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14 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/">Petter Reinholdtsen
</a>
21 <h3>Entries tagged "debian".
</h3>
25 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Quicker_Debian_installations_using_eatmydata.html">Quicker Debian installations using eatmydata
</a>
31 <p>Two years ago, I did some experiments with eatmydata and the Debian
32 installation system, observing how using
33 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Speeding_up_the_Debian_installer_using_eatmydata_and_dpkg_divert.html">eatmydata
34 could speed up the installation
</a> quite a bit. My testing measured
35 speedup around
20-
40 percent for Debian Edu, where we install around
36 1000 packages from within the installer. The eatmydata package
37 provide a way to disable/delay file system flushing. This is a bit
38 risky in the general case, as files that should be stored on disk will
39 stay only in memory a bit longer than expected, causing problems if a
40 machine crashes at an inconvenient time. But for an installation, if
41 the machine crashes during installation the process is normally
42 restarted, and avoiding disk operations as much as possible to speed
43 up the process make perfect sense.
45 <p>I added code in the Debian Edu specific installation code to enable
46 <a href=
"https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/libeatmydata">eatmydata
</a>,
47 but did not have time to push it any further. But a few months ago I
48 picked it up again and worked with the libeatmydata package maintainer
49 Mattia Rizzolo to make it easier for everyone to get this installation
50 speedup in Debian. Thanks to our cooperation There is now an
51 eatmydata-udeb package in Debian testing and unstable, and simply
52 enabling/installing it in debian-installer (d-i) is enough to get the
53 quicker installations. It can be enabled using preseeding. The
54 following untested kernel argument should do the trick:
</p>
57 preseed/
early_command="anna-install eatmydata-udeb"
60 <p>This should ask d-i to install the package inside the d-i
61 environment early in the installation sequence. Having it installed
62 in d-i in turn will make sure the relevant scripts are called just
63 after debootstrap filled /target/ with the freshly installed Debian
64 system to configure apt to run dpkg with eatmydata. This is enough to
65 speed up the installation process. There is a proposal to
66 <a href=
"https://bugs.debian.org/841153">extend the idea a bit further
67 by using /etc/ld.so.preload instead of apt.conf
</a>, but I have not
68 tested its impact.
</p>
75 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>.
80 <div class=
"padding"></div>
84 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Oversette_bokm_l_til_nynorsk__enklere_enn_du_tror_takket_v_re_Apertium.html">Oversette bokmål til nynorsk, enklere enn du tror takket være Apertium
</a>
90 <p>I Norge er det mange som trenger å skrive både bokmål og nynorsk.
91 Eksamensoppgaver, offentlige brev og nyheter er eksempler på tekster
92 der det er krav om skriftspråk. I tillegg til alle skoleoppgavene som
93 elever over det ganske land skal levere inn hvert år. Det mange ikke
94 vet er at selv om de kommersielle alternativene
95 <a href=
"https://translate.google.com/">Google Translate
</a> og
96 <a href=
"https://www.bing.com/translator/">Bing Translator
</a> ikke kan
97 bidra med å oversette mellom bokmål og nynorsk, så finnes det et
98 utmerket fri programvarealternativ som kan. Oversetterverktøyet
99 Apertium har støtte for en rekke språkkombinasjoner, og takket være
100 den utrettelige innsatsen til blant annet Kevin Brubeck Unhammer, kan
101 en bruke webtjenesten til å fylle inn en tekst på bokmål eller
102 nynorsk, og få den automatoversatt til det andre skriftspråket.
103 Resultatet er ikke perfekt, men et svært godt utgangspunkt. Av og til
104 er resultatet så bra at det kan benyttes uten endringer. Jeg vet
105 f.eks. at store deler av Joomla ble oversatt til nynorsk ved hjelp
106 Apertium. Høres det ut som noe du kan ha bruk for? Besøk i så fall
107 <a href=
"https://www.apertium.org/">Apertium.org
</a> og fyll inn
108 teksten din i webskjemaet der.
110 <p>Hvis du trenger maskinell tilgang til den bakenforliggende
111 teknologien kan du enten installere pakken
112 <a href=
"https://tracker.debian.org/apertium-nno-nob">apertium-nno-nob
</a>
113 på en Debian-maskin eller bruke web-API-et tilgjengelig fra
115 <a href=
"http://wiki.apertium.org/wiki/Apertium-apy">API-dokumentasjonen
</a>
116 for detaljer om web-API-et. Her kan du se hvordan resultatet blir for
117 denne teksten som ble skrevet på bokmål over maskinoversatt til
122 <p>I Noreg er det mange som treng å skriva både bokmål og nynorsk.
123 Eksamensoppgåver, offentlege brev og nyhende er døme på tekster der
124 det er krav om skriftspråk. I tillegg til alle skuleoppgåvene som
125 elevar over det ganske land skal levera inn kvart år. Det mange ikkje
126 veit er at sjølv om dei kommersielle alternativa
127 <a href=
"https://translate.google.com/">Google *Translate
</a> og
128 <a href=
"https://www.bing.com/translator/">Bing *Translator
</a> ikkje
129 kan bidra med å omsetja mellom bokmål og nynorsk, så finst det eit
130 utmerka fri programvarealternativ som kan. Omsetjarverktøyet
131 *Apertium har støtte for ei rekkje språkkombinasjonar, og takka vera
132 den utrøyttelege innsatsen til blant anna Kevin Brubeck Unhammer, kan
133 ein bruka *webtjenesten til å fylla inn ei tekst på bokmål eller
134 nynorsk, og få den *automatoversatt til det andre skriftspråket.
135 Resultatet er ikkje perfekt, men eit svært godt utgangspunkt. Av og
136 til er resultatet så bra at det kan nyttast utan endringar. Eg veit
137 t.d. at store delar av *Joomla vart omsett til nynorsk ved hjelp
138 *Apertium. Høyrast det ut som noko du kan ha bruk for? Besøk i så
139 fall
<a href=
"https://www.apertium.org/">*Apertium.org
</a> og fyll inn
140 teksta di i *webskjemaet der.
142 <p>Viss du treng *maskinell tilgjenge til den *bakenforliggende
143 teknologien kan du anten installera pakken
144 <a href=
"https://tracker.debian.org/apertium-nno-nob">*apertium-*nno-*nob
</a>
145 på ein *Debian-maskin eller bruka *web-*API-eit tilgjengeleg frå
146 *api.*apertium.org. Sjå
147 <a href=
"http://wiki.apertium.org/wiki/Apertium-apy">*API-dokumentasjonen
</a>
148 for detaljar om *web-*API-eit. Her kan du sjå korleis resultatet vert
149 for denne teksta som vart skreva på bokmål over *maskinoversatt til
156 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/stavekontroll">stavekontroll
</a>.
161 <div class=
"padding"></div>
165 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Coz_profiler_for_multi_threaded_software_is_now_in_Debian.html">Coz profiler for multi-threaded software is now in Debian
</a>
171 <p><a href=
"http://coz-profiler.org/">The Coz profiler
</a>, a nice
172 profiler able to run benchmarking experiments on the instrumented
173 multi-threaded program, finally
174 <a href=
"https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/coz-profiler">made it into
175 Debian unstable yesterday
</A>. Lluís Vilanova and I have spent many
177 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Coz_can_help_you_find_bottlenecks_in_multi_threaded_software___nice_free_software.html">I
178 blogged about the coz tool
</a> in August working with upstream to make
179 it suitable for Debian. There are still issues with clang
180 compatibility, inline assembly only working x86 and minimized
181 JavaScript libraries.
</p>
183 <p>To test it, install 'coz-profiler' using apt and run it like this:
</p>
186 <tt>coz run --- /path/to/binary-with-debug-info
</tt>
189 <p>This will produce a profile.coz file in the current working
190 directory with the profiling information. This is then given to a
191 JavaScript application provided in the package and available from
192 <a href=
"http://plasma-umass.github.io/coz/">a project web page
</a>.
193 To start the local copy, invoke it in a browser like this:
</p>
196 <tt>sensible-browser /usr/share/coz-profiler/viewer/index.htm
</tt>
199 <p>See the project home page and the
200 <a href=
"https://www.usenix.org/publications/login/summer2016/curtsinger">USENIX
201 ;login: article on Coz
</a> for more information on how it is
208 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
213 <div class=
"padding"></div>
217 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/My_own_self_balancing_Lego_Segway.html">My own self balancing Lego Segway
</a>
223 <p>A while back I received a Gyro sensor for the NXT
224 <a href=
"mindstorms.lego.com">Mindstorms
</a> controller as a birthday
225 present. It had been on my wishlist for a while, because I wanted to
226 build a Segway like balancing lego robot. I had already built
227 <a href=
"http://www.nxtprograms.com/NXT2/segway/">a simple balancing
228 robot
</a> with the kids, using the light/color sensor included in the
229 NXT kit as the balance sensor, but it was not working very well. It
230 could balance for a while, but was very sensitive to the light
231 condition in the room and the reflective properties of the surface and
232 would fall over after a short while. I wanted something more robust,
234 <a href=
"https://www.hitechnic.com/cgi-bin/commerce.cgi?preadd=action&key=NGY1044">the
235 gyro sensor from HiTechnic
</a> I believed would solve it on my
236 wishlist for some years before it suddenly showed up as a gift from my
239 <p>Unfortunately I have not had time to sit down and play with it
240 since then. But that changed some days ago, when I was searching for
241 lego segway information and came across a recipe from HiTechnic for
243 <a href=
"http://www.hitechnic.com/blog/gyro-sensor/htway/">the
244 HTWay
</a>, a segway like balancing robot. Build instructions and
245 <a href=
"https://www.hitechnic.com/upload/786-HTWayC.nxc">source
246 code
</a> was included, so it was just a question of putting it all
247 together. And thanks to the great work of many Debian developers, the
248 compiler needed to build the source for the NXT is already included in
249 Debian, so I was read to go in less than an hour. The resulting robot
250 do not look very impressive in its simplicity:
</p>
252 <p align=
"center"><img width=
"70%" src=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-11-04-lego-htway-robot.jpeg"></p>
254 <p>Because I lack the infrared sensor used to control the robot in the
255 design from HiTechnic, I had to comment out the last task
256 (taskControl). I simply placed /* and */ around it get the program
257 working without that sensor present. Now it balances just fine until
258 the battery status run low:
</p>
260 <p align=
"center"><video width=
"70%" controls=
"true">
261 <source src=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-11-04-lego-htway-balancing.ogv" type=
"video/ogg">
264 <p>Now we would like to teach it how to follow a line and take remote
265 control instructions using the included Bluetooth receiver in the NXT.
</p>
267 <p>If you, like me, love LEGO and want to make sure we find the tools
268 they need to work with LEGO in Debian and all our derivative
269 distributions like Ubuntu, check out
270 <a href=
"http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">the LEGO designers
271 project page
</a> and join the Debian LEGO team. Personally I own a
272 RCX and NXT controller (no EV3), and would like to make sure the
273 Debian tools needed to program the systems I own work as they
280 Tags:
<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>.
285 <div class=
"padding"></div>
289 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Experience_and_updated_recipe_for_using_the_Signal_app_without_a_mobile_phone.html">Experience and updated recipe for using the Signal app without a mobile phone
</a>
296 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_use_the_Signal_app_if_you_only_have_a_land_line__ie_no_mobile_phone_.html">I
297 wrote how to get the Signal Chrome/Chromium app working
</a> without
298 the ability to receive SMS messages (aka without a cell phone). It is
299 time to share some experiences and provide an updated setup.
</p>
301 <p>The Signal app have worked fine for several months now, and I use
302 it regularly to chat with my loved ones. I had a major snag at the
303 end of my summer vacation, when the the app completely forgot my
304 setup, identity and keys. The reason behind this major mess was
305 running out of disk space. To avoid that ever happening again I have
306 started storing everything in
<tt>userdata/
</tt> in git, to be able to
307 roll back to an earlier version if the files are wiped by mistake. I
308 had to use it once after introducing the git backup. When rolling
309 back to an earlier version, one need to use the 'reset session' option
310 in Signal to get going, and notify the people you talk with about the
311 problem. I assume there is some sequence number tracking in the
312 protocol to detect rollback attacks. The git repository is rather big
313 (
674 MiB so far), but I have not tried to figure out if some of the
314 content can be added to a .gitignore file due to lack of spare
317 <p>I've also hit the
90 days timeout blocking, and noticed that this
318 make it impossible to send messages using Signal. I could still
319 receive them, but had to patch the code with a new timestamp to send.
320 I believe the timeout is added by the developers to force people to
321 upgrade to the latest version of the app, even when there is no
322 protocol changes, to reduce the version skew among the user base and
323 thus try to keep the number of support requests down.
</p>
325 <p>Since my original recipe, the Signal source code changed slightly,
326 making the old patch fail to apply cleanly. Below is an updated
327 patch, including the shell wrapper I use to start Signal. The
328 original version required a new user to locate the JavaScript console
329 and call a function from there. I got help from a friend with more
330 JavaScript knowledge than me to modify the code to provide a GUI
331 button instead. This mean that to get started you just need to run
332 the wrapper and click the 'Register without mobile phone' to get going
333 now. I've also modified the timeout code to always set it to
90 days
334 in the future, to avoid having to patch the code regularly.
</p>
336 <p>So, the updated recipe for Debian Jessie:
</p>
340 <li>First, install required packages to get the source code and the
341 browser you need. Signal only work with Chrome/Chromium, as far as I
342 know, so you need to install it.
345 apt install git tor chromium
346 git clone https://github.com/WhisperSystems/Signal-Desktop.git
349 <li>Modify the source code using command listed in the the patch
352 <li>Start Signal using the run-signal-app wrapper (for example using
353 <tt>`pwd`/run-signal-app
</tt>).
355 <li>Click on the 'Register without mobile phone', will in a phone
356 number you can receive calls to the next minute, receive the
357 verification code and enter it into the form field and press
358 'Register'. Note, the phone number you use will be user Signal
359 username, ie the way others can find you on Signal.
</li>
361 <li>You can now use Signal to contact others. Note, new contacts do
362 not show up in the contact list until you restart Signal, and there is
363 no way to assign names to Contacts. There is also no way to create or
364 update chat groups. I suspect this is because the web app do not have
365 a associated contact database.
</li>
369 <p>I am still a bit uneasy about using Signal, because of the way its
370 main author moxie0 reject federation and accept dependencies to major
371 corporations like Google (part of the code is fetched from Google) and
372 Amazon (the central coordination point is owned by Amazon). See for
374 <a href=
"https://github.com/LibreSignal/LibreSignal/issues/37">the
375 LibreSignal issue tracker
</a> for a thread documenting the authors
376 view on these issues. But the network effect is strong in this case,
377 and several of the people I want to communicate with already use
378 Signal. Perhaps we can all move to
<a href=
"https://ring.cx/">Ring
</a>
379 once it
<a href=
"https://bugs.debian.org/830265">work on my
380 laptop
</a>? It already work on Windows and Android, and is included
381 in
<a href=
"https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/ring">Debian
</a> and
382 <a href=
"https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ring">Ubuntu
</a>, but not
383 working on Debian Stable.
</p>
385 <p>Anyway, this is the patch I apply to the Signal code to get it
386 working. It switch to the production servers, disable to timeout,
387 make registration easier and add the shell wrapper:
</p>
390 cd Signal-Desktop; cat
<<EOF | patch -p1
391 diff --git a/js/background.js b/js/background.js
392 index
24b4c1d.
.579345f
100644
393 --- a/js/background.js
394 +++ b/js/background.js
399 - var SERVER_URL = 'https://textsecure-service-staging.whispersystems.org';
400 + var SERVER_URL = 'https://textsecure-service-ca.whispersystems.org';
401 var SERVER_PORTS = [
80,
4433,
8443];
402 - var ATTACHMENT_SERVER_URL = 'https://whispersystems-textsecure-attachments-staging.s3.amazonaws.com';
403 + var ATTACHMENT_SERVER_URL = 'https://whispersystems-textsecure-attachments.s3.amazonaws.com';
405 window.getSocketStatus = function() {
406 if (messageReceiver) {
407 diff --git a/js/expire.js b/js/expire.js
408 index
639aeae..beb91c3
100644
414 - var BUILD_EXPIRATION =
0;
415 + var BUILD_EXPIRATION = Date.now() + (
90 *
24 *
60 *
60 *
1000);
417 window.extension = window.extension || {};
419 diff --git a/js/views/install_view.js b/js/views/install_view.js
420 index
7816f4f.
.1d6233b
100644
421 --- a/js/views/install_view.js
422 +++ b/js/views/install_view.js
425 'click .step1': this.selectStep.bind(this,
1),
426 'click .step2': this.selectStep.bind(this,
2),
427 - 'click .step3': this.selectStep.bind(this,
3)
428 + 'click .step3': this.selectStep.bind(this,
3),
429 + 'click .callreg': function() { extension.install('standalone') },
432 clearQR: function() {
433 diff --git a/options.html b/options.html
434 index dc0f28e.
.8d709f6
100644
439 <h1
>{{ installWelcome }}
</h1
>
440 <p
>{{ installTagline }}
</p
>
441 -
<div
> <a class='button step2'
>{{ installGetStartedButton }}
</a
> </div
>
442 +
<div
> <a class='button step2'
>{{ installGetStartedButton }}
</a
>
443 +
<br
> <a
class="button callreg"
>Register without mobile phone
</a
>
446 <span class='dot step1 selected'
></span
>
447 <span class='dot step2'
></span
>
448 <span class='dot step3'
></span
>
449 --- /dev/null
2016-
10-
07 09:
55:
13.730181472 +
0200
450 +++ b/run-signal-app
2016-
10-
10 08:
54:
09.434172391 +
0200
456 +
userdata="`pwd`/userdata"
457 +if [ -d "$userdata" ] && [ ! -d "$userdata/.git" ] ; then
458 + (cd $userdata && git init)
460 +(cd $userdata && git add . && git commit -m "Current status." || true)
462 +
--proxy-server="socks://localhost:
9050" \
463 + --user-data-dir=$userdata --load-and-launch-app=`pwd`
465 chmod a+rx run-signal-app
468 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
469 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
470 <b><a href=
"bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
</a></b>.
</p>
476 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance
</a>.
481 <div class=
"padding"></div>
485 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Isenkram__Appstream_and_udev_make_life_as_a_LEGO_builder_easier.html">Isenkram, Appstream and udev make life as a LEGO builder easier
</a>
491 <p><a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">The Isenkram
492 system
</a> provide a practical and easy way to figure out which
493 packages support the hardware in a given machine. The command line
494 tool
<tt>isenkram-lookup
</tt> and the tasksel options provide a
495 convenient way to list and install packages relevant for the current
496 hardware during system installation, both user space packages and
497 firmware packages. The GUI background daemon on the other hand provide
498 a pop-up proposing to install packages when a new dongle is inserted
499 while using the computer. For example, if you plug in a smart card
500 reader, the system will ask if you want to install
<tt>pcscd
</tt> if
501 that package isn't already installed, and if you plug in a USB video
502 camera the system will ask if you want to install
<tt>cheese
</tt> if
503 cheese is currently missing. This already work just fine.
</p>
505 <p>But Isenkram depend on a database mapping from hardware IDs to
506 package names. When I started no such database existed in Debian, so
507 I made my own data set and included it with the isenkram package and
508 made isenkram fetch the latest version of this database from git using
509 http. This way the isenkram users would get updated package proposals
510 as soon as I learned more about hardware related packages.
</p>
512 <p>The hardware is identified using modalias strings. The modalias
513 design is from the Linux kernel where most hardware descriptors are
514 made available as a strings that can be matched using filename style
515 globbing. It handle USB, PCI, DMI and a lot of other hardware related
518 <p>The downside to the Isenkram specific database is that there is no
519 information about relevant distribution / Debian version, making
520 isenkram propose obsolete packages too. But along came AppStream, a
521 cross distribution mechanism to store and collect metadata about
522 software packages. When I heard about the proposal, I contacted the
523 people involved and suggested to add a hardware matching rule using
524 modalias strings in the specification, to be able to use AppStream for
525 mapping hardware to packages. This idea was accepted and AppStream is
526 now a great way for a package to announce the hardware it support in a
527 distribution neutral way. I wrote
528 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_appstream_with_isenkram_to_install_hardware_related_packages_in_Debian.html">a
529 recipe on how to add such meta-information
</a> in a blog post last
530 December. If you have a hardware related package in Debian, please
531 announce the relevant hardware IDs using AppStream.
</p>
533 <p>In Debian, almost all packages that can talk to a LEGO Mindestorms
534 RCX or NXT unit, announce this support using AppStream. The effect is
535 that when you insert such LEGO robot controller into your Debian
536 machine, Isenkram will propose to install the packages needed to get
537 it working. The intention is that this should allow the local user to
538 start programming his robot controller right away without having to
539 guess what packages to use or which permissions to fix.
</p>
541 <p>But when I sat down with my son the other day to program our NXT
542 unit using his Debian Stretch computer, I discovered something
543 annoying. The local console user (ie my son) did not get access to
544 the USB device for programming the unit. This used to work, but no
545 longer in Jessie and Stretch. After some investigation and asking
546 around on #debian-devel, I discovered that this was because udev had
547 changed the mechanism used to grant access to local devices. The
548 ConsoleKit mechanism from
<tt>/lib/udev/rules.d/
70-udev-acl.rules
</tt>
549 no longer applied, because LDAP users no longer was added to the
550 plugdev group during login. Michael Biebl told me that this method
551 was obsolete and the new method used ACLs instead. This was good
552 news, as the plugdev mechanism is a mess when using a remote user
553 directory like LDAP. Using ACLs would make sure a user lost device
554 access when she logged out, even if the user left behind a background
555 process which would retain the plugdev membership with the ConsoleKit
556 setup. Armed with this knowledge I moved on to fix the access problem
557 for the LEGO Mindstorms related packages.
</p>
559 <p>The new system uses a udev tag, 'uaccess'. It can either be
560 applied directly for a device, or is applied in
561 /lib/udev/rules.d/
70-uaccess.rules for classes of devices. As the
562 LEGO Mindstorms udev rules did not have a class, I decided to add the
563 tag directly in the udev rules files included in the packages. Here
564 is one example. For the nqc C compiler for the RCX, the
565 <tt>/lib/udev/rules.d/
60-nqc.rules
</tt> file now look like this:
568 SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ACTION=="add", ATTR{idVendor}=="
0694", ATTR{idProduct}=="
0001", \
569 SYMLINK+="rcx-%k", TAG+="uaccess"
572 <p>The key part is the 'TAG+="uaccess"' at the end. I suspect all
573 packages using plugdev in their /lib/udev/rules.d/ files should be
574 changed to use this tag (either directly or indirectly via
575 <tt>70-uaccess.rules
</tt>). Perhaps a lintian check should be created
578 <p>I've been unable to find good documentation on the uaccess feature.
579 It is unclear to me if the uaccess tag is an internal implementation
580 detail like the udev-acl tag used by
581 <tt>/lib/udev/rules.d/
70-udev-acl.rules
</tt>. If it is, I guess the
582 indirect method is the preferred way. Michael
583 <a href=
"https://github.com/systemd/systemd/issues/4288">asked for more
584 documentation from the systemd project
</a> and I hope it will make
585 this clearer. For now I use the generic classes when they exist and
586 is already handled by
<tt>70-uaccess.rules
</tt>, and add the tag
587 directly if no such class exist.
</p>
589 <p>To learn more about the isenkram system, please check out
590 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram/">my
591 blog posts tagged isenkram
</a>.
</p>
593 <p>To help out making life for LEGO constructors in Debian easier,
594 please join us on our IRC channel
595 <a href=
"irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">#debian-lego
</a> and join
596 the
<a href=
"https://alioth.debian.org/projects/debian-lego/">Debian
597 LEGO team
</a> in the Alioth project we created yesterday. A mailing
598 list is not yet created, but we are working on it. :)
</p>
600 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
601 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
602 <b><a href=
"bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
</a></b>.
</p>
608 Tags:
<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>.
613 <div class=
"padding"></div>
617 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_draft_Norwegian_Bokm_l_edition_of_The_Debian_Administrator_s_Handbook_now_public.html">First draft Norwegian Bokmål edition of The Debian Administrator's Handbook now public
</a>
624 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_a_Norwegian_Bokm_l_edition_of_The_Debian_Administrator_s_Handbook.html">started
625 to work
</a> on a Norwegian Bokmål edition of the "open access" book on
626 how to set up and administrate a Debian system. Today I am happy to
627 report that the first draft is now publicly available. You can find
628 it on
<a href=
"https://debian-handbook.info/get/">get the Debian
629 Administrator's Handbook page
</a> (under Other languages). The first
630 eight chapters have a first draft translation, and we are working on
631 proofreading the content. If you want to help out, please start
633 <a href=
"https://hosted.weblate.org/projects/debian-handbook/">the
634 hosted weblate project page
</a>, and get in touch using
635 <a href=
"http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/debian-handbook-translators">the
636 translators mailing list
</a>. Please also check out
637 <a href=
"https://debian-handbook.info/contribute/">the instructions for
638 contributors
</a>. A good way to contribute is to proofread the text
639 and update weblate if you find errors.
</p>
641 <p>Our goal is still to make the Norwegian book available on paper as well as
648 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
653 <div class=
"padding"></div>
657 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Coz_can_help_you_find_bottlenecks_in_multi_threaded_software___nice_free_software.html">Coz can help you find bottlenecks in multi-threaded software - nice free software
</a>
663 <p>This summer, I read a great article
664 "
<a href=
"https://www.usenix.org/publications/login/summer2016/curtsinger">coz:
665 This Is the Profiler You're Looking For
</a>" in USENIX ;login: about
666 how to profile multi-threaded programs. It presented a system for
667 profiling software by running experiences in the running program,
668 testing how run time performance is affected by "speeding up
" parts of
669 the code to various degrees compared to a normal run. It does this by
670 slowing down parallel threads while the "faster up
" code is running
671 and measure how this affect processing time. The processing time is
672 measured using probes inserted into the code, either using progress
673 counters (COZ_PROGRESS) or as latency meters (COZ_BEGIN/COZ_END). It
674 can also measure unmodified code by measuring complete the program
675 runtime and running the program several times instead.</p>
677 <p>The project and presentation was so inspiring that I would like to
678 get the system into Debian. I
679 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=
830708">created
680 a WNPP request for it</a> and contacted upstream to try to make the
681 system ready for Debian by sending patches. The build process need to
682 be changed a bit to avoid running 'git clone' to get dependencies, and
683 to include the JavaScript web page used to visualize the collected
684 profiling information included in the source package.
685 But I expect that should work out fairly soon.</p>
687 <p>The way the system work is fairly simple. To run an coz experiment
688 on a binary with debug symbols available, start the program like this:
691 coz run --- program-to-run
692 </pre></blockquote></p>
694 <p>This will create a text file profile.coz with the instrumentation
695 information. To show what part of the code affect the performance
696 most, use a web browser and either point it to
697 <a href="http://plasma-umass.github.io/coz/
">http://plasma-umass.github.io/coz/</a>
698 or use the copy from git (in the gh-pages branch). Check out this web
699 site to have a look at several example profiling runs and get an idea what the end result from the profile runs look like. To make the
700 profiling more useful you include <coz.h> and insert the
701 COZ_PROGRESS or COZ_BEGIN and COZ_END at appropriate places in the
702 code, rebuild and run the profiler. This allow coz to do more
703 targeted experiments.</p>
705 <p>A video published by ACM
706 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jE0V-p1odPg
">presenting the
707 Coz profiler</a> is available from Youtube. There is also a paper
708 from the 25th Symposium on Operating Systems Principles available
710 <a href="https://www.usenix.org/conference/atc16/technical-sessions/presentation/curtsinger
">Coz:
711 finding code that counts with causal profiling</a>.</p>
713 <p><a href="https://github.com/plasma-umass/coz
">The source code</a>
714 for Coz is available from github. It will only build with clang
716 <a href="https://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=
55606">C++
717 feature missing in GCC</a>, but I've submitted
718 <a href="https://github.com/plasma-umass/coz/pull/
67">a patch to solve
719 it</a> and hope it will be included in the upstream source soon.</p>
721 <p>Please get in touch if you, like me, would like to see this piece
722 of software in Debian. I would very much like some help with the
723 packaging effort, as I lack the in depth knowledge on how to package
730 Tags: <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>.
735 <div class="padding
"></div>
739 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Unlocking_HTC_Desire_HD_on_Linux_using_unruu_and_fastboot.html
">Unlocking HTC Desire HD on Linux using unruu and fastboot</a>
745 <p>Yesterday, I tried to unlock a HTC Desire HD phone, and it proved
746 to be a slight challenge. Here is the recipe if I ever need to do it
747 again. It all started by me wanting to try the recipe to set up
748 <a href="https://blog.torproject.org/blog/mission-impossible-hardening-android-security-and-privacy
">an
749 hardened Android installation</a> from the Tor project blog on a
750 device I had access to. It is a old mobile phone with a broken
751 microphone The initial idea had been to just
752 <a href="http://wiki.cyanogenmod.org/w/Install_CM_for_ace
">install
753 CyanogenMod on it</a>, but did not quite find time to start on it
754 until a few days ago.</p>
756 <p>The unlock process is supposed to be simple: (1) Boot into the boot
757 loader (press volume down and power at the same time), (2) select
758 'fastboot' before (3) connecting the device via USB to a Linux
759 machine, (4) request the device identifier token by running 'fastboot
760 oem get_identifier_token', (5) request the device unlocking key using
761 the <a href="http://www.htcdev.com/bootloader/
">HTC developer web
762 site</a> and unlock the phone using the key file emailed to you.</p>
764 <p>Unfortunately, this only work fi you have hboot version 2.00.0029
765 or newer, and the device I was working on had 2.00.0027. This
766 apparently can be easily fixed by downloading a Windows program and
767 running it on your Windows machine, if you accept the terms Microsoft
768 require you to accept to use Windows - which I do not. So I had to
769 come up with a different approach. I got a lot of help from AndyCap
770 on #nuug, and would not have been able to get this working without
773 <p>First I needed to extract the hboot firmware from
774 <a href="http://www.htcdev.com/ruu/PD9810000_Ace_Sense30_S_hboot_2.00
.0029.exe
">the
775 windows binary for HTC Desire HD</a> downloaded as 'the RUU' from HTC.
776 For this there is is <a href="https://github.com/kmdm/unruu/
">a github
777 project named unruu</a> using libunshield. The unshield tool did not
778 recognise the file format, but unruu worked and extracted rom.zip,
779 containing the new hboot firmware and a text file describing which
780 devices it would work for.</p>
782 <p>Next, I needed to get the new firmware into the device. For this I
783 followed some instructions
784 <a href="http://www.htc1guru.com/
2013/
09/new-ruu-zips-posted/
">available
785 from HTC1Guru.com</a>, and ran these commands as root on a Linux
786 machine with Debian testing:</p>
789 adb reboot-bootloader
790 fastboot oem rebootRUU
791 fastboot flash zip rom.zip
792 fastboot flash zip rom.zip
796 <p>The flash command apparently need to be done twice to take effect,
797 as the first is just preparations and the second one do the flashing.
798 The adb command is just to get to the boot loader menu, so turning the
799 device on while holding volume down and the power button should work
802 <p>With the new hboot version in place I could start following the
803 instructions on the HTC developer web site. I got the device token
807 fastboot oem get_identifier_token 2>&1 | sed 's/(bootloader) //'
810 <p>And once I got the unlock code via email, I could use it like
814 fastboot flash unlocktoken Unlock_code.bin
817 <p>And with that final step in place, the phone was unlocked and I
818 could start stuffing the software of my own choosing into the device.
819 So far I only inserted a replacement recovery image to wipe the phone
820 before I start. We will see what happen next. Perhaps I should
821 install <a href="https://www.debian.org/
">Debian</a> on it. :)</p>
827 Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem
">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian
">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english
">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett
">opphavsrett</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet
">sikkerhet</a>.
832 <div class="padding
"></div>
836 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_use_the_Signal_app_if_you_only_have_a_land_line__ie_no_mobile_phone_.html
">How to use the Signal app if you only have a land line (ie no mobile phone)</a>
842 <p>For a while now, I have wanted to test
843 <a href="https://whispersystems.org/
">the Signal app</a>, as it is
844 said to provide end to end encrypted communication and several of my
845 friends and family are already using it. As I by choice do not own a
846 mobile phone, this proved to be harder than expected. And I wanted to
847 have the source of the client and know that it was the code used on my
848 machine. But yesterday I managed to get it working. I used the
849 Github source, compared it to the source in
850 <a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/signal-private-messenger/bikioccmkafdpakkkcpdbppfkghcmihk?hl=en-US
">the
851 Signal Chrome app</a> available from the Chrome web store, applied
852 patches to use the production Signal servers, started the app and
853 asked for the hidden "register without a smart phone" form. Here is
854 the recipe how I did it.
</p>
856 <p>First, I fetched the Signal desktop source from Github, using
859 git clone https://github.com/WhisperSystems/Signal-Desktop.git
862 <p>Next, I patched the source to use the production servers, to be
863 able to talk to other Signal users:
</p>
866 cat
<<EOF | patch -p0
867 diff -ur ./js/background.js userdata/Default/Extensions/bikioccmkafdpakkkcpdbppfkghcmihk/
0.15.0_0/js/background.js
868 --- ./js/background.js
2016-
06-
29 13:
43:
15.630344628 +
0200
869 +++ userdata/Default/Extensions/bikioccmkafdpakkkcpdbppfkghcmihk/
0.15.0_0/js/background.js
2016-
06-
29 14:
06:
29.530300934 +
0200
874 - var SERVER_URL = 'https://textsecure-service-staging.whispersystems.org';
875 - var ATTACHMENT_SERVER_URL = 'https://whispersystems-textsecure-attachments-staging.s3.amazonaws.com';
876 + var SERVER_URL = 'https://textsecure-service-ca.whispersystems.org:
4433';
877 + var ATTACHMENT_SERVER_URL = 'https://whispersystems-textsecure-attachments.s3.amazonaws.com';
879 window.getSocketStatus = function() {
880 if (messageReceiver) {
881 diff -ur ./js/expire.js userdata/Default/Extensions/bikioccmkafdpakkkcpdbppfkghcmihk/
0.15.0_0/js/expire.js
882 --- ./js/expire.js
2016-
06-
29 13:
43:
15.630344628 +
0200
883 +++ userdata/Default/Extensions/bikioccmkafdpakkkcpdbppfkghcmihk/
0.15.0_0/js/expire.js2016-
06-
29 14:
06:
29.530300934 +
0200
887 - var BUILD_EXPIRATION =
0;
888 + var BUILD_EXPIRATION =
1474492690000;
890 window.extension = window.extension || {};
895 <p>The first part is changing the servers, and the second is updating
896 an expiration timestamp. This timestamp need to be updated regularly.
897 It is set
90 days in the future by the build process (Gruntfile.js).
898 The value is seconds since
1970 times
1000, as far as I can tell.
</p>
900 <p>Based on a tip and good help from the #nuug IRC channel, I wrote a
901 script to launch Signal in Chromium.
</p>
908 --proxy-server="socks://localhost:
9050" \
909 --user-data-dir=`pwd`/userdata --load-and-launch-app=`pwd`
912 <p> The script start the app and configure Chromium to use the Tor
913 SOCKS5 proxy to make sure those controlling the Signal servers (today
914 Amazon and Whisper Systems) as well as those listening on the lines
915 will have a harder time location my laptop based on the Signal
916 connections if they use source IP address.
</p>
918 <p>When the script starts, one need to follow the instructions under
919 "Standalone Registration" in the CONTRIBUTING.md file in the git
920 repository. I right clicked on the Signal window to get up the
921 Chromium debugging tool, visited the 'Console' tab and wrote
922 'extension.install("standalone")' on the console prompt to get the
923 registration form. Then I entered by land line phone number and
924 pressed 'Call'.
5 seconds later the phone rang and a robot voice
925 repeated the verification code three times. After entering the number
926 into the verification code field in the form, I could start using
927 Signal from my laptop.
929 <p>As far as I can tell, The Signal app will leak who is talking to
930 whom and thus who know who to those controlling the central server,
931 but such leakage is hard to avoid with a centrally controlled server
932 setup. It is something to keep in mind when using Signal - the
933 content of your chats are harder to intercept, but the meta data
934 exposing your contact network is available to people you do not know.
935 So better than many options, but not great. And sadly the usage is
936 connected to my land line, thus allowing those controlling the server
937 to associate it to my home and person. I would prefer it if only
938 those I knew could tell who I was on Signal. There are options
939 avoiding such information leakage, but most of my friends are not
940 using them, so I am stuck with Signal for now.
</p>
946 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance
</a>.
951 <div class=
"padding"></div>
955 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_new__best__multimedia_player_in_Debian_.html">The new "best" multimedia player in Debian?
</a>
961 <p>When I set out a few weeks ago to figure out
962 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_the_best_multimedia_player_in_Debian_.html">which
963 multimedia player in Debian claimed to support most file formats /
964 MIME types
</a>, I was a bit surprised how varied the sets of MIME types
965 the various players claimed support for. The range was from
55 to
130
966 MIME types. I suspect most media formats are supported by all
967 players, but this is not really reflected in the MimeTypes values in
968 their desktop files. There are probably also some bogus MIME types
969 listed, but it is hard to identify which one this is.
</p>
971 <p>Anyway, in the mean time I got in touch with upstream for some of
972 the players suggesting to add more MIME types to their desktop files,
973 and decided to spend some time myself improving the situation for my
974 favorite media player VLC. The fixes for VLC entered Debian unstable
975 yesterday. The complete list of MIME types can be seen on the
976 <a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/DebianMultimedia/PlayerSupport">Multimedia
977 player MIME type support status
</a> Debian wiki page.
</p>
979 <p>The new "best" multimedia player in Debian? It is VLC, followed by
980 totem, parole, kplayer, gnome-mpv, mpv, smplayer, mplayer-gui and
981 kmplayer. I am sure some of the other players desktop files support
982 several of the formats currently listed as working only with vlc,
983 toten and parole.
</p>
985 <p>A sad observation is that only
14 MIME types are listed as
986 supported by all the tested multimedia players in Debian in their
987 desktop files: audio/mpeg, audio/vnd.rn-realaudio, audio/x-mpegurl,
988 audio/x-ms-wma, audio/x-scpls, audio/x-wav, video/mp4, video/mpeg,
989 video/quicktime, video/vnd.rn-realvideo, video/x-matroska,
990 video/x-ms-asf, video/x-ms-wmv and video/x-msvideo. Personally I find
991 it sad that video/ogg and video/webm is not supported by all the media
992 players in Debian. As far as I can tell, all of them can handle both
999 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>.
1004 <div class=
"padding"></div>
1008 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_program_should_be_able_to_open_its_own_files_on_Linux.html">A program should be able to open its own files on Linux
</a>
1014 <p>Many years ago, when koffice was fresh and with few users, I
1015 decided to test its presentation tool when making the slides for a
1016 talk I was giving for NUUG on Japhar, a free Java virtual machine. I
1017 wrote the first draft of the slides, saved the result and went to bed
1018 the day before I would give the talk. The next day I took a plane to
1019 the location where the meeting should take place, and on the plane I
1020 started up koffice again to polish the talk a bit, only to discover
1021 that kpresenter refused to load its own data file. I cursed a bit and
1022 started making the slides again from memory, to have something to
1023 present when I arrived. I tested that the saved files could be
1024 loaded, and the day seemed to be rescued. I continued to polish the
1025 slides until I suddenly discovered that the saved file could no longer
1026 be loaded into kpresenter. In the end I had to rewrite the slides
1027 three times, condensing the content until the talk became shorter and
1028 shorter. After the talk I was able to pinpoint the problem
–
1029 kpresenter wrote inline images in a way itself could not understand.
1030 Eventually that bug was fixed and kpresenter ended up being a great
1031 program to make slides. The point I'm trying to make is that we
1032 expect a program to be able to load its own data files, and it is
1033 embarrassing to its developers if it can't.
</p>
1035 <p>Did you ever experience a program failing to load its own data
1036 files from the desktop file browser? It is not a uncommon problem. A
1037 while back I discovered that the screencast recorder
1038 gtk-recordmydesktop would save an Ogg Theora video file the KDE file
1039 browser would refuse to open. No video player claimed to understand
1040 such file. I tracked down the cause being
<tt>file --mime-type
</tt>
1041 returning the application/ogg MIME type, which no video player I had
1042 installed listed as a MIME type they would understand. I asked for
1043 <a href=
"http://bugs.gw.com/view.php?id=382">file to change its
1044 behavour
</a> and use the MIME type video/ogg instead. I also asked
1045 several video players to add video/ogg to their desktop files, to give
1046 the file browser an idea what to do about Ogg Theora files. After a
1047 while, the desktop file browsers in Debian started to handle the
1048 output from gtk-recordmydesktop properly.
</p>
1050 <p>But history repeats itself. A few days ago I tested the music
1051 system Rosegarden again, and I discovered that the KDE and xfce file
1052 browsers did not know what to do with the Rosegarden project files
1053 (*.rg). I've reported
<a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/825993">the
1054 rosegarden problem to BTS
</a> and a fix is commited to git and will be
1055 included in the next upload. To increase the chance of me remembering
1056 how to fix the problem next time some program fail to load its files
1057 from the file browser, here are some notes on how to fix it.
</p>
1059 <p>The file browsers in Debian in general operates on MIME types.
1060 There are two sources for the MIME type of a given file. The output from
1061 <tt>file --mime-type
</tt> mentioned above, and the content of the
1062 shared MIME type registry (under /usr/share/mime/). The file MIME
1063 type is mapped to programs supporting the MIME type, and this
1064 information is collected from
1065 <a href=
"https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/desktop-entry-spec/">the
1066 desktop files
</a> available in /usr/share/applications/. If there is
1067 one desktop file claiming support for the MIME type of the file, it is
1068 activated when asking to open a given file. If there are more, one
1069 can normally select which one to use by right-clicking on the file and
1070 selecting the wanted one using 'Open with' or similar. In general
1071 this work well. But it depend on each program picking a good MIME
1073 <a href=
"http://www.iana.org/assignments/media-types/media-types.xhtml">a
1074 MIME type registered with IANA
</a>), file and/or the shared MIME
1075 registry recognizing the file and the desktop file to list the MIME
1076 type in its list of supported MIME types.
</p>
1078 <p>The
<tt>/usr/share/mime/packages/rosegarden.xml
</tt> entry for
1079 <a href=
"http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/shared-mime-info-spec">the
1080 Shared MIME database
</a> look like this:
</p>
1082 <p><blockquote><pre>
1083 <?xml
version="
1.0"
encoding="UTF-
8"?
>
1084 <mime-info
xmlns="http://www.freedesktop.org/standards/shared-mime-info"
>
1085 <mime-type
type="audio/x-rosegarden"
>
1086 <sub-class-of
type="application/x-gzip"/
>
1087 <comment
>Rosegarden project file
</comment
>
1088 <glob
pattern="*.rg"/
>
1091 </pre></blockquote></p>
1093 <p>This states that audio/x-rosegarden is a kind of application/x-gzip
1094 (it is a gzipped XML file). Note, it is much better to use an
1095 official MIME type registered with IANA than it is to make up ones own
1096 unofficial ones like the x-rosegarden type used by rosegarden.
</p>
1098 <p>The desktop file of the rosegarden program failed to list
1099 audio/x-rosegarden in its list of supported MIME types, causing the
1100 file browsers to have no idea what to do with *.rg files:
</p>
1102 <p><blockquote><pre>
1103 % grep Mime /usr/share/applications/rosegarden.desktop
1104 MimeType=audio/x-rosegarden-composition;audio/x-rosegarden-device;audio/x-rosegarden-project;audio/x-rosegarden-template;audio/midi;
1105 X-KDE-NativeMimeType=audio/x-rosegarden-composition
1107 </pre></blockquote></p>
1109 <p>The fix was to add "audio/x-rosegarden;" at the end of the
1112 <p>If you run into a file which fail to open the correct program when
1113 selected from the file browser, please check out the output from
1114 <tt>file --mime-type
</tt> for the file, ensure the file ending and
1115 MIME type is registered somewhere under /usr/share/mime/ and check
1116 that some desktop file under /usr/share/applications/ is claiming
1117 support for this MIME type. If not, please report a bug to have it
1124 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
1129 <div class=
"padding"></div>
1133 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Isenkram_with_PackageKit_support___new_version_0_23_available_in_Debian_unstable.html">Isenkram with PackageKit support - new version
0.23 available in Debian unstable
</a>
1139 <p><a href=
"https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/isenkram">The isenkram
1140 system
</a> is a user-focused solution in Debian for handling hardware
1141 related packages. The idea is to have a database of mappings between
1142 hardware and packages, and pop up a dialog suggesting for the user to
1143 install the packages to use a given hardware dongle. Some use cases
1144 are when you insert a Yubikey, it proposes to install the software
1145 needed to control it; when you insert a braille reader list it
1146 proposes to install the packages needed to send text to the reader;
1147 and when you insert a ColorHug screen calibrator it suggests to
1148 install the driver for it. The system work well, and even have a few
1149 command line tools to install firmware packages and packages for the
1150 hardware already in the machine (as opposed to hotpluggable hardware).
</p>
1152 <p>The system was initially written using aptdaemon, because I found
1153 good documentation and example code on how to use it. But aptdaemon
1154 is going away and is generally being replaced by
1155 <a href=
"http://www.freedesktop.org/software/PackageKit/">PackageKit
</a>,
1156 so Isenkram needed a rewrite. And today, thanks to the great patch
1157 from my college Sunil Mohan Adapa in the FreedomBox project, the
1158 rewrite finally took place. I've just uploaded a new version of
1159 Isenkram into Debian Unstable with the patch included, and the default
1160 for the background daemon is now to use PackageKit. To check it out,
1161 install the
<tt>isenkram
</tt> package and insert some hardware dongle
1162 and see if it is recognised.
</p>
1164 <p>If you want to know what kind of packages isenkram would propose for
1165 the machine it is running on, you can check out the isenkram-lookup
1166 program. This is what it look like on a Thinkpad X230:
</p>
1168 <p><blockquote><pre>
1184 </pre></blockquote></p>
1186 <p>The hardware mappings come from several places. The preferred way
1187 is for packages to announce their hardware support using
1188 <a href=
"https://www.freedesktop.org/software/appstream/docs/">the
1189 cross distribution appstream system
</a>.
1191 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram/">previous
1192 blog posts about isenkram
</a> to learn how to do that.
</p>
1198 Tags:
<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>.
1203 <div class=
"padding"></div>
1207 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Discharge_rate_estimate_in_new_battery_statistics_collector_for_Debian.html">Discharge rate estimate in new battery statistics collector for Debian
</a>
1213 <p>Yesterday I updated the
1214 <a href=
"https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">battery-stats
1215 package in Debian
</a> with a few patches sent to me by skilled and
1216 enterprising users. There were some nice user and visible changes.
1217 First of all, both desktop menu entries now work. A design flaw in
1218 one of the script made the history graph fail to show up (its PNG was
1219 dumped in ~/.xsession-errors) if no controlling TTY was available.
1220 The script worked when called from the command line, but not when
1221 called from the desktop menu. I changed this to look for a DISPLAY
1222 variable or a TTY before deciding where to draw the graph, and now the
1223 graph window pop up as expected.
</p>
1225 <p>The next new feature is a discharge rate estimator in one of the
1226 graphs (the one showing the last few hours). New is also the user of
1227 colours showing charging in blue and discharge in red. The percentages
1228 of this graph is relative to last full charge, not battery design
1231 <p align=
"center"><img src=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-05-23-battery-stats-rate.png"/></p>
1233 <p>The other graph show the entire history of the collected battery
1234 statistics, comparing it to the design capacity of the battery to
1235 visualise how the battery life time get shorter over time. The red
1236 line in this graph is what the previous graph considers
100 percent:
1238 <p align=
"center"><img src=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-05-23-battery-stats-history.png"/></p>
1240 <p>In this graph you can see that I only charge the battery to
80
1241 percent of last full capacity, and how the capacity of the battery is
1244 <p>The last new feature is in the collector, which now will handle
1245 more hardware models. On some hardware, Linux power supply
1246 information is stored in /sys/class/power_supply/ACAD/, while the
1247 collector previously only looked in /sys/class/power_supply/AC/. Now
1248 both are checked to figure if there is power connected to the
1251 <p>If you are interested in how your laptop battery is doing, please
1253 <a href=
"https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">battery-stats
</a>
1254 in Debian unstable, or rebuild it on Jessie to get it working on
1255 Debian stable. :) The upstream source is available from
<a
1256 href=
"https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/battery-stats">github
</a>.
1257 Patches are very welcome.
</p>
1259 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1260 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1261 <b><a href=
"bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
</a></b>.
