptitude.txt">upgrade
7611 of KDE using aptitude</a>.  In it, a bug in kdebase-workspace-data
7612 causes perl-modules to fail to upgrade.  The cause is simple.  If a
7613 package fail to unpack, then only part of packages with the circular
7614 dependency might end up being unpacked when unpacking aborts, and the
7615 ones already unpacked will fail to configure in the recovery phase
7616 because its dependencies are unavailable.</p>
7617
7618 <p>In this log, the problem manifest itself with this error:</p>
7619
7620 <blockquote><pre>
7621 dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of perl-modules:
7622  perl-modules depends on perl (>= 5.10.1-1); however:
7623   Version of perl on system is 5.10.0-19lenny2.
7624 dpkg: error processing perl-modules (--configure):
7625  dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
7626 </pre></blockquote>
7627
7628 <p>The perl/perl-modules circular dependency is already
7629 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/527917">reported as a bug</a>, and will
7630 hopefully be solved as soon as possible, but it is not the only one,
7631 and each one of these loops in the dependency tree can cause similar
7632 failures.  Of course, they only occur when there are bugs in other
7633 packages causing the unpacking to fail, but it is rather nasty when
7634 the failure of one package causes the problem to become worse because
7635 of dependency loops.</p>
7636
7637 <p>Thanks to
7638 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/06/msg00116.html">the
7639 tireless effort by Bill Allombert</a>, the number of circular
7640 dependencies
7641 <a href="http://debian.semistable.com/debgraph.out.html">left in Debian
7642 is dropping</a>, and perhaps it will reach zero one day. :)</p>
7643
7644 <p>Todays testing also exposed a bug in
7645 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590605">update-notifier</a> and
7646 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590604">different behaviour</a> between
7647 apt-get and aptitude, the latter possibly caused by some circular
7648 dependency.  Reported both to BTS to try to get someone to look at
7649 it.</p>
7650
7651       </div>
7652       <div class="tags">
7653
7654
7655         Tags: <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>.
7656
7657
7658       </div>
7659     </div>
7660     <div class="padding"></div>
7661
7662     <div class="entry">
7663       <div class="title">
7664         <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>
7665       </div>
7666       <div class="date">
7667         17th July 2010
7668       </div>
7669       <div class="body">
7670         <p>This is a
7671 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">followup</a>
7672 on my
7673 <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
7674 work</a> on
7675 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">merging
7676 all</a> the computer related LDAP objects in Debian Edu.</p>
7677
7678 <p>As a step to try to see if it possible to merge the DNS and DHCP
7679 LDAP objects, I have had a look at how the packages pdns-backend-ldap
7680 and dhcp3-server-ldap in Debian use the LDAP server.  The two
7681 implementations are quite different in how they use LDAP.</p>
7682
7683 To get this information, I started slapd with debugging enabled and
7684 dumped the debug output to a file to get the LDAP searches performed
7685 on a Debian Edu main-server.  Here is a summary.
7686
7687 <p><strong>powerdns</strong></p>
7688
7689 <a href="http://www.linuxnetworks.de/doc/index.php/PowerDNS_LDAP_Backend">Clues
7690 on how to</a> set up PowerDNS to use a LDAP backend is available on
7691 the web.
7692
7693 <p>PowerDNS have two modes of operation using LDAP as its backend.
7694 One "strict" mode where the forward and reverse DNS lookups are done
7695 using the same LDAP objects, and a "tree" mode where the forward and
7696 reverse entries are in two different subtrees in LDAP with a structure
7697 based on the DNS names, as in tjener.intern and
7698 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa.</p>
7699
7700 <p>In tree mode, the server is set up to use a LDAP subtree as its
7701 base, and uses a "base" scoped search for the DNS name by adding
7702 "dc=tjener,dc=intern," to the base with a filter for
7703 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" for the forward entry and
7704 "dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa," with a filter for
7705 "(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)" for the reverse entry.  For
7706 forward entries, it is looking for attributes named dnsttl, arecord,
7707 nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord,
7708 txtrecord, rprecord, afsdbrecord, keyrecord, aaaarecord, locrecord,
7709 srvrecord, naptrrecord, kxrecord, certrecord, dsrecord, sshfprecord,
7710 ipseckeyrecord, rrsigrecord, nsecrecord, dnskeyrecord, dhcidrecord,
7711 spfrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entries it is looking for
7712 the attributes dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord,
7713 ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord,
7714 locrecord, srvrecord, naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  The equivalent
7715 ldapsearch commands could look like this:</p>
7716
7717 <blockquote><pre>
7718 ldapsearch -h ldap \
7719   -b dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
7720   -s base -x '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
7721   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
7722   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
7723   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
7724   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
7725
7726 ldapsearch -h ldap \
7727   -b dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
7728   -s base -x '(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)'
7729   dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord soarecord ptrrecord \
7730   hinforecord mxrecord txtrecord rprecord aaaarecord locrecord \
7731   srvrecord naptrrecord modifytimestamp
7732 </pre></blockquote>
7733
7734 <p>In Debian Edu/Lenny, the PowerDNS tree mode is used with
7735 ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no as the base, and these are two
7736 example LDAP objects used there.  In addition to these objects, the
7737 parent objects all th way up to ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
7738 also exist.</p>
7739
7740 <blockquote><pre>
7741 dn: dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
7742 objectclass: top
7743 objectclass: dnsdomain
7744 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
7745 dc: tjener
7746 arecord: 10.0.2.2
7747 associateddomain: tjener.intern
7748
7749 dn: dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
7750 objectclass: top
7751 objectclass: dnsdomain2
7752 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
7753 dc: 2
7754 ptrrecord: tjener.intern
7755 associateddomain: 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa
7756 </pre></blockquote>
7757
7758 <p>In strict mode, the server behaves differently.  When looking for
7759 forward DNS entries, it is doing a "subtree" scoped search with the
7760 same base as in the tree mode for a object with filter
7761 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" and requests the attributes dnsttl,
7762 arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord,
7763 mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord, locrecord, srvrecord,
7764 naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entires it also do a
7765 subtree scoped search but this time the filter is "(arecord=10.0.2.2)"
7766 and the requested attributes are associateddomain, dnsttl and
7767 modifytimestamp.  In short, in strict mode the objects with ptrrecord
7768 go away, and the arecord attribute in the forward object is used
7769 instead.</p>
7770
7771 <p>The forward and reverse searches can be simulated using ldapsearch
7772 like this:</p>
7773
7774 <blockquote><pre>
7775 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
7776   '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
7777   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
7778   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
7779   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
7780   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
7781
7782 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
7783   '(arecord=10.0.2.2)' associateddomain dnsttl modifytimestamp
7784 </pre></blockquote>
7785
7786 <p>In addition to the forward and reverse searches , there is also a
7787 search for SOA records, which behave similar to the forward and
7788 reverse lookups.</p>
7789
7790 <p>A thing to note with the PowerDNS behaviour is that it do not
7791 specify any objectclass names, and instead look for the attributes it
7792 need to generate a DNS reply.  This make it able to work with any
7793 objectclass that provide the needed attributes.</p>
7794
7795 <p>The attributes are normally provided in the cosine (RFC 1274) and
7796 dnsdomain2 schemas.  The latter is used for reverse entries like
7797 ptrrecord and recent DNS additions like aaaarecord and srvrecord.</p>
7798
7799 <p>In Debian Edu, we have created DNS objects using the object classes
7800 dcobject (for dc), dnsdomain or dnsdomain2 (structural, for the DNS
7801 attributes) and domainrelatedobject (for associatedDomain).  The use
7802 of structural object classes make it impossible to combine these
7803 classes with the object classes used by DHCP.</p>
7804
7805 <p>There are other schemas that could be used too, for example the
7806 dnszone structural object class used by Gosa and bind-sdb for the DNS
7807 attributes combined with the domainrelatedobject object class, but in
7808 this case some unused attributes would have to be included as well
7809 (zonename and relativedomainname).</p>
7810
7811 <p>My proposal for Debian Edu would be to switch PowerDNS to strict
7812 mode and not use any of the existing objectclasses (dnsdomain,
7813 dnsdomain2 and dnszone) when one want to combine the DNS information
7814 with DHCP information, and instead create a auxiliary object class
7815 defined something like this (using the attributes defined for
7816 dnsdomain and dnsdomain2 or dnszone):</p>
7817
7818 <blockquote><pre>
7819 objectclass ( some-oid NAME 'dnsDomainAux'
7820     SUP top
7821     AUXILIARY
7822     MAY ( ARecord $ MDRecord $ MXRecord $ NSRecord $ SOARecord $ CNAMERecord $
7823           DNSTTL $ DNSClass $ PTRRecord $ HINFORecord $ MINFORecord $
7824           TXTRecord $ SIGRecord $ KEYRecord $ AAAARecord $ LOCRecord $
7825           NXTRecord $ SRVRecord $ NAPTRRecord $ KXRecord $ CERTRecord $
7826           A6Record $ DNAMERecord
7827     ))
7828 </pre></blockquote>
7829
7830 <p>This will allow any object to become a DNS entry when combined with
7831 the domainrelatedobject object class, and allow any entity to include
7832 all the attributes PowerDNS wants.  I've sent an email to the PowerDNS
7833 developers asking for their view on this schema and if they are
7834 interested in providing such schema with PowerDNS, and I hope my
7835 message will be accepted into their mailing list soon.</p>
7836
7837 <p><strong>ISC dhcp</strong></p>
7838
7839 <p>The DHCP server searches for specific objectclass and requests all
7840 the object attributes, and then uses the attributes it want.  This
7841 make it harder to figure out exactly what attributes are used, but
7842 thanks to the working example in Debian Edu I can at least get an idea
7843 what is needed without having to read the source code.</p>
7844
7845 <p>In the DHCP server configuration, the LDAP base to use and the
7846 search filter to use to locate the correct dhcpServer entity is
7847 stored.  These are the relevant entries from
7848 /etc/dhcp3/dhcpd.conf:</p>
7849
7850 <blockquote><pre>
7851 ldap-base-dn "dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no";
7852 ldap-dhcp-server-cn "dhcp";
7853 </pre></blockquote>
7854
7855 <p>The DHCP server uses this information to nest all the DHCP
7856 configuration it need.  The cn "dhcp" is located using the given LDAP
7857 base and the filter "(&(objectClass=dhcpServer)(cn=dhcp))".  The
7858 search result is this entry:</p>
7859
7860 <blockquote><pre>
7861 dn: cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
7862 cn: dhcp
7863 objectClass: top
7864 objectClass: dhcpServer
7865 dhcpServiceDN: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
7866 </pre></blockquote>
7867
7868 <p>The content of the dhcpServiceDN attribute is next used to locate the
7869 subtree with DHCP configuration.  The DHCP configuration subtree base
7870 is located using a base scope search with base "cn=DHCP
7871 Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" and filter
7872 "(&(objectClass=dhcpService)(|(dhcpPrimaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)(dhcpSecondaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)))".
7873 The search result is this entry:</p>
7874
7875 <blockquote><pre>
7876 dn: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
7877 cn: DHCP Config
7878 objectClass: top
7879 objectClass: dhcpService
7880 objectClass: dhcpOptions
7881 dhcpPrimaryDN: cn=dhcp, dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
7882 dhcpStatements: ddns-update-style none
7883 dhcpStatements: authoritative
7884 dhcpOption: smtp-server code 69 = array of ip-address
7885 dhcpOption: www-server code 72 = array of ip-address
7886 dhcpOption: wpad-url code 252 = text
7887 </pre></blockquote>
7888
7889 <p>Next, the entire subtree is processed, one level at the time.  When
7890 all the DHCP configuration is loaded, it is ready to receive requests.
