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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/Appstream_just_learned_how_to_map_hardware_to_packages_too_.html">Appstream just learned how to map hardware to packages too!</a>
  26       </div>
  27       <div class="date">
  28         23rd December 2016
  29       </div>
  30       <div class="body">
  31         <p>I received a very nice Christmas present today.  As my regular
  32 readers probably know, I have been working on the
  33 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">the Isenkram
  34 system</a> for many years.  The goal of the Isenkram system is to make
  35 it easier for users to figure out what to install to get a given piece
  36 of hardware to work in Debian, and a key part of this system is a way
  37 to map hardware to packages.  Isenkram have its own mapping database,
  38 and also uses data provided by each package using the AppStream
  39 metadata format.  And today,
  40 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/appstream">AppStream</a> in
  41 Debian learned to look up hardware the same way Isenkram is doing it,
  42 ie using fnmatch():</p>
  43
  44 <p><pre>
  45 % appstreamcli what-provides modalias \
  46   usb:v1130p0202d0100dc00dsc00dp00ic03isc00ip00in00
  47 Identifier: pymissile [generic]
  48 Name: pymissile
  49 Summary: Control original Striker USB Missile Launcher
  50 Package: pymissile
  51 % appstreamcli what-provides modalias usb:v0694p0002d0000
  52 Identifier: libnxt [generic]
  53 Name: libnxt
  54 Summary: utility library for talking to the LEGO Mindstorms NXT brick
  55 Package: libnxt
  56 ---
  57 Identifier: t2n [generic]
  58 Name: t2n
  59 Summary: Simple command-line tool for Lego NXT
  60 Package: t2n
  61 ---
  62 Identifier: python-nxt [generic]
  63 Name: python-nxt
  64 Summary: Python driver/interface/wrapper for the Lego Mindstorms NXT robot
  65 Package: python-nxt
  66 ---
  67 Identifier: nbc [generic]
  68 Name: nbc
  69 Summary: C compiler for LEGO Mindstorms NXT bricks
  70 Package: nbc
  71 %
  72 </pre></p>
  73
  74 <p>A similar query can be done using the combined AppStream and
  75 Isenkram databases using the isenkram-lookup tool:</p>
  76
  77 <p><pre>
  78 % isenkram-lookup usb:v1130p0202d0100dc00dsc00dp00ic03isc00ip00in00
  79 pymissile
  80 % isenkram-lookup usb:v0694p0002d0000
  81 libnxt
  82 nbc
  83 python-nxt
  84 t2n
  85 %
  86 </pre></p>
  87
  88 <p>You can find modalias values relevant for your machine using
  89 <tt>cat $(find /sys/devices/ -name modalias)</tt>.
  90
  91 <p>If you want to make this system a success and help Debian users
  92 make the most of the hardware they have, please
  93 help<a href="https://wiki.debian.org/AppStream/Guidelines">add
  94 AppStream metadata for your package following the guidelines</a>
  95 documented in the wiki.  So far only 11 packages provide such
  96 information, among the several hundred hardware specific packages in
  97 Debian. The Isenkram database on the other hand contain 101 packages,
  98 mostly related to USB dongles.  Most of the packages with hardware
  99 mapping in AppStream are LEGO Mindstorms related, because I have, as
 100 part of my involvement in
 101 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">the Debian LEGO
 102 team</a> given priority to making sure LEGO users get proposed the
 103 complete set of packages in Debian for that particular hardware.  The
 104 team also got a nice Christmas present today.  The
 105 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/nxt-firmware">nxt-firmware
 106 package</a> made it into Debian.  With this package in place, it is
 107 not possible to use the LEGO Mindstorms NXT unit with only free
 108 software, as the nxt-firmware package contain the source and firmware
 109 binaries for the NXT brick.</p>
 110
 111 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
 112 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
 113 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
 114
 115       </div>
 116       <div class="tags">
 117
 118
 119         Tags: <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>.
 120
 121
 122       </div>
 123     </div>
 124     <div class="padding"></div>
 125
 126     <div class="entry">
 127       <div class="title">
 128         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Isenkram_updated_with_a_lot_more_hardware_package_mappings.html">Isenkram updated with a lot more hardware-package mappings</a>
 129       </div>
 130       <div class="date">
 131         20th December 2016
 132       </div>
 133       <div class="body">
 134         <p><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">The Isenkram
 135 system</a> I wrote two years ago to make it easier in Debian to find
 136 and install packages to get your hardware dongles to work, is still
 137 going strong.  It is a system to look up the hardware present on or
 138 connected to the current system, and map the hardware to Debian
 139 packages.  It can either be done using the tools in isenkram-cli or
 140 using the user space daemon in the isenkram package.  The latter will
 141 notify you, when inserting new hardware, about what packages to
 142 install to get the dongle working.  It will even provide a button to
 143 click on to ask packagekit to install the packages.</p>
 144
 145 <p>Here is an command line example from my Thinkpad laptop:</p>
 146
 147 <p><pre>
 148 % isenkram-lookup
 149 bluez
 150 cheese
 151 ethtool
 152 fprintd
 153 fprintd-demo
 154 gkrellm-thinkbat
 155 hdapsd
 156 libpam-fprintd
 157 pidgin-blinklight
 158 thinkfan
 159 tlp
 160 tp-smapi-dkms
 161 tp-smapi-source
 162 tpb
 163 %
 164 </pre></p>
 165
 166 <p>It can also list the firware package providing firmware requested
 167 by the load kernel modules, which in my case is an empty list because
 168 I have all the firmware my machine need:
 169
 170 <p><pre>
 171 % /usr/sbin/isenkram-autoinstall-firmware -l
 172 info: did not find any firmware files requested by loaded kernel modules.  exiting
 173 %
 174 </pre></p>
 175
 176 <p>The last few days I had a look at several of the around 250
 177 packages in Debian with udev rules.  These seem like good candidates
 178 to install when a given hardware dongle is inserted, and I found
 179 several that should be proposed by isenkram.  I have not had time to
 180 check all of them, but am happy to report that now there are 97
 181 packages packages mapped to hardware by Isenkram.  11 of these
 182 packages provide hardware mapping using AppStream, while the rest are
 183 listed in the modaliases file provided in isenkram.</p>
 184
 185 <p>These are the packages with hardware mappings at the moment.  The
 186 <strong>marked packages</strong> are also announcing their hardware
 187 support using AppStream, for everyone to use:</p>
 188
 189 <p>air-quality-sensor, alsa-firmware-loaders, argyll,
 190 <strong>array-info</strong>, avarice, avrdude, b43-fwcutter,
 191 bit-babbler, bluez, bluez-firmware, <strong>brltty</strong>,
 192 <strong>broadcom-sta-dkms</strong>, calibre, cgminer, cheese, colord,
 193 <strong>colorhug-client</strong>, dahdi-firmware-nonfree, dahdi-linux,
 194 dfu-util, dolphin-emu, ekeyd, ethtool, firmware-ipw2x00, fprintd,
 195 fprintd-demo, <strong>galileo</strong>, gkrellm-thinkbat, gphoto2,
 196 gpsbabel, gpsbabel-gui, gpsman, gpstrans, gqrx-sdr, gr-fcdproplus,
 197 gr-osmosdr, gtkpod, hackrf, hdapsd, hdmi2usb-udev, hpijs-ppds, hplip,
 198 ipw3945-source, ipw3945d, kde-config-tablet, kinect-audio-setup,
 199 <strong>libnxt</strong>, libpam-fprintd, <strong>lomoco</strong>,
 200 madwimax, minidisc-utils, mkgmap, msi-keyboard, mtkbabel,
 201 <strong>nbc</strong>, <strong>nqc</strong>, nut-hal-drivers, ola,
 202 open-vm-toolbox, open-vm-tools, openambit, pcgminer, pcmciautils,
 203 pcscd, pidgin-blinklight, printer-driver-splix,
 204 <strong>pymissile</strong>, python-nxt, qlandkartegt,
 205 qlandkartegt-garmin, rosegarden, rt2x00-source, sispmctl,
 206 soapysdr-module-hackrf, solaar, squeak-plugins-scratch, sunxi-tools,
 207 <strong>t2n</strong>, thinkfan, thinkfinger-tools, tlp, tp-smapi-dkms,
 208 tp-smapi-source, tpb, tucnak, uhd-host, usbmuxd, viking,
 209 virtualbox-ose-guest-x11, w1retap, xawtv, xserver-xorg-input-vmmouse,
 210 xserver-xorg-input-wacom, xserver-xorg-video-qxl,
 211 xserver-xorg-video-vmware, yubikey-personalization and
 212 zd1211-firmware</p>
 213
 214 <p>If you know of other packages, please let me know with a wishlist
 215 bug report against the isenkram-cli package, and ask the package
 216 maintainer to
 217 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/AppStream/Guidelines">add AppStream
 218 metadata according to the guidelines</a> to provide the information
 219 for everyone.  In time, I hope to get rid of the isenkram specific
 220 hardware mapping and depend exclusively on AppStream.</p>
 221
 222 <p>Note, the AppStream metadata for broadcom-sta-dkms is matching too
 223 much hardware, and suggest that the package with with any ethernet
 224 card.  See <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/838735">bug #838735</a> for
 225 the details.  I hope the maintainer find time to address it soon.  In
 226 the mean time I provide an override in isenkram.</p>
 227
 228       </div>
 229       <div class="tags">
 230
 231
 232         Tags: <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>.
 233
 234
 235       </div>
 236     </div>
 237     <div class="padding"></div>
 238
 239     <div class="entry">
 240       <div class="title">
 241         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Oolite__a_life_in_space_as_vagabond_and_mercenary___nice_free_software.html">Oolite, a life in space as vagabond and mercenary - nice free software</a>
 242       </div>
 243       <div class="date">
 244         11th December 2016
 245       </div>
 246       <div class="body">
 247         <p align="center"><img width="70%" src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-12-11-nice-oolite.png"/></p>
 248
 249 <p>In my early years, I played
 250 <a href="http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Classic_Elite">the epic game
 251 Elite</a> on my PC.  I spent many months trading and fighting in
 252 space, and reached the 'elite' fighting status before I moved on.  The
 253 original Elite game was available on Commodore 64 and the IBM PC
 254 edition I played had a 64 KB executable.  I am still impressed today
 255 that the authors managed to squeeze both a 3D engine and details about
 256 more than 2000 planet systems across 7 galaxies into a binary so
 257 small.</p>
 258
 259 <p>I have known about <a href="http://www.oolite.org/">the free
 260 software game Oolite inspired by Elite</a> for a while, but did not
 261 really have time to test it properly until a few days ago.  It was
 262 great to discover that my old knowledge about trading routes were
 263 still valid.  But my fighting and flying abilities were gone, so I had
 264 to retrain to be able to dock on a space station.  And I am still not
 265 able to make much resistance when I am attacked by pirates, so I
 266 bougth and mounted the most powerful laser in the rear to be able to
 267 put up at least some resistance while fleeing for my life. :)</p>
 268
 269 <p>When playing Elite in the late eighties, I had to discover
 270 everything on my own, and I had long lists of prices seen on different
 271 planets to be able to decide where to trade what.  This time I had the
 272 advantages of the
 273 <a href="http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Main_Page">Elite wiki</a>,
 274 where information about each planet is easily available with common
 275 price ranges and suggested trading routes.  This improved my ability
 276 to earn money and I have been able to earn enough to buy a lot of
 277 useful equipent in a few days.  I believe I originally played for
 278 months before I could get a docking computer, while now I could get it
 279 after less then a week.</p>
 280
 281 <p>If you like science fiction and dreamed of a life as a vagabond in
 282 space, you should try out Oolite.  It is available for Linux, MacOSX
 283 and Windows, and is included in Debian and derivatives since 2011.</p>
 284
 285 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
 286 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
 287 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
 288
 289       </div>
 290       <div class="tags">
 291
 292
 293         Tags: <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>.
 294
 295
 296       </div>
 297     </div>
 298     <div class="padding"></div>
 299
 300     <div class="entry">
 301       <div class="title">
 302         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Quicker_Debian_installations_using_eatmydata.html">Quicker Debian installations using eatmydata</a>
 303       </div>
 304       <div class="date">
 305         25th November 2016
 306       </div>
 307       <div class="body">
 308         <p>Two years ago, I did some experiments with eatmydata and the Debian
 309 installation system, observing how using
 310 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Speeding_up_the_Debian_installer_using_eatmydata_and_dpkg_divert.html">eatmydata
 311 could speed up the installation</a> quite a bit.  My testing measured
 312 speedup around 20-40 percent for Debian Edu, where we install around
 313 1000 packages from within the installer.  The eatmydata package
 314 provide a way to disable/delay file system flushing.  This is a bit
 315 risky in the general case, as files that should be stored on disk will
 316 stay only in memory a bit longer than expected, causing problems if a
 317 machine crashes at an inconvenient time.  But for an installation, if
 318 the machine crashes during installation the process is normally
 319 restarted, and avoiding disk operations as much as possible to speed
 320 up the process make perfect sense.
 321
 322 <p>I added code in the Debian Edu specific installation code to enable
 323 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/libeatmydata">eatmydata</a>,
 324 but did not have time to push it any further.  But a few months ago I
 325 picked it up again and worked with the libeatmydata package maintainer
 326 Mattia Rizzolo to make it easier for everyone to get this installation
 327 speedup in Debian.  Thanks to our cooperation There is now an
 328 eatmydata-udeb package in Debian testing and unstable, and simply
 329 enabling/installing it in debian-installer (d-i) is enough to get the
 330 quicker installations.  It can be enabled using preseeding.  The
 331 following untested kernel argument should do the trick:</p>
 332
 333 <blockquote><pre>
 334 preseed/early_command="anna-install eatmydata-udeb"
 335 </pre></blockquote>
 336
 337 <p>This should ask d-i to install the package inside the d-i
 338 environment early in the installation sequence.  Having it installed
 339 in d-i in turn will make sure the relevant scripts are called just
 340 after debootstrap filled /target/ with the freshly installed Debian
 341 system to configure apt to run dpkg with eatmydata.  This is enough to
 342 speed up the installation process.  There is a proposal to
 343 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/841153">extend the idea a bit further
 344 by using /etc/ld.so.preload instead of apt.conf</a>, but I have not
 345 tested its impact.</p>
 346
 347
 348       </div>
 349       <div class="tags">
 350
 351
 352         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>.
 353
 354
 355       </div>
 356     </div>
 357     <div class="padding"></div>
 358
 359     <div class="entry">
 360       <div class="title">
 361         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Oversette_bokm_l_til_nynorsk__enklere_enn_du_tror_takket_v_re_Apertium.html">Oversette bokmål til nynorsk, enklere enn du tror takket være Apertium</a>
 362       </div>
 363       <div class="date">
 364         24th November 2016
 365       </div>
 366       <div class="body">
 367         <p>I Norge er det mange som trenger å skrive både bokmål og nynorsk.
 368 Eksamensoppgaver, offentlige brev og nyheter er eksempler på tekster
 369 der det er krav om skriftspråk.  I tillegg til alle skoleoppgavene som
 370 elever over det ganske land skal levere inn hvert år.  Det mange ikke
 371 vet er at selv om de kommersielle alternativene
 372 <a href="https://translate.google.com/">Google Translate</a> og
 373 <a href="https://www.bing.com/translator/">Bing Translator</a> ikke kan
 374 bidra med å oversette mellom bokmål og nynorsk, så finnes det et
 375 utmerket fri programvarealternativ som kan.  Oversetterverktøyet
 376 Apertium har støtte for en rekke språkkombinasjoner, og takket være
 377 den utrettelige innsatsen til blant annet Kevin Brubeck Unhammer, kan
 378 en bruke webtjenesten til å fylle inn en tekst på bokmål eller
 379 nynorsk, og få den automatoversatt til det andre skriftspråket.
 380 Resultatet er ikke perfekt, men et svært godt utgangspunkt.  Av og til
 381 er resultatet så bra at det kan benyttes uten endringer.  Jeg vet
 382 f.eks. at store deler av Joomla ble oversatt til nynorsk ved hjelp
 383 Apertium.  Høres det ut som noe du kan ha bruk for?  Besøk i så fall
 384 <a href="https://www.apertium.org/">Apertium.org</a> og fyll inn
 385 teksten din i webskjemaet der.
 386
 387 <p>Hvis du trenger maskinell tilgang til den bakenforliggende
 388 teknologien kan du enten installere pakken
 389 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/apertium-nno-nob">apertium-nno-nob</a>
 390 på en Debian-maskin eller bruke web-API-et tilgjengelig fra
 391 api.apertium.org.  Se
 392 <a href="http://wiki.apertium.org/wiki/Apertium-apy">API-dokumentasjonen</a>
 393 for detaljer om web-API-et.  Her kan du se hvordan resultatet blir for
 394 denne teksten som ble skrevet på bokmål over maskinoversatt til
 395 nynorsk.</p>
 396
 397 <hr/>
 398
 399 <p>I Noreg er det mange som treng å skriva både bokmål og nynorsk.
 400 Eksamensoppgåver, offentlege brev og nyhende er døme på tekster der
 401 det er krav om skriftspråk.  I tillegg til alle skuleoppgåvene som
 402 elevar over det ganske land skal levera inn kvart år.  Det mange ikkje
 403 veit er at sjølv om dei kommersielle alternativa
 404 <a href="https://translate.google.com/">Google *Translate</a> og
 405 <a href="https://www.bing.com/translator/">Bing *Translator</a> ikkje
 406 kan bidra med å omsetja mellom bokmål og nynorsk, så finst det eit
 407 utmerka fri programvarealternativ som kan.  Omsetjarverktøyet
 408 *Apertium har støtte for ei rekkje språkkombinasjonar, og takka vera
 409 den utrøyttelege innsatsen til blant anna Kevin Brubeck Unhammer, kan
 410 ein bruka *webtjenesten til å fylla inn ei tekst på bokmål eller
 411 nynorsk, og få den *automatoversatt til det andre skriftspråket.
 412 Resultatet er ikkje perfekt, men eit svært godt utgangspunkt.  Av og
 413 til er resultatet så bra at det kan nyttast utan endringar.  Eg veit
 414 t.d. at store delar av *Joomla vart omsett til nynorsk ved hjelp
 415 *Apertium.  Høyrast det ut som noko du kan ha bruk for?  Besøk i så
 416 fall <a href="https://www.apertium.org/">*Apertium.org</a> og fyll inn
 417 teksta di i *webskjemaet der.
 418
 419 <p>Viss du treng *maskinell tilgjenge til den *bakenforliggende
 420 teknologien kan du anten installera pakken
 421 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/apertium-nno-nob">*apertium-*nno-*nob</a>
 422 på ein *Debian-maskin eller bruka *web-*API-eit tilgjengeleg frå
 423 *api.*apertium.org.  Sjå
 424 <a href="http://wiki.apertium.org/wiki/Apertium-apy">*API-dokumentasjonen</a>
 425 for detaljar om *web-*API-eit.  Her kan du sjå korleis resultatet vert
 426 for denne teksta som vart skreva på bokmål over *maskinoversatt til
 427 nynorsk.</p>
 428
 429       </div>
 430       <div class="tags">
 431
 432
 433         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stavekontroll">stavekontroll</a>.
 434
 435
 436       </div>
 437     </div>
 438     <div class="padding"></div>
 439
 440     <div class="entry">
 441       <div class="title">
 442         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Coz_profiler_for_multi_threaded_software_is_now_in_Debian.html">Coz profiler for multi-threaded software is now in Debian</a>
 443       </div>
 444       <div class="date">
 445         13th November 2016
 446       </div>
 447       <div class="body">
 448         <p><a href="http://coz-profiler.org/">The Coz profiler</a>, a nice
 449 profiler able to run benchmarking experiments on the instrumented
 450 multi-threaded program, finally
 451 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/coz-profiler">made it into
 452 Debian unstable yesterday</A>.  Lluís Vilanova and I have spent many
 453 months since
 454 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Coz_can_help_you_find_bottlenecks_in_multi_threaded_software___nice_free_software.html">I
 455 blogged about the coz tool</a> in August working with upstream to make
 456 it suitable for Debian.  There are still issues with clang
 457 compatibility, inline assembly only working x86 and minimized
 458 JavaScript libraries.</p>
 459
 460 <p>To test it, install 'coz-profiler' using apt and run it like this:</p>
 461
 462 <p><blockquote>
 463 <tt>coz run --- /path/to/binary-with-debug-info</tt>
 464 </blockquote></p>
 465
 466 <p>This will produce a profile.coz file in the current working
 467 directory with the profiling information.  This is then given to a
 468 JavaScript application provided in the package and available from
 469 <a href="http://plasma-umass.github.io/coz/">a project web page</a>.
 470 To start the local copy, invoke it in a browser like this:</p>
 471
 472 <p><blockquote>
 473 <tt>sensible-browser /usr/share/coz-profiler/viewer/index.htm</tt>
 474 </blockquote></p>
 475
 476 <p>See the project home page and the
 477 <a href="https://www.usenix.org/publications/login/summer2016/curtsinger">USENIX
 478 ;login: article on Coz</a> for more information on how it is
 479 working.</p>
 480
 481       </div>
 482       <div class="tags">
 483
 484
 485         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
 486
 487
 488       </div>
 489     </div>
 490     <div class="padding"></div>
 491
 492     <div class="entry">
 493       <div class="title">
 494         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/My_own_self_balancing_Lego_Segway.html">My own self balancing Lego Segway</a>
 495       </div>
 496       <div class="date">
 497          4th November 2016
 498       </div>
 499       <div class="body">
 500         <p>A while back I received a Gyro sensor for the NXT
 501 <a href="mindstorms.lego.com">Mindstorms</a> controller as a birthday
 502 present.  It had been on my wishlist for a while, because I wanted to
 503 build a Segway like balancing lego robot.  I had already built
 504 <a href="http://www.nxtprograms.com/NXT2/segway/">a simple balancing
 505 robot</a> with the kids, using the light/color sensor included in the
 506 NXT kit as the balance sensor, but it was not working very well.  It
 507 could balance for a while, but was very sensitive to the light
 508 condition in the room and the reflective properties of the surface and
 509 would fall over after a short while.  I wanted something more robust,
 510 and had
 511 <a href="https://www.hitechnic.com/cgi-bin/commerce.cgi?preadd=action&key=NGY1044">the
 512 gyro sensor from HiTechnic</a> I believed would solve it on my
 513 wishlist for some years before it suddenly showed up as a gift from my
 514 loved ones. :)</p>
 515
 516 <p>Unfortunately I have not had time to sit down and play with it
 517 since then.  But that changed some days ago, when I was searching for
 518 lego segway information and came across a recipe from HiTechnic for
 519 building
 520 <a href="http://www.hitechnic.com/blog/gyro-sensor/htway/">the
 521 HTWay</a>, a segway like balancing robot.  Build instructions and
 522 <a href="https://www.hitechnic.com/upload/786-HTWayC.nxc">source
 523 code</a> was included, so it was just a question of putting it all
 524 together.  And thanks to the great work of many Debian developers, the
 525 compiler needed to build the source for the NXT is already included in
 526 Debian, so I was read to go in less than an hour.  The resulting robot
 527 do not look very impressive in its simplicity:</p>
 528
 529 <p align="center"><img width="70%" src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-11-04-lego-htway-robot.jpeg"></p>
 530
 531 <p>Because I lack the infrared sensor used to control the robot in the
 532 design from HiTechnic, I had to comment out the last task
 533 (taskControl).  I simply placed /* and */ around it get the program
 534 working without that sensor present.  Now it balances just fine until
 535 the battery status run low:</p>
 536
 537 <p align="center"><video width="70%" controls="true">
 538    <source src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-11-04-lego-htway-balancing.ogv" type="video/ogg">
 539 </video></p>
 540
 541 <p>Now we would like to teach it how to follow a line and take remote
 542 control instructions using the included Bluetooth receiver in the NXT.</p>
 543
 544 <p>If you, like me, love LEGO and want to make sure we find the tools
 545 they need to work with LEGO in Debian and all our derivative
 546 distributions like Ubuntu, check out
 547 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">the LEGO designers
 548 project page</a> and join the Debian LEGO team.  Personally I own a
 549 RCX and NXT controller (no EV3), and would like to make sure the
 550 Debian tools needed to program the systems I own work as they
 551 should.</p>
 552
 553       </div>
 554       <div class="tags">
 555
 556
 557         Tags: <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>.
 558
 559
 560       </div>
 561     </div>
 562     <div class="padding"></div>
 563
 564     <div class="entry">
 565       <div class="title">
 566         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Experience_and_updated_recipe_for_using_the_Signal_app_without_a_mobile_phone.html">Experience and updated recipe for using the Signal app without a mobile phone</a>
 567       </div>
 568       <div class="date">
 569         10th October 2016
 570       </div>
 571       <div class="body">
 572         <p>In July
 573 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_use_the_Signal_app_if_you_only_have_a_land_line__ie_no_mobile_phone_.html">I
 574 wrote how to get the Signal Chrome/Chromium app working</a> without
 575 the ability to receive SMS messages (aka without a cell phone).  It is
 576 time to share some experiences and provide an updated setup.</p>
 577
 578 <p>The Signal app have worked fine for several months now, and I use
 579 it regularly to chat with my loved ones.  I had a major snag at the
 580 end of my summer vacation, when the the app completely forgot my
 581 setup, identity and keys.  The reason behind this major mess was
 582 running out of disk space.  To avoid that ever happening again I have
 583 started storing everything in <tt>userdata/</tt> in git, to be able to
 584 roll back to an earlier version if the files are wiped by mistake.  I
 585 had to use it once after introducing the git backup.  When rolling
 586 back to an earlier version, one need to use the 'reset session' option
 587 in Signal to get going, and notify the people you talk with about the
 588 problem.  I assume there is some sequence number tracking in the
 589 protocol to detect rollback attacks.  The git repository is rather big
 590 (674 MiB so far), but I have not tried to figure out if some of the
 591 content can be added to a .gitignore file due to lack of spare
 592 time.</p>
 593
 594 <p>I've also hit the 90 days timeout blocking, and noticed that this
 595 make it impossible to send messages using Signal.  I could still
 596 receive them, but had to patch the code with a new timestamp to send.
 597 I believe the timeout is added by the developers to force people to
 598 upgrade to the latest version of the app, even when there is no
 599 protocol changes, to reduce the version skew among the user base and
 600 thus try to keep the number of support requests down.</p>
 601
 602 <p>Since my original recipe, the Signal source code changed slightly,
 603 making the old patch fail to apply cleanly.  Below is an updated
 604 patch, including the shell wrapper I use to start Signal.  The
 605 original version required a new user to locate the JavaScript console
 606 and call a function from there.  I got help from a friend with more
 607 JavaScript knowledge than me to modify the code to provide a GUI
 608 button instead.  This mean that to get started you just need to run
 609 the wrapper and click the 'Register without mobile phone' to get going
 610 now.  I've also modified the timeout code to always set it to 90 days
 611 in the future, to avoid having to patch the code regularly.</p>
 612
 613 <p>So, the updated recipe for Debian Jessie:</p>
 614
 615 <ol>
 616
 617 <li>First, install required packages to get the source code and the
 618 browser you need.  Signal only work with Chrome/Chromium, as far as I
 619 know, so you need to install it.
 620
 621 <pre>
 622 apt install git tor chromium
 623 git clone https://github.com/WhisperSystems/Signal-Desktop.git
 624 </pre></li>
 625
 626 <li>Modify the source code using command listed in the the patch
 627 block below.</li>
 628
 629 <li>Start Signal using the run-signal-app wrapper (for example using
 630 <tt>`pwd`/run-signal-app</tt>).
 631
 632 <li>Click on the 'Register without mobile phone', will in a phone
 633 number you can receive calls to the next minute, receive the
 634 verification code and enter it into the form field and press
 635 'Register'.  Note, the phone number you use will be user Signal
 636 username, ie the way others can find you on Signal.</li>
 637
 638 <li>You can now use Signal to contact others.  Note, new contacts do
 639 not show up in the contact list until you restart Signal, and there is
 640 no way to assign names to Contacts.  There is also no way to create or
 641 update chat groups.  I suspect this is because the web app do not have
 642 a associated contact database.</li>
 643
 644 </ol>
 645
 646 <p>I am still a bit uneasy about using Signal, because of the way its
 647 main author moxie0 reject federation and accept dependencies to major
 648 corporations like Google (part of the code is fetched from Google) and
 649 Amazon (the central coordination point is owned by Amazon).  See for
 650 example
 651 <a href="https://github.com/LibreSignal/LibreSignal/issues/37">the
 652 LibreSignal issue tracker</a> for a thread documenting the authors
 653 view on these issues.  But the network effect is strong in this case,
 654 and several of the people I want to communicate with already use
 655 Signal.  Perhaps we can all move to <a href="https://ring.cx/">Ring</a>
 656 once it <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/830265">work on my
 657 laptop</a>?  It already work on Windows and Android, and is included
 658 in <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/ring">Debian</a> and
 659 <a href="https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ring">Ubuntu</a>, but not
 660 working on Debian Stable.</p>
 661
 662 <p>Anyway, this is the patch I apply to the Signal code to get it
 663 working.  It switch to the production servers, disable to timeout,
 664 make registration easier and add the shell wrapper:</p>
 665
 666 <pre>
 667 cd Signal-Desktop; cat &lt;&lt;EOF | patch -p1
 668 diff --git a/js/background.js b/js/background.js
 669 index 24b4c1d..579345f 100644
 670 --- a/js/background.js
 671 +++ b/js/background.js
 672 @@ -33,9 +33,9 @@
 673          });
 674      });
 675
 676 -    var SERVER_URL = 'https://textsecure-service-staging.whispersystems.org';
 677 +    var SERVER_URL = 'https://textsecure-service-ca.whispersystems.org';
 678      var SERVER_PORTS = [80, 4433, 8443];
 679 -    var ATTACHMENT_SERVER_URL = 'https://whispersystems-textsecure-attachments-staging.s3.amazonaws.com';
 680 +    var ATTACHMENT_SERVER_URL = 'https://whispersystems-textsecure-attachments.s3.amazonaws.com';
 681      var messageReceiver;
 682      window.getSocketStatus = function() {
 683          if (messageReceiver) {
 684 diff --git a/js/expire.js b/js/expire.js
 685 index 639aeae..beb91c3 100644
 686 --- a/js/expire.js
 687 +++ b/js/expire.js
 688 @@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 689  ;(function() {
 690      'use strict';
 691 -    var BUILD_EXPIRATION = 0;
 692 +    var BUILD_EXPIRATION = Date.now() + (90 * 24 * 60 * 60 * 1000);
 693
 694      window.extension = window.extension || {};
 695
 696 diff --git a/js/views/install_view.js b/js/views/install_view.js
 697 index 7816f4f..1d6233b 100644
 698 --- a/js/views/install_view.js
 699 +++ b/js/views/install_view.js
 700 @@ -38,7 +38,8 @@
 701              return {
 702                  'click .step1': this.selectStep.bind(this, 1),
 703                  'click .step2': this.selectStep.bind(this, 2),
 704 -                'click .step3': this.selectStep.bind(this, 3)
 705 +                'click .step3': this.selectStep.bind(this, 3),
 706 +                'click .callreg': function() { extension.install('standalone') },
 707              };
 708          },
 709          clearQR: function() {
 710 diff --git a/options.html b/options.html
 711 index dc0f28e..8d709f6 100644
 712 --- a/options.html
 713 +++ b/options.html
 714 @@ -14,7 +14,10 @@
 715          &lt;div class='nav'>
 716            &lt;h1>{{ installWelcome }}&lt;/h1>
 717            &lt;p>{{ installTagline }}&lt;/p>
 718 -          &lt;div> &lt;a class='button step2'>{{ installGetStartedButton }}&lt;/a> &lt;/div>
 719 +          &lt;div> &lt;a class='button step2'>{{ installGetStartedButton }}&lt;/a>
 720 +           &lt;br> &lt;a class="button callreg">Register without mobile phone&lt;/a>
 721 +
 722 +         &lt;/div>
 723            &lt;span class='dot step1 selected'>&lt;/span>
 724            &lt;span class='dot step2'>&lt;/span>
 725            &lt;span class='dot step3'>&lt;/span>
 726 --- /dev/null   2016-10-07 09:55:13.730181472 +0200
 727 +++ b/run-signal-app   2016-10-10 08:54:09.434172391 +0200
 728 @@ -0,0 +1,12 @@
 729 +#!/bin/sh
 730 +set -e
 731 +cd $(dirname $0)
 732 +mkdir -p userdata
 733 +userdata="`pwd`/userdata"
 734 +if [ -d "$userdata" ] && [ ! -d "$userdata/.git" ] ; then
 735 +    (cd $userdata && git init)
 736 +fi
 737 +(cd $userdata && git add . && git commit -m "Current status." || true)
 738 +exec chromium \
 739 +  --proxy-server="socks://localhost:9050" \
 740 +  --user-data-dir=$userdata --load-and-launch-app=`pwd`
 741 EOF
 742 chmod a+rx run-signal-app
 743 </pre>
 744
 745 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
 746 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
 747 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
 748
 749       </div>
 750       <div class="tags">
 751
 752
 753         Tags: <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>.
 754
 755
 756       </div>
 757     </div>
 758     <div class="padding"></div>
 759
 760     <div class="entry">
 761       <div class="title">
 762         <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>
 763       </div>
 764       <div class="date">
 765          7th October 2016
 766       </div>
 767       <div class="body">
 768         <p><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">The Isenkram
 769 system</a> provide a practical and easy way to figure out which
 770 packages support the hardware in a given machine.  The command line
 771 tool <tt>isenkram-lookup</tt> and the tasksel options provide a
 772 convenient way to list and install packages relevant for the current
 773 hardware during system installation, both user space packages and
 774 firmware packages. The GUI background daemon on the other hand provide
 775 a pop-up proposing to install packages when a new dongle is inserted
 776 while using the computer.  For example, if you plug in a smart card
 777 reader, the system will ask if you want to install <tt>pcscd</tt> if
 778 that package isn't already installed, and if you plug in a USB video
 779 camera the system will ask if you want to install <tt>cheese</tt> if
 780 cheese is currently missing.  This already work just fine.</p>
 781
 782 <p>But Isenkram depend on a database mapping from hardware IDs to
 783 package names.  When I started no such database existed in Debian, so
 784 I made my own data set and included it with the isenkram package and
 785 made isenkram fetch the latest version of this database from git using
 786 http.  This way the isenkram users would get updated package proposals
 787 as soon as I learned more about hardware related packages.</p>
 788
 789 <p>The hardware is identified using modalias strings.  The modalias
 790 design is from the Linux kernel where most hardware descriptors are
 791 made available as a strings that can be matched using filename style
 792 globbing.  It handle USB, PCI, DMI and a lot of other hardware related
 793 identifiers.</p>
 794
 795 <p>The downside to the Isenkram specific database is that there is no
 796 information about relevant distribution / Debian version, making
 797 isenkram propose obsolete packages too.  But along came AppStream, a
 798 cross distribution mechanism to store and collect metadata about
 799 software packages.  When I heard about the proposal, I contacted the
 800 people involved and suggested to add a hardware matching rule using
 801 modalias strings in the specification, to be able to use AppStream for
 802 mapping hardware to packages.  This idea was accepted and AppStream is
 803 now a great way for a package to announce the hardware it support in a
 804 distribution neutral way.  I wrote
 805 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_appstream_with_isenkram_to_install_hardware_related_packages_in_Debian.html">a
 806 recipe on how to add such meta-information</a> in a blog post last
 807 December.  If you have a hardware related package in Debian, please
 808 announce the relevant hardware IDs using AppStream.</p>
 809
 810 <p>In Debian, almost all packages that can talk to a LEGO Mindestorms
 811 RCX or NXT unit, announce this support using AppStream.  The effect is
 812 that when you insert such LEGO robot controller into your Debian
 813 machine, Isenkram will propose to install the packages needed to get
 814 it working.  The intention is that this should allow the local user to
 815 start programming his robot controller right away without having to
 816 guess what packages to use or which permissions to fix.</p>
 817
 818 <p>But when I sat down with my son the other day to program our NXT
 819 unit using his Debian Stretch computer, I discovered something
 820 annoying.  The local console user (ie my son) did not get access to
 821 the USB device for programming the unit.  This used to work, but no
 822 longer in Jessie and Stretch.  After some investigation and asking
 823 around on #debian-devel, I discovered that this was because udev had
 824 changed the mechanism used to grant access to local devices.  The
 825 ConsoleKit mechanism from <tt>/lib/udev/rules.d/70-udev-acl.rules</tt>
 826 no longer applied, because LDAP users no longer was added to the
 827 plugdev group during login.  Michael Biebl told me that this method
 828 was obsolete and the new method used ACLs instead.  This was good
 829 news, as the plugdev mechanism is a mess when using a remote user
 830 directory like LDAP.  Using ACLs would make sure a user lost device
 831 access when she logged out, even if the user left behind a background
 832 process which would retain the plugdev membership with the ConsoleKit
 833 setup.  Armed with this knowledge I moved on to fix the access problem
 834 for the LEGO Mindstorms related packages.</p>
 835
 836 <p>The new system uses a udev tag, 'uaccess'.  It can either be
 837 applied directly for a device, or is applied in
 838 /lib/udev/rules.d/70-uaccess.rules for classes of devices.  As the
 839 LEGO Mindstorms udev rules did not have a class, I decided to add the
 840 tag directly in the udev rules files included in the packages.  Here
 841 is one example.  For the nqc C compiler for the RCX, the
 842 <tt>/lib/udev/rules.d/60-nqc.rules</tt> file now look like this:
 843
 844 <p><pre>
 845 SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ACTION=="add", ATTR{idVendor}=="0694", ATTR{idProduct}=="0001", \
 846     SYMLINK+="rcx-%k", TAG+="uaccess"
 847 </pre></p>
 848
 849 <p>The key part is the 'TAG+="uaccess"' at the end.  I suspect all
 850 packages using plugdev in their /lib/udev/rules.d/ files should be
 851 changed to use this tag (either directly or indirectly via
 852 <tt>70-uaccess.rules</tt>).  Perhaps a lintian check should be created
 853 to detect this?</p>
 854
 855 <p>I've been unable to find good documentation on the uaccess feature.
 856 It is unclear to me if the uaccess tag is an internal implementation
 857 detail like the udev-acl tag used by
 858 <tt>/lib/udev/rules.d/70-udev-acl.rules</tt>.  If it is, I guess the
 859 indirect method is the preferred way.  Michael
 860 <a href="https://github.com/systemd/systemd/issues/4288">asked for more
 861 documentation from the systemd project</a> and I hope it will make
 862 this clearer.  For now I use the generic classes when they exist and
 863 is already handled by <tt>70-uaccess.rules</tt>, and add the tag
 864 directly if no such class exist.</p>
 865
 866 <p>To learn more about the isenkram system, please check out
 867 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram/">my
 868 blog posts tagged isenkram</a>.</p>
 869
 870 <p>To help out making life for LEGO constructors in Debian easier,
 871 please join us on our IRC channel
 872 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">#debian-lego</a> and join
 873 the <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/debian-lego/">Debian
 874 LEGO team</a> in the Alioth project we created yesterday.  A mailing
 875 list is not yet created, but we are working on it. :)</p>
 876
 877 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
 878 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
 879 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
 880
 881       </div>
 882       <div class="tags">
 883
 884
 885         Tags: <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>.
 886
 887
 888       </div>
 889     </div>
 890     <div class="padding"></div>
 891
 892     <div class="entry">
 893       <div class="title">
 894         <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>
 895       </div>
 896       <div class="date">
 897         30th August 2016
 898       </div>
 899       <div class="body">
 900         <p>In April we
 901 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_a_Norwegian_Bokm_l_edition_of_The_Debian_Administrator_s_Handbook.html">started
 902 to work</a> on a Norwegian Bokmål edition of the "open access" book on
 903 how to set up and administrate a Debian system.  Today I am happy to
 904 report that the first draft is now publicly available.  You can find
 905 it on <a href="https://debian-handbook.info/get/">get the Debian
 906 Administrator's Handbook page</a> (under Other languages).  The first
 907 eight chapters have a first draft translation, and we are working on
 908 proofreading the content.  If you want to help out, please start
 909 contributing using
 910 <a href="https://hosted.weblate.org/projects/debian-handbook/">the
 911 hosted weblate project page</a>, and get in touch using
 912 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/debian-handbook-translators">the
 913 translators mailing list</a>.  Please also check out
 914 <a href="https://debian-handbook.info/contribute/">the instructions for
 915 contributors</a>.  A good way to contribute is to proofread the text
 916 and update weblate if you find errors.</p>
 917
 918 <p>Our goal is still to make the Norwegian book available on paper as well as
 919 electronic form.</p>
 920
 921       </div>
 922       <div class="tags">
 923
 924
 925         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
 926
 927
 928       </div>
 929     </div>
 930     <div class="padding"></div>
 931
 932     <div class="entry">
 933       <div class="title">
 934         <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>
 935       </div>
 936       <div class="date">
 937         11th August 2016
 938       </div>
 939       <div class="body">
 940         <p>This summer, I read a great article
 941 "<a href="https://www.usenix.org/publications/login/summer2016/curtsinger">coz:
 942 This Is the Profiler You're Looking For</a>" in USENIX ;login: about
 943 how to profile multi-threaded programs.  It presented a system for
 944 profiling software by running experiences in the running program,
 945 testing how run time performance is affected by "speeding up" parts of
 946 the code to various degrees compared to a normal run.  It does this by
 947 slowing down parallel threads while the "faster up" code is running
 948 and measure how this affect processing time.  The processing time is
 949 measured using probes inserted into the code, either using progress
 950 counters (COZ_PROGRESS) or as latency meters (COZ_BEGIN/COZ_END).  It
 951 can also measure unmodified code by measuring complete the program
 952 runtime and running the program several times instead.</p>
 953
 954 <p>The project and presentation was so inspiring that I would like to
 955 get the system into Debian.  I
 956 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=830708">created
 957 a WNPP request for it</a> and contacted upstream to try to make the
 958 system ready for Debian by sending patches.  The build process need to
 959 be changed a bit to avoid running 'git clone' to get dependencies, and
 960 to include the JavaScript web page used to visualize the collected
 961 profiling information included in the source package.
 962 But I expect that should work out fairly soon.</p>
 963
 964 <p>The way the system work is fairly simple.  To run an coz experiment
 965 on a binary with debug symbols available, start the program like this:
 966
 967 <p><blockquote><pre>
 968 coz run --- program-to-run
 969 </pre></blockquote></p>
 970
 971 <p>This will create a text file profile.coz with the instrumentation
 972 information.  To show what part of the code affect the performance
 973 most, use a web browser and either point it to
 974 <a href="http://plasma-umass.github.io/coz/">http://plasma-umass.github.io/coz/</a>
 975 or use the copy from git (in the gh-pages branch).  Check out this web
 976 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
 977 profiling more useful you include &lt;coz.h&gt; and insert the
 978 COZ_PROGRESS or COZ_BEGIN and COZ_END at appropriate places in the
 979 code, rebuild and run the profiler.  This allow coz to do more
 980 targeted experiments.</p>
 981
 982 <p>A video published by ACM
 983 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jE0V-p1odPg">presenting the
 984 Coz profiler</a> is available from Youtube.  There is also a paper
 985 from the 25th Symposium on Operating Systems Principles available
 986 titled
 987 <a href="https://www.usenix.org/conference/atc16/technical-sessions/presentation/curtsinger">Coz:
 988 finding code that counts with causal profiling</a>.</p>
 989
 990 <p><a href="https://github.com/plasma-umass/coz">The source code</a>
 991 for Coz is available from github.  It will only build with clang
 992 because it uses a
 993 <a href="https://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=55606">C++
 994 feature missing in GCC</a>, but I've submitted
 995 <a href="https://github.com/plasma-umass/coz/pull/67">a patch to solve
 996 it</a> and hope it will be included in the upstream source soon.</p>
 997
 998 <p>Please get in touch if you, like me, would like to see this piece
 999 of software in Debian.  I would very much like some help with the
1000 packaging effort, as I lack the in depth knowledge on how to package
1001 C++ libraries.</p>
1002
1003       </div>
1004       <div class="tags">
1005
1006
1007         Tags: <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>.
1008
1009
1010       </div>
1011     </div>
1012     <div class="padding"></div>
1013
1014     <div class="entry">
1015       <div class="title">
1016         <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>
1017       </div>
1018       <div class="date">
1019          7th July 2016
1020       </div>
1021       <div class="body">
1022         <p>Yesterday, I tried to unlock a HTC Desire HD phone, and it proved
1023 to be a slight challenge.  Here is the recipe if I ever need to do it
1024 again.  It all started by me wanting to try the recipe to set up
1025 <a href="https://blog.torproject.org/blog/mission-impossible-hardening-android-security-and-privacy">an
1026 hardened Android installation</a> from the Tor project blog on a
1027 device I had access to.  It is a old mobile phone with a broken
1028 microphone The initial idea had been to just
1029 <a href="http://wiki.cyanogenmod.org/w/Install_CM_for_ace">install
1030 CyanogenMod on it</a>, but did not quite find time to start on it
1031 until a few days ago.</p>
1032
1033 <p>The unlock process is supposed to be simple: (1) Boot into the boot
1034 loader (press volume down and power at the same time), (2) select
1035 'fastboot' before (3) connecting the device via USB to a Linux
1036 machine, (4) request the device identifier token by running 'fastboot
1037 oem get_identifier_token', (5) request the device unlocking key using
1038 the <a href="http://www.htcdev.com/bootloader/">HTC developer web
1039 site</a> and unlock the phone using the key file emailed to you.</p>
1040
1041 <p>Unfortunately, this only work fi you have hboot version 2.00.0029
1042 or newer, and the device I was working on had 2.00.0027.  This
1043 apparently can be easily fixed by downloading a Windows program and
1044 running it on your Windows machine, if you accept the terms Microsoft
1045 require you to accept to use Windows - which I do not.  So I had to
1046 come up with a different approach.  I got a lot of help from AndyCap
1047 on #nuug, and would not have been able to get this working without
1048 him.</p>
1049
1050 <p>First I needed to extract the hboot firmware from
1051 <a href="http://www.htcdev.com/ruu/PD9810000_Ace_Sense30_S_hboot_2.00.0029.exe">the
1052 windows binary for HTC Desire HD</a> downloaded as 'the RUU' from HTC.
1053 For this there is is <a href="https://github.com/kmdm/unruu/">a github
1054 project named unruu</a> using libunshield.  The unshield tool did not
1055 recognise the file format, but unruu worked and extracted rom.zip,
1056 containing the new hboot firmware and a text file describing which
1057 devices it would work for.</p>
1058
1059 <p>Next, I needed to get the new firmware into the device.  For this I
1060 followed some instructions
1061 <a href="http://www.htc1guru.com/2013/09/new-ruu-zips-posted/">available
1062 from HTC1Guru.com</a>, and ran these commands as root on a Linux
1063 machine with Debian testing:</p>
1064
1065 <p><pre>
1066 adb reboot-bootloader
1067 fastboot oem rebootRUU
1068 fastboot flash zip rom.zip
1069 fastboot flash zip rom.zip
1070 fastboot reboot
1071 </pre></p>
1072
1073 <p>The flash command apparently need to be done twice to take effect,
1074 as the first is just preparations and the second one do the flashing.
1075 The adb command is just to get to the boot loader menu, so turning the
1076 device on while holding volume down and the power button should work
1077 too.</p>
1078
1079 <p>With the new hboot version in place I could start following the
1080 instructions on the HTC developer web site.  I got the device token
1081 like this:</p>
1082
1083 <p><pre>
1084 fastboot oem get_identifier_token 2>&1 | sed 's/(bootloader) //'
1085 </pre>
1086
1087 <p>And once I got the unlock code via email, I could use it like
1088 this:</p>
1089
1090 <p><pre>
1091 fastboot flash unlocktoken Unlock_code.bin
1092 </pre></p>
1093
1094 <p>And with that final step in place, the phone was unlocked and I
1095 could start stuffing the software of my own choosing into the device.
1096 So far I only inserted a replacement recovery image to wipe the phone
1097 before I start.  We will see what happen next.  Perhaps I should
1098 install <a href="https://www.debian.org/">Debian</a> on it. :)</p>
1099
1100       </div>
1101       <div class="tags">
1102
1103
1104         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>.
1105
1106
1107       </div>
1108     </div>
1109     <div class="padding"></div>
1110
1111     <div class="entry">
1112       <div class="title">
1113         <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>
1114       </div>
1115       <div class="date">
1116          3rd July 2016
1117       </div>
1118       <div class="body">
1119         <p>For a while now, I have wanted to test
1120 <a href="https://whispersystems.org/">the Signal app</a>, as it is
1121 said to provide end to end encrypted communication and several of my
1122 friends and family are already using it.  As I by choice do not own a
1123 mobile phone, this proved to be harder than expected.  And I wanted to
1124 have the source of the client and know that it was the code used on my
1125 machine.  But yesterday I managed to get it working.  I used the
1126 Github source, compared it to the source in
1127 <a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/signal-private-messenger/bikioccmkafdpakkkcpdbppfkghcmihk?hl=en-US">the
1128 Signal Chrome app</a> available from the Chrome web store, applied
1129 patches to use the production Signal servers, started the app and
1130 asked for the hidden "register without a smart phone" form.  Here is
1131 the recipe how I did it.</p>
1132
1133 <p>First, I fetched the Signal desktop source from Github, using
1134
1135 <pre>
1136 git clone https://github.com/WhisperSystems/Signal-Desktop.git
1137 </pre>
1138
1139 <p>Next, I patched the source to use the production servers, to be
1140 able to talk to other Signal users:</p>
1141
1142 <pre>
1143 cat &lt;&lt;EOF | patch -p0
1144 diff -ur ./js/background.js userdata/Default/Extensions/bikioccmkafdpakkkcpdbppfkghcmihk/0.15.0_0/js/background.js
1145 --- ./js/background.js  2016-06-29 13:43:15.630344628 +0200
1146 +++ userdata/Default/Extensions/bikioccmkafdpakkkcpdbppfkghcmihk/0.15.0_0/js/background.js    2016-06-29 14:06:29.530300934 +0200
1147 @@ -47,8 +47,8 @@
1148          });
1149      });
1150
1151 -    var SERVER_URL = 'https://textsecure-service-staging.whispersystems.org';
1152 -    var ATTACHMENT_SERVER_URL = 'https://whispersystems-textsecure-attachments-staging.s3.amazonaws.com';
1153 +    var SERVER_URL = 'https://textsecure-service-ca.whispersystems.org:4433';
1154 +    var ATTACHMENT_SERVER_URL = 'https://whispersystems-textsecure-attachments.s3.amazonaws.com';
1155      var messageReceiver;
1156      window.getSocketStatus = function() {
1157          if (messageReceiver) {
1158 diff -ur ./js/expire.js userdata/Default/Extensions/bikioccmkafdpakkkcpdbppfkghcmihk/0.15.0_0/js/expire.js
1159 --- ./js/expire.js      2016-06-29 13:43:15.630344628 +0200
1160 +++ userdata/Default/Extensions/bikioccmkafdpakkkcpdbppfkghcmihk/0.15.0_0/js/expire.js2016-06-29 14:06:29.530300934 +0200
1161 @@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
1162  ;(function() {
1163      'use strict';
1164 -    var BUILD_EXPIRATION = 0;
1165 +    var BUILD_EXPIRATION = 1474492690000;
1166
1167      window.extension = window.extension || {};
1168
1169 EOF
1170 </pre>
1171
1172 <p>The first part is changing the servers, and the second is updating
1173 an expiration timestamp.  This timestamp need to be updated regularly.
1174 It is set 90 days in the future by the build process (Gruntfile.js).
1175 The value is seconds since 1970 times 1000, as far as I can tell.</p>
1176
1177 <p>Based on a tip and good help from the #nuug IRC channel, I wrote a
1178 script to launch Signal in Chromium.</p>
1179
1180 <pre>
1181 #!/bin/sh
1182 cd $(dirname $0)
1183 mkdir -p userdata
1184 exec chromium \
1185   --proxy-server="socks://localhost:9050" \
1186   --user-data-dir=`pwd`/userdata --load-and-launch-app=`pwd`
1187 </pre>
1188
1189 <p> The script start the app and configure Chromium to use the Tor
1190 SOCKS5 proxy to make sure those controlling the Signal servers (today
1191 Amazon and Whisper Systems) as well as those listening on the lines
1192 will have a harder time location my laptop based on the Signal
1193 connections if they use source IP address.</p>
1194
1195 <p>When the script starts, one need to follow the instructions under
1196 "Standalone Registration" in the CONTRIBUTING.md file in the git
1197 repository.  I right clicked on the Signal window to get up the
1198 Chromium debugging tool, visited the 'Console' tab and wrote
1199 'extension.install("standalone")' on the console prompt to get the
1200 registration form.  Then I entered by land line phone number and
1201 pressed 'Call'.  5 seconds later the phone rang and a robot voice
1202 repeated the verification code three times.  After entering the number
1203 into the verification code field in the form, I could start using
1204 Signal from my laptop.
1205
1206 <p>As far as I can tell, The Signal app will leak who is talking to
1207 whom and thus who know who to those controlling the central server,
1208 but such leakage is hard to avoid with a centrally controlled server
1209 setup.  It is something to keep in mind when using Signal - the
1210 content of your chats are harder to intercept, but the meta data
1211 exposing your contact network is available to people you do not know.
1212 So better than many options, but not great.  And sadly the usage is
1213 connected to my land line, thus allowing those controlling the server
1214 to associate it to my home and person.  I would prefer it if only
1215 those I knew could tell who I was on Signal.  There are options
1216 avoiding such information leakage, but most of my friends are not
1217 using them, so I am stuck with Signal for now.</p>
1218
1219       </div>
1220       <div class="tags">
1221
1222
1223         Tags: <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>.
1224
1225
1226       </div>
1227     </div>
1228     <div class="padding"></div>
1229
1230     <div class="entry">
1231       <div class="title">
1232         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_new__best__multimedia_player_in_Debian_.html">The new "best" multimedia player in Debian?</a>
1233       </div>
1234       <div class="date">
1235          6th June 2016
1236       </div>
1237       <div class="body">
1238         <p>When I set out a few weeks ago to figure out
1239 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_the_best_multimedia_player_in_Debian_.html">which
1240 multimedia player in Debian claimed to support most file formats /
1241 MIME types</a>, I was a bit surprised how varied the sets of MIME types
1242 the various players claimed support for.  The range was from 55 to 130
1243 MIME types.  I suspect most media formats are supported by all
1244 players, but this is not really reflected in the MimeTypes values in
1245 their desktop files.  There are probably also some bogus MIME types
1246 listed, but it is hard to identify which one this is.</p>
1247
1248 <p>Anyway, in the mean time I got in touch with upstream for some of
1249 the players suggesting to add more MIME types to their desktop files,
1250 and decided to spend some time myself improving the situation for my
1251 favorite media player VLC.  The fixes for VLC entered Debian unstable
1252 yesterday. The complete list of MIME types can be seen on the
1253 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianMultimedia/PlayerSupport">Multimedia
1254 player MIME type support status</a> Debian wiki page.</p>
1255
1256 <p>The new "best" multimedia player in Debian?  It is VLC, followed by
1257 totem, parole, kplayer, gnome-mpv, mpv, smplayer, mplayer-gui and
1258 kmplayer.  I am sure some of the other players desktop files support
1259 several of the formats currently listed as working only with vlc,
1260 toten and parole.</p>
1261
1262 <p>A sad observation is that only 14 MIME types are listed as
1263 supported by all the tested multimedia players in Debian in their
1264 desktop files: audio/mpeg, audio/vnd.rn-realaudio, audio/x-mpegurl,
1265 audio/x-ms-wma, audio/x-scpls, audio/x-wav, video/mp4, video/mpeg,
1266 video/quicktime, video/vnd.rn-realvideo, video/x-matroska,
1267 video/x-ms-asf, video/x-ms-wmv and video/x-msvideo.  Personally I find
1268 it sad that video/ogg and video/webm is not supported by all the media
1269 players in Debian.  As far as I can tell, all of them can handle both
1270 formats.</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/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>.
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/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>
1286       </div>
1287       <div class="date">
1288          5th June 2016
1289       </div>
1290       <div class="body">
1291         <p>Many years ago, when koffice was fresh and with few users, I
1292 decided to test its presentation tool when making the slides for a
1293 talk I was giving for NUUG on Japhar, a free Java virtual machine.  I
1294 wrote the first draft of the slides, saved the result and went to bed
1295 the day before I would give the talk.  The next day I took a plane to
1296 the location where the meeting should take place, and on the plane I
1297 started up koffice again to polish the talk a bit, only to discover
1298 that kpresenter refused to load its own data file.  I cursed a bit and
1299 started making the slides again from memory, to have something to
1300 present when I arrived.  I tested that the saved files could be
1301 loaded, and the day seemed to be rescued.  I continued to polish the
1302 slides until I suddenly discovered that the saved file could no longer
1303 be loaded into kpresenter.  In the end I had to rewrite the slides
1304 three times, condensing the content until the talk became shorter and
1305 shorter.  After the talk I was able to pinpoint the problem &ndash;
1306 kpresenter wrote inline images in a way itself could not understand.
1307 Eventually that bug was fixed and kpresenter ended up being a great
1308 program to make slides.  The point I'm trying to make is that we
1309 expect a program to be able to load its own data files, and it is
1310 embarrassing to its developers if it can't.</p>
1311
1312 <p>Did you ever experience a program failing to load its own data
1313 files from the desktop file browser?  It is not a uncommon problem.  A
1314 while back I discovered that the screencast recorder
1315 gtk-recordmydesktop would save an Ogg Theora video file the KDE file
1316 browser would refuse to open.  No video player claimed to understand
1317 such file.  I tracked down the cause being <tt>file --mime-type</tt>
1318 returning the application/ogg MIME type, which no video player I had
1319 installed listed as a MIME type they would understand.  I asked for
1320 <a href="http://bugs.gw.com/view.php?id=382">file to change its
1321 behavour</a> and use the MIME type video/ogg instead.  I also asked
1322 several video players to add video/ogg to their desktop files, to give
1323 the file browser an idea what to do about Ogg Theora files.  After a
1324 while, the desktop file browsers in Debian started to handle the
1325 output from gtk-recordmydesktop properly.</p>
1326
1327 <p>But history repeats itself.  A few days ago I tested the music
1328 system Rosegarden again, and I discovered that the KDE and xfce file
1329 browsers did not know what to do with the Rosegarden project files
1330 (*.rg).  I've reported <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/825993">the
1331 rosegarden problem to BTS</a> and a fix is commited to git and will be
1332 included in the next upload.  To increase the chance of me remembering
1333 how to fix the problem next time some program fail to load its files
1334 from the file browser, here are some notes on how to fix it.</p>
1335
1336 <p>The file browsers in Debian in general operates on MIME types.
