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  13  <h1>
  14      <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/">Petter Reinholdtsen</a>
  15
  16  </h1>
  17
  18 </div>
  19
  20
  21     <h3>Entries tagged "debian".</h3>
  22
  23     <div class="entry">
  24       <div class="title">
  25         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Unlocking_HTC_Desire_HD_on_Linux_using_unruu_and_fastboot.html">Unlocking HTC Desire HD on Linux using unruu and fastboot</a>
  26       </div>
  27       <div class="date">
  28          7th July 2016
  29       </div>
  30       <div class="body">
  31         <p>Yesterday, I tried to unlock a HTC Desire HD phone, and it proved
  32 to be a slight challenge.  Here is the recipe if I ever need to do it
  33 again.  It all started by me wanting to try the recipe to set up
  34 <a href="https://blog.torproject.org/blog/mission-impossible-hardening-android-security-and-privacy">an
  35 hardened Android installation</a> from the Tor project blog on a
  36 device I had access to.  It is a old mobile phone with a broken
  37 microphone The initial idea had been to just
  38 <a href="http://wiki.cyanogenmod.org/w/Install_CM_for_ace">install
  39 CyanogenMod on it</a>, but did not quite find time to start on it
  40 until a few days ago.</p>
  41
  42 <p>The unlock process is supposed to be simple: (1) Boot into the boot
  43 loader (press volume down and power at the same time), (2) select
  44 'fastboot' before (3) connecting the device via USB to a Linux
  45 machine, (4) request the device identifier token by running 'fastboot
  46 oem get_identifier_token', (5) request the device unlocking key using
  47 the <a href="http://www.htcdev.com/bootloader/">HTC developer web
  48 site</a> and unlock the phone using the key file emailed to you.</p>
  49
  50 <p>Unfortunately, this only work fi you have hboot version 2.00.0029
  51 or newer, and the device I was working on had 2.00.0027.  This
  52 apparently can be easily fixed by downloading a Windows program and
  53 running it on your Windows machine, if you accept the terms Microsoft
  54 require you to accept to use Windows - which I do not.  So I had to
  55 come up with a different approach.  I got a lot of help from AndyCap
  56 on #nuug, and would not have been able to get this working without
  57 him.</p>
  58
  59 <p>First I needed to extract the hboot firmware from
  60 <a href="http://www.htcdev.com/ruu/PD9810000_Ace_Sense30_S_hboot_2.00.0029.exe">the
  61 windows binary for HTC Desire HD</a> downloaded as 'the RUU' from HTC.
  62 For this there is is <a href="https://github.com/kmdm/unruu/">a github
  63 project named unruu</a> using libunshield.  The unshield tool did not
  64 recognise the file format, but unruu worked and extracted rom.zip,
  65 containing the new hboot firmware and a text file describing which
  66 devices it would work for.</p>
  67
  68 <p>Next, I needed to get the new firmware into the device.  For this I
  69 followed some instructions
  70 <a href="http://www.htc1guru.com/2013/09/new-ruu-zips-posted/">available
  71 from HTC1Guru.com</a>, and ran these commands as root on a Linux
  72 machine with Debian testing:</p>
  73
  74 <p><pre>
  75 adb reboot-bootloader
  76 fastboot oem rebootRUU
  77 fastboot flash zip rom.zip
  78 fastboot flash zip rom.zip
  79 fastboot reboot
  80 </pre></p>
  81
  82 <p>The flash command apparently need to be done twice to take effect,
  83 as the first is just preparations and the second one do the flashing.
  84 The adb command is just to get to the boot loader menu, so turning the
  85 device on while holding volume down and the power button should work
  86 too.</p>
  87
  88 <p>With the new hboot version in place I could start following the
  89 instructions on the HTC developer web site.  I got the device token
  90 like this:</p>
  91
  92 <p><pre>
  93 fastboot oem get_identifier_token 2>&1 | sed 's/(bootloader) //'
  94 </pre>
  95
  96 <p>And once I got the unlock code via email, I could use it like
  97 this:</p>
  98
  99 <p><pre>
 100 fastboot flash unlocktoken Unlock_code.bin
 101 </pre></p>
 102
 103 <p>And with that final step in place, the phone was unlocked and I
 104 could start stuffing the software of my own choosing into the device.
 105 So far I only inserted a replacement recovery image to wipe the phone
 106 before I start.  We will see what happen next.  Perhaps I should
 107 install <a href="https://www.debian.org/">Debian</a> on it. :)</p>
 108
 109       </div>
 110       <div class="tags">
 111
 112
 113         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
 114
 115
 116       </div>
 117     </div>
 118     <div class="padding"></div>
 119
 120     <div class="entry">
 121       <div class="title">
 122         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_use_the_Signal_app_if_you_only_have_a_land_line__ie_no_mobile_phone_.html">How to use the Signal app if you only have a land line (ie no mobile phone)</a>
 123       </div>
 124       <div class="date">
 125          3rd July 2016
 126       </div>
 127       <div class="body">
 128         <p>For a while now, I have wanted to test
 129 <a href="https://whispersystems.org/">the Signal app</a>, as it is
 130 said to provide end to end encrypted communication and several of my
 131 friends and family are already using it.  As I by choice do not own a
 132 mobile phone, this proved to be harder than expected.  And I wanted to
 133 have the source of the client and know that it was the code used on my
 134 machine.  But yesterday I managed to get it working.  I used the
 135 Github source, compared it to the source in
 136 <a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/signal-private-messenger/bikioccmkafdpakkkcpdbppfkghcmihk?hl=en-US">the
 137 Signal Chrome app</a> available from the Chrome web store, applied
 138 patches to use the production Signal servers, started the app and
 139 asked for the hidden "register without a smart phone" form.  Here is
 140 the recipe how I did it.</p>
 141
 142 <p>First, I fetched the Signal desktop source from Github, using
 143
 144 <pre>
 145 git clone https://github.com/WhisperSystems/Signal-Desktop.git
 146 </pre>
 147
 148 <p>Next, I patched the source to use the production servers, to be
 149 able to talk to other Signal users:</p>
 150
 151 <pre>
 152 cat &lt;&lt;EOF | patch -p0
 153 diff -ur ./js/background.js userdata/Default/Extensions/bikioccmkafdpakkkcpdbppfkghcmihk/0.15.0_0/js/background.js
 154 --- ./js/background.js  2016-06-29 13:43:15.630344628 +0200
 155 +++ userdata/Default/Extensions/bikioccmkafdpakkkcpdbppfkghcmihk/0.15.0_0/js/background.js    2016-06-29 14:06:29.530300934 +0200
 156 @@ -47,8 +47,8 @@
 157          });
 158      });
 159
 160 -    var SERVER_URL = 'https://textsecure-service-staging.whispersystems.org';
 161 -    var ATTACHMENT_SERVER_URL = 'https://whispersystems-textsecure-attachments-staging.s3.amazonaws.com';
 162 +    var SERVER_URL = 'https://textsecure-service-ca.whispersystems.org:4433';
 163 +    var ATTACHMENT_SERVER_URL = 'https://whispersystems-textsecure-attachments.s3.amazonaws.com';
 164      var messageReceiver;
 165      window.getSocketStatus = function() {
 166          if (messageReceiver) {
 167 diff -ur ./js/expire.js userdata/Default/Extensions/bikioccmkafdpakkkcpdbppfkghcmihk/0.15.0_0/js/expire.js
 168 --- ./js/expire.js      2016-06-29 13:43:15.630344628 +0200
 169 +++ userdata/Default/Extensions/bikioccmkafdpakkkcpdbppfkghcmihk/0.15.0_0/js/expire.js2016-06-29 14:06:29.530300934 +0200
 170 @@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 171  ;(function() {
 172      'use strict';
 173 -    var BUILD_EXPIRATION = 0;
 174 +    var BUILD_EXPIRATION = 1474492690000;
 175
 176      window.extension = window.extension || {};
 177
 178 EOF
 179 </pre>
 180
 181 <p>The first part is changing the servers, and the second is updating
 182 an expiration timestamp.  This timestamp need to be updated regularly.
 183 It is set 90 days in the future by the build process (Gruntfile.js).
 184 The value is seconds since 1970 times 1000, as far as I can tell.</p>
 185
 186 <p>Based on a tip and good help from the #nuug IRC channel, I wrote a
 187 script to launch Signal in Chromium.</p>
 188
 189 <pre>
 190 #!/bin/sh
 191 cd $(dirname $0)
 192 mkdir -p userdata
 193 exec chromium \
 194   --proxy-server="socks://localhost:9050" \
 195   --user-data-dir=`pwd`/userdata --load-and-launch-app=`pwd`
 196 </pre>
 197
 198 <p> The script start the app and configure Chromium to use the Tor
 199 SOCKS5 proxy to make sure those controlling the Signal servers (today
 200 Amazon and Whisper Systems) as well as those listening on the lines
 201 will have a harder time location my laptop based on the Signal
 202 connections if they use source IP address.</p>
 203
 204 <p>When the script starts, one need to follow the instructions under
 205 "Standalone Registration" in the CONTRIBUTING.md file in the git
 206 repository.  I right clicked on the Signal window to get up the
 207 Chromium debugging tool, visited the 'Console' tab and wrote
 208 'extension.install("standalone")' on the console prompt to get the
 209 registration form.  Then I entered by land line phone number and
 210 pressed 'Call'.  5 seconds later the phone rang and a robot voice
 211 repeated the verification code three times.  After entering the number
 212 into the verification code field in the form, I could start using
 213 Signal from my laptop.
 214
 215 <p>As far as I can tell, The Signal app will leak who is talking to
 216 whom and thus who know who to those controlling the central server,
 217 but such leakage is hard to avoid with a centrally controlled server
 218 setup.  It is something to keep in mind when using Signal - the
 219 content of your chats are harder to intercept, but the meta data
 220 exposing your contact network is available to people you do not know.
 221 So better than many options, but not great.  And sadly the usage is
 222 connected to my land line, thus allowing those controlling the server
 223 to associate it to my home and person.  I would prefer it if only
 224 those I knew could tell who I was on Signal.  There are options
 225 avoiding such information leakage, but most of my friends are not
 226 using them, so I am stuck with Signal for now.</p>
 227
 228       </div>
 229       <div class="tags">
 230
 231
 232         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
 233
 234
 235       </div>
 236     </div>
 237     <div class="padding"></div>
 238
 239     <div class="entry">
 240       <div class="title">
 241         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_new__best__multimedia_player_in_Debian_.html">The new "best" multimedia player in Debian?</a>
 242       </div>
 243       <div class="date">
 244          6th June 2016
 245       </div>
 246       <div class="body">
 247         <p>When I set out a few weeks ago to figure out
 248 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_the_best_multimedia_player_in_Debian_.html">which
 249 multimedia player in Debian claimed to support most file formats /
 250 MIME types</a>, I was a bit surprised how varied the sets of MIME types
 251 the various players claimed support for.  The range was from 55 to 130
 252 MIME types.  I suspect most media formats are supported by all
 253 players, but this is not really reflected in the MimeTypes values in
 254 their desktop files.  There are probably also some bogus MIME types
 255 listed, but it is hard to identify which one this is.</p>
 256
 257 <p>Anyway, in the mean time I got in touch with upstream for some of
 258 the players suggesting to add more MIME types to their desktop files,
 259 and decided to spend some time myself improving the situation for my
 260 favorite media player VLC.  The fixes for VLC entered Debian unstable
 261 yesterday. The complete list of MIME types can be seen on the
 262 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianMultimedia/PlayerSupport">Multimedia
 263 player MIME type support status</a> Debian wiki page.</p>
 264
 265 <p>The new "best" multimedia player in Debian?  It is VLC, followed by
 266 totem, parole, kplayer, gnome-mpv, mpv, smplayer, mplayer-gui and
 267 kmplayer.  I am sure some of the other players desktop files support
 268 several of the formats currently listed as working only with vlc,
 269 toten and parole.</p>
 270
 271 <p>A sad observation is that only 14 MIME types are listed as
 272 supported by all the tested multimedia players in Debian in their
 273 desktop files: audio/mpeg, audio/vnd.rn-realaudio, audio/x-mpegurl,
 274 audio/x-ms-wma, audio/x-scpls, audio/x-wav, video/mp4, video/mpeg,
 275 video/quicktime, video/vnd.rn-realvideo, video/x-matroska,
 276 video/x-ms-asf, video/x-ms-wmv and video/x-msvideo.  Personally I find
 277 it sad that video/ogg and video/webm is not supported by all the media
 278 players in Debian.  As far as I can tell, all of them can handle both
 279 formats.</p>
 280
 281       </div>
 282       <div class="tags">
 283
 284
 285         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
 286
 287
 288       </div>
 289     </div>
 290     <div class="padding"></div>
 291
 292     <div class="entry">
 293       <div class="title">
 294         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_program_should_be_able_to_open_its_own_files_on_Linux.html">A program should be able to open its own files on Linux</a>
 295       </div>
 296       <div class="date">
 297          5th June 2016
 298       </div>
 299       <div class="body">
 300         <p>Many years ago, when koffice was fresh and with few users, I
 301 decided to test its presentation tool when making the slides for a
 302 talk I was giving for NUUG on Japhar, a free Java virtual machine.  I
 303 wrote the first draft of the slides, saved the result and went to bed
 304 the day before I would give the talk.  The next day I took a plane to
 305 the location where the meeting should take place, and on the plane I
 306 started up koffice again to polish the talk a bit, only to discover
 307 that kpresenter refused to load its own data file.  I cursed a bit and
 308 started making the slides again from memory, to have something to
 309 present when I arrived.  I tested that the saved files could be
 310 loaded, and the day seemed to be rescued.  I continued to polish the
 311 slides until I suddenly discovered that the saved file could no longer
 312 be loaded into kpresenter.  In the end I had to rewrite the slides
 313 three times, condensing the content until the talk became shorter and
 314 shorter.  After the talk I was able to pinpoint the problem &ndash;
 315 kpresenter wrote inline images in a way itself could not understand.
 316 Eventually that bug was fixed and kpresenter ended up being a great
 317 program to make slides.  The point I'm trying to make is that we
 318 expect a program to be able to load its own data files, and it is
 319 embarrassing to its developers if it can't.</p>
 320
 321 <p>Did you ever experience a program failing to load its own data
 322 files from the desktop file browser?  It is not a uncommon problem.  A
 323 while back I discovered that the screencast recorder
 324 gtk-recordmydesktop would save an Ogg Theora video file the KDE file
 325 browser would refuse to open.  No video player claimed to understand
 326 such file.  I tracked down the cause being <tt>file --mime-type</tt>
 327 returning the application/ogg MIME type, which no video player I had
 328 installed listed as a MIME type they would understand.  I asked for
 329 <a href="http://bugs.gw.com/view.php?id=382">file to change its
 330 behavour</a> and use the MIME type video/ogg instead.  I also asked
 331 several video players to add video/ogg to their desktop files, to give
 332 the file browser an idea what to do about Ogg Theora files.  After a
 333 while, the desktop file browsers in Debian started to handle the
 334 output from gtk-recordmydesktop properly.</p>
 335
 336 <p>But history repeats itself.  A few days ago I tested the music
 337 system Rosegarden again, and I discovered that the KDE and xfce file
 338 browsers did not know what to do with the Rosegarden project files
 339 (*.rg).  I've reported <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/825993">the
 340 rosegarden problem to BTS</a> and a fix is commited to git and will be
 341 included in the next upload.  To increase the chance of me remembering
 342 how to fix the problem next time some program fail to load its files
 343 from the file browser, here are some notes on how to fix it.</p>
 344
 345 <p>The file browsers in Debian in general operates on MIME types.
 346 There are two sources for the MIME type of a given file.  The output from
 347 <tt>file --mime-type</tt> mentioned above, and the content of the
 348 shared MIME type registry (under /usr/share/mime/).  The file MIME
 349 type is mapped to programs supporting the MIME type, and this
 350 information is collected from
 351 <a href="https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/desktop-entry-spec/">the
 352 desktop files</a> available in /usr/share/applications/.  If there is
 353 one desktop file claiming support for the MIME type of the file, it is
 354 activated when asking to open a given file.  If there are more, one
 355 can normally select which one to use by right-clicking on the file and
 356 selecting the wanted one using 'Open with' or similar.  In general
 357 this work well.  But it depend on each program picking a good MIME
 358 type (preferably
 359 <a href="http://www.iana.org/assignments/media-types/media-types.xhtml">a
 360 MIME type registered with IANA</a>), file and/or the shared MIME
 361 registry recognizing the file and the desktop file to list the MIME
 362 type in its list of supported MIME types.</p>
 363
 364 <p>The <tt>/usr/share/mime/packages/rosegarden.xml</tt> entry for
 365 <a href="http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/shared-mime-info-spec">the
 366 Shared MIME database</a> look like this:</p>
 367
 368 <p><blockquote><pre>
 369 &lt;?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?&gt;
 370 &lt;mime-info xmlns="http://www.freedesktop.org/standards/shared-mime-info"&gt;
 371   &lt;mime-type type="audio/x-rosegarden"&gt;
 372     &lt;sub-class-of type="application/x-gzip"/&gt;
 373     &lt;comment&gt;Rosegarden project file&lt;/comment&gt;
 374     &lt;glob pattern="*.rg"/&gt;
 375   &lt;/mime-type&gt;
 376 &lt;/mime-info&gt;
 377 </pre></blockquote></p>
 378
 379 <p>This states that audio/x-rosegarden is a kind of application/x-gzip
 380 (it is a gzipped XML file).  Note, it is much better to use an
 381 official MIME type registered with IANA than it is to make up ones own
 382 unofficial ones like the x-rosegarden type used by rosegarden.</p>
 383
 384 <p>The desktop file of the rosegarden program failed to list
 385 audio/x-rosegarden in its list of supported MIME types, causing the
 386 file browsers to have no idea what to do with *.rg files:</p>
 387
 388 <p><blockquote><pre>
 389 % grep Mime /usr/share/applications/rosegarden.desktop
 390 MimeType=audio/x-rosegarden-composition;audio/x-rosegarden-device;audio/x-rosegarden-project;audio/x-rosegarden-template;audio/midi;
 391 X-KDE-NativeMimeType=audio/x-rosegarden-composition
 392 %
 393 </pre></blockquote></p>
 394
 395 <p>The fix was to add "audio/x-rosegarden;" at the end of the
 396 MimeType= line.</p>
 397
 398 <p>If you run into a file which fail to open the correct program when
 399 selected from the file browser, please check out the output from
 400 <tt>file --mime-type</tt> for the file, ensure the file ending and
 401 MIME type is registered somewhere under /usr/share/mime/ and check
 402 that some desktop file under /usr/share/applications/ is claiming
 403 support for this MIME type.  If not, please report a bug to have it
 404 fixed. :)</p>
 405
 406       </div>
 407       <div class="tags">
 408
 409
 410         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
 411
 412
 413       </div>
 414     </div>
 415     <div class="padding"></div>
 416
 417     <div class="entry">
 418       <div class="title">
 419         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Isenkram_with_PackageKit_support___new_version_0_23_available_in_Debian_unstable.html">Isenkram with PackageKit support - new version 0.23 available in Debian unstable</a>
 420       </div>
 421       <div class="date">
 422         25th May 2016
 423       </div>
 424       <div class="body">
 425         <p><a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/isenkram">The isenkram
 426 system</a> is a user-focused solution in Debian for handling hardware
 427 related packages.  The idea is to have a database of mappings between
 428 hardware and packages, and pop up a dialog suggesting for the user to
 429 install the packages to use a given hardware dongle.  Some use cases
 430 are when you insert a Yubikey, it proposes to install the software
 431 needed to control it; when you insert a braille reader list it
 432 proposes to install the packages needed to send text to the reader;
 433 and when you insert a ColorHug screen calibrator it suggests to
 434 install the driver for it.  The system work well, and even have a few
 435 command line tools to install firmware packages and packages for the
 436 hardware already in the machine (as opposed to hotpluggable hardware).</p>
 437
 438 <p>The system was initially written using aptdaemon, because I found
 439 good documentation and example code on how to use it.  But aptdaemon
 440 is going away and is generally being replaced by
 441 <a href="http://www.freedesktop.org/software/PackageKit/">PackageKit</a>,
 442 so Isenkram needed a rewrite.  And today, thanks to the great patch
 443 from my college Sunil Mohan Adapa in the FreedomBox project, the
 444 rewrite finally took place.  I've just uploaded a new version of
 445 Isenkram into Debian Unstable with the patch included, and the default
 446 for the background daemon is now to use PackageKit.  To check it out,
 447 install the <tt>isenkram</tt> package and insert some hardware dongle
 448 and see if it is recognised.</p>
 449
 450 <p>If you want to know what kind of packages isenkram would propose for
 451 the machine it is running on, you can check out the isenkram-lookup
 452 program.  This is what it look like on a Thinkpad X230:</p>
 453
 454 <p><blockquote><pre>
 455 % isenkram-lookup
 456 bluez
 457 cheese
 458 fprintd
 459 fprintd-demo
 460 gkrellm-thinkbat
 461 hdapsd
 462 libpam-fprintd
 463 pidgin-blinklight
 464 thinkfan
 465 tleds
 466 tp-smapi-dkms
 467 tp-smapi-source
 468 tpb
 469 %p
 470 </pre></blockquote></p>
 471
 472 <p>The hardware mappings come from several places.  The preferred way
 473 is for packages to announce their hardware support using
 474 <a href="https://www.freedesktop.org/software/appstream/docs/">the
 475 cross distribution appstream system</a>.
 476 See
 477 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram/">previous
 478 blog posts about isenkram</a> to learn how to do that.</p>
 479
 480       </div>
 481       <div class="tags">
 482
 483
 484         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
 485
 486
 487       </div>
 488     </div>
 489     <div class="padding"></div>
 490
 491     <div class="entry">
 492       <div class="title">
 493         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Discharge_rate_estimate_in_new_battery_statistics_collector_for_Debian.html">Discharge rate estimate in new battery statistics collector for Debian</a>
 494       </div>
 495       <div class="date">
 496         23rd May 2016
 497       </div>
 498       <div class="body">
 499         <p>Yesterday I updated the
 500 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">battery-stats
 501 package in Debian</a> with a few patches sent to me by skilled and
 502 enterprising users.  There were some nice user and visible changes.
 503 First of all, both desktop menu entries now work.  A design flaw in
 504 one of the script made the history graph fail to show up (its PNG was
 505 dumped in ~/.xsession-errors) if no controlling TTY was available.
 506 The script worked when called from the command line, but not when
 507 called from the desktop menu.  I changed this to look for a DISPLAY
 508 variable or a TTY before deciding where to draw the graph, and now the
 509 graph window pop up as expected.</p>
 510
 511 <p>The next new feature is a discharge rate estimator in one of the
 512 graphs (the one showing the last few hours).  New is also the user of
 513 colours showing charging in blue and discharge in red.  The percentages
 514 of this graph is relative to last full charge, not battery design
 515 capacity.</p>
 516
 517 <p align="center"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-05-23-battery-stats-rate.png"/></p>
 518
 519 <p>The other graph show the entire history of the collected battery
 520 statistics, comparing it to the design capacity of the battery to
 521 visualise how the battery life time get shorter over time.  The red
 522 line in this graph is what the previous graph considers 100 percent:
 523
 524 <p align="center"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-05-23-battery-stats-history.png"/></p>
 525
 526 <p>In this graph you can see that I only charge the battery to 80
 527 percent of last full capacity, and how the capacity of the battery is
 528 shrinking. :(</p>
 529
 530 <p>The last new feature is in the collector, which now will handle
 531 more hardware models.  On some hardware, Linux power supply
 532 information is stored in /sys/class/power_supply/ACAD/, while the
 533 collector previously only looked in /sys/class/power_supply/AC/.  Now
 534 both are checked to figure if there is power connected to the
 535 machine.</p>
 536
 537 <p>If you are interested in how your laptop battery is doing, please
 538 check out the
 539 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">battery-stats</a>
 540 in Debian unstable, or rebuild it on Jessie to get it working on
 541 Debian stable. :) The upstream source is available from <a
 542 href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/battery-stats">github</a>.
 543 Patches are very welcome.</p>
 544
 545 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
 546 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
 547 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
 548
 549       </div>
 550       <div class="tags">
 551
 552
 553         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
 554
 555
 556       </div>
 557     </div>
 558     <div class="padding"></div>
 559
 560     <div class="entry">
 561       <div class="title">
 562         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_now_with_ZFS_on_Linux_included.html">Debian now with ZFS on Linux included</a>
 563       </div>
 564       <div class="date">
 565         12th May 2016
 566       </div>
 567       <div class="body">
 568         <p>Today, after many years of hard work from many people,
 569 <a href="http://zfsonlinux.org/">ZFS for Linux</a> finally entered
 570 Debian.  The package status can be seen on
 571 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/zfs-linux">the package tracker
 572 for zfs-linux</a>.  and
 573 <a href="https://qa.debian.org/developer.php?login=pkg-zfsonlinux-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
 574 team status page</a>. If you want to help out, please join us.
 575 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=pkg-zfsonlinux/zfs.git">The
 576 source code</a> is available via git on Alioth.  It would also be
 577 great if you could help out with
 578 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/dkms">the dkms package</a>, as
 579 it is an important piece of the puzzle to get ZFS working.</p>
 580
 581       </div>
 582       <div class="tags">
 583
 584
 585         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
 586
 587
 588       </div>
 589     </div>
 590     <div class="padding"></div>
 591
 592     <div class="entry">
 593       <div class="title">
 594         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_the_best_multimedia_player_in_Debian_.html">What is the best multimedia player in Debian?</a>
 595       </div>
 596       <div class="date">
 597          8th May 2016
 598       </div>
 599       <div class="body">
 600         <p><strong>Where I set out to figure out which multimedia player in
 601 Debian claim support for most file formats.</strong></p>
 602
 603 <p>A few years ago, I had a look at the media support for Browser
 604 plugins in Debian, to get an idea which plugins to include in Debian
 605 Edu.  I created a script to extract the set of supported MIME types
 606 for each plugin, and used this to find out which multimedia browser
 607 plugin supported most file formats / media types.
 608 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">The
 609 result</a> can still be seen on the Debian wiki, even though it have
 610 not been updated for a while.  But browser plugins are less relevant
 611 these days, so I thought it was time to look at standalone
 612 players.</p>
 613
 614 <p>A few days ago I was tired of VLC not being listed as a viable
 615 player when I wanted to play videos from the Norwegian National
 616 Broadcasting Company, and decided to investigate why.  The cause is a
 617 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/822245">missing MIME type in the VLC
 618 desktop file</a>.  In the process I wrote a script to compare the set
 619 of MIME types announced in the desktop file and the browser plugin,
 620 only to discover that there is quite a large difference between the
 621 two for VLC.  This discovery made me dig up the script I used to
 622 compare browser plugins, and adjust it to compare desktop files
 623 instead, to try to figure out which multimedia player in Debian
 624 support most file formats.</p>
 625
 626 <p>The result can be seen on the Debian Wiki, as
 627 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianMultimedia/PlayerSupport">a
 628 table listing all MIME types supported by one of the packages included
 629 in the table</a>, with the package supporting most MIME types being
 630 listed first in the table.</p>
 631
 632 </p>The best multimedia player in Debian?  It is totem, followed by
 633 parole, kplayer, mpv, vlc, smplayer mplayer-gui gnome-mpv and
 634 kmplayer.  Time for the other players to update their announced MIME
 635 support?</p>
 636
 637       </div>
 638       <div class="tags">
 639
 640
 641         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
 642
 643
 644       </div>
 645     </div>
 646     <div class="padding"></div>
 647
 648     <div class="entry">
 649       <div class="title">
 650         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Pyra___handheld_computer_with_Debian_preinstalled.html">The Pyra - handheld computer with Debian preinstalled</a>
 651       </div>
 652       <div class="date">
 653          4th May 2016
 654       </div>
 655       <div class="body">
 656         A friend of mine made me aware of
 657 <a href="https://pyra-handheld.com/boards/pages/pyra/">The Pyra</a>, a
 658 handheld computer which will be delivered with Debian preinstalled.  I
 659 would love to get one of those for my birthday. :)</p>
 660
 661 <p>The machine is a complete ARM-based PC with micro HDMI, SATA, USB
 662 plugs and many others connectors, and include a full keyboard and a 5"
 663 LCD touch screen.  The 6000mAh battery is claimed to provide a whole
 664 day of battery life time, but I have not seen any independent tests
 665 confirming this.  The vendor is still collecting preorders, and the
 666 last I heard last night was that 22 more orders were needed before
 667 production started.</p>
 668
 669 <p>As far as I know, this is the first handheld preinstalled with
 670 Debian.  Please let me know if you know of any others.  Is it the
 671 first computer being sold with Debian preinstalled?</p>
 672
 673       </div>
 674       <div class="tags">
 675
 676
 677         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
 678
 679
 680       </div>
 681     </div>
 682     <div class="padding"></div>
 683
 684     <div class="entry">
 685       <div class="title">
 686         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_a_Norwegian_Bokm_l_edition_of_The_Debian_Administrator_s_Handbook.html">Lets make a Norwegian Bokmål edition of The Debian Administrator's Handbook</a>
 687       </div>
 688       <div class="date">
 689         10th April 2016
 690       </div>
 691       <div class="body">
 692         <p>During this weekends
 693 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/news/Oslo__Takk_for_feilfiksingsfesten.shtml">bug
 694 squashing party and developer gathering</a>, we decided to do our part
 695 to make sure there are good books about Debian available in Norwegian
 696 Bokmål, and got in touch with the people behind the
 697 <a href="http://debian-handbook.info/">Debian Administrator's Handbook
 698 project</a> to get started.  If you want to help out, please start
 699 contributing using
 700 <a href="https://hosted.weblate.org/projects/debian-handbook/">the
 701 hosted weblate project page</a>, and get in touch using
 702 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/debian-handbook-translators">the
 703 translators mailing list</a>.  Please also check out
 704 <a href="https://debian-handbook.info/contribute/">the instructions for
 705 contributors</a>.</p>
 706
 707 <p>The book is already available on paper in English, French and
 708 Japanese, and our goal is to get it available on paper in Norwegian
 709 Bokmål too.  In addition to the paper edition, there are also EPUB and
 710 Mobi versions available.  And there are incomplete translations
 711 available for many more languages.</p>
 712
 713       </div>
 714       <div class="tags">
 715
 716
 717         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
 718
 719
 720       </div>
 721     </div>
 722     <div class="padding"></div>
 723
 724     <div class="entry">
 725       <div class="title">
 726         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/One_in_two_hundred_Debian_users_using_ZFS_on_Linux_.html">One in two hundred Debian users using ZFS on Linux?</a>
 727       </div>
 728       <div class="date">
 729          7th April 2016
 730       </div>
 731       <div class="body">
 732         <p>Just for fun I had a look at the popcon number of ZFS related
 733 packages in Debian, and was quite surprised with what I found.  I use
 734 ZFS myself at home, but did not really expect many others to do so.
 735 But I might be wrong.</p>
 736
 737 <p>According to
 738 <a href="https://qa.debian.org/popcon.php?package=spl-linux">the popcon
 739 results for spl-linux</a>, there are 1019 Debian installations, or
 740 0.53% of the population, with the package installed.  As far as I know
 741 the only use of the spl-linux package is as a support library for ZFS
 742 on Linux, so I use it here as proxy for measuring the number of ZFS
 743 installation on Linux in Debian.  In the kFreeBSD variant of Debian
 744 the ZFS feature is already available, and there
 745 <a href="https://qa.debian.org/popcon.php?package=zfsutils">the popcon
 746 results for zfsutils</a> show 1625 Debian installations or 0.84% of
 747 the population.  So I guess I am not alone in using ZFS on Debian.</p>
 748
 749 <p>But even though the Debian project leader Lucas Nussbaum
 750 <a href="https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2015/04/msg00006.html">announced
 751 in April 2015</a> that the legal obstacles blocking ZFS on Debian were
 752 cleared, the package is still not in Debian.  The package is again in
 753 the NEW queue.  Several uploads have been rejected so far because the
 754 debian/copyright file was incomplete or wrong, but there is no reason
 755 to give up.  The current status can be seen on
 756 <a href="https://qa.debian.org/developer.php?login=pkg-zfsonlinux-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
 757 team status page</a>, and
 758 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=pkg-zfsonlinux/zfs.git">the
 759 source code</a> is available on Alioth.</p>
 760
 761 <p>As I want ZFS to be included in next version of Debian to make sure
 762 my home server can function in the future using only official Debian
 763 packages, and the current blocker is to get the debian/copyright file
 764 accepted by the FTP masters in Debian, I decided a while back to try
 765 to help out the team.  This was the background for my blog post about
 766 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Creating__updating_and_checking_debian_copyright_semi_automatically.html">creating,
 767 updating and checking debian/copyright semi-automatically</a>, and I
 768 used the techniques I explored there to try to find any errors in the
 769 copyright file.  It is not very easy to check every one of the around
 770 2000 files in the source package, but I hope we this time got it
 771 right.  If you want to help out, check out the git source and try to
 772 find missing entries in the debian/copyright file.</p>
 773
 774       </div>
 775       <div class="tags">
 776
 777
 778         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
 779
 780
 781       </div>
 782     </div>
 783     <div class="padding"></div>
 784
 785     <div class="entry">
 786       <div class="title">
 787         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Full_battery_stats_collector_is_now_available_in_Debian.html">Full battery stats collector is now available in Debian</a>
 788       </div>
 789       <div class="date">
 790         23rd March 2016
 791       </div>
 792       <div class="body">
 793         <p>Since this morning, the battery-stats package in Debian include an
 794 extended collector that will collect the complete battery history for
 795 later processing and graphing.  The original collector store the
 796 battery level as percentage of last full level, while the new
 797 collector also record battery vendor, model, serial number, design
 798 full level, last full level and current battery level.  This make it
 799 possible to predict the lifetime of the battery as well as visualise
 800 the energy flow when the battery is charging or discharging.</p>
 801
 802 <p>The new tools are available in <tt>/usr/share/battery-stats/</tt>
 803 in the version 0.5.1 package in unstable.  Get the new battery level graph
 804 and lifetime prediction by running:
 805
 806 <p><pre>
 807 /usr/share/battery-stats/battery-stats-graph /var/log/battery-stats.csv
 808 </pre></p>
 809
 810 <p>Or select the 'Battery Level Graph' from your application menu.</p>
 811
 812 <p>The flow in/out of the battery can be seen by running (no menu
 813 entry yet):</p>
 814
 815 <p><pre>
 816 /usr/share/battery-stats/battery-stats-graph-flow
 817 </pre></p>
 818
 819 <p>I'm not quite happy with the way the data is visualised, at least
 820 when there are few data points.  The graphs look a bit better with a
 821 few years of data.</p>
 822
 823 <p>A while back one important feature I use in the battery stats
 824 collector broke in Debian.  The scripts in
 825 <tt>/usr/lib/pm-utils/power.d/</tt> were no longer executed.  I
 826 suspect it happened when Jessie started using systemd, but I do not
 827 know.  The issue is reported as
 828 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/818649">bug #818649</a> against
 829 pm-utils.  I managed to work around it by adding an udev rule to call
 830 the collector script every time the power connector is connected and
 831 disconnected.  With this fix in place it was finally time to make a
 832 new release of the package, and get it into Debian.</p>
 833
 834 <p>If you are interested in how your laptop battery is doing, please
 835 check out the
 836 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">battery-stats</a>
 837 in Debian unstable, or rebuild it on Jessie to get it working on
 838 Debian stable. :) The upstream source is available from
 839 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/battery-stats">github</a>.
 840 As always, patches are very welcome.</p>
 841
 842       </div>
 843       <div class="tags">
 844
 845
 846         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
 847
 848
 849       </div>
 850     </div>
 851     <div class="padding"></div>
 852
 853     <div class="entry">
 854       <div class="title">
 855         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Making_battery_measurements_a_little_easier_in_Debian.html">Making battery measurements a little easier in Debian</a>
 856       </div>
 857       <div class="date">
 858         15th March 2016
 859       </div>
 860       <div class="body">
 861         <p>Back in September, I blogged about
 862 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_life_and_death_of_a_laptop_battery.html">the
 863 system I wrote to collect statistics about my laptop battery</a>, and
 864 how it showed the decay and death of this battery (now replaced).  I
 865 created a simple deb package to handle the collection and graphing,
 866 but did not want to upload it to Debian as there were already
 867 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">a battery-stats
 868 package in Debian</a> that should do the same thing, and I did not see
 869 a point of uploading a competing package when battery-stats could be
 870 fixed instead.  I reported a few bugs about its non-function, and
 871 hoped someone would step in and fix it.  But no-one did.</p>
 872
 873 <p>I got tired of waiting a few days ago, and took matters in my own
 874 hands.  The end result is that I am now the new upstream developer of
 875 battery stats (<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/battery-stats">available from github</a>) and part of the team maintaining
 876 battery-stats in Debian, and the package in Debian unstable is finally
 877 able to collect battery status using the <tt>/sys/class/power_supply/</tt>
 878 information provided by the Linux kernel.  If you install the
 879 battery-stats package from unstable now, you will be able to get a
 880 graph of the current battery fill level, to get some idea about the
 881 status of the battery.  The source package build and work just fine in
 882 Debian testing and stable (and probably oldstable too, but I have not
 883 tested).  The default graph you get for that system look like this:</p>
 884
 885 <p align="center"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-03-15-battery-stats-graph-example.png" width="70%" align="center"></p>
 886
 887 <p>My plans for the future is to merge my old scripts into the
 888 battery-stats package, as my old scripts collected a lot more details
 889 about the battery.  The scripts are merged into the upstream
 890 battery-stats git repository already, but I am not convinced they work
 891 yet, as I changed a lot of paths along the way.  Will have to test a
 892 bit more before I make a new release.</p>
 893
 894 <p>I will also consider changing the file format slightly, as I
 895 suspect the way I combine several values into one field might make it
 896 impossible to know the type of the value when using it for processing
 897 and graphing.</p>
 898
 899 <p>If you would like I would like to keep an close eye on your laptop
 900 battery, check out the battery-stats package in
 901 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">Debian</a> and
 902 on
 903 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/battery-stats">github</a>.
