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1 <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
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3 <channel>
4 <title>Petter Reinholdtsen - Entries tagged debian</title>
5 <description>Entries tagged debian</description>
6 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/</link>
7
8
9 <item>
10 <title>How to fix a Thinkpad X230 with a broken 180 GB SSD disk</title>
11 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_fix_a_Thinkpad_X230_with_a_broken_180_GB_SSD_disk.html</link>
12 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_fix_a_Thinkpad_X230_with_a_broken_180_GB_SSD_disk.html</guid>
13 <pubDate>Wed, 17 Jul 2013 23:50:00 +0200</pubDate>
14 <description>&lt;p&gt;Today I switched to
15 &lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html&quot;&gt;my
16 new laptop&lt;/a&gt;. I&#39;ve previously written about the problems I had with
17 my new Thinkpad X230, which was delivered with an
18 &lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Intel_SSD_520_Series_180_GB_with_Lenovo_firmware_still_lock_up_from_sustained_writes.html&quot;&gt;180
19 GB Intel SSD disk with Lenovo firmware&lt;/a&gt; that did not handle
20 sustained writes. My hardware supplier have been very forthcoming in
21 trying to find a solution, and after first trying with another
22 identical 180 GB disks they decided to send me a 256 GB Samsung SSD
23 disk instead to fix it once and for all. The Samsung disk survived
24 the installation of Debian with encrypted disks (filling the disk with
25 random data during installation killed the first two), and I thus
26 decided to trust it with my data. I have installed it as a Debian Edu
27 Wheezy roaming workstation hooked up with my Debian Edu Squeeze main
28 server at home using Kerberos and LDAP, and will use it as my work
29 station from now on.&lt;/p&gt;
30
31 &lt;p&gt;As this is a solid state disk with no moving parts, I believe the
32 Debian Wheezy default installation need to be tuned a bit to increase
33 performance and increase life time of the disk. The Linux kernel and
34 user space applications do not yet adjust automatically to such
35 environment. To make it easier for my self, I created a draft Debian
36 package &lt;tt&gt;ssd-setup&lt;/tt&gt; to handle this tuning. The
37 &lt;a href=&quot;http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/ssd-setup.git&quot;&gt;source
38 for the ssd-setup package&lt;/a&gt; is available from collab-maint, and it
39 is set up to adjust the setup of the machine by just installing the
40 package. If there is any non-SSD disk in the machine, the package
41 will refuse to install, as I did not try to write any logic to sort
42 file systems in SSD and non-SSD file systems.&lt;/p&gt;
43
44 &lt;p&gt;I consider the package a draft, as I am a bit unsure how to best
45 set up Debian Wheezy with an SSD. It is adjusted to my use case,
46 where I set up the machine with one large encrypted partition (in
47 addition to /boot), put LVM on top of this and set up partitions on
48 top of this again. See the README file in the package source for the
49 references I used to pick the settings. At the moment these
50 parameters are tuned:&lt;/p&gt;
51
52 &lt;ul&gt;
53
54 &lt;li&gt;Set up cryptsetup to pass TRIM commands to the physical disk
55 (adding discard to /etc/crypttab)&lt;/li&gt;
56
57 &lt;li&gt;Set up LVM to pass on TRIM commands to the underlying device (in
58 this case a cryptsetup partition) by changing issue_discards from
59 0 to 1 in /etc/lvm/lvm.conf.&lt;/li&gt;
60
61 &lt;li&gt;Set relatime as a file system option for ext3 and ext4 file
62 systems.&lt;/li&gt;
63
64 &lt;li&gt;Tell swap to use TRIM commands by adding &#39;discard&#39; to
65 /etc/fstab.&lt;/li&gt;
66
67 &lt;li&gt;Change I/O scheduler from cfq to deadline using a udev rule.&lt;/li&gt;
68
69 &lt;li&gt;Run fstrim on every ext3 and ext4 file system every night (from
70 cron.daily).&lt;/li&gt;
71
72 &lt;li&gt;Adjust sysctl values vm.swappiness to 1 and vm.vfs_cache_pressure
73 to 50 to reduce the kernel eagerness to swap out processes.&lt;/li&gt;
74
75 &lt;/ul&gt;
76
77 &lt;p&gt;During installation, I cancelled the part where the installer fill
78 the disk with random data, as this would kill the SSD performance for
79 little gain. My goal with the encrypted file system is to ensure
80 those stealing my laptop end up with a brick and not a working
81 computer. I have no hope in keeping the really resourceful people
82 from getting the data on the disk (see
83 &lt;a href=&quot;http://xkcd.com/538/&quot;&gt;XKCD #538&lt;/a&gt; for an explanation why).
84 Thus I concluded that adding the discard option to crypttab is the
85 right thing to do.&lt;/p&gt;
86
87 &lt;p&gt;I considered using the noop I/O scheduler, as several recommended
88 it for SSD, but others recommended deadline and a benchmark I found
89 indicated that deadline might be better for interactive use.&lt;/p&gt;
90
91 &lt;p&gt;I also considered using the &#39;discard&#39; file system option for ext3
92 and ext4, but read that it would give a performance hit ever time a
93 file is removed, and thought it best to that that slowdown once a day
94 instead of during my work.&lt;/p&gt;
95
96 &lt;p&gt;My package do not set up tmpfs on /var/run, /var/lock and /tmp, as
97 this is already done by Debian Edu.&lt;/p&gt;
98
99 &lt;p&gt;I have not yet started on the user space tuning. I expect
100 iceweasel need some tuning, and perhaps other applications too, but
101 have not yet had time to investigate those parts.&lt;/p&gt;
102
103 &lt;p&gt;The package should work on Ubuntu too, but I have not yet tested it
104 there.&lt;/p&gt;
105
106 &lt;p&gt;As for the answer to the question in the title of this blog post,
107 as far as I know, the only solution is to replace the disk. It might
108 be possible to flash it with Intel firmware instead of the Lenovo
109 firmware. But I have not tried and did not want to do so without
110 approval from Lenovo as I wanted to keep the warranty on the disk
111 until a solution was found and they wanted the broken disks back.&lt;/p&gt;
112 </description>
113 </item>
114
115 <item>
116 <title>Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB with Lenovo firmware still lock up from sustained writes</title>
117 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Intel_SSD_520_Series_180_GB_with_Lenovo_firmware_still_lock_up_from_sustained_writes.html</link>
118 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Intel_SSD_520_Series_180_GB_with_Lenovo_firmware_still_lock_up_from_sustained_writes.html</guid>
119 <pubDate>Wed, 10 Jul 2013 13:30:00 +0200</pubDate>
120 <description>&lt;p&gt;A few days ago, I wrote about
121 &lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html&quot;&gt;the
122 problems I experienced with my new X230 and its SSD disk&lt;/a&gt;, which
123 was dying during installation because it is unable to cope with
124 sustained write. My supplier is in contact with
125 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.lenovo.com/&quot;&gt;Lenovo&lt;/a&gt;, and they wanted to send a
126 replacement disk to try to fix the problem. They decided to send an
127 identical model, so my hopes for a permanent fix was slim.&lt;/p&gt;
128
129 &lt;p&gt;Anyway, today I got the replacement disk and tried to install
130 Debian Edu Wheezy with encrypted disk on it. The new disk have the
131 same firmware version as the original. This time my hope raised
132 slightly as the installation progressed, as the original disk used to
133 die after 4-7% of the disk was written to, while this time it kept
134 going past 10%, 20%, 40% and even past 50%. But around 60%, the disk
135 died again and I was back on square one. I still do not have a new
136 laptop with a disk I can trust. I can not live with a disk that might
137 lock up when I download a new
138 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.skolelinux.org/&quot;&gt;Debian Edu / Skolelinux&lt;/a&gt; ISO or
139 other large files. I look forward to hearing from my supplier with
140 the next proposal from Lenovo.&lt;/p&gt;
141
142 &lt;p&gt;The original disk is marked Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB,
143 11S0C38722Z1ZNME35X1TR, ISN: CVCV321407HB180EGN, SA: G57560302, FW:
144 LF1i, 29MAY2013, PBA: G39779-300, LBA 351,651,888, LI P/N: 0C38722,
145 Pb-free 2LI, LC P/N: 16-200366, WWN: 55CD2E40002756C4, Model:
146 SSDSC2BW180A3L 2.5&quot; 6Gb/s SATA SSD 180G 5V 1A, ASM P/N 0C38732, FRU
147 P/N 45N8295, P0C38732.&lt;/p&gt;
148
149 &lt;p&gt;The replacement disk is marked Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB,
150 11S0C38722Z1ZNDE34N0L0, ISN: CVCV315306RK180EGN, SA: G57560-302, FW:
151 LF1i, 22APR2013, PBA: G39779-300, LBA 351,651,888, LI P/N: 0C38722,
152 Pb-free 2LI, LC P/N: 16-200366, WWN: 55CD2E40000AB69E, Model:
153 SSDSC2BW180A3L 2.5&quot; 6Gb/s SATA SSD 180G 5V 1A, ASM P/N 0C38732, FRU
154 P/N 45N8295, P0C38732.&lt;/p&gt;
155
156 &lt;p&gt;The only difference is in the first number (serial number?), ISN,
157 SA, date and WNPP values. Mentioning all the details here in case
158 someone is able to use the information to find a way to identify the
159 failing disk among working ones (if any such working disk actually
160 exist).&lt;/p&gt;
161 </description>
162 </item>
163
164 <item>
165 <title>July 13th: Debian/Ubuntu BSP and Skolelinux/Debian Edu developer gathering in Oslo</title>
166 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/July_13th__Debian_Ubuntu_BSP_and_Skolelinux_Debian_Edu_developer_gathering_in_Oslo.html</link>
167 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/July_13th__Debian_Ubuntu_BSP_and_Skolelinux_Debian_Edu_developer_gathering_in_Oslo.html</guid>
168 <pubDate>Tue, 9 Jul 2013 10:40:00 +0200</pubDate>
169 <description>&lt;p&gt;The upcoming Saturday, 2013-07-13, we are organising a combined
170 Debian Edu developer gathering and Debian and Ubuntu bug squashing
171 party in Oslo. It is organised by &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nuug.no/&quot;&gt;the
172 member assosiation NUUG&lt;/a&gt; and
173 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.skolelinux.org/&quot;&gt;the Debian Edu / Skolelinux
174 project&lt;/a&gt; together with &lt;a href=&quot;http://bitraf.no/&quot;&gt;the hack space
175 Bitraf&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
176
177 &lt;p&gt;It starts 10:00 and continue until late evening. Everyone is
178 welcome, and there is no fee to participate. There is on the other
179 hand limited space, and only room for 30 people. Please put your name
180 on &lt;a href=&quot;http://wiki.debian.org/BSP/2013/07/13/no/Oslo&quot;&gt;the event
181 wiki page&lt;/a&gt; if you plan to join us.&lt;/p&gt;
182 </description>
183 </item>
184
185 <item>
186 <title>The Thinkpad is dead, long live the Thinkpad X230?</title>
187 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html</link>
188 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html</guid>
189 <pubDate>Fri, 5 Jul 2013 08:30:00 +0200</pubDate>
190 <description>&lt;p&gt;Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a
191 &lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thank_you_Thinkpad_X41__for_your_long_and_trustworthy_service.html&quot;&gt;replacement
192 for my trusty old Thinkpad X41&lt;/a&gt;. Unfortunately I did not have much
193 time to spend on it, and it took a while to find a model I believe
194 will do the job, but two days ago the replacement finally arrived. I
195 ended up picking a
196 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_x230&quot;&gt;Thinkpad X230&lt;/a&gt;
197 with SSD disk (NZDAJMN). I first test installed Debian Edu Wheezy as
198 a roaming workstation, and it seemed to work flawlessly. But my
199 second installation with encrypted disk was not as successful. More
200 on that below.&lt;/p&gt;
201
202 &lt;p&gt;I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most
203 important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never
204 listed in the feature list. But I did get good help from the search
205 feature at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.prisjakt.no/&quot;&gt;Prisjakt&lt;/a&gt;, which
206 allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other
207 requirements. A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks according
208 to that search interface, so I had to drop specifying the number of
209 disks from my search parameters. I also asked around among friends to
210 get their impression on keyboards and robustness.&lt;/p&gt;
211
212 &lt;p&gt;So the new laptop arrived, and it is quite a lot wider than the
213 X41. I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is
214 significantly wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my
215 hand a lot more to reach the edges. But the key response is fairly
216 good and the individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope
217 I will get used to it. My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really
218 needed a new laptop now. :)&lt;/p&gt;
219
220 &lt;p&gt;Turning off the touch pad was simple. All it took was a quick
221 visit to the BIOS during boot it disable it.&lt;/p&gt;
222
223 &lt;p&gt;But there is a fatal problem with the laptop. The 180 GB SSD disk
224 lock up during load. And this happen when installing Debian Wheezy
225 with encrypted disk, while the disk is being filled with random data.
226 I also tested to install Ubuntu Raring, and it happen there too if I
227 reenable the code to fill the disk with random data (it is disabled by
228 default in Ubuntu). And the bug with is already known. It was
229 reported to Debian as &lt;a href=&quot;http://bugs.debian.org/691427&quot;&gt;BTS
230 report #691427 2012-10-25&lt;/a&gt; (journal commit I/O error on brand-new
231 Thinkpad T430s ext4 on lvm on SSD). It is also reported to the Linux
232 kernel developers as
233 &lt;a href=&quot;https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=51861&quot;&gt;Kernel bugzilla
234 report #51861 2012-12-20&lt;/a&gt; (Intel SSD 520 stops working under load
235 (SSDSC2BW180A3L in Lenovo ThinkPad T430s)). It is also reported on the
236 Lenovo forums, both for
237 &lt;a href=&quot;http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/T400-T500-and-newer-T-series/T430s-Intel-SSD-520-180GB-issue/m-p/1070549&quot;&gt;T430
238 2012-11-10&lt;/a&gt; and for
239 &lt;a href=&quot;http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/X-Series-ThinkPad-Laptops/x230-SATA-errors-with-180GB-Intel-520-SSD-under-heavy-write-load/m-p/1068147&quot;&gt;X230
240 03-20-2013&lt;/a&gt;. The problem do not only affect installation. The
241 reports state that the disk lock up during use if many writes are done
242 on the disk, so it is much no use to work around the installation
243 problem and end up with a computer that can lock up at any moment.
244 There is even a
245 &lt;a href=&quot;https://git.efficios.com/?p=test-ssd.git&quot;&gt;small C program
246 available&lt;/a&gt; that will lock up the hard drive after running a few
247 minutes by writing to a file.&lt;/p&gt;
248
249 &lt;p&gt;I&#39;ve contacted my supplier and asked how to handle this, and after
250 contacting PCHELP Norway (request 01D1FDP) which handle support
251 requests for Lenovo, his first suggestion was to upgrade the disk
252 firmware. Unfortunately there is no newer firmware available from
253 Lenovo, as my disk already have the most recent one (version LF1i). I
254 hope to hear more from him today and hope the problem can be
255 fixed. :)&lt;/p&gt;
256 </description>
257 </item>
258
259 <item>
260 <title>The Thinkpad is dead, long live the Thinkpad X230</title>
261 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230.html</link>
262 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230.html</guid>
263 <pubDate>Thu, 4 Jul 2013 09:20:00 +0200</pubDate>
264 <description>&lt;p&gt;Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a replacement for my
265 trusty old Thinkpad X41. Unfortunately I did not have much time to
266 spend on it, but today the replacement finally arrived. I ended up
267 picking a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_x230&quot;&gt;Thinkpad
268 X230&lt;/a&gt; with SSD disk (NZDAJMN). I first test installed Debian Edu
269 Wheezy as a roaming workstation, and it worked flawlessly. As I write
270 this, it is installing what I hope will be a more final installation,
271 with a encrypted hard drive to ensure any dope head stealing it end up
272 with an expencive door stop.&lt;/p&gt;
273
274 &lt;p&gt;I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most
275 important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never
276 listed in the feature list. But I did get good help from the search
277 feature at &lt;ahref=&quot;http://www.prisjakt.no/&quot;&gt;Prisjakt&lt;/a&gt;, which
278 allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other
279 requirements. A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks, so I had
280 to drop number of disks from my search parameters.&lt;/p&gt;
281
282 &lt;p&gt;I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is significantly
283 wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my hand a lot more
284 to reach the edges. But the key response is fairly good and the
285 individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope I will get
286 used to it. My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really needed a
287 new laptop now. :)&lt;/p&gt;
288
289 &lt;p&gt;I look forward to figuring out how to turn off the touch pad.&lt;/p&gt;
290 </description>
291 </item>
292
293 <item>
294 <title>Automatically locate and install required firmware packages on Debian (Isenkram 0.4)</title>
295 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatically_locate_and_install_required_firmware_packages_on_Debian__Isenkram_0_4_.html</link>
296 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatically_locate_and_install_required_firmware_packages_on_Debian__Isenkram_0_4_.html</guid>
297 <pubDate>Tue, 25 Jun 2013 11:50:00 +0200</pubDate>
298 <description>&lt;p&gt;It annoys me when the computer fail to do automatically what it is
299 perfectly capable of, and I have to do it manually to get things
300 working. One such task is to find out what firmware packages are
301 needed to get the hardware on my computer working. Most often this
302 affect the wifi card, but some times it even affect the RAID
303 controller or the ethernet card. Today I pushed version 0.4 of the
304 &lt;a href=&quot;http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram&quot;&gt;Isenkram package&lt;/a&gt;
305 including a new script isenkram-autoinstall-firmware handling the
306 process of asking all the loaded kernel modules what firmware files
307 they want, find debian packages providing these files and install the
308 debian packages. Here is a test run on my laptop:&lt;/p&gt;
309
310 &lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
311 # isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
312 info: kernel drivers requested extra firmware: ipw2200-bss.fw ipw2200-ibss.fw ipw2200-sniffer.fw
313 info: fetching http://http.debian.net/debian/dists/squeeze/Contents-i386.gz
314 info: locating packages with the requested firmware files
315 info: Updating APT sources after adding non-free APT source
316 info: trying to install firmware-ipw2x00
317 firmware-ipw2x00
318 firmware-ipw2x00
319 Preconfiguring packages ...
320 Selecting previously deselected package firmware-ipw2x00.
321 (Reading database ... 259727 files and directories currently installed.)
322 Unpacking firmware-ipw2x00 (from .../firmware-ipw2x00_0.28+squeeze1_all.deb) ...
323 Setting up firmware-ipw2x00 (0.28+squeeze1) ...
324 #
325 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
326
327 &lt;p&gt;When all the requested firmware is present, a simple message is
328 printed instead:&lt;/p&gt;
329
330 &lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
331 # isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
332 info: did not find any firmware files requested by loaded kernel modules. exiting
333 #
334 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
335
336 &lt;p&gt;It could use some polish, but it is already working well and saving
337 me some time when setting up new machines. :)&lt;/p&gt;
338
339 &lt;p&gt;So, how does it work? It look at the set of currently loaded
340 kernel modules, and look up each one of them using modinfo, to find
341 the firmware files listed in the module meta-information. Next, it
342 download the Contents file from a nearby APT mirror, and search for
343 the firmware files in this file to locate the package with the
344 requested firmware file. If the package is in the non-free section, a
345 non-free APT source is added and the package is installed using
346 &lt;tt&gt;apt-get install&lt;/tt&gt;. The end result is a slightly better working
347 machine.&lt;/p&gt;
348
349 &lt;p&gt;I hope someone find time to implement a more polished version of
350 this script as part of the hw-detect debian-installer module, to
351 finally fix &lt;a href=&quot;http://bugs.debian.org/655507&quot;&gt;BTS report
352 #655507&lt;/a&gt;. There really is no need to insert USB sticks with
353 firmware during a PXE install when the packages already are available
354 from the nearby Debian mirror.&lt;/p&gt;
355 </description>
356 </item>
357
358 <item>
359 <title>Fixing the Linux black screen of death on machines with Intel HD video</title>
360 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Fixing_the_Linux_black_screen_of_death_on_machines_with_Intel_HD_video.html</link>
361 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Fixing_the_Linux_black_screen_of_death_on_machines_with_Intel_HD_video.html</guid>
362 <pubDate>Tue, 11 Jun 2013 11:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
363 <description>&lt;p&gt;When installing RedHat, Fedora, Debian and Ubuntu on some machines,
364 the screen just turn black when Linux boot, either during installation
365 or on first boot from the hard disk. I&#39;ve seen it once in a while the
366 last few years, but only recently understood the cause. I&#39;ve seen it
367 on HP laptops, and on my latest acquaintance the Packard Bell laptop.
368 The reason seem to be in the wiring of some laptops. The system to
369 control the screen background light is inverted, so when Linux try to
370 turn the brightness fully on, it end up turning it off instead. I do
371 not know which Linux drivers are affected, but this post is about the
372 i915 driver used by the
373 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv&quot;&gt;Packard Bell
374 EasyNote LV&lt;/a&gt;, Thinkpad X40 and many other laptops.&lt;/p&gt;
375
376 &lt;p&gt;The problem can be worked around two ways. Either by adding
377 i915.invert_brightness=1 as a kernel option, or by adding a file in
378 /etc/modprobe.d/ to tell modprobe to add the invert_brightness=1
379 option when it load the i915 kernel module. On Debian and Ubuntu, it
380 can be done by running these commands as root:&lt;/p&gt;
381
382 &lt;pre&gt;
383 echo options i915 invert_brightness=1 | tee /etc/modprobe.d/i915.conf
384 update-initramfs -u -k all
385 &lt;/pre&gt;
386
387 &lt;p&gt;Since March 2012 there is
388 &lt;a href=&quot;http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=4dca20efb1a9c2efefc28ad2867e5d6c3f5e1955&quot;&gt;a
389 mechanism in the Linux kernel&lt;/a&gt; to tell the i915 driver which
390 hardware have this problem, and get the driver to invert the
391 brightness setting automatically. To use it, one need to add a row in
392 &lt;a href=&quot;http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c&quot;&gt;the
393 intel_quirks array&lt;/a&gt; in the driver source
394 &lt;tt&gt;drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c&lt;/tt&gt; (look for &quot;&lt;tt&gt;static
395 struct intel_quirk intel_quirks&lt;/tt&gt;&quot;), specifying the PCI device
396 number (vendor number 8086 is assumed) and subdevice vendor and device
397 number.&lt;/p&gt;
398
399 &lt;p&gt;My Packard Bell EasyNote LV got this output from &lt;tt&gt;lspci
400 -vvnn&lt;/tt&gt; for the video card in question:&lt;/p&gt;
401
402 &lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
403 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation \
404 3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller [8086:0156] \
405 (rev 09) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
406 Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device [1025:0688]
407 Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- \
408 ParErr- Stepping- SE RR- FastB2B- DisINTx+
409 Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=fast &gt;TAbort- \
410 &lt;TAbort- &lt;MAbort-&gt;SERR- &lt;PERR- INTx-
411 Latency: 0
412 Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 42
413 Region 0: Memory at c2000000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4M]
414 Region 2: Memory at b0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
415 Region 4: I/O ports at 4000 [size=64]
416 Expansion ROM at &lt;unassigned&gt; [disabled]
417 Capabilities: &lt;access denied&gt;
418 Kernel driver in use: i915
419 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
420
421 &lt;p&gt;The resulting intel_quirks entry would then look like this:&lt;/p&gt;
422
423 &lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
424 struct intel_quirk intel_quirks[] = {
425 ...
426 /* Packard Bell EasyNote LV11HC needs invert brightness quirk */
427 { 0x0156, 0x1025, 0x0688, quirk_invert_brightness },
428 ...
429 }
430 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
431
432 &lt;p&gt;According to the kernel module instructions (as seen using
433 &lt;tt&gt;modinfo i915&lt;/tt&gt;), information about hardware needing the
434 invert_brightness flag should be sent to the
435 &lt;a href=&quot;http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/dri-devel&quot;&gt;dri-devel
436 (at) lists.freedesktop.org&lt;/a&gt; mailing list to reach the kernel
437 developers. But my email about the laptop sent 2013-06-03 have not
438 yet shown up in
439 &lt;a href=&quot;http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/dri-devel/2013-June/thread.html&quot;&gt;the
440 web archive for the mailing list&lt;/a&gt;, so I suspect they do not accept
441 emails from non-subscribers. Because of this, I sent my patch also to
442 the Debian bug tracking system instead as
443 &lt;a href=&quot;http://bugs.debian.org/710938&quot;&gt;BTS report #710938&lt;/a&gt;, to make
444 sure the patch is not lost.&lt;/p&gt;
445
446 &lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, it is not enough to fix the kernel to get Laptops
447 with this problem working properly with Linux. If you use Gnome, your
448 worries should be over at this point. But if you use KDE, there is
449 something in KDE ignoring the invert_brightness setting and turning on
450 the screen during login. I&#39;ve reported it to Debian as
451 &lt;a href=&quot;http://bugs.debian.org/711237&quot;&gt;BTS report #711237&lt;/a&gt;, and
452 have no idea yet how to figure out exactly what subsystem is doing
453 this. Perhaps you can help? Perhaps you know what the Gnome
454 developers did to handle this, and this can give a clue to the KDE
455 developers? Or you know where in KDE the screen brightness is changed
456 during login? If so, please update the BTS report (or get in touch if
457 you do not know how to update BTS).&lt;/p&gt;
458 </description>
459 </item>
460
461 <item>
462 <title>How to install Linux on a Packard Bell Easynote LV preinstalled with Windows 8</title>
463 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_install_Linux_on_a_Packard_Bell_Easynote_LV_preinstalled_with_Windows_8.html</link>
464 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_install_Linux_on_a_Packard_Bell_Easynote_LV_preinstalled_with_Windows_8.html</guid>
465 <pubDate>Mon, 27 May 2013 15:20:00 +0200</pubDate>
466 <description>&lt;p&gt;Two days ago, I asked
467 &lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_can_I_install_Linux_on_a_Packard_Bell_Easynote_LV_preinstalled_with_Windows_8_.html&quot;&gt;how
468 I could install Linux on a Packard Bell EasyNote LV computer
469 preinstalled with Windows 8&lt;/a&gt;. I found a solution, but am horrified
470 with the obstacles put in the way of Linux users on a laptop with UEFI
471 and Windows 8.&lt;/p&gt;
472
473 &lt;p&gt;I never found out if the cause of my problems were the use of UEFI
474 secure booting or fast boot. I suspect fast boot was the problem,
475 causing the firmware to boot directly from HD without considering any
476 key presses and alternative devices, but do not know UEFI settings
477 enough to tell.&lt;/p&gt;
478
479 &lt;p&gt;There is no way to install Linux on the machine in question without
480 opening the box and disconnecting the hard drive! This is as far as I
481 can tell, the only way to get access to the firmware setup menu
482 without accepting the Windows 8 license agreement. I am told (and
483 found description on how to) that it is possible to configure the
484 firmware setup once booted into Windows 8. But as I believe the terms
485 of that agreement are completely unacceptable, accepting the license
486 was never an alternative. I do not enter agreements I do not intend
487 to follow.&lt;/p&gt;
488
489 &lt;p&gt;I feared I had to return the laptops and ask for a refund, and
490 waste many hours on this, but luckily there was a way to get it to
491 work. But I would not recommend it to anyone planning to run Linux on
492 it, and I have become sceptical to Windows 8 certified laptops. Is
493 this the way Linux will be forced out of the market place, by making
494 it close to impossible for &quot;normal&quot; users to install Linux without
495 accepting the Microsoft Windows license terms? Or at least not
496 without risking to loose the warranty?&lt;/p&gt;
497
498 &lt;p&gt;I&#39;ve updated the
499 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv&quot;&gt;Linux Laptop
500 wiki page for Packard Bell EasyNote LV&lt;/a&gt;, to ensure the next person
501 do not have to struggle as much as I did to get Linux into the
502 machine.&lt;/p&gt;
503
504 &lt;p&gt;Thanks to Bob Rosbag, Florian Weimer, Philipp Kern, Ben Hutching,
505 Michael Tokarev and others for feedback and ideas.&lt;/p&gt;
506 </description>
507 </item>
508
509 <item>
510 <title>How can I install Linux on a Packard Bell Easynote LV preinstalled with Windows 8?</title>
511 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_can_I_install_Linux_on_a_Packard_Bell_Easynote_LV_preinstalled_with_Windows_8_.html</link>
512 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_can_I_install_Linux_on_a_Packard_Bell_Easynote_LV_preinstalled_with_Windows_8_.html</guid>
513 <pubDate>Sat, 25 May 2013 18:20:00 +0200</pubDate>
514 <description>&lt;p&gt;I&#39;ve run into quite a problem the last few days. I bought three
515 new laptops for my parents and a few others. I bought Packard Bell
516 Easynote LV to run Kubuntu on and use as their home computer. But I
517 am completely unable to figure out how to install Linux on it. The
518 computer is preinstalled with Windows 8, and I suspect it uses UEFI
519 instead of a BIOS to boot.&lt;/p&gt;
520
521 &lt;p&gt;The problem is that I am unable to get it to PXE boot, and unable
522 to get it to boot the Linux installer from my USB stick. I have yet
523 to try the DVD install, and still hope it will work. when I turn on
524 the computer, there is no information on what buttons to press to get
525 the normal boot menu. I expect to get some boot menu to select PXE or
526 USB stick booting. When booting, it first ask for the language to
527 use, then for some regional settings, and finally if I will accept the
528 Windows 8 terms of use. As these terms are completely unacceptable to
529 me, I have no other choice but to turn off the computer and try again
530 to get it to boot the Linux installer.&lt;/p&gt;
531
532 &lt;p&gt;I have gathered my findings so far on a Linlap page about the
533 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv&quot;&gt;Packard Bell
534 EasyNote LV&lt;/a&gt; model. If you have any idea how to get Linux
535 installed on this machine, please get in touch or update that wiki
536 page. If I can&#39;t find a way to install Linux, I will have to return
537 the laptop to the seller and find another machine for my parents.&lt;/p&gt;
538
539 &lt;p&gt;I wonder, is this the way Linux will be forced out of the market
540 using UEFI and &quot;secure boot&quot; by making it impossible to install Linux
541 on new Laptops?&lt;/p&gt;
542 </description>
543 </item>
544
545 <item>
546 <title>How to transform a Debian based system to a Debian Edu installation</title>
547 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_transform_a_Debian_based_system_to_a_Debian_Edu_installation.html</link>
548 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_transform_a_Debian_based_system_to_a_Debian_Edu_installation.html</guid>
549 <pubDate>Fri, 17 May 2013 11:50:00 +0200</pubDate>
550 <description>&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.skolelinux.org/&quot;&gt;Debian Edu / Skolelinux&lt;/a&gt; is
551 an operating system based on Debian intended for use in schools. It
552 contain a turn-key solution for the computer network provided to
553 pupils in the primary schools. It provide both the central server,
554 network boot servers and desktop environments with heaps of
555 educational software. The project was founded almost 12 years ago,
556 2001-07-02. If you want to support the project, which is in need for
557 cash to fund developer gatherings and other project related activity,
558 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html&quot;&gt;please
559 donate some money&lt;/a&gt;.
560
561 &lt;p&gt;A topic that come up again and again on the Debian Edu mailing
562 lists and elsewhere, is the question on how to transform a Debian or
563 Ubuntu installation into a Debian Edu installation. It isn&#39;t very
564 hard, and last week I wrote a script to replicate the steps done by
565 the Debian Edu installer.&lt;/p&gt;
566
567 &lt;p&gt;The script,
568 &lt;a href=&quot;http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/branches/wheezy/debian-edu-config/share/debian-edu-config/tools/debian-edu-bless?view=markup&quot;&gt;debian-edu-bless&lt;a/&gt;
569 in the debian-edu-config package, will go through these six steps and
570 transform an existing Debian Wheezy or Ubuntu (untested) installation
571 into a Debian Edu Workstation:&lt;/p&gt;
572
573 &lt;ol&gt;
574
575 &lt;li&gt;Add skolelinux related APT sources.&lt;/li&gt;
576 &lt;li&gt;Create /etc/debian-edu/config with the wanted configuration.&lt;/li&gt;
577 &lt;li&gt;Install debian-edu-install to load preseeding values and pull in
578 our configuration.&lt;/li&gt;
579 &lt;li&gt;Preseed debconf database with profile setup in
580 /etc/debian-edu/config, and run tasksel to install packages
581 according to the profile specified in the config above,
582 overriding some of the Debian automation machinery.&lt;/li&gt;
583 &lt;li&gt;Run debian-edu-cfengine-D installation to configure everything
584 that could not be done using preseeding.&lt;/li&gt;
585 &lt;li&gt;Ask for a reboot to enable all the configuration changes.&lt;/li&gt;
586
587 &lt;/ol&gt;
588
589 &lt;p&gt;There are some steps in the Debian Edu installation that can not be
590 replicated like this. Disk partitioning and LVM setup, for example.
591 So this script just assume there is enough disk space to install all
592 the needed packages.&lt;/p&gt;
593
594 &lt;p&gt;The script was created to help a Debian Edu student working on
595 setting up &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.raspberrypi.org&quot;&gt;Raspberry Pi&lt;/a&gt; as a
596 Debian Edu client, and using it he can take the existing
597 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.raspbian.org/FrontPage‎&quot;&gt;Raspbian&lt;/a&gt; installation and
598 transform it into a fully functioning Debian Edu Workstation (or
599 Roaming Workstation, or whatever :).&lt;/p&gt;
600
601 &lt;p&gt;The default setting in the script is to create a KDE Workstation.