</p>
1267 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
1272 <div class=
"padding"></div>
1276 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_now_with_ZFS_on_Linux_included.html">Debian now with ZFS on Linux included
</a>
1282 <p>Today, after many years of hard work from many people,
1283 <a href=
"http://zfsonlinux.org/">ZFS for Linux
</a> finally entered
1284 Debian. The package status can be seen on
1285 <a href=
"https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/zfs-linux">the package tracker
1286 for zfs-linux
</a>. and
1287 <a href=
"https://qa.debian.org/developer.php?login=pkg-zfsonlinux-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
1288 team status page
</a>. If you want to help out, please join us.
1289 <a href=
"http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=pkg-zfsonlinux/zfs.git">The
1290 source code
</a> is available via git on Alioth. It would also be
1291 great if you could help out with
1292 <a href=
"https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/dkms">the dkms package
</a>, as
1293 it is an important piece of the puzzle to get ZFS working.
</p>
1299 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
1304 <div class=
"padding"></div>
1308 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_the_best_multimedia_player_in_Debian_.html">What is the best multimedia player in Debian?
</a>
1314 <p><strong>Where I set out to figure out which multimedia player in
1315 Debian claim support for most file formats.
</strong></p>
1317 <p>A few years ago, I had a look at the media support for Browser
1318 plugins in Debian, to get an idea which plugins to include in Debian
1319 Edu. I created a script to extract the set of supported MIME types
1320 for each plugin, and used this to find out which multimedia browser
1321 plugin supported most file formats / media types.
1322 <a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">The
1323 result
</a> can still be seen on the Debian wiki, even though it have
1324 not been updated for a while. But browser plugins are less relevant
1325 these days, so I thought it was time to look at standalone
1328 <p>A few days ago I was tired of VLC not being listed as a viable
1329 player when I wanted to play videos from the Norwegian National
1330 Broadcasting Company, and decided to investigate why. The cause is a
1331 <a href=
"https://bugs.debian.org/822245">missing MIME type in the VLC
1332 desktop file
</a>. In the process I wrote a script to compare the set
1333 of MIME types announced in the desktop file and the browser plugin,
1334 only to discover that there is quite a large difference between the
1335 two for VLC. This discovery made me dig up the script I used to
1336 compare browser plugins, and adjust it to compare desktop files
1337 instead, to try to figure out which multimedia player in Debian
1338 support most file formats.
</p>
1340 <p>The result can be seen on the Debian Wiki, as
1341 <a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/DebianMultimedia/PlayerSupport">a
1342 table listing all MIME types supported by one of the packages included
1343 in the table
</a>, with the package supporting most MIME types being
1344 listed first in the table.
</p>
1346 </p>The best multimedia player in Debian? It is totem, followed by
1347 parole, kplayer, mpv, vlc, smplayer mplayer-gui gnome-mpv and
1348 kmplayer. Time for the other players to update their announced MIME
1355 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>.
1360 <div class=
"padding"></div>
1364 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Pyra___handheld_computer_with_Debian_preinstalled.html">The Pyra - handheld computer with Debian preinstalled
</a>
1370 A friend of mine made me aware of
1371 <a href=
"https://pyra-handheld.com/boards/pages/pyra/">The Pyra
</a>, a
1372 handheld computer which will be delivered with Debian preinstalled. I
1373 would love to get one of those for my birthday. :)
</p>
1375 <p>The machine is a complete ARM-based PC with micro HDMI, SATA, USB
1376 plugs and many others connectors, and include a full keyboard and a
5"
1377 LCD touch screen. The
6000mAh battery is claimed to provide a whole
1378 day of battery life time, but I have not seen any independent tests
1379 confirming this. The vendor is still collecting preorders, and the
1380 last I heard last night was that
22 more orders were needed before
1381 production started.
</p>
1383 <p>As far as I know, this is the first handheld preinstalled with
1384 Debian. Please let me know if you know of any others. Is it the
1385 first computer being sold with Debian preinstalled?
</p>
1391 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
1396 <div class=
"padding"></div>
1400 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_a_Norwegian_Bokm_l_edition_of_The_Debian_Administrator_s_Handbook.html">Lets make a Norwegian Bokmål edition of The Debian Administrator's Handbook
</a>
1406 <p>During this weekends
1407 <a href=
"http://www.nuug.no/news/Oslo__Takk_for_feilfiksingsfesten.shtml">bug
1408 squashing party and developer gathering
</a>, we decided to do our part
1409 to make sure there are good books about Debian available in Norwegian
1410 Bokmål, and got in touch with the people behind the
1411 <a href=
"http://debian-handbook.info/">Debian Administrator's Handbook
1412 project
</a> to get started. If you want to help out, please start
1414 <a href=
"https://hosted.weblate.org/projects/debian-handbook/">the
1415 hosted weblate project page
</a>, and get in touch using
1416 <a href=
"http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/debian-handbook-translators">the
1417 translators mailing list
</a>. Please also check out
1418 <a href=
"https://debian-handbook.info/contribute/">the instructions for
1419 contributors
</a>.
</p>
1421 <p>The book is already available on paper in English, French and
1422 Japanese, and our goal is to get it available on paper in Norwegian
1423 Bokmål too. In addition to the paper edition, there are also EPUB and
1424 Mobi versions available. And there are incomplete translations
1425 available for many more languages.
</p>
1431 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
1436 <div class=
"padding"></div>
1440 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/One_in_two_hundred_Debian_users_using_ZFS_on_Linux_.html">One in two hundred Debian users using ZFS on Linux?
</a>
1446 <p>Just for fun I had a look at the popcon number of ZFS related
1447 packages in Debian, and was quite surprised with what I found. I use
1448 ZFS myself at home, but did not really expect many others to do so.
1449 But I might be wrong.
</p>
1452 <a href=
"https://qa.debian.org/popcon.php?package=spl-linux">the popcon
1453 results for spl-linux
</a>, there are
1019 Debian installations, or
1454 0.53% of the population, with the package installed. As far as I know
1455 the only use of the spl-linux package is as a support library for ZFS
1456 on Linux, so I use it here as proxy for measuring the number of ZFS
1457 installation on Linux in Debian. In the kFreeBSD variant of Debian
1458 the ZFS feature is already available, and there
1459 <a href=
"https://qa.debian.org/popcon.php?package=zfsutils">the popcon
1460 results for zfsutils
</a> show
1625 Debian installations or
0.84% of
1461 the population. So I guess I am not alone in using ZFS on Debian.
</p>
1463 <p>But even though the Debian project leader Lucas Nussbaum
1464 <a href=
"https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2015/04/msg00006.html">announced
1465 in April
2015</a> that the legal obstacles blocking ZFS on Debian were
1466 cleared, the package is still not in Debian. The package is again in
1467 the NEW queue. Several uploads have been rejected so far because the
1468 debian/copyright file was incomplete or wrong, but there is no reason
1469 to give up. The current status can be seen on
1470 <a href=
"https://qa.debian.org/developer.php?login=pkg-zfsonlinux-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
1471 team status page
</a>, and
1472 <a href=
"http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=pkg-zfsonlinux/zfs.git">the
1473 source code
</a> is available on Alioth.
</p>
1475 <p>As I want ZFS to be included in next version of Debian to make sure
1476 my home server can function in the future using only official Debian
1477 packages, and the current blocker is to get the debian/copyright file
1478 accepted by the FTP masters in Debian, I decided a while back to try
1479 to help out the team. This was the background for my blog post about
1480 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Creating__updating_and_checking_debian_copyright_semi_automatically.html">creating,
1481 updating and checking debian/copyright semi-automatically
</a>, and I
1482 used the techniques I explored there to try to find any errors in the
1483 copyright file. It is not very easy to check every one of the around
1484 2000 files in the source package, but I hope we this time got it
1485 right. If you want to help out, check out the git source and try to
1486 find missing entries in the debian/copyright file.
</p>
1492 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
1497 <div class=
"padding"></div>
1501 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Full_battery_stats_collector_is_now_available_in_Debian.html">Full battery stats collector is now available in Debian
</a>
1507 <p>Since this morning, the battery-stats package in Debian include an
1508 extended collector that will collect the complete battery history for
1509 later processing and graphing. The original collector store the
1510 battery level as percentage of last full level, while the new
1511 collector also record battery vendor, model, serial number, design
1512 full level, last full level and current battery level. This make it
1513 possible to predict the lifetime of the battery as well as visualise
1514 the energy flow when the battery is charging or discharging.
</p>
1516 <p>The new tools are available in
<tt>/usr/share/battery-stats/
</tt>
1517 in the version
0.5.1 package in unstable. Get the new battery level graph
1518 and lifetime prediction by running:
1521 /usr/share/battery-stats/battery-stats-graph /var/log/battery-stats.csv
1524 <p>Or select the 'Battery Level Graph' from your application menu.
</p>
1526 <p>The flow in/out of the battery can be seen by running (no menu
1530 /usr/share/battery-stats/battery-stats-graph-flow
1533 <p>I'm not quite happy with the way the data is visualised, at least
1534 when there are few data points. The graphs look a bit better with a
1535 few years of data.
</p>
1537 <p>A while back one important feature I use in the battery stats
1538 collector broke in Debian. The scripts in
1539 <tt>/usr/lib/pm-utils/power.d/
</tt> were no longer executed. I
1540 suspect it happened when Jessie started using systemd, but I do not
1541 know. The issue is reported as
1542 <a href=
"https://bugs.debian.org/818649">bug #
818649</a> against
1543 pm-utils. I managed to work around it by adding an udev rule to call
1544 the collector script every time the power connector is connected and
1545 disconnected. With this fix in place it was finally time to make a
1546 new release of the package, and get it into Debian.
</p>
1548 <p>If you are interested in how your laptop battery is doing, please
1550 <a href=
"https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">battery-stats
</a>
1551 in Debian unstable, or rebuild it on Jessie to get it working on
1552 Debian stable. :) The upstream source is available from
1553 <a href=
"https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/battery-stats">github
</a>.
1554 As always, patches are very welcome.
</p>
1560 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
1565 <div class=
"padding"></div>
1569 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Making_battery_measurements_a_little_easier_in_Debian.html">Making battery measurements a little easier in Debian
</a>
1575 <p>Back in September, I blogged about
1576 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_life_and_death_of_a_laptop_battery.html">the
1577 system I wrote to collect statistics about my laptop battery
</a>, and
1578 how it showed the decay and death of this battery (now replaced). I
1579 created a simple deb package to handle the collection and graphing,
1580 but did not want to upload it to Debian as there were already
1581 <a href=
"https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">a battery-stats
1582 package in Debian
</a> that should do the same thing, and I did not see
1583 a point of uploading a competing package when battery-stats could be
1584 fixed instead. I reported a few bugs about its non-function, and
1585 hoped someone would step in and fix it. But no-one did.
</p>
1587 <p>I got tired of waiting a few days ago, and took matters in my own
1588 hands. The end result is that I am now the new upstream developer of
1589 battery stats (
<a href=
"https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/battery-stats">available from github
</a>) and part of the team maintaining
1590 battery-stats in Debian, and the package in Debian unstable is finally
1591 able to collect battery status using the
<tt>/sys/class/power_supply/
</tt>
1592 information provided by the Linux kernel. If you install the
1593 battery-stats package from unstable now, you will be able to get a
1594 graph of the current battery fill level, to get some idea about the
1595 status of the battery. The source package build and work just fine in
1596 Debian testing and stable (and probably oldstable too, but I have not
1597 tested). The default graph you get for that system look like this:
</p>
1599 <p align=
"center"><img src=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-03-15-battery-stats-graph-example.png" width=
"70%" align=
"center"></p>
1601 <p>My plans for the future is to merge my old scripts into the
1602 battery-stats package, as my old scripts collected a lot more details
1603 about the battery. The scripts are merged into the upstream
1604 battery-stats git repository already, but I am not convinced they work
1605 yet, as I changed a lot of paths along the way. Will have to test a
1606 bit more before I make a new release.
</p>
1608 <p>I will also consider changing the file format slightly, as I
1609 suspect the way I combine several values into one field might make it
1610 impossible to know the type of the value when using it for processing
1613 <p>If you would like I would like to keep an close eye on your laptop
1614 battery, check out the battery-stats package in
1615 <a href=
"https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">Debian
</a> and
1617 <a href=
"https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/battery-stats">github
</a>.
1618 I would love some help to improve the system further.
</p>
1624 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
1629 <div class=
"padding"></div>
1633 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Creating__updating_and_checking_debian_copyright_semi_automatically.html">Creating, updating and checking debian/copyright semi-automatically
</a>
1639 <p>Making packages for Debian requires quite a lot of attention to
1640 details. And one of the details is the content of the
1641 debian/copyright file, which should list all relevant licenses used by
1642 the code in the package in question, preferably in
1643 <a href=
"https://www.debian.org/doc/packaging-manuals/copyright-format/1.0/">machine
1644 readable DEP5 format
</a>.
</p>
1646 <p>For large packages with lots of contributors it is hard to write
1647 and update this file manually, and if you get some detail wrong, the
1648 package is normally rejected by the ftpmasters. So getting it right
1649 the first time around get the package into Debian faster, and save
1650 both you and the ftpmasters some work.. Today, while trying to figure
1651 out what was wrong with
1652 <a href=
"https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=686447">the
1653 zfsonlinux copyright file
</a>, I decided to spend some time on
1654 figuring out the options for doing this job automatically, or at least
1655 semi-automatically.
</p>
1657 <p>Lucikly, there are at least two tools available for generating the
1658 file based on the code in the source package,
1659 <tt><a href=
"https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/debmake">debmake
</a></tt>
1660 and
<tt><a href=
"https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/cme">cme
</a></tt>. I'm
1661 not sure which one of them came first, but both seem to be able to
1662 create a sensible draft file. As far as I can tell, none of them can
1663 be trusted to get the result just right, so the content need to be
1664 polished a bit before the file is OK to upload. I found the debmake
1666 <a href=
"http://goofying-with-debian.blogspot.com/2014/07/debmake-checking-source-against-dep-5.html">a
1667 blog posts from
2014</a>.
1669 <p>To generate using debmake, use the -cc option:
1672 debmake -cc
> debian/copyright
1675 <p>Note there are some problems with python and non-ASCII names, so
1676 this might not be the best option.
</p>
1678 <p>The cme option is based on a config parsing library, and I found
1680 <a href=
"https://ddumont.wordpress.com/2015/04/05/improving-creation-of-debian-copyright-file/">a
1681 blog post from
2015</a>. To generate using cme, use the 'update
1682 dpkg-copyright' option:
1685 cme update dpkg-copyright
1688 <p>This will create or update debian/copyright. The cme tool seem to
1689 handle UTF-
8 names better than debmake.
</p>
1691 <p>When the copyright file is created, I would also like some help to
1692 check if the file is correct. For this I found two good options,
1693 <tt>debmake -k
</tt> and
<tt>license-reconcile
</tt>. The former seem
1694 to focus on license types and file matching, and is able to detect
1695 ineffective blocks in the copyright file. The latter reports missing
1696 copyright holders and years, but was confused by inconsistent license
1697 names (like CDDL vs. CDDL-
1.0). I suspect it is good to use both and
1698 fix all issues reported by them before uploading. But I do not know
1699 if the tools and the ftpmasters agree on what is important to fix in a
1700 copyright file, so the package might still be rejected.
</p>
1702 <p>The devscripts tool
<tt>licensecheck
</tt> deserve mentioning. It
1703 will read through the source and try to find all copyright statements.
1704 It is not comparing the result to the content of debian/copyright, but
1705 can be useful when verifying the content of the copyright file.
</p>
1707 <p>Are you aware of better tools in Debian to create and update
1708 debian/copyright file. Please let me know, or blog about it on
1709 planet.debian.org.
</p>
1711 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1712 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1713 <b><a href=
"bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
</a></b>.
</p>
1715 <p><strong>Update
2016-
02-
20</strong>: I got a tip from Mike Gabriel
1716 on how to use licensecheck and cdbs to create a draft copyright file
1719 licensecheck --copyright -r `find * -type f` | \
1720 /usr/lib/cdbs/licensecheck2dep5
> debian/copyright.auto
1723 <p>He mentioned that he normally check the generated file into the
1724 version control system to make it easier to discover license and
1725 copyright changes in the upstream source. I will try to do the same
1726 with my packages in the future.
</p>
1728 <p><strong>Update
2016-
02-
21</strong>: The cme author recommended
1729 against using -quiet for new users, so I removed it from the proposed
1736 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
1741 <div class=
"padding"></div>
1745 <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>
1751 <p>The
<a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/DEP-11">appstream system
</a>
1752 is taking shape in Debian, and one provided feature is a very
1753 convenient way to tell you which package to install to make a given
1754 firmware file available when the kernel is looking for it. This can
1755 be done using apt-file too, but that is for someone else to blog
1758 <p>Here is a small recipe to find the package with a given firmware
1759 file, in this example I am looking for ctfw-
3.2.3.0.bin, randomly
1760 picked from the set of firmware announced using appstream in Debian
1761 unstable. In general you would be looking for the firmware requested
1762 by the kernel during kernel module loading. To find the package
1763 providing the example file, do like this:
</p>
1766 % apt install appstream
1770 % appstreamcli what-provides firmware:runtime ctfw-
3.2.3.0.bin | \
1771 awk '/Package:/ {print $
2}'
1776 <p>See
<a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/AppStream/Guidelines">the
1777 appstream wiki
</a> page to learn how to embed the package metadata in
1778 a way appstream can use.
</p>
1780 <p>This same approach can be used to find any package supporting a
1781 given MIME type. This is very useful when you get a file you do not
1782 know how to handle. First find the mime type using
<tt>file
1783 --mime-type
</tt>, and next look up the package providing support for
1784 it. Lets say you got an SVG file. Its MIME type is image/svg+xml,
1785 and you can find all packages handling this type like this:
</p>
1788 % apt install appstream
1792 % appstreamcli what-provides mimetype image/svg+xml | \
1793 awk '/Package:/ {print $
2}'
1817 <p>I believe the MIME types are fetched from the desktop file for
1818 packages providing appstream metadata.
</p>
1824 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
1829 <div class=
"padding"></div>
1833 <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>
1839 <p>Most people seem not to realise that every time they walk around
1840 with the computerised radio beacon known as a mobile phone their
1841 position is tracked by the phone company and often stored for a long
1842 time (like every time a SMS is received or sent). And if their
1843 computerised radio beacon is capable of running programs (often called
1844 mobile apps) downloaded from the Internet, these programs are often
1845 also capable of tracking their location (if the app requested access
1846 during installation). And when these programs send out information to
1847 central collection points, the location is often included, unless
1848 extra care is taken to not send the location. The provided
1849 information is used by several entities, for good and bad (what is
1850 good and bad, depend on your point of view). What is certain, is that
1851 the private sphere and the right to free movement is challenged and
1852 perhaps even eradicated for those announcing their location this way,
1853 when they share their whereabouts with private and public
1856 <p align=
"center"><img width=
"70%" src=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-01-24-nice-creepy-desktop-window.png"></p>
1858 <p>The phone company logs provide a register of locations to check out
1859 when one want to figure out what the tracked person was doing. It is
1860 unavailable for most of us, but provided to selected government
1861 officials, company staff, those illegally buying information from
1862 unfaithful servants and crackers stealing the information. But the
1863 public information can be collected and analysed, and a free software
1864 tool to do so is called
1865 <a href=
"http://www.geocreepy.com/">Creepy or Cree.py
</a>. I
1866 discovered it when I read
1867 <a href=
"http://www.aftenposten.no/kultur/Slik-kan-du-bli-overvaket-pa-Twitter-og-Instagram-uten-a-ane-det-7787884.html">an
1868 article about Creepy
</a> in the Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten i
1869 November
2014, and decided to check if it was available in Debian.
1870 The python program was in Debian, but
1871 <a href=
"https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/creepy">the version in
1872 Debian
</a> was completely broken and practically unmaintained. I
1873 uploaded a new version which did not work quite right, but did not
1874 have time to fix it then. This Christmas I decided to finally try to
1875 get Creepy operational in Debian. Now a fixed version is available in
1876 Debian unstable and testing, and almost all Debian specific patches
1878 <a href=
"https://github.com/jkakavas/creepy">upstream
</a>.
</p>
1880 <p>The Creepy program visualises geolocation information fetched from
1881 Twitter, Instagram, Flickr and Google+, and allow one to get a
1882 complete picture of every social media message posted recently in a
1883 given area, or track the movement of a given individual across all
1884 these services. Earlier it was possible to use the search API of at
1885 least some of these services without identifying oneself, but these
1886 days it is impossible. This mean that to use Creepy, you need to
1887 configure it to log in as yourself on these services, and provide
1888 information to them about your search interests. This should be taken
1889 into account when using Creepy, as it will also share information
1890 about yourself with the services.
</p>
1892 <p>The picture above show the twitter messages sent from (or at least
1893 geotagged with a position from) the city centre of Oslo, the capital
1894 of Norway. One useful way to use Creepy is to first look at
1895 information tagged with an area of interest, and next look at all the
1896 information provided by one or more individuals who was in the area.
1897 I tested it by checking out which celebrity provide their location in
1898 twitter messages by checkout out who sent twitter messages near a
1899 Norwegian TV station, and next could track their position over time,
1900 making it possible to locate their home and work place, among other
1901 things. A similar technique have been
1902 <a href=
"http://www.buzzfeed.com/maxseddon/does-this-soldiers-instagram-account-prove-russia-is-covertl">used
1903 to locate Russian soldiers in Ukraine
</a>, and it is both a powerful
1904 tool to discover lying governments, and a useful tool to help people
1905 understand the value of the private information they provide to the
1908 <p>The package is not trivial to backport to Debian Stable/Jessie, as
1909 it depend on several python modules currently missing in Jessie (at
1910 least python-instagram, python-flickrapi and
1911 python-requests-toolbelt).
</p>
1914 <a href=
"https://screenshots.debian.net/package/creepy">the image to
1915 screenshots.debian.net
</a> and licensed it under the same terms as the
1916 Creepy program in Debian.)
</p>
1922 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nice free software">nice free software
</a>.
1927 <div class=
"padding"></div>
1931 <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>
1937 <p>During his DebConf15 keynote, Jacob Appelbaum
1938 <a href=
"https://summit.debconf.org/debconf15/meeting/331/what-is-to-be-done/">observed
1939 that those listening on the Internet lines would have good reason to
1940 believe a computer have a given security hole
</a> if it download a
1941 security fix from a Debian mirror. This is a good reason to always
1942 use encrypted connections to the Debian mirror, to make sure those
1943 listening do not know which IP address to attack. In August, Richard
1944 Hartmann observed that encryption was not enough, when it was possible
1945 to interfere download size to security patches or the fact that
1946 download took place shortly after a security fix was released, and
1947 <a href=
"http://richardhartmann.de/blog/posts/2015/08/24-Tor-enabled_Debian_mirror/">proposed
1948 to always use Tor to download packages from the Debian mirror
</a>. He
1949 was not the first to propose this, as the
1950 <tt><a href=
"https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/apt-transport-tor">apt-transport-tor
</a></tt>
1951 package by Tim Retout already existed to make it easy to convince apt
1952 to use
<a href=
"https://www.torproject.org/">Tor
</a>, but I was not
1953 aware of that package when I read the blog post from Richard.
</p>
1955 <p>Richard discussed the idea with Peter Palfrader, one of the Debian
1956 sysadmins, and he set up a Tor hidden service on one of the central
1957 Debian mirrors using the address vwakviie2ienjx6t.onion, thus making
1958 it possible to download packages directly between two tor nodes,
1959 making sure the network traffic always were encrypted.
</p>
1961 <p>Here is a short recipe for enabling this on your machine, by
1962 installing
<tt>apt-transport-tor
</tt> and replacing http and https
1963 urls with tor+http and tor+https, and using the hidden service instead
1964 of the official Debian mirror site. I recommend installing
1965 <tt>etckeeper
</tt> before you start to have a history of the changes
1969 apt install apt-transport-tor
1970 sed -i 's% http://ftp.debian.org/% tor+http://vwakviie2ienjx6t.onion/%' /etc/apt/sources.list
1971 sed -i 's% http% tor+http%' /etc/apt/sources.list
1974 <p>If you have more sources listed in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/, run
1975 the sed commands for these too. The sed command is assuming your are
1976 using the ftp.debian.org Debian mirror. Adjust the command (or just
1977 edit the file manually) to match your mirror.
</p>
1979 <p>This work in Debian Jessie and later. Note that tools like
1980 <tt>apt-file
</tt> only recently started using the apt transport
1981 system, and do not work with these tor+http URLs. For
1982 <tt>apt-file
</tt> you need the version currently in experimental,
1983 which need a recent apt version currently only in unstable. So if you
1984 need a working
<tt>apt-file
</tt>, this is not for you.
</p>
1986 <p>Another advantage from this change is that your machine will start
1987 using Tor regularly and at fairly random intervals (every time you
1988 update the package lists or upgrade or install a new package), thus
1989 masking other Tor traffic done from the same machine. Using Tor will
1990 become normal for the machine in question.
</p>
1992 <p>On
<a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">Freedombox
</a>, APT
1993 is set up by default to use
<tt>apt-transport-tor
</tt> when Tor is
1994 enabled. It would be great if it was the default on any Debian
2001 Tags:
<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>.
2006 <div class=
"padding"></div>
2010 <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>
2016 <p>When I was a kid, we used to collect "car numbers", as we used to
2017 call the car license plate numbers in those days. I would write the
2018 numbers down in my little book and compare notes with the other kids
2019 to see how many region codes we had seen and if we had seen some
2020 exotic or special region codes and numbers. It was a fun game to pass
2021 time, as we kids have plenty of it.
</p>
2023 <p>A few days I came across
2024 <a href=
"https://github.com/openalpr/openalpr">the OpenALPR
2025 project
</a>, a free software project to automatically discover and
2026 report license plates in images and video streams, and provide the
2027 "car numbers" in a machine readable format. I've been looking for
2028 such system for a while now, because I believe it is a bad idea that the
2029 <a href=
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_number_plate_recognition">automatic
2030 number plate recognition
</a> tool only is available in the hands of
2031 the powerful, and want it to be available also for the powerless to
2032 even the score when it comes to surveillance and sousveillance. I
2033 discovered the developer
2034 <a href=
"https://bugs.debian.org/747509">wanted to get the tool into
2035 Debian
</a>, and as I too wanted it to be in Debian, I volunteered to
2036 help him get it into shape to get the package uploaded into the Debian
2039 <p>Today we finally managed to get the package into shape and uploaded
2040 it into Debian, where it currently
2041 <a href=
"https://ftp-master.debian.org//new/openalpr_2.2.1-1.html">waits
2042 in the NEW queue
</a> for review by the Debian ftpmasters.
</p>
2044 <p>I guess you are wondering why on earth such tool would be useful
2045 for the common folks, ie those not running a large government
2046 surveillance system? Well, I plan to put it in a computer on my bike
2047 and in my car, tracking the cars nearby and allowing me to be notified
2048 when number plates on my watch list are discovered. Another use case
2049 was suggested by a friend of mine, who wanted to set it up at his home
2050 to open the car port automatically when it discovered the plate on his
2051 car. When I mentioned it perhaps was a bit foolhardy to allow anyone
2052 capable of placing his license plate number of a piece of cardboard to
2053 open his car port, men replied that it was always unlocked anyway. I
2054 guess for such use case it make sense. I am sure there are other use
2055 cases too, for those with imagination and a vision.
</p>
2057 <p>If you want to build your own version of the Debian package, check
2058 out the upstream git source and symlink ./distros/debian to ./debian/
2059 before running "debuild" to build the source. Or wait a bit until the
2060 package show up in unstable.
</p>
2066 Tags:
<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>.
2071 <div class=
"padding"></div>
2075 <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>
2081 <p>Around three years ago, I created
2082 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">the isenkram
2083 system
</a> to get a more practical solution in Debian for handing
2084 hardware related packages. A GUI system in the isenkram package will
2085 present a pop-up dialog when some hardware dongle supported by
2086 relevant packages in Debian is inserted into the machine. The same
2087 lookup mechanism to detect packages is available as command line
2088 tools in the isenkram-cli package. In addition to mapping hardware,
2089 it will also map kernel firmware files to packages and make it easy to
2090 install needed firmware packages automatically. The key for this
2091 system to work is a good way to map hardware to packages, in other
2092 words, allow packages to announce what hardware they will work
2095 <p>I started by providing data files in the isenkram source, and
2096 adding code to download the latest version of these data files at run
2097 time, to ensure every user had the most up to date mapping available.
2098 I also added support for storing the mapping in the Packages file in
2099 the apt repositories, but did not push this approach because while I
2100 was trying to figure out how to best store hardware/package mappings,
2101 <a href=
"http://www.freedesktop.org/software/appstream/docs/">the
2102 appstream system
</a> was announced. I got in touch and suggested to
2103 add the hardware mapping into that data set to be able to use
2104 appstream as a data source, and this was accepted at least for the
2105 Debian version of appstream.
</p>
2107 <p>A few days ago using appstream in Debian for this became possible,
2108 and today I uploaded a new version
0.20 of isenkram adding support for
2109 appstream as a data source for mapping hardware to packages. The only
2110 package so far using appstream to announce its hardware support is my
2111 pymissile package. I got help from Matthias Klumpp with figuring out
2112 how do add the required
2113 <a href=
"https://appstream.debian.org/html/sid/main/metainfo/pymissile.html">metadata
2114 in pymissile
</a>. I added a file debian/pymissile.metainfo.xml with
2118 <?xml
version="
1.0"
encoding="UTF-
8"?
>
2120 <id
>pymissile
</id
>
2121 <metadata_license
>MIT
</metadata_license
>
2122 <name
>pymissile
</name
>
2123 <summary
>Control original Striker USB Missile Launcher
</summary
>
2126 Pymissile provides a curses interface to control an original
2127 Marks and Spencer / Striker USB Missile Launcher, as well as a
2128 motion control script to allow a webcamera to control the
2131 </description
>
2133 <modalias
>usb:v1130p0202d*
</modalias
>
2138 <p>The key for isenkram is the component/provides/modalias value,
2139 which is a glob style match rule for hardware specific strings
2140 (modalias strings) provided by the Linux kernel. In this case, it
2141 will map to all USB devices with vendor code
1130 and product code
2144 <p>Note, it is important that the license of all the metadata files
2145 are compatible to have permissions to aggregate them into archive wide
2146 appstream files. Matthias suggested to use MIT or BSD licenses for
2147 these files. A challenge is figuring out a good id for the data, as
2148 it is supposed to be globally unique and shared across distributions
2149 (in other words, best to coordinate with upstream what to use). But
2150 it can be changed later or, so we went with the package name as
2151 upstream for this project is dormant.
</p>
2153 <p>To get the metadata file installed in the correct location for the
2154 mirror update scripts to pick it up and include its content the
2155 appstream data source, the file must be installed in the binary
2156 package under /usr/share/appdata/. I did this by adding the following
2157 line to debian/pymissile.install:
</p>
2160 debian/pymissile.metainfo.xml usr/share/appdata
2163 <p>With that in place, the command line tool isenkram-lookup will list
2164 all packages useful on the current computer automatically, and the GUI
2165 pop-up handler will propose to install the package not already
2166 installed if a hardware dongle is inserted into the machine in
2169 <p>Details of the modalias field in appstream is available from the
2170 <a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/DEP-11">DEP-
11</a> proposal.
</p>
2172 <p>To locate the modalias values of all hardware present in a machine,
2173 try running this command on the command line:
</p>
2176 cat $(find /sys/devices/|grep modalias)
2179 <p>To learn more about the isenkram system, please check out
2180 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram/">my
2181 blog posts tagged isenkram
</a>.
</p>
2187 Tags:
<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>.
2192 <div class=
"padding"></div>
2196 <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>
2202 <p>A blog post from my fellow Debian developer Paul Wise titled
2203 "
<a href=
"http://bonedaddy.net/pabs3/log/2015/11/27/sfc-supporter/">The
2204 GPL is not magic pixie dust
</a>" explain the importance of making sure
2205 the <a href="http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html
">GPL</a> is enforced.
2206 I quote the blog post from Paul in full here with his permission:<p>
2210 <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>
2213 The GPL is not magic pixie dust. It does not work by itself.<br/>
2215 The first step is to choose a
2216 <a href="https://copyleft.org/
">copyleft</a> license for your
2219 The next step is, when someone fails to follow that copyleft license,
2220 <b>it must be enforced</b><br/>
2222 and its a simple fact of our modern society that such type of
2225 is incredibly expensive to do and incredibly difficult to do.
2228 <p><small>-- <a href="http://ebb.org/bkuhn/
">Bradley Kuhn</a>, in
2229 <a href="http://faif.us/
" title="Free as in Freedom
">FaiF</a>
2230 <a href="http://faif.us/cast/
2015/nov/
24/
0x57/
">episode
2231 0x57</a></small></p>
2233 <p>As the Debian Website
2234 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/
794116">used</a>
2235 <a href="https://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/webwml/webwml/english/intro/free.wml?r1=
1.24&r2=
1.25">to</a>
2236 imply, public domain and permissively licensed software can lead to
2237 the production of more proprietary software as people discover useful
2238 software, extend it and or incorporate it into their hardware or
2239 software products. Copyleft licenses such as the GNU GPL were created
2240 to close off this avenue to the production of proprietary software but
2241 such licenses are not enough. With the ongoing adoption of Free
2242 Software by individuals and groups, inevitably the community's
2243 expectations of license compliance are violated, usually out of
2244 ignorance of the way Free Software works, but not always. As Karen
2245 and Bradley explained in <a href="http://faif.us/
" title="Free as in
2247 <a href="http://faif.us/cast/
2015/nov/
24/
0x57/
">episode 0x57</a>,
2248 copyleft is nothing if no-one is willing and able to stand up in court
2249 to protect it. The reality of today's world is that legal
2250 representation is expensive, difficult and time consuming. With
2251 <a href="http://gpl-violations.org/
">gpl-violations.org</a> in hiatus
2252 <a href="http://gpl-violations.org/news/
20151027-homepage-recovers/
">until</a>
2253 some time in 2016, the <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/
">Software
2254 Freedom Conservancy</a> (a tax-exempt charity) is the major defender
2255 of the Linux project, Debian and other groups against GPL violations.
2256 In March the SFC supported a
2257 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/news/
2015/mar/
05/vmware-lawsuit/
">lawsuit
2258 by Christoph Hellwig</a> against VMware for refusing to
2259 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/linux-compliance/vmware-lawsuit-faq.html
">comply
2260 with the GPL</a> in relation to their use of parts of the Linux
2261 kernel. Since then two of their sponsors pulled corporate funding and
2263 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/blog/
2015/nov/
24/faif-carols-fundraiser/
">blocked
2264 or cancelled their talks</a>. As a result they have decided to rely
2265 less on corporate funding and more on the broad community of
2266 individuals who support Free Software and copyleft. So the SFC has
2267 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/news/
2015/nov/
23/
2015fundraiser/
">launched</a>
2268 a <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/
">campaign</a> to create
2269 a community of folks who stand up for copyleft and the GPL by
2270 supporting their work on promoting and supporting copyleft and Free
2273 <p>If you support Free Software,
2274 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/blog/
2015/nov/
26/like-what-I-do/
">like</a>
2275 what the SFC do, agree with their
2276 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/linux-compliance/principles.html
">compliance
2277 principles</a>, are happy about their
2278 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/
">successes</a> in 2015,
2279 work on a project that is an SFC
2280 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/members/current/
">member</a> and or
2281 just want to stand up for copyleft, please join
2282 <a href="https://identi.ca/cwebber/image/JQGPA4qbTyyp3-MY8QpvuA
">Christopher
2284 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/blog/
2015/nov/
24/faif-carols-fundraiser/
">Carol
2286 <a href="http://www.jonobacon.org/
2015/
11/
25/supporting-software-freedom-conservancy/
">Jono
2287 Bacon</a>, myself and
2288 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/sponsors/#supporters
">others</a> in
2290 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/
">supporter</a>. For the
2291 next week your donation will be
2292 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/news/
2015/nov/
27/black-friday/
">matched</a>
2293 by an anonymous donor. Please also consider asking your employer to
2294 match your donation or become a sponsor of SFC. Don't forget to
2295 spread the word about your support for SFC via email, your blog and or
2296 social media accounts.</p>
2300 <p>I agree with Paul on this topic and just signed up as a Supporter
2301 of Software Freedom Conservancy myself. Perhaps you should be a
2308 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>.
2313 <div class="padding
"></div>
2317 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/PGP_key_transition_statement_for_key_EE4E02F9.html
">PGP key transition statement for key EE4E02F9</a>
2323 <p>I've needed a new OpenPGP key for a while, but have not had time to
2324 set it up properly. I wanted to generate it offline and have it
2325 available on <a href="http://shop.kernelconcepts.de/#openpgp
">a OpenPGP
2326 smart card</a> for daily use, and learning how to do it and finding
2327 time to sit down with an offline machine almost took forever. But
2328 finally I've been able to complete the process, and have now moved
2329 from my old GPG key to a new GPG key. See
2330 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/
2015-
11-
17-new-gpg-key-transition.txt
">the
2331 full transition statement, signed with both my old and new key</a> for
2332 the details. This is my new key:</p>
2335 pub 3936R/<a href="http://pgp.cs.uu.nl/stats/
111D6B29EE4E02F9.html
">111D6B29EE4E02F9</a> 2015-11-03 [expires: 2019-11-14]
2336 Key fingerprint = 3AC7 B2E3 ACA5 DF87 78F1 D827 111D 6B29 EE4E 02F9
2337 uid Petter Reinholdtsen <pere@hungry.com>
2338 uid Petter Reinholdtsen <pere@debian.org>
2339 sub 4096R/87BAFB0E 2015-11-03 [expires: 2019-11-02]
2340 sub 4096R/F91E6DE9 2015-11-03 [expires: 2019-11-02]
2341 sub 4096R/A0439BAB 2015-11-03 [expires: 2019-11-02]
2344 <p>The key can be downloaded from the OpenPGP key servers, signed by
2347 <p>If you signed my old key
2348 (<a href="http://pgp.cs.uu.nl/stats/DB4CCC4B2A30D729.html
">DB4CCC4B2A30D729</a>),
2349 I'd very much appreciate a signature on my new key, details and
2350 instructions in the transition statement. I m happy to reciprocate if
2351 you have a similarly signed transition statement to present.</p>
2357 Tags: <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>.
2362 <div class="padding
"></div>
2366 <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>
2372 <p>When I get a new laptop, the battery life time at the start is OK.
2373 But this do not last. The last few laptops gave me a feeling that
2374 within a year, the life time is just a fraction of what it used to be,
2375 and it slowly become painful to use the laptop without power connected
2376 all the time. Because of this, when I got a new Thinkpad X230 laptop
2377 about two years ago, I decided to monitor its battery state to have
2378 more hard facts when the battery started to fail.</p>
2380 <img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/
2015-
09-
24-laptop-battery-graph.png
"/>
2382 <p>First I tried to find a sensible Debian package to record the
2383 battery status, assuming that this must be a problem already handled
2384 by someone else. I found
2385 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats
">battery-stats</a>,
2386 which collects statistics from the battery, but it was completely
2387 broken. I sent a few suggestions to the maintainer, but decided to
2388 write my own collector as a shell script while I waited for feedback
2390 <a href="http://www.ifweassume.com/
2013/
08/the-de-evolution-of-my-laptop-battery.html
">a
2391 blog post about the battery development on a MacBook Air</a> I also
2393 <a href="https://github.com/jradavenport/batlog.git
">batlog</a>, not
2394 available in Debian.</p>
2396 <p>I started my collector 2013-07-15, and it has been collecting
2397 battery stats ever since. Now my
2398 /var/log/hjemmenett-battery-status.log file contain around 115,000
2399 measurements, from the time the battery was working great until now,
2400 when it is unable to charge above 7% of original capacity. My
2401 collector shell script is quite simple and look like this:</p>
2406 # http://www.ifweassume.com/2013/08/the-de-evolution-of-my-laptop-battery.html
2408 # http://blog.sleeplessbeastie.eu/2013/01/02/debian-how-to-monitor-battery-capacity/
2409 logfile=/var/log/hjemmenett-battery-status.log
2411 files="manufacturer model_name technology serial_number \
2412 energy_full energy_full_design energy_now cycle_count status"
2414 if [ ! -e "$logfile" ] ; then
2425 # Print complete message in one echo call, to avoid race condition
2426 # when several log processes run in parallel.
2427 msg=$(printf
"%s," $(date +%s); \
2428 for f in $files; do \
2429 printf
"%s," $(cat $f); \
2434 cd /sys/class/power_supply
2437 (cd $bat && log_battery
>> "$logfile")
2441 <p>The script is called when the power management system detect a
2442 change in the power status (power plug in or out), and when going into
2443 and out of hibernation and suspend. In addition, it collect a value
2444 every
10 minutes. This make it possible for me know when the battery
2445 is discharging, charging and how the maximum charge change over time.
2446 The code for the Debian package
2447 <a href=
"https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/battery-status">is now
2448 available on github
</a>.
</p>
2450 <p>The collected log file look like this:
</p>
2453 timestamp,manufacturer,model_name,technology,serial_number,energy_full,energy_full_design,energy_now,cycle_count,status,
2454 1376591133,LGC,
45N1025,Li-ion,
974,
62800000,
62160000,
39050000,
0,Discharging,
2456 1443090528,LGC,
45N1025,Li-ion,
974,
4900000,
62160000,
4900000,
0,Full,
2457 1443090601,LGC,
45N1025,Li-ion,
974,
4900000,
62160000,
4900000,
0,Full,
2460 <p>I wrote a small script to create a graph of the charge development
2461 over time. This graph depicted above show the slow death of my laptop
2464 <p>But why is this happening? Why are my laptop batteries always
2465 dying in a year or two, while the batteries of space probes and
2466 satellites keep working year after year. If we are to believe
2467 <a href=
"http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/how_to_prolong_lithium_based_batteries">Battery
2468 University
</a>, the cause is me charging the battery whenever I have a
2469 chance, and the fix is to not charge the Lithium-ion batteries to
100%
2470 all the time, but to stay below
90% of full charge most of the time.
2471 I've been told that the Tesla electric cars
2472 <a href=
"http://my.teslamotors.com/de_CH/forum/forums/battery-charge-limit">limit
2473 the charge of their batteries to
80%
</a>, with the option to charge to
2474 100% when preparing for a longer trip (not that I would want a car
2475 like Tesla where rights to privacy is abandoned, but that is another
2476 story), which I guess is the option we should have for laptops on
2479 <p>Is there a good and generic way with Linux to tell the battery to
2480 stop charging at
80%, unless requested to charge to
100% once in
2481 preparation for a longer trip? I found
2482 <a href=
"http://askubuntu.com/questions/34452/how-can-i-limit-battery-charging-to-80-capacity">one
2483 recipe on askubuntu for Ubuntu to limit charging on Thinkpad to
2484 80%
</a>, but could not get it to work (kernel module refused to
2487 <p>I wonder why the battery capacity was reported to be more than
100%
2488 at the start. I also wonder why the "full capacity" increases some
2489 times, and if it is possible to repeat the process to get the battery
2490 back to design capacity. And I wonder if the discharge and charge
2491 speed change over time, or if this stay the same. I did not yet try
2492 to write a tool to calculate the derivative values of the battery
2493 level, but suspect some interesting insights might be learned from
2496 <p>Update
2015-
09-
24: I got a tip to install the packages
2497 acpi-call-dkms and tlp (unfortunately missing in Debian stable)
2498 packages instead of the tp-smapi-dkms package I had tried to use
2499 initially, and use 'tlp setcharge
40 80' to change when charging start
2500 and stop. I've done so now, but expect my existing battery is toast
2501 and need to be replaced. The proposal is unfortunately Thinkpad
2508 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
2513 <div class=
"padding"></div>
2517 <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>
2523 <p>Several people contacted me after my previous blog post about my
2524 need for a new laptop, and provided very useful feedback. I wish to
2525 thank every one of these. Several pointed me to the possibility of
2526 fixing my X230, and I am already in the process of getting Lenovo to
2527 do so thanks to the on site, next day support contract covering the
2528 machine. But the battery is almost useless (I expect to replace it
2529 with a non-official battery) and I do not expect the machine to live
2530 for many more years, so it is time to plan its replacement. If I did
2531 not have a support contract, it was suggested to find replacement parts
2532 using
<a href=
"http://www.francecrans.com/">FrancEcrans
</a>, but it
2533 might present a language barrier as I do not understand French.
</p>
2535 <p>One tip I got was to use the
2536 <a href=
"https://skinflint.co.uk/?cat=nb">Skinflint
</a> web service to
2537 compare laptop models. It seem to have more models available than
2538 prisjakt.no. Another tip I got from someone I know have similar
2539 keyboard preferences was that the HP EliteBook
840 keyboard is not
2540 very good, and this matches my experience with earlier EliteBook
2541 keyboards I tested. Because of this, I will not consider it any further.
2543 <p>When I wrote my blog post, I was not aware of Thinkpad X250, the
2544 newest Thinkpad X model. The keyboard reintroduces mouse buttons
2545 (which is missing from the X240), and is working fairly well with
2546 Debian Sid/Unstable according to
2547 <a href=
"http://www.corsac.net/X250/">Corsac.net
</a>. The reports I
2548 got on the keyboard quality are not consistent. Some say the keyboard
2549 is good, others say it is ok, while others say it is not very good.
2550 Those with experience from X41 and and X60 agree that the X250
2551 keyboard is not as good as those trusty old laptops, and suggest I
2552 keep and fix my X230 instead of upgrading, or get a used X230 to
2553 replace it. I'm also told that the X250 lack leds for caps lock, disk
2554 activity and battery status, which is very convenient on my X230. I'm
2555 also told that the CPU fan is running very often, making it a bit
2556 noisy. In any case, the X250 do not work out of the box with Debian
2557 Stable/Jessie, one of my requirements.
</p>
2559 <p>I have also gotten a few vendor proposals, one was
2560 <a href=
"http://pro-star.com">Pro-Star
</a>, another was
2561 <a href=
"http://shop.gluglug.org.uk/product/libreboot-x200/">Libreboot
</a>.
2562 The latter look very attractive to me.
</p>
2564 <p>Again, thank you all for the very useful feedback. It help a lot
2565 as I keep looking for a replacement.
</p>
2567 <p>Update
2015-
07-
06: I was recommended to check out the
2568 <a href=
"">lapstore.de
</a> web shop for used laptops. They got several
2570 <a href=
"http://www.lapstore.de/f.php/shop/lapstore/f/411/lang/x/kw/Lenovo_ThinkPad_X_Serie/">old
2571 thinkpad X models
</a>, and provide one year warranty.
</p>
2577 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
2582 <div class=
"padding"></div>
2586 <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>
2592 <p>My primary work horse laptop is failing, and will need a
2593 replacement soon. The left
5 cm of the screen on my Thinkpad X230
2594 started flickering yesterday, and I suspect the cause is a broken
2595 cable, as changing the angle of the screen some times get rid of the
2598 <p>My requirements have not really changed since I bought it, and is
2600 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thank_you_Thinkpad_X41__for_your_long_and_trustworthy_service.html">I
2601 described them in
2013</a>. The last time I bought a laptop, I had
2603 <a href=
"http://www.prisjakt.no/category.php?k=353">prisjakt.no
</a>
2604 where I could select at least a few of the requirements (mouse pin,
2605 wifi, weight) and go through the rest manually. Three button mouse
2606 and a good keyboard is not available as an option, and all the three
2607 laptop models proposed today (Thinkpad X240, HP EliteBook
820 G1 and
2608 G2) lack three mouse buttons). It is also unclear to me how good the
2609 keyboard on the HP EliteBooks are. I hope Lenovo have not messed up
2610 the keyboard, even if the quality and robustness in the X series have
2611 deteriorated since X41.
</p>
2613 <p>I wonder how I can find a sensible laptop when none of the options
2614 seem sensible to me? Are there better services around to search the
2615 set of available laptops for features? Please send me an email if you
2616 have suggestions.
</p>
2618 <p>Update
2015-
07-
23: I got a suggestion to check out the FSF
2619 <a href=
"http://www.fsf.org/resources/hw/endorsement/respects-your-freedom">list
2620 of endorsed hardware
</a>, which is useful background information.
</p>
2626 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
2631 <div class=
"padding"></div>
2635 <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>
2641 <p>By now, it is well known that Debian Jessie will not be using
2642 sysvinit as its boot system by default. But how can one keep using
2643 sysvinit in Jessie? It is fairly easy, and here are a few recipes,
2645 <a href=
"http://www.vitavonni.de/blog/201410/2014102101-avoiding-systemd.html">Erich
2647 <a href=
"http://smcv.pseudorandom.co.uk/2014/still_universal/">Simon
2650 <p>If you already are using Wheezy and want to upgrade to Jessie and
2651 keep sysvinit as your boot system, create a file
2652 <tt>/etc/apt/preferences.d/use-sysvinit
</tt> with this content before
2655 <p><blockquote><pre>
2656 Package: systemd-sysv
2657 Pin: release o=Debian
2659 </pre></blockquote><p>
2661 <p>This file content will tell apt and aptitude to not consider
2662 installing systemd-sysv as part of any installation and upgrade
2663 solution when resolving dependencies, and thus tell it to avoid
2664 systemd as a default boot system. The end result should be that the
2665 upgraded system keep using sysvinit.