 904 I would love some help to improve the system further.</p>
 905
 906       </div>
 907       <div class="tags">
 908
 909
 910         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
 911
 912
 913       </div>
 914     </div>
 915     <div class="padding"></div>
 916
 917     <div class="entry">
 918       <div class="title">
 919         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Creating__updating_and_checking_debian_copyright_semi_automatically.html">Creating, updating and checking debian/copyright semi-automatically</a>
 920       </div>
 921       <div class="date">
 922         19th February 2016
 923       </div>
 924       <div class="body">
 925         <p>Making packages for Debian requires quite a lot of attention to
 926 details.  And one of the details is the content of the
 927 debian/copyright file, which should list all relevant licenses used by
 928 the code in the package in question, preferably in
 929 <a href="https://www.debian.org/doc/packaging-manuals/copyright-format/1.0/">machine
 930 readable DEP5 format</a>.</p>
 931
 932 <p>For large packages with lots of contributors it is hard to write
 933 and update this file manually, and if you get some detail wrong, the
 934 package is normally rejected by the ftpmasters.  So getting it right
 935 the first time around get the package into Debian faster, and save
 936 both you and the ftpmasters some work..  Today, while trying to figure
 937 out what was wrong with
 938 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=686447">the
 939 zfsonlinux copyright file</a>, I decided to spend some time on
 940 figuring out the options for doing this job automatically, or at least
 941 semi-automatically.</p>
 942
 943 <p>Lucikly, there are at least two tools available for generating the
 944 file based on the code in the source package,
 945 <tt><a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/debmake">debmake</a></tt>
 946 and <tt><a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/cme">cme</a></tt>.  I'm
 947 not sure which one of them came first, but both seem to be able to
 948 create a sensible draft file.  As far as I can tell, none of them can
 949 be trusted to get the result just right, so the content need to be
 950 polished a bit before the file is OK to upload.  I found the debmake
 951 option in
 952 <a href="http://goofying-with-debian.blogspot.com/2014/07/debmake-checking-source-against-dep-5.html">a
 953 blog posts from 2014</a>.
 954
 955 <p>To generate using debmake, use the -cc option:
 956
 957 <p><pre>
 958 debmake -cc > debian/copyright
 959 </pre></p>
 960
 961 <p>Note there are some problems with python and non-ASCII names, so
 962 this might not be the best option.</p>
 963
 964 <p>The cme option is based on a config parsing library, and I found
 965 this approach in
 966 <a href="https://ddumont.wordpress.com/2015/04/05/improving-creation-of-debian-copyright-file/">a
 967 blog post from 2015</a>.  To generate using cme, use the 'update
 968 dpkg-copyright' option:
 969
 970 <p><pre>
 971 cme update dpkg-copyright
 972 </pre></p>
 973
 974 <p>This will create or update debian/copyright.  The cme tool seem to
 975 handle UTF-8 names better than debmake.</p>
 976
 977 <p>When the copyright file is created, I would also like some help to
 978 check if the file is correct.  For this I found two good options,
 979 <tt>debmake -k</tt> and <tt>license-reconcile</tt>.  The former seem
 980 to focus on license types and file matching, and is able to detect
 981 ineffective blocks in the copyright file.  The latter reports missing
 982 copyright holders and years, but was confused by inconsistent license
 983 names (like CDDL vs. CDDL-1.0).  I suspect it is good to use both and
 984 fix all issues reported by them before uploading.  But I do not know
 985 if the tools and the ftpmasters agree on what is important to fix in a
 986 copyright file, so the package might still be rejected.</p>
 987
 988 <p>The devscripts tool <tt>licensecheck</tt> deserve mentioning.  It
 989 will read through the source and try to find all copyright statements.
 990 It is not comparing the result to the content of debian/copyright, but
 991 can be useful when verifying the content of the copyright file.</p>
 992
 993 <p>Are you aware of better tools in Debian to create and update
 994 debian/copyright file.  Please let me know, or blog about it on
 995 planet.debian.org.</p>
 996
 997 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
 998 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
 999 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
1000
1001 <p><strong>Update 2016-02-20</strong>: I got a tip from Mike Gabriel
1002 on how to use licensecheck and cdbs to create a draft copyright file
1003
1004 <p><pre>
1005 licensecheck --copyright -r `find * -type f` | \
1006   /usr/lib/cdbs/licensecheck2dep5 > debian/copyright.auto
1007 </pre></p>
1008
1009 <p>He mentioned that he normally check the generated file into the
1010 version control system to make it easier to discover license and
1011 copyright changes in the upstream source.  I will try to do the same
1012 with my packages in the future.</p>
1013
1014 <p><strong>Update 2016-02-21</strong>: The cme author recommended
1015 against using -quiet for new users, so I removed it from the proposed
1016 command line.</p>
1017
1018       </div>
1019       <div class="tags">
1020
1021
1022         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1023
1024
1025       </div>
1026     </div>
1027     <div class="padding"></div>
1028
1029     <div class="entry">
1030       <div class="title">
1031         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_appstream_in_Debian_to_locate_packages_with_firmware_and_mime_type_support.html">Using appstream in Debian to locate packages with firmware and mime type support</a>
1032       </div>
1033       <div class="date">
1034          4th February 2016
1035       </div>
1036       <div class="body">
1037         <p>The <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DEP-11">appstream system</a>
1038 is taking shape in Debian, and one provided feature is a very
1039 convenient way to tell you which package to install to make a given
1040 firmware file available when the kernel is looking for it.  This can
1041 be done using apt-file too, but that is for someone else to blog
1042 about. :)</p>
1043
1044 <p>Here is a small recipe to find the package with a given firmware
1045 file, in this example I am looking for ctfw-3.2.3.0.bin, randomly
1046 picked from the set of firmware announced using appstream in Debian
1047 unstable.  In general you would be looking for the firmware requested
1048 by the kernel during kernel module loading.  To find the package
1049 providing the example file, do like this:</p>
1050
1051 <blockquote><pre>
1052 % apt install appstream
1053 [...]
1054 % apt update
1055 [...]
1056 % appstreamcli what-provides firmware:runtime ctfw-3.2.3.0.bin | \
1057   awk '/Package:/ {print $2}'
1058 firmware-qlogic
1059 %
1060 </pre></blockquote>
1061
1062 <p>See <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/AppStream/Guidelines">the
1063 appstream wiki</a> page to learn how to embed the package metadata in
1064 a way appstream can use.</p>
1065
1066 <p>This same approach can be used to find any package supporting a
1067 given MIME type.  This is very useful when you get a file you do not
1068 know how to handle.  First find the mime type using <tt>file
1069 --mime-type</tt>, and next look up the package providing support for
1070 it.  Lets say you got an SVG file.  Its MIME type is image/svg+xml,
1071 and you can find all packages handling this type like this:</p>
1072
1073 <blockquote><pre>
1074 % apt install appstream
1075 [...]
1076 % apt update
1077 [...]
1078 % appstreamcli what-provides mimetype image/svg+xml | \
1079   awk '/Package:/ {print $2}'
1080 bkchem
1081 phototonic
1082 inkscape
1083 shutter
1084 tetzle
1085 geeqie
1086 xia
1087 pinta
1088 gthumb
1089 karbon
1090 comix
1091 mirage
1092 viewnior
1093 postr
1094 ristretto
1095 kolourpaint4
1096 eog
1097 eom
1098 gimagereader
1099 midori
1100 %
1101 </pre></blockquote>
1102
1103 <p>I believe the MIME types are fetched from the desktop file for
1104 packages providing appstream metadata.</p>
1105
1106       </div>
1107       <div class="tags">
1108
1109
1110         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1111
1112
1113       </div>
1114     </div>
1115     <div class="padding"></div>
1116
1117     <div class="entry">
1118       <div class="title">
1119         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Creepy__visualise_geotagged_social_media_information___nice_free_software.html">Creepy, visualise geotagged social media information - nice free software</a>
1120       </div>
1121       <div class="date">
1122         24th January 2016
1123       </div>
1124       <div class="body">
1125         <p>Most people seem not to realise that every time they walk around
1126 with the computerised radio beacon known as a mobile phone their
1127 position is tracked by the phone company and often stored for a long
1128 time (like every time a SMS is received or sent).  And if their
1129 computerised radio beacon is capable of running programs (often called
1130 mobile apps) downloaded from the Internet, these programs are often
1131 also capable of tracking their location (if the app requested access
1132 during installation).  And when these programs send out information to
1133 central collection points, the location is often included, unless
1134 extra care is taken to not send the location.  The provided
1135 information is used by several entities, for good and bad (what is
1136 good and bad, depend on your point of view).  What is certain, is that
1137 the private sphere and the right to free movement is challenged and
1138 perhaps even eradicated for those announcing their location this way,
1139 when they share their whereabouts with private and public
1140 entities.</p>
1141
1142 <p align="center"><img width="70%" src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-01-24-nice-creepy-desktop-window.png"></p>
1143
1144 <p>The phone company logs provide a register of locations to check out
1145 when one want to figure out what the tracked person was doing.  It is
1146 unavailable for most of us, but provided to selected government
1147 officials, company staff, those illegally buying information from
1148 unfaithful servants and crackers stealing the information.  But the
1149 public information can be collected and analysed, and a free software
1150 tool to do so is called
1151 <a href="http://www.geocreepy.com/">Creepy or Cree.py</a>.  I
1152 discovered it when I read
1153 <a href="http://www.aftenposten.no/kultur/Slik-kan-du-bli-overvaket-pa-Twitter-og-Instagram-uten-a-ane-det-7787884.html">an
1154 article about Creepy</a> in the Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten i
1155 November 2014, and decided to check if it was available in Debian.
1156 The python program was in Debian, but
1157 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/creepy">the version in
1158 Debian</a> was completely broken and practically unmaintained.  I
1159 uploaded a new version which did not work quite right, but did not
1160 have time to fix it then.  This Christmas I decided to finally try to
1161 get Creepy operational in Debian.  Now a fixed version is available in
1162 Debian unstable and testing, and almost all Debian specific patches
1163 are now included
1164 <a href="https://github.com/jkakavas/creepy">upstream</a>.</p>
1165
1166 <p>The Creepy program visualises geolocation information fetched from
1167 Twitter, Instagram, Flickr and Google+, and allow one to get a
1168 complete picture of every social media message posted recently in a
1169 given area, or track the movement of a given individual across all
1170 these services.  Earlier it was possible to use the search API of at
1171 least some of these services without identifying oneself, but these
1172 days it is impossible.  This mean that to use Creepy, you need to
1173 configure it to log in as yourself on these services, and provide
1174 information to them about your search interests.  This should be taken
1175 into account when using Creepy, as it will also share information
1176 about yourself with the services.</p>
1177
1178 <p>The picture above show the twitter messages sent from (or at least
1179 geotagged with a position from) the city centre of Oslo, the capital
1180 of Norway.  One useful way to use Creepy is to first look at
1181 information tagged with an area of interest, and next look at all the
1182 information provided by one or more individuals who was in the area.
1183 I tested it by checking out which celebrity provide their location in
1184 twitter messages by checkout out who sent twitter messages near a
1185 Norwegian TV station, and next could track their position over time,
1186 making it possible to locate their home and work place, among other
1187 things.  A similar technique have been
1188 <a href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/maxseddon/does-this-soldiers-instagram-account-prove-russia-is-covertl">used
1189 to locate Russian soldiers in Ukraine</a>, and it is both a powerful
1190 tool to discover lying governments, and a useful tool to help people
1191 understand the value of the private information they provide to the
1192 public.</p>
1193
1194 <p>The package is not trivial to backport to Debian Stable/Jessie, as
1195 it depend on several python modules currently missing in Jessie (at
1196 least python-instagram, python-flickrapi and
1197 python-requests-toolbelt).</p>
1198
1199 <p>(I have uploaded
1200 <a href="https://screenshots.debian.net/package/creepy">the image to
1201 screenshots.debian.net</a> and licensed it under the same terms as the
1202 Creepy program in Debian.)</p>
1203
1204       </div>
1205       <div class="tags">
1206
1207
1208         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nice free software">nice free software</a>.
1209
1210
1211       </div>
1212     </div>
1213     <div class="padding"></div>
1214
1215     <div class="entry">
1216       <div class="title">
1217         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Always_download_Debian_packages_using_Tor___the_simple_recipe.html">Always download Debian packages using Tor - the simple recipe</a>
1218       </div>
1219       <div class="date">
1220         15th January 2016
1221       </div>
1222       <div class="body">
1223         <p>During his DebConf15 keynote, Jacob Appelbaum
1224 <a href="https://summit.debconf.org/debconf15/meeting/331/what-is-to-be-done/">observed
1225 that those listening on the Internet lines would have good reason to
1226 believe a computer have a given security hole</a> if it download a
1227 security fix from a Debian mirror.  This is a good reason to always
1228 use encrypted connections to the Debian mirror, to make sure those
1229 listening do not know which IP address to attack.  In August, Richard
1230 Hartmann observed that encryption was not enough, when it was possible
1231 to interfere download size to security patches or the fact that
1232 download took place shortly after a security fix was released, and
1233 <a href="http://richardhartmann.de/blog/posts/2015/08/24-Tor-enabled_Debian_mirror/">proposed
1234 to always use Tor to download packages from the Debian mirror</a>.  He
1235 was not the first to propose this, as the
1236 <tt><a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/apt-transport-tor">apt-transport-tor</a></tt>
1237 package by Tim Retout already existed to make it easy to convince apt
1238 to use <a href="https://www.torproject.org/">Tor</a>, but I was not
1239 aware of that package when I read the blog post from Richard.</p>
1240
1241 <p>Richard discussed the idea with Peter Palfrader, one of the Debian
1242 sysadmins, and he set up a Tor hidden service on one of the central
1243 Debian mirrors using the address vwakviie2ienjx6t.onion, thus making
1244 it possible to download packages directly between two tor nodes,
1245 making sure the network traffic always were encrypted.</p>
1246
1247 <p>Here is a short recipe for enabling this on your machine, by
1248 installing <tt>apt-transport-tor</tt> and replacing http and https
1249 urls with tor+http and tor+https, and using the hidden service instead
1250 of the official Debian mirror site.  I recommend installing
1251 <tt>etckeeper</tt> before you start to have a history of the changes
1252 done in /etc/.</p>
1253
1254 <blockquote><pre>
1255 apt install apt-transport-tor
1256 sed -i 's% http://ftp.debian.org/% tor+http://vwakviie2ienjx6t.onion/%' /etc/apt/sources.list
1257 sed -i 's% http% tor+http%' /etc/apt/sources.list
1258 </pre></blockquote>
1259
1260 <p>If you have more sources listed in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/, run
1261 the sed commands for these too.  The sed command is assuming your are
1262 using the ftp.debian.org Debian mirror.  Adjust the command (or just
1263 edit the file manually) to match your mirror.</p>
1264
1265 <p>This work in Debian Jessie and later.  Note that tools like
1266 <tt>apt-file</tt> only recently started using the apt transport
1267 system, and do not work with these tor+http URLs.  For
1268 <tt>apt-file</tt> you need the version currently in experimental,
1269 which need a recent apt version currently only in unstable.  So if you
1270 need a working <tt>apt-file</tt>, this is not for you.</p>
1271
1272 <p>Another advantage from this change is that your machine will start
1273 using Tor regularly and at fairly random intervals (every time you
1274 update the package lists or upgrade or install a new package), thus
1275 masking other Tor traffic done from the same machine.  Using Tor will
1276 become normal for the machine in question.</p>
1277
1278 <p>On <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">Freedombox</a>, APT
1279 is set up by default to use <tt>apt-transport-tor</tt> when Tor is
1280 enabled.  It would be great if it was the default on any Debian
1281 system.</p>
1282
1283       </div>
1284       <div class="tags">
1285
1286
1287         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
1288
1289
1290       </div>
1291     </div>
1292     <div class="padding"></div>
1293
1294     <div class="entry">
1295       <div class="title">
1296         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/OpenALPR__find_car_license_plates_in_video_streams___nice_free_software.html">OpenALPR, find car license plates in video streams - nice free software</a>
1297       </div>
1298       <div class="date">
1299         23rd December 2015
1300       </div>
1301       <div class="body">
1302         <p>When I was a kid, we used to collect "car numbers", as we used to
1303 call the car license plate numbers in those days.  I would write the
1304 numbers down in my little book and compare notes with the other kids
1305 to see how many region codes we had seen and if we had seen some
1306 exotic or special region codes and numbers.  It was a fun game to pass
1307 time, as we kids have plenty of it.</p>
1308
1309 <p>A few days I came across
1310 <a href="https://github.com/openalpr/openalpr">the OpenALPR
1311 project</a>, a free software project to automatically discover and
1312 report license plates in images and video streams, and provide the
1313 "car numbers" in a machine readable format.  I've been looking for
1314 such system for a while now, because I believe it is a bad idea that the
1315 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_number_plate_recognition">automatic
1316 number plate recognition</a> tool only is available in the hands of
1317 the powerful, and want it to be available also for the powerless to
1318 even the score when it comes to surveillance and sousveillance.  I
1319 discovered the developer
1320 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/747509">wanted to get the tool into
1321 Debian</a>, and as I too wanted it to be in Debian, I volunteered to
1322 help him get it into shape to get the package uploaded into the Debian
1323 archive.</p>
1324
1325 <p>Today we finally managed to get the package into shape and uploaded
1326 it into Debian, where it currently
1327 <a href="https://ftp-master.debian.org//new/openalpr_2.2.1-1.html">waits
1328 in the NEW queue</a> for review by the Debian ftpmasters.</p>
1329
1330 <p>I guess you are wondering why on earth such tool would be useful
1331 for the common folks, ie those not running a large government
1332 surveillance system?  Well, I plan to put it in a computer on my bike
1333 and in my car, tracking the cars nearby and allowing me to be notified
1334 when number plates on my watch list are discovered.  Another use case
1335 was suggested by a friend of mine, who wanted to set it up at his home
1336 to open the car port automatically when it discovered the plate on his
1337 car.  When I mentioned it perhaps was a bit foolhardy to allow anyone
1338 capable of placing his license plate number of a piece of cardboard to
1339 open his car port, men replied that it was always unlocked anyway.  I
1340 guess for such use case it make sense.  I am sure there are other use
1341 cases too, for those with imagination and a vision.</p>
1342
1343 <p>If you want to build your own version of the Debian package, check
1344 out the upstream git source and symlink ./distros/debian to ./debian/
1345 before running "debuild" to build the source.  Or wait a bit until the
1346 package show up in unstable.</p>
1347
1348       </div>
1349       <div class="tags">
1350
1351
1352         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nice free software">nice free software</a>.
1353
1354
1355       </div>
1356     </div>
1357     <div class="padding"></div>
1358
1359     <div class="entry">
1360       <div class="title">
1361         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_appstream_with_isenkram_to_install_hardware_related_packages_in_Debian.html">Using appstream with isenkram to install hardware related packages in Debian</a>
1362       </div>
1363       <div class="date">
1364         20th December 2015
1365       </div>
1366       <div class="body">
1367         <p>Around three years ago, I created
1368 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">the isenkram
1369 system</a> to get a more practical solution in Debian for handing
1370 hardware related packages.  A GUI system in the isenkram package will
1371 present a pop-up dialog when some hardware dongle supported by
1372 relevant packages in Debian is inserted into the machine.  The same
1373 lookup mechanism to detect packages is available as command line
1374 tools in the isenkram-cli package.  In addition to mapping hardware,
1375 it will also map kernel firmware files to packages and make it easy to
1376 install needed firmware packages automatically.  The key for this
1377 system to work is a good way to map hardware to packages, in other
1378 words, allow packages to announce what hardware they will work
1379 with.</p>
1380
1381 <p>I started by providing data files in the isenkram source, and
1382 adding code to download the latest version of these data files at run
1383 time, to ensure every user had the most up to date mapping available.
1384 I also added support for storing the mapping in the Packages file in
1385 the apt repositories, but did not push this approach because while I
1386 was trying to figure out how to best store hardware/package mappings,
1387 <a href="http://www.freedesktop.org/software/appstream/docs/">the
1388 appstream system</a> was announced.  I got in touch and suggested to
1389 add the hardware mapping into that data set to be able to use
1390 appstream as a data source, and this was accepted at least for the
1391 Debian version of appstream.</p>
1392
1393 <p>A few days ago using appstream in Debian for this became possible,
1394 and today I uploaded a new version 0.20 of isenkram adding support for
1395 appstream as a data source for mapping hardware to packages.  The only
1396 package so far using appstream to announce its hardware support is my
1397 pymissile package.  I got help from Matthias Klumpp with figuring out
1398 how do add the required
1399 <a href="https://appstream.debian.org/html/sid/main/metainfo/pymissile.html">metadata
1400 in pymissile</a>.  I added a file debian/pymissile.metainfo.xml with
1401 this content:</p>
1402
1403 <blockquote><pre>
1404 &lt;?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?&gt;
1405 &lt;component&gt;
1406   &lt;id&gt;pymissile&lt;/id&gt;
1407   &lt;metadata_license&gt;MIT&lt;/metadata_license&gt;
1408   &lt;name&gt;pymissile&lt;/name&gt;
1409   &lt;summary&gt;Control original Striker USB Missile Launcher&lt;/summary&gt;
1410   &lt;description&gt;
1411     &lt;p&gt;
1412       Pymissile provides a curses interface to control an original
1413       Marks and Spencer / Striker USB Missile Launcher, as well as a
1414       motion control script to allow a webcamera to control the
1415       launcher.
1416     &lt;/p&gt;
1417   &lt;/description&gt;
1418   &lt;provides&gt;
1419     &lt;modalias&gt;usb:v1130p0202d*&lt;/modalias&gt;
1420   &lt;/provides&gt;
1421 &lt;/component&gt;
1422 </pre></blockquote>
1423
1424 <p>The key for isenkram is the component/provides/modalias value,
1425 which is a glob style match rule for hardware specific strings
1426 (modalias strings) provided by the Linux kernel.  In this case, it
1427 will map to all USB devices with vendor code 1130 and product code
1428 0202.</p>
1429
1430 <p>Note, it is important that the license of all the metadata files
1431 are compatible to have permissions to aggregate them into archive wide
1432 appstream files.  Matthias suggested to use MIT or BSD licenses for
1433 these files.  A challenge is figuring out a good id for the data, as
1434 it is supposed to be globally unique and shared across distributions
1435 (in other words, best to coordinate with upstream what to use).  But
1436 it can be changed later or, so we went with the package name as
1437 upstream for this project is dormant.</p>
1438
1439 <p>To get the metadata file installed in the correct location for the
1440 mirror update scripts to pick it up and include its content the
1441 appstream data source, the file must be installed in the binary
1442 package under /usr/share/appdata/.  I did this by adding the following
1443 line to debian/pymissile.install:</p>
1444
1445 <blockquote><pre>
1446 debian/pymissile.metainfo.xml usr/share/appdata
1447 </pre></blockquote>
1448
1449 <p>With that in place, the command line tool isenkram-lookup will list
1450 all packages useful on the current computer automatically, and the GUI
1451 pop-up handler will propose to install the package not already
1452 installed if a hardware dongle is inserted into the machine in
1453 question.</p>
1454
1455 <p>Details of the modalias field in appstream is available from the
1456 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DEP-11">DEP-11</a> proposal.</p>
1457
1458 <p>To locate the modalias values of all hardware present in a machine,
1459 try running this command on the command line:</p>
1460
1461 <blockquote><pre>
1462 cat $(find /sys/devices/|grep modalias)
1463 </pre></blockquote>
1464
1465 <p>To learn more about the isenkram system, please check out
1466 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram/">my
1467 blog posts tagged isenkram</a>.</p>
1468
1469       </div>
1470       <div class="tags">
1471
1472
1473         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
1474
1475
1476       </div>
1477     </div>
1478     <div class="padding"></div>
1479
1480     <div class="entry">
1481       <div class="title">
1482         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_GNU_General_Public_License_is_not_magic_pixie_dust.html">The GNU General Public License is not magic pixie dust</a>
1483       </div>
1484       <div class="date">
1485         30th November 2015
1486       </div>
1487       <div class="body">
1488         <p>A blog post from my fellow Debian developer Paul Wise titled
1489 "<a href="http://bonedaddy.net/pabs3/log/2015/11/27/sfc-supporter/">The
1490 GPL is not magic pixie dust</a>" explain the importance of making sure
1491 the <a href="http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html">GPL</a> is enforced.
1492 I quote the blog post from Paul in full here with his permission:<p>
1493
1494 <blockquote>
1495
1496 <p><a href="https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/"><img src="https://sfconservancy.org/img/supporter-badge.png" width="194" height="90" alt="Become a Software Freedom Conservancy Supporter!" align="right" border="0" /></a></p>
1497
1498 <blockquote>
1499 The GPL is not magic pixie dust. It does not work by itself.<br/>
1500
1501 The first step is to choose a
1502 <a href="https://copyleft.org/">copyleft</a> license for your
1503 code.<br/>
1504
1505 The next step is, when someone fails to follow that copyleft license,
1506 <b>it must be enforced</b><br/>
1507
1508 and its a simple fact of our modern society that such type of
1509 work<br/>
1510
1511 is incredibly expensive to do and incredibly difficult to do.
1512 </blockquote>
1513
1514 <p><small>-- <a href="http://ebb.org/bkuhn/">Bradley Kuhn</a>, in
1515 <a href="http://faif.us/" title="Free as in Freedom">FaiF</a>
1516 <a href="http://faif.us/cast/2015/nov/24/0x57/">episode
1517 0x57</a></small></p>
1518
1519 <p>As the Debian Website
1520 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/794116">used</a>
1521 <a href="https://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/webwml/webwml/english/intro/free.wml?r1=1.24&amp;r2=1.25">to</a>
1522 imply, public domain and permissively licensed software can lead to
1523 the production of more proprietary software as people discover useful
1524 software, extend it and or incorporate it into their hardware or
1525 software products.  Copyleft licenses such as the GNU GPL were created
1526 to close off this avenue to the production of proprietary software but
1527 such licenses are not enough.  With the ongoing adoption of Free
1528 Software by individuals and groups, inevitably the community's
1529 expectations of license compliance are violated, usually out of
1530 ignorance of the way Free Software works, but not always.  As Karen
1531 and Bradley explained in <a href="http://faif.us/" title="Free as in
1532 Freedom">FaiF</a>
1533 <a href="http://faif.us/cast/2015/nov/24/0x57/">episode 0x57</a>,
1534 copyleft is nothing if no-one is willing and able to stand up in court
1535 to protect it.  The reality of today's world is that legal
1536 representation is expensive, difficult and time consuming.  With
1537 <a href="http://gpl-violations.org/">gpl-violations.org</a> in hiatus
1538 <a href="http://gpl-violations.org/news/20151027-homepage-recovers/">until</a>
1539 some time in 2016, the <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/">Software
1540 Freedom Conservancy</a> (a tax-exempt charity) is the major defender
1541 of the Linux project, Debian and other groups against GPL violations.
1542 In March the SFC supported a
1543 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/news/2015/mar/05/vmware-lawsuit/">lawsuit
1544 by Christoph Hellwig</a> against VMware for refusing to
1545 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/linux-compliance/vmware-lawsuit-faq.html">comply
1546 with the GPL</a> in relation to their use of parts of the Linux
1547 kernel.  Since then two of their sponsors pulled corporate funding and
1548 conferences
1549 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2015/nov/24/faif-carols-fundraiser/">blocked
1550 or cancelled their talks</a>.  As a result they have decided to rely
1551 less on corporate funding and more on the broad community of
1552 individuals who support Free Software and copyleft.  So the SFC has
1553 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/news/2015/nov/23/2015fundraiser/">launched</a>
1554 a <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/">campaign</a> to create
1555 a community of folks who stand up for copyleft and the GPL by
1556 supporting their work on promoting and supporting copyleft and Free
1557 Software.</p>
1558
1559 <p>If you support Free Software,
1560 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2015/nov/26/like-what-I-do/">like</a>
1561 what the SFC do, agree with their
1562 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/linux-compliance/principles.html">compliance
1563 principles</a>, are happy about their
1564 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/">successes</a> in 2015,
1565 work on a project that is an SFC
1566 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/members/current/">member</a> and or
1567 just want to stand up for copyleft, please join
1568 <a href="https://identi.ca/cwebber/image/JQGPA4qbTyyp3-MY8QpvuA">Christopher
1569 Allan Webber</a>,
1570 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2015/nov/24/faif-carols-fundraiser/">Carol
1571 Smith</a>,
1572 <a href="http://www.jonobacon.org/2015/11/25/supporting-software-freedom-conservancy/">Jono
1573 Bacon</a>, myself and
1574 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/sponsors/#supporters">others</a> in
1575 becoming a
1576 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/">supporter</a>.  For the
1577 next week your donation will be
1578 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/news/2015/nov/27/black-friday/">matched</a>
1579 by an anonymous donor.  Please also consider asking your employer to
1580 match your donation or become a sponsor of SFC.  Don't forget to
1581 spread the word about your support for SFC via email, your blog and or
1582 social media accounts.</p>
1583
1584 </blockquote>
1585
1586 <p>I agree with Paul on this topic and just signed up as a Supporter
1587 of Software Freedom Conservancy myself.  Perhaps you should be a
1588 supporter too?</p>
1589
1590       </div>
1591       <div class="tags">
1592
1593
1594         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>.
1595
1596
1597       </div>
1598     </div>
1599     <div class="padding"></div>
1600
1601     <div class="entry">
1602       <div class="title">
1603         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/PGP_key_transition_statement_for_key_EE4E02F9.html">PGP key transition statement for key EE4E02F9</a>
1604       </div>
1605       <div class="date">
1606         17th November 2015
1607       </div>
1608       <div class="body">
1609         <p>I've needed a new OpenPGP key for a while, but have not had time to
1610 set it up properly.  I wanted to generate it offline and have it
1611 available on <a href="http://shop.kernelconcepts.de/#openpgp">a OpenPGP
1612 smart card</a> for daily use, and learning how to do it and finding
1613 time to sit down with an offline machine almost took forever.  But
1614 finally I've been able to complete the process, and have now moved
1615 from my old GPG key to a new GPG key.  See
1616 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2015-11-17-new-gpg-key-transition.txt">the
1617 full transition statement, signed with both my old and new key</a> for
1618 the details.  This is my new key:</p>
1619
1620 <pre>
1621 pub   3936R/<a href="http://pgp.cs.uu.nl/stats/111D6B29EE4E02F9.html">111D6B29EE4E02F9</a> 2015-11-03 [expires: 2019-11-14]
1622       Key fingerprint = 3AC7 B2E3 ACA5 DF87 78F1  D827 111D 6B29 EE4E 02F9
1623 uid                  Petter Reinholdtsen &lt;pere@hungry.com&gt;
1624 uid                  Petter Reinholdtsen &lt;pere@debian.org&gt;
1625 sub   4096R/87BAFB0E 2015-11-03 [expires: 2019-11-02]
1626 sub   4096R/F91E6DE9 2015-11-03 [expires: 2019-11-02]
1627 sub   4096R/A0439BAB 2015-11-03 [expires: 2019-11-02]
1628 </pre>
1629
1630 <p>The key can be downloaded from the OpenPGP key servers, signed by
1631 my old key.</p>
1632
1633 <p>If you signed my old key
1634 (<a href="http://pgp.cs.uu.nl/stats/DB4CCC4B2A30D729.html">DB4CCC4B2A30D729</a>),
1635 I'd very much appreciate a signature on my new key, details and
1636 instructions in the transition statement. I m happy to reciprocate if
1637 you have a similarly signed transition statement to present.</p>
1638
1639       </div>
1640       <div class="tags">
1641
1642
1643         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
1644
1645
1646       </div>
1647     </div>
1648     <div class="padding"></div>
1649
1650     <div class="entry">
1651       <div class="title">
1652         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_life_and_death_of_a_laptop_battery.html">The life and death of a laptop battery</a>
1653       </div>
1654       <div class="date">
1655         24th September 2015
1656       </div>
1657       <div class="body">
1658         <p>When I get a new laptop, the battery life time at the start is OK.
1659 But this do not last.  The last few laptops gave me a feeling that
1660 within a year, the life time is just a fraction of what it used to be,
1661 and it slowly become painful to use the laptop without power connected
1662 all the time.  Because of this, when I got a new Thinkpad X230 laptop
1663 about two years ago, I decided to monitor its battery state to have
1664 more hard facts when the battery started to fail.</p>
1665
1666 <img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2015-09-24-laptop-battery-graph.png"/>
1667
1668 <p>First I tried to find a sensible Debian package to record the
1669 battery status, assuming that this must be a problem already handled
1670 by someone else.  I found
1671 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">battery-stats</a>,
1672 which collects statistics from the battery, but it was completely
1673 broken.  I sent a few suggestions to the maintainer, but decided to
1674 write my own collector as a shell script while I waited for feedback
1675 from him.  Via
1676 <a href="http://www.ifweassume.com/2013/08/the-de-evolution-of-my-laptop-battery.html">a
1677 blog post about the battery development on a MacBook Air</a> I also
1678 discovered
1679 <a href="https://github.com/jradavenport/batlog.git">batlog</a>, not
1680 available in Debian.</p>
1681
1682 <p>I started my collector 2013-07-15, and it has been collecting
1683 battery stats ever since. Now my
1684 /var/log/hjemmenett-battery-status.log file contain around 115,000
1685 measurements, from the time the battery was working great until now,
1686 when it is unable to charge above 7% of original capacity.  My
1687 collector shell script is quite simple and look like this:</p>
1688
1689 <pre>
1690 #!/bin/sh
1691 # Inspired by
1692 # http://www.ifweassume.com/2013/08/the-de-evolution-of-my-laptop-battery.html
1693 # See also
1694 # http://blog.sleeplessbeastie.eu/2013/01/02/debian-how-to-monitor-battery-capacity/
1695 logfile=/var/log/hjemmenett-battery-status.log
1696
1697 files="manufacturer model_name technology serial_number \
1698     energy_full energy_full_design energy_now cycle_count status"
1699
1700 if [ ! -e "$logfile" ] ; then
1701     (
1702         printf "timestamp,"
1703         for f in $files; do
1704             printf "%s," $f
1705         done
1706         echo
1707     ) > "$logfile"
1708 fi
1709
1710 log_battery() {
1711     # Print complete message in one echo call, to avoid race condition
1712     # when several log processes run in parallel.
1713     msg=$(printf "%s," $(date +%s); \
1714         for f in $files; do \
1715             printf "%s," $(cat $f); \
1716         done)
1717     echo "$msg"
1718 }
1719
1720 cd /sys/class/power_supply
1721
1722 for bat in BAT*; do
1723     (cd $bat && log_battery >> "$logfile")
1724 done
1725 </pre>
1726
1727 <p>The script is called when the power management system detect a
1728 change in the power status (power plug in or out), and when going into
1729 and out of hibernation and suspend.  In addition, it collect a value
1730 every 10 minutes.  This make it possible for me know when the battery
1731 is discharging, charging and how the maximum charge change over time.
1732 The code for the Debian package
1733 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/battery-status">is now
1734 available on github</a>.</p>
1735
1736 <p>The collected log file look like this:</p>
1737
1738 <pre>
1739 timestamp,manufacturer,model_name,technology,serial_number,energy_full,energy_full_design,energy_now,cycle_count,status,
1740 1376591133,LGC,45N1025,Li-ion,974,62800000,62160000,39050000,0,Discharging,
1741 [...]
1742 1443090528,LGC,45N1025,Li-ion,974,4900000,62160000,4900000,0,Full,
1743 1443090601,LGC,45N1025,Li-ion,974,4900000,62160000,4900000,0,Full,
1744 </pre>
1745
1746 <p>I wrote a small script to create a graph of the charge development
1747 over time.  This graph depicted above show the slow death of my laptop
1748 battery.</p>
1749
1750 <p>But why is this happening?  Why are my laptop batteries always
1751 dying in a year or two, while the batteries of space probes and
1752 satellites keep working year after year.  If we are to believe
1753 <a href="http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/how_to_prolong_lithium_based_batteries">Battery
1754 University</a>, the cause is me charging the battery whenever I have a
1755 chance, and the fix is to not charge the Lithium-ion batteries to 100%
1756 all the time, but to stay below 90% of full charge most of the time.