7891 The subtree in Debian Edu contain objects with object classes
7892 top/dhcpService/dhcpOptions, top/dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions,
7893 top/dhcpSubnet, top/dhcpGroup and top/dhcpHost.  These provide options
7894 and information about netmasks, dynamic range etc.  Leaving out the
7895 details here because it is not relevant for the focus of my
7896 investigation, which is to see if it is possible to merge dns and dhcp
7897 related computer objects.</p>
7898
7899 <p>When a DHCP request come in, LDAP is searched for the MAC address
7900 of the client (00:00:00:00:00:00 in this example), using a subtree
7901 scoped search with "cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" as
7902 the base and "(&(objectClass=dhcpHost)(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet
7903 00:00:00:00:00:00))" as the filter.  This is what a host object look
7904 like:</p>
7905
7906 <blockquote><pre>
7907 dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
7908 cn: hostname
7909 objectClass: top
7910 objectClass: dhcpHost
7911 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
7912 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname
7913 </pre></blockquote>
7914
7915 <p>There is less flexiblity in the way LDAP searches are done here.
7916 The object classes need to have fixed names, and the configuration
7917 need to be stored in a fairly specific LDAP structure.  On the
7918 positive side, the invidiual dhcpHost entires can be anywhere without
7919 the DN pointed to by the dhcpServer entries.  The latter should make
7920 it possible to group all host entries in a subtree next to the
7921 configuration entries, and this subtree can also be shared with the
7922 DNS server if the schema proposed above is combined with the dhcpHost
7923 structural object class.
7924
7925 <p><strong>Conclusion</strong></p>
7926
7927 <p>The PowerDNS implementation seem to be very flexible when it come
7928 to which LDAP schemas to use.  While its "tree" mode is rigid when it
7929 come to the the LDAP structure, the "strict" mode is very flexible,
7930 allowing DNS objects to be stored anywhere under the base cn specified
7931 in the configuration.</p>
7932
7933 <p>The DHCP implementation on the other hand is very inflexible, both
7934 regarding which LDAP schemas to use and which LDAP structure to use.
7935 I guess one could implement ones own schema, as long as the
7936 objectclasses and attributes have the names used, but this do not
7937 really help when the DHCP subtree need to have a fairly fixed
7938 structure.</p>
7939
7940 <p>Based on the observed behaviour, I suspect a LDAP structure like
7941 this might work for Debian Edu:</p>
7942
7943 <blockquote><pre>
7944 ou=services
7945   cn=machine-info (dhcpService) - dhcpServiceDN points here
7946     cn=dhcp (dhcpServer)
7947     cn=dhcp-internal (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
7948       cn=10.0.2.0 (dhcpSubnet)
7949         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
7950     cn=dhcp-thinclients (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
7951       cn=192.168.0.0 (dhcpSubnet)
7952         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
7953     ou=machines - PowerDNS base points here
7954       cn=hostname (dhcpHost/domainrelatedobject/dnsDomainAux)
7955 </pre></blockquote>
7956
7957 <P>This is not tested yet.  If the DHCP server require the dhcpHost
7958 entries to be in the dhcpGroup subtrees, the entries can be stored
7959 there instead of a common machines subtree, and the PowerDNS base
7960 would have to be moved one level up to the machine-info subtree.</p>
7961
7962 <p>The combined object under the machines subtree would look something
7963 like this:</p>
7964
7965 <blockquote><pre>
7966 dn: dc=hostname,ou=machines,cn=machine-info,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
7967 dc: hostname
7968 objectClass: top
7969 objectClass: dhcpHost
7970 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
7971 objectclass: dnsDomainAux
7972 associateddomain: hostname.intern
7973 arecord: 10.11.12.13
7974 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
7975 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname.intern
7976 </pre></blockquote>
7977
7978 </p>One could even add the LTSP configuration associated with a given
7979 machine, as long as the required attributes are available in a
7980 auxiliary object class.</p>
7981
7982       </div>
7983       <div class="tags">
7984
7985
7986         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>.
7987
7988
7989       </div>
7990     </div>
7991     <div class="padding"></div>
7992
7993     <div class="entry">
7994       <div class="title">
7995         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">Combining PowerDNS and ISC DHCP LDAP objects</a>
7996       </div>
7997       <div class="date">
7998         14th July 2010
7999       </div>
8000       <div class="body">
8001         <p>For a while now, I have wanted to find a way to change the DNS and
8002 DHCP services in Debian Edu to use the same LDAP objects for a given
8003 computer, to avoid the possibility of having a inconsistent state for
8004 a computer in LDAP (as in DHCP but no DNS entry or the other way
8005 around) and make it easier to add computers to LDAP.</p>
8006
8007 <p>I've looked at how powerdns and dhcpd is using LDAP, and using this
8008 information finally found a solution that seem to work.</p>
8009
8010 <p>The old setup required three LDAP objects for a given computer.
8011 One forward DNS entry, one reverse DNS entry and one DHCP entry.  If
8012 we switch powerdns to use its strict LDAP method (ldap-method=strict
8013 in pdns-debian-edu.conf), the forward and reverse DNS entries are
8014 merged into one while making it impossible to transfer the reverse map
8015 to a slave DNS server.</p>
8016
8017 <p>If we also replace the object class used to get the DNS related
8018 attributes to one allowing these attributes to be combined with the
8019 dhcphost object class, we can merge the DNS and DHCP entries into one.
8020 I've written such object class in the dnsdomainaux.schema file (need
8021 proper OIDs, but that is a minor issue), and tested the setup.  It
8022 seem to work.</p>
8023
8024 <p>With this test setup in place, we can get away with one LDAP object
8025 for both DNS and DHCP, and even the LTSP configuration I suggested in
8026 an earlier email.  The combined LDAP object will look something like
8027 this:</p>
8028
8029 <blockquote><pre>
8030   dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
8031   cn: hostname
8032   objectClass: dhcphost
8033   objectclass: domainrelatedobject
8034   objectclass: dnsdomainaux
8035   associateddomain: hostname.intern
8036   arecord: 10.11.12.13
8037   dhcphwaddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
8038   dhcpstatements: fixed-address hostname
8039   ldapconfigsound: Y
8040 </pre></blockquote>
8041
8042 <p>The DNS server uses the associateddomain and arecord entries, while
8043 the DHCP server uses the dhcphwaddress and dhcpstatements entries
8044 before asking DNS to resolve the fixed-adddress.  LTSP will use
8045 dhcphwaddress or associateddomain and the ldapconfig* attributes.</p>
8046
8047 <p>I am not yet sure if I can get the DHCP server to look for its
8048 dhcphost in a different location, to allow us to put the objects
8049 outside the "DHCP Config" subtree, but hope to figure out a way to do
8050 that.  If I can't figure out a way to do that, we can still get rid of
8051 the hosts subtree and move all its content into the DHCP Config tree
8052 (which probably should be renamed to be more related to the new
8053 content.  I suspect cn=dnsdhcp,ou=services or something like that
8054 might be a good place to put it.</p>
8055
8056 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
8057 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
8058
8059       </div>
8060       <div class="tags">
8061
8062
8063         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>.
8064
8065
8066       </div>
8067     </div>
8068     <div class="padding"></div>
8069
8070     <div class="entry">
8071       <div class="title">
8072         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Idea_for_storing_LTSP_configuration_in_LDAP.html">Idea for storing LTSP configuration in LDAP</a>
8073       </div>
8074       <div class="date">
8075         11th July 2010
8076       </div>
8077       <div class="body">
8078         <p>Vagrant mentioned on IRC today that ltsp_config now support
8079 sourcing files from /usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ on the thin
8080 clients, and that this can be used to fetch configuration from LDAP if
8081 Debian Edu choose to store configuration there.</p>
8082
8083 <p>Armed with this information, I got inspired and wrote a test module
8084 to get configuration from LDAP.  The idea is to look up the MAC
8085 address of the client in LDAP, and look for attributes on the form
8086 ltspconfigsetting=value, and use this to export SETTING=value to the
8087 LTSP clients.</p>
8088
8089 <p>The goal is to be able to store the LTSP configuration attributes
8090 in a "computer" LDAP object used by both DNS and DHCP, and thus
8091 allowing us to store all information about a computer in one place.</p>
8092
8093 <p>This is a untested draft implementation, and I welcome feedback on
8094 this approach.  A real LDAP schema for the ltspClientAux objectclass
8095 need to be written.  Comments, suggestions, etc?</p>
8096
8097 <blockquote><pre>
8098 # Store in /opt/ltsp/$arch/usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ldap-config
8099 #
8100 # Fetch LTSP client settings from LDAP based on MAC address
8101 #
8102 # Uses ethernet address as stored in the dhcpHost objectclass using
8103 # the dhcpHWAddress attribute or ethernet address stored in the
8104 # ieee802Device objectclass with the macAddress attribute.
8105 #
8106 # This module is written to be schema agnostic, and only depend on the
8107 # existence of attribute names.
8108 #
8109 # The LTSP configuration variables are saved directly using a
8110 # ltspConfig prefix and uppercasing the rest of the attribute name.
8111 # To set the SERVER variable, set the ltspConfigServer attribute.
8112 #
8113 # Some LDAP schema should be created with all the relevant
8114 # configuration settings.  Something like this should work:
8115 #
8116 # objectclass ( 1.1.2.2 NAME 'ltspClientAux'
8117 #     SUP top
8118 #     AUXILIARY
8119 #     MAY ( ltspConfigServer $ ltsConfigSound $ ... )
8120
8121 LDAPSERVER=$(debian-edu-ldapserver)
8122 if [ "$LDAPSERVER" ] ; then
8123     LDAPBASE=$(debian-edu-ldapserver -b)
8124     for MAC in $(LANG=C ifconfig |grep -i hwaddr| awk '{print $5}'|sort -u) ; do
8125         filter="(|(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet $MAC)(macAddress=$MAC))"
8126         ldapsearch -h "$LDAPSERVER" -b "$LDAPBASE" -v -x "$filter" | \
8127             grep '^ltspConfig' | while read attr value ; do
8128             # Remove prefix and convert to upper case
8129             attr=$(echo $attr | sed 's/^ltspConfig//i' | tr a-z A-Z)
8130             # bass value on to clients
8131             eval "$attr=$value; export $attr"
8132         done
8133     done
8134 fi
8135 </pre></blockquote>
8136
8137 <p>I'm not sure this shell construction will work, because I suspect
8138 the while block might end up in a subshell causing the variables set
8139 there to not show up in ltsp-config, but if that is the case I am sure
8140 the code can be restructured to make sure the variables are passed on.
8141 I expect that can be solved with some testing. :)</p>
8142
8143 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
8144 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
8145
8146 <p>Update 2010-07-17: I am aware of another effort to store LTSP
8147 configuration in LDAP that was created around year 2000 by
8148 <a href="http://www.pcxperience.com/thinclient/documentation/ldap.html">PC
8149 Xperience, Inc., 2000</a>.  I found its
8150 <a href="http://people.redhat.com/alikins/ltsp/ldap/">files</a> on a
8151 personal home page over at redhat.com.</p>
8152
8153       </div>
8154       <div class="tags">
8155
8156
8157         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>.
8158
8159
8160       </div>
8161     </div>
8162     <div class="padding"></div>
8163
8164     <div class="entry">
8165       <div class="title">
8166         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/jXplorer__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">jXplorer, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
8167       </div>
8168       <div class="date">
8169          9th July 2010
8170       </div>
8171       <div class="body">
8172         <p>Since
8173 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">my
8174 last post</a> about available LDAP tools in Debian, I was told about a
8175 LDAP GUI that is even better than luma.  The java application
8176 <a href="http://jxplorer.org/">jXplorer</a> is claimed to be capable of
8177 moving LDAP objects and subtrees using drag-and-drop, and can
8178 authenticate using Kerberos.  I have only tested the Kerberos
8179 authentication, but do not have a LDAP setup allowing me to rewrite
8180 LDAP with my test user yet.  It is
8181 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/j/jxplorer.html">available in
8182 Debian</a> testing and unstable at the moment.  The only problem I
8183 have with it is how it handle errors.  If something go wrong, its
8184 non-intuitive behaviour require me to go through some query work list
8185 and remove the failing query.  Nothing big, but very annoying.</p>
8186
8187       </div>
8188       <div class="tags">
8189
8190
8191         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>.