1337 There are two sources for the MIME type of a given file.  The output from
1338 <tt>file --mime-type</tt> mentioned above, and the content of the
1339 shared MIME type registry (under /usr/share/mime/).  The file MIME
1340 type is mapped to programs supporting the MIME type, and this
1341 information is collected from
1342 <a href="https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/desktop-entry-spec/">the
1343 desktop files</a> available in /usr/share/applications/.  If there is
1344 one desktop file claiming support for the MIME type of the file, it is
1345 activated when asking to open a given file.  If there are more, one
1346 can normally select which one to use by right-clicking on the file and
1347 selecting the wanted one using 'Open with' or similar.  In general
1348 this work well.  But it depend on each program picking a good MIME
1349 type (preferably
1350 <a href="http://www.iana.org/assignments/media-types/media-types.xhtml">a
1351 MIME type registered with IANA</a>), file and/or the shared MIME
1352 registry recognizing the file and the desktop file to list the MIME
1353 type in its list of supported MIME types.</p>
1354
1355 <p>The <tt>/usr/share/mime/packages/rosegarden.xml</tt> entry for
1356 <a href="http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/shared-mime-info-spec">the
1357 Shared MIME database</a> look like this:</p>
1358
1359 <p><blockquote><pre>
1360 &lt;?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?&gt;
1361 &lt;mime-info xmlns="http://www.freedesktop.org/standards/shared-mime-info"&gt;
1362   &lt;mime-type type="audio/x-rosegarden"&gt;
1363     &lt;sub-class-of type="application/x-gzip"/&gt;
1364     &lt;comment&gt;Rosegarden project file&lt;/comment&gt;
1365     &lt;glob pattern="*.rg"/&gt;
1366   &lt;/mime-type&gt;
1367 &lt;/mime-info&gt;
1368 </pre></blockquote></p>
1369
1370 <p>This states that audio/x-rosegarden is a kind of application/x-gzip
1371 (it is a gzipped XML file).  Note, it is much better to use an
1372 official MIME type registered with IANA than it is to make up ones own
1373 unofficial ones like the x-rosegarden type used by rosegarden.</p>
1374
1375 <p>The desktop file of the rosegarden program failed to list
1376 audio/x-rosegarden in its list of supported MIME types, causing the
1377 file browsers to have no idea what to do with *.rg files:</p>
1378
1379 <p><blockquote><pre>
1380 % grep Mime /usr/share/applications/rosegarden.desktop
1381 MimeType=audio/x-rosegarden-composition;audio/x-rosegarden-device;audio/x-rosegarden-project;audio/x-rosegarden-template;audio/midi;
1382 X-KDE-NativeMimeType=audio/x-rosegarden-composition
1383 %
1384 </pre></blockquote></p>
1385
1386 <p>The fix was to add "audio/x-rosegarden;" at the end of the
1387 MimeType= line.</p>
1388
1389 <p>If you run into a file which fail to open the correct program when
1390 selected from the file browser, please check out the output from
1391 <tt>file --mime-type</tt> for the file, ensure the file ending and
1392 MIME type is registered somewhere under /usr/share/mime/ and check
1393 that some desktop file under /usr/share/applications/ is claiming
1394 support for this MIME type.  If not, please report a bug to have it
1395 fixed. :)</p>
1396
1397       </div>
1398       <div class="tags">
1399
1400
1401         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1402
1403
1404       </div>
1405     </div>
1406     <div class="padding"></div>
1407
1408     <div class="entry">
1409       <div class="title">
1410         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/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>
1411       </div>
1412       <div class="date">
1413         25th May 2016
1414       </div>
1415       <div class="body">
1416         <p><a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/isenkram">The isenkram
1417 system</a> is a user-focused solution in Debian for handling hardware
1418 related packages.  The idea is to have a database of mappings between
1419 hardware and packages, and pop up a dialog suggesting for the user to
1420 install the packages to use a given hardware dongle.  Some use cases
1421 are when you insert a Yubikey, it proposes to install the software
1422 needed to control it; when you insert a braille reader list it
1423 proposes to install the packages needed to send text to the reader;
1424 and when you insert a ColorHug screen calibrator it suggests to
1425 install the driver for it.  The system work well, and even have a few
1426 command line tools to install firmware packages and packages for the
1427 hardware already in the machine (as opposed to hotpluggable hardware).</p>
1428
1429 <p>The system was initially written using aptdaemon, because I found
1430 good documentation and example code on how to use it.  But aptdaemon
1431 is going away and is generally being replaced by
1432 <a href="http://www.freedesktop.org/software/PackageKit/">PackageKit</a>,
1433 so Isenkram needed a rewrite.  And today, thanks to the great patch
1434 from my college Sunil Mohan Adapa in the FreedomBox project, the
1435 rewrite finally took place.  I've just uploaded a new version of
1436 Isenkram into Debian Unstable with the patch included, and the default
1437 for the background daemon is now to use PackageKit.  To check it out,
1438 install the <tt>isenkram</tt> package and insert some hardware dongle
1439 and see if it is recognised.</p>
1440
1441 <p>If you want to know what kind of packages isenkram would propose for
1442 the machine it is running on, you can check out the isenkram-lookup
1443 program.  This is what it look like on a Thinkpad X230:</p>
1444
1445 <p><blockquote><pre>
1446 % isenkram-lookup
1447 bluez
1448 cheese
1449 fprintd
1450 fprintd-demo
1451 gkrellm-thinkbat
1452 hdapsd
1453 libpam-fprintd
1454 pidgin-blinklight
1455 thinkfan
1456 tleds
1457 tp-smapi-dkms
1458 tp-smapi-source
1459 tpb
1460 %p
1461 </pre></blockquote></p>
1462
1463 <p>The hardware mappings come from several places.  The preferred way
1464 is for packages to announce their hardware support using
1465 <a href="https://www.freedesktop.org/software/appstream/docs/">the
1466 cross distribution appstream system</a>.
1467 See
1468 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram/">previous
1469 blog posts about isenkram</a> to learn how to do that.</p>
1470
1471       </div>
1472       <div class="tags">
1473
1474
1475         Tags: <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>.
1476
1477
1478       </div>
1479     </div>
1480     <div class="padding"></div>
1481
1482     <div class="entry">
1483       <div class="title">
1484         <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>
1485       </div>
1486       <div class="date">
1487         23rd May 2016
1488       </div>
1489       <div class="body">
1490         <p>Yesterday I updated the
1491 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">battery-stats
1492 package in Debian</a> with a few patches sent to me by skilled and
1493 enterprising users.  There were some nice user and visible changes.
1494 First of all, both desktop menu entries now work.  A design flaw in
1495 one of the script made the history graph fail to show up (its PNG was
1496 dumped in ~/.xsession-errors) if no controlling TTY was available.
1497 The script worked when called from the command line, but not when
1498 called from the desktop menu.  I changed this to look for a DISPLAY
1499 variable or a TTY before deciding where to draw the graph, and now the
1500 graph window pop up as expected.</p>
1501
1502 <p>The next new feature is a discharge rate estimator in one of the
1503 graphs (the one showing the last few hours).  New is also the user of
1504 colours showing charging in blue and discharge in red.  The percentages
1505 of this graph is relative to last full charge, not battery design
1506 capacity.</p>
1507
1508 <p align="center"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-05-23-battery-stats-rate.png"/></p>
1509
1510 <p>The other graph show the entire history of the collected battery
1511 statistics, comparing it to the design capacity of the battery to
1512 visualise how the battery life time get shorter over time.  The red
1513 line in this graph is what the previous graph considers 100 percent:
1514
1515 <p align="center"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-05-23-battery-stats-history.png"/></p>
1516
1517 <p>In this graph you can see that I only charge the battery to 80
1518 percent of last full capacity, and how the capacity of the battery is
1519 shrinking. :(</p>
1520
1521 <p>The last new feature is in the collector, which now will handle
1522 more hardware models.  On some hardware, Linux power supply
1523 information is stored in /sys/class/power_supply/ACAD/, while the
1524 collector previously only looked in /sys/class/power_supply/AC/.  Now
1525 both are checked to figure if there is power connected to the
1526 machine.</p>
1527
1528 <p>If you are interested in how your laptop battery is doing, please
1529 check out the
1530 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">battery-stats</a>
1531 in Debian unstable, or rebuild it on Jessie to get it working on
1532 Debian stable. :) The upstream source is available from <a
1533 href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/battery-stats">github</a>.
1534 Patches are very welcome.</p>
1535
1536 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1537 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1538 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
1539
1540       </div>
1541       <div class="tags">
1542
1543
1544         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1545
1546
1547       </div>
1548     </div>
1549     <div class="padding"></div>
1550
1551     <div class="entry">
1552       <div class="title">
1553         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_now_with_ZFS_on_Linux_included.html">Debian now with ZFS on Linux included</a>
1554       </div>
1555       <div class="date">
1556         12th May 2016
1557       </div>
1558       <div class="body">
1559         <p>Today, after many years of hard work from many people,
1560 <a href="http://zfsonlinux.org/">ZFS for Linux</a> finally entered
1561 Debian.  The package status can be seen on
1562 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/zfs-linux">the package tracker
1563 for zfs-linux</a>.  and
1564 <a href="https://qa.debian.org/developer.php?login=pkg-zfsonlinux-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
1565 team status page</a>. If you want to help out, please join us.
1566 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=pkg-zfsonlinux/zfs.git">The
1567 source code</a> is available via git on Alioth.  It would also be
1568 great if you could help out with
1569 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/dkms">the dkms package</a>, as
1570 it is an important piece of the puzzle to get ZFS working.</p>
1571
1572       </div>
1573       <div class="tags">
1574
1575
1576         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1577
1578
1579       </div>
1580     </div>
1581     <div class="padding"></div>
1582
1583     <div class="entry">
1584       <div class="title">
1585         <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>
1586       </div>
1587       <div class="date">
1588          8th May 2016
1589       </div>
1590       <div class="body">
1591         <p><strong>Where I set out to figure out which multimedia player in
1592 Debian claim support for most file formats.</strong></p>
1593
1594 <p>A few years ago, I had a look at the media support for Browser
1595 plugins in Debian, to get an idea which plugins to include in Debian
1596 Edu.  I created a script to extract the set of supported MIME types
1597 for each plugin, and used this to find out which multimedia browser
1598 plugin supported most file formats / media types.
1599 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">The
1600 result</a> can still be seen on the Debian wiki, even though it have
1601 not been updated for a while.  But browser plugins are less relevant
1602 these days, so I thought it was time to look at standalone
1603 players.</p>
1604
1605 <p>A few days ago I was tired of VLC not being listed as a viable
1606 player when I wanted to play videos from the Norwegian National
1607 Broadcasting Company, and decided to investigate why.  The cause is a
1608 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/822245">missing MIME type in the VLC
1609 desktop file</a>.  In the process I wrote a script to compare the set
1610 of MIME types announced in the desktop file and the browser plugin,
1611 only to discover that there is quite a large difference between the
1612 two for VLC.  This discovery made me dig up the script I used to
1613 compare browser plugins, and adjust it to compare desktop files
1614 instead, to try to figure out which multimedia player in Debian
1615 support most file formats.</p>
1616
1617 <p>The result can be seen on the Debian Wiki, as
1618 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianMultimedia/PlayerSupport">a
1619 table listing all MIME types supported by one of the packages included
1620 in the table</a>, with the package supporting most MIME types being
1621 listed first in the table.</p>
1622
1623 </p>The best multimedia player in Debian?  It is totem, followed by
1624 parole, kplayer, mpv, vlc, smplayer mplayer-gui gnome-mpv and
1625 kmplayer.  Time for the other players to update their announced MIME
1626 support?</p>
1627
1628       </div>
1629       <div class="tags">
1630
1631
1632         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>.
1633
1634
1635       </div>
1636     </div>
1637     <div class="padding"></div>
1638
1639     <div class="entry">
1640       <div class="title">
1641         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Pyra___handheld_computer_with_Debian_preinstalled.html">The Pyra - handheld computer with Debian preinstalled</a>
1642       </div>
1643       <div class="date">
1644          4th May 2016
1645       </div>
1646       <div class="body">
1647         A friend of mine made me aware of
1648 <a href="https://pyra-handheld.com/boards/pages/pyra/">The Pyra</a>, a
1649 handheld computer which will be delivered with Debian preinstalled.  I
1650 would love to get one of those for my birthday. :)</p>
1651
1652 <p>The machine is a complete ARM-based PC with micro HDMI, SATA, USB
1653 plugs and many others connectors, and include a full keyboard and a 5"
1654 LCD touch screen.  The 6000mAh battery is claimed to provide a whole
1655 day of battery life time, but I have not seen any independent tests
1656 confirming this.  The vendor is still collecting preorders, and the
1657 last I heard last night was that 22 more orders were needed before
1658 production started.</p>
1659
1660 <p>As far as I know, this is the first handheld preinstalled with
1661 Debian.  Please let me know if you know of any others.  Is it the
1662 first computer being sold with Debian preinstalled?</p>
1663
1664       </div>
1665       <div class="tags">
1666
1667
1668         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1669
1670
1671       </div>
1672     </div>
1673     <div class="padding"></div>
1674
1675     <div class="entry">
1676       <div class="title">
1677         <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>
1678       </div>
1679       <div class="date">
1680         10th April 2016
1681       </div>
1682       <div class="body">
1683         <p>During this weekends
1684 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/news/Oslo__Takk_for_feilfiksingsfesten.shtml">bug
1685 squashing party and developer gathering</a>, we decided to do our part
1686 to make sure there are good books about Debian available in Norwegian
1687 Bokmål, and got in touch with the people behind the
1688 <a href="http://debian-handbook.info/">Debian Administrator's Handbook
1689 project</a> to get started.  If you want to help out, please start
1690 contributing using
1691 <a href="https://hosted.weblate.org/projects/debian-handbook/">the
1692 hosted weblate project page</a>, and get in touch using
1693 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/debian-handbook-translators">the
1694 translators mailing list</a>.  Please also check out
1695 <a href="https://debian-handbook.info/contribute/">the instructions for
1696 contributors</a>.</p>
1697
1698 <p>The book is already available on paper in English, French and
1699 Japanese, and our goal is to get it available on paper in Norwegian
1700 Bokmål too.  In addition to the paper edition, there are also EPUB and
1701 Mobi versions available.  And there are incomplete translations
1702 available for many more languages.</p>
1703
1704       </div>
1705       <div class="tags">
1706
1707
1708         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1709
1710
1711       </div>
1712     </div>
1713     <div class="padding"></div>
1714
1715     <div class="entry">
1716       <div class="title">
1717         <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>
1718       </div>
1719       <div class="date">
1720          7th April 2016
1721       </div>
1722       <div class="body">
1723         <p>Just for fun I had a look at the popcon number of ZFS related
1724 packages in Debian, and was quite surprised with what I found.  I use
1725 ZFS myself at home, but did not really expect many others to do so.
1726 But I might be wrong.</p>
1727
1728 <p>According to
1729 <a href="https://qa.debian.org/popcon.php?package=spl-linux">the popcon
1730 results for spl-linux</a>, there are 1019 Debian installations, or
1731 0.53% of the population, with the package installed.  As far as I know
1732 the only use of the spl-linux package is as a support library for ZFS
1733 on Linux, so I use it here as proxy for measuring the number of ZFS
1734 installation on Linux in Debian.  In the kFreeBSD variant of Debian
1735 the ZFS feature is already available, and there
1736 <a href="https://qa.debian.org/popcon.php?package=zfsutils">the popcon
1737 results for zfsutils</a> show 1625 Debian installations or 0.84% of
1738 the population.  So I guess I am not alone in using ZFS on Debian.</p>
1739
1740 <p>But even though the Debian project leader Lucas Nussbaum
1741 <a href="https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2015/04/msg00006.html">announced
1742 in April 2015</a> that the legal obstacles blocking ZFS on Debian were
1743 cleared, the package is still not in Debian.  The package is again in
1744 the NEW queue.  Several uploads have been rejected so far because the
1745 debian/copyright file was incomplete or wrong, but there is no reason
1746 to give up.  The current status can be seen on
1747 <a href="https://qa.debian.org/developer.php?login=pkg-zfsonlinux-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
1748 team status page</a>, and
1749 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=pkg-zfsonlinux/zfs.git">the
1750 source code</a> is available on Alioth.</p>
1751
1752 <p>As I want ZFS to be included in next version of Debian to make sure
1753 my home server can function in the future using only official Debian
1754 packages, and the current blocker is to get the debian/copyright file
1755 accepted by the FTP masters in Debian, I decided a while back to try
1756 to help out the team.  This was the background for my blog post about
1757 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Creating__updating_and_checking_debian_copyright_semi_automatically.html">creating,
1758 updating and checking debian/copyright semi-automatically</a>, and I
1759 used the techniques I explored there to try to find any errors in the
1760 copyright file.  It is not very easy to check every one of the around
1761 2000 files in the source package, but I hope we this time got it
1762 right.  If you want to help out, check out the git source and try to
1763 find missing entries in the debian/copyright file.</p>
1764
1765       </div>
1766       <div class="tags">
1767
1768
1769         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1770
1771
1772       </div>
1773     </div>
1774     <div class="padding"></div>
1775
1776     <div class="entry">
1777       <div class="title">
1778         <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>
1779       </div>
1780       <div class="date">
1781         23rd March 2016
1782       </div>
1783       <div class="body">
1784         <p>Since this morning, the battery-stats package in Debian include an
1785 extended collector that will collect the complete battery history for
1786 later processing and graphing.  The original collector store the
1787 battery level as percentage of last full level, while the new
1788 collector also record battery vendor, model, serial number, design
1789 full level, last full level and current battery level.  This make it
1790 possible to predict the lifetime of the battery as well as visualise
1791 the energy flow when the battery is charging or discharging.</p>
1792
1793 <p>The new tools are available in <tt>/usr/share/battery-stats/</tt>
1794 in the version 0.5.1 package in unstable.  Get the new battery level graph
1795 and lifetime prediction by running:
1796
1797 <p><pre>
1798 /usr/share/battery-stats/battery-stats-graph /var/log/battery-stats.csv
1799 </pre></p>
1800
1801 <p>Or select the 'Battery Level Graph' from your application menu.</p>
1802
1803 <p>The flow in/out of the battery can be seen by running (no menu
1804 entry yet):</p>
1805
1806 <p><pre>
1807 /usr/share/battery-stats/battery-stats-graph-flow
1808 </pre></p>
1809
1810 <p>I'm not quite happy with the way the data is visualised, at least
1811 when there are few data points.  The graphs look a bit better with a
1812 few years of data.</p>
1813
1814 <p>A while back one important feature I use in the battery stats
1815 collector broke in Debian.  The scripts in
1816 <tt>/usr/lib/pm-utils/power.d/</tt> were no longer executed.  I
1817 suspect it happened when Jessie started using systemd, but I do not
1818 know.  The issue is reported as
1819 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/818649">bug #818649</a> against
1820 pm-utils.  I managed to work around it by adding an udev rule to call
1821 the collector script every time the power connector is connected and
1822 disconnected.  With this fix in place it was finally time to make a
1823 new release of the package, and get it into Debian.</p>
1824
1825 <p>If you are interested in how your laptop battery is doing, please
1826 check out the
1827 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">battery-stats</a>
1828 in Debian unstable, or rebuild it on Jessie to get it working on
1829 Debian stable. :) The upstream source is available from
1830 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/battery-stats">github</a>.
1831 As always, patches are very welcome.</p>
1832
1833       </div>
1834       <div class="tags">
1835
1836
1837         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1838
1839
1840       </div>
1841     </div>
1842     <div class="padding"></div>
1843
1844     <div class="entry">
1845       <div class="title">
1846         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Making_battery_measurements_a_little_easier_in_Debian.html">Making battery measurements a little easier in Debian</a>
1847       </div>
1848       <div class="date">
1849         15th March 2016
1850       </div>
1851       <div class="body">
1852         <p>Back in September, I blogged about
1853 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_life_and_death_of_a_laptop_battery.html">the
1854 system I wrote to collect statistics about my laptop battery</a>, and
1855 how it showed the decay and death of this battery (now replaced).  I
1856 created a simple deb package to handle the collection and graphing,
1857 but did not want to upload it to Debian as there were already
1858 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">a battery-stats
1859 package in Debian</a> that should do the same thing, and I did not see
1860 a point of uploading a competing package when battery-stats could be
1861 fixed instead.  I reported a few bugs about its non-function, and
1862 hoped someone would step in and fix it.  But no-one did.</p>
1863
1864 <p>I got tired of waiting a few days ago, and took matters in my own
1865 hands.  The end result is that I am now the new upstream developer of
1866 battery stats (<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/battery-stats">available from github</a>) and part of the team maintaining
1867 battery-stats in Debian, and the package in Debian unstable is finally
1868 able to collect battery status using the <tt>/sys/class/power_supply/</tt>
1869 information provided by the Linux kernel.  If you install the
1870 battery-stats package from unstable now, you will be able to get a
1871 graph of the current battery fill level, to get some idea about the
1872 status of the battery.  The source package build and work just fine in
1873 Debian testing and stable (and probably oldstable too, but I have not
1874 tested).  The default graph you get for that system look like this:</p>
1875
1876 <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>
1877
1878 <p>My plans for the future is to merge my old scripts into the
1879 battery-stats package, as my old scripts collected a lot more details
1880 about the battery.  The scripts are merged into the upstream
1881 battery-stats git repository already, but I am not convinced they work
1882 yet, as I changed a lot of paths along the way.  Will have to test a
1883 bit more before I make a new release.</p>
1884
1885 <p>I will also consider changing the file format slightly, as I
1886 suspect the way I combine several values into one field might make it
1887 impossible to know the type of the value when using it for processing
1888 and graphing.</p>
1889
1890 <p>If you would like I would like to keep an close eye on your laptop
1891 battery, check out the battery-stats package in
1892 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">Debian</a> and
1893 on
1894 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/battery-stats">github</a>.
1895 I would love some help to improve the system further.</p>
1896
1897       </div>
1898       <div class="tags">
1899
1900
1901         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1902
1903
1904       </div>
1905     </div>
1906     <div class="padding"></div>
1907
1908     <div class="entry">
1909       <div class="title">
1910         <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>
1911       </div>
1912       <div class="date">
1913         19th February 2016
1914       </div>
1915       <div class="body">
1916         <p>Making packages for Debian requires quite a lot of attention to
1917 details.  And one of the details is the content of the
1918 debian/copyright file, which should list all relevant licenses used by
1919 the code in the package in question, preferably in
1920 <a href="https://www.debian.org/doc/packaging-manuals/copyright-format/1.0/">machine
1921 readable DEP5 format</a>.</p>
1922
1923 <p>For large packages with lots of contributors it is hard to write
1924 and update this file manually, and if you get some detail wrong, the
1925 package is normally rejected by the ftpmasters.  So getting it right
1926 the first time around get the package into Debian faster, and save
1927 both you and the ftpmasters some work..  Today, while trying to figure
1928 out what was wrong with
1929 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=686447">the
1930 zfsonlinux copyright file</a>, I decided to spend some time on
1931 figuring out the options for doing this job automatically, or at least
1932 semi-automatically.</p>
1933
1934 <p>Lucikly, there are at least two tools available for generating the
1935 file based on the code in the source package,
1936 <tt><a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/debmake">debmake</a></tt>
1937 and <tt><a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/cme">cme</a></tt>.  I'm
1938 not sure which one of them came first, but both seem to be able to
1939 create a sensible draft file.  As far as I can tell, none of them can
1940 be trusted to get the result just right, so the content need to be
1941 polished a bit before the file is OK to upload.  I found the debmake
1942 option in
1943 <a href="http://goofying-with-debian.blogspot.com/2014/07/debmake-checking-source-against-dep-5.html">a
1944 blog posts from 2014</a>.
1945
1946 <p>To generate using debmake, use the -cc option:
1947
1948 <p><pre>
1949 debmake -cc > debian/copyright
1950 </pre></p>
1951
1952 <p>Note there are some problems with python and non-ASCII names, so
1953 this might not be the best option.</p>
1954
1955 <p>The cme option is based on a config parsing library, and I found
1956 this approach in
1957 <a href="https://ddumont.wordpress.com/2015/04/05/improving-creation-of-debian-copyright-file/">a
1958 blog post from 2015</a>.  To generate using cme, use the 'update
1959 dpkg-copyright' option:
1960
1961 <p><pre>
1962 cme update dpkg-copyright
1963 </pre></p>
1964
1965 <p>This will create or update debian/copyright.  The cme tool seem to
1966 handle UTF-8 names better than debmake.</p>
1967
1968 <p>When the copyright file is created, I would also like some help to
1969 check if the file is correct.  For this I found two good options,
1970 <tt>debmake -k</tt> and <tt>license-reconcile</tt>.  The former seem
1971 to focus on license types and file matching, and is able to detect
1972 ineffective blocks in the copyright file.  The latter reports missing
1973 copyright holders and years, but was confused by inconsistent license
1974 names (like CDDL vs. CDDL-1.0).  I suspect it is good to use both and
1975 fix all issues reported by them before uploading.  But I do not know
1976 if the tools and the ftpmasters agree on what is important to fix in a
1977 copyright file, so the package might still be rejected.</p>
1978
1979 <p>The devscripts tool <tt>licensecheck</tt> deserve mentioning.  It
1980 will read through the source and try to find all copyright statements.
1981 It is not comparing the result to the content of debian/copyright, but
1982 can be useful when verifying the content of the copyright file.</p>
1983
1984 <p>Are you aware of better tools in Debian to create and update
1985 debian/copyright file.  Please let me know, or blog about it on
1986 planet.debian.org.</p>
1987
1988 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1989 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1990 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
1991
1992 <p><strong>Update 2016-02-20</strong>: I got a tip from Mike Gabriel
1993 on how to use licensecheck and cdbs to create a draft copyright file
1994
1995 <p><pre>
1996 licensecheck --copyright -r `find * -type f` | \
1997   /usr/lib/cdbs/licensecheck2dep5 > debian/copyright.auto
1998 </pre></p>
1999
2000 <p>He mentioned that he normally check the generated file into the
2001 version control system to make it easier to discover license and
2002 copyright changes in the upstream source.  I will try to do the same
2003 with my packages in the future.</p>
2004
2005 <p><strong>Update 2016-02-21</strong>: The cme author recommended
2006 against using -quiet for new users, so I removed it from the proposed
2007 command line.</p>
2008
2009       </div>
2010       <div class="tags">
2011
2012
2013         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2014
2015
2016       </div>
2017     </div>
2018     <div class="padding"></div>
2019
2020     <div class="entry">
2021       <div class="title">
2022         <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>
2023       </div>
2024       <div class="date">
2025          4th February 2016
2026       </div>
2027       <div class="body">
2028         <p>The <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DEP-11">appstream system</a>
2029 is taking shape in Debian, and one provided feature is a very
2030 convenient way to tell you which package to install to make a given
2031 firmware file available when the kernel is looking for it.  This can
2032 be done using apt-file too, but that is for someone else to blog
2033 about. :)</p>
2034
2035 <p>Here is a small recipe to find the package with a given firmware
2036 file, in this example I am looking for ctfw-3.2.3.0.bin, randomly
2037 picked from the set of firmware announced using appstream in Debian
2038 unstable.  In general you would be looking for the firmware requested
2039 by the kernel during kernel module loading.  To find the package
2040 providing the example file, do like this:</p>
2041
2042 <blockquote><pre>
2043 % apt install appstream
2044 [...]
2045 % apt update
2046 [...]
2047 % appstreamcli what-provides firmware:runtime ctfw-3.2.3.0.bin | \
2048   awk '/Package:/ {print $2}'
2049 firmware-qlogic
2050 %
2051 </pre></blockquote>
2052
2053 <p>See <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/AppStream/Guidelines">the
2054 appstream wiki</a> page to learn how to embed the package metadata in
2055 a way appstream can use.</p>
2056
2057 <p>This same approach can be used to find any package supporting a
2058 given MIME type.  This is very useful when you get a file you do not
2059 know how to handle.  First find the mime type using <tt>file
2060 --mime-type</tt>, and next look up the package providing support for
2061 it.  Lets say you got an SVG file.  Its MIME type is image/svg+xml,
2062 and you can find all packages handling this type like this:</p>
2063
2064 <blockquote><pre>
2065 % apt install appstream
2066 [...]
2067 % apt update
2068 [...]
2069 % appstreamcli what-provides mimetype image/svg+xml | \
2070   awk '/Package:/ {print $2}'
2071 bkchem
2072 phototonic
2073 inkscape
2074 shutter
2075 tetzle
2076 geeqie
2077 xia
2078 pinta
2079 gthumb
2080 karbon
2081 comix
2082 mirage
2083 viewnior
2084 postr
2085 ristretto
2086 kolourpaint4
2087 eog
2088 eom
2089 gimagereader
2090 midori
2091 %
2092 </pre></blockquote>
2093
2094 <p>I believe the MIME types are fetched from the desktop file for
2095 packages providing appstream metadata.</p>
2096
2097       </div>
2098       <div class="tags">
2099
2100
2101         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2102
2103
2104       </div>
2105     </div>
2106     <div class="padding"></div>
2107
2108     <div class="entry">
2109       <div class="title">
2110         <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>
2111       </div>
2112       <div class="date">
2113         24th January 2016
2114       </div>
2115       <div class="body">
2116         <p>Most people seem not to realise that every time they walk around
2117 with the computerised radio beacon known as a mobile phone their
2118 position is tracked by the phone company and often stored for a long
2119 time (like every time a SMS is received or sent).  And if their
2120 computerised radio beacon is capable of running programs (often called
2121 mobile apps) downloaded from the Internet, these programs are often
2122 also capable of tracking their location (if the app requested access
2123 during installation).  And when these programs send out information to
2124 central collection points, the location is often included, unless
2125 extra care is taken to not send the location.  The provided
2126 information is used by several entities, for good and bad (what is
2127 good and bad, depend on your point of view).  What is certain, is that
2128 the private sphere and the right to free movement is challenged and
2129 perhaps even eradicated for those announcing their location this way,
2130 when they share their whereabouts with private and public
2131 entities.</p>
2132
2133 <p align="center"><img width="70%" src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-01-24-nice-creepy-desktop-window.png"></p>
2134
2135 <p>The phone company logs provide a register of locations to check out
2136 when one want to figure out what the tracked person was doing.  It is
2137 unavailable for most of us, but provided to selected government
2138 officials, company staff, those illegally buying information from
2139 unfaithful servants and crackers stealing the information.  But the
2140 public information can be collected and analysed, and a free software
2141 tool to do so is called
2142 <a href="http://www.geocreepy.com/">Creepy or Cree.py</a>.  I
2143 discovered it when I read
2144 <a href="http://www.aftenposten.no/kultur/Slik-kan-du-bli-overvaket-pa-Twitter-og-Instagram-uten-a-ane-det-7787884.html">an
2145 article about Creepy</a> in the Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten i
2146 November 2014, and decided to check if it was available in Debian.
2147 The python program was in Debian, but
2148 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/creepy">the version in
2149 Debian</a> was completely broken and practically unmaintained.  I
2150 uploaded a new version which did not work quite right, but did not
2151 have time to fix it then.  This Christmas I decided to finally try to
2152 get Creepy operational in Debian.  Now a fixed version is available in
2153 Debian unstable and testing, and almost all Debian specific patches
2154 are now included
2155 <a href="https://github.com/jkakavas/creepy">upstream</a>.</p>
2156
2157 <p>The Creepy program visualises geolocation information fetched from
2158 Twitter, Instagram, Flickr and Google+, and allow one to get a
2159 complete picture of every social media message posted recently in a
2160 given area, or track the movement of a given individual across all
2161 these services.  Earlier it was possible to use the search API of at
2162 least some of these services without identifying oneself, but these
2163 days it is impossible.  This mean that to use Creepy, you need to
2164 configure it to log in as yourself on these services, and provide
2165 information to them about your search interests.  This should be taken
2166 into account when using Creepy, as it will also share information
2167 about yourself with the services.</p>
2168
2169 <p>The picture above show the twitter messages sent from (or at least
2170 geotagged with a position from) the city centre of Oslo, the capital
2171 of Norway.  One useful way to use Creepy is to first look at
2172 information tagged with an area of interest, and next look at all the
2173 information provided by one or more individuals who was in the area.
2174 I tested it by checking out which celebrity provide their location in
2175 twitter messages by checkout out who sent twitter messages near a
2176 Norwegian TV station, and next could track their position over time,
2177 making it possible to locate their home and work place, among other
2178 things.  A similar technique have been
2179 <a href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/maxseddon/does-this-soldiers-instagram-account-prove-russia-is-covertl">used
2180 to locate Russian soldiers in Ukraine</a>, and it is both a powerful
2181 tool to discover lying governments, and a useful tool to help people
2182 understand the value of the private information they provide to the
2183 public.</p>
2184
2185 <p>The package is not trivial to backport to Debian Stable/Jessie, as
2186 it depend on several python modules currently missing in Jessie (at
2187 least python-instagram, python-flickrapi and
2188 python-requests-toolbelt).</p>
2189
2190 <p>(I have uploaded
2191 <a href="https://screenshots.debian.net/package/creepy">the image to
2192 screenshots.debian.net</a> and licensed it under the same terms as the
2193 Creepy program in Debian.)</p>
2194
2195       </div>
2196       <div class="tags">
2197
2198
2199         Tags: <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>.
2200
2201
2202       </div>
2203     </div>
2204     <div class="padding"></div>
2205
2206     <div class="entry">
2207       <div class="title">
2208         <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>
2209       </div>
2210       <div class="date">
2211         15th January 2016
2212       </div>
2213       <div class="body">
2214         <p>During his DebConf15 keynote, Jacob Appelbaum
2215 <a href="https://summit.debconf.org/debconf15/meeting/331/what-is-to-be-done/">observed
2216 that those listening on the Internet lines would have good reason to
2217 believe a computer have a given security hole</a> if it download a
2218 security fix from a Debian mirror.  This is a good reason to always
2219 use encrypted connections to the Debian mirror, to make sure those
2220 listening do not know which IP address to attack.  In August, Richard
2221 Hartmann observed that encryption was not enough, when it was possible
2222 to interfere download size to security patches or the fact that
2223 download took place shortly after a security fix was released, and
2224 <a href="http://richardhartmann.de/blog/posts/2015/08/24-Tor-enabled_Debian_mirror/">proposed
2225 to always use Tor to download packages from the Debian mirror</a>.  He
2226 was not the first to propose this, as the
2227 <tt><a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/apt-transport-tor">apt-transport-tor</a></tt>
2228 package by Tim Retout already existed to make it easy to convince apt
2229 to use <a href="https://www.torproject.org/">Tor</a>, but I was not
2230 aware of that package when I read the blog post from Richard.</p>
2231
2232 <p>Richard discussed the idea with Peter Palfrader, one of the Debian
2233 sysadmins, and he set up a Tor hidden service on one of the central
2234 Debian mirrors using the address vwakviie2ienjx6t.onion, thus making
2235 it possible to download packages directly between two tor nodes,
2236 making sure the network traffic always were encrypted.</p>
2237
2238 <p>Here is a short recipe for enabling this on your machine, by
2239 installing <tt>apt-transport-tor</tt> and replacing http and https
2240 urls with tor+http and tor+https, and using the hidden service instead
2241 of the official Debian mirror site.  I recommend installing
2242 <tt>etckeeper</tt> before you start to have a history of the changes
2243 done in /etc/.</p>
2244
2245 <blockquote><pre>
2246 apt install apt-transport-tor
2247 sed -i 's% http://ftp.debian.org/% tor+http://vwakviie2ienjx6t.onion/%' /etc/apt/sources.list
2248 sed -i 's% http% tor+http%' /etc/apt/sources.list
2249 </pre></blockquote>
2250
2251 <p>If you have more sources listed in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/, run
2252 the sed commands for these too.  The sed command is assuming your are
2253 using the ftp.debian.org Debian mirror.  Adjust the command (or just
2254 edit the file manually) to match your mirror.</p>
2255
2256 <p>This work in Debian Jessie and later.  Note that tools like
2257 <tt>apt-file</tt> only recently started using the apt transport
2258 system, and do not work with these tor+http URLs.  For
2259 <tt>apt-file</tt> you need the version currently in experimental,
2260 which need a recent apt version currently only in unstable.  So if you
2261 need a working <tt>apt-file</tt>, this is not for you.</p>
2262
2263 <p>Another advantage from this change is that your machine will start
2264 using Tor regularly and at fairly random intervals (every time you
2265 update the package lists or upgrade or install a new package), thus
2266 masking other Tor traffic done from the same machine.  Using Tor will
2267 become normal for the machine in question.</p>
2268
2269 <p>On <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">Freedombox</a>, APT
2270 is set up by default to use <tt>apt-transport-tor</tt> when Tor is
2271 enabled.  It would be great if it was the default on any Debian
2272 system.</p>
2273
2274       </div>
2275       <div class="tags">
2276
2277
2278         Tags: <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>.
2279
2280
2281       </div>
2282     </div>
2283     <div class="padding"></div>
2284
2285     <div class="entry">
2286       <div class="title">
2287         <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>
2288       </div>
2289       <div class="date">
2290         23rd December 2015
2291       </div>
2292       <div class="body">
2293         <p>When I was a kid, we used to collect "car numbers", as we used to
2294 call the car license plate numbers in those days.  I would write the
2295 numbers down in my little book and compare notes with the other kids
2296 to see how many region codes we had seen and if we had seen some
2297 exotic or special region codes and numbers.  It was a fun game to pass
2298 time, as we kids have plenty of it.</p>
2299
2300 <p>A few days I came across
2301 <a href="https://github.com/openalpr/openalpr">the OpenALPR
2302 project</a>, a free software project to automatically discover and
2303 report license plates in images and video streams, and provide the
2304 "car numbers" in a machine readable format.  I've been looking for
2305 such system for a while now, because I believe it is a bad idea that the
2306 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_number_plate_recognition">automatic
2307 number plate recognition</a> tool only is available in the hands of
2308 the powerful, and want it to be available also for the powerless to
2309 even the score when it comes to surveillance and sousveillance.  I
2310 discovered the developer
2311 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/747509">wanted to get the tool into
2312 Debian</a>, and as I too wanted it to be in Debian, I volunteered to
2313 help him get it into shape to get the package uploaded into the Debian
2314 archive.</p>
2315
2316 <p>Today we finally managed to get the package into shape and uploaded
2317 it into Debian, where it currently
2318 <a href="https://ftp-master.debian.org//new/openalpr_2.2.1-1.html">waits
2319 in the NEW queue</a> for review by the Debian ftpmasters.</p>
2320
2321 <p>I guess you are wondering why on earth such tool would be useful
2322 for the common folks, ie those not running a large government
2323 surveillance system?  Well, I plan to put it in a computer on my bike
2324 and in my car, tracking the cars nearby and allowing me to be notified
2325 when number plates on my watch list are discovered.  Another use case
2326 was suggested by a friend of mine, who wanted to set it up at his home
2327 to open the car port automatically when it discovered the plate on his
2328 car.  When I mentioned it perhaps was a bit foolhardy to allow anyone
2329 capable of placing his license plate number of a piece of cardboard to
2330 open his car port, men replied that it was always unlocked anyway.  I
2331 guess for such use case it make sense.  I am sure there are other use
2332 cases too, for those with imagination and a vision.</p>
2333
2334 <p>If you want to build your own version of the Debian package, check
2335 out the upstream git source and symlink ./distros/debian to ./debian/
2336 before running "debuild" to build the source.  Or wait a bit until the
2337 package show up in unstable.</p>
2338
2339       </div>
2340       <div class="tags">
2341
2342
2343         Tags: <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>.
2344
2345
2346       </div>
2347     </div>
2348     <div class="padding"></div>
2349
2350     <div class="entry">
2351       <div class="title">
2352         <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>
2353       </div>
2354       <div class="date">
2355         20th December 2015
2356       </div>
2357       <div class="body">
2358         <p>Around three years ago, I created
2359 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">the isenkram
2360 system</a> to get a more practical solution in Debian for handing
2361 hardware related packages.  A GUI system in the isenkram package will
2362 present a pop-up dialog when some hardware dongle supported by
2363 relevant packages in Debian is inserted into the machine.  The same
2364 lookup mechanism to detect packages is available as command line
2365 tools in the isenkram-cli package.  In addition to mapping hardware,
2366 it will also map kernel firmware files to packages and make it easy to
2367 install needed firmware packages automatically.  The key for this
2368 system to work is a good way to map hardware to packages, in other
2369 words, allow packages to announce what hardware they will work
2370 with.</p>
2371
2372 <p>I started by providing data files in the isenkram source, and
2373 adding code to download the latest version of these data files at run
2374 time, to ensure every user had the most up to date mapping available.
2375 I also added support for storing the mapping in the Packages file in
2376 the apt repositories, but did not push this approach because while I
2377 was trying to figure out how to best store hardware/package mappings,
2378 <a href="http://www.freedesktop.org/software/appstream/docs/">the
2379 appstream system</a> was announced.  I got in touch and suggested to
2380 add the hardware mapping into that data set to be able to use
2381 appstream as a data source, and this was accepted at least for the
2382 Debian version of appstream.</p>
2383
2384 <p>A few days ago using appstream in Debian for this became possible,
2385 and today I uploaded a new version 0.20 of isenkram adding support for
2386 appstream as a data source for mapping hardware to packages.  The only
2387 package so far using appstream to announce its hardware support is my
2388 pymissile package.  I got help from Matthias Klumpp with figuring out
2389 how do add the required
2390 <a href="https://appstream.debian.org/html/sid/main/metainfo/pymissile.html">metadata
2391 in pymissile</a>.  I added a file debian/pymissile.metainfo.xml with
2392 this content:</p>
2393
2394 <blockquote><pre>
2395 &lt;?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?&gt;
2396 &lt;component&gt;
2397   &lt;id&gt;pymissile&lt;/id&gt;
2398   &lt;metadata_license&gt;MIT&lt;/metadata_license&gt;
2399   &lt;name&gt;pymissile&lt;/name&gt;
2400   &lt;summary&gt;Control original Striker USB Missile Launcher&lt;/summary&gt;
2401   &lt;description&gt;
2402     &lt;p&gt;
2403       Pymissile provides a curses interface to control an original
2404       Marks and Spencer / Striker USB Missile Launcher, as well as a
2405       motion control script to allow a webcamera to control the
2406       launcher.
2407     &lt;/p&gt;
2408   &lt;/description&gt;
2409   &lt;provides&gt;
2410     &lt;modalias&gt;usb:v1130p0202d*&lt;/modalias&gt;
2411   &lt;/provides&gt;
2412 &lt;/component&gt;
2413 </pre></blockquote>
2414
2415 <p>The key for isenkram is the component/provides/modalias value,
2416 which is a glob style match rule for hardware specific strings
2417 (modalias strings) provided by the Linux kernel.  In this case, it
2418 will map to all USB devices with vendor code 1130 and product code
2419 0202.</p>
2420
2421 <p>Note, it is important that the license of all the metadata files
2422 are compatible to have permissions to aggregate them into archive wide
2423 appstream files.  Matthias suggested to use MIT or BSD licenses for
2424 these files.  A challenge is figuring out a good id for the data, as
2425 it is supposed to be globally unique and shared across distributions
2426 (in other words, best to coordinate with upstream what to use).  But
2427 it can be changed later or, so we went with the package name as
2428 upstream for this project is dormant.</p>
2429
2430 <p>To get the metadata file installed in the correct location for the
2431 mirror update scripts to pick it up and include its content the
2432 appstream data source, the file must be installed in the binary
2433 package under /usr/share/appdata/.  I did this by adding the following
2434 line to debian/pymissile.install:</p>
2435
2436 <blockquote><pre>
2437 debian/pymissile.metainfo.xml usr/share/appdata
2438 </pre></blockquote>
2439
2440 <p>With that in place, the command line tool isenkram-lookup will list
2441 all packages useful on the current computer automatically, and the GUI
2442 pop-up handler will propose to install the package not already
2443 installed if a hardware dongle is inserted into the machine in
2444 question.</p>
2445
2446 <p>Details of the modalias field in appstream is available from the
2447 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DEP-11">DEP-11</a> proposal.</p>
2448
2449 <p>To locate the modalias values of all hardware present in a machine,
2450 try running this command on the command line:</p>
2451
2452 <blockquote><pre>
2453 cat $(find /sys/devices/|grep modalias)
2454 </pre></blockquote>
2455
2456 <p>To learn more about the isenkram system, please check out
2457 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram/">my
2458 blog posts tagged isenkram</a>.</p>
2459
2460       </div>
2461       <div class="tags">
2462
2463
2464         Tags: <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>.
2465
2466
2467       </div>
2468     </div>
2469     <div class="padding"></div>
2470
2471     <div class="entry">
2472       <div class="title">
2473         <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>
2474       </div>
2475       <div class="date">
2476         30th November 2015
2477       </div>
2478       <div class="body">
2479         <p>A blog post from my fellow Debian developer Paul Wise titled
2480 "<a href="http://bonedaddy.net/pabs3/log/2015/11/27/sfc-supporter/">The
2481 GPL is not magic pixie dust</a>" explain the importance of making sure
2482 the <a href="http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html">GPL</a> is enforced.
2483 I quote the blog post from Paul in full here with his permission:<p>
2484
2485 <blockquote>
2486
2487 <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>
2488
2489 <blockquote>
2490 The GPL is not magic pixie dust. It does not work by itself.<br/>
2491
2492 The first step is to choose a
2493 <a href="https://copyleft.org/">copyleft</a> license for your
2494 code.<br/>
2495
2496 The next step is, when someone fails to follow that copyleft license,
2497 <b>it must be enforced</b><br/>
2498
2499 and its a simple fact of our modern society that such type of
2500 work<br/>
2501
2502 is incredibly expensive to do and incredibly difficult to do.
2503 </blockquote>
2504
2505 <p><small>-- <a href="http://ebb.org/bkuhn/">Bradley Kuhn</a>, in
2506 <a href="http://faif.us/" title="Free as in Freedom">FaiF</a>
2507 <a href="http://faif.us/cast/2015/nov/24/0x57/">episode
2508 0x57</a></small></p>
2509
2510 <p>As the Debian Website
2511 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/794116">used</a>
2512 <a href="https://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/webwml/webwml/english/intro/free.wml?r1=1.24&amp;r2=1.25">to</a>
2513 imply, public domain and permissively licensed software can lead to
2514 the production of more proprietary software as people discover useful
2515 software, extend it and or incorporate it into their hardware or
2516 software products.  Copyleft licenses such as the GNU GPL were created
2517 to close off this avenue to the production of proprietary software but
2518 such licenses are not enough.  With the ongoing adoption of Free
2519 Software by individuals and groups, inevitably the community's
2520 expectations of license compliance are violated, usually out of
2521 ignorance of the way Free Software works, but not always.  As Karen
2522 and Bradley explained in <a href="http://faif.us/" title="Free as in
2523 Freedom">FaiF</a>
2524 <a href="http://faif.us/cast/2015/nov/24/0x57/">episode 0x57</a>,
2525 copyleft is nothing if no-one is willing and able to stand up in court
2526 to protect it.  The reality of today's world is that legal
2527 representation is expensive, difficult and time consuming.  With
2528 <a href="http://gpl-violations.org/">gpl-violations.org</a> in hiatus
2529 <a href="http://gpl-violations.org/news/20151027-homepage-recovers/">until</a>
2530 some time in 2016, the <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/">Software
2531 Freedom Conservancy</a> (a tax-exempt charity) is the major defender
2532 of the Linux project, Debian and other groups against GPL violations.
2533 In March the SFC supported a
2534 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/news/2015/mar/05/vmware-lawsuit/">lawsuit
2535 by Christoph Hellwig</a> against VMware for refusing to
2536 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/linux-compliance/vmware-lawsuit-faq.html">comply
2537 with the GPL</a> in relation to their use of parts of the Linux
2538 kernel.  Since then two of their sponsors pulled corporate funding and
2539 conferences
2540 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2015/nov/24/faif-carols-fundraiser/">blocked
2541 or cancelled their talks</a>.  As a result they have decided to rely
2542 less on corporate funding and more on the broad community of
2543 individuals who support Free Software and copyleft.  So the SFC has
2544 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/news/2015/nov/23/2015fundraiser/">launched</a>
2545 a <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/">campaign</a> to create
2546 a community of folks who stand up for copyleft and the GPL by
2547 supporting their work on promoting and supporting copyleft and Free
2548 Software.</p>
2549
2550 <p>If you support Free Software,
2551 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2015/nov/26/like-what-I-do/">like</a>
2552 what the SFC do, agree with their
2553 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/linux-compliance/principles.html">compliance
2554 principles</a>, are happy about their
2555 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/">successes</a> in 2015,
2556 work on a project that is an SFC
2557 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/members/current/">member</a> and or
2558 just want to stand up for copyleft, please join
2559 <a href="https://identi.ca/cwebber/image/JQGPA4qbTyyp3-MY8QpvuA">Christopher
2560 Allan Webber</a>,
2561 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2015/nov/24/faif-carols-fundraiser/">Carol
2562 Smith</a>,
2563 <a href="http://www.jonobacon.org/2015/11/25/supporting-software-freedom-conservancy/">Jono
2564 Bacon</a>, myself and
2565 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/sponsors/#supporters">others</a> in
2566 becoming a
2567 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/">supporter</a>.  For the
2568 next week your donation will be
2569 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/news/2015/nov/27/black-friday/">matched</a>
2570 by an anonymous donor.  Please also consider asking your employer to
2571 match your donation or become a sponsor of SFC.  Don't forget to
2572 spread the word about your support for SFC via email, your blog and or
2573 social media accounts.</p>
2574
2575 </blockquote>
2576
2577 <p>I agree with Paul on this topic and just signed up as a Supporter
2578 of Software Freedom Conservancy myself.  Perhaps you should be a
2579 supporter too?</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/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>.
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/PGP_key_transition_statement_for_key_EE4E02F9.html">PGP key transition statement for key EE4E02F9</a>
2595       </div>
2596       <div class="date">
2597         17th November 2015
2598       </div>
2599       <div class="body">
2600         <p>I've needed a new OpenPGP key for a while, but have not had time to
2601 set it up properly.  I wanted to generate it offline and have it
2602 available on <a href="http://shop.kernelconcepts.de/#openpgp">a OpenPGP
2603 smart card</a> for daily use, and learning how to do it and finding
2604 time to sit down with an offline machine almost took forever.  But
2605 finally I've been able to complete the process, and have now moved
2606 from my old GPG key to a new GPG key.  See
2607 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2015-11-17-new-gpg-key-transition.txt">the
2608 full transition statement, signed with both my old and new key</a> for
2609 the details.  This is my new key:</p>
2610
2611 <pre>
2612 pub   3936R/<a href="http://pgp.cs.uu.nl/stats/111D6B29EE4E02F9.html">111D6B29EE4E02F9</a> 2015-11-03 [expires: 2019-11-14]
2613       Key fingerprint = 3AC7 B2E3 ACA5 DF87 78F1  D827 111D 6B29 EE4E 02F9
2614 uid                  Petter Reinholdtsen &lt;pere@hungry.com&gt;
2615 uid                  Petter Reinholdtsen &lt;pere@debian.org&gt;
2616 sub   4096R/87BAFB0E 2015-11-03 [expires: 2019-11-02]
2617 sub   4096R/F91E6DE9 2015-11-03 [expires: 2019-11-02]
2618 sub   4096R/A0439BAB 2015-11-03 [expires: 2019-11-02]
2619 </pre>
2620
2621 <p>The key can be downloaded from the OpenPGP key servers, signed by
2622 my old key.</p>
2623
2624 <p>If you signed my old key
2625 (<a href="http://pgp.cs.uu.nl/stats/DB4CCC4B2A30D729.html">DB4CCC4B2A30D729</a>),
2626 I'd very much appreciate a signature on my new key, details and
2627 instructions in the transition statement. I m happy to reciprocate if
2628 you have a similarly signed transition statement to present.</p>
2629
2630       </div>
2631       <div class="tags">
2632
2633
2634         Tags: <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>.
2635
2636
2637       </div>
2638     </div>
2639     <div class="padding"></div>
2640
2641     <div class="entry">
2642       <div class="title">
2643         <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>
2644       </div>
2645       <div class="date">
2646         24th September 2015
2647       </div>
2648       <div class="body">
2649         <p>When I get a new laptop, the battery life time at the start is OK.
2650 But this do not last.  The last few laptops gave me a feeling that
2651 within a year, the life time is just a fraction of what it used to be,
2652 and it slowly become painful to use the laptop without power connected
2653 all the time.  Because of this, when I got a new Thinkpad X230 laptop
2654 about two years ago, I decided to monitor its battery state to have
2655 more hard facts when the battery started to fail.</p>
2656
2657 <img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2015-09-24-laptop-battery-graph.png"/>
2658
2659 <p>First I tried to find a sensible Debian package to record the
2660 battery status, assuming that this must be a problem already handled
2661 by someone else.  I found
2662 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">battery-stats</a>,
2663 which collects statistics from the battery, but it was completely
2664 broken.  I sent a few suggestions to the maintainer, but decided to
2665 write my own collector as a shell script while I waited for feedback
2666 from him.  Via
2667 <a href="http://www.ifweassume.com/2013/08/the-de-evolution-of-my-laptop-battery.html">a
2668 blog post about the battery development on a MacBook Air</a> I also
2669 discovered
2670 <a href="https://github.com/jradavenport/batlog.git">batlog</a>, not
2671 available in Debian.</p>
2672
2673 <p>I started my collector 2013-07-15, and it has been collecting
2674 battery stats ever since. Now my
2675 /var/log/hjemmenett-battery-status.log file contain around 115,000
2676 measurements, from the time the battery was working great until now,
2677 when it is unable to charge above 7% of original capacity.  My
2678 collector shell script is quite simple and look like this:</p>
2679
2680 <pre>
2681 #!/bin/sh
2682 # Inspired by
2683 # http://www.ifweassume.com/2013/08/the-de-evolution-of-my-laptop-battery.html
2684 # See also
2685 # http://blog.sleeplessbeastie.eu/2013/01/02/debian-how-to-monitor-battery-capacity/
2686 logfile=/var/log/hjemmenett-battery-status.log
2687
2688 files="manufacturer model_name technology serial_number \
2689     energy_full energy_full_design energy_now cycle_count status"
2690
2691 if [ ! -e "$logfile" ] ; then
2692     (
2693         printf "timestamp,"
2694         for f in $files; do
2695             printf "%s," $f
2696         done
2697         echo
2698     ) > "$logfile"
2699 fi
2700
2701 log_battery() {
2702     # Print complete message in one echo call, to avoid race condition
2703     # when several log processes run in parallel.
2704     msg=$(printf "%s," $(date +%s); \
2705         for f in $files; do \
2706             printf "%s," $(cat $f); \
2707         done)
2708     echo "$msg"
2709 }
2710
2711 cd /sys/class/power_supply
2712
2713 for bat in BAT*; do
2714     (cd $bat && log_battery >> "$logfile")
2715 done
2716 </pre>
2717
2718 <p>The script is called when the power management system detect a
2719 change in the power status (power plug in or out), and when going into
2720 and out of hibernation and suspend.  In addition, it collect a value
2721 every 10 minutes.  This make it possible for me know when the battery
2722 is discharging, charging and how the maximum charge change over time.
2723 The code for the Debian package
2724 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/battery-status">is now
2725 available on github</a>.</p>
2726
2727 <p>The collected log file look like this:</p>
2728
2729 <pre>
2730 timestamp,manufacturer,model_name,technology,serial_number,energy_full,energy_full_design,energy_now,cycle_count,status,
2731 1376591133,LGC,45N1025,Li-ion,974,62800000,62160000,39050000,0,Discharging,
2732 [...]
2733 1443090528,LGC,45N1025,Li-ion,974,4900000,62160000,4900000,0,Full,
2734 1443090601,LGC,45N1025,Li-ion,974,4900000,62160000,4900000,0,Full,
2735 </pre>
2736
2737 <p>I wrote a small script to create a graph of the charge development
2738 over time.  This graph depicted above show the slow death of my laptop
2739 battery.</p>
2740
2741 <p>But why is this happening?  Why are my laptop batteries always
2742 dying in a year or two, while the batteries of space probes and
2743 satellites keep working year after year.  If we are to believe
2744 <a href="http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/how_to_prolong_lithium_based_batteries">Battery
2745 University</a>, the cause is me charging the battery whenever I have a
2746 chance, and the fix is to not charge the Lithium-ion batteries to 100%
2747 all the time, but to stay below 90% of full charge most of the time.
2748 I've been told that the Tesla electric cars
2749 <a href="http://my.teslamotors.com/de_CH/forum/forums/battery-charge-limit">limit
2750 the charge of their batteries to 80%</a>, with the option to charge to
2751 100% when preparing for a longer trip (not that I would want a car
2752 like Tesla where rights to privacy is abandoned, but that is another
2753 story), which I guess is the option we should have for laptops on
2754 Linux too.</p>
2755
2756 <p>Is there a good and generic way with Linux to tell the battery to
2757 stop charging at 80%, unless requested to charge to 100% once in
2758 preparation for a longer trip?  I found
2759 <a href="http://askubuntu.com/questions/34452/how-can-i-limit-battery-charging-to-80-capacity">one
2760 recipe on askubuntu for Ubuntu to limit charging on Thinkpad to
2761 80%</a>, but could not get it to work (kernel module refused to
2762 load).</p>
2763
2764 <p>I wonder why the battery capacity was reported to be more than 100%
2765 at the start.  I also wonder why the "full capacity" increases some
2766 times, and if it is possible to repeat the process to get the battery
2767 back to design capacity.  And I wonder if the discharge and charge
2768 speed change over time, or if this stay the same.  I did not yet try
2769 to write a tool to calculate the derivative values of the battery
2770 level, but suspect some interesting insights might be learned from
2771 those.</p>
2772
2773 <p>Update 2015-09-24: I got a tip to install the packages
2774 acpi-call-dkms and tlp (unfortunately missing in Debian stable)
2775 packages instead of the tp-smapi-dkms package I had tried to use
2776 initially, and use 'tlp setcharge 40 80' to change when charging start
2777 and stop.  I've done so now, but expect my existing battery is toast
2778 and need to be replaced.  The proposal is unfortunately Thinkpad
2779 specific.</p>
2780
2781       </div>
2782       <div class="tags">
2783
2784
2785         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2786
2787
2788       </div>
2789     </div>
2790     <div class="padding"></div>
2791
2792     <div class="entry">
2793       <div class="title">
2794         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_laptop___some_more_clues_and_ideas_based_on_feedback.html">New laptop - some more clues and ideas based on feedback</a>
2795       </div>
2796       <div class="date">
2797          5th July 2015
2798       </div>
2799       <div class="body">
2800         <p>Several people contacted me after my previous blog post about my
2801 need for a new laptop, and provided very useful feedback.  I wish to
2802 thank every one of these.  Several pointed me to the possibility of
2803 fixing my X230, and I am already in the process of getting Lenovo to
2804 do so thanks to the on site, next day support contract covering the
2805 machine.  But the battery is almost useless (I expect to replace it
2806 with a non-official battery) and I do not expect the machine to live
2807 for many more years, so it is time to plan its replacement.  If I did
2808 not have a support contract, it was suggested to find replacement parts
2809 using <a href="http://www.francecrans.com/">FrancEcrans</a>, but it
2810 might present a language barrier as I do not understand French.</p>
2811
2812 <p>One tip I got was to use the
2813 <a href="https://skinflint.co.uk/?cat=nb">Skinflint</a> web service to
2814 compare laptop models.  It seem to have more models available than
2815 prisjakt.no.  Another tip I got from someone I know have similar
2816 keyboard preferences was that the HP EliteBook 840 keyboard is not
2817 very good, and this matches my experience with earlier EliteBook
2818 keyboards I tested.  Because of this, I will not consider it any further.