1757 I've been told that the Tesla electric cars
1758 <a href="http://my.teslamotors.com/de_CH/forum/forums/battery-charge-limit">limit
1759 the charge of their batteries to 80%</a>, with the option to charge to
1760 100% when preparing for a longer trip (not that I would want a car
1761 like Tesla where rights to privacy is abandoned, but that is another
1762 story), which I guess is the option we should have for laptops on
1763 Linux too.</p>
1764
1765 <p>Is there a good and generic way with Linux to tell the battery to
1766 stop charging at 80%, unless requested to charge to 100% once in
1767 preparation for a longer trip?  I found
1768 <a href="http://askubuntu.com/questions/34452/how-can-i-limit-battery-charging-to-80-capacity">one
1769 recipe on askubuntu for Ubuntu to limit charging on Thinkpad to
1770 80%</a>, but could not get it to work (kernel module refused to
1771 load).</p>
1772
1773 <p>I wonder why the battery capacity was reported to be more than 100%
1774 at the start.  I also wonder why the "full capacity" increases some
1775 times, and if it is possible to repeat the process to get the battery
1776 back to design capacity.  And I wonder if the discharge and charge
1777 speed change over time, or if this stay the same.  I did not yet try
1778 to write a tool to calculate the derivative values of the battery
1779 level, but suspect some interesting insights might be learned from
1780 those.</p>
1781
1782 <p>Update 2015-09-24: I got a tip to install the packages
1783 acpi-call-dkms and tlp (unfortunately missing in Debian stable)
1784 packages instead of the tp-smapi-dkms package I had tried to use
1785 initially, and use 'tlp setcharge 40 80' to change when charging start
1786 and stop.  I've done so now, but expect my existing battery is toast
1787 and need to be replaced.  The proposal is unfortunately Thinkpad
1788 specific.</p>
1789
1790       </div>
1791       <div class="tags">
1792
1793
1794         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1795
1796
1797       </div>
1798     </div>
1799     <div class="padding"></div>
1800
1801     <div class="entry">
1802       <div class="title">
1803         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_laptop___some_more_clues_and_ideas_based_on_feedback.html">New laptop - some more clues and ideas based on feedback</a>
1804       </div>
1805       <div class="date">
1806          5th July 2015
1807       </div>
1808       <div class="body">
1809         <p>Several people contacted me after my previous blog post about my
1810 need for a new laptop, and provided very useful feedback.  I wish to
1811 thank every one of these.  Several pointed me to the possibility of
1812 fixing my X230, and I am already in the process of getting Lenovo to
1813 do so thanks to the on site, next day support contract covering the
1814 machine.  But the battery is almost useless (I expect to replace it
1815 with a non-official battery) and I do not expect the machine to live
1816 for many more years, so it is time to plan its replacement.  If I did
1817 not have a support contract, it was suggested to find replacement parts
1818 using <a href="http://www.francecrans.com/">FrancEcrans</a>, but it
1819 might present a language barrier as I do not understand French.</p>
1820
1821 <p>One tip I got was to use the
1822 <a href="https://skinflint.co.uk/?cat=nb">Skinflint</a> web service to
1823 compare laptop models.  It seem to have more models available than
1824 prisjakt.no.  Another tip I got from someone I know have similar
1825 keyboard preferences was that the HP EliteBook 840 keyboard is not
1826 very good, and this matches my experience with earlier EliteBook
1827 keyboards I tested.  Because of this, I will not consider it any further.
1828
1829 <p>When I wrote my blog post, I was not aware of Thinkpad X250, the
1830 newest Thinkpad X model.  The keyboard reintroduces mouse buttons
1831 (which is missing from the X240), and is working fairly well with
1832 Debian Sid/Unstable according to
1833 <a href="http://www.corsac.net/X250/">Corsac.net</a>.  The reports I
1834 got on the keyboard quality are not consistent.  Some say the keyboard
1835 is good, others say it is ok, while others say it is not very good.
1836 Those with experience from X41 and and X60 agree that the X250
1837 keyboard is not as good as those trusty old laptops, and suggest I
1838 keep and fix my X230 instead of upgrading, or get a used X230 to
1839 replace it.  I'm also told that the X250 lack leds for caps lock, disk
1840 activity and battery status, which is very convenient on my X230.  I'm
1841 also told that the CPU fan is running very often, making it a bit
1842 noisy.  In any case, the X250 do not work out of the box with Debian
1843 Stable/Jessie, one of my requirements.</p>
1844
1845 <p>I have also gotten a few vendor proposals, one was
1846 <a href="http://pro-star.com">Pro-Star</a>, another was
1847 <a href="http://shop.gluglug.org.uk/product/libreboot-x200/">Libreboot</a>.
1848 The latter look very attractive to me.</p>
1849
1850 <p>Again, thank you all for the very useful feedback.  It help a lot
1851 as I keep looking for a replacement.</p>
1852
1853 <p>Update 2015-07-06: I was recommended to check out the
1854 <a href="">lapstore.de</a> web shop for used laptops.  They got several
1855 different
1856 <a href="http://www.lapstore.de/f.php/shop/lapstore/f/411/lang/x/kw/Lenovo_ThinkPad_X_Serie/">old
1857 thinkpad X models</a>, and provide one year warranty.</p>
1858
1859       </div>
1860       <div class="tags">
1861
1862
1863         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1864
1865
1866       </div>
1867     </div>
1868     <div class="padding"></div>
1869
1870     <div class="entry">
1871       <div class="title">
1872         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_to_find_a_new_laptop__as_the_old_one_is_broken_after_only_two_years.html">Time to find a new laptop, as the old one is broken after only two years</a>
1873       </div>
1874       <div class="date">
1875          3rd July 2015
1876       </div>
1877       <div class="body">
1878         <p>My primary work horse laptop is failing, and will need a
1879 replacement soon.  The left 5 cm of the screen on my Thinkpad X230
1880 started flickering yesterday, and I suspect the cause is a broken
1881 cable, as changing the angle of the screen some times get rid of the
1882 flickering.</p>
1883
1884 <p>My requirements have not really changed since I bought it, and is
1885 still as
1886 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thank_you_Thinkpad_X41__for_your_long_and_trustworthy_service.html">I
1887 described them in 2013</a>.  The last time I bought a laptop, I had
1888 good help from
1889 <a href="http://www.prisjakt.no/category.php?k=353">prisjakt.no</a>
1890 where I could select at least a few of the requirements (mouse pin,
1891 wifi, weight) and go through the rest manually.  Three button mouse
1892 and a good keyboard is not available as an option, and all the three
1893 laptop models proposed today (Thinkpad X240, HP EliteBook 820 G1 and
1894 G2) lack three mouse buttons).  It is also unclear to me how good the
1895 keyboard on the HP EliteBooks are.  I hope Lenovo have not messed up
1896 the keyboard, even if the quality and robustness in the X series have
1897 deteriorated since X41.</p>
1898
1899 <p>I wonder how I can find a sensible laptop when none of the options
1900 seem sensible to me?  Are there better services around to search the
1901 set of available laptops for features?  Please send me an email if you
1902 have suggestions.</p>
1903
1904 <p>Update 2015-07-23: I got a suggestion to check out the FSF
1905 <a href="http://www.fsf.org/resources/hw/endorsement/respects-your-freedom">list
1906 of endorsed hardware</a>, which is useful background information.</p>
1907
1908       </div>
1909       <div class="tags">
1910
1911
1912         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1913
1914
1915       </div>
1916     </div>
1917     <div class="padding"></div>
1918
1919     <div class="entry">
1920       <div class="title">
1921         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_stay_with_sysvinit_in_Debian_Jessie.html">How to stay with sysvinit in Debian Jessie</a>
1922       </div>
1923       <div class="date">
1924         22nd November 2014
1925       </div>
1926       <div class="body">
1927         <p>By now, it is well known that Debian Jessie will not be using
1928 sysvinit as its boot system by default.  But how can one keep using
1929 sysvinit in Jessie?  It is fairly easy, and here are a few recipes,
1930 courtesy of
1931 <a href="http://www.vitavonni.de/blog/201410/2014102101-avoiding-systemd.html">Erich
1932 Schubert</a> and
1933 <a href="http://smcv.pseudorandom.co.uk/2014/still_universal/">Simon
1934 McVittie</a>.
1935
1936 <p>If you already are using Wheezy and want to upgrade to Jessie and
1937 keep sysvinit as your boot system, create a file
1938 <tt>/etc/apt/preferences.d/use-sysvinit</tt> with this content before
1939 you upgrade:</p>
1940
1941 <p><blockquote><pre>
1942 Package: systemd-sysv
1943 Pin: release o=Debian
1944 Pin-Priority: -1
1945 </pre></blockquote><p>
1946
1947 <p>This file content will tell apt and aptitude to not consider
1948 installing systemd-sysv as part of any installation and upgrade
1949 solution when resolving dependencies, and thus tell it to avoid
1950 systemd as a default boot system.  The end result should be that the
1951 upgraded system keep using sysvinit.</p>
1952
1953 <p>If you are installing Jessie for the first time, there is no way to
1954 get sysvinit installed by default (debootstrap used by
1955 debian-installer have no option for this), but one can tell the
1956 installer to switch to sysvinit before the first boot.  Either by
1957 using a kernel argument to the installer, or by adding a line to the
1958 preseed file used.  First, the kernel command line argument:
1959
1960 <p><blockquote><pre>
1961 preseed/late_command="in-target apt-get install --purge -y sysvinit-core"
1962 </pre></blockquote><p>
1963
1964 <p>Next, the line to use in a preseed file:</p>
1965
1966 <p><blockquote><pre>
1967 d-i preseed/late_command string in-target apt-get install -y sysvinit-core
1968 </pre></blockquote><p>
1969
1970 <p>One can of course also do this after the first boot by installing
1971 the sysvinit-core package.</p>
1972
1973 <p>I recommend only using sysvinit if you really need it, as the
1974 sysvinit boot sequence in Debian have several hardware specific bugs
1975 on Linux caused by the fact that it is unpredictable when hardware
1976 devices show up during boot.  But on the other hand, the new default
1977 boot system still have a few rough edges I hope will be fixed before
1978 Jessie is released.</p>
1979
1980 <p>Update 2014-11-26: Inspired by
1981 <ahref="https://www.mirbsd.org/permalinks/wlog-10-tg_e20141125-tg.htm#e20141125-tg_wlog-10-tg">a
1982 blog post by Torsten Glaser</a>, added --purge to the preseed
1983 line.</p>
1984
1985       </div>
1986       <div class="tags">
1987
1988
1989         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1990
1991
1992       </div>
1993     </div>
1994     <div class="padding"></div>
1995
1996     <div class="entry">
1997       <div class="title">
1998         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Debian_package_for_SMTP_via_Tor__aka_SMTorP__using_exim4.html">A Debian package for SMTP via Tor (aka SMTorP) using exim4</a>
1999       </div>
2000       <div class="date">
2001         10th November 2014
2002       </div>
2003       <div class="body">
2004         <p>The right to communicate with your friends and family in private,
2005 without anyone snooping, is a right every citicen have in a liberal
2006 democracy.  But this right is under serious attack these days.</p>
2007
2008 <p>A while back it occurred to me that one way to make the dragnet
2009 surveillance conducted by NSA, GCHQ, FRA and others (and confirmed by
2010 the whisleblower Snowden) more expensive for Internet email,
2011 is to deliver all email using SMTP via Tor.  Such SMTP option would be
2012 a nice addition to the FreedomBox project if we could send email
2013 between FreedomBox machines without leaking metadata about the emails
2014 to the people peeking on the wire.  I
2015 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/freedombox-discuss/2014-October/006493.html">proposed
2016 this on the FreedomBox project mailing list in October</a> and got a
2017 lot of useful feedback and suggestions.  It also became obvious to me
2018 that this was not a novel idea, as the same idea was tested and
2019 documented by Johannes Berg as early as 2006, and both
2020 <a href="https://github.com/pagekite/Mailpile/wiki/SMTorP">the
2021 Mailpile</a> and <a href="http://dee.su/cables">the Cables</a> systems
2022 propose a similar method / protocol to pass emails between users.</p>
2023
2024 <p>To implement such system one need to set up a Tor hidden service
2025 providing the SMTP protocol on port 25, and use email addresses
2026 looking like username@hidden-service-name.onion.  With such addresses
2027 the connections to port 25 on hidden-service-name.onion using Tor will
2028 go to the correct SMTP server.  To do this, one need to configure the
2029 Tor daemon to provide the hidden service and the mail server to accept
2030 emails for this .onion domain.  To learn more about Exim configuration
2031 in Debian and test the design provided by Johannes Berg in his FAQ, I
2032 set out yesterday to create a Debian package for making it trivial to
2033 set up such SMTP over Tor service based on Debian.  Getting it to work
2034 were fairly easy, and
2035 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/exim4-smtorp">the
2036 source code for the Debian package</a> is available from github.  I
2037 plan to move it into Debian if further testing prove this to be a
2038 useful approach.</p>
2039
2040 <p>If you want to test this, set up a blank Debian machine without any
2041 mail system installed (or run <tt>apt-get purge exim4-config</tt> to
2042 get rid of exim4).  Install tor, clone the git repository mentioned
2043 above, build the deb and install it on the machine.  Next, run
2044 <tt>/usr/lib/exim4-smtorp/setup-exim-hidden-service</tt> and follow
2045 the instructions to get the service up and running.  Restart tor and
2046 exim when it is done, and test mail delivery using swaks like
2047 this:</p>
2048
2049 <p><blockquote><pre>
2050 torsocks swaks --server dutlqrrmjhtfa3vp.onion \
2051   --to fbx@dutlqrrmjhtfa3vp.onion
2052 </pre></blockquote></p>
2053
2054 <p>This will test the SMTP delivery using tor.  Replace the email
2055 address with your own address to test your server. :)</p>
2056
2057 <p>The setup procedure is still to complex, and I hope it can be made
2058 easier and more automatic.  Especially the tor setup need more work.
2059 Also, the package include a tor-smtp tool written in C, but its task
2060 should probably be rewritten in some script language to make the deb
2061 architecture independent.  It would probably also make the code easier
2062 to review.  The tor-smtp tool currently need to listen on a socket for
2063 exim to talk to it and is started using xinetd.  It would be better if
2064 no daemon and no socket is needed.  I suspect it is possible to get
2065 exim to run a command line tool for delivery instead of talking to a
2066 socket, and hope to figure out how in a future version of this
2067 system.</p>
2068
2069 <p>Until I wipe my test machine, I can be reached using the
2070 <tt>fbx@dutlqrrmjhtfa3vp.onion</tt> mail address, deliverable over
2071 SMTorP. :)</p>
2072
2073       </div>
2074       <div class="tags">
2075
2076
2077         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
2078
2079
2080       </div>
2081     </div>
2082     <div class="padding"></div>
2083
2084     <div class="entry">
2085       <div class="title">
2086         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/listadmin__the_quick_way_to_moderate_mailman_lists___nice_free_software.html">listadmin, the quick way to moderate mailman lists - nice free software</a>
2087       </div>
2088       <div class="date">
2089         22nd October 2014
2090       </div>
2091       <div class="body">
2092         <p>If you ever had to moderate a mailman list, like the ones on
2093 alioth.debian.org, you know the web interface is fairly slow to
2094 operate.  First you visit one web page, enter the moderation password
2095 and get a new page shown with a list of all the messages to moderate
2096 and various options for each email address.  This take a while for
2097 every list you moderate, and you need to do it regularly to do a good
2098 job as a list moderator.  But there is a quick alternative,
2099 <a href="http://heim.ifi.uio.no/kjetilho/hacks/#listadmin">the
2100 listadmin program</a>.  It allow you to check lists for new messages
2101 to moderate in a fraction of a second.  Here is a test run on two
2102 lists I recently took over:</p>
2103
2104 <p><blockquote><pre>
2105 % time listadmin xiph
2106 fetching data for pkg-xiph-commits@lists.alioth.debian.org ... nothing in queue
2107 fetching data for pkg-xiph-maint@lists.alioth.debian.org ... nothing in queue
2108
2109 real    0m1.709s
2110 user    0m0.232s
2111 sys     0m0.012s
2112 %
2113 </pre></blockquote></p>
2114
2115 <p>In 1.7 seconds I had checked two mailing lists and confirmed that
2116 there are no message in the moderation queue.  Every morning I
2117 currently moderate 68 mailman lists, and it normally take around two
2118 minutes.  When I took over the two pkg-xiph lists above a few days
2119 ago, there were 400 emails waiting in the moderator queue.  It took me
2120 less than 15 minutes to process them all using the listadmin
2121 program.</p>
2122
2123 <p>If you install
2124 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/listadmin">the listadmin
2125 package</a> from Debian and create a file <tt>~/.listadmin.ini</tt>
2126 with content like this, the moderation task is a breeze:</p>
2127
2128 <p><blockquote><pre>
2129 username username@example.org
2130 spamlevel 23
2131 default discard
2132 discard_if_reason "Posting restricted to members only. Remove us from your mail list."
2133
2134 password secret
2135 adminurl https://{domain}/mailman/admindb/{list}
2136 mailman-list@lists.example.com
2137
2138 password hidden
2139 other-list@otherserver.example.org
2140 </pre></blockquote></p>
2141
2142 <p>There are other options to set as well.  Check the manual page to
2143 learn the details.</p>
2144
2145 <p>If you are forced to moderate lists on a mailman installation where
2146 the SSL certificate is self signed or not properly signed by a
2147 generally accepted signing authority, you can set a environment
2148 variable when calling listadmin to disable SSL verification:</p>
2149
2150 <p><blockquote><pre>
2151 PERL_LWP_SSL_VERIFY_HOSTNAME=0 listadmin
2152 </pre></blockquote></p>
2153
2154 <p>If you want to moderate a subset of the lists you take care of, you
2155 can provide an argument to the listadmin script like I do in the
2156 initial screen dump (the xiph argument).  Using an argument, only
2157 lists matching the argument string will be processed.  This make it
2158 quick to accept messages if you notice the moderation request in your
2159 email.</p>
2160
2161 <p>Without the listadmin program, I would never be the moderator of 68
2162 mailing lists, as I simply do not have time to spend on that if the
2163 process was any slower. The listadmin program have saved me hours of
2164 time I could spend elsewhere over the years.  It truly is nice free
2165 software.</p>
2166
2167 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
2168 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
2169 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
2170
2171 <p>Update 2014-10-27: Added missing 'username' statement in
2172 configuration example.  Also, I've been told that the
2173 PERL_LWP_SSL_VERIFY_HOSTNAME=0 setting do not work for everyone.  Not
2174 sure why.</p>
2175
2176       </div>
2177       <div class="tags">
2178
2179
2180         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nice free software">nice free software</a>.
2181
2182
2183       </div>
2184     </div>
2185     <div class="padding"></div>
2186
2187     <div class="entry">
2188       <div class="title">
2189         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Jessie__PXE_and_automatic_firmware_installation.html">Debian Jessie, PXE and automatic firmware installation</a>
2190       </div>
2191       <div class="date">
2192         17th October 2014
2193       </div>
2194       <div class="body">
2195         <p>When PXE installing laptops with Debian, I often run into the
2196 problem that the WiFi card require some firmware to work properly.
2197 And it has been a pain to fix this using preseeding in Debian.
2198 Normally something more is needed.  But thanks to
2199 <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/i/isenkram.html">my isenkram
2200 package</a> and its recent tasksel extension, it has now become easy
2201 to do this using simple preseeding.</p>
2202
2203 <p>The isenkram-cli package provide tasksel tasks which will install
2204 firmware for the hardware found in the machine (actually, requested by
2205 the kernel modules for the hardware).  (It can also install user space
2206 programs supporting the hardware detected, but that is not the focus
2207 of this story.)</p>
2208
2209 <p>To get this working in the default installation, two preeseding
2210 values are needed.  First, the isenkram-cli package must be installed
2211 into the target chroot (aka the hard drive) before tasksel is executed
2212 in the pkgsel step of the debian-installer system.  This is done by
2213 preseeding the base-installer/includes debconf value to include the
2214 isenkram-cli package.  The package name is next passed to debootstrap
2215 for installation.  With the isenkram-cli package in place, tasksel
2216 will automatically use the isenkram tasks to detect hardware specific
2217 packages for the machine being installed and install them, because
2218 isenkram-cli contain tasksel tasks.</p>
2219
2220 <p>Second, one need to enable the non-free APT repository, because
2221 most firmware unfortunately is non-free.  This is done by preseeding
2222 the apt-mirror-setup step.  This is unfortunate, but for a lot of
2223 hardware it is the only option in Debian.</p>
2224
2225 <p>The end result is two lines needed in your preseeding file to get
2226 firmware installed automatically by the installer:</p>
2227
2228 <p><blockquote><pre>
2229 base-installer base-installer/includes string isenkram-cli
2230 apt-mirror-setup apt-setup/non-free boolean true
2231 </pre></blockquote></p>
2232
2233 <p>The current version of isenkram-cli in testing/jessie will install
2234 both firmware and user space packages when using this method.  It also
2235 do not work well, so use version 0.15 or later.  Installing both
2236 firmware and user space packages might give you a bit more than you
2237 want, so I decided to split the tasksel task in two, one for firmware
2238 and one for user space programs.  The firmware task is enabled by
2239 default, while the one for user space programs is not.  This split is
2240 implemented in the package currently in unstable.</p>
2241
2242 <p>If you decide to give this a go, please let me know (via email) how
2243 this recipe work for you. :)</p>
2244
2245 <p>So, I bet you are wondering, how can this work.  First and
2246 foremost, it work because tasksel is modular, and driven by whatever
2247 files it find in /usr/lib/tasksel/ and /usr/share/tasksel/.  So the
2248 isenkram-cli package place two files for tasksel to find.  First there
2249 is the task description file (/usr/share/tasksel/descs/isenkram.desc):</p>
2250
2251 <p><blockquote><pre>
2252 Task: isenkram-packages
2253 Section: hardware
2254 Description: Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)
2255  Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific packages are
2256  proposed.
2257 Test-new-install: show show
2258 Relevance: 8
2259 Packages: for-current-hardware
2260
2261 Task: isenkram-firmware
2262 Section: hardware
2263 Description: Hardware specific firmware packages (autodetected by isenkram)
2264  Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific firmware
2265  packages are proposed.
2266 Test-new-install: mark show
2267 Relevance: 8
2268 Packages: for-current-hardware-firmware
2269 </pre></blockquote></p>
2270
2271 <p>The key parts are Test-new-install which indicate how the task
2272 should be handled and the Packages line referencing to a script in
2273 /usr/lib/tasksel/packages/.  The scripts use other scripts to get a
2274 list of packages to install.  The for-current-hardware-firmware script
2275 look like this to list relevant firmware for the machine:
2276
2277 <p><blockquote><pre>
2278 #!/bin/sh
2279 #
2280 PATH=/usr/sbin:$PATH
2281 export PATH
2282 isenkram-autoinstall-firmware -l
2283 </pre></blockquote></p>
2284
2285 <p>With those two pieces in place, the firmware is installed by
2286 tasksel during the normal d-i run. :)</p>
2287
2288 <p>If you want to test what tasksel will install when isenkram-cli is
2289 installed, run <tt>DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical tasksel --test
2290 --new-install</tt> to get the list of packages that tasksel would
2291 install.</p>
2292
2293 <p><a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/">Debian Edu</a> will be
2294 pilots in testing this feature, as isenkram is used there now to
2295 install firmware, replacing the earlier scripts.</p>
2296
2297       </div>
2298       <div class="tags">
2299
2300
2301         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sysadmin">sysadmin</a>.
2302
2303
2304       </div>
2305     </div>
2306     <div class="padding"></div>
2307
2308     <div class="entry">
2309       <div class="title">
2310         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Ubuntu_used_to_show_the_bread_prizes_at_ICA_Storo.html">Ubuntu used to show the bread prizes at ICA Storo</a>
2311       </div>
2312       <div class="date">
2313          4th October 2014
2314       </div>
2315       <div class="body">
2316         <p>Today I came across an unexpected Ubuntu boot screen.  Above the
2317 bread shelf on the ICA shop at Storo in Oslo, the grub menu of Ubuntu
2318 with Linux kernel 3.2.0-23 (ie probably version 12.04 LTS) was stuck
2319 on a screen normally showing the bread types and prizes:</p>
2320
2321 <p align="center"><img width="70%" src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2014-10-04-ubuntu-ica-storo-crop.jpeg"></p>
2322
2323 <p>If it had booted as it was supposed to, I would never had known
2324 about this hidden Linux installation.  It is interesting what
2325 <a href="http://revealingerrors.com/">errors can reveal</a>.</p>
2326
2327       </div>
2328       <div class="tags">
2329
2330
2331         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2332
2333
2334       </div>
2335     </div>
2336     <div class="padding"></div>
2337
2338     <div class="entry">
2339       <div class="title">
2340         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_lsdvd_release_version_0_17_is_ready.html">New lsdvd release version 0.17 is ready</a>
2341       </div>
2342       <div class="date">
2343          4th October 2014
2344       </div>
2345       <div class="body">
2346         <p>The <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/">lsdvd project</a>
2347 got a new set of developers a few weeks ago, after the original
2348 developer decided to step down and pass the project to fresh blood.
2349 This project is now maintained by Petter Reinholdtsen and Steve
2350 Dibb.</p>
2351
2352 <p>I just wrapped up
2353 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/mailman/message/32896061/">a
2354 new lsdvd release</a>, available in git or from
2355 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/projects/lsdvd/files/lsdvd/">the
2356 download page</a>.  This is the changelog dated 2014-10-03 for version
2357 0.17.</p>
2358
2359 <ul>
2360
2361  <li>Ignore 'phantom' audio, subtitle tracks</li>
2362  <li>Check for garbage in the program chains, which indicate that a track is
2363    non-existant, to work around additional copy protection</li>
2364  <li>Fix displaying content type for audio tracks, subtitles</li>
2365  <li>Fix pallete display of first entry</li>
2366  <li>Fix include orders</li>
2367  <li>Ignore read errors in titles that would not be displayed anyway</li>
2368  <li>Fix the chapter count</li>
2369  <li>Make sure the array size and the array limit used when initialising
2370    the palette size is the same.</li>
2371  <li>Fix array printing.</li>
2372  <li>Correct subsecond calculations.</li>
2373  <li>Add sector information to the output format.</li>
2374  <li>Clean up code to be closer to ANSI C and compile without warnings
2375    with more GCC compiler warnings.</li>
2376
2377 </ul>
2378
2379 <p>This change bring together patches for lsdvd in use in various
2380 Linux and Unix distributions, as well as patches submitted to the
2381 project the last nine years.  Please check it out. :)</p>
2382
2383       </div>
2384       <div class="tags">
2385
2386
2387         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lsdvd">lsdvd</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>.
2388
2389
2390       </div>
2391     </div>
2392     <div class="padding"></div>
2393
2394     <div class="entry">
2395       <div class="title">
2396         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_test_Debian_Edu_Jessie_despite_some_fatal_problems_with_the_installer.html">How to test Debian Edu Jessie despite some fatal problems with the installer</a>
2397       </div>
2398       <div class="date">
2399         26th September 2014
2400       </div>
2401       <div class="body">
2402         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
2403 project</a> provide a Linux solution for schools, including a
2404 powerful desktop with education software, a central server providing
2405 web pages, user database, user home directories, central login and PXE
2406 boot of both  clients without disk and the installation to install Debian
2407 Edu on machines with disk (and a few other services perhaps to small
2408 to mention here).  We in the Debian Edu team are currently working on
2409 the Jessie based version, trying to get everything in shape before the
2410 freeze, to avoid having to maintain our own package repository in the
2411 future.  The
2412 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Status/Jessie">current
2413 status</a> can be seen on the Debian wiki, and there is still heaps of
2414 work left.  Some fatal problems block testing, breaking the installer,
2415 but it is possible to work around these to get anyway.  Here is a
2416 recipe on how to get the installation limping along.</p>
2417
2418 <p>First, download the test ISO via
2419 <a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.no/cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-1.iso">ftp</a>,
2420 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.no/cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-1.iso">http</a>
2421 or rsync (use
2422 ftp.skolelinux.org::cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-1.iso).
2423 The ISO build was broken on Tuesday, so we do not get a new ISO every
2424 12 hours or so, but thankfully the ISO we already got we are able to
2425 install with some tweaking.</p>
2426
2427 <p>When you get to the Debian Edu profile question, go to tty2
2428 (use Alt-Ctrl-F2), run</p>
2429
2430 <p><blockquote><pre>
2431 nano /usr/bin/edu-eatmydata-install
2432 </pre></blockquote></p>
2433
2434 <p>and add 'exit 0' as the second line, disabling the eatmydata
2435 optimization.  Return to the installation, select the profile you want
2436 and continue.  Without this change, exim4-config will fail to install
2437 due to a known bug in eatmydata.</p>
2438
2439 <p>When you get the grub question at the end, answer /dev/sda (or if
2440 this do not work, figure out what your correct value would be.  All my
2441 test machines need /dev/sda, so I have no advice if it do not fit
2442 your need.</p>
2443
2444 <p>If you installed a profile including a graphical desktop, log in as
2445 root after the initial boot from hard drive, and install the
2446 education-desktop-XXX metapackage.  XXX can be kde, gnome, lxde, xfce
2447 or mate.  If you want several desktop options, install more than one
2448 metapackage.  Once this is done, reboot and you should have a working
2449 graphical login screen.  This workaround should no longer be needed
2450 once the education-tasks package version 1.801 enter testing in two
2451 days.</p>
2452
2453 <p>I believe the ISO build will start working on two days when the new
2454 tasksel package enter testing and Steve McIntyre get a chance to
2455 update the debian-cd git repository.  The eatmydata, grub and desktop
2456 issues are already fixed in unstable and testing, and should show up
2457 on the ISO as soon as the ISO build start working again.  Well the
2458 eatmydata optimization is really just disabled.  The proper fix
2459 require an upload by the eatmydata maintainer applying the patch
2460 provided in bug <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/702711">#702711</a>.
2461 The rest have proper fixes in unstable.</p>
2462
2463 <p>I hope this get you going with the installation testing, as we are
2464 quickly running out of time trying to get our Jessie based
2465 installation ready before the distribution freeze in a month.</p>
2466
2467       </div>
2468       <div class="tags">
2469
2470
2471         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2472
2473
2474       </div>
2475     </div>
2476     <div class="padding"></div>
2477
2478     <div class="entry">
2479       <div class="title">
2480         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Suddenly_I_am_the_new_upstream_of_the_lsdvd_command_line_tool.html">Suddenly I am the new upstream of the lsdvd command line tool</a>
2481       </div>
2482       <div class="date">
2483         25th September 2014
2484       </div>
2485       <div class="body">
2486         <p>I use the <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/">lsdvd tool</a>
2487 to handle my fairly large DVD collection.  It is a nice command line
2488 tool to get details about a DVD, like title, tracks, track length,
2489 etc, in XML, Perl or human readable format.  But lsdvd have not seen
2490 any new development since 2006 and had a few irritating bugs affecting
2491 its use with some DVDs.  Upstream seemed to be dead, and in January I
2492 sent a small probe asking for a version control repository for the
2493 project, without any reply.  But I use it regularly and would like to
2494 get <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/lsdvd">an updated version
2495 into Debian</a>.  So two weeks ago I tried harder to get in touch with
2496 the project admin, and after getting a reply from him explaining that
2497 he was no longer interested in the project, I asked if I could take
2498 over.  And yesterday, I became project admin.</p>
2499
2500 <p>I've been in touch with a Gentoo developer and the Debian
2501 maintainer interested in joining forces to maintain the upstream
2502 project, and I hope we can get a new release out fairly quickly,
2503 collecting the patches spread around on the internet into on place.
2504 I've added the relevant Debian patches to the freshly created git
2505 repository, and expect the Gentoo patches to make it too.  If you got
2506 a DVD collection and care about command line tools, check out
2507 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/git/ci/master/tree/">the git source</a> and join
2508 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/mailman/">the project mailing
2509 list</a>. :)</p>
2510
2511       </div>
2512       <div class="tags">
2513
2514
2515         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lsdvd">lsdvd</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>.
2516
2517
2518       </div>
2519     </div>
2520     <div class="padding"></div>
2521
2522     <div class="entry">
2523       <div class="title">
2524         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Speeding_up_the_Debian_installer_using_eatmydata_and_dpkg_divert.html">Speeding up the Debian installer using eatmydata and dpkg-divert</a>
2525       </div>
2526       <div class="date">
2527         16th September 2014
2528       </div>
2529       <div class="body">
2530         <p>The <a href="https://www.debian.org/">Debian</a> installer could be
2531 a lot quicker.  When we install more than 2000 packages in
2532 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux / Debian Edu</a> using
2533 tasksel in the installer, unpacking the binary packages take forever.
2534 A part of the slow I/O issue was discussed in
2535 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/613428">bug #613428</a> about too
2536 much file system sync-ing done by dpkg, which is the package
2537 responsible for unpacking the binary packages.  Other parts (like code
2538 executed by postinst scripts) might also sync to disk during
2539 installation.  All this sync-ing to disk do not really make sense to
2540 me.  If the machine crash half-way through, I start over, I do not try
2541 to salvage the half installed system.  So the failure sync-ing is
2542 supposed to protect against, hardware or system crash, is not really
2543 relevant while the installer is running.</p>
2544
2545 <p>A few days ago, I thought of a way to get rid of all the file
2546 system sync()-ing in a fairly non-intrusive way, without the need to
2547 change the code in several packages.  The idea is not new, but I have
2548 not heard anyone propose the approach using dpkg-divert before.  It
2549 depend on the small and clever package
2550 <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/eatmydata">eatmydata</a>, which
2551 uses LD_PRELOAD to replace the system functions for syncing data to
2552 disk with functions doing nothing, thus allowing programs to live
2553 dangerous while speeding up disk I/O significantly.  Instead of
2554 modifying the implementation of dpkg, apt and tasksel (which are the
2555 packages responsible for selecting, fetching and installing packages),
2556 it occurred to me that we could just divert the programs away, replace
2557 them with a simple shell wrapper calling
2558 "eatmydata&nbsp;$program&nbsp;$@", to get the same effect.
2559 Two days ago I decided to test the idea, and wrapped up a simple
2560 implementation for the Debian Edu udeb.</p>
2561
2562 <p>The effect was stunning.  In my first test it reduced the running
2563 time of the pkgsel step (installing tasks) from 64 to less than 44
2564 minutes (20 minutes shaved off the installation) on an old Dell
2565 Latitude D505 machine.  I am not quite sure what the optimised time
2566 would have been, as I messed up the testing a bit, causing the debconf
2567 priority to get low enough for two questions to pop up during
2568 installation.  As soon as I saw the questions I moved the installation
2569 along, but do not know how long the question were holding up the
2570 installation.  I did some more measurements using Debian Edu Jessie,
2571 and got these results.  The time measured is the time stamp in
2572 /var/log/syslog between the "pkgsel: starting tasksel" and the
2573 "pkgsel: finishing up" lines, if you want to do the same measurement
2574 yourself.  In Debian Edu, the tasksel dialog do not show up, and the
2575 timing thus do not depend on how quickly the user handle the tasksel
2576 dialog.</p>
2577
2578 <p><table>
2579
2580 <tr>
2581 <th>Machine/setup</th>
2582 <th>Original tasksel</th>
2583 <th>Optimised tasksel</th>
2584 <th>Reduction</th>
2585 </tr>
2586
2587 <tr>
2588 <td>Latitude D505 Main+LTSP LXDE</td>
2589 <td>64 min (07:46-08:50)</td>
2590 <td><44 min (11:27-12:11)</td>
2591 <td>>20 min 18%</td>
2592 </tr>
2593
2594 <tr>
2595 <td>Latitude D505 Roaming LXDE</td>
2596 <td>57 min (08:48-09:45)</td>
2597 <td>34 min (07:43-08:17)</td>
2598 <td>23 min 40%</td>
2599 </tr>
2600
2601 <tr>
2602 <td>Latitude D505 Minimal</td>
2603 <td>22 min (10:37-10:59)</td>
2604 <td>11 min (11:16-11:27)</td>
2605 <td>11 min 50%</td>
2606 </tr>
2607
2608 <tr>
2609 <td>Thinkpad X200 Minimal</td>
2610 <td>6 min (08:19-08:25)</td>
2611 <td>4 min (08:04-08:08)</td>
2612 <td>2 min 33%</td>
2613 </tr>
2614
2615 <tr>
2616 <td>Thinkpad X200 Roaming KDE</td>
2617 <td>19 min (09:21-09:40)</td>
2618 <td>15 min (10:25-10:40)</td>
2619 <td>4 min 21%</td>
2620 </tr>
2621
2622 </table></p>
2623
2624 <p>The test is done using a netinst ISO on a USB stick, so some of the
2625 time is spent downloading packages.  The connection to the Internet
2626 was 100Mbit/s during testing, so downloading should not be a
2627 significant factor in the measurement.  Download typically took a few
2628 seconds to a few minutes, depending on the amount of packages being
2629 installed.</p>
2630
2631 <p>The speedup is implemented by using two hooks in
2632 <a href="https://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/">Debian
2633 Installer</a>, the pre-pkgsel.d hook to set up the diverts, and the
2634 finish-install.d hook to remove the divert at the end of the
2635 installation.  I picked the pre-pkgsel.d hook instead of the
2636 post-base-installer.d hook because I test using an ISO without the
2637 eatmydata package included, and the post-base-installer.d hook in
2638 Debian Edu can only operate on packages included in the ISO.  The
2639 negative effect of this is that I am unable to activate this
2640 optimization for the kernel installation step in d-i.  If the code is
2641 moved to the post-base-installer.d hook, the speedup would be larger
2642 for the entire installation.</p>
2643
2644 <p>I've implemented this in the
2645 <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/debian-edu-install">debian-edu-install</a>
2646 git repository, and plan to provide the optimization as part of the
2647 Debian Edu installation.  If you want to test this yourself, you can
2648 create two files in the installer (or in an udeb).  One shell script
2649 need do go into /usr/lib/pre-pkgsel.d/, with content like this:</p>
2650
2651 <p><blockquote><pre>
2652 #!/bin/sh
2653 set -e
2654 . /usr/share/debconf/confmodule
2655 info() {
2656     logger -t my-pkgsel "info: $*"
2657 }
2658 error() {
2659     logger -t my-pkgsel "error: $*"
2660 }
2661 override_install() {
2662     apt-install eatmydata || true
2663     if [ -x /target/usr/bin/eatmydata ] ; then
2664         for bin in dpkg apt-get aptitude tasksel ; do
2665             file=/usr/bin/$bin
2666             # Test that the file exist and have not been diverted already.
