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14 <a href=
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</a>
21 <h3>Entries tagged "isenkram".
</h3>
25 <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>
31 <p><a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">The Isenkram
32 system
</a> provide a practical and easy way to figure out which
33 packages support the hardware in a given machine. The command line
34 tool
<tt>isenkram-lookup
</tt> and the tasksel options provide a
35 convenient way to list and install packages relevant for the current
36 hardware during system installation, both user space packages and
37 firmware packages. The GUI background daemon on the other hand provide
38 a pop-up proposing to install packages when a new dongle is inserted
39 while using the computer. For example, if you plug in a smart card
40 reader, the system will ask if you want to install
<tt>pcscd
</tt> if
41 that package isn't already installed, and if you plug in a USB video
42 camera the system will ask if you want to install
<tt>cheese
</tt> if
43 cheese is currently missing. This already work just fine.
</p>
45 <p>But Isenkram depend on a database mapping from hardware IDs to
46 package names. When I started no such database existed in Debian, so
47 I made my own data set and included it with the isenkram package and
48 made isenkram fetch the latest version of this database from git using
49 http. This way the isenkram users would get updated package proposals
50 as soon as I learned more about hardware related packages.
</p>
52 <p>The hardware is identified using modalias strings. The modalias
53 design is from the Linux kernel where most hardware descriptors are
54 made available as a strings that can be matched using filename style
55 globbing. It handle USB, PCI, DMI and a lot of other hardware related
58 <p>The downside to the Isenkram specific database is that there is no
59 information about relevant distribution / Debian version, making
60 isenkram propose obsolete packages too. But along came AppStream, a
61 cross distribution mechanism to store and collect metadata about
62 software packages. When I heard about the proposal, I contacted the
63 people involved and suggested to add a hardware matching rule using
64 modalias strings in the specification, to be able to use AppStream for
65 mapping hardware to packages. This idea was accepted and AppStream is
66 now a great way for a package to announce the hardware it support in a
67 distribution neutral way. I wrote
68 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_appstream_with_isenkram_to_install_hardware_related_packages_in_Debian.html">a
69 recipe on how to add such meta-information
</a> in a blog post last
70 December. If you have a hardware related package in Debian, please
71 announce the relevant hardware IDs using AppStream.
</p>
73 <p>In Debian, almost all packages that can talk to a LEGO Mindestorms
74 RCX or NXT unit, announce this support using AppStream. The effect is
75 that when you insert such LEGO robot controller into your Debian
76 machine, Isenkram will propose to install the packages needed to get
77 it working. The intention is that this should allow the local user to
78 start programming his robot controller right away without having to
79 guess what packages to use or which permissions to fix.
</p>
81 <p>But when I sat down with my son the other day to program our NXT
82 unit using his Debian Stretch computer, I discovered something
83 annoying. The local console user (ie my son) did not get access to
84 the USB device for programming the unit. This used to work, but no
85 longer in Jessie and Stretch. After some investigation and asking
86 around on #debian-devel, I discovered that this was because udev had
87 changed the mechanism used to grant access to local devices. The
88 ConsoleKit mechanism from
<tt>/lib/udev/rules.d/
70-udev-acl.rules
</tt>
89 no longer applied, because LDAP users no longer was added to the
90 plugdev group during login. Michael Biebl told me that this method
91 was obsolete and the new method used ACLs instead. This was good
92 news, as the plugdev mechanism is a mess when using a remote user
93 directory like LDAP. Using ACLs would make sure a user lost device
94 access when she logged out, even if the user left behind a background
95 process which would retain the plugdev membership with the ConsoleKit
96 setup. Armed with this knowledge I moved on to fix the access problem
97 for the LEGO Mindstorms related packages.
</p>
99 <p>The new system uses a udev tag, 'uaccess'. It can either be
100 applied directly for a device, or is applied in
101 /lib/udev/rules.d/
70-uaccess.rules for classes of devices. As the
102 LEGO Mindstorms udev rules did not have a class, I decided to add the
103 tag directly in the udev rules files included in the packages. Here
104 is one example. For the nqc C compiler for the RCX, the
105 <tt>/lib/udev/rules.d/
60-nqc.rules
</tt> file now look like this:
108 SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ACTION=="add", ATTR{idVendor}=="
0694", ATTR{idProduct}=="
0001", \
109 SYMLINK+="rcx-%k", TAG+="uaccess"
112 <p>The key part is the 'TAG+="uaccess"' at the end. I suspect all
113 packages using plugdev in their /lib/udev/rules.d/ files should be
114 changed to use this tag (either directly or indirectly via
115 <tt>70-uaccess.rules
</tt>). Perhaps a lintian check should be created
118 <p>I've been unable to find good documentation on the uaccess feature.
119 It is unclear to me if the uaccess tag is an internal implementation
120 detail like the udev-acl tag used by
121 <tt>/lib/udev/rules.d/
70-udev-acl.rules
</tt>. If it is, I guess the
122 indirect method is the preferred way. Michael
123 <a href=
"https://github.com/systemd/systemd/issues/4288">asked for more
124 documentation from the systemd project
</a> and I hope it will make
125 this clearer. For now I use the generic classes when they exist and
126 is already handled by
<tt>70-uaccess.rules
</tt>, and add the tag
127 directly if no such class exist.
</p>
129 <p>To learn more about the isenkram system, please check out
130 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram/">my
131 blog posts tagged isenkram
</a>.
