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14 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/">Petter Reinholdtsen
</a>
21 <h3>Entries tagged "debian".
</h3>
25 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Generating_3D_prints_in_Debian_using_Cura_and_Slic3r__prusa_.html">Generating
3D prints in Debian using Cura and Slic3r(-prusa)
</a>
31 <p>At my nearby maker space,
32 <a href=
"http://sonen.ifi.uio.no/">Sonen
</a>, I heard the story that it
33 was easier to generate gcode files for theyr
3D printers (Ultimake
2+)
34 on Windows and MacOS X than Linux, because the software involved had
35 to be manually compiled and set up on Linux while premade packages
36 worked out of the box on Windows and MacOS X. I found this annoying,
37 as the software involved,
38 <a href=
"https://github.com/Ultimaker/Cura">Cura
</a>, is free software
39 and should be trivial to get up and running on Linux if someone took
40 the time to package it for the relevant distributions. I even found
41 <a href=
"https://bugs.debian.org/706656">a request for adding into
42 Debian
</a> from
2013, which had seem some activity over the years but
43 never resulted in the software showing up in Debian. So a few days
44 ago I offered my help to try to improve the situation.
</p>
46 <p>Now I am very happy to see that all the packages required by a
47 working Cura in Debian are uploaded into Debian and waiting in the NEW
48 queue for the ftpmasters to have a look. You can track the progress
50 <a href=
"https://qa.debian.org/developer.php?email=3dprinter-general%40lists.alioth.debian.org">the
51 status page for the
3D printer team
</a>.
</p>
53 <p>The uploaded packages are a bit behind upstream, and was uploaded
54 now to get slots in
<a href=
"https://ftp-master.debian.org/new.html">the NEW
55 queue
</a> while we work up updating the packages to the latest
58 <p>On a related note, two competitors for Cura, which I found harder
59 to use and was unable to configure correctly for Ultimaker
2+ in the
60 short time I spent on it, are already in Debian. If you are looking
61 for
3D printer "slicers" and want something already available in
63 <a href=
"https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/slic3r">slic3r
</a> and
64 <a href=
"https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/slic3r-prusa">slic3r-prusa
</a>.
65 The latter is a fork of the former.
</p>
67 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
68 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
69 <b><a href=
"bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
</a></b>.
</p>
75 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>.
80 <div class=
"padding"></div>
84 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Visualizing_GSM_radio_chatter_using_gr_gsm_and_Hopglass.html">Visualizing GSM radio chatter using gr-gsm and Hopglass
</a>
90 <p>Every mobile phone announce its existence over radio to the nearby
91 mobile cell towers. And this radio chatter is available for anyone
92 with a radio receiver capable of receiving them. Details about the
93 mobile phones with very good accuracy is of course collected by the
94 phone companies, but this is not the topic of this blog post. The
95 mobile phone radio chatter make it possible to figure out when a cell
96 phone is nearby, as it include the SIM card ID (IMSI). By paying
97 attention over time, one can see when a phone arrive and when it leave
98 an area. I believe it would be nice to make this information more
99 available to the general public, to make more people aware of how
100 their phones are announcing their whereabouts to anyone that care to
103 <p>I am very happy to report that we managed to get something
104 visualizing this information up and running for
105 <a href=
"http://norwaymakers.org/osf17">Oslo Skaperfestival
2017</a>
106 (Oslo Makers Festival) taking place today and tomorrow at Deichmanske
107 library. The solution is based on the
108 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Easier_recipe_to_observe_the_cell_phones_around_you.html">simple
109 recipe for listening to GSM chatter
</a> I posted a few days ago, and
110 will show up at the stand of
<a href=
"http://sonen.ifi.uio.no/">Åpen
111 Sone from the Computer Science department of the University of
112 Oslo
</a>. The presentation will show the nearby mobile phones (aka
113 IMSIs) as dots in a web browser graph, with lines to the dot
114 representing mobile base station it is talking to. It was working in
115 the lab yesterday, and was moved into place this morning.
</p>
117 <p>We set up a fairly powerful desktop machine using Debian
118 Buster/Testing with several (five, I believe) RTL2838 DVB-T receivers
119 connected and visualize the visible cell phone towers using an
120 <a href=
"https://github.com/marlow925/hopglass">English version of
121 Hopglass
</a>. A fairly powerfull machine is needed as the
122 grgsm_livemon_headless processes from
123 <a href=
"https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/gr-gsm">gr-gsm
</a> converting
124 the radio signal to data packages is quite CPU intensive.
</p>
126 <p>The frequencies to listen to, are identified using a slightly
127 patched scan-and-livemon (to set the --args values for each receiver),
128 and the Hopglass data is generated using the
129 <a href=
"https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/IMSI-catcher/tree/meshviewer-output">patches
130 in my meshviewer-output branch
</a>. For some reason we could not get
131 more than four SDRs working. There is also a geographical map trying
132 to show the location of the base stations, but I believe their
133 coordinates are hardcoded to some random location in Germany, I
134 believe. The code should be replaced with code to look up location in
135 a text file, a sqlite database or one of the online databases
137 <a href=
"https://github.com/Oros42/IMSI-catcher/issues/14">the github
138 issue for the topic
</a>.
140 <p>If this sound interesting, visit the stand at the festival!
</p>
146 Tags:
<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/surveillance">surveillance
</a>.
151 <div class=
"padding"></div>
155 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Easier_recipe_to_observe_the_cell_phones_around_you.html">Easier recipe to observe the cell phones around you
</a>
161 <p>A little more than a month ago I wrote
162 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Simpler_recipe_on_how_to_make_a_simple__7_IMSI_Catcher_using_Debian.html">how
163 to observe the SIM card ID (aka IMSI number) of mobile phones talking
164 to nearby mobile phone base stations using Debian GNU/Linux and a
165 cheap USB software defined radio
</a>, and thus being able to pinpoint
166 the location of people and equipment (like cars and trains) with an
167 accuracy of a few kilometer. Since then we have worked to make the
168 procedure even simpler, and it is now possible to do this without any
169 manual frequency tuning and without building your own packages.
</p>
171 <p>The
<a href=
"https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/gr-gsm">gr-gsm
</a>
172 package is now included in Debian testing and unstable, and the
173 IMSI-catcher code no longer require root access to fetch and decode
174 the GSM data collected using gr-gsm.
</p>
176 <p>Here is an updated recipe, using packages built by Debian and a git
177 clone of two python scripts:
</p>
181 <li>Start with a Debian machine running the Buster version (aka
184 <li>Run '
<tt>apt install gr-gsm python-numpy python-scipy
185 python-scapy
</tt>' as root to install required packages.
</li>
187 <li>Fetch the code decoding GSM packages using '
<tt>git clone
188 github.com/Oros42/IMSI-catcher.git
</tt>'.
</li>
190 <li>Insert USB software defined radio supported by GNU Radio.
</li>
192 <li>Enter the IMSI-catcher directory and run '
<tt>python
193 scan-and-livemon
</tt>' to locate the frequency of nearby base
194 stations and start listening for GSM packages on one of them.
</li>
196 <li>Enter the IMSI-catcher directory and run '
<tt>python
197 simple_IMSI-catcher.py
</tt>' to display the collected information.
</li>
201 <p>Note, due to a bug somewhere the scan-and-livemon program (actually
202 <a href=
"https://github.com/ptrkrysik/gr-gsm/issues/336">its underlying
203 program grgsm_scanner
</a>) do not work with the HackRF radio. It does
204 work with RTL
8232 and other similar USB radio receivers you can get
206 (
<a href=
"https://www.ebay.com/sch/items/?_nkw=rtl+2832">for example
207 from ebay
</a>), so for now the solution is to scan using the RTL radio
208 and only use HackRF for fetching GSM data.
</p>
210 <p>As far as I can tell, a cell phone only show up on one of the
211 frequencies at the time, so if you are going to track and count every
212 cell phone around you, you need to listen to all the frequencies used.
213 To listen to several frequencies, use the --numrecv argument to
214 scan-and-livemon to use several receivers. Further, I am not sure if
215 phones using
3G or
4G will show as talking GSM to base stations, so
216 this approach might not see all phones around you. I typically see
217 0-
400 IMSI numbers an hour when looking around where I live.
</p>
219 <p>I've tried to run the scanner on a
220 <a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/RaspberryPi">Raspberry Pi
2 and
3
221 running Debian Buster
</a>, but the grgsm_livemon_headless process seem
222 to be too CPU intensive to keep up. When GNU Radio print 'O' to
223 stdout, I am told there it is caused by a buffer overflow between the
224 radio and GNU Radio, caused by the program being unable to read the
225 GSM data fast enough. If you see a stream of 'O's from the terminal
226 where you started scan-and-livemon, you need a give the process more
227 CPU power. Perhaps someone are able to optimize the code to a point
228 where it become possible to set up RPi3 based GSM sniffers? I tried
229 using Raspbian instead of Debian, but there seem to be something wrong
230 with GNU Radio on raspbian, causing glibc to abort().
</p>
236 Tags:
<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/surveillance">surveillance
</a>.
241 <div class=
"padding"></div>
245 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Simpler_recipe_on_how_to_make_a_simple__7_IMSI_Catcher_using_Debian.html">Simpler recipe on how to make a simple $
7 IMSI Catcher using Debian
</a>
251 <p>On friday, I came across an interesting article in the Norwegian
252 web based ICT news magazine digi.no on
253 <a href=
"https://www.digi.no/artikler/sikkerhetsforsker-lagde-enkel-imsi-catcher-for-60-kroner-na-kan-mobiler-kartlegges-av-alle/398588">how
254 to collect the IMSI numbers of nearby cell phones
</a> using the cheap
255 DVB-T software defined radios. The article refered to instructions
256 and
<a href=
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjwgNd_as30">a recipe by
257 Keld Norman on Youtube on how to make a simple $
7 IMSI Catcher
</a>, and I decided to test them out.
</p>
259 <p>The instructions said to use Ubuntu, install pip using apt (to
260 bypass apt), use pip to install pybombs (to bypass both apt and pip),
261 and the ask pybombs to fetch and build everything you need from
262 scratch. I wanted to see if I could do the same on the most recent
263 Debian packages, but this did not work because pybombs tried to build
264 stuff that no longer build with the most recent openssl library or
265 some other version skew problem. While trying to get this recipe
266 working, I learned that the apt-
>pip-
>pybombs route was a long detour,
267 and the only piece of software dependency missing in Debian was the
268 gr-gsm package. I also found out that the lead upstream developer of
269 gr-gsm (the name stand for GNU Radio GSM) project already had a set of
270 Debian packages provided in an Ubuntu PPA repository. All I needed to
271 do was to dget the Debian source package and built it.
</p>
273 <p>The IMSI collector is a python script listening for packages on the
274 loopback network device and printing to the terminal some specific GSM
275 packages with IMSI numbers in them. The code is fairly short and easy
276 to understand. The reason this work is because gr-gsm include a tool
277 to read GSM data from a software defined radio like a DVB-T USB stick
278 and other software defined radios, decode them and inject them into a
279 network device on your Linux machine (using the loopback device by
280 default). This proved to work just fine, and I've been testing the
281 collector for a few days now.
</p>
283 <p>The updated and simpler recipe is thus to
</p>
287 <li>start with a Debian machine running Stretch or newer,
</li>
289 <li>build and install the gr-gsm package available from
290 <a href=
"http://ppa.launchpad.net/ptrkrysik/gr-gsm/ubuntu/pool/main/g/gr-gsm/">http://ppa.launchpad.net/ptrkrysik/gr-gsm/ubuntu/pool/main/g/gr-gsm/
</a>,
</li>
292 <li>clone the git repostory from
<a href=
"https://github.com/Oros42/IMSI-catcher">https://github.com/Oros42/IMSI-catcher
</a>,
</li>
294 <li>run grgsm_livemon and adjust the frequency until the terminal
295 where it was started is filled with a stream of text (meaning you
296 found a GSM station).
</li>
298 <li>go into the IMSI-catcher directory and run 'sudo python simple_IMSI-catcher.py' to extract the IMSI numbers.
</li>
302 <p>To make it even easier in the future to get this sniffer up and
303 running, I decided to package
304 <a href=
"https://github.com/ptrkrysik/gr-gsm/">the gr-gsm project
</a>
305 for Debian (
<a href=
"https://bugs.debian.org/871055">WNPP
306 #
871055</a>), and the package was uploaded into the NEW queue today.
307 Luckily the gnuradio maintainer has promised to help me, as I do not
308 know much about gnuradio stuff yet.
</p>
310 <p>I doubt this "IMSI cacher" is anywhere near as powerfull as
311 commercial tools like
312 <a href=
"https://www.thespyphone.com/portable-imsi-imei-catcher/">The
313 Spy Phone Portable IMSI / IMEI Catcher
</a> or the
314 <a href=
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stingray_phone_tracker">Harris
315 Stingray
</a>, but I hope the existance of cheap alternatives can make
316 more people realise how their whereabouts when carrying a cell phone
317 is easily tracked. Seeing the data flow on the screen, realizing that
318 I live close to a police station and knowing that the police is also
319 wearing cell phones, I wonder how hard it would be for criminals to
320 track the position of the police officers to discover when there are
321 police near by, or for foreign military forces to track the location
322 of the Norwegian military forces, or for anyone to track the location
323 of government officials...
</p>
325 <p>It is worth noting that the data reported by the IMSI-catcher
326 script mentioned above is only a fraction of the data broadcasted on
327 the GSM network. It will only collect one frequency at the time,
328 while a typical phone will be using several frequencies, and not all
329 phones will be using the frequencies tracked by the grgsm_livemod
330 program. Also, there is a lot of radio chatter being ignored by the
331 simple_IMSI-catcher script, which would be collected by extending the
332 parser code. I wonder if gr-gsm can be set up to listen to more than
339 Tags:
<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/surveillance">surveillance
</a>.
344 <div class=
"padding"></div>
348 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Norwegian_Bokm_l_edition_of_Debian_Administrator_s_Handbook_is_now_available.html">Norwegian Bokmål edition of Debian Administrator's Handbook is now available
</a>
354 <p align=
"center"><img align=
"center" src=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2017-07-25-debian-handbook-nb-testprint.png"/></p>
356 <p>I finally received a copy of the Norwegian Bokmål edition of
357 "
<a href=
"https://debian-handbook.info/">The Debian Administrator's
358 Handbook
</a>". This test copy arrived in the mail a few days ago, and
359 I am very happy to hold the result in my hand. We spent around one and a half year translating it. This paperbook edition
360 <a href="https://debian-handbook.info/get/#norwegian
">is available
361 from lulu.com</a>. If you buy it quickly, you save 25% on the list
362 price. The book is also available for download in electronic form as
363 PDF, EPUB and Mobipocket, as can be
364 <a href="https://debian-handbook.info/browse/nb-NO/stable/
">read online
365 as a web page</a>.</p>
367 <p>This is the second book I publish (the first was the book
368 "<a href=
"http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture
</a>" by Lawrence Lessig
370 <a href="http://www.lulu.com/shop/lawrence-lessig/free-culture/paperback/product-
22440520.html
">English</a>,
371 <a href="http://www.lulu.com/shop/lawrence-lessig/culture-libre/paperback/product-
22645082.html
">French</a>
373 <a href="http://www.lulu.com/shop/lawrence-lessig/fri-kultur/paperback/product-
22441576.html
">Norwegian
374 Bokmål</a>), and I am very excited to finally wrap up this
376 "<a href=
"http://www.lulu.com/shop/rapha%C3%ABl-hertzog-and-roland-mas/h%C3%A5ndbok-for-debian-administratoren/paperback/product-23262290.html">Håndbok
377 for Debian-administratoren
</a>" will be well received.</p>
383 Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian
">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian-handbook
">debian-handbook</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english
">english</a>.
388 <div class="padding
"></div>
392 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/N_r_nynorskoversettelsen_svikter_til_eksamen___.html
">Når nynorskoversettelsen svikter til eksamen...</a>
398 <p><a href="http://www.aftenposten.no/norge/Krever-at-elever-ma-fa-annullert-eksamen-etter-rot-med-oppgavetekster-
622459b.html
">Aftenposten
399 melder i dag</a> om feil i eksamensoppgavene for eksamen i politikk og
400 menneskerettigheter, der teksten i bokmåls og nynorskutgaven ikke var
401 like. Oppgaveteksten er gjengitt i artikkelen, og jeg ble nysgjerring
402 på om den fri oversetterløsningen
403 <a href="https://www.apertium.org/
">Apertium</a> ville gjort en bedre
404 jobb enn Utdanningsdirektoratet. Det kan se slik ut.</p>
406 <p>Her er bokmålsoppgaven fra eksamenen:</p>
409 <p>Drøft utfordringene knyttet til nasjonalstatenes og andre aktørers
410 rolle og muligheter til å håndtere internasjonale utfordringer, som
411 for eksempel flykningekrisen.</p>
413 <p>Vedlegge er eksempler på tekster som kan gi relevante perspektiver
416 <li>Flykningeregnskapet 2016, UNHCR og IDMC
417 <li>«Grenseløst Europa for fall» A-Magasinet, 26. november 2015
422 <p>Dette oversetter Apertium slik:</p>
425 <p>Drøft utfordringane knytte til nasjonalstatane sine og rolla til
426 andre aktørar og høve til å handtera internasjonale utfordringar, som
427 til dømes *flykningekrisen.</p>
429 <p>Vedleggja er døme på tekster som kan gje relevante perspektiv på
433 <li>*Flykningeregnskapet 2016, *UNHCR og *IDMC</li>
434 <li>«*Grenseløst Europa for fall» A-Magasinet, 26. november 2015</li>
439 <p>Ord som ikke ble forstått er markert med stjerne (*), og trenger
440 ekstra språksjekk. Men ingen ord er forsvunnet, slik det var i
441 oppgaven elevene fikk presentert på eksamen. Jeg mistenker dog at
442 "andre aktørers rolle og muligheter til ..." burde vært oversatt til
443 "rolla til andre aktørar og deira høve til ..." eller noe slikt, men
444 det er kanskje flisespikking. Det understreker vel bare at det alltid
445 trengs korrekturlesning etter automatisk oversettelse.
</p>
451 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>.
456 <div class=
"padding"></div>
460 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Detecting_NFS_hangs_on_Linux_without_hanging_yourself___.html">Detecting NFS hangs on Linux without hanging yourself...
</a>
466 <p>Over the years, administrating thousand of NFS mounting linux
467 computers at the time, I often needed a way to detect if the machine
468 was experiencing NFS hang. If you try to use
<tt>df
</tt> or look at a
469 file or directory affected by the hang, the process (and possibly the
470 shell) will hang too. So you want to be able to detect this without
471 risking the detection process getting stuck too. It has not been
472 obvious how to do this. When the hang has lasted a while, it is
473 possible to find messages like these in dmesg:
</p>
476 nfs: server nfsserver not responding, still trying
477 <br>nfs: server nfsserver OK
480 <p>It is hard to know if the hang is still going on, and it is hard to
481 be sure looking in dmesg is going to work. If there are lots of other
482 messages in dmesg the lines might have rotated out of site before they
485 <p>While reading through the nfs client implementation in linux kernel
486 code, I came across some statistics that seem to give a way to detect
487 it. The om_timeouts sunrpc value in the kernel will increase every
488 time the above log entry is inserted into dmesg. And after digging a
489 bit further, I discovered that this value show up in
490 /proc/self/mountstats on Linux.
</p>
492 <p>The mountstats content seem to be shared between files using the
493 same file system context, so it is enough to check one of the
494 mountstats files to get the state of the mount point for the machine.
495 I assume this will not show lazy umounted NFS points, nor NFS mount
496 points in a different process context (ie with a different filesystem
497 view), but that does not worry me.
</p>
499 <p>The content for a NFS mount point look similar to this:
</p>
503 device /dev/mapper/Debian-var mounted on /var with fstype ext3
504 device nfsserver:/mnt/nfsserver/home0 mounted on /mnt/nfsserver/home0 with fstype nfs statvers=
1.1
505 opts: rw,vers=
3,rsize=
65536,wsize=
65536,namlen=
255,acregmin=
3,acregmax=
60,acdirmin=
30,acdirmax=
60,soft,nolock,proto=tcp,timeo=
600,retrans=
2,sec=sys,mountaddr=
129.240.3.145,mountvers=
3,mountport=
4048,mountproto=udp,local_lock=all
507 caps: caps=
0x3fe7,wtmult=
4096,dtsize=
8192,bsize=
0,namlen=
255
508 sec: flavor=
1,pseudoflavor=
1
509 events:
61063112 732346265 1028140 35486205 16220064 8162542 761447191 71714012 37189 3891185 45561809 110486139 4850138 420353 15449177 296502 52736725 13523379 0 52182 9016896 1231 0 0 0 0 0
510 bytes:
166253035039 219519120027 0 0 40783504807 185466229638 11677877 45561809
511 RPC iostats version:
1.0 p/v:
100003/
3 (nfs)
512 xprt: tcp
925 1 6810 0 0 111505412 111480497 109 2672418560317 0 248 53869103 22481820
514 NULL:
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
515 GETATTR:
61063106 61063108 0 9621383060 6839064400 453650 77291321 78926132
516 SETATTR:
463469 463470 0 92005440 66739536 63787 603235 687943
517 LOOKUP:
17021657 17021657 0 3354097764 4013442928 57216 35125459 35566511
518 ACCESS:
14281703 14290009 5 2318400592 1713803640 1709282 4865144 7130140
519 READLINK:
125 125 0 20472 18620 0 1112 1118
520 READ:
4214236 4214237 0 715608524 41328653212 89884 22622768 22806693
521 WRITE:
8479010 8494376 22 187695798568 1356087148 178264904 51506907 231671771
522 CREATE:
171708 171708 0 38084748 46702272 873 1041833 1050398
523 MKDIR:
3680 3680 0 773980 993920 26 23990 24245
524 SYMLINK:
903 903 0 233428 245488 6 5865 5917
525 MKNOD:
80 80 0 20148 21760 0 299 304
526 REMOVE:
429921 429921 0 79796004 61908192 3313 2710416 2741636
527 RMDIR:
3367 3367 0 645112 484848 22 5782 6002
528 RENAME:
466201 466201 0 130026184 121212260 7075 5935207 5961288
529 LINK:
289155 289155 0 72775556 67083960 2199 2565060 2585579
530 READDIR:
2933237 2933237 0 516506204 13973833412 10385 3190199 3297917
531 READDIRPLUS:
1652839 1652839 0 298640972 6895997744 84735 14307895 14448937
532 FSSTAT:
6144 6144 0 1010516 1032192 51 9654 10022
533 FSINFO:
2 2 0 232 328 0 1 1
534 PATHCONF:
1 1 0 116 140 0 0 0
535 COMMIT:
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
537 device binfmt_misc mounted on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc with fstype binfmt_misc
539 </pre></blockquote></p>
541 <p>The key number to look at is the third number in the per-op list.
542 It is the number of NFS timeouts experiences per file system
543 operation. Here
22 write timeouts and
5 access timeouts. If these
544 numbers are increasing, I believe the machine is experiencing NFS
545 hang. Unfortunately the timeout value do not start to increase right
546 away. The NFS operations need to time out first, and this can take a
547 while. The exact timeout value depend on the setup. For example the
548 defaults for TCP and UDP mount points are quite different, and the
549 timeout value is affected by the soft, hard, timeo and retrans NFS
552 <p>The only way I have been able to get working on Debian and RedHat
553 Enterprise Linux for getting the timeout count is to peek in /proc/.
555 <ahref=
"http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E19253-01/816-4555/netmonitor-12/index.html">Solaris
556 10 System Administration Guide: Network Services
</a>, the 'nfsstat -c'
557 command can be used to get these timeout values. But this do not work
558 on Linux, as far as I can tell. I
559 <ahref=
"http://bugs.debian.org/857043">asked Debian about this
</a>,
560 but have not seen any replies yet.
</p>
562 <p>Is there a better way to figure out if a Linux NFS client is
563 experiencing NFS hangs? Is there a way to detect which processes are
564 affected? Is there a way to get the NFS mount going quickly once the
565 network problem causing the NFS hang has been cleared? I would very
566 much welcome some clues, as we regularly run into NFS hangs.
</p>
572 Tags:
<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/sysadmin">sysadmin
</a>.
577 <div class=
"padding"></div>
581 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Norwegian_Bokm_l_translation_of_The_Debian_Administrator_s_Handbook_complete__proofreading_in_progress.html">Norwegian Bokmål translation of The Debian Administrator's Handbook complete, proofreading in progress
</a>
587 <p>For almost a year now, we have been working on making a Norwegian
588 Bokmål edition of
<a href=
"https://debian-handbook.info/">The Debian
589 Administrator's Handbook
</a>. Now, thanks to the tireless effort of
590 Ole-Erik, Ingrid and Andreas, the initial translation is complete, and
591 we are working on the proof reading to ensure consistent language and
592 use of correct computer science terms. The plan is to make the book
593 available on paper, as well as in electronic form. For that to
594 happen, the proof reading must be completed and all the figures need
595 to be translated. If you want to help out, get in touch.
</p>
597 <p><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-handbook/debian-handbook-nb-NO.pdf">A
599 fresh PDF edition
</a> in A4 format (the final book will have smaller
600 pages) of the book created every morning is available for
601 proofreading. If you find any errors, please
602 <a href=
"https://hosted.weblate.org/projects/debian-handbook/">visit
603 Weblate and correct the error
</a>. The
604 <a href=
"http://l.github.io/debian-handbook/stat/nb-NO/index.html">state
605 of the translation including figures
</a> is a useful source for those
606 provide Norwegian bokmål screen shots and figures.
</p>
612 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian-handbook">debian-handbook
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
617 <div class=
"padding"></div>
621 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Unlimited_randomness_with_the_ChaosKey_.html">Unlimited randomness with the ChaosKey?
</a>
627 <p>A few days ago I ordered a small batch of
628 <a href=
"http://altusmetrum.org/ChaosKey/">the ChaosKey
</a>, a small
629 USB dongle for generating entropy created by Bdale Garbee and Keith
630 Packard. Yesterday it arrived, and I am very happy to report that it
631 work great! According to its designers, to get it to work out of the
632 box, you need the Linux kernel version
4.1 or later. I tested on a
633 Debian Stretch machine (kernel version
4.9), and there it worked just
634 fine, increasing the available entropy very quickly. I wrote a small
635 test oneliner to test. It first print the current entropy level,
636 drain /dev/random, and then print the entropy level for five seconds.
637 Here is the situation without the ChaosKey inserted:
</p>
640 % cat /proc/sys/kernel/random/entropy_avail; \
641 dd bs=
1M if=/dev/random of=/dev/null count=
1; \
642 for n in $(seq
1 5); do \
643 cat /proc/sys/kernel/random/entropy_avail; \
649 28 byte kopiert,
0,
000264565 s,
106 kB/s
658 <p>The entropy level increases by
3-
4 every second. In such case any
659 application requiring random bits (like a HTTPS enabled web server)
660 will halt and wait for more entrpy. And here is the situation with
661 the ChaosKey inserted:
</p>
664 % cat /proc/sys/kernel/random/entropy_avail; \
665 dd bs=
1M if=/dev/random of=/dev/null count=
1; \
666 for n in $(seq
1 5); do \
667 cat /proc/sys/kernel/random/entropy_avail; \
673 104 byte kopiert,
0,
000487647 s,
213 kB/s
682 <p>Quite the difference. :) I bought a few more than I need, in case
683 someone want to buy one here in Norway. :)
</p>
685 <p>Update: The dongle was presented at Debconf last year. You might
686 find
<a href=
"https://debconf16.debconf.org/talks/94/">the talk
687 recording illuminating
</a>. It explains exactly what the source of
688 randomness is, if you are unable to spot it from the schema drawing
689 available from the ChaosKey web site linked at the start of this blog
696 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
701 <div class=
"padding"></div>
705 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Where_did_that_package_go___mdash__geolocated_IP_traceroute.html">Where did that package go?
— geolocated IP traceroute
</a>
711 <p>Did you ever wonder where the web trafic really flow to reach the
712 web servers, and who own the network equipment it is flowing through?
713 It is possible to get a glimpse of this from using traceroute, but it
714 is hard to find all the details. Many years ago, I wrote a system to
715 map the Norwegian Internet (trying to figure out if our plans for a
716 network game service would get low enough latency, and who we needed
717 to talk to about setting up game servers close to the users. Back
718 then I used traceroute output from many locations (I asked my friends
719 to run a script and send me their traceroute output) to create the
720 graph and the map. The output from traceroute typically look like
724 traceroute to www.stortinget.no (
85.88.67.10),
30 hops max,
60 byte packets
725 1 uio-gw10.uio.no (
129.240.202.1)
0.447 ms
0.486 ms
0.621 ms
726 2 uio-gw8.uio.no (
129.240.24.229)
0.467 ms
0.578 ms
0.675 ms
727 3 oslo-gw1.uninett.no (
128.39.65.17)
0.385 ms
0.373 ms
0.358 ms
728 4 te3-
1-
2.br1.fn3.as2116.net (
193.156.90.3)
1.174 ms
1.172 ms
1.153 ms
729 5 he16-
1-
1.cr1.san110.as2116.net (
195.0.244.234)
2.627 ms he16-
1-
1.cr2.oslosda310.as2116.net (
195.0.244.48)
3.172 ms he16-
1-
1.cr1.san110.as2116.net (
195.0.244.234)
2.857 ms
730 6 ae1.ar8.oslosda310.as2116.net (
195.0.242.39)
0.662 ms
0.637 ms ae0.ar8.oslosda310.as2116.net (
195.0.242.23)
0.622 ms
731 7 89.191.10.146 (
89.191.10.146)
0.931 ms
0.917 ms
0.955 ms
737 <p>This show the DNS names and IP addresses of (at least some of the)
738 network equipment involved in getting the data traffic from me to the
739 www.stortinget.no server, and how long it took in milliseconds for a
740 package to reach the equipment and return to me. Three packages are
741 sent, and some times the packages do not follow the same path. This
742 is shown for hop
5, where three different IP addresses replied to the
743 traceroute request.
</p>
745 <p>There are many ways to measure trace routes. Other good traceroute
746 implementations I use are traceroute (using ICMP packages) mtr (can do
747 both ICMP, UDP and TCP) and scapy (python library with ICMP, UDP, TCP
748 traceroute and a lot of other capabilities). All of them are easily
749 available in
<a href=
"https://www.debian.org/">Debian
</a>.
</p>
751 <p>This time around, I wanted to know the geographic location of
752 different route points, to visualize how visiting a web page spread
753 information about the visit to a lot of servers around the globe. The
754 background is that a web site today often will ask the browser to get
755 from many servers the parts (for example HTML, JSON, fonts,
756 JavaScript, CSS, video) required to display the content. This will
757 leak information about the visit to those controlling these servers
758 and anyone able to peek at the data traffic passing by (like your ISP,
759 the ISPs backbone provider, FRA, GCHQ, NSA and others).
</p>
761 <p>Lets pick an example, the Norwegian parliament web site
762 www.stortinget.no. It is read daily by all members of parliament and
763 their staff, as well as political journalists, activits and many other
764 citizens of Norway. A visit to the www.stortinget.no web site will
765 ask your browser to contact
8 other servers: ajax.googleapis.com,
766 insights.hotjar.com, script.hotjar.com, static.hotjar.com,
767 stats.g.doubleclick.net, www.google-analytics.com,
768 www.googletagmanager.com and www.netigate.se. I extracted this by
769 asking
<a href=
"http://phantomjs.org/">PhantomJS
</a> to visit the
770 Stortinget web page and tell me all the URLs PhantomJS downloaded to
771 render the page (in HAR format using
772 <a href=
"https://github.com/ariya/phantomjs/blob/master/examples/netsniff.js">their
773 netsniff example
</a>. I am very grateful to Gorm for showing me how
774 to do this). My goal is to visualize network traces to all IP
775 addresses behind these DNS names, do show where visitors personal
776 information is spread when visiting the page.
</p>
778 <p align=
"center"><a href=
"www.stortinget.no-geoip.kml"><img
779 src=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2017-01-09-www.stortinget.no-geoip-small.png" alt=
"map of combined traces for URLs used by www.stortinget.no using GeoIP"/></a></p>
781 <p>When I had a look around for options, I could not find any good
782 free software tools to do this, and decided I needed my own traceroute
783 wrapper outputting KML based on locations looked up using GeoIP. KML
784 is easy to work with and easy to generate, and understood by several
785 of the GIS tools I have available. I got good help from by NUUG
786 colleague Anders Einar with this, and the result can be seen in
787 <a href=
"https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/kmltraceroute">my
788 kmltraceroute git repository
</a>. Unfortunately, the quality of the
789 free GeoIP databases I could find (and the for-pay databases my
790 friends had access to) is not up to the task. The IP addresses of
791 central Internet infrastructure would typically be placed near the
792 controlling companies main office, and not where the router is really
793 located, as you can see from
<a href=
"www.stortinget.no-geoip.kml">the
794 KML file I created
</a> using the GeoLite City dataset from MaxMind.
796 <p align=
"center"><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2017-01-09-www.stortinget.no-scapy.svg"><img
797 src=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2017-01-09-www.stortinget.no-scapy-small.png" alt=
"scapy traceroute graph for URLs used by www.stortinget.no"/></a></p>
799 <p>I also had a look at the visual traceroute graph created by
800 <a href=
"http://www.secdev.org/projects/scapy/">the scrapy project
</a>,
801 showing IP network ownership (aka AS owner) for the IP address in
803 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2017-01-09-www.stortinget.no-scapy.svg">The
804 graph display a lot of useful information about the traceroute in SVG
805 format
</a>, and give a good indication on who control the network
806 equipment involved, but it do not include geolocation. This graph
807 make it possible to see the information is made available at least for
808 UNINETT, Catchcom, Stortinget, Nordunet, Google, Amazon, Telia, Level
809 3 Communications and NetDNA.
</p>
811 <p align=
"center"><a href=
"https://geotraceroute.com/index.php?node=4&host=www.stortinget.no"><img
812 src=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2017-01-09-www.stortinget.no-geotraceroute-small.png" alt=
"example geotraceroute view for www.stortinget.no"/></a></p>
814 <p>In the process, I came across the
815 <a href=
"https://geotraceroute.com/">web service GeoTraceroute
</a> by
816 Salim Gasmi. Its methology of combining guesses based on DNS names,
817 various location databases and finally use latecy times to rule out
818 candidate locations seemed to do a very good job of guessing correct
819 geolocation. But it could only do one trace at the time, did not have
820 a sensor in Norway and did not make the geolocations easily available
821 for postprocessing. So I contacted the developer and asked if he
822 would be willing to share the code (he refused until he had time to
823 clean it up), but he was interested in providing the geolocations in a
824 machine readable format, and willing to set up a sensor in Norway. So
825 since yesterday, it is possible to run traces from Norway in this
826 service thanks to a sensor node set up by
827 <a href=
"https://www.nuug.no/">the NUUG assosiation
</a>, and get the
828 trace in KML format for further processing.
</p>
830 <p align=
"center"><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2017-01-09-www.stortinget.no-geotraceroute-kml-join.kml"><img
831 src=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2017-01-09-www.stortinget.no-geotraceroute-kml-join.png" alt=
"map of combined traces for URLs used by www.stortinget.no using geotraceroute"/></a></p>
833 <p>Here we can see a lot of trafic passes Sweden on its way to
834 Denmark, Germany, Holland and Ireland. Plenty of places where the
835 Snowden confirmations verified the traffic is read by various actors
836 without your best interest as their top priority.
</p>
838 <p>Combining KML files is trivial using a text editor, so I could loop
839 over all the hosts behind the urls imported by www.stortinget.no and
840 ask for the KML file from GeoTraceroute, and create a combined KML
841 file with all the traces (unfortunately only one of the IP addresses
842 behind the DNS name is traced this time. To get them all, one would
843 have to request traces using IP number instead of DNS names from
844 GeoTraceroute). That might be the next step in this project.
</p>
846 <p>Armed with these tools, I find it a lot easier to figure out where
847 the IP traffic moves and who control the boxes involved in moving it.
848 And every time the link crosses for example the Swedish border, we can
849 be sure Swedish Signal Intelligence (FRA) is listening, as GCHQ do in
850 Britain and NSA in USA and cables around the globe. (Hm, what should
851 we tell them? :) Keep that in mind if you ever send anything
852 unencrypted over the Internet.
</p>
854 <p>PS: KML files are drawn using
855 <a href=
"http://ivanrublev.me/kml/">the KML viewer from Ivan
856 Rublev
<a/>, as it was less cluttered than the local Linux application
857 Marble. There are heaps of other options too.
</p>
859 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
860 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
861 <b><a href=
"bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
</a></b>.
</p>
867 Tags:
<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/kart">kart
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stortinget">stortinget
</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>.
872 <div class=
"padding"></div>
876 <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>
882 <p>I received a very nice Christmas present today. As my regular
883 readers probably know, I have been working on the
884 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">the Isenkram
885 system
</a> for many years. The goal of the Isenkram system is to make
886 it easier for users to figure out what to install to get a given piece
887 of hardware to work in Debian, and a key part of this system is a way
888 to map hardware to packages. Isenkram have its own mapping database,
889 and also uses data provided by each package using the AppStream
890 metadata format. And today,
891 <a href=
"https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/appstream">AppStream
</a> in
892 Debian learned to look up hardware the same way Isenkram is doing it,
893 ie using fnmatch():
</p>
896 % appstreamcli what-provides modalias \
897 usb:v1130p0202d0100dc00dsc00dp00ic03isc00ip00in00
898 Identifier: pymissile [generic]
900 Summary: Control original Striker USB Missile Launcher
902 % appstreamcli what-provides modalias usb:v0694p0002d0000
903 Identifier: libnxt [generic]
905 Summary: utility library for talking to the LEGO Mindstorms NXT brick
908 Identifier: t2n [generic]
910 Summary: Simple command-line tool for Lego NXT
913 Identifier: python-nxt [generic]
915 Summary: Python driver/interface/wrapper for the Lego Mindstorms NXT robot
918 Identifier: nbc [generic]
920 Summary: C compiler for LEGO Mindstorms NXT bricks
925 <p>A similar query can be done using the combined AppStream and
926 Isenkram databases using the isenkram-lookup tool:
</p>
929 % isenkram-lookup usb:v1130p0202d0100dc00dsc00dp00ic03isc00ip00in00
931 % isenkram-lookup usb:v0694p0002d0000
939 <p>You can find modalias values relevant for your machine using
940 <tt>cat $(find /sys/devices/ -name modalias)
</tt>.
942 <p>If you want to make this system a success and help Debian users
943 make the most of the hardware they have, please
944 help
<a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/AppStream/Guidelines">add
945 AppStream metadata for your package following the guidelines
</a>
946 documented in the wiki. So far only
11 packages provide such
947 information, among the several hundred hardware specific packages in
948 Debian. The Isenkram database on the other hand contain
101 packages,
949 mostly related to USB dongles. Most of the packages with hardware
950 mapping in AppStream are LEGO Mindstorms related, because I have, as
951 part of my involvement in
952 <a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">the Debian LEGO
953 team
</a> given priority to making sure LEGO users get proposed the
954 complete set of packages in Debian for that particular hardware. The
955 team also got a nice Christmas present today. The
956 <a href=
"https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/nxt-firmware">nxt-firmware
957 package
</a> made it into Debian. With this package in place, it is
958 now possible to use the LEGO Mindstorms NXT unit with only free
959 software, as the nxt-firmware package contain the source and firmware
960 binaries for the NXT brick.
</p>
962 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
963 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
964 <b><a href=
"bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
</a></b>.
</p>
970 Tags:
<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>.
975 <div class=
"padding"></div>
979 <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>
985 <p><a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">The Isenkram
986 system
</a> I wrote two years ago to make it easier in Debian to find
987 and install packages to get your hardware dongles to work, is still
988 going strong. It is a system to look up the hardware present on or
989 connected to the current system, and map the hardware to Debian
990 packages. It can either be done using the tools in isenkram-cli or
991 using the user space daemon in the isenkram package. The latter will
992 notify you, when inserting new hardware, about what packages to
993 install to get the dongle working. It will even provide a button to
994 click on to ask packagekit to install the packages.
</p>
996 <p>Here is an command line example from my Thinkpad laptop:
</p>
1017 <p>It can also list the firware package providing firmware requested
1018 by the load kernel modules, which in my case is an empty list because
1019 I have all the firmware my machine need:
1022 % /usr/sbin/isenkram-autoinstall-firmware -l
1023 info: did not find any firmware files requested by loaded kernel modules. exiting
1027 <p>The last few days I had a look at several of the around
250
1028 packages in Debian with udev rules. These seem like good candidates
1029 to install when a given hardware dongle is inserted, and I found
1030 several that should be proposed by isenkram. I have not had time to
1031 check all of them, but am happy to report that now there are
97
1032 packages packages mapped to hardware by Isenkram.
11 of these
1033 packages provide hardware mapping using AppStream, while the rest are
1034 listed in the modaliases file provided in isenkram.
</p>
1036 <p>These are the packages with hardware mappings at the moment. The
1037 <strong>marked packages
</strong> are also announcing their hardware
1038 support using AppStream, for everyone to use:
</p>
1040 <p>air-quality-sensor, alsa-firmware-loaders, argyll,
1041 <strong>array-info
</strong>, avarice, avrdude, b43-fwcutter,
1042 bit-babbler, bluez, bluez-firmware,
<strong>brltty
</strong>,
1043 <strong>broadcom-sta-dkms
</strong>, calibre, cgminer, cheese, colord,
1044 <strong>colorhug-client
</strong>, dahdi-firmware-nonfree, dahdi-linux,
1045 dfu-util, dolphin-emu, ekeyd, ethtool, firmware-ipw2x00, fprintd,
1046 fprintd-demo,
<strong>galileo
</strong>, gkrellm-thinkbat, gphoto2,
1047 gpsbabel, gpsbabel-gui, gpsman, gpstrans, gqrx-sdr, gr-fcdproplus,
1048 gr-osmosdr, gtkpod, hackrf, hdapsd, hdmi2usb-udev, hpijs-ppds, hplip,
1049 ipw3945-source, ipw3945d, kde-config-tablet, kinect-audio-setup,
1050 <strong>libnxt
</strong>, libpam-fprintd,
<strong>lomoco
</strong>,
1051 madwimax, minidisc-utils, mkgmap, msi-keyboard, mtkbabel,
1052 <strong>nbc
</strong>,
<strong>nqc
</strong>, nut-hal-drivers, ola,
1053 open-vm-toolbox, open-vm-tools, openambit, pcgminer, pcmciautils,
1054 pcscd, pidgin-blinklight, printer-driver-splix,
1055 <strong>pymissile
</strong>, python-nxt, qlandkartegt,
1056 qlandkartegt-garmin, rosegarden, rt2x00-source, sispmctl,
1057 soapysdr-module-hackrf, solaar, squeak-plugins-scratch, sunxi-tools,
1058 <strong>t2n
</strong>, thinkfan, thinkfinger-tools, tlp, tp-smapi-dkms,
1059 tp-smapi-source, tpb, tucnak, uhd-host, usbmuxd, viking,
1060 virtualbox-ose-guest-x11, w1retap, xawtv, xserver-xorg-input-vmmouse,
1061 xserver-xorg-input-wacom, xserver-xorg-video-qxl,
1062 xserver-xorg-video-vmware, yubikey-personalization and
1065 <p>If you know of other packages, please let me know with a wishlist
1066 bug report against the isenkram-cli package, and ask the package
1068 <a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/AppStream/Guidelines">add AppStream
1069 metadata according to the guidelines
</a> to provide the information
1070 for everyone. In time, I hope to get rid of the isenkram specific
1071 hardware mapping and depend exclusively on AppStream.
</p>
1073 <p>Note, the AppStream metadata for broadcom-sta-dkms is matching too
1074 much hardware, and suggest that the package with with any ethernet
1075 card. See
<a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/838735">bug #
838735</a> for
1076 the details. I hope the maintainer find time to address it soon. In
1077 the mean time I provide an override in isenkram.
</p>
1083 Tags:
<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>.
1088 <div class=
"padding"></div>
1092 <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>
1098 <p align=
"center"><img width=
"70%" src=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-12-11-nice-oolite.png"/></p>
1100 <p>In my early years, I played
1101 <a href=
"http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Classic_Elite">the epic game
1102 Elite
</a> on my PC. I spent many months trading and fighting in
1103 space, and reached the 'elite' fighting status before I moved on. The
1104 original Elite game was available on Commodore
64 and the IBM PC
1105 edition I played had a
64 KB executable. I am still impressed today
1106 that the authors managed to squeeze both a
3D engine and details about
1107 more than
2000 planet systems across
7 galaxies into a binary so
1110 <p>I have known about
<a href=
"http://www.oolite.org/">the free
1111 software game Oolite inspired by Elite
</a> for a while, but did not
1112 really have time to test it properly until a few days ago. It was
1113 great to discover that my old knowledge about trading routes were
1114 still valid. But my fighting and flying abilities were gone, so I had
1115 to retrain to be able to dock on a space station. And I am still not
1116 able to make much resistance when I am attacked by pirates, so I
1117 bougth and mounted the most powerful laser in the rear to be able to
1118 put up at least some resistance while fleeing for my life. :)
</p>
1120 <p>When playing Elite in the late eighties, I had to discover
1121 everything on my own, and I had long lists of prices seen on different
1122 planets to be able to decide where to trade what. This time I had the
1124 <a href=
"http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Main_Page">Elite wiki
</a>,
1125 where information about each planet is easily available with common
1126 price ranges and suggested trading routes. This improved my ability
1127 to earn money and I have been able to earn enough to buy a lot of
1128 useful equipent in a few days. I believe I originally played for
1129 months before I could get a docking computer, while now I could get it
1130 after less then a week.
</p>
1132 <p>If you like science fiction and dreamed of a life as a vagabond in
1133 space, you should try out Oolite. It is available for Linux, MacOSX
1134 and Windows, and is included in Debian and derivatives since
2011.
</p>
1136 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1137 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1138 <b><a href=
"bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
</a></b>.
</p>
1144 Tags:
<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>.
1149 <div class=
"padding"></div>
1153 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Quicker_Debian_installations_using_eatmydata.html">Quicker Debian installations using eatmydata
</a>
1159 <p>Two years ago, I did some experiments with eatmydata and the Debian
1160 installation system, observing how using
1161 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Speeding_up_the_Debian_installer_using_eatmydata_and_dpkg_divert.html">eatmydata
1162 could speed up the installation
</a> quite a bit. My testing measured
1163 speedup around
20-
40 percent for Debian Edu, where we install around
1164 1000 packages from within the installer. The eatmydata package
1165 provide a way to disable/delay file system flushing. This is a bit
1166 risky in the general case, as files that should be stored on disk will
1167 stay only in memory a bit longer than expected, causing problems if a
1168 machine crashes at an inconvenient time. But for an installation, if
1169 the machine crashes during installation the process is normally
1170 restarted, and avoiding disk operations as much as possible to speed
1171 up the process make perfect sense.
1173 <p>I added code in the Debian Edu specific installation code to enable
1174 <a href=
"https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/libeatmydata">eatmydata
</a>,
1175 but did not have time to push it any further. But a few months ago I
1176 picked it up again and worked with the libeatmydata package maintainer
1177 Mattia Rizzolo to make it easier for everyone to get this installation
1178 speedup in Debian. Thanks to our cooperation There is now an
1179 eatmydata-udeb package in Debian testing and unstable, and simply
1180 enabling/installing it in debian-installer (d-i) is enough to get the
1181 quicker installations. It can be enabled using preseeding. The
1182 following untested kernel argument should do the trick:
</p>
1185 preseed/
early_command="anna-install eatmydata-udeb"
1188 <p>This should ask d-i to install the package inside the d-i
1189 environment early in the installation sequence. Having it installed
1190 in d-i in turn will make sure the relevant scripts are called just
1191 after debootstrap filled /target/ with the freshly installed Debian
1192 system to configure apt to run dpkg with eatmydata. This is enough to
1193 speed up the installation process. There is a proposal to
1194 <a href=
"https://bugs.debian.org/841153">extend the idea a bit further
1195 by using /etc/ld.so.preload instead of apt.conf
</a>, but I have not
1196 tested its impact.
</p>
1203 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>.
1208 <div class=
"padding"></div>
1212 <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>
1218 <p>I Norge er det mange som trenger å skrive både bokmål og nynorsk.
1219 Eksamensoppgaver, offentlige brev og nyheter er eksempler på tekster
1220 der det er krav om skriftspråk. I tillegg til alle skoleoppgavene som
1221 elever over det ganske land skal levere inn hvert år. Det mange ikke
1222 vet er at selv om de kommersielle alternativene
1223 <a href=
"https://translate.google.com/">Google Translate
</a> og
1224 <a href=
"https://www.bing.com/translator/">Bing Translator
</a> ikke kan
1225 bidra med å oversette mellom bokmål og nynorsk, så finnes det et
1226 utmerket fri programvarealternativ som kan. Oversetterverktøyet
1227 Apertium har støtte for en rekke språkkombinasjoner, og takket være
1228 den utrettelige innsatsen til blant annet Kevin Brubeck Unhammer, kan
1229 en bruke webtjenesten til å fylle inn en tekst på bokmål eller
1230 nynorsk, og få den automatoversatt til det andre skriftspråket.
1231 Resultatet er ikke perfekt, men et svært godt utgangspunkt. Av og til
1232 er resultatet så bra at det kan benyttes uten endringer. Jeg vet
1233 f.eks. at store deler av Joomla ble oversatt til nynorsk ved hjelp
1234 Apertium. Høres det ut som noe du kan ha bruk for? Besøk i så fall
1235 <a href=
"https://www.apertium.org/">Apertium.org
</a> og fyll inn
1236 teksten din i webskjemaet der.
1238 <p>Hvis du trenger maskinell tilgang til den bakenforliggende
1239 teknologien kan du enten installere pakken
1240 <a href=
"https://tracker.debian.org/apertium-nno-nob">apertium-nno-nob
</a>
1241 på en Debian-maskin eller bruke web-API-et tilgjengelig fra
1242 api.apertium.org. Se
1243 <a href=
"http://wiki.apertium.org/wiki/Apertium-apy">API-dokumentasjonen
</a>
1244 for detaljer om web-API-et. Her kan du se hvordan resultatet blir for
1245 denne teksten som ble skrevet på bokmål over maskinoversatt til
1250 <p>I Noreg er det mange som treng å skriva både bokmål og nynorsk.
1251 Eksamensoppgåver, offentlege brev og nyhende er døme på tekster der
1252 det er krav om skriftspråk. I tillegg til alle skuleoppgåvene som
1253 elevar over det ganske land skal levera inn kvart år. Det mange ikkje
1254 veit er at sjølv om dei kommersielle alternativa
1255 <a href=
"https://translate.google.com/">Google *Translate
</a> og
1256 <a href=
"https://www.bing.com/translator/">Bing *Translator
</a> ikkje
1257 kan bidra med å omsetja mellom bokmål og nynorsk, så finst det eit
1258 utmerka fri programvarealternativ som kan. Omsetjarverktøyet
1259 *Apertium har støtte for ei rekkje språkkombinasjonar, og takka vera
1260 den utrøyttelege innsatsen til blant anna Kevin Brubeck Unhammer, kan
1261 ein bruka *webtjenesten til å fylla inn ei tekst på bokmål eller
1262 nynorsk, og få den *automatoversatt til det andre skriftspråket.
1263 Resultatet er ikkje perfekt, men eit svært godt utgangspunkt. Av og
1264 til er resultatet så bra at det kan nyttast utan endringar. Eg veit
1265 t.d. at store delar av *Joomla vart omsett til nynorsk ved hjelp
1266 *Apertium. Høyrast det ut som noko du kan ha bruk for? Besøk i så
1267 fall
<a href=
"https://www.apertium.org/">*Apertium.org
</a> og fyll inn
1268 teksta di i *webskjemaet der.
1270 <p>Viss du treng *maskinell tilgjenge til den *bakenforliggende
1271 teknologien kan du anten installera pakken
1272 <a href=
"https://tracker.debian.org/apertium-nno-nob">*apertium-*nno-*nob
</a>
1273 på ein *Debian-maskin eller bruka *web-*API-eit tilgjengeleg frå
1274 *api.*apertium.org. Sjå
1275 <a href=
"http://wiki.apertium.org/wiki/Apertium-apy">*API-dokumentasjonen
</a>
1276 for detaljar om *web-*API-eit. Her kan du sjå korleis resultatet vert
1277 for denne teksta som vart skreva på bokmål over *maskinoversatt til
1284 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>.
1289 <div class=
"padding"></div>
1293 <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>
1299 <p><a href=
"http://coz-profiler.org/">The Coz profiler
</a>, a nice
1300 profiler able to run benchmarking experiments on the instrumented
1301 multi-threaded program, finally
1302 <a href=
"https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/coz-profiler">made it into
1303 Debian unstable yesterday
</A>. Lluís Vilanova and I have spent many
1305 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Coz_can_help_you_find_bottlenecks_in_multi_threaded_software___nice_free_software.html">I
1306 blogged about the coz tool
</a> in August working with upstream to make
1307 it suitable for Debian. There are still issues with clang
1308 compatibility, inline assembly only working x86 and minimized
1309 JavaScript libraries.
</p>
1311 <p>To test it, install 'coz-profiler' using apt and run it like this:
</p>
1314 <tt>coz run --- /path/to/binary-with-debug-info
</tt>
1317 <p>This will produce a profile.coz file in the current working
1318 directory with the profiling information. This is then given to a
1319 JavaScript application provided in the package and available from
1320 <a href=
"http://plasma-umass.github.io/coz/">a project web page
</a>.