</p>
2667 <p>If you are installing Jessie for the first time, there is no way to
2668 get sysvinit installed by default (debootstrap used by
2669 debian-installer have no option for this), but one can tell the
2670 installer to switch to sysvinit before the first boot. Either by
2671 using a kernel argument to the installer, or by adding a line to the
2672 preseed file used. First, the kernel command line argument:
2674 <p><blockquote><pre>
2675 preseed/
late_command="in-target apt-get install --purge -y sysvinit-core"
2676 </pre></blockquote><p>
2678 <p>Next, the line to use in a preseed file:
</p>
2680 <p><blockquote><pre>
2681 d-i preseed/late_command string in-target apt-get install -y sysvinit-core
2682 </pre></blockquote><p>
2684 <p>One can of course also do this after the first boot by installing
2685 the sysvinit-core package.
</p>
2687 <p>I recommend only using sysvinit if you really need it, as the
2688 sysvinit boot sequence in Debian have several hardware specific bugs
2689 on Linux caused by the fact that it is unpredictable when hardware
2690 devices show up during boot. But on the other hand, the new default
2691 boot system still have a few rough edges I hope will be fixed before
2692 Jessie is released.
</p>
2694 <p>Update
2014-
11-
26: Inspired by
2695 <ahref=
"https://www.mirbsd.org/permalinks/wlog-10-tg_e20141125-tg.htm#e20141125-tg_wlog-10-tg">a
2696 blog post by Torsten Glaser
</a>, added --purge to the preseed
2703 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>.
2708 <div class=
"padding"></div>
2712 <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>
2718 <p>The right to communicate with your friends and family in private,
2719 without anyone snooping, is a right every citicen have in a liberal
2720 democracy. But this right is under serious attack these days.
</p>
2722 <p>A while back it occurred to me that one way to make the dragnet
2723 surveillance conducted by NSA, GCHQ, FRA and others (and confirmed by
2724 the whisleblower Snowden) more expensive for Internet email,
2725 is to deliver all email using SMTP via Tor. Such SMTP option would be
2726 a nice addition to the FreedomBox project if we could send email
2727 between FreedomBox machines without leaking metadata about the emails
2728 to the people peeking on the wire. I
2729 <a href=
"http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/freedombox-discuss/2014-October/006493.html">proposed
2730 this on the FreedomBox project mailing list in October
</a> and got a
2731 lot of useful feedback and suggestions. It also became obvious to me
2732 that this was not a novel idea, as the same idea was tested and
2733 documented by Johannes Berg as early as
2006, and both
2734 <a href=
"https://github.com/pagekite/Mailpile/wiki/SMTorP">the
2735 Mailpile
</a> and
<a href=
"http://dee.su/cables">the Cables
</a> systems
2736 propose a similar method / protocol to pass emails between users.
</p>
2738 <p>To implement such system one need to set up a Tor hidden service
2739 providing the SMTP protocol on port
25, and use email addresses
2740 looking like username@hidden-service-name.onion. With such addresses
2741 the connections to port
25 on hidden-service-name.onion using Tor will
2742 go to the correct SMTP server. To do this, one need to configure the
2743 Tor daemon to provide the hidden service and the mail server to accept
2744 emails for this .onion domain. To learn more about Exim configuration
2745 in Debian and test the design provided by Johannes Berg in his FAQ, I
2746 set out yesterday to create a Debian package for making it trivial to
2747 set up such SMTP over Tor service based on Debian. Getting it to work
2748 were fairly easy, and
2749 <a href=
"https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/exim4-smtorp">the
2750 source code for the Debian package
</a> is available from github. I
2751 plan to move it into Debian if further testing prove this to be a
2752 useful approach.
</p>
2754 <p>If you want to test this, set up a blank Debian machine without any
2755 mail system installed (or run
<tt>apt-get purge exim4-config
</tt> to
2756 get rid of exim4). Install tor, clone the git repository mentioned
2757 above, build the deb and install it on the machine. Next, run
2758 <tt>/usr/lib/exim4-smtorp/setup-exim-hidden-service
</tt> and follow
2759 the instructions to get the service up and running. Restart tor and
2760 exim when it is done, and test mail delivery using swaks like
2763 <p><blockquote><pre>
2764 torsocks swaks --server dutlqrrmjhtfa3vp.onion \
2765 --to fbx@dutlqrrmjhtfa3vp.onion
2766 </pre></blockquote></p>
2768 <p>This will test the SMTP delivery using tor. Replace the email
2769 address with your own address to test your server. :)
</p>
2771 <p>The setup procedure is still to complex, and I hope it can be made
2772 easier and more automatic. Especially the tor setup need more work.
2773 Also, the package include a tor-smtp tool written in C, but its task
2774 should probably be rewritten in some script language to make the deb
2775 architecture independent. It would probably also make the code easier
2776 to review. The tor-smtp tool currently need to listen on a socket for
2777 exim to talk to it and is started using xinetd. It would be better if
2778 no daemon and no socket is needed. I suspect it is possible to get
2779 exim to run a command line tool for delivery instead of talking to a
2780 socket, and hope to figure out how in a future version of this
2783 <p>Until I wipe my test machine, I can be reached using the
2784 <tt>fbx@dutlqrrmjhtfa3vp.onion
</tt> mail address, deliverable over
2791 Tags:
<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>.
2796 <div class=
"padding"></div>
2800 <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>
2806 <p>If you ever had to moderate a mailman list, like the ones on
2807 alioth.debian.org, you know the web interface is fairly slow to
2808 operate. First you visit one web page, enter the moderation password
2809 and get a new page shown with a list of all the messages to moderate
2810 and various options for each email address. This take a while for
2811 every list you moderate, and you need to do it regularly to do a good
2812 job as a list moderator. But there is a quick alternative,
2813 <a href=
"http://heim.ifi.uio.no/kjetilho/hacks/#listadmin">the
2814 listadmin program
</a>. It allow you to check lists for new messages
2815 to moderate in a fraction of a second. Here is a test run on two
2816 lists I recently took over:
</p>
2818 <p><blockquote><pre>
2819 % time listadmin xiph
2820 fetching data for pkg-xiph-commits@lists.alioth.debian.org ... nothing in queue
2821 fetching data for pkg-xiph-maint@lists.alioth.debian.org ... nothing in queue
2827 </pre></blockquote></p>
2829 <p>In
1.7 seconds I had checked two mailing lists and confirmed that
2830 there are no message in the moderation queue. Every morning I
2831 currently moderate
68 mailman lists, and it normally take around two
2832 minutes. When I took over the two pkg-xiph lists above a few days
2833 ago, there were
400 emails waiting in the moderator queue. It took me
2834 less than
15 minutes to process them all using the listadmin
2838 <a href=
"https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/listadmin">the listadmin
2839 package
</a> from Debian and create a file
<tt>~/.listadmin.ini
</tt>
2840 with content like this, the moderation task is a breeze:
</p>
2842 <p><blockquote><pre>
2843 username username@example.org
2846 discard_if_reason "Posting restricted to members only. Remove us from your mail list."
2849 adminurl https://{domain}/mailman/admindb/{list}
2850 mailman-list@lists.example.com
2853 other-list@otherserver.example.org
2854 </pre></blockquote></p>
2856 <p>There are other options to set as well. Check the manual page to
2857 learn the details.
</p>
2859 <p>If you are forced to moderate lists on a mailman installation where
2860 the SSL certificate is self signed or not properly signed by a
2861 generally accepted signing authority, you can set a environment
2862 variable when calling listadmin to disable SSL verification:
</p>
2864 <p><blockquote><pre>
2865 PERL_LWP_SSL_VERIFY_HOSTNAME=
0 listadmin
2866 </pre></blockquote></p>
2868 <p>If you want to moderate a subset of the lists you take care of, you
2869 can provide an argument to the listadmin script like I do in the
2870 initial screen dump (the xiph argument). Using an argument, only
2871 lists matching the argument string will be processed. This make it
2872 quick to accept messages if you notice the moderation request in your
2875 <p>Without the listadmin program, I would never be the moderator of
68
2876 mailing lists, as I simply do not have time to spend on that if the
2877 process was any slower. The listadmin program have saved me hours of
2878 time I could spend elsewhere over the years. It truly is nice free
2881 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
2882 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
2883 <b><a href=
"bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
</a></b>.
</p>
2885 <p>Update
2014-
10-
27: Added missing 'username' statement in
2886 configuration example. Also, I've been told that the
2887 PERL_LWP_SSL_VERIFY_HOSTNAME=
0 setting do not work for everyone. Not
2894 Tags:
<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>.
2899 <div class=
"padding"></div>
2903 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Jessie__PXE_and_automatic_firmware_installation.html">Debian Jessie, PXE and automatic firmware installation
</a>
2909 <p>When PXE installing laptops with Debian, I often run into the
2910 problem that the WiFi card require some firmware to work properly.
2911 And it has been a pain to fix this using preseeding in Debian.
2912 Normally something more is needed. But thanks to
2913 <a href=
"https://packages.qa.debian.org/i/isenkram.html">my isenkram
2914 package
</a> and its recent tasksel extension, it has now become easy
2915 to do this using simple preseeding.
</p>
2917 <p>The isenkram-cli package provide tasksel tasks which will install
2918 firmware for the hardware found in the machine (actually, requested by
2919 the kernel modules for the hardware). (It can also install user space
2920 programs supporting the hardware detected, but that is not the focus
2923 <p>To get this working in the default installation, two preeseding
2924 values are needed. First, the isenkram-cli package must be installed
2925 into the target chroot (aka the hard drive) before tasksel is executed
2926 in the pkgsel step of the debian-installer system. This is done by
2927 preseeding the base-installer/includes debconf value to include the
2928 isenkram-cli package. The package name is next passed to debootstrap
2929 for installation. With the isenkram-cli package in place, tasksel
2930 will automatically use the isenkram tasks to detect hardware specific
2931 packages for the machine being installed and install them, because
2932 isenkram-cli contain tasksel tasks.
</p>
2934 <p>Second, one need to enable the non-free APT repository, because
2935 most firmware unfortunately is non-free. This is done by preseeding
2936 the apt-mirror-setup step. This is unfortunate, but for a lot of
2937 hardware it is the only option in Debian.
</p>
2939 <p>The end result is two lines needed in your preseeding file to get
2940 firmware installed automatically by the installer:
</p>
2942 <p><blockquote><pre>
2943 base-installer base-installer/includes string isenkram-cli
2944 apt-mirror-setup apt-setup/non-free boolean true
2945 </pre></blockquote></p>
2947 <p>The current version of isenkram-cli in testing/jessie will install
2948 both firmware and user space packages when using this method. It also
2949 do not work well, so use version
0.15 or later. Installing both
2950 firmware and user space packages might give you a bit more than you
2951 want, so I decided to split the tasksel task in two, one for firmware
2952 and one for user space programs. The firmware task is enabled by
2953 default, while the one for user space programs is not. This split is
2954 implemented in the package currently in unstable.
</p>
2956 <p>If you decide to give this a go, please let me know (via email) how
2957 this recipe work for you. :)
</p>
2959 <p>So, I bet you are wondering, how can this work. First and
2960 foremost, it work because tasksel is modular, and driven by whatever
2961 files it find in /usr/lib/tasksel/ and /usr/share/tasksel/. So the
2962 isenkram-cli package place two files for tasksel to find. First there
2963 is the task description file (/usr/share/tasksel/descs/isenkram.desc):
</p>
2965 <p><blockquote><pre>
2966 Task: isenkram-packages
2968 Description: Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)
2969 Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific packages are
2971 Test-new-install: show show
2973 Packages: for-current-hardware
2975 Task: isenkram-firmware
2977 Description: Hardware specific firmware packages (autodetected by isenkram)
2978 Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific firmware
2979 packages are proposed.
2980 Test-new-install: mark show
2982 Packages: for-current-hardware-firmware
2983 </pre></blockquote></p>
2985 <p>The key parts are Test-new-install which indicate how the task
2986 should be handled and the Packages line referencing to a script in
2987 /usr/lib/tasksel/packages/. The scripts use other scripts to get a
2988 list of packages to install. The for-current-hardware-firmware script
2989 look like this to list relevant firmware for the machine:
2991 <p><blockquote><pre>
2994 PATH=/usr/sbin:$PATH
2996 isenkram-autoinstall-firmware -l
2997 </pre></blockquote></p>
2999 <p>With those two pieces in place, the firmware is installed by
3000 tasksel during the normal d-i run. :)
</p>
3002 <p>If you want to test what tasksel will install when isenkram-cli is
3003 installed, run
<tt>DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical tasksel --test
3004 --new-install
</tt> to get the list of packages that tasksel would
3007 <p><a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/">Debian Edu
</a> will be
3008 pilots in testing this feature, as isenkram is used there now to
3009 install firmware, replacing the earlier scripts.
</p>
3015 Tags:
<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>.
3020 <div class=
"padding"></div>
3024 <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>
3030 <p>Today I came across an unexpected Ubuntu boot screen. Above the
3031 bread shelf on the ICA shop at Storo in Oslo, the grub menu of Ubuntu
3032 with Linux kernel
3.2.0-
23 (ie probably version
12.04 LTS) was stuck
3033 on a screen normally showing the bread types and prizes:
</p>
3035 <p align=
"center"><img width=
"70%" src=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2014-10-04-ubuntu-ica-storo-crop.jpeg"></p>
3037 <p>If it had booted as it was supposed to, I would never had known
3038 about this hidden Linux installation. It is interesting what
3039 <a href=
"http://revealingerrors.com/">errors can reveal
</a>.
</p>
3045 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
3050 <div class=
"padding"></div>
3054 <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>
3060 <p>The
<a href=
"https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/">lsdvd project
</a>
3061 got a new set of developers a few weeks ago, after the original
3062 developer decided to step down and pass the project to fresh blood.
3063 This project is now maintained by Petter Reinholdtsen and Steve
3066 <p>I just wrapped up
3067 <a href=
"https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/mailman/message/32896061/">a
3068 new lsdvd release
</a>, available in git or from
3069 <a href=
"https://sourceforge.net/projects/lsdvd/files/lsdvd/">the
3070 download page
</a>. This is the changelog dated
2014-
10-
03 for version
3075 <li>Ignore 'phantom' audio, subtitle tracks
</li>
3076 <li>Check for garbage in the program chains, which indicate that a track is
3077 non-existant, to work around additional copy protection
</li>
3078 <li>Fix displaying content type for audio tracks, subtitles
</li>
3079 <li>Fix pallete display of first entry
</li>
3080 <li>Fix include orders
</li>
3081 <li>Ignore read errors in titles that would not be displayed anyway
</li>
3082 <li>Fix the chapter count
</li>
3083 <li>Make sure the array size and the array limit used when initialising
3084 the palette size is the same.
</li>
3085 <li>Fix array printing.
</li>
3086 <li>Correct subsecond calculations.
</li>
3087 <li>Add sector information to the output format.
</li>
3088 <li>Clean up code to be closer to ANSI C and compile without warnings
3089 with more GCC compiler warnings.
</li>
3093 <p>This change bring together patches for lsdvd in use in various
3094 Linux and Unix distributions, as well as patches submitted to the
3095 project the last nine years. Please check it out. :)
</p>
3101 Tags:
<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>.
3106 <div class=
"padding"></div>
3110 <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>
3116 <p>The
<a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
3117 project
</a> provide a Linux solution for schools, including a
3118 powerful desktop with education software, a central server providing
3119 web pages, user database, user home directories, central login and PXE
3120 boot of both clients without disk and the installation to install Debian
3121 Edu on machines with disk (and a few other services perhaps to small
3122 to mention here). We in the Debian Edu team are currently working on
3123 the Jessie based version, trying to get everything in shape before the
3124 freeze, to avoid having to maintain our own package repository in the
3126 <a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Status/Jessie">current
3127 status
</a> can be seen on the Debian wiki, and there is still heaps of
3128 work left. Some fatal problems block testing, breaking the installer,
3129 but it is possible to work around these to get anyway. Here is a
3130 recipe on how to get the installation limping along.
</p>
3132 <p>First, download the test ISO via
3133 <a href=
"ftp://ftp.skolelinux.no/cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-1.iso">ftp
</a>,
3134 <a href=
"http://ftp.skolelinux.no/cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-1.iso">http
</a>
3136 ftp.skolelinux.org::cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-
1.iso).
3137 The ISO build was broken on Tuesday, so we do not get a new ISO every
3138 12 hours or so, but thankfully the ISO we already got we are able to
3139 install with some tweaking.
</p>
3141 <p>When you get to the Debian Edu profile question, go to tty2
3142 (use Alt-Ctrl-F2), run
</p>
3144 <p><blockquote><pre>
3145 nano /usr/bin/edu-eatmydata-install
3146 </pre></blockquote></p>
3148 <p>and add 'exit
0' as the second line, disabling the eatmydata
3149 optimization. Return to the installation, select the profile you want
3150 and continue. Without this change, exim4-config will fail to install
3151 due to a known bug in eatmydata.
</p>
3153 <p>When you get the grub question at the end, answer /dev/sda (or if
3154 this do not work, figure out what your correct value would be. All my
3155 test machines need /dev/sda, so I have no advice if it do not fit
3158 <p>If you installed a profile including a graphical desktop, log in as
3159 root after the initial boot from hard drive, and install the
3160 education-desktop-XXX metapackage. XXX can be kde, gnome, lxde, xfce
3161 or mate. If you want several desktop options, install more than one
3162 metapackage. Once this is done, reboot and you should have a working
3163 graphical login screen. This workaround should no longer be needed
3164 once the education-tasks package version
1.801 enter testing in two
3167 <p>I believe the ISO build will start working on two days when the new
3168 tasksel package enter testing and Steve McIntyre get a chance to
3169 update the debian-cd git repository. The eatmydata, grub and desktop
3170 issues are already fixed in unstable and testing, and should show up
3171 on the ISO as soon as the ISO build start working again. Well the
3172 eatmydata optimization is really just disabled. The proper fix
3173 require an upload by the eatmydata maintainer applying the patch
3174 provided in bug
<a href=
"https://bugs.debian.org/702711">#
702711</a>.
3175 The rest have proper fixes in unstable.
</p>
3177 <p>I hope this get you going with the installation testing, as we are
3178 quickly running out of time trying to get our Jessie based
3179 installation ready before the distribution freeze in a month.
</p>
3185 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>.
3190 <div class=
"padding"></div>
3194 <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>
3200 <p>I use the
<a href=
"https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/">lsdvd tool
</a>
3201 to handle my fairly large DVD collection. It is a nice command line
3202 tool to get details about a DVD, like title, tracks, track length,
3203 etc, in XML, Perl or human readable format. But lsdvd have not seen
3204 any new development since
2006 and had a few irritating bugs affecting
3205 its use with some DVDs. Upstream seemed to be dead, and in January I
3206 sent a small probe asking for a version control repository for the
3207 project, without any reply. But I use it regularly and would like to
3208 get
<a href=
"https://packages.qa.debian.org/lsdvd">an updated version
3209 into Debian
</a>. So two weeks ago I tried harder to get in touch with
3210 the project admin, and after getting a reply from him explaining that
3211 he was no longer interested in the project, I asked if I could take
3212 over. And yesterday, I became project admin.
</p>
3214 <p>I've been in touch with a Gentoo developer and the Debian
3215 maintainer interested in joining forces to maintain the upstream
3216 project, and I hope we can get a new release out fairly quickly,
3217 collecting the patches spread around on the internet into on place.
3218 I've added the relevant Debian patches to the freshly created git
3219 repository, and expect the Gentoo patches to make it too. If you got
3220 a DVD collection and care about command line tools, check out
3221 <a href=
"https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/git/ci/master/tree/">the git source
</a> and join
3222 <a href=
"https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/mailman/">the project mailing
3229 Tags:
<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>.
3234 <div class=
"padding"></div>
3238 <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>
3244 <p>The
<a href=
"https://www.debian.org/">Debian
</a> installer could be
3245 a lot quicker. When we install more than
2000 packages in
3246 <a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux / Debian Edu
</a> using
3247 tasksel in the installer, unpacking the binary packages take forever.
3248 A part of the slow I/O issue was discussed in
3249 <a href=
"https://bugs.debian.org/613428">bug #
613428</a> about too
3250 much file system sync-ing done by dpkg, which is the package
3251 responsible for unpacking the binary packages. Other parts (like code
3252 executed by postinst scripts) might also sync to disk during
3253 installation. All this sync-ing to disk do not really make sense to
3254 me. If the machine crash half-way through, I start over, I do not try
3255 to salvage the half installed system. So the failure sync-ing is
3256 supposed to protect against, hardware or system crash, is not really
3257 relevant while the installer is running.
</p>
3259 <p>A few days ago, I thought of a way to get rid of all the file
3260 system sync()-ing in a fairly non-intrusive way, without the need to
3261 change the code in several packages. The idea is not new, but I have
3262 not heard anyone propose the approach using dpkg-divert before. It
3263 depend on the small and clever package
3264 <a href=
"https://packages.qa.debian.org/eatmydata">eatmydata
</a>, which
3265 uses LD_PRELOAD to replace the system functions for syncing data to
3266 disk with functions doing nothing, thus allowing programs to live
3267 dangerous while speeding up disk I/O significantly. Instead of
3268 modifying the implementation of dpkg, apt and tasksel (which are the
3269 packages responsible for selecting, fetching and installing packages),
3270 it occurred to me that we could just divert the programs away, replace
3271 them with a simple shell wrapper calling
3272 "eatmydata
$program
$@", to get the same effect.
3273 Two days ago I decided to test the idea, and wrapped up a simple
3274 implementation for the Debian Edu udeb.
</p>
3276 <p>The effect was stunning. In my first test it reduced the running
3277 time of the pkgsel step (installing tasks) from
64 to less than
44
3278 minutes (
20 minutes shaved off the installation) on an old Dell
3279 Latitude D505 machine. I am not quite sure what the optimised time
3280 would have been, as I messed up the testing a bit, causing the debconf
3281 priority to get low enough for two questions to pop up during
3282 installation. As soon as I saw the questions I moved the installation
3283 along, but do not know how long the question were holding up the
3284 installation. I did some more measurements using Debian Edu Jessie,
3285 and got these results. The time measured is the time stamp in
3286 /var/log/syslog between the "pkgsel: starting tasksel" and the
3287 "pkgsel: finishing up" lines, if you want to do the same measurement
3288 yourself. In Debian Edu, the tasksel dialog do not show up, and the
3289 timing thus do not depend on how quickly the user handle the tasksel
3295 <th>Machine/setup
</th>
3296 <th>Original tasksel
</th>
3297 <th>Optimised tasksel
</th>
3302 <td>Latitude D505 Main+LTSP LXDE
</td>
3303 <td>64 min (
07:
46-
08:
50)
</td>
3304 <td><44 min (
11:
27-
12:
11)
</td>
3305 <td>>20 min
18%
</td>
3309 <td>Latitude D505 Roaming LXDE
</td>
3310 <td>57 min (
08:
48-
09:
45)
</td>
3311 <td>34 min (
07:
43-
08:
17)
</td>
3316 <td>Latitude D505 Minimal
</td>
3317 <td>22 min (
10:
37-
10:
59)
</td>
3318 <td>11 min (
11:
16-
11:
27)
</td>
3323 <td>Thinkpad X200 Minimal
</td>
3324 <td>6 min (
08:
19-
08:
25)
</td>
3325 <td>4 min (
08:
04-
08:
08)
</td>
3330 <td>Thinkpad X200 Roaming KDE
</td>
3331 <td>19 min (
09:
21-
09:
40)
</td>
3332 <td>15 min (
10:
25-
10:
40)
</td>
3338 <p>The test is done using a netinst ISO on a USB stick, so some of the
3339 time is spent downloading packages. The connection to the Internet
3340 was
100Mbit/s during testing, so downloading should not be a
3341 significant factor in the measurement. Download typically took a few
3342 seconds to a few minutes, depending on the amount of packages being
3345 <p>The speedup is implemented by using two hooks in
3346 <a href=
"https://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/">Debian
3347 Installer
</a>, the pre-pkgsel.d hook to set up the diverts, and the
3348 finish-install.d hook to remove the divert at the end of the
3349 installation. I picked the pre-pkgsel.d hook instead of the
3350 post-base-installer.d hook because I test using an ISO without the
3351 eatmydata package included, and the post-base-installer.d hook in
3352 Debian Edu can only operate on packages included in the ISO. The
3353 negative effect of this is that I am unable to activate this
3354 optimization for the kernel installation step in d-i. If the code is
3355 moved to the post-base-installer.d hook, the speedup would be larger
3356 for the entire installation.
</p>
3358 <p>I've implemented this in the
3359 <a href=
"https://packages.qa.debian.org/debian-edu-install">debian-edu-install
</a>
3360 git repository, and plan to provide the optimization as part of the
3361 Debian Edu installation. If you want to test this yourself, you can
3362 create two files in the installer (or in an udeb). One shell script
3363 need do go into /usr/lib/pre-pkgsel.d/, with content like this:
</p>
3365 <p><blockquote><pre>
3368 . /usr/share/debconf/confmodule
3370 logger -t my-pkgsel "info: $*"
3373 logger -t my-pkgsel "error: $*"
3375 override_install() {
3376 apt-install eatmydata || true
3377 if [ -x /target/usr/bin/eatmydata ] ; then
3378 for bin in dpkg apt-get aptitude tasksel ; do
3380 # Test that the file exist and have not been diverted already.
3381 if [ -f /target$file ] ; then
3382 info "diverting $file using eatmydata"
3383 printf "#!/bin/sh\neatmydata $bin.distrib \"\$@\"\n" \
3385 chmod
755 /target$file.edu
3386 in-target dpkg-divert --package debian-edu-config \
3387 --rename --quiet --add $file
3388 ln -sf ./$bin.edu /target$file
3390 error "unable to divert $file, as it is missing."
3394 error "unable to find /usr/bin/eatmydata after installing the eatmydata pacage"
3399 </pre></blockquote></p>
3401 <p>To clean up, another shell script should go into
3402 /usr/lib/finish-install.d/ with code like this:
3404 <p><blockquote><pre>
3406 . /usr/share/debconf/confmodule
3408 logger -t my-finish-install "error: $@"
3410 remove_install_override() {
3411 for bin in dpkg apt-get aptitude tasksel ; do
3413 if [ -x /target$file.edu ] ; then
3415 in-target dpkg-divert --package debian-edu-config \
3416 --rename --quiet --remove $file
3419 error "Missing divert for $file."
3422 sync # Flush file buffers before continuing
3425 remove_install_override
3426 </pre></blockquote></p>
3428 <p>In Debian Edu, I placed both code fragments in a separate script
3429 edu-eatmydata-install and call it from the pre-pkgsel.d and
3430 finish-install.d scripts.
</p>
3432 <p>By now you might ask if this change should get into the normal
3433 Debian installer too? I suspect it should, but am not sure the
3434 current debian-installer coordinators find it useful enough. It also
3435 depend on the side effects of the change. I'm not aware of any, but I
3436 guess we will see if the change is safe after some more testing.
3437 Perhaps there is some package in Debian depending on sync() and
3438 fsync() having effect? Perhaps it should go into its own udeb, to
3439 allow those of us wanting to enable it to do so without affecting
3442 <p>Update
2014-
09-
24: Since a few days ago, enabling this optimization
3443 will break installation of all programs using gnutls because of
3444 <a href=
"https://bugs.debian.org/702711">bug #
702711</a>. An updated
3445 eatmydata package in Debian will solve it.
</p>
3447 <p>Update
2014-
10-
17: The bug mentioned above is fixed in testing and
3448 the optimization work again. And I have discovered that the
3449 dpkg-divert trick is not really needed and implemented a slightly
3450 simpler approach as part of the debian-edu-install package. See
3451 tools/edu-eatmydata-install in the source package.
</p>
3453 <p>Update
2014-
11-
11: Unfortunately, a new
3454 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/765738">bug #
765738</a> in eatmydata only
3455 triggering on i386 made it into testing, and broke this installation
3456 optimization again. If
<a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/768893">unblock
3457 request
768893</a> is accepted, it should be working again.
</p>
3463 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>.
3468 <div class=
"padding"></div>
3472 <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>
3478 <p>Yesterday, I had the pleasure of attending a talk with the
3479 <a href=
"http://www.nuug.no/">Norwegian Unix User Group
</a> about
3480 <a href=
"http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20140909-sks-keyservers/">the
3481 OpenPGP keyserver pool sks-keyservers.net
</a>, and was very happy to
3482 learn that there is a large set of publicly available key servers to
3483 use when looking for peoples public key. So far I have used
3484 subkeys.pgp.net, and some times wwwkeys.nl.pgp.net when the former
3485 were misbehaving, but those days are ended. The servers I have used
3486 up until yesterday have been slow and some times unavailable. I hope
3487 those problems are gone now.
</p>
3489 <p>Behind the round robin DNS entry of the
3490 <a href=
"https://sks-keyservers.net/">sks-keyservers.net
</a> service
3491 there is a pool of more than
100 keyservers which are checked every
3492 day to ensure they are well connected and up to date. It must be
3493 better than what I have used so far. :)
</p>
3495 <p>Yesterdays speaker told me that the service is the default
3496 keyserver provided by the default configuration in GnuPG, but this do
3497 not seem to be used in Debian. Perhaps it should?
</p>
3499 <p>Anyway, I've updated my ~/.gnupg/options file to now include this
3502 <p><blockquote><pre>
3503 keyserver pool.sks-keyservers.net
3504 </pre></blockquote></p>
3506 <p>With GnuPG version
2 one can also locate the keyserver using SRV
3507 entries in DNS. Just for fun, I did just that at work, so now every
3508 user of GnuPG at the University of Oslo should find a OpenGPG
3509 keyserver automatically should their need it:
</p>
3511 <p><blockquote><pre>
3512 % host -t srv _pgpkey-http._tcp.uio.no
3513 _pgpkey-http._tcp.uio.no has SRV record
0 100 11371 pool.sks-keyservers.net.
3515 </pre></blockquote></p>
3518 <a href=
"http://ietfreport.isoc.org/idref/draft-shaw-openpgp-hkp/">the
3519 HKP lookup protocol
</a> supported finding signature paths, I would be
3520 very happy. It can look up a given key or search for a user ID, but I
3521 normally do not want that, but to find a trust path from my key to
3522 another key. Given a user ID or key ID, I would like to find (and
3523 download) the keys representing a signature path from my key to the
3524 key in question, to be able to get a trust path between the two keys.
3525 This is as far as I can tell not possible today. Perhaps something
3526 for a future version of the protocol?
</p>
3532 Tags:
<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>.
3537 <div class=
"padding"></div>
3541 <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>
3547 <p>The
<a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
3548 project
</a> provide an instruction manual for teachers, system
3549 administrators and other users that contain useful tips for setting up
3550 and maintaining a Debian Edu installation. This text is about how the
3551 text processing of this manual is handled in the project.
</p>
3553 <p>One goal of the project is to provide information in the native
3554 language of its users, and for this we need to handle translations.
3555 But we also want to make sure each language contain the same
3556 information, so for this we need a good way to keep the translations
3557 in sync. And we want it to be easy for our users to improve the
3558 documentation, avoiding the need to learn special formats or tools to
3559 contribute, and the obvious way to do this is to make it possible to
3560 edit the documentation using a web browser. We also want it to be
3561 easy for translators to keep the translation up to date, and give them
3562 help in figuring out what need to be translated. Here is the list of
3563 tools and the process we have found trying to reach all these
3566 <p>We maintain the authoritative source of our manual in the
3567 <a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/">Debian
3568 wiki
</a>, as several wiki pages written in English. It consist of one
3569 front page with references to the different chapters, several pages
3570 for each chapter, and finally one "collection page" gluing all the
3571 chapters together into one large web page (aka
3572 <a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/AllInOne">the
3573 AllInOne page
</a>). The AllInOne page is the one used for further
3574 processing and translations. Thanks to the fact that the
3575 <a href=
"http://moinmo.in/">MoinMoin
</a> installation on
3576 wiki.debian.org support exporting pages in
3577 <a href=
"http://www.docbook.org/">the Docbook format
</a>, we can fetch
3578 the list of pages to export using the raw version of the AllInOne
3579 page, loop over each of them to generate a Docbook XML version of the
3580 manual. This process also download images and transform image
3581 references to use the locally downloaded images. The generated
3582 Docbook XML files are slightly broken, so some post-processing is done
3583 using the
<tt>documentation/scripts/get_manual
</tt> program, and the
3584 result is a nice Docbook XML file (debian-edu-wheezy-manual.xml) and
3585 a handfull of images. The XML file can now be used to generate PDF, HTML
3586 and epub versions of the English manual. This is the basic step of
3587 our process, making PDF (using dblatex), HTML (using xsltproc) and
3588 epub (using dbtoepub) version from Docbook XML, and the resulting files
3589 are placed in the debian-edu-doc-en binary package.
</p>
3591 <p>But English documentation is not enough for us. We want translated
3592 documentation too, and we want to make it easy for translators to
3593 track the English original. For this we use the
3594 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/p/poxml.html">poxml
</a> package,
3595 which allow us to transform the English Docbook XML file into a
3596 translation file (a .pot file), usable with the normal gettext based
3597 translation tools used by those translating free software. The pot
3598 file is used to create and maintain translation files (several .po
3599 files), which the translations update with the native language
3600 translations of all titles, paragraphs and blocks of text in the
3601 original. The next step is combining the original English Docbook XML
3602 and the translation file (say debian-edu-wheezy-manual.nb.po), to
3603 create a translated Docbook XML file (in this case
3604 debian-edu-wheezy-manual.nb.xml). This translated (or partly
3605 translated, if the translation is not complete) Docbook XML file can
3606 then be used like the original to create a PDF, HTML and epub version
3607 of the documentation.
</p>
3609 <p>The translators use different tools to edit the .po files. We
3611 <a href=
"http://www.kde.org/applications/development/lokalize/">lokalize
</a>,
3612 while some use emacs and vi, others can use web based editors like
3613 <a href=
"http://pootle.translatehouse.org/">Poodle
</a> or
3614 <a href=
"https://www.transifex.com/">Transifex
</a>. All we care about
3615 is where the .po file end up, in our git repository. Updated
3616 translations can either be committed directly to git, or submitted as
3617 <a href=
"https://bugs.debian.org/src:debian-edu-doc">bug reports
3618 against the debian-edu-doc package
</a>.
</p>
3620 <p>One challenge is images, which both might need to be translated (if
3621 they show translated user applications), and are needed in different
3622 formats when creating PDF and HTML versions (epub is a HTML version in
3623 this regard). For this we transform the original PNG images to the
3624 needed density and format during build, and have a way to provide
3625 translated images by storing translated versions in
3626 images/$LANGUAGECODE/. I am a bit unsure about the details here. The
3627 package maintainers know more.
</p>
3629 <p>If you wonder what the result look like, we provide
3630 <a href=
"http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/">the content
3631 of the documentation packages on the web
</a>. See for example the
3632 <a href=
"http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/it/debian-edu-wheezy-manual.pdf">Italian
3633 PDF version
</a> or the
3634 <a href=
"http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/de/debian-edu-wheezy-manual.html">German
3635 HTML version
</a>. We do not yet build the epub version by default,
3636 but perhaps it will be done in the future.
</p>
3638 <p>To learn more, check out
3639 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/debian-edu-doc.html">the
3640 debian-edu-doc package
</a>,
3641 <a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/">the
3642 manual on the wiki
</a> and
3643 <a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/Translations">the
3644 translation instructions
</a> in the manual.
</p>
3650 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>.
3655 <div class=
"padding"></div>
3659 <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>
3665 <p>It would be nice if it was easier in Debian to get all the hardware
3666 related packages relevant for the computer installed automatically.
3667 So I implemented one, using
3668 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">my Isenkram
3669 package
</a>. To use it, install the tasksel and isenkram packages and
3670 run tasksel as user root. You should be presented with a new option,
3671 "Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)". When you
3672 select it, tasksel will install the packages isenkram claim is fit for
3673 the current hardware, hot pluggable or not.
<p>
3675 <p>The implementation is in two files, one is the tasksel menu entry
3676 description, and the other is the script used to extract the list of
3677 packages to install. The first part is in
3678 <tt>/usr/share/tasksel/descs/isenkram.desc
</tt> and look like
3681 <p><blockquote><pre>
3684 Description: Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)
3685 Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific packages are
3687 Test-new-install: mark show
3689 Packages: for-current-hardware
3690 </pre></blockquote></p>
3692 <p>The second part is in
3693 <tt>/usr/lib/tasksel/packages/for-current-hardware
</tt> and look like
3696 <p><blockquote><pre>
3701 isenkram-autoinstall-firmware -l
3703 </pre></blockquote></p>
3705 <p>All in all, a very short and simple implementation making it
3706 trivial to install the hardware dependent package we all may want to
3707 have installed on our machines. I've not been able to find a way to
3708 get tasksel to tell you exactly which packages it plan to install
3709 before doing the installation. So if you are curious or careful,
3710 check the output from the isenkram-* command line tools first.
</p>
3712 <p>The information about which packages are handling which hardware is
3713 fetched either from the isenkram package itself in
3714 /usr/share/isenkram/, from git.debian.org or from the APT package
3715 database (using the Modaliases header). The APT package database
3716 parsing have caused a nasty resource leak in the isenkram daemon (bugs
3717 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/719837">#
719837</a> and
3718 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/730704">#
730704</a>). The cause is in
3719 the python-apt code (bug
3720 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/745487">#
745487</a>), but using a
3721 workaround I was able to get rid of the file descriptor leak and
3722 reduce the memory leak from ~
30 MiB per hardware detection down to
3723 around
2 MiB per hardware detection. It should make the desktop
3724 daemon a lot more useful. The fix is in version
0.7 uploaded to
3727 <p>I believe the current way of mapping hardware to packages in
3728 Isenkram is is a good draft, but in the future I expect isenkram to
3729 use the AppStream data source for this. A proposal for getting proper
3730 AppStream support into Debian is floating around as
3731 <a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/DEP-11">DEP-
11</a>, and
3732 <a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/SummerOfCode2014/Projects#SummerOfCode2014.2FProjects.2FAppStreamDEP11Implementation.AppStream.2FDEP-11_for_the_Debian_Archive">GSoC
3733 project
</a> will take place this summer to improve the situation. I
3734 look forward to seeing the result, and welcome patches for isenkram to
3735 start using the information when it is ready.
</p>
3737 <p>If you want your package to map to some specific hardware, either
3738 add a "Xb-Modaliases" header to your control file like I did in
3739 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/pymissile">the pymissile
3740 package
</a> or submit a bug report with the details to the isenkram
3742 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram/">all my
3743 blog posts tagged isenkram
</a> for details on the notation. I expect
3744 the information will be migrated to AppStream eventually, but for the
3745 moment I got no better place to store it.
</p>
3751 Tags:
<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>.
3756 <div class=
"padding"></div>
3760 <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>
3766 <p>The
<a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">Freedombox
3767 project
</a> is working on providing the software and hardware to make
3768 it easy for non-technical people to host their data and communication
3769 at home, and being able to communicate with their friends and family
3770 encrypted and away from prying eyes. It is still going strong, and
3771 today a major mile stone was reached.
</p>
3773 <p>Today, the last of the packages currently used by the project to
3774 created the system images were accepted into Debian Unstable. It was
3775 the freedombox-setup package, which is used to configure the images
3776 during build and on the first boot. Now all one need to get going is
3777 the build code from the freedom-maker git repository and packages from
3778 Debian. And once the freedombox-setup package enter testing, we can
3779 build everything directly from Debian. :)
</p>
3781 <p>Some key packages used by Freedombox are
3782 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/freedombox-setup">freedombox-setup
</a>,
3783 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/plinth">plinth
</a>,
3784 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/pagekite">pagekite
</a>,
3785 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/tor">tor
</a>,
3786 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/privoxy">privoxy
</a>,
3787 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/owncloud">owncloud
</a> and
3788 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/dnsmasq">dnsmasq
</a>. There
3789 are plans to integrate more packages into the setup. User
3790 documentation is maintained on the Debian wiki. Please
3791 <a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/Manual/Jessie">check out
3792 the manual
</a> and help us improve it.
</p>
3794 <p>To test for yourself and create boot images with the FreedomBox
3795 setup, run this on a Debian machine using a user with sudo rights to
3799 sudo apt-get install git vmdebootstrap mercurial python-docutils \
3800 mktorrent extlinux virtualbox qemu-user-static binfmt-support \
3802 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/freedombox/freedom-maker.git \
3804 make -C freedom-maker dreamplug-image raspberry-image virtualbox-image
3807 <p>Root access is needed to run debootstrap and mount loopback
3808 devices. See the README in the freedom-maker git repo for more
3809 details on the build. If you do not want all three images, trim the
3810 make line. Note that the virtualbox-image target is not really
3811 virtualbox specific. It create a x86 image usable in kvm, qemu,
3812 vmware and any other x86 virtual machine environment. You might need
3813 the version of vmdebootstrap in Jessie to get the build working, as it
3814 include fixes for a race condition with kpartx.
</p>
3816 <p>If you instead want to install using a Debian CD and the preseed
3817 method, boot a Debian Wheezy ISO and use this boot argument to load
3818 the preseed values:
</p>
3821 url=
<a href=
"http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat
</a>
3824 <p>I have not tested it myself the last few weeks, so I do not know if
3827 <p>If you wonder how to help, one task you could look at is using
3828 systemd as the boot system. It will become the default for Linux in
3829 Jessie, so we need to make sure it is usable on the Freedombox. I did
3830 a simple test a few weeks ago, and noticed dnsmasq failed to start
3831 during boot when using systemd. I suspect there are other problems
3832 too. :) To detect problems, there is a test suite included, which can
3833 be run from the plinth web interface.
</p>
3835 <p>Give it a go and let us know how it goes on the mailing list, and help
3836 us get the new release published. :) Please join us on
3837 <a href=
"irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC (#freedombox on
3838 irc.debian.org)
</a> and
3839 <a href=
"http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
3840 mailing list
</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.
</p>
3846 Tags:
<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>.
3851 <div class=
"padding"></div>
3855 <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>
3861 <p>For a while now, I have been looking for a sensible offsite backup
3862 solution for use at home. My requirements are simple, it must be
3863 cheap and locally encrypted (in other words, I keep the encryption
3864 keys, the storage provider do not have access to my private files).
3865 One idea me and my friends had many years ago, before the cloud
3866 storage providers showed up, was to use Google mail as storage,
3867 writing a Linux block device storing blocks as emails in the mail
3868 service provided by Google, and thus get heaps of free space. On top
3869 of this one can add encryption, RAID and volume management to have
3870 lots of (fairly slow, I admit that) cheap and encrypted storage. But
3871 I never found time to implement such system. But the last few weeks I
3872 have looked at a system called
3873 <a href=
"https://bitbucket.org/nikratio/s3ql/">S3QL
</a>, a locally
3874 mounted network backed file system with the features I need.
</p>
3876 <p>S3QL is a fuse file system with a local cache and cloud storage,
3877 handling several different storage providers, any with Amazon S3,
3878 Google Drive or OpenStack API. There are heaps of such storage
3879 providers. S3QL can also use a local directory as storage, which
3880 combined with sshfs allow for file storage on any ssh server. S3QL
3881 include support for encryption, compression, de-duplication, snapshots
3882 and immutable file systems, allowing me to mount the remote storage as
3883 a local mount point, look at and use the files as if they were local,
3884 while the content is stored in the cloud as well. This allow me to
3885 have a backup that should survive fire. The file system can not be
3886 shared between several machines at the same time, as only one can
3887 mount it at the time, but any machine with the encryption key and
3888 access to the storage service can mount it if it is unmounted.
</p>
3890 <p>It is simple to use. I'm using it on Debian Wheezy, where the
3891 package is included already. So to get started, run
<tt>apt-get
3892 install s3ql
</tt>. Next, pick a storage provider. I ended up picking
3893 Greenqloud, after reading their nice recipe on
3894 <a href=
"https://greenqloud.zendesk.com/entries/44611757-How-To-Use-S3QL-to-mount-a-StorageQloud-bucket-on-Debian-Wheezy">how
3895 to use S3QL with their Amazon S3 service
</a>, because I trust the laws
3896 in Iceland more than those in USA when it come to keeping my personal
3897 data safe and private, and thus would rather spend money on a company
3898 in Iceland. Another nice recipe is available from the article
3899 <a href=
"http://www.admin-magazine.com/HPC/Articles/HPC-Cloud-Storage">S3QL
3900 Filesystem for HPC Storage
</a> by Jeff Layton in the HPC section of
3901 Admin magazine. When the provider is picked, figure out how to get
3902 the API key needed to connect to the storage API. With Greencloud,
3903 the key did not show up until I had added payment details to my
3906 <p>Armed with the API access details, it is time to create the file
3907 system. First, create a new bucket in the cloud. This bucket is the
3908 file system storage area. I picked a bucket name reflecting the
3909 machine that was going to store data there, but any name will do.
3910 I'll refer to it as
<tt>bucket-name
</tt> below. In addition, one need
3911 the API login and password, and a locally created password. Store it
3912 all in ~root/.s3ql/authinfo2 like this:
3914 <p><blockquote><pre>
3916 storage-url: s3c://s.greenqloud.com:
443/bucket-name
3917 backend-login: API-login
3918 backend-password: API-password
3919 fs-passphrase: local-password
3920 </pre></blockquote></p>
3922 <p>I create my local passphrase using
<tt>pwget
50</tt> or similar,
3923 but any sensible way to create a fairly random password should do it.
3924 Armed with these details, it is now time to run mkfs, entering the API
3925 details and password to create it:
</p>
3927 <p><blockquote><pre>
3928 # mkdir -m
700 /var/lib/s3ql-cache
3929 # mkfs.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
3930 --ssl s3c://s.greenqloud.com:
443/bucket-name
3931 Enter backend login:
3932 Enter backend password:
3933 Before using S3QL, make sure to read the user's guide, especially
3934 the 'Important Rules to Avoid Loosing Data' section.
3935 Enter encryption password:
3936 Confirm encryption password:
3937 Generating random encryption key...
3938 Creating metadata tables...
3948 Compressing and uploading metadata...
3949 Wrote
0.00 MB of compressed metadata.
3950 #
</pre></blockquote></p>
3952 <p>The next step is mounting the file system to make the storage available.
3954 <p><blockquote><pre>
3955 # mount.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
3956 --ssl --allow-root s3c://s.greenqloud.com:
443/bucket-name /s3ql
3957 Using
4 upload threads.
3958 Downloading and decompressing metadata...
3968 Mounting filesystem...
3970 Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
3971 s3c://s.greenqloud.com:
443/bucket-name
1.0T
0 1.0T
0% /s3ql
3973 </pre></blockquote></p>
3975 <p>The file system is now ready for use. I use rsync to store my
3976 backups in it, and as the metadata used by rsync is downloaded at
3977 mount time, no network traffic (and storage cost) is triggered by
3978 running rsync. To unmount, one should not use the normal umount
3979 command, as this will not flush the cache to the cloud storage, but
3980 instead running the umount.s3ql command like this:
3982 <p><blockquote><pre>
3985 </pre></blockquote></p>
3987 <p>There is a fsck command available to check the file system and
3988 correct any problems detected. This can be used if the local server
3989 crashes while the file system is mounted, to reset the "already
3990 mounted" flag. This is what it look like when processing a working
3993 <p><blockquote><pre>
3994 # fsck.s3ql --force --ssl s3c://s.greenqloud.com:
443/bucket-name
3995 Using cached metadata.
3996 File system seems clean, checking anyway.
3997 Checking DB integrity...
3998 Creating temporary extra indices...
3999 Checking lost+found...
4000 Checking cached objects...
4001 Checking names (refcounts)...
4002 Checking contents (names)...
4003 Checking contents (inodes)...
4004 Checking contents (parent inodes)...
4005 Checking objects (reference counts)...
4006 Checking objects (backend)...
4007 ..processed
5000 objects so far..
4008 ..processed
10000 objects so far..
4009 ..processed
15000 objects so far..
4010 Checking objects (sizes)...
4011 Checking blocks (referenced objects)...
4012 Checking blocks (refcounts)...
4013 Checking inode-block mapping (blocks)...
4014 Checking inode-block mapping (inodes)...
4015 Checking inodes (refcounts)...
4016 Checking inodes (sizes)...
4017 Checking extended attributes (names)...
4018 Checking extended attributes (inodes)...
4019 Checking symlinks (inodes)...
4020 Checking directory reachability...
4021 Checking unix conventions...
4022 Checking referential integrity...
4023 Dropping temporary indices...
4024 Backing up old metadata...
4034 Compressing and uploading metadata...
4035 Wrote
0.89 MB of compressed metadata.
4037 </pre></blockquote></p>
4039 <p>Thanks to the cache, working on files that fit in the cache is very
4040 quick, about the same speed as local file access. Uploading large
4041 amount of data is to me limited by the bandwidth out of and into my
4042 house. Uploading
685 MiB with a
100 MiB cache gave me
305 kiB/s,
4043 which is very close to my upload speed, and downloading the same
4044 Debian installation ISO gave me
610 kiB/s, close to my download speed.