602 If a LXDE based Roaming workstation is wanted instead, modify the
603 PROFILE and DESKTOP values at the top to look like this instead:&lt;/p&gt;
604
605 &lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
606 PROFILE=&quot;Roaming-Workstation&quot;
607 DESKTOP=&quot;lxde&quot;
608 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
609
610 &lt;p&gt;The script could even become useful to set up Debian Edu servers in
611 the cloud, by starting with a virtual Debian installation at some
612 virtual hosting service and setting up all the services on first
613 boot.&lt;/p&gt;
614 </description>
615 </item>
616
617 <item>
618 <title>Debian, the Linux distribution of choice for LEGO designers?</title>
619 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian__the_Linux_distribution_of_choice_for_LEGO_designers_.html</link>
620 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian__the_Linux_distribution_of_choice_for_LEGO_designers_.html</guid>
621 <pubDate>Sat, 11 May 2013 20:30:00 +0200</pubDate>
622 <description>&lt;P&gt;In January,
623 &lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_IRC_channel_for_LEGO_designers_using_Debian.html&quot;&gt;I
624 announced a&lt;/a&gt; new &lt;a href=&quot;irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego&quot;&gt;IRC
625 channel #debian-lego&lt;/a&gt;, for those of us in the Debian and Linux
626 community interested in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.lego.com/&quot;&gt;LEGO&lt;/a&gt;, the
627 marvellous construction system from Denmark. We also created
628 &lt;a href=&quot;http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners&quot;&gt;a wiki page&lt;/a&gt; to have
629 a place to take notes and write down our plans and hopes. And several
630 people showed up to help. I was very happy to see the effect of my
631 call. Since the small start, we have a debtags tag
632 &lt;a href=&quot;http://debtags.debian.net/search/bytag?wl=hardware::hobby:lego&quot;&gt;hardware::hobby:lego&lt;/a&gt;
633 tag for LEGO related packages, and now count 10 packages related to
634 LEGO and &lt;a href=&quot;http://mindstorms.lego.com/&quot;&gt;Mindstorms&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;
635
636 &lt;p&gt;&lt;table&gt;
637 &lt;tr&gt;&lt;td&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://packages.qa.debian.org/brickos&quot;&gt;brickos&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td&gt;alternative OS for LEGO Mindstorms RCX. Supports development in C/C++&lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;
638 &lt;tr&gt;&lt;td&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://packages.qa.debian.org/leocad&quot;&gt;leocad&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td&gt;virtual brick CAD software&lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;
639 &lt;tr&gt;&lt;td&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://packages.qa.debian.org/libnxt&quot;&gt;libnxt&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td&gt;utility library for talking to the LEGO Mindstorms NX&lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;
640 &lt;tr&gt;&lt;td&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://packages.qa.debian.org/lnpd&quot;&gt;lnpd&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td&gt;daemon for LNP communication with BrickOS&lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;
641 &lt;tr&gt;&lt;td&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://packages.qa.debian.org/nbc&quot;&gt;nbc&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td&gt;compiler for LEGO Mindstorms NXT bricks&lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;
642 &lt;tr&gt;&lt;td&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://packages.qa.debian.org/nqc&quot;&gt;nqc&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td&gt;Not Quite C compiler for LEGO Mindstorms RCX&lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;
643 &lt;tr&gt;&lt;td&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://packages.qa.debian.org/python-nxt&quot;&gt;python-nxt&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td&gt;python driver/interface/wrapper for the Lego Mindstorms NXT robot&lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;
644 &lt;tr&gt;&lt;td&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://packages.qa.debian.org/python-nxt-filer&quot;&gt;python-nxt-filer&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td&gt;simple GUI to manage files on a LEGO Mindstorms NXT&lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;
645 &lt;tr&gt;&lt;td&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://packages.qa.debian.org/scratch&quot;&gt;scratch&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td&gt;easy to use programming environment for ages 8 and up&lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;
646 &lt;tr&gt;&lt;td&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://packages.qa.debian.org/t2n&quot;&gt;t2n&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td&gt;simple command-line tool for Lego NXT&lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;
647 &lt;/table&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
648
649 &lt;p&gt;Some of these are available in Wheezy, and all but one are
650 currently available in Jessie/testing. leocad is so far only
651 available in experimental.&lt;/p&gt;
652
653 &lt;p&gt;If you care about LEGO in Debian, please join us on IRC and help
654 adding the rest of the great free software tools available on Linux
655 for LEGO designers.&lt;/p&gt;
656 </description>
657 </item>
658
659 <item>
660 <title>Debian Wheezy is out - and Debian Edu / Skolelinux should soon follow! #newinwheezy</title>
661 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Wheezy_is_out___and_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_should_soon_follow___newinwheezy.html</link>
662 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Wheezy_is_out___and_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_should_soon_follow___newinwheezy.html</guid>
663 <pubDate>Sun, 5 May 2013 07:40:00 +0200</pubDate>
664 <description>&lt;p&gt;When I woke up this morning, I was very happy to see that the
665 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.debian.org/News/2013/20130504&quot;&gt;release announcement
666 for Debian Wheezy&lt;/a&gt; was waiting in my mail box. This is a great
667 Debian release, and I expect to move my machines at home over to it fairly
668 soon.&lt;/p&gt;
669
670 &lt;p&gt;The new debian release contain heaps of new stuff, and one program
671 in particular make me very happy to see included. The
672 &lt;a href=&quot;http://scratch.mit.edu/&quot;&gt;Scratch&lt;/a&gt; program, made famous by
673 the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.code.org/&quot;&gt;Teach kids code&lt;/a&gt; movement, is
674 included for the first time. Alongside similar programs like
675 &lt;a href=&quot;http://edu.kde.org/kturtle/&quot;&gt;kturtle&lt;/a&gt; and
676 &lt;a href=&quot;http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/Turtle_Art&quot;&gt;turtleart&lt;/a&gt;,
677 it allow for visual programming where syntax errors can not happen,
678 and a friendly programming environment for learning to control the
679 computer. Scratch will also be included in the next release of Debian
680 Edu.&lt;/a&gt;
681
682 &lt;p&gt;And now that Wheezy is wrapped up, we can wrap up the next Debian
683 Edu/Skolelinux release too. The
684 &lt;a href=&quot;http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/2013/04/msg00132.html&quot;&gt;first
685 alpha release&lt;/a&gt; went out last week, and the next should soon
686 follow.&lt;p&gt;
687 </description>
688 </item>
689
690 <item>
691 <title>Isenkram 0.2 finally in the Debian archive</title>
692 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Isenkram_0_2_finally_in_the_Debian_archive.html</link>
693 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Isenkram_0_2_finally_in_the_Debian_archive.html</guid>
694 <pubDate>Wed, 3 Apr 2013 23:40:00 +0200</pubDate>
695 <description>&lt;p&gt;Today the &lt;a href=&quot;http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram&quot;&gt;Isenkram
696 package&lt;/a&gt; finally made it into the archive, after lingering in NEW
697 for many months. I uploaded it to the Debian experimental suite
698 2013-01-27, and today it was accepted into the archive.&lt;/p&gt;
699
700 &lt;p&gt;Isenkram is a system for suggesting to users what packages to
701 install to work with a pluggable hardware device. The suggestion pop
702 up when the device is plugged in. For example if a Lego Mindstorm NXT
703 is inserted, it will suggest to install the program needed to program
704 the NXT controller. Give it a go, and report bugs and suggestions to
705 BTS. :)&lt;/p&gt;
706 </description>
707 </item>
708
709 <item>
710 <title>Bitcoin GUI now available from Debian/unstable (and Ubuntu/raring)</title>
711 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Bitcoin_GUI_now_available_from_Debian_unstable__and_Ubuntu_raring_.html</link>
712 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Bitcoin_GUI_now_available_from_Debian_unstable__and_Ubuntu_raring_.html</guid>
713 <pubDate>Sat, 2 Feb 2013 09:00:00 +0100</pubDate>
714 <description>&lt;p&gt;My
715 &lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_backport_bitcoin_qt_version_0_7_2_2_to_Debian_Squeeze.html&quot;&gt;last
716 bitcoin related blog post&lt;/a&gt; mentioned that the new
717 &lt;a href=&quot;http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin&quot;&gt;bitcoin package&lt;/a&gt; for
718 Debian was waiting in NEW. It was accepted by the Debian ftp-masters
719 2013-01-19, and have been available in unstable since then. It was
720 automatically copied to Ubuntu, and is available in their Raring
721 version too.&lt;/p&gt;
722
723 &lt;p&gt;But there is a strange problem with the build that block this new
724 version from being available on the i386 and kfreebsd-i386
725 architectures. For some strange reason, the autobuilders in Debian
726 for these architectures fail to run the test suite on these
727 architectures (&lt;a href=&quot;http://bugs.debian.org/672524&quot;&gt;BTS #672524&lt;/a&gt;).
728 We are so far unable to reproduce it when building it manually, and
729 no-one have been able to propose a fix. If you got an idea what is
730 failing, please let us know via the BTS.&lt;/p&gt;
731
732 &lt;p&gt;One feature that is annoying me with of the bitcoin client, because
733 I often run low on disk space, is the fact that the client will exit
734 if it run short on space (&lt;a href=&quot;http://bugs.debian.org/696715&quot;&gt;BTS
735 #696715&lt;/a&gt;). So make sure you have enough disk space when you run
736 it. :)&lt;/p&gt;
737
738 &lt;p&gt;As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
739 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
740 &lt;b&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&amp;label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog&quot;&gt;15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
741 </description>
742 </item>
743
744 <item>
745 <title>Welcome to the world, Isenkram!</title>
746 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html</link>
747 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html</guid>
748 <pubDate>Tue, 22 Jan 2013 22:00:00 +0100</pubDate>
749 <description>&lt;p&gt;Yesterday, I
750 &lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_prototype_ready_making_hardware_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html&quot;&gt;asked
751 for testers&lt;/a&gt; for my prototype for making Debian better at handling
752 pluggable hardware devices, which I
753 &lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html&quot;&gt;set
754 out to create&lt;/a&gt; earlier this month. Several valuable testers showed
755 up, and caused me to really want to to open up the development to more
756 people. But before I did this, I want to come up with a sensible name
757 for this project. Today I finally decided on a new name, and I have
758 renamed the project from hw-support-handler to this new name. In the
759 process, I moved the source to git and made it available as a
760 &lt;a href=&quot;http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/isenkram.git&quot;&gt;collab-maint&lt;/a&gt;
761 repository in Debian. The new name? It is &lt;strong&gt;Isenkram&lt;/strong&gt;.
762 To fetch and build the latest version of the source, use&lt;/p&gt;
763
764 &lt;pre&gt;
765 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/collab-maint/isenkram.git
766 cd isenkram &amp;&amp; git-buildpackage -us -uc
767 &lt;/pre&gt;
768
769 &lt;p&gt;I have not yet adjusted all files to use the new name yet. If you
770 want to hack on the source or improve the package, please go ahead.
771 But please talk to me first on IRC or via email before you do major
772 changes, to make sure we do not step on each others toes. :)&lt;/p&gt;
773
774 &lt;p&gt;If you wonder what &#39;isenkram&#39; is, it is a Norwegian word for iron
775 stuff, typically meaning tools, nails, screws, etc. Typical hardware
776 stuff, in other words. I&#39;ve been told it is the Norwegian variant of
777 the German word eisenkram, for those that are familiar with that
778 word.&lt;/p&gt;
779
780 &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update 2013-01-26&lt;/strong&gt;: Added -us -us to build
781 instructions, to avoid confusing people with an error from the signing
782 process.&lt;/p&gt;
783
784 &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update 2013-01-27&lt;/strong&gt;: Switch to HTTP URL for the git
785 clone argument to avoid the need for authentication.&lt;/p&gt;
786 </description>
787 </item>
788
789 <item>
790 <title>First prototype ready making hardware easier to use in Debian</title>
791 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_prototype_ready_making_hardware_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html</link>
792 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_prototype_ready_making_hardware_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html</guid>
793 <pubDate>Mon, 21 Jan 2013 12:00:00 +0100</pubDate>
794 <description>&lt;p&gt;Early this month I set out to try to
795 &lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html&quot;&gt;improve
796 the Debian support for pluggable hardware devices&lt;/a&gt;. Now my
797 prototype is working, and it is ready for a larger audience. To test
798 it, fetch the
799 &lt;a href=&quot;http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/&quot;&gt;source
800 from the Debian Edu subversion repository&lt;/a&gt;, build and install the
801 package. You might have to log out and in again activate the
802 autostart script.&lt;/p&gt;
803
804 &lt;p&gt;The design is simple:&lt;/p&gt;
805
806 &lt;ul&gt;
807
808 &lt;li&gt;Add desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ causing a program
809 hw-support-handlerd to start when the user log in.&lt;/li&gt;
810
811 &lt;li&gt;This program listen for kernel events about new hardware (directly
812 from the kernel like udev does), not using HAL dbus events as I
813 initially did.&lt;/li&gt;
814
815 &lt;li&gt;When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware modalias in
816 the APT database, a database
817 &lt;a href=&quot;http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=markup&quot;&gt;available
818 via HTTP&lt;/a&gt; and a database available as part of the package.&lt;/li&gt;
819
820 &lt;li&gt;If a package is mapped to the hardware in question, the package
821 isn&#39;t installed yet and this is the first time the hardware was
822 plugged in, show a desktop notification suggesting to install the
823 package or packages.&lt;/li&gt;
824
825 &lt;li&gt;If the user click on the &#39;install package now&#39; button, ask
826 aptdaemon via the PackageKit API to install the requrired package.&lt;/li&gt;
827
828 &lt;li&gt;aptdaemon ask for root password or sudo password, and install the
829 package while showing progress information in a window.&lt;/li&gt;
830
831 &lt;/ul&gt;
832
833 &lt;p&gt;I still need to come up with a better name for the system. Here
834 are some screen shots showing the prototype in action. First the
835 notification, then the password request, and finally the request to
836 approve all the dependencies. Sorry for the Norwegian Bokmål GUI.&lt;/p&gt;
837
838 &lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-1-notification.png&quot;&gt;
839 &lt;br&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-2-password.png&quot;&gt;
840 &lt;br&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-3-dependencies.png&quot;&gt;
841 &lt;br&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-4-installing.png&quot;&gt;
842 &lt;br&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-5-installing-details.png&quot; width=&quot;70%&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
843
844 &lt;p&gt;The prototype still need to be improved with longer timeouts, but
845 is already useful. The database of hardware to package mappings also
846 need more work. It is currently compatible with the Ubuntu way of
847 storing such information in the package control file, but could be
848 changed to use other formats instead or in addition to the current
849 method. I&#39;ve dropped the use of discover for this mapping, as the
850 modalias approach is more flexible and easier to use on Linux as long
851 as the Linux kernel expose its modalias strings directly.&lt;/p&gt;
852
853 &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update 2013-01-21 16:50&lt;/strong&gt;: Due to popular demand,
854 here is the command required to check out and build the source: Use
855 &#39;&lt;tt&gt;svn checkout
856 svn://svn.debian.org/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/; cd
857 hw-support-handler; debuild&lt;/tt&gt;&#39;. If you lack debuild, install the
858 devscripts package.&lt;/p&gt;
859
860 &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update 2013-01-23 12:00&lt;/strong&gt;: The project is now
861 renamed to Isenkram and the source moved from the Debian Edu
862 subversion repository to a Debian collab-maint git repository. See
863 &lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html&quot;&gt;build
864 instructions&lt;/a&gt; for details.&lt;/p&gt;
865 </description>
866 </item>
867
868 <item>
869 <title>Thank you Thinkpad X41, for your long and trustworthy service</title>
870 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thank_you_Thinkpad_X41__for_your_long_and_trustworthy_service.html</link>
871 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thank_you_Thinkpad_X41__for_your_long_and_trustworthy_service.html</guid>
872 <pubDate>Sat, 19 Jan 2013 09:20:00 +0100</pubDate>
873 <description>&lt;p&gt;This Christmas my trusty old laptop died. It died quietly and
874 suddenly in bed. With a quiet whimper, it went completely quiet and
875 black. The power button was no longer able to turn it on. It was a
876 IBM Thinkpad X41, and the best laptop I ever had. Better than both
877 Thinkpads X30, X31, X40, X60, X61 and X61S. Far better than the
878 Compaq I had before that. Now I need to find a replacement. To keep
879 going during Christmas, I moved the one year old SSD disk to my old
880 X40 where it fitted (only one I had left that could use it), but it is
881 not a durable solution.
882
883 &lt;p&gt;My laptop needs are fairly modest. This is my wishlist from when I
884 got a new one more than 10 years ago. It still holds true.:)&lt;/p&gt;
885
886 &lt;ul&gt;
887
888 &lt;li&gt;Lightweight (around 1 kg) and small volume (preferably smaller
889 than A4).&lt;/li&gt;
890 &lt;li&gt;Robust, it will be in my backpack every day.&lt;/li&gt;
891 &lt;li&gt;Three button mouse and a mouse pin instead of touch pad.&lt;/li&gt;
892 &lt;li&gt;Long battery life time. Preferable a week.&lt;/li&gt;
893 &lt;li&gt;Internal WIFI network card.&lt;/li&gt;
894 &lt;li&gt;Internal Twisted Pair network card.&lt;/li&gt;
895 &lt;li&gt;Some USB slots (2-3 is plenty)&lt;/li&gt;
896 &lt;li&gt;Good keyboard - similar to the Thinkpad.&lt;/li&gt;
897 &lt;li&gt;Video resolution at least 1024x768, with size around 12&quot; (A4 paper
898 size).&lt;/li&gt;
899 &lt;li&gt;Hardware supported by Debian Stable, ie the default kernel and
900 X.org packages.&lt;/li&gt;
901 &lt;li&gt;Quiet, preferably fan free (or at least not using the fan most of
902 the time).
903
904 &lt;/ul&gt;
905
906 &lt;p&gt;You will notice that there are no RAM and CPU requirements in the
907 list. The reason is simply that the specifications on laptops the
908 last 10-15 years have been sufficient for my needs, and I have to look
909 at other features to choose my laptop. But are there still made as
910 robust laptops as my X41? The Thinkpad X60/X61 proved to be less
911 robust, and Thinkpads seem to be heading in the wrong direction since
912 Lenovo took over. But I&#39;ve been told that X220 and X1 Carbon might
913 still be useful.&lt;/p&gt;
914
915 &lt;p&gt;Perhaps I should rethink my needs, and look for a pad with an
916 external keyboard? I&#39;ll have to check the
917 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.linux-laptop.net/&quot;&gt;Linux Laptops site&lt;/a&gt; for
918 well-supported laptops, or perhaps just buy one preinstalled from one
919 of the vendors listed on the &lt;a href=&quot;http://linuxpreloaded.com/&quot;&gt;Linux
920 Pre-loaded site&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
921 </description>
922 </item>
923
924 <item>
925 <title>How to find a browser plugin supporting a given MIME type</title>
926 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_find_a_browser_plugin_supporting_a_given_MIME_type.html</link>
927 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_find_a_browser_plugin_supporting_a_given_MIME_type.html</guid>
928 <pubDate>Fri, 18 Jan 2013 10:40:00 +0100</pubDate>
929 <description>&lt;p&gt;Some times I try to figure out which Iceweasel browser plugin to
930 install to get support for a given MIME type. Thanks to
931 &lt;a href=&quot;https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MozillaTeam/Plugins&quot;&gt;specifications
932 done by Ubuntu&lt;/a&gt; and Mozilla, it is possible to do this in Debian.
933 Unfortunately, not very many packages provide the needed meta
934 information, Anyway, here is a small script to look up all browser
935 plugin packages announcing ther MIME support using this specification:&lt;/p&gt;
936
937 &lt;pre&gt;
938 #!/usr/bin/python
939 import sys
940 import apt
941 def pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
942 cache = apt.Cache()
943 cache.open(None)
944 thepkgs = []
945 for pkg in cache:
946 version = pkg.candidate
947 if version is None:
948 version = pkg.installed
949 if version is None:
950 continue
951 record = version.record
952 if not record.has_key(&#39;Npp-MimeType&#39;):
953 continue
954 mime_types = record[&#39;Npp-MimeType&#39;].split(&#39;,&#39;)
955 for t in mime_types:
956 t = t.rstrip().strip()
957 if t == mimetype:
958 thepkgs.append(pkg.name)
959 return thepkgs
960 mimetype = &quot;audio/ogg&quot;
961 if 1 &lt; len(sys.argv):
962 mimetype = sys.argv[1]
963 print &quot;Browser plugin packages supporting %s:&quot; % mimetype
964 for pkg in pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
965 print &quot; %s&quot; %pkg
966 &lt;/pre&gt;
967
968 &lt;p&gt;It can be used like this to look up a given MIME type:&lt;/p&gt;
969
970 &lt;pre&gt;
971 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype
972 Browser plugin packages supporting audio/ogg:
973 gecko-mediaplayer
974 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype application/x-shockwave-flash
975 Browser plugin packages supporting application/x-shockwave-flash:
976 browser-plugin-gnash
977 %
978 &lt;/pre&gt;
979
980 &lt;p&gt;In Ubuntu this mechanism is combined with support in the browser
981 itself to query for plugins and propose to install the needed
982 packages. It would be great if Debian supported such feature too. Is
983 anyone working on adding it?&lt;/p&gt;
984
985 &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update 2013-01-18 14:20&lt;/strong&gt;: The Debian BTS
986 request for icweasel support for this feature is
987 &lt;a href=&quot;http://bugs.debian.org/484010&quot;&gt;#484010&lt;/a&gt; from 2008 (and
988 &lt;a href=&quot;http://bugs.debian.org/698426&quot;&gt;#698426&lt;/a&gt; from today). Lack
989 of manpower and wish for a different design is the reason thus feature
990 is not yet in iceweasel from Debian.&lt;/p&gt;
991 </description>
992 </item>
993
994 <item>
995 <title>What is the most supported MIME type in Debian?</title>
996 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_the_most_supported_MIME_type_in_Debian_.html</link>
997 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_the_most_supported_MIME_type_in_Debian_.html</guid>
998 <pubDate>Wed, 16 Jan 2013 10:10:00 +0100</pubDate>
999 <description>&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://wiki.debian.org/AppStreamDebianProposal&quot;&gt;DEP-11
1000 proposal to add AppStream information to the Debian archive&lt;/a&gt;, is a
1001 proposal to make it possible for a Desktop application to propose to
1002 the user some package to install to gain support for a given MIME
1003 type, font, library etc. that is currently missing. With such
1004 mechanism in place, it would be possible for the desktop to
1005 automatically propose and install leocad if some LDraw file is
1006 downloaded by the browser.&lt;/p&gt;
1007
1008 &lt;p&gt;To get some idea about the current content of the archive, I decided
1009 to write a simple program to extract all .desktop files from the
1010 Debian archive and look up the claimed MIME support there. The result
1011 can be found on the
1012 &lt;a href=&quot;http://ftp.skolelinux.org/pub/AppStreamTest&quot;&gt;Skolelinux FTP
1013 site&lt;/a&gt;. Using the collected information, it become possible to
1014 answer the question in the title. Here are the 20 most supported MIME
1015 types in Debian stable (Squeeze), testing (Wheezy) and unstable (Sid).
1016 The complete list is available from the link above.&lt;/p&gt;
1017
1018 &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Debian Stable:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
1019
1020 &lt;pre&gt;
1021 count MIME type
1022 ----- -----------------------
1023 32 text/plain
1024 30 audio/mpeg
1025 29 image/png
1026 28 image/jpeg
1027 27 application/ogg
1028 26 audio/x-mp3
1029 25 image/tiff
1030 25 image/gif
1031 22 image/bmp
1032 22 audio/x-wav
1033 20 audio/x-flac
1034 19 audio/x-mpegurl
1035 18 video/x-ms-asf
1036 18 audio/x-musepack
1037 18 audio/x-mpeg
1038 18 application/x-ogg
1039 17 video/mpeg
1040 17 audio/x-scpls
1041 17 audio/ogg
1042 16 video/x-ms-wmv
1043 &lt;/pre&gt;
1044
1045 &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Debian Testing:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
1046
1047 &lt;pre&gt;
1048 count MIME type
1049 ----- -----------------------
1050 33 text/plain
1051 32 image/png
1052 32 image/jpeg
1053 29 audio/mpeg
1054 27 image/gif
1055 26 image/tiff
1056 26 application/ogg
1057 25 audio/x-mp3
1058 22 image/bmp
1059 21 audio/x-wav
1060 19 audio/x-mpegurl
1061 19 audio/x-mpeg
1062 18 video/mpeg
1063 18 audio/x-scpls
1064 18 audio/x-flac
1065 18 application/x-ogg
1066 17 video/x-ms-asf
1067 17 text/html
1068 17 audio/x-musepack
1069 16 image/x-xbitmap
1070 &lt;/pre&gt;
1071
1072 &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Debian Unstable:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
1073
1074 &lt;pre&gt;
1075 count MIME type
1076 ----- -----------------------
1077 31 text/plain
1078 31 image/png
1079 31 image/jpeg
1080 29 audio/mpeg
1081 28 application/ogg
1082 27 image/gif
1083 26 image/tiff
1084 26 audio/x-mp3
1085 23 audio/x-wav
1086 22 image/bmp
1087 21 audio/x-flac
1088 20 audio/x-mpegurl
1089 19 audio/x-mpeg
1090 18 video/x-ms-asf
1091 18 video/mpeg
1092 18 audio/x-scpls
1093 18 application/x-ogg
1094 17 audio/x-musepack
1095 16 video/x-ms-wmv
1096 16 video/x-msvideo
1097 &lt;/pre&gt;
1098
1099 &lt;p&gt;I am told that PackageKit can provide an API to access the kind of
1100 information mentioned in DEP-11. I have not yet had time to look at
1101 it, but hope the PackageKit people in Debian are on top of these
1102 issues.&lt;/p&gt;
1103
1104 &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update 2013-01-16 13:35&lt;/strong&gt;: Updated numbers after
1105 discovering a typo in my script.&lt;/p&gt;
1106 </description>
1107 </item>
1108
1109 <item>
1110 <title>Using modalias info to find packages handling my hardware</title>
1111 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_modalias_info_to_find_packages_handling_my_hardware.html</link>
1112 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_modalias_info_to_find_packages_handling_my_hardware.html</guid>
1113 <pubDate>Tue, 15 Jan 2013 08:00:00 +0100</pubDate>
1114 <description>&lt;p&gt;Yesterday, I wrote about the
1115 &lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Modalias_strings___a_practical_way_to_map__stuff__to_hardware.html&quot;&gt;modalias
1116 values provided by the Linux kernel&lt;/a&gt; following my hope for
1117 &lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html&quot;&gt;better
1118 dongle support in Debian&lt;/a&gt;. Using this knowledge, I have tested how
1119 modalias values attached to package names can be used to map packages
1120 to hardware. This allow the system to look up and suggest relevant
1121 packages when I plug in some new hardware into my machine, and replace
1122 discover and discover-data as the database used to map hardware to
1123 packages.&lt;/p&gt;
1124
1125 &lt;p&gt;I create a modaliases file with entries like the following,
1126 containing package name, kernel module name (if relevant, otherwise
1127 the package name) and globs matching the relevant hardware
1128 modalias.&lt;/p&gt;
1129
1130 &lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;
1131 Package: package-name
1132 &lt;br&gt;Modaliases: module(modaliasglob, modaliasglob, modaliasglob)&lt;/p&gt;
1133 &lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
1134
1135 &lt;p&gt;It is fairly trivial to write code to find the relevant packages
1136 for a given modalias value using this file.&lt;/p&gt;
1137
1138 &lt;p&gt;An entry like this would suggest the video and picture application
1139 cheese for many USB web cameras (interface bus class 0E01):&lt;/p&gt;
1140
1141 &lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;
1142 Package: cheese
1143 &lt;br&gt;Modaliases: cheese(usb:v*p*d*dc*dsc*dp*ic0Eisc01ip*)&lt;/p&gt;
1144 &lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
1145
1146 &lt;p&gt;An entry like this would suggest the pcmciautils package when a
1147 CardBus bridge (bus class 0607) PCI device is present:&lt;/p&gt;
1148
1149 &lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;
1150 Package: pcmciautils
1151 &lt;br&gt;Modaliases: pcmciautils(pci:v*d*sv*sd*bc06sc07i*)
1152 &lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
1153
1154 &lt;p&gt;An entry like this would suggest the package colorhug-client when
1155 plugging in a ColorHug with USB IDs 04D8:F8DA:&lt;/p&gt;
1156
1157 &lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;
1158 Package: colorhug-client
1159 &lt;br&gt;Modaliases: colorhug-client(usb:v04D8pF8DAd*)&lt;/p&gt;
1160 &lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
1161
1162 &lt;p&gt;I believe the format is compatible with the format of the Packages
1163 file in the Debian archive. Ubuntu already uses their Packages file
1164 to store their mappings from packages to hardware.&lt;/p&gt;
1165
1166 &lt;p&gt;By adding a XB-Modaliases: header in debian/control, any .deb can
1167 announce the hardware it support in a way my prototype understand.
1168 This allow those publishing packages in an APT source outside the
1169 Debian archive as well as those backporting packages to make sure the
1170 hardware mapping are included in the package meta information. I&#39;ve
1171 tested such header in the pymissile package, and its modalias mapping
1172 is working as it should with my prototype. It even made it to Ubuntu
1173 Raring.&lt;/p&gt;
1174
1175 &lt;p&gt;To test if it was possible to look up supported hardware using only
1176 the shell tools available in the Debian installer, I wrote a shell
1177 implementation of the lookup code. The idea is to create files for
1178 each modalias and let the shell do the matching. Please check out and
1179 try the
1180 &lt;a href=&quot;http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/hw-support-lookup?view=co&quot;&gt;hw-support-lookup&lt;/a&gt;
1181 shell script. It run without any extra dependencies and fetch the
1182 hardware mappings from the Debian archive and the subversion
1183 repository where I currently work on my prototype.&lt;/p&gt;
1184
1185 &lt;p&gt;When I use it on a machine with a yubikey inserted, it suggest to
1186 install yubikey-personalization:&lt;/p&gt;
1187
1188 &lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;
1189 % ./hw-support-lookup
1190 &lt;br&gt;yubikey-personalization
1191 &lt;br&gt;%
1192 &lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
1193
1194 &lt;p&gt;When I run it on my Thinkpad X40 with a PCMCIA/CardBus slot, it
1195 propose to install the pcmciautils package:&lt;/p&gt;
1196
1197 &lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;
1198 % ./hw-support-lookup
1199 &lt;br&gt;pcmciautils
1200 &lt;br&gt;%
1201 &lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
1202
1203 &lt;p&gt;If you know of any hardware-package mapping that should be added to
1204 &lt;a href=&quot;http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=co&quot;&gt;my
1205 database&lt;/a&gt;, please tell me about it.&lt;/p&gt;
1206
1207 &lt;p&gt;It could be possible to generate several of the mappings between
1208 packages and hardware. One source would be to look at packages with
1209 kernel modules, ie packages with *.ko files in /lib/modules/, and
1210 extract their modalias information. Another would be to look at
1211 packages with udev rules, ie packages with files in
1212 /lib/udev/rules.d/, and extract their vendor/model information to
1213 generate a modalias matching rule. I have not tested any of these to
1214 see if it work.&lt;/p&gt;
1215
1216 &lt;p&gt;If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
1217 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
1218 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
1219 &lt;a href=&quot;irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel&quot;&gt;#debian-devel&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
1220 </description>
1221 </item>
1222
1223 <item>
1224 <title>Modalias strings - a practical way to map &quot;stuff&quot; to hardware</title>
1225 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Modalias_strings___a_practical_way_to_map__stuff__to_hardware.html</link>
1226 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Modalias_strings___a_practical_way_to_map__stuff__to_hardware.html</guid>
1227 <pubDate>Mon, 14 Jan 2013 11:20:00 +0100</pubDate>
1228 <description>&lt;p&gt;While looking into how to look up Debian packages based on hardware
1229 information, to find the packages that support a given piece of
1230 hardware, I refreshed my memory regarding modalias values, and decided
1231 to document the details. Here are my findings so far, also available
1232 in
1233 &lt;a href=&quot;http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/&quot;&gt;the
1234 Debian Edu subversion repository&lt;/a&gt;:
1235
1236 &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Modalias decoded&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
1237
1238 &lt;p&gt;This document try to explain what the different types of modalias
1239 values stands for. It is in part based on information from
1240 &amp;lt;URL: &lt;a href=&quot;https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias&quot;&gt;https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias&lt;/a&gt; &amp;gt;,
1241 &amp;lt;URL: &lt;a href=&quot;http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/26132/how-to-assign-usb-driver-to-device&quot;&gt;http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/26132/how-to-assign-usb-driver-to-device&lt;/a&gt; &amp;gt;,
1242 &amp;lt;URL: &lt;a href=&quot;http://code.metager.de/source/history/linux/stable/scripts/mod/file2alias.c&quot;&gt;http://code.metager.de/source/history/linux/stable/scripts/mod/file2alias.c&lt;/a&gt; &amp;gt; and
1243 &amp;lt;URL: &lt;a href=&quot;http://cvs.savannah.gnu.org/viewvc/dmidecode/dmidecode.c?root=dmidecode&amp;view=markup&quot;&gt;http://cvs.savannah.gnu.org/viewvc/dmidecode/dmidecode.c?root=dmidecode&amp;view=markup&lt;/a&gt; &amp;gt;.