1321 To start the local copy, invoke it in a browser like this:
</p>
1324 <tt>sensible-browser /usr/share/coz-profiler/viewer/index.htm
</tt>
1327 <p>See the project home page and the
1328 <a href=
"https://www.usenix.org/publications/login/summer2016/curtsinger">USENIX
1329 ;login: article on Coz
</a> for more information on how it is
1336 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
1341 <div class=
"padding"></div>
1345 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/My_own_self_balancing_Lego_Segway.html">My own self balancing Lego Segway
</a>
1351 <p>A while back I received a Gyro sensor for the NXT
1352 <a href=
"mindstorms.lego.com">Mindstorms
</a> controller as a birthday
1353 present. It had been on my wishlist for a while, because I wanted to
1354 build a Segway like balancing lego robot. I had already built
1355 <a href=
"http://www.nxtprograms.com/NXT2/segway/">a simple balancing
1356 robot
</a> with the kids, using the light/color sensor included in the
1357 NXT kit as the balance sensor, but it was not working very well. It
1358 could balance for a while, but was very sensitive to the light
1359 condition in the room and the reflective properties of the surface and
1360 would fall over after a short while. I wanted something more robust,
1362 <a href=
"https://www.hitechnic.com/cgi-bin/commerce.cgi?preadd=action&key=NGY1044">the
1363 gyro sensor from HiTechnic
</a> I believed would solve it on my
1364 wishlist for some years before it suddenly showed up as a gift from my
1367 <p>Unfortunately I have not had time to sit down and play with it
1368 since then. But that changed some days ago, when I was searching for
1369 lego segway information and came across a recipe from HiTechnic for
1371 <a href=
"http://www.hitechnic.com/blog/gyro-sensor/htway/">the
1372 HTWay
</a>, a segway like balancing robot. Build instructions and
1373 <a href=
"https://www.hitechnic.com/upload/786-HTWayC.nxc">source
1374 code
</a> was included, so it was just a question of putting it all
1375 together. And thanks to the great work of many Debian developers, the
1376 compiler needed to build the source for the NXT is already included in
1377 Debian, so I was read to go in less than an hour. The resulting robot
1378 do not look very impressive in its simplicity:
</p>
1380 <p align=
"center"><img width=
"70%" src=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-11-04-lego-htway-robot.jpeg"></p>
1382 <p>Because I lack the infrared sensor used to control the robot in the
1383 design from HiTechnic, I had to comment out the last task
1384 (taskControl). I simply placed /* and */ around it get the program
1385 working without that sensor present. Now it balances just fine until
1386 the battery status run low:
</p>
1388 <p align=
"center"><video width=
"70%" controls=
"true">
1389 <source src=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-11-04-lego-htway-balancing.ogv" type=
"video/ogg">
1392 <p>Now we would like to teach it how to follow a line and take remote
1393 control instructions using the included Bluetooth receiver in the NXT.
</p>
1395 <p>If you, like me, love LEGO and want to make sure we find the tools
1396 they need to work with LEGO in Debian and all our derivative
1397 distributions like Ubuntu, check out
1398 <a href=
"http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">the LEGO designers
1399 project page
</a> and join the Debian LEGO team. Personally I own a
1400 RCX and NXT controller (no EV3), and would like to make sure the
1401 Debian tools needed to program the systems I own work as they
1408 Tags:
<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/lego">lego
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot
</a>.
1413 <div class=
"padding"></div>
1417 <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>
1424 <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
1425 wrote how to get the Signal Chrome/Chromium app working
</a> without
1426 the ability to receive SMS messages (aka without a cell phone). It is
1427 time to share some experiences and provide an updated setup.
</p>
1429 <p>The Signal app have worked fine for several months now, and I use
1430 it regularly to chat with my loved ones. I had a major snag at the
1431 end of my summer vacation, when the the app completely forgot my
1432 setup, identity and keys. The reason behind this major mess was
1433 running out of disk space. To avoid that ever happening again I have
1434 started storing everything in
<tt>userdata/
</tt> in git, to be able to
1435 roll back to an earlier version if the files are wiped by mistake. I
1436 had to use it once after introducing the git backup. When rolling
1437 back to an earlier version, one need to use the 'reset session' option
1438 in Signal to get going, and notify the people you talk with about the
1439 problem. I assume there is some sequence number tracking in the
1440 protocol to detect rollback attacks. The git repository is rather big
1441 (
674 MiB so far), but I have not tried to figure out if some of the
1442 content can be added to a .gitignore file due to lack of spare
1445 <p>I've also hit the
90 days timeout blocking, and noticed that this
1446 make it impossible to send messages using Signal. I could still
1447 receive them, but had to patch the code with a new timestamp to send.
1448 I believe the timeout is added by the developers to force people to
1449 upgrade to the latest version of the app, even when there is no
1450 protocol changes, to reduce the version skew among the user base and
1451 thus try to keep the number of support requests down.
</p>
1453 <p>Since my original recipe, the Signal source code changed slightly,
1454 making the old patch fail to apply cleanly. Below is an updated
1455 patch, including the shell wrapper I use to start Signal. The
1456 original version required a new user to locate the JavaScript console
1457 and call a function from there. I got help from a friend with more
1458 JavaScript knowledge than me to modify the code to provide a GUI
1459 button instead. This mean that to get started you just need to run
1460 the wrapper and click the 'Register without mobile phone' to get going
1461 now. I've also modified the timeout code to always set it to
90 days
1462 in the future, to avoid having to patch the code regularly.
</p>
1464 <p>So, the updated recipe for Debian Jessie:
</p>
1468 <li>First, install required packages to get the source code and the
1469 browser you need. Signal only work with Chrome/Chromium, as far as I
1470 know, so you need to install it.
1473 apt install git tor chromium
1474 git clone https://github.com/WhisperSystems/Signal-Desktop.git
1477 <li>Modify the source code using command listed in the the patch
1480 <li>Start Signal using the run-signal-app wrapper (for example using
1481 <tt>`pwd`/run-signal-app
</tt>).
1483 <li>Click on the 'Register without mobile phone', will in a phone
1484 number you can receive calls to the next minute, receive the
1485 verification code and enter it into the form field and press
1486 'Register'. Note, the phone number you use will be user Signal
1487 username, ie the way others can find you on Signal.
</li>
1489 <li>You can now use Signal to contact others. Note, new contacts do
1490 not show up in the contact list until you restart Signal, and there is
1491 no way to assign names to Contacts. There is also no way to create or
1492 update chat groups. I suspect this is because the web app do not have
1493 a associated contact database.
</li>
1497 <p>I am still a bit uneasy about using Signal, because of the way its
1498 main author moxie0 reject federation and accept dependencies to major
1499 corporations like Google (part of the code is fetched from Google) and
1500 Amazon (the central coordination point is owned by Amazon). See for
1502 <a href=
"https://github.com/LibreSignal/LibreSignal/issues/37">the
1503 LibreSignal issue tracker
</a> for a thread documenting the authors
1504 view on these issues. But the network effect is strong in this case,
1505 and several of the people I want to communicate with already use
1506 Signal. Perhaps we can all move to
<a href=
"https://ring.cx/">Ring
</a>
1507 once it
<a href=
"https://bugs.debian.org/830265">work on my
1508 laptop
</a>? It already work on Windows and Android, and is included
1509 in
<a href=
"https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/ring">Debian
</a> and
1510 <a href=
"https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ring">Ubuntu
</a>, but not
1511 working on Debian Stable.
</p>
1513 <p>Anyway, this is the patch I apply to the Signal code to get it
1514 working. It switch to the production servers, disable to timeout,
1515 make registration easier and add the shell wrapper:
</p>
1518 cd Signal-Desktop; cat
<<EOF | patch -p1
1519 diff --git a/js/background.js b/js/background.js
1520 index
24b4c1d.
.579345f
100644
1521 --- a/js/background.js
1522 +++ b/js/background.js
1527 - var SERVER_URL = 'https://textsecure-service-staging.whispersystems.org';
1528 + var SERVER_URL = 'https://textsecure-service-ca.whispersystems.org';
1529 var SERVER_PORTS = [
80,
4433,
8443];
1530 - var ATTACHMENT_SERVER_URL = 'https://whispersystems-textsecure-attachments-staging.s3.amazonaws.com';
1531 + var ATTACHMENT_SERVER_URL = 'https://whispersystems-textsecure-attachments.s3.amazonaws.com';
1532 var messageReceiver;
1533 window.getSocketStatus = function() {
1534 if (messageReceiver) {
1535 diff --git a/js/expire.js b/js/expire.js
1536 index
639aeae..beb91c3
100644
1542 - var BUILD_EXPIRATION =
0;
1543 + var BUILD_EXPIRATION = Date.now() + (
90 *
24 *
60 *
60 *
1000);
1545 window.extension = window.extension || {};
1547 diff --git a/js/views/install_view.js b/js/views/install_view.js
1548 index
7816f4f.
.1d6233b
100644
1549 --- a/js/views/install_view.js
1550 +++ b/js/views/install_view.js
1553 'click .step1': this.selectStep.bind(this,
1),
1554 'click .step2': this.selectStep.bind(this,
2),
1555 - 'click .step3': this.selectStep.bind(this,
3)
1556 + 'click .step3': this.selectStep.bind(this,
3),
1557 + 'click .callreg': function() { extension.install('standalone') },
1560 clearQR: function() {
1561 diff --git a/options.html b/options.html
1562 index dc0f28e.
.8d709f6
100644
1566 <div class='nav'
>
1567 <h1
>{{ installWelcome }}
</h1
>
1568 <p
>{{ installTagline }}
</p
>
1569 -
<div
> <a class='button step2'
>{{ installGetStartedButton }}
</a
> </div
>
1570 +
<div
> <a class='button step2'
>{{ installGetStartedButton }}
</a
>
1571 +
<br
> <a
class="button callreg"
>Register without mobile phone
</a
>
1574 <span class='dot step1 selected'
></span
>
1575 <span class='dot step2'
></span
>
1576 <span class='dot step3'
></span
>
1577 --- /dev/null
2016-
10-
07 09:
55:
13.730181472 +
0200
1578 +++ b/run-signal-app
2016-
10-
10 08:
54:
09.434172391 +
0200
1584 +
userdata="`pwd`/userdata"
1585 +if [ -d "$userdata" ] && [ ! -d "$userdata/.git" ] ; then
1586 + (cd $userdata && git init)
1588 +(cd $userdata && git add . && git commit -m "Current status." || true)
1590 +
--proxy-server="socks://localhost:
9050" \
1591 + --user-data-dir=$userdata --load-and-launch-app=`pwd`
1593 chmod a+rx run-signal-app
1596 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1597 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1598 <b><a href=
"bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
</a></b>.
</p>
1604 Tags:
<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>.
1609 <div class=
"padding"></div>
1613 <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>
1619 <p><a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">The Isenkram
1620 system
</a> provide a practical and easy way to figure out which
1621 packages support the hardware in a given machine. The command line
1622 tool
<tt>isenkram-lookup
</tt> and the tasksel options provide a
1623 convenient way to list and install packages relevant for the current
1624 hardware during system installation, both user space packages and
1625 firmware packages. The GUI background daemon on the other hand provide
1626 a pop-up proposing to install packages when a new dongle is inserted
1627 while using the computer. For example, if you plug in a smart card
1628 reader, the system will ask if you want to install
<tt>pcscd
</tt> if
1629 that package isn't already installed, and if you plug in a USB video
1630 camera the system will ask if you want to install
<tt>cheese
</tt> if
1631 cheese is currently missing. This already work just fine.
</p>
1633 <p>But Isenkram depend on a database mapping from hardware IDs to
1634 package names. When I started no such database existed in Debian, so
1635 I made my own data set and included it with the isenkram package and
1636 made isenkram fetch the latest version of this database from git using
1637 http. This way the isenkram users would get updated package proposals
1638 as soon as I learned more about hardware related packages.
</p>
1640 <p>The hardware is identified using modalias strings. The modalias
1641 design is from the Linux kernel where most hardware descriptors are
1642 made available as a strings that can be matched using filename style
1643 globbing. It handle USB, PCI, DMI and a lot of other hardware related
1646 <p>The downside to the Isenkram specific database is that there is no
1647 information about relevant distribution / Debian version, making
1648 isenkram propose obsolete packages too. But along came AppStream, a
1649 cross distribution mechanism to store and collect metadata about
1650 software packages. When I heard about the proposal, I contacted the
1651 people involved and suggested to add a hardware matching rule using
1652 modalias strings in the specification, to be able to use AppStream for
1653 mapping hardware to packages. This idea was accepted and AppStream is
1654 now a great way for a package to announce the hardware it support in a
1655 distribution neutral way. I wrote
1656 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_appstream_with_isenkram_to_install_hardware_related_packages_in_Debian.html">a
1657 recipe on how to add such meta-information
</a> in a blog post last
1658 December. If you have a hardware related package in Debian, please
1659 announce the relevant hardware IDs using AppStream.
</p>
1661 <p>In Debian, almost all packages that can talk to a LEGO Mindestorms
1662 RCX or NXT unit, announce this support using AppStream. The effect is
1663 that when you insert such LEGO robot controller into your Debian
1664 machine, Isenkram will propose to install the packages needed to get
1665 it working. The intention is that this should allow the local user to
1666 start programming his robot controller right away without having to
1667 guess what packages to use or which permissions to fix.
</p>
1669 <p>But when I sat down with my son the other day to program our NXT
1670 unit using his Debian Stretch computer, I discovered something
1671 annoying. The local console user (ie my son) did not get access to
1672 the USB device for programming the unit. This used to work, but no
1673 longer in Jessie and Stretch. After some investigation and asking
1674 around on #debian-devel, I discovered that this was because udev had
1675 changed the mechanism used to grant access to local devices. The
1676 ConsoleKit mechanism from
<tt>/lib/udev/rules.d/
70-udev-acl.rules
</tt>
1677 no longer applied, because LDAP users no longer was added to the
1678 plugdev group during login. Michael Biebl told me that this method
1679 was obsolete and the new method used ACLs instead. This was good
1680 news, as the plugdev mechanism is a mess when using a remote user
1681 directory like LDAP. Using ACLs would make sure a user lost device
1682 access when she logged out, even if the user left behind a background
1683 process which would retain the plugdev membership with the ConsoleKit
1684 setup. Armed with this knowledge I moved on to fix the access problem
1685 for the LEGO Mindstorms related packages.
</p>
1687 <p>The new system uses a udev tag, 'uaccess'. It can either be
1688 applied directly for a device, or is applied in
1689 /lib/udev/rules.d/
70-uaccess.rules for classes of devices. As the
1690 LEGO Mindstorms udev rules did not have a class, I decided to add the
1691 tag directly in the udev rules files included in the packages. Here
1692 is one example. For the nqc C compiler for the RCX, the
1693 <tt>/lib/udev/rules.d/
60-nqc.rules
</tt> file now look like this:
1696 SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ACTION=="add", ATTR{idVendor}=="
0694", ATTR{idProduct}=="
0001", \
1697 SYMLINK+="rcx-%k", TAG+="uaccess"
1700 <p>The key part is the 'TAG+="uaccess"' at the end. I suspect all
1701 packages using plugdev in their /lib/udev/rules.d/ files should be
1702 changed to use this tag (either directly or indirectly via
1703 <tt>70-uaccess.rules
</tt>). Perhaps a lintian check should be created
1706 <p>I've been unable to find good documentation on the uaccess feature.
1707 It is unclear to me if the uaccess tag is an internal implementation
1708 detail like the udev-acl tag used by
1709 <tt>/lib/udev/rules.d/
70-udev-acl.rules
</tt>. If it is, I guess the
1710 indirect method is the preferred way. Michael
1711 <a href=
"https://github.com/systemd/systemd/issues/4288">asked for more
1712 documentation from the systemd project
</a> and I hope it will make
1713 this clearer. For now I use the generic classes when they exist and
1714 is already handled by
<tt>70-uaccess.rules
</tt>, and add the tag
1715 directly if no such class exist.
</p>
1717 <p>To learn more about the isenkram system, please check out
1718 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram/">my
1719 blog posts tagged isenkram
</a>.
</p>
1721 <p>To help out making life for LEGO constructors in Debian easier,
1722 please join us on our IRC channel
1723 <a href=
"irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">#debian-lego
</a> and join
1724 the
<a href=
"https://alioth.debian.org/projects/debian-lego/">Debian
1725 LEGO team
</a> in the Alioth project we created yesterday. A mailing
1726 list is not yet created, but we are working on it. :)
</p>
1728 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1729 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1730 <b><a href=
"bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
</a></b>.
</p>
1736 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lego">lego
</a>.
1741 <div class=
"padding"></div>
1745 <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>
1752 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_a_Norwegian_Bokm_l_edition_of_The_Debian_Administrator_s_Handbook.html">started
1753 to work
</a> on a Norwegian Bokmål edition of the "open access" book on
1754 how to set up and administrate a Debian system. Today I am happy to
1755 report that the first draft is now publicly available. You can find
1756 it on
<a href=
"https://debian-handbook.info/get/">get the Debian
1757 Administrator's Handbook page
</a> (under Other languages). The first
1758 eight chapters have a first draft translation, and we are working on
1759 proofreading the content. If you want to help out, please start
1761 <a href=
"https://hosted.weblate.org/projects/debian-handbook/">the
1762 hosted weblate project page
</a>, and get in touch using
1763 <a href=
"http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/debian-handbook-translators">the
1764 translators mailing list
</a>. Please also check out
1765 <a href=
"https://debian-handbook.info/contribute/">the instructions for
1766 contributors
</a>. A good way to contribute is to proofread the text
1767 and update weblate if you find errors.
</p>
1769 <p>Our goal is still to make the Norwegian book available on paper as well as
1770 electronic form.
</p>
1776 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian-handbook">debian-handbook
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
1781 <div class=
"padding"></div>
1785 <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>
1791 <p>This summer, I read a great article
1792 "
<a href=
"https://www.usenix.org/publications/login/summer2016/curtsinger">coz:
1793 This Is the Profiler You're Looking For
</a>" in USENIX ;login: about
1794 how to profile multi-threaded programs. It presented a system for
1795 profiling software by running experiences in the running program,
1796 testing how run time performance is affected by "speeding up
" parts of
1797 the code to various degrees compared to a normal run. It does this by
1798 slowing down parallel threads while the "faster up
" code is running
1799 and measure how this affect processing time. The processing time is
1800 measured using probes inserted into the code, either using progress
1801 counters (COZ_PROGRESS) or as latency meters (COZ_BEGIN/COZ_END). It
1802 can also measure unmodified code by measuring complete the program
1803 runtime and running the program several times instead.</p>
1805 <p>The project and presentation was so inspiring that I would like to
1806 get the system into Debian. I
1807 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=
830708">created
1808 a WNPP request for it</a> and contacted upstream to try to make the
1809 system ready for Debian by sending patches. The build process need to
1810 be changed a bit to avoid running 'git clone' to get dependencies, and
1811 to include the JavaScript web page used to visualize the collected
1812 profiling information included in the source package.
1813 But I expect that should work out fairly soon.</p>
1815 <p>The way the system work is fairly simple. To run an coz experiment
1816 on a binary with debug symbols available, start the program like this:
1818 <p><blockquote><pre>
1819 coz run --- program-to-run
1820 </pre></blockquote></p>
1822 <p>This will create a text file profile.coz with the instrumentation
1823 information. To show what part of the code affect the performance
1824 most, use a web browser and either point it to
1825 <a href="http://plasma-umass.github.io/coz/
">http://plasma-umass.github.io/coz/</a>
1826 or use the copy from git (in the gh-pages branch). Check out this web
1827 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
1828 profiling more useful you include <coz.h> and insert the
1829 COZ_PROGRESS or COZ_BEGIN and COZ_END at appropriate places in the
1830 code, rebuild and run the profiler. This allow coz to do more
1831 targeted experiments.</p>
1833 <p>A video published by ACM
1834 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jE0V-p1odPg
">presenting the
1835 Coz profiler</a> is available from Youtube. There is also a paper
1836 from the 25th Symposium on Operating Systems Principles available
1838 <a href="https://www.usenix.org/conference/atc16/technical-sessions/presentation/curtsinger
">Coz:
1839 finding code that counts with causal profiling</a>.</p>
1841 <p><a href="https://github.com/plasma-umass/coz
">The source code</a>
1842 for Coz is available from github. It will only build with clang
1844 <a href="https://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=
55606">C++
1845 feature missing in GCC</a>, but I've submitted
1846 <a href="https://github.com/plasma-umass/coz/pull/
67">a patch to solve
1847 it</a> and hope it will be included in the upstream source soon.</p>
1849 <p>Please get in touch if you, like me, would like to see this piece
1850 of software in Debian. I would very much like some help with the
1851 packaging effort, as I lack the in depth knowledge on how to package
1858 Tags: <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>.
1863 <div class="padding
"></div>
1867 <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>
1873 <p>Yesterday, I tried to unlock a HTC Desire HD phone, and it proved
1874 to be a slight challenge. Here is the recipe if I ever need to do it
1875 again. It all started by me wanting to try the recipe to set up
1876 <a href="https://blog.torproject.org/blog/mission-impossible-hardening-android-security-and-privacy
">an
1877 hardened Android installation</a> from the Tor project blog on a
1878 device I had access to. It is a old mobile phone with a broken
1879 microphone The initial idea had been to just
1880 <a href="http://wiki.cyanogenmod.org/w/Install_CM_for_ace
">install
1881 CyanogenMod on it</a>, but did not quite find time to start on it
1882 until a few days ago.</p>
1884 <p>The unlock process is supposed to be simple: (1) Boot into the boot
1885 loader (press volume down and power at the same time), (2) select
1886 'fastboot' before (3) connecting the device via USB to a Linux
1887 machine, (4) request the device identifier token by running 'fastboot
1888 oem get_identifier_token', (5) request the device unlocking key using
1889 the <a href="http://www.htcdev.com/bootloader/
">HTC developer web
1890 site</a> and unlock the phone using the key file emailed to you.</p>
1892 <p>Unfortunately, this only work fi you have hboot version 2.00.0029
1893 or newer, and the device I was working on had 2.00.0027. This
1894 apparently can be easily fixed by downloading a Windows program and
1895 running it on your Windows machine, if you accept the terms Microsoft
1896 require you to accept to use Windows - which I do not. So I had to
1897 come up with a different approach. I got a lot of help from AndyCap
1898 on #nuug, and would not have been able to get this working without
1901 <p>First I needed to extract the hboot firmware from
1902 <a href="http://www.htcdev.com/ruu/PD9810000_Ace_Sense30_S_hboot_2.00
.0029.exe
">the
1903 windows binary for HTC Desire HD</a> downloaded as 'the RUU' from HTC.
1904 For this there is is <a href="https://github.com/kmdm/unruu/
">a github
1905 project named unruu</a> using libunshield. The unshield tool did not
1906 recognise the file format, but unruu worked and extracted rom.zip,
1907 containing the new hboot firmware and a text file describing which
1908 devices it would work for.</p>
1910 <p>Next, I needed to get the new firmware into the device. For this I
1911 followed some instructions
1912 <a href="http://www.htc1guru.com/
2013/
09/new-ruu-zips-posted/
">available
1913 from HTC1Guru.com</a>, and ran these commands as root on a Linux
1914 machine with Debian testing:</p>
1917 adb reboot-bootloader
1918 fastboot oem rebootRUU
1919 fastboot flash zip rom.zip
1920 fastboot flash zip rom.zip
1924 <p>The flash command apparently need to be done twice to take effect,
1925 as the first is just preparations and the second one do the flashing.
1926 The adb command is just to get to the boot loader menu, so turning the
1927 device on while holding volume down and the power button should work
1930 <p>With the new hboot version in place I could start following the
1931 instructions on the HTC developer web site. I got the device token
1935 fastboot oem get_identifier_token 2>&1 | sed 's/(bootloader) //'
1938 <p>And once I got the unlock code via email, I could use it like
1942 fastboot flash unlocktoken Unlock_code.bin
1945 <p>And with that final step in place, the phone was unlocked and I
1946 could start stuffing the software of my own choosing into the device.
1947 So far I only inserted a replacement recovery image to wipe the phone
1948 before I start. We will see what happen next. Perhaps I should
1949 install <a href="https://www.debian.org/
">Debian</a> on it. :)</p>
1955 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>.
1960 <div class="padding
"></div>
1964 <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>
1970 <p>For a while now, I have wanted to test
1971 <a href="https://whispersystems.org/
">the Signal app</a>, as it is
1972 said to provide end to end encrypted communication and several of my
1973 friends and family are already using it. As I by choice do not own a
1974 mobile phone, this proved to be harder than expected. And I wanted to
1975 have the source of the client and know that it was the code used on my
1976 machine. But yesterday I managed to get it working. I used the
1977 Github source, compared it to the source in
1978 <a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/signal-private-messenger/bikioccmkafdpakkkcpdbppfkghcmihk?hl=en-US
">the
1979 Signal Chrome app</a> available from the Chrome web store, applied
1980 patches to use the production Signal servers, started the app and
1981 asked for the hidden "register without a smart phone" form. Here is
1982 the recipe how I did it.
</p>
1984 <p>First, I fetched the Signal desktop source from Github, using
1987 git clone https://github.com/WhisperSystems/Signal-Desktop.git
1990 <p>Next, I patched the source to use the production servers, to be
1991 able to talk to other Signal users:
</p>
1994 cat
<<EOF | patch -p0
1995 diff -ur ./js/background.js userdata/Default/Extensions/bikioccmkafdpakkkcpdbppfkghcmihk/
0.15.0_0/js/background.js
1996 --- ./js/background.js
2016-
06-
29 13:
43:
15.630344628 +
0200
1997 +++ userdata/Default/Extensions/bikioccmkafdpakkkcpdbppfkghcmihk/
0.15.0_0/js/background.js
2016-
06-
29 14:
06:
29.530300934 +
0200
2002 - var SERVER_URL = 'https://textsecure-service-staging.whispersystems.org';
2003 - var ATTACHMENT_SERVER_URL = 'https://whispersystems-textsecure-attachments-staging.s3.amazonaws.com';
2004 + var SERVER_URL = 'https://textsecure-service-ca.whispersystems.org:
4433';
2005 + var ATTACHMENT_SERVER_URL = 'https://whispersystems-textsecure-attachments.s3.amazonaws.com';
2006 var messageReceiver;
2007 window.getSocketStatus = function() {
2008 if (messageReceiver) {
2009 diff -ur ./js/expire.js userdata/Default/Extensions/bikioccmkafdpakkkcpdbppfkghcmihk/
0.15.0_0/js/expire.js
2010 --- ./js/expire.js
2016-
06-
29 13:
43:
15.630344628 +
0200
2011 +++ userdata/Default/Extensions/bikioccmkafdpakkkcpdbppfkghcmihk/
0.15.0_0/js/expire.js2016-
06-
29 14:
06:
29.530300934 +
0200
2015 - var BUILD_EXPIRATION =
0;
2016 + var BUILD_EXPIRATION =
1474492690000;
2018 window.extension = window.extension || {};
2023 <p>The first part is changing the servers, and the second is updating
2024 an expiration timestamp. This timestamp need to be updated regularly.
2025 It is set
90 days in the future by the build process (Gruntfile.js).
2026 The value is seconds since
1970 times
1000, as far as I can tell.
</p>
2028 <p>Based on a tip and good help from the #nuug IRC channel, I wrote a
2029 script to launch Signal in Chromium.
</p>
2036 --proxy-server="socks://localhost:
9050" \
2037 --user-data-dir=`pwd`/userdata --load-and-launch-app=`pwd`
2040 <p> The script start the app and configure Chromium to use the Tor
2041 SOCKS5 proxy to make sure those controlling the Signal servers (today
2042 Amazon and Whisper Systems) as well as those listening on the lines
2043 will have a harder time location my laptop based on the Signal
2044 connections if they use source IP address.
</p>
2046 <p>When the script starts, one need to follow the instructions under
2047 "Standalone Registration" in the CONTRIBUTING.md file in the git
2048 repository. I right clicked on the Signal window to get up the
2049 Chromium debugging tool, visited the 'Console' tab and wrote
2050 'extension.install("standalone")' on the console prompt to get the
2051 registration form. Then I entered by land line phone number and
2052 pressed 'Call'.
5 seconds later the phone rang and a robot voice
2053 repeated the verification code three times. After entering the number
2054 into the verification code field in the form, I could start using
2055 Signal from my laptop.
2057 <p>As far as I can tell, The Signal app will leak who is talking to
2058 whom and thus who know who to those controlling the central server,
2059 but such leakage is hard to avoid with a centrally controlled server
2060 setup. It is something to keep in mind when using Signal - the
2061 content of your chats are harder to intercept, but the meta data
2062 exposing your contact network is available to people you do not know.
2063 So better than many options, but not great. And sadly the usage is
2064 connected to my land line, thus allowing those controlling the server
2065 to associate it to my home and person. I would prefer it if only
2066 those I knew could tell who I was on Signal. There are options
2067 avoiding such information leakage, but most of my friends are not
2068 using them, so I am stuck with Signal for now.
</p>
2070 <p><strong>Update
2017-
01-
10</strong>: There is an updated blog post
2072 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Experience_and_updated_recipe_for_using_the_Signal_app_without_a_mobile_phone.html">Experience
2073 and updated recipe for using the Signal app without a mobile
2080 Tags:
<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>.
2085 <div class=
"padding"></div>
2089 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_new__best__multimedia_player_in_Debian_.html">The new "best" multimedia player in Debian?
</a>
2095 <p>When I set out a few weeks ago to figure out
2096 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_the_best_multimedia_player_in_Debian_.html">which
2097 multimedia player in Debian claimed to support most file formats /
2098 MIME types
</a>, I was a bit surprised how varied the sets of MIME types
2099 the various players claimed support for. The range was from
55 to
130
2100 MIME types. I suspect most media formats are supported by all
2101 players, but this is not really reflected in the MimeTypes values in
2102 their desktop files. There are probably also some bogus MIME types
2103 listed, but it is hard to identify which one this is.
</p>
2105 <p>Anyway, in the mean time I got in touch with upstream for some of
2106 the players suggesting to add more MIME types to their desktop files,
2107 and decided to spend some time myself improving the situation for my
2108 favorite media player VLC. The fixes for VLC entered Debian unstable
2109 yesterday. The complete list of MIME types can be seen on the
2110 <a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/DebianMultimedia/PlayerSupport">Multimedia
2111 player MIME type support status
</a> Debian wiki page.
</p>
2113 <p>The new "best" multimedia player in Debian? It is VLC, followed by
2114 totem, parole, kplayer, gnome-mpv, mpv, smplayer, mplayer-gui and
2115 kmplayer. I am sure some of the other players desktop files support
2116 several of the formats currently listed as working only with vlc,
2117 toten and parole.
</p>
2119 <p>A sad observation is that only
14 MIME types are listed as
2120 supported by all the tested multimedia players in Debian in their
2121 desktop files: audio/mpeg, audio/vnd.rn-realaudio, audio/x-mpegurl,
2122 audio/x-ms-wma, audio/x-scpls, audio/x-wav, video/mp4, video/mpeg,
2123 video/quicktime, video/vnd.rn-realvideo, video/x-matroska,
2124 video/x-ms-asf, video/x-ms-wmv and video/x-msvideo. Personally I find
2125 it sad that video/ogg and video/webm is not supported by all the media
2126 players in Debian. As far as I can tell, all of them can handle both
2133 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>.
2138 <div class=
"padding"></div>
2142 <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>
2148 <p>Many years ago, when koffice was fresh and with few users, I
2149 decided to test its presentation tool when making the slides for a
2150 talk I was giving for NUUG on Japhar, a free Java virtual machine. I
2151 wrote the first draft of the slides, saved the result and went to bed
2152 the day before I would give the talk. The next day I took a plane to
2153 the location where the meeting should take place, and on the plane I
2154 started up koffice again to polish the talk a bit, only to discover
2155 that kpresenter refused to load its own data file. I cursed a bit and
2156 started making the slides again from memory, to have something to
2157 present when I arrived. I tested that the saved files could be
2158 loaded, and the day seemed to be rescued. I continued to polish the
2159 slides until I suddenly discovered that the saved file could no longer
2160 be loaded into kpresenter. In the end I had to rewrite the slides
2161 three times, condensing the content until the talk became shorter and
2162 shorter. After the talk I was able to pinpoint the problem
–
2163 kpresenter wrote inline images in a way itself could not understand.
2164 Eventually that bug was fixed and kpresenter ended up being a great
2165 program to make slides. The point I'm trying to make is that we
2166 expect a program to be able to load its own data files, and it is
2167 embarrassing to its developers if it can't.
</p>
2169 <p>Did you ever experience a program failing to load its own data
2170 files from the desktop file browser? It is not a uncommon problem. A
2171 while back I discovered that the screencast recorder
2172 gtk-recordmydesktop would save an Ogg Theora video file the KDE file
2173 browser would refuse to open. No video player claimed to understand
2174 such file. I tracked down the cause being
<tt>file --mime-type
</tt>
2175 returning the application/ogg MIME type, which no video player I had
2176 installed listed as a MIME type they would understand. I asked for
2177 <a href=
"http://bugs.gw.com/view.php?id=382">file to change its
2178 behavour
</a> and use the MIME type video/ogg instead. I also asked
2179 several video players to add video/ogg to their desktop files, to give
2180 the file browser an idea what to do about Ogg Theora files. After a
2181 while, the desktop file browsers in Debian started to handle the
2182 output from gtk-recordmydesktop properly.
</p>
2184 <p>But history repeats itself. A few days ago I tested the music
2185 system Rosegarden again, and I discovered that the KDE and xfce file
2186 browsers did not know what to do with the Rosegarden project files
2187 (*.rg). I've reported
<a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/825993">the
2188 rosegarden problem to BTS
</a> and a fix is commited to git and will be
2189 included in the next upload. To increase the chance of me remembering
2190 how to fix the problem next time some program fail to load its files
2191 from the file browser, here are some notes on how to fix it.
</p>
2193 <p>The file browsers in Debian in general operates on MIME types.
2194 There are two sources for the MIME type of a given file. The output from
2195 <tt>file --mime-type
</tt> mentioned above, and the content of the
2196 shared MIME type registry (under /usr/share/mime/). The file MIME
2197 type is mapped to programs supporting the MIME type, and this
2198 information is collected from
2199 <a href=
"https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/desktop-entry-spec/">the
2200 desktop files
</a> available in /usr/share/applications/. If there is
2201 one desktop file claiming support for the MIME type of the file, it is
2202 activated when asking to open a given file. If there are more, one
2203 can normally select which one to use by right-clicking on the file and
2204 selecting the wanted one using 'Open with' or similar. In general
2205 this work well. But it depend on each program picking a good MIME
2207 <a href=
"http://www.iana.org/assignments/media-types/media-types.xhtml">a
2208 MIME type registered with IANA
</a>), file and/or the shared MIME
2209 registry recognizing the file and the desktop file to list the MIME
2210 type in its list of supported MIME types.
</p>
2212 <p>The
<tt>/usr/share/mime/packages/rosegarden.xml
</tt> entry for
2213 <a href=
"http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/shared-mime-info-spec">the
2214 Shared MIME database
</a> look like this:
</p>
2216 <p><blockquote><pre>
2217 <?xml
version="
1.0"
encoding="UTF-
8"?
>
2218 <mime-info
xmlns="http://www.freedesktop.org/standards/shared-mime-info"
>
2219 <mime-type
type="audio/x-rosegarden"
>
2220 <sub-class-of
type="application/x-gzip"/
>
2221 <comment
>Rosegarden project file
</comment
>
2222 <glob
pattern="*.rg"/
>
2225 </pre></blockquote></p>
2227 <p>This states that audio/x-rosegarden is a kind of application/x-gzip
2228 (it is a gzipped XML file). Note, it is much better to use an
2229 official MIME type registered with IANA than it is to make up ones own
2230 unofficial ones like the x-rosegarden type used by rosegarden.
</p>
2232 <p>The desktop file of the rosegarden program failed to list
2233 audio/x-rosegarden in its list of supported MIME types, causing the
2234 file browsers to have no idea what to do with *.rg files:
</p>
2236 <p><blockquote><pre>
2237 % grep Mime /usr/share/applications/rosegarden.desktop
2238 MimeType=audio/x-rosegarden-composition;audio/x-rosegarden-device;audio/x-rosegarden-project;audio/x-rosegarden-template;audio/midi;
2239 X-KDE-NativeMimeType=audio/x-rosegarden-composition
2241 </pre></blockquote></p>
2243 <p>The fix was to add "audio/x-rosegarden;" at the end of the
2246 <p>If you run into a file which fail to open the correct program when
2247 selected from the file browser, please check out the output from
2248 <tt>file --mime-type
</tt> for the file, ensure the file ending and
2249 MIME type is registered somewhere under /usr/share/mime/ and check
2250 that some desktop file under /usr/share/applications/ is claiming
2251 support for this MIME type. If not, please report a bug to have it
2258 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
2263 <div class=
"padding"></div>
2267 <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>
2273 <p><a href=
"https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/isenkram">The isenkram
2274 system
</a> is a user-focused solution in Debian for handling hardware
2275 related packages. The idea is to have a database of mappings between
2276 hardware and packages, and pop up a dialog suggesting for the user to
2277 install the packages to use a given hardware dongle. Some use cases
2278 are when you insert a Yubikey, it proposes to install the software
2279 needed to control it; when you insert a braille reader list it
2280 proposes to install the packages needed to send text to the reader;
2281 and when you insert a ColorHug screen calibrator it suggests to
2282 install the driver for it. The system work well, and even have a few
2283 command line tools to install firmware packages and packages for the
2284 hardware already in the machine (as opposed to hotpluggable hardware).
</p>
2286 <p>The system was initially written using aptdaemon, because I found
2287 good documentation and example code on how to use it. But aptdaemon
2288 is going away and is generally being replaced by
2289 <a href=
"http://www.freedesktop.org/software/PackageKit/">PackageKit
</a>,
2290 so Isenkram needed a rewrite. And today, thanks to the great patch
2291 from my college Sunil Mohan Adapa in the FreedomBox project, the
2292 rewrite finally took place. I've just uploaded a new version of
2293 Isenkram into Debian Unstable with the patch included, and the default
2294 for the background daemon is now to use PackageKit. To check it out,
2295 install the
<tt>isenkram
</tt> package and insert some hardware dongle
2296 and see if it is recognised.
</p>
2298 <p>If you want to know what kind of packages isenkram would propose for
2299 the machine it is running on, you can check out the isenkram-lookup
2300 program. This is what it look like on a Thinkpad X230:
</p>
2302 <p><blockquote><pre>
2318 </pre></blockquote></p>
2320 <p>The hardware mappings come from several places. The preferred way
2321 is for packages to announce their hardware support using
2322 <a href=
"https://www.freedesktop.org/software/appstream/docs/">the
2323 cross distribution appstream system
</a>.
2325 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram/">previous
2326 blog posts about isenkram
</a> to learn how to do that.
</p>
2332 Tags:
<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>.
2337 <div class=
"padding"></div>
2341 <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>
2347 <p>Yesterday I updated the
2348 <a href=
"https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">battery-stats
2349 package in Debian
</a> with a few patches sent to me by skilled and
2350 enterprising users. There were some nice user and visible changes.
2351 First of all, both desktop menu entries now work. A design flaw in
2352 one of the script made the history graph fail to show up (its PNG was
2353 dumped in ~/.xsession-errors) if no controlling TTY was available.
2354 The script worked when called from the command line, but not when
2355 called from the desktop menu. I changed this to look for a DISPLAY
2356 variable or a TTY before deciding where to draw the graph, and now the
2357 graph window pop up as expected.
</p>
2359 <p>The next new feature is a discharge rate estimator in one of the
2360 graphs (the one showing the last few hours). New is also the user of
2361 colours showing charging in blue and discharge in red. The percentages
2362 of this graph is relative to last full charge, not battery design
2365 <p align=
"center"><img src=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-05-23-battery-stats-rate.png"/></p>
2367 <p>The other graph show the entire history of the collected battery
2368 statistics, comparing it to the design capacity of the battery to
2369 visualise how the battery life time get shorter over time. The red
2370 line in this graph is what the previous graph considers
100 percent:
2372 <p align=
"center"><img src=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-05-23-battery-stats-history.png"/></p>
2374 <p>In this graph you can see that I only charge the battery to
80
2375 percent of last full capacity, and how the capacity of the battery is
2378 <p>The last new feature is in the collector, which now will handle
2379 more hardware models. On some hardware, Linux power supply
2380 information is stored in /sys/class/power_supply/ACAD/, while the
2381 collector previously only looked in /sys/class/power_supply/AC/. Now
2382 both are checked to figure if there is power connected to the
2385 <p>If you are interested in how your laptop battery is doing, please
2387 <a href=
"https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">battery-stats
</a>
2388 in Debian unstable, or rebuild it on Jessie to get it working on
2389 Debian stable. :) The upstream source is available from
<a
2390 href=
"https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/battery-stats">github
</a>.
2391 Patches are very welcome.
</p>
2393 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
2394 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
2395 <b><a href=
"bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
</a></b>.
</p>
2401 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
2406 <div class=
"padding"></div>
2410 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_now_with_ZFS_on_Linux_included.html">Debian now with ZFS on Linux included
</a>
2416 <p>Today, after many years of hard work from many people,
2417 <a href=
"http://zfsonlinux.org/">ZFS for Linux
</a> finally entered
2418 Debian. The package status can be seen on
2419 <a href=
"https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/zfs-linux">the package tracker
2420 for zfs-linux
</a>. and
2421 <a href=
"https://qa.debian.org/developer.php?login=pkg-zfsonlinux-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
2422 team status page
</a>. If you want to help out, please join us.
2423 <a href=
"http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=pkg-zfsonlinux/zfs.git">The
2424 source code
</a> is available via git on Alioth. It would also be
2425 great if you could help out with
2426 <a href=
"https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/dkms">the dkms package
</a>, as
2427 it is an important piece of the puzzle to get ZFS working.
</p>
2433 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
2438 <div class=
"padding"></div>
2442 <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>
2448 <p><strong>Where I set out to figure out which multimedia player in
2449 Debian claim support for most file formats.
</strong></p>
2451 <p>A few years ago, I had a look at the media support for Browser
2452 plugins in Debian, to get an idea which plugins to include in Debian
2453 Edu. I created a script to extract the set of supported MIME types
2454 for each plugin, and used this to find out which multimedia browser
2455 plugin supported most file formats / media types.
2456 <a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">The
2457 result
</a> can still be seen on the Debian wiki, even though it have
2458 not been updated for a while. But browser plugins are less relevant
2459 these days, so I thought it was time to look at standalone
2462 <p>A few days ago I was tired of VLC not being listed as a viable
2463 player when I wanted to play videos from the Norwegian National
2464 Broadcasting Company, and decided to investigate why. The cause is a
2465 <a href=
"https://bugs.debian.org/822245">missing MIME type in the VLC
2466 desktop file
</a>. In the process I wrote a script to compare the set
2467 of MIME types announced in the desktop file and the browser plugin,
2468 only to discover that there is quite a large difference between the
2469 two for VLC. This discovery made me dig up the script I used to
2470 compare browser plugins, and adjust it to compare desktop files
2471 instead, to try to figure out which multimedia player in Debian
2472 support most file formats.
</p>
2474 <p>The result can be seen on the Debian Wiki, as
2475 <a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/DebianMultimedia/PlayerSupport">a
2476 table listing all MIME types supported by one of the packages included
2477 in the table
</a>, with the package supporting most MIME types being
2478 listed first in the table.
</p>
2480 </p>The best multimedia player in Debian? It is totem, followed by
2481 parole, kplayer, mpv, vlc, smplayer mplayer-gui gnome-mpv and
2482 kmplayer. Time for the other players to update their announced MIME
2489 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>.
2494 <div class=
"padding"></div>
2498 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Pyra___handheld_computer_with_Debian_preinstalled.html">The Pyra - handheld computer with Debian preinstalled
</a>
2504 A friend of mine made me aware of
2505 <a href=
"https://pyra-handheld.com/boards/pages/pyra/">The Pyra
</a>, a
2506 handheld computer which will be delivered with Debian preinstalled. I
2507 would love to get one of those for my birthday. :)
</p>
2509 <p>The machine is a complete ARM-based PC with micro HDMI, SATA, USB
2510 plugs and many others connectors, and include a full keyboard and a
5"
2511 LCD touch screen. The
6000mAh battery is claimed to provide a whole
2512 day of battery life time, but I have not seen any independent tests
2513 confirming this. The vendor is still collecting preorders, and the
2514 last I heard last night was that
22 more orders were needed before
2515 production started.
</p>
2517 <p>As far as I know, this is the first handheld preinstalled with
2518 Debian. Please let me know if you know of any others. Is it the
2519 first computer being sold with Debian preinstalled?
</p>
2525 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
2530 <div class=
"padding"></div>
2534 <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>
2540 <p>During this weekends
2541 <a href=
"http://www.nuug.no/news/Oslo__Takk_for_feilfiksingsfesten.shtml">bug
2542 squashing party and developer gathering
</a>, we decided to do our part
2543 to make sure there are good books about Debian available in Norwegian
2544 Bokmål, and got in touch with the people behind the
2545 <a href=
"http://debian-handbook.info/">Debian Administrator's Handbook
2546 project
</a> to get started. If you want to help out, please start
2548 <a href=
"https://hosted.weblate.org/projects/debian-handbook/">the
2549 hosted weblate project page
</a>, and get in touch using
2550 <a href=
"http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/debian-handbook-translators">the
2551 translators mailing list
</a>. Please also check out
2552 <a href=
"https://debian-handbook.info/contribute/">the instructions for
2553 contributors
</a>.
</p>
2555 <p>The book is already available on paper in English, French and
2556 Japanese, and our goal is to get it available on paper in Norwegian
2557 Bokmål too. In addition to the paper edition, there are also EPUB and
2558 Mobi versions available. And there are incomplete translations
2559 available for many more languages.
</p>
2565 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian-handbook">debian-handbook
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
2570 <div class=
"padding"></div>
2574 <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>
2580 <p>Just for fun I had a look at the popcon number of ZFS related
2581 packages in Debian, and was quite surprised with what I found. I use
2582 ZFS myself at home, but did not really expect many others to do so.
2583 But I might be wrong.
</p>
2586 <a href=
"https://qa.debian.org/popcon.php?package=spl-linux">the popcon
2587 results for spl-linux
</a>, there are
1019 Debian installations, or
2588 0.53% of the population, with the package installed. As far as I know
2589 the only use of the spl-linux package is as a support library for ZFS
2590 on Linux, so I use it here as proxy for measuring the number of ZFS
2591 installation on Linux in Debian. In the kFreeBSD variant of Debian
2592 the ZFS feature is already available, and there
2593 <a href=
"https://qa.debian.org/popcon.php?package=zfsutils">the popcon
2594 results for zfsutils
</a> show
1625 Debian installations or
0.84% of
2595 the population. So I guess I am not alone in using ZFS on Debian.
</p>
2597 <p>But even though the Debian project leader Lucas Nussbaum
2598 <a href=
"https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2015/04/msg00006.html">announced
2599 in April
2015</a> that the legal obstacles blocking ZFS on Debian were
2600 cleared, the package is still not in Debian. The package is again in
2601 the NEW queue. Several uploads have been rejected so far because the
2602 debian/copyright file was incomplete or wrong, but there is no reason
2603 to give up. The current status can be seen on
2604 <a href=
"https://qa.debian.org/developer.php?login=pkg-zfsonlinux-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
2605 team status page
</a>, and
2606 <a href=
"http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=pkg-zfsonlinux/zfs.git">the
2607 source code
</a> is available on Alioth.
</p>
2609 <p>As I want ZFS to be included in next version of Debian to make sure
2610 my home server can function in the future using only official Debian
2611 packages, and the current blocker is to get the debian/copyright file
2612 accepted by the FTP masters in Debian, I decided a while back to try
2613 to help out the team. This was the background for my blog post about
2614 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Creating__updating_and_checking_debian_copyright_semi_automatically.html">creating,
2615 updating and checking debian/copyright semi-automatically
</a>, and I
2616 used the techniques I explored there to try to find any errors in the
2617 copyright file. It is not very easy to check every one of the around
2618 2000 files in the source package, but I hope we this time got it
2619 right. If you want to help out, check out the git source and try to
2620 find missing entries in the debian/copyright file.
</p>
2626 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
2631 <div class=
"padding"></div>
2635 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Full_battery_stats_collector_is_now_available_in_Debian.html">Full battery stats collector is now available in Debian
</a>
2641 <p>Since this morning, the battery-stats package in Debian include an
2642 extended collector that will collect the complete battery history for
2643 later processing and graphing. The original collector store the
2644 battery level as percentage of last full level, while the new
2645 collector also record battery vendor, model, serial number, design
2646 full level, last full level and current battery level. This make it
2647 possible to predict the lifetime of the battery as well as visualise
2648 the energy flow when the battery is charging or discharging.
</p>
2650 <p>The new tools are available in
<tt>/usr/share/battery-stats/
</tt>
2651 in the version
0.5.1 package in unstable. Get the new battery level graph
2652 and lifetime prediction by running:
2655 /usr/share/battery-stats/battery-stats-graph /var/log/battery-stats.csv
2658 <p>Or select the 'Battery Level Graph' from your application menu.
</p>
2660 <p>The flow in/out of the battery can be seen by running (no menu
2664 /usr/share/battery-stats/battery-stats-graph-flow
2667 <p>I'm not quite happy with the way the data is visualised, at least
2668 when there are few data points. The graphs look a bit better with a
2669 few years of data.
</p>
2671 <p>A while back one important feature I use in the battery stats
2672 collector broke in Debian. The scripts in
2673 <tt>/usr/lib/pm-utils/power.d/
</tt> were no longer executed. I
2674 suspect it happened when Jessie started using systemd, but I do not
2675 know. The issue is reported as
2676 <a href=
"https://bugs.debian.org/818649">bug #
818649</a> against
2677 pm-utils. I managed to work around it by adding an udev rule to call
2678 the collector script every time the power connector is connected and
2679 disconnected. With this fix in place it was finally time to make a
2680 new release of the package, and get it into Debian.
</p>
2682 <p>If you are interested in how your laptop battery is doing, please
2684 <a href=
"https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">battery-stats
</a>
2685 in Debian unstable, or rebuild it on Jessie to get it working on
2686 Debian stable. :) The upstream source is available from
2687 <a href=
"https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/battery-stats">github
</a>.
2688 As always, patches are very welcome.
</p>
2694 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
2699 <div class=
"padding"></div>
2703 <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>
2709 <p>Back in September, I blogged about
2710 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_life_and_death_of_a_laptop_battery.html">the
2711 system I wrote to collect statistics about my laptop battery
</a>, and
2712 how it showed the decay and death of this battery (now replaced). I
2713 created a simple deb package to handle the collection and graphing,
2714 but did not want to upload it to Debian as there were already
2715 <a href=
"https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">a battery-stats
2716 package in Debian
</a> that should do the same thing, and I did not see
2717 a point of uploading a competing package when battery-stats could be
2718 fixed instead. I reported a few bugs about its non-function, and
2719 hoped someone would step in and fix it. But no-one did.
</p>
2721 <p>I got tired of waiting a few days ago, and took matters in my own
2722 hands. The end result is that I am now the new upstream developer of
2723 battery stats (
<a href=
"https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/battery-stats">available from github
</a>) and part of the team maintaining
2724 battery-stats in Debian, and the package in Debian unstable is finally
2725 able to collect battery status using the
<tt>/sys/class/power_supply/
</tt>
2726 information provided by the Linux kernel. If you install the
2727 battery-stats package from unstable now, you will be able to get a
2728 graph of the current battery fill level, to get some idea about the
2729 status of the battery. The source package build and work just fine in
2730 Debian testing and stable (and probably oldstable too, but I have not
2731 tested). The default graph you get for that system look like this:
</p>
2733 <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>
2735 <p>My plans for the future is to merge my old scripts into the
2736 battery-stats package, as my old scripts collected a lot more details
2737 about the battery. The scripts are merged into the upstream
2738 battery-stats git repository already, but I am not convinced they work
2739 yet, as I changed a lot of paths along the way. Will have to test a
2740 bit more before I make a new release.
</p>
2742 <p>I will also consider changing the file format slightly, as I
2743 suspect the way I combine several values into one field might make it
2744 impossible to know the type of the value when using it for processing
2747 <p>If you would like I would like to keep an close eye on your laptop
2748 battery, check out the battery-stats package in
2749 <a href=
"https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">Debian
</a> and
2751 <a href=
"https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/battery-stats">github
</a>.
2752 I would love some help to improve the system further.
</p>
2758 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
2763 <div class=
"padding"></div>
2767 <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>
2773 <p>Making packages for Debian requires quite a lot of attention to
2774 details. And one of the details is the content of the
2775 debian/copyright file, which should list all relevant licenses used by
2776 the code in the package in question, preferably in
2777 <a href=
"https://www.debian.org/doc/packaging-manuals/copyright-format/1.0/">machine
2778 readable DEP5 format
</a>.
</p>
2780 <p>For large packages with lots of contributors it is hard to write
2781 and update this file manually, and if you get some detail wrong, the
2782 package is normally rejected by the ftpmasters. So getting it right
2783 the first time around get the package into Debian faster, and save
2784 both you and the ftpmasters some work.. Today, while trying to figure
2785 out what was wrong with
2786 <a href=
"https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=686447">the
2787 zfsonlinux copyright file
</a>, I decided to spend some time on
2788 figuring out the options for doing this job automatically, or at least
2789 semi-automatically.
</p>
2791 <p>Lucikly, there are at least two tools available for generating the
2792 file based on the code in the source package,
2793 <tt><a href=
"https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/debmake">debmake
</a></tt>
2794 and
<tt><a href=
"https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/cme">cme
</a></tt>. I'm
2795 not sure which one of them came first, but both seem to be able to
2796 create a sensible draft file. As far as I can tell, none of them can
2797 be trusted to get the result just right, so the content need to be
2798 polished a bit before the file is OK to upload. I found the debmake
2800 <a href=
"http://goofying-with-debian.blogspot.com/2014/07/debmake-checking-source-against-dep-5.html">a
2801 blog posts from
2014</a>.
2803 <p>To generate using debmake, use the -cc option:
2806 debmake -cc
> debian/copyright
2809 <p>Note there are some problems with python and non-ASCII names, so
2810 this might not be the best option.
</p>
2812 <p>The cme option is based on a config parsing library, and I found
2814 <a href=
"https://ddumont.wordpress.com/2015/04/05/improving-creation-of-debian-copyright-file/">a
2815 blog post from
2015</a>. To generate using cme, use the 'update
2816 dpkg-copyright' option:
2819 cme update dpkg-copyright
2822 <p>This will create or update debian/copyright. The cme tool seem to
2823 handle UTF-
8 names better than debmake.
</p>
2825 <p>When the copyright file is created, I would also like some help to
2826 check if the file is correct. For this I found two good options,
2827 <tt>debmake -k
</tt> and
<tt>license-reconcile
</tt>. The former seem
2828 to focus on license types and file matching, and is able to detect
2829 ineffective blocks in the copyright file. The latter reports missing
2830 copyright holders and years, but was confused by inconsistent license
2831 names (like CDDL vs. CDDL-
1.0). I suspect it is good to use both and
2832 fix all issues reported by them before uploading. But I do not know
2833 if the tools and the ftpmasters agree on what is important to fix in a
2834 copyright file, so the package might still be rejected.
</p>
2836 <p>The devscripts tool
<tt>licensecheck
</tt> deserve mentioning. It
2837 will read through the source and try to find all copyright statements.
2838 It is not comparing the result to the content of debian/copyright, but
2839 can be useful when verifying the content of the copyright file.
</p>
2841 <p>Are you aware of better tools in Debian to create and update
2842 debian/copyright file. Please let me know, or blog about it on
2843 planet.debian.org.