2819
2820 <p>When I wrote my blog post, I was not aware of Thinkpad X250, the
2821 newest Thinkpad X model.  The keyboard reintroduces mouse buttons
2822 (which is missing from the X240), and is working fairly well with
2823 Debian Sid/Unstable according to
2824 <a href="http://www.corsac.net/X250/">Corsac.net</a>.  The reports I
2825 got on the keyboard quality are not consistent.  Some say the keyboard
2826 is good, others say it is ok, while others say it is not very good.
2827 Those with experience from X41 and and X60 agree that the X250
2828 keyboard is not as good as those trusty old laptops, and suggest I
2829 keep and fix my X230 instead of upgrading, or get a used X230 to
2830 replace it.  I'm also told that the X250 lack leds for caps lock, disk
2831 activity and battery status, which is very convenient on my X230.  I'm
2832 also told that the CPU fan is running very often, making it a bit
2833 noisy.  In any case, the X250 do not work out of the box with Debian
2834 Stable/Jessie, one of my requirements.</p>
2835
2836 <p>I have also gotten a few vendor proposals, one was
2837 <a href="http://pro-star.com">Pro-Star</a>, another was
2838 <a href="http://shop.gluglug.org.uk/product/libreboot-x200/">Libreboot</a>.
2839 The latter look very attractive to me.</p>
2840
2841 <p>Again, thank you all for the very useful feedback.  It help a lot
2842 as I keep looking for a replacement.</p>
2843
2844 <p>Update 2015-07-06: I was recommended to check out the
2845 <a href="">lapstore.de</a> web shop for used laptops.  They got several
2846 different
2847 <a href="http://www.lapstore.de/f.php/shop/lapstore/f/411/lang/x/kw/Lenovo_ThinkPad_X_Serie/">old
2848 thinkpad X models</a>, and provide one year warranty.</p>
2849
2850       </div>
2851       <div class="tags">
2852
2853
2854         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2855
2856
2857       </div>
2858     </div>
2859     <div class="padding"></div>
2860
2861     <div class="entry">
2862       <div class="title">
2863         <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>
2864       </div>
2865       <div class="date">
2866          3rd July 2015
2867       </div>
2868       <div class="body">
2869         <p>My primary work horse laptop is failing, and will need a
2870 replacement soon.  The left 5 cm of the screen on my Thinkpad X230
2871 started flickering yesterday, and I suspect the cause is a broken
2872 cable, as changing the angle of the screen some times get rid of the
2873 flickering.</p>
2874
2875 <p>My requirements have not really changed since I bought it, and is
2876 still as
2877 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thank_you_Thinkpad_X41__for_your_long_and_trustworthy_service.html">I
2878 described them in 2013</a>.  The last time I bought a laptop, I had
2879 good help from
2880 <a href="http://www.prisjakt.no/category.php?k=353">prisjakt.no</a>
2881 where I could select at least a few of the requirements (mouse pin,
2882 wifi, weight) and go through the rest manually.  Three button mouse
2883 and a good keyboard is not available as an option, and all the three
2884 laptop models proposed today (Thinkpad X240, HP EliteBook 820 G1 and
2885 G2) lack three mouse buttons).  It is also unclear to me how good the
2886 keyboard on the HP EliteBooks are.  I hope Lenovo have not messed up
2887 the keyboard, even if the quality and robustness in the X series have
2888 deteriorated since X41.</p>
2889
2890 <p>I wonder how I can find a sensible laptop when none of the options
2891 seem sensible to me?  Are there better services around to search the
2892 set of available laptops for features?  Please send me an email if you
2893 have suggestions.</p>
2894
2895 <p>Update 2015-07-23: I got a suggestion to check out the FSF
2896 <a href="http://www.fsf.org/resources/hw/endorsement/respects-your-freedom">list
2897 of endorsed hardware</a>, which is useful background information.</p>
2898
2899       </div>
2900       <div class="tags">
2901
2902
2903         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2904
2905
2906       </div>
2907     </div>
2908     <div class="padding"></div>
2909
2910     <div class="entry">
2911       <div class="title">
2912         <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>
2913       </div>
2914       <div class="date">
2915         22nd November 2014
2916       </div>
2917       <div class="body">
2918         <p>By now, it is well known that Debian Jessie will not be using
2919 sysvinit as its boot system by default.  But how can one keep using
2920 sysvinit in Jessie?  It is fairly easy, and here are a few recipes,
2921 courtesy of
2922 <a href="http://www.vitavonni.de/blog/201410/2014102101-avoiding-systemd.html">Erich
2923 Schubert</a> and
2924 <a href="http://smcv.pseudorandom.co.uk/2014/still_universal/">Simon
2925 McVittie</a>.
2926
2927 <p>If you already are using Wheezy and want to upgrade to Jessie and
2928 keep sysvinit as your boot system, create a file
2929 <tt>/etc/apt/preferences.d/use-sysvinit</tt> with this content before
2930 you upgrade:</p>
2931
2932 <p><blockquote><pre>
2933 Package: systemd-sysv
2934 Pin: release o=Debian
2935 Pin-Priority: -1
2936 </pre></blockquote><p>
2937
2938 <p>This file content will tell apt and aptitude to not consider
2939 installing systemd-sysv as part of any installation and upgrade
2940 solution when resolving dependencies, and thus tell it to avoid
2941 systemd as a default boot system.  The end result should be that the
2942 upgraded system keep using sysvinit.</p>
2943
2944 <p>If you are installing Jessie for the first time, there is no way to
2945 get sysvinit installed by default (debootstrap used by
2946 debian-installer have no option for this), but one can tell the
2947 installer to switch to sysvinit before the first boot.  Either by
2948 using a kernel argument to the installer, or by adding a line to the
2949 preseed file used.  First, the kernel command line argument:
2950
2951 <p><blockquote><pre>
2952 preseed/late_command="in-target apt-get install --purge -y sysvinit-core"
2953 </pre></blockquote><p>
2954
2955 <p>Next, the line to use in a preseed file:</p>
2956
2957 <p><blockquote><pre>
2958 d-i preseed/late_command string in-target apt-get install -y sysvinit-core
2959 </pre></blockquote><p>
2960
2961 <p>One can of course also do this after the first boot by installing
2962 the sysvinit-core package.</p>
2963
2964 <p>I recommend only using sysvinit if you really need it, as the
2965 sysvinit boot sequence in Debian have several hardware specific bugs
2966 on Linux caused by the fact that it is unpredictable when hardware
2967 devices show up during boot.  But on the other hand, the new default
2968 boot system still have a few rough edges I hope will be fixed before
2969 Jessie is released.</p>
2970
2971 <p>Update 2014-11-26: Inspired by
2972 <ahref="https://www.mirbsd.org/permalinks/wlog-10-tg_e20141125-tg.htm#e20141125-tg_wlog-10-tg">a
2973 blog post by Torsten Glaser</a>, added --purge to the preseed
2974 line.</p>
2975
2976       </div>
2977       <div class="tags">
2978
2979
2980         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>.
2981
2982
2983       </div>
2984     </div>
2985     <div class="padding"></div>
2986
2987     <div class="entry">
2988       <div class="title">
2989         <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>
2990       </div>
2991       <div class="date">
2992         10th November 2014
2993       </div>
2994       <div class="body">
2995         <p>The right to communicate with your friends and family in private,
2996 without anyone snooping, is a right every citicen have in a liberal
2997 democracy.  But this right is under serious attack these days.</p>
2998
2999 <p>A while back it occurred to me that one way to make the dragnet
3000 surveillance conducted by NSA, GCHQ, FRA and others (and confirmed by
3001 the whisleblower Snowden) more expensive for Internet email,
3002 is to deliver all email using SMTP via Tor.  Such SMTP option would be
3003 a nice addition to the FreedomBox project if we could send email
3004 between FreedomBox machines without leaking metadata about the emails
3005 to the people peeking on the wire.  I
3006 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/freedombox-discuss/2014-October/006493.html">proposed
3007 this on the FreedomBox project mailing list in October</a> and got a
3008 lot of useful feedback and suggestions.  It also became obvious to me
3009 that this was not a novel idea, as the same idea was tested and
3010 documented by Johannes Berg as early as 2006, and both
3011 <a href="https://github.com/pagekite/Mailpile/wiki/SMTorP">the
3012 Mailpile</a> and <a href="http://dee.su/cables">the Cables</a> systems
3013 propose a similar method / protocol to pass emails between users.</p>
3014
3015 <p>To implement such system one need to set up a Tor hidden service
3016 providing the SMTP protocol on port 25, and use email addresses
3017 looking like username@hidden-service-name.onion.  With such addresses
3018 the connections to port 25 on hidden-service-name.onion using Tor will
3019 go to the correct SMTP server.  To do this, one need to configure the
3020 Tor daemon to provide the hidden service and the mail server to accept
3021 emails for this .onion domain.  To learn more about Exim configuration
3022 in Debian and test the design provided by Johannes Berg in his FAQ, I
3023 set out yesterday to create a Debian package for making it trivial to
3024 set up such SMTP over Tor service based on Debian.  Getting it to work
3025 were fairly easy, and
3026 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/exim4-smtorp">the
3027 source code for the Debian package</a> is available from github.  I
3028 plan to move it into Debian if further testing prove this to be a
3029 useful approach.</p>
3030
3031 <p>If you want to test this, set up a blank Debian machine without any
3032 mail system installed (or run <tt>apt-get purge exim4-config</tt> to
3033 get rid of exim4).  Install tor, clone the git repository mentioned
3034 above, build the deb and install it on the machine.  Next, run
3035 <tt>/usr/lib/exim4-smtorp/setup-exim-hidden-service</tt> and follow
3036 the instructions to get the service up and running.  Restart tor and
3037 exim when it is done, and test mail delivery using swaks like
3038 this:</p>
3039
3040 <p><blockquote><pre>
3041 torsocks swaks --server dutlqrrmjhtfa3vp.onion \
3042   --to fbx@dutlqrrmjhtfa3vp.onion
3043 </pre></blockquote></p>
3044
3045 <p>This will test the SMTP delivery using tor.  Replace the email
3046 address with your own address to test your server. :)</p>
3047
3048 <p>The setup procedure is still to complex, and I hope it can be made
3049 easier and more automatic.  Especially the tor setup need more work.
3050 Also, the package include a tor-smtp tool written in C, but its task
3051 should probably be rewritten in some script language to make the deb
3052 architecture independent.  It would probably also make the code easier
3053 to review.  The tor-smtp tool currently need to listen on a socket for
3054 exim to talk to it and is started using xinetd.  It would be better if
3055 no daemon and no socket is needed.  I suspect it is possible to get
3056 exim to run a command line tool for delivery instead of talking to a
3057 socket, and hope to figure out how in a future version of this
3058 system.</p>
3059
3060 <p>Until I wipe my test machine, I can be reached using the
3061 <tt>fbx@dutlqrrmjhtfa3vp.onion</tt> mail address, deliverable over
3062 SMTorP. :)</p>
3063
3064       </div>
3065       <div class="tags">
3066
3067
3068         Tags: <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>.
3069
3070
3071       </div>
3072     </div>
3073     <div class="padding"></div>
3074
3075     <div class="entry">
3076       <div class="title">
3077         <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>
3078       </div>
3079       <div class="date">
3080         22nd October 2014
3081       </div>
3082       <div class="body">
3083         <p>If you ever had to moderate a mailman list, like the ones on
3084 alioth.debian.org, you know the web interface is fairly slow to
3085 operate.  First you visit one web page, enter the moderation password
3086 and get a new page shown with a list of all the messages to moderate
3087 and various options for each email address.  This take a while for
3088 every list you moderate, and you need to do it regularly to do a good
3089 job as a list moderator.  But there is a quick alternative,
3090 <a href="http://heim.ifi.uio.no/kjetilho/hacks/#listadmin">the
3091 listadmin program</a>.  It allow you to check lists for new messages
3092 to moderate in a fraction of a second.  Here is a test run on two
3093 lists I recently took over:</p>
3094
3095 <p><blockquote><pre>
3096 % time listadmin xiph
3097 fetching data for pkg-xiph-commits@lists.alioth.debian.org ... nothing in queue
3098 fetching data for pkg-xiph-maint@lists.alioth.debian.org ... nothing in queue
3099
3100 real    0m1.709s
3101 user    0m0.232s
3102 sys     0m0.012s
3103 %
3104 </pre></blockquote></p>
3105
3106 <p>In 1.7 seconds I had checked two mailing lists and confirmed that
3107 there are no message in the moderation queue.  Every morning I
3108 currently moderate 68 mailman lists, and it normally take around two
3109 minutes.  When I took over the two pkg-xiph lists above a few days
3110 ago, there were 400 emails waiting in the moderator queue.  It took me
3111 less than 15 minutes to process them all using the listadmin
3112 program.</p>
3113
3114 <p>If you install
3115 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/listadmin">the listadmin
3116 package</a> from Debian and create a file <tt>~/.listadmin.ini</tt>
3117 with content like this, the moderation task is a breeze:</p>
3118
3119 <p><blockquote><pre>
3120 username username@example.org
3121 spamlevel 23
3122 default discard
3123 discard_if_reason "Posting restricted to members only. Remove us from your mail list."
3124
3125 password secret
3126 adminurl https://{domain}/mailman/admindb/{list}
3127 mailman-list@lists.example.com
3128
3129 password hidden
3130 other-list@otherserver.example.org
3131 </pre></blockquote></p>
3132
3133 <p>There are other options to set as well.  Check the manual page to
3134 learn the details.</p>
3135
3136 <p>If you are forced to moderate lists on a mailman installation where
3137 the SSL certificate is self signed or not properly signed by a
3138 generally accepted signing authority, you can set a environment
3139 variable when calling listadmin to disable SSL verification:</p>
3140
3141 <p><blockquote><pre>
3142 PERL_LWP_SSL_VERIFY_HOSTNAME=0 listadmin
3143 </pre></blockquote></p>
3144
3145 <p>If you want to moderate a subset of the lists you take care of, you
3146 can provide an argument to the listadmin script like I do in the
3147 initial screen dump (the xiph argument).  Using an argument, only
3148 lists matching the argument string will be processed.  This make it
3149 quick to accept messages if you notice the moderation request in your
3150 email.</p>
3151
3152 <p>Without the listadmin program, I would never be the moderator of 68
3153 mailing lists, as I simply do not have time to spend on that if the
3154 process was any slower. The listadmin program have saved me hours of
3155 time I could spend elsewhere over the years.  It truly is nice free
3156 software.</p>
3157
3158 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
3159 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
3160 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
3161
3162 <p>Update 2014-10-27: Added missing 'username' statement in
3163 configuration example.  Also, I've been told that the
3164 PERL_LWP_SSL_VERIFY_HOSTNAME=0 setting do not work for everyone.  Not
3165 sure why.</p>
3166
3167       </div>
3168       <div class="tags">
3169
3170
3171         Tags: <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>.
3172
3173
3174       </div>
3175     </div>
3176     <div class="padding"></div>
3177
3178     <div class="entry">
3179       <div class="title">
3180         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Jessie__PXE_and_automatic_firmware_installation.html">Debian Jessie, PXE and automatic firmware installation</a>
3181       </div>
3182       <div class="date">
3183         17th October 2014
3184       </div>
3185       <div class="body">
3186         <p>When PXE installing laptops with Debian, I often run into the
3187 problem that the WiFi card require some firmware to work properly.
3188 And it has been a pain to fix this using preseeding in Debian.
3189 Normally something more is needed.  But thanks to
3190 <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/i/isenkram.html">my isenkram
3191 package</a> and its recent tasksel extension, it has now become easy
3192 to do this using simple preseeding.</p>
3193
3194 <p>The isenkram-cli package provide tasksel tasks which will install
3195 firmware for the hardware found in the machine (actually, requested by
3196 the kernel modules for the hardware).  (It can also install user space
3197 programs supporting the hardware detected, but that is not the focus
3198 of this story.)</p>
3199
3200 <p>To get this working in the default installation, two preeseding
3201 values are needed.  First, the isenkram-cli package must be installed
3202 into the target chroot (aka the hard drive) before tasksel is executed
3203 in the pkgsel step of the debian-installer system.  This is done by
3204 preseeding the base-installer/includes debconf value to include the
3205 isenkram-cli package.  The package name is next passed to debootstrap
3206 for installation.  With the isenkram-cli package in place, tasksel
3207 will automatically use the isenkram tasks to detect hardware specific
3208 packages for the machine being installed and install them, because
3209 isenkram-cli contain tasksel tasks.</p>
3210
3211 <p>Second, one need to enable the non-free APT repository, because
3212 most firmware unfortunately is non-free.  This is done by preseeding
3213 the apt-mirror-setup step.  This is unfortunate, but for a lot of
3214 hardware it is the only option in Debian.</p>
3215
3216 <p>The end result is two lines needed in your preseeding file to get
3217 firmware installed automatically by the installer:</p>
3218
3219 <p><blockquote><pre>
3220 base-installer base-installer/includes string isenkram-cli
3221 apt-mirror-setup apt-setup/non-free boolean true
3222 </pre></blockquote></p>
3223
3224 <p>The current version of isenkram-cli in testing/jessie will install
3225 both firmware and user space packages when using this method.  It also
3226 do not work well, so use version 0.15 or later.  Installing both
3227 firmware and user space packages might give you a bit more than you
3228 want, so I decided to split the tasksel task in two, one for firmware
3229 and one for user space programs.  The firmware task is enabled by
3230 default, while the one for user space programs is not.  This split is
3231 implemented in the package currently in unstable.</p>
3232
3233 <p>If you decide to give this a go, please let me know (via email) how
3234 this recipe work for you. :)</p>
3235
3236 <p>So, I bet you are wondering, how can this work.  First and
3237 foremost, it work because tasksel is modular, and driven by whatever
3238 files it find in /usr/lib/tasksel/ and /usr/share/tasksel/.  So the
3239 isenkram-cli package place two files for tasksel to find.  First there
3240 is the task description file (/usr/share/tasksel/descs/isenkram.desc):</p>
3241
3242 <p><blockquote><pre>
3243 Task: isenkram-packages
3244 Section: hardware
3245 Description: Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)
3246  Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific packages are
3247  proposed.
3248 Test-new-install: show show
3249 Relevance: 8
3250 Packages: for-current-hardware
3251
3252 Task: isenkram-firmware
3253 Section: hardware
3254 Description: Hardware specific firmware packages (autodetected by isenkram)
3255  Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific firmware
3256  packages are proposed.
3257 Test-new-install: mark show
3258 Relevance: 8
3259 Packages: for-current-hardware-firmware
3260 </pre></blockquote></p>
3261
3262 <p>The key parts are Test-new-install which indicate how the task
3263 should be handled and the Packages line referencing to a script in
3264 /usr/lib/tasksel/packages/.  The scripts use other scripts to get a
3265 list of packages to install.  The for-current-hardware-firmware script
3266 look like this to list relevant firmware for the machine:
3267
3268 <p><blockquote><pre>
3269 #!/bin/sh
3270 #
3271 PATH=/usr/sbin:$PATH
3272 export PATH
3273 isenkram-autoinstall-firmware -l
3274 </pre></blockquote></p>
3275
3276 <p>With those two pieces in place, the firmware is installed by
3277 tasksel during the normal d-i run. :)</p>
3278
3279 <p>If you want to test what tasksel will install when isenkram-cli is
3280 installed, run <tt>DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical tasksel --test
3281 --new-install</tt> to get the list of packages that tasksel would
3282 install.</p>
3283
3284 <p><a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/">Debian Edu</a> will be
3285 pilots in testing this feature, as isenkram is used there now to
3286 install firmware, replacing the earlier scripts.</p>
3287
3288       </div>
3289       <div class="tags">
3290
3291
3292         Tags: <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>.
3293
3294
3295       </div>
3296     </div>
3297     <div class="padding"></div>
3298
3299     <div class="entry">
3300       <div class="title">
3301         <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>
3302       </div>
3303       <div class="date">
3304          4th October 2014
3305       </div>
3306       <div class="body">
3307         <p>Today I came across an unexpected Ubuntu boot screen.  Above the
3308 bread shelf on the ICA shop at Storo in Oslo, the grub menu of Ubuntu
3309 with Linux kernel 3.2.0-23 (ie probably version 12.04 LTS) was stuck
3310 on a screen normally showing the bread types and prizes:</p>
3311
3312 <p align="center"><img width="70%" src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2014-10-04-ubuntu-ica-storo-crop.jpeg"></p>
3313
3314 <p>If it had booted as it was supposed to, I would never had known
3315 about this hidden Linux installation.  It is interesting what
3316 <a href="http://revealingerrors.com/">errors can reveal</a>.</p>
3317
3318       </div>
3319       <div class="tags">
3320
3321
3322         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3323
3324
3325       </div>
3326     </div>
3327     <div class="padding"></div>
3328
3329     <div class="entry">
3330       <div class="title">
3331         <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>
3332       </div>
3333       <div class="date">
3334          4th October 2014
3335       </div>
3336       <div class="body">
3337         <p>The <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/">lsdvd project</a>
3338 got a new set of developers a few weeks ago, after the original
3339 developer decided to step down and pass the project to fresh blood.
3340 This project is now maintained by Petter Reinholdtsen and Steve
3341 Dibb.</p>
3342
3343 <p>I just wrapped up
3344 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/mailman/message/32896061/">a
3345 new lsdvd release</a>, available in git or from
3346 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/projects/lsdvd/files/lsdvd/">the
3347 download page</a>.  This is the changelog dated 2014-10-03 for version
3348 0.17.</p>
3349
3350 <ul>
3351
3352  <li>Ignore 'phantom' audio, subtitle tracks</li>
3353  <li>Check for garbage in the program chains, which indicate that a track is
3354    non-existant, to work around additional copy protection</li>
3355  <li>Fix displaying content type for audio tracks, subtitles</li>
3356  <li>Fix pallete display of first entry</li>
3357  <li>Fix include orders</li>
3358  <li>Ignore read errors in titles that would not be displayed anyway</li>
3359  <li>Fix the chapter count</li>
3360  <li>Make sure the array size and the array limit used when initialising
3361    the palette size is the same.</li>
3362  <li>Fix array printing.</li>
3363  <li>Correct subsecond calculations.</li>
3364  <li>Add sector information to the output format.</li>
3365  <li>Clean up code to be closer to ANSI C and compile without warnings
3366    with more GCC compiler warnings.</li>
3367
3368 </ul>
3369
3370 <p>This change bring together patches for lsdvd in use in various
3371 Linux and Unix distributions, as well as patches submitted to the
3372 project the last nine years.  Please check it out. :)</p>
3373
3374       </div>
3375       <div class="tags">
3376
3377
3378         Tags: <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>.
3379
3380
3381       </div>
3382     </div>
3383     <div class="padding"></div>
3384
3385     <div class="entry">
3386       <div class="title">
3387         <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>
3388       </div>
3389       <div class="date">
3390         26th September 2014
3391       </div>
3392       <div class="body">
3393         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
3394 project</a> provide a Linux solution for schools, including a
3395 powerful desktop with education software, a central server providing
3396 web pages, user database, user home directories, central login and PXE
3397 boot of both  clients without disk and the installation to install Debian
3398 Edu on machines with disk (and a few other services perhaps to small
3399 to mention here).  We in the Debian Edu team are currently working on
3400 the Jessie based version, trying to get everything in shape before the
3401 freeze, to avoid having to maintain our own package repository in the
3402 future.  The
3403 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Status/Jessie">current
3404 status</a> can be seen on the Debian wiki, and there is still heaps of
3405 work left.  Some fatal problems block testing, breaking the installer,
3406 but it is possible to work around these to get anyway.  Here is a
3407 recipe on how to get the installation limping along.</p>
3408
3409 <p>First, download the test ISO via
3410 <a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.no/cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-1.iso">ftp</a>,
3411 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.no/cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-1.iso">http</a>
3412 or rsync (use
3413 ftp.skolelinux.org::cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-1.iso).
3414 The ISO build was broken on Tuesday, so we do not get a new ISO every
3415 12 hours or so, but thankfully the ISO we already got we are able to
3416 install with some tweaking.</p>
3417
3418 <p>When you get to the Debian Edu profile question, go to tty2
3419 (use Alt-Ctrl-F2), run</p>
3420
3421 <p><blockquote><pre>
3422 nano /usr/bin/edu-eatmydata-install
3423 </pre></blockquote></p>
3424
3425 <p>and add 'exit 0' as the second line, disabling the eatmydata
3426 optimization.  Return to the installation, select the profile you want
3427 and continue.  Without this change, exim4-config will fail to install
3428 due to a known bug in eatmydata.</p>
3429
3430 <p>When you get the grub question at the end, answer /dev/sda (or if
3431 this do not work, figure out what your correct value would be.  All my
3432 test machines need /dev/sda, so I have no advice if it do not fit
3433 your need.</p>
3434
3435 <p>If you installed a profile including a graphical desktop, log in as
3436 root after the initial boot from hard drive, and install the
3437 education-desktop-XXX metapackage.  XXX can be kde, gnome, lxde, xfce
3438 or mate.  If you want several desktop options, install more than one
3439 metapackage.  Once this is done, reboot and you should have a working
3440 graphical login screen.  This workaround should no longer be needed
3441 once the education-tasks package version 1.801 enter testing in two
3442 days.</p>
3443
3444 <p>I believe the ISO build will start working on two days when the new
3445 tasksel package enter testing and Steve McIntyre get a chance to
3446 update the debian-cd git repository.  The eatmydata, grub and desktop
3447 issues are already fixed in unstable and testing, and should show up
3448 on the ISO as soon as the ISO build start working again.  Well the
3449 eatmydata optimization is really just disabled.  The proper fix
3450 require an upload by the eatmydata maintainer applying the patch
3451 provided in bug <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/702711">#702711</a>.
3452 The rest have proper fixes in unstable.</p>
3453
3454 <p>I hope this get you going with the installation testing, as we are
3455 quickly running out of time trying to get our Jessie based
3456 installation ready before the distribution freeze in a month.</p>
3457
3458       </div>
3459       <div class="tags">
3460
3461
3462         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>.
3463
3464
3465       </div>
3466     </div>
3467     <div class="padding"></div>
3468
3469     <div class="entry">
3470       <div class="title">
3471         <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>
3472       </div>
3473       <div class="date">
3474         25th September 2014
3475       </div>
3476       <div class="body">
3477         <p>I use the <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/">lsdvd tool</a>
3478 to handle my fairly large DVD collection.  It is a nice command line
3479 tool to get details about a DVD, like title, tracks, track length,
3480 etc, in XML, Perl or human readable format.  But lsdvd have not seen
3481 any new development since 2006 and had a few irritating bugs affecting
3482 its use with some DVDs.  Upstream seemed to be dead, and in January I
3483 sent a small probe asking for a version control repository for the
3484 project, without any reply.  But I use it regularly and would like to
3485 get <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/lsdvd">an updated version
3486 into Debian</a>.  So two weeks ago I tried harder to get in touch with
3487 the project admin, and after getting a reply from him explaining that
3488 he was no longer interested in the project, I asked if I could take
3489 over.  And yesterday, I became project admin.</p>
3490
3491 <p>I've been in touch with a Gentoo developer and the Debian
3492 maintainer interested in joining forces to maintain the upstream
3493 project, and I hope we can get a new release out fairly quickly,
3494 collecting the patches spread around on the internet into on place.
3495 I've added the relevant Debian patches to the freshly created git
3496 repository, and expect the Gentoo patches to make it too.  If you got
3497 a DVD collection and care about command line tools, check out
3498 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/git/ci/master/tree/">the git source</a> and join
3499 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/mailman/">the project mailing
3500 list</a>. :)</p>
3501
3502       </div>
3503       <div class="tags">
3504
3505
3506         Tags: <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>.
3507
3508
3509       </div>
3510     </div>
3511     <div class="padding"></div>
3512
3513     <div class="entry">
3514       <div class="title">
3515         <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>
3516       </div>
3517       <div class="date">
3518         16th September 2014
3519       </div>
3520       <div class="body">
3521         <p>The <a href="https://www.debian.org/">Debian</a> installer could be
3522 a lot quicker.  When we install more than 2000 packages in
3523 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux / Debian Edu</a> using
3524 tasksel in the installer, unpacking the binary packages take forever.
3525 A part of the slow I/O issue was discussed in
3526 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/613428">bug #613428</a> about too
3527 much file system sync-ing done by dpkg, which is the package
3528 responsible for unpacking the binary packages.  Other parts (like code
3529 executed by postinst scripts) might also sync to disk during
3530 installation.  All this sync-ing to disk do not really make sense to
3531 me.  If the machine crash half-way through, I start over, I do not try
3532 to salvage the half installed system.  So the failure sync-ing is
3533 supposed to protect against, hardware or system crash, is not really
3534 relevant while the installer is running.</p>
3535
3536 <p>A few days ago, I thought of a way to get rid of all the file
3537 system sync()-ing in a fairly non-intrusive way, without the need to
3538 change the code in several packages.  The idea is not new, but I have
3539 not heard anyone propose the approach using dpkg-divert before.  It
3540 depend on the small and clever package
3541 <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/eatmydata">eatmydata</a>, which
3542 uses LD_PRELOAD to replace the system functions for syncing data to
3543 disk with functions doing nothing, thus allowing programs to live
3544 dangerous while speeding up disk I/O significantly.  Instead of
3545 modifying the implementation of dpkg, apt and tasksel (which are the
3546 packages responsible for selecting, fetching and installing packages),
3547 it occurred to me that we could just divert the programs away, replace
3548 them with a simple shell wrapper calling
3549 "eatmydata&nbsp;$program&nbsp;$@", to get the same effect.
3550 Two days ago I decided to test the idea, and wrapped up a simple
3551 implementation for the Debian Edu udeb.</p>
3552
3553 <p>The effect was stunning.  In my first test it reduced the running
3554 time of the pkgsel step (installing tasks) from 64 to less than 44
3555 minutes (20 minutes shaved off the installation) on an old Dell
3556 Latitude D505 machine.  I am not quite sure what the optimised time
3557 would have been, as I messed up the testing a bit, causing the debconf
3558 priority to get low enough for two questions to pop up during
3559 installation.  As soon as I saw the questions I moved the installation
3560 along, but do not know how long the question were holding up the
3561 installation.  I did some more measurements using Debian Edu Jessie,
3562 and got these results.  The time measured is the time stamp in
3563 /var/log/syslog between the "pkgsel: starting tasksel" and the
3564 "pkgsel: finishing up" lines, if you want to do the same measurement
3565 yourself.  In Debian Edu, the tasksel dialog do not show up, and the
3566 timing thus do not depend on how quickly the user handle the tasksel
3567 dialog.</p>
3568
3569 <p><table>
3570
3571 <tr>
3572 <th>Machine/setup</th>
3573 <th>Original tasksel</th>
3574 <th>Optimised tasksel</th>
3575 <th>Reduction</th>
3576 </tr>
3577
3578 <tr>
3579 <td>Latitude D505 Main+LTSP LXDE</td>
3580 <td>64 min (07:46-08:50)</td>
3581 <td><44 min (11:27-12:11)</td>
3582 <td>>20 min 18%</td>
3583 </tr>
3584
3585 <tr>
3586 <td>Latitude D505 Roaming LXDE</td>
3587 <td>57 min (08:48-09:45)</td>
3588 <td>34 min (07:43-08:17)</td>
3589 <td>23 min 40%</td>
3590 </tr>
3591
3592 <tr>
3593 <td>Latitude D505 Minimal</td>
3594 <td>22 min (10:37-10:59)</td>
3595 <td>11 min (11:16-11:27)</td>
3596 <td>11 min 50%</td>
3597 </tr>
3598
3599 <tr>
3600 <td>Thinkpad X200 Minimal</td>
3601 <td>6 min (08:19-08:25)</td>
3602 <td>4 min (08:04-08:08)</td>
3603 <td>2 min 33%</td>
3604 </tr>
3605
3606 <tr>
3607 <td>Thinkpad X200 Roaming KDE</td>
3608 <td>19 min (09:21-09:40)</td>
3609 <td>15 min (10:25-10:40)</td>
3610 <td>4 min 21%</td>
3611 </tr>
3612
3613 </table></p>
3614
3615 <p>The test is done using a netinst ISO on a USB stick, so some of the
3616 time is spent downloading packages.  The connection to the Internet
3617 was 100Mbit/s during testing, so downloading should not be a
3618 significant factor in the measurement.  Download typically took a few
3619 seconds to a few minutes, depending on the amount of packages being
3620 installed.</p>
3621
3622 <p>The speedup is implemented by using two hooks in
3623 <a href="https://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/">Debian
3624 Installer</a>, the pre-pkgsel.d hook to set up the diverts, and the
3625 finish-install.d hook to remove the divert at the end of the
3626 installation.  I picked the pre-pkgsel.d hook instead of the
3627 post-base-installer.d hook because I test using an ISO without the
3628 eatmydata package included, and the post-base-installer.d hook in
3629 Debian Edu can only operate on packages included in the ISO.  The
3630 negative effect of this is that I am unable to activate this
3631 optimization for the kernel installation step in d-i.  If the code is
3632 moved to the post-base-installer.d hook, the speedup would be larger
3633 for the entire installation.</p>
3634
3635 <p>I've implemented this in the
3636 <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/debian-edu-install">debian-edu-install</a>
3637 git repository, and plan to provide the optimization as part of the
3638 Debian Edu installation.  If you want to test this yourself, you can
3639 create two files in the installer (or in an udeb).  One shell script
3640 need do go into /usr/lib/pre-pkgsel.d/, with content like this:</p>
3641
3642 <p><blockquote><pre>
3643 #!/bin/sh
3644 set -e
3645 . /usr/share/debconf/confmodule
3646 info() {
3647     logger -t my-pkgsel "info: $*"
3648 }
3649 error() {
3650     logger -t my-pkgsel "error: $*"
3651 }
3652 override_install() {
3653     apt-install eatmydata || true
3654     if [ -x /target/usr/bin/eatmydata ] ; then
3655         for bin in dpkg apt-get aptitude tasksel ; do
3656             file=/usr/bin/$bin
3657             # Test that the file exist and have not been diverted already.
3658             if [ -f /target$file ] ; then
3659                 info "diverting $file using eatmydata"
3660                 printf "#!/bin/sh\neatmydata $bin.distrib \"\$@\"\n" \
3661                     > /target$file.edu
3662                 chmod 755 /target$file.edu
3663                 in-target dpkg-divert --package debian-edu-config \
3664                     --rename --quiet --add $file
3665                 ln -sf ./$bin.edu /target$file
3666             else
3667                 error "unable to divert $file, as it is missing."
3668             fi
3669         done
3670     else
3671         error "unable to find /usr/bin/eatmydata after installing the eatmydata pacage"
3672     fi
3673 }
3674
3675 override_install
3676 </pre></blockquote></p>
3677
3678 <p>To clean up, another shell script should go into
3679 /usr/lib/finish-install.d/ with code like this:
3680
3681 <p><blockquote><pre>
3682 #! /bin/sh -e
3683 . /usr/share/debconf/confmodule
3684 error() {
3685     logger -t my-finish-install "error: $@"
3686 }
3687 remove_install_override() {
3688     for bin in dpkg apt-get aptitude tasksel ; do
3689         file=/usr/bin/$bin
3690         if [ -x /target$file.edu ] ; then
3691             rm /target$file
3692             in-target dpkg-divert --package debian-edu-config \
3693                 --rename --quiet --remove $file
3694             rm /target$file.edu
3695         else
3696             error "Missing divert for $file."
3697         fi
3698     done
3699     sync # Flush file buffers before continuing
3700 }
3701
3702 remove_install_override
3703 </pre></blockquote></p>
3704
3705 <p>In Debian Edu, I placed both code fragments in a separate script
3706 edu-eatmydata-install and call it from the pre-pkgsel.d and
3707 finish-install.d scripts.</p>
3708
3709 <p>By now you might ask if this change should get into the normal
3710 Debian installer too?  I suspect it should, but am not sure the
3711 current debian-installer coordinators find it useful enough.  It also
3712 depend on the side effects of the change.  I'm not aware of any, but I
3713 guess we will see if the change is safe after some more testing.
3714 Perhaps there is some package in Debian depending on sync() and
3715 fsync() having effect?  Perhaps it should go into its own udeb, to
3716 allow those of us wanting to enable it to do so without affecting
3717 everyone.</p>
3718
3719 <p>Update 2014-09-24: Since a few days ago, enabling this optimization
3720 will break installation of all programs using gnutls because of
3721 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/702711">bug #702711</a>.  An updated
3722 eatmydata package in Debian will solve it.</p>
3723
3724 <p>Update 2014-10-17: The bug mentioned above is fixed in testing and
3725 the optimization work again.  And I have discovered that the
3726 dpkg-divert trick is not really needed and implemented a slightly
3727 simpler approach as part of the debian-edu-install package.  See
3728 tools/edu-eatmydata-install in the source package.</p>
3729
3730 <p>Update 2014-11-11: Unfortunately, a new
3731 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/765738">bug #765738</a> in eatmydata only
3732 triggering on i386 made it into testing, and broke this installation
3733 optimization again.  If <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/768893">unblock
3734 request 768893</a> is accepted, it should be working again.</p>
3735
3736       </div>
3737       <div class="tags">
3738
3739
3740         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>.
3741
3742
3743       </div>
3744     </div>
3745     <div class="padding"></div>
3746
3747     <div class="entry">
3748       <div class="title">
3749         <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>
3750       </div>
3751       <div class="date">
3752         10th September 2014
3753       </div>
3754       <div class="body">
3755         <p>Yesterday, I had the pleasure of attending a talk with the
3756 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">Norwegian Unix User Group</a> about
3757 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20140909-sks-keyservers/">the
3758 OpenPGP keyserver pool sks-keyservers.net</a>, and was very happy to
3759 learn that there is a large set of publicly available key servers to
3760 use when looking for peoples public key.  So far I have used
3761 subkeys.pgp.net, and some times wwwkeys.nl.pgp.net when the former
3762 were misbehaving, but those days are ended.  The servers I have used
3763 up until yesterday have been slow and some times unavailable.  I hope
3764 those problems are gone now.</p>
3765
3766 <p>Behind the round robin DNS entry of the
3767 <a href="https://sks-keyservers.net/">sks-keyservers.net</a> service
3768 there is a pool of more than 100 keyservers which are checked every
3769 day to ensure they are well connected and up to date.  It must be
3770 better than what I have used so far. :)</p>
3771
3772 <p>Yesterdays speaker told me that the service is the default
3773 keyserver provided by the default configuration in GnuPG, but this do
3774 not seem to be used in Debian.  Perhaps it should?</p>
3775
3776 <p>Anyway, I've updated my ~/.gnupg/options file to now include this
3777 line:</p>
3778
3779 <p><blockquote><pre>
3780 keyserver pool.sks-keyservers.net
3781 </pre></blockquote></p>
3782
3783 <p>With GnuPG version 2 one can also locate the keyserver using SRV
3784 entries in DNS.  Just for fun, I did just that at work, so now every
3785 user of GnuPG at the University of Oslo should find a OpenGPG
3786 keyserver automatically should their need it:</p>
3787
3788 <p><blockquote><pre>
3789 % host -t srv _pgpkey-http._tcp.uio.no
3790 _pgpkey-http._tcp.uio.no has SRV record 0 100 11371 pool.sks-keyservers.net.
3791 %
3792 </pre></blockquote></p>
3793
3794 <p>Now if only
3795 <a href="http://ietfreport.isoc.org/idref/draft-shaw-openpgp-hkp/">the
3796 HKP lookup protocol</a> supported finding signature paths, I would be
3797 very happy.  It can look up a given key or search for a user ID, but I
3798 normally do not want that, but to find a trust path from my key to
3799 another key.  Given a user ID or key ID, I would like to find (and
3800 download) the keys representing a signature path from my key to the
3801 key in question, to be able to get a trust path between the two keys.
3802 This is as far as I can tell not possible today.  Perhaps something
3803 for a future version of the protocol?</p>
3804
3805       </div>
3806       <div class="tags">
3807
3808
3809         Tags: <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>.
3810
3811
3812       </div>
3813     </div>
3814     <div class="padding"></div>
3815
3816     <div class="entry">
3817       <div class="title">
3818         <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>
3819       </div>
3820       <div class="date">
3821         17th June 2014
3822       </div>
3823       <div class="body">
3824         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
3825 project</a> provide an instruction manual for teachers, system
3826 administrators and other users that contain useful tips for setting up
3827 and maintaining a Debian Edu installation.  This text is about how the
3828 text processing of this manual is handled in the project.</p>
3829
3830 <p>One goal of the project is to provide information in the native
3831 language of its users, and for this we need to handle translations.
3832 But we also want to make sure each language contain the same
3833 information, so for this we need a good way to keep the translations
3834 in sync.  And we want it to be easy for our users to improve the
3835 documentation, avoiding the need to learn special formats or tools to
3836 contribute, and the obvious way to do this is to make it possible to
3837 edit the documentation using a web browser.  We also want it to be
3838 easy for translators to keep the translation up to date, and give them
3839 help in figuring out what need to be translated. Here is the list of
3840 tools and the process we have found trying to reach all these
3841 goals.</p>
3842
3843 <p>We maintain the authoritative source of our manual in the
3844 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/">Debian
3845 wiki</a>, as several wiki pages written in English.  It consist of one
3846 front page with references to the different chapters, several pages
3847 for each chapter, and finally one "collection page" gluing all the
3848 chapters together into one large web page (aka
3849 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/AllInOne">the
3850 AllInOne page</a>).  The AllInOne page is the one used for further
3851 processing and translations.  Thanks to the fact that the
3852 <a href="http://moinmo.in/">MoinMoin</a> installation on
3853 wiki.debian.org support exporting pages in
3854 <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">the Docbook format</a>, we can fetch
3855 the list of pages to export using the raw version of the AllInOne
3856 page, loop over each of them to generate a Docbook XML version of the
3857 manual.  This process also download images and transform image
3858 references to use the locally downloaded images.  The generated
3859 Docbook XML files are slightly broken, so some post-processing is done
3860 using the <tt>documentation/scripts/get_manual</tt> program, and the
3861 result is a nice Docbook XML file (debian-edu-wheezy-manual.xml) and
3862 a handfull of images.  The XML file can now be used to generate PDF, HTML
3863 and epub versions of the English manual.  This is the basic step of
3864 our process, making PDF (using dblatex), HTML (using xsltproc) and
3865 epub (using dbtoepub) version from Docbook XML, and the resulting files
3866 are placed in the debian-edu-doc-en binary package.</p>
3867
3868 <p>But English documentation is not enough for us.  We want translated
3869 documentation too, and we want to make it easy for translators to
3870 track the English original.  For this we use the
3871 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/p/poxml.html">poxml</a> package,
3872 which allow us to transform the English Docbook XML file into a
3873 translation file (a .pot file), usable with the normal gettext based
3874 translation tools used by those translating free software.  The pot
3875 file is used to create and maintain translation files (several .po
3876 files), which the translations update with the native language
3877 translations of all titles, paragraphs and blocks of text in the
3878 original.  The next step is combining the original English Docbook XML
3879 and the translation file (say debian-edu-wheezy-manual.nb.po), to
3880 create a translated Docbook XML file (in this case
3881 debian-edu-wheezy-manual.nb.xml).  This translated (or partly
3882 translated, if the translation is not complete) Docbook XML file can
3883 then be used like the original to create a PDF, HTML and epub version
3884 of the documentation.</p>
3885
3886 <p>The translators use different tools to edit the .po files.  We
3887 recommend using
3888 <a href="http://www.kde.org/applications/development/lokalize/">lokalize</a>,
3889 while some use emacs and vi, others can use web based editors like
3890 <a href="http://pootle.translatehouse.org/">Poodle</a> or
3891 <a href="https://www.transifex.com/">Transifex</a>.  All we care about
3892 is where the .po file end up, in our git repository.  Updated
3893 translations can either be committed directly to git, or submitted as
3894 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/src:debian-edu-doc">bug reports
3895 against the debian-edu-doc package</a>.</p>
3896
3897 <p>One challenge is images, which both might need to be translated (if
3898 they show translated user applications), and are needed in different
3899 formats when creating PDF and HTML versions (epub is a HTML version in
3900 this regard).  For this we transform the original PNG images to the
3901 needed density and format during build, and have a way to provide
3902 translated images by storing translated versions in
3903 images/$LANGUAGECODE/.  I am a bit unsure about the details here.  The
3904 package maintainers know more.</p>
3905
3906 <p>If you wonder what the result look like, we provide
3907 <a href="http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/">the content
3908 of the documentation packages on the web</a>.  See for example the
3909 <a href="http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/it/debian-edu-wheezy-manual.pdf">Italian
3910 PDF version</a> or the
3911 <a href="http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/de/debian-edu-wheezy-manual.html">German
3912 HTML version</a>.  We do not yet build the epub version by default,
3913 but perhaps it will be done in the future.</p>
3914
3915 <p>To learn more, check out
3916 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/debian-edu-doc.html">the
3917 debian-edu-doc package</a>,
3918 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/">the
3919 manual on the wiki</a> and
3920 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/Translations">the
3921 translation instructions</a> in the manual.</p>
3922
3923       </div>
3924       <div class="tags">
3925
3926
3927         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>.
3928
3929
3930       </div>
3931     </div>
3932     <div class="padding"></div>
3933
3934     <div class="entry">
3935       <div class="title">
3936         <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>
3937       </div>
3938       <div class="date">
3939         23rd April 2014
3940       </div>
3941       <div class="body">
3942         <p>It would be nice if it was easier in Debian to get all the hardware
3943 related packages relevant for the computer installed automatically.
3944 So I implemented one, using
3945 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">my Isenkram
3946 package</a>.  To use it, install the tasksel and isenkram packages and
3947 run tasksel as user root.  You should be presented with a new option,
3948 "Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)".  When you
3949 select it, tasksel will install the packages isenkram claim is fit for
3950 the current hardware, hot pluggable or not.<p>
3951
3952 <p>The implementation is in two files, one is the tasksel menu entry
3953 description, and the other is the script used to extract the list of
3954 packages to install.  The first part is in
3955 <tt>/usr/share/tasksel/descs/isenkram.desc</tt> and look like
3956 this:</p>
3957
3958 <p><blockquote><pre>
3959 Task: isenkram
3960 Section: hardware
3961 Description: Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)
3962  Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific packages are
3963  proposed.
3964 Test-new-install: mark show
3965 Relevance: 8
3966 Packages: for-current-hardware
3967 </pre></blockquote></p>
3968
3969 <p>The second part is in
3970 <tt>/usr/lib/tasksel/packages/for-current-hardware</tt> and look like
3971 this:</p>
3972
3973 <p><blockquote><pre>
3974 #!/bin/sh
3975 #
3976 (
3977     isenkram-lookup
3978     isenkram-autoinstall-firmware -l
3979 ) | sort -u
3980 </pre></blockquote></p>
3981
3982 <p>All in all, a very short and simple implementation making it
3983 trivial to install the hardware dependent package we all may want to
3984 have installed on our machines.  I've not been able to find a way to
3985 get tasksel to tell you exactly which packages it plan to install
3986 before doing the installation.  So if you are curious or careful,
3987 check the output from the isenkram-* command line tools first.</p>
3988
3989 <p>The information about which packages are handling which hardware is
3990 fetched either from the isenkram package itself in
3991 /usr/share/isenkram/, from git.debian.org or from the APT package
3992 database (using the Modaliases header).  The APT package database
3993 parsing have caused a nasty resource leak in the isenkram daemon (bugs
3994 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/719837">#719837</a> and
3995 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/730704">#730704</a>).  The cause is in
3996 the python-apt code (bug
3997 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/745487">#745487</a>), but using a
3998 workaround I was able to get rid of the file descriptor leak and
3999 reduce the memory leak from ~30 MiB per hardware detection down to
4000 around 2 MiB per hardware detection.  It should make the desktop
4001 daemon a lot more useful.  The fix is in version 0.7 uploaded to
4002 unstable today.</p>
4003
4004 <p>I believe the current way of mapping hardware to packages in
4005 Isenkram is is a good draft, but in the future I expect isenkram to
4006 use the AppStream data source for this.  A proposal for getting proper
4007 AppStream support into Debian is floating around as
4008 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DEP-11">DEP-11</a>, and
4009 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/SummerOfCode2014/Projects#SummerOfCode2014.2FProjects.2FAppStreamDEP11Implementation.AppStream.2FDEP-11_for_the_Debian_Archive">GSoC
4010 project</a> will take place this summer to improve the situation.  I
4011 look forward to seeing the result, and welcome patches for isenkram to
4012 start using the information when it is ready.</p>
4013
4014 <p>If you want your package to map to some specific hardware, either
4015 add a "Xb-Modaliases" header to your control file like I did in
4016 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pymissile">the pymissile
4017 package</a> or submit a bug report with the details to the isenkram
4018 package.  See also
4019 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram/">all my
4020 blog posts tagged isenkram</a> for details on the notation.  I expect
4021 the information will be migrated to AppStream eventually, but for the
4022 moment I got no better place to store it.</p>
4023
4024       </div>
4025       <div class="tags">
4026
4027
4028         Tags: <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>.
4029
4030
4031       </div>
4032     </div>
4033     <div class="padding"></div>
4034
4035     <div class="entry">
4036       <div class="title">
4037         <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>
4038       </div>
4039       <div class="date">
4040         15th April 2014
4041       </div>
4042       <div class="body">
4043         <p>The <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">Freedombox
4044 project</a> is working on providing the software and hardware to make
4045 it easy for non-technical people to host their data and communication
4046 at home, and being able to communicate with their friends and family
4047 encrypted and away from prying eyes.  It is still going strong, and
4048 today a major mile stone was reached.</p>
4049
4050 <p>Today, the last of the packages currently used by the project to
4051 created the system images were accepted into Debian Unstable.  It was
4052 the freedombox-setup package, which is used to configure the images
4053 during build and on the first boot.  Now all one need to get going is
4054 the build code from the freedom-maker git repository and packages from
4055 Debian.  And once the freedombox-setup package enter testing, we can
4056 build everything directly from Debian. :)</p>
4057
4058 <p>Some key packages used by Freedombox are
4059 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/freedombox-setup">freedombox-setup</a>,
4060 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/plinth">plinth</a>,
4061 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pagekite">pagekite</a>,
4062 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/tor">tor</a>,
4063 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/privoxy">privoxy</a>,
4064 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/owncloud">owncloud</a> and
4065 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/dnsmasq">dnsmasq</a>.  There
4066 are plans to integrate more packages into the setup.  User
4067 documentation is maintained on the Debian wiki.  Please
4068 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/Manual/Jessie">check out
4069 the manual</a> and help us improve it.</p>
4070
4071 <p>To test for yourself and create boot images with the FreedomBox
4072 setup, run this on a Debian machine using a user with sudo rights to
4073 become root:</p>
4074
4075 <p><pre>
4076 sudo apt-get install git vmdebootstrap mercurial python-docutils \
4077   mktorrent extlinux virtualbox qemu-user-static binfmt-support \
4078   u-boot-tools
4079 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/freedombox/freedom-maker.git \
4080   freedom-maker
4081 make -C freedom-maker dreamplug-image raspberry-image virtualbox-image
4082 </pre></p>
4083
4084 <p>Root access is needed to run debootstrap and mount loopback
4085 devices.  See the README in the freedom-maker git repo for more
4086 details on the build.  If you do not want all three images, trim the
4087 make line.  Note that the virtualbox-image target is not really
4088 virtualbox specific.  It create a x86 image usable in kvm, qemu,
4089 vmware and any other x86 virtual machine environment.  You might need
4090 the version of vmdebootstrap in Jessie to get the build working, as it
4091 include fixes for a race condition with kpartx.</p>
4092
4093 <p>If you instead want to install using a Debian CD and the preseed
4094 method, boot a Debian Wheezy ISO and use this boot argument to load
4095 the preseed values:</p>
4096
4097 <p><pre>
4098 url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat</a>
4099 </pre></p>
4100
4101 <p>I have not tested it myself the last few weeks, so I do not know if
4102 it still work.</p>
4103
4104 <p>If you wonder how to help, one task you could look at is using
4105 systemd as the boot system.  It will become the default for Linux in
4106 Jessie, so we need to make sure it is usable on the Freedombox.  I did
4107 a simple test a few weeks ago, and noticed dnsmasq failed to start
4108 during boot when using systemd.  I suspect there are other problems
4109 too. :) To detect problems, there is a test suite included, which can
4110 be run from the plinth web interface.</p>
4111
4112 <p>Give it a go and let us know how it goes on the mailing list, and help
4113 us get the new release published. :) Please join us on
4114 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC (#freedombox on
4115 irc.debian.org)</a> and
4116 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
4117 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
4118
4119       </div>
4120       <div class="tags">
4121
4122
4123         Tags: <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>.
4124
4125
4126       </div>
4127     </div>
4128     <div class="padding"></div>
4129
4130     <div class="entry">
4131       <div class="title">
4132         <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>
4133       </div>
4134       <div class="date">
4135          9th April 2014
4136       </div>
4137       <div class="body">
4138         <p>For a while now, I have been looking for a sensible offsite backup
4139 solution for use at home.  My requirements are simple, it must be
4140 cheap and locally encrypted (in other words, I keep the encryption
4141 keys, the storage provider do not have access to my private files).
4142 One idea me and my friends had many years ago, before the cloud
4143 storage providers showed up, was to use Google mail as storage,
4144 writing a Linux block device storing blocks as emails in the mail
4145 service provided by Google, and thus get heaps of free space.  On top
4146 of this one can add encryption, RAID and volume management to have
4147 lots of (fairly slow, I admit that) cheap and encrypted storage.  But
4148 I never found time to implement such system.  But the last few weeks I
4149 have looked at a system called
4150 <a href="https://bitbucket.org/nikratio/s3ql/">S3QL</a>, a locally
4151 mounted network backed file system with the features I need.</p>
4152
4153 <p>S3QL is a fuse file system with a local cache and cloud storage,
4154 handling several different storage providers, any with Amazon S3,
4155 Google Drive or OpenStack API.  There are heaps of such storage
4156 providers.  S3QL can also use a local directory as storage, which
4157 combined with sshfs allow for file storage on any ssh server.  S3QL
4158 include support for encryption, compression, de-duplication, snapshots
4159 and immutable file systems, allowing me to mount the remote storage as
4160 a local mount point, look at and use the files as if they were local,
4161 while the content is stored in the cloud as well.  This allow me to
4162 have a backup that should survive fire.  The file system can not be
4163 shared between several machines at the same time, as only one can
4164 mount it at the time, but any machine with the encryption key and
4165 access to the storage service can mount it if it is unmounted.</p>
4166
4167 <p>It is simple to use.  I'm using it on Debian Wheezy, where the
4168 package is included already.  So to get started, run <tt>apt-get
4169 install s3ql</tt>.  Next, pick a storage provider.  I ended up picking
4170 Greenqloud, after reading their nice recipe on
4171 <a href="https://greenqloud.zendesk.com/entries/44611757-How-To-Use-S3QL-to-mount-a-StorageQloud-bucket-on-Debian-Wheezy">how
4172 to use S3QL with their Amazon S3 service</a>, because I trust the laws
4173 in Iceland more than those in USA when it come to keeping my personal
4174 data safe and private, and thus would rather spend money on a company
4175 in Iceland.  Another nice recipe is available from the article
4176 <a href="http://www.admin-magazine.com/HPC/Articles/HPC-Cloud-Storage">S3QL
4177 Filesystem for HPC Storage</a> by Jeff Layton in the HPC section of
4178 Admin magazine.  When the provider is picked, figure out how to get
4179 the API key needed to connect to the storage API.  With Greencloud,
4180 the key did not show up until I had added payment details to my
4181 account.</p>
4182
4183 <p>Armed with the API access details, it is time to create the file
4184 system.  First, create a new bucket in the cloud.  This bucket is the
4185 file system storage area.  I picked a bucket name reflecting the
4186 machine that was going to store data there, but any name will do.
4187 I'll refer to it as <tt>bucket-name</tt> below.  In addition, one need
4188 the API login and password, and a locally created password.  Store it
4189 all in ~root/.s3ql/authinfo2 like this:
4190
4191 <p><blockquote><pre>
4192 [s3c]
4193 storage-url: s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name
4194 backend-login: API-login
4195 backend-password: API-password
4196 fs-passphrase: local-password
4197 </pre></blockquote></p>
4198
4199 <p>I create my local passphrase using <tt>pwget 50</tt> or similar,
4200 but any sensible way to create a fairly random password should do it.
4201 Armed with these details, it is now time to run mkfs, entering the API
4202 details and password to create it:</p>
4203
4204 <p><blockquote><pre>
4205 # mkdir -m 700 /var/lib/s3ql-cache
4206 # mkfs.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
4207   --ssl s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name
4208 Enter backend login:
4209 Enter backend password:
4210 Before using S3QL, make sure to read the user's guide, especially
4211 the 'Important Rules to Avoid Loosing Data' section.
4212 Enter encryption password:
4213 Confirm encryption password:
4214 Generating random encryption key...
4215 Creating metadata tables...
4216 Dumping metadata...
4217 ..objects..
4218 ..blocks..
4219 ..inodes..
4220 ..inode_blocks..
4221 ..symlink_targets..
4222 ..names..
4223 ..contents..
4224 ..ext_attributes..
4225 Compressing and uploading metadata...
4226 Wrote 0.00 MB of compressed metadata.
4227 # </pre></blockquote></p>
4228
4229 <p>The next step is mounting the file system to make the storage available.
4230
4231 <p><blockquote><pre>
4232 # mount.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
4233   --ssl --allow-root s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name /s3ql
4234 Using 4 upload threads.
4235 Downloading and decompressing metadata...
4236 Reading metadata...
4237 ..objects..
4238 ..blocks..
4239 ..inodes..
4240 ..inode_blocks..
4241 ..symlink_targets..
4242 ..names..
4243 ..contents..
4244 ..ext_attributes..
4245 Mounting filesystem...
4246 # df -h /s3ql
4247 Filesystem                              Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
4248 s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name  1.0T     0  1.0T   0% /s3ql
4249 #
4250 </pre></blockquote></p>
4251
4252 <p>The file system is now ready for use.  I use rsync to store my
4253 backups in it, and as the metadata used by rsync is downloaded at
4254 mount time, no network traffic (and storage cost) is triggered by
4255 running rsync.  To unmount, one should not use the normal umount
4256 command, as this will not flush the cache to the cloud storage, but
4257 instead running the umount.s3ql command like this:
4258
4259 <p><blockquote><pre>
4260 # umount.s3ql /s3ql
4261 #
4262 </pre></blockquote></p>
4263
4264 <p>There is a fsck command available to check the file system and
4265 correct any problems detected.  This can be used if the local server
4266 crashes while the file system is mounted, to reset the "already
4267 mounted" flag.  This is what it look like when processing a working
4268 file system:</p>
4269
4270 <p><blockquote><pre>
4271 # fsck.s3ql --force --ssl s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name
4272 Using cached metadata.
4273 File system seems clean, checking anyway.
4274 Checking DB integrity...
4275 Creating temporary extra indices...
4276 Checking lost+found...
4277 Checking cached objects...
4278 Checking names (refcounts)...
4279 Checking contents (names)...
4280 Checking contents (inodes)...
4281 Checking contents (parent inodes)...
4282 Checking objects (reference counts)...
4283 Checking objects (backend)...
4284 ..processed 5000 objects so far..