1244
1245 &lt;p&gt;The modalias entries for a given Linux machine can be found using
1246 this shell script:&lt;/p&gt;
1247
1248 &lt;pre&gt;
1249 find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u
1250 &lt;/pre&gt;
1251
1252 &lt;p&gt;The supported modalias globs for a given kernel module can be found
1253 using modinfo:&lt;/p&gt;
1254
1255 &lt;pre&gt;
1256 % /sbin/modinfo psmouse | grep alias:
1257 alias: serio:ty05pr*id*ex*
1258 alias: serio:ty01pr*id*ex*
1259 %
1260 &lt;/pre&gt;
1261
1262 &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;PCI subtype&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
1263
1264 &lt;p&gt;A typical PCI entry can look like this. This is an Intel Host
1265 Bridge memory controller:&lt;/p&gt;
1266
1267 &lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;
1268 pci:v00008086d00002770sv00001028sd000001ADbc06sc00i00
1269 &lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
1270
1271 &lt;p&gt;This represent these values:&lt;/p&gt;
1272
1273 &lt;pre&gt;
1274 v 00008086 (vendor)
1275 d 00002770 (device)
1276 sv 00001028 (subvendor)
1277 sd 000001AD (subdevice)
1278 bc 06 (bus class)
1279 sc 00 (bus subclass)
1280 i 00 (interface)
1281 &lt;/pre&gt;
1282
1283 &lt;p&gt;The vendor/device values are the same values outputted from &#39;lspci
1284 -n&#39; as 8086:2770. The bus class/subclass is also shown by lspci as
1285 0600. The 0600 class is a host bridge. Other useful bus values are
1286 0300 (VGA compatible card) and 0200 (Ethernet controller).&lt;/p&gt;
1287
1288 &lt;p&gt;Not sure how to figure out the interface value, nor what it
1289 means.&lt;/p&gt;
1290
1291 &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;USB subtype&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
1292
1293 &lt;p&gt;Some typical USB entries can look like this. This is an internal
1294 USB hub in a laptop:&lt;/p&gt;
1295
1296 &lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;
1297 usb:v1D6Bp0001d0206dc09dsc00dp00ic09isc00ip00
1298 &lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
1299
1300 &lt;p&gt;Here is the values included in this alias:&lt;/p&gt;
1301
1302 &lt;pre&gt;
1303 v 1D6B (device vendor)
1304 p 0001 (device product)
1305 d 0206 (bcddevice)
1306 dc 09 (device class)
1307 dsc 00 (device subclass)
1308 dp 00 (device protocol)
1309 ic 09 (interface class)
1310 isc 00 (interface subclass)
1311 ip 00 (interface protocol)
1312 &lt;/pre&gt;
1313
1314 &lt;p&gt;The 0900 device class/subclass means hub. Some times the relevant
1315 class is in the interface class section. For a simple USB web camera,
1316 these alias entries show up:&lt;/p&gt;
1317
1318 &lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;
1319 usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc01ip00
1320 &lt;br&gt;usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc02ip00
1321 &lt;br&gt;usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc01ip00
1322 &lt;br&gt;usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc02ip00
1323 &lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
1324
1325 &lt;p&gt;Interface class 0E01 is video control, 0E02 is video streaming (aka
1326 camera), 0101 is audio control device and 0102 is audio streaming (aka
1327 microphone). Thus this is a camera with microphone included.&lt;/p&gt;
1328
1329 &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;ACPI subtype&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
1330
1331 &lt;p&gt;The ACPI type is used for several non-PCI/USB stuff. This is an IR
1332 receiver in a Thinkpad X40:&lt;/p&gt;
1333
1334 &lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;
1335 acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
1336 &lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
1337
1338 &lt;p&gt;The values between the colons are IDs.&lt;/p&gt;
1339
1340 &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;DMI subtype&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
1341
1342 &lt;p&gt;The DMI table contain lots of information about the computer case
1343 and model. This is an entry for a IBM Thinkpad X40, fetched from
1344 /sys/devices/virtual/dmi/id/modalias:&lt;/p&gt;
1345
1346 &lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;
1347 dmi:bvnIBM:bvr1UETB6WW(1.66):bd06/15/2005:svnIBM:pn2371H4G:pvrThinkPadX40:rvnIBM:rn2371H4G:rvrNotAvailable:cvnIBM:ct10:cvrNotAvailable:
1348 &lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
1349
1350 &lt;p&gt;The values present are&lt;/p&gt;
1351
1352 &lt;pre&gt;
1353 bvn IBM (BIOS vendor)
1354 bvr 1UETB6WW(1.66) (BIOS version)
1355 bd 06/15/2005 (BIOS date)
1356 svn IBM (system vendor)
1357 pn 2371H4G (product name)
1358 pvr ThinkPadX40 (product version)
1359 rvn IBM (board vendor)
1360 rn 2371H4G (board name)
1361 rvr NotAvailable (board version)
1362 cvn IBM (chassis vendor)
1363 ct 10 (chassis type)
1364 cvr NotAvailable (chassis version)
1365 &lt;/pre&gt;
1366
1367 &lt;p&gt;The chassis type 10 is Notebook. Other interesting values can be
1368 found in the dmidecode source:&lt;/p&gt;
1369
1370 &lt;pre&gt;
1371 3 Desktop
1372 4 Low Profile Desktop
1373 5 Pizza Box
1374 6 Mini Tower
1375 7 Tower
1376 8 Portable
1377 9 Laptop
1378 10 Notebook
1379 11 Hand Held
1380 12 Docking Station
1381 13 All In One
1382 14 Sub Notebook
1383 15 Space-saving
1384 16 Lunch Box
1385 17 Main Server Chassis
1386 18 Expansion Chassis
1387 19 Sub Chassis
1388 20 Bus Expansion Chassis
1389 21 Peripheral Chassis
1390 22 RAID Chassis
1391 23 Rack Mount Chassis
1392 24 Sealed-case PC
1393 25 Multi-system
1394 26 CompactPCI
1395 27 AdvancedTCA
1396 28 Blade
1397 29 Blade Enclosing
1398 &lt;/pre&gt;
1399
1400 &lt;p&gt;The chassis type values are not always accurately set in the DMI
1401 table. For example my home server is a tower, but the DMI modalias
1402 claim it is a desktop.&lt;/p&gt;
1403
1404 &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;SerIO subtype&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
1405
1406 &lt;p&gt;This type is used for PS/2 mouse plugs. One example is from my
1407 test machine:&lt;/p&gt;
1408
1409 &lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;
1410 serio:ty01pr00id00ex00
1411 &lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
1412
1413 &lt;p&gt;The values present are&lt;/p&gt;
1414
1415 &lt;pre&gt;
1416 ty 01 (type)
1417 pr 00 (prototype)
1418 id 00 (id)
1419 ex 00 (extra)
1420 &lt;/pre&gt;
1421
1422 &lt;p&gt;This type is supported by the psmouse driver. I am not sure what
1423 the valid values are.&lt;/p&gt;
1424
1425 &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Other subtypes&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
1426
1427 &lt;p&gt;There are heaps of other modalias subtypes according to
1428 file2alias.c. There is the rest of the list from that source: amba,
1429 ap, bcma, ccw, css, eisa, hid, i2c, ieee1394, input, ipack, isapnp,
1430 mdio, of, parisc, pcmcia, platform, scsi, sdio, spi, ssb, vio, virtio,
1431 vmbus, x86cpu and zorro. I did not spend time documenting all of
1432 these, as they do not seem relevant for my intended use with mapping
1433 hardware to packages when new stuff is inserted during run time.&lt;/p&gt;
1434
1435 &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Looking up kernel modules using modalias values&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
1436
1437 &lt;p&gt;To check which kernel modules provide support for a given modalias,
1438 one can use the following shell script:&lt;/p&gt;
1439
1440 &lt;pre&gt;
1441 for id in $(find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u); do \
1442 echo &quot;$id&quot; ; \
1443 /sbin/modprobe --show-depends &quot;$id&quot;|sed &#39;s/^/ /&#39; ; \
1444 done
1445 &lt;/pre&gt;
1446
1447 &lt;p&gt;The output can look like this (only the first few entries as the
1448 list is very long on my test machine):&lt;/p&gt;
1449
1450 &lt;pre&gt;
1451 acpi:ACPI0003:
1452 insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/acpi/ac.ko
1453 acpi:device:
1454 FATAL: Module acpi:device: not found.
1455 acpi:IBM0068:
1456 insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/char/nvram.ko
1457 insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/leds/led-class.ko
1458 insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/rfkill/rfkill.ko
1459 insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/platform/x86/thinkpad_acpi.ko
1460 acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
1461 insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/lib/crc-ccitt.ko
1462 insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/irda/irda.ko
1463 insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/net/irda/nsc-ircc.ko
1464 [...]
1465 &lt;/pre&gt;
1466
1467 &lt;p&gt;If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
1468 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
1469 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
1470 &lt;a href=&quot;irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel&quot;&gt;#debian-devel&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
1471
1472 &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update 2013-01-15:&lt;/strong&gt; Rewrite &quot;cat $(find ...)&quot; to
1473 &quot;find ... -print0 | xargs -0 cat&quot; to make sure it handle directories
1474 in /sys/ with space in them.&lt;/p&gt;
1475 </description>
1476 </item>
1477
1478 <item>
1479 <title>Moved the pymissile Debian packaging to collab-maint</title>
1480 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Moved_the_pymissile_Debian_packaging_to_collab_maint.html</link>
1481 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Moved_the_pymissile_Debian_packaging_to_collab_maint.html</guid>
1482 <pubDate>Thu, 10 Jan 2013 20:40:00 +0100</pubDate>
1483 <description>&lt;p&gt;As part of my investigation on how to improve the support in Debian
1484 for hardware dongles, I dug up my old Mark and Spencer USB Rocket
1485 Launcher and updated the Debian package
1486 &lt;a href=&quot;http://packages.qa.debian.org/pymissile&quot;&gt;pymissile&lt;/a&gt; to make
1487 sure udev will fix the device permissions when it is plugged in. I
1488 also added a &quot;Modaliases&quot; header to test it in the Debian archive and
1489 hopefully make the package be proposed by jockey in Ubuntu when a user
1490 plug in his rocket launcher. In the process I moved the source to a
1491 git repository under collab-maint, to make it easier for any DD to
1492 contribute. &lt;a href=&quot;http://code.google.com/p/pymissile/&quot;&gt;Upstream&lt;/a&gt;
1493 is not very active, but the software still work for me even after five
1494 years of relative silence. The new git repository is not listed in
1495 the uploaded package yet, because I want to test the other changes a
1496 bit more before I upload the new version. If you want to check out
1497 the new version with a .desktop file included, visit the
1498 &lt;a href=&quot;http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/pymissile.git&quot;&gt;gitweb
1499 view&lt;/a&gt; or use &quot;&lt;tt&gt;git clone
1500 git://anonscm.debian.org/collab-maint/pymissile.git&lt;/tt&gt;&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;
1501 </description>
1502 </item>
1503
1504 <item>
1505 <title>Lets make hardware dongles easier to use in Debian</title>
1506 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html</link>
1507 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html</guid>
1508 <pubDate>Wed, 9 Jan 2013 15:40:00 +0100</pubDate>
1509 <description>&lt;p&gt;One thing that annoys me with Debian and Linux distributions in
1510 general, is that there is a great package management system with the
1511 ability to automatically install software packages by downloading them
1512 from the distribution mirrors, but no way to get it to automatically
1513 install the packages I need to use the hardware I plug into my
1514 machine. Even if the package to use it is easily available from the
1515 Linux distribution. When I plug in a LEGO Mindstorms NXT, it could
1516 suggest to automatically install the python-nxt, nbc and t2n packages
1517 I need to talk to it. When I plug in a Yubikey, it could propose the
1518 yubikey-personalization package. The information required to do this
1519 is available, but no-one have pulled all the pieces together.&lt;/p&gt;
1520
1521 &lt;p&gt;Some years ago, I proposed to
1522 &lt;a href=&quot;http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg01206.html&quot;&gt;use
1523 the discover subsystem to implement this&lt;/a&gt;. The idea is fairly
1524 simple:
1525
1526 &lt;ul&gt;
1527
1528 &lt;li&gt;Add a desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ pointing to a program
1529 starting when a user log in.&lt;/li&gt;
1530
1531 &lt;li&gt;Set this program up to listen for kernel events emitted when new
1532 hardware is inserted into the computer.&lt;/li&gt;
1533
1534 &lt;li&gt;When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware ID in a
1535 database mapping to packages, and take note of any non-installed
1536 packages.&lt;/li&gt;
1537
1538 &lt;li&gt;Show a message to the user proposing to install the discovered
1539 package, and make it easy to install it.&lt;/li&gt;
1540
1541 &lt;/ul&gt;
1542
1543 &lt;p&gt;I am not sure what the best way to implement this is, but my
1544 initial idea was to use dbus events to discover new hardware, the
1545 discover database to find packages and
1546 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.packagekit.org/&quot;&gt;PackageKit&lt;/a&gt; to install
1547 packages.&lt;/p&gt;
1548
1549 &lt;p&gt;Yesterday, I found time to try to implement this idea, and the
1550 draft package is now checked into
1551 &lt;a href=&quot;http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/&quot;&gt;the
1552 Debian Edu subversion repository&lt;/a&gt;. In the process, I updated the
1553 &lt;a href=&quot;http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover-data.html&quot;&gt;discover-data&lt;/a&gt;
1554 package to map the USB ids of LEGO Mindstorms and Yubikey devices to
1555 the relevant packages in Debian, and uploaded a new version
1556 2.2013.01.09 to unstable. I also discovered that the current
1557 &lt;a href=&quot;http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover.html&quot;&gt;discover&lt;/a&gt;
1558 package in Debian no longer discovered any USB devices, because
1559 /proc/bus/usb/devices is no longer present. I ported it to use
1560 libusb as a fall back option to get it working. The fixed package
1561 version 2.1.2-6 is now in experimental (didn&#39;t upload it to unstable
1562 because of the freeze).&lt;/p&gt;
1563
1564 &lt;p&gt;With this prototype in place, I can insert my Yubikey, and get this
1565 desktop notification to show up (only once, the first time it is
1566 inserted):&lt;/p&gt;
1567
1568 &lt;p align=&quot;center&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-09-hw-autoinstall.png&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
1569
1570 &lt;p&gt;For this prototype to be really useful, some way to automatically
1571 install the proposed packages by pressing the &quot;Please install
1572 program(s)&quot; button should to be implemented.&lt;/p&gt;
1573
1574 &lt;p&gt;If this idea seem useful to you, and you want to help make it
1575 happen, please help me update the discover-data database with mappings
1576 from hardware to Debian packages. Check if &#39;discover-pkginstall -l&#39;
1577 list the package you would like to have installed when a given
1578 hardware device is inserted into your computer, and report bugs using
1579 reportbug if it isn&#39;t. Or, if you know of a better way to provide
1580 such mapping, please let me know.&lt;/p&gt;
1581
1582 &lt;p&gt;This prototype need more work, and there are several questions that
1583 should be considered before it is ready for production use. Is dbus
1584 the correct way to detect new hardware? At the moment I look for HAL
1585 dbus events on the system bus, because that is the events I could see
1586 on my Debian Squeeze KDE desktop. Are there better events to use?
1587 How should the user be notified? Is the desktop notification
1588 mechanism the best option, or should the background daemon raise a
1589 popup instead? How should packages be installed? When should they
1590 not be installed?&lt;/p&gt;
1591
1592 &lt;p&gt;If you want to help getting such feature implemented in Debian,
1593 please send me an email. :)&lt;/p&gt;
1594 </description>
1595 </item>
1596
1597 <item>
1598 <title>New IRC channel for LEGO designers using Debian</title>
1599 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_IRC_channel_for_LEGO_designers_using_Debian.html</link>
1600 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_IRC_channel_for_LEGO_designers_using_Debian.html</guid>
1601 <pubDate>Wed, 2 Jan 2013 15:40:00 +0100</pubDate>
1602 <description>&lt;p&gt;During Christmas, I have worked a bit on the Debian support for
1603 &lt;a href=&quot;http://mindstorms.lego.com/en-us/Default.aspx&quot;&gt;LEGO Mindstorm
1604 NXT&lt;/a&gt;. My son and I have played a bit with my NXT set, and I
1605 discovered I had to build all the tools myself because none were
1606 already in Debian Squeeze. If Debian support for LEGO is something
1607 you care about, please join me on the IRC channel
1608 &lt;a href=&quot;irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego&quot;&gt;#debian-lego&lt;/a&gt; (server
1609 irc.debian.org). There is a lot that could be done to improve the
1610 Debian support for LEGO designers. For example both CAD software
1611 and Mindstorm compilers are missing. :)&lt;/p&gt;
1612
1613 &lt;p&gt;Update 2012-01-03: A
1614 &lt;a href=&quot;http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners&quot;&gt;project page&lt;/a&gt;
1615 including links to Lego related packages is now available.&lt;/p&gt;
1616 </description>
1617 </item>
1618
1619 <item>
1620 <title>How to backport bitcoin-qt version 0.7.2-2 to Debian Squeeze</title>
1621 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_backport_bitcoin_qt_version_0_7_2_2_to_Debian_Squeeze.html</link>
1622 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_backport_bitcoin_qt_version_0_7_2_2_to_Debian_Squeeze.html</guid>
1623 <pubDate>Tue, 25 Dec 2012 20:50:00 +0100</pubDate>
1624 <description>&lt;p&gt;Let me start by wishing you all marry Christmas and a happy new
1625 year! I hope next year will prove to be a good year.&lt;/p&gt;
1626
1627 &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.bitcoin.org/&quot;&gt;Bitcoin&lt;/a&gt;, the digital
1628 decentralised &quot;currency&quot; that allow people to transfer bitcoins
1629 between each other with minimal overhead, is a very interesting
1630 experiment. And as I wrote a few days ago, the bitcoin situation in
1631 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.debian.org/&quot;&gt;Debian&lt;/a&gt; is about to improve a bit.
1632 The &lt;a href=&quot;http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin&quot;&gt;new debian source
1633 package&lt;/a&gt; (version 0.7.2-2) was uploaded yesterday, and is waiting
1634 in &lt;a href=&quot;http://ftp-master.debian.org/new.html&quot;&gt;the NEW queue&lt;/A&gt;
1635 for one of the ftpmasters to approve the new bitcoin-qt package
1636 name.&lt;/p&gt;
1637
1638 &lt;p&gt;And thanks to the great work of Jonas and the rest of the bitcoin
1639 team in Debian, you can easily test the package in Debian Squeeze
1640 using the following steps to get a set of working packages:&lt;/p&gt;
1641
1642 &lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
1643 git clone git://git.debian.org/git/collab-maint/bitcoin
1644 cd bitcoin
1645 DEB_MAINTAINER_MODE=1 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp fakeroot debian/rules clean
1646 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp git-buildpackage --git-ignore-new
1647 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
1648
1649 &lt;p&gt;You might have to install some build dependencies as well. The
1650 list of commands should give you two packages, bitcoind and
1651 bitcoin-qt, ready for use in a Squeeze environment. Note that the
1652 client will download the complete set of bitcoin &quot;blocks&quot;, which need
1653 around 5.6 GiB of data on my machine at the moment. Make sure your
1654 ~/.bitcoin/ directory have lots of spare room if you want to download
1655 all the blocks. The client will warn if the disk is getting full, so
1656 there is not really a problem if you got too little room, but you will
1657 not be able to get all the features out of the client.&lt;/p&gt;
1658
1659 &lt;p&gt;As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1660 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1661 &lt;b&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&amp;label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog&quot;&gt;15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
1662 </description>
1663 </item>
1664
1665 <item>
1666 <title>A word on bitcoin support in Debian</title>
1667 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_word_on_bitcoin_support_in_Debian.html</link>
1668 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_word_on_bitcoin_support_in_Debian.html</guid>
1669 <pubDate>Fri, 21 Dec 2012 23:59:00 +0100</pubDate>
1670 <description>&lt;p&gt;It has been a while since I wrote about
1671 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.bitcoin.org/&quot;&gt;bitcoin&lt;/a&gt;, the decentralised
1672 peer-to-peer based crypto-currency, and the reason is simply that I
1673 have been busy elsewhere. But two days ago, I started looking at the
1674 state of &lt;a href=&quot;http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin&quot;&gt;bitcoin in
1675 Debian&lt;/a&gt; again to try to recover my old bitcoin wallet. The package
1676 is now maintained by a
1677 &lt;a href=&quot;https://alioth.debian.org/projects/pkg-bitcoin/&quot;&gt;team of
1678 people&lt;/a&gt;, and the grunt work had already been done by this team. We
1679 owe a huge thank you to all these team members. :)
1680 But I was sad to discover that the bitcoin client is missing in
1681 Wheezy. It is only available in Sid (and an outdated client from
1682 backports). The client had several RC bugs registered in BTS blocking
1683 it from entering testing. To try to help the team and improve the
1684 situation, I spent some time providing patches and triaging the bug
1685 reports. I also had a look at the bitcoin package available from Matt
1686 Corallo in a
1687 &lt;a href=&quot;https://launchpad.net/~bitcoin/+archive/bitcoin&quot;&gt;PPA for
1688 Ubuntu&lt;/a&gt;, and moved the useful pieces from that version into the
1689 Debian package.&lt;/p&gt;
1690
1691 &lt;p&gt;After checking with the main package maintainer Jonas Smedegaard on
1692 IRC, I pushed several patches into the collab-maint git repository to
1693 improve the package. It now contains fixes for the RC issues (not from
1694 me, but fixed by Scott Howard), build rules for a Qt GUI client
1695 package, konqueror support for the bitcoin: URI and bash completion
1696 setup. As I work on Debian Squeeze, I also created
1697 &lt;a href=&quot;http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-bitcoin-devel/Week-of-Mon-20121217/000041.html&quot;&gt;a
1698 patch to backport&lt;/a&gt; the latest version. Jonas is going to look at
1699 it and try to integrate it into the git repository before uploading a
1700 new version to unstable.
1701
1702 &lt;p&gt;I would very much like bitcoin to succeed, to get rid of the
1703 centralized control currently exercised in the monetary system. I
1704 find it completely unacceptable that the USA government is collecting
1705 transaction data for almost all international money transfers (most are done in USD and transaction logs shipped to the spooks), and
1706 that the major credit card companies can block legal money
1707 transactions to Wikileaks. But for bitcoin to succeed, more people
1708 need to use bitcoins, and more people need to accept bitcoins when
1709 they sell products and services. Improving the bitcoin support in
1710 Debian is a small step in the right direction, but not enough.
1711 Unfortunately the user experience when browsing the web and wanting to
1712 pay with bitcoin is still not very good. The bitcoin: URI is a step
1713 in the right direction, but need to work in most or every browser in
1714 use. Also the bitcoin-qt client is too heavy to fire up to do a
1715 quick transaction. I believe there are other clients available, but
1716 have not tested them.&lt;/p&gt;
1717
1718 &lt;p&gt;My
1719 &lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Now_accepting_bitcoins___anonymous_and_distributed_p2p_crypto_money.html&quot;&gt;experiment
1720 with bitcoins&lt;/a&gt; showed that at least some of my readers use bitcoin.
1721 I received 20.15 BTC so far on the address I provided in my blog two
1722 years ago, as can be
1723 &lt;a href=&quot;http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&quot;&gt;seen
1724 on the blockexplorer service&lt;/a&gt;. Thank you everyone for your
1725 donation. The blockexplorer service demonstrates quite well that
1726 bitcoin is not quite anonymous and untracked. :) I wonder if the
1727 number of users have gone up since then. If you use bitcoin and want
1728 to show your support of my activity, please send Bitcoin donations to
1729 the same address as last time,
1730 &lt;b&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&amp;label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog&quot;&gt;15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
1731 </description>
1732 </item>
1733
1734 <item>
1735 <title>Git repository for song book for Computer Scientists</title>
1736 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Git_repository_for_song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html</link>
1737 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Git_repository_for_song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html</guid>
1738 <pubDate>Fri, 7 Sep 2012 13:50:00 +0200</pubDate>
1739 <description>&lt;p&gt;As I
1740 &lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html&quot;&gt;mentioned
1741 this summer&lt;/a&gt;, I have created a Computer Science song book a few
1742 years ago, and today I finally found time to create a public
1743 &lt;a href=&quot;https://gitorious.org/pere-cs-songbook/pere-cs-songbook&quot;&gt;Gitorious
1744 repository for the project&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
1745
1746 &lt;p&gt;If you want to help out, please clone the source and submit patches
1747 to the HTML version. To generate the PDF and PostScript version,
1748 please use prince XML, or let me know about a useful free software
1749 processor capable of creating a good looking PDF from the HTML.&lt;/p&gt;
1750
1751 &lt;p&gt;Want to sing? You can still find the song book in HTML, PDF and
1752 PostScript formats at
1753 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/&quot;&gt;Petter&#39;s Computer
1754 Science Songbook&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
1755 </description>
1756 </item>
1757
1758 <item>
1759 <title>Gratulerer med 19-årsdagen, Debian!</title>
1760 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gratulerer_med_19__rsdagen__Debian_.html</link>
1761 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gratulerer_med_19__rsdagen__Debian_.html</guid>
1762 <pubDate>Thu, 16 Aug 2012 11:20:00 +0200</pubDate>
1763 <description>&lt;p&gt;I dag fyller
1764 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120813&quot;&gt;Debian-prosjektet 19
1765 år&lt;/a&gt;. Jeg har fulgt det de siste 12 årene, og er veldig glad for å kunne
1766 si gratulerer med dagen, Debian!&lt;/p&gt;
1767 </description>
1768 </item>
1769
1770 <item>
1771 <title>Song book for Computer Scientists</title>
1772 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html</link>
1773 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html</guid>
1774 <pubDate>Sun, 24 Jun 2012 13:30:00 +0200</pubDate>
1775 <description>&lt;p&gt;Many years ago, while studying Computer Science at the
1776 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.uit.no/&quot;&gt;University of Tromsø&lt;/a&gt;, I started
1777 collecting computer related songs for use at parties. The original
1778 version was written in LaTeX, but a few years ago I got help from
1779 Håkon W. Lie, one of the inventors of W3C CSS, to convert it to HTML
1780 while keeping the ability to create a nice book in PDF format. I have
1781 not had time to maintain the book for a while now, and guess I should
1782 put it up on some public version control repository where others can
1783 help me extend and update the book. If anyone is volunteering to help
1784 me with this, send me an email. Also let me know if there are songs
1785 missing in my book.&lt;/p&gt;
1786
1787 &lt;p&gt;I have not mentioned the book on my blog so far, and it occured to
1788 me today that I really should let all my readers share the joys of
1789 singing out load about programming, computers and computer networks.
1790 Especially now that &lt;a href=&quot;http://debconf12.debconf.org/&quot;&gt;Debconf
1791 12&lt;/a&gt; is about to start (and I am not going). Want to sing? Check
1792 out &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/&quot;&gt;Petter&#39;s
1793 Computer Science Songbook&lt;/a&gt;.
1794 </description>
1795 </item>
1796
1797 <item>
1798 <title>Automatically upgrading server firmware on Dell PowerEdge</title>
1799 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatically_upgrading_server_firmware_on_Dell_PowerEdge.html</link>
1800 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatically_upgrading_server_firmware_on_Dell_PowerEdge.html</guid>
1801 <pubDate>Mon, 21 Nov 2011 12:00:00 +0100</pubDate>
1802 <description>&lt;p&gt;At work we have heaps of servers. I believe the total count is
1803 around 1000 at the moment. To be able to get help from the vendors
1804 when something go wrong, we want to keep the firmware on the servers
1805 up to date. If the firmware isn&#39;t the latest and greatest, the
1806 vendors typically refuse to start debugging any problems until the
1807 firmware is upgraded. So before every reboot, we want to upgrade the
1808 firmware, and we would really like everyone handling servers at the
1809 university to do this themselves when they plan to reboot a machine.
1810 For that to happen we at the unix server admin group need to provide
1811 the tools to do so.&lt;/p&gt;
1812
1813 &lt;p&gt;To make firmware upgrading easier, I am working on a script to
1814 fetch and install the latest firmware for the servers we got. Most of
1815 our hardware are from Dell and HP, so I have focused on these servers
1816 so far. This blog post is about the Dell part.&lt;/P&gt;
1817
1818 &lt;p&gt;On the Dell FTP site I was lucky enough to find
1819 &lt;a href=&quot;ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz&quot;&gt;an XML file&lt;/a&gt;
1820 with firmware information for all 11th generation servers, listing
1821 which firmware should be used on a given model and where on the FTP
1822 site I can find it. Using a simple perl XML parser I can then
1823 download the shell scripts Dell provides to do firmware upgrades from
1824 within Linux and reboot when all the firmware is primed and ready to
1825 be activated on the first reboot.&lt;/p&gt;
1826
1827 &lt;p&gt;This is the Dell related fragment of the perl code I am working on.
1828 Are there anyone working on similar tools for firmware upgrading all
1829 servers at a site? Please get in touch and lets share resources.&lt;/p&gt;
1830
1831 &lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
1832 #!/usr/bin/perl
1833 use strict;
1834 use warnings;
1835 use File::Temp qw(tempdir);
1836 BEGIN {
1837 # Install needed RHEL packages if missing
1838 my %rhelmodules = (
1839 &#39;XML::Simple&#39; =&gt; &#39;perl-XML-Simple&#39;,
1840 );
1841 for my $module (keys %rhelmodules) {
1842 eval &quot;use $module;&quot;;
1843 if ($@) {
1844 my $pkg = $rhelmodules{$module};
1845 system(&quot;yum install -y $pkg&quot;);
1846 eval &quot;use $module;&quot;;
1847 }
1848 }
1849 }
1850 my $errorsto = &#39;pere@hungry.com&#39;;
1851
1852 upgrade_dell();
1853
1854 exit 0;
1855
1856 sub run_firmware_script {
1857 my ($opts, $script) = @_;
1858 unless ($script) {
1859 print STDERR &quot;fail: missing script name\n&quot;;
1860 exit 1
1861 }
1862 print STDERR &quot;Running $script\n\n&quot;;
1863
1864 if (0 == system(&quot;sh $script $opts&quot;)) { # FIXME correct exit code handling
1865 print STDERR &quot;success: firmware script ran succcessfully\n&quot;;
1866 } else {
1867 print STDERR &quot;fail: firmware script returned error\n&quot;;
1868 }
1869 }
1870
1871 sub run_firmware_scripts {
1872 my ($opts, @dirs) = @_;
1873 # Run firmware packages
1874 for my $dir (@dirs) {
1875 print STDERR &quot;info: Running scripts in $dir\n&quot;;
1876 opendir(my $dh, $dir) or die &quot;Unable to open directory $dir: $!&quot;;
1877 while (my $s = readdir $dh) {
1878 next if $s =~ m/^\.\.?/;
1879 run_firmware_script($opts, &quot;$dir/$s&quot;);
1880 }
1881 closedir $dh;
1882 }
1883 }
1884
1885 sub download {
1886 my $url = shift;
1887 print STDERR &quot;info: Downloading $url\n&quot;;
1888 system(&quot;wget --quiet \&quot;$url\&quot;&quot;);
1889 }
1890
1891 sub upgrade_dell {
1892 my @dirs;
1893 my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
1894 chomp $product;
1895
1896 if ($product =~ m/PowerEdge/) {
1897
1898 # on RHEL, these pacakges are needed by the firwmare upgrade scripts
1899 system(&#39;yum install -y compat-libstdc++-33.i686 libstdc++.i686 libxml2.i686 procmail&#39;);
1900
1901 my $tmpdir = tempdir(
1902 CLEANUP =&gt; 1
1903 );
1904 chdir($tmpdir);
1905 fetch_dell_fw(&#39;catalog/Catalog.xml.gz&#39;);
1906 system(&#39;gunzip Catalog.xml.gz&#39;);
1907 my @paths = fetch_dell_fw_list(&#39;Catalog.xml&#39;);
1908 # -q is quiet, disabling interactivity and reducing console output
1909 my $fwopts = &quot;-q&quot;;
1910 if (@paths) {
1911 for my $url (@paths) {
1912 fetch_dell_fw($url);
1913 }
1914 run_firmware_scripts($fwopts, $tmpdir);
1915 } else {
1916 print STDERR &quot;error: Unsupported Dell model &#39;$product&#39;.\n&quot;;
1917 print STDERR &quot;error: Please report to $errorsto.\n&quot;;
1918 }
1919 chdir(&#39;/&#39;);
1920 } else {
1921 print STDERR &quot;error: Unsupported Dell model &#39;$product&#39;.\n&quot;;
1922 print STDERR &quot;error: Please report to $errorsto.\n&quot;;
1923 }
1924 }
1925
1926 sub fetch_dell_fw {
1927 my $path = shift;
1928 my $url = &quot;ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/$path&quot;;
1929 download($url);
1930 }
1931
1932 # Using ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz, figure out which
1933 # firmware packages to download from Dell. Only work for Linux
1934 # machines and 11th generation Dell servers.