8192
8193
8194       </div>
8195     </div>
8196     <div class="padding"></div>
8197
8198     <div class="entry">
8199       <div class="title">
8200         <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>
8201       </div>
8202       <div class="date">
8203          3rd July 2010
8204       </div>
8205       <div class="body">
8206         <p>Here is a short update on my <a
8207 href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">my
8208 Debian Lenny->Squeeze upgrade testing</a>.  Here is a summary of the
8209 difference for Gnome when it is upgraded by apt-get and aptitude.  I'm
8210 not reporting the status for KDE, because the upgrade crashes when
8211 aptitude try because of missing conflicts
8212 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> and
8213 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585716">#585716</a>).</p>
8214
8215 <p>At the end of the upgrade test script, dpkg -l is executed to get a
8216 complete list of the installed packages.  Based on this I see these
8217 differences when I did a test run today.  As usual, I do not really
8218 know what the correct set of packages would be, but thought it best to
8219 publish the difference.</p>
8220
8221 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
8222
8223 <blockquote><p>
8224   at-spi cpp-4.3 finger gnome-spell gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
8225   libatspi1.0-0 libcupsys2 libeel2-data libgail-common libgdl-1-common
8226   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin
8227   libgtksourceview-common libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
8228   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libservlet2.4-java libxalan2-java
8229   libxerces2-java openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
8230   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gtkhtml2
8231   python-gtkmozembed svgalibg1 xserver-xephyr zip
8232 </p></blockquote>
8233
8234 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
8235
8236 <blockquote><p>
8237   bluez-utils dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop epiphany-gecko
8238   gnome-app-install gnome-mount gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager
8239   libao2 libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libbind9-50
8240   libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcurl3
8241   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9
8242   libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3
8243   libfaad0 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
8244   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
8245   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
8246   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
8247   libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50
8248   libisccfg50 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick++10
8249   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4
8250   libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5
8251   libparted1.8-10 libpisock9 libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3
8252   libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8 libsensors3 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
8253   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1
8254   libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0 libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj
8255   libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3
8256   mysql-common swfdec-gnome totem-gstreamer wodim
8257 </p></blockquote>
8258
8259 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
8260
8261 <blockquote><p>
8262   gnome gnome-desktop-environment hamster-applet python-gnomeapplet
8263   python-gnomekeyring python-wnck rhythmbox-plugins xorg
8264   xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
8265   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
8266   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-video-all
8267   xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark xserver-xorg-video-ati
8268   xserver-xorg-video-chips xserver-xorg-video-cirrus
8269   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
8270   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
8271   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-mach64
8272   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
8273   xserver-xorg-video-nouveau xserver-xorg-video-nv
8274   xserver-xorg-video-r128 xserver-xorg-video-radeon
8275   xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd xserver-xorg-video-rendition
8276   xserver-xorg-video-s3 xserver-xorg-video-s3virge
8277   xserver-xorg-video-savage xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion
8278   xserver-xorg-video-sis xserver-xorg-video-sisusb
8279   xserver-xorg-video-tdfx xserver-xorg-video-tga
8280   xserver-xorg-video-trident xserver-xorg-video-tseng
8281   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vmware
8282   xserver-xorg-video-voodoo
8283 </p></blockquote>
8284
8285 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
8286
8287 <blockquote><p>
8288   deskbar-applet xserver-xorg xserver-xorg-core
8289   xserver-xorg-input-wacom xserver-xorg-video-intel
8290   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome
8291 </p></blockquote>
8292
8293 <p>I was told on IRC that the xorg-xserver package was
8294 <a href="http://git.debian.org/?p=pkg-xorg/xserver/xorg-server.git;a=commit;h=9c8080d06c457932d3bfec021c69ac000aa60120">changed
8295 in git</a> today to try to get apt-get to not remove xorg completely.
8296 No idea when it hits Squeeze, but when it does I hope it will reduce
8297 the difference somewhat.
8298
8299       </div>
8300       <div class="tags">
8301
8302
8303         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>.
8304
8305
8306       </div>
8307     </div>
8308     <div class="padding"></div>
8309
8310     <div class="entry">
8311       <div class="title">
8312         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">LUMA, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
8313       </div>
8314       <div class="date">
8315         28th June 2010
8316       </div>
8317       <div class="body">
8318         <p>The last few days I have been looking into the status of the LDAP
8319 directory in Debian Edu, and in the process I started to miss a GUI
8320 tool to browse the LDAP tree.  The only one I was able to find in
8321 Debian/Squeeze and Lenny is
8322 <a href="http://luma.sourceforge.net/">LUMA</a>, which has proved to
8323 be a great tool to get a overview of the current LDAP directory
8324 populated by default in Skolelinux.  Thanks to it, I have been able to
8325 find empty and obsolete subtrees, misplaced objects and duplicate
8326 objects.  It will be installed by default in Debian/Squeeze.  If you
8327 are working with LDAP, give it a go. :)</p>
8328
8329 <p>I did notice one problem with it I have not had time to report to
8330 the BTS yet.  There is no .desktop file in the package, so the tool do
8331 not show up in the Gnome and KDE menus, but only deep down in in the
8332 Debian submenu in KDE.  I hope that can be fixed before Squeeze is
8333 released.</p>
8334
8335 <p>I have not yet been able to get it to modify the tree yet.  I would
8336 like to move objects and remove subtrees directly in the GUI, but have
8337 not found a way to do that with LUMA yet.  So in the mean time, I use
8338 <a href="http://www.lichteblau.com/ldapvi/">ldapvi</a> for that.</p>
8339
8340 <p>If you have tips on other GUI tools for LDAP that might be useful
8341 in Debian Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
8342
8343 <p>Update 2010-06-29: Ross Reedstrom tipped us about the
8344 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/g/gq.html">gq</a> package as a
8345 useful GUI alternative.  It seem like a good tool, but is unmaintained
8346 in Debian and got a RC bug keeping it out of Squeeze.  Unless that
8347 changes, it will not be an option for Debian Edu based on Squeeze.</p>
8348
8349       </div>
8350       <div class="tags">
8351
8352
8353         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>.
8354
8355
8356       </div>
8357     </div>
8358     <div class="padding"></div>
8359
8360     <div class="entry">
8361       <div class="title">
8362         <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>
8363       </div>
8364       <div class="date">
8365         24th June 2010
8366       </div>
8367       <div class="body">
8368         <p>A while back, I
8369 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">complained
8370 about the fact</a> that it is not possible with the provided schemas
8371 for storing DNS and DHCP information in LDAP to combine the two sets
8372 of information into one LDAP object representing a computer.</p>
8373
8374 <p>In the mean time, I discovered that a simple fix would be to make
8375 the dhcpHost object class auxiliary, to allow it to be combined with
8376 the dNSDomain object class, and thus forming one object for one
8377 computer when storing both DHCP and DNS information in LDAP.</p>
8378
8379 <p>If I understand this correctly, it is not safe to do this change
8380 without also changing the assigned number for the object class, and I
8381 do not know enough about LDAP schema design to do that properly for
8382 Debian Edu.</p>
8383
8384 <p>Anyway, for future reference, this is how I believe we could change
8385 the
8386 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-dhc-ldap-schema-00">DHCP
8387 schema</a> to solve at least part of the problem with the LDAP schemas
8388 available today from IETF.</p>
8389
8390 <pre>
8391 --- dhcp.schema    (revision 65192)
8392 +++ dhcp.schema    (working copy)
8393 @@ -376,7 +376,7 @@
8394  objectclass ( 2.16.840.1.113719.1.203.6.6
8395         NAME 'dhcpHost'
8396         DESC 'This represents information about a particular client'
8397 -       SUP top
8398 +       SUP top AUXILIARY
8399         MUST cn
8400         MAY  (dhcpLeaseDN $ dhcpHWAddress $ dhcpOptionsDN $ dhcpStatements $ dhcpComments $ dhcpOption)
8401         X-NDS_CONTAINMENT ('dhcpService' 'dhcpSubnet' 'dhcpGroup') )
8402 </pre>
8403
8404 <p>I very much welcome clues on how to do this properly for Debian
8405 Edu/Squeeze.  We provide the DHCP schema in our debian-edu-config
8406 package, and should thus be free to rewrite it as we see fit.</p>
8407
8408 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
8409 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
8410
8411       </div>
8412       <div class="tags">
8413
8414
8415         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>.
8416
8417
8418       </div>
8419     </div>
8420     <div class="padding"></div>
8421
8422     <div class="entry">
8423       <div class="title">
8424         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Calling_tasksel_like_the_installer__while_still_getting_useful_output.html">Calling tasksel like the installer, while still getting useful output</a>
8425       </div>
8426       <div class="date">
8427         16th June 2010
8428       </div>
8429       <div class="body">
8430         <p>A few times I have had the need to simulate the way tasksel
8431 installs packages during the normal debian-installer run.  Until now,
8432 I have ended up letting tasksel do the work, with the annoying problem
8433 of not getting any feedback at all when something fails (like a
8434 conffile question from dpkg or a download that fails), using code like
8435 this:
8436
8437 <blockquote><pre>
8438 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
8439 tasksel --new-install
8440 </pre></blockquote>
8441
8442 This would invoke tasksel, let its automatic task selection pick the
8443 tasks to install, and continue to install the requested tasks without
8444 any output what so ever.
8445
8446 Recently I revisited this problem while working on the automatic
8447 package upgrade testing, because tasksel would some times hang without
8448 any useful feedback, and I want to see what is going on when it
8449 happen.  Then it occured to me, I can parse the output from tasksel
8450 when asked to run in test mode, and use that aptitude command line
8451 printed by tasksel then to simulate the tasksel run.  I ended up using
8452 code like this:
8453
8454 <blockquote><pre>
8455 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
8456 cmd="$(in_target tasksel -t --new-install | sed 's/debconf-apt-progress -- //')"
8457 $cmd
8458 </pre></blockquote>
8459
8460 <p>The content of $cmd is typically something like "<tt>aptitude -q
8461 --without-recommends -o APT::Install-Recommends=no -y install
8462 ~t^desktop$ ~t^gnome-desktop$ ~t^laptop$ ~pstandard ~prequired
8463 ~pimportant</tt>", which will install the gnome desktop task, the
8464 laptop task and all packages with priority standard , required and
8465 important, just like tasksel would have done it during
8466 installation.</p>
8467
8468 <p>A better approach is probably to extend tasksel to be able to
8469 install packages without using debconf-apt-progress, for use cases
8470 like this.</p>
8471
8472       </div>
8473       <div class="tags">
8474
8475
8476         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
8477
8478
8479       </div>
8480     </div>
8481     <div class="padding"></div>
8482
8483     <div class="entry">
8484       <div class="title">
8485         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lenny__Squeeze_upgrades__removals_by_apt_and_aptitude.html">Lenny->Squeeze upgrades, removals by apt and aptitude</a>
8486       </div>
8487       <div class="date">
8488         13th June 2010
8489       </div>
8490       <div class="body">
8491         <p>My
8492 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">testing
8493 of Debian upgrades</a> from Lenny to Squeeze continues, and I've
8494 finally made the upgrade logs available from
8495 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/</a>.