</p>
133 <p>To help out making life for LEGO constructors in Debian easier,
134 please join us on our IRC channel
135 <a href=
"irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">#debian-lego
</a> and join
136 the
<a href=
"https://alioth.debian.org/projects/debian-lego/">Debian
137 LEGO team
</a> in the Alioth project we created yesterday. A mailing
138 list is not yet created, but we are working on it. :)
</p>
140 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
141 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
142 <b><a href=
"bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
</a></b>.
</p>
148 Tags:
<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>.
153 <div class=
"padding"></div>
157 <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>
163 <p><a href=
"https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/isenkram">The isenkram
164 system
</a> is a user-focused solution in Debian for handling hardware
165 related packages. The idea is to have a database of mappings between
166 hardware and packages, and pop up a dialog suggesting for the user to
167 install the packages to use a given hardware dongle. Some use cases
168 are when you insert a Yubikey, it proposes to install the software
169 needed to control it; when you insert a braille reader list it
170 proposes to install the packages needed to send text to the reader;
171 and when you insert a ColorHug screen calibrator it suggests to
172 install the driver for it. The system work well, and even have a few
173 command line tools to install firmware packages and packages for the
174 hardware already in the machine (as opposed to hotpluggable hardware).
</p>
176 <p>The system was initially written using aptdaemon, because I found
177 good documentation and example code on how to use it. But aptdaemon
178 is going away and is generally being replaced by
179 <a href=
"http://www.freedesktop.org/software/PackageKit/">PackageKit
</a>,
180 so Isenkram needed a rewrite. And today, thanks to the great patch
181 from my college Sunil Mohan Adapa in the FreedomBox project, the
182 rewrite finally took place. I've just uploaded a new version of
183 Isenkram into Debian Unstable with the patch included, and the default
184 for the background daemon is now to use PackageKit. To check it out,
185 install the
<tt>isenkram
</tt> package and insert some hardware dongle
186 and see if it is recognised.
</p>
188 <p>If you want to know what kind of packages isenkram would propose for
189 the machine it is running on, you can check out the isenkram-lookup
190 program. This is what it look like on a Thinkpad X230:
</p>
208 </pre></blockquote></p>
210 <p>The hardware mappings come from several places. The preferred way
211 is for packages to announce their hardware support using
212 <a href=
"https://www.freedesktop.org/software/appstream/docs/">the
213 cross distribution appstream system
</a>.
215 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram/">previous
216 blog posts about isenkram
</a> to learn how to do that.
</p>
222 Tags:
<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>.
227 <div class=
"padding"></div>
231 <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>
237 <p>Around three years ago, I created
238 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">the isenkram
239 system
</a> to get a more practical solution in Debian for handing
240 hardware related packages. A GUI system in the isenkram package will
241 present a pop-up dialog when some hardware dongle supported by
242 relevant packages in Debian is inserted into the machine. The same
243 lookup mechanism to detect packages is available as command line
244 tools in the isenkram-cli package. In addition to mapping hardware,
245 it will also map kernel firmware files to packages and make it easy to
246 install needed firmware packages automatically. The key for this
247 system to work is a good way to map hardware to packages, in other
248 words, allow packages to announce what hardware they will work
251 <p>I started by providing data files in the isenkram source, and
252 adding code to download the latest version of these data files at run
253 time, to ensure every user had the most up to date mapping available.
254 I also added support for storing the mapping in the Packages file in
255 the apt repositories, but did not push this approach because while I
256 was trying to figure out how to best store hardware/package mappings,
257 <a href=
"http://www.freedesktop.org/software/appstream/docs/">the
258 appstream system
</a> was announced. I got in touch and suggested to
259 add the hardware mapping into that data set to be able to use
260 appstream as a data source, and this was accepted at least for the
261 Debian version of appstream.
</p>
263 <p>A few days ago using appstream in Debian for this became possible,
264 and today I uploaded a new version
0.20 of isenkram adding support for
265 appstream as a data source for mapping hardware to packages. The only
266 package so far using appstream to announce its hardware support is my
267 pymissile package. I got help from Matthias Klumpp with figuring out
268 how do add the required
269 <a href=
"https://appstream.debian.org/html/sid/main/metainfo/pymissile.html">metadata
270 in pymissile
</a>. I added a file debian/pymissile.metainfo.xml with
274 <?xml
version="
1.0"
encoding="UTF-
8"?
>
276 <id
>pymissile
</id
>
277 <metadata_license
>MIT
</metadata_license
>
278 <name
>pymissile
</name
>
279 <summary
>Control original Striker USB Missile Launcher
</summary
>
282 Pymissile provides a curses interface to control an original
283 Marks and Spencer / Striker USB Missile Launcher, as well as a
284 motion control script to allow a webcamera to control the
289 <modalias
>usb:v1130p0202d*
</modalias
>
294 <p>The key for isenkram is the component/provides/modalias value,
295 which is a glob style match rule for hardware specific strings
296 (modalias strings) provided by the Linux kernel. In this case, it
297 will map to all USB devices with vendor code
1130 and product code
300 <p>Note, it is important that the license of all the metadata files
301 are compatible to have permissions to aggregate them into archive wide
302 appstream files. Matthias suggested to use MIT or BSD licenses for
303 these files. A challenge is figuring out a good id for the data, as
304 it is supposed to be globally unique and shared across distributions
305 (in other words, best to coordinate with upstream what to use). But
306 it can be changed later or, so we went with the package name as
307 upstream for this project is dormant.