4285 ..processed 10000 objects so far..
4286 ..processed 15000 objects so far..
4287 Checking objects (sizes)...
4288 Checking blocks (referenced objects)...
4289 Checking blocks (refcounts)...
4290 Checking inode-block mapping (blocks)...
4291 Checking inode-block mapping (inodes)...
4292 Checking inodes (refcounts)...
4293 Checking inodes (sizes)...
4294 Checking extended attributes (names)...
4295 Checking extended attributes (inodes)...
4296 Checking symlinks (inodes)...
4297 Checking directory reachability...
4298 Checking unix conventions...
4299 Checking referential integrity...
4300 Dropping temporary indices...
4301 Backing up old metadata...
4302 Dumping metadata...
4303 ..objects..
4304 ..blocks..
4305 ..inodes..
4306 ..inode_blocks..
4307 ..symlink_targets..
4308 ..names..
4309 ..contents..
4310 ..ext_attributes..
4311 Compressing and uploading metadata...
4312 Wrote 0.89 MB of compressed metadata.
4313 #
4314 </pre></blockquote></p>
4315
4316 <p>Thanks to the cache, working on files that fit in the cache is very
4317 quick, about the same speed as local file access.  Uploading large
4318 amount of data is to me limited by the bandwidth out of and into my
4319 house.  Uploading 685 MiB with a 100 MiB cache gave me 305 kiB/s,
4320 which is very close to my upload speed, and downloading the same
4321 Debian installation ISO gave me 610 kiB/s, close to my download speed.
4322 Both were measured using <tt>dd</tt>.  So for me, the bottleneck is my
4323 network, not the file system code.  I do not know what a good cache
4324 size would be, but suspect that the cache should e larger than your
4325 working set.</p>
4326
4327 <p>I mentioned that only one machine can mount the file system at the
4328 time.  If another machine try, it is told that the file system is
4329 busy:</p>
4330
4331 <p><blockquote><pre>
4332 # mount.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
4333   --ssl --allow-root s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name /s3ql
4334 Using 8 upload threads.
4335 Backend reports that fs is still mounted elsewhere, aborting.
4336 #
4337 </pre></blockquote></p>
4338
4339 <p>The file content is uploaded when the cache is full, while the
4340 metadata is uploaded once every 24 hour by default.  To ensure the
4341 file system content is flushed to the cloud, one can either umount the
4342 file system, or ask S3QL to flush the cache and metadata using
4343 s3qlctrl:
4344
4345 <p><blockquote><pre>
4346 # s3qlctrl upload-meta /s3ql
4347 # s3qlctrl flushcache /s3ql
4348 #
4349 </pre></blockquote></p>
4350
4351 <p>If you are curious about how much space your data uses in the
4352 cloud, and how much compression and deduplication cut down on the
4353 storage usage, you can use s3qlstat on the mounted file system to get
4354 a report:</p>
4355
4356 <p><blockquote><pre>
4357 # s3qlstat /s3ql
4358 Directory entries:    9141
4359 Inodes:               9143
4360 Data blocks:          8851
4361 Total data size:      22049.38 MB
4362 After de-duplication: 21955.46 MB (99.57% of total)
4363 After compression:    21877.28 MB (99.22% of total, 99.64% of de-duplicated)
4364 Database size:        2.39 MB (uncompressed)
4365 (some values do not take into account not-yet-uploaded dirty blocks in cache)
4366 #
4367 </pre></blockquote></p>
4368
4369 <p>I mentioned earlier that there are several possible suppliers of
4370 storage.  I did not try to locate them all, but am aware of at least
4371 <a href="https://www.greenqloud.com/">Greenqloud</a>,
4372 <a href="http://drive.google.com/">Google Drive</a>,
4373 <a href="http://aws.amazon.com/s3/">Amazon S3 web serivces</a>,
4374 <a href="http://www.rackspace.com/">Rackspace</a> and
4375 <a href="http://crowncloud.net/">Crowncloud</A>.  The latter even
4376 accept payment in Bitcoin.  Pick one that suit your need.  Some of
4377 them provide several GiB of free storage, but the prize models are
4378 quite different and you will have to figure out what suits you
4379 best.</p>
4380
4381 <p>While researching this blog post, I had a look at research papers
4382 and posters discussing the S3QL file system.  There are several, which
4383 told me that the file system is getting a critical check by the
4384 science community and increased my confidence in using it.  One nice
4385 poster is titled
4386 "<a href="http://www.lanl.gov/orgs/adtsc/publications/science_highlights_2013/docs/pg68_69.pdf">An
4387 Innovative Parallel Cloud Storage System using OpenStack’s SwiftObject
4388 Store and Transformative Parallel I/O Approach</a>" by Hsing-Bung
4389 Chen, Benjamin McClelland, David Sherrill, Alfred Torrez, Parks Fields
4390 and Pamela Smith.  Please  have a look.</p>
4391
4392 <p>Given my problems with different file systems earlier, I decided to
4393 check out the mounted S3QL file system to see if it would be usable as
4394 a home directory (in other word, that it provided POSIX semantics when
4395 it come to locking and umask handling etc).  Running
4396 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_if_a_file_system_can_be_used_for_home_directories___.html">my
4397 test code to check file system semantics</a>, I was happy to discover that
4398 no error was found.  So the file system can be used for home
4399 directories, if one chooses to do so.</p>
4400
4401 <p>If you do not want a locally file system, and want something that
4402 work without the Linux fuse file system, I would like to mention the
4403 <a href="http://www.tarsnap.com/">Tarsnap service</a>, which also
4404 provide locally encrypted backup using a command line client.  It have
4405 a nicer access control system, where one can split out read and write
4406 access, allowing some systems to write to the backup and others to
4407 only read from it.</p>
4408
4409 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
4410 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
4411 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
4412
4413       </div>
4414       <div class="tags">
4415
4416
4417         Tags: <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>.
4418
4419
4420       </div>
4421     </div>
4422     <div class="padding"></div>
4423
4424     <div class="entry">
4425       <div class="title">
4426         <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>
4427       </div>
4428       <div class="date">
4429         14th March 2014
4430       </div>
4431       <div class="body">
4432         <p>The <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">Freedombox
4433 project</a> is working on providing the software and hardware for
4434 making it easy for non-technical people to host their data and
4435 communication at home, and being able to communicate with their
4436 friends and family encrypted and away from prying eyes.  It has been
4437 going on for a while, and is slowly progressing towards a new test
4438 release (0.2).</p>
4439
4440 <p>And what day could be better than the Pi day to announce that the
4441 new version will provide "hard drive" / SD card / USB stick images for
4442 Dreamplug, Raspberry Pi and VirtualBox (or any other virtualization
4443 system), and can also be installed using a Debian installer preseed
4444 file.  The Debian based Freedombox is now based on Debian Jessie,
4445 where most of the needed packages used are already present.  Only one,
4446 the freedombox-setup package, is missing.  To try to build your own
4447 boot image to test the current status, fetch the freedom-maker scripts
4448 and build using
4449 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/vmdebootstrap">vmdebootstrap</a>
4450 with a user with sudo access to become root:
4451
4452 <pre>
4453 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/freedombox/freedom-maker.git \
4454   freedom-maker
4455 sudo apt-get install git vmdebootstrap mercurial python-docutils \
4456   mktorrent extlinux virtualbox qemu-user-static binfmt-support \
4457   u-boot-tools
4458 make -C freedom-maker dreamplug-image raspberry-image virtualbox-image
4459 </pre>
4460
4461 <p>Root access is needed to run debootstrap and mount loopback
4462 devices.  See the README for more details on the build. If you do not
4463 want all three images, trim the make line.  But note that thanks to <a
4464 href="https://bugs.debian.org/741407">a race condition in
4465 vmdebootstrap</a>, the build might fail without the patch to the
4466 kpartx call.</p>
4467
4468 <p>If you instead want to install using a Debian CD and the preseed
4469 method, boot a Debian Wheezy ISO and use this boot argument to load
4470 the preseed values:</p>
4471
4472 <pre>
4473 url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat</a>
4474 </pre>
4475
4476 <p>But note that due to <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/740673">a
4477 recently introduced bug in apt in Jessie</a>, the installer will
4478 currently hang while setting up APT sources.  Killing the
4479 '<tt>apt-cdrom ident</tt>' process when it hang a few times during the
4480 installation will get the installation going.  This affect all
4481 installations in Jessie, and I expect it will be fixed soon.</p>
4482
4483 <p>Give it a go and let us know how it goes on the mailing list, and help
4484 us get the new release published. :) Please join us on
4485 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC (#freedombox on
4486 irc.debian.org)</a> and
4487 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
4488 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
4489
4490       </div>
4491       <div class="tags">
4492
4493
4494         Tags: <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>.
4495
4496
4497       </div>
4498     </div>
4499     <div class="padding"></div>
4500
4501     <div class="entry">
4502       <div class="title">
4503         <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>
4504       </div>
4505       <div class="date">
4506         22nd February 2014
4507       </div>
4508       <div class="body">
4509         <p>Many years ago, I wrote a GPL licensed version of the netgroup and
4510 innetgr tools, because I needed them in
4511 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a>.  I called the project
4512 ng-utils, and it has served me well.  I placed the project under the
4513 <a href="http://www.hungry.com/">Hungry Programmer</a> umbrella, and it was maintained in our CVS
4514 repository.  But many years ago, the CVS repository was dropped (lost,
4515 not migrated to new hardware, not sure), and the project have lacked a
4516 proper home since then.</p>
4517
4518 <p>Last summer, I had a look at the package and made a new release
4519 fixing a irritating crash bug, but was unable to store the changes in
4520 a proper source control system.  I applied for a project on
4521 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/">Alioth</a>, but did not have time
4522 to follow up on it.  Until today. :)</p>
4523
4524 <p>After many hours of cleaning and migration, the ng-utils project
4525 now have a new home, and a git repository with the highlight of the
4526 history of the project.  I published all release tarballs and imported
4527 them into the git repository.  As the project is really stable and not
4528 expected to gain new features any time soon, I decided to make a new
4529 release and call it 1.0.  Visit the new project home on
4530 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/ng-utils/">https://alioth.debian.org/projects/ng-utils/</a>
4531 if you want to check it out.  The new version is also uploaded into
4532 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/n/ng-utils.html">Debian Unstable</a>.</p>
4533
4534       </div>
4535       <div class="tags">
4536
4537
4538         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
4539
4540
4541       </div>
4542     </div>
4543     <div class="padding"></div>
4544
4545     <div class="entry">
4546       <div class="title">
4547         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_sysvinit_from_experimental_in_Debian_Hurd.html">Testing sysvinit from experimental in Debian Hurd</a>
4548       </div>
4549       <div class="date">
4550          3rd February 2014
4551       </div>
4552       <div class="body">
4553         <p>A few days ago I decided to try to help the Hurd people to get
4554 their changes into sysvinit, to allow them to use the normal sysvinit
4555 boot system instead of their old one.  This follow up on the
4556 <a href="https://teythoon.cryptobitch.de//categories/gsoc.html">great
4557 Google Summer of Code work</a> done last summer by Justus Winter to
4558 get Debian on Hurd working more like Debian on Linux.  To get started,
4559 I downloaded a prebuilt hard disk image from
4560 <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>,
4561 and started it using virt-manager.</p>
4562
4563 <p>The first think I had to do after logging in (root without any
4564 password) was to get the network operational.  I followed
4565 <a href="https://www.debian.org/ports/hurd/hurd-install">the
4566 instructions on the Debian GNU/Hurd ports page</a> and ran these
4567 commands as root to get the machine to accept a IP address from the
4568 kvm internal DHCP server:</p>
4569
4570 <p><blockquote><pre>
4571 settrans -fgap /dev/netdde /hurd/netdde
4572 kill $(ps -ef|awk '/[p]finet/ { print $2}')
4573 kill $(ps -ef|awk '/[d]evnode/ { print $2}')
4574 dhclient /dev/eth0
4575 </pre></blockquote></p>
4576
4577 <p>After this, the machine had internet connectivity, and I could
4578 upgrade it and install the sysvinit packages from experimental and
4579 enable it as the default boot system in Hurd.</p>
4580
4581 <p>But before I did that, I set a password on the root user, as ssh is
4582 running on the machine it for ssh login to work a password need to be
4583 set.  Also, note that a bug somewhere in openssh on Hurd block
4584 compression from working.  Remember to turn that off on the client
4585 side.</p>
4586
4587 <p>Run these commands as root to upgrade and test the new sysvinit
4588 stuff:</p>
4589
4590 <p><blockquote><pre>
4591 cat > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/experimental.list &lt;&lt;EOF
4592 deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ experimental main
4593 EOF
4594 apt-get update
4595 apt-get dist-upgrade
4596 apt-get install -t experimental initscripts sysv-rc sysvinit \
4597     sysvinit-core sysvinit-utils
4598 update-alternatives --config runsystem
4599 </pre></blockquote></p>
4600
4601 <p>To reboot after switching boot system, you have to use
4602 <tt>reboot-hurd</tt> instead of just <tt>reboot</tt>, as there is not
4603 yet a sysvinit process able to receive the signals from the normal
4604 'reboot' command.  After switching to sysvinit as the boot system,
4605 upgrading every package and rebooting, the network come up with DHCP
4606 after boot as it should, and the settrans/pkill hack mentioned at the
4607 start is no longer needed.  But for some strange reason, there are no
4608 longer any login prompt in the virtual console, so I logged in using
4609 ssh instead.
4610
4611 <p>Note that there are some race conditions in Hurd making the boot
4612 fail some times.  No idea what the cause is, but hope the Hurd porters
4613 figure it out.  At least Justus said on IRC (#debian-hurd on
4614 irc.debian.org) that they are aware of the problem.  A way to reduce
4615 the impact is to upgrade to the Hurd packages built by Justus by
4616 adding this repository to the machine:</p>
4617
4618 <p><blockquote><pre>
4619 cat > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/hurd-ci.list &lt;&lt;EOF
4620 deb http://darnassus.sceen.net/~teythoon/hurd-ci/ sid main
4621 EOF
4622 </pre></blockquote></p>
4623
4624 <p>At the moment the prebuilt virtual machine get some packages from
4625 http://ftp.debian-ports.org/debian, because some of the packages in
4626 unstable do not yet include the required patches that are lingering in
4627 BTS.  This is the completely list of "unofficial" packages installed:</p>
4628
4629 <p><blockquote><pre>
4630 # aptitude search '?narrow(?version(CURRENT),?origin(Debian Ports))'
4631 i   emacs                   - GNU Emacs editor (metapackage)
4632 i   gdb                     - GNU Debugger
4633 i   hurd-recommended        - Miscellaneous translators
4634 i   isc-dhcp-client         - ISC DHCP client
4635 i   isc-dhcp-common         - common files used by all the isc-dhcp* packages
4636 i   libc-bin                - Embedded GNU C Library: Binaries
4637 i   libc-dev-bin            - Embedded GNU C Library: Development binaries
4638 i   libc0.3                 - Embedded GNU C Library: Shared libraries
4639 i A libc0.3-dbg             - Embedded GNU C Library: detached debugging symbols
4640 i   libc0.3-dev             - Embedded GNU C Library: Development Libraries and Hea
4641 i   multiarch-support       - Transitional package to ensure multiarch compatibilit
4642 i A x11-common              - X Window System (X.Org) infrastructure
4643 i   xorg                    - X.Org X Window System
4644 i A xserver-xorg            - X.Org X server
4645 i A xserver-xorg-input-all  - X.Org X server -- input driver metapackage
4646 #
4647 </pre></blockquote></p>
4648
4649 <p>All in all, testing hurd has been an interesting experience. :)
4650 X.org did not work out of the box and I never took the time to follow
4651 the porters instructions to fix it.  This time I was interested in the
4652 command line stuff.<p>
4653
4654       </div>
4655       <div class="tags">
4656
4657
4658         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>.
4659
4660
4661       </div>
4662     </div>
4663     <div class="padding"></div>
4664
4665     <div class="entry">
4666       <div class="title">
4667         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_chrpath_release_0_16.html">New chrpath release 0.16</a>
4668       </div>
4669       <div class="date">
4670         14th January 2014
4671       </div>
4672       <div class="body">
4673         <p><a href="http://www.coverity.com/">Coverity</a> is a nice tool to
4674 find problems in C, C++ and Java code using static source code
4675 analysis.  It can detect a lot of different problems, and is very
4676 useful to find memory and locking bugs in the error handling part of
4677 the source.  The company behind it provide
4678 <a href="https://scan.coverity.com/">check of free software projects as
4679 a community service</a>, and many hundred free software projects are
4680 already checked.  A few days ago I decided to have a closer look at
4681 the Coverity system, and discovered that the
4682 <a href="http://www.gnu.org/software/gnash/">gnash</a> and
4683 <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/ipmitool/">ipmitool</a>
4684 projects I am involved with was already registered.  But these are
4685 fairly big, and I would also like to have a small and easy project to
4686 check, and decided to <a href="http://scan.coverity.com/projects/1179">request
4687 checking of the chrpath project</a>.  It was
4688 added to the checker and discovered seven potential defects.  Six of
4689 these were real, mostly resource "leak" when the program detected an
4690 error.  Nothing serious, as the resources would be released a fraction
4691 of a second later when the program exited because of the error, but it
4692 is nice to do it right in case the source of the program some time in
4693 the future end up in a library.  Having fixed all defects and added
4694 <a href="https://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/chrpath-devel">a
4695 mailing list for the chrpath developers</a>, I decided it was time to
4696 publish a new release.  These are the release notes:</p>
4697
4698 <p>New in 0.16 released 2014-01-14:</p>
4699
4700 <ul>
4701
4702   <li>Fixed all minor bugs discovered by Coverity.</li>
4703   <li>Updated config.sub and config.guess from the GNU project.</li>
4704   <li>Mention new project mailing list in the documentation.</li>
4705
4706 </ul>
4707
4708 <p>You can
4709 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/frs/?group_id=31052">download the
4710 new version 0.16 from alioth</a>.  Please let us know via the Alioth
4711 project if something is wrong with the new release.  The test suite
4712 did not discover any old errors, so if you find a new one, please also
4713 include a test suite check.</p>
4714
4715       </div>
4716       <div class="tags">
4717
4718
4719         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>.
4720
4721
4722       </div>
4723     </div>
4724     <div class="padding"></div>
4725
4726     <div class="entry">
4727       <div class="title">
4728         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_chrpath_release_0_15.html">New chrpath release 0.15</a>
4729       </div>
4730       <div class="date">
4731         24th November 2013
4732       </div>
4733       <div class="body">
4734         <p>After many years break from the package and a vain hope that
4735 development would be continued by someone else, I finally pulled my
4736 acts together this morning and wrapped up a new release of chrpath,
4737 the command line tool to modify the rpath and runpath of already
4738 compiled ELF programs.  The update was triggered by the persistence of
4739 Isha Vishnoi at IBM, which needed a new config.guess file to get
4740 support for the ppc64le architecture (powerpc 64-bit Little Endian) he
4741 is working on.  I checked the
4742 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/chrpath">Debian</a>,
4743 <a href="https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/chrpath">Ubuntu</a> and
4744 <a href="https://admin.fedoraproject.org/pkgdb/acls/name/chrpath">Fedora</a>
4745 packages for interesting patches (failed to find the source from
4746 OpenSUSE and Mandriva packages), and found quite a few nice fixes.
4747 These are the release notes:</p>
4748
4749 <p>New in 0.15 released 2013-11-24:</p>
4750
4751 <ul>
4752
4753   <li>Updated config.sub and config.guess from the GNU project to work
4754    with newer architectures.  Thanks to isha vishnoi for the heads
4755    up.</li>
4756
4757   <li>Updated README with current URLs.</li>
4758
4759   <li>Added byteswap fix found in Ubuntu, credited Jeremy Kerr and
4760    Matthias Klose.</li>
4761
4762   <li>Added missing help for -k|--keepgoing option, using patch by
4763    Petr Machata found in Fedora.</li>
4764
4765   <li>Rewrite removal of RPATH/RUNPATH to make sure the entry in
4766    .dynamic is a NULL terminated string.  Based on patch found in
4767    Fedora credited Axel Thimm and Christian Krause.</li>
4768
4769 </ul>
4770
4771 <p>You can
4772 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/frs/?group_id=31052">download the
4773 new version 0.15 from alioth</a>.  Please let us know via the Alioth
4774 project if something is wrong with the new release.  The test suite
4775 did not discover any old errors, so if you find a new one, please also
4776 include a testsuite check.</p>
4777
4778       </div>
4779       <div class="tags">
4780
4781
4782         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>.
4783
4784
4785       </div>
4786     </div>
4787     <div class="padding"></div>
4788
4789     <div class="entry">
4790       <div class="title">
4791         <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>
4792       </div>
4793       <div class="date">
4794          2nd November 2013
4795       </div>
4796       <div class="body">
4797         <p>If one of the points of switching to a new init system in Debian is
4798 <a href="http://thomas.goirand.fr/blog/?p=147">to get rid of huge
4799 init.d scripts</a>, I doubt we need to switch away from sysvinit and
4800 init.d scripts at all.  Here is an example init.d script, ie a rewrite
4801 of /etc/init.d/rsyslog:</p>
4802
4803 <p><pre>
4804 #!/lib/init/init-d-script
4805 ### BEGIN INIT INFO
4806 # Provides:          rsyslog
4807 # Required-Start:    $remote_fs $time
4808 # Required-Stop:     umountnfs $time
4809 # X-Stop-After:      sendsigs
4810 # Default-Start:     2 3 4 5
4811 # Default-Stop:      0 1 6
4812 # Short-Description: enhanced syslogd
4813 # Description:       Rsyslog is an enhanced multi-threaded syslogd.
4814 #                    It is quite compatible to stock sysklogd and can be
4815 #                    used as a drop-in replacement.
4816 ### END INIT INFO
4817 DESC="enhanced syslogd"
4818 DAEMON=/usr/sbin/rsyslogd
4819 </pre></p>
4820
4821 <p>Pretty minimalistic to me... For the record, the original sysv-rc
4822 script was 137 lines, and the above is just 15 lines, most of it meta
4823 info/comments.</p>
4824
4825 <p>How to do this, you ask?  Well, one create a new script
4826 /lib/init/init-d-script looking something like this:
4827
4828 <p><pre>
4829 #!/bin/sh
4830
4831 # Define LSB log_* functions.
4832 # Depend on lsb-base (>= 3.2-14) to ensure that this file is present
4833 # and status_of_proc is working.
4834 . /lib/lsb/init-functions
4835
4836 #
4837 # Function that starts the daemon/service
4838
4839 #
4840 do_start()
4841 {
4842         # Return
4843         #   0 if daemon has been started
4844         #   1 if daemon was already running
4845         #   2 if daemon could not be started
4846         start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $DAEMON --test > /dev/null \
4847                 || return 1
4848         start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $DAEMON -- \
4849                 $DAEMON_ARGS \
4850                 || return 2
4851         # Add code here, if necessary, that waits for the process to be ready
4852         # to handle requests from services started subsequently which depend
4853         # on this one.  As a last resort, sleep for some time.
4854 }
4855
4856 #
4857 # Function that stops the daemon/service
4858 #
4859 do_stop()
4860 {
4861         # Return
4862         #   0 if daemon has been stopped
4863         #   1 if daemon was already stopped
4864         #   2 if daemon could not be stopped
4865         #   other if a failure occurred
4866         start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --retry=TERM/30/KILL/5 --pidfile $PIDFILE --name $NAME
4867         RETVAL="$?"
4868         [ "$RETVAL" = 2 ] && return 2
4869         # Wait for children to finish too if this is a daemon that forks
4870         # and if the daemon is only ever run from this initscript.
4871         # If the above conditions are not satisfied then add some other code
4872         # that waits for the process to drop all resources that could be
4873         # needed by services started subsequently.  A last resort is to
4874         # sleep for some time.
4875         start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --oknodo --retry=0/30/KILL/5 --exec $DAEMON
4876         [ "$?" = 2 ] && return 2
4877         # Many daemons don't delete their pidfiles when they exit.
4878         rm -f $PIDFILE
4879         return "$RETVAL"
4880 }
4881
4882 #
4883 # Function that sends a SIGHUP to the daemon/service
4884 #
4885 do_reload() {
4886         #
4887         # If the daemon can reload its configuration without
4888         # restarting (for example, when it is sent a SIGHUP),
4889         # then implement that here.
4890         #
4891         start-stop-daemon --stop --signal 1 --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --name $NAME
4892         return 0
4893 }
4894
4895 SCRIPTNAME=$1
4896 scriptbasename="$(basename $1)"
4897 echo "SN: $scriptbasename"
4898 if [ "$scriptbasename" != "init-d-library" ] ; then
4899     script="$1"
4900     shift
4901     . $script
4902 else
4903     exit 0
4904 fi
4905
4906 NAME=$(basename $DAEMON)
4907 PIDFILE=/var/run/$NAME.pid
4908
4909 # Exit if the package is not installed
4910 #[ -x "$DAEMON" ] || exit 0
4911
4912 # Read configuration variable file if it is present
4913 [ -r /etc/default/$NAME ] && . /etc/default/$NAME
4914
4915 # Load the VERBOSE setting and other rcS variables
4916 . /lib/init/vars.sh
4917
4918 case "$1" in
4919   start)
4920         [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_daemon_msg "Starting $DESC" "$NAME"
4921         do_start
4922         case "$?" in
4923                 0|1) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 0 ;;
4924                 2) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 1 ;;
4925         esac
4926         ;;
4927   stop)
4928         [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_daemon_msg "Stopping $DESC" "$NAME"
4929         do_stop
4930         case "$?" in
4931                 0|1) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 0 ;;
4932                 2) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 1 ;;
4933         esac
4934         ;;
4935   status)
4936         status_of_proc "$DAEMON" "$NAME" && exit 0 || exit $?
4937         ;;
4938   #reload|force-reload)
4939         #
4940         # If do_reload() is not implemented then leave this commented out
4941         # and leave 'force-reload' as an alias for 'restart'.
4942         #
4943         #log_daemon_msg "Reloading $DESC" "$NAME"
4944         #do_reload
4945         #log_end_msg $?
4946         #;;
4947   restart|force-reload)
4948         #
4949         # If the "reload" option is implemented then remove the
4950         # 'force-reload' alias
4951         #
4952         log_daemon_msg "Restarting $DESC" "$NAME"
4953         do_stop
4954         case "$?" in
4955           0|1)
4956                 do_start
4957                 case "$?" in
4958                         0) log_end_msg 0 ;;
4959                         1) log_end_msg 1 ;; # Old process is still running
4960                         *) log_end_msg 1 ;; # Failed to start
4961                 esac
4962                 ;;
4963           *)
4964                 # Failed to stop
4965                 log_end_msg 1
4966                 ;;
4967         esac
4968         ;;
4969   *)
4970         echo "Usage: $SCRIPTNAME {start|stop|status|restart|force-reload}" >&2
4971         exit 3
4972         ;;
4973 esac
4974
4975 :
4976 </pre></p>
4977
4978 <p>It is based on /etc/init.d/skeleton, and could be improved quite a
4979 lot.  I did not really polish the approach, so it might not always
4980 work out of the box, but you get the idea.  I did not try very hard to
4981 optimize it nor make it more robust either.</p>
4982
4983 <p>A better argument for switching init system in Debian than reducing
4984 the size of init scripts (which is a good thing to do anyway), is to
4985 get boot system that is able to handle the kernel events sensibly and
4986 robustly, and do not depend on the boot to run sequentially.  The boot
4987 and the kernel have not behaved sequentially in years.</p>
4988
4989       </div>
4990       <div class="tags">
4991
4992
4993         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>.
4994
4995
4996       </div>
4997     </div>
4998     <div class="padding"></div>
4999
5000     <div class="entry">
5001       <div class="title">
5002         <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>
5003       </div>
5004       <div class="date">
5005          1st November 2013
5006       </div>
5007       <div class="body">
5008         <p><a href="http://www.spice-space.org/">The SPICE protocol</a> for
5009 remote display access is the preferred solution with oVirt and RedHat
5010 Enterprise Virtualization, and I was sad to discover the other day
5011 that the browser plugin needed to use these systems seamlessly was
5012 missing in Debian.  The <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/668284">request
5013 for a package</a> was from 2012-04-10 with no progress since
5014 2013-04-01, so I decided to wrap up a package based on the great work
5015 from Cajus Pollmeier and put it in a collab-maint maintained git
5016 repository to get a package I could use.  I would very much like
5017 others to help me maintain the package (or just take over, I do not
5018 mind), but as no-one had volunteered so far, I just uploaded it to
5019 NEW.  I hope it will be available in Debian in a few days.</p>
5020
5021 <p>The source is now available from
5022 <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>
5023
5024       </div>
5025       <div class="tags">
5026
5027
5028         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5029
5030
5031       </div>
5032     </div>
5033     <div class="padding"></div>
5034
5035     <div class="entry">
5036       <div class="title">
5037         <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>
5038       </div>
5039       <div class="date">
5040         27th October 2013
5041       </div>
5042       <div class="body">
5043         <p>The
5044 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/v/vmdebootstrap.html">vmdebootstrap</a>
5045 program is a a very nice system to create virtual machine images.  It
5046 create a image file, add a partition table, mount it and run
5047 debootstrap in the mounted directory to create a Debian system on a
5048 stick.  Yesterday, I decided to try to teach it how to make images for
5049 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/RaspberryPi">Raspberry Pi</a>, as part
5050 of a plan to simplify the build system for
5051 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">the FreedomBox
5052 project</a>.  The FreedomBox project already uses vmdebootstrap for
5053 the virtualbox images, but its current build system made multistrap
5054 based system for Dreamplug images, and it is lacking support for
5055 Raspberry Pi.</p>
5056
5057 <p>Armed with the knowledge on how to build "foreign" (aka non-native
5058 architecture) chroots for Raspberry Pi, I dived into the vmdebootstrap
5059 code and adjusted it to be able to build armel images on my amd64
5060 Debian laptop.  I ended up giving vmdebootstrap five new options,
5061 allowing me to replicate the image creation process I use to make
5062 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Raspberry_Pi_based_batman_adv_Mesh_network_node.html">Debian
5063 Jessie based mesh node images for the Raspberry Pi</a>.  First, the
5064 <tt>--foreign /path/to/binfm_handler</tt> option tell vmdebootstrap to
5065 call debootstrap with --foreign and to copy the handler into the
5066 generated chroot before running the second stage.  This allow
5067 vmdebootstrap to create armel images on an amd64 host.  Next I added
5068 two new options <tt>--bootsize size</tt> and <tt>--boottype
5069 fstype</tt> to teach it to create a separate /boot/ partition with the
5070 given file system type, allowing me to create an image with a vfat
5071 partition for the /boot/ stuff.  I also added a <tt>--variant
5072 variant</tt> option to allow me to create smaller images without the
5073 Debian base system packages installed.  Finally, I added an option
5074 <tt>--no-extlinux</tt> to tell vmdebootstrap to not install extlinux
5075 as a boot loader.  It is not needed on the Raspberry Pi and probably
5076 most other non-x86 architectures.  The changes were accepted by the
5077 upstream author of vmdebootstrap yesterday and today, and is now
5078 available from
5079 <a href="http://git.liw.fi/cgi-bin/cgit/cgit.cgi/vmdebootstrap/">the
5080 upstream project page</a>.</p>
5081
5082 <p>To use it to build a Raspberry Pi image using Debian Jessie, first
5083 create a small script (the customize script) to add the non-free
5084 binary blob needed to boot the Raspberry Pi and the APT source
5085 list:</p>
5086
5087 <p><pre>
5088 #!/bin/sh
5089 set -e # Exit on first error
5090 rootdir="$1"
5091 cd "$rootdir"
5092 cat &lt;&lt;EOF > etc/apt/sources.list
5093 deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ jessie main contrib non-free
5094 EOF
5095 # Install non-free binary blob needed to boot Raspberry Pi.  This
5096 # install a kernel somewhere too.
5097 wget https://raw.github.com/Hexxeh/rpi-update/master/rpi-update \
5098     -O $rootdir/usr/bin/rpi-update
5099 chmod a+x $rootdir/usr/bin/rpi-update
5100 mkdir -p $rootdir/lib/modules
5101 touch $rootdir/boot/start.elf
5102 chroot $rootdir rpi-update
5103 </pre></p>
5104
5105 <p>Next, fetch the latest vmdebootstrap script and call it like this
5106 to build the image:</p>
5107
5108 <pre>
5109 sudo ./vmdebootstrap \
5110     --variant minbase \
5111     --arch armel \
5112     --distribution jessie \
5113     --mirror http://http.debian.net/debian \
5114     --image test.img \
5115     --size 600M \
5116     --bootsize 64M \
5117     --boottype vfat \
5118     --log-level debug \
5119     --verbose \
5120     --no-kernel \
5121     --no-extlinux \
5122     --root-password raspberry \
5123     --hostname raspberrypi \
5124     --foreign /usr/bin/qemu-arm-static \
5125     --customize `pwd`/customize \
5126     --package netbase \
5127     --package git-core \
5128     --package binutils \
5129     --package ca-certificates \
5130     --package wget \
5131     --package kmod
5132 </pre></p>
5133
5134 <p>The list of packages being installed are the ones needed by
5135 rpi-update to make the image bootable on the Raspberry Pi, with the
5136 exception of netbase, which is needed by debootstrap to find
5137 /etc/hosts with the minbase variant.  I really wish there was a way to
5138 set up an Raspberry Pi using only packages in the Debian archive, but
5139 that is not possible as far as I know, because it boots from the GPU
5140 using a non-free binary blob.</p>
5141
5142 <p>The build host need debootstrap, kpartx and qemu-user-static and
5143 probably a few others installed.  I have not checked the complete
5144 build dependency list.</p>
5145
5146 <p>The resulting image will not use the hardware floating point unit
5147 on the Raspberry PI, because the armel architecture in Debian is not
5148 optimized for that use.  So the images created will be a bit slower
5149 than <a href="http://www.raspbian.org/">Raspbian</a> based images.</p>
5150
5151       </div>
5152       <div class="tags">
5153
5154
5155         Tags: <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>.
5156
5157
5158       </div>
5159     </div>
5160     <div class="padding"></div>
5161
5162     <div class="entry">
5163       <div class="title">
5164         <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>
5165       </div>
5166       <div class="date">
5167         15th October 2013
5168       </div>
5169       <div class="body">
5170         <p>The last few days I came across a few good causes that should get
5171 wider attention.  I recommend signing and donating to each one of
5172 these. :)</p>
5173
5174 <p>Via <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2013/18/">Debian
5175 Project News for 2013-10-14</a> I came across the Outreach Program for
5176 Women program which is a Google Summer of Code like initiative to get
5177 more women involved in free software.  One debian sponsor has offered
5178 to match <a href="http://debian.ch/opw2013">any donation done to Debian
5179 earmarked</a> for this initiative.  I donated a few minutes ago, and
5180 hope you will to. :)</p>
5181
5182 <p>And the Electronic Frontier Foundation just announced plans to
5183 create <a href="https://supporters.eff.org/donate/nsa-videos">video
5184 documentaries about the excessive spying</a> on every Internet user that
5185 take place these days, and their need to fund the work.  I've already
5186 donated.  Are you next?</p>
5187
5188 <p>For my Norwegian audience, the organisation Studentenes og
5189 Akademikernes Internasjonale Hjelpefond is collecting signatures for a
5190 statement under the heading
5191 <a href="http://saih.no/Bloggers_United/">Bloggers United for Open
5192 Access</a> for those of us asking for more focus on open access in the
5193 Norwegian government.  So far 499 signatures.  I hope you will sign it
5194 too.</p>
5195
5196       </div>
5197       <div class="tags">
5198
5199
5200         Tags: <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>.
5201
5202
5203       </div>
5204     </div>
5205     <div class="padding"></div>
5206
5207     <div class="entry">
5208       <div class="title">
5209         <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>
5210       </div>
5211       <div class="date">
5212         27th September 2013
5213       </div>
5214       <div class="body">
5215         <p>The <a href="http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/">Freedombox
5216 project</a> have been going on for a while, and have presented the
5217 vision, ideas and solution several places.  Here is a little
5218 collection of videos of talks and presentation of the project.</p>
5219
5220 <ul>
5221
5222 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukvUz5taxvA">FreedomBox -
5223 2,5 minute marketing film</a> (Youtube)</li>
5224
5225 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzW25QTVWsE">Eben Moglen
5226 discusses the Freedombox on CBS news 2011</a> (Youtube)</li>
5227
5228 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ae8SZbxfE0g">Eben Moglen -
5229 Freedom in the Cloud - Software Freedom, Privacy and and Security for
5230 Web 2.0 and Cloud computing at ISOC-NY Public Meeting 2010</a>
5231 (Youtube)</li>
5232
5233 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNaIji_3xBE">Fosdem 2011
5234 Keynote by Eben Moglen presenting the Freedombox</a> (Youtube)</li>
5235
5236 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bDDUyJSQ9s">Presentation of
5237 the Freedombox by James Vasile at Elevate in Gratz 2011</a> (Youtube)</li>
5238
5239 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQTmnk27g9s"> Freedombox -
5240 Discovery, Identity, and Trust by Nick Daly at Freedombox Hackfest New
5241 York City in 2012</a> (Youtube)</li>
5242
5243 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkbSB4Ba7Ck">Introduction
5244 to the Freedombox at Freedombox Hackfest New York City in 2012</a>
5245 (Youtube)</li>
5246
5247 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-P2Jaeg0aQ">Freedom, Out
5248 of the Box! by Bdale Garbee at linux.conf.au Ballarat, 2012</a> (Youtube) </li>
5249
5250 <li><a href="https://archive.fosdem.org/2013/schedule/event/freedombox/">Freedombox
5251 1.0 by Eben Moglen and Bdale Garbee at Fosdem 2013</a> (FOSDEM) </li>
5252
5253 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1LpYX2zVYg">What is the
5254 FreedomBox today by Bdale Garbee at Debconf13 in Vaumarcus
5255 2013</a> (Youtube)</li>
5256
5257 </ul>
5258
5259 <p>A larger list is available from
5260 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/TalksAndPresentations">the
5261 Freedombox Wiki</a>.</p>
5262
5263 <p>On other news, I am happy to report that Freedombox based on Debian
5264 Jessie is coming along quite well, and soon both Owncloud and using
5265 Tor should be available for testers of the Freedombox solution. :) In
5266 a few weeks I hope everything needed to test it is included in Debian.
5267 The withsqlite package is already in Debian, and the plinth package is
5268 pending in NEW.  The third and vital part of that puzzle is the
5269 metapackage/setup framework, which is still pending an upload.  Join
5270 us on <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC
5271 (#freedombox on irc.debian.org)</a> and
5272 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
5273 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
5274
5275       </div>
5276       <div class="tags">
5277
5278
5279         Tags: <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>.
5280
5281
5282       </div>
5283     </div>
5284     <div class="padding"></div>
5285
5286     <div class="entry">
5287       <div class="title">
5288         <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>
5289       </div>
5290       <div class="date">
5291         10th September 2013
5292       </div>
5293       <div class="body">
5294         <p>I was introduced to the
5295 <a href="http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/">Freedombox project</a>
5296 in 2010, when Eben Moglen presented his vision about serving the need
5297 of non-technical people to keep their personal information private and
5298 within the legal protection of their own homes.  The idea is to give
5299 people back the power over their network and machines, and return
5300 Internet back to its intended peer-to-peer architecture.  Instead of
5301 depending on a central service, the Freedombox will give everyone
5302 control over their own basic infrastructure.</p>
5303
5304 <p>I've intended to join the effort since then, but other tasks have
5305 taken priority.  But this summers nasty news about the misuse of trust
5306 and privilege exercised by the "western" intelligence gathering
5307 communities increased my eagerness to contribute to a point where I
5308 actually started working on the project a while back.</p>
5309
5310 <p>The <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/freedombox/">initial
5311 Debian initiative</a> based on the vision from Eben Moglen, is to
5312 create a simple and cheap Debian based appliance that anyone can hook
5313 up in their home and get access to secure and private services and
5314 communication.  The initial deployment platform have been the
5315 <a href="http://www.globalscaletechnologies.com/t-dreamplugdetails.aspx">Dreamplug</a>,
5316 which is a piece of hardware I do not own.  So to be able to test what
5317 the current Freedombox setup look like, I had to come up with a way to install
5318 it on some hardware I do have access to.  I have rewritten the
5319 <a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/freedom-maker">freedom-maker</a>
5320 image build framework to use .deb packages instead of only copying
5321 setup into the boot images, and thanks to this rewrite I am able to
5322 set up any machine supported by Debian Wheezy as a Freedombox, using
5323 the previously mentioned deb (and a few support debs for packages
5324 missing in Debian).</p>
5325
5326 <p>The current Freedombox setup consist of a set of bootstrapping
5327 scripts
5328 (<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/freedombox-setup">freedombox-setup</a>),
5329 and a administrative web interface
5330 (<a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/Plinth">plinth</a> + exmachina +
5331 withsqlite), as well as a privacy enhancing proxy based on
5332 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/privoxy">privoxy</a>
5333 (freedombox-privoxy).  There is also a web/javascript based XMPP
5334 client (<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/jwchat">jwchat</a>)
5335 trying (unsuccessfully so far) to talk to the XMPP server
5336 (<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/ejabberd">ejabberd</a>).  The
5337 web interface is pluggable, and the goal is to use it to enable OpenID
5338 services, mesh network connectivity, use of TOR, etc, etc.  Not much of
5339 this is really working yet, see
5340 <a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/freedombox-todos/blob/master/TODO">the
5341 project TODO</a> for links to GIT repositories.  Most of the code is
5342 on github at the moment.  The HTTP proxy is operational out of the
5343 box, and the admin web interface can be used to add/remove plinth
5344 users.  I've not been able to do anything else with it so far, but
5345 know there are several branches spread around github and other places
5346 with lots of half baked features.</p>
5347
5348 <p>Anyway, if you want to have a look at the current state, the
5349 following recipes should work to give you a test machine to poke
5350 at.</p>
5351
5352 <p><strong>Debian Wheezy amd64</strong></p>
5353
5354 <ol>
5355
5356 <li>Fetch normal Debian Wheezy installation ISO.</li>
5357 <li>Boot from it, either as CD or USB stick.</li>
5358 <li><p>Press [tab] on the boot prompt and add this as a boot argument
5359 to the Debian installer:<p>
5360 <pre>url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-wheezy.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-wheezy.dat</a></pre></li>
5361
5362 <li>Answer the few language/region/password questions and pick disk to
5363 install on.</li>
5364
5365 <li>When the installation is finished and the machine have rebooted a
5366 few times, your Freedombox is ready for testing.</li>
5367
5368 </ol>
5369
5370 <p><strong>Raspberry Pi Raspbian</strong></p>
5371
5372 <ol>
5373
5374 <li>Fetch a Raspbian SD card image, create SD card.</li>
5375 <li>Boot from SD card, extend file system to fill the card completely.</li>
5376 <li><p>Log in and add this to /etc/sources.list:</p>
5377 <pre>
5378 deb <a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox</a> wheezy main
5379 </pre></li>
5380 <li><p>Run this as root:</p>
5381 <pre>
5382 wget -O - http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/BE1A583D.asc | \
5383    apt-key add -
5384 apt-get update
5385 apt-get install freedombox-setup
5386 /usr/lib/freedombox/setup
5387 </pre></li>
5388 <li>Reboot into your freshly created Freedombox.</li>
5389
5390 </ol>
5391
5392 <p>You can test it on other architectures too, but because the
5393 freedombox-privoxy package is binary, it will only work as intended on
5394 the architectures where I have had time to build the binary and put it
5395 in my APT repository.  But do not let this stop you.  It is only a
5396 short "<tt>apt-get source -b freedombox-privoxy</tt>" away. :)</p>
5397
5398 <p>Note that by default Freedombox is a DHCP server on the
5399 192.168.1.0/24 subnet, so if this is your subnet be careful and turn
5400 off the DHCP server by running "<tt>update-rc.d isc-dhcp-server
5401 disable</tt>" as root.</p>
5402
5403 <p>Please let me know if this works for you, or if you have any
5404 problems.  We gather on the IRC channel
5405 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">#freedombox</a> on
5406 irc.debian.org and the
5407 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">project
5408 mailing list</a>.</p>
5409
5410 <p>Once you get your freedombox operational, you can visit
5411 <tt>http://your-host-name:8001/</tt> to see the state of the plint
5412 welcome screen (dead end - do not be surprised if you are unable to
5413 get past it), and next visit <tt>http://your-host-name:8001/help/</tt>
5414 to look at the rest of plinth.  The default user is 'admin' and the
5415 default password is 'secret'.</p>
5416
5417       </div>
5418       <div class="tags">
5419
5420
5421         Tags: <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>.
5422
5423
5424       </div>
5425     </div>
5426     <div class="padding"></div>
5427
5428     <div class="entry">
5429       <div class="title">
5430         <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>
5431       </div>
5432       <div class="date">
5433         18th August 2013
5434       </div>
5435       <div class="body">
5436         <p>Earlier, I reported about
5437 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_fix_a_Thinkpad_X230_with_a_broken_180_GB_SSD_disk.html">my
5438 problems using an Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB disk</a>.  Friday I was
5439 told by IBM that the original disk should be thrown away.  And as
5440 there no longer was a problem if I bricked the firmware, I decided
5441 today to try to install Intel firmware to replace the Lenovo firmware
5442 currently on the disk.</p>
5443
5444 <p>I searched the Intel site for firmware, and found
5445 <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>
5446 (aka Intel SATA Solid-State Drive Firmware Update Tool) which
5447 according to the site should contain the latest firmware for SSD
5448 disks.  I inserted the broken disk in one of my spare laptops and
5449 booted the ISO from a USB stick.  The disk was recognized, but the
5450 program claimed the newest firmware already were installed and refused
5451 to insert any Intel firmware.  So no change, and the disk is still
5452 unable to handle write load. :( I guess the only way to get them
5453 working would be if Lenovo releases new firmware.  No idea how likely
5454 that is.  Anyway, just blogging about this test for completeness.  I
5455 got a working Samsung disk, and see no point in spending more time on
5456 the broken disks.</p>
5457
5458       </div>
5459       <div class="tags">
5460
5461
5462         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5463
5464
5465       </div>
5466     </div>
5467     <div class="padding"></div>
5468
5469     <div class="entry">
5470       <div class="title">
5471         <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>
5472       </div>
5473       <div class="date">
5474         17th July 2013
5475       </div>
5476       <div class="body">
5477         <p>Today I switched to
5478 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">my
5479 new laptop</a>.  I've previously written about the problems I had with
5480 my new Thinkpad X230, which was delivered with an
5481 <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
5482 GB Intel SSD disk with Lenovo firmware</a> that did not handle
5483 sustained writes.  My hardware supplier have been very forthcoming in
5484 trying to find a solution, and after first trying with another
5485 identical 180 GB disks they decided to send me a 256 GB Samsung SSD
5486 disk instead to fix it once and for all.  The Samsung disk survived
5487 the installation of Debian with encrypted disks (filling the disk with
5488 random data during installation killed the first two), and I thus
5489 decided to trust it with my data.  I have installed it as a Debian Edu
5490 Wheezy roaming workstation hooked up with my Debian Edu Squeeze main
5491 server at home using Kerberos and LDAP, and will use it as my work
5492 station from now on.</p>
5493
5494 <p>As this is a solid state disk with no moving parts, I believe the
5495 Debian Wheezy default installation need to be tuned a bit to increase
5496 performance and increase life time of the disk.  The Linux kernel and
5497 user space applications do not yet adjust automatically to such
5498 environment.  To make it easier for my self, I created a draft Debian
5499 package <tt>ssd-setup</tt> to handle this tuning.  The
5500 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/ssd-setup.git">source
5501 for the ssd-setup package</a> is available from collab-maint, and it
5502 is set up to adjust the setup of the machine by just installing the
5503 package.  If there is any non-SSD disk in the machine, the package
5504 will refuse to install, as I did not try to write any logic to sort
5505 file systems in SSD and non-SSD file systems.</p>
5506
5507 <p>I consider the package a draft, as I am a bit unsure how to best
5508 set up Debian Wheezy with an SSD.  It is adjusted to my use case,
5509 where I set up the machine with one large encrypted partition (in
5510 addition to /boot), put LVM on top of this and set up partitions on
5511 top of this again.  See the README file in the package source for the
5512 references I used to pick the settings.  At the moment these
5513 parameters are tuned:</p>
5514
5515 <ul>
5516
5517 <li>Set up cryptsetup to pass TRIM commands to the physical disk
5518     (adding discard to /etc/crypttab)</li>
5519
5520 <li>Set up LVM to pass on TRIM commands to the underlying device (in
5521     this case a cryptsetup partition) by changing issue_discards from
5522     0 to 1 in /etc/lvm/lvm.conf.</li>
5523
5524 <li>Set relatime as a file system option for ext3 and ext4 file
5525     systems.</li>
5526
5527 <li>Tell swap to use TRIM commands by adding 'discard' to
5528     /etc/fstab.</li>
5529
5530 <li>Change I/O scheduler from cfq to deadline using a udev rule.</li>
5531
5532 <li>Run fstrim on every ext3 and ext4 file system every night (from
5533     cron.daily).</li>
5534
5535 <li>Adjust sysctl values vm.swappiness to 1 and vm.vfs_cache_pressure
5536     to 50 to reduce the kernel eagerness to swap out processes.</li>
5537
5538 </ul>
5539
5540 <p>During installation, I cancelled the part where the installer fill
5541 the disk with random data, as this would kill the SSD performance for
5542 little gain.  My goal with the encrypted file system is to ensure
5543 those stealing my laptop end up with a brick and not a working
5544 computer.  I have no hope in keeping the really resourceful people
5545 from getting the data on the disk (see
5546 <a href="http://xkcd.com/538/">XKCD #538</a> for an explanation why).
5547 Thus I concluded that adding the discard option to crypttab is the
5548 right thing to do.</p>
5549
5550 <p>I considered using the noop I/O scheduler, as several recommended
5551 it for SSD, but others recommended deadline and a benchmark I found
5552 indicated that deadline might be better for interactive use.</p>
5553
5554 <p>I also considered using the 'discard' file system option for ext3
5555 and ext4, but read that it would give a performance hit ever time a
5556 file is removed, and thought it best to that that slowdown once a day
5557 instead of during my work.</p>
5558
5559 <p>My package do not set up tmpfs on /var/run, /var/lock and /tmp, as
5560 this is already done by Debian Edu.</p>
5561
5562 <p>I have not yet started on the user space tuning.  I expect
5563 iceweasel need some tuning, and perhaps other applications too, but
5564 have not yet had time to investigate those parts.</p>
5565
5566 <p>The package should work on Ubuntu too, but I have not yet tested it
5567 there.</p>
5568
5569 <p>As for the answer to the question in the title of this blog post,
5570 as far as I know, the only solution I know about is to replace the
5571 disk.  It might be possible to flash it with Intel firmware instead of
5572 the Lenovo firmware.  But I have not tried and did not want to do so
5573 without approval from Lenovo as I wanted to keep the warranty on the
5574 disk until a solution was found and they wanted the broken disks
5575 back.</p>
5576
5577       </div>
5578       <div class="tags">
5579
5580
5581         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5582
5583
5584       </div>
5585     </div>
5586     <div class="padding"></div>
5587
5588     <div class="entry">
5589       <div class="title">
5590         <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>
5591       </div>
5592       <div class="date">
5593         10th July 2013
5594       </div>
5595       <div class="body">
5596         <p>A few days ago, I wrote about
5597 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">the
5598 problems I experienced with my new X230 and its SSD disk</a>, which
5599 was dying during installation because it is unable to cope with
5600 sustained write.  My supplier is in contact with
5601 <a href="http://www.lenovo.com/">Lenovo</a>, and they wanted to send a
5602 replacement disk to try to fix the problem.  They decided to send an
5603 identical model, so my hopes for a permanent fix was slim.</p>
5604
5605 <p>Anyway, today I got the replacement disk and tried to install
5606 Debian Edu Wheezy with encrypted disk on it.  The new disk have the
5607 same firmware version as the original.  This time my hope raised
5608 slightly as the installation progressed, as the original disk used to
5609 die after 4-7% of the disk was written to, while this time it kept
5610 going past 10%, 20%, 40% and even past 50%.  But around 60%, the disk
5611 died again and I was back on square one.  I still do not have a new
5612 laptop with a disk I can trust.  I can not live with a disk that might
5613 lock up when I download a new
5614 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> ISO or
5615 other large files.  I look forward to hearing from my supplier with
5616 the next proposal from Lenovo.</p>
5617
5618 <p>The original disk is marked Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB,
5619 11S0C38722Z1ZNME35X1TR, ISN: CVCV321407HB180EGN, SA: G57560302, FW:
5620 LF1i, 29MAY2013, PBA: G39779-300, LBA 351,651,888, LI P/N: 0C38722,
5621 Pb-free 2LI, LC P/N: 16-200366, WWN: 55CD2E40002756C4, Model:
5622 SSDSC2BW180A3L 2.5" 6Gb/s SATA SSD 180G 5V 1A, ASM P/N 0C38732, FRU
5623 P/N 45N8295, P0C38732.</p>
5624
5625 <p>The replacement disk is marked Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB,
5626 11S0C38722Z1ZNDE34N0L0, ISN: CVCV315306RK180EGN, SA: G57560-302, FW:
5627 LF1i, 22APR2013, PBA: G39779-300, LBA 351,651,888, LI P/N: 0C38722,
5628 Pb-free 2LI, LC P/N: 16-200366, WWN: 55CD2E40000AB69E, Model:
5629 SSDSC2BW180A3L 2.5" 6Gb/s SATA SSD 180G 5V 1A, ASM P/N 0C38732, FRU
5630 P/N 45N8295, P0C38732.</p>
5631
5632 <p>The only difference is in the first number (serial number?), ISN,
5633 SA, date and WNPP values.  Mentioning all the details here in case
5634 someone is able to use the information to find a way to identify the
5635 failing disk among working ones (if any such working disk actually
5636 exist).</p>
5637
5638       </div>
5639       <div class="tags">
5640
5641
5642         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5643
5644
5645       </div>
5646     </div>
5647     <div class="padding"></div>
5648
5649     <div class="entry">
5650       <div class="title">
5651         <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>
5652       </div>
5653       <div class="date">
5654          9th July 2013
5655       </div>
5656       <div class="body">
5657         <p>The upcoming Saturday, 2013-07-13, we are organising a combined
5658 Debian Edu developer gathering and Debian and Ubuntu bug squashing
5659 party in Oslo.  It is organised by <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">the
5660 member assosiation NUUG</a> and
5661 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">the Debian Edu / Skolelinux
5662 project</a> together with <a href="http://bitraf.no/">the hack space
5663 Bitraf</a>.</p>
5664
5665 <p>It starts 10:00 and continue until late evening.  Everyone is
5666 welcome, and there is no fee to participate.  There is on the other
5667 hand limited space, and only room for 30 people.  Please put your name
5668 on <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/BSP/2013/07/13/no/Oslo">the event
5669 wiki page</a> if you plan to join us.</p>
5670
5671       </div>
5672       <div class="tags">
5673
5674
5675         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>.
5676
5677
5678       </div>
5679     </div>
5680     <div class="padding"></div>
5681
5682     <div class="entry">
5683       <div class="title">
5684         <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>
5685       </div>
5686       <div class="date">
5687          5th July 2013
5688       </div>
5689       <div class="body">
5690         <p>Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a
5691 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thank_you_Thinkpad_X41__for_your_long_and_trustworthy_service.html">replacement
5692 for my trusty old Thinkpad X41</a>.  Unfortunately I did not have much
5693 time to spend on it, and it took a while to find a model I believe
5694 will do the job, but two days ago the replacement finally arrived.  I
5695 ended up picking a
5696 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_x230">Thinkpad X230</a>
5697 with SSD disk (NZDAJMN).  I first test installed Debian Edu Wheezy as
5698 a roaming workstation, and it seemed to work flawlessly.  But my
5699 second installation with encrypted disk was not as successful.  More
5700 on that below.</p>
5701
5702 <p>I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most
5703 important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never
5704 listed in the feature list.  But I did get good help from the search
5705 feature at <a href="http://www.prisjakt.no/">Prisjakt</a>, which
5706 allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other
5707 requirements.  A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks according
5708 to that search interface, so I had to drop specifying the number of
5709 disks from my search parameters.  I also asked around among friends to
5710 get their impression on keyboards and robustness.</p>
5711
5712 <p>So the new laptop arrived, and it is quite a lot wider than the
5713 X41.  I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is
5714 significantly wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my
5715 hand a lot more to reach the edges.  But the key response is fairly
5716 good and the individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope
5717 I will get used to it.  My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really
5718 needed a new laptop now. :)</p>
5719
5720 <p>Turning off the touch pad was simple.  All it took was a quick
5721 visit to the BIOS during boot it disable it.</p>
5722
5723 <p>But there is a fatal problem with the laptop.  The 180 GB SSD disk
5724 lock up during load.  And this happen when installing Debian Wheezy
5725 with encrypted disk, while the disk is being filled with random data.
5726 I also tested to install Ubuntu Raring, and it happen there too if I
5727 reenable the code to fill the disk with random data (it is disabled by
5728 default in Ubuntu).  And the bug with is already known.  It was
5729 reported to Debian as <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/691427">BTS
5730 report #691427 2012-10-25</a> (journal commit I/O error on brand-new
5731 Thinkpad T430s ext4 on lvm on SSD).  It is also reported to the Linux
5732 kernel developers as
5733 <a href="https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=51861">Kernel bugzilla
5734 report #51861 2012-12-20</a> (Intel SSD 520 stops working under load
5735 (SSDSC2BW180A3L in Lenovo ThinkPad T430s)). It is also reported on the
5736 Lenovo forums, both for
5737 <a href="http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/T400-T500-and-newer-T-series/T430s-Intel-SSD-520-180GB-issue/m-p/1070549">T430
5738 2012-11-10</a> and for
5739 <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
5740 03-20-2013</a>.  The problem do not only affect installation.  The
5741 reports state that the disk lock up during use if many writes are done
5742 on the disk, so it is much no use to work around the installation
5743 problem and end up with a computer that can lock up at any moment.