8496 I am now testing dist-upgrade of Gnome and KDE in a chroot using both
8497 apt and aptitude, and found their differences interesting.  This time
8498 I will only focus on their removal plans.</p>
8499
8500 <p>After installing a Gnome desktop and the laptop task, apt-get wants
8501 to remove 72 packages when dist-upgrading from Lenny to Squeeze.  The
8502 surprising part is that it want to remove xorg and all
8503 xserver-xorg-video* drivers.  Clearly not a good choice, but I am not
8504 sure why.  When asking aptitude to do the same, it want to remove 129
8505 packages, but most of them are library packages I suspect are no
8506 longer needed.  Both of them want to remove bluetooth packages, which
8507 I do not know.  Perhaps these bluetooth packages are obsolete?</p>
8508
8509 <p>For KDE, apt-get want to remove 82 packages, among them kdebase
8510 which seem like a bad idea and xorg the same way as with Gnome. Asking
8511 aptitude for the same, it wants to remove 192 packages, none which are
8512 too surprising.</p>
8513
8514 <p>I guess the removal of xorg during upgrades should be investigated
8515 and avoided, and perhaps others as well.  Here are the complete list
8516 of planned removals.  The complete logs is available from the URL
8517 above.  Note if you want to repeat these tests, that the upgrade test
8518 for kde+apt-get hung in the tasksel setup because of dpkg asking
8519 conffile questions.  No idea why.  I worked around it by using
8520 '<tt>echo >> /proc/<em>pidofdpkg</em>/fd/0</tt>' to tell dpkg to
8521 continue.</p>
8522
8523 <p><b>apt-get gnome 72</b>
8524 <br>bluez-gnome cupsddk-drivers deskbar-applet gnome
8525   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-network-admin gtkhtml3.14
8526   iceweasel-gnome-support libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libgdl-1-0
8527   libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libmetacity0 libslab0 libxcb-xlib0
8528   nautilus-cd-burner python-gnome2-desktop python-gnome2-extras
8529   serpentine swfdec-mozilla update-manager xorg xserver-xorg
8530   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
8531   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
8532   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
8533   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
8534   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
8535   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
8536   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
8537   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
8538   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
8539   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
8540   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
8541   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
8542   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
8543   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
8544   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
8545   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
8546   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
8547   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
8548   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
8549   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
8550   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
8551   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9
8552   xulrunner-1.9-gnome-support</p>
8553
8554 <p><b>aptitude gnome 129</b>
8555
8556 <br>bluez-gnome bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers dhcdbd
8557   djvulibre-desktop finger gnome-app-install gnome-mount
8558   gnome-network-admin gnome-spell gnome-vfs-obexftp
8559   gnome-volume-manager gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs gtkhtml3.14 libao2
8560   libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
8561   libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcupsys2 libcurl3 libdatrie0
8562   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20
8563   libeel2-data libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libfaad0 libgail-common
8564   libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libgdl-1-0 libgdl-1-common
8565   libggz2 libggzcore9 libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0
8566   libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libgnomeprint2.2-0
8567   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgnomeprintui2.2-common
8568   libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
8569   libgtksourceview-common libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6
8570   libhesiod0 libicu38 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 libmagick++10
8571   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmetacity0 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off
8572   libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2
8573   libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10
8574   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libraw1394-8
8575   libsensors3 libslab0 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8 libssh2-1
8576   libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10
8577   libtrackerclient0 libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0
8578   libxerces2-java libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6
8579   libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common nautilus-cd-burner
8580   openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
8581   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gnome2-desktop
8582   python-gnome2-extras python-gtkhtml2 python-gtkmozembed
8583   python-numeric python-sexy serpentine svgalibg1 swfdec-gnome
8584   swfdec-mozilla totem-gstreamer update-manager wodim
8585   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
8586   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
8587   zip</p>
8588
8589 <p><b>apt-get kde 82</b>
8590
8591 <br>cupsddk-drivers karm kaudiocreator kcoloredit kcontrol kde kde-core
8592   kdeaddons kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-bin kdebase-bin-kde3
8593   kdebase-kio-plugins kdesktop kdeutils khelpcenter kicker
8594   kicker-applets knewsticker kolourpaint konq-plugins konqueror korn
8595   kpersonalizer kscreensaver ksplash libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libkiten1
8596   libxcb-xlib0 quanta superkaramba texlive-base-bin xorg xserver-xorg
8597   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
8598   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
8599   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
8600   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
8601   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
8602   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
8603   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
8604   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
8605   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
8606   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
8607   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
8608   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
8609   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
8610   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
8611   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
8612   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
8613   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
8614   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
8615   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
8616   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
8617   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
8618   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9</p>
8619
8620 <p><b>aptitude kde 192</b>
8621 <br>bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers cvs dcoprss dhcdbd
8622   djvulibre-desktop dosfstools eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
8623   ghostscript-x imlib-base imlib11 indi kandy karm kasteroids
8624   kaudiocreator kbackgammon kbstate kcoloredit kcontrol kcron kdat
8625   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
8626   kdebase-bin-kde3 kdebase-kio-plugins kdeedu-data
8627   kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data
8628   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
8629   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdeprint kdesktop kdessh
8630   kdict kdnssd kdvi kedit keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs
8631   kghostview khelpcenter khexedit kiconedit kitchensync klatin
8632   klickety kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmoon kmrml kodo kolourpaint
8633   kooka korn kpager kpdf kpercentage kpf kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler
8634   krec kregexpeditor ksayit ksim ksirc ksirtet ksmiletris ksmserver
8635   ksnake ksokoban ksplash ksvg ksysv ktip ktnef kuickshow kverbos
8636   kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kworldclock
8637   kxsldbg libakode2 libao2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
8638   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
8639   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
8640   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0 libdatrie0
8641   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
8642   libgail-common libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0
8643   libicu38 libiec61883-0 libindex0 libiw29 libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1
8644   libkdeedu3 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkiten1 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
8645   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
8646   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 libmagick10 libmimelib1c2a
8647   libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9
8648   libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 libsmbios2
8649   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libtalloc1 libtiff-tools
8650   libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0 libxerces2-java
8651   libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 mpeglib networkstatus
8652   openoffice.org-writer2latex pmount poster psutils quanta quanta-data
8653   superkaramba svgalibg1 tex-common texlive-base texlive-base-bin
8654   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended
8655   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
8656   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
8657   xulrunner-1.9</p>
8658
8659
8660       </div>
8661       <div class="tags">
8662
8663
8664         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>.
8665
8666
8667       </div>
8668     </div>
8669     <div class="padding"></div>
8670
8671     <div class="entry">
8672       <div class="title">
8673         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">Automatic upgrade testing from Lenny to Squeeze</a>
8674       </div>
8675       <div class="date">
8676         11th June 2010
8677       </div>
8678       <div class="body">
8679         <p>The last few days I have done some upgrade testing in Debian, to
8680 see if the upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze will go smoothly.  A few bugs
8681 have been discovered and reported in the process
8682 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585410">#585410</a> in nagios3-cgi,
8683 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584879">#584879</a> already fixed in
8684 enscript and <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> in
8685 kdebase-workspace-data), and to get a more regular testing going on, I
8686 am working on a script to automate the test.</p>
8687
8688 <p>The idea is to create a Lenny chroot and use tasksel to install a
8689 Gnome or KDE desktop installation inside the chroot before upgrading
8690 it.  To ensure no services are started in the chroot, a policy-rc.d
8691 script is inserted.  To make sure tasksel believe it is to install a
8692 desktop on a laptop, the tasksel tests are replaced in the chroot
8693 (only acceptable because this is a throw-away chroot).</p>
8694
8695 <p>A naive upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze using aptitude dist-upgrade
8696 currently always fail because udev refuses to upgrade with the kernel
8697 in Lenny, so to avoid that problem the file /etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
8698 is created.  The bug report
8699 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/566000">#566000</a> make me suspect
8700 this problem do not trigger in a chroot, but I touch the file anyway
8701 to make sure the upgrade go well.  Testing on virtual and real
8702 hardware have failed me because of udev so far, and creating this file
8703 do the trick in such settings anyway.  This is a
8704 <a href="http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/debian-26/failed-dist-upgrade-due-to-udev-config_sysfs_deprecated-nonsense-804130/">known
8705 issue</a> and the current udev behaviour is intended by the udev
8706 maintainer because he lack the resources to rewrite udev to keep
8707 working with old kernels or something like that.  I really wish the
8708 udev upstream would keep udev backwards compatible, to avoid such
8709 upgrade problem, but given that they fail to do so, I guess
8710 documenting the way out of this mess is the best option we got for
8711 Debian Squeeze.</p>
8712
8713 <p>Anyway, back to the task at hand, testing upgrades.  This test
8714 script, which I call <tt>upgrade-test</tt> for now, is doing the
8715 trick:</p>
8716
8717 <blockquote><pre>
8718 #!/bin/sh
8719 set -ex
8720
8721 if [ "$1" ] ; then
8722     desktop=$1
8723 else
8724     desktop=gnome
8725 fi
8726
8727 from=lenny
8728 to=squeeze
8729
8730 exec &lt; /dev/null
8731 unset LANG
8732 mirror=http://ftp.skolelinux.org/debian
8733 tmpdir=chroot-$from-upgrade-$to-$desktop
8734 fuser -mv .
8735 debootstrap $from $tmpdir $mirror
8736 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
8737 cat > $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d &lt;&lt;EOF
8738 #!/bin/sh
8739 exit 101
8740 EOF
8741 chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d
8742 exit_cleanup() {
8743     umount $tmpdir/proc
8744 }
8745 mount -t proc proc $tmpdir/proc
8746 # Make sure proc is unmounted also on failure
8747 trap exit_cleanup EXIT INT
8748
8749 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y install debconf-utils
8750
8751 # Make sure tasksel autoselection trigger.  It need the test scripts
8752 # to return the correct answers.
8753 echo tasksel tasksel/desktop multiselect $desktop | \
8754     chroot $tmpdir debconf-set-selections
8755
8756 # Include the desktop and laptop task
8757 for test in desktop laptop ; do
8758     echo > $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test &lt;&lt;EOF
8759 #!/bin/sh
8760 exit 2
8761 EOF
8762     chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test
8763 done
8764
8765 DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
8766 DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical
8767 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND DEBIAN_PRIORITY
8768 chroot $tmpdir tasksel --new-install
8769
8770 echo deb $mirror $to main > $tmpdir/etc/apt/sources.list
8771 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
8772 touch $tmpdir/etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
8773 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y dist-upgrade
8774 fuser -mv
8775 </pre></blockquote>
8776
8777 <p>I suspect it would be useful to test upgrades with both apt-get and
8778 with aptitude, but I have not had time to look at how they behave
8779 differently so far.  I hope to get a cron job running to do the test
8780 regularly and post the result on the web.  The Gnome upgrade currently
8781 work, while the KDE upgrade fail because of the bug in
8782 kdebase-workspace-data</p>
8783
8784 <p>I am not quite sure what kind of extract from the huge upgrade logs
8785 (KDE 167 KiB, Gnome 516 KiB) it make sense to include in this blog
8786 post, so I will refrain from trying.  I can report that for Gnome,
8787 aptitude report 760 packages upgraded, 448 newly installed, 129 to
8788 remove and 1 not upgraded and 1024MB need to be downloaded while for
8789 KDE the same numbers are 702 packages upgraded, 507 newly installed,
8790 193 to remove and 0 not upgraded and 1117MB need to be downloaded</p>
8791
8792 <p>I am very happy to notice that the Gnome desktop + laptop upgrade
8793 is able to migrate to dependency based boot sequencing and parallel
8794 booting without a hitch.  Was unsure if there were still bugs with
8795 packages failing to clean up their obsolete init.d script during
8796 upgrades, and no such problem seem to affect the Gnome desktop+laptop
8797 packages.</p>
8798
8799       </div>
8800       <div class="tags">
8801
8802
8803         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>.