</p>
2845 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
2846 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
2847 <b><a href=
"bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
</a></b>.
</p>
2849 <p><strong>Update
2016-
02-
20</strong>: I got a tip from Mike Gabriel
2850 on how to use licensecheck and cdbs to create a draft copyright file
2853 licensecheck --copyright -r `find * -type f` | \
2854 /usr/lib/cdbs/licensecheck2dep5
> debian/copyright.auto
2857 <p>He mentioned that he normally check the generated file into the
2858 version control system to make it easier to discover license and
2859 copyright changes in the upstream source. I will try to do the same
2860 with my packages in the future.
</p>
2862 <p><strong>Update
2016-
02-
21</strong>: The cme author recommended
2863 against using -quiet for new users, so I removed it from the proposed
2870 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
2875 <div class=
"padding"></div>
2879 <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>
2885 <p>The
<a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/DEP-11">appstream system
</a>
2886 is taking shape in Debian, and one provided feature is a very
2887 convenient way to tell you which package to install to make a given
2888 firmware file available when the kernel is looking for it. This can
2889 be done using apt-file too, but that is for someone else to blog
2892 <p>Here is a small recipe to find the package with a given firmware
2893 file, in this example I am looking for ctfw-
3.2.3.0.bin, randomly
2894 picked from the set of firmware announced using appstream in Debian
2895 unstable. In general you would be looking for the firmware requested
2896 by the kernel during kernel module loading. To find the package
2897 providing the example file, do like this:
</p>
2900 % apt install appstream
2904 % appstreamcli what-provides firmware:runtime ctfw-
3.2.3.0.bin | \
2905 awk '/Package:/ {print $
2}'
2910 <p>See
<a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/AppStream/Guidelines">the
2911 appstream wiki
</a> page to learn how to embed the package metadata in
2912 a way appstream can use.
</p>
2914 <p>This same approach can be used to find any package supporting a
2915 given MIME type. This is very useful when you get a file you do not
2916 know how to handle. First find the mime type using
<tt>file
2917 --mime-type
</tt>, and next look up the package providing support for
2918 it. Lets say you got an SVG file. Its MIME type is image/svg+xml,
2919 and you can find all packages handling this type like this:
</p>
2922 % apt install appstream
2926 % appstreamcli what-provides mimetype image/svg+xml | \
2927 awk '/Package:/ {print $
2}'
2951 <p>I believe the MIME types are fetched from the desktop file for
2952 packages providing appstream metadata.
</p>
2958 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
2963 <div class=
"padding"></div>
2967 <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>
2973 <p>Most people seem not to realise that every time they walk around
2974 with the computerised radio beacon known as a mobile phone their
2975 position is tracked by the phone company and often stored for a long
2976 time (like every time a SMS is received or sent). And if their
2977 computerised radio beacon is capable of running programs (often called
2978 mobile apps) downloaded from the Internet, these programs are often
2979 also capable of tracking their location (if the app requested access
2980 during installation). And when these programs send out information to
2981 central collection points, the location is often included, unless
2982 extra care is taken to not send the location. The provided
2983 information is used by several entities, for good and bad (what is
2984 good and bad, depend on your point of view). What is certain, is that
2985 the private sphere and the right to free movement is challenged and
2986 perhaps even eradicated for those announcing their location this way,
2987 when they share their whereabouts with private and public
2990 <p align=
"center"><img width=
"70%" src=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-01-24-nice-creepy-desktop-window.png"></p>
2992 <p>The phone company logs provide a register of locations to check out
2993 when one want to figure out what the tracked person was doing. It is
2994 unavailable for most of us, but provided to selected government
2995 officials, company staff, those illegally buying information from
2996 unfaithful servants and crackers stealing the information. But the
2997 public information can be collected and analysed, and a free software
2998 tool to do so is called
2999 <a href=
"http://www.geocreepy.com/">Creepy or Cree.py
</a>. I
3000 discovered it when I read
3001 <a href=
"http://www.aftenposten.no/kultur/Slik-kan-du-bli-overvaket-pa-Twitter-og-Instagram-uten-a-ane-det-7787884.html">an
3002 article about Creepy
</a> in the Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten i
3003 November
2014, and decided to check if it was available in Debian.
3004 The python program was in Debian, but
3005 <a href=
"https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/creepy">the version in
3006 Debian
</a> was completely broken and practically unmaintained. I
3007 uploaded a new version which did not work quite right, but did not
3008 have time to fix it then. This Christmas I decided to finally try to
3009 get Creepy operational in Debian. Now a fixed version is available in
3010 Debian unstable and testing, and almost all Debian specific patches
3012 <a href=
"https://github.com/jkakavas/creepy">upstream
</a>.
</p>
3014 <p>The Creepy program visualises geolocation information fetched from
3015 Twitter, Instagram, Flickr and Google+, and allow one to get a
3016 complete picture of every social media message posted recently in a
3017 given area, or track the movement of a given individual across all
3018 these services. Earlier it was possible to use the search API of at
3019 least some of these services without identifying oneself, but these
3020 days it is impossible. This mean that to use Creepy, you need to
3021 configure it to log in as yourself on these services, and provide
3022 information to them about your search interests. This should be taken
3023 into account when using Creepy, as it will also share information
3024 about yourself with the services.
</p>
3026 <p>The picture above show the twitter messages sent from (or at least
3027 geotagged with a position from) the city centre of Oslo, the capital
3028 of Norway. One useful way to use Creepy is to first look at
3029 information tagged with an area of interest, and next look at all the
3030 information provided by one or more individuals who was in the area.
3031 I tested it by checking out which celebrity provide their location in
3032 twitter messages by checkout out who sent twitter messages near a
3033 Norwegian TV station, and next could track their position over time,
3034 making it possible to locate their home and work place, among other
3035 things. A similar technique have been
3036 <a href=
"http://www.buzzfeed.com/maxseddon/does-this-soldiers-instagram-account-prove-russia-is-covertl">used
3037 to locate Russian soldiers in Ukraine
</a>, and it is both a powerful
3038 tool to discover lying governments, and a useful tool to help people
3039 understand the value of the private information they provide to the
3042 <p>The package is not trivial to backport to Debian Stable/Jessie, as
3043 it depend on several python modules currently missing in Jessie (at
3044 least python-instagram, python-flickrapi and
3045 python-requests-toolbelt).
</p>
3048 <a href=
"https://screenshots.debian.net/package/creepy">the image to
3049 screenshots.debian.net
</a> and licensed it under the same terms as the
3050 Creepy program in Debian.)
</p>
3056 Tags:
<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>.
3061 <div class=
"padding"></div>
3065 <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>
3071 <p>During his DebConf15 keynote, Jacob Appelbaum
3072 <a href=
"https://summit.debconf.org/debconf15/meeting/331/what-is-to-be-done/">observed
3073 that those listening on the Internet lines would have good reason to
3074 believe a computer have a given security hole
</a> if it download a
3075 security fix from a Debian mirror. This is a good reason to always
3076 use encrypted connections to the Debian mirror, to make sure those
3077 listening do not know which IP address to attack. In August, Richard
3078 Hartmann observed that encryption was not enough, when it was possible
3079 to interfere download size to security patches or the fact that
3080 download took place shortly after a security fix was released, and
3081 <a href=
"http://richardhartmann.de/blog/posts/2015/08/24-Tor-enabled_Debian_mirror/">proposed
3082 to always use Tor to download packages from the Debian mirror
</a>. He
3083 was not the first to propose this, as the
3084 <tt><a href=
"https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/apt-transport-tor">apt-transport-tor
</a></tt>
3085 package by Tim Retout already existed to make it easy to convince apt
3086 to use
<a href=
"https://www.torproject.org/">Tor
</a>, but I was not
3087 aware of that package when I read the blog post from Richard.
</p>
3089 <p>Richard discussed the idea with Peter Palfrader, one of the Debian
3090 sysadmins, and he set up a Tor hidden service on one of the central
3091 Debian mirrors using the address vwakviie2ienjx6t.onion, thus making
3092 it possible to download packages directly between two tor nodes,
3093 making sure the network traffic always were encrypted.
</p>
3095 <p>Here is a short recipe for enabling this on your machine, by
3096 installing
<tt>apt-transport-tor
</tt> and replacing http and https
3097 urls with tor+http and tor+https, and using the hidden service instead
3098 of the official Debian mirror site. I recommend installing
3099 <tt>etckeeper
</tt> before you start to have a history of the changes
3103 apt install apt-transport-tor
3104 sed -i 's% http://ftp.debian.org/% tor+http://vwakviie2ienjx6t.onion/%' /etc/apt/sources.list
3105 sed -i 's% http% tor+http%' /etc/apt/sources.list
3108 <p>If you have more sources listed in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/, run
3109 the sed commands for these too. The sed command is assuming your are
3110 using the ftp.debian.org Debian mirror. Adjust the command (or just
3111 edit the file manually) to match your mirror.
</p>
3113 <p>This work in Debian Jessie and later. Note that tools like
3114 <tt>apt-file
</tt> only recently started using the apt transport
3115 system, and do not work with these tor+http URLs. For
3116 <tt>apt-file
</tt> you need the version currently in experimental,
3117 which need a recent apt version currently only in unstable. So if you
3118 need a working
<tt>apt-file
</tt>, this is not for you.
</p>
3120 <p>Another advantage from this change is that your machine will start
3121 using Tor regularly and at fairly random intervals (every time you
3122 update the package lists or upgrade or install a new package), thus
3123 masking other Tor traffic done from the same machine. Using Tor will
3124 become normal for the machine in question.
</p>
3126 <p>On
<a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">Freedombox
</a>, APT
3127 is set up by default to use
<tt>apt-transport-tor
</tt> when Tor is
3128 enabled. It would be great if it was the default on any Debian
3135 Tags:
<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>.
3140 <div class=
"padding"></div>
3144 <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>
3150 <p>When I was a kid, we used to collect "car numbers", as we used to
3151 call the car license plate numbers in those days. I would write the
3152 numbers down in my little book and compare notes with the other kids
3153 to see how many region codes we had seen and if we had seen some
3154 exotic or special region codes and numbers. It was a fun game to pass
3155 time, as we kids have plenty of it.
</p>
3157 <p>A few days I came across
3158 <a href=
"https://github.com/openalpr/openalpr">the OpenALPR
3159 project
</a>, a free software project to automatically discover and
3160 report license plates in images and video streams, and provide the
3161 "car numbers" in a machine readable format. I've been looking for
3162 such system for a while now, because I believe it is a bad idea that the
3163 <a href=
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_number_plate_recognition">automatic
3164 number plate recognition
</a> tool only is available in the hands of
3165 the powerful, and want it to be available also for the powerless to
3166 even the score when it comes to surveillance and sousveillance. I
3167 discovered the developer
3168 <a href=
"https://bugs.debian.org/747509">wanted to get the tool into
3169 Debian
</a>, and as I too wanted it to be in Debian, I volunteered to
3170 help him get it into shape to get the package uploaded into the Debian
3173 <p>Today we finally managed to get the package into shape and uploaded
3174 it into Debian, where it currently
3175 <a href=
"https://ftp-master.debian.org//new/openalpr_2.2.1-1.html">waits
3176 in the NEW queue
</a> for review by the Debian ftpmasters.
</p>
3178 <p>I guess you are wondering why on earth such tool would be useful
3179 for the common folks, ie those not running a large government
3180 surveillance system? Well, I plan to put it in a computer on my bike
3181 and in my car, tracking the cars nearby and allowing me to be notified
3182 when number plates on my watch list are discovered. Another use case
3183 was suggested by a friend of mine, who wanted to set it up at his home
3184 to open the car port automatically when it discovered the plate on his
3185 car. When I mentioned it perhaps was a bit foolhardy to allow anyone
3186 capable of placing his license plate number of a piece of cardboard to
3187 open his car port, men replied that it was always unlocked anyway. I
3188 guess for such use case it make sense. I am sure there are other use
3189 cases too, for those with imagination and a vision.
</p>
3191 <p>If you want to build your own version of the Debian package, check
3192 out the upstream git source and symlink ./distros/debian to ./debian/
3193 before running "debuild" to build the source. Or wait a bit until the
3194 package show up in unstable.
</p>
3200 Tags:
<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>.
3205 <div class=
"padding"></div>
3209 <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>
3215 <p>Around three years ago, I created
3216 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">the isenkram
3217 system
</a> to get a more practical solution in Debian for handing
3218 hardware related packages. A GUI system in the isenkram package will
3219 present a pop-up dialog when some hardware dongle supported by
3220 relevant packages in Debian is inserted into the machine. The same
3221 lookup mechanism to detect packages is available as command line
3222 tools in the isenkram-cli package. In addition to mapping hardware,
3223 it will also map kernel firmware files to packages and make it easy to
3224 install needed firmware packages automatically. The key for this
3225 system to work is a good way to map hardware to packages, in other
3226 words, allow packages to announce what hardware they will work
3229 <p>I started by providing data files in the isenkram source, and
3230 adding code to download the latest version of these data files at run
3231 time, to ensure every user had the most up to date mapping available.
3232 I also added support for storing the mapping in the Packages file in
3233 the apt repositories, but did not push this approach because while I
3234 was trying to figure out how to best store hardware/package mappings,
3235 <a href=
"http://www.freedesktop.org/software/appstream/docs/">the
3236 appstream system
</a> was announced. I got in touch and suggested to
3237 add the hardware mapping into that data set to be able to use
3238 appstream as a data source, and this was accepted at least for the
3239 Debian version of appstream.
</p>
3241 <p>A few days ago using appstream in Debian for this became possible,
3242 and today I uploaded a new version
0.20 of isenkram adding support for
3243 appstream as a data source for mapping hardware to packages. The only
3244 package so far using appstream to announce its hardware support is my
3245 pymissile package. I got help from Matthias Klumpp with figuring out
3246 how do add the required
3247 <a href=
"https://appstream.debian.org/html/sid/main/metainfo/pymissile.html">metadata
3248 in pymissile
</a>. I added a file debian/pymissile.metainfo.xml with
3252 <?xml
version="
1.0"
encoding="UTF-
8"?
>
3254 <id
>pymissile
</id
>
3255 <metadata_license
>MIT
</metadata_license
>
3256 <name
>pymissile
</name
>
3257 <summary
>Control original Striker USB Missile Launcher
</summary
>
3260 Pymissile provides a curses interface to control an original
3261 Marks and Spencer / Striker USB Missile Launcher, as well as a
3262 motion control script to allow a webcamera to control the
3265 </description
>
3267 <modalias
>usb:v1130p0202d*
</modalias
>
3272 <p>The key for isenkram is the component/provides/modalias value,
3273 which is a glob style match rule for hardware specific strings
3274 (modalias strings) provided by the Linux kernel. In this case, it
3275 will map to all USB devices with vendor code
1130 and product code
3278 <p>Note, it is important that the license of all the metadata files
3279 are compatible to have permissions to aggregate them into archive wide
3280 appstream files. Matthias suggested to use MIT or BSD licenses for
3281 these files. A challenge is figuring out a good id for the data, as
3282 it is supposed to be globally unique and shared across distributions
3283 (in other words, best to coordinate with upstream what to use). But
3284 it can be changed later or, so we went with the package name as
3285 upstream for this project is dormant.
</p>
3287 <p>To get the metadata file installed in the correct location for the
3288 mirror update scripts to pick it up and include its content the
3289 appstream data source, the file must be installed in the binary
3290 package under /usr/share/appdata/. I did this by adding the following
3291 line to debian/pymissile.install:
</p>
3294 debian/pymissile.metainfo.xml usr/share/appdata
3297 <p>With that in place, the command line tool isenkram-lookup will list
3298 all packages useful on the current computer automatically, and the GUI
3299 pop-up handler will propose to install the package not already
3300 installed if a hardware dongle is inserted into the machine in
3303 <p>Details of the modalias field in appstream is available from the
3304 <a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/DEP-11">DEP-
11</a> proposal.
</p>
3306 <p>To locate the modalias values of all hardware present in a machine,
3307 try running this command on the command line:
</p>
3310 cat $(find /sys/devices/|grep modalias)
3313 <p>To learn more about the isenkram system, please check out
3314 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram/">my
3315 blog posts tagged isenkram
</a>.
</p>
3321 Tags:
<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>.
3326 <div class=
"padding"></div>
3330 <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>
3336 <p>A blog post from my fellow Debian developer Paul Wise titled
3337 "
<a href=
"http://bonedaddy.net/pabs3/log/2015/11/27/sfc-supporter/">The
3338 GPL is not magic pixie dust
</a>" explain the importance of making sure
3339 the <a href="http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html
">GPL</a> is enforced.
3340 I quote the blog post from Paul in full here with his permission:<p>
3344 <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>
3347 The GPL is not magic pixie dust. It does not work by itself.<br/>
3349 The first step is to choose a
3350 <a href="https://copyleft.org/
">copyleft</a> license for your
3353 The next step is, when someone fails to follow that copyleft license,
3354 <b>it must be enforced</b><br/>
3356 and its a simple fact of our modern society that such type of
3359 is incredibly expensive to do and incredibly difficult to do.
3362 <p><small>-- <a href="http://ebb.org/bkuhn/
">Bradley Kuhn</a>, in
3363 <a href="http://faif.us/
" title="Free as in Freedom
">FaiF</a>
3364 <a href="http://faif.us/cast/
2015/nov/
24/
0x57/
">episode
3365 0x57</a></small></p>
3367 <p>As the Debian Website
3368 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/
794116">used</a>
3369 <a href="https://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/webwml/webwml/english/intro/free.wml?r1=
1.24&r2=
1.25">to</a>
3370 imply, public domain and permissively licensed software can lead to
3371 the production of more proprietary software as people discover useful
3372 software, extend it and or incorporate it into their hardware or
3373 software products. Copyleft licenses such as the GNU GPL were created
3374 to close off this avenue to the production of proprietary software but
3375 such licenses are not enough. With the ongoing adoption of Free
3376 Software by individuals and groups, inevitably the community's
3377 expectations of license compliance are violated, usually out of
3378 ignorance of the way Free Software works, but not always. As Karen
3379 and Bradley explained in <a href="http://faif.us/
" title="Free as in
3381 <a href="http://faif.us/cast/
2015/nov/
24/
0x57/
">episode 0x57</a>,
3382 copyleft is nothing if no-one is willing and able to stand up in court
3383 to protect it. The reality of today's world is that legal
3384 representation is expensive, difficult and time consuming. With
3385 <a href="http://gpl-violations.org/
">gpl-violations.org</a> in hiatus
3386 <a href="http://gpl-violations.org/news/
20151027-homepage-recovers/
">until</a>
3387 some time in 2016, the <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/
">Software
3388 Freedom Conservancy</a> (a tax-exempt charity) is the major defender
3389 of the Linux project, Debian and other groups against GPL violations.
3390 In March the SFC supported a
3391 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/news/
2015/mar/
05/vmware-lawsuit/
">lawsuit
3392 by Christoph Hellwig</a> against VMware for refusing to
3393 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/linux-compliance/vmware-lawsuit-faq.html
">comply
3394 with the GPL</a> in relation to their use of parts of the Linux
3395 kernel. Since then two of their sponsors pulled corporate funding and
3397 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/blog/
2015/nov/
24/faif-carols-fundraiser/
">blocked
3398 or cancelled their talks</a>. As a result they have decided to rely
3399 less on corporate funding and more on the broad community of
3400 individuals who support Free Software and copyleft. So the SFC has
3401 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/news/
2015/nov/
23/
2015fundraiser/
">launched</a>
3402 a <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/
">campaign</a> to create
3403 a community of folks who stand up for copyleft and the GPL by
3404 supporting their work on promoting and supporting copyleft and Free
3407 <p>If you support Free Software,
3408 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/blog/
2015/nov/
26/like-what-I-do/
">like</a>
3409 what the SFC do, agree with their
3410 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/linux-compliance/principles.html
">compliance
3411 principles</a>, are happy about their
3412 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/
">successes</a> in 2015,
3413 work on a project that is an SFC
3414 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/members/current/
">member</a> and or
3415 just want to stand up for copyleft, please join
3416 <a href="https://identi.ca/cwebber/image/JQGPA4qbTyyp3-MY8QpvuA
">Christopher
3418 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/blog/
2015/nov/
24/faif-carols-fundraiser/
">Carol
3420 <a href="http://www.jonobacon.org/
2015/
11/
25/supporting-software-freedom-conservancy/
">Jono
3421 Bacon</a>, myself and
3422 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/sponsors/#supporters
">others</a> in
3424 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/
">supporter</a>. For the
3425 next week your donation will be
3426 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/news/
2015/nov/
27/black-friday/
">matched</a>
3427 by an anonymous donor. Please also consider asking your employer to
3428 match your donation or become a sponsor of SFC. Don't forget to
3429 spread the word about your support for SFC via email, your blog and or
3430 social media accounts.</p>
3434 <p>I agree with Paul on this topic and just signed up as a Supporter
3435 of Software Freedom Conservancy myself. Perhaps you should be a
3442 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>.
3447 <div class="padding
"></div>
3451 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/PGP_key_transition_statement_for_key_EE4E02F9.html
">PGP key transition statement for key EE4E02F9</a>
3457 <p>I've needed a new OpenPGP key for a while, but have not had time to
3458 set it up properly. I wanted to generate it offline and have it
3459 available on <a href="http://shop.kernelconcepts.de/#openpgp
">a OpenPGP
3460 smart card</a> for daily use, and learning how to do it and finding
3461 time to sit down with an offline machine almost took forever. But
3462 finally I've been able to complete the process, and have now moved
3463 from my old GPG key to a new GPG key. See
3464 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/
2015-
11-
17-new-gpg-key-transition.txt
">the
3465 full transition statement, signed with both my old and new key</a> for
3466 the details. This is my new key:</p>
3469 pub 3936R/<a href="http://pgp.cs.uu.nl/stats/
111D6B29EE4E02F9.html
">111D6B29EE4E02F9</a> 2015-11-03 [expires: 2019-11-14]
3470 Key fingerprint = 3AC7 B2E3 ACA5 DF87 78F1 D827 111D 6B29 EE4E 02F9
3471 uid Petter Reinholdtsen <pere@hungry.com>
3472 uid Petter Reinholdtsen <pere@debian.org>
3473 sub 4096R/87BAFB0E 2015-11-03 [expires: 2019-11-02]
3474 sub 4096R/F91E6DE9 2015-11-03 [expires: 2019-11-02]
3475 sub 4096R/A0439BAB 2015-11-03 [expires: 2019-11-02]
3478 <p>The key can be downloaded from the OpenPGP key servers, signed by
3481 <p>If you signed my old key
3482 (<a href="http://pgp.cs.uu.nl/stats/DB4CCC4B2A30D729.html
">DB4CCC4B2A30D729</a>),
3483 I'd very much appreciate a signature on my new key, details and
3484 instructions in the transition statement. I m happy to reciprocate if
3485 you have a similarly signed transition statement to present.</p>
3491 Tags: <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>.
3496 <div class="padding
"></div>
3500 <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>
3506 <p>When I get a new laptop, the battery life time at the start is OK.
3507 But this do not last. The last few laptops gave me a feeling that
3508 within a year, the life time is just a fraction of what it used to be,
3509 and it slowly become painful to use the laptop without power connected
3510 all the time. Because of this, when I got a new Thinkpad X230 laptop
3511 about two years ago, I decided to monitor its battery state to have
3512 more hard facts when the battery started to fail.</p>
3514 <img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/
2015-
09-
24-laptop-battery-graph.png
"/>
3516 <p>First I tried to find a sensible Debian package to record the
3517 battery status, assuming that this must be a problem already handled
3518 by someone else. I found
3519 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats
">battery-stats</a>,
3520 which collects statistics from the battery, but it was completely
3521 broken. I sent a few suggestions to the maintainer, but decided to
3522 write my own collector as a shell script while I waited for feedback
3524 <a href="http://www.ifweassume.com/
2013/
08/the-de-evolution-of-my-laptop-battery.html
">a
3525 blog post about the battery development on a MacBook Air</a> I also
3527 <a href="https://github.com/jradavenport/batlog.git
">batlog</a>, not
3528 available in Debian.</p>
3530 <p>I started my collector 2013-07-15, and it has been collecting
3531 battery stats ever since. Now my
3532 /var/log/hjemmenett-battery-status.log file contain around 115,000
3533 measurements, from the time the battery was working great until now,
3534 when it is unable to charge above 7% of original capacity. My
3535 collector shell script is quite simple and look like this:</p>
3540 # http://www.ifweassume.com/2013/08/the-de-evolution-of-my-laptop-battery.html
3542 # http://blog.sleeplessbeastie.eu/2013/01/02/debian-how-to-monitor-battery-capacity/
3543 logfile=/var/log/hjemmenett-battery-status.log
3545 files="manufacturer model_name technology serial_number \
3546 energy_full energy_full_design energy_now cycle_count status"
3548 if [ ! -e "$logfile" ] ; then
3559 # Print complete message in one echo call, to avoid race condition
3560 # when several log processes run in parallel.
3561 msg=$(printf
"%s," $(date +%s); \
3562 for f in $files; do \
3563 printf
"%s," $(cat $f); \
3568 cd /sys/class/power_supply
3571 (cd $bat && log_battery
>> "$logfile")
3575 <p>The script is called when the power management system detect a
3576 change in the power status (power plug in or out), and when going into
3577 and out of hibernation and suspend. In addition, it collect a value
3578 every
10 minutes. This make it possible for me know when the battery
3579 is discharging, charging and how the maximum charge change over time.
3580 The code for the Debian package
3581 <a href=
"https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/battery-status">is now
3582 available on github
</a>.
</p>
3584 <p>The collected log file look like this:
</p>
3587 timestamp,manufacturer,model_name,technology,serial_number,energy_full,energy_full_design,energy_now,cycle_count,status,
3588 1376591133,LGC,
45N1025,Li-ion,
974,
62800000,
62160000,
39050000,
0,Discharging,
3590 1443090528,LGC,
45N1025,Li-ion,
974,
4900000,
62160000,
4900000,
0,Full,
3591 1443090601,LGC,
45N1025,Li-ion,
974,
4900000,
62160000,
4900000,
0,Full,
3594 <p>I wrote a small script to create a graph of the charge development
3595 over time. This graph depicted above show the slow death of my laptop
3598 <p>But why is this happening? Why are my laptop batteries always
3599 dying in a year or two, while the batteries of space probes and
3600 satellites keep working year after year. If we are to believe
3601 <a href=
"http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/how_to_prolong_lithium_based_batteries">Battery
3602 University
</a>, the cause is me charging the battery whenever I have a
3603 chance, and the fix is to not charge the Lithium-ion batteries to
100%
3604 all the time, but to stay below
90% of full charge most of the time.
3605 I've been told that the Tesla electric cars
3606 <a href=
"http://my.teslamotors.com/de_CH/forum/forums/battery-charge-limit">limit
3607 the charge of their batteries to
80%
</a>, with the option to charge to
3608 100% when preparing for a longer trip (not that I would want a car
3609 like Tesla where rights to privacy is abandoned, but that is another
3610 story), which I guess is the option we should have for laptops on
3613 <p>Is there a good and generic way with Linux to tell the battery to
3614 stop charging at
80%, unless requested to charge to
100% once in
3615 preparation for a longer trip? I found
3616 <a href=
"http://askubuntu.com/questions/34452/how-can-i-limit-battery-charging-to-80-capacity">one
3617 recipe on askubuntu for Ubuntu to limit charging on Thinkpad to
3618 80%
</a>, but could not get it to work (kernel module refused to
3621 <p>I wonder why the battery capacity was reported to be more than
100%
3622 at the start. I also wonder why the "full capacity" increases some
3623 times, and if it is possible to repeat the process to get the battery
3624 back to design capacity. And I wonder if the discharge and charge
3625 speed change over time, or if this stay the same. I did not yet try
3626 to write a tool to calculate the derivative values of the battery
3627 level, but suspect some interesting insights might be learned from
3630 <p>Update
2015-
09-
24: I got a tip to install the packages
3631 acpi-call-dkms and tlp (unfortunately missing in Debian stable)
3632 packages instead of the tp-smapi-dkms package I had tried to use
3633 initially, and use 'tlp setcharge
40 80' to change when charging start
3634 and stop. I've done so now, but expect my existing battery is toast
3635 and need to be replaced. The proposal is unfortunately Thinkpad
3642 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
3647 <div class=
"padding"></div>
3651 <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>
3657 <p>Several people contacted me after my previous blog post about my
3658 need for a new laptop, and provided very useful feedback. I wish to
3659 thank every one of these. Several pointed me to the possibility of
3660 fixing my X230, and I am already in the process of getting Lenovo to
3661 do so thanks to the on site, next day support contract covering the
3662 machine. But the battery is almost useless (I expect to replace it
3663 with a non-official battery) and I do not expect the machine to live
3664 for many more years, so it is time to plan its replacement. If I did
3665 not have a support contract, it was suggested to find replacement parts
3666 using
<a href=
"http://www.francecrans.com/">FrancEcrans
</a>, but it
3667 might present a language barrier as I do not understand French.
</p>
3669 <p>One tip I got was to use the
3670 <a href=
"https://skinflint.co.uk/?cat=nb">Skinflint
</a> web service to
3671 compare laptop models. It seem to have more models available than
3672 prisjakt.no. Another tip I got from someone I know have similar
3673 keyboard preferences was that the HP EliteBook
840 keyboard is not
3674 very good, and this matches my experience with earlier EliteBook
3675 keyboards I tested. Because of this, I will not consider it any further.
3677 <p>When I wrote my blog post, I was not aware of Thinkpad X250, the
3678 newest Thinkpad X model. The keyboard reintroduces mouse buttons
3679 (which is missing from the X240), and is working fairly well with
3680 Debian Sid/Unstable according to
3681 <a href=
"http://www.corsac.net/X250/">Corsac.net
</a>. The reports I
3682 got on the keyboard quality are not consistent. Some say the keyboard
3683 is good, others say it is ok, while others say it is not very good.
3684 Those with experience from X41 and and X60 agree that the X250
3685 keyboard is not as good as those trusty old laptops, and suggest I
3686 keep and fix my X230 instead of upgrading, or get a used X230 to
3687 replace it. I'm also told that the X250 lack leds for caps lock, disk
3688 activity and battery status, which is very convenient on my X230. I'm
3689 also told that the CPU fan is running very often, making it a bit
3690 noisy. In any case, the X250 do not work out of the box with Debian
3691 Stable/Jessie, one of my requirements.
</p>
3693 <p>I have also gotten a few vendor proposals, one was
3694 <a href=
"http://pro-star.com">Pro-Star
</a>, another was
3695 <a href=
"http://shop.gluglug.org.uk/product/libreboot-x200/">Libreboot
</a>.
3696 The latter look very attractive to me.
</p>
3698 <p>Again, thank you all for the very useful feedback. It help a lot
3699 as I keep looking for a replacement.
</p>
3701 <p>Update
2015-
07-
06: I was recommended to check out the
3702 <a href=
"">lapstore.de
</a> web shop for used laptops. They got several
3704 <a href=
"http://www.lapstore.de/f.php/shop/lapstore/f/411/lang/x/kw/Lenovo_ThinkPad_X_Serie/">old
3705 thinkpad X models
</a>, and provide one year warranty.
</p>
3711 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
3716 <div class=
"padding"></div>
3720 <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>
3726 <p>My primary work horse laptop is failing, and will need a
3727 replacement soon. The left
5 cm of the screen on my Thinkpad X230
3728 started flickering yesterday, and I suspect the cause is a broken
3729 cable, as changing the angle of the screen some times get rid of the
3732 <p>My requirements have not really changed since I bought it, and is
3734 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thank_you_Thinkpad_X41__for_your_long_and_trustworthy_service.html">I
3735 described them in
2013</a>. The last time I bought a laptop, I had
3737 <a href=
"http://www.prisjakt.no/category.php?k=353">prisjakt.no
</a>
3738 where I could select at least a few of the requirements (mouse pin,
3739 wifi, weight) and go through the rest manually. Three button mouse
3740 and a good keyboard is not available as an option, and all the three
3741 laptop models proposed today (Thinkpad X240, HP EliteBook
820 G1 and
3742 G2) lack three mouse buttons). It is also unclear to me how good the
3743 keyboard on the HP EliteBooks are. I hope Lenovo have not messed up
3744 the keyboard, even if the quality and robustness in the X series have
3745 deteriorated since X41.
</p>
3747 <p>I wonder how I can find a sensible laptop when none of the options
3748 seem sensible to me? Are there better services around to search the
3749 set of available laptops for features? Please send me an email if you
3750 have suggestions.
</p>
3752 <p>Update
2015-
07-
23: I got a suggestion to check out the FSF
3753 <a href=
"http://www.fsf.org/resources/hw/endorsement/respects-your-freedom">list
3754 of endorsed hardware
</a>, which is useful background information.
</p>
3760 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
3765 <div class=
"padding"></div>
3769 <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>
3775 <p>By now, it is well known that Debian Jessie will not be using
3776 sysvinit as its boot system by default. But how can one keep using
3777 sysvinit in Jessie? It is fairly easy, and here are a few recipes,
3779 <a href=
"http://www.vitavonni.de/blog/201410/2014102101-avoiding-systemd.html">Erich
3781 <a href=
"http://smcv.pseudorandom.co.uk/2014/still_universal/">Simon
3784 <p>If you already are using Wheezy and want to upgrade to Jessie and
3785 keep sysvinit as your boot system, create a file
3786 <tt>/etc/apt/preferences.d/use-sysvinit
</tt> with this content before
3789 <p><blockquote><pre>
3790 Package: systemd-sysv
3791 Pin: release o=Debian
3793 </pre></blockquote><p>
3795 <p>This file content will tell apt and aptitude to not consider
3796 installing systemd-sysv as part of any installation and upgrade
3797 solution when resolving dependencies, and thus tell it to avoid
3798 systemd as a default boot system. The end result should be that the
3799 upgraded system keep using sysvinit.
</p>
3801 <p>If you are installing Jessie for the first time, there is no way to
3802 get sysvinit installed by default (debootstrap used by
3803 debian-installer have no option for this), but one can tell the
3804 installer to switch to sysvinit before the first boot. Either by
3805 using a kernel argument to the installer, or by adding a line to the
3806 preseed file used. First, the kernel command line argument:
3808 <p><blockquote><pre>
3809 preseed/
late_command="in-target apt-get install --purge -y sysvinit-core"
3810 </pre></blockquote><p>
3812 <p>Next, the line to use in a preseed file:
</p>
3814 <p><blockquote><pre>
3815 d-i preseed/late_command string in-target apt-get install -y sysvinit-core
3816 </pre></blockquote><p>
3818 <p>One can of course also do this after the first boot by installing
3819 the sysvinit-core package.
</p>
3821 <p>I recommend only using sysvinit if you really need it, as the
3822 sysvinit boot sequence in Debian have several hardware specific bugs
3823 on Linux caused by the fact that it is unpredictable when hardware
3824 devices show up during boot. But on the other hand, the new default
3825 boot system still have a few rough edges I hope will be fixed before
3826 Jessie is released.
</p>
3828 <p>Update
2014-
11-
26: Inspired by
3829 <ahref=
"https://www.mirbsd.org/permalinks/wlog-10-tg_e20141125-tg.htm#e20141125-tg_wlog-10-tg">a
3830 blog post by Torsten Glaser
</a>, added --purge to the preseed
3837 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>.
3842 <div class=
"padding"></div>
3846 <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>
3852 <p>The right to communicate with your friends and family in private,
3853 without anyone snooping, is a right every citicen have in a liberal
3854 democracy. But this right is under serious attack these days.
</p>
3856 <p>A while back it occurred to me that one way to make the dragnet
3857 surveillance conducted by NSA, GCHQ, FRA and others (and confirmed by
3858 the whisleblower Snowden) more expensive for Internet email,
3859 is to deliver all email using SMTP via Tor. Such SMTP option would be
3860 a nice addition to the FreedomBox project if we could send email
3861 between FreedomBox machines without leaking metadata about the emails
3862 to the people peeking on the wire. I
3863 <a href=
"http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/freedombox-discuss/2014-October/006493.html">proposed
3864 this on the FreedomBox project mailing list in October
</a> and got a
3865 lot of useful feedback and suggestions. It also became obvious to me
3866 that this was not a novel idea, as the same idea was tested and
3867 documented by Johannes Berg as early as
2006, and both
3868 <a href=
"https://github.com/pagekite/Mailpile/wiki/SMTorP">the
3869 Mailpile
</a> and
<a href=
"http://dee.su/cables">the Cables
</a> systems
3870 propose a similar method / protocol to pass emails between users.
</p>
3872 <p>To implement such system one need to set up a Tor hidden service
3873 providing the SMTP protocol on port
25, and use email addresses
3874 looking like username@hidden-service-name.onion. With such addresses
3875 the connections to port
25 on hidden-service-name.onion using Tor will
3876 go to the correct SMTP server. To do this, one need to configure the
3877 Tor daemon to provide the hidden service and the mail server to accept
3878 emails for this .onion domain. To learn more about Exim configuration
3879 in Debian and test the design provided by Johannes Berg in his FAQ, I
3880 set out yesterday to create a Debian package for making it trivial to
3881 set up such SMTP over Tor service based on Debian. Getting it to work
3882 were fairly easy, and
3883 <a href=
"https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/exim4-smtorp">the
3884 source code for the Debian package
</a> is available from github. I
3885 plan to move it into Debian if further testing prove this to be a
3886 useful approach.
</p>
3888 <p>If you want to test this, set up a blank Debian machine without any
3889 mail system installed (or run
<tt>apt-get purge exim4-config
</tt> to
3890 get rid of exim4). Install tor, clone the git repository mentioned
3891 above, build the deb and install it on the machine. Next, run
3892 <tt>/usr/lib/exim4-smtorp/setup-exim-hidden-service
</tt> and follow
3893 the instructions to get the service up and running. Restart tor and
3894 exim when it is done, and test mail delivery using swaks like
3897 <p><blockquote><pre>
3898 torsocks swaks --server dutlqrrmjhtfa3vp.onion \
3899 --to fbx@dutlqrrmjhtfa3vp.onion
3900 </pre></blockquote></p>
3902 <p>This will test the SMTP delivery using tor. Replace the email
3903 address with your own address to test your server. :)
</p>
3905 <p>The setup procedure is still to complex, and I hope it can be made
3906 easier and more automatic. Especially the tor setup need more work.
3907 Also, the package include a tor-smtp tool written in C, but its task
3908 should probably be rewritten in some script language to make the deb
3909 architecture independent. It would probably also make the code easier
3910 to review. The tor-smtp tool currently need to listen on a socket for
3911 exim to talk to it and is started using xinetd. It would be better if
3912 no daemon and no socket is needed. I suspect it is possible to get
3913 exim to run a command line tool for delivery instead of talking to a
3914 socket, and hope to figure out how in a future version of this
3917 <p>Until I wipe my test machine, I can be reached using the
3918 <tt>fbx@dutlqrrmjhtfa3vp.onion
</tt> mail address, deliverable over
3925 Tags:
<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>.
3930 <div class=
"padding"></div>
3934 <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>
3940 <p>If you ever had to moderate a mailman list, like the ones on
3941 alioth.debian.org, you know the web interface is fairly slow to
3942 operate. First you visit one web page, enter the moderation password
3943 and get a new page shown with a list of all the messages to moderate
3944 and various options for each email address. This take a while for
3945 every list you moderate, and you need to do it regularly to do a good
3946 job as a list moderator. But there is a quick alternative,
3947 <a href=
"http://heim.ifi.uio.no/kjetilho/hacks/#listadmin">the
3948 listadmin program
</a>. It allow you to check lists for new messages
3949 to moderate in a fraction of a second. Here is a test run on two
3950 lists I recently took over:
</p>
3952 <p><blockquote><pre>
3953 % time listadmin xiph
3954 fetching data for pkg-xiph-commits@lists.alioth.debian.org ... nothing in queue
3955 fetching data for pkg-xiph-maint@lists.alioth.debian.org ... nothing in queue
3961 </pre></blockquote></p>
3963 <p>In
1.7 seconds I had checked two mailing lists and confirmed that
3964 there are no message in the moderation queue. Every morning I
3965 currently moderate
68 mailman lists, and it normally take around two
3966 minutes. When I took over the two pkg-xiph lists above a few days
3967 ago, there were
400 emails waiting in the moderator queue. It took me
3968 less than
15 minutes to process them all using the listadmin
3972 <a href=
"https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/listadmin">the listadmin
3973 package
</a> from Debian and create a file
<tt>~/.listadmin.ini
</tt>
3974 with content like this, the moderation task is a breeze:
</p>
3976 <p><blockquote><pre>
3977 username username@example.org
3980 discard_if_reason "Posting restricted to members only. Remove us from your mail list."
3983 adminurl https://{domain}/mailman/admindb/{list}
3984 mailman-list@lists.example.com
3987 other-list@otherserver.example.org
3988 </pre></blockquote></p>
3990 <p>There are other options to set as well. Check the manual page to
3991 learn the details.
</p>
3993 <p>If you are forced to moderate lists on a mailman installation where
3994 the SSL certificate is self signed or not properly signed by a
3995 generally accepted signing authority, you can set a environment
3996 variable when calling listadmin to disable SSL verification:
</p>
3998 <p><blockquote><pre>
3999 PERL_LWP_SSL_VERIFY_HOSTNAME=
0 listadmin
4000 </pre></blockquote></p>
4002 <p>If you want to moderate a subset of the lists you take care of, you
4003 can provide an argument to the listadmin script like I do in the
4004 initial screen dump (the xiph argument). Using an argument, only
4005 lists matching the argument string will be processed. This make it
4006 quick to accept messages if you notice the moderation request in your
4009 <p>Without the listadmin program, I would never be the moderator of
68
4010 mailing lists, as I simply do not have time to spend on that if the
4011 process was any slower. The listadmin program have saved me hours of
4012 time I could spend elsewhere over the years. It truly is nice free
4015 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
4016 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
4017 <b><a href=
"bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
</a></b>.
</p>
4019 <p>Update
2014-
10-
27: Added missing 'username' statement in
4020 configuration example. Also, I've been told that the
4021 PERL_LWP_SSL_VERIFY_HOSTNAME=
0 setting do not work for everyone. Not
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/nice free software">nice free software
</a>.
4033 <div class=
"padding"></div>
4037 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Jessie__PXE_and_automatic_firmware_installation.html">Debian Jessie, PXE and automatic firmware installation
</a>
4043 <p>When PXE installing laptops with Debian, I often run into the
4044 problem that the WiFi card require some firmware to work properly.
4045 And it has been a pain to fix this using preseeding in Debian.
4046 Normally something more is needed. But thanks to
4047 <a href=
"https://packages.qa.debian.org/i/isenkram.html">my isenkram
4048 package
</a> and its recent tasksel extension, it has now become easy
4049 to do this using simple preseeding.
</p>
4051 <p>The isenkram-cli package provide tasksel tasks which will install
4052 firmware for the hardware found in the machine (actually, requested by
4053 the kernel modules for the hardware). (It can also install user space
4054 programs supporting the hardware detected, but that is not the focus
4057 <p>To get this working in the default installation, two preeseding
4058 values are needed. First, the isenkram-cli package must be installed
4059 into the target chroot (aka the hard drive) before tasksel is executed
4060 in the pkgsel step of the debian-installer system. This is done by
4061 preseeding the base-installer/includes debconf value to include the
4062 isenkram-cli package. The package name is next passed to debootstrap
4063 for installation. With the isenkram-cli package in place, tasksel
4064 will automatically use the isenkram tasks to detect hardware specific
4065 packages for the machine being installed and install them, because
4066 isenkram-cli contain tasksel tasks.
</p>
4068 <p>Second, one need to enable the non-free APT repository, because
4069 most firmware unfortunately is non-free. This is done by preseeding
4070 the apt-mirror-setup step. This is unfortunate, but for a lot of
4071 hardware it is the only option in Debian.
</p>
4073 <p>The end result is two lines needed in your preseeding file to get
4074 firmware installed automatically by the installer:
</p>
4076 <p><blockquote><pre>
4077 base-installer base-installer/includes string isenkram-cli
4078 apt-mirror-setup apt-setup/non-free boolean true
4079 </pre></blockquote></p>
4081 <p>The current version of isenkram-cli in testing/jessie will install
4082 both firmware and user space packages when using this method. It also
4083 do not work well, so use version
0.15 or later. Installing both
4084 firmware and user space packages might give you a bit more than you
4085 want, so I decided to split the tasksel task in two, one for firmware
4086 and one for user space programs. The firmware task is enabled by
4087 default, while the one for user space programs is not. This split is
4088 implemented in the package currently in unstable.
</p>
4090 <p>If you decide to give this a go, please let me know (via email) how
4091 this recipe work for you. :)
</p>
4093 <p>So, I bet you are wondering, how can this work. First and
4094 foremost, it work because tasksel is modular, and driven by whatever
4095 files it find in /usr/lib/tasksel/ and /usr/share/tasksel/. So the
4096 isenkram-cli package place two files for tasksel to find. First there
4097 is the task description file (/usr/share/tasksel/descs/isenkram.desc):
</p>
4099 <p><blockquote><pre>
4100 Task: isenkram-packages
4102 Description: Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)
4103 Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific packages are
4105 Test-new-install: show show
4107 Packages: for-current-hardware
4109 Task: isenkram-firmware
4111 Description: Hardware specific firmware packages (autodetected by isenkram)
4112 Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific firmware
4113 packages are proposed.
4114 Test-new-install: mark show
4116 Packages: for-current-hardware-firmware
4117 </pre></blockquote></p>
4119 <p>The key parts are Test-new-install which indicate how the task
4120 should be handled and the Packages line referencing to a script in
4121 /usr/lib/tasksel/packages/. The scripts use other scripts to get a
4122 list of packages to install. The for-current-hardware-firmware script
4123 look like this to list relevant firmware for the machine:
4125 <p><blockquote><pre>
4128 PATH=/usr/sbin:$PATH
4130 isenkram-autoinstall-firmware -l
4131 </pre></blockquote></p>
4133 <p>With those two pieces in place, the firmware is installed by
4134 tasksel during the normal d-i run. :)
</p>
4136 <p>If you want to test what tasksel will install when isenkram-cli is
4137 installed, run
<tt>DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical tasksel --test
4138 --new-install
</tt> to get the list of packages that tasksel would
4141 <p><a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/">Debian Edu
</a> will be
4142 pilots in testing this feature, as isenkram is used there now to
4143 install firmware, replacing the earlier scripts.
</p>
4149 Tags:
<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>.
4154 <div class=
"padding"></div>
4158 <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>
4164 <p>Today I came across an unexpected Ubuntu boot screen. Above the
4165 bread shelf on the ICA shop at Storo in Oslo, the grub menu of Ubuntu
4166 with Linux kernel
3.2.0-
23 (ie probably version
12.04 LTS) was stuck
4167 on a screen normally showing the bread types and prizes:
</p>
4169 <p align=
"center"><img width=
"70%" src=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2014-10-04-ubuntu-ica-storo-crop.jpeg"></p>
4171 <p>If it had booted as it was supposed to, I would never had known
4172 about this hidden Linux installation. It is interesting what
4173 <a href=
"http://revealingerrors.com/">errors can reveal
</a>.
</p>
4179 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
4184 <div class=
"padding"></div>
4188 <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>
4194 <p>The
<a href=
"https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/">lsdvd project
</a>
4195 got a new set of developers a few weeks ago, after the original
4196 developer decided to step down and pass the project to fresh blood.
4197 This project is now maintained by Petter Reinholdtsen and Steve
4200 <p>I just wrapped up
4201 <a href=
"https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/mailman/message/32896061/">a
4202 new lsdvd release
</a>, available in git or from
4203 <a href=
"https://sourceforge.net/projects/lsdvd/files/lsdvd/">the
4204 download page
</a>. This is the changelog dated
2014-
10-
03 for version
4209 <li>Ignore 'phantom' audio, subtitle tracks
</li>
4210 <li>Check for garbage in the program chains, which indicate that a track is
4211 non-existant, to work around additional copy protection
</li>
4212 <li>Fix displaying content type for audio tracks, subtitles
</li>
4213 <li>Fix pallete display of first entry
</li>
4214 <li>Fix include orders
</li>
4215 <li>Ignore read errors in titles that would not be displayed anyway
</li>
4216 <li>Fix the chapter count
</li>
4217 <li>Make sure the array size and the array limit used when initialising
4218 the palette size is the same.
</li>
4219 <li>Fix array printing.
</li>
4220 <li>Correct subsecond calculations.
</li>
4221 <li>Add sector information to the output format.
</li>
4222 <li>Clean up code to be closer to ANSI C and compile without warnings
4223 with more GCC compiler warnings.
</li>
4227 <p>This change bring together patches for lsdvd in use in various
4228 Linux and Unix distributions, as well as patches submitted to the
4229 project the last nine years. Please check it out. :)
</p>
4235 Tags:
<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>.
4240 <div class=
"padding"></div>
4244 <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>
4250 <p>The
<a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
4251 project
</a> provide a Linux solution for schools, including a
4252 powerful desktop with education software, a central server providing
4253 web pages, user database, user home directories, central login and PXE
4254 boot of both clients without disk and the installation to install Debian
4255 Edu on machines with disk (and a few other services perhaps to small
4256 to mention here). We in the Debian Edu team are currently working on
4257 the Jessie based version, trying to get everything in shape before the
4258 freeze, to avoid having to maintain our own package repository in the
4260 <a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Status/Jessie">current
4261 status
</a> can be seen on the Debian wiki, and there is still heaps of
4262 work left. Some fatal problems block testing, breaking the installer,
4263 but it is possible to work around these to get anyway. Here is a
4264 recipe on how to get the installation limping along.
</p>
4266 <p>First, download the test ISO via
4267 <a href=
"ftp://ftp.skolelinux.no/cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-1.iso">ftp
</a>,
4268 <a href=
"http://ftp.skolelinux.no/cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-1.iso">http
</a>
4270 ftp.skolelinux.org::cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-
1.iso).
4271 The ISO build was broken on Tuesday, so we do not get a new ISO every
4272 12 hours or so, but thankfully the ISO we already got we are able to
4273 install with some tweaking.
</p>
4275 <p>When you get to the Debian Edu profile question, go to tty2
4276 (use Alt-Ctrl-F2), run
</p>
4278 <p><blockquote><pre>
4279 nano /usr/bin/edu-eatmydata-install
4280 </pre></blockquote></p>
4282 <p>and add 'exit
0' as the second line, disabling the eatmydata
4283 optimization. Return to the installation, select the profile you want
4284 and continue. Without this change, exim4-config will fail to install
4285 due to a known bug in eatmydata.
</p>
4287 <p>When you get the grub question at the end, answer /dev/sda (or if
4288 this do not work, figure out what your correct value would be. All my
4289 test machines need /dev/sda, so I have no advice if it do not fit
4292 <p>If you installed a profile including a graphical desktop, log in as
4293 root after the initial boot from hard drive, and install the
4294 education-desktop-XXX metapackage. XXX can be kde, gnome, lxde, xfce
4295 or mate. If you want several desktop options, install more than one
4296 metapackage. Once this is done, reboot and you should have a working
4297 graphical login screen. This workaround should no longer be needed
4298 once the education-tasks package version
1.801 enter testing in two
4301 <p>I believe the ISO build will start working on two days when the new
4302 tasksel package enter testing and Steve McIntyre get a chance to
4303 update the debian-cd git repository. The eatmydata, grub and desktop
4304 issues are already fixed in unstable and testing, and should show up
4305 on the ISO as soon as the ISO build start working again. Well the
4306 eatmydata optimization is really just disabled. The proper fix
4307 require an upload by the eatmydata maintainer applying the patch
4308 provided in bug
<a href=
"https://bugs.debian.org/702711">#
702711</a>.
4309 The rest have proper fixes in unstable.
</p>
4311 <p>I hope this get you going with the installation testing, as we are
4312 quickly running out of time trying to get our Jessie based
4313 installation ready before the distribution freeze in a month.
</p>
4319 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>.
4324 <div class=
"padding"></div>
4328 <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>
4334 <p>I use the
<a href=
"https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/">lsdvd tool
</a>
4335 to handle my fairly large DVD collection. It is a nice command line
4336 tool to get details about a DVD, like title, tracks, track length,
4337 etc, in XML, Perl or human readable format. But lsdvd have not seen
4338 any new development since
2006 and had a few irritating bugs affecting
4339 its use with some DVDs. Upstream seemed to be dead, and in January I
4340 sent a small probe asking for a version control repository for the
4341 project, without any reply. But I use it regularly and would like to
4342 get
<a href=
"https://packages.qa.debian.org/lsdvd">an updated version
4343 into Debian
</a>. So two weeks ago I tried harder to get in touch with
4344 the project admin, and after getting a reply from him explaining that
4345 he was no longer interested in the project, I asked if I could take
4346 over. And yesterday, I became project admin.
</p>
4348 <p>I've been in touch with a Gentoo developer and the Debian
4349 maintainer interested in joining forces to maintain the upstream
4350 project, and I hope we can get a new release out fairly quickly,
4351 collecting the patches spread around on the internet into on place.
4352 I've added the relevant Debian patches to the freshly created git
4353 repository, and expect the Gentoo patches to make it too. If you got
4354 a DVD collection and care about command line tools, check out
4355 <a href=
"https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/git/ci/master/tree/">the git source
</a> and join
4356 <a href=
"https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/mailman/">the project mailing
4363 Tags:
<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>.
4368 <div class=
"padding"></div>
4372 <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>
4378 <p>The
<a href=
"https://www.debian.org/">Debian
</a> installer could be
4379 a lot quicker. When we install more than
2000 packages in
4380 <a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux / Debian Edu
</a> using
4381 tasksel in the installer, unpacking the binary packages take forever.
4382 A part of the slow I/O issue was discussed in
4383 <a href=
"https://bugs.debian.org/613428">bug #
613428</a> about too
4384 much file system sync-ing done by dpkg, which is the package
4385 responsible for unpacking the binary packages. Other parts (like code
4386 executed by postinst scripts) might also sync to disk during
4387 installation. All this sync-ing to disk do not really make sense to
4388 me. If the machine crash half-way through, I start over, I do not try
4389 to salvage the half installed system. So the failure sync-ing is
4390 supposed to protect against, hardware or system crash, is not really
4391 relevant while the installer is running.