1935 sub fetch_dell_fw_list {
1936 my $filename = shift;
1937
1938 my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
1939 chomp $product;
1940 my ($mybrand, $mymodel) = split(/\s+/, $product);
1941
1942 print STDERR &quot;Finding firmware bundles for $mybrand $mymodel\n&quot;;
1943
1944 my $xml = XMLin($filename);
1945 my @paths;
1946 for my $bundle (@{$xml-&gt;{SoftwareBundle}}) {
1947 my $brand = $bundle-&gt;{TargetSystems}-&gt;{Brand}-&gt;{Display}-&gt;{content};
1948 my $model = $bundle-&gt;{TargetSystems}-&gt;{Brand}-&gt;{Model}-&gt;{Display}-&gt;{content};
1949 my $oscode;
1950 if (&quot;ARRAY&quot; eq ref $bundle-&gt;{TargetOSes}-&gt;{OperatingSystem}) {
1951 $oscode = $bundle-&gt;{TargetOSes}-&gt;{OperatingSystem}[0]-&gt;{osCode};
1952 } else {
1953 $oscode = $bundle-&gt;{TargetOSes}-&gt;{OperatingSystem}-&gt;{osCode};
1954 }
1955 if ($mybrand eq $brand &amp;&amp; $mymodel eq $model &amp;&amp; &quot;LIN&quot; eq $oscode)
1956 {
1957 @paths = map { $_-&gt;{path} } @{$bundle-&gt;{Contents}-&gt;{Package}};
1958 }
1959 }
1960 for my $component (@{$xml-&gt;{SoftwareComponent}}) {
1961 my $componenttype = $component-&gt;{ComponentType}-&gt;{value};
1962
1963 # Drop application packages, only firmware and BIOS
1964 next if &#39;APAC&#39; eq $componenttype;
1965
1966 my $cpath = $component-&gt;{path};
1967 for my $path (@paths) {
1968 if ($cpath =~ m%/$path$%) {
1969 push(@paths, $cpath);
1970 }
1971 }
1972 }
1973 return @paths;
1974 }
1975 &lt;/pre&gt;
1976
1977 &lt;p&gt;The code is only tested on RedHat Enterprise Linux, but I suspect
1978 it could work on other platforms with some tweaking. Anyone know a
1979 index like Catalog.xml is available from HP for HP servers? At the
1980 moment I maintain a similar list manually and it is quickly getting
1981 outdated.&lt;/p&gt;
1982 </description>
1983 </item>
1984
1985 <item>
1986 <title>How is booting into runlevel 1 different from single user boots?</title>
1987 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_is_booting_into_runlevel_1_different_from_single_user_boots_.html</link>
1988 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_is_booting_into_runlevel_1_different_from_single_user_boots_.html</guid>
1989 <pubDate>Thu, 4 Aug 2011 12:40:00 +0200</pubDate>
1990 <description>&lt;p&gt;Wouter Verhelst have some
1991 &lt;a href=&quot;http://grep.be/blog/en/retorts/pere_kubuntu_boot&quot;&gt;interesting
1992 comments and opinions&lt;/a&gt; on my blog post on
1993 &lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_should_start_from__etc_rcS_d__in_Debian____almost_nothing.html&quot;&gt;the
1994 need to clean up /etc/rcS.d/ in Debian&lt;/a&gt; and my blog post about
1995 &lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_missing_in_the_Debian_desktop__or_why_my_parents_use_Kubuntu.html&quot;&gt;the
1996 default KDE desktop in Debian&lt;/a&gt;. I only have time to address one
1997 small piece of his comment now, and though it best to address the
1998 misunderstanding he bring forward:&lt;/p&gt;
1999
2000 &lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;
2001 Currently, a system admin has four options: [...] boot to a
2002 single-user system (by adding &#39;single&#39; to the kernel command line;
2003 this runs rcS and rc1 scripts)
2004 &lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
2005
2006 &lt;p&gt;This make me believe Wouter believe booting into single user mode
2007 and booting into runlevel 1 is the same. I am not surprised he
2008 believe this, because it would make sense and is a quite sensible
2009 thing to believe. But because the boot in Debian is slightly broken,
2010 runlevel 1 do not work properly and it isn&#39;t the same as single user
2011 mode. I&#39;ll try to explain what is actually happing, but it is a bit
2012 hard to explain.&lt;/p&gt;
2013
2014 &lt;p&gt;Single user mode is defined like this in /etc/inittab:
2015 &quot;&lt;tt&gt;~~:S:wait:/sbin/sulogin&lt;/tt&gt;&quot;. This means the only thing that is
2016 executed in single user mode is sulogin. Single user mode is a boot
2017 state &quot;between&quot; the runlevels, and when booting into single user mode,
2018 only the scripts in /etc/rcS.d/ are executed before the init process
2019 enters the single user state. When switching to runlevel 1, the state
2020 is in fact not ending in runlevel 1, but it passes through runlevel 1
2021 and end up in the single user mode (see /etc/rc1.d/S03single, which
2022 runs &quot;init -t1 S&quot; to switch to single user mode at the end of runlevel
2023 1. It is confusing that the &#39;S&#39; (single user) init mode is not the
2024 mode enabled by /etc/rcS.d/ (which is more like the initial boot
2025 mode).&lt;/p&gt;
2026
2027 &lt;p&gt;This summary might make it clearer. When booting for the first
2028 time into single user mode, the following commands are executed:
2029 &quot;&lt;tt&gt;/etc/init.d/rc S; /sbin/sulogin&lt;/tt&gt;&quot;. When booting into
2030 runlevel 1, the following commands are executed: &quot;&lt;tt&gt;/etc/init.d/rc
2031 S; /etc/init.d/rc 1; /sbin/sulogin&lt;/tt&gt;&quot;. A problem show up when
2032 trying to continue after visiting single user mode. Not all services
2033 are started again as they should, causing the machine to end up in an
2034 unpredicatble state. This is why Debian admins recommend rebooting
2035 after visiting single user mode.&lt;/p&gt;
2036
2037 &lt;p&gt;A similar problem with runlevel 1 is caused by the amount of
2038 scripts executed from /etc/rcS.d/. When switching from say runlevel 2
2039 to runlevel 1, the services started from /etc/rcS.d/ are not properly
2040 stopped when passing through the scripts in /etc/rc1.d/, and not
2041 started again when switching away from runlevel 1 to the runlevels
2042 2-5. I believe the problem is best fixed by moving all the scripts
2043 out of /etc/rcS.d/ that are not &lt;strong&gt;required&lt;/strong&gt; to get a
2044 functioning single user mode during boot.&lt;/p&gt;
2045
2046 &lt;p&gt;I have spent several years investigating the Debian boot system,
2047 and discovered this problem a few years ago. I suspect it originates
2048 from when sysvinit was introduced into Debian, a long time ago.&lt;/p&gt;
2049 </description>
2050 </item>
2051
2052 <item>
2053 <title>What should start from /etc/rcS.d/ in Debian? - almost nothing</title>
2054 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_should_start_from__etc_rcS_d__in_Debian____almost_nothing.html</link>
2055 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_should_start_from__etc_rcS_d__in_Debian____almost_nothing.html</guid>
2056 <pubDate>Sat, 30 Jul 2011 14:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
2057 <description>&lt;p&gt;In the Debian boot system, several packages include scripts that
2058 are started from /etc/rcS.d/. In fact, there is a bite more of them
2059 than make sense, and this causes a few problems. What kind of
2060 problems, you might ask. There are at least two problems. The first
2061 is that it is not possible to recover a machine after switching to
2062 runlevel 1. One need to actually reboot to get the machine back to
2063 the expected state. The other is that single user boot will sometimes
2064 run into problems because some of the subsystems are activated before
2065 the root login is presented, causing problems when trying to recover a
2066 machine from a problem in that subsystem. A minor additional point is
2067 that moving more scripts out of rcS.d/ and into the other rc#.d/
2068 directories will increase the amount of scripts that can run in
2069 parallel during boot, and thus decrease the boot time.&lt;/p&gt;
2070
2071 &lt;p&gt;So, which scripts should start from rcS.d/. In short, only the
2072 scripts that _have_ to execute before the root login prompt is
2073 presented during a single user boot should go there. Everything else
2074 should go into the numeric runlevels. This means things like
2075 lm-sensors, fuse and x11-common should not run from rcS.d, but from
2076 the numeric runlevels. Today in Debian, there are around 115 init.d
2077 scripts that are started from rcS.d/, and most of them should be moved
2078 out. Do your package have one of them? Please help us make single
2079 user and runlevel 1 better by moving it.&lt;/p&gt;
2080
2081 &lt;p&gt;Scripts setting up the screen, keyboard, system partitions
2082 etc. should still be started from rcS.d/, but there is for example no
2083 need to have the network enabled before the single user login prompt
2084 is presented.&lt;/p&gt;
2085
2086 &lt;p&gt;As always, things are not so easy to fix as they sound. To keep
2087 Debian systems working while scripts migrate and during upgrades, the
2088 scripts need to be moved from rcS.d/ to rc2.d/ in reverse dependency
2089 order, ie the scripts that nothing in rcS.d/ depend on can be moved,
2090 and the next ones can only be moved when their dependencies have been
2091 moved first. This migration must be done sequentially while we ensure
2092 that the package system upgrade packages in the right order to keep
2093 the system state correct. This will require some coordination when it
2094 comes to network related packages, but most of the packages with
2095 scripts that should migrate do not have anything in rcS.d/ depending
2096 on them. Some packages have already been updated, like the sudo
2097 package, while others are still left to do. I wish I had time to work
2098 on this myself, but real live constrains make it unlikely that I will
2099 find time to push this forward.&lt;/p&gt;
2100 </description>
2101 </item>
2102
2103 <item>
2104 <title>What is missing in the Debian desktop, or why my parents use Kubuntu</title>
2105 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_missing_in_the_Debian_desktop__or_why_my_parents_use_Kubuntu.html</link>
2106 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_missing_in_the_Debian_desktop__or_why_my_parents_use_Kubuntu.html</guid>
2107 <pubDate>Fri, 29 Jul 2011 08:10:00 +0200</pubDate>
2108 <description>&lt;p&gt;While at Debconf11, I have several times during discussions
2109 mentioned the issues I believe should be improved in Debian for its
2110 desktop to be useful for more people. The use case for this is my
2111 parents, which are currently running Kubuntu which solve the
2112 issues.&lt;/p&gt;
2113
2114 &lt;p&gt;I suspect these four missing features are not very hard to
2115 implement. After all, they are present in Ubuntu, so if we wanted to
2116 do this in Debian we would have a source.&lt;/p&gt;
2117
2118 &lt;ol&gt;
2119
2120 &lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Simple GUI based upgrade of packages.&lt;/strong&gt; When there
2121 are new packages available for upgrades, a icon in the KDE status bar
2122 indicate this, and clicking on it will activate the simple upgrade
2123 tool to handle it. I have no problem guiding both of my parents
2124 through the process over the phone. If a kernel reboot is required,
2125 this too is indicated by the status bars and the upgrade tool. Last
2126 time I checked, nothing with the same features was working in KDE in
2127 Debian.&lt;/li&gt;
2128
2129 &lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Simple handling of missing Firefox browser
2130 plugins.&lt;/strong&gt; When the browser encounter a MIME type it do not
2131 currently have a handler for, it will ask the user if the system
2132 should search for a package that would add support for this MIME type,
2133 and if the user say yes, the APT sources will be searched for packages
2134 advertising the MIME type in their control file (visible in the
2135 Packages file in the APT archive). If one or more packages are found,
2136 it is a simple click of the mouse to add support for the missing mime
2137 type. If the package require the user to accept some non-free
2138 license, this is explained to the user. The entire process make it
2139 more clear to the user why something do not work in the browser, and
2140 make the chances higher for the user to blame the web page authors and
2141 not the browser for any missing features.&lt;/li&gt;
2142
2143 &lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Simple handling of missing multimedia codec/format
2144 handlers.&lt;/strong&gt; When the media players encounter a format or codec
2145 it is not supporting, a dialog pop up asking the user if the system
2146 should search for a package that would add support for it. This
2147 happen with things like MP3, Windows Media or H.264. The selection
2148 and installation procedure is very similar to the Firefox browser
2149 plugin handling. This is as far as I know implemented using a
2150 gstreamer hook. The end result is that the user easily get access to
2151 the codecs that are present from the APT archives available, while
2152 explaining more on why a given format is unsupported by Ubuntu.&lt;/li&gt;
2153
2154 &lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Better browser handling of some MIME types.&lt;/strong&gt; When
2155 displaying a text/plain file in my Debian browser, it will propose to
2156 start emacs to show it. If I remember correctly, when doing the same
2157 in Kunbutu it show the file as a text file in the browser. At least I
2158 know Opera will show text files within the browser. I much prefer the
2159 latter behaviour.&lt;/li&gt;
2160
2161 &lt;/ol&gt;
2162
2163 &lt;p&gt;There are other nice features as well, like the simplified suite
2164 upgrader, but given that I am the one mostly doing the dist-upgrade,
2165 it do not matter much.&lt;/p&gt;
2166
2167 &lt;p&gt;I really hope we could get these features in place for the next
2168 Debian release. It would require the coordinated effort of several
2169 maintainers, but would make the end user experience a lot better.&lt;/p&gt;
2170 </description>
2171 </item>
2172
2173 <item>
2174 <title>Perl modules used by FixMyStreet which are missing in Debian/Squeeze</title>
2175 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Perl_modules_used_by_FixMyStreet_which_are_missing_in_Debian_Squeeze.html</link>
2176 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Perl_modules_used_by_FixMyStreet_which_are_missing_in_Debian_Squeeze.html</guid>
2177 <pubDate>Tue, 26 Jul 2011 12:25:00 +0200</pubDate>
2178 <description>&lt;p&gt;The Norwegian &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fiksgatami.no/&quot;&gt;FiksGataMi&lt;/A&gt;
2179 site is build on Debian/Squeeze, and this platform was chosen because
2180 I am most familiar with Debian (being a Debian Developer for around 10
2181 years) because it is the latest stable Debian release which should get
2182 security support for a few years.&lt;/p&gt;
2183
2184 &lt;p&gt;The web service is written in Perl, and depend on some perl modules
2185 that are missing in Debian at the moment. It would be great if these
2186 modules were added to the Debian archive, allowing anyone to set up
2187 their own &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fixmystreet.com&quot;&gt;FixMyStreet&lt;/a&gt; clone
2188 in their own country using only Debian packages. The list of modules
2189 missing in Debian/Squeeze isn&#39;t very long, and I hope the perl group
2190 will find time to package the 12 modules Catalyst::Plugin::SmartURI,
2191 Catalyst::Plugin::Unicode::Encoding, Catalyst::View::TT, Devel::Hide,
2192 Sort::Key, Statistics::Distributions, Template::Plugin::Comma,
2193 Template::Plugin::DateTime::Format, Term::Size::Any, Term::Size::Perl,
2194 URI::SmartURI and Web::Scraper to make the maintenance of FixMyStreet
2195 easier in the future.&lt;/p&gt;
2196
2197 &lt;p&gt;Thanks to the great tools in Debian, getting the missing modules
2198 installed on my server was a simple call to &#39;cpan2deb Module::Name&#39;
2199 and &#39;dpkg -i&#39; to install the resulting package. But this leave me
2200 with the responsibility of tracking security problems, which I really
2201 do not have time for.&lt;/p&gt;
2202 </description>
2203 </item>
2204
2205 <item>
2206 <title>A Norwegian FixMyStreet have kept me busy the last few weeks</title>
2207 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Norwegian_FixMyStreet_have_kept_me_busy_the_last_few_weeks.html</link>
2208 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Norwegian_FixMyStreet_have_kept_me_busy_the_last_few_weeks.html</guid>
2209 <pubDate>Sun, 3 Apr 2011 22:50:00 +0200</pubDate>
2210 <description>&lt;p&gt;Here is a small update for my English readers. Most of my blog
2211 posts have been in Norwegian the last few weeks, so here is a short
2212 update in English.&lt;/p&gt;
2213
2214 &lt;p&gt;The kids still keep me too busy to get much free software work
2215 done, but I did manage to organise a project to get a Norwegian port
2216 of the British service
2217 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fixmystreet.com/&quot;&gt;FixMyStreet&lt;/a&gt; up and running,
2218 and it has been running for a month now. The entire project has been
2219 organised by me and two others. Around Christmas we gathered sponsors
2220 to fund the development work. In January I drafted a contract with
2221 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mysociety.org/&quot;&gt;mySociety&lt;/a&gt; on what to develop,
2222 and in February the development took place. Most of it involved
2223 converting the source to use GPS coordinates instead of British
2224 easting/northing, and the resulting code should be a lot easier to get
2225 running in any country by now. The Norwegian
2226 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fiksgatami.no/&quot;&gt;FiksGataMi&lt;/a&gt; is using
2227 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.openstreetmap.org/&quot;&gt;OpenStreetmap&lt;/a&gt; as the map
2228 source and the source for administrative borders in Norway, and
2229 support for this had to be added/fixed.&lt;/p&gt;
2230
2231 &lt;p&gt;The Norwegian version went live March 3th, and we spent the weekend
2232 polishing the system before we announced it March 7th. The system is
2233 running on a KVM instance of Debian/Squeeze, and has seen almost 3000
2234 problem reports in a few weeks. Soon we hope to announce the Android
2235 and iPhone versions making it even easier to report problems with the
2236 public infrastructure.&lt;/p&gt;
2237
2238 &lt;p&gt;Perhaps something to consider for those of you in countries without
2239 such service?&lt;/p&gt;
2240 </description>
2241 </item>
2242
2243 <item>
2244 <title>Using NVD and CPE to track CVEs in locally maintained software</title>
2245 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_NVD_and_CPE_to_track_CVEs_in_locally_maintained_software.html</link>
2246 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_NVD_and_CPE_to_track_CVEs_in_locally_maintained_software.html</guid>
2247 <pubDate>Fri, 28 Jan 2011 15:40:00 +0100</pubDate>
2248 <description>&lt;p&gt;The last few days I have looked at ways to track open security
2249 issues here at my work with the University of Oslo. My idea is that
2250 it should be possible to use the information about security issues
2251 available on the Internet, and check our locally
2252 maintained/distributed software against this information. It should
2253 allow us to verify that no known security issues are forgotten. The
2254 CVE database listing vulnerabilities seem like a great central point,
2255 and by using the package lists from Debian mapped to CVEs provided by
2256 the testing security team, I believed it should be possible to figure
2257 out which security holes were present in our free software
2258 collection.&lt;/p&gt;
2259
2260 &lt;p&gt;After reading up on the topic, it became obvious that the first
2261 building block is to be able to name software packages in a unique and
2262 consistent way across data sources. I considered several ways to do
2263 this, for example coming up with my own naming scheme like using URLs
2264 to project home pages or URLs to the Freshmeat entries, or using some
2265 existing naming scheme. And it seem like I am not the first one to
2266 come across this problem, as MITRE already proposed and implemented a
2267 solution. Enter the &lt;a href=&quot;http://cpe.mitre.org/index.html&quot;&gt;Common
2268 Platform Enumeration&lt;/a&gt; dictionary, a vocabulary for referring to
2269 software, hardware and other platform components. The CPE ids are
2270 mapped to CVEs in the &lt;a href=&quot;http://web.nvd.nist.gov/&quot;&gt;National
2271 Vulnerability Database&lt;/a&gt;, allowing me to look up know security
2272 issues for any CPE name. With this in place, all I need to do is to
2273 locate the CPE id for the software packages we use at the university.
2274 This is fairly trivial (I google for &#39;cve cpe $package&#39; and check the
2275 NVD entry if a CVE for the package exist).&lt;/p&gt;
2276
2277 &lt;p&gt;To give you an example. The GNU gzip source package have the CPE
2278 name cpe:/a:gnu:gzip. If the old version 1.3.3 was the package to
2279 check out, one could look up
2280 &lt;a href=&quot;http://web.nvd.nist.gov/view/vuln/search?cpe=cpe%3A%2Fa%3Agnu%3Agzip:1.3.3&quot;&gt;cpe:/a:gnu:gzip:1.3.3
2281 in NVD&lt;/a&gt; and get a list of 6 security holes with public CVE entries.
2282 The most recent one is
2283 &lt;a href=&quot;http://web.nvd.nist.gov/view/vuln/detail?vulnId=CVE-2010-0001&quot;&gt;CVE-2010-0001&lt;/a&gt;,
2284 and at the bottom of the NVD page for this vulnerability the complete
2285 list of affected versions is provided.&lt;/p&gt;
2286
2287 &lt;p&gt;The NVD database of CVEs is also available as a XML dump, allowing
2288 for offline processing of issues. Using this dump, I&#39;ve written a
2289 small script taking a list of CPEs as input and list all CVEs
2290 affecting the packages represented by these CPEs. One give it CPEs
2291 with version numbers as specified above and get a list of open
2292 security issues out.&lt;/p&gt;
2293
2294 &lt;p&gt;Of course for this approach to be useful, the quality of the NVD
2295 information need to be high. For that to happen, I believe as many as
2296 possible need to use and contribute to the NVD database. I notice
2297 RHEL is providing
2298 &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.redhat.com/security/data/metrics/rhsamapcpe.txt&quot;&gt;a
2299 map from CVE to CPE&lt;/a&gt;, indicating that they are using the CPE
2300 information. I&#39;m not aware of Debian and Ubuntu doing the same.&lt;/p&gt;
2301
2302 &lt;p&gt;To get an idea about the quality for free software, I spent some
2303 time making it possible to compare the CVE database from Debian with
2304 the CVE database in NVD. The result look fairly good, but there are
2305 some inconsistencies in NVD (same software package having several
2306 CPEs), and some inaccuracies (NVD not mentioning buggy packages that
2307 Debian believe are affected by a CVE). Hope to find time to improve
2308 the quality of NVD, but that require being able to get in touch with
2309 someone maintaining it. So far my three emails with questions and
2310 corrections have not seen any reply, but I hope contact can be
2311 established soon.&lt;/p&gt;
2312
2313 &lt;p&gt;An interesting application for CPEs is cross platform package
2314 mapping. It would be useful to know which packages in for example
2315 RHEL, OpenSuSe and Mandriva are missing from Debian and Ubuntu, and
2316 this would be trivial if all linux distributions provided CPE entries
2317 for their packages.&lt;/p&gt;
2318 </description>
2319 </item>
2320
2321 <item>
2322 <title>Which module is loaded for a given PCI and USB device?</title>
2323 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Which_module_is_loaded_for_a_given_PCI_and_USB_device_.html</link>
2324 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Which_module_is_loaded_for_a_given_PCI_and_USB_device_.html</guid>
2325 <pubDate>Sun, 23 Jan 2011 00:20:00 +0100</pubDate>
2326 <description>&lt;p&gt;In the
2327 &lt;a href=&quot;http://packages.qa.debian.org/discover-data&quot;&gt;discover-data&lt;/a&gt;
2328 package in Debian, there is a script to report useful information
2329 about the running hardware for use when people report missing
2330 information. One part of this script that I find very useful when
2331 debugging hardware problems, is the part mapping loaded kernel module
2332 to the PCI device it claims. It allow me to quickly see if the kernel
2333 module I expect is driving the hardware I am struggling with. To see
2334 the output, make sure discover-data is installed and run
2335 &lt;tt&gt;/usr/share/bug/discover-data 3&gt;&amp;1&lt;/tt&gt;. The relevant output on
2336 one of my machines like this:&lt;/p&gt;
2337
2338 &lt;pre&gt;
2339 loaded modules:
2340 10de:03eb i2c_nforce2
2341 10de:03f1 ohci_hcd
2342 10de:03f2 ehci_hcd
2343 10de:03f0 snd_hda_intel
2344 10de:03ec pata_amd
2345 10de:03f6 sata_nv
2346 1022:1103 k8temp
2347 109e:036e bttv
2348 109e:0878 snd_bt87x
2349 11ab:4364 sky2
2350 &lt;/pre&gt;
2351
2352 &lt;p&gt;The code in question look like this, slightly modified for
2353 readability and to drop the output to file descriptor 3:&lt;/p&gt;
2354
2355 &lt;pre&gt;
2356 if [ -d /sys/bus/pci/devices/ ] ; then
2357 echo loaded pci modules:
2358 (
2359 cd /sys/bus/pci/devices/
2360 for address in * ; do
2361 if [ -d &quot;$address/driver/module&quot; ] ; then
2362 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
2363 if grep -q &quot;^$module &quot; /proc/modules ; then
2364 address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
2365 id=`lspci -n -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk &#39;{print $3}&#39;`
2366 echo &quot;$id $module&quot;
2367 fi
2368 fi
2369 done
2370 )
2371 echo
2372 fi
2373 &lt;/pre&gt;
2374
2375 &lt;p&gt;Similar code could be used to extract USB device module
2376 mappings:&lt;/p&gt;
2377
2378 &lt;pre&gt;
2379 if [ -d /sys/bus/usb/devices/ ] ; then
2380 echo loaded usb modules:
2381 (
2382 cd /sys/bus/usb/devices/
2383 for address in * ; do
2384 if [ -d &quot;$address/driver/module&quot; ] ; then
2385 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
2386 if grep -q &quot;^$module &quot; /proc/modules ; then
2387 address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
2388 id=$(lsusb -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk &#39;{print $6}&#39;)
2389 if [ &quot;$id&quot; ] ; then
2390 echo &quot;$id $module&quot;
2391 fi
2392 fi
2393 fi
2394 done
2395 )
2396 echo
2397 fi
2398 &lt;/pre&gt;
2399
2400 &lt;p&gt;This might perhaps be something to include in other tools as
2401 well.&lt;/p&gt;
2402 </description>
2403 </item>
2404
2405 <item>
2406 <title>How to test if a laptop is working with Linux</title>
2407 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_test_if_a_laptop_is_working_with_Linux.html</link>
2408 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_test_if_a_laptop_is_working_with_Linux.html</guid>
2409 <pubDate>Wed, 22 Dec 2010 14:55:00 +0100</pubDate>
2410 <description>&lt;p&gt;The last few days I have spent at work here at the &lt;a
2411 href=&quot;http://www.uio.no/&quot;&gt;University of Oslo&lt;/a&gt; testing if the new
2412 batch of computers will work with Linux. Every year for the last few
2413 years the university have organised shared bid of a few thousand
2414 computers, and this year HP won the bid. Two different desktops and
2415 five different laptops are on the list this year. We in the UNIX
2416 group want to know which one of these computers work well with RHEL
2417 and Ubuntu, the two Linux distributions we currently handle at the
2418 university.&lt;/p&gt;
2419
2420 &lt;p&gt;My test method is simple, and I share it here to get feedback and
2421 perhaps inspire others to test hardware as well. To test, I PXE
2422 install the OS version of choice, and log in as my normal user and run
2423 a few applications and plug in selected pieces of hardware. When
2424 something fail, I make a note about this in the test matrix and move
2425 on. If I have some spare time I try to report the bug to the OS
2426 vendor, but as I only have the machines for a short time, I rarely
2427 have the time to do this for all the problems I find.&lt;/p&gt;
2428
2429 &lt;p&gt;Anyway, to get to the point of this post. Here is the simple tests
2430 I perform on a new model.&lt;/p&gt;
2431
2432 &lt;ul&gt;
2433
2434 &lt;li&gt;Is PXE installation working? I&#39;m testing with RHEL6, Ubuntu Lucid
2435 and Ubuntu Maverik at the moment. If I feel like it, I also test with
2436 RHEL5 and Debian Edu/Squeeze.&lt;/li&gt;
2437
2438 &lt;li&gt;Is X.org working? If the graphical login screen show up after
2439 installation, X.org is working.&lt;/li&gt;
2440
2441 &lt;li&gt;Is hardware accelerated OpenGL working? Running glxgears (in
2442 package mesa-utils on Ubuntu) and writing down the frames per second
2443 reported by the program.&lt;/li&gt;
2444
2445 &lt;li&gt;Is sound working? With Gnome and KDE, a sound is played when
2446 logging in, and if I can hear this the test is successful. If there
2447 are several audio exits on the machine, I try them all and check if
2448 the Gnome/KDE audio mixer can control where to send the sound. I
2449 normally test this by playing
2450 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20101012-chef/ &quot;&gt;a HTML5
2451 video&lt;/a&gt; in Firefox/Iceweasel.&lt;/li&gt;
2452
2453 &lt;li&gt;Is the USB subsystem working? I test this by plugging in a USB
2454 memory stick and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.&lt;/li&gt;
2455
2456 &lt;li&gt;Is the CD/DVD player working? I test this by inserting any CD/DVD
2457 I have lying around, and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.&lt;/li&gt;
2458
2459 &lt;li&gt;Is any built in camera working? Test using cheese, and see if a
2460 picture from the v4l device show up.&lt;/li&gt;
2461
2462 &lt;li&gt;Is bluetooth working? Use the Gnome/KDE browsing tool to see if
2463 any bluetooth devices are discovered. In my office, I normally see a
2464 few.&lt;/li&gt;
2465
2466 &lt;li&gt;For laptops, is the SD or Compaq Flash reader working. I have
2467 memory modules lying around, and stick them in and see if Gnome/KDE
2468 notice this.&lt;/li&gt;
2469
2470 &lt;li&gt;For laptops, is suspend/hibernate working? I&#39;m testing if the
2471 special button work, and if the laptop continue to work after
2472 resume.&lt;/li&gt;
2473
2474 &lt;li&gt;For laptops, is the extra buttons working, like audio level,
2475 adjusting background light, switching on/off external video output,
2476 switching on/off wifi, bluetooth, etc? The set of buttons differ from
2477 laptop to laptop, so I just write down which are working and which are
2478 not.&lt;/li&gt;
2479
2480 &lt;li&gt;Some laptops have smart card readers, finger print readers,
2481 acceleration sensors etc. I rarely test these, as I do not know how
2482 to quickly test if they are working or not, so I only document their
2483 existence.&lt;/li&gt;
2484
2485 &lt;/ul&gt;
2486
2487 &lt;p&gt;By now I suspect you are really curious what the test results are
2488 for the HP machines I am testing. I&#39;m not done yet, so I will report
2489 the test results later. For now I can report that HP 8100 Elite work
2490 fine, and hibernation fail with HP EliteBook 8440p on Ubuntu Lucid,
2491 and audio fail on RHEL6. Ubuntu Maverik worked with 8440p. As you
2492 can see, I have most machines left to test. One interesting
2493 observation is that Ubuntu Lucid has almost twice the frame rate than
2494 RHEL6 with glxgears. No idea why.&lt;/p&gt;
2495 </description>
2496 </item>
2497
2498 <item>
2499 <title>Some thoughts on BitCoins</title>
2500 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Some_thoughts_on_BitCoins.html</link>
2501 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Some_thoughts_on_BitCoins.html</guid>
2502 <pubDate>Sat, 11 Dec 2010 15:10:00 +0100</pubDate>
2503 <description>&lt;p&gt;As I continue to explore
2504 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.bitcoin.org/&quot;&gt;BitCoin&lt;/a&gt;, I&#39;ve starting to wonder
2505 what properties the system have, and how it will be affected by laws
2506 and regulations here in Norway. Here are some random notes.&lt;/p&gt;
2507
2508 &lt;p&gt;One interesting thing to note is that since the transactions are
2509 verified using a peer to peer network, all details about a transaction
2510 is known to everyone. This means that if a BitCoin address has been
2511 published like I did with mine in my initial post about BitCoin, it is
2512 possible for everyone to see how many BitCoins have been transfered to
2513 that address. There is even a web service to look at the details for
2514 all transactions. There I can see that my address
2515 &lt;a href=&quot;http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&quot;&gt;15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&lt;/a&gt;
2516 have received 16.06 Bitcoin, the
2517 &lt;a href=&quot;http://blockexplorer.com/address/1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3&quot;&gt;1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3&lt;/a&gt;
2518 address of Simon Phipps have received 181.97 BitCoin and the address
2519 &lt;a href=&quot;http://blockexplorer.com/address/1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt&quot;&gt;1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt&lt;/A&gt;
2520 of EFF have received 2447.38 BitCoins so far. Thank you to each and
2521 every one of you that donated bitcoins to support my activity. The
2522 fact that anyone can see how much money was transfered to a given
2523 address make it more obvious why the BitCoin community recommend to
2524 generate and hand out a new address for each transaction. I&#39;m told
2525 there is no way to track which addresses belong to a given person or
2526 organisation without the person or organisation revealing it
2527 themselves, as Simon, EFF and I have done.&lt;/p&gt;
2528
2529 &lt;p&gt;In Norway, and in most other countries, there are laws and
2530 regulations limiting how much money one can transfer across the border
2531 without declaring it. There are money laundering, tax and accounting
2532 laws and regulations I would expect to apply to the use of BitCoin.
2533 If the Skolelinux foundation
2534 (&lt;a href=&quot;http://linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html&quot;&gt;SLX
2535 Debian Labs&lt;/a&gt;) were to accept donations in BitCoin in addition to
2536 normal bank transfers like EFF is doing, how should this be accounted?
2537 Given that it is impossible to know if money can cross the border or
2538 not, should everything or nothing be declared? What exchange rate
2539 should be used when calculating taxes? Would receivers have to pay
2540 income tax if the foundation were to pay Skolelinux contributors in
2541 BitCoin? I have no idea, but it would be interesting to know.&lt;/p&gt;
2542
2543 &lt;p&gt;For a currency to be useful and successful, it must be trusted and
2544 accepted by a lot of users. It must be possible to get easy access to
2545 the currency (as a wage or using currency exchanges), and it must be
2546 easy to spend it. At the moment BitCoin seem fairly easy to get
2547 access to, but there are very few places to spend it. I am not really
2548 a regular user of any of the vendor types currently accepting BitCoin,
2549 so I wonder when my kind of shop would start accepting BitCoins. I
2550 would like to buy electronics, travels and subway tickets, not herbs
2551 and books. :) The currency is young, and this will improve over time
2552 if it become popular, but I suspect regular banks will start to lobby
2553 to get BitCoin declared illegal if it become popular. I&#39;m sure they
2554 will claim it is helping fund terrorism and money laundering (which
2555 probably would be true, as is any currency in existence), but I
2556 believe the problems should be solved elsewhere and not by blaming
2557 currencies.&lt;/p&gt;
2558
2559 &lt;p&gt;The process of creating new BitCoins is called mining, and it is
2560 CPU intensive process that depend on a bit of luck as well (as one is
2561 competing against all the other miners currently spending CPU cycles
2562 to see which one get the next lump of cash). The &quot;winner&quot; get 50
2563 BitCoin when this happen. Yesterday I came across the obvious way to
2564 join forces to increase ones changes of getting at least some coins,
2565 by coordinating the work on mining BitCoins across several machines
2566 and people, and sharing the result if one is lucky and get the 50
2567 BitCoins. Check out
2568 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.bluishcoder.co.nz/bitcoin-pool/&quot;&gt;BitCoin Pool&lt;/a&gt;
2569 if this sounds interesting. I have not had time to try to set up a
2570 machine to participate there yet, but have seen that running on ones
2571 own for a few days have not yield any BitCoins througth mining
2572 yet.&lt;/p&gt;
2573
2574 &lt;p&gt;Update 2010-12-15: Found an &lt;a
2575 href=&quot;http://inertia.posterous.com/reply-to-the-underground-economist-why-bitcoi&quot;&gt;interesting
2576 criticism&lt;/a&gt; of bitcoin. Not quite sure how valid it is, but thought
2577 it was interesting to read. The arguments presented seem to be
2578 equally valid for gold, which was used as a currency for many years.&lt;/p&gt;
2579 </description>
2580 </item>
2581
2582 <item>
2583 <title>Now accepting bitcoins - anonymous and distributed p2p crypto-money</title>
2584 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Now_accepting_bitcoins___anonymous_and_distributed_p2p_crypto_money.html</link>
2585 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Now_accepting_bitcoins___anonymous_and_distributed_p2p_crypto_money.html</guid>
2586 <pubDate>Fri, 10 Dec 2010 08:20:00 +0100</pubDate>
2587 <description>&lt;p&gt;With this weeks lawless
2588 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/06/wikileaks/index.html&quot;&gt;governmental
2589 attacks&lt;/a&gt; on Wikileak and
2590 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.salon.com/technology/dan_gillmor/2010/12/06/war_on_speech&quot;&gt;free
2591 speech&lt;/a&gt;, it has become obvious that PayPal, visa and mastercard can
2592 not be trusted to handle money transactions.
2593 A blog post from
2594 &lt;a href=&quot;http://webmink.com/2010/12/06/now-accepting-bitcoin/&quot;&gt;Simon
2595 Phipps on bitcoin&lt;/a&gt; reminded me about a project that a friend of
2596 mine mentioned earlier. I decided to follow Simon&#39;s example, and get
2597 involved with &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.bitcoin.org/&quot;&gt;BitCoin&lt;/a&gt;. I got
2598 some help from my friend to get it all running, and he even handed me
2599 some bitcoins to get started. I even donated a few bitcoins to Simon
2600 for helping me remember BitCoin.&lt;/p&gt;
2601
2602 &lt;p&gt;So, what is bitcoins, you probably wonder? It is a digital
2603 crypto-currency, decentralised and handled using peer-to-peer
2604 networks. It allows anonymous transactions and prohibits central
2605 control over the transactions, making it impossible for governments
2606 and companies alike to block donations and other transactions. The
2607 source is free software, and while the key dependency wxWidgets 2.9
2608 for the graphical user interface is missing in Debian, the command
2609 line client builds just fine. Hopefully Jonas
2610 &lt;a href=&quot;http://bugs.debian.org/578157&quot;&gt;will get the package into
2611 Debian&lt;/a&gt; soon.&lt;/p&gt;
2612
2613 &lt;p&gt;Bitcoins can be converted to other currencies, like USD and EUR.
