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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/Isenkram__Appstream_and_udev_make_life_as_a_LEGO_builder_easier.html">Isenkram, Appstream and udev make life as a LEGO builder easier</a>
  26       </div>
  27       <div class="date">
  28          7th October 2016
  29       </div>
  30       <div class="body">
  31         <p><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">The Isenkram
  32 system</a> provide a practical and easy way to figure out which
  33 packages support the hardware in a given machine.  The command line
  34 tool <tt>isenkram-lookup</tt> and the tasksel options provide a
  35 convenient way to list and install packages relevant for the current
  36 hardware during system installation, both user space packages and
  37 firmware packages. The GUI background daemon on the other hand provide
  38 a pop-up proposing to install packages when a new dongle is inserted
  39 while using the computer.  For example, if you plug in a smart card
  40 reader, the system will ask if you want to install <tt>pcscd</tt> if
  41 that package isn't already installed, and if you plug in a USB video
  42 camera the system will ask if you want to install <tt>cheese</tt> if
  43 cheese is currently missing.  This already work just fine.</p>
  44
  45 <p>But Isenkram depend on a database mapping from hardware IDs to
  46 package names.  When I started no such database existed in Debian, so
  47 I made my own data set and included it with the isenkram package and
  48 made isenkram fetch the latest version of this database from git using
  49 http.  This way the isenkram users would get updated package proposals
  50 as soon as I learned more about hardware related packages.</p>
  51
  52 <p>The hardware is identified using modalias strings.  The modalias
  53 design is from the Linux kernel where most hardware descriptors are
  54 made available as a strings that can be matched using filename style
  55 globbing.  It handle USB, PCI, DMI and a lot of other hardware related
  56 identifiers.</p>
  57
  58 <p>The downside to the Isenkram specific database is that there is no
  59 information about relevant distribution / Debian version, making
  60 isenkram propose obsolete packages too.  But along came AppStream, a
  61 cross distribution mechanism to store and collect metadata about
  62 software packages.  When I heard about the proposal, I contacted the
  63 people involved and suggested to add a hardware matching rule using
  64 modalias strings in the specification, to be able to use AppStream for
  65 mapping hardware to packages.  This idea was accepted and AppStream is
  66 now a great way for a package to announce the hardware it support in a
  67 distribution neutral way.  I wrote
  68 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_appstream_with_isenkram_to_install_hardware_related_packages_in_Debian.html">a
  69 recipe on how to add such meta-information</a> in a blog post last
  70 December.  If you have a hardware related package in Debian, please
  71 announce the relevant hardware IDs using AppStream.</p>
  72
  73 <p>In Debian, almost all packages that can talk to a LEGO Mindestorms
  74 RCX or NXT unit, announce this support using AppStream.  The effect is
  75 that when you insert such LEGO robot controller into your Debian
  76 machine, Isenkram will propose to install the packages needed to get
  77 it working.  The intention is that this should allow the local user to
  78 start programming his robot controller right away without having to
  79 guess what packages to use or which permissions to fix.</p>
  80
  81 <p>But when I sat down with my son the other day to program our NXT
  82 unit using his Debian Stretch computer, I discovered something
  83 annoying.  The local console user (ie my son) did not get access to
  84 the USB device for programming the unit.  This used to work, but no
  85 longer in Jessie and Stretch.  After some investigation and asking
  86 around on #debian-devel, I discovered that this was because udev had
  87 changed the mechanism used to grant access to local devices.  The
  88 ConsoleKit mechanism from <tt>/lib/udev/rules.d/70-udev-acl.rules</tt>
  89 no longer applied, because LDAP users no longer was added to the
  90 plugdev group during login.  Michael Biebl told me that this method
  91 was obsolete and the new method used ACLs instead.  This was good
  92 news, as the plugdev mechanism is a mess when using a remote user
  93 directory like LDAP.  Using ACLs would make sure a user lost device
  94 access when she logged out, even if the user left behind a background
  95 process which would retain the plugdev membership with the ConsoleKit
  96 setup.  Armed with this knowledge I moved on to fix the access problem
  97 for the LEGO Mindstorms related packages.</p>
  98
  99 <p>The new system uses a udev tag, 'uaccess'.  It can either be
 100 applied directly for a device, or is applied in
 101 /lib/udev/rules.d/70-uaccess.rules for classes of devices.  As the
 102 LEGO Mindstorms udev rules did not have a class, I decided to add the
 103 tag directly in the udev rules files included in the packages.  Here
 104 is one example.  For the nqc C compiler for the RCX, the
 105 <tt>/lib/udev/rules.d/60-nqc.rules</tt> file now look like this:
 106
 107 <p><pre>
 108 SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ACTION=="add", ATTR{idVendor}=="0694", ATTR{idProduct}=="0001", \
 109     SYMLINK+="rcx-%k", TAG+="uaccess"
 110 </pre></p>
 111
 112 <p>The key part is the 'TAG+="uaccess"' at the end.  I suspect all
 113 packages using plugdev in their /lib/udev/rules.d/ files should be
 114 changed to use this tag (either directly or indirectly via
 115 <tt>70-uaccess.rules</tt>).  Perhaps a lintian check should be created
 116 to detect this?</p>
 117
 118 <p>I've been unable to find good documentation on the uaccess feature.
 119 It is unclear to me if the uaccess tag is an internal implementation
 120 detail like the udev-acl tag used by
 121 <tt>/lib/udev/rules.d/70-udev-acl.rules</tt>.  If it is, I guess the
 122 indirect method is the preferred way.  Michael
 123 <a href="https://github.com/systemd/systemd/issues/4288">asked for more
 124 documentation from the systemd project</a> and I hope it will make
 125 this clearer.  For now I use the generic classes when they exist and
 126 is already handled by <tt>70-uaccess.rules</tt>, and add the tag
 127 directly if no such class exist.</p>
 128
 129 <p>To learn more about the isenkram system, please check out
 130 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram/">my
 131 blog posts tagged isenkram</a>.</p>
 132
 133 <p>To help out making life for LEGO constructors in Debian easier,
 134 please join us on our IRC channel
 135 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">#debian-lego</a> and join
 136 the <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/debian-lego/">Debian
 137 LEGO team</a> in the Alioth project we created yesterday.  A mailing
 138 list is not yet created, but we are working on it. :)</p>
 139
 140 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
 141 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
 142 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
 143
 144       </div>
 145       <div class="tags">
 146
 147
 148         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
 149
 150
 151       </div>
 152     </div>
 153     <div class="padding"></div>
 154
 155     <div class="entry">
 156       <div class="title">
 157         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_draft_Norwegian_Bokm_l_edition_of_The_Debian_Administrator_s_Handbook_now_public.html">First draft Norwegian Bokmål edition of The Debian Administrator's Handbook now public</a>
 158       </div>
 159       <div class="date">
 160         30th August 2016
 161       </div>
 162       <div class="body">
 163         <p>In April we
 164 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_a_Norwegian_Bokm_l_edition_of_The_Debian_Administrator_s_Handbook.html">started
 165 to work</a> on a Norwegian Bokmål edition of the "open access" book on
 166 how to set up and administrate a Debian system.  Today I am happy to
 167 report that the first draft is now publicly available.  You can find
 168 it on <a href="https://debian-handbook.info/get/">get the Debian
 169 Administrator's Handbook page</a> (under Other languages).  The first
 170 eight chapters have a first draft translation, and we are working on
 171 proofreading the content.  If you want to help out, please start
 172 contributing using
 173 <a href="https://hosted.weblate.org/projects/debian-handbook/">the
 174 hosted weblate project page</a>, and get in touch using
 175 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/debian-handbook-translators">the
 176 translators mailing list</a>.  Please also check out
 177 <a href="https://debian-handbook.info/contribute/">the instructions for
 178 contributors</a>.  A good way to contribute is to proofread the text
 179 and update weblate if you find errors.</p>
 180
 181 <p>Our goal is still to make the Norwegian book available on paper as well as
 182 electronic form.</p>
 183
 184       </div>
 185       <div class="tags">
 186
 187
 188         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>.
 189
 190
 191       </div>
 192     </div>
 193     <div class="padding"></div>
 194
 195     <div class="entry">
 196       <div class="title">
 197         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Coz_can_help_you_find_bottlenecks_in_multi_threaded_software___nice_free_software.html">Coz can help you find bottlenecks in multi-threaded software - nice free software</a>
 198       </div>
 199       <div class="date">
 200         11th August 2016
 201       </div>
 202       <div class="body">
 203         <p>This summer, I read a great article
 204 "<a href="https://www.usenix.org/publications/login/summer2016/curtsinger">coz:
 205 This Is the Profiler You're Looking For</a>" in USENIX ;login: about
 206 how to profile multi-threaded programs.  It presented a system for
 207 profiling software by running experiences in the running program,
 208 testing how run time performance is affected by "speeding up" parts of
 209 the code to various degrees compared to a normal run.  It does this by
 210 slowing down parallel threads while the "faster up" code is running
 211 and measure how this affect processing time.  The processing time is
 212 measured using probes inserted into the code, either using progress
 213 counters (COZ_PROGRESS) or as latency meters (COZ_BEGIN/COZ_END).  It
 214 can also measure unmodified code by measuring complete the program
 215 runtime and running the program several times instead.</p>
 216
 217 <p>The project and presentation was so inspiring that I would like to
 218 get the system into Debian.  I
 219 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=830708">created
 220 a WNPP request for it</a> and contacted upstream to try to make the
 221 system ready for Debian by sending patches.  The build process need to
 222 be changed a bit to avoid running 'git clone' to get dependencies, and
 223 to include the JavaScript web page used to visualize the collected
 224 profiling information included in the source package.
 225 But I expect that should work out fairly soon.</p>
 226
 227 <p>The way the system work is fairly simple.  To run an coz experiment
 228 on a binary with debug symbols available, start the program like this:
 229
 230 <p><blockquote><pre>
 231 coz run --- program-to-run
 232 </pre></blockquote></p>
 233
 234 <p>This will create a text file profile.coz with the instrumentation
 235 information.  To show what part of the code affect the performance
 236 most, use a web browser and either point it to
 237 <a href="http://plasma-umass.github.io/coz/">http://plasma-umass.github.io/coz/</a>
 238 or use the copy from git (in the gh-pages branch).  Check out this web
 239 site to have a look at several example profiling runs and get an idea what the end result from the profile runs look like.  To make the
 240 profiling more useful you include &lt;coz.h&gt; and insert the
 241 COZ_PROGRESS or COZ_BEGIN and COZ_END at appropriate places in the
 242 code, rebuild and run the profiler.  This allow coz to do more
 243 targeted experiments.</p>
 244
 245 <p>A video published by ACM
 246 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jE0V-p1odPg">presenting the
 247 Coz profiler</a> is available from Youtube.  There is also a paper
 248 from the 25th Symposium on Operating Systems Principles available
 249 titled
 250 <a href="https://www.usenix.org/conference/atc16/technical-sessions/presentation/curtsinger">Coz:
 251 finding code that counts with causal profiling</a>.</p>
 252
 253 <p><a href="https://github.com/plasma-umass/coz">The source code</a>
 254 for Coz is available from github.  It will only build with clang
 255 because it uses a
 256 <a href="https://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=55606">C++
 257 feature missing in GCC</a>, but I've submitted
 258 <a href="https://github.com/plasma-umass/coz/pull/67">a patch to solve
 259 it</a> and hope it will be included in the upstream source soon.</p>
 260
 261 <p>Please get in touch if you, like me, would like to see this piece
 262 of software in Debian.  I would very much like some help with the
 263 packaging effort, as I lack the in depth knowledge on how to package
 264 C++ libraries.</p>
 265
 266       </div>
 267       <div class="tags">
 268
 269
 270         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nice free software">nice free software</a>.
 271
 272
 273       </div>
 274     </div>
 275     <div class="padding"></div>
 276
 277     <div class="entry">
 278       <div class="title">
 279         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Unlocking_HTC_Desire_HD_on_Linux_using_unruu_and_fastboot.html">Unlocking HTC Desire HD on Linux using unruu and fastboot</a>
 280       </div>
 281       <div class="date">
 282          7th July 2016
 283       </div>
 284       <div class="body">
 285         <p>Yesterday, I tried to unlock a HTC Desire HD phone, and it proved
 286 to be a slight challenge.  Here is the recipe if I ever need to do it
 287 again.  It all started by me wanting to try the recipe to set up
 288 <a href="https://blog.torproject.org/blog/mission-impossible-hardening-android-security-and-privacy">an
 289 hardened Android installation</a> from the Tor project blog on a
 290 device I had access to.  It is a old mobile phone with a broken
 291 microphone The initial idea had been to just
 292 <a href="http://wiki.cyanogenmod.org/w/Install_CM_for_ace">install
 293 CyanogenMod on it</a>, but did not quite find time to start on it
 294 until a few days ago.</p>
 295
 296 <p>The unlock process is supposed to be simple: (1) Boot into the boot
 297 loader (press volume down and power at the same time), (2) select
 298 'fastboot' before (3) connecting the device via USB to a Linux
 299 machine, (4) request the device identifier token by running 'fastboot
 300 oem get_identifier_token', (5) request the device unlocking key using
 301 the <a href="http://www.htcdev.com/bootloader/">HTC developer web
 302 site</a> and unlock the phone using the key file emailed to you.</p>
 303
 304 <p>Unfortunately, this only work fi you have hboot version 2.00.0029
 305 or newer, and the device I was working on had 2.00.0027.  This
 306 apparently can be easily fixed by downloading a Windows program and
 307 running it on your Windows machine, if you accept the terms Microsoft
 308 require you to accept to use Windows - which I do not.  So I had to
 309 come up with a different approach.  I got a lot of help from AndyCap
 310 on #nuug, and would not have been able to get this working without
 311 him.</p>
 312
 313 <p>First I needed to extract the hboot firmware from
 314 <a href="http://www.htcdev.com/ruu/PD9810000_Ace_Sense30_S_hboot_2.00.0029.exe">the
 315 windows binary for HTC Desire HD</a> downloaded as 'the RUU' from HTC.
 316 For this there is is <a href="https://github.com/kmdm/unruu/">a github
 317 project named unruu</a> using libunshield.  The unshield tool did not
 318 recognise the file format, but unruu worked and extracted rom.zip,
 319 containing the new hboot firmware and a text file describing which
 320 devices it would work for.</p>
 321
 322 <p>Next, I needed to get the new firmware into the device.  For this I
 323 followed some instructions
 324 <a href="http://www.htc1guru.com/2013/09/new-ruu-zips-posted/">available
 325 from HTC1Guru.com</a>, and ran these commands as root on a Linux
 326 machine with Debian testing:</p>
 327
 328 <p><pre>
 329 adb reboot-bootloader
 330 fastboot oem rebootRUU
 331 fastboot flash zip rom.zip
 332 fastboot flash zip rom.zip
 333 fastboot reboot
 334 </pre></p>
 335
 336 <p>The flash command apparently need to be done twice to take effect,
 337 as the first is just preparations and the second one do the flashing.
 338 The adb command is just to get to the boot loader menu, so turning the
 339 device on while holding volume down and the power button should work
 340 too.</p>
 341
 342 <p>With the new hboot version in place I could start following the
 343 instructions on the HTC developer web site.  I got the device token
 344 like this:</p>
 345
 346 <p><pre>
 347 fastboot oem get_identifier_token 2>&1 | sed 's/(bootloader) //'
 348 </pre>
 349
 350 <p>And once I got the unlock code via email, I could use it like
 351 this:</p>
 352
 353 <p><pre>
 354 fastboot flash unlocktoken Unlock_code.bin
 355 </pre></p>
 356
 357 <p>And with that final step in place, the phone was unlocked and I
 358 could start stuffing the software of my own choosing into the device.
 359 So far I only inserted a replacement recovery image to wipe the phone
 360 before I start.  We will see what happen next.  Perhaps I should
 361 install <a href="https://www.debian.org/">Debian</a> on it. :)</p>
 362
 363       </div>
 364       <div class="tags">
 365
 366
 367         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
 368
 369
 370       </div>
 371     </div>
 372     <div class="padding"></div>
 373
 374     <div class="entry">
 375       <div class="title">
 376         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_use_the_Signal_app_if_you_only_have_a_land_line__ie_no_mobile_phone_.html">How to use the Signal app if you only have a land line (ie no mobile phone)</a>
 377       </div>
 378       <div class="date">
 379          3rd July 2016
 380       </div>
 381       <div class="body">
 382         <p>For a while now, I have wanted to test
 383 <a href="https://whispersystems.org/">the Signal app</a>, as it is
 384 said to provide end to end encrypted communication and several of my
 385 friends and family are already using it.  As I by choice do not own a
 386 mobile phone, this proved to be harder than expected.  And I wanted to
 387 have the source of the client and know that it was the code used on my
 388 machine.  But yesterday I managed to get it working.  I used the
 389 Github source, compared it to the source in
 390 <a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/signal-private-messenger/bikioccmkafdpakkkcpdbppfkghcmihk?hl=en-US">the
 391 Signal Chrome app</a> available from the Chrome web store, applied
 392 patches to use the production Signal servers, started the app and
 393 asked for the hidden "register without a smart phone" form.  Here is
 394 the recipe how I did it.</p>
 395
 396 <p>First, I fetched the Signal desktop source from Github, using
 397
 398 <pre>
 399 git clone https://github.com/WhisperSystems/Signal-Desktop.git
 400 </pre>
 401
 402 <p>Next, I patched the source to use the production servers, to be
 403 able to talk to other Signal users:</p>
 404
 405 <pre>
 406 cat &lt;&lt;EOF | patch -p0
 407 diff -ur ./js/background.js userdata/Default/Extensions/bikioccmkafdpakkkcpdbppfkghcmihk/0.15.0_0/js/background.js
 408 --- ./js/background.js  2016-06-29 13:43:15.630344628 +0200
 409 +++ userdata/Default/Extensions/bikioccmkafdpakkkcpdbppfkghcmihk/0.15.0_0/js/background.js    2016-06-29 14:06:29.530300934 +0200
 410 @@ -47,8 +47,8 @@
 411          });
 412      });
 413
 414 -    var SERVER_URL = 'https://textsecure-service-staging.whispersystems.org';
 415 -    var ATTACHMENT_SERVER_URL = 'https://whispersystems-textsecure-attachments-staging.s3.amazonaws.com';
 416 +    var SERVER_URL = 'https://textsecure-service-ca.whispersystems.org:4433';
 417 +    var ATTACHMENT_SERVER_URL = 'https://whispersystems-textsecure-attachments.s3.amazonaws.com';
 418      var messageReceiver;
 419      window.getSocketStatus = function() {
 420          if (messageReceiver) {
 421 diff -ur ./js/expire.js userdata/Default/Extensions/bikioccmkafdpakkkcpdbppfkghcmihk/0.15.0_0/js/expire.js
 422 --- ./js/expire.js      2016-06-29 13:43:15.630344628 +0200
 423 +++ userdata/Default/Extensions/bikioccmkafdpakkkcpdbppfkghcmihk/0.15.0_0/js/expire.js2016-06-29 14:06:29.530300934 +0200
 424 @@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 425  ;(function() {
 426      'use strict';
 427 -    var BUILD_EXPIRATION = 0;
 428 +    var BUILD_EXPIRATION = 1474492690000;
 429
 430      window.extension = window.extension || {};
 431
 432 EOF
 433 </pre>
 434
 435 <p>The first part is changing the servers, and the second is updating
 436 an expiration timestamp.  This timestamp need to be updated regularly.
 437 It is set 90 days in the future by the build process (Gruntfile.js).
 438 The value is seconds since 1970 times 1000, as far as I can tell.</p>
 439
 440 <p>Based on a tip and good help from the #nuug IRC channel, I wrote a
 441 script to launch Signal in Chromium.</p>
 442
 443 <pre>
 444 #!/bin/sh
 445 cd $(dirname $0)
 446 mkdir -p userdata
 447 exec chromium \
 448   --proxy-server="socks://localhost:9050" \
 449   --user-data-dir=`pwd`/userdata --load-and-launch-app=`pwd`
 450 </pre>
 451
 452 <p> The script start the app and configure Chromium to use the Tor
 453 SOCKS5 proxy to make sure those controlling the Signal servers (today
 454 Amazon and Whisper Systems) as well as those listening on the lines
 455 will have a harder time location my laptop based on the Signal
 456 connections if they use source IP address.</p>
 457
 458 <p>When the script starts, one need to follow the instructions under
 459 "Standalone Registration" in the CONTRIBUTING.md file in the git
 460 repository.  I right clicked on the Signal window to get up the
 461 Chromium debugging tool, visited the 'Console' tab and wrote
 462 'extension.install("standalone")' on the console prompt to get the
 463 registration form.  Then I entered by land line phone number and
 464 pressed 'Call'.  5 seconds later the phone rang and a robot voice
 465 repeated the verification code three times.  After entering the number
 466 into the verification code field in the form, I could start using
 467 Signal from my laptop.
 468
 469 <p>As far as I can tell, The Signal app will leak who is talking to
 470 whom and thus who know who to those controlling the central server,
 471 but such leakage is hard to avoid with a centrally controlled server
 472 setup.  It is something to keep in mind when using Signal - the
 473 content of your chats are harder to intercept, but the meta data
 474 exposing your contact network is available to people you do not know.
 475 So better than many options, but not great.  And sadly the usage is
 476 connected to my land line, thus allowing those controlling the server
 477 to associate it to my home and person.  I would prefer it if only
 478 those I knew could tell who I was on Signal.  There are options
 479 avoiding such information leakage, but most of my friends are not
 480 using them, so I am stuck with Signal for now.</p>
 481
 482       </div>
 483       <div class="tags">
 484
 485
 486         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
 487
 488
 489       </div>
 490     </div>
 491     <div class="padding"></div>
 492
 493     <div class="entry">
 494       <div class="title">
 495         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_new__best__multimedia_player_in_Debian_.html">The new "best" multimedia player in Debian?</a>
 496       </div>
 497       <div class="date">
 498          6th June 2016
 499       </div>
 500       <div class="body">
 501         <p>When I set out a few weeks ago to figure out
 502 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_the_best_multimedia_player_in_Debian_.html">which
 503 multimedia player in Debian claimed to support most file formats /
 504 MIME types</a>, I was a bit surprised how varied the sets of MIME types
 505 the various players claimed support for.  The range was from 55 to 130
 506 MIME types.  I suspect most media formats are supported by all
 507 players, but this is not really reflected in the MimeTypes values in
 508 their desktop files.  There are probably also some bogus MIME types
 509 listed, but it is hard to identify which one this is.</p>
 510
 511 <p>Anyway, in the mean time I got in touch with upstream for some of
 512 the players suggesting to add more MIME types to their desktop files,
 513 and decided to spend some time myself improving the situation for my
 514 favorite media player VLC.  The fixes for VLC entered Debian unstable
 515 yesterday. The complete list of MIME types can be seen on the
 516 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianMultimedia/PlayerSupport">Multimedia
 517 player MIME type support status</a> Debian wiki page.</p>
 518
 519 <p>The new "best" multimedia player in Debian?  It is VLC, followed by
 520 totem, parole, kplayer, gnome-mpv, mpv, smplayer, mplayer-gui and
 521 kmplayer.  I am sure some of the other players desktop files support
 522 several of the formats currently listed as working only with vlc,
 523 toten and parole.</p>
 524
 525 <p>A sad observation is that only 14 MIME types are listed as
 526 supported by all the tested multimedia players in Debian in their
 527 desktop files: audio/mpeg, audio/vnd.rn-realaudio, audio/x-mpegurl,
 528 audio/x-ms-wma, audio/x-scpls, audio/x-wav, video/mp4, video/mpeg,
 529 video/quicktime, video/vnd.rn-realvideo, video/x-matroska,
 530 video/x-ms-asf, video/x-ms-wmv and video/x-msvideo.  Personally I find
 531 it sad that video/ogg and video/webm is not supported by all the media
 532 players in Debian.  As far as I can tell, all of them can handle both
 533 formats.</p>
 534
 535       </div>
 536       <div class="tags">
 537
 538
 539         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>.
 540
 541
 542       </div>
 543     </div>
 544     <div class="padding"></div>
 545
 546     <div class="entry">
 547       <div class="title">
 548         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_program_should_be_able_to_open_its_own_files_on_Linux.html">A program should be able to open its own files on Linux</a>
 549       </div>
 550       <div class="date">
 551          5th June 2016
 552       </div>
 553       <div class="body">
 554         <p>Many years ago, when koffice was fresh and with few users, I
 555 decided to test its presentation tool when making the slides for a
 556 talk I was giving for NUUG on Japhar, a free Java virtual machine.  I
 557 wrote the first draft of the slides, saved the result and went to bed
 558 the day before I would give the talk.  The next day I took a plane to
 559 the location where the meeting should take place, and on the plane I
 560 started up koffice again to polish the talk a bit, only to discover
 561 that kpresenter refused to load its own data file.  I cursed a bit and
 562 started making the slides again from memory, to have something to
 563 present when I arrived.  I tested that the saved files could be
 564 loaded, and the day seemed to be rescued.  I continued to polish the
 565 slides until I suddenly discovered that the saved file could no longer
 566 be loaded into kpresenter.  In the end I had to rewrite the slides
 567 three times, condensing the content until the talk became shorter and
 568 shorter.  After the talk I was able to pinpoint the problem &ndash;
 569 kpresenter wrote inline images in a way itself could not understand.
 570 Eventually that bug was fixed and kpresenter ended up being a great
 571 program to make slides.  The point I'm trying to make is that we
 572 expect a program to be able to load its own data files, and it is
 573 embarrassing to its developers if it can't.</p>
 574
 575 <p>Did you ever experience a program failing to load its own data
 576 files from the desktop file browser?  It is not a uncommon problem.  A
 577 while back I discovered that the screencast recorder
 578 gtk-recordmydesktop would save an Ogg Theora video file the KDE file
 579 browser would refuse to open.  No video player claimed to understand
 580 such file.  I tracked down the cause being <tt>file --mime-type</tt>
 581 returning the application/ogg MIME type, which no video player I had
 582 installed listed as a MIME type they would understand.  I asked for
 583 <a href="http://bugs.gw.com/view.php?id=382">file to change its
 584 behavour</a> and use the MIME type video/ogg instead.  I also asked
 585 several video players to add video/ogg to their desktop files, to give
 586 the file browser an idea what to do about Ogg Theora files.  After a
 587 while, the desktop file browsers in Debian started to handle the
 588 output from gtk-recordmydesktop properly.</p>
 589
 590 <p>But history repeats itself.  A few days ago I tested the music
 591 system Rosegarden again, and I discovered that the KDE and xfce file
 592 browsers did not know what to do with the Rosegarden project files
 593 (*.rg).  I've reported <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/825993">the
 594 rosegarden problem to BTS</a> and a fix is commited to git and will be
 595 included in the next upload.  To increase the chance of me remembering
 596 how to fix the problem next time some program fail to load its files
 597 from the file browser, here are some notes on how to fix it.</p>
 598
 599 <p>The file browsers in Debian in general operates on MIME types.
 600 There are two sources for the MIME type of a given file.  The output from
 601 <tt>file --mime-type</tt> mentioned above, and the content of the
 602 shared MIME type registry (under /usr/share/mime/).  The file MIME
 603 type is mapped to programs supporting the MIME type, and this
 604 information is collected from
 605 <a href="https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/desktop-entry-spec/">the
 606 desktop files</a> available in /usr/share/applications/.  If there is
 607 one desktop file claiming support for the MIME type of the file, it is
 608 activated when asking to open a given file.  If there are more, one
 609 can normally select which one to use by right-clicking on the file and
 610 selecting the wanted one using 'Open with' or similar.  In general
 611 this work well.  But it depend on each program picking a good MIME
 612 type (preferably
 613 <a href="http://www.iana.org/assignments/media-types/media-types.xhtml">a
 614 MIME type registered with IANA</a>), file and/or the shared MIME
 615 registry recognizing the file and the desktop file to list the MIME
 616 type in its list of supported MIME types.</p>
 617
 618 <p>The <tt>/usr/share/mime/packages/rosegarden.xml</tt> entry for
 619 <a href="http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/shared-mime-info-spec">the
 620 Shared MIME database</a> look like this:</p>
 621
 622 <p><blockquote><pre>
 623 &lt;?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?&gt;
 624 &lt;mime-info xmlns="http://www.freedesktop.org/standards/shared-mime-info"&gt;
 625   &lt;mime-type type="audio/x-rosegarden"&gt;
 626     &lt;sub-class-of type="application/x-gzip"/&gt;
 627     &lt;comment&gt;Rosegarden project file&lt;/comment&gt;
 628     &lt;glob pattern="*.rg"/&gt;
 629   &lt;/mime-type&gt;
 630 &lt;/mime-info&gt;
 631 </pre></blockquote></p>
 632
 633 <p>This states that audio/x-rosegarden is a kind of application/x-gzip
 634 (it is a gzipped XML file).  Note, it is much better to use an
 635 official MIME type registered with IANA than it is to make up ones own
 636 unofficial ones like the x-rosegarden type used by rosegarden.</p>
 637
 638 <p>The desktop file of the rosegarden program failed to list
 639 audio/x-rosegarden in its list of supported MIME types, causing the
 640 file browsers to have no idea what to do with *.rg files:</p>
 641
 642 <p><blockquote><pre>
 643 % grep Mime /usr/share/applications/rosegarden.desktop
 644 MimeType=audio/x-rosegarden-composition;audio/x-rosegarden-device;audio/x-rosegarden-project;audio/x-rosegarden-template;audio/midi;
 645 X-KDE-NativeMimeType=audio/x-rosegarden-composition
 646 %
 647 </pre></blockquote></p>
 648
 649 <p>The fix was to add "audio/x-rosegarden;" at the end of the
 650 MimeType= line.</p>
 651
 652 <p>If you run into a file which fail to open the correct program when
 653 selected from the file browser, please check out the output from
 654 <tt>file --mime-type</tt> for the file, ensure the file ending and
 655 MIME type is registered somewhere under /usr/share/mime/ and check
 656 that some desktop file under /usr/share/applications/ is claiming
 657 support for this MIME type.  If not, please report a bug to have it
 658 fixed. :)</p>
 659
 660       </div>
 661       <div class="tags">
 662
 663
 664         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>.
 665
 666
 667       </div>
 668     </div>
 669     <div class="padding"></div>
 670
 671     <div class="entry">
 672       <div class="title">
 673         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Isenkram_with_PackageKit_support___new_version_0_23_available_in_Debian_unstable.html">Isenkram with PackageKit support - new version 0.23 available in Debian unstable</a>
 674       </div>
 675       <div class="date">
 676         25th May 2016
 677       </div>
 678       <div class="body">
 679         <p><a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/isenkram">The isenkram
 680 system</a> is a user-focused solution in Debian for handling hardware
 681 related packages.  The idea is to have a database of mappings between
 682 hardware and packages, and pop up a dialog suggesting for the user to
 683 install the packages to use a given hardware dongle.  Some use cases
 684 are when you insert a Yubikey, it proposes to install the software
 685 needed to control it; when you insert a braille reader list it
 686 proposes to install the packages needed to send text to the reader;
 687 and when you insert a ColorHug screen calibrator it suggests to
 688 install the driver for it.  The system work well, and even have a few
 689 command line tools to install firmware packages and packages for the
 690 hardware already in the machine (as opposed to hotpluggable hardware).</p>
 691
 692 <p>The system was initially written using aptdaemon, because I found
 693 good documentation and example code on how to use it.  But aptdaemon
 694 is going away and is generally being replaced by
 695 <a href="http://www.freedesktop.org/software/PackageKit/">PackageKit</a>,
 696 so Isenkram needed a rewrite.  And today, thanks to the great patch
 697 from my college Sunil Mohan Adapa in the FreedomBox project, the
 698 rewrite finally took place.  I've just uploaded a new version of
 699 Isenkram into Debian Unstable with the patch included, and the default
 700 for the background daemon is now to use PackageKit.  To check it out,
 701 install the <tt>isenkram</tt> package and insert some hardware dongle
 702 and see if it is recognised.</p>
 703
 704 <p>If you want to know what kind of packages isenkram would propose for
 705 the machine it is running on, you can check out the isenkram-lookup
 706 program.  This is what it look like on a Thinkpad X230:</p>
 707
 708 <p><blockquote><pre>
 709 % isenkram-lookup
 710 bluez
 711 cheese
 712 fprintd
 713 fprintd-demo
 714 gkrellm-thinkbat
 715 hdapsd
 716 libpam-fprintd
 717 pidgin-blinklight
 718 thinkfan
 719 tleds
 720 tp-smapi-dkms
 721 tp-smapi-source
 722 tpb
 723 %p
 724 </pre></blockquote></p>
 725
 726 <p>The hardware mappings come from several places.  The preferred way
 727 is for packages to announce their hardware support using
 728 <a href="https://www.freedesktop.org/software/appstream/docs/">the
 729 cross distribution appstream system</a>.
 730 See
 731 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram/">previous
 732 blog posts about isenkram</a> to learn how to do that.</p>
 733
 734       </div>
 735       <div class="tags">
 736
 737
 738         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>.
 739
 740
 741       </div>
 742     </div>
 743     <div class="padding"></div>
 744
 745     <div class="entry">
 746       <div class="title">
 747         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Discharge_rate_estimate_in_new_battery_statistics_collector_for_Debian.html">Discharge rate estimate in new battery statistics collector for Debian</a>
 748       </div>
 749       <div class="date">
 750         23rd May 2016
 751       </div>
 752       <div class="body">
 753         <p>Yesterday I updated the
 754 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">battery-stats
 755 package in Debian</a> with a few patches sent to me by skilled and
 756 enterprising users.  There were some nice user and visible changes.
 757 First of all, both desktop menu entries now work.  A design flaw in
 758 one of the script made the history graph fail to show up (its PNG was
 759 dumped in ~/.xsession-errors) if no controlling TTY was available.
 760 The script worked when called from the command line, but not when
 761 called from the desktop menu.  I changed this to look for a DISPLAY
 762 variable or a TTY before deciding where to draw the graph, and now the
 763 graph window pop up as expected.</p>
 764
 765 <p>The next new feature is a discharge rate estimator in one of the
 766 graphs (the one showing the last few hours).  New is also the user of
 767 colours showing charging in blue and discharge in red.  The percentages
 768 of this graph is relative to last full charge, not battery design
 769 capacity.</p>
 770
 771 <p align="center"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-05-23-battery-stats-rate.png"/></p>
 772
 773 <p>The other graph show the entire history of the collected battery
 774 statistics, comparing it to the design capacity of the battery to
 775 visualise how the battery life time get shorter over time.  The red
 776 line in this graph is what the previous graph considers 100 percent:
 777
 778 <p align="center"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-05-23-battery-stats-history.png"/></p>
 779
 780 <p>In this graph you can see that I only charge the battery to 80
 781 percent of last full capacity, and how the capacity of the battery is
 782 shrinking. :(</p>
 783
 784 <p>The last new feature is in the collector, which now will handle
 785 more hardware models.  On some hardware, Linux power supply
 786 information is stored in /sys/class/power_supply/ACAD/, while the
 787 collector previously only looked in /sys/class/power_supply/AC/.  Now
 788 both are checked to figure if there is power connected to the
 789 machine.</p>
 790
 791 <p>If you are interested in how your laptop battery is doing, please
 792 check out the
 793 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">battery-stats</a>
 794 in Debian unstable, or rebuild it on Jessie to get it working on
 795 Debian stable. :) The upstream source is available from <a
 796 href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/battery-stats">github</a>.
 797 Patches are very welcome.</p>
 798
 799 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
 800 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
 801 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
 802
 803       </div>
 804       <div class="tags">
 805
 806
 807         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>.
 808
 809
 810       </div>
 811     </div>
 812     <div class="padding"></div>
 813
 814     <div class="entry">
 815       <div class="title">
 816         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_now_with_ZFS_on_Linux_included.html">Debian now with ZFS on Linux included</a>
 817       </div>
 818       <div class="date">
 819         12th May 2016
 820       </div>
 821       <div class="body">
 822         <p>Today, after many years of hard work from many people,
 823 <a href="http://zfsonlinux.org/">ZFS for Linux</a> finally entered
 824 Debian.  The package status can be seen on
 825 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/zfs-linux">the package tracker
 826 for zfs-linux</a>.  and
 827 <a href="https://qa.debian.org/developer.php?login=pkg-zfsonlinux-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
 828 team status page</a>. If you want to help out, please join us.
 829 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=pkg-zfsonlinux/zfs.git">The
 830 source code</a> is available via git on Alioth.  It would also be
 831 great if you could help out with
 832 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/dkms">the dkms package</a>, as
 833 it is an important piece of the puzzle to get ZFS working.</p>
 834
 835       </div>
 836       <div class="tags">
 837
 838
 839         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>.
 840
 841
 842       </div>
 843     </div>
 844     <div class="padding"></div>
 845
 846     <div class="entry">
 847       <div class="title">
 848         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_the_best_multimedia_player_in_Debian_.html">What is the best multimedia player in Debian?</a>
 849       </div>
 850       <div class="date">
 851          8th May 2016
 852       </div>
 853       <div class="body">
 854         <p><strong>Where I set out to figure out which multimedia player in
 855 Debian claim support for most file formats.</strong></p>
 856
 857 <p>A few years ago, I had a look at the media support for Browser
 858 plugins in Debian, to get an idea which plugins to include in Debian
 859 Edu.  I created a script to extract the set of supported MIME types
 860 for each plugin, and used this to find out which multimedia browser
 861 plugin supported most file formats / media types.
 862 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">The
 863 result</a> can still be seen on the Debian wiki, even though it have
 864 not been updated for a while.  But browser plugins are less relevant
 865 these days, so I thought it was time to look at standalone
 866 players.</p>
 867
 868 <p>A few days ago I was tired of VLC not being listed as a viable
 869 player when I wanted to play videos from the Norwegian National
 870 Broadcasting Company, and decided to investigate why.  The cause is a
 871 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/822245">missing MIME type in the VLC
 872 desktop file</a>.  In the process I wrote a script to compare the set
 873 of MIME types announced in the desktop file and the browser plugin,
 874 only to discover that there is quite a large difference between the
 875 two for VLC.  This discovery made me dig up the script I used to
 876 compare browser plugins, and adjust it to compare desktop files
 877 instead, to try to figure out which multimedia player in Debian
 878 support most file formats.</p>
 879
 880 <p>The result can be seen on the Debian Wiki, as
 881 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianMultimedia/PlayerSupport">a
 882 table listing all MIME types supported by one of the packages included
 883 in the table</a>, with the package supporting most MIME types being
 884 listed first in the table.</p>
 885
 886 </p>The best multimedia player in Debian?  It is totem, followed by
 887 parole, kplayer, mpv, vlc, smplayer mplayer-gui gnome-mpv and
 888 kmplayer.  Time for the other players to update their announced MIME
 889 support?</p>
 890
 891       </div>
 892       <div class="tags">
 893
 894
 895         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>.
 896
 897
 898       </div>
 899     </div>
 900     <div class="padding"></div>
 901
 902     <div class="entry">
 903       <div class="title">
 904         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Pyra___handheld_computer_with_Debian_preinstalled.html">The Pyra - handheld computer with Debian preinstalled</a>
 905       </div>
 906       <div class="date">
 907          4th May 2016
 908       </div>
 909       <div class="body">
 910         A friend of mine made me aware of
 911 <a href="https://pyra-handheld.com/boards/pages/pyra/">The Pyra</a>, a
 912 handheld computer which will be delivered with Debian preinstalled.  I
 913 would love to get one of those for my birthday. :)</p>
 914
 915 <p>The machine is a complete ARM-based PC with micro HDMI, SATA, USB
 916 plugs and many others connectors, and include a full keyboard and a 5"
 917 LCD touch screen.  The 6000mAh battery is claimed to provide a whole
 918 day of battery life time, but I have not seen any independent tests
 919 confirming this.  The vendor is still collecting preorders, and the
 920 last I heard last night was that 22 more orders were needed before
 921 production started.</p>
 922
 923 <p>As far as I know, this is the first handheld preinstalled with
 924 Debian.  Please let me know if you know of any others.  Is it the
 925 first computer being sold with Debian preinstalled?</p>
 926
 927       </div>
 928       <div class="tags">
 929
 930
 931         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>.
 932
 933
 934       </div>
 935     </div>
 936     <div class="padding"></div>
 937
 938     <div class="entry">
 939       <div class="title">
 940         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_a_Norwegian_Bokm_l_edition_of_The_Debian_Administrator_s_Handbook.html">Lets make a Norwegian Bokmål edition of The Debian Administrator's Handbook</a>
 941       </div>
 942       <div class="date">
 943         10th April 2016
 944       </div>
 945       <div class="body">
 946         <p>During this weekends
 947 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/news/Oslo__Takk_for_feilfiksingsfesten.shtml">bug
 948 squashing party and developer gathering</a>, we decided to do our part
 949 to make sure there are good books about Debian available in Norwegian
 950 Bokmål, and got in touch with the people behind the
 951 <a href="http://debian-handbook.info/">Debian Administrator's Handbook
 952 project</a> to get started.  If you want to help out, please start
 953 contributing using
 954 <a href="https://hosted.weblate.org/projects/debian-handbook/">the
 955 hosted weblate project page</a>, and get in touch using
 956 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/debian-handbook-translators">the
 957 translators mailing list</a>.  Please also check out
 958 <a href="https://debian-handbook.info/contribute/">the instructions for
 959 contributors</a>.</p>
 960
 961 <p>The book is already available on paper in English, French and
 962 Japanese, and our goal is to get it available on paper in Norwegian
 963 Bokmål too.  In addition to the paper edition, there are also EPUB and
 964 Mobi versions available.  And there are incomplete translations
 965 available for many more languages.</p>
 966
 967       </div>
 968       <div class="tags">
 969
 970
 971         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>.
 972
 973
 974       </div>
 975     </div>
 976     <div class="padding"></div>
 977
 978     <div class="entry">
 979       <div class="title">
 980         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/One_in_two_hundred_Debian_users_using_ZFS_on_Linux_.html">One in two hundred Debian users using ZFS on Linux?</a>
 981       </div>
 982       <div class="date">
 983          7th April 2016
 984       </div>
 985       <div class="body">
 986         <p>Just for fun I had a look at the popcon number of ZFS related
 987 packages in Debian, and was quite surprised with what I found.  I use
 988 ZFS myself at home, but did not really expect many others to do so.
 989 But I might be wrong.</p>
 990
 991 <p>According to
 992 <a href="https://qa.debian.org/popcon.php?package=spl-linux">the popcon
 993 results for spl-linux</a>, there are 1019 Debian installations, or
 994 0.53% of the population, with the package installed.  As far as I know
 995 the only use of the spl-linux package is as a support library for ZFS
 996 on Linux, so I use it here as proxy for measuring the number of ZFS
 997 installation on Linux in Debian.  In the kFreeBSD variant of Debian
 998 the ZFS feature is already available, and there
 999 <a href="https://qa.debian.org/popcon.php?package=zfsutils">the popcon
1000 results for zfsutils</a> show 1625 Debian installations or 0.84% of
1001 the population.  So I guess I am not alone in using ZFS on Debian.</p>
1002
1003 <p>But even though the Debian project leader Lucas Nussbaum
1004 <a href="https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2015/04/msg00006.html">announced
1005 in April 2015</a> that the legal obstacles blocking ZFS on Debian were
1006 cleared, the package is still not in Debian.  The package is again in
1007 the NEW queue.  Several uploads have been rejected so far because the
1008 debian/copyright file was incomplete or wrong, but there is no reason
1009 to give up.  The current status can be seen on
1010 <a href="https://qa.debian.org/developer.php?login=pkg-zfsonlinux-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
1011 team status page</a>, and
1012 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=pkg-zfsonlinux/zfs.git">the
1013 source code</a> is available on Alioth.</p>
1014
1015 <p>As I want ZFS to be included in next version of Debian to make sure
1016 my home server can function in the future using only official Debian
1017 packages, and the current blocker is to get the debian/copyright file
1018 accepted by the FTP masters in Debian, I decided a while back to try
1019 to help out the team.  This was the background for my blog post about
1020 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Creating__updating_and_checking_debian_copyright_semi_automatically.html">creating,
1021 updating and checking debian/copyright semi-automatically</a>, and I
1022 used the techniques I explored there to try to find any errors in the
1023 copyright file.  It is not very easy to check every one of the around
1024 2000 files in the source package, but I hope we this time got it
1025 right.  If you want to help out, check out the git source and try to
1026 find missing entries in the debian/copyright file.</p>
1027
1028       </div>
1029       <div class="tags">
1030
1031
1032         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>.
1033
1034
1035       </div>
1036     </div>
1037     <div class="padding"></div>
1038
1039     <div class="entry">
1040       <div class="title">
1041         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Full_battery_stats_collector_is_now_available_in_Debian.html">Full battery stats collector is now available in Debian</a>
1042       </div>
1043       <div class="date">
1044         23rd March 2016
1045       </div>
1046       <div class="body">
1047         <p>Since this morning, the battery-stats package in Debian include an
1048 extended collector that will collect the complete battery history for
1049 later processing and graphing.  The original collector store the
1050 battery level as percentage of last full level, while the new
1051 collector also record battery vendor, model, serial number, design
1052 full level, last full level and current battery level.  This make it
1053 possible to predict the lifetime of the battery as well as visualise
1054 the energy flow when the battery is charging or discharging.</p>
1055
1056 <p>The new tools are available in <tt>/usr/share/battery-stats/</tt>
1057 in the version 0.5.1 package in unstable.  Get the new battery level graph
1058 and lifetime prediction by running:
1059
1060 <p><pre>
1061 /usr/share/battery-stats/battery-stats-graph /var/log/battery-stats.csv
1062 </pre></p>
1063
1064 <p>Or select the 'Battery Level Graph' from your application menu.</p>
1065
1066 <p>The flow in/out of the battery can be seen by running (no menu
1067 entry yet):</p>
1068
1069 <p><pre>
1070 /usr/share/battery-stats/battery-stats-graph-flow
1071 </pre></p>
1072
1073 <p>I'm not quite happy with the way the data is visualised, at least
1074 when there are few data points.  The graphs look a bit better with a
1075 few years of data.</p>
1076
1077 <p>A while back one important feature I use in the battery stats
1078 collector broke in Debian.  The scripts in
1079 <tt>/usr/lib/pm-utils/power.d/</tt> were no longer executed.  I
1080 suspect it happened when Jessie started using systemd, but I do not
1081 know.  The issue is reported as
1082 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/818649">bug #818649</a> against
1083 pm-utils.  I managed to work around it by adding an udev rule to call
1084 the collector script every time the power connector is connected and
1085 disconnected.  With this fix in place it was finally time to make a
1086 new release of the package, and get it into Debian.</p>
1087
1088 <p>If you are interested in how your laptop battery is doing, please
1089 check out the
1090 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">battery-stats</a>
1091 in Debian unstable, or rebuild it on Jessie to get it working on
1092 Debian stable. :) The upstream source is available from
1093 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/battery-stats">github</a>.
1094 As always, patches are very welcome.</p>
1095
1096       </div>
1097       <div class="tags">
1098
1099
1100         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>.
1101
1102
1103       </div>
1104     </div>
1105     <div class="padding"></div>
1106
1107     <div class="entry">
1108       <div class="title">
1109         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Making_battery_measurements_a_little_easier_in_Debian.html">Making battery measurements a little easier in Debian</a>
1110       </div>
1111       <div class="date">
1112         15th March 2016
1113       </div>
1114       <div class="body">
1115         <p>Back in September, I blogged about
1116 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_life_and_death_of_a_laptop_battery.html">the
1117 system I wrote to collect statistics about my laptop battery</a>, and
1118 how it showed the decay and death of this battery (now replaced).  I
1119 created a simple deb package to handle the collection and graphing,
1120 but did not want to upload it to Debian as there were already
1121 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">a battery-stats
1122 package in Debian</a> that should do the same thing, and I did not see
1123 a point of uploading a competing package when battery-stats could be
1124 fixed instead.  I reported a few bugs about its non-function, and
1125 hoped someone would step in and fix it.  But no-one did.</p>
1126
1127 <p>I got tired of waiting a few days ago, and took matters in my own
1128 hands.  The end result is that I am now the new upstream developer of
1129 battery stats (<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/battery-stats">available from github</a>) and part of the team maintaining
1130 battery-stats in Debian, and the package in Debian unstable is finally
1131 able to collect battery status using the <tt>/sys/class/power_supply/</tt>
1132 information provided by the Linux kernel.  If you install the
1133 battery-stats package from unstable now, you will be able to get a
1134 graph of the current battery fill level, to get some idea about the
1135 status of the battery.  The source package build and work just fine in
1136 Debian testing and stable (and probably oldstable too, but I have not
1137 tested).  The default graph you get for that system look like this:</p>
1138
1139 <p align="center"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-03-15-battery-stats-graph-example.png" width="70%" align="center"></p>
1140
1141 <p>My plans for the future is to merge my old scripts into the
1142 battery-stats package, as my old scripts collected a lot more details
1143 about the battery.  The scripts are merged into the upstream
1144 battery-stats git repository already, but I am not convinced they work
1145 yet, as I changed a lot of paths along the way.  Will have to test a
1146 bit more before I make a new release.</p>
1147
1148 <p>I will also consider changing the file format slightly, as I
1149 suspect the way I combine several values into one field might make it
1150 impossible to know the type of the value when using it for processing
1151 and graphing.</p>
1152
1153 <p>If you would like I would like to keep an close eye on your laptop
1154 battery, check out the battery-stats package in
1155 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">Debian</a> and
1156 on
1157 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/battery-stats">github</a>.
1158 I would love some help to improve the system further.</p>
1159
1160       </div>
1161       <div class="tags">
1162
1163
1164         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>.
1165
1166
1167       </div>
1168     </div>
1169     <div class="padding"></div>
1170
1171     <div class="entry">
1172       <div class="title">
1173         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Creating__updating_and_checking_debian_copyright_semi_automatically.html">Creating, updating and checking debian/copyright semi-automatically</a>
1174       </div>
1175       <div class="date">
1176         19th February 2016
1177       </div>
1178       <div class="body">
1179         <p>Making packages for Debian requires quite a lot of attention to
1180 details.  And one of the details is the content of the
1181 debian/copyright file, which should list all relevant licenses used by
1182 the code in the package in question, preferably in
1183 <a href="https://www.debian.org/doc/packaging-manuals/copyright-format/1.0/">machine
1184 readable DEP5 format</a>.</p>
1185
1186 <p>For large packages with lots of contributors it is hard to write
1187 and update this file manually, and if you get some detail wrong, the
1188 package is normally rejected by the ftpmasters.  So getting it right
1189 the first time around get the package into Debian faster, and save
1190 both you and the ftpmasters some work..  Today, while trying to figure
1191 out what was wrong with
1192 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=686447">the
1193 zfsonlinux copyright file</a>, I decided to spend some time on
1194 figuring out the options for doing this job automatically, or at least
1195 semi-automatically.</p>
1196
1197 <p>Lucikly, there are at least two tools available for generating the
1198 file based on the code in the source package,
1199 <tt><a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/debmake">debmake</a></tt>
1200 and <tt><a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/cme">cme</a></tt>.  I'm
1201 not sure which one of them came first, but both seem to be able to
1202 create a sensible draft file.  As far as I can tell, none of them can
1203 be trusted to get the result just right, so the content need to be
1204 polished a bit before the file is OK to upload.  I found the debmake
1205 option in
1206 <a href="http://goofying-with-debian.blogspot.com/2014/07/debmake-checking-source-against-dep-5.html">a
1207 blog posts from 2014</a>.
1208
1209 <p>To generate using debmake, use the -cc option:
1210
1211 <p><pre>
1212 debmake -cc > debian/copyright
1213 </pre></p>
1214
1215 <p>Note there are some problems with python and non-ASCII names, so
1216 this might not be the best option.</p>
1217
1218 <p>The cme option is based on a config parsing library, and I found
1219 this approach in
1220 <a href="https://ddumont.wordpress.com/2015/04/05/improving-creation-of-debian-copyright-file/">a
1221 blog post from 2015</a>.  To generate using cme, use the 'update
1222 dpkg-copyright' option:
1223
1224 <p><pre>
1225 cme update dpkg-copyright
1226 </pre></p>
1227
1228 <p>This will create or update debian/copyright.  The cme tool seem to
1229 handle UTF-8 names better than debmake.</p>
1230
1231 <p>When the copyright file is created, I would also like some help to
1232 check if the file is correct.  For this I found two good options,
1233 <tt>debmake -k</tt> and <tt>license-reconcile</tt>.  The former seem
1234 to focus on license types and file matching, and is able to detect
1235 ineffective blocks in the copyright file.  The latter reports missing
1236 copyright holders and years, but was confused by inconsistent license
1237 names (like CDDL vs. CDDL-1.0).  I suspect it is good to use both and
1238 fix all issues reported by them before uploading.  But I do not know
1239 if the tools and the ftpmasters agree on what is important to fix in a
1240 copyright file, so the package might still be rejected.</p>
1241
1242 <p>The devscripts tool <tt>licensecheck</tt> deserve mentioning.  It
1243 will read through the source and try to find all copyright statements.
1244 It is not comparing the result to the content of debian/copyright, but
1245 can be useful when verifying the content of the copyright file.</p>
1246
1247 <p>Are you aware of better tools in Debian to create and update
1248 debian/copyright file.  Please let me know, or blog about it on
1249 planet.debian.org.</p>
1250
1251 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1252 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1253 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
1254
1255 <p><strong>Update 2016-02-20</strong>: I got a tip from Mike Gabriel
1256 on how to use licensecheck and cdbs to create a draft copyright file
1257
1258 <p><pre>
1259 licensecheck --copyright -r `find * -type f` | \
1260   /usr/lib/cdbs/licensecheck2dep5 > debian/copyright.auto
1261 </pre></p>
1262
1263 <p>He mentioned that he normally check the generated file into the
1264 version control system to make it easier to discover license and
1265 copyright changes in the upstream source.  I will try to do the same
1266 with my packages in the future.</p>
1267
1268 <p><strong>Update 2016-02-21</strong>: The cme author recommended
1269 against using -quiet for new users, so I removed it from the proposed
1270 command line.</p>
1271
1272       </div>
1273       <div class="tags">
1274
1275
1276         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>.
1277
1278
1279       </div>
1280     </div>
1281     <div class="padding"></div>
1282
1283     <div class="entry">
1284       <div class="title">
1285         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_appstream_in_Debian_to_locate_packages_with_firmware_and_mime_type_support.html">Using appstream in Debian to locate packages with firmware and mime type support</a>
1286       </div>
1287       <div class="date">
1288          4th February 2016
1289       </div>
1290       <div class="body">
1291         <p>The <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DEP-11">appstream system</a>
1292 is taking shape in Debian, and one provided feature is a very
1293 convenient way to tell you which package to install to make a given
1294 firmware file available when the kernel is looking for it.  This can
1295 be done using apt-file too, but that is for someone else to blog
1296 about. :)</p>
1297
1298 <p>Here is a small recipe to find the package with a given firmware
1299 file, in this example I am looking for ctfw-3.2.3.0.bin, randomly
1300 picked from the set of firmware announced using appstream in Debian
1301 unstable.  In general you would be looking for the firmware requested
1302 by the kernel during kernel module loading.  To find the package
1303 providing the example file, do like this:</p>
1304
1305 <blockquote><pre>
1306 % apt install appstream
1307 [...]
1308 % apt update
1309 [...]