4045 Both were measured using
<tt>dd
</tt>. So for me, the bottleneck is my
4046 network, not the file system code. I do not know what a good cache
4047 size would be, but suspect that the cache should e larger than your
4050 <p>I mentioned that only one machine can mount the file system at the
4051 time. If another machine try, it is told that the file system is
4054 <p><blockquote><pre>
4055 # mount.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
4056 --ssl --allow-root s3c://s.greenqloud.com:
443/bucket-name /s3ql
4057 Using
8 upload threads.
4058 Backend reports that fs is still mounted elsewhere, aborting.
4060 </pre></blockquote></p>
4062 <p>The file content is uploaded when the cache is full, while the
4063 metadata is uploaded once every
24 hour by default. To ensure the
4064 file system content is flushed to the cloud, one can either umount the
4065 file system, or ask S3QL to flush the cache and metadata using
4068 <p><blockquote><pre>
4069 # s3qlctrl upload-meta /s3ql
4070 # s3qlctrl flushcache /s3ql
4072 </pre></blockquote></p>
4074 <p>If you are curious about how much space your data uses in the
4075 cloud, and how much compression and deduplication cut down on the
4076 storage usage, you can use s3qlstat on the mounted file system to get
4079 <p><blockquote><pre>
4081 Directory entries:
9141
4084 Total data size:
22049.38 MB
4085 After de-duplication:
21955.46 MB (
99.57% of total)
4086 After compression:
21877.28 MB (
99.22% of total,
99.64% of de-duplicated)
4087 Database size:
2.39 MB (uncompressed)
4088 (some values do not take into account not-yet-uploaded dirty blocks in cache)
4090 </pre></blockquote></p>
4092 <p>I mentioned earlier that there are several possible suppliers of
4093 storage. I did not try to locate them all, but am aware of at least
4094 <a href=
"https://www.greenqloud.com/">Greenqloud
</a>,
4095 <a href=
"http://drive.google.com/">Google Drive
</a>,
4096 <a href=
"http://aws.amazon.com/s3/">Amazon S3 web serivces
</a>,
4097 <a href=
"http://www.rackspace.com/">Rackspace
</a> and
4098 <a href=
"http://crowncloud.net/">Crowncloud
</A>. The latter even
4099 accept payment in Bitcoin. Pick one that suit your need. Some of
4100 them provide several GiB of free storage, but the prize models are
4101 quite different and you will have to figure out what suits you
4104 <p>While researching this blog post, I had a look at research papers
4105 and posters discussing the S3QL file system. There are several, which
4106 told me that the file system is getting a critical check by the
4107 science community and increased my confidence in using it. One nice
4109 "
<a href=
"http://www.lanl.gov/orgs/adtsc/publications/science_highlights_2013/docs/pg68_69.pdf">An
4110 Innovative Parallel Cloud Storage System using OpenStack’s SwiftObject
4111 Store and Transformative Parallel I/O Approach
</a>" by Hsing-Bung
4112 Chen, Benjamin McClelland, David Sherrill, Alfred Torrez, Parks Fields
4113 and Pamela Smith. Please have a look.</p>
4115 <p>Given my problems with different file systems earlier, I decided to
4116 check out the mounted S3QL file system to see if it would be usable as
4117 a home directory (in other word, that it provided POSIX semantics when
4118 it come to locking and umask handling etc). Running
4119 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_if_a_file_system_can_be_used_for_home_directories___.html
">my
4120 test code to check file system semantics</a>, I was happy to discover that
4121 no error was found. So the file system can be used for home
4122 directories, if one chooses to do so.</p>
4124 <p>If you do not want a locally file system, and want something that
4125 work without the Linux fuse file system, I would like to mention the
4126 <a href="http://www.tarsnap.com/
">Tarsnap service</a>, which also
4127 provide locally encrypted backup using a command line client. It have
4128 a nicer access control system, where one can split out read and write
4129 access, allowing some systems to write to the backup and others to
4130 only read from it.</p>
4132 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
4133 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
4134 <b><a href="bitcoin:
15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog
">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
4140 Tags: <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>.
4145 <div class="padding
"></div>
4149 <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>
4155 <p>The <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox
">Freedombox
4156 project</a> is working on providing the software and hardware for
4157 making it easy for non-technical people to host their data and
4158 communication at home, and being able to communicate with their
4159 friends and family encrypted and away from prying eyes. It has been
4160 going on for a while, and is slowly progressing towards a new test
4163 <p>And what day could be better than the Pi day to announce that the
4164 new version will provide "hard drive" / SD card / USB stick images for
4165 Dreamplug, Raspberry Pi and VirtualBox (or any other virtualization
4166 system), and can also be installed using a Debian installer preseed
4167 file. The Debian based Freedombox is now based on Debian Jessie,
4168 where most of the needed packages used are already present. Only one,
4169 the freedombox-setup package, is missing. To try to build your own
4170 boot image to test the current status, fetch the freedom-maker scripts
4172 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/vmdebootstrap">vmdebootstrap
</a>
4173 with a user with sudo access to become root:
4176 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/freedombox/freedom-maker.git \
4178 sudo apt-get install git vmdebootstrap mercurial python-docutils \
4179 mktorrent extlinux virtualbox qemu-user-static binfmt-support \
4181 make -C freedom-maker dreamplug-image raspberry-image virtualbox-image
4184 <p>Root access is needed to run debootstrap and mount loopback
4185 devices. See the README for more details on the build. If you do not
4186 want all three images, trim the make line. But note that thanks to
<a
4187 href=
"https://bugs.debian.org/741407">a race condition in
4188 vmdebootstrap
</a>, the build might fail without the patch to the
4191 <p>If you instead want to install using a Debian CD and the preseed
4192 method, boot a Debian Wheezy ISO and use this boot argument to load
4193 the preseed values:
</p>
4196 url=
<a href=
"http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat
</a>
4199 <p>But note that due to
<a href=
"https://bugs.debian.org/740673">a
4200 recently introduced bug in apt in Jessie
</a>, the installer will
4201 currently hang while setting up APT sources. Killing the
4202 '
<tt>apt-cdrom ident
</tt>' process when it hang a few times during the
4203 installation will get the installation going. This affect all
4204 installations in Jessie, and I expect it will be fixed soon.
</p>
4206 <p>Give it a go and let us know how it goes on the mailing list, and help
4207 us get the new release published. :) Please join us on
4208 <a href=
"irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC (#freedombox on
4209 irc.debian.org)
</a> and
4210 <a href=
"http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
4211 mailing list
</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.
</p>
4217 Tags:
<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>.
4222 <div class=
"padding"></div>
4226 <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>
4232 <p>Many years ago, I wrote a GPL licensed version of the netgroup and
4233 innetgr tools, because I needed them in
4234 <a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux
</a>. I called the project
4235 ng-utils, and it has served me well. I placed the project under the
4236 <a href=
"http://www.hungry.com/">Hungry Programmer
</a> umbrella, and it was maintained in our CVS
4237 repository. But many years ago, the CVS repository was dropped (lost,
4238 not migrated to new hardware, not sure), and the project have lacked a
4239 proper home since then.
</p>
4241 <p>Last summer, I had a look at the package and made a new release
4242 fixing a irritating crash bug, but was unable to store the changes in
4243 a proper source control system. I applied for a project on
4244 <a href=
"https://alioth.debian.org/">Alioth
</a>, but did not have time
4245 to follow up on it. Until today. :)
</p>
4247 <p>After many hours of cleaning and migration, the ng-utils project
4248 now have a new home, and a git repository with the highlight of the
4249 history of the project. I published all release tarballs and imported
4250 them into the git repository. As the project is really stable and not
4251 expected to gain new features any time soon, I decided to make a new
4252 release and call it
1.0. Visit the new project home on
4253 <a href=
"https://alioth.debian.org/projects/ng-utils/">https://alioth.debian.org/projects/ng-utils/
</a>
4254 if you want to check it out. The new version is also uploaded into
4255 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/n/ng-utils.html">Debian Unstable
</a>.
</p>
4261 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
4266 <div class=
"padding"></div>
4270 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_sysvinit_from_experimental_in_Debian_Hurd.html">Testing sysvinit from experimental in Debian Hurd
</a>
4276 <p>A few days ago I decided to try to help the Hurd people to get
4277 their changes into sysvinit, to allow them to use the normal sysvinit
4278 boot system instead of their old one. This follow up on the
4279 <a href=
"https://teythoon.cryptobitch.de//categories/gsoc.html">great
4280 Google Summer of Code work
</a> done last summer by Justus Winter to
4281 get Debian on Hurd working more like Debian on Linux. To get started,
4282 I downloaded a prebuilt hard disk image from
4283 <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>,
4284 and started it using virt-manager.
</p>
4286 <p>The first think I had to do after logging in (root without any
4287 password) was to get the network operational. I followed
4288 <a href=
"https://www.debian.org/ports/hurd/hurd-install">the
4289 instructions on the Debian GNU/Hurd ports page
</a> and ran these
4290 commands as root to get the machine to accept a IP address from the
4291 kvm internal DHCP server:
</p>
4293 <p><blockquote><pre>
4294 settrans -fgap /dev/netdde /hurd/netdde
4295 kill $(ps -ef|awk '/[p]finet/ { print $
2}')
4296 kill $(ps -ef|awk '/[d]evnode/ { print $
2}')
4298 </pre></blockquote></p>
4300 <p>After this, the machine had internet connectivity, and I could
4301 upgrade it and install the sysvinit packages from experimental and
4302 enable it as the default boot system in Hurd.
</p>
4304 <p>But before I did that, I set a password on the root user, as ssh is
4305 running on the machine it for ssh login to work a password need to be
4306 set. Also, note that a bug somewhere in openssh on Hurd block
4307 compression from working. Remember to turn that off on the client
4310 <p>Run these commands as root to upgrade and test the new sysvinit
4313 <p><blockquote><pre>
4314 cat
> /etc/apt/sources.list.d/experimental.list
<<EOF
4315 deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ experimental main
4318 apt-get dist-upgrade
4319 apt-get install -t experimental initscripts sysv-rc sysvinit \
4320 sysvinit-core sysvinit-utils
4321 update-alternatives --config runsystem
4322 </pre></blockquote></p>
4324 <p>To reboot after switching boot system, you have to use
4325 <tt>reboot-hurd
</tt> instead of just
<tt>reboot
</tt>, as there is not
4326 yet a sysvinit process able to receive the signals from the normal
4327 'reboot' command. After switching to sysvinit as the boot system,
4328 upgrading every package and rebooting, the network come up with DHCP
4329 after boot as it should, and the settrans/pkill hack mentioned at the
4330 start is no longer needed. But for some strange reason, there are no
4331 longer any login prompt in the virtual console, so I logged in using
4334 <p>Note that there are some race conditions in Hurd making the boot
4335 fail some times. No idea what the cause is, but hope the Hurd porters
4336 figure it out. At least Justus said on IRC (#debian-hurd on
4337 irc.debian.org) that they are aware of the problem. A way to reduce
4338 the impact is to upgrade to the Hurd packages built by Justus by
4339 adding this repository to the machine:
</p>
4341 <p><blockquote><pre>
4342 cat
> /etc/apt/sources.list.d/hurd-ci.list
<<EOF
4343 deb http://darnassus.sceen.net/~teythoon/hurd-ci/ sid main
4345 </pre></blockquote></p>
4347 <p>At the moment the prebuilt virtual machine get some packages from
4348 http://ftp.debian-ports.org/debian, because some of the packages in
4349 unstable do not yet include the required patches that are lingering in
4350 BTS. This is the completely list of "unofficial" packages installed:
</p>
4352 <p><blockquote><pre>
4353 # aptitude search '?narrow(?version(CURRENT),?origin(Debian Ports))'
4354 i emacs - GNU Emacs editor (metapackage)
4355 i gdb - GNU Debugger
4356 i hurd-recommended - Miscellaneous translators
4357 i isc-dhcp-client - ISC DHCP client
4358 i isc-dhcp-common - common files used by all the isc-dhcp* packages
4359 i libc-bin - Embedded GNU C Library: Binaries
4360 i libc-dev-bin - Embedded GNU C Library: Development binaries
4361 i libc0.3 - Embedded GNU C Library: Shared libraries
4362 i A libc0.3-dbg - Embedded GNU C Library: detached debugging symbols
4363 i libc0.3-dev - Embedded GNU C Library: Development Libraries and Hea
4364 i multiarch-support - Transitional package to ensure multiarch compatibilit
4365 i A x11-common - X Window System (X.Org) infrastructure
4366 i xorg - X.Org X Window System
4367 i A xserver-xorg - X.Org X server
4368 i A xserver-xorg-input-all - X.Org X server -- input driver metapackage
4370 </pre></blockquote></p>
4372 <p>All in all, testing hurd has been an interesting experience. :)
4373 X.org did not work out of the box and I never took the time to follow
4374 the porters instructions to fix it. This time I was interested in the
4375 command line stuff.
<p>
4381 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>.
4386 <div class=
"padding"></div>
4390 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_chrpath_release_0_16.html">New chrpath release
0.16</a>
4396 <p><a href=
"http://www.coverity.com/">Coverity
</a> is a nice tool to
4397 find problems in C, C++ and Java code using static source code
4398 analysis. It can detect a lot of different problems, and is very
4399 useful to find memory and locking bugs in the error handling part of
4400 the source. The company behind it provide
4401 <a href=
"https://scan.coverity.com/">check of free software projects as
4402 a community service
</a>, and many hundred free software projects are
4403 already checked. A few days ago I decided to have a closer look at
4404 the Coverity system, and discovered that the
4405 <a href=
"http://www.gnu.org/software/gnash/">gnash
</a> and
4406 <a href=
"http://sourceforge.net/projects/ipmitool/">ipmitool
</a>
4407 projects I am involved with was already registered. But these are
4408 fairly big, and I would also like to have a small and easy project to
4409 check, and decided to
<a href=
"http://scan.coverity.com/projects/1179">request
4410 checking of the chrpath project
</a>. It was
4411 added to the checker and discovered seven potential defects. Six of
4412 these were real, mostly resource "leak" when the program detected an
4413 error. Nothing serious, as the resources would be released a fraction
4414 of a second later when the program exited because of the error, but it
4415 is nice to do it right in case the source of the program some time in
4416 the future end up in a library. Having fixed all defects and added
4417 <a href=
"https://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/chrpath-devel">a
4418 mailing list for the chrpath developers
</a>, I decided it was time to
4419 publish a new release. These are the release notes:
</p>
4421 <p>New in
0.16 released
2014-
01-
14:
</p>
4425 <li>Fixed all minor bugs discovered by Coverity.
</li>
4426 <li>Updated config.sub and config.guess from the GNU project.
</li>
4427 <li>Mention new project mailing list in the documentation.
</li>
4432 <a href=
"https://alioth.debian.org/frs/?group_id=31052">download the
4433 new version
0.16 from alioth
</a>. Please let us know via the Alioth
4434 project if something is wrong with the new release. The test suite
4435 did not discover any old errors, so if you find a new one, please also
4436 include a test suite check.
</p>
4442 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>.
4447 <div class=
"padding"></div>
4451 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_chrpath_release_0_15.html">New chrpath release
0.15</a>
4457 <p>After many years break from the package and a vain hope that
4458 development would be continued by someone else, I finally pulled my
4459 acts together this morning and wrapped up a new release of chrpath,
4460 the command line tool to modify the rpath and runpath of already
4461 compiled ELF programs. The update was triggered by the persistence of
4462 Isha Vishnoi at IBM, which needed a new config.guess file to get
4463 support for the ppc64le architecture (powerpc
64-bit Little Endian) he
4464 is working on. I checked the
4465 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/chrpath">Debian
</a>,
4466 <a href=
"https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/chrpath">Ubuntu
</a> and
4467 <a href=
"https://admin.fedoraproject.org/pkgdb/acls/name/chrpath">Fedora
</a>
4468 packages for interesting patches (failed to find the source from
4469 OpenSUSE and Mandriva packages), and found quite a few nice fixes.
4470 These are the release notes:
</p>
4472 <p>New in
0.15 released
2013-
11-
24:
</p>
4476 <li>Updated config.sub and config.guess from the GNU project to work
4477 with newer architectures. Thanks to isha vishnoi for the heads
4480 <li>Updated README with current URLs.
</li>
4482 <li>Added byteswap fix found in Ubuntu, credited Jeremy Kerr and
4483 Matthias Klose.
</li>
4485 <li>Added missing help for -k|--keepgoing option, using patch by
4486 Petr Machata found in Fedora.
</li>
4488 <li>Rewrite removal of RPATH/RUNPATH to make sure the entry in
4489 .dynamic is a NULL terminated string. Based on patch found in
4490 Fedora credited Axel Thimm and Christian Krause.
</li>
4495 <a href=
"https://alioth.debian.org/frs/?group_id=31052">download the
4496 new version
0.15 from alioth
</a>. Please let us know via the Alioth
4497 project if something is wrong with the new release. The test suite
4498 did not discover any old errors, so if you find a new one, please also
4499 include a testsuite check.
</p>
4505 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>.
4510 <div class=
"padding"></div>
4514 <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>
4520 <p>If one of the points of switching to a new init system in Debian is
4521 <a href=
"http://thomas.goirand.fr/blog/?p=147">to get rid of huge
4522 init.d scripts
</a>, I doubt we need to switch away from sysvinit and
4523 init.d scripts at all. Here is an example init.d script, ie a rewrite
4524 of /etc/init.d/rsyslog:
</p>
4527 #!/lib/init/init-d-script
4530 # Required-Start: $remote_fs $time
4531 # Required-Stop: umountnfs $time
4532 # X-Stop-After: sendsigs
4533 # Default-Start:
2 3 4 5
4534 # Default-Stop:
0 1 6
4535 # Short-Description: enhanced syslogd
4536 # Description: Rsyslog is an enhanced multi-threaded syslogd.
4537 # It is quite compatible to stock sysklogd and can be
4538 # used as a drop-in replacement.
4540 DESC="enhanced syslogd"
4541 DAEMON=/usr/sbin/rsyslogd
4544 <p>Pretty minimalistic to me... For the record, the original sysv-rc
4545 script was
137 lines, and the above is just
15 lines, most of it meta
4548 <p>How to do this, you ask? Well, one create a new script
4549 /lib/init/init-d-script looking something like this:
4554 # Define LSB log_* functions.
4555 # Depend on lsb-base (
>=
3.2-
14) to ensure that this file is present
4556 # and status_of_proc is working.
4557 . /lib/lsb/init-functions
4560 # Function that starts the daemon/service
4566 #
0 if daemon has been started
4567 #
1 if daemon was already running
4568 #
2 if daemon could not be started
4569 start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $DAEMON --test
> /dev/null \
4571 start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $DAEMON -- \
4574 # Add code here, if necessary, that waits for the process to be ready
4575 # to handle requests from services started subsequently which depend
4576 # on this one. As a last resort, sleep for some time.
4580 # Function that stops the daemon/service
4585 #
0 if daemon has been stopped
4586 #
1 if daemon was already stopped
4587 #
2 if daemon could not be stopped
4588 # other if a failure occurred
4589 start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --retry=TERM/
30/KILL/
5 --pidfile $PIDFILE --name $NAME
4591 [ "$RETVAL" =
2 ] && return
2
4592 # Wait for children to finish too if this is a daemon that forks
4593 # and if the daemon is only ever run from this initscript.
4594 # If the above conditions are not satisfied then add some other code
4595 # that waits for the process to drop all resources that could be
4596 # needed by services started subsequently. A last resort is to
4597 # sleep for some time.
4598 start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --oknodo --retry=
0/
30/KILL/
5 --exec $DAEMON
4599 [ "$?" =
2 ] && return
2
4600 # Many daemons don't delete their pidfiles when they exit.
4606 # Function that sends a SIGHUP to the daemon/service
4610 # If the daemon can reload its configuration without
4611 # restarting (for example, when it is sent a SIGHUP),
4612 # then implement that here.
4614 start-stop-daemon --stop --signal
1 --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --name $NAME
4619 scriptbasename="$(basename $
1)"
4620 echo "SN: $scriptbasename"
4621 if [ "$scriptbasename" != "init-d-library" ] ; then
4629 NAME=$(basename $DAEMON)
4630 PIDFILE=/var/run/$NAME.pid
4632 # Exit if the package is not installed
4633 #[ -x "$DAEMON" ] || exit
0
4635 # Read configuration variable file if it is present
4636 [ -r /etc/default/$NAME ] && . /etc/default/$NAME
4638 # Load the VERBOSE setting and other rcS variables
4643 [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_daemon_msg "Starting $DESC" "$NAME"
4646 0|
1) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg
0 ;;
4647 2) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg
1 ;;
4651 [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_daemon_msg "Stopping $DESC" "$NAME"
4654 0|
1) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg
0 ;;
4655 2) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg
1 ;;
4659 status_of_proc "$DAEMON" "$NAME" && exit
0 || exit $?
4661 #reload|force-reload)
4663 # If do_reload() is not implemented then leave this commented out
4664 # and leave 'force-reload' as an alias for 'restart'.
4666 #log_daemon_msg "Reloading $DESC" "$NAME"
4670 restart|force-reload)
4672 # If the "reload" option is implemented then remove the
4673 # 'force-reload' alias
4675 log_daemon_msg "Restarting $DESC" "$NAME"
4682 1) log_end_msg
1 ;; # Old process is still running
4683 *) log_end_msg
1 ;; # Failed to start
4693 echo "Usage: $SCRIPTNAME {start|stop|status|restart|force-reload}"
>&
2
4701 <p>It is based on /etc/init.d/skeleton, and could be improved quite a
4702 lot. I did not really polish the approach, so it might not always
4703 work out of the box, but you get the idea. I did not try very hard to
4704 optimize it nor make it more robust either.
</p>
4706 <p>A better argument for switching init system in Debian than reducing
4707 the size of init scripts (which is a good thing to do anyway), is to
4708 get boot system that is able to handle the kernel events sensibly and
4709 robustly, and do not depend on the boot to run sequentially. The boot
4710 and the kernel have not behaved sequentially in years.
</p>
4716 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>.
4721 <div class=
"padding"></div>
4725 <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>
4731 <p><a href=
"http://www.spice-space.org/">The SPICE protocol
</a> for
4732 remote display access is the preferred solution with oVirt and RedHat
4733 Enterprise Virtualization, and I was sad to discover the other day
4734 that the browser plugin needed to use these systems seamlessly was
4735 missing in Debian. The
<a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/668284">request
4736 for a package
</a> was from
2012-
04-
10 with no progress since
4737 2013-
04-
01, so I decided to wrap up a package based on the great work
4738 from Cajus Pollmeier and put it in a collab-maint maintained git
4739 repository to get a package I could use. I would very much like
4740 others to help me maintain the package (or just take over, I do not
4741 mind), but as no-one had volunteered so far, I just uploaded it to
4742 NEW. I hope it will be available in Debian in a few days.
</p>
4744 <p>The source is now available from
4745 <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>
4751 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
4756 <div class=
"padding"></div>
4760 <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>
4767 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/v/vmdebootstrap.html">vmdebootstrap
</a>
4768 program is a a very nice system to create virtual machine images. It
4769 create a image file, add a partition table, mount it and run
4770 debootstrap in the mounted directory to create a Debian system on a
4771 stick. Yesterday, I decided to try to teach it how to make images for
4772 <a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/RaspberryPi">Raspberry Pi
</a>, as part
4773 of a plan to simplify the build system for
4774 <a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">the FreedomBox
4775 project
</a>. The FreedomBox project already uses vmdebootstrap for
4776 the virtualbox images, but its current build system made multistrap
4777 based system for Dreamplug images, and it is lacking support for
4780 <p>Armed with the knowledge on how to build "foreign" (aka non-native
4781 architecture) chroots for Raspberry Pi, I dived into the vmdebootstrap
4782 code and adjusted it to be able to build armel images on my amd64
4783 Debian laptop. I ended up giving vmdebootstrap five new options,
4784 allowing me to replicate the image creation process I use to make
4785 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Raspberry_Pi_based_batman_adv_Mesh_network_node.html">Debian
4786 Jessie based mesh node images for the Raspberry Pi
</a>. First, the
4787 <tt>--foreign /path/to/binfm_handler
</tt> option tell vmdebootstrap to
4788 call debootstrap with --foreign and to copy the handler into the
4789 generated chroot before running the second stage. This allow
4790 vmdebootstrap to create armel images on an amd64 host. Next I added
4791 two new options
<tt>--bootsize size
</tt> and
<tt>--boottype
4792 fstype
</tt> to teach it to create a separate /boot/ partition with the
4793 given file system type, allowing me to create an image with a vfat
4794 partition for the /boot/ stuff. I also added a
<tt>--variant
4795 variant
</tt> option to allow me to create smaller images without the
4796 Debian base system packages installed. Finally, I added an option
4797 <tt>--no-extlinux
</tt> to tell vmdebootstrap to not install extlinux
4798 as a boot loader. It is not needed on the Raspberry Pi and probably
4799 most other non-x86 architectures. The changes were accepted by the
4800 upstream author of vmdebootstrap yesterday and today, and is now
4802 <a href=
"http://git.liw.fi/cgi-bin/cgit/cgit.cgi/vmdebootstrap/">the
4803 upstream project page
</a>.
</p>
4805 <p>To use it to build a Raspberry Pi image using Debian Jessie, first
4806 create a small script (the customize script) to add the non-free
4807 binary blob needed to boot the Raspberry Pi and the APT source
4812 set -e # Exit on first error
4815 cat
<<EOF
> etc/apt/sources.list
4816 deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ jessie main contrib non-free
4818 # Install non-free binary blob needed to boot Raspberry Pi. This
4819 # install a kernel somewhere too.
4820 wget https://raw.github.com/Hexxeh/rpi-update/master/rpi-update \
4821 -O $rootdir/usr/bin/rpi-update
4822 chmod a+x $rootdir/usr/bin/rpi-update
4823 mkdir -p $rootdir/lib/modules
4824 touch $rootdir/boot/start.elf
4825 chroot $rootdir rpi-update
4828 <p>Next, fetch the latest vmdebootstrap script and call it like this
4829 to build the image:
</p>
4832 sudo ./vmdebootstrap \
4835 --distribution jessie \
4836 --mirror http://http.debian.net/debian \
4845 --root-password raspberry \
4846 --hostname raspberrypi \
4847 --foreign /usr/bin/qemu-arm-static \
4848 --customize `pwd`/customize \
4850 --package git-core \
4851 --package binutils \
4852 --package ca-certificates \
4857 <p>The list of packages being installed are the ones needed by
4858 rpi-update to make the image bootable on the Raspberry Pi, with the
4859 exception of netbase, which is needed by debootstrap to find
4860 /etc/hosts with the minbase variant. I really wish there was a way to
4861 set up an Raspberry Pi using only packages in the Debian archive, but
4862 that is not possible as far as I know, because it boots from the GPU
4863 using a non-free binary blob.
</p>
4865 <p>The build host need debootstrap, kpartx and qemu-user-static and
4866 probably a few others installed. I have not checked the complete
4867 build dependency list.
</p>
4869 <p>The resulting image will not use the hardware floating point unit
4870 on the Raspberry PI, because the armel architecture in Debian is not
4871 optimized for that use. So the images created will be a bit slower
4872 than
<a href=
"http://www.raspbian.org/">Raspbian
</a> based images.
</p>
4878 Tags:
<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>.
4883 <div class=
"padding"></div>
4887 <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>
4893 <p>The last few days I came across a few good causes that should get
4894 wider attention. I recommend signing and donating to each one of
4897 <p>Via
<a href=
"http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2013/18/">Debian
4898 Project News for
2013-
10-
14</a> I came across the Outreach Program for
4899 Women program which is a Google Summer of Code like initiative to get
4900 more women involved in free software. One debian sponsor has offered
4901 to match
<a href=
"http://debian.ch/opw2013">any donation done to Debian
4902 earmarked
</a> for this initiative. I donated a few minutes ago, and
4903 hope you will to. :)
</p>
4905 <p>And the Electronic Frontier Foundation just announced plans to
4906 create
<a href=
"https://supporters.eff.org/donate/nsa-videos">video
4907 documentaries about the excessive spying
</a> on every Internet user that
4908 take place these days, and their need to fund the work. I've already
4909 donated. Are you next?
</p>
4911 <p>For my Norwegian audience, the organisation Studentenes og
4912 Akademikernes Internasjonale Hjelpefond is collecting signatures for a
4913 statement under the heading
4914 <a href=
"http://saih.no/Bloggers_United/">Bloggers United for Open
4915 Access
</a> for those of us asking for more focus on open access in the
4916 Norwegian government. So far
499 signatures. I hope you will sign it
4923 Tags:
<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>.
4928 <div class=
"padding"></div>
4932 <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>
4938 <p>The
<a href=
"http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/">Freedombox
4939 project
</a> have been going on for a while, and have presented the
4940 vision, ideas and solution several places. Here is a little
4941 collection of videos of talks and presentation of the project.
</p>
4945 <li><a href=
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukvUz5taxvA">FreedomBox -
4946 2,
5 minute marketing film
</a> (Youtube)
</li>
4948 <li><a href=
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzW25QTVWsE">Eben Moglen
4949 discusses the Freedombox on CBS news
2011</a> (Youtube)
</li>
4951 <li><a href=
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ae8SZbxfE0g">Eben Moglen -
4952 Freedom in the Cloud - Software Freedom, Privacy and and Security for
4953 Web
2.0 and Cloud computing at ISOC-NY Public Meeting
2010</a>
4956 <li><a href=
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNaIji_3xBE">Fosdem
2011
4957 Keynote by Eben Moglen presenting the Freedombox
</a> (Youtube)
</li>
4959 <li><a href=
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bDDUyJSQ9s">Presentation of
4960 the Freedombox by James Vasile at Elevate in Gratz
2011</a> (Youtube)
</li>
4962 <li><a href=
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQTmnk27g9s"> Freedombox -
4963 Discovery, Identity, and Trust by Nick Daly at Freedombox Hackfest New
4964 York City in
2012</a> (Youtube)
</li>
4966 <li><a href=
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkbSB4Ba7Ck">Introduction
4967 to the Freedombox at Freedombox Hackfest New York City in
2012</a>
4970 <li><a href=
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-P2Jaeg0aQ">Freedom, Out
4971 of the Box! by Bdale Garbee at linux.conf.au Ballarat,
2012</a> (Youtube)
</li>
4973 <li><a href=
"https://archive.fosdem.org/2013/schedule/event/freedombox/">Freedombox
4974 1.0 by Eben Moglen and Bdale Garbee at Fosdem
2013</a> (FOSDEM)
</li>
4976 <li><a href=
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1LpYX2zVYg">What is the
4977 FreedomBox today by Bdale Garbee at Debconf13 in Vaumarcus
4978 2013</a> (Youtube)
</li>
4982 <p>A larger list is available from
4983 <a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/TalksAndPresentations">the
4984 Freedombox Wiki
</a>.
</p>
4986 <p>On other news, I am happy to report that Freedombox based on Debian
4987 Jessie is coming along quite well, and soon both Owncloud and using
4988 Tor should be available for testers of the Freedombox solution. :) In
4989 a few weeks I hope everything needed to test it is included in Debian.
4990 The withsqlite package is already in Debian, and the plinth package is
4991 pending in NEW. The third and vital part of that puzzle is the
4992 metapackage/setup framework, which is still pending an upload. Join
4993 us on
<a href=
"irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC
4994 (#freedombox on irc.debian.org)
</a> and
4995 <a href=
"http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
4996 mailing list
</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.
</p>
5002 Tags:
<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>.
5007 <div class=
"padding"></div>
5011 <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>
5017 <p>I was introduced to the
5018 <a href=
"http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/">Freedombox project
</a>
5019 in
2010, when Eben Moglen presented his vision about serving the need
5020 of non-technical people to keep their personal information private and
5021 within the legal protection of their own homes. The idea is to give
5022 people back the power over their network and machines, and return
5023 Internet back to its intended peer-to-peer architecture. Instead of
5024 depending on a central service, the Freedombox will give everyone
5025 control over their own basic infrastructure.
</p>
5027 <p>I've intended to join the effort since then, but other tasks have
5028 taken priority. But this summers nasty news about the misuse of trust
5029 and privilege exercised by the "western" intelligence gathering
5030 communities increased my eagerness to contribute to a point where I
5031 actually started working on the project a while back.
</p>
5033 <p>The
<a href=
"https://alioth.debian.org/projects/freedombox/">initial
5034 Debian initiative
</a> based on the vision from Eben Moglen, is to
5035 create a simple and cheap Debian based appliance that anyone can hook
5036 up in their home and get access to secure and private services and
5037 communication. The initial deployment platform have been the
5038 <a href=
"http://www.globalscaletechnologies.com/t-dreamplugdetails.aspx">Dreamplug
</a>,
5039 which is a piece of hardware I do not own. So to be able to test what
5040 the current Freedombox setup look like, I had to come up with a way to install
5041 it on some hardware I do have access to. I have rewritten the
5042 <a href=
"https://github.com/NickDaly/freedom-maker">freedom-maker
</a>
5043 image build framework to use .deb packages instead of only copying
5044 setup into the boot images, and thanks to this rewrite I am able to
5045 set up any machine supported by Debian Wheezy as a Freedombox, using
5046 the previously mentioned deb (and a few support debs for packages
5047 missing in Debian).
</p>
5049 <p>The current Freedombox setup consist of a set of bootstrapping
5051 (
<a href=
"https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/freedombox-setup">freedombox-setup
</a>),
5052 and a administrative web interface
5053 (
<a href=
"https://github.com/NickDaly/Plinth">plinth
</a> + exmachina +
5054 withsqlite), as well as a privacy enhancing proxy based on
5055 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/privoxy">privoxy
</a>
5056 (freedombox-privoxy). There is also a web/javascript based XMPP
5057 client (
<a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/jwchat">jwchat
</a>)
5058 trying (unsuccessfully so far) to talk to the XMPP server
5059 (
<a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/ejabberd">ejabberd
</a>). The
5060 web interface is pluggable, and the goal is to use it to enable OpenID
5061 services, mesh network connectivity, use of TOR, etc, etc. Not much of
5062 this is really working yet, see
5063 <a href=
"https://github.com/NickDaly/freedombox-todos/blob/master/TODO">the
5064 project TODO
</a> for links to GIT repositories. Most of the code is
5065 on github at the moment. The HTTP proxy is operational out of the
5066 box, and the admin web interface can be used to add/remove plinth
5067 users. I've not been able to do anything else with it so far, but
5068 know there are several branches spread around github and other places
5069 with lots of half baked features.
</p>
5071 <p>Anyway, if you want to have a look at the current state, the
5072 following recipes should work to give you a test machine to poke
5075 <p><strong>Debian Wheezy amd64
</strong></p>
5079 <li>Fetch normal Debian Wheezy installation ISO.
</li>
5080 <li>Boot from it, either as CD or USB stick.
</li>
5081 <li><p>Press [tab] on the boot prompt and add this as a boot argument
5082 to the Debian installer:
<p>
5083 <pre>url=
<a href=
"http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-wheezy.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-wheezy.dat
</a></pre></li>
5085 <li>Answer the few language/region/password questions and pick disk to
5088 <li>When the installation is finished and the machine have rebooted a
5089 few times, your Freedombox is ready for testing.
</li>
5093 <p><strong>Raspberry Pi Raspbian
</strong></p>
5097 <li>Fetch a Raspbian SD card image, create SD card.
</li>
5098 <li>Boot from SD card, extend file system to fill the card completely.
</li>
5099 <li><p>Log in and add this to /etc/sources.list:
</p>
5101 deb
<a href=
"http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox
</a> wheezy main
5103 <li><p>Run this as root:
</p>
5105 wget -O - http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/BE1A583D.asc | \
5108 apt-get install freedombox-setup
5109 /usr/lib/freedombox/setup
5111 <li>Reboot into your freshly created Freedombox.
</li>
5115 <p>You can test it on other architectures too, but because the
5116 freedombox-privoxy package is binary, it will only work as intended on
5117 the architectures where I have had time to build the binary and put it
5118 in my APT repository. But do not let this stop you. It is only a
5119 short "
<tt>apt-get source -b freedombox-privoxy
</tt>" away. :)</p>
5121 <p>Note that by default Freedombox is a DHCP server on the
5122 192.168.1.0/24 subnet, so if this is your subnet be careful and turn
5123 off the DHCP server by running "<tt>update-rc.d isc-dhcp-server
5124 disable
</tt>" as root.</p>
5126 <p>Please let me know if this works for you, or if you have any
5127 problems. We gather on the IRC channel
5128 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:
6667/%
23freedombox
">#freedombox</a> on
5129 irc.debian.org and the
5130 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss
">project
5131 mailing list</a>.</p>
5133 <p>Once you get your freedombox operational, you can visit
5134 <tt>http://your-host-name:8001/</tt> to see the state of the plint
5135 welcome screen (dead end - do not be surprised if you are unable to
5136 get past it), and next visit <tt>http://your-host-name:8001/help/</tt>
5137 to look at the rest of plinth. The default user is 'admin' and the
5138 default password is 'secret'.</p>
5144 Tags: <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>.
5149 <div class="padding
"></div>
5153 <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>
5159 <p>Earlier, I reported about
5160 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_fix_a_Thinkpad_X230_with_a_broken_180_GB_SSD_disk.html
">my
5161 problems using an Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB disk</a>. Friday I was
5162 told by IBM that the original disk should be thrown away. And as
5163 there no longer was a problem if I bricked the firmware, I decided
5164 today to try to install Intel firmware to replace the Lenovo firmware
5165 currently on the disk.</p>
5167 <p>I searched the Intel site for firmware, and found
5168 <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>
5169 (aka Intel SATA Solid-State Drive Firmware Update Tool) which
5170 according to the site should contain the latest firmware for SSD
5171 disks. I inserted the broken disk in one of my spare laptops and
5172 booted the ISO from a USB stick. The disk was recognized, but the
5173 program claimed the newest firmware already were installed and refused
5174 to insert any Intel firmware. So no change, and the disk is still
5175 unable to handle write load. :( I guess the only way to get them
5176 working would be if Lenovo releases new firmware. No idea how likely
5177 that is. Anyway, just blogging about this test for completeness. I
5178 got a working Samsung disk, and see no point in spending more time on
5179 the broken disks.</p>
5185 Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian
">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english
">english</a>.
5190 <div class="padding
"></div>
5194 <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>
5200 <p>Today I switched to
5201 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html
">my
5202 new laptop</a>. I've previously written about the problems I had with
5203 my new Thinkpad X230, which was delivered with an
5204 <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
5205 GB Intel SSD disk with Lenovo firmware</a> that did not handle
5206 sustained writes. My hardware supplier have been very forthcoming in
5207 trying to find a solution, and after first trying with another
5208 identical 180 GB disks they decided to send me a 256 GB Samsung SSD
5209 disk instead to fix it once and for all. The Samsung disk survived
5210 the installation of Debian with encrypted disks (filling the disk with
5211 random data during installation killed the first two), and I thus
5212 decided to trust it with my data. I have installed it as a Debian Edu
5213 Wheezy roaming workstation hooked up with my Debian Edu Squeeze main
5214 server at home using Kerberos and LDAP, and will use it as my work
5215 station from now on.</p>
5217 <p>As this is a solid state disk with no moving parts, I believe the
5218 Debian Wheezy default installation need to be tuned a bit to increase
5219 performance and increase life time of the disk. The Linux kernel and
5220 user space applications do not yet adjust automatically to such
5221 environment. To make it easier for my self, I created a draft Debian
5222 package <tt>ssd-setup</tt> to handle this tuning. The
5223 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/ssd-setup.git
">source
5224 for the ssd-setup package</a> is available from collab-maint, and it
5225 is set up to adjust the setup of the machine by just installing the
5226 package. If there is any non-SSD disk in the machine, the package
5227 will refuse to install, as I did not try to write any logic to sort
5228 file systems in SSD and non-SSD file systems.</p>
5230 <p>I consider the package a draft, as I am a bit unsure how to best
5231 set up Debian Wheezy with an SSD. It is adjusted to my use case,
5232 where I set up the machine with one large encrypted partition (in
5233 addition to /boot), put LVM on top of this and set up partitions on
5234 top of this again. See the README file in the package source for the
5235 references I used to pick the settings. At the moment these
5236 parameters are tuned:</p>
5240 <li>Set up cryptsetup to pass TRIM commands to the physical disk
5241 (adding discard to /etc/crypttab)</li>
5243 <li>Set up LVM to pass on TRIM commands to the underlying device (in
5244 this case a cryptsetup partition) by changing issue_discards from
5245 0 to 1 in /etc/lvm/lvm.conf.</li>
5247 <li>Set relatime as a file system option for ext3 and ext4 file
5250 <li>Tell swap to use TRIM commands by adding 'discard' to
5253 <li>Change I/O scheduler from cfq to deadline using a udev rule.</li>
5255 <li>Run fstrim on every ext3 and ext4 file system every night (from
5258 <li>Adjust sysctl values vm.swappiness to 1 and vm.vfs_cache_pressure
5259 to 50 to reduce the kernel eagerness to swap out processes.</li>
5263 <p>During installation, I cancelled the part where the installer fill
5264 the disk with random data, as this would kill the SSD performance for
5265 little gain. My goal with the encrypted file system is to ensure
5266 those stealing my laptop end up with a brick and not a working
5267 computer. I have no hope in keeping the really resourceful people
5268 from getting the data on the disk (see
5269 <a href="http://xkcd.com/
538/
">XKCD #538</a> for an explanation why).
5270 Thus I concluded that adding the discard option to crypttab is the
5271 right thing to do.</p>
5273 <p>I considered using the noop I/O scheduler, as several recommended
5274 it for SSD, but others recommended deadline and a benchmark I found
5275 indicated that deadline might be better for interactive use.</p>
5277 <p>I also considered using the 'discard' file system option for ext3
5278 and ext4, but read that it would give a performance hit ever time a
5279 file is removed, and thought it best to that that slowdown once a day
5280 instead of during my work.</p>
5282 <p>My package do not set up tmpfs on /var/run, /var/lock and /tmp, as
5283 this is already done by Debian Edu.</p>
5285 <p>I have not yet started on the user space tuning. I expect
5286 iceweasel need some tuning, and perhaps other applications too, but
5287 have not yet had time to investigate those parts.</p>
5289 <p>The package should work on Ubuntu too, but I have not yet tested it
5292 <p>As for the answer to the question in the title of this blog post,
5293 as far as I know, the only solution I know about is to replace the
5294 disk. It might be possible to flash it with Intel firmware instead of
5295 the Lenovo firmware. But I have not tried and did not want to do so
5296 without approval from Lenovo as I wanted to keep the warranty on the
5297 disk until a solution was found and they wanted the broken disks
5304 Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian
">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english
">english</a>.
5309 <div class="padding
"></div>
5313 <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>
5319 <p>A few days ago, I wrote about
5320 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html
">the
5321 problems I experienced with my new X230 and its SSD disk</a>, which
5322 was dying during installation because it is unable to cope with
5323 sustained write. My supplier is in contact with
5324 <a href="http://www.lenovo.com/
">Lenovo</a>, and they wanted to send a
5325 replacement disk to try to fix the problem. They decided to send an
5326 identical model, so my hopes for a permanent fix was slim.</p>
5328 <p>Anyway, today I got the replacement disk and tried to install
5329 Debian Edu Wheezy with encrypted disk on it. The new disk have the
5330 same firmware version as the original. This time my hope raised
5331 slightly as the installation progressed, as the original disk used to
5332 die after 4-7% of the disk was written to, while this time it kept
5333 going past 10%, 20%, 40% and even past 50%. But around 60%, the disk
5334 died again and I was back on square one. I still do not have a new
5335 laptop with a disk I can trust. I can not live with a disk that might
5336 lock up when I download a new
5337 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/
">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> ISO or
5338 other large files. I look forward to hearing from my supplier with
5339 the next proposal from Lenovo.</p>
5341 <p>The original disk is marked Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB,
5342 11S0C38722Z1ZNME35X1TR, ISN: CVCV321407HB180EGN, SA: G57560302, FW:
5343 LF1i, 29MAY2013, PBA: G39779-300, LBA 351,651,888, LI P/N: 0C38722,
5344 Pb-free 2LI, LC P/N: 16-200366, WWN: 55CD2E40002756C4, Model:
5345 SSDSC2BW180A3L 2.5" 6Gb/s SATA SSD
180G
5V
1A, ASM P/N
0C38732, FRU
5346 P/N
45N8295, P0C38732.
</p>
5348 <p>The replacement disk is marked Intel SSD
520 Series
180 GB,
5349 11S0C38722Z1ZNDE34N0L0, ISN: CVCV315306RK180EGN, SA: G57560-
302, FW:
5350 LF1i,
22APR2013, PBA: G39779-
300, LBA
351,
651,
888, LI P/N:
0C38722,
5351 Pb-free
2LI, LC P/N:
16-
200366, WWN:
55CD2E40000AB69E, Model:
5352 SSDSC2BW180A3L
2.5"
6Gb/s SATA SSD
180G
5V
1A, ASM P/N
0C38732, FRU
5353 P/N
45N8295, P0C38732.
</p>
5355 <p>The only difference is in the first number (serial number?), ISN,
5356 SA, date and WNPP values. Mentioning all the details here in case
5357 someone is able to use the information to find a way to identify the
5358 failing disk among working ones (if any such working disk actually
5365 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
5370 <div class=
"padding"></div>
5374 <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>
5380 <p>The upcoming Saturday,
2013-
07-
13, we are organising a combined
5381 Debian Edu developer gathering and Debian and Ubuntu bug squashing
5382 party in Oslo. It is organised by
<a href=
"http://www.nuug.no/">the
5383 member assosiation NUUG
</a> and
5384 <a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/">the Debian Edu / Skolelinux
5385 project
</a> together with
<a href=
"http://bitraf.no/">the hack space
5388 <p>It starts
10:
00 and continue until late evening. Everyone is
5389 welcome, and there is no fee to participate. There is on the other
5390 hand limited space, and only room for
30 people. Please put your name
5391 on
<a href=
"http://wiki.debian.org/BSP/2013/07/13/no/Oslo">the event
5392 wiki page
</a> if you plan to join us.
</p>
5398 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>.
5403 <div class=
"padding"></div>
5407 <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>
5413 <p>Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a
5414 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thank_you_Thinkpad_X41__for_your_long_and_trustworthy_service.html">replacement
5415 for my trusty old Thinkpad X41
</a>. Unfortunately I did not have much
5416 time to spend on it, and it took a while to find a model I believe
5417 will do the job, but two days ago the replacement finally arrived. I
5419 <a href=
"http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_x230">Thinkpad X230
</a>
5420 with SSD disk (NZDAJMN). I first test installed Debian Edu Wheezy as
5421 a roaming workstation, and it seemed to work flawlessly. But my
5422 second installation with encrypted disk was not as successful. More
5425 <p>I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most
5426 important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never
5427 listed in the feature list. But I did get good help from the search
5428 feature at
<a href=
"http://www.prisjakt.no/">Prisjakt
</a>, which
5429 allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other
5430 requirements. A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks according
5431 to that search interface, so I had to drop specifying the number of
5432 disks from my search parameters. I also asked around among friends to
5433 get their impression on keyboards and robustness.
</p>
5435 <p>So the new laptop arrived, and it is quite a lot wider than the
5436 X41. I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is
5437 significantly wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my
5438 hand a lot more to reach the edges. But the key response is fairly
5439 good and the individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope
5440 I will get used to it. My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really
5441 needed a new laptop now. :)
</p>
5443 <p>Turning off the touch pad was simple. All it took was a quick
5444 visit to the BIOS during boot it disable it.
</p>
5446 <p>But there is a fatal problem with the laptop. The
180 GB SSD disk
5447 lock up during load. And this happen when installing Debian Wheezy
5448 with encrypted disk, while the disk is being filled with random data.
5449 I also tested to install Ubuntu Raring, and it happen there too if I
5450 reenable the code to fill the disk with random data (it is disabled by
5451 default in Ubuntu). And the bug with is already known. It was
5452 reported to Debian as
<a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/691427">BTS
5453 report #
691427 2012-
10-
25</a> (journal commit I/O error on brand-new
5454 Thinkpad T430s ext4 on lvm on SSD). It is also reported to the Linux
5455 kernel developers as
5456 <a href=
"https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=51861">Kernel bugzilla
5457 report #
51861 2012-
12-
20</a> (Intel SSD
520 stops working under load
5458 (SSDSC2BW180A3L in Lenovo ThinkPad T430s)). It is also reported on the
5459 Lenovo forums, both for
5460 <a href=
"http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/T400-T500-and-newer-T-series/T430s-Intel-SSD-520-180GB-issue/m-p/1070549">T430
5461 2012-
11-
10</a> and for
5462 <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
5463 03-
20-
2013</a>. The problem do not only affect installation. The
5464 reports state that the disk lock up during use if many writes are done
5465 on the disk, so it is much no use to work around the installation
5466 problem and end up with a computer that can lock up at any moment.