2614 There are &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.bitcoin.org/trade&quot;&gt;companies accepting
2615 bitcoins&lt;/a&gt; when selling services and goods, and there are even
2616 currency &quot;stock&quot; markets where the exchange rate is decided. There
2617 are not many users so far, but the concept seems promising. If you
2618 want to get started and lack a friend with any bitcoins to spare,
2619 you can even get
2620 &lt;a href=&quot;https://freebitcoins.appspot.com/&quot;&gt;some for free&lt;/a&gt; (0.05
2621 bitcoin at the time of writing). Use
2622 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.bitcoinwatch.com/&quot;&gt;BitcoinWatch&lt;/a&gt; to keep an eye
2623 on the current exchange rates.&lt;/p&gt;
2624
2625 &lt;p&gt;As an experiment, I have decided to set up bitcoind on one of my
2626 machines. If you want to support my activity, please send Bitcoin
2627 donations to the address
2628 &lt;b&gt;15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&lt;/b&gt;. Thank you!&lt;/p&gt;
2629 </description>
2630 </item>
2631
2632 <item>
2633 <title>Why isn&#39;t Debian Edu using VLC?</title>
2634 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_isn_t_Debian_Edu_using_VLC_.html</link>
2635 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_isn_t_Debian_Edu_using_VLC_.html</guid>
2636 <pubDate>Sat, 27 Nov 2010 11:30:00 +0100</pubDate>
2637 <description>&lt;p&gt;In the latest issue of Linux Journal, the readers choices were
2638 presented, and the winner among the multimedia player were VLC.
2639 Personally, I like VLC, and it is my player of choice when I first try
2640 to play a video file or stream. Only if VLC fail will I drag out
2641 gmplayer to see if it can do better. The reason is mostly the failure
2642 model and trust. When VLC fail, it normally pop up a error message
2643 reporting the problem. When mplayer fail, it normally segfault or
2644 just hangs. The latter failure mode drain my trust in the program.&lt;p&gt;
2645
2646 &lt;p&gt;But even if VLC is my player of choice, we have choosen to use
2647 mplayer in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.skolelinux.org/&quot;&gt;Debian
2648 Edu/Skolelinux&lt;/a&gt;. The reason is simple. We need a good browser
2649 plugin to play web videos seamlessly, and the VLC browser plugin is
2650 not very good. For example, it lack in-line control buttons, so there
2651 is no way for the user to pause the video. Also, when I
2652 &lt;a href=&quot;http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia&quot;&gt;last
2653 tested the browser plugins&lt;/a&gt; available in Debian, the VLC plugin
2654 failed on several video pages where mplayer based plugins worked. If
2655 the browser plugin for VLC was as good as the gecko-mediaplayer
2656 package (which uses mplayer), we would switch.&lt;/P&gt;
2657
2658 &lt;p&gt;While VLC is a good player, its user interface is slightly
2659 annoying. The most annoying feature is its inconsistent use of
2660 keyboard shortcuts. When the player is in full screen mode, its
2661 shortcuts are different from when it is playing the video in a window.
2662 For example, space only work as pause when in full screen mode. I
2663 wish it had consisten shortcuts and that space also would work when in
2664 window mode. Another nice shortcut in gmplayer is [enter] to restart
2665 the current video. It is very nice when playing short videos from the
2666 web and want to restart it when new people arrive to have a look at
2667 what is going on.&lt;/p&gt;
2668 </description>
2669 </item>
2670
2671 <item>
2672 <title>Lenny-&gt;Squeeze upgrades of the Gnome and KDE desktop, now with apt-get autoremove</title>
2673 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lenny__Squeeze_upgrades_of_the_Gnome_and_KDE_desktop__now_with_apt_get_autoremove.html</link>
2674 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lenny__Squeeze_upgrades_of_the_Gnome_and_KDE_desktop__now_with_apt_get_autoremove.html</guid>
2675 <pubDate>Mon, 22 Nov 2010 14:15:00 +0100</pubDate>
2676 <description>&lt;p&gt;Michael Biebl suggested to me on IRC, that I changed my automated
2677 upgrade testing of the
2678 &lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/&quot;&gt;Lenny
2679 Gnome and KDE Desktop&lt;/a&gt; to do &lt;tt&gt;apt-get autoremove&lt;/tt&gt; when using apt-get.
2680 This seem like a very good idea, so I adjusted by test scripts and
2681 can now present the updated result from today:&lt;/p&gt;
2682
2683 &lt;p&gt;This is for Gnome:&lt;/p&gt;
2684
2685 &lt;p&gt;Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude&lt;/p&gt;
2686
2687 &lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;p&gt;
2688 apache2.2-bin
2689 aptdaemon
2690 baobab
2691 binfmt-support
2692 browser-plugin-gnash
2693 cheese-common
2694 cli-common
2695 cups-pk-helper
2696 dmz-cursor-theme
2697 empathy
2698 empathy-common
2699 freedesktop-sound-theme
2700 freeglut3
2701 gconf-defaults-service
2702 gdm-themes
2703 gedit-plugins
2704 geoclue
2705 geoclue-hostip
2706 geoclue-localnet
2707 geoclue-manual
2708 geoclue-yahoo
2709 gnash
2710 gnash-common
2711 gnome
2712 gnome-backgrounds
2713 gnome-cards-data
2714 gnome-codec-install
2715 gnome-core
2716 gnome-desktop-environment
2717 gnome-disk-utility
2718 gnome-screenshot
2719 gnome-search-tool
2720 gnome-session-canberra
2721 gnome-system-log
2722 gnome-themes-extras
2723 gnome-themes-more
2724 gnome-user-share
2725 gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
2726 gstreamer0.10-tools
2727 gtk2-engines
2728 gtk2-engines-pixbuf
2729 gtk2-engines-smooth
2730 hamster-applet
2731 libapache2-mod-dnssd
2732 libapr1
2733 libaprutil1
2734 libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3
2735 libaprutil1-ldap
2736 libart2.0-cil
2737 libboost-date-time1.42.0
2738 libboost-python1.42.0
2739 libboost-thread1.42.0
2740 libchamplain-0.4-0
2741 libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0
2742 libcheese-gtk18
2743 libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
2744 libcryptui0
2745 libdiscid0
2746 libelf1
2747 libepc-1.0-2
2748 libepc-common
2749 libepc-ui-1.0-2
2750 libfreerdp-plugins-standard
2751 libfreerdp0
2752 libgconf2.0-cil
2753 libgdata-common
2754 libgdata7
2755 libgdu-gtk0
2756 libgee2
2757 libgeoclue0
2758 libgexiv2-0
2759 libgif4
2760 libglade2.0-cil
2761 libglib2.0-cil
2762 libgmime2.4-cil
2763 libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
2764 libgnome2.24-cil
2765 libgnomepanel2.24-cil
2766 libgpod-common
2767 libgpod4
2768 libgtk2.0-cil
2769 libgtkglext1
2770 libgtksourceview2.0-common
2771 libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
2772 libmono-addins0.2-cil
2773 libmono-cairo2.0-cil
2774 libmono-corlib2.0-cil
2775 libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil
2776 libmono-posix2.0-cil
2777 libmono-security2.0-cil
2778 libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
2779 libmono-system2.0-cil
2780 libmtp8
2781 libmusicbrainz3-6
2782 libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil
2783 libndesk-dbus1.0-cil
2784 libopal3.6.8
2785 libpolkit-gtk-1-0
2786 libpt2.6.7
2787 libpython2.6
2788 librpm1
2789 librpmio1
2790 libsdl1.2debian
2791 libsrtp0
2792 libssh-4
2793 libtelepathy-farsight0
2794 libtelepathy-glib0
2795 libtidy-0.99-0
2796 media-player-info
2797 mesa-utils
2798 mono-2.0-gac
2799 mono-gac
2800 mono-runtime
2801 nautilus-sendto
2802 nautilus-sendto-empathy
2803 p7zip-full
2804 pkg-config
2805 python-aptdaemon
2806 python-aptdaemon-gtk
2807 python-axiom
2808 python-beautifulsoup
2809 python-bugbuddy
2810 python-clientform
2811 python-coherence
2812 python-configobj
2813 python-crypto
2814 python-cupshelpers
2815 python-elementtree
2816 python-epsilon
2817 python-evolution
2818 python-feedparser
2819 python-gdata
2820 python-gdbm
2821 python-gst0.10
2822 python-gtkglext1
2823 python-gtksourceview2
2824 python-httplib2
2825 python-louie
2826 python-mako
2827 python-markupsafe
2828 python-mechanize
2829 python-nevow
2830 python-notify
2831 python-opengl
2832 python-openssl
2833 python-pam
2834 python-pkg-resources
2835 python-pyasn1
2836 python-pysqlite2
2837 python-rdflib
2838 python-serial
2839 python-tagpy
2840 python-twisted-bin
2841 python-twisted-conch
2842 python-twisted-core
2843 python-twisted-web
2844 python-utidylib
2845 python-webkit
2846 python-xdg
2847 python-zope.interface
2848 remmina
2849 remmina-plugin-data
2850 remmina-plugin-rdp
2851 remmina-plugin-vnc
2852 rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
2853 rhythmbox-plugins
2854 rpm-common
2855 rpm2cpio
2856 seahorse-plugins
2857 shotwell
2858 software-center
2859 system-config-printer-udev
2860 telepathy-gabble
2861 telepathy-mission-control-5
2862 telepathy-salut
2863 tomboy
2864 totem
2865 totem-coherence
2866 totem-mozilla
2867 totem-plugins
2868 transmission-common
2869 xdg-user-dirs
2870 xdg-user-dirs-gtk
2871 xserver-xephyr
2872 &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
2873
2874 &lt;p&gt;Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude&lt;/p&gt;
2875
2876 &lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;p&gt;
2877 cheese
2878 ekiga
2879 eog
2880 epiphany-extensions
2881 evolution-exchange
2882 fast-user-switch-applet
2883 file-roller
2884 gcalctool
2885 gconf-editor
2886 gdm
2887 gedit
2888 gedit-common
2889 gnome-games
2890 gnome-games-data
2891 gnome-nettool
2892 gnome-system-tools
2893 gnome-themes
2894 gnuchess
2895 gucharmap
2896 guile-1.8-libs
2897 libavahi-ui0
2898 libdmx1
2899 libgalago3
2900 libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
2901 libgtksourceview2.0-0
2902 liblircclient0
2903 libsdl1.2debian-alsa
2904 libspeexdsp1
2905 libsvga1
2906 rhythmbox
2907 seahorse
2908 sound-juicer
2909 system-config-printer
2910 totem-common
2911 transmission-gtk
2912 vinagre
2913 vino
2914 &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
2915
2916 &lt;p&gt;Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get&lt;/p&gt;
2917
2918 &lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;p&gt;
2919 gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
2920 &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
2921
2922 &lt;p&gt;Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get&lt;/p&gt;
2923
2924 &lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;p&gt;
2925 [nothing]
2926 &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
2927
2928 &lt;p&gt;This is for KDE:&lt;/p&gt;
2929
2930 &lt;p&gt;Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude&lt;/p&gt;
2931
2932 &lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;p&gt;
2933 ksmserver
2934 &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
2935
2936 &lt;p&gt;Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude&lt;/p&gt;
2937
2938 &lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;p&gt;
2939 kwin
2940 network-manager-kde
2941 &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
2942
2943 &lt;p&gt;Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get&lt;/p&gt;
2944
2945 &lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;p&gt;
2946 arts
2947 dolphin
2948 freespacenotifier
2949 google-gadgets-gst
2950 google-gadgets-xul
2951 kappfinder
2952 kcalc
2953 kcharselect
2954 kde-core
2955 kde-plasma-desktop
2956 kde-standard
2957 kde-window-manager
2958 kdeartwork
2959 kdeartwork-emoticons
2960 kdeartwork-style
2961 kdeartwork-theme-icon
2962 kdebase
2963 kdebase-apps
2964 kdebase-workspace
2965 kdebase-workspace-bin
2966 kdebase-workspace-data
2967 kdeeject
2968 kdelibs
2969 kdeplasma-addons
2970 kdeutils
2971 kdewallpapers
2972 kdf
2973 kfloppy
2974 kgpg
2975 khelpcenter4
2976 kinfocenter
2977 konq-plugins-l10n
2978 konqueror-nsplugins
2979 kscreensaver
2980 kscreensaver-xsavers
2981 ktimer
2982 kwrite
2983 libgle3
2984 libkde4-ruby1.8
2985 libkonq5
2986 libkonq5-templates
2987 libnetpbm10
2988 libplasma-ruby
2989 libplasma-ruby1.8
2990 libqt4-ruby1.8
2991 marble-data
2992 marble-plugins
2993 netpbm
2994 nuvola-icon-theme
2995 plasma-dataengines-workspace
2996 plasma-desktop
2997 plasma-desktopthemes-artwork
2998 plasma-runners-addons
2999 plasma-scriptengine-googlegadgets
3000 plasma-scriptengine-python
3001 plasma-scriptengine-qedje
3002 plasma-scriptengine-ruby
3003 plasma-scriptengine-webkit
3004 plasma-scriptengines
3005 plasma-wallpapers-addons
3006 plasma-widget-folderview
3007 plasma-widget-networkmanagement
3008 ruby
3009 sweeper
3010 update-notifier-kde
3011 xscreensaver-data-extra
3012 xscreensaver-gl
3013 xscreensaver-gl-extra
3014 xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
3015 &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
3016
3017 &lt;p&gt;Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get&lt;/p&gt;
3018
3019 &lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;p&gt;
3020 ark
3021 google-gadgets-common
3022 google-gadgets-qt
3023 htdig
3024 kate
3025 kdebase-bin
3026 kdebase-data
3027 kdepasswd
3028 kfind
3029 klipper
3030 konq-plugins
3031 konqueror
3032 ksysguard
3033 ksysguardd
3034 libarchive1
3035 libcln6
3036 libeet1
3037 libeina-svn-06
3038 libggadget-1.0-0b
3039 libggadget-qt-1.0-0b
3040 libgps19
3041 libkdecorations4
3042 libkephal4
3043 libkonq4
3044 libkonqsidebarplugin4a
3045 libkscreensaver5
3046 libksgrd4
3047 libksignalplotter4
3048 libkunitconversion4
3049 libkwineffects1a
3050 libmarblewidget4
3051 libntrack-qt4-1
3052 libntrack0
3053 libplasma-geolocation-interface4
3054 libplasmaclock4a
3055 libplasmagenericshell4
3056 libprocesscore4a
3057 libprocessui4a
3058 libqalculate5
3059 libqedje0a
3060 libqtruby4shared2
3061 libqzion0a
3062 libruby1.8
3063 libscim8c2a
3064 libsmokekdecore4-3
3065 libsmokekdeui4-3
3066 libsmokekfile3
3067 libsmokekhtml3
3068 libsmokekio3
3069 libsmokeknewstuff2-3
3070 libsmokeknewstuff3-3
3071 libsmokekparts3
3072 libsmokektexteditor3
3073 libsmokekutils3
3074 libsmokenepomuk3
3075 libsmokephonon3
3076 libsmokeplasma3
3077 libsmokeqtcore4-3
3078 libsmokeqtdbus4-3
3079 libsmokeqtgui4-3
3080 libsmokeqtnetwork4-3
3081 libsmokeqtopengl4-3
3082 libsmokeqtscript4-3
3083 libsmokeqtsql4-3
3084 libsmokeqtsvg4-3
3085 libsmokeqttest4-3
3086 libsmokeqtuitools4-3
3087 libsmokeqtwebkit4-3
3088 libsmokeqtxml4-3
3089 libsmokesolid3
3090 libsmokesoprano3
3091 libtaskmanager4a
3092 libtidy-0.99-0
3093 libweather-ion4a
3094 libxklavier16
3095 libxxf86misc1
3096 okteta
3097 oxygencursors
3098 plasma-dataengines-addons
3099 plasma-scriptengine-superkaramba
3100 plasma-widget-lancelot
3101 plasma-widgets-addons
3102 plasma-widgets-workspace
3103 polkit-kde-1
3104 ruby1.8
3105 systemsettings
3106 update-notifier-common
3107 &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
3108
3109 &lt;p&gt;Running apt-get autoremove made the results using apt-get and
3110 aptitude a bit more similar, but there are still quite a lott of
3111 differences. I have no idea what packages should be installed after
3112 the upgrade, but hope those that do can have a look.&lt;/p&gt;
3113 </description>
3114 </item>
3115
3116 <item>
3117 <title>Migrating Xen virtual machines using LVM to KVM using disk images</title>
3118 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Migrating_Xen_virtual_machines_using_LVM_to_KVM_using_disk_images.html</link>
3119 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Migrating_Xen_virtual_machines_using_LVM_to_KVM_using_disk_images.html</guid>
3120 <pubDate>Mon, 22 Nov 2010 11:20:00 +0100</pubDate>
3121 <description>&lt;p&gt;Most of the computers in use by the
3122 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.skolelinux.org/&quot;&gt;Debian Edu/Skolelinux project&lt;/a&gt;
3123 are virtual machines. And they have been Xen machines running on a
3124 fairly old IBM eserver xseries 345 machine, and we wanted to migrate
3125 them to KVM on a newer Dell PowerEdge 2950 host machine. This was a
3126 bit harder that it could have been, because we set up the Xen virtual
3127 machines to get the virtual partitions from LVM, which as far as I
3128 know is not supported by KVM. So to migrate, we had to convert
3129 several LVM logical volumes to partitions on a virtual disk file.&lt;/p&gt;
3130
3131 &lt;p&gt;I found
3132 &lt;a href=&quot;http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM&quot;&gt;a
3133 nice recipe&lt;/a&gt; to do this, and wrote the following script to do the
3134 migration. It uses qemu-img from the qemu package to make the disk
3135 image, parted to partition it, losetup and kpartx to present the disk
3136 image partions as devices, and dd to copy the data. I NFS mounted the
3137 new servers storage area on the old server to do the migration.&lt;/p&gt;
3138
3139 &lt;pre&gt;
3140 #!/bin/sh
3141
3142 # Based on
3143 # http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM
3144
3145 set -e
3146 set -x
3147
3148 if [ -z &quot;$1&quot; ] ; then
3149 echo &quot;Usage: $0 &amp;lt;hostname&amp;gt;&quot;
3150 exit 1
3151 else
3152 host=&quot;$1&quot;
3153 fi
3154
3155 if [ ! -e /dev/vg_data/$host-disk ] ; then
3156 echo &quot;error: unable to find LVM volume for $host&quot;
3157 exit 1
3158 fi
3159
3160 # Partitions need to be a bit bigger than the LVM LVs. not sure why.
3161 disksize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-disk | awk &#39;{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }&#39;)
3162 swapsize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-swap | awk &#39;{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }&#39;)
3163 totalsize=$(( ( $disksize + $swapsize ) ))
3164
3165 img=$host.img
3166 #dd if=/dev/zero of=$img bs=1M count=$(( $disksize + $swapsize ))
3167 qemu-img create $img ${totalsize}MMaking room on the Debian Edu/Sqeeze DVD
3168
3169 parted $img mklabel msdos
3170 parted $img mkpart primary linux-swap 0 $disksize
3171 parted $img mkpart primary ext2 $disksize $totalsize
3172 parted $img set 1 boot on
3173
3174 modprobe dm-mod
3175 losetup /dev/loop0 $img
3176 kpartx -a /dev/loop0
3177
3178 dd if=/dev/vg_data/$host-disk of=/dev/mapper/loop0p1 bs=1M
3179 fsck.ext3 -f /dev/mapper/loop0p1 || true
3180 mkswap /dev/mapper/loop0p2
3181
3182 kpartx -d /dev/loop0
3183 losetup -d /dev/loop0
3184 &lt;/pre&gt;
3185
3186 &lt;p&gt;The script is perhaps so simple that it is not copyrightable, but
3187 if it is, it is licenced using GPL v2 or later at your discretion.&lt;/p&gt;
3188
3189 &lt;p&gt;After doing this, I booted a Debian CD in rescue mode in KVM with
3190 the new disk image attached, installed grub-pc and linux-image-686 and
3191 set up grub to boot from the disk image. After this, the KVM machines
3192 seem to work just fine.&lt;/p&gt;
3193 </description>
3194 </item>
3195
3196 <item>
3197 <title>Lenny-&gt;Squeeze upgrades, apt vs aptitude with the Gnome and KDE desktop</title>
3198 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lenny__Squeeze_upgrades__apt_vs_aptitude_with_the_Gnome_and_KDE_desktop.html</link>
3199 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lenny__Squeeze_upgrades__apt_vs_aptitude_with_the_Gnome_and_KDE_desktop.html</guid>
3200 <pubDate>Sat, 20 Nov 2010 22:50:00 +0100</pubDate>
3201 <description>&lt;p&gt;I&#39;m still running upgrade testing of the
3202 &lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/&quot;&gt;Lenny
3203 Gnome and KDE Desktop&lt;/a&gt;, but have not had time to spend on reporting the
3204 status. Here is a short update based on a test I ran 20101118.&lt;/p&gt;
3205
3206 &lt;p&gt;I still do not know what a correct migration should look like, so I
3207 report any differences between apt and aptitude and hope someone else
3208 can see if anything should be changed.&lt;/p&gt;
3209
3210 &lt;p&gt;This is for Gnome:&lt;/p&gt;
3211
3212 &lt;p&gt;Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude&lt;/p&gt;
3213
3214 &lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;p&gt;
3215 apache2.2-bin aptdaemon at-spi baobab binfmt-support
3216 browser-plugin-gnash cheese-common cli-common cpp-4.3 cups-pk-helper
3217 dmz-cursor-theme empathy empathy-common finger
3218 freedesktop-sound-theme freeglut3 gconf-defaults-service gdm-themes
3219 gedit-plugins geoclue geoclue-hostip geoclue-localnet geoclue-manual
3220 geoclue-yahoo gnash gnash-common gnome gnome-backgrounds
3221 gnome-cards-data gnome-codec-install gnome-core
3222 gnome-desktop-environment gnome-disk-utility gnome-screenshot
3223 gnome-search-tool gnome-session-canberra gnome-spell
3224 gnome-system-log gnome-themes-extras gnome-themes-more
3225 gnome-user-share gs-common gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
3226 gstreamer0.10-tools gtk2-engines gtk2-engines-pixbuf
3227 gtk2-engines-smooth hal-info hamster-applet libapache2-mod-dnssd
3228 libapr1 libaprutil1 libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3 libaprutil1-ldap
3229 libart2.0-cil libatspi1.0-0 libboost-date-time1.42.0
3230 libboost-python1.42.0 libboost-thread1.42.0 libchamplain-0.4-0
3231 libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0 libcheese-gtk18 libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
3232 libcryptui0 libcupsys2 libdiscid0 libeel2-data libelf1 libepc-1.0-2
3233 libepc-common libepc-ui-1.0-2 libfreerdp-plugins-standard
3234 libfreerdp0 libgail-common libgconf2.0-cil libgdata-common libgdata7
3235 libgdl-1-common libgdu-gtk0 libgee2 libgeoclue0 libgexiv2-0 libgif4
3236 libglade2.0-cil libglib2.0-cil libgmime2.4-cil libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
3237 libgnome2.24-cil libgnomepanel2.24-cil libgnomeprint2.2-data
3238 libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod-common libgpod4
3239 libgtk2.0-cil libgtkglext1 libgtksourceview-common
3240 libgtksourceview2.0-common libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
3241 libmono-addins0.2-cil libmono-cairo2.0-cil libmono-corlib2.0-cil
3242 libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil libmono-posix2.0-cil
3243 libmono-security2.0-cil libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
3244 libmono-system2.0-cil libmtp8 libmusicbrainz3-6
3245 libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil libndesk-dbus1.0-cil libopal3.6.8
3246 libpolkit-gtk-1-0 libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
3247 libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libpt2.6.7 libpython2.6 librpm1 librpmio1
3248 libsdl1.2debian libservlet2.4-java libsrtp0 libssh-4
3249 libtelepathy-farsight0 libtelepathy-glib0 libtidy-0.99-0
3250 libxalan2-java libxerces2-java media-player-info mesa-utils
3251 mono-2.0-gac mono-gac mono-runtime nautilus-sendto
3252 nautilus-sendto-empathy openoffice.org-writer2latex
3253 openssl-blacklist p7zip p7zip-full pkg-config python-4suite-xml
3254 python-aptdaemon python-aptdaemon-gtk python-axiom
3255 python-beautifulsoup python-bugbuddy python-clientform
3256 python-coherence python-configobj python-crypto python-cupshelpers
3257 python-cupsutils python-eggtrayicon python-elementtree
3258 python-epsilon python-evolution python-feedparser python-gdata
3259 python-gdbm python-gst0.10 python-gtkglext1 python-gtkmozembed
3260 python-gtksourceview2 python-httplib2 python-louie python-mako
3261 python-markupsafe python-mechanize python-nevow python-notify
3262 python-opengl python-openssl python-pam python-pkg-resources
3263 python-pyasn1 python-pysqlite2 python-rdflib python-serial
3264 python-tagpy python-twisted-bin python-twisted-conch
3265 python-twisted-core python-twisted-web python-utidylib python-webkit
3266 python-xdg python-zope.interface remmina remmina-plugin-data
3267 remmina-plugin-rdp remmina-plugin-vnc rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
3268 rhythmbox-plugins rpm-common rpm2cpio seahorse-plugins shotwell
3269 software-center svgalibg1 system-config-printer-udev
3270 telepathy-gabble telepathy-mission-control-5 telepathy-salut tomboy
3271 totem totem-coherence totem-mozilla totem-plugins
3272 transmission-common xdg-user-dirs xdg-user-dirs-gtk xserver-xephyr
3273 zip
3274 &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
3275
3276 Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude
3277
3278 &lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;p&gt;
3279 arj bluez-utils cheese dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop ekiga eog
3280 epiphany-extensions epiphany-gecko evolution-exchange
3281 fast-user-switch-applet file-roller gcalctool gconf-editor gdm gedit
3282 gedit-common gnome-app-install gnome-games gnome-games-data
3283 gnome-nettool gnome-system-tools gnome-themes gnome-utils
3284 gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager gnuchess gucharmap
3285 guile-1.8-libs hal libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5
3286 libavahi-ui0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7
3287 libcucul0 libcurl3 libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdmx1 libdvdread3
3288 libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1
3289 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3 libfaad0 libgadu3
3290 libgalago3 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
3291 libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
3292 libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
3293 libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
3294 libgtkhtml2-0 libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgtksourceview2.0-0
3295 libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
3296 libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libkpathsea4 liblircclient0 libltdl3 liblwres50
3297 libmagick++10 libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmozjs1d libmpfr1ldbl libmtp7
3298 libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0
3299 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpisock9
3300 libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8
3301 libsdl1.2debian-alsa libsensors3 libsexy2 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
3302 libspeexdsp1 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libsvga1
3303 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0
3304 libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12
3305 libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common rhythmbox seahorse
3306 sound-juicer swfdec-gnome system-config-printer totem-common
3307 totem-gstreamer transmission-gtk vinagre vino w3c-dtd-xhtml wodim
3308 &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
3309
3310 &lt;p&gt;Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get&lt;/p&gt;
3311
3312 &lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;p&gt;
3313 gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
3314 &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
3315
3316 &lt;p&gt;Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get&lt;/p&gt;
3317
3318 &lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;p&gt;
3319 [nothing]
3320 &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
3321
3322 &lt;p&gt;This is for KDE:&lt;/p&gt;
3323
3324 &lt;p&gt;Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude&lt;/p&gt;
3325
3326 &lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;p&gt;
3327 autopoint bomber bovo cantor cantor-backend-kalgebra cpp-4.3 dcoprss
3328 edict espeak espeak-data eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
3329 ghostscript-x git gnome-audio gnugo granatier gs-common
3330 gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio indi kaddressbook-plugins kalgebra
3331 kalzium-data kanjidic kapman kate-plugins kblocks kbreakout kbstate
3332 kde-icons-mono kdeaccessibility kdeaddons-kfile-plugins
3333 kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
3334 kdeedu kdeedu-data kdeedu-kvtml-data kdegames kdegames-card-data
3335 kdegames-mahjongg-data kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc
3336 kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
3337 kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdessh kdetoys kdewebdev
3338 kdiamond kdnssd kfilereplace kfourinline kgeography-data kigo
3339 killbots kiriki klettres-data kmoon kmrml knewsticker-scripts
3340 kollision kpf krosspython ksirk ksmserver ksquares kstars-data
3341 ksudoku kubrick kweather libasound2-plugins libboost-python1.42.0
3342 libcfitsio3 libconvert-binhex-perl libcrypt-ssleay-perl libdb4.6++
3343 libdjvulibre-text libdotconf1.0 liberror-perl libespeak1
3344 libfinance-quote-perl libgail-common libgsl0ldbl libhtml-parser-perl
3345 libhtml-tableextract-perl libhtml-tagset-perl libhtml-tree-perl
3346 libio-stringy-perl libkdeedu4 libkdegames5 libkiten4 libkpathsea5
3347 libkrossui4 libmailtools-perl libmime-tools-perl
3348 libnews-nntpclient-perl libopenbabel3 libportaudio2 libpulse-browse0
3349 libservlet2.4-java libspeechd2 libtiff-tools libtimedate-perl
3350 libunistring0 liburi-perl libwww-perl libxalan2-java libxerces2-java
3351 lirc luatex marble networkstatus noatun-plugins
3352 openoffice.org-writer2latex palapeli palapeli-data parley
3353 parley-data poster psutils pulseaudio pulseaudio-esound-compat
3354 pulseaudio-module-x11 pulseaudio-utils quanta-data rocs rsync
3355 speech-dispatcher step svgalibg1 texlive-binaries texlive-luatex
3356 ttf-sazanami-gothic
3357 &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
3358
3359 &lt;p&gt;Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude&lt;/p&gt;
3360
3361 &lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;p&gt;
3362 amor artsbuilder atlantik atlantikdesigner blinken bluez-utils cvs
3363 dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop imlib-base imlib11 kalzium kanagram kandy
3364 kasteroids katomic kbackgammon kbattleship kblackbox kbounce kbruch
3365 kcron kdat kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data kdeprint kdict kdvi kedit
3366 keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs kgeography kghostview
3367 kgoldrunner khangman khexedit kiconedit kig kimagemapeditor
3368 kitchensync kiten kjumpingcube klatin klettres klickety klines
3369 klinkstatus kmag kmahjongg kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmines
3370 kmousetool kmouth kmplot knetwalk kodo kolf kommander konquest kooka
3371 kpager kpat kpdf kpercentage kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler krec
3372 kregexpeditor kreversi ksame ksayit kshisen ksig ksim ksirc ksirtet
3373 ksmiletris ksnake ksokoban kspaceduel kstars ksvg ksysv kteatime
3374 ktip ktnef ktouch ktron kttsd ktuberling kturtle ktux kuickshow
3375 kverbos kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kwordquiz
3376 kworldclock kxsldbg libakode2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
3377 libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
3378 libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2
3379 libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0
3380 libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
3381 libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0 libicu38
3382 libiec61883-0 libindex0 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
3383 libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1 libkdeedu3
3384 libkdegames1 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
3385 libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
3386 libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick10
3387 libmimelib1c2a libmodplug0c2 libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libmpfr1ldbl
3388 libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9 libpoppler-glib3
3389 libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 librss1 libsensors3
3390 libsmbios2 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90
3391 libtalloc1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 lskat
3392 mpeglib network-manager-kde noatun pmount tex-common texlive-base
3393 texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended tidy
3394 ttf-dustin ttf-kochi-gothic ttf-sjfonts
3395 &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
3396
3397 &lt;p&gt;Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get&lt;/p&gt;
3398
3399 &lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;p&gt;
3400 dolphin kde-core kde-plasma-desktop kde-standard kde-window-manager
3401 kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-apps kdebase-workspace
3402 kdebase-workspace-bin kdebase-workspace-data kdeutils kscreensaver
3403 kscreensaver-xsavers libgle3 libkonq5 libkonq5-templates libnetpbm10
3404 netpbm plasma-widget-folderview plasma-widget-networkmanagement
3405 xscreensaver-data-extra xscreensaver-gl xscreensaver-gl-extra
3406 xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
3407 &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
3408
3409 &lt;p&gt;Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get&lt;/p&gt;
3410
3411 &lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;p&gt;
3412 kdebase-bin konq-plugins konqueror
3413 &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
3414 </description>
3415 </item>
3416
3417 <item>
3418 <title>Gnash buildbot slave and Debian kfreebsd</title>
3419 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gnash_buildbot_slave_and_Debian_kfreebsd.html</link>
3420 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gnash_buildbot_slave_and_Debian_kfreebsd.html</guid>
3421 <pubDate>Sat, 20 Nov 2010 07:20:00 +0100</pubDate>
3422 <description>&lt;p&gt;Answering
3423 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.listware.net/201011/gnash-dev/67431-gnash-dev-buildbot-looking-for-slaves.html&quot;&gt;the
3424 call from the Gnash project&lt;/a&gt; for
3425 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.gnashdev.org:8010&quot;&gt;buildbot&lt;/a&gt; slaves to test the
3426 current source, I have set up a virtual KVM machine on the Debian
3427 Edu/Skolelinux virtualization host to test the git source on
3428 Debian/Squeeze. I hope this can help the developers in getting new
3429 releases out more often.&lt;/p&gt;
3430
3431 &lt;p&gt;As the developers want less main-stream build platforms tested to,
3432 I have considered setting up a &lt;a
3433 href=&quot;http://www.debian.org/ports/kfreebsd-gnu/&quot;&gt;Debian/kfreebsd&lt;/a&gt;
3434 machine as well. I have also considered using the kfreebsd
3435 architecture in Debian as a file server in NUUG to get access to the 5
3436 TB zfs volume we currently use to store DV video. Because of this, I
3437 finally got around to do a test installation of Debian/Squeeze with
3438 kfreebsd. Installation went fairly smooth, thought I noticed some
3439 visual glitches in the cdebconf dialogs (black cursor left on the
3440 screen at random locations). Have not gotten very far with the
3441 testing. Noticed cfdisk did not work, but fdisk did so it was not a
3442 fatal problem. Have to spend some more time on it to see if it is
3443 useful as a file server for NUUG. Will try to find time to set up a
3444 gnash buildbot slave on the Debian Edu/Skolelinux this weekend.&lt;/p&gt;
3445 </description>
3446 </item>
3447
3448 <item>
3449 <title>Debian in 3D</title>
3450 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_in_3D.html</link>
3451 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_in_3D.html</guid>
3452 <pubDate>Tue, 9 Nov 2010 16:10:00 +0100</pubDate>
3453 <description>&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;http://thingiverse-production.s3.amazonaws.com/renders/23/e0/c4/f9/2b/debswagtdose_preview_medium.jpg&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
3454
3455 &lt;p&gt;3D printing is just great. I just came across this Debian logo in
3456 3D linked in from
3457 &lt;a href=&quot;http://blog.thingiverse.com/2010/11/09/participatory-branding/&quot;&gt;the
3458 thingiverse blog&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
3459 </description>
3460 </item>
3461
3462 <item>
3463 <title>Software updates 2010-10-24</title>
3464 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Software_updates_2010_10_24.html</link>
3465 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Software_updates_2010_10_24.html</guid>
3466 <pubDate>Sun, 24 Oct 2010 22:45:00 +0200</pubDate>
3467 <description>&lt;p&gt;Some updates.&lt;/p&gt;
3468
3469 &lt;p&gt;My &lt;a href=&quot;http://pledgebank.com/gnash-avm2&quot;&gt;gnash pledge&lt;/a&gt; to
3470 raise money for the project is going well. The lower limit of 10
3471 signers was reached in 24 hours, and so far 13 people have signed it.