5744 There is even a
5745 <a href="https://git.efficios.com/?p=test-ssd.git">small C program
5746 available</a> that will lock up the hard drive after running a few
5747 minutes by writing to a file.</p>
5748
5749 <p>I've contacted my supplier and asked how to handle this, and after
5750 contacting PCHELP Norway (request 01D1FDP) which handle support
5751 requests for Lenovo, his first suggestion was to upgrade the disk
5752 firmware.  Unfortunately there is no newer firmware available from
5753 Lenovo, as my disk already have the most recent one (version LF1i).  I
5754 hope to hear more from him today and hope the problem can be
5755 fixed. :)</p>
5756
5757       </div>
5758       <div class="tags">
5759
5760
5761         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5762
5763
5764       </div>
5765     </div>
5766     <div class="padding"></div>
5767
5768     <div class="entry">
5769       <div class="title">
5770         <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>
5771       </div>
5772       <div class="date">
5773          4th July 2013
5774       </div>
5775       <div class="body">
5776         <p>Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a replacement for my
5777 trusty old Thinkpad X41.  Unfortunately I did not have much time to
5778 spend on it, but today the replacement finally arrived.  I ended up
5779 picking a <a href="http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_x230">Thinkpad
5780 X230</a> with SSD disk (NZDAJMN).  I first test installed Debian Edu
5781 Wheezy as a roaming workstation, and it worked flawlessly.  As I write
5782 this, it is installing what I hope will be a more final installation,
5783 with a encrypted hard drive to ensure any dope head stealing it end up
5784 with an expencive door stop.</p>
5785
5786 <p>I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most
5787 important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never
5788 listed in the feature list.  But I did get good help from the search
5789 feature at <ahref="http://www.prisjakt.no/">Prisjakt</a>, which
5790 allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other
5791 requirements.  A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks, so I had
5792 to drop number of disks from my search parameters.</p>
5793
5794 <p>I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is significantly
5795 wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my hand a lot more
5796 to reach the edges.  But the key response is fairly good and the
5797 individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope I will get
5798 used to it.  My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really needed a
5799 new laptop now. :)</p>
5800
5801 <p>I look forward to figuring out how to turn off the touch pad.</p>
5802
5803       </div>
5804       <div class="tags">
5805
5806
5807         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5808
5809
5810       </div>
5811     </div>
5812     <div class="padding"></div>
5813
5814     <div class="entry">
5815       <div class="title">
5816         <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>
5817       </div>
5818       <div class="date">
5819         25th June 2013
5820       </div>
5821       <div class="body">
5822         <p>It annoys me when the computer fail to do automatically what it is
5823 perfectly capable of, and I have to do it manually to get things
5824 working.  One such task is to find out what firmware packages are
5825 needed to get the hardware on my computer working.  Most often this
5826 affect the wifi card, but some times it even affect the RAID
5827 controller or the ethernet card.  Today I pushed version 0.4 of the
5828 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">Isenkram package</a>
5829 including a new script isenkram-autoinstall-firmware handling the
5830 process of asking all the loaded kernel modules what firmware files
5831 they want, find debian packages providing these files and install the
5832 debian packages.  Here is a test run on my laptop:</p>
5833
5834 <p><pre>
5835 # isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
5836 info: kernel drivers requested extra firmware: ipw2200-bss.fw ipw2200-ibss.fw ipw2200-sniffer.fw
5837 info: fetching http://http.debian.net/debian/dists/squeeze/Contents-i386.gz
5838 info: locating packages with the requested firmware files
5839 info: Updating APT sources after adding non-free APT source
5840 info: trying to install firmware-ipw2x00
5841 firmware-ipw2x00
5842 firmware-ipw2x00
5843 Preconfiguring packages ...
5844 Selecting previously deselected package firmware-ipw2x00.
5845 (Reading database ... 259727 files and directories currently installed.)
5846 Unpacking firmware-ipw2x00 (from .../firmware-ipw2x00_0.28+squeeze1_all.deb) ...
5847 Setting up firmware-ipw2x00 (0.28+squeeze1) ...
5848 #
5849 </pre></p>
5850
5851 <p>When all the requested firmware is present, a simple message is
5852 printed instead:</p>
5853
5854 <p><pre>
5855 # isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
5856 info: did not find any firmware files requested by loaded kernel modules.  exiting
5857 #
5858 </pre></p>
5859
5860 <p>It could use some polish, but it is already working well and saving
5861 me some time when setting up new machines. :)</p>
5862
5863 <p>So, how does it work?  It look at the set of currently loaded
5864 kernel modules, and look up each one of them using modinfo, to find
5865 the firmware files listed in the module meta-information.  Next, it
5866 download the Contents file from a nearby APT mirror, and search for
5867 the firmware files in this file to locate the package with the
5868 requested firmware file.  If the package is in the non-free section, a
5869 non-free APT source is added and the package is installed using
5870 <tt>apt-get install</tt>.  The end result is a slightly better working
5871 machine.</p>
5872
5873 <p>I hope someone find time to implement a more polished version of
5874 this script as part of the hw-detect debian-installer module, to
5875 finally fix <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/655507">BTS report
5876 #655507</a>.  There really is no need to insert USB sticks with
5877 firmware during a PXE install when the packages already are available
5878 from the nearby Debian mirror.</p>
5879
5880       </div>
5881       <div class="tags">
5882
5883
5884         Tags: <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>.
5885
5886
5887       </div>
5888     </div>
5889     <div class="padding"></div>
5890
5891     <div class="entry">
5892       <div class="title">
5893         <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>
5894       </div>
5895       <div class="date">
5896         11th June 2013
5897       </div>
5898       <div class="body">
5899         <p>When installing RedHat, Fedora, Debian and Ubuntu on some machines,
5900 the screen just turn black when Linux boot, either during installation
5901 or on first boot from the hard disk.  I've seen it once in a while the
5902 last few years, but only recently understood the cause.  I've seen it
5903 on HP laptops, and on my latest acquaintance the Packard Bell laptop.
5904 The reason seem to be in the wiring of some laptops.  The system to
5905 control the screen background light is inverted, so when Linux try to
5906 turn the brightness fully on, it end up turning it off instead.  I do
5907 not know which Linux drivers are affected, but this post is about the
5908 i915 driver used by the
5909 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Packard Bell
5910 EasyNote LV</a>, Thinkpad X40 and many other laptops.</p>
5911
5912 <p>The problem can be worked around two ways.  Either by adding
5913 i915.invert_brightness=1 as a kernel option, or by adding a file in
5914 /etc/modprobe.d/ to tell modprobe to add the invert_brightness=1
5915 option when it load the i915 kernel module.  On Debian and Ubuntu, it
5916 can be done by running these commands as root:</p>
5917
5918 <pre>
5919 echo options i915 invert_brightness=1 | tee /etc/modprobe.d/i915.conf
5920 update-initramfs -u -k all
5921 </pre>
5922
5923 <p>Since March 2012 there is
5924 <a href="http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=4dca20efb1a9c2efefc28ad2867e5d6c3f5e1955">a
5925 mechanism in the Linux kernel</a> to tell the i915 driver which
5926 hardware have this problem, and get the driver to invert the
5927 brightness setting automatically.  To use it, one need to add a row in
5928 <a href="http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c">the
5929 intel_quirks array</a> in the driver source
5930 <tt>drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c</tt> (look for "<tt>static
5931 struct intel_quirk intel_quirks</tt>"), specifying the PCI device
5932 number (vendor number 8086 is assumed) and subdevice vendor and device
5933 number.</p>
5934
5935 <p>My Packard Bell EasyNote LV got this output from <tt>lspci
5936 -vvnn</tt> for the video card in question:</p>
5937
5938 <p><pre>
5939 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation \
5940     3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller [8086:0156] \
5941     (rev 09) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
5942  Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device [1025:0688]
5943  Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- \
5944     ParErr- Stepping- SE RR- FastB2B- DisINTx+
5945  Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- \
5946     <TAbort- <MAbort->SERR- <PERR- INTx-
5947  Latency: 0
5948  Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 42
5949  Region 0: Memory at c2000000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4M]
5950  Region 2: Memory at b0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
5951  Region 4: I/O ports at 4000 [size=64]
5952  Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled]
5953  Capabilities: <access denied>
5954  Kernel driver in use: i915
5955 </pre></p>
5956
5957 <p>The resulting intel_quirks entry would then look like this:</p>
5958
5959 <p><pre>
5960 struct intel_quirk intel_quirks[] = {
5961        ...
5962         /* Packard Bell EasyNote LV11HC needs invert brightness quirk */
5963         { 0x0156, 0x1025, 0x0688, quirk_invert_brightness },
5964        ...
5965 }
5966 </pre></p>
5967
5968 <p>According to the kernel module instructions (as seen using
5969 <tt>modinfo i915</tt>), information about hardware needing the
5970 invert_brightness flag should be sent to the
5971 <a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/dri-devel">dri-devel
5972 (at) lists.freedesktop.org</a> mailing list to reach the kernel
5973 developers.  But my email about the laptop sent 2013-06-03 have not
5974 yet shown up in
5975 <a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/dri-devel/2013-June/thread.html">the
5976 web archive for the mailing list</a>, so I suspect they do not accept
5977 emails from non-subscribers.  Because of this, I sent my patch also to
5978 the Debian bug tracking system instead as
5979 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/710938">BTS report #710938</a>, to make
5980 sure the patch is not lost.</p>
5981
5982 <p>Unfortunately, it is not enough to fix the kernel to get Laptops
5983 with this problem working properly with Linux.  If you use Gnome, your
5984 worries should be over at this point.  But if you use KDE, there is
5985 something in KDE ignoring the invert_brightness setting and turning on
5986 the screen during login.  I've reported it to Debian as
5987 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/711237">BTS report #711237</a>, and
5988 have no idea yet how to figure out exactly what subsystem is doing
5989 this.  Perhaps you can help?  Perhaps you know what the Gnome
5990 developers did to handle this, and this can give a clue to the KDE
5991 developers?  Or you know where in KDE the screen brightness is changed
5992 during login?  If so, please update the BTS report (or get in touch if
5993 you do not know how to update BTS).</p>
5994
5995 <p>Update 2013-07-19: The correct fix for this machine seem to be
5996 acpi_backlight=vendor, to disable ACPI backlight support completely,
5997 as the ACPI information on the machine is trash and it is better to
5998 leave it to the intel video driver to control the screen
5999 backlight.</p>
6000
6001       </div>
6002       <div class="tags">
6003
6004
6005         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
6006
6007
6008       </div>
6009     </div>
6010     <div class="padding"></div>
6011
6012     <div class="entry">
6013       <div class="title">
6014         <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>
6015       </div>
6016       <div class="date">
6017         27th May 2013
6018       </div>
6019       <div class="body">
6020         <p>Two days ago, I asked
6021 <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
6022 I could install Linux on a Packard Bell EasyNote LV computer
6023 preinstalled with Windows 8</a>.  I found a solution, but am horrified
6024 with the obstacles put in the way of Linux users on a laptop with UEFI
6025 and Windows 8.</p>
6026
6027 <p>I never found out if the cause of my problems were the use of UEFI
6028 secure booting or fast boot.  I suspect fast boot was the problem,
6029 causing the firmware to boot directly from HD without considering any
6030 key presses and alternative devices, but do not know UEFI settings
6031 enough to tell.</p>
6032
6033 <p>There is no way to install Linux on the machine in question without
6034 opening the box and disconnecting the hard drive!  This is as far as I
6035 can tell, the only way to get access to the firmware setup menu
6036 without accepting the Windows 8 license agreement.  I am told (and
6037 found description on how to) that it is possible to configure the
6038 firmware setup once booted into Windows 8.  But as I believe the terms
6039 of that agreement are completely unacceptable, accepting the license
6040 was never an alternative.  I do not enter agreements I do not intend
6041 to follow.</p>
6042
6043 <p>I feared I had to return the laptops and ask for a refund, and
6044 waste many hours on this, but luckily there was a way to get it to
6045 work.  But I would not recommend it to anyone planning to run Linux on
6046 it, and I have become sceptical to Windows 8 certified laptops.  Is
6047 this the way Linux will be forced out of the market place, by making
6048 it close to impossible for "normal" users to install Linux without
6049 accepting the Microsoft Windows license terms?  Or at least not
6050 without risking to loose the warranty?</p>
6051
6052 <p>I've updated the
6053 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Linux Laptop
6054 wiki page for Packard Bell EasyNote LV</a>, to ensure the next person
6055 do not have to struggle as much as I did to get Linux into the
6056 machine.</p>
6057
6058 <p>Thanks to Bob Rosbag, Florian Weimer, Philipp Kern, Ben Hutching,
6059 Michael Tokarev and others for feedback and ideas.</p>
6060
6061       </div>
6062       <div class="tags">
6063
6064
6065         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
6066
6067
6068       </div>
6069     </div>
6070     <div class="padding"></div>
6071
6072     <div class="entry">
6073       <div class="title">
6074         <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>
6075       </div>
6076       <div class="date">
6077         25th May 2013
6078       </div>
6079       <div class="body">
6080         <p>I've run into quite a problem the last few days.  I bought three
6081 new laptops for my parents and a few others.  I bought Packard Bell
6082 Easynote LV to run Kubuntu on and use as their home computer.  But I
6083 am completely unable to figure out how to install Linux on it.  The
6084 computer is preinstalled with Windows 8, and I suspect it uses UEFI
6085 instead of a BIOS to boot.</p>
6086
6087 <p>The problem is that I am unable to get it to PXE boot, and unable
6088 to get it to boot the Linux installer from my USB stick.  I have yet
6089 to try the DVD install, and still hope it will work.  when I turn on
6090 the computer, there is no information on what buttons to press to get
6091 the normal boot menu.  I expect to get some boot menu to select PXE or
6092 USB stick booting.  When booting, it first ask for the language to
6093 use, then for some regional settings, and finally if I will accept the
6094 Windows 8 terms of use.  As these terms are completely unacceptable to
6095 me, I have no other choice but to turn off the computer and try again
6096 to get it to boot the Linux installer.</p>
6097
6098 <p>I have gathered my findings so far on a Linlap page about the
6099 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Packard Bell
6100 EasyNote LV</a> model.  If you have any idea how to get Linux
6101 installed on this machine, please get in touch or update that wiki
6102 page.  If I can't find a way to install Linux, I will have to return
6103 the laptop to the seller and find another machine for my parents.</p>
6104
6105 <p>I wonder, is this the way Linux will be forced out of the market
6106 using UEFI and "secure boot" by making it impossible to install Linux
6107 on new Laptops?</p>
6108
6109       </div>
6110       <div class="tags">
6111
6112
6113         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
6114
6115
6116       </div>
6117     </div>
6118     <div class="padding"></div>
6119
6120     <div class="entry">
6121       <div class="title">
6122         <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>
6123       </div>
6124       <div class="date">
6125         17th May 2013
6126       </div>
6127       <div class="body">
6128         <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> is
6129 an operating system based on Debian intended for use in schools.  It
6130 contain a turn-key solution for the computer network provided to
6131 pupils in the primary schools.  It provide both the central server,
6132 network boot servers and desktop environments with heaps of
6133 educational software.  The project was founded almost 12 years ago,
6134 2001-07-02.  If you want to support the project, which is in need for
6135 cash to fund developer gatherings and other project related activity,
6136 <a href="http://www.linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">please
6137 donate some money</a>.
6138
6139 <p>A topic that come up again and again on the Debian Edu mailing
6140 lists and elsewhere, is the question on how to transform a Debian or
6141 Ubuntu installation into a Debian Edu installation.  It isn't very
6142 hard, and last week I wrote a script to replicate the steps done by
6143 the Debian Edu installer.</p>
6144
6145 <p>The script,
6146 <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/>
6147 in the debian-edu-config package, will go through these six steps and
6148 transform an existing Debian Wheezy or Ubuntu (untested) installation
6149 into a Debian Edu Workstation:</p>
6150
6151 <ol>
6152
6153 <li>Add skolelinux related APT sources.</li>
6154 <li>Create /etc/debian-edu/config with the wanted configuration.</li>
6155 <li>Install debian-edu-install to load preseeding values and pull in
6156     our configuration.</li>
6157 <li>Preseed debconf database with profile setup in
6158     /etc/debian-edu/config, and run tasksel to install packages
6159     according to the profile specified in the config above,
6160     overriding some of the Debian automation machinery.</li>
6161 <li>Run debian-edu-cfengine-D installation to configure everything
6162     that could not be done using preseeding.</li>
6163 <li>Ask for a reboot to enable all the configuration changes.</li>
6164
6165 </ol>
6166
6167 <p>There are some steps in the Debian Edu installation that can not be
6168 replicated like this.  Disk partitioning and LVM setup, for example.
6169 So this script just assume there is enough disk space to install all
6170 the needed packages.</p>
6171
6172 <p>The script was created to help a Debian Edu student working on
6173 setting up <a href="http://www.raspberrypi.org">Raspberry Pi</a> as a
6174 Debian Edu client, and using it he can take the existing
6175 <a href="http://www.raspbian.org/FrontPage‎">Raspbian</a> installation and
6176 transform it into a fully functioning Debian Edu Workstation (or
6177 Roaming Workstation, or whatever :).</p>
6178
6179 <p>The default setting in the script is to create a KDE Workstation.
6180 If a LXDE based Roaming workstation is wanted instead, modify the
6181 PROFILE and DESKTOP values at the top to look like this instead:</p>
6182
6183 <p><pre>
6184 PROFILE="Roaming-Workstation"
6185 DESKTOP="lxde"
6186 </pre></p>
6187
6188 <p>The script could even become useful to set up Debian Edu servers in
6189 the cloud, by starting with a virtual Debian installation at some
6190 virtual hosting service and setting up all the services on first
6191 boot.</p>
6192
6193       </div>
6194       <div class="tags">
6195
6196
6197         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>.
6198
6199
6200       </div>
6201     </div>
6202     <div class="padding"></div>
6203
6204     <div class="entry">
6205       <div class="title">
6206         <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>
6207       </div>
6208       <div class="date">
6209         11th May 2013
6210       </div>
6211       <div class="body">
6212         <P>In January,
6213 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_IRC_channel_for_LEGO_designers_using_Debian.html">I
6214 announced a</a> new <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">IRC
6215 channel #debian-lego</a>, for those of us in the Debian and Linux
6216 community interested in <a href="http://www.lego.com/">LEGO</a>, the
6217 marvellous construction system from Denmark.  We also created
6218 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">a wiki page</a> to have
6219 a place to take notes and write down our plans and hopes.  And several
6220 people showed up to help.  I was very happy to see the effect of my
6221 call.  Since the small start, we have a debtags tag
6222 <a href="http://debtags.debian.net/search/bytag?wl=hardware::hobby:lego">hardware::hobby:lego</a>
6223 tag for LEGO related packages, and now count 10 packages related to
6224 LEGO and <a href="http://mindstorms.lego.com/">Mindstorms</a>:</p>
6225
6226 <p><table>
6227 <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>
6228 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/leocad">leocad</a></td><td>virtual brick CAD software</td></tr>
6229 <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>
6230 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/lnpd">lnpd</a></td><td>daemon for LNP communication with BrickOS</td></tr>
6231 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/nbc">nbc</a></td><td>compiler for LEGO Mindstorms NXT bricks</td></tr>
6232 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/nqc">nqc</a></td><td>Not Quite C compiler for LEGO Mindstorms RCX</td></tr>
6233 <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>
6234 <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>
6235 <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>
6236 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/t2n">t2n</a></td><td>simple command-line tool for Lego NXT</td></tr>
6237 </table></p>
6238
6239 <p>Some of these are available in Wheezy, and all but one are
6240 currently available in Jessie/testing.  leocad is so far only
6241 available in experimental.</p>
6242
6243 <p>If you care about LEGO in Debian, please join us on IRC and help
6244 adding the rest of the great free software tools available on Linux
6245 for LEGO designers.</p>
6246
6247       </div>
6248       <div class="tags">
6249
6250
6251         Tags: <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>.
6252
6253
6254       </div>
6255     </div>
6256     <div class="padding"></div>
6257
6258     <div class="entry">
6259       <div class="title">
6260         <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>
6261       </div>
6262       <div class="date">
6263          5th May 2013
6264       </div>
6265       <div class="body">
6266         <p>When I woke up this morning, I was very happy to see that the
6267 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2013/20130504">release announcement
6268 for Debian Wheezy</a> was waiting in my mail box.  This is a great
6269 Debian release, and I expect to move my machines at home over to it fairly
6270 soon.</p>
6271
6272 <p>The new debian release contain heaps of new stuff, and one program
6273 in particular make me very happy to see included.  The
6274 <a href="http://scratch.mit.edu/">Scratch</a> program, made famous by
6275 the <a href="http://www.code.org/">Teach kids code</a> movement, is
6276 included for the first time.  Alongside similar programs like
6277 <a href="http://edu.kde.org/kturtle/">kturtle</a> and
6278 <a href="http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/Turtle_Art">turtleart</a>,
6279 it allow for visual programming where syntax errors can not happen,
6280 and a friendly programming environment for learning to control the
6281 computer.  Scratch will also be included in the next release of Debian
6282 Edu.</a>
6283
6284 <p>And now that Wheezy is wrapped up, we can wrap up the next Debian
6285 Edu/Skolelinux release too.  The
6286 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/2013/04/msg00132.html">first
6287 alpha release</a> went out last week, and the next should soon
6288 follow.<p>
6289
6290       </div>
6291       <div class="tags">
6292
6293
6294         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>.
6295
6296
6297       </div>
6298     </div>
6299     <div class="padding"></div>
6300
6301     <div class="entry">
6302       <div class="title">
6303         <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>
6304       </div>
6305       <div class="date">
6306          3rd April 2013
6307       </div>
6308       <div class="body">
6309         <p>Today the <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">Isenkram
6310 package</a> finally made it into the archive, after lingering in NEW
6311 for many months.  I uploaded it to the Debian experimental suite
6312 2013-01-27, and today it was accepted into the archive.</p>
6313
6314 <p>Isenkram is a system for suggesting to users what packages to
6315 install to work with a pluggable hardware device.  The suggestion pop
6316 up when the device is plugged in.  For example if a Lego Mindstorm NXT
6317 is inserted, it will suggest to install the program needed to program
6318 the NXT controller.  Give it a go, and report bugs and suggestions to
6319 BTS. :)</p>
6320
6321       </div>
6322       <div class="tags">
6323
6324
6325         Tags: <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>.
6326
6327
6328       </div>
6329     </div>
6330     <div class="padding"></div>
6331
6332     <div class="entry">
6333       <div class="title">
6334         <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>
6335       </div>
6336       <div class="date">
6337          2nd February 2013
6338       </div>
6339       <div class="body">
6340         <p>My
6341 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_backport_bitcoin_qt_version_0_7_2_2_to_Debian_Squeeze.html">last
6342 bitcoin related blog post</a> mentioned that the new
6343 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin package</a> for
6344 Debian was waiting in NEW.  It was accepted by the Debian ftp-masters
6345 2013-01-19, and have been available in unstable since then.  It was
6346 automatically copied to Ubuntu, and is available in their Raring
6347 version too.</p>
6348
6349 <p>But there is a strange problem with the build that block this new
6350 version from being available on the i386 and kfreebsd-i386
6351 architectures.  For some strange reason, the autobuilders in Debian
6352 for these architectures fail to run the test suite on these
6353 architectures (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/672524">BTS #672524</a>).
6354 We are so far unable to reproduce it when building it manually, and
6355 no-one have been able to propose a fix.  If you got an idea what is
6356 failing, please let us know via the BTS.</p>
6357
6358 <p>One feature that is annoying me with of the bitcoin client, because
6359 I often run low on disk space, is the fact that the client will exit
6360 if it run short on space (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/696715">BTS
6361 #696715</a>).  So make sure you have enough disk space when you run
6362 it. :)</p>
6363
6364 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
6365 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
6366 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
6367
6368       </div>
6369       <div class="tags">
6370
6371
6372         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>.
6373
6374
6375       </div>
6376     </div>
6377     <div class="padding"></div>
6378
6379     <div class="entry">
6380       <div class="title">
6381         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">Welcome to the world, Isenkram!</a>
6382       </div>
6383       <div class="date">
6384         22nd January 2013
6385       </div>
6386       <div class="body">
6387         <p>Yesterday, I
6388 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_prototype_ready_making_hardware_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">asked
6389 for testers</a> for my prototype for making Debian better at handling
6390 pluggable hardware devices, which I
6391 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">set
6392 out to create</a> earlier this month.  Several valuable testers showed
6393 up, and caused me to really want to to open up the development to more
6394 people.  But before I did this, I want to come up with a sensible name
6395 for this project.  Today I finally decided on a new name, and I have
6396 renamed the project from hw-support-handler to this new name.  In the
6397 process, I moved the source to git and made it available as a
6398 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/isenkram.git">collab-maint</a>
6399 repository in Debian.  The new name?  It is <strong>Isenkram</strong>.
6400 To fetch and build the latest version of the source, use</p>
6401
6402 <pre>
6403 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/collab-maint/isenkram.git
6404 cd isenkram && git-buildpackage -us -uc
6405 </pre>
6406
6407 <p>I have not yet adjusted all files to use the new name yet.  If you
6408 want to hack on the source or improve the package, please go ahead.
6409 But please talk to me first on IRC or via email before you do major
6410 changes, to make sure we do not step on each others toes. :)</p>
6411
6412 <p>If you wonder what 'isenkram' is, it is a Norwegian word for iron
6413 stuff, typically meaning tools, nails, screws, etc.  Typical hardware
6414 stuff, in other words.  I've been told it is the Norwegian variant of
6415 the German word eisenkram, for those that are familiar with that
6416 word.</p>
6417
6418 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-26</strong>: Added -us -us to build
6419 instructions, to avoid confusing people with an error from the signing
6420 process.</p>
6421
6422 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-27</strong>: Switch to HTTP URL for the git
6423 clone argument to avoid the need for authentication.</p>
6424
6425       </div>
6426       <div class="tags">
6427
6428
6429         Tags: <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>.
6430
6431
6432       </div>
6433     </div>
6434     <div class="padding"></div>
6435
6436     <div class="entry">
6437       <div class="title">
6438         <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>
6439       </div>
6440       <div class="date">
6441         21st January 2013
6442       </div>
6443       <div class="body">
6444         <p>Early this month I set out to try to
6445 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">improve
6446 the Debian support for pluggable hardware devices</a>.  Now my
6447 prototype is working, and it is ready for a larger audience.  To test
6448 it, fetch the
6449 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">source
6450 from the Debian Edu subversion repository</a>, build and install the
6451 package.  You might have to log out and in again activate the
6452 autostart script.</p>
6453
6454 <p>The design is simple:</p>
6455
6456 <ul>
6457
6458 <li>Add desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ causing a program
6459 hw-support-handlerd to start when the user log in.</li>
6460
6461 <li>This program listen for kernel events about new hardware (directly
6462 from the kernel like udev does), not using HAL dbus events as I
6463 initially did.</li>
6464
6465 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware modalias in
6466 the APT database, a database
6467 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=markup">available
6468 via HTTP</a> and a database available as part of the package.</li>
6469
6470 <li>If a package is mapped to the hardware in question, the package
6471 isn't installed yet and this is the first time the hardware was
6472 plugged in, show a desktop notification suggesting to install the
6473 package or packages.</li>
6474
6475 <li>If the user click on the 'install package now' button, ask
6476 aptdaemon via the PackageKit API to install the requrired package.</li>
6477
6478 <li>aptdaemon ask for root password or sudo password, and install the
6479 package while showing progress information in a window.</li>
6480
6481 </ul>
6482
6483 <p>I still need to come up with a better name for the system.  Here
6484 are some screen shots showing the prototype in action.  First the
6485 notification, then the password request, and finally the request to
6486 approve all the dependencies.  Sorry for the Norwegian Bokmål GUI.</p>
6487
6488 <p><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-1-notification.png">
6489 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-2-password.png">
6490 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-3-dependencies.png">
6491 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-4-installing.png">
6492 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-5-installing-details.png" width="70%"></p>
6493
6494 <p>The prototype still need to be improved with longer timeouts, but
6495 is already useful.  The database of hardware to package mappings also
6496 need more work.  It is currently compatible with the Ubuntu way of
6497 storing such information in the package control file, but could be
6498 changed to use other formats instead or in addition to the current
6499 method.  I've dropped the use of discover for this mapping, as the
6500 modalias approach is more flexible and easier to use on Linux as long
6501 as the Linux kernel expose its modalias strings directly.</p>
6502
6503 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-21 16:50</strong>: Due to popular demand,
6504 here is the command required to check out and build the source: Use
6505 '<tt>svn checkout
6506 svn://svn.debian.org/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/; cd
6507 hw-support-handler; debuild</tt>'.  If you lack debuild, install the
6508 devscripts package.</p>
6509
6510 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-23 12:00</strong>: The project is now
6511 renamed to Isenkram and the source moved from the Debian Edu
6512 subversion repository to a Debian collab-maint git repository.  See
6513 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">build
6514 instructions</a> for details.</p>
6515
6516       </div>
6517       <div class="tags">
6518
6519
6520         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
6521
6522
6523       </div>
6524     </div>
6525     <div class="padding"></div>
6526
6527     <div class="entry">
6528       <div class="title">
6529         <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>
6530       </div>
6531       <div class="date">
6532         19th January 2013
6533       </div>
6534       <div class="body">
6535         <p>This Christmas my trusty old laptop died.  It died quietly and
6536 suddenly in bed.  With a quiet whimper, it went completely quiet and
6537 black.  The power button was no longer able to turn it on.  It was a
6538 IBM Thinkpad X41, and the best laptop I ever had.  Better than both
6539 Thinkpads X30, X31, X40, X60, X61 and X61S.  Far better than the
6540 Compaq I had before that.  Now I need to find a replacement.  To keep
6541 going during Christmas, I moved the one year old SSD disk to my old
6542 X40 where it fitted (only one I had left that could use it), but it is
6543 not a durable solution.
6544
6545 <p>My laptop needs are fairly modest.  This is my wishlist from when I
6546 got a new one more than 10 years ago.  It still holds true.:)</p>
6547
6548 <ul>
6549
6550 <li>Lightweight (around 1 kg) and small volume (preferably smaller
6551   than A4).</li>
6552 <li>Robust, it will be in my backpack every day.</li>
6553 <li>Three button mouse and a mouse pin instead of touch pad.</li>
6554 <li>Long battery life time.  Preferable a week.</li>
6555 <li>Internal WIFI network card.</li>
6556 <li>Internal Twisted Pair network card.</li>
6557 <li>Some USB slots (2-3 is plenty)</li>
6558 <li>Good keyboard - similar to the Thinkpad.</li>
6559 <li>Video resolution at least 1024x768, with size around 12" (A4 paper
6560 size).</li>
6561 <li>Hardware supported by Debian Stable, ie the default kernel and
6562   X.org packages.</li>
6563 <li>Quiet, preferably fan free (or at least not using the fan most of
6564   the time).
6565
6566 </ul>
6567
6568 <p>You will notice that there are no RAM and CPU requirements in the
6569 list.  The reason is simply that the specifications on laptops the
6570 last 10-15 years have been sufficient for my needs, and I have to look
6571 at other features to choose my laptop.  But are there still made as
6572 robust laptops as my X41?  The Thinkpad X60/X61 proved to be less
6573 robust, and Thinkpads seem to be heading in the wrong direction since
6574 Lenovo took over.  But I've been told that X220 and X1 Carbon might
6575 still be useful.</p>
6576
6577 <p>Perhaps I should rethink my needs, and look for a pad with an
6578 external keyboard?  I'll have to check the
6579 <a href="http://www.linux-laptop.net/">Linux Laptops site</a> for
6580 well-supported laptops, or perhaps just buy one preinstalled from one
6581 of the vendors listed on the <a href="http://linuxpreloaded.com/">Linux
6582 Pre-loaded site</a>.</p>
6583
6584       </div>
6585       <div class="tags">
6586
6587
6588         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
6589
6590
6591       </div>
6592     </div>
6593     <div class="padding"></div>
6594
6595     <div class="entry">
6596       <div class="title">
6597         <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>
6598       </div>
6599       <div class="date">
6600         18th January 2013
6601       </div>
6602       <div class="body">
6603         <p>Some times I try to figure out which Iceweasel browser plugin to
6604 install to get support for a given MIME type.  Thanks to
6605 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MozillaTeam/Plugins">specifications
6606 done by Ubuntu</a> and Mozilla, it is possible to do this in Debian.
6607 Unfortunately, not very many packages provide the needed meta
6608 information, Anyway, here is a small script to look up all browser
6609 plugin packages announcing ther MIME support using this specification:</p>
6610
6611 <pre>
6612 #!/usr/bin/python
6613 import sys
6614 import apt
6615 def pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
6616     cache = apt.Cache()
6617     cache.open(None)
6618     thepkgs = []
6619     for pkg in cache:
6620         version = pkg.candidate
6621         if version is None:
6622             version = pkg.installed
6623         if version is None:
6624             continue
6625         record = version.record
6626         if not record.has_key('Npp-MimeType'):
6627             continue
6628         mime_types = record['Npp-MimeType'].split(',')
6629         for t in mime_types:
6630             t = t.rstrip().strip()
6631             if t == mimetype:
6632                 thepkgs.append(pkg.name)
6633     return thepkgs
6634 mimetype = "audio/ogg"
6635 if 1 < len(sys.argv):
6636     mimetype = sys.argv[1]
6637 print "Browser plugin packages supporting %s:" % mimetype
6638 for pkg in pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
6639     print "  %s" %pkg
6640 </pre>
6641
6642 <p>It can be used like this to look up a given MIME type:</p>
6643
6644 <pre>
6645 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype
6646 Browser plugin packages supporting audio/ogg:
6647   gecko-mediaplayer
6648 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype application/x-shockwave-flash
6649 Browser plugin packages supporting application/x-shockwave-flash:
6650   browser-plugin-gnash
6651 %
6652 </pre>
6653
6654 <p>In Ubuntu this mechanism is combined with support in the browser
6655 itself to query for plugins and propose to install the needed
6656 packages.  It would be great if Debian supported such feature too.  Is
6657 anyone working on adding it?</p>
6658
6659 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-18 14:20</strong>: The Debian BTS
6660 request for icweasel support for this feature is
6661 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/484010">#484010</a> from 2008 (and
6662 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/698426">#698426</a> from today).  Lack
6663 of manpower and wish for a different design is the reason thus feature
6664 is not yet in iceweasel from Debian.</p>
6665
6666       </div>
6667       <div class="tags">
6668
6669
6670         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
6671
6672
6673       </div>
6674     </div>
6675     <div class="padding"></div>
6676
6677     <div class="entry">
6678       <div class="title">
6679         <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>
6680       </div>
6681       <div class="date">
6682         16th January 2013
6683       </div>
6684       <div class="body">
6685         <p>The <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/AppStreamDebianProposal">DEP-11
6686 proposal to add AppStream information to the Debian archive</a>, is a
6687 proposal to make it possible for a Desktop application to propose to
6688 the user some package to install to gain support for a given MIME
6689 type, font, library etc. that is currently missing.  With such
6690 mechanism in place, it would be possible for the desktop to
6691 automatically propose and install leocad if some LDraw file is
6692 downloaded by the browser.</p>
6693
6694 <p>To get some idea about the current content of the archive, I decided
6695 to write a simple program to extract all .desktop files from the
6696 Debian archive and look up the claimed MIME support there.  The result
6697 can be found on the
6698 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/pub/AppStreamTest">Skolelinux FTP
6699 site</a>.  Using the collected information, it become possible to
6700 answer the question in the title.  Here are the 20 most supported MIME
6701 types in Debian stable (Squeeze), testing (Wheezy) and unstable (Sid).
6702 The complete list is available from the link above.</p>
6703
6704 <p><strong>Debian Stable:</strong></p>
6705
6706 <pre>
6707   count MIME type
6708   ----- -----------------------
6709      32 text/plain
6710      30 audio/mpeg
6711      29 image/png
6712      28 image/jpeg
6713      27 application/ogg
6714      26 audio/x-mp3
6715      25 image/tiff
6716      25 image/gif
6717      22 image/bmp
6718      22 audio/x-wav
6719      20 audio/x-flac
6720      19 audio/x-mpegurl
6721      18 video/x-ms-asf
6722      18 audio/x-musepack
6723      18 audio/x-mpeg
6724      18 application/x-ogg
6725      17 video/mpeg
6726      17 audio/x-scpls
6727      17 audio/ogg
6728      16 video/x-ms-wmv
6729 </pre>
6730
6731 <p><strong>Debian Testing:</strong></p>
6732
6733 <pre>
6734   count MIME type
6735   ----- -----------------------
6736      33 text/plain
6737      32 image/png
6738      32 image/jpeg
6739      29 audio/mpeg
6740      27 image/gif
6741      26 image/tiff
6742      26 application/ogg
6743      25 audio/x-mp3
6744      22 image/bmp
6745      21 audio/x-wav
6746      19 audio/x-mpegurl
6747      19 audio/x-mpeg
6748      18 video/mpeg
6749      18 audio/x-scpls
6750      18 audio/x-flac
6751      18 application/x-ogg
6752      17 video/x-ms-asf
6753      17 text/html
6754      17 audio/x-musepack
6755      16 image/x-xbitmap
6756 </pre>
6757
6758 <p><strong>Debian Unstable:</strong></p>
6759
6760 <pre>
6761   count MIME type
6762   ----- -----------------------
6763      31 text/plain
6764      31 image/png
6765      31 image/jpeg
6766      29 audio/mpeg
6767      28 application/ogg
6768      27 image/gif
6769      26 image/tiff
6770      26 audio/x-mp3
6771      23 audio/x-wav
6772      22 image/bmp
6773      21 audio/x-flac
6774      20 audio/x-mpegurl
6775      19 audio/x-mpeg
6776      18 video/x-ms-asf
6777      18 video/mpeg
6778      18 audio/x-scpls
6779      18 application/x-ogg
6780      17 audio/x-musepack
6781      16 video/x-ms-wmv
6782      16 video/x-msvideo
6783 </pre>
6784
6785 <p>I am told that PackageKit can provide an API to access the kind of
6786 information mentioned in DEP-11.  I have not yet had time to look at
6787 it, but hope the PackageKit people in Debian are on top of these
6788 issues.</p>
6789
6790 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-16 13:35</strong>: Updated numbers after
6791 discovering a typo in my script.</p>
6792
6793       </div>
6794       <div class="tags">
6795
6796
6797         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
6798
6799
6800       </div>
6801     </div>
6802     <div class="padding"></div>
6803
6804     <div class="entry">
6805       <div class="title">
6806         <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>
6807       </div>
6808       <div class="date">
6809         15th January 2013
6810       </div>
6811       <div class="body">
6812         <p>Yesterday, I wrote about the
6813 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Modalias_strings___a_practical_way_to_map__stuff__to_hardware.html">modalias
6814 values provided by the Linux kernel</a> following my hope for
6815 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">better
6816 dongle support in Debian</a>.  Using this knowledge, I have tested how
6817 modalias values attached to package names can be used to map packages
6818 to hardware.  This allow the system to look up and suggest relevant
6819 packages when I plug in some new hardware into my machine, and replace
6820 discover and discover-data as the database used to map hardware to
6821 packages.</p>
6822
6823 <p>I create a modaliases file with entries like the following,
6824 containing package name, kernel module name (if relevant, otherwise
6825 the package name) and globs matching the relevant hardware
6826 modalias.</p>
6827
6828 <p><blockquote>
6829 Package: package-name
6830 <br>Modaliases: module(modaliasglob, modaliasglob, modaliasglob)</p>
6831 </blockquote></p>
6832
6833 <p>It is fairly trivial to write code to find the relevant packages
6834 for a given modalias value using this file.</p>
6835
6836 <p>An entry like this would suggest the video and picture application
6837 cheese for many USB web cameras (interface bus class 0E01):</p>
6838
6839 <p><blockquote>
6840 Package: cheese
6841 <br>Modaliases: cheese(usb:v*p*d*dc*dsc*dp*ic0Eisc01ip*)</p>
6842 </blockquote></p>
6843
6844 <p>An entry like this would suggest the pcmciautils package when a
6845 CardBus bridge (bus class 0607) PCI device is present:</p>
6846
6847 <p><blockquote>
6848 Package: pcmciautils
6849 <br>Modaliases: pcmciautils(pci:v*d*sv*sd*bc06sc07i*)
6850 </blockquote></p>
6851
6852 <p>An entry like this would suggest the package colorhug-client when
6853 plugging in a ColorHug with USB IDs 04D8:F8DA:</p>
6854
6855 <p><blockquote>
6856 Package: colorhug-client
6857 <br>Modaliases: colorhug-client(usb:v04D8pF8DAd*)</p>
6858 </blockquote></p>
6859
6860 <p>I believe the format is compatible with the format of the Packages
6861 file in the Debian archive.  Ubuntu already uses their Packages file
6862 to store their mappings from packages to hardware.</p>
6863
6864 <p>By adding a XB-Modaliases: header in debian/control, any .deb can
6865 announce the hardware it support in a way my prototype understand.
6866 This allow those publishing packages in an APT source outside the
6867 Debian archive as well as those backporting packages to make sure the
6868 hardware mapping are included in the package meta information.  I've
6869 tested such header in the pymissile package, and its modalias mapping
6870 is working as it should with my prototype.  It even made it to Ubuntu
6871 Raring.</p>
6872
6873 <p>To test if it was possible to look up supported hardware using only
6874 the shell tools available in the Debian installer, I wrote a shell
6875 implementation of the lookup code.  The idea is to create files for
6876 each modalias and let the shell do the matching.  Please check out and
6877 try the
6878 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/hw-support-lookup?view=co">hw-support-lookup</a>
6879 shell script.  It run without any extra dependencies and fetch the
6880 hardware mappings from the Debian archive and the subversion
6881 repository where I currently work on my prototype.</p>
6882
6883 <p>When I use it on a machine with a yubikey inserted, it suggest to
6884 install yubikey-personalization:</p>
6885
6886 <p><blockquote>
6887 % ./hw-support-lookup
6888 <br>yubikey-personalization
6889 <br>%
6890 </blockquote></p>
6891
6892 <p>When I run it on my Thinkpad X40 with a PCMCIA/CardBus slot, it
6893 propose to install the pcmciautils package:</p>
6894
6895 <p><blockquote>
6896 % ./hw-support-lookup
6897 <br>pcmciautils
6898 <br>%
6899 </blockquote></p>
6900
6901 <p>If you know of any hardware-package mapping that should be added to
6902 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=co">my
6903 database</a>, please tell me about it.</p>
6904
6905 <p>It could be possible to generate several of the mappings between
6906 packages and hardware.  One source would be to look at packages with
6907 kernel modules, ie packages with *.ko files in /lib/modules/, and
6908 extract their modalias information.  Another would be to look at
6909 packages with udev rules, ie packages with files in
6910 /lib/udev/rules.d/, and extract their vendor/model information to
6911 generate a modalias matching rule.  I have not tested any of these to
6912 see if it work.</p>
6913
6914 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
6915 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
6916 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
6917 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel</a>.</p>
6918
6919       </div>
6920       <div class="tags">
6921
6922
6923         Tags: <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>.
6924
6925
6926       </div>
6927     </div>
6928     <div class="padding"></div>
6929
6930     <div class="entry">
6931       <div class="title">
6932         <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>
6933       </div>
6934       <div class="date">
6935         14th January 2013
6936       </div>
6937       <div class="body">
6938         <p>While looking into how to look up Debian packages based on hardware
6939 information, to find the packages that support a given piece of
6940 hardware, I refreshed my memory regarding modalias values, and decided
6941 to document the details.  Here are my findings so far, also available
6942 in
6943 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
6944 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>:
6945
6946 <p><strong>Modalias decoded</strong></p>
6947
6948 <p>This document try to explain what the different types of modalias
6949 values stands for.  It is in part based on information from
6950 &lt;URL: <a href="https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias">https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias</a> &gt;,
6951 &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;,
6952 &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
6953 &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;.
6954
6955 <p>The modalias entries for a given Linux machine can be found using
6956 this shell script:</p>
6957
6958 <pre>
6959 find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u
6960 </pre>
6961
6962 <p>The supported modalias globs for a given kernel module can be found
6963 using modinfo:</p>
6964
6965 <pre>
6966 % /sbin/modinfo psmouse | grep alias:
6967 alias:          serio:ty05pr*id*ex*
6968 alias:          serio:ty01pr*id*ex*
6969 %
6970 </pre>
6971
6972 <p><strong>PCI subtype</strong></p>
6973
6974 <p>A typical PCI entry can look like this.  This is an Intel Host
6975 Bridge memory controller:</p>
6976
6977 <p><blockquote>
6978 pci:v00008086d00002770sv00001028sd000001ADbc06sc00i00
6979 </blockquote></p>
6980
6981 <p>This represent these values:</p>
6982
6983 <pre>
6984  v   00008086  (vendor)
6985  d   00002770  (device)
6986  sv  00001028  (subvendor)
6987  sd  000001AD  (subdevice)
6988  bc  06        (bus class)
6989  sc  00        (bus subclass)
6990  i   00        (interface)
6991 </pre>
6992
6993 <p>The vendor/device values are the same values outputted from 'lspci
6994 -n' as 8086:2770.  The bus class/subclass is also shown by lspci as
6995 0600.  The 0600 class is a host bridge.  Other useful bus values are
6996 0300 (VGA compatible card) and 0200 (Ethernet controller).</p>
6997
6998 <p>Not sure how to figure out the interface value, nor what it
6999 means.</p>
7000
7001 <p><strong>USB subtype</strong></p>
7002
7003 <p>Some typical USB entries can look like this.  This is an internal
7004 USB hub in a laptop:</p>
7005
7006 <p><blockquote>
7007 usb:v1D6Bp0001d0206dc09dsc00dp00ic09isc00ip00
7008 </blockquote></p>
7009
7010 <p>Here is the values included in this alias:</p>
7011
7012 <pre>
7013  v    1D6B  (device vendor)
7014  p    0001  (device product)
7015  d    0206  (bcddevice)
7016  dc     09  (device class)
7017  dsc    00  (device subclass)
7018  dp     00  (device protocol)
7019  ic     09  (interface class)
7020  isc    00  (interface subclass)
7021  ip     00  (interface protocol)
7022 </pre>
7023
7024 <p>The 0900 device class/subclass means hub.  Some times the relevant
7025 class is in the interface class section.  For a simple USB web camera,
7026 these alias entries show up:</p>
7027
7028 <p><blockquote>
7029 usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc01ip00
7030 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc02ip00
7031 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc01ip00
7032 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc02ip00
7033 </blockquote></p>
7034
7035 <p>Interface class 0E01 is video control, 0E02 is video streaming (aka
7036 camera), 0101 is audio control device and 0102 is audio streaming (aka
7037 microphone).  Thus this is a camera with microphone included.</p>
7038
7039 <p><strong>ACPI subtype</strong></p>
7040
7041 <p>The ACPI type is used for several non-PCI/USB stuff.  This is an IR
7042 receiver in a Thinkpad X40:</p>
7043
7044 <p><blockquote>
7045 acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
7046 </blockquote></p>
7047
7048 <p>The values between the colons are IDs.</p>
7049
7050 <p><strong>DMI subtype</strong></p>
7051
7052 <p>The DMI table contain lots of information about the computer case
7053 and model.  This is an entry for a IBM Thinkpad X40, fetched from
7054 /sys/devices/virtual/dmi/id/modalias:</p>
7055
7056 <p><blockquote>
7057 dmi:bvnIBM:bvr1UETB6WW(1.66):bd06/15/2005:svnIBM:pn2371H4G:pvrThinkPadX40:rvnIBM:rn2371H4G:rvrNotAvailable:cvnIBM:ct10:cvrNotAvailable:
7058 </blockquote></p>
7059
7060 <p>The values present are</p>
7061
7062 <pre>
7063  bvn  IBM            (BIOS vendor)
7064  bvr  1UETB6WW(1.66) (BIOS version)
7065  bd   06/15/2005     (BIOS date)
7066  svn  IBM            (system vendor)
7067  pn   2371H4G        (product name)
7068  pvr  ThinkPadX40    (product version)
7069  rvn  IBM            (board vendor)
7070  rn   2371H4G        (board name)
7071  rvr  NotAvailable   (board version)
7072  cvn  IBM            (chassis vendor)
7073  ct   10             (chassis type)
7074  cvr  NotAvailable   (chassis version)
7075 </pre>
7076
7077 <p>The chassis type 10 is Notebook.  Other interesting values can be
7078 found in the dmidecode source:</p>
7079
7080 <pre>
7081   3 Desktop
7082   4 Low Profile Desktop
7083   5 Pizza Box
7084   6 Mini Tower
7085   7 Tower
7086   8 Portable
7087   9 Laptop
7088  10 Notebook
7089  11 Hand Held
7090  12 Docking Station
7091  13 All In One
7092  14 Sub Notebook
7093  15 Space-saving
7094  16 Lunch Box
7095  17 Main Server Chassis
7096  18 Expansion Chassis
7097  19 Sub Chassis
7098  20 Bus Expansion Chassis
7099  21 Peripheral Chassis
7100  22 RAID Chassis
7101  23 Rack Mount Chassis
7102  24 Sealed-case PC
7103  25 Multi-system
7104  26 CompactPCI
7105  27 AdvancedTCA
7106  28 Blade
7107  29 Blade Enclosing
7108 </pre>
7109
7110 <p>The chassis type values are not always accurately set in the DMI
7111 table.  For example my home server is a tower, but the DMI modalias
7112 claim it is a desktop.</p>
7113
7114 <p><strong>SerIO subtype</strong></p>
7115
7116 <p>This type is used for PS/2 mouse plugs.  One example is from my
7117 test machine:</p>
7118
7119 <p><blockquote>
7120 serio:ty01pr00id00ex00
7121 </blockquote></p>
7122
7123 <p>The values present are</p>
7124
7125 <pre>
7126   ty  01  (type)
7127   pr  00  (prototype)
7128   id  00  (id)
7129   ex  00  (extra)
7130 </pre>
7131
7132 <p>This type is supported by the psmouse driver.  I am not sure what
7133 the valid values are.</p>
7134
7135 <p><strong>Other subtypes</strong></p>
7136
7137 <p>There are heaps of other modalias subtypes according to
7138 file2alias.c.  There is the rest of the list from that source: amba,
7139 ap, bcma, ccw, css, eisa, hid, i2c, ieee1394, input, ipack, isapnp,
7140 mdio, of, parisc, pcmcia, platform, scsi, sdio, spi, ssb, vio, virtio,
7141 vmbus, x86cpu and zorro.  I did not spend time documenting all of
7142 these, as they do not seem relevant for my intended use with mapping
7143 hardware to packages when new stuff is inserted during run time.</p>
7144
7145 <p><strong>Looking up kernel modules using modalias values</strong></p>
7146
7147 <p>To check which kernel modules provide support for a given modalias,
7148 one can use the following shell script:</p>
7149
7150 <pre>
7151   for id in $(find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u); do \
7152     echo "$id" ; \
7153     /sbin/modprobe --show-depends "$id"|sed 's/^/  /' ; \
7154   done
7155 </pre>
7156
7157 <p>The output can look like this (only the first few entries as the
7158 list is very long on my test machine):</p>
7159
7160 <pre>
7161   acpi:ACPI0003:
7162     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/acpi/ac.ko
7163   acpi:device:
7164   FATAL: Module acpi:device: not found.
7165   acpi:IBM0068:
7166     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/char/nvram.ko
7167     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/leds/led-class.ko
7168     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/rfkill/rfkill.ko
7169     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/platform/x86/thinkpad_acpi.ko
7170   acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
7171     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/lib/crc-ccitt.ko
7172     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/irda/irda.ko
7173     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/net/irda/nsc-ircc.ko
7174   [...]
7175 </pre>
7176
7177 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
7178 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
7179 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
7180 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel</a>.</p>
7181
7182 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-15:</strong> Rewrite "cat $(find ...)" to
7183 "find ... -print0 | xargs -0 cat" to make sure it handle directories
7184 in /sys/ with space in them.</p>
7185
7186       </div>
7187       <div class="tags">
7188
7189
7190         Tags: <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>.
7191
7192
7193       </div>
7194     </div>
7195     <div class="padding"></div>
7196
7197     <div class="entry">
7198       <div class="title">
7199         <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>
7200       </div>
7201       <div class="date">
7202         10th January 2013
7203       </div>
7204       <div class="body">
7205         <p>As part of my investigation on how to improve the support in Debian
7206 for hardware dongles, I dug up my old Mark and Spencer USB Rocket
7207 Launcher and updated the Debian package
7208 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pymissile">pymissile</a> to make
7209 sure udev will fix the device permissions when it is plugged in.  I
7210 also added a "Modaliases" header to test it in the Debian archive and
7211 hopefully make the package be proposed by jockey in Ubuntu when a user
7212 plug in his rocket launcher.  In the process I moved the source to a
7213 git repository under collab-maint, to make it easier for any DD to
7214 contribute.  <a href="http://code.google.com/p/pymissile/">Upstream</a>
7215 is not very active, but the software still work for me even after five
7216 years of relative silence.  The new git repository is not listed in
7217 the uploaded package yet, because I want to test the other changes a
7218 bit more before I upload the new version.  If you want to check out
7219 the new version with a .desktop file included, visit the
7220 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/pymissile.git">gitweb
7221 view</a> or use "<tt>git clone
7222 git://anonscm.debian.org/collab-maint/pymissile.git</tt>".</p>
7223
7224       </div>
7225       <div class="tags">
7226
7227
7228         Tags: <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>.
7229
7230
7231       </div>
7232     </div>
7233     <div class="padding"></div>
7234
7235     <div class="entry">
7236       <div class="title">
7237         <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>
7238       </div>
7239       <div class="date">
7240          9th January 2013
7241       </div>
7242       <div class="body">
7243         <p>One thing that annoys me with Debian and Linux distributions in
7244 general, is that there is a great package management system with the
7245 ability to automatically install software packages by downloading them
7246 from the distribution mirrors, but no way to get it to automatically
7247 install the packages I need to use the hardware I plug into my
7248 machine.  Even if the package to use it is easily available from the
7249 Linux distribution.  When I plug in a LEGO Mindstorms NXT, it could
7250 suggest to automatically install the python-nxt, nbc and t2n packages
7251 I need to talk to it.  When I plug in a Yubikey, it could propose the
7252 yubikey-personalization package.  The information required to do this
7253 is available, but no-one have pulled all the pieces together.</p>
7254
7255 <p>Some years ago, I proposed to
7256 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg01206.html">use
7257 the discover subsystem to implement this</a>.  The idea is fairly
7258 simple:
7259
7260 <ul>
7261
7262 <li>Add a desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ pointing to a program
7263   starting when a user log in.</li>
7264
7265 <li>Set this program up to listen for kernel events emitted when new
7266   hardware is inserted into the computer.</li>
7267
7268 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware ID in a
7269   database mapping to packages, and take note of any non-installed
7270   packages.</li>
7271
7272 <li>Show a message to the user proposing to install the discovered
7273   package, and make it easy to install it.</li>
7274
7275 </ul>
7276
7277 <p>I am not sure what the best way to implement this is, but my
7278 initial idea was to use dbus events to discover new hardware, the
7279 discover database to find packages and
7280 <a href="http://www.packagekit.org/">PackageKit</a> to install
7281 packages.</p>
7282
7283 <p>Yesterday, I found time to try to implement this idea, and the
7284 draft package is now checked into
7285 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
7286 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>.  In the process, I updated the
7287 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover-data.html">discover-data</a>
7288 package to map the USB ids of LEGO Mindstorms and Yubikey devices to
7289 the relevant packages in Debian, and uploaded a new version
7290 2.2013.01.09 to unstable.  I also discovered that the current
7291 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover.html">discover</a>
7292 package in Debian no longer discovered any USB devices, because
7293 /proc/bus/usb/devices is no longer present.  I ported it to use
7294 libusb as a fall back option to get it working.  The fixed package
7295 version 2.1.2-6 is now in experimental (didn't upload it to unstable
7296 because of the freeze).</p>
7297
7298 <p>With this prototype in place, I can insert my Yubikey, and get this
7299 desktop notification to show up (only once, the first time it is
7300 inserted):</p>
7301
7302 <p align="center"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-09-hw-autoinstall.png"></p>
7303
7304 <p>For this prototype to be really useful, some way to automatically
7305 install the proposed packages by pressing the "Please install
7306 program(s)" button should to be implemented.</p>
7307
7308 <p>If this idea seem useful to you, and you want to help make it
7309 happen, please help me update the discover-data database with mappings
7310 from hardware to Debian packages.  Check if 'discover-pkginstall -l'
7311 list the package you would like to have installed when a given
7312 hardware device is inserted into your computer, and report bugs using
7313 reportbug if it isn't.  Or, if you know of a better way to provide
7314 such mapping, please let me know.</p>
7315
7316 <p>This prototype need more work, and there are several questions that
7317 should be considered before it is ready for production use.  Is dbus
7318 the correct way to detect new hardware?  At the moment I look for HAL
7319 dbus events on the system bus, because that is the events I could see
7320 on my Debian Squeeze KDE desktop.  Are there better events to use?
7321 How should the user be notified?  Is the desktop notification
7322 mechanism the best option, or should the background daemon raise a
7323 popup instead?  How should packages be installed?  When should they
7324 not be installed?</p>
7325
7326 <p>If you want to help getting such feature implemented in Debian,
7327 please send me an email. :)</p>
7328
7329       </div>
7330       <div class="tags">
7331
7332
7333         Tags: <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>.
7334
7335
7336       </div>
7337     </div>
7338     <div class="padding"></div>
7339
7340     <div class="entry">
7341       <div class="title">
7342         <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>
7343       </div>
7344       <div class="date">
7345          2nd January 2013
7346       </div>
7347       <div class="body">
7348         <p>During Christmas, I have worked a bit on the Debian support for
7349 <a href="http://mindstorms.lego.com/en-us/Default.aspx">LEGO Mindstorm
7350 NXT</a>.  My son and I have played a bit with my NXT set, and I
7351 discovered I had to build all the tools myself because none were
7352 already in Debian Squeeze.  If Debian support for LEGO is something
7353 you care about, please join me on the IRC channel
7354 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">#debian-lego</a> (server
7355 irc.debian.org).  There is a lot that could be done to improve the
7356 Debian support for LEGO designers.  For example both CAD software
7357 and Mindstorm compilers are missing. :)</p>
7358
7359 <p>Update 2012-01-03: A
7360 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">project page</a>
7361 including links to Lego related packages is now available.</p>
7362
7363       </div>
7364       <div class="tags">
7365
7366
7367         Tags: <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>.
7368
7369
7370       </div>
7371     </div>
7372     <div class="padding"></div>
7373
7374     <div class="entry">
7375       <div class="title">
7376         <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>
7377       </div>
7378       <div class="date">
7379         25th December 2012
7380       </div>
7381       <div class="body">
7382         <p>Let me start by wishing you all marry Christmas and a happy new
7383 year!  I hope next year will prove to be a good year.</p>
7384
7385 <p><a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">Bitcoin</a>, the digital
7386 decentralised "currency" that allow people to transfer bitcoins
7387 between each other with minimal overhead, is a very interesting
7388 experiment.  And as I wrote a few days ago, the bitcoin situation in
7389 <a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</a> is about to improve a bit.