5468 <a href=
"https://git.efficios.com/?p=test-ssd.git">small C program
5469 available
</a> that will lock up the hard drive after running a few
5470 minutes by writing to a file.
</p>
5472 <p>I've contacted my supplier and asked how to handle this, and after
5473 contacting PCHELP Norway (request
01D1FDP) which handle support
5474 requests for Lenovo, his first suggestion was to upgrade the disk
5475 firmware. Unfortunately there is no newer firmware available from
5476 Lenovo, as my disk already have the most recent one (version LF1i). I
5477 hope to hear more from him today and hope the problem can be
5484 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
5489 <div class=
"padding"></div>
5493 <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>
5499 <p>Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a replacement for my
5500 trusty old Thinkpad X41. Unfortunately I did not have much time to
5501 spend on it, but today the replacement finally arrived. I ended up
5502 picking a
<a href=
"http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_x230">Thinkpad
5503 X230
</a> with SSD disk (NZDAJMN). I first test installed Debian Edu
5504 Wheezy as a roaming workstation, and it worked flawlessly. As I write
5505 this, it is installing what I hope will be a more final installation,
5506 with a encrypted hard drive to ensure any dope head stealing it end up
5507 with an expencive door stop.
</p>
5509 <p>I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most
5510 important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never
5511 listed in the feature list. But I did get good help from the search
5512 feature at
<ahref=
"http://www.prisjakt.no/">Prisjakt
</a>, which
5513 allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other
5514 requirements. A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks, so I had
5515 to drop number of disks from my search parameters.
</p>
5517 <p>I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is significantly
5518 wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my hand a lot more
5519 to reach the edges. But the key response is fairly good and the
5520 individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope I will get
5521 used to it. My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really needed a
5522 new laptop now. :)
</p>
5524 <p>I look forward to figuring out how to turn off the touch pad.
</p>
5530 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
5535 <div class=
"padding"></div>
5539 <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>
5545 <p>It annoys me when the computer fail to do automatically what it is
5546 perfectly capable of, and I have to do it manually to get things
5547 working. One such task is to find out what firmware packages are
5548 needed to get the hardware on my computer working. Most often this
5549 affect the wifi card, but some times it even affect the RAID
5550 controller or the ethernet card. Today I pushed version
0.4 of the
5551 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">Isenkram package
</a>
5552 including a new script isenkram-autoinstall-firmware handling the
5553 process of asking all the loaded kernel modules what firmware files
5554 they want, find debian packages providing these files and install the
5555 debian packages. Here is a test run on my laptop:
</p>
5558 # isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
5559 info: kernel drivers requested extra firmware: ipw2200-bss.fw ipw2200-ibss.fw ipw2200-sniffer.fw
5560 info: fetching http://http.debian.net/debian/dists/squeeze/Contents-i386.gz
5561 info: locating packages with the requested firmware files
5562 info: Updating APT sources after adding non-free APT source
5563 info: trying to install firmware-ipw2x00
5566 Preconfiguring packages ...
5567 Selecting previously deselected package firmware-ipw2x00.
5568 (Reading database ...
259727 files and directories currently installed.)
5569 Unpacking firmware-ipw2x00 (from .../firmware-ipw2x00_0.28+squeeze1_all.deb) ...
5570 Setting up firmware-ipw2x00 (
0.28+squeeze1) ...
5574 <p>When all the requested firmware is present, a simple message is
5575 printed instead:
</p>
5578 # isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
5579 info: did not find any firmware files requested by loaded kernel modules. exiting
5583 <p>It could use some polish, but it is already working well and saving
5584 me some time when setting up new machines. :)
</p>
5586 <p>So, how does it work? It look at the set of currently loaded
5587 kernel modules, and look up each one of them using modinfo, to find
5588 the firmware files listed in the module meta-information. Next, it
5589 download the Contents file from a nearby APT mirror, and search for
5590 the firmware files in this file to locate the package with the
5591 requested firmware file. If the package is in the non-free section, a
5592 non-free APT source is added and the package is installed using
5593 <tt>apt-get install
</tt>. The end result is a slightly better working
5596 <p>I hope someone find time to implement a more polished version of
5597 this script as part of the hw-detect debian-installer module, to
5598 finally fix
<a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/655507">BTS report
5599 #
655507</a>. There really is no need to insert USB sticks with
5600 firmware during a PXE install when the packages already are available
5601 from the nearby Debian mirror.
</p>
5607 Tags:
<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>.
5612 <div class=
"padding"></div>
5616 <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>
5622 <p>When installing RedHat, Fedora, Debian and Ubuntu on some machines,
5623 the screen just turn black when Linux boot, either during installation
5624 or on first boot from the hard disk. I've seen it once in a while the
5625 last few years, but only recently understood the cause. I've seen it
5626 on HP laptops, and on my latest acquaintance the Packard Bell laptop.
5627 The reason seem to be in the wiring of some laptops. The system to
5628 control the screen background light is inverted, so when Linux try to
5629 turn the brightness fully on, it end up turning it off instead. I do
5630 not know which Linux drivers are affected, but this post is about the
5631 i915 driver used by the
5632 <a href=
"http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Packard Bell
5633 EasyNote LV
</a>, Thinkpad X40 and many other laptops.
</p>
5635 <p>The problem can be worked around two ways. Either by adding
5636 i915.invert_brightness=
1 as a kernel option, or by adding a file in
5637 /etc/modprobe.d/ to tell modprobe to add the invert_brightness=
1
5638 option when it load the i915 kernel module. On Debian and Ubuntu, it
5639 can be done by running these commands as root:
</p>
5642 echo options i915 invert_brightness=
1 | tee /etc/modprobe.d/i915.conf
5643 update-initramfs -u -k all
5646 <p>Since March
2012 there is
5647 <a href=
"http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=4dca20efb1a9c2efefc28ad2867e5d6c3f5e1955">a
5648 mechanism in the Linux kernel
</a> to tell the i915 driver which
5649 hardware have this problem, and get the driver to invert the
5650 brightness setting automatically. To use it, one need to add a row in
5651 <a href=
"http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c">the
5652 intel_quirks array
</a> in the driver source
5653 <tt>drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c
</tt> (look for "
<tt>static
5654 struct intel_quirk intel_quirks
</tt>"), specifying the PCI device
5655 number (vendor number 8086 is assumed) and subdevice vendor and device
5658 <p>My Packard Bell EasyNote LV got this output from <tt>lspci
5659 -vvnn</tt> for the video card in question:</p>
5662 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation \
5663 3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller [8086:0156] \
5664 (rev 09) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
5665 Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device [1025:0688]
5666 Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- \
5667 ParErr- Stepping- SE RR- FastB2B- DisINTx+
5668 Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- \
5669 <TAbort- <MAbort->SERR- <PERR- INTx-
5671 Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 42
5672 Region 0: Memory at c2000000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4M]
5673 Region 2: Memory at b0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
5674 Region 4: I/O ports at 4000 [size=64]
5675 Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled]
5676 Capabilities: <access denied>
5677 Kernel driver in use: i915
5680 <p>The resulting intel_quirks entry would then look like this:</p>
5683 struct intel_quirk intel_quirks[] = {
5685 /* Packard Bell EasyNote LV11HC needs invert brightness quirk */
5686 { 0x0156, 0x1025, 0x0688, quirk_invert_brightness },
5691 <p>According to the kernel module instructions (as seen using
5692 <tt>modinfo i915</tt>), information about hardware needing the
5693 invert_brightness flag should be sent to the
5694 <a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/dri-devel
">dri-devel
5695 (at) lists.freedesktop.org</a> mailing list to reach the kernel
5696 developers. But my email about the laptop sent 2013-06-03 have not
5698 <a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/dri-devel/
2013-June/thread.html
">the
5699 web archive for the mailing list</a>, so I suspect they do not accept
5700 emails from non-subscribers. Because of this, I sent my patch also to
5701 the Debian bug tracking system instead as
5702 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/
710938">BTS report #710938</a>, to make
5703 sure the patch is not lost.</p>
5705 <p>Unfortunately, it is not enough to fix the kernel to get Laptops
5706 with this problem working properly with Linux. If you use Gnome, your
5707 worries should be over at this point. But if you use KDE, there is
5708 something in KDE ignoring the invert_brightness setting and turning on
5709 the screen during login. I've reported it to Debian as
5710 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/
711237">BTS report #711237</a>, and
5711 have no idea yet how to figure out exactly what subsystem is doing
5712 this. Perhaps you can help? Perhaps you know what the Gnome
5713 developers did to handle this, and this can give a clue to the KDE
5714 developers? Or you know where in KDE the screen brightness is changed
5715 during login? If so, please update the BTS report (or get in touch if
5716 you do not know how to update BTS).</p>
5718 <p>Update 2013-07-19: The correct fix for this machine seem to be
5719 acpi_backlight=vendor, to disable ACPI backlight support completely,
5720 as the ACPI information on the machine is trash and it is better to
5721 leave it to the intel video driver to control the screen
5728 Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian
">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english
">english</a>.
5733 <div class="padding
"></div>
5737 <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>
5743 <p>Two days ago, I asked
5744 <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
5745 I could install Linux on a Packard Bell EasyNote LV computer
5746 preinstalled with Windows 8</a>. I found a solution, but am horrified
5747 with the obstacles put in the way of Linux users on a laptop with UEFI
5750 <p>I never found out if the cause of my problems were the use of UEFI
5751 secure booting or fast boot. I suspect fast boot was the problem,
5752 causing the firmware to boot directly from HD without considering any
5753 key presses and alternative devices, but do not know UEFI settings
5756 <p>There is no way to install Linux on the machine in question without
5757 opening the box and disconnecting the hard drive! This is as far as I
5758 can tell, the only way to get access to the firmware setup menu
5759 without accepting the Windows 8 license agreement. I am told (and
5760 found description on how to) that it is possible to configure the
5761 firmware setup once booted into Windows 8. But as I believe the terms
5762 of that agreement are completely unacceptable, accepting the license
5763 was never an alternative. I do not enter agreements I do not intend
5766 <p>I feared I had to return the laptops and ask for a refund, and
5767 waste many hours on this, but luckily there was a way to get it to
5768 work. But I would not recommend it to anyone planning to run Linux on
5769 it, and I have become sceptical to Windows 8 certified laptops. Is
5770 this the way Linux will be forced out of the market place, by making
5771 it close to impossible for "normal" users to install Linux without
5772 accepting the Microsoft Windows license terms? Or at least not
5773 without risking to loose the warranty?
</p>
5776 <a href=
"http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Linux Laptop
5777 wiki page for Packard Bell EasyNote LV
</a>, to ensure the next person
5778 do not have to struggle as much as I did to get Linux into the
5781 <p>Thanks to Bob Rosbag, Florian Weimer, Philipp Kern, Ben Hutching,
5782 Michael Tokarev and others for feedback and ideas.
</p>
5788 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
5793 <div class=
"padding"></div>
5797 <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>
5803 <p>I've run into quite a problem the last few days. I bought three
5804 new laptops for my parents and a few others. I bought Packard Bell
5805 Easynote LV to run Kubuntu on and use as their home computer. But I
5806 am completely unable to figure out how to install Linux on it. The
5807 computer is preinstalled with Windows
8, and I suspect it uses UEFI
5808 instead of a BIOS to boot.
</p>
5810 <p>The problem is that I am unable to get it to PXE boot, and unable
5811 to get it to boot the Linux installer from my USB stick. I have yet
5812 to try the DVD install, and still hope it will work. when I turn on
5813 the computer, there is no information on what buttons to press to get
5814 the normal boot menu. I expect to get some boot menu to select PXE or
5815 USB stick booting. When booting, it first ask for the language to
5816 use, then for some regional settings, and finally if I will accept the
5817 Windows
8 terms of use. As these terms are completely unacceptable to
5818 me, I have no other choice but to turn off the computer and try again
5819 to get it to boot the Linux installer.
</p>
5821 <p>I have gathered my findings so far on a Linlap page about the
5822 <a href=
"http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Packard Bell
5823 EasyNote LV
</a> model. If you have any idea how to get Linux
5824 installed on this machine, please get in touch or update that wiki
5825 page. If I can't find a way to install Linux, I will have to return
5826 the laptop to the seller and find another machine for my parents.
</p>
5828 <p>I wonder, is this the way Linux will be forced out of the market
5829 using UEFI and "secure boot" by making it impossible to install Linux
5836 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
5841 <div class=
"padding"></div>
5845 <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>
5851 <p><a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
</a> is
5852 an operating system based on Debian intended for use in schools. It
5853 contain a turn-key solution for the computer network provided to
5854 pupils in the primary schools. It provide both the central server,
5855 network boot servers and desktop environments with heaps of
5856 educational software. The project was founded almost
12 years ago,
5857 2001-
07-
02. If you want to support the project, which is in need for
5858 cash to fund developer gatherings and other project related activity,
5859 <a href=
"http://www.linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">please
5860 donate some money
</a>.
5862 <p>A topic that come up again and again on the Debian Edu mailing
5863 lists and elsewhere, is the question on how to transform a Debian or
5864 Ubuntu installation into a Debian Edu installation. It isn't very
5865 hard, and last week I wrote a script to replicate the steps done by
5866 the Debian Edu installer.
</p>
5869 <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/>
5870 in the debian-edu-config package, will go through these six steps and
5871 transform an existing Debian Wheezy or Ubuntu (untested) installation
5872 into a Debian Edu Workstation:
</p>
5876 <li>Add skolelinux related APT sources.
</li>
5877 <li>Create /etc/debian-edu/config with the wanted configuration.
</li>
5878 <li>Install debian-edu-install to load preseeding values and pull in
5879 our configuration.
</li>
5880 <li>Preseed debconf database with profile setup in
5881 /etc/debian-edu/config, and run tasksel to install packages
5882 according to the profile specified in the config above,
5883 overriding some of the Debian automation machinery.
</li>
5884 <li>Run debian-edu-cfengine-D installation to configure everything
5885 that could not be done using preseeding.
</li>
5886 <li>Ask for a reboot to enable all the configuration changes.
</li>
5890 <p>There are some steps in the Debian Edu installation that can not be
5891 replicated like this. Disk partitioning and LVM setup, for example.
5892 So this script just assume there is enough disk space to install all
5893 the needed packages.
</p>
5895 <p>The script was created to help a Debian Edu student working on
5896 setting up
<a href=
"http://www.raspberrypi.org">Raspberry Pi
</a> as a
5897 Debian Edu client, and using it he can take the existing
5898 <a href=
"http://www.raspbian.org/FrontPage">Raspbian
</a> installation and
5899 transform it into a fully functioning Debian Edu Workstation (or
5900 Roaming Workstation, or whatever :).
</p>
5902 <p>The default setting in the script is to create a KDE Workstation.
5903 If a LXDE based Roaming workstation is wanted instead, modify the
5904 PROFILE and DESKTOP values at the top to look like this instead:
</p>
5907 PROFILE="Roaming-Workstation"
5911 <p>The script could even become useful to set up Debian Edu servers in
5912 the cloud, by starting with a virtual Debian installation at some
5913 virtual hosting service and setting up all the services on first
5920 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>.
5925 <div class=
"padding"></div>
5929 <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>
5936 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_IRC_channel_for_LEGO_designers_using_Debian.html">I
5937 announced a
</a> new
<a href=
"irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">IRC
5938 channel #debian-lego
</a>, for those of us in the Debian and Linux
5939 community interested in
<a href=
"http://www.lego.com/">LEGO
</a>, the
5940 marvellous construction system from Denmark. We also created
5941 <a href=
"http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">a wiki page
</a> to have
5942 a place to take notes and write down our plans and hopes. And several
5943 people showed up to help. I was very happy to see the effect of my
5944 call. Since the small start, we have a debtags tag
5945 <a href=
"http://debtags.debian.net/search/bytag?wl=hardware::hobby:lego">hardware::hobby:lego
</a>
5946 tag for LEGO related packages, and now count
10 packages related to
5947 LEGO and
<a href=
"http://mindstorms.lego.com/">Mindstorms
</a>:
</p>
5950 <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>
5951 <tr><td><a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/leocad">leocad
</a></td><td>virtual brick CAD software
</td></tr>
5952 <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>
5953 <tr><td><a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/lnpd">lnpd
</a></td><td>daemon for LNP communication with BrickOS
</td></tr>
5954 <tr><td><a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/nbc">nbc
</a></td><td>compiler for LEGO Mindstorms NXT bricks
</td></tr>
5955 <tr><td><a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/nqc">nqc
</a></td><td>Not Quite C compiler for LEGO Mindstorms RCX
</td></tr>
5956 <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>
5957 <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>
5958 <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>
5959 <tr><td><a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/t2n">t2n
</a></td><td>simple command-line tool for Lego NXT
</td></tr>
5962 <p>Some of these are available in Wheezy, and all but one are
5963 currently available in Jessie/testing. leocad is so far only
5964 available in experimental.
</p>
5966 <p>If you care about LEGO in Debian, please join us on IRC and help
5967 adding the rest of the great free software tools available on Linux
5968 for LEGO designers.
</p>
5974 Tags:
<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>.
5979 <div class=
"padding"></div>
5983 <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>
5989 <p>When I woke up this morning, I was very happy to see that the
5990 <a href=
"http://www.debian.org/News/2013/20130504">release announcement
5991 for Debian Wheezy
</a> was waiting in my mail box. This is a great
5992 Debian release, and I expect to move my machines at home over to it fairly
5995 <p>The new debian release contain heaps of new stuff, and one program
5996 in particular make me very happy to see included. The
5997 <a href=
"http://scratch.mit.edu/">Scratch
</a> program, made famous by
5998 the
<a href=
"http://www.code.org/">Teach kids code
</a> movement, is
5999 included for the first time. Alongside similar programs like
6000 <a href=
"http://edu.kde.org/kturtle/">kturtle
</a> and
6001 <a href=
"http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/Turtle_Art">turtleart
</a>,
6002 it allow for visual programming where syntax errors can not happen,
6003 and a friendly programming environment for learning to control the
6004 computer. Scratch will also be included in the next release of Debian
6007 <p>And now that Wheezy is wrapped up, we can wrap up the next Debian
6008 Edu/Skolelinux release too. The
6009 <a href=
"http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/2013/04/msg00132.html">first
6010 alpha release
</a> went out last week, and the next should soon
6017 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>.
6022 <div class=
"padding"></div>
6026 <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>
6032 <p>Today the
<a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">Isenkram
6033 package
</a> finally made it into the archive, after lingering in NEW
6034 for many months. I uploaded it to the Debian experimental suite
6035 2013-
01-
27, and today it was accepted into the archive.
</p>
6037 <p>Isenkram is a system for suggesting to users what packages to
6038 install to work with a pluggable hardware device. The suggestion pop
6039 up when the device is plugged in. For example if a Lego Mindstorm NXT
6040 is inserted, it will suggest to install the program needed to program
6041 the NXT controller. Give it a go, and report bugs and suggestions to
6048 Tags:
<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>.
6053 <div class=
"padding"></div>
6057 <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>
6064 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_backport_bitcoin_qt_version_0_7_2_2_to_Debian_Squeeze.html">last
6065 bitcoin related blog post
</a> mentioned that the new
6066 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin package
</a> for
6067 Debian was waiting in NEW. It was accepted by the Debian ftp-masters
6068 2013-
01-
19, and have been available in unstable since then. It was
6069 automatically copied to Ubuntu, and is available in their Raring
6072 <p>But there is a strange problem with the build that block this new
6073 version from being available on the i386 and kfreebsd-i386
6074 architectures. For some strange reason, the autobuilders in Debian
6075 for these architectures fail to run the test suite on these
6076 architectures (
<a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/672524">BTS #
672524</a>).
6077 We are so far unable to reproduce it when building it manually, and
6078 no-one have been able to propose a fix. If you got an idea what is
6079 failing, please let us know via the BTS.
</p>
6081 <p>One feature that is annoying me with of the bitcoin client, because
6082 I often run low on disk space, is the fact that the client will exit
6083 if it run short on space (
<a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/696715">BTS
6084 #
696715</a>). So make sure you have enough disk space when you run
6087 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
6088 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
6089 <b><a href=
"bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
</a></b>.
</p>
6095 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>.
6100 <div class=
"padding"></div>
6104 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">Welcome to the world, Isenkram!
</a>
6111 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_prototype_ready_making_hardware_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">asked
6112 for testers
</a> for my prototype for making Debian better at handling
6113 pluggable hardware devices, which I
6114 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">set
6115 out to create
</a> earlier this month. Several valuable testers showed
6116 up, and caused me to really want to to open up the development to more
6117 people. But before I did this, I want to come up with a sensible name
6118 for this project. Today I finally decided on a new name, and I have
6119 renamed the project from hw-support-handler to this new name. In the
6120 process, I moved the source to git and made it available as a
6121 <a href=
"http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/isenkram.git">collab-maint
</a>
6122 repository in Debian. The new name? It is
<strong>Isenkram
</strong>.
6123 To fetch and build the latest version of the source, use
</p>
6126 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/collab-maint/isenkram.git
6127 cd isenkram && git-buildpackage -us -uc
6130 <p>I have not yet adjusted all files to use the new name yet. If you
6131 want to hack on the source or improve the package, please go ahead.
6132 But please talk to me first on IRC or via email before you do major
6133 changes, to make sure we do not step on each others toes. :)
</p>
6135 <p>If you wonder what 'isenkram' is, it is a Norwegian word for iron
6136 stuff, typically meaning tools, nails, screws, etc. Typical hardware
6137 stuff, in other words. I've been told it is the Norwegian variant of
6138 the German word eisenkram, for those that are familiar with that
6141 <p><strong>Update
2013-
01-
26</strong>: Added -us -us to build
6142 instructions, to avoid confusing people with an error from the signing
6145 <p><strong>Update
2013-
01-
27</strong>: Switch to HTTP URL for the git
6146 clone argument to avoid the need for authentication.
</p>
6152 Tags:
<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>.
6157 <div class=
"padding"></div>
6161 <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>
6167 <p>Early this month I set out to try to
6168 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">improve
6169 the Debian support for pluggable hardware devices
</a>. Now my
6170 prototype is working, and it is ready for a larger audience. To test
6172 <a href=
"http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">source
6173 from the Debian Edu subversion repository
</a>, build and install the
6174 package. You might have to log out and in again activate the
6175 autostart script.
</p>
6177 <p>The design is simple:
</p>
6181 <li>Add desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ causing a program
6182 hw-support-handlerd to start when the user log in.
</li>
6184 <li>This program listen for kernel events about new hardware (directly
6185 from the kernel like udev does), not using HAL dbus events as I
6188 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware modalias in
6189 the APT database, a database
6190 <a href=
"http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=markup">available
6191 via HTTP
</a> and a database available as part of the package.
</li>
6193 <li>If a package is mapped to the hardware in question, the package
6194 isn't installed yet and this is the first time the hardware was
6195 plugged in, show a desktop notification suggesting to install the
6196 package or packages.
</li>
6198 <li>If the user click on the 'install package now' button, ask
6199 aptdaemon via the PackageKit API to install the requrired package.
</li>
6201 <li>aptdaemon ask for root password or sudo password, and install the
6202 package while showing progress information in a window.
</li>
6206 <p>I still need to come up with a better name for the system. Here
6207 are some screen shots showing the prototype in action. First the
6208 notification, then the password request, and finally the request to
6209 approve all the dependencies. Sorry for the Norwegian Bokmål GUI.
</p>
6211 <p><img src=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-1-notification.png">
6212 <br><img src=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-2-password.png">
6213 <br><img src=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-3-dependencies.png">
6214 <br><img src=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-4-installing.png">
6215 <br><img src=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-5-installing-details.png" width=
"70%"></p>
6217 <p>The prototype still need to be improved with longer timeouts, but
6218 is already useful. The database of hardware to package mappings also
6219 need more work. It is currently compatible with the Ubuntu way of
6220 storing such information in the package control file, but could be
6221 changed to use other formats instead or in addition to the current
6222 method. I've dropped the use of discover for this mapping, as the
6223 modalias approach is more flexible and easier to use on Linux as long
6224 as the Linux kernel expose its modalias strings directly.
</p>
6226 <p><strong>Update
2013-
01-
21 16:
50</strong>: Due to popular demand,
6227 here is the command required to check out and build the source: Use
6229 svn://svn.debian.org/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/; cd
6230 hw-support-handler; debuild
</tt>'. If you lack debuild, install the
6231 devscripts package.
</p>
6233 <p><strong>Update
2013-
01-
23 12:
00</strong>: The project is now
6234 renamed to Isenkram and the source moved from the Debian Edu
6235 subversion repository to a Debian collab-maint git repository. See
6236 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">build
6237 instructions
</a> for details.
</p>
6243 Tags:
<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>.
6248 <div class=
"padding"></div>
6252 <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>
6258 <p>This Christmas my trusty old laptop died. It died quietly and
6259 suddenly in bed. With a quiet whimper, it went completely quiet and
6260 black. The power button was no longer able to turn it on. It was a
6261 IBM Thinkpad X41, and the best laptop I ever had. Better than both
6262 Thinkpads X30, X31, X40, X60, X61 and X61S. Far better than the
6263 Compaq I had before that. Now I need to find a replacement. To keep
6264 going during Christmas, I moved the one year old SSD disk to my old
6265 X40 where it fitted (only one I had left that could use it), but it is
6266 not a durable solution.
6268 <p>My laptop needs are fairly modest. This is my wishlist from when I
6269 got a new one more than
10 years ago. It still holds true.:)
</p>
6273 <li>Lightweight (around
1 kg) and small volume (preferably smaller
6275 <li>Robust, it will be in my backpack every day.
</li>
6276 <li>Three button mouse and a mouse pin instead of touch pad.
</li>
6277 <li>Long battery life time. Preferable a week.
</li>
6278 <li>Internal WIFI network card.
</li>
6279 <li>Internal Twisted Pair network card.
</li>
6280 <li>Some USB slots (
2-
3 is plenty)
</li>
6281 <li>Good keyboard - similar to the Thinkpad.
</li>
6282 <li>Video resolution at least
1024x768, with size around
12" (A4 paper
6284 <li>Hardware supported by Debian Stable, ie the default kernel and
6285 X.org packages.
</li>
6286 <li>Quiet, preferably fan free (or at least not using the fan most of
6291 <p>You will notice that there are no RAM and CPU requirements in the
6292 list. The reason is simply that the specifications on laptops the
6293 last
10-
15 years have been sufficient for my needs, and I have to look
6294 at other features to choose my laptop. But are there still made as
6295 robust laptops as my X41? The Thinkpad X60/X61 proved to be less
6296 robust, and Thinkpads seem to be heading in the wrong direction since
6297 Lenovo took over. But I've been told that X220 and X1 Carbon might
6298 still be useful.
</p>
6300 <p>Perhaps I should rethink my needs, and look for a pad with an
6301 external keyboard? I'll have to check the
6302 <a href=
"http://www.linux-laptop.net/">Linux Laptops site
</a> for
6303 well-supported laptops, or perhaps just buy one preinstalled from one
6304 of the vendors listed on the
<a href=
"http://linuxpreloaded.com/">Linux
6305 Pre-loaded site
</a>.
</p>
6311 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
6316 <div class=
"padding"></div>
6320 <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>
6326 <p>Some times I try to figure out which Iceweasel browser plugin to
6327 install to get support for a given MIME type. Thanks to
6328 <a href=
"https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MozillaTeam/Plugins">specifications
6329 done by Ubuntu
</a> and Mozilla, it is possible to do this in Debian.
6330 Unfortunately, not very many packages provide the needed meta
6331 information, Anyway, here is a small script to look up all browser
6332 plugin packages announcing ther MIME support using this specification:
</p>
6338 def pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
6343 version = pkg.candidate
6345 version = pkg.installed
6348 record = version.record
6349 if not record.has_key('Npp-MimeType'):
6351 mime_types = record['Npp-MimeType'].split(',')
6352 for t in mime_types:
6353 t = t.rstrip().strip()
6355 thepkgs.append(pkg.name)
6357 mimetype = "audio/ogg"
6358 if
1 < len(sys.argv):
6359 mimetype = sys.argv[
1]
6360 print "Browser plugin packages supporting %s:" % mimetype
6361 for pkg in pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
6365 <p>It can be used like this to look up a given MIME type:
</p>
6368 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype
6369 Browser plugin packages supporting audio/ogg:
6371 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype application/x-shockwave-flash
6372 Browser plugin packages supporting application/x-shockwave-flash:
6373 browser-plugin-gnash
6377 <p>In Ubuntu this mechanism is combined with support in the browser
6378 itself to query for plugins and propose to install the needed
6379 packages. It would be great if Debian supported such feature too. Is
6380 anyone working on adding it?
</p>
6382 <p><strong>Update
2013-
01-
18 14:
20</strong>: The Debian BTS
6383 request for icweasel support for this feature is
6384 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/484010">#
484010</a> from
2008 (and
6385 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/698426">#
698426</a> from today). Lack
6386 of manpower and wish for a different design is the reason thus feature
6387 is not yet in iceweasel from Debian.
</p>
6393 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
6398 <div class=
"padding"></div>
6402 <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>
6408 <p>The
<a href=
"http://wiki.debian.org/AppStreamDebianProposal">DEP-
11
6409 proposal to add AppStream information to the Debian archive
</a>, is a
6410 proposal to make it possible for a Desktop application to propose to
6411 the user some package to install to gain support for a given MIME
6412 type, font, library etc. that is currently missing. With such
6413 mechanism in place, it would be possible for the desktop to
6414 automatically propose and install leocad if some LDraw file is
6415 downloaded by the browser.
</p>
6417 <p>To get some idea about the current content of the archive, I decided
6418 to write a simple program to extract all .desktop files from the
6419 Debian archive and look up the claimed MIME support there. The result
6421 <a href=
"http://ftp.skolelinux.org/pub/AppStreamTest">Skolelinux FTP
6422 site
</a>. Using the collected information, it become possible to
6423 answer the question in the title. Here are the
20 most supported MIME
6424 types in Debian stable (Squeeze), testing (Wheezy) and unstable (Sid).
6425 The complete list is available from the link above.
</p>
6427 <p><strong>Debian Stable:
</strong></p>
6431 ----- -----------------------
6447 18 application/x-ogg
6454 <p><strong>Debian Testing:
</strong></p>
6458 ----- -----------------------
6474 18 application/x-ogg
6481 <p><strong>Debian Unstable:
</strong></p>
6485 ----- -----------------------
6502 18 application/x-ogg
6508 <p>I am told that PackageKit can provide an API to access the kind of
6509 information mentioned in DEP-
11. I have not yet had time to look at
6510 it, but hope the PackageKit people in Debian are on top of these
6513 <p><strong>Update
2013-
01-
16 13:
35</strong>: Updated numbers after
6514 discovering a typo in my script.
</p>
6520 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
6525 <div class=
"padding"></div>
6529 <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>
6535 <p>Yesterday, I wrote about the
6536 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Modalias_strings___a_practical_way_to_map__stuff__to_hardware.html">modalias
6537 values provided by the Linux kernel
</a> following my hope for
6538 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">better
6539 dongle support in Debian
</a>. Using this knowledge, I have tested how
6540 modalias values attached to package names can be used to map packages
6541 to hardware. This allow the system to look up and suggest relevant
6542 packages when I plug in some new hardware into my machine, and replace
6543 discover and discover-data as the database used to map hardware to
6546 <p>I create a modaliases file with entries like the following,
6547 containing package name, kernel module name (if relevant, otherwise
6548 the package name) and globs matching the relevant hardware
6552 Package: package-name
6553 <br>Modaliases: module(modaliasglob, modaliasglob, modaliasglob)
</p>
6556 <p>It is fairly trivial to write code to find the relevant packages
6557 for a given modalias value using this file.
</p>
6559 <p>An entry like this would suggest the video and picture application
6560 cheese for many USB web cameras (interface bus class
0E01):
</p>
6564 <br>Modaliases: cheese(usb:v*p*d*dc*dsc*dp*ic0Eisc01ip*)
</p>
6567 <p>An entry like this would suggest the pcmciautils package when a
6568 CardBus bridge (bus class
0607) PCI device is present:
</p>
6571 Package: pcmciautils
6572 <br>Modaliases: pcmciautils(pci:v*d*sv*sd*bc06sc07i*)
6575 <p>An entry like this would suggest the package colorhug-client when
6576 plugging in a ColorHug with USB IDs
04D8:F8DA:
</p>
6579 Package: colorhug-client
6580 <br>Modaliases: colorhug-client(usb:v04D8pF8DAd*)
</p>
6583 <p>I believe the format is compatible with the format of the Packages
6584 file in the Debian archive. Ubuntu already uses their Packages file
6585 to store their mappings from packages to hardware.
</p>
6587 <p>By adding a XB-Modaliases: header in debian/control, any .deb can
6588 announce the hardware it support in a way my prototype understand.
6589 This allow those publishing packages in an APT source outside the
6590 Debian archive as well as those backporting packages to make sure the
6591 hardware mapping are included in the package meta information. I've
6592 tested such header in the pymissile package, and its modalias mapping
6593 is working as it should with my prototype. It even made it to Ubuntu
6596 <p>To test if it was possible to look up supported hardware using only
6597 the shell tools available in the Debian installer, I wrote a shell
6598 implementation of the lookup code. The idea is to create files for
6599 each modalias and let the shell do the matching. Please check out and
6601 <a href=
"http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/hw-support-lookup?view=co">hw-support-lookup
</a>
6602 shell script. It run without any extra dependencies and fetch the
6603 hardware mappings from the Debian archive and the subversion
6604 repository where I currently work on my prototype.
</p>
6606 <p>When I use it on a machine with a yubikey inserted, it suggest to
6607 install yubikey-personalization:
</p>
6610 % ./hw-support-lookup
6611 <br>yubikey-personalization
6615 <p>When I run it on my Thinkpad X40 with a PCMCIA/CardBus slot, it
6616 propose to install the pcmciautils package:
</p>
6619 % ./hw-support-lookup
6624 <p>If you know of any hardware-package mapping that should be added to
6625 <a href=
"http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=co">my
6626 database
</a>, please tell me about it.
</p>
6628 <p>It could be possible to generate several of the mappings between
6629 packages and hardware. One source would be to look at packages with
6630 kernel modules, ie packages with *.ko files in /lib/modules/, and
6631 extract their modalias information. Another would be to look at
6632 packages with udev rules, ie packages with files in
6633 /lib/udev/rules.d/, and extract their vendor/model information to
6634 generate a modalias matching rule. I have not tested any of these to
6637 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
6638 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
6639 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
6640 <a href=
"irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel
</a>.
</p>
6646 Tags:
<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>.
6651 <div class=
"padding"></div>
6655 <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>
6661 <p>While looking into how to look up Debian packages based on hardware
6662 information, to find the packages that support a given piece of
6663 hardware, I refreshed my memory regarding modalias values, and decided
6664 to document the details. Here are my findings so far, also available
6666 <a href=
"http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
6667 Debian Edu subversion repository
</a>:
6669 <p><strong>Modalias decoded
</strong></p>
6671 <p>This document try to explain what the different types of modalias
6672 values stands for. It is in part based on information from
6673 <URL:
<a href=
"https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias">https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias
</a> >,
6674 <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> >,
6675 <URL:
<a href=
"http://code.metager.de/source/history/linux/stable/scripts/mod/file2alias.c">http://code.metager.de/source/history/linux/stable/scripts/mod/file2alias.c
</a> > and
6676 <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> >.
6678 <p>The modalias entries for a given Linux machine can be found using
6679 this shell script:
</p>
6682 find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -
0 cat | sort -u
6685 <p>The supported modalias globs for a given kernel module can be found
6689 % /sbin/modinfo psmouse | grep alias:
6690 alias: serio:ty05pr*id*ex*
6691 alias: serio:ty01pr*id*ex*
6695 <p><strong>PCI subtype
</strong></p>
6697 <p>A typical PCI entry can look like this. This is an Intel Host
6698 Bridge memory controller:
</p>
6701 pci:v00008086d00002770sv00001028sd000001ADbc06sc00i00
6704 <p>This represent these values:
</p>
6709 sv
00001028 (subvendor)
6710 sd
000001AD (subdevice)
6712 sc
00 (bus subclass)
6716 <p>The vendor/device values are the same values outputted from 'lspci
6717 -n' as
8086:
2770. The bus class/subclass is also shown by lspci as
6718 0600. The
0600 class is a host bridge. Other useful bus values are
6719 0300 (VGA compatible card) and
0200 (Ethernet controller).
</p>
6721 <p>Not sure how to figure out the interface value, nor what it
6724 <p><strong>USB subtype
</strong></p>
6726 <p>Some typical USB entries can look like this. This is an internal
6727 USB hub in a laptop:
</p>
6730 usb:v1D6Bp0001d0206dc09dsc00dp00ic09isc00ip00
6733 <p>Here is the values included in this alias:
</p>
6736 v
1D6B (device vendor)
6737 p
0001 (device product)
6739 dc
09 (device class)
6740 dsc
00 (device subclass)
6741 dp
00 (device protocol)
6742 ic
09 (interface class)
6743 isc
00 (interface subclass)
6744 ip
00 (interface protocol)
6747 <p>The
0900 device class/subclass means hub. Some times the relevant
6748 class is in the interface class section. For a simple USB web camera,
6749 these alias entries show up:
</p>
6752 usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc01ip00
6753 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc02ip00
6754 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc01ip00
6755 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc02ip00
6758 <p>Interface class
0E01 is video control,
0E02 is video streaming (aka
6759 camera),
0101 is audio control device and
0102 is audio streaming (aka
6760 microphone). Thus this is a camera with microphone included.
</p>
6762 <p><strong>ACPI subtype
</strong></p>
6764 <p>The ACPI type is used for several non-PCI/USB stuff. This is an IR
6765 receiver in a Thinkpad X40:
</p>
6768 acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
6771 <p>The values between the colons are IDs.
</p>
6773 <p><strong>DMI subtype
</strong></p>
6775 <p>The DMI table contain lots of information about the computer case
6776 and model. This is an entry for a IBM Thinkpad X40, fetched from
6777 /sys/devices/virtual/dmi/id/modalias:
</p>
6780 dmi:bvnIBM:bvr1UETB6WW(
1.66):bd06/
15/
2005:svnIBM:pn2371H4G:pvrThinkPadX40:rvnIBM:rn2371H4G:rvrNotAvailable:cvnIBM:ct10:cvrNotAvailable:
6783 <p>The values present are
</p>
6786 bvn IBM (BIOS vendor)
6787 bvr
1UETB
6WW(
1.66) (BIOS version)
6788 bd
06/
15/
2005 (BIOS date)
6789 svn IBM (system vendor)
6790 pn
2371H4G (product name)
6791 pvr ThinkPadX40 (product version)
6792 rvn IBM (board vendor)
6793 rn
2371H4G (board name)
6794 rvr NotAvailable (board version)
6795 cvn IBM (chassis vendor)
6796 ct
10 (chassis type)
6797 cvr NotAvailable (chassis version)
6800 <p>The chassis type
10 is Notebook. Other interesting values can be
6801 found in the dmidecode source:
</p>
6805 4 Low Profile Desktop
6818 17 Main Server Chassis
6819 18 Expansion Chassis
6821 20 Bus Expansion Chassis
6822 21 Peripheral Chassis
6824 23 Rack Mount Chassis
6833 <p>The chassis type values are not always accurately set in the DMI
6834 table. For example my home server is a tower, but the DMI modalias
6835 claim it is a desktop.
</p>
6837 <p><strong>SerIO subtype
</strong></p>
6839 <p>This type is used for PS/
2 mouse plugs. One example is from my
6843 serio:ty01pr00id00ex00
6846 <p>The values present are
</p>
6855 <p>This type is supported by the psmouse driver. I am not sure what
6856 the valid values are.
</p>
6858 <p><strong>Other subtypes
</strong></p>
6860 <p>There are heaps of other modalias subtypes according to
6861 file2alias.c. There is the rest of the list from that source: amba,
6862 ap, bcma, ccw, css, eisa, hid, i2c, ieee1394, input, ipack, isapnp,
6863 mdio, of, parisc, pcmcia, platform, scsi, sdio, spi, ssb, vio, virtio,
6864 vmbus, x86cpu and zorro. I did not spend time documenting all of
6865 these, as they do not seem relevant for my intended use with mapping
6866 hardware to packages when new stuff is inserted during run time.
</p>
6868 <p><strong>Looking up kernel modules using modalias values
</strong></p>
6870 <p>To check which kernel modules provide support for a given modalias,
6871 one can use the following shell script:
</p>
6874 for id in $(find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -
0 cat | sort -u); do \
6876 /sbin/modprobe --show-depends "$id"|sed 's/^/ /' ; \
6880 <p>The output can look like this (only the first few entries as the
6881 list is very long on my test machine):
</p>
6885 insmod /lib/modules/
2.6.32-
5-
686/kernel/drivers/acpi/ac.ko
6887 FATAL: Module acpi:device: not found.
6889 insmod /lib/modules/
2.6.32-
5-
686/kernel/drivers/char/nvram.ko
6890 insmod /lib/modules/
2.6.32-
5-
686/kernel/drivers/leds/led-class.ko
6891 insmod /lib/modules/
2.6.32-
5-
686/kernel/net/rfkill/rfkill.ko
6892 insmod /lib/modules/
2.6.32-
5-
686/kernel/drivers/platform/x86/thinkpad_acpi.ko
6893 acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
6894 insmod /lib/modules/
2.6.32-
5-
686/kernel/lib/crc-ccitt.ko
6895 insmod /lib/modules/
2.6.32-
5-
686/kernel/net/irda/irda.ko
6896 insmod /lib/modules/
2.6.32-
5-
686/kernel/drivers/net/irda/nsc-ircc.ko
6900 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
6901 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
6902 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
6903 <a href=
"irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel
</a>.
</p>
6905 <p><strong>Update
2013-
01-
15:
</strong> Rewrite "cat $(find ...)" to
6906 "find ... -print0 | xargs -
0 cat" to make sure it handle directories
6907 in /sys/ with space in them.
</p>
6913 Tags:
<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>.
6918 <div class=
"padding"></div>
6922 <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>
6928 <p>As part of my investigation on how to improve the support in Debian
6929 for hardware dongles, I dug up my old Mark and Spencer USB Rocket
6930 Launcher and updated the Debian package
6931 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/pymissile">pymissile
</a> to make
6932 sure udev will fix the device permissions when it is plugged in. I
6933 also added a "Modaliases" header to test it in the Debian archive and
6934 hopefully make the package be proposed by jockey in Ubuntu when a user
6935 plug in his rocket launcher. In the process I moved the source to a
6936 git repository under collab-maint, to make it easier for any DD to
6937 contribute.
<a href=
"http://code.google.com/p/pymissile/">Upstream
</a>
6938 is not very active, but the software still work for me even after five
6939 years of relative silence. The new git repository is not listed in
6940 the uploaded package yet, because I want to test the other changes a
6941 bit more before I upload the new version. If you want to check out
6942 the new version with a .desktop file included, visit the
6943 <a href=
"http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/pymissile.git">gitweb
6944 view
</a> or use "
<tt>git clone
6945 git://anonscm.debian.org/collab-maint/pymissile.git
</tt>".</p>
6951 Tags: <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>.
6956 <div class="padding
"></div>
6960 <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>
6966 <p>One thing that annoys me with Debian and Linux distributions in
6967 general, is that there is a great package management system with the
6968 ability to automatically install software packages by downloading them
6969 from the distribution mirrors, but no way to get it to automatically
6970 install the packages I need to use the hardware I plug into my
6971 machine. Even if the package to use it is easily available from the
6972 Linux distribution. When I plug in a LEGO Mindstorms NXT, it could
6973 suggest to automatically install the python-nxt, nbc and t2n packages
6974 I need to talk to it. When I plug in a Yubikey, it could propose the
6975 yubikey-personalization package. The information required to do this
6976 is available, but no-one have pulled all the pieces together.</p>
6978 <p>Some years ago, I proposed to
6979 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/
2010/
05/msg01206.html
">use
6980 the discover subsystem to implement this</a>. The idea is fairly
6985 <li>Add a desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ pointing to a program
6986 starting when a user log in.</li>
6988 <li>Set this program up to listen for kernel events emitted when new
6989 hardware is inserted into the computer.</li>
6991 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware ID in a
6992 database mapping to packages, and take note of any non-installed
6995 <li>Show a message to the user proposing to install the discovered
6996 package, and make it easy to install it.</li>
7000 <p>I am not sure what the best way to implement this is, but my
7001 initial idea was to use dbus events to discover new hardware, the
7002 discover database to find packages and
7003 <a href="http://www.packagekit.org/
">PackageKit</a> to install
7006 <p>Yesterday, I found time to try to implement this idea, and the
7007 draft package is now checked into
7008 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/
">the
7009 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>. In the process, I updated the
7010 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover-data.html
">discover-data</a>
7011 package to map the USB ids of LEGO Mindstorms and Yubikey devices to
7012 the relevant packages in Debian, and uploaded a new version
7013 2.2013.01.09 to unstable. I also discovered that the current
7014 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover.html
">discover</a>
7015 package in Debian no longer discovered any USB devices, because
7016 /proc/bus/usb/devices is no longer present. I ported it to use
7017 libusb as a fall back option to get it working. The fixed package
7018 version 2.1.2-6 is now in experimental (didn't upload it to unstable
7019 because of the freeze).</p>
7021 <p>With this prototype in place, I can insert my Yubikey, and get this
7022 desktop notification to show up (only once, the first time it is
7025 <p align="center
"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/
2013-
01-
09-hw-autoinstall.png
"></p>
7027 <p>For this prototype to be really useful, some way to automatically
7028 install the proposed packages by pressing the "Please install
7029 program(s)" button should to be implemented.
</p>
7031 <p>If this idea seem useful to you, and you want to help make it
7032 happen, please help me update the discover-data database with mappings
7033 from hardware to Debian packages. Check if 'discover-pkginstall -l'
7034 list the package you would like to have installed when a given
7035 hardware device is inserted into your computer, and report bugs using
7036 reportbug if it isn't. Or, if you know of a better way to provide
7037 such mapping, please let me know.
</p>
7039 <p>This prototype need more work, and there are several questions that
7040 should be considered before it is ready for production use. Is dbus
7041 the correct way to detect new hardware? At the moment I look for HAL
7042 dbus events on the system bus, because that is the events I could see
7043 on my Debian Squeeze KDE desktop. Are there better events to use?
7044 How should the user be notified? Is the desktop notification
7045 mechanism the best option, or should the background daemon raise a
7046 popup instead? How should packages be installed? When should they
7047 not be installed?
</p>
7049 <p>If you want to help getting such feature implemented in Debian,
7050 please send me an email. :)
</p>
7056 Tags:
<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>.
7061 <div class=
"padding"></div>
7065 <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>
7071 <p>During Christmas, I have worked a bit on the Debian support for
7072 <a href=
"http://mindstorms.lego.com/en-us/Default.aspx">LEGO Mindstorm
7073 NXT
</a>. My son and I have played a bit with my NXT set, and I
7074 discovered I had to build all the tools myself because none were
7075 already in Debian Squeeze. If Debian support for LEGO is something
7076 you care about, please join me on the IRC channel
7077 <a href=
"irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">#debian-lego
</a> (server
7078 irc.debian.org). There is a lot that could be done to improve the
7079 Debian support for LEGO designers. For example both CAD software
7080 and Mindstorm compilers are missing. :)
</p>
7082 <p>Update
2012-
01-
03: A
7083 <a href=
"http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">project page
</a>
7084 including links to Lego related packages is now available.
</p>
7090 Tags:
<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>.
7095 <div class=
"padding"></div>
7099 <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>
7105 <p>Let me start by wishing you all marry Christmas and a happy new
7106 year! I hope next year will prove to be a good year.
</p>
7108 <p><a href=
"http://www.bitcoin.org/">Bitcoin
</a>, the digital
7109 decentralised "currency" that allow people to transfer bitcoins
7110 between each other with minimal overhead, is a very interesting
7111 experiment. And as I wrote a few days ago, the bitcoin situation in
7112 <a href=
"http://www.debian.org/">Debian
</a> is about to improve a bit.