</p>
4393 <p>A few days ago, I thought of a way to get rid of all the file
4394 system sync()-ing in a fairly non-intrusive way, without the need to
4395 change the code in several packages. The idea is not new, but I have
4396 not heard anyone propose the approach using dpkg-divert before. It
4397 depend on the small and clever package
4398 <a href=
"https://packages.qa.debian.org/eatmydata">eatmydata
</a>, which
4399 uses LD_PRELOAD to replace the system functions for syncing data to
4400 disk with functions doing nothing, thus allowing programs to live
4401 dangerous while speeding up disk I/O significantly. Instead of
4402 modifying the implementation of dpkg, apt and tasksel (which are the
4403 packages responsible for selecting, fetching and installing packages),
4404 it occurred to me that we could just divert the programs away, replace
4405 them with a simple shell wrapper calling
4406 "eatmydata
$program
$@", to get the same effect.
4407 Two days ago I decided to test the idea, and wrapped up a simple
4408 implementation for the Debian Edu udeb.
</p>
4410 <p>The effect was stunning. In my first test it reduced the running
4411 time of the pkgsel step (installing tasks) from
64 to less than
44
4412 minutes (
20 minutes shaved off the installation) on an old Dell
4413 Latitude D505 machine. I am not quite sure what the optimised time
4414 would have been, as I messed up the testing a bit, causing the debconf
4415 priority to get low enough for two questions to pop up during
4416 installation. As soon as I saw the questions I moved the installation
4417 along, but do not know how long the question were holding up the
4418 installation. I did some more measurements using Debian Edu Jessie,
4419 and got these results. The time measured is the time stamp in
4420 /var/log/syslog between the "pkgsel: starting tasksel" and the
4421 "pkgsel: finishing up" lines, if you want to do the same measurement
4422 yourself. In Debian Edu, the tasksel dialog do not show up, and the
4423 timing thus do not depend on how quickly the user handle the tasksel
4429 <th>Machine/setup
</th>
4430 <th>Original tasksel
</th>
4431 <th>Optimised tasksel
</th>
4436 <td>Latitude D505 Main+LTSP LXDE
</td>
4437 <td>64 min (
07:
46-
08:
50)
</td>
4438 <td><44 min (
11:
27-
12:
11)
</td>
4439 <td>>20 min
18%
</td>
4443 <td>Latitude D505 Roaming LXDE
</td>
4444 <td>57 min (
08:
48-
09:
45)
</td>
4445 <td>34 min (
07:
43-
08:
17)
</td>
4450 <td>Latitude D505 Minimal
</td>
4451 <td>22 min (
10:
37-
10:
59)
</td>
4452 <td>11 min (
11:
16-
11:
27)
</td>
4457 <td>Thinkpad X200 Minimal
</td>
4458 <td>6 min (
08:
19-
08:
25)
</td>
4459 <td>4 min (
08:
04-
08:
08)
</td>
4464 <td>Thinkpad X200 Roaming KDE
</td>
4465 <td>19 min (
09:
21-
09:
40)
</td>
4466 <td>15 min (
10:
25-
10:
40)
</td>
4472 <p>The test is done using a netinst ISO on a USB stick, so some of the
4473 time is spent downloading packages. The connection to the Internet
4474 was
100Mbit/s during testing, so downloading should not be a
4475 significant factor in the measurement. Download typically took a few
4476 seconds to a few minutes, depending on the amount of packages being
4479 <p>The speedup is implemented by using two hooks in
4480 <a href=
"https://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/">Debian
4481 Installer
</a>, the pre-pkgsel.d hook to set up the diverts, and the
4482 finish-install.d hook to remove the divert at the end of the
4483 installation. I picked the pre-pkgsel.d hook instead of the
4484 post-base-installer.d hook because I test using an ISO without the
4485 eatmydata package included, and the post-base-installer.d hook in
4486 Debian Edu can only operate on packages included in the ISO. The
4487 negative effect of this is that I am unable to activate this
4488 optimization for the kernel installation step in d-i. If the code is
4489 moved to the post-base-installer.d hook, the speedup would be larger
4490 for the entire installation.
</p>
4492 <p>I've implemented this in the
4493 <a href=
"https://packages.qa.debian.org/debian-edu-install">debian-edu-install
</a>
4494 git repository, and plan to provide the optimization as part of the
4495 Debian Edu installation. If you want to test this yourself, you can
4496 create two files in the installer (or in an udeb). One shell script
4497 need do go into /usr/lib/pre-pkgsel.d/, with content like this:
</p>
4499 <p><blockquote><pre>
4502 . /usr/share/debconf/confmodule
4504 logger -t my-pkgsel "info: $*"
4507 logger -t my-pkgsel "error: $*"
4509 override_install() {
4510 apt-install eatmydata || true
4511 if [ -x /target/usr/bin/eatmydata ] ; then
4512 for bin in dpkg apt-get aptitude tasksel ; do
4514 # Test that the file exist and have not been diverted already.
4515 if [ -f /target$file ] ; then
4516 info "diverting $file using eatmydata"
4517 printf "#!/bin/sh\neatmydata $bin.distrib \"\$@\"\n" \
4519 chmod
755 /target$file.edu
4520 in-target dpkg-divert --package debian-edu-config \
4521 --rename --quiet --add $file
4522 ln -sf ./$bin.edu /target$file
4524 error "unable to divert $file, as it is missing."
4528 error "unable to find /usr/bin/eatmydata after installing the eatmydata pacage"
4533 </pre></blockquote></p>
4535 <p>To clean up, another shell script should go into
4536 /usr/lib/finish-install.d/ with code like this:
4538 <p><blockquote><pre>
4540 . /usr/share/debconf/confmodule
4542 logger -t my-finish-install "error: $@"
4544 remove_install_override() {
4545 for bin in dpkg apt-get aptitude tasksel ; do
4547 if [ -x /target$file.edu ] ; then
4549 in-target dpkg-divert --package debian-edu-config \
4550 --rename --quiet --remove $file
4553 error "Missing divert for $file."
4556 sync # Flush file buffers before continuing
4559 remove_install_override
4560 </pre></blockquote></p>
4562 <p>In Debian Edu, I placed both code fragments in a separate script
4563 edu-eatmydata-install and call it from the pre-pkgsel.d and
4564 finish-install.d scripts.
</p>
4566 <p>By now you might ask if this change should get into the normal
4567 Debian installer too? I suspect it should, but am not sure the
4568 current debian-installer coordinators find it useful enough. It also
4569 depend on the side effects of the change. I'm not aware of any, but I
4570 guess we will see if the change is safe after some more testing.
4571 Perhaps there is some package in Debian depending on sync() and
4572 fsync() having effect? Perhaps it should go into its own udeb, to
4573 allow those of us wanting to enable it to do so without affecting
4576 <p>Update
2014-
09-
24: Since a few days ago, enabling this optimization
4577 will break installation of all programs using gnutls because of
4578 <a href=
"https://bugs.debian.org/702711">bug #
702711</a>. An updated
4579 eatmydata package in Debian will solve it.
</p>
4581 <p>Update
2014-
10-
17: The bug mentioned above is fixed in testing and
4582 the optimization work again. And I have discovered that the
4583 dpkg-divert trick is not really needed and implemented a slightly
4584 simpler approach as part of the debian-edu-install package. See
4585 tools/edu-eatmydata-install in the source package.
</p>
4587 <p>Update
2014-
11-
11: Unfortunately, a new
4588 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/765738">bug #
765738</a> in eatmydata only
4589 triggering on i386 made it into testing, and broke this installation
4590 optimization again. If
<a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/768893">unblock
4591 request
768893</a> is accepted, it should be working again.
</p>
4597 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>.
4602 <div class=
"padding"></div>
4606 <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>
4612 <p>Yesterday, I had the pleasure of attending a talk with the
4613 <a href=
"http://www.nuug.no/">Norwegian Unix User Group
</a> about
4614 <a href=
"http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20140909-sks-keyservers/">the
4615 OpenPGP keyserver pool sks-keyservers.net
</a>, and was very happy to
4616 learn that there is a large set of publicly available key servers to
4617 use when looking for peoples public key. So far I have used
4618 subkeys.pgp.net, and some times wwwkeys.nl.pgp.net when the former
4619 were misbehaving, but those days are ended. The servers I have used
4620 up until yesterday have been slow and some times unavailable. I hope
4621 those problems are gone now.
</p>
4623 <p>Behind the round robin DNS entry of the
4624 <a href=
"https://sks-keyservers.net/">sks-keyservers.net
</a> service
4625 there is a pool of more than
100 keyservers which are checked every
4626 day to ensure they are well connected and up to date. It must be
4627 better than what I have used so far. :)
</p>
4629 <p>Yesterdays speaker told me that the service is the default
4630 keyserver provided by the default configuration in GnuPG, but this do
4631 not seem to be used in Debian. Perhaps it should?
</p>
4633 <p>Anyway, I've updated my ~/.gnupg/options file to now include this
4636 <p><blockquote><pre>
4637 keyserver pool.sks-keyservers.net
4638 </pre></blockquote></p>
4640 <p>With GnuPG version
2 one can also locate the keyserver using SRV
4641 entries in DNS. Just for fun, I did just that at work, so now every
4642 user of GnuPG at the University of Oslo should find a OpenGPG
4643 keyserver automatically should their need it:
</p>
4645 <p><blockquote><pre>
4646 % host -t srv _pgpkey-http._tcp.uio.no
4647 _pgpkey-http._tcp.uio.no has SRV record
0 100 11371 pool.sks-keyservers.net.
4649 </pre></blockquote></p>
4652 <a href=
"http://ietfreport.isoc.org/idref/draft-shaw-openpgp-hkp/">the
4653 HKP lookup protocol
</a> supported finding signature paths, I would be
4654 very happy. It can look up a given key or search for a user ID, but I
4655 normally do not want that, but to find a trust path from my key to
4656 another key. Given a user ID or key ID, I would like to find (and
4657 download) the keys representing a signature path from my key to the
4658 key in question, to be able to get a trust path between the two keys.
4659 This is as far as I can tell not possible today. Perhaps something
4660 for a future version of the protocol?
</p>
4666 Tags:
<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>.
4671 <div class=
"padding"></div>
4675 <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>
4681 <p>The
<a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
4682 project
</a> provide an instruction manual for teachers, system
4683 administrators and other users that contain useful tips for setting up
4684 and maintaining a Debian Edu installation. This text is about how the
4685 text processing of this manual is handled in the project.
</p>
4687 <p>One goal of the project is to provide information in the native
4688 language of its users, and for this we need to handle translations.
4689 But we also want to make sure each language contain the same
4690 information, so for this we need a good way to keep the translations
4691 in sync. And we want it to be easy for our users to improve the
4692 documentation, avoiding the need to learn special formats or tools to
4693 contribute, and the obvious way to do this is to make it possible to
4694 edit the documentation using a web browser. We also want it to be
4695 easy for translators to keep the translation up to date, and give them
4696 help in figuring out what need to be translated. Here is the list of
4697 tools and the process we have found trying to reach all these
4700 <p>We maintain the authoritative source of our manual in the
4701 <a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/">Debian
4702 wiki
</a>, as several wiki pages written in English. It consist of one
4703 front page with references to the different chapters, several pages
4704 for each chapter, and finally one "collection page" gluing all the
4705 chapters together into one large web page (aka
4706 <a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/AllInOne">the
4707 AllInOne page
</a>). The AllInOne page is the one used for further
4708 processing and translations. Thanks to the fact that the
4709 <a href=
"http://moinmo.in/">MoinMoin
</a> installation on
4710 wiki.debian.org support exporting pages in
4711 <a href=
"http://www.docbook.org/">the Docbook format
</a>, we can fetch
4712 the list of pages to export using the raw version of the AllInOne
4713 page, loop over each of them to generate a Docbook XML version of the
4714 manual. This process also download images and transform image
4715 references to use the locally downloaded images. The generated
4716 Docbook XML files are slightly broken, so some post-processing is done
4717 using the
<tt>documentation/scripts/get_manual
</tt> program, and the
4718 result is a nice Docbook XML file (debian-edu-wheezy-manual.xml) and
4719 a handfull of images. The XML file can now be used to generate PDF, HTML
4720 and epub versions of the English manual. This is the basic step of
4721 our process, making PDF (using dblatex), HTML (using xsltproc) and
4722 epub (using dbtoepub) version from Docbook XML, and the resulting files
4723 are placed in the debian-edu-doc-en binary package.
</p>
4725 <p>But English documentation is not enough for us. We want translated
4726 documentation too, and we want to make it easy for translators to
4727 track the English original. For this we use the
4728 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/p/poxml.html">poxml
</a> package,
4729 which allow us to transform the English Docbook XML file into a
4730 translation file (a .pot file), usable with the normal gettext based
4731 translation tools used by those translating free software. The pot
4732 file is used to create and maintain translation files (several .po
4733 files), which the translations update with the native language
4734 translations of all titles, paragraphs and blocks of text in the
4735 original. The next step is combining the original English Docbook XML
4736 and the translation file (say debian-edu-wheezy-manual.nb.po), to
4737 create a translated Docbook XML file (in this case
4738 debian-edu-wheezy-manual.nb.xml). This translated (or partly
4739 translated, if the translation is not complete) Docbook XML file can
4740 then be used like the original to create a PDF, HTML and epub version
4741 of the documentation.
</p>
4743 <p>The translators use different tools to edit the .po files. We
4745 <a href=
"http://www.kde.org/applications/development/lokalize/">lokalize
</a>,
4746 while some use emacs and vi, others can use web based editors like
4747 <a href=
"http://pootle.translatehouse.org/">Poodle
</a> or
4748 <a href=
"https://www.transifex.com/">Transifex
</a>. All we care about
4749 is where the .po file end up, in our git repository. Updated
4750 translations can either be committed directly to git, or submitted as
4751 <a href=
"https://bugs.debian.org/src:debian-edu-doc">bug reports
4752 against the debian-edu-doc package
</a>.
</p>
4754 <p>One challenge is images, which both might need to be translated (if
4755 they show translated user applications), and are needed in different
4756 formats when creating PDF and HTML versions (epub is a HTML version in
4757 this regard). For this we transform the original PNG images to the
4758 needed density and format during build, and have a way to provide
4759 translated images by storing translated versions in
4760 images/$LANGUAGECODE/. I am a bit unsure about the details here. The
4761 package maintainers know more.
</p>
4763 <p>If you wonder what the result look like, we provide
4764 <a href=
"http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/">the content
4765 of the documentation packages on the web
</a>. See for example the
4766 <a href=
"http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/it/debian-edu-wheezy-manual.pdf">Italian
4767 PDF version
</a> or the
4768 <a href=
"http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/de/debian-edu-wheezy-manual.html">German
4769 HTML version
</a>. We do not yet build the epub version by default,
4770 but perhaps it will be done in the future.
</p>
4772 <p>To learn more, check out
4773 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/debian-edu-doc.html">the
4774 debian-edu-doc package
</a>,
4775 <a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/">the
4776 manual on the wiki
</a> and
4777 <a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/Translations">the
4778 translation instructions
</a> in the manual.
</p>
4784 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>.
4789 <div class=
"padding"></div>
4793 <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>
4799 <p>It would be nice if it was easier in Debian to get all the hardware
4800 related packages relevant for the computer installed automatically.
4801 So I implemented one, using
4802 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">my Isenkram
4803 package
</a>. To use it, install the tasksel and isenkram packages and
4804 run tasksel as user root. You should be presented with a new option,
4805 "Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)". When you
4806 select it, tasksel will install the packages isenkram claim is fit for
4807 the current hardware, hot pluggable or not.
<p>
4809 <p>The implementation is in two files, one is the tasksel menu entry
4810 description, and the other is the script used to extract the list of
4811 packages to install. The first part is in
4812 <tt>/usr/share/tasksel/descs/isenkram.desc
</tt> and look like
4815 <p><blockquote><pre>
4818 Description: Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)
4819 Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific packages are
4821 Test-new-install: mark show
4823 Packages: for-current-hardware
4824 </pre></blockquote></p>
4826 <p>The second part is in
4827 <tt>/usr/lib/tasksel/packages/for-current-hardware
</tt> and look like
4830 <p><blockquote><pre>
4835 isenkram-autoinstall-firmware -l
4837 </pre></blockquote></p>
4839 <p>All in all, a very short and simple implementation making it
4840 trivial to install the hardware dependent package we all may want to
4841 have installed on our machines. I've not been able to find a way to
4842 get tasksel to tell you exactly which packages it plan to install
4843 before doing the installation. So if you are curious or careful,
4844 check the output from the isenkram-* command line tools first.
</p>
4846 <p>The information about which packages are handling which hardware is
4847 fetched either from the isenkram package itself in
4848 /usr/share/isenkram/, from git.debian.org or from the APT package
4849 database (using the Modaliases header). The APT package database
4850 parsing have caused a nasty resource leak in the isenkram daemon (bugs
4851 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/719837">#
719837</a> and
4852 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/730704">#
730704</a>). The cause is in
4853 the python-apt code (bug
4854 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/745487">#
745487</a>), but using a
4855 workaround I was able to get rid of the file descriptor leak and
4856 reduce the memory leak from ~
30 MiB per hardware detection down to
4857 around
2 MiB per hardware detection. It should make the desktop
4858 daemon a lot more useful. The fix is in version
0.7 uploaded to
4861 <p>I believe the current way of mapping hardware to packages in
4862 Isenkram is is a good draft, but in the future I expect isenkram to
4863 use the AppStream data source for this. A proposal for getting proper
4864 AppStream support into Debian is floating around as
4865 <a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/DEP-11">DEP-
11</a>, and
4866 <a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/SummerOfCode2014/Projects#SummerOfCode2014.2FProjects.2FAppStreamDEP11Implementation.AppStream.2FDEP-11_for_the_Debian_Archive">GSoC
4867 project
</a> will take place this summer to improve the situation. I
4868 look forward to seeing the result, and welcome patches for isenkram to
4869 start using the information when it is ready.
</p>
4871 <p>If you want your package to map to some specific hardware, either
4872 add a "Xb-Modaliases" header to your control file like I did in
4873 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/pymissile">the pymissile
4874 package
</a> or submit a bug report with the details to the isenkram
4876 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram/">all my
4877 blog posts tagged isenkram
</a> for details on the notation. I expect
4878 the information will be migrated to AppStream eventually, but for the
4879 moment I got no better place to store it.
</p>
4885 Tags:
<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>.
4890 <div class=
"padding"></div>
4894 <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>
4900 <p>The
<a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">Freedombox
4901 project
</a> is working on providing the software and hardware to make
4902 it easy for non-technical people to host their data and communication
4903 at home, and being able to communicate with their friends and family
4904 encrypted and away from prying eyes. It is still going strong, and
4905 today a major mile stone was reached.
</p>
4907 <p>Today, the last of the packages currently used by the project to
4908 created the system images were accepted into Debian Unstable. It was
4909 the freedombox-setup package, which is used to configure the images
4910 during build and on the first boot. Now all one need to get going is
4911 the build code from the freedom-maker git repository and packages from
4912 Debian. And once the freedombox-setup package enter testing, we can
4913 build everything directly from Debian. :)
</p>
4915 <p>Some key packages used by Freedombox are
4916 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/freedombox-setup">freedombox-setup
</a>,
4917 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/plinth">plinth
</a>,
4918 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/pagekite">pagekite
</a>,
4919 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/tor">tor
</a>,
4920 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/privoxy">privoxy
</a>,
4921 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/owncloud">owncloud
</a> and
4922 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/dnsmasq">dnsmasq
</a>. There
4923 are plans to integrate more packages into the setup. User
4924 documentation is maintained on the Debian wiki. Please
4925 <a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/Manual/Jessie">check out
4926 the manual
</a> and help us improve it.
</p>
4928 <p>To test for yourself and create boot images with the FreedomBox
4929 setup, run this on a Debian machine using a user with sudo rights to
4933 sudo apt-get install git vmdebootstrap mercurial python-docutils \
4934 mktorrent extlinux virtualbox qemu-user-static binfmt-support \
4936 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/freedombox/freedom-maker.git \
4938 make -C freedom-maker dreamplug-image raspberry-image virtualbox-image
4941 <p>Root access is needed to run debootstrap and mount loopback
4942 devices. See the README in the freedom-maker git repo for more
4943 details on the build. If you do not want all three images, trim the
4944 make line. Note that the virtualbox-image target is not really
4945 virtualbox specific. It create a x86 image usable in kvm, qemu,
4946 vmware and any other x86 virtual machine environment. You might need
4947 the version of vmdebootstrap in Jessie to get the build working, as it
4948 include fixes for a race condition with kpartx.
</p>
4950 <p>If you instead want to install using a Debian CD and the preseed
4951 method, boot a Debian Wheezy ISO and use this boot argument to load
4952 the preseed values:
</p>
4955 url=
<a href=
"http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat
</a>
4958 <p>I have not tested it myself the last few weeks, so I do not know if
4961 <p>If you wonder how to help, one task you could look at is using
4962 systemd as the boot system. It will become the default for Linux in
4963 Jessie, so we need to make sure it is usable on the Freedombox. I did
4964 a simple test a few weeks ago, and noticed dnsmasq failed to start
4965 during boot when using systemd. I suspect there are other problems
4966 too. :) To detect problems, there is a test suite included, which can
4967 be run from the plinth web interface.
</p>
4969 <p>Give it a go and let us know how it goes on the mailing list, and help
4970 us get the new release published. :) Please join us on
4971 <a href=
"irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC (#freedombox on
4972 irc.debian.org)
</a> and
4973 <a href=
"http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
4974 mailing list
</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.
</p>
4980 Tags:
<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>.
4985 <div class=
"padding"></div>
4989 <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>
4995 <p>For a while now, I have been looking for a sensible offsite backup
4996 solution for use at home. My requirements are simple, it must be
4997 cheap and locally encrypted (in other words, I keep the encryption
4998 keys, the storage provider do not have access to my private files).
4999 One idea me and my friends had many years ago, before the cloud
5000 storage providers showed up, was to use Google mail as storage,
5001 writing a Linux block device storing blocks as emails in the mail
5002 service provided by Google, and thus get heaps of free space. On top
5003 of this one can add encryption, RAID and volume management to have
5004 lots of (fairly slow, I admit that) cheap and encrypted storage. But
5005 I never found time to implement such system. But the last few weeks I
5006 have looked at a system called
5007 <a href=
"https://bitbucket.org/nikratio/s3ql/">S3QL
</a>, a locally
5008 mounted network backed file system with the features I need.
</p>
5010 <p>S3QL is a fuse file system with a local cache and cloud storage,
5011 handling several different storage providers, any with Amazon S3,
5012 Google Drive or OpenStack API. There are heaps of such storage
5013 providers. S3QL can also use a local directory as storage, which
5014 combined with sshfs allow for file storage on any ssh server. S3QL
5015 include support for encryption, compression, de-duplication, snapshots
5016 and immutable file systems, allowing me to mount the remote storage as
5017 a local mount point, look at and use the files as if they were local,
5018 while the content is stored in the cloud as well. This allow me to
5019 have a backup that should survive fire. The file system can not be
5020 shared between several machines at the same time, as only one can
5021 mount it at the time, but any machine with the encryption key and
5022 access to the storage service can mount it if it is unmounted.
</p>
5024 <p>It is simple to use. I'm using it on Debian Wheezy, where the
5025 package is included already. So to get started, run
<tt>apt-get
5026 install s3ql
</tt>. Next, pick a storage provider. I ended up picking
5027 Greenqloud, after reading their nice recipe on
5028 <a href=
"https://greenqloud.zendesk.com/entries/44611757-How-To-Use-S3QL-to-mount-a-StorageQloud-bucket-on-Debian-Wheezy">how
5029 to use S3QL with their Amazon S3 service
</a>, because I trust the laws
5030 in Iceland more than those in USA when it come to keeping my personal
5031 data safe and private, and thus would rather spend money on a company
5032 in Iceland. Another nice recipe is available from the article
5033 <a href=
"http://www.admin-magazine.com/HPC/Articles/HPC-Cloud-Storage">S3QL
5034 Filesystem for HPC Storage
</a> by Jeff Layton in the HPC section of
5035 Admin magazine. When the provider is picked, figure out how to get
5036 the API key needed to connect to the storage API. With Greencloud,
5037 the key did not show up until I had added payment details to my
5040 <p>Armed with the API access details, it is time to create the file
5041 system. First, create a new bucket in the cloud. This bucket is the
5042 file system storage area. I picked a bucket name reflecting the
5043 machine that was going to store data there, but any name will do.
5044 I'll refer to it as
<tt>bucket-name
</tt> below. In addition, one need
5045 the API login and password, and a locally created password. Store it
5046 all in ~root/.s3ql/authinfo2 like this:
5048 <p><blockquote><pre>
5050 storage-url: s3c://s.greenqloud.com:
443/bucket-name
5051 backend-login: API-login
5052 backend-password: API-password
5053 fs-passphrase: local-password
5054 </pre></blockquote></p>
5056 <p>I create my local passphrase using
<tt>pwget
50</tt> or similar,
5057 but any sensible way to create a fairly random password should do it.
5058 Armed with these details, it is now time to run mkfs, entering the API
5059 details and password to create it:
</p>
5061 <p><blockquote><pre>
5062 # mkdir -m
700 /var/lib/s3ql-cache
5063 # mkfs.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
5064 --ssl s3c://s.greenqloud.com:
443/bucket-name
5065 Enter backend login:
5066 Enter backend password:
5067 Before using S3QL, make sure to read the user's guide, especially
5068 the 'Important Rules to Avoid Loosing Data' section.
5069 Enter encryption password:
5070 Confirm encryption password:
5071 Generating random encryption key...
5072 Creating metadata tables...
5082 Compressing and uploading metadata...
5083 Wrote
0.00 MB of compressed metadata.
5084 #
</pre></blockquote></p>
5086 <p>The next step is mounting the file system to make the storage available.
5088 <p><blockquote><pre>
5089 # mount.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
5090 --ssl --allow-root s3c://s.greenqloud.com:
443/bucket-name /s3ql
5091 Using
4 upload threads.
5092 Downloading and decompressing metadata...
5102 Mounting filesystem...
5104 Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
5105 s3c://s.greenqloud.com:
443/bucket-name
1.0T
0 1.0T
0% /s3ql
5107 </pre></blockquote></p>
5109 <p>The file system is now ready for use. I use rsync to store my
5110 backups in it, and as the metadata used by rsync is downloaded at
5111 mount time, no network traffic (and storage cost) is triggered by
5112 running rsync. To unmount, one should not use the normal umount
5113 command, as this will not flush the cache to the cloud storage, but
5114 instead running the umount.s3ql command like this:
5116 <p><blockquote><pre>
5119 </pre></blockquote></p>
5121 <p>There is a fsck command available to check the file system and
5122 correct any problems detected. This can be used if the local server
5123 crashes while the file system is mounted, to reset the "already
5124 mounted" flag. This is what it look like when processing a working
5127 <p><blockquote><pre>
5128 # fsck.s3ql --force --ssl s3c://s.greenqloud.com:
443/bucket-name
5129 Using cached metadata.
5130 File system seems clean, checking anyway.
5131 Checking DB integrity...
5132 Creating temporary extra indices...
5133 Checking lost+found...
5134 Checking cached objects...
5135 Checking names (refcounts)...
5136 Checking contents (names)...
5137 Checking contents (inodes)...
5138 Checking contents (parent inodes)...
5139 Checking objects (reference counts)...
5140 Checking objects (backend)...
5141 ..processed
5000 objects so far..
5142 ..processed
10000 objects so far..
5143 ..processed
15000 objects so far..
5144 Checking objects (sizes)...
5145 Checking blocks (referenced objects)...
5146 Checking blocks (refcounts)...
5147 Checking inode-block mapping (blocks)...
5148 Checking inode-block mapping (inodes)...
5149 Checking inodes (refcounts)...
5150 Checking inodes (sizes)...
5151 Checking extended attributes (names)...
5152 Checking extended attributes (inodes)...
5153 Checking symlinks (inodes)...
5154 Checking directory reachability...
5155 Checking unix conventions...
5156 Checking referential integrity...
5157 Dropping temporary indices...
5158 Backing up old metadata...
5168 Compressing and uploading metadata...
5169 Wrote
0.89 MB of compressed metadata.
5171 </pre></blockquote></p>
5173 <p>Thanks to the cache, working on files that fit in the cache is very
5174 quick, about the same speed as local file access. Uploading large
5175 amount of data is to me limited by the bandwidth out of and into my
5176 house. Uploading
685 MiB with a
100 MiB cache gave me
305 kiB/s,
5177 which is very close to my upload speed, and downloading the same
5178 Debian installation ISO gave me
610 kiB/s, close to my download speed.
5179 Both were measured using
<tt>dd
</tt>. So for me, the bottleneck is my
5180 network, not the file system code. I do not know what a good cache
5181 size would be, but suspect that the cache should e larger than your
5184 <p>I mentioned that only one machine can mount the file system at the
5185 time. If another machine try, it is told that the file system is
5188 <p><blockquote><pre>
5189 # mount.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
5190 --ssl --allow-root s3c://s.greenqloud.com:
443/bucket-name /s3ql
5191 Using
8 upload threads.
5192 Backend reports that fs is still mounted elsewhere, aborting.
5194 </pre></blockquote></p>
5196 <p>The file content is uploaded when the cache is full, while the
5197 metadata is uploaded once every
24 hour by default. To ensure the
5198 file system content is flushed to the cloud, one can either umount the
5199 file system, or ask S3QL to flush the cache and metadata using
5202 <p><blockquote><pre>
5203 # s3qlctrl upload-meta /s3ql
5204 # s3qlctrl flushcache /s3ql
5206 </pre></blockquote></p>
5208 <p>If you are curious about how much space your data uses in the
5209 cloud, and how much compression and deduplication cut down on the
5210 storage usage, you can use s3qlstat on the mounted file system to get
5213 <p><blockquote><pre>
5215 Directory entries:
9141
5218 Total data size:
22049.38 MB
5219 After de-duplication:
21955.46 MB (
99.57% of total)
5220 After compression:
21877.28 MB (
99.22% of total,
99.64% of de-duplicated)
5221 Database size:
2.39 MB (uncompressed)
5222 (some values do not take into account not-yet-uploaded dirty blocks in cache)
5224 </pre></blockquote></p>
5226 <p>I mentioned earlier that there are several possible suppliers of
5227 storage. I did not try to locate them all, but am aware of at least
5228 <a href=
"https://www.greenqloud.com/">Greenqloud
</a>,
5229 <a href=
"http://drive.google.com/">Google Drive
</a>,
5230 <a href=
"http://aws.amazon.com/s3/">Amazon S3 web serivces
</a>,
5231 <a href=
"http://www.rackspace.com/">Rackspace
</a> and
5232 <a href=
"http://crowncloud.net/">Crowncloud
</A>. The latter even
5233 accept payment in Bitcoin. Pick one that suit your need. Some of
5234 them provide several GiB of free storage, but the prize models are
5235 quite different and you will have to figure out what suits you
5238 <p>While researching this blog post, I had a look at research papers
5239 and posters discussing the S3QL file system. There are several, which
5240 told me that the file system is getting a critical check by the
5241 science community and increased my confidence in using it. One nice
5243 "
<a href=
"http://www.lanl.gov/orgs/adtsc/publications/science_highlights_2013/docs/pg68_69.pdf">An
5244 Innovative Parallel Cloud Storage System using OpenStack’s SwiftObject
5245 Store and Transformative Parallel I/O Approach
</a>" by Hsing-Bung
5246 Chen, Benjamin McClelland, David Sherrill, Alfred Torrez, Parks Fields
5247 and Pamela Smith. Please have a look.</p>
5249 <p>Given my problems with different file systems earlier, I decided to
5250 check out the mounted S3QL file system to see if it would be usable as
5251 a home directory (in other word, that it provided POSIX semantics when
5252 it come to locking and umask handling etc). Running
5253 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_if_a_file_system_can_be_used_for_home_directories___.html
">my
5254 test code to check file system semantics</a>, I was happy to discover that
5255 no error was found. So the file system can be used for home
5256 directories, if one chooses to do so.</p>
5258 <p>If you do not want a locally file system, and want something that
5259 work without the Linux fuse file system, I would like to mention the
5260 <a href="http://www.tarsnap.com/
">Tarsnap service</a>, which also
5261 provide locally encrypted backup using a command line client. It have
5262 a nicer access control system, where one can split out read and write
5263 access, allowing some systems to write to the backup and others to
5264 only read from it.</p>
5266 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
5267 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
5268 <b><a href="bitcoin:
15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
5274 Tags: <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>.
5279 <div class="padding
"></div>
5283 <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>
5289 <p>The <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox
">Freedombox
5290 project</a> is working on providing the software and hardware for
5291 making it easy for non-technical people to host their data and
5292 communication at home, and being able to communicate with their
5293 friends and family encrypted and away from prying eyes. It has been
5294 going on for a while, and is slowly progressing towards a new test
5297 <p>And what day could be better than the Pi day to announce that the
5298 new version will provide "hard drive" / SD card / USB stick images for
5299 Dreamplug, Raspberry Pi and VirtualBox (or any other virtualization
5300 system), and can also be installed using a Debian installer preseed
5301 file. The Debian based Freedombox is now based on Debian Jessie,
5302 where most of the needed packages used are already present. Only one,
5303 the freedombox-setup package, is missing. To try to build your own
5304 boot image to test the current status, fetch the freedom-maker scripts
5306 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/vmdebootstrap">vmdebootstrap
</a>
5307 with a user with sudo access to become root:
5310 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/freedombox/freedom-maker.git \
5312 sudo apt-get install git vmdebootstrap mercurial python-docutils \
5313 mktorrent extlinux virtualbox qemu-user-static binfmt-support \
5315 make -C freedom-maker dreamplug-image raspberry-image virtualbox-image
5318 <p>Root access is needed to run debootstrap and mount loopback
5319 devices. See the README for more details on the build. If you do not
5320 want all three images, trim the make line. But note that thanks to
<a
5321 href=
"https://bugs.debian.org/741407">a race condition in
5322 vmdebootstrap
</a>, the build might fail without the patch to the
5325 <p>If you instead want to install using a Debian CD and the preseed
5326 method, boot a Debian Wheezy ISO and use this boot argument to load
5327 the preseed values:
</p>
5330 url=
<a href=
"http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat
</a>
5333 <p>But note that due to
<a href=
"https://bugs.debian.org/740673">a
5334 recently introduced bug in apt in Jessie
</a>, the installer will
5335 currently hang while setting up APT sources. Killing the
5336 '
<tt>apt-cdrom ident
</tt>' process when it hang a few times during the
5337 installation will get the installation going. This affect all
5338 installations in Jessie, and I expect it will be fixed soon.
</p>
5340 <p>Give it a go and let us know how it goes on the mailing list, and help
5341 us get the new release published. :) Please join us on
5342 <a href=
"irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC (#freedombox on
5343 irc.debian.org)
</a> and
5344 <a href=
"http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
5345 mailing list
</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.
</p>
5351 Tags:
<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>.
5356 <div class=
"padding"></div>
5360 <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>
5366 <p>Many years ago, I wrote a GPL licensed version of the netgroup and
5367 innetgr tools, because I needed them in
5368 <a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux
</a>. I called the project
5369 ng-utils, and it has served me well. I placed the project under the
5370 <a href=
"http://www.hungry.com/">Hungry Programmer
</a> umbrella, and it was maintained in our CVS
5371 repository. But many years ago, the CVS repository was dropped (lost,
5372 not migrated to new hardware, not sure), and the project have lacked a
5373 proper home since then.
</p>
5375 <p>Last summer, I had a look at the package and made a new release
5376 fixing a irritating crash bug, but was unable to store the changes in
5377 a proper source control system. I applied for a project on
5378 <a href=
"https://alioth.debian.org/">Alioth
</a>, but did not have time
5379 to follow up on it. Until today. :)
</p>
5381 <p>After many hours of cleaning and migration, the ng-utils project
5382 now have a new home, and a git repository with the highlight of the
5383 history of the project. I published all release tarballs and imported
5384 them into the git repository. As the project is really stable and not
5385 expected to gain new features any time soon, I decided to make a new
5386 release and call it
1.0. Visit the new project home on
5387 <a href=
"https://alioth.debian.org/projects/ng-utils/">https://alioth.debian.org/projects/ng-utils/
</a>
5388 if you want to check it out. The new version is also uploaded into
5389 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/n/ng-utils.html">Debian Unstable
</a>.
</p>
5395 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
5400 <div class=
"padding"></div>
5404 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_sysvinit_from_experimental_in_Debian_Hurd.html">Testing sysvinit from experimental in Debian Hurd
</a>
5410 <p>A few days ago I decided to try to help the Hurd people to get
5411 their changes into sysvinit, to allow them to use the normal sysvinit
5412 boot system instead of their old one. This follow up on the
5413 <a href=
"https://teythoon.cryptobitch.de//categories/gsoc.html">great
5414 Google Summer of Code work
</a> done last summer by Justus Winter to
5415 get Debian on Hurd working more like Debian on Linux. To get started,
5416 I downloaded a prebuilt hard disk image from
5417 <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>,
5418 and started it using virt-manager.
</p>
5420 <p>The first think I had to do after logging in (root without any
5421 password) was to get the network operational. I followed
5422 <a href=
"https://www.debian.org/ports/hurd/hurd-install">the
5423 instructions on the Debian GNU/Hurd ports page
</a> and ran these
5424 commands as root to get the machine to accept a IP address from the
5425 kvm internal DHCP server:
</p>
5427 <p><blockquote><pre>
5428 settrans -fgap /dev/netdde /hurd/netdde
5429 kill $(ps -ef|awk '/[p]finet/ { print $
2}')
5430 kill $(ps -ef|awk '/[d]evnode/ { print $
2}')
5432 </pre></blockquote></p>
5434 <p>After this, the machine had internet connectivity, and I could
5435 upgrade it and install the sysvinit packages from experimental and
5436 enable it as the default boot system in Hurd.
</p>
5438 <p>But before I did that, I set a password on the root user, as ssh is
5439 running on the machine it for ssh login to work a password need to be
5440 set. Also, note that a bug somewhere in openssh on Hurd block
5441 compression from working. Remember to turn that off on the client
5444 <p>Run these commands as root to upgrade and test the new sysvinit
5447 <p><blockquote><pre>
5448 cat
> /etc/apt/sources.list.d/experimental.list
<<EOF
5449 deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ experimental main
5452 apt-get dist-upgrade
5453 apt-get install -t experimental initscripts sysv-rc sysvinit \
5454 sysvinit-core sysvinit-utils
5455 update-alternatives --config runsystem
5456 </pre></blockquote></p>
5458 <p>To reboot after switching boot system, you have to use
5459 <tt>reboot-hurd
</tt> instead of just
<tt>reboot
</tt>, as there is not
5460 yet a sysvinit process able to receive the signals from the normal
5461 'reboot' command. After switching to sysvinit as the boot system,
5462 upgrading every package and rebooting, the network come up with DHCP
5463 after boot as it should, and the settrans/pkill hack mentioned at the
5464 start is no longer needed. But for some strange reason, there are no
5465 longer any login prompt in the virtual console, so I logged in using
5468 <p>Note that there are some race conditions in Hurd making the boot
5469 fail some times. No idea what the cause is, but hope the Hurd porters
5470 figure it out. At least Justus said on IRC (#debian-hurd on
5471 irc.debian.org) that they are aware of the problem. A way to reduce
5472 the impact is to upgrade to the Hurd packages built by Justus by
5473 adding this repository to the machine:
</p>
5475 <p><blockquote><pre>
5476 cat
> /etc/apt/sources.list.d/hurd-ci.list
<<EOF
5477 deb http://darnassus.sceen.net/~teythoon/hurd-ci/ sid main
5479 </pre></blockquote></p>
5481 <p>At the moment the prebuilt virtual machine get some packages from
5482 http://ftp.debian-ports.org/debian, because some of the packages in
5483 unstable do not yet include the required patches that are lingering in
5484 BTS. This is the completely list of "unofficial" packages installed:
</p>
5486 <p><blockquote><pre>
5487 # aptitude search '?narrow(?version(CURRENT),?origin(Debian Ports))'
5488 i emacs - GNU Emacs editor (metapackage)
5489 i gdb - GNU Debugger
5490 i hurd-recommended - Miscellaneous translators
5491 i isc-dhcp-client - ISC DHCP client
5492 i isc-dhcp-common - common files used by all the isc-dhcp* packages
5493 i libc-bin - Embedded GNU C Library: Binaries
5494 i libc-dev-bin - Embedded GNU C Library: Development binaries
5495 i libc0.3 - Embedded GNU C Library: Shared libraries
5496 i A libc0.3-dbg - Embedded GNU C Library: detached debugging symbols
5497 i libc0.3-dev - Embedded GNU C Library: Development Libraries and Hea
5498 i multiarch-support - Transitional package to ensure multiarch compatibilit
5499 i A x11-common - X Window System (X.Org) infrastructure
5500 i xorg - X.Org X Window System
5501 i A xserver-xorg - X.Org X server
5502 i A xserver-xorg-input-all - X.Org X server -- input driver metapackage
5504 </pre></blockquote></p>
5506 <p>All in all, testing hurd has been an interesting experience. :)
5507 X.org did not work out of the box and I never took the time to follow
5508 the porters instructions to fix it. This time I was interested in the
5509 command line stuff.
<p>
5515 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>.
5520 <div class=
"padding"></div>
5524 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_chrpath_release_0_16.html">New chrpath release
0.16</a>
5530 <p><a href=
"http://www.coverity.com/">Coverity
</a> is a nice tool to
5531 find problems in C, C++ and Java code using static source code
5532 analysis. It can detect a lot of different problems, and is very
5533 useful to find memory and locking bugs in the error handling part of
5534 the source. The company behind it provide
5535 <a href=
"https://scan.coverity.com/">check of free software projects as
5536 a community service
</a>, and many hundred free software projects are
5537 already checked. A few days ago I decided to have a closer look at
5538 the Coverity system, and discovered that the
5539 <a href=
"http://www.gnu.org/software/gnash/">gnash
</a> and
5540 <a href=
"http://sourceforge.net/projects/ipmitool/">ipmitool
</a>
5541 projects I am involved with was already registered. But these are
5542 fairly big, and I would also like to have a small and easy project to
5543 check, and decided to
<a href=
"http://scan.coverity.com/projects/1179">request
5544 checking of the chrpath project
</a>. It was
5545 added to the checker and discovered seven potential defects. Six of
5546 these were real, mostly resource "leak" when the program detected an
5547 error. Nothing serious, as the resources would be released a fraction
5548 of a second later when the program exited because of the error, but it
5549 is nice to do it right in case the source of the program some time in
5550 the future end up in a library. Having fixed all defects and added
5551 <a href=
"https://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/chrpath-devel">a
5552 mailing list for the chrpath developers
</a>, I decided it was time to
5553 publish a new release. These are the release notes:
</p>
5555 <p>New in
0.16 released
2014-
01-
14:
</p>
5559 <li>Fixed all minor bugs discovered by Coverity.
</li>
5560 <li>Updated config.sub and config.guess from the GNU project.
</li>
5561 <li>Mention new project mailing list in the documentation.
</li>
5566 <a href=
"https://alioth.debian.org/frs/?group_id=31052">download the
5567 new version
0.16 from alioth
</a>. Please let us know via the Alioth
5568 project if something is wrong with the new release. The test suite
5569 did not discover any old errors, so if you find a new one, please also
5570 include a test suite check.
</p>
5576 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>.
5581 <div class=
"padding"></div>
5585 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_chrpath_release_0_15.html">New chrpath release
0.15</a>
5591 <p>After many years break from the package and a vain hope that
5592 development would be continued by someone else, I finally pulled my
5593 acts together this morning and wrapped up a new release of chrpath,
5594 the command line tool to modify the rpath and runpath of already
5595 compiled ELF programs. The update was triggered by the persistence of
5596 Isha Vishnoi at IBM, which needed a new config.guess file to get
5597 support for the ppc64le architecture (powerpc
64-bit Little Endian) he
5598 is working on. I checked the
5599 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/chrpath">Debian
</a>,
5600 <a href=
"https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/chrpath">Ubuntu
</a> and
5601 <a href=
"https://admin.fedoraproject.org/pkgdb/acls/name/chrpath">Fedora
</a>
5602 packages for interesting patches (failed to find the source from
5603 OpenSUSE and Mandriva packages), and found quite a few nice fixes.
5604 These are the release notes:
</p>
5606 <p>New in
0.15 released
2013-
11-
24:
</p>
5610 <li>Updated config.sub and config.guess from the GNU project to work
5611 with newer architectures. Thanks to isha vishnoi for the heads
5614 <li>Updated README with current URLs.
</li>
5616 <li>Added byteswap fix found in Ubuntu, credited Jeremy Kerr and
5617 Matthias Klose.
</li>
5619 <li>Added missing help for -k|--keepgoing option, using patch by
5620 Petr Machata found in Fedora.
</li>
5622 <li>Rewrite removal of RPATH/RUNPATH to make sure the entry in
5623 .dynamic is a NULL terminated string. Based on patch found in
5624 Fedora credited Axel Thimm and Christian Krause.
</li>
5629 <a href=
"https://alioth.debian.org/frs/?group_id=31052">download the
5630 new version
0.15 from alioth
</a>. Please let us know via the Alioth
5631 project if something is wrong with the new release. The test suite
5632 did not discover any old errors, so if you find a new one, please also
5633 include a testsuite check.
</p>
5639 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>.
5644 <div class=
"padding"></div>
5648 <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>
5654 <p>If one of the points of switching to a new init system in Debian is
5655 <a href=
"http://thomas.goirand.fr/blog/?p=147">to get rid of huge
5656 init.d scripts
</a>, I doubt we need to switch away from sysvinit and
5657 init.d scripts at all. Here is an example init.d script, ie a rewrite
5658 of /etc/init.d/rsyslog:
</p>
5661 #!/lib/init/init-d-script
5664 # Required-Start: $remote_fs $time
5665 # Required-Stop: umountnfs $time
5666 # X-Stop-After: sendsigs
5667 # Default-Start:
2 3 4 5
5668 # Default-Stop:
0 1 6
5669 # Short-Description: enhanced syslogd
5670 # Description: Rsyslog is an enhanced multi-threaded syslogd.
5671 # It is quite compatible to stock sysklogd and can be
5672 # used as a drop-in replacement.
5674 DESC="enhanced syslogd"
5675 DAEMON=/usr/sbin/rsyslogd
5678 <p>Pretty minimalistic to me... For the record, the original sysv-rc
5679 script was
137 lines, and the above is just
15 lines, most of it meta
5682 <p>How to do this, you ask? Well, one create a new script
5683 /lib/init/init-d-script looking something like this:
5688 # Define LSB log_* functions.
5689 # Depend on lsb-base (
>=
3.2-
14) to ensure that this file is present
5690 # and status_of_proc is working.
5691 . /lib/lsb/init-functions
5694 # Function that starts the daemon/service
5700 #
0 if daemon has been started
5701 #
1 if daemon was already running
5702 #
2 if daemon could not be started
5703 start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $DAEMON --test
> /dev/null \
5705 start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $DAEMON -- \
5708 # Add code here, if necessary, that waits for the process to be ready
5709 # to handle requests from services started subsequently which depend
5710 # on this one. As a last resort, sleep for some time.
5714 # Function that stops the daemon/service
5719 #
0 if daemon has been stopped
5720 #
1 if daemon was already stopped
5721 #
2 if daemon could not be stopped
5722 # other if a failure occurred
5723 start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --retry=TERM/
30/KILL/
5 --pidfile $PIDFILE --name $NAME
5725 [ "$RETVAL" =
2 ] && return
2
5726 # Wait for children to finish too if this is a daemon that forks
5727 # and if the daemon is only ever run from this initscript.
5728 # If the above conditions are not satisfied then add some other code
5729 # that waits for the process to drop all resources that could be
5730 # needed by services started subsequently. A last resort is to
5731 # sleep for some time.
5732 start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --oknodo --retry=
0/
30/KILL/
5 --exec $DAEMON
5733 [ "$?" =
2 ] && return
2
5734 # Many daemons don't delete their pidfiles when they exit.
5740 # Function that sends a SIGHUP to the daemon/service
5744 # If the daemon can reload its configuration without
5745 # restarting (for example, when it is sent a SIGHUP),
5746 # then implement that here.
5748 start-stop-daemon --stop --signal
1 --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --name $NAME
5753 scriptbasename="$(basename $
1)"
5754 echo "SN: $scriptbasename"
5755 if [ "$scriptbasename" != "init-d-library" ] ; then
5763 NAME=$(basename $DAEMON)
5764 PIDFILE=/var/run/$NAME.pid
5766 # Exit if the package is not installed
5767 #[ -x "$DAEMON" ] || exit
0
5769 # Read configuration variable file if it is present
5770 [ -r /etc/default/$NAME ] && . /etc/default/$NAME
5772 # Load the VERBOSE setting and other rcS variables
5777 [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_daemon_msg "Starting $DESC" "$NAME"
5780 0|
1) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg
0 ;;
5781 2) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg
1 ;;
5785 [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_daemon_msg "Stopping $DESC" "$NAME"
5788 0|
1) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg
0 ;;
5789 2) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg
1 ;;
5793 status_of_proc "$DAEMON" "$NAME" && exit
0 || exit $?
5795 #reload|force-reload)
5797 # If do_reload() is not implemented then leave this commented out
5798 # and leave 'force-reload' as an alias for 'restart'.
5800 #log_daemon_msg "Reloading $DESC" "$NAME"
5804 restart|force-reload)
5806 # If the "reload" option is implemented then remove the
5807 # 'force-reload' alias
5809 log_daemon_msg "Restarting $DESC" "$NAME"
5816 1) log_end_msg
1 ;; # Old process is still running
5817 *) log_end_msg
1 ;; # Failed to start
5827 echo "Usage: $SCRIPTNAME {start|stop|status|restart|force-reload}"
>&
2
5835 <p>It is based on /etc/init.d/skeleton, and could be improved quite a
5836 lot. I did not really polish the approach, so it might not always
5837 work out of the box, but you get the idea. I did not try very hard to
5838 optimize it nor make it more robust either.
</p>
5840 <p>A better argument for switching init system in Debian than reducing
5841 the size of init scripts (which is a good thing to do anyway), is to
5842 get boot system that is able to handle the kernel events sensibly and
5843 robustly, and do not depend on the boot to run sequentially. The boot
5844 and the kernel have not behaved sequentially in years.
</p>
5850 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>.
5855 <div class=
"padding"></div>
5859 <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>
5865 <p><a href=
"http://www.spice-space.org/">The SPICE protocol
</a> for
5866 remote display access is the preferred solution with oVirt and RedHat
5867 Enterprise Virtualization, and I was sad to discover the other day
5868 that the browser plugin needed to use these systems seamlessly was
5869 missing in Debian. The
<a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/668284">request
5870 for a package
</a> was from
2012-
04-
10 with no progress since
5871 2013-
04-
01, so I decided to wrap up a package based on the great work
5872 from Cajus Pollmeier and put it in a collab-maint maintained git
5873 repository to get a package I could use. I would very much like
5874 others to help me maintain the package (or just take over, I do not
5875 mind), but as no-one had volunteered so far, I just uploaded it to
5876 NEW. I hope it will be available in Debian in a few days.
</p>
5878 <p>The source is now available from
5879 <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>
5885 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
5890 <div class=
"padding"></div>
5894 <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>
5901 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/v/vmdebootstrap.html">vmdebootstrap
</a>
5902 program is a a very nice system to create virtual machine images. It
5903 create a image file, add a partition table, mount it and run
5904 debootstrap in the mounted directory to create a Debian system on a
5905 stick. Yesterday, I decided to try to teach it how to make images for
5906 <a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/RaspberryPi">Raspberry Pi
</a>, as part
5907 of a plan to simplify the build system for
5908 <a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">the FreedomBox
5909 project
</a>. The FreedomBox project already uses vmdebootstrap for
5910 the virtualbox images, but its current build system made multistrap
5911 based system for Dreamplug images, and it is lacking support for
5914 <p>Armed with the knowledge on how to build "foreign" (aka non-native
5915 architecture) chroots for Raspberry Pi, I dived into the vmdebootstrap
5916 code and adjusted it to be able to build armel images on my amd64
5917 Debian laptop. I ended up giving vmdebootstrap five new options,
5918 allowing me to replicate the image creation process I use to make
5919 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Raspberry_Pi_based_batman_adv_Mesh_network_node.html">Debian
5920 Jessie based mesh node images for the Raspberry Pi
</a>. First, the
5921 <tt>--foreign /path/to/binfm_handler
</tt> option tell vmdebootstrap to
5922 call debootstrap with --foreign and to copy the handler into the
5923 generated chroot before running the second stage. This allow
5924 vmdebootstrap to create armel images on an amd64 host. Next I added
5925 two new options
<tt>--bootsize size
</tt> and
<tt>--boottype
5926 fstype
</tt> to teach it to create a separate /boot/ partition with the
5927 given file system type, allowing me to create an image with a vfat
5928 partition for the /boot/ stuff. I also added a
<tt>--variant
5929 variant
</tt> option to allow me to create smaller images without the
5930 Debian base system packages installed. Finally, I added an option
5931 <tt>--no-extlinux
</tt> to tell vmdebootstrap to not install extlinux
5932 as a boot loader. It is not needed on the Raspberry Pi and probably
5933 most other non-x86 architectures. The changes were accepted by the
5934 upstream author of vmdebootstrap yesterday and today, and is now
5936 <a href=
"http://git.liw.fi/cgi-bin/cgit/cgit.cgi/vmdebootstrap/">the
5937 upstream project page
</a>.
</p>
5939 <p>To use it to build a Raspberry Pi image using Debian Jessie, first
5940 create a small script (the customize script) to add the non-free
5941 binary blob needed to boot the Raspberry Pi and the APT source
5946 set -e # Exit on first error
5949 cat
<<EOF
> etc/apt/sources.list
5950 deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ jessie main contrib non-free
5952 # Install non-free binary blob needed to boot Raspberry Pi. This
5953 # install a kernel somewhere too.
5954 wget https://raw.github.com/Hexxeh/rpi-update/master/rpi-update \
5955 -O $rootdir/usr/bin/rpi-update
5956 chmod a+x $rootdir/usr/bin/rpi-update
5957 mkdir -p $rootdir/lib/modules
5958 touch $rootdir/boot/start.elf
5959 chroot $rootdir rpi-update
5962 <p>Next, fetch the latest vmdebootstrap script and call it like this
5963 to build the image:
</p>
5966 sudo ./vmdebootstrap \
5969 --distribution jessie \
5970 --mirror http://http.debian.net/debian \
5979 --root-password raspberry \
5980 --hostname raspberrypi \
5981 --foreign /usr/bin/qemu-arm-static \
5982 --customize `pwd`/customize \
5984 --package git-core \
5985 --package binutils \
5986 --package ca-certificates \
5991 <p>The list of packages being installed are the ones needed by
5992 rpi-update to make the image bootable on the Raspberry Pi, with the
5993 exception of netbase, which is needed by debootstrap to find
5994 /etc/hosts with the minbase variant. I really wish there was a way to
5995 set up an Raspberry Pi using only packages in the Debian archive, but
5996 that is not possible as far as I know, because it boots from the GPU
5997 using a non-free binary blob.