7390 The <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">new debian source
7391 package</a> (version 0.7.2-2) was uploaded yesterday, and is waiting
7392 in <a href="http://ftp-master.debian.org/new.html">the NEW queue</A>
7393 for one of the ftpmasters to approve the new bitcoin-qt package
7394 name.</p>
7395
7396 <p>And thanks to the great work of Jonas and the rest of the bitcoin
7397 team in Debian, you can easily test the package in Debian Squeeze
7398 using the following steps to get a set of working packages:</p>
7399
7400 <blockquote><pre>
7401 git clone git://git.debian.org/git/collab-maint/bitcoin
7402 cd bitcoin
7403 DEB_MAINTAINER_MODE=1 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp fakeroot debian/rules clean
7404 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp git-buildpackage --git-ignore-new
7405 </pre></blockquote>
7406
7407 <p>You might have to install some build dependencies as well.  The
7408 list of commands should give you two packages, bitcoind and
7409 bitcoin-qt, ready for use in a Squeeze environment.  Note that the
7410 client will download the complete set of bitcoin "blocks", which need
7411 around 5.6 GiB of data on my machine at the moment.  Make sure your
7412 ~/.bitcoin/ directory have lots of spare room if you want to download
7413 all the blocks.  The client will warn if the disk is getting full, so
7414 there is not really a problem if you got too little room, but you will
7415 not be able to get all the features out of the client.</p>
7416
7417 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
7418 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
7419 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
7420
7421       </div>
7422       <div class="tags">
7423
7424
7425         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>.
7426
7427
7428       </div>
7429     </div>
7430     <div class="padding"></div>
7431
7432     <div class="entry">
7433       <div class="title">
7434         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_word_on_bitcoin_support_in_Debian.html">A word on bitcoin support in Debian</a>
7435       </div>
7436       <div class="date">
7437         21st December 2012
7438       </div>
7439       <div class="body">
7440         <p>It has been a while since I wrote about
7441 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">bitcoin</a>, the decentralised
7442 peer-to-peer based crypto-currency, and the reason is simply that I
7443 have been busy elsewhere.  But two days ago, I started looking at the
7444 state of <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin in
7445 Debian</a> again to try to recover my old bitcoin wallet.  The package
7446 is now maintained by a
7447 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/pkg-bitcoin/">team of
7448 people</a>, and the grunt work had already been done by this team.  We
7449 owe a huge thank you to all these team members. :)
7450 But I was sad to discover that the bitcoin client is missing in
7451 Wheezy.  It is only available in Sid (and an outdated client from
7452 backports).  The client had several RC bugs registered in BTS blocking
7453 it from entering testing.  To try to help the team and improve the
7454 situation, I spent some time providing patches and triaging the bug
7455 reports.  I also had a look at the bitcoin package available from Matt
7456 Corallo in a
7457 <a href="https://launchpad.net/~bitcoin/+archive/bitcoin">PPA for
7458 Ubuntu</a>, and moved the useful pieces from that version into the
7459 Debian package.</p>
7460
7461 <p>After checking with the main package maintainer Jonas Smedegaard on
7462 IRC, I pushed several patches into the collab-maint git repository to
7463 improve the package.  It now contains fixes for the RC issues (not from
7464 me, but fixed by Scott Howard), build rules for a Qt GUI client
7465 package, konqueror support for the bitcoin: URI and bash completion
7466 setup.  As I work on Debian Squeeze, I also created
7467 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-bitcoin-devel/Week-of-Mon-20121217/000041.html">a
7468 patch to backport</a> the latest version.  Jonas is going to look at
7469 it and try to integrate it into the git repository before uploading a
7470 new version to unstable.
7471
7472 <p>I would very much like bitcoin to succeed, to get rid of the
7473 centralized control currently exercised in the monetary system.  I
7474 find it completely unacceptable that the USA government is collecting
7475 transaction data for almost all international money transfers (most are done in USD and transaction logs shipped to the spooks), and
7476 that the major credit card companies can block legal money
7477 transactions to Wikileaks.  But for bitcoin to succeed, more people
7478 need to use bitcoins, and more people need to accept bitcoins when
7479 they sell products and services.  Improving the bitcoin support in
7480 Debian is a small step in the right direction, but not enough.
7481 Unfortunately the user experience when browsing the web and wanting to
7482 pay with bitcoin is still not very good.  The bitcoin: URI is a step
7483 in the right direction, but need to work in most or every browser in
7484 use.  Also the bitcoin-qt client is too heavy to fire up to do a
7485 quick transaction.  I believe there are other clients available, but
7486 have not tested them.</p>
7487
7488 <p>My
7489 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Now_accepting_bitcoins___anonymous_and_distributed_p2p_crypto_money.html">experiment
7490 with bitcoins</a> showed that at least some of my readers use bitcoin.
7491 I received 20.15 BTC so far on the address I provided in my blog two
7492 years ago, as can be
7493 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">seen
7494 on the blockexplorer service</a>.  Thank you everyone for your
7495 donation.  The blockexplorer service demonstrates quite well that
7496 bitcoin is not quite anonymous and untracked. :) I wonder if the
7497 number of users have gone up since then.  If you use bitcoin and want
7498 to show your support of my activity, please send Bitcoin donations to
7499 the same address as last time,
7500 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
7501
7502       </div>
7503       <div class="tags">
7504
7505
7506         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>.
7507
7508
7509       </div>
7510     </div>
7511     <div class="padding"></div>
7512
7513     <div class="entry">
7514       <div class="title">
7515         <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>
7516       </div>
7517       <div class="date">
7518          7th September 2012
7519       </div>
7520       <div class="body">
7521         <p>As I
7522 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">mentioned
7523 this summer</a>, I have created a Computer Science song book a few
7524 years ago, and today I finally found time to create a public
7525 <a href="https://gitorious.org/pere-cs-songbook/pere-cs-songbook">Gitorious
7526 repository for the project</a>.</p>
7527
7528 <p>If you want to help out, please clone the source and submit patches
7529 to the HTML version.  To generate the PDF and PostScript version,
7530 please use prince XML, or let me know about a useful free software
7531 processor capable of creating a good looking PDF from the HTML.</p>
7532
7533 <p>Want to sing?  You can still find the song book in HTML, PDF and
7534 PostScript formats at
7535 <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's Computer
7536 Science Songbook</a>.</p>
7537
7538       </div>
7539       <div class="tags">
7540
7541
7542         Tags: <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>.
7543
7544
7545       </div>
7546     </div>
7547     <div class="padding"></div>
7548
7549     <div class="entry">
7550       <div class="title">
7551         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gratulerer_med_19__rsdagen__Debian_.html">Gratulerer med 19-årsdagen, Debian!</a>
7552       </div>
7553       <div class="date">
7554         16th August 2012
7555       </div>
7556       <div class="body">
7557         <p>I dag fyller
7558 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120813">Debian-prosjektet 19
7559 år</a>.  Jeg har fulgt det de siste 12 årene, og er veldig glad for å kunne
7560 si gratulerer med dagen, Debian!</p>
7561
7562       </div>
7563       <div class="tags">
7564
7565
7566         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>.
7567
7568
7569       </div>
7570     </div>
7571     <div class="padding"></div>
7572
7573     <div class="entry">
7574       <div class="title">
7575         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">Song book for Computer Scientists</a>
7576       </div>
7577       <div class="date">
7578         24th June 2012
7579       </div>
7580       <div class="body">
7581         <p>Many years ago, while studying Computer Science at the
7582 <a href="http://www.uit.no/">University of Tromsø</a>, I started
7583 collecting computer related songs for use at parties.  The original
7584 version was written in LaTeX, but a few years ago I got help from
7585 Håkon W. Lie, one of the inventors of W3C CSS, to convert it to HTML
7586 while keeping the ability to create a nice book in PDF format.  I have
7587 not had time to maintain the book for a while now, and guess I should
7588 put it up on some public version control repository where others can
7589 help me extend and update the book.  If anyone is volunteering to help
7590 me with this, send me an email.  Also let me know if there are songs
7591 missing in my book.</p>
7592
7593 <p>I have not mentioned the book on my blog so far, and it occured to
7594 me today that I really should let all my readers share the joys of
7595 singing out load about programming, computers and computer networks.
7596 Especially now that <a href="http://debconf12.debconf.org/">Debconf
7597 12</a> is about to start (and I am not going).  Want to sing?  Check
7598 out <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's
7599 Computer Science Songbook</a>.
7600
7601       </div>
7602       <div class="tags">
7603
7604
7605         Tags: <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>.
7606
7607
7608       </div>
7609     </div>
7610     <div class="padding"></div>
7611
7612     <div class="entry">
7613       <div class="title">
7614         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatically_upgrading_server_firmware_on_Dell_PowerEdge.html">Automatically upgrading server firmware on Dell PowerEdge</a>
7615       </div>
7616       <div class="date">
7617         21st November 2011
7618       </div>
7619       <div class="body">
7620         <p>At work we have heaps of servers.  I believe the total count is
7621 around 1000 at the moment.  To be able to get help from the vendors
7622 when something go wrong, we want to keep the firmware on the servers
7623 up to date.  If the firmware isn't the latest and greatest, the
7624 vendors typically refuse to start debugging any problems until the
7625 firmware is upgraded.  So before every reboot, we want to upgrade the
7626 firmware, and we would really like everyone handling servers at the
7627 university to do this themselves when they plan to reboot a machine.
7628 For that to happen we at the unix server admin group need to provide
7629 the tools to do so.</p>
7630
7631 <p>To make firmware upgrading easier, I am working on a script to
7632 fetch and install the latest firmware for the servers we got.  Most of
7633 our hardware are from Dell and HP, so I have focused on these servers
7634 so far.  This blog post is about the Dell part.</P>
7635
7636 <p>On the Dell FTP site I was lucky enough to find
7637 <a href="ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz">an XML file</a>
7638 with firmware information for all 11th generation servers, listing
7639 which firmware should be used on a given model and where on the FTP
7640 site I can find it.  Using a simple perl XML parser I can then
7641 download the shell scripts Dell provides to do firmware upgrades from
7642 within Linux and reboot when all the firmware is primed and ready to
7643 be activated on the first reboot.</p>
7644
7645 <p>This is the Dell related fragment of the perl code I am working on.
7646 Are there anyone working on similar tools for firmware upgrading all
7647 servers at a site?  Please get in touch and lets share resources.</p>
7648
7649 <p><pre>
7650 #!/usr/bin/perl
7651 use strict;
7652 use warnings;
7653 use File::Temp qw(tempdir);
7654 BEGIN {
7655     # Install needed RHEL packages if missing
7656     my %rhelmodules = (
7657         'XML::Simple' => 'perl-XML-Simple',
7658         );
7659     for my $module (keys %rhelmodules) {
7660         eval "use $module;";
7661         if ($@) {
7662             my $pkg = $rhelmodules{$module};
7663             system("yum install -y $pkg");
7664             eval "use $module;";
7665         }
7666     }
7667 }
7668 my $errorsto = 'pere@hungry.com';
7669
7670 upgrade_dell();
7671
7672 exit 0;
7673
7674 sub run_firmware_script {
7675     my ($opts, $script) = @_;
7676     unless ($script) {
7677         print STDERR "fail: missing script name\n";
7678         exit 1
7679     }
7680     print STDERR "Running $script\n\n";
7681
7682     if (0 == system("sh $script $opts")) { # FIXME correct exit code handling
7683         print STDERR "success: firmware script ran succcessfully\n";
7684     } else {
7685         print STDERR "fail: firmware script returned error\n";
7686     }
7687 }
7688
7689 sub run_firmware_scripts {
7690     my ($opts, @dirs) = @_;
7691     # Run firmware packages
7692     for my $dir (@dirs) {
7693         print STDERR "info: Running scripts in $dir\n";
7694         opendir(my $dh, $dir) or die "Unable to open directory $dir: $!";
7695         while (my $s = readdir $dh) {
7696             next if $s =~ m/^\.\.?/;
7697             run_firmware_script($opts, "$dir/$s");
7698         }
7699         closedir $dh;
7700     }
7701 }
7702
7703 sub download {
7704     my $url = shift;
7705     print STDERR "info: Downloading $url\n";
7706     system("wget --quiet \"$url\"");
7707 }
7708
7709 sub upgrade_dell {
7710     my @dirs;
7711     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
7712     chomp $product;
7713
7714     if ($product =~ m/PowerEdge/) {
7715
7716         # on RHEL, these pacakges are needed by the firwmare upgrade scripts
7717         system('yum install -y compat-libstdc++-33.i686 libstdc++.i686 libxml2.i686 procmail');
7718
7719         my $tmpdir = tempdir(
7720             CLEANUP => 1
7721             );
7722         chdir($tmpdir);
7723         fetch_dell_fw('catalog/Catalog.xml.gz');
7724         system('gunzip Catalog.xml.gz');
7725         my @paths = fetch_dell_fw_list('Catalog.xml');
7726         # -q is quiet, disabling interactivity and reducing console output
7727         my $fwopts = "-q";
7728         if (@paths) {
7729             for my $url (@paths) {
7730                 fetch_dell_fw($url);
7731             }
7732             run_firmware_scripts($fwopts, $tmpdir);
7733         } else {
7734             print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
7735             print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
7736         }
7737         chdir('/');
7738     } else {
7739         print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
7740         print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
7741     }
7742 }
7743
7744 sub fetch_dell_fw {
7745     my $path = shift;
7746     my $url = "ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/$path";
7747     download($url);
7748 }
7749
7750 # Using ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz, figure out which
7751 # firmware packages to download from Dell.  Only work for Linux
7752 # machines and 11th generation Dell servers.
7753 sub fetch_dell_fw_list {
7754     my $filename = shift;
7755
7756     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
7757     chomp $product;
7758     my ($mybrand, $mymodel) = split(/\s+/, $product);
7759
7760     print STDERR "Finding firmware bundles for $mybrand $mymodel\n";
7761
7762     my $xml = XMLin($filename);
7763     my @paths;
7764     for my $bundle (@{$xml->{SoftwareBundle}}) {
7765         my $brand = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Display}->{content};
7766         my $model = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Model}->{Display}->{content};
7767         my $oscode;
7768         if ("ARRAY" eq ref $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}) {
7769             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}[0]->{osCode};
7770         } else {
7771             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}->{osCode};
7772         }
7773         if ($mybrand eq $brand && $mymodel eq $model && "LIN" eq $oscode)
7774         {
7775             @paths = map { $_->{path} } @{$bundle->{Contents}->{Package}};
7776         }
7777     }
7778     for my $component (@{$xml->{SoftwareComponent}}) {
7779         my $componenttype = $component->{ComponentType}->{value};
7780
7781         # Drop application packages, only firmware and BIOS
7782         next if 'APAC' eq $componenttype;
7783
7784         my $cpath = $component->{path};
7785         for my $path (@paths) {
7786             if ($cpath =~ m%/$path$%) {
7787                 push(@paths, $cpath);
7788             }
7789         }
7790     }
7791     return @paths;
7792 }
7793 </pre>
7794
7795 <p>The code is only tested on RedHat Enterprise Linux, but I suspect
7796 it could work on other platforms with some tweaking.  Anyone know a
7797 index like Catalog.xml is available from HP for HP servers?  At the
7798 moment I maintain a similar list manually and it is quickly getting
7799 outdated.</p>
7800
7801       </div>
7802       <div class="tags">
7803
7804
7805         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
7806
7807
7808       </div>
7809     </div>
7810     <div class="padding"></div>
7811
7812     <div class="entry">
7813       <div class="title">
7814         <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>
7815       </div>
7816       <div class="date">
7817          4th August 2011
7818       </div>
7819       <div class="body">
7820         <p>Wouter Verhelst have some
7821 <a href="http://grep.be/blog/en/retorts/pere_kubuntu_boot">interesting
7822 comments and opinions</a> on my blog post on
7823 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_should_start_from__etc_rcS_d__in_Debian____almost_nothing.html">the
7824 need to clean up /etc/rcS.d/ in Debian</a> and my blog post about
7825 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_missing_in_the_Debian_desktop__or_why_my_parents_use_Kubuntu.html">the
7826 default KDE desktop in Debian</a>.  I only have time to address one
7827 small piece of his comment now, and though it best to address the
7828 misunderstanding he bring forward:</p>
7829
7830 <p><blockquote>
7831 Currently, a system admin has four options: [...] boot to a
7832 single-user system (by adding 'single' to the kernel command line;
7833 this runs rcS and rc1 scripts)
7834 </blockquote></p>
7835
7836 <p>This make me believe Wouter believe booting into single user mode
7837 and booting into runlevel 1 is the same.  I am not surprised he
7838 believe this, because it would make sense and is a quite sensible
7839 thing to believe.  But because the boot in Debian is slightly broken,
7840 runlevel 1 do not work properly and it isn't the same as single user
7841 mode.  I'll try to explain what is actually happing, but it is a bit
7842 hard to explain.</p>
7843
7844 <p>Single user mode is defined like this in /etc/inittab:
7845 "<tt>~~:S:wait:/sbin/sulogin</tt>".  This means the only thing that is
7846 executed in single user mode is sulogin.  Single user mode is a boot
7847 state "between" the runlevels, and when booting into single user mode,
7848 only the scripts in /etc/rcS.d/ are executed before the init process
7849 enters the single user state.  When switching to runlevel 1, the state
7850 is in fact not ending in runlevel 1, but it passes through runlevel 1
7851 and end up in the single user mode (see /etc/rc1.d/S03single, which
7852 runs "init -t1 S" to switch to single user mode at the end of runlevel
7853 1.  It is confusing that the 'S' (single user) init mode is not the
7854 mode enabled by /etc/rcS.d/ (which is more like the initial boot
7855 mode).</p>
7856
7857 <p>This summary might make it clearer.  When booting for the first
7858 time into single user mode, the following commands are executed:
7859 "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc S; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  When booting into
7860 runlevel 1, the following commands are executed: "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc
7861 S; /etc/init.d/rc 1; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  A problem show up when
7862 trying to continue after visiting single user mode.  Not all services
7863 are started again as they should, causing the machine to end up in an
7864 unpredicatble state.  This is why Debian admins recommend rebooting
7865 after visiting single user mode.</p>
7866
7867 <p>A similar problem with runlevel 1 is caused by the amount of
7868 scripts executed from /etc/rcS.d/.  When switching from say runlevel 2
7869 to runlevel 1, the services started from /etc/rcS.d/ are not properly
7870 stopped when passing through the scripts in /etc/rc1.d/, and not
7871 started again when switching away from runlevel 1 to the runlevels
7872 2-5.  I believe the problem is best fixed by moving all the scripts
7873 out of /etc/rcS.d/ that are not <strong>required</strong> to get a
7874 functioning single user mode during boot.</p>
7875
7876 <p>I have spent several years investigating the Debian boot system,
7877 and discovered this problem a few years ago.  I suspect it originates
7878 from when sysvinit was introduced into Debian, a long time ago.</p>
7879
7880       </div>
7881       <div class="tags">
7882
7883
7884         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>.
7885
7886
7887       </div>
7888     </div>
7889     <div class="padding"></div>
7890
7891     <div class="entry">
7892       <div class="title">
7893         <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>
7894       </div>
7895       <div class="date">
7896         30th July 2011
7897       </div>
7898       <div class="body">
7899         <p>In the Debian boot system, several packages include scripts that
7900 are started from /etc/rcS.d/.  In fact, there is a bite more of them
7901 than make sense, and this causes a few problems.  What kind of
7902 problems, you might ask.  There are at least two problems.  The first
7903 is that it is not possible to recover a machine after switching to
7904 runlevel 1.  One need to actually reboot to get the machine back to
7905 the expected state.  The other is that single user boot will sometimes
7906 run into problems because some of the subsystems are activated before
7907 the root login is presented, causing problems when trying to recover a
7908 machine from a problem in that subsystem.  A minor additional point is
7909 that moving more scripts out of rcS.d/ and into the other rc#.d/
7910 directories will increase the amount of scripts that can run in
7911 parallel during boot, and thus decrease the boot time.</p>
7912
7913 <p>So, which scripts should start from rcS.d/.  In short, only the
7914 scripts that _have_ to execute before the root login prompt is
7915 presented during a single user boot should go there.  Everything else
7916 should go into the numeric runlevels.  This means things like
7917 lm-sensors, fuse and x11-common should not run from rcS.d, but from
7918 the numeric runlevels.  Today in Debian, there are around 115 init.d
7919 scripts that are started from rcS.d/, and most of them should be moved
7920 out.  Do your package have one of them?  Please help us make single
7921 user and runlevel 1 better by moving it.</p>
7922
7923 <p>Scripts setting up the screen, keyboard, system partitions
7924 etc. should still be started from rcS.d/, but there is for example no
7925 need to have the network enabled before the single user login prompt
7926 is presented.</p>
7927
7928 <p>As always, things are not so easy to fix as they sound.  To keep
7929 Debian systems working while scripts migrate and during upgrades, the
7930 scripts need to be moved from rcS.d/ to rc2.d/ in reverse dependency
7931 order, ie the scripts that nothing in rcS.d/ depend on can be moved,
7932 and the next ones can only be moved when their dependencies have been
7933 moved first.  This migration must be done sequentially while we ensure
7934 that the package system upgrade packages in the right order to keep
7935 the system state correct.  This will require some coordination when it
7936 comes to network related packages, but most of the packages with
7937 scripts that should migrate do not have anything in rcS.d/ depending
7938 on them.  Some packages have already been updated, like the sudo
7939 package, while others are still left to do.  I wish I had time to work
7940 on this myself, but real live constrains make it unlikely that I will
7941 find time to push this forward.</p>
7942
7943       </div>
7944       <div class="tags">
7945
7946
7947         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>.
7948
7949
7950       </div>
7951     </div>
7952     <div class="padding"></div>
7953
7954     <div class="entry">
7955       <div class="title">
7956         <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>
7957       </div>
7958       <div class="date">
7959         29th July 2011
7960       </div>
7961       <div class="body">
7962         <p>While at Debconf11, I have several times during discussions
7963 mentioned the issues I believe should be improved in Debian for its
7964 desktop to be useful for more people.  The use case for this is my
7965 parents, which are currently running Kubuntu which solve the
7966 issues.</p>
7967
7968 <p>I suspect these four missing features are not very hard to
7969 implement.  After all, they are present in Ubuntu, so if we wanted to
7970 do this in Debian we would have a source.</p>
7971
7972 <ol>
7973
7974 <li><strong>Simple GUI based upgrade of packages.</strong> When there
7975 are new packages available for upgrades, a icon in the KDE status bar
7976 indicate this, and clicking on it will activate the simple upgrade
7977 tool to handle it.  I have no problem guiding both of my parents
7978 through the process over the phone.  If a kernel reboot is required,
7979 this too is indicated by the status bars and the upgrade tool.  Last
7980 time I checked, nothing with the same features was working in KDE in
7981 Debian.</li>
7982
7983 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing Firefox browser
7984 plugins.</strong> When the browser encounter a MIME type it do not
7985 currently have a handler for, it will ask the user if the system
7986 should search for a package that would add support for this MIME type,
7987 and if the user say yes, the APT sources will be searched for packages
7988 advertising the MIME type in their control file (visible in the
7989 Packages file in the APT archive).  If one or more packages are found,
7990 it is a simple click of the mouse to add support for the missing mime
7991 type.  If the package require the user to accept some non-free
7992 license, this is explained to the user.  The entire process make it
7993 more clear to the user why something do not work in the browser, and
7994 make the chances higher for the user to blame the web page authors and
7995 not the browser for any missing features.</li>
7996
7997 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing multimedia codec/format
7998 handlers.</strong> When the media players encounter a format or codec
7999 it is not supporting, a dialog pop up asking the user if the system
8000 should search for a package that would add support for it.  This
8001 happen with things like MP3, Windows Media or H.264.  The selection
8002 and installation procedure is very similar to the Firefox browser
8003 plugin handling.  This is as far as I know implemented using a
8004 gstreamer hook.  The end result is that the user easily get access to
8005 the codecs that are present from the APT archives available, while
8006 explaining more on why a given format is unsupported by Ubuntu.</li>
8007
8008 <li><strong>Better browser handling of some MIME types.</strong> When
8009 displaying a text/plain file in my Debian browser, it will propose to
8010 start emacs to show it.  If I remember correctly, when doing the same
8011 in Kunbutu it show the file as a text file in the browser.  At least I
8012 know Opera will show text files within the browser.  I much prefer the
8013 latter behaviour.</li>
8014
8015 </ol>
8016
8017 <p>There are other nice features as well, like the simplified suite
8018 upgrader, but given that I am the one mostly doing the dist-upgrade,
8019 it do not matter much.</p>
8020
8021 <p>I really hope we could get these features in place for the next
8022 Debian release.  It would require the coordinated effort of several
8023 maintainers, but would make the end user experience a lot better.</p>
8024
8025       </div>
8026       <div class="tags">
8027
8028
8029         Tags: <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>.
8030
8031
8032       </div>
8033     </div>
8034     <div class="padding"></div>
8035
8036     <div class="entry">
8037       <div class="title">
8038         <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>
8039       </div>
8040       <div class="date">
8041         26th July 2011
8042       </div>
8043       <div class="body">
8044         <p>The Norwegian <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</A>
8045 site is build on Debian/Squeeze, and this platform was chosen because
8046 I am most familiar with Debian (being a Debian Developer for around 10
8047 years) because it is the latest stable Debian release which should get
8048 security support for a few years.</p>
8049
8050 <p>The web service is written in Perl, and depend on some perl modules
8051 that are missing in Debian at the moment.  It would be great if these
8052 modules were added to the Debian archive, allowing anyone to set up
8053 their own <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com">FixMyStreet</a> clone
8054 in their own country using only Debian packages.  The list of modules
8055 missing in Debian/Squeeze isn't very long, and I hope the perl group
8056 will find time to package the 12 modules Catalyst::Plugin::SmartURI,
8057 Catalyst::Plugin::Unicode::Encoding, Catalyst::View::TT, Devel::Hide,
8058 Sort::Key, Statistics::Distributions, Template::Plugin::Comma,
8059 Template::Plugin::DateTime::Format, Term::Size::Any, Term::Size::Perl,
8060 URI::SmartURI and Web::Scraper to make the maintenance of FixMyStreet
8061 easier in the future.</p>
8062
8063 <p>Thanks to the great tools in Debian, getting the missing modules
8064 installed on my server was a simple call to 'cpan2deb Module::Name'
8065 and 'dpkg -i' to install the resulting package.  But this leave me
8066 with the responsibility of tracking security problems, which I really
8067 do not have time for.</p>
8068
8069       </div>
8070       <div class="tags">
8071
8072
8073         Tags: <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>.
8074
8075
8076       </div>
8077     </div>
8078     <div class="padding"></div>
8079
8080     <div class="entry">
8081       <div class="title">
8082         <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>
8083       </div>
8084       <div class="date">
8085          3rd April 2011
8086       </div>
8087       <div class="body">
8088         <p>Here is a small update for my English readers.  Most of my blog
8089 posts have been in Norwegian the last few weeks, so here is a short
8090 update in English.</p>
8091
8092 <p>The kids still keep me too busy to get much free software work
8093 done, but I did manage to organise a project to get a Norwegian port
8094 of the British service
8095 <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com/">FixMyStreet</a> up and running,
8096 and it has been running for a month now.  The entire project has been
8097 organised by me and two others.  Around Christmas we gathered sponsors
8098 to fund the development work.  In January I drafted a contract with
8099 <a href="http://www.mysociety.org/">mySociety</a> on what to develop,
8100 and in February the development took place.  Most of it involved
8101 converting the source to use GPS coordinates instead of British
8102 easting/northing, and the resulting code should be a lot easier to get
8103 running in any country by now.  The Norwegian
8104 <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</a> is using
8105 <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/">OpenStreetmap</a> as the map
8106 source and the source for administrative borders in Norway, and
8107 support for this had to be added/fixed.</p>
8108
8109 <p>The Norwegian version went live March 3th, and we spent the weekend
8110 polishing the system before we announced it March 7th.  The system is
8111 running on a KVM instance of Debian/Squeeze, and has seen almost 3000
8112 problem reports in a few weeks.  Soon we hope to announce the Android
8113 and iPhone versions making it even easier to report problems with the
8114 public infrastructure.</p>
8115
8116 <p>Perhaps something to consider for those of you in countries without
8117 such service?</p>
8118
8119       </div>
8120       <div class="tags">
8121
8122
8123         Tags: <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>.
8124
8125
8126       </div>
8127     </div>
8128     <div class="padding"></div>
8129
8130     <div class="entry">
8131       <div class="title">
8132         <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>
8133       </div>
8134       <div class="date">
8135         28th January 2011
8136       </div>
8137       <div class="body">
8138         <p>The last few days I have looked at ways to track open security
8139 issues here at my work with the University of Oslo.  My idea is that
8140 it should be possible to use the information about security issues
8141 available on the Internet, and check our locally
8142 maintained/distributed software against this information.  It should
8143 allow us to verify that no known security issues are forgotten.  The
8144 CVE database listing vulnerabilities seem like a great central point,
8145 and by using the package lists from Debian mapped to CVEs provided by
8146 the testing security team, I believed it should be possible to figure
8147 out which security holes were present in our free software
8148 collection.</p>
8149
8150 <p>After reading up on the topic, it became obvious that the first
8151 building block is to be able to name software packages in a unique and
8152 consistent way across data sources.  I considered several ways to do
8153 this, for example coming up with my own naming scheme like using URLs
8154 to project home pages or URLs to the Freshmeat entries, or using some
8155 existing naming scheme.  And it seem like I am not the first one to
8156 come across this problem, as MITRE already proposed and implemented a
8157 solution.  Enter the <a href="http://cpe.mitre.org/index.html">Common
8158 Platform Enumeration</a> dictionary, a vocabulary for referring to
8159 software, hardware and other platform components.  The CPE ids are
8160 mapped to CVEs in the <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/">National
8161 Vulnerability Database</a>, allowing me to look up know security
8162 issues for any CPE name.  With this in place, all I need to do is to
8163 locate the CPE id for the software packages we use at the university.
8164 This is fairly trivial (I google for 'cve cpe $package' and check the
8165 NVD entry if a CVE for the package exist).</p>
8166
8167 <p>To give you an example.  The GNU gzip source package have the CPE
8168 name cpe:/a:gnu:gzip.  If the old version 1.3.3 was the package to
8169 check out, one could look up
8170 <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
8171 in NVD</a> and get a list of 6 security holes with public CVE entries.
8172 The most recent one is
8173 <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/view/vuln/detail?vulnId=CVE-2010-0001">CVE-2010-0001</a>,
8174 and at the bottom of the NVD page for this vulnerability the complete
8175 list of affected versions is provided.</p>
8176
8177 <p>The NVD database of CVEs is also available as a XML dump, allowing
8178 for offline processing of issues.  Using this dump, I've written a
8179 small script taking a list of CPEs as input and list all CVEs
8180 affecting the packages represented by these CPEs.  One give it CPEs
8181 with version numbers as specified above and get a list of open
8182 security issues out.</p>
8183
8184 <p>Of course for this approach to be useful, the quality of the NVD
8185 information need to be high.  For that to happen, I believe as many as
8186 possible need to use and contribute to the NVD database.  I notice
8187 RHEL is providing
8188 <a href="https://www.redhat.com/security/data/metrics/rhsamapcpe.txt">a
8189 map from CVE to CPE</a>, indicating that they are using the CPE
8190 information.  I'm not aware of Debian and Ubuntu doing the same.</p>
8191
8192 <p>To get an idea about the quality for free software, I spent some
8193 time making it possible to compare the CVE database from Debian with
8194 the CVE database in NVD.  The result look fairly good, but there are
8195 some inconsistencies in NVD (same software package having several
8196 CPEs), and some inaccuracies (NVD not mentioning buggy packages that
8197 Debian believe are affected by a CVE).  Hope to find time to improve
8198 the quality of NVD, but that require being able to get in touch with
8199 someone maintaining it.  So far my three emails with questions and
8200 corrections have not seen any reply, but I hope contact can be
8201 established soon.</p>
8202
8203 <p>An interesting application for CPEs is cross platform package
8204 mapping.  It would be useful to know which packages in for example
8205 RHEL, OpenSuSe and Mandriva are missing from Debian and Ubuntu, and
8206 this would be trivial if all linux distributions provided CPE entries
8207 for their packages.</p>
8208
8209       </div>
8210       <div class="tags">
8211
8212
8213         Tags: <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>.
8214
8215
8216       </div>
8217     </div>
8218     <div class="padding"></div>
8219
8220     <div class="entry">
8221       <div class="title">
8222         <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>
8223       </div>
8224       <div class="date">
8225         23rd January 2011
8226       </div>
8227       <div class="body">
8228         <p>In the
8229 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/discover-data">discover-data</a>
8230 package in Debian, there is a script to report useful information
8231 about the running hardware for use when people report missing
8232 information.  One part of this script that I find very useful when
8233 debugging hardware problems, is the part mapping loaded kernel module
8234 to the PCI device it claims.  It allow me to quickly see if the kernel
8235 module I expect is driving the hardware I am struggling with.  To see
8236 the output, make sure discover-data is installed and run
8237 <tt>/usr/share/bug/discover-data 3>&1</tt>.  The relevant output on
8238 one of my machines like this:</p>
8239
8240 <pre>
8241 loaded modules:
8242 10de:03eb i2c_nforce2
8243 10de:03f1 ohci_hcd
8244 10de:03f2 ehci_hcd
8245 10de:03f0 snd_hda_intel
8246 10de:03ec pata_amd
8247 10de:03f6 sata_nv
8248 1022:1103 k8temp
8249 109e:036e bttv
8250 109e:0878 snd_bt87x
8251 11ab:4364 sky2
8252 </pre>
8253
8254 <p>The code in question look like this, slightly modified for
8255 readability and to drop the output to file descriptor 3:</p>
8256
8257 <pre>
8258 if [ -d /sys/bus/pci/devices/ ] ; then
8259     echo loaded pci modules:
8260     (
8261         cd /sys/bus/pci/devices/
8262         for address in * ; do
8263             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
8264                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
8265                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
8266                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
8267                     id=`lspci -n -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $3}'`
8268                     echo "$id $module"
8269                 fi
8270             fi
8271         done
8272     )
8273     echo
8274 fi
8275 </pre>
8276
8277 <p>Similar code could be used to extract USB device module
8278 mappings:</p>
8279
8280 <pre>
8281 if [ -d /sys/bus/usb/devices/ ] ; then
8282     echo loaded usb modules:
8283     (
8284         cd /sys/bus/usb/devices/
8285         for address in * ; do
8286             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
8287                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
8288                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
8289                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
8290                     id=$(lsusb -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $6}')
8291                     if [ "$id" ] ; then
8292                         echo "$id $module"
8293                     fi
8294                 fi
8295             fi
8296         done
8297     )
8298     echo
8299 fi
8300 </pre>
8301
8302 <p>This might perhaps be something to include in other tools as
8303 well.</p>
8304
8305       </div>
8306       <div class="tags">
8307
8308
8309         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
8310
8311
8312       </div>
8313     </div>
8314     <div class="padding"></div>
8315
8316     <div class="entry">
8317       <div class="title">
8318         <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>
8319       </div>
8320       <div class="date">
8321         22nd December 2010
8322       </div>
8323       <div class="body">
8324         <p>The last few days I have spent at work here at the <a
8325 href="http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo</a> testing if the new
8326 batch of computers will work with Linux.  Every year for the last few
8327 years the university have organised shared bid of a few thousand
8328 computers, and this year HP won the bid.  Two different desktops and
8329 five different laptops are on the list this year.  We in the UNIX
8330 group want to know which one of these computers work well with RHEL
8331 and Ubuntu, the two Linux distributions we currently handle at the
8332 university.</p>
8333
8334 <p>My test method is simple, and I share it here to get feedback and
8335 perhaps inspire others to test hardware as well.  To test, I PXE
8336 install the OS version of choice, and log in as my normal user and run
8337 a few applications and plug in selected pieces of hardware.  When
8338 something fail, I make a note about this in the test matrix and move
8339 on.  If I have some spare time I try to report the bug to the OS
8340 vendor, but as I only have the machines for a short time, I rarely
8341 have the time to do this for all the problems I find.</p>
8342
8343 <p>Anyway, to get to the point of this post.  Here is the simple tests
8344 I perform on a new model.</p>
8345
8346 <ul>
8347
8348 <li>Is PXE installation working?  I'm testing with RHEL6, Ubuntu Lucid
8349 and Ubuntu Maverik at the moment.  If I feel like it, I also test with
8350 RHEL5 and Debian Edu/Squeeze.</li>
8351
8352 <li>Is X.org working?  If the graphical login screen show up after
8353 installation, X.org is working.</li>
8354
8355 <li>Is hardware accelerated OpenGL working?  Running glxgears (in
8356 package mesa-utils on Ubuntu) and writing down the frames per second
8357 reported by the program.</li>
8358
8359 <li>Is sound working?  With Gnome and KDE, a sound is played when
8360 logging in, and if I can hear this the test is successful.  If there
8361 are several audio exits on the machine, I try them all and check if
8362 the Gnome/KDE audio mixer can control where to send the sound.  I
8363 normally test this by playing
8364 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20101012-chef/ ">a HTML5
8365 video</a> in Firefox/Iceweasel.</li>
8366
8367 <li>Is the USB subsystem working?  I test this by plugging in a USB
8368 memory stick and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
8369
8370 <li>Is the CD/DVD player working?  I test this by inserting any CD/DVD
8371 I have lying around, and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
8372
8373 <li>Is any built in camera working?  Test using cheese, and see if a
8374 picture from the v4l device show up.</li>
8375
8376 <li>Is bluetooth working?  Use the Gnome/KDE browsing tool to see if
8377 any bluetooth devices are discovered.  In my office, I normally see a
8378 few.</li>
8379
8380 <li>For laptops, is the SD or Compaq Flash reader working.  I have
8381 memory modules lying around, and stick them in and see if Gnome/KDE
8382 notice this.</li>
8383
8384 <li>For laptops, is suspend/hibernate working?  I'm testing if the
8385 special button work, and if the laptop continue to work after
8386 resume.</li>
8387
8388 <li>For laptops, is the extra buttons working, like audio level,
8389 adjusting background light, switching on/off external video output,
8390 switching on/off wifi, bluetooth, etc?  The set of buttons differ from
8391 laptop to laptop, so I just write down which are working and which are
8392 not.</li>
8393
8394 <li>Some laptops have smart card readers, finger print readers,
8395 acceleration sensors etc.  I rarely test these, as I do not know how
8396 to quickly test if they are working or not, so I only document their
8397 existence.</li>
8398
8399 </ul>
8400
8401 <p>By now I suspect you are really curious what the test results are
8402 for the HP machines I am testing.  I'm not done yet, so I will report
8403 the test results later.  For now I can report that HP 8100 Elite work
8404 fine, and hibernation fail with HP EliteBook 8440p on Ubuntu Lucid,
8405 and audio fail on RHEL6.  Ubuntu Maverik worked with 8440p.  As you
8406 can see, I have most machines left to test.  One interesting
8407 observation is that Ubuntu Lucid has almost twice the frame rate than
8408 RHEL6 with glxgears.  No idea why.</p>
8409
8410       </div>
8411       <div class="tags">
8412
8413
8414         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>.
8415
8416
8417       </div>
8418     </div>
8419     <div class="padding"></div>
8420
8421     <div class="entry">
8422       <div class="title">
8423         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Some_thoughts_on_BitCoins.html">Some thoughts on BitCoins</a>
8424       </div>
8425       <div class="date">
8426         11th December 2010
8427       </div>
8428       <div class="body">
8429         <p>As I continue to explore
8430 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>, I've starting to wonder
8431 what properties the system have, and how it will be affected by laws
8432 and regulations here in Norway.  Here are some random notes.</p>
8433
8434 <p>One interesting thing to note is that since the transactions are
8435 verified using a peer to peer network, all details about a transaction
8436 is known to everyone.  This means that if a BitCoin address has been
8437 published like I did with mine in my initial post about BitCoin, it is
8438 possible for everyone to see how many BitCoins have been transfered to
8439 that address.  There is even a web service to look at the details for
8440 all transactions.  There I can see that my address
8441 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a>
8442 have received 16.06 Bitcoin, the
8443 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3">1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3</a>
8444 address of Simon Phipps have received 181.97 BitCoin and the address
8445 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt">1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt</A>
8446 of EFF have received 2447.38 BitCoins so far.  Thank you to each and
8447 every one of you that donated bitcoins to support my activity. The
8448 fact that anyone can see how much money was transfered to a given
8449 address make it more obvious why the BitCoin community recommend to
8450 generate and hand out a new address for each transaction.  I'm told
8451 there is no way to track which addresses belong to a given person or
8452 organisation without the person or organisation revealing it
8453 themselves, as Simon, EFF and I have done.</p>
8454
8455 <p>In Norway, and in most other countries, there are laws and
8456 regulations limiting how much money one can transfer across the border
8457 without declaring it.  There are money laundering, tax and accounting
8458 laws and regulations I would expect to apply to the use of BitCoin.
8459 If the Skolelinux foundation
8460 (<a href="http://linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">SLX
8461 Debian Labs</a>) were to accept donations in BitCoin in addition to
8462 normal bank transfers like EFF is doing, how should this be accounted?
8463 Given that it is impossible to know if money can cross the border or
8464 not, should everything or nothing be declared?  What exchange rate
8465 should be used when calculating taxes?  Would receivers have to pay
8466 income tax if the foundation were to pay Skolelinux contributors in
8467 BitCoin?  I have no idea, but it would be interesting to know.</p>
8468
8469 <p>For a currency to be useful and successful, it must be trusted and
8470 accepted by a lot of users.  It must be possible to get easy access to
8471 the currency (as a wage or using currency exchanges), and it must be
8472 easy to spend it.  At the moment BitCoin seem fairly easy to get
8473 access to, but there are very few places to spend it.  I am not really
8474 a regular user of any of the vendor types currently accepting BitCoin,
8475 so I wonder when my kind of shop would start accepting BitCoins.  I
8476 would like to buy electronics, travels and subway tickets, not herbs
8477 and books. :) The currency is young, and this will improve over time
8478 if it become popular, but I suspect regular banks will start to lobby
8479 to get BitCoin declared illegal if it become popular.  I'm sure they
8480 will claim it is helping fund terrorism and money laundering (which
8481 probably would be true, as is any currency in existence), but I
8482 believe the problems should be solved elsewhere and not by blaming
8483 currencies.</p>
8484
8485 <p>The process of creating new BitCoins is called mining, and it is
8486 CPU intensive process that depend on a bit of luck as well (as one is
8487 competing against all the other miners currently spending CPU cycles
8488 to see which one get the next lump of cash).  The "winner" get 50
8489 BitCoin when this happen.  Yesterday I came across the obvious way to
8490 join forces to increase ones changes of getting at least some coins,
8491 by coordinating the work on mining BitCoins across several machines
8492 and people, and sharing the result if one is lucky and get the 50
8493 BitCoins.  Check out
8494 <a href="http://www.bluishcoder.co.nz/bitcoin-pool/">BitCoin Pool</a>
8495 if this sounds interesting.  I have not had time to try to set up a
8496 machine to participate there yet, but have seen that running on ones
8497 own for a few days have not yield any BitCoins througth mining
8498 yet.</p>
8499
8500 <p>Update 2010-12-15: Found an <a
8501 href="http://inertia.posterous.com/reply-to-the-underground-economist-why-bitcoi">interesting
8502 criticism</a> of bitcoin.  Not quite sure how valid it is, but thought
8503 it was interesting to read.  The arguments presented seem to be
8504 equally valid for gold, which was used as a currency for many years.</p>
8505
8506       </div>
8507       <div class="tags">
8508
8509
8510         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>.
8511
8512
8513       </div>
8514     </div>
8515     <div class="padding"></div>
8516
8517     <div class="entry">
8518       <div class="title">
8519         <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>
8520       </div>
8521       <div class="date">
8522         10th December 2010
8523       </div>
8524       <div class="body">
8525         <p>With this weeks lawless
8526 <a href="http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/06/wikileaks/index.html">governmental
8527 attacks</a> on Wikileak and
8528 <a href="http://www.salon.com/technology/dan_gillmor/2010/12/06/war_on_speech">free
8529 speech</a>, it has become obvious that PayPal, visa and mastercard can
8530 not be trusted to handle money transactions.
8531 A blog post from
8532 <a href="http://webmink.com/2010/12/06/now-accepting-bitcoin/">Simon
8533 Phipps on bitcoin</a> reminded me about a project that a friend of
8534 mine mentioned earlier.  I decided to follow Simon's example, and get
8535 involved with <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>.  I got
8536 some help from my friend to get it all running, and he even handed me
8537 some bitcoins to get started.  I even donated a few bitcoins to Simon
8538 for helping me remember BitCoin.</p>
8539
8540 <p>So, what is bitcoins, you probably wonder?  It is a digital
8541 crypto-currency, decentralised and handled using peer-to-peer
8542 networks.  It allows anonymous transactions and prohibits central
8543 control over the transactions, making it impossible for governments
8544 and companies alike to block donations and other transactions.  The
8545 source is free software, and while the key dependency wxWidgets 2.9
8546 for the graphical user interface is missing in Debian, the command
8547 line client builds just fine.  Hopefully Jonas
8548 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/578157">will get the package into
8549 Debian</a> soon.</p>
8550
8551 <p>Bitcoins can be converted to other currencies, like USD and EUR.
8552 There are <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/trade">companies accepting
8553 bitcoins</a> when selling services and goods, and there are even
8554 currency "stock" markets where the exchange rate is decided.  There
8555 are not many users so far, but the concept seems promising.  If you
8556 want to get started and lack a friend with any bitcoins to spare,
8557 you can even get
8558 <a href="https://freebitcoins.appspot.com/">some for free</a> (0.05
8559 bitcoin at the time of writing).  Use
8560 <a href="http://www.bitcoinwatch.com/">BitcoinWatch</a> to keep an eye
8561 on the current exchange rates.</p>
8562
8563 <p>As an experiment, I have decided to set up bitcoind on one of my
8564 machines.  If you want to support my activity, please send Bitcoin
8565 donations to the address
8566 <b>15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</b>.  Thank you!</p>
8567
8568       </div>
8569       <div class="tags">
8570
8571
8572         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>.
8573
8574
8575       </div>
8576     </div>
8577     <div class="padding"></div>
8578
8579     <div class="entry">
8580       <div class="title">
8581         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_isn_t_Debian_Edu_using_VLC_.html">Why isn't Debian Edu using VLC?</a>
8582       </div>
8583       <div class="date">
8584         27th November 2010
8585       </div>
8586       <div class="body">
8587         <p>In the latest issue of Linux Journal, the readers choices were
8588 presented, and the winner among the multimedia player were VLC.
8589 Personally, I like VLC, and it is my player of choice when I first try
8590 to play a video file or stream.  Only if VLC fail will I drag out
8591 gmplayer to see if it can do better.  The reason is mostly the failure
8592 model and trust.  When VLC fail, it normally pop up a error message
8593 reporting the problem.  When mplayer fail, it normally segfault or
8594 just hangs.  The latter failure mode drain my trust in the program.<p>
8595
8596 <p>But even if VLC is my player of choice, we have choosen to use
8597 mplayer in <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
8598 Edu/Skolelinux</a>.  The reason is simple.  We need a good browser
8599 plugin to play web videos seamlessly, and the VLC browser plugin is
8600 not very good.  For example, it lack in-line control buttons, so there
8601 is no way for the user to pause the video.  Also, when I
8602 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">last
8603 tested the browser plugins</a> available in Debian, the VLC plugin
8604 failed on several video pages where mplayer based plugins worked.  If
8605 the browser plugin for VLC was as good as the gecko-mediaplayer
8606 package (which uses mplayer), we would switch.</P>
8607
8608 <p>While VLC is a good player, its user interface is slightly
8609 annoying.  The most annoying feature is its inconsistent use of
8610 keyboard shortcuts.  When the player is in full screen mode, its
8611 shortcuts are different from when it is playing the video in a window.
8612 For example, space only work as pause when in full screen mode.  I
8613 wish it had consisten shortcuts and that space also would work when in
8614 window mode.  Another nice shortcut in gmplayer is [enter] to restart
8615 the current video.  It is very nice when playing short videos from the
8616 web and want to restart it when new people arrive to have a look at
8617 what is going on.</p>
8618
8619       </div>
8620       <div class="tags">
8621
8622
8623         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>.
8624
8625
8626       </div>
8627     </div>
8628     <div class="padding"></div>
8629
8630     <div class="entry">
8631       <div class="title">
8632         <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>
8633       </div>
8634       <div class="date">
8635         22nd November 2010
8636       </div>
8637       <div class="body">
8638         <p>Michael Biebl suggested to me on IRC, that I changed my automated
8639 upgrade testing of the
8640 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
8641 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a> to do <tt>apt-get autoremove</tt> when using apt-get.
8642 This seem like a very good idea, so I adjusted by test scripts and
8643 can now present the updated result from today:</p>
8644
8645 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
8646
8647 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
8648
8649 <blockquote><p>
8650   apache2.2-bin
8651   aptdaemon
8652   baobab
8653   binfmt-support
8654   browser-plugin-gnash
8655   cheese-common
8656   cli-common
8657   cups-pk-helper
8658   dmz-cursor-theme
8659   empathy
8660   empathy-common
8661   freedesktop-sound-theme
8662   freeglut3
8663   gconf-defaults-service
8664   gdm-themes
8665   gedit-plugins
8666   geoclue
8667   geoclue-hostip
8668   geoclue-localnet
8669   geoclue-manual
8670   geoclue-yahoo
8671   gnash
8672   gnash-common
8673   gnome
8674   gnome-backgrounds
8675   gnome-cards-data
8676   gnome-codec-install
8677   gnome-core
8678   gnome-desktop-environment
8679   gnome-disk-utility
8680   gnome-screenshot
8681   gnome-search-tool
8682   gnome-session-canberra
8683   gnome-system-log
8684   gnome-themes-extras
8685   gnome-themes-more
8686   gnome-user-share
8687   gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
8688   gstreamer0.10-tools
8689   gtk2-engines
8690   gtk2-engines-pixbuf
8691   gtk2-engines-smooth
8692   hamster-applet
8693   libapache2-mod-dnssd
8694   libapr1
8695   libaprutil1
8696   libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3
8697   libaprutil1-ldap
8698   libart2.0-cil
8699   libboost-date-time1.42.0
8700   libboost-python1.42.0
8701   libboost-thread1.42.0
8702   libchamplain-0.4-0
8703   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0
8704   libcheese-gtk18
8705   libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
8706   libcryptui0
8707   libdiscid0
8708   libelf1
8709   libepc-1.0-2
8710   libepc-common
8711   libepc-ui-1.0-2
8712   libfreerdp-plugins-standard
8713   libfreerdp0
8714   libgconf2.0-cil
8715   libgdata-common
8716   libgdata7
8717   libgdu-gtk0
8718   libgee2
8719   libgeoclue0
8720   libgexiv2-0
8721   libgif4
8722   libglade2.0-cil
8723   libglib2.0-cil
8724   libgmime2.4-cil
8725   libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
8726   libgnome2.24-cil
8727   libgnomepanel2.24-cil
8728   libgpod-common
8729   libgpod4
8730   libgtk2.0-cil
8731   libgtkglext1
8732   libgtksourceview2.0-common
8733   libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
8734   libmono-addins0.2-cil
8735   libmono-cairo2.0-cil
8736   libmono-corlib2.0-cil
8737   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil
8738   libmono-posix2.0-cil
8739   libmono-security2.0-cil
8740   libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
8741   libmono-system2.0-cil
8742   libmtp8
8743   libmusicbrainz3-6
8744   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil
8745   libndesk-dbus1.0-cil
8746   libopal3.6.8
8747   libpolkit-gtk-1-0
8748   libpt2.6.7
8749   libpython2.6
8750   librpm1
8751   librpmio1
8752   libsdl1.2debian
8753   libsrtp0
8754   libssh-4
8755   libtelepathy-farsight0
8756   libtelepathy-glib0
8757   libtidy-0.99-0
8758   media-player-info
8759   mesa-utils
8760   mono-2.0-gac
8761   mono-gac
8762   mono-runtime
8763   nautilus-sendto
8764   nautilus-sendto-empathy
8765   p7zip-full
8766   pkg-config
8767   python-aptdaemon
8768   python-aptdaemon-gtk
8769   python-axiom
8770   python-beautifulsoup
8771   python-bugbuddy
8772   python-clientform
8773   python-coherence
8774   python-configobj
8775   python-crypto
8776   python-cupshelpers
8777   python-elementtree
8778   python-epsilon
8779   python-evolution
8780   python-feedparser
8781   python-gdata
8782   python-gdbm
8783   python-gst0.10
8784   python-gtkglext1
8785   python-gtksourceview2
8786   python-httplib2
8787   python-louie
8788   python-mako
8789   python-markupsafe
8790   python-mechanize
8791   python-nevow
8792   python-notify
8793   python-opengl
8794   python-openssl
8795   python-pam
8796   python-pkg-resources
8797   python-pyasn1
8798   python-pysqlite2
8799   python-rdflib
8800   python-serial
8801   python-tagpy
8802   python-twisted-bin
8803   python-twisted-conch
8804   python-twisted-core
8805   python-twisted-web
8806   python-utidylib
8807   python-webkit
8808   python-xdg
8809   python-zope.interface
8810   remmina
8811   remmina-plugin-data
8812   remmina-plugin-rdp
8813   remmina-plugin-vnc
8814   rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
8815   rhythmbox-plugins
8816   rpm-common
8817   rpm2cpio
8818   seahorse-plugins
8819   shotwell
8820   software-center
8821   system-config-printer-udev
8822   telepathy-gabble
8823   telepathy-mission-control-5
8824   telepathy-salut
8825   tomboy
8826   totem
8827   totem-coherence
8828   totem-mozilla
8829   totem-plugins
8830   transmission-common
8831   xdg-user-dirs
8832   xdg-user-dirs-gtk
8833   xserver-xephyr
8834 </p></blockquote>
8835
8836 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
8837
8838 <blockquote><p>
8839   cheese
8840   ekiga
8841   eog
8842   epiphany-extensions
8843   evolution-exchange
8844   fast-user-switch-applet
8845   file-roller
8846   gcalctool
8847   gconf-editor
8848   gdm
8849   gedit
8850   gedit-common
8851   gnome-games
8852   gnome-games-data
8853   gnome-nettool
8854   gnome-system-tools
8855   gnome-themes
8856   gnuchess
8857   gucharmap
8858   guile-1.8-libs
8859   libavahi-ui0
8860   libdmx1
8861   libgalago3
8862   libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
8863   libgtksourceview2.0-0
8864   liblircclient0
8865   libsdl1.2debian-alsa
8866   libspeexdsp1
8867   libsvga1
8868   rhythmbox
8869   seahorse
8870   sound-juicer
8871   system-config-printer
8872   totem-common
8873   transmission-gtk
8874   vinagre
8875   vino
8876 </p></blockquote>
8877
8878 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
8879
8880 <blockquote><p>
8881   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
8882 </p></blockquote>
8883
8884 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
8885
8886 <blockquote><p>
8887 [nothing]
8888 </p></blockquote>
8889
8890 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
8891
8892 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
8893
8894 <blockquote><p>
8895   ksmserver
8896 </p></blockquote>
8897
8898 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
8899
8900 <blockquote><p>
8901   kwin
8902   network-manager-kde
8903 </p></blockquote>
8904
8905 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
8906
8907 <blockquote><p>
8908   arts
8909   dolphin
8910   freespacenotifier
8911   google-gadgets-gst
8912   google-gadgets-xul
8913   kappfinder
8914   kcalc
8915   kcharselect
8916   kde-core
8917   kde-plasma-desktop
8918   kde-standard
8919   kde-window-manager
8920   kdeartwork
8921   kdeartwork-emoticons
8922   kdeartwork-style
8923   kdeartwork-theme-icon
8924   kdebase
8925   kdebase-apps
8926   kdebase-workspace
8927   kdebase-workspace-bin
8928   kdebase-workspace-data
8929   kdeeject
8930   kdelibs
8931   kdeplasma-addons
8932   kdeutils
8933   kdewallpapers
8934   kdf
8935   kfloppy
8936   kgpg
8937   khelpcenter4
8938   kinfocenter
8939   konq-plugins-l10n
8940   konqueror-nsplugins
8941   kscreensaver
8942   kscreensaver-xsavers
8943   ktimer
8944   kwrite
8945   libgle3
8946   libkde4-ruby1.8
8947   libkonq5
8948   libkonq5-templates
8949   libnetpbm10
8950   libplasma-ruby
8951   libplasma-ruby1.8
8952   libqt4-ruby1.8
8953   marble-data
8954   marble-plugins
8955   netpbm
8956   nuvola-icon-theme
8957   plasma-dataengines-workspace
8958   plasma-desktop
8959   plasma-desktopthemes-artwork
8960   plasma-runners-addons
8961   plasma-scriptengine-googlegadgets
8962   plasma-scriptengine-python
8963   plasma-scriptengine-qedje
8964   plasma-scriptengine-ruby
8965   plasma-scriptengine-webkit
8966   plasma-scriptengines
8967   plasma-wallpapers-addons
8968   plasma-widget-folderview
8969   plasma-widget-networkmanagement
8970   ruby
8971   sweeper
8972   update-notifier-kde
8973   xscreensaver-data-extra
8974   xscreensaver-gl
8975   xscreensaver-gl-extra
8976   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
8977 </p></blockquote>
8978
8979 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
8980
8981 <blockquote><p>
8982   ark
8983   google-gadgets-common
8984   google-gadgets-qt
8985   htdig
8986   kate
8987   kdebase-bin
8988   kdebase-data
8989   kdepasswd
8990   kfind
8991   klipper
8992   konq-plugins
8993   konqueror
8994   ksysguard
8995   ksysguardd
8996   libarchive1
8997   libcln6
8998   libeet1
8999   libeina-svn-06
9000   libggadget-1.0-0b
9001   libggadget-qt-1.0-0b
9002   libgps19
9003   libkdecorations4
9004   libkephal4
9005   libkonq4
9006   libkonqsidebarplugin4a
9007   libkscreensaver5
9008   libksgrd4
9009   libksignalplotter4
9010   libkunitconversion4
9011   libkwineffects1a
9012   libmarblewidget4
9013   libntrack-qt4-1
9014   libntrack0
9015   libplasma-geolocation-interface4
9016   libplasmaclock4a
9017   libplasmagenericshell4
9018   libprocesscore4a
9019   libprocessui4a
9020   libqalculate5
9021   libqedje0a
9022   libqtruby4shared2
9023   libqzion0a
9024   libruby1.8
9025   libscim8c2a
9026   libsmokekdecore4-3
9027   libsmokekdeui4-3
9028   libsmokekfile3
9029   libsmokekhtml3
9030   libsmokekio3
9031   libsmokeknewstuff2-3
9032   libsmokeknewstuff3-3
9033   libsmokekparts3
9034   libsmokektexteditor3
9035   libsmokekutils3
9036   libsmokenepomuk3
9037   libsmokephonon3
9038   libsmokeplasma3
9039   libsmokeqtcore4-3
9040   libsmokeqtdbus4-3
9041   libsmokeqtgui4-3
9042   libsmokeqtnetwork4-3
9043   libsmokeqtopengl4-3
9044   libsmokeqtscript4-3
9045   libsmokeqtsql4-3
9046   libsmokeqtsvg4-3
9047   libsmokeqttest4-3
9048   libsmokeqtuitools4-3
9049   libsmokeqtwebkit4-3
9050   libsmokeqtxml4-3
9051   libsmokesolid3
9052   libsmokesoprano3
9053   libtaskmanager4a
9054   libtidy-0.99-0
9055   libweather-ion4a
9056   libxklavier16
9057   libxxf86misc1
9058   okteta
9059   oxygencursors
9060   plasma-dataengines-addons
9061   plasma-scriptengine-superkaramba
9062   plasma-widget-lancelot
9063   plasma-widgets-addons
9064   plasma-widgets-workspace
9065   polkit-kde-1
9066   ruby1.8
9067   systemsettings
9068   update-notifier-common
9069 </p></blockquote>
9070
9071 <p>Running apt-get autoremove made the results using apt-get and
9072 aptitude a bit more similar, but there are still quite a lott of
9073 differences.  I have no idea what packages should be installed after
9074 the upgrade, but hope those that do can have a look.</p>
9075
9076       </div>
9077       <div class="tags">
9078
9079
9080         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>.
