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  13  <h1>
  14      <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/">Petter Reinholdtsen</a>
  15
  16  </h1>
  17
  18 </div>
  19
  20
  21     <h3>Entries tagged "debian".</h3>
  22
  23     <div class="entry">
  24       <div class="title">
  25         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_lsdvd_release_version_0_17_is_ready.html">New lsdvd release version 0.17 is ready</a>
  26       </div>
  27       <div class="date">
  28          4th October 2014
  29       </div>
  30       <div class="body">
  31         <p>The <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/">lsdvd project</a>
  32 got a new set of developers a few weeks ago, after the original
  33 developer decided to step down and pass the project to fresh blood.
  34 This project is now maintained by Petter Reinholdtsen and Steve
  35 Dibb.</p>
  36
  37 <p>I just wrapped up
  38 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/mailman/message/32896061/">a
  39 new lsdvd release</a>, available in git or from
  40 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/projects/lsdvd/files/lsdvd/">the
  41 download page</a>.  This is the changelog dated 2014-10-03 for version
  42 0.17.</p>
  43
  44 <ul>
  45
  46  <li>Ignore 'phantom' audio, subtitle tracks</li>
  47  <li>Check for garbage in the program chains, which indicate that a track is
  48    non-existant, to work around additional copy protection</li>
  49  <li>Fix displaying content type for audio tracks, subtitles</li>
  50  <li>Fix pallete display of first entry</li>
  51  <li>Fix include orders</li>
  52  <li>Ignore read errors in titles that would not be displayed anyway</li>
  53  <li>Fix the chapter count</li>
  54  <li>Make sure the array size and the array limit used when initialising
  55    the palette size is the same.</li>
  56  <li>Fix array printing.</li>
  57  <li>Correct subsecond calculations.</li>
  58  <li>Add sector information to the output format.</li>
  59  <li>Clean up code to be closer to ANSI C and compile without warnings
  60    with more GCC compiler warnings.</li>
  61
  62 </ul>
  63
  64 <p>This change bring together patches for lsdvd in use in various
  65 Linux and Unix distributions, as well as patches submitted to the
  66 project the last nine years.  Please check it out. :)</p>
  67
  68       </div>
  69       <div class="tags">
  70
  71
  72         Tags: <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>.
  73
  74
  75       </div>
  76     </div>
  77     <div class="padding"></div>
  78
  79     <div class="entry">
  80       <div class="title">
  81         <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>
  82       </div>
  83       <div class="date">
  84         26th September 2014
  85       </div>
  86       <div class="body">
  87         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
  88 project</a> provide a Linux solution for schools, including a
  89 powerful desktop with education software, a central server providing
  90 web pages, user database, user home directories, central login and PXE
  91 boot of both  clients without disk and the installation to install Debian
  92 Edu on machines with disk (and a few other services perhaps to small
  93 to mention here).  We in the Debian Edu team are currently working on
  94 the Jessie based version, trying to get everything in shape before the
  95 freeze, to avoid having to maintain our own package repository in the
  96 future.  The
  97 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Status/Jessie">current
  98 status</a> can be seen on the Debian wiki, and there is still heaps of
  99 work left.  Some fatal problems block testing, breaking the installer,
 100 but it is possible to work around these to get anyway.  Here is a
 101 recipe on how to get the installation limping along.</p>
 102
 103 <p>First, download the test ISO via
 104 <a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.no/cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-1.iso">ftp</a>,
 105 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.no/cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-1.iso">http</a>
 106 or rsync (use
 107 ftp.skolelinux.org::cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-1.iso).
 108 The ISO build was broken on Tuesday, so we do not get a new ISO every
 109 12 hours or so, but thankfully the ISO we already got we are able to
 110 install with some tweaking.</p>
 111
 112 <p>When you get to the Debian Edu profile question, go to tty2
 113 (use Alt-Ctrl-F2), run</p>
 114
 115 <p><blockquote><pre>
 116 nano /usr/bin/edu-eatmydata-install
 117 </pre></blockquote></p>
 118
 119 <p>and add 'exit 0' as the second line, disabling the eatmydata
 120 optimization.  Return to the installation, select the profile you want
 121 and continue.  Without this change, exim4-config will fail to install
 122 due to a known bug in eatmydata.</p>
 123
 124 <p>When you get the grub question at the end, answer /dev/sda (or if
 125 this do not work, figure out what your correct value would be.  All my
 126 test machines need /dev/sda, so I have no advice if it do not fit
 127 your need.</p>
 128
 129 <p>If you installed a profile including a graphical desktop, log in as
 130 root after the initial boot from hard drive, and install the
 131 education-desktop-XXX metapackage.  XXX can be kde, gnome, lxde, xfce
 132 or mate.  If you want several desktop options, install more than one
 133 metapackage.  Once this is done, reboot and you should have a working
 134 graphical login screen.  This workaround should no longer be needed
 135 once the education-tasks package version 1.801 enter testing in two
 136 days.</p>
 137
 138 <p>I believe the ISO build will start working on two days when the new
 139 tasksel package enter testing and Steve McIntyre get a chance to
 140 update the debian-cd git repository.  The eatmydata, grub and desktop
 141 issues are already fixed in unstable and testing, and should show up
 142 on the ISO as soon as the ISO build start working again.  Well the
 143 eatmydata optimization is really just disabled.  The proper fix
 144 require an upload by the eatmydata maintainer applying the patch
 145 provided in bug <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/702711">#702711</a>.
 146 The rest have proper fixes in unstable.</p>
 147
 148 <p>I hope this get you going with the installation testing, as we are
 149 quickly running out of time trying to get our Jessie based
 150 installation ready before the distribution freeze in a month.</p>
 151
 152       </div>
 153       <div class="tags">
 154
 155
 156         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>.
 157
 158
 159       </div>
 160     </div>
 161     <div class="padding"></div>
 162
 163     <div class="entry">
 164       <div class="title">
 165         <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>
 166       </div>
 167       <div class="date">
 168         25th September 2014
 169       </div>
 170       <div class="body">
 171         <p>I use the <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/">lsdvd tool</a>
 172 to handle my fairly large DVD collection.  It is a nice command line
 173 tool to get details about a DVD, like title, tracks, track length,
 174 etc, in XML, Perl or human readable format.  But lsdvd have not seen
 175 any new development since 2006 and had a few irritating bugs affecting
 176 its use with some DVDs.  Upstream seemed to be dead, and in January I
 177 sent a small probe asking for a version control repository for the
 178 project, without any reply.  But I use it regularly and would like to
 179 get <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/lsdvd">an updated version
 180 into Debian</a>.  So two weeks ago I tried harder to get in touch with
 181 the project admin, and after getting a reply from him explaining that
 182 he was no longer interested in the project, I asked if I could take
 183 over.  And yesterday, I became project admin.</p>
 184
 185 <p>I've been in touch with a Gentoo developer and the Debian
 186 maintainer interested in joining forces to maintain the upstream
 187 project, and I hope we can get a new release out fairly quickly,
 188 collecting the patches spread around on the internet into on place.
 189 I've added the relevant Debian patches to the freshly created git
 190 repository, and expect the Gentoo patches to make it too.  If you got
 191 a DVD collection and care about command line tools, check out
 192 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/git/ci/master/tree/">the git source</a> and join
 193 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/mailman/">the project mailing
 194 list</a>. :)</p>
 195
 196       </div>
 197       <div class="tags">
 198
 199
 200         Tags: <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>.
 201
 202
 203       </div>
 204     </div>
 205     <div class="padding"></div>
 206
 207     <div class="entry">
 208       <div class="title">
 209         <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>
 210       </div>
 211       <div class="date">
 212         16th September 2014
 213       </div>
 214       <div class="body">
 215         <p>The <a href="https://www.debian.org/">Debian</a> installer could be
 216 a lot quicker.  When we install more than 2000 packages in
 217 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux / Debian Edu</a> using
 218 tasksel in the installer, unpacking the binary packages take forever.
 219 A part of the slow I/O issue was discussed in
 220 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/613428">bug #613428</a> about too
 221 much file system sync-ing done by dpkg, which is the package
 222 responsible for unpacking the binary packages.  Other parts (like code
 223 executed by postinst scripts) might also sync to disk during
 224 installation.  All this sync-ing to disk do not really make sense to
 225 me.  If the machine crash half-way through, I start over, I do not try
 226 to salvage the half installed system.  So the failure sync-ing is
 227 supposed to protect against, hardware or system crash, is not really
 228 relevant while the installer is running.</p>
 229
 230 <p>A few days ago, I thought of a way to get rid of all the file
 231 system sync()-ing in a fairly non-intrusive way, without the need to
 232 change the code in several packages.  The idea is not new, but I have
 233 not heard anyone propose the approach using dpkg-divert before.  It
 234 depend on the small and clever package
 235 <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/eatmydata">eatmydata</a>, which
 236 uses LD_PRELOAD to replace the system functions for syncing data to
 237 disk with functions doing nothing, thus allowing programs to live
 238 dangerous while speeding up disk I/O significantly.  Instead of
 239 modifying the implementation of dpkg, apt and tasksel (which are the
 240 packages responsible for selecting, fetching and installing packages),
 241 it occurred to me that we could just divert the programs away, replace
 242 them with a simple shell wrapper calling
 243 "eatmydata&nbsp;$program&nbsp;$@", to get the same effect.
 244 Two days ago I decided to test the idea, and wrapped up a simple
 245 implementation for the Debian Edu udeb.</p>
 246
 247 <p>The effect was stunning.  In my first test it reduced the running
 248 time of the pkgsel step (installing tasks) from 64 to less than 44
 249 minutes (20 minutes shaved off the installation) on an old Dell
 250 Latitude D505 machine.  I am not quite sure what the optimised time
 251 would have been, as I messed up the testing a bit, causing the debconf
 252 priority to get low enough for two questions to pop up during
 253 installation.  As soon as I saw the questions I moved the installation
 254 along, but do not know how long the question were holding up the
 255 installation.  I did some more measurements using Debian Edu Jessie,
 256 and got these results.  The time measured is the time stamp in
 257 /var/log/syslog between the "pkgsel: starting tasksel" and the
 258 "pkgsel: finishing up" lines, if you want to do the same measurement
 259 yourself.  In Debian Edu, the tasksel dialog do not show up, and the
 260 timing thus do not depend on how quickly the user handle the tasksel
 261 dialog.</p>
 262
 263 <p><table>
 264
 265 <tr>
 266 <th>Machine/setup</th>
 267 <th>Original tasksel</th>
 268 <th>Optimised tasksel</th>
 269 <th>Reduction</th>
 270 </tr>
 271
 272 <tr>
 273 <td>Latitude D505 Main+LTSP LXDE</td>
 274 <td>64 min (07:46-08:50)</td>
 275 <td><44 min (11:27-12:11)</td>
 276 <td>>20 min 18%</td>
 277 </tr>
 278
 279 <tr>
 280 <td>Latitude D505 Roaming LXDE</td>
 281 <td>57 min (08:48-09:45)</td>
 282 <td>34 min (07:43-08:17)</td>
 283 <td>23 min 40%</td>
 284 </tr>
 285
 286 <tr>
 287 <td>Latitude D505 Minimal</td>
 288 <td>22 min (10:37-10:59)</td>
 289 <td>11 min (11:16-11:27)</td>
 290 <td>11 min 50%</td>
 291 </tr>
 292
 293 <tr>
 294 <td>Thinkpad X200 Minimal</td>
 295 <td>6 min (08:19-08:25)</td>
 296 <td>4 min (08:04-08:08)</td>
 297 <td>2 min 33%</td>
 298 </tr>
 299
 300 <tr>
 301 <td>Thinkpad X200 Roaming KDE</td>
 302 <td>19 min (09:21-09:40)</td>
 303 <td>15 min (10:25-10:40)</td>
 304 <td>4 min 21%</td>
 305 </tr>
 306
 307 </table></p>
 308
 309 <p>The test is done using a netinst ISO on a USB stick, so some of the
 310 time is spent downloading packages.  The connection to the Internet
 311 was 100Mbit/s during testing, so downloading should not be a
 312 significant factor in the measurement.  Download typically took a few
 313 seconds to a few minutes, depending on the amount of packages being
 314 installed.</p>
 315
 316 <p>The speedup is implemented by using two hooks in
 317 <a href="https://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/">Debian
 318 Installer</a>, the pre-pkgsel.d hook to set up the diverts, and the
 319 finish-install.d hook to remove the divert at the end of the
 320 installation.  I picked the pre-pkgsel.d hook instead of the
 321 post-base-installer.d hook because I test using an ISO without the
 322 eatmydata package included, and the post-base-installer.d hook in
 323 Debian Edu can only operate on packages included in the ISO.  The
 324 negative effect of this is that I am unable to activate this
 325 optimization for the kernel installation step in d-i.  If the code is
 326 moved to the post-base-installer.d hook, the speedup would be larger
 327 for the entire installation.</p>
 328
 329 <p>I've implemented this in the
 330 <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/debian-edu-install">debian-edu-install</a>
 331 git repository, and plan to provide the optimization as part of the
 332 Debian Edu installation.  If you want to test this yourself, you can
 333 create two files in the installer (or in an udeb).  One shell script
 334 need do go into /usr/lib/pre-pkgsel.d/, with content like this:</p>
 335
 336 <p><blockquote><pre>
 337 #!/bin/sh
 338 set -e
 339 . /usr/share/debconf/confmodule
 340 info() {
 341     logger -t my-pkgsel "info: $*"
 342 }
 343 error() {
 344     logger -t my-pkgsel "error: $*"
 345 }
 346 override_install() {
 347     apt-install eatmydata || true
 348     if [ -x /target/usr/bin/eatmydata ] ; then
 349         for bin in dpkg apt-get aptitude tasksel ; do
 350             file=/usr/bin/$bin
 351             # Test that the file exist and have not been diverted already.
 352             if [ -f /target$file ] ; then
 353                 info "diverting $file using eatmydata"
 354                 printf "#!/bin/sh\neatmydata $bin.distrib \"\$@\"\n" \
 355                     > /target$file.edu
 356                 chmod 755 /target$file.edu
 357                 in-target dpkg-divert --package debian-edu-config \
 358                     --rename --quiet --add $file
 359                 ln -sf ./$bin.edu /target$file
 360             else
 361                 error "unable to divert $file, as it is missing."
 362             fi
 363         done
 364     else
 365         error "unable to find /usr/bin/eatmydata after installing the eatmydata pacage"
 366     fi
 367 }
 368
 369 override_install
 370 </pre></blockquote></p>
 371
 372 <p>To clean up, another shell script should go into
 373 /usr/lib/finish-install.d/ with code like this:
 374
 375 <p><blockquote><pre>
 376 #! /bin/sh -e
 377 . /usr/share/debconf/confmodule
 378 error() {
 379     logger -t my-finish-install "error: $@"
 380 }
 381 remove_install_override() {
 382     for bin in dpkg apt-get aptitude tasksel ; do
 383         file=/usr/bin/$bin
 384         if [ -x /target$file.edu ] ; then
 385             rm /target$file
 386             in-target dpkg-divert --package debian-edu-config \
 387                 --rename --quiet --remove $file
 388             rm /target$file.edu
 389         else
 390             error "Missing divert for $file."
 391         fi
 392     done
 393     sync # Flush file buffers before continuing
 394 }
 395
 396 remove_install_override
 397 </pre></blockquote></p>
 398
 399 <p>In Debian Edu, I placed both code fragments in a separate script
 400 edu-eatmydata-install and call it from the pre-pkgsel.d and
 401 finish-install.d scripts.</p>
 402
 403 <p>By now you might ask if this change should get into the normal
 404 Debian installer too?  I suspect it should, but am not sure the
 405 current debian-installer coordinators find it useful enough.  It also
 406 depend on the side effects of the change.  I'm not aware of any, but I
 407 guess we will see if the change is safe after some more testing.
 408 Perhaps there is some package in Debian depending on sync() and
 409 fsync() having effect?  Perhaps it should go into its own udeb, to
 410 allow those of us wanting to enable it to do so without affecting
 411 everyone.</p>
 412
 413 <p>Update 2014-09-24: Since a few days ago, enabling this optimization
 414 will break installation of all programs using gnutls because of
 415 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/702711">bug #702711.  An updated
 416 eatmydata package in Debian will solve it.</p>
 417
 418       </div>
 419       <div class="tags">
 420
 421
 422         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>.
 423
 424
 425       </div>
 426     </div>
 427     <div class="padding"></div>
 428
 429     <div class="entry">
 430       <div class="title">
 431         <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>
 432       </div>
 433       <div class="date">
 434         10th September 2014
 435       </div>
 436       <div class="body">
 437         <p>Yesterday, I had the pleasure of attending a talk with the
 438 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">Norwegian Unix User Group</a> about
 439 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20140909-sks-keyservers/">the
 440 OpenPGP keyserver pool sks-keyservers.net</a>, and was very happy to
 441 learn that there is a large set of publicly available key servers to
 442 use when looking for peoples public key.  So far I have used
 443 subkeys.pgp.net, and some times wwwkeys.nl.pgp.net when the former
 444 were misbehaving, but those days are ended.  The servers I have used
 445 up until yesterday have been slow and some times unavailable.  I hope
 446 those problems are gone now.</p>
 447
 448 <p>Behind the round robin DNS entry of the
 449 <a href="https://sks-keyservers.net/">sks-keyservers.net</a> service
 450 there is a pool of more than 100 keyservers which are checked every
 451 day to ensure they are well connected and up to date.  It must be
 452 better than what I have used so far. :)</p>
 453
 454 <p>Yesterdays speaker told me that the service is the default
 455 keyserver provided by the default configuration in GnuPG, but this do
 456 not seem to be used in Debian.  Perhaps it should?</p>
 457
 458 <p>Anyway, I've updated my ~/.gnupg/options file to now include this
 459 line:</p>
 460
 461 <p><blockquote><pre>
 462 keyserver pool.sks-keyservers.net
 463 </pre></blockquote></p>
 464
 465 <p>With GnuPG version 2 one can also locate the keyserver using SRV
 466 entries in DNS.  Just for fun, I did just that at work, so now every
 467 user of GnuPG at the University of Oslo should find a OpenGPG
 468 keyserver automatically should their need it:</p>
 469
 470 <p><blockquote><pre>
 471 % host -t srv _pgpkey-http._tcp.uio.no
 472 _pgpkey-http._tcp.uio.no has SRV record 0 100 11371 pool.sks-keyservers.net.
 473 %
 474 </pre></blockquote></p>
 475
 476 <p>Now if only
 477 <a href="http://ietfreport.isoc.org/idref/draft-shaw-openpgp-hkp/">the
 478 HKP lookup protocol</a> supported finding signature paths, I would be
 479 very happy.  It can look up a given key or search for a user ID, but I
 480 normally do not want that, but to find a trust path from my key to
 481 another key.  Given a user ID or key ID, I would like to find (and
 482 download) the keys representing a signature path from my key to the
 483 key in question, to be able to get a trust path between the two keys.
 484 This is as far as I can tell not possible today.  Perhaps something
 485 for a future version of the protocol?</p>
 486
 487       </div>
 488       <div class="tags">
 489
 490
 491         Tags: <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>.
 492
 493
 494       </div>
 495     </div>
 496     <div class="padding"></div>
 497
 498     <div class="entry">
 499       <div class="title">
 500         <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>
 501       </div>
 502       <div class="date">
 503         17th June 2014
 504       </div>
 505       <div class="body">
 506         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
 507 project</a> provide an instruction manual for teachers, system
 508 administrators and other users that contain useful tips for setting up
 509 and maintaining a Debian Edu installation.  This text is about how the
 510 text processing of this manual is handled in the project.</p>
 511
 512 <p>One goal of the project is to provide information in the native
 513 language of its users, and for this we need to handle translations.
 514 But we also want to make sure each language contain the same
 515 information, so for this we need a good way to keep the translations
 516 in sync.  And we want it to be easy for our users to improve the
 517 documentation, avoiding the need to learn special formats or tools to
 518 contribute, and the obvious way to do this is to make it possible to
 519 edit the documentation using a web browser.  We also want it to be
 520 easy for translators to keep the translation up to date, and give them
 521 help in figuring out what need to be translated. Here is the list of
 522 tools and the process we have found trying to reach all these
 523 goals.</p>
 524
 525 <p>We maintain the authoritative source of our manual in the
 526 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/">Debian
 527 wiki</a>, as several wiki pages written in English.  It consist of one
 528 front page with references to the different chapters, several pages
 529 for each chapter, and finally one "collection page" gluing all the
 530 chapters together into one large web page (aka
 531 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/AllInOne">the
 532 AllInOne page</a>).  The AllInOne page is the one used for further
 533 processing and translations.  Thanks to the fact that the
 534 <a href="http://moinmo.in/">MoinMoin</a> installation on
 535 wiki.debian.org support exporting pages in
 536 <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">the Docbook format</a>, we can fetch
 537 the list of pages to export using the raw version of the AllInOne
 538 page, loop over each of them to generate a Docbook XML version of the
 539 manual.  This process also download images and transform image
 540 references to use the locally downloaded images.  The generated
 541 Docbook XML files are slightly broken, so some post-processing is done
 542 using the <tt>documentation/scripts/get_manual</tt> program, and the
 543 result is a nice Docbook XML file (debian-edu-wheezy-manual.xml) and
 544 a handfull of images.  The XML file can now be used to generate PDF, HTML
 545 and epub versions of the English manual.  This is the basic step of
 546 our process, making PDF (using dblatex), HTML (using xsltproc) and
 547 epub (using dbtoepub) version from Docbook XML, and the resulting files
 548 are placed in the debian-edu-doc-en binary package.</p>
 549
 550 <p>But English documentation is not enough for us.  We want translated
 551 documentation too, and we want to make it easy for translators to
 552 track the English original.  For this we use the
 553 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/p/poxml.html">poxml</a> package,
 554 which allow us to transform the English Docbook XML file into a
 555 translation file (a .pot file), usable with the normal gettext based
 556 translation tools used by those translating free software.  The pot
 557 file is used to create and maintain translation files (several .po
 558 files), which the translations update with the native language
 559 translations of all titles, paragraphs and blocks of text in the
 560 original.  The next step is combining the original English Docbook XML
 561 and the translation file (say debian-edu-wheezy-manual.nb.po), to
 562 create a translated Docbook XML file (in this case
 563 debian-edu-wheezy-manual.nb.xml).  This translated (or partly
 564 translated, if the translation is not complete) Docbook XML file can
 565 then be used like the original to create a PDF, HTML and epub version
 566 of the documentation.</p>
 567
 568 <p>The translators use different tools to edit the .po files.  We
 569 recommend using
 570 <a href="http://www.kde.org/applications/development/lokalize/">lokalize</a>,
 571 while some use emacs and vi, others can use web based editors like
 572 <a href="http://pootle.translatehouse.org/">Poodle</a> or
 573 <a href="https://www.transifex.com/">Transifex</a>.  All we care about
 574 is where the .po file end up, in our git repository.  Updated
 575 translations can either be committed directly to git, or submitted as
 576 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/src:debian-edu-doc">bug reports
 577 against the debian-edu-doc package</a>.</p>
 578
 579 <p>One challenge is images, which both might need to be translated (if
 580 they show translated user applications), and are needed in different
 581 formats when creating PDF and HTML versions (epub is a HTML version in
 582 this regard).  For this we transform the original PNG images to the
 583 needed density and format during build, and have a way to provide
 584 translated images by storing translated versions in
 585 images/$LANGUAGECODE/.  I am a bit unsure about the details here.  The
 586 package maintainers know more.</p>
 587
 588 <p>If you wonder what the result look like, we provide
 589 <a href="http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/">the content
 590 of the documentation packages on the web</a>.  See for example the
 591 <a href="http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/it/debian-edu-wheezy-manual.pdf">Italian
 592 PDF version</a> or the
 593 <a href="http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/de/debian-edu-wheezy-manual.html">German
 594 HTML version</a>.  We do not yet build the epub version by default,
 595 but perhaps it will be done in the future.</p>
 596
 597 <p>To learn more, check out
 598 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/debian-edu-doc.html">the
 599 debian-edu-doc package</a>,
 600 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/">the
 601 manual on the wiki</a> and
 602 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/Translations">the
 603 translation instructions</a> in the manual.</p>
 604
 605       </div>
 606       <div class="tags">
 607
 608
 609         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>.
 610
 611
 612       </div>
 613     </div>
 614     <div class="padding"></div>
 615
 616     <div class="entry">
 617       <div class="title">
 618         <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>
 619       </div>
 620       <div class="date">
 621         23rd April 2014
 622       </div>
 623       <div class="body">
 624         <p>It would be nice if it was easier in Debian to get all the hardware
 625 related packages relevant for the computer installed automatically.
 626 So I implemented one, using
 627 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">my Isenkram
 628 package</a>.  To use it, install the tasksel and isenkram packages and
 629 run tasksel as user root.  You should be presented with a new option,
 630 "Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)".  When you
 631 select it, tasksel will install the packages isenkram claim is fit for
 632 the current hardware, hot pluggable or not.<p>
 633
 634 <p>The implementation is in two files, one is the tasksel menu entry
 635 description, and the other is the script used to extract the list of
 636 packages to install.  The first part is in
 637 <tt>/usr/share/tasksel/descs/isenkram.desc</tt> and look like
 638 this:</p>
 639
 640 <p><blockquote><pre>
 641 Task: isenkram
 642 Section: hardware
 643 Description: Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)
 644  Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific packages are
 645  proposed.
 646 Test-new-install: mark show
 647 Relevance: 8
 648 Packages: for-current-hardware
 649 </pre></blockquote></p>
 650
 651 <p>The second part is in
 652 <tt>/usr/lib/tasksel/packages/for-current-hardware</tt> and look like
 653 this:</p>
 654
 655 <p><blockquote><pre>
 656 #!/bin/sh
 657 #
 658 (
 659     isenkram-lookup
 660     isenkram-autoinstall-firmware -l
 661 ) | sort -u
 662 </pre></blockquote></p>
 663
 664 <p>All in all, a very short and simple implementation making it
 665 trivial to install the hardware dependent package we all may want to
 666 have installed on our machines.  I've not been able to find a way to
 667 get tasksel to tell you exactly which packages it plan to install
 668 before doing the installation.  So if you are curious or careful,
 669 check the output from the isenkram-* command line tools first.</p>
 670
 671 <p>The information about which packages are handling which hardware is
 672 fetched either from the isenkram package itself in
 673 /usr/share/isenkram/, from git.debian.org or from the APT package
 674 database (using the Modaliases header).  The APT package database
 675 parsing have caused a nasty resource leak in the isenkram daemon (bugs
 676 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/719837">#719837</a> and
 677 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/730704">#730704</a>).  The cause is in
 678 the python-apt code (bug
 679 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/745487">#745487</a>), but using a
 680 workaround I was able to get rid of the file descriptor leak and
 681 reduce the memory leak from ~30 MiB per hardware detection down to
 682 around 2 MiB per hardware detection.  It should make the desktop
 683 daemon a lot more useful.  The fix is in version 0.7 uploaded to
 684 unstable today.</p>
 685
 686 <p>I believe the current way of mapping hardware to packages in
 687 Isenkram is is a good draft, but in the future I expect isenkram to
 688 use the AppStream data source for this.  A proposal for getting proper
 689 AppStream support into Debian is floating around as
 690 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DEP-11">DEP-11</a>, and
 691 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/SummerOfCode2014/Projects#SummerOfCode2014.2FProjects.2FAppStreamDEP11Implementation.AppStream.2FDEP-11_for_the_Debian_Archive">GSoC
 692 project</a> will take place this summer to improve the situation.  I
 693 look forward to seeing the result, and welcome patches for isenkram to
 694 start using the information when it is ready.</p>
 695
 696 <p>If you want your package to map to some specific hardware, either
 697 add a "Xb-Modaliases" header to your control file like I did in
 698 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pymissile">the pymissile
 699 package</a> or submit a bug report with the details to the isenkram
 700 package.  See also
 701 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram/">all my
 702 blog posts tagged isenkram</a> for details on the notation.  I expect
 703 the information will be migrated to AppStream eventually, but for the
 704 moment I got no better place to store it.</p>
 705
 706       </div>
 707       <div class="tags">
 708
 709
 710         Tags: <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>.
 711
 712
 713       </div>
 714     </div>
 715     <div class="padding"></div>
 716
 717     <div class="entry">
 718       <div class="title">
 719         <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>
 720       </div>
 721       <div class="date">
 722         15th April 2014
 723       </div>
 724       <div class="body">
 725         <p>The <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">Freedombox
 726 project</a> is working on providing the software and hardware to make
 727 it easy for non-technical people to host their data and communication
 728 at home, and being able to communicate with their friends and family
 729 encrypted and away from prying eyes.  It is still going strong, and
 730 today a major mile stone was reached.</p>
 731
 732 <p>Today, the last of the packages currently used by the project to
 733 created the system images were accepted into Debian Unstable.  It was
 734 the freedombox-setup package, which is used to configure the images
 735 during build and on the first boot.  Now all one need to get going is
 736 the build code from the freedom-maker git repository and packages from
 737 Debian.  And once the freedombox-setup package enter testing, we can
 738 build everything directly from Debian. :)</p>
 739
 740 <p>Some key packages used by Freedombox are
 741 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/freedombox-setup">freedombox-setup</a>,
 742 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/plinth">plinth</a>,
 743 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pagekite">pagekite</a>,
 744 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/tor">tor</a>,
 745 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/privoxy">privoxy</a>,
 746 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/owncloud">owncloud</a> and
 747 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/dnsmasq">dnsmasq</a>.  There
 748 are plans to integrate more packages into the setup.  User
 749 documentation is maintained on the Debian wiki.  Please
 750 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/Manual/Jessie">check out
 751 the manual</a> and help us improve it.</p>
 752
 753 <p>To test for yourself and create boot images with the FreedomBox
 754 setup, run this on a Debian machine using a user with sudo rights to
 755 become root:</p>
 756
 757 <p><pre>
 758 sudo apt-get install git vmdebootstrap mercurial python-docutils \
 759   mktorrent extlinux virtualbox qemu-user-static binfmt-support \
 760   u-boot-tools
 761 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/freedombox/freedom-maker.git \
 762   freedom-maker
 763 make -C freedom-maker dreamplug-image raspberry-image virtualbox-image
 764 </pre></p>
 765
 766 <p>Root access is needed to run debootstrap and mount loopback
 767 devices.  See the README in the freedom-maker git repo for more
 768 details on the build.  If you do not want all three images, trim the
 769 make line.  Note that the virtualbox-image target is not really
 770 virtualbox specific.  It create a x86 image usable in kvm, qemu,
 771 vmware and any other x86 virtual machine environment.  You might need
 772 the version of vmdebootstrap in Jessie to get the build working, as it
 773 include fixes for a race condition with kpartx.</p>
 774
 775 <p>If you instead want to install using a Debian CD and the preseed
 776 method, boot a Debian Wheezy ISO and use this boot argument to load
 777 the preseed values:</p>
 778
 779 <p><pre>
 780 url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat</a>
 781 </pre></p>
 782
 783 <p>I have not tested it myself the last few weeks, so I do not know if
 784 it still work.</p>
 785
 786 <p>If you wonder how to help, one task you could look at is using
 787 systemd as the boot system.  It will become the default for Linux in
 788 Jessie, so we need to make sure it is usable on the Freedombox.  I did
 789 a simple test a few weeks ago, and noticed dnsmasq failed to start
 790 during boot when using systemd.  I suspect there are other problems
 791 too. :) To detect problems, there is a test suite included, which can
 792 be run from the plinth web interface.</p>
 793
 794 <p>Give it a go and let us know how it goes on the mailing list, and help
 795 us get the new release published. :) Please join us on
 796 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC (#freedombox on
 797 irc.debian.org)</a> and
 798 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
 799 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
 800
 801       </div>
 802       <div class="tags">
 803
 804
 805         Tags: <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>.
 806
 807
 808       </div>
 809     </div>
 810     <div class="padding"></div>
 811
 812     <div class="entry">
 813       <div class="title">
 814         <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>
 815       </div>
 816       <div class="date">
 817          9th April 2014
 818       </div>
 819       <div class="body">
 820         <p>For a while now, I have been looking for a sensible offsite backup
 821 solution for use at home.  My requirements are simple, it must be
 822 cheap and locally encrypted (in other words, I keep the encryption
 823 keys, the storage provider do not have access to my private files).
 824 One idea me and my friends had many years ago, before the cloud
 825 storage providers showed up, was to use Google mail as storage,
 826 writing a Linux block device storing blocks as emails in the mail
 827 service provided by Google, and thus get heaps of free space.  On top
 828 of this one can add encryption, RAID and volume management to have
 829 lots of (fairly slow, I admit that) cheap and encrypted storage.  But
 830 I never found time to implement such system.  But the last few weeks I
 831 have looked at a system called
 832 <a href="https://bitbucket.org/nikratio/s3ql/">S3QL</a>, a locally
 833 mounted network backed file system with the features I need.</p>
 834
 835 <p>S3QL is a fuse file system with a local cache and cloud storage,
 836 handling several different storage providers, any with Amazon S3,
 837 Google Drive or OpenStack API.  There are heaps of such storage
 838 providers.  S3QL can also use a local directory as storage, which
 839 combined with sshfs allow for file storage on any ssh server.  S3QL
 840 include support for encryption, compression, de-duplication, snapshots
 841 and immutable file systems, allowing me to mount the remote storage as
 842 a local mount point, look at and use the files as if they were local,
 843 while the content is stored in the cloud as well.  This allow me to
 844 have a backup that should survive fire.  The file system can not be
 845 shared between several machines at the same time, as only one can
 846 mount it at the time, but any machine with the encryption key and
 847 access to the storage service can mount it if it is unmounted.</p>
 848
 849 <p>It is simple to use.  I'm using it on Debian Wheezy, where the
 850 package is included already.  So to get started, run <tt>apt-get
 851 install s3ql</tt>.  Next, pick a storage provider.  I ended up picking
 852 Greenqloud, after reading their nice recipe on
 853 <a href="https://greenqloud.zendesk.com/entries/44611757-How-To-Use-S3QL-to-mount-a-StorageQloud-bucket-on-Debian-Wheezy">how
 854 to use S3QL with their Amazon S3 service</a>, because I trust the laws
 855 in Iceland more than those in USA when it come to keeping my personal
 856 data safe and private, and thus would rather spend money on a company
 857 in Iceland.  Another nice recipe is available from the article
 858 <a href="http://www.admin-magazine.com/HPC/Articles/HPC-Cloud-Storage">S3QL
 859 Filesystem for HPC Storage</a> by Jeff Layton in the HPC section of
 860 Admin magazine.  When the provider is picked, figure out how to get
 861 the API key needed to connect to the storage API.  With Greencloud,
 862 the key did not show up until I had added payment details to my
 863 account.</p>
 864
 865 <p>Armed with the API access details, it is time to create the file
 866 system.  First, create a new bucket in the cloud.  This bucket is the
 867 file system storage area.  I picked a bucket name reflecting the
 868 machine that was going to store data there, but any name will do.
 869 I'll refer to it as <tt>bucket-name</tt> below.  In addition, one need
 870 the API login and password, and a locally created password.  Store it
 871 all in ~root/.s3ql/authinfo2 like this:
 872
 873 <p><blockquote><pre>
 874 [s3c]
 875 storage-url: s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name
 876 backend-login: API-login
 877 backend-password: API-password
 878 fs-passphrase: local-password
 879 </pre></blockquote></p>
 880
 881 <p>I create my local passphrase using <tt>pwget 50</tt> or similar,
 882 but any sensible way to create a fairly random password should do it.
 883 Armed with these details, it is now time to run mkfs, entering the API
 884 details and password to create it:</p>
 885
 886 <p><blockquote><pre>
 887 # mkdir -m 700 /var/lib/s3ql-cache
 888 # mkfs.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
 889   --ssl s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name
 890 Enter backend login:
 891 Enter backend password:
 892 Before using S3QL, make sure to read the user's guide, especially
 893 the 'Important Rules to Avoid Loosing Data' section.
 894 Enter encryption password:
 895 Confirm encryption password:
 896 Generating random encryption key...
 897 Creating metadata tables...
 898 Dumping metadata...
 899 ..objects..
 900 ..blocks..
 901 ..inodes..
 902 ..inode_blocks..
 903 ..symlink_targets..
 904 ..names..
 905 ..contents..
 906 ..ext_attributes..
 907 Compressing and uploading metadata...
 908 Wrote 0.00 MB of compressed metadata.
 909 # </pre></blockquote></p>
 910
 911 <p>The next step is mounting the file system to make the storage available.
 912
 913 <p><blockquote><pre>
 914 # mount.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
 915   --ssl --allow-root s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name /s3ql
 916 Using 4 upload threads.
 917 Downloading and decompressing metadata...
 918 Reading metadata...
 919 ..objects..
 920 ..blocks..
 921 ..inodes..
 922 ..inode_blocks..
 923 ..symlink_targets..
 924 ..names..
 925 ..contents..
 926 ..ext_attributes..
 927 Mounting filesystem...
 928 # df -h /s3ql
 929 Filesystem                              Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
 930 s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name  1.0T     0  1.0T   0% /s3ql
 931 #
 932 </pre></blockquote></p>
 933
 934 <p>The file system is now ready for use.  I use rsync to store my
 935 backups in it, and as the metadata used by rsync is downloaded at
 936 mount time, no network traffic (and storage cost) is triggered by
 937 running rsync.  To unmount, one should not use the normal umount
 938 command, as this will not flush the cache to the cloud storage, but
 939 instead running the umount.s3ql command like this:
 940
 941 <p><blockquote><pre>
 942 # umount.s3ql /s3ql
 943 #
 944 </pre></blockquote></p>
 945
 946 <p>There is a fsck command available to check the file system and
 947 correct any problems detected.  This can be used if the local server
 948 crashes while the file system is mounted, to reset the "already
 949 mounted" flag.  This is what it look like when processing a working
 950 file system:</p>
 951
 952 <p><blockquote><pre>
 953 # fsck.s3ql --force --ssl s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name
 954 Using cached metadata.
 955 File system seems clean, checking anyway.
 956 Checking DB integrity...
 957 Creating temporary extra indices...
 958 Checking lost+found...
 959 Checking cached objects...
 960 Checking names (refcounts)...
 961 Checking contents (names)...
 962 Checking contents (inodes)...
 963 Checking contents (parent inodes)...
 964 Checking objects (reference counts)...
 965 Checking objects (backend)...
 966 ..processed 5000 objects so far..
 967 ..processed 10000 objects so far..
 968 ..processed 15000 objects so far..
 969 Checking objects (sizes)...
 970 Checking blocks (referenced objects)...
 971 Checking blocks (refcounts)...
 972 Checking inode-block mapping (blocks)...
 973 Checking inode-block mapping (inodes)...
 974 Checking inodes (refcounts)...
 975 Checking inodes (sizes)...
 976 Checking extended attributes (names)...
 977 Checking extended attributes (inodes)...
 978 Checking symlinks (inodes)...
 979 Checking directory reachability...
 980 Checking unix conventions...
 981 Checking referential integrity...
 982 Dropping temporary indices...
 983 Backing up old metadata...
 984 Dumping metadata...
 985 ..objects..
 986 ..blocks..
 987 ..inodes..
 988 ..inode_blocks..
 989 ..symlink_targets..
 990 ..names..
 991 ..contents..
 992 ..ext_attributes..