7113 The
<a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">new debian source
7114 package
</a> (version
0.7.2-
2) was uploaded yesterday, and is waiting
7115 in
<a href=
"http://ftp-master.debian.org/new.html">the NEW queue
</A>
7116 for one of the ftpmasters to approve the new bitcoin-qt package
7119 <p>And thanks to the great work of Jonas and the rest of the bitcoin
7120 team in Debian, you can easily test the package in Debian Squeeze
7121 using the following steps to get a set of working packages:
</p>
7124 git clone git://git.debian.org/git/collab-maint/bitcoin
7126 DEB_MAINTAINER_MODE=
1 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp fakeroot debian/rules clean
7127 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp git-buildpackage --git-ignore-new
7130 <p>You might have to install some build dependencies as well. The
7131 list of commands should give you two packages, bitcoind and
7132 bitcoin-qt, ready for use in a Squeeze environment. Note that the
7133 client will download the complete set of bitcoin "blocks", which need
7134 around
5.6 GiB of data on my machine at the moment. Make sure your
7135 ~/.bitcoin/ directory have lots of spare room if you want to download
7136 all the blocks. The client will warn if the disk is getting full, so
7137 there is not really a problem if you got too little room, but you will
7138 not be able to get all the features out of the client.
</p>
7140 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
7141 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
7142 <b><a href=
"bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
</a></b>.
</p>
7148 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>.
7153 <div class=
"padding"></div>
7157 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_word_on_bitcoin_support_in_Debian.html">A word on bitcoin support in Debian
</a>
7163 <p>It has been a while since I wrote about
7164 <a href=
"http://www.bitcoin.org/">bitcoin
</a>, the decentralised
7165 peer-to-peer based crypto-currency, and the reason is simply that I
7166 have been busy elsewhere. But two days ago, I started looking at the
7167 state of
<a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin in
7168 Debian
</a> again to try to recover my old bitcoin wallet. The package
7169 is now maintained by a
7170 <a href=
"https://alioth.debian.org/projects/pkg-bitcoin/">team of
7171 people
</a>, and the grunt work had already been done by this team. We
7172 owe a huge thank you to all these team members. :)
7173 But I was sad to discover that the bitcoin client is missing in
7174 Wheezy. It is only available in Sid (and an outdated client from
7175 backports). The client had several RC bugs registered in BTS blocking
7176 it from entering testing. To try to help the team and improve the
7177 situation, I spent some time providing patches and triaging the bug
7178 reports. I also had a look at the bitcoin package available from Matt
7180 <a href=
"https://launchpad.net/~bitcoin/+archive/bitcoin">PPA for
7181 Ubuntu
</a>, and moved the useful pieces from that version into the
7184 <p>After checking with the main package maintainer Jonas Smedegaard on
7185 IRC, I pushed several patches into the collab-maint git repository to
7186 improve the package. It now contains fixes for the RC issues (not from
7187 me, but fixed by Scott Howard), build rules for a Qt GUI client
7188 package, konqueror support for the bitcoin: URI and bash completion
7189 setup. As I work on Debian Squeeze, I also created
7190 <a href=
"http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-bitcoin-devel/Week-of-Mon-20121217/000041.html">a
7191 patch to backport
</a> the latest version. Jonas is going to look at
7192 it and try to integrate it into the git repository before uploading a
7193 new version to unstable.
7195 <p>I would very much like bitcoin to succeed, to get rid of the
7196 centralized control currently exercised in the monetary system. I
7197 find it completely unacceptable that the USA government is collecting
7198 transaction data for almost all international money transfers (most are done in USD and transaction logs shipped to the spooks), and
7199 that the major credit card companies can block legal money
7200 transactions to Wikileaks. But for bitcoin to succeed, more people
7201 need to use bitcoins, and more people need to accept bitcoins when
7202 they sell products and services. Improving the bitcoin support in
7203 Debian is a small step in the right direction, but not enough.
7204 Unfortunately the user experience when browsing the web and wanting to
7205 pay with bitcoin is still not very good. The bitcoin: URI is a step
7206 in the right direction, but need to work in most or every browser in
7207 use. Also the bitcoin-qt client is too heavy to fire up to do a
7208 quick transaction. I believe there are other clients available, but
7209 have not tested them.
</p>
7212 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Now_accepting_bitcoins___anonymous_and_distributed_p2p_crypto_money.html">experiment
7213 with bitcoins
</a> showed that at least some of my readers use bitcoin.
7214 I received
20.15 BTC so far on the address I provided in my blog two
7215 years ago, as can be
7216 <a href=
"http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">seen
7217 on the blockexplorer service
</a>. Thank you everyone for your
7218 donation. The blockexplorer service demonstrates quite well that
7219 bitcoin is not quite anonymous and untracked. :) I wonder if the
7220 number of users have gone up since then. If you use bitcoin and want
7221 to show your support of my activity, please send Bitcoin donations to
7222 the same address as last time,
7223 <b><a href=
"bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
</a></b>.
</p>
7229 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>.
7234 <div class=
"padding"></div>
7238 <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>
7245 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">mentioned
7246 this summer
</a>, I have created a Computer Science song book a few
7247 years ago, and today I finally found time to create a public
7248 <a href=
"https://gitorious.org/pere-cs-songbook/pere-cs-songbook">Gitorious
7249 repository for the project
</a>.
</p>
7251 <p>If you want to help out, please clone the source and submit patches
7252 to the HTML version. To generate the PDF and PostScript version,
7253 please use prince XML, or let me know about a useful free software
7254 processor capable of creating a good looking PDF from the HTML.
</p>
7256 <p>Want to sing? You can still find the song book in HTML, PDF and
7257 PostScript formats at
7258 <a href=
"http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's Computer
7259 Science Songbook
</a>.
</p>
7265 Tags:
<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>.
7270 <div class=
"padding"></div>
7274 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gratulerer_med_19__rsdagen__Debian_.html">Gratulerer med
19-årsdagen, Debian!
</a>
7281 <a href=
"http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120813">Debian-prosjektet
19
7282 år
</a>. Jeg har fulgt det de siste
12 årene, og er veldig glad for å kunne
7283 si gratulerer med dagen, Debian!
</p>
7289 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>.
7294 <div class=
"padding"></div>
7298 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">Song book for Computer Scientists
</a>
7304 <p>Many years ago, while studying Computer Science at the
7305 <a href=
"http://www.uit.no/">University of Tromsø
</a>, I started
7306 collecting computer related songs for use at parties. The original
7307 version was written in LaTeX, but a few years ago I got help from
7308 Håkon W. Lie, one of the inventors of W3C CSS, to convert it to HTML
7309 while keeping the ability to create a nice book in PDF format. I have
7310 not had time to maintain the book for a while now, and guess I should
7311 put it up on some public version control repository where others can
7312 help me extend and update the book. If anyone is volunteering to help
7313 me with this, send me an email. Also let me know if there are songs
7314 missing in my book.
</p>
7316 <p>I have not mentioned the book on my blog so far, and it occured to
7317 me today that I really should let all my readers share the joys of
7318 singing out load about programming, computers and computer networks.
7319 Especially now that
<a href=
"http://debconf12.debconf.org/">Debconf
7320 12</a> is about to start (and I am not going). Want to sing? Check
7321 out
<a href=
"http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's
7322 Computer Science Songbook
</a>.
7328 Tags:
<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>.
7333 <div class=
"padding"></div>
7337 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatically_upgrading_server_firmware_on_Dell_PowerEdge.html">Automatically upgrading server firmware on Dell PowerEdge
</a>
7343 <p>At work we have heaps of servers. I believe the total count is
7344 around
1000 at the moment. To be able to get help from the vendors
7345 when something go wrong, we want to keep the firmware on the servers
7346 up to date. If the firmware isn't the latest and greatest, the
7347 vendors typically refuse to start debugging any problems until the
7348 firmware is upgraded. So before every reboot, we want to upgrade the
7349 firmware, and we would really like everyone handling servers at the
7350 university to do this themselves when they plan to reboot a machine.
7351 For that to happen we at the unix server admin group need to provide
7352 the tools to do so.
</p>
7354 <p>To make firmware upgrading easier, I am working on a script to
7355 fetch and install the latest firmware for the servers we got. Most of
7356 our hardware are from Dell and HP, so I have focused on these servers
7357 so far. This blog post is about the Dell part.
</P>
7359 <p>On the Dell FTP site I was lucky enough to find
7360 <a href=
"ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz">an XML file
</a>
7361 with firmware information for all
11th generation servers, listing
7362 which firmware should be used on a given model and where on the FTP
7363 site I can find it. Using a simple perl XML parser I can then
7364 download the shell scripts Dell provides to do firmware upgrades from
7365 within Linux and reboot when all the firmware is primed and ready to
7366 be activated on the first reboot.
</p>
7368 <p>This is the Dell related fragment of the perl code I am working on.
7369 Are there anyone working on similar tools for firmware upgrading all
7370 servers at a site? Please get in touch and lets share resources.
</p>
7376 use File::Temp qw(tempdir);
7378 # Install needed RHEL packages if missing
7380 'XML::Simple' =
> 'perl-XML-Simple',
7382 for my $module (keys %rhelmodules) {
7383 eval "use $module;";
7385 my $pkg = $rhelmodules{$module};
7386 system("yum install -y $pkg");
7387 eval "use $module;";
7391 my $errorsto = 'pere@hungry.com';
7397 sub run_firmware_script {
7398 my ($opts, $script) = @_;
7400 print STDERR "fail: missing script name\n";
7403 print STDERR "Running $script\n\n";
7405 if (
0 == system("sh $script $opts")) { # FIXME correct exit code handling
7406 print STDERR "success: firmware script ran succcessfully\n";
7408 print STDERR "fail: firmware script returned error\n";
7412 sub run_firmware_scripts {
7413 my ($opts, @dirs) = @_;
7414 # Run firmware packages
7415 for my $dir (@dirs) {
7416 print STDERR "info: Running scripts in $dir\n";
7417 opendir(my $dh, $dir) or die "Unable to open directory $dir: $!";
7418 while (my $s = readdir $dh) {
7419 next if $s =~ m/^\.\.?/;
7420 run_firmware_script($opts, "$dir/$s");
7428 print STDERR "info: Downloading $url\n";
7429 system("wget --quiet \"$url\"");
7434 my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
7437 if ($product =~ m/PowerEdge/) {
7439 # on RHEL, these pacakges are needed by the firwmare upgrade scripts
7440 system('yum install -y compat-libstdc++-
33.i686 libstdc++.i686 libxml2.i686 procmail');
7442 my $tmpdir = tempdir(
7446 fetch_dell_fw('catalog/Catalog.xml.gz');
7447 system('gunzip Catalog.xml.gz');
7448 my @paths = fetch_dell_fw_list('Catalog.xml');
7449 # -q is quiet, disabling interactivity and reducing console output
7452 for my $url (@paths) {
7453 fetch_dell_fw($url);
7455 run_firmware_scripts($fwopts, $tmpdir);
7457 print STDERR
"error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
7458 print STDERR
"error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
7462 print STDERR
"error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
7463 print STDERR
"error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
7469 my $url =
"ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/$path";
7473 # Using ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz, figure out which
7474 # firmware packages to download from Dell. Only work for Linux
7475 # machines and
11th generation Dell servers.
7476 sub fetch_dell_fw_list {
7477 my $filename = shift;
7479 my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
7481 my ($mybrand, $mymodel) = split(/\s+/, $product);
7483 print STDERR
"Finding firmware bundles for $mybrand $mymodel\n";
7485 my $xml = XMLin($filename);
7487 for my $bundle (@{$xml-
>{SoftwareBundle}}) {
7488 my $brand = $bundle-
>{TargetSystems}-
>{Brand}-
>{Display}-
>{content};
7489 my $model = $bundle-
>{TargetSystems}-
>{Brand}-
>{Model}-
>{Display}-
>{content};
7491 if ("ARRAY" eq ref $bundle-
>{TargetOSes}-
>{OperatingSystem}) {
7492 $oscode = $bundle-
>{TargetOSes}-
>{OperatingSystem}[
0]-
>{osCode};
7494 $oscode = $bundle-
>{TargetOSes}-
>{OperatingSystem}-
>{osCode};
7496 if ($mybrand eq $brand && $mymodel eq $model && "LIN" eq $oscode)
7498 @paths = map { $_-
>{path} } @{$bundle-
>{Contents}-
>{Package}};
7501 for my $component (@{$xml-
>{SoftwareComponent}}) {
7502 my $componenttype = $component-
>{ComponentType}-
>{value};
7504 # Drop application packages, only firmware and BIOS
7505 next if 'APAC' eq $componenttype;
7507 my $cpath = $component-
>{path};
7508 for my $path (@paths) {
7509 if ($cpath =~ m%/$path$%) {
7510 push(@paths, $cpath);
7518 <p>The code is only tested on RedHat Enterprise Linux, but I suspect
7519 it could work on other platforms with some tweaking. Anyone know a
7520 index like Catalog.xml is available from HP for HP servers? At the
7521 moment I maintain a similar list manually and it is quickly getting
7528 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
7533 <div class=
"padding"></div>
7537 <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>
7543 <p>Wouter Verhelst have some
7544 <a href=
"http://grep.be/blog/en/retorts/pere_kubuntu_boot">interesting
7545 comments and opinions
</a> on my blog post on
7546 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_should_start_from__etc_rcS_d__in_Debian____almost_nothing.html">the
7547 need to clean up /etc/rcS.d/ in Debian
</a> and my blog post about
7548 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_missing_in_the_Debian_desktop__or_why_my_parents_use_Kubuntu.html">the
7549 default KDE desktop in Debian
</a>. I only have time to address one
7550 small piece of his comment now, and though it best to address the
7551 misunderstanding he bring forward:
</p>
7554 Currently, a system admin has four options: [...] boot to a
7555 single-user system (by adding 'single' to the kernel command line;
7556 this runs rcS and rc1 scripts)
7559 <p>This make me believe Wouter believe booting into single user mode
7560 and booting into runlevel
1 is the same. I am not surprised he
7561 believe this, because it would make sense and is a quite sensible
7562 thing to believe. But because the boot in Debian is slightly broken,
7563 runlevel
1 do not work properly and it isn't the same as single user
7564 mode. I'll try to explain what is actually happing, but it is a bit
7565 hard to explain.
</p>
7567 <p>Single user mode is defined like this in /etc/inittab:
7568 "
<tt>~~:S:wait:/sbin/sulogin
</tt>". This means the only thing that is
7569 executed in single user mode is sulogin. Single user mode is a boot
7570 state "between
" the runlevels, and when booting into single user mode,
7571 only the scripts in /etc/rcS.d/ are executed before the init process
7572 enters the single user state. When switching to runlevel 1, the state
7573 is in fact not ending in runlevel 1, but it passes through runlevel 1
7574 and end up in the single user mode (see /etc/rc1.d/S03single, which
7575 runs "init -t1 S
" to switch to single user mode at the end of runlevel
7576 1. It is confusing that the 'S' (single user) init mode is not the
7577 mode enabled by /etc/rcS.d/ (which is more like the initial boot
7580 <p>This summary might make it clearer. When booting for the first
7581 time into single user mode, the following commands are executed:
7582 "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc S; /sbin/sulogin
</tt>". When booting into
7583 runlevel 1, the following commands are executed: "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc
7584 S; /etc/init.d/rc
1; /sbin/sulogin
</tt>". A problem show up when
7585 trying to continue after visiting single user mode. Not all services
7586 are started again as they should, causing the machine to end up in an
7587 unpredicatble state. This is why Debian admins recommend rebooting
7588 after visiting single user mode.</p>
7590 <p>A similar problem with runlevel 1 is caused by the amount of
7591 scripts executed from /etc/rcS.d/. When switching from say runlevel 2
7592 to runlevel 1, the services started from /etc/rcS.d/ are not properly
7593 stopped when passing through the scripts in /etc/rc1.d/, and not
7594 started again when switching away from runlevel 1 to the runlevels
7595 2-5. I believe the problem is best fixed by moving all the scripts
7596 out of /etc/rcS.d/ that are not <strong>required</strong> to get a
7597 functioning single user mode during boot.</p>
7599 <p>I have spent several years investigating the Debian boot system,
7600 and discovered this problem a few years ago. I suspect it originates
7601 from when sysvinit was introduced into Debian, a long time ago.</p>
7607 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>.
7612 <div class="padding
"></div>
7616 <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>
7622 <p>In the Debian boot system, several packages include scripts that
7623 are started from /etc/rcS.d/. In fact, there is a bite more of them
7624 than make sense, and this causes a few problems. What kind of
7625 problems, you might ask. There are at least two problems. The first
7626 is that it is not possible to recover a machine after switching to
7627 runlevel 1. One need to actually reboot to get the machine back to
7628 the expected state. The other is that single user boot will sometimes
7629 run into problems because some of the subsystems are activated before
7630 the root login is presented, causing problems when trying to recover a
7631 machine from a problem in that subsystem. A minor additional point is
7632 that moving more scripts out of rcS.d/ and into the other rc#.d/
7633 directories will increase the amount of scripts that can run in
7634 parallel during boot, and thus decrease the boot time.</p>
7636 <p>So, which scripts should start from rcS.d/. In short, only the
7637 scripts that _have_ to execute before the root login prompt is
7638 presented during a single user boot should go there. Everything else
7639 should go into the numeric runlevels. This means things like
7640 lm-sensors, fuse and x11-common should not run from rcS.d, but from
7641 the numeric runlevels. Today in Debian, there are around 115 init.d
7642 scripts that are started from rcS.d/, and most of them should be moved
7643 out. Do your package have one of them? Please help us make single
7644 user and runlevel 1 better by moving it.</p>
7646 <p>Scripts setting up the screen, keyboard, system partitions
7647 etc. should still be started from rcS.d/, but there is for example no
7648 need to have the network enabled before the single user login prompt
7651 <p>As always, things are not so easy to fix as they sound. To keep
7652 Debian systems working while scripts migrate and during upgrades, the
7653 scripts need to be moved from rcS.d/ to rc2.d/ in reverse dependency
7654 order, ie the scripts that nothing in rcS.d/ depend on can be moved,
7655 and the next ones can only be moved when their dependencies have been
7656 moved first. This migration must be done sequentially while we ensure
7657 that the package system upgrade packages in the right order to keep
7658 the system state correct. This will require some coordination when it
7659 comes to network related packages, but most of the packages with
7660 scripts that should migrate do not have anything in rcS.d/ depending
7661 on them. Some packages have already been updated, like the sudo
7662 package, while others are still left to do. I wish I had time to work
7663 on this myself, but real live constrains make it unlikely that I will
7664 find time to push this forward.</p>
7670 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>.
7675 <div class="padding
"></div>
7679 <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>
7685 <p>While at Debconf11, I have several times during discussions
7686 mentioned the issues I believe should be improved in Debian for its
7687 desktop to be useful for more people. The use case for this is my
7688 parents, which are currently running Kubuntu which solve the
7691 <p>I suspect these four missing features are not very hard to
7692 implement. After all, they are present in Ubuntu, so if we wanted to
7693 do this in Debian we would have a source.</p>
7697 <li><strong>Simple GUI based upgrade of packages.</strong> When there
7698 are new packages available for upgrades, a icon in the KDE status bar
7699 indicate this, and clicking on it will activate the simple upgrade
7700 tool to handle it. I have no problem guiding both of my parents
7701 through the process over the phone. If a kernel reboot is required,
7702 this too is indicated by the status bars and the upgrade tool. Last
7703 time I checked, nothing with the same features was working in KDE in
7706 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing Firefox browser
7707 plugins.</strong> When the browser encounter a MIME type it do not
7708 currently have a handler for, it will ask the user if the system
7709 should search for a package that would add support for this MIME type,
7710 and if the user say yes, the APT sources will be searched for packages
7711 advertising the MIME type in their control file (visible in the
7712 Packages file in the APT archive). If one or more packages are found,
7713 it is a simple click of the mouse to add support for the missing mime
7714 type. If the package require the user to accept some non-free
7715 license, this is explained to the user. The entire process make it
7716 more clear to the user why something do not work in the browser, and
7717 make the chances higher for the user to blame the web page authors and
7718 not the browser for any missing features.</li>
7720 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing multimedia codec/format
7721 handlers.</strong> When the media players encounter a format or codec
7722 it is not supporting, a dialog pop up asking the user if the system
7723 should search for a package that would add support for it. This
7724 happen with things like MP3, Windows Media or H.264. The selection
7725 and installation procedure is very similar to the Firefox browser
7726 plugin handling. This is as far as I know implemented using a
7727 gstreamer hook. The end result is that the user easily get access to
7728 the codecs that are present from the APT archives available, while
7729 explaining more on why a given format is unsupported by Ubuntu.</li>
7731 <li><strong>Better browser handling of some MIME types.</strong> When
7732 displaying a text/plain file in my Debian browser, it will propose to
7733 start emacs to show it. If I remember correctly, when doing the same
7734 in Kunbutu it show the file as a text file in the browser. At least I
7735 know Opera will show text files within the browser. I much prefer the
7736 latter behaviour.</li>
7740 <p>There are other nice features as well, like the simplified suite
7741 upgrader, but given that I am the one mostly doing the dist-upgrade,
7742 it do not matter much.</p>
7744 <p>I really hope we could get these features in place for the next
7745 Debian release. It would require the coordinated effort of several
7746 maintainers, but would make the end user experience a lot better.</p>
7752 Tags: <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>.
7757 <div class="padding
"></div>
7761 <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>
7767 <p>The Norwegian <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/
">FiksGataMi</A>
7768 site is build on Debian/Squeeze, and this platform was chosen because
7769 I am most familiar with Debian (being a Debian Developer for around 10
7770 years) because it is the latest stable Debian release which should get
7771 security support for a few years.</p>
7773 <p>The web service is written in Perl, and depend on some perl modules
7774 that are missing in Debian at the moment. It would be great if these
7775 modules were added to the Debian archive, allowing anyone to set up
7776 their own <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com
">FixMyStreet</a> clone
7777 in their own country using only Debian packages. The list of modules
7778 missing in Debian/Squeeze isn't very long, and I hope the perl group
7779 will find time to package the 12 modules Catalyst::Plugin::SmartURI,
7780 Catalyst::Plugin::Unicode::Encoding, Catalyst::View::TT, Devel::Hide,
7781 Sort::Key, Statistics::Distributions, Template::Plugin::Comma,
7782 Template::Plugin::DateTime::Format, Term::Size::Any, Term::Size::Perl,
7783 URI::SmartURI and Web::Scraper to make the maintenance of FixMyStreet
7784 easier in the future.</p>
7786 <p>Thanks to the great tools in Debian, getting the missing modules
7787 installed on my server was a simple call to 'cpan2deb Module::Name'
7788 and 'dpkg -i' to install the resulting package. But this leave me
7789 with the responsibility of tracking security problems, which I really
7790 do not have time for.</p>
7796 Tags: <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>.
7801 <div class="padding
"></div>
7805 <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>
7811 <p>Here is a small update for my English readers. Most of my blog
7812 posts have been in Norwegian the last few weeks, so here is a short
7813 update in English.</p>
7815 <p>The kids still keep me too busy to get much free software work
7816 done, but I did manage to organise a project to get a Norwegian port
7817 of the British service
7818 <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com/
">FixMyStreet</a> up and running,
7819 and it has been running for a month now. The entire project has been
7820 organised by me and two others. Around Christmas we gathered sponsors
7821 to fund the development work. In January I drafted a contract with
7822 <a href="http://www.mysociety.org/
">mySociety</a> on what to develop,
7823 and in February the development took place. Most of it involved
7824 converting the source to use GPS coordinates instead of British
7825 easting/northing, and the resulting code should be a lot easier to get
7826 running in any country by now. The Norwegian
7827 <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/
">FiksGataMi</a> is using
7828 <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/
">OpenStreetmap</a> as the map
7829 source and the source for administrative borders in Norway, and
7830 support for this had to be added/fixed.</p>
7832 <p>The Norwegian version went live March 3th, and we spent the weekend
7833 polishing the system before we announced it March 7th. The system is
7834 running on a KVM instance of Debian/Squeeze, and has seen almost 3000
7835 problem reports in a few weeks. Soon we hope to announce the Android
7836 and iPhone versions making it even easier to report problems with the
7837 public infrastructure.</p>
7839 <p>Perhaps something to consider for those of you in countries without
7846 Tags: <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>.
7851 <div class="padding
"></div>
7855 <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>
7861 <p>The last few days I have looked at ways to track open security
7862 issues here at my work with the University of Oslo. My idea is that
7863 it should be possible to use the information about security issues
7864 available on the Internet, and check our locally
7865 maintained/distributed software against this information. It should
7866 allow us to verify that no known security issues are forgotten. The
7867 CVE database listing vulnerabilities seem like a great central point,
7868 and by using the package lists from Debian mapped to CVEs provided by
7869 the testing security team, I believed it should be possible to figure
7870 out which security holes were present in our free software
7873 <p>After reading up on the topic, it became obvious that the first
7874 building block is to be able to name software packages in a unique and
7875 consistent way across data sources. I considered several ways to do
7876 this, for example coming up with my own naming scheme like using URLs
7877 to project home pages or URLs to the Freshmeat entries, or using some
7878 existing naming scheme. And it seem like I am not the first one to
7879 come across this problem, as MITRE already proposed and implemented a
7880 solution. Enter the <a href="http://cpe.mitre.org/index.html
">Common
7881 Platform Enumeration</a> dictionary, a vocabulary for referring to
7882 software, hardware and other platform components. The CPE ids are
7883 mapped to CVEs in the <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/
">National
7884 Vulnerability Database</a>, allowing me to look up know security
7885 issues for any CPE name. With this in place, all I need to do is to
7886 locate the CPE id for the software packages we use at the university.
7887 This is fairly trivial (I google for 'cve cpe $package' and check the
7888 NVD entry if a CVE for the package exist).</p>
7890 <p>To give you an example. The GNU gzip source package have the CPE
7891 name cpe:/a:gnu:gzip. If the old version 1.3.3 was the package to
7892 check out, one could look up
7893 <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
7894 in NVD</a> and get a list of 6 security holes with public CVE entries.
7895 The most recent one is
7896 <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/view/vuln/detail?vulnId=CVE-
2010-
0001">CVE-2010-0001</a>,
7897 and at the bottom of the NVD page for this vulnerability the complete
7898 list of affected versions is provided.</p>
7900 <p>The NVD database of CVEs is also available as a XML dump, allowing
7901 for offline processing of issues. Using this dump, I've written a
7902 small script taking a list of CPEs as input and list all CVEs
7903 affecting the packages represented by these CPEs. One give it CPEs
7904 with version numbers as specified above and get a list of open
7905 security issues out.</p>
7907 <p>Of course for this approach to be useful, the quality of the NVD
7908 information need to be high. For that to happen, I believe as many as
7909 possible need to use and contribute to the NVD database. I notice
7911 <a href="https://www.redhat.com/security/data/metrics/rhsamapcpe.txt
">a
7912 map from CVE to CPE</a>, indicating that they are using the CPE
7913 information. I'm not aware of Debian and Ubuntu doing the same.</p>
7915 <p>To get an idea about the quality for free software, I spent some
7916 time making it possible to compare the CVE database from Debian with
7917 the CVE database in NVD. The result look fairly good, but there are
7918 some inconsistencies in NVD (same software package having several
7919 CPEs), and some inaccuracies (NVD not mentioning buggy packages that
7920 Debian believe are affected by a CVE). Hope to find time to improve
7921 the quality of NVD, but that require being able to get in touch with
7922 someone maintaining it. So far my three emails with questions and
7923 corrections have not seen any reply, but I hope contact can be
7924 established soon.</p>
7926 <p>An interesting application for CPEs is cross platform package
7927 mapping. It would be useful to know which packages in for example
7928 RHEL, OpenSuSe and Mandriva are missing from Debian and Ubuntu, and
7929 this would be trivial if all linux distributions provided CPE entries
7930 for their packages.</p>
7936 Tags: <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>.
7941 <div class="padding
"></div>
7945 <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>
7952 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/discover-data
">discover-data</a>
7953 package in Debian, there is a script to report useful information
7954 about the running hardware for use when people report missing
7955 information. One part of this script that I find very useful when
7956 debugging hardware problems, is the part mapping loaded kernel module
7957 to the PCI device it claims. It allow me to quickly see if the kernel
7958 module I expect is driving the hardware I am struggling with. To see
7959 the output, make sure discover-data is installed and run
7960 <tt>/usr/share/bug/discover-data 3>&1</tt>. The relevant output on
7961 one of my machines like this:</p>
7965 10de:03eb i2c_nforce2
7968 10de:03f0 snd_hda_intel
7977 <p>The code in question look like this, slightly modified for
7978 readability and to drop the output to file descriptor 3:</p>
7981 if [ -d /sys/bus/pci/devices/ ] ; then
7982 echo loaded pci modules:
7984 cd /sys/bus/pci/devices/
7985 for address in * ; do
7986 if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
7987 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
7988 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
7989 address=$(echo $address |sed s/
0000://)
7990 id=`lspci -n -s $address | tail -n
1 | awk '{print $
3}'`
8000 <p>Similar code could be used to extract USB device module
8004 if [ -d /sys/bus/usb/devices/ ] ; then
8005 echo loaded usb modules:
8007 cd /sys/bus/usb/devices/
8008 for address in * ; do
8009 if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
8010 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
8011 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
8012 address=$(echo $address |sed s/
0000://)
8013 id=$(lsusb -s $address | tail -n
1 | awk '{print $
6}')
8025 <p>This might perhaps be something to include in other tools as
8032 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
8037 <div class=
"padding"></div>
8041 <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>
8047 <p>The last few days I have spent at work here at the
<a
8048 href=
"http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo
</a> testing if the new
8049 batch of computers will work with Linux. Every year for the last few
8050 years the university have organised shared bid of a few thousand
8051 computers, and this year HP won the bid. Two different desktops and
8052 five different laptops are on the list this year. We in the UNIX
8053 group want to know which one of these computers work well with RHEL
8054 and Ubuntu, the two Linux distributions we currently handle at the
8057 <p>My test method is simple, and I share it here to get feedback and
8058 perhaps inspire others to test hardware as well. To test, I PXE
8059 install the OS version of choice, and log in as my normal user and run
8060 a few applications and plug in selected pieces of hardware. When
8061 something fail, I make a note about this in the test matrix and move
8062 on. If I have some spare time I try to report the bug to the OS
8063 vendor, but as I only have the machines for a short time, I rarely
8064 have the time to do this for all the problems I find.
</p>
8066 <p>Anyway, to get to the point of this post. Here is the simple tests
8067 I perform on a new model.
</p>
8071 <li>Is PXE installation working? I'm testing with RHEL6, Ubuntu Lucid
8072 and Ubuntu Maverik at the moment. If I feel like it, I also test with
8073 RHEL5 and Debian Edu/Squeeze.
</li>
8075 <li>Is X.org working? If the graphical login screen show up after
8076 installation, X.org is working.
</li>
8078 <li>Is hardware accelerated OpenGL working? Running glxgears (in
8079 package mesa-utils on Ubuntu) and writing down the frames per second
8080 reported by the program.
</li>
8082 <li>Is sound working? With Gnome and KDE, a sound is played when
8083 logging in, and if I can hear this the test is successful. If there
8084 are several audio exits on the machine, I try them all and check if
8085 the Gnome/KDE audio mixer can control where to send the sound. I
8086 normally test this by playing
8087 <a href=
"http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20101012-chef/ ">a HTML5
8088 video
</a> in Firefox/Iceweasel.
</li>
8090 <li>Is the USB subsystem working? I test this by plugging in a USB
8091 memory stick and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.
</li>
8093 <li>Is the CD/DVD player working? I test this by inserting any CD/DVD
8094 I have lying around, and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.
</li>
8096 <li>Is any built in camera working? Test using cheese, and see if a
8097 picture from the v4l device show up.
</li>
8099 <li>Is bluetooth working? Use the Gnome/KDE browsing tool to see if
8100 any bluetooth devices are discovered. In my office, I normally see a
8103 <li>For laptops, is the SD or Compaq Flash reader working. I have
8104 memory modules lying around, and stick them in and see if Gnome/KDE
8107 <li>For laptops, is suspend/hibernate working? I'm testing if the
8108 special button work, and if the laptop continue to work after
8111 <li>For laptops, is the extra buttons working, like audio level,
8112 adjusting background light, switching on/off external video output,
8113 switching on/off wifi, bluetooth, etc? The set of buttons differ from
8114 laptop to laptop, so I just write down which are working and which are
8117 <li>Some laptops have smart card readers, finger print readers,
8118 acceleration sensors etc. I rarely test these, as I do not know how
8119 to quickly test if they are working or not, so I only document their
8124 <p>By now I suspect you are really curious what the test results are
8125 for the HP machines I am testing. I'm not done yet, so I will report
8126 the test results later. For now I can report that HP
8100 Elite work
8127 fine, and hibernation fail with HP EliteBook
8440p on Ubuntu Lucid,
8128 and audio fail on RHEL6. Ubuntu Maverik worked with
8440p. As you
8129 can see, I have most machines left to test. One interesting
8130 observation is that Ubuntu Lucid has almost twice the frame rate than
8131 RHEL6 with glxgears. No idea why.
</p>
8137 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>.
8142 <div class=
"padding"></div>
8146 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Some_thoughts_on_BitCoins.html">Some thoughts on BitCoins
</a>
8152 <p>As I continue to explore
8153 <a href=
"http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin
</a>, I've starting to wonder
8154 what properties the system have, and how it will be affected by laws
8155 and regulations here in Norway. Here are some random notes.
</p>
8157 <p>One interesting thing to note is that since the transactions are
8158 verified using a peer to peer network, all details about a transaction
8159 is known to everyone. This means that if a BitCoin address has been
8160 published like I did with mine in my initial post about BitCoin, it is
8161 possible for everyone to see how many BitCoins have been transfered to
8162 that address. There is even a web service to look at the details for
8163 all transactions. There I can see that my address
8164 <a href=
"http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
</a>
8165 have received
16.06 Bitcoin, the
8166 <a href=
"http://blockexplorer.com/address/1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3">1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv
8MHqvwst
3</a>
8167 address of Simon Phipps have received
181.97 BitCoin and the address
8168 <a href=
"http://blockexplorer.com/address/1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt">1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt
</A>
8169 of EFF have received
2447.38 BitCoins so far. Thank you to each and
8170 every one of you that donated bitcoins to support my activity. The
8171 fact that anyone can see how much money was transfered to a given
8172 address make it more obvious why the BitCoin community recommend to
8173 generate and hand out a new address for each transaction. I'm told
8174 there is no way to track which addresses belong to a given person or
8175 organisation without the person or organisation revealing it
8176 themselves, as Simon, EFF and I have done.
</p>
8178 <p>In Norway, and in most other countries, there are laws and
8179 regulations limiting how much money one can transfer across the border
8180 without declaring it. There are money laundering, tax and accounting
8181 laws and regulations I would expect to apply to the use of BitCoin.
8182 If the Skolelinux foundation
8183 (
<a href=
"http://linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">SLX
8184 Debian Labs
</a>) were to accept donations in BitCoin in addition to
8185 normal bank transfers like EFF is doing, how should this be accounted?
8186 Given that it is impossible to know if money can cross the border or
8187 not, should everything or nothing be declared? What exchange rate
8188 should be used when calculating taxes? Would receivers have to pay
8189 income tax if the foundation were to pay Skolelinux contributors in
8190 BitCoin? I have no idea, but it would be interesting to know.
</p>
8192 <p>For a currency to be useful and successful, it must be trusted and
8193 accepted by a lot of users. It must be possible to get easy access to
8194 the currency (as a wage or using currency exchanges), and it must be
8195 easy to spend it. At the moment BitCoin seem fairly easy to get
8196 access to, but there are very few places to spend it. I am not really
8197 a regular user of any of the vendor types currently accepting BitCoin,
8198 so I wonder when my kind of shop would start accepting BitCoins. I
8199 would like to buy electronics, travels and subway tickets, not herbs
8200 and books. :) The currency is young, and this will improve over time
8201 if it become popular, but I suspect regular banks will start to lobby
8202 to get BitCoin declared illegal if it become popular. I'm sure they
8203 will claim it is helping fund terrorism and money laundering (which
8204 probably would be true, as is any currency in existence), but I
8205 believe the problems should be solved elsewhere and not by blaming
8208 <p>The process of creating new BitCoins is called mining, and it is
8209 CPU intensive process that depend on a bit of luck as well (as one is
8210 competing against all the other miners currently spending CPU cycles
8211 to see which one get the next lump of cash). The "winner" get
50
8212 BitCoin when this happen. Yesterday I came across the obvious way to
8213 join forces to increase ones changes of getting at least some coins,
8214 by coordinating the work on mining BitCoins across several machines
8215 and people, and sharing the result if one is lucky and get the
50
8217 <a href=
"http://www.bluishcoder.co.nz/bitcoin-pool/">BitCoin Pool
</a>
8218 if this sounds interesting. I have not had time to try to set up a
8219 machine to participate there yet, but have seen that running on ones
8220 own for a few days have not yield any BitCoins througth mining
8223 <p>Update
2010-
12-
15: Found an
<a
8224 href=
"http://inertia.posterous.com/reply-to-the-underground-economist-why-bitcoi">interesting
8225 criticism
</a> of bitcoin. Not quite sure how valid it is, but thought
8226 it was interesting to read. The arguments presented seem to be
8227 equally valid for gold, which was used as a currency for many years.
</p>
8233 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>.
8238 <div class=
"padding"></div>
8242 <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>
8248 <p>With this weeks lawless
8249 <a href=
"http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/06/wikileaks/index.html">governmental
8250 attacks
</a> on Wikileak and
8251 <a href=
"http://www.salon.com/technology/dan_gillmor/2010/12/06/war_on_speech">free
8252 speech
</a>, it has become obvious that PayPal, visa and mastercard can
8253 not be trusted to handle money transactions.
8255 <a href=
"http://webmink.com/2010/12/06/now-accepting-bitcoin/">Simon
8256 Phipps on bitcoin
</a> reminded me about a project that a friend of
8257 mine mentioned earlier. I decided to follow Simon's example, and get
8258 involved with
<a href=
"http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin
</a>. I got
8259 some help from my friend to get it all running, and he even handed me
8260 some bitcoins to get started. I even donated a few bitcoins to Simon
8261 for helping me remember BitCoin.
</p>
8263 <p>So, what is bitcoins, you probably wonder? It is a digital
8264 crypto-currency, decentralised and handled using peer-to-peer
8265 networks. It allows anonymous transactions and prohibits central
8266 control over the transactions, making it impossible for governments
8267 and companies alike to block donations and other transactions. The
8268 source is free software, and while the key dependency wxWidgets
2.9
8269 for the graphical user interface is missing in Debian, the command
8270 line client builds just fine. Hopefully Jonas
8271 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/578157">will get the package into
8272 Debian
</a> soon.
</p>
8274 <p>Bitcoins can be converted to other currencies, like USD and EUR.
8275 There are
<a href=
"http://www.bitcoin.org/trade">companies accepting
8276 bitcoins
</a> when selling services and goods, and there are even
8277 currency "stock" markets where the exchange rate is decided. There
8278 are not many users so far, but the concept seems promising. If you
8279 want to get started and lack a friend with any bitcoins to spare,
8281 <a href=
"https://freebitcoins.appspot.com/">some for free
</a> (
0.05
8282 bitcoin at the time of writing). Use
8283 <a href=
"http://www.bitcoinwatch.com/">BitcoinWatch
</a> to keep an eye
8284 on the current exchange rates.
</p>
8286 <p>As an experiment, I have decided to set up bitcoind on one of my
8287 machines. If you want to support my activity, please send Bitcoin
8288 donations to the address
8289 <b>15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
</b>. Thank you!
</p>
8295 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>.
8300 <div class=
"padding"></div>
8304 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_isn_t_Debian_Edu_using_VLC_.html">Why isn't Debian Edu using VLC?
</a>
8310 <p>In the latest issue of Linux Journal, the readers choices were
8311 presented, and the winner among the multimedia player were VLC.
8312 Personally, I like VLC, and it is my player of choice when I first try
8313 to play a video file or stream. Only if VLC fail will I drag out
8314 gmplayer to see if it can do better. The reason is mostly the failure
8315 model and trust. When VLC fail, it normally pop up a error message
8316 reporting the problem. When mplayer fail, it normally segfault or
8317 just hangs. The latter failure mode drain my trust in the program.
<p>
8319 <p>But even if VLC is my player of choice, we have choosen to use
8320 mplayer in
<a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
8321 Edu/Skolelinux
</a>. The reason is simple. We need a good browser
8322 plugin to play web videos seamlessly, and the VLC browser plugin is
8323 not very good. For example, it lack in-line control buttons, so there
8324 is no way for the user to pause the video. Also, when I
8325 <a href=
"http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">last
8326 tested the browser plugins
</a> available in Debian, the VLC plugin
8327 failed on several video pages where mplayer based plugins worked. If
8328 the browser plugin for VLC was as good as the gecko-mediaplayer
8329 package (which uses mplayer), we would switch.
</P>
8331 <p>While VLC is a good player, its user interface is slightly
8332 annoying. The most annoying feature is its inconsistent use of
8333 keyboard shortcuts. When the player is in full screen mode, its
8334 shortcuts are different from when it is playing the video in a window.
8335 For example, space only work as pause when in full screen mode. I
8336 wish it had consisten shortcuts and that space also would work when in
8337 window mode. Another nice shortcut in gmplayer is [enter] to restart
8338 the current video. It is very nice when playing short videos from the
8339 web and want to restart it when new people arrive to have a look at
8340 what is going on.
</p>
8346 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>.
8351 <div class=
"padding"></div>
8355 <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>
8361 <p>Michael Biebl suggested to me on IRC, that I changed my automated
8362 upgrade testing of the
8363 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
8364 Gnome and KDE Desktop
</a> to do
<tt>apt-get autoremove
</tt> when using apt-get.
8365 This seem like a very good idea, so I adjusted by test scripts and
8366 can now present the updated result from today:
</p>
8368 <p>This is for Gnome:
</p>
8370 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude
</p>
8377 browser-plugin-gnash
8384 freedesktop-sound-theme
8386 gconf-defaults-service
8401 gnome-desktop-environment
8405 gnome-session-canberra
8410 gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
8416 libapache2-mod-dnssd
8419 libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3
8422 libboost-date-time1.42
.0
8423 libboost-python1.42
.0
8424 libboost-thread1.42
.0
8426 libchamplain-gtk-
0.4-
0
8428 libclutter-gtk-
0.10-
0
8435 libfreerdp-plugins-standard
8450 libgnomepanel2.24-cil
8455 libgtksourceview2.0-common
8456 libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
8457 libmono-addins0.2-cil
8458 libmono-cairo2.0-cil
8459 libmono-corlib2.0-cil
8460 libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil
8461 libmono-posix2.0-cil
8462 libmono-security2.0-cil
8463 libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
8464 libmono-system2.0-cil
8467 libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil
8468 libndesk-dbus1.0-cil
8478 libtelepathy-farsight0
8487 nautilus-sendto-empathy
8491 python-aptdaemon-gtk
8493 python-beautifulsoup
8508 python-gtksourceview2
8519 python-pkg-resources
8526 python-twisted-conch
8532 python-zope.interface
8537 rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
8544 system-config-printer-udev
8546 telepathy-mission-control-
5
8559 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude
</p>
8567 fast-user-switch-applet
8586 libgtksourceview2.0-
0
8588 libsdl1.2debian-alsa
8594 system-config-printer
8601 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get
</p>
8604 gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
8607 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get
</p>
8613 <p>This is for KDE:
</p>
8615 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude
</p>
8621 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude
</p>
8628 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get
</p>
8644 kdeartwork-emoticons
8646 kdeartwork-theme-icon
8650 kdebase-workspace-bin
8651 kdebase-workspace-data
8665 kscreensaver-xsavers
8680 plasma-dataengines-workspace
8682 plasma-desktopthemes-artwork
8683 plasma-runners-addons
8684 plasma-scriptengine-googlegadgets
8685 plasma-scriptengine-python
8686 plasma-scriptengine-qedje
8687 plasma-scriptengine-ruby
8688 plasma-scriptengine-webkit
8689 plasma-scriptengines
8690 plasma-wallpapers-addons
8691 plasma-widget-folderview
8692 plasma-widget-networkmanagement
8696 xscreensaver-data-extra
8698 xscreensaver-gl-extra
8699 xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
8702 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get
</p>
8706 google-gadgets-common
8724 libggadget-qt-
1.0-
0b
8729 libkonqsidebarplugin4a
8738 libplasma-geolocation-interface4
8740 libplasmagenericshell4
8754 libsmokeknewstuff2-
3
8755 libsmokeknewstuff3-
3
8757 libsmokektexteditor3
8765 libsmokeqtnetwork4-
3
8771 libsmokeqtuitools4-
3
8783 plasma-dataengines-addons
8784 plasma-scriptengine-superkaramba
8785 plasma-widget-lancelot
8786 plasma-widgets-addons
8787 plasma-widgets-workspace
8791 update-notifier-common
8794 <p>Running apt-get autoremove made the results using apt-get and
8795 aptitude a bit more similar, but there are still quite a lott of
8796 differences. I have no idea what packages should be installed after
8797 the upgrade, but hope those that do can have a look.
</p>
8803 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>.
8808 <div class=
"padding"></div>
8812 <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>
8818 <p>Most of the computers in use by the
8819 <a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux project
</a>
8820 are virtual machines. And they have been Xen machines running on a
8821 fairly old IBM eserver xseries
345 machine, and we wanted to migrate
8822 them to KVM on a newer Dell PowerEdge
2950 host machine. This was a
8823 bit harder that it could have been, because we set up the Xen virtual
8824 machines to get the virtual partitions from LVM, which as far as I
8825 know is not supported by KVM. So to migrate, we had to convert
8826 several LVM logical volumes to partitions on a virtual disk file.
</p>
8829 <a href=
"http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM">a
8830 nice recipe
</a> to do this, and wrote the following script to do the
8831 migration. It uses qemu-img from the qemu package to make the disk
8832 image, parted to partition it, losetup and kpartx to present the disk
8833 image partions as devices, and dd to copy the data. I NFS mounted the
8834 new servers storage area on the old server to do the migration.
</p>
8840 # http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/
35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM
8845 if [ -z "$
1" ] ; then
8846 echo "Usage: $
0 <hostname
>"
8852 if [ ! -e /dev/vg_data/$host-disk ] ; then
8853 echo "error: unable to find LVM volume for $host"
8857 # Partitions need to be a bit bigger than the LVM LVs. not sure why.
8858 disksize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-disk | awk '{sum = sum + $
4} END { print int(sum *
1.05) }')
8859 swapsize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-swap | awk '{sum = sum + $
4} END { print int(sum *
1.05) }')
8860 totalsize=$(( ( $disksize + $swapsize ) ))
8863 #dd if=/dev/zero of=$img bs=
1M count=$(( $disksize + $swapsize ))
8864 qemu-img create $img ${totalsize}MMaking room on the Debian Edu/Sqeeze DVD
8866 parted $img mklabel msdos
8867 parted $img mkpart primary linux-swap
0 $disksize
8868 parted $img mkpart primary ext2 $disksize $totalsize
8869 parted $img set
1 boot on
8872 losetup /dev/loop0 $img
8873 kpartx -a /dev/loop0
8875 dd if=/dev/vg_data/$host-disk of=/dev/mapper/loop0p1 bs=
1M
8876 fsck.ext3 -f /dev/mapper/loop0p1 || true
8877 mkswap /dev/mapper/loop0p2
8879 kpartx -d /dev/loop0
8880 losetup -d /dev/loop0
8883 <p>The script is perhaps so simple that it is not copyrightable, but
8884 if it is, it is licenced using GPL v2 or later at your discretion.
</p>
8886 <p>After doing this, I booted a Debian CD in rescue mode in KVM with
8887 the new disk image attached, installed grub-pc and linux-image-
686 and
8888 set up grub to boot from the disk image. After this, the KVM machines
8889 seem to work just fine.
</p>
8895 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>.
8900 <div class=
"padding"></div>
8904 <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>
8910 <p>I'm still running upgrade testing of the
8911 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
8912 Gnome and KDE Desktop
</a>, but have not had time to spend on reporting the
8913 status. Here is a short update based on a test I ran
20101118.
</p>
8915 <p>I still do not know what a correct migration should look like, so I
8916 report any differences between apt and aptitude and hope someone else
8917 can see if anything should be changed.