1310 % appstreamcli what-provides firmware:runtime ctfw-3.2.3.0.bin | \
1311   awk '/Package:/ {print $2}'
1312 firmware-qlogic
1313 %
1314 </pre></blockquote>
1315
1316 <p>See <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/AppStream/Guidelines">the
1317 appstream wiki</a> page to learn how to embed the package metadata in
1318 a way appstream can use.</p>
1319
1320 <p>This same approach can be used to find any package supporting a
1321 given MIME type.  This is very useful when you get a file you do not
1322 know how to handle.  First find the mime type using <tt>file
1323 --mime-type</tt>, and next look up the package providing support for
1324 it.  Lets say you got an SVG file.  Its MIME type is image/svg+xml,
1325 and you can find all packages handling this type like this:</p>
1326
1327 <blockquote><pre>
1328 % apt install appstream
1329 [...]
1330 % apt update
1331 [...]
1332 % appstreamcli what-provides mimetype image/svg+xml | \
1333   awk '/Package:/ {print $2}'
1334 bkchem
1335 phototonic
1336 inkscape
1337 shutter
1338 tetzle
1339 geeqie
1340 xia
1341 pinta
1342 gthumb
1343 karbon
1344 comix
1345 mirage
1346 viewnior
1347 postr
1348 ristretto
1349 kolourpaint4
1350 eog
1351 eom
1352 gimagereader
1353 midori
1354 %
1355 </pre></blockquote>
1356
1357 <p>I believe the MIME types are fetched from the desktop file for
1358 packages providing appstream metadata.</p>
1359
1360       </div>
1361       <div class="tags">
1362
1363
1364         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>.
1365
1366
1367       </div>
1368     </div>
1369     <div class="padding"></div>
1370
1371     <div class="entry">
1372       <div class="title">
1373         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Creepy__visualise_geotagged_social_media_information___nice_free_software.html">Creepy, visualise geotagged social media information - nice free software</a>
1374       </div>
1375       <div class="date">
1376         24th January 2016
1377       </div>
1378       <div class="body">
1379         <p>Most people seem not to realise that every time they walk around
1380 with the computerised radio beacon known as a mobile phone their
1381 position is tracked by the phone company and often stored for a long
1382 time (like every time a SMS is received or sent).  And if their
1383 computerised radio beacon is capable of running programs (often called
1384 mobile apps) downloaded from the Internet, these programs are often
1385 also capable of tracking their location (if the app requested access
1386 during installation).  And when these programs send out information to
1387 central collection points, the location is often included, unless
1388 extra care is taken to not send the location.  The provided
1389 information is used by several entities, for good and bad (what is
1390 good and bad, depend on your point of view).  What is certain, is that
1391 the private sphere and the right to free movement is challenged and
1392 perhaps even eradicated for those announcing their location this way,
1393 when they share their whereabouts with private and public
1394 entities.</p>
1395
1396 <p align="center"><img width="70%" src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-01-24-nice-creepy-desktop-window.png"></p>
1397
1398 <p>The phone company logs provide a register of locations to check out
1399 when one want to figure out what the tracked person was doing.  It is
1400 unavailable for most of us, but provided to selected government
1401 officials, company staff, those illegally buying information from
1402 unfaithful servants and crackers stealing the information.  But the
1403 public information can be collected and analysed, and a free software
1404 tool to do so is called
1405 <a href="http://www.geocreepy.com/">Creepy or Cree.py</a>.  I
1406 discovered it when I read
1407 <a href="http://www.aftenposten.no/kultur/Slik-kan-du-bli-overvaket-pa-Twitter-og-Instagram-uten-a-ane-det-7787884.html">an
1408 article about Creepy</a> in the Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten i
1409 November 2014, and decided to check if it was available in Debian.
1410 The python program was in Debian, but
1411 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/creepy">the version in
1412 Debian</a> was completely broken and practically unmaintained.  I
1413 uploaded a new version which did not work quite right, but did not
1414 have time to fix it then.  This Christmas I decided to finally try to
1415 get Creepy operational in Debian.  Now a fixed version is available in
1416 Debian unstable and testing, and almost all Debian specific patches
1417 are now included
1418 <a href="https://github.com/jkakavas/creepy">upstream</a>.</p>
1419
1420 <p>The Creepy program visualises geolocation information fetched from
1421 Twitter, Instagram, Flickr and Google+, and allow one to get a
1422 complete picture of every social media message posted recently in a
1423 given area, or track the movement of a given individual across all
1424 these services.  Earlier it was possible to use the search API of at
1425 least some of these services without identifying oneself, but these
1426 days it is impossible.  This mean that to use Creepy, you need to
1427 configure it to log in as yourself on these services, and provide
1428 information to them about your search interests.  This should be taken
1429 into account when using Creepy, as it will also share information
1430 about yourself with the services.</p>
1431
1432 <p>The picture above show the twitter messages sent from (or at least
1433 geotagged with a position from) the city centre of Oslo, the capital
1434 of Norway.  One useful way to use Creepy is to first look at
1435 information tagged with an area of interest, and next look at all the
1436 information provided by one or more individuals who was in the area.
1437 I tested it by checking out which celebrity provide their location in
1438 twitter messages by checkout out who sent twitter messages near a
1439 Norwegian TV station, and next could track their position over time,
1440 making it possible to locate their home and work place, among other
1441 things.  A similar technique have been
1442 <a href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/maxseddon/does-this-soldiers-instagram-account-prove-russia-is-covertl">used
1443 to locate Russian soldiers in Ukraine</a>, and it is both a powerful
1444 tool to discover lying governments, and a useful tool to help people
1445 understand the value of the private information they provide to the
1446 public.</p>
1447
1448 <p>The package is not trivial to backport to Debian Stable/Jessie, as
1449 it depend on several python modules currently missing in Jessie (at
1450 least python-instagram, python-flickrapi and
1451 python-requests-toolbelt).</p>
1452
1453 <p>(I have uploaded
1454 <a href="https://screenshots.debian.net/package/creepy">the image to
1455 screenshots.debian.net</a> and licensed it under the same terms as the
1456 Creepy program in Debian.)</p>
1457
1458       </div>
1459       <div class="tags">
1460
1461
1462         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nice free software">nice free software</a>.
1463
1464
1465       </div>
1466     </div>
1467     <div class="padding"></div>
1468
1469     <div class="entry">
1470       <div class="title">
1471         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Always_download_Debian_packages_using_Tor___the_simple_recipe.html">Always download Debian packages using Tor - the simple recipe</a>
1472       </div>
1473       <div class="date">
1474         15th January 2016
1475       </div>
1476       <div class="body">
1477         <p>During his DebConf15 keynote, Jacob Appelbaum
1478 <a href="https://summit.debconf.org/debconf15/meeting/331/what-is-to-be-done/">observed
1479 that those listening on the Internet lines would have good reason to
1480 believe a computer have a given security hole</a> if it download a
1481 security fix from a Debian mirror.  This is a good reason to always
1482 use encrypted connections to the Debian mirror, to make sure those
1483 listening do not know which IP address to attack.  In August, Richard
1484 Hartmann observed that encryption was not enough, when it was possible
1485 to interfere download size to security patches or the fact that
1486 download took place shortly after a security fix was released, and
1487 <a href="http://richardhartmann.de/blog/posts/2015/08/24-Tor-enabled_Debian_mirror/">proposed
1488 to always use Tor to download packages from the Debian mirror</a>.  He
1489 was not the first to propose this, as the
1490 <tt><a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/apt-transport-tor">apt-transport-tor</a></tt>
1491 package by Tim Retout already existed to make it easy to convince apt
1492 to use <a href="https://www.torproject.org/">Tor</a>, but I was not
1493 aware of that package when I read the blog post from Richard.</p>
1494
1495 <p>Richard discussed the idea with Peter Palfrader, one of the Debian
1496 sysadmins, and he set up a Tor hidden service on one of the central
1497 Debian mirrors using the address vwakviie2ienjx6t.onion, thus making
1498 it possible to download packages directly between two tor nodes,
1499 making sure the network traffic always were encrypted.</p>
1500
1501 <p>Here is a short recipe for enabling this on your machine, by
1502 installing <tt>apt-transport-tor</tt> and replacing http and https
1503 urls with tor+http and tor+https, and using the hidden service instead
1504 of the official Debian mirror site.  I recommend installing
1505 <tt>etckeeper</tt> before you start to have a history of the changes
1506 done in /etc/.</p>
1507
1508 <blockquote><pre>
1509 apt install apt-transport-tor
1510 sed -i 's% http://ftp.debian.org/% tor+http://vwakviie2ienjx6t.onion/%' /etc/apt/sources.list
1511 sed -i 's% http% tor+http%' /etc/apt/sources.list
1512 </pre></blockquote>
1513
1514 <p>If you have more sources listed in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/, run
1515 the sed commands for these too.  The sed command is assuming your are
1516 using the ftp.debian.org Debian mirror.  Adjust the command (or just
1517 edit the file manually) to match your mirror.</p>
1518
1519 <p>This work in Debian Jessie and later.  Note that tools like
1520 <tt>apt-file</tt> only recently started using the apt transport
1521 system, and do not work with these tor+http URLs.  For
1522 <tt>apt-file</tt> you need the version currently in experimental,
1523 which need a recent apt version currently only in unstable.  So if you
1524 need a working <tt>apt-file</tt>, this is not for you.</p>
1525
1526 <p>Another advantage from this change is that your machine will start
1527 using Tor regularly and at fairly random intervals (every time you
1528 update the package lists or upgrade or install a new package), thus
1529 masking other Tor traffic done from the same machine.  Using Tor will
1530 become normal for the machine in question.</p>
1531
1532 <p>On <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">Freedombox</a>, APT
1533 is set up by default to use <tt>apt-transport-tor</tt> when Tor is
1534 enabled.  It would be great if it was the default on any Debian
1535 system.</p>
1536
1537       </div>
1538       <div class="tags">
1539
1540
1541         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>.
1542
1543
1544       </div>
1545     </div>
1546     <div class="padding"></div>
1547
1548     <div class="entry">
1549       <div class="title">
1550         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/OpenALPR__find_car_license_plates_in_video_streams___nice_free_software.html">OpenALPR, find car license plates in video streams - nice free software</a>
1551       </div>
1552       <div class="date">
1553         23rd December 2015
1554       </div>
1555       <div class="body">
1556         <p>When I was a kid, we used to collect "car numbers", as we used to
1557 call the car license plate numbers in those days.  I would write the
1558 numbers down in my little book and compare notes with the other kids
1559 to see how many region codes we had seen and if we had seen some
1560 exotic or special region codes and numbers.  It was a fun game to pass
1561 time, as we kids have plenty of it.</p>
1562
1563 <p>A few days I came across
1564 <a href="https://github.com/openalpr/openalpr">the OpenALPR
1565 project</a>, a free software project to automatically discover and
1566 report license plates in images and video streams, and provide the
1567 "car numbers" in a machine readable format.  I've been looking for
1568 such system for a while now, because I believe it is a bad idea that the
1569 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_number_plate_recognition">automatic
1570 number plate recognition</a> tool only is available in the hands of
1571 the powerful, and want it to be available also for the powerless to
1572 even the score when it comes to surveillance and sousveillance.  I
1573 discovered the developer
1574 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/747509">wanted to get the tool into
1575 Debian</a>, and as I too wanted it to be in Debian, I volunteered to
1576 help him get it into shape to get the package uploaded into the Debian
1577 archive.</p>
1578
1579 <p>Today we finally managed to get the package into shape and uploaded
1580 it into Debian, where it currently
1581 <a href="https://ftp-master.debian.org//new/openalpr_2.2.1-1.html">waits
1582 in the NEW queue</a> for review by the Debian ftpmasters.</p>
1583
1584 <p>I guess you are wondering why on earth such tool would be useful
1585 for the common folks, ie those not running a large government
1586 surveillance system?  Well, I plan to put it in a computer on my bike
1587 and in my car, tracking the cars nearby and allowing me to be notified
1588 when number plates on my watch list are discovered.  Another use case
1589 was suggested by a friend of mine, who wanted to set it up at his home
1590 to open the car port automatically when it discovered the plate on his
1591 car.  When I mentioned it perhaps was a bit foolhardy to allow anyone
1592 capable of placing his license plate number of a piece of cardboard to
1593 open his car port, men replied that it was always unlocked anyway.  I
1594 guess for such use case it make sense.  I am sure there are other use
1595 cases too, for those with imagination and a vision.</p>
1596
1597 <p>If you want to build your own version of the Debian package, check
1598 out the upstream git source and symlink ./distros/debian to ./debian/
1599 before running "debuild" to build the source.  Or wait a bit until the
1600 package show up in unstable.</p>
1601
1602       </div>
1603       <div class="tags">
1604
1605
1606         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nice free software">nice free software</a>.
1607
1608
1609       </div>
1610     </div>
1611     <div class="padding"></div>
1612
1613     <div class="entry">
1614       <div class="title">
1615         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_appstream_with_isenkram_to_install_hardware_related_packages_in_Debian.html">Using appstream with isenkram to install hardware related packages in Debian</a>
1616       </div>
1617       <div class="date">
1618         20th December 2015
1619       </div>
1620       <div class="body">
1621         <p>Around three years ago, I created
1622 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">the isenkram
1623 system</a> to get a more practical solution in Debian for handing
1624 hardware related packages.  A GUI system in the isenkram package will
1625 present a pop-up dialog when some hardware dongle supported by
1626 relevant packages in Debian is inserted into the machine.  The same
1627 lookup mechanism to detect packages is available as command line
1628 tools in the isenkram-cli package.  In addition to mapping hardware,
1629 it will also map kernel firmware files to packages and make it easy to
1630 install needed firmware packages automatically.  The key for this
1631 system to work is a good way to map hardware to packages, in other
1632 words, allow packages to announce what hardware they will work
1633 with.</p>
1634
1635 <p>I started by providing data files in the isenkram source, and
1636 adding code to download the latest version of these data files at run
1637 time, to ensure every user had the most up to date mapping available.
1638 I also added support for storing the mapping in the Packages file in
1639 the apt repositories, but did not push this approach because while I
1640 was trying to figure out how to best store hardware/package mappings,
1641 <a href="http://www.freedesktop.org/software/appstream/docs/">the
1642 appstream system</a> was announced.  I got in touch and suggested to
1643 add the hardware mapping into that data set to be able to use
1644 appstream as a data source, and this was accepted at least for the
1645 Debian version of appstream.</p>
1646
1647 <p>A few days ago using appstream in Debian for this became possible,
1648 and today I uploaded a new version 0.20 of isenkram adding support for
1649 appstream as a data source for mapping hardware to packages.  The only
1650 package so far using appstream to announce its hardware support is my
1651 pymissile package.  I got help from Matthias Klumpp with figuring out
1652 how do add the required
1653 <a href="https://appstream.debian.org/html/sid/main/metainfo/pymissile.html">metadata
1654 in pymissile</a>.  I added a file debian/pymissile.metainfo.xml with
1655 this content:</p>
1656
1657 <blockquote><pre>
1658 &lt;?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?&gt;
1659 &lt;component&gt;
1660   &lt;id&gt;pymissile&lt;/id&gt;
1661   &lt;metadata_license&gt;MIT&lt;/metadata_license&gt;
1662   &lt;name&gt;pymissile&lt;/name&gt;
1663   &lt;summary&gt;Control original Striker USB Missile Launcher&lt;/summary&gt;
1664   &lt;description&gt;
1665     &lt;p&gt;
1666       Pymissile provides a curses interface to control an original
1667       Marks and Spencer / Striker USB Missile Launcher, as well as a
1668       motion control script to allow a webcamera to control the
1669       launcher.
1670     &lt;/p&gt;
1671   &lt;/description&gt;
1672   &lt;provides&gt;
1673     &lt;modalias&gt;usb:v1130p0202d*&lt;/modalias&gt;
1674   &lt;/provides&gt;
1675 &lt;/component&gt;
1676 </pre></blockquote>
1677
1678 <p>The key for isenkram is the component/provides/modalias value,
1679 which is a glob style match rule for hardware specific strings
1680 (modalias strings) provided by the Linux kernel.  In this case, it
1681 will map to all USB devices with vendor code 1130 and product code
1682 0202.</p>
1683
1684 <p>Note, it is important that the license of all the metadata files
1685 are compatible to have permissions to aggregate them into archive wide
1686 appstream files.  Matthias suggested to use MIT or BSD licenses for
1687 these files.  A challenge is figuring out a good id for the data, as
1688 it is supposed to be globally unique and shared across distributions
1689 (in other words, best to coordinate with upstream what to use).  But
1690 it can be changed later or, so we went with the package name as
1691 upstream for this project is dormant.</p>
1692
1693 <p>To get the metadata file installed in the correct location for the
1694 mirror update scripts to pick it up and include its content the
1695 appstream data source, the file must be installed in the binary
1696 package under /usr/share/appdata/.  I did this by adding the following
1697 line to debian/pymissile.install:</p>
1698
1699 <blockquote><pre>
1700 debian/pymissile.metainfo.xml usr/share/appdata
1701 </pre></blockquote>
1702
1703 <p>With that in place, the command line tool isenkram-lookup will list
1704 all packages useful on the current computer automatically, and the GUI
1705 pop-up handler will propose to install the package not already
1706 installed if a hardware dongle is inserted into the machine in
1707 question.</p>
1708
1709 <p>Details of the modalias field in appstream is available from the
1710 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DEP-11">DEP-11</a> proposal.</p>
1711
1712 <p>To locate the modalias values of all hardware present in a machine,
1713 try running this command on the command line:</p>
1714
1715 <blockquote><pre>
1716 cat $(find /sys/devices/|grep modalias)
1717 </pre></blockquote>
1718
1719 <p>To learn more about the isenkram system, please check out
1720 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram/">my
1721 blog posts tagged isenkram</a>.</p>
1722
1723       </div>
1724       <div class="tags">
1725
1726
1727         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>.
1728
1729
1730       </div>
1731     </div>
1732     <div class="padding"></div>
1733
1734     <div class="entry">
1735       <div class="title">
1736         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_GNU_General_Public_License_is_not_magic_pixie_dust.html">The GNU General Public License is not magic pixie dust</a>
1737       </div>
1738       <div class="date">
1739         30th November 2015
1740       </div>
1741       <div class="body">
1742         <p>A blog post from my fellow Debian developer Paul Wise titled
1743 "<a href="http://bonedaddy.net/pabs3/log/2015/11/27/sfc-supporter/">The
1744 GPL is not magic pixie dust</a>" explain the importance of making sure
1745 the <a href="http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html">GPL</a> is enforced.
1746 I quote the blog post from Paul in full here with his permission:<p>
1747
1748 <blockquote>
1749
1750 <p><a href="https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/"><img src="https://sfconservancy.org/img/supporter-badge.png" width="194" height="90" alt="Become a Software Freedom Conservancy Supporter!" align="right" border="0" /></a></p>
1751
1752 <blockquote>
1753 The GPL is not magic pixie dust. It does not work by itself.<br/>
1754
1755 The first step is to choose a
1756 <a href="https://copyleft.org/">copyleft</a> license for your
1757 code.<br/>
1758
1759 The next step is, when someone fails to follow that copyleft license,
1760 <b>it must be enforced</b><br/>
1761
1762 and its a simple fact of our modern society that such type of
1763 work<br/>
1764
1765 is incredibly expensive to do and incredibly difficult to do.
1766 </blockquote>
1767
1768 <p><small>-- <a href="http://ebb.org/bkuhn/">Bradley Kuhn</a>, in
1769 <a href="http://faif.us/" title="Free as in Freedom">FaiF</a>
1770 <a href="http://faif.us/cast/2015/nov/24/0x57/">episode
1771 0x57</a></small></p>
1772
1773 <p>As the Debian Website
1774 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/794116">used</a>
1775 <a href="https://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/webwml/webwml/english/intro/free.wml?r1=1.24&amp;r2=1.25">to</a>
1776 imply, public domain and permissively licensed software can lead to
1777 the production of more proprietary software as people discover useful
1778 software, extend it and or incorporate it into their hardware or
1779 software products.  Copyleft licenses such as the GNU GPL were created
1780 to close off this avenue to the production of proprietary software but
1781 such licenses are not enough.  With the ongoing adoption of Free
1782 Software by individuals and groups, inevitably the community's
1783 expectations of license compliance are violated, usually out of
1784 ignorance of the way Free Software works, but not always.  As Karen
1785 and Bradley explained in <a href="http://faif.us/" title="Free as in
1786 Freedom">FaiF</a>
1787 <a href="http://faif.us/cast/2015/nov/24/0x57/">episode 0x57</a>,
1788 copyleft is nothing if no-one is willing and able to stand up in court
1789 to protect it.  The reality of today's world is that legal
1790 representation is expensive, difficult and time consuming.  With
1791 <a href="http://gpl-violations.org/">gpl-violations.org</a> in hiatus
1792 <a href="http://gpl-violations.org/news/20151027-homepage-recovers/">until</a>
1793 some time in 2016, the <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/">Software
1794 Freedom Conservancy</a> (a tax-exempt charity) is the major defender
1795 of the Linux project, Debian and other groups against GPL violations.
1796 In March the SFC supported a
1797 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/news/2015/mar/05/vmware-lawsuit/">lawsuit
1798 by Christoph Hellwig</a> against VMware for refusing to
1799 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/linux-compliance/vmware-lawsuit-faq.html">comply
1800 with the GPL</a> in relation to their use of parts of the Linux
1801 kernel.  Since then two of their sponsors pulled corporate funding and
1802 conferences
1803 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2015/nov/24/faif-carols-fundraiser/">blocked
1804 or cancelled their talks</a>.  As a result they have decided to rely
1805 less on corporate funding and more on the broad community of
1806 individuals who support Free Software and copyleft.  So the SFC has
1807 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/news/2015/nov/23/2015fundraiser/">launched</a>
1808 a <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/">campaign</a> to create
1809 a community of folks who stand up for copyleft and the GPL by
1810 supporting their work on promoting and supporting copyleft and Free
1811 Software.</p>
1812
1813 <p>If you support Free Software,
1814 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2015/nov/26/like-what-I-do/">like</a>
1815 what the SFC do, agree with their
1816 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/linux-compliance/principles.html">compliance
1817 principles</a>, are happy about their
1818 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/">successes</a> in 2015,
1819 work on a project that is an SFC
1820 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/members/current/">member</a> and or
1821 just want to stand up for copyleft, please join
1822 <a href="https://identi.ca/cwebber/image/JQGPA4qbTyyp3-MY8QpvuA">Christopher
1823 Allan Webber</a>,
1824 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2015/nov/24/faif-carols-fundraiser/">Carol
1825 Smith</a>,
1826 <a href="http://www.jonobacon.org/2015/11/25/supporting-software-freedom-conservancy/">Jono
1827 Bacon</a>, myself and
1828 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/sponsors/#supporters">others</a> in
1829 becoming a
1830 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/">supporter</a>.  For the
1831 next week your donation will be
1832 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/news/2015/nov/27/black-friday/">matched</a>
1833 by an anonymous donor.  Please also consider asking your employer to
1834 match your donation or become a sponsor of SFC.  Don't forget to
1835 spread the word about your support for SFC via email, your blog and or
1836 social media accounts.</p>
1837
1838 </blockquote>
1839
1840 <p>I agree with Paul on this topic and just signed up as a Supporter
1841 of Software Freedom Conservancy myself.  Perhaps you should be a
1842 supporter too?</p>
1843
1844       </div>
1845       <div class="tags">
1846
1847
1848         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>.
1849
1850
1851       </div>
1852     </div>
1853     <div class="padding"></div>
1854
1855     <div class="entry">
1856       <div class="title">
1857         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/PGP_key_transition_statement_for_key_EE4E02F9.html">PGP key transition statement for key EE4E02F9</a>
1858       </div>
1859       <div class="date">
1860         17th November 2015
1861       </div>
1862       <div class="body">
1863         <p>I've needed a new OpenPGP key for a while, but have not had time to
1864 set it up properly.  I wanted to generate it offline and have it
1865 available on <a href="http://shop.kernelconcepts.de/#openpgp">a OpenPGP
1866 smart card</a> for daily use, and learning how to do it and finding
1867 time to sit down with an offline machine almost took forever.  But
1868 finally I've been able to complete the process, and have now moved
1869 from my old GPG key to a new GPG key.  See
1870 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2015-11-17-new-gpg-key-transition.txt">the
1871 full transition statement, signed with both my old and new key</a> for
1872 the details.  This is my new key:</p>
1873
1874 <pre>
1875 pub   3936R/<a href="http://pgp.cs.uu.nl/stats/111D6B29EE4E02F9.html">111D6B29EE4E02F9</a> 2015-11-03 [expires: 2019-11-14]
1876       Key fingerprint = 3AC7 B2E3 ACA5 DF87 78F1  D827 111D 6B29 EE4E 02F9
1877 uid                  Petter Reinholdtsen &lt;pere@hungry.com&gt;
1878 uid                  Petter Reinholdtsen &lt;pere@debian.org&gt;
1879 sub   4096R/87BAFB0E 2015-11-03 [expires: 2019-11-02]
1880 sub   4096R/F91E6DE9 2015-11-03 [expires: 2019-11-02]
1881 sub   4096R/A0439BAB 2015-11-03 [expires: 2019-11-02]
1882 </pre>
1883
1884 <p>The key can be downloaded from the OpenPGP key servers, signed by
1885 my old key.</p>
1886
1887 <p>If you signed my old key
1888 (<a href="http://pgp.cs.uu.nl/stats/DB4CCC4B2A30D729.html">DB4CCC4B2A30D729</a>),
1889 I'd very much appreciate a signature on my new key, details and
1890 instructions in the transition statement. I m happy to reciprocate if
1891 you have a similarly signed transition statement to present.</p>
1892
1893       </div>
1894       <div class="tags">
1895
1896
1897         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>.
1898
1899
1900       </div>
1901     </div>
1902     <div class="padding"></div>
1903
1904     <div class="entry">
1905       <div class="title">
1906         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_life_and_death_of_a_laptop_battery.html">The life and death of a laptop battery</a>
1907       </div>
1908       <div class="date">
1909         24th September 2015
1910       </div>
1911       <div class="body">
1912         <p>When I get a new laptop, the battery life time at the start is OK.
1913 But this do not last.  The last few laptops gave me a feeling that
1914 within a year, the life time is just a fraction of what it used to be,
1915 and it slowly become painful to use the laptop without power connected
1916 all the time.  Because of this, when I got a new Thinkpad X230 laptop
1917 about two years ago, I decided to monitor its battery state to have
1918 more hard facts when the battery started to fail.</p>
1919
1920 <img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2015-09-24-laptop-battery-graph.png"/>
1921
1922 <p>First I tried to find a sensible Debian package to record the
1923 battery status, assuming that this must be a problem already handled
1924 by someone else.  I found
1925 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">battery-stats</a>,
1926 which collects statistics from the battery, but it was completely
1927 broken.  I sent a few suggestions to the maintainer, but decided to
1928 write my own collector as a shell script while I waited for feedback
1929 from him.  Via
1930 <a href="http://www.ifweassume.com/2013/08/the-de-evolution-of-my-laptop-battery.html">a
1931 blog post about the battery development on a MacBook Air</a> I also
1932 discovered
1933 <a href="https://github.com/jradavenport/batlog.git">batlog</a>, not
1934 available in Debian.</p>
1935
1936 <p>I started my collector 2013-07-15, and it has been collecting
1937 battery stats ever since. Now my
1938 /var/log/hjemmenett-battery-status.log file contain around 115,000
1939 measurements, from the time the battery was working great until now,
1940 when it is unable to charge above 7% of original capacity.  My
1941 collector shell script is quite simple and look like this:</p>
1942
1943 <pre>
1944 #!/bin/sh
1945 # Inspired by
1946 # http://www.ifweassume.com/2013/08/the-de-evolution-of-my-laptop-battery.html
1947 # See also
1948 # http://blog.sleeplessbeastie.eu/2013/01/02/debian-how-to-monitor-battery-capacity/
1949 logfile=/var/log/hjemmenett-battery-status.log
1950
1951 files="manufacturer model_name technology serial_number \
1952     energy_full energy_full_design energy_now cycle_count status"
1953
1954 if [ ! -e "$logfile" ] ; then
1955     (
1956         printf "timestamp,"
1957         for f in $files; do
1958             printf "%s," $f
1959         done
1960         echo
1961     ) > "$logfile"
1962 fi
1963
1964 log_battery() {
1965     # Print complete message in one echo call, to avoid race condition
1966     # when several log processes run in parallel.
1967     msg=$(printf "%s," $(date +%s); \
1968         for f in $files; do \
1969             printf "%s," $(cat $f); \
1970         done)
1971     echo "$msg"
1972 }
1973
1974 cd /sys/class/power_supply
1975
1976 for bat in BAT*; do
1977     (cd $bat && log_battery >> "$logfile")
1978 done
1979 </pre>
1980
1981 <p>The script is called when the power management system detect a
1982 change in the power status (power plug in or out), and when going into
1983 and out of hibernation and suspend.  In addition, it collect a value
1984 every 10 minutes.  This make it possible for me know when the battery
1985 is discharging, charging and how the maximum charge change over time.
1986 The code for the Debian package
1987 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/battery-status">is now
1988 available on github</a>.</p>
1989
1990 <p>The collected log file look like this:</p>
1991
1992 <pre>
1993 timestamp,manufacturer,model_name,technology,serial_number,energy_full,energy_full_design,energy_now,cycle_count,status,
1994 1376591133,LGC,45N1025,Li-ion,974,62800000,62160000,39050000,0,Discharging,
1995 [...]
1996 1443090528,LGC,45N1025,Li-ion,974,4900000,62160000,4900000,0,Full,
1997 1443090601,LGC,45N1025,Li-ion,974,4900000,62160000,4900000,0,Full,
1998 </pre>
1999
2000 <p>I wrote a small script to create a graph of the charge development
2001 over time.  This graph depicted above show the slow death of my laptop
2002 battery.</p>
2003
2004 <p>But why is this happening?  Why are my laptop batteries always
2005 dying in a year or two, while the batteries of space probes and
2006 satellites keep working year after year.  If we are to believe
2007 <a href="http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/how_to_prolong_lithium_based_batteries">Battery
2008 University</a>, the cause is me charging the battery whenever I have a
2009 chance, and the fix is to not charge the Lithium-ion batteries to 100%
2010 all the time, but to stay below 90% of full charge most of the time.
2011 I've been told that the Tesla electric cars
2012 <a href="http://my.teslamotors.com/de_CH/forum/forums/battery-charge-limit">limit
2013 the charge of their batteries to 80%</a>, with the option to charge to
2014 100% when preparing for a longer trip (not that I would want a car
2015 like Tesla where rights to privacy is abandoned, but that is another
2016 story), which I guess is the option we should have for laptops on
2017 Linux too.</p>
2018
2019 <p>Is there a good and generic way with Linux to tell the battery to
2020 stop charging at 80%, unless requested to charge to 100% once in
2021 preparation for a longer trip?  I found
2022 <a href="http://askubuntu.com/questions/34452/how-can-i-limit-battery-charging-to-80-capacity">one
2023 recipe on askubuntu for Ubuntu to limit charging on Thinkpad to
2024 80%</a>, but could not get it to work (kernel module refused to
2025 load).</p>
2026
2027 <p>I wonder why the battery capacity was reported to be more than 100%
2028 at the start.  I also wonder why the "full capacity" increases some
2029 times, and if it is possible to repeat the process to get the battery
2030 back to design capacity.  And I wonder if the discharge and charge
2031 speed change over time, or if this stay the same.  I did not yet try
2032 to write a tool to calculate the derivative values of the battery
2033 level, but suspect some interesting insights might be learned from
2034 those.</p>
2035
2036 <p>Update 2015-09-24: I got a tip to install the packages
2037 acpi-call-dkms and tlp (unfortunately missing in Debian stable)
2038 packages instead of the tp-smapi-dkms package I had tried to use
2039 initially, and use 'tlp setcharge 40 80' to change when charging start
2040 and stop.  I've done so now, but expect my existing battery is toast
2041 and need to be replaced.  The proposal is unfortunately Thinkpad
2042 specific.</p>
2043
2044       </div>
2045       <div class="tags">
2046
2047
2048         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>.
2049
2050
2051       </div>
2052     </div>
2053     <div class="padding"></div>
2054
2055     <div class="entry">
2056       <div class="title">
2057         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_laptop___some_more_clues_and_ideas_based_on_feedback.html">New laptop - some more clues and ideas based on feedback</a>
2058       </div>
2059       <div class="date">
2060          5th July 2015
2061       </div>
2062       <div class="body">
2063         <p>Several people contacted me after my previous blog post about my
2064 need for a new laptop, and provided very useful feedback.  I wish to
2065 thank every one of these.  Several pointed me to the possibility of
2066 fixing my X230, and I am already in the process of getting Lenovo to
2067 do so thanks to the on site, next day support contract covering the
2068 machine.  But the battery is almost useless (I expect to replace it
2069 with a non-official battery) and I do not expect the machine to live
2070 for many more years, so it is time to plan its replacement.  If I did
2071 not have a support contract, it was suggested to find replacement parts
2072 using <a href="http://www.francecrans.com/">FrancEcrans</a>, but it
2073 might present a language barrier as I do not understand French.</p>
2074
2075 <p>One tip I got was to use the
2076 <a href="https://skinflint.co.uk/?cat=nb">Skinflint</a> web service to
2077 compare laptop models.  It seem to have more models available than
2078 prisjakt.no.  Another tip I got from someone I know have similar
2079 keyboard preferences was that the HP EliteBook 840 keyboard is not
2080 very good, and this matches my experience with earlier EliteBook
2081 keyboards I tested.  Because of this, I will not consider it any further.
2082
2083 <p>When I wrote my blog post, I was not aware of Thinkpad X250, the
2084 newest Thinkpad X model.  The keyboard reintroduces mouse buttons
2085 (which is missing from the X240), and is working fairly well with
2086 Debian Sid/Unstable according to
2087 <a href="http://www.corsac.net/X250/">Corsac.net</a>.  The reports I
2088 got on the keyboard quality are not consistent.  Some say the keyboard
2089 is good, others say it is ok, while others say it is not very good.
2090 Those with experience from X41 and and X60 agree that the X250
2091 keyboard is not as good as those trusty old laptops, and suggest I
2092 keep and fix my X230 instead of upgrading, or get a used X230 to
2093 replace it.  I'm also told that the X250 lack leds for caps lock, disk
2094 activity and battery status, which is very convenient on my X230.  I'm
2095 also told that the CPU fan is running very often, making it a bit
2096 noisy.  In any case, the X250 do not work out of the box with Debian
2097 Stable/Jessie, one of my requirements.</p>
2098
2099 <p>I have also gotten a few vendor proposals, one was
2100 <a href="http://pro-star.com">Pro-Star</a>, another was
2101 <a href="http://shop.gluglug.org.uk/product/libreboot-x200/">Libreboot</a>.
2102 The latter look very attractive to me.</p>
2103
2104 <p>Again, thank you all for the very useful feedback.  It help a lot
2105 as I keep looking for a replacement.</p>
2106
2107 <p>Update 2015-07-06: I was recommended to check out the
2108 <a href="">lapstore.de</a> web shop for used laptops.  They got several
2109 different
2110 <a href="http://www.lapstore.de/f.php/shop/lapstore/f/411/lang/x/kw/Lenovo_ThinkPad_X_Serie/">old
2111 thinkpad X models</a>, and provide one year warranty.</p>
2112
2113       </div>
2114       <div class="tags">
2115
2116
2117         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>.
2118
2119
2120       </div>
2121     </div>
2122     <div class="padding"></div>
2123
2124     <div class="entry">
2125       <div class="title">
2126         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_to_find_a_new_laptop__as_the_old_one_is_broken_after_only_two_years.html">Time to find a new laptop, as the old one is broken after only two years</a>
2127       </div>
2128       <div class="date">
2129          3rd July 2015
2130       </div>
2131       <div class="body">
2132         <p>My primary work horse laptop is failing, and will need a
2133 replacement soon.  The left 5 cm of the screen on my Thinkpad X230
2134 started flickering yesterday, and I suspect the cause is a broken
2135 cable, as changing the angle of the screen some times get rid of the
2136 flickering.</p>
2137
2138 <p>My requirements have not really changed since I bought it, and is
2139 still as
2140 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thank_you_Thinkpad_X41__for_your_long_and_trustworthy_service.html">I
2141 described them in 2013</a>.  The last time I bought a laptop, I had
2142 good help from
2143 <a href="http://www.prisjakt.no/category.php?k=353">prisjakt.no</a>
2144 where I could select at least a few of the requirements (mouse pin,
2145 wifi, weight) and go through the rest manually.  Three button mouse
2146 and a good keyboard is not available as an option, and all the three
2147 laptop models proposed today (Thinkpad X240, HP EliteBook 820 G1 and
2148 G2) lack three mouse buttons).  It is also unclear to me how good the
2149 keyboard on the HP EliteBooks are.  I hope Lenovo have not messed up
2150 the keyboard, even if the quality and robustness in the X series have
2151 deteriorated since X41.</p>
2152
2153 <p>I wonder how I can find a sensible laptop when none of the options
2154 seem sensible to me?  Are there better services around to search the
2155 set of available laptops for features?  Please send me an email if you
2156 have suggestions.</p>
2157
2158 <p>Update 2015-07-23: I got a suggestion to check out the FSF
2159 <a href="http://www.fsf.org/resources/hw/endorsement/respects-your-freedom">list
2160 of endorsed hardware</a>, which is useful background information.</p>
2161
2162       </div>
2163       <div class="tags">
2164
2165
2166         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>.
2167
2168
2169       </div>
2170     </div>
2171     <div class="padding"></div>
2172
2173     <div class="entry">
2174       <div class="title">
2175         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_stay_with_sysvinit_in_Debian_Jessie.html">How to stay with sysvinit in Debian Jessie</a>
2176       </div>
2177       <div class="date">
2178         22nd November 2014
2179       </div>
2180       <div class="body">
2181         <p>By now, it is well known that Debian Jessie will not be using
2182 sysvinit as its boot system by default.  But how can one keep using
2183 sysvinit in Jessie?  It is fairly easy, and here are a few recipes,
2184 courtesy of
2185 <a href="http://www.vitavonni.de/blog/201410/2014102101-avoiding-systemd.html">Erich
2186 Schubert</a> and
2187 <a href="http://smcv.pseudorandom.co.uk/2014/still_universal/">Simon
2188 McVittie</a>.
2189
2190 <p>If you already are using Wheezy and want to upgrade to Jessie and
2191 keep sysvinit as your boot system, create a file
2192 <tt>/etc/apt/preferences.d/use-sysvinit</tt> with this content before
2193 you upgrade:</p>
2194
2195 <p><blockquote><pre>
2196 Package: systemd-sysv
2197 Pin: release o=Debian
2198 Pin-Priority: -1
2199 </pre></blockquote><p>
2200
2201 <p>This file content will tell apt and aptitude to not consider
2202 installing systemd-sysv as part of any installation and upgrade
2203 solution when resolving dependencies, and thus tell it to avoid
2204 systemd as a default boot system.  The end result should be that the
2205 upgraded system keep using sysvinit.</p>
2206
2207 <p>If you are installing Jessie for the first time, there is no way to
2208 get sysvinit installed by default (debootstrap used by
2209 debian-installer have no option for this), but one can tell the
2210 installer to switch to sysvinit before the first boot.  Either by
2211 using a kernel argument to the installer, or by adding a line to the
2212 preseed file used.  First, the kernel command line argument:
2213
2214 <p><blockquote><pre>
2215 preseed/late_command="in-target apt-get install --purge -y sysvinit-core"
2216 </pre></blockquote><p>
2217
2218 <p>Next, the line to use in a preseed file:</p>
2219
2220 <p><blockquote><pre>
2221 d-i preseed/late_command string in-target apt-get install -y sysvinit-core
2222 </pre></blockquote><p>
2223
2224 <p>One can of course also do this after the first boot by installing
2225 the sysvinit-core package.</p>
2226
2227 <p>I recommend only using sysvinit if you really need it, as the
2228 sysvinit boot sequence in Debian have several hardware specific bugs
2229 on Linux caused by the fact that it is unpredictable when hardware
2230 devices show up during boot.  But on the other hand, the new default
2231 boot system still have a few rough edges I hope will be fixed before
2232 Jessie is released.</p>
2233
2234 <p>Update 2014-11-26: Inspired by
2235 <ahref="https://www.mirbsd.org/permalinks/wlog-10-tg_e20141125-tg.htm#e20141125-tg_wlog-10-tg">a
2236 blog post by Torsten Glaser</a>, added --purge to the preseed
2237 line.</p>
2238
2239       </div>
2240       <div class="tags">
2241
2242
2243         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>.
2244
2245
2246       </div>
2247     </div>
2248     <div class="padding"></div>
2249
2250     <div class="entry">
2251       <div class="title">
2252         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Debian_package_for_SMTP_via_Tor__aka_SMTorP__using_exim4.html">A Debian package for SMTP via Tor (aka SMTorP) using exim4</a>
2253       </div>
2254       <div class="date">
2255         10th November 2014
2256       </div>
2257       <div class="body">
2258         <p>The right to communicate with your friends and family in private,
2259 without anyone snooping, is a right every citicen have in a liberal
2260 democracy.  But this right is under serious attack these days.</p>
2261
2262 <p>A while back it occurred to me that one way to make the dragnet
2263 surveillance conducted by NSA, GCHQ, FRA and others (and confirmed by
2264 the whisleblower Snowden) more expensive for Internet email,
2265 is to deliver all email using SMTP via Tor.  Such SMTP option would be
2266 a nice addition to the FreedomBox project if we could send email
2267 between FreedomBox machines without leaking metadata about the emails
2268 to the people peeking on the wire.  I
2269 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/freedombox-discuss/2014-October/006493.html">proposed
2270 this on the FreedomBox project mailing list in October</a> and got a
2271 lot of useful feedback and suggestions.  It also became obvious to me
2272 that this was not a novel idea, as the same idea was tested and
2273 documented by Johannes Berg as early as 2006, and both
2274 <a href="https://github.com/pagekite/Mailpile/wiki/SMTorP">the
2275 Mailpile</a> and <a href="http://dee.su/cables">the Cables</a> systems
2276 propose a similar method / protocol to pass emails between users.</p>
2277
2278 <p>To implement such system one need to set up a Tor hidden service
2279 providing the SMTP protocol on port 25, and use email addresses
2280 looking like username@hidden-service-name.onion.  With such addresses
2281 the connections to port 25 on hidden-service-name.onion using Tor will
2282 go to the correct SMTP server.  To do this, one need to configure the
2283 Tor daemon to provide the hidden service and the mail server to accept
2284 emails for this .onion domain.  To learn more about Exim configuration
2285 in Debian and test the design provided by Johannes Berg in his FAQ, I
2286 set out yesterday to create a Debian package for making it trivial to
2287 set up such SMTP over Tor service based on Debian.  Getting it to work
2288 were fairly easy, and
2289 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/exim4-smtorp">the
2290 source code for the Debian package</a> is available from github.  I
2291 plan to move it into Debian if further testing prove this to be a
2292 useful approach.</p>
2293
2294 <p>If you want to test this, set up a blank Debian machine without any
2295 mail system installed (or run <tt>apt-get purge exim4-config</tt> to
2296 get rid of exim4).  Install tor, clone the git repository mentioned
2297 above, build the deb and install it on the machine.  Next, run
2298 <tt>/usr/lib/exim4-smtorp/setup-exim-hidden-service</tt> and follow
2299 the instructions to get the service up and running.  Restart tor and
2300 exim when it is done, and test mail delivery using swaks like
2301 this:</p>
2302
2303 <p><blockquote><pre>
2304 torsocks swaks --server dutlqrrmjhtfa3vp.onion \
2305   --to fbx@dutlqrrmjhtfa3vp.onion
2306 </pre></blockquote></p>
2307
2308 <p>This will test the SMTP delivery using tor.  Replace the email
2309 address with your own address to test your server. :)</p>
2310
2311 <p>The setup procedure is still to complex, and I hope it can be made
2312 easier and more automatic.  Especially the tor setup need more work.
2313 Also, the package include a tor-smtp tool written in C, but its task
2314 should probably be rewritten in some script language to make the deb
2315 architecture independent.  It would probably also make the code easier
2316 to review.  The tor-smtp tool currently need to listen on a socket for
2317 exim to talk to it and is started using xinetd.  It would be better if
2318 no daemon and no socket is needed.  I suspect it is possible to get
2319 exim to run a command line tool for delivery instead of talking to a
2320 socket, and hope to figure out how in a future version of this
2321 system.</p>
2322
2323 <p>Until I wipe my test machine, I can be reached using the
2324 <tt>fbx@dutlqrrmjhtfa3vp.onion</tt> mail address, deliverable over
2325 SMTorP. :)</p>
2326
2327       </div>
2328       <div class="tags">
2329
2330
2331         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
2332
2333
2334       </div>
2335     </div>
2336     <div class="padding"></div>
2337
2338     <div class="entry">
2339       <div class="title">
2340         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/listadmin__the_quick_way_to_moderate_mailman_lists___nice_free_software.html">listadmin, the quick way to moderate mailman lists - nice free software</a>
2341       </div>
2342       <div class="date">
2343         22nd October 2014
2344       </div>
2345       <div class="body">
2346         <p>If you ever had to moderate a mailman list, like the ones on
2347 alioth.debian.org, you know the web interface is fairly slow to
2348 operate.  First you visit one web page, enter the moderation password
2349 and get a new page shown with a list of all the messages to moderate
2350 and various options for each email address.  This take a while for
2351 every list you moderate, and you need to do it regularly to do a good
2352 job as a list moderator.  But there is a quick alternative,
2353 <a href="http://heim.ifi.uio.no/kjetilho/hacks/#listadmin">the
2354 listadmin program</a>.  It allow you to check lists for new messages
2355 to moderate in a fraction of a second.  Here is a test run on two
2356 lists I recently took over:</p>
2357
2358 <p><blockquote><pre>
2359 % time listadmin xiph
2360 fetching data for pkg-xiph-commits@lists.alioth.debian.org ... nothing in queue
2361 fetching data for pkg-xiph-maint@lists.alioth.debian.org ... nothing in queue
2362
2363 real    0m1.709s
2364 user    0m0.232s
2365 sys     0m0.012s
2366 %
2367 </pre></blockquote></p>
2368
2369 <p>In 1.7 seconds I had checked two mailing lists and confirmed that
2370 there are no message in the moderation queue.  Every morning I
2371 currently moderate 68 mailman lists, and it normally take around two
2372 minutes.  When I took over the two pkg-xiph lists above a few days
2373 ago, there were 400 emails waiting in the moderator queue.  It took me
2374 less than 15 minutes to process them all using the listadmin
2375 program.</p>
2376
2377 <p>If you install
2378 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/listadmin">the listadmin
2379 package</a> from Debian and create a file <tt>~/.listadmin.ini</tt>
2380 with content like this, the moderation task is a breeze:</p>
2381
2382 <p><blockquote><pre>
2383 username username@example.org
2384 spamlevel 23
2385 default discard
2386 discard_if_reason "Posting restricted to members only. Remove us from your mail list."
2387
2388 password secret
2389 adminurl https://{domain}/mailman/admindb/{list}
2390 mailman-list@lists.example.com
2391
2392 password hidden
2393 other-list@otherserver.example.org
2394 </pre></blockquote></p>
2395
2396 <p>There are other options to set as well.  Check the manual page to
2397 learn the details.</p>
2398
2399 <p>If you are forced to moderate lists on a mailman installation where
2400 the SSL certificate is self signed or not properly signed by a
2401 generally accepted signing authority, you can set a environment
2402 variable when calling listadmin to disable SSL verification:</p>
2403
2404 <p><blockquote><pre>
2405 PERL_LWP_SSL_VERIFY_HOSTNAME=0 listadmin
2406 </pre></blockquote></p>
2407
2408 <p>If you want to moderate a subset of the lists you take care of, you
2409 can provide an argument to the listadmin script like I do in the
2410 initial screen dump (the xiph argument).  Using an argument, only
2411 lists matching the argument string will be processed.  This make it
2412 quick to accept messages if you notice the moderation request in your
2413 email.</p>
2414
2415 <p>Without the listadmin program, I would never be the moderator of 68
2416 mailing lists, as I simply do not have time to spend on that if the
2417 process was any slower. The listadmin program have saved me hours of
2418 time I could spend elsewhere over the years.  It truly is nice free
2419 software.</p>
2420
2421 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
2422 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
2423 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
2424
2425 <p>Update 2014-10-27: Added missing 'username' statement in
2426 configuration example.  Also, I've been told that the
2427 PERL_LWP_SSL_VERIFY_HOSTNAME=0 setting do not work for everyone.  Not
2428 sure why.</p>
2429
2430       </div>
2431       <div class="tags">
2432
2433
2434         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nice free software">nice free software</a>.
2435
2436
2437       </div>
2438     </div>
2439     <div class="padding"></div>
2440
2441     <div class="entry">
2442       <div class="title">
2443         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Jessie__PXE_and_automatic_firmware_installation.html">Debian Jessie, PXE and automatic firmware installation</a>
2444       </div>
2445       <div class="date">
2446         17th October 2014
2447       </div>
2448       <div class="body">
2449         <p>When PXE installing laptops with Debian, I often run into the
2450 problem that the WiFi card require some firmware to work properly.
2451 And it has been a pain to fix this using preseeding in Debian.
2452 Normally something more is needed.  But thanks to
2453 <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/i/isenkram.html">my isenkram
2454 package</a> and its recent tasksel extension, it has now become easy
2455 to do this using simple preseeding.</p>
2456
2457 <p>The isenkram-cli package provide tasksel tasks which will install
2458 firmware for the hardware found in the machine (actually, requested by
2459 the kernel modules for the hardware).  (It can also install user space
2460 programs supporting the hardware detected, but that is not the focus
2461 of this story.)</p>
2462
2463 <p>To get this working in the default installation, two preeseding
2464 values are needed.  First, the isenkram-cli package must be installed
2465 into the target chroot (aka the hard drive) before tasksel is executed
2466 in the pkgsel step of the debian-installer system.  This is done by
2467 preseeding the base-installer/includes debconf value to include the
2468 isenkram-cli package.  The package name is next passed to debootstrap
2469 for installation.  With the isenkram-cli package in place, tasksel
2470 will automatically use the isenkram tasks to detect hardware specific
2471 packages for the machine being installed and install them, because
2472 isenkram-cli contain tasksel tasks.</p>
2473
2474 <p>Second, one need to enable the non-free APT repository, because
2475 most firmware unfortunately is non-free.  This is done by preseeding
2476 the apt-mirror-setup step.  This is unfortunate, but for a lot of
2477 hardware it is the only option in Debian.</p>
2478
2479 <p>The end result is two lines needed in your preseeding file to get
2480 firmware installed automatically by the installer:</p>
2481
2482 <p><blockquote><pre>
2483 base-installer base-installer/includes string isenkram-cli
2484 apt-mirror-setup apt-setup/non-free boolean true
2485 </pre></blockquote></p>
2486
2487 <p>The current version of isenkram-cli in testing/jessie will install
2488 both firmware and user space packages when using this method.  It also
2489 do not work well, so use version 0.15 or later.  Installing both
2490 firmware and user space packages might give you a bit more than you
2491 want, so I decided to split the tasksel task in two, one for firmware
2492 and one for user space programs.  The firmware task is enabled by
2493 default, while the one for user space programs is not.  This split is
2494 implemented in the package currently in unstable.</p>
2495
2496 <p>If you decide to give this a go, please let me know (via email) how
2497 this recipe work for you. :)</p>
2498
2499 <p>So, I bet you are wondering, how can this work.  First and
2500 foremost, it work because tasksel is modular, and driven by whatever
2501 files it find in /usr/lib/tasksel/ and /usr/share/tasksel/.  So the
2502 isenkram-cli package place two files for tasksel to find.  First there
2503 is the task description file (/usr/share/tasksel/descs/isenkram.desc):</p>
2504
2505 <p><blockquote><pre>
2506 Task: isenkram-packages
2507 Section: hardware
2508 Description: Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)
2509  Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific packages are
2510  proposed.
2511 Test-new-install: show show
2512 Relevance: 8
2513 Packages: for-current-hardware
2514
2515 Task: isenkram-firmware
2516 Section: hardware
2517 Description: Hardware specific firmware packages (autodetected by isenkram)
2518  Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific firmware
2519  packages are proposed.
2520 Test-new-install: mark show
2521 Relevance: 8
2522 Packages: for-current-hardware-firmware
2523 </pre></blockquote></p>
2524
2525 <p>The key parts are Test-new-install which indicate how the task
2526 should be handled and the Packages line referencing to a script in
2527 /usr/lib/tasksel/packages/.  The scripts use other scripts to get a
2528 list of packages to install.  The for-current-hardware-firmware script
2529 look like this to list relevant firmware for the machine:
2530
2531 <p><blockquote><pre>
2532 #!/bin/sh
2533 #
2534 PATH=/usr/sbin:$PATH
2535 export PATH
2536 isenkram-autoinstall-firmware -l
2537 </pre></blockquote></p>
2538
2539 <p>With those two pieces in place, the firmware is installed by
2540 tasksel during the normal d-i run. :)</p>
2541
2542 <p>If you want to test what tasksel will install when isenkram-cli is
2543 installed, run <tt>DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical tasksel --test
2544 --new-install</tt> to get the list of packages that tasksel would
2545 install.</p>
2546
2547 <p><a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/">Debian Edu</a> will be
2548 pilots in testing this feature, as isenkram is used there now to
2549 install firmware, replacing the earlier scripts.</p>
2550
2551       </div>
2552       <div class="tags">
2553
2554
2555         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sysadmin">sysadmin</a>.
2556
2557
2558       </div>
2559     </div>
2560     <div class="padding"></div>
2561
2562     <div class="entry">
2563       <div class="title">
2564         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Ubuntu_used_to_show_the_bread_prizes_at_ICA_Storo.html">Ubuntu used to show the bread prizes at ICA Storo</a>
2565       </div>
2566       <div class="date">
2567          4th October 2014
2568       </div>
2569       <div class="body">
2570         <p>Today I came across an unexpected Ubuntu boot screen.  Above the
2571 bread shelf on the ICA shop at Storo in Oslo, the grub menu of Ubuntu
2572 with Linux kernel 3.2.0-23 (ie probably version 12.04 LTS) was stuck
2573 on a screen normally showing the bread types and prizes:</p>
2574
2575 <p align="center"><img width="70%" src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2014-10-04-ubuntu-ica-storo-crop.jpeg"></p>
2576
2577 <p>If it had booted as it was supposed to, I would never had known
2578 about this hidden Linux installation.  It is interesting what
2579 <a href="http://revealingerrors.com/">errors can reveal</a>.</p>
2580
2581       </div>
2582       <div class="tags">
2583
2584
2585         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>.
2586
2587
2588       </div>
2589     </div>
2590     <div class="padding"></div>
2591
2592     <div class="entry">
2593       <div class="title">
2594         <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>
2595       </div>
2596       <div class="date">
2597          4th October 2014
2598       </div>
2599       <div class="body">
2600         <p>The <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/">lsdvd project</a>
2601 got a new set of developers a few weeks ago, after the original
2602 developer decided to step down and pass the project to fresh blood.