</p>
5999 <p>The build host need debootstrap, kpartx and qemu-user-static and
6000 probably a few others installed. I have not checked the complete
6001 build dependency list.
</p>
6003 <p>The resulting image will not use the hardware floating point unit
6004 on the Raspberry PI, because the armel architecture in Debian is not
6005 optimized for that use. So the images created will be a bit slower
6006 than
<a href=
"http://www.raspbian.org/">Raspbian
</a> based images.
</p>
6012 Tags:
<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>.
6017 <div class=
"padding"></div>
6021 <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>
6027 <p>The last few days I came across a few good causes that should get
6028 wider attention. I recommend signing and donating to each one of
6031 <p>Via
<a href=
"http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2013/18/">Debian
6032 Project News for
2013-
10-
14</a> I came across the Outreach Program for
6033 Women program which is a Google Summer of Code like initiative to get
6034 more women involved in free software. One debian sponsor has offered
6035 to match
<a href=
"http://debian.ch/opw2013">any donation done to Debian
6036 earmarked
</a> for this initiative. I donated a few minutes ago, and
6037 hope you will to. :)
</p>
6039 <p>And the Electronic Frontier Foundation just announced plans to
6040 create
<a href=
"https://supporters.eff.org/donate/nsa-videos">video
6041 documentaries about the excessive spying
</a> on every Internet user that
6042 take place these days, and their need to fund the work. I've already
6043 donated. Are you next?
</p>
6045 <p>For my Norwegian audience, the organisation Studentenes og
6046 Akademikernes Internasjonale Hjelpefond is collecting signatures for a
6047 statement under the heading
6048 <a href=
"http://saih.no/Bloggers_United/">Bloggers United for Open
6049 Access
</a> for those of us asking for more focus on open access in the
6050 Norwegian government. So far
499 signatures. I hope you will sign it
6057 Tags:
<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>.
6062 <div class=
"padding"></div>
6066 <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>
6072 <p>The
<a href=
"http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/">Freedombox
6073 project
</a> have been going on for a while, and have presented the
6074 vision, ideas and solution several places. Here is a little
6075 collection of videos of talks and presentation of the project.
</p>
6079 <li><a href=
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukvUz5taxvA">FreedomBox -
6080 2,
5 minute marketing film
</a> (Youtube)
</li>
6082 <li><a href=
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzW25QTVWsE">Eben Moglen
6083 discusses the Freedombox on CBS news
2011</a> (Youtube)
</li>
6085 <li><a href=
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ae8SZbxfE0g">Eben Moglen -
6086 Freedom in the Cloud - Software Freedom, Privacy and and Security for
6087 Web
2.0 and Cloud computing at ISOC-NY Public Meeting
2010</a>
6090 <li><a href=
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNaIji_3xBE">Fosdem
2011
6091 Keynote by Eben Moglen presenting the Freedombox
</a> (Youtube)
</li>
6093 <li><a href=
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bDDUyJSQ9s">Presentation of
6094 the Freedombox by James Vasile at Elevate in Gratz
2011</a> (Youtube)
</li>
6096 <li><a href=
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQTmnk27g9s"> Freedombox -
6097 Discovery, Identity, and Trust by Nick Daly at Freedombox Hackfest New
6098 York City in
2012</a> (Youtube)
</li>
6100 <li><a href=
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkbSB4Ba7Ck">Introduction
6101 to the Freedombox at Freedombox Hackfest New York City in
2012</a>
6104 <li><a href=
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-P2Jaeg0aQ">Freedom, Out
6105 of the Box! by Bdale Garbee at linux.conf.au Ballarat,
2012</a> (Youtube)
</li>
6107 <li><a href=
"https://archive.fosdem.org/2013/schedule/event/freedombox/">Freedombox
6108 1.0 by Eben Moglen and Bdale Garbee at Fosdem
2013</a> (FOSDEM)
</li>
6110 <li><a href=
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1LpYX2zVYg">What is the
6111 FreedomBox today by Bdale Garbee at Debconf13 in Vaumarcus
6112 2013</a> (Youtube)
</li>
6116 <p>A larger list is available from
6117 <a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/TalksAndPresentations">the
6118 Freedombox Wiki
</a>.
</p>
6120 <p>On other news, I am happy to report that Freedombox based on Debian
6121 Jessie is coming along quite well, and soon both Owncloud and using
6122 Tor should be available for testers of the Freedombox solution. :) In
6123 a few weeks I hope everything needed to test it is included in Debian.
6124 The withsqlite package is already in Debian, and the plinth package is
6125 pending in NEW. The third and vital part of that puzzle is the
6126 metapackage/setup framework, which is still pending an upload. Join
6127 us on
<a href=
"irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC
6128 (#freedombox on irc.debian.org)
</a> and
6129 <a href=
"http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
6130 mailing list
</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.
</p>
6136 Tags:
<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>.
6141 <div class=
"padding"></div>
6145 <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>
6151 <p>I was introduced to the
6152 <a href=
"http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/">Freedombox project
</a>
6153 in
2010, when Eben Moglen presented his vision about serving the need
6154 of non-technical people to keep their personal information private and
6155 within the legal protection of their own homes. The idea is to give
6156 people back the power over their network and machines, and return
6157 Internet back to its intended peer-to-peer architecture. Instead of
6158 depending on a central service, the Freedombox will give everyone
6159 control over their own basic infrastructure.
</p>
6161 <p>I've intended to join the effort since then, but other tasks have
6162 taken priority. But this summers nasty news about the misuse of trust
6163 and privilege exercised by the "western" intelligence gathering
6164 communities increased my eagerness to contribute to a point where I
6165 actually started working on the project a while back.
</p>
6167 <p>The
<a href=
"https://alioth.debian.org/projects/freedombox/">initial
6168 Debian initiative
</a> based on the vision from Eben Moglen, is to
6169 create a simple and cheap Debian based appliance that anyone can hook
6170 up in their home and get access to secure and private services and
6171 communication. The initial deployment platform have been the
6172 <a href=
"http://www.globalscaletechnologies.com/t-dreamplugdetails.aspx">Dreamplug
</a>,
6173 which is a piece of hardware I do not own. So to be able to test what
6174 the current Freedombox setup look like, I had to come up with a way to install
6175 it on some hardware I do have access to. I have rewritten the
6176 <a href=
"https://github.com/NickDaly/freedom-maker">freedom-maker
</a>
6177 image build framework to use .deb packages instead of only copying
6178 setup into the boot images, and thanks to this rewrite I am able to
6179 set up any machine supported by Debian Wheezy as a Freedombox, using
6180 the previously mentioned deb (and a few support debs for packages
6181 missing in Debian).
</p>
6183 <p>The current Freedombox setup consist of a set of bootstrapping
6185 (
<a href=
"https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/freedombox-setup">freedombox-setup
</a>),
6186 and a administrative web interface
6187 (
<a href=
"https://github.com/NickDaly/Plinth">plinth
</a> + exmachina +
6188 withsqlite), as well as a privacy enhancing proxy based on
6189 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/privoxy">privoxy
</a>
6190 (freedombox-privoxy). There is also a web/javascript based XMPP
6191 client (
<a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/jwchat">jwchat
</a>)
6192 trying (unsuccessfully so far) to talk to the XMPP server
6193 (
<a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/ejabberd">ejabberd
</a>). The
6194 web interface is pluggable, and the goal is to use it to enable OpenID
6195 services, mesh network connectivity, use of TOR, etc, etc. Not much of
6196 this is really working yet, see
6197 <a href=
"https://github.com/NickDaly/freedombox-todos/blob/master/TODO">the
6198 project TODO
</a> for links to GIT repositories. Most of the code is
6199 on github at the moment. The HTTP proxy is operational out of the
6200 box, and the admin web interface can be used to add/remove plinth
6201 users. I've not been able to do anything else with it so far, but
6202 know there are several branches spread around github and other places
6203 with lots of half baked features.
</p>
6205 <p>Anyway, if you want to have a look at the current state, the
6206 following recipes should work to give you a test machine to poke
6209 <p><strong>Debian Wheezy amd64
</strong></p>
6213 <li>Fetch normal Debian Wheezy installation ISO.
</li>
6214 <li>Boot from it, either as CD or USB stick.
</li>
6215 <li><p>Press [tab] on the boot prompt and add this as a boot argument
6216 to the Debian installer:
<p>
6217 <pre>url=
<a href=
"http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-wheezy.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-wheezy.dat
</a></pre></li>
6219 <li>Answer the few language/region/password questions and pick disk to
6222 <li>When the installation is finished and the machine have rebooted a
6223 few times, your Freedombox is ready for testing.
</li>
6227 <p><strong>Raspberry Pi Raspbian
</strong></p>
6231 <li>Fetch a Raspbian SD card image, create SD card.
</li>
6232 <li>Boot from SD card, extend file system to fill the card completely.
</li>
6233 <li><p>Log in and add this to /etc/sources.list:
</p>
6235 deb
<a href=
"http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox
</a> wheezy main
6237 <li><p>Run this as root:
</p>
6239 wget -O - http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/BE1A583D.asc | \
6242 apt-get install freedombox-setup
6243 /usr/lib/freedombox/setup
6245 <li>Reboot into your freshly created Freedombox.
</li>
6249 <p>You can test it on other architectures too, but because the
6250 freedombox-privoxy package is binary, it will only work as intended on
6251 the architectures where I have had time to build the binary and put it
6252 in my APT repository. But do not let this stop you. It is only a
6253 short "
<tt>apt-get source -b freedombox-privoxy
</tt>" away. :)</p>
6255 <p>Note that by default Freedombox is a DHCP server on the
6256 192.168.1.0/24 subnet, so if this is your subnet be careful and turn
6257 off the DHCP server by running "<tt>update-rc.d isc-dhcp-server
6258 disable
</tt>" as root.</p>
6260 <p>Please let me know if this works for you, or if you have any
6261 problems. We gather on the IRC channel
6262 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:
6667/%
23freedombox
">#freedombox</a> on
6263 irc.debian.org and the
6264 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss
">project
6265 mailing list</a>.</p>
6267 <p>Once you get your freedombox operational, you can visit
6268 <tt>http://your-host-name:8001/</tt> to see the state of the plint
6269 welcome screen (dead end - do not be surprised if you are unable to
6270 get past it), and next visit <tt>http://your-host-name:8001/help/</tt>
6271 to look at the rest of plinth. The default user is 'admin' and the
6272 default password is 'secret'.</p>
6278 Tags: <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>.
6283 <div class="padding
"></div>
6287 <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>
6293 <p>Earlier, I reported about
6294 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_fix_a_Thinkpad_X230_with_a_broken_180_GB_SSD_disk.html
">my
6295 problems using an Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB disk</a>. Friday I was
6296 told by IBM that the original disk should be thrown away. And as
6297 there no longer was a problem if I bricked the firmware, I decided
6298 today to try to install Intel firmware to replace the Lenovo firmware
6299 currently on the disk.</p>
6301 <p>I searched the Intel site for firmware, and found
6302 <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>
6303 (aka Intel SATA Solid-State Drive Firmware Update Tool) which
6304 according to the site should contain the latest firmware for SSD
6305 disks. I inserted the broken disk in one of my spare laptops and
6306 booted the ISO from a USB stick. The disk was recognized, but the
6307 program claimed the newest firmware already were installed and refused
6308 to insert any Intel firmware. So no change, and the disk is still
6309 unable to handle write load. :( I guess the only way to get them
6310 working would be if Lenovo releases new firmware. No idea how likely
6311 that is. Anyway, just blogging about this test for completeness. I
6312 got a working Samsung disk, and see no point in spending more time on
6313 the broken disks.</p>
6319 Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian
">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english
">english</a>.
6324 <div class="padding
"></div>
6328 <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>
6334 <p>Today I switched to
6335 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html
">my
6336 new laptop</a>. I've previously written about the problems I had with
6337 my new Thinkpad X230, which was delivered with an
6338 <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
6339 GB Intel SSD disk with Lenovo firmware</a> that did not handle
6340 sustained writes. My hardware supplier have been very forthcoming in
6341 trying to find a solution, and after first trying with another
6342 identical 180 GB disks they decided to send me a 256 GB Samsung SSD
6343 disk instead to fix it once and for all. The Samsung disk survived
6344 the installation of Debian with encrypted disks (filling the disk with
6345 random data during installation killed the first two), and I thus
6346 decided to trust it with my data. I have installed it as a Debian Edu
6347 Wheezy roaming workstation hooked up with my Debian Edu Squeeze main
6348 server at home using Kerberos and LDAP, and will use it as my work
6349 station from now on.</p>
6351 <p>As this is a solid state disk with no moving parts, I believe the
6352 Debian Wheezy default installation need to be tuned a bit to increase
6353 performance and increase life time of the disk. The Linux kernel and
6354 user space applications do not yet adjust automatically to such
6355 environment. To make it easier for my self, I created a draft Debian
6356 package <tt>ssd-setup</tt> to handle this tuning. The
6357 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/ssd-setup.git
">source
6358 for the ssd-setup package</a> is available from collab-maint, and it
6359 is set up to adjust the setup of the machine by just installing the
6360 package. If there is any non-SSD disk in the machine, the package
6361 will refuse to install, as I did not try to write any logic to sort
6362 file systems in SSD and non-SSD file systems.</p>
6364 <p>I consider the package a draft, as I am a bit unsure how to best
6365 set up Debian Wheezy with an SSD. It is adjusted to my use case,
6366 where I set up the machine with one large encrypted partition (in
6367 addition to /boot), put LVM on top of this and set up partitions on
6368 top of this again. See the README file in the package source for the
6369 references I used to pick the settings. At the moment these
6370 parameters are tuned:</p>
6374 <li>Set up cryptsetup to pass TRIM commands to the physical disk
6375 (adding discard to /etc/crypttab)</li>
6377 <li>Set up LVM to pass on TRIM commands to the underlying device (in
6378 this case a cryptsetup partition) by changing issue_discards from
6379 0 to 1 in /etc/lvm/lvm.conf.</li>
6381 <li>Set relatime as a file system option for ext3 and ext4 file
6384 <li>Tell swap to use TRIM commands by adding 'discard' to
6387 <li>Change I/O scheduler from cfq to deadline using a udev rule.</li>
6389 <li>Run fstrim on every ext3 and ext4 file system every night (from
6392 <li>Adjust sysctl values vm.swappiness to 1 and vm.vfs_cache_pressure
6393 to 50 to reduce the kernel eagerness to swap out processes.</li>
6397 <p>During installation, I cancelled the part where the installer fill
6398 the disk with random data, as this would kill the SSD performance for
6399 little gain. My goal with the encrypted file system is to ensure
6400 those stealing my laptop end up with a brick and not a working
6401 computer. I have no hope in keeping the really resourceful people
6402 from getting the data on the disk (see
6403 <a href="http://xkcd.com/
538/
">XKCD #538</a> for an explanation why).
6404 Thus I concluded that adding the discard option to crypttab is the
6405 right thing to do.</p>
6407 <p>I considered using the noop I/O scheduler, as several recommended
6408 it for SSD, but others recommended deadline and a benchmark I found
6409 indicated that deadline might be better for interactive use.</p>
6411 <p>I also considered using the 'discard' file system option for ext3
6412 and ext4, but read that it would give a performance hit ever time a
6413 file is removed, and thought it best to that that slowdown once a day
6414 instead of during my work.</p>
6416 <p>My package do not set up tmpfs on /var/run, /var/lock and /tmp, as
6417 this is already done by Debian Edu.</p>
6419 <p>I have not yet started on the user space tuning. I expect
6420 iceweasel need some tuning, and perhaps other applications too, but
6421 have not yet had time to investigate those parts.</p>
6423 <p>The package should work on Ubuntu too, but I have not yet tested it
6426 <p>As for the answer to the question in the title of this blog post,
6427 as far as I know, the only solution I know about is to replace the
6428 disk. It might be possible to flash it with Intel firmware instead of
6429 the Lenovo firmware. But I have not tried and did not want to do so
6430 without approval from Lenovo as I wanted to keep the warranty on the
6431 disk until a solution was found and they wanted the broken disks
6438 Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian
">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english
">english</a>.
6443 <div class="padding
"></div>
6447 <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>
6453 <p>A few days ago, I wrote about
6454 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html
">the
6455 problems I experienced with my new X230 and its SSD disk</a>, which
6456 was dying during installation because it is unable to cope with
6457 sustained write. My supplier is in contact with
6458 <a href="http://www.lenovo.com/
">Lenovo</a>, and they wanted to send a
6459 replacement disk to try to fix the problem. They decided to send an
6460 identical model, so my hopes for a permanent fix was slim.</p>
6462 <p>Anyway, today I got the replacement disk and tried to install
6463 Debian Edu Wheezy with encrypted disk on it. The new disk have the
6464 same firmware version as the original. This time my hope raised
6465 slightly as the installation progressed, as the original disk used to
6466 die after 4-7% of the disk was written to, while this time it kept
6467 going past 10%, 20%, 40% and even past 50%. But around 60%, the disk
6468 died again and I was back on square one. I still do not have a new
6469 laptop with a disk I can trust. I can not live with a disk that might
6470 lock up when I download a new
6471 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/
">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> ISO or
6472 other large files. I look forward to hearing from my supplier with
6473 the next proposal from Lenovo.</p>
6475 <p>The original disk is marked Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB,
6476 11S0C38722Z1ZNME35X1TR, ISN: CVCV321407HB180EGN, SA: G57560302, FW:
6477 LF1i, 29MAY2013, PBA: G39779-300, LBA 351,651,888, LI P/N: 0C38722,
6478 Pb-free 2LI, LC P/N: 16-200366, WWN: 55CD2E40002756C4, Model:
6479 SSDSC2BW180A3L 2.5" 6Gb/s SATA SSD
180G
5V
1A, ASM P/N
0C38732, FRU
6480 P/N
45N8295, P0C38732.
</p>
6482 <p>The replacement disk is marked Intel SSD
520 Series
180 GB,
6483 11S0C38722Z1ZNDE34N0L0, ISN: CVCV315306RK180EGN, SA: G57560-
302, FW:
6484 LF1i,
22APR2013, PBA: G39779-
300, LBA
351,
651,
888, LI P/N:
0C38722,
6485 Pb-free
2LI, LC P/N:
16-
200366, WWN:
55CD2E40000AB69E, Model:
6486 SSDSC2BW180A3L
2.5"
6Gb/s SATA SSD
180G
5V
1A, ASM P/N
0C38732, FRU
6487 P/N
45N8295, P0C38732.
</p>
6489 <p>The only difference is in the first number (serial number?), ISN,
6490 SA, date and WNPP values. Mentioning all the details here in case
6491 someone is able to use the information to find a way to identify the
6492 failing disk among working ones (if any such working disk actually
6499 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
6504 <div class=
"padding"></div>
6508 <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>
6514 <p>The upcoming Saturday,
2013-
07-
13, we are organising a combined
6515 Debian Edu developer gathering and Debian and Ubuntu bug squashing
6516 party in Oslo. It is organised by
<a href=
"http://www.nuug.no/">the
6517 member assosiation NUUG
</a> and
6518 <a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/">the Debian Edu / Skolelinux
6519 project
</a> together with
<a href=
"http://bitraf.no/">the hack space
6522 <p>It starts
10:
00 and continue until late evening. Everyone is
6523 welcome, and there is no fee to participate. There is on the other
6524 hand limited space, and only room for
30 people. Please put your name
6525 on
<a href=
"http://wiki.debian.org/BSP/2013/07/13/no/Oslo">the event
6526 wiki page
</a> if you plan to join us.
</p>
6532 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>.
6537 <div class=
"padding"></div>
6541 <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>
6547 <p>Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a
6548 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thank_you_Thinkpad_X41__for_your_long_and_trustworthy_service.html">replacement
6549 for my trusty old Thinkpad X41
</a>. Unfortunately I did not have much
6550 time to spend on it, and it took a while to find a model I believe
6551 will do the job, but two days ago the replacement finally arrived. I
6553 <a href=
"http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_x230">Thinkpad X230
</a>
6554 with SSD disk (NZDAJMN). I first test installed Debian Edu Wheezy as
6555 a roaming workstation, and it seemed to work flawlessly. But my
6556 second installation with encrypted disk was not as successful. More
6559 <p>I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most
6560 important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never
6561 listed in the feature list. But I did get good help from the search
6562 feature at
<a href=
"http://www.prisjakt.no/">Prisjakt
</a>, which
6563 allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other
6564 requirements. A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks according
6565 to that search interface, so I had to drop specifying the number of
6566 disks from my search parameters. I also asked around among friends to
6567 get their impression on keyboards and robustness.
</p>
6569 <p>So the new laptop arrived, and it is quite a lot wider than the
6570 X41. I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is
6571 significantly wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my
6572 hand a lot more to reach the edges. But the key response is fairly
6573 good and the individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope
6574 I will get used to it. My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really
6575 needed a new laptop now. :)
</p>
6577 <p>Turning off the touch pad was simple. All it took was a quick
6578 visit to the BIOS during boot it disable it.
</p>
6580 <p>But there is a fatal problem with the laptop. The
180 GB SSD disk
6581 lock up during load. And this happen when installing Debian Wheezy
6582 with encrypted disk, while the disk is being filled with random data.
6583 I also tested to install Ubuntu Raring, and it happen there too if I
6584 reenable the code to fill the disk with random data (it is disabled by
6585 default in Ubuntu). And the bug with is already known. It was
6586 reported to Debian as
<a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/691427">BTS
6587 report #
691427 2012-
10-
25</a> (journal commit I/O error on brand-new
6588 Thinkpad T430s ext4 on lvm on SSD). It is also reported to the Linux
6589 kernel developers as
6590 <a href=
"https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=51861">Kernel bugzilla
6591 report #
51861 2012-
12-
20</a> (Intel SSD
520 stops working under load
6592 (SSDSC2BW180A3L in Lenovo ThinkPad T430s)). It is also reported on the
6593 Lenovo forums, both for
6594 <a href=
"http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/T400-T500-and-newer-T-series/T430s-Intel-SSD-520-180GB-issue/m-p/1070549">T430
6595 2012-
11-
10</a> and for
6596 <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
6597 03-
20-
2013</a>. The problem do not only affect installation. The
6598 reports state that the disk lock up during use if many writes are done
6599 on the disk, so it is much no use to work around the installation
6600 problem and end up with a computer that can lock up at any moment.
6602 <a href=
"https://git.efficios.com/?p=test-ssd.git">small C program
6603 available
</a> that will lock up the hard drive after running a few
6604 minutes by writing to a file.
</p>
6606 <p>I've contacted my supplier and asked how to handle this, and after
6607 contacting PCHELP Norway (request
01D1FDP) which handle support
6608 requests for Lenovo, his first suggestion was to upgrade the disk
6609 firmware. Unfortunately there is no newer firmware available from
6610 Lenovo, as my disk already have the most recent one (version LF1i). I
6611 hope to hear more from him today and hope the problem can be
6618 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
6623 <div class=
"padding"></div>
6627 <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>
6633 <p>Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a replacement for my
6634 trusty old Thinkpad X41. Unfortunately I did not have much time to
6635 spend on it, but today the replacement finally arrived. I ended up
6636 picking a
<a href=
"http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_x230">Thinkpad
6637 X230
</a> with SSD disk (NZDAJMN). I first test installed Debian Edu
6638 Wheezy as a roaming workstation, and it worked flawlessly. As I write
6639 this, it is installing what I hope will be a more final installation,
6640 with a encrypted hard drive to ensure any dope head stealing it end up
6641 with an expencive door stop.
</p>
6643 <p>I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most
6644 important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never
6645 listed in the feature list. But I did get good help from the search
6646 feature at
<ahref=
"http://www.prisjakt.no/">Prisjakt
</a>, which
6647 allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other
6648 requirements. A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks, so I had
6649 to drop number of disks from my search parameters.
</p>
6651 <p>I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is significantly
6652 wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my hand a lot more
6653 to reach the edges. But the key response is fairly good and the
6654 individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope I will get
6655 used to it. My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really needed a
6656 new laptop now. :)
</p>
6658 <p>I look forward to figuring out how to turn off the touch pad.
</p>
6664 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
6669 <div class=
"padding"></div>
6673 <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>
6679 <p>It annoys me when the computer fail to do automatically what it is
6680 perfectly capable of, and I have to do it manually to get things
6681 working. One such task is to find out what firmware packages are
6682 needed to get the hardware on my computer working. Most often this
6683 affect the wifi card, but some times it even affect the RAID
6684 controller or the ethernet card. Today I pushed version
0.4 of the
6685 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">Isenkram package
</a>
6686 including a new script isenkram-autoinstall-firmware handling the
6687 process of asking all the loaded kernel modules what firmware files
6688 they want, find debian packages providing these files and install the
6689 debian packages. Here is a test run on my laptop:
</p>
6692 # isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
6693 info: kernel drivers requested extra firmware: ipw2200-bss.fw ipw2200-ibss.fw ipw2200-sniffer.fw
6694 info: fetching http://http.debian.net/debian/dists/squeeze/Contents-i386.gz
6695 info: locating packages with the requested firmware files
6696 info: Updating APT sources after adding non-free APT source
6697 info: trying to install firmware-ipw2x00
6700 Preconfiguring packages ...
6701 Selecting previously deselected package firmware-ipw2x00.
6702 (Reading database ...
259727 files and directories currently installed.)
6703 Unpacking firmware-ipw2x00 (from .../firmware-ipw2x00_0.28+squeeze1_all.deb) ...
6704 Setting up firmware-ipw2x00 (
0.28+squeeze1) ...
6708 <p>When all the requested firmware is present, a simple message is
6709 printed instead:
</p>
6712 # isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
6713 info: did not find any firmware files requested by loaded kernel modules. exiting
6717 <p>It could use some polish, but it is already working well and saving
6718 me some time when setting up new machines. :)
</p>
6720 <p>So, how does it work? It look at the set of currently loaded
6721 kernel modules, and look up each one of them using modinfo, to find
6722 the firmware files listed in the module meta-information. Next, it
6723 download the Contents file from a nearby APT mirror, and search for
6724 the firmware files in this file to locate the package with the
6725 requested firmware file. If the package is in the non-free section, a
6726 non-free APT source is added and the package is installed using
6727 <tt>apt-get install
</tt>. The end result is a slightly better working
6730 <p>I hope someone find time to implement a more polished version of
6731 this script as part of the hw-detect debian-installer module, to
6732 finally fix
<a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/655507">BTS report
6733 #
655507</a>. There really is no need to insert USB sticks with
6734 firmware during a PXE install when the packages already are available
6735 from the nearby Debian mirror.
</p>
6741 Tags:
<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>.
6746 <div class=
"padding"></div>
6750 <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>
6756 <p>When installing RedHat, Fedora, Debian and Ubuntu on some machines,
6757 the screen just turn black when Linux boot, either during installation
6758 or on first boot from the hard disk. I've seen it once in a while the
6759 last few years, but only recently understood the cause. I've seen it
6760 on HP laptops, and on my latest acquaintance the Packard Bell laptop.
6761 The reason seem to be in the wiring of some laptops. The system to
6762 control the screen background light is inverted, so when Linux try to
6763 turn the brightness fully on, it end up turning it off instead. I do
6764 not know which Linux drivers are affected, but this post is about the
6765 i915 driver used by the
6766 <a href=
"http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Packard Bell
6767 EasyNote LV
</a>, Thinkpad X40 and many other laptops.
</p>
6769 <p>The problem can be worked around two ways. Either by adding
6770 i915.invert_brightness=
1 as a kernel option, or by adding a file in
6771 /etc/modprobe.d/ to tell modprobe to add the invert_brightness=
1
6772 option when it load the i915 kernel module. On Debian and Ubuntu, it
6773 can be done by running these commands as root:
</p>
6776 echo options i915 invert_brightness=
1 | tee /etc/modprobe.d/i915.conf
6777 update-initramfs -u -k all
6780 <p>Since March
2012 there is
6781 <a href=
"http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=4dca20efb1a9c2efefc28ad2867e5d6c3f5e1955">a
6782 mechanism in the Linux kernel
</a> to tell the i915 driver which
6783 hardware have this problem, and get the driver to invert the
6784 brightness setting automatically. To use it, one need to add a row in
6785 <a href=
"http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c">the
6786 intel_quirks array
</a> in the driver source
6787 <tt>drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c
</tt> (look for "
<tt>static
6788 struct intel_quirk intel_quirks
</tt>"), specifying the PCI device
6789 number (vendor number 8086 is assumed) and subdevice vendor and device
6792 <p>My Packard Bell EasyNote LV got this output from <tt>lspci
6793 -vvnn</tt> for the video card in question:</p>
6796 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation \
6797 3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller [8086:0156] \
6798 (rev 09) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
6799 Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device [1025:0688]
6800 Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- \
6801 ParErr- Stepping- SE RR- FastB2B- DisINTx+
6802 Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- \
6803 <TAbort- <MAbort->SERR- <PERR- INTx-
6805 Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 42
6806 Region 0: Memory at c2000000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4M]
6807 Region 2: Memory at b0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
6808 Region 4: I/O ports at 4000 [size=64]
6809 Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled]
6810 Capabilities: <access denied>
6811 Kernel driver in use: i915
6814 <p>The resulting intel_quirks entry would then look like this:</p>
6817 struct intel_quirk intel_quirks[] = {
6819 /* Packard Bell EasyNote LV11HC needs invert brightness quirk */
6820 { 0x0156, 0x1025, 0x0688, quirk_invert_brightness },
6825 <p>According to the kernel module instructions (as seen using
6826 <tt>modinfo i915</tt>), information about hardware needing the
6827 invert_brightness flag should be sent to the
6828 <a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/dri-devel
">dri-devel
6829 (at) lists.freedesktop.org</a> mailing list to reach the kernel
6830 developers. But my email about the laptop sent 2013-06-03 have not
6832 <a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/dri-devel/
2013-June/thread.html
">the
6833 web archive for the mailing list</a>, so I suspect they do not accept
6834 emails from non-subscribers. Because of this, I sent my patch also to
6835 the Debian bug tracking system instead as
6836 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/
710938">BTS report #710938</a>, to make
6837 sure the patch is not lost.</p>
6839 <p>Unfortunately, it is not enough to fix the kernel to get Laptops
6840 with this problem working properly with Linux. If you use Gnome, your
6841 worries should be over at this point. But if you use KDE, there is
6842 something in KDE ignoring the invert_brightness setting and turning on
6843 the screen during login. I've reported it to Debian as
6844 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/
711237">BTS report #711237</a>, and
6845 have no idea yet how to figure out exactly what subsystem is doing
6846 this. Perhaps you can help? Perhaps you know what the Gnome
6847 developers did to handle this, and this can give a clue to the KDE
6848 developers? Or you know where in KDE the screen brightness is changed
6849 during login? If so, please update the BTS report (or get in touch if
6850 you do not know how to update BTS).</p>
6852 <p>Update 2013-07-19: The correct fix for this machine seem to be
6853 acpi_backlight=vendor, to disable ACPI backlight support completely,
6854 as the ACPI information on the machine is trash and it is better to
6855 leave it to the intel video driver to control the screen
6862 Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian
">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english
">english</a>.
6867 <div class="padding
"></div>
6871 <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>
6877 <p>Two days ago, I asked
6878 <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
6879 I could install Linux on a Packard Bell EasyNote LV computer
6880 preinstalled with Windows 8</a>. I found a solution, but am horrified
6881 with the obstacles put in the way of Linux users on a laptop with UEFI
6884 <p>I never found out if the cause of my problems were the use of UEFI
6885 secure booting or fast boot. I suspect fast boot was the problem,
6886 causing the firmware to boot directly from HD without considering any
6887 key presses and alternative devices, but do not know UEFI settings
6890 <p>There is no way to install Linux on the machine in question without
6891 opening the box and disconnecting the hard drive! This is as far as I
6892 can tell, the only way to get access to the firmware setup menu
6893 without accepting the Windows 8 license agreement. I am told (and
6894 found description on how to) that it is possible to configure the
6895 firmware setup once booted into Windows 8. But as I believe the terms
6896 of that agreement are completely unacceptable, accepting the license
6897 was never an alternative. I do not enter agreements I do not intend
6900 <p>I feared I had to return the laptops and ask for a refund, and
6901 waste many hours on this, but luckily there was a way to get it to
6902 work. But I would not recommend it to anyone planning to run Linux on
6903 it, and I have become sceptical to Windows 8 certified laptops. Is
6904 this the way Linux will be forced out of the market place, by making
6905 it close to impossible for "normal" users to install Linux without
6906 accepting the Microsoft Windows license terms? Or at least not
6907 without risking to loose the warranty?
</p>
6910 <a href=
"http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Linux Laptop
6911 wiki page for Packard Bell EasyNote LV
</a>, to ensure the next person
6912 do not have to struggle as much as I did to get Linux into the
6915 <p>Thanks to Bob Rosbag, Florian Weimer, Philipp Kern, Ben Hutching,
6916 Michael Tokarev and others for feedback and ideas.
</p>
6922 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
6927 <div class=
"padding"></div>
6931 <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>
6937 <p>I've run into quite a problem the last few days. I bought three
6938 new laptops for my parents and a few others. I bought Packard Bell
6939 Easynote LV to run Kubuntu on and use as their home computer. But I
6940 am completely unable to figure out how to install Linux on it. The
6941 computer is preinstalled with Windows
8, and I suspect it uses UEFI
6942 instead of a BIOS to boot.
</p>
6944 <p>The problem is that I am unable to get it to PXE boot, and unable
6945 to get it to boot the Linux installer from my USB stick. I have yet
6946 to try the DVD install, and still hope it will work. when I turn on
6947 the computer, there is no information on what buttons to press to get
6948 the normal boot menu. I expect to get some boot menu to select PXE or
6949 USB stick booting. When booting, it first ask for the language to
6950 use, then for some regional settings, and finally if I will accept the
6951 Windows
8 terms of use. As these terms are completely unacceptable to
6952 me, I have no other choice but to turn off the computer and try again
6953 to get it to boot the Linux installer.
</p>
6955 <p>I have gathered my findings so far on a Linlap page about the
6956 <a href=
"http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Packard Bell
6957 EasyNote LV
</a> model. If you have any idea how to get Linux
6958 installed on this machine, please get in touch or update that wiki
6959 page. If I can't find a way to install Linux, I will have to return
6960 the laptop to the seller and find another machine for my parents.
</p>
6962 <p>I wonder, is this the way Linux will be forced out of the market
6963 using UEFI and "secure boot" by making it impossible to install Linux
6970 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
6975 <div class=
"padding"></div>
6979 <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>
6985 <p><a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
</a> is
6986 an operating system based on Debian intended for use in schools. It
6987 contain a turn-key solution for the computer network provided to
6988 pupils in the primary schools. It provide both the central server,
6989 network boot servers and desktop environments with heaps of
6990 educational software. The project was founded almost
12 years ago,
6991 2001-
07-
02. If you want to support the project, which is in need for
6992 cash to fund developer gatherings and other project related activity,
6993 <a href=
"http://www.linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">please
6994 donate some money
</a>.
6996 <p>A topic that come up again and again on the Debian Edu mailing
6997 lists and elsewhere, is the question on how to transform a Debian or
6998 Ubuntu installation into a Debian Edu installation. It isn't very
6999 hard, and last week I wrote a script to replicate the steps done by
7000 the Debian Edu installer.
</p>
7003 <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/>
7004 in the debian-edu-config package, will go through these six steps and
7005 transform an existing Debian Wheezy or Ubuntu (untested) installation
7006 into a Debian Edu Workstation:
</p>
7010 <li>Add skolelinux related APT sources.
</li>
7011 <li>Create /etc/debian-edu/config with the wanted configuration.
</li>
7012 <li>Install debian-edu-install to load preseeding values and pull in
7013 our configuration.
</li>
7014 <li>Preseed debconf database with profile setup in
7015 /etc/debian-edu/config, and run tasksel to install packages
7016 according to the profile specified in the config above,
7017 overriding some of the Debian automation machinery.
</li>
7018 <li>Run debian-edu-cfengine-D installation to configure everything
7019 that could not be done using preseeding.
</li>
7020 <li>Ask for a reboot to enable all the configuration changes.
</li>
7024 <p>There are some steps in the Debian Edu installation that can not be
7025 replicated like this. Disk partitioning and LVM setup, for example.
7026 So this script just assume there is enough disk space to install all
7027 the needed packages.
</p>
7029 <p>The script was created to help a Debian Edu student working on
7030 setting up
<a href=
"http://www.raspberrypi.org">Raspberry Pi
</a> as a
7031 Debian Edu client, and using it he can take the existing
7032 <a href=
"http://www.raspbian.org/FrontPage">Raspbian
</a> installation and
7033 transform it into a fully functioning Debian Edu Workstation (or
7034 Roaming Workstation, or whatever :).
</p>
7036 <p>The default setting in the script is to create a KDE Workstation.
7037 If a LXDE based Roaming workstation is wanted instead, modify the
7038 PROFILE and DESKTOP values at the top to look like this instead:
</p>
7041 PROFILE="Roaming-Workstation"
7045 <p>The script could even become useful to set up Debian Edu servers in
7046 the cloud, by starting with a virtual Debian installation at some
7047 virtual hosting service and setting up all the services on first
7054 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>.
7059 <div class=
"padding"></div>
7063 <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>
7070 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_IRC_channel_for_LEGO_designers_using_Debian.html">I
7071 announced a
</a> new
<a href=
"irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">IRC
7072 channel #debian-lego
</a>, for those of us in the Debian and Linux
7073 community interested in
<a href=
"http://www.lego.com/">LEGO
</a>, the
7074 marvellous construction system from Denmark. We also created
7075 <a href=
"http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">a wiki page
</a> to have
7076 a place to take notes and write down our plans and hopes. And several
7077 people showed up to help. I was very happy to see the effect of my
7078 call. Since the small start, we have a debtags tag
7079 <a href=
"http://debtags.debian.net/search/bytag?wl=hardware::hobby:lego">hardware::hobby:lego
</a>
7080 tag for LEGO related packages, and now count
10 packages related to
7081 LEGO and
<a href=
"http://mindstorms.lego.com/">Mindstorms
</a>:
</p>
7084 <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>
7085 <tr><td><a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/leocad">leocad
</a></td><td>virtual brick CAD software
</td></tr>
7086 <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>
7087 <tr><td><a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/lnpd">lnpd
</a></td><td>daemon for LNP communication with BrickOS
</td></tr>
7088 <tr><td><a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/nbc">nbc
</a></td><td>compiler for LEGO Mindstorms NXT bricks
</td></tr>
7089 <tr><td><a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/nqc">nqc
</a></td><td>Not Quite C compiler for LEGO Mindstorms RCX
</td></tr>
7090 <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>
7091 <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>
7092 <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>
7093 <tr><td><a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/t2n">t2n
</a></td><td>simple command-line tool for Lego NXT
</td></tr>
7096 <p>Some of these are available in Wheezy, and all but one are
7097 currently available in Jessie/testing. leocad is so far only
7098 available in experimental.
</p>
7100 <p>If you care about LEGO in Debian, please join us on IRC and help
7101 adding the rest of the great free software tools available on Linux
7102 for LEGO designers.
</p>
7108 Tags:
<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/lego">lego
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot
</a>.
7113 <div class=
"padding"></div>
7117 <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>
7123 <p>When I woke up this morning, I was very happy to see that the
7124 <a href=
"http://www.debian.org/News/2013/20130504">release announcement
7125 for Debian Wheezy
</a> was waiting in my mail box. This is a great
7126 Debian release, and I expect to move my machines at home over to it fairly
7129 <p>The new debian release contain heaps of new stuff, and one program
7130 in particular make me very happy to see included. The
7131 <a href=
"http://scratch.mit.edu/">Scratch
</a> program, made famous by
7132 the
<a href=
"http://www.code.org/">Teach kids code
</a> movement, is
7133 included for the first time. Alongside similar programs like
7134 <a href=
"http://edu.kde.org/kturtle/">kturtle
</a> and
7135 <a href=
"http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/Turtle_Art">turtleart
</a>,
7136 it allow for visual programming where syntax errors can not happen,
7137 and a friendly programming environment for learning to control the
7138 computer. Scratch will also be included in the next release of Debian
7141 <p>And now that Wheezy is wrapped up, we can wrap up the next Debian
7142 Edu/Skolelinux release too. The
7143 <a href=
"http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/2013/04/msg00132.html">first
7144 alpha release
</a> went out last week, and the next should soon
7151 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>.
7156 <div class=
"padding"></div>
7160 <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>
7166 <p>Today the
<a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">Isenkram
7167 package
</a> finally made it into the archive, after lingering in NEW
7168 for many months. I uploaded it to the Debian experimental suite
7169 2013-
01-
27, and today it was accepted into the archive.
</p>
7171 <p>Isenkram is a system for suggesting to users what packages to
7172 install to work with a pluggable hardware device. The suggestion pop
7173 up when the device is plugged in. For example if a Lego Mindstorm NXT
7174 is inserted, it will suggest to install the program needed to program
7175 the NXT controller. Give it a go, and report bugs and suggestions to
7182 Tags:
<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>.
7187 <div class=
"padding"></div>
7191 <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>
7198 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_backport_bitcoin_qt_version_0_7_2_2_to_Debian_Squeeze.html">last
7199 bitcoin related blog post
</a> mentioned that the new
7200 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin package
</a> for
7201 Debian was waiting in NEW. It was accepted by the Debian ftp-masters
7202 2013-
01-
19, and have been available in unstable since then. It was
7203 automatically copied to Ubuntu, and is available in their Raring
7206 <p>But there is a strange problem with the build that block this new
7207 version from being available on the i386 and kfreebsd-i386
7208 architectures. For some strange reason, the autobuilders in Debian
7209 for these architectures fail to run the test suite on these
7210 architectures (
<a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/672524">BTS #
672524</a>).
7211 We are so far unable to reproduce it when building it manually, and
7212 no-one have been able to propose a fix. If you got an idea what is
7213 failing, please let us know via the BTS.
</p>
7215 <p>One feature that is annoying me with of the bitcoin client, because
7216 I often run low on disk space, is the fact that the client will exit
7217 if it run short on space (
<a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/696715">BTS
7218 #
696715</a>). So make sure you have enough disk space when you run
7221 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
7222 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
7223 <b><a href=
"bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
</a></b>.
</p>
7229 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
7234 <div class=
"padding"></div>
7238 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">Welcome to the world, Isenkram!
</a>
7245 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_prototype_ready_making_hardware_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">asked
7246 for testers
</a> for my prototype for making Debian better at handling
7247 pluggable hardware devices, which I
7248 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">set
7249 out to create
</a> earlier this month. Several valuable testers showed
7250 up, and caused me to really want to to open up the development to more
7251 people. But before I did this, I want to come up with a sensible name
7252 for this project. Today I finally decided on a new name, and I have
7253 renamed the project from hw-support-handler to this new name. In the
7254 process, I moved the source to git and made it available as a
7255 <a href=
"http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/isenkram.git">collab-maint
</a>
7256 repository in Debian. The new name? It is
<strong>Isenkram
</strong>.
7257 To fetch and build the latest version of the source, use
</p>
7260 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/collab-maint/isenkram.git
7261 cd isenkram && git-buildpackage -us -uc
7264 <p>I have not yet adjusted all files to use the new name yet. If you
7265 want to hack on the source or improve the package, please go ahead.
7266 But please talk to me first on IRC or via email before you do major
7267 changes, to make sure we do not step on each others toes. :)
</p>
7269 <p>If you wonder what 'isenkram' is, it is a Norwegian word for iron
7270 stuff, typically meaning tools, nails, screws, etc. Typical hardware
7271 stuff, in other words. I've been told it is the Norwegian variant of
7272 the German word eisenkram, for those that are familiar with that
7275 <p><strong>Update
2013-
01-
26</strong>: Added -us -us to build
7276 instructions, to avoid confusing people with an error from the signing
7279 <p><strong>Update
2013-
01-
27</strong>: Switch to HTTP URL for the git
7280 clone argument to avoid the need for authentication.
</p>
7286 Tags:
<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>.
7291 <div class=
"padding"></div>
7295 <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>
7301 <p>Early this month I set out to try to
7302 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">improve
7303 the Debian support for pluggable hardware devices
</a>. Now my
7304 prototype is working, and it is ready for a larger audience. To test
7306 <a href=
"http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">source
7307 from the Debian Edu subversion repository
</a>, build and install the
7308 package. You might have to log out and in again activate the
7309 autostart script.
</p>
7311 <p>The design is simple:
</p>
7315 <li>Add desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ causing a program
7316 hw-support-handlerd to start when the user log in.
</li>
7318 <li>This program listen for kernel events about new hardware (directly
7319 from the kernel like udev does), not using HAL dbus events as I
7322 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware modalias in
7323 the APT database, a database
7324 <a href=
"http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=markup">available
7325 via HTTP
</a> and a database available as part of the package.
</li>
7327 <li>If a package is mapped to the hardware in question, the package
7328 isn't installed yet and this is the first time the hardware was
7329 plugged in, show a desktop notification suggesting to install the
7330 package or packages.
</li>
7332 <li>If the user click on the 'install package now' button, ask
7333 aptdaemon via the PackageKit API to install the requrired package.
</li>
7335 <li>aptdaemon ask for root password or sudo password, and install the
7336 package while showing progress information in a window.
</li>
7340 <p>I still need to come up with a better name for the system. Here
7341 are some screen shots showing the prototype in action. First the
7342 notification, then the password request, and finally the request to
7343 approve all the dependencies. Sorry for the Norwegian Bokmål GUI.
</p>
7345 <p><img src=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-1-notification.png">
7346 <br><img src=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-2-password.png">
7347 <br><img src=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-3-dependencies.png">
7348 <br><img src=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-4-installing.png">
7349 <br><img src=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-5-installing-details.png" width=
"70%"></p>
7351 <p>The prototype still need to be improved with longer timeouts, but
7352 is already useful. The database of hardware to package mappings also
7353 need more work. It is currently compatible with the Ubuntu way of
7354 storing such information in the package control file, but could be
7355 changed to use other formats instead or in addition to the current
7356 method. I've dropped the use of discover for this mapping, as the
7357 modalias approach is more flexible and easier to use on Linux as long
7358 as the Linux kernel expose its modalias strings directly.
</p>
7360 <p><strong>Update
2013-
01-
21 16:
50</strong>: Due to popular demand,
7361 here is the command required to check out and build the source: Use
7363 svn://svn.debian.org/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/; cd
7364 hw-support-handler; debuild
</tt>'. If you lack debuild, install the
7365 devscripts package.
</p>
7367 <p><strong>Update
2013-
01-
23 12:
00</strong>: The project is now
7368 renamed to Isenkram and the source moved from the Debian Edu
7369 subversion repository to a Debian collab-maint git repository. See
7370 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">build
7371 instructions
</a> for details.
</p>
7377 Tags:
<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>.
7382 <div class=
"padding"></div>
7386 <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>
7392 <p>This Christmas my trusty old laptop died. It died quietly and
7393 suddenly in bed. With a quiet whimper, it went completely quiet and
7394 black. The power button was no longer able to turn it on. It was a
7395 IBM Thinkpad X41, and the best laptop I ever had. Better than both
7396 Thinkpads X30, X31, X40, X60, X61 and X61S. Far better than the
7397 Compaq I had before that. Now I need to find a replacement. To keep
7398 going during Christmas, I moved the one year old SSD disk to my old
7399 X40 where it fitted (only one I had left that could use it), but it is
7400 not a durable solution.
7402 <p>My laptop needs are fairly modest. This is my wishlist from when I
7403 got a new one more than
10 years ago. It still holds true.:)
</p>
7407 <li>Lightweight (around
1 kg) and small volume (preferably smaller
7409 <li>Robust, it will be in my backpack every day.
</li>
7410 <li>Three button mouse and a mouse pin instead of touch pad.
</li>
7411 <li>Long battery life time. Preferable a week.
</li>
7412 <li>Internal WIFI network card.
</li>
7413 <li>Internal Twisted Pair network card.
</li>
7414 <li>Some USB slots (
2-
3 is plenty)
</li>
7415 <li>Good keyboard - similar to the Thinkpad.
</li>
7416 <li>Video resolution at least
1024x768, with size around
12" (A4 paper
7418 <li>Hardware supported by Debian Stable, ie the default kernel and
7419 X.org packages.
</li>
7420 <li>Quiet, preferably fan free (or at least not using the fan most of
7425 <p>You will notice that there are no RAM and CPU requirements in the
7426 list. The reason is simply that the specifications on laptops the
7427 last
10-
15 years have been sufficient for my needs, and I have to look
7428 at other features to choose my laptop. But are there still made as
7429 robust laptops as my X41? The Thinkpad X60/X61 proved to be less
7430 robust, and Thinkpads seem to be heading in the wrong direction since
7431 Lenovo took over. But I've been told that X220 and X1 Carbon might
7432 still be useful.
</p>
7434 <p>Perhaps I should rethink my needs, and look for a pad with an
7435 external keyboard? I'll have to check the
7436 <a href=
"http://www.linux-laptop.net/">Linux Laptops site
</a> for
7437 well-supported laptops, or perhaps just buy one preinstalled from one
7438 of the vendors listed on the
<a href=
"http://linuxpreloaded.com/">Linux
7439 Pre-loaded site
</a>.
</p>
7445 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
7450 <div class=
"padding"></div>
7454 <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>
7460 <p>Some times I try to figure out which Iceweasel browser plugin to
7461 install to get support for a given MIME type. Thanks to
7462 <a href=
"https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MozillaTeam/Plugins">specifications
7463 done by Ubuntu
</a> and Mozilla, it is possible to do this in Debian.
7464 Unfortunately, not very many packages provide the needed meta
7465 information, Anyway, here is a small script to look up all browser
7466 plugin packages announcing ther MIME support using this specification:
</p>
7472 def pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
7477 version = pkg.candidate
7479 version = pkg.installed
7482 record = version.record
7483 if not record.has_key('Npp-MimeType'):
7485 mime_types = record['Npp-MimeType'].split(',')
7486 for t in mime_types:
7487 t = t.rstrip().strip()
7489 thepkgs.append(pkg.name)
7491 mimetype = "audio/ogg"
7492 if
1 < len(sys.argv):
7493 mimetype = sys.argv[
1]
7494 print "Browser plugin packages supporting %s:" % mimetype
7495 for pkg in pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
7499 <p>It can be used like this to look up a given MIME type:
</p>
7502 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype
7503 Browser plugin packages supporting audio/ogg:
7505 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype application/x-shockwave-flash
7506 Browser plugin packages supporting application/x-shockwave-flash:
7507 browser-plugin-gnash
7511 <p>In Ubuntu this mechanism is combined with support in the browser
7512 itself to query for plugins and propose to install the needed
7513 packages. It would be great if Debian supported such feature too. Is
7514 anyone working on adding it?
</p>
7516 <p><strong>Update
2013-
01-
18 14:
20</strong>: The Debian BTS
7517 request for icweasel support for this feature is
7518 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/484010">#
484010</a> from
2008 (and
7519 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/698426">#
698426</a> from today). Lack
7520 of manpower and wish for a different design is the reason thus feature
7521 is not yet in iceweasel from Debian.
</p>
7527 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
7532 <div class=
"padding"></div>
7536 <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>
7542 <p>The
<a href=
"http://wiki.debian.org/AppStreamDebianProposal">DEP-
11
7543 proposal to add AppStream information to the Debian archive
</a>, is a
7544 proposal to make it possible for a Desktop application to propose to
7545 the user some package to install to gain support for a given MIME
7546 type, font, library etc. that is currently missing. With such
7547 mechanism in place, it would be possible for the desktop to
7548 automatically propose and install leocad if some LDraw file is
7549 downloaded by the browser.
</p>
7551 <p>To get some idea about the current content of the archive, I decided
7552 to write a simple program to extract all .desktop files from the
7553 Debian archive and look up the claimed MIME support there. The result
7555 <a href=
"http://ftp.skolelinux.org/pub/AppStreamTest">Skolelinux FTP
7556 site
</a>. Using the collected information, it become possible to
7557 answer the question in the title. Here are the
20 most supported MIME
7558 types in Debian stable (Squeeze), testing (Wheezy) and unstable (Sid).
7559 The complete list is available from the link above.
</p>
7561 <p><strong>Debian Stable:
</strong></p>
7565 ----- -----------------------
7581 18 application/x-ogg
7588 <p><strong>Debian Testing:
</strong></p>
7592 ----- -----------------------
7608 18 application/x-ogg
7615 <p><strong>Debian Unstable:
</strong></p>
7619 ----- -----------------------
7636 18 application/x-ogg
7642 <p>I am told that PackageKit can provide an API to access the kind of
7643 information mentioned in DEP-
11. I have not yet had time to look at
7644 it, but hope the PackageKit people in Debian are on top of these
7647 <p><strong>Update
2013-
01-
16 13:
35</strong>: Updated numbers after
7648 discovering a typo in my script.
</p>
7654 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
7659 <div class=
"padding"></div>
7663 <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>
7669 <p>Yesterday, I wrote about the
7670 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Modalias_strings___a_practical_way_to_map__stuff__to_hardware.html">modalias
7671 values provided by the Linux kernel
</a> following my hope for
7672 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">better
7673 dongle support in Debian
</a>. Using this knowledge, I have tested how
7674 modalias values attached to package names can be used to map packages
7675 to hardware. This allow the system to look up and suggest relevant
7676 packages when I plug in some new hardware into my machine, and replace
7677 discover and discover-data as the database used to map hardware to
7680 <p>I create a modaliases file with entries like the following,
7681 containing package name, kernel module name (if relevant, otherwise
7682 the package name) and globs matching the relevant hardware
7686 Package: package-name
7687 <br>Modaliases: module(modaliasglob, modaliasglob, modaliasglob)
</p>
7690 <p>It is fairly trivial to write code to find the relevant packages
7691 for a given modalias value using this file.
</p>
7693 <p>An entry like this would suggest the video and picture application
7694 cheese for many USB web cameras (interface bus class
0E01):
</p>
7698 <br>Modaliases: cheese(usb:v*p*d*dc*dsc*dp*ic0Eisc01ip*)
</p>
7701 <p>An entry like this would suggest the pcmciautils package when a
7702 CardBus bridge (bus class
0607) PCI device is present:
</p>
7705 Package: pcmciautils
7706 <br>Modaliases: pcmciautils(pci:v*d*sv*sd*bc06sc07i*)
7709 <p>An entry like this would suggest the package colorhug-client when
7710 plugging in a ColorHug with USB IDs
04D8:F8DA:
</p>
7713 Package: colorhug-client
7714 <br>Modaliases: colorhug-client(usb:v04D8pF8DAd*)
</p>
7717 <p>I believe the format is compatible with the format of the Packages
7718 file in the Debian archive. Ubuntu already uses their Packages file
7719 to store their mappings from packages to hardware.