 993 Compressing and uploading metadata...
 994 Wrote 0.89 MB of compressed metadata.
 995 #
 996 </pre></blockquote></p>
 997
 998 <p>Thanks to the cache, working on files that fit in the cache is very
 999 quick, about the same speed as local file access.  Uploading large
1000 amount of data is to me limited by the bandwidth out of and into my
1001 house.  Uploading 685 MiB with a 100 MiB cache gave me 305 kiB/s,
1002 which is very close to my upload speed, and downloading the same
1003 Debian installation ISO gave me 610 kiB/s, close to my download speed.
1004 Both were measured using <tt>dd</tt>.  So for me, the bottleneck is my
1005 network, not the file system code.  I do not know what a good cache
1006 size would be, but suspect that the cache should e larger than your
1007 working set.</p>
1008
1009 <p>I mentioned that only one machine can mount the file system at the
1010 time.  If another machine try, it is told that the file system is
1011 busy:</p>
1012
1013 <p><blockquote><pre>
1014 # mount.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
1015   --ssl --allow-root s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name /s3ql
1016 Using 8 upload threads.
1017 Backend reports that fs is still mounted elsewhere, aborting.
1018 #
1019 </pre></blockquote></p>
1020
1021 <p>The file content is uploaded when the cache is full, while the
1022 metadata is uploaded once every 24 hour by default.  To ensure the
1023 file system content is flushed to the cloud, one can either umount the
1024 file system, or ask S3QL to flush the cache and metadata using
1025 s3qlctrl:
1026
1027 <p><blockquote><pre>
1028 # s3qlctrl upload-meta /s3ql
1029 # s3qlctrl flushcache /s3ql
1030 #
1031 </pre></blockquote></p>
1032
1033 <p>If you are curious about how much space your data uses in the
1034 cloud, and how much compression and deduplication cut down on the
1035 storage usage, you can use s3qlstat on the mounted file system to get
1036 a report:</p>
1037
1038 <p><blockquote><pre>
1039 # s3qlstat /s3ql
1040 Directory entries:    9141
1041 Inodes:               9143
1042 Data blocks:          8851
1043 Total data size:      22049.38 MB
1044 After de-duplication: 21955.46 MB (99.57% of total)
1045 After compression:    21877.28 MB (99.22% of total, 99.64% of de-duplicated)
1046 Database size:        2.39 MB (uncompressed)
1047 (some values do not take into account not-yet-uploaded dirty blocks in cache)
1048 #
1049 </pre></blockquote></p>
1050
1051 <p>I mentioned earlier that there are several possible suppliers of
1052 storage.  I did not try to locate them all, but am aware of at least
1053 <a href="https://www.greenqloud.com/">Greenqloud</a>,
1054 <a href="http://drive.google.com/">Google Drive</a>,
1055 <a href="http://aws.amazon.com/s3/">Amazon S3 web serivces</a>,
1056 <a href="http://www.rackspace.com/">Rackspace</a> and
1057 <a href="http://crowncloud.net/">Crowncloud</A>.  The latter even
1058 accept payment in Bitcoin.  Pick one that suit your need.  Some of
1059 them provide several GiB of free storage, but the prize models are
1060 quite different and you will have to figure out what suits you
1061 best.</p>
1062
1063 <p>While researching this blog post, I had a look at research papers
1064 and posters discussing the S3QL file system.  There are several, which
1065 told me that the file system is getting a critical check by the
1066 science community and increased my confidence in using it.  One nice
1067 poster is titled
1068 "<a href="http://www.lanl.gov/orgs/adtsc/publications/science_highlights_2013/docs/pg68_69.pdf">An
1069 Innovative Parallel Cloud Storage System using OpenStack’s SwiftObject
1070 Store and Transformative Parallel I/O Approach</a>" by Hsing-Bung
1071 Chen, Benjamin McClelland, David Sherrill, Alfred Torrez, Parks Fields
1072 and Pamela Smith.  Please  have a look.</p>
1073
1074 <p>Given my problems with different file systems earlier, I decided to
1075 check out the mounted S3QL file system to see if it would be usable as
1076 a home directory (in other word, that it provided POSIX semantics when
1077 it come to locking and umask handling etc).  Running
1078 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_if_a_file_system_can_be_used_for_home_directories___.html">my
1079 test code to check file system semantics</a>, I was happy to discover that
1080 no error was found.  So the file system can be used for home
1081 directories, if one chooses to do so.</p>
1082
1083 <p>If you do not want a locally file system, and want something that
1084 work without the Linux fuse file system, I would like to mention the
1085 <a href="http://www.tarsnap.com/">Tarsnap service</a>, which also
1086 provide locally encrypted backup using a command line client.  It have
1087 a nicer access control system, where one can split out read and write
1088 access, allowing some systems to write to the backup and others to
1089 only read from it.</p>
1090
1091 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1092 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1093 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
1094
1095       </div>
1096       <div class="tags">
1097
1098
1099         Tags: <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>.
1100
1101
1102       </div>
1103     </div>
1104     <div class="padding"></div>
1105
1106     <div class="entry">
1107       <div class="title">
1108         <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>
1109       </div>
1110       <div class="date">
1111         14th March 2014
1112       </div>
1113       <div class="body">
1114         <p>The <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">Freedombox
1115 project</a> is working on providing the software and hardware for
1116 making it easy for non-technical people to host their data and
1117 communication at home, and being able to communicate with their
1118 friends and family encrypted and away from prying eyes.  It has been
1119 going on for a while, and is slowly progressing towards a new test
1120 release (0.2).</p>
1121
1122 <p>And what day could be better than the Pi day to announce that the
1123 new version will provide "hard drive" / SD card / USB stick images for
1124 Dreamplug, Raspberry Pi and VirtualBox (or any other virtualization
1125 system), and can also be installed using a Debian installer preseed
1126 file.  The Debian based Freedombox is now based on Debian Jessie,
1127 where most of the needed packages used are already present.  Only one,
1128 the freedombox-setup package, is missing.  To try to build your own
1129 boot image to test the current status, fetch the freedom-maker scripts
1130 and build using
1131 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/vmdebootstrap">vmdebootstrap</a>
1132 with a user with sudo access to become root:
1133
1134 <pre>
1135 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/freedombox/freedom-maker.git \
1136   freedom-maker
1137 sudo apt-get install git vmdebootstrap mercurial python-docutils \
1138   mktorrent extlinux virtualbox qemu-user-static binfmt-support \
1139   u-boot-tools
1140 make -C freedom-maker dreamplug-image raspberry-image virtualbox-image
1141 </pre>
1142
1143 <p>Root access is needed to run debootstrap and mount loopback
1144 devices.  See the README for more details on the build. If you do not
1145 want all three images, trim the make line.  But note that thanks to <a
1146 href="https://bugs.debian.org/741407">a race condition in
1147 vmdebootstrap</a>, the build might fail without the patch to the
1148 kpartx call.</p>
1149
1150 <p>If you instead want to install using a Debian CD and the preseed
1151 method, boot a Debian Wheezy ISO and use this boot argument to load
1152 the preseed values:</p>
1153
1154 <pre>
1155 url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat</a>
1156 </pre>
1157
1158 <p>But note that due to <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/740673">a
1159 recently introduced bug in apt in Jessie</a>, the installer will
1160 currently hang while setting up APT sources.  Killing the
1161 '<tt>apt-cdrom ident</tt>' process when it hang a few times during the
1162 installation will get the installation going.  This affect all
1163 installations in Jessie, and I expect it will be fixed soon.</p>
1164
1165 <p>Give it a go and let us know how it goes on the mailing list, and help
1166 us get the new release published. :) Please join us on
1167 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC (#freedombox on
1168 irc.debian.org)</a> and
1169 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
1170 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
1171
1172       </div>
1173       <div class="tags">
1174
1175
1176         Tags: <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>.
1177
1178
1179       </div>
1180     </div>
1181     <div class="padding"></div>
1182
1183     <div class="entry">
1184       <div class="title">
1185         <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>
1186       </div>
1187       <div class="date">
1188         22nd February 2014
1189       </div>
1190       <div class="body">
1191         <p>Many years ago, I wrote a GPL licensed version of the netgroup and
1192 innetgr tools, because I needed them in
1193 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a>.  I called the project
1194 ng-utils, and it has served me well.  I placed the project under the
1195 <a href="http://www.hungry.com/">Hungry Programmer</a> umbrella, and it was maintained in our CVS
1196 repository.  But many years ago, the CVS repository was dropped (lost,
1197 not migrated to new hardware, not sure), and the project have lacked a
1198 proper home since then.</p>
1199
1200 <p>Last summer, I had a look at the package and made a new release
1201 fixing a irritating crash bug, but was unable to store the changes in
1202 a proper source control system.  I applied for a project on
1203 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/">Alioth</a>, but did not have time
1204 to follow up on it.  Until today. :)</p>
1205
1206 <p>After many hours of cleaning and migration, the ng-utils project
1207 now have a new home, and a git repository with the highlight of the
1208 history of the project.  I published all release tarballs and imported
1209 them into the git repository.  As the project is really stable and not
1210 expected to gain new features any time soon, I decided to make a new
1211 release and call it 1.0.  Visit the new project home on
1212 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/ng-utils/">https://alioth.debian.org/projects/ng-utils/</a>
1213 if you want to check it out.  The new version is also uploaded into
1214 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/n/ng-utils.html">Debian Unstable</a>.</p>
1215
1216       </div>
1217       <div class="tags">
1218
1219
1220         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1221
1222
1223       </div>
1224     </div>
1225     <div class="padding"></div>
1226
1227     <div class="entry">
1228       <div class="title">
1229         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_sysvinit_from_experimental_in_Debian_Hurd.html">Testing sysvinit from experimental in Debian Hurd</a>
1230       </div>
1231       <div class="date">
1232          3rd February 2014
1233       </div>
1234       <div class="body">
1235         <p>A few days ago I decided to try to help the Hurd people to get
1236 their changes into sysvinit, to allow them to use the normal sysvinit
1237 boot system instead of their old one.  This follow up on the
1238 <a href="https://teythoon.cryptobitch.de//categories/gsoc.html">great
1239 Google Summer of Code work</a> done last summer by Justus Winter to
1240 get Debian on Hurd working more like Debian on Linux.  To get started,
1241 I downloaded a prebuilt hard disk image from
1242 <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>,
1243 and started it using virt-manager.</p>
1244
1245 <p>The first think I had to do after logging in (root without any
1246 password) was to get the network operational.  I followed
1247 <a href="https://www.debian.org/ports/hurd/hurd-install">the
1248 instructions on the Debian GNU/Hurd ports page</a> and ran these
1249 commands as root to get the machine to accept a IP address from the
1250 kvm internal DHCP server:</p>
1251
1252 <p><blockquote><pre>
1253 settrans -fgap /dev/netdde /hurd/netdde
1254 kill $(ps -ef|awk '/[p]finet/ { print $2}')
1255 kill $(ps -ef|awk '/[d]evnode/ { print $2}')
1256 dhclient /dev/eth0
1257 </pre></blockquote></p>
1258
1259 <p>After this, the machine had internet connectivity, and I could
1260 upgrade it and install the sysvinit packages from experimental and
1261 enable it as the default boot system in Hurd.</p>
1262
1263 <p>But before I did that, I set a password on the root user, as ssh is
1264 running on the machine it for ssh login to work a password need to be
1265 set.  Also, note that a bug somewhere in openssh on Hurd block
1266 compression from working.  Remember to turn that off on the client
1267 side.</p>
1268
1269 <p>Run these commands as root to upgrade and test the new sysvinit
1270 stuff:</p>
1271
1272 <p><blockquote><pre>
1273 cat > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/experimental.list &lt;&lt;EOF
1274 deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ experimental main
1275 EOF
1276 apt-get update
1277 apt-get dist-upgrade
1278 apt-get install -t experimental initscripts sysv-rc sysvinit \
1279     sysvinit-core sysvinit-utils
1280 update-alternatives --config runsystem
1281 </pre></blockquote></p>
1282
1283 <p>To reboot after switching boot system, you have to use
1284 <tt>reboot-hurd</tt> instead of just <tt>reboot</tt>, as there is not
1285 yet a sysvinit process able to receive the signals from the normal
1286 'reboot' command.  After switching to sysvinit as the boot system,
1287 upgrading every package and rebooting, the network come up with DHCP
1288 after boot as it should, and the settrans/pkill hack mentioned at the
1289 start is no longer needed.  But for some strange reason, there are no
1290 longer any login prompt in the virtual console, so I logged in using
1291 ssh instead.
1292
1293 <p>Note that there are some race conditions in Hurd making the boot
1294 fail some times.  No idea what the cause is, but hope the Hurd porters
1295 figure it out.  At least Justus said on IRC (#debian-hurd on
1296 irc.debian.org) that they are aware of the problem.  A way to reduce
1297 the impact is to upgrade to the Hurd packages built by Justus by
1298 adding this repository to the machine:</p>
1299
1300 <p><blockquote><pre>
1301 cat > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/hurd-ci.list &lt;&lt;EOF
1302 deb http://darnassus.sceen.net/~teythoon/hurd-ci/ sid main
1303 EOF
1304 </pre></blockquote></p>
1305
1306 <p>At the moment the prebuilt virtual machine get some packages from
1307 http://ftp.debian-ports.org/debian, because some of the packages in
1308 unstable do not yet include the required patches that are lingering in
1309 BTS.  This is the completely list of "unofficial" packages installed:</p>
1310
1311 <p><blockquote><pre>
1312 # aptitude search '?narrow(?version(CURRENT),?origin(Debian Ports))'
1313 i   emacs                   - GNU Emacs editor (metapackage)
1314 i   gdb                     - GNU Debugger
1315 i   hurd-recommended        - Miscellaneous translators
1316 i   isc-dhcp-client         - ISC DHCP client
1317 i   isc-dhcp-common         - common files used by all the isc-dhcp* packages
1318 i   libc-bin                - Embedded GNU C Library: Binaries
1319 i   libc-dev-bin            - Embedded GNU C Library: Development binaries
1320 i   libc0.3                 - Embedded GNU C Library: Shared libraries
1321 i A libc0.3-dbg             - Embedded GNU C Library: detached debugging symbols
1322 i   libc0.3-dev             - Embedded GNU C Library: Development Libraries and Hea
1323 i   multiarch-support       - Transitional package to ensure multiarch compatibilit
1324 i A x11-common              - X Window System (X.Org) infrastructure
1325 i   xorg                    - X.Org X Window System
1326 i A xserver-xorg            - X.Org X server
1327 i A xserver-xorg-input-all  - X.Org X server -- input driver metapackage
1328 #
1329 </pre></blockquote></p>
1330
1331 <p>All in all, testing hurd has been an interesting experience. :)
1332 X.org did not work out of the box and I never took the time to follow
1333 the porters instructions to fix it.  This time I was interested in the
1334 command line stuff.<p>
1335
1336       </div>
1337       <div class="tags">
1338
1339
1340         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>.
1341
1342
1343       </div>
1344     </div>
1345     <div class="padding"></div>
1346
1347     <div class="entry">
1348       <div class="title">
1349         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_chrpath_release_0_16.html">New chrpath release 0.16</a>
1350       </div>
1351       <div class="date">
1352         14th January 2014
1353       </div>
1354       <div class="body">
1355         <p><a href="http://www.coverity.com/">Coverity</a> is a nice tool to
1356 find problems in C, C++ and Java code using static source code
1357 analysis.  It can detect a lot of different problems, and is very
1358 useful to find memory and locking bugs in the error handling part of
1359 the source.  The company behind it provide
1360 <a href="https://scan.coverity.com/">check of free software projects as
1361 a community service</a>, and many hundred free software projects are
1362 already checked.  A few days ago I decided to have a closer look at
1363 the Coverity system, and discovered that the
1364 <a href="http://www.gnu.org/software/gnash/">gnash</a> and
1365 <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/ipmitool/">ipmitool</a>
1366 projects I am involved with was already registered.  But these are
1367 fairly big, and I would also like to have a small and easy project to
1368 check, and decided to <a href="http://scan.coverity.com/projects/1179">request
1369 checking of the chrpath project</a>.  It was
1370 added to the checker and discovered seven potential defects.  Six of
1371 these were real, mostly resource "leak" when the program detected an
1372 error.  Nothing serious, as the resources would be released a fraction
1373 of a second later when the program exited because of the error, but it
1374 is nice to do it right in case the source of the program some time in
1375 the future end up in a library.  Having fixed all defects and added
1376 <a href="https://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/chrpath-devel">a
1377 mailing list for the chrpath developers</a>, I decided it was time to
1378 publish a new release.  These are the release notes:</p>
1379
1380 <p>New in 0.16 released 2014-01-14:</p>
1381
1382 <ul>
1383
1384   <li>Fixed all minor bugs discovered by Coverity.</li>
1385   <li>Updated config.sub and config.guess from the GNU project.</li>
1386   <li>Mention new project mailing list in the documentation.</li>
1387
1388 </ul>
1389
1390 <p>You can
1391 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/frs/?group_id=31052">download the
1392 new version 0.16 from alioth</a>.  Please let us know via the Alioth
1393 project if something is wrong with the new release.  The test suite
1394 did not discover any old errors, so if you find a new one, please also
1395 include a test suite check.</p>
1396
1397       </div>
1398       <div class="tags">
1399
1400
1401         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>.
1402
1403
1404       </div>
1405     </div>
1406     <div class="padding"></div>
1407
1408     <div class="entry">
1409       <div class="title">
1410         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_chrpath_release_0_15.html">New chrpath release 0.15</a>
1411       </div>
1412       <div class="date">
1413         24th November 2013
1414       </div>
1415       <div class="body">
1416         <p>After many years break from the package and a vain hope that
1417 development would be continued by someone else, I finally pulled my
1418 acts together this morning and wrapped up a new release of chrpath,
1419 the command line tool to modify the rpath and runpath of already
1420 compiled ELF programs.  The update was triggered by the persistence of
1421 Isha Vishnoi at IBM, which needed a new config.guess file to get
1422 support for the ppc64le architecture (powerpc 64-bit Little Endian) he
1423 is working on.  I checked the
1424 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/chrpath">Debian</a>,
1425 <a href="https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/chrpath">Ubuntu</a> and
1426 <a href="https://admin.fedoraproject.org/pkgdb/acls/name/chrpath">Fedora</a>
1427 packages for interesting patches (failed to find the source from
1428 OpenSUSE and Mandriva packages), and found quite a few nice fixes.
1429 These are the release notes:</p>
1430
1431 <p>New in 0.15 released 2013-11-24:</p>
1432
1433 <ul>
1434
1435   <li>Updated config.sub and config.guess from the GNU project to work
1436    with newer architectures.  Thanks to isha vishnoi for the heads
1437    up.</li>
1438
1439   <li>Updated README with current URLs.</li>
1440
1441   <li>Added byteswap fix found in Ubuntu, credited Jeremy Kerr and
1442    Matthias Klose.</li>
1443
1444   <li>Added missing help for -k|--keepgoing option, using patch by
1445    Petr Machata found in Fedora.</li>
1446
1447   <li>Rewrite removal of RPATH/RUNPATH to make sure the entry in
1448    .dynamic is a NULL terminated string.  Based on patch found in
1449    Fedora credited Axel Thimm and Christian Krause.</li>
1450
1451 </ul>
1452
1453 <p>You can
1454 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/frs/?group_id=31052">download the
1455 new version 0.15 from alioth</a>.  Please let us know via the Alioth
1456 project if something is wrong with the new release.  The test suite
1457 did not discover any old errors, so if you find a new one, please also
1458 include a testsuite check.</p>
1459
1460       </div>
1461       <div class="tags">
1462
1463
1464         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>.
1465
1466
1467       </div>
1468     </div>
1469     <div class="padding"></div>
1470
1471     <div class="entry">
1472       <div class="title">
1473         <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>
1474       </div>
1475       <div class="date">
1476          2nd November 2013
1477       </div>
1478       <div class="body">
1479         <p>If one of the points of switching to a new init system in Debian is
1480 <a href="http://thomas.goirand.fr/blog/?p=147">to get rid of huge
1481 init.d scripts</a>, I doubt we need to switch away from sysvinit and
1482 init.d scripts at all.  Here is an example init.d script, ie a rewrite
1483 of /etc/init.d/rsyslog:</p>
1484
1485 <p><pre>
1486 #!/lib/init/init-d-script
1487 ### BEGIN INIT INFO
1488 # Provides:          rsyslog
1489 # Required-Start:    $remote_fs $time
1490 # Required-Stop:     umountnfs $time
1491 # X-Stop-After:      sendsigs
1492 # Default-Start:     2 3 4 5
1493 # Default-Stop:      0 1 6
1494 # Short-Description: enhanced syslogd
1495 # Description:       Rsyslog is an enhanced multi-threaded syslogd.
1496 #                    It is quite compatible to stock sysklogd and can be
1497 #                    used as a drop-in replacement.
1498 ### END INIT INFO
1499 DESC="enhanced syslogd"
1500 DAEMON=/usr/sbin/rsyslogd
1501 </pre></p>
1502
1503 <p>Pretty minimalistic to me... For the record, the original sysv-rc
1504 script was 137 lines, and the above is just 15 lines, most of it meta
1505 info/comments.</p>
1506
1507 <p>How to do this, you ask?  Well, one create a new script
1508 /lib/init/init-d-script looking something like this:
1509
1510 <p><pre>
1511 #!/bin/sh
1512
1513 # Define LSB log_* functions.
1514 # Depend on lsb-base (>= 3.2-14) to ensure that this file is present
1515 # and status_of_proc is working.
1516 . /lib/lsb/init-functions
1517
1518 #
1519 # Function that starts the daemon/service
1520
1521 #
1522 do_start()
1523 {
1524         # Return
1525         #   0 if daemon has been started
1526         #   1 if daemon was already running
1527         #   2 if daemon could not be started
1528         start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $DAEMON --test > /dev/null \
1529                 || return 1
1530         start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $DAEMON -- \
1531                 $DAEMON_ARGS \
1532                 || return 2
1533         # Add code here, if necessary, that waits for the process to be ready
1534         # to handle requests from services started subsequently which depend
1535         # on this one.  As a last resort, sleep for some time.
1536 }
1537
1538 #
1539 # Function that stops the daemon/service
1540 #
1541 do_stop()
1542 {
1543         # Return
1544         #   0 if daemon has been stopped
1545         #   1 if daemon was already stopped
1546         #   2 if daemon could not be stopped
1547         #   other if a failure occurred
1548         start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --retry=TERM/30/KILL/5 --pidfile $PIDFILE --name $NAME
1549         RETVAL="$?"
1550         [ "$RETVAL" = 2 ] && return 2
1551         # Wait for children to finish too if this is a daemon that forks
1552         # and if the daemon is only ever run from this initscript.
1553         # If the above conditions are not satisfied then add some other code
1554         # that waits for the process to drop all resources that could be
1555         # needed by services started subsequently.  A last resort is to
1556         # sleep for some time.
1557         start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --oknodo --retry=0/30/KILL/5 --exec $DAEMON
1558         [ "$?" = 2 ] && return 2
1559         # Many daemons don't delete their pidfiles when they exit.
1560         rm -f $PIDFILE
1561         return "$RETVAL"
1562 }
1563
1564 #
1565 # Function that sends a SIGHUP to the daemon/service
1566 #
1567 do_reload() {
1568         #
1569         # If the daemon can reload its configuration without
1570         # restarting (for example, when it is sent a SIGHUP),
1571         # then implement that here.
1572         #
1573         start-stop-daemon --stop --signal 1 --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --name $NAME
1574         return 0
1575 }
1576
1577 SCRIPTNAME=$1
1578 scriptbasename="$(basename $1)"
1579 echo "SN: $scriptbasename"
1580 if [ "$scriptbasename" != "init-d-library" ] ; then
1581     script="$1"
1582     shift
1583     . $script
1584 else
1585     exit 0
1586 fi
1587
1588 NAME=$(basename $DAEMON)
1589 PIDFILE=/var/run/$NAME.pid
1590
1591 # Exit if the package is not installed
1592 #[ -x "$DAEMON" ] || exit 0
1593
1594 # Read configuration variable file if it is present
1595 [ -r /etc/default/$NAME ] && . /etc/default/$NAME
1596
1597 # Load the VERBOSE setting and other rcS variables
1598 . /lib/init/vars.sh
1599
1600 case "$1" in
1601   start)
1602         [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_daemon_msg "Starting $DESC" "$NAME"
1603         do_start
1604         case "$?" in
1605                 0|1) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 0 ;;
1606                 2) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 1 ;;
1607         esac
1608         ;;
1609   stop)
1610         [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_daemon_msg "Stopping $DESC" "$NAME"
1611         do_stop
1612         case "$?" in
1613                 0|1) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 0 ;;
1614                 2) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 1 ;;
1615         esac
1616         ;;
1617   status)
1618         status_of_proc "$DAEMON" "$NAME" && exit 0 || exit $?
1619         ;;
1620   #reload|force-reload)
1621         #
1622         # If do_reload() is not implemented then leave this commented out
1623         # and leave 'force-reload' as an alias for 'restart'.
1624         #
1625         #log_daemon_msg "Reloading $DESC" "$NAME"
1626         #do_reload
1627         #log_end_msg $?
1628         #;;
1629   restart|force-reload)
1630         #
1631         # If the "reload" option is implemented then remove the
1632         # 'force-reload' alias
1633         #
1634         log_daemon_msg "Restarting $DESC" "$NAME"
1635         do_stop
1636         case "$?" in
1637           0|1)
1638                 do_start
1639                 case "$?" in
1640                         0) log_end_msg 0 ;;
1641                         1) log_end_msg 1 ;; # Old process is still running
1642                         *) log_end_msg 1 ;; # Failed to start
1643                 esac
1644                 ;;
1645           *)
1646                 # Failed to stop
1647                 log_end_msg 1
1648                 ;;
1649         esac
1650         ;;
1651   *)
1652         echo "Usage: $SCRIPTNAME {start|stop|status|restart|force-reload}" >&2
1653         exit 3
1654         ;;
1655 esac
1656
1657 :
1658 </pre></p>
1659
1660 <p>It is based on /etc/init.d/skeleton, and could be improved quite a
1661 lot.  I did not really polish the approach, so it might not always
1662 work out of the box, but you get the idea.  I did not try very hard to
1663 optimize it nor make it more robust either.</p>
1664
1665 <p>A better argument for switching init system in Debian than reducing
1666 the size of init scripts (which is a good thing to do anyway), is to
1667 get boot system that is able to handle the kernel events sensibly and
1668 robustly, and do not depend on the boot to run sequentially.  The boot
1669 and the kernel have not behaved sequentially in years.</p>
1670
1671       </div>
1672       <div class="tags">
1673
1674
1675         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>.
1676
1677
1678       </div>
1679     </div>
1680     <div class="padding"></div>
1681
1682     <div class="entry">
1683       <div class="title">
1684         <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>
1685       </div>
1686       <div class="date">
1687          1st November 2013
1688       </div>
1689       <div class="body">
1690         <p><a href="http://www.spice-space.org/">The SPICE protocol</a> for
1691 remote display access is the preferred solution with oVirt and RedHat
1692 Enterprise Virtualization, and I was sad to discover the other day
1693 that the browser plugin needed to use these systems seamlessly was
1694 missing in Debian.  The <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/668284">request
1695 for a package</a> was from 2012-04-10 with no progress since
1696 2013-04-01, so I decided to wrap up a package based on the great work
1697 from Cajus Pollmeier and put it in a collab-maint maintained git
1698 repository to get a package I could use.  I would very much like
1699 others to help me maintain the package (or just take over, I do not
1700 mind), but as no-one had volunteered so far, I just uploaded it to
1701 NEW.  I hope it will be available in Debian in a few days.</p>
1702
1703 <p>The source is now available from
1704 <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>
1705
1706       </div>
1707       <div class="tags">
1708
1709
1710         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1711
1712
1713       </div>
1714     </div>
1715     <div class="padding"></div>
1716
1717     <div class="entry">
1718       <div class="title">
1719         <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>
1720       </div>
1721       <div class="date">
1722         27th October 2013
1723       </div>
1724       <div class="body">
1725         <p>The
1726 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/v/vmdebootstrap.html">vmdebootstrap</a>
1727 program is a a very nice system to create virtual machine images.  It
1728 create a image file, add a partition table, mount it and run
1729 debootstrap in the mounted directory to create a Debian system on a
1730 stick.  Yesterday, I decided to try to teach it how to make images for
1731 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/RaspberryPi">Raspberry Pi</a>, as part
1732 of a plan to simplify the build system for
1733 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">the FreedomBox
1734 project</a>.  The FreedomBox project already uses vmdebootstrap for
1735 the virtualbox images, but its current build system made multistrap
1736 based system for Dreamplug images, and it is lacking support for
1737 Raspberry Pi.</p>
1738
1739 <p>Armed with the knowledge on how to build "foreign" (aka non-native
1740 architecture) chroots for Raspberry Pi, I dived into the vmdebootstrap
1741 code and adjusted it to be able to build armel images on my amd64
1742 Debian laptop.  I ended up giving vmdebootstrap five new options,
1743 allowing me to replicate the image creation process I use to make
1744 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Raspberry_Pi_based_batman_adv_Mesh_network_node.html">Debian
1745 Jessie based mesh node images for the Raspberry Pi</a>.  First, the
1746 <tt>--foreign /path/to/binfm_handler</tt> option tell vmdebootstrap to
1747 call debootstrap with --foreign and to copy the handler into the
1748 generated chroot before running the second stage.  This allow
1749 vmdebootstrap to create armel images on an amd64 host.  Next I added
1750 two new options <tt>--bootsize size</tt> and <tt>--boottype
1751 fstype</tt> to teach it to create a separate /boot/ partition with the
1752 given file system type, allowing me to create an image with a vfat
1753 partition for the /boot/ stuff.  I also added a <tt>--variant
1754 variant</tt> option to allow me to create smaller images without the
1755 Debian base system packages installed.  Finally, I added an option
1756 <tt>--no-extlinux</tt> to tell vmdebootstrap to not install extlinux
1757 as a boot loader.  It is not needed on the Raspberry Pi and probably
1758 most other non-x86 architectures.  The changes were accepted by the
1759 upstream author of vmdebootstrap yesterday and today, and is now
1760 available from
1761 <a href="http://git.liw.fi/cgi-bin/cgit/cgit.cgi/vmdebootstrap/">the
1762 upstream project page</a>.</p>
1763
1764 <p>To use it to build a Raspberry Pi image using Debian Jessie, first
1765 create a small script (the customize script) to add the non-free
1766 binary blob needed to boot the Raspberry Pi and the APT source
1767 list:</p>
1768
1769 <p><pre>
1770 #!/bin/sh
1771 set -e # Exit on first error
1772 rootdir="$1"
1773 cd "$rootdir"
1774 cat &lt;&lt;EOF > etc/apt/sources.list
1775 deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ jessie main contrib non-free
1776 EOF
1777 # Install non-free binary blob needed to boot Raspberry Pi.  This
1778 # install a kernel somewhere too.
1779 wget https://raw.github.com/Hexxeh/rpi-update/master/rpi-update \
1780     -O $rootdir/usr/bin/rpi-update
1781 chmod a+x $rootdir/usr/bin/rpi-update
1782 mkdir -p $rootdir/lib/modules
1783 touch $rootdir/boot/start.elf
1784 chroot $rootdir rpi-update
1785 </pre></p>
1786
1787 <p>Next, fetch the latest vmdebootstrap script and call it like this
1788 to build the image:</p>
1789
1790 <pre>
1791 sudo ./vmdebootstrap \
1792     --variant minbase \
1793     --arch armel \
1794     --distribution jessie \
1795     --mirror http://http.debian.net/debian \
1796     --image test.img \
1797     --size 600M \
1798     --bootsize 64M \
1799     --boottype vfat \
1800     --log-level debug \
1801     --verbose \
1802     --no-kernel \
1803     --no-extlinux \
1804     --root-password raspberry \
1805     --hostname raspberrypi \
1806     --foreign /usr/bin/qemu-arm-static \
1807     --customize `pwd`/customize \
1808     --package netbase \
1809     --package git-core \
1810     --package binutils \
1811     --package ca-certificates \
1812     --package wget \
1813     --package kmod
1814 </pre></p>
1815
1816 <p>The list of packages being installed are the ones needed by
1817 rpi-update to make the image bootable on the Raspberry Pi, with the
1818 exception of netbase, which is needed by debootstrap to find
1819 /etc/hosts with the minbase variant.  I really wish there was a way to
1820 set up an Raspberry Pi using only packages in the Debian archive, but
1821 that is not possible as far as I know, because it boots from the GPU
1822 using a non-free binary blob.</p>
1823
1824 <p>The build host need debootstrap, kpartx and qemu-user-static and
1825 probably a few others installed.  I have not checked the complete
1826 build dependency list.</p>
1827
1828 <p>The resulting image will not use the hardware floating point unit
1829 on the Raspberry PI, because the armel architecture in Debian is not
1830 optimized for that use.  So the images created will be a bit slower
1831 than <a href="http://www.raspbian.org/">Raspbian</a> based images.</p>
1832
1833       </div>
1834       <div class="tags">
1835
1836
1837         Tags: <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>.
1838
1839
1840       </div>
1841     </div>
1842     <div class="padding"></div>
1843
1844     <div class="entry">
1845       <div class="title">
1846         <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>
1847       </div>
1848       <div class="date">
1849         15th October 2013
1850       </div>
1851       <div class="body">
1852         <p>The last few days I came across a few good causes that should get
1853 wider attention.  I recommend signing and donating to each one of
1854 these. :)</p>
1855
1856 <p>Via <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2013/18/">Debian
1857 Project News for 2013-10-14</a> I came across the Outreach Program for
1858 Women program which is a Google Summer of Code like initiative to get
1859 more women involved in free software.  One debian sponsor has offered
1860 to match <a href="http://debian.ch/opw2013">any donation done to Debian
1861 earmarked</a> for this initiative.  I donated a few minutes ago, and
1862 hope you will to. :)</p>
1863
1864 <p>And the Electronic Frontier Foundation just announced plans to
1865 create <a href="https://supporters.eff.org/donate/nsa-videos">video
1866 documentaries about the excessive spying</a> on every Internet user that
1867 take place these days, and their need to fund the work.  I've already
1868 donated.  Are you next?</p>
1869
1870 <p>For my Norwegian audience, the organisation Studentenes og
1871 Akademikernes Internasjonale Hjelpefond is collecting signatures for a
1872 statement under the heading
1873 <a href="http://saih.no/Bloggers_United/">Bloggers United for Open
1874 Access</a> for those of us asking for more focus on open access in the
1875 Norwegian government.  So far 499 signatures.  I hope you will sign it
1876 too.</p>
1877
1878       </div>
1879       <div class="tags">
1880
1881
1882         Tags: <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>.
1883
1884
1885       </div>
1886     </div>
1887     <div class="padding"></div>
1888
1889     <div class="entry">
1890       <div class="title">
1891         <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>
1892       </div>
1893       <div class="date">
1894         27th September 2013
1895       </div>
1896       <div class="body">
1897         <p>The <a href="http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/">Freedombox
1898 project</a> have been going on for a while, and have presented the
1899 vision, ideas and solution several places.  Here is a little
1900 collection of videos of talks and presentation of the project.</p>
1901
1902 <ul>
1903
1904 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukvUz5taxvA">FreedomBox -
1905 2,5 minute marketing film</a> (Youtube)</li>
1906
1907 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzW25QTVWsE">Eben Moglen
1908 discusses the Freedombox on CBS news 2011</a> (Youtube)</li>
1909
1910 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ae8SZbxfE0g">Eben Moglen -
1911 Freedom in the Cloud - Software Freedom, Privacy and and Security for
1912 Web 2.0 and Cloud computing at ISOC-NY Public Meeting 2010</a>
1913 (Youtube)</li>
1914
1915 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNaIji_3xBE">Fosdem 2011
1916 Keynote by Eben Moglen presenting the Freedombox</a> (Youtube)</li>
1917
1918 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bDDUyJSQ9s">Presentation of
1919 the Freedombox by James Vasile at Elevate in Gratz 2011</a> (Youtube)</li>
1920
1921 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQTmnk27g9s"> Freedombox -
1922 Discovery, Identity, and Trust by Nick Daly at Freedombox Hackfest New
1923 York City in 2012</a> (Youtube)</li>
1924
1925 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkbSB4Ba7Ck">Introduction
1926 to the Freedombox at Freedombox Hackfest New York City in 2012</a>
1927 (Youtube)</li>
1928
1929 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-P2Jaeg0aQ">Freedom, Out
1930 of the Box! by Bdale Garbee at linux.conf.au Ballarat, 2012</a> (Youtube) </li>
1931
1932 <li><a href="https://archive.fosdem.org/2013/schedule/event/freedombox/">Freedombox
1933 1.0 by Eben Moglen and Bdale Garbee at Fosdem 2013</a> (FOSDEM) </li>
1934
1935 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1LpYX2zVYg">What is the
1936 FreedomBox today by Bdale Garbee at Debconf13 in Vaumarcus
1937 2013</a> (Youtube)</li>
1938
1939 </ul>
1940
1941 <p>A larger list is available from
1942 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/TalksAndPresentations">the
1943 Freedombox Wiki</a>.</p>
1944
1945 <p>On other news, I am happy to report that Freedombox based on Debian
1946 Jessie is coming along quite well, and soon both Owncloud and using
1947 Tor should be available for testers of the Freedombox solution. :) In
1948 a few weeks I hope everything needed to test it is included in Debian.
1949 The withsqlite package is already in Debian, and the plinth package is
1950 pending in NEW.  The third and vital part of that puzzle is the
1951 metapackage/setup framework, which is still pending an upload.  Join
1952 us on <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC
1953 (#freedombox on irc.debian.org)</a> and
1954 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
1955 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
1956
1957       </div>
1958       <div class="tags">
1959
1960
1961         Tags: <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>.
1962
1963
1964       </div>
1965     </div>
1966     <div class="padding"></div>
1967
1968     <div class="entry">
1969       <div class="title">
1970         <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>
1971       </div>
1972       <div class="date">
1973         10th September 2013
1974       </div>
1975       <div class="body">
1976         <p>I was introduced to the
1977 <a href="http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/">Freedombox project</a>
1978 in 2010, when Eben Moglen presented his vision about serving the need
1979 of non-technical people to keep their personal information private and
1980 within the legal protection of their own homes.  The idea is to give
1981 people back the power over their network and machines, and return
1982 Internet back to its intended peer-to-peer architecture.  Instead of
1983 depending on a central service, the Freedombox will give everyone
1984 control over their own basic infrastructure.</p>
1985
1986 <p>I've intended to join the effort since then, but other tasks have
1987 taken priority.  But this summers nasty news about the misuse of trust
1988 and privilege exercised by the "western" intelligence gathering
1989 communities increased my eagerness to contribute to a point where I
1990 actually started working on the project a while back.</p>
1991
1992 <p>The <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/freedombox/">initial
1993 Debian initiative</a> based on the vision from Eben Moglen, is to
1994 create a simple and cheap Debian based appliance that anyone can hook
1995 up in their home and get access to secure and private services and
1996 communication.  The initial deployment platform have been the
1997 <a href="http://www.globalscaletechnologies.com/t-dreamplugdetails.aspx">Dreamplug</a>,
1998 which is a piece of hardware I do not own.  So to be able to test what
1999 the current Freedombox setup look like, I had to come up with a way to install
2000 it on some hardware I do have access to.  I have rewritten the
2001 <a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/freedom-maker">freedom-maker</a>
2002 image build framework to use .deb packages instead of only copying
2003 setup into the boot images, and thanks to this rewrite I am able to
2004 set up any machine supported by Debian Wheezy as a Freedombox, using
2005 the previously mentioned deb (and a few support debs for packages
2006 missing in Debian).</p>
2007
2008 <p>The current Freedombox setup consist of a set of bootstrapping
2009 scripts
2010 (<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/freedombox-setup">freedombox-setup</a>),
2011 and a administrative web interface
2012 (<a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/Plinth">plinth</a> + exmachina +
2013 withsqlite), as well as a privacy enhancing proxy based on
2014 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/privoxy">privoxy</a>
2015 (freedombox-privoxy).  There is also a web/javascript based XMPP
2016 client (<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/jwchat">jwchat</a>)
2017 trying (unsuccessfully so far) to talk to the XMPP server
2018 (<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/ejabberd">ejabberd</a>).  The
2019 web interface is pluggable, and the goal is to use it to enable OpenID
2020 services, mesh network connectivity, use of TOR, etc, etc.  Not much of
2021 this is really working yet, see
2022 <a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/freedombox-todos/blob/master/TODO">the
2023 project TODO</a> for links to GIT repositories.  Most of the code is
2024 on github at the moment.  The HTTP proxy is operational out of the
2025 box, and the admin web interface can be used to add/remove plinth
2026 users.  I've not been able to do anything else with it so far, but
2027 know there are several branches spread around github and other places
2028 with lots of half baked features.</p>
2029
2030 <p>Anyway, if you want to have a look at the current state, the
2031 following recipes should work to give you a test machine to poke
2032 at.</p>
2033
2034 <p><strong>Debian Wheezy amd64</strong></p>
2035
2036 <ol>
2037
2038 <li>Fetch normal Debian Wheezy installation ISO.</li>
2039 <li>Boot from it, either as CD or USB stick.</li>
2040 <li><p>Press [tab] on the boot prompt and add this as a boot argument
2041 to the Debian installer:<p>
2042 <pre>url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-wheezy.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-wheezy.dat</a></pre></li>
2043
2044 <li>Answer the few language/region/password questions and pick disk to
2045 install on.</li>
2046
2047 <li>When the installation is finished and the machine have rebooted a
2048 few times, your Freedombox is ready for testing.</li>
2049
2050 </ol>
2051
2052 <p><strong>Raspberry Pi Raspbian</strong></p>
2053
2054 <ol>
2055
2056 <li>Fetch a Raspbian SD card image, create SD card.</li>
2057 <li>Boot from SD card, extend file system to fill the card completely.</li>
2058 <li><p>Log in and add this to /etc/sources.list:</p>
2059 <pre>
2060 deb <a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox</a> wheezy main
2061 </pre></li>
2062 <li><p>Run this as root:</p>
2063 <pre>
2064 wget -O - http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/BE1A583D.asc | \
2065    apt-key add -
2066 apt-get update
2067 apt-get install freedombox-setup
2068 /usr/lib/freedombox/setup
2069 </pre></li>
2070 <li>Reboot into your freshly created Freedombox.</li>
2071
2072 </ol>
2073
2074 <p>You can test it on other architectures too, but because the
2075 freedombox-privoxy package is binary, it will only work as intended on
2076 the architectures where I have had time to build the binary and put it
2077 in my APT repository.  But do not let this stop you.  It is only a
2078 short "<tt>apt-get source -b freedombox-privoxy</tt>" away. :)</p>
2079
2080 <p>Note that by default Freedombox is a DHCP server on the
2081 192.168.1.0/24 subnet, so if this is your subnet be careful and turn
2082 off the DHCP server by running "<tt>update-rc.d isc-dhcp-server
2083 disable</tt>" as root.</p>
2084
2085 <p>Please let me know if this works for you, or if you have any
2086 problems.  We gather on the IRC channel
2087 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">#freedombox</a> on
2088 irc.debian.org and the
2089 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">project
2090 mailing list</a>.</p>
2091
2092 <p>Once you get your freedombox operational, you can visit
2093 <tt>http://your-host-name:8001/</tt> to see the state of the plint
2094 welcome screen (dead end - do not be surprised if you are unable to
2095 get past it), and next visit <tt>http://your-host-name:8001/help/</tt>
2096 to look at the rest of plinth.  The default user is 'admin' and the
2097 default password is 'secret'.</p>
2098
2099       </div>
2100       <div class="tags">
2101
2102
2103         Tags: <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>.
2104
2105
2106       </div>
2107     </div>
2108     <div class="padding"></div>
2109
2110     <div class="entry">
2111       <div class="title">
2112         <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>
2113       </div>
2114       <div class="date">
2115         18th August 2013
2116       </div>
2117       <div class="body">
2118         <p>Earlier, I reported about
2119 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_fix_a_Thinkpad_X230_with_a_broken_180_GB_SSD_disk.html">my
2120 problems using an Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB disk</a>.  Friday I was
2121 told by IBM that the original disk should be thrown away.  And as
2122 there no longer was a problem if I bricked the firmware, I decided
2123 today to try to install Intel firmware to replace the Lenovo firmware
2124 currently on the disk.</p>
2125
2126 <p>I searched the Intel site for firmware, and found
2127 <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>
2128 (aka Intel SATA Solid-State Drive Firmware Update Tool) which
2129 according to the site should contain the latest firmware for SSD
2130 disks.  I inserted the broken disk in one of my spare laptops and
2131 booted the ISO from a USB stick.  The disk was recognized, but the
2132 program claimed the newest firmware already were installed and refused
2133 to insert any Intel firmware.  So no change, and the disk is still
2134 unable to handle write load. :( I guess the only way to get them
2135 working would be if Lenovo releases new firmware.  No idea how likely
2136 that is.  Anyway, just blogging about this test for completeness.  I
2137 got a working Samsung disk, and see no point in spending more time on
2138 the broken disks.</p>
2139
2140       </div>
2141       <div class="tags">
2142
2143
2144         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2145
2146
2147       </div>
2148     </div>
2149     <div class="padding"></div>
2150
2151     <div class="entry">
2152       <div class="title">
2153         <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>
2154       </div>
2155       <div class="date">
2156         17th July 2013
2157       </div>
2158       <div class="body">
2159         <p>Today I switched to
2160 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">my
2161 new laptop</a>.  I've previously written about the problems I had with
2162 my new Thinkpad X230, which was delivered with an
2163 <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
2164 GB Intel SSD disk with Lenovo firmware</a> that did not handle
2165 sustained writes.  My hardware supplier have been very forthcoming in
2166 trying to find a solution, and after first trying with another
2167 identical 180 GB disks they decided to send me a 256 GB Samsung SSD
2168 disk instead to fix it once and for all.  The Samsung disk survived
2169 the installation of Debian with encrypted disks (filling the disk with
2170 random data during installation killed the first two), and I thus
2171 decided to trust it with my data.  I have installed it as a Debian Edu
2172 Wheezy roaming workstation hooked up with my Debian Edu Squeeze main
2173 server at home using Kerberos and LDAP, and will use it as my work
2174 station from now on.</p>
2175
2176 <p>As this is a solid state disk with no moving parts, I believe the
2177 Debian Wheezy default installation need to be tuned a bit to increase
2178 performance and increase life time of the disk.  The Linux kernel and
2179 user space applications do not yet adjust automatically to such
2180 environment.  To make it easier for my self, I created a draft Debian
2181 package <tt>ssd-setup</tt> to handle this tuning.  The
2182 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/ssd-setup.git">source
2183 for the ssd-setup package</a> is available from collab-maint, and it
2184 is set up to adjust the setup of the machine by just installing the
2185 package.  If there is any non-SSD disk in the machine, the package
2186 will refuse to install, as I did not try to write any logic to sort
2187 file systems in SSD and non-SSD file systems.</p>
2188
2189 <p>I consider the package a draft, as I am a bit unsure how to best
2190 set up Debian Wheezy with an SSD.  It is adjusted to my use case,
2191 where I set up the machine with one large encrypted partition (in
2192 addition to /boot), put LVM on top of this and set up partitions on
2193 top of this again.  See the README file in the package source for the
2194 references I used to pick the settings.  At the moment these
2195 parameters are tuned:</p>
2196
2197 <ul>
2198
2199 <li>Set up cryptsetup to pass TRIM commands to the physical disk
2200     (adding discard to /etc/crypttab)</li>
2201
2202 <li>Set up LVM to pass on TRIM commands to the underlying device (in
2203     this case a cryptsetup partition) by changing issue_discards from
2204     0 to 1 in /etc/lvm/lvm.conf.</li>
2205
2206 <li>Set relatime as a file system option for ext3 and ext4 file
2207     systems.</li>
2208
2209 <li>Tell swap to use TRIM commands by adding 'discard' to
2210     /etc/fstab.</li>
2211
2212 <li>Change I/O scheduler from cfq to deadline using a udev rule.</li>
2213
2214 <li>Run fstrim on every ext3 and ext4 file system every night (from
2215     cron.daily).</li>
2216
2217 <li>Adjust sysctl values vm.swappiness to 1 and vm.vfs_cache_pressure
2218     to 50 to reduce the kernel eagerness to swap out processes.</li>
2219
2220 </ul>
2221
2222 <p>During installation, I cancelled the part where the installer fill
2223 the disk with random data, as this would kill the SSD performance for
2224 little gain.  My goal with the encrypted file system is to ensure
2225 those stealing my laptop end up with a brick and not a working
2226 computer.  I have no hope in keeping the really resourceful people
2227 from getting the data on the disk (see
2228 <a href="http://xkcd.com/538/">XKCD #538</a> for an explanation why).