</p>
309 <p>To get the metadata file installed in the correct location for the
310 mirror update scripts to pick it up and include its content the
311 appstream data source, the file must be installed in the binary
312 package under /usr/share/appdata/. I did this by adding the following
313 line to debian/pymissile.install:
</p>
316 debian/pymissile.metainfo.xml usr/share/appdata
319 <p>With that in place, the command line tool isenkram-lookup will list
320 all packages useful on the current computer automatically, and the GUI
321 pop-up handler will propose to install the package not already
322 installed if a hardware dongle is inserted into the machine in
325 <p>Details of the modalias field in appstream is available from the
326 <a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/DEP-11">DEP-
11</a> proposal.
</p>
328 <p>To locate the modalias values of all hardware present in a machine,
329 try running this command on the command line:
</p>
332 cat $(find /sys/devices/|grep modalias)
335 <p>To learn more about the isenkram system, please check out
336 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram/">my
337 blog posts tagged isenkram
</a>.
</p>
343 Tags:
<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>.
348 <div class=
"padding"></div>
352 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Jessie__PXE_and_automatic_firmware_installation.html">Debian Jessie, PXE and automatic firmware installation
</a>
358 <p>When PXE installing laptops with Debian, I often run into the
359 problem that the WiFi card require some firmware to work properly.
360 And it has been a pain to fix this using preseeding in Debian.
361 Normally something more is needed. But thanks to
362 <a href=
"https://packages.qa.debian.org/i/isenkram.html">my isenkram
363 package
</a> and its recent tasksel extension, it has now become easy
364 to do this using simple preseeding.
</p>
366 <p>The isenkram-cli package provide tasksel tasks which will install
367 firmware for the hardware found in the machine (actually, requested by
368 the kernel modules for the hardware). (It can also install user space
369 programs supporting the hardware detected, but that is not the focus
372 <p>To get this working in the default installation, two preeseding
373 values are needed. First, the isenkram-cli package must be installed
374 into the target chroot (aka the hard drive) before tasksel is executed
375 in the pkgsel step of the debian-installer system. This is done by
376 preseeding the base-installer/includes debconf value to include the
377 isenkram-cli package. The package name is next passed to debootstrap
378 for installation. With the isenkram-cli package in place, tasksel
379 will automatically use the isenkram tasks to detect hardware specific
380 packages for the machine being installed and install them, because
381 isenkram-cli contain tasksel tasks.
</p>
383 <p>Second, one need to enable the non-free APT repository, because
384 most firmware unfortunately is non-free. This is done by preseeding
385 the apt-mirror-setup step. This is unfortunate, but for a lot of
386 hardware it is the only option in Debian.
</p>
388 <p>The end result is two lines needed in your preseeding file to get
389 firmware installed automatically by the installer:
</p>
392 base-installer base-installer/includes string isenkram-cli
393 apt-mirror-setup apt-setup/non-free boolean true
394 </pre></blockquote></p>
396 <p>The current version of isenkram-cli in testing/jessie will install
397 both firmware and user space packages when using this method. It also
398 do not work well, so use version
0.15 or later. Installing both
399 firmware and user space packages might give you a bit more than you
400 want, so I decided to split the tasksel task in two, one for firmware
401 and one for user space programs. The firmware task is enabled by
402 default, while the one for user space programs is not. This split is
403 implemented in the package currently in unstable.
</p>
405 <p>If you decide to give this a go, please let me know (via email) how
406 this recipe work for you. :)
</p>
408 <p>So, I bet you are wondering, how can this work. First and
409 foremost, it work because tasksel is modular, and driven by whatever
410 files it find in /usr/lib/tasksel/ and /usr/share/tasksel/. So the
411 isenkram-cli package place two files for tasksel to find. First there
412 is the task description file (/usr/share/tasksel/descs/isenkram.desc):
</p>
415 Task: isenkram-packages
417 Description: Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)
418 Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific packages are
420 Test-new-install: show show
422 Packages: for-current-hardware
424 Task: isenkram-firmware
426 Description: Hardware specific firmware packages (autodetected by isenkram)
427 Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific firmware
428 packages are proposed.
429 Test-new-install: mark show
431 Packages: for-current-hardware-firmware
432 </pre></blockquote></p>
434 <p>The key parts are Test-new-install which indicate how the task
435 should be handled and the Packages line referencing to a script in
436 /usr/lib/tasksel/packages/. The scripts use other scripts to get a
437 list of packages to install. The for-current-hardware-firmware script
438 look like this to list relevant firmware for the machine:
445 isenkram-autoinstall-firmware -l
446 </pre></blockquote></p>
448 <p>With those two pieces in place, the firmware is installed by
449 tasksel during the normal d-i run. :)
</p>
451 <p>If you want to test what tasksel will install when isenkram-cli is
452 installed, run
<tt>DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical tasksel --test
453 --new-install
</tt> to get the list of packages that tasksel would
456 <p><a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/">Debian Edu
</a> will be
457 pilots in testing this feature, as isenkram is used there now to
458 install firmware, replacing the earlier scripts.
</p>
464 Tags:
<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>.
469 <div class=
"padding"></div>
473 <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>
479 <p>It would be nice if it was easier in Debian to get all the hardware
480 related packages relevant for the computer installed automatically.
481 So I implemented one, using
482 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">my Isenkram
483 package
</a>. To use it, install the tasksel and isenkram packages and
484 run tasksel as user root. You should be presented with a new option,
485 "Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)". When you
486 select it, tasksel will install the packages isenkram claim is fit for
487 the current hardware, hot pluggable or not.