</p>
7721 <p>By adding a XB-Modaliases: header in debian/control, any .deb can
7722 announce the hardware it support in a way my prototype understand.
7723 This allow those publishing packages in an APT source outside the
7724 Debian archive as well as those backporting packages to make sure the
7725 hardware mapping are included in the package meta information. I've
7726 tested such header in the pymissile package, and its modalias mapping
7727 is working as it should with my prototype. It even made it to Ubuntu
7730 <p>To test if it was possible to look up supported hardware using only
7731 the shell tools available in the Debian installer, I wrote a shell
7732 implementation of the lookup code. The idea is to create files for
7733 each modalias and let the shell do the matching. Please check out and
7735 <a href=
"http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/hw-support-lookup?view=co">hw-support-lookup
</a>
7736 shell script. It run without any extra dependencies and fetch the
7737 hardware mappings from the Debian archive and the subversion
7738 repository where I currently work on my prototype.
</p>
7740 <p>When I use it on a machine with a yubikey inserted, it suggest to
7741 install yubikey-personalization:
</p>
7744 % ./hw-support-lookup
7745 <br>yubikey-personalization
7749 <p>When I run it on my Thinkpad X40 with a PCMCIA/CardBus slot, it
7750 propose to install the pcmciautils package:
</p>
7753 % ./hw-support-lookup
7758 <p>If you know of any hardware-package mapping that should be added to
7759 <a href=
"http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=co">my
7760 database
</a>, please tell me about it.
</p>
7762 <p>It could be possible to generate several of the mappings between
7763 packages and hardware. One source would be to look at packages with
7764 kernel modules, ie packages with *.ko files in /lib/modules/, and
7765 extract their modalias information. Another would be to look at
7766 packages with udev rules, ie packages with files in
7767 /lib/udev/rules.d/, and extract their vendor/model information to
7768 generate a modalias matching rule. I have not tested any of these to
7771 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
7772 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
7773 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
7774 <a href=
"irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel
</a>.
</p>
7780 Tags:
<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>.
7785 <div class=
"padding"></div>
7789 <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>
7795 <p>While looking into how to look up Debian packages based on hardware
7796 information, to find the packages that support a given piece of
7797 hardware, I refreshed my memory regarding modalias values, and decided
7798 to document the details. Here are my findings so far, also available
7800 <a href=
"http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
7801 Debian Edu subversion repository
</a>:
7803 <p><strong>Modalias decoded
</strong></p>
7805 <p>This document try to explain what the different types of modalias
7806 values stands for. It is in part based on information from
7807 <URL:
<a href=
"https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias">https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias
</a> >,
7808 <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> >,
7809 <URL:
<a href=
"http://code.metager.de/source/history/linux/stable/scripts/mod/file2alias.c">http://code.metager.de/source/history/linux/stable/scripts/mod/file2alias.c
</a> > and
7810 <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> >.
7812 <p>The modalias entries for a given Linux machine can be found using
7813 this shell script:
</p>
7816 find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -
0 cat | sort -u
7819 <p>The supported modalias globs for a given kernel module can be found
7823 % /sbin/modinfo psmouse | grep alias:
7824 alias: serio:ty05pr*id*ex*
7825 alias: serio:ty01pr*id*ex*
7829 <p><strong>PCI subtype
</strong></p>
7831 <p>A typical PCI entry can look like this. This is an Intel Host
7832 Bridge memory controller:
</p>
7835 pci:v00008086d00002770sv00001028sd000001ADbc06sc00i00
7838 <p>This represent these values:
</p>
7843 sv
00001028 (subvendor)
7844 sd
000001AD (subdevice)
7846 sc
00 (bus subclass)
7850 <p>The vendor/device values are the same values outputted from 'lspci
7851 -n' as
8086:
2770. The bus class/subclass is also shown by lspci as
7852 0600. The
0600 class is a host bridge. Other useful bus values are
7853 0300 (VGA compatible card) and
0200 (Ethernet controller).
</p>
7855 <p>Not sure how to figure out the interface value, nor what it
7858 <p><strong>USB subtype
</strong></p>
7860 <p>Some typical USB entries can look like this. This is an internal
7861 USB hub in a laptop:
</p>
7864 usb:v1D6Bp0001d0206dc09dsc00dp00ic09isc00ip00
7867 <p>Here is the values included in this alias:
</p>
7870 v
1D6B (device vendor)
7871 p
0001 (device product)
7873 dc
09 (device class)
7874 dsc
00 (device subclass)
7875 dp
00 (device protocol)
7876 ic
09 (interface class)
7877 isc
00 (interface subclass)
7878 ip
00 (interface protocol)
7881 <p>The
0900 device class/subclass means hub. Some times the relevant
7882 class is in the interface class section. For a simple USB web camera,
7883 these alias entries show up:
</p>
7886 usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc01ip00
7887 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc02ip00
7888 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc01ip00
7889 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc02ip00
7892 <p>Interface class
0E01 is video control,
0E02 is video streaming (aka
7893 camera),
0101 is audio control device and
0102 is audio streaming (aka
7894 microphone). Thus this is a camera with microphone included.
</p>
7896 <p><strong>ACPI subtype
</strong></p>
7898 <p>The ACPI type is used for several non-PCI/USB stuff. This is an IR
7899 receiver in a Thinkpad X40:
</p>
7902 acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
7905 <p>The values between the colons are IDs.
</p>
7907 <p><strong>DMI subtype
</strong></p>
7909 <p>The DMI table contain lots of information about the computer case
7910 and model. This is an entry for a IBM Thinkpad X40, fetched from
7911 /sys/devices/virtual/dmi/id/modalias:
</p>
7914 dmi:bvnIBM:bvr1UETB6WW(
1.66):bd06/
15/
2005:svnIBM:pn2371H4G:pvrThinkPadX40:rvnIBM:rn2371H4G:rvrNotAvailable:cvnIBM:ct10:cvrNotAvailable:
7917 <p>The values present are
</p>
7920 bvn IBM (BIOS vendor)
7921 bvr
1UETB
6WW(
1.66) (BIOS version)
7922 bd
06/
15/
2005 (BIOS date)
7923 svn IBM (system vendor)
7924 pn
2371H4G (product name)
7925 pvr ThinkPadX40 (product version)
7926 rvn IBM (board vendor)
7927 rn
2371H4G (board name)
7928 rvr NotAvailable (board version)
7929 cvn IBM (chassis vendor)
7930 ct
10 (chassis type)
7931 cvr NotAvailable (chassis version)
7934 <p>The chassis type
10 is Notebook. Other interesting values can be
7935 found in the dmidecode source:
</p>
7939 4 Low Profile Desktop
7952 17 Main Server Chassis
7953 18 Expansion Chassis
7955 20 Bus Expansion Chassis
7956 21 Peripheral Chassis
7958 23 Rack Mount Chassis
7967 <p>The chassis type values are not always accurately set in the DMI
7968 table. For example my home server is a tower, but the DMI modalias
7969 claim it is a desktop.
</p>
7971 <p><strong>SerIO subtype
</strong></p>
7973 <p>This type is used for PS/
2 mouse plugs. One example is from my
7977 serio:ty01pr00id00ex00
7980 <p>The values present are
</p>
7989 <p>This type is supported by the psmouse driver. I am not sure what
7990 the valid values are.
</p>
7992 <p><strong>Other subtypes
</strong></p>
7994 <p>There are heaps of other modalias subtypes according to
7995 file2alias.c. There is the rest of the list from that source: amba,
7996 ap, bcma, ccw, css, eisa, hid, i2c, ieee1394, input, ipack, isapnp,
7997 mdio, of, parisc, pcmcia, platform, scsi, sdio, spi, ssb, vio, virtio,
7998 vmbus, x86cpu and zorro. I did not spend time documenting all of
7999 these, as they do not seem relevant for my intended use with mapping
8000 hardware to packages when new stuff is inserted during run time.
</p>
8002 <p><strong>Looking up kernel modules using modalias values
</strong></p>
8004 <p>To check which kernel modules provide support for a given modalias,
8005 one can use the following shell script:
</p>
8008 for id in $(find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -
0 cat | sort -u); do \
8010 /sbin/modprobe --show-depends "$id"|sed 's/^/ /' ; \
8014 <p>The output can look like this (only the first few entries as the
8015 list is very long on my test machine):
</p>
8019 insmod /lib/modules/
2.6.32-
5-
686/kernel/drivers/acpi/ac.ko
8021 FATAL: Module acpi:device: not found.
8023 insmod /lib/modules/
2.6.32-
5-
686/kernel/drivers/char/nvram.ko
8024 insmod /lib/modules/
2.6.32-
5-
686/kernel/drivers/leds/led-class.ko
8025 insmod /lib/modules/
2.6.32-
5-
686/kernel/net/rfkill/rfkill.ko
8026 insmod /lib/modules/
2.6.32-
5-
686/kernel/drivers/platform/x86/thinkpad_acpi.ko
8027 acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
8028 insmod /lib/modules/
2.6.32-
5-
686/kernel/lib/crc-ccitt.ko
8029 insmod /lib/modules/
2.6.32-
5-
686/kernel/net/irda/irda.ko
8030 insmod /lib/modules/
2.6.32-
5-
686/kernel/drivers/net/irda/nsc-ircc.ko
8034 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
8035 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
8036 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
8037 <a href=
"irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel
</a>.
</p>
8039 <p><strong>Update
2013-
01-
15:
</strong> Rewrite "cat $(find ...)" to
8040 "find ... -print0 | xargs -
0 cat" to make sure it handle directories
8041 in /sys/ with space in them.
</p>
8047 Tags:
<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>.
8052 <div class=
"padding"></div>
8056 <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>
8062 <p>As part of my investigation on how to improve the support in Debian
8063 for hardware dongles, I dug up my old Mark and Spencer USB Rocket
8064 Launcher and updated the Debian package
8065 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/pymissile">pymissile
</a> to make
8066 sure udev will fix the device permissions when it is plugged in. I
8067 also added a "Modaliases" header to test it in the Debian archive and
8068 hopefully make the package be proposed by jockey in Ubuntu when a user
8069 plug in his rocket launcher. In the process I moved the source to a
8070 git repository under collab-maint, to make it easier for any DD to
8071 contribute.
<a href=
"http://code.google.com/p/pymissile/">Upstream
</a>
8072 is not very active, but the software still work for me even after five
8073 years of relative silence. The new git repository is not listed in
8074 the uploaded package yet, because I want to test the other changes a
8075 bit more before I upload the new version. If you want to check out
8076 the new version with a .desktop file included, visit the
8077 <a href=
"http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/pymissile.git">gitweb
8078 view
</a> or use "
<tt>git clone
8079 git://anonscm.debian.org/collab-maint/pymissile.git
</tt>".</p>
8085 Tags: <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>.
8090 <div class="padding
"></div>
8094 <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>
8100 <p>One thing that annoys me with Debian and Linux distributions in
8101 general, is that there is a great package management system with the
8102 ability to automatically install software packages by downloading them
8103 from the distribution mirrors, but no way to get it to automatically
8104 install the packages I need to use the hardware I plug into my
8105 machine. Even if the package to use it is easily available from the
8106 Linux distribution. When I plug in a LEGO Mindstorms NXT, it could
8107 suggest to automatically install the python-nxt, nbc and t2n packages
8108 I need to talk to it. When I plug in a Yubikey, it could propose the
8109 yubikey-personalization package. The information required to do this
8110 is available, but no-one have pulled all the pieces together.</p>
8112 <p>Some years ago, I proposed to
8113 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/
2010/
05/msg01206.html
">use
8114 the discover subsystem to implement this</a>. The idea is fairly
8119 <li>Add a desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ pointing to a program
8120 starting when a user log in.</li>
8122 <li>Set this program up to listen for kernel events emitted when new
8123 hardware is inserted into the computer.</li>
8125 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware ID in a
8126 database mapping to packages, and take note of any non-installed
8129 <li>Show a message to the user proposing to install the discovered
8130 package, and make it easy to install it.</li>
8134 <p>I am not sure what the best way to implement this is, but my
8135 initial idea was to use dbus events to discover new hardware, the
8136 discover database to find packages and
8137 <a href="http://www.packagekit.org/
">PackageKit</a> to install
8140 <p>Yesterday, I found time to try to implement this idea, and the
8141 draft package is now checked into
8142 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/
">the
8143 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>. In the process, I updated the
8144 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover-data.html
">discover-data</a>
8145 package to map the USB ids of LEGO Mindstorms and Yubikey devices to
8146 the relevant packages in Debian, and uploaded a new version
8147 2.2013.01.09 to unstable. I also discovered that the current
8148 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover.html
">discover</a>
8149 package in Debian no longer discovered any USB devices, because
8150 /proc/bus/usb/devices is no longer present. I ported it to use
8151 libusb as a fall back option to get it working. The fixed package
8152 version 2.1.2-6 is now in experimental (didn't upload it to unstable
8153 because of the freeze).</p>
8155 <p>With this prototype in place, I can insert my Yubikey, and get this
8156 desktop notification to show up (only once, the first time it is
8159 <p align="center
"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/
2013-
01-
09-hw-autoinstall.png
"></p>
8161 <p>For this prototype to be really useful, some way to automatically
8162 install the proposed packages by pressing the "Please install
8163 program(s)" button should to be implemented.
</p>
8165 <p>If this idea seem useful to you, and you want to help make it
8166 happen, please help me update the discover-data database with mappings
8167 from hardware to Debian packages. Check if 'discover-pkginstall -l'
8168 list the package you would like to have installed when a given
8169 hardware device is inserted into your computer, and report bugs using
8170 reportbug if it isn't. Or, if you know of a better way to provide
8171 such mapping, please let me know.
</p>
8173 <p>This prototype need more work, and there are several questions that
8174 should be considered before it is ready for production use. Is dbus
8175 the correct way to detect new hardware? At the moment I look for HAL
8176 dbus events on the system bus, because that is the events I could see
8177 on my Debian Squeeze KDE desktop. Are there better events to use?
8178 How should the user be notified? Is the desktop notification
8179 mechanism the best option, or should the background daemon raise a
8180 popup instead? How should packages be installed? When should they
8181 not be installed?
</p>
8183 <p>If you want to help getting such feature implemented in Debian,
8184 please send me an email. :)
</p>
8190 Tags:
<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>.
8195 <div class=
"padding"></div>
8199 <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>
8205 <p>During Christmas, I have worked a bit on the Debian support for
8206 <a href=
"http://mindstorms.lego.com/en-us/Default.aspx">LEGO Mindstorm
8207 NXT
</a>. My son and I have played a bit with my NXT set, and I
8208 discovered I had to build all the tools myself because none were
8209 already in Debian Squeeze. If Debian support for LEGO is something
8210 you care about, please join me on the IRC channel
8211 <a href=
"irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">#debian-lego
</a> (server
8212 irc.debian.org). There is a lot that could be done to improve the
8213 Debian support for LEGO designers. For example both CAD software
8214 and Mindstorm compilers are missing. :)
</p>
8216 <p>Update
2012-
01-
03: A
8217 <a href=
"http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">project page
</a>
8218 including links to Lego related packages is now available.
</p>
8224 Tags:
<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/lego">lego
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot
</a>.
8229 <div class=
"padding"></div>
8233 <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>
8239 <p>Let me start by wishing you all marry Christmas and a happy new
8240 year! I hope next year will prove to be a good year.
</p>
8242 <p><a href=
"http://www.bitcoin.org/">Bitcoin
</a>, the digital
8243 decentralised "currency" that allow people to transfer bitcoins
8244 between each other with minimal overhead, is a very interesting
8245 experiment. And as I wrote a few days ago, the bitcoin situation in
8246 <a href=
"http://www.debian.org/">Debian
</a> is about to improve a bit.
8247 The
<a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">new debian source
8248 package
</a> (version
0.7.2-
2) was uploaded yesterday, and is waiting
8249 in
<a href=
"http://ftp-master.debian.org/new.html">the NEW queue
</A>
8250 for one of the ftpmasters to approve the new bitcoin-qt package
8253 <p>And thanks to the great work of Jonas and the rest of the bitcoin
8254 team in Debian, you can easily test the package in Debian Squeeze
8255 using the following steps to get a set of working packages:
</p>
8258 git clone git://git.debian.org/git/collab-maint/bitcoin
8260 DEB_MAINTAINER_MODE=
1 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp fakeroot debian/rules clean
8261 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp git-buildpackage --git-ignore-new
8264 <p>You might have to install some build dependencies as well. The
8265 list of commands should give you two packages, bitcoind and
8266 bitcoin-qt, ready for use in a Squeeze environment. Note that the
8267 client will download the complete set of bitcoin "blocks", which need
8268 around
5.6 GiB of data on my machine at the moment. Make sure your
8269 ~/.bitcoin/ directory have lots of spare room if you want to download
8270 all the blocks. The client will warn if the disk is getting full, so
8271 there is not really a problem if you got too little room, but you will
8272 not be able to get all the features out of the client.
</p>
8274 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
8275 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
8276 <b><a href=
"bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
</a></b>.
</p>
8282 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>.
8287 <div class=
"padding"></div>
8291 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_word_on_bitcoin_support_in_Debian.html">A word on bitcoin support in Debian
</a>
8297 <p>It has been a while since I wrote about
8298 <a href=
"http://www.bitcoin.org/">bitcoin
</a>, the decentralised
8299 peer-to-peer based crypto-currency, and the reason is simply that I
8300 have been busy elsewhere. But two days ago, I started looking at the
8301 state of
<a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin in
8302 Debian
</a> again to try to recover my old bitcoin wallet. The package
8303 is now maintained by a
8304 <a href=
"https://alioth.debian.org/projects/pkg-bitcoin/">team of
8305 people
</a>, and the grunt work had already been done by this team. We
8306 owe a huge thank you to all these team members. :)
8307 But I was sad to discover that the bitcoin client is missing in
8308 Wheezy. It is only available in Sid (and an outdated client from
8309 backports). The client had several RC bugs registered in BTS blocking
8310 it from entering testing. To try to help the team and improve the
8311 situation, I spent some time providing patches and triaging the bug
8312 reports. I also had a look at the bitcoin package available from Matt
8314 <a href=
"https://launchpad.net/~bitcoin/+archive/bitcoin">PPA for
8315 Ubuntu
</a>, and moved the useful pieces from that version into the
8318 <p>After checking with the main package maintainer Jonas Smedegaard on
8319 IRC, I pushed several patches into the collab-maint git repository to
8320 improve the package. It now contains fixes for the RC issues (not from
8321 me, but fixed by Scott Howard), build rules for a Qt GUI client
8322 package, konqueror support for the bitcoin: URI and bash completion
8323 setup. As I work on Debian Squeeze, I also created
8324 <a href=
"http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-bitcoin-devel/Week-of-Mon-20121217/000041.html">a
8325 patch to backport
</a> the latest version. Jonas is going to look at
8326 it and try to integrate it into the git repository before uploading a
8327 new version to unstable.
8329 <p>I would very much like bitcoin to succeed, to get rid of the
8330 centralized control currently exercised in the monetary system. I
8331 find it completely unacceptable that the USA government is collecting
8332 transaction data for almost all international money transfers (most are done in USD and transaction logs shipped to the spooks), and
8333 that the major credit card companies can block legal money
8334 transactions to Wikileaks. But for bitcoin to succeed, more people
8335 need to use bitcoins, and more people need to accept bitcoins when
8336 they sell products and services. Improving the bitcoin support in
8337 Debian is a small step in the right direction, but not enough.
8338 Unfortunately the user experience when browsing the web and wanting to
8339 pay with bitcoin is still not very good. The bitcoin: URI is a step
8340 in the right direction, but need to work in most or every browser in
8341 use. Also the bitcoin-qt client is too heavy to fire up to do a
8342 quick transaction. I believe there are other clients available, but
8343 have not tested them.
</p>
8346 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Now_accepting_bitcoins___anonymous_and_distributed_p2p_crypto_money.html">experiment
8347 with bitcoins
</a> showed that at least some of my readers use bitcoin.
8348 I received
20.15 BTC so far on the address I provided in my blog two
8349 years ago, as can be
8350 <a href=
"http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">seen
8351 on the blockexplorer service
</a>. Thank you everyone for your
8352 donation. The blockexplorer service demonstrates quite well that
8353 bitcoin is not quite anonymous and untracked. :) I wonder if the
8354 number of users have gone up since then. If you use bitcoin and want
8355 to show your support of my activity, please send Bitcoin donations to
8356 the same address as last time,
8357 <b><a href=
"bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
</a></b>.
</p>
8363 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>.
8368 <div class=
"padding"></div>
8372 <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>
8379 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">mentioned
8380 this summer
</a>, I have created a Computer Science song book a few
8381 years ago, and today I finally found time to create a public
8382 <a href=
"https://gitorious.org/pere-cs-songbook/pere-cs-songbook">Gitorious
8383 repository for the project
</a>.
</p>
8385 <p>If you want to help out, please clone the source and submit patches
8386 to the HTML version. To generate the PDF and PostScript version,
8387 please use prince XML, or let me know about a useful free software
8388 processor capable of creating a good looking PDF from the HTML.
</p>
8390 <p>Want to sing? You can still find the song book in HTML, PDF and
8391 PostScript formats at
8392 <a href=
"http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's Computer
8393 Science Songbook
</a>.
</p>
8399 Tags:
<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>.
8404 <div class=
"padding"></div>
8408 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gratulerer_med_19__rsdagen__Debian_.html">Gratulerer med
19-årsdagen, Debian!
</a>
8415 <a href=
"http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120813">Debian-prosjektet
19
8416 år
</a>. Jeg har fulgt det de siste
12 årene, og er veldig glad for å kunne
8417 si gratulerer med dagen, Debian!
</p>
8423 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>.
8428 <div class=
"padding"></div>
8432 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">Song book for Computer Scientists
</a>
8438 <p>Many years ago, while studying Computer Science at the
8439 <a href=
"http://www.uit.no/">University of Tromsø
</a>, I started
8440 collecting computer related songs for use at parties. The original
8441 version was written in LaTeX, but a few years ago I got help from
8442 Håkon W. Lie, one of the inventors of W3C CSS, to convert it to HTML
8443 while keeping the ability to create a nice book in PDF format. I have
8444 not had time to maintain the book for a while now, and guess I should
8445 put it up on some public version control repository where others can
8446 help me extend and update the book. If anyone is volunteering to help
8447 me with this, send me an email. Also let me know if there are songs
8448 missing in my book.
</p>
8450 <p>I have not mentioned the book on my blog so far, and it occured to
8451 me today that I really should let all my readers share the joys of
8452 singing out load about programming, computers and computer networks.
8453 Especially now that
<a href=
"http://debconf12.debconf.org/">Debconf
8454 12</a> is about to start (and I am not going). Want to sing? Check
8455 out
<a href=
"http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's
8456 Computer Science Songbook
</a>.
8462 Tags:
<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>.
8467 <div class=
"padding"></div>
8471 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatically_upgrading_server_firmware_on_Dell_PowerEdge.html">Automatically upgrading server firmware on Dell PowerEdge
</a>
8477 <p>At work we have heaps of servers. I believe the total count is
8478 around
1000 at the moment. To be able to get help from the vendors
8479 when something go wrong, we want to keep the firmware on the servers
8480 up to date. If the firmware isn't the latest and greatest, the
8481 vendors typically refuse to start debugging any problems until the
8482 firmware is upgraded. So before every reboot, we want to upgrade the
8483 firmware, and we would really like everyone handling servers at the
8484 university to do this themselves when they plan to reboot a machine.
8485 For that to happen we at the unix server admin group need to provide
8486 the tools to do so.
</p>
8488 <p>To make firmware upgrading easier, I am working on a script to
8489 fetch and install the latest firmware for the servers we got. Most of
8490 our hardware are from Dell and HP, so I have focused on these servers
8491 so far. This blog post is about the Dell part.
</P>
8493 <p>On the Dell FTP site I was lucky enough to find
8494 <a href=
"ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz">an XML file
</a>
8495 with firmware information for all
11th generation servers, listing
8496 which firmware should be used on a given model and where on the FTP
8497 site I can find it. Using a simple perl XML parser I can then
8498 download the shell scripts Dell provides to do firmware upgrades from
8499 within Linux and reboot when all the firmware is primed and ready to
8500 be activated on the first reboot.
</p>
8502 <p>This is the Dell related fragment of the perl code I am working on.
8503 Are there anyone working on similar tools for firmware upgrading all
8504 servers at a site? Please get in touch and lets share resources.
</p>
8510 use File::Temp qw(tempdir);
8512 # Install needed RHEL packages if missing
8514 'XML::Simple' =
> 'perl-XML-Simple',
8516 for my $module (keys %rhelmodules) {
8517 eval "use $module;";
8519 my $pkg = $rhelmodules{$module};
8520 system("yum install -y $pkg");
8521 eval "use $module;";
8525 my $errorsto = 'pere@hungry.com';
8531 sub run_firmware_script {
8532 my ($opts, $script) = @_;
8534 print STDERR "fail: missing script name\n";
8537 print STDERR "Running $script\n\n";
8539 if (
0 == system("sh $script $opts")) { # FIXME correct exit code handling
8540 print STDERR "success: firmware script ran succcessfully\n";
8542 print STDERR "fail: firmware script returned error\n";
8546 sub run_firmware_scripts {
8547 my ($opts, @dirs) = @_;
8548 # Run firmware packages
8549 for my $dir (@dirs) {
8550 print STDERR "info: Running scripts in $dir\n";
8551 opendir(my $dh, $dir) or die "Unable to open directory $dir: $!";
8552 while (my $s = readdir $dh) {
8553 next if $s =~ m/^\.\.?/;
8554 run_firmware_script($opts, "$dir/$s");
8562 print STDERR "info: Downloading $url\n";
8563 system("wget --quiet \"$url\"");
8568 my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
8571 if ($product =~ m/PowerEdge/) {
8573 # on RHEL, these pacakges are needed by the firwmare upgrade scripts
8574 system('yum install -y compat-libstdc++-
33.i686 libstdc++.i686 libxml2.i686 procmail');
8576 my $tmpdir = tempdir(
8580 fetch_dell_fw('catalog/Catalog.xml.gz');
8581 system('gunzip Catalog.xml.gz');
8582 my @paths = fetch_dell_fw_list('Catalog.xml');
8583 # -q is quiet, disabling interactivity and reducing console output
8586 for my $url (@paths) {
8587 fetch_dell_fw($url);
8589 run_firmware_scripts($fwopts, $tmpdir);
8591 print STDERR
"error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
8592 print STDERR
"error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
8596 print STDERR
"error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
8597 print STDERR
"error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
8603 my $url =
"ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/$path";
8607 # Using ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz, figure out which
8608 # firmware packages to download from Dell. Only work for Linux
8609 # machines and
11th generation Dell servers.
8610 sub fetch_dell_fw_list {
8611 my $filename = shift;
8613 my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
8615 my ($mybrand, $mymodel) = split(/\s+/, $product);
8617 print STDERR
"Finding firmware bundles for $mybrand $mymodel\n";
8619 my $xml = XMLin($filename);
8621 for my $bundle (@{$xml-
>{SoftwareBundle}}) {
8622 my $brand = $bundle-
>{TargetSystems}-
>{Brand}-
>{Display}-
>{content};
8623 my $model = $bundle-
>{TargetSystems}-
>{Brand}-
>{Model}-
>{Display}-
>{content};
8625 if ("ARRAY" eq ref $bundle-
>{TargetOSes}-
>{OperatingSystem}) {
8626 $oscode = $bundle-
>{TargetOSes}-
>{OperatingSystem}[
0]-
>{osCode};
8628 $oscode = $bundle-
>{TargetOSes}-
>{OperatingSystem}-
>{osCode};
8630 if ($mybrand eq $brand && $mymodel eq $model && "LIN" eq $oscode)
8632 @paths = map { $_-
>{path} } @{$bundle-
>{Contents}-
>{Package}};
8635 for my $component (@{$xml-
>{SoftwareComponent}}) {
8636 my $componenttype = $component-
>{ComponentType}-
>{value};
8638 # Drop application packages, only firmware and BIOS
8639 next if 'APAC' eq $componenttype;
8641 my $cpath = $component-
>{path};
8642 for my $path (@paths) {
8643 if ($cpath =~ m%/$path$%) {
8644 push(@paths, $cpath);
8652 <p>The code is only tested on RedHat Enterprise Linux, but I suspect
8653 it could work on other platforms with some tweaking. Anyone know a
8654 index like Catalog.xml is available from HP for HP servers? At the
8655 moment I maintain a similar list manually and it is quickly getting
8662 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
8667 <div class=
"padding"></div>
8671 <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>
8677 <p>Wouter Verhelst have some
8678 <a href=
"http://grep.be/blog/en/retorts/pere_kubuntu_boot">interesting
8679 comments and opinions
</a> on my blog post on
8680 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_should_start_from__etc_rcS_d__in_Debian____almost_nothing.html">the
8681 need to clean up /etc/rcS.d/ in Debian
</a> and my blog post about
8682 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_missing_in_the_Debian_desktop__or_why_my_parents_use_Kubuntu.html">the
8683 default KDE desktop in Debian
</a>. I only have time to address one
8684 small piece of his comment now, and though it best to address the
8685 misunderstanding he bring forward:
</p>
8688 Currently, a system admin has four options: [...] boot to a
8689 single-user system (by adding 'single' to the kernel command line;
8690 this runs rcS and rc1 scripts)
8693 <p>This make me believe Wouter believe booting into single user mode
8694 and booting into runlevel
1 is the same. I am not surprised he
8695 believe this, because it would make sense and is a quite sensible
8696 thing to believe. But because the boot in Debian is slightly broken,
8697 runlevel
1 do not work properly and it isn't the same as single user
8698 mode. I'll try to explain what is actually happing, but it is a bit
8699 hard to explain.
</p>
8701 <p>Single user mode is defined like this in /etc/inittab:
8702 "
<tt>~~:S:wait:/sbin/sulogin
</tt>". This means the only thing that is
8703 executed in single user mode is sulogin. Single user mode is a boot
8704 state "between
" the runlevels, and when booting into single user mode,
8705 only the scripts in /etc/rcS.d/ are executed before the init process
8706 enters the single user state. When switching to runlevel 1, the state
8707 is in fact not ending in runlevel 1, but it passes through runlevel 1
8708 and end up in the single user mode (see /etc/rc1.d/S03single, which
8709 runs "init -t1 S
" to switch to single user mode at the end of runlevel
8710 1. It is confusing that the 'S' (single user) init mode is not the
8711 mode enabled by /etc/rcS.d/ (which is more like the initial boot
8714 <p>This summary might make it clearer. When booting for the first
8715 time into single user mode, the following commands are executed:
8716 "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc S; /sbin/sulogin
</tt>". When booting into
8717 runlevel 1, the following commands are executed: "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc
8718 S; /etc/init.d/rc
1; /sbin/sulogin
</tt>". A problem show up when
8719 trying to continue after visiting single user mode. Not all services
8720 are started again as they should, causing the machine to end up in an
8721 unpredicatble state. This is why Debian admins recommend rebooting
8722 after visiting single user mode.</p>
8724 <p>A similar problem with runlevel 1 is caused by the amount of
8725 scripts executed from /etc/rcS.d/. When switching from say runlevel 2
8726 to runlevel 1, the services started from /etc/rcS.d/ are not properly
8727 stopped when passing through the scripts in /etc/rc1.d/, and not
8728 started again when switching away from runlevel 1 to the runlevels
8729 2-5. I believe the problem is best fixed by moving all the scripts
8730 out of /etc/rcS.d/ that are not <strong>required</strong> to get a
8731 functioning single user mode during boot.</p>
8733 <p>I have spent several years investigating the Debian boot system,
8734 and discovered this problem a few years ago. I suspect it originates
8735 from when sysvinit was introduced into Debian, a long time ago.</p>
8741 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>.
8746 <div class="padding
"></div>
8750 <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>
8756 <p>In the Debian boot system, several packages include scripts that
8757 are started from /etc/rcS.d/. In fact, there is a bite more of them
8758 than make sense, and this causes a few problems. What kind of
8759 problems, you might ask. There are at least two problems. The first
8760 is that it is not possible to recover a machine after switching to
8761 runlevel 1. One need to actually reboot to get the machine back to
8762 the expected state. The other is that single user boot will sometimes
8763 run into problems because some of the subsystems are activated before
8764 the root login is presented, causing problems when trying to recover a
8765 machine from a problem in that subsystem. A minor additional point is
8766 that moving more scripts out of rcS.d/ and into the other rc#.d/
8767 directories will increase the amount of scripts that can run in
8768 parallel during boot, and thus decrease the boot time.</p>
8770 <p>So, which scripts should start from rcS.d/. In short, only the
8771 scripts that _have_ to execute before the root login prompt is
8772 presented during a single user boot should go there. Everything else
8773 should go into the numeric runlevels. This means things like
8774 lm-sensors, fuse and x11-common should not run from rcS.d, but from
8775 the numeric runlevels. Today in Debian, there are around 115 init.d
8776 scripts that are started from rcS.d/, and most of them should be moved
8777 out. Do your package have one of them? Please help us make single
8778 user and runlevel 1 better by moving it.</p>
8780 <p>Scripts setting up the screen, keyboard, system partitions
8781 etc. should still be started from rcS.d/, but there is for example no
8782 need to have the network enabled before the single user login prompt
8785 <p>As always, things are not so easy to fix as they sound. To keep
8786 Debian systems working while scripts migrate and during upgrades, the
8787 scripts need to be moved from rcS.d/ to rc2.d/ in reverse dependency
8788 order, ie the scripts that nothing in rcS.d/ depend on can be moved,
8789 and the next ones can only be moved when their dependencies have been
8790 moved first. This migration must be done sequentially while we ensure
8791 that the package system upgrade packages in the right order to keep
8792 the system state correct. This will require some coordination when it
8793 comes to network related packages, but most of the packages with
8794 scripts that should migrate do not have anything in rcS.d/ depending
8795 on them. Some packages have already been updated, like the sudo
8796 package, while others are still left to do. I wish I had time to work
8797 on this myself, but real live constrains make it unlikely that I will
8798 find time to push this forward.</p>
8804 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>.
8809 <div class="padding
"></div>
8813 <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>
8819 <p>While at Debconf11, I have several times during discussions
8820 mentioned the issues I believe should be improved in Debian for its
8821 desktop to be useful for more people. The use case for this is my
8822 parents, which are currently running Kubuntu which solve the
8825 <p>I suspect these four missing features are not very hard to
8826 implement. After all, they are present in Ubuntu, so if we wanted to
8827 do this in Debian we would have a source.</p>
8831 <li><strong>Simple GUI based upgrade of packages.</strong> When there
8832 are new packages available for upgrades, a icon in the KDE status bar
8833 indicate this, and clicking on it will activate the simple upgrade
8834 tool to handle it. I have no problem guiding both of my parents
8835 through the process over the phone. If a kernel reboot is required,
8836 this too is indicated by the status bars and the upgrade tool. Last
8837 time I checked, nothing with the same features was working in KDE in
8840 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing Firefox browser
8841 plugins.</strong> When the browser encounter a MIME type it do not
8842 currently have a handler for, it will ask the user if the system
8843 should search for a package that would add support for this MIME type,
8844 and if the user say yes, the APT sources will be searched for packages
8845 advertising the MIME type in their control file (visible in the
8846 Packages file in the APT archive). If one or more packages are found,
8847 it is a simple click of the mouse to add support for the missing mime
8848 type. If the package require the user to accept some non-free
8849 license, this is explained to the user. The entire process make it
8850 more clear to the user why something do not work in the browser, and
8851 make the chances higher for the user to blame the web page authors and
8852 not the browser for any missing features.</li>
8854 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing multimedia codec/format
8855 handlers.</strong> When the media players encounter a format or codec
8856 it is not supporting, a dialog pop up asking the user if the system
8857 should search for a package that would add support for it. This
8858 happen with things like MP3, Windows Media or H.264. The selection
8859 and installation procedure is very similar to the Firefox browser
8860 plugin handling. This is as far as I know implemented using a
8861 gstreamer hook. The end result is that the user easily get access to
8862 the codecs that are present from the APT archives available, while
8863 explaining more on why a given format is unsupported by Ubuntu.</li>
8865 <li><strong>Better browser handling of some MIME types.</strong> When
8866 displaying a text/plain file in my Debian browser, it will propose to
8867 start emacs to show it. If I remember correctly, when doing the same
8868 in Kunbutu it show the file as a text file in the browser. At least I
8869 know Opera will show text files within the browser. I much prefer the
8870 latter behaviour.</li>
8874 <p>There are other nice features as well, like the simplified suite
8875 upgrader, but given that I am the one mostly doing the dist-upgrade,
8876 it do not matter much.</p>
8878 <p>I really hope we could get these features in place for the next
8879 Debian release. It would require the coordinated effort of several
8880 maintainers, but would make the end user experience a lot better.</p>
8886 Tags: <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>.
8891 <div class="padding
"></div>
8895 <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>
8901 <p>The Norwegian <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/
">FiksGataMi</A>
8902 site is build on Debian/Squeeze, and this platform was chosen because
8903 I am most familiar with Debian (being a Debian Developer for around 10
8904 years) because it is the latest stable Debian release which should get
8905 security support for a few years.</p>
8907 <p>The web service is written in Perl, and depend on some perl modules
8908 that are missing in Debian at the moment. It would be great if these
8909 modules were added to the Debian archive, allowing anyone to set up
8910 their own <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com
">FixMyStreet</a> clone
8911 in their own country using only Debian packages. The list of modules
8912 missing in Debian/Squeeze isn't very long, and I hope the perl group
8913 will find time to package the 12 modules Catalyst::Plugin::SmartURI,
8914 Catalyst::Plugin::Unicode::Encoding, Catalyst::View::TT, Devel::Hide,
8915 Sort::Key, Statistics::Distributions, Template::Plugin::Comma,
8916 Template::Plugin::DateTime::Format, Term::Size::Any, Term::Size::Perl,
8917 URI::SmartURI and Web::Scraper to make the maintenance of FixMyStreet
8918 easier in the future.</p>
8920 <p>Thanks to the great tools in Debian, getting the missing modules
8921 installed on my server was a simple call to 'cpan2deb Module::Name'
8922 and 'dpkg -i' to install the resulting package. But this leave me
8923 with the responsibility of tracking security problems, which I really
8924 do not have time for.</p>
8930 Tags: <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>.
8935 <div class="padding
"></div>
8939 <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>
8945 <p>Here is a small update for my English readers. Most of my blog
8946 posts have been in Norwegian the last few weeks, so here is a short
8947 update in English.</p>
8949 <p>The kids still keep me too busy to get much free software work
8950 done, but I did manage to organise a project to get a Norwegian port
8951 of the British service
8952 <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com/
">FixMyStreet</a> up and running,
8953 and it has been running for a month now. The entire project has been
8954 organised by me and two others. Around Christmas we gathered sponsors
8955 to fund the development work. In January I drafted a contract with
8956 <a href="http://www.mysociety.org/
">mySociety</a> on what to develop,
8957 and in February the development took place. Most of it involved
8958 converting the source to use GPS coordinates instead of British
8959 easting/northing, and the resulting code should be a lot easier to get
8960 running in any country by now. The Norwegian
8961 <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/
">FiksGataMi</a> is using
8962 <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/
">OpenStreetmap</a> as the map
8963 source and the source for administrative borders in Norway, and
8964 support for this had to be added/fixed.</p>
8966 <p>The Norwegian version went live March 3th, and we spent the weekend
8967 polishing the system before we announced it March 7th. The system is
8968 running on a KVM instance of Debian/Squeeze, and has seen almost 3000
8969 problem reports in a few weeks. Soon we hope to announce the Android
8970 and iPhone versions making it even easier to report problems with the
8971 public infrastructure.</p>
8973 <p>Perhaps something to consider for those of you in countries without
8980 Tags: <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>.
8985 <div class="padding
"></div>
8989 <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>
8995 <p>The last few days I have looked at ways to track open security
8996 issues here at my work with the University of Oslo. My idea is that
8997 it should be possible to use the information about security issues
8998 available on the Internet, and check our locally
8999 maintained/distributed software against this information. It should
9000 allow us to verify that no known security issues are forgotten. The
9001 CVE database listing vulnerabilities seem like a great central point,
9002 and by using the package lists from Debian mapped to CVEs provided by
9003 the testing security team, I believed it should be possible to figure
9004 out which security holes were present in our free software
9007 <p>After reading up on the topic, it became obvious that the first
9008 building block is to be able to name software packages in a unique and
9009 consistent way across data sources. I considered several ways to do
9010 this, for example coming up with my own naming scheme like using URLs
9011 to project home pages or URLs to the Freshmeat entries, or using some
9012 existing naming scheme. And it seem like I am not the first one to
9013 come across this problem, as MITRE already proposed and implemented a
9014 solution. Enter the <a href="http://cpe.mitre.org/index.html
">Common
9015 Platform Enumeration</a> dictionary, a vocabulary for referring to
9016 software, hardware and other platform components. The CPE ids are
9017 mapped to CVEs in the <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/
">National
9018 Vulnerability Database</a>, allowing me to look up know security
9019 issues for any CPE name. With this in place, all I need to do is to
9020 locate the CPE id for the software packages we use at the university.
9021 This is fairly trivial (I google for 'cve cpe $package' and check the
9022 NVD entry if a CVE for the package exist).</p>
9024 <p>To give you an example. The GNU gzip source package have the CPE
9025 name cpe:/a:gnu:gzip. If the old version 1.3.3 was the package to
9026 check out, one could look up
9027 <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
9028 in NVD</a> and get a list of 6 security holes with public CVE entries.
9029 The most recent one is
9030 <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/view/vuln/detail?vulnId=CVE-
2010-
0001">CVE-2010-0001</a>,
9031 and at the bottom of the NVD page for this vulnerability the complete
9032 list of affected versions is provided.</p>
9034 <p>The NVD database of CVEs is also available as a XML dump, allowing
9035 for offline processing of issues. Using this dump, I've written a
9036 small script taking a list of CPEs as input and list all CVEs
9037 affecting the packages represented by these CPEs. One give it CPEs
9038 with version numbers as specified above and get a list of open
9039 security issues out.</p>
9041 <p>Of course for this approach to be useful, the quality of the NVD
9042 information need to be high. For that to happen, I believe as many as
9043 possible need to use and contribute to the NVD database. I notice
9045 <a href="https://www.redhat.com/security/data/metrics/rhsamapcpe.txt
">a
9046 map from CVE to CPE</a>, indicating that they are using the CPE
9047 information. I'm not aware of Debian and Ubuntu doing the same.</p>
9049 <p>To get an idea about the quality for free software, I spent some
9050 time making it possible to compare the CVE database from Debian with
9051 the CVE database in NVD. The result look fairly good, but there are
9052 some inconsistencies in NVD (same software package having several
9053 CPEs), and some inaccuracies (NVD not mentioning buggy packages that
9054 Debian believe are affected by a CVE). Hope to find time to improve
9055 the quality of NVD, but that require being able to get in touch with
9056 someone maintaining it. So far my three emails with questions and
9057 corrections have not seen any reply, but I hope contact can be
9058 established soon.</p>
9060 <p>An interesting application for CPEs is cross platform package
9061 mapping. It would be useful to know which packages in for example
9062 RHEL, OpenSuSe and Mandriva are missing from Debian and Ubuntu, and
9063 this would be trivial if all linux distributions provided CPE entries
9064 for their packages.</p>
9070 Tags: <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>.
9075 <div class="padding
"></div>
9079 <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>
9086 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/discover-data
">discover-data</a>
9087 package in Debian, there is a script to report useful information
9088 about the running hardware for use when people report missing
9089 information. One part of this script that I find very useful when
9090 debugging hardware problems, is the part mapping loaded kernel module
9091 to the PCI device it claims. It allow me to quickly see if the kernel
9092 module I expect is driving the hardware I am struggling with. To see
9093 the output, make sure discover-data is installed and run
9094 <tt>/usr/share/bug/discover-data 3>&1</tt>. The relevant output on
9095 one of my machines like this:</p>
9099 10de:03eb i2c_nforce2
9102 10de:03f0 snd_hda_intel
9111 <p>The code in question look like this, slightly modified for
9112 readability and to drop the output to file descriptor 3:</p>
9115 if [ -d /sys/bus/pci/devices/ ] ; then
9116 echo loaded pci modules:
9118 cd /sys/bus/pci/devices/
9119 for address in * ; do
9120 if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
9121 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
9122 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
9123 address=$(echo $address |sed s/
0000://)
9124 id=`lspci -n -s $address | tail -n
1 | awk '{print $
3}'`
9134 <p>Similar code could be used to extract USB device module
9138 if [ -d /sys/bus/usb/devices/ ] ; then
9139 echo loaded usb modules:
9141 cd /sys/bus/usb/devices/
9142 for address in * ; do
9143 if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
9144 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
9145 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
9146 address=$(echo $address |sed s/
0000://)
9147 id=$(lsusb -s $address | tail -n
1 | awk '{print $
6}')
9159 <p>This might perhaps be something to include in other tools as
9166 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
9171 <div class=
"padding"></div>
9175 <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>
9181 <p>The last few days I have spent at work here at the
<a
9182 href=
"http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo
</a> testing if the new
9183 batch of computers will work with Linux. Every year for the last few
9184 years the university have organised shared bid of a few thousand
9185 computers, and this year HP won the bid. Two different desktops and
9186 five different laptops are on the list this year. We in the UNIX
9187 group want to know which one of these computers work well with RHEL
9188 and Ubuntu, the two Linux distributions we currently handle at the
9191 <p>My test method is simple, and I share it here to get feedback and
9192 perhaps inspire others to test hardware as well. To test, I PXE
9193 install the OS version of choice, and log in as my normal user and run
9194 a few applications and plug in selected pieces of hardware. When
9195 something fail, I make a note about this in the test matrix and move
9196 on. If I have some spare time I try to report the bug to the OS
9197 vendor, but as I only have the machines for a short time, I rarely
9198 have the time to do this for all the problems I find.
</p>
9200 <p>Anyway, to get to the point of this post. Here is the simple tests
9201 I perform on a new model.
</p>
9205 <li>Is PXE installation working? I'm testing with RHEL6, Ubuntu Lucid
9206 and Ubuntu Maverik at the moment. If I feel like it, I also test with
9207 RHEL5 and Debian Edu/Squeeze.
</li>
9209 <li>Is X.org working? If the graphical login screen show up after
9210 installation, X.org is working.
</li>
9212 <li>Is hardware accelerated OpenGL working? Running glxgears (in
9213 package mesa-utils on Ubuntu) and writing down the frames per second
9214 reported by the program.
</li>
9216 <li>Is sound working? With Gnome and KDE, a sound is played when
9217 logging in, and if I can hear this the test is successful. If there
9218 are several audio exits on the machine, I try them all and check if
9219 the Gnome/KDE audio mixer can control where to send the sound. I
9220 normally test this by playing
9221 <a href=
"http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20101012-chef/ ">a HTML5
9222 video
</a> in Firefox/Iceweasel.
</li>
9224 <li>Is the USB subsystem working? I test this by plugging in a USB
9225 memory stick and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.
</li>
9227 <li>Is the CD/DVD player working? I test this by inserting any CD/DVD
9228 I have lying around, and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.
</li>
9230 <li>Is any built in camera working? Test using cheese, and see if a
9231 picture from the v4l device show up.
</li>
9233 <li>Is bluetooth working? Use the Gnome/KDE browsing tool to see if
9234 any bluetooth devices are discovered. In my office, I normally see a
9237 <li>For laptops, is the SD or Compaq Flash reader working. I have
9238 memory modules lying around, and stick them in and see if Gnome/KDE
9241 <li>For laptops, is suspend/hibernate working? I'm testing if the
9242 special button work, and if the laptop continue to work after
9245 <li>For laptops, is the extra buttons working, like audio level,
9246 adjusting background light, switching on/off external video output,
9247 switching on/off wifi, bluetooth, etc? The set of buttons differ from
9248 laptop to laptop, so I just write down which are working and which are
9251 <li>Some laptops have smart card readers, finger print readers,
9252 acceleration sensors etc. I rarely test these, as I do not know how
9253 to quickly test if they are working or not, so I only document their
9258 <p>By now I suspect you are really curious what the test results are
9259 for the HP machines I am testing. I'm not done yet, so I will report
9260 the test results later. For now I can report that HP
8100 Elite work
9261 fine, and hibernation fail with HP EliteBook
8440p on Ubuntu Lucid,
9262 and audio fail on RHEL6. Ubuntu Maverik worked with
8440p. As you
9263 can see, I have most machines left to test. One interesting
9264 observation is that Ubuntu Lucid has almost twice the frame rate than
9265 RHEL6 with glxgears. No idea why.
</p>
9271 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>.
9276 <div class=
"padding"></div>
9280 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Some_thoughts_on_BitCoins.html">Some thoughts on BitCoins
</a>
9286 <p>As I continue to explore
9287 <a href=
"http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin
</a>, I've starting to wonder
9288 what properties the system have, and how it will be affected by laws
9289 and regulations here in Norway. Here are some random notes.
</p>
9291 <p>One interesting thing to note is that since the transactions are
9292 verified using a peer to peer network, all details about a transaction
9293 is known to everyone. This means that if a BitCoin address has been
9294 published like I did with mine in my initial post about BitCoin, it is
9295 possible for everyone to see how many BitCoins have been transfered to
9296 that address. There is even a web service to look at the details for
9297 all transactions. There I can see that my address
9298 <a href=
"http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
</a>
9299 have received
16.06 Bitcoin, the
9300 <a href=
"http://blockexplorer.com/address/1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3">1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv
8MHqvwst
3</a>
9301 address of Simon Phipps have received
181.97 BitCoin and the address
9302 <a href=
"http://blockexplorer.com/address/1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt">1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt
</A>
9303 of EFF have received
2447.38 BitCoins so far. Thank you to each and
9304 every one of you that donated bitcoins to support my activity. The
9305 fact that anyone can see how much money was transfered to a given
9306 address make it more obvious why the BitCoin community recommend to
9307 generate and hand out a new address for each transaction. I'm told
9308 there is no way to track which addresses belong to a given person or
9309 organisation without the person or organisation revealing it
9310 themselves, as Simon, EFF and I have done.
</p>
9312 <p>In Norway, and in most other countries, there are laws and
9313 regulations limiting how much money one can transfer across the border
9314 without declaring it. There are money laundering, tax and accounting
9315 laws and regulations I would expect to apply to the use of BitCoin.
9316 If the Skolelinux foundation
9317 (
<a href=
"http://linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">SLX
9318 Debian Labs
</a>) were to accept donations in BitCoin in addition to
9319 normal bank transfers like EFF is doing, how should this be accounted?
9320 Given that it is impossible to know if money can cross the border or
9321 not, should everything or nothing be declared? What exchange rate
9322 should be used when calculating taxes? Would receivers have to pay
9323 income tax if the foundation were to pay Skolelinux contributors in
9324 BitCoin? I have no idea, but it would be interesting to know.
</p>
9326 <p>For a currency to be useful and successful, it must be trusted and
9327 accepted by a lot of users. It must be possible to get easy access to
9328 the currency (as a wage or using currency exchanges), and it must be
9329 easy to spend it. At the moment BitCoin seem fairly easy to get
9330 access to, but there are very few places to spend it. I am not really
9331 a regular user of any of the vendor types currently accepting BitCoin,
9332 so I wonder when my kind of shop would start accepting BitCoins. I
9333 would like to buy electronics, travels and subway tickets, not herbs
9334 and books. :) The currency is young, and this will improve over time
9335 if it become popular, but I suspect regular banks will start to lobby
9336 to get BitCoin declared illegal if it become popular. I'm sure they
9337 will claim it is helping fund terrorism and money laundering (which
9338 probably would be true, as is any currency in existence), but I
9339 believe the problems should be solved elsewhere and not by blaming
9342 <p>The process of creating new BitCoins is called mining, and it is
9343 CPU intensive process that depend on a bit of luck as well (as one is
9344 competing against all the other miners currently spending CPU cycles
9345 to see which one get the next lump of cash). The "winner" get
50
9346 BitCoin when this happen. Yesterday I came across the obvious way to
9347 join forces to increase ones changes of getting at least some coins,
9348 by coordinating the work on mining BitCoins across several machines
9349 and people, and sharing the result if one is lucky and get the
50
9351 <a href=
"http://www.bluishcoder.co.nz/bitcoin-pool/">BitCoin Pool
</a>
9352 if this sounds interesting. I have not had time to try to set up a
9353 machine to participate there yet, but have seen that running on ones
9354 own for a few days have not yield any BitCoins througth mining
9357 <p>Update
2010-
12-
15: Found an
<a
9358 href=
"http://inertia.posterous.com/reply-to-the-underground-economist-why-bitcoi">interesting
9359 criticism
</a> of bitcoin. Not quite sure how valid it is, but thought
9360 it was interesting to read. The arguments presented seem to be
9361 equally valid for gold, which was used as a currency for many years.
</p>
9367 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>.
9372 <div class=
"padding"></div>
9376 <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>
9382 <p>With this weeks lawless
9383 <a href=
"http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/06/wikileaks/index.html">governmental
9384 attacks
</a> on Wikileak and
9385 <a href=
"http://www.salon.com/technology/dan_gillmor/2010/12/06/war_on_speech">free
9386 speech
</a>, it has become obvious that PayPal, visa and mastercard can
9387 not be trusted to handle money transactions.
9389 <a href=
"http://webmink.com/2010/12/06/now-accepting-bitcoin/">Simon
9390 Phipps on bitcoin
</a> reminded me about a project that a friend of
9391 mine mentioned earlier. I decided to follow Simon's example, and get
9392 involved with
<a href=
"http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin
</a>. I got
9393 some help from my friend to get it all running, and he even handed me
9394 some bitcoins to get started. I even donated a few bitcoins to Simon
9395 for helping me remember BitCoin.
</p>
9397 <p>So, what is bitcoins, you probably wonder? It is a digital
9398 crypto-currency, decentralised and handled using peer-to-peer
9399 networks. It allows anonymous transactions and prohibits central
9400 control over the transactions, making it impossible for governments
9401 and companies alike to block donations and other transactions. The
9402 source is free software, and while the key dependency wxWidgets
2.9
9403 for the graphical user interface is missing in Debian, the command
9404 line client builds just fine. Hopefully Jonas
9405 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/578157">will get the package into
9406 Debian
</a> soon.
</p>
9408 <p>Bitcoins can be converted to other currencies, like USD and EUR.