2229 Thus I concluded that adding the discard option to crypttab is the
2230 right thing to do.</p>
2231
2232 <p>I considered using the noop I/O scheduler, as several recommended
2233 it for SSD, but others recommended deadline and a benchmark I found
2234 indicated that deadline might be better for interactive use.</p>
2235
2236 <p>I also considered using the 'discard' file system option for ext3
2237 and ext4, but read that it would give a performance hit ever time a
2238 file is removed, and thought it best to that that slowdown once a day
2239 instead of during my work.</p>
2240
2241 <p>My package do not set up tmpfs on /var/run, /var/lock and /tmp, as
2242 this is already done by Debian Edu.</p>
2243
2244 <p>I have not yet started on the user space tuning.  I expect
2245 iceweasel need some tuning, and perhaps other applications too, but
2246 have not yet had time to investigate those parts.</p>
2247
2248 <p>The package should work on Ubuntu too, but I have not yet tested it
2249 there.</p>
2250
2251 <p>As for the answer to the question in the title of this blog post,
2252 as far as I know, the only solution I know about is to replace the
2253 disk.  It might be possible to flash it with Intel firmware instead of
2254 the Lenovo firmware.  But I have not tried and did not want to do so
2255 without approval from Lenovo as I wanted to keep the warranty on the
2256 disk until a solution was found and they wanted the broken disks
2257 back.</p>
2258
2259       </div>
2260       <div class="tags">
2261
2262
2263         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2264
2265
2266       </div>
2267     </div>
2268     <div class="padding"></div>
2269
2270     <div class="entry">
2271       <div class="title">
2272         <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>
2273       </div>
2274       <div class="date">
2275         10th July 2013
2276       </div>
2277       <div class="body">
2278         <p>A few days ago, I wrote about
2279 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">the
2280 problems I experienced with my new X230 and its SSD disk</a>, which
2281 was dying during installation because it is unable to cope with
2282 sustained write.  My supplier is in contact with
2283 <a href="http://www.lenovo.com/">Lenovo</a>, and they wanted to send a
2284 replacement disk to try to fix the problem.  They decided to send an
2285 identical model, so my hopes for a permanent fix was slim.</p>
2286
2287 <p>Anyway, today I got the replacement disk and tried to install
2288 Debian Edu Wheezy with encrypted disk on it.  The new disk have the
2289 same firmware version as the original.  This time my hope raised
2290 slightly as the installation progressed, as the original disk used to
2291 die after 4-7% of the disk was written to, while this time it kept
2292 going past 10%, 20%, 40% and even past 50%.  But around 60%, the disk
2293 died again and I was back on square one.  I still do not have a new
2294 laptop with a disk I can trust.  I can not live with a disk that might
2295 lock up when I download a new
2296 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> ISO or
2297 other large files.  I look forward to hearing from my supplier with
2298 the next proposal from Lenovo.</p>
2299
2300 <p>The original disk is marked Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB,
2301 11S0C38722Z1ZNME35X1TR, ISN: CVCV321407HB180EGN, SA: G57560302, FW:
2302 LF1i, 29MAY2013, PBA: G39779-300, LBA 351,651,888, LI P/N: 0C38722,
2303 Pb-free 2LI, LC P/N: 16-200366, WWN: 55CD2E40002756C4, Model:
2304 SSDSC2BW180A3L 2.5" 6Gb/s SATA SSD 180G 5V 1A, ASM P/N 0C38732, FRU
2305 P/N 45N8295, P0C38732.</p>
2306
2307 <p>The replacement disk is marked Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB,
2308 11S0C38722Z1ZNDE34N0L0, ISN: CVCV315306RK180EGN, SA: G57560-302, FW:
2309 LF1i, 22APR2013, PBA: G39779-300, LBA 351,651,888, LI P/N: 0C38722,
2310 Pb-free 2LI, LC P/N: 16-200366, WWN: 55CD2E40000AB69E, Model:
2311 SSDSC2BW180A3L 2.5" 6Gb/s SATA SSD 180G 5V 1A, ASM P/N 0C38732, FRU
2312 P/N 45N8295, P0C38732.</p>
2313
2314 <p>The only difference is in the first number (serial number?), ISN,
2315 SA, date and WNPP values.  Mentioning all the details here in case
2316 someone is able to use the information to find a way to identify the
2317 failing disk among working ones (if any such working disk actually
2318 exist).</p>
2319
2320       </div>
2321       <div class="tags">
2322
2323
2324         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2325
2326
2327       </div>
2328     </div>
2329     <div class="padding"></div>
2330
2331     <div class="entry">
2332       <div class="title">
2333         <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>
2334       </div>
2335       <div class="date">
2336          9th July 2013
2337       </div>
2338       <div class="body">
2339         <p>The upcoming Saturday, 2013-07-13, we are organising a combined
2340 Debian Edu developer gathering and Debian and Ubuntu bug squashing
2341 party in Oslo.  It is organised by <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">the
2342 member assosiation NUUG</a> and
2343 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">the Debian Edu / Skolelinux
2344 project</a> together with <a href="http://bitraf.no/">the hack space
2345 Bitraf</a>.</p>
2346
2347 <p>It starts 10:00 and continue until late evening.  Everyone is
2348 welcome, and there is no fee to participate.  There is on the other
2349 hand limited space, and only room for 30 people.  Please put your name
2350 on <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/BSP/2013/07/13/no/Oslo">the event
2351 wiki page</a> if you plan to join us.</p>
2352
2353       </div>
2354       <div class="tags">
2355
2356
2357         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>.
2358
2359
2360       </div>
2361     </div>
2362     <div class="padding"></div>
2363
2364     <div class="entry">
2365       <div class="title">
2366         <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>
2367       </div>
2368       <div class="date">
2369          5th July 2013
2370       </div>
2371       <div class="body">
2372         <p>Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a
2373 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thank_you_Thinkpad_X41__for_your_long_and_trustworthy_service.html">replacement
2374 for my trusty old Thinkpad X41</a>.  Unfortunately I did not have much
2375 time to spend on it, and it took a while to find a model I believe
2376 will do the job, but two days ago the replacement finally arrived.  I
2377 ended up picking a
2378 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_x230">Thinkpad X230</a>
2379 with SSD disk (NZDAJMN).  I first test installed Debian Edu Wheezy as
2380 a roaming workstation, and it seemed to work flawlessly.  But my
2381 second installation with encrypted disk was not as successful.  More
2382 on that below.</p>
2383
2384 <p>I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most
2385 important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never
2386 listed in the feature list.  But I did get good help from the search
2387 feature at <a href="http://www.prisjakt.no/">Prisjakt</a>, which
2388 allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other
2389 requirements.  A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks according
2390 to that search interface, so I had to drop specifying the number of
2391 disks from my search parameters.  I also asked around among friends to
2392 get their impression on keyboards and robustness.</p>
2393
2394 <p>So the new laptop arrived, and it is quite a lot wider than the
2395 X41.  I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is
2396 significantly wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my
2397 hand a lot more to reach the edges.  But the key response is fairly
2398 good and the individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope
2399 I will get used to it.  My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really
2400 needed a new laptop now. :)</p>
2401
2402 <p>Turning off the touch pad was simple.  All it took was a quick
2403 visit to the BIOS during boot it disable it.</p>
2404
2405 <p>But there is a fatal problem with the laptop.  The 180 GB SSD disk
2406 lock up during load.  And this happen when installing Debian Wheezy
2407 with encrypted disk, while the disk is being filled with random data.
2408 I also tested to install Ubuntu Raring, and it happen there too if I
2409 reenable the code to fill the disk with random data (it is disabled by
2410 default in Ubuntu).  And the bug with is already known.  It was
2411 reported to Debian as <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/691427">BTS
2412 report #691427 2012-10-25</a> (journal commit I/O error on brand-new
2413 Thinkpad T430s ext4 on lvm on SSD).  It is also reported to the Linux
2414 kernel developers as
2415 <a href="https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=51861">Kernel bugzilla
2416 report #51861 2012-12-20</a> (Intel SSD 520 stops working under load
2417 (SSDSC2BW180A3L in Lenovo ThinkPad T430s)). It is also reported on the
2418 Lenovo forums, both for
2419 <a href="http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/T400-T500-and-newer-T-series/T430s-Intel-SSD-520-180GB-issue/m-p/1070549">T430
2420 2012-11-10</a> and for
2421 <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
2422 03-20-2013</a>.  The problem do not only affect installation.  The
2423 reports state that the disk lock up during use if many writes are done
2424 on the disk, so it is much no use to work around the installation
2425 problem and end up with a computer that can lock up at any moment.
2426 There is even a
2427 <a href="https://git.efficios.com/?p=test-ssd.git">small C program
2428 available</a> that will lock up the hard drive after running a few
2429 minutes by writing to a file.</p>
2430
2431 <p>I've contacted my supplier and asked how to handle this, and after
2432 contacting PCHELP Norway (request 01D1FDP) which handle support
2433 requests for Lenovo, his first suggestion was to upgrade the disk
2434 firmware.  Unfortunately there is no newer firmware available from
2435 Lenovo, as my disk already have the most recent one (version LF1i).  I
2436 hope to hear more from him today and hope the problem can be
2437 fixed. :)</p>
2438
2439       </div>
2440       <div class="tags">
2441
2442
2443         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2444
2445
2446       </div>
2447     </div>
2448     <div class="padding"></div>
2449
2450     <div class="entry">
2451       <div class="title">
2452         <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>
2453       </div>
2454       <div class="date">
2455          4th July 2013
2456       </div>
2457       <div class="body">
2458         <p>Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a replacement for my
2459 trusty old Thinkpad X41.  Unfortunately I did not have much time to
2460 spend on it, but today the replacement finally arrived.  I ended up
2461 picking a <a href="http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_x230">Thinkpad
2462 X230</a> with SSD disk (NZDAJMN).  I first test installed Debian Edu
2463 Wheezy as a roaming workstation, and it worked flawlessly.  As I write
2464 this, it is installing what I hope will be a more final installation,
2465 with a encrypted hard drive to ensure any dope head stealing it end up
2466 with an expencive door stop.</p>
2467
2468 <p>I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most
2469 important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never
2470 listed in the feature list.  But I did get good help from the search
2471 feature at <ahref="http://www.prisjakt.no/">Prisjakt</a>, which
2472 allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other
2473 requirements.  A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks, so I had
2474 to drop number of disks from my search parameters.</p>
2475
2476 <p>I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is significantly
2477 wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my hand a lot more
2478 to reach the edges.  But the key response is fairly good and the
2479 individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope I will get
2480 used to it.  My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really needed a
2481 new laptop now. :)</p>
2482
2483 <p>I look forward to figuring out how to turn off the touch pad.</p>
2484
2485       </div>
2486       <div class="tags">
2487
2488
2489         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2490
2491
2492       </div>
2493     </div>
2494     <div class="padding"></div>
2495
2496     <div class="entry">
2497       <div class="title">
2498         <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>
2499       </div>
2500       <div class="date">
2501         25th June 2013
2502       </div>
2503       <div class="body">
2504         <p>It annoys me when the computer fail to do automatically what it is
2505 perfectly capable of, and I have to do it manually to get things
2506 working.  One such task is to find out what firmware packages are
2507 needed to get the hardware on my computer working.  Most often this
2508 affect the wifi card, but some times it even affect the RAID
2509 controller or the ethernet card.  Today I pushed version 0.4 of the
2510 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">Isenkram package</a>
2511 including a new script isenkram-autoinstall-firmware handling the
2512 process of asking all the loaded kernel modules what firmware files
2513 they want, find debian packages providing these files and install the
2514 debian packages.  Here is a test run on my laptop:</p>
2515
2516 <p><pre>
2517 # isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
2518 info: kernel drivers requested extra firmware: ipw2200-bss.fw ipw2200-ibss.fw ipw2200-sniffer.fw
2519 info: fetching http://http.debian.net/debian/dists/squeeze/Contents-i386.gz
2520 info: locating packages with the requested firmware files
2521 info: Updating APT sources after adding non-free APT source
2522 info: trying to install firmware-ipw2x00
2523 firmware-ipw2x00
2524 firmware-ipw2x00
2525 Preconfiguring packages ...
2526 Selecting previously deselected package firmware-ipw2x00.
2527 (Reading database ... 259727 files and directories currently installed.)
2528 Unpacking firmware-ipw2x00 (from .../firmware-ipw2x00_0.28+squeeze1_all.deb) ...
2529 Setting up firmware-ipw2x00 (0.28+squeeze1) ...
2530 #
2531 </pre></p>
2532
2533 <p>When all the requested firmware is present, a simple message is
2534 printed instead:</p>
2535
2536 <p><pre>
2537 # isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
2538 info: did not find any firmware files requested by loaded kernel modules.  exiting
2539 #
2540 </pre></p>
2541
2542 <p>It could use some polish, but it is already working well and saving
2543 me some time when setting up new machines. :)</p>
2544
2545 <p>So, how does it work?  It look at the set of currently loaded
2546 kernel modules, and look up each one of them using modinfo, to find
2547 the firmware files listed in the module meta-information.  Next, it
2548 download the Contents file from a nearby APT mirror, and search for
2549 the firmware files in this file to locate the package with the
2550 requested firmware file.  If the package is in the non-free section, a
2551 non-free APT source is added and the package is installed using
2552 <tt>apt-get install</tt>.  The end result is a slightly better working
2553 machine.</p>
2554
2555 <p>I hope someone find time to implement a more polished version of
2556 this script as part of the hw-detect debian-installer module, to
2557 finally fix <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/655507">BTS report
2558 #655507</a>.  There really is no need to insert USB sticks with
2559 firmware during a PXE install when the packages already are available
2560 from the nearby Debian mirror.</p>
2561
2562       </div>
2563       <div class="tags">
2564
2565
2566         Tags: <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>.
2567
2568
2569       </div>
2570     </div>
2571     <div class="padding"></div>
2572
2573     <div class="entry">
2574       <div class="title">
2575         <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>
2576       </div>
2577       <div class="date">
2578         11th June 2013
2579       </div>
2580       <div class="body">
2581         <p>When installing RedHat, Fedora, Debian and Ubuntu on some machines,
2582 the screen just turn black when Linux boot, either during installation
2583 or on first boot from the hard disk.  I've seen it once in a while the
2584 last few years, but only recently understood the cause.  I've seen it
2585 on HP laptops, and on my latest acquaintance the Packard Bell laptop.
2586 The reason seem to be in the wiring of some laptops.  The system to
2587 control the screen background light is inverted, so when Linux try to
2588 turn the brightness fully on, it end up turning it off instead.  I do
2589 not know which Linux drivers are affected, but this post is about the
2590 i915 driver used by the
2591 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Packard Bell
2592 EasyNote LV</a>, Thinkpad X40 and many other laptops.</p>
2593
2594 <p>The problem can be worked around two ways.  Either by adding
2595 i915.invert_brightness=1 as a kernel option, or by adding a file in
2596 /etc/modprobe.d/ to tell modprobe to add the invert_brightness=1
2597 option when it load the i915 kernel module.  On Debian and Ubuntu, it
2598 can be done by running these commands as root:</p>
2599
2600 <pre>
2601 echo options i915 invert_brightness=1 | tee /etc/modprobe.d/i915.conf
2602 update-initramfs -u -k all
2603 </pre>
2604
2605 <p>Since March 2012 there is
2606 <a href="http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=4dca20efb1a9c2efefc28ad2867e5d6c3f5e1955">a
2607 mechanism in the Linux kernel</a> to tell the i915 driver which
2608 hardware have this problem, and get the driver to invert the
2609 brightness setting automatically.  To use it, one need to add a row in
2610 <a href="http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c">the
2611 intel_quirks array</a> in the driver source
2612 <tt>drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c</tt> (look for "<tt>static
2613 struct intel_quirk intel_quirks</tt>"), specifying the PCI device
2614 number (vendor number 8086 is assumed) and subdevice vendor and device
2615 number.</p>
2616
2617 <p>My Packard Bell EasyNote LV got this output from <tt>lspci
2618 -vvnn</tt> for the video card in question:</p>
2619
2620 <p><pre>
2621 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation \
2622     3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller [8086:0156] \
2623     (rev 09) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
2624  Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device [1025:0688]
2625  Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- \
2626     ParErr- Stepping- SE RR- FastB2B- DisINTx+
2627  Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- \
2628     <TAbort- <MAbort->SERR- <PERR- INTx-
2629  Latency: 0
2630  Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 42
2631  Region 0: Memory at c2000000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4M]
2632  Region 2: Memory at b0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
2633  Region 4: I/O ports at 4000 [size=64]
2634  Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled]
2635  Capabilities: <access denied>
2636  Kernel driver in use: i915
2637 </pre></p>
2638
2639 <p>The resulting intel_quirks entry would then look like this:</p>
2640
2641 <p><pre>
2642 struct intel_quirk intel_quirks[] = {
2643        ...
2644         /* Packard Bell EasyNote LV11HC needs invert brightness quirk */
2645         { 0x0156, 0x1025, 0x0688, quirk_invert_brightness },
2646        ...
2647 }
2648 </pre></p>
2649
2650 <p>According to the kernel module instructions (as seen using
2651 <tt>modinfo i915</tt>), information about hardware needing the
2652 invert_brightness flag should be sent to the
2653 <a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/dri-devel">dri-devel
2654 (at) lists.freedesktop.org</a> mailing list to reach the kernel
2655 developers.  But my email about the laptop sent 2013-06-03 have not
2656 yet shown up in
2657 <a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/dri-devel/2013-June/thread.html">the
2658 web archive for the mailing list</a>, so I suspect they do not accept
2659 emails from non-subscribers.  Because of this, I sent my patch also to
2660 the Debian bug tracking system instead as
2661 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/710938">BTS report #710938</a>, to make
2662 sure the patch is not lost.</p>
2663
2664 <p>Unfortunately, it is not enough to fix the kernel to get Laptops
2665 with this problem working properly with Linux.  If you use Gnome, your
2666 worries should be over at this point.  But if you use KDE, there is
2667 something in KDE ignoring the invert_brightness setting and turning on
2668 the screen during login.  I've reported it to Debian as
2669 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/711237">BTS report #711237</a>, and
2670 have no idea yet how to figure out exactly what subsystem is doing
2671 this.  Perhaps you can help?  Perhaps you know what the Gnome
2672 developers did to handle this, and this can give a clue to the KDE
2673 developers?  Or you know where in KDE the screen brightness is changed
2674 during login?  If so, please update the BTS report (or get in touch if
2675 you do not know how to update BTS).</p>
2676
2677 <p>Update 2013-07-19: The correct fix for this machine seem to be
2678 acpi_backlight=vendor, to disable ACPI backlight support completely,
2679 as the ACPI information on the machine is trash and it is better to
2680 leave it to the intel video driver to control the screen
2681 backlight.</p>
2682
2683       </div>
2684       <div class="tags">
2685
2686
2687         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2688
2689
2690       </div>
2691     </div>
2692     <div class="padding"></div>
2693
2694     <div class="entry">
2695       <div class="title">
2696         <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>
2697       </div>
2698       <div class="date">
2699         27th May 2013
2700       </div>
2701       <div class="body">
2702         <p>Two days ago, I asked
2703 <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
2704 I could install Linux on a Packard Bell EasyNote LV computer
2705 preinstalled with Windows 8</a>.  I found a solution, but am horrified
2706 with the obstacles put in the way of Linux users on a laptop with UEFI
2707 and Windows 8.</p>
2708
2709 <p>I never found out if the cause of my problems were the use of UEFI
2710 secure booting or fast boot.  I suspect fast boot was the problem,
2711 causing the firmware to boot directly from HD without considering any
2712 key presses and alternative devices, but do not know UEFI settings
2713 enough to tell.</p>
2714
2715 <p>There is no way to install Linux on the machine in question without
2716 opening the box and disconnecting the hard drive!  This is as far as I
2717 can tell, the only way to get access to the firmware setup menu
2718 without accepting the Windows 8 license agreement.  I am told (and
2719 found description on how to) that it is possible to configure the
2720 firmware setup once booted into Windows 8.  But as I believe the terms
2721 of that agreement are completely unacceptable, accepting the license
2722 was never an alternative.  I do not enter agreements I do not intend
2723 to follow.</p>
2724
2725 <p>I feared I had to return the laptops and ask for a refund, and
2726 waste many hours on this, but luckily there was a way to get it to
2727 work.  But I would not recommend it to anyone planning to run Linux on
2728 it, and I have become sceptical to Windows 8 certified laptops.  Is
2729 this the way Linux will be forced out of the market place, by making
2730 it close to impossible for "normal" users to install Linux without
2731 accepting the Microsoft Windows license terms?  Or at least not
2732 without risking to loose the warranty?</p>
2733
2734 <p>I've updated the
2735 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Linux Laptop
2736 wiki page for Packard Bell EasyNote LV</a>, to ensure the next person
2737 do not have to struggle as much as I did to get Linux into the
2738 machine.</p>
2739
2740 <p>Thanks to Bob Rosbag, Florian Weimer, Philipp Kern, Ben Hutching,
2741 Michael Tokarev and others for feedback and ideas.</p>
2742
2743       </div>
2744       <div class="tags">
2745
2746
2747         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2748
2749
2750       </div>
2751     </div>
2752     <div class="padding"></div>
2753
2754     <div class="entry">
2755       <div class="title">
2756         <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>
2757       </div>
2758       <div class="date">
2759         25th May 2013
2760       </div>
2761       <div class="body">
2762         <p>I've run into quite a problem the last few days.  I bought three
2763 new laptops for my parents and a few others.  I bought Packard Bell
2764 Easynote LV to run Kubuntu on and use as their home computer.  But I
2765 am completely unable to figure out how to install Linux on it.  The
2766 computer is preinstalled with Windows 8, and I suspect it uses UEFI
2767 instead of a BIOS to boot.</p>
2768
2769 <p>The problem is that I am unable to get it to PXE boot, and unable
2770 to get it to boot the Linux installer from my USB stick.  I have yet
2771 to try the DVD install, and still hope it will work.  when I turn on
2772 the computer, there is no information on what buttons to press to get
2773 the normal boot menu.  I expect to get some boot menu to select PXE or
2774 USB stick booting.  When booting, it first ask for the language to
2775 use, then for some regional settings, and finally if I will accept the
2776 Windows 8 terms of use.  As these terms are completely unacceptable to
2777 me, I have no other choice but to turn off the computer and try again
2778 to get it to boot the Linux installer.</p>
2779
2780 <p>I have gathered my findings so far on a Linlap page about the
2781 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Packard Bell
2782 EasyNote LV</a> model.  If you have any idea how to get Linux
2783 installed on this machine, please get in touch or update that wiki
2784 page.  If I can't find a way to install Linux, I will have to return
2785 the laptop to the seller and find another machine for my parents.</p>
2786
2787 <p>I wonder, is this the way Linux will be forced out of the market
2788 using UEFI and "secure boot" by making it impossible to install Linux
2789 on new Laptops?</p>
2790
2791       </div>
2792       <div class="tags">
2793
2794
2795         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2796
2797
2798       </div>
2799     </div>
2800     <div class="padding"></div>
2801
2802     <div class="entry">
2803       <div class="title">
2804         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/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>
2805       </div>
2806       <div class="date">
2807         17th May 2013
2808       </div>
2809       <div class="body">
2810         <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> is
2811 an operating system based on Debian intended for use in schools.  It
2812 contain a turn-key solution for the computer network provided to
2813 pupils in the primary schools.  It provide both the central server,
2814 network boot servers and desktop environments with heaps of
2815 educational software.  The project was founded almost 12 years ago,
2816 2001-07-02.  If you want to support the project, which is in need for
2817 cash to fund developer gatherings and other project related activity,
2818 <a href="http://www.linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">please
2819 donate some money</a>.
2820
2821 <p>A topic that come up again and again on the Debian Edu mailing
2822 lists and elsewhere, is the question on how to transform a Debian or
2823 Ubuntu installation into a Debian Edu installation.  It isn't very
2824 hard, and last week I wrote a script to replicate the steps done by
2825 the Debian Edu installer.</p>
2826
2827 <p>The script,
2828 <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/>
2829 in the debian-edu-config package, will go through these six steps and
2830 transform an existing Debian Wheezy or Ubuntu (untested) installation
2831 into a Debian Edu Workstation:</p>
2832
2833 <ol>
2834
2835 <li>Add skolelinux related APT sources.</li>
2836 <li>Create /etc/debian-edu/config with the wanted configuration.</li>
2837 <li>Install debian-edu-install to load preseeding values and pull in
2838     our configuration.</li>
2839 <li>Preseed debconf database with profile setup in
2840     /etc/debian-edu/config, and run tasksel to install packages
2841     according to the profile specified in the config above,
2842     overriding some of the Debian automation machinery.</li>
2843 <li>Run debian-edu-cfengine-D installation to configure everything
2844     that could not be done using preseeding.</li>
2845 <li>Ask for a reboot to enable all the configuration changes.</li>
2846
2847 </ol>
2848
2849 <p>There are some steps in the Debian Edu installation that can not be
2850 replicated like this.  Disk partitioning and LVM setup, for example.
2851 So this script just assume there is enough disk space to install all
2852 the needed packages.</p>
2853
2854 <p>The script was created to help a Debian Edu student working on
2855 setting up <a href="http://www.raspberrypi.org">Raspberry Pi</a> as a
2856 Debian Edu client, and using it he can take the existing
2857 <a href="http://www.raspbian.org/FrontPage‎">Raspbian</a> installation and
2858 transform it into a fully functioning Debian Edu Workstation (or
2859 Roaming Workstation, or whatever :).</p>
2860
2861 <p>The default setting in the script is to create a KDE Workstation.
2862 If a LXDE based Roaming workstation is wanted instead, modify the
2863 PROFILE and DESKTOP values at the top to look like this instead:</p>
2864
2865 <p><pre>
2866 PROFILE="Roaming-Workstation"
2867 DESKTOP="lxde"
2868 </pre></p>
2869
2870 <p>The script could even become useful to set up Debian Edu servers in
2871 the cloud, by starting with a virtual Debian installation at some
2872 virtual hosting service and setting up all the services on first
2873 boot.</p>
2874
2875       </div>
2876       <div class="tags">
2877
2878
2879         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>.
2880
2881
2882       </div>
2883     </div>
2884     <div class="padding"></div>
2885
2886     <div class="entry">
2887       <div class="title">
2888         <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>
2889       </div>
2890       <div class="date">
2891         11th May 2013
2892       </div>
2893       <div class="body">
2894         <P>In January,
2895 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_IRC_channel_for_LEGO_designers_using_Debian.html">I
2896 announced a</a> new <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">IRC
2897 channel #debian-lego</a>, for those of us in the Debian and Linux
2898 community interested in <a href="http://www.lego.com/">LEGO</a>, the
2899 marvellous construction system from Denmark.  We also created
2900 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">a wiki page</a> to have
2901 a place to take notes and write down our plans and hopes.  And several
2902 people showed up to help.  I was very happy to see the effect of my
2903 call.  Since the small start, we have a debtags tag
2904 <a href="http://debtags.debian.net/search/bytag?wl=hardware::hobby:lego">hardware::hobby:lego</a>
2905 tag for LEGO related packages, and now count 10 packages related to
2906 LEGO and <a href="http://mindstorms.lego.com/">Mindstorms</a>:</p>
2907
2908 <p><table>
2909 <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>
2910 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/leocad">leocad</a></td><td>virtual brick CAD software</td></tr>
2911 <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>
2912 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/lnpd">lnpd</a></td><td>daemon for LNP communication with BrickOS</td></tr>
2913 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/nbc">nbc</a></td><td>compiler for LEGO Mindstorms NXT bricks</td></tr>
2914 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/nqc">nqc</a></td><td>Not Quite C compiler for LEGO Mindstorms RCX</td></tr>
2915 <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>
2916 <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>
2917 <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>
2918 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/t2n">t2n</a></td><td>simple command-line tool for Lego NXT</td></tr>
2919 </table></p>
2920
2921 <p>Some of these are available in Wheezy, and all but one are
2922 currently available in Jessie/testing.  leocad is so far only
2923 available in experimental.</p>
2924
2925 <p>If you care about LEGO in Debian, please join us on IRC and help
2926 adding the rest of the great free software tools available on Linux
2927 for LEGO designers.</p>
2928
2929       </div>
2930       <div class="tags">
2931
2932
2933         Tags: <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>.
2934
2935
2936       </div>
2937     </div>
2938     <div class="padding"></div>
2939
2940     <div class="entry">
2941       <div class="title">
2942         <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>
2943       </div>
2944       <div class="date">
2945          5th May 2013
2946       </div>
2947       <div class="body">
2948         <p>When I woke up this morning, I was very happy to see that the
2949 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2013/20130504">release announcement
2950 for Debian Wheezy</a> was waiting in my mail box.  This is a great
2951 Debian release, and I expect to move my machines at home over to it fairly
2952 soon.</p>
2953
2954 <p>The new debian release contain heaps of new stuff, and one program
2955 in particular make me very happy to see included.  The
2956 <a href="http://scratch.mit.edu/">Scratch</a> program, made famous by
2957 the <a href="http://www.code.org/">Teach kids code</a> movement, is
2958 included for the first time.  Alongside similar programs like
2959 <a href="http://edu.kde.org/kturtle/">kturtle</a> and
2960 <a href="http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/Turtle_Art">turtleart</a>,
2961 it allow for visual programming where syntax errors can not happen,
2962 and a friendly programming environment for learning to control the
2963 computer.  Scratch will also be included in the next release of Debian
2964 Edu.</a>
2965
2966 <p>And now that Wheezy is wrapped up, we can wrap up the next Debian
2967 Edu/Skolelinux release too.  The
2968 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/2013/04/msg00132.html">first
2969 alpha release</a> went out last week, and the next should soon
2970 follow.<p>
2971
2972       </div>
2973       <div class="tags">
2974
2975
2976         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>.
2977
2978
2979       </div>
2980     </div>
2981     <div class="padding"></div>
2982
2983     <div class="entry">
2984       <div class="title">
2985         <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>
2986       </div>
2987       <div class="date">
2988          3rd April 2013
2989       </div>
2990       <div class="body">
2991         <p>Today the <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">Isenkram
2992 package</a> finally made it into the archive, after lingering in NEW
2993 for many months.  I uploaded it to the Debian experimental suite
2994 2013-01-27, and today it was accepted into the archive.</p>
2995
2996 <p>Isenkram is a system for suggesting to users what packages to
2997 install to work with a pluggable hardware device.  The suggestion pop
2998 up when the device is plugged in.  For example if a Lego Mindstorm NXT
2999 is inserted, it will suggest to install the program needed to program
3000 the NXT controller.  Give it a go, and report bugs and suggestions to
3001 BTS. :)</p>
3002
3003       </div>
3004       <div class="tags">
3005
3006
3007         Tags: <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>.
3008
3009
3010       </div>
3011     </div>
3012     <div class="padding"></div>
3013
3014     <div class="entry">
3015       <div class="title">
3016         <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>
3017       </div>
3018       <div class="date">
3019          2nd February 2013
3020       </div>
3021       <div class="body">
3022         <p>My
3023 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_backport_bitcoin_qt_version_0_7_2_2_to_Debian_Squeeze.html">last
3024 bitcoin related blog post</a> mentioned that the new
3025 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin package</a> for
3026 Debian was waiting in NEW.  It was accepted by the Debian ftp-masters
3027 2013-01-19, and have been available in unstable since then.  It was
3028 automatically copied to Ubuntu, and is available in their Raring
3029 version too.</p>
3030
3031 <p>But there is a strange problem with the build that block this new
3032 version from being available on the i386 and kfreebsd-i386
3033 architectures.  For some strange reason, the autobuilders in Debian
3034 for these architectures fail to run the test suite on these
3035 architectures (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/672524">BTS #672524</a>).
3036 We are so far unable to reproduce it when building it manually, and
3037 no-one have been able to propose a fix.  If you got an idea what is
3038 failing, please let us know via the BTS.</p>
3039
3040 <p>One feature that is annoying me with of the bitcoin client, because
3041 I often run low on disk space, is the fact that the client will exit
3042 if it run short on space (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/696715">BTS
3043 #696715</a>).  So make sure you have enough disk space when you run
3044 it. :)</p>
3045
3046 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
3047 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
3048 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
3049
3050       </div>
3051       <div class="tags">
3052
3053
3054         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>.
3055
3056
3057       </div>
3058     </div>
3059     <div class="padding"></div>
3060
3061     <div class="entry">
3062       <div class="title">
3063         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">Welcome to the world, Isenkram!</a>
3064       </div>
3065       <div class="date">
3066         22nd January 2013
3067       </div>
3068       <div class="body">
3069         <p>Yesterday, I
3070 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_prototype_ready_making_hardware_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">asked
3071 for testers</a> for my prototype for making Debian better at handling
3072 pluggable hardware devices, which I
3073 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">set
3074 out to create</a> earlier this month.  Several valuable testers showed
3075 up, and caused me to really want to to open up the development to more
3076 people.  But before I did this, I want to come up with a sensible name
3077 for this project.  Today I finally decided on a new name, and I have
3078 renamed the project from hw-support-handler to this new name.  In the
3079 process, I moved the source to git and made it available as a
3080 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/isenkram.git">collab-maint</a>
3081 repository in Debian.  The new name?  It is <strong>Isenkram</strong>.
3082 To fetch and build the latest version of the source, use</p>
3083
3084 <pre>
3085 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/collab-maint/isenkram.git
3086 cd isenkram && git-buildpackage -us -uc
3087 </pre>
3088
3089 <p>I have not yet adjusted all files to use the new name yet.  If you
3090 want to hack on the source or improve the package, please go ahead.
3091 But please talk to me first on IRC or via email before you do major
3092 changes, to make sure we do not step on each others toes. :)</p>
3093
3094 <p>If you wonder what 'isenkram' is, it is a Norwegian word for iron
3095 stuff, typically meaning tools, nails, screws, etc.  Typical hardware
3096 stuff, in other words.  I've been told it is the Norwegian variant of
3097 the German word eisenkram, for those that are familiar with that
3098 word.</p>
3099
3100 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-26</strong>: Added -us -us to build
3101 instructions, to avoid confusing people with an error from the signing
3102 process.</p>
3103
3104 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-27</strong>: Switch to HTTP URL for the git
3105 clone argument to avoid the need for authentication.</p>
3106
3107       </div>
3108       <div class="tags">
3109
3110
3111         Tags: <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>.
3112
3113
3114       </div>
3115     </div>
3116     <div class="padding"></div>
3117
3118     <div class="entry">
3119       <div class="title">
3120         <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>
3121       </div>
3122       <div class="date">
3123         21st January 2013
3124       </div>
3125       <div class="body">
3126         <p>Early this month I set out to try to
3127 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">improve
3128 the Debian support for pluggable hardware devices</a>.  Now my
3129 prototype is working, and it is ready for a larger audience.  To test
3130 it, fetch the
3131 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">source
3132 from the Debian Edu subversion repository</a>, build and install the
3133 package.  You might have to log out and in again activate the
3134 autostart script.</p>
3135
3136 <p>The design is simple:</p>
3137
3138 <ul>
3139
3140 <li>Add desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ causing a program
3141 hw-support-handlerd to start when the user log in.</li>
3142
3143 <li>This program listen for kernel events about new hardware (directly
3144 from the kernel like udev does), not using HAL dbus events as I
3145 initially did.</li>
3146
3147 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware modalias in
3148 the APT database, a database
3149 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=markup">available
3150 via HTTP</a> and a database available as part of the package.</li>
3151
3152 <li>If a package is mapped to the hardware in question, the package
3153 isn't installed yet and this is the first time the hardware was
3154 plugged in, show a desktop notification suggesting to install the
3155 package or packages.</li>
3156
3157 <li>If the user click on the 'install package now' button, ask
3158 aptdaemon via the PackageKit API to install the requrired package.</li>
3159
3160 <li>aptdaemon ask for root password or sudo password, and install the
3161 package while showing progress information in a window.</li>
3162
3163 </ul>
3164
3165 <p>I still need to come up with a better name for the system.  Here
3166 are some screen shots showing the prototype in action.  First the
3167 notification, then the password request, and finally the request to
3168 approve all the dependencies.  Sorry for the Norwegian Bokmål GUI.</p>
3169
3170 <p><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-1-notification.png">
3171 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-2-password.png">
3172 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-3-dependencies.png">
3173 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-4-installing.png">
3174 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-5-installing-details.png" width="70%"></p>
3175
3176 <p>The prototype still need to be improved with longer timeouts, but
3177 is already useful.  The database of hardware to package mappings also
3178 need more work.  It is currently compatible with the Ubuntu way of
3179 storing such information in the package control file, but could be
3180 changed to use other formats instead or in addition to the current
3181 method.  I've dropped the use of discover for this mapping, as the
3182 modalias approach is more flexible and easier to use on Linux as long
3183 as the Linux kernel expose its modalias strings directly.</p>
3184
3185 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-21 16:50</strong>: Due to popular demand,
3186 here is the command required to check out and build the source: Use
3187 '<tt>svn checkout
3188 svn://svn.debian.org/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/; cd
3189 hw-support-handler; debuild</tt>'.  If you lack debuild, install the
3190 devscripts package.</p>
3191
3192 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-23 12:00</strong>: The project is now
3193 renamed to Isenkram and the source moved from the Debian Edu
3194 subversion repository to a Debian collab-maint git repository.  See
3195 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">build
3196 instructions</a> for details.</p>
3197
3198       </div>
3199       <div class="tags">
3200
3201
3202         Tags: <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>.
3203
3204
3205       </div>
3206     </div>
3207     <div class="padding"></div>
3208
3209     <div class="entry">
3210       <div class="title">
3211         <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>
3212       </div>
3213       <div class="date">
3214         19th January 2013
3215       </div>
3216       <div class="body">
3217         <p>This Christmas my trusty old laptop died.  It died quietly and
3218 suddenly in bed.  With a quiet whimper, it went completely quiet and
3219 black.  The power button was no longer able to turn it on.  It was a
3220 IBM Thinkpad X41, and the best laptop I ever had.  Better than both
3221 Thinkpads X30, X31, X40, X60, X61 and X61S.  Far better than the
3222 Compaq I had before that.  Now I need to find a replacement.  To keep
3223 going during Christmas, I moved the one year old SSD disk to my old
3224 X40 where it fitted (only one I had left that could use it), but it is
3225 not a durable solution.