<p>
489 <p>The implementation is in two files, one is the tasksel menu entry
490 description, and the other is the script used to extract the list of
491 packages to install. The first part is in
492 <tt>/usr/share/tasksel/descs/isenkram.desc
</tt> and look like
498 Description: Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)
499 Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific packages are
501 Test-new-install: mark show
503 Packages: for-current-hardware
504 </pre></blockquote></p>
506 <p>The second part is in
507 <tt>/usr/lib/tasksel/packages/for-current-hardware
</tt> and look like
515 isenkram-autoinstall-firmware -l
517 </pre></blockquote></p>
519 <p>All in all, a very short and simple implementation making it
520 trivial to install the hardware dependent package we all may want to
521 have installed on our machines. I've not been able to find a way to
522 get tasksel to tell you exactly which packages it plan to install
523 before doing the installation. So if you are curious or careful,
524 check the output from the isenkram-* command line tools first.
</p>
526 <p>The information about which packages are handling which hardware is
527 fetched either from the isenkram package itself in
528 /usr/share/isenkram/, from git.debian.org or from the APT package
529 database (using the Modaliases header). The APT package database
530 parsing have caused a nasty resource leak in the isenkram daemon (bugs
531 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/719837">#
719837</a> and
532 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/730704">#
730704</a>). The cause is in
533 the python-apt code (bug
534 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/745487">#
745487</a>), but using a
535 workaround I was able to get rid of the file descriptor leak and
536 reduce the memory leak from ~
30 MiB per hardware detection down to
537 around
2 MiB per hardware detection. It should make the desktop
538 daemon a lot more useful. The fix is in version
0.7 uploaded to
541 <p>I believe the current way of mapping hardware to packages in
542 Isenkram is is a good draft, but in the future I expect isenkram to
543 use the AppStream data source for this. A proposal for getting proper
544 AppStream support into Debian is floating around as
545 <a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/DEP-11">DEP-
11</a>, and
546 <a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/SummerOfCode2014/Projects#SummerOfCode2014.2FProjects.2FAppStreamDEP11Implementation.AppStream.2FDEP-11_for_the_Debian_Archive">GSoC
547 project
</a> will take place this summer to improve the situation. I
548 look forward to seeing the result, and welcome patches for isenkram to
549 start using the information when it is ready.
</p>
551 <p>If you want your package to map to some specific hardware, either
552 add a "Xb-Modaliases" header to your control file like I did in
553 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/pymissile">the pymissile
554 package
</a> or submit a bug report with the details to the isenkram
556 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram/">all my
557 blog posts tagged isenkram
</a> for details on the notation. I expect
558 the information will be migrated to AppStream eventually, but for the
559 moment I got no better place to store it.
</p>
565 Tags:
<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>.
570 <div class=
"padding"></div>
574 <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>
580 <p>It annoys me when the computer fail to do automatically what it is
581 perfectly capable of, and I have to do it manually to get things
582 working. One such task is to find out what firmware packages are
583 needed to get the hardware on my computer working. Most often this
584 affect the wifi card, but some times it even affect the RAID
585 controller or the ethernet card. Today I pushed version
0.4 of the
586 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">Isenkram package
</a>
587 including a new script isenkram-autoinstall-firmware handling the
588 process of asking all the loaded kernel modules what firmware files
589 they want, find debian packages providing these files and install the
590 debian packages. Here is a test run on my laptop:
</p>
593 # isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
594 info: kernel drivers requested extra firmware: ipw2200-bss.fw ipw2200-ibss.fw ipw2200-sniffer.fw
595 info: fetching http://http.debian.net/debian/dists/squeeze/Contents-i386.gz
596 info: locating packages with the requested firmware files
597 info: Updating APT sources after adding non-free APT source
598 info: trying to install firmware-ipw2x00
601 Preconfiguring packages ...
602 Selecting previously deselected package firmware-ipw2x00.
603 (Reading database ...
259727 files and directories currently installed.)
604 Unpacking firmware-ipw2x00 (from .../firmware-ipw2x00_0.28+squeeze1_all.deb) ...
605 Setting up firmware-ipw2x00 (
0.28+squeeze1) ...
609 <p>When all the requested firmware is present, a simple message is
613 # isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
614 info: did not find any firmware files requested by loaded kernel modules. exiting
618 <p>It could use some polish, but it is already working well and saving
619 me some time when setting up new machines. :)
</p>
621 <p>So, how does it work? It look at the set of currently loaded
622 kernel modules, and look up each one of them using modinfo, to find
623 the firmware files listed in the module meta-information. Next, it
624 download the Contents file from a nearby APT mirror, and search for
625 the firmware files in this file to locate the package with the
626 requested firmware file. If the package is in the non-free section, a
627 non-free APT source is added and the package is installed using
628 <tt>apt-get install
</tt>. The end result is a slightly better working
631 <p>I hope someone find time to implement a more polished version of
632 this script as part of the hw-detect debian-installer module, to
633 finally fix
<a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/655507">BTS report
634 #
655507</a>. There really is no need to insert USB sticks with
635 firmware during a PXE install when the packages already are available
636 from the nearby Debian mirror.
</p>
642 Tags:
<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>.
647 <div class=
"padding"></div>
651 <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>
657 <p>Today the
<a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">Isenkram
658 package
</a> finally made it into the archive, after lingering in NEW
659 for many months. I uploaded it to the Debian experimental suite
660 2013-
01-
27, and today it was accepted into the archive.
</p>
662 <p>Isenkram is a system for suggesting to users what packages to
663 install to work with a pluggable hardware device. The suggestion pop
664 up when the device is plugged in. For example if a Lego Mindstorm NXT
665 is inserted, it will suggest to install the program needed to program
666 the NXT controller. Give it a go, and report bugs and suggestions to
673 Tags:
<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>.