9081
9082
9083       </div>
9084     </div>
9085     <div class="padding"></div>
9086
9087     <div class="entry">
9088       <div class="title">
9089         <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>
9090       </div>
9091       <div class="date">
9092         22nd November 2010
9093       </div>
9094       <div class="body">
9095         <p>Most of the computers in use by the
9096 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux project</a>
9097 are virtual machines.  And they have been Xen machines running on a
9098 fairly old IBM eserver xseries 345 machine, and we wanted to migrate
9099 them to KVM on a newer Dell PowerEdge 2950 host machine.  This was a
9100 bit harder that it could have been, because we set up the Xen virtual
9101 machines to get the virtual partitions from LVM, which as far as I
9102 know is not supported by KVM.  So to migrate, we had to convert
9103 several LVM logical volumes to partitions on a virtual disk file.</p>
9104
9105 <p>I found
9106 <a href="http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM">a
9107 nice recipe</a> to do this, and wrote the following script to do the
9108 migration.  It uses qemu-img from the qemu package to make the disk
9109 image, parted to partition it, losetup and kpartx to present the disk
9110 image partions as devices, and dd to copy the data.  I NFS mounted the
9111 new servers storage area on the old server to do the migration.</p>
9112
9113 <pre>
9114 #!/bin/sh
9115
9116 # Based on
9117 # http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM
9118
9119 set -e
9120 set -x
9121
9122 if [ -z "$1" ] ; then
9123     echo "Usage: $0 &lt;hostname&gt;"
9124     exit 1
9125 else
9126     host="$1"
9127 fi
9128
9129 if [ ! -e /dev/vg_data/$host-disk ] ; then
9130     echo "error: unable to find LVM volume for $host"
9131     exit 1
9132 fi
9133
9134 # Partitions need to be a bit bigger than the LVM LVs.  not sure why.
9135 disksize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-disk | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
9136 swapsize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-swap | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
9137 totalsize=$(( ( $disksize + $swapsize ) ))
9138
9139 img=$host.img
9140 #dd if=/dev/zero of=$img bs=1M count=$(( $disksize + $swapsize ))
9141 qemu-img create $img ${totalsize}MMaking room on the Debian Edu/Sqeeze DVD
9142
9143 parted $img mklabel msdos
9144 parted $img mkpart primary linux-swap 0 $disksize
9145 parted $img mkpart primary ext2 $disksize $totalsize
9146 parted $img set 1 boot on
9147
9148 modprobe dm-mod
9149 losetup /dev/loop0 $img
9150 kpartx -a /dev/loop0
9151
9152 dd if=/dev/vg_data/$host-disk of=/dev/mapper/loop0p1 bs=1M
9153 fsck.ext3 -f /dev/mapper/loop0p1 || true
9154 mkswap /dev/mapper/loop0p2
9155
9156 kpartx -d /dev/loop0
9157 losetup -d /dev/loop0
9158 </pre>
9159
9160 <p>The script is perhaps so simple that it is not copyrightable, but
9161 if it is, it is licenced using GPL v2 or later at your discretion.</p>
9162
9163 <p>After doing this, I booted a Debian CD in rescue mode in KVM with
9164 the new disk image attached, installed grub-pc and linux-image-686 and
9165 set up grub to boot from the disk image.  After this, the KVM machines
9166 seem to work just fine.</p>
9167
9168       </div>
9169       <div class="tags">
9170
9171
9172         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>.
9173
9174
9175       </div>
9176     </div>
9177     <div class="padding"></div>
9178
9179     <div class="entry">
9180       <div class="title">
9181         <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>
9182       </div>
9183       <div class="date">
9184         20th November 2010
9185       </div>
9186       <div class="body">
9187         <p>I'm still running upgrade testing of the
9188 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
9189 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a>, but have not had time to spend on reporting the
9190 status.  Here is a short update based on a test I ran 20101118.</p>
9191
9192 <p>I still do not know what a correct migration should look like, so I
9193 report any differences between apt and aptitude and hope someone else
9194 can see if anything should be changed.</p>
9195
9196 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
9197
9198 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
9199
9200 <blockquote><p>
9201   apache2.2-bin aptdaemon at-spi baobab binfmt-support
9202   browser-plugin-gnash cheese-common cli-common cpp-4.3 cups-pk-helper
9203   dmz-cursor-theme empathy empathy-common finger
9204   freedesktop-sound-theme freeglut3 gconf-defaults-service gdm-themes
9205   gedit-plugins geoclue geoclue-hostip geoclue-localnet geoclue-manual
9206   geoclue-yahoo gnash gnash-common gnome gnome-backgrounds
9207   gnome-cards-data gnome-codec-install gnome-core
9208   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-disk-utility gnome-screenshot
9209   gnome-search-tool gnome-session-canberra gnome-spell
9210   gnome-system-log gnome-themes-extras gnome-themes-more
9211   gnome-user-share gs-common gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
9212   gstreamer0.10-tools gtk2-engines gtk2-engines-pixbuf
9213   gtk2-engines-smooth hal-info hamster-applet libapache2-mod-dnssd
9214   libapr1 libaprutil1 libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3 libaprutil1-ldap
9215   libart2.0-cil libatspi1.0-0 libboost-date-time1.42.0
9216   libboost-python1.42.0 libboost-thread1.42.0 libchamplain-0.4-0
9217   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0 libcheese-gtk18 libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
9218   libcryptui0 libcupsys2 libdiscid0 libeel2-data libelf1 libepc-1.0-2
9219   libepc-common libepc-ui-1.0-2 libfreerdp-plugins-standard
9220   libfreerdp0 libgail-common libgconf2.0-cil libgdata-common libgdata7
9221   libgdl-1-common libgdu-gtk0 libgee2 libgeoclue0 libgexiv2-0 libgif4
9222   libglade2.0-cil libglib2.0-cil libgmime2.4-cil libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
9223   libgnome2.24-cil libgnomepanel2.24-cil libgnomeprint2.2-data
9224   libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod-common libgpod4
9225   libgtk2.0-cil libgtkglext1 libgtksourceview-common
9226   libgtksourceview2.0-common libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
9227   libmono-addins0.2-cil libmono-cairo2.0-cil libmono-corlib2.0-cil
9228   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil libmono-posix2.0-cil
9229   libmono-security2.0-cil libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
9230   libmono-system2.0-cil libmtp8 libmusicbrainz3-6
9231   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil libndesk-dbus1.0-cil libopal3.6.8
9232   libpolkit-gtk-1-0 libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
9233   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libpt2.6.7 libpython2.6 librpm1 librpmio1
9234   libsdl1.2debian libservlet2.4-java libsrtp0 libssh-4
9235   libtelepathy-farsight0 libtelepathy-glib0 libtidy-0.99-0
9236   libxalan2-java libxerces2-java media-player-info mesa-utils
9237   mono-2.0-gac mono-gac mono-runtime nautilus-sendto
9238   nautilus-sendto-empathy openoffice.org-writer2latex
9239   openssl-blacklist p7zip p7zip-full pkg-config python-4suite-xml
9240   python-aptdaemon python-aptdaemon-gtk python-axiom
9241   python-beautifulsoup python-bugbuddy python-clientform
9242   python-coherence python-configobj python-crypto python-cupshelpers
9243   python-cupsutils python-eggtrayicon python-elementtree
9244   python-epsilon python-evolution python-feedparser python-gdata
9245   python-gdbm python-gst0.10 python-gtkglext1 python-gtkmozembed
9246   python-gtksourceview2 python-httplib2 python-louie python-mako
9247   python-markupsafe python-mechanize python-nevow python-notify
9248   python-opengl python-openssl python-pam python-pkg-resources
9249   python-pyasn1 python-pysqlite2 python-rdflib python-serial
9250   python-tagpy python-twisted-bin python-twisted-conch
9251   python-twisted-core python-twisted-web python-utidylib python-webkit
9252   python-xdg python-zope.interface remmina remmina-plugin-data
9253   remmina-plugin-rdp remmina-plugin-vnc rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
9254   rhythmbox-plugins rpm-common rpm2cpio seahorse-plugins shotwell
9255   software-center svgalibg1 system-config-printer-udev
9256   telepathy-gabble telepathy-mission-control-5 telepathy-salut tomboy
9257   totem totem-coherence totem-mozilla totem-plugins
9258   transmission-common xdg-user-dirs xdg-user-dirs-gtk xserver-xephyr
9259   zip
9260 </p></blockquote>
9261
9262 Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude
9263
9264 <blockquote><p>
9265   arj bluez-utils cheese dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop ekiga eog
9266   epiphany-extensions epiphany-gecko evolution-exchange
9267   fast-user-switch-applet file-roller gcalctool gconf-editor gdm gedit
9268   gedit-common gnome-app-install gnome-games gnome-games-data
9269   gnome-nettool gnome-system-tools gnome-themes gnome-utils
9270   gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager gnuchess gucharmap
9271   guile-1.8-libs hal libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5
9272   libavahi-ui0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7
9273   libcucul0 libcurl3 libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdmx1 libdvdread3
9274   libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1
9275   libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3 libfaad0 libgadu3
9276   libgalago3 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
9277   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
9278   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
9279   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
9280   libgtkhtml2-0 libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgtksourceview2.0-0
9281   libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
9282   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libkpathsea4 liblircclient0 libltdl3 liblwres50
9283   libmagick++10 libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmozjs1d libmpfr1ldbl libmtp7
9284   libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0
9285   libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpisock9
9286   libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8
9287   libsdl1.2debian-alsa libsensors3 libsexy2 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
9288   libspeexdsp1 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libsvga1
9289   libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0
9290   libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12
9291   libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common rhythmbox seahorse
9292   sound-juicer swfdec-gnome system-config-printer totem-common
9293   totem-gstreamer transmission-gtk vinagre vino w3c-dtd-xhtml wodim
9294 </p></blockquote>
9295
9296 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
9297
9298 <blockquote><p>
9299   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
9300 </p></blockquote>
9301
9302 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
9303
9304 <blockquote><p>
9305 [nothing]
9306 </p></blockquote>
9307
9308 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
9309
9310 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
9311
9312 <blockquote><p>
9313   autopoint bomber bovo cantor cantor-backend-kalgebra cpp-4.3 dcoprss
9314   edict espeak espeak-data eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
9315   ghostscript-x git gnome-audio gnugo granatier gs-common
9316   gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio indi kaddressbook-plugins kalgebra
9317   kalzium-data kanjidic kapman kate-plugins kblocks kbreakout kbstate
9318   kde-icons-mono kdeaccessibility kdeaddons-kfile-plugins
9319   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
9320   kdeedu kdeedu-data kdeedu-kvtml-data kdegames kdegames-card-data
9321   kdegames-mahjongg-data kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc
9322   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
9323   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdessh kdetoys kdewebdev
9324   kdiamond kdnssd kfilereplace kfourinline kgeography-data kigo
9325   killbots kiriki klettres-data kmoon kmrml knewsticker-scripts
9326   kollision kpf krosspython ksirk ksmserver ksquares kstars-data
9327   ksudoku kubrick kweather libasound2-plugins libboost-python1.42.0
9328   libcfitsio3 libconvert-binhex-perl libcrypt-ssleay-perl libdb4.6++
9329   libdjvulibre-text libdotconf1.0 liberror-perl libespeak1
9330   libfinance-quote-perl libgail-common libgsl0ldbl libhtml-parser-perl
9331   libhtml-tableextract-perl libhtml-tagset-perl libhtml-tree-perl
9332   libio-stringy-perl libkdeedu4 libkdegames5 libkiten4 libkpathsea5
9333   libkrossui4 libmailtools-perl libmime-tools-perl
9334   libnews-nntpclient-perl libopenbabel3 libportaudio2 libpulse-browse0
9335   libservlet2.4-java libspeechd2 libtiff-tools libtimedate-perl
9336   libunistring0 liburi-perl libwww-perl libxalan2-java libxerces2-java
9337   lirc luatex marble networkstatus noatun-plugins
9338   openoffice.org-writer2latex palapeli palapeli-data parley
9339   parley-data poster psutils pulseaudio pulseaudio-esound-compat
9340   pulseaudio-module-x11 pulseaudio-utils quanta-data rocs rsync
9341   speech-dispatcher step svgalibg1 texlive-binaries texlive-luatex
9342   ttf-sazanami-gothic
9343 </p></blockquote>
9344
9345 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
9346
9347 <blockquote><p>
9348   amor artsbuilder atlantik atlantikdesigner blinken bluez-utils cvs
9349   dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop imlib-base imlib11 kalzium kanagram kandy
9350   kasteroids katomic kbackgammon kbattleship kblackbox kbounce kbruch
9351   kcron kdat kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data kdeprint kdict kdvi kedit
9352   keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs kgeography kghostview
9353   kgoldrunner khangman khexedit kiconedit kig kimagemapeditor
9354   kitchensync kiten kjumpingcube klatin klettres klickety klines
9355   klinkstatus kmag kmahjongg kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmines
9356   kmousetool kmouth kmplot knetwalk kodo kolf kommander konquest kooka
9357   kpager kpat kpdf kpercentage kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler krec
9358   kregexpeditor kreversi ksame ksayit kshisen ksig ksim ksirc ksirtet
9359   ksmiletris ksnake ksokoban kspaceduel kstars ksvg ksysv kteatime
9360   ktip ktnef ktouch ktron kttsd ktuberling kturtle ktux kuickshow
9361   kverbos kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kwordquiz
9362   kworldclock kxsldbg libakode2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
9363   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
9364   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2
9365   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0
9366   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
9367   libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0 libicu38
9368   libiec61883-0 libindex0 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
9369   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1 libkdeedu3
9370   libkdegames1 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
9371   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
9372   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick10
9373   libmimelib1c2a libmodplug0c2 libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libmpfr1ldbl
9374   libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9 libpoppler-glib3
9375   libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 librss1 libsensors3
9376   libsmbios2 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90
9377   libtalloc1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 lskat
9378   mpeglib network-manager-kde noatun pmount tex-common texlive-base
9379   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended tidy
9380   ttf-dustin ttf-kochi-gothic ttf-sjfonts
9381 </p></blockquote>
9382
9383 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
9384
9385 <blockquote><p>
9386   dolphin kde-core kde-plasma-desktop kde-standard kde-window-manager
9387   kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-apps kdebase-workspace
9388   kdebase-workspace-bin kdebase-workspace-data kdeutils kscreensaver
9389   kscreensaver-xsavers libgle3 libkonq5 libkonq5-templates libnetpbm10
9390   netpbm plasma-widget-folderview plasma-widget-networkmanagement
9391   xscreensaver-data-extra xscreensaver-gl xscreensaver-gl-extra
9392   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
9393 </p></blockquote>
9394
9395 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
9396
9397 <blockquote><p>
9398   kdebase-bin konq-plugins konqueror
9399 </p></blockquote>
9400
9401       </div>
9402       <div class="tags">
9403
9404
9405         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>.
9406
9407
9408       </div>
9409     </div>
9410     <div class="padding"></div>
9411
9412     <div class="entry">
9413       <div class="title">
9414         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gnash_buildbot_slave_and_Debian_kfreebsd.html">Gnash buildbot slave and Debian kfreebsd</a>
9415       </div>
9416       <div class="date">
9417         20th November 2010
9418       </div>
9419       <div class="body">
9420         <p>Answering
9421 <a href="http://www.listware.net/201011/gnash-dev/67431-gnash-dev-buildbot-looking-for-slaves.html">the
9422 call from the Gnash project</a> for
9423 <a href="http://www.gnashdev.org:8010">buildbot</a> slaves to test the
9424 current source, I have set up a virtual KVM machine on the Debian
9425 Edu/Skolelinux virtualization host to test the git source on
9426 Debian/Squeeze.  I hope this can help the developers in getting new
9427 releases out more often.</p>
9428
9429 <p>As the developers want less main-stream build platforms tested to,
9430 I have considered setting up a <a
9431 href="http://www.debian.org/ports/kfreebsd-gnu/">Debian/kfreebsd</a>
9432 machine as well.  I have also considered using the kfreebsd
9433 architecture in Debian as a file server in NUUG to get access to the 5
9434 TB zfs volume we currently use to store DV video.  Because of this, I
9435 finally got around to do a test installation of Debian/Squeeze with
9436 kfreebsd.  Installation went fairly smooth, thought I noticed some
9437 visual glitches in the cdebconf dialogs (black cursor left on the
9438 screen at random locations).  Have not gotten very far with the
9439 testing.  Noticed cfdisk did not work, but fdisk did so it was not a
9440 fatal problem.  Have to spend some more time on it to see if it is
9441 useful as a file server for NUUG.  Will try to find time to set up a
9442 gnash buildbot slave on the Debian Edu/Skolelinux this weekend.</p>
9443
9444       </div>
9445       <div class="tags">
9446
9447
9448         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>.
9449
9450
9451       </div>
9452     </div>
9453     <div class="padding"></div>
9454
9455     <div class="entry">
9456       <div class="title">
9457         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_in_3D.html">Debian in 3D</a>
9458       </div>
9459       <div class="date">
9460          9th November 2010
9461       </div>
9462       <div class="body">
9463         <p><img src="http://thingiverse-production.s3.amazonaws.com/renders/23/e0/c4/f9/2b/debswagtdose_preview_medium.jpg"></p>
9464
9465 <p>3D printing is just great.  I just came across this Debian logo in
9466 3D linked in from
9467 <a href="http://blog.thingiverse.com/2010/11/09/participatory-branding/">the
9468 thingiverse blog</a>.</p>
9469
9470       </div>
9471       <div class="tags">
9472
9473
9474         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>.
9475
9476
9477       </div>
9478     </div>
9479     <div class="padding"></div>
9480
9481     <div class="entry">
9482       <div class="title">
9483         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Software_updates_2010_10_24.html">Software updates 2010-10-24</a>
9484       </div>
9485       <div class="date">
9486         24th October 2010
9487       </div>
9488       <div class="body">
9489         <p>Some updates.</p>
9490
9491 <p>My <a href="http://pledgebank.com/gnash-avm2">gnash pledge</a> to
9492 raise money for the project is going well.  The lower limit of 10
9493 signers was reached in 24 hours, and so far 13 people have signed it.
9494 More signers and more funding is most welcome, and I am really curious
9495 how far we can get before the time limit of December 24 is reached.
9496 :)</p>
9497
9498 <p>On the #gnash IRC channel on irc.freenode.net, I was just tipped
9499 about what appear to be a great code coverage tool capable of
9500 generating code coverage stats without any changes to the source code.
9501 It is called
9502 <a href="http://simonkagstrom.github.com/kcov/index.html">kcov</a>,
9503 and can be used using <tt>kcov &lt;directory&gt; &lt;binary&gt;</tt>.
9504 It is missing in Debian, but the git source built just fine in Squeeze
9505 after I installed libelf-dev, libdwarf-dev, pkg-config and
9506 libglib2.0-dev.  Failed to build in Lenny, but suspect that is
9507 solvable.  I hope kcov make it into Debian soon.</p>
9508
9509 <p>Finally found time to wrap up the release notes for <a
9510 href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2010/10/msg00002.html">a
9511 new alpha release of Debian Edu</a>, and just published the second
9512 alpha test release of the Squeeze based Debian Edu /
9513 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a>
9514 release.  Give it a try if you need a complete linux solution for your
9515 school, including central infrastructure server, workstations, thin
9516 client servers and diskless workstations.  A nice touch added
9517 yesterday is RDP support on the thin client servers, for windows
9518 clients to get a Linux desktop on request.</p>
9519
9520       </div>
9521       <div class="tags">
9522
9523
9524         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>.
9525
9526
9527       </div>
9528     </div>
9529     <div class="padding"></div>
9530
9531     <div class="entry">
9532       <div class="title">
9533         <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>
9534       </div>
9535       <div class="date">
9536          4th September 2010
9537       </div>
9538       <div class="body">
9539         <p>In the <a href="http://popcon.debian.org/unknown/by_vote">Debian
9540 popularity-contest numbers</a>, the adobe-flashplugin package the
9541 second most popular used package that is missing in Debian.  The sixth
9542 most popular is flashplayer-mozilla.  This is a clear indication that
9543 working flash is important for Debian users.  Around 10 percent of the
9544 users submitting data to popcon.debian.org have this package
9545 installed.</p>
9546
9547 <p>In the report written by Lars Risan in August 2008
9548 («<a href="http://wiki.skolelinux.no/Dokumentasjon/Rapporter?action=AttachFile&do=view&target=Skolelinux_i_bruk_rapport_1.0.pdf">Skolelinux
9549 i bruk – Rapport for Hurum kommune, Universitetet i Agder og
9550 stiftelsen SLX Debian Labs</a>»), one of the most important problems
9551 schools experienced with <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
9552 Edu/Skolelinux</a> was the lack of working Flash.  A lot of educational
9553 web sites require Flash to work, and lacking working Flash support in
9554 the web browser and the problems with installing it was perceived as a
9555 good reason to stay with Windows.</p>
9556
9557 <p>I once saw a funny and sad comment in a web forum, where Linux was
9558 said to be the retarded cousin that did not really understand
9559 everything you told him but could work fairly well.  This was a
9560 comment regarding the problems Linux have with proprietary formats and
9561 non-standard web pages, and is sad because it exposes a fairly common
9562 understanding of whose fault it is if web pages that only work in for
9563 example Internet Explorer 6 fail to work on Firefox, and funny because
9564 it explain very well how annoying it is for users when Linux
9565 distributions do not work with the documents they receive or the web
9566 pages they want to visit.</p>
9567
9568 <p>This is part of the reason why I believe it is important for Debian
9569 and Debian Edu to have a well working Flash implementation in the
9570 distribution, to get at least popular sites as Youtube and Google
9571 Video to working out of the box.  For Squeeze, Debian have the chance
9572 to include the latest version of Gnash that will make this happen, as
9573 the new release 0.8.8 was published a few weeks ago and is resting in
9574 unstable.  The new version work with more sites that version 0.8.7.
9575 The Gnash maintainers have asked for a freeze exception, but the
9576 release team have not had time to reply to it yet.  I hope they agree
9577 with me that Flash is important for the Debian desktop users, and thus
9578 accept the new package into Squeeze.</p>
9579
9580       </div>
9581       <div class="tags">
9582
9583
9584         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>.
9585
9586
9587       </div>
9588     </div>
9589     <div class="padding"></div>
9590
9591     <div class="entry">
9592       <div class="title">
9593         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Circular_package_dependencies_harms_apt_recovery.html">Circular package dependencies harms apt recovery</a>
9594       </div>
9595       <div class="date">
9596         27th July 2010
9597       </div>
9598       <div class="body">
9599         <p>I discovered this while doing
9600 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">automated
9601 testing of upgrades from Debian Lenny to Squeeze</a>.  A few packages
9602 in Debian still got circular dependencies, and it is often claimed
9603 that apt and aptitude should be able to handle this just fine, but
9604 some times these dependency loops causes apt to fail.</p>
9605
9606 <p>An example is from todays
9607 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing//test-20100727-lenny-squeeze-kde-aptitude.txt">upgrade
9608 of KDE using aptitude</a>.  In it, a bug in kdebase-workspace-data
9609 causes perl-modules to fail to upgrade.  The cause is simple.  If a
9610 package fail to unpack, then only part of packages with the circular
9611 dependency might end up being unpacked when unpacking aborts, and the
9612 ones already unpacked will fail to configure in the recovery phase
9613 because its dependencies are unavailable.</p>
9614
9615 <p>In this log, the problem manifest itself with this error:</p>
9616
9617 <blockquote><pre>
9618 dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of perl-modules:
9619  perl-modules depends on perl (>= 5.10.1-1); however:
9620   Version of perl on system is 5.10.0-19lenny2.
9621 dpkg: error processing perl-modules (--configure):
9622  dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
9623 </pre></blockquote>
9624
9625 <p>The perl/perl-modules circular dependency is already
9626 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/527917">reported as a bug</a>, and will
9627 hopefully be solved as soon as possible, but it is not the only one,
9628 and each one of these loops in the dependency tree can cause similar
9629 failures.  Of course, they only occur when there are bugs in other
9630 packages causing the unpacking to fail, but it is rather nasty when
9631 the failure of one package causes the problem to become worse because
9632 of dependency loops.</p>
9633
9634 <p>Thanks to
9635 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/06/msg00116.html">the
9636 tireless effort by Bill Allombert</a>, the number of circular
9637 dependencies
9638 <a href="http://debian.semistable.com/debgraph.out.html">left in Debian
9639 is dropping</a>, and perhaps it will reach zero one day. :)</p>
9640
9641 <p>Todays testing also exposed a bug in
9642 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590605">update-notifier</a> and
9643 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590604">different behaviour</a> between
9644 apt-get and aptitude, the latter possibly caused by some circular
9645 dependency.  Reported both to BTS to try to get someone to look at
9646 it.</p>
9647
9648       </div>
9649       <div class="tags">
9650
9651
9652         Tags: <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>.
9653
9654
9655       </div>
9656     </div>
9657     <div class="padding"></div>
9658
9659     <div class="entry">
9660       <div class="title">
9661         <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>
9662       </div>
9663       <div class="date">
9664         17th July 2010
9665       </div>
9666       <div class="body">
9667         <p>This is a
9668 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">followup</a>
9669 on my
9670 <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
9671 work</a> on
9672 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">merging
9673 all</a> the computer related LDAP objects in Debian Edu.</p>
9674
9675 <p>As a step to try to see if it possible to merge the DNS and DHCP
9676 LDAP objects, I have had a look at how the packages pdns-backend-ldap
9677 and dhcp3-server-ldap in Debian use the LDAP server.  The two
9678 implementations are quite different in how they use LDAP.</p>
9679
9680 To get this information, I started slapd with debugging enabled and
9681 dumped the debug output to a file to get the LDAP searches performed
9682 on a Debian Edu main-server.  Here is a summary.
9683
9684 <p><strong>powerdns</strong></p>
9685
9686 <a href="http://www.linuxnetworks.de/doc/index.php/PowerDNS_LDAP_Backend">Clues
9687 on how to</a> set up PowerDNS to use a LDAP backend is available on
9688 the web.
9689
9690 <p>PowerDNS have two modes of operation using LDAP as its backend.
9691 One "strict" mode where the forward and reverse DNS lookups are done
9692 using the same LDAP objects, and a "tree" mode where the forward and
9693 reverse entries are in two different subtrees in LDAP with a structure
9694 based on the DNS names, as in tjener.intern and
9695 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa.</p>
9696
9697 <p>In tree mode, the server is set up to use a LDAP subtree as its
9698 base, and uses a "base" scoped search for the DNS name by adding
9699 "dc=tjener,dc=intern," to the base with a filter for
9700 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" for the forward entry and
9701 "dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa," with a filter for
9702 "(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)" for the reverse entry.  For
9703 forward entries, it is looking for attributes named dnsttl, arecord,
9704 nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord,
9705 txtrecord, rprecord, afsdbrecord, keyrecord, aaaarecord, locrecord,
9706 srvrecord, naptrrecord, kxrecord, certrecord, dsrecord, sshfprecord,
9707 ipseckeyrecord, rrsigrecord, nsecrecord, dnskeyrecord, dhcidrecord,
9708 spfrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entries it is looking for
9709 the attributes dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord,
9710 ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord,
9711 locrecord, srvrecord, naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  The equivalent
9712 ldapsearch commands could look like this:</p>
9713
9714 <blockquote><pre>
9715 ldapsearch -h ldap \
9716   -b dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
9717   -s base -x '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
9718   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
9719   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
9720   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
9721   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
9722
9723 ldapsearch -h ldap \
9724   -b dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
9725   -s base -x '(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)'
9726   dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord soarecord ptrrecord \
9727   hinforecord mxrecord txtrecord rprecord aaaarecord locrecord \
9728   srvrecord naptrrecord modifytimestamp
9729 </pre></blockquote>
9730
9731 <p>In Debian Edu/Lenny, the PowerDNS tree mode is used with
9732 ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no as the base, and these are two
9733 example LDAP objects used there.  In addition to these objects, the
9734 parent objects all th way up to ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
9735 also exist.</p>
9736
9737 <blockquote><pre>
9738 dn: dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
9739 objectclass: top
9740 objectclass: dnsdomain
9741 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
9742 dc: tjener
9743 arecord: 10.0.2.2
9744 associateddomain: tjener.intern
9745
9746 dn: dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
9747 objectclass: top
9748 objectclass: dnsdomain2
9749 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
9750 dc: 2
9751 ptrrecord: tjener.intern
9752 associateddomain: 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa
9753 </pre></blockquote>
9754
9755 <p>In strict mode, the server behaves differently.  When looking for
9756 forward DNS entries, it is doing a "subtree" scoped search with the
9757 same base as in the tree mode for a object with filter
9758 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" and requests the attributes dnsttl,
9759 arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord,
9760 mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord, locrecord, srvrecord,
9761 naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entires it also do a
9762 subtree scoped search but this time the filter is "(arecord=10.0.2.2)"
9763 and the requested attributes are associateddomain, dnsttl and
9764 modifytimestamp.  In short, in strict mode the objects with ptrrecord
9765 go away, and the arecord attribute in the forward object is used
9766 instead.</p>
9767
9768 <p>The forward and reverse searches can be simulated using ldapsearch
9769 like this:</p>
9770
9771 <blockquote><pre>
9772 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
9773   '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
9774   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
9775   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
9776   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
9777   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
9778
9779 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
9780   '(arecord=10.0.2.2)' associateddomain dnsttl modifytimestamp
9781 </pre></blockquote>
9782
9783 <p>In addition to the forward and reverse searches , there is also a
9784 search for SOA records, which behave similar to the forward and
9785 reverse lookups.</p>
9786
9787 <p>A thing to note with the PowerDNS behaviour is that it do not
9788 specify any objectclass names, and instead look for the attributes it
9789 need to generate a DNS reply.  This make it able to work with any
9790 objectclass that provide the needed attributes.</p>
9791
9792 <p>The attributes are normally provided in the cosine (RFC 1274) and
9793 dnsdomain2 schemas.  The latter is used for reverse entries like
9794 ptrrecord and recent DNS additions like aaaarecord and srvrecord.</p>
9795
9796 <p>In Debian Edu, we have created DNS objects using the object classes
9797 dcobject (for dc), dnsdomain or dnsdomain2 (structural, for the DNS
9798 attributes) and domainrelatedobject (for associatedDomain).  The use
9799 of structural object classes make it impossible to combine these
9800 classes with the object classes used by DHCP.</p>
9801
9802 <p>There are other schemas that could be used too, for example the
9803 dnszone structural object class used by Gosa and bind-sdb for the DNS
9804 attributes combined with the domainrelatedobject object class, but in
9805 this case some unused attributes would have to be included as well
9806 (zonename and relativedomainname).</p>
9807
9808 <p>My proposal for Debian Edu would be to switch PowerDNS to strict
9809 mode and not use any of the existing objectclasses (dnsdomain,
9810 dnsdomain2 and dnszone) when one want to combine the DNS information
9811 with DHCP information, and instead create a auxiliary object class
9812 defined something like this (using the attributes defined for
9813 dnsdomain and dnsdomain2 or dnszone):</p>
9814
9815 <blockquote><pre>
9816 objectclass ( some-oid NAME 'dnsDomainAux'
9817     SUP top
9818     AUXILIARY
9819     MAY ( ARecord $ MDRecord $ MXRecord $ NSRecord $ SOARecord $ CNAMERecord $
9820           DNSTTL $ DNSClass $ PTRRecord $ HINFORecord $ MINFORecord $
9821           TXTRecord $ SIGRecord $ KEYRecord $ AAAARecord $ LOCRecord $
9822           NXTRecord $ SRVRecord $ NAPTRRecord $ KXRecord $ CERTRecord $
9823           A6Record $ DNAMERecord
9824     ))
9825 </pre></blockquote>
9826
9827 <p>This will allow any object to become a DNS entry when combined with
9828 the domainrelatedobject object class, and allow any entity to include
9829 all the attributes PowerDNS wants.  I've sent an email to the PowerDNS
9830 developers asking for their view on this schema and if they are
9831 interested in providing such schema with PowerDNS, and I hope my
9832 message will be accepted into their mailing list soon.</p>
9833
9834 <p><strong>ISC dhcp</strong></p>
9835
9836 <p>The DHCP server searches for specific objectclass and requests all
9837 the object attributes, and then uses the attributes it want.  This
9838 make it harder to figure out exactly what attributes are used, but
9839 thanks to the working example in Debian Edu I can at least get an idea
9840 what is needed without having to read the source code.</p>
9841
9842 <p>In the DHCP server configuration, the LDAP base to use and the
9843 search filter to use to locate the correct dhcpServer entity is
9844 stored.  These are the relevant entries from
9845 /etc/dhcp3/dhcpd.conf:</p>
9846
9847 <blockquote><pre>
9848 ldap-base-dn "dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no";
9849 ldap-dhcp-server-cn "dhcp";
9850 </pre></blockquote>
9851
9852 <p>The DHCP server uses this information to nest all the DHCP
9853 configuration it need.  The cn "dhcp" is located using the given LDAP
9854 base and the filter "(&(objectClass=dhcpServer)(cn=dhcp))".  The
9855 search result is this entry:</p>
9856
9857 <blockquote><pre>
9858 dn: cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
9859 cn: dhcp
9860 objectClass: top
9861 objectClass: dhcpServer
9862 dhcpServiceDN: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
9863 </pre></blockquote>
9864
9865 <p>The content of the dhcpServiceDN attribute is next used to locate the
9866 subtree with DHCP configuration.  The DHCP configuration subtree base
9867 is located using a base scope search with base "cn=DHCP
9868 Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" and filter
9869 "(&(objectClass=dhcpService)(|(dhcpPrimaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)(dhcpSecondaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)))".
9870 The search result is this entry:</p>
9871
9872 <blockquote><pre>
9873 dn: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
9874 cn: DHCP Config
9875 objectClass: top
9876 objectClass: dhcpService
9877 objectClass: dhcpOptions
9878 dhcpPrimaryDN: cn=dhcp, dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
9879 dhcpStatements: ddns-update-style none
9880 dhcpStatements: authoritative
9881 dhcpOption: smtp-server code 69 = array of ip-address
9882 dhcpOption: www-server code 72 = array of ip-address
9883 dhcpOption: wpad-url code 252 = text
9884 </pre></blockquote>
9885
9886 <p>Next, the entire subtree is processed, one level at the time.  When
9887 all the DHCP configuration is loaded, it is ready to receive requests.
9888 The subtree in Debian Edu contain objects with object classes
9889 top/dhcpService/dhcpOptions, top/dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions,
9890 top/dhcpSubnet, top/dhcpGroup and top/dhcpHost.  These provide options
9891 and information about netmasks, dynamic range etc.  Leaving out the
9892 details here because it is not relevant for the focus of my
9893 investigation, which is to see if it is possible to merge dns and dhcp
9894 related computer objects.</p>
9895
9896 <p>When a DHCP request come in, LDAP is searched for the MAC address
9897 of the client (00:00:00:00:00:00 in this example), using a subtree
9898 scoped search with "cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" as
9899 the base and "(&(objectClass=dhcpHost)(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet
9900 00:00:00:00:00:00))" as the filter.  This is what a host object look
9901 like:</p>
9902
9903 <blockquote><pre>
9904 dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
9905 cn: hostname
9906 objectClass: top
9907 objectClass: dhcpHost
9908 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
9909 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname
9910 </pre></blockquote>
9911
9912 <p>There is less flexiblity in the way LDAP searches are done here.
9913 The object classes need to have fixed names, and the configuration
9914 need to be stored in a fairly specific LDAP structure.  On the
9915 positive side, the invidiual dhcpHost entires can be anywhere without
9916 the DN pointed to by the dhcpServer entries.  The latter should make
9917 it possible to group all host entries in a subtree next to the
9918 configuration entries, and this subtree can also be shared with the
9919 DNS server if the schema proposed above is combined with the dhcpHost
9920 structural object class.
9921
9922 <p><strong>Conclusion</strong></p>
9923
9924 <p>The PowerDNS implementation seem to be very flexible when it come
9925 to which LDAP schemas to use.  While its "tree" mode is rigid when it
9926 come to the the LDAP structure, the "strict" mode is very flexible,
9927 allowing DNS objects to be stored anywhere under the base cn specified
9928 in the configuration.</p>
9929
9930 <p>The DHCP implementation on the other hand is very inflexible, both
9931 regarding which LDAP schemas to use and which LDAP structure to use.
9932 I guess one could implement ones own schema, as long as the
9933 objectclasses and attributes have the names used, but this do not
9934 really help when the DHCP subtree need to have a fairly fixed
9935 structure.</p>
9936
9937 <p>Based on the observed behaviour, I suspect a LDAP structure like
9938 this might work for Debian Edu:</p>
9939
9940 <blockquote><pre>
9941 ou=services
9942   cn=machine-info (dhcpService) - dhcpServiceDN points here
9943     cn=dhcp (dhcpServer)
9944     cn=dhcp-internal (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
9945       cn=10.0.2.0 (dhcpSubnet)
9946         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
9947     cn=dhcp-thinclients (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
9948       cn=192.168.0.0 (dhcpSubnet)
9949         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
9950     ou=machines - PowerDNS base points here
9951       cn=hostname (dhcpHost/domainrelatedobject/dnsDomainAux)
9952 </pre></blockquote>
9953
9954 <P>This is not tested yet.  If the DHCP server require the dhcpHost
9955 entries to be in the dhcpGroup subtrees, the entries can be stored
9956 there instead of a common machines subtree, and the PowerDNS base
9957 would have to be moved one level up to the machine-info subtree.</p>
9958
9959 <p>The combined object under the machines subtree would look something
9960 like this:</p>
9961
9962 <blockquote><pre>
9963 dn: dc=hostname,ou=machines,cn=machine-info,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
9964 dc: hostname
9965 objectClass: top
9966 objectClass: dhcpHost
9967 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
9968 objectclass: dnsDomainAux
9969 associateddomain: hostname.intern
9970 arecord: 10.11.12.13
9971 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
9972 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname.intern
9973 </pre></blockquote>
9974
9975 </p>One could even add the LTSP configuration associated with a given
9976 machine, as long as the required attributes are available in a
9977 auxiliary object class.</p>
9978
9979       </div>
9980       <div class="tags">
9981
9982
9983         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>.
9984
9985
9986       </div>
9987     </div>
9988     <div class="padding"></div>
9989
9990     <div class="entry">
9991       <div class="title">
9992         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">Combining PowerDNS and ISC DHCP LDAP objects</a>
9993       </div>
9994       <div class="date">
9995         14th July 2010
9996       </div>
9997       <div class="body">
9998         <p>For a while now, I have wanted to find a way to change the DNS and
9999 DHCP services in Debian Edu to use the same LDAP objects for a given
10000 computer, to avoid the possibility of having a inconsistent state for
10001 a computer in LDAP (as in DHCP but no DNS entry or the other way
10002 around) and make it easier to add computers to LDAP.</p>
10003
10004 <p>I've looked at how powerdns and dhcpd is using LDAP, and using this
10005 information finally found a solution that seem to work.</p>
10006
10007 <p>The old setup required three LDAP objects for a given computer.
10008 One forward DNS entry, one reverse DNS entry and one DHCP entry.  If
10009 we switch powerdns to use its strict LDAP method (ldap-method=strict
10010 in pdns-debian-edu.conf), the forward and reverse DNS entries are
10011 merged into one while making it impossible to transfer the reverse map
10012 to a slave DNS server.</p>
10013
10014 <p>If we also replace the object class used to get the DNS related
10015 attributes to one allowing these attributes to be combined with the
10016 dhcphost object class, we can merge the DNS and DHCP entries into one.
10017 I've written such object class in the dnsdomainaux.schema file (need
10018 proper OIDs, but that is a minor issue), and tested the setup.  It
10019 seem to work.</p>
10020
10021 <p>With this test setup in place, we can get away with one LDAP object
10022 for both DNS and DHCP, and even the LTSP configuration I suggested in
10023 an earlier email.  The combined LDAP object will look something like
10024 this:</p>
10025
10026 <blockquote><pre>
10027   dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
10028   cn: hostname
10029   objectClass: dhcphost
10030   objectclass: domainrelatedobject
10031   objectclass: dnsdomainaux
10032   associateddomain: hostname.intern
10033   arecord: 10.11.12.13
10034   dhcphwaddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
10035   dhcpstatements: fixed-address hostname
10036   ldapconfigsound: Y
10037 </pre></blockquote>
10038
10039 <p>The DNS server uses the associateddomain and arecord entries, while
10040 the DHCP server uses the dhcphwaddress and dhcpstatements entries
10041 before asking DNS to resolve the fixed-adddress.  LTSP will use
10042 dhcphwaddress or associateddomain and the ldapconfig* attributes.</p>
10043
10044 <p>I am not yet sure if I can get the DHCP server to look for its
10045 dhcphost in a different location, to allow us to put the objects
10046 outside the "DHCP Config" subtree, but hope to figure out a way to do
10047 that.  If I can't figure out a way to do that, we can still get rid of
10048 the hosts subtree and move all its content into the DHCP Config tree
10049 (which probably should be renamed to be more related to the new
10050 content.  I suspect cn=dnsdhcp,ou=services or something like that
10051 might be a good place to put it.</p>
10052
10053 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
10054 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
10055
10056       </div>
10057       <div class="tags">
10058
10059
10060         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>.
10061
10062
10063       </div>
10064     </div>
10065     <div class="padding"></div>
10066
10067     <div class="entry">
10068       <div class="title">
10069         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Idea_for_storing_LTSP_configuration_in_LDAP.html">Idea for storing LTSP configuration in LDAP</a>
10070       </div>
10071       <div class="date">
10072         11th July 2010
10073       </div>
10074       <div class="body">
10075         <p>Vagrant mentioned on IRC today that ltsp_config now support
10076 sourcing files from /usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ on the thin
10077 clients, and that this can be used to fetch configuration from LDAP if
10078 Debian Edu choose to store configuration there.</p>
10079
10080 <p>Armed with this information, I got inspired and wrote a test module
10081 to get configuration from LDAP.  The idea is to look up the MAC
10082 address of the client in LDAP, and look for attributes on the form
10083 ltspconfigsetting=value, and use this to export SETTING=value to the
10084 LTSP clients.</p>
10085
10086 <p>The goal is to be able to store the LTSP configuration attributes
10087 in a "computer" LDAP object used by both DNS and DHCP, and thus
10088 allowing us to store all information about a computer in one place.</p>
10089
10090 <p>This is a untested draft implementation, and I welcome feedback on
10091 this approach.  A real LDAP schema for the ltspClientAux objectclass
10092 need to be written.  Comments, suggestions, etc?</p>
10093
10094 <blockquote><pre>
10095 # Store in /opt/ltsp/$arch/usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ldap-config
10096 #
10097 # Fetch LTSP client settings from LDAP based on MAC address
10098 #
10099 # Uses ethernet address as stored in the dhcpHost objectclass using
10100 # the dhcpHWAddress attribute or ethernet address stored in the
10101 # ieee802Device objectclass with the macAddress attribute.
10102 #
10103 # This module is written to be schema agnostic, and only depend on the
10104 # existence of attribute names.
10105 #
10106 # The LTSP configuration variables are saved directly using a
10107 # ltspConfig prefix and uppercasing the rest of the attribute name.
10108 # To set the SERVER variable, set the ltspConfigServer attribute.
10109 #
10110 # Some LDAP schema should be created with all the relevant
10111 # configuration settings.  Something like this should work:
10112 #
10113 # objectclass ( 1.1.2.2 NAME 'ltspClientAux'
10114 #     SUP top
10115 #     AUXILIARY
10116 #     MAY ( ltspConfigServer $ ltsConfigSound $ ... )
10117
10118 LDAPSERVER=$(debian-edu-ldapserver)
10119 if [ "$LDAPSERVER" ] ; then
10120     LDAPBASE=$(debian-edu-ldapserver -b)
10121     for MAC in $(LANG=C ifconfig |grep -i hwaddr| awk '{print $5}'|sort -u) ; do
10122         filter="(|(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet $MAC)(macAddress=$MAC))"
10123         ldapsearch -h "$LDAPSERVER" -b "$LDAPBASE" -v -x "$filter" | \
10124             grep '^ltspConfig' | while read attr value ; do
10125             # Remove prefix and convert to upper case
10126             attr=$(echo $attr | sed 's/^ltspConfig//i' | tr a-z A-Z)
10127             # bass value on to clients
10128             eval "$attr=$value; export $attr"
10129         done
10130     done
10131 fi
10132 </pre></blockquote>
10133
10134 <p>I'm not sure this shell construction will work, because I suspect
10135 the while block might end up in a subshell causing the variables set
10136 there to not show up in ltsp-config, but if that is the case I am sure
10137 the code can be restructured to make sure the variables are passed on.
10138 I expect that can be solved with some testing. :)</p>
10139
10140 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
10141 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
10142
10143 <p>Update 2010-07-17: I am aware of another effort to store LTSP
10144 configuration in LDAP that was created around year 2000 by
10145 <a href="http://www.pcxperience.com/thinclient/documentation/ldap.html">PC
10146 Xperience, Inc., 2000</a>.  I found its
10147 <a href="http://people.redhat.com/alikins/ltsp/ldap/">files</a> on a
10148 personal home page over at redhat.com.</p>
10149
10150       </div>
10151       <div class="tags">
10152
10153
10154         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>.
10155
10156
10157       </div>
10158     </div>
10159     <div class="padding"></div>
10160
10161     <div class="entry">
10162       <div class="title">
10163         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/jXplorer__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">jXplorer, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
10164       </div>
10165       <div class="date">
10166          9th July 2010
10167       </div>
10168       <div class="body">
10169         <p>Since
10170 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">my
10171 last post</a> about available LDAP tools in Debian, I was told about a
10172 LDAP GUI that is even better than luma.  The java application
10173 <a href="http://jxplorer.org/">jXplorer</a> is claimed to be capable of
10174 moving LDAP objects and subtrees using drag-and-drop, and can
10175 authenticate using Kerberos.  I have only tested the Kerberos
10176 authentication, but do not have a LDAP setup allowing me to rewrite
10177 LDAP with my test user yet.  It is
10178 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/j/jxplorer.html">available in
10179 Debian</a> testing and unstable at the moment.  The only problem I
10180 have with it is how it handle errors.  If something go wrong, its
10181 non-intuitive behaviour require me to go through some query work list
10182 and remove the failing query.  Nothing big, but very annoying.</p>
10183
10184       </div>
10185       <div class="tags">
10186
10187
10188         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>.
10189
10190
10191       </div>
10192     </div>
10193     <div class="padding"></div>
10194
10195     <div class="entry">
10196       <div class="title">
10197         <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>
10198       </div>
10199       <div class="date">
10200          3rd July 2010
10201       </div>
10202       <div class="body">
10203         <p>Here is a short update on my <a
10204 href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">my
10205 Debian Lenny->Squeeze upgrade testing</a>.  Here is a summary of the
10206 difference for Gnome when it is upgraded by apt-get and aptitude.  I'm
10207 not reporting the status for KDE, because the upgrade crashes when
10208 aptitude try because of missing conflicts
10209 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> and
10210 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585716">#585716</a>).</p>
10211
10212 <p>At the end of the upgrade test script, dpkg -l is executed to get a
10213 complete list of the installed packages.  Based on this I see these
10214 differences when I did a test run today.  As usual, I do not really
10215 know what the correct set of packages would be, but thought it best to
10216 publish the difference.</p>
10217
10218 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
10219
10220 <blockquote><p>
10221   at-spi cpp-4.3 finger gnome-spell gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
10222   libatspi1.0-0 libcupsys2 libeel2-data libgail-common libgdl-1-common
10223   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin
10224   libgtksourceview-common libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
10225   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libservlet2.4-java libxalan2-java
10226   libxerces2-java openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
10227   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gtkhtml2
10228   python-gtkmozembed svgalibg1 xserver-xephyr zip
10229 </p></blockquote>
10230
10231 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
10232
10233 <blockquote><p>
10234   bluez-utils dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop epiphany-gecko
10235   gnome-app-install gnome-mount gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager
10236   libao2 libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libbind9-50
10237   libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcurl3
10238   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9
10239   libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3
10240   libfaad0 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
10241   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
10242   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
10243   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
10244   libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50
10245   libisccfg50 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick++10
10246   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4
10247   libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5
10248   libparted1.8-10 libpisock9 libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3
10249   libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8 libsensors3 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
10250   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1
10251   libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0 libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj
10252   libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3
10253   mysql-common swfdec-gnome totem-gstreamer wodim
10254 </p></blockquote>
10255
10256 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
10257
10258 <blockquote><p>
10259   gnome gnome-desktop-environment hamster-applet python-gnomeapplet
10260   python-gnomekeyring python-wnck rhythmbox-plugins xorg
10261   xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
10262   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
10263   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-video-all
10264   xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark xserver-xorg-video-ati
10265   xserver-xorg-video-chips xserver-xorg-video-cirrus
10266   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
10267   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
10268   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-mach64
10269   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
10270   xserver-xorg-video-nouveau xserver-xorg-video-nv
10271   xserver-xorg-video-r128 xserver-xorg-video-radeon
10272   xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd xserver-xorg-video-rendition
10273   xserver-xorg-video-s3 xserver-xorg-video-s3virge
10274   xserver-xorg-video-savage xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion
10275   xserver-xorg-video-sis xserver-xorg-video-sisusb
10276   xserver-xorg-video-tdfx xserver-xorg-video-tga
10277   xserver-xorg-video-trident xserver-xorg-video-tseng
10278   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vmware
10279   xserver-xorg-video-voodoo
10280 </p></blockquote>
10281
10282 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
10283
10284 <blockquote><p>
10285   deskbar-applet xserver-xorg xserver-xorg-core
10286   xserver-xorg-input-wacom xserver-xorg-video-intel
10287   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome
10288 </p></blockquote>
10289
10290 <p>I was told on IRC that the xorg-xserver package was
10291 <a href="http://git.debian.org/?p=pkg-xorg/xserver/xorg-server.git;a=commit;h=9c8080d06c457932d3bfec021c69ac000aa60120">changed
10292 in git</a> today to try to get apt-get to not remove xorg completely.
10293 No idea when it hits Squeeze, but when it does I hope it will reduce
10294 the difference somewhat.
10295
10296       </div>
10297       <div class="tags">
10298
10299
10300         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>.
10301
10302
10303       </div>
10304     </div>
10305     <div class="padding"></div>
10306
10307     <div class="entry">
10308       <div class="title">
10309         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">LUMA, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
10310       </div>
10311       <div class="date">
10312         28th June 2010
10313       </div>
10314       <div class="body">
10315         <p>The last few days I have been looking into the status of the LDAP
10316 directory in Debian Edu, and in the process I started to miss a GUI
10317 tool to browse the LDAP tree.  The only one I was able to find in
10318 Debian/Squeeze and Lenny is
10319 <a href="http://luma.sourceforge.net/">LUMA</a>, which has proved to
10320 be a great tool to get a overview of the current LDAP directory
10321 populated by default in Skolelinux.  Thanks to it, I have been able to
10322 find empty and obsolete subtrees, misplaced objects and duplicate
10323 objects.  It will be installed by default in Debian/Squeeze.  If you
10324 are working with LDAP, give it a go. :)</p>
10325
10326 <p>I did notice one problem with it I have not had time to report to
10327 the BTS yet.  There is no .desktop file in the package, so the tool do
10328 not show up in the Gnome and KDE menus, but only deep down in in the
10329 Debian submenu in KDE.  I hope that can be fixed before Squeeze is
10330 released.</p>
10331
10332 <p>I have not yet been able to get it to modify the tree yet.  I would
10333 like to move objects and remove subtrees directly in the GUI, but have
10334 not found a way to do that with LUMA yet.  So in the mean time, I use
10335 <a href="http://www.lichteblau.com/ldapvi/">ldapvi</a> for that.</p>
10336
10337 <p>If you have tips on other GUI tools for LDAP that might be useful
10338 in Debian Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
10339
10340 <p>Update 2010-06-29: Ross Reedstrom tipped us about the
10341 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/g/gq.html">gq</a> package as a
10342 useful GUI alternative.  It seem like a good tool, but is unmaintained
10343 in Debian and got a RC bug keeping it out of Squeeze.  Unless that
10344 changes, it will not be an option for Debian Edu based on Squeeze.</p>
10345
10346       </div>
10347       <div class="tags">
10348
10349
10350         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>.
10351
10352
10353       </div>
10354     </div>
10355     <div class="padding"></div>
10356
10357     <div class="entry">
10358       <div class="title">
10359         <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>
10360       </div>
10361       <div class="date">
10362         24th June 2010
10363       </div>
10364       <div class="body">
10365         <p>A while back, I
10366 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">complained
10367 about the fact</a> that it is not possible with the provided schemas
10368 for storing DNS and DHCP information in LDAP to combine the two sets
10369 of information into one LDAP object representing a computer.</p>
10370
10371 <p>In the mean time, I discovered that a simple fix would be to make
10372 the dhcpHost object class auxiliary, to allow it to be combined with
10373 the dNSDomain object class, and thus forming one object for one
10374 computer when storing both DHCP and DNS information in LDAP.</p>
10375
10376 <p>If I understand this correctly, it is not safe to do this change
10377 without also changing the assigned number for the object class, and I
10378 do not know enough about LDAP schema design to do that properly for
10379 Debian Edu.</p>
10380
10381 <p>Anyway, for future reference, this is how I believe we could change
10382 the
10383 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-dhc-ldap-schema-00">DHCP
10384 schema</a> to solve at least part of the problem with the LDAP schemas
10385 available today from IETF.</p>
10386
10387 <pre>
10388 --- dhcp.schema    (revision 65192)
10389 +++ dhcp.schema    (working copy)
10390 @@ -376,7 +376,7 @@
10391  objectclass ( 2.16.840.1.113719.1.203.6.6
10392         NAME 'dhcpHost'
10393         DESC 'This represents information about a particular client'
10394 -       SUP top
10395 +       SUP top AUXILIARY
10396         MUST cn
10397         MAY  (dhcpLeaseDN $ dhcpHWAddress $ dhcpOptionsDN $ dhcpStatements $ dhcpComments $ dhcpOption)
10398         X-NDS_CONTAINMENT ('dhcpService' 'dhcpSubnet' 'dhcpGroup') )
10399 </pre>
10400
10401 <p>I very much welcome clues on how to do this properly for Debian
10402 Edu/Squeeze.  We provide the DHCP schema in our debian-edu-config
10403 package, and should thus be free to rewrite it as we see fit.</p>
10404
10405 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
10406 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
10407
10408       </div>
10409       <div class="tags">
10410
10411
10412         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>.
10413
10414
10415       </div>
10416     </div>
10417     <div class="padding"></div>
10418
10419     <div class="entry">
10420       <div class="title">
10421         <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>
10422       </div>
10423       <div class="date">
10424         16th June 2010
10425       </div>
10426       <div class="body">
10427         <p>A few times I have had the need to simulate the way tasksel
10428 installs packages during the normal debian-installer run.  Until now,
10429 I have ended up letting tasksel do the work, with the annoying problem
10430 of not getting any feedback at all when something fails (like a
10431 conffile question from dpkg or a download that fails), using code like
10432 this:
10433
10434 <blockquote><pre>
10435 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
10436 tasksel --new-install
10437 </pre></blockquote>
10438
10439 This would invoke tasksel, let its automatic task selection pick the
10440 tasks to install, and continue to install the requested tasks without
10441 any output what so ever.
10442
10443 Recently I revisited this problem while working on the automatic
10444 package upgrade testing, because tasksel would some times hang without
10445 any useful feedback, and I want to see what is going on when it
10446 happen.  Then it occured to me, I can parse the output from tasksel
10447 when asked to run in test mode, and use that aptitude command line
10448 printed by tasksel then to simulate the tasksel run.  I ended up using
10449 code like this:
10450
10451 <blockquote><pre>
10452 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
10453 cmd="$(in_target tasksel -t --new-install | sed 's/debconf-apt-progress -- //')"
10454 $cmd
10455 </pre></blockquote>
10456
10457 <p>The content of $cmd is typically something like "<tt>aptitude -q
10458 --without-recommends -o APT::Install-Recommends=no -y install
10459 ~t^desktop$ ~t^gnome-desktop$ ~t^laptop$ ~pstandard ~prequired
10460 ~pimportant</tt>", which will install the gnome desktop task, the
10461 laptop task and all packages with priority standard , required and
10462 important, just like tasksel would have done it during
10463 installation.</p>
10464
10465 <p>A better approach is probably to extend tasksel to be able to
10466 install packages without using debconf-apt-progress, for use cases
10467 like this.</p>
10468
10469       </div>
10470       <div class="tags">
10471
10472
10473         Tags: <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>.
10474
10475
10476       </div>
10477     </div>
10478     <div class="padding"></div>
10479
10480     <div class="entry">
10481       <div class="title">
10482         <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>
10483       </div>
10484       <div class="date">
10485         13th June 2010
10486       </div>
10487       <div class="body">
10488         <p>My
10489 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">testing
10490 of Debian upgrades</a> from Lenny to Squeeze continues, and I've
10491 finally made the upgrade logs available from
10492 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/</a>.