3472 More signers and more funding is most welcome, and I am really curious
3473 how far we can get before the time limit of December 24 is reached.
3474 :)&lt;/p&gt;
3475
3476 &lt;p&gt;On the #gnash IRC channel on irc.freenode.net, I was just tipped
3477 about what appear to be a great code coverage tool capable of
3478 generating code coverage stats without any changes to the source code.
3479 It is called
3480 &lt;a href=&quot;http://simonkagstrom.github.com/kcov/index.html&quot;&gt;kcov&lt;/a&gt;,
3481 and can be used using &lt;tt&gt;kcov &amp;lt;directory&amp;gt; &amp;lt;binary&amp;gt;&lt;/tt&gt;.
3482 It is missing in Debian, but the git source built just fine in Squeeze
3483 after I installed libelf-dev, libdwarf-dev, pkg-config and
3484 libglib2.0-dev. Failed to build in Lenny, but suspect that is
3485 solvable. I hope kcov make it into Debian soon.&lt;/p&gt;
3486
3487 &lt;p&gt;Finally found time to wrap up the release notes for &lt;a
3488 href=&quot;http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2010/10/msg00002.html&quot;&gt;a
3489 new alpha release of Debian Edu&lt;/a&gt;, and just published the second
3490 alpha test release of the Squeeze based Debian Edu /
3491 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.skolelinux.org/&quot;&gt;Skolelinux&lt;/a&gt;
3492 release. Give it a try if you need a complete linux solution for your
3493 school, including central infrastructure server, workstations, thin
3494 client servers and diskless workstations. A nice touch added
3495 yesterday is RDP support on the thin client servers, for windows
3496 clients to get a Linux desktop on request.&lt;/p&gt;
3497 </description>
3498 </item>
3499
3500 <item>
3501 <title>Some notes on Flash in Debian and Debian Edu</title>
3502 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Some_notes_on_Flash_in_Debian_and_Debian_Edu.html</link>
3503 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Some_notes_on_Flash_in_Debian_and_Debian_Edu.html</guid>
3504 <pubDate>Sat, 4 Sep 2010 10:10:00 +0200</pubDate>
3505 <description>&lt;p&gt;In the &lt;a href=&quot;http://popcon.debian.org/unknown/by_vote&quot;&gt;Debian
3506 popularity-contest numbers&lt;/a&gt;, the adobe-flashplugin package the
3507 second most popular used package that is missing in Debian. The sixth
3508 most popular is flashplayer-mozilla. This is a clear indication that
3509 working flash is important for Debian users. Around 10 percent of the
3510 users submitting data to popcon.debian.org have this package
3511 installed.&lt;/p&gt;
3512
3513 &lt;p&gt;In the report written by Lars Risan in August 2008
3514&lt;a href=&quot;http://wiki.skolelinux.no/Dokumentasjon/Rapporter?action=AttachFile&amp;do=view&amp;target=Skolelinux_i_bruk_rapport_1.0.pdf&quot;&gt;Skolelinux
3515 i bruk – Rapport for Hurum kommune, Universitetet i Agder og
3516 stiftelsen SLX Debian Labs&lt;/a&gt;»), one of the most important problems
3517 schools experienced with &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.skolelinux.org/&quot;&gt;Debian
3518 Edu/Skolelinux&lt;/a&gt; was the lack of working Flash. A lot of educational
3519 web sites require Flash to work, and lacking working Flash support in
3520 the web browser and the problems with installing it was perceived as a
3521 good reason to stay with Windows.&lt;/p&gt;
3522
3523 &lt;p&gt;I once saw a funny and sad comment in a web forum, where Linux was
3524 said to be the retarded cousin that did not really understand
3525 everything you told him but could work fairly well. This was a
3526 comment regarding the problems Linux have with proprietary formats and
3527 non-standard web pages, and is sad because it exposes a fairly common
3528 understanding of whose fault it is if web pages that only work in for
3529 example Internet Explorer 6 fail to work on Firefox, and funny because
3530 it explain very well how annoying it is for users when Linux
3531 distributions do not work with the documents they receive or the web
3532 pages they want to visit.&lt;/p&gt;
3533
3534 &lt;p&gt;This is part of the reason why I believe it is important for Debian
3535 and Debian Edu to have a well working Flash implementation in the
3536 distribution, to get at least popular sites as Youtube and Google
3537 Video to working out of the box. For Squeeze, Debian have the chance
3538 to include the latest version of Gnash that will make this happen, as
3539 the new release 0.8.8 was published a few weeks ago and is resting in
3540 unstable. The new version work with more sites that version 0.8.7.
3541 The Gnash maintainers have asked for a freeze exception, but the
3542 release team have not had time to reply to it yet. I hope they agree
3543 with me that Flash is important for the Debian desktop users, and thus
3544 accept the new package into Squeeze.&lt;/p&gt;
3545 </description>
3546 </item>
3547
3548 <item>
3549 <title>Circular package dependencies harms apt recovery</title>
3550 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Circular_package_dependencies_harms_apt_recovery.html</link>
3551 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Circular_package_dependencies_harms_apt_recovery.html</guid>
3552 <pubDate>Tue, 27 Jul 2010 23:50:00 +0200</pubDate>
3553 <description>&lt;p&gt;I discovered this while doing
3554 &lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html&quot;&gt;automated
3555 testing of upgrades from Debian Lenny to Squeeze&lt;/a&gt;. A few packages
3556 in Debian still got circular dependencies, and it is often claimed
3557 that apt and aptitude should be able to handle this just fine, but
3558 some times these dependency loops causes apt to fail.&lt;/p&gt;
3559
3560 &lt;p&gt;An example is from todays
3561 &lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing//test-20100727-lenny-squeeze-kde-aptitude.txt&quot;&gt;upgrade
3562 of KDE using aptitude&lt;/a&gt;. In it, a bug in kdebase-workspace-data
3563 causes perl-modules to fail to upgrade. The cause is simple. If a
3564 package fail to unpack, then only part of packages with the circular
3565 dependency might end up being unpacked when unpacking aborts, and the
3566 ones already unpacked will fail to configure in the recovery phase
3567 because its dependencies are unavailable.&lt;/p&gt;
3568
3569 &lt;p&gt;In this log, the problem manifest itself with this error:&lt;/p&gt;
3570
3571 &lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
3572 dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of perl-modules:
3573 perl-modules depends on perl (&gt;= 5.10.1-1); however:
3574 Version of perl on system is 5.10.0-19lenny2.
3575 dpkg: error processing perl-modules (--configure):
3576 dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
3577 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
3578
3579 &lt;p&gt;The perl/perl-modules circular dependency is already
3580 &lt;a href=&quot;http://bugs.debian.org/527917&quot;&gt;reported as a bug&lt;/a&gt;, and will
3581 hopefully be solved as soon as possible, but it is not the only one,
3582 and each one of these loops in the dependency tree can cause similar
3583 failures. Of course, they only occur when there are bugs in other
3584 packages causing the unpacking to fail, but it is rather nasty when
3585 the failure of one package causes the problem to become worse because
3586 of dependency loops.&lt;/p&gt;
3587
3588 &lt;p&gt;Thanks to
3589 &lt;a href=&quot;http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/06/msg00116.html&quot;&gt;the
3590 tireless effort by Bill Allombert&lt;/a&gt;, the number of circular
3591 dependencies
3592 &lt;a href=&quot;http://debian.semistable.com/debgraph.out.html&quot;&gt;left in Debian
3593 is dropping&lt;/a&gt;, and perhaps it will reach zero one day. :)&lt;/p&gt;
3594
3595 &lt;p&gt;Todays testing also exposed a bug in
3596 &lt;a href=&quot;http://bugs.debian.org/590605&quot;&gt;update-notifier&lt;/a&gt; and
3597 &lt;a href=&quot;http://bugs.debian.org/590604&quot;&gt;different behaviour&lt;/a&gt; between
3598 apt-get and aptitude, the latter possibly caused by some circular
3599 dependency. Reported both to BTS to try to get someone to look at
3600 it.&lt;/p&gt;
3601 </description>
3602 </item>
3603
3604 <item>
3605 <title>What are they searching for - PowerDNS and ISC DHCP in LDAP</title>
3606 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_are_they_searching_for___PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_in_LDAP.html</link>
3607 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_are_they_searching_for___PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_in_LDAP.html</guid>
3608 <pubDate>Sat, 17 Jul 2010 21:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
3609 <description>&lt;p&gt;This is a
3610 &lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html&quot;&gt;followup&lt;/a&gt;
3611 on my
3612 &lt;a href=&quot;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&quot;&gt;previous
3613 work&lt;/a&gt; on
3614 &lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html&quot;&gt;merging
3615 all&lt;/a&gt; the computer related LDAP objects in Debian Edu.&lt;/p&gt;
3616
3617 &lt;p&gt;As a step to try to see if it possible to merge the DNS and DHCP
3618 LDAP objects, I have had a look at how the packages pdns-backend-ldap
3619 and dhcp3-server-ldap in Debian use the LDAP server. The two
3620 implementations are quite different in how they use LDAP.&lt;/p&gt;
3621
3622 To get this information, I started slapd with debugging enabled and
3623 dumped the debug output to a file to get the LDAP searches performed
3624 on a Debian Edu main-server. Here is a summary.
3625
3626 &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;powerdns&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
3627
3628 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.linuxnetworks.de/doc/index.php/PowerDNS_LDAP_Backend&quot;&gt;Clues
3629 on how to&lt;/a&gt; set up PowerDNS to use a LDAP backend is available on
3630 the web.
3631
3632 &lt;p&gt;PowerDNS have two modes of operation using LDAP as its backend.
3633 One &quot;strict&quot; mode where the forward and reverse DNS lookups are done
3634 using the same LDAP objects, and a &quot;tree&quot; mode where the forward and
3635 reverse entries are in two different subtrees in LDAP with a structure
3636 based on the DNS names, as in tjener.intern and
3637 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa.&lt;/p&gt;
3638
3639 &lt;p&gt;In tree mode, the server is set up to use a LDAP subtree as its
3640 base, and uses a &quot;base&quot; scoped search for the DNS name by adding
3641 &quot;dc=tjener,dc=intern,&quot; to the base with a filter for
3642 &quot;(associateddomain=tjener.intern)&quot; for the forward entry and
3643 &quot;dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,&quot; with a filter for
3644 &quot;(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)&quot; for the reverse entry. For
3645 forward entries, it is looking for attributes named dnsttl, arecord,
3646 nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord,
3647 txtrecord, rprecord, afsdbrecord, keyrecord, aaaarecord, locrecord,
3648 srvrecord, naptrrecord, kxrecord, certrecord, dsrecord, sshfprecord,
3649 ipseckeyrecord, rrsigrecord, nsecrecord, dnskeyrecord, dhcidrecord,
3650 spfrecord and modifytimestamp. For reverse entries it is looking for
3651 the attributes dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord,
3652 ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord,
3653 locrecord, srvrecord, naptrrecord and modifytimestamp. The equivalent
3654 ldapsearch commands could look like this:&lt;/p&gt;
3655
3656 &lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
3657 ldapsearch -h ldap \
3658 -b dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
3659 -s base -x &#39;(associateddomain=tjener.intern)&#39; dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
3660 cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
3661 rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
3662 nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
3663 rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
3664
3665 ldapsearch -h ldap \
3666 -b dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
3667 -s base -x &#39;(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)&#39;
3668 dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord soarecord ptrrecord \
3669 hinforecord mxrecord txtrecord rprecord aaaarecord locrecord \
3670 srvrecord naptrrecord modifytimestamp
3671 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
3672
3673 &lt;p&gt;In Debian Edu/Lenny, the PowerDNS tree mode is used with
3674 ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no as the base, and these are two
3675 example LDAP objects used there. In addition to these objects, the
3676 parent objects all th way up to ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
3677 also exist.&lt;/p&gt;
3678
3679 &lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
3680 dn: dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
3681 objectclass: top
3682 objectclass: dnsdomain
3683 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
3684 dc: tjener
3685 arecord: 10.0.2.2
3686 associateddomain: tjener.intern
3687
3688 dn: dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
3689 objectclass: top
3690 objectclass: dnsdomain2
3691 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
3692 dc: 2
3693 ptrrecord: tjener.intern
3694 associateddomain: 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa
3695 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
3696
3697 &lt;p&gt;In strict mode, the server behaves differently. When looking for
3698 forward DNS entries, it is doing a &quot;subtree&quot; scoped search with the
3699 same base as in the tree mode for a object with filter
3700 &quot;(associateddomain=tjener.intern)&quot; and requests the attributes dnsttl,
3701 arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord,
3702 mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord, locrecord, srvrecord,
3703 naptrrecord and modifytimestamp. For reverse entires it also do a
3704 subtree scoped search but this time the filter is &quot;(arecord=10.0.2.2)&quot;
3705 and the requested attributes are associateddomain, dnsttl and
3706 modifytimestamp. In short, in strict mode the objects with ptrrecord
3707 go away, and the arecord attribute in the forward object is used
3708 instead.&lt;/p&gt;
3709
3710 &lt;p&gt;The forward and reverse searches can be simulated using ldapsearch
3711 like this:&lt;/p&gt;
3712
3713 &lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
3714 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
3715 &#39;(associateddomain=tjener.intern)&#39; dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
3716 cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
3717 rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
3718 nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
3719 rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
3720
3721 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
3722 &#39;(arecord=10.0.2.2)&#39; associateddomain dnsttl modifytimestamp
3723 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
3724
3725 &lt;p&gt;In addition to the forward and reverse searches , there is also a
3726 search for SOA records, which behave similar to the forward and
3727 reverse lookups.&lt;/p&gt;
3728
3729 &lt;p&gt;A thing to note with the PowerDNS behaviour is that it do not
3730 specify any objectclass names, and instead look for the attributes it
3731 need to generate a DNS reply. This make it able to work with any
3732 objectclass that provide the needed attributes.&lt;/p&gt;
3733
3734 &lt;p&gt;The attributes are normally provided in the cosine (RFC 1274) and
3735 dnsdomain2 schemas. The latter is used for reverse entries like
3736 ptrrecord and recent DNS additions like aaaarecord and srvrecord.&lt;/p&gt;
3737
3738 &lt;p&gt;In Debian Edu, we have created DNS objects using the object classes
3739 dcobject (for dc), dnsdomain or dnsdomain2 (structural, for the DNS
3740 attributes) and domainrelatedobject (for associatedDomain). The use
3741 of structural object classes make it impossible to combine these
3742 classes with the object classes used by DHCP.&lt;/p&gt;
3743
3744 &lt;p&gt;There are other schemas that could be used too, for example the
3745 dnszone structural object class used by Gosa and bind-sdb for the DNS
3746 attributes combined with the domainrelatedobject object class, but in
3747 this case some unused attributes would have to be included as well
3748 (zonename and relativedomainname).&lt;/p&gt;
3749
3750 &lt;p&gt;My proposal for Debian Edu would be to switch PowerDNS to strict
3751 mode and not use any of the existing objectclasses (dnsdomain,
3752 dnsdomain2 and dnszone) when one want to combine the DNS information
3753 with DHCP information, and instead create a auxiliary object class
3754 defined something like this (using the attributes defined for
3755 dnsdomain and dnsdomain2 or dnszone):&lt;/p&gt;
3756
3757 &lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
3758 objectclass ( some-oid NAME &#39;dnsDomainAux&#39;
3759 SUP top
3760 AUXILIARY
3761 MAY ( ARecord $ MDRecord $ MXRecord $ NSRecord $ SOARecord $ CNAMERecord $
3762 DNSTTL $ DNSClass $ PTRRecord $ HINFORecord $ MINFORecord $
3763 TXTRecord $ SIGRecord $ KEYRecord $ AAAARecord $ LOCRecord $
3764 NXTRecord $ SRVRecord $ NAPTRRecord $ KXRecord $ CERTRecord $
3765 A6Record $ DNAMERecord
3766 ))
3767 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
3768
3769 &lt;p&gt;This will allow any object to become a DNS entry when combined with
3770 the domainrelatedobject object class, and allow any entity to include
3771 all the attributes PowerDNS wants. I&#39;ve sent an email to the PowerDNS
3772 developers asking for their view on this schema and if they are
3773 interested in providing such schema with PowerDNS, and I hope my
3774 message will be accepted into their mailing list soon.&lt;/p&gt;
3775
3776 &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;ISC dhcp&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
3777
3778 &lt;p&gt;The DHCP server searches for specific objectclass and requests all
3779 the object attributes, and then uses the attributes it want. This
3780 make it harder to figure out exactly what attributes are used, but
3781 thanks to the working example in Debian Edu I can at least get an idea
3782 what is needed without having to read the source code.&lt;/p&gt;
3783
3784 &lt;p&gt;In the DHCP server configuration, the LDAP base to use and the
3785 search filter to use to locate the correct dhcpServer entity is
3786 stored. These are the relevant entries from
3787 /etc/dhcp3/dhcpd.conf:&lt;/p&gt;
3788
3789 &lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
3790 ldap-base-dn &quot;dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no&quot;;
3791 ldap-dhcp-server-cn &quot;dhcp&quot;;
3792 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
3793
3794 &lt;p&gt;The DHCP server uses this information to nest all the DHCP
3795 configuration it need. The cn &quot;dhcp&quot; is located using the given LDAP
3796 base and the filter &quot;(&amp;(objectClass=dhcpServer)(cn=dhcp))&quot;. The
3797 search result is this entry:&lt;/p&gt;
3798
3799 &lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
3800 dn: cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
3801 cn: dhcp
3802 objectClass: top
3803 objectClass: dhcpServer
3804 dhcpServiceDN: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
3805 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
3806
3807 &lt;p&gt;The content of the dhcpServiceDN attribute is next used to locate the
3808 subtree with DHCP configuration. The DHCP configuration subtree base
3809 is located using a base scope search with base &quot;cn=DHCP
3810 Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no&quot; and filter
3811 &quot;(&amp;(objectClass=dhcpService)(|(dhcpPrimaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)(dhcpSecondaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)))&quot;.
3812 The search result is this entry:&lt;/p&gt;
3813
3814 &lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
3815 dn: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
3816 cn: DHCP Config
3817 objectClass: top
3818 objectClass: dhcpService
3819 objectClass: dhcpOptions
3820 dhcpPrimaryDN: cn=dhcp, dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
3821 dhcpStatements: ddns-update-style none
3822 dhcpStatements: authoritative
3823 dhcpOption: smtp-server code 69 = array of ip-address
3824 dhcpOption: www-server code 72 = array of ip-address
3825 dhcpOption: wpad-url code 252 = text
3826 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
3827
3828 &lt;p&gt;Next, the entire subtree is processed, one level at the time. When
3829 all the DHCP configuration is loaded, it is ready to receive requests.
3830 The subtree in Debian Edu contain objects with object classes
3831 top/dhcpService/dhcpOptions, top/dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions,
3832 top/dhcpSubnet, top/dhcpGroup and top/dhcpHost. These provide options
3833 and information about netmasks, dynamic range etc. Leaving out the
3834 details here because it is not relevant for the focus of my
3835 investigation, which is to see if it is possible to merge dns and dhcp
3836 related computer objects.&lt;/p&gt;
3837
3838 &lt;p&gt;When a DHCP request come in, LDAP is searched for the MAC address
3839 of the client (00:00:00:00:00:00 in this example), using a subtree
3840 scoped search with &quot;cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no&quot; as
3841 the base and &quot;(&amp;(objectClass=dhcpHost)(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet
3842 00:00:00:00:00:00))&quot; as the filter. This is what a host object look
3843 like:&lt;/p&gt;
3844
3845 &lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
3846 dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
3847 cn: hostname
3848 objectClass: top
3849 objectClass: dhcpHost
3850 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
3851 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname
3852 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
3853
3854 &lt;p&gt;There is less flexiblity in the way LDAP searches are done here.
3855 The object classes need to have fixed names, and the configuration
3856 need to be stored in a fairly specific LDAP structure. On the
3857 positive side, the invidiual dhcpHost entires can be anywhere without
3858 the DN pointed to by the dhcpServer entries. The latter should make
3859 it possible to group all host entries in a subtree next to the
3860 configuration entries, and this subtree can also be shared with the
3861 DNS server if the schema proposed above is combined with the dhcpHost
3862 structural object class.
3863
3864 &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Conclusion&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
3865
3866 &lt;p&gt;The PowerDNS implementation seem to be very flexible when it come
3867 to which LDAP schemas to use. While its &quot;tree&quot; mode is rigid when it
3868 come to the the LDAP structure, the &quot;strict&quot; mode is very flexible,
3869 allowing DNS objects to be stored anywhere under the base cn specified
3870 in the configuration.&lt;/p&gt;
3871
3872 &lt;p&gt;The DHCP implementation on the other hand is very inflexible, both
3873 regarding which LDAP schemas to use and which LDAP structure to use.
3874 I guess one could implement ones own schema, as long as the
3875 objectclasses and attributes have the names used, but this do not
3876 really help when the DHCP subtree need to have a fairly fixed
3877 structure.&lt;/p&gt;
3878
3879 &lt;p&gt;Based on the observed behaviour, I suspect a LDAP structure like
3880 this might work for Debian Edu:&lt;/p&gt;
3881
3882 &lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
3883 ou=services
3884 cn=machine-info (dhcpService) - dhcpServiceDN points here
3885 cn=dhcp (dhcpServer)
3886 cn=dhcp-internal (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
3887 cn=10.0.2.0 (dhcpSubnet)
3888 cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
3889 cn=dhcp-thinclients (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
3890 cn=192.168.0.0 (dhcpSubnet)
3891 cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
3892 ou=machines - PowerDNS base points here
3893 cn=hostname (dhcpHost/domainrelatedobject/dnsDomainAux)
3894 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
3895
3896 &lt;P&gt;This is not tested yet. If the DHCP server require the dhcpHost
3897 entries to be in the dhcpGroup subtrees, the entries can be stored
3898 there instead of a common machines subtree, and the PowerDNS base
3899 would have to be moved one level up to the machine-info subtree.&lt;/p&gt;
3900
3901 &lt;p&gt;The combined object under the machines subtree would look something
3902 like this:&lt;/p&gt;
3903
3904 &lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
3905 dn: dc=hostname,ou=machines,cn=machine-info,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
3906 dc: hostname
3907 objectClass: top
3908 objectClass: dhcpHost
3909 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
3910 objectclass: dnsDomainAux
3911 associateddomain: hostname.intern
3912 arecord: 10.11.12.13
3913 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
3914 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname.intern
3915 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
3916
3917 &lt;/p&gt;One could even add the LTSP configuration associated with a given
3918 machine, as long as the required attributes are available in a
3919 auxiliary object class.&lt;/p&gt;
3920 </description>
3921 </item>
3922
3923 <item>
3924 <title>Combining PowerDNS and ISC DHCP LDAP objects</title>
3925 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html</link>
3926 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html</guid>
3927 <pubDate>Wed, 14 Jul 2010 23:45:00 +0200</pubDate>
3928 <description>&lt;p&gt;For a while now, I have wanted to find a way to change the DNS and
3929 DHCP services in Debian Edu to use the same LDAP objects for a given
3930 computer, to avoid the possibility of having a inconsistent state for
3931 a computer in LDAP (as in DHCP but no DNS entry or the other way
3932 around) and make it easier to add computers to LDAP.&lt;/p&gt;
3933
3934 &lt;p&gt;I&#39;ve looked at how powerdns and dhcpd is using LDAP, and using this
3935 information finally found a solution that seem to work.&lt;/p&gt;
3936
3937 &lt;p&gt;The old setup required three LDAP objects for a given computer.
3938 One forward DNS entry, one reverse DNS entry and one DHCP entry. If
3939 we switch powerdns to use its strict LDAP method (ldap-method=strict
3940 in pdns-debian-edu.conf), the forward and reverse DNS entries are
3941 merged into one while making it impossible to transfer the reverse map
3942 to a slave DNS server.&lt;/p&gt;
3943
3944 &lt;p&gt;If we also replace the object class used to get the DNS related
3945 attributes to one allowing these attributes to be combined with the
3946 dhcphost object class, we can merge the DNS and DHCP entries into one.
3947 I&#39;ve written such object class in the dnsdomainaux.schema file (need
3948 proper OIDs, but that is a minor issue), and tested the setup. It
3949 seem to work.&lt;/p&gt;
3950
3951 &lt;p&gt;With this test setup in place, we can get away with one LDAP object
3952 for both DNS and DHCP, and even the LTSP configuration I suggested in
3953 an earlier email. The combined LDAP object will look something like
3954 this:&lt;/p&gt;
3955
3956 &lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
3957 dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
3958 cn: hostname
3959 objectClass: dhcphost
3960 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
3961 objectclass: dnsdomainaux
3962 associateddomain: hostname.intern
3963 arecord: 10.11.12.13
3964 dhcphwaddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
3965 dhcpstatements: fixed-address hostname
3966 ldapconfigsound: Y
3967 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
3968
3969 &lt;p&gt;The DNS server uses the associateddomain and arecord entries, while
3970 the DHCP server uses the dhcphwaddress and dhcpstatements entries
3971 before asking DNS to resolve the fixed-adddress. LTSP will use
3972 dhcphwaddress or associateddomain and the ldapconfig* attributes.&lt;/p&gt;
3973
3974 &lt;p&gt;I am not yet sure if I can get the DHCP server to look for its
3975 dhcphost in a different location, to allow us to put the objects
3976 outside the &quot;DHCP Config&quot; subtree, but hope to figure out a way to do
3977 that. If I can&#39;t figure out a way to do that, we can still get rid of
3978 the hosts subtree and move all its content into the DHCP Config tree
3979 (which probably should be renamed to be more related to the new
3980 content. I suspect cn=dnsdhcp,ou=services or something like that
3981 might be a good place to put it.&lt;/p&gt;
3982
3983 &lt;p&gt;If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
3984 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.&lt;/p&gt;
3985 </description>
3986 </item>
3987
3988 <item>
3989 <title>Idea for storing LTSP configuration in LDAP</title>
3990 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Idea_for_storing_LTSP_configuration_in_LDAP.html</link>
3991 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Idea_for_storing_LTSP_configuration_in_LDAP.html</guid>
3992 <pubDate>Sun, 11 Jul 2010 22:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
3993 <description>&lt;p&gt;Vagrant mentioned on IRC today that ltsp_config now support
3994 sourcing files from /usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ on the thin
3995 clients, and that this can be used to fetch configuration from LDAP if
3996 Debian Edu choose to store configuration there.&lt;/p&gt;
3997
3998 &lt;p&gt;Armed with this information, I got inspired and wrote a test module
3999 to get configuration from LDAP. The idea is to look up the MAC
4000 address of the client in LDAP, and look for attributes on the form
4001 ltspconfigsetting=value, and use this to export SETTING=value to the
4002 LTSP clients.&lt;/p&gt;
4003
4004 &lt;p&gt;The goal is to be able to store the LTSP configuration attributes
4005 in a &quot;computer&quot; LDAP object used by both DNS and DHCP, and thus
4006 allowing us to store all information about a computer in one place.&lt;/p&gt;
4007
4008 &lt;p&gt;This is a untested draft implementation, and I welcome feedback on
4009 this approach. A real LDAP schema for the ltspClientAux objectclass
4010 need to be written. Comments, suggestions, etc?&lt;/p&gt;
4011
4012 &lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
4013 # Store in /opt/ltsp/$arch/usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ldap-config
4014 #
4015 # Fetch LTSP client settings from LDAP based on MAC address
4016 #
4017 # Uses ethernet address as stored in the dhcpHost objectclass using
4018 # the dhcpHWAddress attribute or ethernet address stored in the
4019 # ieee802Device objectclass with the macAddress attribute.
4020 #
4021 # This module is written to be schema agnostic, and only depend on the
4022 # existence of attribute names.
4023 #
4024 # The LTSP configuration variables are saved directly using a
4025 # ltspConfig prefix and uppercasing the rest of the attribute name.
4026 # To set the SERVER variable, set the ltspConfigServer attribute.
4027 #
4028 # Some LDAP schema should be created with all the relevant
4029 # configuration settings. Something like this should work:
4030 #
4031 # objectclass ( 1.1.2.2 NAME &#39;ltspClientAux&#39;
4032 # SUP top
4033 # AUXILIARY
4034 # MAY ( ltspConfigServer $ ltsConfigSound $ ... )
4035
4036 LDAPSERVER=$(debian-edu-ldapserver)
4037 if [ &quot;$LDAPSERVER&quot; ] ; then
4038 LDAPBASE=$(debian-edu-ldapserver -b)
4039 for MAC in $(LANG=C ifconfig |grep -i hwaddr| awk &#39;{print $5}&#39;|sort -u) ; do
4040 filter=&quot;(|(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet $MAC)(macAddress=$MAC))&quot;
4041 ldapsearch -h &quot;$LDAPSERVER&quot; -b &quot;$LDAPBASE&quot; -v -x &quot;$filter&quot; | \
4042 grep &#39;^ltspConfig&#39; | while read attr value ; do
4043 # Remove prefix and convert to upper case
4044 attr=$(echo $attr | sed &#39;s/^ltspConfig//i&#39; | tr a-z A-Z)
4045 # bass value on to clients
4046 eval &quot;$attr=$value; export $attr&quot;
4047 done
4048 done
4049 fi
4050 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
4051
4052 &lt;p&gt;I&#39;m not sure this shell construction will work, because I suspect
4053 the while block might end up in a subshell causing the variables set
4054 there to not show up in ltsp-config, but if that is the case I am sure
4055 the code can be restructured to make sure the variables are passed on.