678 <div class=
"padding"></div>
682 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">Welcome to the world, Isenkram!
</a>
689 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_prototype_ready_making_hardware_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">asked
690 for testers
</a> for my prototype for making Debian better at handling
691 pluggable hardware devices, which I
692 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">set
693 out to create
</a> earlier this month. Several valuable testers showed
694 up, and caused me to really want to to open up the development to more
695 people. But before I did this, I want to come up with a sensible name
696 for this project. Today I finally decided on a new name, and I have
697 renamed the project from hw-support-handler to this new name. In the
698 process, I moved the source to git and made it available as a
699 <a href=
"http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/isenkram.git">collab-maint
</a>
700 repository in Debian. The new name? It is
<strong>Isenkram
</strong>.
701 To fetch and build the latest version of the source, use
</p>
704 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/collab-maint/isenkram.git
705 cd isenkram && git-buildpackage -us -uc
708 <p>I have not yet adjusted all files to use the new name yet. If you
709 want to hack on the source or improve the package, please go ahead.
710 But please talk to me first on IRC or via email before you do major
711 changes, to make sure we do not step on each others toes. :)
</p>
713 <p>If you wonder what 'isenkram' is, it is a Norwegian word for iron
714 stuff, typically meaning tools, nails, screws, etc. Typical hardware
715 stuff, in other words. I've been told it is the Norwegian variant of
716 the German word eisenkram, for those that are familiar with that
719 <p><strong>Update
2013-
01-
26</strong>: Added -us -us to build
720 instructions, to avoid confusing people with an error from the signing
723 <p><strong>Update
2013-
01-
27</strong>: Switch to HTTP URL for the git
724 clone argument to avoid the need for authentication.
</p>
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/isenkram">isenkram
</a>.
735 <div class=
"padding"></div>
739 <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>
745 <p>Early this month I set out to try to
746 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">improve
747 the Debian support for pluggable hardware devices
</a>. Now my
748 prototype is working, and it is ready for a larger audience. To test
750 <a href=
"http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">source
751 from the Debian Edu subversion repository
</a>, build and install the
752 package. You might have to log out and in again activate the
753 autostart script.
</p>
755 <p>The design is simple:
</p>
759 <li>Add desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ causing a program
760 hw-support-handlerd to start when the user log in.
</li>
762 <li>This program listen for kernel events about new hardware (directly
763 from the kernel like udev does), not using HAL dbus events as I
766 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware modalias in
767 the APT database, a database
768 <a href=
"http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=markup">available
769 via HTTP
</a> and a database available as part of the package.
</li>
771 <li>If a package is mapped to the hardware in question, the package
772 isn't installed yet and this is the first time the hardware was
773 plugged in, show a desktop notification suggesting to install the
774 package or packages.
</li>
776 <li>If the user click on the 'install package now' button, ask
777 aptdaemon via the PackageKit API to install the requrired package.
</li>
779 <li>aptdaemon ask for root password or sudo password, and install the
780 package while showing progress information in a window.
</li>
784 <p>I still need to come up with a better name for the system. Here
785 are some screen shots showing the prototype in action. First the
786 notification, then the password request, and finally the request to
787 approve all the dependencies. Sorry for the Norwegian Bokmål GUI.
</p>
789 <p><img src=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-1-notification.png">
790 <br><img src=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-2-password.png">
791 <br><img src=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-3-dependencies.png">
792 <br><img src=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-4-installing.png">
793 <br><img src=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-5-installing-details.png" width=
"70%"></p>
795 <p>The prototype still need to be improved with longer timeouts, but
796 is already useful. The database of hardware to package mappings also
797 need more work. It is currently compatible with the Ubuntu way of
798 storing such information in the package control file, but could be
799 changed to use other formats instead or in addition to the current
800 method. I've dropped the use of discover for this mapping, as the
801 modalias approach is more flexible and easier to use on Linux as long
802 as the Linux kernel expose its modalias strings directly.
</p>
804 <p><strong>Update
2013-
01-
21 16:
50</strong>: Due to popular demand,
805 here is the command required to check out and build the source: Use
807 svn://svn.debian.org/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/; cd
808 hw-support-handler; debuild
</tt>'. If you lack debuild, install the
809 devscripts package.
</p>
811 <p><strong>Update
2013-
01-
23 12:
00</strong>: The project is now
812 renamed to Isenkram and the source moved from the Debian Edu
813 subversion repository to a Debian collab-maint git repository. See
814 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">build
815 instructions
</a> for details.
</p>
821 Tags:
<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>.
826 <div class=
"padding"></div>
830 <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>
836 <p>Yesterday, I wrote about the
837 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Modalias_strings___a_practical_way_to_map__stuff__to_hardware.html">modalias
838 values provided by the Linux kernel
</a> following my hope for
839 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">better
840 dongle support in Debian
</a>. Using this knowledge, I have tested how
841 modalias values attached to package names can be used to map packages
842 to hardware. This allow the system to look up and suggest relevant
843 packages when I plug in some new hardware into my machine, and replace
844 discover and discover-data as the database used to map hardware to
847 <p>I create a modaliases file with entries like the following,
848 containing package name, kernel module name (if relevant, otherwise
849 the package name) and globs matching the relevant hardware
853 Package: package-name
854 <br>Modaliases: module(modaliasglob, modaliasglob, modaliasglob)
</p>
857 <p>It is fairly trivial to write code to find the relevant packages
858 for a given modalias value using this file.