2603 This project is now maintained by Petter Reinholdtsen and Steve
2604 Dibb.</p>
2605
2606 <p>I just wrapped up
2607 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/mailman/message/32896061/">a
2608 new lsdvd release</a>, available in git or from
2609 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/projects/lsdvd/files/lsdvd/">the
2610 download page</a>.  This is the changelog dated 2014-10-03 for version
2611 0.17.</p>
2612
2613 <ul>
2614
2615  <li>Ignore 'phantom' audio, subtitle tracks</li>
2616  <li>Check for garbage in the program chains, which indicate that a track is
2617    non-existant, to work around additional copy protection</li>
2618  <li>Fix displaying content type for audio tracks, subtitles</li>
2619  <li>Fix pallete display of first entry</li>
2620  <li>Fix include orders</li>
2621  <li>Ignore read errors in titles that would not be displayed anyway</li>
2622  <li>Fix the chapter count</li>
2623  <li>Make sure the array size and the array limit used when initialising
2624    the palette size is the same.</li>
2625  <li>Fix array printing.</li>
2626  <li>Correct subsecond calculations.</li>
2627  <li>Add sector information to the output format.</li>
2628  <li>Clean up code to be closer to ANSI C and compile without warnings
2629    with more GCC compiler warnings.</li>
2630
2631 </ul>
2632
2633 <p>This change bring together patches for lsdvd in use in various
2634 Linux and Unix distributions, as well as patches submitted to the
2635 project the last nine years.  Please check it out. :)</p>
2636
2637       </div>
2638       <div class="tags">
2639
2640
2641         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>.
2642
2643
2644       </div>
2645     </div>
2646     <div class="padding"></div>
2647
2648     <div class="entry">
2649       <div class="title">
2650         <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>
2651       </div>
2652       <div class="date">
2653         26th September 2014
2654       </div>
2655       <div class="body">
2656         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
2657 project</a> provide a Linux solution for schools, including a
2658 powerful desktop with education software, a central server providing
2659 web pages, user database, user home directories, central login and PXE
2660 boot of both  clients without disk and the installation to install Debian
2661 Edu on machines with disk (and a few other services perhaps to small
2662 to mention here).  We in the Debian Edu team are currently working on
2663 the Jessie based version, trying to get everything in shape before the
2664 freeze, to avoid having to maintain our own package repository in the
2665 future.  The
2666 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Status/Jessie">current
2667 status</a> can be seen on the Debian wiki, and there is still heaps of
2668 work left.  Some fatal problems block testing, breaking the installer,
2669 but it is possible to work around these to get anyway.  Here is a
2670 recipe on how to get the installation limping along.</p>
2671
2672 <p>First, download the test ISO via
2673 <a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.no/cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-1.iso">ftp</a>,
2674 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.no/cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-1.iso">http</a>
2675 or rsync (use
2676 ftp.skolelinux.org::cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-1.iso).
2677 The ISO build was broken on Tuesday, so we do not get a new ISO every
2678 12 hours or so, but thankfully the ISO we already got we are able to
2679 install with some tweaking.</p>
2680
2681 <p>When you get to the Debian Edu profile question, go to tty2
2682 (use Alt-Ctrl-F2), run</p>
2683
2684 <p><blockquote><pre>
2685 nano /usr/bin/edu-eatmydata-install
2686 </pre></blockquote></p>
2687
2688 <p>and add 'exit 0' as the second line, disabling the eatmydata
2689 optimization.  Return to the installation, select the profile you want
2690 and continue.  Without this change, exim4-config will fail to install
2691 due to a known bug in eatmydata.</p>
2692
2693 <p>When you get the grub question at the end, answer /dev/sda (or if
2694 this do not work, figure out what your correct value would be.  All my
2695 test machines need /dev/sda, so I have no advice if it do not fit
2696 your need.</p>
2697
2698 <p>If you installed a profile including a graphical desktop, log in as
2699 root after the initial boot from hard drive, and install the
2700 education-desktop-XXX metapackage.  XXX can be kde, gnome, lxde, xfce
2701 or mate.  If you want several desktop options, install more than one
2702 metapackage.  Once this is done, reboot and you should have a working
2703 graphical login screen.  This workaround should no longer be needed
2704 once the education-tasks package version 1.801 enter testing in two
2705 days.</p>
2706
2707 <p>I believe the ISO build will start working on two days when the new
2708 tasksel package enter testing and Steve McIntyre get a chance to
2709 update the debian-cd git repository.  The eatmydata, grub and desktop
2710 issues are already fixed in unstable and testing, and should show up
2711 on the ISO as soon as the ISO build start working again.  Well the
2712 eatmydata optimization is really just disabled.  The proper fix
2713 require an upload by the eatmydata maintainer applying the patch
2714 provided in bug <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/702711">#702711</a>.
2715 The rest have proper fixes in unstable.</p>
2716
2717 <p>I hope this get you going with the installation testing, as we are
2718 quickly running out of time trying to get our Jessie based
2719 installation ready before the distribution freeze in a month.</p>
2720
2721       </div>
2722       <div class="tags">
2723
2724
2725         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>.
2726
2727
2728       </div>
2729     </div>
2730     <div class="padding"></div>
2731
2732     <div class="entry">
2733       <div class="title">
2734         <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>
2735       </div>
2736       <div class="date">
2737         25th September 2014
2738       </div>
2739       <div class="body">
2740         <p>I use the <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/">lsdvd tool</a>
2741 to handle my fairly large DVD collection.  It is a nice command line
2742 tool to get details about a DVD, like title, tracks, track length,
2743 etc, in XML, Perl or human readable format.  But lsdvd have not seen
2744 any new development since 2006 and had a few irritating bugs affecting
2745 its use with some DVDs.  Upstream seemed to be dead, and in January I
2746 sent a small probe asking for a version control repository for the
2747 project, without any reply.  But I use it regularly and would like to
2748 get <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/lsdvd">an updated version
2749 into Debian</a>.  So two weeks ago I tried harder to get in touch with
2750 the project admin, and after getting a reply from him explaining that
2751 he was no longer interested in the project, I asked if I could take
2752 over.  And yesterday, I became project admin.</p>
2753
2754 <p>I've been in touch with a Gentoo developer and the Debian
2755 maintainer interested in joining forces to maintain the upstream
2756 project, and I hope we can get a new release out fairly quickly,
2757 collecting the patches spread around on the internet into on place.
2758 I've added the relevant Debian patches to the freshly created git
2759 repository, and expect the Gentoo patches to make it too.  If you got
2760 a DVD collection and care about command line tools, check out
2761 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/git/ci/master/tree/">the git source</a> and join
2762 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/mailman/">the project mailing
2763 list</a>. :)</p>
2764
2765       </div>
2766       <div class="tags">
2767
2768
2769         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>.
2770
2771
2772       </div>
2773     </div>
2774     <div class="padding"></div>
2775
2776     <div class="entry">
2777       <div class="title">
2778         <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>
2779       </div>
2780       <div class="date">
2781         16th September 2014
2782       </div>
2783       <div class="body">
2784         <p>The <a href="https://www.debian.org/">Debian</a> installer could be
2785 a lot quicker.  When we install more than 2000 packages in
2786 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux / Debian Edu</a> using
2787 tasksel in the installer, unpacking the binary packages take forever.
2788 A part of the slow I/O issue was discussed in
2789 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/613428">bug #613428</a> about too
2790 much file system sync-ing done by dpkg, which is the package
2791 responsible for unpacking the binary packages.  Other parts (like code
2792 executed by postinst scripts) might also sync to disk during
2793 installation.  All this sync-ing to disk do not really make sense to
2794 me.  If the machine crash half-way through, I start over, I do not try
2795 to salvage the half installed system.  So the failure sync-ing is
2796 supposed to protect against, hardware or system crash, is not really
2797 relevant while the installer is running.</p>
2798
2799 <p>A few days ago, I thought of a way to get rid of all the file
2800 system sync()-ing in a fairly non-intrusive way, without the need to
2801 change the code in several packages.  The idea is not new, but I have
2802 not heard anyone propose the approach using dpkg-divert before.  It
2803 depend on the small and clever package
2804 <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/eatmydata">eatmydata</a>, which
2805 uses LD_PRELOAD to replace the system functions for syncing data to
2806 disk with functions doing nothing, thus allowing programs to live
2807 dangerous while speeding up disk I/O significantly.  Instead of
2808 modifying the implementation of dpkg, apt and tasksel (which are the
2809 packages responsible for selecting, fetching and installing packages),
2810 it occurred to me that we could just divert the programs away, replace
2811 them with a simple shell wrapper calling
2812 "eatmydata&nbsp;$program&nbsp;$@", to get the same effect.
2813 Two days ago I decided to test the idea, and wrapped up a simple
2814 implementation for the Debian Edu udeb.</p>
2815
2816 <p>The effect was stunning.  In my first test it reduced the running
2817 time of the pkgsel step (installing tasks) from 64 to less than 44
2818 minutes (20 minutes shaved off the installation) on an old Dell
2819 Latitude D505 machine.  I am not quite sure what the optimised time
2820 would have been, as I messed up the testing a bit, causing the debconf
2821 priority to get low enough for two questions to pop up during
2822 installation.  As soon as I saw the questions I moved the installation
2823 along, but do not know how long the question were holding up the
2824 installation.  I did some more measurements using Debian Edu Jessie,
2825 and got these results.  The time measured is the time stamp in
2826 /var/log/syslog between the "pkgsel: starting tasksel" and the
2827 "pkgsel: finishing up" lines, if you want to do the same measurement
2828 yourself.  In Debian Edu, the tasksel dialog do not show up, and the
2829 timing thus do not depend on how quickly the user handle the tasksel
2830 dialog.</p>
2831
2832 <p><table>
2833
2834 <tr>
2835 <th>Machine/setup</th>
2836 <th>Original tasksel</th>
2837 <th>Optimised tasksel</th>
2838 <th>Reduction</th>
2839 </tr>
2840
2841 <tr>
2842 <td>Latitude D505 Main+LTSP LXDE</td>
2843 <td>64 min (07:46-08:50)</td>
2844 <td><44 min (11:27-12:11)</td>
2845 <td>>20 min 18%</td>
2846 </tr>
2847
2848 <tr>
2849 <td>Latitude D505 Roaming LXDE</td>
2850 <td>57 min (08:48-09:45)</td>
2851 <td>34 min (07:43-08:17)</td>
2852 <td>23 min 40%</td>
2853 </tr>
2854
2855 <tr>
2856 <td>Latitude D505 Minimal</td>
2857 <td>22 min (10:37-10:59)</td>
2858 <td>11 min (11:16-11:27)</td>
2859 <td>11 min 50%</td>
2860 </tr>
2861
2862 <tr>
2863 <td>Thinkpad X200 Minimal</td>
2864 <td>6 min (08:19-08:25)</td>
2865 <td>4 min (08:04-08:08)</td>
2866 <td>2 min 33%</td>
2867 </tr>
2868
2869 <tr>
2870 <td>Thinkpad X200 Roaming KDE</td>
2871 <td>19 min (09:21-09:40)</td>
2872 <td>15 min (10:25-10:40)</td>
2873 <td>4 min 21%</td>
2874 </tr>
2875
2876 </table></p>
2877
2878 <p>The test is done using a netinst ISO on a USB stick, so some of the
2879 time is spent downloading packages.  The connection to the Internet
2880 was 100Mbit/s during testing, so downloading should not be a
2881 significant factor in the measurement.  Download typically took a few
2882 seconds to a few minutes, depending on the amount of packages being
2883 installed.</p>
2884
2885 <p>The speedup is implemented by using two hooks in
2886 <a href="https://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/">Debian
2887 Installer</a>, the pre-pkgsel.d hook to set up the diverts, and the
2888 finish-install.d hook to remove the divert at the end of the
2889 installation.  I picked the pre-pkgsel.d hook instead of the
2890 post-base-installer.d hook because I test using an ISO without the
2891 eatmydata package included, and the post-base-installer.d hook in
2892 Debian Edu can only operate on packages included in the ISO.  The
2893 negative effect of this is that I am unable to activate this
2894 optimization for the kernel installation step in d-i.  If the code is
2895 moved to the post-base-installer.d hook, the speedup would be larger
2896 for the entire installation.</p>
2897
2898 <p>I've implemented this in the
2899 <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/debian-edu-install">debian-edu-install</a>
2900 git repository, and plan to provide the optimization as part of the
2901 Debian Edu installation.  If you want to test this yourself, you can
2902 create two files in the installer (or in an udeb).  One shell script
2903 need do go into /usr/lib/pre-pkgsel.d/, with content like this:</p>
2904
2905 <p><blockquote><pre>
2906 #!/bin/sh
2907 set -e
2908 . /usr/share/debconf/confmodule
2909 info() {
2910     logger -t my-pkgsel "info: $*"
2911 }
2912 error() {
2913     logger -t my-pkgsel "error: $*"
2914 }
2915 override_install() {
2916     apt-install eatmydata || true
2917     if [ -x /target/usr/bin/eatmydata ] ; then
2918         for bin in dpkg apt-get aptitude tasksel ; do
2919             file=/usr/bin/$bin
2920             # Test that the file exist and have not been diverted already.
2921             if [ -f /target$file ] ; then
2922                 info "diverting $file using eatmydata"
2923                 printf "#!/bin/sh\neatmydata $bin.distrib \"\$@\"\n" \
2924                     > /target$file.edu
2925                 chmod 755 /target$file.edu
2926                 in-target dpkg-divert --package debian-edu-config \
2927                     --rename --quiet --add $file
2928                 ln -sf ./$bin.edu /target$file
2929             else
2930                 error "unable to divert $file, as it is missing."
2931             fi
2932         done
2933     else
2934         error "unable to find /usr/bin/eatmydata after installing the eatmydata pacage"
2935     fi
2936 }
2937
2938 override_install
2939 </pre></blockquote></p>
2940
2941 <p>To clean up, another shell script should go into
2942 /usr/lib/finish-install.d/ with code like this:
2943
2944 <p><blockquote><pre>
2945 #! /bin/sh -e
2946 . /usr/share/debconf/confmodule
2947 error() {
2948     logger -t my-finish-install "error: $@"
2949 }
2950 remove_install_override() {
2951     for bin in dpkg apt-get aptitude tasksel ; do
2952         file=/usr/bin/$bin
2953         if [ -x /target$file.edu ] ; then
2954             rm /target$file
2955             in-target dpkg-divert --package debian-edu-config \
2956                 --rename --quiet --remove $file
2957             rm /target$file.edu
2958         else
2959             error "Missing divert for $file."
2960         fi
2961     done
2962     sync # Flush file buffers before continuing
2963 }
2964
2965 remove_install_override
2966 </pre></blockquote></p>
2967
2968 <p>In Debian Edu, I placed both code fragments in a separate script
2969 edu-eatmydata-install and call it from the pre-pkgsel.d and
2970 finish-install.d scripts.</p>
2971
2972 <p>By now you might ask if this change should get into the normal
2973 Debian installer too?  I suspect it should, but am not sure the
2974 current debian-installer coordinators find it useful enough.  It also
2975 depend on the side effects of the change.  I'm not aware of any, but I
2976 guess we will see if the change is safe after some more testing.
2977 Perhaps there is some package in Debian depending on sync() and
2978 fsync() having effect?  Perhaps it should go into its own udeb, to
2979 allow those of us wanting to enable it to do so without affecting
2980 everyone.</p>
2981
2982 <p>Update 2014-09-24: Since a few days ago, enabling this optimization
2983 will break installation of all programs using gnutls because of
2984 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/702711">bug #702711</a>.  An updated
2985 eatmydata package in Debian will solve it.</p>
2986
2987 <p>Update 2014-10-17: The bug mentioned above is fixed in testing and
2988 the optimization work again.  And I have discovered that the
2989 dpkg-divert trick is not really needed and implemented a slightly
2990 simpler approach as part of the debian-edu-install package.  See
2991 tools/edu-eatmydata-install in the source package.</p>
2992
2993 <p>Update 2014-11-11: Unfortunately, a new
2994 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/765738">bug #765738</a> in eatmydata only
2995 triggering on i386 made it into testing, and broke this installation
2996 optimization again.  If <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/768893">unblock
2997 request 768893</a> is accepted, it should be working again.</p>
2998
2999       </div>
3000       <div class="tags">
3001
3002
3003         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>.
3004
3005
3006       </div>
3007     </div>
3008     <div class="padding"></div>
3009
3010     <div class="entry">
3011       <div class="title">
3012         <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>
3013       </div>
3014       <div class="date">
3015         10th September 2014
3016       </div>
3017       <div class="body">
3018         <p>Yesterday, I had the pleasure of attending a talk with the
3019 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">Norwegian Unix User Group</a> about
3020 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20140909-sks-keyservers/">the
3021 OpenPGP keyserver pool sks-keyservers.net</a>, and was very happy to
3022 learn that there is a large set of publicly available key servers to
3023 use when looking for peoples public key.  So far I have used
3024 subkeys.pgp.net, and some times wwwkeys.nl.pgp.net when the former
3025 were misbehaving, but those days are ended.  The servers I have used
3026 up until yesterday have been slow and some times unavailable.  I hope
3027 those problems are gone now.</p>
3028
3029 <p>Behind the round robin DNS entry of the
3030 <a href="https://sks-keyservers.net/">sks-keyservers.net</a> service
3031 there is a pool of more than 100 keyservers which are checked every
3032 day to ensure they are well connected and up to date.  It must be
3033 better than what I have used so far. :)</p>
3034
3035 <p>Yesterdays speaker told me that the service is the default
3036 keyserver provided by the default configuration in GnuPG, but this do
3037 not seem to be used in Debian.  Perhaps it should?</p>
3038
3039 <p>Anyway, I've updated my ~/.gnupg/options file to now include this
3040 line:</p>
3041
3042 <p><blockquote><pre>
3043 keyserver pool.sks-keyservers.net
3044 </pre></blockquote></p>
3045
3046 <p>With GnuPG version 2 one can also locate the keyserver using SRV
3047 entries in DNS.  Just for fun, I did just that at work, so now every
3048 user of GnuPG at the University of Oslo should find a OpenGPG
3049 keyserver automatically should their need it:</p>
3050
3051 <p><blockquote><pre>
3052 % host -t srv _pgpkey-http._tcp.uio.no
3053 _pgpkey-http._tcp.uio.no has SRV record 0 100 11371 pool.sks-keyservers.net.
3054 %
3055 </pre></blockquote></p>
3056
3057 <p>Now if only
3058 <a href="http://ietfreport.isoc.org/idref/draft-shaw-openpgp-hkp/">the
3059 HKP lookup protocol</a> supported finding signature paths, I would be
3060 very happy.  It can look up a given key or search for a user ID, but I
3061 normally do not want that, but to find a trust path from my key to
3062 another key.  Given a user ID or key ID, I would like to find (and
3063 download) the keys representing a signature path from my key to the
3064 key in question, to be able to get a trust path between the two keys.
3065 This is as far as I can tell not possible today.  Perhaps something
3066 for a future version of the protocol?</p>
3067
3068       </div>
3069       <div class="tags">
3070
3071
3072         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>.
3073
3074
3075       </div>
3076     </div>
3077     <div class="padding"></div>
3078
3079     <div class="entry">
3080       <div class="title">
3081         <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>
3082       </div>
3083       <div class="date">
3084         17th June 2014
3085       </div>
3086       <div class="body">
3087         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
3088 project</a> provide an instruction manual for teachers, system
3089 administrators and other users that contain useful tips for setting up
3090 and maintaining a Debian Edu installation.  This text is about how the
3091 text processing of this manual is handled in the project.</p>
3092
3093 <p>One goal of the project is to provide information in the native
3094 language of its users, and for this we need to handle translations.
3095 But we also want to make sure each language contain the same
3096 information, so for this we need a good way to keep the translations
3097 in sync.  And we want it to be easy for our users to improve the
3098 documentation, avoiding the need to learn special formats or tools to
3099 contribute, and the obvious way to do this is to make it possible to
3100 edit the documentation using a web browser.  We also want it to be
3101 easy for translators to keep the translation up to date, and give them
3102 help in figuring out what need to be translated. Here is the list of
3103 tools and the process we have found trying to reach all these
3104 goals.</p>
3105
3106 <p>We maintain the authoritative source of our manual in the
3107 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/">Debian
3108 wiki</a>, as several wiki pages written in English.  It consist of one
3109 front page with references to the different chapters, several pages
3110 for each chapter, and finally one "collection page" gluing all the
3111 chapters together into one large web page (aka
3112 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/AllInOne">the
3113 AllInOne page</a>).  The AllInOne page is the one used for further
3114 processing and translations.  Thanks to the fact that the
3115 <a href="http://moinmo.in/">MoinMoin</a> installation on
3116 wiki.debian.org support exporting pages in
3117 <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">the Docbook format</a>, we can fetch
3118 the list of pages to export using the raw version of the AllInOne
3119 page, loop over each of them to generate a Docbook XML version of the
3120 manual.  This process also download images and transform image
3121 references to use the locally downloaded images.  The generated
3122 Docbook XML files are slightly broken, so some post-processing is done
3123 using the <tt>documentation/scripts/get_manual</tt> program, and the
3124 result is a nice Docbook XML file (debian-edu-wheezy-manual.xml) and
3125 a handfull of images.  The XML file can now be used to generate PDF, HTML
3126 and epub versions of the English manual.  This is the basic step of
3127 our process, making PDF (using dblatex), HTML (using xsltproc) and
3128 epub (using dbtoepub) version from Docbook XML, and the resulting files
3129 are placed in the debian-edu-doc-en binary package.</p>
3130
3131 <p>But English documentation is not enough for us.  We want translated
3132 documentation too, and we want to make it easy for translators to
3133 track the English original.  For this we use the
3134 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/p/poxml.html">poxml</a> package,
3135 which allow us to transform the English Docbook XML file into a
3136 translation file (a .pot file), usable with the normal gettext based
3137 translation tools used by those translating free software.  The pot
3138 file is used to create and maintain translation files (several .po
3139 files), which the translations update with the native language
3140 translations of all titles, paragraphs and blocks of text in the
3141 original.  The next step is combining the original English Docbook XML
3142 and the translation file (say debian-edu-wheezy-manual.nb.po), to
3143 create a translated Docbook XML file (in this case
3144 debian-edu-wheezy-manual.nb.xml).  This translated (or partly
3145 translated, if the translation is not complete) Docbook XML file can
3146 then be used like the original to create a PDF, HTML and epub version
3147 of the documentation.</p>
3148
3149 <p>The translators use different tools to edit the .po files.  We
3150 recommend using
3151 <a href="http://www.kde.org/applications/development/lokalize/">lokalize</a>,
3152 while some use emacs and vi, others can use web based editors like
3153 <a href="http://pootle.translatehouse.org/">Poodle</a> or
3154 <a href="https://www.transifex.com/">Transifex</a>.  All we care about
3155 is where the .po file end up, in our git repository.  Updated
3156 translations can either be committed directly to git, or submitted as
3157 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/src:debian-edu-doc">bug reports
3158 against the debian-edu-doc package</a>.</p>
3159
3160 <p>One challenge is images, which both might need to be translated (if
3161 they show translated user applications), and are needed in different
3162 formats when creating PDF and HTML versions (epub is a HTML version in
3163 this regard).  For this we transform the original PNG images to the
3164 needed density and format during build, and have a way to provide
3165 translated images by storing translated versions in
3166 images/$LANGUAGECODE/.  I am a bit unsure about the details here.  The
3167 package maintainers know more.</p>
3168
3169 <p>If you wonder what the result look like, we provide
3170 <a href="http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/">the content
3171 of the documentation packages on the web</a>.  See for example the
3172 <a href="http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/it/debian-edu-wheezy-manual.pdf">Italian
3173 PDF version</a> or the
3174 <a href="http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/de/debian-edu-wheezy-manual.html">German
3175 HTML version</a>.  We do not yet build the epub version by default,
3176 but perhaps it will be done in the future.</p>
3177
3178 <p>To learn more, check out
3179 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/debian-edu-doc.html">the
3180 debian-edu-doc package</a>,
3181 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/">the
3182 manual on the wiki</a> and
3183 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/Translations">the
3184 translation instructions</a> in the manual.</p>
3185
3186       </div>
3187       <div class="tags">
3188
3189
3190         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>.
3191
3192
3193       </div>
3194     </div>
3195     <div class="padding"></div>
3196
3197     <div class="entry">
3198       <div class="title">
3199         <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>
3200       </div>
3201       <div class="date">
3202         23rd April 2014
3203       </div>
3204       <div class="body">
3205         <p>It would be nice if it was easier in Debian to get all the hardware
3206 related packages relevant for the computer installed automatically.
3207 So I implemented one, using
3208 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">my Isenkram
3209 package</a>.  To use it, install the tasksel and isenkram packages and
3210 run tasksel as user root.  You should be presented with a new option,
3211 "Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)".  When you
3212 select it, tasksel will install the packages isenkram claim is fit for
3213 the current hardware, hot pluggable or not.<p>
3214
3215 <p>The implementation is in two files, one is the tasksel menu entry
3216 description, and the other is the script used to extract the list of
3217 packages to install.  The first part is in
3218 <tt>/usr/share/tasksel/descs/isenkram.desc</tt> and look like
3219 this:</p>
3220
3221 <p><blockquote><pre>
3222 Task: isenkram
3223 Section: hardware
3224 Description: Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)
3225  Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific packages are
3226  proposed.
3227 Test-new-install: mark show
3228 Relevance: 8
3229 Packages: for-current-hardware
3230 </pre></blockquote></p>
3231
3232 <p>The second part is in
3233 <tt>/usr/lib/tasksel/packages/for-current-hardware</tt> and look like
3234 this:</p>
3235
3236 <p><blockquote><pre>
3237 #!/bin/sh
3238 #
3239 (
3240     isenkram-lookup
3241     isenkram-autoinstall-firmware -l
3242 ) | sort -u
3243 </pre></blockquote></p>
3244
3245 <p>All in all, a very short and simple implementation making it
3246 trivial to install the hardware dependent package we all may want to
3247 have installed on our machines.  I've not been able to find a way to
3248 get tasksel to tell you exactly which packages it plan to install
3249 before doing the installation.  So if you are curious or careful,
3250 check the output from the isenkram-* command line tools first.</p>
3251
3252 <p>The information about which packages are handling which hardware is
3253 fetched either from the isenkram package itself in
3254 /usr/share/isenkram/, from git.debian.org or from the APT package
3255 database (using the Modaliases header).  The APT package database
3256 parsing have caused a nasty resource leak in the isenkram daemon (bugs
3257 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/719837">#719837</a> and
3258 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/730704">#730704</a>).  The cause is in
3259 the python-apt code (bug
3260 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/745487">#745487</a>), but using a
3261 workaround I was able to get rid of the file descriptor leak and
3262 reduce the memory leak from ~30 MiB per hardware detection down to
3263 around 2 MiB per hardware detection.  It should make the desktop
3264 daemon a lot more useful.  The fix is in version 0.7 uploaded to
3265 unstable today.</p>
3266
3267 <p>I believe the current way of mapping hardware to packages in
3268 Isenkram is is a good draft, but in the future I expect isenkram to
3269 use the AppStream data source for this.  A proposal for getting proper
3270 AppStream support into Debian is floating around as
3271 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DEP-11">DEP-11</a>, and
3272 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/SummerOfCode2014/Projects#SummerOfCode2014.2FProjects.2FAppStreamDEP11Implementation.AppStream.2FDEP-11_for_the_Debian_Archive">GSoC
3273 project</a> will take place this summer to improve the situation.  I
3274 look forward to seeing the result, and welcome patches for isenkram to
3275 start using the information when it is ready.</p>
3276
3277 <p>If you want your package to map to some specific hardware, either
3278 add a "Xb-Modaliases" header to your control file like I did in
3279 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pymissile">the pymissile
3280 package</a> or submit a bug report with the details to the isenkram
3281 package.  See also
3282 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram/">all my
3283 blog posts tagged isenkram</a> for details on the notation.  I expect
3284 the information will be migrated to AppStream eventually, but for the
3285 moment I got no better place to store it.</p>
3286
3287       </div>
3288       <div class="tags">
3289
3290
3291         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>.
3292
3293
3294       </div>
3295     </div>
3296     <div class="padding"></div>
3297
3298     <div class="entry">
3299       <div class="title">
3300         <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>
3301       </div>
3302       <div class="date">
3303         15th April 2014
3304       </div>
3305       <div class="body">
3306         <p>The <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">Freedombox
3307 project</a> is working on providing the software and hardware to make
3308 it easy for non-technical people to host their data and communication
3309 at home, and being able to communicate with their friends and family
3310 encrypted and away from prying eyes.  It is still going strong, and
3311 today a major mile stone was reached.</p>
3312
3313 <p>Today, the last of the packages currently used by the project to
3314 created the system images were accepted into Debian Unstable.  It was
3315 the freedombox-setup package, which is used to configure the images
3316 during build and on the first boot.  Now all one need to get going is
3317 the build code from the freedom-maker git repository and packages from
3318 Debian.  And once the freedombox-setup package enter testing, we can
3319 build everything directly from Debian. :)</p>
3320
3321 <p>Some key packages used by Freedombox are
3322 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/freedombox-setup">freedombox-setup</a>,
3323 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/plinth">plinth</a>,
3324 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pagekite">pagekite</a>,
3325 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/tor">tor</a>,
3326 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/privoxy">privoxy</a>,
3327 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/owncloud">owncloud</a> and
3328 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/dnsmasq">dnsmasq</a>.  There
3329 are plans to integrate more packages into the setup.  User
3330 documentation is maintained on the Debian wiki.  Please
3331 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/Manual/Jessie">check out
3332 the manual</a> and help us improve it.</p>
3333
3334 <p>To test for yourself and create boot images with the FreedomBox
3335 setup, run this on a Debian machine using a user with sudo rights to
3336 become root:</p>
3337
3338 <p><pre>
3339 sudo apt-get install git vmdebootstrap mercurial python-docutils \
3340   mktorrent extlinux virtualbox qemu-user-static binfmt-support \
3341   u-boot-tools
3342 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/freedombox/freedom-maker.git \
3343   freedom-maker
3344 make -C freedom-maker dreamplug-image raspberry-image virtualbox-image
3345 </pre></p>
3346
3347 <p>Root access is needed to run debootstrap and mount loopback
3348 devices.  See the README in the freedom-maker git repo for more
3349 details on the build.  If you do not want all three images, trim the
3350 make line.  Note that the virtualbox-image target is not really
3351 virtualbox specific.  It create a x86 image usable in kvm, qemu,
3352 vmware and any other x86 virtual machine environment.  You might need
3353 the version of vmdebootstrap in Jessie to get the build working, as it
3354 include fixes for a race condition with kpartx.</p>
3355
3356 <p>If you instead want to install using a Debian CD and the preseed
3357 method, boot a Debian Wheezy ISO and use this boot argument to load
3358 the preseed values:</p>
3359
3360 <p><pre>
3361 url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat</a>
3362 </pre></p>
3363
3364 <p>I have not tested it myself the last few weeks, so I do not know if
3365 it still work.</p>
3366
3367 <p>If you wonder how to help, one task you could look at is using
3368 systemd as the boot system.  It will become the default for Linux in
3369 Jessie, so we need to make sure it is usable on the Freedombox.  I did
3370 a simple test a few weeks ago, and noticed dnsmasq failed to start
3371 during boot when using systemd.  I suspect there are other problems
3372 too. :) To detect problems, there is a test suite included, which can
3373 be run from the plinth web interface.</p>
3374
3375 <p>Give it a go and let us know how it goes on the mailing list, and help
3376 us get the new release published. :) Please join us on
3377 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC (#freedombox on
3378 irc.debian.org)</a> and
3379 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
3380 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
3381
3382       </div>
3383       <div class="tags">
3384
3385
3386         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>.
3387
3388
3389       </div>
3390     </div>
3391     <div class="padding"></div>
3392
3393     <div class="entry">
3394       <div class="title">
3395         <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>
3396       </div>
3397       <div class="date">
3398          9th April 2014
3399       </div>
3400       <div class="body">
3401         <p>For a while now, I have been looking for a sensible offsite backup
3402 solution for use at home.  My requirements are simple, it must be
3403 cheap and locally encrypted (in other words, I keep the encryption
3404 keys, the storage provider do not have access to my private files).
3405 One idea me and my friends had many years ago, before the cloud
3406 storage providers showed up, was to use Google mail as storage,
3407 writing a Linux block device storing blocks as emails in the mail
3408 service provided by Google, and thus get heaps of free space.  On top
3409 of this one can add encryption, RAID and volume management to have
3410 lots of (fairly slow, I admit that) cheap and encrypted storage.  But
3411 I never found time to implement such system.  But the last few weeks I
3412 have looked at a system called
3413 <a href="https://bitbucket.org/nikratio/s3ql/">S3QL</a>, a locally
3414 mounted network backed file system with the features I need.</p>
3415
3416 <p>S3QL is a fuse file system with a local cache and cloud storage,
3417 handling several different storage providers, any with Amazon S3,
3418 Google Drive or OpenStack API.  There are heaps of such storage
3419 providers.  S3QL can also use a local directory as storage, which
3420 combined with sshfs allow for file storage on any ssh server.  S3QL
3421 include support for encryption, compression, de-duplication, snapshots
3422 and immutable file systems, allowing me to mount the remote storage as
3423 a local mount point, look at and use the files as if they were local,
3424 while the content is stored in the cloud as well.  This allow me to
3425 have a backup that should survive fire.  The file system can not be
3426 shared between several machines at the same time, as only one can
3427 mount it at the time, but any machine with the encryption key and
3428 access to the storage service can mount it if it is unmounted.</p>
3429
3430 <p>It is simple to use.  I'm using it on Debian Wheezy, where the
3431 package is included already.  So to get started, run <tt>apt-get
3432 install s3ql</tt>.  Next, pick a storage provider.  I ended up picking
3433 Greenqloud, after reading their nice recipe on
3434 <a href="https://greenqloud.zendesk.com/entries/44611757-How-To-Use-S3QL-to-mount-a-StorageQloud-bucket-on-Debian-Wheezy">how
3435 to use S3QL with their Amazon S3 service</a>, because I trust the laws
3436 in Iceland more than those in USA when it come to keeping my personal
3437 data safe and private, and thus would rather spend money on a company
3438 in Iceland.  Another nice recipe is available from the article
3439 <a href="http://www.admin-magazine.com/HPC/Articles/HPC-Cloud-Storage">S3QL
3440 Filesystem for HPC Storage</a> by Jeff Layton in the HPC section of
3441 Admin magazine.  When the provider is picked, figure out how to get
3442 the API key needed to connect to the storage API.  With Greencloud,
3443 the key did not show up until I had added payment details to my
3444 account.</p>
3445
3446 <p>Armed with the API access details, it is time to create the file
3447 system.  First, create a new bucket in the cloud.  This bucket is the
3448 file system storage area.  I picked a bucket name reflecting the
3449 machine that was going to store data there, but any name will do.
3450 I'll refer to it as <tt>bucket-name</tt> below.  In addition, one need
3451 the API login and password, and a locally created password.  Store it
3452 all in ~root/.s3ql/authinfo2 like this:
3453
3454 <p><blockquote><pre>
3455 [s3c]
3456 storage-url: s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name
3457 backend-login: API-login
3458 backend-password: API-password
3459 fs-passphrase: local-password
3460 </pre></blockquote></p>
3461
3462 <p>I create my local passphrase using <tt>pwget 50</tt> or similar,
3463 but any sensible way to create a fairly random password should do it.
3464 Armed with these details, it is now time to run mkfs, entering the API
3465 details and password to create it:</p>
3466
3467 <p><blockquote><pre>
3468 # mkdir -m 700 /var/lib/s3ql-cache
3469 # mkfs.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
3470   --ssl s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name
3471 Enter backend login:
3472 Enter backend password:
3473 Before using S3QL, make sure to read the user's guide, especially
3474 the 'Important Rules to Avoid Loosing Data' section.
3475 Enter encryption password:
3476 Confirm encryption password:
3477 Generating random encryption key...
3478 Creating metadata tables...
3479 Dumping metadata...
3480 ..objects..
3481 ..blocks..
3482 ..inodes..
3483 ..inode_blocks..
3484 ..symlink_targets..
3485 ..names..
3486 ..contents..
3487 ..ext_attributes..
3488 Compressing and uploading metadata...
3489 Wrote 0.00 MB of compressed metadata.
3490 # </pre></blockquote></p>
3491
3492 <p>The next step is mounting the file system to make the storage available.
3493
3494 <p><blockquote><pre>
3495 # mount.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
3496   --ssl --allow-root s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name /s3ql
3497 Using 4 upload threads.
3498 Downloading and decompressing metadata...
3499 Reading metadata...
3500 ..objects..
3501 ..blocks..
3502 ..inodes..
3503 ..inode_blocks..
3504 ..symlink_targets..
3505 ..names..
3506 ..contents..
3507 ..ext_attributes..
3508 Mounting filesystem...
3509 # df -h /s3ql
3510 Filesystem                              Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
3511 s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name  1.0T     0  1.0T   0% /s3ql
3512 #
3513 </pre></blockquote></p>
3514
3515 <p>The file system is now ready for use.  I use rsync to store my
3516 backups in it, and as the metadata used by rsync is downloaded at
3517 mount time, no network traffic (and storage cost) is triggered by
3518 running rsync.  To unmount, one should not use the normal umount
3519 command, as this will not flush the cache to the cloud storage, but
3520 instead running the umount.s3ql command like this:
3521
3522 <p><blockquote><pre>
3523 # umount.s3ql /s3ql
3524 #
3525 </pre></blockquote></p>
3526
3527 <p>There is a fsck command available to check the file system and
3528 correct any problems detected.  This can be used if the local server
3529 crashes while the file system is mounted, to reset the "already
3530 mounted" flag.  This is what it look like when processing a working
3531 file system:</p>
3532
3533 <p><blockquote><pre>
3534 # fsck.s3ql --force --ssl s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name
3535 Using cached metadata.
3536 File system seems clean, checking anyway.
3537 Checking DB integrity...
3538 Creating temporary extra indices...
3539 Checking lost+found...
3540 Checking cached objects...
3541 Checking names (refcounts)...
3542 Checking contents (names)...
3543 Checking contents (inodes)...
3544 Checking contents (parent inodes)...
3545 Checking objects (reference counts)...
3546 Checking objects (backend)...
3547 ..processed 5000 objects so far..
3548 ..processed 10000 objects so far..
3549 ..processed 15000 objects so far..
3550 Checking objects (sizes)...
3551 Checking blocks (referenced objects)...
3552 Checking blocks (refcounts)...
3553 Checking inode-block mapping (blocks)...
3554 Checking inode-block mapping (inodes)...
3555 Checking inodes (refcounts)...
3556 Checking inodes (sizes)...
3557 Checking extended attributes (names)...
3558 Checking extended attributes (inodes)...
3559 Checking symlinks (inodes)...
3560 Checking directory reachability...
3561 Checking unix conventions...
3562 Checking referential integrity...
3563 Dropping temporary indices...
3564 Backing up old metadata...
3565 Dumping metadata...
3566 ..objects..
3567 ..blocks..
3568 ..inodes..
3569 ..inode_blocks..
3570 ..symlink_targets..
3571 ..names..
3572 ..contents..
3573 ..ext_attributes..
3574 Compressing and uploading metadata...
3575 Wrote 0.89 MB of compressed metadata.
3576 #
3577 </pre></blockquote></p>
3578
3579 <p>Thanks to the cache, working on files that fit in the cache is very
3580 quick, about the same speed as local file access.  Uploading large
3581 amount of data is to me limited by the bandwidth out of and into my
3582 house.  Uploading 685 MiB with a 100 MiB cache gave me 305 kiB/s,
3583 which is very close to my upload speed, and downloading the same
3584 Debian installation ISO gave me 610 kiB/s, close to my download speed.
3585 Both were measured using <tt>dd</tt>.  So for me, the bottleneck is my
3586 network, not the file system code.  I do not know what a good cache
3587 size would be, but suspect that the cache should e larger than your
3588 working set.</p>
3589
3590 <p>I mentioned that only one machine can mount the file system at the
3591 time.  If another machine try, it is told that the file system is
3592 busy:</p>
3593
3594 <p><blockquote><pre>
3595 # mount.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
3596   --ssl --allow-root s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name /s3ql
3597 Using 8 upload threads.
3598 Backend reports that fs is still mounted elsewhere, aborting.
3599 #
3600 </pre></blockquote></p>
3601
3602 <p>The file content is uploaded when the cache is full, while the
3603 metadata is uploaded once every 24 hour by default.  To ensure the
3604 file system content is flushed to the cloud, one can either umount the
3605 file system, or ask S3QL to flush the cache and metadata using
3606 s3qlctrl:
3607
3608 <p><blockquote><pre>
3609 # s3qlctrl upload-meta /s3ql
3610 # s3qlctrl flushcache /s3ql
3611 #
3612 </pre></blockquote></p>
3613
3614 <p>If you are curious about how much space your data uses in the
3615 cloud, and how much compression and deduplication cut down on the
3616 storage usage, you can use s3qlstat on the mounted file system to get
3617 a report:</p>
3618
3619 <p><blockquote><pre>
3620 # s3qlstat /s3ql
3621 Directory entries:    9141
3622 Inodes:               9143
3623 Data blocks:          8851
3624 Total data size:      22049.38 MB
3625 After de-duplication: 21955.46 MB (99.57% of total)
3626 After compression:    21877.28 MB (99.22% of total, 99.64% of de-duplicated)
3627 Database size:        2.39 MB (uncompressed)
3628 (some values do not take into account not-yet-uploaded dirty blocks in cache)
3629 #
3630 </pre></blockquote></p>
3631
3632 <p>I mentioned earlier that there are several possible suppliers of
3633 storage.  I did not try to locate them all, but am aware of at least
3634 <a href="https://www.greenqloud.com/">Greenqloud</a>,
3635 <a href="http://drive.google.com/">Google Drive</a>,
3636 <a href="http://aws.amazon.com/s3/">Amazon S3 web serivces</a>,
3637 <a href="http://www.rackspace.com/">Rackspace</a> and
3638 <a href="http://crowncloud.net/">Crowncloud</A>.  The latter even
3639 accept payment in Bitcoin.  Pick one that suit your need.  Some of
3640 them provide several GiB of free storage, but the prize models are
3641 quite different and you will have to figure out what suits you
3642 best.</p>
3643
3644 <p>While researching this blog post, I had a look at research papers
3645 and posters discussing the S3QL file system.  There are several, which
3646 told me that the file system is getting a critical check by the
3647 science community and increased my confidence in using it.  One nice
3648 poster is titled
3649 "<a href="http://www.lanl.gov/orgs/adtsc/publications/science_highlights_2013/docs/pg68_69.pdf">An
3650 Innovative Parallel Cloud Storage System using OpenStack’s SwiftObject
3651 Store and Transformative Parallel I/O Approach</a>" by Hsing-Bung
3652 Chen, Benjamin McClelland, David Sherrill, Alfred Torrez, Parks Fields
3653 and Pamela Smith.  Please  have a look.</p>
3654
3655 <p>Given my problems with different file systems earlier, I decided to
3656 check out the mounted S3QL file system to see if it would be usable as
3657 a home directory (in other word, that it provided POSIX semantics when
3658 it come to locking and umask handling etc).  Running
3659 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_if_a_file_system_can_be_used_for_home_directories___.html">my
3660 test code to check file system semantics</a>, I was happy to discover that
3661 no error was found.  So the file system can be used for home
3662 directories, if one chooses to do so.</p>
3663
3664 <p>If you do not want a locally file system, and want something that
3665 work without the Linux fuse file system, I would like to mention the
3666 <a href="http://www.tarsnap.com/">Tarsnap service</a>, which also
3667 provide locally encrypted backup using a command line client.  It have
3668 a nicer access control system, where one can split out read and write
3669 access, allowing some systems to write to the backup and others to
3670 only read from it.</p>
3671
3672 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
3673 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
3674 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
3675
3676       </div>
3677       <div class="tags">
3678
3679
3680         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nice free software">nice free software</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
3681
3682
3683       </div>
3684     </div>
3685     <div class="padding"></div>
3686
3687     <div class="entry">
3688       <div class="title">
3689         <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>
3690       </div>
3691       <div class="date">
3692         14th March 2014
3693       </div>
3694       <div class="body">
3695         <p>The <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">Freedombox
3696 project</a> is working on providing the software and hardware for
3697 making it easy for non-technical people to host their data and
3698 communication at home, and being able to communicate with their
3699 friends and family encrypted and away from prying eyes.  It has been
3700 going on for a while, and is slowly progressing towards a new test
3701 release (0.2).</p>
3702
3703 <p>And what day could be better than the Pi day to announce that the
3704 new version will provide "hard drive" / SD card / USB stick images for
3705 Dreamplug, Raspberry Pi and VirtualBox (or any other virtualization
3706 system), and can also be installed using a Debian installer preseed
3707 file.  The Debian based Freedombox is now based on Debian Jessie,
3708 where most of the needed packages used are already present.  Only one,
3709 the freedombox-setup package, is missing.  To try to build your own
3710 boot image to test the current status, fetch the freedom-maker scripts
3711 and build using
3712 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/vmdebootstrap">vmdebootstrap</a>
3713 with a user with sudo access to become root:
3714
3715 <pre>
3716 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/freedombox/freedom-maker.git \
3717   freedom-maker
3718 sudo apt-get install git vmdebootstrap mercurial python-docutils \
3719   mktorrent extlinux virtualbox qemu-user-static binfmt-support \
3720   u-boot-tools
3721 make -C freedom-maker dreamplug-image raspberry-image virtualbox-image
3722 </pre>
3723
3724 <p>Root access is needed to run debootstrap and mount loopback
3725 devices.  See the README for more details on the build. If you do not
3726 want all three images, trim the make line.  But note that thanks to <a
3727 href="https://bugs.debian.org/741407">a race condition in
3728 vmdebootstrap</a>, the build might fail without the patch to the
3729 kpartx call.</p>
3730
3731 <p>If you instead want to install using a Debian CD and the preseed
3732 method, boot a Debian Wheezy ISO and use this boot argument to load
3733 the preseed values:</p>
3734
3735 <pre>
3736 url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat</a>
3737 </pre>
3738
3739 <p>But note that due to <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/740673">a
3740 recently introduced bug in apt in Jessie</a>, the installer will
3741 currently hang while setting up APT sources.  Killing the
3742 '<tt>apt-cdrom ident</tt>' process when it hang a few times during the
3743 installation will get the installation going.  This affect all
3744 installations in Jessie, and I expect it will be fixed soon.</p>
3745
3746 <p>Give it a go and let us know how it goes on the mailing list, and help
3747 us get the new release published. :) Please join us on
3748 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC (#freedombox on
3749 irc.debian.org)</a> and
3750 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
3751 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
3752
3753       </div>
3754       <div class="tags">
3755
3756
3757         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>.
3758
3759
3760       </div>
3761     </div>
3762     <div class="padding"></div>
3763
3764     <div class="entry">
3765       <div class="title">
3766         <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>
3767       </div>
3768       <div class="date">
3769         22nd February 2014
3770       </div>
3771       <div class="body">
3772         <p>Many years ago, I wrote a GPL licensed version of the netgroup and
3773 innetgr tools, because I needed them in
3774 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a>.  I called the project
3775 ng-utils, and it has served me well.  I placed the project under the
3776 <a href="http://www.hungry.com/">Hungry Programmer</a> umbrella, and it was maintained in our CVS
3777 repository.  But many years ago, the CVS repository was dropped (lost,
3778 not migrated to new hardware, not sure), and the project have lacked a
3779 proper home since then.</p>
3780
3781 <p>Last summer, I had a look at the package and made a new release
3782 fixing a irritating crash bug, but was unable to store the changes in
3783 a proper source control system.  I applied for a project on
3784 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/">Alioth</a>, but did not have time
3785 to follow up on it.  Until today. :)</p>
3786
3787 <p>After many hours of cleaning and migration, the ng-utils project
3788 now have a new home, and a git repository with the highlight of the
3789 history of the project.  I published all release tarballs and imported
3790 them into the git repository.  As the project is really stable and not
3791 expected to gain new features any time soon, I decided to make a new
3792 release and call it 1.0.  Visit the new project home on
3793 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/ng-utils/">https://alioth.debian.org/projects/ng-utils/</a>
3794 if you want to check it out.  The new version is also uploaded into
3795 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/n/ng-utils.html">Debian Unstable</a>.</p>
3796
3797       </div>
3798       <div class="tags">
3799
3800
3801         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>.
3802
3803
3804       </div>
3805     </div>
3806     <div class="padding"></div>
3807
3808     <div class="entry">
3809       <div class="title">
3810         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_sysvinit_from_experimental_in_Debian_Hurd.html">Testing sysvinit from experimental in Debian Hurd</a>
3811       </div>
3812       <div class="date">
3813          3rd February 2014
3814       </div>
3815       <div class="body">
3816         <p>A few days ago I decided to try to help the Hurd people to get
3817 their changes into sysvinit, to allow them to use the normal sysvinit
3818 boot system instead of their old one.  This follow up on the
3819 <a href="https://teythoon.cryptobitch.de//categories/gsoc.html">great
3820 Google Summer of Code work</a> done last summer by Justus Winter to
3821 get Debian on Hurd working more like Debian on Linux.  To get started,
3822 I downloaded a prebuilt hard disk image from
3823 <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>,
3824 and started it using virt-manager.</p>
3825
3826 <p>The first think I had to do after logging in (root without any
3827 password) was to get the network operational.  I followed
3828 <a href="https://www.debian.org/ports/hurd/hurd-install">the
3829 instructions on the Debian GNU/Hurd ports page</a> and ran these
3830 commands as root to get the machine to accept a IP address from the
3831 kvm internal DHCP server:</p>
3832
3833 <p><blockquote><pre>
3834 settrans -fgap /dev/netdde /hurd/netdde
3835 kill $(ps -ef|awk '/[p]finet/ { print $2}')
3836 kill $(ps -ef|awk '/[d]evnode/ { print $2}')
3837 dhclient /dev/eth0
3838 </pre></blockquote></p>
3839
3840 <p>After this, the machine had internet connectivity, and I could
3841 upgrade it and install the sysvinit packages from experimental and
3842 enable it as the default boot system in Hurd.</p>
3843
3844 <p>But before I did that, I set a password on the root user, as ssh is
3845 running on the machine it for ssh login to work a password need to be
3846 set.  Also, note that a bug somewhere in openssh on Hurd block
3847 compression from working.  Remember to turn that off on the client
3848 side.</p>
3849
3850 <p>Run these commands as root to upgrade and test the new sysvinit
3851 stuff:</p>
3852
3853 <p><blockquote><pre>
3854 cat > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/experimental.list &lt;&lt;EOF
3855 deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ experimental main
3856 EOF
3857 apt-get update
3858 apt-get dist-upgrade
3859 apt-get install -t experimental initscripts sysv-rc sysvinit \
3860     sysvinit-core sysvinit-utils
3861 update-alternatives --config runsystem
3862 </pre></blockquote></p>
3863
3864 <p>To reboot after switching boot system, you have to use
3865 <tt>reboot-hurd</tt> instead of just <tt>reboot</tt>, as there is not
3866 yet a sysvinit process able to receive the signals from the normal
3867 'reboot' command.  After switching to sysvinit as the boot system,
3868 upgrading every package and rebooting, the network come up with DHCP
3869 after boot as it should, and the settrans/pkill hack mentioned at the
3870 start is no longer needed.  But for some strange reason, there are no
3871 longer any login prompt in the virtual console, so I logged in using
3872 ssh instead.
3873
3874 <p>Note that there are some race conditions in Hurd making the boot
3875 fail some times.  No idea what the cause is, but hope the Hurd porters
3876 figure it out.  At least Justus said on IRC (#debian-hurd on
3877 irc.debian.org) that they are aware of the problem.  A way to reduce
3878 the impact is to upgrade to the Hurd packages built by Justus by
3879 adding this repository to the machine:</p>
3880
3881 <p><blockquote><pre>
3882 cat > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/hurd-ci.list &lt;&lt;EOF
3883 deb http://darnassus.sceen.net/~teythoon/hurd-ci/ sid main
3884 EOF
3885 </pre></blockquote></p>
3886
3887 <p>At the moment the prebuilt virtual machine get some packages from
3888 http://ftp.debian-ports.org/debian, because some of the packages in
3889 unstable do not yet include the required patches that are lingering in
3890 BTS.  This is the completely list of "unofficial" packages installed:</p>
3891
3892 <p><blockquote><pre>
3893 # aptitude search '?narrow(?version(CURRENT),?origin(Debian Ports))'
3894 i   emacs                   - GNU Emacs editor (metapackage)
3895 i   gdb                     - GNU Debugger
3896 i   hurd-recommended        - Miscellaneous translators
3897 i   isc-dhcp-client         - ISC DHCP client
3898 i   isc-dhcp-common         - common files used by all the isc-dhcp* packages
3899 i   libc-bin                - Embedded GNU C Library: Binaries
3900 i   libc-dev-bin            - Embedded GNU C Library: Development binaries
3901 i   libc0.3                 - Embedded GNU C Library: Shared libraries
3902 i A libc0.3-dbg             - Embedded GNU C Library: detached debugging symbols
3903 i   libc0.3-dev             - Embedded GNU C Library: Development Libraries and Hea
3904 i   multiarch-support       - Transitional package to ensure multiarch compatibilit
3905 i A x11-common              - X Window System (X.Org) infrastructure
3906 i   xorg                    - X.Org X Window System
3907 i A xserver-xorg            - X.Org X server
3908 i A xserver-xorg-input-all  - X.Org X server -- input driver metapackage
3909 #
3910 </pre></blockquote></p>
3911
3912 <p>All in all, testing hurd has been an interesting experience. :)
3913 X.org did not work out of the box and I never took the time to follow
3914 the porters instructions to fix it.  This time I was interested in the
3915 command line stuff.<p>
3916
3917       </div>
3918       <div class="tags">
3919
3920
3921         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>.
3922
3923
3924       </div>
3925     </div>
3926     <div class="padding"></div>
3927
3928     <div class="entry">
3929       <div class="title">
3930         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_chrpath_release_0_16.html">New chrpath release 0.16</a>
3931       </div>
3932       <div class="date">
3933         14th January 2014
3934       </div>
3935       <div class="body">
3936         <p><a href="http://www.coverity.com/">Coverity</a> is a nice tool to
3937 find problems in C, C++ and Java code using static source code
3938 analysis.  It can detect a lot of different problems, and is very
3939 useful to find memory and locking bugs in the error handling part of
3940 the source.  The company behind it provide
3941 <a href="https://scan.coverity.com/">check of free software projects as
3942 a community service</a>, and many hundred free software projects are
3943 already checked.  A few days ago I decided to have a closer look at
3944 the Coverity system, and discovered that the
3945 <a href="http://www.gnu.org/software/gnash/">gnash</a> and
3946 <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/ipmitool/">ipmitool</a>
3947 projects I am involved with was already registered.  But these are
3948 fairly big, and I would also like to have a small and easy project to
3949 check, and decided to <a href="http://scan.coverity.com/projects/1179">request
3950 checking of the chrpath project</a>.  It was
3951 added to the checker and discovered seven potential defects.  Six of
3952 these were real, mostly resource "leak" when the program detected an
3953 error.  Nothing serious, as the resources would be released a fraction
3954 of a second later when the program exited because of the error, but it
3955 is nice to do it right in case the source of the program some time in
3956 the future end up in a library.  Having fixed all defects and added
3957 <a href="https://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/chrpath-devel">a
3958 mailing list for the chrpath developers</a>, I decided it was time to
3959 publish a new release.  These are the release notes:</p>
3960
3961 <p>New in 0.16 released 2014-01-14:</p>
3962
3963 <ul>
3964
3965   <li>Fixed all minor bugs discovered by Coverity.</li>
3966   <li>Updated config.sub and config.guess from the GNU project.</li>
3967   <li>Mention new project mailing list in the documentation.</li>
3968
3969 </ul>
3970
3971 <p>You can
3972 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/frs/?group_id=31052">download the
3973 new version 0.16 from alioth</a>.  Please let us know via the Alioth
3974 project if something is wrong with the new release.  The test suite
3975 did not discover any old errors, so if you find a new one, please also
3976 include a test suite check.</p>
3977
3978       </div>
3979       <div class="tags">
3980
3981
3982         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>.