4056 I expect that can be solved with some testing. :)&lt;/p&gt;
4057
4058 &lt;p&gt;If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
4059 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.&lt;/p&gt;
4060
4061 &lt;p&gt;Update 2010-07-17: I am aware of another effort to store LTSP
4062 configuration in LDAP that was created around year 2000 by
4063 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.pcxperience.com/thinclient/documentation/ldap.html&quot;&gt;PC
4064 Xperience, Inc., 2000&lt;/a&gt;. I found its
4065 &lt;a href=&quot;http://people.redhat.com/alikins/ltsp/ldap/&quot;&gt;files&lt;/a&gt; on a
4066 personal home page over at redhat.com.&lt;/p&gt;
4067 </description>
4068 </item>
4069
4070 <item>
4071 <title>jXplorer, a very nice LDAP GUI</title>
4072 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/jXplorer__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html</link>
4073 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/jXplorer__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html</guid>
4074 <pubDate>Fri, 9 Jul 2010 12:55:00 +0200</pubDate>
4075 <description>&lt;p&gt;Since
4076 &lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html&quot;&gt;my
4077 last post&lt;/a&gt; about available LDAP tools in Debian, I was told about a
4078 LDAP GUI that is even better than luma. The java application
4079 &lt;a href=&quot;http://jxplorer.org/&quot;&gt;jXplorer&lt;/a&gt; is claimed to be capable of
4080 moving LDAP objects and subtrees using drag-and-drop, and can
4081 authenticate using Kerberos. I have only tested the Kerberos
4082 authentication, but do not have a LDAP setup allowing me to rewrite
4083 LDAP with my test user yet. It is
4084 &lt;a href=&quot;http://packages.qa.debian.org/j/jxplorer.html&quot;&gt;available in
4085 Debian&lt;/a&gt; testing and unstable at the moment. The only problem I
4086 have with it is how it handle errors. If something go wrong, its
4087 non-intuitive behaviour require me to go through some query work list
4088 and remove the failing query. Nothing big, but very annoying.&lt;/p&gt;
4089 </description>
4090 </item>
4091
4092 <item>
4093 <title>Lenny-&gt;Squeeze upgrades, apt vs aptitude with the Gnome desktop</title>
4094 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lenny__Squeeze_upgrades__apt_vs_aptitude_with_the_Gnome_desktop.html</link>
4095 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lenny__Squeeze_upgrades__apt_vs_aptitude_with_the_Gnome_desktop.html</guid>
4096 <pubDate>Sat, 3 Jul 2010 23:55:00 +0200</pubDate>
4097 <description>&lt;p&gt;Here is a short update on my &lt;a
4098 href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/&quot;&gt;my
4099 Debian Lenny-&gt;Squeeze upgrade testing&lt;/a&gt;. Here is a summary of the
4100 difference for Gnome when it is upgraded by apt-get and aptitude. I&#39;m
4101 not reporting the status for KDE, because the upgrade crashes when
4102 aptitude try because of missing conflicts
4103 (&lt;a href=&quot;http://bugs.debian.org/584861&quot;&gt;#584861&lt;/a&gt; and
4104 &lt;a href=&quot;http://bugs.debian.org/585716&quot;&gt;#585716&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;
4105
4106 &lt;p&gt;At the end of the upgrade test script, dpkg -l is executed to get a
4107 complete list of the installed packages. Based on this I see these
4108 differences when I did a test run today. As usual, I do not really
4109 know what the correct set of packages would be, but thought it best to
4110 publish the difference.&lt;/p&gt;
4111
4112 &lt;p&gt;Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude&lt;/p&gt;
4113
4114 &lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;p&gt;
4115 at-spi cpp-4.3 finger gnome-spell gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
4116 libatspi1.0-0 libcupsys2 libeel2-data libgail-common libgdl-1-common
4117 libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin
4118 libgtksourceview-common libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
4119 libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libservlet2.4-java libxalan2-java
4120 libxerces2-java openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
4121 python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gtkhtml2
4122 python-gtkmozembed svgalibg1 xserver-xephyr zip
4123 &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
4124
4125 &lt;p&gt;Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude&lt;/p&gt;
4126
4127 &lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;p&gt;
4128 bluez-utils dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop epiphany-gecko
4129 gnome-app-install gnome-mount gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager
4130 libao2 libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libbind9-50
4131 libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcurl3
4132 libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9
4133 libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3
4134 libfaad0 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
4135 libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
4136 libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
4137 libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
4138 libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50
4139 libisccfg50 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick++10
4140 libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4
4141 libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5
4142 libparted1.8-10 libpisock9 libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3
4143 libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8 libsensors3 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
4144 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1
4145 libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0 libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj
4146 libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3
4147 mysql-common swfdec-gnome totem-gstreamer wodim
4148 &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
4149
4150 &lt;p&gt;Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get&lt;/p&gt;
4151
4152 &lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;p&gt;
4153 gnome gnome-desktop-environment hamster-applet python-gnomeapplet
4154 python-gnomekeyring python-wnck rhythmbox-plugins xorg
4155 xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
4156 xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
4157 xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-video-all
4158 xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark xserver-xorg-video-ati
4159 xserver-xorg-video-chips xserver-xorg-video-cirrus
4160 xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
4161 xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
4162 xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-mach64
4163 xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
4164 xserver-xorg-video-nouveau xserver-xorg-video-nv
4165 xserver-xorg-video-r128 xserver-xorg-video-radeon
4166 xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd xserver-xorg-video-rendition
4167 xserver-xorg-video-s3 xserver-xorg-video-s3virge
4168 xserver-xorg-video-savage xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion
4169 xserver-xorg-video-sis xserver-xorg-video-sisusb
4170 xserver-xorg-video-tdfx xserver-xorg-video-tga
4171 xserver-xorg-video-trident xserver-xorg-video-tseng
4172 xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vmware
4173 xserver-xorg-video-voodoo
4174 &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
4175
4176 &lt;p&gt;Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get&lt;/p&gt;
4177
4178 &lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;p&gt;
4179 deskbar-applet xserver-xorg xserver-xorg-core
4180 xserver-xorg-input-wacom xserver-xorg-video-intel
4181 xserver-xorg-video-openchrome
4182 &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
4183
4184 &lt;p&gt;I was told on IRC that the xorg-xserver package was
4185 &lt;a href=&quot;http://git.debian.org/?p=pkg-xorg/xserver/xorg-server.git;a=commit;h=9c8080d06c457932d3bfec021c69ac000aa60120&quot;&gt;changed
4186 in git&lt;/a&gt; today to try to get apt-get to not remove xorg completely.
4187 No idea when it hits Squeeze, but when it does I hope it will reduce
4188 the difference somewhat.
4189 </description>
4190 </item>
4191
4192 <item>
4193 <title>LUMA, a very nice LDAP GUI</title>
4194 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html</link>
4195 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html</guid>
4196 <pubDate>Mon, 28 Jun 2010 00:30:00 +0200</pubDate>
4197 <description>&lt;p&gt;The last few days I have been looking into the status of the LDAP
4198 directory in Debian Edu, and in the process I started to miss a GUI
4199 tool to browse the LDAP tree. The only one I was able to find in
4200 Debian/Squeeze and Lenny is
4201 &lt;a href=&quot;http://luma.sourceforge.net/&quot;&gt;LUMA&lt;/a&gt;, which has proved to
4202 be a great tool to get a overview of the current LDAP directory
4203 populated by default in Skolelinux. Thanks to it, I have been able to
4204 find empty and obsolete subtrees, misplaced objects and duplicate
4205 objects. It will be installed by default in Debian/Squeeze. If you
4206 are working with LDAP, give it a go. :)&lt;/p&gt;
4207
4208 &lt;p&gt;I did notice one problem with it I have not had time to report to
4209 the BTS yet. There is no .desktop file in the package, so the tool do
4210 not show up in the Gnome and KDE menus, but only deep down in in the
4211 Debian submenu in KDE. I hope that can be fixed before Squeeze is
4212 released.&lt;/p&gt;
4213
4214 &lt;p&gt;I have not yet been able to get it to modify the tree yet. I would
4215 like to move objects and remove subtrees directly in the GUI, but have
4216 not found a way to do that with LUMA yet. So in the mean time, I use
4217 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.lichteblau.com/ldapvi/&quot;&gt;ldapvi&lt;/a&gt; for that.&lt;/p&gt;
4218
4219 &lt;p&gt;If you have tips on other GUI tools for LDAP that might be useful
4220 in Debian Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.&lt;/p&gt;
4221
4222 &lt;p&gt;Update 2010-06-29: Ross Reedstrom tipped us about the
4223 &lt;a href=&quot;http://packages.qa.debian.org/g/gq.html&quot;&gt;gq&lt;/a&gt; package as a
4224 useful GUI alternative. It seem like a good tool, but is unmaintained
4225 in Debian and got a RC bug keeping it out of Squeeze. Unless that
4226 changes, it will not be an option for Debian Edu based on Squeeze.&lt;/p&gt;
4227 </description>
4228 </item>
4229
4230 <item>
4231 <title>Idea for a change to LDAP schemas allowing DNS and DHCP info to be combined into one object</title>
4232 <link>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</link>
4233 <guid isPermaLink="true">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</guid>
4234 <pubDate>Thu, 24 Jun 2010 00:35:00 +0200</pubDate>
4235 <description>&lt;p&gt;A while back, I
4236 &lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html&quot;&gt;complained
4237 about the fact&lt;/a&gt; that it is not possible with the provided schemas
4238 for storing DNS and DHCP information in LDAP to combine the two sets
4239 of information into one LDAP object representing a computer.&lt;/p&gt;
4240
4241 &lt;p&gt;In the mean time, I discovered that a simple fix would be to make
4242 the dhcpHost object class auxiliary, to allow it to be combined with
4243 the dNSDomain object class, and thus forming one object for one
4244 computer when storing both DHCP and DNS information in LDAP.&lt;/p&gt;
4245
4246 &lt;p&gt;If I understand this correctly, it is not safe to do this change
4247 without also changing the assigned number for the object class, and I
4248 do not know enough about LDAP schema design to do that properly for
4249 Debian Edu.&lt;/p&gt;
4250
4251 &lt;p&gt;Anyway, for future reference, this is how I believe we could change
4252 the
4253 &lt;a href=&quot;http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-dhc-ldap-schema-00&quot;&gt;DHCP
4254 schema&lt;/a&gt; to solve at least part of the problem with the LDAP schemas
4255 available today from IETF.&lt;/p&gt;
4256
4257 &lt;pre&gt;
4258 --- dhcp.schema (revision 65192)
4259 +++ dhcp.schema (working copy)
4260 @@ -376,7 +376,7 @@
4261 objectclass ( 2.16.840.1.113719.1.203.6.6
4262 NAME &#39;dhcpHost&#39;
4263 DESC &#39;This represents information about a particular client&#39;
4264 - SUP top
4265 + SUP top AUXILIARY
4266 MUST cn
4267 MAY (dhcpLeaseDN $ dhcpHWAddress $ dhcpOptionsDN $ dhcpStatements $ dhcpComments $ dhcpOption)
4268 X-NDS_CONTAINMENT (&#39;dhcpService&#39; &#39;dhcpSubnet&#39; &#39;dhcpGroup&#39;) )
4269 &lt;/pre&gt;
4270
4271 &lt;p&gt;I very much welcome clues on how to do this properly for Debian
4272 Edu/Squeeze. We provide the DHCP schema in our debian-edu-config
4273 package, and should thus be free to rewrite it as we see fit.&lt;/p&gt;
4274
4275 &lt;p&gt;If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
4276 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.&lt;/p&gt;
4277 </description>
4278 </item>
4279
4280 <item>
4281 <title>Calling tasksel like the installer, while still getting useful output</title>
4282 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Calling_tasksel_like_the_installer__while_still_getting_useful_output.html</link>
4283 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Calling_tasksel_like_the_installer__while_still_getting_useful_output.html</guid>
4284 <pubDate>Wed, 16 Jun 2010 14:55:00 +0200</pubDate>
4285 <description>&lt;p&gt;A few times I have had the need to simulate the way tasksel
4286 installs packages during the normal debian-installer run. Until now,
4287 I have ended up letting tasksel do the work, with the annoying problem
4288 of not getting any feedback at all when something fails (like a
4289 conffile question from dpkg or a download that fails), using code like
4290 this:
4291
4292 &lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
4293 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
4294 tasksel --new-install
4295 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
4296
4297 This would invoke tasksel, let its automatic task selection pick the
4298 tasks to install, and continue to install the requested tasks without
4299 any output what so ever.
4300
4301 Recently I revisited this problem while working on the automatic
4302 package upgrade testing, because tasksel would some times hang without
4303 any useful feedback, and I want to see what is going on when it
4304 happen. Then it occured to me, I can parse the output from tasksel
4305 when asked to run in test mode, and use that aptitude command line
4306 printed by tasksel then to simulate the tasksel run. I ended up using
4307 code like this:
4308
4309 &lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
4310 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
4311 cmd=&quot;$(in_target tasksel -t --new-install | sed &#39;s/debconf-apt-progress -- //&#39;)&quot;
4312 $cmd
4313 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
4314
4315 &lt;p&gt;The content of $cmd is typically something like &quot;&lt;tt&gt;aptitude -q
4316 --without-recommends -o APT::Install-Recommends=no -y install
4317 ~t^desktop$ ~t^gnome-desktop$ ~t^laptop$ ~pstandard ~prequired
4318 ~pimportant&lt;/tt&gt;&quot;, which will install the gnome desktop task, the
4319 laptop task and all packages with priority standard , required and
4320 important, just like tasksel would have done it during
4321 installation.&lt;/p&gt;
4322
4323 &lt;p&gt;A better approach is probably to extend tasksel to be able to
4324 install packages without using debconf-apt-progress, for use cases
4325 like this.&lt;/p&gt;
4326 </description>
4327 </item>
4328
4329 <item>
4330 <title>Lenny-&gt;Squeeze upgrades, removals by apt and aptitude</title>
4331 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lenny__Squeeze_upgrades__removals_by_apt_and_aptitude.html</link>
4332 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lenny__Squeeze_upgrades__removals_by_apt_and_aptitude.html</guid>
4333 <pubDate>Sun, 13 Jun 2010 09:05:00 +0200</pubDate>
4334 <description>&lt;p&gt;My
4335 &lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html&quot;&gt;testing
4336 of Debian upgrades&lt;/a&gt; from Lenny to Squeeze continues, and I&#39;ve
4337 finally made the upgrade logs available from
4338 &lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/&quot;&gt;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/&lt;/a&gt;.
4339 I am now testing dist-upgrade of Gnome and KDE in a chroot using both
4340 apt and aptitude, and found their differences interesting. This time
4341 I will only focus on their removal plans.&lt;/p&gt;
4342
4343 &lt;p&gt;After installing a Gnome desktop and the laptop task, apt-get wants
4344 to remove 72 packages when dist-upgrading from Lenny to Squeeze. The
4345 surprising part is that it want to remove xorg and all
4346 xserver-xorg-video* drivers. Clearly not a good choice, but I am not
4347 sure why. When asking aptitude to do the same, it want to remove 129
4348 packages, but most of them are library packages I suspect are no
4349 longer needed. Both of them want to remove bluetooth packages, which
4350 I do not know. Perhaps these bluetooth packages are obsolete?&lt;/p&gt;
4351
4352 &lt;p&gt;For KDE, apt-get want to remove 82 packages, among them kdebase
4353 which seem like a bad idea and xorg the same way as with Gnome. Asking
4354 aptitude for the same, it wants to remove 192 packages, none which are
4355 too surprising.&lt;/p&gt;
4356
4357 &lt;p&gt;I guess the removal of xorg during upgrades should be investigated
4358 and avoided, and perhaps others as well. Here are the complete list
4359 of planned removals. The complete logs is available from the URL
4360 above. Note if you want to repeat these tests, that the upgrade test
4361 for kde+apt-get hung in the tasksel setup because of dpkg asking
4362 conffile questions. No idea why. I worked around it by using
4363 &#39;&lt;tt&gt;echo &gt;&gt; /proc/&lt;em&gt;pidofdpkg&lt;/em&gt;/fd/0&lt;/tt&gt;&#39; to tell dpkg to
4364 continue.&lt;/p&gt;
4365
4366 &lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;apt-get gnome 72&lt;/b&gt;
4367 &lt;br&gt;bluez-gnome cupsddk-drivers deskbar-applet gnome
4368 gnome-desktop-environment gnome-network-admin gtkhtml3.14
4369 iceweasel-gnome-support libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libgdl-1-0
4370 libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libmetacity0 libslab0 libxcb-xlib0
4371 nautilus-cd-burner python-gnome2-desktop python-gnome2-extras
4372 serpentine swfdec-mozilla update-manager xorg xserver-xorg
4373 xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
4374 xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
4375 xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
4376 xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
4377 xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
4378 xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
4379 xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
4380 xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
4381 xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
4382 xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
4383 xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
4384 xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
4385 xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
4386 xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
4387 xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
4388 xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
4389 xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
4390 xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
4391 xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
4392 xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
4393 xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
4394 xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9
4395 xulrunner-1.9-gnome-support&lt;/p&gt;
4396
4397 &lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;aptitude gnome 129&lt;/b&gt;
4398
4399 &lt;br&gt;bluez-gnome bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers dhcdbd
4400 djvulibre-desktop finger gnome-app-install gnome-mount
4401 gnome-network-admin gnome-spell gnome-vfs-obexftp
4402 gnome-volume-manager gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs gtkhtml3.14 libao2
4403 libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
4404 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcupsys2 libcurl3 libdatrie0
4405 libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20
4406 libeel2-data libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libfaad0 libgail-common
4407 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libgdl-1-0 libgdl-1-common
4408 libggz2 libggzcore9 libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0
4409 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libgnomeprint2.2-0
4410 libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgnomeprintui2.2-common
4411 libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
4412 libgtksourceview-common libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6
4413 libhesiod0 libicu38 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 libmagick++10
4414 libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmetacity0 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off
4415 libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2
4416 libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10
4417 libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libraw1394-8
4418 libsensors3 libslab0 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8 libssh2-1
4419 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10
4420 libtrackerclient0 libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0
4421 libxerces2-java libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6
4422 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common nautilus-cd-burner
4423 openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
4424 python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gnome2-desktop
4425 python-gnome2-extras python-gtkhtml2 python-gtkmozembed
4426 python-numeric python-sexy serpentine svgalibg1 swfdec-gnome
4427 swfdec-mozilla totem-gstreamer update-manager wodim
4428 xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
4429 xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
4430 zip&lt;/p&gt;
4431
4432 &lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;apt-get kde 82&lt;/b&gt;
4433
4434 &lt;br&gt;cupsddk-drivers karm kaudiocreator kcoloredit kcontrol kde kde-core
4435 kdeaddons kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-bin kdebase-bin-kde3
4436 kdebase-kio-plugins kdesktop kdeutils khelpcenter kicker
4437 kicker-applets knewsticker kolourpaint konq-plugins konqueror korn
4438 kpersonalizer kscreensaver ksplash libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libkiten1
4439 libxcb-xlib0 quanta superkaramba texlive-base-bin xorg xserver-xorg
4440 xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
4441 xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
4442 xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
4443 xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
4444 xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
4445 xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
4446 xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
4447 xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
4448 xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
4449 xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
4450 xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
4451 xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
4452 xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
4453 xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
4454 xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
4455 xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
4456 xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
4457 xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
4458 xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
4459 xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
4460 xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
4461 xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9&lt;/p&gt;
4462
4463 &lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;aptitude kde 192&lt;/b&gt;
4464 &lt;br&gt;bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers cvs dcoprss dhcdbd
4465 djvulibre-desktop dosfstools eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
4466 ghostscript-x imlib-base imlib11 indi kandy karm kasteroids
4467 kaudiocreator kbackgammon kbstate kcoloredit kcontrol kcron kdat
4468 kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
4469 kdebase-bin-kde3 kdebase-kio-plugins kdeedu-data
4470 kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data
4471 kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
4472 kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdeprint kdesktop kdessh
4473 kdict kdnssd kdvi kedit keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs
4474 kghostview khelpcenter khexedit kiconedit kitchensync klatin
4475 klickety kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmoon kmrml kodo kolourpaint
4476 kooka korn kpager kpdf kpercentage kpf kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler
4477 krec kregexpeditor ksayit ksim ksirc ksirtet ksmiletris ksmserver
4478 ksnake ksokoban ksplash ksvg ksysv ktip ktnef kuickshow kverbos
4479 kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kworldclock
4480 kxsldbg libakode2 libao2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
4481 libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
4482 libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
4483 libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0 libdatrie0
4484 libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
4485 libgail-common libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0
4486 libicu38 libiec61883-0 libindex0 libiw29 libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1
4487 libkdeedu3 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkiten1 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
4488 libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
4489 libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 libmagick10 libmimelib1c2a
4490 libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9
4491 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 libsmbios2
4492 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libtalloc1 libtiff-tools
4493 libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0 libxerces2-java
4494 libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 mpeglib networkstatus
4495 openoffice.org-writer2latex pmount poster psutils quanta quanta-data
4496 superkaramba svgalibg1 tex-common texlive-base texlive-base-bin
4497 texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended
4498 xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
4499 xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
4500 xulrunner-1.9&lt;/p&gt;
4501
4502 </description>
4503 </item>
4504
4505 <item>
4506 <title>Automatic upgrade testing from Lenny to Squeeze</title>
4507 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html</link>
4508 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html</guid>
4509 <pubDate>Fri, 11 Jun 2010 22:50:00 +0200</pubDate>
4510 <description>&lt;p&gt;The last few days I have done some upgrade testing in Debian, to
4511 see if the upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze will go smoothly. A few bugs
4512 have been discovered and reported in the process
4513 (&lt;a href=&quot;http://bugs.debian.org/585410&quot;&gt;#585410&lt;/a&gt; in nagios3-cgi,
4514 &lt;a href=&quot;http://bugs.debian.org/584879&quot;&gt;#584879&lt;/a&gt; already fixed in
4515 enscript and &lt;a href=&quot;http://bugs.debian.org/584861&quot;&gt;#584861&lt;/a&gt; in
4516 kdebase-workspace-data), and to get a more regular testing going on, I
4517 am working on a script to automate the test.&lt;/p&gt;
4518
4519 &lt;p&gt;The idea is to create a Lenny chroot and use tasksel to install a
4520 Gnome or KDE desktop installation inside the chroot before upgrading
4521 it. To ensure no services are started in the chroot, a policy-rc.d
4522 script is inserted. To make sure tasksel believe it is to install a
4523 desktop on a laptop, the tasksel tests are replaced in the chroot
4524 (only acceptable because this is a throw-away chroot).&lt;/p&gt;
4525
4526 &lt;p&gt;A naive upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze using aptitude dist-upgrade
4527 currently always fail because udev refuses to upgrade with the kernel
4528 in Lenny, so to avoid that problem the file /etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
4529 is created. The bug report
4530 &lt;a href=&quot;http://bugs.debian.org/566000&quot;&gt;#566000&lt;/a&gt; make me suspect
4531 this problem do not trigger in a chroot, but I touch the file anyway
4532 to make sure the upgrade go well. Testing on virtual and real
4533 hardware have failed me because of udev so far, and creating this file
4534 do the trick in such settings anyway. This is a
4535 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/debian-26/failed-dist-upgrade-due-to-udev-config_sysfs_deprecated-nonsense-804130/&quot;&gt;known
4536 issue&lt;/a&gt; and the current udev behaviour is intended by the udev
4537 maintainer because he lack the resources to rewrite udev to keep
4538 working with old kernels or something like that. I really wish the
4539 udev upstream would keep udev backwards compatible, to avoid such
4540 upgrade problem, but given that they fail to do so, I guess
4541 documenting the way out of this mess is the best option we got for
4542 Debian Squeeze.&lt;/p&gt;
4543
4544 &lt;p&gt;Anyway, back to the task at hand, testing upgrades. This test
4545 script, which I call &lt;tt&gt;upgrade-test&lt;/tt&gt; for now, is doing the
4546 trick:&lt;/p&gt;
4547
4548 &lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
4549 #!/bin/sh
4550 set -ex
4551
4552 if [ &quot;$1&quot; ] ; then
4553 desktop=$1
4554 else
4555 desktop=gnome
4556 fi
4557
4558 from=lenny
4559 to=squeeze
4560
4561 exec &amp;lt; /dev/null
4562 unset LANG
4563 mirror=http://ftp.skolelinux.org/debian
4564 tmpdir=chroot-$from-upgrade-$to-$desktop
4565 fuser -mv .
4566 debootstrap $from $tmpdir $mirror
4567 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
4568 cat &gt; $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d &amp;lt;&amp;lt;EOF
4569 #!/bin/sh
4570 exit 101
4571 EOF
4572 chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d
4573 exit_cleanup() {
4574 umount $tmpdir/proc
4575 }
4576 mount -t proc proc $tmpdir/proc
4577 # Make sure proc is unmounted also on failure
4578 trap exit_cleanup EXIT INT
4579
4580 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y install debconf-utils
4581
4582 # Make sure tasksel autoselection trigger. It need the test scripts
4583 # to return the correct answers.
4584 echo tasksel tasksel/desktop multiselect $desktop | \
4585 chroot $tmpdir debconf-set-selections
4586
4587 # Include the desktop and laptop task
4588 for test in desktop laptop ; do
4589 echo &gt; $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test &amp;lt;&amp;lt;EOF
4590 #!/bin/sh
4591 exit 2
4592 EOF
4593 chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test
4594 done
4595
4596 DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
4597 DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical
4598 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND DEBIAN_PRIORITY
4599 chroot $tmpdir tasksel --new-install
4600
4601 echo deb $mirror $to main &gt; $tmpdir/etc/apt/sources.list
4602 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
4603 touch $tmpdir/etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
4604 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y dist-upgrade
4605 fuser -mv
4606 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
4607
4608 &lt;p&gt;I suspect it would be useful to test upgrades with both apt-get and
4609 with aptitude, but I have not had time to look at how they behave
4610 differently so far. I hope to get a cron job running to do the test
4611 regularly and post the result on the web. The Gnome upgrade currently
4612 work, while the KDE upgrade fail because of the bug in
4613 kdebase-workspace-data&lt;/p&gt;
4614
4615 &lt;p&gt;I am not quite sure what kind of extract from the huge upgrade logs
4616 (KDE 167 KiB, Gnome 516 KiB) it make sense to include in this blog
4617 post, so I will refrain from trying. I can report that for Gnome,
4618 aptitude report 760 packages upgraded, 448 newly installed, 129 to
4619 remove and 1 not upgraded and 1024MB need to be downloaded while for
4620 KDE the same numbers are 702 packages upgraded, 507 newly installed,
4621 193 to remove and 0 not upgraded and 1117MB need to be downloaded&lt;/p&gt;
4622
4623 &lt;p&gt;I am very happy to notice that the Gnome desktop + laptop upgrade
4624 is able to migrate to dependency based boot sequencing and parallel
4625 booting without a hitch. Was unsure if there were still bugs with
4626 packages failing to clean up their obsolete init.d script during
4627 upgrades, and no such problem seem to affect the Gnome desktop+laptop
4628 packages.&lt;/p&gt;
4629 </description>
4630 </item>
4631
4632 <item>
4633 <title>Upstart or sysvinit - as init.d scripts see it</title>
4634 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Upstart_or_sysvinit___as_init_d_scripts_see_it.html</link>
4635 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Upstart_or_sysvinit___as_init_d_scripts_see_it.html</guid>
4636 <pubDate>Sun, 6 Jun 2010 23:55:00 +0200</pubDate>
4637 <description>&lt;p&gt;If Debian is to migrate to upstart on Linux, I expect some init.d
4638 scripts to migrate (some of) their operations to upstart job while
4639 keeping the init.d for hurd and kfreebsd. The packages with such
4640 needs will need a way to get their init.d scripts to behave
4641 differently when used with sysvinit and with upstart. Because of
4642 this, I had a look at the environment variables set when a init.d
4643 script is running under upstart, and when it is not.&lt;/p&gt;
4644
4645 &lt;p&gt;With upstart, I notice these environment variables are set when a
4646 script is started from rcS.d/ (ignoring some irrelevant ones like
4647 COLUMNS):&lt;/p&gt;
4648
4649 &lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
4650 DEFAULT_RUNLEVEL=2
4651 previous=N
4652 PREVLEVEL=
4653 RUNLEVEL=
4654 runlevel=S
4655 UPSTART_EVENTS=startup
4656 UPSTART_INSTANCE=
4657 UPSTART_JOB=rc-sysinit
4658 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
4659
4660 &lt;p&gt;With sysvinit, these environment variables are set for the same
4661 script.&lt;/p&gt;
4662
4663 &lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
4664 INIT_VERSION=sysvinit-2.88
4665 previous=N
4666 PREVLEVEL=N
4667 RUNLEVEL=S
4668 runlevel=S
4669 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
4670
4671 &lt;p&gt;The RUNLEVEL and PREVLEVEL environment variables passed on from
4672 sysvinit are not set by upstart. Not sure if it is intentional or not
4673 to not be compatible with sysvinit in this regard.&lt;/p&gt;
4674
4675 &lt;p&gt;For scripts needing to behave differently when upstart is used,
4676 looking for the UPSTART_JOB environment variable seem to be a good
4677 choice.&lt;/p&gt;
4678 </description>
4679 </item>
4680
4681 <item>
4682 <title>A manual for standards wars...</title>
4683 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_manual_for_standards_wars___.html</link>
4684 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_manual_for_standards_wars___.html</guid>
4685 <pubDate>Sun, 6 Jun 2010 14:15:00 +0200</pubDate>
4686 <description>&lt;p&gt;Via the
4687 &lt;a href=&quot;http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/robweir/antic-atom/~3/QzU4RgoAGMg/weekly-links-10.html&quot;&gt;blog
4688 of Rob Weir&lt;/a&gt; I came across the very interesting essay named
4689 &lt;a href=&quot;http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/shapiro/wars.pdf&quot;&gt;The Art of
4690 Standards Wars&lt;/a&gt; (PDF 25 pages). I recommend it for everyone
4691 following the standards wars of today.&lt;/p&gt;
4692 </description>
4693 </item>
4694
4695 <item>
4696 <title>Sitesummary tip: Listing computer hardware models used at site</title>
4697 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Sitesummary_tip__Listing_computer_hardware_models_used_at_site.html</link>
4698 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Sitesummary_tip__Listing_computer_hardware_models_used_at_site.html</guid>
4699 <pubDate>Thu, 3 Jun 2010 12:05:00 +0200</pubDate>
4700 <description>&lt;p&gt;When using sitesummary at a site to track machines, it is possible
4701 to get a list of the machine types in use thanks to the DMI
4702 information extracted from each machine. The script to do so is
4703 included in the sitesummary package, and here is example output from
4704 the Skolelinux build servers:&lt;/p&gt;
4705
4706 &lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
4707 maintainer:~# /usr/lib/sitesummary/hardware-model-summary
4708 vendor count
4709 Dell Computer Corporation 1
4710 PowerEdge 1750 1
4711 IBM 1
4712 eserver xSeries 345 -[8670M1X]- 1
4713 Intel 2
4714 [no-dmi-info] 3
4715 maintainer:~#
4716 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
4717
4718 &lt;p&gt;The quality of the report depend on the quality of the DMI tables
4719 provided in each machine. Here there are Intel machines without model
4720 information listed with Intel as vendor and no model, and virtual Xen
4721 machines listed as [no-dmi-info]. One can add -l as a command line
4722 option to list the individual machines.&lt;/p&gt;
4723
4724 &lt;p&gt;A larger list is
4725 &lt;a href=&quot;http://narvikskolen.no/sitesummary/&quot;&gt;available from the the
4726 city of Narvik&lt;/a&gt;, which uses Skolelinux on all their shools and also
4727 provide the basic sitesummary report publicly. In their report there
4728 are ~1400 machines. I know they use both Ubuntu and Skolelinux on
4729 their machines, and as sitesummary is available in both distributions,
4730 it is trivial to get all of them to report to the same central
4731 collector.&lt;/p&gt;
4732 </description>
4733 </item>
4734
4735 <item>
4736 <title>KDM fail at boot with NVidia cards - and no one try to fix it?</title>
4737 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/KDM_fail_at_boot_with_NVidia_cards___and_no_one_try_to_fix_it_.html</link>
4738 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/KDM_fail_at_boot_with_NVidia_cards___and_no_one_try_to_fix_it_.html</guid>
4739 <pubDate>Tue, 1 Jun 2010 17:05:00 +0200</pubDate>
4740 <description>&lt;p&gt;It is strange to watch how a bug in Debian causing KDM to fail to
4741 start at boot when an NVidia video card is used is handled. The
4742 problem seem to be that the nvidia X.org driver uses a long time to
4743 initialize, and this duration is longer than kdm is configured to
4744 wait.&lt;/p&gt;
4745
4746 &lt;p&gt;I came across two bugs related to this issue,
4747 &lt;a href=&quot;http://bugs.debian.org/583312&quot;&gt;#583312&lt;/a&gt; initially filed
4748 against initscripts and passed on to nvidia-glx when it became obvious
4749 that the nvidia drivers were involved, and
4750 &lt;a href=&quot;http://bugs.debian.org/524751&quot;&gt;#524751&lt;/a&gt; initially filed against
4751 kdm and passed on to src:nvidia-graphics-drivers for unknown reasons.&lt;/p&gt;
4752
4753 &lt;p&gt;To me, it seem that no-one is interested in actually solving the
4754 problem nvidia video card owners experience and make sure the Debian
4755 distribution work out of the box for these users. The nvidia driver
4756 maintainers expect kdm to be set up to wait longer, while kdm expect
4757 the nvidia driver maintainers to fix the driver to start faster, and
4758 while they wait for each other I guess the users end up switching to a
4759 distribution that work for them. I have no idea what the solution is,
4760 but I am pretty sure that waiting for each other is not it.&lt;/p&gt;
4761
4762 &lt;p&gt;I wonder why we end up handling bugs this way.&lt;/p&gt;
4763 </description>
4764 </item>
4765
4766 <item>
4767 <title>Parallellized boot seem to hold up well in Debian/testing</title>
4768 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Parallellized_boot_seem_to_hold_up_well_in_Debian_testing.html</link>
4769 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Parallellized_boot_seem_to_hold_up_well_in_Debian_testing.html</guid>
4770 <pubDate>Thu, 27 May 2010 23:55:00 +0200</pubDate>
4771 <description>&lt;p&gt;A few days ago, parallel booting was enabled in Debian/testing.
4772 The feature seem to hold up pretty well, but three fairly serious
4773 issues are known and should be solved:
4774
4775 &lt;p&gt;&lt;ul&gt;
4776
4777 &lt;li&gt;The wicd package seen to
4778 &lt;a href=&quot;http://bugs.debian.org/508289&quot;&gt;break NFS mounting&lt;/a&gt; and
4779 &lt;a href=&quot;http://bugs.debian.org/581586&quot;&gt;network setup&lt;/a&gt; when
4780 parallel booting is enabled. No idea why, but the wicd maintainer
4781 seem to be on the case.&lt;/li&gt;
4782
4783 &lt;li&gt;The nvidia X driver seem to
4784 &lt;a href=&quot;http://bugs.debian.org/583312&quot;&gt;have a race condition&lt;/a&gt;
4785 triggered more easily when parallel booting is in effect. The
4786 maintainer is on the case.&lt;/li&gt;
4787
4788 &lt;li&gt;The sysv-rc package fail to properly enable dependency based boot
4789 sequencing (the shutdown is broken) when old file-rc users
4790 &lt;a href=&quot;http://bugs.debian.org/575080&quot;&gt;try to switch back&lt;/a&gt; to
4791 sysv-rc. One way to solve it would be for file-rc to create
4792 /etc/init.d/.legacy-bootordering, and another is to try to make
4793 sysv-rc more robust. Will investigate some more and probably upload a
4794 workaround in sysv-rc to help those trying to move from file-rc to
4795 sysv-rc get a working shutdown.&lt;/li&gt;
4796
4797 &lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
4798
4799 &lt;p&gt;All in all not many surprising issues, and all of them seem
4800 solvable before Squeeze is released. In addition to these there are
4801 some packages with bugs in their dependencies and run level settings,
4802 which I expect will be fixed in a reasonable time span.&lt;/p&gt;
4803
4804 &lt;p&gt;If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
4805 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
4806 &lt;a href=&quot;http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org&quot;&gt;the
4807 list of usertagged bugs related to this&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
4808
4809 &lt;p&gt;Update: Correct bug number to file-rc issue.&lt;/p&gt;
4810 </description>
4811 </item>
4812
4813 <item>
4814 <title>More flexible firmware handling in debian-installer</title>
4815 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/More_flexible_firmware_handling_in_debian_installer.html</link>
4816 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/More_flexible_firmware_handling_in_debian_installer.html</guid>
4817 <pubDate>Sat, 22 May 2010 21:30:00 +0200</pubDate>
4818 <description>&lt;p&gt;After a long break from debian-installer development, I finally
4819 found time today to return to the project. Having to spend less time
4820 working dependency based boot in debian, as it is almost complete now,
4821 definitely helped freeing some time.&lt;/p&gt;
4822
4823 &lt;p&gt;A while back, I ran into a problem while working on Debian Edu. We
4824 include some firmware packages on the Debian Edu CDs, those needed to
4825 get disk and network controllers working. Without having these
4826 firmware packages available during installation, it is impossible to
4827 install Debian Edu on the given machine, and because our target group
4828 are non-technical people, asking them to provide firmware packages on
4829 an external medium is a support pain. Initially, I expected it to be
4830 enough to include the firmware packages on the CD to get
4831 debian-installer to find and use them. This proved to be wrong.