8804
8805
8806       </div>
8807     </div>
8808     <div class="padding"></div>
8809
8810     <div class="entry">
8811       <div class="title">
8812         <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>
8813       </div>
8814       <div class="date">
8815          6th June 2010
8816       </div>
8817       <div class="body">
8818         <p>If Debian is to migrate to upstart on Linux, I expect some init.d
8819 scripts to migrate (some of) their operations to upstart job while
8820 keeping the init.d for hurd and kfreebsd.  The packages with such
8821 needs will need a way to get their init.d scripts to behave
8822 differently when used with sysvinit and with upstart.  Because of
8823 this, I had a look at the environment variables set when a init.d
8824 script is running under upstart, and when it is not.</p>
8825
8826 <p>With upstart, I notice these environment variables are set when a
8827 script is started from rcS.d/ (ignoring some irrelevant ones like
8828 COLUMNS):</p>
8829
8830 <blockquote><pre>
8831 DEFAULT_RUNLEVEL=2
8832 previous=N
8833 PREVLEVEL=
8834 RUNLEVEL=
8835 runlevel=S
8836 UPSTART_EVENTS=startup
8837 UPSTART_INSTANCE=
8838 UPSTART_JOB=rc-sysinit
8839 </pre></blockquote>
8840
8841 <p>With sysvinit, these environment variables are set for the same
8842 script.</p>
8843
8844 <blockquote><pre>
8845 INIT_VERSION=sysvinit-2.88
8846 previous=N
8847 PREVLEVEL=N
8848 RUNLEVEL=S
8849 runlevel=S
8850 </pre></blockquote>
8851
8852 <p>The RUNLEVEL and PREVLEVEL environment variables passed on from
8853 sysvinit are not set by upstart.  Not sure if it is intentional or not
8854 to not be compatible with sysvinit in this regard.</p>
8855
8856 <p>For scripts needing to behave differently when upstart is used,
8857 looking for the UPSTART_JOB environment variable seem to be a good
8858 choice.</p>
8859
8860       </div>
8861       <div class="tags">
8862
8863
8864         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>.
8865
8866
8867       </div>
8868     </div>
8869     <div class="padding"></div>
8870
8871     <div class="entry">
8872       <div class="title">
8873         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_manual_for_standards_wars___.html">A manual for standards wars...</a>
8874       </div>
8875       <div class="date">
8876          6th June 2010
8877       </div>
8878       <div class="body">
8879         <p>Via the
8880 <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/robweir/antic-atom/~3/QzU4RgoAGMg/weekly-links-10.html">blog
8881 of Rob Weir</a> I came across the very interesting essay named
8882 <a href="http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/shapiro/wars.pdf">The Art of
8883 Standards Wars</a> (PDF 25 pages).  I recommend it for everyone
8884 following the standards wars of today.</p>
8885
8886       </div>
8887       <div class="tags">
8888
8889
8890         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>.
8891
8892
8893       </div>
8894     </div>
8895     <div class="padding"></div>
8896
8897     <div class="entry">
8898       <div class="title">
8899         <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>
8900       </div>
8901       <div class="date">
8902          3rd June 2010
8903       </div>
8904       <div class="body">
8905         <p>When using sitesummary at a site to track machines, it is possible
8906 to get a list of the machine types in use thanks to the DMI
8907 information extracted from each machine.  The script to do so is
8908 included in the sitesummary package, and here is example output from
8909 the Skolelinux build servers:</p>
8910
8911 <blockquote><pre>
8912 maintainer:~# /usr/lib/sitesummary/hardware-model-summary
8913   vendor                    count
8914   Dell Computer Corporation     1
8915     PowerEdge 1750              1
8916   IBM                           1
8917     eserver xSeries 345 -[8670M1X]-     1
8918   Intel                         2
8919   [no-dmi-info]                 3
8920 maintainer:~#
8921 </pre></blockquote>
8922
8923 <p>The quality of the report depend on the quality of the DMI tables
8924 provided in each machine.  Here there are Intel machines without model
8925 information listed with Intel as vendor and no model, and virtual Xen
8926 machines listed as [no-dmi-info].  One can add -l as a command line
8927 option to list the individual machines.</p>
8928
8929 <p>A larger list is
8930 <a href="http://narvikskolen.no/sitesummary/">available from the the
8931 city of Narvik</a>, which uses Skolelinux on all their shools and also
8932 provide the basic sitesummary report publicly.  In their report there
8933 are ~1400 machines. I know they use both Ubuntu and Skolelinux on
8934 their machines, and as sitesummary is available in both distributions,
8935 it is trivial to get all of them to report to the same central
8936 collector.</p>
8937
8938       </div>
8939       <div class="tags">
8940
8941
8942         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>.
8943
8944
8945       </div>
8946     </div>
8947     <div class="padding"></div>
8948
8949     <div class="entry">
8950       <div class="title">
8951         <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>
8952       </div>
8953       <div class="date">
8954          1st June 2010
8955       </div>
8956       <div class="body">
8957         <p>It is strange to watch how a bug in Debian causing KDM to fail to
8958 start at boot when an NVidia video card is used is handled.  The
8959 problem seem to be that the nvidia X.org driver uses a long time to
8960 initialize, and this duration is longer than kdm is configured to
8961 wait.</p>
8962
8963 <p>I came across two bugs related to this issue,
8964 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">#583312</a> initially filed
8965 against initscripts and passed on to nvidia-glx when it became obvious
8966 that the nvidia drivers were involved, and
8967 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/524751">#524751</a> initially filed against
8968 kdm and passed on to src:nvidia-graphics-drivers for unknown reasons.</p>
8969
8970 <p>To me, it seem that no-one is interested in actually solving the
8971 problem nvidia video card owners experience and make sure the Debian
8972 distribution work out of the box for these users.  The nvidia driver
8973 maintainers expect kdm to be set up to wait longer, while kdm expect
8974 the nvidia driver maintainers to fix the driver to start faster, and
8975 while they wait for each other I guess the users end up switching to a
8976 distribution that work for them.  I have no idea what the solution is,
8977 but I am pretty sure that waiting for each other is not it.</p>
8978
8979 <p>I wonder why we end up handling bugs this way.</p>
8980
8981       </div>
8982       <div class="tags">
8983
8984
8985         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>.
8986
8987
8988       </div>
8989     </div>
8990     <div class="padding"></div>
8991
8992     <div class="entry">
8993       <div class="title">
8994         <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>
8995       </div>
8996       <div class="date">
8997         27th May 2010
8998       </div>
8999       <div class="body">
9000         <p>A few days ago, parallel booting was enabled in Debian/testing.
9001 The feature seem to hold up pretty well, but three fairly serious
9002 issues are known and should be solved:
9003
9004 <p><ul>
9005
9006 <li>The wicd package seen to
9007 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/508289">break NFS mounting</a> and
9008 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/581586">network setup</a> when
9009 parallel booting is enabled.  No idea why, but the wicd maintainer
9010 seem to be on the case.</li>
9011
9012 <li>The nvidia X driver seem to
9013 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">have a race condition</a>
9014 triggered more easily when parallel booting is in effect.  The
9015 maintainer is on the case.</li>
9016
9017 <li>The sysv-rc package fail to properly enable dependency based boot
9018 sequencing (the shutdown is broken) when old file-rc users
9019 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/575080">try to switch back</a> to
9020 sysv-rc.  One way to solve it would be for file-rc to create
9021 /etc/init.d/.legacy-bootordering, and another is to try to make
9022 sysv-rc more robust.  Will investigate some more and probably upload a
9023 workaround in sysv-rc to help those trying to move from file-rc to
9024 sysv-rc get a working shutdown.</li>
9025
9026 </ul></p>
9027
9028 <p>All in all not many surprising issues, and all of them seem
9029 solvable before Squeeze is released.  In addition to these there are
9030 some packages with bugs in their dependencies and run level settings,
9031 which I expect will be fixed in a reasonable time span.</p>
9032
9033 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
9034 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
9035 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
9036 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
9037
9038 <p>Update: Correct bug number to file-rc issue.</p>
9039
9040       </div>
9041       <div class="tags">
9042
9043
9044         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>.
9045
9046
9047       </div>
9048     </div>
9049     <div class="padding"></div>
9050
9051     <div class="entry">
9052       <div class="title">
9053         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/More_flexible_firmware_handling_in_debian_installer.html">More flexible firmware handling in debian-installer</a>
9054       </div>
9055       <div class="date">
9056         22nd May 2010
9057       </div>
9058       <div class="body">
9059         <p>After a long break from debian-installer development, I finally
9060 found time today to return to the project.  Having to spend less time
9061 working dependency based boot in debian, as it is almost complete now,
9062 definitely helped freeing some time.</p>
9063
9064 <p>A while back, I ran into a problem while working on Debian Edu.  We
9065 include some firmware packages on the Debian Edu CDs, those needed to
9066 get disk and network controllers working.  Without having these
9067 firmware packages available during installation, it is impossible to
9068 install Debian Edu on the given machine, and because our target group
9069 are non-technical people, asking them to provide firmware packages on
9070 an external medium is a support pain.  Initially, I expected it to be
9071 enough to include the firmware packages on the CD to get
9072 debian-installer to find and use them.  This proved to be wrong.
9073 Next, I hoped it was enough to symlink the relevant firmware packages
9074 to some useful location on the CD (tried /cdrom/ and
9075 /cdrom/firmware/).  This also proved to not work, and at this point I
9076 found time to look at the debian-installer code to figure out what was
9077 going to work.</p>
9078
9079 <p>The firmware loading code is in the hw-detect package, and a closer
9080 look revealed that it would only look for firmware packages outside
9081 the installation media, so the CD was never checked for firmware
9082 packages.  It would only check USB sticks, floppies and other
9083 "external" media devices.  Today I changed it to also look in the
9084 /cdrom/firmware/ directory on the mounted CD or DVD, which should
9085 solve the problem I ran into with Debian edu.  I also changed it to
9086 look in /firmware/, to make sure the installer also find firmware
9087 provided in the initrd when booting the installer via PXE, to allow us
9088 to provide the same feature in the PXE setup included in Debian
9089 Edu.</p>
9090
9091 <p>To make sure firmware deb packages with a license questions are not
9092 activated without asking if the license is accepted, I extended
9093 hw-detect to look for preinst scripts in the firmware packages, and
9094 run these before activating the firmware during installation.  The
9095 license question is asked using debconf in the preinst, so this should
9096 solve the issue for the firmware packages I have looked at so far.</p>
9097
9098 <p>If you want to discuss the details of these features, please
9099 contact us on debian-boot@lists.debian.org.</p>
9100
9101       </div>
9102       <div class="tags">
9103
9104
9105         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>.
9106
9107
9108       </div>
9109     </div>
9110     <div class="padding"></div>
9111
9112     <div class="entry">
9113       <div class="title">
9114         <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>
9115       </div>
9116       <div class="date">
9117         14th May 2010
9118       </div>
9119       <div class="body">
9120         <p>Since this evening, parallel booting is the default in
9121 Debian/unstable for machines using dependency based boot sequencing.
9122 Apparently the testing of concurrent booting has been wider than
9123 expected, if I am to believe the
9124 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
9125 on debian-devel@</a>, and I concluded a few days ago to move forward
9126 with the feature this weekend, to give us some time to detect any
9127 remaining problems before Squeeze is frozen.  If serious problems are
9128 detected, it is simple to change the default back to sequential boot.
9129 The upload of the new sysvinit package also activate a new upstream
9130 version.</p>
9131
9132 More information about
9133 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
9134 based boot sequencing</a> is available from the Debian wiki.  It is
9135 currently possible to disable parallel booting when one run into
9136 problems caused by it, by adding this line to /etc/default/rcS:</p>
9137
9138 <blockquote><pre>
9139 CONCURRENCY=none
9140 </pre></blockquote>
9141
9142 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
9143 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
9144 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
9145 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
9146
9147       </div>
9148       <div class="tags">
9149
9150
9151         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>.
9152
9153
9154       </div>
9155     </div>
9156     <div class="padding"></div>
9157
9158     <div class="entry">
9159       <div class="title">
9160         <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>
9161       </div>
9162       <div class="date">
9163         14th May 2010
9164       </div>
9165       <div class="body">
9166         <p>In the recent Debian Edu versions, the
9167 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/SiteSummary">sitesummary
9168 system</a> is used to keep track of the machines in the school
9169 network.  Each machine will automatically report its status to the
9170 central server after boot and once per night.  The network setup is
9171 also reported, and using this information it is possible to get the
9172 MAC address of all network interfaces in the machines.  This is useful
9173 to update the DHCP configuration.</p>
9174
9175 <p>To give some idea how to use sitesummary, here is a one-liner to
9176 ist all MAC addresses of all machines reporting to sitesummary.  Run
9177 this on the collector host:</p>
9178
9179 <blockquote><pre>
9180 perl -MSiteSummary -e 'for_all_hosts(sub { print join(" ", get_macaddresses(shift)), "\n"; });'
9181 </pre></blockquote>
9182
9183 <p>This will list all MAC addresses assosiated with all machine, one
9184 line per machine and with space between the MAC addresses.</p>
9185
9186 <p>To allow system administrators easier job at adding static DHCP
9187 addresses for hosts, it would be possible to extend this to fetch
9188 machine information from sitesummary and update the DHCP and DNS
9189 tables in LDAP using this information.  Such tool is unfortunately not
9190 written yet.</p>
9191
9192       </div>
9193       <div class="tags">
9194
9195
9196         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>.