3983
3984
3985       </div>
3986     </div>
3987     <div class="padding"></div>
3988
3989     <div class="entry">
3990       <div class="title">
3991         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_chrpath_release_0_15.html">New chrpath release 0.15</a>
3992       </div>
3993       <div class="date">
3994         24th November 2013
3995       </div>
3996       <div class="body">
3997         <p>After many years break from the package and a vain hope that
3998 development would be continued by someone else, I finally pulled my
3999 acts together this morning and wrapped up a new release of chrpath,
4000 the command line tool to modify the rpath and runpath of already
4001 compiled ELF programs.  The update was triggered by the persistence of
4002 Isha Vishnoi at IBM, which needed a new config.guess file to get
4003 support for the ppc64le architecture (powerpc 64-bit Little Endian) he
4004 is working on.  I checked the
4005 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/chrpath">Debian</a>,
4006 <a href="https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/chrpath">Ubuntu</a> and
4007 <a href="https://admin.fedoraproject.org/pkgdb/acls/name/chrpath">Fedora</a>
4008 packages for interesting patches (failed to find the source from
4009 OpenSUSE and Mandriva packages), and found quite a few nice fixes.
4010 These are the release notes:</p>
4011
4012 <p>New in 0.15 released 2013-11-24:</p>
4013
4014 <ul>
4015
4016   <li>Updated config.sub and config.guess from the GNU project to work
4017    with newer architectures.  Thanks to isha vishnoi for the heads
4018    up.</li>
4019
4020   <li>Updated README with current URLs.</li>
4021
4022   <li>Added byteswap fix found in Ubuntu, credited Jeremy Kerr and
4023    Matthias Klose.</li>
4024
4025   <li>Added missing help for -k|--keepgoing option, using patch by
4026    Petr Machata found in Fedora.</li>
4027
4028   <li>Rewrite removal of RPATH/RUNPATH to make sure the entry in
4029    .dynamic is a NULL terminated string.  Based on patch found in
4030    Fedora credited Axel Thimm and Christian Krause.</li>
4031
4032 </ul>
4033
4034 <p>You can
4035 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/frs/?group_id=31052">download the
4036 new version 0.15 from alioth</a>.  Please let us know via the Alioth
4037 project if something is wrong with the new release.  The test suite
4038 did not discover any old errors, so if you find a new one, please also
4039 include a testsuite check.</p>
4040
4041       </div>
4042       <div class="tags">
4043
4044
4045         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>.
4046
4047
4048       </div>
4049     </div>
4050     <div class="padding"></div>
4051
4052     <div class="entry">
4053       <div class="title">
4054         <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>
4055       </div>
4056       <div class="date">
4057          2nd November 2013
4058       </div>
4059       <div class="body">
4060         <p>If one of the points of switching to a new init system in Debian is
4061 <a href="http://thomas.goirand.fr/blog/?p=147">to get rid of huge
4062 init.d scripts</a>, I doubt we need to switch away from sysvinit and
4063 init.d scripts at all.  Here is an example init.d script, ie a rewrite
4064 of /etc/init.d/rsyslog:</p>
4065
4066 <p><pre>
4067 #!/lib/init/init-d-script
4068 ### BEGIN INIT INFO
4069 # Provides:          rsyslog
4070 # Required-Start:    $remote_fs $time
4071 # Required-Stop:     umountnfs $time
4072 # X-Stop-After:      sendsigs
4073 # Default-Start:     2 3 4 5
4074 # Default-Stop:      0 1 6
4075 # Short-Description: enhanced syslogd
4076 # Description:       Rsyslog is an enhanced multi-threaded syslogd.
4077 #                    It is quite compatible to stock sysklogd and can be
4078 #                    used as a drop-in replacement.
4079 ### END INIT INFO
4080 DESC="enhanced syslogd"
4081 DAEMON=/usr/sbin/rsyslogd
4082 </pre></p>
4083
4084 <p>Pretty minimalistic to me... For the record, the original sysv-rc
4085 script was 137 lines, and the above is just 15 lines, most of it meta
4086 info/comments.</p>
4087
4088 <p>How to do this, you ask?  Well, one create a new script
4089 /lib/init/init-d-script looking something like this:
4090
4091 <p><pre>
4092 #!/bin/sh
4093
4094 # Define LSB log_* functions.
4095 # Depend on lsb-base (>= 3.2-14) to ensure that this file is present
4096 # and status_of_proc is working.
4097 . /lib/lsb/init-functions
4098
4099 #
4100 # Function that starts the daemon/service
4101
4102 #
4103 do_start()
4104 {
4105         # Return
4106         #   0 if daemon has been started
4107         #   1 if daemon was already running
4108         #   2 if daemon could not be started
4109         start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $DAEMON --test > /dev/null \
4110                 || return 1
4111         start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $DAEMON -- \
4112                 $DAEMON_ARGS \
4113                 || return 2
4114         # Add code here, if necessary, that waits for the process to be ready
4115         # to handle requests from services started subsequently which depend
4116         # on this one.  As a last resort, sleep for some time.
4117 }
4118
4119 #
4120 # Function that stops the daemon/service
4121 #
4122 do_stop()
4123 {
4124         # Return
4125         #   0 if daemon has been stopped
4126         #   1 if daemon was already stopped
4127         #   2 if daemon could not be stopped
4128         #   other if a failure occurred
4129         start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --retry=TERM/30/KILL/5 --pidfile $PIDFILE --name $NAME
4130         RETVAL="$?"
4131         [ "$RETVAL" = 2 ] && return 2
4132         # Wait for children to finish too if this is a daemon that forks
4133         # and if the daemon is only ever run from this initscript.
4134         # If the above conditions are not satisfied then add some other code
4135         # that waits for the process to drop all resources that could be
4136         # needed by services started subsequently.  A last resort is to
4137         # sleep for some time.
4138         start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --oknodo --retry=0/30/KILL/5 --exec $DAEMON
4139         [ "$?" = 2 ] && return 2
4140         # Many daemons don't delete their pidfiles when they exit.
4141         rm -f $PIDFILE
4142         return "$RETVAL"
4143 }
4144
4145 #
4146 # Function that sends a SIGHUP to the daemon/service
4147 #
4148 do_reload() {
4149         #
4150         # If the daemon can reload its configuration without
4151         # restarting (for example, when it is sent a SIGHUP),
4152         # then implement that here.
4153         #
4154         start-stop-daemon --stop --signal 1 --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --name $NAME
4155         return 0
4156 }
4157
4158 SCRIPTNAME=$1
4159 scriptbasename="$(basename $1)"
4160 echo "SN: $scriptbasename"
4161 if [ "$scriptbasename" != "init-d-library" ] ; then
4162     script="$1"
4163     shift
4164     . $script
4165 else
4166     exit 0
4167 fi
4168
4169 NAME=$(basename $DAEMON)
4170 PIDFILE=/var/run/$NAME.pid
4171
4172 # Exit if the package is not installed
4173 #[ -x "$DAEMON" ] || exit 0
4174
4175 # Read configuration variable file if it is present
4176 [ -r /etc/default/$NAME ] && . /etc/default/$NAME
4177
4178 # Load the VERBOSE setting and other rcS variables
4179 . /lib/init/vars.sh
4180
4181 case "$1" in
4182   start)
4183         [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_daemon_msg "Starting $DESC" "$NAME"
4184         do_start
4185         case "$?" in
4186                 0|1) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 0 ;;
4187                 2) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 1 ;;
4188         esac
4189         ;;
4190   stop)
4191         [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_daemon_msg "Stopping $DESC" "$NAME"
4192         do_stop
4193         case "$?" in
4194                 0|1) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 0 ;;
4195                 2) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 1 ;;
4196         esac
4197         ;;
4198   status)
4199         status_of_proc "$DAEMON" "$NAME" && exit 0 || exit $?
4200         ;;
4201   #reload|force-reload)
4202         #
4203         # If do_reload() is not implemented then leave this commented out
4204         # and leave 'force-reload' as an alias for 'restart'.
4205         #
4206         #log_daemon_msg "Reloading $DESC" "$NAME"
4207         #do_reload
4208         #log_end_msg $?
4209         #;;
4210   restart|force-reload)
4211         #
4212         # If the "reload" option is implemented then remove the
4213         # 'force-reload' alias
4214         #
4215         log_daemon_msg "Restarting $DESC" "$NAME"
4216         do_stop
4217         case "$?" in
4218           0|1)
4219                 do_start
4220                 case "$?" in
4221                         0) log_end_msg 0 ;;
4222                         1) log_end_msg 1 ;; # Old process is still running
4223                         *) log_end_msg 1 ;; # Failed to start
4224                 esac
4225                 ;;
4226           *)
4227                 # Failed to stop
4228                 log_end_msg 1
4229                 ;;
4230         esac
4231         ;;
4232   *)
4233         echo "Usage: $SCRIPTNAME {start|stop|status|restart|force-reload}" >&2
4234         exit 3
4235         ;;
4236 esac
4237
4238 :
4239 </pre></p>
4240
4241 <p>It is based on /etc/init.d/skeleton, and could be improved quite a
4242 lot.  I did not really polish the approach, so it might not always
4243 work out of the box, but you get the idea.  I did not try very hard to
4244 optimize it nor make it more robust either.</p>
4245
4246 <p>A better argument for switching init system in Debian than reducing
4247 the size of init scripts (which is a good thing to do anyway), is to
4248 get boot system that is able to handle the kernel events sensibly and
4249 robustly, and do not depend on the boot to run sequentially.  The boot
4250 and the kernel have not behaved sequentially in years.</p>
4251
4252       </div>
4253       <div class="tags">
4254
4255
4256         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>.
4257
4258
4259       </div>
4260     </div>
4261     <div class="padding"></div>
4262
4263     <div class="entry">
4264       <div class="title">
4265         <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>
4266       </div>
4267       <div class="date">
4268          1st November 2013
4269       </div>
4270       <div class="body">
4271         <p><a href="http://www.spice-space.org/">The SPICE protocol</a> for
4272 remote display access is the preferred solution with oVirt and RedHat
4273 Enterprise Virtualization, and I was sad to discover the other day
4274 that the browser plugin needed to use these systems seamlessly was
4275 missing in Debian.  The <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/668284">request
4276 for a package</a> was from 2012-04-10 with no progress since
4277 2013-04-01, so I decided to wrap up a package based on the great work
4278 from Cajus Pollmeier and put it in a collab-maint maintained git
4279 repository to get a package I could use.  I would very much like
4280 others to help me maintain the package (or just take over, I do not
4281 mind), but as no-one had volunteered so far, I just uploaded it to
4282 NEW.  I hope it will be available in Debian in a few days.</p>
4283
4284 <p>The source is now available from
4285 <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>
4286
4287       </div>
4288       <div class="tags">
4289
4290
4291         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>.
4292
4293
4294       </div>
4295     </div>
4296     <div class="padding"></div>
4297
4298     <div class="entry">
4299       <div class="title">
4300         <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>
4301       </div>
4302       <div class="date">
4303         27th October 2013
4304       </div>
4305       <div class="body">
4306         <p>The
4307 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/v/vmdebootstrap.html">vmdebootstrap</a>
4308 program is a a very nice system to create virtual machine images.  It
4309 create a image file, add a partition table, mount it and run
4310 debootstrap in the mounted directory to create a Debian system on a
4311 stick.  Yesterday, I decided to try to teach it how to make images for
4312 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/RaspberryPi">Raspberry Pi</a>, as part
4313 of a plan to simplify the build system for
4314 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">the FreedomBox
4315 project</a>.  The FreedomBox project already uses vmdebootstrap for
4316 the virtualbox images, but its current build system made multistrap
4317 based system for Dreamplug images, and it is lacking support for
4318 Raspberry Pi.</p>
4319
4320 <p>Armed with the knowledge on how to build "foreign" (aka non-native
4321 architecture) chroots for Raspberry Pi, I dived into the vmdebootstrap
4322 code and adjusted it to be able to build armel images on my amd64
4323 Debian laptop.  I ended up giving vmdebootstrap five new options,
4324 allowing me to replicate the image creation process I use to make
4325 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Raspberry_Pi_based_batman_adv_Mesh_network_node.html">Debian
4326 Jessie based mesh node images for the Raspberry Pi</a>.  First, the
4327 <tt>--foreign /path/to/binfm_handler</tt> option tell vmdebootstrap to
4328 call debootstrap with --foreign and to copy the handler into the
4329 generated chroot before running the second stage.  This allow
4330 vmdebootstrap to create armel images on an amd64 host.  Next I added
4331 two new options <tt>--bootsize size</tt> and <tt>--boottype
4332 fstype</tt> to teach it to create a separate /boot/ partition with the
4333 given file system type, allowing me to create an image with a vfat
4334 partition for the /boot/ stuff.  I also added a <tt>--variant
4335 variant</tt> option to allow me to create smaller images without the
4336 Debian base system packages installed.  Finally, I added an option
4337 <tt>--no-extlinux</tt> to tell vmdebootstrap to not install extlinux
4338 as a boot loader.  It is not needed on the Raspberry Pi and probably
4339 most other non-x86 architectures.  The changes were accepted by the
4340 upstream author of vmdebootstrap yesterday and today, and is now
4341 available from
4342 <a href="http://git.liw.fi/cgi-bin/cgit/cgit.cgi/vmdebootstrap/">the
4343 upstream project page</a>.</p>
4344
4345 <p>To use it to build a Raspberry Pi image using Debian Jessie, first
4346 create a small script (the customize script) to add the non-free
4347 binary blob needed to boot the Raspberry Pi and the APT source
4348 list:</p>
4349
4350 <p><pre>
4351 #!/bin/sh
4352 set -e # Exit on first error
4353 rootdir="$1"
4354 cd "$rootdir"
4355 cat &lt;&lt;EOF > etc/apt/sources.list
4356 deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ jessie main contrib non-free
4357 EOF
4358 # Install non-free binary blob needed to boot Raspberry Pi.  This
4359 # install a kernel somewhere too.
4360 wget https://raw.github.com/Hexxeh/rpi-update/master/rpi-update \
4361     -O $rootdir/usr/bin/rpi-update
4362 chmod a+x $rootdir/usr/bin/rpi-update
4363 mkdir -p $rootdir/lib/modules
4364 touch $rootdir/boot/start.elf
4365 chroot $rootdir rpi-update
4366 </pre></p>
4367
4368 <p>Next, fetch the latest vmdebootstrap script and call it like this
4369 to build the image:</p>
4370
4371 <pre>
4372 sudo ./vmdebootstrap \
4373     --variant minbase \
4374     --arch armel \
4375     --distribution jessie \
4376     --mirror http://http.debian.net/debian \
4377     --image test.img \
4378     --size 600M \
4379     --bootsize 64M \
4380     --boottype vfat \
4381     --log-level debug \
4382     --verbose \
4383     --no-kernel \
4384     --no-extlinux \
4385     --root-password raspberry \
4386     --hostname raspberrypi \
4387     --foreign /usr/bin/qemu-arm-static \
4388     --customize `pwd`/customize \
4389     --package netbase \
4390     --package git-core \
4391     --package binutils \
4392     --package ca-certificates \
4393     --package wget \
4394     --package kmod
4395 </pre></p>
4396
4397 <p>The list of packages being installed are the ones needed by
4398 rpi-update to make the image bootable on the Raspberry Pi, with the
4399 exception of netbase, which is needed by debootstrap to find
4400 /etc/hosts with the minbase variant.  I really wish there was a way to
4401 set up an Raspberry Pi using only packages in the Debian archive, but
4402 that is not possible as far as I know, because it boots from the GPU
4403 using a non-free binary blob.</p>
4404
4405 <p>The build host need debootstrap, kpartx and qemu-user-static and
4406 probably a few others installed.  I have not checked the complete
4407 build dependency list.</p>
4408
4409 <p>The resulting image will not use the hardware floating point unit
4410 on the Raspberry PI, because the armel architecture in Debian is not
4411 optimized for that use.  So the images created will be a bit slower
4412 than <a href="http://www.raspbian.org/">Raspbian</a> based images.</p>
4413
4414       </div>
4415       <div class="tags">
4416
4417
4418         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>.
4419
4420
4421       </div>
4422     </div>
4423     <div class="padding"></div>
4424
4425     <div class="entry">
4426       <div class="title">
4427         <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>
4428       </div>
4429       <div class="date">
4430         15th October 2013
4431       </div>
4432       <div class="body">
4433         <p>The last few days I came across a few good causes that should get
4434 wider attention.  I recommend signing and donating to each one of
4435 these. :)</p>
4436
4437 <p>Via <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2013/18/">Debian
4438 Project News for 2013-10-14</a> I came across the Outreach Program for
4439 Women program which is a Google Summer of Code like initiative to get
4440 more women involved in free software.  One debian sponsor has offered
4441 to match <a href="http://debian.ch/opw2013">any donation done to Debian
4442 earmarked</a> for this initiative.  I donated a few minutes ago, and
4443 hope you will to. :)</p>
4444
4445 <p>And the Electronic Frontier Foundation just announced plans to
4446 create <a href="https://supporters.eff.org/donate/nsa-videos">video
4447 documentaries about the excessive spying</a> on every Internet user that
4448 take place these days, and their need to fund the work.  I've already
4449 donated.  Are you next?</p>
4450
4451 <p>For my Norwegian audience, the organisation Studentenes og
4452 Akademikernes Internasjonale Hjelpefond is collecting signatures for a
4453 statement under the heading
4454 <a href="http://saih.no/Bloggers_United/">Bloggers United for Open
4455 Access</a> for those of us asking for more focus on open access in the
4456 Norwegian government.  So far 499 signatures.  I hope you will sign it
4457 too.</p>
4458
4459       </div>
4460       <div class="tags">
4461
4462
4463         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>.
4464
4465
4466       </div>
4467     </div>
4468     <div class="padding"></div>
4469
4470     <div class="entry">
4471       <div class="title">
4472         <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>
4473       </div>
4474       <div class="date">
4475         27th September 2013
4476       </div>
4477       <div class="body">
4478         <p>The <a href="http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/">Freedombox
4479 project</a> have been going on for a while, and have presented the
4480 vision, ideas and solution several places.  Here is a little
4481 collection of videos of talks and presentation of the project.</p>
4482
4483 <ul>
4484
4485 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukvUz5taxvA">FreedomBox -
4486 2,5 minute marketing film</a> (Youtube)</li>
4487
4488 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzW25QTVWsE">Eben Moglen
4489 discusses the Freedombox on CBS news 2011</a> (Youtube)</li>
4490
4491 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ae8SZbxfE0g">Eben Moglen -
4492 Freedom in the Cloud - Software Freedom, Privacy and and Security for
4493 Web 2.0 and Cloud computing at ISOC-NY Public Meeting 2010</a>
4494 (Youtube)</li>
4495
4496 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNaIji_3xBE">Fosdem 2011
4497 Keynote by Eben Moglen presenting the Freedombox</a> (Youtube)</li>
4498
4499 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bDDUyJSQ9s">Presentation of
4500 the Freedombox by James Vasile at Elevate in Gratz 2011</a> (Youtube)</li>
4501
4502 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQTmnk27g9s"> Freedombox -
4503 Discovery, Identity, and Trust by Nick Daly at Freedombox Hackfest New
4504 York City in 2012</a> (Youtube)</li>
4505
4506 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkbSB4Ba7Ck">Introduction
4507 to the Freedombox at Freedombox Hackfest New York City in 2012</a>
4508 (Youtube)</li>
4509
4510 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-P2Jaeg0aQ">Freedom, Out
4511 of the Box! by Bdale Garbee at linux.conf.au Ballarat, 2012</a> (Youtube) </li>
4512
4513 <li><a href="https://archive.fosdem.org/2013/schedule/event/freedombox/">Freedombox
4514 1.0 by Eben Moglen and Bdale Garbee at Fosdem 2013</a> (FOSDEM) </li>
4515
4516 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1LpYX2zVYg">What is the
4517 FreedomBox today by Bdale Garbee at Debconf13 in Vaumarcus
4518 2013</a> (Youtube)</li>
4519
4520 </ul>
4521
4522 <p>A larger list is available from
4523 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/TalksAndPresentations">the
4524 Freedombox Wiki</a>.</p>
4525
4526 <p>On other news, I am happy to report that Freedombox based on Debian
4527 Jessie is coming along quite well, and soon both Owncloud and using
4528 Tor should be available for testers of the Freedombox solution. :) In
4529 a few weeks I hope everything needed to test it is included in Debian.
4530 The withsqlite package is already in Debian, and the plinth package is
4531 pending in NEW.  The third and vital part of that puzzle is the
4532 metapackage/setup framework, which is still pending an upload.  Join
4533 us on <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC
4534 (#freedombox on irc.debian.org)</a> and
4535 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
4536 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
4537
4538       </div>
4539       <div class="tags">
4540
4541
4542         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>.
4543
4544
4545       </div>
4546     </div>
4547     <div class="padding"></div>
4548
4549     <div class="entry">
4550       <div class="title">
4551         <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>
4552       </div>
4553       <div class="date">
4554         10th September 2013
4555       </div>
4556       <div class="body">
4557         <p>I was introduced to the
4558 <a href="http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/">Freedombox project</a>
4559 in 2010, when Eben Moglen presented his vision about serving the need
4560 of non-technical people to keep their personal information private and
4561 within the legal protection of their own homes.  The idea is to give
4562 people back the power over their network and machines, and return
4563 Internet back to its intended peer-to-peer architecture.  Instead of
4564 depending on a central service, the Freedombox will give everyone
4565 control over their own basic infrastructure.</p>
4566
4567 <p>I've intended to join the effort since then, but other tasks have
4568 taken priority.  But this summers nasty news about the misuse of trust
4569 and privilege exercised by the "western" intelligence gathering
4570 communities increased my eagerness to contribute to a point where I
4571 actually started working on the project a while back.</p>
4572
4573 <p>The <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/freedombox/">initial
4574 Debian initiative</a> based on the vision from Eben Moglen, is to
4575 create a simple and cheap Debian based appliance that anyone can hook
4576 up in their home and get access to secure and private services and
4577 communication.  The initial deployment platform have been the
4578 <a href="http://www.globalscaletechnologies.com/t-dreamplugdetails.aspx">Dreamplug</a>,
4579 which is a piece of hardware I do not own.  So to be able to test what
4580 the current Freedombox setup look like, I had to come up with a way to install
4581 it on some hardware I do have access to.  I have rewritten the
4582 <a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/freedom-maker">freedom-maker</a>
4583 image build framework to use .deb packages instead of only copying
4584 setup into the boot images, and thanks to this rewrite I am able to
4585 set up any machine supported by Debian Wheezy as a Freedombox, using
4586 the previously mentioned deb (and a few support debs for packages
4587 missing in Debian).</p>
4588
4589 <p>The current Freedombox setup consist of a set of bootstrapping
4590 scripts
4591 (<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/freedombox-setup">freedombox-setup</a>),
4592 and a administrative web interface
4593 (<a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/Plinth">plinth</a> + exmachina +
4594 withsqlite), as well as a privacy enhancing proxy based on
4595 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/privoxy">privoxy</a>
4596 (freedombox-privoxy).  There is also a web/javascript based XMPP
4597 client (<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/jwchat">jwchat</a>)
4598 trying (unsuccessfully so far) to talk to the XMPP server
4599 (<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/ejabberd">ejabberd</a>).  The
4600 web interface is pluggable, and the goal is to use it to enable OpenID
4601 services, mesh network connectivity, use of TOR, etc, etc.  Not much of
4602 this is really working yet, see
4603 <a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/freedombox-todos/blob/master/TODO">the
4604 project TODO</a> for links to GIT repositories.  Most of the code is
4605 on github at the moment.  The HTTP proxy is operational out of the
4606 box, and the admin web interface can be used to add/remove plinth
4607 users.  I've not been able to do anything else with it so far, but
4608 know there are several branches spread around github and other places
4609 with lots of half baked features.</p>
4610
4611 <p>Anyway, if you want to have a look at the current state, the
4612 following recipes should work to give you a test machine to poke
4613 at.</p>
4614
4615 <p><strong>Debian Wheezy amd64</strong></p>
4616
4617 <ol>
4618
4619 <li>Fetch normal Debian Wheezy installation ISO.</li>
4620 <li>Boot from it, either as CD or USB stick.</li>
4621 <li><p>Press [tab] on the boot prompt and add this as a boot argument
4622 to the Debian installer:<p>
4623 <pre>url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-wheezy.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-wheezy.dat</a></pre></li>
4624
4625 <li>Answer the few language/region/password questions and pick disk to
4626 install on.</li>
4627
4628 <li>When the installation is finished and the machine have rebooted a
4629 few times, your Freedombox is ready for testing.</li>
4630
4631 </ol>
4632
4633 <p><strong>Raspberry Pi Raspbian</strong></p>
4634
4635 <ol>
4636
4637 <li>Fetch a Raspbian SD card image, create SD card.</li>
4638 <li>Boot from SD card, extend file system to fill the card completely.</li>
4639 <li><p>Log in and add this to /etc/sources.list:</p>
4640 <pre>
4641 deb <a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox</a> wheezy main
4642 </pre></li>
4643 <li><p>Run this as root:</p>
4644 <pre>
4645 wget -O - http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/BE1A583D.asc | \
4646    apt-key add -
4647 apt-get update
4648 apt-get install freedombox-setup
4649 /usr/lib/freedombox/setup
4650 </pre></li>
4651 <li>Reboot into your freshly created Freedombox.</li>
4652
4653 </ol>
4654
4655 <p>You can test it on other architectures too, but because the
4656 freedombox-privoxy package is binary, it will only work as intended on
4657 the architectures where I have had time to build the binary and put it
4658 in my APT repository.  But do not let this stop you.  It is only a
4659 short "<tt>apt-get source -b freedombox-privoxy</tt>" away. :)</p>
4660
4661 <p>Note that by default Freedombox is a DHCP server on the
4662 192.168.1.0/24 subnet, so if this is your subnet be careful and turn
4663 off the DHCP server by running "<tt>update-rc.d isc-dhcp-server
4664 disable</tt>" as root.</p>
4665
4666 <p>Please let me know if this works for you, or if you have any
4667 problems.  We gather on the IRC channel
4668 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">#freedombox</a> on
4669 irc.debian.org and the
4670 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">project
4671 mailing list</a>.</p>
4672
4673 <p>Once you get your freedombox operational, you can visit
4674 <tt>http://your-host-name:8001/</tt> to see the state of the plint
4675 welcome screen (dead end - do not be surprised if you are unable to
4676 get past it), and next visit <tt>http://your-host-name:8001/help/</tt>
4677 to look at the rest of plinth.  The default user is 'admin' and the
4678 default password is 'secret'.</p>
4679
4680       </div>
4681       <div class="tags">
4682
4683
4684         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>.
4685
4686
4687       </div>
4688     </div>
4689     <div class="padding"></div>
4690
4691     <div class="entry">
4692       <div class="title">
4693         <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>
4694       </div>
4695       <div class="date">
4696         18th August 2013
4697       </div>
4698       <div class="body">
4699         <p>Earlier, I reported about
4700 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_fix_a_Thinkpad_X230_with_a_broken_180_GB_SSD_disk.html">my
4701 problems using an Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB disk</a>.  Friday I was
4702 told by IBM that the original disk should be thrown away.  And as
4703 there no longer was a problem if I bricked the firmware, I decided
4704 today to try to install Intel firmware to replace the Lenovo firmware
4705 currently on the disk.</p>
4706
4707 <p>I searched the Intel site for firmware, and found
4708 <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>
4709 (aka Intel SATA Solid-State Drive Firmware Update Tool) which
4710 according to the site should contain the latest firmware for SSD
4711 disks.  I inserted the broken disk in one of my spare laptops and
4712 booted the ISO from a USB stick.  The disk was recognized, but the
4713 program claimed the newest firmware already were installed and refused
4714 to insert any Intel firmware.  So no change, and the disk is still
4715 unable to handle write load. :( I guess the only way to get them
4716 working would be if Lenovo releases new firmware.  No idea how likely
4717 that is.  Anyway, just blogging about this test for completeness.  I
4718 got a working Samsung disk, and see no point in spending more time on
4719 the broken disks.</p>
4720
4721       </div>
4722       <div class="tags">
4723
4724
4725         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>.
4726
4727
4728       </div>
4729     </div>
4730     <div class="padding"></div>
4731
4732     <div class="entry">
4733       <div class="title">
4734         <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>
4735       </div>
4736       <div class="date">
4737         17th July 2013
4738       </div>
4739       <div class="body">
4740         <p>Today I switched to
4741 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">my
4742 new laptop</a>.  I've previously written about the problems I had with
4743 my new Thinkpad X230, which was delivered with an
4744 <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
4745 GB Intel SSD disk with Lenovo firmware</a> that did not handle
4746 sustained writes.  My hardware supplier have been very forthcoming in
4747 trying to find a solution, and after first trying with another
4748 identical 180 GB disks they decided to send me a 256 GB Samsung SSD
4749 disk instead to fix it once and for all.  The Samsung disk survived
4750 the installation of Debian with encrypted disks (filling the disk with
4751 random data during installation killed the first two), and I thus
4752 decided to trust it with my data.  I have installed it as a Debian Edu
4753 Wheezy roaming workstation hooked up with my Debian Edu Squeeze main
4754 server at home using Kerberos and LDAP, and will use it as my work
4755 station from now on.</p>
4756
4757 <p>As this is a solid state disk with no moving parts, I believe the
4758 Debian Wheezy default installation need to be tuned a bit to increase
4759 performance and increase life time of the disk.  The Linux kernel and
4760 user space applications do not yet adjust automatically to such
4761 environment.  To make it easier for my self, I created a draft Debian
4762 package <tt>ssd-setup</tt> to handle this tuning.  The
4763 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/ssd-setup.git">source
4764 for the ssd-setup package</a> is available from collab-maint, and it
4765 is set up to adjust the setup of the machine by just installing the
4766 package.  If there is any non-SSD disk in the machine, the package
4767 will refuse to install, as I did not try to write any logic to sort
4768 file systems in SSD and non-SSD file systems.</p>
4769
4770 <p>I consider the package a draft, as I am a bit unsure how to best
4771 set up Debian Wheezy with an SSD.  It is adjusted to my use case,
4772 where I set up the machine with one large encrypted partition (in
4773 addition to /boot), put LVM on top of this and set up partitions on
4774 top of this again.  See the README file in the package source for the
4775 references I used to pick the settings.  At the moment these
4776 parameters are tuned:</p>
4777
4778 <ul>
4779
4780 <li>Set up cryptsetup to pass TRIM commands to the physical disk
4781     (adding discard to /etc/crypttab)</li>
4782
4783 <li>Set up LVM to pass on TRIM commands to the underlying device (in
4784     this case a cryptsetup partition) by changing issue_discards from
4785     0 to 1 in /etc/lvm/lvm.conf.</li>
4786
4787 <li>Set relatime as a file system option for ext3 and ext4 file
4788     systems.</li>
4789
4790 <li>Tell swap to use TRIM commands by adding 'discard' to
4791     /etc/fstab.</li>
4792
4793 <li>Change I/O scheduler from cfq to deadline using a udev rule.</li>
4794
4795 <li>Run fstrim on every ext3 and ext4 file system every night (from
4796     cron.daily).</li>
4797
4798 <li>Adjust sysctl values vm.swappiness to 1 and vm.vfs_cache_pressure
4799     to 50 to reduce the kernel eagerness to swap out processes.</li>
4800
4801 </ul>
4802
4803 <p>During installation, I cancelled the part where the installer fill
4804 the disk with random data, as this would kill the SSD performance for
4805 little gain.  My goal with the encrypted file system is to ensure
4806 those stealing my laptop end up with a brick and not a working
4807 computer.  I have no hope in keeping the really resourceful people
4808 from getting the data on the disk (see
4809 <a href="http://xkcd.com/538/">XKCD #538</a> for an explanation why).
4810 Thus I concluded that adding the discard option to crypttab is the
4811 right thing to do.</p>
4812
4813 <p>I considered using the noop I/O scheduler, as several recommended
4814 it for SSD, but others recommended deadline and a benchmark I found
4815 indicated that deadline might be better for interactive use.</p>
4816
4817 <p>I also considered using the 'discard' file system option for ext3
4818 and ext4, but read that it would give a performance hit ever time a
4819 file is removed, and thought it best to that that slowdown once a day
4820 instead of during my work.</p>
4821
4822 <p>My package do not set up tmpfs on /var/run, /var/lock and /tmp, as
4823 this is already done by Debian Edu.</p>
4824
4825 <p>I have not yet started on the user space tuning.  I expect
4826 iceweasel need some tuning, and perhaps other applications too, but
4827 have not yet had time to investigate those parts.</p>
4828
4829 <p>The package should work on Ubuntu too, but I have not yet tested it
4830 there.</p>
4831
4832 <p>As for the answer to the question in the title of this blog post,
4833 as far as I know, the only solution I know about is to replace the
4834 disk.  It might be possible to flash it with Intel firmware instead of
4835 the Lenovo firmware.  But I have not tried and did not want to do so
4836 without approval from Lenovo as I wanted to keep the warranty on the
4837 disk until a solution was found and they wanted the broken disks
4838 back.</p>
4839
4840       </div>
4841       <div class="tags">
4842
4843
4844         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>.
4845
4846
4847       </div>
4848     </div>
4849     <div class="padding"></div>
4850
4851     <div class="entry">
4852       <div class="title">
4853         <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>
4854       </div>
4855       <div class="date">
4856         10th July 2013
4857       </div>
4858       <div class="body">
4859         <p>A few days ago, I wrote about
4860 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">the
4861 problems I experienced with my new X230 and its SSD disk</a>, which
4862 was dying during installation because it is unable to cope with
4863 sustained write.  My supplier is in contact with
4864 <a href="http://www.lenovo.com/">Lenovo</a>, and they wanted to send a
4865 replacement disk to try to fix the problem.  They decided to send an
4866 identical model, so my hopes for a permanent fix was slim.</p>
4867
4868 <p>Anyway, today I got the replacement disk and tried to install
4869 Debian Edu Wheezy with encrypted disk on it.  The new disk have the
4870 same firmware version as the original.  This time my hope raised
4871 slightly as the installation progressed, as the original disk used to
4872 die after 4-7% of the disk was written to, while this time it kept
4873 going past 10%, 20%, 40% and even past 50%.  But around 60%, the disk
4874 died again and I was back on square one.  I still do not have a new
4875 laptop with a disk I can trust.  I can not live with a disk that might
4876 lock up when I download a new
4877 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> ISO or
4878 other large files.  I look forward to hearing from my supplier with
4879 the next proposal from Lenovo.</p>
4880
4881 <p>The original disk is marked Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB,
4882 11S0C38722Z1ZNME35X1TR, ISN: CVCV321407HB180EGN, SA: G57560302, FW:
4883 LF1i, 29MAY2013, PBA: G39779-300, LBA 351,651,888, LI P/N: 0C38722,
4884 Pb-free 2LI, LC P/N: 16-200366, WWN: 55CD2E40002756C4, Model:
4885 SSDSC2BW180A3L 2.5" 6Gb/s SATA SSD 180G 5V 1A, ASM P/N 0C38732, FRU
4886 P/N 45N8295, P0C38732.</p>
4887
4888 <p>The replacement disk is marked Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB,
4889 11S0C38722Z1ZNDE34N0L0, ISN: CVCV315306RK180EGN, SA: G57560-302, FW:
4890 LF1i, 22APR2013, PBA: G39779-300, LBA 351,651,888, LI P/N: 0C38722,
4891 Pb-free 2LI, LC P/N: 16-200366, WWN: 55CD2E40000AB69E, Model:
4892 SSDSC2BW180A3L 2.5" 6Gb/s SATA SSD 180G 5V 1A, ASM P/N 0C38732, FRU
4893 P/N 45N8295, P0C38732.</p>
4894
4895 <p>The only difference is in the first number (serial number?), ISN,
4896 SA, date and WNPP values.  Mentioning all the details here in case
4897 someone is able to use the information to find a way to identify the
4898 failing disk among working ones (if any such working disk actually
4899 exist).</p>
4900
4901       </div>
4902       <div class="tags">
4903
4904
4905         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>.
4906
4907
4908       </div>
4909     </div>
4910     <div class="padding"></div>
4911
4912     <div class="entry">
4913       <div class="title">
4914         <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>
4915       </div>
4916       <div class="date">
4917          9th July 2013
4918       </div>
4919       <div class="body">
4920         <p>The upcoming Saturday, 2013-07-13, we are organising a combined
4921 Debian Edu developer gathering and Debian and Ubuntu bug squashing
4922 party in Oslo.  It is organised by <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">the
4923 member assosiation NUUG</a> and
4924 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">the Debian Edu / Skolelinux
4925 project</a> together with <a href="http://bitraf.no/">the hack space
4926 Bitraf</a>.</p>
4927
4928 <p>It starts 10:00 and continue until late evening.  Everyone is
4929 welcome, and there is no fee to participate.  There is on the other
4930 hand limited space, and only room for 30 people.  Please put your name
4931 on <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/BSP/2013/07/13/no/Oslo">the event
4932 wiki page</a> if you plan to join us.</p>
4933
4934       </div>
4935       <div class="tags">
4936
4937
4938         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>.
4939
4940
4941       </div>
4942     </div>
4943     <div class="padding"></div>
4944
4945     <div class="entry">
4946       <div class="title">
4947         <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>
4948       </div>
4949       <div class="date">
4950          5th July 2013
4951       </div>
4952       <div class="body">
4953         <p>Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a
4954 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thank_you_Thinkpad_X41__for_your_long_and_trustworthy_service.html">replacement
4955 for my trusty old Thinkpad X41</a>.  Unfortunately I did not have much
4956 time to spend on it, and it took a while to find a model I believe
4957 will do the job, but two days ago the replacement finally arrived.  I
4958 ended up picking a
4959 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_x230">Thinkpad X230</a>
4960 with SSD disk (NZDAJMN).  I first test installed Debian Edu Wheezy as
4961 a roaming workstation, and it seemed to work flawlessly.  But my
4962 second installation with encrypted disk was not as successful.  More
4963 on that below.</p>
4964
4965 <p>I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most
4966 important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never
4967 listed in the feature list.  But I did get good help from the search
4968 feature at <a href="http://www.prisjakt.no/">Prisjakt</a>, which
4969 allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other
4970 requirements.  A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks according
4971 to that search interface, so I had to drop specifying the number of
4972 disks from my search parameters.  I also asked around among friends to
4973 get their impression on keyboards and robustness.</p>
4974
4975 <p>So the new laptop arrived, and it is quite a lot wider than the
4976 X41.  I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is
4977 significantly wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my
4978 hand a lot more to reach the edges.  But the key response is fairly
4979 good and the individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope
4980 I will get used to it.  My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really
4981 needed a new laptop now. :)</p>
4982
4983 <p>Turning off the touch pad was simple.  All it took was a quick
4984 visit to the BIOS during boot it disable it.</p>
4985
4986 <p>But there is a fatal problem with the laptop.  The 180 GB SSD disk
4987 lock up during load.  And this happen when installing Debian Wheezy
4988 with encrypted disk, while the disk is being filled with random data.
4989 I also tested to install Ubuntu Raring, and it happen there too if I
4990 reenable the code to fill the disk with random data (it is disabled by
4991 default in Ubuntu).  And the bug with is already known.  It was
4992 reported to Debian as <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/691427">BTS
4993 report #691427 2012-10-25</a> (journal commit I/O error on brand-new
4994 Thinkpad T430s ext4 on lvm on SSD).  It is also reported to the Linux
4995 kernel developers as
4996 <a href="https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=51861">Kernel bugzilla
4997 report #51861 2012-12-20</a> (Intel SSD 520 stops working under load
4998 (SSDSC2BW180A3L in Lenovo ThinkPad T430s)). It is also reported on the
4999 Lenovo forums, both for
5000 <a href="http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/T400-T500-and-newer-T-series/T430s-Intel-SSD-520-180GB-issue/m-p/1070549">T430
5001 2012-11-10</a> and for
5002 <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
5003 03-20-2013</a>.  The problem do not only affect installation.  The
5004 reports state that the disk lock up during use if many writes are done
5005 on the disk, so it is much no use to work around the installation
5006 problem and end up with a computer that can lock up at any moment.
5007 There is even a
5008 <a href="https://git.efficios.com/?p=test-ssd.git">small C program
5009 available</a> that will lock up the hard drive after running a few
5010 minutes by writing to a file.</p>
5011
5012 <p>I've contacted my supplier and asked how to handle this, and after
5013 contacting PCHELP Norway (request 01D1FDP) which handle support
5014 requests for Lenovo, his first suggestion was to upgrade the disk
5015 firmware.  Unfortunately there is no newer firmware available from
5016 Lenovo, as my disk already have the most recent one (version LF1i).  I
5017 hope to hear more from him today and hope the problem can be
5018 fixed. :)</p>
5019
5020       </div>
5021       <div class="tags">
5022
5023
5024         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>.
5025
5026
5027       </div>
5028     </div>
5029     <div class="padding"></div>
5030
5031     <div class="entry">
5032       <div class="title">
5033         <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>
5034       </div>
5035       <div class="date">
5036          4th July 2013
5037       </div>
5038       <div class="body">
5039         <p>Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a replacement for my
5040 trusty old Thinkpad X41.  Unfortunately I did not have much time to
5041 spend on it, but today the replacement finally arrived.  I ended up
5042 picking a <a href="http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_x230">Thinkpad
5043 X230</a> with SSD disk (NZDAJMN).  I first test installed Debian Edu
5044 Wheezy as a roaming workstation, and it worked flawlessly.  As I write
5045 this, it is installing what I hope will be a more final installation,
5046 with a encrypted hard drive to ensure any dope head stealing it end up
5047 with an expencive door stop.</p>
5048
5049 <p>I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most
5050 important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never
5051 listed in the feature list.  But I did get good help from the search
5052 feature at <ahref="http://www.prisjakt.no/">Prisjakt</a>, which
5053 allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other
5054 requirements.  A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks, so I had
5055 to drop number of disks from my search parameters.</p>
5056
5057 <p>I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is significantly
5058 wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my hand a lot more
5059 to reach the edges.  But the key response is fairly good and the
5060 individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope I will get
5061 used to it.  My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really needed a
5062 new laptop now. :)</p>
5063
5064 <p>I look forward to figuring out how to turn off the touch pad.</p>
5065
5066       </div>
5067       <div class="tags">
5068
5069
5070         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>.
5071
5072
5073       </div>
5074     </div>
5075     <div class="padding"></div>
5076
5077     <div class="entry">
5078       <div class="title">
5079         <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>
5080       </div>
5081       <div class="date">
5082         25th June 2013
5083       </div>
5084       <div class="body">
5085         <p>It annoys me when the computer fail to do automatically what it is
5086 perfectly capable of, and I have to do it manually to get things
5087 working.  One such task is to find out what firmware packages are
5088 needed to get the hardware on my computer working.  Most often this
5089 affect the wifi card, but some times it even affect the RAID
5090 controller or the ethernet card.  Today I pushed version 0.4 of the
5091 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">Isenkram package</a>
5092 including a new script isenkram-autoinstall-firmware handling the
5093 process of asking all the loaded kernel modules what firmware files
5094 they want, find debian packages providing these files and install the
5095 debian packages.  Here is a test run on my laptop:</p>
5096
5097 <p><pre>
5098 # isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
5099 info: kernel drivers requested extra firmware: ipw2200-bss.fw ipw2200-ibss.fw ipw2200-sniffer.fw
5100 info: fetching http://http.debian.net/debian/dists/squeeze/Contents-i386.gz
5101 info: locating packages with the requested firmware files
5102 info: Updating APT sources after adding non-free APT source
5103 info: trying to install firmware-ipw2x00
5104 firmware-ipw2x00
5105 firmware-ipw2x00
5106 Preconfiguring packages ...
5107 Selecting previously deselected package firmware-ipw2x00.
5108 (Reading database ... 259727 files and directories currently installed.)
5109 Unpacking firmware-ipw2x00 (from .../firmware-ipw2x00_0.28+squeeze1_all.deb) ...
5110 Setting up firmware-ipw2x00 (0.28+squeeze1) ...
5111 #
5112 </pre></p>
5113
5114 <p>When all the requested firmware is present, a simple message is
5115 printed instead:</p>
5116
5117 <p><pre>
5118 # isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
5119 info: did not find any firmware files requested by loaded kernel modules.  exiting
5120 #
5121 </pre></p>
5122
5123 <p>It could use some polish, but it is already working well and saving
5124 me some time when setting up new machines. :)</p>
5125
5126 <p>So, how does it work?  It look at the set of currently loaded
5127 kernel modules, and look up each one of them using modinfo, to find
5128 the firmware files listed in the module meta-information.  Next, it
5129 download the Contents file from a nearby APT mirror, and search for
5130 the firmware files in this file to locate the package with the
5131 requested firmware file.  If the package is in the non-free section, a
5132 non-free APT source is added and the package is installed using
5133 <tt>apt-get install</tt>.  The end result is a slightly better working
5134 machine.</p>
5135
5136 <p>I hope someone find time to implement a more polished version of
5137 this script as part of the hw-detect debian-installer module, to
5138 finally fix <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/655507">BTS report
5139 #655507</a>.  There really is no need to insert USB sticks with
5140 firmware during a PXE install when the packages already are available
5141 from the nearby Debian mirror.</p>
5142
5143       </div>
5144       <div class="tags">
5145
5146
5147         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>.
5148
5149
5150       </div>
5151     </div>
5152     <div class="padding"></div>
5153
5154     <div class="entry">
5155       <div class="title">
5156         <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>
5157       </div>
5158       <div class="date">
5159         11th June 2013
5160       </div>
5161       <div class="body">
5162         <p>When installing RedHat, Fedora, Debian and Ubuntu on some machines,
5163 the screen just turn black when Linux boot, either during installation
5164 or on first boot from the hard disk.  I've seen it once in a while the
5165 last few years, but only recently understood the cause.  I've seen it
5166 on HP laptops, and on my latest acquaintance the Packard Bell laptop.
5167 The reason seem to be in the wiring of some laptops.  The system to
5168 control the screen background light is inverted, so when Linux try to
5169 turn the brightness fully on, it end up turning it off instead.  I do
5170 not know which Linux drivers are affected, but this post is about the
5171 i915 driver used by the
5172 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Packard Bell
5173 EasyNote LV</a>, Thinkpad X40 and many other laptops.</p>
5174
5175 <p>The problem can be worked around two ways.  Either by adding
5176 i915.invert_brightness=1 as a kernel option, or by adding a file in
5177 /etc/modprobe.d/ to tell modprobe to add the invert_brightness=1
5178 option when it load the i915 kernel module.  On Debian and Ubuntu, it
5179 can be done by running these commands as root:</p>
5180
5181 <pre>
5182 echo options i915 invert_brightness=1 | tee /etc/modprobe.d/i915.conf
5183 update-initramfs -u -k all
5184 </pre>
5185
5186 <p>Since March 2012 there is
5187 <a href="http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=4dca20efb1a9c2efefc28ad2867e5d6c3f5e1955">a
5188 mechanism in the Linux kernel</a> to tell the i915 driver which
5189 hardware have this problem, and get the driver to invert the
5190 brightness setting automatically.  To use it, one need to add a row in
5191 <a href="http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c">the
5192 intel_quirks array</a> in the driver source
5193 <tt>drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c</tt> (look for "<tt>static
5194 struct intel_quirk intel_quirks</tt>"), specifying the PCI device
5195 number (vendor number 8086 is assumed) and subdevice vendor and device
5196 number.</p>
5197
5198 <p>My Packard Bell EasyNote LV got this output from <tt>lspci
5199 -vvnn</tt> for the video card in question:</p>
5200
5201 <p><pre>
5202 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation \
5203     3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller [8086:0156] \
5204     (rev 09) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
5205  Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device [1025:0688]
5206  Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- \
5207     ParErr- Stepping- SE RR- FastB2B- DisINTx+
5208  Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- \
5209     <TAbort- <MAbort->SERR- <PERR- INTx-
5210  Latency: 0
5211  Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 42
5212  Region 0: Memory at c2000000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4M]
5213  Region 2: Memory at b0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
5214  Region 4: I/O ports at 4000 [size=64]
5215  Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled]
5216  Capabilities: <access denied>
5217  Kernel driver in use: i915
5218 </pre></p>
5219
5220 <p>The resulting intel_quirks entry would then look like this:</p>
5221
5222 <p><pre>
5223 struct intel_quirk intel_quirks[] = {
5224        ...
5225         /* Packard Bell EasyNote LV11HC needs invert brightness quirk */
5226         { 0x0156, 0x1025, 0x0688, quirk_invert_brightness },
5227        ...
5228 }
5229 </pre></p>
5230
5231 <p>According to the kernel module instructions (as seen using
5232 <tt>modinfo i915</tt>), information about hardware needing the
5233 invert_brightness flag should be sent to the
5234 <a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/dri-devel">dri-devel
5235 (at) lists.freedesktop.org</a> mailing list to reach the kernel
5236 developers.  But my email about the laptop sent 2013-06-03 have not
5237 yet shown up in
5238 <a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/dri-devel/2013-June/thread.html">the
5239 web archive for the mailing list</a>, so I suspect they do not accept
5240 emails from non-subscribers.  Because of this, I sent my patch also to
5241 the Debian bug tracking system instead as
5242 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/710938">BTS report #710938</a>, to make
5243 sure the patch is not lost.</p>
5244
5245 <p>Unfortunately, it is not enough to fix the kernel to get Laptops
5246 with this problem working properly with Linux.  If you use Gnome, your
5247 worries should be over at this point.  But if you use KDE, there is
5248 something in KDE ignoring the invert_brightness setting and turning on
5249 the screen during login.  I've reported it to Debian as
5250 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/711237">BTS report #711237</a>, and
5251 have no idea yet how to figure out exactly what subsystem is doing
5252 this.  Perhaps you can help?  Perhaps you know what the Gnome
5253 developers did to handle this, and this can give a clue to the KDE
5254 developers?  Or you know where in KDE the screen brightness is changed
5255 during login?  If so, please update the BTS report (or get in touch if
5256 you do not know how to update BTS).</p>
5257
5258 <p>Update 2013-07-19: The correct fix for this machine seem to be
5259 acpi_backlight=vendor, to disable ACPI backlight support completely,
5260 as the ACPI information on the machine is trash and it is better to
5261 leave it to the intel video driver to control the screen
5262 backlight.</p>
5263
5264       </div>
5265       <div class="tags">
5266
5267
5268         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>.
5269
5270
5271       </div>
5272     </div>
5273     <div class="padding"></div>
5274
5275     <div class="entry">
5276       <div class="title">
5277         <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>
5278       </div>
5279       <div class="date">
5280         27th May 2013
5281       </div>
5282       <div class="body">
5283         <p>Two days ago, I asked
5284 <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
5285 I could install Linux on a Packard Bell EasyNote LV computer
5286 preinstalled with Windows 8</a>.  I found a solution, but am horrified
5287 with the obstacles put in the way of Linux users on a laptop with UEFI
5288 and Windows 8.</p>
5289
5290 <p>I never found out if the cause of my problems were the use of UEFI
5291 secure booting or fast boot.  I suspect fast boot was the problem,
5292 causing the firmware to boot directly from HD without considering any
5293 key presses and alternative devices, but do not know UEFI settings
5294 enough to tell.</p>
5295
5296 <p>There is no way to install Linux on the machine in question without
5297 opening the box and disconnecting the hard drive!  This is as far as I
5298 can tell, the only way to get access to the firmware setup menu
5299 without accepting the Windows 8 license agreement.  I am told (and
5300 found description on how to) that it is possible to configure the
5301 firmware setup once booted into Windows 8.  But as I believe the terms
5302 of that agreement are completely unacceptable, accepting the license
5303 was never an alternative.  I do not enter agreements I do not intend
5304 to follow.</p>
5305
5306 <p>I feared I had to return the laptops and ask for a refund, and
5307 waste many hours on this, but luckily there was a way to get it to
5308 work.  But I would not recommend it to anyone planning to run Linux on
5309 it, and I have become sceptical to Windows 8 certified laptops.  Is
5310 this the way Linux will be forced out of the market place, by making
5311 it close to impossible for "normal" users to install Linux without
5312 accepting the Microsoft Windows license terms?  Or at least not
5313 without risking to loose the warranty?</p>
5314
5315 <p>I've updated the
5316 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Linux Laptop
5317 wiki page for Packard Bell EasyNote LV</a>, to ensure the next person
5318 do not have to struggle as much as I did to get Linux into the
5319 machine.</p>
5320
5321 <p>Thanks to Bob Rosbag, Florian Weimer, Philipp Kern, Ben Hutching,
5322 Michael Tokarev and others for feedback and ideas.</p>
5323
5324       </div>
5325       <div class="tags">
5326
5327
5328         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>.
5329
5330
5331       </div>
5332     </div>
5333     <div class="padding"></div>
5334
5335     <div class="entry">
5336       <div class="title">
5337         <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>
5338       </div>
5339       <div class="date">
5340         25th May 2013
5341       </div>
5342       <div class="body">
5343         <p>I've run into quite a problem the last few days.  I bought three
5344 new laptops for my parents and a few others.  I bought Packard Bell
5345 Easynote LV to run Kubuntu on and use as their home computer.  But I
5346 am completely unable to figure out how to install Linux on it.  The
5347 computer is preinstalled with Windows 8, and I suspect it uses UEFI
5348 instead of a BIOS to boot.</p>
5349
5350 <p>The problem is that I am unable to get it to PXE boot, and unable
5351 to get it to boot the Linux installer from my USB stick.  I have yet
5352 to try the DVD install, and still hope it will work.  when I turn on
5353 the computer, there is no information on what buttons to press to get
5354 the normal boot menu.  I expect to get some boot menu to select PXE or
5355 USB stick booting.  When booting, it first ask for the language to
5356 use, then for some regional settings, and finally if I will accept the
5357 Windows 8 terms of use.  As these terms are completely unacceptable to
5358 me, I have no other choice but to turn off the computer and try again
5359 to get it to boot the Linux installer.</p>
5360
5361 <p>I have gathered my findings so far on a Linlap page about the
5362 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Packard Bell
5363 EasyNote LV</a> model.  If you have any idea how to get Linux
5364 installed on this machine, please get in touch or update that wiki
5365 page.  If I can't find a way to install Linux, I will have to return
5366 the laptop to the seller and find another machine for my parents.</p>
5367
5368 <p>I wonder, is this the way Linux will be forced out of the market
5369 using UEFI and "secure boot" by making it impossible to install Linux
5370 on new Laptops?</p>
5371
5372       </div>
5373       <div class="tags">
5374
5375
5376         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>.
5377
5378
5379       </div>
5380     </div>
5381     <div class="padding"></div>
5382
5383     <div class="entry">
5384       <div class="title">
5385         <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>
5386       </div>
5387       <div class="date">
5388         17th May 2013
5389       </div>
5390       <div class="body">
5391         <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> is
5392 an operating system based on Debian intended for use in schools.  It
5393 contain a turn-key solution for the computer network provided to
5394 pupils in the primary schools.  It provide both the central server,
5395 network boot servers and desktop environments with heaps of
5396 educational software.  The project was founded almost 12 years ago,
5397 2001-07-02.  If you want to support the project, which is in need for
5398 cash to fund developer gatherings and other project related activity,
5399 <a href="http://www.linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">please
5400 donate some money</a>.