4832 Next, I hoped it was enough to symlink the relevant firmware packages
4833 to some useful location on the CD (tried /cdrom/ and
4834 /cdrom/firmware/). This also proved to not work, and at this point I
4835 found time to look at the debian-installer code to figure out what was
4836 going to work.&lt;/p&gt;
4837
4838 &lt;p&gt;The firmware loading code is in the hw-detect package, and a closer
4839 look revealed that it would only look for firmware packages outside
4840 the installation media, so the CD was never checked for firmware
4841 packages. It would only check USB sticks, floppies and other
4842 &quot;external&quot; media devices. Today I changed it to also look in the
4843 /cdrom/firmware/ directory on the mounted CD or DVD, which should
4844 solve the problem I ran into with Debian edu. I also changed it to
4845 look in /firmware/, to make sure the installer also find firmware
4846 provided in the initrd when booting the installer via PXE, to allow us
4847 to provide the same feature in the PXE setup included in Debian
4848 Edu.&lt;/p&gt;
4849
4850 &lt;p&gt;To make sure firmware deb packages with a license questions are not
4851 activated without asking if the license is accepted, I extended
4852 hw-detect to look for preinst scripts in the firmware packages, and
4853 run these before activating the firmware during installation. The
4854 license question is asked using debconf in the preinst, so this should
4855 solve the issue for the firmware packages I have looked at so far.&lt;/p&gt;
4856
4857 &lt;p&gt;If you want to discuss the details of these features, please
4858 contact us on debian-boot@lists.debian.org.&lt;/p&gt;
4859 </description>
4860 </item>
4861
4862 <item>
4863 <title>Parallellized boot is now the default in Debian/unstable</title>
4864 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Parallellized_boot_is_now_the_default_in_Debian_unstable.html</link>
4865 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Parallellized_boot_is_now_the_default_in_Debian_unstable.html</guid>
4866 <pubDate>Fri, 14 May 2010 22:40:00 +0200</pubDate>
4867 <description>&lt;p&gt;Since this evening, parallel booting is the default in
4868 Debian/unstable for machines using dependency based boot sequencing.
4869 Apparently the testing of concurrent booting has been wider than
4870 expected, if I am to believe the
4871 &lt;a href=&quot;http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html&quot;&gt;input
4872 on debian-devel@&lt;/a&gt;, and I concluded a few days ago to move forward
4873 with the feature this weekend, to give us some time to detect any
4874 remaining problems before Squeeze is frozen. If serious problems are
4875 detected, it is simple to change the default back to sequential boot.
4876 The upload of the new sysvinit package also activate a new upstream
4877 version.&lt;/p&gt;
4878
4879 More information about
4880 &lt;a href=&quot;http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot&quot;&gt;dependency
4881 based boot sequencing&lt;/a&gt; is available from the Debian wiki. It is
4882 currently possible to disable parallel booting when one run into
4883 problems caused by it, by adding this line to /etc/default/rcS:&lt;/p&gt;
4884
4885 &lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
4886 CONCURRENCY=none
4887 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
4888
4889 &lt;p&gt;If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
4890 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
4891 &lt;a href=&quot;http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org&quot;&gt;the
4892 list of usertagged bugs related to this&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
4893 </description>
4894 </item>
4895
4896 <item>
4897 <title>Sitesummary tip: Listing MAC address of all clients</title>
4898 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Sitesummary_tip__Listing_MAC_address_of_all_clients.html</link>
4899 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Sitesummary_tip__Listing_MAC_address_of_all_clients.html</guid>
4900 <pubDate>Fri, 14 May 2010 21:10:00 +0200</pubDate>
4901 <description>&lt;p&gt;In the recent Debian Edu versions, the
4902 &lt;a href=&quot;http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/SiteSummary&quot;&gt;sitesummary
4903 system&lt;/a&gt; is used to keep track of the machines in the school
4904 network. Each machine will automatically report its status to the
4905 central server after boot and once per night. The network setup is
4906 also reported, and using this information it is possible to get the
4907 MAC address of all network interfaces in the machines. This is useful
4908 to update the DHCP configuration.&lt;/p&gt;
4909
4910 &lt;p&gt;To give some idea how to use sitesummary, here is a one-liner to
4911 ist all MAC addresses of all machines reporting to sitesummary. Run
4912 this on the collector host:&lt;/p&gt;
4913
4914 &lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
4915 perl -MSiteSummary -e &#39;for_all_hosts(sub { print join(&quot; &quot;, get_macaddresses(shift)), &quot;\n&quot;; });&#39;
4916 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
4917
4918 &lt;p&gt;This will list all MAC addresses assosiated with all machine, one
4919 line per machine and with space between the MAC addresses.&lt;/p&gt;
4920
4921 &lt;p&gt;To allow system administrators easier job at adding static DHCP
4922 addresses for hosts, it would be possible to extend this to fetch
4923 machine information from sitesummary and update the DHCP and DNS
4924 tables in LDAP using this information. Such tool is unfortunately not
4925 written yet.&lt;/p&gt;
4926 </description>
4927 </item>
4928
4929 <item>
4930 <title>systemd, an interesting alternative to upstart</title>
4931 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/systemd__an_interesting_alternative_to_upstart.html</link>
4932 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/systemd__an_interesting_alternative_to_upstart.html</guid>
4933 <pubDate>Thu, 13 May 2010 22:20:00 +0200</pubDate>
4934 <description>&lt;p&gt;The last few days a new boot system called
4935 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd&quot;&gt;systemd&lt;/a&gt;
4936 has been
4937 &lt;a href=&quot;http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/systemd.html&quot;&gt;introduced&lt;/a&gt;
4938
4939 to the free software world. I have not yet had time to play around
4940 with it, but it seem to be a very interesting alternative to
4941 &lt;a href=&quot;http://upstart.ubuntu.com/&quot;&gt;upstart&lt;/a&gt;, and might prove to be
4942 a good alternative for Debian when we are able to switch to an event
4943 based boot system. Tollef is
4944 &lt;a href=&quot;http://bugs.debian.org/580814&quot;&gt;in the process&lt;/a&gt; of getting
4945 systemd into Debian, and I look forward to seeing how well it work. I
4946 like the fact that systemd handles init.d scripts with dependency
4947 information natively, allowing them to run in parallel where upstart
4948 at the moment do not.&lt;/p&gt;
4949
4950 &lt;p&gt;Unfortunately do systemd have the same problem as upstart regarding
4951 platform support. It only work on recent Linux kernels, and also need
4952 some new kernel features enabled to function properly. This means
4953 kFreeBSD and Hurd ports of Debian will need a port or a different boot
4954 system. Not sure how that will be handled if systemd proves to be the
4955 way forward.&lt;/p&gt;
4956
4957 &lt;p&gt;In the mean time, based on the
4958 &lt;a href=&quot;http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html&quot;&gt;input
4959 on debian-devel@&lt;/a&gt; regarding parallel booting in Debian, I have
4960 decided to enable full parallel booting as the default in Debian as
4961 soon as possible (probably this weekend or early next week), to see if
4962 there are any remaining serious bugs in the init.d dependencies. A
4963 new version of the sysvinit package implementing this change is
4964 already in experimental. If all go well, Squeeze will be released
4965 with parallel booting enabled by default.&lt;/p&gt;
4966 </description>
4967 </item>
4968
4969 <item>
4970 <title>Parallellizing the boot in Debian Squeeze - ready for wider testing</title>
4971 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Parallellizing_the_boot_in_Debian_Squeeze___ready_for_wider_testing.html</link>
4972 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Parallellizing_the_boot_in_Debian_Squeeze___ready_for_wider_testing.html</guid>
4973 <pubDate>Thu, 6 May 2010 23:25:00 +0200</pubDate>
4974 <description>&lt;p&gt;These days, the init.d script dependencies in Squeeze are quite
4975 complete, so complete that it is actually possible to run all the
4976 init.d scripts in parallell based on these dependencies. If you want
4977 to test your Squeeze system, make sure
4978 &lt;a href=&quot;http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot&quot;&gt;dependency
4979 based boot sequencing&lt;/a&gt; is enabled, and add this line to
4980 /etc/default/rcS:&lt;/p&gt;
4981
4982 &lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
4983 CONCURRENCY=makefile
4984 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
4985
4986 &lt;p&gt;That is it. It will cause sysv-rc to use the startpar tool to run
4987 scripts in parallel using the dependency information stored in
4988 /etc/init.d/.depend.boot, /etc/init.d/.depend.start and
4989 /etc/init.d/.depend.stop to order the scripts. Startpar is configured
4990 to try to start the kdm and gdm scripts as early as possible, and will
4991 start the facilities required by kdm or gdm as early as possible to
4992 make this happen.&lt;/p&gt;
4993
4994 &lt;p&gt;Give it a try, and see if you like the result. If some services
4995 fail to start properly, it is most likely because they have incomplete
4996 init.d script dependencies in their startup script (or some of their
4997 dependent scripts have incomplete dependencies). Report bugs and get
4998 the package maintainers to fix it. :)&lt;/p&gt;
4999
5000 &lt;p&gt;Running scripts in parallel could be the default in Debian when we
5001 manage to get the init.d script dependencies complete and correct. I
5002 expect we will get there in Squeeze+1, if we get manage to test and
5003 fix the remaining issues.&lt;/p&gt;
5004
5005 &lt;p&gt;If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
5006 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
5007 &lt;a href=&quot;http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org&quot;&gt;the
5008 list of usertagged bugs related to this&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
5009 </description>
5010 </item>
5011
5012 <item>
5013 <title>Debian has switched to dependency based boot sequencing</title>
5014 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_has_switched_to_dependency_based_boot_sequencing.html</link>
5015 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_has_switched_to_dependency_based_boot_sequencing.html</guid>
5016 <pubDate>Mon, 27 Jul 2009 23:50:00 +0200</pubDate>
5017 <description>&lt;p&gt;Since this evening, with the upload of sysvinit version 2.87dsf-2,
5018 and the upload of insserv version 1.12.0-10 yesterday, Debian unstable
5019 have been migrated to using dependency based boot sequencing. This
5020 conclude work me and others have been doing for the last three days.
5021 It feels great to see this finally part of the default Debian
5022 installation. Now we just need to weed out the last few problems that
5023 are bound to show up, to get everything ready for Squeeze.&lt;/p&gt;
5024
5025 &lt;p&gt;The next step is migrating /sbin/init from sysvinit to upstart, and
5026 fixing the more fundamental problem of handing the event based
5027 non-predictable kernel in the early boot.&lt;/p&gt;
5028 </description>
5029 </item>
5030
5031 <item>
5032 <title>Taking over sysvinit development</title>
5033 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Taking_over_sysvinit_development.html</link>
5034 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Taking_over_sysvinit_development.html</guid>
5035 <pubDate>Wed, 22 Jul 2009 23:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
5036 <description>&lt;p&gt;After several years of frustration with the lack of activity from
5037 the existing sysvinit upstream developer, I decided a few weeks ago to
5038 take over the package and become the new upstream. The number of
5039 patches to track for the Debian package was becoming a burden, and the
5040 lack of synchronization between the distribution made it hard to keep
5041 the package up to date.&lt;/p&gt;
5042
5043 &lt;p&gt;On the new sysvinit team is the SuSe maintainer Dr. Werner Fink,
5044 and my Debian co-maintainer Kel Modderman. About 10 days ago, I made
5045 a new upstream tarball with version number 2.87dsf (for Debian, SuSe
5046 and Fedora), based on the patches currently in use in these
5047 distributions. We Debian maintainers plan to move to this tarball as
5048 the new upstream as soon as we find time to do the merge. Since the
5049 new tarball was created, we agreed with Werner at SuSe to make a new
5050 upstream project at &lt;a href=&quot;http://savannah.nongnu.org/&quot;&gt;Savannah&lt;/a&gt;, and continue
5051 development there. The project is registered and currently waiting
5052 for approval by the Savannah administrators, and as soon as it is
5053 approved, we will import the old versions from svn and continue
5054 working on the future release.&lt;/p&gt;
5055
5056 &lt;p&gt;It is a bit ironic that this is done now, when some of the involved
5057 distributions are moving to upstart as a syvinit replacement.&lt;/p&gt;
5058 </description>
5059 </item>
5060
5061 <item>
5062 <title>Debian boots quicker and quicker</title>
5063 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_boots_quicker_and_quicker.html</link>
5064 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_boots_quicker_and_quicker.html</guid>
5065 <pubDate>Wed, 24 Jun 2009 21:40:00 +0200</pubDate>
5066 <description>&lt;p&gt;I spent Monday and tuesday this week in London with a lot of the
5067 people involved in the boot system on Debian and Ubuntu, to see if we
5068 could find more ways to speed up the boot system. This was an Ubuntu
5069 funded
5070 &lt;a href=&quot;https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FoundationsTeam/BootPerformance/DebianUbuntuSprint&quot;&gt;developer
5071 gathering&lt;/a&gt;. It was quite productive. We also discussed the future
5072 of boot systems, and ways to handle the increasing number of boot
5073 issues introduced by the Linux kernel becoming more and more
5074 asynchronous and event base. The Ubuntu approach using udev and
5075 upstart might be a good way forward. Time will show.&lt;/p&gt;
5076
5077 &lt;p&gt;Anyway, there are a few ways at the moment to speed up the boot
5078 process in Debian. All of these should be applied to get a quick
5079 boot:&lt;/p&gt;
5080
5081 &lt;ul&gt;
5082
5083 &lt;li&gt;Use dash as /bin/sh.&lt;/li&gt;
5084
5085 &lt;li&gt;Disable the init.d/hwclock*.sh scripts and make sure the hardware
5086 clock is in UTC.&lt;/li&gt;
5087
5088 &lt;li&gt;Install and activate the insserv package to enable
5089 &lt;a href=&quot;http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot&quot;&gt;dependency
5090 based boot sequencing&lt;/a&gt;, and enable concurrent booting.&lt;/li&gt;
5091
5092 &lt;/ul&gt;
5093
5094 These points are based on the Google summer of code work done by
5095 &lt;a href=&quot;http://initscripts-ng.alioth.debian.org/soc2006-bootsystem/&quot;&gt;Carlos
5096 Villegas&lt;/a&gt;.
5097
5098 &lt;p&gt;Support for makefile-style concurrency during boot was uploaded to
5099 unstable yesterday. When we tested it, we were able to cut 6 seconds
5100 from the boot sequence. It depend on very correct dependency
5101 declaration in all init.d scripts, so I expect us to find edge cases
5102 where the dependences in some scripts are slightly wrong when we start
5103 using this.&lt;/p&gt;
5104
5105 &lt;p&gt;On our IRC channel for this effort, #pkg-sysvinit, a new idea was
5106 introduced by Raphael Geissert today, one that could affect the
5107 startup speed as well. Instead of starting some scripts concurrently
5108 from rcS.d/ and another set of scripts from rc2.d/, it would be
5109 possible to run a of them in the same process. A quick way to test
5110 this would be to enable insserv and run &#39;mv /etc/rc2.d/S* /etc/rcS.d/;
5111 insserv&#39;. Will need to test if that work. :)&lt;/p&gt;
5112 </description>
5113 </item>
5114
5115 <item>
5116 <title>BSAs påstander om piratkopiering møter motstand</title>
5117 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/BSAs_p_stander_om_piratkopiering_m_ter_motstand.html</link>
5118 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/BSAs_p_stander_om_piratkopiering_m_ter_motstand.html</guid>
5119 <pubDate>Sun, 17 May 2009 23:05:00 +0200</pubDate>
5120 <description>&lt;p&gt;Hvert år de siste årene har BSA, lobbyfronten til de store
5121 programvareselskapene som Microsoft og Apple, publisert en rapport der
5122 de gjetter på hvor mye piratkopiering påfører i tapte inntekter i
5123 ulike land rundt om i verden. Resultatene er tendensiøse. For noen
5124 dager siden kom
5125 &lt;a href=&quot;http://global.bsa.org/globalpiracy2008/studies/globalpiracy2008.pdf&quot;&gt;siste
5126 rapport&lt;/a&gt;, og det er flere kritiske kommentarer publisert de siste
5127 dagene. Et spesielt interessant kommentar fra Sverige,
5128 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.idg.se/2.1085/1.229795/bsa-hoftade-sverigesiffror&quot;&gt;BSA
5129 höftade Sverigesiffror&lt;/a&gt;, oppsummeres slik:&lt;/p&gt;
5130
5131 &lt;blockquote&gt;
5132 I sin senaste rapport slår BSA fast att 25 procent av all mjukvara i
5133 Sverige är piratkopierad. Det utan att ha pratat med ett enda svenskt
5134 företag. &quot;Man bör nog kanske inte se de här siffrorna som helt
5135 exakta&quot;, säger BSAs Sverigechef John Hugosson.
5136 &lt;/blockquote&gt;
5137
5138 &lt;p&gt;Mon tro om de er like metodiske når de gjetter på andelen piratkopiering i Norge? To andre kommentarer er &lt;a
5139 href=&quot;http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/comment/2242134/bsa-piracy-figures-shot-reality&quot;&gt;BSA
5140 piracy figures need a shot of reality&lt;/a&gt; og &lt;a
5141 href=&quot;http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/3958/125/&quot;&gt;Does The WIPO
5142 Copyright Treaty Work?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
5143
5144 &lt;p&gt;Fant lenkene via &lt;a
5145 href=&quot;http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/05/17/1632242&quot;&gt;oppslag
5146 på Slashdot&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
5147 </description>
5148 </item>
5149
5150 <item>
5151 <title>IDG mener linux i servermarkedet vil vokse med 21% i 2009</title>
5152 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/IDG_mener_linux_i_servermarkedet_vil_vokse_med_21__i_2009.html</link>
5153 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/IDG_mener_linux_i_servermarkedet_vil_vokse_med_21__i_2009.html</guid>
5154 <pubDate>Thu, 7 May 2009 22:30:00 +0200</pubDate>
5155 <description>&lt;p&gt;Kom over
5156 &lt;a href=&quot;http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10216873-16.html&quot;&gt;interessante
5157 tall&lt;/a&gt; fra IDG om utviklingen av linuxservermarkedet. Fikk meg til
5158 å tenke på antall tjenermaskiner ved Universitetet i Oslo der jeg
5159 jobber til daglig. En rask opptelling forteller meg at vi har 490
5160 (61%) fysiske unix-tjener (mest linux men også noen solaris) og 196
5161 (25%) windowstjenere, samt 112 (14%) virtuelle unix-tjenere. Med den
5162 bakgrunnskunnskapen kan jeg godt tro at IDG er inne på noe.&lt;/p&gt;
5163 </description>
5164 </item>
5165
5166 <item>
5167 <title>Kryptert harddisk - naturligvis</title>
5168 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Kryptert_harddisk___naturligvis.html</link>
5169 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Kryptert_harddisk___naturligvis.html</guid>
5170 <pubDate>Sat, 2 May 2009 15:30:00 +0200</pubDate>
5171 <description>&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.dagensit.no/trender/article1658676.ece&quot;&gt;Dagens
5172 IT melder&lt;/a&gt; at Intel hevder at det er dyrt å miste en datamaskin,
5173 når en tar tap av arbeidstid, fortrolige dokumenter,
5174 personopplysninger og alt annet det innebærer. Det er ingen tvil om
5175 at det er en kostbar affære å miste sin datamaskin, og det er årsaken
5176 til at jeg har kryptert harddisken på både kontormaskinen og min
5177 bærbare. Begge inneholder personopplysninger jeg ikke ønsker skal
5178 komme på avveie, den første informasjon relatert til jobben min ved
5179 Universitetet i Oslo, og den andre relatert til blant annet
5180 foreningsarbeide. Kryptering av diskene gjør at det er lite
5181 sannsynlig at dophoder som kan finne på å rappe maskinene får noe ut
5182 av dem. Maskinene låses automatisk etter noen minutter uten bruk,
5183 og en reboot vil gjøre at de ber om passord før de vil starte opp.
5184 Jeg bruker Debian på begge maskinene, og installasjonssystemet der
5185 gjør det trivielt å sette opp krypterte disker. Jeg har LVM på toppen
5186 av krypterte partisjoner, slik at alt av datapartisjoner er kryptert.
5187 Jeg anbefaler alle å kryptere diskene på sine bærbare. Kostnaden når
5188 det er gjort slik jeg gjør det er minimale, og gevinstene er
5189 betydelige. En bør dog passe på passordet. Hvis det går tapt, må
5190 maskinen reinstalleres og alt er tapt.&lt;/p&gt;
5191
5192 &lt;p&gt;Krypteringen vil ikke stoppe kompetente angripere som f.eks. kjøler
5193 ned minnebrikkene før maskinen rebootes med programvare for å hente ut
5194 krypteringsnøklene. Kostnaden med å forsvare seg mot slike angripere
5195 er for min del høyere enn gevinsten. Jeg tror oddsene for at
5196 f.eks. etteretningsorganisasjoner har glede av å titte på mine
5197 maskiner er minimale, og ulempene jeg ville oppnå ved å forsøke å
5198 gjøre det vanskeligere for angripere med kompetanse og ressurser er
5199 betydelige.&lt;/p&gt;
5200 </description>
5201 </item>
5202
5203 <item>
5204 <title>Two projects that have improved the quality of free software a lot</title>
5205 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Two_projects_that_have_improved_the_quality_of_free_software_a_lot.html</link>
5206 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Two_projects_that_have_improved_the_quality_of_free_software_a_lot.html</guid>
5207 <pubDate>Sat, 2 May 2009 15:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
5208 <description>&lt;p&gt;There are two software projects that have had huge influence on the
5209 quality of free software, and I wanted to mention both in case someone
5210 do not yet know them.&lt;/p&gt;
5211
5212 &lt;p&gt;The first one is &lt;a href=&quot;http://valgrind.org/&quot;&gt;valgrind&lt;/a&gt;, a
5213 tool to detect and expose errors in the memory handling of programs.
5214 It is easy to use, all one need to do is to run &#39;valgrind program&#39;,
5215 and it will report any problems on stdout. It is even better if the
5216 program include debug information. With debug information, it is able
5217 to report the source file name and line number where the problem
5218 occurs. It can report things like &#39;reading past memory block in file
5219 X line N, the memory block was allocated in file Y, line M&#39;, and
5220 &#39;using uninitialised value in control logic&#39;. This tool has made it
5221 trivial to investigate reproducible crash bugs in programs, and have
5222 reduced the number of this kind of bugs in free software a lot.
5223
5224 &lt;p&gt;The second one is
5225 &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coverity&quot;&gt;Coverity&lt;/a&gt; which is
5226 a source code checker. It is able to process the source of a program
5227 and find problems in the logic without running the program. It
5228 started out as the Stanford Checker and became well known when it was
5229 used to find bugs in the Linux kernel. It is now a commercial tool
5230 and the company behind it is running
5231 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.scan.coverity.com/&quot;&gt;a community service&lt;/a&gt; for the
5232 free software community, where a lot of free software projects get
5233 their source checked for free. Several thousand defects have been
5234 found and fixed so far. It can find errors like &#39;lock L taken in file
5235 X line N is never released if exiting in line M&#39;, or &#39;the code in file
5236 Y lines O to P can never be executed&#39;. The projects included in the
5237 community service project have managed to get rid of a lot of
5238 reliability problems thanks to Coverity.&lt;/p&gt;
5239
5240 &lt;p&gt;I believe tools like this, that are able to automatically find
5241 errors in the source, are vital to improve the quality of software and
5242 make sure we can get rid of the crashing and failing software we are
5243 surrounded by today.&lt;/p&gt;
5244 </description>
5245 </item>
5246
5247 <item>
5248 <title>No patch is not better than a useless patch</title>
5249 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/No_patch_is_not_better_than_a_useless_patch.html</link>
5250 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/No_patch_is_not_better_than_a_useless_patch.html</guid>
5251 <pubDate>Tue, 28 Apr 2009 09:30:00 +0200</pubDate>
5252 <description>&lt;p&gt;Julien Blache
5253 &lt;a href=&quot;http://blog.technologeek.org/2009/04/12/214&quot;&gt;claim that no
5254 patch is better than a useless patch&lt;/a&gt;. I completely disagree, as a
5255 patch allow one to discuss a concrete and proposed solution, and also
5256 prove that the issue at hand is important enough for someone to spent
5257 time on fixing it. No patch do not provide any of these positive
5258 properties.&lt;/p&gt;
5259 </description>
5260 </item>
5261
5262 <item>
5263 <title>Standardize on protocols and formats, not vendors and applications</title>
5264 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Standardize_on_protocols_and_formats__not_vendors_and_applications.html</link>
5265 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Standardize_on_protocols_and_formats__not_vendors_and_applications.html</guid>
5266 <pubDate>Mon, 30 Mar 2009 11:50:00 +0200</pubDate>
5267 <description>&lt;p&gt;Where I work at the University of Oslo, one decision stand out as a
5268 very good one to form a long lived computer infrastructure. It is the
5269 simple one, lost by many in todays computer industry: Standardize on
5270 open network protocols and open exchange/storage formats, not applications.
5271 Applications come and go, while protocols and files tend to stay, and
5272 thus one want to make it easy to change application and vendor, while
5273 avoiding conversion costs and locking users to a specific platform or
5274 application.&lt;/p&gt;
5275
5276 &lt;p&gt;This approach make it possible to replace the client applications
5277 independently of the server applications. One can even allow users to
5278 use several different applications as long as they handle the selected
5279 protocol and format. In the normal case, only one client application
5280 is recommended and users only get help if they choose to use this
5281 application, but those that want to deviate from the easy path are not
5282 blocked from doing so.&lt;/p&gt;
5283
5284 &lt;p&gt;It also allow us to replace the server side without forcing the
5285 users to replace their applications, and thus allow us to select the
5286 best server implementation at any moment, when scale and resouce
5287 requirements change.&lt;/p&gt;
5288
5289 &lt;p&gt;I strongly recommend standardizing - on open network protocols and
5290 open formats, but I would never recommend standardizing on a single
5291 application that do not use open network protocol or open formats.&lt;/p&gt;
5292 </description>
5293 </item>
5294
5295 <item>
5296 <title>Returning from Skolelinux developer gathering</title>
5297 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Returning_from_Skolelinux_developer_gathering.html</link>
5298 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Returning_from_Skolelinux_developer_gathering.html</guid>
5299 <pubDate>Sun, 29 Mar 2009 21:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
5300 <description>&lt;p&gt;I&#39;m sitting on the train going home from this weekends Debian
5301 Edu/Skolelinux development gathering. I got a bit done tuning the
5302 desktop, and looked into the dynamic service location protocol
5303 implementation avahi. It look like it could be useful for us. Almost
5304 30 people participated, and I believe it was a great environment to
5305 get to know the Skolelinux system. Walter Bender, involved in the
5306 development of the Sugar educational platform, presented his stuff and
5307 also helped me improve my OLPC installation. He also showed me that
5308 his Turtle Art application can be used in standalone mode, and we
5309 agreed that I would help getting it packaged for Debian. As a
5310 standalone application it would be great for Debian Edu. We also
5311 tried to get the video conferencing working with two OLPCs, but that
5312 proved to be too hard for us. The application seem to need more work
5313 before it is ready for me. I look forward to getting home and relax
5314 now. :)&lt;/p&gt;
5315 </description>
5316 </item>
5317
5318 <item>
5319 <title>Time for new LDAP schemas replacing RFC 2307?</title>
5320 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html</link>
5321 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html</guid>
5322 <pubDate>Sun, 29 Mar 2009 20:30:00 +0200</pubDate>
5323 <description>&lt;p&gt;The state of standardized LDAP schemas on Linux is far from
5324 optimal. There is RFC 2307 documenting one way to store NIS maps in
5325 LDAP, and a modified version of this normally called RFC 2307bis, with
5326 some modifications to be compatible with Active Directory. The RFC
5327 specification handle the content of a lot of system databases, but do
5328 not handle DNS zones and DHCP configuration.&lt;/p&gt;
5329
5330 &lt;p&gt;In &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.skolelinux.org/&quot;&gt;Debian Edu/Skolelinux&lt;/a&gt;,
5331 we would like to store information about users, SMB clients/hosts,
5332 filegroups, netgroups (users and hosts), DHCP and DNS configuration,
5333 and LTSP configuration in LDAP. These objects have a lot in common,
5334 but with the current LDAP schemas it is not possible to have one
5335 object per entity. For example, one need to have at least three LDAP
5336 objects for a given computer, one with the SMB related stuff, one with
5337 DNS information and another with DHCP information. The schemas
5338 provided for DNS and DHCP are impossible to combine into one LDAP
5339 object. In addition, it is impossible to implement quick queries for
5340 netgroup membership, because of the way NIS triples are implemented.
5341 It just do not scale. I believe it is time for a few RFC
5342 specifications to cleam up this mess.&lt;/p&gt;
5343
5344 &lt;p&gt;I would like to have one LDAP object representing each computer in
5345 the network, and this object can then keep the SMB (ie host key), DHCP
5346 (mac address/name) and DNS (name/IP address) settings in one place.
5347 It need to be efficently stored to make sure it scale well.&lt;/p&gt;
5348
5349 &lt;p&gt;I would also like to have a quick way to map from a user or
5350 computer and to the net group this user or computer is a member.&lt;/p&gt;
5351
5352 &lt;p&gt;Active Directory have done a better job than unix heads like myself
5353 in this regard, and the unix side need to catch up. Time to start a
5354 new IETF work group?&lt;/p&gt;
5355 </description>
5356 </item>
5357
5358 <item>
5359 <title>Endelig er Debian Lenny gitt ut</title>
5360 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Endelig_er_Debian_Lenny_gitt_ut.html</link>
5361 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Endelig_er_Debian_Lenny_gitt_ut.html</guid>
5362 <pubDate>Sun, 15 Feb 2009 11:50:00 +0100</pubDate>
5363 <description>&lt;p&gt;Endelig er &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.debian.org/&quot;&gt;Debian&lt;/a&gt;
5364 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.debian.org/News/2009/20090214&quot;&gt;Lenny&lt;/a&gt; gitt ut.
5365 Et langt steg videre for Debian-prosjektet, og en rekke nye
5366 programpakker blir nå tilgjengelig for de av oss som bruker den
5367 stabile utgaven av Debian. Neste steg er nå å få
5368 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.skolelinux.org/&quot;&gt;Skolelinux&lt;/a&gt; /
5369 &lt;a href=&quot;http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/&quot;&gt;Debian Edu&lt;/a&gt; ferdig
5370 oppdatert for den nye utgaven, slik at en oppdatert versjon kan
5371 slippes løs på skolene. Takk til alle debian-utviklerne som har
5372 gjort dette mulig. Endelig er f.eks. fungerende avhengighetsstyrt
5373 bootsekvens tilgjengelig i stabil utgave, vha pakken
5374 &lt;tt&gt;insserv&lt;/tt&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
5375 </description>
5376 </item>
5377
5378 <item>
5379 <title>Devcamp brought us closer to the Lenny based Debian Edu release</title>
5380 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Devcamp_brought_us_closer_to_the_Lenny_based_Debian_Edu_release.html</link>
5381 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Devcamp_brought_us_closer_to_the_Lenny_based_Debian_Edu_release.html</guid>
5382 <pubDate>Sun, 7 Dec 2008 12:00:00 +0100</pubDate>
5383 <description>&lt;p&gt;This weekend we had a small developer gathering for Debian Edu in
5384 Oslo. Most of Saturday was used for the general assemly for the
5385 member organization, but the rest of the weekend I used to tune the
5386 LTSP installation. LTSP now work out of the box on the 10-network.
5387 Acer Aspire One proved to be a very nice thin client, with both
5388 screen, mouse and keybard in a small box. Was working on getting the
5389 diskless workstation setup configured out of the box, but did not
5390 finish it before the weekend was up.&lt;/p&gt;
5391
5392 &lt;p&gt;Did not find time to look at the 4 VGA cards in one box we got from
5393 the Brazilian group, so that will have to wait for the next
5394 development gathering. Would love to have the Debian Edu installer
5395 automatically detect and configure a multiseat setup when it find one
5396 of these cards.&lt;/p&gt;
5397 </description>
5398 </item>
5399
5400 <item>
5401 <title>The sorry state of multimedia browser plugins in Debian</title>
5402 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_sorry_state_of_multimedia_browser_plugins_in_Debian.html</link>
5403 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_sorry_state_of_multimedia_browser_plugins_in_Debian.html</guid>
5404 <pubDate>Tue, 25 Nov 2008 00:10:00 +0100</pubDate>
5405 <description>&lt;p&gt;Recently I have spent some time evaluating the multimedia browser
5406 plugins available in Debian Lenny, to see which one we should use by
5407 default in Debian Edu. We need an embedded video playing plugin with
5408 control buttons to pause or stop the video, and capable of streaming
5409 all the multimedia content available on the web. The test results and
5410 notes are available on
5411 &lt;a href=&quot;http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia&quot;&gt;the
5412 Debian wiki&lt;/a&gt;. I was surprised how few of the plugins are able to
5413 fill this need. My personal video player favorite, VLC, has a really
5414 bad plugin which fail on a lot of the test pages. A lot of the MIME
5415 types I would expect to work with any free software player (like
5416 video/ogg), just do not work. And simple formats like the
5417 audio/x-mplegurl format (m3u playlists), just isn&#39;t supported by the
5418 totem and vlc plugins. I hope the situation will improve soon. No
5419 wonder sites use the proprietary Adobe flash to play video.&lt;/p&gt;
5420
5421 &lt;p&gt;For Lenny, we seem to end up with the mplayer plugin. It seem to
5422 be the only one fitting our needs. :/&lt;/p&gt;
5423 </description>
5424 </item>
5425
5426 </channel>
5427 </rss>