9197
9198
9199       </div>
9200     </div>
9201     <div class="padding"></div>
9202
9203     <div class="entry">
9204       <div class="title">
9205         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/systemd__an_interesting_alternative_to_upstart.html">systemd, an interesting alternative to upstart</a>
9206       </div>
9207       <div class="date">
9208         13th May 2010
9209       </div>
9210       <div class="body">
9211         <p>The last few days a new boot system called
9212 <a href="http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd">systemd</a>
9213 has been
9214 <a href="http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/systemd.html">introduced</a>
9215
9216 to the free software world.  I have not yet had time to play around
9217 with it, but it seem to be a very interesting alternative to
9218 <a href="http://upstart.ubuntu.com/">upstart</a>, and might prove to be
9219 a good alternative for Debian when we are able to switch to an event
9220 based boot system.  Tollef is
9221 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/580814">in the process</a> of getting
9222 systemd into Debian, and I look forward to seeing how well it work.  I
9223 like the fact that systemd handles init.d scripts with dependency
9224 information natively, allowing them to run in parallel where upstart
9225 at the moment do not.</p>
9226
9227 <p>Unfortunately do systemd have the same problem as upstart regarding
9228 platform support.  It only work on recent Linux kernels, and also need
9229 some new kernel features enabled to function properly.  This means
9230 kFreeBSD and Hurd ports of Debian will need a port or a different boot
9231 system.  Not sure how that will be handled if systemd proves to be the
9232 way forward.</p>
9233
9234 <p>In the mean time, based on the
9235 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
9236 on debian-devel@</a> regarding parallel booting in Debian, I have
9237 decided to enable full parallel booting as the default in Debian as
9238 soon as possible (probably this weekend or early next week), to see if
9239 there are any remaining serious bugs in the init.d dependencies.  A
9240 new version of the sysvinit package implementing this change is
9241 already in experimental.  If all go well, Squeeze will be released
9242 with parallel booting enabled by default.</p>
9243
9244       </div>
9245       <div class="tags">
9246
9247
9248         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>.
9249
9250
9251       </div>
9252     </div>
9253     <div class="padding"></div>
9254
9255     <div class="entry">
9256       <div class="title">
9257         <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>
9258       </div>
9259       <div class="date">
9260          6th May 2010
9261       </div>
9262       <div class="body">
9263         <p>These days, the init.d script dependencies in Squeeze are quite
9264 complete, so complete that it is actually possible to run all the
9265 init.d scripts in parallell based on these dependencies.  If you want
9266 to test your Squeeze system, make sure
9267 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
9268 based boot sequencing</a> is enabled, and add this line to
9269 /etc/default/rcS:</p>
9270
9271 <blockquote><pre>
9272 CONCURRENCY=makefile
9273 </pre></blockquote>
9274
9275 <p>That is it.  It will cause sysv-rc to use the startpar tool to run
9276 scripts in parallel using the dependency information stored in
9277 /etc/init.d/.depend.boot, /etc/init.d/.depend.start and
9278 /etc/init.d/.depend.stop to order the scripts.  Startpar is configured
9279 to try to start the kdm and gdm scripts as early as possible, and will
9280 start the facilities required by kdm or gdm as early as possible to
9281 make this happen.</p>
9282
9283 <p>Give it a try, and see if you like the result.  If some services
9284 fail to start properly, it is most likely because they have incomplete
9285 init.d script dependencies in their startup script (or some of their
9286 dependent scripts have incomplete dependencies).  Report bugs and get
9287 the package maintainers to fix it. :)</p>
9288
9289 <p>Running scripts in parallel could be the default in Debian when we
9290 manage to get the init.d script dependencies complete and correct.  I
9291 expect we will get there in Squeeze+1, if we get manage to test and
9292 fix the remaining issues.</p>
9293
9294 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
9295 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
9296 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
9297 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
9298
9299       </div>
9300       <div class="tags">
9301
9302
9303         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>.
9304
9305
9306       </div>
9307     </div>
9308     <div class="padding"></div>
9309
9310     <div class="entry">
9311       <div class="title">
9312         <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>
9313       </div>
9314       <div class="date">
9315         27th July 2009
9316       </div>
9317       <div class="body">
9318         <p>Since this evening, with the upload of sysvinit version 2.87dsf-2,
9319 and the upload of insserv version 1.12.0-10 yesterday, Debian unstable
9320 have been migrated to using dependency based boot sequencing.  This
9321 conclude work me and others have been doing for the last three days.
9322 It feels great to see this finally part of the default Debian
9323 installation.  Now we just need to weed out the last few problems that
9324 are bound to show up, to get everything ready for Squeeze.</p>
9325
9326 <p>The next step is migrating /sbin/init from sysvinit to upstart, and
9327 fixing the more fundamental problem of handing the event based
9328 non-predictable kernel in the early boot.</p>
9329
9330       </div>
9331       <div class="tags">
9332
9333
9334         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>.
9335
9336
9337       </div>
9338     </div>
9339     <div class="padding"></div>
9340
9341     <div class="entry">
9342       <div class="title">
9343         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Taking_over_sysvinit_development.html">Taking over sysvinit development</a>
9344       </div>
9345       <div class="date">
9346         22nd July 2009
9347       </div>
9348       <div class="body">
9349         <p>After several years of frustration with the lack of activity from
9350 the existing sysvinit upstream developer, I decided a few weeks ago to
9351 take over the package and become the new upstream.  The number of
9352 patches to track for the Debian package was becoming a burden, and the
9353 lack of synchronization between the distribution made it hard to keep
9354 the package up to date.</p>
9355
9356 <p>On the new sysvinit team is the SuSe maintainer Dr. Werner Fink,
9357 and my Debian co-maintainer Kel Modderman.  About 10 days ago, I made
9358 a new upstream tarball with version number 2.87dsf (for Debian, SuSe
9359 and Fedora), based on the patches currently in use in these
9360 distributions.  We Debian maintainers plan to move to this tarball as
9361 the new upstream as soon as we find time to do the merge.  Since the
9362 new tarball was created, we agreed with Werner at SuSe to make a new
9363 upstream project at <a href="http://savannah.nongnu.org/">Savannah</a>, and continue
9364 development there.  The project is registered and currently waiting
9365 for approval by the Savannah administrators, and as soon as it is
9366 approved, we will import the old versions from svn and continue
9367 working on the future release.</p>
9368
9369 <p>It is a bit ironic that this is done now, when some of the involved
9370 distributions are moving to upstart as a syvinit replacement.</p>
9371
9372       </div>
9373       <div class="tags">
9374
9375
9376         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>.
9377
9378
9379       </div>
9380     </div>
9381     <div class="padding"></div>
9382
9383     <div class="entry">
9384       <div class="title">
9385         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_boots_quicker_and_quicker.html">Debian boots quicker and quicker</a>
9386       </div>
9387       <div class="date">
9388         24th June 2009
9389       </div>
9390       <div class="body">
9391         <p>I spent Monday and tuesday this week in London with a lot of the
9392 people involved in the boot system on Debian and Ubuntu, to see if we
9393 could find more ways to speed up the boot system.  This was an Ubuntu
9394 funded
9395 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FoundationsTeam/BootPerformance/DebianUbuntuSprint">developer
9396 gathering</a>. It was quite productive.  We also discussed the future
9397 of boot systems, and ways to handle the increasing number of boot
9398 issues introduced by the Linux kernel becoming more and more
9399 asynchronous and event base.  The Ubuntu approach using udev and
9400 upstart might be a good way forward.  Time will show.</p>
9401
9402 <p>Anyway, there are a few ways at the moment to speed up the boot
9403 process in Debian.  All of these should be applied to get a quick
9404 boot:</p>
9405
9406 <ul>
9407
9408 <li>Use dash as /bin/sh.</li>
9409
9410 <li>Disable the init.d/hwclock*.sh scripts and make sure the hardware
9411    clock is in UTC.</li>
9412
9413 <li>Install and activate the insserv package to enable
9414    <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
9415    based boot sequencing</a>, and enable concurrent booting.</li>
9416
9417 </ul>
9418
9419 These points are based on the Google summer of code work done by
9420 <a href="http://initscripts-ng.alioth.debian.org/soc2006-bootsystem/">Carlos
9421 Villegas</a>.
9422
9423 <p>Support for makefile-style concurrency during boot was uploaded to
9424 unstable yesterday.  When we tested it, we were able to cut 6 seconds
9425 from the boot sequence.  It depend on very correct dependency
9426 declaration in all init.d scripts, so I expect us to find edge cases
9427 where the dependences in some scripts are slightly wrong when we start
9428 using this.</p>
9429
9430 <p>On our IRC channel for this effort, #pkg-sysvinit, a new idea was
9431 introduced by Raphael Geissert today, one that could affect the
9432 startup speed as well.  Instead of starting some scripts concurrently
9433 from rcS.d/ and another set of scripts from rc2.d/, it would be
9434 possible to run a of them in the same process.  A quick way to test
9435 this would be to enable insserv and run 'mv /etc/rc2.d/S* /etc/rcS.d/;
9436 insserv'.  Will need to test if that work. :)</p>
9437
9438       </div>
9439       <div class="tags">
9440
9441
9442         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>.
9443
9444
9445       </div>
9446     </div>
9447     <div class="padding"></div>
9448
9449     <div class="entry">
9450       <div class="title">
9451         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/BSAs_p_stander_om_piratkopiering_m_ter_motstand.html">BSAs påstander om piratkopiering møter motstand</a>
9452       </div>
9453       <div class="date">
9454         17th May 2009
9455       </div>
9456       <div class="body">
9457         <p>Hvert år de siste årene har BSA, lobbyfronten til de store
9458 programvareselskapene som Microsoft og Apple, publisert en rapport der
9459 de gjetter på hvor mye piratkopiering påfører i tapte inntekter i
9460 ulike land rundt om i verden.  Resultatene er tendensiøse.  For noen
9461 dager siden kom
9462 <a href="http://global.bsa.org/globalpiracy2008/studies/globalpiracy2008.pdf">siste
9463 rapport</a>, og det er flere kritiske kommentarer publisert de siste
9464 dagene.  Et spesielt interessant kommentar fra Sverige,
9465 <a href="http://www.idg.se/2.1085/1.229795/bsa-hoftade-sverigesiffror">BSA
9466 höftade Sverigesiffror</a>, oppsummeres slik:</p>
9467
9468 <blockquote>
9469 I sin senaste rapport slår BSA fast att 25 procent av all mjukvara i
9470 Sverige är piratkopierad. Det utan att ha pratat med ett enda svenskt
9471 företag. "Man bör nog kanske inte se de här siffrorna som helt
9472 exakta", säger BSAs Sverigechef John Hugosson.
9473 </blockquote>
9474
9475 <p>Mon tro om de er like metodiske når de gjetter på andelen piratkopiering i Norge?  To andre kommentarer er <a
9476 href="http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/comment/2242134/bsa-piracy-figures-shot-reality">BSA
9477 piracy figures need a shot of reality</a> og <a
9478 href="http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/3958/125/">Does The WIPO
9479 Copyright Treaty Work?</a></p>
9480
9481 <p>Fant lenkene via <a
9482 href="http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/05/17/1632242">oppslag
9483 på Slashdot</a>.</p>
9484
9485       </div>
9486       <div class="tags">
9487
9488
9489         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>.