5401
5402 <p>A topic that come up again and again on the Debian Edu mailing
5403 lists and elsewhere, is the question on how to transform a Debian or
5404 Ubuntu installation into a Debian Edu installation.  It isn't very
5405 hard, and last week I wrote a script to replicate the steps done by
5406 the Debian Edu installer.</p>
5407
5408 <p>The script,
5409 <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/>
5410 in the debian-edu-config package, will go through these six steps and
5411 transform an existing Debian Wheezy or Ubuntu (untested) installation
5412 into a Debian Edu Workstation:</p>
5413
5414 <ol>
5415
5416 <li>Add skolelinux related APT sources.</li>
5417 <li>Create /etc/debian-edu/config with the wanted configuration.</li>
5418 <li>Install debian-edu-install to load preseeding values and pull in
5419     our configuration.</li>
5420 <li>Preseed debconf database with profile setup in
5421     /etc/debian-edu/config, and run tasksel to install packages
5422     according to the profile specified in the config above,
5423     overriding some of the Debian automation machinery.</li>
5424 <li>Run debian-edu-cfengine-D installation to configure everything
5425     that could not be done using preseeding.</li>
5426 <li>Ask for a reboot to enable all the configuration changes.</li>
5427
5428 </ol>
5429
5430 <p>There are some steps in the Debian Edu installation that can not be
5431 replicated like this.  Disk partitioning and LVM setup, for example.
5432 So this script just assume there is enough disk space to install all
5433 the needed packages.</p>
5434
5435 <p>The script was created to help a Debian Edu student working on
5436 setting up <a href="http://www.raspberrypi.org">Raspberry Pi</a> as a
5437 Debian Edu client, and using it he can take the existing
5438 <a href="http://www.raspbian.org/FrontPage‎">Raspbian</a> installation and
5439 transform it into a fully functioning Debian Edu Workstation (or
5440 Roaming Workstation, or whatever :).</p>
5441
5442 <p>The default setting in the script is to create a KDE Workstation.
5443 If a LXDE based Roaming workstation is wanted instead, modify the
5444 PROFILE and DESKTOP values at the top to look like this instead:</p>
5445
5446 <p><pre>
5447 PROFILE="Roaming-Workstation"
5448 DESKTOP="lxde"
5449 </pre></p>
5450
5451 <p>The script could even become useful to set up Debian Edu servers in
5452 the cloud, by starting with a virtual Debian installation at some
5453 virtual hosting service and setting up all the services on first
5454 boot.</p>
5455
5456       </div>
5457       <div class="tags">
5458
5459
5460         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>.
5461
5462
5463       </div>
5464     </div>
5465     <div class="padding"></div>
5466
5467     <div class="entry">
5468       <div class="title">
5469         <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>
5470       </div>
5471       <div class="date">
5472         11th May 2013
5473       </div>
5474       <div class="body">
5475         <P>In January,
5476 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_IRC_channel_for_LEGO_designers_using_Debian.html">I
5477 announced a</a> new <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">IRC
5478 channel #debian-lego</a>, for those of us in the Debian and Linux
5479 community interested in <a href="http://www.lego.com/">LEGO</a>, the
5480 marvellous construction system from Denmark.  We also created
5481 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">a wiki page</a> to have
5482 a place to take notes and write down our plans and hopes.  And several
5483 people showed up to help.  I was very happy to see the effect of my
5484 call.  Since the small start, we have a debtags tag
5485 <a href="http://debtags.debian.net/search/bytag?wl=hardware::hobby:lego">hardware::hobby:lego</a>
5486 tag for LEGO related packages, and now count 10 packages related to
5487 LEGO and <a href="http://mindstorms.lego.com/">Mindstorms</a>:</p>
5488
5489 <p><table>
5490 <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>
5491 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/leocad">leocad</a></td><td>virtual brick CAD software</td></tr>
5492 <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>
5493 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/lnpd">lnpd</a></td><td>daemon for LNP communication with BrickOS</td></tr>
5494 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/nbc">nbc</a></td><td>compiler for LEGO Mindstorms NXT bricks</td></tr>
5495 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/nqc">nqc</a></td><td>Not Quite C compiler for LEGO Mindstorms RCX</td></tr>
5496 <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>
5497 <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>
5498 <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>
5499 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/t2n">t2n</a></td><td>simple command-line tool for Lego NXT</td></tr>
5500 </table></p>
5501
5502 <p>Some of these are available in Wheezy, and all but one are
5503 currently available in Jessie/testing.  leocad is so far only
5504 available in experimental.</p>
5505
5506 <p>If you care about LEGO in Debian, please join us on IRC and help
5507 adding the rest of the great free software tools available on Linux
5508 for LEGO designers.</p>
5509
5510       </div>
5511       <div class="tags">
5512
5513
5514         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>.
5515
5516
5517       </div>
5518     </div>
5519     <div class="padding"></div>
5520
5521     <div class="entry">
5522       <div class="title">
5523         <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>
5524       </div>
5525       <div class="date">
5526          5th May 2013
5527       </div>
5528       <div class="body">
5529         <p>When I woke up this morning, I was very happy to see that the
5530 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2013/20130504">release announcement
5531 for Debian Wheezy</a> was waiting in my mail box.  This is a great
5532 Debian release, and I expect to move my machines at home over to it fairly
5533 soon.</p>
5534
5535 <p>The new debian release contain heaps of new stuff, and one program
5536 in particular make me very happy to see included.  The
5537 <a href="http://scratch.mit.edu/">Scratch</a> program, made famous by
5538 the <a href="http://www.code.org/">Teach kids code</a> movement, is
5539 included for the first time.  Alongside similar programs like
5540 <a href="http://edu.kde.org/kturtle/">kturtle</a> and
5541 <a href="http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/Turtle_Art">turtleart</a>,
5542 it allow for visual programming where syntax errors can not happen,
5543 and a friendly programming environment for learning to control the
5544 computer.  Scratch will also be included in the next release of Debian
5545 Edu.</a>
5546
5547 <p>And now that Wheezy is wrapped up, we can wrap up the next Debian
5548 Edu/Skolelinux release too.  The
5549 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/2013/04/msg00132.html">first
5550 alpha release</a> went out last week, and the next should soon
5551 follow.<p>
5552
5553       </div>
5554       <div class="tags">
5555
5556
5557         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>.
5558
5559
5560       </div>
5561     </div>
5562     <div class="padding"></div>
5563
5564     <div class="entry">
5565       <div class="title">
5566         <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>
5567       </div>
5568       <div class="date">
5569          3rd April 2013
5570       </div>
5571       <div class="body">
5572         <p>Today the <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">Isenkram
5573 package</a> finally made it into the archive, after lingering in NEW
5574 for many months.  I uploaded it to the Debian experimental suite
5575 2013-01-27, and today it was accepted into the archive.</p>
5576
5577 <p>Isenkram is a system for suggesting to users what packages to
5578 install to work with a pluggable hardware device.  The suggestion pop
5579 up when the device is plugged in.  For example if a Lego Mindstorm NXT
5580 is inserted, it will suggest to install the program needed to program
5581 the NXT controller.  Give it a go, and report bugs and suggestions to
5582 BTS. :)</p>
5583
5584       </div>
5585       <div class="tags">
5586
5587
5588         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>.
5589
5590
5591       </div>
5592     </div>
5593     <div class="padding"></div>
5594
5595     <div class="entry">
5596       <div class="title">
5597         <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>
5598       </div>
5599       <div class="date">
5600          2nd February 2013
5601       </div>
5602       <div class="body">
5603         <p>My
5604 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_backport_bitcoin_qt_version_0_7_2_2_to_Debian_Squeeze.html">last
5605 bitcoin related blog post</a> mentioned that the new
5606 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin package</a> for
5607 Debian was waiting in NEW.  It was accepted by the Debian ftp-masters
5608 2013-01-19, and have been available in unstable since then.  It was
5609 automatically copied to Ubuntu, and is available in their Raring
5610 version too.</p>
5611
5612 <p>But there is a strange problem with the build that block this new
5613 version from being available on the i386 and kfreebsd-i386
5614 architectures.  For some strange reason, the autobuilders in Debian
5615 for these architectures fail to run the test suite on these
5616 architectures (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/672524">BTS #672524</a>).
5617 We are so far unable to reproduce it when building it manually, and
5618 no-one have been able to propose a fix.  If you got an idea what is
5619 failing, please let us know via the BTS.</p>
5620
5621 <p>One feature that is annoying me with of the bitcoin client, because
5622 I often run low on disk space, is the fact that the client will exit
5623 if it run short on space (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/696715">BTS
5624 #696715</a>).  So make sure you have enough disk space when you run
5625 it. :)</p>
5626
5627 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
5628 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
5629 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
5630
5631       </div>
5632       <div class="tags">
5633
5634
5635         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>.
5636
5637
5638       </div>
5639     </div>
5640     <div class="padding"></div>
5641
5642     <div class="entry">
5643       <div class="title">
5644         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">Welcome to the world, Isenkram!</a>
5645       </div>
5646       <div class="date">
5647         22nd January 2013
5648       </div>
5649       <div class="body">
5650         <p>Yesterday, I
5651 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_prototype_ready_making_hardware_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">asked
5652 for testers</a> for my prototype for making Debian better at handling
5653 pluggable hardware devices, which I
5654 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">set
5655 out to create</a> earlier this month.  Several valuable testers showed
5656 up, and caused me to really want to to open up the development to more
5657 people.  But before I did this, I want to come up with a sensible name
5658 for this project.  Today I finally decided on a new name, and I have
5659 renamed the project from hw-support-handler to this new name.  In the
5660 process, I moved the source to git and made it available as a
5661 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/isenkram.git">collab-maint</a>
5662 repository in Debian.  The new name?  It is <strong>Isenkram</strong>.
5663 To fetch and build the latest version of the source, use</p>
5664
5665 <pre>
5666 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/collab-maint/isenkram.git
5667 cd isenkram && git-buildpackage -us -uc
5668 </pre>
5669
5670 <p>I have not yet adjusted all files to use the new name yet.  If you
5671 want to hack on the source or improve the package, please go ahead.
5672 But please talk to me first on IRC or via email before you do major
5673 changes, to make sure we do not step on each others toes. :)</p>
5674
5675 <p>If you wonder what 'isenkram' is, it is a Norwegian word for iron
5676 stuff, typically meaning tools, nails, screws, etc.  Typical hardware
5677 stuff, in other words.  I've been told it is the Norwegian variant of
5678 the German word eisenkram, for those that are familiar with that
5679 word.</p>
5680
5681 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-26</strong>: Added -us -us to build
5682 instructions, to avoid confusing people with an error from the signing
5683 process.</p>
5684
5685 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-27</strong>: Switch to HTTP URL for the git
5686 clone argument to avoid the need for authentication.</p>
5687
5688       </div>
5689       <div class="tags">
5690
5691
5692         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>.
5693
5694
5695       </div>
5696     </div>
5697     <div class="padding"></div>
5698
5699     <div class="entry">
5700       <div class="title">
5701         <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>
5702       </div>
5703       <div class="date">
5704         21st January 2013
5705       </div>
5706       <div class="body">
5707         <p>Early this month I set out to try to
5708 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">improve
5709 the Debian support for pluggable hardware devices</a>.  Now my
5710 prototype is working, and it is ready for a larger audience.  To test
5711 it, fetch the
5712 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">source
5713 from the Debian Edu subversion repository</a>, build and install the
5714 package.  You might have to log out and in again activate the
5715 autostart script.</p>
5716
5717 <p>The design is simple:</p>
5718
5719 <ul>
5720
5721 <li>Add desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ causing a program
5722 hw-support-handlerd to start when the user log in.</li>
5723
5724 <li>This program listen for kernel events about new hardware (directly
5725 from the kernel like udev does), not using HAL dbus events as I
5726 initially did.</li>
5727
5728 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware modalias in
5729 the APT database, a database
5730 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=markup">available
5731 via HTTP</a> and a database available as part of the package.</li>
5732
5733 <li>If a package is mapped to the hardware in question, the package
5734 isn't installed yet and this is the first time the hardware was
5735 plugged in, show a desktop notification suggesting to install the
5736 package or packages.</li>
5737
5738 <li>If the user click on the 'install package now' button, ask
5739 aptdaemon via the PackageKit API to install the requrired package.</li>
5740
5741 <li>aptdaemon ask for root password or sudo password, and install the
5742 package while showing progress information in a window.</li>
5743
5744 </ul>
5745
5746 <p>I still need to come up with a better name for the system.  Here
5747 are some screen shots showing the prototype in action.  First the
5748 notification, then the password request, and finally the request to
5749 approve all the dependencies.  Sorry for the Norwegian Bokmål GUI.</p>
5750
5751 <p><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-1-notification.png">
5752 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-2-password.png">
5753 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-3-dependencies.png">
5754 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-4-installing.png">
5755 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-5-installing-details.png" width="70%"></p>
5756
5757 <p>The prototype still need to be improved with longer timeouts, but
5758 is already useful.  The database of hardware to package mappings also
5759 need more work.  It is currently compatible with the Ubuntu way of
5760 storing such information in the package control file, but could be
5761 changed to use other formats instead or in addition to the current
5762 method.  I've dropped the use of discover for this mapping, as the
5763 modalias approach is more flexible and easier to use on Linux as long
5764 as the Linux kernel expose its modalias strings directly.</p>
5765
5766 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-21 16:50</strong>: Due to popular demand,
5767 here is the command required to check out and build the source: Use
5768 '<tt>svn checkout
5769 svn://svn.debian.org/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/; cd
5770 hw-support-handler; debuild</tt>'.  If you lack debuild, install the
5771 devscripts package.</p>
5772
5773 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-23 12:00</strong>: The project is now
5774 renamed to Isenkram and the source moved from the Debian Edu
5775 subversion repository to a Debian collab-maint git repository.  See
5776 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">build
5777 instructions</a> for details.</p>
5778
5779       </div>
5780       <div class="tags">
5781
5782
5783         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>.
5784
5785
5786       </div>
5787     </div>
5788     <div class="padding"></div>
5789
5790     <div class="entry">
5791       <div class="title">
5792         <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>
5793       </div>
5794       <div class="date">
5795         19th January 2013
5796       </div>
5797       <div class="body">
5798         <p>This Christmas my trusty old laptop died.  It died quietly and
5799 suddenly in bed.  With a quiet whimper, it went completely quiet and
5800 black.  The power button was no longer able to turn it on.  It was a
5801 IBM Thinkpad X41, and the best laptop I ever had.  Better than both
5802 Thinkpads X30, X31, X40, X60, X61 and X61S.  Far better than the
5803 Compaq I had before that.  Now I need to find a replacement.  To keep
5804 going during Christmas, I moved the one year old SSD disk to my old
5805 X40 where it fitted (only one I had left that could use it), but it is
5806 not a durable solution.
5807
5808 <p>My laptop needs are fairly modest.  This is my wishlist from when I
5809 got a new one more than 10 years ago.  It still holds true.:)</p>
5810
5811 <ul>
5812
5813 <li>Lightweight (around 1 kg) and small volume (preferably smaller
5814   than A4).</li>
5815 <li>Robust, it will be in my backpack every day.</li>
5816 <li>Three button mouse and a mouse pin instead of touch pad.</li>
5817 <li>Long battery life time.  Preferable a week.</li>
5818 <li>Internal WIFI network card.</li>
5819 <li>Internal Twisted Pair network card.</li>
5820 <li>Some USB slots (2-3 is plenty)</li>
5821 <li>Good keyboard - similar to the Thinkpad.</li>
5822 <li>Video resolution at least 1024x768, with size around 12" (A4 paper
5823 size).</li>
5824 <li>Hardware supported by Debian Stable, ie the default kernel and
5825   X.org packages.</li>
5826 <li>Quiet, preferably fan free (or at least not using the fan most of
5827   the time).
5828
5829 </ul>
5830
5831 <p>You will notice that there are no RAM and CPU requirements in the
5832 list.  The reason is simply that the specifications on laptops the
5833 last 10-15 years have been sufficient for my needs, and I have to look
5834 at other features to choose my laptop.  But are there still made as
5835 robust laptops as my X41?  The Thinkpad X60/X61 proved to be less
5836 robust, and Thinkpads seem to be heading in the wrong direction since
5837 Lenovo took over.  But I've been told that X220 and X1 Carbon might
5838 still be useful.</p>
5839
5840 <p>Perhaps I should rethink my needs, and look for a pad with an
5841 external keyboard?  I'll have to check the
5842 <a href="http://www.linux-laptop.net/">Linux Laptops site</a> for
5843 well-supported laptops, or perhaps just buy one preinstalled from one
5844 of the vendors listed on the <a href="http://linuxpreloaded.com/">Linux
5845 Pre-loaded site</a>.</p>
5846
5847       </div>
5848       <div class="tags">
5849
5850
5851         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>.
5852
5853
5854       </div>
5855     </div>
5856     <div class="padding"></div>
5857
5858     <div class="entry">
5859       <div class="title">
5860         <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>
5861       </div>
5862       <div class="date">
5863         18th January 2013
5864       </div>
5865       <div class="body">
5866         <p>Some times I try to figure out which Iceweasel browser plugin to
5867 install to get support for a given MIME type.  Thanks to
5868 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MozillaTeam/Plugins">specifications
5869 done by Ubuntu</a> and Mozilla, it is possible to do this in Debian.
5870 Unfortunately, not very many packages provide the needed meta
5871 information, Anyway, here is a small script to look up all browser
5872 plugin packages announcing ther MIME support using this specification:</p>
5873
5874 <pre>
5875 #!/usr/bin/python
5876 import sys
5877 import apt
5878 def pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
5879     cache = apt.Cache()
5880     cache.open(None)
5881     thepkgs = []
5882     for pkg in cache:
5883         version = pkg.candidate
5884         if version is None:
5885             version = pkg.installed
5886         if version is None:
5887             continue
5888         record = version.record
5889         if not record.has_key('Npp-MimeType'):
5890             continue
5891         mime_types = record['Npp-MimeType'].split(',')
5892         for t in mime_types:
5893             t = t.rstrip().strip()
5894             if t == mimetype:
5895                 thepkgs.append(pkg.name)
5896     return thepkgs
5897 mimetype = "audio/ogg"
5898 if 1 < len(sys.argv):
5899     mimetype = sys.argv[1]
5900 print "Browser plugin packages supporting %s:" % mimetype
5901 for pkg in pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
5902     print "  %s" %pkg
5903 </pre>
5904
5905 <p>It can be used like this to look up a given MIME type:</p>
5906
5907 <pre>
5908 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype
5909 Browser plugin packages supporting audio/ogg:
5910   gecko-mediaplayer
5911 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype application/x-shockwave-flash
5912 Browser plugin packages supporting application/x-shockwave-flash:
5913   browser-plugin-gnash
5914 %
5915 </pre>
5916
5917 <p>In Ubuntu this mechanism is combined with support in the browser
5918 itself to query for plugins and propose to install the needed
5919 packages.  It would be great if Debian supported such feature too.  Is
5920 anyone working on adding it?</p>
5921
5922 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-18 14:20</strong>: The Debian BTS
5923 request for icweasel support for this feature is
5924 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/484010">#484010</a> from 2008 (and
5925 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/698426">#698426</a> from today).  Lack
5926 of manpower and wish for a different design is the reason thus feature
5927 is not yet in iceweasel from Debian.</p>
5928
5929       </div>
5930       <div class="tags">
5931
5932
5933         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>.
5934
5935
5936       </div>
5937     </div>
5938     <div class="padding"></div>
5939
5940     <div class="entry">
5941       <div class="title">
5942         <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>
5943       </div>
5944       <div class="date">
5945         16th January 2013
5946       </div>
5947       <div class="body">
5948         <p>The <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/AppStreamDebianProposal">DEP-11
5949 proposal to add AppStream information to the Debian archive</a>, is a
5950 proposal to make it possible for a Desktop application to propose to
5951 the user some package to install to gain support for a given MIME
5952 type, font, library etc. that is currently missing.  With such
5953 mechanism in place, it would be possible for the desktop to
5954 automatically propose and install leocad if some LDraw file is
5955 downloaded by the browser.</p>
5956
5957 <p>To get some idea about the current content of the archive, I decided
5958 to write a simple program to extract all .desktop files from the
5959 Debian archive and look up the claimed MIME support there.  The result
5960 can be found on the
5961 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/pub/AppStreamTest">Skolelinux FTP
5962 site</a>.  Using the collected information, it become possible to
5963 answer the question in the title.  Here are the 20 most supported MIME
5964 types in Debian stable (Squeeze), testing (Wheezy) and unstable (Sid).
5965 The complete list is available from the link above.</p>
5966
5967 <p><strong>Debian Stable:</strong></p>
5968
5969 <pre>
5970   count MIME type
5971   ----- -----------------------
5972      32 text/plain
5973      30 audio/mpeg
5974      29 image/png
5975      28 image/jpeg
5976      27 application/ogg
5977      26 audio/x-mp3
5978      25 image/tiff
5979      25 image/gif
5980      22 image/bmp
5981      22 audio/x-wav
5982      20 audio/x-flac
5983      19 audio/x-mpegurl
5984      18 video/x-ms-asf
5985      18 audio/x-musepack
5986      18 audio/x-mpeg
5987      18 application/x-ogg
5988      17 video/mpeg
5989      17 audio/x-scpls
5990      17 audio/ogg
5991      16 video/x-ms-wmv
5992 </pre>
5993
5994 <p><strong>Debian Testing:</strong></p>
5995
5996 <pre>
5997   count MIME type
5998   ----- -----------------------
5999      33 text/plain
6000      32 image/png
6001      32 image/jpeg
6002      29 audio/mpeg
6003      27 image/gif
6004      26 image/tiff
6005      26 application/ogg
6006      25 audio/x-mp3
6007      22 image/bmp
6008      21 audio/x-wav
6009      19 audio/x-mpegurl
6010      19 audio/x-mpeg
6011      18 video/mpeg
6012      18 audio/x-scpls
6013      18 audio/x-flac
6014      18 application/x-ogg
6015      17 video/x-ms-asf
6016      17 text/html
6017      17 audio/x-musepack
6018      16 image/x-xbitmap
6019 </pre>
6020
6021 <p><strong>Debian Unstable:</strong></p>
6022
6023 <pre>
6024   count MIME type
6025   ----- -----------------------
6026      31 text/plain
6027      31 image/png
6028      31 image/jpeg
6029      29 audio/mpeg
6030      28 application/ogg
6031      27 image/gif
6032      26 image/tiff
6033      26 audio/x-mp3
6034      23 audio/x-wav
6035      22 image/bmp
6036      21 audio/x-flac
6037      20 audio/x-mpegurl
6038      19 audio/x-mpeg
6039      18 video/x-ms-asf
6040      18 video/mpeg
6041      18 audio/x-scpls
6042      18 application/x-ogg
6043      17 audio/x-musepack
6044      16 video/x-ms-wmv
6045      16 video/x-msvideo
6046 </pre>
6047
6048 <p>I am told that PackageKit can provide an API to access the kind of
6049 information mentioned in DEP-11.  I have not yet had time to look at
6050 it, but hope the PackageKit people in Debian are on top of these
6051 issues.</p>
6052
6053 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-16 13:35</strong>: Updated numbers after
6054 discovering a typo in my script.</p>
6055
6056       </div>
6057       <div class="tags">
6058
6059
6060         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>.
6061
6062
6063       </div>
6064     </div>
6065     <div class="padding"></div>
6066
6067     <div class="entry">
6068       <div class="title">
6069         <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>
6070       </div>
6071       <div class="date">
6072         15th January 2013
6073       </div>
6074       <div class="body">
6075         <p>Yesterday, I wrote about the
6076 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Modalias_strings___a_practical_way_to_map__stuff__to_hardware.html">modalias
6077 values provided by the Linux kernel</a> following my hope for
6078 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">better
6079 dongle support in Debian</a>.  Using this knowledge, I have tested how
6080 modalias values attached to package names can be used to map packages
6081 to hardware.  This allow the system to look up and suggest relevant
6082 packages when I plug in some new hardware into my machine, and replace
6083 discover and discover-data as the database used to map hardware to
6084 packages.</p>
6085
6086 <p>I create a modaliases file with entries like the following,
6087 containing package name, kernel module name (if relevant, otherwise
6088 the package name) and globs matching the relevant hardware
6089 modalias.</p>
6090
6091 <p><blockquote>
6092 Package: package-name
6093 <br>Modaliases: module(modaliasglob, modaliasglob, modaliasglob)</p>
6094 </blockquote></p>
6095
6096 <p>It is fairly trivial to write code to find the relevant packages
6097 for a given modalias value using this file.</p>
6098
6099 <p>An entry like this would suggest the video and picture application
6100 cheese for many USB web cameras (interface bus class 0E01):</p>
6101
6102 <p><blockquote>
6103 Package: cheese
6104 <br>Modaliases: cheese(usb:v*p*d*dc*dsc*dp*ic0Eisc01ip*)</p>
6105 </blockquote></p>
6106
6107 <p>An entry like this would suggest the pcmciautils package when a
6108 CardBus bridge (bus class 0607) PCI device is present:</p>
6109
6110 <p><blockquote>
6111 Package: pcmciautils
6112 <br>Modaliases: pcmciautils(pci:v*d*sv*sd*bc06sc07i*)
6113 </blockquote></p>
6114
6115 <p>An entry like this would suggest the package colorhug-client when
6116 plugging in a ColorHug with USB IDs 04D8:F8DA:</p>
6117
6118 <p><blockquote>
6119 Package: colorhug-client
6120 <br>Modaliases: colorhug-client(usb:v04D8pF8DAd*)</p>
6121 </blockquote></p>
6122
6123 <p>I believe the format is compatible with the format of the Packages
6124 file in the Debian archive.  Ubuntu already uses their Packages file
6125 to store their mappings from packages to hardware.</p>
6126
6127 <p>By adding a XB-Modaliases: header in debian/control, any .deb can
6128 announce the hardware it support in a way my prototype understand.
6129 This allow those publishing packages in an APT source outside the
6130 Debian archive as well as those backporting packages to make sure the
6131 hardware mapping are included in the package meta information.  I've
6132 tested such header in the pymissile package, and its modalias mapping
6133 is working as it should with my prototype.  It even made it to Ubuntu
6134 Raring.</p>
6135
6136 <p>To test if it was possible to look up supported hardware using only
6137 the shell tools available in the Debian installer, I wrote a shell
6138 implementation of the lookup code.  The idea is to create files for
6139 each modalias and let the shell do the matching.  Please check out and
6140 try the
6141 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/hw-support-lookup?view=co">hw-support-lookup</a>
6142 shell script.  It run without any extra dependencies and fetch the
6143 hardware mappings from the Debian archive and the subversion
6144 repository where I currently work on my prototype.</p>
6145
6146 <p>When I use it on a machine with a yubikey inserted, it suggest to
6147 install yubikey-personalization:</p>
6148
6149 <p><blockquote>
6150 % ./hw-support-lookup
6151 <br>yubikey-personalization
6152 <br>%
6153 </blockquote></p>
6154
6155 <p>When I run it on my Thinkpad X40 with a PCMCIA/CardBus slot, it
6156 propose to install the pcmciautils package:</p>
6157
6158 <p><blockquote>
6159 % ./hw-support-lookup
6160 <br>pcmciautils
6161 <br>%
6162 </blockquote></p>
6163
6164 <p>If you know of any hardware-package mapping that should be added to
6165 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=co">my
6166 database</a>, please tell me about it.</p>
6167
6168 <p>It could be possible to generate several of the mappings between
6169 packages and hardware.  One source would be to look at packages with
6170 kernel modules, ie packages with *.ko files in /lib/modules/, and
6171 extract their modalias information.  Another would be to look at
6172 packages with udev rules, ie packages with files in
6173 /lib/udev/rules.d/, and extract their vendor/model information to
6174 generate a modalias matching rule.  I have not tested any of these to
6175 see if it work.</p>
6176
6177 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
6178 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
6179 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
6180 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel</a>.</p>
6181
6182       </div>
6183       <div class="tags">
6184
6185
6186         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>.
6187
6188
6189       </div>
6190     </div>
6191     <div class="padding"></div>
6192
6193     <div class="entry">
6194       <div class="title">
6195         <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>
6196       </div>
6197       <div class="date">
6198         14th January 2013
6199       </div>
6200       <div class="body">
6201         <p>While looking into how to look up Debian packages based on hardware
6202 information, to find the packages that support a given piece of
6203 hardware, I refreshed my memory regarding modalias values, and decided
6204 to document the details.  Here are my findings so far, also available
6205 in
6206 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
6207 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>:
6208
6209 <p><strong>Modalias decoded</strong></p>
6210
6211 <p>This document try to explain what the different types of modalias
6212 values stands for.  It is in part based on information from
6213 &lt;URL: <a href="https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias">https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias</a> &gt;,
6214 &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;,
6215 &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
6216 &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;.
6217
6218 <p>The modalias entries for a given Linux machine can be found using
6219 this shell script:</p>
6220
6221 <pre>
6222 find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u
6223 </pre>
6224
6225 <p>The supported modalias globs for a given kernel module can be found
6226 using modinfo:</p>
6227
6228 <pre>
6229 % /sbin/modinfo psmouse | grep alias:
6230 alias:          serio:ty05pr*id*ex*
6231 alias:          serio:ty01pr*id*ex*
6232 %
6233 </pre>
6234
6235 <p><strong>PCI subtype</strong></p>
6236
6237 <p>A typical PCI entry can look like this.  This is an Intel Host
6238 Bridge memory controller:</p>
6239
6240 <p><blockquote>
6241 pci:v00008086d00002770sv00001028sd000001ADbc06sc00i00
6242 </blockquote></p>
6243
6244 <p>This represent these values:</p>
6245
6246 <pre>
6247  v   00008086  (vendor)
6248  d   00002770  (device)
6249  sv  00001028  (subvendor)
6250  sd  000001AD  (subdevice)
6251  bc  06        (bus class)
6252  sc  00        (bus subclass)
6253  i   00        (interface)
6254 </pre>
6255
6256 <p>The vendor/device values are the same values outputted from 'lspci
6257 -n' as 8086:2770.  The bus class/subclass is also shown by lspci as
6258 0600.  The 0600 class is a host bridge.  Other useful bus values are
6259 0300 (VGA compatible card) and 0200 (Ethernet controller).</p>
6260
6261 <p>Not sure how to figure out the interface value, nor what it
6262 means.</p>
6263
6264 <p><strong>USB subtype</strong></p>
6265
6266 <p>Some typical USB entries can look like this.  This is an internal
6267 USB hub in a laptop:</p>
6268
6269 <p><blockquote>
6270 usb:v1D6Bp0001d0206dc09dsc00dp00ic09isc00ip00
6271 </blockquote></p>
6272
6273 <p>Here is the values included in this alias:</p>
6274
6275 <pre>
6276  v    1D6B  (device vendor)
6277  p    0001  (device product)
6278  d    0206  (bcddevice)
6279  dc     09  (device class)
6280  dsc    00  (device subclass)
6281  dp     00  (device protocol)
6282  ic     09  (interface class)
6283  isc    00  (interface subclass)
6284  ip     00  (interface protocol)
6285 </pre>
6286
6287 <p>The 0900 device class/subclass means hub.  Some times the relevant
6288 class is in the interface class section.  For a simple USB web camera,
6289 these alias entries show up:</p>
6290
6291 <p><blockquote>
6292 usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc01ip00
6293 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc02ip00
6294 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc01ip00
6295 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc02ip00
6296 </blockquote></p>
6297
6298 <p>Interface class 0E01 is video control, 0E02 is video streaming (aka
6299 camera), 0101 is audio control device and 0102 is audio streaming (aka
6300 microphone).  Thus this is a camera with microphone included.</p>
6301
6302 <p><strong>ACPI subtype</strong></p>
6303
6304 <p>The ACPI type is used for several non-PCI/USB stuff.  This is an IR
6305 receiver in a Thinkpad X40:</p>
6306
6307 <p><blockquote>
6308 acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
6309 </blockquote></p>
6310
6311 <p>The values between the colons are IDs.</p>
6312
6313 <p><strong>DMI subtype</strong></p>
6314
6315 <p>The DMI table contain lots of information about the computer case
6316 and model.  This is an entry for a IBM Thinkpad X40, fetched from
6317 /sys/devices/virtual/dmi/id/modalias:</p>
6318
6319 <p><blockquote>
6320 dmi:bvnIBM:bvr1UETB6WW(1.66):bd06/15/2005:svnIBM:pn2371H4G:pvrThinkPadX40:rvnIBM:rn2371H4G:rvrNotAvailable:cvnIBM:ct10:cvrNotAvailable:
6321 </blockquote></p>
6322
6323 <p>The values present are</p>
6324
6325 <pre>
6326  bvn  IBM            (BIOS vendor)
6327  bvr  1UETB6WW(1.66) (BIOS version)
6328  bd   06/15/2005     (BIOS date)
6329  svn  IBM            (system vendor)
6330  pn   2371H4G        (product name)
6331  pvr  ThinkPadX40    (product version)
6332  rvn  IBM            (board vendor)
6333  rn   2371H4G        (board name)
6334  rvr  NotAvailable   (board version)
6335  cvn  IBM            (chassis vendor)
6336  ct   10             (chassis type)
6337  cvr  NotAvailable   (chassis version)
6338 </pre>
6339
6340 <p>The chassis type 10 is Notebook.  Other interesting values can be
6341 found in the dmidecode source:</p>
6342
6343 <pre>
6344   3 Desktop
6345   4 Low Profile Desktop
6346   5 Pizza Box
6347   6 Mini Tower
6348   7 Tower
6349   8 Portable
6350   9 Laptop
6351  10 Notebook
6352  11 Hand Held
6353  12 Docking Station
6354  13 All In One
6355  14 Sub Notebook
6356  15 Space-saving
6357  16 Lunch Box
6358  17 Main Server Chassis
6359  18 Expansion Chassis
6360  19 Sub Chassis
6361  20 Bus Expansion Chassis
6362  21 Peripheral Chassis
6363  22 RAID Chassis
6364  23 Rack Mount Chassis
6365  24 Sealed-case PC
6366  25 Multi-system
6367  26 CompactPCI
6368  27 AdvancedTCA
6369  28 Blade
6370  29 Blade Enclosing
6371 </pre>
6372
6373 <p>The chassis type values are not always accurately set in the DMI
6374 table.  For example my home server is a tower, but the DMI modalias
6375 claim it is a desktop.</p>
6376
6377 <p><strong>SerIO subtype</strong></p>
6378
6379 <p>This type is used for PS/2 mouse plugs.  One example is from my
6380 test machine:</p>
6381
6382 <p><blockquote>
6383 serio:ty01pr00id00ex00
6384 </blockquote></p>
6385
6386 <p>The values present are</p>
6387
6388 <pre>
6389   ty  01  (type)
6390   pr  00  (prototype)
6391   id  00  (id)
6392   ex  00  (extra)
6393 </pre>
6394
6395 <p>This type is supported by the psmouse driver.  I am not sure what
6396 the valid values are.</p>
6397
6398 <p><strong>Other subtypes</strong></p>
6399
6400 <p>There are heaps of other modalias subtypes according to
6401 file2alias.c.  There is the rest of the list from that source: amba,
6402 ap, bcma, ccw, css, eisa, hid, i2c, ieee1394, input, ipack, isapnp,
6403 mdio, of, parisc, pcmcia, platform, scsi, sdio, spi, ssb, vio, virtio,
6404 vmbus, x86cpu and zorro.  I did not spend time documenting all of
6405 these, as they do not seem relevant for my intended use with mapping
6406 hardware to packages when new stuff is inserted during run time.</p>
6407
6408 <p><strong>Looking up kernel modules using modalias values</strong></p>
6409
6410 <p>To check which kernel modules provide support for a given modalias,
6411 one can use the following shell script:</p>
6412
6413 <pre>
6414   for id in $(find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u); do \
6415     echo "$id" ; \
6416     /sbin/modprobe --show-depends "$id"|sed 's/^/  /' ; \
6417   done
6418 </pre>
6419
6420 <p>The output can look like this (only the first few entries as the
6421 list is very long on my test machine):</p>
6422
6423 <pre>
6424   acpi:ACPI0003:
6425     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/acpi/ac.ko
6426   acpi:device:
6427   FATAL: Module acpi:device: not found.
6428   acpi:IBM0068:
6429     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/char/nvram.ko
6430     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/leds/led-class.ko
6431     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/rfkill/rfkill.ko
6432     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/platform/x86/thinkpad_acpi.ko
6433   acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
6434     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/lib/crc-ccitt.ko
6435     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/irda/irda.ko
6436     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/net/irda/nsc-ircc.ko
6437   [...]
6438 </pre>
6439
6440 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
6441 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
6442 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
6443 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel</a>.</p>
6444
6445 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-15:</strong> Rewrite "cat $(find ...)" to
6446 "find ... -print0 | xargs -0 cat" to make sure it handle directories
6447 in /sys/ with space in them.</p>
6448
6449       </div>
6450       <div class="tags">
6451
6452
6453         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>.
6454
6455
6456       </div>
6457     </div>
6458     <div class="padding"></div>
6459
6460     <div class="entry">
6461       <div class="title">
6462         <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>
6463       </div>
6464       <div class="date">
6465         10th January 2013
6466       </div>
6467       <div class="body">
6468         <p>As part of my investigation on how to improve the support in Debian
6469 for hardware dongles, I dug up my old Mark and Spencer USB Rocket
6470 Launcher and updated the Debian package
6471 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pymissile">pymissile</a> to make
6472 sure udev will fix the device permissions when it is plugged in.  I
6473 also added a "Modaliases" header to test it in the Debian archive and
6474 hopefully make the package be proposed by jockey in Ubuntu when a user
6475 plug in his rocket launcher.  In the process I moved the source to a
6476 git repository under collab-maint, to make it easier for any DD to
6477 contribute.  <a href="http://code.google.com/p/pymissile/">Upstream</a>
6478 is not very active, but the software still work for me even after five
6479 years of relative silence.  The new git repository is not listed in
6480 the uploaded package yet, because I want to test the other changes a
6481 bit more before I upload the new version.  If you want to check out
6482 the new version with a .desktop file included, visit the
6483 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/pymissile.git">gitweb
6484 view</a> or use "<tt>git clone
6485 git://anonscm.debian.org/collab-maint/pymissile.git</tt>".</p>
6486
6487       </div>
6488       <div class="tags">
6489
6490
6491         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>.
6492
6493
6494       </div>
6495     </div>
6496     <div class="padding"></div>
6497
6498     <div class="entry">
6499       <div class="title">
6500         <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>
6501       </div>
6502       <div class="date">
6503          9th January 2013
6504       </div>
6505       <div class="body">
6506         <p>One thing that annoys me with Debian and Linux distributions in
6507 general, is that there is a great package management system with the
6508 ability to automatically install software packages by downloading them
6509 from the distribution mirrors, but no way to get it to automatically
6510 install the packages I need to use the hardware I plug into my
6511 machine.  Even if the package to use it is easily available from the
6512 Linux distribution.  When I plug in a LEGO Mindstorms NXT, it could
6513 suggest to automatically install the python-nxt, nbc and t2n packages
6514 I need to talk to it.  When I plug in a Yubikey, it could propose the
6515 yubikey-personalization package.  The information required to do this
6516 is available, but no-one have pulled all the pieces together.</p>
6517
6518 <p>Some years ago, I proposed to
6519 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg01206.html">use
6520 the discover subsystem to implement this</a>.  The idea is fairly
6521 simple:
6522
6523 <ul>
6524
6525 <li>Add a desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ pointing to a program
6526   starting when a user log in.</li>
6527
6528 <li>Set this program up to listen for kernel events emitted when new
6529   hardware is inserted into the computer.</li>
6530
6531 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware ID in a
6532   database mapping to packages, and take note of any non-installed
6533   packages.</li>
6534
6535 <li>Show a message to the user proposing to install the discovered
6536   package, and make it easy to install it.</li>
6537
6538 </ul>
6539
6540 <p>I am not sure what the best way to implement this is, but my
6541 initial idea was to use dbus events to discover new hardware, the
6542 discover database to find packages and
6543 <a href="http://www.packagekit.org/">PackageKit</a> to install
6544 packages.</p>
6545
6546 <p>Yesterday, I found time to try to implement this idea, and the
6547 draft package is now checked into
6548 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
6549 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>.  In the process, I updated the
6550 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover-data.html">discover-data</a>
6551 package to map the USB ids of LEGO Mindstorms and Yubikey devices to
6552 the relevant packages in Debian, and uploaded a new version
6553 2.2013.01.09 to unstable.  I also discovered that the current
6554 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover.html">discover</a>
6555 package in Debian no longer discovered any USB devices, because
6556 /proc/bus/usb/devices is no longer present.  I ported it to use
6557 libusb as a fall back option to get it working.  The fixed package
6558 version 2.1.2-6 is now in experimental (didn't upload it to unstable
6559 because of the freeze).</p>
6560
6561 <p>With this prototype in place, I can insert my Yubikey, and get this
6562 desktop notification to show up (only once, the first time it is
6563 inserted):</p>
6564
6565 <p align="center"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-09-hw-autoinstall.png"></p>
6566
6567 <p>For this prototype to be really useful, some way to automatically
6568 install the proposed packages by pressing the "Please install
6569 program(s)" button should to be implemented.</p>
6570
6571 <p>If this idea seem useful to you, and you want to help make it
6572 happen, please help me update the discover-data database with mappings
6573 from hardware to Debian packages.  Check if 'discover-pkginstall -l'
6574 list the package you would like to have installed when a given
6575 hardware device is inserted into your computer, and report bugs using
6576 reportbug if it isn't.  Or, if you know of a better way to provide
6577 such mapping, please let me know.</p>
6578
6579 <p>This prototype need more work, and there are several questions that
6580 should be considered before it is ready for production use.  Is dbus
6581 the correct way to detect new hardware?  At the moment I look for HAL
6582 dbus events on the system bus, because that is the events I could see
6583 on my Debian Squeeze KDE desktop.  Are there better events to use?
6584 How should the user be notified?  Is the desktop notification
6585 mechanism the best option, or should the background daemon raise a
6586 popup instead?  How should packages be installed?  When should they
6587 not be installed?</p>
6588
6589 <p>If you want to help getting such feature implemented in Debian,
6590 please send me an email. :)</p>
6591
6592       </div>
6593       <div class="tags">
6594
6595
6596         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>.
6597
6598
6599       </div>
6600     </div>
6601     <div class="padding"></div>
6602
6603     <div class="entry">
6604       <div class="title">
6605         <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>
6606       </div>
6607       <div class="date">
6608          2nd January 2013
6609       </div>
6610       <div class="body">
6611         <p>During Christmas, I have worked a bit on the Debian support for
6612 <a href="http://mindstorms.lego.com/en-us/Default.aspx">LEGO Mindstorm
6613 NXT</a>.  My son and I have played a bit with my NXT set, and I
6614 discovered I had to build all the tools myself because none were
6615 already in Debian Squeeze.  If Debian support for LEGO is something
6616 you care about, please join me on the IRC channel
6617 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">#debian-lego</a> (server
6618 irc.debian.org).  There is a lot that could be done to improve the
6619 Debian support for LEGO designers.  For example both CAD software
6620 and Mindstorm compilers are missing. :)</p>
6621
6622 <p>Update 2012-01-03: A
6623 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">project page</a>
6624 including links to Lego related packages is now available.</p>
6625
6626       </div>
6627       <div class="tags">
6628
6629
6630         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>.
6631
6632
6633       </div>
6634     </div>
6635     <div class="padding"></div>
6636
6637     <div class="entry">
6638       <div class="title">
6639         <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>
6640       </div>
6641       <div class="date">
6642         25th December 2012
6643       </div>
6644       <div class="body">
6645         <p>Let me start by wishing you all marry Christmas and a happy new
6646 year!  I hope next year will prove to be a good year.</p>
6647
6648 <p><a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">Bitcoin</a>, the digital
6649 decentralised "currency" that allow people to transfer bitcoins
6650 between each other with minimal overhead, is a very interesting
6651 experiment.  And as I wrote a few days ago, the bitcoin situation in
6652 <a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</a> is about to improve a bit.
6653 The <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">new debian source
6654 package</a> (version 0.7.2-2) was uploaded yesterday, and is waiting
6655 in <a href="http://ftp-master.debian.org/new.html">the NEW queue</A>
6656 for one of the ftpmasters to approve the new bitcoin-qt package
6657 name.</p>
6658
6659 <p>And thanks to the great work of Jonas and the rest of the bitcoin
6660 team in Debian, you can easily test the package in Debian Squeeze
6661 using the following steps to get a set of working packages:</p>
6662
6663 <blockquote><pre>
6664 git clone git://git.debian.org/git/collab-maint/bitcoin
6665 cd bitcoin
6666 DEB_MAINTAINER_MODE=1 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp fakeroot debian/rules clean
6667 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp git-buildpackage --git-ignore-new
6668 </pre></blockquote>
6669
6670 <p>You might have to install some build dependencies as well.  The
6671 list of commands should give you two packages, bitcoind and
6672 bitcoin-qt, ready for use in a Squeeze environment.  Note that the
6673 client will download the complete set of bitcoin "blocks", which need
6674 around 5.6 GiB of data on my machine at the moment.  Make sure your
6675 ~/.bitcoin/ directory have lots of spare room if you want to download
6676 all the blocks.  The client will warn if the disk is getting full, so
6677 there is not really a problem if you got too little room, but you will
6678 not be able to get all the features out of the client.</p>
6679
6680 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
6681 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
6682 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
6683
6684       </div>
6685       <div class="tags">
6686
6687
6688         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>.
6689
6690
6691       </div>
6692     </div>
6693     <div class="padding"></div>
6694
6695     <div class="entry">
6696       <div class="title">
6697         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_word_on_bitcoin_support_in_Debian.html">A word on bitcoin support in Debian</a>
6698       </div>
6699       <div class="date">
6700         21st December 2012
6701       </div>
6702       <div class="body">
6703         <p>It has been a while since I wrote about
6704 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">bitcoin</a>, the decentralised
6705 peer-to-peer based crypto-currency, and the reason is simply that I
6706 have been busy elsewhere.  But two days ago, I started looking at the
6707 state of <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin in
6708 Debian</a> again to try to recover my old bitcoin wallet.  The package
6709 is now maintained by a
6710 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/pkg-bitcoin/">team of
6711 people</a>, and the grunt work had already been done by this team.  We
6712 owe a huge thank you to all these team members. :)
6713 But I was sad to discover that the bitcoin client is missing in
6714 Wheezy.  It is only available in Sid (and an outdated client from
6715 backports).  The client had several RC bugs registered in BTS blocking
6716 it from entering testing.  To try to help the team and improve the
6717 situation, I spent some time providing patches and triaging the bug
6718 reports.  I also had a look at the bitcoin package available from Matt
6719 Corallo in a
6720 <a href="https://launchpad.net/~bitcoin/+archive/bitcoin">PPA for
6721 Ubuntu</a>, and moved the useful pieces from that version into the
6722 Debian package.</p>
6723
6724 <p>After checking with the main package maintainer Jonas Smedegaard on
6725 IRC, I pushed several patches into the collab-maint git repository to
6726 improve the package.  It now contains fixes for the RC issues (not from
6727 me, but fixed by Scott Howard), build rules for a Qt GUI client
6728 package, konqueror support for the bitcoin: URI and bash completion
6729 setup.  As I work on Debian Squeeze, I also created
6730 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-bitcoin-devel/Week-of-Mon-20121217/000041.html">a
6731 patch to backport</a> the latest version.  Jonas is going to look at
6732 it and try to integrate it into the git repository before uploading a
6733 new version to unstable.
6734
6735 <p>I would very much like bitcoin to succeed, to get rid of the
6736 centralized control currently exercised in the monetary system.  I
6737 find it completely unacceptable that the USA government is collecting
6738 transaction data for almost all international money transfers (most are done in USD and transaction logs shipped to the spooks), and
6739 that the major credit card companies can block legal money
6740 transactions to Wikileaks.  But for bitcoin to succeed, more people
6741 need to use bitcoins, and more people need to accept bitcoins when
6742 they sell products and services.  Improving the bitcoin support in
6743 Debian is a small step in the right direction, but not enough.
6744 Unfortunately the user experience when browsing the web and wanting to
6745 pay with bitcoin is still not very good.  The bitcoin: URI is a step
6746 in the right direction, but need to work in most or every browser in
6747 use.  Also the bitcoin-qt client is too heavy to fire up to do a
6748 quick transaction.  I believe there are other clients available, but
6749 have not tested them.</p>
6750
6751 <p>My
6752 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Now_accepting_bitcoins___anonymous_and_distributed_p2p_crypto_money.html">experiment
6753 with bitcoins</a> showed that at least some of my readers use bitcoin.
6754 I received 20.15 BTC so far on the address I provided in my blog two
6755 years ago, as can be
6756 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">seen
6757 on the blockexplorer service</a>.  Thank you everyone for your
6758 donation.  The blockexplorer service demonstrates quite well that
6759 bitcoin is not quite anonymous and untracked. :) I wonder if the
6760 number of users have gone up since then.  If you use bitcoin and want
6761 to show your support of my activity, please send Bitcoin donations to
6762 the same address as last time,
6763 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
6764
6765       </div>
6766       <div class="tags">
6767
6768
6769         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>.
6770
6771
6772       </div>
6773     </div>
6774     <div class="padding"></div>
6775
6776     <div class="entry">
6777       <div class="title">
6778         <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>
6779       </div>
6780       <div class="date">
6781          7th September 2012
6782       </div>
6783       <div class="body">
6784         <p>As I
6785 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">mentioned
6786 this summer</a>, I have created a Computer Science song book a few
6787 years ago, and today I finally found time to create a public
6788 <a href="https://gitorious.org/pere-cs-songbook/pere-cs-songbook">Gitorious
6789 repository for the project</a>.</p>
6790
6791 <p>If you want to help out, please clone the source and submit patches
6792 to the HTML version.  To generate the PDF and PostScript version,
6793 please use prince XML, or let me know about a useful free software
6794 processor capable of creating a good looking PDF from the HTML.</p>
6795
6796 <p>Want to sing?  You can still find the song book in HTML, PDF and
6797 PostScript formats at
6798 <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's Computer
6799 Science Songbook</a>.</p>
6800
6801       </div>
6802       <div class="tags">
6803
6804
6805         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>.
6806
6807
6808       </div>
6809     </div>
6810     <div class="padding"></div>
6811
6812     <div class="entry">
6813       <div class="title">
6814         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gratulerer_med_19__rsdagen__Debian_.html">Gratulerer med 19-årsdagen, Debian!</a>
6815       </div>
6816       <div class="date">
6817         16th August 2012
6818       </div>
6819       <div class="body">
6820         <p>I dag fyller
6821 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120813">Debian-prosjektet 19
6822 år</a>.  Jeg har fulgt det de siste 12 årene, og er veldig glad for å kunne
6823 si gratulerer med dagen, Debian!</p>
6824
6825       </div>
6826       <div class="tags">
6827
6828
6829         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>.
6830
6831
6832       </div>
6833     </div>
6834     <div class="padding"></div>
6835
6836     <div class="entry">
6837       <div class="title">
6838         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">Song book for Computer Scientists</a>
6839       </div>
6840       <div class="date">
6841         24th June 2012
6842       </div>
6843       <div class="body">
6844         <p>Many years ago, while studying Computer Science at the
6845 <a href="http://www.uit.no/">University of Tromsø</a>, I started
6846 collecting computer related songs for use at parties.  The original
6847 version was written in LaTeX, but a few years ago I got help from
6848 Håkon W. Lie, one of the inventors of W3C CSS, to convert it to HTML
6849 while keeping the ability to create a nice book in PDF format.  I have
6850 not had time to maintain the book for a while now, and guess I should
6851 put it up on some public version control repository where others can
6852 help me extend and update the book.  If anyone is volunteering to help
6853 me with this, send me an email.  Also let me know if there are songs
6854 missing in my book.</p>
6855
6856 <p>I have not mentioned the book on my blog so far, and it occured to
6857 me today that I really should let all my readers share the joys of
6858 singing out load about programming, computers and computer networks.
6859 Especially now that <a href="http://debconf12.debconf.org/">Debconf
6860 12</a> is about to start (and I am not going).  Want to sing?  Check
6861 out <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's
6862 Computer Science Songbook</a>.
6863
6864       </div>
6865       <div class="tags">
6866
6867
6868         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>.
6869
6870
6871       </div>
6872     </div>
6873     <div class="padding"></div>
6874
6875     <div class="entry">
6876       <div class="title">
6877         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatically_upgrading_server_firmware_on_Dell_PowerEdge.html">Automatically upgrading server firmware on Dell PowerEdge</a>
6878       </div>
6879       <div class="date">
6880         21st November 2011
6881       </div>
6882       <div class="body">
6883         <p>At work we have heaps of servers.  I believe the total count is
6884 around 1000 at the moment.  To be able to get help from the vendors
6885 when something go wrong, we want to keep the firmware on the servers
6886 up to date.  If the firmware isn't the latest and greatest, the
6887 vendors typically refuse to start debugging any problems until the
6888 firmware is upgraded.  So before every reboot, we want to upgrade the
6889 firmware, and we would really like everyone handling servers at the
6890 university to do this themselves when they plan to reboot a machine.
6891 For that to happen we at the unix server admin group need to provide
6892 the tools to do so.</p>
6893
6894 <p>To make firmware upgrading easier, I am working on a script to
6895 fetch and install the latest firmware for the servers we got.  Most of
6896 our hardware are from Dell and HP, so I have focused on these servers
6897 so far.  This blog post is about the Dell part.</P>
6898
6899 <p>On the Dell FTP site I was lucky enough to find
6900 <a href="ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz">an XML file</a>
6901 with firmware information for all 11th generation servers, listing
6902 which firmware should be used on a given model and where on the FTP
6903 site I can find it.  Using a simple perl XML parser I can then
6904 download the shell scripts Dell provides to do firmware upgrades from
6905 within Linux and reboot when all the firmware is primed and ready to
6906 be activated on the first reboot.</p>
6907
6908 <p>This is the Dell related fragment of the perl code I am working on.