3226
3227 <p>My laptop needs are fairly modest.  This is my wishlist from when I
3228 got a new one more than 10 years ago.  It still holds true.:)</p>
3229
3230 <ul>
3231
3232 <li>Lightweight (around 1 kg) and small volume (preferably smaller
3233   than A4).</li>
3234 <li>Robust, it will be in my backpack every day.</li>
3235 <li>Three button mouse and a mouse pin instead of touch pad.</li>
3236 <li>Long battery life time.  Preferable a week.</li>
3237 <li>Internal WIFI network card.</li>
3238 <li>Internal Twisted Pair network card.</li>
3239 <li>Some USB slots (2-3 is plenty)</li>
3240 <li>Good keyboard - similar to the Thinkpad.</li>
3241 <li>Video resolution at least 1024x768, with size around 12" (A4 paper
3242 size).</li>
3243 <li>Hardware supported by Debian Stable, ie the default kernel and
3244   X.org packages.</li>
3245 <li>Quiet, preferably fan free (or at least not using the fan most of
3246   the time).
3247
3248 </ul>
3249
3250 <p>You will notice that there are no RAM and CPU requirements in the
3251 list.  The reason is simply that the specifications on laptops the
3252 last 10-15 years have been sufficient for my needs, and I have to look
3253 at other features to choose my laptop.  But are there still made as
3254 robust laptops as my X41?  The Thinkpad X60/X61 proved to be less
3255 robust, and Thinkpads seem to be heading in the wrong direction since
3256 Lenovo took over.  But I've been told that X220 and X1 Carbon might
3257 still be useful.</p>
3258
3259 <p>Perhaps I should rethink my needs, and look for a pad with an
3260 external keyboard?  I'll have to check the
3261 <a href="http://www.linux-laptop.net/">Linux Laptops site</a> for
3262 well-supported laptops, or perhaps just buy one preinstalled from one
3263 of the vendors listed on the <a href="http://linuxpreloaded.com/">Linux
3264 Pre-loaded site</a>.</p>
3265
3266       </div>
3267       <div class="tags">
3268
3269
3270         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3271
3272
3273       </div>
3274     </div>
3275     <div class="padding"></div>
3276
3277     <div class="entry">
3278       <div class="title">
3279         <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>
3280       </div>
3281       <div class="date">
3282         18th January 2013
3283       </div>
3284       <div class="body">
3285         <p>Some times I try to figure out which Iceweasel browser plugin to
3286 install to get support for a given MIME type.  Thanks to
3287 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MozillaTeam/Plugins">specifications
3288 done by Ubuntu</a> and Mozilla, it is possible to do this in Debian.
3289 Unfortunately, not very many packages provide the needed meta
3290 information, Anyway, here is a small script to look up all browser
3291 plugin packages announcing ther MIME support using this specification:</p>
3292
3293 <pre>
3294 #!/usr/bin/python
3295 import sys
3296 import apt
3297 def pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
3298     cache = apt.Cache()
3299     cache.open(None)
3300     thepkgs = []
3301     for pkg in cache:
3302         version = pkg.candidate
3303         if version is None:
3304             version = pkg.installed
3305         if version is None:
3306             continue
3307         record = version.record
3308         if not record.has_key('Npp-MimeType'):
3309             continue
3310         mime_types = record['Npp-MimeType'].split(',')
3311         for t in mime_types:
3312             t = t.rstrip().strip()
3313             if t == mimetype:
3314                 thepkgs.append(pkg.name)
3315     return thepkgs
3316 mimetype = "audio/ogg"
3317 if 1 < len(sys.argv):
3318     mimetype = sys.argv[1]
3319 print "Browser plugin packages supporting %s:" % mimetype
3320 for pkg in pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
3321     print "  %s" %pkg
3322 </pre>
3323
3324 <p>It can be used like this to look up a given MIME type:</p>
3325
3326 <pre>
3327 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype
3328 Browser plugin packages supporting audio/ogg:
3329   gecko-mediaplayer
3330 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype application/x-shockwave-flash
3331 Browser plugin packages supporting application/x-shockwave-flash:
3332   browser-plugin-gnash
3333 %
3334 </pre>
3335
3336 <p>In Ubuntu this mechanism is combined with support in the browser
3337 itself to query for plugins and propose to install the needed
3338 packages.  It would be great if Debian supported such feature too.  Is
3339 anyone working on adding it?</p>
3340
3341 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-18 14:20</strong>: The Debian BTS
3342 request for icweasel support for this feature is
3343 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/484010">#484010</a> from 2008 (and
3344 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/698426">#698426</a> from today).  Lack
3345 of manpower and wish for a different design is the reason thus feature
3346 is not yet in iceweasel from Debian.</p>
3347
3348       </div>
3349       <div class="tags">
3350
3351
3352         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3353
3354
3355       </div>
3356     </div>
3357     <div class="padding"></div>
3358
3359     <div class="entry">
3360       <div class="title">
3361         <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>
3362       </div>
3363       <div class="date">
3364         16th January 2013
3365       </div>
3366       <div class="body">
3367         <p>The <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/AppStreamDebianProposal">DEP-11
3368 proposal to add AppStream information to the Debian archive</a>, is a
3369 proposal to make it possible for a Desktop application to propose to
3370 the user some package to install to gain support for a given MIME
3371 type, font, library etc. that is currently missing.  With such
3372 mechanism in place, it would be possible for the desktop to
3373 automatically propose and install leocad if some LDraw file is
3374 downloaded by the browser.</p>
3375
3376 <p>To get some idea about the current content of the archive, I decided
3377 to write a simple program to extract all .desktop files from the
3378 Debian archive and look up the claimed MIME support there.  The result
3379 can be found on the
3380 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/pub/AppStreamTest">Skolelinux FTP
3381 site</a>.  Using the collected information, it become possible to
3382 answer the question in the title.  Here are the 20 most supported MIME
3383 types in Debian stable (Squeeze), testing (Wheezy) and unstable (Sid).
3384 The complete list is available from the link above.</p>
3385
3386 <p><strong>Debian Stable:</strong></p>
3387
3388 <pre>
3389   count MIME type
3390   ----- -----------------------
3391      32 text/plain
3392      30 audio/mpeg
3393      29 image/png
3394      28 image/jpeg
3395      27 application/ogg
3396      26 audio/x-mp3
3397      25 image/tiff
3398      25 image/gif
3399      22 image/bmp
3400      22 audio/x-wav
3401      20 audio/x-flac
3402      19 audio/x-mpegurl
3403      18 video/x-ms-asf
3404      18 audio/x-musepack
3405      18 audio/x-mpeg
3406      18 application/x-ogg
3407      17 video/mpeg
3408      17 audio/x-scpls
3409      17 audio/ogg
3410      16 video/x-ms-wmv
3411 </pre>
3412
3413 <p><strong>Debian Testing:</strong></p>
3414
3415 <pre>
3416   count MIME type
3417   ----- -----------------------
3418      33 text/plain
3419      32 image/png
3420      32 image/jpeg
3421      29 audio/mpeg
3422      27 image/gif
3423      26 image/tiff
3424      26 application/ogg
3425      25 audio/x-mp3
3426      22 image/bmp
3427      21 audio/x-wav
3428      19 audio/x-mpegurl
3429      19 audio/x-mpeg
3430      18 video/mpeg
3431      18 audio/x-scpls
3432      18 audio/x-flac
3433      18 application/x-ogg
3434      17 video/x-ms-asf
3435      17 text/html
3436      17 audio/x-musepack
3437      16 image/x-xbitmap
3438 </pre>
3439
3440 <p><strong>Debian Unstable:</strong></p>
3441
3442 <pre>
3443   count MIME type
3444   ----- -----------------------
3445      31 text/plain
3446      31 image/png
3447      31 image/jpeg
3448      29 audio/mpeg
3449      28 application/ogg
3450      27 image/gif
3451      26 image/tiff
3452      26 audio/x-mp3
3453      23 audio/x-wav
3454      22 image/bmp
3455      21 audio/x-flac
3456      20 audio/x-mpegurl
3457      19 audio/x-mpeg
3458      18 video/x-ms-asf
3459      18 video/mpeg
3460      18 audio/x-scpls
3461      18 application/x-ogg
3462      17 audio/x-musepack
3463      16 video/x-ms-wmv
3464      16 video/x-msvideo
3465 </pre>
3466
3467 <p>I am told that PackageKit can provide an API to access the kind of
3468 information mentioned in DEP-11.  I have not yet had time to look at
3469 it, but hope the PackageKit people in Debian are on top of these
3470 issues.</p>
3471
3472 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-16 13:35</strong>: Updated numbers after
3473 discovering a typo in my script.</p>
3474
3475       </div>
3476       <div class="tags">
3477
3478
3479         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3480
3481
3482       </div>
3483     </div>
3484     <div class="padding"></div>
3485
3486     <div class="entry">
3487       <div class="title">
3488         <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>
3489       </div>
3490       <div class="date">
3491         15th January 2013
3492       </div>
3493       <div class="body">
3494         <p>Yesterday, I wrote about the
3495 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Modalias_strings___a_practical_way_to_map__stuff__to_hardware.html">modalias
3496 values provided by the Linux kernel</a> following my hope for
3497 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">better
3498 dongle support in Debian</a>.  Using this knowledge, I have tested how
3499 modalias values attached to package names can be used to map packages
3500 to hardware.  This allow the system to look up and suggest relevant
3501 packages when I plug in some new hardware into my machine, and replace
3502 discover and discover-data as the database used to map hardware to
3503 packages.</p>
3504
3505 <p>I create a modaliases file with entries like the following,
3506 containing package name, kernel module name (if relevant, otherwise
3507 the package name) and globs matching the relevant hardware
3508 modalias.</p>
3509
3510 <p><blockquote>
3511 Package: package-name
3512 <br>Modaliases: module(modaliasglob, modaliasglob, modaliasglob)</p>
3513 </blockquote></p>
3514
3515 <p>It is fairly trivial to write code to find the relevant packages
3516 for a given modalias value using this file.</p>
3517
3518 <p>An entry like this would suggest the video and picture application
3519 cheese for many USB web cameras (interface bus class 0E01):</p>
3520
3521 <p><blockquote>
3522 Package: cheese
3523 <br>Modaliases: cheese(usb:v*p*d*dc*dsc*dp*ic0Eisc01ip*)</p>
3524 </blockquote></p>
3525
3526 <p>An entry like this would suggest the pcmciautils package when a
3527 CardBus bridge (bus class 0607) PCI device is present:</p>
3528
3529 <p><blockquote>
3530 Package: pcmciautils
3531 <br>Modaliases: pcmciautils(pci:v*d*sv*sd*bc06sc07i*)
3532 </blockquote></p>
3533
3534 <p>An entry like this would suggest the package colorhug-client when
3535 plugging in a ColorHug with USB IDs 04D8:F8DA:</p>
3536
3537 <p><blockquote>
3538 Package: colorhug-client
3539 <br>Modaliases: colorhug-client(usb:v04D8pF8DAd*)</p>
3540 </blockquote></p>
3541
3542 <p>I believe the format is compatible with the format of the Packages
3543 file in the Debian archive.  Ubuntu already uses their Packages file
3544 to store their mappings from packages to hardware.</p>
3545
3546 <p>By adding a XB-Modaliases: header in debian/control, any .deb can
3547 announce the hardware it support in a way my prototype understand.
3548 This allow those publishing packages in an APT source outside the
3549 Debian archive as well as those backporting packages to make sure the
3550 hardware mapping are included in the package meta information.  I've
3551 tested such header in the pymissile package, and its modalias mapping
3552 is working as it should with my prototype.  It even made it to Ubuntu
3553 Raring.</p>
3554
3555 <p>To test if it was possible to look up supported hardware using only
3556 the shell tools available in the Debian installer, I wrote a shell
3557 implementation of the lookup code.  The idea is to create files for
3558 each modalias and let the shell do the matching.  Please check out and
3559 try the
3560 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/hw-support-lookup?view=co">hw-support-lookup</a>
3561 shell script.  It run without any extra dependencies and fetch the
3562 hardware mappings from the Debian archive and the subversion
3563 repository where I currently work on my prototype.</p>
3564
3565 <p>When I use it on a machine with a yubikey inserted, it suggest to
3566 install yubikey-personalization:</p>
3567
3568 <p><blockquote>
3569 % ./hw-support-lookup
3570 <br>yubikey-personalization
3571 <br>%
3572 </blockquote></p>
3573
3574 <p>When I run it on my Thinkpad X40 with a PCMCIA/CardBus slot, it
3575 propose to install the pcmciautils package:</p>
3576
3577 <p><blockquote>
3578 % ./hw-support-lookup
3579 <br>pcmciautils
3580 <br>%
3581 </blockquote></p>
3582
3583 <p>If you know of any hardware-package mapping that should be added to
3584 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=co">my
3585 database</a>, please tell me about it.</p>
3586
3587 <p>It could be possible to generate several of the mappings between
3588 packages and hardware.  One source would be to look at packages with
3589 kernel modules, ie packages with *.ko files in /lib/modules/, and
3590 extract their modalias information.  Another would be to look at
3591 packages with udev rules, ie packages with files in
3592 /lib/udev/rules.d/, and extract their vendor/model information to
3593 generate a modalias matching rule.  I have not tested any of these to
3594 see if it work.</p>
3595
3596 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
3597 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
3598 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
3599 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel</a>.</p>
3600
3601       </div>
3602       <div class="tags">
3603
3604
3605         Tags: <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>.
3606
3607
3608       </div>
3609     </div>
3610     <div class="padding"></div>
3611
3612     <div class="entry">
3613       <div class="title">
3614         <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>
3615       </div>
3616       <div class="date">
3617         14th January 2013
3618       </div>
3619       <div class="body">
3620         <p>While looking into how to look up Debian packages based on hardware
3621 information, to find the packages that support a given piece of
3622 hardware, I refreshed my memory regarding modalias values, and decided
3623 to document the details.  Here are my findings so far, also available
3624 in
3625 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
3626 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>:
3627
3628 <p><strong>Modalias decoded</strong></p>
3629
3630 <p>This document try to explain what the different types of modalias
3631 values stands for.  It is in part based on information from
3632 &lt;URL: <a href="https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias">https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias</a> &gt;,
3633 &lt;URL: <a href="http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/26132/how-to-assign-usb-driver-to-device">http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/26132/how-to-assign-usb-driver-to-device</a> &gt;,
3634 &lt;URL: <a href="http://code.metager.de/source/history/linux/stable/scripts/mod/file2alias.c">http://code.metager.de/source/history/linux/stable/scripts/mod/file2alias.c</a> &gt; and
3635 &lt;URL: <a href="http://cvs.savannah.gnu.org/viewvc/dmidecode/dmidecode.c?root=dmidecode&view=markup">http://cvs.savannah.gnu.org/viewvc/dmidecode/dmidecode.c?root=dmidecode&view=markup</a> &gt;.
3636
3637 <p>The modalias entries for a given Linux machine can be found using
3638 this shell script:</p>
3639
3640 <pre>
3641 find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u
3642 </pre>
3643
3644 <p>The supported modalias globs for a given kernel module can be found
3645 using modinfo:</p>
3646
3647 <pre>
3648 % /sbin/modinfo psmouse | grep alias:
3649 alias:          serio:ty05pr*id*ex*
3650 alias:          serio:ty01pr*id*ex*
3651 %
3652 </pre>
3653
3654 <p><strong>PCI subtype</strong></p>
3655
3656 <p>A typical PCI entry can look like this.  This is an Intel Host
3657 Bridge memory controller:</p>
3658
3659 <p><blockquote>
3660 pci:v00008086d00002770sv00001028sd000001ADbc06sc00i00
3661 </blockquote></p>
3662
3663 <p>This represent these values:</p>
3664
3665 <pre>
3666  v   00008086  (vendor)
3667  d   00002770  (device)
3668  sv  00001028  (subvendor)
3669  sd  000001AD  (subdevice)
3670  bc  06        (bus class)
3671  sc  00        (bus subclass)
3672  i   00        (interface)
3673 </pre>
3674
3675 <p>The vendor/device values are the same values outputted from 'lspci
3676 -n' as 8086:2770.  The bus class/subclass is also shown by lspci as
3677 0600.  The 0600 class is a host bridge.  Other useful bus values are
3678 0300 (VGA compatible card) and 0200 (Ethernet controller).</p>
3679
3680 <p>Not sure how to figure out the interface value, nor what it
3681 means.</p>
3682
3683 <p><strong>USB subtype</strong></p>
3684
3685 <p>Some typical USB entries can look like this.  This is an internal
3686 USB hub in a laptop:</p>
3687
3688 <p><blockquote>
3689 usb:v1D6Bp0001d0206dc09dsc00dp00ic09isc00ip00
3690 </blockquote></p>
3691
3692 <p>Here is the values included in this alias:</p>
3693
3694 <pre>
3695  v    1D6B  (device vendor)
3696  p    0001  (device product)
3697  d    0206  (bcddevice)
3698  dc     09  (device class)
3699  dsc    00  (device subclass)
3700  dp     00  (device protocol)
3701  ic     09  (interface class)
3702  isc    00  (interface subclass)
3703  ip     00  (interface protocol)
3704 </pre>
3705
3706 <p>The 0900 device class/subclass means hub.  Some times the relevant
3707 class is in the interface class section.  For a simple USB web camera,
3708 these alias entries show up:</p>
3709
3710 <p><blockquote>
3711 usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc01ip00
3712 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc02ip00
3713 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc01ip00
3714 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc02ip00
3715 </blockquote></p>
3716
3717 <p>Interface class 0E01 is video control, 0E02 is video streaming (aka
3718 camera), 0101 is audio control device and 0102 is audio streaming (aka
3719 microphone).  Thus this is a camera with microphone included.</p>
3720
3721 <p><strong>ACPI subtype</strong></p>
3722
3723 <p>The ACPI type is used for several non-PCI/USB stuff.  This is an IR
3724 receiver in a Thinkpad X40:</p>
3725
3726 <p><blockquote>
3727 acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
3728 </blockquote></p>
3729
3730 <p>The values between the colons are IDs.</p>
3731
3732 <p><strong>DMI subtype</strong></p>
3733
3734 <p>The DMI table contain lots of information about the computer case
3735 and model.  This is an entry for a IBM Thinkpad X40, fetched from
3736 /sys/devices/virtual/dmi/id/modalias:</p>
3737
3738 <p><blockquote>
3739 dmi:bvnIBM:bvr1UETB6WW(1.66):bd06/15/2005:svnIBM:pn2371H4G:pvrThinkPadX40:rvnIBM:rn2371H4G:rvrNotAvailable:cvnIBM:ct10:cvrNotAvailable:
3740 </blockquote></p>
3741
3742 <p>The values present are</p>
3743
3744 <pre>
3745  bvn  IBM            (BIOS vendor)
3746  bvr  1UETB6WW(1.66) (BIOS version)
3747  bd   06/15/2005     (BIOS date)
3748  svn  IBM            (system vendor)
3749  pn   2371H4G        (product name)
3750  pvr  ThinkPadX40    (product version)
3751  rvn  IBM            (board vendor)
3752  rn   2371H4G        (board name)
3753  rvr  NotAvailable   (board version)
3754  cvn  IBM            (chassis vendor)
3755  ct   10             (chassis type)
3756  cvr  NotAvailable   (chassis version)
3757 </pre>
3758
3759 <p>The chassis type 10 is Notebook.  Other interesting values can be
3760 found in the dmidecode source:</p>
3761
3762 <pre>
3763   3 Desktop
3764   4 Low Profile Desktop
3765   5 Pizza Box
3766   6 Mini Tower
3767   7 Tower
3768   8 Portable
3769   9 Laptop
3770  10 Notebook
3771  11 Hand Held
3772  12 Docking Station
3773  13 All In One
3774  14 Sub Notebook
3775  15 Space-saving
3776  16 Lunch Box
3777  17 Main Server Chassis
3778  18 Expansion Chassis
3779  19 Sub Chassis
3780  20 Bus Expansion Chassis
3781  21 Peripheral Chassis
3782  22 RAID Chassis
3783  23 Rack Mount Chassis
3784  24 Sealed-case PC
3785  25 Multi-system
3786  26 CompactPCI
3787  27 AdvancedTCA
3788  28 Blade
3789  29 Blade Enclosing
3790 </pre>
3791
3792 <p>The chassis type values are not always accurately set in the DMI
3793 table.  For example my home server is a tower, but the DMI modalias
3794 claim it is a desktop.</p>
3795
3796 <p><strong>SerIO subtype</strong></p>
3797
3798 <p>This type is used for PS/2 mouse plugs.  One example is from my
3799 test machine:</p>
3800
3801 <p><blockquote>
3802 serio:ty01pr00id00ex00
3803 </blockquote></p>
3804
3805 <p>The values present are</p>
3806
3807 <pre>
3808   ty  01  (type)
3809   pr  00  (prototype)
3810   id  00  (id)
3811   ex  00  (extra)
3812 </pre>
3813
3814 <p>This type is supported by the psmouse driver.  I am not sure what
3815 the valid values are.</p>
3816
3817 <p><strong>Other subtypes</strong></p>
3818
3819 <p>There are heaps of other modalias subtypes according to
3820 file2alias.c.  There is the rest of the list from that source: amba,
3821 ap, bcma, ccw, css, eisa, hid, i2c, ieee1394, input, ipack, isapnp,
3822 mdio, of, parisc, pcmcia, platform, scsi, sdio, spi, ssb, vio, virtio,
3823 vmbus, x86cpu and zorro.  I did not spend time documenting all of
3824 these, as they do not seem relevant for my intended use with mapping
3825 hardware to packages when new stuff is inserted during run time.</p>
3826
3827 <p><strong>Looking up kernel modules using modalias values</strong></p>
3828
3829 <p>To check which kernel modules provide support for a given modalias,
3830 one can use the following shell script:</p>
3831
3832 <pre>
3833   for id in $(find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u); do \
3834     echo "$id" ; \
3835     /sbin/modprobe --show-depends "$id"|sed 's/^/  /' ; \
3836   done
3837 </pre>
3838
3839 <p>The output can look like this (only the first few entries as the
3840 list is very long on my test machine):</p>
3841
3842 <pre>
3843   acpi:ACPI0003:
3844     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/acpi/ac.ko
3845   acpi:device:
3846   FATAL: Module acpi:device: not found.
3847   acpi:IBM0068:
3848     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/char/nvram.ko
3849     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/leds/led-class.ko
3850     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/rfkill/rfkill.ko
3851     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/platform/x86/thinkpad_acpi.ko
3852   acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
3853     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/lib/crc-ccitt.ko
3854     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/irda/irda.ko
3855     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/net/irda/nsc-ircc.ko
3856   [...]
3857 </pre>
3858
3859 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
3860 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
3861 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
3862 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel</a>.</p>
3863
3864 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-15:</strong> Rewrite "cat $(find ...)" to
3865 "find ... -print0 | xargs -0 cat" to make sure it handle directories
3866 in /sys/ with space in them.</p>
3867
3868       </div>
3869       <div class="tags">
3870
3871
3872         Tags: <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>.
3873
3874
3875       </div>
3876     </div>
3877     <div class="padding"></div>
3878
3879     <div class="entry">
3880       <div class="title">
3881         <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>
3882       </div>
3883       <div class="date">
3884         10th January 2013
3885       </div>
3886       <div class="body">
3887         <p>As part of my investigation on how to improve the support in Debian
3888 for hardware dongles, I dug up my old Mark and Spencer USB Rocket
3889 Launcher and updated the Debian package
3890 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pymissile">pymissile</a> to make
3891 sure udev will fix the device permissions when it is plugged in.  I
3892 also added a "Modaliases" header to test it in the Debian archive and
3893 hopefully make the package be proposed by jockey in Ubuntu when a user
3894 plug in his rocket launcher.  In the process I moved the source to a
3895 git repository under collab-maint, to make it easier for any DD to
3896 contribute.  <a href="http://code.google.com/p/pymissile/">Upstream</a>
3897 is not very active, but the software still work for me even after five
3898 years of relative silence.  The new git repository is not listed in
3899 the uploaded package yet, because I want to test the other changes a
3900 bit more before I upload the new version.  If you want to check out
3901 the new version with a .desktop file included, visit the
3902 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/pymissile.git">gitweb
3903 view</a> or use "<tt>git clone
3904 git://anonscm.debian.org/collab-maint/pymissile.git</tt>".</p>
3905
3906       </div>
3907       <div class="tags">
3908
3909
3910         Tags: <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>.
3911
3912
3913       </div>
3914     </div>
3915     <div class="padding"></div>
3916
3917     <div class="entry">
3918       <div class="title">
3919         <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>
3920       </div>
3921       <div class="date">
3922          9th January 2013
3923       </div>
3924       <div class="body">
3925         <p>One thing that annoys me with Debian and Linux distributions in
3926 general, is that there is a great package management system with the
3927 ability to automatically install software packages by downloading them
3928 from the distribution mirrors, but no way to get it to automatically
3929 install the packages I need to use the hardware I plug into my
3930 machine.  Even if the package to use it is easily available from the
3931 Linux distribution.  When I plug in a LEGO Mindstorms NXT, it could
3932 suggest to automatically install the python-nxt, nbc and t2n packages
3933 I need to talk to it.  When I plug in a Yubikey, it could propose the
3934 yubikey-personalization package.  The information required to do this
3935 is available, but no-one have pulled all the pieces together.</p>
3936
3937 <p>Some years ago, I proposed to
3938 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg01206.html">use
3939 the discover subsystem to implement this</a>.  The idea is fairly
3940 simple:
3941
3942 <ul>
3943
3944 <li>Add a desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ pointing to a program
3945   starting when a user log in.</li>
3946
3947 <li>Set this program up to listen for kernel events emitted when new
3948   hardware is inserted into the computer.</li>
3949
3950 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware ID in a
3951   database mapping to packages, and take note of any non-installed
3952   packages.</li>
3953
3954 <li>Show a message to the user proposing to install the discovered
3955   package, and make it easy to install it.</li>
3956
3957 </ul>
3958
3959 <p>I am not sure what the best way to implement this is, but my
3960 initial idea was to use dbus events to discover new hardware, the
3961 discover database to find packages and
3962 <a href="http://www.packagekit.org/">PackageKit</a> to install
3963 packages.</p>
3964
3965 <p>Yesterday, I found time to try to implement this idea, and the
3966 draft package is now checked into
3967 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
3968 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>.  In the process, I updated the
3969 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover-data.html">discover-data</a>
3970 package to map the USB ids of LEGO Mindstorms and Yubikey devices to
3971 the relevant packages in Debian, and uploaded a new version
3972 2.2013.01.09 to unstable.  I also discovered that the current
3973 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover.html">discover</a>
3974 package in Debian no longer discovered any USB devices, because
3975 /proc/bus/usb/devices is no longer present.  I ported it to use
3976 libusb as a fall back option to get it working.  The fixed package
3977 version 2.1.2-6 is now in experimental (didn't upload it to unstable
3978 because of the freeze).</p>
3979
3980 <p>With this prototype in place, I can insert my Yubikey, and get this
3981 desktop notification to show up (only once, the first time it is
3982 inserted):</p>
3983
3984 <p align="center"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-09-hw-autoinstall.png"></p>
3985
3986 <p>For this prototype to be really useful, some way to automatically
3987 install the proposed packages by pressing the "Please install
3988 program(s)" button should to be implemented.</p>
3989
3990 <p>If this idea seem useful to you, and you want to help make it
3991 happen, please help me update the discover-data database with mappings
3992 from hardware to Debian packages.  Check if 'discover-pkginstall -l'
3993 list the package you would like to have installed when a given
3994 hardware device is inserted into your computer, and report bugs using
3995 reportbug if it isn't.  Or, if you know of a better way to provide
3996 such mapping, please let me know.</p>
3997
3998 <p>This prototype need more work, and there are several questions that
3999 should be considered before it is ready for production use.  Is dbus
4000 the correct way to detect new hardware?  At the moment I look for HAL
4001 dbus events on the system bus, because that is the events I could see
4002 on my Debian Squeeze KDE desktop.  Are there better events to use?
4003 How should the user be notified?  Is the desktop notification
4004 mechanism the best option, or should the background daemon raise a
4005 popup instead?  How should packages be installed?  When should they
4006 not be installed?</p>
4007
4008 <p>If you want to help getting such feature implemented in Debian,
4009 please send me an email. :)</p>
4010
4011       </div>
4012       <div class="tags">
4013
4014
4015         Tags: <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>.
4016
4017
4018       </div>
4019     </div>
4020     <div class="padding"></div>
4021
4022     <div class="entry">
4023       <div class="title">
4024         <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>
4025       </div>
4026       <div class="date">
4027          2nd January 2013
4028       </div>
4029       <div class="body">
4030         <p>During Christmas, I have worked a bit on the Debian support for
4031 <a href="http://mindstorms.lego.com/en-us/Default.aspx">LEGO Mindstorm
4032 NXT</a>.  My son and I have played a bit with my NXT set, and I
4033 discovered I had to build all the tools myself because none were
4034 already in Debian Squeeze.  If Debian support for LEGO is something
4035 you care about, please join me on the IRC channel
4036 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">#debian-lego</a> (server
4037 irc.debian.org).  There is a lot that could be done to improve the
4038 Debian support for LEGO designers.  For example both CAD software
4039 and Mindstorm compilers are missing. :)</p>
4040
4041 <p>Update 2012-01-03: A
4042 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">project page</a>
4043 including links to Lego related packages is now available.</p>
4044
4045       </div>
4046       <div class="tags">
4047
4048
4049         Tags: <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>.
4050
4051
4052       </div>
4053     </div>
4054     <div class="padding"></div>
4055
4056     <div class="entry">
4057       <div class="title">
4058         <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>
4059       </div>
4060       <div class="date">
4061         25th December 2012
4062       </div>
4063       <div class="body">
4064         <p>Let me start by wishing you all marry Christmas and a happy new
4065 year!  I hope next year will prove to be a good year.</p>
4066
4067 <p><a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">Bitcoin</a>, the digital
4068 decentralised "currency" that allow people to transfer bitcoins
4069 between each other with minimal overhead, is a very interesting
4070 experiment.  And as I wrote a few days ago, the bitcoin situation in
4071 <a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</a> is about to improve a bit.
4072 The <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">new debian source
4073 package</a> (version 0.7.2-2) was uploaded yesterday, and is waiting
4074 in <a href="http://ftp-master.debian.org/new.html">the NEW queue</A>
4075 for one of the ftpmasters to approve the new bitcoin-qt package
4076 name.</p>
4077
4078 <p>And thanks to the great work of Jonas and the rest of the bitcoin
4079 team in Debian, you can easily test the package in Debian Squeeze
4080 using the following steps to get a set of working packages:</p>
4081
4082 <blockquote><pre>
4083 git clone git://git.debian.org/git/collab-maint/bitcoin
4084 cd bitcoin
4085 DEB_MAINTAINER_MODE=1 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp fakeroot debian/rules clean
4086 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp git-buildpackage --git-ignore-new
4087 </pre></blockquote>
4088
4089 <p>You might have to install some build dependencies as well.  The
4090 list of commands should give you two packages, bitcoind and
4091 bitcoin-qt, ready for use in a Squeeze environment.  Note that the
4092 client will download the complete set of bitcoin "blocks", which need
4093 around 5.6 GiB of data on my machine at the moment.  Make sure your
4094 ~/.bitcoin/ directory have lots of spare room if you want to download
4095 all the blocks.  The client will warn if the disk is getting full, so
4096 there is not really a problem if you got too little room, but you will
4097 not be able to get all the features out of the client.</p>
4098
4099 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
4100 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
4101 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
4102
4103       </div>
4104       <div class="tags">
4105
4106
4107         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>.
4108
4109
4110       </div>
4111     </div>
4112     <div class="padding"></div>
4113
4114     <div class="entry">
4115       <div class="title">
4116         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_word_on_bitcoin_support_in_Debian.html">A word on bitcoin support in Debian</a>
4117       </div>
4118       <div class="date">
4119         21st December 2012
4120       </div>
4121       <div class="body">
4122         <p>It has been a while since I wrote about
4123 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">bitcoin</a>, the decentralised
4124 peer-to-peer based crypto-currency, and the reason is simply that I
4125 have been busy elsewhere.  But two days ago, I started looking at the
4126 state of <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin in
4127 Debian</a> again to try to recover my old bitcoin wallet.  The package
4128 is now maintained by a
4129 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/pkg-bitcoin/">team of
4130 people</a>, and the grunt work had already been done by this team.  We
4131 owe a huge thank you to all these team members. :)
4132 But I was sad to discover that the bitcoin client is missing in
4133 Wheezy.  It is only available in Sid (and an outdated client from
4134 backports).  The client had several RC bugs registered in BTS blocking
4135 it from entering testing.  To try to help the team and improve the
4136 situation, I spent some time providing patches and triaging the bug
4137 reports.  I also had a look at the bitcoin package available from Matt
4138 Corallo in a
4139 <a href="https://launchpad.net/~bitcoin/+archive/bitcoin">PPA for
4140 Ubuntu</a>, and moved the useful pieces from that version into the
4141 Debian package.</p>
4142
4143 <p>After checking with the main package maintainer Jonas Smedegaard on
4144 IRC, I pushed several patches into the collab-maint git repository to
4145 improve the package.  It now contains fixes for the RC issues (not from
4146 me, but fixed by Scott Howard), build rules for a Qt GUI client
4147 package, konqueror support for the bitcoin: URI and bash completion
4148 setup.  As I work on Debian Squeeze, I also created
4149 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-bitcoin-devel/Week-of-Mon-20121217/000041.html">a
4150 patch to backport</a> the latest version.  Jonas is going to look at
4151 it and try to integrate it into the git repository before uploading a
4152 new version to unstable.
4153
4154 <p>I would very much like bitcoin to succeed, to get rid of the
4155 centralized control currently exercised in the monetary system.  I
4156 find it completely unacceptable that the USA government is collecting
4157 transaction data for almost all international money transfers (most are done in USD and transaction logs shipped to the spooks), and
4158 that the major credit card companies can block legal money
4159 transactions to Wikileaks.  But for bitcoin to succeed, more people
4160 need to use bitcoins, and more people need to accept bitcoins when
4161 they sell products and services.  Improving the bitcoin support in
4162 Debian is a small step in the right direction, but not enough.
4163 Unfortunately the user experience when browsing the web and wanting to
4164 pay with bitcoin is still not very good.  The bitcoin: URI is a step
4165 in the right direction, but need to work in most or every browser in
4166 use.  Also the bitcoin-qt client is too heavy to fire up to do a
4167 quick transaction.  I believe there are other clients available, but
4168 have not tested them.</p>
4169
4170 <p>My
4171 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Now_accepting_bitcoins___anonymous_and_distributed_p2p_crypto_money.html">experiment
4172 with bitcoins</a> showed that at least some of my readers use bitcoin.
4173 I received 20.15 BTC so far on the address I provided in my blog two
4174 years ago, as can be
4175 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">seen
4176 on the blockexplorer service</a>.  Thank you everyone for your
4177 donation.  The blockexplorer service demonstrates quite well that
4178 bitcoin is not quite anonymous and untracked. :) I wonder if the
4179 number of users have gone up since then.  If you use bitcoin and want
4180 to show your support of my activity, please send Bitcoin donations to
4181 the same address as last time,
4182 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
4183
4184       </div>
4185       <div class="tags">
4186
4187
4188         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>.
4189
4190
4191       </div>
4192     </div>
4193     <div class="padding"></div>
4194
4195     <div class="entry">
4196       <div class="title">
4197         <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>
4198       </div>
4199       <div class="date">
4200          7th September 2012
4201       </div>
4202       <div class="body">
4203         <p>As I
4204 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">mentioned
4205 this summer</a>, I have created a Computer Science song book a few
4206 years ago, and today I finally found time to create a public
4207 <a href="https://gitorious.org/pere-cs-songbook/pere-cs-songbook">Gitorious
4208 repository for the project</a>.</p>
4209
4210 <p>If you want to help out, please clone the source and submit patches
4211 to the HTML version.  To generate the PDF and PostScript version,
4212 please use prince XML, or let me know about a useful free software
4213 processor capable of creating a good looking PDF from the HTML.</p>
4214
4215 <p>Want to sing?  You can still find the song book in HTML, PDF and
4216 PostScript formats at
4217 <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's Computer
4218 Science Songbook</a>.</p>
4219
4220       </div>
4221       <div class="tags">
4222
4223
4224         Tags: <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>.
4225
4226
4227       </div>
4228     </div>
4229     <div class="padding"></div>
4230
4231     <div class="entry">
4232       <div class="title">
4233         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gratulerer_med_19__rsdagen__Debian_.html">Gratulerer med 19-årsdagen, Debian!</a>
4234       </div>
4235       <div class="date">
4236         16th August 2012
4237       </div>
4238       <div class="body">
4239         <p>I dag fyller
4240 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120813">Debian-prosjektet 19
4241 år</a>.  Jeg har fulgt det de siste 12 årene, og er veldig glad for å kunne
4242 si gratulerer med dagen, Debian!</p>
4243
4244       </div>
4245       <div class="tags">
4246
4247
4248         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>.
4249
4250
4251       </div>
4252     </div>
4253     <div class="padding"></div>
4254
4255     <div class="entry">
4256       <div class="title">
4257         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">Song book for Computer Scientists</a>
4258       </div>
4259       <div class="date">
4260         24th June 2012
4261       </div>
4262       <div class="body">
4263         <p>Many years ago, while studying Computer Science at the
4264 <a href="http://www.uit.no/">University of Tromsø</a>, I started
4265 collecting computer related songs for use at parties.  The original
4266 version was written in LaTeX, but a few years ago I got help from
4267 Håkon W. Lie, one of the inventors of W3C CSS, to convert it to HTML
4268 while keeping the ability to create a nice book in PDF format.  I have
4269 not had time to maintain the book for a while now, and guess I should
4270 put it up on some public version control repository where others can
4271 help me extend and update the book.  If anyone is volunteering to help
4272 me with this, send me an email.  Also let me know if there are songs
4273 missing in my book.</p>
4274
4275 <p>I have not mentioned the book on my blog so far, and it occured to
4276 me today that I really should let all my readers share the joys of
4277 singing out load about programming, computers and computer networks.
4278 Especially now that <a href="http://debconf12.debconf.org/">Debconf
4279 12</a> is about to start (and I am not going).  Want to sing?  Check
4280 out <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's
4281 Computer Science Songbook</a>.
4282
4283       </div>
4284       <div class="tags">
4285
4286
4287         Tags: <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>.
4288
4289
4290       </div>
4291     </div>
4292     <div class="padding"></div>
4293
4294     <div class="entry">
4295       <div class="title">
4296         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatically_upgrading_server_firmware_on_Dell_PowerEdge.html">Automatically upgrading server firmware on Dell PowerEdge</a>
4297       </div>
4298       <div class="date">
4299         21st November 2011
4300       </div>
4301       <div class="body">
4302         <p>At work we have heaps of servers.  I believe the total count is
4303 around 1000 at the moment.  To be able to get help from the vendors
4304 when something go wrong, we want to keep the firmware on the servers
4305 up to date.  If the firmware isn't the latest and greatest, the
4306 vendors typically refuse to start debugging any problems until the
4307 firmware is upgraded.  So before every reboot, we want to upgrade the
4308 firmware, and we would really like everyone handling servers at the
4309 university to do this themselves when they plan to reboot a machine.
4310 For that to happen we at the unix server admin group need to provide
4311 the tools to do so.</p>
4312
4313 <p>To make firmware upgrading easier, I am working on a script to
4314 fetch and install the latest firmware for the servers we got.  Most of
4315 our hardware are from Dell and HP, so I have focused on these servers
4316 so far.  This blog post is about the Dell part.</P>
4317
4318 <p>On the Dell FTP site I was lucky enough to find
4319 <a href="ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz">an XML file</a>
4320 with firmware information for all 11th generation servers, listing
4321 which firmware should be used on a given model and where on the FTP
4322 site I can find it.  Using a simple perl XML parser I can then
4323 download the shell scripts Dell provides to do firmware upgrades from
4324 within Linux and reboot when all the firmware is primed and ready to
4325 be activated on the first reboot.</p>
4326
4327 <p>This is the Dell related fragment of the perl code I am working on.