9490
9491
9492       </div>
9493     </div>
9494     <div class="padding"></div>
9495
9496     <div class="entry">
9497       <div class="title">
9498         <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>
9499       </div>
9500       <div class="date">
9501          7th May 2009
9502       </div>
9503       <div class="body">
9504         <p>Kom over
9505 <a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10216873-16.html">interessante
9506 tall</a> fra IDG om utviklingen av linuxservermarkedet.  Fikk meg til
9507 å tenke på antall tjenermaskiner ved Universitetet i Oslo der jeg
9508 jobber til daglig.  En rask opptelling forteller meg at vi har 490
9509 (61%) fysiske unix-tjener (mest linux men også noen solaris) og 196
9510 (25%) windowstjenere, samt 112 (14%) virtuelle unix-tjenere.  Med den
9511 bakgrunnskunnskapen kan jeg godt tro at IDG er inne på noe.</p>
9512
9513       </div>
9514       <div class="tags">
9515
9516
9517         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>.
9518
9519
9520       </div>
9521     </div>
9522     <div class="padding"></div>
9523
9524     <div class="entry">
9525       <div class="title">
9526         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Kryptert_harddisk___naturligvis.html">Kryptert harddisk - naturligvis</a>
9527       </div>
9528       <div class="date">
9529          2nd May 2009
9530       </div>
9531       <div class="body">
9532         <p><a href="http://www.dagensit.no/trender/article1658676.ece">Dagens
9533 IT melder</a> at Intel hevder at det er dyrt å miste en datamaskin,
9534 når en tar tap av arbeidstid, fortrolige dokumenter,
9535 personopplysninger og alt annet det innebærer.  Det er ingen tvil om
9536 at det er en kostbar affære å miste sin datamaskin, og det er årsaken
9537 til at jeg har kryptert harddisken på både kontormaskinen og min
9538 bærbare.  Begge inneholder personopplysninger jeg ikke ønsker skal
9539 komme på avveie, den første informasjon relatert til jobben min ved
9540 Universitetet i Oslo, og den andre relatert til blant annet
9541 foreningsarbeide.  Kryptering av diskene gjør at det er lite
9542 sannsynlig at dophoder som kan finne på å rappe maskinene får noe ut
9543 av dem.  Maskinene låses automatisk etter noen minutter uten bruk,
9544 og en reboot vil gjøre at de ber om passord før de vil starte opp.
9545 Jeg bruker Debian på begge maskinene, og installasjonssystemet der
9546 gjør det trivielt å sette opp krypterte disker.  Jeg har LVM på toppen
9547 av krypterte partisjoner, slik at alt av datapartisjoner er kryptert.
9548 Jeg anbefaler alle å kryptere diskene på sine bærbare.  Kostnaden når
9549 det er gjort slik jeg gjør det er minimale, og gevinstene er
9550 betydelige.  En bør dog passe på passordet.  Hvis det går tapt, må
9551 maskinen reinstalleres og alt er tapt.</p>
9552
9553 <p>Krypteringen vil ikke stoppe kompetente angripere som f.eks. kjøler
9554 ned minnebrikkene før maskinen rebootes med programvare for å hente ut
9555 krypteringsnøklene.  Kostnaden med å forsvare seg mot slike angripere
9556 er for min del høyere enn gevinsten.  Jeg tror oddsene for at
9557 f.eks. etteretningsorganisasjoner har glede av å titte på mine
9558 maskiner er minimale, og ulempene jeg ville oppnå ved å forsøke å
9559 gjøre det vanskeligere for angripere med kompetanse og ressurser er
9560 betydelige.</p>
9561
9562       </div>
9563       <div class="tags">
9564
9565
9566         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>.
9567
9568
9569       </div>
9570     </div>
9571     <div class="padding"></div>
9572
9573     <div class="entry">
9574       <div class="title">
9575         <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>
9576       </div>
9577       <div class="date">
9578          2nd May 2009
9579       </div>
9580       <div class="body">
9581         <p>There are two software projects that have had huge influence on the
9582 quality of free software, and I wanted to mention both in case someone
9583 do not yet know them.</p>
9584
9585 <p>The first one is <a href="http://valgrind.org/">valgrind</a>, a
9586 tool to detect and expose errors in the memory handling of programs.
9587 It is easy to use, all one need to do is to run 'valgrind program',
9588 and it will report any problems on stdout.  It is even better if the
9589 program include debug information.  With debug information, it is able
9590 to report the source file name and line number where the problem
9591 occurs.  It can report things like 'reading past memory block in file
9592 X line N, the memory block was allocated in file Y, line M', and
9593 'using uninitialised value in control logic'.  This tool has made it
9594 trivial to investigate reproducible crash bugs in programs, and have
9595 reduced the number of this kind of bugs in free software a lot.
9596
9597 <p>The second one is
9598 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coverity">Coverity</a> which is
9599 a source code checker.  It is able to process the source of a program
9600 and find problems in the logic without running the program.  It
9601 started out as the Stanford Checker and became well known when it was
9602 used to find bugs in the Linux kernel.  It is now a commercial tool
9603 and the company behind it is running
9604 <a href="http://www.scan.coverity.com/">a community service</a> for the
9605 free software community, where a lot of free software projects get
9606 their source checked for free.  Several thousand defects have been
9607 found and fixed so far.  It can find errors like 'lock L taken in file
9608 X line N is never released if exiting in line M', or 'the code in file
9609 Y lines O to P can never be executed'.  The projects included in the
9610 community service project have managed to get rid of a lot of
9611 reliability problems thanks to Coverity.</p>
9612
9613 <p>I believe tools like this, that are able to automatically find
9614 errors in the source, are vital to improve the quality of software and
9615 make sure we can get rid of the crashing and failing software we are
9616 surrounded by today.</p>
9617
9618       </div>
9619       <div class="tags">
9620
9621
9622         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
9623
9624
9625       </div>
9626     </div>
9627     <div class="padding"></div>
9628
9629     <div class="entry">
9630       <div class="title">
9631         <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>
9632       </div>
9633       <div class="date">
9634         28th April 2009
9635       </div>
9636       <div class="body">
9637         <p>Julien Blache
9638 <a href="http://blog.technologeek.org/2009/04/12/214">claim that no
9639 patch is better than a useless patch</a>.  I completely disagree, as a
9640 patch allow one to discuss a concrete and proposed solution, and also
9641 prove that the issue at hand is important enough for someone to spent
9642 time on fixing it.  No patch do not provide any of these positive
9643 properties.</p>
9644
9645       </div>
9646       <div class="tags">
9647
9648
9649         Tags: <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>.
9650
9651
9652       </div>
9653     </div>
9654     <div class="padding"></div>
9655
9656     <div class="entry">
9657       <div class="title">
9658         <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>
9659       </div>
9660       <div class="date">
9661         30th March 2009
9662       </div>
9663       <div class="body">
9664         <p>Where I work at the University of Oslo, one decision stand out as a
9665 very good one to form a long lived computer infrastructure.  It is the
9666 simple one, lost by many in todays computer industry: Standardize on
9667 open network protocols and open exchange/storage formats, not applications.
9668 Applications come and go, while protocols and files tend to stay, and
9669 thus one want to make it easy to change application and vendor, while
9670 avoiding conversion costs and locking users to a specific platform or
9671 application.</p>
9672
9673 <p>This approach make it possible to replace the client applications
9674 independently of the server applications.  One can even allow users to
9675 use several different applications as long as they handle the selected
9676 protocol and format.  In the normal case, only one client application
9677 is recommended and users only get help if they choose to use this
9678 application, but those that want to deviate from the easy path are not
9679 blocked from doing so.</p>
9680
9681 <p>It also allow us to replace the server side without forcing the
9682 users to replace their applications, and thus allow us to select the
9683 best server implementation at any moment, when scale and resouce
9684 requirements change.</p>
9685
9686 <p>I strongly recommend standardizing - on open network protocols and
9687 open formats, but I would never recommend standardizing on a single
9688 application that do not use open network protocol or open formats.</p>
9689
9690       </div>
9691       <div class="tags">
9692
9693
9694         Tags: <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>.
9695
9696
9697       </div>
9698     </div>
9699     <div class="padding"></div>
9700
9701     <div class="entry">
9702       <div class="title">
9703         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Returning_from_Skolelinux_developer_gathering.html">Returning from Skolelinux developer gathering</a>
9704       </div>
9705       <div class="date">
9706         29th March 2009
9707       </div>
9708       <div class="body">
9709         <p>I'm sitting on the train going home from this weekends Debian
9710 Edu/Skolelinux development gathering.  I got a bit done tuning the
9711 desktop, and looked into the dynamic service location protocol
9712 implementation avahi.  It look like it could be useful for us.  Almost
9713 30 people participated, and I believe it was a great environment to
9714 get to know the Skolelinux system.  Walter Bender, involved in the
9715 development of the Sugar educational platform, presented his stuff and
9716 also helped me improve my OLPC installation.  He also showed me that
9717 his Turtle Art application can be used in standalone mode, and we
9718 agreed that I would help getting it packaged for Debian.  As a
9719 standalone application it would be great for Debian Edu.  We also
9720 tried to get the video conferencing working with two OLPCs, but that
9721 proved to be too hard for us.  The application seem to need more work
9722 before it is ready for me.  I look forward to getting home and relax
9723 now. :)</p>
9724
9725       </div>
9726       <div class="tags">
9727
9728
9729         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>.
9730
9731
9732       </div>
9733     </div>
9734     <div class="padding"></div>
9735
9736     <div class="entry">
9737       <div class="title">
9738         <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>
9739       </div>
9740       <div class="date">
9741         29th March 2009
9742       </div>
9743       <div class="body">
9744         <p>The state of standardized LDAP schemas on Linux is far from
9745 optimal.  There is RFC 2307 documenting one way to store NIS maps in
9746 LDAP, and a modified version of this normally called RFC 2307bis, with
9747 some modifications to be compatible with Active Directory.  The RFC
9748 specification handle the content of a lot of system databases, but do
9749 not handle DNS zones and DHCP configuration.</p>
9750
9751 <p>In <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux</a>,
9752 we would like to store information about users, SMB clients/hosts,
9753 filegroups, netgroups (users and hosts), DHCP and DNS configuration,
9754 and LTSP configuration in LDAP.  These objects have a lot in common,
9755 but with the current LDAP schemas it is not possible to have one
9756 object per entity.  For example, one need to have at least three LDAP
9757 objects for a given computer, one with the SMB related stuff, one with
9758 DNS information and another with DHCP information.  The schemas
9759 provided for DNS and DHCP are impossible to combine into one LDAP
9760 object.  In addition, it is impossible to implement quick queries for
9761 netgroup membership, because of the way NIS triples are implemented.
9762 It just do not scale.  I believe it is time for a few RFC
9763 specifications to cleam up this mess.</p>
9764
9765 <p>I would like to have one LDAP object representing each computer in
9766 the network, and this object can then keep the SMB (ie host key), DHCP
9767 (mac address/name) and DNS (name/IP address) settings in one place.
9768 It need to be efficently stored to make sure it scale well.</p>
9769
9770 <p>I would also like to have a quick way to map from a user or
9771 computer and to the net group this user or computer is a member.</p>
9772
9773 <p>Active Directory have done a better job than unix heads like myself
9774 in this regard, and the unix side need to catch up.  Time to start a
9775 new IETF work group?</p>
9776
9777       </div>
9778       <div class="tags">
9779
9780
9781         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>.
9782
9783
9784       </div>
9785     </div>
9786     <div class="padding"></div>
9787
9788     <div class="entry">
9789       <div class="title">
9790         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Endelig_er_Debian_Lenny_gitt_ut.html">Endelig er Debian Lenny gitt ut</a>
9791       </div>
9792       <div class="date">
9793         15th February 2009
9794       </div>
9795       <div class="body">
9796         <p>Endelig er <a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</a>
9797 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2009/20090214">Lenny</a> gitt ut.