</p>
8919 <p>This is for Gnome:
</p>
8921 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude
</p>
8924 apache2.2-bin aptdaemon at-spi baobab binfmt-support
8925 browser-plugin-gnash cheese-common cli-common cpp-
4.3 cups-pk-helper
8926 dmz-cursor-theme empathy empathy-common finger
8927 freedesktop-sound-theme freeglut3 gconf-defaults-service gdm-themes
8928 gedit-plugins geoclue geoclue-hostip geoclue-localnet geoclue-manual
8929 geoclue-yahoo gnash gnash-common gnome gnome-backgrounds
8930 gnome-cards-data gnome-codec-install gnome-core
8931 gnome-desktop-environment gnome-disk-utility gnome-screenshot
8932 gnome-search-tool gnome-session-canberra gnome-spell
8933 gnome-system-log gnome-themes-extras gnome-themes-more
8934 gnome-user-share gs-common gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
8935 gstreamer0.10-tools gtk2-engines gtk2-engines-pixbuf
8936 gtk2-engines-smooth hal-info hamster-applet libapache2-mod-dnssd
8937 libapr1 libaprutil1 libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3 libaprutil1-ldap
8938 libart2.0-cil libatspi1.0-
0 libboost-date-time1.42
.0
8939 libboost-python1.42
.0 libboost-thread1.42
.0 libchamplain-
0.4-
0
8940 libchamplain-gtk-
0.4-
0 libcheese-gtk18 libclutter-gtk-
0.10-
0
8941 libcryptui0 libcupsys2 libdiscid0 libeel2-data libelf1 libepc-
1.0-
2
8942 libepc-common libepc-ui-
1.0-
2 libfreerdp-plugins-standard
8943 libfreerdp0 libgail-common libgconf2.0-cil libgdata-common libgdata7
8944 libgdl-
1-common libgdu-gtk0 libgee2 libgeoclue0 libgexiv2-
0 libgif4
8945 libglade2.0-cil libglib2.0-cil libgmime2.4-cil libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
8946 libgnome2.24-cil libgnomepanel2.24-cil libgnomeprint2.2-data
8947 libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod-common libgpod4
8948 libgtk2.0-cil libgtkglext1 libgtksourceview-common
8949 libgtksourceview2.0-common libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
8950 libmono-addins0.2-cil libmono-cairo2.0-cil libmono-corlib2.0-cil
8951 libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil libmono-posix2.0-cil
8952 libmono-security2.0-cil libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
8953 libmono-system2.0-cil libmtp8 libmusicbrainz3-
6
8954 libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil libndesk-dbus1.0-cil libopal3.6
.8
8955 libpolkit-gtk-
1-
0 libpt-
1.10.10-plugins-alsa
8956 libpt-
1.10.10-plugins-v4l libpt2.6
.7 libpython2.6 librpm1 librpmio1
8957 libsdl1.2debian libservlet2.4-java libsrtp0 libssh-
4
8958 libtelepathy-farsight0 libtelepathy-glib0 libtidy-
0.99-
0
8959 libxalan2-java libxerces2-java media-player-info mesa-utils
8960 mono-
2.0-gac mono-gac mono-runtime nautilus-sendto
8961 nautilus-sendto-empathy openoffice.org-writer2latex
8962 openssl-blacklist p7zip p7zip-full pkg-config python-
4suite-xml
8963 python-aptdaemon python-aptdaemon-gtk python-axiom
8964 python-beautifulsoup python-bugbuddy python-clientform
8965 python-coherence python-configobj python-crypto python-cupshelpers
8966 python-cupsutils python-eggtrayicon python-elementtree
8967 python-epsilon python-evolution python-feedparser python-gdata
8968 python-gdbm python-gst0.10 python-gtkglext1 python-gtkmozembed
8969 python-gtksourceview2 python-httplib2 python-louie python-mako
8970 python-markupsafe python-mechanize python-nevow python-notify
8971 python-opengl python-openssl python-pam python-pkg-resources
8972 python-pyasn1 python-pysqlite2 python-rdflib python-serial
8973 python-tagpy python-twisted-bin python-twisted-conch
8974 python-twisted-core python-twisted-web python-utidylib python-webkit
8975 python-xdg python-zope.interface remmina remmina-plugin-data
8976 remmina-plugin-rdp remmina-plugin-vnc rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
8977 rhythmbox-plugins rpm-common rpm2cpio seahorse-plugins shotwell
8978 software-center svgalibg1 system-config-printer-udev
8979 telepathy-gabble telepathy-mission-control-
5 telepathy-salut tomboy
8980 totem totem-coherence totem-mozilla totem-plugins
8981 transmission-common xdg-user-dirs xdg-user-dirs-gtk xserver-xephyr
8985 Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude
8988 arj bluez-utils cheese dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop ekiga eog
8989 epiphany-extensions epiphany-gecko evolution-exchange
8990 fast-user-switch-applet file-roller gcalctool gconf-editor gdm gedit
8991 gedit-common gnome-app-install gnome-games gnome-games-data
8992 gnome-nettool gnome-system-tools gnome-themes gnome-utils
8993 gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager gnuchess gucharmap
8994 guile-
1.8-libs hal libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5
8995 libavahi-ui0 libbind9-
50 libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-
11 libcdio7
8996 libcucul0 libcurl3 libdirectfb-
1.0-
0 libdmx1 libdvdread3
8997 libedata-cal1.2-
6 libedataserver1.2-
9 libeel2-
2.20 libepc-
1.0-
1
8998 libepc-ui-
1.0-
1 libexchange-storage1.2-
3 libfaad0 libgadu3
8999 libgalago3 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-
3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
9000 libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-
0 libgksuui1.0-
1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-
2
9001 libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-
1 libgnomeprint2.2-
0
9002 libgnomeprintui2.2-
0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtk-vnc-
1.0-
0
9003 libgtkhtml2-
0 libgtksourceview1.0-
0 libgtksourceview2.0-
0
9004 libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
9005 libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libkpathsea4 liblircclient0 libltdl3 liblwres50
9006 libmagick++
10 libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmozjs1d libmpfr1ldbl libmtp7
9007 libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0
9008 libnm-util0 libopal-
2.2 libosp5 libparted1.8-
10 libpisock9
9009 libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-
1.10.10 libraw1394-
8
9010 libsdl1.2debian-alsa libsensors3 libsexy2 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-
8
9011 libspeexdsp1 libssh2-
1 libsuitesparse-
3.1.0 libsvga1
9012 libswfdec-
0.6-
90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0
9013 libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12
9014 libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common rhythmbox seahorse
9015 sound-juicer swfdec-gnome system-config-printer totem-common
9016 totem-gstreamer transmission-gtk vinagre vino w3c-dtd-xhtml wodim
9019 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get
</p>
9022 gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
9025 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get
</p>
9031 <p>This is for KDE:
</p>
9033 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude
</p>
9036 autopoint bomber bovo cantor cantor-backend-kalgebra cpp-
4.3 dcoprss
9037 edict espeak espeak-data eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
9038 ghostscript-x git gnome-audio gnugo granatier gs-common
9039 gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio indi kaddressbook-plugins kalgebra
9040 kalzium-data kanjidic kapman kate-plugins kblocks kbreakout kbstate
9041 kde-icons-mono kdeaccessibility kdeaddons-kfile-plugins
9042 kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
9043 kdeedu kdeedu-data kdeedu-kvtml-data kdegames kdegames-card-data
9044 kdegames-mahjongg-data kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc
9045 kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
9046 kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdessh kdetoys kdewebdev
9047 kdiamond kdnssd kfilereplace kfourinline kgeography-data kigo
9048 killbots kiriki klettres-data kmoon kmrml knewsticker-scripts
9049 kollision kpf krosspython ksirk ksmserver ksquares kstars-data
9050 ksudoku kubrick kweather libasound2-plugins libboost-python1.42
.0
9051 libcfitsio3 libconvert-binhex-perl libcrypt-ssleay-perl libdb4.6++
9052 libdjvulibre-text libdotconf1.0 liberror-perl libespeak1
9053 libfinance-quote-perl libgail-common libgsl0ldbl libhtml-parser-perl
9054 libhtml-tableextract-perl libhtml-tagset-perl libhtml-tree-perl
9055 libio-stringy-perl libkdeedu4 libkdegames5 libkiten4 libkpathsea5
9056 libkrossui4 libmailtools-perl libmime-tools-perl
9057 libnews-nntpclient-perl libopenbabel3 libportaudio2 libpulse-browse0
9058 libservlet2.4-java libspeechd2 libtiff-tools libtimedate-perl
9059 libunistring0 liburi-perl libwww-perl libxalan2-java libxerces2-java
9060 lirc luatex marble networkstatus noatun-plugins
9061 openoffice.org-writer2latex palapeli palapeli-data parley
9062 parley-data poster psutils pulseaudio pulseaudio-esound-compat
9063 pulseaudio-module-x11 pulseaudio-utils quanta-data rocs rsync
9064 speech-dispatcher step svgalibg1 texlive-binaries texlive-luatex
9068 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude
</p>
9071 amor artsbuilder atlantik atlantikdesigner blinken bluez-utils cvs
9072 dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop imlib-base imlib11 kalzium kanagram kandy
9073 kasteroids katomic kbackgammon kbattleship kblackbox kbounce kbruch
9074 kcron kdat kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data kdeprint kdict kdvi kedit
9075 keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs kgeography kghostview
9076 kgoldrunner khangman khexedit kiconedit kig kimagemapeditor
9077 kitchensync kiten kjumpingcube klatin klettres klickety klines
9078 klinkstatus kmag kmahjongg kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmines
9079 kmousetool kmouth kmplot knetwalk kodo kolf kommander konquest kooka
9080 kpager kpat kpdf kpercentage kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler krec
9081 kregexpeditor kreversi ksame ksayit kshisen ksig ksim ksirc ksirtet
9082 ksmiletris ksnake ksokoban kspaceduel kstars ksvg ksysv kteatime
9083 ktip ktnef ktouch ktron kttsd ktuberling kturtle ktux kuickshow
9084 kverbos kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kwordquiz
9085 kworldclock kxsldbg libakode2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
9086 libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
9087 libavahi-core5 libavc1394-
0 libbind9-
50 libbluetooth2
9088 libboost-python1.34
.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0
9089 libdirectfb-
1.0-
0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
9090 libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-
0 libicu38
9091 libiec61883-
0 libindex0 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
9092 libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1 libkdeedu3
9093 libkdegames1 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
9094 libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
9095 libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick10
9096 libmimelib1c2a libmodplug0c2 libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libmpfr1ldbl
9097 libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9 libpoppler-glib3
9098 libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-
8 librss1 libsensors3
9099 libsmbios2 libssh2-
1 libsuitesparse-
3.1.0 libswfdec-
0.6-
90
9100 libtalloc1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 lskat
9101 mpeglib network-manager-kde noatun pmount tex-common texlive-base
9102 texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended tidy
9103 ttf-dustin ttf-kochi-gothic ttf-sjfonts
9106 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get
</p>
9109 dolphin kde-core kde-plasma-desktop kde-standard kde-window-manager
9110 kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-apps kdebase-workspace
9111 kdebase-workspace-bin kdebase-workspace-data kdeutils kscreensaver
9112 kscreensaver-xsavers libgle3 libkonq5 libkonq5-templates libnetpbm10
9113 netpbm plasma-widget-folderview plasma-widget-networkmanagement
9114 xscreensaver-data-extra xscreensaver-gl xscreensaver-gl-extra
9115 xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
9118 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get
</p>
9121 kdebase-bin konq-plugins konqueror
9128 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>.
9133 <div class=
"padding"></div>
9137 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gnash_buildbot_slave_and_Debian_kfreebsd.html">Gnash buildbot slave and Debian kfreebsd
</a>
9144 <a href=
"http://www.listware.net/201011/gnash-dev/67431-gnash-dev-buildbot-looking-for-slaves.html">the
9145 call from the Gnash project
</a> for
9146 <a href=
"http://www.gnashdev.org:8010">buildbot
</a> slaves to test the
9147 current source, I have set up a virtual KVM machine on the Debian
9148 Edu/Skolelinux virtualization host to test the git source on
9149 Debian/Squeeze. I hope this can help the developers in getting new
9150 releases out more often.
</p>
9152 <p>As the developers want less main-stream build platforms tested to,
9153 I have considered setting up a
<a
9154 href=
"http://www.debian.org/ports/kfreebsd-gnu/">Debian/kfreebsd
</a>
9155 machine as well. I have also considered using the kfreebsd
9156 architecture in Debian as a file server in NUUG to get access to the
5
9157 TB zfs volume we currently use to store DV video. Because of this, I
9158 finally got around to do a test installation of Debian/Squeeze with
9159 kfreebsd. Installation went fairly smooth, thought I noticed some
9160 visual glitches in the cdebconf dialogs (black cursor left on the
9161 screen at random locations). Have not gotten very far with the
9162 testing. Noticed cfdisk did not work, but fdisk did so it was not a
9163 fatal problem. Have to spend some more time on it to see if it is
9164 useful as a file server for NUUG. Will try to find time to set up a
9165 gnash buildbot slave on the Debian Edu/Skolelinux this weekend.
</p>
9171 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>.
9176 <div class=
"padding"></div>
9180 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_in_3D.html">Debian in
3D
</a>
9186 <p><img src=
"http://thingiverse-production.s3.amazonaws.com/renders/23/e0/c4/f9/2b/debswagtdose_preview_medium.jpg"></p>
9188 <p>3D printing is just great. I just came across this Debian logo in
9190 <a href=
"http://blog.thingiverse.com/2010/11/09/participatory-branding/">the
9191 thingiverse blog
</a>.
</p>
9197 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>.
9202 <div class=
"padding"></div>
9206 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Software_updates_2010_10_24.html">Software updates
2010-
10-
24</a>
9212 <p>Some updates.
</p>
9214 <p>My
<a href=
"http://pledgebank.com/gnash-avm2">gnash pledge
</a> to
9215 raise money for the project is going well. The lower limit of
10
9216 signers was reached in
24 hours, and so far
13 people have signed it.
9217 More signers and more funding is most welcome, and I am really curious
9218 how far we can get before the time limit of December
24 is reached.
9221 <p>On the #gnash IRC channel on irc.freenode.net, I was just tipped
9222 about what appear to be a great code coverage tool capable of
9223 generating code coverage stats without any changes to the source code.
9225 <a href=
"http://simonkagstrom.github.com/kcov/index.html">kcov
</a>,
9226 and can be used using
<tt>kcov
<directory
> <binary
></tt>.
9227 It is missing in Debian, but the git source built just fine in Squeeze
9228 after I installed libelf-dev, libdwarf-dev, pkg-config and
9229 libglib2.0-dev. Failed to build in Lenny, but suspect that is
9230 solvable. I hope kcov make it into Debian soon.
</p>
9232 <p>Finally found time to wrap up the release notes for
<a
9233 href=
"http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2010/10/msg00002.html">a
9234 new alpha release of Debian Edu
</a>, and just published the second
9235 alpha test release of the Squeeze based Debian Edu /
9236 <a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux
</a>
9237 release. Give it a try if you need a complete linux solution for your
9238 school, including central infrastructure server, workstations, thin
9239 client servers and diskless workstations. A nice touch added
9240 yesterday is RDP support on the thin client servers, for windows
9241 clients to get a Linux desktop on request.
</p>
9247 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>.
9252 <div class=
"padding"></div>
9256 <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>
9262 <p>In the
<a href=
"http://popcon.debian.org/unknown/by_vote">Debian
9263 popularity-contest numbers
</a>, the adobe-flashplugin package the
9264 second most popular used package that is missing in Debian. The sixth
9265 most popular is flashplayer-mozilla. This is a clear indication that
9266 working flash is important for Debian users. Around
10 percent of the
9267 users submitting data to popcon.debian.org have this package
9270 <p>In the report written by Lars Risan in August
2008
9271 («
<a href=
"http://wiki.skolelinux.no/Dokumentasjon/Rapporter?action=AttachFile&do=view&target=Skolelinux_i_bruk_rapport_1.0.pdf">Skolelinux
9272 i bruk – Rapport for Hurum kommune, Universitetet i Agder og
9273 stiftelsen SLX Debian Labs
</a>»), one of the most important problems
9274 schools experienced with
<a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
9275 Edu/Skolelinux
</a> was the lack of working Flash. A lot of educational
9276 web sites require Flash to work, and lacking working Flash support in
9277 the web browser and the problems with installing it was perceived as a
9278 good reason to stay with Windows.
</p>
9280 <p>I once saw a funny and sad comment in a web forum, where Linux was
9281 said to be the retarded cousin that did not really understand
9282 everything you told him but could work fairly well. This was a
9283 comment regarding the problems Linux have with proprietary formats and
9284 non-standard web pages, and is sad because it exposes a fairly common
9285 understanding of whose fault it is if web pages that only work in for
9286 example Internet Explorer
6 fail to work on Firefox, and funny because
9287 it explain very well how annoying it is for users when Linux
9288 distributions do not work with the documents they receive or the web
9289 pages they want to visit.
</p>
9291 <p>This is part of the reason why I believe it is important for Debian
9292 and Debian Edu to have a well working Flash implementation in the
9293 distribution, to get at least popular sites as Youtube and Google
9294 Video to working out of the box. For Squeeze, Debian have the chance
9295 to include the latest version of Gnash that will make this happen, as
9296 the new release
0.8.8 was published a few weeks ago and is resting in
9297 unstable. The new version work with more sites that version
0.8.7.
9298 The Gnash maintainers have asked for a freeze exception, but the
9299 release team have not had time to reply to it yet. I hope they agree
9300 with me that Flash is important for the Debian desktop users, and thus
9301 accept the new package into Squeeze.
</p>
9307 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>.
9312 <div class=
"padding"></div>
9316 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Circular_package_dependencies_harms_apt_recovery.html">Circular package dependencies harms apt recovery
</a>
9322 <p>I discovered this while doing
9323 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">automated
9324 testing of upgrades from Debian Lenny to Squeeze
</a>. A few packages
9325 in Debian still got circular dependencies, and it is often claimed
9326 that apt and aptitude should be able to handle this just fine, but
9327 some times these dependency loops causes apt to fail.
</p>
9329 <p>An example is from todays
9330 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing//test-20100727-lenny-squeeze-kde-aptitude.txt">upgrade
9331 of KDE using aptitude
</a>. In it, a bug in kdebase-workspace-data
9332 causes perl-modules to fail to upgrade. The cause is simple. If a
9333 package fail to unpack, then only part of packages with the circular
9334 dependency might end up being unpacked when unpacking aborts, and the
9335 ones already unpacked will fail to configure in the recovery phase
9336 because its dependencies are unavailable.
</p>
9338 <p>In this log, the problem manifest itself with this error:
</p>
9341 dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of perl-modules:
9342 perl-modules depends on perl (
>=
5.10.1-
1); however:
9343 Version of perl on system is
5.10.0-
19lenny
2.
9344 dpkg: error processing perl-modules (--configure):
9345 dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
9348 <p>The perl/perl-modules circular dependency is already
9349 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/527917">reported as a bug
</a>, and will
9350 hopefully be solved as soon as possible, but it is not the only one,
9351 and each one of these loops in the dependency tree can cause similar
9352 failures. Of course, they only occur when there are bugs in other
9353 packages causing the unpacking to fail, but it is rather nasty when
9354 the failure of one package causes the problem to become worse because
9355 of dependency loops.
</p>
9358 <a href=
"http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/06/msg00116.html">the
9359 tireless effort by Bill Allombert
</a>, the number of circular
9361 <a href=
"http://debian.semistable.com/debgraph.out.html">left in Debian
9362 is dropping
</a>, and perhaps it will reach zero one day. :)
</p>
9364 <p>Todays testing also exposed a bug in
9365 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/590605">update-notifier
</a> and
9366 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/590604">different behaviour
</a> between
9367 apt-get and aptitude, the latter possibly caused by some circular
9368 dependency. Reported both to BTS to try to get someone to look at
9375 Tags:
<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>.
9380 <div class=
"padding"></div>
9384 <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>
9391 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">followup
</a>
9393 <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
9395 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">merging
9396 all
</a> the computer related LDAP objects in Debian Edu.
</p>
9398 <p>As a step to try to see if it possible to merge the DNS and DHCP
9399 LDAP objects, I have had a look at how the packages pdns-backend-ldap
9400 and dhcp3-server-ldap in Debian use the LDAP server. The two
9401 implementations are quite different in how they use LDAP.
</p>
9403 To get this information, I started slapd with debugging enabled and
9404 dumped the debug output to a file to get the LDAP searches performed
9405 on a Debian Edu main-server. Here is a summary.
9407 <p><strong>powerdns
</strong></p>
9409 <a href=
"http://www.linuxnetworks.de/doc/index.php/PowerDNS_LDAP_Backend">Clues
9410 on how to
</a> set up PowerDNS to use a LDAP backend is available on
9413 <p>PowerDNS have two modes of operation using LDAP as its backend.
9414 One "strict" mode where the forward and reverse DNS lookups are done
9415 using the same LDAP objects, and a "tree" mode where the forward and
9416 reverse entries are in two different subtrees in LDAP with a structure
9417 based on the DNS names, as in tjener.intern and
9418 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa.
</p>
9420 <p>In tree mode, the server is set up to use a LDAP subtree as its
9421 base, and uses a "base" scoped search for the DNS name by adding
9422 "dc=tjener,dc=intern," to the base with a filter for
9423 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" for the forward entry and
9424 "dc=
2,dc=
2,dc=
0,dc=
10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa," with a filter for
9425 "(associateddomain=
2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)" for the reverse entry. For
9426 forward entries, it is looking for attributes named dnsttl, arecord,
9427 nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord,
9428 txtrecord, rprecord, afsdbrecord, keyrecord, aaaarecord, locrecord,
9429 srvrecord, naptrrecord, kxrecord, certrecord, dsrecord, sshfprecord,
9430 ipseckeyrecord, rrsigrecord, nsecrecord, dnskeyrecord, dhcidrecord,
9431 spfrecord and modifytimestamp. For reverse entries it is looking for
9432 the attributes dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord,
9433 ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord,
9434 locrecord, srvrecord, naptrrecord and modifytimestamp. The equivalent
9435 ldapsearch commands could look like this:
</p>
9438 ldapsearch -h ldap \
9439 -b dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
9440 -s base -x '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
9441 cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
9442 rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
9443 nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
9444 rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
9446 ldapsearch -h ldap \
9447 -b dc=
2,dc=
2,dc=
0,dc=
10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
9448 -s base -x '(associateddomain=
2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)'
9449 dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord soarecord ptrrecord \
9450 hinforecord mxrecord txtrecord rprecord aaaarecord locrecord \
9451 srvrecord naptrrecord modifytimestamp
9454 <p>In Debian Edu/Lenny, the PowerDNS tree mode is used with
9455 ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no as the base, and these are two
9456 example LDAP objects used there. In addition to these objects, the
9457 parent objects all th way up to ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
9461 dn: dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
9463 objectclass: dnsdomain
9464 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
9467 associateddomain: tjener.intern
9469 dn: dc=
2,dc=
2,dc=
0,dc=
10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
9471 objectclass: dnsdomain2
9472 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
9474 ptrrecord: tjener.intern
9475 associateddomain:
2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa
9478 <p>In strict mode, the server behaves differently. When looking for
9479 forward DNS entries, it is doing a "subtree" scoped search with the
9480 same base as in the tree mode for a object with filter
9481 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" and requests the attributes dnsttl,
9482 arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord,
9483 mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord, locrecord, srvrecord,
9484 naptrrecord and modifytimestamp. For reverse entires it also do a
9485 subtree scoped search but this time the filter is "(arecord=
10.0.2.2)"
9486 and the requested attributes are associateddomain, dnsttl and
9487 modifytimestamp. In short, in strict mode the objects with ptrrecord
9488 go away, and the arecord attribute in the forward object is used
9491 <p>The forward and reverse searches can be simulated using ldapsearch
9495 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
9496 '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
9497 cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
9498 rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
9499 nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
9500 rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
9502 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
9503 '(arecord=
10.0.2.2)' associateddomain dnsttl modifytimestamp
9506 <p>In addition to the forward and reverse searches , there is also a
9507 search for SOA records, which behave similar to the forward and
9508 reverse lookups.
</p>
9510 <p>A thing to note with the PowerDNS behaviour is that it do not
9511 specify any objectclass names, and instead look for the attributes it
9512 need to generate a DNS reply. This make it able to work with any
9513 objectclass that provide the needed attributes.
</p>
9515 <p>The attributes are normally provided in the cosine (RFC
1274) and
9516 dnsdomain2 schemas. The latter is used for reverse entries like
9517 ptrrecord and recent DNS additions like aaaarecord and srvrecord.
</p>
9519 <p>In Debian Edu, we have created DNS objects using the object classes
9520 dcobject (for dc), dnsdomain or dnsdomain2 (structural, for the DNS
9521 attributes) and domainrelatedobject (for associatedDomain). The use
9522 of structural object classes make it impossible to combine these
9523 classes with the object classes used by DHCP.
</p>
9525 <p>There are other schemas that could be used too, for example the
9526 dnszone structural object class used by Gosa and bind-sdb for the DNS
9527 attributes combined with the domainrelatedobject object class, but in
9528 this case some unused attributes would have to be included as well
9529 (zonename and relativedomainname).
</p>
9531 <p>My proposal for Debian Edu would be to switch PowerDNS to strict
9532 mode and not use any of the existing objectclasses (dnsdomain,
9533 dnsdomain2 and dnszone) when one want to combine the DNS information
9534 with DHCP information, and instead create a auxiliary object class
9535 defined something like this (using the attributes defined for
9536 dnsdomain and dnsdomain2 or dnszone):
</p>
9539 objectclass ( some-oid NAME 'dnsDomainAux'
9542 MAY ( ARecord $ MDRecord $ MXRecord $ NSRecord $ SOARecord $ CNAMERecord $
9543 DNSTTL $ DNSClass $ PTRRecord $ HINFORecord $ MINFORecord $
9544 TXTRecord $ SIGRecord $ KEYRecord $ AAAARecord $ LOCRecord $
9545 NXTRecord $ SRVRecord $ NAPTRRecord $ KXRecord $ CERTRecord $
9546 A6Record $ DNAMERecord
9550 <p>This will allow any object to become a DNS entry when combined with
9551 the domainrelatedobject object class, and allow any entity to include
9552 all the attributes PowerDNS wants. I've sent an email to the PowerDNS
9553 developers asking for their view on this schema and if they are
9554 interested in providing such schema with PowerDNS, and I hope my
9555 message will be accepted into their mailing list soon.
</p>
9557 <p><strong>ISC dhcp
</strong></p>
9559 <p>The DHCP server searches for specific objectclass and requests all
9560 the object attributes, and then uses the attributes it want. This
9561 make it harder to figure out exactly what attributes are used, but
9562 thanks to the working example in Debian Edu I can at least get an idea
9563 what is needed without having to read the source code.
</p>
9565 <p>In the DHCP server configuration, the LDAP base to use and the
9566 search filter to use to locate the correct dhcpServer entity is
9567 stored. These are the relevant entries from
9568 /etc/dhcp3/dhcpd.conf:
</p>
9571 ldap-base-dn "dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no";
9572 ldap-dhcp-server-cn "dhcp";
9575 <p>The DHCP server uses this information to nest all the DHCP
9576 configuration it need. The cn "dhcp" is located using the given LDAP
9577 base and the filter "(&(objectClass=dhcpServer)(cn=dhcp))". The
9578 search result is this entry:
</p>
9581 dn: cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
9584 objectClass: dhcpServer
9585 dhcpServiceDN: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
9588 <p>The content of the dhcpServiceDN attribute is next used to locate the
9589 subtree with DHCP configuration. The DHCP configuration subtree base
9590 is located using a base scope search with base "cn=DHCP
9591 Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" and filter
9592 "(&(objectClass=dhcpService)(|(dhcpPrimaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)(dhcpSecondaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)))".
9593 The search result is this entry:
</p>
9596 dn: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
9599 objectClass: dhcpService
9600 objectClass: dhcpOptions
9601 dhcpPrimaryDN: cn=dhcp, dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
9602 dhcpStatements: ddns-update-style none
9603 dhcpStatements: authoritative
9604 dhcpOption: smtp-server code
69 = array of ip-address
9605 dhcpOption: www-server code
72 = array of ip-address
9606 dhcpOption: wpad-url code
252 = text
9609 <p>Next, the entire subtree is processed, one level at the time. When
9610 all the DHCP configuration is loaded, it is ready to receive requests.
9611 The subtree in Debian Edu contain objects with object classes
9612 top/dhcpService/dhcpOptions, top/dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions,
9613 top/dhcpSubnet, top/dhcpGroup and top/dhcpHost. These provide options
9614 and information about netmasks, dynamic range etc. Leaving out the
9615 details here because it is not relevant for the focus of my
9616 investigation, which is to see if it is possible to merge dns and dhcp
9617 related computer objects.
</p>
9619 <p>When a DHCP request come in, LDAP is searched for the MAC address
9620 of the client (
00:
00:
00:
00:
00:
00 in this example), using a subtree
9621 scoped search with "cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" as
9622 the base and "(&(objectClass=dhcpHost)(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet
9623 00:
00:
00:
00:
00:
00))" as the filter. This is what a host object look
9627 dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
9630 objectClass: dhcpHost
9631 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet
00:
00:
00:
00:
00:
00
9632 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname
9635 <p>There is less flexiblity in the way LDAP searches are done here.
9636 The object classes need to have fixed names, and the configuration
9637 need to be stored in a fairly specific LDAP structure. On the
9638 positive side, the invidiual dhcpHost entires can be anywhere without
9639 the DN pointed to by the dhcpServer entries. The latter should make
9640 it possible to group all host entries in a subtree next to the
9641 configuration entries, and this subtree can also be shared with the
9642 DNS server if the schema proposed above is combined with the dhcpHost
9643 structural object class.
9645 <p><strong>Conclusion
</strong></p>
9647 <p>The PowerDNS implementation seem to be very flexible when it come
9648 to which LDAP schemas to use. While its "tree" mode is rigid when it
9649 come to the the LDAP structure, the "strict" mode is very flexible,
9650 allowing DNS objects to be stored anywhere under the base cn specified
9651 in the configuration.
</p>
9653 <p>The DHCP implementation on the other hand is very inflexible, both
9654 regarding which LDAP schemas to use and which LDAP structure to use.
9655 I guess one could implement ones own schema, as long as the
9656 objectclasses and attributes have the names used, but this do not
9657 really help when the DHCP subtree need to have a fairly fixed
9660 <p>Based on the observed behaviour, I suspect a LDAP structure like
9661 this might work for Debian Edu:
</p>
9665 cn=machine-info (dhcpService) - dhcpServiceDN points here
9666 cn=dhcp (dhcpServer)
9667 cn=dhcp-internal (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
9668 cn=
10.0.2.0 (dhcpSubnet)
9669 cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
9670 cn=dhcp-thinclients (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
9671 cn=
192.168.0.0 (dhcpSubnet)
9672 cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
9673 ou=machines - PowerDNS base points here
9674 cn=hostname (dhcpHost/domainrelatedobject/dnsDomainAux)
9677 <P>This is not tested yet. If the DHCP server require the dhcpHost
9678 entries to be in the dhcpGroup subtrees, the entries can be stored
9679 there instead of a common machines subtree, and the PowerDNS base
9680 would have to be moved one level up to the machine-info subtree.
</p>
9682 <p>The combined object under the machines subtree would look something
9686 dn: dc=hostname,ou=machines,cn=machine-info,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
9689 objectClass: dhcpHost
9690 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
9691 objectclass: dnsDomainAux
9692 associateddomain: hostname.intern
9693 arecord:
10.11.12.13
9694 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet
00:
00:
00:
00:
00:
00
9695 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname.intern
9698 </p>One could even add the LTSP configuration associated with a given
9699 machine, as long as the required attributes are available in a
9700 auxiliary object class.
</p>
9706 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>.
9711 <div class=
"padding"></div>
9715 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">Combining PowerDNS and ISC DHCP LDAP objects
</a>
9721 <p>For a while now, I have wanted to find a way to change the DNS and
9722 DHCP services in Debian Edu to use the same LDAP objects for a given
9723 computer, to avoid the possibility of having a inconsistent state for
9724 a computer in LDAP (as in DHCP but no DNS entry or the other way
9725 around) and make it easier to add computers to LDAP.
</p>
9727 <p>I've looked at how powerdns and dhcpd is using LDAP, and using this
9728 information finally found a solution that seem to work.
</p>
9730 <p>The old setup required three LDAP objects for a given computer.
9731 One forward DNS entry, one reverse DNS entry and one DHCP entry. If
9732 we switch powerdns to use its strict LDAP method (ldap-method=strict
9733 in pdns-debian-edu.conf), the forward and reverse DNS entries are
9734 merged into one while making it impossible to transfer the reverse map
9735 to a slave DNS server.
</p>
9737 <p>If we also replace the object class used to get the DNS related
9738 attributes to one allowing these attributes to be combined with the
9739 dhcphost object class, we can merge the DNS and DHCP entries into one.
9740 I've written such object class in the dnsdomainaux.schema file (need
9741 proper OIDs, but that is a minor issue), and tested the setup. It
9744 <p>With this test setup in place, we can get away with one LDAP object
9745 for both DNS and DHCP, and even the LTSP configuration I suggested in
9746 an earlier email. The combined LDAP object will look something like
9750 dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
9752 objectClass: dhcphost
9753 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
9754 objectclass: dnsdomainaux
9755 associateddomain: hostname.intern
9756 arecord:
10.11.12.13
9757 dhcphwaddress: ethernet
00:
00:
00:
00:
00:
00
9758 dhcpstatements: fixed-address hostname
9762 <p>The DNS server uses the associateddomain and arecord entries, while
9763 the DHCP server uses the dhcphwaddress and dhcpstatements entries
9764 before asking DNS to resolve the fixed-adddress. LTSP will use
9765 dhcphwaddress or associateddomain and the ldapconfig* attributes.
</p>
9767 <p>I am not yet sure if I can get the DHCP server to look for its
9768 dhcphost in a different location, to allow us to put the objects
9769 outside the "DHCP Config" subtree, but hope to figure out a way to do
9770 that. If I can't figure out a way to do that, we can still get rid of
9771 the hosts subtree and move all its content into the DHCP Config tree
9772 (which probably should be renamed to be more related to the new
9773 content. I suspect cn=dnsdhcp,ou=services or something like that
9774 might be a good place to put it.
</p>
9776 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
9777 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.
</p>
9783 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>.
9788 <div class=
"padding"></div>
9792 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Idea_for_storing_LTSP_configuration_in_LDAP.html">Idea for storing LTSP configuration in LDAP
</a>
9798 <p>Vagrant mentioned on IRC today that ltsp_config now support
9799 sourcing files from /usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ on the thin
9800 clients, and that this can be used to fetch configuration from LDAP if
9801 Debian Edu choose to store configuration there.
</p>
9803 <p>Armed with this information, I got inspired and wrote a test module
9804 to get configuration from LDAP. The idea is to look up the MAC
9805 address of the client in LDAP, and look for attributes on the form
9806 ltspconfigsetting=value, and use this to export SETTING=value to the
9809 <p>The goal is to be able to store the LTSP configuration attributes
9810 in a "computer" LDAP object used by both DNS and DHCP, and thus
9811 allowing us to store all information about a computer in one place.
</p>
9813 <p>This is a untested draft implementation, and I welcome feedback on
9814 this approach. A real LDAP schema for the ltspClientAux objectclass
9815 need to be written. Comments, suggestions, etc?
</p>
9818 # Store in /opt/ltsp/$arch/usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ldap-config
9820 # Fetch LTSP client settings from LDAP based on MAC address
9822 # Uses ethernet address as stored in the dhcpHost objectclass using
9823 # the dhcpHWAddress attribute or ethernet address stored in the
9824 # ieee802Device objectclass with the macAddress attribute.
9826 # This module is written to be schema agnostic, and only depend on the
9827 # existence of attribute names.
9829 # The LTSP configuration variables are saved directly using a
9830 # ltspConfig prefix and uppercasing the rest of the attribute name.
9831 # To set the SERVER variable, set the ltspConfigServer attribute.
9833 # Some LDAP schema should be created with all the relevant
9834 # configuration settings. Something like this should work:
9836 # objectclass (
1.1.2.2 NAME 'ltspClientAux'
9839 # MAY ( ltspConfigServer $ ltsConfigSound $ ... )
9841 LDAPSERVER=$(debian-edu-ldapserver)
9842 if [ "$LDAPSERVER" ] ; then
9843 LDAPBASE=$(debian-edu-ldapserver -b)
9844 for MAC in $(LANG=C ifconfig |grep -i hwaddr| awk '{print $
5}'|sort -u) ; do
9845 filter="(|(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet $MAC)(macAddress=$MAC))"
9846 ldapsearch -h "$LDAPSERVER" -b "$LDAPBASE" -v -x "$filter" | \
9847 grep '^ltspConfig' | while read attr value ; do
9848 # Remove prefix and convert to upper case
9849 attr=$(echo $attr | sed 's/^ltspConfig//i' | tr a-z A-Z)
9850 # bass value on to clients
9851 eval "$attr=$value; export $attr"
9857 <p>I'm not sure this shell construction will work, because I suspect
9858 the while block might end up in a subshell causing the variables set
9859 there to not show up in ltsp-config, but if that is the case I am sure
9860 the code can be restructured to make sure the variables are passed on.
9861 I expect that can be solved with some testing. :)
</p>
9863 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
9864 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.
</p>
9866 <p>Update
2010-
07-
17: I am aware of another effort to store LTSP
9867 configuration in LDAP that was created around year
2000 by
9868 <a href=
"http://www.pcxperience.com/thinclient/documentation/ldap.html">PC
9869 Xperience, Inc.,
2000</a>. I found its
9870 <a href=
"http://people.redhat.com/alikins/ltsp/ldap/">files
</a> on a
9871 personal home page over at redhat.com.
</p>
9877 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>.
9882 <div class=
"padding"></div>
9886 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/jXplorer__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">jXplorer, a very nice LDAP GUI
</a>
9893 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">my
9894 last post
</a> about available LDAP tools in Debian, I was told about a
9895 LDAP GUI that is even better than luma. The java application
9896 <a href=
"http://jxplorer.org/">jXplorer
</a> is claimed to be capable of
9897 moving LDAP objects and subtrees using drag-and-drop, and can
9898 authenticate using Kerberos. I have only tested the Kerberos
9899 authentication, but do not have a LDAP setup allowing me to rewrite
9900 LDAP with my test user yet. It is
9901 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/j/jxplorer.html">available in
9902 Debian
</a> testing and unstable at the moment. The only problem I
9903 have with it is how it handle errors. If something go wrong, its
9904 non-intuitive behaviour require me to go through some query work list
9905 and remove the failing query. Nothing big, but very annoying.
</p>
9911 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>.
9916 <div class=
"padding"></div>
9920 <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>
9926 <p>Here is a short update on my
<a
9927 href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">my
9928 Debian Lenny-
>Squeeze upgrade testing
</a>. Here is a summary of the
9929 difference for Gnome when it is upgraded by apt-get and aptitude. I'm
9930 not reporting the status for KDE, because the upgrade crashes when
9931 aptitude try because of missing conflicts
9932 (
<a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#
584861</a> and
9933 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/585716">#
585716</a>).
</p>
9935 <p>At the end of the upgrade test script, dpkg -l is executed to get a
9936 complete list of the installed packages. Based on this I see these
9937 differences when I did a test run today. As usual, I do not really
9938 know what the correct set of packages would be, but thought it best to
9939 publish the difference.
</p>
9941 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude
</p>
9944 at-spi cpp-
4.3 finger gnome-spell gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
9945 libatspi1.0-
0 libcupsys2 libeel2-data libgail-common libgdl-
1-common
9946 libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin
9947 libgtksourceview-common libpt-
1.10.10-plugins-alsa
9948 libpt-
1.10.10-plugins-v4l libservlet2.4-java libxalan2-java
9949 libxerces2-java openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
9950 python-
4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gtkhtml2
9951 python-gtkmozembed svgalibg1 xserver-xephyr zip
9954 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude
</p>
9957 bluez-utils dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop epiphany-gecko
9958 gnome-app-install gnome-mount gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager
9959 libao2 libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libbind9-
50
9960 libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-
11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcurl3
9961 libdirectfb-
1.0-
0 libdvdread3 libedata-cal1.2-
6 libedataserver1.2-
9
9962 libeel2-
2.20 libepc-
1.0-
1 libepc-ui-
1.0-
1 libexchange-storage1.2-
3
9963 libfaad0 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-
3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
9964 libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-
0 libgksuui1.0-
1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-
2
9965 libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-
1 libgnomeprint2.2-
0
9966 libgnomeprintui2.2-
0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-
0
9967 libgtksourceview1.0-
0 libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50
9968 libisccfg50 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick++
10
9969 libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4
9970 libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-
2.2 libosp5
9971 libparted1.8-
10 libpisock9 libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3
9972 libpt-
1.10.10 libraw1394-
8 libsensors3 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-
8
9973 libssh2-
1 libsuitesparse-
3.1.0 libswfdec-
0.6-
90 libtalloc1
9974 libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0 libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj
9975 libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3
9976 mysql-common swfdec-gnome totem-gstreamer wodim
9979 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get
</p>
9982 gnome gnome-desktop-environment hamster-applet python-gnomeapplet
9983 python-gnomekeyring python-wnck rhythmbox-plugins xorg
9984 xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
9985 xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
9986 xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-video-all
9987 xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark xserver-xorg-video-ati
9988 xserver-xorg-video-chips xserver-xorg-video-cirrus
9989 xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
9990 xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
9991 xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-mach64
9992 xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
9993 xserver-xorg-video-nouveau xserver-xorg-video-nv
9994 xserver-xorg-video-r128 xserver-xorg-video-radeon
9995 xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd xserver-xorg-video-rendition
9996 xserver-xorg-video-s3 xserver-xorg-video-s3virge
9997 xserver-xorg-video-savage xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion
9998 xserver-xorg-video-sis xserver-xorg-video-sisusb
9999 xserver-xorg-video-tdfx xserver-xorg-video-tga
10000 xserver-xorg-video-trident xserver-xorg-video-tseng
10001 xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vmware
10002 xserver-xorg-video-voodoo
10005 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get
</p>
10008 deskbar-applet xserver-xorg xserver-xorg-core
10009 xserver-xorg-input-wacom xserver-xorg-video-intel
10010 xserver-xorg-video-openchrome
10013 <p>I was told on IRC that the xorg-xserver package was
10014 <a href=
"http://git.debian.org/?p=pkg-xorg/xserver/xorg-server.git;a=commit;h=9c8080d06c457932d3bfec021c69ac000aa60120">changed
10015 in git
</a> today to try to get apt-get to not remove xorg completely.
10016 No idea when it hits Squeeze, but when it does I hope it will reduce
10017 the difference somewhat.
10023 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>.
10028 <div class=
"padding"></div>
10030 <div class=
"entry">
10031 <div class=
"title">
10032 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">LUMA, a very nice LDAP GUI
</a>
10038 <p>The last few days I have been looking into the status of the LDAP
10039 directory in Debian Edu, and in the process I started to miss a GUI
10040 tool to browse the LDAP tree. The only one I was able to find in
10041 Debian/Squeeze and Lenny is
10042 <a href=
"http://luma.sourceforge.net/">LUMA
</a>, which has proved to
10043 be a great tool to get a overview of the current LDAP directory
10044 populated by default in Skolelinux. Thanks to it, I have been able to
10045 find empty and obsolete subtrees, misplaced objects and duplicate
10046 objects. It will be installed by default in Debian/Squeeze. If you
10047 are working with LDAP, give it a go. :)
</p>
10049 <p>I did notice one problem with it I have not had time to report to
10050 the BTS yet. There is no .desktop file in the package, so the tool do
10051 not show up in the Gnome and KDE menus, but only deep down in in the
10052 Debian submenu in KDE. I hope that can be fixed before Squeeze is
10055 <p>I have not yet been able to get it to modify the tree yet. I would
10056 like to move objects and remove subtrees directly in the GUI, but have
10057 not found a way to do that with LUMA yet. So in the mean time, I use
10058 <a href=
"http://www.lichteblau.com/ldapvi/">ldapvi
</a> for that.
</p>
10060 <p>If you have tips on other GUI tools for LDAP that might be useful
10061 in Debian Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.
</p>
10063 <p>Update
2010-
06-
29: Ross Reedstrom tipped us about the
10064 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/g/gq.html">gq
</a> package as a
10065 useful GUI alternative. It seem like a good tool, but is unmaintained
10066 in Debian and got a RC bug keeping it out of Squeeze. Unless that
10067 changes, it will not be an option for Debian Edu based on Squeeze.
</p>
10073 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>.
10078 <div class=
"padding"></div>
10080 <div class=
"entry">
10081 <div class=
"title">
10082 <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>
10089 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">complained
10090 about the fact
</a> that it is not possible with the provided schemas
10091 for storing DNS and DHCP information in LDAP to combine the two sets
10092 of information into one LDAP object representing a computer.
</p>
10094 <p>In the mean time, I discovered that a simple fix would be to make
10095 the dhcpHost object class auxiliary, to allow it to be combined with
10096 the dNSDomain object class, and thus forming one object for one
10097 computer when storing both DHCP and DNS information in LDAP.
</p>
10099 <p>If I understand this correctly, it is not safe to do this change
10100 without also changing the assigned number for the object class, and I
10101 do not know enough about LDAP schema design to do that properly for
10104 <p>Anyway, for future reference, this is how I believe we could change
10106 <a href=
"http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-dhc-ldap-schema-00">DHCP
10107 schema
</a> to solve at least part of the problem with the LDAP schemas
10108 available today from IETF.
</p>
10111 --- dhcp.schema (revision
65192)
10112 +++ dhcp.schema (working copy)
10113 @@ -
376,
7 +
376,
7 @@
10114 objectclass (
2.16.840.1.113719.1.203.6.6
10116 DESC 'This represents information about a particular client'
10118 + SUP top AUXILIARY
10120 MAY (dhcpLeaseDN $ dhcpHWAddress $ dhcpOptionsDN $ dhcpStatements $ dhcpComments $ dhcpOption)
10121 X-NDS_CONTAINMENT ('dhcpService' 'dhcpSubnet' 'dhcpGroup') )
10124 <p>I very much welcome clues on how to do this properly for Debian
10125 Edu/Squeeze. We provide the DHCP schema in our debian-edu-config
10126 package, and should thus be free to rewrite it as we see fit.
</p>
10128 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
10129 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.
</p>
10135 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>.
10140 <div class=
"padding"></div>
10142 <div class=
"entry">
10143 <div class=
"title">
10144 <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>
10150 <p>A few times I have had the need to simulate the way tasksel
10151 installs packages during the normal debian-installer run. Until now,
10152 I have ended up letting tasksel do the work, with the annoying problem
10153 of not getting any feedback at all when something fails (like a
10154 conffile question from dpkg or a download that fails), using code like
10158 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
10159 tasksel --new-install
10160 </pre></blockquote>
10162 This would invoke tasksel, let its automatic task selection pick the
10163 tasks to install, and continue to install the requested tasks without
10164 any output what so ever.
10166 Recently I revisited this problem while working on the automatic
10167 package upgrade testing, because tasksel would some times hang without
10168 any useful feedback, and I want to see what is going on when it
10169 happen. Then it occured to me, I can parse the output from tasksel
10170 when asked to run in test mode, and use that aptitude command line
10171 printed by tasksel then to simulate the tasksel run. I ended up using
10175 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
10176 cmd="$(in_target tasksel -t --new-install | sed 's/debconf-apt-progress -- //')"
10178 </pre></blockquote>
10180 <p>The content of $cmd is typically something like "
<tt>aptitude -q
10181 --without-recommends -o APT::Install-Recommends=no -y install
10182 ~t^desktop$ ~t^gnome-desktop$ ~t^laptop$ ~pstandard ~prequired
10183 ~pimportant
</tt>", which will install the gnome desktop task, the
10184 laptop task and all packages with priority standard , required and
10185 important, just like tasksel would have done it during
10188 <p>A better approach is probably to extend tasksel to be able to
10189 install packages without using debconf-apt-progress, for use cases
10196 Tags: <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>.
10201 <div class="padding
"></div>
10203 <div class="entry
">
10204 <div class="title
">
10205 <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>
10212 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html
">testing
10213 of Debian upgrades</a> from Lenny to Squeeze continues, and I've
10214 finally made the upgrade logs available from
10215 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/
">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/</a>.