6909 Are there anyone working on similar tools for firmware upgrading all
6910 servers at a site?  Please get in touch and lets share resources.</p>
6911
6912 <p><pre>
6913 #!/usr/bin/perl
6914 use strict;
6915 use warnings;
6916 use File::Temp qw(tempdir);
6917 BEGIN {
6918     # Install needed RHEL packages if missing
6919     my %rhelmodules = (
6920         'XML::Simple' => 'perl-XML-Simple',
6921         );
6922     for my $module (keys %rhelmodules) {
6923         eval "use $module;";
6924         if ($@) {
6925             my $pkg = $rhelmodules{$module};
6926             system("yum install -y $pkg");
6927             eval "use $module;";
6928         }
6929     }
6930 }
6931 my $errorsto = 'pere@hungry.com';
6932
6933 upgrade_dell();
6934
6935 exit 0;
6936
6937 sub run_firmware_script {
6938     my ($opts, $script) = @_;
6939     unless ($script) {
6940         print STDERR "fail: missing script name\n";
6941         exit 1
6942     }
6943     print STDERR "Running $script\n\n";
6944
6945     if (0 == system("sh $script $opts")) { # FIXME correct exit code handling
6946         print STDERR "success: firmware script ran succcessfully\n";
6947     } else {
6948         print STDERR "fail: firmware script returned error\n";
6949     }
6950 }
6951
6952 sub run_firmware_scripts {
6953     my ($opts, @dirs) = @_;
6954     # Run firmware packages
6955     for my $dir (@dirs) {
6956         print STDERR "info: Running scripts in $dir\n";
6957         opendir(my $dh, $dir) or die "Unable to open directory $dir: $!";
6958         while (my $s = readdir $dh) {
6959             next if $s =~ m/^\.\.?/;
6960             run_firmware_script($opts, "$dir/$s");
6961         }
6962         closedir $dh;
6963     }
6964 }
6965
6966 sub download {
6967     my $url = shift;
6968     print STDERR "info: Downloading $url\n";
6969     system("wget --quiet \"$url\"");
6970 }
6971
6972 sub upgrade_dell {
6973     my @dirs;
6974     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
6975     chomp $product;
6976
6977     if ($product =~ m/PowerEdge/) {
6978
6979         # on RHEL, these pacakges are needed by the firwmare upgrade scripts
6980         system('yum install -y compat-libstdc++-33.i686 libstdc++.i686 libxml2.i686 procmail');
6981
6982         my $tmpdir = tempdir(
6983             CLEANUP => 1
6984             );
6985         chdir($tmpdir);
6986         fetch_dell_fw('catalog/Catalog.xml.gz');
6987         system('gunzip Catalog.xml.gz');
6988         my @paths = fetch_dell_fw_list('Catalog.xml');
6989         # -q is quiet, disabling interactivity and reducing console output
6990         my $fwopts = "-q";
6991         if (@paths) {
6992             for my $url (@paths) {
6993                 fetch_dell_fw($url);
6994             }
6995             run_firmware_scripts($fwopts, $tmpdir);
6996         } else {
6997             print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
6998             print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
6999         }
7000         chdir('/');
7001     } else {
7002         print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
7003         print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
7004     }
7005 }
7006
7007 sub fetch_dell_fw {
7008     my $path = shift;
7009     my $url = "ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/$path";
7010     download($url);
7011 }
7012
7013 # Using ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz, figure out which
7014 # firmware packages to download from Dell.  Only work for Linux
7015 # machines and 11th generation Dell servers.
7016 sub fetch_dell_fw_list {
7017     my $filename = shift;
7018
7019     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
7020     chomp $product;
7021     my ($mybrand, $mymodel) = split(/\s+/, $product);
7022
7023     print STDERR "Finding firmware bundles for $mybrand $mymodel\n";
7024
7025     my $xml = XMLin($filename);
7026     my @paths;
7027     for my $bundle (@{$xml->{SoftwareBundle}}) {
7028         my $brand = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Display}->{content};
7029         my $model = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Model}->{Display}->{content};
7030         my $oscode;
7031         if ("ARRAY" eq ref $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}) {
7032             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}[0]->{osCode};
7033         } else {
7034             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}->{osCode};
7035         }
7036         if ($mybrand eq $brand && $mymodel eq $model && "LIN" eq $oscode)
7037         {
7038             @paths = map { $_->{path} } @{$bundle->{Contents}->{Package}};
7039         }
7040     }
7041     for my $component (@{$xml->{SoftwareComponent}}) {
7042         my $componenttype = $component->{ComponentType}->{value};
7043
7044         # Drop application packages, only firmware and BIOS
7045         next if 'APAC' eq $componenttype;
7046
7047         my $cpath = $component->{path};
7048         for my $path (@paths) {
7049             if ($cpath =~ m%/$path$%) {
7050                 push(@paths, $cpath);
7051             }
7052         }
7053     }
7054     return @paths;
7055 }
7056 </pre>
7057
7058 <p>The code is only tested on RedHat Enterprise Linux, but I suspect
7059 it could work on other platforms with some tweaking.  Anyone know a
7060 index like Catalog.xml is available from HP for HP servers?  At the
7061 moment I maintain a similar list manually and it is quickly getting
7062 outdated.</p>
7063
7064       </div>
7065       <div class="tags">
7066
7067
7068         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>.
7069
7070
7071       </div>
7072     </div>
7073     <div class="padding"></div>
7074
7075     <div class="entry">
7076       <div class="title">
7077         <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>
7078       </div>
7079       <div class="date">
7080          4th August 2011
7081       </div>
7082       <div class="body">
7083         <p>Wouter Verhelst have some
7084 <a href="http://grep.be/blog/en/retorts/pere_kubuntu_boot">interesting
7085 comments and opinions</a> on my blog post on
7086 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_should_start_from__etc_rcS_d__in_Debian____almost_nothing.html">the
7087 need to clean up /etc/rcS.d/ in Debian</a> and my blog post about
7088 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_missing_in_the_Debian_desktop__or_why_my_parents_use_Kubuntu.html">the
7089 default KDE desktop in Debian</a>.  I only have time to address one
7090 small piece of his comment now, and though it best to address the
7091 misunderstanding he bring forward:</p>
7092
7093 <p><blockquote>
7094 Currently, a system admin has four options: [...] boot to a
7095 single-user system (by adding 'single' to the kernel command line;
7096 this runs rcS and rc1 scripts)
7097 </blockquote></p>
7098
7099 <p>This make me believe Wouter believe booting into single user mode
7100 and booting into runlevel 1 is the same.  I am not surprised he
7101 believe this, because it would make sense and is a quite sensible
7102 thing to believe.  But because the boot in Debian is slightly broken,
7103 runlevel 1 do not work properly and it isn't the same as single user
7104 mode.  I'll try to explain what is actually happing, but it is a bit
7105 hard to explain.</p>
7106
7107 <p>Single user mode is defined like this in /etc/inittab:
7108 "<tt>~~:S:wait:/sbin/sulogin</tt>".  This means the only thing that is
7109 executed in single user mode is sulogin.  Single user mode is a boot
7110 state "between" the runlevels, and when booting into single user mode,
7111 only the scripts in /etc/rcS.d/ are executed before the init process
7112 enters the single user state.  When switching to runlevel 1, the state
7113 is in fact not ending in runlevel 1, but it passes through runlevel 1
7114 and end up in the single user mode (see /etc/rc1.d/S03single, which
7115 runs "init -t1 S" to switch to single user mode at the end of runlevel
7116 1.  It is confusing that the 'S' (single user) init mode is not the
7117 mode enabled by /etc/rcS.d/ (which is more like the initial boot
7118 mode).</p>
7119
7120 <p>This summary might make it clearer.  When booting for the first
7121 time into single user mode, the following commands are executed:
7122 "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc S; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  When booting into
7123 runlevel 1, the following commands are executed: "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc
7124 S; /etc/init.d/rc 1; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  A problem show up when
7125 trying to continue after visiting single user mode.  Not all services
7126 are started again as they should, causing the machine to end up in an
7127 unpredicatble state.  This is why Debian admins recommend rebooting
7128 after visiting single user mode.</p>
7129
7130 <p>A similar problem with runlevel 1 is caused by the amount of
7131 scripts executed from /etc/rcS.d/.  When switching from say runlevel 2
7132 to runlevel 1, the services started from /etc/rcS.d/ are not properly
7133 stopped when passing through the scripts in /etc/rc1.d/, and not
7134 started again when switching away from runlevel 1 to the runlevels
7135 2-5.  I believe the problem is best fixed by moving all the scripts
7136 out of /etc/rcS.d/ that are not <strong>required</strong> to get a
7137 functioning single user mode during boot.</p>
7138
7139 <p>I have spent several years investigating the Debian boot system,
7140 and discovered this problem a few years ago.  I suspect it originates
7141 from when sysvinit was introduced into Debian, a long time ago.</p>
7142
7143       </div>
7144       <div class="tags">
7145
7146
7147         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>.
7148
7149
7150       </div>
7151     </div>
7152     <div class="padding"></div>
7153
7154     <div class="entry">
7155       <div class="title">
7156         <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>
7157       </div>
7158       <div class="date">
7159         30th July 2011
7160       </div>
7161       <div class="body">
7162         <p>In the Debian boot system, several packages include scripts that
7163 are started from /etc/rcS.d/.  In fact, there is a bite more of them
7164 than make sense, and this causes a few problems.  What kind of
7165 problems, you might ask.  There are at least two problems.  The first
7166 is that it is not possible to recover a machine after switching to
7167 runlevel 1.  One need to actually reboot to get the machine back to
7168 the expected state.  The other is that single user boot will sometimes
7169 run into problems because some of the subsystems are activated before
7170 the root login is presented, causing problems when trying to recover a
7171 machine from a problem in that subsystem.  A minor additional point is
7172 that moving more scripts out of rcS.d/ and into the other rc#.d/
7173 directories will increase the amount of scripts that can run in
7174 parallel during boot, and thus decrease the boot time.</p>
7175
7176 <p>So, which scripts should start from rcS.d/.  In short, only the
7177 scripts that _have_ to execute before the root login prompt is
7178 presented during a single user boot should go there.  Everything else
7179 should go into the numeric runlevels.  This means things like
7180 lm-sensors, fuse and x11-common should not run from rcS.d, but from
7181 the numeric runlevels.  Today in Debian, there are around 115 init.d
7182 scripts that are started from rcS.d/, and most of them should be moved
7183 out.  Do your package have one of them?  Please help us make single
7184 user and runlevel 1 better by moving it.</p>
7185
7186 <p>Scripts setting up the screen, keyboard, system partitions
7187 etc. should still be started from rcS.d/, but there is for example no
7188 need to have the network enabled before the single user login prompt
7189 is presented.</p>
7190
7191 <p>As always, things are not so easy to fix as they sound.  To keep
7192 Debian systems working while scripts migrate and during upgrades, the
7193 scripts need to be moved from rcS.d/ to rc2.d/ in reverse dependency
7194 order, ie the scripts that nothing in rcS.d/ depend on can be moved,
7195 and the next ones can only be moved when their dependencies have been
7196 moved first.  This migration must be done sequentially while we ensure
7197 that the package system upgrade packages in the right order to keep
7198 the system state correct.  This will require some coordination when it
7199 comes to network related packages, but most of the packages with
7200 scripts that should migrate do not have anything in rcS.d/ depending
7201 on them.  Some packages have already been updated, like the sudo
7202 package, while others are still left to do.  I wish I had time to work
7203 on this myself, but real live constrains make it unlikely that I will
7204 find time to push this forward.</p>
7205
7206       </div>
7207       <div class="tags">
7208
7209
7210         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>.
7211
7212
7213       </div>
7214     </div>
7215     <div class="padding"></div>
7216
7217     <div class="entry">
7218       <div class="title">
7219         <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>
7220       </div>
7221       <div class="date">
7222         29th July 2011
7223       </div>
7224       <div class="body">
7225         <p>While at Debconf11, I have several times during discussions
7226 mentioned the issues I believe should be improved in Debian for its
7227 desktop to be useful for more people.  The use case for this is my
7228 parents, which are currently running Kubuntu which solve the
7229 issues.</p>
7230
7231 <p>I suspect these four missing features are not very hard to
7232 implement.  After all, they are present in Ubuntu, so if we wanted to
7233 do this in Debian we would have a source.</p>
7234
7235 <ol>
7236
7237 <li><strong>Simple GUI based upgrade of packages.</strong> When there
7238 are new packages available for upgrades, a icon in the KDE status bar
7239 indicate this, and clicking on it will activate the simple upgrade
7240 tool to handle it.  I have no problem guiding both of my parents
7241 through the process over the phone.  If a kernel reboot is required,
7242 this too is indicated by the status bars and the upgrade tool.  Last
7243 time I checked, nothing with the same features was working in KDE in
7244 Debian.</li>
7245
7246 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing Firefox browser
7247 plugins.</strong> When the browser encounter a MIME type it do not
7248 currently have a handler for, it will ask the user if the system
7249 should search for a package that would add support for this MIME type,
7250 and if the user say yes, the APT sources will be searched for packages
7251 advertising the MIME type in their control file (visible in the
7252 Packages file in the APT archive).  If one or more packages are found,
7253 it is a simple click of the mouse to add support for the missing mime
7254 type.  If the package require the user to accept some non-free
7255 license, this is explained to the user.  The entire process make it
7256 more clear to the user why something do not work in the browser, and
7257 make the chances higher for the user to blame the web page authors and
7258 not the browser for any missing features.</li>
7259
7260 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing multimedia codec/format
7261 handlers.</strong> When the media players encounter a format or codec
7262 it is not supporting, a dialog pop up asking the user if the system
7263 should search for a package that would add support for it.  This
7264 happen with things like MP3, Windows Media or H.264.  The selection
7265 and installation procedure is very similar to the Firefox browser
7266 plugin handling.  This is as far as I know implemented using a
7267 gstreamer hook.  The end result is that the user easily get access to
7268 the codecs that are present from the APT archives available, while
7269 explaining more on why a given format is unsupported by Ubuntu.</li>
7270
7271 <li><strong>Better browser handling of some MIME types.</strong> When
7272 displaying a text/plain file in my Debian browser, it will propose to
7273 start emacs to show it.  If I remember correctly, when doing the same
7274 in Kunbutu it show the file as a text file in the browser.  At least I
7275 know Opera will show text files within the browser.  I much prefer the
7276 latter behaviour.</li>
7277
7278 </ol>
7279
7280 <p>There are other nice features as well, like the simplified suite
7281 upgrader, but given that I am the one mostly doing the dist-upgrade,
7282 it do not matter much.</p>
7283
7284 <p>I really hope we could get these features in place for the next
7285 Debian release.  It would require the coordinated effort of several
7286 maintainers, but would make the end user experience a lot better.</p>
7287
7288       </div>
7289       <div class="tags">
7290
7291
7292         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/h264">h264</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
7293
7294
7295       </div>
7296     </div>
7297     <div class="padding"></div>
7298
7299     <div class="entry">
7300       <div class="title">
7301         <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>
7302       </div>
7303       <div class="date">
7304         26th July 2011
7305       </div>
7306       <div class="body">
7307         <p>The Norwegian <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</A>
7308 site is build on Debian/Squeeze, and this platform was chosen because
7309 I am most familiar with Debian (being a Debian Developer for around 10
7310 years) because it is the latest stable Debian release which should get
7311 security support for a few years.</p>
7312
7313 <p>The web service is written in Perl, and depend on some perl modules
7314 that are missing in Debian at the moment.  It would be great if these
7315 modules were added to the Debian archive, allowing anyone to set up
7316 their own <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com">FixMyStreet</a> clone
7317 in their own country using only Debian packages.  The list of modules
7318 missing in Debian/Squeeze isn't very long, and I hope the perl group
7319 will find time to package the 12 modules Catalyst::Plugin::SmartURI,
7320 Catalyst::Plugin::Unicode::Encoding, Catalyst::View::TT, Devel::Hide,
7321 Sort::Key, Statistics::Distributions, Template::Plugin::Comma,
7322 Template::Plugin::DateTime::Format, Term::Size::Any, Term::Size::Perl,
7323 URI::SmartURI and Web::Scraper to make the maintenance of FixMyStreet
7324 easier in the future.</p>
7325
7326 <p>Thanks to the great tools in Debian, getting the missing modules
7327 installed on my server was a simple call to 'cpan2deb Module::Name'
7328 and 'dpkg -i' to install the resulting package.  But this leave me
7329 with the responsibility of tracking security problems, which I really
7330 do not have time for.</p>
7331
7332       </div>
7333       <div class="tags">
7334
7335
7336         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>.
7337
7338
7339       </div>
7340     </div>
7341     <div class="padding"></div>
7342
7343     <div class="entry">
7344       <div class="title">
7345         <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>
7346       </div>
7347       <div class="date">
7348          3rd April 2011
7349       </div>
7350       <div class="body">
7351         <p>Here is a small update for my English readers.  Most of my blog
7352 posts have been in Norwegian the last few weeks, so here is a short
7353 update in English.</p>
7354
7355 <p>The kids still keep me too busy to get much free software work
7356 done, but I did manage to organise a project to get a Norwegian port
7357 of the British service
7358 <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com/">FixMyStreet</a> up and running,
7359 and it has been running for a month now.  The entire project has been
7360 organised by me and two others.  Around Christmas we gathered sponsors
7361 to fund the development work.  In January I drafted a contract with
7362 <a href="http://www.mysociety.org/">mySociety</a> on what to develop,
7363 and in February the development took place.  Most of it involved
7364 converting the source to use GPS coordinates instead of British
7365 easting/northing, and the resulting code should be a lot easier to get
7366 running in any country by now.  The Norwegian
7367 <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</a> is using
7368 <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/">OpenStreetmap</a> as the map
7369 source and the source for administrative borders in Norway, and
7370 support for this had to be added/fixed.</p>
7371
7372 <p>The Norwegian version went live March 3th, and we spent the weekend
7373 polishing the system before we announced it March 7th.  The system is
7374 running on a KVM instance of Debian/Squeeze, and has seen almost 3000
7375 problem reports in a few weeks.  Soon we hope to announce the Android
7376 and iPhone versions making it even easier to report problems with the
7377 public infrastructure.</p>
7378
7379 <p>Perhaps something to consider for those of you in countries without
7380 such service?</p>
7381
7382       </div>
7383       <div class="tags">
7384
7385
7386         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>.
7387
7388
7389       </div>
7390     </div>
7391     <div class="padding"></div>
7392
7393     <div class="entry">
7394       <div class="title">
7395         <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>
7396       </div>
7397       <div class="date">
7398         28th January 2011
7399       </div>
7400       <div class="body">
7401         <p>The last few days I have looked at ways to track open security
7402 issues here at my work with the University of Oslo.  My idea is that
7403 it should be possible to use the information about security issues
7404 available on the Internet, and check our locally
7405 maintained/distributed software against this information.  It should
7406 allow us to verify that no known security issues are forgotten.  The
7407 CVE database listing vulnerabilities seem like a great central point,
7408 and by using the package lists from Debian mapped to CVEs provided by
7409 the testing security team, I believed it should be possible to figure
7410 out which security holes were present in our free software
7411 collection.</p>
7412
7413 <p>After reading up on the topic, it became obvious that the first
7414 building block is to be able to name software packages in a unique and
7415 consistent way across data sources.  I considered several ways to do
7416 this, for example coming up with my own naming scheme like using URLs
7417 to project home pages or URLs to the Freshmeat entries, or using some
7418 existing naming scheme.  And it seem like I am not the first one to
7419 come across this problem, as MITRE already proposed and implemented a
7420 solution.  Enter the <a href="http://cpe.mitre.org/index.html">Common
7421 Platform Enumeration</a> dictionary, a vocabulary for referring to
7422 software, hardware and other platform components.  The CPE ids are
7423 mapped to CVEs in the <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/">National
7424 Vulnerability Database</a>, allowing me to look up know security
7425 issues for any CPE name.  With this in place, all I need to do is to
7426 locate the CPE id for the software packages we use at the university.
7427 This is fairly trivial (I google for 'cve cpe $package' and check the
7428 NVD entry if a CVE for the package exist).</p>
7429
7430 <p>To give you an example.  The GNU gzip source package have the CPE
7431 name cpe:/a:gnu:gzip.  If the old version 1.3.3 was the package to
7432 check out, one could look up
7433 <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
7434 in NVD</a> and get a list of 6 security holes with public CVE entries.
7435 The most recent one is
7436 <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/view/vuln/detail?vulnId=CVE-2010-0001">CVE-2010-0001</a>,
7437 and at the bottom of the NVD page for this vulnerability the complete
7438 list of affected versions is provided.</p>
7439
7440 <p>The NVD database of CVEs is also available as a XML dump, allowing
7441 for offline processing of issues.  Using this dump, I've written a
7442 small script taking a list of CPEs as input and list all CVEs
7443 affecting the packages represented by these CPEs.  One give it CPEs
7444 with version numbers as specified above and get a list of open
7445 security issues out.</p>
7446
7447 <p>Of course for this approach to be useful, the quality of the NVD
7448 information need to be high.  For that to happen, I believe as many as
7449 possible need to use and contribute to the NVD database.  I notice
7450 RHEL is providing
7451 <a href="https://www.redhat.com/security/data/metrics/rhsamapcpe.txt">a
7452 map from CVE to CPE</a>, indicating that they are using the CPE
7453 information.  I'm not aware of Debian and Ubuntu doing the same.</p>
7454
7455 <p>To get an idea about the quality for free software, I spent some
7456 time making it possible to compare the CVE database from Debian with
7457 the CVE database in NVD.  The result look fairly good, but there are
7458 some inconsistencies in NVD (same software package having several
7459 CPEs), and some inaccuracies (NVD not mentioning buggy packages that
7460 Debian believe are affected by a CVE).  Hope to find time to improve
7461 the quality of NVD, but that require being able to get in touch with
7462 someone maintaining it.  So far my three emails with questions and
7463 corrections have not seen any reply, but I hope contact can be
7464 established soon.</p>
7465
7466 <p>An interesting application for CPEs is cross platform package
7467 mapping.  It would be useful to know which packages in for example
7468 RHEL, OpenSuSe and Mandriva are missing from Debian and Ubuntu, and
7469 this would be trivial if all linux distributions provided CPE entries
7470 for their packages.</p>
7471
7472       </div>
7473       <div class="tags">
7474
7475
7476         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>.
7477
7478
7479       </div>
7480     </div>
7481     <div class="padding"></div>
7482
7483     <div class="entry">
7484       <div class="title">
7485         <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>
7486       </div>
7487       <div class="date">
7488         23rd January 2011
7489       </div>
7490       <div class="body">
7491         <p>In the
7492 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/discover-data">discover-data</a>
7493 package in Debian, there is a script to report useful information
7494 about the running hardware for use when people report missing
7495 information.  One part of this script that I find very useful when
7496 debugging hardware problems, is the part mapping loaded kernel module
7497 to the PCI device it claims.  It allow me to quickly see if the kernel
7498 module I expect is driving the hardware I am struggling with.  To see
7499 the output, make sure discover-data is installed and run
7500 <tt>/usr/share/bug/discover-data 3>&1</tt>.  The relevant output on
7501 one of my machines like this:</p>
7502
7503 <pre>
7504 loaded modules:
7505 10de:03eb i2c_nforce2
7506 10de:03f1 ohci_hcd
7507 10de:03f2 ehci_hcd
7508 10de:03f0 snd_hda_intel
7509 10de:03ec pata_amd
7510 10de:03f6 sata_nv
7511 1022:1103 k8temp
7512 109e:036e bttv
7513 109e:0878 snd_bt87x
7514 11ab:4364 sky2
7515 </pre>
7516
7517 <p>The code in question look like this, slightly modified for
7518 readability and to drop the output to file descriptor 3:</p>
7519
7520 <pre>
7521 if [ -d /sys/bus/pci/devices/ ] ; then
7522     echo loaded pci modules:
7523     (
7524         cd /sys/bus/pci/devices/
7525         for address in * ; do
7526             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
7527                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
7528                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
7529                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
7530                     id=`lspci -n -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $3}'`
7531                     echo "$id $module"
7532                 fi
7533             fi
7534         done
7535     )
7536     echo
7537 fi
7538 </pre>
7539
7540 <p>Similar code could be used to extract USB device module
7541 mappings:</p>
7542
7543 <pre>
7544 if [ -d /sys/bus/usb/devices/ ] ; then
7545     echo loaded usb modules:
7546     (
7547         cd /sys/bus/usb/devices/
7548         for address in * ; do
7549             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
7550                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
7551                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
7552                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
7553                     id=$(lsusb -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $6}')
7554                     if [ "$id" ] ; then
7555                         echo "$id $module"
7556                     fi
7557                 fi
7558             fi
7559         done
7560     )
7561     echo
7562 fi
7563 </pre>
7564
7565 <p>This might perhaps be something to include in other tools as
7566 well.</p>
7567
7568       </div>
7569       <div class="tags">
7570
7571
7572         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>.
7573
7574
7575       </div>
7576     </div>
7577     <div class="padding"></div>
7578
7579     <div class="entry">
7580       <div class="title">
7581         <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>
7582       </div>
7583       <div class="date">
7584         22nd December 2010
7585       </div>
7586       <div class="body">
7587         <p>The last few days I have spent at work here at the <a
7588 href="http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo</a> testing if the new
7589 batch of computers will work with Linux.  Every year for the last few
7590 years the university have organised shared bid of a few thousand
7591 computers, and this year HP won the bid.  Two different desktops and
7592 five different laptops are on the list this year.  We in the UNIX
7593 group want to know which one of these computers work well with RHEL
7594 and Ubuntu, the two Linux distributions we currently handle at the
7595 university.</p>
7596
7597 <p>My test method is simple, and I share it here to get feedback and
7598 perhaps inspire others to test hardware as well.  To test, I PXE
7599 install the OS version of choice, and log in as my normal user and run
7600 a few applications and plug in selected pieces of hardware.  When
7601 something fail, I make a note about this in the test matrix and move
7602 on.  If I have some spare time I try to report the bug to the OS
7603 vendor, but as I only have the machines for a short time, I rarely
7604 have the time to do this for all the problems I find.</p>
7605
7606 <p>Anyway, to get to the point of this post.  Here is the simple tests
7607 I perform on a new model.</p>
7608
7609 <ul>
7610
7611 <li>Is PXE installation working?  I'm testing with RHEL6, Ubuntu Lucid
7612 and Ubuntu Maverik at the moment.  If I feel like it, I also test with
7613 RHEL5 and Debian Edu/Squeeze.</li>
7614
7615 <li>Is X.org working?  If the graphical login screen show up after
7616 installation, X.org is working.</li>
7617
7618 <li>Is hardware accelerated OpenGL working?  Running glxgears (in
7619 package mesa-utils on Ubuntu) and writing down the frames per second
7620 reported by the program.</li>
7621
7622 <li>Is sound working?  With Gnome and KDE, a sound is played when
7623 logging in, and if I can hear this the test is successful.  If there
7624 are several audio exits on the machine, I try them all and check if
7625 the Gnome/KDE audio mixer can control where to send the sound.  I
7626 normally test this by playing
7627 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20101012-chef/ ">a HTML5
7628 video</a> in Firefox/Iceweasel.</li>
7629
7630 <li>Is the USB subsystem working?  I test this by plugging in a USB
7631 memory stick and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
7632
7633 <li>Is the CD/DVD player working?  I test this by inserting any CD/DVD
7634 I have lying around, and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
7635
7636 <li>Is any built in camera working?  Test using cheese, and see if a
7637 picture from the v4l device show up.</li>
7638
7639 <li>Is bluetooth working?  Use the Gnome/KDE browsing tool to see if
7640 any bluetooth devices are discovered.  In my office, I normally see a
7641 few.</li>
7642
7643 <li>For laptops, is the SD or Compaq Flash reader working.  I have
7644 memory modules lying around, and stick them in and see if Gnome/KDE
7645 notice this.</li>
7646
7647 <li>For laptops, is suspend/hibernate working?  I'm testing if the
7648 special button work, and if the laptop continue to work after
7649 resume.</li>
7650
7651 <li>For laptops, is the extra buttons working, like audio level,
7652 adjusting background light, switching on/off external video output,
7653 switching on/off wifi, bluetooth, etc?  The set of buttons differ from
7654 laptop to laptop, so I just write down which are working and which are
7655 not.</li>
7656
7657 <li>Some laptops have smart card readers, finger print readers,
7658 acceleration sensors etc.  I rarely test these, as I do not know how
7659 to quickly test if they are working or not, so I only document their
7660 existence.</li>
7661
7662 </ul>
7663
7664 <p>By now I suspect you are really curious what the test results are
7665 for the HP machines I am testing.  I'm not done yet, so I will report
7666 the test results later.  For now I can report that HP 8100 Elite work
7667 fine, and hibernation fail with HP EliteBook 8440p on Ubuntu Lucid,
7668 and audio fail on RHEL6.  Ubuntu Maverik worked with 8440p.  As you
7669 can see, I have most machines left to test.  One interesting
7670 observation is that Ubuntu Lucid has almost twice the frame rate than
7671 RHEL6 with glxgears.  No idea why.</p>
7672
7673       </div>
7674       <div class="tags">
7675
7676
7677         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>.
7678
7679
7680       </div>
7681     </div>
7682     <div class="padding"></div>
7683
7684     <div class="entry">
7685       <div class="title">
7686         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Some_thoughts_on_BitCoins.html">Some thoughts on BitCoins</a>
7687       </div>
7688       <div class="date">
7689         11th December 2010
7690       </div>
7691       <div class="body">
7692         <p>As I continue to explore
7693 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>, I've starting to wonder
7694 what properties the system have, and how it will be affected by laws
7695 and regulations here in Norway.  Here are some random notes.</p>
7696
7697 <p>One interesting thing to note is that since the transactions are
7698 verified using a peer to peer network, all details about a transaction
7699 is known to everyone.  This means that if a BitCoin address has been
7700 published like I did with mine in my initial post about BitCoin, it is
7701 possible for everyone to see how many BitCoins have been transfered to
7702 that address.  There is even a web service to look at the details for
7703 all transactions.  There I can see that my address
7704 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a>
7705 have received 16.06 Bitcoin, the
7706 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3">1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3</a>
7707 address of Simon Phipps have received 181.97 BitCoin and the address
7708 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt">1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt</A>
7709 of EFF have received 2447.38 BitCoins so far.  Thank you to each and
7710 every one of you that donated bitcoins to support my activity. The
7711 fact that anyone can see how much money was transfered to a given
7712 address make it more obvious why the BitCoin community recommend to
7713 generate and hand out a new address for each transaction.  I'm told
7714 there is no way to track which addresses belong to a given person or
7715 organisation without the person or organisation revealing it
7716 themselves, as Simon, EFF and I have done.</p>
7717
7718 <p>In Norway, and in most other countries, there are laws and
7719 regulations limiting how much money one can transfer across the border
7720 without declaring it.  There are money laundering, tax and accounting
7721 laws and regulations I would expect to apply to the use of BitCoin.
7722 If the Skolelinux foundation
7723 (<a href="http://linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">SLX
7724 Debian Labs</a>) were to accept donations in BitCoin in addition to
7725 normal bank transfers like EFF is doing, how should this be accounted?
7726 Given that it is impossible to know if money can cross the border or
7727 not, should everything or nothing be declared?  What exchange rate
7728 should be used when calculating taxes?  Would receivers have to pay
7729 income tax if the foundation were to pay Skolelinux contributors in
7730 BitCoin?  I have no idea, but it would be interesting to know.</p>
7731
7732 <p>For a currency to be useful and successful, it must be trusted and
7733 accepted by a lot of users.  It must be possible to get easy access to
7734 the currency (as a wage or using currency exchanges), and it must be
7735 easy to spend it.  At the moment BitCoin seem fairly easy to get
7736 access to, but there are very few places to spend it.  I am not really
7737 a regular user of any of the vendor types currently accepting BitCoin,
7738 so I wonder when my kind of shop would start accepting BitCoins.  I
7739 would like to buy electronics, travels and subway tickets, not herbs
7740 and books. :) The currency is young, and this will improve over time
7741 if it become popular, but I suspect regular banks will start to lobby
7742 to get BitCoin declared illegal if it become popular.  I'm sure they
7743 will claim it is helping fund terrorism and money laundering (which
7744 probably would be true, as is any currency in existence), but I
7745 believe the problems should be solved elsewhere and not by blaming
7746 currencies.</p>
7747
7748 <p>The process of creating new BitCoins is called mining, and it is
7749 CPU intensive process that depend on a bit of luck as well (as one is
7750 competing against all the other miners currently spending CPU cycles
7751 to see which one get the next lump of cash).  The "winner" get 50
7752 BitCoin when this happen.  Yesterday I came across the obvious way to
7753 join forces to increase ones changes of getting at least some coins,
7754 by coordinating the work on mining BitCoins across several machines
7755 and people, and sharing the result if one is lucky and get the 50
7756 BitCoins.  Check out
7757 <a href="http://www.bluishcoder.co.nz/bitcoin-pool/">BitCoin Pool</a>
7758 if this sounds interesting.  I have not had time to try to set up a
7759 machine to participate there yet, but have seen that running on ones
7760 own for a few days have not yield any BitCoins througth mining
7761 yet.</p>
7762
7763 <p>Update 2010-12-15: Found an <a
7764 href="http://inertia.posterous.com/reply-to-the-underground-economist-why-bitcoi">interesting
7765 criticism</a> of bitcoin.  Not quite sure how valid it is, but thought
7766 it was interesting to read.  The arguments presented seem to be
7767 equally valid for gold, which was used as a currency for many years.</p>
7768
7769       </div>
7770       <div class="tags">
7771
7772
7773         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>.
7774
7775
7776       </div>
7777     </div>
7778     <div class="padding"></div>
7779
7780     <div class="entry">
7781       <div class="title">
7782         <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>
7783       </div>
7784       <div class="date">
7785         10th December 2010
7786       </div>
7787       <div class="body">
7788         <p>With this weeks lawless
7789 <a href="http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/06/wikileaks/index.html">governmental
7790 attacks</a> on Wikileak and
7791 <a href="http://www.salon.com/technology/dan_gillmor/2010/12/06/war_on_speech">free
7792 speech</a>, it has become obvious that PayPal, visa and mastercard can
7793 not be trusted to handle money transactions.
7794 A blog post from
7795 <a href="http://webmink.com/2010/12/06/now-accepting-bitcoin/">Simon
7796 Phipps on bitcoin</a> reminded me about a project that a friend of
7797 mine mentioned earlier.  I decided to follow Simon's example, and get
7798 involved with <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>.  I got
7799 some help from my friend to get it all running, and he even handed me
7800 some bitcoins to get started.  I even donated a few bitcoins to Simon
7801 for helping me remember BitCoin.</p>
7802
7803 <p>So, what is bitcoins, you probably wonder?  It is a digital
7804 crypto-currency, decentralised and handled using peer-to-peer
7805 networks.  It allows anonymous transactions and prohibits central
7806 control over the transactions, making it impossible for governments
7807 and companies alike to block donations and other transactions.  The
7808 source is free software, and while the key dependency wxWidgets 2.9
7809 for the graphical user interface is missing in Debian, the command
7810 line client builds just fine.  Hopefully Jonas
7811 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/578157">will get the package into
7812 Debian</a> soon.</p>
7813
7814 <p>Bitcoins can be converted to other currencies, like USD and EUR.
7815 There are <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/trade">companies accepting
7816 bitcoins</a> when selling services and goods, and there are even
7817 currency "stock" markets where the exchange rate is decided.  There
7818 are not many users so far, but the concept seems promising.  If you
7819 want to get started and lack a friend with any bitcoins to spare,
7820 you can even get
7821 <a href="https://freebitcoins.appspot.com/">some for free</a> (0.05
7822 bitcoin at the time of writing).  Use
7823 <a href="http://www.bitcoinwatch.com/">BitcoinWatch</a> to keep an eye
7824 on the current exchange rates.</p>
7825
7826 <p>As an experiment, I have decided to set up bitcoind on one of my
7827 machines.  If you want to support my activity, please send Bitcoin
7828 donations to the address
7829 <b>15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</b>.  Thank you!</p>
7830
7831       </div>
7832       <div class="tags">
7833
7834
7835         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>.
7836
7837
7838       </div>
7839     </div>
7840     <div class="padding"></div>
7841
7842     <div class="entry">
7843       <div class="title">
7844         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_isn_t_Debian_Edu_using_VLC_.html">Why isn't Debian Edu using VLC?</a>
7845       </div>
7846       <div class="date">
7847         27th November 2010
7848       </div>
7849       <div class="body">
7850         <p>In the latest issue of Linux Journal, the readers choices were
7851 presented, and the winner among the multimedia player were VLC.
7852 Personally, I like VLC, and it is my player of choice when I first try
7853 to play a video file or stream.  Only if VLC fail will I drag out
7854 gmplayer to see if it can do better.  The reason is mostly the failure
7855 model and trust.  When VLC fail, it normally pop up a error message
7856 reporting the problem.  When mplayer fail, it normally segfault or
7857 just hangs.  The latter failure mode drain my trust in the program.<p>
7858
7859 <p>But even if VLC is my player of choice, we have choosen to use
7860 mplayer in <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
7861 Edu/Skolelinux</a>.  The reason is simple.  We need a good browser
7862 plugin to play web videos seamlessly, and the VLC browser plugin is
7863 not very good.  For example, it lack in-line control buttons, so there
7864 is no way for the user to pause the video.  Also, when I
7865 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">last
7866 tested the browser plugins</a> available in Debian, the VLC plugin
7867 failed on several video pages where mplayer based plugins worked.  If
7868 the browser plugin for VLC was as good as the gecko-mediaplayer
7869 package (which uses mplayer), we would switch.</P>
7870
7871 <p>While VLC is a good player, its user interface is slightly
7872 annoying.  The most annoying feature is its inconsistent use of
7873 keyboard shortcuts.  When the player is in full screen mode, its
7874 shortcuts are different from when it is playing the video in a window.
7875 For example, space only work as pause when in full screen mode.  I
7876 wish it had consisten shortcuts and that space also would work when in
7877 window mode.  Another nice shortcut in gmplayer is [enter] to restart
7878 the current video.  It is very nice when playing short videos from the
7879 web and want to restart it when new people arrive to have a look at
7880 what is going on.</p>
7881
7882       </div>
7883       <div class="tags">
7884
7885
7886         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>.
7887
7888
7889       </div>
7890     </div>
7891     <div class="padding"></div>
7892
7893     <div class="entry">
7894       <div class="title">
7895         <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>
7896       </div>
7897       <div class="date">
7898         22nd November 2010
7899       </div>
7900       <div class="body">
7901         <p>Michael Biebl suggested to me on IRC, that I changed my automated
7902 upgrade testing of the
7903 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
7904 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a> to do <tt>apt-get autoremove</tt> when using apt-get.
7905 This seem like a very good idea, so I adjusted by test scripts and
7906 can now present the updated result from today:</p>
7907
7908 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
7909
7910 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
7911
7912 <blockquote><p>
7913   apache2.2-bin
7914   aptdaemon
7915   baobab
7916   binfmt-support
7917   browser-plugin-gnash
7918   cheese-common
7919   cli-common
7920   cups-pk-helper
7921   dmz-cursor-theme
7922   empathy
7923   empathy-common
7924   freedesktop-sound-theme
7925   freeglut3
7926   gconf-defaults-service
7927   gdm-themes
7928   gedit-plugins
7929   geoclue
7930   geoclue-hostip
7931   geoclue-localnet
7932   geoclue-manual
7933   geoclue-yahoo
7934   gnash
7935   gnash-common
7936   gnome
7937   gnome-backgrounds
7938   gnome-cards-data
7939   gnome-codec-install
7940   gnome-core
7941   gnome-desktop-environment
7942   gnome-disk-utility
7943   gnome-screenshot
7944   gnome-search-tool
7945   gnome-session-canberra
7946   gnome-system-log
7947   gnome-themes-extras
7948   gnome-themes-more
7949   gnome-user-share
7950   gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
7951   gstreamer0.10-tools
7952   gtk2-engines
7953   gtk2-engines-pixbuf
7954   gtk2-engines-smooth
7955   hamster-applet
7956   libapache2-mod-dnssd
7957   libapr1
7958   libaprutil1
7959   libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3
7960   libaprutil1-ldap
7961   libart2.0-cil
7962   libboost-date-time1.42.0
7963   libboost-python1.42.0
7964   libboost-thread1.42.0
7965   libchamplain-0.4-0
7966   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0
7967   libcheese-gtk18
7968   libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
7969   libcryptui0
7970   libdiscid0
7971   libelf1
7972   libepc-1.0-2
7973   libepc-common
7974   libepc-ui-1.0-2
7975   libfreerdp-plugins-standard
7976   libfreerdp0
7977   libgconf2.0-cil
7978   libgdata-common
7979   libgdata7
7980   libgdu-gtk0
7981   libgee2
7982   libgeoclue0
7983   libgexiv2-0
7984   libgif4
7985   libglade2.0-cil
7986   libglib2.0-cil
7987   libgmime2.4-cil
7988   libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
7989   libgnome2.24-cil
7990   libgnomepanel2.24-cil
7991   libgpod-common
7992   libgpod4
7993   libgtk2.0-cil
7994   libgtkglext1
7995   libgtksourceview2.0-common
7996   libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
7997   libmono-addins0.2-cil
7998   libmono-cairo2.0-cil
7999   libmono-corlib2.0-cil
8000   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil
8001   libmono-posix2.0-cil
8002   libmono-security2.0-cil
8003   libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
8004   libmono-system2.0-cil
8005   libmtp8
8006   libmusicbrainz3-6
8007   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil
8008   libndesk-dbus1.0-cil
8009   libopal3.6.8
8010   libpolkit-gtk-1-0
8011   libpt2.6.7
8012   libpython2.6
8013   librpm1
8014   librpmio1
8015   libsdl1.2debian
8016   libsrtp0
8017   libssh-4
8018   libtelepathy-farsight0
8019   libtelepathy-glib0
8020   libtidy-0.99-0
8021   media-player-info
8022   mesa-utils
8023   mono-2.0-gac
8024   mono-gac
8025   mono-runtime
8026   nautilus-sendto
8027   nautilus-sendto-empathy
8028   p7zip-full
8029   pkg-config
8030   python-aptdaemon
8031   python-aptdaemon-gtk
8032   python-axiom
8033   python-beautifulsoup
8034   python-bugbuddy
8035   python-clientform
8036   python-coherence
8037   python-configobj
8038   python-crypto
8039   python-cupshelpers
8040   python-elementtree
8041   python-epsilon
8042   python-evolution
8043   python-feedparser
8044   python-gdata
8045   python-gdbm
8046   python-gst0.10
8047   python-gtkglext1
8048   python-gtksourceview2
8049   python-httplib2
8050   python-louie
8051   python-mako
8052   python-markupsafe
8053   python-mechanize
8054   python-nevow
8055   python-notify
8056   python-opengl
8057   python-openssl
8058   python-pam
8059   python-pkg-resources
8060   python-pyasn1
8061   python-pysqlite2
8062   python-rdflib
8063   python-serial
8064   python-tagpy
8065   python-twisted-bin
8066   python-twisted-conch
8067   python-twisted-core
8068   python-twisted-web
8069   python-utidylib
8070   python-webkit
8071   python-xdg
8072   python-zope.interface
8073   remmina
8074   remmina-plugin-data
8075   remmina-plugin-rdp
8076   remmina-plugin-vnc
8077   rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
8078   rhythmbox-plugins
8079   rpm-common
8080   rpm2cpio
8081   seahorse-plugins
8082   shotwell
8083   software-center
8084   system-config-printer-udev
8085   telepathy-gabble
8086   telepathy-mission-control-5
8087   telepathy-salut
8088   tomboy
8089   totem
8090   totem-coherence
8091   totem-mozilla
8092   totem-plugins
8093   transmission-common
8094   xdg-user-dirs
8095   xdg-user-dirs-gtk
8096   xserver-xephyr
8097 </p></blockquote>
8098
8099 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
8100
8101 <blockquote><p>
8102   cheese
8103   ekiga
8104   eog
8105   epiphany-extensions
8106   evolution-exchange
8107   fast-user-switch-applet
8108   file-roller
8109   gcalctool
8110   gconf-editor
8111   gdm
8112   gedit
8113   gedit-common
8114   gnome-games
8115   gnome-games-data
8116   gnome-nettool
8117   gnome-system-tools
8118   gnome-themes
8119   gnuchess
8120   gucharmap
8121   guile-1.8-libs
8122   libavahi-ui0
8123   libdmx1
8124   libgalago3
8125   libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
8126   libgtksourceview2.0-0
8127   liblircclient0
8128   libsdl1.2debian-alsa
8129   libspeexdsp1
8130   libsvga1
8131   rhythmbox
8132   seahorse
8133   sound-juicer
8134   system-config-printer
8135   totem-common
8136   transmission-gtk
8137   vinagre
8138   vino
8139 </p></blockquote>
8140
8141 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
8142
8143 <blockquote><p>
8144   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
8145 </p></blockquote>
8146
8147 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
8148
8149 <blockquote><p>
8150 [nothing]
8151 </p></blockquote>
8152
8153 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
8154
8155 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
8156
8157 <blockquote><p>
8158   ksmserver
8159 </p></blockquote>
8160
8161 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
8162
8163 <blockquote><p>
8164   kwin
8165   network-manager-kde
8166 </p></blockquote>
8167
8168 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
8169
8170 <blockquote><p>
8171   arts
8172   dolphin
8173   freespacenotifier
8174   google-gadgets-gst
8175   google-gadgets-xul
8176   kappfinder
8177   kcalc
8178   kcharselect
8179   kde-core
8180   kde-plasma-desktop
8181   kde-standard
8182   kde-window-manager
8183   kdeartwork
8184   kdeartwork-emoticons
8185   kdeartwork-style
8186   kdeartwork-theme-icon
8187   kdebase
8188   kdebase-apps
8189   kdebase-workspace
8190   kdebase-workspace-bin
8191   kdebase-workspace-data
8192   kdeeject
8193   kdelibs
8194   kdeplasma-addons
8195   kdeutils
8196   kdewallpapers
8197   kdf
8198   kfloppy
8199   kgpg
8200   khelpcenter4
8201   kinfocenter
8202   konq-plugins-l10n
8203   konqueror-nsplugins
8204   kscreensaver
8205   kscreensaver-xsavers
8206   ktimer
8207   kwrite
8208   libgle3
8209   libkde4-ruby1.8
8210   libkonq5
8211   libkonq5-templates
8212   libnetpbm10
8213   libplasma-ruby
8214   libplasma-ruby1.8
8215   libqt4-ruby1.8
8216   marble-data
8217   marble-plugins
8218   netpbm
8219   nuvola-icon-theme
8220   plasma-dataengines-workspace
8221   plasma-desktop
8222   plasma-desktopthemes-artwork
8223   plasma-runners-addons
8224   plasma-scriptengine-googlegadgets
8225   plasma-scriptengine-python
8226   plasma-scriptengine-qedje
8227   plasma-scriptengine-ruby
8228   plasma-scriptengine-webkit
8229   plasma-scriptengines
8230   plasma-wallpapers-addons
8231   plasma-widget-folderview
8232   plasma-widget-networkmanagement
8233   ruby
8234   sweeper
8235   update-notifier-kde
8236   xscreensaver-data-extra
8237   xscreensaver-gl
8238   xscreensaver-gl-extra
8239   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
8240 </p></blockquote>
8241
8242 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
8243
8244 <blockquote><p>
8245   ark
8246   google-gadgets-common
8247   google-gadgets-qt
8248   htdig
8249   kate
8250   kdebase-bin
8251   kdebase-data
8252   kdepasswd
8253   kfind
8254   klipper
8255   konq-plugins
8256   konqueror
8257   ksysguard
8258   ksysguardd
8259   libarchive1
8260   libcln6
8261   libeet1
8262   libeina-svn-06
8263   libggadget-1.0-0b
8264   libggadget-qt-1.0-0b
8265   libgps19
8266   libkdecorations4
8267   libkephal4
8268   libkonq4
8269   libkonqsidebarplugin4a
8270   libkscreensaver5
8271   libksgrd4
8272   libksignalplotter4
8273   libkunitconversion4
8274   libkwineffects1a
8275   libmarblewidget4
8276   libntrack-qt4-1
8277   libntrack0
8278   libplasma-geolocation-interface4
8279   libplasmaclock4a
8280   libplasmagenericshell4
8281   libprocesscore4a
8282   libprocessui4a
8283   libqalculate5
8284   libqedje0a
8285   libqtruby4shared2
8286   libqzion0a
8287   libruby1.8
8288   libscim8c2a
8289   libsmokekdecore4-3
8290   libsmokekdeui4-3
8291   libsmokekfile3
8292   libsmokekhtml3
8293   libsmokekio3
8294   libsmokeknewstuff2-3
8295   libsmokeknewstuff3-3
8296   libsmokekparts3
8297   libsmokektexteditor3
8298   libsmokekutils3
8299   libsmokenepomuk3
8300   libsmokephonon3
8301   libsmokeplasma3
8302   libsmokeqtcore4-3
8303   libsmokeqtdbus4-3
8304   libsmokeqtgui4-3
8305   libsmokeqtnetwork4-3
8306   libsmokeqtopengl4-3
8307   libsmokeqtscript4-3
8308   libsmokeqtsql4-3
8309   libsmokeqtsvg4-3
8310   libsmokeqttest4-3
8311   libsmokeqtuitools4-3
8312   libsmokeqtwebkit4-3
8313   libsmokeqtxml4-3
8314   libsmokesolid3
8315   libsmokesoprano3
8316   libtaskmanager4a
8317   libtidy-0.99-0
8318   libweather-ion4a
8319   libxklavier16
8320   libxxf86misc1
8321   okteta
8322   oxygencursors
8323   plasma-dataengines-addons
8324   plasma-scriptengine-superkaramba
8325   plasma-widget-lancelot
8326   plasma-widgets-addons
8327   plasma-widgets-workspace
8328   polkit-kde-1
8329   ruby1.8
8330   systemsettings
8331   update-notifier-common
8332 </p></blockquote>
8333
8334 <p>Running apt-get autoremove made the results using apt-get and
8335 aptitude a bit more similar, but there are still quite a lott of
8336 differences.  I have no idea what packages should be installed after
8337 the upgrade, but hope those that do can have a look.</p>
8338
8339       </div>
8340       <div class="tags">
8341
8342
8343         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>.
8344
8345
8346       </div>
8347     </div>
8348     <div class="padding"></div>
8349
8350     <div class="entry">
8351       <div class="title">
8352         <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>
8353       </div>
8354       <div class="date">
8355         22nd November 2010
8356       </div>
8357       <div class="body">
8358         <p>Most of the computers in use by the
8359 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux project</a>
8360 are virtual machines.  And they have been Xen machines running on a
8361 fairly old IBM eserver xseries 345 machine, and we wanted to migrate
8362 them to KVM on a newer Dell PowerEdge 2950 host machine.  This was a
8363 bit harder that it could have been, because we set up the Xen virtual
8364 machines to get the virtual partitions from LVM, which as far as I
8365 know is not supported by KVM.  So to migrate, we had to convert
8366 several LVM logical volumes to partitions on a virtual disk file.</p>
8367
8368 <p>I found
8369 <a href="http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM">a
8370 nice recipe</a> to do this, and wrote the following script to do the
8371 migration.  It uses qemu-img from the qemu package to make the disk
8372 image, parted to partition it, losetup and kpartx to present the disk
8373 image partions as devices, and dd to copy the data.  I NFS mounted the
8374 new servers storage area on the old server to do the migration.</p>
8375
8376 <pre>
8377 #!/bin/sh
8378
8379 # Based on
8380 # http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM
8381
8382 set -e
8383 set -x
8384
8385 if [ -z "$1" ] ; then
8386     echo "Usage: $0 &lt;hostname&gt;"
8387     exit 1
8388 else
8389     host="$1"
8390 fi
8391
8392 if [ ! -e /dev/vg_data/$host-disk ] ; then
8393     echo "error: unable to find LVM volume for $host"
8394     exit 1
8395 fi
8396
8397 # Partitions need to be a bit bigger than the LVM LVs.  not sure why.
8398 disksize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-disk | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
8399 swapsize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-swap | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
8400 totalsize=$(( ( $disksize + $swapsize ) ))
8401
8402 img=$host.img
8403 #dd if=/dev/zero of=$img bs=1M count=$(( $disksize + $swapsize ))
8404 qemu-img create $img ${totalsize}MMaking room on the Debian Edu/Sqeeze DVD
8405
8406 parted $img mklabel msdos
8407 parted $img mkpart primary linux-swap 0 $disksize
8408 parted $img mkpart primary ext2 $disksize $totalsize
8409 parted $img set 1 boot on
8410
8411 modprobe dm-mod
8412 losetup /dev/loop0 $img
8413 kpartx -a /dev/loop0
8414
8415 dd if=/dev/vg_data/$host-disk of=/dev/mapper/loop0p1 bs=1M
8416 fsck.ext3 -f /dev/mapper/loop0p1 || true
8417 mkswap /dev/mapper/loop0p2
8418
8419 kpartx -d /dev/loop0
8420 losetup -d /dev/loop0
8421 </pre>
8422
8423 <p>The script is perhaps so simple that it is not copyrightable, but
8424 if it is, it is licenced using GPL v2 or later at your discretion.</p>
8425
8426 <p>After doing this, I booted a Debian CD in rescue mode in KVM with
8427 the new disk image attached, installed grub-pc and linux-image-686 and
8428 set up grub to boot from the disk image.  After this, the KVM machines
8429 seem to work just fine.</p>
8430
8431       </div>
8432       <div class="tags">
8433
8434
8435         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>.