2667             if [ -f /target$file ] ; then
2668                 info "diverting $file using eatmydata"
2669                 printf "#!/bin/sh\neatmydata $bin.distrib \"\$@\"\n" \
2670                     > /target$file.edu
2671                 chmod 755 /target$file.edu
2672                 in-target dpkg-divert --package debian-edu-config \
2673                     --rename --quiet --add $file
2674                 ln -sf ./$bin.edu /target$file
2675             else
2676                 error "unable to divert $file, as it is missing."
2677             fi
2678         done
2679     else
2680         error "unable to find /usr/bin/eatmydata after installing the eatmydata pacage"
2681     fi
2682 }
2683
2684 override_install
2685 </pre></blockquote></p>
2686
2687 <p>To clean up, another shell script should go into
2688 /usr/lib/finish-install.d/ with code like this:
2689
2690 <p><blockquote><pre>
2691 #! /bin/sh -e
2692 . /usr/share/debconf/confmodule
2693 error() {
2694     logger -t my-finish-install "error: $@"
2695 }
2696 remove_install_override() {
2697     for bin in dpkg apt-get aptitude tasksel ; do
2698         file=/usr/bin/$bin
2699         if [ -x /target$file.edu ] ; then
2700             rm /target$file
2701             in-target dpkg-divert --package debian-edu-config \
2702                 --rename --quiet --remove $file
2703             rm /target$file.edu
2704         else
2705             error "Missing divert for $file."
2706         fi
2707     done
2708     sync # Flush file buffers before continuing
2709 }
2710
2711 remove_install_override
2712 </pre></blockquote></p>
2713
2714 <p>In Debian Edu, I placed both code fragments in a separate script
2715 edu-eatmydata-install and call it from the pre-pkgsel.d and
2716 finish-install.d scripts.</p>
2717
2718 <p>By now you might ask if this change should get into the normal
2719 Debian installer too?  I suspect it should, but am not sure the
2720 current debian-installer coordinators find it useful enough.  It also
2721 depend on the side effects of the change.  I'm not aware of any, but I
2722 guess we will see if the change is safe after some more testing.
2723 Perhaps there is some package in Debian depending on sync() and
2724 fsync() having effect?  Perhaps it should go into its own udeb, to
2725 allow those of us wanting to enable it to do so without affecting
2726 everyone.</p>
2727
2728 <p>Update 2014-09-24: Since a few days ago, enabling this optimization
2729 will break installation of all programs using gnutls because of
2730 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/702711">bug #702711</a>.  An updated
2731 eatmydata package in Debian will solve it.</p>
2732
2733 <p>Update 2014-10-17: The bug mentioned above is fixed in testing and
2734 the optimization work again.  And I have discovered that the
2735 dpkg-divert trick is not really needed and implemented a slightly
2736 simpler approach as part of the debian-edu-install package.  See
2737 tools/edu-eatmydata-install in the source package.</p>
2738
2739 <p>Update 2014-11-11: Unfortunately, a new
2740 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/765738">bug #765738</a> in eatmydata only
2741 triggering on i386 made it into testing, and broke this installation
2742 optimization again.  If <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/768893">unblock
2743 request 768893</a> is accepted, it should be working again.</p>
2744
2745       </div>
2746       <div class="tags">
2747
2748
2749         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2750
2751
2752       </div>
2753     </div>
2754     <div class="padding"></div>
2755
2756     <div class="entry">
2757       <div class="title">
2758         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Good_bye_subkeys_pgp_net__welcome_pool_sks_keyservers_net.html">Good bye subkeys.pgp.net, welcome pool.sks-keyservers.net</a>
2759       </div>
2760       <div class="date">
2761         10th September 2014
2762       </div>
2763       <div class="body">
2764         <p>Yesterday, I had the pleasure of attending a talk with the
2765 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">Norwegian Unix User Group</a> about
2766 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20140909-sks-keyservers/">the
2767 OpenPGP keyserver pool sks-keyservers.net</a>, and was very happy to
2768 learn that there is a large set of publicly available key servers to
2769 use when looking for peoples public key.  So far I have used
2770 subkeys.pgp.net, and some times wwwkeys.nl.pgp.net when the former
2771 were misbehaving, but those days are ended.  The servers I have used
2772 up until yesterday have been slow and some times unavailable.  I hope
2773 those problems are gone now.</p>
2774
2775 <p>Behind the round robin DNS entry of the
2776 <a href="https://sks-keyservers.net/">sks-keyservers.net</a> service
2777 there is a pool of more than 100 keyservers which are checked every
2778 day to ensure they are well connected and up to date.  It must be
2779 better than what I have used so far. :)</p>
2780
2781 <p>Yesterdays speaker told me that the service is the default
2782 keyserver provided by the default configuration in GnuPG, but this do
2783 not seem to be used in Debian.  Perhaps it should?</p>
2784
2785 <p>Anyway, I've updated my ~/.gnupg/options file to now include this
2786 line:</p>
2787
2788 <p><blockquote><pre>
2789 keyserver pool.sks-keyservers.net
2790 </pre></blockquote></p>
2791
2792 <p>With GnuPG version 2 one can also locate the keyserver using SRV
2793 entries in DNS.  Just for fun, I did just that at work, so now every
2794 user of GnuPG at the University of Oslo should find a OpenGPG
2795 keyserver automatically should their need it:</p>
2796
2797 <p><blockquote><pre>
2798 % host -t srv _pgpkey-http._tcp.uio.no
2799 _pgpkey-http._tcp.uio.no has SRV record 0 100 11371 pool.sks-keyservers.net.
2800 %
2801 </pre></blockquote></p>
2802
2803 <p>Now if only
2804 <a href="http://ietfreport.isoc.org/idref/draft-shaw-openpgp-hkp/">the
2805 HKP lookup protocol</a> supported finding signature paths, I would be
2806 very happy.  It can look up a given key or search for a user ID, but I
2807 normally do not want that, but to find a trust path from my key to
2808 another key.  Given a user ID or key ID, I would like to find (and
2809 download) the keys representing a signature path from my key to the
2810 key in question, to be able to get a trust path between the two keys.
2811 This is as far as I can tell not possible today.  Perhaps something
2812 for a future version of the protocol?</p>
2813
2814       </div>
2815       <div class="tags">
2816
2817
2818         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
2819
2820
2821       </div>
2822     </div>
2823     <div class="padding"></div>
2824
2825     <div class="entry">
2826       <div class="title">
2827         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/From_English_wiki_to_translated_PDF_and_epub_via_Docbook.html">From English wiki to translated PDF and epub via Docbook</a>
2828       </div>
2829       <div class="date">
2830         17th June 2014
2831       </div>
2832       <div class="body">
2833         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
2834 project</a> provide an instruction manual for teachers, system
2835 administrators and other users that contain useful tips for setting up
2836 and maintaining a Debian Edu installation.  This text is about how the
2837 text processing of this manual is handled in the project.</p>
2838
2839 <p>One goal of the project is to provide information in the native
2840 language of its users, and for this we need to handle translations.
2841 But we also want to make sure each language contain the same
2842 information, so for this we need a good way to keep the translations
2843 in sync.  And we want it to be easy for our users to improve the
2844 documentation, avoiding the need to learn special formats or tools to
2845 contribute, and the obvious way to do this is to make it possible to
2846 edit the documentation using a web browser.  We also want it to be
2847 easy for translators to keep the translation up to date, and give them
2848 help in figuring out what need to be translated. Here is the list of
2849 tools and the process we have found trying to reach all these
2850 goals.</p>
2851
2852 <p>We maintain the authoritative source of our manual in the
2853 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/">Debian
2854 wiki</a>, as several wiki pages written in English.  It consist of one
2855 front page with references to the different chapters, several pages
2856 for each chapter, and finally one "collection page" gluing all the
2857 chapters together into one large web page (aka
2858 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/AllInOne">the
2859 AllInOne page</a>).  The AllInOne page is the one used for further
2860 processing and translations.  Thanks to the fact that the
2861 <a href="http://moinmo.in/">MoinMoin</a> installation on
2862 wiki.debian.org support exporting pages in
2863 <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">the Docbook format</a>, we can fetch
2864 the list of pages to export using the raw version of the AllInOne
2865 page, loop over each of them to generate a Docbook XML version of the
2866 manual.  This process also download images and transform image
2867 references to use the locally downloaded images.  The generated
2868 Docbook XML files are slightly broken, so some post-processing is done
2869 using the <tt>documentation/scripts/get_manual</tt> program, and the
2870 result is a nice Docbook XML file (debian-edu-wheezy-manual.xml) and
2871 a handfull of images.  The XML file can now be used to generate PDF, HTML
2872 and epub versions of the English manual.  This is the basic step of
2873 our process, making PDF (using dblatex), HTML (using xsltproc) and
2874 epub (using dbtoepub) version from Docbook XML, and the resulting files
2875 are placed in the debian-edu-doc-en binary package.</p>
2876
2877 <p>But English documentation is not enough for us.  We want translated
2878 documentation too, and we want to make it easy for translators to
2879 track the English original.  For this we use the
2880 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/p/poxml.html">poxml</a> package,
2881 which allow us to transform the English Docbook XML file into a
2882 translation file (a .pot file), usable with the normal gettext based
2883 translation tools used by those translating free software.  The pot
2884 file is used to create and maintain translation files (several .po
2885 files), which the translations update with the native language
2886 translations of all titles, paragraphs and blocks of text in the
2887 original.  The next step is combining the original English Docbook XML
2888 and the translation file (say debian-edu-wheezy-manual.nb.po), to
2889 create a translated Docbook XML file (in this case
2890 debian-edu-wheezy-manual.nb.xml).  This translated (or partly
2891 translated, if the translation is not complete) Docbook XML file can
2892 then be used like the original to create a PDF, HTML and epub version
2893 of the documentation.</p>
2894
2895 <p>The translators use different tools to edit the .po files.  We
2896 recommend using
2897 <a href="http://www.kde.org/applications/development/lokalize/">lokalize</a>,
2898 while some use emacs and vi, others can use web based editors like
2899 <a href="http://pootle.translatehouse.org/">Poodle</a> or
2900 <a href="https://www.transifex.com/">Transifex</a>.  All we care about
2901 is where the .po file end up, in our git repository.  Updated
2902 translations can either be committed directly to git, or submitted as
2903 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/src:debian-edu-doc">bug reports
2904 against the debian-edu-doc package</a>.</p>
2905
2906 <p>One challenge is images, which both might need to be translated (if
2907 they show translated user applications), and are needed in different
2908 formats when creating PDF and HTML versions (epub is a HTML version in
2909 this regard).  For this we transform the original PNG images to the
2910 needed density and format during build, and have a way to provide
2911 translated images by storing translated versions in
2912 images/$LANGUAGECODE/.  I am a bit unsure about the details here.  The
2913 package maintainers know more.</p>
2914
2915 <p>If you wonder what the result look like, we provide
2916 <a href="http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/">the content
2917 of the documentation packages on the web</a>.  See for example the
2918 <a href="http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/it/debian-edu-wheezy-manual.pdf">Italian
2919 PDF version</a> or the
2920 <a href="http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/de/debian-edu-wheezy-manual.html">German
2921 HTML version</a>.  We do not yet build the epub version by default,
2922 but perhaps it will be done in the future.</p>
2923
2924 <p>To learn more, check out
2925 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/debian-edu-doc.html">the
2926 debian-edu-doc package</a>,
2927 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/">the
2928 manual on the wiki</a> and
2929 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/Translations">the
2930 translation instructions</a> in the manual.</p>
2931
2932       </div>
2933       <div class="tags">
2934
2935
2936         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2937
2938
2939       </div>
2940     </div>
2941     <div class="padding"></div>
2942
2943     <div class="entry">
2944       <div class="title">
2945         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Install_hardware_dependent_packages_using_tasksel__Isenkram_0_7_.html">Install hardware dependent packages using tasksel (Isenkram 0.7)</a>
2946       </div>
2947       <div class="date">
2948         23rd April 2014
2949       </div>
2950       <div class="body">
2951         <p>It would be nice if it was easier in Debian to get all the hardware
2952 related packages relevant for the computer installed automatically.
2953 So I implemented one, using
2954 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">my Isenkram
2955 package</a>.  To use it, install the tasksel and isenkram packages and
2956 run tasksel as user root.  You should be presented with a new option,
2957 "Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)".  When you
2958 select it, tasksel will install the packages isenkram claim is fit for
2959 the current hardware, hot pluggable or not.<p>
2960
2961 <p>The implementation is in two files, one is the tasksel menu entry
2962 description, and the other is the script used to extract the list of
2963 packages to install.  The first part is in
2964 <tt>/usr/share/tasksel/descs/isenkram.desc</tt> and look like
2965 this:</p>
2966
2967 <p><blockquote><pre>
2968 Task: isenkram
2969 Section: hardware
2970 Description: Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)
2971  Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific packages are
2972  proposed.
2973 Test-new-install: mark show
2974 Relevance: 8
2975 Packages: for-current-hardware
2976 </pre></blockquote></p>
2977
2978 <p>The second part is in
2979 <tt>/usr/lib/tasksel/packages/for-current-hardware</tt> and look like
2980 this:</p>
2981
2982 <p><blockquote><pre>
2983 #!/bin/sh
2984 #
2985 (
2986     isenkram-lookup
2987     isenkram-autoinstall-firmware -l
2988 ) | sort -u
2989 </pre></blockquote></p>
2990
2991 <p>All in all, a very short and simple implementation making it
2992 trivial to install the hardware dependent package we all may want to
2993 have installed on our machines.  I've not been able to find a way to
2994 get tasksel to tell you exactly which packages it plan to install
2995 before doing the installation.  So if you are curious or careful,
2996 check the output from the isenkram-* command line tools first.</p>
2997
2998 <p>The information about which packages are handling which hardware is
2999 fetched either from the isenkram package itself in
3000 /usr/share/isenkram/, from git.debian.org or from the APT package
3001 database (using the Modaliases header).  The APT package database
3002 parsing have caused a nasty resource leak in the isenkram daemon (bugs
3003 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/719837">#719837</a> and
3004 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/730704">#730704</a>).  The cause is in
3005 the python-apt code (bug
3006 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/745487">#745487</a>), but using a
3007 workaround I was able to get rid of the file descriptor leak and
3008 reduce the memory leak from ~30 MiB per hardware detection down to
3009 around 2 MiB per hardware detection.  It should make the desktop
3010 daemon a lot more useful.  The fix is in version 0.7 uploaded to
3011 unstable today.</p>
3012
3013 <p>I believe the current way of mapping hardware to packages in
3014 Isenkram is is a good draft, but in the future I expect isenkram to
3015 use the AppStream data source for this.  A proposal for getting proper
3016 AppStream support into Debian is floating around as
3017 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DEP-11">DEP-11</a>, and
3018 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/SummerOfCode2014/Projects#SummerOfCode2014.2FProjects.2FAppStreamDEP11Implementation.AppStream.2FDEP-11_for_the_Debian_Archive">GSoC
3019 project</a> will take place this summer to improve the situation.  I
3020 look forward to seeing the result, and welcome patches for isenkram to
3021 start using the information when it is ready.</p>
3022
3023 <p>If you want your package to map to some specific hardware, either
3024 add a "Xb-Modaliases" header to your control file like I did in
3025 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pymissile">the pymissile
3026 package</a> or submit a bug report with the details to the isenkram
3027 package.  See also
3028 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram/">all my
3029 blog posts tagged isenkram</a> for details on the notation.  I expect
3030 the information will be migrated to AppStream eventually, but for the
3031 moment I got no better place to store it.</p>
3032
3033       </div>
3034       <div class="tags">
3035
3036
3037         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
3038
3039
3040       </div>
3041     </div>
3042     <div class="padding"></div>
3043
3044     <div class="entry">
3045       <div class="title">
3046         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/FreedomBox_milestone___all_packages_now_in_Debian_Sid.html">FreedomBox milestone - all packages now in Debian Sid</a>
3047       </div>
3048       <div class="date">
3049         15th April 2014
3050       </div>
3051       <div class="body">
3052         <p>The <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">Freedombox
3053 project</a> is working on providing the software and hardware to make
3054 it easy for non-technical people to host their data and communication
3055 at home, and being able to communicate with their friends and family
3056 encrypted and away from prying eyes.  It is still going strong, and
3057 today a major mile stone was reached.</p>
3058
3059 <p>Today, the last of the packages currently used by the project to
3060 created the system images were accepted into Debian Unstable.  It was
3061 the freedombox-setup package, which is used to configure the images
3062 during build and on the first boot.  Now all one need to get going is
3063 the build code from the freedom-maker git repository and packages from
3064 Debian.  And once the freedombox-setup package enter testing, we can
3065 build everything directly from Debian. :)</p>
3066
3067 <p>Some key packages used by Freedombox are
3068 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/freedombox-setup">freedombox-setup</a>,
3069 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/plinth">plinth</a>,
3070 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pagekite">pagekite</a>,
3071 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/tor">tor</a>,
3072 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/privoxy">privoxy</a>,
3073 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/owncloud">owncloud</a> and
3074 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/dnsmasq">dnsmasq</a>.  There
3075 are plans to integrate more packages into the setup.  User
3076 documentation is maintained on the Debian wiki.  Please
3077 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/Manual/Jessie">check out
3078 the manual</a> and help us improve it.</p>
3079
3080 <p>To test for yourself and create boot images with the FreedomBox
3081 setup, run this on a Debian machine using a user with sudo rights to
3082 become root:</p>
3083
3084 <p><pre>
3085 sudo apt-get install git vmdebootstrap mercurial python-docutils \
3086   mktorrent extlinux virtualbox qemu-user-static binfmt-support \
3087   u-boot-tools
3088 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/freedombox/freedom-maker.git \
3089   freedom-maker
3090 make -C freedom-maker dreamplug-image raspberry-image virtualbox-image
3091 </pre></p>
3092
3093 <p>Root access is needed to run debootstrap and mount loopback
3094 devices.  See the README in the freedom-maker git repo for more
3095 details on the build.  If you do not want all three images, trim the
3096 make line.  Note that the virtualbox-image target is not really
3097 virtualbox specific.  It create a x86 image usable in kvm, qemu,
3098 vmware and any other x86 virtual machine environment.  You might need
3099 the version of vmdebootstrap in Jessie to get the build working, as it
3100 include fixes for a race condition with kpartx.</p>
3101
3102 <p>If you instead want to install using a Debian CD and the preseed
3103 method, boot a Debian Wheezy ISO and use this boot argument to load
3104 the preseed values:</p>
3105
3106 <p><pre>
3107 url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat</a>
3108 </pre></p>
3109
3110 <p>I have not tested it myself the last few weeks, so I do not know if
3111 it still work.</p>
3112
3113 <p>If you wonder how to help, one task you could look at is using
3114 systemd as the boot system.  It will become the default for Linux in
3115 Jessie, so we need to make sure it is usable on the Freedombox.  I did
3116 a simple test a few weeks ago, and noticed dnsmasq failed to start
3117 during boot when using systemd.  I suspect there are other problems
3118 too. :) To detect problems, there is a test suite included, which can
3119 be run from the plinth web interface.</p>
3120
3121 <p>Give it a go and let us know how it goes on the mailing list, and help
3122 us get the new release published. :) Please join us on
3123 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC (#freedombox on
3124 irc.debian.org)</a> and
3125 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
3126 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
3127
3128       </div>
3129       <div class="tags">
3130
3131
3132         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
3133
3134
3135       </div>
3136     </div>
3137     <div class="padding"></div>
3138
3139     <div class="entry">
3140       <div class="title">
3141         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/S3QL__a_locally_mounted_cloud_file_system___nice_free_software.html">S3QL, a locally mounted cloud file system - nice free software</a>
3142       </div>
3143       <div class="date">
3144          9th April 2014
3145       </div>
3146       <div class="body">
3147         <p>For a while now, I have been looking for a sensible offsite backup
3148 solution for use at home.  My requirements are simple, it must be
3149 cheap and locally encrypted (in other words, I keep the encryption
3150 keys, the storage provider do not have access to my private files).
3151 One idea me and my friends had many years ago, before the cloud
3152 storage providers showed up, was to use Google mail as storage,
3153 writing a Linux block device storing blocks as emails in the mail
3154 service provided by Google, and thus get heaps of free space.  On top
3155 of this one can add encryption, RAID and volume management to have
3156 lots of (fairly slow, I admit that) cheap and encrypted storage.  But
3157 I never found time to implement such system.  But the last few weeks I
3158 have looked at a system called
3159 <a href="https://bitbucket.org/nikratio/s3ql/">S3QL</a>, a locally
3160 mounted network backed file system with the features I need.</p>
3161
3162 <p>S3QL is a fuse file system with a local cache and cloud storage,
3163 handling several different storage providers, any with Amazon S3,
3164 Google Drive or OpenStack API.  There are heaps of such storage
3165 providers.  S3QL can also use a local directory as storage, which
3166 combined with sshfs allow for file storage on any ssh server.  S3QL
3167 include support for encryption, compression, de-duplication, snapshots
3168 and immutable file systems, allowing me to mount the remote storage as
3169 a local mount point, look at and use the files as if they were local,
3170 while the content is stored in the cloud as well.  This allow me to
3171 have a backup that should survive fire.  The file system can not be
3172 shared between several machines at the same time, as only one can
3173 mount it at the time, but any machine with the encryption key and
3174 access to the storage service can mount it if it is unmounted.</p>
3175
3176 <p>It is simple to use.  I'm using it on Debian Wheezy, where the
3177 package is included already.  So to get started, run <tt>apt-get
3178 install s3ql</tt>.  Next, pick a storage provider.  I ended up picking
3179 Greenqloud, after reading their nice recipe on
3180 <a href="https://greenqloud.zendesk.com/entries/44611757-How-To-Use-S3QL-to-mount-a-StorageQloud-bucket-on-Debian-Wheezy">how
3181 to use S3QL with their Amazon S3 service</a>, because I trust the laws
3182 in Iceland more than those in USA when it come to keeping my personal
3183 data safe and private, and thus would rather spend money on a company
3184 in Iceland.  Another nice recipe is available from the article
3185 <a href="http://www.admin-magazine.com/HPC/Articles/HPC-Cloud-Storage">S3QL
3186 Filesystem for HPC Storage</a> by Jeff Layton in the HPC section of
3187 Admin magazine.  When the provider is picked, figure out how to get
3188 the API key needed to connect to the storage API.  With Greencloud,
3189 the key did not show up until I had added payment details to my
3190 account.</p>
3191
3192 <p>Armed with the API access details, it is time to create the file
3193 system.  First, create a new bucket in the cloud.  This bucket is the
3194 file system storage area.  I picked a bucket name reflecting the
3195 machine that was going to store data there, but any name will do.
3196 I'll refer to it as <tt>bucket-name</tt> below.  In addition, one need
3197 the API login and password, and a locally created password.  Store it
3198 all in ~root/.s3ql/authinfo2 like this:
3199
3200 <p><blockquote><pre>
3201 [s3c]
3202 storage-url: s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name
3203 backend-login: API-login
3204 backend-password: API-password
3205 fs-passphrase: local-password
3206 </pre></blockquote></p>
3207
3208 <p>I create my local passphrase using <tt>pwget 50</tt> or similar,
3209 but any sensible way to create a fairly random password should do it.
3210 Armed with these details, it is now time to run mkfs, entering the API
3211 details and password to create it:</p>
3212
3213 <p><blockquote><pre>
3214 # mkdir -m 700 /var/lib/s3ql-cache
3215 # mkfs.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
3216   --ssl s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name
3217 Enter backend login:
3218 Enter backend password:
3219 Before using S3QL, make sure to read the user's guide, especially
3220 the 'Important Rules to Avoid Loosing Data' section.
3221 Enter encryption password:
3222 Confirm encryption password:
3223 Generating random encryption key...
3224 Creating metadata tables...
3225 Dumping metadata...
3226 ..objects..
3227 ..blocks..
3228 ..inodes..
3229 ..inode_blocks..
3230 ..symlink_targets..
3231 ..names..
3232 ..contents..
3233 ..ext_attributes..
3234 Compressing and uploading metadata...
3235 Wrote 0.00 MB of compressed metadata.
3236 # </pre></blockquote></p>
3237
3238 <p>The next step is mounting the file system to make the storage available.
3239
3240 <p><blockquote><pre>
3241 # mount.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
3242   --ssl --allow-root s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name /s3ql
3243 Using 4 upload threads.
3244 Downloading and decompressing metadata...
3245 Reading metadata...
3246 ..objects..
3247 ..blocks..
3248 ..inodes..
3249 ..inode_blocks..
3250 ..symlink_targets..
3251 ..names..
3252 ..contents..
3253 ..ext_attributes..
3254 Mounting filesystem...
3255 # df -h /s3ql
3256 Filesystem                              Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
3257 s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name  1.0T     0  1.0T   0% /s3ql
3258 #
3259 </pre></blockquote></p>
3260
3261 <p>The file system is now ready for use.  I use rsync to store my
3262 backups in it, and as the metadata used by rsync is downloaded at
3263 mount time, no network traffic (and storage cost) is triggered by
3264 running rsync.  To unmount, one should not use the normal umount
3265 command, as this will not flush the cache to the cloud storage, but
3266 instead running the umount.s3ql command like this:
3267
3268 <p><blockquote><pre>
3269 # umount.s3ql /s3ql
3270 #
3271 </pre></blockquote></p>
3272
3273 <p>There is a fsck command available to check the file system and
3274 correct any problems detected.  This can be used if the local server
3275 crashes while the file system is mounted, to reset the "already
3276 mounted" flag.  This is what it look like when processing a working
3277 file system:</p>
3278
3279 <p><blockquote><pre>
3280 # fsck.s3ql --force --ssl s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name
3281 Using cached metadata.
3282 File system seems clean, checking anyway.
3283 Checking DB integrity...
3284 Creating temporary extra indices...
3285 Checking lost+found...
3286 Checking cached objects...
3287 Checking names (refcounts)...
3288 Checking contents (names)...
3289 Checking contents (inodes)...
3290 Checking contents (parent inodes)...
3291 Checking objects (reference counts)...
3292 Checking objects (backend)...
3293 ..processed 5000 objects so far..
3294 ..processed 10000 objects so far..
3295 ..processed 15000 objects so far..
3296 Checking objects (sizes)...
3297 Checking blocks (referenced objects)...
3298 Checking blocks (refcounts)...
3299 Checking inode-block mapping (blocks)...
3300 Checking inode-block mapping (inodes)...
3301 Checking inodes (refcounts)...
3302 Checking inodes (sizes)...
3303 Checking extended attributes (names)...
3304 Checking extended attributes (inodes)...
3305 Checking symlinks (inodes)...
3306 Checking directory reachability...
3307 Checking unix conventions...
3308 Checking referential integrity...
3309 Dropping temporary indices...
3310 Backing up old metadata...
3311 Dumping metadata...
3312 ..objects..
3313 ..blocks..
3314 ..inodes..
3315 ..inode_blocks..
3316 ..symlink_targets..
3317 ..names..
3318 ..contents..
3319 ..ext_attributes..
3320 Compressing and uploading metadata...
3321 Wrote 0.89 MB of compressed metadata.
3322 #
3323 </pre></blockquote></p>
3324
3325 <p>Thanks to the cache, working on files that fit in the cache is very
3326 quick, about the same speed as local file access.  Uploading large
3327 amount of data is to me limited by the bandwidth out of and into my
3328 house.  Uploading 685 MiB with a 100 MiB cache gave me 305 kiB/s,
3329 which is very close to my upload speed, and downloading the same
3330 Debian installation ISO gave me 610 kiB/s, close to my download speed.
3331 Both were measured using <tt>dd</tt>.  So for me, the bottleneck is my
3332 network, not the file system code.  I do not know what a good cache
3333 size would be, but suspect that the cache should e larger than your
3334 working set.</p>
3335
3336 <p>I mentioned that only one machine can mount the file system at the
3337 time.  If another machine try, it is told that the file system is
3338 busy:</p>
3339
3340 <p><blockquote><pre>
3341 # mount.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
3342   --ssl --allow-root s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name /s3ql
3343 Using 8 upload threads.
3344 Backend reports that fs is still mounted elsewhere, aborting.
3345 #
3346 </pre></blockquote></p>
3347
3348 <p>The file content is uploaded when the cache is full, while the
3349 metadata is uploaded once every 24 hour by default.  To ensure the
3350 file system content is flushed to the cloud, one can either umount the
3351 file system, or ask S3QL to flush the cache and metadata using
3352 s3qlctrl:
3353
3354 <p><blockquote><pre>
3355 # s3qlctrl upload-meta /s3ql
3356 # s3qlctrl flushcache /s3ql
3357 #
3358 </pre></blockquote></p>
3359
3360 <p>If you are curious about how much space your data uses in the
3361 cloud, and how much compression and deduplication cut down on the
3362 storage usage, you can use s3qlstat on the mounted file system to get
3363 a report:</p>
3364
3365 <p><blockquote><pre>
3366 # s3qlstat /s3ql
3367 Directory entries:    9141
3368 Inodes:               9143
3369 Data blocks:          8851
3370 Total data size:      22049.38 MB
3371 After de-duplication: 21955.46 MB (99.57% of total)
3372 After compression:    21877.28 MB (99.22% of total, 99.64% of de-duplicated)
3373 Database size:        2.39 MB (uncompressed)
3374 (some values do not take into account not-yet-uploaded dirty blocks in cache)
3375 #
3376 </pre></blockquote></p>
3377
3378 <p>I mentioned earlier that there are several possible suppliers of
3379 storage.  I did not try to locate them all, but am aware of at least
3380 <a href="https://www.greenqloud.com/">Greenqloud</a>,
3381 <a href="http://drive.google.com/">Google Drive</a>,
3382 <a href="http://aws.amazon.com/s3/">Amazon S3 web serivces</a>,
3383 <a href="http://www.rackspace.com/">Rackspace</a> and
3384 <a href="http://crowncloud.net/">Crowncloud</A>.  The latter even
3385 accept payment in Bitcoin.  Pick one that suit your need.  Some of
3386 them provide several GiB of free storage, but the prize models are
3387 quite different and you will have to figure out what suits you
3388 best.</p>
3389
3390 <p>While researching this blog post, I had a look at research papers
3391 and posters discussing the S3QL file system.  There are several, which
3392 told me that the file system is getting a critical check by the
3393 science community and increased my confidence in using it.  One nice
3394 poster is titled
3395 "<a href="http://www.lanl.gov/orgs/adtsc/publications/science_highlights_2013/docs/pg68_69.pdf">An
3396 Innovative Parallel Cloud Storage System using OpenStack’s SwiftObject
3397 Store and Transformative Parallel I/O Approach</a>" by Hsing-Bung
3398 Chen, Benjamin McClelland, David Sherrill, Alfred Torrez, Parks Fields
3399 and Pamela Smith.  Please  have a look.</p>
3400
3401 <p>Given my problems with different file systems earlier, I decided to
3402 check out the mounted S3QL file system to see if it would be usable as
3403 a home directory (in other word, that it provided POSIX semantics when
3404 it come to locking and umask handling etc).  Running
3405 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_if_a_file_system_can_be_used_for_home_directories___.html">my
3406 test code to check file system semantics</a>, I was happy to discover that
3407 no error was found.  So the file system can be used for home
3408 directories, if one chooses to do so.</p>
3409
3410 <p>If you do not want a locally file system, and want something that
3411 work without the Linux fuse file system, I would like to mention the
3412 <a href="http://www.tarsnap.com/">Tarsnap service</a>, which also
3413 provide locally encrypted backup using a command line client.  It have
3414 a nicer access control system, where one can split out read and write
3415 access, allowing some systems to write to the backup and others to
3416 only read from it.</p>
3417
3418 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
3419 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
3420 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
3421
3422       </div>
3423       <div class="tags">
3424
3425
3426         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nice free software">nice free software</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
3427
3428
3429       </div>
3430     </div>
3431     <div class="padding"></div>
3432
3433     <div class="entry">
3434       <div class="title">
3435         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Freedombox_on_Dreamplug__Raspberry_Pi_and_virtual_x86_machine.html">Freedombox on Dreamplug, Raspberry Pi and virtual x86 machine</a>
3436       </div>
3437       <div class="date">
3438         14th March 2014
3439       </div>
3440       <div class="body">
3441         <p>The <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">Freedombox
3442 project</a> is working on providing the software and hardware for
3443 making it easy for non-technical people to host their data and
3444 communication at home, and being able to communicate with their
3445 friends and family encrypted and away from prying eyes.  It has been
3446 going on for a while, and is slowly progressing towards a new test
3447 release (0.2).</p>
3448
3449 <p>And what day could be better than the Pi day to announce that the
3450 new version will provide "hard drive" / SD card / USB stick images for
3451 Dreamplug, Raspberry Pi and VirtualBox (or any other virtualization
3452 system), and can also be installed using a Debian installer preseed
3453 file.  The Debian based Freedombox is now based on Debian Jessie,
3454 where most of the needed packages used are already present.  Only one,
3455 the freedombox-setup package, is missing.  To try to build your own
3456 boot image to test the current status, fetch the freedom-maker scripts
3457 and build using
3458 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/vmdebootstrap">vmdebootstrap</a>
3459 with a user with sudo access to become root:
3460
3461 <pre>
3462 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/freedombox/freedom-maker.git \
3463   freedom-maker
3464 sudo apt-get install git vmdebootstrap mercurial python-docutils \
3465   mktorrent extlinux virtualbox qemu-user-static binfmt-support \
3466   u-boot-tools
3467 make -C freedom-maker dreamplug-image raspberry-image virtualbox-image
3468 </pre>
3469
3470 <p>Root access is needed to run debootstrap and mount loopback
3471 devices.  See the README for more details on the build. If you do not
3472 want all three images, trim the make line.  But note that thanks to <a
3473 href="https://bugs.debian.org/741407">a race condition in
3474 vmdebootstrap</a>, the build might fail without the patch to the
3475 kpartx call.</p>
3476
3477 <p>If you instead want to install using a Debian CD and the preseed
3478 method, boot a Debian Wheezy ISO and use this boot argument to load
3479 the preseed values:</p>
3480
3481 <pre>
3482 url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat</a>
3483 </pre>
3484
3485 <p>But note that due to <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/740673">a
3486 recently introduced bug in apt in Jessie</a>, the installer will
3487 currently hang while setting up APT sources.  Killing the
3488 '<tt>apt-cdrom ident</tt>' process when it hang a few times during the
3489 installation will get the installation going.  This affect all
3490 installations in Jessie, and I expect it will be fixed soon.</p>
3491
3492 <p>Give it a go and let us know how it goes on the mailing list, and help
3493 us get the new release published. :) Please join us on
3494 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC (#freedombox on
3495 irc.debian.org)</a> and
3496 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
3497 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
3498
3499       </div>
3500       <div class="tags">
3501
3502
3503         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
3504
3505
3506       </div>
3507     </div>
3508     <div class="padding"></div>
3509
3510     <div class="entry">
3511       <div class="title">
3512         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_home_and_release_1_0_for_netgroup_and_innetgr__aka_ng_utils_.html">New home and release 1.0 for netgroup and innetgr (aka ng-utils)</a>
3513       </div>
3514       <div class="date">
3515         22nd February 2014
3516       </div>
3517       <div class="body">
3518         <p>Many years ago, I wrote a GPL licensed version of the netgroup and
3519 innetgr tools, because I needed them in
3520 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a>.  I called the project
3521 ng-utils, and it has served me well.  I placed the project under the
3522 <a href="http://www.hungry.com/">Hungry Programmer</a> umbrella, and it was maintained in our CVS
3523 repository.  But many years ago, the CVS repository was dropped (lost,
3524 not migrated to new hardware, not sure), and the project have lacked a
3525 proper home since then.</p>
3526
3527 <p>Last summer, I had a look at the package and made a new release
3528 fixing a irritating crash bug, but was unable to store the changes in
3529 a proper source control system.  I applied for a project on
3530 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/">Alioth</a>, but did not have time
3531 to follow up on it.  Until today. :)</p>
3532
3533 <p>After many hours of cleaning and migration, the ng-utils project
3534 now have a new home, and a git repository with the highlight of the
3535 history of the project.  I published all release tarballs and imported
3536 them into the git repository.  As the project is really stable and not
3537 expected to gain new features any time soon, I decided to make a new
3538 release and call it 1.0.  Visit the new project home on
3539 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/ng-utils/">https://alioth.debian.org/projects/ng-utils/</a>
3540 if you want to check it out.  The new version is also uploaded into
3541 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/n/ng-utils.html">Debian Unstable</a>.</p>
3542
3543       </div>
3544       <div class="tags">
3545
3546
3547         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3548
3549
3550       </div>
3551     </div>
3552     <div class="padding"></div>
3553
3554     <div class="entry">
3555       <div class="title">
3556         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_sysvinit_from_experimental_in_Debian_Hurd.html">Testing sysvinit from experimental in Debian Hurd</a>
3557       </div>
3558       <div class="date">
3559          3rd February 2014
3560       </div>
3561       <div class="body">
3562         <p>A few days ago I decided to try to help the Hurd people to get
3563 their changes into sysvinit, to allow them to use the normal sysvinit
3564 boot system instead of their old one.  This follow up on the
3565 <a href="https://teythoon.cryptobitch.de//categories/gsoc.html">great
3566 Google Summer of Code work</a> done last summer by Justus Winter to
3567 get Debian on Hurd working more like Debian on Linux.  To get started,
3568 I downloaded a prebuilt hard disk image from
3569 <a href="http://ftp.debian-ports.org/debian-cd/hurd-i386/current/debian-hurd.img.tar.gz">http://ftp.debian-ports.org/debian-cd/hurd-i386/current/debian-hurd.img.tar.gz</a>,
3570 and started it using virt-manager.</p>
3571
3572 <p>The first think I had to do after logging in (root without any
3573 password) was to get the network operational.  I followed
3574 <a href="https://www.debian.org/ports/hurd/hurd-install">the
3575 instructions on the Debian GNU/Hurd ports page</a> and ran these
3576 commands as root to get the machine to accept a IP address from the
3577 kvm internal DHCP server:</p>
3578
3579 <p><blockquote><pre>
3580 settrans -fgap /dev/netdde /hurd/netdde
3581 kill $(ps -ef|awk '/[p]finet/ { print $2}')
3582 kill $(ps -ef|awk '/[d]evnode/ { print $2}')
3583 dhclient /dev/eth0
3584 </pre></blockquote></p>
3585
3586 <p>After this, the machine had internet connectivity, and I could
3587 upgrade it and install the sysvinit packages from experimental and
3588 enable it as the default boot system in Hurd.</p>
3589
3590 <p>But before I did that, I set a password on the root user, as ssh is
3591 running on the machine it for ssh login to work a password need to be
3592 set.  Also, note that a bug somewhere in openssh on Hurd block
3593 compression from working.  Remember to turn that off on the client
3594 side.</p>
3595
3596 <p>Run these commands as root to upgrade and test the new sysvinit
3597 stuff:</p>
3598
3599 <p><blockquote><pre>
3600 cat > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/experimental.list &lt;&lt;EOF
3601 deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ experimental main
3602 EOF
3603 apt-get update
3604 apt-get dist-upgrade
3605 apt-get install -t experimental initscripts sysv-rc sysvinit \
3606     sysvinit-core sysvinit-utils
3607 update-alternatives --config runsystem
3608 </pre></blockquote></p>
3609
3610 <p>To reboot after switching boot system, you have to use
3611 <tt>reboot-hurd</tt> instead of just <tt>reboot</tt>, as there is not
3612 yet a sysvinit process able to receive the signals from the normal
3613 'reboot' command.  After switching to sysvinit as the boot system,
3614 upgrading every package and rebooting, the network come up with DHCP
3615 after boot as it should, and the settrans/pkill hack mentioned at the
3616 start is no longer needed.  But for some strange reason, there are no
3617 longer any login prompt in the virtual console, so I logged in using
3618 ssh instead.