</p>
860 <p>An entry like this would suggest the video and picture application
861 cheese for many USB web cameras (interface bus class
0E01):
</p>
865 <br>Modaliases: cheese(usb:v*p*d*dc*dsc*dp*ic0Eisc01ip*)
</p>
868 <p>An entry like this would suggest the pcmciautils package when a
869 CardBus bridge (bus class
0607) PCI device is present:
</p>
873 <br>Modaliases: pcmciautils(pci:v*d*sv*sd*bc06sc07i*)
876 <p>An entry like this would suggest the package colorhug-client when
877 plugging in a ColorHug with USB IDs
04D8:F8DA:
</p>
880 Package: colorhug-client
881 <br>Modaliases: colorhug-client(usb:v04D8pF8DAd*)
</p>
884 <p>I believe the format is compatible with the format of the Packages
885 file in the Debian archive. Ubuntu already uses their Packages file
886 to store their mappings from packages to hardware.
</p>
888 <p>By adding a XB-Modaliases: header in debian/control, any .deb can
889 announce the hardware it support in a way my prototype understand.
890 This allow those publishing packages in an APT source outside the
891 Debian archive as well as those backporting packages to make sure the
892 hardware mapping are included in the package meta information. I've
893 tested such header in the pymissile package, and its modalias mapping
894 is working as it should with my prototype. It even made it to Ubuntu
897 <p>To test if it was possible to look up supported hardware using only
898 the shell tools available in the Debian installer, I wrote a shell
899 implementation of the lookup code. The idea is to create files for
900 each modalias and let the shell do the matching. Please check out and
902 <a href=
"http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/hw-support-lookup?view=co">hw-support-lookup
</a>
903 shell script. It run without any extra dependencies and fetch the
904 hardware mappings from the Debian archive and the subversion
905 repository where I currently work on my prototype.
</p>
907 <p>When I use it on a machine with a yubikey inserted, it suggest to
908 install yubikey-personalization:
</p>
911 % ./hw-support-lookup
912 <br>yubikey-personalization
916 <p>When I run it on my Thinkpad X40 with a PCMCIA/CardBus slot, it
917 propose to install the pcmciautils package:
</p>
920 % ./hw-support-lookup
925 <p>If you know of any hardware-package mapping that should be added to
926 <a href=
"http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=co">my
927 database
</a>, please tell me about it.
</p>
929 <p>It could be possible to generate several of the mappings between
930 packages and hardware. One source would be to look at packages with
931 kernel modules, ie packages with *.ko files in /lib/modules/, and
932 extract their modalias information. Another would be to look at
933 packages with udev rules, ie packages with files in
934 /lib/udev/rules.d/, and extract their vendor/model information to
935 generate a modalias matching rule. I have not tested any of these to
938 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
939 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
940 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
941 <a href=
"irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel
</a>.
</p>
947 Tags:
<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>.
952 <div class=
"padding"></div>
956 <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>
962 <p>While looking into how to look up Debian packages based on hardware
963 information, to find the packages that support a given piece of
964 hardware, I refreshed my memory regarding modalias values, and decided
965 to document the details. Here are my findings so far, also available
967 <a href=
"http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
968 Debian Edu subversion repository
</a>:
970 <p><strong>Modalias decoded
</strong></p>
972 <p>This document try to explain what the different types of modalias
973 values stands for. It is in part based on information from
974 <URL:
<a href=
"https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias">https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias
</a> >,
975 <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> >,
976 <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
977 <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> >.
979 <p>The modalias entries for a given Linux machine can be found using
980 this shell script:
</p>
983 find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -
0 cat | sort -u
986 <p>The supported modalias globs for a given kernel module can be found
990 % /sbin/modinfo psmouse | grep alias:
991 alias: serio:ty05pr*id*ex*
992 alias: serio:ty01pr*id*ex*
996 <p><strong>PCI subtype
</strong></p>
998 <p>A typical PCI entry can look like this. This is an Intel Host
999 Bridge memory controller:
</p>
1002 pci:v00008086d00002770sv00001028sd000001ADbc06sc00i00
1005 <p>This represent these values:
</p>
1010 sv
00001028 (subvendor)
1011 sd
000001AD (subdevice)
1013 sc
00 (bus subclass)
1017 <p>The vendor/device values are the same values outputted from 'lspci
1018 -n' as
8086:
2770. The bus class/subclass is also shown by lspci as
1019 0600. The
0600 class is a host bridge. Other useful bus values are
1020 0300 (VGA compatible card) and
0200 (Ethernet controller).
</p>
1022 <p>Not sure how to figure out the interface value, nor what it
1025 <p><strong>USB subtype
</strong></p>
1027 <p>Some typical USB entries can look like this. This is an internal
1028 USB hub in a laptop:
</p>
1031 usb:v1D6Bp0001d0206dc09dsc00dp00ic09isc00ip00
1034 <p>Here is the values included in this alias:
</p>
1037 v
1D6B (device vendor)
1038 p
0001 (device product)
1040 dc
09 (device class)
1041 dsc
00 (device subclass)
1042 dp
00 (device protocol)
1043 ic
09 (interface class)
1044 isc
00 (interface subclass)
1045 ip
00 (interface protocol)
1048 <p>The
0900 device class/subclass means hub. Some times the relevant
1049 class is in the interface class section. For a simple USB web camera,
1050 these alias entries show up:
</p>
1053 usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc01ip00
1054 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc02ip00
1055 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc01ip00
1056 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc02ip00
1059 <p>Interface class
0E01 is video control,
0E02 is video streaming (aka
1060 camera),
0101 is audio control device and
0102 is audio streaming (aka
1061 microphone). Thus this is a camera with microphone included.