4328 Are there anyone working on similar tools for firmware upgrading all
4329 servers at a site?  Please get in touch and lets share resources.</p>
4330
4331 <p><pre>
4332 #!/usr/bin/perl
4333 use strict;
4334 use warnings;
4335 use File::Temp qw(tempdir);
4336 BEGIN {
4337     # Install needed RHEL packages if missing
4338     my %rhelmodules = (
4339         'XML::Simple' => 'perl-XML-Simple',
4340         );
4341     for my $module (keys %rhelmodules) {
4342         eval "use $module;";
4343         if ($@) {
4344             my $pkg = $rhelmodules{$module};
4345             system("yum install -y $pkg");
4346             eval "use $module;";
4347         }
4348     }
4349 }
4350 my $errorsto = 'pere@hungry.com';
4351
4352 upgrade_dell();
4353
4354 exit 0;
4355
4356 sub run_firmware_script {
4357     my ($opts, $script) = @_;
4358     unless ($script) {
4359         print STDERR "fail: missing script name\n";
4360         exit 1
4361     }
4362     print STDERR "Running $script\n\n";
4363
4364     if (0 == system("sh $script $opts")) { # FIXME correct exit code handling
4365         print STDERR "success: firmware script ran succcessfully\n";
4366     } else {
4367         print STDERR "fail: firmware script returned error\n";
4368     }
4369 }
4370
4371 sub run_firmware_scripts {
4372     my ($opts, @dirs) = @_;
4373     # Run firmware packages
4374     for my $dir (@dirs) {
4375         print STDERR "info: Running scripts in $dir\n";
4376         opendir(my $dh, $dir) or die "Unable to open directory $dir: $!";
4377         while (my $s = readdir $dh) {
4378             next if $s =~ m/^\.\.?/;
4379             run_firmware_script($opts, "$dir/$s");
4380         }
4381         closedir $dh;
4382     }
4383 }
4384
4385 sub download {
4386     my $url = shift;
4387     print STDERR "info: Downloading $url\n";
4388     system("wget --quiet \"$url\"");
4389 }
4390
4391 sub upgrade_dell {
4392     my @dirs;
4393     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
4394     chomp $product;
4395
4396     if ($product =~ m/PowerEdge/) {
4397
4398         # on RHEL, these pacakges are needed by the firwmare upgrade scripts
4399         system('yum install -y compat-libstdc++-33.i686 libstdc++.i686 libxml2.i686 procmail');
4400
4401         my $tmpdir = tempdir(
4402             CLEANUP => 1
4403             );
4404         chdir($tmpdir);
4405         fetch_dell_fw('catalog/Catalog.xml.gz');
4406         system('gunzip Catalog.xml.gz');
4407         my @paths = fetch_dell_fw_list('Catalog.xml');
4408         # -q is quiet, disabling interactivity and reducing console output
4409         my $fwopts = "-q";
4410         if (@paths) {
4411             for my $url (@paths) {
4412                 fetch_dell_fw($url);
4413             }
4414             run_firmware_scripts($fwopts, $tmpdir);
4415         } else {
4416             print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
4417             print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
4418         }
4419         chdir('/');
4420     } else {
4421         print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
4422         print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
4423     }
4424 }
4425
4426 sub fetch_dell_fw {
4427     my $path = shift;
4428     my $url = "ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/$path";
4429     download($url);
4430 }
4431
4432 # Using ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz, figure out which
4433 # firmware packages to download from Dell.  Only work for Linux
4434 # machines and 11th generation Dell servers.
4435 sub fetch_dell_fw_list {
4436     my $filename = shift;
4437
4438     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
4439     chomp $product;
4440     my ($mybrand, $mymodel) = split(/\s+/, $product);
4441
4442     print STDERR "Finding firmware bundles for $mybrand $mymodel\n";
4443
4444     my $xml = XMLin($filename);
4445     my @paths;
4446     for my $bundle (@{$xml->{SoftwareBundle}}) {
4447         my $brand = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Display}->{content};
4448         my $model = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Model}->{Display}->{content};
4449         my $oscode;
4450         if ("ARRAY" eq ref $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}) {
4451             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}[0]->{osCode};
4452         } else {
4453             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}->{osCode};
4454         }
4455         if ($mybrand eq $brand && $mymodel eq $model && "LIN" eq $oscode)
4456         {
4457             @paths = map { $_->{path} } @{$bundle->{Contents}->{Package}};
4458         }
4459     }
4460     for my $component (@{$xml->{SoftwareComponent}}) {
4461         my $componenttype = $component->{ComponentType}->{value};
4462
4463         # Drop application packages, only firmware and BIOS
4464         next if 'APAC' eq $componenttype;
4465
4466         my $cpath = $component->{path};
4467         for my $path (@paths) {
4468             if ($cpath =~ m%/$path$%) {
4469                 push(@paths, $cpath);
4470             }
4471         }
4472     }
4473     return @paths;
4474 }
4475 </pre>
4476
4477 <p>The code is only tested on RedHat Enterprise Linux, but I suspect
4478 it could work on other platforms with some tweaking.  Anyone know a
4479 index like Catalog.xml is available from HP for HP servers?  At the
4480 moment I maintain a similar list manually and it is quickly getting
4481 outdated.</p>
4482
4483       </div>
4484       <div class="tags">
4485
4486
4487         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
4488
4489
4490       </div>
4491     </div>
4492     <div class="padding"></div>
4493
4494     <div class="entry">
4495       <div class="title">
4496         <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>
4497       </div>
4498       <div class="date">
4499          4th August 2011
4500       </div>
4501       <div class="body">
4502         <p>Wouter Verhelst have some
4503 <a href="http://grep.be/blog/en/retorts/pere_kubuntu_boot">interesting
4504 comments and opinions</a> on my blog post on
4505 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_should_start_from__etc_rcS_d__in_Debian____almost_nothing.html">the
4506 need to clean up /etc/rcS.d/ in Debian</a> and my blog post about
4507 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_missing_in_the_Debian_desktop__or_why_my_parents_use_Kubuntu.html">the
4508 default KDE desktop in Debian</a>.  I only have time to address one
4509 small piece of his comment now, and though it best to address the
4510 misunderstanding he bring forward:</p>
4511
4512 <p><blockquote>
4513 Currently, a system admin has four options: [...] boot to a
4514 single-user system (by adding 'single' to the kernel command line;
4515 this runs rcS and rc1 scripts)
4516 </blockquote></p>
4517
4518 <p>This make me believe Wouter believe booting into single user mode
4519 and booting into runlevel 1 is the same.  I am not surprised he
4520 believe this, because it would make sense and is a quite sensible
4521 thing to believe.  But because the boot in Debian is slightly broken,
4522 runlevel 1 do not work properly and it isn't the same as single user
4523 mode.  I'll try to explain what is actually happing, but it is a bit
4524 hard to explain.</p>
4525
4526 <p>Single user mode is defined like this in /etc/inittab:
4527 "<tt>~~:S:wait:/sbin/sulogin</tt>".  This means the only thing that is
4528 executed in single user mode is sulogin.  Single user mode is a boot
4529 state "between" the runlevels, and when booting into single user mode,
4530 only the scripts in /etc/rcS.d/ are executed before the init process
4531 enters the single user state.  When switching to runlevel 1, the state
4532 is in fact not ending in runlevel 1, but it passes through runlevel 1
4533 and end up in the single user mode (see /etc/rc1.d/S03single, which
4534 runs "init -t1 S" to switch to single user mode at the end of runlevel
4535 1.  It is confusing that the 'S' (single user) init mode is not the
4536 mode enabled by /etc/rcS.d/ (which is more like the initial boot
4537 mode).</p>
4538
4539 <p>This summary might make it clearer.  When booting for the first
4540 time into single user mode, the following commands are executed:
4541 "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc S; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  When booting into
4542 runlevel 1, the following commands are executed: "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc
4543 S; /etc/init.d/rc 1; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  A problem show up when
4544 trying to continue after visiting single user mode.  Not all services
4545 are started again as they should, causing the machine to end up in an
4546 unpredicatble state.  This is why Debian admins recommend rebooting
4547 after visiting single user mode.</p>
4548
4549 <p>A similar problem with runlevel 1 is caused by the amount of
4550 scripts executed from /etc/rcS.d/.  When switching from say runlevel 2
4551 to runlevel 1, the services started from /etc/rcS.d/ are not properly
4552 stopped when passing through the scripts in /etc/rc1.d/, and not
4553 started again when switching away from runlevel 1 to the runlevels
4554 2-5.  I believe the problem is best fixed by moving all the scripts
4555 out of /etc/rcS.d/ that are not <strong>required</strong> to get a
4556 functioning single user mode during boot.</p>
4557
4558 <p>I have spent several years investigating the Debian boot system,
4559 and discovered this problem a few years ago.  I suspect it originates
4560 from when sysvinit was introduced into Debian, a long time ago.</p>
4561
4562       </div>
4563       <div class="tags">
4564
4565
4566         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>.
4567
4568
4569       </div>
4570     </div>
4571     <div class="padding"></div>
4572
4573     <div class="entry">
4574       <div class="title">
4575         <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>
4576       </div>
4577       <div class="date">
4578         30th July 2011
4579       </div>
4580       <div class="body">
4581         <p>In the Debian boot system, several packages include scripts that
4582 are started from /etc/rcS.d/.  In fact, there is a bite more of them
4583 than make sense, and this causes a few problems.  What kind of
4584 problems, you might ask.  There are at least two problems.  The first
4585 is that it is not possible to recover a machine after switching to
4586 runlevel 1.  One need to actually reboot to get the machine back to
4587 the expected state.  The other is that single user boot will sometimes
4588 run into problems because some of the subsystems are activated before
4589 the root login is presented, causing problems when trying to recover a
4590 machine from a problem in that subsystem.  A minor additional point is
4591 that moving more scripts out of rcS.d/ and into the other rc#.d/
4592 directories will increase the amount of scripts that can run in
4593 parallel during boot, and thus decrease the boot time.</p>
4594
4595 <p>So, which scripts should start from rcS.d/.  In short, only the
4596 scripts that _have_ to execute before the root login prompt is
4597 presented during a single user boot should go there.  Everything else
4598 should go into the numeric runlevels.  This means things like
4599 lm-sensors, fuse and x11-common should not run from rcS.d, but from
4600 the numeric runlevels.  Today in Debian, there are around 115 init.d
4601 scripts that are started from rcS.d/, and most of them should be moved
4602 out.  Do your package have one of them?  Please help us make single
4603 user and runlevel 1 better by moving it.</p>
4604
4605 <p>Scripts setting up the screen, keyboard, system partitions
4606 etc. should still be started from rcS.d/, but there is for example no
4607 need to have the network enabled before the single user login prompt
4608 is presented.</p>
4609
4610 <p>As always, things are not so easy to fix as they sound.  To keep
4611 Debian systems working while scripts migrate and during upgrades, the
4612 scripts need to be moved from rcS.d/ to rc2.d/ in reverse dependency
4613 order, ie the scripts that nothing in rcS.d/ depend on can be moved,
4614 and the next ones can only be moved when their dependencies have been
4615 moved first.  This migration must be done sequentially while we ensure
4616 that the package system upgrade packages in the right order to keep
4617 the system state correct.  This will require some coordination when it
4618 comes to network related packages, but most of the packages with
4619 scripts that should migrate do not have anything in rcS.d/ depending
4620 on them.  Some packages have already been updated, like the sudo
4621 package, while others are still left to do.  I wish I had time to work
4622 on this myself, but real live constrains make it unlikely that I will
4623 find time to push this forward.</p>
4624
4625       </div>
4626       <div class="tags">
4627
4628
4629         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>.
4630
4631
4632       </div>
4633     </div>
4634     <div class="padding"></div>
4635
4636     <div class="entry">
4637       <div class="title">
4638         <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>
4639       </div>
4640       <div class="date">
4641         29th July 2011
4642       </div>
4643       <div class="body">
4644         <p>While at Debconf11, I have several times during discussions
4645 mentioned the issues I believe should be improved in Debian for its
4646 desktop to be useful for more people.  The use case for this is my
4647 parents, which are currently running Kubuntu which solve the
4648 issues.</p>
4649
4650 <p>I suspect these four missing features are not very hard to
4651 implement.  After all, they are present in Ubuntu, so if we wanted to
4652 do this in Debian we would have a source.</p>
4653
4654 <ol>
4655
4656 <li><strong>Simple GUI based upgrade of packages.</strong> When there
4657 are new packages available for upgrades, a icon in the KDE status bar
4658 indicate this, and clicking on it will activate the simple upgrade
4659 tool to handle it.  I have no problem guiding both of my parents
4660 through the process over the phone.  If a kernel reboot is required,
4661 this too is indicated by the status bars and the upgrade tool.  Last
4662 time I checked, nothing with the same features was working in KDE in
4663 Debian.</li>
4664
4665 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing Firefox browser
4666 plugins.</strong> When the browser encounter a MIME type it do not
4667 currently have a handler for, it will ask the user if the system
4668 should search for a package that would add support for this MIME type,
4669 and if the user say yes, the APT sources will be searched for packages
4670 advertising the MIME type in their control file (visible in the
4671 Packages file in the APT archive).  If one or more packages are found,
4672 it is a simple click of the mouse to add support for the missing mime
4673 type.  If the package require the user to accept some non-free
4674 license, this is explained to the user.  The entire process make it
4675 more clear to the user why something do not work in the browser, and
4676 make the chances higher for the user to blame the web page authors and
4677 not the browser for any missing features.</li>
4678
4679 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing multimedia codec/format
4680 handlers.</strong> When the media players encounter a format or codec
4681 it is not supporting, a dialog pop up asking the user if the system
4682 should search for a package that would add support for it.  This
4683 happen with things like MP3, Windows Media or H.264.  The selection
4684 and installation procedure is very similar to the Firefox browser
4685 plugin handling.  This is as far as I know implemented using a
4686 gstreamer hook.  The end result is that the user easily get access to
4687 the codecs that are present from the APT archives available, while
4688 explaining more on why a given format is unsupported by Ubuntu.</li>
4689
4690 <li><strong>Better browser handling of some MIME types.</strong> When
4691 displaying a text/plain file in my Debian browser, it will propose to
4692 start emacs to show it.  If I remember correctly, when doing the same
4693 in Kunbutu it show the file as a text file in the browser.  At least I
4694 know Opera will show text files within the browser.  I much prefer the
4695 latter behaviour.</li>
4696
4697 </ol>
4698
4699 <p>There are other nice features as well, like the simplified suite
4700 upgrader, but given that I am the one mostly doing the dist-upgrade,
4701 it do not matter much.</p>
4702
4703 <p>I really hope we could get these features in place for the next
4704 Debian release.  It would require the coordinated effort of several
4705 maintainers, but would make the end user experience a lot better.</p>
4706
4707       </div>
4708       <div class="tags">
4709
4710
4711         Tags: <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>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
4712
4713
4714       </div>
4715     </div>
4716     <div class="padding"></div>
4717
4718     <div class="entry">
4719       <div class="title">
4720         <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>
4721       </div>
4722       <div class="date">
4723         26th July 2011
4724       </div>
4725       <div class="body">
4726         <p>The Norwegian <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</A>
4727 site is build on Debian/Squeeze, and this platform was chosen because
4728 I am most familiar with Debian (being a Debian Developer for around 10
4729 years) because it is the latest stable Debian release which should get
4730 security support for a few years.</p>
4731
4732 <p>The web service is written in Perl, and depend on some perl modules
4733 that are missing in Debian at the moment.  It would be great if these
4734 modules were added to the Debian archive, allowing anyone to set up
4735 their own <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com">FixMyStreet</a> clone
4736 in their own country using only Debian packages.  The list of modules
4737 missing in Debian/Squeeze isn't very long, and I hope the perl group
4738 will find time to package the 12 modules Catalyst::Plugin::SmartURI,
4739 Catalyst::Plugin::Unicode::Encoding, Catalyst::View::TT, Devel::Hide,
4740 Sort::Key, Statistics::Distributions, Template::Plugin::Comma,
4741 Template::Plugin::DateTime::Format, Term::Size::Any, Term::Size::Perl,
4742 URI::SmartURI and Web::Scraper to make the maintenance of FixMyStreet
4743 easier in the future.</p>
4744
4745 <p>Thanks to the great tools in Debian, getting the missing modules
4746 installed on my server was a simple call to 'cpan2deb Module::Name'
4747 and 'dpkg -i' to install the resulting package.  But this leave me
4748 with the responsibility of tracking security problems, which I really
4749 do not have time for.</p>
4750
4751       </div>
4752       <div class="tags">
4753
4754
4755         Tags: <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>.
4756
4757
4758       </div>
4759     </div>
4760     <div class="padding"></div>
4761
4762     <div class="entry">
4763       <div class="title">
4764         <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>
4765       </div>
4766       <div class="date">
4767          3rd April 2011
4768       </div>
4769       <div class="body">
4770         <p>Here is a small update for my English readers.  Most of my blog
4771 posts have been in Norwegian the last few weeks, so here is a short
4772 update in English.</p>
4773
4774 <p>The kids still keep me too busy to get much free software work
4775 done, but I did manage to organise a project to get a Norwegian port
4776 of the British service
4777 <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com/">FixMyStreet</a> up and running,
4778 and it has been running for a month now.  The entire project has been
4779 organised by me and two others.  Around Christmas we gathered sponsors
4780 to fund the development work.  In January I drafted a contract with
4781 <a href="http://www.mysociety.org/">mySociety</a> on what to develop,
4782 and in February the development took place.  Most of it involved
4783 converting the source to use GPS coordinates instead of British
4784 easting/northing, and the resulting code should be a lot easier to get
4785 running in any country by now.  The Norwegian
4786 <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</a> is using
4787 <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/">OpenStreetmap</a> as the map
4788 source and the source for administrative borders in Norway, and
4789 support for this had to be added/fixed.</p>
4790
4791 <p>The Norwegian version went live March 3th, and we spent the weekend
4792 polishing the system before we announced it March 7th.  The system is
4793 running on a KVM instance of Debian/Squeeze, and has seen almost 3000
4794 problem reports in a few weeks.  Soon we hope to announce the Android
4795 and iPhone versions making it even easier to report problems with the
4796 public infrastructure.</p>
4797
4798 <p>Perhaps something to consider for those of you in countries without
4799 such service?</p>
4800
4801       </div>
4802       <div class="tags">
4803
4804
4805         Tags: <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>.
4806
4807
4808       </div>
4809     </div>
4810     <div class="padding"></div>
4811
4812     <div class="entry">
4813       <div class="title">
4814         <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>
4815       </div>
4816       <div class="date">
4817         28th January 2011
4818       </div>
4819       <div class="body">
4820         <p>The last few days I have looked at ways to track open security
4821 issues here at my work with the University of Oslo.  My idea is that
4822 it should be possible to use the information about security issues
4823 available on the Internet, and check our locally
4824 maintained/distributed software against this information.  It should
4825 allow us to verify that no known security issues are forgotten.  The
4826 CVE database listing vulnerabilities seem like a great central point,
4827 and by using the package lists from Debian mapped to CVEs provided by
4828 the testing security team, I believed it should be possible to figure
4829 out which security holes were present in our free software
4830 collection.</p>
4831
4832 <p>After reading up on the topic, it became obvious that the first
4833 building block is to be able to name software packages in a unique and
4834 consistent way across data sources.  I considered several ways to do
4835 this, for example coming up with my own naming scheme like using URLs
4836 to project home pages or URLs to the Freshmeat entries, or using some
4837 existing naming scheme.  And it seem like I am not the first one to
4838 come across this problem, as MITRE already proposed and implemented a
4839 solution.  Enter the <a href="http://cpe.mitre.org/index.html">Common
4840 Platform Enumeration</a> dictionary, a vocabulary for referring to
4841 software, hardware and other platform components.  The CPE ids are
4842 mapped to CVEs in the <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/">National
4843 Vulnerability Database</a>, allowing me to look up know security
4844 issues for any CPE name.  With this in place, all I need to do is to
4845 locate the CPE id for the software packages we use at the university.
4846 This is fairly trivial (I google for 'cve cpe $package' and check the
4847 NVD entry if a CVE for the package exist).</p>
4848
4849 <p>To give you an example.  The GNU gzip source package have the CPE
4850 name cpe:/a:gnu:gzip.  If the old version 1.3.3 was the package to
4851 check out, one could look up
4852 <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
4853 in NVD</a> and get a list of 6 security holes with public CVE entries.
4854 The most recent one is
4855 <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/view/vuln/detail?vulnId=CVE-2010-0001">CVE-2010-0001</a>,
4856 and at the bottom of the NVD page for this vulnerability the complete
4857 list of affected versions is provided.</p>
4858
4859 <p>The NVD database of CVEs is also available as a XML dump, allowing
4860 for offline processing of issues.  Using this dump, I've written a
4861 small script taking a list of CPEs as input and list all CVEs
4862 affecting the packages represented by these CPEs.  One give it CPEs
4863 with version numbers as specified above and get a list of open
4864 security issues out.</p>
4865
4866 <p>Of course for this approach to be useful, the quality of the NVD
4867 information need to be high.  For that to happen, I believe as many as
4868 possible need to use and contribute to the NVD database.  I notice
4869 RHEL is providing
4870 <a href="https://www.redhat.com/security/data/metrics/rhsamapcpe.txt">a
4871 map from CVE to CPE</a>, indicating that they are using the CPE
4872 information.  I'm not aware of Debian and Ubuntu doing the same.</p>
4873
4874 <p>To get an idea about the quality for free software, I spent some
4875 time making it possible to compare the CVE database from Debian with
4876 the CVE database in NVD.  The result look fairly good, but there are
4877 some inconsistencies in NVD (same software package having several
4878 CPEs), and some inaccuracies (NVD not mentioning buggy packages that
4879 Debian believe are affected by a CVE).  Hope to find time to improve
4880 the quality of NVD, but that require being able to get in touch with
4881 someone maintaining it.  So far my three emails with questions and
4882 corrections have not seen any reply, but I hope contact can be
4883 established soon.</p>
4884
4885 <p>An interesting application for CPEs is cross platform package
4886 mapping.  It would be useful to know which packages in for example
4887 RHEL, OpenSuSe and Mandriva are missing from Debian and Ubuntu, and
4888 this would be trivial if all linux distributions provided CPE entries
4889 for their packages.</p>
4890
4891       </div>
4892       <div class="tags">
4893
4894
4895         Tags: <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>.
4896
4897
4898       </div>
4899     </div>
4900     <div class="padding"></div>
4901
4902     <div class="entry">
4903       <div class="title">
4904         <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>
4905       </div>
4906       <div class="date">
4907         23rd January 2011
4908       </div>
4909       <div class="body">
4910         <p>In the
4911 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/discover-data">discover-data</a>
4912 package in Debian, there is a script to report useful information
4913 about the running hardware for use when people report missing
4914 information.  One part of this script that I find very useful when
4915 debugging hardware problems, is the part mapping loaded kernel module
4916 to the PCI device it claims.  It allow me to quickly see if the kernel
4917 module I expect is driving the hardware I am struggling with.  To see
4918 the output, make sure discover-data is installed and run
4919 <tt>/usr/share/bug/discover-data 3>&1</tt>.  The relevant output on
4920 one of my machines like this:</p>
4921
4922 <pre>
4923 loaded modules:
4924 10de:03eb i2c_nforce2
4925 10de:03f1 ohci_hcd
4926 10de:03f2 ehci_hcd
4927 10de:03f0 snd_hda_intel
4928 10de:03ec pata_amd
4929 10de:03f6 sata_nv
4930 1022:1103 k8temp
4931 109e:036e bttv
4932 109e:0878 snd_bt87x
4933 11ab:4364 sky2
4934 </pre>
4935
4936 <p>The code in question look like this, slightly modified for
4937 readability and to drop the output to file descriptor 3:</p>
4938
4939 <pre>
4940 if [ -d /sys/bus/pci/devices/ ] ; then
4941     echo loaded pci modules:
4942     (
4943         cd /sys/bus/pci/devices/
4944         for address in * ; do
4945             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
4946                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
4947                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
4948                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
4949                     id=`lspci -n -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $3}'`
4950                     echo "$id $module"
4951                 fi
4952             fi
4953         done
4954     )
4955     echo
4956 fi
4957 </pre>
4958
4959 <p>Similar code could be used to extract USB device module
4960 mappings:</p>
4961
4962 <pre>
4963 if [ -d /sys/bus/usb/devices/ ] ; then
4964     echo loaded usb modules:
4965     (
4966         cd /sys/bus/usb/devices/
4967         for address in * ; do
4968             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
4969                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
4970                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
4971                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
4972                     id=$(lsusb -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $6}')
4973                     if [ "$id" ] ; then
4974                         echo "$id $module"
4975                     fi
4976                 fi
4977             fi
4978         done
4979     )
4980     echo
4981 fi
4982 </pre>
4983
4984 <p>This might perhaps be something to include in other tools as
4985 well.</p>
4986
4987       </div>
4988       <div class="tags">
4989
4990
4991         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
4992
4993
4994       </div>
4995     </div>
4996     <div class="padding"></div>
4997
4998     <div class="entry">
4999       <div class="title">
5000         <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>
5001       </div>
5002       <div class="date">
5003         22nd December 2010
5004       </div>
5005       <div class="body">
5006         <p>The last few days I have spent at work here at the <a
5007 href="http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo</a> testing if the new
5008 batch of computers will work with Linux.  Every year for the last few
5009 years the university have organised shared bid of a few thousand
5010 computers, and this year HP won the bid.  Two different desktops and
5011 five different laptops are on the list this year.  We in the UNIX
5012 group want to know which one of these computers work well with RHEL
5013 and Ubuntu, the two Linux distributions we currently handle at the
5014 university.</p>
5015
5016 <p>My test method is simple, and I share it here to get feedback and
5017 perhaps inspire others to test hardware as well.  To test, I PXE
5018 install the OS version of choice, and log in as my normal user and run
5019 a few applications and plug in selected pieces of hardware.  When
5020 something fail, I make a note about this in the test matrix and move
5021 on.  If I have some spare time I try to report the bug to the OS
5022 vendor, but as I only have the machines for a short time, I rarely
5023 have the time to do this for all the problems I find.</p>
5024
5025 <p>Anyway, to get to the point of this post.  Here is the simple tests
5026 I perform on a new model.</p>
5027
5028 <ul>
5029
5030 <li>Is PXE installation working?  I'm testing with RHEL6, Ubuntu Lucid
5031 and Ubuntu Maverik at the moment.  If I feel like it, I also test with
5032 RHEL5 and Debian Edu/Squeeze.</li>
5033
5034 <li>Is X.org working?  If the graphical login screen show up after
5035 installation, X.org is working.</li>
5036
5037 <li>Is hardware accelerated OpenGL working?  Running glxgears (in
5038 package mesa-utils on Ubuntu) and writing down the frames per second
5039 reported by the program.</li>
5040
5041 <li>Is sound working?  With Gnome and KDE, a sound is played when
5042 logging in, and if I can hear this the test is successful.  If there
5043 are several audio exits on the machine, I try them all and check if
5044 the Gnome/KDE audio mixer can control where to send the sound.  I
5045 normally test this by playing
5046 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20101012-chef/ ">a HTML5
5047 video</a> in Firefox/Iceweasel.</li>
5048
5049 <li>Is the USB subsystem working?  I test this by plugging in a USB
5050 memory stick and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
5051
5052 <li>Is the CD/DVD player working?  I test this by inserting any CD/DVD
5053 I have lying around, and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
5054
5055 <li>Is any built in camera working?  Test using cheese, and see if a
5056 picture from the v4l device show up.</li>
5057
5058 <li>Is bluetooth working?  Use the Gnome/KDE browsing tool to see if
5059 any bluetooth devices are discovered.  In my office, I normally see a
5060 few.</li>
5061
5062 <li>For laptops, is the SD or Compaq Flash reader working.  I have
5063 memory modules lying around, and stick them in and see if Gnome/KDE
5064 notice this.</li>
5065
5066 <li>For laptops, is suspend/hibernate working?  I'm testing if the
5067 special button work, and if the laptop continue to work after
5068 resume.</li>
5069
5070 <li>For laptops, is the extra buttons working, like audio level,
5071 adjusting background light, switching on/off external video output,
5072 switching on/off wifi, bluetooth, etc?  The set of buttons differ from
5073 laptop to laptop, so I just write down which are working and which are
5074 not.</li>
5075
5076 <li>Some laptops have smart card readers, finger print readers,
5077 acceleration sensors etc.  I rarely test these, as I do not know how
5078 to quickly test if they are working or not, so I only document their
5079 existence.</li>
5080
5081 </ul>
5082
5083 <p>By now I suspect you are really curious what the test results are
5084 for the HP machines I am testing.  I'm not done yet, so I will report
5085 the test results later.  For now I can report that HP 8100 Elite work
5086 fine, and hibernation fail with HP EliteBook 8440p on Ubuntu Lucid,
5087 and audio fail on RHEL6.  Ubuntu Maverik worked with 8440p.  As you
5088 can see, I have most machines left to test.  One interesting
5089 observation is that Ubuntu Lucid has almost twice the frame rate than
5090 RHEL6 with glxgears.  No idea why.</p>
5091
5092       </div>
5093       <div class="tags">
5094
5095
5096         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>.
5097
5098
5099       </div>
5100     </div>
5101     <div class="padding"></div>
5102
5103     <div class="entry">
5104       <div class="title">
5105         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Some_thoughts_on_BitCoins.html">Some thoughts on BitCoins</a>
5106       </div>
5107       <div class="date">
5108         11th December 2010
5109       </div>
5110       <div class="body">
5111         <p>As I continue to explore
5112 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>, I've starting to wonder
5113 what properties the system have, and how it will be affected by laws
5114 and regulations here in Norway.  Here are some random notes.</p>
5115
5116 <p>One interesting thing to note is that since the transactions are
5117 verified using a peer to peer network, all details about a transaction
5118 is known to everyone.  This means that if a BitCoin address has been
5119 published like I did with mine in my initial post about BitCoin, it is
5120 possible for everyone to see how many BitCoins have been transfered to
5121 that address.  There is even a web service to look at the details for
5122 all transactions.  There I can see that my address
5123 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a>
5124 have received 16.06 Bitcoin, the
5125 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3">1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3</a>
5126 address of Simon Phipps have received 181.97 BitCoin and the address
5127 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt">1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt</A>
5128 of EFF have received 2447.38 BitCoins so far.  Thank you to each and
5129 every one of you that donated bitcoins to support my activity. The
5130 fact that anyone can see how much money was transfered to a given
5131 address make it more obvious why the BitCoin community recommend to
5132 generate and hand out a new address for each transaction.  I'm told
5133 there is no way to track which addresses belong to a given person or
5134 organisation without the person or organisation revealing it
5135 themselves, as Simon, EFF and I have done.</p>
5136
5137 <p>In Norway, and in most other countries, there are laws and
5138 regulations limiting how much money one can transfer across the border
5139 without declaring it.  There are money laundering, tax and accounting
5140 laws and regulations I would expect to apply to the use of BitCoin.
5141 If the Skolelinux foundation
5142 (<a href="http://linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">SLX
5143 Debian Labs</a>) were to accept donations in BitCoin in addition to
5144 normal bank transfers like EFF is doing, how should this be accounted?
5145 Given that it is impossible to know if money can cross the border or
5146 not, should everything or nothing be declared?  What exchange rate
5147 should be used when calculating taxes?  Would receivers have to pay
5148 income tax if the foundation were to pay Skolelinux contributors in
5149 BitCoin?  I have no idea, but it would be interesting to know.</p>
5150
5151 <p>For a currency to be useful and successful, it must be trusted and
5152 accepted by a lot of users.  It must be possible to get easy access to
5153 the currency (as a wage or using currency exchanges), and it must be
5154 easy to spend it.  At the moment BitCoin seem fairly easy to get
5155 access to, but there are very few places to spend it.  I am not really
5156 a regular user of any of the vendor types currently accepting BitCoin,
5157 so I wonder when my kind of shop would start accepting BitCoins.  I
5158 would like to buy electronics, travels and subway tickets, not herbs
5159 and books. :) The currency is young, and this will improve over time
5160 if it become popular, but I suspect regular banks will start to lobby
5161 to get BitCoin declared illegal if it become popular.  I'm sure they
5162 will claim it is helping fund terrorism and money laundering (which
5163 probably would be true, as is any currency in existence), but I
5164 believe the problems should be solved elsewhere and not by blaming
5165 currencies.</p>
5166
5167 <p>The process of creating new BitCoins is called mining, and it is
5168 CPU intensive process that depend on a bit of luck as well (as one is
5169 competing against all the other miners currently spending CPU cycles
5170 to see which one get the next lump of cash).  The "winner" get 50
5171 BitCoin when this happen.  Yesterday I came across the obvious way to
5172 join forces to increase ones changes of getting at least some coins,
5173 by coordinating the work on mining BitCoins across several machines
5174 and people, and sharing the result if one is lucky and get the 50
5175 BitCoins.  Check out
5176 <a href="http://www.bluishcoder.co.nz/bitcoin-pool/">BitCoin Pool</a>
5177 if this sounds interesting.  I have not had time to try to set up a
5178 machine to participate there yet, but have seen that running on ones
5179 own for a few days have not yield any BitCoins througth mining
5180 yet.</p>
5181
5182 <p>Update 2010-12-15: Found an <a
5183 href="http://inertia.posterous.com/reply-to-the-underground-economist-why-bitcoi">interesting
5184 criticism</a> of bitcoin.  Not quite sure how valid it is, but thought
5185 it was interesting to read.  The arguments presented seem to be
5186 equally valid for gold, which was used as a currency for many years.</p>
5187
5188       </div>
5189       <div class="tags">
5190
5191
5192         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>.
5193
5194
5195       </div>
5196     </div>
5197     <div class="padding"></div>
5198
5199     <div class="entry">
5200       <div class="title">
5201         <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>
5202       </div>
5203       <div class="date">
5204         10th December 2010
5205       </div>
5206       <div class="body">
5207         <p>With this weeks lawless
5208 <a href="http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/06/wikileaks/index.html">governmental
5209 attacks</a> on Wikileak and
5210 <a href="http://www.salon.com/technology/dan_gillmor/2010/12/06/war_on_speech">free
5211 speech</a>, it has become obvious that PayPal, visa and mastercard can
5212 not be trusted to handle money transactions.
5213 A blog post from
5214 <a href="http://webmink.com/2010/12/06/now-accepting-bitcoin/">Simon
5215 Phipps on bitcoin</a> reminded me about a project that a friend of
5216 mine mentioned earlier.  I decided to follow Simon's example, and get
5217 involved with <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>.  I got
5218 some help from my friend to get it all running, and he even handed me
5219 some bitcoins to get started.  I even donated a few bitcoins to Simon
5220 for helping me remember BitCoin.</p>
5221
5222 <p>So, what is bitcoins, you probably wonder?  It is a digital
5223 crypto-currency, decentralised and handled using peer-to-peer
5224 networks.  It allows anonymous transactions and prohibits central
5225 control over the transactions, making it impossible for governments
5226 and companies alike to block donations and other transactions.  The
5227 source is free software, and while the key dependency wxWidgets 2.9
5228 for the graphical user interface is missing in Debian, the command
5229 line client builds just fine.  Hopefully Jonas
5230 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/578157">will get the package into
5231 Debian</a> soon.</p>
5232
5233 <p>Bitcoins can be converted to other currencies, like USD and EUR.
5234 There are <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/trade">companies accepting
5235 bitcoins</a> when selling services and goods, and there are even
5236 currency "stock" markets where the exchange rate is decided.  There
5237 are not many users so far, but the concept seems promising.  If you
5238 want to get started and lack a friend with any bitcoins to spare,
5239 you can even get
5240 <a href="https://freebitcoins.appspot.com/">some for free</a> (0.05
5241 bitcoin at the time of writing).  Use
5242 <a href="http://www.bitcoinwatch.com/">BitcoinWatch</a> to keep an eye
5243 on the current exchange rates.</p>
5244
5245 <p>As an experiment, I have decided to set up bitcoind on one of my
5246 machines.  If you want to support my activity, please send Bitcoin
5247 donations to the address
5248 <b>15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</b>.  Thank you!</p>
5249
5250       </div>
5251       <div class="tags">
5252
5253
5254         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>.
5255
5256
5257       </div>
5258     </div>
5259     <div class="padding"></div>
5260
5261     <div class="entry">
5262       <div class="title">
5263         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_isn_t_Debian_Edu_using_VLC_.html">Why isn't Debian Edu using VLC?</a>
5264       </div>
5265       <div class="date">
5266         27th November 2010
5267       </div>
5268       <div class="body">
5269         <p>In the latest issue of Linux Journal, the readers choices were
5270 presented, and the winner among the multimedia player were VLC.
5271 Personally, I like VLC, and it is my player of choice when I first try
5272 to play a video file or stream.  Only if VLC fail will I drag out
5273 gmplayer to see if it can do better.  The reason is mostly the failure
5274 model and trust.  When VLC fail, it normally pop up a error message
5275 reporting the problem.  When mplayer fail, it normally segfault or
5276 just hangs.  The latter failure mode drain my trust in the program.<p>
5277
5278 <p>But even if VLC is my player of choice, we have choosen to use
5279 mplayer in <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
5280 Edu/Skolelinux</a>.  The reason is simple.  We need a good browser
5281 plugin to play web videos seamlessly, and the VLC browser plugin is
5282 not very good.  For example, it lack in-line control buttons, so there
5283 is no way for the user to pause the video.  Also, when I
5284 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">last
5285 tested the browser plugins</a> available in Debian, the VLC plugin
5286 failed on several video pages where mplayer based plugins worked.  If
5287 the browser plugin for VLC was as good as the gecko-mediaplayer
5288 package (which uses mplayer), we would switch.</P>
5289
5290 <p>While VLC is a good player, its user interface is slightly
5291 annoying.  The most annoying feature is its inconsistent use of
5292 keyboard shortcuts.  When the player is in full screen mode, its
5293 shortcuts are different from when it is playing the video in a window.
5294 For example, space only work as pause when in full screen mode.  I
5295 wish it had consisten shortcuts and that space also would work when in
5296 window mode.  Another nice shortcut in gmplayer is [enter] to restart
5297 the current video.  It is very nice when playing short videos from the
5298 web and want to restart it when new people arrive to have a look at
5299 what is going on.</p>
5300
5301       </div>
5302       <div class="tags">
5303
5304
5305         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>.
5306
5307
5308       </div>
5309     </div>
5310     <div class="padding"></div>
5311
5312     <div class="entry">
5313       <div class="title">
5314         <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>
5315       </div>
5316       <div class="date">
5317         22nd November 2010
5318       </div>
5319       <div class="body">
5320         <p>Michael Biebl suggested to me on IRC, that I changed my automated
5321 upgrade testing of the
5322 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
5323 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a> to do <tt>apt-get autoremove</tt> when using apt-get.