3619
3620 <p>Note that there are some race conditions in Hurd making the boot
3621 fail some times.  No idea what the cause is, but hope the Hurd porters
3622 figure it out.  At least Justus said on IRC (#debian-hurd on
3623 irc.debian.org) that they are aware of the problem.  A way to reduce
3624 the impact is to upgrade to the Hurd packages built by Justus by
3625 adding this repository to the machine:</p>
3626
3627 <p><blockquote><pre>
3628 cat > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/hurd-ci.list &lt;&lt;EOF
3629 deb http://darnassus.sceen.net/~teythoon/hurd-ci/ sid main
3630 EOF
3631 </pre></blockquote></p>
3632
3633 <p>At the moment the prebuilt virtual machine get some packages from
3634 http://ftp.debian-ports.org/debian, because some of the packages in
3635 unstable do not yet include the required patches that are lingering in
3636 BTS.  This is the completely list of "unofficial" packages installed:</p>
3637
3638 <p><blockquote><pre>
3639 # aptitude search '?narrow(?version(CURRENT),?origin(Debian Ports))'
3640 i   emacs                   - GNU Emacs editor (metapackage)
3641 i   gdb                     - GNU Debugger
3642 i   hurd-recommended        - Miscellaneous translators
3643 i   isc-dhcp-client         - ISC DHCP client
3644 i   isc-dhcp-common         - common files used by all the isc-dhcp* packages
3645 i   libc-bin                - Embedded GNU C Library: Binaries
3646 i   libc-dev-bin            - Embedded GNU C Library: Development binaries
3647 i   libc0.3                 - Embedded GNU C Library: Shared libraries
3648 i A libc0.3-dbg             - Embedded GNU C Library: detached debugging symbols
3649 i   libc0.3-dev             - Embedded GNU C Library: Development Libraries and Hea
3650 i   multiarch-support       - Transitional package to ensure multiarch compatibilit
3651 i A x11-common              - X Window System (X.Org) infrastructure
3652 i   xorg                    - X.Org X Window System
3653 i A xserver-xorg            - X.Org X server
3654 i A xserver-xorg-input-all  - X.Org X server -- input driver metapackage
3655 #
3656 </pre></blockquote></p>
3657
3658 <p>All in all, testing hurd has been an interesting experience. :)
3659 X.org did not work out of the box and I never took the time to follow
3660 the porters instructions to fix it.  This time I was interested in the
3661 command line stuff.<p>
3662
3663       </div>
3664       <div class="tags">
3665
3666
3667         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3668
3669
3670       </div>
3671     </div>
3672     <div class="padding"></div>
3673
3674     <div class="entry">
3675       <div class="title">
3676         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_chrpath_release_0_16.html">New chrpath release 0.16</a>
3677       </div>
3678       <div class="date">
3679         14th January 2014
3680       </div>
3681       <div class="body">
3682         <p><a href="http://www.coverity.com/">Coverity</a> is a nice tool to
3683 find problems in C, C++ and Java code using static source code
3684 analysis.  It can detect a lot of different problems, and is very
3685 useful to find memory and locking bugs in the error handling part of
3686 the source.  The company behind it provide
3687 <a href="https://scan.coverity.com/">check of free software projects as
3688 a community service</a>, and many hundred free software projects are
3689 already checked.  A few days ago I decided to have a closer look at
3690 the Coverity system, and discovered that the
3691 <a href="http://www.gnu.org/software/gnash/">gnash</a> and
3692 <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/ipmitool/">ipmitool</a>
3693 projects I am involved with was already registered.  But these are
3694 fairly big, and I would also like to have a small and easy project to
3695 check, and decided to <a href="http://scan.coverity.com/projects/1179">request
3696 checking of the chrpath project</a>.  It was
3697 added to the checker and discovered seven potential defects.  Six of
3698 these were real, mostly resource "leak" when the program detected an
3699 error.  Nothing serious, as the resources would be released a fraction
3700 of a second later when the program exited because of the error, but it
3701 is nice to do it right in case the source of the program some time in
3702 the future end up in a library.  Having fixed all defects and added
3703 <a href="https://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/chrpath-devel">a
3704 mailing list for the chrpath developers</a>, I decided it was time to
3705 publish a new release.  These are the release notes:</p>
3706
3707 <p>New in 0.16 released 2014-01-14:</p>
3708
3709 <ul>
3710
3711   <li>Fixed all minor bugs discovered by Coverity.</li>
3712   <li>Updated config.sub and config.guess from the GNU project.</li>
3713   <li>Mention new project mailing list in the documentation.</li>
3714
3715 </ul>
3716
3717 <p>You can
3718 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/frs/?group_id=31052">download the
3719 new version 0.16 from alioth</a>.  Please let us know via the Alioth
3720 project if something is wrong with the new release.  The test suite
3721 did not discover any old errors, so if you find a new one, please also
3722 include a test suite check.</p>
3723
3724       </div>
3725       <div class="tags">
3726
3727
3728         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/chrpath">chrpath</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3729
3730
3731       </div>
3732     </div>
3733     <div class="padding"></div>
3734
3735     <div class="entry">
3736       <div class="title">
3737         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_chrpath_release_0_15.html">New chrpath release 0.15</a>
3738       </div>
3739       <div class="date">
3740         24th November 2013
3741       </div>
3742       <div class="body">
3743         <p>After many years break from the package and a vain hope that
3744 development would be continued by someone else, I finally pulled my
3745 acts together this morning and wrapped up a new release of chrpath,
3746 the command line tool to modify the rpath and runpath of already
3747 compiled ELF programs.  The update was triggered by the persistence of
3748 Isha Vishnoi at IBM, which needed a new config.guess file to get
3749 support for the ppc64le architecture (powerpc 64-bit Little Endian) he
3750 is working on.  I checked the
3751 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/chrpath">Debian</a>,
3752 <a href="https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/chrpath">Ubuntu</a> and
3753 <a href="https://admin.fedoraproject.org/pkgdb/acls/name/chrpath">Fedora</a>
3754 packages for interesting patches (failed to find the source from
3755 OpenSUSE and Mandriva packages), and found quite a few nice fixes.
3756 These are the release notes:</p>
3757
3758 <p>New in 0.15 released 2013-11-24:</p>
3759
3760 <ul>
3761
3762   <li>Updated config.sub and config.guess from the GNU project to work
3763    with newer architectures.  Thanks to isha vishnoi for the heads
3764    up.</li>
3765
3766   <li>Updated README with current URLs.</li>
3767
3768   <li>Added byteswap fix found in Ubuntu, credited Jeremy Kerr and
3769    Matthias Klose.</li>
3770
3771   <li>Added missing help for -k|--keepgoing option, using patch by
3772    Petr Machata found in Fedora.</li>
3773
3774   <li>Rewrite removal of RPATH/RUNPATH to make sure the entry in
3775    .dynamic is a NULL terminated string.  Based on patch found in
3776    Fedora credited Axel Thimm and Christian Krause.</li>
3777
3778 </ul>
3779
3780 <p>You can
3781 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/frs/?group_id=31052">download the
3782 new version 0.15 from alioth</a>.  Please let us know via the Alioth
3783 project if something is wrong with the new release.  The test suite
3784 did not discover any old errors, so if you find a new one, please also
3785 include a testsuite check.</p>
3786
3787       </div>
3788       <div class="tags">
3789
3790
3791         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/chrpath">chrpath</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3792
3793
3794       </div>
3795     </div>
3796     <div class="padding"></div>
3797
3798     <div class="entry">
3799       <div class="title">
3800         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_init_d_boot_script_example_for_rsyslog.html">Debian init.d boot script example for rsyslog</a>
3801       </div>
3802       <div class="date">
3803          2nd November 2013
3804       </div>
3805       <div class="body">
3806         <p>If one of the points of switching to a new init system in Debian is
3807 <a href="http://thomas.goirand.fr/blog/?p=147">to get rid of huge
3808 init.d scripts</a>, I doubt we need to switch away from sysvinit and
3809 init.d scripts at all.  Here is an example init.d script, ie a rewrite
3810 of /etc/init.d/rsyslog:</p>
3811
3812 <p><pre>
3813 #!/lib/init/init-d-script
3814 ### BEGIN INIT INFO
3815 # Provides:          rsyslog
3816 # Required-Start:    $remote_fs $time
3817 # Required-Stop:     umountnfs $time
3818 # X-Stop-After:      sendsigs
3819 # Default-Start:     2 3 4 5
3820 # Default-Stop:      0 1 6
3821 # Short-Description: enhanced syslogd
3822 # Description:       Rsyslog is an enhanced multi-threaded syslogd.
3823 #                    It is quite compatible to stock sysklogd and can be
3824 #                    used as a drop-in replacement.
3825 ### END INIT INFO
3826 DESC="enhanced syslogd"
3827 DAEMON=/usr/sbin/rsyslogd
3828 </pre></p>
3829
3830 <p>Pretty minimalistic to me... For the record, the original sysv-rc
3831 script was 137 lines, and the above is just 15 lines, most of it meta
3832 info/comments.</p>
3833
3834 <p>How to do this, you ask?  Well, one create a new script
3835 /lib/init/init-d-script looking something like this:
3836
3837 <p><pre>
3838 #!/bin/sh
3839
3840 # Define LSB log_* functions.
3841 # Depend on lsb-base (>= 3.2-14) to ensure that this file is present
3842 # and status_of_proc is working.
3843 . /lib/lsb/init-functions
3844
3845 #
3846 # Function that starts the daemon/service
3847
3848 #
3849 do_start()
3850 {
3851         # Return
3852         #   0 if daemon has been started
3853         #   1 if daemon was already running
3854         #   2 if daemon could not be started
3855         start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $DAEMON --test > /dev/null \
3856                 || return 1
3857         start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $DAEMON -- \
3858                 $DAEMON_ARGS \
3859                 || return 2
3860         # Add code here, if necessary, that waits for the process to be ready
3861         # to handle requests from services started subsequently which depend
3862         # on this one.  As a last resort, sleep for some time.
3863 }
3864
3865 #
3866 # Function that stops the daemon/service
3867 #
3868 do_stop()
3869 {
3870         # Return
3871         #   0 if daemon has been stopped
3872         #   1 if daemon was already stopped
3873         #   2 if daemon could not be stopped
3874         #   other if a failure occurred
3875         start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --retry=TERM/30/KILL/5 --pidfile $PIDFILE --name $NAME
3876         RETVAL="$?"
3877         [ "$RETVAL" = 2 ] && return 2
3878         # Wait for children to finish too if this is a daemon that forks
3879         # and if the daemon is only ever run from this initscript.
3880         # If the above conditions are not satisfied then add some other code
3881         # that waits for the process to drop all resources that could be
3882         # needed by services started subsequently.  A last resort is to
3883         # sleep for some time.
3884         start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --oknodo --retry=0/30/KILL/5 --exec $DAEMON
3885         [ "$?" = 2 ] && return 2
3886         # Many daemons don't delete their pidfiles when they exit.
3887         rm -f $PIDFILE
3888         return "$RETVAL"
3889 }
3890
3891 #
3892 # Function that sends a SIGHUP to the daemon/service
3893 #
3894 do_reload() {
3895         #
3896         # If the daemon can reload its configuration without
3897         # restarting (for example, when it is sent a SIGHUP),
3898         # then implement that here.
3899         #
3900         start-stop-daemon --stop --signal 1 --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --name $NAME
3901         return 0
3902 }
3903
3904 SCRIPTNAME=$1
3905 scriptbasename="$(basename $1)"
3906 echo "SN: $scriptbasename"
3907 if [ "$scriptbasename" != "init-d-library" ] ; then
3908     script="$1"
3909     shift
3910     . $script
3911 else
3912     exit 0
3913 fi
3914
3915 NAME=$(basename $DAEMON)
3916 PIDFILE=/var/run/$NAME.pid
3917
3918 # Exit if the package is not installed
3919 #[ -x "$DAEMON" ] || exit 0
3920
3921 # Read configuration variable file if it is present
3922 [ -r /etc/default/$NAME ] && . /etc/default/$NAME
3923
3924 # Load the VERBOSE setting and other rcS variables
3925 . /lib/init/vars.sh
3926
3927 case "$1" in
3928   start)
3929         [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_daemon_msg "Starting $DESC" "$NAME"
3930         do_start
3931         case "$?" in
3932                 0|1) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 0 ;;
3933                 2) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 1 ;;
3934         esac
3935         ;;
3936   stop)
3937         [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_daemon_msg "Stopping $DESC" "$NAME"
3938         do_stop
3939         case "$?" in
3940                 0|1) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 0 ;;
3941                 2) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 1 ;;
3942         esac
3943         ;;
3944   status)
3945         status_of_proc "$DAEMON" "$NAME" && exit 0 || exit $?
3946         ;;
3947   #reload|force-reload)
3948         #
3949         # If do_reload() is not implemented then leave this commented out
3950         # and leave 'force-reload' as an alias for 'restart'.
3951         #
3952         #log_daemon_msg "Reloading $DESC" "$NAME"
3953         #do_reload
3954         #log_end_msg $?
3955         #;;
3956   restart|force-reload)
3957         #
3958         # If the "reload" option is implemented then remove the
3959         # 'force-reload' alias
3960         #
3961         log_daemon_msg "Restarting $DESC" "$NAME"
3962         do_stop
3963         case "$?" in
3964           0|1)
3965                 do_start
3966                 case "$?" in
3967                         0) log_end_msg 0 ;;
3968                         1) log_end_msg 1 ;; # Old process is still running
3969                         *) log_end_msg 1 ;; # Failed to start
3970                 esac
3971                 ;;
3972           *)
3973                 # Failed to stop
3974                 log_end_msg 1
3975                 ;;
3976         esac
3977         ;;
3978   *)
3979         echo "Usage: $SCRIPTNAME {start|stop|status|restart|force-reload}" >&2
3980         exit 3
3981         ;;
3982 esac
3983
3984 :
3985 </pre></p>
3986
3987 <p>It is based on /etc/init.d/skeleton, and could be improved quite a
3988 lot.  I did not really polish the approach, so it might not always
3989 work out of the box, but you get the idea.  I did not try very hard to
3990 optimize it nor make it more robust either.</p>
3991
3992 <p>A better argument for switching init system in Debian than reducing
3993 the size of init scripts (which is a good thing to do anyway), is to
3994 get boot system that is able to handle the kernel events sensibly and
3995 robustly, and do not depend on the boot to run sequentially.  The boot
3996 and the kernel have not behaved sequentially in years.</p>
3997
3998       </div>
3999       <div class="tags">
4000
4001
4002         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
4003
4004
4005       </div>
4006     </div>
4007     <div class="padding"></div>
4008
4009     <div class="entry">
4010       <div class="title">
4011         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Browser_plugin_for_SPICE__spice_xpi__uploaded_to_Debian.html">Browser plugin for SPICE (spice-xpi) uploaded to Debian</a>
4012       </div>
4013       <div class="date">
4014          1st November 2013
4015       </div>
4016       <div class="body">
4017         <p><a href="http://www.spice-space.org/">The SPICE protocol</a> for
4018 remote display access is the preferred solution with oVirt and RedHat
4019 Enterprise Virtualization, and I was sad to discover the other day
4020 that the browser plugin needed to use these systems seamlessly was
4021 missing in Debian.  The <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/668284">request
4022 for a package</a> was from 2012-04-10 with no progress since
4023 2013-04-01, so I decided to wrap up a package based on the great work
4024 from Cajus Pollmeier and put it in a collab-maint maintained git
4025 repository to get a package I could use.  I would very much like
4026 others to help me maintain the package (or just take over, I do not
4027 mind), but as no-one had volunteered so far, I just uploaded it to
4028 NEW.  I hope it will be available in Debian in a few days.</p>
4029
4030 <p>The source is now available from
4031 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/spice-xpi.git;a=summary">http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/spice-xpi.git;a=summary</a>.</p>
4032
4033       </div>
4034       <div class="tags">
4035
4036
4037         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
4038
4039
4040       </div>
4041     </div>
4042     <div class="padding"></div>
4043
4044     <div class="entry">
4045       <div class="title">
4046         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Teaching_vmdebootstrap_to_create_Raspberry_Pi_SD_card_images.html">Teaching vmdebootstrap to create Raspberry Pi SD card images</a>
4047       </div>
4048       <div class="date">
4049         27th October 2013
4050       </div>
4051       <div class="body">
4052         <p>The
4053 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/v/vmdebootstrap.html">vmdebootstrap</a>
4054 program is a a very nice system to create virtual machine images.  It
4055 create a image file, add a partition table, mount it and run
4056 debootstrap in the mounted directory to create a Debian system on a
4057 stick.  Yesterday, I decided to try to teach it how to make images for
4058 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/RaspberryPi">Raspberry Pi</a>, as part
4059 of a plan to simplify the build system for
4060 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">the FreedomBox
4061 project</a>.  The FreedomBox project already uses vmdebootstrap for
4062 the virtualbox images, but its current build system made multistrap
4063 based system for Dreamplug images, and it is lacking support for
4064 Raspberry Pi.</p>
4065
4066 <p>Armed with the knowledge on how to build "foreign" (aka non-native
4067 architecture) chroots for Raspberry Pi, I dived into the vmdebootstrap
4068 code and adjusted it to be able to build armel images on my amd64
4069 Debian laptop.  I ended up giving vmdebootstrap five new options,
4070 allowing me to replicate the image creation process I use to make
4071 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Raspberry_Pi_based_batman_adv_Mesh_network_node.html">Debian
4072 Jessie based mesh node images for the Raspberry Pi</a>.  First, the
4073 <tt>--foreign /path/to/binfm_handler</tt> option tell vmdebootstrap to
4074 call debootstrap with --foreign and to copy the handler into the
4075 generated chroot before running the second stage.  This allow
4076 vmdebootstrap to create armel images on an amd64 host.  Next I added
4077 two new options <tt>--bootsize size</tt> and <tt>--boottype
4078 fstype</tt> to teach it to create a separate /boot/ partition with the
4079 given file system type, allowing me to create an image with a vfat
4080 partition for the /boot/ stuff.  I also added a <tt>--variant
4081 variant</tt> option to allow me to create smaller images without the
4082 Debian base system packages installed.  Finally, I added an option
4083 <tt>--no-extlinux</tt> to tell vmdebootstrap to not install extlinux
4084 as a boot loader.  It is not needed on the Raspberry Pi and probably
4085 most other non-x86 architectures.  The changes were accepted by the
4086 upstream author of vmdebootstrap yesterday and today, and is now
4087 available from
4088 <a href="http://git.liw.fi/cgi-bin/cgit/cgit.cgi/vmdebootstrap/">the
4089 upstream project page</a>.</p>
4090
4091 <p>To use it to build a Raspberry Pi image using Debian Jessie, first
4092 create a small script (the customize script) to add the non-free
4093 binary blob needed to boot the Raspberry Pi and the APT source
4094 list:</p>
4095
4096 <p><pre>
4097 #!/bin/sh
4098 set -e # Exit on first error
4099 rootdir="$1"
4100 cd "$rootdir"
4101 cat &lt;&lt;EOF > etc/apt/sources.list
4102 deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ jessie main contrib non-free
4103 EOF
4104 # Install non-free binary blob needed to boot Raspberry Pi.  This
4105 # install a kernel somewhere too.
4106 wget https://raw.github.com/Hexxeh/rpi-update/master/rpi-update \
4107     -O $rootdir/usr/bin/rpi-update
4108 chmod a+x $rootdir/usr/bin/rpi-update
4109 mkdir -p $rootdir/lib/modules
4110 touch $rootdir/boot/start.elf
4111 chroot $rootdir rpi-update
4112 </pre></p>
4113
4114 <p>Next, fetch the latest vmdebootstrap script and call it like this
4115 to build the image:</p>
4116
4117 <pre>
4118 sudo ./vmdebootstrap \
4119     --variant minbase \
4120     --arch armel \
4121     --distribution jessie \
4122     --mirror http://http.debian.net/debian \
4123     --image test.img \
4124     --size 600M \
4125     --bootsize 64M \
4126     --boottype vfat \
4127     --log-level debug \
4128     --verbose \
4129     --no-kernel \
4130     --no-extlinux \
4131     --root-password raspberry \
4132     --hostname raspberrypi \
4133     --foreign /usr/bin/qemu-arm-static \
4134     --customize `pwd`/customize \
4135     --package netbase \
4136     --package git-core \
4137     --package binutils \
4138     --package ca-certificates \
4139     --package wget \
4140     --package kmod
4141 </pre></p>
4142
4143 <p>The list of packages being installed are the ones needed by
4144 rpi-update to make the image bootable on the Raspberry Pi, with the
4145 exception of netbase, which is needed by debootstrap to find
4146 /etc/hosts with the minbase variant.  I really wish there was a way to
4147 set up an Raspberry Pi using only packages in the Debian archive, but
4148 that is not possible as far as I know, because it boots from the GPU
4149 using a non-free binary blob.</p>
4150
4151 <p>The build host need debootstrap, kpartx and qemu-user-static and
4152 probably a few others installed.  I have not checked the complete
4153 build dependency list.</p>
4154
4155 <p>The resulting image will not use the hardware floating point unit
4156 on the Raspberry PI, because the armel architecture in Debian is not
4157 optimized for that use.  So the images created will be a bit slower
4158 than <a href="http://www.raspbian.org/">Raspbian</a> based images.</p>
4159
4160       </div>
4161       <div class="tags">
4162
4163
4164         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network</a>.
4165
4166
4167       </div>
4168     </div>
4169     <div class="padding"></div>
4170
4171     <div class="entry">
4172       <div class="title">
4173         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Good_causes__Debian_Outreach_Program_for_Women__EFF_documenting_the_spying_and_Open_access_in_Norway.html">Good causes: Debian Outreach Program for Women, EFF documenting the spying and Open access in Norway</a>
4174       </div>
4175       <div class="date">
4176         15th October 2013
4177       </div>
4178       <div class="body">
4179         <p>The last few days I came across a few good causes that should get
4180 wider attention.  I recommend signing and donating to each one of
4181 these. :)</p>
4182
4183 <p>Via <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2013/18/">Debian
4184 Project News for 2013-10-14</a> I came across the Outreach Program for
4185 Women program which is a Google Summer of Code like initiative to get
4186 more women involved in free software.  One debian sponsor has offered
4187 to match <a href="http://debian.ch/opw2013">any donation done to Debian
4188 earmarked</a> for this initiative.  I donated a few minutes ago, and
4189 hope you will to. :)</p>
4190
4191 <p>And the Electronic Frontier Foundation just announced plans to
4192 create <a href="https://supporters.eff.org/donate/nsa-videos">video
4193 documentaries about the excessive spying</a> on every Internet user that
4194 take place these days, and their need to fund the work.  I've already
4195 donated.  Are you next?</p>
4196
4197 <p>For my Norwegian audience, the organisation Studentenes og
4198 Akademikernes Internasjonale Hjelpefond is collecting signatures for a
4199 statement under the heading
4200 <a href="http://saih.no/Bloggers_United/">Bloggers United for Open
4201 Access</a> for those of us asking for more focus on open access in the
4202 Norwegian government.  So far 499 signatures.  I hope you will sign it
4203 too.</p>
4204
4205       </div>
4206       <div class="tags">
4207
4208
4209         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
4210
4211
4212       </div>
4213     </div>
4214     <div class="padding"></div>
4215
4216     <div class="entry">
4217       <div class="title">
4218         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Videos_about_the_Freedombox_project___for_inspiration_and_learning.html">Videos about the Freedombox project - for inspiration and learning</a>
4219       </div>
4220       <div class="date">
4221         27th September 2013
4222       </div>
4223       <div class="body">
4224         <p>The <a href="http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/">Freedombox
4225 project</a> have been going on for a while, and have presented the
4226 vision, ideas and solution several places.  Here is a little
4227 collection of videos of talks and presentation of the project.</p>
4228
4229 <ul>
4230
4231 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukvUz5taxvA">FreedomBox -
4232 2,5 minute marketing film</a> (Youtube)</li>
4233
4234 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzW25QTVWsE">Eben Moglen
4235 discusses the Freedombox on CBS news 2011</a> (Youtube)</li>
4236
4237 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ae8SZbxfE0g">Eben Moglen -
4238 Freedom in the Cloud - Software Freedom, Privacy and and Security for
4239 Web 2.0 and Cloud computing at ISOC-NY Public Meeting 2010</a>
4240 (Youtube)</li>
4241
4242 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNaIji_3xBE">Fosdem 2011
4243 Keynote by Eben Moglen presenting the Freedombox</a> (Youtube)</li>
4244
4245 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bDDUyJSQ9s">Presentation of
4246 the Freedombox by James Vasile at Elevate in Gratz 2011</a> (Youtube)</li>
4247
4248 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQTmnk27g9s"> Freedombox -
4249 Discovery, Identity, and Trust by Nick Daly at Freedombox Hackfest New
4250 York City in 2012</a> (Youtube)</li>
4251
4252 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkbSB4Ba7Ck">Introduction
4253 to the Freedombox at Freedombox Hackfest New York City in 2012</a>
4254 (Youtube)</li>
4255
4256 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-P2Jaeg0aQ">Freedom, Out
4257 of the Box! by Bdale Garbee at linux.conf.au Ballarat, 2012</a> (Youtube) </li>
4258
4259 <li><a href="https://archive.fosdem.org/2013/schedule/event/freedombox/">Freedombox
4260 1.0 by Eben Moglen and Bdale Garbee at Fosdem 2013</a> (FOSDEM) </li>
4261
4262 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1LpYX2zVYg">What is the
4263 FreedomBox today by Bdale Garbee at Debconf13 in Vaumarcus
4264 2013</a> (Youtube)</li>
4265
4266 </ul>
4267
4268 <p>A larger list is available from
4269 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/TalksAndPresentations">the
4270 Freedombox Wiki</a>.</p>
4271
4272 <p>On other news, I am happy to report that Freedombox based on Debian
4273 Jessie is coming along quite well, and soon both Owncloud and using
4274 Tor should be available for testers of the Freedombox solution. :) In
4275 a few weeks I hope everything needed to test it is included in Debian.
4276 The withsqlite package is already in Debian, and the plinth package is
4277 pending in NEW.  The third and vital part of that puzzle is the
4278 metapackage/setup framework, which is still pending an upload.  Join
4279 us on <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC
4280 (#freedombox on irc.debian.org)</a> and
4281 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
4282 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
4283
4284       </div>
4285       <div class="tags">
4286
4287
4288         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
4289
4290
4291       </div>
4292     </div>
4293     <div class="padding"></div>
4294
4295     <div class="entry">
4296       <div class="title">
4297         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Recipe_to_test_the_Freedombox_project_on_amd64_or_Raspberry_Pi.html">Recipe to test the Freedombox project on amd64 or Raspberry Pi</a>
4298       </div>
4299       <div class="date">
4300         10th September 2013
4301       </div>
4302       <div class="body">
4303         <p>I was introduced to the
4304 <a href="http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/">Freedombox project</a>
4305 in 2010, when Eben Moglen presented his vision about serving the need
4306 of non-technical people to keep their personal information private and
4307 within the legal protection of their own homes.  The idea is to give
4308 people back the power over their network and machines, and return
4309 Internet back to its intended peer-to-peer architecture.  Instead of
4310 depending on a central service, the Freedombox will give everyone
4311 control over their own basic infrastructure.</p>
4312
4313 <p>I've intended to join the effort since then, but other tasks have
4314 taken priority.  But this summers nasty news about the misuse of trust
4315 and privilege exercised by the "western" intelligence gathering
4316 communities increased my eagerness to contribute to a point where I
4317 actually started working on the project a while back.</p>
4318
4319 <p>The <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/freedombox/">initial
4320 Debian initiative</a> based on the vision from Eben Moglen, is to
4321 create a simple and cheap Debian based appliance that anyone can hook
4322 up in their home and get access to secure and private services and
4323 communication.  The initial deployment platform have been the
4324 <a href="http://www.globalscaletechnologies.com/t-dreamplugdetails.aspx">Dreamplug</a>,
4325 which is a piece of hardware I do not own.  So to be able to test what
4326 the current Freedombox setup look like, I had to come up with a way to install
4327 it on some hardware I do have access to.  I have rewritten the
4328 <a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/freedom-maker">freedom-maker</a>
4329 image build framework to use .deb packages instead of only copying
4330 setup into the boot images, and thanks to this rewrite I am able to
4331 set up any machine supported by Debian Wheezy as a Freedombox, using
4332 the previously mentioned deb (and a few support debs for packages
4333 missing in Debian).</p>
4334
4335 <p>The current Freedombox setup consist of a set of bootstrapping
4336 scripts
4337 (<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/freedombox-setup">freedombox-setup</a>),
4338 and a administrative web interface
4339 (<a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/Plinth">plinth</a> + exmachina +
4340 withsqlite), as well as a privacy enhancing proxy based on
4341 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/privoxy">privoxy</a>
4342 (freedombox-privoxy).  There is also a web/javascript based XMPP
4343 client (<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/jwchat">jwchat</a>)
4344 trying (unsuccessfully so far) to talk to the XMPP server
4345 (<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/ejabberd">ejabberd</a>).  The
4346 web interface is pluggable, and the goal is to use it to enable OpenID
4347 services, mesh network connectivity, use of TOR, etc, etc.  Not much of
4348 this is really working yet, see
4349 <a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/freedombox-todos/blob/master/TODO">the
4350 project TODO</a> for links to GIT repositories.  Most of the code is
4351 on github at the moment.  The HTTP proxy is operational out of the
4352 box, and the admin web interface can be used to add/remove plinth
4353 users.  I've not been able to do anything else with it so far, but
4354 know there are several branches spread around github and other places
4355 with lots of half baked features.</p>
4356
4357 <p>Anyway, if you want to have a look at the current state, the
4358 following recipes should work to give you a test machine to poke
4359 at.</p>
4360
4361 <p><strong>Debian Wheezy amd64</strong></p>
4362
4363 <ol>
4364
4365 <li>Fetch normal Debian Wheezy installation ISO.</li>
4366 <li>Boot from it, either as CD or USB stick.</li>
4367 <li><p>Press [tab] on the boot prompt and add this as a boot argument
4368 to the Debian installer:<p>
4369 <pre>url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-wheezy.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-wheezy.dat</a></pre></li>
4370
4371 <li>Answer the few language/region/password questions and pick disk to
4372 install on.</li>
4373
4374 <li>When the installation is finished and the machine have rebooted a
4375 few times, your Freedombox is ready for testing.</li>
4376
4377 </ol>
4378
4379 <p><strong>Raspberry Pi Raspbian</strong></p>
4380
4381 <ol>
4382
4383 <li>Fetch a Raspbian SD card image, create SD card.</li>
4384 <li>Boot from SD card, extend file system to fill the card completely.</li>
4385 <li><p>Log in and add this to /etc/sources.list:</p>
4386 <pre>
4387 deb <a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox</a> wheezy main
4388 </pre></li>
4389 <li><p>Run this as root:</p>
4390 <pre>
4391 wget -O - http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/BE1A583D.asc | \
4392    apt-key add -
4393 apt-get update
4394 apt-get install freedombox-setup
4395 /usr/lib/freedombox/setup
4396 </pre></li>
4397 <li>Reboot into your freshly created Freedombox.</li>
4398
4399 </ol>
4400
4401 <p>You can test it on other architectures too, but because the
4402 freedombox-privoxy package is binary, it will only work as intended on
4403 the architectures where I have had time to build the binary and put it
4404 in my APT repository.  But do not let this stop you.  It is only a
4405 short "<tt>apt-get source -b freedombox-privoxy</tt>" away. :)</p>
4406
4407 <p>Note that by default Freedombox is a DHCP server on the
4408 192.168.1.0/24 subnet, so if this is your subnet be careful and turn
4409 off the DHCP server by running "<tt>update-rc.d isc-dhcp-server
4410 disable</tt>" as root.</p>
4411
4412 <p>Please let me know if this works for you, or if you have any
4413 problems.  We gather on the IRC channel
4414 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">#freedombox</a> on
4415 irc.debian.org and the
4416 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">project
4417 mailing list</a>.</p>
4418
4419 <p>Once you get your freedombox operational, you can visit
4420 <tt>http://your-host-name:8001/</tt> to see the state of the plint
4421 welcome screen (dead end - do not be surprised if you are unable to
4422 get past it), and next visit <tt>http://your-host-name:8001/help/</tt>
4423 to look at the rest of plinth.  The default user is 'admin' and the
4424 default password is 'secret'.</p>
4425
4426       </div>
4427       <div class="tags">
4428
4429
4430         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
4431
4432
4433       </div>
4434     </div>
4435     <div class="padding"></div>
4436
4437     <div class="entry">
4438       <div class="title">
4439         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Intel_180_SSD_disk_with_Lenovo_firmware_can_not_use_Intel_firmware.html">Intel 180 SSD disk with Lenovo firmware can not use Intel firmware</a>
4440       </div>
4441       <div class="date">
4442         18th August 2013
4443       </div>
4444       <div class="body">
4445         <p>Earlier, I reported about
4446 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_fix_a_Thinkpad_X230_with_a_broken_180_GB_SSD_disk.html">my
4447 problems using an Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB disk</a>.  Friday I was
4448 told by IBM that the original disk should be thrown away.  And as
4449 there no longer was a problem if I bricked the firmware, I decided
4450 today to try to install Intel firmware to replace the Lenovo firmware
4451 currently on the disk.</p>
4452
4453 <p>I searched the Intel site for firmware, and found
4454 <a href="https://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&ProdId=3472&DwnldID=18363&ProductFamily=Solid-State+Drives+and+Caching&ProductLine=Intel%c2%ae+High+Performance+Solid-State+Drive&ProductProduct=Intel%c2%ae+SSD+520+Series+(180GB%2c+2.5in+SATA+6Gb%2fs%2c+25nm%2c+MLC)&lang=eng">issdfut_2.0.4.iso</a>
4455 (aka Intel SATA Solid-State Drive Firmware Update Tool) which
4456 according to the site should contain the latest firmware for SSD
4457 disks.  I inserted the broken disk in one of my spare laptops and
4458 booted the ISO from a USB stick.  The disk was recognized, but the
4459 program claimed the newest firmware already were installed and refused
4460 to insert any Intel firmware.  So no change, and the disk is still
4461 unable to handle write load. :( I guess the only way to get them
4462 working would be if Lenovo releases new firmware.  No idea how likely
4463 that is.  Anyway, just blogging about this test for completeness.  I
4464 got a working Samsung disk, and see no point in spending more time on
4465 the broken disks.</p>
4466
4467       </div>
4468       <div class="tags">
4469
4470
4471         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
4472
4473
4474       </div>
4475     </div>
4476     <div class="padding"></div>
4477
4478     <div class="entry">
4479       <div class="title">
4480         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_fix_a_Thinkpad_X230_with_a_broken_180_GB_SSD_disk.html">How to fix a Thinkpad X230 with a broken 180 GB SSD disk</a>
4481       </div>
4482       <div class="date">
4483         17th July 2013
4484       </div>
4485       <div class="body">
4486         <p>Today I switched to
4487 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">my
4488 new laptop</a>.  I've previously written about the problems I had with
4489 my new Thinkpad X230, which was delivered with an
4490 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Intel_SSD_520_Series_180_GB_with_Lenovo_firmware_still_lock_up_from_sustained_writes.html">180
4491 GB Intel SSD disk with Lenovo firmware</a> that did not handle
4492 sustained writes.  My hardware supplier have been very forthcoming in
4493 trying to find a solution, and after first trying with another
4494 identical 180 GB disks they decided to send me a 256 GB Samsung SSD
4495 disk instead to fix it once and for all.  The Samsung disk survived
4496 the installation of Debian with encrypted disks (filling the disk with
4497 random data during installation killed the first two), and I thus
4498 decided to trust it with my data.  I have installed it as a Debian Edu
4499 Wheezy roaming workstation hooked up with my Debian Edu Squeeze main
4500 server at home using Kerberos and LDAP, and will use it as my work
4501 station from now on.</p>
4502
4503 <p>As this is a solid state disk with no moving parts, I believe the
4504 Debian Wheezy default installation need to be tuned a bit to increase
4505 performance and increase life time of the disk.  The Linux kernel and
4506 user space applications do not yet adjust automatically to such
4507 environment.  To make it easier for my self, I created a draft Debian
4508 package <tt>ssd-setup</tt> to handle this tuning.  The
4509 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/ssd-setup.git">source
4510 for the ssd-setup package</a> is available from collab-maint, and it
4511 is set up to adjust the setup of the machine by just installing the
4512 package.  If there is any non-SSD disk in the machine, the package
4513 will refuse to install, as I did not try to write any logic to sort
4514 file systems in SSD and non-SSD file systems.</p>
4515
4516 <p>I consider the package a draft, as I am a bit unsure how to best
4517 set up Debian Wheezy with an SSD.  It is adjusted to my use case,
4518 where I set up the machine with one large encrypted partition (in
4519 addition to /boot), put LVM on top of this and set up partitions on
4520 top of this again.  See the README file in the package source for the
4521 references I used to pick the settings.  At the moment these
4522 parameters are tuned:</p>
4523
4524 <ul>
4525
4526 <li>Set up cryptsetup to pass TRIM commands to the physical disk
4527     (adding discard to /etc/crypttab)</li>
4528
4529 <li>Set up LVM to pass on TRIM commands to the underlying device (in
4530     this case a cryptsetup partition) by changing issue_discards from
4531     0 to 1 in /etc/lvm/lvm.conf.</li>
4532
4533 <li>Set relatime as a file system option for ext3 and ext4 file
4534     systems.</li>
4535
4536 <li>Tell swap to use TRIM commands by adding 'discard' to
4537     /etc/fstab.</li>
4538
4539 <li>Change I/O scheduler from cfq to deadline using a udev rule.</li>
4540
4541 <li>Run fstrim on every ext3 and ext4 file system every night (from
4542     cron.daily).</li>
4543
4544 <li>Adjust sysctl values vm.swappiness to 1 and vm.vfs_cache_pressure
4545     to 50 to reduce the kernel eagerness to swap out processes.</li>
4546
4547 </ul>
4548
4549 <p>During installation, I cancelled the part where the installer fill
4550 the disk with random data, as this would kill the SSD performance for
4551 little gain.  My goal with the encrypted file system is to ensure
4552 those stealing my laptop end up with a brick and not a working
4553 computer.  I have no hope in keeping the really resourceful people
4554 from getting the data on the disk (see
4555 <a href="http://xkcd.com/538/">XKCD #538</a> for an explanation why).