</p>
1063 <p><strong>ACPI subtype
</strong></p>
1065 <p>The ACPI type is used for several non-PCI/USB stuff. This is an IR
1066 receiver in a Thinkpad X40:
</p>
1069 acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
1072 <p>The values between the colons are IDs.
</p>
1074 <p><strong>DMI subtype
</strong></p>
1076 <p>The DMI table contain lots of information about the computer case
1077 and model. This is an entry for a IBM Thinkpad X40, fetched from
1078 /sys/devices/virtual/dmi/id/modalias:
</p>
1081 dmi:bvnIBM:bvr1UETB6WW(
1.66):bd06/
15/
2005:svnIBM:pn2371H4G:pvrThinkPadX40:rvnIBM:rn2371H4G:rvrNotAvailable:cvnIBM:ct10:cvrNotAvailable:
1084 <p>The values present are
</p>
1087 bvn IBM (BIOS vendor)
1088 bvr
1UETB
6WW(
1.66) (BIOS version)
1089 bd
06/
15/
2005 (BIOS date)
1090 svn IBM (system vendor)
1091 pn
2371H4G (product name)
1092 pvr ThinkPadX40 (product version)
1093 rvn IBM (board vendor)
1094 rn
2371H4G (board name)
1095 rvr NotAvailable (board version)
1096 cvn IBM (chassis vendor)
1097 ct
10 (chassis type)
1098 cvr NotAvailable (chassis version)
1101 <p>The chassis type
10 is Notebook. Other interesting values can be
1102 found in the dmidecode source:
</p>
1106 4 Low Profile Desktop
1119 17 Main Server Chassis
1120 18 Expansion Chassis
1122 20 Bus Expansion Chassis
1123 21 Peripheral Chassis
1125 23 Rack Mount Chassis
1134 <p>The chassis type values are not always accurately set in the DMI
1135 table. For example my home server is a tower, but the DMI modalias
1136 claim it is a desktop.
</p>
1138 <p><strong>SerIO subtype
</strong></p>
1140 <p>This type is used for PS/
2 mouse plugs. One example is from my
1144 serio:ty01pr00id00ex00
1147 <p>The values present are
</p>
1156 <p>This type is supported by the psmouse driver. I am not sure what
1157 the valid values are.
</p>
1159 <p><strong>Other subtypes
</strong></p>
1161 <p>There are heaps of other modalias subtypes according to
1162 file2alias.c. There is the rest of the list from that source: amba,
1163 ap, bcma, ccw, css, eisa, hid, i2c, ieee1394, input, ipack, isapnp,
1164 mdio, of, parisc, pcmcia, platform, scsi, sdio, spi, ssb, vio, virtio,
1165 vmbus, x86cpu and zorro. I did not spend time documenting all of
1166 these, as they do not seem relevant for my intended use with mapping
1167 hardware to packages when new stuff is inserted during run time.
</p>
1169 <p><strong>Looking up kernel modules using modalias values
</strong></p>
1171 <p>To check which kernel modules provide support for a given modalias,
1172 one can use the following shell script:
</p>
1175 for id in $(find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -
0 cat | sort -u); do \
1177 /sbin/modprobe --show-depends "$id"|sed 's/^/ /' ; \
1181 <p>The output can look like this (only the first few entries as the
1182 list is very long on my test machine):
</p>
1186 insmod /lib/modules/
2.6.32-
5-
686/kernel/drivers/acpi/ac.ko
1188 FATAL: Module acpi:device: not found.
1190 insmod /lib/modules/
2.6.32-
5-
686/kernel/drivers/char/nvram.ko
1191 insmod /lib/modules/
2.6.32-
5-
686/kernel/drivers/leds/led-class.ko
1192 insmod /lib/modules/
2.6.32-
5-
686/kernel/net/rfkill/rfkill.ko
1193 insmod /lib/modules/
2.6.32-
5-
686/kernel/drivers/platform/x86/thinkpad_acpi.ko
1194 acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
1195 insmod /lib/modules/
2.6.32-
5-
686/kernel/lib/crc-ccitt.ko
1196 insmod /lib/modules/
2.6.32-
5-
686/kernel/net/irda/irda.ko
1197 insmod /lib/modules/
2.6.32-
5-
686/kernel/drivers/net/irda/nsc-ircc.ko
1201 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
1202 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
1203 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
1204 <a href=
"irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel
</a>.
</p>
1206 <p><strong>Update
2013-
01-
15:
</strong> Rewrite "cat $(find ...)" to
1207 "find ... -print0 | xargs -
0 cat" to make sure it handle directories
1208 in /sys/ with space in them.
</p>
1214 Tags:
<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>.
1219 <div class=
"padding"></div>
1223 <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>
1229 <p>As part of my investigation on how to improve the support in Debian
1230 for hardware dongles, I dug up my old Mark and Spencer USB Rocket
1231 Launcher and updated the Debian package
1232 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/pymissile">pymissile
</a> to make
1233 sure udev will fix the device permissions when it is plugged in. I
1234 also added a "Modaliases" header to test it in the Debian archive and
1235 hopefully make the package be proposed by jockey in Ubuntu when a user
1236 plug in his rocket launcher. In the process I moved the source to a
1237 git repository under collab-maint, to make it easier for any DD to
1238 contribute.