9409 There are
<a href=
"http://www.bitcoin.org/trade">companies accepting
9410 bitcoins
</a> when selling services and goods, and there are even
9411 currency "stock" markets where the exchange rate is decided. There
9412 are not many users so far, but the concept seems promising. If you
9413 want to get started and lack a friend with any bitcoins to spare,
9415 <a href=
"https://freebitcoins.appspot.com/">some for free
</a> (
0.05
9416 bitcoin at the time of writing). Use
9417 <a href=
"http://www.bitcoinwatch.com/">BitcoinWatch
</a> to keep an eye
9418 on the current exchange rates.
</p>
9420 <p>As an experiment, I have decided to set up bitcoind on one of my
9421 machines. If you want to support my activity, please send Bitcoin
9422 donations to the address
9423 <b>15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
</b>. Thank you!
</p>
9429 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>.
9434 <div class=
"padding"></div>
9438 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_isn_t_Debian_Edu_using_VLC_.html">Why isn't Debian Edu using VLC?
</a>
9444 <p>In the latest issue of Linux Journal, the readers choices were
9445 presented, and the winner among the multimedia player were VLC.
9446 Personally, I like VLC, and it is my player of choice when I first try
9447 to play a video file or stream. Only if VLC fail will I drag out
9448 gmplayer to see if it can do better. The reason is mostly the failure
9449 model and trust. When VLC fail, it normally pop up a error message
9450 reporting the problem. When mplayer fail, it normally segfault or
9451 just hangs. The latter failure mode drain my trust in the program.
<p>
9453 <p>But even if VLC is my player of choice, we have choosen to use
9454 mplayer in
<a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
9455 Edu/Skolelinux
</a>. The reason is simple. We need a good browser
9456 plugin to play web videos seamlessly, and the VLC browser plugin is
9457 not very good. For example, it lack in-line control buttons, so there
9458 is no way for the user to pause the video. Also, when I
9459 <a href=
"http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">last
9460 tested the browser plugins
</a> available in Debian, the VLC plugin
9461 failed on several video pages where mplayer based plugins worked. If
9462 the browser plugin for VLC was as good as the gecko-mediaplayer
9463 package (which uses mplayer), we would switch.
</P>
9465 <p>While VLC is a good player, its user interface is slightly
9466 annoying. The most annoying feature is its inconsistent use of
9467 keyboard shortcuts. When the player is in full screen mode, its
9468 shortcuts are different from when it is playing the video in a window.
9469 For example, space only work as pause when in full screen mode. I
9470 wish it had consisten shortcuts and that space also would work when in
9471 window mode. Another nice shortcut in gmplayer is [enter] to restart
9472 the current video. It is very nice when playing short videos from the
9473 web and want to restart it when new people arrive to have a look at
9474 what is going on.
</p>
9480 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>.
9485 <div class=
"padding"></div>
9489 <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>
9495 <p>Michael Biebl suggested to me on IRC, that I changed my automated
9496 upgrade testing of the
9497 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
9498 Gnome and KDE Desktop
</a> to do
<tt>apt-get autoremove
</tt> when using apt-get.
9499 This seem like a very good idea, so I adjusted by test scripts and
9500 can now present the updated result from today:
</p>
9502 <p>This is for Gnome:
</p>
9504 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude
</p>
9511 browser-plugin-gnash
9518 freedesktop-sound-theme
9520 gconf-defaults-service
9535 gnome-desktop-environment
9539 gnome-session-canberra
9544 gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
9550 libapache2-mod-dnssd
9553 libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3
9556 libboost-date-time1.42
.0
9557 libboost-python1.42
.0
9558 libboost-thread1.42
.0
9560 libchamplain-gtk-
0.4-
0
9562 libclutter-gtk-
0.10-
0
9569 libfreerdp-plugins-standard
9584 libgnomepanel2.24-cil
9589 libgtksourceview2.0-common
9590 libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
9591 libmono-addins0.2-cil
9592 libmono-cairo2.0-cil
9593 libmono-corlib2.0-cil
9594 libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil
9595 libmono-posix2.0-cil
9596 libmono-security2.0-cil
9597 libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
9598 libmono-system2.0-cil
9601 libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil
9602 libndesk-dbus1.0-cil
9612 libtelepathy-farsight0
9621 nautilus-sendto-empathy
9625 python-aptdaemon-gtk
9627 python-beautifulsoup
9642 python-gtksourceview2
9653 python-pkg-resources
9660 python-twisted-conch
9666 python-zope.interface
9671 rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
9678 system-config-printer-udev
9680 telepathy-mission-control-
5
9693 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude
</p>
9701 fast-user-switch-applet
9720 libgtksourceview2.0-
0
9722 libsdl1.2debian-alsa
9728 system-config-printer
9735 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get
</p>
9738 gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
9741 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get
</p>
9747 <p>This is for KDE:
</p>
9749 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude
</p>
9755 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude
</p>
9762 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get
</p>
9778 kdeartwork-emoticons
9780 kdeartwork-theme-icon
9784 kdebase-workspace-bin
9785 kdebase-workspace-data
9799 kscreensaver-xsavers
9814 plasma-dataengines-workspace
9816 plasma-desktopthemes-artwork
9817 plasma-runners-addons
9818 plasma-scriptengine-googlegadgets
9819 plasma-scriptengine-python
9820 plasma-scriptengine-qedje
9821 plasma-scriptengine-ruby
9822 plasma-scriptengine-webkit
9823 plasma-scriptengines
9824 plasma-wallpapers-addons
9825 plasma-widget-folderview
9826 plasma-widget-networkmanagement
9830 xscreensaver-data-extra
9832 xscreensaver-gl-extra
9833 xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
9836 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get
</p>
9840 google-gadgets-common
9858 libggadget-qt-
1.0-
0b
9863 libkonqsidebarplugin4a
9872 libplasma-geolocation-interface4
9874 libplasmagenericshell4
9888 libsmokeknewstuff2-
3
9889 libsmokeknewstuff3-
3
9891 libsmokektexteditor3
9899 libsmokeqtnetwork4-
3
9905 libsmokeqtuitools4-
3
9917 plasma-dataengines-addons
9918 plasma-scriptengine-superkaramba
9919 plasma-widget-lancelot
9920 plasma-widgets-addons
9921 plasma-widgets-workspace
9925 update-notifier-common
9928 <p>Running apt-get autoremove made the results using apt-get and
9929 aptitude a bit more similar, but there are still quite a lott of
9930 differences. I have no idea what packages should be installed after
9931 the upgrade, but hope those that do can have a look.
</p>
9937 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>.
9942 <div class=
"padding"></div>
9946 <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>
9952 <p>Most of the computers in use by the
9953 <a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux project
</a>
9954 are virtual machines. And they have been Xen machines running on a
9955 fairly old IBM eserver xseries
345 machine, and we wanted to migrate
9956 them to KVM on a newer Dell PowerEdge
2950 host machine. This was a
9957 bit harder that it could have been, because we set up the Xen virtual
9958 machines to get the virtual partitions from LVM, which as far as I
9959 know is not supported by KVM. So to migrate, we had to convert
9960 several LVM logical volumes to partitions on a virtual disk file.
</p>
9963 <a href=
"http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM">a
9964 nice recipe
</a> to do this, and wrote the following script to do the
9965 migration. It uses qemu-img from the qemu package to make the disk
9966 image, parted to partition it, losetup and kpartx to present the disk
9967 image partions as devices, and dd to copy the data. I NFS mounted the
9968 new servers storage area on the old server to do the migration.
</p>
9974 # http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/
35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM
9979 if [ -z "$
1" ] ; then
9980 echo "Usage: $
0 <hostname
>"
9986 if [ ! -e /dev/vg_data/$host-disk ] ; then
9987 echo "error: unable to find LVM volume for $host"
9991 # Partitions need to be a bit bigger than the LVM LVs. not sure why.
9992 disksize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-disk | awk '{sum = sum + $
4} END { print int(sum *
1.05) }')
9993 swapsize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-swap | awk '{sum = sum + $
4} END { print int(sum *
1.05) }')
9994 totalsize=$(( ( $disksize + $swapsize ) ))
9997 #dd if=/dev/zero of=$img bs=
1M count=$(( $disksize + $swapsize ))
9998 qemu-img create $img ${totalsize}MMaking room on the Debian Edu/Sqeeze DVD
10000 parted $img mklabel msdos
10001 parted $img mkpart primary linux-swap
0 $disksize
10002 parted $img mkpart primary ext2 $disksize $totalsize
10003 parted $img set
1 boot on
10006 losetup /dev/loop0 $img
10007 kpartx -a /dev/loop0
10009 dd if=/dev/vg_data/$host-disk of=/dev/mapper/loop0p1 bs=
1M
10010 fsck.ext3 -f /dev/mapper/loop0p1 || true
10011 mkswap /dev/mapper/loop0p2
10013 kpartx -d /dev/loop0
10014 losetup -d /dev/loop0
10017 <p>The script is perhaps so simple that it is not copyrightable, but
10018 if it is, it is licenced using GPL v2 or later at your discretion.
</p>
10020 <p>After doing this, I booted a Debian CD in rescue mode in KVM with
10021 the new disk image attached, installed grub-pc and linux-image-
686 and
10022 set up grub to boot from the disk image. After this, the KVM machines
10023 seem to work just fine.
</p>
10029 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>.
10034 <div class=
"padding"></div>
10036 <div class=
"entry">
10037 <div class=
"title">
10038 <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>
10044 <p>I'm still running upgrade testing of the
10045 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
10046 Gnome and KDE Desktop
</a>, but have not had time to spend on reporting the
10047 status. Here is a short update based on a test I ran
20101118.
</p>
10049 <p>I still do not know what a correct migration should look like, so I
10050 report any differences between apt and aptitude and hope someone else
10051 can see if anything should be changed.
</p>
10053 <p>This is for Gnome:
</p>
10055 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude
</p>
10058 apache2.2-bin aptdaemon at-spi baobab binfmt-support
10059 browser-plugin-gnash cheese-common cli-common cpp-
4.3 cups-pk-helper
10060 dmz-cursor-theme empathy empathy-common finger
10061 freedesktop-sound-theme freeglut3 gconf-defaults-service gdm-themes
10062 gedit-plugins geoclue geoclue-hostip geoclue-localnet geoclue-manual
10063 geoclue-yahoo gnash gnash-common gnome gnome-backgrounds
10064 gnome-cards-data gnome-codec-install gnome-core
10065 gnome-desktop-environment gnome-disk-utility gnome-screenshot
10066 gnome-search-tool gnome-session-canberra gnome-spell
10067 gnome-system-log gnome-themes-extras gnome-themes-more
10068 gnome-user-share gs-common gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
10069 gstreamer0.10-tools gtk2-engines gtk2-engines-pixbuf
10070 gtk2-engines-smooth hal-info hamster-applet libapache2-mod-dnssd
10071 libapr1 libaprutil1 libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3 libaprutil1-ldap
10072 libart2.0-cil libatspi1.0-
0 libboost-date-time1.42
.0
10073 libboost-python1.42
.0 libboost-thread1.42
.0 libchamplain-
0.4-
0
10074 libchamplain-gtk-
0.4-
0 libcheese-gtk18 libclutter-gtk-
0.10-
0
10075 libcryptui0 libcupsys2 libdiscid0 libeel2-data libelf1 libepc-
1.0-
2
10076 libepc-common libepc-ui-
1.0-
2 libfreerdp-plugins-standard
10077 libfreerdp0 libgail-common libgconf2.0-cil libgdata-common libgdata7
10078 libgdl-
1-common libgdu-gtk0 libgee2 libgeoclue0 libgexiv2-
0 libgif4
10079 libglade2.0-cil libglib2.0-cil libgmime2.4-cil libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
10080 libgnome2.24-cil libgnomepanel2.24-cil libgnomeprint2.2-data
10081 libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod-common libgpod4
10082 libgtk2.0-cil libgtkglext1 libgtksourceview-common
10083 libgtksourceview2.0-common libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
10084 libmono-addins0.2-cil libmono-cairo2.0-cil libmono-corlib2.0-cil
10085 libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil libmono-posix2.0-cil
10086 libmono-security2.0-cil libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
10087 libmono-system2.0-cil libmtp8 libmusicbrainz3-
6
10088 libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil libndesk-dbus1.0-cil libopal3.6
.8
10089 libpolkit-gtk-
1-
0 libpt-
1.10.10-plugins-alsa
10090 libpt-
1.10.10-plugins-v4l libpt2.6
.7 libpython2.6 librpm1 librpmio1
10091 libsdl1.2debian libservlet2.4-java libsrtp0 libssh-
4
10092 libtelepathy-farsight0 libtelepathy-glib0 libtidy-
0.99-
0
10093 libxalan2-java libxerces2-java media-player-info mesa-utils
10094 mono-
2.0-gac mono-gac mono-runtime nautilus-sendto
10095 nautilus-sendto-empathy openoffice.org-writer2latex
10096 openssl-blacklist p7zip p7zip-full pkg-config python-
4suite-xml
10097 python-aptdaemon python-aptdaemon-gtk python-axiom
10098 python-beautifulsoup python-bugbuddy python-clientform
10099 python-coherence python-configobj python-crypto python-cupshelpers
10100 python-cupsutils python-eggtrayicon python-elementtree
10101 python-epsilon python-evolution python-feedparser python-gdata
10102 python-gdbm python-gst0.10 python-gtkglext1 python-gtkmozembed
10103 python-gtksourceview2 python-httplib2 python-louie python-mako
10104 python-markupsafe python-mechanize python-nevow python-notify
10105 python-opengl python-openssl python-pam python-pkg-resources
10106 python-pyasn1 python-pysqlite2 python-rdflib python-serial
10107 python-tagpy python-twisted-bin python-twisted-conch
10108 python-twisted-core python-twisted-web python-utidylib python-webkit
10109 python-xdg python-zope.interface remmina remmina-plugin-data
10110 remmina-plugin-rdp remmina-plugin-vnc rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
10111 rhythmbox-plugins rpm-common rpm2cpio seahorse-plugins shotwell
10112 software-center svgalibg1 system-config-printer-udev
10113 telepathy-gabble telepathy-mission-control-
5 telepathy-salut tomboy
10114 totem totem-coherence totem-mozilla totem-plugins
10115 transmission-common xdg-user-dirs xdg-user-dirs-gtk xserver-xephyr
10119 Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude
10122 arj bluez-utils cheese dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop ekiga eog
10123 epiphany-extensions epiphany-gecko evolution-exchange
10124 fast-user-switch-applet file-roller gcalctool gconf-editor gdm gedit
10125 gedit-common gnome-app-install gnome-games gnome-games-data
10126 gnome-nettool gnome-system-tools gnome-themes gnome-utils
10127 gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager gnuchess gucharmap
10128 guile-
1.8-libs hal libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5
10129 libavahi-ui0 libbind9-
50 libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-
11 libcdio7
10130 libcucul0 libcurl3 libdirectfb-
1.0-
0 libdmx1 libdvdread3
10131 libedata-cal1.2-
6 libedataserver1.2-
9 libeel2-
2.20 libepc-
1.0-
1
10132 libepc-ui-
1.0-
1 libexchange-storage1.2-
3 libfaad0 libgadu3
10133 libgalago3 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-
3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
10134 libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-
0 libgksuui1.0-
1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-
2
10135 libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-
1 libgnomeprint2.2-
0
10136 libgnomeprintui2.2-
0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtk-vnc-
1.0-
0
10137 libgtkhtml2-
0 libgtksourceview1.0-
0 libgtksourceview2.0-
0
10138 libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
10139 libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libkpathsea4 liblircclient0 libltdl3 liblwres50
10140 libmagick++
10 libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmozjs1d libmpfr1ldbl libmtp7
10141 libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0
10142 libnm-util0 libopal-
2.2 libosp5 libparted1.8-
10 libpisock9
10143 libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-
1.10.10 libraw1394-
8
10144 libsdl1.2debian-alsa libsensors3 libsexy2 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-
8
10145 libspeexdsp1 libssh2-
1 libsuitesparse-
3.1.0 libsvga1
10146 libswfdec-
0.6-
90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0
10147 libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12
10148 libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common rhythmbox seahorse
10149 sound-juicer swfdec-gnome system-config-printer totem-common
10150 totem-gstreamer transmission-gtk vinagre vino w3c-dtd-xhtml wodim
10153 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get
</p>
10156 gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
10159 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get
</p>
10165 <p>This is for KDE:
</p>
10167 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude
</p>
10170 autopoint bomber bovo cantor cantor-backend-kalgebra cpp-
4.3 dcoprss
10171 edict espeak espeak-data eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
10172 ghostscript-x git gnome-audio gnugo granatier gs-common
10173 gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio indi kaddressbook-plugins kalgebra
10174 kalzium-data kanjidic kapman kate-plugins kblocks kbreakout kbstate
10175 kde-icons-mono kdeaccessibility kdeaddons-kfile-plugins
10176 kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
10177 kdeedu kdeedu-data kdeedu-kvtml-data kdegames kdegames-card-data
10178 kdegames-mahjongg-data kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc
10179 kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
10180 kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdessh kdetoys kdewebdev
10181 kdiamond kdnssd kfilereplace kfourinline kgeography-data kigo
10182 killbots kiriki klettres-data kmoon kmrml knewsticker-scripts
10183 kollision kpf krosspython ksirk ksmserver ksquares kstars-data
10184 ksudoku kubrick kweather libasound2-plugins libboost-python1.42
.0
10185 libcfitsio3 libconvert-binhex-perl libcrypt-ssleay-perl libdb4.6++
10186 libdjvulibre-text libdotconf1.0 liberror-perl libespeak1
10187 libfinance-quote-perl libgail-common libgsl0ldbl libhtml-parser-perl
10188 libhtml-tableextract-perl libhtml-tagset-perl libhtml-tree-perl
10189 libio-stringy-perl libkdeedu4 libkdegames5 libkiten4 libkpathsea5
10190 libkrossui4 libmailtools-perl libmime-tools-perl
10191 libnews-nntpclient-perl libopenbabel3 libportaudio2 libpulse-browse0
10192 libservlet2.4-java libspeechd2 libtiff-tools libtimedate-perl
10193 libunistring0 liburi-perl libwww-perl libxalan2-java libxerces2-java
10194 lirc luatex marble networkstatus noatun-plugins
10195 openoffice.org-writer2latex palapeli palapeli-data parley
10196 parley-data poster psutils pulseaudio pulseaudio-esound-compat
10197 pulseaudio-module-x11 pulseaudio-utils quanta-data rocs rsync
10198 speech-dispatcher step svgalibg1 texlive-binaries texlive-luatex
10199 ttf-sazanami-gothic
10202 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude
</p>
10205 amor artsbuilder atlantik atlantikdesigner blinken bluez-utils cvs
10206 dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop imlib-base imlib11 kalzium kanagram kandy
10207 kasteroids katomic kbackgammon kbattleship kblackbox kbounce kbruch
10208 kcron kdat kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data kdeprint kdict kdvi kedit
10209 keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs kgeography kghostview
10210 kgoldrunner khangman khexedit kiconedit kig kimagemapeditor
10211 kitchensync kiten kjumpingcube klatin klettres klickety klines
10212 klinkstatus kmag kmahjongg kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmines
10213 kmousetool kmouth kmplot knetwalk kodo kolf kommander konquest kooka
10214 kpager kpat kpdf kpercentage kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler krec
10215 kregexpeditor kreversi ksame ksayit kshisen ksig ksim ksirc ksirtet
10216 ksmiletris ksnake ksokoban kspaceduel kstars ksvg ksysv kteatime
10217 ktip ktnef ktouch ktron kttsd ktuberling kturtle ktux kuickshow
10218 kverbos kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kwordquiz
10219 kworldclock kxsldbg libakode2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
10220 libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
10221 libavahi-core5 libavc1394-
0 libbind9-
50 libbluetooth2
10222 libboost-python1.34
.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0
10223 libdirectfb-
1.0-
0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
10224 libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-
0 libicu38
10225 libiec61883-
0 libindex0 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
10226 libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1 libkdeedu3
10227 libkdegames1 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
10228 libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
10229 libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick10
10230 libmimelib1c2a libmodplug0c2 libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libmpfr1ldbl
10231 libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9 libpoppler-glib3
10232 libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-
8 librss1 libsensors3
10233 libsmbios2 libssh2-
1 libsuitesparse-
3.1.0 libswfdec-
0.6-
90
10234 libtalloc1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 lskat
10235 mpeglib network-manager-kde noatun pmount tex-common texlive-base
10236 texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended tidy
10237 ttf-dustin ttf-kochi-gothic ttf-sjfonts
10240 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get
</p>
10243 dolphin kde-core kde-plasma-desktop kde-standard kde-window-manager
10244 kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-apps kdebase-workspace
10245 kdebase-workspace-bin kdebase-workspace-data kdeutils kscreensaver
10246 kscreensaver-xsavers libgle3 libkonq5 libkonq5-templates libnetpbm10
10247 netpbm plasma-widget-folderview plasma-widget-networkmanagement
10248 xscreensaver-data-extra xscreensaver-gl xscreensaver-gl-extra
10249 xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
10252 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get
</p>
10255 kdebase-bin konq-plugins konqueror
10262 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>.
10267 <div class=
"padding"></div>
10269 <div class=
"entry">
10270 <div class=
"title">
10271 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gnash_buildbot_slave_and_Debian_kfreebsd.html">Gnash buildbot slave and Debian kfreebsd
</a>
10278 <a href=
"http://www.listware.net/201011/gnash-dev/67431-gnash-dev-buildbot-looking-for-slaves.html">the
10279 call from the Gnash project
</a> for
10280 <a href=
"http://www.gnashdev.org:8010">buildbot
</a> slaves to test the
10281 current source, I have set up a virtual KVM machine on the Debian
10282 Edu/Skolelinux virtualization host to test the git source on
10283 Debian/Squeeze. I hope this can help the developers in getting new
10284 releases out more often.
</p>
10286 <p>As the developers want less main-stream build platforms tested to,
10287 I have considered setting up a
<a
10288 href=
"http://www.debian.org/ports/kfreebsd-gnu/">Debian/kfreebsd
</a>
10289 machine as well. I have also considered using the kfreebsd
10290 architecture in Debian as a file server in NUUG to get access to the
5
10291 TB zfs volume we currently use to store DV video. Because of this, I
10292 finally got around to do a test installation of Debian/Squeeze with
10293 kfreebsd. Installation went fairly smooth, thought I noticed some
10294 visual glitches in the cdebconf dialogs (black cursor left on the
10295 screen at random locations). Have not gotten very far with the
10296 testing. Noticed cfdisk did not work, but fdisk did so it was not a
10297 fatal problem. Have to spend some more time on it to see if it is
10298 useful as a file server for NUUG. Will try to find time to set up a
10299 gnash buildbot slave on the Debian Edu/Skolelinux this weekend.
</p>
10305 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>.
10310 <div class=
"padding"></div>
10312 <div class=
"entry">
10313 <div class=
"title">
10314 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_in_3D.html">Debian in
3D
</a>
10320 <p><img src=
"http://thingiverse-production.s3.amazonaws.com/renders/23/e0/c4/f9/2b/debswagtdose_preview_medium.jpg"></p>
10322 <p>3D printing is just great. I just came across this Debian logo in
10324 <a href=
"http://blog.thingiverse.com/2010/11/09/participatory-branding/">the
10325 thingiverse blog
</a>.
</p>
10331 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>.
10336 <div class=
"padding"></div>
10338 <div class=
"entry">
10339 <div class=
"title">
10340 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Software_updates_2010_10_24.html">Software updates
2010-
10-
24</a>
10346 <p>Some updates.
</p>
10348 <p>My
<a href=
"http://pledgebank.com/gnash-avm2">gnash pledge
</a> to
10349 raise money for the project is going well. The lower limit of
10
10350 signers was reached in
24 hours, and so far
13 people have signed it.
10351 More signers and more funding is most welcome, and I am really curious
10352 how far we can get before the time limit of December
24 is reached.
10355 <p>On the #gnash IRC channel on irc.freenode.net, I was just tipped
10356 about what appear to be a great code coverage tool capable of
10357 generating code coverage stats without any changes to the source code.
10359 <a href=
"http://simonkagstrom.github.com/kcov/index.html">kcov
</a>,
10360 and can be used using
<tt>kcov
<directory
> <binary
></tt>.
10361 It is missing in Debian, but the git source built just fine in Squeeze
10362 after I installed libelf-dev, libdwarf-dev, pkg-config and
10363 libglib2.0-dev. Failed to build in Lenny, but suspect that is
10364 solvable. I hope kcov make it into Debian soon.
</p>
10366 <p>Finally found time to wrap up the release notes for
<a
10367 href=
"http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2010/10/msg00002.html">a
10368 new alpha release of Debian Edu
</a>, and just published the second
10369 alpha test release of the Squeeze based Debian Edu /
10370 <a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux
</a>
10371 release. Give it a try if you need a complete linux solution for your
10372 school, including central infrastructure server, workstations, thin
10373 client servers and diskless workstations. A nice touch added
10374 yesterday is RDP support on the thin client servers, for windows
10375 clients to get a Linux desktop on request.
</p>
10381 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>.
10386 <div class=
"padding"></div>
10388 <div class=
"entry">
10389 <div class=
"title">
10390 <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>
10396 <p>In the
<a href=
"http://popcon.debian.org/unknown/by_vote">Debian
10397 popularity-contest numbers
</a>, the adobe-flashplugin package the
10398 second most popular used package that is missing in Debian. The sixth
10399 most popular is flashplayer-mozilla. This is a clear indication that
10400 working flash is important for Debian users. Around
10 percent of the
10401 users submitting data to popcon.debian.org have this package
10404 <p>In the report written by Lars Risan in August
2008
10405 («
<a href=
"http://wiki.skolelinux.no/Dokumentasjon/Rapporter?action=AttachFile&do=view&target=Skolelinux_i_bruk_rapport_1.0.pdf">Skolelinux
10406 i bruk – Rapport for Hurum kommune, Universitetet i Agder og
10407 stiftelsen SLX Debian Labs
</a>»), one of the most important problems
10408 schools experienced with
<a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
10409 Edu/Skolelinux
</a> was the lack of working Flash. A lot of educational
10410 web sites require Flash to work, and lacking working Flash support in
10411 the web browser and the problems with installing it was perceived as a
10412 good reason to stay with Windows.
</p>
10414 <p>I once saw a funny and sad comment in a web forum, where Linux was
10415 said to be the retarded cousin that did not really understand
10416 everything you told him but could work fairly well. This was a
10417 comment regarding the problems Linux have with proprietary formats and
10418 non-standard web pages, and is sad because it exposes a fairly common
10419 understanding of whose fault it is if web pages that only work in for
10420 example Internet Explorer
6 fail to work on Firefox, and funny because
10421 it explain very well how annoying it is for users when Linux
10422 distributions do not work with the documents they receive or the web
10423 pages they want to visit.
</p>
10425 <p>This is part of the reason why I believe it is important for Debian
10426 and Debian Edu to have a well working Flash implementation in the
10427 distribution, to get at least popular sites as Youtube and Google
10428 Video to working out of the box. For Squeeze, Debian have the chance
10429 to include the latest version of Gnash that will make this happen, as
10430 the new release
0.8.8 was published a few weeks ago and is resting in
10431 unstable. The new version work with more sites that version
0.8.7.
10432 The Gnash maintainers have asked for a freeze exception, but the
10433 release team have not had time to reply to it yet. I hope they agree
10434 with me that Flash is important for the Debian desktop users, and thus
10435 accept the new package into Squeeze.
</p>
10441 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>.
10446 <div class=
"padding"></div>
10448 <div class=
"entry">
10449 <div class=
"title">
10450 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Circular_package_dependencies_harms_apt_recovery.html">Circular package dependencies harms apt recovery
</a>
10456 <p>I discovered this while doing
10457 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">automated
10458 testing of upgrades from Debian Lenny to Squeeze
</a>. A few packages
10459 in Debian still got circular dependencies, and it is often claimed
10460 that apt and aptitude should be able to handle this just fine, but
10461 some times these dependency loops causes apt to fail.
</p>
10463 <p>An example is from todays
10464 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing//test-20100727-lenny-squeeze-kde-aptitude.txt">upgrade
10465 of KDE using aptitude
</a>. In it, a bug in kdebase-workspace-data
10466 causes perl-modules to fail to upgrade. The cause is simple. If a
10467 package fail to unpack, then only part of packages with the circular
10468 dependency might end up being unpacked when unpacking aborts, and the
10469 ones already unpacked will fail to configure in the recovery phase
10470 because its dependencies are unavailable.
</p>
10472 <p>In this log, the problem manifest itself with this error:
</p>
10475 dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of perl-modules:
10476 perl-modules depends on perl (
>=
5.10.1-
1); however:
10477 Version of perl on system is
5.10.0-
19lenny
2.
10478 dpkg: error processing perl-modules (--configure):
10479 dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
10480 </pre></blockquote>
10482 <p>The perl/perl-modules circular dependency is already
10483 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/527917">reported as a bug
</a>, and will
10484 hopefully be solved as soon as possible, but it is not the only one,
10485 and each one of these loops in the dependency tree can cause similar
10486 failures. Of course, they only occur when there are bugs in other
10487 packages causing the unpacking to fail, but it is rather nasty when
10488 the failure of one package causes the problem to become worse because
10489 of dependency loops.
</p>
10492 <a href=
"http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/06/msg00116.html">the
10493 tireless effort by Bill Allombert
</a>, the number of circular
10495 <a href=
"http://debian.semistable.com/debgraph.out.html">left in Debian
10496 is dropping
</a>, and perhaps it will reach zero one day. :)
</p>
10498 <p>Todays testing also exposed a bug in
10499 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/590605">update-notifier
</a> and
10500 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/590604">different behaviour
</a> between
10501 apt-get and aptitude, the latter possibly caused by some circular
10502 dependency. Reported both to BTS to try to get someone to look at
10509 Tags:
<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>.
10514 <div class=
"padding"></div>
10516 <div class=
"entry">
10517 <div class=
"title">
10518 <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>
10525 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">followup
</a>
10527 <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
10529 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">merging
10530 all
</a> the computer related LDAP objects in Debian Edu.
</p>
10532 <p>As a step to try to see if it possible to merge the DNS and DHCP
10533 LDAP objects, I have had a look at how the packages pdns-backend-ldap
10534 and dhcp3-server-ldap in Debian use the LDAP server. The two
10535 implementations are quite different in how they use LDAP.
</p>
10537 To get this information, I started slapd with debugging enabled and
10538 dumped the debug output to a file to get the LDAP searches performed
10539 on a Debian Edu main-server. Here is a summary.
10541 <p><strong>powerdns
</strong></p>
10543 <a href=
"http://www.linuxnetworks.de/doc/index.php/PowerDNS_LDAP_Backend">Clues
10544 on how to
</a> set up PowerDNS to use a LDAP backend is available on
10547 <p>PowerDNS have two modes of operation using LDAP as its backend.
10548 One "strict" mode where the forward and reverse DNS lookups are done
10549 using the same LDAP objects, and a "tree" mode where the forward and
10550 reverse entries are in two different subtrees in LDAP with a structure
10551 based on the DNS names, as in tjener.intern and
10552 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa.
</p>
10554 <p>In tree mode, the server is set up to use a LDAP subtree as its
10555 base, and uses a "base" scoped search for the DNS name by adding
10556 "dc=tjener,dc=intern," to the base with a filter for
10557 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" for the forward entry and
10558 "dc=
2,dc=
2,dc=
0,dc=
10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa," with a filter for
10559 "(associateddomain=
2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)" for the reverse entry. For
10560 forward entries, it is looking for attributes named dnsttl, arecord,
10561 nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord,
10562 txtrecord, rprecord, afsdbrecord, keyrecord, aaaarecord, locrecord,
10563 srvrecord, naptrrecord, kxrecord, certrecord, dsrecord, sshfprecord,
10564 ipseckeyrecord, rrsigrecord, nsecrecord, dnskeyrecord, dhcidrecord,
10565 spfrecord and modifytimestamp. For reverse entries it is looking for
10566 the attributes dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord,
10567 ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord,
10568 locrecord, srvrecord, naptrrecord and modifytimestamp. The equivalent
10569 ldapsearch commands could look like this:
</p>
10572 ldapsearch -h ldap \
10573 -b dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
10574 -s base -x '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
10575 cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
10576 rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
10577 nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
10578 rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
10580 ldapsearch -h ldap \
10581 -b dc=
2,dc=
2,dc=
0,dc=
10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
10582 -s base -x '(associateddomain=
2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)'
10583 dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord soarecord ptrrecord \
10584 hinforecord mxrecord txtrecord rprecord aaaarecord locrecord \
10585 srvrecord naptrrecord modifytimestamp
10586 </pre></blockquote>
10588 <p>In Debian Edu/Lenny, the PowerDNS tree mode is used with
10589 ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no as the base, and these are two
10590 example LDAP objects used there. In addition to these objects, the
10591 parent objects all th way up to ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
10595 dn: dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
10597 objectclass: dnsdomain
10598 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
10601 associateddomain: tjener.intern
10603 dn: dc=
2,dc=
2,dc=
0,dc=
10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
10605 objectclass: dnsdomain2
10606 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
10608 ptrrecord: tjener.intern
10609 associateddomain:
2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa
10610 </pre></blockquote>
10612 <p>In strict mode, the server behaves differently. When looking for
10613 forward DNS entries, it is doing a "subtree" scoped search with the
10614 same base as in the tree mode for a object with filter
10615 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" and requests the attributes dnsttl,
10616 arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord,
10617 mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord, locrecord, srvrecord,
10618 naptrrecord and modifytimestamp. For reverse entires it also do a
10619 subtree scoped search but this time the filter is "(arecord=
10.0.2.2)"
10620 and the requested attributes are associateddomain, dnsttl and
10621 modifytimestamp. In short, in strict mode the objects with ptrrecord
10622 go away, and the arecord attribute in the forward object is used
10625 <p>The forward and reverse searches can be simulated using ldapsearch
10629 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
10630 '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
10631 cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
10632 rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
10633 nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
10634 rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
10636 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
10637 '(arecord=
10.0.2.2)' associateddomain dnsttl modifytimestamp
10638 </pre></blockquote>
10640 <p>In addition to the forward and reverse searches , there is also a
10641 search for SOA records, which behave similar to the forward and
10642 reverse lookups.
</p>
10644 <p>A thing to note with the PowerDNS behaviour is that it do not
10645 specify any objectclass names, and instead look for the attributes it
10646 need to generate a DNS reply. This make it able to work with any
10647 objectclass that provide the needed attributes.
</p>
10649 <p>The attributes are normally provided in the cosine (RFC
1274) and
10650 dnsdomain2 schemas. The latter is used for reverse entries like
10651 ptrrecord and recent DNS additions like aaaarecord and srvrecord.
</p>
10653 <p>In Debian Edu, we have created DNS objects using the object classes
10654 dcobject (for dc), dnsdomain or dnsdomain2 (structural, for the DNS
10655 attributes) and domainrelatedobject (for associatedDomain). The use
10656 of structural object classes make it impossible to combine these
10657 classes with the object classes used by DHCP.
</p>
10659 <p>There are other schemas that could be used too, for example the
10660 dnszone structural object class used by Gosa and bind-sdb for the DNS
10661 attributes combined with the domainrelatedobject object class, but in
10662 this case some unused attributes would have to be included as well
10663 (zonename and relativedomainname).
</p>
10665 <p>My proposal for Debian Edu would be to switch PowerDNS to strict
10666 mode and not use any of the existing objectclasses (dnsdomain,
10667 dnsdomain2 and dnszone) when one want to combine the DNS information
10668 with DHCP information, and instead create a auxiliary object class
10669 defined something like this (using the attributes defined for
10670 dnsdomain and dnsdomain2 or dnszone):
</p>
10673 objectclass ( some-oid NAME 'dnsDomainAux'
10676 MAY ( ARecord $ MDRecord $ MXRecord $ NSRecord $ SOARecord $ CNAMERecord $
10677 DNSTTL $ DNSClass $ PTRRecord $ HINFORecord $ MINFORecord $
10678 TXTRecord $ SIGRecord $ KEYRecord $ AAAARecord $ LOCRecord $
10679 NXTRecord $ SRVRecord $ NAPTRRecord $ KXRecord $ CERTRecord $
10680 A6Record $ DNAMERecord
10682 </pre></blockquote>
10684 <p>This will allow any object to become a DNS entry when combined with
10685 the domainrelatedobject object class, and allow any entity to include
10686 all the attributes PowerDNS wants. I've sent an email to the PowerDNS
10687 developers asking for their view on this schema and if they are
10688 interested in providing such schema with PowerDNS, and I hope my
10689 message will be accepted into their mailing list soon.
</p>
10691 <p><strong>ISC dhcp
</strong></p>
10693 <p>The DHCP server searches for specific objectclass and requests all
10694 the object attributes, and then uses the attributes it want. This
10695 make it harder to figure out exactly what attributes are used, but
10696 thanks to the working example in Debian Edu I can at least get an idea
10697 what is needed without having to read the source code.
</p>
10699 <p>In the DHCP server configuration, the LDAP base to use and the
10700 search filter to use to locate the correct dhcpServer entity is
10701 stored. These are the relevant entries from
10702 /etc/dhcp3/dhcpd.conf:
</p>
10705 ldap-base-dn "dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no";
10706 ldap-dhcp-server-cn "dhcp";
10707 </pre></blockquote>
10709 <p>The DHCP server uses this information to nest all the DHCP
10710 configuration it need. The cn "dhcp" is located using the given LDAP
10711 base and the filter "(&(objectClass=dhcpServer)(cn=dhcp))". The
10712 search result is this entry:
</p>
10715 dn: cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
10718 objectClass: dhcpServer
10719 dhcpServiceDN: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
10720 </pre></blockquote>
10722 <p>The content of the dhcpServiceDN attribute is next used to locate the
10723 subtree with DHCP configuration. The DHCP configuration subtree base
10724 is located using a base scope search with base "cn=DHCP
10725 Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" and filter
10726 "(&(objectClass=dhcpService)(|(dhcpPrimaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)(dhcpSecondaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)))".
10727 The search result is this entry:
</p>
10730 dn: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
10733 objectClass: dhcpService
10734 objectClass: dhcpOptions
10735 dhcpPrimaryDN: cn=dhcp, dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
10736 dhcpStatements: ddns-update-style none
10737 dhcpStatements: authoritative
10738 dhcpOption: smtp-server code
69 = array of ip-address
10739 dhcpOption: www-server code
72 = array of ip-address
10740 dhcpOption: wpad-url code
252 = text
10741 </pre></blockquote>
10743 <p>Next, the entire subtree is processed, one level at the time. When
10744 all the DHCP configuration is loaded, it is ready to receive requests.
10745 The subtree in Debian Edu contain objects with object classes
10746 top/dhcpService/dhcpOptions, top/dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions,
10747 top/dhcpSubnet, top/dhcpGroup and top/dhcpHost. These provide options
10748 and information about netmasks, dynamic range etc. Leaving out the
10749 details here because it is not relevant for the focus of my
10750 investigation, which is to see if it is possible to merge dns and dhcp
10751 related computer objects.
</p>
10753 <p>When a DHCP request come in, LDAP is searched for the MAC address
10754 of the client (
00:
00:
00:
00:
00:
00 in this example), using a subtree
10755 scoped search with "cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" as
10756 the base and "(&(objectClass=dhcpHost)(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet
10757 00:
00:
00:
00:
00:
00))" as the filter. This is what a host object look
10761 dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
10764 objectClass: dhcpHost
10765 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet
00:
00:
00:
00:
00:
00
10766 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname
10767 </pre></blockquote>
10769 <p>There is less flexiblity in the way LDAP searches are done here.
10770 The object classes need to have fixed names, and the configuration
10771 need to be stored in a fairly specific LDAP structure. On the
10772 positive side, the invidiual dhcpHost entires can be anywhere without
10773 the DN pointed to by the dhcpServer entries. The latter should make
10774 it possible to group all host entries in a subtree next to the
10775 configuration entries, and this subtree can also be shared with the
10776 DNS server if the schema proposed above is combined with the dhcpHost
10777 structural object class.
10779 <p><strong>Conclusion
</strong></p>
10781 <p>The PowerDNS implementation seem to be very flexible when it come
10782 to which LDAP schemas to use. While its "tree" mode is rigid when it
10783 come to the the LDAP structure, the "strict" mode is very flexible,
10784 allowing DNS objects to be stored anywhere under the base cn specified
10785 in the configuration.
</p>
10787 <p>The DHCP implementation on the other hand is very inflexible, both
10788 regarding which LDAP schemas to use and which LDAP structure to use.
10789 I guess one could implement ones own schema, as long as the
10790 objectclasses and attributes have the names used, but this do not
10791 really help when the DHCP subtree need to have a fairly fixed
10794 <p>Based on the observed behaviour, I suspect a LDAP structure like
10795 this might work for Debian Edu:
</p>
10799 cn=machine-info (dhcpService) - dhcpServiceDN points here
10800 cn=dhcp (dhcpServer)
10801 cn=dhcp-internal (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
10802 cn=
10.0.2.0 (dhcpSubnet)
10803 cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
10804 cn=dhcp-thinclients (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
10805 cn=
192.168.0.0 (dhcpSubnet)
10806 cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
10807 ou=machines - PowerDNS base points here
10808 cn=hostname (dhcpHost/domainrelatedobject/dnsDomainAux)
10809 </pre></blockquote>
10811 <P>This is not tested yet. If the DHCP server require the dhcpHost
10812 entries to be in the dhcpGroup subtrees, the entries can be stored
10813 there instead of a common machines subtree, and the PowerDNS base
10814 would have to be moved one level up to the machine-info subtree.
</p>
10816 <p>The combined object under the machines subtree would look something
10820 dn: dc=hostname,ou=machines,cn=machine-info,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
10823 objectClass: dhcpHost
10824 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
10825 objectclass: dnsDomainAux
10826 associateddomain: hostname.intern
10827 arecord:
10.11.12.13
10828 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet
00:
00:
00:
00:
00:
00
10829 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname.intern
10830 </pre></blockquote>
10832 </p>One could even add the LTSP configuration associated with a given
10833 machine, as long as the required attributes are available in a
10834 auxiliary object class.
</p>
10840 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>.
10845 <div class=
"padding"></div>
10847 <div class=
"entry">
10848 <div class=
"title">
10849 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">Combining PowerDNS and ISC DHCP LDAP objects
</a>
10855 <p>For a while now, I have wanted to find a way to change the DNS and
10856 DHCP services in Debian Edu to use the same LDAP objects for a given
10857 computer, to avoid the possibility of having a inconsistent state for
10858 a computer in LDAP (as in DHCP but no DNS entry or the other way
10859 around) and make it easier to add computers to LDAP.
</p>
10861 <p>I've looked at how powerdns and dhcpd is using LDAP, and using this
10862 information finally found a solution that seem to work.
</p>
10864 <p>The old setup required three LDAP objects for a given computer.
10865 One forward DNS entry, one reverse DNS entry and one DHCP entry. If
10866 we switch powerdns to use its strict LDAP method (ldap-method=strict
10867 in pdns-debian-edu.conf), the forward and reverse DNS entries are
10868 merged into one while making it impossible to transfer the reverse map
10869 to a slave DNS server.
</p>
10871 <p>If we also replace the object class used to get the DNS related
10872 attributes to one allowing these attributes to be combined with the
10873 dhcphost object class, we can merge the DNS and DHCP entries into one.
10874 I've written such object class in the dnsdomainaux.schema file (need
10875 proper OIDs, but that is a minor issue), and tested the setup. It
10878 <p>With this test setup in place, we can get away with one LDAP object
10879 for both DNS and DHCP, and even the LTSP configuration I suggested in
10880 an earlier email. The combined LDAP object will look something like
10884 dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
10886 objectClass: dhcphost
10887 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
10888 objectclass: dnsdomainaux
10889 associateddomain: hostname.intern
10890 arecord:
10.11.12.13
10891 dhcphwaddress: ethernet
00:
00:
00:
00:
00:
00
10892 dhcpstatements: fixed-address hostname
10894 </pre></blockquote>
10896 <p>The DNS server uses the associateddomain and arecord entries, while
10897 the DHCP server uses the dhcphwaddress and dhcpstatements entries
10898 before asking DNS to resolve the fixed-adddress. LTSP will use
10899 dhcphwaddress or associateddomain and the ldapconfig* attributes.
</p>
10901 <p>I am not yet sure if I can get the DHCP server to look for its
10902 dhcphost in a different location, to allow us to put the objects
10903 outside the "DHCP Config" subtree, but hope to figure out a way to do
10904 that. If I can't figure out a way to do that, we can still get rid of
10905 the hosts subtree and move all its content into the DHCP Config tree
10906 (which probably should be renamed to be more related to the new
10907 content. I suspect cn=dnsdhcp,ou=services or something like that
10908 might be a good place to put it.
</p>
10910 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
10911 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.
</p>
10917 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>.
10922 <div class=
"padding"></div>
10924 <div class=
"entry">
10925 <div class=
"title">
10926 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Idea_for_storing_LTSP_configuration_in_LDAP.html">Idea for storing LTSP configuration in LDAP
</a>
10932 <p>Vagrant mentioned on IRC today that ltsp_config now support
10933 sourcing files from /usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ on the thin
10934 clients, and that this can be used to fetch configuration from LDAP if
10935 Debian Edu choose to store configuration there.
</p>
10937 <p>Armed with this information, I got inspired and wrote a test module
10938 to get configuration from LDAP. The idea is to look up the MAC
10939 address of the client in LDAP, and look for attributes on the form
10940 ltspconfigsetting=value, and use this to export SETTING=value to the
10943 <p>The goal is to be able to store the LTSP configuration attributes
10944 in a "computer" LDAP object used by both DNS and DHCP, and thus
10945 allowing us to store all information about a computer in one place.
</p>
10947 <p>This is a untested draft implementation, and I welcome feedback on
10948 this approach. A real LDAP schema for the ltspClientAux objectclass
10949 need to be written. Comments, suggestions, etc?
</p>
10952 # Store in /opt/ltsp/$arch/usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ldap-config
10954 # Fetch LTSP client settings from LDAP based on MAC address
10956 # Uses ethernet address as stored in the dhcpHost objectclass using
10957 # the dhcpHWAddress attribute or ethernet address stored in the
10958 # ieee802Device objectclass with the macAddress attribute.
10960 # This module is written to be schema agnostic, and only depend on the
10961 # existence of attribute names.
10963 # The LTSP configuration variables are saved directly using a
10964 # ltspConfig prefix and uppercasing the rest of the attribute name.
10965 # To set the SERVER variable, set the ltspConfigServer attribute.
10967 # Some LDAP schema should be created with all the relevant
10968 # configuration settings. Something like this should work:
10970 # objectclass (
1.1.2.2 NAME 'ltspClientAux'
10973 # MAY ( ltspConfigServer $ ltsConfigSound $ ... )
10975 LDAPSERVER=$(debian-edu-ldapserver)
10976 if [ "$LDAPSERVER" ] ; then
10977 LDAPBASE=$(debian-edu-ldapserver -b)
10978 for MAC in $(LANG=C ifconfig |grep -i hwaddr| awk '{print $
5}'|sort -u) ; do
10979 filter="(|(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet $MAC)(macAddress=$MAC))"
10980 ldapsearch -h "$LDAPSERVER" -b "$LDAPBASE" -v -x "$filter" | \
10981 grep '^ltspConfig' | while read attr value ; do
10982 # Remove prefix and convert to upper case
10983 attr=$(echo $attr | sed 's/^ltspConfig//i' | tr a-z A-Z)
10984 # bass value on to clients
10985 eval "$attr=$value; export $attr"
10989 </pre></blockquote>
10991 <p>I'm not sure this shell construction will work, because I suspect
10992 the while block might end up in a subshell causing the variables set
10993 there to not show up in ltsp-config, but if that is the case I am sure
10994 the code can be restructured to make sure the variables are passed on.
10995 I expect that can be solved with some testing. :)
</p>
10997 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
10998 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.
</p>
11000 <p>Update
2010-
07-
17: I am aware of another effort to store LTSP
11001 configuration in LDAP that was created around year
2000 by
11002 <a href=
"http://www.pcxperience.com/thinclient/documentation/ldap.html">PC
11003 Xperience, Inc.,
2000</a>. I found its
11004 <a href=
"http://people.redhat.com/alikins/ltsp/ldap/">files
</a> on a
11005 personal home page over at redhat.com.
</p>
11011 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>.
11016 <div class=
"padding"></div>
11018 <div class=
"entry">
11019 <div class=
"title">
11020 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/jXplorer__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">jXplorer, a very nice LDAP GUI
</a>
11027 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">my
11028 last post
</a> about available LDAP tools in Debian, I was told about a
11029 LDAP GUI that is even better than luma. The java application
11030 <a href=
"http://jxplorer.org/">jXplorer
</a> is claimed to be capable of
11031 moving LDAP objects and subtrees using drag-and-drop, and can
11032 authenticate using Kerberos. I have only tested the Kerberos
11033 authentication, but do not have a LDAP setup allowing me to rewrite
11034 LDAP with my test user yet. It is
11035 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/j/jxplorer.html">available in
11036 Debian
</a> testing and unstable at the moment. The only problem I
11037 have with it is how it handle errors. If something go wrong, its
11038 non-intuitive behaviour require me to go through some query work list
11039 and remove the failing query. Nothing big, but very annoying.
</p>
11045 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>.
11050 <div class=
"padding"></div>
11052 <div class=
"entry">
11053 <div class=
"title">
11054 <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>
11060 <p>Here is a short update on my
<a
11061 href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">my
11062 Debian Lenny-
>Squeeze upgrade testing
</a>. Here is a summary of the
11063 difference for Gnome when it is upgraded by apt-get and aptitude. I'm
11064 not reporting the status for KDE, because the upgrade crashes when
11065 aptitude try because of missing conflicts
11066 (
<a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#
584861</a> and
11067 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/585716">#
585716</a>).
</p>
11069 <p>At the end of the upgrade test script, dpkg -l is executed to get a
11070 complete list of the installed packages. Based on this I see these
11071 differences when I did a test run today. As usual, I do not really
11072 know what the correct set of packages would be, but thought it best to
11073 publish the difference.
</p>
11075 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude
</p>
11078 at-spi cpp-
4.3 finger gnome-spell gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
11079 libatspi1.0-
0 libcupsys2 libeel2-data libgail-common libgdl-
1-common
11080 libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin
11081 libgtksourceview-common libpt-
1.10.10-plugins-alsa
11082 libpt-
1.10.10-plugins-v4l libservlet2.4-java libxalan2-java
11083 libxerces2-java openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
11084 python-
4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gtkhtml2
11085 python-gtkmozembed svgalibg1 xserver-xephyr zip
11088 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude
</p>
11091 bluez-utils dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop epiphany-gecko
11092 gnome-app-install gnome-mount gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager
11093 libao2 libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libbind9-
50
11094 libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-
11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcurl3
11095 libdirectfb-
1.0-
0 libdvdread3 libedata-cal1.2-
6 libedataserver1.2-
9
11096 libeel2-
2.20 libepc-
1.0-
1 libepc-ui-
1.0-
1 libexchange-storage1.2-
3
11097 libfaad0 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-
3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
11098 libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-
0 libgksuui1.0-
1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-
2
11099 libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-
1 libgnomeprint2.2-
0
11100 libgnomeprintui2.2-
0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-
0
11101 libgtksourceview1.0-
0 libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50
11102 libisccfg50 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick++
10
11103 libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4
11104 libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-
2.2 libosp5
11105 libparted1.8-
10 libpisock9 libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3
11106 libpt-
1.10.10 libraw1394-
8 libsensors3 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-
8
11107 libssh2-
1 libsuitesparse-
3.1.0 libswfdec-
0.6-
90 libtalloc1
11108 libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0 libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj
11109 libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3
11110 mysql-common swfdec-gnome totem-gstreamer wodim
11113 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get
</p>
11116 gnome gnome-desktop-environment hamster-applet python-gnomeapplet
11117 python-gnomekeyring python-wnck rhythmbox-plugins xorg
11118 xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
11119 xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
11120 xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-video-all
11121 xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark xserver-xorg-video-ati
11122 xserver-xorg-video-chips xserver-xorg-video-cirrus
11123 xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
11124 xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
11125 xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-mach64
11126 xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
11127 xserver-xorg-video-nouveau xserver-xorg-video-nv
11128 xserver-xorg-video-r128 xserver-xorg-video-radeon
11129 xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd xserver-xorg-video-rendition
11130 xserver-xorg-video-s3 xserver-xorg-video-s3virge
11131 xserver-xorg-video-savage xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion
11132 xserver-xorg-video-sis xserver-xorg-video-sisusb
11133 xserver-xorg-video-tdfx xserver-xorg-video-tga
11134 xserver-xorg-video-trident xserver-xorg-video-tseng
11135 xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vmware
11136 xserver-xorg-video-voodoo
11139 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get
</p>
11142 deskbar-applet xserver-xorg xserver-xorg-core
11143 xserver-xorg-input-wacom xserver-xorg-video-intel
11144 xserver-xorg-video-openchrome
11147 <p>I was told on IRC that the xorg-xserver package was
11148 <a href=
"http://git.debian.org/?p=pkg-xorg/xserver/xorg-server.git;a=commit;h=9c8080d06c457932d3bfec021c69ac000aa60120">changed
11149 in git
</a> today to try to get apt-get to not remove xorg completely.
11150 No idea when it hits Squeeze, but when it does I hope it will reduce
11151 the difference somewhat.
11157 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>.
11162 <div class=
"padding"></div>
11164 <div class=
"entry">
11165 <div class=
"title">
11166 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">LUMA, a very nice LDAP GUI
</a>
11172 <p>The last few days I have been looking into the status of the LDAP
11173 directory in Debian Edu, and in the process I started to miss a GUI
11174 tool to browse the LDAP tree. The only one I was able to find in
11175 Debian/Squeeze and Lenny is
11176 <a href=
"http://luma.sourceforge.net/">LUMA
</a>, which has proved to
11177 be a great tool to get a overview of the current LDAP directory
11178 populated by default in Skolelinux. Thanks to it, I have been able to
11179 find empty and obsolete subtrees, misplaced objects and duplicate
11180 objects. It will be installed by default in Debian/Squeeze. If you
11181 are working with LDAP, give it a go. :)
</p>
11183 <p>I did notice one problem with it I have not had time to report to
11184 the BTS yet. There is no .desktop file in the package, so the tool do
11185 not show up in the Gnome and KDE menus, but only deep down in in the
11186 Debian submenu in KDE. I hope that can be fixed before Squeeze is
11189 <p>I have not yet been able to get it to modify the tree yet. I would
11190 like to move objects and remove subtrees directly in the GUI, but have
11191 not found a way to do that with LUMA yet. So in the mean time, I use
11192 <a href=
"http://www.lichteblau.com/ldapvi/">ldapvi
</a> for that.