10493 I am now testing dist-upgrade of Gnome and KDE in a chroot using both
10494 apt and aptitude, and found their differences interesting.  This time
10495 I will only focus on their removal plans.</p>
10496
10497 <p>After installing a Gnome desktop and the laptop task, apt-get wants
10498 to remove 72 packages when dist-upgrading from Lenny to Squeeze.  The
10499 surprising part is that it want to remove xorg and all
10500 xserver-xorg-video* drivers.  Clearly not a good choice, but I am not
10501 sure why.  When asking aptitude to do the same, it want to remove 129
10502 packages, but most of them are library packages I suspect are no
10503 longer needed.  Both of them want to remove bluetooth packages, which
10504 I do not know.  Perhaps these bluetooth packages are obsolete?</p>
10505
10506 <p>For KDE, apt-get want to remove 82 packages, among them kdebase
10507 which seem like a bad idea and xorg the same way as with Gnome. Asking
10508 aptitude for the same, it wants to remove 192 packages, none which are
10509 too surprising.</p>
10510
10511 <p>I guess the removal of xorg during upgrades should be investigated
10512 and avoided, and perhaps others as well.  Here are the complete list
10513 of planned removals.  The complete logs is available from the URL
10514 above.  Note if you want to repeat these tests, that the upgrade test
10515 for kde+apt-get hung in the tasksel setup because of dpkg asking
10516 conffile questions.  No idea why.  I worked around it by using
10517 '<tt>echo >> /proc/<em>pidofdpkg</em>/fd/0</tt>' to tell dpkg to
10518 continue.</p>
10519
10520 <p><b>apt-get gnome 72</b>
10521 <br>bluez-gnome cupsddk-drivers deskbar-applet gnome
10522   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-network-admin gtkhtml3.14
10523   iceweasel-gnome-support libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libgdl-1-0
10524   libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libmetacity0 libslab0 libxcb-xlib0
10525   nautilus-cd-burner python-gnome2-desktop python-gnome2-extras
10526   serpentine swfdec-mozilla update-manager xorg xserver-xorg
10527   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
10528   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
10529   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
10530   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
10531   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
10532   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
10533   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
10534   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
10535   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
10536   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
10537   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
10538   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
10539   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
10540   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
10541   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
10542   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
10543   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
10544   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
10545   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
10546   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
10547   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
10548   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9
10549   xulrunner-1.9-gnome-support</p>
10550
10551 <p><b>aptitude gnome 129</b>
10552
10553 <br>bluez-gnome bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers dhcdbd
10554   djvulibre-desktop finger gnome-app-install gnome-mount
10555   gnome-network-admin gnome-spell gnome-vfs-obexftp
10556   gnome-volume-manager gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs gtkhtml3.14 libao2
10557   libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
10558   libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcupsys2 libcurl3 libdatrie0
10559   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20
10560   libeel2-data libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libfaad0 libgail-common
10561   libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libgdl-1-0 libgdl-1-common
10562   libggz2 libggzcore9 libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0
10563   libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libgnomeprint2.2-0
10564   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgnomeprintui2.2-common
10565   libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
10566   libgtksourceview-common libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6
10567   libhesiod0 libicu38 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 libmagick++10
10568   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmetacity0 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off
10569   libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2
10570   libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10
10571   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libraw1394-8
10572   libsensors3 libslab0 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8 libssh2-1
10573   libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10
10574   libtrackerclient0 libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0
10575   libxerces2-java libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6
10576   libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common nautilus-cd-burner
10577   openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
10578   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gnome2-desktop
10579   python-gnome2-extras python-gtkhtml2 python-gtkmozembed
10580   python-numeric python-sexy serpentine svgalibg1 swfdec-gnome
10581   swfdec-mozilla totem-gstreamer update-manager wodim
10582   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
10583   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
10584   zip</p>
10585
10586 <p><b>apt-get kde 82</b>
10587
10588 <br>cupsddk-drivers karm kaudiocreator kcoloredit kcontrol kde kde-core
10589   kdeaddons kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-bin kdebase-bin-kde3
10590   kdebase-kio-plugins kdesktop kdeutils khelpcenter kicker
10591   kicker-applets knewsticker kolourpaint konq-plugins konqueror korn
10592   kpersonalizer kscreensaver ksplash libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libkiten1
10593   libxcb-xlib0 quanta superkaramba texlive-base-bin xorg xserver-xorg
10594   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
10595   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
10596   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
10597   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
10598   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
10599   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
10600   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
10601   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
10602   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
10603   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
10604   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
10605   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
10606   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
10607   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
10608   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
10609   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
10610   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
10611   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
10612   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
10613   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
10614   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
10615   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9</p>
10616
10617 <p><b>aptitude kde 192</b>
10618 <br>bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers cvs dcoprss dhcdbd
10619   djvulibre-desktop dosfstools eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
10620   ghostscript-x imlib-base imlib11 indi kandy karm kasteroids
10621   kaudiocreator kbackgammon kbstate kcoloredit kcontrol kcron kdat
10622   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
10623   kdebase-bin-kde3 kdebase-kio-plugins kdeedu-data
10624   kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data
10625   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
10626   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdeprint kdesktop kdessh
10627   kdict kdnssd kdvi kedit keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs
10628   kghostview khelpcenter khexedit kiconedit kitchensync klatin
10629   klickety kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmoon kmrml kodo kolourpaint
10630   kooka korn kpager kpdf kpercentage kpf kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler
10631   krec kregexpeditor ksayit ksim ksirc ksirtet ksmiletris ksmserver
10632   ksnake ksokoban ksplash ksvg ksysv ktip ktnef kuickshow kverbos
10633   kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kworldclock
10634   kxsldbg libakode2 libao2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
10635   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
10636   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
10637   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0 libdatrie0
10638   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
10639   libgail-common libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0
10640   libicu38 libiec61883-0 libindex0 libiw29 libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1
10641   libkdeedu3 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkiten1 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
10642   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
10643   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 libmagick10 libmimelib1c2a
10644   libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9
10645   libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 libsmbios2
10646   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libtalloc1 libtiff-tools
10647   libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0 libxerces2-java
10648   libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 mpeglib networkstatus
10649   openoffice.org-writer2latex pmount poster psutils quanta quanta-data
10650   superkaramba svgalibg1 tex-common texlive-base texlive-base-bin
10651   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended
10652   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
10653   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
10654   xulrunner-1.9</p>
10655
10656
10657       </div>
10658       <div class="tags">
10659
10660
10661         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>.
10662
10663
10664       </div>
10665     </div>
10666     <div class="padding"></div>
10667
10668     <div class="entry">
10669       <div class="title">
10670         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">Automatic upgrade testing from Lenny to Squeeze</a>
10671       </div>
10672       <div class="date">
10673         11th June 2010
10674       </div>
10675       <div class="body">
10676         <p>The last few days I have done some upgrade testing in Debian, to
10677 see if the upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze will go smoothly.  A few bugs
10678 have been discovered and reported in the process
10679 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585410">#585410</a> in nagios3-cgi,
10680 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584879">#584879</a> already fixed in
10681 enscript and <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> in
10682 kdebase-workspace-data), and to get a more regular testing going on, I
10683 am working on a script to automate the test.</p>
10684
10685 <p>The idea is to create a Lenny chroot and use tasksel to install a
10686 Gnome or KDE desktop installation inside the chroot before upgrading
10687 it.  To ensure no services are started in the chroot, a policy-rc.d
10688 script is inserted.  To make sure tasksel believe it is to install a
10689 desktop on a laptop, the tasksel tests are replaced in the chroot
10690 (only acceptable because this is a throw-away chroot).</p>
10691
10692 <p>A naive upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze using aptitude dist-upgrade
10693 currently always fail because udev refuses to upgrade with the kernel
10694 in Lenny, so to avoid that problem the file /etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
10695 is created.  The bug report
10696 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/566000">#566000</a> make me suspect
10697 this problem do not trigger in a chroot, but I touch the file anyway
10698 to make sure the upgrade go well.  Testing on virtual and real
10699 hardware have failed me because of udev so far, and creating this file
10700 do the trick in such settings anyway.  This is a
10701 <a href="http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/debian-26/failed-dist-upgrade-due-to-udev-config_sysfs_deprecated-nonsense-804130/">known
10702 issue</a> and the current udev behaviour is intended by the udev
10703 maintainer because he lack the resources to rewrite udev to keep
10704 working with old kernels or something like that.  I really wish the
10705 udev upstream would keep udev backwards compatible, to avoid such
10706 upgrade problem, but given that they fail to do so, I guess
10707 documenting the way out of this mess is the best option we got for
10708 Debian Squeeze.</p>
10709
10710 <p>Anyway, back to the task at hand, testing upgrades.  This test
10711 script, which I call <tt>upgrade-test</tt> for now, is doing the
10712 trick:</p>
10713
10714 <blockquote><pre>
10715 #!/bin/sh
10716 set -ex
10717
10718 if [ "$1" ] ; then
10719     desktop=$1
10720 else
10721     desktop=gnome
10722 fi
10723
10724 from=lenny
10725 to=squeeze
10726
10727 exec &lt; /dev/null
10728 unset LANG
10729 mirror=http://ftp.skolelinux.org/debian
10730 tmpdir=chroot-$from-upgrade-$to-$desktop
10731 fuser -mv .
10732 debootstrap $from $tmpdir $mirror
10733 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
10734 cat > $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d &lt;&lt;EOF
10735 #!/bin/sh
10736 exit 101
10737 EOF
10738 chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d
10739 exit_cleanup() {
10740     umount $tmpdir/proc
10741 }
10742 mount -t proc proc $tmpdir/proc
10743 # Make sure proc is unmounted also on failure
10744 trap exit_cleanup EXIT INT
10745
10746 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y install debconf-utils
10747
10748 # Make sure tasksel autoselection trigger.  It need the test scripts
10749 # to return the correct answers.
10750 echo tasksel tasksel/desktop multiselect $desktop | \
10751     chroot $tmpdir debconf-set-selections
10752
10753 # Include the desktop and laptop task
10754 for test in desktop laptop ; do
10755     echo > $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test &lt;&lt;EOF
10756 #!/bin/sh
10757 exit 2
10758 EOF
10759     chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test
10760 done
10761
10762 DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
10763 DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical
10764 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND DEBIAN_PRIORITY
10765 chroot $tmpdir tasksel --new-install
10766
10767 echo deb $mirror $to main > $tmpdir/etc/apt/sources.list
10768 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
10769 touch $tmpdir/etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
10770 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y dist-upgrade
10771 fuser -mv
10772 </pre></blockquote>
10773
10774 <p>I suspect it would be useful to test upgrades with both apt-get and
10775 with aptitude, but I have not had time to look at how they behave
10776 differently so far.  I hope to get a cron job running to do the test
10777 regularly and post the result on the web.  The Gnome upgrade currently
10778 work, while the KDE upgrade fail because of the bug in
10779 kdebase-workspace-data</p>
10780
10781 <p>I am not quite sure what kind of extract from the huge upgrade logs
10782 (KDE 167 KiB, Gnome 516 KiB) it make sense to include in this blog
10783 post, so I will refrain from trying.  I can report that for Gnome,
10784 aptitude report 760 packages upgraded, 448 newly installed, 129 to
10785 remove and 1 not upgraded and 1024MB need to be downloaded while for
10786 KDE the same numbers are 702 packages upgraded, 507 newly installed,
10787 193 to remove and 0 not upgraded and 1117MB need to be downloaded</p>
10788
10789 <p>I am very happy to notice that the Gnome desktop + laptop upgrade
10790 is able to migrate to dependency based boot sequencing and parallel
10791 booting without a hitch.  Was unsure if there were still bugs with
10792 packages failing to clean up their obsolete init.d script during
10793 upgrades, and no such problem seem to affect the Gnome desktop+laptop
10794 packages.</p>
10795
10796       </div>
10797       <div class="tags">
10798
10799
10800         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>.
10801
10802
10803       </div>
10804     </div>
10805     <div class="padding"></div>
10806
10807     <div class="entry">
10808       <div class="title">
10809         <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>
10810       </div>
10811       <div class="date">
10812          6th June 2010
10813       </div>
10814       <div class="body">
10815         <p>If Debian is to migrate to upstart on Linux, I expect some init.d
10816 scripts to migrate (some of) their operations to upstart job while
10817 keeping the init.d for hurd and kfreebsd.  The packages with such
10818 needs will need a way to get their init.d scripts to behave
10819 differently when used with sysvinit and with upstart.  Because of
10820 this, I had a look at the environment variables set when a init.d
10821 script is running under upstart, and when it is not.</p>
10822
10823 <p>With upstart, I notice these environment variables are set when a
10824 script is started from rcS.d/ (ignoring some irrelevant ones like
10825 COLUMNS):</p>
10826
10827 <blockquote><pre>
10828 DEFAULT_RUNLEVEL=2
10829 previous=N
10830 PREVLEVEL=
10831 RUNLEVEL=
10832 runlevel=S
10833 UPSTART_EVENTS=startup
10834 UPSTART_INSTANCE=
10835 UPSTART_JOB=rc-sysinit
10836 </pre></blockquote>
10837
10838 <p>With sysvinit, these environment variables are set for the same
10839 script.</p>
10840
10841 <blockquote><pre>
10842 INIT_VERSION=sysvinit-2.88
10843 previous=N
10844 PREVLEVEL=N
10845 RUNLEVEL=S
10846 runlevel=S
10847 </pre></blockquote>
10848
10849 <p>The RUNLEVEL and PREVLEVEL environment variables passed on from
10850 sysvinit are not set by upstart.  Not sure if it is intentional or not
10851 to not be compatible with sysvinit in this regard.</p>
10852
10853 <p>For scripts needing to behave differently when upstart is used,
10854 looking for the UPSTART_JOB environment variable seem to be a good
10855 choice.</p>
10856
10857       </div>
10858       <div class="tags">
10859
10860
10861         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>.
10862
10863
10864       </div>
10865     </div>
10866     <div class="padding"></div>
10867
10868     <div class="entry">
10869       <div class="title">
10870         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_manual_for_standards_wars___.html">A manual for standards wars...</a>
10871       </div>
10872       <div class="date">
10873          6th June 2010
10874       </div>
10875       <div class="body">
10876         <p>Via the
10877 <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/robweir/antic-atom/~3/QzU4RgoAGMg/weekly-links-10.html">blog
10878 of Rob Weir</a> I came across the very interesting essay named
10879 <a href="http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/shapiro/wars.pdf">The Art of
10880 Standards Wars</a> (PDF 25 pages).  I recommend it for everyone
10881 following the standards wars of today.</p>
10882
10883       </div>
10884       <div class="tags">
10885
10886
10887         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>.
10888
10889
10890       </div>
10891     </div>
10892     <div class="padding"></div>
10893
10894     <div class="entry">
10895       <div class="title">
10896         <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>
10897       </div>
10898       <div class="date">
10899          3rd June 2010
10900       </div>
10901       <div class="body">
10902         <p>When using sitesummary at a site to track machines, it is possible
10903 to get a list of the machine types in use thanks to the DMI
10904 information extracted from each machine.  The script to do so is
10905 included in the sitesummary package, and here is example output from
10906 the Skolelinux build servers:</p>
10907
10908 <blockquote><pre>
10909 maintainer:~# /usr/lib/sitesummary/hardware-model-summary
10910   vendor                    count
10911   Dell Computer Corporation     1
10912     PowerEdge 1750              1
10913   IBM                           1
10914     eserver xSeries 345 -[8670M1X]-     1
10915   Intel                         2
10916   [no-dmi-info]                 3
10917 maintainer:~#
10918 </pre></blockquote>
10919
10920 <p>The quality of the report depend on the quality of the DMI tables
10921 provided in each machine.  Here there are Intel machines without model
10922 information listed with Intel as vendor and no model, and virtual Xen
10923 machines listed as [no-dmi-info].  One can add -l as a command line
10924 option to list the individual machines.</p>
10925
10926 <p>A larger list is
10927 <a href="http://narvikskolen.no/sitesummary/">available from the the
10928 city of Narvik</a>, which uses Skolelinux on all their shools and also
10929 provide the basic sitesummary report publicly.  In their report there
10930 are ~1400 machines. I know they use both Ubuntu and Skolelinux on
10931 their machines, and as sitesummary is available in both distributions,
10932 it is trivial to get all of them to report to the same central
10933 collector.</p>
10934
10935       </div>
10936       <div class="tags">
10937
10938
10939         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>.
10940
10941
10942       </div>
10943     </div>
10944     <div class="padding"></div>
10945
10946     <div class="entry">
10947       <div class="title">
10948         <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>
10949       </div>
10950       <div class="date">
10951          1st June 2010
10952       </div>
10953       <div class="body">
10954         <p>It is strange to watch how a bug in Debian causing KDM to fail to
10955 start at boot when an NVidia video card is used is handled.  The
10956 problem seem to be that the nvidia X.org driver uses a long time to
10957 initialize, and this duration is longer than kdm is configured to
10958 wait.</p>
10959
10960 <p>I came across two bugs related to this issue,
10961 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">#583312</a> initially filed
10962 against initscripts and passed on to nvidia-glx when it became obvious
10963 that the nvidia drivers were involved, and
10964 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/524751">#524751</a> initially filed against
10965 kdm and passed on to src:nvidia-graphics-drivers for unknown reasons.</p>
10966
10967 <p>To me, it seem that no-one is interested in actually solving the
10968 problem nvidia video card owners experience and make sure the Debian
10969 distribution work out of the box for these users.  The nvidia driver
10970 maintainers expect kdm to be set up to wait longer, while kdm expect
10971 the nvidia driver maintainers to fix the driver to start faster, and
10972 while they wait for each other I guess the users end up switching to a
10973 distribution that work for them.  I have no idea what the solution is,
10974 but I am pretty sure that waiting for each other is not it.</p>
10975
10976 <p>I wonder why we end up handling bugs this way.</p>
10977
10978       </div>
10979       <div class="tags">
10980
10981
10982         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>.
10983
10984
10985       </div>
10986     </div>
10987     <div class="padding"></div>
10988
10989     <div class="entry">
10990       <div class="title">
10991         <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>
10992       </div>
10993       <div class="date">
10994         27th May 2010
10995       </div>
10996       <div class="body">
10997         <p>A few days ago, parallel booting was enabled in Debian/testing.
10998 The feature seem to hold up pretty well, but three fairly serious
10999 issues are known and should be solved:
11000
11001 <p><ul>
11002
11003 <li>The wicd package seen to
11004 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/508289">break NFS mounting</a> and
11005 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/581586">network setup</a> when
11006 parallel booting is enabled.  No idea why, but the wicd maintainer
11007 seem to be on the case.</li>
11008
11009 <li>The nvidia X driver seem to
11010 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">have a race condition</a>
11011 triggered more easily when parallel booting is in effect.  The
11012 maintainer is on the case.</li>
11013
11014 <li>The sysv-rc package fail to properly enable dependency based boot
11015 sequencing (the shutdown is broken) when old file-rc users
11016 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/575080">try to switch back</a> to
11017 sysv-rc.  One way to solve it would be for file-rc to create
11018 /etc/init.d/.legacy-bootordering, and another is to try to make
11019 sysv-rc more robust.  Will investigate some more and probably upload a
11020 workaround in sysv-rc to help those trying to move from file-rc to
11021 sysv-rc get a working shutdown.</li>
11022
11023 </ul></p>
11024
11025 <p>All in all not many surprising issues, and all of them seem
11026 solvable before Squeeze is released.  In addition to these there are
11027 some packages with bugs in their dependencies and run level settings,
11028 which I expect will be fixed in a reasonable time span.</p>
11029
11030 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
11031 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
11032 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
11033 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
11034
11035 <p>Update: Correct bug number to file-rc issue.</p>
11036
11037       </div>
11038       <div class="tags">
11039
11040
11041         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>.
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/More_flexible_firmware_handling_in_debian_installer.html">More flexible firmware handling in debian-installer</a>
11051       </div>
11052       <div class="date">
11053         22nd May 2010
11054       </div>
11055       <div class="body">
11056         <p>After a long break from debian-installer development, I finally
11057 found time today to return to the project.  Having to spend less time
11058 working dependency based boot in debian, as it is almost complete now,
11059 definitely helped freeing some time.</p>
11060
11061 <p>A while back, I ran into a problem while working on Debian Edu.  We
11062 include some firmware packages on the Debian Edu CDs, those needed to
11063 get disk and network controllers working.  Without having these
11064 firmware packages available during installation, it is impossible to
11065 install Debian Edu on the given machine, and because our target group
11066 are non-technical people, asking them to provide firmware packages on
11067 an external medium is a support pain.  Initially, I expected it to be
11068 enough to include the firmware packages on the CD to get
11069 debian-installer to find and use them.  This proved to be wrong.
11070 Next, I hoped it was enough to symlink the relevant firmware packages
11071 to some useful location on the CD (tried /cdrom/ and
11072 /cdrom/firmware/).  This also proved to not work, and at this point I
11073 found time to look at the debian-installer code to figure out what was
11074 going to work.</p>
11075
11076 <p>The firmware loading code is in the hw-detect package, and a closer
11077 look revealed that it would only look for firmware packages outside
11078 the installation media, so the CD was never checked for firmware
11079 packages.  It would only check USB sticks, floppies and other
11080 "external" media devices.  Today I changed it to also look in the
11081 /cdrom/firmware/ directory on the mounted CD or DVD, which should
11082 solve the problem I ran into with Debian edu.  I also changed it to
11083 look in /firmware/, to make sure the installer also find firmware
11084 provided in the initrd when booting the installer via PXE, to allow us
11085 to provide the same feature in the PXE setup included in Debian
11086 Edu.</p>
11087
11088 <p>To make sure firmware deb packages with a license questions are not
11089 activated without asking if the license is accepted, I extended
11090 hw-detect to look for preinst scripts in the firmware packages, and
11091 run these before activating the firmware during installation.  The
11092 license question is asked using debconf in the preinst, so this should
11093 solve the issue for the firmware packages I have looked at so far.</p>
11094
11095 <p>If you want to discuss the details of these features, please
11096 contact us on debian-boot@lists.debian.org.</p>
11097
11098       </div>
11099       <div class="tags">
11100
11101
11102         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>.
11103
11104
11105       </div>
11106     </div>
11107     <div class="padding"></div>
11108
11109     <div class="entry">
11110       <div class="title">
11111         <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>
11112       </div>
11113       <div class="date">
11114         14th May 2010
11115       </div>
11116       <div class="body">
11117         <p>Since this evening, parallel booting is the default in
11118 Debian/unstable for machines using dependency based boot sequencing.
11119 Apparently the testing of concurrent booting has been wider than
11120 expected, if I am to believe the
11121 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
11122 on debian-devel@</a>, and I concluded a few days ago to move forward
11123 with the feature this weekend, to give us some time to detect any
11124 remaining problems before Squeeze is frozen.  If serious problems are
11125 detected, it is simple to change the default back to sequential boot.
11126 The upload of the new sysvinit package also activate a new upstream
11127 version.</p>
11128
11129 More information about
11130 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
11131 based boot sequencing</a> is available from the Debian wiki.  It is
11132 currently possible to disable parallel booting when one run into
11133 problems caused by it, by adding this line to /etc/default/rcS:</p>
11134
11135 <blockquote><pre>
11136 CONCURRENCY=none
11137 </pre></blockquote>
11138
11139 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
11140 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
11141 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
11142 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
11143
11144       </div>
11145       <div class="tags">
11146
11147
11148         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>.
11149
11150
11151       </div>
11152     </div>
11153     <div class="padding"></div>
11154
11155     <div class="entry">
11156       <div class="title">
11157         <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>
11158       </div>
11159       <div class="date">
11160         14th May 2010
11161       </div>
11162       <div class="body">
11163         <p>In the recent Debian Edu versions, the
11164 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/SiteSummary">sitesummary
11165 system</a> is used to keep track of the machines in the school
11166 network.  Each machine will automatically report its status to the
11167 central server after boot and once per night.  The network setup is
11168 also reported, and using this information it is possible to get the
11169 MAC address of all network interfaces in the machines.  This is useful
11170 to update the DHCP configuration.</p>
11171
11172 <p>To give some idea how to use sitesummary, here is a one-liner to
11173 ist all MAC addresses of all machines reporting to sitesummary.  Run
11174 this on the collector host:</p>
11175
11176 <blockquote><pre>
11177 perl -MSiteSummary -e 'for_all_hosts(sub { print join(" ", get_macaddresses(shift)), "\n"; });'
11178 </pre></blockquote>
11179
11180 <p>This will list all MAC addresses assosiated with all machine, one
11181 line per machine and with space between the MAC addresses.</p>
11182
11183 <p>To allow system administrators easier job at adding static DHCP
11184 addresses for hosts, it would be possible to extend this to fetch
11185 machine information from sitesummary and update the DHCP and DNS
11186 tables in LDAP using this information.  Such tool is unfortunately not
11187 written yet.</p>
11188
11189       </div>
11190       <div class="tags">
11191
11192
11193         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>.
11194
11195
11196       </div>
11197     </div>
11198     <div class="padding"></div>
11199
11200     <div class="entry">
11201       <div class="title">
11202         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/systemd__an_interesting_alternative_to_upstart.html">systemd, an interesting alternative to upstart</a>
11203       </div>
11204       <div class="date">
11205         13th May 2010
11206       </div>
11207       <div class="body">
11208         <p>The last few days a new boot system called
11209 <a href="http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd">systemd</a>
11210 has been
11211 <a href="http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/systemd.html">introduced</a>
11212
11213 to the free software world.  I have not yet had time to play around
11214 with it, but it seem to be a very interesting alternative to
11215 <a href="http://upstart.ubuntu.com/">upstart</a>, and might prove to be
11216 a good alternative for Debian when we are able to switch to an event
11217 based boot system.  Tollef is
11218 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/580814">in the process</a> of getting
11219 systemd into Debian, and I look forward to seeing how well it work.  I
11220 like the fact that systemd handles init.d scripts with dependency
11221 information natively, allowing them to run in parallel where upstart
11222 at the moment do not.</p>
11223
11224 <p>Unfortunately do systemd have the same problem as upstart regarding
11225 platform support.  It only work on recent Linux kernels, and also need
11226 some new kernel features enabled to function properly.  This means
11227 kFreeBSD and Hurd ports of Debian will need a port or a different boot
11228 system.  Not sure how that will be handled if systemd proves to be the
11229 way forward.</p>
11230
11231 <p>In the mean time, based on the
11232 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
11233 on debian-devel@</a> regarding parallel booting in Debian, I have
11234 decided to enable full parallel booting as the default in Debian as
11235 soon as possible (probably this weekend or early next week), to see if
11236 there are any remaining serious bugs in the init.d dependencies.  A
11237 new version of the sysvinit package implementing this change is
11238 already in experimental.  If all go well, Squeeze will be released
11239 with parallel booting enabled by default.</p>
11240
11241       </div>
11242       <div class="tags">
11243
11244
11245         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>.
11246
11247
11248       </div>
11249     </div>
11250     <div class="padding"></div>
11251
11252     <div class="entry">
11253       <div class="title">
11254         <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>
11255       </div>
11256       <div class="date">
11257          6th May 2010
11258       </div>
11259       <div class="body">
11260         <p>These days, the init.d script dependencies in Squeeze are quite
11261 complete, so complete that it is actually possible to run all the
11262 init.d scripts in parallell based on these dependencies.  If you want
11263 to test your Squeeze system, make sure
11264 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
11265 based boot sequencing</a> is enabled, and add this line to
11266 /etc/default/rcS:</p>
11267
11268 <blockquote><pre>
11269 CONCURRENCY=makefile
11270 </pre></blockquote>
11271
11272 <p>That is it.  It will cause sysv-rc to use the startpar tool to run
11273 scripts in parallel using the dependency information stored in
11274 /etc/init.d/.depend.boot, /etc/init.d/.depend.start and
11275 /etc/init.d/.depend.stop to order the scripts.  Startpar is configured
11276 to try to start the kdm and gdm scripts as early as possible, and will
11277 start the facilities required by kdm or gdm as early as possible to
11278 make this happen.</p>
11279
11280 <p>Give it a try, and see if you like the result.  If some services
11281 fail to start properly, it is most likely because they have incomplete
11282 init.d script dependencies in their startup script (or some of their
11283 dependent scripts have incomplete dependencies).  Report bugs and get
11284 the package maintainers to fix it. :)</p>
11285
11286 <p>Running scripts in parallel could be the default in Debian when we
11287 manage to get the init.d script dependencies complete and correct.  I
11288 expect we will get there in Squeeze+1, if we get manage to test and
11289 fix the remaining issues.</p>
11290
11291 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
11292 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
11293 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
11294 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
11295
11296       </div>
11297       <div class="tags">
11298
11299
11300         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>.
11301
11302
11303       </div>
11304     </div>
11305     <div class="padding"></div>
11306
11307     <div class="entry">
11308       <div class="title">
11309         <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>
11310       </div>
11311       <div class="date">
11312         27th July 2009
11313       </div>
11314       <div class="body">
11315         <p>Since this evening, with the upload of sysvinit version 2.87dsf-2,
11316 and the upload of insserv version 1.12.0-10 yesterday, Debian unstable
11317 have been migrated to using dependency based boot sequencing.  This
11318 conclude work me and others have been doing for the last three days.
11319 It feels great to see this finally part of the default Debian
11320 installation.  Now we just need to weed out the last few problems that
11321 are bound to show up, to get everything ready for Squeeze.</p>
11322
11323 <p>The next step is migrating /sbin/init from sysvinit to upstart, and
11324 fixing the more fundamental problem of handing the event based
11325 non-predictable kernel in the early boot.</p>
11326
11327       </div>
11328       <div class="tags">
11329
11330
11331         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>.
11332
11333
11334       </div>
11335     </div>
11336     <div class="padding"></div>
11337
11338     <div class="entry">
11339       <div class="title">
11340         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Taking_over_sysvinit_development.html">Taking over sysvinit development</a>
11341       </div>
11342       <div class="date">
11343         22nd July 2009
11344       </div>
11345       <div class="body">
11346         <p>After several years of frustration with the lack of activity from
11347 the existing sysvinit upstream developer, I decided a few weeks ago to
11348 take over the package and become the new upstream.  The number of
11349 patches to track for the Debian package was becoming a burden, and the
11350 lack of synchronization between the distribution made it hard to keep
11351 the package up to date.</p>
11352
11353 <p>On the new sysvinit team is the SuSe maintainer Dr. Werner Fink,
11354 and my Debian co-maintainer Kel Modderman.  About 10 days ago, I made
11355 a new upstream tarball with version number 2.87dsf (for Debian, SuSe
11356 and Fedora), based on the patches currently in use in these
11357 distributions.  We Debian maintainers plan to move to this tarball as
11358 the new upstream as soon as we find time to do the merge.  Since the
11359 new tarball was created, we agreed with Werner at SuSe to make a new
11360 upstream project at <a href="http://savannah.nongnu.org/">Savannah</a>, and continue
11361 development there.  The project is registered and currently waiting
11362 for approval by the Savannah administrators, and as soon as it is
11363 approved, we will import the old versions from svn and continue
11364 working on the future release.</p>
11365
11366 <p>It is a bit ironic that this is done now, when some of the involved
11367 distributions are moving to upstart as a syvinit replacement.</p>
11368
11369       </div>
11370       <div class="tags">
11371
11372
11373         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>.
11374
11375
11376       </div>
11377     </div>
11378     <div class="padding"></div>
11379
11380     <div class="entry">
11381       <div class="title">
11382         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_boots_quicker_and_quicker.html">Debian boots quicker and quicker</a>
11383       </div>
11384       <div class="date">
11385         24th June 2009
11386       </div>
11387       <div class="body">
11388         <p>I spent Monday and tuesday this week in London with a lot of the
11389 people involved in the boot system on Debian and Ubuntu, to see if we
11390 could find more ways to speed up the boot system.  This was an Ubuntu
11391 funded
11392 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FoundationsTeam/BootPerformance/DebianUbuntuSprint">developer
11393 gathering</a>. It was quite productive.  We also discussed the future
11394 of boot systems, and ways to handle the increasing number of boot
11395 issues introduced by the Linux kernel becoming more and more
11396 asynchronous and event base.  The Ubuntu approach using udev and
11397 upstart might be a good way forward.  Time will show.</p>
11398
11399 <p>Anyway, there are a few ways at the moment to speed up the boot
11400 process in Debian.  All of these should be applied to get a quick
11401 boot:</p>
11402
11403 <ul>
11404
11405 <li>Use dash as /bin/sh.</li>
11406
11407 <li>Disable the init.d/hwclock*.sh scripts and make sure the hardware
11408    clock is in UTC.</li>
11409
11410 <li>Install and activate the insserv package to enable
11411    <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
11412    based boot sequencing</a>, and enable concurrent booting.</li>
11413
11414 </ul>
11415
11416 These points are based on the Google summer of code work done by
11417 <a href="http://initscripts-ng.alioth.debian.org/soc2006-bootsystem/">Carlos
11418 Villegas</a>.
11419
11420 <p>Support for makefile-style concurrency during boot was uploaded to
11421 unstable yesterday.  When we tested it, we were able to cut 6 seconds
11422 from the boot sequence.  It depend on very correct dependency
11423 declaration in all init.d scripts, so I expect us to find edge cases
11424 where the dependences in some scripts are slightly wrong when we start
11425 using this.</p>
11426
11427 <p>On our IRC channel for this effort, #pkg-sysvinit, a new idea was
11428 introduced by Raphael Geissert today, one that could affect the
11429 startup speed as well.  Instead of starting some scripts concurrently
11430 from rcS.d/ and another set of scripts from rc2.d/, it would be
11431 possible to run a of them in the same process.  A quick way to test
11432 this would be to enable insserv and run 'mv /etc/rc2.d/S* /etc/rcS.d/;
11433 insserv'.  Will need to test if that work. :)</p>
11434
11435       </div>
11436       <div class="tags">
11437
11438
11439         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>.
11440
11441
11442       </div>
11443     </div>
11444     <div class="padding"></div>
11445
11446     <div class="entry">
11447       <div class="title">
11448         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/BSAs_p_stander_om_piratkopiering_m_ter_motstand.html">BSAs påstander om piratkopiering møter motstand</a>
11449       </div>
11450       <div class="date">
11451         17th May 2009
11452       </div>
11453       <div class="body">
11454         <p>Hvert år de siste årene har BSA, lobbyfronten til de store
11455 programvareselskapene som Microsoft og Apple, publisert en rapport der
11456 de gjetter på hvor mye piratkopiering påfører i tapte inntekter i
11457 ulike land rundt om i verden.  Resultatene er tendensiøse.  For noen
11458 dager siden kom
11459 <a href="http://global.bsa.org/globalpiracy2008/studies/globalpiracy2008.pdf">siste
11460 rapport</a>, og det er flere kritiske kommentarer publisert de siste
11461 dagene.  Et spesielt interessant kommentar fra Sverige,
11462 <a href="http://www.idg.se/2.1085/1.229795/bsa-hoftade-sverigesiffror">BSA
11463 höftade Sverigesiffror</a>, oppsummeres slik:</p>
11464
11465 <blockquote>
11466 I sin senaste rapport slår BSA fast att 25 procent av all mjukvara i
11467 Sverige är piratkopierad. Det utan att ha pratat med ett enda svenskt
11468 företag. "Man bör nog kanske inte se de här siffrorna som helt
11469 exakta", säger BSAs Sverigechef John Hugosson.
11470 </blockquote>
11471
11472 <p>Mon tro om de er like metodiske når de gjetter på andelen piratkopiering i Norge?  To andre kommentarer er <a
11473 href="http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/comment/2242134/bsa-piracy-figures-shot-reality">BSA
11474 piracy figures need a shot of reality</a> og <a
11475 href="http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/3958/125/">Does The WIPO
11476 Copyright Treaty Work?</a></p>
11477
11478 <p>Fant lenkene via <a
11479 href="http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/05/17/1632242">oppslag
11480 på Slashdot</a>.</p>
11481
11482       </div>
11483       <div class="tags">
11484
11485
11486         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>.
11487
11488
11489       </div>
11490     </div>
11491     <div class="padding"></div>
11492
11493     <div class="entry">
11494       <div class="title">
11495         <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>
11496       </div>
11497       <div class="date">
11498          7th May 2009
11499       </div>
11500       <div class="body">
11501         <p>Kom over
11502 <a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10216873-16.html">interessante
11503 tall</a> fra IDG om utviklingen av linuxservermarkedet.  Fikk meg til
11504 å tenke på antall tjenermaskiner ved Universitetet i Oslo der jeg
11505 jobber til daglig.  En rask opptelling forteller meg at vi har 490
11506 (61%) fysiske unix-tjener (mest linux men også noen solaris) og 196
11507 (25%) windowstjenere, samt 112 (14%) virtuelle unix-tjenere.  Med den
11508 bakgrunnskunnskapen kan jeg godt tro at IDG er inne på noe.</p>
11509
11510       </div>
11511       <div class="tags">
11512
11513
11514         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>.
11515
11516
11517       </div>
11518     </div>
11519     <div class="padding"></div>
11520
11521     <div class="entry">
11522       <div class="title">
11523         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Kryptert_harddisk___naturligvis.html">Kryptert harddisk - naturligvis</a>
11524       </div>
11525       <div class="date">
11526          2nd May 2009
11527       </div>
11528       <div class="body">
11529         <p><a href="http://www.dagensit.no/trender/article1658676.ece">Dagens
11530 IT melder</a> at Intel hevder at det er dyrt å miste en datamaskin,
11531 når en tar tap av arbeidstid, fortrolige dokumenter,
11532 personopplysninger og alt annet det innebærer.  Det er ingen tvil om
11533 at det er en kostbar affære å miste sin datamaskin, og det er årsaken
11534 til at jeg har kryptert harddisken på både kontormaskinen og min
11535 bærbare.  Begge inneholder personopplysninger jeg ikke ønsker skal
11536 komme på avveie, den første informasjon relatert til jobben min ved
11537 Universitetet i Oslo, og den andre relatert til blant annet
11538 foreningsarbeide.  Kryptering av diskene gjør at det er lite
11539 sannsynlig at dophoder som kan finne på å rappe maskinene får noe ut
11540 av dem.  Maskinene låses automatisk etter noen minutter uten bruk,
11541 og en reboot vil gjøre at de ber om passord før de vil starte opp.
11542 Jeg bruker Debian på begge maskinene, og installasjonssystemet der
11543 gjør det trivielt å sette opp krypterte disker.  Jeg har LVM på toppen
11544 av krypterte partisjoner, slik at alt av datapartisjoner er kryptert.
11545 Jeg anbefaler alle å kryptere diskene på sine bærbare.  Kostnaden når
11546 det er gjort slik jeg gjør det er minimale, og gevinstene er
11547 betydelige.  En bør dog passe på passordet.  Hvis det går tapt, må
11548 maskinen reinstalleres og alt er tapt.</p>
11549
11550 <p>Krypteringen vil ikke stoppe kompetente angripere som f.eks. kjøler
11551 ned minnebrikkene før maskinen rebootes med programvare for å hente ut
11552 krypteringsnøklene.  Kostnaden med å forsvare seg mot slike angripere
11553 er for min del høyere enn gevinsten.  Jeg tror oddsene for at
11554 f.eks. etteretningsorganisasjoner har glede av å titte på mine
11555 maskiner er minimale, og ulempene jeg ville oppnå ved å forsøke å
11556 gjøre det vanskeligere for angripere med kompetanse og ressurser er
11557 betydelige.</p>
11558
11559       </div>
11560       <div class="tags">
11561
11562
11563         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>.
11564
11565
11566       </div>
11567     </div>
11568     <div class="padding"></div>
11569
11570     <div class="entry">
11571       <div class="title">
11572         <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>
11573       </div>
11574       <div class="date">
11575          2nd May 2009
11576       </div>
11577       <div class="body">
11578         <p>There are two software projects that have had huge influence on the
11579 quality of free software, and I wanted to mention both in case someone
11580 do not yet know them.</p>
11581
11582 <p>The first one is <a href="http://valgrind.org/">valgrind</a>, a
11583 tool to detect and expose errors in the memory handling of programs.
11584 It is easy to use, all one need to do is to run 'valgrind program',
11585 and it will report any problems on stdout.  It is even better if the
11586 program include debug information.  With debug information, it is able
11587 to report the source file name and line number where the problem
11588 occurs.  It can report things like 'reading past memory block in file
11589 X line N, the memory block was allocated in file Y, line M', and
11590 'using uninitialised value in control logic'.  This tool has made it
11591 trivial to investigate reproducible crash bugs in programs, and have
11592 reduced the number of this kind of bugs in free software a lot.
11593
11594 <p>The second one is
11595 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coverity">Coverity</a> which is
11596 a source code checker.  It is able to process the source of a program
11597 and find problems in the logic without running the program.  It
11598 started out as the Stanford Checker and became well known when it was
11599 used to find bugs in the Linux kernel.  It is now a commercial tool
11600 and the company behind it is running
11601 <a href="http://www.scan.coverity.com/">a community service</a> for the
11602 free software community, where a lot of free software projects get
11603 their source checked for free.  Several thousand defects have been
11604 found and fixed so far.  It can find errors like 'lock L taken in file
11605 X line N is never released if exiting in line M', or 'the code in file
11606 Y lines O to P can never be executed'.  The projects included in the
11607 community service project have managed to get rid of a lot of
11608 reliability problems thanks to Coverity.</p>
11609
11610 <p>I believe tools like this, that are able to automatically find
11611 errors in the source, are vital to improve the quality of software and
11612 make sure we can get rid of the crashing and failing software we are
11613 surrounded by today.</p>
11614
11615       </div>
11616       <div class="tags">
11617
11618
11619         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
11620
11621
11622       </div>
11623     </div>
11624     <div class="padding"></div>
11625
11626     <div class="entry">
11627       <div class="title">
11628         <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>
11629       </div>
11630       <div class="date">
11631         28th April 2009
11632       </div>
11633       <div class="body">
11634         <p>Julien Blache
11635 <a href="http://blog.technologeek.org/2009/04/12/214">claim that no
11636 patch is better than a useless patch</a>.  I completely disagree, as a
11637 patch allow one to discuss a concrete and proposed solution, and also
11638 prove that the issue at hand is important enough for someone to spent
11639 time on fixing it.  No patch do not provide any of these positive
11640 properties.</p>
11641
11642       </div>
11643       <div class="tags">
11644
11645
11646         Tags: <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>.
11647
11648
11649       </div>
11650     </div>
11651     <div class="padding"></div>
11652
11653     <div class="entry">
11654       <div class="title">
11655         <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>
11656       </div>
11657       <div class="date">
11658         30th March 2009
11659       </div>
11660       <div class="body">
11661         <p>Where I work at the University of Oslo, one decision stand out as a
11662 very good one to form a long lived computer infrastructure.  It is the
11663 simple one, lost by many in todays computer industry: Standardize on
11664 open network protocols and open exchange/storage formats, not applications.
11665 Applications come and go, while protocols and files tend to stay, and
11666 thus one want to make it easy to change application and vendor, while
11667 avoiding conversion costs and locking users to a specific platform or
11668 application.</p>
11669
11670 <p>This approach make it possible to replace the client applications
11671 independently of the server applications.  One can even allow users to
11672 use several different applications as long as they handle the selected
11673 protocol and format.  In the normal case, only one client application
11674 is recommended and users only get help if they choose to use this
11675 application, but those that want to deviate from the easy path are not
11676 blocked from doing so.</p>
11677
11678 <p>It also allow us to replace the server side without forcing the
11679 users to replace their applications, and thus allow us to select the
11680 best server implementation at any moment, when scale and resouce
11681 requirements change.</p>
11682
11683 <p>I strongly recommend standardizing - on open network protocols and
11684 open formats, but I would never recommend standardizing on a single
11685 application that do not use open network protocol or open formats.</p>
11686
11687       </div>
11688       <div class="tags">
11689
11690
11691         Tags: <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>.
11692
11693
11694       </div>
11695     </div>
11696     <div class="padding"></div>
11697
11698     <div class="entry">
11699       <div class="title">
11700         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Returning_from_Skolelinux_developer_gathering.html">Returning from Skolelinux developer gathering</a>
11701       </div>
11702       <div class="date">
11703         29th March 2009
11704       </div>
11705       <div class="body">
11706         <p>I'm sitting on the train going home from this weekends Debian
11707 Edu/Skolelinux development gathering.  I got a bit done tuning the
11708 desktop, and looked into the dynamic service location protocol
11709 implementation avahi.  It look like it could be useful for us.  Almost
11710 30 people participated, and I believe it was a great environment to
11711 get to know the Skolelinux system.  Walter Bender, involved in the
11712 development of the Sugar educational platform, presented his stuff and
11713 also helped me improve my OLPC installation.  He also showed me that
11714 his Turtle Art application can be used in standalone mode, and we
11715 agreed that I would help getting it packaged for Debian.  As a
11716 standalone application it would be great for Debian Edu.  We also
11717 tried to get the video conferencing working with two OLPCs, but that
11718 proved to be too hard for us.  The application seem to need more work
11719 before it is ready for me.  I look forward to getting home and relax
11720 now. :)</p>
11721
11722       </div>
11723       <div class="tags">
11724
11725
11726         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>.
11727
11728
11729       </div>
11730     </div>
11731     <div class="padding"></div>
11732
11733     <div class="entry">
11734       <div class="title">
11735         <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>
11736       </div>
11737       <div class="date">
11738         29th March 2009
11739       </div>
11740       <div class="body">
11741         <p>The state of standardized LDAP schemas on Linux is far from
11742 optimal.  There is RFC 2307 documenting one way to store NIS maps in
11743 LDAP, and a modified version of this normally called RFC 2307bis, with
11744 some modifications to be compatible with Active Directory.  The RFC
11745 specification handle the content of a lot of system databases, but do
11746 not handle DNS zones and DHCP configuration.</p>
11747
11748 <p>In <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux</a>,
11749 we would like to store information about users, SMB clients/hosts,
11750 filegroups, netgroups (users and hosts), DHCP and DNS configuration,
11751 and LTSP configuration in LDAP.  These objects have a lot in common,
11752 but with the current LDAP schemas it is not possible to have one
11753 object per entity.  For example, one need to have at least three LDAP
11754 objects for a given computer, one with the SMB related stuff, one with
11755 DNS information and another with DHCP information.  The schemas
11756 provided for DNS and DHCP are impossible to combine into one LDAP
11757 object.  In addition, it is impossible to implement quick queries for
11758 netgroup membership, because of the way NIS triples are implemented.
11759 It just do not scale.  I believe it is time for a few RFC
11760 specifications to cleam up this mess.</p>
11761
11762 <p>I would like to have one LDAP object representing each computer in
11763 the network, and this object can then keep the SMB (ie host key), DHCP
11764 (mac address/name) and DNS (name/IP address) settings in one place.
11765 It need to be efficently stored to make sure it scale well.</p>
11766
11767 <p>I would also like to have a quick way to map from a user or
11768 computer and to the net group this user or computer is a member.</p>
11769
11770 <p>Active Directory have done a better job than unix heads like myself
11771 in this regard, and the unix side need to catch up.  Time to start a
11772 new IETF work group?</p>
11773
11774       </div>
11775       <div class="tags">
11776
11777
11778         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>.
11779
11780
11781       </div>
11782     </div>
11783     <div class="padding"></div>
11784
11785     <div class="entry">
11786       <div class="title">
11787         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Endelig_er_Debian_Lenny_gitt_ut.html">Endelig er Debian Lenny gitt ut</a>
11788       </div>
11789       <div class="date">
11790         15th February 2009
11791       </div>
11792       <div class="body">
11793         <p>Endelig er <a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</a>
11794 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2009/20090214">Lenny</a> gitt ut.
11795 Et langt steg videre for Debian-prosjektet, og en rekke nye
11796 programpakker blir nå tilgjengelig for de av oss som bruker den
11797 stabile utgaven av Debian.  Neste steg er nå å få
11798 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a> /
11799 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/">Debian Edu</a> ferdig
11800 oppdatert for den nye utgaven, slik at en oppdatert versjon kan
11801 slippes løs på skolene.  Takk til alle debian-utviklerne som har
11802 gjort dette mulig.  Endelig er f.eks. fungerende avhengighetsstyrt
11803 bootsekvens tilgjengelig i stabil utgave, vha pakken
11804 <tt>insserv</tt>.</p>
11805
11806       </div>
11807       <div class="tags">
11808
11809
11810         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>.
11811
11812
11813       </div>
11814     </div>
11815     <div class="padding"></div>
11816
11817     <div class="entry">
11818       <div class="title">
11819         <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>
11820       </div>
11821       <div class="date">
11822          7th December 2008
11823       </div>
11824       <div class="body">
11825         <p>This weekend we had a small developer gathering for Debian Edu in
11826 Oslo.  Most of Saturday was used for the general assemly for the
11827 member organization, but the rest of the weekend I used to tune the
11828 LTSP installation.  LTSP now work out of the box on the 10-network.
11829 Acer Aspire One proved to be a very nice thin client, with both
11830 screen, mouse and keybard in a small box.  Was working on getting the
11831 diskless workstation setup configured out of the box, but did not
11832 finish it before the weekend was up.</p>
11833
11834 <p>Did not find time to look at the 4 VGA cards in one box we got from
11835 the Brazilian group, so that will have to wait for the next
11836 development gathering.  Would love to have the Debian Edu installer
11837 automatically detect and configure a multiseat setup when it find one
11838 of these cards.</p>
11839
11840       </div>
11841       <div class="tags">
11842
11843
11844         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>.
11845
11846
11847       </div>
11848     </div>
11849     <div class="padding"></div>
11850
11851     <div class="entry">
11852       <div class="title">
11853         <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>
11854       </div>
11855       <div class="date">
11856         25th November 2008
11857       </div>
11858       <div class="body">
11859         <p>Recently I have spent some time evaluating the multimedia browser
11860 plugins available in Debian Lenny, to see which one we should use by
11861 default in Debian Edu.  We need an embedded video playing plugin with
11862 control buttons to pause or stop the video, and capable of streaming
11863 all the multimedia content available on the web.  The test results and
11864 notes are available on
11865 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">the
11866 Debian wiki</a>.  I was surprised how few of the plugins are able to
11867 fill this need.  My personal video player favorite, VLC, has a really
11868 bad plugin which fail on a lot of the test pages.  A lot of the MIME
11869 types I would expect to work with any free software player (like
11870 video/ogg), just do not work.  And simple formats like the
11871 audio/x-mplegurl format (m3u playlists), just isn't supported by the
11872 totem and vlc plugins.  I hope the situation will improve soon.  No
11873 wonder sites use the proprietary Adobe flash to play video.</p>
11874
11875 <p>For Lenny, we seem to end up with the mplayer plugin.  It seem to
11876 be the only one fitting our needs. :/</p>
11877
11878       </div>
11879       <div class="tags">
11880
11881
11882         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>.
11883
11884
11885       </div>
11886     </div>
11887     <div class="padding"></div>
11888
11889     <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>
11890     <div id="sidebar">
11891
11892
11893
11894 <h2>Archive</h2>
11895 <ul>
11896
11897 <li>2016
11898 <ul>
11899
11900 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/01/">January (3)</a></li>
11901
11902 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/02/">February (2)</a></li>
11903
11904 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/03/">March (3)</a></li>
11905
11906 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/04/">April (8)</a></li>
11907
11908 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/05/">May (8)</a></li>
11909
11910 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/06/">June (2)</a></li>
11911
11912 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/07/">July (2)</a></li>
11913
11914 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/08/">August (5)</a></li>
11915
11916 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/09/">September (2)</a></li>
11917
11918 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/10/">October (3)</a></li>
11919
11920 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/11/">November (8)</a></li>
11921
11922 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/12/">December (5)</a></li>
11923
11924 </ul></li>
11925
11926 <li>2015
11927 <ul>
11928
11929 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/01/">January (7)</a></li>
11930
11931 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/02/">February (6)</a></li>
11932
11933 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/03/">March (1)</a></li>
11934
11935 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/04/">April (4)</a></li>
11936
11937 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/05/">May (3)</a></li>
11938
11939 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/06/">June (4)</a></li>
11940
11941 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/07/">July (6)</a></li>
11942
11943 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/08/">August (2)</a></li>
11944
11945 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/09/">September (2)</a></li>
11946
11947 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/10/">October (9)</a></li>
11948
11949 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/11/">November (6)</a></li>
11950
11951 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/12/">December (3)</a></li>
11952
11953 </ul></li>
11954
11955 <li>2014
11956 <ul>
11957
11958 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/01/">January (2)</a></li>
11959
11960 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/02/">February (3)</a></li>
11961
11962 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/03/">March (8)</a></li>
11963
11964 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/04/">April (7)</a></li>
11965
11966 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/05/">May (1)</a></li>
11967
11968 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/06/">June (2)</a></li>
11969
11970 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/07/">July (2)</a></li>
11971
11972 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/08/">August (2)</a></li>
11973
11974 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/09/">September (5)</a></li>
11975
11976 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/10/">October (6)</a></li>
11977
11978 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/11/">November (3)</a></li>
11979
11980 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/12/">December (5)</a></li>
11981
11982 </ul></li>
11983
11984 <li>2013
11985 <ul>
11986
11987 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/01/">January (11)</a></li>
11988
11989 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/02/">February (9)</a></li>
11990
11991 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/03/">March (9)</a></li>
11992
11993 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/04/">April (6)</a></li>
11994
11995 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/05/">May (9)</a></li>
11996
11997 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/06/">June (10)</a></li>
11998
11999 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/07/">July (7)</a></li>
12000
12001 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/08/">August (3)</a></li>
12002
12003 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/09/">September (5)</a></li>
12004
12005 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/10/">October (7)</a></li>
12006
12007 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/11/">November (9)</a></li>
12008
12009 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/12/">December (3)</a></li>
12010
12011 </ul></li>
12012
12013 <li>2012
12014 <ul>
12015
12016 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/01/">January (7)</a></li>
12017
12018 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/02/">February (10)</a></li>
12019
12020 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/03/">March (17)</a></li>
12021
12022 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/04/">April (12)</a></li>
12023
12024 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/05/">May (12)</a></li>
12025
12026 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/06/">June (20)</a></li>
12027
12028 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/07/">July (17)</a></li>
12029
12030 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/08/">August (6)</a></li>
12031
12032 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/09/">September (9)</a></li>
12033
12034 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/10/">October (17)</a></li>
12035
12036 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/11/">November (10)</a></li>
12037
12038 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/12/">December (7)</a></li>
12039
12040 </ul></li>
12041
12042 <li>2011
12043 <ul>
12044
12045 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/01/">January (16)</a></li>
12046
12047 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/02/">February (6)</a></li>
12048
12049 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/03/">March (6)</a></li>
12050
12051 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/04/">April (7)</a></li>
12052
12053 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/05/">May (3)</a></li>
12054
12055 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/06/">June (2)</a></li>
12056
12057 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/07/">July (7)</a></li>
12058
12059 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/08/">August (6)</a></li>
12060
12061 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/09/">September (4)</a></li>
12062
12063 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/10/">October (2)</a></li>
12064
12065 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/11/">November (3)</a></li>
12066
12067 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/12/">December (1)</a></li>
12068
12069 </ul></li>
12070
12071 <li>2010
12072 <ul>
12073
12074 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/01/">January (2)</a></li>
12075
12076 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/02/">February (1)</a></li>
12077
12078 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/03/">March (3)</a></li>
12079
12080 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/04/">April (3)</a></li>
12081
12082 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/05/">May (9)</a></li>
12083
12084 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/06/">June (14)</a></li>
12085
12086 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/07/">July (12)</a></li>
12087
12088 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/08/">August (13)</a></li>
12089
12090 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/09/">September (7)</a></li>
12091
12092 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/10/">October (9)</a></li>
12093
12094 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/11/">November (13)</a></li>
12095
12096 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/12/">December (12)</a></li>
12097
12098 </ul></li>
12099
12100 <li>2009
12101 <ul>
12102
12103 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/01/">January (8)</a></li>
12104
12105 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/02/">February (8)</a></li>
12106
12107 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/03/">March (12)</a></li>
12108
12109 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/04/">April (10)</a></li>
12110
12111 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/05/">May (9)</a></li>
12112
12113 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/06/">June (3)</a></li>
12114
12115 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/07/">July (4)</a></li>
12116
12117 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/08/">August (3)</a></li>
12118
12119 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/09/">September (1)</a></li>
12120
12121 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/10/">October (2)</a></li>
12122
12123 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/11/">November (3)</a></li>
12124
12125 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/12/">December (3)</a></li>
12126
12127 </ul></li>
12128
12129 <li>2008
12130 <ul>
12131
12132 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/11/">November (5)</a></li>
12133
12134 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/12/">December (7)</a></li>
12135
12136 </ul></li>
12137
12138 </ul>
12139
12140
12141
12142 <h2>Tags</h2>
12143 <ul>
12144
12145  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer (13)</a></li>
12146
12147  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/amiga">amiga (1)</a></li>
12148
12149  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/aros">aros (1)</a></li>
12150
12151  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bankid">bankid (4)</a></li>
12152
12153  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin (9)</a></li>
12154
12155  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem (16)</a></li>
12156
12157  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bsa">bsa (2)</a></li>
12158
12159  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/chrpath">chrpath (2)</a></li>
12160
12161  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian (144)</a></li>
12162
12163  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu (158)</a></li>
12164
12165  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/digistan">digistan (10)</a></li>
12166
12167  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/dld">dld (16)</a></li>
12168
12169  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook (23)</a></li>
12170
12171  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/drivstoffpriser">drivstoffpriser (4)</a></li>
12172
12173  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english (336)</a></li>
12174
12175  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami (23)</a></li>
12176
12177  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fildeling">fildeling (12)</a></li>
12178
12179  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture (29)</a></li>
12180
12181  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox (9)</a></li>
12182
12183  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen (18)</a></li>
12184
12185  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/h264">h264 (20)</a></li>
12186
12187  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju (42)</a></li>
12188
12189  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram (15)</a></li>
12190
12191  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kart">kart (19)</a></li>
12192
12193  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap (9)</a></li>
12194
12195  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lenker">lenker (8)</a></li>
12196
12197  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lsdvd">lsdvd (2)</a></li>
12198
12199  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ltsp">ltsp (1)</a></li>
12200
12201  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network (8)</a></li>
12202
12203  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia (39)</a></li>
12204
12205  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nice free software">nice free software (9)</a></li>
12206
12207  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk (285)</a></li>
12208
12209  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug (182)</a></li>
12210
12211  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/offentlig innsyn">offentlig innsyn (26)</a></li>
12212
12213  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/open311">open311 (2)</a></li>
12214
12215  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett (62)</a></li>
12216
12217  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern (96)</a></li>
12218
12219  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/raid">raid (1)</a></li>
12220
12221  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reactos">reactos (1)</a></li>
12222
12223  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reprap">reprap (11)</a></li>
12224
12225  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rfid">rfid (3)</a></li>
12226
12227  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot (10)</a></li>
12228
12229  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rss">rss (1)</a></li>
12230
12231  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ruter">ruter (5)</a></li>
12232
12233  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/scraperwiki">scraperwiki (2)</a></li>
12234
12235  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet (52)</a></li>
12236
12237  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary (4)</a></li>
12238
12239  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/skepsis">skepsis (5)</a></li>
12240
12241  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard (49)</a></li>
12242
12243  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stavekontroll">stavekontroll (5)</a></li>
12244
12245  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stortinget">stortinget (10)</a></li>
12246
12247  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance (44)</a></li>
12248
12249  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sysadmin">sysadmin (2)</a></li>
12250
12251  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/usenix">usenix (2)</a></li>
12252
12253  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/valg">valg (8)</a></li>
12254
12255  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video (59)</a></li>
12256
12257  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/vitenskap">vitenskap (4)</a></li>
12258
12259  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web (38)</a></li>
12260
12261 </ul>
12262
12263
12264     </div>
12265     <p style="text-align: right">
12266  Created by <a href="http://steve.org.uk/Software/chronicle">Chronicle v4.6</a>
12267 </p>
12268
12269   </body>
12270 </html>