4556 Thus I concluded that adding the discard option to crypttab is the
4557 right thing to do.</p>
4558
4559 <p>I considered using the noop I/O scheduler, as several recommended
4560 it for SSD, but others recommended deadline and a benchmark I found
4561 indicated that deadline might be better for interactive use.</p>
4562
4563 <p>I also considered using the 'discard' file system option for ext3
4564 and ext4, but read that it would give a performance hit ever time a
4565 file is removed, and thought it best to that that slowdown once a day
4566 instead of during my work.</p>
4567
4568 <p>My package do not set up tmpfs on /var/run, /var/lock and /tmp, as
4569 this is already done by Debian Edu.</p>
4570
4571 <p>I have not yet started on the user space tuning.  I expect
4572 iceweasel need some tuning, and perhaps other applications too, but
4573 have not yet had time to investigate those parts.</p>
4574
4575 <p>The package should work on Ubuntu too, but I have not yet tested it
4576 there.</p>
4577
4578 <p>As for the answer to the question in the title of this blog post,
4579 as far as I know, the only solution I know about is to replace the
4580 disk.  It might be possible to flash it with Intel firmware instead of
4581 the Lenovo firmware.  But I have not tried and did not want to do so
4582 without approval from Lenovo as I wanted to keep the warranty on the
4583 disk until a solution was found and they wanted the broken disks
4584 back.</p>
4585
4586       </div>
4587       <div class="tags">
4588
4589
4590         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
4591
4592
4593       </div>
4594     </div>
4595     <div class="padding"></div>
4596
4597     <div class="entry">
4598       <div class="title">
4599         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Intel_SSD_520_Series_180_GB_with_Lenovo_firmware_still_lock_up_from_sustained_writes.html">Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB with Lenovo firmware still lock up from sustained writes</a>
4600       </div>
4601       <div class="date">
4602         10th July 2013
4603       </div>
4604       <div class="body">
4605         <p>A few days ago, I wrote about
4606 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">the
4607 problems I experienced with my new X230 and its SSD disk</a>, which
4608 was dying during installation because it is unable to cope with
4609 sustained write.  My supplier is in contact with
4610 <a href="http://www.lenovo.com/">Lenovo</a>, and they wanted to send a
4611 replacement disk to try to fix the problem.  They decided to send an
4612 identical model, so my hopes for a permanent fix was slim.</p>
4613
4614 <p>Anyway, today I got the replacement disk and tried to install
4615 Debian Edu Wheezy with encrypted disk on it.  The new disk have the
4616 same firmware version as the original.  This time my hope raised
4617 slightly as the installation progressed, as the original disk used to
4618 die after 4-7% of the disk was written to, while this time it kept
4619 going past 10%, 20%, 40% and even past 50%.  But around 60%, the disk
4620 died again and I was back on square one.  I still do not have a new
4621 laptop with a disk I can trust.  I can not live with a disk that might
4622 lock up when I download a new
4623 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> ISO or
4624 other large files.  I look forward to hearing from my supplier with
4625 the next proposal from Lenovo.</p>
4626
4627 <p>The original disk is marked Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB,
4628 11S0C38722Z1ZNME35X1TR, ISN: CVCV321407HB180EGN, SA: G57560302, FW:
4629 LF1i, 29MAY2013, PBA: G39779-300, LBA 351,651,888, LI P/N: 0C38722,
4630 Pb-free 2LI, LC P/N: 16-200366, WWN: 55CD2E40002756C4, Model:
4631 SSDSC2BW180A3L 2.5" 6Gb/s SATA SSD 180G 5V 1A, ASM P/N 0C38732, FRU
4632 P/N 45N8295, P0C38732.</p>
4633
4634 <p>The replacement disk is marked Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB,
4635 11S0C38722Z1ZNDE34N0L0, ISN: CVCV315306RK180EGN, SA: G57560-302, FW:
4636 LF1i, 22APR2013, PBA: G39779-300, LBA 351,651,888, LI P/N: 0C38722,
4637 Pb-free 2LI, LC P/N: 16-200366, WWN: 55CD2E40000AB69E, Model:
4638 SSDSC2BW180A3L 2.5" 6Gb/s SATA SSD 180G 5V 1A, ASM P/N 0C38732, FRU
4639 P/N 45N8295, P0C38732.</p>
4640
4641 <p>The only difference is in the first number (serial number?), ISN,
4642 SA, date and WNPP values.  Mentioning all the details here in case
4643 someone is able to use the information to find a way to identify the
4644 failing disk among working ones (if any such working disk actually
4645 exist).</p>
4646
4647       </div>
4648       <div class="tags">
4649
4650
4651         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
4652
4653
4654       </div>
4655     </div>
4656     <div class="padding"></div>
4657
4658     <div class="entry">
4659       <div class="title">
4660         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/July_13th__Debian_Ubuntu_BSP_and_Skolelinux_Debian_Edu_developer_gathering_in_Oslo.html">July 13th: Debian/Ubuntu BSP and Skolelinux/Debian Edu developer gathering in Oslo</a>
4661       </div>
4662       <div class="date">
4663          9th July 2013
4664       </div>
4665       <div class="body">
4666         <p>The upcoming Saturday, 2013-07-13, we are organising a combined
4667 Debian Edu developer gathering and Debian and Ubuntu bug squashing
4668 party in Oslo.  It is organised by <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">the
4669 member assosiation NUUG</a> and
4670 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">the Debian Edu / Skolelinux
4671 project</a> together with <a href="http://bitraf.no/">the hack space
4672 Bitraf</a>.</p>
4673
4674 <p>It starts 10:00 and continue until late evening.  Everyone is
4675 welcome, and there is no fee to participate.  There is on the other
4676 hand limited space, and only room for 30 people.  Please put your name
4677 on <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/BSP/2013/07/13/no/Oslo">the event
4678 wiki page</a> if you plan to join us.</p>
4679
4680       </div>
4681       <div class="tags">
4682
4683
4684         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
4685
4686
4687       </div>
4688     </div>
4689     <div class="padding"></div>
4690
4691     <div class="entry">
4692       <div class="title">
4693         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">The Thinkpad is dead, long live the Thinkpad X230?</a>
4694       </div>
4695       <div class="date">
4696          5th July 2013
4697       </div>
4698       <div class="body">
4699         <p>Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a
4700 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thank_you_Thinkpad_X41__for_your_long_and_trustworthy_service.html">replacement
4701 for my trusty old Thinkpad X41</a>.  Unfortunately I did not have much
4702 time to spend on it, and it took a while to find a model I believe
4703 will do the job, but two days ago the replacement finally arrived.  I
4704 ended up picking a
4705 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_x230">Thinkpad X230</a>
4706 with SSD disk (NZDAJMN).  I first test installed Debian Edu Wheezy as
4707 a roaming workstation, and it seemed to work flawlessly.  But my
4708 second installation with encrypted disk was not as successful.  More
4709 on that below.</p>
4710
4711 <p>I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most
4712 important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never
4713 listed in the feature list.  But I did get good help from the search
4714 feature at <a href="http://www.prisjakt.no/">Prisjakt</a>, which
4715 allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other
4716 requirements.  A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks according
4717 to that search interface, so I had to drop specifying the number of
4718 disks from my search parameters.  I also asked around among friends to
4719 get their impression on keyboards and robustness.</p>
4720
4721 <p>So the new laptop arrived, and it is quite a lot wider than the
4722 X41.  I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is
4723 significantly wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my
4724 hand a lot more to reach the edges.  But the key response is fairly
4725 good and the individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope
4726 I will get used to it.  My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really
4727 needed a new laptop now. :)</p>
4728
4729 <p>Turning off the touch pad was simple.  All it took was a quick
4730 visit to the BIOS during boot it disable it.</p>
4731
4732 <p>But there is a fatal problem with the laptop.  The 180 GB SSD disk
4733 lock up during load.  And this happen when installing Debian Wheezy
4734 with encrypted disk, while the disk is being filled with random data.
4735 I also tested to install Ubuntu Raring, and it happen there too if I
4736 reenable the code to fill the disk with random data (it is disabled by
4737 default in Ubuntu).  And the bug with is already known.  It was
4738 reported to Debian as <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/691427">BTS
4739 report #691427 2012-10-25</a> (journal commit I/O error on brand-new
4740 Thinkpad T430s ext4 on lvm on SSD).  It is also reported to the Linux
4741 kernel developers as
4742 <a href="https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=51861">Kernel bugzilla
4743 report #51861 2012-12-20</a> (Intel SSD 520 stops working under load
4744 (SSDSC2BW180A3L in Lenovo ThinkPad T430s)). It is also reported on the
4745 Lenovo forums, both for
4746 <a href="http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/T400-T500-and-newer-T-series/T430s-Intel-SSD-520-180GB-issue/m-p/1070549">T430
4747 2012-11-10</a> and for
4748 <a href="http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/X-Series-ThinkPad-Laptops/x230-SATA-errors-with-180GB-Intel-520-SSD-under-heavy-write-load/m-p/1068147">X230
4749 03-20-2013</a>.  The problem do not only affect installation.  The
4750 reports state that the disk lock up during use if many writes are done
4751 on the disk, so it is much no use to work around the installation
4752 problem and end up with a computer that can lock up at any moment.
4753 There is even a
4754 <a href="https://git.efficios.com/?p=test-ssd.git">small C program
4755 available</a> that will lock up the hard drive after running a few
4756 minutes by writing to a file.</p>
4757
4758 <p>I've contacted my supplier and asked how to handle this, and after
4759 contacting PCHELP Norway (request 01D1FDP) which handle support
4760 requests for Lenovo, his first suggestion was to upgrade the disk
4761 firmware.  Unfortunately there is no newer firmware available from
4762 Lenovo, as my disk already have the most recent one (version LF1i).  I
4763 hope to hear more from him today and hope the problem can be
4764 fixed. :)</p>
4765
4766       </div>
4767       <div class="tags">
4768
4769
4770         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
4771
4772
4773       </div>
4774     </div>
4775     <div class="padding"></div>
4776
4777     <div class="entry">
4778       <div class="title">
4779         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230.html">The Thinkpad is dead, long live the Thinkpad X230</a>
4780       </div>
4781       <div class="date">
4782          4th July 2013
4783       </div>
4784       <div class="body">
4785         <p>Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a replacement for my
4786 trusty old Thinkpad X41.  Unfortunately I did not have much time to
4787 spend on it, but today the replacement finally arrived.  I ended up
4788 picking a <a href="http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_x230">Thinkpad
4789 X230</a> with SSD disk (NZDAJMN).  I first test installed Debian Edu
4790 Wheezy as a roaming workstation, and it worked flawlessly.  As I write
4791 this, it is installing what I hope will be a more final installation,
4792 with a encrypted hard drive to ensure any dope head stealing it end up
4793 with an expencive door stop.</p>
4794
4795 <p>I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most
4796 important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never
4797 listed in the feature list.  But I did get good help from the search
4798 feature at <ahref="http://www.prisjakt.no/">Prisjakt</a>, which
4799 allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other
4800 requirements.  A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks, so I had
4801 to drop number of disks from my search parameters.</p>
4802
4803 <p>I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is significantly
4804 wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my hand a lot more
4805 to reach the edges.  But the key response is fairly good and the
4806 individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope I will get
4807 used to it.  My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really needed a
4808 new laptop now. :)</p>
4809
4810 <p>I look forward to figuring out how to turn off the touch pad.</p>
4811
4812       </div>
4813       <div class="tags">
4814
4815
4816         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
4817
4818
4819       </div>
4820     </div>
4821     <div class="padding"></div>
4822
4823     <div class="entry">
4824       <div class="title">
4825         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatically_locate_and_install_required_firmware_packages_on_Debian__Isenkram_0_4_.html">Automatically locate and install required firmware packages on Debian (Isenkram 0.4)</a>
4826       </div>
4827       <div class="date">
4828         25th June 2013
4829       </div>
4830       <div class="body">
4831         <p>It annoys me when the computer fail to do automatically what it is
4832 perfectly capable of, and I have to do it manually to get things
4833 working.  One such task is to find out what firmware packages are
4834 needed to get the hardware on my computer working.  Most often this
4835 affect the wifi card, but some times it even affect the RAID
4836 controller or the ethernet card.  Today I pushed version 0.4 of the
4837 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">Isenkram package</a>
4838 including a new script isenkram-autoinstall-firmware handling the
4839 process of asking all the loaded kernel modules what firmware files
4840 they want, find debian packages providing these files and install the
4841 debian packages.  Here is a test run on my laptop:</p>
4842
4843 <p><pre>
4844 # isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
4845 info: kernel drivers requested extra firmware: ipw2200-bss.fw ipw2200-ibss.fw ipw2200-sniffer.fw
4846 info: fetching http://http.debian.net/debian/dists/squeeze/Contents-i386.gz
4847 info: locating packages with the requested firmware files
4848 info: Updating APT sources after adding non-free APT source
4849 info: trying to install firmware-ipw2x00
4850 firmware-ipw2x00
4851 firmware-ipw2x00
4852 Preconfiguring packages ...
4853 Selecting previously deselected package firmware-ipw2x00.
4854 (Reading database ... 259727 files and directories currently installed.)
4855 Unpacking firmware-ipw2x00 (from .../firmware-ipw2x00_0.28+squeeze1_all.deb) ...
4856 Setting up firmware-ipw2x00 (0.28+squeeze1) ...
4857 #
4858 </pre></p>
4859
4860 <p>When all the requested firmware is present, a simple message is
4861 printed instead:</p>
4862
4863 <p><pre>
4864 # isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
4865 info: did not find any firmware files requested by loaded kernel modules.  exiting
4866 #
4867 </pre></p>
4868
4869 <p>It could use some polish, but it is already working well and saving
4870 me some time when setting up new machines. :)</p>
4871
4872 <p>So, how does it work?  It look at the set of currently loaded
4873 kernel modules, and look up each one of them using modinfo, to find
4874 the firmware files listed in the module meta-information.  Next, it
4875 download the Contents file from a nearby APT mirror, and search for
4876 the firmware files in this file to locate the package with the
4877 requested firmware file.  If the package is in the non-free section, a
4878 non-free APT source is added and the package is installed using
4879 <tt>apt-get install</tt>.  The end result is a slightly better working
4880 machine.</p>
4881
4882 <p>I hope someone find time to implement a more polished version of
4883 this script as part of the hw-detect debian-installer module, to
4884 finally fix <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/655507">BTS report
4885 #655507</a>.  There really is no need to insert USB sticks with
4886 firmware during a PXE install when the packages already are available
4887 from the nearby Debian mirror.</p>
4888
4889       </div>
4890       <div class="tags">
4891
4892
4893         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
4894
4895
4896       </div>
4897     </div>
4898     <div class="padding"></div>
4899
4900     <div class="entry">
4901       <div class="title">
4902         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Fixing_the_Linux_black_screen_of_death_on_machines_with_Intel_HD_video.html">Fixing the Linux black screen of death on machines with Intel HD video</a>
4903       </div>
4904       <div class="date">
4905         11th June 2013
4906       </div>
4907       <div class="body">
4908         <p>When installing RedHat, Fedora, Debian and Ubuntu on some machines,
4909 the screen just turn black when Linux boot, either during installation
4910 or on first boot from the hard disk.  I've seen it once in a while the
4911 last few years, but only recently understood the cause.  I've seen it
4912 on HP laptops, and on my latest acquaintance the Packard Bell laptop.
4913 The reason seem to be in the wiring of some laptops.  The system to
4914 control the screen background light is inverted, so when Linux try to
4915 turn the brightness fully on, it end up turning it off instead.  I do
4916 not know which Linux drivers are affected, but this post is about the
4917 i915 driver used by the
4918 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Packard Bell
4919 EasyNote LV</a>, Thinkpad X40 and many other laptops.</p>
4920
4921 <p>The problem can be worked around two ways.  Either by adding
4922 i915.invert_brightness=1 as a kernel option, or by adding a file in
4923 /etc/modprobe.d/ to tell modprobe to add the invert_brightness=1
4924 option when it load the i915 kernel module.  On Debian and Ubuntu, it
4925 can be done by running these commands as root:</p>
4926
4927 <pre>
4928 echo options i915 invert_brightness=1 | tee /etc/modprobe.d/i915.conf
4929 update-initramfs -u -k all
4930 </pre>
4931
4932 <p>Since March 2012 there is
4933 <a href="http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=4dca20efb1a9c2efefc28ad2867e5d6c3f5e1955">a
4934 mechanism in the Linux kernel</a> to tell the i915 driver which
4935 hardware have this problem, and get the driver to invert the
4936 brightness setting automatically.  To use it, one need to add a row in
4937 <a href="http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c">the
4938 intel_quirks array</a> in the driver source
4939 <tt>drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c</tt> (look for "<tt>static
4940 struct intel_quirk intel_quirks</tt>"), specifying the PCI device
4941 number (vendor number 8086 is assumed) and subdevice vendor and device
4942 number.</p>
4943
4944 <p>My Packard Bell EasyNote LV got this output from <tt>lspci
4945 -vvnn</tt> for the video card in question:</p>
4946
4947 <p><pre>
4948 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation \
4949     3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller [8086:0156] \
4950     (rev 09) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
4951  Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device [1025:0688]
4952  Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- \
4953     ParErr- Stepping- SE RR- FastB2B- DisINTx+
4954  Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- \
4955     <TAbort- <MAbort->SERR- <PERR- INTx-
4956  Latency: 0
4957  Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 42
4958  Region 0: Memory at c2000000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4M]
4959  Region 2: Memory at b0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
4960  Region 4: I/O ports at 4000 [size=64]
4961  Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled]
4962  Capabilities: <access denied>
4963  Kernel driver in use: i915
4964 </pre></p>
4965
4966 <p>The resulting intel_quirks entry would then look like this:</p>
4967
4968 <p><pre>
4969 struct intel_quirk intel_quirks[] = {
4970        ...
4971         /* Packard Bell EasyNote LV11HC needs invert brightness quirk */
4972         { 0x0156, 0x1025, 0x0688, quirk_invert_brightness },
4973        ...
4974 }
4975 </pre></p>
4976
4977 <p>According to the kernel module instructions (as seen using
4978 <tt>modinfo i915</tt>), information about hardware needing the
4979 invert_brightness flag should be sent to the
4980 <a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/dri-devel">dri-devel
4981 (at) lists.freedesktop.org</a> mailing list to reach the kernel
4982 developers.  But my email about the laptop sent 2013-06-03 have not
4983 yet shown up in
4984 <a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/dri-devel/2013-June/thread.html">the
4985 web archive for the mailing list</a>, so I suspect they do not accept
4986 emails from non-subscribers.  Because of this, I sent my patch also to
4987 the Debian bug tracking system instead as
4988 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/710938">BTS report #710938</a>, to make
4989 sure the patch is not lost.</p>
4990
4991 <p>Unfortunately, it is not enough to fix the kernel to get Laptops
4992 with this problem working properly with Linux.  If you use Gnome, your
4993 worries should be over at this point.  But if you use KDE, there is
4994 something in KDE ignoring the invert_brightness setting and turning on
4995 the screen during login.  I've reported it to Debian as
4996 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/711237">BTS report #711237</a>, and
4997 have no idea yet how to figure out exactly what subsystem is doing
4998 this.  Perhaps you can help?  Perhaps you know what the Gnome
4999 developers did to handle this, and this can give a clue to the KDE
5000 developers?  Or you know where in KDE the screen brightness is changed
5001 during login?  If so, please update the BTS report (or get in touch if
5002 you do not know how to update BTS).</p>
5003
5004 <p>Update 2013-07-19: The correct fix for this machine seem to be
5005 acpi_backlight=vendor, to disable ACPI backlight support completely,
5006 as the ACPI information on the machine is trash and it is better to
5007 leave it to the intel video driver to control the screen
5008 backlight.</p>
5009
5010       </div>
5011       <div class="tags">
5012
5013
5014         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5015
5016
5017       </div>
5018     </div>
5019     <div class="padding"></div>
5020
5021     <div class="entry">
5022       <div class="title">
5023         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_install_Linux_on_a_Packard_Bell_Easynote_LV_preinstalled_with_Windows_8.html">How to install Linux on a Packard Bell Easynote LV preinstalled with Windows 8</a>
5024       </div>
5025       <div class="date">
5026         27th May 2013
5027       </div>
5028       <div class="body">
5029         <p>Two days ago, I asked
5030 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_can_I_install_Linux_on_a_Packard_Bell_Easynote_LV_preinstalled_with_Windows_8_.html">how
5031 I could install Linux on a Packard Bell EasyNote LV computer
5032 preinstalled with Windows 8</a>.  I found a solution, but am horrified
5033 with the obstacles put in the way of Linux users on a laptop with UEFI
5034 and Windows 8.</p>
5035
5036 <p>I never found out if the cause of my problems were the use of UEFI
5037 secure booting or fast boot.  I suspect fast boot was the problem,
5038 causing the firmware to boot directly from HD without considering any
5039 key presses and alternative devices, but do not know UEFI settings
5040 enough to tell.</p>
5041
5042 <p>There is no way to install Linux on the machine in question without
5043 opening the box and disconnecting the hard drive!  This is as far as I
5044 can tell, the only way to get access to the firmware setup menu
5045 without accepting the Windows 8 license agreement.  I am told (and
5046 found description on how to) that it is possible to configure the
5047 firmware setup once booted into Windows 8.  But as I believe the terms
5048 of that agreement are completely unacceptable, accepting the license
5049 was never an alternative.  I do not enter agreements I do not intend
5050 to follow.</p>
5051
5052 <p>I feared I had to return the laptops and ask for a refund, and
5053 waste many hours on this, but luckily there was a way to get it to
5054 work.  But I would not recommend it to anyone planning to run Linux on
5055 it, and I have become sceptical to Windows 8 certified laptops.  Is
5056 this the way Linux will be forced out of the market place, by making
5057 it close to impossible for "normal" users to install Linux without
5058 accepting the Microsoft Windows license terms?  Or at least not
5059 without risking to loose the warranty?</p>
5060
5061 <p>I've updated the
5062 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Linux Laptop
5063 wiki page for Packard Bell EasyNote LV</a>, to ensure the next person
5064 do not have to struggle as much as I did to get Linux into the
5065 machine.</p>
5066
5067 <p>Thanks to Bob Rosbag, Florian Weimer, Philipp Kern, Ben Hutching,
5068 Michael Tokarev and others for feedback and ideas.</p>
5069
5070       </div>
5071       <div class="tags">
5072
5073
5074         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5075
5076
5077       </div>
5078     </div>
5079     <div class="padding"></div>
5080
5081     <div class="entry">
5082       <div class="title">
5083         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_can_I_install_Linux_on_a_Packard_Bell_Easynote_LV_preinstalled_with_Windows_8_.html">How can I install Linux on a Packard Bell Easynote LV preinstalled with Windows 8?</a>
5084       </div>
5085       <div class="date">
5086         25th May 2013
5087       </div>
5088       <div class="body">
5089         <p>I've run into quite a problem the last few days.  I bought three
5090 new laptops for my parents and a few others.  I bought Packard Bell
5091 Easynote LV to run Kubuntu on and use as their home computer.  But I
5092 am completely unable to figure out how to install Linux on it.  The
5093 computer is preinstalled with Windows 8, and I suspect it uses UEFI
5094 instead of a BIOS to boot.</p>
5095
5096 <p>The problem is that I am unable to get it to PXE boot, and unable
5097 to get it to boot the Linux installer from my USB stick.  I have yet
5098 to try the DVD install, and still hope it will work.  when I turn on
5099 the computer, there is no information on what buttons to press to get
5100 the normal boot menu.  I expect to get some boot menu to select PXE or
5101 USB stick booting.  When booting, it first ask for the language to
5102 use, then for some regional settings, and finally if I will accept the
5103 Windows 8 terms of use.  As these terms are completely unacceptable to
5104 me, I have no other choice but to turn off the computer and try again
5105 to get it to boot the Linux installer.</p>
5106
5107 <p>I have gathered my findings so far on a Linlap page about the
5108 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Packard Bell
5109 EasyNote LV</a> model.  If you have any idea how to get Linux
5110 installed on this machine, please get in touch or update that wiki
5111 page.  If I can't find a way to install Linux, I will have to return
5112 the laptop to the seller and find another machine for my parents.</p>
5113
5114 <p>I wonder, is this the way Linux will be forced out of the market
5115 using UEFI and "secure boot" by making it impossible to install Linux
5116 on new Laptops?</p>
5117
5118       </div>
5119       <div class="tags">
5120
5121
5122         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5123
5124
5125       </div>
5126     </div>
5127     <div class="padding"></div>
5128
5129     <div class="entry">
5130       <div class="title">
5131         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_transform_a_Debian_based_system_to_a_Debian_Edu_installation.html">How to transform a Debian based system to a Debian Edu installation</a>
5132       </div>
5133       <div class="date">
5134         17th May 2013
5135       </div>
5136       <div class="body">
5137         <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> is
5138 an operating system based on Debian intended for use in schools.  It
5139 contain a turn-key solution for the computer network provided to
5140 pupils in the primary schools.  It provide both the central server,
5141 network boot servers and desktop environments with heaps of
5142 educational software.  The project was founded almost 12 years ago,
5143 2001-07-02.  If you want to support the project, which is in need for
5144 cash to fund developer gatherings and other project related activity,
5145 <a href="http://www.linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">please
5146 donate some money</a>.
5147
5148 <p>A topic that come up again and again on the Debian Edu mailing
5149 lists and elsewhere, is the question on how to transform a Debian or
5150 Ubuntu installation into a Debian Edu installation.  It isn't very
5151 hard, and last week I wrote a script to replicate the steps done by
5152 the Debian Edu installer.</p>
5153
5154 <p>The script,
5155 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/branches/wheezy/debian-edu-config/share/debian-edu-config/tools/debian-edu-bless?view=markup">debian-edu-bless<a/>
5156 in the debian-edu-config package, will go through these six steps and
5157 transform an existing Debian Wheezy or Ubuntu (untested) installation
5158 into a Debian Edu Workstation:</p>
5159
5160 <ol>
5161
5162 <li>Add skolelinux related APT sources.</li>
5163 <li>Create /etc/debian-edu/config with the wanted configuration.</li>
5164 <li>Install debian-edu-install to load preseeding values and pull in
5165     our configuration.</li>
5166 <li>Preseed debconf database with profile setup in
5167     /etc/debian-edu/config, and run tasksel to install packages
5168     according to the profile specified in the config above,
5169     overriding some of the Debian automation machinery.</li>
5170 <li>Run debian-edu-cfengine-D installation to configure everything
5171     that could not be done using preseeding.</li>
5172 <li>Ask for a reboot to enable all the configuration changes.</li>
5173
5174 </ol>
5175
5176 <p>There are some steps in the Debian Edu installation that can not be
5177 replicated like this.  Disk partitioning and LVM setup, for example.
5178 So this script just assume there is enough disk space to install all
5179 the needed packages.</p>
5180
5181 <p>The script was created to help a Debian Edu student working on
5182 setting up <a href="http://www.raspberrypi.org">Raspberry Pi</a> as a
5183 Debian Edu client, and using it he can take the existing
5184 <a href="http://www.raspbian.org/FrontPage‎">Raspbian</a> installation and
5185 transform it into a fully functioning Debian Edu Workstation (or
5186 Roaming Workstation, or whatever :).</p>
5187
5188 <p>The default setting in the script is to create a KDE Workstation.
5189 If a LXDE based Roaming workstation is wanted instead, modify the
5190 PROFILE and DESKTOP values at the top to look like this instead:</p>
5191
5192 <p><pre>
5193 PROFILE="Roaming-Workstation"
5194 DESKTOP="lxde"
5195 </pre></p>
5196
5197 <p>The script could even become useful to set up Debian Edu servers in
5198 the cloud, by starting with a virtual Debian installation at some
5199 virtual hosting service and setting up all the services on first
5200 boot.</p>
5201
5202       </div>
5203       <div class="tags">
5204
5205
5206         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5207
5208
5209       </div>
5210     </div>
5211     <div class="padding"></div>
5212
5213     <div class="entry">
5214       <div class="title">
5215         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian__the_Linux_distribution_of_choice_for_LEGO_designers_.html">Debian, the Linux distribution of choice for LEGO designers?</a>
5216       </div>
5217       <div class="date">
5218         11th May 2013
5219       </div>
5220       <div class="body">
5221         <P>In January,
5222 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_IRC_channel_for_LEGO_designers_using_Debian.html">I
5223 announced a</a> new <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">IRC
5224 channel #debian-lego</a>, for those of us in the Debian and Linux
5225 community interested in <a href="http://www.lego.com/">LEGO</a>, the
5226 marvellous construction system from Denmark.  We also created
5227 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">a wiki page</a> to have
5228 a place to take notes and write down our plans and hopes.  And several
5229 people showed up to help.  I was very happy to see the effect of my
5230 call.  Since the small start, we have a debtags tag
5231 <a href="http://debtags.debian.net/search/bytag?wl=hardware::hobby:lego">hardware::hobby:lego</a>
5232 tag for LEGO related packages, and now count 10 packages related to
5233 LEGO and <a href="http://mindstorms.lego.com/">Mindstorms</a>:</p>
5234
5235 <p><table>
5236 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/brickos">brickos</a></td><td>alternative OS for LEGO Mindstorms RCX. Supports development in C/C++</td></tr>
5237 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/leocad">leocad</a></td><td>virtual brick CAD software</td></tr>
5238 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/libnxt">libnxt</a></td><td>utility library for talking to the LEGO Mindstorms NX</td></tr>
5239 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/lnpd">lnpd</a></td><td>daemon for LNP communication with BrickOS</td></tr>
5240 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/nbc">nbc</a></td><td>compiler for LEGO Mindstorms NXT bricks</td></tr>
5241 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/nqc">nqc</a></td><td>Not Quite C compiler for LEGO Mindstorms RCX</td></tr>
5242 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/python-nxt">python-nxt</a></td><td>python driver/interface/wrapper for the Lego Mindstorms NXT robot</td></tr>
5243 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/python-nxt-filer">python-nxt-filer</a></td><td>simple GUI to manage files on a LEGO Mindstorms NXT</td></tr>
5244 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/scratch">scratch</a></td><td>easy to use programming environment for ages 8 and up</td></tr>
5245 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/t2n">t2n</a></td><td>simple command-line tool for Lego NXT</td></tr>
5246 </table></p>
5247
5248 <p>Some of these are available in Wheezy, and all but one are
5249 currently available in Jessie/testing.  leocad is so far only
5250 available in experimental.</p>
5251
5252 <p>If you care about LEGO in Debian, please join us on IRC and help
5253 adding the rest of the great free software tools available on Linux
5254 for LEGO designers.</p>
5255
5256       </div>
5257       <div class="tags">
5258
5259
5260         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot</a>.
5261
5262
5263       </div>
5264     </div>
5265     <div class="padding"></div>
5266
5267     <div class="entry">
5268       <div class="title">
5269         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Wheezy_is_out___and_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_should_soon_follow___newinwheezy.html">Debian Wheezy is out - and Debian Edu / Skolelinux should soon follow! #newinwheezy</a>
5270       </div>
5271       <div class="date">
5272          5th May 2013
5273       </div>
5274       <div class="body">
5275         <p>When I woke up this morning, I was very happy to see that the
5276 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2013/20130504">release announcement
5277 for Debian Wheezy</a> was waiting in my mail box.  This is a great
5278 Debian release, and I expect to move my machines at home over to it fairly
5279 soon.</p>
5280
5281 <p>The new debian release contain heaps of new stuff, and one program
5282 in particular make me very happy to see included.  The
5283 <a href="http://scratch.mit.edu/">Scratch</a> program, made famous by
5284 the <a href="http://www.code.org/">Teach kids code</a> movement, is
5285 included for the first time.  Alongside similar programs like
5286 <a href="http://edu.kde.org/kturtle/">kturtle</a> and
5287 <a href="http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/Turtle_Art">turtleart</a>,
5288 it allow for visual programming where syntax errors can not happen,
5289 and a friendly programming environment for learning to control the
5290 computer.  Scratch will also be included in the next release of Debian
5291 Edu.</a>
5292
5293 <p>And now that Wheezy is wrapped up, we can wrap up the next Debian
5294 Edu/Skolelinux release too.  The
5295 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/2013/04/msg00132.html">first
5296 alpha release</a> went out last week, and the next should soon
5297 follow.<p>
5298
5299       </div>
5300       <div class="tags">
5301
5302
5303         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5304
5305
5306       </div>
5307     </div>
5308     <div class="padding"></div>
5309
5310     <div class="entry">
5311       <div class="title">
5312         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Isenkram_0_2_finally_in_the_Debian_archive.html">Isenkram 0.2 finally in the Debian archive</a>
5313       </div>
5314       <div class="date">
5315          3rd April 2013
5316       </div>
5317       <div class="body">
5318         <p>Today the <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">Isenkram
5319 package</a> finally made it into the archive, after lingering in NEW
5320 for many months.  I uploaded it to the Debian experimental suite
5321 2013-01-27, and today it was accepted into the archive.</p>
5322
5323 <p>Isenkram is a system for suggesting to users what packages to
5324 install to work with a pluggable hardware device.  The suggestion pop
5325 up when the device is plugged in.  For example if a Lego Mindstorm NXT
5326 is inserted, it will suggest to install the program needed to program
5327 the NXT controller.  Give it a go, and report bugs and suggestions to
5328 BTS. :)</p>
5329
5330       </div>
5331       <div class="tags">
5332
5333
5334         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
5335
5336
5337       </div>
5338     </div>
5339     <div class="padding"></div>
5340
5341     <div class="entry">
5342       <div class="title">
5343         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Bitcoin_GUI_now_available_from_Debian_unstable__and_Ubuntu_raring_.html">Bitcoin GUI now available from Debian/unstable (and Ubuntu/raring)</a>
5344       </div>
5345       <div class="date">
5346          2nd February 2013
5347       </div>
5348       <div class="body">
5349         <p>My
5350 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_backport_bitcoin_qt_version_0_7_2_2_to_Debian_Squeeze.html">last
5351 bitcoin related blog post</a> mentioned that the new
5352 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin package</a> for
5353 Debian was waiting in NEW.  It was accepted by the Debian ftp-masters
5354 2013-01-19, and have been available in unstable since then.  It was
5355 automatically copied to Ubuntu, and is available in their Raring
5356 version too.</p>
5357
5358 <p>But there is a strange problem with the build that block this new
5359 version from being available on the i386 and kfreebsd-i386
5360 architectures.  For some strange reason, the autobuilders in Debian
5361 for these architectures fail to run the test suite on these
5362 architectures (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/672524">BTS #672524</a>).