8436
8437
8438       </div>
8439     </div>
8440     <div class="padding"></div>
8441
8442     <div class="entry">
8443       <div class="title">
8444         <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>
8445       </div>
8446       <div class="date">
8447         20th November 2010
8448       </div>
8449       <div class="body">
8450         <p>I'm still running upgrade testing of the
8451 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
8452 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a>, but have not had time to spend on reporting the
8453 status.  Here is a short update based on a test I ran 20101118.</p>
8454
8455 <p>I still do not know what a correct migration should look like, so I
8456 report any differences between apt and aptitude and hope someone else
8457 can see if anything should be changed.</p>
8458
8459 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
8460
8461 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
8462
8463 <blockquote><p>
8464   apache2.2-bin aptdaemon at-spi baobab binfmt-support
8465   browser-plugin-gnash cheese-common cli-common cpp-4.3 cups-pk-helper
8466   dmz-cursor-theme empathy empathy-common finger
8467   freedesktop-sound-theme freeglut3 gconf-defaults-service gdm-themes
8468   gedit-plugins geoclue geoclue-hostip geoclue-localnet geoclue-manual
8469   geoclue-yahoo gnash gnash-common gnome gnome-backgrounds
8470   gnome-cards-data gnome-codec-install gnome-core
8471   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-disk-utility gnome-screenshot
8472   gnome-search-tool gnome-session-canberra gnome-spell
8473   gnome-system-log gnome-themes-extras gnome-themes-more
8474   gnome-user-share gs-common gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
8475   gstreamer0.10-tools gtk2-engines gtk2-engines-pixbuf
8476   gtk2-engines-smooth hal-info hamster-applet libapache2-mod-dnssd
8477   libapr1 libaprutil1 libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3 libaprutil1-ldap
8478   libart2.0-cil libatspi1.0-0 libboost-date-time1.42.0
8479   libboost-python1.42.0 libboost-thread1.42.0 libchamplain-0.4-0
8480   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0 libcheese-gtk18 libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
8481   libcryptui0 libcupsys2 libdiscid0 libeel2-data libelf1 libepc-1.0-2
8482   libepc-common libepc-ui-1.0-2 libfreerdp-plugins-standard
8483   libfreerdp0 libgail-common libgconf2.0-cil libgdata-common libgdata7
8484   libgdl-1-common libgdu-gtk0 libgee2 libgeoclue0 libgexiv2-0 libgif4
8485   libglade2.0-cil libglib2.0-cil libgmime2.4-cil libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
8486   libgnome2.24-cil libgnomepanel2.24-cil libgnomeprint2.2-data
8487   libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod-common libgpod4
8488   libgtk2.0-cil libgtkglext1 libgtksourceview-common
8489   libgtksourceview2.0-common libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
8490   libmono-addins0.2-cil libmono-cairo2.0-cil libmono-corlib2.0-cil
8491   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil libmono-posix2.0-cil
8492   libmono-security2.0-cil libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
8493   libmono-system2.0-cil libmtp8 libmusicbrainz3-6
8494   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil libndesk-dbus1.0-cil libopal3.6.8
8495   libpolkit-gtk-1-0 libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
8496   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libpt2.6.7 libpython2.6 librpm1 librpmio1
8497   libsdl1.2debian libservlet2.4-java libsrtp0 libssh-4
8498   libtelepathy-farsight0 libtelepathy-glib0 libtidy-0.99-0
8499   libxalan2-java libxerces2-java media-player-info mesa-utils
8500   mono-2.0-gac mono-gac mono-runtime nautilus-sendto
8501   nautilus-sendto-empathy openoffice.org-writer2latex
8502   openssl-blacklist p7zip p7zip-full pkg-config python-4suite-xml
8503   python-aptdaemon python-aptdaemon-gtk python-axiom
8504   python-beautifulsoup python-bugbuddy python-clientform
8505   python-coherence python-configobj python-crypto python-cupshelpers
8506   python-cupsutils python-eggtrayicon python-elementtree
8507   python-epsilon python-evolution python-feedparser python-gdata
8508   python-gdbm python-gst0.10 python-gtkglext1 python-gtkmozembed
8509   python-gtksourceview2 python-httplib2 python-louie python-mako
8510   python-markupsafe python-mechanize python-nevow python-notify
8511   python-opengl python-openssl python-pam python-pkg-resources
8512   python-pyasn1 python-pysqlite2 python-rdflib python-serial
8513   python-tagpy python-twisted-bin python-twisted-conch
8514   python-twisted-core python-twisted-web python-utidylib python-webkit
8515   python-xdg python-zope.interface remmina remmina-plugin-data
8516   remmina-plugin-rdp remmina-plugin-vnc rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
8517   rhythmbox-plugins rpm-common rpm2cpio seahorse-plugins shotwell
8518   software-center svgalibg1 system-config-printer-udev
8519   telepathy-gabble telepathy-mission-control-5 telepathy-salut tomboy
8520   totem totem-coherence totem-mozilla totem-plugins
8521   transmission-common xdg-user-dirs xdg-user-dirs-gtk xserver-xephyr
8522   zip
8523 </p></blockquote>
8524
8525 Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude
8526
8527 <blockquote><p>
8528   arj bluez-utils cheese dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop ekiga eog
8529   epiphany-extensions epiphany-gecko evolution-exchange
8530   fast-user-switch-applet file-roller gcalctool gconf-editor gdm gedit
8531   gedit-common gnome-app-install gnome-games gnome-games-data
8532   gnome-nettool gnome-system-tools gnome-themes gnome-utils
8533   gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager gnuchess gucharmap
8534   guile-1.8-libs hal libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5
8535   libavahi-ui0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7
8536   libcucul0 libcurl3 libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdmx1 libdvdread3
8537   libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1
8538   libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3 libfaad0 libgadu3
8539   libgalago3 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
8540   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
8541   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
8542   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
8543   libgtkhtml2-0 libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgtksourceview2.0-0
8544   libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
8545   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libkpathsea4 liblircclient0 libltdl3 liblwres50
8546   libmagick++10 libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmozjs1d libmpfr1ldbl libmtp7
8547   libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0
8548   libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpisock9
8549   libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8
8550   libsdl1.2debian-alsa libsensors3 libsexy2 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
8551   libspeexdsp1 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libsvga1
8552   libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0
8553   libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12
8554   libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common rhythmbox seahorse
8555   sound-juicer swfdec-gnome system-config-printer totem-common
8556   totem-gstreamer transmission-gtk vinagre vino w3c-dtd-xhtml wodim
8557 </p></blockquote>
8558
8559 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
8560
8561 <blockquote><p>
8562   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
8563 </p></blockquote>
8564
8565 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
8566
8567 <blockquote><p>
8568 [nothing]
8569 </p></blockquote>
8570
8571 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
8572
8573 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
8574
8575 <blockquote><p>
8576   autopoint bomber bovo cantor cantor-backend-kalgebra cpp-4.3 dcoprss
8577   edict espeak espeak-data eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
8578   ghostscript-x git gnome-audio gnugo granatier gs-common
8579   gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio indi kaddressbook-plugins kalgebra
8580   kalzium-data kanjidic kapman kate-plugins kblocks kbreakout kbstate
8581   kde-icons-mono kdeaccessibility kdeaddons-kfile-plugins
8582   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
8583   kdeedu kdeedu-data kdeedu-kvtml-data kdegames kdegames-card-data
8584   kdegames-mahjongg-data kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc
8585   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
8586   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdessh kdetoys kdewebdev
8587   kdiamond kdnssd kfilereplace kfourinline kgeography-data kigo
8588   killbots kiriki klettres-data kmoon kmrml knewsticker-scripts
8589   kollision kpf krosspython ksirk ksmserver ksquares kstars-data
8590   ksudoku kubrick kweather libasound2-plugins libboost-python1.42.0
8591   libcfitsio3 libconvert-binhex-perl libcrypt-ssleay-perl libdb4.6++
8592   libdjvulibre-text libdotconf1.0 liberror-perl libespeak1
8593   libfinance-quote-perl libgail-common libgsl0ldbl libhtml-parser-perl
8594   libhtml-tableextract-perl libhtml-tagset-perl libhtml-tree-perl
8595   libio-stringy-perl libkdeedu4 libkdegames5 libkiten4 libkpathsea5
8596   libkrossui4 libmailtools-perl libmime-tools-perl
8597   libnews-nntpclient-perl libopenbabel3 libportaudio2 libpulse-browse0
8598   libservlet2.4-java libspeechd2 libtiff-tools libtimedate-perl
8599   libunistring0 liburi-perl libwww-perl libxalan2-java libxerces2-java
8600   lirc luatex marble networkstatus noatun-plugins
8601   openoffice.org-writer2latex palapeli palapeli-data parley
8602   parley-data poster psutils pulseaudio pulseaudio-esound-compat
8603   pulseaudio-module-x11 pulseaudio-utils quanta-data rocs rsync
8604   speech-dispatcher step svgalibg1 texlive-binaries texlive-luatex
8605   ttf-sazanami-gothic
8606 </p></blockquote>
8607
8608 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
8609
8610 <blockquote><p>
8611   amor artsbuilder atlantik atlantikdesigner blinken bluez-utils cvs
8612   dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop imlib-base imlib11 kalzium kanagram kandy
8613   kasteroids katomic kbackgammon kbattleship kblackbox kbounce kbruch
8614   kcron kdat kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data kdeprint kdict kdvi kedit
8615   keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs kgeography kghostview
8616   kgoldrunner khangman khexedit kiconedit kig kimagemapeditor
8617   kitchensync kiten kjumpingcube klatin klettres klickety klines
8618   klinkstatus kmag kmahjongg kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmines
8619   kmousetool kmouth kmplot knetwalk kodo kolf kommander konquest kooka
8620   kpager kpat kpdf kpercentage kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler krec
8621   kregexpeditor kreversi ksame ksayit kshisen ksig ksim ksirc ksirtet
8622   ksmiletris ksnake ksokoban kspaceduel kstars ksvg ksysv kteatime
8623   ktip ktnef ktouch ktron kttsd ktuberling kturtle ktux kuickshow
8624   kverbos kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kwordquiz
8625   kworldclock kxsldbg libakode2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
8626   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
8627   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2
8628   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0
8629   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
8630   libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0 libicu38
8631   libiec61883-0 libindex0 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
8632   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1 libkdeedu3
8633   libkdegames1 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
8634   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
8635   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick10
8636   libmimelib1c2a libmodplug0c2 libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libmpfr1ldbl
8637   libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9 libpoppler-glib3
8638   libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 librss1 libsensors3
8639   libsmbios2 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90
8640   libtalloc1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 lskat
8641   mpeglib network-manager-kde noatun pmount tex-common texlive-base
8642   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended tidy
8643   ttf-dustin ttf-kochi-gothic ttf-sjfonts
8644 </p></blockquote>
8645
8646 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
8647
8648 <blockquote><p>
8649   dolphin kde-core kde-plasma-desktop kde-standard kde-window-manager
8650   kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-apps kdebase-workspace
8651   kdebase-workspace-bin kdebase-workspace-data kdeutils kscreensaver
8652   kscreensaver-xsavers libgle3 libkonq5 libkonq5-templates libnetpbm10
8653   netpbm plasma-widget-folderview plasma-widget-networkmanagement
8654   xscreensaver-data-extra xscreensaver-gl xscreensaver-gl-extra
8655   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
8656 </p></blockquote>
8657
8658 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
8659
8660 <blockquote><p>
8661   kdebase-bin konq-plugins konqueror
8662 </p></blockquote>
8663
8664       </div>
8665       <div class="tags">
8666
8667
8668         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>.
8669
8670
8671       </div>
8672     </div>
8673     <div class="padding"></div>
8674
8675     <div class="entry">
8676       <div class="title">
8677         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gnash_buildbot_slave_and_Debian_kfreebsd.html">Gnash buildbot slave and Debian kfreebsd</a>
8678       </div>
8679       <div class="date">
8680         20th November 2010
8681       </div>
8682       <div class="body">
8683         <p>Answering
8684 <a href="http://www.listware.net/201011/gnash-dev/67431-gnash-dev-buildbot-looking-for-slaves.html">the
8685 call from the Gnash project</a> for
8686 <a href="http://www.gnashdev.org:8010">buildbot</a> slaves to test the
8687 current source, I have set up a virtual KVM machine on the Debian
8688 Edu/Skolelinux virtualization host to test the git source on
8689 Debian/Squeeze.  I hope this can help the developers in getting new
8690 releases out more often.</p>
8691
8692 <p>As the developers want less main-stream build platforms tested to,
8693 I have considered setting up a <a
8694 href="http://www.debian.org/ports/kfreebsd-gnu/">Debian/kfreebsd</a>
8695 machine as well.  I have also considered using the kfreebsd
8696 architecture in Debian as a file server in NUUG to get access to the 5
8697 TB zfs volume we currently use to store DV video.  Because of this, I
8698 finally got around to do a test installation of Debian/Squeeze with
8699 kfreebsd.  Installation went fairly smooth, thought I noticed some
8700 visual glitches in the cdebconf dialogs (black cursor left on the
8701 screen at random locations).  Have not gotten very far with the
8702 testing.  Noticed cfdisk did not work, but fdisk did so it was not a
8703 fatal problem.  Have to spend some more time on it to see if it is
8704 useful as a file server for NUUG.  Will try to find time to set up a
8705 gnash buildbot slave on the Debian Edu/Skolelinux this weekend.</p>
8706
8707       </div>
8708       <div class="tags">
8709
8710
8711         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>.
8712
8713
8714       </div>
8715     </div>
8716     <div class="padding"></div>
8717
8718     <div class="entry">
8719       <div class="title">
8720         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_in_3D.html">Debian in 3D</a>
8721       </div>
8722       <div class="date">
8723          9th November 2010
8724       </div>
8725       <div class="body">
8726         <p><img src="http://thingiverse-production.s3.amazonaws.com/renders/23/e0/c4/f9/2b/debswagtdose_preview_medium.jpg"></p>
8727
8728 <p>3D printing is just great.  I just came across this Debian logo in
8729 3D linked in from
8730 <a href="http://blog.thingiverse.com/2010/11/09/participatory-branding/">the
8731 thingiverse blog</a>.</p>
8732
8733       </div>
8734       <div class="tags">
8735
8736
8737         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>.
8738
8739
8740       </div>
8741     </div>
8742     <div class="padding"></div>
8743
8744     <div class="entry">
8745       <div class="title">
8746         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Software_updates_2010_10_24.html">Software updates 2010-10-24</a>
8747       </div>
8748       <div class="date">
8749         24th October 2010
8750       </div>
8751       <div class="body">
8752         <p>Some updates.</p>
8753
8754 <p>My <a href="http://pledgebank.com/gnash-avm2">gnash pledge</a> to
8755 raise money for the project is going well.  The lower limit of 10
8756 signers was reached in 24 hours, and so far 13 people have signed it.
8757 More signers and more funding is most welcome, and I am really curious
8758 how far we can get before the time limit of December 24 is reached.
8759 :)</p>
8760
8761 <p>On the #gnash IRC channel on irc.freenode.net, I was just tipped
8762 about what appear to be a great code coverage tool capable of
8763 generating code coverage stats without any changes to the source code.
8764 It is called
8765 <a href="http://simonkagstrom.github.com/kcov/index.html">kcov</a>,
8766 and can be used using <tt>kcov &lt;directory&gt; &lt;binary&gt;</tt>.
8767 It is missing in Debian, but the git source built just fine in Squeeze
8768 after I installed libelf-dev, libdwarf-dev, pkg-config and
8769 libglib2.0-dev.  Failed to build in Lenny, but suspect that is
8770 solvable.  I hope kcov make it into Debian soon.</p>
8771
8772 <p>Finally found time to wrap up the release notes for <a
8773 href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2010/10/msg00002.html">a
8774 new alpha release of Debian Edu</a>, and just published the second
8775 alpha test release of the Squeeze based Debian Edu /
8776 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a>
8777 release.  Give it a try if you need a complete linux solution for your
8778 school, including central infrastructure server, workstations, thin
8779 client servers and diskless workstations.  A nice touch added
8780 yesterday is RDP support on the thin client servers, for windows
8781 clients to get a Linux desktop on request.</p>
8782
8783       </div>
8784       <div class="tags">
8785
8786
8787         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>.
8788
8789
8790       </div>
8791     </div>
8792     <div class="padding"></div>
8793
8794     <div class="entry">
8795       <div class="title">
8796         <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>
8797       </div>
8798       <div class="date">
8799          4th September 2010
8800       </div>
8801       <div class="body">
8802         <p>In the <a href="http://popcon.debian.org/unknown/by_vote">Debian
8803 popularity-contest numbers</a>, the adobe-flashplugin package the
8804 second most popular used package that is missing in Debian.  The sixth
8805 most popular is flashplayer-mozilla.  This is a clear indication that
8806 working flash is important for Debian users.  Around 10 percent of the
8807 users submitting data to popcon.debian.org have this package
8808 installed.</p>
8809
8810 <p>In the report written by Lars Risan in August 2008
8811 («<a href="http://wiki.skolelinux.no/Dokumentasjon/Rapporter?action=AttachFile&do=view&target=Skolelinux_i_bruk_rapport_1.0.pdf">Skolelinux
8812 i bruk – Rapport for Hurum kommune, Universitetet i Agder og
8813 stiftelsen SLX Debian Labs</a>»), one of the most important problems
8814 schools experienced with <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
8815 Edu/Skolelinux</a> was the lack of working Flash.  A lot of educational
8816 web sites require Flash to work, and lacking working Flash support in
8817 the web browser and the problems with installing it was perceived as a
8818 good reason to stay with Windows.</p>
8819
8820 <p>I once saw a funny and sad comment in a web forum, where Linux was
8821 said to be the retarded cousin that did not really understand
8822 everything you told him but could work fairly well.  This was a
8823 comment regarding the problems Linux have with proprietary formats and
8824 non-standard web pages, and is sad because it exposes a fairly common
8825 understanding of whose fault it is if web pages that only work in for
8826 example Internet Explorer 6 fail to work on Firefox, and funny because
8827 it explain very well how annoying it is for users when Linux
8828 distributions do not work with the documents they receive or the web
8829 pages they want to visit.</p>
8830
8831 <p>This is part of the reason why I believe it is important for Debian
8832 and Debian Edu to have a well working Flash implementation in the
8833 distribution, to get at least popular sites as Youtube and Google
8834 Video to working out of the box.  For Squeeze, Debian have the chance
8835 to include the latest version of Gnash that will make this happen, as
8836 the new release 0.8.8 was published a few weeks ago and is resting in
8837 unstable.  The new version work with more sites that version 0.8.7.
8838 The Gnash maintainers have asked for a freeze exception, but the
8839 release team have not had time to reply to it yet.  I hope they agree
8840 with me that Flash is important for the Debian desktop users, and thus
8841 accept the new package into Squeeze.</p>
8842
8843       </div>
8844       <div class="tags">
8845
8846
8847         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>.
8848
8849
8850       </div>
8851     </div>
8852     <div class="padding"></div>
8853
8854     <div class="entry">
8855       <div class="title">
8856         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Circular_package_dependencies_harms_apt_recovery.html">Circular package dependencies harms apt recovery</a>
8857       </div>
8858       <div class="date">
8859         27th July 2010
8860       </div>
8861       <div class="body">
8862         <p>I discovered this while doing
8863 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">automated
8864 testing of upgrades from Debian Lenny to Squeeze</a>.  A few packages
8865 in Debian still got circular dependencies, and it is often claimed
8866 that apt and aptitude should be able to handle this just fine, but
8867 some times these dependency loops causes apt to fail.</p>
8868
8869 <p>An example is from todays
8870 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing//test-20100727-lenny-squeeze-kde-aptitude.txt">upgrade
8871 of KDE using aptitude</a>.  In it, a bug in kdebase-workspace-data
8872 causes perl-modules to fail to upgrade.  The cause is simple.  If a
8873 package fail to unpack, then only part of packages with the circular
8874 dependency might end up being unpacked when unpacking aborts, and the
8875 ones already unpacked will fail to configure in the recovery phase
8876 because its dependencies are unavailable.</p>
8877
8878 <p>In this log, the problem manifest itself with this error:</p>
8879
8880 <blockquote><pre>
8881 dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of perl-modules:
8882  perl-modules depends on perl (>= 5.10.1-1); however:
8883   Version of perl on system is 5.10.0-19lenny2.
8884 dpkg: error processing perl-modules (--configure):
8885  dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
8886 </pre></blockquote>
8887
8888 <p>The perl/perl-modules circular dependency is already
8889 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/527917">reported as a bug</a>, and will
8890 hopefully be solved as soon as possible, but it is not the only one,
8891 and each one of these loops in the dependency tree can cause similar
8892 failures.  Of course, they only occur when there are bugs in other
8893 packages causing the unpacking to fail, but it is rather nasty when
8894 the failure of one package causes the problem to become worse because
8895 of dependency loops.</p>
8896
8897 <p>Thanks to
8898 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/06/msg00116.html">the
8899 tireless effort by Bill Allombert</a>, the number of circular
8900 dependencies
8901 <a href="http://debian.semistable.com/debgraph.out.html">left in Debian
8902 is dropping</a>, and perhaps it will reach zero one day. :)</p>
8903
8904 <p>Todays testing also exposed a bug in
8905 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590605">update-notifier</a> and
8906 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590604">different behaviour</a> between
8907 apt-get and aptitude, the latter possibly caused by some circular
8908 dependency.  Reported both to BTS to try to get someone to look at
8909 it.</p>
8910
8911       </div>
8912       <div class="tags">
8913
8914
8915         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>.
8916
8917
8918       </div>
8919     </div>
8920     <div class="padding"></div>
8921
8922     <div class="entry">
8923       <div class="title">
8924         <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>
8925       </div>
8926       <div class="date">
8927         17th July 2010
8928       </div>
8929       <div class="body">
8930         <p>This is a
8931 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">followup</a>
8932 on my
8933 <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
8934 work</a> on
8935 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">merging
8936 all</a> the computer related LDAP objects in Debian Edu.</p>
8937
8938 <p>As a step to try to see if it possible to merge the DNS and DHCP
8939 LDAP objects, I have had a look at how the packages pdns-backend-ldap
8940 and dhcp3-server-ldap in Debian use the LDAP server.  The two
8941 implementations are quite different in how they use LDAP.</p>
8942
8943 To get this information, I started slapd with debugging enabled and
8944 dumped the debug output to a file to get the LDAP searches performed
8945 on a Debian Edu main-server.  Here is a summary.
8946
8947 <p><strong>powerdns</strong></p>
8948
8949 <a href="http://www.linuxnetworks.de/doc/index.php/PowerDNS_LDAP_Backend">Clues
8950 on how to</a> set up PowerDNS to use a LDAP backend is available on
8951 the web.
8952
8953 <p>PowerDNS have two modes of operation using LDAP as its backend.
8954 One "strict" mode where the forward and reverse DNS lookups are done
8955 using the same LDAP objects, and a "tree" mode where the forward and
8956 reverse entries are in two different subtrees in LDAP with a structure
8957 based on the DNS names, as in tjener.intern and
8958 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa.</p>
8959
8960 <p>In tree mode, the server is set up to use a LDAP subtree as its
8961 base, and uses a "base" scoped search for the DNS name by adding
8962 "dc=tjener,dc=intern," to the base with a filter for
8963 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" for the forward entry and
8964 "dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa," with a filter for
8965 "(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)" for the reverse entry.  For
8966 forward entries, it is looking for attributes named dnsttl, arecord,
8967 nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord,
8968 txtrecord, rprecord, afsdbrecord, keyrecord, aaaarecord, locrecord,
8969 srvrecord, naptrrecord, kxrecord, certrecord, dsrecord, sshfprecord,
8970 ipseckeyrecord, rrsigrecord, nsecrecord, dnskeyrecord, dhcidrecord,
8971 spfrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entries it is looking for
8972 the attributes dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord,
8973 ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord,
8974 locrecord, srvrecord, naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  The equivalent
8975 ldapsearch commands could look like this:</p>
8976
8977 <blockquote><pre>
8978 ldapsearch -h ldap \
8979   -b dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
8980   -s base -x '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
8981   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
8982   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
8983   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
8984   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
8985
8986 ldapsearch -h ldap \
8987   -b dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
8988   -s base -x '(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)'
8989   dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord soarecord ptrrecord \
8990   hinforecord mxrecord txtrecord rprecord aaaarecord locrecord \
8991   srvrecord naptrrecord modifytimestamp
8992 </pre></blockquote>
8993
8994 <p>In Debian Edu/Lenny, the PowerDNS tree mode is used with
8995 ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no as the base, and these are two
8996 example LDAP objects used there.  In addition to these objects, the
8997 parent objects all th way up to ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
8998 also exist.</p>
8999
9000 <blockquote><pre>
9001 dn: dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
9002 objectclass: top
9003 objectclass: dnsdomain
9004 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
9005 dc: tjener
9006 arecord: 10.0.2.2
9007 associateddomain: tjener.intern
9008
9009 dn: dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
9010 objectclass: top
9011 objectclass: dnsdomain2
9012 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
9013 dc: 2
9014 ptrrecord: tjener.intern
9015 associateddomain: 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa
9016 </pre></blockquote>
9017
9018 <p>In strict mode, the server behaves differently.  When looking for
9019 forward DNS entries, it is doing a "subtree" scoped search with the
9020 same base as in the tree mode for a object with filter
9021 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" and requests the attributes dnsttl,
9022 arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord,
9023 mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord, locrecord, srvrecord,
9024 naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entires it also do a
9025 subtree scoped search but this time the filter is "(arecord=10.0.2.2)"
9026 and the requested attributes are associateddomain, dnsttl and
9027 modifytimestamp.  In short, in strict mode the objects with ptrrecord
9028 go away, and the arecord attribute in the forward object is used
9029 instead.</p>
9030
9031 <p>The forward and reverse searches can be simulated using ldapsearch
9032 like this:</p>
9033
9034 <blockquote><pre>
9035 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
9036   '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
9037   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
9038   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
9039   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
9040   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
9041
9042 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
9043   '(arecord=10.0.2.2)' associateddomain dnsttl modifytimestamp
9044 </pre></blockquote>
9045
9046 <p>In addition to the forward and reverse searches , there is also a
9047 search for SOA records, which behave similar to the forward and
9048 reverse lookups.</p>
9049
9050 <p>A thing to note with the PowerDNS behaviour is that it do not
9051 specify any objectclass names, and instead look for the attributes it
9052 need to generate a DNS reply.  This make it able to work with any
9053 objectclass that provide the needed attributes.</p>
9054
9055 <p>The attributes are normally provided in the cosine (RFC 1274) and
9056 dnsdomain2 schemas.  The latter is used for reverse entries like
9057 ptrrecord and recent DNS additions like aaaarecord and srvrecord.</p>
9058
9059 <p>In Debian Edu, we have created DNS objects using the object classes
9060 dcobject (for dc), dnsdomain or dnsdomain2 (structural, for the DNS
9061 attributes) and domainrelatedobject (for associatedDomain).  The use
9062 of structural object classes make it impossible to combine these
9063 classes with the object classes used by DHCP.</p>
9064
9065 <p>There are other schemas that could be used too, for example the
9066 dnszone structural object class used by Gosa and bind-sdb for the DNS
9067 attributes combined with the domainrelatedobject object class, but in
9068 this case some unused attributes would have to be included as well
9069 (zonename and relativedomainname).</p>
9070
9071 <p>My proposal for Debian Edu would be to switch PowerDNS to strict
9072 mode and not use any of the existing objectclasses (dnsdomain,
9073 dnsdomain2 and dnszone) when one want to combine the DNS information
9074 with DHCP information, and instead create a auxiliary object class
9075 defined something like this (using the attributes defined for
9076 dnsdomain and dnsdomain2 or dnszone):</p>
9077
9078 <blockquote><pre>
9079 objectclass ( some-oid NAME 'dnsDomainAux'
9080     SUP top
9081     AUXILIARY
9082     MAY ( ARecord $ MDRecord $ MXRecord $ NSRecord $ SOARecord $ CNAMERecord $
9083           DNSTTL $ DNSClass $ PTRRecord $ HINFORecord $ MINFORecord $
9084           TXTRecord $ SIGRecord $ KEYRecord $ AAAARecord $ LOCRecord $
9085           NXTRecord $ SRVRecord $ NAPTRRecord $ KXRecord $ CERTRecord $
9086           A6Record $ DNAMERecord
9087     ))
9088 </pre></blockquote>
9089
9090 <p>This will allow any object to become a DNS entry when combined with
9091 the domainrelatedobject object class, and allow any entity to include
9092 all the attributes PowerDNS wants.  I've sent an email to the PowerDNS
9093 developers asking for their view on this schema and if they are
9094 interested in providing such schema with PowerDNS, and I hope my
9095 message will be accepted into their mailing list soon.</p>
9096
9097 <p><strong>ISC dhcp</strong></p>
9098
9099 <p>The DHCP server searches for specific objectclass and requests all
9100 the object attributes, and then uses the attributes it want.  This
9101 make it harder to figure out exactly what attributes are used, but
9102 thanks to the working example in Debian Edu I can at least get an idea
9103 what is needed without having to read the source code.</p>
9104
9105 <p>In the DHCP server configuration, the LDAP base to use and the
9106 search filter to use to locate the correct dhcpServer entity is
9107 stored.  These are the relevant entries from
9108 /etc/dhcp3/dhcpd.conf:</p>
9109
9110 <blockquote><pre>
9111 ldap-base-dn "dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no";
9112 ldap-dhcp-server-cn "dhcp";
9113 </pre></blockquote>
9114
9115 <p>The DHCP server uses this information to nest all the DHCP
9116 configuration it need.  The cn "dhcp" is located using the given LDAP
9117 base and the filter "(&(objectClass=dhcpServer)(cn=dhcp))".  The
9118 search result is this entry:</p>
9119
9120 <blockquote><pre>
9121 dn: cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
9122 cn: dhcp
9123 objectClass: top
9124 objectClass: dhcpServer
9125 dhcpServiceDN: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
9126 </pre></blockquote>
9127
9128 <p>The content of the dhcpServiceDN attribute is next used to locate the
9129 subtree with DHCP configuration.  The DHCP configuration subtree base
9130 is located using a base scope search with base "cn=DHCP
9131 Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" and filter
9132 "(&(objectClass=dhcpService)(|(dhcpPrimaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)(dhcpSecondaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)))".
9133 The search result is this entry:</p>
9134
9135 <blockquote><pre>
9136 dn: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
9137 cn: DHCP Config
9138 objectClass: top
9139 objectClass: dhcpService
9140 objectClass: dhcpOptions
9141 dhcpPrimaryDN: cn=dhcp, dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
9142 dhcpStatements: ddns-update-style none
9143 dhcpStatements: authoritative
9144 dhcpOption: smtp-server code 69 = array of ip-address
9145 dhcpOption: www-server code 72 = array of ip-address
9146 dhcpOption: wpad-url code 252 = text
9147 </pre></blockquote>
9148
9149 <p>Next, the entire subtree is processed, one level at the time.  When
9150 all the DHCP configuration is loaded, it is ready to receive requests.
9151 The subtree in Debian Edu contain objects with object classes
9152 top/dhcpService/dhcpOptions, top/dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions,
9153 top/dhcpSubnet, top/dhcpGroup and top/dhcpHost.  These provide options
9154 and information about netmasks, dynamic range etc.  Leaving out the
9155 details here because it is not relevant for the focus of my
9156 investigation, which is to see if it is possible to merge dns and dhcp
9157 related computer objects.</p>
9158
9159 <p>When a DHCP request come in, LDAP is searched for the MAC address
9160 of the client (00:00:00:00:00:00 in this example), using a subtree
9161 scoped search with "cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" as
9162 the base and "(&(objectClass=dhcpHost)(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet
9163 00:00:00:00:00:00))" as the filter.  This is what a host object look
9164 like:</p>
9165
9166 <blockquote><pre>
9167 dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
9168 cn: hostname
9169 objectClass: top
9170 objectClass: dhcpHost
9171 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
9172 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname
9173 </pre></blockquote>
9174
9175 <p>There is less flexiblity in the way LDAP searches are done here.
9176 The object classes need to have fixed names, and the configuration
9177 need to be stored in a fairly specific LDAP structure.  On the
9178 positive side, the invidiual dhcpHost entires can be anywhere without
9179 the DN pointed to by the dhcpServer entries.  The latter should make
9180 it possible to group all host entries in a subtree next to the
9181 configuration entries, and this subtree can also be shared with the
9182 DNS server if the schema proposed above is combined with the dhcpHost
9183 structural object class.
9184
9185 <p><strong>Conclusion</strong></p>
9186
9187 <p>The PowerDNS implementation seem to be very flexible when it come
9188 to which LDAP schemas to use.  While its "tree" mode is rigid when it
9189 come to the the LDAP structure, the "strict" mode is very flexible,
9190 allowing DNS objects to be stored anywhere under the base cn specified
9191 in the configuration.</p>
9192
9193 <p>The DHCP implementation on the other hand is very inflexible, both
9194 regarding which LDAP schemas to use and which LDAP structure to use.
9195 I guess one could implement ones own schema, as long as the
9196 objectclasses and attributes have the names used, but this do not
9197 really help when the DHCP subtree need to have a fairly fixed
9198 structure.</p>
9199
9200 <p>Based on the observed behaviour, I suspect a LDAP structure like
9201 this might work for Debian Edu:</p>
9202
9203 <blockquote><pre>
9204 ou=services
9205   cn=machine-info (dhcpService) - dhcpServiceDN points here
9206     cn=dhcp (dhcpServer)
9207     cn=dhcp-internal (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
9208       cn=10.0.2.0 (dhcpSubnet)
9209         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
9210     cn=dhcp-thinclients (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
9211       cn=192.168.0.0 (dhcpSubnet)
9212         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
9213     ou=machines - PowerDNS base points here
9214       cn=hostname (dhcpHost/domainrelatedobject/dnsDomainAux)
9215 </pre></blockquote>
9216
9217 <P>This is not tested yet.  If the DHCP server require the dhcpHost
9218 entries to be in the dhcpGroup subtrees, the entries can be stored
9219 there instead of a common machines subtree, and the PowerDNS base
9220 would have to be moved one level up to the machine-info subtree.</p>
9221
9222 <p>The combined object under the machines subtree would look something
9223 like this:</p>
9224
9225 <blockquote><pre>
9226 dn: dc=hostname,ou=machines,cn=machine-info,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
9227 dc: hostname
9228 objectClass: top
9229 objectClass: dhcpHost
9230 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
9231 objectclass: dnsDomainAux
9232 associateddomain: hostname.intern
9233 arecord: 10.11.12.13
9234 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
9235 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname.intern
9236 </pre></blockquote>
9237
9238 </p>One could even add the LTSP configuration associated with a given
9239 machine, as long as the required attributes are available in a
9240 auxiliary object class.</p>
9241
9242       </div>
9243       <div class="tags">
9244
9245
9246         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>.
9247
9248
9249       </div>
9250     </div>
9251     <div class="padding"></div>
9252
9253     <div class="entry">
9254       <div class="title">
9255         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">Combining PowerDNS and ISC DHCP LDAP objects</a>
9256       </div>
9257       <div class="date">
9258         14th July 2010
9259       </div>
9260       <div class="body">
9261         <p>For a while now, I have wanted to find a way to change the DNS and
9262 DHCP services in Debian Edu to use the same LDAP objects for a given
9263 computer, to avoid the possibility of having a inconsistent state for
9264 a computer in LDAP (as in DHCP but no DNS entry or the other way
9265 around) and make it easier to add computers to LDAP.</p>
9266
9267 <p>I've looked at how powerdns and dhcpd is using LDAP, and using this
9268 information finally found a solution that seem to work.</p>
9269
9270 <p>The old setup required three LDAP objects for a given computer.
9271 One forward DNS entry, one reverse DNS entry and one DHCP entry.  If
9272 we switch powerdns to use its strict LDAP method (ldap-method=strict
9273 in pdns-debian-edu.conf), the forward and reverse DNS entries are
9274 merged into one while making it impossible to transfer the reverse map
9275 to a slave DNS server.</p>
9276
9277 <p>If we also replace the object class used to get the DNS related
9278 attributes to one allowing these attributes to be combined with the
9279 dhcphost object class, we can merge the DNS and DHCP entries into one.
9280 I've written such object class in the dnsdomainaux.schema file (need
9281 proper OIDs, but that is a minor issue), and tested the setup.  It
9282 seem to work.</p>
9283
9284 <p>With this test setup in place, we can get away with one LDAP object
9285 for both DNS and DHCP, and even the LTSP configuration I suggested in
9286 an earlier email.  The combined LDAP object will look something like
9287 this:</p>
9288
9289 <blockquote><pre>
9290   dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
9291   cn: hostname
9292   objectClass: dhcphost
9293   objectclass: domainrelatedobject
9294   objectclass: dnsdomainaux
9295   associateddomain: hostname.intern
9296   arecord: 10.11.12.13
9297   dhcphwaddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
9298   dhcpstatements: fixed-address hostname
9299   ldapconfigsound: Y
9300 </pre></blockquote>
9301
9302 <p>The DNS server uses the associateddomain and arecord entries, while
9303 the DHCP server uses the dhcphwaddress and dhcpstatements entries
9304 before asking DNS to resolve the fixed-adddress.  LTSP will use
9305 dhcphwaddress or associateddomain and the ldapconfig* attributes.</p>
9306
9307 <p>I am not yet sure if I can get the DHCP server to look for its
9308 dhcphost in a different location, to allow us to put the objects
9309 outside the "DHCP Config" subtree, but hope to figure out a way to do
9310 that.  If I can't figure out a way to do that, we can still get rid of
9311 the hosts subtree and move all its content into the DHCP Config tree
9312 (which probably should be renamed to be more related to the new
9313 content.  I suspect cn=dnsdhcp,ou=services or something like that
9314 might be a good place to put it.</p>
9315
9316 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
9317 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
9318
9319       </div>
9320       <div class="tags">
9321
9322
9323         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>.
9324
9325
9326       </div>
9327     </div>
9328     <div class="padding"></div>
9329
9330     <div class="entry">
9331       <div class="title">
9332         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Idea_for_storing_LTSP_configuration_in_LDAP.html">Idea for storing LTSP configuration in LDAP</a>
9333       </div>
9334       <div class="date">
9335         11th July 2010
9336       </div>
9337       <div class="body">
9338         <p>Vagrant mentioned on IRC today that ltsp_config now support
9339 sourcing files from /usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ on the thin
9340 clients, and that this can be used to fetch configuration from LDAP if
9341 Debian Edu choose to store configuration there.</p>
9342
9343 <p>Armed with this information, I got inspired and wrote a test module
9344 to get configuration from LDAP.  The idea is to look up the MAC
9345 address of the client in LDAP, and look for attributes on the form
9346 ltspconfigsetting=value, and use this to export SETTING=value to the
9347 LTSP clients.</p>
9348
9349 <p>The goal is to be able to store the LTSP configuration attributes
9350 in a "computer" LDAP object used by both DNS and DHCP, and thus
9351 allowing us to store all information about a computer in one place.</p>
9352
9353 <p>This is a untested draft implementation, and I welcome feedback on
9354 this approach.  A real LDAP schema for the ltspClientAux objectclass
9355 need to be written.  Comments, suggestions, etc?</p>
9356
9357 <blockquote><pre>
9358 # Store in /opt/ltsp/$arch/usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ldap-config
9359 #
9360 # Fetch LTSP client settings from LDAP based on MAC address
9361 #
9362 # Uses ethernet address as stored in the dhcpHost objectclass using
9363 # the dhcpHWAddress attribute or ethernet address stored in the
9364 # ieee802Device objectclass with the macAddress attribute.
9365 #
9366 # This module is written to be schema agnostic, and only depend on the
9367 # existence of attribute names.
9368 #
9369 # The LTSP configuration variables are saved directly using a
9370 # ltspConfig prefix and uppercasing the rest of the attribute name.
9371 # To set the SERVER variable, set the ltspConfigServer attribute.
9372 #
9373 # Some LDAP schema should be created with all the relevant
9374 # configuration settings.  Something like this should work:
9375 #
9376 # objectclass ( 1.1.2.2 NAME 'ltspClientAux'
9377 #     SUP top
9378 #     AUXILIARY
9379 #     MAY ( ltspConfigServer $ ltsConfigSound $ ... )
9380
9381 LDAPSERVER=$(debian-edu-ldapserver)
9382 if [ "$LDAPSERVER" ] ; then
9383     LDAPBASE=$(debian-edu-ldapserver -b)
9384     for MAC in $(LANG=C ifconfig |grep -i hwaddr| awk '{print $5}'|sort -u) ; do
9385         filter="(|(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet $MAC)(macAddress=$MAC))"
9386         ldapsearch -h "$LDAPSERVER" -b "$LDAPBASE" -v -x "$filter" | \
9387             grep '^ltspConfig' | while read attr value ; do
9388             # Remove prefix and convert to upper case
9389             attr=$(echo $attr | sed 's/^ltspConfig//i' | tr a-z A-Z)
9390             # bass value on to clients
9391             eval "$attr=$value; export $attr"
9392         done
9393     done
9394 fi
9395 </pre></blockquote>
9396
9397 <p>I'm not sure this shell construction will work, because I suspect
9398 the while block might end up in a subshell causing the variables set
9399 there to not show up in ltsp-config, but if that is the case I am sure
9400 the code can be restructured to make sure the variables are passed on.
9401 I expect that can be solved with some testing. :)</p>
9402
9403 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
9404 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
9405
9406 <p>Update 2010-07-17: I am aware of another effort to store LTSP
9407 configuration in LDAP that was created around year 2000 by
9408 <a href="http://www.pcxperience.com/thinclient/documentation/ldap.html">PC
9409 Xperience, Inc., 2000</a>.  I found its
9410 <a href="http://people.redhat.com/alikins/ltsp/ldap/">files</a> on a
9411 personal home page over at redhat.com.</p>
9412
9413       </div>
9414       <div class="tags">
9415
9416
9417         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>.
9418
9419
9420       </div>
9421     </div>
9422     <div class="padding"></div>
9423
9424     <div class="entry">
9425       <div class="title">
9426         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/jXplorer__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">jXplorer, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
9427       </div>
9428       <div class="date">
9429          9th July 2010
9430       </div>
9431       <div class="body">
9432         <p>Since
9433 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">my
9434 last post</a> about available LDAP tools in Debian, I was told about a
9435 LDAP GUI that is even better than luma.  The java application
9436 <a href="http://jxplorer.org/">jXplorer</a> is claimed to be capable of
9437 moving LDAP objects and subtrees using drag-and-drop, and can
9438 authenticate using Kerberos.  I have only tested the Kerberos
9439 authentication, but do not have a LDAP setup allowing me to rewrite
9440 LDAP with my test user yet.  It is
9441 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/j/jxplorer.html">available in
9442 Debian</a> testing and unstable at the moment.  The only problem I
9443 have with it is how it handle errors.  If something go wrong, its
9444 non-intuitive behaviour require me to go through some query work list
9445 and remove the failing query.  Nothing big, but very annoying.</p>
9446
9447       </div>
9448       <div class="tags">
9449
9450
9451         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>.
9452
9453
9454       </div>
9455     </div>
9456     <div class="padding"></div>
9457
9458     <div class="entry">
9459       <div class="title">
9460         <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>
9461       </div>
9462       <div class="date">
9463          3rd July 2010
9464       </div>
9465       <div class="body">
9466         <p>Here is a short update on my <a
9467 href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">my
9468 Debian Lenny->Squeeze upgrade testing</a>.  Here is a summary of the
9469 difference for Gnome when it is upgraded by apt-get and aptitude.  I'm
9470 not reporting the status for KDE, because the upgrade crashes when
9471 aptitude try because of missing conflicts
9472 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> and
9473 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585716">#585716</a>).</p>
9474
9475 <p>At the end of the upgrade test script, dpkg -l is executed to get a
9476 complete list of the installed packages.  Based on this I see these
9477 differences when I did a test run today.  As usual, I do not really
9478 know what the correct set of packages would be, but thought it best to
9479 publish the difference.</p>
9480
9481 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
9482
9483 <blockquote><p>
9484   at-spi cpp-4.3 finger gnome-spell gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
9485   libatspi1.0-0 libcupsys2 libeel2-data libgail-common libgdl-1-common
9486   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin
9487   libgtksourceview-common libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
9488   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libservlet2.4-java libxalan2-java
9489   libxerces2-java openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
9490   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gtkhtml2
9491   python-gtkmozembed svgalibg1 xserver-xephyr zip
9492 </p></blockquote>
9493
9494 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
9495
9496 <blockquote><p>
9497   bluez-utils dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop epiphany-gecko
9498   gnome-app-install gnome-mount gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager
9499   libao2 libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libbind9-50
9500   libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcurl3
9501   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9
9502   libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3
9503   libfaad0 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
9504   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
9505   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
9506   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
9507   libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50
9508   libisccfg50 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick++10
9509   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4
9510   libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5
9511   libparted1.8-10 libpisock9 libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3
9512   libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8 libsensors3 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
9513   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1
9514   libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0 libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj
9515   libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3
9516   mysql-common swfdec-gnome totem-gstreamer wodim
9517 </p></blockquote>
9518
9519 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
9520
9521 <blockquote><p>
9522   gnome gnome-desktop-environment hamster-applet python-gnomeapplet
9523   python-gnomekeyring python-wnck rhythmbox-plugins xorg
9524   xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
9525   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
9526   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-video-all
9527   xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark xserver-xorg-video-ati
9528   xserver-xorg-video-chips xserver-xorg-video-cirrus
9529   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
9530   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
9531   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-mach64
9532   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
9533   xserver-xorg-video-nouveau xserver-xorg-video-nv
9534   xserver-xorg-video-r128 xserver-xorg-video-radeon
9535   xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd xserver-xorg-video-rendition
9536   xserver-xorg-video-s3 xserver-xorg-video-s3virge
9537   xserver-xorg-video-savage xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion
9538   xserver-xorg-video-sis xserver-xorg-video-sisusb
9539   xserver-xorg-video-tdfx xserver-xorg-video-tga
9540   xserver-xorg-video-trident xserver-xorg-video-tseng
9541   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vmware
9542   xserver-xorg-video-voodoo
9543 </p></blockquote>
9544
9545 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
9546
9547 <blockquote><p>
9548   deskbar-applet xserver-xorg xserver-xorg-core
9549   xserver-xorg-input-wacom xserver-xorg-video-intel
9550   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome
9551 </p></blockquote>
9552
9553 <p>I was told on IRC that the xorg-xserver package was
9554 <a href="http://git.debian.org/?p=pkg-xorg/xserver/xorg-server.git;a=commit;h=9c8080d06c457932d3bfec021c69ac000aa60120">changed
9555 in git</a> today to try to get apt-get to not remove xorg completely.
9556 No idea when it hits Squeeze, but when it does I hope it will reduce
9557 the difference somewhat.
9558
9559       </div>
9560       <div class="tags">
9561
9562
9563         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>.
9564
9565
9566       </div>
9567     </div>
9568     <div class="padding"></div>
9569
9570     <div class="entry">
9571       <div class="title">
9572         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">LUMA, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
9573       </div>
9574       <div class="date">
9575         28th June 2010
9576       </div>
9577       <div class="body">
9578         <p>The last few days I have been looking into the status of the LDAP
9579 directory in Debian Edu, and in the process I started to miss a GUI
9580 tool to browse the LDAP tree.  The only one I was able to find in
9581 Debian/Squeeze and Lenny is
9582 <a href="http://luma.sourceforge.net/">LUMA</a>, which has proved to
9583 be a great tool to get a overview of the current LDAP directory
9584 populated by default in Skolelinux.  Thanks to it, I have been able to
9585 find empty and obsolete subtrees, misplaced objects and duplicate
9586 objects.  It will be installed by default in Debian/Squeeze.  If you
9587 are working with LDAP, give it a go. :)</p>
9588
9589 <p>I did notice one problem with it I have not had time to report to
9590 the BTS yet.  There is no .desktop file in the package, so the tool do
9591 not show up in the Gnome and KDE menus, but only deep down in in the
9592 Debian submenu in KDE.  I hope that can be fixed before Squeeze is
9593 released.</p>
9594
9595 <p>I have not yet been able to get it to modify the tree yet.  I would
9596 like to move objects and remove subtrees directly in the GUI, but have
9597 not found a way to do that with LUMA yet.  So in the mean time, I use
9598 <a href="http://www.lichteblau.com/ldapvi/">ldapvi</a> for that.</p>
9599
9600 <p>If you have tips on other GUI tools for LDAP that might be useful
9601 in Debian Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
9602
9603 <p>Update 2010-06-29: Ross Reedstrom tipped us about the
9604 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/g/gq.html">gq</a> package as a
9605 useful GUI alternative.  It seem like a good tool, but is unmaintained
9606 in Debian and got a RC bug keeping it out of Squeeze.  Unless that
9607 changes, it will not be an option for Debian Edu based on Squeeze.</p>
9608
9609       </div>
9610       <div class="tags">
9611
9612
9613         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>.
9614
9615
9616       </div>
9617     </div>
9618     <div class="padding"></div>
9619
9620     <div class="entry">
9621       <div class="title">
9622         <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>
9623       </div>
9624       <div class="date">
9625         24th June 2010
9626       </div>
9627       <div class="body">
9628         <p>A while back, I
9629 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">complained
9630 about the fact</a> that it is not possible with the provided schemas
9631 for storing DNS and DHCP information in LDAP to combine the two sets
9632 of information into one LDAP object representing a computer.</p>
9633
9634 <p>In the mean time, I discovered that a simple fix would be to make
9635 the dhcpHost object class auxiliary, to allow it to be combined with
9636 the dNSDomain object class, and thus forming one object for one
9637 computer when storing both DHCP and DNS information in LDAP.</p>
9638
9639 <p>If I understand this correctly, it is not safe to do this change
9640 without also changing the assigned number for the object class, and I
9641 do not know enough about LDAP schema design to do that properly for
9642 Debian Edu.</p>
9643
9644 <p>Anyway, for future reference, this is how I believe we could change
9645 the
9646 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-dhc-ldap-schema-00">DHCP
9647 schema</a> to solve at least part of the problem with the LDAP schemas
9648 available today from IETF.</p>
9649
9650 <pre>
9651 --- dhcp.schema    (revision 65192)
9652 +++ dhcp.schema    (working copy)
9653 @@ -376,7 +376,7 @@
9654  objectclass ( 2.16.840.1.113719.1.203.6.6
9655         NAME 'dhcpHost'
9656         DESC 'This represents information about a particular client'
9657 -       SUP top
9658 +       SUP top AUXILIARY
9659         MUST cn
9660         MAY  (dhcpLeaseDN $ dhcpHWAddress $ dhcpOptionsDN $ dhcpStatements $ dhcpComments $ dhcpOption)
9661         X-NDS_CONTAINMENT ('dhcpService' 'dhcpSubnet' 'dhcpGroup') )
9662 </pre>
9663
9664 <p>I very much welcome clues on how to do this properly for Debian
9665 Edu/Squeeze.  We provide the DHCP schema in our debian-edu-config
9666 package, and should thus be free to rewrite it as we see fit.</p>
9667
9668 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
9669 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
9670
9671       </div>
9672       <div class="tags">
9673
9674
9675         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>.
9676
9677
9678       </div>
9679     </div>
9680     <div class="padding"></div>
9681
9682     <div class="entry">
9683       <div class="title">
9684         <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>
9685       </div>
9686       <div class="date">
9687         16th June 2010
9688       </div>
9689       <div class="body">
9690         <p>A few times I have had the need to simulate the way tasksel
9691 installs packages during the normal debian-installer run.  Until now,
9692 I have ended up letting tasksel do the work, with the annoying problem
9693 of not getting any feedback at all when something fails (like a
9694 conffile question from dpkg or a download that fails), using code like
9695 this:
9696
9697 <blockquote><pre>
9698 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
9699 tasksel --new-install
9700 </pre></blockquote>
9701
9702 This would invoke tasksel, let its automatic task selection pick the
9703 tasks to install, and continue to install the requested tasks without
9704 any output what so ever.
9705
9706 Recently I revisited this problem while working on the automatic
9707 package upgrade testing, because tasksel would some times hang without
9708 any useful feedback, and I want to see what is going on when it
9709 happen.  Then it occured to me, I can parse the output from tasksel
9710 when asked to run in test mode, and use that aptitude command line
9711 printed by tasksel then to simulate the tasksel run.  I ended up using
9712 code like this:
9713
9714 <blockquote><pre>
9715 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
9716 cmd="$(in_target tasksel -t --new-install | sed 's/debconf-apt-progress -- //')"
9717 $cmd
9718 </pre></blockquote>
9719
9720 <p>The content of $cmd is typically something like "<tt>aptitude -q
9721 --without-recommends -o APT::Install-Recommends=no -y install
9722 ~t^desktop$ ~t^gnome-desktop$ ~t^laptop$ ~pstandard ~prequired
9723 ~pimportant</tt>", which will install the gnome desktop task, the
9724 laptop task and all packages with priority standard , required and
9725 important, just like tasksel would have done it during
9726 installation.</p>
9727
9728 <p>A better approach is probably to extend tasksel to be able to
9729 install packages without using debconf-apt-progress, for use cases
9730 like this.</p>
9731
9732       </div>
9733       <div class="tags">
9734
9735
9736         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>.
9737
9738
9739       </div>
9740     </div>
9741     <div class="padding"></div>
9742
9743     <div class="entry">
9744       <div class="title">
9745         <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>
9746       </div>
9747       <div class="date">
9748         13th June 2010
9749       </div>
9750       <div class="body">
9751         <p>My
9752 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">testing
9753 of Debian upgrades</a> from Lenny to Squeeze continues, and I've
9754 finally made the upgrade logs available from
9755 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/</a>.
9756 I am now testing dist-upgrade of Gnome and KDE in a chroot using both
9757 apt and aptitude, and found their differences interesting.  This time
9758 I will only focus on their removal plans.</p>
9759
9760 <p>After installing a Gnome desktop and the laptop task, apt-get wants
9761 to remove 72 packages when dist-upgrading from Lenny to Squeeze.  The
9762 surprising part is that it want to remove xorg and all
9763 xserver-xorg-video* drivers.  Clearly not a good choice, but I am not
9764 sure why.  When asking aptitude to do the same, it want to remove 129
9765 packages, but most of them are library packages I suspect are no
9766 longer needed.  Both of them want to remove bluetooth packages, which
9767 I do not know.  Perhaps these bluetooth packages are obsolete?</p>
9768
9769 <p>For KDE, apt-get want to remove 82 packages, among them kdebase
9770 which seem like a bad idea and xorg the same way as with Gnome. Asking
9771 aptitude for the same, it wants to remove 192 packages, none which are
9772 too surprising.</p>
9773
9774 <p>I guess the removal of xorg during upgrades should be investigated
9775 and avoided, and perhaps others as well.  Here are the complete list
9776 of planned removals.  The complete logs is available from the URL
9777 above.  Note if you want to repeat these tests, that the upgrade test
9778 for kde+apt-get hung in the tasksel setup because of dpkg asking
9779 conffile questions.  No idea why.  I worked around it by using
9780 '<tt>echo >> /proc/<em>pidofdpkg</em>/fd/0</tt>' to tell dpkg to
9781 continue.</p>
9782
9783 <p><b>apt-get gnome 72</b>
9784 <br>bluez-gnome cupsddk-drivers deskbar-applet gnome
9785   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-network-admin gtkhtml3.14
9786   iceweasel-gnome-support libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libgdl-1-0
9787   libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libmetacity0 libslab0 libxcb-xlib0
9788   nautilus-cd-burner python-gnome2-desktop python-gnome2-extras
9789   serpentine swfdec-mozilla update-manager xorg xserver-xorg
9790   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
9791   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
9792   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
9793   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
9794   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
9795   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
9796   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
9797   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
9798   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
9799   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
9800   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
9801   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
9802   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
9803   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
9804   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
9805   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
9806   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
9807   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
9808   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
9809   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
9810   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
9811   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9
9812   xulrunner-1.9-gnome-support</p>
9813
9814 <p><b>aptitude gnome 129</b>
9815
9816 <br>bluez-gnome bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers dhcdbd
9817   djvulibre-desktop finger gnome-app-install gnome-mount
9818   gnome-network-admin gnome-spell gnome-vfs-obexftp
9819   gnome-volume-manager gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs gtkhtml3.14 libao2
9820   libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
9821   libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcupsys2 libcurl3 libdatrie0
9822   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20
9823   libeel2-data libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libfaad0 libgail-common
9824   libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libgdl-1-0 libgdl-1-common
9825   libggz2 libggzcore9 libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0
9826   libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libgnomeprint2.2-0
9827   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgnomeprintui2.2-common
9828   libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
9829   libgtksourceview-common libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6
9830   libhesiod0 libicu38 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 libmagick++10
9831   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmetacity0 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off
9832   libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2
9833   libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10
9834   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libraw1394-8
9835   libsensors3 libslab0 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8 libssh2-1
9836   libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10
9837   libtrackerclient0 libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0
9838   libxerces2-java libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6
9839   libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common nautilus-cd-burner
9840   openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
9841   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gnome2-desktop
9842   python-gnome2-extras python-gtkhtml2 python-gtkmozembed
9843   python-numeric python-sexy serpentine svgalibg1 swfdec-gnome
9844   swfdec-mozilla totem-gstreamer update-manager wodim
9845   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
9846   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
9847   zip</p>
9848
9849 <p><b>apt-get kde 82</b>
9850
9851 <br>cupsddk-drivers karm kaudiocreator kcoloredit kcontrol kde kde-core
9852   kdeaddons kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-bin kdebase-bin-kde3
9853   kdebase-kio-plugins kdesktop kdeutils khelpcenter kicker
9854   kicker-applets knewsticker kolourpaint konq-plugins konqueror korn
9855   kpersonalizer kscreensaver ksplash libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libkiten1
9856   libxcb-xlib0 quanta superkaramba texlive-base-bin xorg xserver-xorg
9857   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
9858   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
9859   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
9860   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
9861   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
9862   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
9863   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
9864   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
9865   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
9866   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
9867   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
9868   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
9869   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
9870   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
9871   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
9872   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
9873   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
9874   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
9875   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
9876   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
9877   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
9878   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9</p>
9879
9880 <p><b>aptitude kde 192</b>
9881 <br>bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers cvs dcoprss dhcdbd
9882   djvulibre-desktop dosfstools eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
9883   ghostscript-x imlib-base imlib11 indi kandy karm kasteroids
9884   kaudiocreator kbackgammon kbstate kcoloredit kcontrol kcron kdat
9885   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
9886   kdebase-bin-kde3 kdebase-kio-plugins kdeedu-data
9887   kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data
9888   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
9889   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdeprint kdesktop kdessh
9890   kdict kdnssd kdvi kedit keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs
9891   kghostview khelpcenter khexedit kiconedit kitchensync klatin
9892   klickety kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmoon kmrml kodo kolourpaint
9893   kooka korn kpager kpdf kpercentage kpf kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler
9894   krec kregexpeditor ksayit ksim ksirc ksirtet ksmiletris ksmserver
9895   ksnake ksokoban ksplash ksvg ksysv ktip ktnef kuickshow kverbos
9896   kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kworldclock
9897   kxsldbg libakode2 libao2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
9898   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
9899   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
9900   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0 libdatrie0
9901   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
9902   libgail-common libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0
9903   libicu38 libiec61883-0 libindex0 libiw29 libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1
9904   libkdeedu3 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkiten1 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
9905   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
9906   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 libmagick10 libmimelib1c2a
9907   libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9
9908   libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 libsmbios2
9909   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libtalloc1 libtiff-tools
9910   libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0 libxerces2-java
9911   libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 mpeglib networkstatus
9912   openoffice.org-writer2latex pmount poster psutils quanta quanta-data
9913   superkaramba svgalibg1 tex-common texlive-base texlive-base-bin
9914   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended
9915   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
9916   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
9917   xulrunner-1.9</p>
9918
9919
9920       </div>
9921       <div class="tags">
9922
9923
9924         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>.