</p>
11194 <p>If you have tips on other GUI tools for LDAP that might be useful
11195 in Debian Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.
</p>
11197 <p>Update
2010-
06-
29: Ross Reedstrom tipped us about the
11198 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/g/gq.html">gq
</a> package as a
11199 useful GUI alternative. It seem like a good tool, but is unmaintained
11200 in Debian and got a RC bug keeping it out of Squeeze. Unless that
11201 changes, it will not be an option for Debian Edu based on Squeeze.
</p>
11207 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>.
11212 <div class=
"padding"></div>
11214 <div class=
"entry">
11215 <div class=
"title">
11216 <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>
11223 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">complained
11224 about the fact
</a> that it is not possible with the provided schemas
11225 for storing DNS and DHCP information in LDAP to combine the two sets
11226 of information into one LDAP object representing a computer.
</p>
11228 <p>In the mean time, I discovered that a simple fix would be to make
11229 the dhcpHost object class auxiliary, to allow it to be combined with
11230 the dNSDomain object class, and thus forming one object for one
11231 computer when storing both DHCP and DNS information in LDAP.
</p>
11233 <p>If I understand this correctly, it is not safe to do this change
11234 without also changing the assigned number for the object class, and I
11235 do not know enough about LDAP schema design to do that properly for
11238 <p>Anyway, for future reference, this is how I believe we could change
11240 <a href=
"http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-dhc-ldap-schema-00">DHCP
11241 schema
</a> to solve at least part of the problem with the LDAP schemas
11242 available today from IETF.
</p>
11245 --- dhcp.schema (revision
65192)
11246 +++ dhcp.schema (working copy)
11247 @@ -
376,
7 +
376,
7 @@
11248 objectclass (
2.16.840.1.113719.1.203.6.6
11250 DESC 'This represents information about a particular client'
11252 + SUP top AUXILIARY
11254 MAY (dhcpLeaseDN $ dhcpHWAddress $ dhcpOptionsDN $ dhcpStatements $ dhcpComments $ dhcpOption)
11255 X-NDS_CONTAINMENT ('dhcpService' 'dhcpSubnet' 'dhcpGroup') )
11258 <p>I very much welcome clues on how to do this properly for Debian
11259 Edu/Squeeze. We provide the DHCP schema in our debian-edu-config
11260 package, and should thus be free to rewrite it as we see fit.
</p>
11262 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
11263 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.
</p>
11269 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>.
11274 <div class=
"padding"></div>
11276 <div class=
"entry">
11277 <div class=
"title">
11278 <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>
11284 <p>A few times I have had the need to simulate the way tasksel
11285 installs packages during the normal debian-installer run. Until now,
11286 I have ended up letting tasksel do the work, with the annoying problem
11287 of not getting any feedback at all when something fails (like a
11288 conffile question from dpkg or a download that fails), using code like
11292 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
11293 tasksel --new-install
11294 </pre></blockquote>
11296 This would invoke tasksel, let its automatic task selection pick the
11297 tasks to install, and continue to install the requested tasks without
11298 any output what so ever.
11300 Recently I revisited this problem while working on the automatic
11301 package upgrade testing, because tasksel would some times hang without
11302 any useful feedback, and I want to see what is going on when it
11303 happen. Then it occured to me, I can parse the output from tasksel
11304 when asked to run in test mode, and use that aptitude command line
11305 printed by tasksel then to simulate the tasksel run. I ended up using
11309 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
11310 cmd="$(in_target tasksel -t --new-install | sed 's/debconf-apt-progress -- //')"
11312 </pre></blockquote>
11314 <p>The content of $cmd is typically something like "
<tt>aptitude -q
11315 --without-recommends -o APT::Install-Recommends=no -y install
11316 ~t^desktop$ ~t^gnome-desktop$ ~t^laptop$ ~pstandard ~prequired
11317 ~pimportant
</tt>", which will install the gnome desktop task, the
11318 laptop task and all packages with priority standard , required and
11319 important, just like tasksel would have done it during
11322 <p>A better approach is probably to extend tasksel to be able to
11323 install packages without using debconf-apt-progress, for use cases
11330 Tags: <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>.
11335 <div class="padding
"></div>
11337 <div class="entry
">
11338 <div class="title
">
11339 <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>
11346 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html
">testing
11347 of Debian upgrades</a> from Lenny to Squeeze continues, and I've
11348 finally made the upgrade logs available from
11349 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/
">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/</a>.
11350 I am now testing dist-upgrade of Gnome and KDE in a chroot using both
11351 apt and aptitude, and found their differences interesting. This time
11352 I will only focus on their removal plans.</p>
11354 <p>After installing a Gnome desktop and the laptop task, apt-get wants
11355 to remove 72 packages when dist-upgrading from Lenny to Squeeze. The
11356 surprising part is that it want to remove xorg and all
11357 xserver-xorg-video* drivers. Clearly not a good choice, but I am not
11358 sure why. When asking aptitude to do the same, it want to remove 129
11359 packages, but most of them are library packages I suspect are no
11360 longer needed. Both of them want to remove bluetooth packages, which
11361 I do not know. Perhaps these bluetooth packages are obsolete?</p>
11363 <p>For KDE, apt-get want to remove 82 packages, among them kdebase
11364 which seem like a bad idea and xorg the same way as with Gnome. Asking
11365 aptitude for the same, it wants to remove 192 packages, none which are
11366 too surprising.</p>
11368 <p>I guess the removal of xorg during upgrades should be investigated
11369 and avoided, and perhaps others as well. Here are the complete list
11370 of planned removals. The complete logs is available from the URL
11371 above. Note if you want to repeat these tests, that the upgrade test
11372 for kde+apt-get hung in the tasksel setup because of dpkg asking
11373 conffile questions. No idea why. I worked around it by using
11374 '<tt>echo >> /proc/<em>pidofdpkg</em>/fd/0</tt>' to tell dpkg to
11377 <p><b>apt-get gnome 72</b>
11378 <br>bluez-gnome cupsddk-drivers deskbar-applet gnome
11379 gnome-desktop-environment gnome-network-admin gtkhtml3.14
11380 iceweasel-gnome-support libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libgdl-1-0
11381 libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libmetacity0 libslab0 libxcb-xlib0
11382 nautilus-cd-burner python-gnome2-desktop python-gnome2-extras
11383 serpentine swfdec-mozilla update-manager xorg xserver-xorg
11384 xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
11385 xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
11386 xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
11387 xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
11388 xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
11389 xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
11390 xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
11391 xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
11392 xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
11393 xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
11394 xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
11395 xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
11396 xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
11397 xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
11398 xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
11399 xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
11400 xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
11401 xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
11402 xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
11403 xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
11404 xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
11405 xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9
11406 xulrunner-1.9-gnome-support</p>
11408 <p><b>aptitude gnome 129</b>
11410 <br>bluez-gnome bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers dhcdbd
11411 djvulibre-desktop finger gnome-app-install gnome-mount
11412 gnome-network-admin gnome-spell gnome-vfs-obexftp
11413 gnome-volume-manager gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs gtkhtml3.14 libao2
11414 libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
11415 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcupsys2 libcurl3 libdatrie0
11416 libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20
11417 libeel2-data libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libfaad0 libgail-common
11418 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libgdl-1-0 libgdl-1-common
11419 libggz2 libggzcore9 libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0
11420 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libgnomeprint2.2-0
11421 libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgnomeprintui2.2-common
11422 libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
11423 libgtksourceview-common libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6
11424 libhesiod0 libicu38 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 libmagick++10
11425 libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmetacity0 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off
11426 libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2
11427 libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10
11428 libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libraw1394-8
11429 libsensors3 libslab0 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8 libssh2-1
11430 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10
11431 libtrackerclient0 libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0
11432 libxerces2-java libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6
11433 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common nautilus-cd-burner
11434 openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
11435 python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gnome2-desktop
11436 python-gnome2-extras python-gtkhtml2 python-gtkmozembed
11437 python-numeric python-sexy serpentine svgalibg1 swfdec-gnome
11438 swfdec-mozilla totem-gstreamer update-manager wodim
11439 xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
11440 xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
11443 <p><b>apt-get kde 82</b>
11445 <br>cupsddk-drivers karm kaudiocreator kcoloredit kcontrol kde kde-core
11446 kdeaddons kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-bin kdebase-bin-kde3
11447 kdebase-kio-plugins kdesktop kdeutils khelpcenter kicker
11448 kicker-applets knewsticker kolourpaint konq-plugins konqueror korn
11449 kpersonalizer kscreensaver ksplash libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libkiten1
11450 libxcb-xlib0 quanta superkaramba texlive-base-bin xorg xserver-xorg
11451 xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
11452 xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
11453 xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
11454 xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
11455 xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
11456 xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
11457 xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
11458 xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
11459 xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
11460 xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
11461 xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
11462 xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
11463 xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
11464 xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
11465 xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
11466 xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
11467 xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
11468 xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
11469 xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
11470 xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
11471 xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
11472 xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9</p>
11474 <p><b>aptitude kde 192</b>
11475 <br>bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers cvs dcoprss dhcdbd
11476 djvulibre-desktop dosfstools eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
11477 ghostscript-x imlib-base imlib11 indi kandy karm kasteroids
11478 kaudiocreator kbackgammon kbstate kcoloredit kcontrol kcron kdat
11479 kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
11480 kdebase-bin-kde3 kdebase-kio-plugins kdeedu-data
11481 kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data
11482 kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
11483 kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdeprint kdesktop kdessh
11484 kdict kdnssd kdvi kedit keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs
11485 kghostview khelpcenter khexedit kiconedit kitchensync klatin
11486 klickety kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmoon kmrml kodo kolourpaint
11487 kooka korn kpager kpdf kpercentage kpf kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler
11488 krec kregexpeditor ksayit ksim ksirc ksirtet ksmiletris ksmserver
11489 ksnake ksokoban ksplash ksvg ksysv ktip ktnef kuickshow kverbos
11490 kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kworldclock
11491 kxsldbg libakode2 libao2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
11492 libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
11493 libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
11494 libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0 libdatrie0
11495 libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
11496 libgail-common libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0
11497 libicu38 libiec61883-0 libindex0 libiw29 libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1
11498 libkdeedu3 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkiten1 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
11499 libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
11500 libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 libmagick10 libmimelib1c2a
11501 libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9
11502 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 libsmbios2
11503 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libtalloc1 libtiff-tools
11504 libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0 libxerces2-java
11505 libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 mpeglib networkstatus
11506 openoffice.org-writer2latex pmount poster psutils quanta quanta-data
11507 superkaramba svgalibg1 tex-common texlive-base texlive-base-bin
11508 texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended
11509 xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
11510 xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
11518 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>.
11523 <div class="padding
"></div>
11525 <div class="entry
">
11526 <div class="title
">
11527 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html
">Automatic upgrade testing from Lenny to Squeeze</a>
11533 <p>The last few days I have done some upgrade testing in Debian, to
11534 see if the upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze will go smoothly. A few bugs
11535 have been discovered and reported in the process
11536 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/
585410">#585410</a> in nagios3-cgi,
11537 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/
584879">#584879</a> already fixed in
11538 enscript and <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/
584861">#584861</a> in
11539 kdebase-workspace-data), and to get a more regular testing going on, I
11540 am working on a script to automate the test.</p>
11542 <p>The idea is to create a Lenny chroot and use tasksel to install a
11543 Gnome or KDE desktop installation inside the chroot before upgrading
11544 it. To ensure no services are started in the chroot, a policy-rc.d
11545 script is inserted. To make sure tasksel believe it is to install a
11546 desktop on a laptop, the tasksel tests are replaced in the chroot
11547 (only acceptable because this is a throw-away chroot).</p>
11549 <p>A naive upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze using aptitude dist-upgrade
11550 currently always fail because udev refuses to upgrade with the kernel
11551 in Lenny, so to avoid that problem the file /etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
11552 is created. The bug report
11553 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/
566000">#566000</a> make me suspect
11554 this problem do not trigger in a chroot, but I touch the file anyway
11555 to make sure the upgrade go well. Testing on virtual and real
11556 hardware have failed me because of udev so far, and creating this file
11557 do the trick in such settings anyway. This is a
11558 <a href="http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/debian-
26/failed-dist-upgrade-due-to-udev-config_sysfs_deprecated-nonsense-
804130/
">known
11559 issue</a> and the current udev behaviour is intended by the udev
11560 maintainer because he lack the resources to rewrite udev to keep
11561 working with old kernels or something like that. I really wish the
11562 udev upstream would keep udev backwards compatible, to avoid such
11563 upgrade problem, but given that they fail to do so, I guess
11564 documenting the way out of this mess is the best option we got for
11565 Debian Squeeze.</p>
11567 <p>Anyway, back to the task at hand, testing upgrades. This test
11568 script, which I call <tt>upgrade-test</tt> for now, is doing the
11584 exec
< /dev/null
11586 mirror=http://ftp.skolelinux.org/debian
11587 tmpdir=chroot-$from-upgrade-$to-$desktop
11589 debootstrap $from $tmpdir $mirror
11590 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
11591 cat
> $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d
<<EOF
11595 chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d
11597 umount $tmpdir/proc
11599 mount -t proc proc $tmpdir/proc
11600 # Make sure proc is unmounted also on failure
11601 trap exit_cleanup EXIT INT
11603 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y install debconf-utils
11605 # Make sure tasksel autoselection trigger. It need the test scripts
11606 # to return the correct answers.
11607 echo tasksel tasksel/desktop multiselect $desktop | \
11608 chroot $tmpdir debconf-set-selections
11610 # Include the desktop and laptop task
11611 for test in desktop laptop ; do
11612 echo
> $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test
<<EOF
11616 chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test
11619 DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
11620 DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical
11621 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND DEBIAN_PRIORITY
11622 chroot $tmpdir tasksel --new-install
11624 echo deb $mirror $to main
> $tmpdir/etc/apt/sources.list
11625 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
11626 touch $tmpdir/etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
11627 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y dist-upgrade
11629 </pre></blockquote>
11631 <p>I suspect it would be useful to test upgrades with both apt-get and
11632 with aptitude, but I have not had time to look at how they behave
11633 differently so far. I hope to get a cron job running to do the test
11634 regularly and post the result on the web. The Gnome upgrade currently
11635 work, while the KDE upgrade fail because of the bug in
11636 kdebase-workspace-data
</p>
11638 <p>I am not quite sure what kind of extract from the huge upgrade logs
11639 (KDE
167 KiB, Gnome
516 KiB) it make sense to include in this blog
11640 post, so I will refrain from trying. I can report that for Gnome,
11641 aptitude report
760 packages upgraded,
448 newly installed,
129 to
11642 remove and
1 not upgraded and
1024MB need to be downloaded while for
11643 KDE the same numbers are
702 packages upgraded,
507 newly installed,
11644 193 to remove and
0 not upgraded and
1117MB need to be downloaded
</p>
11646 <p>I am very happy to notice that the Gnome desktop + laptop upgrade
11647 is able to migrate to dependency based boot sequencing and parallel
11648 booting without a hitch. Was unsure if there were still bugs with
11649 packages failing to clean up their obsolete init.d script during
11650 upgrades, and no such problem seem to affect the Gnome desktop+laptop
11657 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>.
11662 <div class=
"padding"></div>
11664 <div class=
"entry">
11665 <div class=
"title">
11666 <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>
11672 <p>If Debian is to migrate to upstart on Linux, I expect some init.d
11673 scripts to migrate (some of) their operations to upstart job while
11674 keeping the init.d for hurd and kfreebsd. The packages with such
11675 needs will need a way to get their init.d scripts to behave
11676 differently when used with sysvinit and with upstart. Because of
11677 this, I had a look at the environment variables set when a init.d
11678 script is running under upstart, and when it is not.
</p>
11680 <p>With upstart, I notice these environment variables are set when a
11681 script is started from rcS.d/ (ignoring some irrelevant ones like
11690 UPSTART_EVENTS=startup
11692 UPSTART_JOB=rc-sysinit
11693 </pre></blockquote>
11695 <p>With sysvinit, these environment variables are set for the same
11699 INIT_VERSION=sysvinit-
2.88
11704 </pre></blockquote>
11706 <p>The RUNLEVEL and PREVLEVEL environment variables passed on from
11707 sysvinit are not set by upstart. Not sure if it is intentional or not
11708 to not be compatible with sysvinit in this regard.
</p>
11710 <p>For scripts needing to behave differently when upstart is used,
11711 looking for the UPSTART_JOB environment variable seem to be a good
11718 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>.
11723 <div class=
"padding"></div>
11725 <div class=
"entry">
11726 <div class=
"title">
11727 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_manual_for_standards_wars___.html">A manual for standards wars...
</a>
11734 <a href=
"http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/robweir/antic-atom/~3/QzU4RgoAGMg/weekly-links-10.html">blog
11735 of Rob Weir
</a> I came across the very interesting essay named
11736 <a href=
"http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/shapiro/wars.pdf">The Art of
11737 Standards Wars
</a> (PDF
25 pages). I recommend it for everyone
11738 following the standards wars of today.
</p>
11744 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>.
11749 <div class=
"padding"></div>
11751 <div class=
"entry">
11752 <div class=
"title">
11753 <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>
11759 <p>When using sitesummary at a site to track machines, it is possible
11760 to get a list of the machine types in use thanks to the DMI
11761 information extracted from each machine. The script to do so is
11762 included in the sitesummary package, and here is example output from
11763 the Skolelinux build servers:
</p>
11766 maintainer:~# /usr/lib/sitesummary/hardware-model-summary
11768 Dell Computer Corporation
1
11771 eserver xSeries
345 -[
8670M1X]-
1
11775 </pre></blockquote>
11777 <p>The quality of the report depend on the quality of the DMI tables
11778 provided in each machine. Here there are Intel machines without model
11779 information listed with Intel as vendor and no model, and virtual Xen
11780 machines listed as [no-dmi-info]. One can add -l as a command line
11781 option to list the individual machines.
</p>
11783 <p>A larger list is
11784 <a href=
"http://narvikskolen.no/sitesummary/">available from the the
11785 city of Narvik
</a>, which uses Skolelinux on all their shools and also
11786 provide the basic sitesummary report publicly. In their report there
11787 are ~
1400 machines. I know they use both Ubuntu and Skolelinux on
11788 their machines, and as sitesummary is available in both distributions,
11789 it is trivial to get all of them to report to the same central
11796 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>.
11801 <div class=
"padding"></div>
11803 <div class=
"entry">
11804 <div class=
"title">
11805 <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>
11811 <p>It is strange to watch how a bug in Debian causing KDM to fail to
11812 start at boot when an NVidia video card is used is handled. The
11813 problem seem to be that the nvidia X.org driver uses a long time to
11814 initialize, and this duration is longer than kdm is configured to
11817 <p>I came across two bugs related to this issue,
11818 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/583312">#
583312</a> initially filed
11819 against initscripts and passed on to nvidia-glx when it became obvious
11820 that the nvidia drivers were involved, and
11821 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/524751">#
524751</a> initially filed against
11822 kdm and passed on to src:nvidia-graphics-drivers for unknown reasons.
</p>
11824 <p>To me, it seem that no-one is interested in actually solving the
11825 problem nvidia video card owners experience and make sure the Debian
11826 distribution work out of the box for these users. The nvidia driver
11827 maintainers expect kdm to be set up to wait longer, while kdm expect
11828 the nvidia driver maintainers to fix the driver to start faster, and
11829 while they wait for each other I guess the users end up switching to a
11830 distribution that work for them. I have no idea what the solution is,
11831 but I am pretty sure that waiting for each other is not it.
</p>
11833 <p>I wonder why we end up handling bugs this way.
</p>
11839 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>.
11844 <div class=
"padding"></div>
11846 <div class=
"entry">
11847 <div class=
"title">
11848 <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>
11854 <p>A few days ago, parallel booting was enabled in Debian/testing.
11855 The feature seem to hold up pretty well, but three fairly serious
11856 issues are known and should be solved:
11860 <li>The wicd package seen to
11861 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/508289">break NFS mounting
</a> and
11862 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/581586">network setup
</a> when
11863 parallel booting is enabled. No idea why, but the wicd maintainer
11864 seem to be on the case.
</li>
11866 <li>The nvidia X driver seem to
11867 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/583312">have a race condition
</a>
11868 triggered more easily when parallel booting is in effect. The
11869 maintainer is on the case.
</li>
11871 <li>The sysv-rc package fail to properly enable dependency based boot
11872 sequencing (the shutdown is broken) when old file-rc users
11873 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/575080">try to switch back
</a> to
11874 sysv-rc. One way to solve it would be for file-rc to create
11875 /etc/init.d/.legacy-bootordering, and another is to try to make
11876 sysv-rc more robust. Will investigate some more and probably upload a
11877 workaround in sysv-rc to help those trying to move from file-rc to
11878 sysv-rc get a working shutdown.
</li>
11882 <p>All in all not many surprising issues, and all of them seem
11883 solvable before Squeeze is released. In addition to these there are
11884 some packages with bugs in their dependencies and run level settings,
11885 which I expect will be fixed in a reasonable time span.
</p>
11887 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
11888 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
11889 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
11890 list of usertagged bugs related to this
</a>.
</p>
11892 <p>Update: Correct bug number to file-rc issue.
</p>
11898 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>.
11903 <div class=
"padding"></div>
11905 <div class=
"entry">
11906 <div class=
"title">
11907 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/More_flexible_firmware_handling_in_debian_installer.html">More flexible firmware handling in debian-installer
</a>
11913 <p>After a long break from debian-installer development, I finally
11914 found time today to return to the project. Having to spend less time
11915 working dependency based boot in debian, as it is almost complete now,
11916 definitely helped freeing some time.
</p>
11918 <p>A while back, I ran into a problem while working on Debian Edu. We
11919 include some firmware packages on the Debian Edu CDs, those needed to
11920 get disk and network controllers working. Without having these
11921 firmware packages available during installation, it is impossible to
11922 install Debian Edu on the given machine, and because our target group
11923 are non-technical people, asking them to provide firmware packages on
11924 an external medium is a support pain. Initially, I expected it to be
11925 enough to include the firmware packages on the CD to get
11926 debian-installer to find and use them. This proved to be wrong.
11927 Next, I hoped it was enough to symlink the relevant firmware packages
11928 to some useful location on the CD (tried /cdrom/ and
11929 /cdrom/firmware/). This also proved to not work, and at this point I
11930 found time to look at the debian-installer code to figure out what was
11933 <p>The firmware loading code is in the hw-detect package, and a closer
11934 look revealed that it would only look for firmware packages outside
11935 the installation media, so the CD was never checked for firmware
11936 packages. It would only check USB sticks, floppies and other
11937 "external" media devices. Today I changed it to also look in the
11938 /cdrom/firmware/ directory on the mounted CD or DVD, which should
11939 solve the problem I ran into with Debian edu. I also changed it to
11940 look in /firmware/, to make sure the installer also find firmware
11941 provided in the initrd when booting the installer via PXE, to allow us
11942 to provide the same feature in the PXE setup included in Debian
11945 <p>To make sure firmware deb packages with a license questions are not
11946 activated without asking if the license is accepted, I extended
11947 hw-detect to look for preinst scripts in the firmware packages, and
11948 run these before activating the firmware during installation. The
11949 license question is asked using debconf in the preinst, so this should
11950 solve the issue for the firmware packages I have looked at so far.
</p>
11952 <p>If you want to discuss the details of these features, please
11953 contact us on debian-boot@lists.debian.org.
</p>
11959 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>.
11964 <div class=
"padding"></div>
11966 <div class=
"entry">
11967 <div class=
"title">
11968 <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>
11974 <p>Since this evening, parallel booting is the default in
11975 Debian/unstable for machines using dependency based boot sequencing.
11976 Apparently the testing of concurrent booting has been wider than
11977 expected, if I am to believe the
11978 <a href=
"http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
11979 on debian-devel@
</a>, and I concluded a few days ago to move forward
11980 with the feature this weekend, to give us some time to detect any
11981 remaining problems before Squeeze is frozen. If serious problems are
11982 detected, it is simple to change the default back to sequential boot.
11983 The upload of the new sysvinit package also activate a new upstream
11986 More information about
11987 <a href=
"http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
11988 based boot sequencing
</a> is available from the Debian wiki. It is
11989 currently possible to disable parallel booting when one run into
11990 problems caused by it, by adding this line to /etc/default/rcS:
</p>
11994 </pre></blockquote>
11996 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
11997 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
11998 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
11999 list of usertagged bugs related to this
</a>.
</p>
12005 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>.
12010 <div class=
"padding"></div>
12012 <div class=
"entry">
12013 <div class=
"title">
12014 <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>
12020 <p>In the recent Debian Edu versions, the
12021 <a href=
"http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/SiteSummary">sitesummary
12022 system
</a> is used to keep track of the machines in the school
12023 network. Each machine will automatically report its status to the
12024 central server after boot and once per night. The network setup is
12025 also reported, and using this information it is possible to get the
12026 MAC address of all network interfaces in the machines. This is useful
12027 to update the DHCP configuration.
</p>
12029 <p>To give some idea how to use sitesummary, here is a one-liner to
12030 ist all MAC addresses of all machines reporting to sitesummary. Run
12031 this on the collector host:
</p>
12034 perl -MSiteSummary -e 'for_all_hosts(sub { print join(" ", get_macaddresses(shift)), "\n"; });'
12035 </pre></blockquote>
12037 <p>This will list all MAC addresses assosiated with all machine, one
12038 line per machine and with space between the MAC addresses.
</p>
12040 <p>To allow system administrators easier job at adding static DHCP
12041 addresses for hosts, it would be possible to extend this to fetch
12042 machine information from sitesummary and update the DHCP and DNS
12043 tables in LDAP using this information. Such tool is unfortunately not
12050 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>.
12055 <div class=
"padding"></div>
12057 <div class=
"entry">
12058 <div class=
"title">
12059 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/systemd__an_interesting_alternative_to_upstart.html">systemd, an interesting alternative to upstart
</a>
12065 <p>The last few days a new boot system called
12066 <a href=
"http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd">systemd
</a>
12068 <a href=
"http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/systemd.html">introduced
</a>
12070 to the free software world. I have not yet had time to play around
12071 with it, but it seem to be a very interesting alternative to
12072 <a href=
"http://upstart.ubuntu.com/">upstart
</a>, and might prove to be
12073 a good alternative for Debian when we are able to switch to an event
12074 based boot system. Tollef is
12075 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/580814">in the process
</a> of getting
12076 systemd into Debian, and I look forward to seeing how well it work. I
12077 like the fact that systemd handles init.d scripts with dependency
12078 information natively, allowing them to run in parallel where upstart
12079 at the moment do not.
</p>
12081 <p>Unfortunately do systemd have the same problem as upstart regarding
12082 platform support. It only work on recent Linux kernels, and also need
12083 some new kernel features enabled to function properly. This means
12084 kFreeBSD and Hurd ports of Debian will need a port or a different boot
12085 system. Not sure how that will be handled if systemd proves to be the
12088 <p>In the mean time, based on the
12089 <a href=
"http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
12090 on debian-devel@
</a> regarding parallel booting in Debian, I have
12091 decided to enable full parallel booting as the default in Debian as
12092 soon as possible (probably this weekend or early next week), to see if
12093 there are any remaining serious bugs in the init.d dependencies. A
12094 new version of the sysvinit package implementing this change is
12095 already in experimental. If all go well, Squeeze will be released
12096 with parallel booting enabled by default.
</p>
12102 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>.
12107 <div class=
"padding"></div>
12109 <div class=
"entry">
12110 <div class=
"title">
12111 <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>
12117 <p>These days, the init.d script dependencies in Squeeze are quite
12118 complete, so complete that it is actually possible to run all the
12119 init.d scripts in parallell based on these dependencies. If you want
12120 to test your Squeeze system, make sure
12121 <a href=
"http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
12122 based boot sequencing
</a> is enabled, and add this line to
12123 /etc/default/rcS:
</p>
12126 CONCURRENCY=makefile
12127 </pre></blockquote>
12129 <p>That is it. It will cause sysv-rc to use the startpar tool to run
12130 scripts in parallel using the dependency information stored in
12131 /etc/init.d/.depend.boot, /etc/init.d/.depend.start and
12132 /etc/init.d/.depend.stop to order the scripts. Startpar is configured
12133 to try to start the kdm and gdm scripts as early as possible, and will
12134 start the facilities required by kdm or gdm as early as possible to
12135 make this happen.
</p>
12137 <p>Give it a try, and see if you like the result. If some services
12138 fail to start properly, it is most likely because they have incomplete
12139 init.d script dependencies in their startup script (or some of their
12140 dependent scripts have incomplete dependencies). Report bugs and get
12141 the package maintainers to fix it. :)
</p>
12143 <p>Running scripts in parallel could be the default in Debian when we
12144 manage to get the init.d script dependencies complete and correct. I
12145 expect we will get there in Squeeze+
1, if we get manage to test and
12146 fix the remaining issues.
</p>
12148 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
12149 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
12150 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
12151 list of usertagged bugs related to this
</a>.
</p>
12157 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>.
12162 <div class=
"padding"></div>
12164 <div class=
"entry">
12165 <div class=
"title">
12166 <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>
12172 <p>Since this evening, with the upload of sysvinit version
2.87dsf-
2,
12173 and the upload of insserv version
1.12.0-
10 yesterday, Debian unstable
12174 have been migrated to using dependency based boot sequencing. This
12175 conclude work me and others have been doing for the last three days.
12176 It feels great to see this finally part of the default Debian
12177 installation. Now we just need to weed out the last few problems that
12178 are bound to show up, to get everything ready for Squeeze.
</p>
12180 <p>The next step is migrating /sbin/init from sysvinit to upstart, and
12181 fixing the more fundamental problem of handing the event based
12182 non-predictable kernel in the early boot.
</p>
12188 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>.
12193 <div class=
"padding"></div>
12195 <div class=
"entry">
12196 <div class=
"title">
12197 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Taking_over_sysvinit_development.html">Taking over sysvinit development
</a>
12203 <p>After several years of frustration with the lack of activity from
12204 the existing sysvinit upstream developer, I decided a few weeks ago to
12205 take over the package and become the new upstream. The number of
12206 patches to track for the Debian package was becoming a burden, and the
12207 lack of synchronization between the distribution made it hard to keep
12208 the package up to date.
</p>
12210 <p>On the new sysvinit team is the SuSe maintainer Dr. Werner Fink,
12211 and my Debian co-maintainer Kel Modderman. About
10 days ago, I made
12212 a new upstream tarball with version number
2.87dsf (for Debian, SuSe
12213 and Fedora), based on the patches currently in use in these
12214 distributions. We Debian maintainers plan to move to this tarball as
12215 the new upstream as soon as we find time to do the merge. Since the
12216 new tarball was created, we agreed with Werner at SuSe to make a new
12217 upstream project at
<a href=
"http://savannah.nongnu.org/">Savannah
</a>, and continue
12218 development there. The project is registered and currently waiting
12219 for approval by the Savannah administrators, and as soon as it is
12220 approved, we will import the old versions from svn and continue
12221 working on the future release.
</p>
12223 <p>It is a bit ironic that this is done now, when some of the involved
12224 distributions are moving to upstart as a syvinit replacement.
</p>
12230 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>.
12235 <div class=
"padding"></div>
12237 <div class=
"entry">
12238 <div class=
"title">
12239 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_boots_quicker_and_quicker.html">Debian boots quicker and quicker
</a>
12245 <p>I spent Monday and tuesday this week in London with a lot of the
12246 people involved in the boot system on Debian and Ubuntu, to see if we
12247 could find more ways to speed up the boot system. This was an Ubuntu
12249 <a href=
"https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FoundationsTeam/BootPerformance/DebianUbuntuSprint">developer
12250 gathering
</a>. It was quite productive. We also discussed the future
12251 of boot systems, and ways to handle the increasing number of boot
12252 issues introduced by the Linux kernel becoming more and more
12253 asynchronous and event base. The Ubuntu approach using udev and
12254 upstart might be a good way forward. Time will show.
</p>
12256 <p>Anyway, there are a few ways at the moment to speed up the boot
12257 process in Debian. All of these should be applied to get a quick
12262 <li>Use dash as /bin/sh.
</li>
12264 <li>Disable the init.d/hwclock*.sh scripts and make sure the hardware
12265 clock is in UTC.
</li>
12267 <li>Install and activate the insserv package to enable
12268 <a href=
"http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
12269 based boot sequencing
</a>, and enable concurrent booting.
</li>
12273 These points are based on the Google summer of code work done by
12274 <a href=
"http://initscripts-ng.alioth.debian.org/soc2006-bootsystem/">Carlos
12277 <p>Support for makefile-style concurrency during boot was uploaded to
12278 unstable yesterday. When we tested it, we were able to cut
6 seconds
12279 from the boot sequence. It depend on very correct dependency
12280 declaration in all init.d scripts, so I expect us to find edge cases
12281 where the dependences in some scripts are slightly wrong when we start
12284 <p>On our IRC channel for this effort, #pkg-sysvinit, a new idea was
12285 introduced by Raphael Geissert today, one that could affect the
12286 startup speed as well. Instead of starting some scripts concurrently
12287 from rcS.d/ and another set of scripts from rc2.d/, it would be
12288 possible to run a of them in the same process. A quick way to test
12289 this would be to enable insserv and run 'mv /etc/rc2.d/S* /etc/rcS.d/;
12290 insserv'. Will need to test if that work. :)
</p>
12296 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>.
12301 <div class=
"padding"></div>
12303 <div class=
"entry">
12304 <div class=
"title">
12305 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/BSAs_p_stander_om_piratkopiering_m_ter_motstand.html">BSAs påstander om piratkopiering møter motstand
</a>
12311 <p>Hvert år de siste årene har BSA, lobbyfronten til de store
12312 programvareselskapene som Microsoft og Apple, publisert en rapport der
12313 de gjetter på hvor mye piratkopiering påfører i tapte inntekter i
12314 ulike land rundt om i verden. Resultatene er tendensiøse. For noen
12316 <a href=
"http://global.bsa.org/globalpiracy2008/studies/globalpiracy2008.pdf">siste
12317 rapport
</a>, og det er flere kritiske kommentarer publisert de siste
12318 dagene. Et spesielt interessant kommentar fra Sverige,
12319 <a href=
"http://www.idg.se/2.1085/1.229795/bsa-hoftade-sverigesiffror">BSA
12320 höftade Sverigesiffror
</a>, oppsummeres slik:
</p>
12323 I sin senaste rapport slår BSA fast att
25 procent av all mjukvara i
12324 Sverige är piratkopierad. Det utan att ha pratat med ett enda svenskt
12325 företag. "Man bör nog kanske inte se de här siffrorna som helt
12326 exakta", säger BSAs Sverigechef John Hugosson.
12329 <p>Mon tro om de er like metodiske når de gjetter på andelen piratkopiering i Norge? To andre kommentarer er
<a
12330 href=
"http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/comment/2242134/bsa-piracy-figures-shot-reality">BSA
12331 piracy figures need a shot of reality
</a> og
<a
12332 href=
"http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/3958/125/">Does The WIPO
12333 Copyright Treaty Work?
</a></p>
12335 <p>Fant lenkene via
<a
12336 href=
"http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/05/17/1632242">oppslag
12337 på Slashdot
</a>.
</p>
12343 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>.
12348 <div class=
"padding"></div>
12350 <div class=
"entry">
12351 <div class=
"title">
12352 <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>
12359 <a href=
"http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10216873-16.html">interessante
12360 tall
</a> fra IDG om utviklingen av linuxservermarkedet. Fikk meg til
12361 å tenke på antall tjenermaskiner ved Universitetet i Oslo der jeg
12362 jobber til daglig. En rask opptelling forteller meg at vi har
490
12363 (
61%) fysiske unix-tjener (mest linux men også noen solaris) og
196
12364 (
25%) windowstjenere, samt
112 (
14%) virtuelle unix-tjenere. Med den
12365 bakgrunnskunnskapen kan jeg godt tro at IDG er inne på noe.
</p>
12371 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>.
12376 <div class=
"padding"></div>
12378 <div class=
"entry">
12379 <div class=
"title">
12380 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Kryptert_harddisk___naturligvis.html">Kryptert harddisk - naturligvis
</a>
12386 <p><a href=
"http://www.dagensit.no/trender/article1658676.ece">Dagens
12387 IT melder
</a> at Intel hevder at det er dyrt å miste en datamaskin,
12388 når en tar tap av arbeidstid, fortrolige dokumenter,
12389 personopplysninger og alt annet det innebærer. Det er ingen tvil om
12390 at det er en kostbar affære å miste sin datamaskin, og det er årsaken
12391 til at jeg har kryptert harddisken på både kontormaskinen og min
12392 bærbare. Begge inneholder personopplysninger jeg ikke ønsker skal
12393 komme på avveie, den første informasjon relatert til jobben min ved
12394 Universitetet i Oslo, og den andre relatert til blant annet
12395 foreningsarbeide. Kryptering av diskene gjør at det er lite
12396 sannsynlig at dophoder som kan finne på å rappe maskinene får noe ut
12397 av dem. Maskinene låses automatisk etter noen minutter uten bruk,
12398 og en reboot vil gjøre at de ber om passord før de vil starte opp.
12399 Jeg bruker Debian på begge maskinene, og installasjonssystemet der
12400 gjør det trivielt å sette opp krypterte disker. Jeg har LVM på toppen
12401 av krypterte partisjoner, slik at alt av datapartisjoner er kryptert.
12402 Jeg anbefaler alle å kryptere diskene på sine bærbare. Kostnaden når
12403 det er gjort slik jeg gjør det er minimale, og gevinstene er
12404 betydelige. En bør dog passe på passordet. Hvis det går tapt, må
12405 maskinen reinstalleres og alt er tapt.
</p>
12407 <p>Krypteringen vil ikke stoppe kompetente angripere som f.eks. kjøler
12408 ned minnebrikkene før maskinen rebootes med programvare for å hente ut
12409 krypteringsnøklene. Kostnaden med å forsvare seg mot slike angripere
12410 er for min del høyere enn gevinsten. Jeg tror oddsene for at
12411 f.eks. etteretningsorganisasjoner har glede av å titte på mine
12412 maskiner er minimale, og ulempene jeg ville oppnå ved å forsøke å
12413 gjøre det vanskeligere for angripere med kompetanse og ressurser er
12420 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>.
12425 <div class=
"padding"></div>
12427 <div class=
"entry">
12428 <div class=
"title">
12429 <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>
12435 <p>There are two software projects that have had huge influence on the
12436 quality of free software, and I wanted to mention both in case someone
12437 do not yet know them.
</p>
12439 <p>The first one is
<a href=
"http://valgrind.org/">valgrind
</a>, a
12440 tool to detect and expose errors in the memory handling of programs.
12441 It is easy to use, all one need to do is to run 'valgrind program',
12442 and it will report any problems on stdout. It is even better if the
12443 program include debug information. With debug information, it is able
12444 to report the source file name and line number where the problem
12445 occurs. It can report things like 'reading past memory block in file
12446 X line N, the memory block was allocated in file Y, line M', and
12447 'using uninitialised value in control logic'. This tool has made it
12448 trivial to investigate reproducible crash bugs in programs, and have
12449 reduced the number of this kind of bugs in free software a lot.
12451 <p>The second one is
12452 <a href=
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coverity">Coverity
</a> which is
12453 a source code checker. It is able to process the source of a program
12454 and find problems in the logic without running the program. It
12455 started out as the Stanford Checker and became well known when it was
12456 used to find bugs in the Linux kernel. It is now a commercial tool
12457 and the company behind it is running
12458 <a href=
"http://www.scan.coverity.com/">a community service
</a> for the
12459 free software community, where a lot of free software projects get
12460 their source checked for free. Several thousand defects have been
12461 found and fixed so far. It can find errors like 'lock L taken in file
12462 X line N is never released if exiting in line M', or 'the code in file
12463 Y lines O to P can never be executed'. The projects included in the
12464 community service project have managed to get rid of a lot of
12465 reliability problems thanks to Coverity.
</p>
12467 <p>I believe tools like this, that are able to automatically find
12468 errors in the source, are vital to improve the quality of software and
12469 make sure we can get rid of the crashing and failing software we are
12470 surrounded by today.
</p>
12476 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
12481 <div class=
"padding"></div>
12483 <div class=
"entry">
12484 <div class=
"title">
12485 <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>
12492 <a href=
"http://blog.technologeek.org/2009/04/12/214">claim that no
12493 patch is better than a useless patch
</a>. I completely disagree, as a
12494 patch allow one to discuss a concrete and proposed solution, and also
12495 prove that the issue at hand is important enough for someone to spent
12496 time on fixing it. No patch do not provide any of these positive
12503 Tags:
<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>.
12508 <div class=
"padding"></div>
12510 <div class=
"entry">
12511 <div class=
"title">
12512 <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>
12518 <p>Where I work at the University of Oslo, one decision stand out as a
12519 very good one to form a long lived computer infrastructure. It is the
12520 simple one, lost by many in todays computer industry: Standardize on
12521 open network protocols and open exchange/storage formats, not applications.
12522 Applications come and go, while protocols and files tend to stay, and
12523 thus one want to make it easy to change application and vendor, while
12524 avoiding conversion costs and locking users to a specific platform or
12527 <p>This approach make it possible to replace the client applications
12528 independently of the server applications. One can even allow users to
12529 use several different applications as long as they handle the selected
12530 protocol and format. In the normal case, only one client application
12531 is recommended and users only get help if they choose to use this
12532 application, but those that want to deviate from the easy path are not
12533 blocked from doing so.
</p>
12535 <p>It also allow us to replace the server side without forcing the
12536 users to replace their applications, and thus allow us to select the
12537 best server implementation at any moment, when scale and resouce
12538 requirements change.
</p>
12540 <p>I strongly recommend standardizing - on open network protocols and
12541 open formats, but I would never recommend standardizing on a single
12542 application that do not use open network protocol or open formats.
</p>
12548 Tags:
<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>.
12553 <div class=
"padding"></div>
12555 <div class=
"entry">
12556 <div class=
"title">
12557 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Returning_from_Skolelinux_developer_gathering.html">Returning from Skolelinux developer gathering
</a>
12563 <p>I'm sitting on the train going home from this weekends Debian
12564 Edu/Skolelinux development gathering. I got a bit done tuning the
12565 desktop, and looked into the dynamic service location protocol
12566 implementation avahi. It look like it could be useful for us. Almost
12567 30 people participated, and I believe it was a great environment to
12568 get to know the Skolelinux system. Walter Bender, involved in the
12569 development of the Sugar educational platform, presented his stuff and
12570 also helped me improve my OLPC installation. He also showed me that
12571 his Turtle Art application can be used in standalone mode, and we
12572 agreed that I would help getting it packaged for Debian. As a
12573 standalone application it would be great for Debian Edu. We also
12574 tried to get the video conferencing working with two OLPCs, but that
12575 proved to be too hard for us. The application seem to need more work
12576 before it is ready for me. I look forward to getting home and relax
12583 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>.
12588 <div class=
"padding"></div>
12590 <div class=
"entry">
12591 <div class=
"title">
12592 <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>
12598 <p>The state of standardized LDAP schemas on Linux is far from
12599 optimal. There is RFC
2307 documenting one way to store NIS maps in
12600 LDAP, and a modified version of this normally called RFC
2307bis, with
12601 some modifications to be compatible with Active Directory. The RFC
12602 specification handle the content of a lot of system databases, but do
12603 not handle DNS zones and DHCP configuration.
</p>
12605 <p>In
<a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux
</a>,
12606 we would like to store information about users, SMB clients/hosts,
12607 filegroups, netgroups (users and hosts), DHCP and DNS configuration,
12608 and LTSP configuration in LDAP. These objects have a lot in common,
12609 but with the current LDAP schemas it is not possible to have one
12610 object per entity. For example, one need to have at least three LDAP
12611 objects for a given computer, one with the SMB related stuff, one with
12612 DNS information and another with DHCP information. The schemas
12613 provided for DNS and DHCP are impossible to combine into one LDAP
12614 object. In addition, it is impossible to implement quick queries for
12615 netgroup membership, because of the way NIS triples are implemented.
12616 It just do not scale. I believe it is time for a few RFC
12617 specifications to cleam up this mess.
</p>
12619 <p>I would like to have one LDAP object representing each computer in
12620 the network, and this object can then keep the SMB (ie host key), DHCP
12621 (mac address/name) and DNS (name/IP address) settings in one place.
12622 It need to be efficently stored to make sure it scale well.
</p>
12624 <p>I would also like to have a quick way to map from a user or
12625 computer and to the net group this user or computer is a member.
</p>
12627 <p>Active Directory have done a better job than unix heads like myself
12628 in this regard, and the unix side need to catch up. Time to start a
12629 new IETF work group?
</p>
12635 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>.
12640 <div class=
"padding"></div>
12642 <div class=
"entry">
12643 <div class=
"title">
12644 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Endelig_er_Debian_Lenny_gitt_ut.html">Endelig er Debian Lenny gitt ut
</a>
12650 <p>Endelig er
<a href=
"http://www.debian.org/">Debian
</a>
12651 <a href=
"http://www.debian.org/News/2009/20090214">Lenny
</a> gitt ut.
12652 Et langt steg videre for Debian-prosjektet, og en rekke nye
12653 programpakker blir nå tilgjengelig for de av oss som bruker den
12654 stabile utgaven av Debian. Neste steg er nå å få
12655 <a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux
</a> /
12656 <a href=
"http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/">Debian Edu
</a> ferdig
12657 oppdatert for den nye utgaven, slik at en oppdatert versjon kan
12658 slippes løs på skolene. Takk til alle debian-utviklerne som har
12659 gjort dette mulig. Endelig er f.eks. fungerende avhengighetsstyrt
12660 bootsekvens tilgjengelig i stabil utgave, vha pakken
12661 <tt>insserv
</tt>.
</p>
12667 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>.
12672 <div class=
"padding"></div>
12674 <div class=
"entry">
12675 <div class=
"title">
12676 <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>
12682 <p>This weekend we had a small developer gathering for Debian Edu in
12683 Oslo. Most of Saturday was used for the general assemly for the
12684 member organization, but the rest of the weekend I used to tune the
12685 LTSP installation. LTSP now work out of the box on the
10-network.
12686 Acer Aspire One proved to be a very nice thin client, with both
12687 screen, mouse and keybard in a small box. Was working on getting the
12688 diskless workstation setup configured out of the box, but did not
12689 finish it before the weekend was up.
</p>
12691 <p>Did not find time to look at the
4 VGA cards in one box we got from
12692 the Brazilian group, so that will have to wait for the next
12693 development gathering. Would love to have the Debian Edu installer
12694 automatically detect and configure a multiseat setup when it find one
12695 of these cards.
</p>
12701 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>.
12706 <div class=
"padding"></div>
12708 <div class=
"entry">
12709 <div class=
"title">
12710 <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>
12716 <p>Recently I have spent some time evaluating the multimedia browser
12717 plugins available in Debian Lenny, to see which one we should use by
12718 default in Debian Edu. We need an embedded video playing plugin with
12719 control buttons to pause or stop the video, and capable of streaming
12720 all the multimedia content available on the web. The test results and
12721 notes are available on
12722 <a href=
"http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">the
12723 Debian wiki
</a>. I was surprised how few of the plugins are able to
12724 fill this need. My personal video player favorite, VLC, has a really
12725 bad plugin which fail on a lot of the test pages. A lot of the MIME
12726 types I would expect to work with any free software player (like
12727 video/ogg), just do not work. And simple formats like the
12728 audio/x-mplegurl format (m3u playlists), just isn't supported by the
12729 totem and vlc plugins. I hope the situation will improve soon. No
12730 wonder sites use the proprietary Adobe flash to play video.
</p>
12732 <p>For Lenny, we seem to end up with the mplayer plugin. It seem to
12733 be the only one fitting our needs. :/
</p>
12739 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>.
12744 <div class=
"padding"></div>
12746 <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>
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4)
</a></li>
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3)
</a></li>
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"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2017/03/">March (
5)
</a></li>
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2)
</a></li>
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</a></li>
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3)
</a></li>
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2)
</a></li>
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3)
</a></li>
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8)
</a></li>
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</a></li>
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</a></li>
12860 <li><a href=
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</a></li>
12862 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/12/">December (
5)
</a></li>
12869 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/01/">January (
11)
</a></li>
12871 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/02/">February (
9)
</a></li>
12873 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/03/">March (
9)
</a></li>
12875 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/04/">April (
6)
</a></li>
12877 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/05/">May (
9)
</a></li>
12879 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/06/">June (
10)
</a></li>
12881 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/07/">July (
7)
</a></li>
12883 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/08/">August (
3)
</a></li>
12885 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/09/">September (
5)
</a></li>
12887 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/10/">October (
7)
</a></li>
12889 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/11/">November (
9)
</a></li>
12891 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/12/">December (
3)
</a></li>
12898 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/01/">January (
7)
</a></li>
12900 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/02/">February (
10)
</a></li>
12902 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/03/">March (
17)
</a></li>
12904 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/04/">April (
12)
</a></li>
12906 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/05/">May (
12)
</a></li>
12908 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/06/">June (
20)
</a></li>
12910 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/07/">July (
17)
</a></li>
12912 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/08/">August (
6)
</a></li>
12914 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/09/">September (
9)
</a></li>
12916 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/10/">October (
17)
</a></li>
12918 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/11/">November (
10)
</a></li>
12920 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/12/">December (
7)
</a></li>
12927 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/01/">January (
16)
</a></li>
12929 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/02/">February (
6)
</a></li>
12931 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/03/">March (
6)
</a></li>
12933 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/04/">April (
7)
</a></li>
12935 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/05/">May (
3)
</a></li>
12937 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/06/">June (
2)
</a></li>
12939 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/07/">July (
7)
</a></li>
12941 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/08/">August (
6)
</a></li>
12943 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/09/">September (
4)
</a></li>
12945 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/10/">October (
2)
</a></li>
12947 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/11/">November (
3)
</a></li>
12949 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/12/">December (
1)
</a></li>
12956 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/01/">January (
2)
</a></li>
12958 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/02/">February (
1)
</a></li>
12960 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/03/">March (
3)
</a></li>
12962 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/04/">April (
3)
</a></li>
12964 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/05/">May (
9)
</a></li>
12966 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/06/">June (
14)
</a></li>
12968 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/07/">July (
12)
</a></li>
12970 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/08/">August (
13)
</a></li>
12972 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/09/">September (
7)
</a></li>
12974 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/10/">October (
9)
</a></li>
12976 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/11/">November (
13)
</a></li>
12978 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/12/">December (
12)
</a></li>
12985 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/01/">January (
8)
</a></li>
12987 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/02/">February (
8)
</a></li>
12989 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/03/">March (
12)
</a></li>
12991 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/04/">April (
10)
</a></li>
12993 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/05/">May (
9)
</a></li>
12995 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/06/">June (
3)
</a></li>
12997 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/07/">July (
4)
</a></li>
12999 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/08/">August (
3)
</a></li>
13001 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/09/">September (
1)
</a></li>
13003 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/10/">October (
2)
</a></li>
13005 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/11/">November (
3)
</a></li>
13007 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/12/">December (
3)
</a></li>
13014 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/11/">November (
5)
</a></li>
13016 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/12/">December (
7)
</a></li>
13027 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer (
14)
</a></li>
13029 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/amiga">amiga (
1)
</a></li>
13031 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/aros">aros (
1)
</a></li>
13033 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bankid">bankid (
4)
</a></li>
13035 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin (
9)
</a></li>
13037 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem (
16)
</a></li>
13039 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bsa">bsa (
2)
</a></li>
13041 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/chrpath">chrpath (
2)
</a></li>
13043 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian (
154)
</a></li>
13045 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu (
158)
</a></li>
13047 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian-handbook">debian-handbook (
4)
</a></li>
13049 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/digistan">digistan (
10)
</a></li>
13051 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/dld">dld (
17)
</a></li>
13053 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook (
24)
</a></li>
13055 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/drivstoffpriser">drivstoffpriser (
4)
</a></li>
13057 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english (
360)
</a></li>
13059 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami (
23)
</a></li>
13061 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fildeling">fildeling (
12)
</a></li>
13063 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture (
30)
</a></li>
13065 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox (
9)
</a></li>
13067 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen (
18)
</a></li>
13069 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/h264">h264 (
20)
</a></li>
13071 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju (
42)
</a></li>
13073 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram (
15)
</a></li>
13075 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kart">kart (
20)
</a></li>
13077 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap (
9)
</a></li>
13079 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lego">lego (
4)
</a></li>
13081 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lenker">lenker (
8)
</a></li>
13083 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lsdvd">lsdvd (
2)
</a></li>
13085 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ltsp">ltsp (
1)
</a></li>
13087 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network (
8)
</a></li>
13089 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia (
39)
</a></li>
13091 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nice free software">nice free software (
9)
</a></li>
13093 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk (
293)
</a></li>
13095 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug (
189)
</a></li>
13097 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/offentlig innsyn">offentlig innsyn (
33)
</a></li>
13099 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/open311">open311 (
2)
</a></li>
13101 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett (
67)
</a></li>
13103 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern (
104)
</a></li>
13105 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/raid">raid (
2)
</a></li>
13107 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reactos">reactos (
1)
</a></li>
13109 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reprap">reprap (
11)
</a></li>
13111 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rfid">rfid (
3)
</a></li>
13113 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot (
10)
</a></li>
13115 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rss">rss (
1)
</a></li>
13117 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ruter">ruter (
5)
</a></li>
13119 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/scraperwiki">scraperwiki (
2)
</a></li>
13121 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet (
53)
</a></li>
13123 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary (
4)
</a></li>
13125 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/skepsis">skepsis (
5)
</a></li>
13127 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard (
55)
</a></li>
13129 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stavekontroll">stavekontroll (
6)
</a></li>
13131 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stortinget">stortinget (
12)
</a></li>
13133 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance (
52)
</a></li>
13135 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sysadmin">sysadmin (
4)
</a></li>
13137 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/usenix">usenix (
2)
</a></li>
13139 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/valg">valg (
9)
</a></li>
13141 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/verkidetfri">verkidetfri (
5)
</a></li>
13143 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video (
59)
</a></li>
13145 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/vitenskap">vitenskap (
4)
</a></li>
13147 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web (
40)
</a></li>
13153 <p style=
"text-align: right">
13154 Created by
<a href=
"http://steve.org.uk/Software/chronicle">Chronicle v4.6
</a>
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