<a href=
"http://code.google.com/p/pymissile/">Upstream
</a>
1239 is not very active, but the software still work for me even after five
1240 years of relative silence. The new git repository is not listed in
1241 the uploaded package yet, because I want to test the other changes a
1242 bit more before I upload the new version. If you want to check out
1243 the new version with a .desktop file included, visit the
1244 <a href=
"http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/pymissile.git">gitweb
1245 view
</a> or use "
<tt>git clone
1246 git://anonscm.debian.org/collab-maint/pymissile.git
</tt>".</p>
1252 Tags: <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>.
1257 <div class="padding
"></div>
1261 <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>
1267 <p>One thing that annoys me with Debian and Linux distributions in
1268 general, is that there is a great package management system with the
1269 ability to automatically install software packages by downloading them
1270 from the distribution mirrors, but no way to get it to automatically
1271 install the packages I need to use the hardware I plug into my
1272 machine. Even if the package to use it is easily available from the
1273 Linux distribution. When I plug in a LEGO Mindstorms NXT, it could
1274 suggest to automatically install the python-nxt, nbc and t2n packages
1275 I need to talk to it. When I plug in a Yubikey, it could propose the
1276 yubikey-personalization package. The information required to do this
1277 is available, but no-one have pulled all the pieces together.</p>
1279 <p>Some years ago, I proposed to
1280 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/
2010/
05/msg01206.html
">use
1281 the discover subsystem to implement this</a>. The idea is fairly
1286 <li>Add a desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ pointing to a program
1287 starting when a user log in.</li>
1289 <li>Set this program up to listen for kernel events emitted when new
1290 hardware is inserted into the computer.</li>
1292 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware ID in a
1293 database mapping to packages, and take note of any non-installed
1296 <li>Show a message to the user proposing to install the discovered
1297 package, and make it easy to install it.</li>
1301 <p>I am not sure what the best way to implement this is, but my
1302 initial idea was to use dbus events to discover new hardware, the
1303 discover database to find packages and
1304 <a href="http://www.packagekit.org/
">PackageKit</a> to install
1307 <p>Yesterday, I found time to try to implement this idea, and the
1308 draft package is now checked into
1309 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/
">the
1310 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>. In the process, I updated the
1311 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover-data.html
">discover-data</a>
1312 package to map the USB ids of LEGO Mindstorms and Yubikey devices to
1313 the relevant packages in Debian, and uploaded a new version
1314 2.2013.01.09 to unstable. I also discovered that the current
1315 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover.html
">discover</a>
1316 package in Debian no longer discovered any USB devices, because
1317 /proc/bus/usb/devices is no longer present. I ported it to use
1318 libusb as a fall back option to get it working. The fixed package
1319 version 2.1.2-6 is now in experimental (didn't upload it to unstable
1320 because of the freeze).</p>
1322 <p>With this prototype in place, I can insert my Yubikey, and get this
1323 desktop notification to show up (only once, the first time it is
1326 <p align="center
"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/
2013-
01-
09-hw-autoinstall.png
"></p>
1328 <p>For this prototype to be really useful, some way to automatically
1329 install the proposed packages by pressing the "Please install
1330 program(s)" button should to be implemented.
</p>
1332 <p>If this idea seem useful to you, and you want to help make it
1333 happen, please help me update the discover-data database with mappings
1334 from hardware to Debian packages. Check if 'discover-pkginstall -l'
1335 list the package you would like to have installed when a given
1336 hardware device is inserted into your computer, and report bugs using
1337 reportbug if it isn't. Or, if you know of a better way to provide
1338 such mapping, please let me know.
</p>
1340 <p>This prototype need more work, and there are several questions that
1341 should be considered before it is ready for production use. Is dbus
1342 the correct way to detect new hardware? At the moment I look for HAL
1343 dbus events on the system bus, because that is the events I could see
1344 on my Debian Squeeze KDE desktop. Are there better events to use?
1345 How should the user be notified? Is the desktop notification
1346 mechanism the best option, or should the background daemon raise a
1347 popup instead? How should packages be installed? When should they
1348 not be installed?
</p>
1350 <p>If you want to help getting such feature implemented in Debian,
1351 please send me an email. :)
</p>
1357 Tags:
<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>.
1362 <div class=
"padding"></div>
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"text-align: right;"><a href=
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"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/xml.gif" alt=
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</a></li>
1690 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern (
95)
</a></li>
1692 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/raid">raid (
1)
</a></li>
1694 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reactos">reactos (
1)
</a></li>
1696 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reprap">reprap (
11)
</a></li>
1698 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rfid">rfid (
3)
</a></li>
1700 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot (
10)
</a></li>
1702 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rss">rss (
1)
</a></li>
1704 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ruter">ruter (
4)
</a></li>
1706 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/scraperwiki">scraperwiki (
2)
</a></li>
1708 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet (
52)
</a></li>
1710 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary (
4)
</a></li>
1712 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/skepsis">skepsis (
5)
</a></li>
1714 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard (
49)
</a></li>
1716 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stavekontroll">stavekontroll (
5)
</a></li>
1718 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stortinget">stortinget (
10)
</a></li>
1720 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance (
43)
</a></li>
1722 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sysadmin">sysadmin (
2)
</a></li>
1724 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/usenix">usenix (
2)
</a></li>
1726 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/valg">valg (
8)
</a></li>
1728 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video (
59)
</a></li>
1730 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/vitenskap">vitenskap (
4)
</a></li>
1732 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web (
38)
</a></li>
1738 <p style=
"text-align: right">
1739 Created by
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