9925
9926
9927       </div>
9928     </div>
9929     <div class="padding"></div>
9930
9931     <div class="entry">
9932       <div class="title">
9933         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">Automatic upgrade testing from Lenny to Squeeze</a>
9934       </div>
9935       <div class="date">
9936         11th June 2010
9937       </div>
9938       <div class="body">
9939         <p>The last few days I have done some upgrade testing in Debian, to
9940 see if the upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze will go smoothly.  A few bugs
9941 have been discovered and reported in the process
9942 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585410">#585410</a> in nagios3-cgi,
9943 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584879">#584879</a> already fixed in
9944 enscript and <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> in
9945 kdebase-workspace-data), and to get a more regular testing going on, I
9946 am working on a script to automate the test.</p>
9947
9948 <p>The idea is to create a Lenny chroot and use tasksel to install a
9949 Gnome or KDE desktop installation inside the chroot before upgrading
9950 it.  To ensure no services are started in the chroot, a policy-rc.d
9951 script is inserted.  To make sure tasksel believe it is to install a
9952 desktop on a laptop, the tasksel tests are replaced in the chroot
9953 (only acceptable because this is a throw-away chroot).</p>
9954
9955 <p>A naive upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze using aptitude dist-upgrade
9956 currently always fail because udev refuses to upgrade with the kernel
9957 in Lenny, so to avoid that problem the file /etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
9958 is created.  The bug report
9959 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/566000">#566000</a> make me suspect
9960 this problem do not trigger in a chroot, but I touch the file anyway
9961 to make sure the upgrade go well.  Testing on virtual and real
9962 hardware have failed me because of udev so far, and creating this file
9963 do the trick in such settings anyway.  This is a
9964 <a href="http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/debian-26/failed-dist-upgrade-due-to-udev-config_sysfs_deprecated-nonsense-804130/">known
9965 issue</a> and the current udev behaviour is intended by the udev
9966 maintainer because he lack the resources to rewrite udev to keep
9967 working with old kernels or something like that.  I really wish the
9968 udev upstream would keep udev backwards compatible, to avoid such
9969 upgrade problem, but given that they fail to do so, I guess
9970 documenting the way out of this mess is the best option we got for
9971 Debian Squeeze.</p>
9972
9973 <p>Anyway, back to the task at hand, testing upgrades.  This test
9974 script, which I call <tt>upgrade-test</tt> for now, is doing the
9975 trick:</p>
9976
9977 <blockquote><pre>
9978 #!/bin/sh
9979 set -ex
9980
9981 if [ "$1" ] ; then
9982     desktop=$1
9983 else
9984     desktop=gnome
9985 fi
9986
9987 from=lenny
9988 to=squeeze
9989
9990 exec &lt; /dev/null
9991 unset LANG
9992 mirror=http://ftp.skolelinux.org/debian
9993 tmpdir=chroot-$from-upgrade-$to-$desktop
9994 fuser -mv .
9995 debootstrap $from $tmpdir $mirror
9996 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
9997 cat > $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d &lt;&lt;EOF
9998 #!/bin/sh
9999 exit 101
10000 EOF
10001 chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d
10002 exit_cleanup() {
10003     umount $tmpdir/proc
10004 }
10005 mount -t proc proc $tmpdir/proc
10006 # Make sure proc is unmounted also on failure
10007 trap exit_cleanup EXIT INT
10008
10009 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y install debconf-utils
10010
10011 # Make sure tasksel autoselection trigger.  It need the test scripts
10012 # to return the correct answers.
10013 echo tasksel tasksel/desktop multiselect $desktop | \
10014     chroot $tmpdir debconf-set-selections
10015
10016 # Include the desktop and laptop task
10017 for test in desktop laptop ; do
10018     echo > $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test &lt;&lt;EOF
10019 #!/bin/sh
10020 exit 2
10021 EOF
10022     chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test
10023 done
10024
10025 DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
10026 DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical
10027 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND DEBIAN_PRIORITY
10028 chroot $tmpdir tasksel --new-install
10029
10030 echo deb $mirror $to main > $tmpdir/etc/apt/sources.list
10031 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
10032 touch $tmpdir/etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
10033 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y dist-upgrade
10034 fuser -mv
10035 </pre></blockquote>
10036
10037 <p>I suspect it would be useful to test upgrades with both apt-get and
10038 with aptitude, but I have not had time to look at how they behave
10039 differently so far.  I hope to get a cron job running to do the test
10040 regularly and post the result on the web.  The Gnome upgrade currently
10041 work, while the KDE upgrade fail because of the bug in
10042 kdebase-workspace-data</p>
10043
10044 <p>I am not quite sure what kind of extract from the huge upgrade logs
10045 (KDE 167 KiB, Gnome 516 KiB) it make sense to include in this blog
10046 post, so I will refrain from trying.  I can report that for Gnome,
10047 aptitude report 760 packages upgraded, 448 newly installed, 129 to
10048 remove and 1 not upgraded and 1024MB need to be downloaded while for
10049 KDE the same numbers are 702 packages upgraded, 507 newly installed,
10050 193 to remove and 0 not upgraded and 1117MB need to be downloaded</p>
10051
10052 <p>I am very happy to notice that the Gnome desktop + laptop upgrade
10053 is able to migrate to dependency based boot sequencing and parallel
10054 booting without a hitch.  Was unsure if there were still bugs with
10055 packages failing to clean up their obsolete init.d script during
10056 upgrades, and no such problem seem to affect the Gnome desktop+laptop
10057 packages.</p>
10058
10059       </div>
10060       <div class="tags">
10061
10062
10063         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>.
10064
10065
10066       </div>
10067     </div>
10068     <div class="padding"></div>
10069
10070     <div class="entry">
10071       <div class="title">
10072         <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>
10073       </div>
10074       <div class="date">
10075          6th June 2010
10076       </div>
10077       <div class="body">
10078         <p>If Debian is to migrate to upstart on Linux, I expect some init.d
10079 scripts to migrate (some of) their operations to upstart job while
10080 keeping the init.d for hurd and kfreebsd.  The packages with such
10081 needs will need a way to get their init.d scripts to behave
10082 differently when used with sysvinit and with upstart.  Because of
10083 this, I had a look at the environment variables set when a init.d
10084 script is running under upstart, and when it is not.</p>
10085
10086 <p>With upstart, I notice these environment variables are set when a
10087 script is started from rcS.d/ (ignoring some irrelevant ones like
10088 COLUMNS):</p>
10089
10090 <blockquote><pre>
10091 DEFAULT_RUNLEVEL=2
10092 previous=N
10093 PREVLEVEL=
10094 RUNLEVEL=
10095 runlevel=S
10096 UPSTART_EVENTS=startup
10097 UPSTART_INSTANCE=
10098 UPSTART_JOB=rc-sysinit
10099 </pre></blockquote>
10100
10101 <p>With sysvinit, these environment variables are set for the same
10102 script.</p>
10103
10104 <blockquote><pre>
10105 INIT_VERSION=sysvinit-2.88
10106 previous=N
10107 PREVLEVEL=N
10108 RUNLEVEL=S
10109 runlevel=S
10110 </pre></blockquote>
10111
10112 <p>The RUNLEVEL and PREVLEVEL environment variables passed on from
10113 sysvinit are not set by upstart.  Not sure if it is intentional or not
10114 to not be compatible with sysvinit in this regard.</p>
10115
10116 <p>For scripts needing to behave differently when upstart is used,
10117 looking for the UPSTART_JOB environment variable seem to be a good
10118 choice.</p>
10119
10120       </div>
10121       <div class="tags">
10122
10123
10124         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>.
10125
10126
10127       </div>
10128     </div>
10129     <div class="padding"></div>
10130
10131     <div class="entry">
10132       <div class="title">
10133         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_manual_for_standards_wars___.html">A manual for standards wars...</a>
10134       </div>
10135       <div class="date">
10136          6th June 2010
10137       </div>
10138       <div class="body">
10139         <p>Via the
10140 <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/robweir/antic-atom/~3/QzU4RgoAGMg/weekly-links-10.html">blog
10141 of Rob Weir</a> I came across the very interesting essay named
10142 <a href="http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/shapiro/wars.pdf">The Art of
10143 Standards Wars</a> (PDF 25 pages).  I recommend it for everyone
10144 following the standards wars of today.</p>
10145
10146       </div>
10147       <div class="tags">
10148
10149
10150         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>.
10151
10152
10153       </div>
10154     </div>
10155     <div class="padding"></div>
10156
10157     <div class="entry">
10158       <div class="title">
10159         <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>
10160       </div>
10161       <div class="date">
10162          3rd June 2010
10163       </div>
10164       <div class="body">
10165         <p>When using sitesummary at a site to track machines, it is possible
10166 to get a list of the machine types in use thanks to the DMI
10167 information extracted from each machine.  The script to do so is
10168 included in the sitesummary package, and here is example output from
10169 the Skolelinux build servers:</p>
10170
10171 <blockquote><pre>
10172 maintainer:~# /usr/lib/sitesummary/hardware-model-summary
10173   vendor                    count
10174   Dell Computer Corporation     1
10175     PowerEdge 1750              1
10176   IBM                           1
10177     eserver xSeries 345 -[8670M1X]-     1
10178   Intel                         2
10179   [no-dmi-info]                 3
10180 maintainer:~#
10181 </pre></blockquote>
10182
10183 <p>The quality of the report depend on the quality of the DMI tables
10184 provided in each machine.  Here there are Intel machines without model
10185 information listed with Intel as vendor and no model, and virtual Xen
10186 machines listed as [no-dmi-info].  One can add -l as a command line
10187 option to list the individual machines.</p>
10188
10189 <p>A larger list is
10190 <a href="http://narvikskolen.no/sitesummary/">available from the the
10191 city of Narvik</a>, which uses Skolelinux on all their shools and also
10192 provide the basic sitesummary report publicly.  In their report there
10193 are ~1400 machines. I know they use both Ubuntu and Skolelinux on
10194 their machines, and as sitesummary is available in both distributions,
10195 it is trivial to get all of them to report to the same central
10196 collector.</p>
10197
10198       </div>
10199       <div class="tags">
10200
10201
10202         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>.
10203
10204
10205       </div>
10206     </div>
10207     <div class="padding"></div>
10208
10209     <div class="entry">
10210       <div class="title">
10211         <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>
10212       </div>
10213       <div class="date">
10214          1st June 2010
10215       </div>
10216       <div class="body">
10217         <p>It is strange to watch how a bug in Debian causing KDM to fail to
10218 start at boot when an NVidia video card is used is handled.  The
10219 problem seem to be that the nvidia X.org driver uses a long time to
10220 initialize, and this duration is longer than kdm is configured to
10221 wait.</p>
10222
10223 <p>I came across two bugs related to this issue,
10224 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">#583312</a> initially filed
10225 against initscripts and passed on to nvidia-glx when it became obvious
10226 that the nvidia drivers were involved, and
10227 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/524751">#524751</a> initially filed against
10228 kdm and passed on to src:nvidia-graphics-drivers for unknown reasons.</p>
10229
10230 <p>To me, it seem that no-one is interested in actually solving the
10231 problem nvidia video card owners experience and make sure the Debian
10232 distribution work out of the box for these users.  The nvidia driver
10233 maintainers expect kdm to be set up to wait longer, while kdm expect
10234 the nvidia driver maintainers to fix the driver to start faster, and
10235 while they wait for each other I guess the users end up switching to a
10236 distribution that work for them.  I have no idea what the solution is,
10237 but I am pretty sure that waiting for each other is not it.</p>
10238
10239 <p>I wonder why we end up handling bugs this way.</p>
10240
10241       </div>
10242       <div class="tags">
10243
10244
10245         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>.
10246
10247
10248       </div>
10249     </div>
10250     <div class="padding"></div>
10251
10252     <div class="entry">
10253       <div class="title">
10254         <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>
10255       </div>
10256       <div class="date">
10257         27th May 2010
10258       </div>
10259       <div class="body">
10260         <p>A few days ago, parallel booting was enabled in Debian/testing.
10261 The feature seem to hold up pretty well, but three fairly serious
10262 issues are known and should be solved:
10263
10264 <p><ul>
10265
10266 <li>The wicd package seen to
10267 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/508289">break NFS mounting</a> and
10268 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/581586">network setup</a> when
10269 parallel booting is enabled.  No idea why, but the wicd maintainer
10270 seem to be on the case.</li>
10271
10272 <li>The nvidia X driver seem to
10273 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">have a race condition</a>
10274 triggered more easily when parallel booting is in effect.  The
10275 maintainer is on the case.</li>
10276
10277 <li>The sysv-rc package fail to properly enable dependency based boot
10278 sequencing (the shutdown is broken) when old file-rc users
10279 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/575080">try to switch back</a> to
10280 sysv-rc.  One way to solve it would be for file-rc to create
10281 /etc/init.d/.legacy-bootordering, and another is to try to make
10282 sysv-rc more robust.  Will investigate some more and probably upload a
10283 workaround in sysv-rc to help those trying to move from file-rc to
10284 sysv-rc get a working shutdown.</li>
10285
10286 </ul></p>
10287
10288 <p>All in all not many surprising issues, and all of them seem
10289 solvable before Squeeze is released.  In addition to these there are
10290 some packages with bugs in their dependencies and run level settings,
10291 which I expect will be fixed in a reasonable time span.</p>
10292
10293 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
10294 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
10295 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
10296 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
10297
10298 <p>Update: Correct bug number to file-rc issue.</p>
10299
10300       </div>
10301       <div class="tags">
10302
10303
10304         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>.
10305
10306
10307       </div>
10308     </div>
10309     <div class="padding"></div>
10310
10311     <div class="entry">
10312       <div class="title">
10313         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/More_flexible_firmware_handling_in_debian_installer.html">More flexible firmware handling in debian-installer</a>
10314       </div>
10315       <div class="date">
10316         22nd May 2010
10317       </div>
10318       <div class="body">
10319         <p>After a long break from debian-installer development, I finally
10320 found time today to return to the project.  Having to spend less time
10321 working dependency based boot in debian, as it is almost complete now,
10322 definitely helped freeing some time.</p>
10323
10324 <p>A while back, I ran into a problem while working on Debian Edu.  We
10325 include some firmware packages on the Debian Edu CDs, those needed to
10326 get disk and network controllers working.  Without having these
10327 firmware packages available during installation, it is impossible to
10328 install Debian Edu on the given machine, and because our target group
10329 are non-technical people, asking them to provide firmware packages on
10330 an external medium is a support pain.  Initially, I expected it to be
10331 enough to include the firmware packages on the CD to get
10332 debian-installer to find and use them.  This proved to be wrong.
10333 Next, I hoped it was enough to symlink the relevant firmware packages
10334 to some useful location on the CD (tried /cdrom/ and
10335 /cdrom/firmware/).  This also proved to not work, and at this point I
10336 found time to look at the debian-installer code to figure out what was
10337 going to work.</p>
10338
10339 <p>The firmware loading code is in the hw-detect package, and a closer
10340 look revealed that it would only look for firmware packages outside
10341 the installation media, so the CD was never checked for firmware
10342 packages.  It would only check USB sticks, floppies and other
10343 "external" media devices.  Today I changed it to also look in the
10344 /cdrom/firmware/ directory on the mounted CD or DVD, which should
10345 solve the problem I ran into with Debian edu.  I also changed it to
10346 look in /firmware/, to make sure the installer also find firmware
10347 provided in the initrd when booting the installer via PXE, to allow us
10348 to provide the same feature in the PXE setup included in Debian
10349 Edu.</p>
10350
10351 <p>To make sure firmware deb packages with a license questions are not
10352 activated without asking if the license is accepted, I extended
10353 hw-detect to look for preinst scripts in the firmware packages, and
10354 run these before activating the firmware during installation.  The
10355 license question is asked using debconf in the preinst, so this should
10356 solve the issue for the firmware packages I have looked at so far.</p>
10357
10358 <p>If you want to discuss the details of these features, please
10359 contact us on debian-boot@lists.debian.org.</p>
10360
10361       </div>
10362       <div class="tags">
10363
10364
10365         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>.
10366
10367
10368       </div>
10369     </div>
10370     <div class="padding"></div>
10371
10372     <div class="entry">
10373       <div class="title">
10374         <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>
10375       </div>
10376       <div class="date">
10377         14th May 2010
10378       </div>
10379       <div class="body">
10380         <p>Since this evening, parallel booting is the default in
10381 Debian/unstable for machines using dependency based boot sequencing.
10382 Apparently the testing of concurrent booting has been wider than
10383 expected, if I am to believe the
10384 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
10385 on debian-devel@</a>, and I concluded a few days ago to move forward
10386 with the feature this weekend, to give us some time to detect any
10387 remaining problems before Squeeze is frozen.  If serious problems are
10388 detected, it is simple to change the default back to sequential boot.
10389 The upload of the new sysvinit package also activate a new upstream
10390 version.</p>
10391
10392 More information about
10393 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
10394 based boot sequencing</a> is available from the Debian wiki.  It is
10395 currently possible to disable parallel booting when one run into
10396 problems caused by it, by adding this line to /etc/default/rcS:</p>
10397
10398 <blockquote><pre>
10399 CONCURRENCY=none
10400 </pre></blockquote>
10401
10402 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
10403 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
10404 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
10405 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
10406
10407       </div>
10408       <div class="tags">
10409
10410
10411         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>.
10412
10413
10414       </div>
10415     </div>
10416     <div class="padding"></div>
10417
10418     <div class="entry">
10419       <div class="title">
10420         <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>
10421       </div>
10422       <div class="date">
10423         14th May 2010
10424       </div>
10425       <div class="body">
10426         <p>In the recent Debian Edu versions, the
10427 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/SiteSummary">sitesummary
10428 system</a> is used to keep track of the machines in the school
10429 network.  Each machine will automatically report its status to the
10430 central server after boot and once per night.  The network setup is
10431 also reported, and using this information it is possible to get the
10432 MAC address of all network interfaces in the machines.  This is useful
10433 to update the DHCP configuration.</p>
10434
10435 <p>To give some idea how to use sitesummary, here is a one-liner to
10436 ist all MAC addresses of all machines reporting to sitesummary.  Run
10437 this on the collector host:</p>
10438
10439 <blockquote><pre>
10440 perl -MSiteSummary -e 'for_all_hosts(sub { print join(" ", get_macaddresses(shift)), "\n"; });'
10441 </pre></blockquote>
10442
10443 <p>This will list all MAC addresses assosiated with all machine, one
10444 line per machine and with space between the MAC addresses.</p>
10445
10446 <p>To allow system administrators easier job at adding static DHCP
10447 addresses for hosts, it would be possible to extend this to fetch
10448 machine information from sitesummary and update the DHCP and DNS
10449 tables in LDAP using this information.  Such tool is unfortunately not
10450 written yet.</p>
10451
10452       </div>
10453       <div class="tags">
10454
10455
10456         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>.
10457
10458
10459       </div>
10460     </div>
10461     <div class="padding"></div>
10462
10463     <div class="entry">
10464       <div class="title">
10465         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/systemd__an_interesting_alternative_to_upstart.html">systemd, an interesting alternative to upstart</a>
10466       </div>
10467       <div class="date">
10468         13th May 2010
10469       </div>
10470       <div class="body">
10471         <p>The last few days a new boot system called
10472 <a href="http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd">systemd</a>
10473 has been
10474 <a href="http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/systemd.html">introduced</a>
10475
10476 to the free software world.  I have not yet had time to play around
10477 with it, but it seem to be a very interesting alternative to
10478 <a href="http://upstart.ubuntu.com/">upstart</a>, and might prove to be
10479 a good alternative for Debian when we are able to switch to an event
10480 based boot system.  Tollef is
10481 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/580814">in the process</a> of getting
10482 systemd into Debian, and I look forward to seeing how well it work.  I
10483 like the fact that systemd handles init.d scripts with dependency
10484 information natively, allowing them to run in parallel where upstart
10485 at the moment do not.</p>
10486
10487 <p>Unfortunately do systemd have the same problem as upstart regarding
10488 platform support.  It only work on recent Linux kernels, and also need
10489 some new kernel features enabled to function properly.  This means
10490 kFreeBSD and Hurd ports of Debian will need a port or a different boot
10491 system.  Not sure how that will be handled if systemd proves to be the
10492 way forward.</p>
10493
10494 <p>In the mean time, based on the
10495 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
10496 on debian-devel@</a> regarding parallel booting in Debian, I have
10497 decided to enable full parallel booting as the default in Debian as
10498 soon as possible (probably this weekend or early next week), to see if
10499 there are any remaining serious bugs in the init.d dependencies.  A
10500 new version of the sysvinit package implementing this change is
10501 already in experimental.  If all go well, Squeeze will be released
10502 with parallel booting enabled by default.</p>
10503
10504       </div>
10505       <div class="tags">
10506
10507
10508         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>.
10509
10510
10511       </div>
10512     </div>
10513     <div class="padding"></div>
10514
10515     <div class="entry">
10516       <div class="title">
10517         <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>
10518       </div>
10519       <div class="date">
10520          6th May 2010
10521       </div>
10522       <div class="body">
10523         <p>These days, the init.d script dependencies in Squeeze are quite
10524 complete, so complete that it is actually possible to run all the
10525 init.d scripts in parallell based on these dependencies.  If you want
10526 to test your Squeeze system, make sure
10527 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
10528 based boot sequencing</a> is enabled, and add this line to
10529 /etc/default/rcS:</p>
10530
10531 <blockquote><pre>
10532 CONCURRENCY=makefile
10533 </pre></blockquote>
10534
10535 <p>That is it.  It will cause sysv-rc to use the startpar tool to run
10536 scripts in parallel using the dependency information stored in
10537 /etc/init.d/.depend.boot, /etc/init.d/.depend.start and
10538 /etc/init.d/.depend.stop to order the scripts.  Startpar is configured
10539 to try to start the kdm and gdm scripts as early as possible, and will
10540 start the facilities required by kdm or gdm as early as possible to
10541 make this happen.</p>
10542
10543 <p>Give it a try, and see if you like the result.  If some services
10544 fail to start properly, it is most likely because they have incomplete
10545 init.d script dependencies in their startup script (or some of their
10546 dependent scripts have incomplete dependencies).  Report bugs and get
10547 the package maintainers to fix it. :)</p>
10548
10549 <p>Running scripts in parallel could be the default in Debian when we
10550 manage to get the init.d script dependencies complete and correct.  I
10551 expect we will get there in Squeeze+1, if we get manage to test and
10552 fix the remaining issues.</p>
10553
10554 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
10555 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
10556 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
10557 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
10558
10559       </div>
10560       <div class="tags">
10561
10562
10563         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>.
10564
10565
10566       </div>
10567     </div>
10568     <div class="padding"></div>
10569
10570     <div class="entry">
10571       <div class="title">
10572         <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>
10573       </div>
10574       <div class="date">
10575         27th July 2009
10576       </div>
10577       <div class="body">
10578         <p>Since this evening, with the upload of sysvinit version 2.87dsf-2,
10579 and the upload of insserv version 1.12.0-10 yesterday, Debian unstable
10580 have been migrated to using dependency based boot sequencing.  This
10581 conclude work me and others have been doing for the last three days.
10582 It feels great to see this finally part of the default Debian
10583 installation.  Now we just need to weed out the last few problems that
10584 are bound to show up, to get everything ready for Squeeze.</p>
10585
10586 <p>The next step is migrating /sbin/init from sysvinit to upstart, and
10587 fixing the more fundamental problem of handing the event based
10588 non-predictable kernel in the early boot.</p>
10589
10590       </div>
10591       <div class="tags">
10592
10593
10594         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>.
10595
10596
10597       </div>
10598     </div>
10599     <div class="padding"></div>
10600
10601     <div class="entry">
10602       <div class="title">
10603         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Taking_over_sysvinit_development.html">Taking over sysvinit development</a>
10604       </div>
10605       <div class="date">
10606         22nd July 2009
10607       </div>
10608       <div class="body">
10609         <p>After several years of frustration with the lack of activity from
10610 the existing sysvinit upstream developer, I decided a few weeks ago to
10611 take over the package and become the new upstream.  The number of
10612 patches to track for the Debian package was becoming a burden, and the
10613 lack of synchronization between the distribution made it hard to keep
10614 the package up to date.</p>
10615
10616 <p>On the new sysvinit team is the SuSe maintainer Dr. Werner Fink,
10617 and my Debian co-maintainer Kel Modderman.  About 10 days ago, I made
10618 a new upstream tarball with version number 2.87dsf (for Debian, SuSe
10619 and Fedora), based on the patches currently in use in these
10620 distributions.  We Debian maintainers plan to move to this tarball as
10621 the new upstream as soon as we find time to do the merge.  Since the
10622 new tarball was created, we agreed with Werner at SuSe to make a new
10623 upstream project at <a href="http://savannah.nongnu.org/">Savannah</a>, and continue
10624 development there.  The project is registered and currently waiting
10625 for approval by the Savannah administrators, and as soon as it is
10626 approved, we will import the old versions from svn and continue
10627 working on the future release.</p>
10628
10629 <p>It is a bit ironic that this is done now, when some of the involved
10630 distributions are moving to upstart as a syvinit replacement.</p>
10631
10632       </div>
10633       <div class="tags">
10634
10635
10636         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>.
10637
10638
10639       </div>
10640     </div>
10641     <div class="padding"></div>
10642
10643     <div class="entry">
10644       <div class="title">
10645         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_boots_quicker_and_quicker.html">Debian boots quicker and quicker</a>
10646       </div>
10647       <div class="date">
10648         24th June 2009
10649       </div>
10650       <div class="body">
10651         <p>I spent Monday and tuesday this week in London with a lot of the
10652 people involved in the boot system on Debian and Ubuntu, to see if we
10653 could find more ways to speed up the boot system.  This was an Ubuntu
10654 funded
10655 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FoundationsTeam/BootPerformance/DebianUbuntuSprint">developer
10656 gathering</a>. It was quite productive.  We also discussed the future
10657 of boot systems, and ways to handle the increasing number of boot
10658 issues introduced by the Linux kernel becoming more and more
10659 asynchronous and event base.  The Ubuntu approach using udev and
10660 upstart might be a good way forward.  Time will show.</p>
10661
10662 <p>Anyway, there are a few ways at the moment to speed up the boot
10663 process in Debian.  All of these should be applied to get a quick
10664 boot:</p>
10665
10666 <ul>
10667
10668 <li>Use dash as /bin/sh.</li>
10669
10670 <li>Disable the init.d/hwclock*.sh scripts and make sure the hardware
10671    clock is in UTC.</li>
10672
10673 <li>Install and activate the insserv package to enable
10674    <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
10675    based boot sequencing</a>, and enable concurrent booting.</li>
10676
10677 </ul>
10678
10679 These points are based on the Google summer of code work done by
10680 <a href="http://initscripts-ng.alioth.debian.org/soc2006-bootsystem/">Carlos
10681 Villegas</a>.
10682
10683 <p>Support for makefile-style concurrency during boot was uploaded to
10684 unstable yesterday.  When we tested it, we were able to cut 6 seconds
10685 from the boot sequence.  It depend on very correct dependency
10686 declaration in all init.d scripts, so I expect us to find edge cases
10687 where the dependences in some scripts are slightly wrong when we start
10688 using this.</p>
10689
10690 <p>On our IRC channel for this effort, #pkg-sysvinit, a new idea was
10691 introduced by Raphael Geissert today, one that could affect the
10692 startup speed as well.  Instead of starting some scripts concurrently
10693 from rcS.d/ and another set of scripts from rc2.d/, it would be
10694 possible to run a of them in the same process.  A quick way to test
10695 this would be to enable insserv and run 'mv /etc/rc2.d/S* /etc/rcS.d/;
10696 insserv'.  Will need to test if that work. :)</p>
10697
10698       </div>
10699       <div class="tags">
10700
10701
10702         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>.
10703
10704
10705       </div>
10706     </div>
10707     <div class="padding"></div>
10708
10709     <div class="entry">
10710       <div class="title">
10711         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/BSAs_p_stander_om_piratkopiering_m_ter_motstand.html">BSAs påstander om piratkopiering møter motstand</a>
10712       </div>
10713       <div class="date">
10714         17th May 2009
10715       </div>
10716       <div class="body">
10717         <p>Hvert år de siste årene har BSA, lobbyfronten til de store
10718 programvareselskapene som Microsoft og Apple, publisert en rapport der
10719 de gjetter på hvor mye piratkopiering påfører i tapte inntekter i
10720 ulike land rundt om i verden.  Resultatene er tendensiøse.  For noen
10721 dager siden kom
10722 <a href="http://global.bsa.org/globalpiracy2008/studies/globalpiracy2008.pdf">siste
10723 rapport</a>, og det er flere kritiske kommentarer publisert de siste
10724 dagene.  Et spesielt interessant kommentar fra Sverige,
10725 <a href="http://www.idg.se/2.1085/1.229795/bsa-hoftade-sverigesiffror">BSA
10726 höftade Sverigesiffror</a>, oppsummeres slik:</p>
10727
10728 <blockquote>
10729 I sin senaste rapport slår BSA fast att 25 procent av all mjukvara i
10730 Sverige är piratkopierad. Det utan att ha pratat med ett enda svenskt
10731 företag. "Man bör nog kanske inte se de här siffrorna som helt
10732 exakta", säger BSAs Sverigechef John Hugosson.
10733 </blockquote>
10734
10735 <p>Mon tro om de er like metodiske når de gjetter på andelen piratkopiering i Norge?  To andre kommentarer er <a
10736 href="http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/comment/2242134/bsa-piracy-figures-shot-reality">BSA
10737 piracy figures need a shot of reality</a> og <a
10738 href="http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/3958/125/">Does The WIPO
10739 Copyright Treaty Work?</a></p>
10740
10741 <p>Fant lenkene via <a
10742 href="http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/05/17/1632242">oppslag
10743 på Slashdot</a>.</p>
10744
10745       </div>
10746       <div class="tags">
10747
10748
10749         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>.
10750
10751
10752       </div>
10753     </div>
10754     <div class="padding"></div>
10755
10756     <div class="entry">
10757       <div class="title">
10758         <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>
10759       </div>
10760       <div class="date">
10761          7th May 2009
10762       </div>
10763       <div class="body">
10764         <p>Kom over
10765 <a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10216873-16.html">interessante
10766 tall</a> fra IDG om utviklingen av linuxservermarkedet.  Fikk meg til
10767 å tenke på antall tjenermaskiner ved Universitetet i Oslo der jeg
10768 jobber til daglig.  En rask opptelling forteller meg at vi har 490
10769 (61%) fysiske unix-tjener (mest linux men også noen solaris) og 196
10770 (25%) windowstjenere, samt 112 (14%) virtuelle unix-tjenere.  Med den
10771 bakgrunnskunnskapen kan jeg godt tro at IDG er inne på noe.</p>
10772
10773       </div>
10774       <div class="tags">
10775
10776
10777         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>.
10778
10779
10780       </div>
10781     </div>
10782     <div class="padding"></div>
10783
10784     <div class="entry">
10785       <div class="title">
10786         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Kryptert_harddisk___naturligvis.html">Kryptert harddisk - naturligvis</a>
10787       </div>
10788       <div class="date">
10789          2nd May 2009
10790       </div>
10791       <div class="body">
10792         <p><a href="http://www.dagensit.no/trender/article1658676.ece">Dagens
10793 IT melder</a> at Intel hevder at det er dyrt å miste en datamaskin,
10794 når en tar tap av arbeidstid, fortrolige dokumenter,
10795 personopplysninger og alt annet det innebærer.  Det er ingen tvil om
10796 at det er en kostbar affære å miste sin datamaskin, og det er årsaken
10797 til at jeg har kryptert harddisken på både kontormaskinen og min
10798 bærbare.  Begge inneholder personopplysninger jeg ikke ønsker skal
10799 komme på avveie, den første informasjon relatert til jobben min ved
10800 Universitetet i Oslo, og den andre relatert til blant annet
10801 foreningsarbeide.  Kryptering av diskene gjør at det er lite
10802 sannsynlig at dophoder som kan finne på å rappe maskinene får noe ut
10803 av dem.  Maskinene låses automatisk etter noen minutter uten bruk,
10804 og en reboot vil gjøre at de ber om passord før de vil starte opp.
10805 Jeg bruker Debian på begge maskinene, og installasjonssystemet der
10806 gjør det trivielt å sette opp krypterte disker.  Jeg har LVM på toppen
10807 av krypterte partisjoner, slik at alt av datapartisjoner er kryptert.
10808 Jeg anbefaler alle å kryptere diskene på sine bærbare.  Kostnaden når
10809 det er gjort slik jeg gjør det er minimale, og gevinstene er
10810 betydelige.  En bør dog passe på passordet.  Hvis det går tapt, må
10811 maskinen reinstalleres og alt er tapt.</p>
10812
10813 <p>Krypteringen vil ikke stoppe kompetente angripere som f.eks. kjøler
10814 ned minnebrikkene før maskinen rebootes med programvare for å hente ut
10815 krypteringsnøklene.  Kostnaden med å forsvare seg mot slike angripere
10816 er for min del høyere enn gevinsten.  Jeg tror oddsene for at
10817 f.eks. etteretningsorganisasjoner har glede av å titte på mine
10818 maskiner er minimale, og ulempene jeg ville oppnå ved å forsøke å
10819 gjøre det vanskeligere for angripere med kompetanse og ressurser er
10820 betydelige.</p>
10821
10822       </div>
10823       <div class="tags">
10824
10825
10826         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>.
10827
10828
10829       </div>
10830     </div>
10831     <div class="padding"></div>
10832
10833     <div class="entry">
10834       <div class="title">
10835         <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>
10836       </div>
10837       <div class="date">
10838          2nd May 2009
10839       </div>
10840       <div class="body">
10841         <p>There are two software projects that have had huge influence on the
10842 quality of free software, and I wanted to mention both in case someone
10843 do not yet know them.</p>
10844
10845 <p>The first one is <a href="http://valgrind.org/">valgrind</a>, a
10846 tool to detect and expose errors in the memory handling of programs.
10847 It is easy to use, all one need to do is to run 'valgrind program',
10848 and it will report any problems on stdout.  It is even better if the
10849 program include debug information.  With debug information, it is able
10850 to report the source file name and line number where the problem
10851 occurs.  It can report things like 'reading past memory block in file
10852 X line N, the memory block was allocated in file Y, line M', and
10853 'using uninitialised value in control logic'.  This tool has made it
10854 trivial to investigate reproducible crash bugs in programs, and have
10855 reduced the number of this kind of bugs in free software a lot.
10856
10857 <p>The second one is
10858 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coverity">Coverity</a> which is
10859 a source code checker.  It is able to process the source of a program
10860 and find problems in the logic without running the program.  It
10861 started out as the Stanford Checker and became well known when it was
10862 used to find bugs in the Linux kernel.  It is now a commercial tool
10863 and the company behind it is running
10864 <a href="http://www.scan.coverity.com/">a community service</a> for the
10865 free software community, where a lot of free software projects get
10866 their source checked for free.  Several thousand defects have been
10867 found and fixed so far.  It can find errors like 'lock L taken in file
10868 X line N is never released if exiting in line M', or 'the code in file
10869 Y lines O to P can never be executed'.  The projects included in the
10870 community service project have managed to get rid of a lot of
10871 reliability problems thanks to Coverity.</p>
10872
10873 <p>I believe tools like this, that are able to automatically find
10874 errors in the source, are vital to improve the quality of software and
10875 make sure we can get rid of the crashing and failing software we are
10876 surrounded by today.</p>
10877
10878       </div>
10879       <div class="tags">
10880
10881
10882         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>.
10883
10884
10885       </div>
10886     </div>
10887     <div class="padding"></div>
10888
10889     <div class="entry">
10890       <div class="title">
10891         <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>
10892       </div>
10893       <div class="date">
10894         28th April 2009
10895       </div>
10896       <div class="body">
10897         <p>Julien Blache
10898 <a href="http://blog.technologeek.org/2009/04/12/214">claim that no
10899 patch is better than a useless patch</a>.  I completely disagree, as a
10900 patch allow one to discuss a concrete and proposed solution, and also
10901 prove that the issue at hand is important enough for someone to spent
10902 time on fixing it.  No patch do not provide any of these positive
10903 properties.</p>
10904
10905       </div>
10906       <div class="tags">
10907
10908
10909         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>.
10910
10911
10912       </div>
10913     </div>
10914     <div class="padding"></div>
10915
10916     <div class="entry">
10917       <div class="title">
10918         <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>
10919       </div>
10920       <div class="date">
10921         30th March 2009
10922       </div>
10923       <div class="body">
10924         <p>Where I work at the University of Oslo, one decision stand out as a
10925 very good one to form a long lived computer infrastructure.  It is the
10926 simple one, lost by many in todays computer industry: Standardize on
10927 open network protocols and open exchange/storage formats, not applications.
10928 Applications come and go, while protocols and files tend to stay, and
10929 thus one want to make it easy to change application and vendor, while
10930 avoiding conversion costs and locking users to a specific platform or
10931 application.</p>
10932
10933 <p>This approach make it possible to replace the client applications
10934 independently of the server applications.  One can even allow users to
10935 use several different applications as long as they handle the selected
10936 protocol and format.  In the normal case, only one client application
10937 is recommended and users only get help if they choose to use this
10938 application, but those that want to deviate from the easy path are not
10939 blocked from doing so.</p>
10940
10941 <p>It also allow us to replace the server side without forcing the
10942 users to replace their applications, and thus allow us to select the
10943 best server implementation at any moment, when scale and resouce
10944 requirements change.</p>
10945
10946 <p>I strongly recommend standardizing - on open network protocols and
10947 open formats, but I would never recommend standardizing on a single
10948 application that do not use open network protocol or open formats.</p>
10949
10950       </div>
10951       <div class="tags">
10952
10953
10954         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>.
10955
10956
10957       </div>
10958     </div>
10959     <div class="padding"></div>
10960
10961     <div class="entry">
10962       <div class="title">
10963         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Returning_from_Skolelinux_developer_gathering.html">Returning from Skolelinux developer gathering</a>
10964       </div>
10965       <div class="date">
10966         29th March 2009
10967       </div>
10968       <div class="body">
10969         <p>I'm sitting on the train going home from this weekends Debian
10970 Edu/Skolelinux development gathering.  I got a bit done tuning the
10971 desktop, and looked into the dynamic service location protocol
10972 implementation avahi.  It look like it could be useful for us.  Almost
10973 30 people participated, and I believe it was a great environment to
10974 get to know the Skolelinux system.  Walter Bender, involved in the
10975 development of the Sugar educational platform, presented his stuff and
10976 also helped me improve my OLPC installation.  He also showed me that
10977 his Turtle Art application can be used in standalone mode, and we
10978 agreed that I would help getting it packaged for Debian.  As a
10979 standalone application it would be great for Debian Edu.  We also
10980 tried to get the video conferencing working with two OLPCs, but that
10981 proved to be too hard for us.  The application seem to need more work
10982 before it is ready for me.  I look forward to getting home and relax
10983 now. :)</p>
10984
10985       </div>
10986       <div class="tags">
10987
10988
10989         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>.
10990
10991
10992       </div>
10993     </div>
10994     <div class="padding"></div>
10995
10996     <div class="entry">
10997       <div class="title">
10998         <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>
10999       </div>
11000       <div class="date">
11001         29th March 2009
11002       </div>
11003       <div class="body">
11004         <p>The state of standardized LDAP schemas on Linux is far from
11005 optimal.  There is RFC 2307 documenting one way to store NIS maps in
11006 LDAP, and a modified version of this normally called RFC 2307bis, with
11007 some modifications to be compatible with Active Directory.  The RFC
11008 specification handle the content of a lot of system databases, but do
11009 not handle DNS zones and DHCP configuration.</p>
11010
11011 <p>In <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux</a>,
11012 we would like to store information about users, SMB clients/hosts,
11013 filegroups, netgroups (users and hosts), DHCP and DNS configuration,
11014 and LTSP configuration in LDAP.  These objects have a lot in common,
11015 but with the current LDAP schemas it is not possible to have one
11016 object per entity.  For example, one need to have at least three LDAP
11017 objects for a given computer, one with the SMB related stuff, one with
11018 DNS information and another with DHCP information.  The schemas
11019 provided for DNS and DHCP are impossible to combine into one LDAP
11020 object.  In addition, it is impossible to implement quick queries for
11021 netgroup membership, because of the way NIS triples are implemented.
11022 It just do not scale.  I believe it is time for a few RFC
11023 specifications to cleam up this mess.</p>
11024
11025 <p>I would like to have one LDAP object representing each computer in
11026 the network, and this object can then keep the SMB (ie host key), DHCP
11027 (mac address/name) and DNS (name/IP address) settings in one place.
11028 It need to be efficently stored to make sure it scale well.</p>
11029
11030 <p>I would also like to have a quick way to map from a user or
11031 computer and to the net group this user or computer is a member.</p>
11032
11033 <p>Active Directory have done a better job than unix heads like myself
11034 in this regard, and the unix side need to catch up.  Time to start a
11035 new IETF work group?</p>
11036
11037       </div>
11038       <div class="tags">
11039
11040
11041         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>.
11042
11043
11044       </div>
11045     </div>
11046     <div class="padding"></div>
11047
11048     <div class="entry">
11049       <div class="title">
11050         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Endelig_er_Debian_Lenny_gitt_ut.html">Endelig er Debian Lenny gitt ut</a>
11051       </div>
11052       <div class="date">
11053         15th February 2009
11054       </div>
11055       <div class="body">
11056         <p>Endelig er <a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</a>
11057 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2009/20090214">Lenny</a> gitt ut.
11058 Et langt steg videre for Debian-prosjektet, og en rekke nye
11059 programpakker blir nå tilgjengelig for de av oss som bruker den
11060 stabile utgaven av Debian.  Neste steg er nå å få
11061 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a> /
11062 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/">Debian Edu</a> ferdig
11063 oppdatert for den nye utgaven, slik at en oppdatert versjon kan
11064 slippes løs på skolene.  Takk til alle debian-utviklerne som har
11065 gjort dette mulig.  Endelig er f.eks. fungerende avhengighetsstyrt
11066 bootsekvens tilgjengelig i stabil utgave, vha pakken
11067 <tt>insserv</tt>.</p>
11068
11069       </div>
11070       <div class="tags">
11071
11072
11073         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>.
11074
11075
11076       </div>
11077     </div>
11078     <div class="padding"></div>
11079
11080     <div class="entry">
11081       <div class="title">
11082         <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>
11083       </div>
11084       <div class="date">
11085          7th December 2008
11086       </div>
11087       <div class="body">
11088         <p>This weekend we had a small developer gathering for Debian Edu in
11089 Oslo.  Most of Saturday was used for the general assemly for the
11090 member organization, but the rest of the weekend I used to tune the
11091 LTSP installation.  LTSP now work out of the box on the 10-network.
11092 Acer Aspire One proved to be a very nice thin client, with both
11093 screen, mouse and keybard in a small box.  Was working on getting the
11094 diskless workstation setup configured out of the box, but did not
11095 finish it before the weekend was up.</p>
11096
11097 <p>Did not find time to look at the 4 VGA cards in one box we got from
11098 the Brazilian group, so that will have to wait for the next
11099 development gathering.  Would love to have the Debian Edu installer
11100 automatically detect and configure a multiseat setup when it find one
11101 of these cards.</p>
11102
11103       </div>
11104       <div class="tags">
11105
11106
11107         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>.
11108
11109
11110       </div>
11111     </div>
11112     <div class="padding"></div>
11113
11114     <div class="entry">
11115       <div class="title">
11116         <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>
11117       </div>
11118       <div class="date">
11119         25th November 2008
11120       </div>
11121       <div class="body">
11122         <p>Recently I have spent some time evaluating the multimedia browser
11123 plugins available in Debian Lenny, to see which one we should use by
11124 default in Debian Edu.  We need an embedded video playing plugin with
11125 control buttons to pause or stop the video, and capable of streaming
11126 all the multimedia content available on the web.  The test results and
11127 notes are available on
11128 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">the
11129 Debian wiki</a>.  I was surprised how few of the plugins are able to
11130 fill this need.  My personal video player favorite, VLC, has a really
11131 bad plugin which fail on a lot of the test pages.  A lot of the MIME
11132 types I would expect to work with any free software player (like
11133 video/ogg), just do not work.  And simple formats like the
11134 audio/x-mplegurl format (m3u playlists), just isn't supported by the
11135 totem and vlc plugins.  I hope the situation will improve soon.  No
11136 wonder sites use the proprietary Adobe flash to play video.</p>
11137
11138 <p>For Lenny, we seem to end up with the mplayer plugin.  It seem to
11139 be the only one fitting our needs. :/</p>
11140
11141       </div>
11142       <div class="tags">
11143
11144
11145         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>.
11146
11147
11148       </div>
11149     </div>
11150     <div class="padding"></div>
11151
11152     <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>
11153     <div id="sidebar">
11154
11155
11156
11157 <h2>Archive</h2>
11158 <ul>
11159
11160 <li>2016
11161 <ul>
11162
11163 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/01/">January (3)</a></li>
11164
11165 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/02/">February (2)</a></li>
11166
11167 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/03/">March (3)</a></li>
11168
11169 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/04/">April (8)</a></li>
11170
11171 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/05/">May (8)</a></li>
11172
11173 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/06/">June (2)</a></li>
11174
11175 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/07/">July (2)</a></li>
11176
11177 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/08/">August (5)</a></li>
11178
11179 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/09/">September (2)</a></li>
11180
11181 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/10/">October (2)</a></li>
11182
11183 </ul></li>
11184
11185 <li>2015
11186 <ul>
11187
11188 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/01/">January (7)</a></li>
11189
11190 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/02/">February (6)</a></li>
11191
11192 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/03/">March (1)</a></li>
11193
11194 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/04/">April (4)</a></li>
11195
11196 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/05/">May (3)</a></li>
11197
11198 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/06/">June (4)</a></li>
11199
11200 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/07/">July (6)</a></li>
11201
11202 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/08/">August (2)</a></li>
11203
11204 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/09/">September (2)</a></li>
11205
11206 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/10/">October (9)</a></li>
11207
11208 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/11/">November (6)</a></li>
11209
11210 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/12/">December (3)</a></li>
11211
11212 </ul></li>
11213
11214 <li>2014
11215 <ul>
11216
11217 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/01/">January (2)</a></li>
11218
11219 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/02/">February (3)</a></li>
11220
11221 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/03/">March (8)</a></li>
11222
11223 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/04/">April (7)</a></li>
11224
11225 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/05/">May (1)</a></li>
11226
11227 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/06/">June (2)</a></li>
11228
11229 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/07/">July (2)</a></li>
11230
11231 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/08/">August (2)</a></li>
11232
11233 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/09/">September (5)</a></li>
11234
11235 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/10/">October (6)</a></li>
11236
11237 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/11/">November (3)</a></li>
11238
11239 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/12/">December (5)</a></li>
11240
11241 </ul></li>
11242
11243 <li>2013
11244 <ul>
11245
11246 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/01/">January (11)</a></li>
11247
11248 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/02/">February (9)</a></li>
11249
11250 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/03/">March (9)</a></li>
11251
11252 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/04/">April (6)</a></li>
11253
11254 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/05/">May (9)</a></li>
11255
11256 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/06/">June (10)</a></li>
11257
11258 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/07/">July (7)</a></li>
11259
11260 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/08/">August (3)</a></li>
11261
11262 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/09/">September (5)</a></li>
11263
11264 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/10/">October (7)</a></li>
11265
11266 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/11/">November (9)</a></li>
11267
11268 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/12/">December (3)</a></li>
11269
11270 </ul></li>
11271
11272 <li>2012
11273 <ul>
11274
11275 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/01/">January (7)</a></li>
11276
11277 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/02/">February (10)</a></li>
11278
11279 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/03/">March (17)</a></li>
11280
11281 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/04/">April (12)</a></li>
11282
11283 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/05/">May (12)</a></li>
11284
11285 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/06/">June (20)</a></li>
11286
11287 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/07/">July (17)</a></li>
11288
11289 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/08/">August (6)</a></li>
11290
11291 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/09/">September (9)</a></li>
11292
11293 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/10/">October (17)</a></li>
11294
11295 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/11/">November (10)</a></li>
11296
11297 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/12/">December (7)</a></li>
11298
11299 </ul></li>
11300
11301 <li>2011
11302 <ul>
11303
11304 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/01/">January (16)</a></li>
11305
11306 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/02/">February (6)</a></li>
11307
11308 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/03/">March (6)</a></li>
11309
11310 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/04/">April (7)</a></li>
11311
11312 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/05/">May (3)</a></li>
11313
11314 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/06/">June (2)</a></li>
11315
11316 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/07/">July (7)</a></li>
11317
11318 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/08/">August (6)</a></li>
11319
11320 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/09/">September (4)</a></li>
11321
11322 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/10/">October (2)</a></li>
11323
11324 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/11/">November (3)</a></li>
11325
11326 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/12/">December (1)</a></li>
11327
11328 </ul></li>
11329
11330 <li>2010
11331 <ul>
11332
11333 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/01/">January (2)</a></li>
11334
11335 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/02/">February (1)</a></li>
11336
11337 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/03/">March (3)</a></li>
11338
11339 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/04/">April (3)</a></li>
11340
11341 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/05/">May (9)</a></li>
11342
11343 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/06/">June (14)</a></li>
11344
11345 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/07/">July (12)</a></li>
11346
11347 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/08/">August (13)</a></li>
11348
11349 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/09/">September (7)</a></li>
11350
11351 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/10/">October (9)</a></li>
11352
11353 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/11/">November (13)</a></li>
11354
11355 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/12/">December (12)</a></li>
11356
11357 </ul></li>
11358
11359 <li>2009
11360 <ul>
11361
11362 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/01/">January (8)</a></li>
11363
11364 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/02/">February (8)</a></li>
11365
11366 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/03/">March (12)</a></li>
11367
11368 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/04/">April (10)</a></li>
11369
11370 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/05/">May (9)</a></li>
11371
11372 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/06/">June (3)</a></li>
11373
11374 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/07/">July (4)</a></li>
11375
11376 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/08/">August (3)</a></li>
11377
11378 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/09/">September (1)</a></li>
11379
11380 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/10/">October (2)</a></li>
11381
11382 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/11/">November (3)</a></li>
11383
11384 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/12/">December (3)</a></li>
11385
11386 </ul></li>
11387
11388 <li>2008
11389 <ul>
11390
11391 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/11/">November (5)</a></li>
11392
11393 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/12/">December (7)</a></li>
11394
11395 </ul></li>
11396
11397 </ul>
11398
11399
11400
11401 <h2>Tags</h2>
11402 <ul>
11403
11404  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer (13)</a></li>
11405
11406  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/amiga">amiga (1)</a></li>
11407
11408  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/aros">aros (1)</a></li>
11409
11410  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bankid">bankid (4)</a></li>
11411
11412  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin (9)</a></li>
11413
11414  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem (16)</a></li>
11415
11416  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bsa">bsa (2)</a></li>
11417
11418  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/chrpath">chrpath (2)</a></li>
11419
11420  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian (136)</a></li>
11421
11422  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu (157)</a></li>
11423
11424  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/digistan">digistan (10)</a></li>
11425
11426  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/dld">dld (16)</a></li>
11427
11428  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook (23)</a></li>
11429
11430  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/drivstoffpriser">drivstoffpriser (4)</a></li>
11431
11432  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english (328)</a></li>
11433
11434  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami (23)</a></li>
11435
11436  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fildeling">fildeling (12)</a></li>
11437
11438  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture (28)</a></li>
11439
11440  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox (9)</a></li>
11441
11442  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen (18)</a></li>
11443
11444  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/h264">h264 (20)</a></li>
11445
11446  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju (42)</a></li>
11447
11448  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram (13)</a></li>
11449
11450  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kart">kart (19)</a></li>
11451
11452  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap (9)</a></li>
11453
11454  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lenker">lenker (8)</a></li>
11455
11456  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lsdvd">lsdvd (2)</a></li>
11457
11458  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ltsp">ltsp (1)</a></li>
11459
11460  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network (8)</a></li>
11461
11462  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia (39)</a></li>
11463
11464  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nice free software">nice free software (8)</a></li>
11465
11466  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk (279)</a></li>
11467
11468  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug (182)</a></li>
11469
11470  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/offentlig innsyn">offentlig innsyn (26)</a></li>
11471
11472  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/open311">open311 (2)</a></li>
11473
11474  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett (61)</a></li>
11475
11476  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern (93)</a></li>
11477
11478  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/raid">raid (1)</a></li>
11479
11480  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reactos">reactos (1)</a></li>
11481
11482  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reprap">reprap (11)</a></li>
11483
11484  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rfid">rfid (3)</a></li>
11485
11486  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot (9)</a></li>
11487
11488  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rss">rss (1)</a></li>
11489
11490  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ruter">ruter (4)</a></li>
11491
11492  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/scraperwiki">scraperwiki (2)</a></li>
11493
11494  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet (49)</a></li>
11495
11496  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary (4)</a></li>
11497
11498  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/skepsis">skepsis (5)</a></li>
11499
11500  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard (49)</a></li>
11501
11502  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stavekontroll">stavekontroll (4)</a></li>
11503
11504  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stortinget">stortinget (10)</a></li>
11505
11506  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance (40)</a></li>
11507
11508  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sysadmin">sysadmin (2)</a></li>
11509
11510  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/usenix">usenix (2)</a></li>
11511
11512  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/valg">valg (8)</a></li>
11513
11514  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video (59)</a></li>
11515
11516  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/vitenskap">vitenskap (4)</a></li>
11517
11518  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web (38)</a></li>
11519
11520 </ul>
11521
11522
11523     </div>
11524     <p style="text-align: right">
11525  Created by <a href="http://steve.org.uk/Software/chronicle">Chronicle v4.6</a>
11526 </p>
11527
11528   </body>
11529 </html>