5324 This seem like a very good idea, so I adjusted by test scripts and
5325 can now present the updated result from today:</p>
5326
5327 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
5328
5329 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
5330
5331 <blockquote><p>
5332   apache2.2-bin
5333   aptdaemon
5334   baobab
5335   binfmt-support
5336   browser-plugin-gnash
5337   cheese-common
5338   cli-common
5339   cups-pk-helper
5340   dmz-cursor-theme
5341   empathy
5342   empathy-common
5343   freedesktop-sound-theme
5344   freeglut3
5345   gconf-defaults-service
5346   gdm-themes
5347   gedit-plugins
5348   geoclue
5349   geoclue-hostip
5350   geoclue-localnet
5351   geoclue-manual
5352   geoclue-yahoo
5353   gnash
5354   gnash-common
5355   gnome
5356   gnome-backgrounds
5357   gnome-cards-data
5358   gnome-codec-install
5359   gnome-core
5360   gnome-desktop-environment
5361   gnome-disk-utility
5362   gnome-screenshot
5363   gnome-search-tool
5364   gnome-session-canberra
5365   gnome-system-log
5366   gnome-themes-extras
5367   gnome-themes-more
5368   gnome-user-share
5369   gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
5370   gstreamer0.10-tools
5371   gtk2-engines
5372   gtk2-engines-pixbuf
5373   gtk2-engines-smooth
5374   hamster-applet
5375   libapache2-mod-dnssd
5376   libapr1
5377   libaprutil1
5378   libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3
5379   libaprutil1-ldap
5380   libart2.0-cil
5381   libboost-date-time1.42.0
5382   libboost-python1.42.0
5383   libboost-thread1.42.0
5384   libchamplain-0.4-0
5385   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0
5386   libcheese-gtk18
5387   libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
5388   libcryptui0
5389   libdiscid0
5390   libelf1
5391   libepc-1.0-2
5392   libepc-common
5393   libepc-ui-1.0-2
5394   libfreerdp-plugins-standard
5395   libfreerdp0
5396   libgconf2.0-cil
5397   libgdata-common
5398   libgdata7
5399   libgdu-gtk0
5400   libgee2
5401   libgeoclue0
5402   libgexiv2-0
5403   libgif4
5404   libglade2.0-cil
5405   libglib2.0-cil
5406   libgmime2.4-cil
5407   libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
5408   libgnome2.24-cil
5409   libgnomepanel2.24-cil
5410   libgpod-common
5411   libgpod4
5412   libgtk2.0-cil
5413   libgtkglext1
5414   libgtksourceview2.0-common
5415   libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
5416   libmono-addins0.2-cil
5417   libmono-cairo2.0-cil
5418   libmono-corlib2.0-cil
5419   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil
5420   libmono-posix2.0-cil
5421   libmono-security2.0-cil
5422   libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
5423   libmono-system2.0-cil
5424   libmtp8
5425   libmusicbrainz3-6
5426   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil
5427   libndesk-dbus1.0-cil
5428   libopal3.6.8
5429   libpolkit-gtk-1-0
5430   libpt2.6.7
5431   libpython2.6
5432   librpm1
5433   librpmio1
5434   libsdl1.2debian
5435   libsrtp0
5436   libssh-4
5437   libtelepathy-farsight0
5438   libtelepathy-glib0
5439   libtidy-0.99-0
5440   media-player-info
5441   mesa-utils
5442   mono-2.0-gac
5443   mono-gac
5444   mono-runtime
5445   nautilus-sendto
5446   nautilus-sendto-empathy
5447   p7zip-full
5448   pkg-config
5449   python-aptdaemon
5450   python-aptdaemon-gtk
5451   python-axiom
5452   python-beautifulsoup
5453   python-bugbuddy
5454   python-clientform
5455   python-coherence
5456   python-configobj
5457   python-crypto
5458   python-cupshelpers
5459   python-elementtree
5460   python-epsilon
5461   python-evolution
5462   python-feedparser
5463   python-gdata
5464   python-gdbm
5465   python-gst0.10
5466   python-gtkglext1
5467   python-gtksourceview2
5468   python-httplib2
5469   python-louie
5470   python-mako
5471   python-markupsafe
5472   python-mechanize
5473   python-nevow
5474   python-notify
5475   python-opengl
5476   python-openssl
5477   python-pam
5478   python-pkg-resources
5479   python-pyasn1
5480   python-pysqlite2
5481   python-rdflib
5482   python-serial
5483   python-tagpy
5484   python-twisted-bin
5485   python-twisted-conch
5486   python-twisted-core
5487   python-twisted-web
5488   python-utidylib
5489   python-webkit
5490   python-xdg
5491   python-zope.interface
5492   remmina
5493   remmina-plugin-data
5494   remmina-plugin-rdp
5495   remmina-plugin-vnc
5496   rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
5497   rhythmbox-plugins
5498   rpm-common
5499   rpm2cpio
5500   seahorse-plugins
5501   shotwell
5502   software-center
5503   system-config-printer-udev
5504   telepathy-gabble
5505   telepathy-mission-control-5
5506   telepathy-salut
5507   tomboy
5508   totem
5509   totem-coherence
5510   totem-mozilla
5511   totem-plugins
5512   transmission-common
5513   xdg-user-dirs
5514   xdg-user-dirs-gtk
5515   xserver-xephyr
5516 </p></blockquote>
5517
5518 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
5519
5520 <blockquote><p>
5521   cheese
5522   ekiga
5523   eog
5524   epiphany-extensions
5525   evolution-exchange
5526   fast-user-switch-applet
5527   file-roller
5528   gcalctool
5529   gconf-editor
5530   gdm
5531   gedit
5532   gedit-common
5533   gnome-games
5534   gnome-games-data
5535   gnome-nettool
5536   gnome-system-tools
5537   gnome-themes
5538   gnuchess
5539   gucharmap
5540   guile-1.8-libs
5541   libavahi-ui0
5542   libdmx1
5543   libgalago3
5544   libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
5545   libgtksourceview2.0-0
5546   liblircclient0
5547   libsdl1.2debian-alsa
5548   libspeexdsp1
5549   libsvga1
5550   rhythmbox
5551   seahorse
5552   sound-juicer
5553   system-config-printer
5554   totem-common
5555   transmission-gtk
5556   vinagre
5557   vino
5558 </p></blockquote>
5559
5560 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
5561
5562 <blockquote><p>
5563   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
5564 </p></blockquote>
5565
5566 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
5567
5568 <blockquote><p>
5569 [nothing]
5570 </p></blockquote>
5571
5572 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
5573
5574 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
5575
5576 <blockquote><p>
5577   ksmserver
5578 </p></blockquote>
5579
5580 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
5581
5582 <blockquote><p>
5583   kwin
5584   network-manager-kde
5585 </p></blockquote>
5586
5587 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
5588
5589 <blockquote><p>
5590   arts
5591   dolphin
5592   freespacenotifier
5593   google-gadgets-gst
5594   google-gadgets-xul
5595   kappfinder
5596   kcalc
5597   kcharselect
5598   kde-core
5599   kde-plasma-desktop
5600   kde-standard
5601   kde-window-manager
5602   kdeartwork
5603   kdeartwork-emoticons
5604   kdeartwork-style
5605   kdeartwork-theme-icon
5606   kdebase
5607   kdebase-apps
5608   kdebase-workspace
5609   kdebase-workspace-bin
5610   kdebase-workspace-data
5611   kdeeject
5612   kdelibs
5613   kdeplasma-addons
5614   kdeutils
5615   kdewallpapers
5616   kdf
5617   kfloppy
5618   kgpg
5619   khelpcenter4
5620   kinfocenter
5621   konq-plugins-l10n
5622   konqueror-nsplugins
5623   kscreensaver
5624   kscreensaver-xsavers
5625   ktimer
5626   kwrite
5627   libgle3
5628   libkde4-ruby1.8
5629   libkonq5
5630   libkonq5-templates
5631   libnetpbm10
5632   libplasma-ruby
5633   libplasma-ruby1.8
5634   libqt4-ruby1.8
5635   marble-data
5636   marble-plugins
5637   netpbm
5638   nuvola-icon-theme
5639   plasma-dataengines-workspace
5640   plasma-desktop
5641   plasma-desktopthemes-artwork
5642   plasma-runners-addons
5643   plasma-scriptengine-googlegadgets
5644   plasma-scriptengine-python
5645   plasma-scriptengine-qedje
5646   plasma-scriptengine-ruby
5647   plasma-scriptengine-webkit
5648   plasma-scriptengines
5649   plasma-wallpapers-addons
5650   plasma-widget-folderview
5651   plasma-widget-networkmanagement
5652   ruby
5653   sweeper
5654   update-notifier-kde
5655   xscreensaver-data-extra
5656   xscreensaver-gl
5657   xscreensaver-gl-extra
5658   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
5659 </p></blockquote>
5660
5661 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
5662
5663 <blockquote><p>
5664   ark
5665   google-gadgets-common
5666   google-gadgets-qt
5667   htdig
5668   kate
5669   kdebase-bin
5670   kdebase-data
5671   kdepasswd
5672   kfind
5673   klipper
5674   konq-plugins
5675   konqueror
5676   ksysguard
5677   ksysguardd
5678   libarchive1
5679   libcln6
5680   libeet1
5681   libeina-svn-06
5682   libggadget-1.0-0b
5683   libggadget-qt-1.0-0b
5684   libgps19
5685   libkdecorations4
5686   libkephal4
5687   libkonq4
5688   libkonqsidebarplugin4a
5689   libkscreensaver5
5690   libksgrd4
5691   libksignalplotter4
5692   libkunitconversion4
5693   libkwineffects1a
5694   libmarblewidget4
5695   libntrack-qt4-1
5696   libntrack0
5697   libplasma-geolocation-interface4
5698   libplasmaclock4a
5699   libplasmagenericshell4
5700   libprocesscore4a
5701   libprocessui4a
5702   libqalculate5
5703   libqedje0a
5704   libqtruby4shared2
5705   libqzion0a
5706   libruby1.8
5707   libscim8c2a
5708   libsmokekdecore4-3
5709   libsmokekdeui4-3
5710   libsmokekfile3
5711   libsmokekhtml3
5712   libsmokekio3
5713   libsmokeknewstuff2-3
5714   libsmokeknewstuff3-3
5715   libsmokekparts3
5716   libsmokektexteditor3
5717   libsmokekutils3
5718   libsmokenepomuk3
5719   libsmokephonon3
5720   libsmokeplasma3
5721   libsmokeqtcore4-3
5722   libsmokeqtdbus4-3
5723   libsmokeqtgui4-3
5724   libsmokeqtnetwork4-3
5725   libsmokeqtopengl4-3
5726   libsmokeqtscript4-3
5727   libsmokeqtsql4-3
5728   libsmokeqtsvg4-3
5729   libsmokeqttest4-3
5730   libsmokeqtuitools4-3
5731   libsmokeqtwebkit4-3
5732   libsmokeqtxml4-3
5733   libsmokesolid3
5734   libsmokesoprano3
5735   libtaskmanager4a
5736   libtidy-0.99-0
5737   libweather-ion4a
5738   libxklavier16
5739   libxxf86misc1
5740   okteta
5741   oxygencursors
5742   plasma-dataengines-addons
5743   plasma-scriptengine-superkaramba
5744   plasma-widget-lancelot
5745   plasma-widgets-addons
5746   plasma-widgets-workspace
5747   polkit-kde-1
5748   ruby1.8
5749   systemsettings
5750   update-notifier-common
5751 </p></blockquote>
5752
5753 <p>Running apt-get autoremove made the results using apt-get and
5754 aptitude a bit more similar, but there are still quite a lott of
5755 differences.  I have no idea what packages should be installed after
5756 the upgrade, but hope those that do can have a look.</p>
5757
5758       </div>
5759       <div class="tags">
5760
5761
5762         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>.
5763
5764
5765       </div>
5766     </div>
5767     <div class="padding"></div>
5768
5769     <div class="entry">
5770       <div class="title">
5771         <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>
5772       </div>
5773       <div class="date">
5774         22nd November 2010
5775       </div>
5776       <div class="body">
5777         <p>Most of the computers in use by the
5778 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux project</a>
5779 are virtual machines.  And they have been Xen machines running on a
5780 fairly old IBM eserver xseries 345 machine, and we wanted to migrate
5781 them to KVM on a newer Dell PowerEdge 2950 host machine.  This was a
5782 bit harder that it could have been, because we set up the Xen virtual
5783 machines to get the virtual partitions from LVM, which as far as I
5784 know is not supported by KVM.  So to migrate, we had to convert
5785 several LVM logical volumes to partitions on a virtual disk file.</p>
5786
5787 <p>I found
5788 <a href="http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM">a
5789 nice recipe</a> to do this, and wrote the following script to do the
5790 migration.  It uses qemu-img from the qemu package to make the disk
5791 image, parted to partition it, losetup and kpartx to present the disk
5792 image partions as devices, and dd to copy the data.  I NFS mounted the
5793 new servers storage area on the old server to do the migration.</p>
5794
5795 <pre>
5796 #!/bin/sh
5797
5798 # Based on
5799 # http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM
5800
5801 set -e
5802 set -x
5803
5804 if [ -z "$1" ] ; then
5805     echo "Usage: $0 &lt;hostname&gt;"
5806     exit 1
5807 else
5808     host="$1"
5809 fi
5810
5811 if [ ! -e /dev/vg_data/$host-disk ] ; then
5812     echo "error: unable to find LVM volume for $host"
5813     exit 1
5814 fi
5815
5816 # Partitions need to be a bit bigger than the LVM LVs.  not sure why.
5817 disksize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-disk | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
5818 swapsize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-swap | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
5819 totalsize=$(( ( $disksize + $swapsize ) ))
5820
5821 img=$host.img
5822 #dd if=/dev/zero of=$img bs=1M count=$(( $disksize + $swapsize ))
5823 qemu-img create $img ${totalsize}MMaking room on the Debian Edu/Sqeeze DVD
5824
5825 parted $img mklabel msdos
5826 parted $img mkpart primary linux-swap 0 $disksize
5827 parted $img mkpart primary ext2 $disksize $totalsize
5828 parted $img set 1 boot on
5829
5830 modprobe dm-mod
5831 losetup /dev/loop0 $img
5832 kpartx -a /dev/loop0
5833
5834 dd if=/dev/vg_data/$host-disk of=/dev/mapper/loop0p1 bs=1M
5835 fsck.ext3 -f /dev/mapper/loop0p1 || true
5836 mkswap /dev/mapper/loop0p2
5837
5838 kpartx -d /dev/loop0
5839 losetup -d /dev/loop0
5840 </pre>
5841
5842 <p>The script is perhaps so simple that it is not copyrightable, but
5843 if it is, it is licenced using GPL v2 or later at your discretion.</p>
5844
5845 <p>After doing this, I booted a Debian CD in rescue mode in KVM with
5846 the new disk image attached, installed grub-pc and linux-image-686 and
5847 set up grub to boot from the disk image.  After this, the KVM machines
5848 seem to work just fine.</p>
5849
5850       </div>
5851       <div class="tags">
5852
5853
5854         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>.
5855
5856
5857       </div>
5858     </div>
5859     <div class="padding"></div>
5860
5861     <div class="entry">
5862       <div class="title">
5863         <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>
5864       </div>
5865       <div class="date">
5866         20th November 2010
5867       </div>
5868       <div class="body">
5869         <p>I'm still running upgrade testing of the
5870 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
5871 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a>, but have not had time to spend on reporting the
5872 status.  Here is a short update based on a test I ran 20101118.</p>
5873
5874 <p>I still do not know what a correct migration should look like, so I
5875 report any differences between apt and aptitude and hope someone else
5876 can see if anything should be changed.</p>
5877
5878 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
5879
5880 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
5881
5882 <blockquote><p>
5883   apache2.2-bin aptdaemon at-spi baobab binfmt-support
5884   browser-plugin-gnash cheese-common cli-common cpp-4.3 cups-pk-helper
5885   dmz-cursor-theme empathy empathy-common finger
5886   freedesktop-sound-theme freeglut3 gconf-defaults-service gdm-themes
5887   gedit-plugins geoclue geoclue-hostip geoclue-localnet geoclue-manual
5888   geoclue-yahoo gnash gnash-common gnome gnome-backgrounds
5889   gnome-cards-data gnome-codec-install gnome-core
5890   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-disk-utility gnome-screenshot
5891   gnome-search-tool gnome-session-canberra gnome-spell
5892   gnome-system-log gnome-themes-extras gnome-themes-more
5893   gnome-user-share gs-common gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
5894   gstreamer0.10-tools gtk2-engines gtk2-engines-pixbuf
5895   gtk2-engines-smooth hal-info hamster-applet libapache2-mod-dnssd
5896   libapr1 libaprutil1 libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3 libaprutil1-ldap
5897   libart2.0-cil libatspi1.0-0 libboost-date-time1.42.0
5898   libboost-python1.42.0 libboost-thread1.42.0 libchamplain-0.4-0
5899   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0 libcheese-gtk18 libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
5900   libcryptui0 libcupsys2 libdiscid0 libeel2-data libelf1 libepc-1.0-2
5901   libepc-common libepc-ui-1.0-2 libfreerdp-plugins-standard
5902   libfreerdp0 libgail-common libgconf2.0-cil libgdata-common libgdata7
5903   libgdl-1-common libgdu-gtk0 libgee2 libgeoclue0 libgexiv2-0 libgif4
5904   libglade2.0-cil libglib2.0-cil libgmime2.4-cil libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
5905   libgnome2.24-cil libgnomepanel2.24-cil libgnomeprint2.2-data
5906   libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod-common libgpod4
5907   libgtk2.0-cil libgtkglext1 libgtksourceview-common
5908   libgtksourceview2.0-common libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
5909   libmono-addins0.2-cil libmono-cairo2.0-cil libmono-corlib2.0-cil
5910   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil libmono-posix2.0-cil
5911   libmono-security2.0-cil libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
5912   libmono-system2.0-cil libmtp8 libmusicbrainz3-6
5913   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil libndesk-dbus1.0-cil libopal3.6.8
5914   libpolkit-gtk-1-0 libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
5915   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libpt2.6.7 libpython2.6 librpm1 librpmio1
5916   libsdl1.2debian libservlet2.4-java libsrtp0 libssh-4
5917   libtelepathy-farsight0 libtelepathy-glib0 libtidy-0.99-0
5918   libxalan2-java libxerces2-java media-player-info mesa-utils
5919   mono-2.0-gac mono-gac mono-runtime nautilus-sendto
5920   nautilus-sendto-empathy openoffice.org-writer2latex
5921   openssl-blacklist p7zip p7zip-full pkg-config python-4suite-xml
5922   python-aptdaemon python-aptdaemon-gtk python-axiom
5923   python-beautifulsoup python-bugbuddy python-clientform
5924   python-coherence python-configobj python-crypto python-cupshelpers
5925   python-cupsutils python-eggtrayicon python-elementtree
5926   python-epsilon python-evolution python-feedparser python-gdata
5927   python-gdbm python-gst0.10 python-gtkglext1 python-gtkmozembed
5928   python-gtksourceview2 python-httplib2 python-louie python-mako
5929   python-markupsafe python-mechanize python-nevow python-notify
5930   python-opengl python-openssl python-pam python-pkg-resources
5931   python-pyasn1 python-pysqlite2 python-rdflib python-serial
5932   python-tagpy python-twisted-bin python-twisted-conch
5933   python-twisted-core python-twisted-web python-utidylib python-webkit
5934   python-xdg python-zope.interface remmina remmina-plugin-data
5935   remmina-plugin-rdp remmina-plugin-vnc rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
5936   rhythmbox-plugins rpm-common rpm2cpio seahorse-plugins shotwell
5937   software-center svgalibg1 system-config-printer-udev
5938   telepathy-gabble telepathy-mission-control-5 telepathy-salut tomboy
5939   totem totem-coherence totem-mozilla totem-plugins
5940   transmission-common xdg-user-dirs xdg-user-dirs-gtk xserver-xephyr
5941   zip
5942 </p></blockquote>
5943
5944 Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude
5945
5946 <blockquote><p>
5947   arj bluez-utils cheese dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop ekiga eog
5948   epiphany-extensions epiphany-gecko evolution-exchange
5949   fast-user-switch-applet file-roller gcalctool gconf-editor gdm gedit
5950   gedit-common gnome-app-install gnome-games gnome-games-data
5951   gnome-nettool gnome-system-tools gnome-themes gnome-utils
5952   gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager gnuchess gucharmap
5953   guile-1.8-libs hal libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5
5954   libavahi-ui0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7
5955   libcucul0 libcurl3 libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdmx1 libdvdread3
5956   libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1
5957   libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3 libfaad0 libgadu3
5958   libgalago3 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
5959   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
5960   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
5961   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
5962   libgtkhtml2-0 libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgtksourceview2.0-0
5963   libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
5964   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libkpathsea4 liblircclient0 libltdl3 liblwres50
5965   libmagick++10 libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmozjs1d libmpfr1ldbl libmtp7
5966   libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0
5967   libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpisock9
5968   libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8
5969   libsdl1.2debian-alsa libsensors3 libsexy2 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
5970   libspeexdsp1 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libsvga1
5971   libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0
5972   libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12
5973   libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common rhythmbox seahorse
5974   sound-juicer swfdec-gnome system-config-printer totem-common
5975   totem-gstreamer transmission-gtk vinagre vino w3c-dtd-xhtml wodim
5976 </p></blockquote>
5977
5978 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
5979
5980 <blockquote><p>
5981   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
5982 </p></blockquote>
5983
5984 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
5985
5986 <blockquote><p>
5987 [nothing]
5988 </p></blockquote>
5989
5990 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
5991
5992 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
5993
5994 <blockquote><p>
5995   autopoint bomber bovo cantor cantor-backend-kalgebra cpp-4.3 dcoprss
5996   edict espeak espeak-data eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
5997   ghostscript-x git gnome-audio gnugo granatier gs-common
5998   gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio indi kaddressbook-plugins kalgebra
5999   kalzium-data kanjidic kapman kate-plugins kblocks kbreakout kbstate
6000   kde-icons-mono kdeaccessibility kdeaddons-kfile-plugins
6001   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
6002   kdeedu kdeedu-data kdeedu-kvtml-data kdegames kdegames-card-data
6003   kdegames-mahjongg-data kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc
6004   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
6005   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdessh kdetoys kdewebdev
6006   kdiamond kdnssd kfilereplace kfourinline kgeography-data kigo
6007   killbots kiriki klettres-data kmoon kmrml knewsticker-scripts
6008   kollision kpf krosspython ksirk ksmserver ksquares kstars-data
6009   ksudoku kubrick kweather libasound2-plugins libboost-python1.42.0
6010   libcfitsio3 libconvert-binhex-perl libcrypt-ssleay-perl libdb4.6++
6011   libdjvulibre-text libdotconf1.0 liberror-perl libespeak1
6012   libfinance-quote-perl libgail-common libgsl0ldbl libhtml-parser-perl
6013   libhtml-tableextract-perl libhtml-tagset-perl libhtml-tree-perl
6014   libio-stringy-perl libkdeedu4 libkdegames5 libkiten4 libkpathsea5
6015   libkrossui4 libmailtools-perl libmime-tools-perl
6016   libnews-nntpclient-perl libopenbabel3 libportaudio2 libpulse-browse0
6017   libservlet2.4-java libspeechd2 libtiff-tools libtimedate-perl
6018   libunistring0 liburi-perl libwww-perl libxalan2-java libxerces2-java
6019   lirc luatex marble networkstatus noatun-plugins
6020   openoffice.org-writer2latex palapeli palapeli-data parley
6021   parley-data poster psutils pulseaudio pulseaudio-esound-compat
6022   pulseaudio-module-x11 pulseaudio-utils quanta-data rocs rsync
6023   speech-dispatcher step svgalibg1 texlive-binaries texlive-luatex
6024   ttf-sazanami-gothic
6025 </p></blockquote>
6026
6027 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
6028
6029 <blockquote><p>
6030   amor artsbuilder atlantik atlantikdesigner blinken bluez-utils cvs
6031   dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop imlib-base imlib11 kalzium kanagram kandy
6032   kasteroids katomic kbackgammon kbattleship kblackbox kbounce kbruch
6033   kcron kdat kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data kdeprint kdict kdvi kedit
6034   keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs kgeography kghostview
6035   kgoldrunner khangman khexedit kiconedit kig kimagemapeditor
6036   kitchensync kiten kjumpingcube klatin klettres klickety klines
6037   klinkstatus kmag kmahjongg kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmines
6038   kmousetool kmouth kmplot knetwalk kodo kolf kommander konquest kooka
6039   kpager kpat kpdf kpercentage kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler krec
6040   kregexpeditor kreversi ksame ksayit kshisen ksig ksim ksirc ksirtet
6041   ksmiletris ksnake ksokoban kspaceduel kstars ksvg ksysv kteatime
6042   ktip ktnef ktouch ktron kttsd ktuberling kturtle ktux kuickshow
6043   kverbos kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kwordquiz
6044   kworldclock kxsldbg libakode2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
6045   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
6046   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2
6047   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0
6048   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
6049   libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0 libicu38
6050   libiec61883-0 libindex0 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
6051   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1 libkdeedu3
6052   libkdegames1 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
6053   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
6054   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick10
6055   libmimelib1c2a libmodplug0c2 libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libmpfr1ldbl
6056   libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9 libpoppler-glib3
6057   libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 librss1 libsensors3
6058   libsmbios2 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90
6059   libtalloc1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 lskat
6060   mpeglib network-manager-kde noatun pmount tex-common texlive-base
6061   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended tidy
6062   ttf-dustin ttf-kochi-gothic ttf-sjfonts
6063 </p></blockquote>
6064
6065 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
6066
6067 <blockquote><p>
6068   dolphin kde-core kde-plasma-desktop kde-standard kde-window-manager
6069   kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-apps kdebase-workspace
6070   kdebase-workspace-bin kdebase-workspace-data kdeutils kscreensaver
6071   kscreensaver-xsavers libgle3 libkonq5 libkonq5-templates libnetpbm10
6072   netpbm plasma-widget-folderview plasma-widget-networkmanagement
6073   xscreensaver-data-extra xscreensaver-gl xscreensaver-gl-extra
6074   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
6075 </p></blockquote>
6076
6077 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
6078
6079 <blockquote><p>
6080   kdebase-bin konq-plugins konqueror
6081 </p></blockquote>
6082
6083       </div>
6084       <div class="tags">
6085
6086
6087         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>.
6088
6089
6090       </div>
6091     </div>
6092     <div class="padding"></div>
6093
6094     <div class="entry">
6095       <div class="title">
6096         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gnash_buildbot_slave_and_Debian_kfreebsd.html">Gnash buildbot slave and Debian kfreebsd</a>
6097       </div>
6098       <div class="date">
6099         20th November 2010
6100       </div>
6101       <div class="body">
6102         <p>Answering
6103 <a href="http://www.listware.net/201011/gnash-dev/67431-gnash-dev-buildbot-looking-for-slaves.html">the
6104 call from the Gnash project</a> for
6105 <a href="http://www.gnashdev.org:8010">buildbot</a> slaves to test the
6106 current source, I have set up a virtual KVM machine on the Debian
6107 Edu/Skolelinux virtualization host to test the git source on
6108 Debian/Squeeze.  I hope this can help the developers in getting new
6109 releases out more often.</p>
6110
6111 <p>As the developers want less main-stream build platforms tested to,
6112 I have considered setting up a <a
6113 href="http://www.debian.org/ports/kfreebsd-gnu/">Debian/kfreebsd</a>
6114 machine as well.  I have also considered using the kfreebsd
6115 architecture in Debian as a file server in NUUG to get access to the 5
6116 TB zfs volume we currently use to store DV video.  Because of this, I
6117 finally got around to do a test installation of Debian/Squeeze with
6118 kfreebsd.  Installation went fairly smooth, thought I noticed some
6119 visual glitches in the cdebconf dialogs (black cursor left on the
6120 screen at random locations).  Have not gotten very far with the
6121 testing.  Noticed cfdisk did not work, but fdisk did so it was not a
6122 fatal problem.  Have to spend some more time on it to see if it is
6123 useful as a file server for NUUG.  Will try to find time to set up a
6124 gnash buildbot slave on the Debian Edu/Skolelinux this weekend.</p>
6125
6126       </div>
6127       <div class="tags">
6128
6129
6130         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>.
6131
6132
6133       </div>
6134     </div>
6135     <div class="padding"></div>
6136
6137     <div class="entry">
6138       <div class="title">
6139         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_in_3D.html">Debian in 3D</a>
6140       </div>
6141       <div class="date">
6142          9th November 2010
6143       </div>
6144       <div class="body">
6145         <p><img src="http://thingiverse-production.s3.amazonaws.com/renders/23/e0/c4/f9/2b/debswagtdose_preview_medium.jpg"></p>
6146
6147 <p>3D printing is just great.  I just came across this Debian logo in
6148 3D linked in from
6149 <a href="http://blog.thingiverse.com/2010/11/09/participatory-branding/">the
6150 thingiverse blog</a>.</p>
6151
6152       </div>
6153       <div class="tags">
6154
6155
6156         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>.
6157
6158
6159       </div>
6160     </div>
6161     <div class="padding"></div>
6162
6163     <div class="entry">
6164       <div class="title">
6165         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Software_updates_2010_10_24.html">Software updates 2010-10-24</a>
6166       </div>
6167       <div class="date">
6168         24th October 2010
6169       </div>
6170       <div class="body">
6171         <p>Some updates.</p>
6172
6173 <p>My <a href="http://pledgebank.com/gnash-avm2">gnash pledge</a> to
6174 raise money for the project is going well.  The lower limit of 10
6175 signers was reached in 24 hours, and so far 13 people have signed it.
6176 More signers and more funding is most welcome, and I am really curious
6177 how far we can get before the time limit of December 24 is reached.
6178 :)</p>
6179
6180 <p>On the #gnash IRC channel on irc.freenode.net, I was just tipped
6181 about what appear to be a great code coverage tool capable of
6182 generating code coverage stats without any changes to the source code.
6183 It is called
6184 <a href="http://simonkagstrom.github.com/kcov/index.html">kcov</a>,
6185 and can be used using <tt>kcov &lt;directory&gt; &lt;binary&gt;</tt>.
6186 It is missing in Debian, but the git source built just fine in Squeeze
6187 after I installed libelf-dev, libdwarf-dev, pkg-config and
6188 libglib2.0-dev.  Failed to build in Lenny, but suspect that is
6189 solvable.  I hope kcov make it into Debian soon.</p>
6190
6191 <p>Finally found time to wrap up the release notes for <a
6192 href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2010/10/msg00002.html">a
6193 new alpha release of Debian Edu</a>, and just published the second
6194 alpha test release of the Squeeze based Debian Edu /
6195 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a>
6196 release.  Give it a try if you need a complete linux solution for your
6197 school, including central infrastructure server, workstations, thin
6198 client servers and diskless workstations.  A nice touch added
6199 yesterday is RDP support on the thin client servers, for windows
6200 clients to get a Linux desktop on request.</p>
6201
6202       </div>
6203       <div class="tags">
6204
6205
6206         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>.
6207
6208
6209       </div>
6210     </div>
6211     <div class="padding"></div>
6212
6213     <div class="entry">
6214       <div class="title">
6215         <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>
6216       </div>
6217       <div class="date">
6218          4th September 2010
6219       </div>
6220       <div class="body">
6221         <p>In the <a href="http://popcon.debian.org/unknown/by_vote">Debian
6222 popularity-contest numbers</a>, the adobe-flashplugin package the
6223 second most popular used package that is missing in Debian.  The sixth
6224 most popular is flashplayer-mozilla.  This is a clear indication that
6225 working flash is important for Debian users.  Around 10 percent of the
6226 users submitting data to popcon.debian.org have this package
6227 installed.</p>
6228
6229 <p>In the report written by Lars Risan in August 2008
6230 («<a href="http://wiki.skolelinux.no/Dokumentasjon/Rapporter?action=AttachFile&do=view&target=Skolelinux_i_bruk_rapport_1.0.pdf">Skolelinux
6231 i bruk – Rapport for Hurum kommune, Universitetet i Agder og
6232 stiftelsen SLX Debian Labs</a>»), one of the most important problems
6233 schools experienced with <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
6234 Edu/Skolelinux</a> was the lack of working Flash.  A lot of educational
6235 web sites require Flash to work, and lacking working Flash support in
6236 the web browser and the problems with installing it was perceived as a
6237 good reason to stay with Windows.</p>
6238
6239 <p>I once saw a funny and sad comment in a web forum, where Linux was
6240 said to be the retarded cousin that did not really understand
6241 everything you told him but could work fairly well.  This was a
6242 comment regarding the problems Linux have with proprietary formats and
6243 non-standard web pages, and is sad because it exposes a fairly common
6244 understanding of whose fault it is if web pages that only work in for
6245 example Internet Explorer 6 fail to work on Firefox, and funny because
6246 it explain very well how annoying it is for users when Linux
6247 distributions do not work with the documents they receive or the web
6248 pages they want to visit.</p>
6249
6250 <p>This is part of the reason why I believe it is important for Debian
6251 and Debian Edu to have a well working Flash implementation in the
6252 distribution, to get at least popular sites as Youtube and Google
6253 Video to working out of the box.  For Squeeze, Debian have the chance
6254 to include the latest version of Gnash that will make this happen, as
6255 the new release 0.8.8 was published a few weeks ago and is resting in
6256 unstable.  The new version work with more sites that version 0.8.7.
6257 The Gnash maintainers have asked for a freeze exception, but the
6258 release team have not had time to reply to it yet.  I hope they agree
6259 with me that Flash is important for the Debian desktop users, and thus
6260 accept the new package into Squeeze.</p>
6261
6262       </div>
6263       <div class="tags">
6264
6265
6266         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>.
6267
6268
6269       </div>
6270     </div>
6271     <div class="padding"></div>
6272
6273     <div class="entry">
6274       <div class="title">
6275         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Circular_package_dependencies_harms_apt_recovery.html">Circular package dependencies harms apt recovery</a>
6276       </div>
6277       <div class="date">
6278         27th July 2010
6279       </div>
6280       <div class="body">
6281         <p>I discovered this while doing
6282 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">automated
6283 testing of upgrades from Debian Lenny to Squeeze</a>.  A few packages
6284 in Debian still got circular dependencies, and it is often claimed
6285 that apt and aptitude should be able to handle this just fine, but
6286 some times these dependency loops causes apt to fail.</p>
6287
6288 <p>An example is from todays
6289 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing//test-20100727-lenny-squeeze-kde-aptitude.txt">upgrade
6290 of KDE using aptitude</a>.  In it, a bug in kdebase-workspace-data
6291 causes perl-modules to fail to upgrade.  The cause is simple.  If a
6292 package fail to unpack, then only part of packages with the circular
6293 dependency might end up being unpacked when unpacking aborts, and the
6294 ones already unpacked will fail to configure in the recovery phase
6295 because its dependencies are unavailable.</p>
6296
6297 <p>In this log, the problem manifest itself with this error:</p>
6298
6299 <blockquote><pre>
6300 dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of perl-modules:
6301  perl-modules depends on perl (>= 5.10.1-1); however:
6302   Version of perl on system is 5.10.0-19lenny2.
6303 dpkg: error processing perl-modules (--configure):
6304  dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
6305 </pre></blockquote>
6306
6307 <p>The perl/perl-modules circular dependency is already
6308 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/527917">reported as a bug</a>, and will
6309 hopefully be solved as soon as possible, but it is not the only one,
6310 and each one of these loops in the dependency tree can cause similar
6311 failures.  Of course, they only occur when there are bugs in other
6312 packages causing the unpacking to fail, but it is rather nasty when
6313 the failure of one package causes the problem to become worse because
6314 of dependency loops.</p>
6315
6316 <p>Thanks to
6317 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/06/msg00116.html">the
6318 tireless effort by Bill Allombert</a>, the number of circular
6319 dependencies
6320 <a href="http://debian.semistable.com/debgraph.out.html">left in Debian
6321 is dropping</a>, and perhaps it will reach zero one day. :)</p>
6322
6323 <p>Todays testing also exposed a bug in
6324 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590605">update-notifier</a> and
6325 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590604">different behaviour</a> between
6326 apt-get and aptitude, the latter possibly caused by some circular
6327 dependency.  Reported both to BTS to try to get someone to look at
6328 it.</p>
6329
6330       </div>
6331       <div class="tags">
6332
6333
6334         Tags: <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>.
6335
6336
6337       </div>
6338     </div>
6339     <div class="padding"></div>
6340
6341     <div class="entry">
6342       <div class="title">
6343         <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>
6344       </div>
6345       <div class="date">
6346         17th July 2010
6347       </div>
6348       <div class="body">
6349         <p>This is a
6350 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">followup</a>
6351 on my
6352 <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
6353 work</a> on
6354 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">merging
6355 all</a> the computer related LDAP objects in Debian Edu.</p>
6356
6357 <p>As a step to try to see if it possible to merge the DNS and DHCP
6358 LDAP objects, I have had a look at how the packages pdns-backend-ldap
6359 and dhcp3-server-ldap in Debian use the LDAP server.  The two
6360 implementations are quite different in how they use LDAP.</p>
6361
6362 To get this information, I started slapd with debugging enabled and
6363 dumped the debug output to a file to get the LDAP searches performed
6364 on a Debian Edu main-server.  Here is a summary.
6365
6366 <p><strong>powerdns</strong></p>
6367
6368 <a href="http://www.linuxnetworks.de/doc/index.php/PowerDNS_LDAP_Backend">Clues
6369 on how to</a> set up PowerDNS to use a LDAP backend is available on
6370 the web.
6371
6372 <p>PowerDNS have two modes of operation using LDAP as its backend.
6373 One "strict" mode where the forward and reverse DNS lookups are done
6374 using the same LDAP objects, and a "tree" mode where the forward and
6375 reverse entries are in two different subtrees in LDAP with a structure
6376 based on the DNS names, as in tjener.intern and
6377 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa.</p>
6378
6379 <p>In tree mode, the server is set up to use a LDAP subtree as its
6380 base, and uses a "base" scoped search for the DNS name by adding
6381 "dc=tjener,dc=intern," to the base with a filter for
6382 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" for the forward entry and
6383 "dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa," with a filter for
6384 "(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)" for the reverse entry.  For
6385 forward entries, it is looking for attributes named dnsttl, arecord,
6386 nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord,
6387 txtrecord, rprecord, afsdbrecord, keyrecord, aaaarecord, locrecord,
6388 srvrecord, naptrrecord, kxrecord, certrecord, dsrecord, sshfprecord,
6389 ipseckeyrecord, rrsigrecord, nsecrecord, dnskeyrecord, dhcidrecord,
6390 spfrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entries it is looking for
6391 the attributes dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord,
6392 ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord,
6393 locrecord, srvrecord, naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  The equivalent
6394 ldapsearch commands could look like this:</p>
6395
6396 <blockquote><pre>
6397 ldapsearch -h ldap \
6398   -b dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
6399   -s base -x '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
6400   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
6401   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
6402   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
6403   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
6404
6405 ldapsearch -h ldap \
6406   -b dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
6407   -s base -x '(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)'
6408   dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord soarecord ptrrecord \
6409   hinforecord mxrecord txtrecord rprecord aaaarecord locrecord \
6410   srvrecord naptrrecord modifytimestamp
6411 </pre></blockquote>
6412
6413 <p>In Debian Edu/Lenny, the PowerDNS tree mode is used with
6414 ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no as the base, and these are two
6415 example LDAP objects used there.  In addition to these objects, the
6416 parent objects all th way up to ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
6417 also exist.</p>
6418
6419 <blockquote><pre>
6420 dn: dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
6421 objectclass: top
6422 objectclass: dnsdomain
6423 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
6424 dc: tjener
6425 arecord: 10.0.2.2
6426 associateddomain: tjener.intern
6427
6428 dn: dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
6429 objectclass: top
6430 objectclass: dnsdomain2
6431 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
6432 dc: 2
6433 ptrrecord: tjener.intern
6434 associateddomain: 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa
6435 </pre></blockquote>
6436
6437 <p>In strict mode, the server behaves differently.  When looking for
6438 forward DNS entries, it is doing a "subtree" scoped search with the
6439 same base as in the tree mode for a object with filter
6440 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" and requests the attributes dnsttl,
6441 arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord,
6442 mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord, locrecord, srvrecord,
6443 naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entires it also do a
6444 subtree scoped search but this time the filter is "(arecord=10.0.2.2)"
6445 and the requested attributes are associateddomain, dnsttl and
6446 modifytimestamp.  In short, in strict mode the objects with ptrrecord
6447 go away, and the arecord attribute in the forward object is used
6448 instead.</p>
6449
6450 <p>The forward and reverse searches can be simulated using ldapsearch
6451 like this:</p>
6452
6453 <blockquote><pre>
6454 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
6455   '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
6456   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
6457   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
6458   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
6459   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
6460
6461 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
6462   '(arecord=10.0.2.2)' associateddomain dnsttl modifytimestamp
6463 </pre></blockquote>
6464
6465 <p>In addition to the forward and reverse searches , there is also a
6466 search for SOA records, which behave similar to the forward and
6467 reverse lookups.</p>
6468
6469 <p>A thing to note with the PowerDNS behaviour is that it do not
6470 specify any objectclass names, and instead look for the attributes it
6471 need to generate a DNS reply.  This make it able to work with any
6472 objectclass that provide the needed attributes.</p>
6473
6474 <p>The attributes are normally provided in the cosine (RFC 1274) and
6475 dnsdomain2 schemas.  The latter is used for reverse entries like
6476 ptrrecord and recent DNS additions like aaaarecord and srvrecord.</p>
6477
6478 <p>In Debian Edu, we have created DNS objects using the object classes
6479 dcobject (for dc), dnsdomain or dnsdomain2 (structural, for the DNS
6480 attributes) and domainrelatedobject (for associatedDomain).  The use
6481 of structural object classes make it impossible to combine these
6482 classes with the object classes used by DHCP.</p>
6483
6484 <p>There are other schemas that could be used too, for example the
6485 dnszone structural object class used by Gosa and bind-sdb for the DNS
6486 attributes combined with the domainrelatedobject object class, but in
6487 this case some unused attributes would have to be included as well
6488 (zonename and relativedomainname).</p>
6489
6490 <p>My proposal for Debian Edu would be to switch PowerDNS to strict
6491 mode and not use any of the existing objectclasses (dnsdomain,
6492 dnsdomain2 and dnszone) when one want to combine the DNS information
6493 with DHCP information, and instead create a auxiliary object class
6494 defined something like this (using the attributes defined for
6495 dnsdomain and dnsdomain2 or dnszone):</p>
6496
6497 <blockquote><pre>
6498 objectclass ( some-oid NAME 'dnsDomainAux'
6499     SUP top
6500     AUXILIARY
6501     MAY ( ARecord $ MDRecord $ MXRecord $ NSRecord $ SOARecord $ CNAMERecord $
6502           DNSTTL $ DNSClass $ PTRRecord $ HINFORecord $ MINFORecord $
6503           TXTRecord $ SIGRecord $ KEYRecord $ AAAARecord $ LOCRecord $
6504           NXTRecord $ SRVRecord $ NAPTRRecord $ KXRecord $ CERTRecord $
6505           A6Record $ DNAMERecord
6506     ))
6507 </pre></blockquote>
6508
6509 <p>This will allow any object to become a DNS entry when combined with
6510 the domainrelatedobject object class, and allow any entity to include
6511 all the attributes PowerDNS wants.  I've sent an email to the PowerDNS
6512 developers asking for their view on this schema and if they are
6513 interested in providing such schema with PowerDNS, and I hope my
6514 message will be accepted into their mailing list soon.</p>
6515
6516 <p><strong>ISC dhcp</strong></p>
6517
6518 <p>The DHCP server searches for specific objectclass and requests all
6519 the object attributes, and then uses the attributes it want.  This
6520 make it harder to figure out exactly what attributes are used, but
6521 thanks to the working example in Debian Edu I can at least get an idea
6522 what is needed without having to read the source code.</p>
6523
6524 <p>In the DHCP server configuration, the LDAP base to use and the
6525 search filter to use to locate the correct dhcpServer entity is
6526 stored.  These are the relevant entries from
6527 /etc/dhcp3/dhcpd.conf:</p>
6528
6529 <blockquote><pre>
6530 ldap-base-dn "dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no";
6531 ldap-dhcp-server-cn "dhcp";
6532 </pre></blockquote>
6533
6534 <p>The DHCP server uses this information to nest all the DHCP
6535 configuration it need.  The cn "dhcp" is located using the given LDAP
6536 base and the filter "(&(objectClass=dhcpServer)(cn=dhcp))".  The
6537 search result is this entry:</p>
6538
6539 <blockquote><pre>
6540 dn: cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
6541 cn: dhcp
6542 objectClass: top
6543 objectClass: dhcpServer
6544 dhcpServiceDN: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
6545 </pre></blockquote>
6546
6547 <p>The content of the dhcpServiceDN attribute is next used to locate the
6548 subtree with DHCP configuration.  The DHCP configuration subtree base
6549 is located using a base scope search with base "cn=DHCP
6550 Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" and filter
6551 "(&(objectClass=dhcpService)(|(dhcpPrimaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)(dhcpSecondaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)))".