5363 We are so far unable to reproduce it when building it manually, and
5364 no-one have been able to propose a fix.  If you got an idea what is
5365 failing, please let us know via the BTS.</p>
5366
5367 <p>One feature that is annoying me with of the bitcoin client, because
5368 I often run low on disk space, is the fact that the client will exit
5369 if it run short on space (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/696715">BTS
5370 #696715</a>).  So make sure you have enough disk space when you run
5371 it. :)</p>
5372
5373 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
5374 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
5375 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
5376
5377       </div>
5378       <div class="tags">
5379
5380
5381         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5382
5383
5384       </div>
5385     </div>
5386     <div class="padding"></div>
5387
5388     <div class="entry">
5389       <div class="title">
5390         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">Welcome to the world, Isenkram!</a>
5391       </div>
5392       <div class="date">
5393         22nd January 2013
5394       </div>
5395       <div class="body">
5396         <p>Yesterday, I
5397 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_prototype_ready_making_hardware_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">asked
5398 for testers</a> for my prototype for making Debian better at handling
5399 pluggable hardware devices, which I
5400 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">set
5401 out to create</a> earlier this month.  Several valuable testers showed
5402 up, and caused me to really want to to open up the development to more
5403 people.  But before I did this, I want to come up with a sensible name
5404 for this project.  Today I finally decided on a new name, and I have
5405 renamed the project from hw-support-handler to this new name.  In the
5406 process, I moved the source to git and made it available as a
5407 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/isenkram.git">collab-maint</a>
5408 repository in Debian.  The new name?  It is <strong>Isenkram</strong>.
5409 To fetch and build the latest version of the source, use</p>
5410
5411 <pre>
5412 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/collab-maint/isenkram.git
5413 cd isenkram && git-buildpackage -us -uc
5414 </pre>
5415
5416 <p>I have not yet adjusted all files to use the new name yet.  If you
5417 want to hack on the source or improve the package, please go ahead.
5418 But please talk to me first on IRC or via email before you do major
5419 changes, to make sure we do not step on each others toes. :)</p>
5420
5421 <p>If you wonder what 'isenkram' is, it is a Norwegian word for iron
5422 stuff, typically meaning tools, nails, screws, etc.  Typical hardware
5423 stuff, in other words.  I've been told it is the Norwegian variant of
5424 the German word eisenkram, for those that are familiar with that
5425 word.</p>
5426
5427 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-26</strong>: Added -us -us to build
5428 instructions, to avoid confusing people with an error from the signing
5429 process.</p>
5430
5431 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-27</strong>: Switch to HTTP URL for the git
5432 clone argument to avoid the need for authentication.</p>
5433
5434       </div>
5435       <div class="tags">
5436
5437
5438         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
5439
5440
5441       </div>
5442     </div>
5443     <div class="padding"></div>
5444
5445     <div class="entry">
5446       <div class="title">
5447         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_prototype_ready_making_hardware_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">First prototype ready making hardware easier to use in Debian</a>
5448       </div>
5449       <div class="date">
5450         21st January 2013
5451       </div>
5452       <div class="body">
5453         <p>Early this month I set out to try to
5454 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">improve
5455 the Debian support for pluggable hardware devices</a>.  Now my
5456 prototype is working, and it is ready for a larger audience.  To test
5457 it, fetch the
5458 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">source
5459 from the Debian Edu subversion repository</a>, build and install the
5460 package.  You might have to log out and in again activate the
5461 autostart script.</p>
5462
5463 <p>The design is simple:</p>
5464
5465 <ul>
5466
5467 <li>Add desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ causing a program
5468 hw-support-handlerd to start when the user log in.</li>
5469
5470 <li>This program listen for kernel events about new hardware (directly
5471 from the kernel like udev does), not using HAL dbus events as I
5472 initially did.</li>
5473
5474 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware modalias in
5475 the APT database, a database
5476 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=markup">available
5477 via HTTP</a> and a database available as part of the package.</li>
5478
5479 <li>If a package is mapped to the hardware in question, the package
5480 isn't installed yet and this is the first time the hardware was
5481 plugged in, show a desktop notification suggesting to install the
5482 package or packages.</li>
5483
5484 <li>If the user click on the 'install package now' button, ask
5485 aptdaemon via the PackageKit API to install the requrired package.</li>
5486
5487 <li>aptdaemon ask for root password or sudo password, and install the
5488 package while showing progress information in a window.</li>
5489
5490 </ul>
5491
5492 <p>I still need to come up with a better name for the system.  Here
5493 are some screen shots showing the prototype in action.  First the
5494 notification, then the password request, and finally the request to
5495 approve all the dependencies.  Sorry for the Norwegian Bokmål GUI.</p>
5496
5497 <p><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-1-notification.png">
5498 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-2-password.png">
5499 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-3-dependencies.png">
5500 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-4-installing.png">
5501 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-5-installing-details.png" width="70%"></p>
5502
5503 <p>The prototype still need to be improved with longer timeouts, but
5504 is already useful.  The database of hardware to package mappings also
5505 need more work.  It is currently compatible with the Ubuntu way of
5506 storing such information in the package control file, but could be
5507 changed to use other formats instead or in addition to the current
5508 method.  I've dropped the use of discover for this mapping, as the
5509 modalias approach is more flexible and easier to use on Linux as long
5510 as the Linux kernel expose its modalias strings directly.</p>
5511
5512 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-21 16:50</strong>: Due to popular demand,
5513 here is the command required to check out and build the source: Use
5514 '<tt>svn checkout
5515 svn://svn.debian.org/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/; cd
5516 hw-support-handler; debuild</tt>'.  If you lack debuild, install the
5517 devscripts package.</p>
5518
5519 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-23 12:00</strong>: The project is now
5520 renamed to Isenkram and the source moved from the Debian Edu
5521 subversion repository to a Debian collab-maint git repository.  See
5522 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">build
5523 instructions</a> for details.</p>
5524
5525       </div>
5526       <div class="tags">
5527
5528
5529         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
5530
5531
5532       </div>
5533     </div>
5534     <div class="padding"></div>
5535
5536     <div class="entry">
5537       <div class="title">
5538         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thank_you_Thinkpad_X41__for_your_long_and_trustworthy_service.html">Thank you Thinkpad X41, for your long and trustworthy service</a>
5539       </div>
5540       <div class="date">
5541         19th January 2013
5542       </div>
5543       <div class="body">
5544         <p>This Christmas my trusty old laptop died.  It died quietly and
5545 suddenly in bed.  With a quiet whimper, it went completely quiet and
5546 black.  The power button was no longer able to turn it on.  It was a
5547 IBM Thinkpad X41, and the best laptop I ever had.  Better than both
5548 Thinkpads X30, X31, X40, X60, X61 and X61S.  Far better than the
5549 Compaq I had before that.  Now I need to find a replacement.  To keep
5550 going during Christmas, I moved the one year old SSD disk to my old
5551 X40 where it fitted (only one I had left that could use it), but it is
5552 not a durable solution.
5553
5554 <p>My laptop needs are fairly modest.  This is my wishlist from when I
5555 got a new one more than 10 years ago.  It still holds true.:)</p>
5556
5557 <ul>
5558
5559 <li>Lightweight (around 1 kg) and small volume (preferably smaller
5560   than A4).</li>
5561 <li>Robust, it will be in my backpack every day.</li>
5562 <li>Three button mouse and a mouse pin instead of touch pad.</li>
5563 <li>Long battery life time.  Preferable a week.</li>
5564 <li>Internal WIFI network card.</li>
5565 <li>Internal Twisted Pair network card.</li>
5566 <li>Some USB slots (2-3 is plenty)</li>
5567 <li>Good keyboard - similar to the Thinkpad.</li>
5568 <li>Video resolution at least 1024x768, with size around 12" (A4 paper
5569 size).</li>
5570 <li>Hardware supported by Debian Stable, ie the default kernel and
5571   X.org packages.</li>
5572 <li>Quiet, preferably fan free (or at least not using the fan most of
5573   the time).
5574
5575 </ul>
5576
5577 <p>You will notice that there are no RAM and CPU requirements in the
5578 list.  The reason is simply that the specifications on laptops the
5579 last 10-15 years have been sufficient for my needs, and I have to look
5580 at other features to choose my laptop.  But are there still made as
5581 robust laptops as my X41?  The Thinkpad X60/X61 proved to be less
5582 robust, and Thinkpads seem to be heading in the wrong direction since
5583 Lenovo took over.  But I've been told that X220 and X1 Carbon might
5584 still be useful.</p>
5585
5586 <p>Perhaps I should rethink my needs, and look for a pad with an
5587 external keyboard?  I'll have to check the
5588 <a href="http://www.linux-laptop.net/">Linux Laptops site</a> for
5589 well-supported laptops, or perhaps just buy one preinstalled from one
5590 of the vendors listed on the <a href="http://linuxpreloaded.com/">Linux
5591 Pre-loaded site</a>.</p>
5592
5593       </div>
5594       <div class="tags">
5595
5596
5597         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5598
5599
5600       </div>
5601     </div>
5602     <div class="padding"></div>
5603
5604     <div class="entry">
5605       <div class="title">
5606         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_find_a_browser_plugin_supporting_a_given_MIME_type.html">How to find a browser plugin supporting a given MIME type</a>
5607       </div>
5608       <div class="date">
5609         18th January 2013
5610       </div>
5611       <div class="body">
5612         <p>Some times I try to figure out which Iceweasel browser plugin to
5613 install to get support for a given MIME type.  Thanks to
5614 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MozillaTeam/Plugins">specifications
5615 done by Ubuntu</a> and Mozilla, it is possible to do this in Debian.
5616 Unfortunately, not very many packages provide the needed meta
5617 information, Anyway, here is a small script to look up all browser
5618 plugin packages announcing ther MIME support using this specification:</p>
5619
5620 <pre>
5621 #!/usr/bin/python
5622 import sys
5623 import apt
5624 def pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
5625     cache = apt.Cache()
5626     cache.open(None)
5627     thepkgs = []
5628     for pkg in cache:
5629         version = pkg.candidate
5630         if version is None:
5631             version = pkg.installed
5632         if version is None:
5633             continue
5634         record = version.record
5635         if not record.has_key('Npp-MimeType'):
5636             continue
5637         mime_types = record['Npp-MimeType'].split(',')
5638         for t in mime_types:
5639             t = t.rstrip().strip()
5640             if t == mimetype:
5641                 thepkgs.append(pkg.name)
5642     return thepkgs
5643 mimetype = "audio/ogg"
5644 if 1 < len(sys.argv):
5645     mimetype = sys.argv[1]
5646 print "Browser plugin packages supporting %s:" % mimetype
5647 for pkg in pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
5648     print "  %s" %pkg
5649 </pre>
5650
5651 <p>It can be used like this to look up a given MIME type:</p>
5652
5653 <pre>
5654 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype
5655 Browser plugin packages supporting audio/ogg:
5656   gecko-mediaplayer
5657 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype application/x-shockwave-flash
5658 Browser plugin packages supporting application/x-shockwave-flash:
5659   browser-plugin-gnash
5660 %
5661 </pre>
5662
5663 <p>In Ubuntu this mechanism is combined with support in the browser
5664 itself to query for plugins and propose to install the needed
5665 packages.  It would be great if Debian supported such feature too.  Is
5666 anyone working on adding it?</p>
5667
5668 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-18 14:20</strong>: The Debian BTS
5669 request for icweasel support for this feature is
5670 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/484010">#484010</a> from 2008 (and
5671 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/698426">#698426</a> from today).  Lack
5672 of manpower and wish for a different design is the reason thus feature
5673 is not yet in iceweasel from Debian.</p>
5674
5675       </div>
5676       <div class="tags">
5677
5678
5679         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5680
5681
5682       </div>
5683     </div>
5684     <div class="padding"></div>
5685
5686     <div class="entry">
5687       <div class="title">
5688         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_the_most_supported_MIME_type_in_Debian_.html">What is the most supported MIME type in Debian?</a>
5689       </div>
5690       <div class="date">
5691         16th January 2013
5692       </div>
5693       <div class="body">
5694         <p>The <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/AppStreamDebianProposal">DEP-11
5695 proposal to add AppStream information to the Debian archive</a>, is a
5696 proposal to make it possible for a Desktop application to propose to
5697 the user some package to install to gain support for a given MIME
5698 type, font, library etc. that is currently missing.  With such
5699 mechanism in place, it would be possible for the desktop to
5700 automatically propose and install leocad if some LDraw file is
5701 downloaded by the browser.</p>
5702
5703 <p>To get some idea about the current content of the archive, I decided
5704 to write a simple program to extract all .desktop files from the
5705 Debian archive and look up the claimed MIME support there.  The result
5706 can be found on the
5707 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/pub/AppStreamTest">Skolelinux FTP
5708 site</a>.  Using the collected information, it become possible to
5709 answer the question in the title.  Here are the 20 most supported MIME
5710 types in Debian stable (Squeeze), testing (Wheezy) and unstable (Sid).
5711 The complete list is available from the link above.</p>
5712
5713 <p><strong>Debian Stable:</strong></p>
5714
5715 <pre>
5716   count MIME type
5717   ----- -----------------------
5718      32 text/plain
5719      30 audio/mpeg
5720      29 image/png
5721      28 image/jpeg
5722      27 application/ogg
5723      26 audio/x-mp3
5724      25 image/tiff
5725      25 image/gif
5726      22 image/bmp
5727      22 audio/x-wav
5728      20 audio/x-flac
5729      19 audio/x-mpegurl
5730      18 video/x-ms-asf
5731      18 audio/x-musepack
5732      18 audio/x-mpeg
5733      18 application/x-ogg
5734      17 video/mpeg
5735      17 audio/x-scpls
5736      17 audio/ogg
5737      16 video/x-ms-wmv
5738 </pre>
5739
5740 <p><strong>Debian Testing:</strong></p>
5741
5742 <pre>
5743   count MIME type
5744   ----- -----------------------
5745      33 text/plain
5746      32 image/png
5747      32 image/jpeg
5748      29 audio/mpeg
5749      27 image/gif
5750      26 image/tiff
5751      26 application/ogg
5752      25 audio/x-mp3
5753      22 image/bmp
5754      21 audio/x-wav
5755      19 audio/x-mpegurl
5756      19 audio/x-mpeg
5757      18 video/mpeg
5758      18 audio/x-scpls
5759      18 audio/x-flac
5760      18 application/x-ogg
5761      17 video/x-ms-asf
5762      17 text/html
5763      17 audio/x-musepack
5764      16 image/x-xbitmap
5765 </pre>
5766
5767 <p><strong>Debian Unstable:</strong></p>
5768
5769 <pre>
5770   count MIME type
5771   ----- -----------------------
5772      31 text/plain
5773      31 image/png
5774      31 image/jpeg
5775      29 audio/mpeg
5776      28 application/ogg
5777      27 image/gif
5778      26 image/tiff
5779      26 audio/x-mp3
5780      23 audio/x-wav
5781      22 image/bmp
5782      21 audio/x-flac
5783      20 audio/x-mpegurl
5784      19 audio/x-mpeg
5785      18 video/x-ms-asf
5786      18 video/mpeg
5787      18 audio/x-scpls
5788      18 application/x-ogg
5789      17 audio/x-musepack
5790      16 video/x-ms-wmv
5791      16 video/x-msvideo
5792 </pre>
5793
5794 <p>I am told that PackageKit can provide an API to access the kind of
5795 information mentioned in DEP-11.  I have not yet had time to look at
5796 it, but hope the PackageKit people in Debian are on top of these
5797 issues.</p>
5798
5799 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-16 13:35</strong>: Updated numbers after
5800 discovering a typo in my script.</p>
5801
5802       </div>
5803       <div class="tags">
5804
5805
5806         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5807
5808
5809       </div>
5810     </div>
5811     <div class="padding"></div>
5812
5813     <div class="entry">
5814       <div class="title">
5815         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_modalias_info_to_find_packages_handling_my_hardware.html">Using modalias info to find packages handling my hardware</a>
5816       </div>
5817       <div class="date">
5818         15th January 2013
5819       </div>
5820       <div class="body">
5821         <p>Yesterday, I wrote about the
5822 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Modalias_strings___a_practical_way_to_map__stuff__to_hardware.html">modalias
5823 values provided by the Linux kernel</a> following my hope for
5824 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">better
5825 dongle support in Debian</a>.  Using this knowledge, I have tested how
5826 modalias values attached to package names can be used to map packages
5827 to hardware.  This allow the system to look up and suggest relevant
5828 packages when I plug in some new hardware into my machine, and replace
5829 discover and discover-data as the database used to map hardware to
5830 packages.</p>
5831
5832 <p>I create a modaliases file with entries like the following,
5833 containing package name, kernel module name (if relevant, otherwise
5834 the package name) and globs matching the relevant hardware
5835 modalias.</p>
5836
5837 <p><blockquote>
5838 Package: package-name
5839 <br>Modaliases: module(modaliasglob, modaliasglob, modaliasglob)</p>
5840 </blockquote></p>
5841
5842 <p>It is fairly trivial to write code to find the relevant packages
5843 for a given modalias value using this file.</p>
5844
5845 <p>An entry like this would suggest the video and picture application
5846 cheese for many USB web cameras (interface bus class 0E01):</p>
5847
5848 <p><blockquote>
5849 Package: cheese
5850 <br>Modaliases: cheese(usb:v*p*d*dc*dsc*dp*ic0Eisc01ip*)</p>
5851 </blockquote></p>
5852
5853 <p>An entry like this would suggest the pcmciautils package when a
5854 CardBus bridge (bus class 0607) PCI device is present:</p>
5855
5856 <p><blockquote>
5857 Package: pcmciautils
5858 <br>Modaliases: pcmciautils(pci:v*d*sv*sd*bc06sc07i*)
5859 </blockquote></p>
5860
5861 <p>An entry like this would suggest the package colorhug-client when
5862 plugging in a ColorHug with USB IDs 04D8:F8DA:</p>
5863
5864 <p><blockquote>
5865 Package: colorhug-client
5866 <br>Modaliases: colorhug-client(usb:v04D8pF8DAd*)</p>
5867 </blockquote></p>
5868
5869 <p>I believe the format is compatible with the format of the Packages
5870 file in the Debian archive.  Ubuntu already uses their Packages file
5871 to store their mappings from packages to hardware.</p>
5872
5873 <p>By adding a XB-Modaliases: header in debian/control, any .deb can
5874 announce the hardware it support in a way my prototype understand.
5875 This allow those publishing packages in an APT source outside the
5876 Debian archive as well as those backporting packages to make sure the
5877 hardware mapping are included in the package meta information.  I've
5878 tested such header in the pymissile package, and its modalias mapping
5879 is working as it should with my prototype.  It even made it to Ubuntu
5880 Raring.</p>
5881
5882 <p>To test if it was possible to look up supported hardware using only
5883 the shell tools available in the Debian installer, I wrote a shell
5884 implementation of the lookup code.  The idea is to create files for
5885 each modalias and let the shell do the matching.  Please check out and
5886 try the
5887 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/hw-support-lookup?view=co">hw-support-lookup</a>
5888 shell script.  It run without any extra dependencies and fetch the
5889 hardware mappings from the Debian archive and the subversion
5890 repository where I currently work on my prototype.</p>
5891
5892 <p>When I use it on a machine with a yubikey inserted, it suggest to
5893 install yubikey-personalization:</p>
5894
5895 <p><blockquote>
5896 % ./hw-support-lookup
5897 <br>yubikey-personalization
5898 <br>%
5899 </blockquote></p>
5900
5901 <p>When I run it on my Thinkpad X40 with a PCMCIA/CardBus slot, it
5902 propose to install the pcmciautils package:</p>
5903
5904 <p><blockquote>
5905 % ./hw-support-lookup
5906 <br>pcmciautils
5907 <br>%
5908 </blockquote></p>
5909
5910 <p>If you know of any hardware-package mapping that should be added to
5911 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=co">my
5912 database</a>, please tell me about it.</p>
5913
5914 <p>It could be possible to generate several of the mappings between
5915 packages and hardware.  One source would be to look at packages with
5916 kernel modules, ie packages with *.ko files in /lib/modules/, and
5917 extract their modalias information.  Another would be to look at
5918 packages with udev rules, ie packages with files in
5919 /lib/udev/rules.d/, and extract their vendor/model information to
5920 generate a modalias matching rule.  I have not tested any of these to
5921 see if it work.</p>
5922
5923 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
5924 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
5925 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
5926 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel</a>.</p>
5927
5928       </div>
5929       <div class="tags">
5930
5931
5932         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
5933
5934
5935       </div>
5936     </div>
5937     <div class="padding"></div>
5938
5939     <div class="entry">
5940       <div class="title">
5941         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Modalias_strings___a_practical_way_to_map__stuff__to_hardware.html">Modalias strings - a practical way to map "stuff" to hardware</a>
5942       </div>
5943       <div class="date">
5944         14th January 2013
5945       </div>
5946       <div class="body">
5947         <p>While looking into how to look up Debian packages based on hardware
5948 information, to find the packages that support a given piece of
5949 hardware, I refreshed my memory regarding modalias values, and decided
5950 to document the details.  Here are my findings so far, also available
5951 in
5952 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
5953 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>:
5954
5955 <p><strong>Modalias decoded</strong></p>
5956
5957 <p>This document try to explain what the different types of modalias
5958 values stands for.  It is in part based on information from
5959 &lt;URL: <a href="https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias">https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias</a> &gt;,
5960 &lt;URL: <a href="http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/26132/how-to-assign-usb-driver-to-device">http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/26132/how-to-assign-usb-driver-to-device</a> &gt;,
5961 &lt;URL: <a href="http://code.metager.de/source/history/linux/stable/scripts/mod/file2alias.c">http://code.metager.de/source/history/linux/stable/scripts/mod/file2alias.c</a> &gt; and
5962 &lt;URL: <a href="http://cvs.savannah.gnu.org/viewvc/dmidecode/dmidecode.c?root=dmidecode&view=markup">http://cvs.savannah.gnu.org/viewvc/dmidecode/dmidecode.c?root=dmidecode&view=markup</a> &gt;.
5963
5964 <p>The modalias entries for a given Linux machine can be found using
5965 this shell script:</p>
5966
5967 <pre>
5968 find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u
5969 </pre>
5970
5971 <p>The supported modalias globs for a given kernel module can be found
5972 using modinfo:</p>
5973
5974 <pre>
5975 % /sbin/modinfo psmouse | grep alias:
5976 alias:          serio:ty05pr*id*ex*
5977 alias:          serio:ty01pr*id*ex*
5978 %
5979 </pre>
5980
5981 <p><strong>PCI subtype</strong></p>
5982
5983 <p>A typical PCI entry can look like this.  This is an Intel Host
5984 Bridge memory controller:</p>
5985
5986 <p><blockquote>
5987 pci:v00008086d00002770sv00001028sd000001ADbc06sc00i00
5988 </blockquote></p>
5989
5990 <p>This represent these values:</p>
5991
5992 <pre>
5993  v   00008086  (vendor)
5994  d   00002770  (device)
5995  sv  00001028  (subvendor)
5996  sd  000001AD  (subdevice)
5997  bc  06        (bus class)
5998  sc  00        (bus subclass)
5999  i   00        (interface)
6000 </pre>
6001
6002 <p>The vendor/device values are the same values outputted from 'lspci
6003 -n' as 8086:2770.  The bus class/subclass is also shown by lspci as
6004 0600.  The 0600 class is a host bridge.  Other useful bus values are
6005 0300 (VGA compatible card) and 0200 (Ethernet controller).</p>
6006
6007 <p>Not sure how to figure out the interface value, nor what it
6008 means.</p>
6009
6010 <p><strong>USB subtype</strong></p>
6011
6012 <p>Some typical USB entries can look like this.  This is an internal
6013 USB hub in a laptop:</p>
6014
6015 <p><blockquote>
6016 usb:v1D6Bp0001d0206dc09dsc00dp00ic09isc00ip00
6017 </blockquote></p>
6018
6019 <p>Here is the values included in this alias:</p>
6020
6021 <pre>
6022  v    1D6B  (device vendor)
6023  p    0001  (device product)
6024  d    0206  (bcddevice)
6025  dc     09  (device class)
6026  dsc    00  (device subclass)
6027  dp     00  (device protocol)
6028  ic     09  (interface class)
6029  isc    00  (interface subclass)
6030  ip     00  (interface protocol)
6031 </pre>
6032
6033 <p>The 0900 device class/subclass means hub.  Some times the relevant
6034 class is in the interface class section.  For a simple USB web camera,
6035 these alias entries show up:</p>
6036
6037 <p><blockquote>
6038 usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc01ip00
6039 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc02ip00
6040 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc01ip00
6041 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc02ip00
6042 </blockquote></p>
6043
6044 <p>Interface class 0E01 is video control, 0E02 is video streaming (aka
6045 camera), 0101 is audio control device and 0102 is audio streaming (aka
6046 microphone).  Thus this is a camera with microphone included.</p>
6047
6048 <p><strong>ACPI subtype</strong></p>
6049
6050 <p>The ACPI type is used for several non-PCI/USB stuff.  This is an IR
6051 receiver in a Thinkpad X40:</p>
6052
6053 <p><blockquote>
6054 acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
6055 </blockquote></p>
6056
6057 <p>The values between the colons are IDs.</p>
6058
6059 <p><strong>DMI subtype</strong></p>
6060
6061 <p>The DMI table contain lots of information about the computer case
6062 and model.  This is an entry for a IBM Thinkpad X40, fetched from
6063 /sys/devices/virtual/dmi/id/modalias:</p>
6064
6065 <p><blockquote>
6066 dmi:bvnIBM:bvr1UETB6WW(1.66):bd06/15/2005:svnIBM:pn2371H4G:pvrThinkPadX40:rvnIBM:rn2371H4G:rvrNotAvailable:cvnIBM:ct10:cvrNotAvailable:
6067 </blockquote></p>
6068
6069 <p>The values present are</p>
6070
6071 <pre>
6072  bvn  IBM            (BIOS vendor)
6073  bvr  1UETB6WW(1.66) (BIOS version)
6074  bd   06/15/2005     (BIOS date)
6075  svn  IBM            (system vendor)
6076  pn   2371H4G        (product name)
6077  pvr  ThinkPadX40    (product version)
6078  rvn  IBM            (board vendor)
6079  rn   2371H4G        (board name)
6080  rvr  NotAvailable   (board version)
6081  cvn  IBM            (chassis vendor)
6082  ct   10             (chassis type)
6083  cvr  NotAvailable   (chassis version)
6084 </pre>
6085
6086 <p>The chassis type 10 is Notebook.  Other interesting values can be
6087 found in the dmidecode source:</p>
6088
6089 <pre>
6090   3 Desktop
6091   4 Low Profile Desktop
6092   5 Pizza Box
6093   6 Mini Tower
6094   7 Tower
6095   8 Portable
6096   9 Laptop
6097  10 Notebook
6098  11 Hand Held
6099  12 Docking Station
6100  13 All In One
6101  14 Sub Notebook
6102  15 Space-saving
6103  16 Lunch Box
6104  17 Main Server Chassis
6105  18 Expansion Chassis
6106  19 Sub Chassis
6107  20 Bus Expansion Chassis
6108  21 Peripheral Chassis
6109  22 RAID Chassis
6110  23 Rack Mount Chassis
6111  24 Sealed-case PC
6112  25 Multi-system
6113  26 CompactPCI
6114  27 AdvancedTCA
6115  28 Blade
6116  29 Blade Enclosing
6117 </pre>
6118
6119 <p>The chassis type values are not always accurately set in the DMI
6120 table.  For example my home server is a tower, but the DMI modalias
6121 claim it is a desktop.</p>
6122
6123 <p><strong>SerIO subtype</strong></p>
6124
6125 <p>This type is used for PS/2 mouse plugs.  One example is from my
6126 test machine:</p>
6127
6128 <p><blockquote>
6129 serio:ty01pr00id00ex00
6130 </blockquote></p>
6131
6132 <p>The values present are</p>
6133
6134 <pre>
6135   ty  01  (type)
6136   pr  00  (prototype)
6137   id  00  (id)
6138   ex  00  (extra)
6139 </pre>
6140
6141 <p>This type is supported by the psmouse driver.  I am not sure what
6142 the valid values are.</p>
6143
6144 <p><strong>Other subtypes</strong></p>
6145
6146 <p>There are heaps of other modalias subtypes according to
6147 file2alias.c.  There is the rest of the list from that source: amba,
6148 ap, bcma, ccw, css, eisa, hid, i2c, ieee1394, input, ipack, isapnp,
6149 mdio, of, parisc, pcmcia, platform, scsi, sdio, spi, ssb, vio, virtio,
6150 vmbus, x86cpu and zorro.  I did not spend time documenting all of
6151 these, as they do not seem relevant for my intended use with mapping
6152 hardware to packages when new stuff is inserted during run time.</p>
6153
6154 <p><strong>Looking up kernel modules using modalias values</strong></p>
6155
6156 <p>To check which kernel modules provide support for a given modalias,
6157 one can use the following shell script:</p>
6158
6159 <pre>
6160   for id in $(find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u); do \
6161     echo "$id" ; \
6162     /sbin/modprobe --show-depends "$id"|sed 's/^/  /' ; \
6163   done
6164 </pre>
6165
6166 <p>The output can look like this (only the first few entries as the
6167 list is very long on my test machine):</p>
6168
6169 <pre>
6170   acpi:ACPI0003:
6171     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/acpi/ac.ko
6172   acpi:device:
6173   FATAL: Module acpi:device: not found.
6174   acpi:IBM0068:
6175     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/char/nvram.ko
6176     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/leds/led-class.ko
6177     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/rfkill/rfkill.ko
6178     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/platform/x86/thinkpad_acpi.ko
6179   acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
6180     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/lib/crc-ccitt.ko
6181     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/irda/irda.ko
6182     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/net/irda/nsc-ircc.ko
6183   [...]
6184 </pre>
6185
6186 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
6187 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
6188 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
6189 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel</a>.</p>
6190
6191 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-15:</strong> Rewrite "cat $(find ...)" to
6192 "find ... -print0 | xargs -0 cat" to make sure it handle directories
6193 in /sys/ with space in them.</p>
6194
6195       </div>
6196       <div class="tags">
6197
6198
6199         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
6200
6201
6202       </div>
6203     </div>
6204     <div class="padding"></div>
6205
6206     <div class="entry">
6207       <div class="title">
6208         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Moved_the_pymissile_Debian_packaging_to_collab_maint.html">Moved the pymissile Debian packaging to collab-maint</a>
6209       </div>
6210       <div class="date">
6211         10th January 2013
6212       </div>
6213       <div class="body">
6214         <p>As part of my investigation on how to improve the support in Debian
6215 for hardware dongles, I dug up my old Mark and Spencer USB Rocket
6216 Launcher and updated the Debian package
6217 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pymissile">pymissile</a> to make
6218 sure udev will fix the device permissions when it is plugged in.  I
6219 also added a "Modaliases" header to test it in the Debian archive and
6220 hopefully make the package be proposed by jockey in Ubuntu when a user
6221 plug in his rocket launcher.  In the process I moved the source to a
6222 git repository under collab-maint, to make it easier for any DD to
6223 contribute.  <a href="http://code.google.com/p/pymissile/">Upstream</a>
6224 is not very active, but the software still work for me even after five
6225 years of relative silence.  The new git repository is not listed in
6226 the uploaded package yet, because I want to test the other changes a
6227 bit more before I upload the new version.  If you want to check out
6228 the new version with a .desktop file included, visit the
6229 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/pymissile.git">gitweb
6230 view</a> or use "<tt>git clone
6231 git://anonscm.debian.org/collab-maint/pymissile.git</tt>".</p>
6232
6233       </div>
6234       <div class="tags">
6235
6236
6237         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot</a>.
6238
6239
6240       </div>
6241     </div>
6242     <div class="padding"></div>
6243
6244     <div class="entry">
6245       <div class="title">
6246         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">Lets make hardware dongles easier to use in Debian</a>
6247       </div>
6248       <div class="date">
6249          9th January 2013
6250       </div>
6251       <div class="body">
6252         <p>One thing that annoys me with Debian and Linux distributions in
6253 general, is that there is a great package management system with the
6254 ability to automatically install software packages by downloading them
6255 from the distribution mirrors, but no way to get it to automatically
6256 install the packages I need to use the hardware I plug into my
6257 machine.  Even if the package to use it is easily available from the
6258 Linux distribution.  When I plug in a LEGO Mindstorms NXT, it could
6259 suggest to automatically install the python-nxt, nbc and t2n packages
6260 I need to talk to it.  When I plug in a Yubikey, it could propose the
6261 yubikey-personalization package.  The information required to do this
6262 is available, but no-one have pulled all the pieces together.</p>
6263
6264 <p>Some years ago, I proposed to
6265 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg01206.html">use
6266 the discover subsystem to implement this</a>.  The idea is fairly
6267 simple:
6268
6269 <ul>
6270
6271 <li>Add a desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ pointing to a program
6272   starting when a user log in.</li>
6273
6274 <li>Set this program up to listen for kernel events emitted when new
6275   hardware is inserted into the computer.</li>
6276
6277 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware ID in a
6278   database mapping to packages, and take note of any non-installed
6279   packages.</li>
6280
6281 <li>Show a message to the user proposing to install the discovered
6282   package, and make it easy to install it.</li>
6283
6284 </ul>
6285
6286 <p>I am not sure what the best way to implement this is, but my
6287 initial idea was to use dbus events to discover new hardware, the
6288 discover database to find packages and
6289 <a href="http://www.packagekit.org/">PackageKit</a> to install
6290 packages.</p>
6291
6292 <p>Yesterday, I found time to try to implement this idea, and the
6293 draft package is now checked into
6294 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
6295 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>.  In the process, I updated the
6296 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover-data.html">discover-data</a>
6297 package to map the USB ids of LEGO Mindstorms and Yubikey devices to
6298 the relevant packages in Debian, and uploaded a new version
6299 2.2013.01.09 to unstable.  I also discovered that the current
6300 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover.html">discover</a>
6301 package in Debian no longer discovered any USB devices, because
6302 /proc/bus/usb/devices is no longer present.  I ported it to use
6303 libusb as a fall back option to get it working.  The fixed package
6304 version 2.1.2-6 is now in experimental (didn't upload it to unstable
6305 because of the freeze).</p>
6306
6307 <p>With this prototype in place, I can insert my Yubikey, and get this
6308 desktop notification to show up (only once, the first time it is
6309 inserted):</p>
6310
6311 <p align="center"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-09-hw-autoinstall.png"></p>
6312
6313 <p>For this prototype to be really useful, some way to automatically
6314 install the proposed packages by pressing the "Please install
6315 program(s)" button should to be implemented.</p>
6316
6317 <p>If this idea seem useful to you, and you want to help make it
6318 happen, please help me update the discover-data database with mappings
6319 from hardware to Debian packages.  Check if 'discover-pkginstall -l'
6320 list the package you would like to have installed when a given
6321 hardware device is inserted into your computer, and report bugs using
6322 reportbug if it isn't.  Or, if you know of a better way to provide
6323 such mapping, please let me know.</p>
6324
6325 <p>This prototype need more work, and there are several questions that
6326 should be considered before it is ready for production use.  Is dbus
6327 the correct way to detect new hardware?  At the moment I look for HAL
6328 dbus events on the system bus, because that is the events I could see
6329 on my Debian Squeeze KDE desktop.  Are there better events to use?
6330 How should the user be notified?  Is the desktop notification
6331 mechanism the best option, or should the background daemon raise a
6332 popup instead?  How should packages be installed?  When should they
6333 not be installed?</p>
6334
6335 <p>If you want to help getting such feature implemented in Debian,
6336 please send me an email. :)</p>
6337
6338       </div>
6339       <div class="tags">
6340
6341
6342         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
6343
6344
6345       </div>
6346     </div>
6347     <div class="padding"></div>
6348
6349     <div class="entry">
6350       <div class="title">
6351         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_IRC_channel_for_LEGO_designers_using_Debian.html">New IRC channel for LEGO designers using Debian</a>
6352       </div>
6353       <div class="date">
6354          2nd January 2013
6355       </div>
6356       <div class="body">
6357         <p>During Christmas, I have worked a bit on the Debian support for
6358 <a href="http://mindstorms.lego.com/en-us/Default.aspx">LEGO Mindstorm
6359 NXT</a>.  My son and I have played a bit with my NXT set, and I
6360 discovered I had to build all the tools myself because none were
6361 already in Debian Squeeze.  If Debian support for LEGO is something
6362 you care about, please join me on the IRC channel
6363 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">#debian-lego</a> (server
6364 irc.debian.org).  There is a lot that could be done to improve the
6365 Debian support for LEGO designers.  For example both CAD software
6366 and Mindstorm compilers are missing. :)</p>
6367
6368 <p>Update 2012-01-03: A
6369 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">project page</a>
6370 including links to Lego related packages is now available.</p>
6371
6372       </div>
6373       <div class="tags">
6374
6375
6376         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot</a>.