9798 Et langt steg videre for Debian-prosjektet, og en rekke nye
9799 programpakker blir nå tilgjengelig for de av oss som bruker den
9800 stabile utgaven av Debian.  Neste steg er nå å få
9801 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a> /
9802 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/">Debian Edu</a> ferdig
9803 oppdatert for den nye utgaven, slik at en oppdatert versjon kan
9804 slippes løs på skolene.  Takk til alle debian-utviklerne som har
9805 gjort dette mulig.  Endelig er f.eks. fungerende avhengighetsstyrt
9806 bootsekvens tilgjengelig i stabil utgave, vha pakken
9807 <tt>insserv</tt>.</p>
9808
9809       </div>
9810       <div class="tags">
9811
9812
9813         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>.
9814
9815
9816       </div>
9817     </div>
9818     <div class="padding"></div>
9819
9820     <div class="entry">
9821       <div class="title">
9822         <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>
9823       </div>
9824       <div class="date">
9825          7th December 2008
9826       </div>
9827       <div class="body">
9828         <p>This weekend we had a small developer gathering for Debian Edu in
9829 Oslo.  Most of Saturday was used for the general assemly for the
9830 member organization, but the rest of the weekend I used to tune the
9831 LTSP installation.  LTSP now work out of the box on the 10-network.
9832 Acer Aspire One proved to be a very nice thin client, with both
9833 screen, mouse and keybard in a small box.  Was working on getting the
9834 diskless workstation setup configured out of the box, but did not
9835 finish it before the weekend was up.</p>
9836
9837 <p>Did not find time to look at the 4 VGA cards in one box we got from
9838 the Brazilian group, so that will have to wait for the next
9839 development gathering.  Would love to have the Debian Edu installer
9840 automatically detect and configure a multiseat setup when it find one
9841 of these cards.</p>
9842
9843       </div>
9844       <div class="tags">
9845
9846
9847         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>.
9848
9849
9850       </div>
9851     </div>
9852     <div class="padding"></div>
9853
9854     <div class="entry">
9855       <div class="title">
9856         <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>
9857       </div>
9858       <div class="date">
9859         25th November 2008
9860       </div>
9861       <div class="body">
9862         <p>Recently I have spent some time evaluating the multimedia browser
9863 plugins available in Debian Lenny, to see which one we should use by
9864 default in Debian Edu.  We need an embedded video playing plugin with
9865 control buttons to pause or stop the video, and capable of streaming
9866 all the multimedia content available on the web.  The test results and
9867 notes are available on
9868 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">the
9869 Debian wiki</a>.  I was surprised how few of the plugins are able to
9870 fill this need.  My personal video player favorite, VLC, has a really
9871 bad plugin which fail on a lot of the test pages.  A lot of the MIME
9872 types I would expect to work with any free software player (like
9873 video/ogg), just do not work.  And simple formats like the
9874 audio/x-mplegurl format (m3u playlists), just isn't supported by the
9875 totem and vlc plugins.  I hope the situation will improve soon.  No
9876 wonder sites use the proprietary Adobe flash to play video.</p>
9877
9878 <p>For Lenny, we seem to end up with the mplayer plugin.  It seem to
9879 be the only one fitting our needs. :/</p>
9880
9881       </div>
9882       <div class="tags">
9883
9884
9885         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>.
9886
9887
9888       </div>
9889     </div>
9890     <div class="padding"></div>
9891
9892     <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>
9893     <div id="sidebar">
9894
9895
9896
9897 <h2>Archive</h2>
9898 <ul>
9899
9900 <li>2016
9901 <ul>
9902
9903 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/01/">January (3)</a></li>
9904
9905 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/02/">February (1)</a></li>
9906
9907 </ul></li>
9908
9909 <li>2015
9910 <ul>
9911
9912 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/01/">January (7)</a></li>
9913
9914 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/02/">February (6)</a></li>
9915
9916 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/03/">March (1)</a></li>
9917
9918 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/04/">April (4)</a></li>
9919
9920 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/05/">May (3)</a></li>
9921
9922 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/06/">June (4)</a></li>
9923
9924 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/07/">July (6)</a></li>
9925
9926 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/08/">August (2)</a></li>
9927
9928 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/09/">September (2)</a></li>
9929
9930 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/10/">October (9)</a></li>
9931
9932 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/11/">November (6)</a></li>
9933
9934 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/12/">December (3)</a></li>
9935
9936 </ul></li>
9937
9938 <li>2014
9939 <ul>
9940
9941 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/01/">January (2)</a></li>
9942
9943 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/02/">February (3)</a></li>
9944
9945 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/03/">March (8)</a></li>
9946
9947 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/04/">April (7)</a></li>
9948
9949 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/05/">May (1)</a></li>
9950
9951 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/06/">June (2)</a></li>
9952
9953 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/07/">July (2)</a></li>
9954
9955 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/08/">August (2)</a></li>
9956
9957 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/09/">September (5)</a></li>
9958
9959 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/10/">October (6)</a></li>
9960
9961 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/11/">November (3)</a></li>
9962
9963 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/12/">December (5)</a></li>
9964
9965 </ul></li>
9966
9967 <li>2013
9968 <ul>
9969
9970 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/01/">January (11)</a></li>
9971
9972 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/02/">February (9)</a></li>
9973
9974 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/03/">March (9)</a></li>
9975
9976 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/04/">April (6)</a></li>
9977
9978 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/05/">May (9)</a></li>
9979
9980 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/06/">June (10)</a></li>
9981
9982 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/07/">July (7)</a></li>
9983
9984 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/08/">August (3)</a></li>
9985
9986 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/09/">September (5)</a></li>
9987
9988 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/10/">October (7)</a></li>
9989
9990 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/11/">November (9)</a></li>
9991
9992 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/12/">December (3)</a></li>
9993
9994 </ul></li>
9995
9996 <li>2012
9997 <ul>
9998
9999 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/01/">January (7)</a></li>
10000
10001 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/02/">February (10)</a></li>
10002
10003 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/03/">March (17)</a></li>
10004
10005 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/04/">April (12)</a></li>
10006
10007 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/05/">May (12)</a></li>
10008
10009 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/06/">June (20)</a></li>
10010
10011 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/07/">July (17)</a></li>
10012
10013 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/08/">August (6)</a></li>
10014
10015 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/09/">September (9)</a></li>
10016
10017 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/10/">October (17)</a></li>
10018
10019 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/11/">November (10)</a></li>
10020
10021 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/12/">December (7)</a></li>
10022
10023 </ul></li>
10024
10025 <li>2011
10026 <ul>
10027
10028 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/01/">January (16)</a></li>
10029
10030 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/02/">February (6)</a></li>
10031
10032 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/03/">March (6)</a></li>
10033
10034 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/04/">April (7)</a></li>
10035
10036 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/05/">May (3)</a></li>
10037
10038 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/06/">June (2)</a></li>
10039
10040 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/07/">July (7)</a></li>
10041
10042 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/08/">August (6)</a></li>
10043
10044 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/09/">September (4)</a></li>
10045
10046 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/10/">October (2)</a></li>
10047
10048 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/11/">November (3)</a></li>
10049
10050 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/12/">December (1)</a></li>
10051
10052 </ul></li>
10053
10054 <li>2010
10055 <ul>
10056
10057 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/01/">January (2)</a></li>
10058
10059 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/02/">February (1)</a></li>
10060
10061 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/03/">March (3)</a></li>
10062
10063 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/04/">April (3)</a></li>
10064
10065 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/05/">May (9)</a></li>
10066
10067 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/06/">June (14)</a></li>
10068
10069 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/07/">July (12)</a></li>
10070
10071 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/08/">August (13)</a></li>
10072
10073 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/09/">September (7)</a></li>
10074
10075 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/10/">October (9)</a></li>
10076
10077 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/11/">November (13)</a></li>
10078
10079 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/12/">December (12)</a></li>
10080
10081 </ul></li>
10082
10083 <li>2009
10084 <ul>
10085
10086 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/01/">January (8)</a></li>
10087
10088 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/02/">February (8)</a></li>
10089
10090 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/03/">March (12)</a></li>
10091
10092 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/04/">April (10)</a></li>
10093
10094 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/05/">May (9)</a></li>
10095
10096 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/06/">June (3)</a></li>
10097
10098 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/07/">July (4)</a></li>
10099
10100 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/08/">August (3)</a></li>
10101
10102 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/09/">September (1)</a></li>
10103
10104 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/10/">October (2)</a></li>
10105
10106 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/11/">November (3)</a></li>
10107
10108 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/12/">December (3)</a></li>
10109
10110 </ul></li>
10111
10112 <li>2008
10113 <ul>
10114
10115 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/11/">November (5)</a></li>
10116
10117 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/12/">December (7)</a></li>
10118
10119 </ul></li>
10120
10121 </ul>
10122
10123
10124
10125 <h2>Tags</h2>
10126 <ul>
10127
10128  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer (13)</a></li>
10129
10130  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/amiga">amiga (1)</a></li>
10131
10132  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/aros">aros (1)</a></li>
10133
10134  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bankid">bankid (4)</a></li>
10135
10136  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin (9)</a></li>
10137
10138  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem (15)</a></li>
10139
10140  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bsa">bsa (2)</a></li>
10141
10142  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/chrpath">chrpath (2)</a></li>
10143
10144  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian (119)</a></li>
10145
10146  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu (154)</a></li>
10147
10148  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/digistan">digistan (10)</a></li>
10149
10150  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/dld">dld (15)</a></li>
10151
10152  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook (20)</a></li>
10153
10154  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/drivstoffpriser">drivstoffpriser (4)</a></li>
10155
10156  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english (301)</a></li>
10157
10158  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami (23)</a></li>
10159
10160  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fildeling">fildeling (12)</a></li>
10161
10162  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture (25)</a></li>
10163
10164  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox (9)</a></li>
10165
10166  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen (16)</a></li>
10167
10168  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/h264">h264 (20)</a></li>
10169
10170  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju (42)</a></li>
10171
10172  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram (11)</a></li>
10173
10174  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kart">kart (19)</a></li>
10175
10176  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap (9)</a></li>
10177
10178  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lenker">lenker (8)</a></li>
10179
10180  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lsdvd">lsdvd (2)</a></li>
10181
10182  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ltsp">ltsp (1)</a></li>
10183
10184  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network (8)</a></li>
10185
10186  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia (37)</a></li>
10187
10188  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nice free software">nice free software (7)</a></li>
10189
10190  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk (273)</a></li>
10191
10192  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug (177)</a></li>
10193
10194  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/offentlig innsyn">offentlig innsyn (22)</a></li>
10195
10196  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/open311">open311 (2)</a></li>
10197
10198  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett (58)</a></li>
10199
10200  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern (92)</a></li>
10201
10202  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/raid">raid (1)</a></li>
10203
10204  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reactos">reactos (1)</a></li>
10205
10206  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reprap">reprap (11)</a></li>
10207
10208  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rfid">rfid (3)</a></li>
10209
10210  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot (9)</a></li>
10211
10212  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rss">rss (1)</a></li>
10213
10214  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ruter">ruter (4)</a></li>
10215
10216  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/scraperwiki">scraperwiki (2)</a></li>
10217
10218  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet (45)</a></li>
10219
10220  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary (4)</a></li>
10221
10222  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/skepsis">skepsis (4)</a></li>
10223
10224  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard (48)</a></li>
10225
10226  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stavekontroll">stavekontroll (3)</a></li>
10227
10228  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stortinget">stortinget (10)</a></li>
10229
10230  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance (36)</a></li>
10231
10232  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sysadmin">sysadmin (2)</a></li>
10233
10234  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/usenix">usenix (2)</a></li>
10235
10236  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/valg">valg (8)</a></li>
10237
10238  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video (55)</a></li>
10239
10240  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/vitenskap">vitenskap (4)</a></li>
10241
10242  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web (38)</a></li>
10243
10244 </ul>
10245
10246
10247     </div>
10248     <p style="text-align: right">
10249  Created by <a href="http://steve.org.uk/Software/chronicle">Chronicle v4.6</a>
10250 </p>
10251
10252   </body>
10253 </html>