6552 The search result is this entry:</p>
6553
6554 <blockquote><pre>
6555 dn: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
6556 cn: DHCP Config
6557 objectClass: top
6558 objectClass: dhcpService
6559 objectClass: dhcpOptions
6560 dhcpPrimaryDN: cn=dhcp, dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
6561 dhcpStatements: ddns-update-style none
6562 dhcpStatements: authoritative
6563 dhcpOption: smtp-server code 69 = array of ip-address
6564 dhcpOption: www-server code 72 = array of ip-address
6565 dhcpOption: wpad-url code 252 = text
6566 </pre></blockquote>
6567
6568 <p>Next, the entire subtree is processed, one level at the time.  When
6569 all the DHCP configuration is loaded, it is ready to receive requests.
6570 The subtree in Debian Edu contain objects with object classes
6571 top/dhcpService/dhcpOptions, top/dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions,
6572 top/dhcpSubnet, top/dhcpGroup and top/dhcpHost.  These provide options
6573 and information about netmasks, dynamic range etc.  Leaving out the
6574 details here because it is not relevant for the focus of my
6575 investigation, which is to see if it is possible to merge dns and dhcp
6576 related computer objects.</p>
6577
6578 <p>When a DHCP request come in, LDAP is searched for the MAC address
6579 of the client (00:00:00:00:00:00 in this example), using a subtree
6580 scoped search with "cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" as
6581 the base and "(&(objectClass=dhcpHost)(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet
6582 00:00:00:00:00:00))" as the filter.  This is what a host object look
6583 like:</p>
6584
6585 <blockquote><pre>
6586 dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
6587 cn: hostname
6588 objectClass: top
6589 objectClass: dhcpHost
6590 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
6591 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname
6592 </pre></blockquote>
6593
6594 <p>There is less flexiblity in the way LDAP searches are done here.
6595 The object classes need to have fixed names, and the configuration
6596 need to be stored in a fairly specific LDAP structure.  On the
6597 positive side, the invidiual dhcpHost entires can be anywhere without
6598 the DN pointed to by the dhcpServer entries.  The latter should make
6599 it possible to group all host entries in a subtree next to the
6600 configuration entries, and this subtree can also be shared with the
6601 DNS server if the schema proposed above is combined with the dhcpHost
6602 structural object class.
6603
6604 <p><strong>Conclusion</strong></p>
6605
6606 <p>The PowerDNS implementation seem to be very flexible when it come
6607 to which LDAP schemas to use.  While its "tree" mode is rigid when it
6608 come to the the LDAP structure, the "strict" mode is very flexible,
6609 allowing DNS objects to be stored anywhere under the base cn specified
6610 in the configuration.</p>
6611
6612 <p>The DHCP implementation on the other hand is very inflexible, both
6613 regarding which LDAP schemas to use and which LDAP structure to use.
6614 I guess one could implement ones own schema, as long as the
6615 objectclasses and attributes have the names used, but this do not
6616 really help when the DHCP subtree need to have a fairly fixed
6617 structure.</p>
6618
6619 <p>Based on the observed behaviour, I suspect a LDAP structure like
6620 this might work for Debian Edu:</p>
6621
6622 <blockquote><pre>
6623 ou=services
6624   cn=machine-info (dhcpService) - dhcpServiceDN points here
6625     cn=dhcp (dhcpServer)
6626     cn=dhcp-internal (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
6627       cn=10.0.2.0 (dhcpSubnet)
6628         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
6629     cn=dhcp-thinclients (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
6630       cn=192.168.0.0 (dhcpSubnet)
6631         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
6632     ou=machines - PowerDNS base points here
6633       cn=hostname (dhcpHost/domainrelatedobject/dnsDomainAux)
6634 </pre></blockquote>
6635
6636 <P>This is not tested yet.  If the DHCP server require the dhcpHost
6637 entries to be in the dhcpGroup subtrees, the entries can be stored
6638 there instead of a common machines subtree, and the PowerDNS base
6639 would have to be moved one level up to the machine-info subtree.</p>
6640
6641 <p>The combined object under the machines subtree would look something
6642 like this:</p>
6643
6644 <blockquote><pre>
6645 dn: dc=hostname,ou=machines,cn=machine-info,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
6646 dc: hostname
6647 objectClass: top
6648 objectClass: dhcpHost
6649 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
6650 objectclass: dnsDomainAux
6651 associateddomain: hostname.intern
6652 arecord: 10.11.12.13
6653 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
6654 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname.intern
6655 </pre></blockquote>
6656
6657 </p>One could even add the LTSP configuration associated with a given
6658 machine, as long as the required attributes are available in a
6659 auxiliary object class.</p>
6660
6661       </div>
6662       <div class="tags">
6663
6664
6665         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>.
6666
6667
6668       </div>
6669     </div>
6670     <div class="padding"></div>
6671
6672     <div class="entry">
6673       <div class="title">
6674         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">Combining PowerDNS and ISC DHCP LDAP objects</a>
6675       </div>
6676       <div class="date">
6677         14th July 2010
6678       </div>
6679       <div class="body">
6680         <p>For a while now, I have wanted to find a way to change the DNS and
6681 DHCP services in Debian Edu to use the same LDAP objects for a given
6682 computer, to avoid the possibility of having a inconsistent state for
6683 a computer in LDAP (as in DHCP but no DNS entry or the other way
6684 around) and make it easier to add computers to LDAP.</p>
6685
6686 <p>I've looked at how powerdns and dhcpd is using LDAP, and using this
6687 information finally found a solution that seem to work.</p>
6688
6689 <p>The old setup required three LDAP objects for a given computer.
6690 One forward DNS entry, one reverse DNS entry and one DHCP entry.  If
6691 we switch powerdns to use its strict LDAP method (ldap-method=strict
6692 in pdns-debian-edu.conf), the forward and reverse DNS entries are
6693 merged into one while making it impossible to transfer the reverse map
6694 to a slave DNS server.</p>
6695
6696 <p>If we also replace the object class used to get the DNS related
6697 attributes to one allowing these attributes to be combined with the
6698 dhcphost object class, we can merge the DNS and DHCP entries into one.
6699 I've written such object class in the dnsdomainaux.schema file (need
6700 proper OIDs, but that is a minor issue), and tested the setup.  It
6701 seem to work.</p>
6702
6703 <p>With this test setup in place, we can get away with one LDAP object
6704 for both DNS and DHCP, and even the LTSP configuration I suggested in
6705 an earlier email.  The combined LDAP object will look something like
6706 this:</p>
6707
6708 <blockquote><pre>
6709   dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
6710   cn: hostname
6711   objectClass: dhcphost
6712   objectclass: domainrelatedobject
6713   objectclass: dnsdomainaux
6714   associateddomain: hostname.intern
6715   arecord: 10.11.12.13
6716   dhcphwaddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
6717   dhcpstatements: fixed-address hostname
6718   ldapconfigsound: Y
6719 </pre></blockquote>
6720
6721 <p>The DNS server uses the associateddomain and arecord entries, while
6722 the DHCP server uses the dhcphwaddress and dhcpstatements entries
6723 before asking DNS to resolve the fixed-adddress.  LTSP will use
6724 dhcphwaddress or associateddomain and the ldapconfig* attributes.</p>
6725
6726 <p>I am not yet sure if I can get the DHCP server to look for its
6727 dhcphost in a different location, to allow us to put the objects
6728 outside the "DHCP Config" subtree, but hope to figure out a way to do
6729 that.  If I can't figure out a way to do that, we can still get rid of
6730 the hosts subtree and move all its content into the DHCP Config tree
6731 (which probably should be renamed to be more related to the new
6732 content.  I suspect cn=dnsdhcp,ou=services or something like that
6733 might be a good place to put it.</p>
6734
6735 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
6736 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
6737
6738       </div>
6739       <div class="tags">
6740
6741
6742         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>.
6743
6744
6745       </div>
6746     </div>
6747     <div class="padding"></div>
6748
6749     <div class="entry">
6750       <div class="title">
6751         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Idea_for_storing_LTSP_configuration_in_LDAP.html">Idea for storing LTSP configuration in LDAP</a>
6752       </div>
6753       <div class="date">
6754         11th July 2010
6755       </div>
6756       <div class="body">
6757         <p>Vagrant mentioned on IRC today that ltsp_config now support
6758 sourcing files from /usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ on the thin
6759 clients, and that this can be used to fetch configuration from LDAP if
6760 Debian Edu choose to store configuration there.</p>
6761
6762 <p>Armed with this information, I got inspired and wrote a test module
6763 to get configuration from LDAP.  The idea is to look up the MAC
6764 address of the client in LDAP, and look for attributes on the form
6765 ltspconfigsetting=value, and use this to export SETTING=value to the
6766 LTSP clients.</p>
6767
6768 <p>The goal is to be able to store the LTSP configuration attributes
6769 in a "computer" LDAP object used by both DNS and DHCP, and thus
6770 allowing us to store all information about a computer in one place.</p>
6771
6772 <p>This is a untested draft implementation, and I welcome feedback on
6773 this approach.  A real LDAP schema for the ltspClientAux objectclass
6774 need to be written.  Comments, suggestions, etc?</p>
6775
6776 <blockquote><pre>
6777 # Store in /opt/ltsp/$arch/usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ldap-config
6778 #
6779 # Fetch LTSP client settings from LDAP based on MAC address
6780 #
6781 # Uses ethernet address as stored in the dhcpHost objectclass using
6782 # the dhcpHWAddress attribute or ethernet address stored in the
6783 # ieee802Device objectclass with the macAddress attribute.
6784 #
6785 # This module is written to be schema agnostic, and only depend on the
6786 # existence of attribute names.
6787 #
6788 # The LTSP configuration variables are saved directly using a
6789 # ltspConfig prefix and uppercasing the rest of the attribute name.
6790 # To set the SERVER variable, set the ltspConfigServer attribute.
6791 #
6792 # Some LDAP schema should be created with all the relevant
6793 # configuration settings.  Something like this should work:
6794 #
6795 # objectclass ( 1.1.2.2 NAME 'ltspClientAux'
6796 #     SUP top
6797 #     AUXILIARY
6798 #     MAY ( ltspConfigServer $ ltsConfigSound $ ... )
6799
6800 LDAPSERVER=$(debian-edu-ldapserver)
6801 if [ "$LDAPSERVER" ] ; then
6802     LDAPBASE=$(debian-edu-ldapserver -b)
6803     for MAC in $(LANG=C ifconfig |grep -i hwaddr| awk '{print $5}'|sort -u) ; do
6804         filter="(|(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet $MAC)(macAddress=$MAC))"
6805         ldapsearch -h "$LDAPSERVER" -b "$LDAPBASE" -v -x "$filter" | \
6806             grep '^ltspConfig' | while read attr value ; do
6807             # Remove prefix and convert to upper case
6808             attr=$(echo $attr | sed 's/^ltspConfig//i' | tr a-z A-Z)
6809             # bass value on to clients
6810             eval "$attr=$value; export $attr"
6811         done
6812     done
6813 fi
6814 </pre></blockquote>
6815
6816 <p>I'm not sure this shell construction will work, because I suspect
6817 the while block might end up in a subshell causing the variables set
6818 there to not show up in ltsp-config, but if that is the case I am sure
6819 the code can be restructured to make sure the variables are passed on.
6820 I expect that can be solved with some testing. :)</p>
6821
6822 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
6823 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
6824
6825 <p>Update 2010-07-17: I am aware of another effort to store LTSP
6826 configuration in LDAP that was created around year 2000 by
6827 <a href="http://www.pcxperience.com/thinclient/documentation/ldap.html">PC
6828 Xperience, Inc., 2000</a>.  I found its
6829 <a href="http://people.redhat.com/alikins/ltsp/ldap/">files</a> on a
6830 personal home page over at redhat.com.</p>
6831
6832       </div>
6833       <div class="tags">
6834
6835
6836         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>.
6837
6838
6839       </div>
6840     </div>
6841     <div class="padding"></div>
6842
6843     <div class="entry">
6844       <div class="title">
6845         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/jXplorer__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">jXplorer, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
6846       </div>
6847       <div class="date">
6848          9th July 2010
6849       </div>
6850       <div class="body">
6851         <p>Since
6852 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">my
6853 last post</a> about available LDAP tools in Debian, I was told about a
6854 LDAP GUI that is even better than luma.  The java application
6855 <a href="http://jxplorer.org/">jXplorer</a> is claimed to be capable of
6856 moving LDAP objects and subtrees using drag-and-drop, and can
6857 authenticate using Kerberos.  I have only tested the Kerberos
6858 authentication, but do not have a LDAP setup allowing me to rewrite
6859 LDAP with my test user yet.  It is
6860 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/j/jxplorer.html">available in
6861 Debian</a> testing and unstable at the moment.  The only problem I
6862 have with it is how it handle errors.  If something go wrong, its
6863 non-intuitive behaviour require me to go through some query work list
6864 and remove the failing query.  Nothing big, but very annoying.</p>
6865
6866       </div>
6867       <div class="tags">
6868
6869
6870         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>.
6871
6872
6873       </div>
6874     </div>
6875     <div class="padding"></div>
6876
6877     <div class="entry">
6878       <div class="title">
6879         <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>
6880       </div>
6881       <div class="date">
6882          3rd July 2010
6883       </div>
6884       <div class="body">
6885         <p>Here is a short update on my <a
6886 href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">my
6887 Debian Lenny->Squeeze upgrade testing</a>.  Here is a summary of the
6888 difference for Gnome when it is upgraded by apt-get and aptitude.  I'm
6889 not reporting the status for KDE, because the upgrade crashes when
6890 aptitude try because of missing conflicts
6891 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> and
6892 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585716">#585716</a>).</p>
6893
6894 <p>At the end of the upgrade test script, dpkg -l is executed to get a
6895 complete list of the installed packages.  Based on this I see these
6896 differences when I did a test run today.  As usual, I do not really
6897 know what the correct set of packages would be, but thought it best to
6898 publish the difference.</p>
6899
6900 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
6901
6902 <blockquote><p>
6903   at-spi cpp-4.3 finger gnome-spell gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
6904   libatspi1.0-0 libcupsys2 libeel2-data libgail-common libgdl-1-common
6905   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin
6906   libgtksourceview-common libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
6907   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libservlet2.4-java libxalan2-java
6908   libxerces2-java openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
6909   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gtkhtml2
6910   python-gtkmozembed svgalibg1 xserver-xephyr zip
6911 </p></blockquote>
6912
6913 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
6914
6915 <blockquote><p>
6916   bluez-utils dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop epiphany-gecko
6917   gnome-app-install gnome-mount gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager
6918   libao2 libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libbind9-50
6919   libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcurl3
6920   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9
6921   libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3
6922   libfaad0 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
6923   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
6924   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
6925   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
6926   libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50
6927   libisccfg50 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick++10
6928   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4
6929   libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5
6930   libparted1.8-10 libpisock9 libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3
6931   libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8 libsensors3 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
6932   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1
6933   libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0 libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj
6934   libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3
6935   mysql-common swfdec-gnome totem-gstreamer wodim
6936 </p></blockquote>
6937
6938 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
6939
6940 <blockquote><p>
6941   gnome gnome-desktop-environment hamster-applet python-gnomeapplet
6942   python-gnomekeyring python-wnck rhythmbox-plugins xorg
6943   xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
6944   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
6945   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-video-all
6946   xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark xserver-xorg-video-ati
6947   xserver-xorg-video-chips xserver-xorg-video-cirrus
6948   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
6949   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
6950   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-mach64
6951   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
6952   xserver-xorg-video-nouveau xserver-xorg-video-nv
6953   xserver-xorg-video-r128 xserver-xorg-video-radeon
6954   xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd xserver-xorg-video-rendition
6955   xserver-xorg-video-s3 xserver-xorg-video-s3virge
6956   xserver-xorg-video-savage xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion
6957   xserver-xorg-video-sis xserver-xorg-video-sisusb
6958   xserver-xorg-video-tdfx xserver-xorg-video-tga
6959   xserver-xorg-video-trident xserver-xorg-video-tseng
6960   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vmware
6961   xserver-xorg-video-voodoo
6962 </p></blockquote>
6963
6964 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
6965
6966 <blockquote><p>
6967   deskbar-applet xserver-xorg xserver-xorg-core
6968   xserver-xorg-input-wacom xserver-xorg-video-intel
6969   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome
6970 </p></blockquote>
6971
6972 <p>I was told on IRC that the xorg-xserver package was
6973 <a href="http://git.debian.org/?p=pkg-xorg/xserver/xorg-server.git;a=commit;h=9c8080d06c457932d3bfec021c69ac000aa60120">changed
6974 in git</a> today to try to get apt-get to not remove xorg completely.
6975 No idea when it hits Squeeze, but when it does I hope it will reduce
6976 the difference somewhat.
6977
6978       </div>
6979       <div class="tags">
6980
6981
6982         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>.
6983
6984
6985       </div>
6986     </div>
6987     <div class="padding"></div>
6988
6989     <div class="entry">
6990       <div class="title">
6991         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">LUMA, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
6992       </div>
6993       <div class="date">
6994         28th June 2010
6995       </div>
6996       <div class="body">
6997         <p>The last few days I have been looking into the status of the LDAP
6998 directory in Debian Edu, and in the process I started to miss a GUI
6999 tool to browse the LDAP tree.  The only one I was able to find in
7000 Debian/Squeeze and Lenny is
7001 <a href="http://luma.sourceforge.net/">LUMA</a>, which has proved to
7002 be a great tool to get a overview of the current LDAP directory
7003 populated by default in Skolelinux.  Thanks to it, I have been able to
7004 find empty and obsolete subtrees, misplaced objects and duplicate
7005 objects.  It will be installed by default in Debian/Squeeze.  If you
7006 are working with LDAP, give it a go. :)</p>
7007
7008 <p>I did notice one problem with it I have not had time to report to
7009 the BTS yet.  There is no .desktop file in the package, so the tool do
7010 not show up in the Gnome and KDE menus, but only deep down in in the
7011 Debian submenu in KDE.  I hope that can be fixed before Squeeze is
7012 released.</p>
7013
7014 <p>I have not yet been able to get it to modify the tree yet.  I would
7015 like to move objects and remove subtrees directly in the GUI, but have
7016 not found a way to do that with LUMA yet.  So in the mean time, I use
7017 <a href="http://www.lichteblau.com/ldapvi/">ldapvi</a> for that.</p>
7018
7019 <p>If you have tips on other GUI tools for LDAP that might be useful
7020 in Debian Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
7021
7022 <p>Update 2010-06-29: Ross Reedstrom tipped us about the
7023 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/g/gq.html">gq</a> package as a
7024 useful GUI alternative.  It seem like a good tool, but is unmaintained
7025 in Debian and got a RC bug keeping it out of Squeeze.  Unless that
7026 changes, it will not be an option for Debian Edu based on Squeeze.</p>
7027
7028       </div>
7029       <div class="tags">
7030
7031
7032         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>.
7033
7034
7035       </div>
7036     </div>
7037     <div class="padding"></div>
7038
7039     <div class="entry">
7040       <div class="title">
7041         <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>
7042       </div>
7043       <div class="date">
7044         24th June 2010
7045       </div>
7046       <div class="body">
7047         <p>A while back, I
7048 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">complained
7049 about the fact</a> that it is not possible with the provided schemas
7050 for storing DNS and DHCP information in LDAP to combine the two sets
7051 of information into one LDAP object representing a computer.</p>
7052
7053 <p>In the mean time, I discovered that a simple fix would be to make
7054 the dhcpHost object class auxiliary, to allow it to be combined with
7055 the dNSDomain object class, and thus forming one object for one
7056 computer when storing both DHCP and DNS information in LDAP.</p>
7057
7058 <p>If I understand this correctly, it is not safe to do this change
7059 without also changing the assigned number for the object class, and I
7060 do not know enough about LDAP schema design to do that properly for
7061 Debian Edu.</p>
7062
7063 <p>Anyway, for future reference, this is how I believe we could change
7064 the
7065 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-dhc-ldap-schema-00">DHCP
7066 schema</a> to solve at least part of the problem with the LDAP schemas
7067 available today from IETF.</p>
7068
7069 <pre>
7070 --- dhcp.schema    (revision 65192)
7071 +++ dhcp.schema    (working copy)
7072 @@ -376,7 +376,7 @@
7073  objectclass ( 2.16.840.1.113719.1.203.6.6
7074         NAME 'dhcpHost'
7075         DESC 'This represents information about a particular client'
7076 -       SUP top
7077 +       SUP top AUXILIARY
7078         MUST cn
7079         MAY  (dhcpLeaseDN $ dhcpHWAddress $ dhcpOptionsDN $ dhcpStatements $ dhcpComments $ dhcpOption)
7080         X-NDS_CONTAINMENT ('dhcpService' 'dhcpSubnet' 'dhcpGroup') )
7081 </pre>
7082
7083 <p>I very much welcome clues on how to do this properly for Debian
7084 Edu/Squeeze.  We provide the DHCP schema in our debian-edu-config
7085 package, and should thus be free to rewrite it as we see fit.</p>
7086
7087 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
7088 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
7089
7090       </div>
7091       <div class="tags">
7092
7093
7094         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>.
7095
7096
7097       </div>
7098     </div>
7099     <div class="padding"></div>
7100
7101     <div class="entry">
7102       <div class="title">
7103         <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>
7104       </div>
7105       <div class="date">
7106         16th June 2010
7107       </div>
7108       <div class="body">
7109         <p>A few times I have had the need to simulate the way tasksel
7110 installs packages during the normal debian-installer run.  Until now,
7111 I have ended up letting tasksel do the work, with the annoying problem
7112 of not getting any feedback at all when something fails (like a
7113 conffile question from dpkg or a download that fails), using code like
7114 this:
7115
7116 <blockquote><pre>
7117 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
7118 tasksel --new-install
7119 </pre></blockquote>
7120
7121 This would invoke tasksel, let its automatic task selection pick the
7122 tasks to install, and continue to install the requested tasks without
7123 any output what so ever.
7124
7125 Recently I revisited this problem while working on the automatic
7126 package upgrade testing, because tasksel would some times hang without
7127 any useful feedback, and I want to see what is going on when it
7128 happen.  Then it occured to me, I can parse the output from tasksel
7129 when asked to run in test mode, and use that aptitude command line
7130 printed by tasksel then to simulate the tasksel run.  I ended up using
7131 code like this:
7132
7133 <blockquote><pre>
7134 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
7135 cmd="$(in_target tasksel -t --new-install | sed 's/debconf-apt-progress -- //')"
7136 $cmd
7137 </pre></blockquote>
7138
7139 <p>The content of $cmd is typically something like "<tt>aptitude -q
7140 --without-recommends -o APT::Install-Recommends=no -y install
7141 ~t^desktop$ ~t^gnome-desktop$ ~t^laptop$ ~pstandard ~prequired
7142 ~pimportant</tt>", which will install the gnome desktop task, the
7143 laptop task and all packages with priority standard , required and
7144 important, just like tasksel would have done it during
7145 installation.</p>
7146
7147 <p>A better approach is probably to extend tasksel to be able to
7148 install packages without using debconf-apt-progress, for use cases
7149 like this.</p>
7150
7151       </div>
7152       <div class="tags">
7153
7154
7155         Tags: <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>.
7156
7157
7158       </div>
7159     </div>
7160     <div class="padding"></div>
7161
7162     <div class="entry">
7163       <div class="title">
7164         <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>
7165       </div>
7166       <div class="date">
7167         13th June 2010
7168       </div>
7169       <div class="body">
7170         <p>My
7171 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">testing
7172 of Debian upgrades</a> from Lenny to Squeeze continues, and I've
7173 finally made the upgrade logs available from
7174 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/</a>.
7175 I am now testing dist-upgrade of Gnome and KDE in a chroot using both
7176 apt and aptitude, and found their differences interesting.  This time
7177 I will only focus on their removal plans.</p>
7178
7179 <p>After installing a Gnome desktop and the laptop task, apt-get wants
7180 to remove 72 packages when dist-upgrading from Lenny to Squeeze.  The
7181 surprising part is that it want to remove xorg and all
7182 xserver-xorg-video* drivers.  Clearly not a good choice, but I am not
7183 sure why.  When asking aptitude to do the same, it want to remove 129
7184 packages, but most of them are library packages I suspect are no
7185 longer needed.  Both of them want to remove bluetooth packages, which
7186 I do not know.  Perhaps these bluetooth packages are obsolete?</p>
7187
7188 <p>For KDE, apt-get want to remove 82 packages, among them kdebase
7189 which seem like a bad idea and xorg the same way as with Gnome. Asking
7190 aptitude for the same, it wants to remove 192 packages, none which are
7191 too surprising.</p>
7192
7193 <p>I guess the removal of xorg during upgrades should be investigated
7194 and avoided, and perhaps others as well.  Here are the complete list
7195 of planned removals.  The complete logs is available from the URL
7196 above.  Note if you want to repeat these tests, that the upgrade test
7197 for kde+apt-get hung in the tasksel setup because of dpkg asking
7198 conffile questions.  No idea why.  I worked around it by using
7199 '<tt>echo >> /proc/<em>pidofdpkg</em>/fd/0</tt>' to tell dpkg to
7200 continue.</p>
7201
7202 <p><b>apt-get gnome 72</b>
7203 <br>bluez-gnome cupsddk-drivers deskbar-applet gnome
7204   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-network-admin gtkhtml3.14
7205   iceweasel-gnome-support libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libgdl-1-0
7206   libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libmetacity0 libslab0 libxcb-xlib0
7207   nautilus-cd-burner python-gnome2-desktop python-gnome2-extras
7208   serpentine swfdec-mozilla update-manager xorg xserver-xorg
7209   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
7210   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
7211   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
7212   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
7213   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
7214   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
7215   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
7216   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
7217   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
7218   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
7219   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
7220   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
7221   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
7222   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
7223   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
7224   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
7225   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
7226   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
7227   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
7228   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
7229   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
7230   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9
7231   xulrunner-1.9-gnome-support</p>
7232
7233 <p><b>aptitude gnome 129</b>
7234
7235 <br>bluez-gnome bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers dhcdbd
7236   djvulibre-desktop finger gnome-app-install gnome-mount
7237   gnome-network-admin gnome-spell gnome-vfs-obexftp
7238   gnome-volume-manager gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs gtkhtml3.14 libao2
7239   libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
7240   libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcupsys2 libcurl3 libdatrie0
7241   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20
7242   libeel2-data libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libfaad0 libgail-common
7243   libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libgdl-1-0 libgdl-1-common
7244   libggz2 libggzcore9 libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0
7245   libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libgnomeprint2.2-0
7246   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgnomeprintui2.2-common
7247   libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
7248   libgtksourceview-common libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6
7249   libhesiod0 libicu38 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 libmagick++10
7250   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmetacity0 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off
7251   libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2
7252   libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10
7253   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libraw1394-8
7254   libsensors3 libslab0 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8 libssh2-1
7255   libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10
7256   libtrackerclient0 libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0
7257   libxerces2-java libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6
7258   libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common nautilus-cd-burner
7259   openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
7260   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gnome2-desktop
7261   python-gnome2-extras python-gtkhtml2 python-gtkmozembed
7262   python-numeric python-sexy serpentine svgalibg1 swfdec-gnome
7263   swfdec-mozilla totem-gstreamer update-manager wodim
7264   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
7265   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
7266   zip</p>
7267
7268 <p><b>apt-get kde 82</b>
7269
7270 <br>cupsddk-drivers karm kaudiocreator kcoloredit kcontrol kde kde-core
7271   kdeaddons kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-bin kdebase-bin-kde3
7272   kdebase-kio-plugins kdesktop kdeutils khelpcenter kicker
7273   kicker-applets knewsticker kolourpaint konq-plugins konqueror korn
7274   kpersonalizer kscreensaver ksplash libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libkiten1
7275   libxcb-xlib0 quanta superkaramba texlive-base-bin xorg xserver-xorg
7276   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
7277   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
7278   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
7279   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
7280   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
7281   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
7282   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
7283   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
7284   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
7285   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
7286   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
7287   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
7288   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
7289   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
7290   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
7291   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
7292   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
7293   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
7294   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
7295   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
7296   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
7297   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9</p>
7298
7299 <p><b>aptitude kde 192</b>
7300 <br>bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers cvs dcoprss dhcdbd
7301   djvulibre-desktop dosfstools eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
7302   ghostscript-x imlib-base imlib11 indi kandy karm kasteroids
7303   kaudiocreator kbackgammon kbstate kcoloredit kcontrol kcron kdat
7304   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
7305   kdebase-bin-kde3 kdebase-kio-plugins kdeedu-data
7306   kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data
7307   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
7308   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdeprint kdesktop kdessh
7309   kdict kdnssd kdvi kedit keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs
7310   kghostview khelpcenter khexedit kiconedit kitchensync klatin
7311   klickety kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmoon kmrml kodo kolourpaint
7312   kooka korn kpager kpdf kpercentage kpf kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler
7313   krec kregexpeditor ksayit ksim ksirc ksirtet ksmiletris ksmserver
7314   ksnake ksokoban ksplash ksvg ksysv ktip ktnef kuickshow kverbos
7315   kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kworldclock
7316   kxsldbg libakode2 libao2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
7317   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
7318   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
7319   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0 libdatrie0
7320   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
7321   libgail-common libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0
7322   libicu38 libiec61883-0 libindex0 libiw29 libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1
7323   libkdeedu3 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkiten1 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
7324   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
7325   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 libmagick10 libmimelib1c2a
7326   libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9
7327   libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 libsmbios2
7328   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libtalloc1 libtiff-tools
7329   libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0 libxerces2-java
7330   libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 mpeglib networkstatus
7331   openoffice.org-writer2latex pmount poster psutils quanta quanta-data
7332   superkaramba svgalibg1 tex-common texlive-base texlive-base-bin
7333   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended
7334   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
7335   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
7336   xulrunner-1.9</p>
7337
7338
7339       </div>
7340       <div class="tags">
7341
7342
7343         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>.
7344
7345
7346       </div>
7347     </div>
7348     <div class="padding"></div>
7349
7350     <div class="entry">
7351       <div class="title">
7352         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">Automatic upgrade testing from Lenny to Squeeze</a>
7353       </div>
7354       <div class="date">
7355         11th June 2010
7356       </div>
7357       <div class="body">
7358         <p>The last few days I have done some upgrade testing in Debian, to
7359 see if the upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze will go smoothly.  A few bugs
7360 have been discovered and reported in the process
7361 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585410">#585410</a> in nagios3-cgi,
7362 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584879">#584879</a> already fixed in
7363 enscript and <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> in
7364 kdebase-workspace-data), and to get a more regular testing going on, I
7365 am working on a script to automate the test.</p>
7366
7367 <p>The idea is to create a Lenny chroot and use tasksel to install a
7368 Gnome or KDE desktop installation inside the chroot before upgrading
7369 it.  To ensure no services are started in the chroot, a policy-rc.d
7370 script is inserted.  To make sure tasksel believe it is to install a
7371 desktop on a laptop, the tasksel tests are replaced in the chroot
7372 (only acceptable because this is a throw-away chroot).</p>
7373
7374 <p>A naive upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze using aptitude dist-upgrade
7375 currently always fail because udev refuses to upgrade with the kernel
7376 in Lenny, so to avoid that problem the file /etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
7377 is created.  The bug report
7378 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/566000">#566000</a> make me suspect
7379 this problem do not trigger in a chroot, but I touch the file anyway
7380 to make sure the upgrade go well.  Testing on virtual and real
7381 hardware have failed me because of udev so far, and creating this file
7382 do the trick in such settings anyway.  This is a
7383 <a href="http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/debian-26/failed-dist-upgrade-due-to-udev-config_sysfs_deprecated-nonsense-804130/">known
7384 issue</a> and the current udev behaviour is intended by the udev
7385 maintainer because he lack the resources to rewrite udev to keep
7386 working with old kernels or something like that.  I really wish the
7387 udev upstream would keep udev backwards compatible, to avoid such
7388 upgrade problem, but given that they fail to do so, I guess
7389 documenting the way out of this mess is the best option we got for
7390 Debian Squeeze.</p>
7391
7392 <p>Anyway, back to the task at hand, testing upgrades.  This test
7393 script, which I call <tt>upgrade-test</tt> for now, is doing the
7394 trick:</p>
7395
7396 <blockquote><pre>
7397 #!/bin/sh
7398 set -ex
7399
7400 if [ "$1" ] ; then
7401     desktop=$1
7402 else
7403     desktop=gnome
7404 fi
7405
7406 from=lenny
7407 to=squeeze
7408
7409 exec &lt; /dev/null
7410 unset LANG
7411 mirror=http://ftp.skolelinux.org/debian
7412 tmpdir=chroot-$from-upgrade-$to-$desktop
7413 fuser -mv .
7414 debootstrap $from $tmpdir $mirror
7415 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
7416 cat > $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d &lt;&lt;EOF
7417 #!/bin/sh
7418 exit 101
7419 EOF
7420 chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d
7421 exit_cleanup() {
7422     umount $tmpdir/proc
7423 }
7424 mount -t proc proc $tmpdir/proc
7425 # Make sure proc is unmounted also on failure
7426 trap exit_cleanup EXIT INT
7427
7428 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y install debconf-utils
7429
7430 # Make sure tasksel autoselection trigger.  It need the test scripts
7431 # to return the correct answers.
7432 echo tasksel tasksel/desktop multiselect $desktop | \
7433     chroot $tmpdir debconf-set-selections
7434
7435 # Include the desktop and laptop task
7436 for test in desktop laptop ; do
7437     echo > $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test &lt;&lt;EOF
7438 #!/bin/sh
7439 exit 2
7440 EOF
7441     chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test
7442 done
7443
7444 DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
7445 DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical
7446 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND DEBIAN_PRIORITY
7447 chroot $tmpdir tasksel --new-install
7448
7449 echo deb $mirror $to main > $tmpdir/etc/apt/sources.list
7450 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
7451 touch $tmpdir/etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
7452 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y dist-upgrade
7453 fuser -mv
7454 </pre></blockquote>
7455
7456 <p>I suspect it would be useful to test upgrades with both apt-get and
7457 with aptitude, but I have not had time to look at how they behave
7458 differently so far.  I hope to get a cron job running to do the test
7459 regularly and post the result on the web.  The Gnome upgrade currently
7460 work, while the KDE upgrade fail because of the bug in
7461 kdebase-workspace-data</p>
7462
7463 <p>I am not quite sure what kind of extract from the huge upgrade logs
7464 (KDE 167 KiB, Gnome 516 KiB) it make sense to include in this blog
7465 post, so I will refrain from trying.  I can report that for Gnome,
7466 aptitude report 760 packages upgraded, 448 newly installed, 129 to
7467 remove and 1 not upgraded and 1024MB need to be downloaded while for
7468 KDE the same numbers are 702 packages upgraded, 507 newly installed,
7469 193 to remove and 0 not upgraded and 1117MB need to be downloaded</p>
7470
7471 <p>I am very happy to notice that the Gnome desktop + laptop upgrade
7472 is able to migrate to dependency based boot sequencing and parallel
7473 booting without a hitch.  Was unsure if there were still bugs with
7474 packages failing to clean up their obsolete init.d script during
7475 upgrades, and no such problem seem to affect the Gnome desktop+laptop
7476 packages.</p>
7477
7478       </div>
7479       <div class="tags">
7480
7481
7482         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>.
7483
7484
7485       </div>
7486     </div>
7487     <div class="padding"></div>
7488
7489     <div class="entry">
7490       <div class="title">
7491         <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>
7492       </div>
7493       <div class="date">
7494          6th June 2010
7495       </div>
7496       <div class="body">
7497         <p>If Debian is to migrate to upstart on Linux, I expect some init.d
7498 scripts to migrate (some of) their operations to upstart job while
7499 keeping the init.d for hurd and kfreebsd.  The packages with such
7500 needs will need a way to get their init.d scripts to behave
7501 differently when used with sysvinit and with upstart.  Because of
7502 this, I had a look at the environment variables set when a init.d
7503 script is running under upstart, and when it is not.</p>
7504
7505 <p>With upstart, I notice these environment variables are set when a
7506 script is started from rcS.d/ (ignoring some irrelevant ones like
7507 COLUMNS):</p>
7508
7509 <blockquote><pre>
7510 DEFAULT_RUNLEVEL=2
7511 previous=N
7512 PREVLEVEL=
7513 RUNLEVEL=
7514 runlevel=S
7515 UPSTART_EVENTS=startup
7516 UPSTART_INSTANCE=
7517 UPSTART_JOB=rc-sysinit
7518 </pre></blockquote>
7519
7520 <p>With sysvinit, these environment variables are set for the same
7521 script.</p>
7522
7523 <blockquote><pre>
7524 INIT_VERSION=sysvinit-2.88
7525 previous=N
7526 PREVLEVEL=N
7527 RUNLEVEL=S
7528 runlevel=S
7529 </pre></blockquote>
7530
7531 <p>The RUNLEVEL and PREVLEVEL environment variables passed on from
7532 sysvinit are not set by upstart.  Not sure if it is intentional or not
7533 to not be compatible with sysvinit in this regard.</p>
7534
7535 <p>For scripts needing to behave differently when upstart is used,
7536 looking for the UPSTART_JOB environment variable seem to be a good
7537 choice.</p>
7538
7539       </div>
7540       <div class="tags">
7541
7542
7543         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>.
7544
7545
7546       </div>
7547     </div>
7548     <div class="padding"></div>
7549
7550     <div class="entry">
7551       <div class="title">
7552         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_manual_for_standards_wars___.html">A manual for standards wars...</a>
7553       </div>
7554       <div class="date">
7555          6th June 2010
7556       </div>
7557       <div class="body">
7558         <p>Via the
7559 <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/robweir/antic-atom/~3/QzU4RgoAGMg/weekly-links-10.html">blog
7560 of Rob Weir</a> I came across the very interesting essay named
7561 <a href="http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/shapiro/wars.pdf">The Art of
7562 Standards Wars</a> (PDF 25 pages).  I recommend it for everyone
7563 following the standards wars of today.</p>
7564
7565       </div>
7566       <div class="tags">
7567
7568
7569         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>.
7570
7571
7572       </div>
7573     </div>
7574     <div class="padding"></div>
7575
7576     <div class="entry">
7577       <div class="title">
7578         <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>
7579       </div>
7580       <div class="date">
7581          3rd June 2010
7582       </div>
7583       <div class="body">
7584         <p>When using sitesummary at a site to track machines, it is possible
7585 to get a list of the machine types in use thanks to the DMI
7586 information extracted from each machine.  The script to do so is
7587 included in the sitesummary package, and here is example output from
7588 the Skolelinux build servers:</p>
7589
7590 <blockquote><pre>
7591 maintainer:~# /usr/lib/sitesummary/hardware-model-summary
7592   vendor                    count
7593   Dell Computer Corporation     1
7594     PowerEdge 1750              1
7595   IBM                           1
7596     eserver xSeries 345 -[8670M1X]-     1
7597   Intel                         2
7598   [no-dmi-info]                 3
7599 maintainer:~#
7600 </pre></blockquote>
7601
7602 <p>The quality of the report depend on the quality of the DMI tables
7603 provided in each machine.  Here there are Intel machines without model
7604 information listed with Intel as vendor and no model, and virtual Xen
7605 machines listed as [no-dmi-info].  One can add -l as a command line
7606 option to list the individual machines.</p>
7607
7608 <p>A larger list is
7609 <a href="http://narvikskolen.no/sitesummary/">available from the the
7610 city of Narvik</a>, which uses Skolelinux on all their shools and also
7611 provide the basic sitesummary report publicly.  In their report there
7612 are ~1400 machines. I know they use both Ubuntu and Skolelinux on
7613 their machines, and as sitesummary is available in both distributions,
7614 it is trivial to get all of them to report to the same central
7615 collector.</p>
7616
7617       </div>
7618       <div class="tags">
7619
7620
7621         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>.