10216 I am now testing dist-upgrade of Gnome and KDE in a chroot using both
10217 apt and aptitude, and found their differences interesting. This time
10218 I will only focus on their removal plans.</p>
10220 <p>After installing a Gnome desktop and the laptop task, apt-get wants
10221 to remove 72 packages when dist-upgrading from Lenny to Squeeze. The
10222 surprising part is that it want to remove xorg and all
10223 xserver-xorg-video* drivers. Clearly not a good choice, but I am not
10224 sure why. When asking aptitude to do the same, it want to remove 129
10225 packages, but most of them are library packages I suspect are no
10226 longer needed. Both of them want to remove bluetooth packages, which
10227 I do not know. Perhaps these bluetooth packages are obsolete?</p>
10229 <p>For KDE, apt-get want to remove 82 packages, among them kdebase
10230 which seem like a bad idea and xorg the same way as with Gnome. Asking
10231 aptitude for the same, it wants to remove 192 packages, none which are
10232 too surprising.</p>
10234 <p>I guess the removal of xorg during upgrades should be investigated
10235 and avoided, and perhaps others as well. Here are the complete list
10236 of planned removals. The complete logs is available from the URL
10237 above. Note if you want to repeat these tests, that the upgrade test
10238 for kde+apt-get hung in the tasksel setup because of dpkg asking
10239 conffile questions. No idea why. I worked around it by using
10240 '<tt>echo >> /proc/<em>pidofdpkg</em>/fd/0</tt>' to tell dpkg to
10243 <p><b>apt-get gnome 72</b>
10244 <br>bluez-gnome cupsddk-drivers deskbar-applet gnome
10245 gnome-desktop-environment gnome-network-admin gtkhtml3.14
10246 iceweasel-gnome-support libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libgdl-1-0
10247 libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libmetacity0 libslab0 libxcb-xlib0
10248 nautilus-cd-burner python-gnome2-desktop python-gnome2-extras
10249 serpentine swfdec-mozilla update-manager xorg xserver-xorg
10250 xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
10251 xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
10252 xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
10253 xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
10254 xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
10255 xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
10256 xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
10257 xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
10258 xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
10259 xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
10260 xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
10261 xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
10262 xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
10263 xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
10264 xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
10265 xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
10266 xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
10267 xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
10268 xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
10269 xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
10270 xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
10271 xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9
10272 xulrunner-1.9-gnome-support</p>
10274 <p><b>aptitude gnome 129</b>
10276 <br>bluez-gnome bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers dhcdbd
10277 djvulibre-desktop finger gnome-app-install gnome-mount
10278 gnome-network-admin gnome-spell gnome-vfs-obexftp
10279 gnome-volume-manager gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs gtkhtml3.14 libao2
10280 libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
10281 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcupsys2 libcurl3 libdatrie0
10282 libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20
10283 libeel2-data libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libfaad0 libgail-common
10284 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libgdl-1-0 libgdl-1-common
10285 libggz2 libggzcore9 libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0
10286 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libgnomeprint2.2-0
10287 libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgnomeprintui2.2-common
10288 libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
10289 libgtksourceview-common libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6
10290 libhesiod0 libicu38 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 libmagick++10
10291 libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmetacity0 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off
10292 libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2
10293 libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10
10294 libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libraw1394-8
10295 libsensors3 libslab0 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8 libssh2-1
10296 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10
10297 libtrackerclient0 libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0
10298 libxerces2-java libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6
10299 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common nautilus-cd-burner
10300 openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
10301 python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gnome2-desktop
10302 python-gnome2-extras python-gtkhtml2 python-gtkmozembed
10303 python-numeric python-sexy serpentine svgalibg1 swfdec-gnome
10304 swfdec-mozilla totem-gstreamer update-manager wodim
10305 xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
10306 xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
10309 <p><b>apt-get kde 82</b>
10311 <br>cupsddk-drivers karm kaudiocreator kcoloredit kcontrol kde kde-core
10312 kdeaddons kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-bin kdebase-bin-kde3
10313 kdebase-kio-plugins kdesktop kdeutils khelpcenter kicker
10314 kicker-applets knewsticker kolourpaint konq-plugins konqueror korn
10315 kpersonalizer kscreensaver ksplash libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libkiten1
10316 libxcb-xlib0 quanta superkaramba texlive-base-bin xorg xserver-xorg
10317 xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
10318 xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
10319 xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
10320 xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
10321 xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
10322 xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
10323 xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
10324 xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
10325 xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
10326 xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
10327 xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
10328 xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
10329 xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
10330 xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
10331 xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
10332 xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
10333 xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
10334 xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
10335 xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
10336 xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
10337 xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
10338 xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9</p>
10340 <p><b>aptitude kde 192</b>
10341 <br>bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers cvs dcoprss dhcdbd
10342 djvulibre-desktop dosfstools eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
10343 ghostscript-x imlib-base imlib11 indi kandy karm kasteroids
10344 kaudiocreator kbackgammon kbstate kcoloredit kcontrol kcron kdat
10345 kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
10346 kdebase-bin-kde3 kdebase-kio-plugins kdeedu-data
10347 kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data
10348 kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
10349 kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdeprint kdesktop kdessh
10350 kdict kdnssd kdvi kedit keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs
10351 kghostview khelpcenter khexedit kiconedit kitchensync klatin
10352 klickety kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmoon kmrml kodo kolourpaint
10353 kooka korn kpager kpdf kpercentage kpf kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler
10354 krec kregexpeditor ksayit ksim ksirc ksirtet ksmiletris ksmserver
10355 ksnake ksokoban ksplash ksvg ksysv ktip ktnef kuickshow kverbos
10356 kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kworldclock
10357 kxsldbg libakode2 libao2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
10358 libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
10359 libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
10360 libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0 libdatrie0
10361 libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
10362 libgail-common libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0
10363 libicu38 libiec61883-0 libindex0 libiw29 libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1
10364 libkdeedu3 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkiten1 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
10365 libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
10366 libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 libmagick10 libmimelib1c2a
10367 libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9
10368 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 libsmbios2
10369 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libtalloc1 libtiff-tools
10370 libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0 libxerces2-java
10371 libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 mpeglib networkstatus
10372 openoffice.org-writer2latex pmount poster psutils quanta quanta-data
10373 superkaramba svgalibg1 tex-common texlive-base texlive-base-bin
10374 texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended
10375 xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
10376 xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
10384 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>.
10389 <div class="padding
"></div>
10391 <div class="entry
">
10392 <div class="title
">
10393 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html
">Automatic upgrade testing from Lenny to Squeeze</a>
10399 <p>The last few days I have done some upgrade testing in Debian, to
10400 see if the upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze will go smoothly. A few bugs
10401 have been discovered and reported in the process
10402 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/
585410">#585410</a> in nagios3-cgi,
10403 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/
584879">#584879</a> already fixed in
10404 enscript and <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/
584861">#584861</a> in
10405 kdebase-workspace-data), and to get a more regular testing going on, I
10406 am working on a script to automate the test.</p>
10408 <p>The idea is to create a Lenny chroot and use tasksel to install a
10409 Gnome or KDE desktop installation inside the chroot before upgrading
10410 it. To ensure no services are started in the chroot, a policy-rc.d
10411 script is inserted. To make sure tasksel believe it is to install a
10412 desktop on a laptop, the tasksel tests are replaced in the chroot
10413 (only acceptable because this is a throw-away chroot).</p>
10415 <p>A naive upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze using aptitude dist-upgrade
10416 currently always fail because udev refuses to upgrade with the kernel
10417 in Lenny, so to avoid that problem the file /etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
10418 is created. The bug report
10419 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/
566000">#566000</a> make me suspect
10420 this problem do not trigger in a chroot, but I touch the file anyway
10421 to make sure the upgrade go well. Testing on virtual and real
10422 hardware have failed me because of udev so far, and creating this file
10423 do the trick in such settings anyway. This is a
10424 <a href="http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/debian-
26/failed-dist-upgrade-due-to-udev-config_sysfs_deprecated-nonsense-
804130/
">known
10425 issue</a> and the current udev behaviour is intended by the udev
10426 maintainer because he lack the resources to rewrite udev to keep
10427 working with old kernels or something like that. I really wish the
10428 udev upstream would keep udev backwards compatible, to avoid such
10429 upgrade problem, but given that they fail to do so, I guess
10430 documenting the way out of this mess is the best option we got for
10431 Debian Squeeze.</p>
10433 <p>Anyway, back to the task at hand, testing upgrades. This test
10434 script, which I call <tt>upgrade-test</tt> for now, is doing the
10450 exec
< /dev/null
10452 mirror=http://ftp.skolelinux.org/debian
10453 tmpdir=chroot-$from-upgrade-$to-$desktop
10455 debootstrap $from $tmpdir $mirror
10456 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
10457 cat
> $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d
<<EOF
10461 chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d
10463 umount $tmpdir/proc
10465 mount -t proc proc $tmpdir/proc
10466 # Make sure proc is unmounted also on failure
10467 trap exit_cleanup EXIT INT
10469 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y install debconf-utils
10471 # Make sure tasksel autoselection trigger. It need the test scripts
10472 # to return the correct answers.
10473 echo tasksel tasksel/desktop multiselect $desktop | \
10474 chroot $tmpdir debconf-set-selections
10476 # Include the desktop and laptop task
10477 for test in desktop laptop ; do
10478 echo
> $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test
<<EOF
10482 chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test
10485 DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
10486 DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical
10487 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND DEBIAN_PRIORITY
10488 chroot $tmpdir tasksel --new-install
10490 echo deb $mirror $to main
> $tmpdir/etc/apt/sources.list
10491 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
10492 touch $tmpdir/etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
10493 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y dist-upgrade
10495 </pre></blockquote>
10497 <p>I suspect it would be useful to test upgrades with both apt-get and
10498 with aptitude, but I have not had time to look at how they behave
10499 differently so far. I hope to get a cron job running to do the test
10500 regularly and post the result on the web. The Gnome upgrade currently
10501 work, while the KDE upgrade fail because of the bug in
10502 kdebase-workspace-data
</p>
10504 <p>I am not quite sure what kind of extract from the huge upgrade logs
10505 (KDE
167 KiB, Gnome
516 KiB) it make sense to include in this blog
10506 post, so I will refrain from trying. I can report that for Gnome,
10507 aptitude report
760 packages upgraded,
448 newly installed,
129 to
10508 remove and
1 not upgraded and
1024MB need to be downloaded while for
10509 KDE the same numbers are
702 packages upgraded,
507 newly installed,
10510 193 to remove and
0 not upgraded and
1117MB need to be downloaded
</p>
10512 <p>I am very happy to notice that the Gnome desktop + laptop upgrade
10513 is able to migrate to dependency based boot sequencing and parallel
10514 booting without a hitch. Was unsure if there were still bugs with
10515 packages failing to clean up their obsolete init.d script during
10516 upgrades, and no such problem seem to affect the Gnome desktop+laptop
10523 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>.
10528 <div class=
"padding"></div>
10530 <div class=
"entry">
10531 <div class=
"title">
10532 <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>
10538 <p>If Debian is to migrate to upstart on Linux, I expect some init.d
10539 scripts to migrate (some of) their operations to upstart job while
10540 keeping the init.d for hurd and kfreebsd. The packages with such
10541 needs will need a way to get their init.d scripts to behave
10542 differently when used with sysvinit and with upstart. Because of
10543 this, I had a look at the environment variables set when a init.d
10544 script is running under upstart, and when it is not.
</p>
10546 <p>With upstart, I notice these environment variables are set when a
10547 script is started from rcS.d/ (ignoring some irrelevant ones like
10556 UPSTART_EVENTS=startup
10558 UPSTART_JOB=rc-sysinit
10559 </pre></blockquote>
10561 <p>With sysvinit, these environment variables are set for the same
10565 INIT_VERSION=sysvinit-
2.88
10570 </pre></blockquote>
10572 <p>The RUNLEVEL and PREVLEVEL environment variables passed on from
10573 sysvinit are not set by upstart. Not sure if it is intentional or not
10574 to not be compatible with sysvinit in this regard.
</p>
10576 <p>For scripts needing to behave differently when upstart is used,
10577 looking for the UPSTART_JOB environment variable seem to be a good
10584 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>.
10589 <div class=
"padding"></div>
10591 <div class=
"entry">
10592 <div class=
"title">
10593 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_manual_for_standards_wars___.html">A manual for standards wars...
</a>
10600 <a href=
"http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/robweir/antic-atom/~3/QzU4RgoAGMg/weekly-links-10.html">blog
10601 of Rob Weir
</a> I came across the very interesting essay named
10602 <a href=
"http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/shapiro/wars.pdf">The Art of
10603 Standards Wars
</a> (PDF
25 pages). I recommend it for everyone
10604 following the standards wars of today.
</p>
10610 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>.
10615 <div class=
"padding"></div>
10617 <div class=
"entry">
10618 <div class=
"title">
10619 <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>
10625 <p>When using sitesummary at a site to track machines, it is possible
10626 to get a list of the machine types in use thanks to the DMI
10627 information extracted from each machine. The script to do so is
10628 included in the sitesummary package, and here is example output from
10629 the Skolelinux build servers:
</p>
10632 maintainer:~# /usr/lib/sitesummary/hardware-model-summary
10634 Dell Computer Corporation
1
10637 eserver xSeries
345 -[
8670M1X]-
1
10641 </pre></blockquote>
10643 <p>The quality of the report depend on the quality of the DMI tables
10644 provided in each machine. Here there are Intel machines without model
10645 information listed with Intel as vendor and no model, and virtual Xen
10646 machines listed as [no-dmi-info]. One can add -l as a command line
10647 option to list the individual machines.
</p>
10649 <p>A larger list is
10650 <a href=
"http://narvikskolen.no/sitesummary/">available from the the
10651 city of Narvik
</a>, which uses Skolelinux on all their shools and also
10652 provide the basic sitesummary report publicly. In their report there
10653 are ~
1400 machines. I know they use both Ubuntu and Skolelinux on
10654 their machines, and as sitesummary is available in both distributions,
10655 it is trivial to get all of them to report to the same central
10662 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>.
10667 <div class=
"padding"></div>
10669 <div class=
"entry">
10670 <div class=
"title">
10671 <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>
10677 <p>It is strange to watch how a bug in Debian causing KDM to fail to
10678 start at boot when an NVidia video card is used is handled. The
10679 problem seem to be that the nvidia X.org driver uses a long time to
10680 initialize, and this duration is longer than kdm is configured to
10683 <p>I came across two bugs related to this issue,
10684 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/583312">#
583312</a> initially filed
10685 against initscripts and passed on to nvidia-glx when it became obvious
10686 that the nvidia drivers were involved, and
10687 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/524751">#
524751</a> initially filed against
10688 kdm and passed on to src:nvidia-graphics-drivers for unknown reasons.
</p>
10690 <p>To me, it seem that no-one is interested in actually solving the
10691 problem nvidia video card owners experience and make sure the Debian
10692 distribution work out of the box for these users. The nvidia driver
10693 maintainers expect kdm to be set up to wait longer, while kdm expect
10694 the nvidia driver maintainers to fix the driver to start faster, and
10695 while they wait for each other I guess the users end up switching to a
10696 distribution that work for them. I have no idea what the solution is,
10697 but I am pretty sure that waiting for each other is not it.
</p>
10699 <p>I wonder why we end up handling bugs this way.
</p>
10705 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>.
10710 <div class=
"padding"></div>
10712 <div class=
"entry">
10713 <div class=
"title">
10714 <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>
10720 <p>A few days ago, parallel booting was enabled in Debian/testing.
10721 The feature seem to hold up pretty well, but three fairly serious
10722 issues are known and should be solved:
10726 <li>The wicd package seen to
10727 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/508289">break NFS mounting
</a> and
10728 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/581586">network setup
</a> when
10729 parallel booting is enabled. No idea why, but the wicd maintainer
10730 seem to be on the case.
</li>
10732 <li>The nvidia X driver seem to
10733 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/583312">have a race condition
</a>
10734 triggered more easily when parallel booting is in effect. The
10735 maintainer is on the case.
</li>
10737 <li>The sysv-rc package fail to properly enable dependency based boot
10738 sequencing (the shutdown is broken) when old file-rc users
10739 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/575080">try to switch back
</a> to
10740 sysv-rc. One way to solve it would be for file-rc to create
10741 /etc/init.d/.legacy-bootordering, and another is to try to make
10742 sysv-rc more robust. Will investigate some more and probably upload a
10743 workaround in sysv-rc to help those trying to move from file-rc to
10744 sysv-rc get a working shutdown.
</li>
10748 <p>All in all not many surprising issues, and all of them seem
10749 solvable before Squeeze is released. In addition to these there are
10750 some packages with bugs in their dependencies and run level settings,
10751 which I expect will be fixed in a reasonable time span.
</p>
10753 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
10754 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
10755 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
10756 list of usertagged bugs related to this
</a>.
</p>
10758 <p>Update: Correct bug number to file-rc issue.
</p>
10764 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>.
10769 <div class=
"padding"></div>
10771 <div class=
"entry">
10772 <div class=
"title">
10773 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/More_flexible_firmware_handling_in_debian_installer.html">More flexible firmware handling in debian-installer
</a>
10779 <p>After a long break from debian-installer development, I finally
10780 found time today to return to the project. Having to spend less time
10781 working dependency based boot in debian, as it is almost complete now,
10782 definitely helped freeing some time.
</p>
10784 <p>A while back, I ran into a problem while working on Debian Edu. We
10785 include some firmware packages on the Debian Edu CDs, those needed to
10786 get disk and network controllers working. Without having these
10787 firmware packages available during installation, it is impossible to
10788 install Debian Edu on the given machine, and because our target group
10789 are non-technical people, asking them to provide firmware packages on
10790 an external medium is a support pain. Initially, I expected it to be
10791 enough to include the firmware packages on the CD to get
10792 debian-installer to find and use them. This proved to be wrong.
10793 Next, I hoped it was enough to symlink the relevant firmware packages
10794 to some useful location on the CD (tried /cdrom/ and
10795 /cdrom/firmware/). This also proved to not work, and at this point I
10796 found time to look at the debian-installer code to figure out what was
10799 <p>The firmware loading code is in the hw-detect package, and a closer
10800 look revealed that it would only look for firmware packages outside
10801 the installation media, so the CD was never checked for firmware
10802 packages. It would only check USB sticks, floppies and other
10803 "external" media devices. Today I changed it to also look in the
10804 /cdrom/firmware/ directory on the mounted CD or DVD, which should
10805 solve the problem I ran into with Debian edu. I also changed it to
10806 look in /firmware/, to make sure the installer also find firmware
10807 provided in the initrd when booting the installer via PXE, to allow us
10808 to provide the same feature in the PXE setup included in Debian
10811 <p>To make sure firmware deb packages with a license questions are not
10812 activated without asking if the license is accepted, I extended
10813 hw-detect to look for preinst scripts in the firmware packages, and
10814 run these before activating the firmware during installation. The
10815 license question is asked using debconf in the preinst, so this should
10816 solve the issue for the firmware packages I have looked at so far.
</p>
10818 <p>If you want to discuss the details of these features, please
10819 contact us on debian-boot@lists.debian.org.
</p>
10825 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>.
10830 <div class=
"padding"></div>
10832 <div class=
"entry">
10833 <div class=
"title">
10834 <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>
10840 <p>Since this evening, parallel booting is the default in
10841 Debian/unstable for machines using dependency based boot sequencing.
10842 Apparently the testing of concurrent booting has been wider than
10843 expected, if I am to believe the
10844 <a href=
"http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
10845 on debian-devel@
</a>, and I concluded a few days ago to move forward
10846 with the feature this weekend, to give us some time to detect any
10847 remaining problems before Squeeze is frozen. If serious problems are
10848 detected, it is simple to change the default back to sequential boot.
10849 The upload of the new sysvinit package also activate a new upstream
10852 More information about
10853 <a href=
"http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
10854 based boot sequencing
</a> is available from the Debian wiki. It is
10855 currently possible to disable parallel booting when one run into
10856 problems caused by it, by adding this line to /etc/default/rcS:
</p>
10860 </pre></blockquote>
10862 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
10863 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
10864 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
10865 list of usertagged bugs related to this
</a>.
</p>
10871 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>.
10876 <div class=
"padding"></div>
10878 <div class=
"entry">
10879 <div class=
"title">
10880 <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>
10886 <p>In the recent Debian Edu versions, the
10887 <a href=
"http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/SiteSummary">sitesummary
10888 system
</a> is used to keep track of the machines in the school
10889 network. Each machine will automatically report its status to the
10890 central server after boot and once per night. The network setup is
10891 also reported, and using this information it is possible to get the
10892 MAC address of all network interfaces in the machines. This is useful
10893 to update the DHCP configuration.
</p>
10895 <p>To give some idea how to use sitesummary, here is a one-liner to
10896 ist all MAC addresses of all machines reporting to sitesummary. Run
10897 this on the collector host:
</p>
10900 perl -MSiteSummary -e 'for_all_hosts(sub { print join(" ", get_macaddresses(shift)), "\n"; });'
10901 </pre></blockquote>
10903 <p>This will list all MAC addresses assosiated with all machine, one
10904 line per machine and with space between the MAC addresses.
</p>
10906 <p>To allow system administrators easier job at adding static DHCP
10907 addresses for hosts, it would be possible to extend this to fetch
10908 machine information from sitesummary and update the DHCP and DNS
10909 tables in LDAP using this information. Such tool is unfortunately not
10916 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>.
10921 <div class=
"padding"></div>
10923 <div class=
"entry">
10924 <div class=
"title">
10925 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/systemd__an_interesting_alternative_to_upstart.html">systemd, an interesting alternative to upstart
</a>
10931 <p>The last few days a new boot system called
10932 <a href=
"http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd">systemd
</a>
10934 <a href=
"http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/systemd.html">introduced
</a>
10936 to the free software world. I have not yet had time to play around
10937 with it, but it seem to be a very interesting alternative to
10938 <a href=
"http://upstart.ubuntu.com/">upstart
</a>, and might prove to be
10939 a good alternative for Debian when we are able to switch to an event
10940 based boot system. Tollef is
10941 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/580814">in the process
</a> of getting
10942 systemd into Debian, and I look forward to seeing how well it work. I
10943 like the fact that systemd handles init.d scripts with dependency
10944 information natively, allowing them to run in parallel where upstart
10945 at the moment do not.
</p>
10947 <p>Unfortunately do systemd have the same problem as upstart regarding
10948 platform support. It only work on recent Linux kernels, and also need
10949 some new kernel features enabled to function properly. This means
10950 kFreeBSD and Hurd ports of Debian will need a port or a different boot
10951 system. Not sure how that will be handled if systemd proves to be the
10954 <p>In the mean time, based on the
10955 <a href=
"http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
10956 on debian-devel@
</a> regarding parallel booting in Debian, I have
10957 decided to enable full parallel booting as the default in Debian as
10958 soon as possible (probably this weekend or early next week), to see if
10959 there are any remaining serious bugs in the init.d dependencies. A
10960 new version of the sysvinit package implementing this change is
10961 already in experimental. If all go well, Squeeze will be released
10962 with parallel booting enabled by default.
</p>
10968 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>.
10973 <div class=
"padding"></div>
10975 <div class=
"entry">
10976 <div class=
"title">
10977 <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>
10983 <p>These days, the init.d script dependencies in Squeeze are quite
10984 complete, so complete that it is actually possible to run all the
10985 init.d scripts in parallell based on these dependencies. If you want
10986 to test your Squeeze system, make sure
10987 <a href=
"http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
10988 based boot sequencing
</a> is enabled, and add this line to
10989 /etc/default/rcS:
</p>
10992 CONCURRENCY=makefile
10993 </pre></blockquote>
10995 <p>That is it. It will cause sysv-rc to use the startpar tool to run
10996 scripts in parallel using the dependency information stored in
10997 /etc/init.d/.depend.boot, /etc/init.d/.depend.start and
10998 /etc/init.d/.depend.stop to order the scripts. Startpar is configured
10999 to try to start the kdm and gdm scripts as early as possible, and will
11000 start the facilities required by kdm or gdm as early as possible to
11001 make this happen.
</p>
11003 <p>Give it a try, and see if you like the result. If some services
11004 fail to start properly, it is most likely because they have incomplete
11005 init.d script dependencies in their startup script (or some of their
11006 dependent scripts have incomplete dependencies). Report bugs and get
11007 the package maintainers to fix it. :)
</p>
11009 <p>Running scripts in parallel could be the default in Debian when we
11010 manage to get the init.d script dependencies complete and correct. I
11011 expect we will get there in Squeeze+
1, if we get manage to test and
11012 fix the remaining issues.
</p>
11014 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
11015 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
11016 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
11017 list of usertagged bugs related to this
</a>.
</p>
11023 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>.
11028 <div class=
"padding"></div>
11030 <div class=
"entry">
11031 <div class=
"title">
11032 <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>
11038 <p>Since this evening, with the upload of sysvinit version
2.87dsf-
2,
11039 and the upload of insserv version
1.12.0-
10 yesterday, Debian unstable
11040 have been migrated to using dependency based boot sequencing. This
11041 conclude work me and others have been doing for the last three days.
11042 It feels great to see this finally part of the default Debian
11043 installation. Now we just need to weed out the last few problems that
11044 are bound to show up, to get everything ready for Squeeze.
</p>
11046 <p>The next step is migrating /sbin/init from sysvinit to upstart, and
11047 fixing the more fundamental problem of handing the event based
11048 non-predictable kernel in the early boot.
</p>
11054 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>.
11059 <div class=
"padding"></div>
11061 <div class=
"entry">
11062 <div class=
"title">
11063 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Taking_over_sysvinit_development.html">Taking over sysvinit development
</a>
11069 <p>After several years of frustration with the lack of activity from
11070 the existing sysvinit upstream developer, I decided a few weeks ago to
11071 take over the package and become the new upstream. The number of
11072 patches to track for the Debian package was becoming a burden, and the
11073 lack of synchronization between the distribution made it hard to keep
11074 the package up to date.
</p>
11076 <p>On the new sysvinit team is the SuSe maintainer Dr. Werner Fink,
11077 and my Debian co-maintainer Kel Modderman. About
10 days ago, I made
11078 a new upstream tarball with version number
2.87dsf (for Debian, SuSe
11079 and Fedora), based on the patches currently in use in these
11080 distributions. We Debian maintainers plan to move to this tarball as
11081 the new upstream as soon as we find time to do the merge. Since the
11082 new tarball was created, we agreed with Werner at SuSe to make a new
11083 upstream project at
<a href=
"http://savannah.nongnu.org/">Savannah
</a>, and continue
11084 development there. The project is registered and currently waiting
11085 for approval by the Savannah administrators, and as soon as it is
11086 approved, we will import the old versions from svn and continue
11087 working on the future release.
</p>
11089 <p>It is a bit ironic that this is done now, when some of the involved
11090 distributions are moving to upstart as a syvinit replacement.
</p>
11096 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>.
11101 <div class=
"padding"></div>
11103 <div class=
"entry">
11104 <div class=
"title">
11105 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_boots_quicker_and_quicker.html">Debian boots quicker and quicker
</a>
11111 <p>I spent Monday and tuesday this week in London with a lot of the
11112 people involved in the boot system on Debian and Ubuntu, to see if we
11113 could find more ways to speed up the boot system. This was an Ubuntu
11115 <a href=
"https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FoundationsTeam/BootPerformance/DebianUbuntuSprint">developer
11116 gathering
</a>. It was quite productive. We also discussed the future
11117 of boot systems, and ways to handle the increasing number of boot
11118 issues introduced by the Linux kernel becoming more and more
11119 asynchronous and event base. The Ubuntu approach using udev and
11120 upstart might be a good way forward. Time will show.
</p>
11122 <p>Anyway, there are a few ways at the moment to speed up the boot
11123 process in Debian. All of these should be applied to get a quick
11128 <li>Use dash as /bin/sh.
</li>
11130 <li>Disable the init.d/hwclock*.sh scripts and make sure the hardware
11131 clock is in UTC.
</li>
11133 <li>Install and activate the insserv package to enable
11134 <a href=
"http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
11135 based boot sequencing
</a>, and enable concurrent booting.
</li>
11139 These points are based on the Google summer of code work done by
11140 <a href=
"http://initscripts-ng.alioth.debian.org/soc2006-bootsystem/">Carlos
11143 <p>Support for makefile-style concurrency during boot was uploaded to
11144 unstable yesterday. When we tested it, we were able to cut
6 seconds
11145 from the boot sequence. It depend on very correct dependency
11146 declaration in all init.d scripts, so I expect us to find edge cases
11147 where the dependences in some scripts are slightly wrong when we start
11150 <p>On our IRC channel for this effort, #pkg-sysvinit, a new idea was
11151 introduced by Raphael Geissert today, one that could affect the
11152 startup speed as well. Instead of starting some scripts concurrently
11153 from rcS.d/ and another set of scripts from rc2.d/, it would be
11154 possible to run a of them in the same process. A quick way to test
11155 this would be to enable insserv and run 'mv /etc/rc2.d/S* /etc/rcS.d/;
11156 insserv'. Will need to test if that work. :)
</p>
11162 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>.
11167 <div class=
"padding"></div>
11169 <div class=
"entry">
11170 <div class=
"title">
11171 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/BSAs_p_stander_om_piratkopiering_m_ter_motstand.html">BSAs påstander om piratkopiering møter motstand
</a>
11177 <p>Hvert år de siste årene har BSA, lobbyfronten til de store
11178 programvareselskapene som Microsoft og Apple, publisert en rapport der
11179 de gjetter på hvor mye piratkopiering påfører i tapte inntekter i
11180 ulike land rundt om i verden. Resultatene er tendensiøse. For noen
11182 <a href=
"http://global.bsa.org/globalpiracy2008/studies/globalpiracy2008.pdf">siste
11183 rapport
</a>, og det er flere kritiske kommentarer publisert de siste
11184 dagene. Et spesielt interessant kommentar fra Sverige,
11185 <a href=
"http://www.idg.se/2.1085/1.229795/bsa-hoftade-sverigesiffror">BSA
11186 höftade Sverigesiffror
</a>, oppsummeres slik:
</p>
11189 I sin senaste rapport slår BSA fast att
25 procent av all mjukvara i
11190 Sverige är piratkopierad. Det utan att ha pratat med ett enda svenskt
11191 företag. "Man bör nog kanske inte se de här siffrorna som helt
11192 exakta", säger BSAs Sverigechef John Hugosson.
11195 <p>Mon tro om de er like metodiske når de gjetter på andelen piratkopiering i Norge? To andre kommentarer er
<a
11196 href=
"http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/comment/2242134/bsa-piracy-figures-shot-reality">BSA
11197 piracy figures need a shot of reality
</a> og
<a
11198 href=
"http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/3958/125/">Does The WIPO
11199 Copyright Treaty Work?
</a></p>
11201 <p>Fant lenkene via
<a
11202 href=
"http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/05/17/1632242">oppslag
11203 på Slashdot
</a>.
</p>
11209 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>.
11214 <div class=
"padding"></div>
11216 <div class=
"entry">
11217 <div class=
"title">
11218 <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>
11225 <a href=
"http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10216873-16.html">interessante
11226 tall
</a> fra IDG om utviklingen av linuxservermarkedet. Fikk meg til
11227 å tenke på antall tjenermaskiner ved Universitetet i Oslo der jeg
11228 jobber til daglig. En rask opptelling forteller meg at vi har
490
11229 (
61%) fysiske unix-tjener (mest linux men også noen solaris) og
196
11230 (
25%) windowstjenere, samt
112 (
14%) virtuelle unix-tjenere. Med den
11231 bakgrunnskunnskapen kan jeg godt tro at IDG er inne på noe.
</p>
11237 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>.
11242 <div class=
"padding"></div>
11244 <div class=
"entry">
11245 <div class=
"title">
11246 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Kryptert_harddisk___naturligvis.html">Kryptert harddisk - naturligvis
</a>
11252 <p><a href=
"http://www.dagensit.no/trender/article1658676.ece">Dagens
11253 IT melder
</a> at Intel hevder at det er dyrt å miste en datamaskin,
11254 når en tar tap av arbeidstid, fortrolige dokumenter,
11255 personopplysninger og alt annet det innebærer. Det er ingen tvil om
11256 at det er en kostbar affære å miste sin datamaskin, og det er årsaken
11257 til at jeg har kryptert harddisken på både kontormaskinen og min
11258 bærbare. Begge inneholder personopplysninger jeg ikke ønsker skal
11259 komme på avveie, den første informasjon relatert til jobben min ved
11260 Universitetet i Oslo, og den andre relatert til blant annet
11261 foreningsarbeide. Kryptering av diskene gjør at det er lite
11262 sannsynlig at dophoder som kan finne på å rappe maskinene får noe ut
11263 av dem. Maskinene låses automatisk etter noen minutter uten bruk,
11264 og en reboot vil gjøre at de ber om passord før de vil starte opp.
11265 Jeg bruker Debian på begge maskinene, og installasjonssystemet der
11266 gjør det trivielt å sette opp krypterte disker. Jeg har LVM på toppen
11267 av krypterte partisjoner, slik at alt av datapartisjoner er kryptert.
11268 Jeg anbefaler alle å kryptere diskene på sine bærbare. Kostnaden når
11269 det er gjort slik jeg gjør det er minimale, og gevinstene er
11270 betydelige. En bør dog passe på passordet. Hvis det går tapt, må
11271 maskinen reinstalleres og alt er tapt.
</p>
11273 <p>Krypteringen vil ikke stoppe kompetente angripere som f.eks. kjøler
11274 ned minnebrikkene før maskinen rebootes med programvare for å hente ut
11275 krypteringsnøklene. Kostnaden med å forsvare seg mot slike angripere
11276 er for min del høyere enn gevinsten. Jeg tror oddsene for at
11277 f.eks. etteretningsorganisasjoner har glede av å titte på mine
11278 maskiner er minimale, og ulempene jeg ville oppnå ved å forsøke å
11279 gjøre det vanskeligere for angripere med kompetanse og ressurser er
11286 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>.
11291 <div class=
"padding"></div>
11293 <div class=
"entry">
11294 <div class=
"title">
11295 <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>
11301 <p>There are two software projects that have had huge influence on the
11302 quality of free software, and I wanted to mention both in case someone
11303 do not yet know them.
</p>
11305 <p>The first one is
<a href=
"http://valgrind.org/">valgrind
</a>, a
11306 tool to detect and expose errors in the memory handling of programs.
11307 It is easy to use, all one need to do is to run 'valgrind program',
11308 and it will report any problems on stdout. It is even better if the
11309 program include debug information. With debug information, it is able
11310 to report the source file name and line number where the problem
11311 occurs. It can report things like 'reading past memory block in file
11312 X line N, the memory block was allocated in file Y, line M', and
11313 'using uninitialised value in control logic'. This tool has made it
11314 trivial to investigate reproducible crash bugs in programs, and have
11315 reduced the number of this kind of bugs in free software a lot.
11317 <p>The second one is
11318 <a href=
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coverity">Coverity
</a> which is
11319 a source code checker. It is able to process the source of a program
11320 and find problems in the logic without running the program. It
11321 started out as the Stanford Checker and became well known when it was
11322 used to find bugs in the Linux kernel. It is now a commercial tool
11323 and the company behind it is running
11324 <a href=
"http://www.scan.coverity.com/">a community service
</a> for the
11325 free software community, where a lot of free software projects get
11326 their source checked for free. Several thousand defects have been
11327 found and fixed so far. It can find errors like 'lock L taken in file
11328 X line N is never released if exiting in line M', or 'the code in file
11329 Y lines O to P can never be executed'. The projects included in the
11330 community service project have managed to get rid of a lot of
11331 reliability problems thanks to Coverity.
</p>
11333 <p>I believe tools like this, that are able to automatically find
11334 errors in the source, are vital to improve the quality of software and
11335 make sure we can get rid of the crashing and failing software we are
11336 surrounded by today.
</p>
11342 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
11347 <div class=
"padding"></div>
11349 <div class=
"entry">
11350 <div class=
"title">
11351 <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>
11358 <a href=
"http://blog.technologeek.org/2009/04/12/214">claim that no
11359 patch is better than a useless patch
</a>. I completely disagree, as a
11360 patch allow one to discuss a concrete and proposed solution, and also
11361 prove that the issue at hand is important enough for someone to spent
11362 time on fixing it. No patch do not provide any of these positive
11369 Tags:
<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>.
11374 <div class=
"padding"></div>
11376 <div class=
"entry">
11377 <div class=
"title">
11378 <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>
11384 <p>Where I work at the University of Oslo, one decision stand out as a
11385 very good one to form a long lived computer infrastructure. It is the
11386 simple one, lost by many in todays computer industry: Standardize on
11387 open network protocols and open exchange/storage formats, not applications.
11388 Applications come and go, while protocols and files tend to stay, and
11389 thus one want to make it easy to change application and vendor, while
11390 avoiding conversion costs and locking users to a specific platform or
11393 <p>This approach make it possible to replace the client applications
11394 independently of the server applications. One can even allow users to
11395 use several different applications as long as they handle the selected
11396 protocol and format. In the normal case, only one client application
11397 is recommended and users only get help if they choose to use this
11398 application, but those that want to deviate from the easy path are not
11399 blocked from doing so.
</p>
11401 <p>It also allow us to replace the server side without forcing the
11402 users to replace their applications, and thus allow us to select the
11403 best server implementation at any moment, when scale and resouce
11404 requirements change.
</p>
11406 <p>I strongly recommend standardizing - on open network protocols and
11407 open formats, but I would never recommend standardizing on a single
11408 application that do not use open network protocol or open formats.
</p>
11414 Tags:
<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>.
11419 <div class=
"padding"></div>
11421 <div class=
"entry">
11422 <div class=
"title">
11423 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Returning_from_Skolelinux_developer_gathering.html">Returning from Skolelinux developer gathering
</a>
11429 <p>I'm sitting on the train going home from this weekends Debian
11430 Edu/Skolelinux development gathering. I got a bit done tuning the
11431 desktop, and looked into the dynamic service location protocol
11432 implementation avahi. It look like it could be useful for us. Almost
11433 30 people participated, and I believe it was a great environment to
11434 get to know the Skolelinux system. Walter Bender, involved in the
11435 development of the Sugar educational platform, presented his stuff and
11436 also helped me improve my OLPC installation. He also showed me that
11437 his Turtle Art application can be used in standalone mode, and we
11438 agreed that I would help getting it packaged for Debian. As a
11439 standalone application it would be great for Debian Edu. We also
11440 tried to get the video conferencing working with two OLPCs, but that
11441 proved to be too hard for us. The application seem to need more work
11442 before it is ready for me. I look forward to getting home and relax
11449 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>.
11454 <div class=
"padding"></div>
11456 <div class=
"entry">
11457 <div class=
"title">
11458 <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>
11464 <p>The state of standardized LDAP schemas on Linux is far from
11465 optimal. There is RFC
2307 documenting one way to store NIS maps in
11466 LDAP, and a modified version of this normally called RFC
2307bis, with
11467 some modifications to be compatible with Active Directory. The RFC
11468 specification handle the content of a lot of system databases, but do
11469 not handle DNS zones and DHCP configuration.
</p>
11471 <p>In
<a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux
</a>,
11472 we would like to store information about users, SMB clients/hosts,
11473 filegroups, netgroups (users and hosts), DHCP and DNS configuration,
11474 and LTSP configuration in LDAP. These objects have a lot in common,
11475 but with the current LDAP schemas it is not possible to have one
11476 object per entity. For example, one need to have at least three LDAP
11477 objects for a given computer, one with the SMB related stuff, one with
11478 DNS information and another with DHCP information. The schemas
11479 provided for DNS and DHCP are impossible to combine into one LDAP
11480 object. In addition, it is impossible to implement quick queries for
11481 netgroup membership, because of the way NIS triples are implemented.
11482 It just do not scale. I believe it is time for a few RFC
11483 specifications to cleam up this mess.
</p>
11485 <p>I would like to have one LDAP object representing each computer in
11486 the network, and this object can then keep the SMB (ie host key), DHCP
11487 (mac address/name) and DNS (name/IP address) settings in one place.
11488 It need to be efficently stored to make sure it scale well.
</p>
11490 <p>I would also like to have a quick way to map from a user or
11491 computer and to the net group this user or computer is a member.
</p>
11493 <p>Active Directory have done a better job than unix heads like myself
11494 in this regard, and the unix side need to catch up. Time to start a
11495 new IETF work group?
</p>
11501 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>.
11506 <div class=
"padding"></div>
11508 <div class=
"entry">
11509 <div class=
"title">
11510 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Endelig_er_Debian_Lenny_gitt_ut.html">Endelig er Debian Lenny gitt ut
</a>
11516 <p>Endelig er
<a href=
"http://www.debian.org/">Debian
</a>
11517 <a href=
"http://www.debian.org/News/2009/20090214">Lenny
</a> gitt ut.
11518 Et langt steg videre for Debian-prosjektet, og en rekke nye
11519 programpakker blir nå tilgjengelig for de av oss som bruker den
11520 stabile utgaven av Debian. Neste steg er nå å få
11521 <a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux
</a> /
11522 <a href=
"http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/">Debian Edu
</a> ferdig
11523 oppdatert for den nye utgaven, slik at en oppdatert versjon kan
11524 slippes løs på skolene. Takk til alle debian-utviklerne som har
11525 gjort dette mulig. Endelig er f.eks. fungerende avhengighetsstyrt
11526 bootsekvens tilgjengelig i stabil utgave, vha pakken
11527 <tt>insserv
</tt>.
</p>
11533 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>.
11538 <div class=
"padding"></div>
11540 <div class=
"entry">
11541 <div class=
"title">
11542 <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>
11548 <p>This weekend we had a small developer gathering for Debian Edu in
11549 Oslo. Most of Saturday was used for the general assemly for the
11550 member organization, but the rest of the weekend I used to tune the
11551 LTSP installation. LTSP now work out of the box on the
10-network.
11552 Acer Aspire One proved to be a very nice thin client, with both
11553 screen, mouse and keybard in a small box. Was working on getting the
11554 diskless workstation setup configured out of the box, but did not
11555 finish it before the weekend was up.
</p>
11557 <p>Did not find time to look at the
4 VGA cards in one box we got from
11558 the Brazilian group, so that will have to wait for the next
11559 development gathering. Would love to have the Debian Edu installer
11560 automatically detect and configure a multiseat setup when it find one
11561 of these cards.
</p>
11567 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>.
11572 <div class=
"padding"></div>
11574 <div class=
"entry">
11575 <div class=
"title">
11576 <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>
11582 <p>Recently I have spent some time evaluating the multimedia browser
11583 plugins available in Debian Lenny, to see which one we should use by
11584 default in Debian Edu. We need an embedded video playing plugin with
11585 control buttons to pause or stop the video, and capable of streaming
11586 all the multimedia content available on the web. The test results and
11587 notes are available on
11588 <a href=
"http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">the
11589 Debian wiki
</a>. I was surprised how few of the plugins are able to
11590 fill this need. My personal video player favorite, VLC, has a really
11591 bad plugin which fail on a lot of the test pages. A lot of the MIME
11592 types I would expect to work with any free software player (like
11593 video/ogg), just do not work. And simple formats like the
11594 audio/x-mplegurl format (m3u playlists), just isn't supported by the
11595 totem and vlc plugins. I hope the situation will improve soon. No
11596 wonder sites use the proprietary Adobe flash to play video.
</p>
11598 <p>For Lenny, we seem to end up with the mplayer plugin. It seem to
11599 be the only one fitting our needs. :/
</p>
11605 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>.
11610 <div class=
"padding"></div>
11612 <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>
11623 <li><a href=
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3)
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2)
</a></li>
11627 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/03/">March (
3)
</a></li>
11629 <li><a href=
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8)
</a></li>
11631 <li><a href=
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2)
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9)
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11672 <li><a href=
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6)
</a></li>
11674 <li><a href=
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3)
</a></li>
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2)
</a></li>
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3)
</a></li>
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8)
</a></li>
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2)
</a></li>
11697 <li><a href=
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5)
</a></li>
11699 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/10/">October (
6)
</a></li>
11701 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/11/">November (
3)
</a></li>
11703 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/12/">December (
5)
</a></li>
11710 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/01/">January (
11)
</a></li>
11712 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/02/">February (
9)
</a></li>
11714 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/03/">March (
9)
</a></li>
11716 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/04/">April (
6)
</a></li>
11718 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/05/">May (
9)
</a></li>
11720 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/06/">June (
10)
</a></li>
11722 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/07/">July (
7)
</a></li>
11724 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/08/">August (
3)
</a></li>
11726 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/09/">September (
5)
</a></li>
11728 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/10/">October (
7)
</a></li>
11730 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/11/">November (
9)
</a></li>
11732 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/12/">December (
3)
</a></li>
11739 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/01/">January (
7)
</a></li>
11741 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/02/">February (
10)
</a></li>
11743 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/03/">March (
17)
</a></li>
11745 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/04/">April (
12)
</a></li>
11747 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/05/">May (
12)
</a></li>
11749 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/06/">June (
20)
</a></li>
11751 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/07/">July (
17)
</a></li>
11753 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/08/">August (
6)
</a></li>
11755 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/09/">September (
9)
</a></li>
11757 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/10/">October (
17)
</a></li>
11759 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/11/">November (
10)
</a></li>
11761 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/12/">December (
7)
</a></li>
11768 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/01/">January (
16)
</a></li>
11770 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/02/">February (
6)
</a></li>
11772 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/03/">March (
6)
</a></li>
11774 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/04/">April (
7)
</a></li>
11776 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/05/">May (
3)
</a></li>
11778 <li><a href=
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</a></li>
11780 <li><a href=
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</a></li>
11782 <li><a href=
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6)
</a></li>
11784 <li><a href=
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4)
</a></li>
11786 <li><a href=
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2)
</a></li>
11788 <li><a href=
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3)
</a></li>
11790 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/12/">December (
1)
</a></li>
11797 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/01/">January (
2)
</a></li>
11799 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/02/">February (
1)
</a></li>
11801 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/03/">March (
3)
</a></li>
11803 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/04/">April (
3)
</a></li>
11805 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/05/">May (
9)
</a></li>
11807 <li><a href=
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14)
</a></li>
11809 <li><a href=
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12)
</a></li>
11811 <li><a href=
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13)
</a></li>
11813 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/09/">September (
7)
</a></li>
11815 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/10/">October (
9)
</a></li>
11817 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/11/">November (
13)
</a></li>
11819 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/12/">December (
12)
</a></li>
11826 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/01/">January (
8)
</a></li>
11828 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/02/">February (
8)
</a></li>
11830 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/03/">March (
12)
</a></li>
11832 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/04/">April (
10)
</a></li>
11834 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/05/">May (
9)
</a></li>
11836 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/06/">June (
3)
</a></li>
11838 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/07/">July (
4)
</a></li>
11840 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/08/">August (
3)
</a></li>
11842 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/09/">September (
1)
</a></li>
11844 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/10/">October (
2)
</a></li>
11846 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/11/">November (
3)
</a></li>
11848 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/12/">December (
3)
</a></li>
11855 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/11/">November (
5)
</a></li>
11857 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/12/">December (
7)
</a></li>
11868 <li><a href=
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13)
</a></li>
11870 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/amiga">amiga (
1)
</a></li>
11872 <li><a href=
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1)
</a></li>
11874 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bankid">bankid (
4)
</a></li>
11876 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin (
9)
</a></li>
11878 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem (
16)
</a></li>
11880 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bsa">bsa (
2)
</a></li>
11882 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/chrpath">chrpath (
2)
</a></li>
11884 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian (
141)
</a></li>
11886 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu (
158)
</a></li>
11888 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/digistan">digistan (
10)
</a></li>
11890 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/dld">dld (
16)
</a></li>
11892 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook (
23)
</a></li>
11894 <li><a href=
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4)
</a></li>
11896 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english (
333)
</a></li>
11898 <li><a href=
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23)
</a></li>
11900 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fildeling">fildeling (
12)
</a></li>
11902 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture (
29)
</a></li>
11904 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox (
9)
</a></li>
11906 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen (
18)
</a></li>
11908 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/h264">h264 (
20)
</a></li>
11910 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju (
42)
</a></li>
11912 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram (
13)
</a></li>
11914 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kart">kart (
19)
</a></li>
11916 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap (
9)
</a></li>
11918 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lenker">lenker (
8)
</a></li>
11920 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lsdvd">lsdvd (
2)
</a></li>
11922 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ltsp">ltsp (
1)
</a></li>
11924 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network (
8)
</a></li>
11926 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia (
39)
</a></li>
11928 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nice free software">nice free software (
8)
</a></li>
11930 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk (
285)
</a></li>
11932 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug (
182)
</a></li>
11934 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/offentlig innsyn">offentlig innsyn (
26)
</a></li>
11936 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/open311">open311 (
2)
</a></li>
11938 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett (
62)
</a></li>
11940 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern (
96)
</a></li>
11942 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/raid">raid (
1)
</a></li>
11944 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reactos">reactos (
1)
</a></li>
11946 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reprap">reprap (
11)
</a></li>
11948 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rfid">rfid (
3)
</a></li>
11950 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot (
10)
</a></li>
11952 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rss">rss (
1)
</a></li>
11954 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ruter">ruter (
5)
</a></li>
11956 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/scraperwiki">scraperwiki (
2)
</a></li>
11958 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet (
52)
</a></li>
11960 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary (
4)
</a></li>
11962 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/skepsis">skepsis (
5)
</a></li>
11964 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard (
49)
</a></li>
11966 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stavekontroll">stavekontroll (
5)
</a></li>
11968 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stortinget">stortinget (
10)
</a></li>
11970 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance (
44)
</a></li>
11972 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sysadmin">sysadmin (
2)
</a></li>
11974 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/usenix">usenix (
2)
</a></li>
11976 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/valg">valg (
8)
</a></li>
11978 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video (
59)
</a></li>
11980 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/vitenskap">vitenskap (
4)
</a></li>
11982 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web (
38)
</a></li>
11988 <p style=
"text-align: right">
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