7622
7623
7624       </div>
7625     </div>
7626     <div class="padding"></div>
7627
7628     <div class="entry">
7629       <div class="title">
7630         <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>
7631       </div>
7632       <div class="date">
7633          1st June 2010
7634       </div>
7635       <div class="body">
7636         <p>It is strange to watch how a bug in Debian causing KDM to fail to
7637 start at boot when an NVidia video card is used is handled.  The
7638 problem seem to be that the nvidia X.org driver uses a long time to
7639 initialize, and this duration is longer than kdm is configured to
7640 wait.</p>
7641
7642 <p>I came across two bugs related to this issue,
7643 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">#583312</a> initially filed
7644 against initscripts and passed on to nvidia-glx when it became obvious
7645 that the nvidia drivers were involved, and
7646 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/524751">#524751</a> initially filed against
7647 kdm and passed on to src:nvidia-graphics-drivers for unknown reasons.</p>
7648
7649 <p>To me, it seem that no-one is interested in actually solving the
7650 problem nvidia video card owners experience and make sure the Debian
7651 distribution work out of the box for these users.  The nvidia driver
7652 maintainers expect kdm to be set up to wait longer, while kdm expect
7653 the nvidia driver maintainers to fix the driver to start faster, and
7654 while they wait for each other I guess the users end up switching to a
7655 distribution that work for them.  I have no idea what the solution is,
7656 but I am pretty sure that waiting for each other is not it.</p>
7657
7658 <p>I wonder why we end up handling bugs this way.</p>
7659
7660       </div>
7661       <div class="tags">
7662
7663
7664         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>.
7665
7666
7667       </div>
7668     </div>
7669     <div class="padding"></div>
7670
7671     <div class="entry">
7672       <div class="title">
7673         <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>
7674       </div>
7675       <div class="date">
7676         27th May 2010
7677       </div>
7678       <div class="body">
7679         <p>A few days ago, parallel booting was enabled in Debian/testing.
7680 The feature seem to hold up pretty well, but three fairly serious
7681 issues are known and should be solved:
7682
7683 <p><ul>
7684
7685 <li>The wicd package seen to
7686 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/508289">break NFS mounting</a> and
7687 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/581586">network setup</a> when
7688 parallel booting is enabled.  No idea why, but the wicd maintainer
7689 seem to be on the case.</li>
7690
7691 <li>The nvidia X driver seem to
7692 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">have a race condition</a>
7693 triggered more easily when parallel booting is in effect.  The
7694 maintainer is on the case.</li>
7695
7696 <li>The sysv-rc package fail to properly enable dependency based boot
7697 sequencing (the shutdown is broken) when old file-rc users
7698 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/575080">try to switch back</a> to
7699 sysv-rc.  One way to solve it would be for file-rc to create
7700 /etc/init.d/.legacy-bootordering, and another is to try to make
7701 sysv-rc more robust.  Will investigate some more and probably upload a
7702 workaround in sysv-rc to help those trying to move from file-rc to
7703 sysv-rc get a working shutdown.</li>
7704
7705 </ul></p>
7706
7707 <p>All in all not many surprising issues, and all of them seem
7708 solvable before Squeeze is released.  In addition to these there are
7709 some packages with bugs in their dependencies and run level settings,
7710 which I expect will be fixed in a reasonable time span.</p>
7711
7712 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
7713 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
7714 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
7715 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
7716
7717 <p>Update: Correct bug number to file-rc issue.</p>
7718
7719       </div>
7720       <div class="tags">
7721
7722
7723         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>.
7724
7725
7726       </div>
7727     </div>
7728     <div class="padding"></div>
7729
7730     <div class="entry">
7731       <div class="title">
7732         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/More_flexible_firmware_handling_in_debian_installer.html">More flexible firmware handling in debian-installer</a>
7733       </div>
7734       <div class="date">
7735         22nd May 2010
7736       </div>
7737       <div class="body">
7738         <p>After a long break from debian-installer development, I finally
7739 found time today to return to the project.  Having to spend less time
7740 working dependency based boot in debian, as it is almost complete now,
7741 definitely helped freeing some time.</p>
7742
7743 <p>A while back, I ran into a problem while working on Debian Edu.  We
7744 include some firmware packages on the Debian Edu CDs, those needed to
7745 get disk and network controllers working.  Without having these
7746 firmware packages available during installation, it is impossible to
7747 install Debian Edu on the given machine, and because our target group
7748 are non-technical people, asking them to provide firmware packages on
7749 an external medium is a support pain.  Initially, I expected it to be
7750 enough to include the firmware packages on the CD to get
7751 debian-installer to find and use them.  This proved to be wrong.
7752 Next, I hoped it was enough to symlink the relevant firmware packages
7753 to some useful location on the CD (tried /cdrom/ and
7754 /cdrom/firmware/).  This also proved to not work, and at this point I
7755 found time to look at the debian-installer code to figure out what was
7756 going to work.</p>
7757
7758 <p>The firmware loading code is in the hw-detect package, and a closer
7759 look revealed that it would only look for firmware packages outside
7760 the installation media, so the CD was never checked for firmware
7761 packages.  It would only check USB sticks, floppies and other
7762 "external" media devices.  Today I changed it to also look in the
7763 /cdrom/firmware/ directory on the mounted CD or DVD, which should
7764 solve the problem I ran into with Debian edu.  I also changed it to
7765 look in /firmware/, to make sure the installer also find firmware
7766 provided in the initrd when booting the installer via PXE, to allow us
7767 to provide the same feature in the PXE setup included in Debian
7768 Edu.</p>
7769
7770 <p>To make sure firmware deb packages with a license questions are not
7771 activated without asking if the license is accepted, I extended
7772 hw-detect to look for preinst scripts in the firmware packages, and
7773 run these before activating the firmware during installation.  The
7774 license question is asked using debconf in the preinst, so this should
7775 solve the issue for the firmware packages I have looked at so far.</p>
7776
7777 <p>If you want to discuss the details of these features, please
7778 contact us on debian-boot@lists.debian.org.</p>
7779
7780       </div>
7781       <div class="tags">
7782
7783
7784         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>.
7785
7786
7787       </div>
7788     </div>
7789     <div class="padding"></div>
7790
7791     <div class="entry">
7792       <div class="title">
7793         <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>
7794       </div>
7795       <div class="date">
7796         14th May 2010
7797       </div>
7798       <div class="body">
7799         <p>Since this evening, parallel booting is the default in
7800 Debian/unstable for machines using dependency based boot sequencing.
7801 Apparently the testing of concurrent booting has been wider than
7802 expected, if I am to believe the
7803 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
7804 on debian-devel@</a>, and I concluded a few days ago to move forward
7805 with the feature this weekend, to give us some time to detect any
7806 remaining problems before Squeeze is frozen.  If serious problems are
7807 detected, it is simple to change the default back to sequential boot.
7808 The upload of the new sysvinit package also activate a new upstream
7809 version.</p>
7810
7811 More information about
7812 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
7813 based boot sequencing</a> is available from the Debian wiki.  It is
7814 currently possible to disable parallel booting when one run into
7815 problems caused by it, by adding this line to /etc/default/rcS:</p>
7816
7817 <blockquote><pre>
7818 CONCURRENCY=none
7819 </pre></blockquote>
7820
7821 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
7822 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
7823 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
7824 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
7825
7826       </div>
7827       <div class="tags">
7828
7829
7830         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>.
7831
7832
7833       </div>
7834     </div>
7835     <div class="padding"></div>
7836
7837     <div class="entry">
7838       <div class="title">
7839         <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>
7840       </div>
7841       <div class="date">
7842         14th May 2010
7843       </div>
7844       <div class="body">
7845         <p>In the recent Debian Edu versions, the
7846 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/SiteSummary">sitesummary
7847 system</a> is used to keep track of the machines in the school
7848 network.  Each machine will automatically report its status to the
7849 central server after boot and once per night.  The network setup is
7850 also reported, and using this information it is possible to get the
7851 MAC address of all network interfaces in the machines.  This is useful
7852 to update the DHCP configuration.</p>
7853
7854 <p>To give some idea how to use sitesummary, here is a one-liner to
7855 ist all MAC addresses of all machines reporting to sitesummary.  Run
7856 this on the collector host:</p>
7857
7858 <blockquote><pre>
7859 perl -MSiteSummary -e 'for_all_hosts(sub { print join(" ", get_macaddresses(shift)), "\n"; });'
7860 </pre></blockquote>
7861
7862 <p>This will list all MAC addresses assosiated with all machine, one
7863 line per machine and with space between the MAC addresses.</p>
7864
7865 <p>To allow system administrators easier job at adding static DHCP
7866 addresses for hosts, it would be possible to extend this to fetch
7867 machine information from sitesummary and update the DHCP and DNS
7868 tables in LDAP using this information.  Such tool is unfortunately not
7869 written yet.</p>
7870
7871       </div>
7872       <div class="tags">
7873
7874
7875         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>.
7876
7877
7878       </div>
7879     </div>
7880     <div class="padding"></div>
7881
7882     <div class="entry">
7883       <div class="title">
7884         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/systemd__an_interesting_alternative_to_upstart.html">systemd, an interesting alternative to upstart</a>
7885       </div>
7886       <div class="date">
7887         13th May 2010
7888       </div>
7889       <div class="body">
7890         <p>The last few days a new boot system called
7891 <a href="http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd">systemd</a>
7892 has been
7893 <a href="http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/systemd.html">introduced</a>
7894
7895 to the free software world.  I have not yet had time to play around
7896 with it, but it seem to be a very interesting alternative to
7897 <a href="http://upstart.ubuntu.com/">upstart</a>, and might prove to be
7898 a good alternative for Debian when we are able to switch to an event
7899 based boot system.  Tollef is
7900 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/580814">in the process</a> of getting
7901 systemd into Debian, and I look forward to seeing how well it work.  I
7902 like the fact that systemd handles init.d scripts with dependency
7903 information natively, allowing them to run in parallel where upstart
7904 at the moment do not.</p>
7905
7906 <p>Unfortunately do systemd have the same problem as upstart regarding
7907 platform support.  It only work on recent Linux kernels, and also need
7908 some new kernel features enabled to function properly.  This means
7909 kFreeBSD and Hurd ports of Debian will need a port or a different boot
7910 system.  Not sure how that will be handled if systemd proves to be the
7911 way forward.</p>
7912
7913 <p>In the mean time, based on the
7914 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
7915 on debian-devel@</a> regarding parallel booting in Debian, I have
7916 decided to enable full parallel booting as the default in Debian as
7917 soon as possible (probably this weekend or early next week), to see if
7918 there are any remaining serious bugs in the init.d dependencies.  A
7919 new version of the sysvinit package implementing this change is
7920 already in experimental.  If all go well, Squeeze will be released
7921 with parallel booting enabled by default.</p>
7922
7923       </div>
7924       <div class="tags">
7925
7926
7927         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>.
7928
7929
7930       </div>
7931     </div>
7932     <div class="padding"></div>
7933
7934     <div class="entry">
7935       <div class="title">
7936         <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>
7937       </div>
7938       <div class="date">
7939          6th May 2010
7940       </div>
7941       <div class="body">
7942         <p>These days, the init.d script dependencies in Squeeze are quite
7943 complete, so complete that it is actually possible to run all the
7944 init.d scripts in parallell based on these dependencies.  If you want
7945 to test your Squeeze system, make sure
7946 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
7947 based boot sequencing</a> is enabled, and add this line to
7948 /etc/default/rcS:</p>
7949
7950 <blockquote><pre>
7951 CONCURRENCY=makefile
7952 </pre></blockquote>
7953
7954 <p>That is it.  It will cause sysv-rc to use the startpar tool to run
7955 scripts in parallel using the dependency information stored in
7956 /etc/init.d/.depend.boot, /etc/init.d/.depend.start and
7957 /etc/init.d/.depend.stop to order the scripts.  Startpar is configured
7958 to try to start the kdm and gdm scripts as early as possible, and will
7959 start the facilities required by kdm or gdm as early as possible to
7960 make this happen.</p>
7961
7962 <p>Give it a try, and see if you like the result.  If some services
7963 fail to start properly, it is most likely because they have incomplete
7964 init.d script dependencies in their startup script (or some of their
7965 dependent scripts have incomplete dependencies).  Report bugs and get
7966 the package maintainers to fix it. :)</p>
7967
7968 <p>Running scripts in parallel could be the default in Debian when we
7969 manage to get the init.d script dependencies complete and correct.  I
7970 expect we will get there in Squeeze+1, if we get manage to test and
7971 fix the remaining issues.</p>
7972
7973 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
7974 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
7975 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
7976 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
7977
7978       </div>
7979       <div class="tags">
7980
7981
7982         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>.
7983
7984
7985       </div>
7986     </div>
7987     <div class="padding"></div>
7988
7989     <div class="entry">
7990       <div class="title">
7991         <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>
7992       </div>
7993       <div class="date">
7994         27th July 2009
7995       </div>
7996       <div class="body">
7997         <p>Since this evening, with the upload of sysvinit version 2.87dsf-2,
7998 and the upload of insserv version 1.12.0-10 yesterday, Debian unstable
7999 have been migrated to using dependency based boot sequencing.  This
8000 conclude work me and others have been doing for the last three days.
8001 It feels great to see this finally part of the default Debian
8002 installation.  Now we just need to weed out the last few problems that
8003 are bound to show up, to get everything ready for Squeeze.</p>
8004
8005 <p>The next step is migrating /sbin/init from sysvinit to upstart, and
8006 fixing the more fundamental problem of handing the event based
8007 non-predictable kernel in the early boot.</p>
8008
8009       </div>
8010       <div class="tags">
8011
8012
8013         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>.
8014
8015
8016       </div>
8017     </div>
8018     <div class="padding"></div>
8019
8020     <div class="entry">
8021       <div class="title">
8022         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Taking_over_sysvinit_development.html">Taking over sysvinit development</a>
8023       </div>
8024       <div class="date">
8025         22nd July 2009
8026       </div>
8027       <div class="body">
8028         <p>After several years of frustration with the lack of activity from
8029 the existing sysvinit upstream developer, I decided a few weeks ago to
8030 take over the package and become the new upstream.  The number of
8031 patches to track for the Debian package was becoming a burden, and the
8032 lack of synchronization between the distribution made it hard to keep
8033 the package up to date.</p>
8034
8035 <p>On the new sysvinit team is the SuSe maintainer Dr. Werner Fink,
8036 and my Debian co-maintainer Kel Modderman.  About 10 days ago, I made
8037 a new upstream tarball with version number 2.87dsf (for Debian, SuSe
8038 and Fedora), based on the patches currently in use in these
8039 distributions.  We Debian maintainers plan to move to this tarball as
8040 the new upstream as soon as we find time to do the merge.  Since the
8041 new tarball was created, we agreed with Werner at SuSe to make a new
8042 upstream project at <a href="http://savannah.nongnu.org/">Savannah</a>, and continue
8043 development there.  The project is registered and currently waiting
8044 for approval by the Savannah administrators, and as soon as it is
8045 approved, we will import the old versions from svn and continue
8046 working on the future release.</p>
8047
8048 <p>It is a bit ironic that this is done now, when some of the involved
8049 distributions are moving to upstart as a syvinit replacement.</p>
8050
8051       </div>
8052       <div class="tags">
8053
8054
8055         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>.
8056
8057
8058       </div>
8059     </div>
8060     <div class="padding"></div>
8061
8062     <div class="entry">
8063       <div class="title">
8064         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_boots_quicker_and_quicker.html">Debian boots quicker and quicker</a>
8065       </div>
8066       <div class="date">
8067         24th June 2009
8068       </div>
8069       <div class="body">
8070         <p>I spent Monday and tuesday this week in London with a lot of the
8071 people involved in the boot system on Debian and Ubuntu, to see if we
8072 could find more ways to speed up the boot system.  This was an Ubuntu
8073 funded
8074 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FoundationsTeam/BootPerformance/DebianUbuntuSprint">developer
8075 gathering</a>. It was quite productive.  We also discussed the future
8076 of boot systems, and ways to handle the increasing number of boot
8077 issues introduced by the Linux kernel becoming more and more
8078 asynchronous and event base.  The Ubuntu approach using udev and
8079 upstart might be a good way forward.  Time will show.</p>
8080
8081 <p>Anyway, there are a few ways at the moment to speed up the boot
8082 process in Debian.  All of these should be applied to get a quick
8083 boot:</p>
8084
8085 <ul>
8086
8087 <li>Use dash as /bin/sh.</li>
8088
8089 <li>Disable the init.d/hwclock*.sh scripts and make sure the hardware
8090    clock is in UTC.</li>
8091
8092 <li>Install and activate the insserv package to enable
8093    <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
8094    based boot sequencing</a>, and enable concurrent booting.</li>
8095
8096 </ul>
8097
8098 These points are based on the Google summer of code work done by
8099 <a href="http://initscripts-ng.alioth.debian.org/soc2006-bootsystem/">Carlos
8100 Villegas</a>.
8101
8102 <p>Support for makefile-style concurrency during boot was uploaded to
8103 unstable yesterday.  When we tested it, we were able to cut 6 seconds
8104 from the boot sequence.  It depend on very correct dependency
8105 declaration in all init.d scripts, so I expect us to find edge cases
8106 where the dependences in some scripts are slightly wrong when we start
8107 using this.</p>
8108
8109 <p>On our IRC channel for this effort, #pkg-sysvinit, a new idea was
8110 introduced by Raphael Geissert today, one that could affect the
8111 startup speed as well.  Instead of starting some scripts concurrently
8112 from rcS.d/ and another set of scripts from rc2.d/, it would be
8113 possible to run a of them in the same process.  A quick way to test
8114 this would be to enable insserv and run 'mv /etc/rc2.d/S* /etc/rcS.d/;
8115 insserv'.  Will need to test if that work. :)</p>
8116
8117       </div>
8118       <div class="tags">
8119
8120
8121         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>.
8122
8123
8124       </div>
8125     </div>
8126     <div class="padding"></div>
8127
8128     <div class="entry">
8129       <div class="title">
8130         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/BSAs_p_stander_om_piratkopiering_m_ter_motstand.html">BSAs påstander om piratkopiering møter motstand</a>
8131       </div>
8132       <div class="date">
8133         17th May 2009
8134       </div>
8135       <div class="body">
8136         <p>Hvert år de siste årene har BSA, lobbyfronten til de store
8137 programvareselskapene som Microsoft og Apple, publisert en rapport der
8138 de gjetter på hvor mye piratkopiering påfører i tapte inntekter i
8139 ulike land rundt om i verden.  Resultatene er tendensiøse.  For noen
8140 dager siden kom
8141 <a href="http://global.bsa.org/globalpiracy2008/studies/globalpiracy2008.pdf">siste
8142 rapport</a>, og det er flere kritiske kommentarer publisert de siste
8143 dagene.  Et spesielt interessant kommentar fra Sverige,
8144 <a href="http://www.idg.se/2.1085/1.229795/bsa-hoftade-sverigesiffror">BSA
8145 höftade Sverigesiffror</a>, oppsummeres slik:</p>
8146
8147 <blockquote>
8148 I sin senaste rapport slår BSA fast att 25 procent av all mjukvara i
8149 Sverige är piratkopierad. Det utan att ha pratat med ett enda svenskt
8150 företag. "Man bör nog kanske inte se de här siffrorna som helt
8151 exakta", säger BSAs Sverigechef John Hugosson.
8152 </blockquote>
8153
8154 <p>Mon tro om de er like metodiske når de gjetter på andelen piratkopiering i Norge?  To andre kommentarer er <a
8155 href="http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/comment/2242134/bsa-piracy-figures-shot-reality">BSA
8156 piracy figures need a shot of reality</a> og <a
8157 href="http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/3958/125/">Does The WIPO
8158 Copyright Treaty Work?</a></p>
8159
8160 <p>Fant lenkene via <a
8161 href="http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/05/17/1632242">oppslag
8162 på Slashdot</a>.</p>
8163
8164       </div>
8165       <div class="tags">
8166
8167
8168         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>.
8169
8170
8171       </div>
8172     </div>
8173     <div class="padding"></div>
8174
8175     <div class="entry">
8176       <div class="title">
8177         <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>
8178       </div>
8179       <div class="date">
8180          7th May 2009
8181       </div>
8182       <div class="body">
8183         <p>Kom over
8184 <a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10216873-16.html">interessante
8185 tall</a> fra IDG om utviklingen av linuxservermarkedet.  Fikk meg til
8186 å tenke på antall tjenermaskiner ved Universitetet i Oslo der jeg
8187 jobber til daglig.  En rask opptelling forteller meg at vi har 490
8188 (61%) fysiske unix-tjener (mest linux men også noen solaris) og 196
8189 (25%) windowstjenere, samt 112 (14%) virtuelle unix-tjenere.  Med den
8190 bakgrunnskunnskapen kan jeg godt tro at IDG er inne på noe.</p>
8191
8192       </div>
8193       <div class="tags">
8194
8195
8196         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>.
8197
8198
8199       </div>
8200     </div>
8201     <div class="padding"></div>
8202
8203     <div class="entry">
8204       <div class="title">
8205         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Kryptert_harddisk___naturligvis.html">Kryptert harddisk - naturligvis</a>
8206       </div>
8207       <div class="date">
8208          2nd May 2009
8209       </div>
8210       <div class="body">
8211         <p><a href="http://www.dagensit.no/trender/article1658676.ece">Dagens
8212 IT melder</a> at Intel hevder at det er dyrt å miste en datamaskin,
8213 når en tar tap av arbeidstid, fortrolige dokumenter,
8214 personopplysninger og alt annet det innebærer.  Det er ingen tvil om
8215 at det er en kostbar affære å miste sin datamaskin, og det er årsaken
8216 til at jeg har kryptert harddisken på både kontormaskinen og min
8217 bærbare.  Begge inneholder personopplysninger jeg ikke ønsker skal
8218 komme på avveie, den første informasjon relatert til jobben min ved
8219 Universitetet i Oslo, og den andre relatert til blant annet
8220 foreningsarbeide.  Kryptering av diskene gjør at det er lite
8221 sannsynlig at dophoder som kan finne på å rappe maskinene får noe ut
8222 av dem.  Maskinene låses automatisk etter noen minutter uten bruk,
8223 og en reboot vil gjøre at de ber om passord før de vil starte opp.
8224 Jeg bruker Debian på begge maskinene, og installasjonssystemet der
8225 gjør det trivielt å sette opp krypterte disker.  Jeg har LVM på toppen
8226 av krypterte partisjoner, slik at alt av datapartisjoner er kryptert.
8227 Jeg anbefaler alle å kryptere diskene på sine bærbare.  Kostnaden når
8228 det er gjort slik jeg gjør det er minimale, og gevinstene er
8229 betydelige.  En bør dog passe på passordet.  Hvis det går tapt, må
8230 maskinen reinstalleres og alt er tapt.</p>
8231
8232 <p>Krypteringen vil ikke stoppe kompetente angripere som f.eks. kjøler
8233 ned minnebrikkene før maskinen rebootes med programvare for å hente ut
8234 krypteringsnøklene.  Kostnaden med å forsvare seg mot slike angripere
8235 er for min del høyere enn gevinsten.  Jeg tror oddsene for at
8236 f.eks. etteretningsorganisasjoner har glede av å titte på mine
8237 maskiner er minimale, og ulempene jeg ville oppnå ved å forsøke å
8238 gjøre det vanskeligere for angripere med kompetanse og ressurser er
8239 betydelige.</p>
8240
8241       </div>
8242       <div class="tags">
8243
8244
8245         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>.
8246
8247
8248       </div>
8249     </div>
8250     <div class="padding"></div>
8251
8252     <div class="entry">
8253       <div class="title">
8254         <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>
8255       </div>
8256       <div class="date">
8257          2nd May 2009
8258       </div>
8259       <div class="body">
8260         <p>There are two software projects that have had huge influence on the
8261 quality of free software, and I wanted to mention both in case someone
8262 do not yet know them.</p>
8263
8264 <p>The first one is <a href="http://valgrind.org/">valgrind</a>, a
8265 tool to detect and expose errors in the memory handling of programs.
8266 It is easy to use, all one need to do is to run 'valgrind program',
8267 and it will report any problems on stdout.  It is even better if the
8268 program include debug information.  With debug information, it is able
8269 to report the source file name and line number where the problem
8270 occurs.  It can report things like 'reading past memory block in file
8271 X line N, the memory block was allocated in file Y, line M', and
8272 'using uninitialised value in control logic'.  This tool has made it
8273 trivial to investigate reproducible crash bugs in programs, and have
8274 reduced the number of this kind of bugs in free software a lot.
8275
8276 <p>The second one is
8277 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coverity">Coverity</a> which is
8278 a source code checker.  It is able to process the source of a program
8279 and find problems in the logic without running the program.  It
8280 started out as the Stanford Checker and became well known when it was
8281 used to find bugs in the Linux kernel.  It is now a commercial tool
8282 and the company behind it is running
8283 <a href="http://www.scan.coverity.com/">a community service</a> for the
8284 free software community, where a lot of free software projects get
8285 their source checked for free.  Several thousand defects have been
8286 found and fixed so far.  It can find errors like 'lock L taken in file
8287 X line N is never released if exiting in line M', or 'the code in file
8288 Y lines O to P can never be executed'.  The projects included in the
8289 community service project have managed to get rid of a lot of
8290 reliability problems thanks to Coverity.</p>
8291
8292 <p>I believe tools like this, that are able to automatically find
8293 errors in the source, are vital to improve the quality of software and
8294 make sure we can get rid of the crashing and failing software we are
8295 surrounded by today.</p>
8296
8297       </div>
8298       <div class="tags">
8299
8300
8301         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
8302
8303
8304       </div>
8305     </div>
8306     <div class="padding"></div>
8307
8308     <div class="entry">
8309       <div class="title">
8310         <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>
8311       </div>
8312       <div class="date">
8313         28th April 2009
8314       </div>
8315       <div class="body">
8316         <p>Julien Blache
8317 <a href="http://blog.technologeek.org/2009/04/12/214">claim that no
8318 patch is better than a useless patch</a>.  I completely disagree, as a
8319 patch allow one to discuss a concrete and proposed solution, and also
8320 prove that the issue at hand is important enough for someone to spent
8321 time on fixing it.  No patch do not provide any of these positive
8322 properties.</p>
8323
8324       </div>
8325       <div class="tags">
8326
8327
8328         Tags: <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>.
8329
8330
8331       </div>
8332     </div>
8333     <div class="padding"></div>
8334
8335     <div class="entry">
8336       <div class="title">
8337         <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>
8338       </div>
8339       <div class="date">
8340         30th March 2009
8341       </div>
8342       <div class="body">
8343         <p>Where I work at the University of Oslo, one decision stand out as a
8344 very good one to form a long lived computer infrastructure.  It is the
8345 simple one, lost by many in todays computer industry: Standardize on
8346 open network protocols and open exchange/storage formats, not applications.
8347 Applications come and go, while protocols and files tend to stay, and
8348 thus one want to make it easy to change application and vendor, while
8349 avoiding conversion costs and locking users to a specific platform or
8350 application.</p>
8351
8352 <p>This approach make it possible to replace the client applications
8353 independently of the server applications.  One can even allow users to
8354 use several different applications as long as they handle the selected
8355 protocol and format.  In the normal case, only one client application
8356 is recommended and users only get help if they choose to use this
8357 application, but those that want to deviate from the easy path are not
8358 blocked from doing so.</p>
8359
8360 <p>It also allow us to replace the server side without forcing the
8361 users to replace their applications, and thus allow us to select the
8362 best server implementation at any moment, when scale and resouce
8363 requirements change.</p>
8364
8365 <p>I strongly recommend standardizing - on open network protocols and
8366 open formats, but I would never recommend standardizing on a single
8367 application that do not use open network protocol or open formats.</p>
8368
8369       </div>
8370       <div class="tags">
8371
8372
8373         Tags: <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>.
8374
8375
8376       </div>
8377     </div>
8378     <div class="padding"></div>
8379
8380     <div class="entry">
8381       <div class="title">
8382         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Returning_from_Skolelinux_developer_gathering.html">Returning from Skolelinux developer gathering</a>
8383       </div>
8384       <div class="date">
8385         29th March 2009
8386       </div>
8387       <div class="body">
8388         <p>I'm sitting on the train going home from this weekends Debian
8389 Edu/Skolelinux development gathering.  I got a bit done tuning the
8390 desktop, and looked into the dynamic service location protocol
8391 implementation avahi.  It look like it could be useful for us.  Almost
8392 30 people participated, and I believe it was a great environment to
8393 get to know the Skolelinux system.  Walter Bender, involved in the
8394 development of the Sugar educational platform, presented his stuff and
8395 also helped me improve my OLPC installation.  He also showed me that
8396 his Turtle Art application can be used in standalone mode, and we
8397 agreed that I would help getting it packaged for Debian.  As a
8398 standalone application it would be great for Debian Edu.  We also
8399 tried to get the video conferencing working with two OLPCs, but that
8400 proved to be too hard for us.  The application seem to need more work
8401 before it is ready for me.  I look forward to getting home and relax
8402 now. :)</p>
8403
8404       </div>
8405       <div class="tags">
8406
8407
8408         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>.
8409
8410
8411       </div>
8412     </div>
8413     <div class="padding"></div>
8414
8415     <div class="entry">
8416       <div class="title">
8417         <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>
8418       </div>
8419       <div class="date">
8420         29th March 2009
8421       </div>
8422       <div class="body">
8423         <p>The state of standardized LDAP schemas on Linux is far from
8424 optimal.  There is RFC 2307 documenting one way to store NIS maps in
8425 LDAP, and a modified version of this normally called RFC 2307bis, with
8426 some modifications to be compatible with Active Directory.  The RFC
8427 specification handle the content of a lot of system databases, but do
8428 not handle DNS zones and DHCP configuration.</p>
8429
8430 <p>In <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux</a>,
8431 we would like to store information about users, SMB clients/hosts,
8432 filegroups, netgroups (users and hosts), DHCP and DNS configuration,
8433 and LTSP configuration in LDAP.  These objects have a lot in common,
8434 but with the current LDAP schemas it is not possible to have one
8435 object per entity.  For example, one need to have at least three LDAP
8436 objects for a given computer, one with the SMB related stuff, one with
8437 DNS information and another with DHCP information.  The schemas
8438 provided for DNS and DHCP are impossible to combine into one LDAP
8439 object.  In addition, it is impossible to implement quick queries for
8440 netgroup membership, because of the way NIS triples are implemented.
8441 It just do not scale.  I believe it is time for a few RFC
8442 specifications to cleam up this mess.</p>
8443
8444 <p>I would like to have one LDAP object representing each computer in
8445 the network, and this object can then keep the SMB (ie host key), DHCP
8446 (mac address/name) and DNS (name/IP address) settings in one place.
8447 It need to be efficently stored to make sure it scale well.</p>
8448
8449 <p>I would also like to have a quick way to map from a user or
8450 computer and to the net group this user or computer is a member.</p>
8451
8452 <p>Active Directory have done a better job than unix heads like myself
8453 in this regard, and the unix side need to catch up.  Time to start a
8454 new IETF work group?</p>
8455
8456       </div>
8457       <div class="tags">
8458
8459
8460         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>.
8461
8462
8463       </div>
8464     </div>
8465     <div class="padding"></div>
8466
8467     <div class="entry">
8468       <div class="title">
8469         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Endelig_er_Debian_Lenny_gitt_ut.html">Endelig er Debian Lenny gitt ut</a>
8470       </div>
8471       <div class="date">
8472         15th February 2009
8473       </div>
8474       <div class="body">
8475         <p>Endelig er <a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</a>
8476 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2009/20090214">Lenny</a> gitt ut.
8477 Et langt steg videre for Debian-prosjektet, og en rekke nye
8478 programpakker blir nå tilgjengelig for de av oss som bruker den
8479 stabile utgaven av Debian.  Neste steg er nå å få
8480 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a> /
8481 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/">Debian Edu</a> ferdig
8482 oppdatert for den nye utgaven, slik at en oppdatert versjon kan
8483 slippes løs på skolene.  Takk til alle debian-utviklerne som har
8484 gjort dette mulig.  Endelig er f.eks. fungerende avhengighetsstyrt
8485 bootsekvens tilgjengelig i stabil utgave, vha pakken
8486 <tt>insserv</tt>.</p>
8487
8488       </div>
8489       <div class="tags">
8490
8491
8492         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>.
8493
8494
8495       </div>
8496     </div>
8497     <div class="padding"></div>
8498
8499     <div class="entry">
8500       <div class="title">
8501         <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>
8502       </div>
8503       <div class="date">
8504          7th December 2008
8505       </div>
8506       <div class="body">
8507         <p>This weekend we had a small developer gathering for Debian Edu in
8508 Oslo.  Most of Saturday was used for the general assemly for the
8509 member organization, but the rest of the weekend I used to tune the
8510 LTSP installation.  LTSP now work out of the box on the 10-network.
8511 Acer Aspire One proved to be a very nice thin client, with both
8512 screen, mouse and keybard in a small box.  Was working on getting the
8513 diskless workstation setup configured out of the box, but did not
8514 finish it before the weekend was up.</p>
8515
8516 <p>Did not find time to look at the 4 VGA cards in one box we got from
8517 the Brazilian group, so that will have to wait for the next
8518 development gathering.  Would love to have the Debian Edu installer
8519 automatically detect and configure a multiseat setup when it find one
8520 of these cards.</p>
8521
8522       </div>
8523       <div class="tags">
8524
8525
8526         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>.
8527
8528
8529       </div>
8530     </div>
8531     <div class="padding"></div>
8532
8533     <div class="entry">
8534       <div class="title">
8535         <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>
8536       </div>
8537       <div class="date">
8538         25th November 2008
8539       </div>
8540       <div class="body">
8541         <p>Recently I have spent some time evaluating the multimedia browser
8542 plugins available in Debian Lenny, to see which one we should use by
8543 default in Debian Edu.  We need an embedded video playing plugin with
8544 control buttons to pause or stop the video, and capable of streaming
8545 all the multimedia content available on the web.  The test results and
8546 notes are available on
8547 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">the
8548 Debian wiki</a>.  I was surprised how few of the plugins are able to
8549 fill this need.  My personal video player favorite, VLC, has a really
8550 bad plugin which fail on a lot of the test pages.  A lot of the MIME
8551 types I would expect to work with any free software player (like
8552 video/ogg), just do not work.  And simple formats like the
8553 audio/x-mplegurl format (m3u playlists), just isn't supported by the
8554 totem and vlc plugins.  I hope the situation will improve soon.  No
8555 wonder sites use the proprietary Adobe flash to play video.</p>
8556
8557 <p>For Lenny, we seem to end up with the mplayer plugin.  It seem to
8558 be the only one fitting our needs. :/</p>
8559
8560       </div>
8561       <div class="tags">
8562
8563
8564         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>.
8565
8566
8567       </div>
8568     </div>
8569     <div class="padding"></div>
8570
8571     <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>
8572     <div id="sidebar">
8573
8574
8575
8576 <h2>Archive</h2>
8577 <ul>
8578
8579 <li>2014
8580 <ul>
8581
8582 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/01/">January (2)</a></li>
8583
8584 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/02/">February (3)</a></li>
8585
8586 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/03/">March (8)</a></li>
8587
8588 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/04/">April (7)</a></li>
8589
8590 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/05/">May (1)</a></li>
8591
8592 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/06/">June (2)</a></li>
8593
8594 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/07/">July (2)</a></li>
8595
8596 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/08/">August (2)</a></li>
8597
8598 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/09/">September (5)</a></li>
8599
8600 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/10/">October (1)</a></li>
8601
8602 </ul></li>
8603
8604 <li>2013
8605 <ul>
8606
8607 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/01/">January (11)</a></li>
8608
8609 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/02/">February (9)</a></li>
8610
8611 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/03/">March (9)</a></li>
8612
8613 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/04/">April (6)</a></li>
8614
8615 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/05/">May (9)</a></li>
8616
8617 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/06/">June (10)</a></li>
8618
8619 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/07/">July (7)</a></li>
8620
8621 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/08/">August (3)</a></li>
8622
8623 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/09/">September (5)</a></li>
8624
8625 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/10/">October (7)</a></li>
8626
8627 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/11/">November (9)</a></li>
8628
8629 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/12/">December (3)</a></li>
8630
8631 </ul></li>
8632
8633 <li>2012
8634 <ul>
8635
8636 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/01/">January (7)</a></li>
8637
8638 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/02/">February (10)</a></li>
8639
8640 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/03/">March (17)</a></li>
8641
8642 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/04/">April (12)</a></li>
8643
8644 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/05/">May (12)</a></li>
8645
8646 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/06/">June (20)</a></li>
8647
8648 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/07/">July (17)</a></li>
8649
8650 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/08/">August (6)</a></li>
8651
8652 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/09/">September (9)</a></li>
8653
8654 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/10/">October (17)</a></li>
8655
8656 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/11/">November (10)</a></li>
8657
8658 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/12/">December (7)</a></li>
8659
8660 </ul></li>
8661
8662 <li>2011
8663 <ul>
8664
8665 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/01/">January (16)</a></li>
8666
8667 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/02/">February (6)</a></li>
8668
8669 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/03/">March (6)</a></li>
8670
8671 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/04/">April (7)</a></li>
8672
8673 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/05/">May (3)</a></li>
8674
8675 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/06/">June (2)</a></li>
8676
8677 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/07/">July (7)</a></li>
8678
8679 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/08/">August (6)</a></li>
8680
8681 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/09/">September (4)</a></li>
8682
8683 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/10/">October (2)</a></li>
8684
8685 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/11/">November (3)</a></li>
8686
8687 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/12/">December (1)</a></li>
8688
8689 </ul></li>
8690
8691 <li>2010
8692 <ul>
8693
8694 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/01/">January (2)</a></li>
8695
8696 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/02/">February (1)</a></li>
8697
8698 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/03/">March (3)</a></li>
8699
8700 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/04/">April (3)</a></li>
8701
8702 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/05/">May (9)</a></li>
8703
8704 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/06/">June (14)</a></li>
8705
8706 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/07/">July (12)</a></li>
8707
8708 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/08/">August (13)</a></li>
8709
8710 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/09/">September (7)</a></li>
8711
8712 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/10/">October (9)</a></li>
8713
8714 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/11/">November (13)</a></li>
8715
8716 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/12/">December (12)</a></li>
8717
8718 </ul></li>
8719
8720 <li>2009
8721 <ul>
8722
8723 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/01/">January (8)</a></li>
8724
8725 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/02/">February (8)</a></li>
8726
8727 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/03/">March (12)</a></li>
8728
8729 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/04/">April (10)</a></li>
8730
8731 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/05/">May (9)</a></li>
8732
8733 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/06/">June (3)</a></li>
8734
8735 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/07/">July (4)</a></li>
8736
8737 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/08/">August (3)</a></li>
8738
8739 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/09/">September (1)</a></li>
8740
8741 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/10/">October (2)</a></li>
8742
8743 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/11/">November (3)</a></li>
8744
8745 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/12/">December (3)</a></li>
8746
8747 </ul></li>
8748
8749 <li>2008
8750 <ul>
8751
8752 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/11/">November (5)</a></li>
8753
8754 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/12/">December (7)</a></li>
8755
8756 </ul></li>
8757
8758 </ul>
8759
8760
8761
8762 <h2>Tags</h2>
8763 <ul>
8764
8765  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer (13)</a></li>
8766
8767  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/amiga">amiga (1)</a></li>
8768
8769  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/aros">aros (1)</a></li>
8770
8771  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bankid">bankid (4)</a></li>
8772
8773  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin (8)</a></li>
8774
8775  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem (14)</a></li>
8776
8777  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bsa">bsa (2)</a></li>
8778
8779  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/chrpath">chrpath (2)</a></li>
8780
8781  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian (104)</a></li>
8782
8783  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu (150)</a></li>
8784
8785  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/digistan">digistan (10)</a></li>
8786
8787  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/dld">dld (15)</a></li>
8788
8789  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook (12)</a></li>
8790
8791  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/drivstoffpriser">drivstoffpriser (4)</a></li>
8792
8793  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english (256)</a></li>
8794
8795  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami (21)</a></li>
8796
8797  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fildeling">fildeling (12)</a></li>
8798
8799  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture (13)</a></li>
8800
8801  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox (8)</a></li>
8802
8803  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen (11)</a></li>
8804
8805  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju (41)</a></li>
8806
8807  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram (9)</a></li>
8808
8809  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kart">kart (19)</a></li>
8810
8811  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap (9)</a></li>
8812
8813  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lenker">lenker (8)</a></li>
8814
8815  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lsdvd">lsdvd (2)</a></li>
8816
8817  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ltsp">ltsp (1)</a></li>
8818
8819  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network (8)</a></li>
8820
8821  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia (31)</a></li>
8822
8823  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk (248)</a></li>
8824
8825  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug (162)</a></li>
8826
8827  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/offentlig innsyn">offentlig innsyn (11)</a></li>
8828
8829  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/open311">open311 (2)</a></li>
8830
8831  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett (48)</a></li>
8832
8833  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern (75)</a></li>
8834
8835  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/raid">raid (1)</a></li>
8836
8837  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reactos">reactos (1)</a></li>
8838
8839  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reprap">reprap (11)</a></li>
8840
8841  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rfid">rfid (3)</a></li>
8842
8843  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot (9)</a></li>
8844
8845  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rss">rss (1)</a></li>
8846
8847  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ruter">ruter (4)</a></li>
8848
8849  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/scraperwiki">scraperwiki (2)</a></li>
8850
8851  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet (41)</a></li>
8852
8853  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary (4)</a></li>
8854
8855  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/skepsis">skepsis (4)</a></li>
8856
8857  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard (45)</a></li>
8858
8859  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stavekontroll">stavekontroll (3)</a></li>
8860
8861  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stortinget">stortinget (9)</a></li>
8862
8863  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance (26)</a></li>
8864
8865  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sysadmin">sysadmin (1)</a></li>
8866
8867  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/valg">valg (8)</a></li>
8868
8869  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video (43)</a></li>
8870
8871  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/vitenskap">vitenskap (4)</a></li>
8872
8873  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web (33)</a></li>
8874
8875 </ul>
8876
8877
8878     </div>
8879     <p style="text-align: right">
8880  Created by <a href="http://steve.org.uk/Software/chronicle">Chronicle v4.6</a>
8881 </p>
8882
8883   </body>
8884 </html>