6377
6378
6379       </div>
6380     </div>
6381     <div class="padding"></div>
6382
6383     <div class="entry">
6384       <div class="title">
6385         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_backport_bitcoin_qt_version_0_7_2_2_to_Debian_Squeeze.html">How to backport bitcoin-qt version 0.7.2-2 to Debian Squeeze</a>
6386       </div>
6387       <div class="date">
6388         25th December 2012
6389       </div>
6390       <div class="body">
6391         <p>Let me start by wishing you all marry Christmas and a happy new
6392 year!  I hope next year will prove to be a good year.</p>
6393
6394 <p><a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">Bitcoin</a>, the digital
6395 decentralised "currency" that allow people to transfer bitcoins
6396 between each other with minimal overhead, is a very interesting
6397 experiment.  And as I wrote a few days ago, the bitcoin situation in
6398 <a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</a> is about to improve a bit.
6399 The <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">new debian source
6400 package</a> (version 0.7.2-2) was uploaded yesterday, and is waiting
6401 in <a href="http://ftp-master.debian.org/new.html">the NEW queue</A>
6402 for one of the ftpmasters to approve the new bitcoin-qt package
6403 name.</p>
6404
6405 <p>And thanks to the great work of Jonas and the rest of the bitcoin
6406 team in Debian, you can easily test the package in Debian Squeeze
6407 using the following steps to get a set of working packages:</p>
6408
6409 <blockquote><pre>
6410 git clone git://git.debian.org/git/collab-maint/bitcoin
6411 cd bitcoin
6412 DEB_MAINTAINER_MODE=1 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp fakeroot debian/rules clean
6413 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp git-buildpackage --git-ignore-new
6414 </pre></blockquote>
6415
6416 <p>You might have to install some build dependencies as well.  The
6417 list of commands should give you two packages, bitcoind and
6418 bitcoin-qt, ready for use in a Squeeze environment.  Note that the
6419 client will download the complete set of bitcoin "blocks", which need
6420 around 5.6 GiB of data on my machine at the moment.  Make sure your
6421 ~/.bitcoin/ directory have lots of spare room if you want to download
6422 all the blocks.  The client will warn if the disk is getting full, so
6423 there is not really a problem if you got too little room, but you will
6424 not be able to get all the features out of the client.</p>
6425
6426 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
6427 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
6428 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
6429
6430       </div>
6431       <div class="tags">
6432
6433
6434         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
6435
6436
6437       </div>
6438     </div>
6439     <div class="padding"></div>
6440
6441     <div class="entry">
6442       <div class="title">
6443         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_word_on_bitcoin_support_in_Debian.html">A word on bitcoin support in Debian</a>
6444       </div>
6445       <div class="date">
6446         21st December 2012
6447       </div>
6448       <div class="body">
6449         <p>It has been a while since I wrote about
6450 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">bitcoin</a>, the decentralised
6451 peer-to-peer based crypto-currency, and the reason is simply that I
6452 have been busy elsewhere.  But two days ago, I started looking at the
6453 state of <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin in
6454 Debian</a> again to try to recover my old bitcoin wallet.  The package
6455 is now maintained by a
6456 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/pkg-bitcoin/">team of
6457 people</a>, and the grunt work had already been done by this team.  We
6458 owe a huge thank you to all these team members. :)
6459 But I was sad to discover that the bitcoin client is missing in
6460 Wheezy.  It is only available in Sid (and an outdated client from
6461 backports).  The client had several RC bugs registered in BTS blocking
6462 it from entering testing.  To try to help the team and improve the
6463 situation, I spent some time providing patches and triaging the bug
6464 reports.  I also had a look at the bitcoin package available from Matt
6465 Corallo in a
6466 <a href="https://launchpad.net/~bitcoin/+archive/bitcoin">PPA for
6467 Ubuntu</a>, and moved the useful pieces from that version into the
6468 Debian package.</p>
6469
6470 <p>After checking with the main package maintainer Jonas Smedegaard on
6471 IRC, I pushed several patches into the collab-maint git repository to
6472 improve the package.  It now contains fixes for the RC issues (not from
6473 me, but fixed by Scott Howard), build rules for a Qt GUI client
6474 package, konqueror support for the bitcoin: URI and bash completion
6475 setup.  As I work on Debian Squeeze, I also created
6476 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-bitcoin-devel/Week-of-Mon-20121217/000041.html">a
6477 patch to backport</a> the latest version.  Jonas is going to look at
6478 it and try to integrate it into the git repository before uploading a
6479 new version to unstable.
6480
6481 <p>I would very much like bitcoin to succeed, to get rid of the
6482 centralized control currently exercised in the monetary system.  I
6483 find it completely unacceptable that the USA government is collecting
6484 transaction data for almost all international money transfers (most are done in USD and transaction logs shipped to the spooks), and
6485 that the major credit card companies can block legal money
6486 transactions to Wikileaks.  But for bitcoin to succeed, more people
6487 need to use bitcoins, and more people need to accept bitcoins when
6488 they sell products and services.  Improving the bitcoin support in
6489 Debian is a small step in the right direction, but not enough.
6490 Unfortunately the user experience when browsing the web and wanting to
6491 pay with bitcoin is still not very good.  The bitcoin: URI is a step
6492 in the right direction, but need to work in most or every browser in
6493 use.  Also the bitcoin-qt client is too heavy to fire up to do a
6494 quick transaction.  I believe there are other clients available, but
6495 have not tested them.</p>
6496
6497 <p>My
6498 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Now_accepting_bitcoins___anonymous_and_distributed_p2p_crypto_money.html">experiment
6499 with bitcoins</a> showed that at least some of my readers use bitcoin.
6500 I received 20.15 BTC so far on the address I provided in my blog two
6501 years ago, as can be
6502 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">seen
6503 on the blockexplorer service</a>.  Thank you everyone for your
6504 donation.  The blockexplorer service demonstrates quite well that
6505 bitcoin is not quite anonymous and untracked. :) I wonder if the
6506 number of users have gone up since then.  If you use bitcoin and want
6507 to show your support of my activity, please send Bitcoin donations to
6508 the same address as last time,
6509 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
6510
6511       </div>
6512       <div class="tags">
6513
6514
6515         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
6516
6517
6518       </div>
6519     </div>
6520     <div class="padding"></div>
6521
6522     <div class="entry">
6523       <div class="title">
6524         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Git_repository_for_song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">Git repository for song book for Computer Scientists</a>
6525       </div>
6526       <div class="date">
6527          7th September 2012
6528       </div>
6529       <div class="body">
6530         <p>As I
6531 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">mentioned
6532 this summer</a>, I have created a Computer Science song book a few
6533 years ago, and today I finally found time to create a public
6534 <a href="https://gitorious.org/pere-cs-songbook/pere-cs-songbook">Gitorious
6535 repository for the project</a>.</p>
6536
6537 <p>If you want to help out, please clone the source and submit patches
6538 to the HTML version.  To generate the PDF and PostScript version,
6539 please use prince XML, or let me know about a useful free software
6540 processor capable of creating a good looking PDF from the HTML.</p>
6541
6542 <p>Want to sing?  You can still find the song book in HTML, PDF and
6543 PostScript formats at
6544 <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's Computer
6545 Science Songbook</a>.</p>
6546
6547       </div>
6548       <div class="tags">
6549
6550
6551         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>.
6552
6553
6554       </div>
6555     </div>
6556     <div class="padding"></div>
6557
6558     <div class="entry">
6559       <div class="title">
6560         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gratulerer_med_19__rsdagen__Debian_.html">Gratulerer med 19-årsdagen, Debian!</a>
6561       </div>
6562       <div class="date">
6563         16th August 2012
6564       </div>
6565       <div class="body">
6566         <p>I dag fyller
6567 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120813">Debian-prosjektet 19
6568 år</a>.  Jeg har fulgt det de siste 12 årene, og er veldig glad for å kunne
6569 si gratulerer med dagen, Debian!</p>
6570
6571       </div>
6572       <div class="tags">
6573
6574
6575         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk</a>.
6576
6577
6578       </div>
6579     </div>
6580     <div class="padding"></div>
6581
6582     <div class="entry">
6583       <div class="title">
6584         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">Song book for Computer Scientists</a>
6585       </div>
6586       <div class="date">
6587         24th June 2012
6588       </div>
6589       <div class="body">
6590         <p>Many years ago, while studying Computer Science at the
6591 <a href="http://www.uit.no/">University of Tromsø</a>, I started
6592 collecting computer related songs for use at parties.  The original
6593 version was written in LaTeX, but a few years ago I got help from
6594 Håkon W. Lie, one of the inventors of W3C CSS, to convert it to HTML
6595 while keeping the ability to create a nice book in PDF format.  I have
6596 not had time to maintain the book for a while now, and guess I should
6597 put it up on some public version control repository where others can
6598 help me extend and update the book.  If anyone is volunteering to help
6599 me with this, send me an email.  Also let me know if there are songs
6600 missing in my book.</p>
6601
6602 <p>I have not mentioned the book on my blog so far, and it occured to
6603 me today that I really should let all my readers share the joys of
6604 singing out load about programming, computers and computer networks.
6605 Especially now that <a href="http://debconf12.debconf.org/">Debconf
6606 12</a> is about to start (and I am not going).  Want to sing?  Check
6607 out <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's
6608 Computer Science Songbook</a>.
6609
6610       </div>
6611       <div class="tags">
6612
6613
6614         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>.
6615
6616
6617       </div>
6618     </div>
6619     <div class="padding"></div>
6620
6621     <div class="entry">
6622       <div class="title">
6623         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatically_upgrading_server_firmware_on_Dell_PowerEdge.html">Automatically upgrading server firmware on Dell PowerEdge</a>
6624       </div>
6625       <div class="date">
6626         21st November 2011
6627       </div>
6628       <div class="body">
6629         <p>At work we have heaps of servers.  I believe the total count is
6630 around 1000 at the moment.  To be able to get help from the vendors
6631 when something go wrong, we want to keep the firmware on the servers
6632 up to date.  If the firmware isn't the latest and greatest, the
6633 vendors typically refuse to start debugging any problems until the
6634 firmware is upgraded.  So before every reboot, we want to upgrade the
6635 firmware, and we would really like everyone handling servers at the
6636 university to do this themselves when they plan to reboot a machine.
6637 For that to happen we at the unix server admin group need to provide
6638 the tools to do so.</p>
6639
6640 <p>To make firmware upgrading easier, I am working on a script to
6641 fetch and install the latest firmware for the servers we got.  Most of
6642 our hardware are from Dell and HP, so I have focused on these servers
6643 so far.  This blog post is about the Dell part.</P>
6644
6645 <p>On the Dell FTP site I was lucky enough to find
6646 <a href="ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz">an XML file</a>
6647 with firmware information for all 11th generation servers, listing
6648 which firmware should be used on a given model and where on the FTP
6649 site I can find it.  Using a simple perl XML parser I can then
6650 download the shell scripts Dell provides to do firmware upgrades from
6651 within Linux and reboot when all the firmware is primed and ready to
6652 be activated on the first reboot.</p>
6653
6654 <p>This is the Dell related fragment of the perl code I am working on.
6655 Are there anyone working on similar tools for firmware upgrading all
6656 servers at a site?  Please get in touch and lets share resources.</p>
6657
6658 <p><pre>
6659 #!/usr/bin/perl
6660 use strict;
6661 use warnings;
6662 use File::Temp qw(tempdir);
6663 BEGIN {
6664     # Install needed RHEL packages if missing
6665     my %rhelmodules = (
6666         'XML::Simple' => 'perl-XML-Simple',
6667         );
6668     for my $module (keys %rhelmodules) {
6669         eval "use $module;";
6670         if ($@) {
6671             my $pkg = $rhelmodules{$module};
6672             system("yum install -y $pkg");
6673             eval "use $module;";
6674         }
6675     }
6676 }
6677 my $errorsto = 'pere@hungry.com';
6678
6679 upgrade_dell();
6680
6681 exit 0;
6682
6683 sub run_firmware_script {
6684     my ($opts, $script) = @_;
6685     unless ($script) {
6686         print STDERR "fail: missing script name\n";
6687         exit 1
6688     }
6689     print STDERR "Running $script\n\n";
6690
6691     if (0 == system("sh $script $opts")) { # FIXME correct exit code handling
6692         print STDERR "success: firmware script ran succcessfully\n";
6693     } else {
6694         print STDERR "fail: firmware script returned error\n";
6695     }
6696 }
6697
6698 sub run_firmware_scripts {
6699     my ($opts, @dirs) = @_;
6700     # Run firmware packages
6701     for my $dir (@dirs) {
6702         print STDERR "info: Running scripts in $dir\n";
6703         opendir(my $dh, $dir) or die "Unable to open directory $dir: $!";
6704         while (my $s = readdir $dh) {
6705             next if $s =~ m/^\.\.?/;
6706             run_firmware_script($opts, "$dir/$s");
6707         }
6708         closedir $dh;
6709     }
6710 }
6711
6712 sub download {
6713     my $url = shift;
6714     print STDERR "info: Downloading $url\n";
6715     system("wget --quiet \"$url\"");
6716 }
6717
6718 sub upgrade_dell {
6719     my @dirs;
6720     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
6721     chomp $product;
6722
6723     if ($product =~ m/PowerEdge/) {
6724
6725         # on RHEL, these pacakges are needed by the firwmare upgrade scripts
6726         system('yum install -y compat-libstdc++-33.i686 libstdc++.i686 libxml2.i686 procmail');
6727
6728         my $tmpdir = tempdir(
6729             CLEANUP => 1
6730             );
6731         chdir($tmpdir);
6732         fetch_dell_fw('catalog/Catalog.xml.gz');
6733         system('gunzip Catalog.xml.gz');
6734         my @paths = fetch_dell_fw_list('Catalog.xml');
6735         # -q is quiet, disabling interactivity and reducing console output
6736         my $fwopts = "-q";
6737         if (@paths) {
6738             for my $url (@paths) {
6739                 fetch_dell_fw($url);
6740             }
6741             run_firmware_scripts($fwopts, $tmpdir);
6742         } else {
6743             print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
6744             print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
6745         }
6746         chdir('/');
6747     } else {
6748         print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
6749         print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
6750     }
6751 }
6752
6753 sub fetch_dell_fw {
6754     my $path = shift;
6755     my $url = "ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/$path";
6756     download($url);
6757 }
6758
6759 # Using ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz, figure out which
6760 # firmware packages to download from Dell.  Only work for Linux
6761 # machines and 11th generation Dell servers.
6762 sub fetch_dell_fw_list {
6763     my $filename = shift;
6764
6765     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
6766     chomp $product;
6767     my ($mybrand, $mymodel) = split(/\s+/, $product);
6768
6769     print STDERR "Finding firmware bundles for $mybrand $mymodel\n";
6770
6771     my $xml = XMLin($filename);
6772     my @paths;
6773     for my $bundle (@{$xml->{SoftwareBundle}}) {
6774         my $brand = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Display}->{content};
6775         my $model = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Model}->{Display}->{content};
6776         my $oscode;
6777         if ("ARRAY" eq ref $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}) {
6778             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}[0]->{osCode};
6779         } else {
6780             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}->{osCode};
6781         }
6782         if ($mybrand eq $brand && $mymodel eq $model && "LIN" eq $oscode)
6783         {
6784             @paths = map { $_->{path} } @{$bundle->{Contents}->{Package}};
6785         }
6786     }
6787     for my $component (@{$xml->{SoftwareComponent}}) {
6788         my $componenttype = $component->{ComponentType}->{value};
6789
6790         # Drop application packages, only firmware and BIOS
6791         next if 'APAC' eq $componenttype;
6792
6793         my $cpath = $component->{path};
6794         for my $path (@paths) {
6795             if ($cpath =~ m%/$path$%) {
6796                 push(@paths, $cpath);
6797             }
6798         }
6799     }
6800     return @paths;
6801 }
6802 </pre>
6803
6804 <p>The code is only tested on RedHat Enterprise Linux, but I suspect
6805 it could work on other platforms with some tweaking.  Anyone know a
6806 index like Catalog.xml is available from HP for HP servers?  At the
6807 moment I maintain a similar list manually and it is quickly getting
6808 outdated.</p>
6809
6810       </div>
6811       <div class="tags">
6812
6813
6814         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
6815
6816
6817       </div>
6818     </div>
6819     <div class="padding"></div>
6820
6821     <div class="entry">
6822       <div class="title">
6823         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_is_booting_into_runlevel_1_different_from_single_user_boots_.html">How is booting into runlevel 1 different from single user boots?</a>
6824       </div>
6825       <div class="date">
6826          4th August 2011
6827       </div>
6828       <div class="body">
6829         <p>Wouter Verhelst have some
6830 <a href="http://grep.be/blog/en/retorts/pere_kubuntu_boot">interesting
6831 comments and opinions</a> on my blog post on
6832 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_should_start_from__etc_rcS_d__in_Debian____almost_nothing.html">the
6833 need to clean up /etc/rcS.d/ in Debian</a> and my blog post about
6834 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_missing_in_the_Debian_desktop__or_why_my_parents_use_Kubuntu.html">the
6835 default KDE desktop in Debian</a>.  I only have time to address one
6836 small piece of his comment now, and though it best to address the
6837 misunderstanding he bring forward:</p>
6838
6839 <p><blockquote>
6840 Currently, a system admin has four options: [...] boot to a
6841 single-user system (by adding 'single' to the kernel command line;
6842 this runs rcS and rc1 scripts)
6843 </blockquote></p>
6844
6845 <p>This make me believe Wouter believe booting into single user mode
6846 and booting into runlevel 1 is the same.  I am not surprised he
6847 believe this, because it would make sense and is a quite sensible
6848 thing to believe.  But because the boot in Debian is slightly broken,
6849 runlevel 1 do not work properly and it isn't the same as single user
6850 mode.  I'll try to explain what is actually happing, but it is a bit
6851 hard to explain.</p>
6852
6853 <p>Single user mode is defined like this in /etc/inittab:
6854 "<tt>~~:S:wait:/sbin/sulogin</tt>".  This means the only thing that is
6855 executed in single user mode is sulogin.  Single user mode is a boot
6856 state "between" the runlevels, and when booting into single user mode,
6857 only the scripts in /etc/rcS.d/ are executed before the init process
6858 enters the single user state.  When switching to runlevel 1, the state
6859 is in fact not ending in runlevel 1, but it passes through runlevel 1
6860 and end up in the single user mode (see /etc/rc1.d/S03single, which
6861 runs "init -t1 S" to switch to single user mode at the end of runlevel
6862 1.  It is confusing that the 'S' (single user) init mode is not the
6863 mode enabled by /etc/rcS.d/ (which is more like the initial boot
6864 mode).</p>
6865
6866 <p>This summary might make it clearer.  When booting for the first
6867 time into single user mode, the following commands are executed:
6868 "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc S; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  When booting into
6869 runlevel 1, the following commands are executed: "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc
6870 S; /etc/init.d/rc 1; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  A problem show up when
6871 trying to continue after visiting single user mode.  Not all services
6872 are started again as they should, causing the machine to end up in an
6873 unpredicatble state.  This is why Debian admins recommend rebooting
6874 after visiting single user mode.</p>
6875
6876 <p>A similar problem with runlevel 1 is caused by the amount of
6877 scripts executed from /etc/rcS.d/.  When switching from say runlevel 2
6878 to runlevel 1, the services started from /etc/rcS.d/ are not properly
6879 stopped when passing through the scripts in /etc/rc1.d/, and not
6880 started again when switching away from runlevel 1 to the runlevels
6881 2-5.  I believe the problem is best fixed by moving all the scripts
6882 out of /etc/rcS.d/ that are not <strong>required</strong> to get a
6883 functioning single user mode during boot.</p>
6884
6885 <p>I have spent several years investigating the Debian boot system,
6886 and discovered this problem a few years ago.  I suspect it originates
6887 from when sysvinit was introduced into Debian, a long time ago.</p>
6888
6889       </div>
6890       <div class="tags">
6891
6892
6893         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
6894
6895
6896       </div>
6897     </div>
6898     <div class="padding"></div>
6899
6900     <div class="entry">
6901       <div class="title">
6902         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_should_start_from__etc_rcS_d__in_Debian____almost_nothing.html">What should start from /etc/rcS.d/ in Debian? - almost nothing</a>
6903       </div>
6904       <div class="date">
6905         30th July 2011
6906       </div>
6907       <div class="body">
6908         <p>In the Debian boot system, several packages include scripts that
6909 are started from /etc/rcS.d/.  In fact, there is a bite more of them
6910 than make sense, and this causes a few problems.  What kind of
6911 problems, you might ask.  There are at least two problems.  The first
6912 is that it is not possible to recover a machine after switching to
6913 runlevel 1.  One need to actually reboot to get the machine back to
6914 the expected state.  The other is that single user boot will sometimes
6915 run into problems because some of the subsystems are activated before
6916 the root login is presented, causing problems when trying to recover a
6917 machine from a problem in that subsystem.  A minor additional point is
6918 that moving more scripts out of rcS.d/ and into the other rc#.d/
6919 directories will increase the amount of scripts that can run in
6920 parallel during boot, and thus decrease the boot time.</p>
6921
6922 <p>So, which scripts should start from rcS.d/.  In short, only the
6923 scripts that _have_ to execute before the root login prompt is
6924 presented during a single user boot should go there.  Everything else
6925 should go into the numeric runlevels.  This means things like
6926 lm-sensors, fuse and x11-common should not run from rcS.d, but from
6927 the numeric runlevels.  Today in Debian, there are around 115 init.d
6928 scripts that are started from rcS.d/, and most of them should be moved
6929 out.  Do your package have one of them?  Please help us make single
6930 user and runlevel 1 better by moving it.</p>
6931
6932 <p>Scripts setting up the screen, keyboard, system partitions
6933 etc. should still be started from rcS.d/, but there is for example no
6934 need to have the network enabled before the single user login prompt
6935 is presented.</p>
6936
6937 <p>As always, things are not so easy to fix as they sound.  To keep
6938 Debian systems working while scripts migrate and during upgrades, the
6939 scripts need to be moved from rcS.d/ to rc2.d/ in reverse dependency
6940 order, ie the scripts that nothing in rcS.d/ depend on can be moved,
6941 and the next ones can only be moved when their dependencies have been
6942 moved first.  This migration must be done sequentially while we ensure
6943 that the package system upgrade packages in the right order to keep
6944 the system state correct.  This will require some coordination when it
6945 comes to network related packages, but most of the packages with
6946 scripts that should migrate do not have anything in rcS.d/ depending
6947 on them.  Some packages have already been updated, like the sudo
6948 package, while others are still left to do.  I wish I had time to work
6949 on this myself, but real live constrains make it unlikely that I will
6950 find time to push this forward.</p>
6951
6952       </div>
6953       <div class="tags">
6954
6955
6956         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
6957
6958
6959       </div>
6960     </div>
6961     <div class="padding"></div>
6962
6963     <div class="entry">
6964       <div class="title">
6965         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_missing_in_the_Debian_desktop__or_why_my_parents_use_Kubuntu.html">What is missing in the Debian desktop, or why my parents use Kubuntu</a>
6966       </div>
6967       <div class="date">
6968         29th July 2011
6969       </div>
6970       <div class="body">
6971         <p>While at Debconf11, I have several times during discussions
6972 mentioned the issues I believe should be improved in Debian for its
6973 desktop to be useful for more people.  The use case for this is my
6974 parents, which are currently running Kubuntu which solve the
6975 issues.</p>
6976
6977 <p>I suspect these four missing features are not very hard to
6978 implement.  After all, they are present in Ubuntu, so if we wanted to
6979 do this in Debian we would have a source.</p>
6980
6981 <ol>
6982
6983 <li><strong>Simple GUI based upgrade of packages.</strong> When there
6984 are new packages available for upgrades, a icon in the KDE status bar
6985 indicate this, and clicking on it will activate the simple upgrade
6986 tool to handle it.  I have no problem guiding both of my parents
6987 through the process over the phone.  If a kernel reboot is required,
6988 this too is indicated by the status bars and the upgrade tool.  Last
6989 time I checked, nothing with the same features was working in KDE in
6990 Debian.</li>
6991
6992 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing Firefox browser
6993 plugins.</strong> When the browser encounter a MIME type it do not
6994 currently have a handler for, it will ask the user if the system
6995 should search for a package that would add support for this MIME type,
6996 and if the user say yes, the APT sources will be searched for packages
6997 advertising the MIME type in their control file (visible in the
6998 Packages file in the APT archive).  If one or more packages are found,
6999 it is a simple click of the mouse to add support for the missing mime
7000 type.  If the package require the user to accept some non-free
7001 license, this is explained to the user.  The entire process make it
7002 more clear to the user why something do not work in the browser, and
7003 make the chances higher for the user to blame the web page authors and
7004 not the browser for any missing features.</li>
7005
7006 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing multimedia codec/format
7007 handlers.</strong> When the media players encounter a format or codec
7008 it is not supporting, a dialog pop up asking the user if the system
7009 should search for a package that would add support for it.  This
7010 happen with things like MP3, Windows Media or H.264.  The selection
7011 and installation procedure is very similar to the Firefox browser
7012 plugin handling.  This is as far as I know implemented using a
7013 gstreamer hook.  The end result is that the user easily get access to
7014 the codecs that are present from the APT archives available, while
7015 explaining more on why a given format is unsupported by Ubuntu.</li>
7016
7017 <li><strong>Better browser handling of some MIME types.</strong> When
7018 displaying a text/plain file in my Debian browser, it will propose to
7019 start emacs to show it.  If I remember correctly, when doing the same
7020 in Kunbutu it show the file as a text file in the browser.  At least I
7021 know Opera will show text files within the browser.  I much prefer the
7022 latter behaviour.</li>
7023
7024 </ol>
7025
7026 <p>There are other nice features as well, like the simplified suite
7027 upgrader, but given that I am the one mostly doing the dist-upgrade,
7028 it do not matter much.</p>
7029
7030 <p>I really hope we could get these features in place for the next
7031 Debian release.  It would require the coordinated effort of several
7032 maintainers, but would make the end user experience a lot better.</p>
7033
7034       </div>
7035       <div class="tags">
7036
7037
7038         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/h264">h264</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
7039
7040
7041       </div>
7042     </div>
7043     <div class="padding"></div>
7044
7045     <div class="entry">
7046       <div class="title">
7047         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Perl_modules_used_by_FixMyStreet_which_are_missing_in_Debian_Squeeze.html">Perl modules used by FixMyStreet which are missing in Debian/Squeeze</a>
7048       </div>
7049       <div class="date">
7050         26th July 2011
7051       </div>
7052       <div class="body">
7053         <p>The Norwegian <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</A>
7054 site is build on Debian/Squeeze, and this platform was chosen because
7055 I am most familiar with Debian (being a Debian Developer for around 10
7056 years) because it is the latest stable Debian release which should get
7057 security support for a few years.</p>
7058
7059 <p>The web service is written in Perl, and depend on some perl modules
7060 that are missing in Debian at the moment.  It would be great if these
7061 modules were added to the Debian archive, allowing anyone to set up
7062 their own <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com">FixMyStreet</a> clone
7063 in their own country using only Debian packages.  The list of modules
7064 missing in Debian/Squeeze isn't very long, and I hope the perl group
7065 will find time to package the 12 modules Catalyst::Plugin::SmartURI,
7066 Catalyst::Plugin::Unicode::Encoding, Catalyst::View::TT, Devel::Hide,
7067 Sort::Key, Statistics::Distributions, Template::Plugin::Comma,
7068 Template::Plugin::DateTime::Format, Term::Size::Any, Term::Size::Perl,
7069 URI::SmartURI and Web::Scraper to make the maintenance of FixMyStreet
7070 easier in the future.</p>
7071
7072 <p>Thanks to the great tools in Debian, getting the missing modules
7073 installed on my server was a simple call to 'cpan2deb Module::Name'
7074 and 'dpkg -i' to install the resulting package.  But this leave me
7075 with the responsibility of tracking security problems, which I really
7076 do not have time for.</p>
7077
7078       </div>
7079       <div class="tags">
7080
7081
7082         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami</a>.
7083
7084
7085       </div>
7086     </div>
7087     <div class="padding"></div>
7088
7089     <div class="entry">
7090       <div class="title">
7091         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Norwegian_FixMyStreet_have_kept_me_busy_the_last_few_weeks.html">A Norwegian FixMyStreet have kept me busy the last few weeks</a>
7092       </div>
7093       <div class="date">
7094          3rd April 2011
7095       </div>
7096       <div class="body">
7097         <p>Here is a small update for my English readers.  Most of my blog
7098 posts have been in Norwegian the last few weeks, so here is a short
7099 update in English.</p>
7100
7101 <p>The kids still keep me too busy to get much free software work
7102 done, but I did manage to organise a project to get a Norwegian port
7103 of the British service
7104 <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com/">FixMyStreet</a> up and running,
7105 and it has been running for a month now.  The entire project has been
7106 organised by me and two others.  Around Christmas we gathered sponsors
7107 to fund the development work.  In January I drafted a contract with
7108 <a href="http://www.mysociety.org/">mySociety</a> on what to develop,
7109 and in February the development took place.  Most of it involved
7110 converting the source to use GPS coordinates instead of British
7111 easting/northing, and the resulting code should be a lot easier to get
7112 running in any country by now.  The Norwegian
7113 <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</a> is using
7114 <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/">OpenStreetmap</a> as the map
7115 source and the source for administrative borders in Norway, and
7116 support for this had to be added/fixed.</p>
7117
7118 <p>The Norwegian version went live March 3th, and we spent the weekend
7119 polishing the system before we announced it March 7th.  The system is
7120 running on a KVM instance of Debian/Squeeze, and has seen almost 3000
7121 problem reports in a few weeks.  Soon we hope to announce the Android
7122 and iPhone versions making it even easier to report problems with the
7123 public infrastructure.</p>
7124
7125 <p>Perhaps something to consider for those of you in countries without
7126 such service?</p>
7127
7128       </div>
7129       <div class="tags">
7130
7131
7132         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kart">kart</a>.
7133
7134
7135       </div>
7136     </div>
7137     <div class="padding"></div>
7138
7139     <div class="entry">
7140       <div class="title">
7141         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_NVD_and_CPE_to_track_CVEs_in_locally_maintained_software.html">Using NVD and CPE to track CVEs in locally maintained software</a>
7142       </div>
7143       <div class="date">
7144         28th January 2011
7145       </div>
7146       <div class="body">
7147         <p>The last few days I have looked at ways to track open security
7148 issues here at my work with the University of Oslo.  My idea is that
7149 it should be possible to use the information about security issues
7150 available on the Internet, and check our locally
7151 maintained/distributed software against this information.  It should
7152 allow us to verify that no known security issues are forgotten.  The
7153 CVE database listing vulnerabilities seem like a great central point,
7154 and by using the package lists from Debian mapped to CVEs provided by
7155 the testing security team, I believed it should be possible to figure
7156 out which security holes were present in our free software
7157 collection.</p>
7158
7159 <p>After reading up on the topic, it became obvious that the first
7160 building block is to be able to name software packages in a unique and
7161 consistent way across data sources.  I considered several ways to do
7162 this, for example coming up with my own naming scheme like using URLs
7163 to project home pages or URLs to the Freshmeat entries, or using some
7164 existing naming scheme.  And it seem like I am not the first one to
7165 come across this problem, as MITRE already proposed and implemented a
7166 solution.  Enter the <a href="http://cpe.mitre.org/index.html">Common
7167 Platform Enumeration</a> dictionary, a vocabulary for referring to
7168 software, hardware and other platform components.  The CPE ids are
7169 mapped to CVEs in the <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/">National
7170 Vulnerability Database</a>, allowing me to look up know security
7171 issues for any CPE name.  With this in place, all I need to do is to
7172 locate the CPE id for the software packages we use at the university.
7173 This is fairly trivial (I google for 'cve cpe $package' and check the
7174 NVD entry if a CVE for the package exist).</p>
7175
7176 <p>To give you an example.  The GNU gzip source package have the CPE
7177 name cpe:/a:gnu:gzip.  If the old version 1.3.3 was the package to
7178 check out, one could look up
7179 <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/view/vuln/search?cpe=cpe%3A%2Fa%3Agnu%3Agzip:1.3.3">cpe:/a:gnu:gzip:1.3.3
7180 in NVD</a> and get a list of 6 security holes with public CVE entries.
7181 The most recent one is
7182 <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/view/vuln/detail?vulnId=CVE-2010-0001">CVE-2010-0001</a>,
7183 and at the bottom of the NVD page for this vulnerability the complete
7184 list of affected versions is provided.</p>
7185
7186 <p>The NVD database of CVEs is also available as a XML dump, allowing
7187 for offline processing of issues.  Using this dump, I've written a
7188 small script taking a list of CPEs as input and list all CVEs
7189 affecting the packages represented by these CPEs.  One give it CPEs
7190 with version numbers as specified above and get a list of open
7191 security issues out.</p>
7192
7193 <p>Of course for this approach to be useful, the quality of the NVD
7194 information need to be high.  For that to happen, I believe as many as
7195 possible need to use and contribute to the NVD database.  I notice
7196 RHEL is providing
7197 <a href="https://www.redhat.com/security/data/metrics/rhsamapcpe.txt">a
7198 map from CVE to CPE</a>, indicating that they are using the CPE
7199 information.  I'm not aware of Debian and Ubuntu doing the same.</p>
7200
7201 <p>To get an idea about the quality for free software, I spent some
7202 time making it possible to compare the CVE database from Debian with
7203 the CVE database in NVD.  The result look fairly good, but there are
7204 some inconsistencies in NVD (same software package having several
7205 CPEs), and some inaccuracies (NVD not mentioning buggy packages that
7206 Debian believe are affected by a CVE).  Hope to find time to improve
7207 the quality of NVD, but that require being able to get in touch with
7208 someone maintaining it.  So far my three emails with questions and
7209 corrections have not seen any reply, but I hope contact can be
7210 established soon.</p>
7211
7212 <p>An interesting application for CPEs is cross platform package
7213 mapping.  It would be useful to know which packages in for example
7214 RHEL, OpenSuSe and Mandriva are missing from Debian and Ubuntu, and
7215 this would be trivial if all linux distributions provided CPE entries
7216 for their packages.</p>
7217
7218       </div>
7219       <div class="tags">
7220
7221
7222         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
7223
7224
7225       </div>
7226     </div>
7227     <div class="padding"></div>
7228
7229     <div class="entry">
7230       <div class="title">
7231         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Which_module_is_loaded_for_a_given_PCI_and_USB_device_.html">Which module is loaded for a given PCI and USB device?</a>
7232       </div>
7233       <div class="date">
7234         23rd January 2011
7235       </div>
7236       <div class="body">
7237         <p>In the
7238 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/discover-data">discover-data</a>
7239 package in Debian, there is a script to report useful information
7240 about the running hardware for use when people report missing
7241 information.  One part of this script that I find very useful when
7242 debugging hardware problems, is the part mapping loaded kernel module
7243 to the PCI device it claims.  It allow me to quickly see if the kernel
7244 module I expect is driving the hardware I am struggling with.  To see
7245 the output, make sure discover-data is installed and run
7246 <tt>/usr/share/bug/discover-data 3>&1</tt>.  The relevant output on
7247 one of my machines like this:</p>
7248
7249 <pre>
7250 loaded modules:
7251 10de:03eb i2c_nforce2
7252 10de:03f1 ohci_hcd
7253 10de:03f2 ehci_hcd
7254 10de:03f0 snd_hda_intel
7255 10de:03ec pata_amd
7256 10de:03f6 sata_nv
7257 1022:1103 k8temp
7258 109e:036e bttv
7259 109e:0878 snd_bt87x
7260 11ab:4364 sky2
7261 </pre>
7262
7263 <p>The code in question look like this, slightly modified for
7264 readability and to drop the output to file descriptor 3:</p>
7265
7266 <pre>
7267 if [ -d /sys/bus/pci/devices/ ] ; then
7268     echo loaded pci modules:
7269     (
7270         cd /sys/bus/pci/devices/
7271         for address in * ; do
7272             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
7273                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
7274                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
7275                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
7276                     id=`lspci -n -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $3}'`
7277                     echo "$id $module"
7278                 fi
7279             fi
7280         done
7281     )
7282     echo
7283 fi
7284 </pre>
7285
7286 <p>Similar code could be used to extract USB device module
7287 mappings:</p>
7288
7289 <pre>
7290 if [ -d /sys/bus/usb/devices/ ] ; then
7291     echo loaded usb modules:
7292     (
7293         cd /sys/bus/usb/devices/
7294         for address in * ; do
7295             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
7296                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
7297                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
7298                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
7299                     id=$(lsusb -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $6}')
7300                     if [ "$id" ] ; then
7301                         echo "$id $module"
7302                     fi
7303                 fi
7304             fi
7305         done
7306     )
7307     echo
7308 fi
7309 </pre>
7310
7311 <p>This might perhaps be something to include in other tools as
7312 well.</p>
7313
7314       </div>
7315       <div class="tags">
7316
7317
7318         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
7319
7320
7321       </div>
7322     </div>
7323     <div class="padding"></div>
7324
7325     <div class="entry">
7326       <div class="title">
7327         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_test_if_a_laptop_is_working_with_Linux.html">How to test if a laptop is working with Linux</a>
7328       </div>
7329       <div class="date">
7330         22nd December 2010
7331       </div>
7332       <div class="body">
7333         <p>The last few days I have spent at work here at the <a
7334 href="http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo</a> testing if the new
7335 batch of computers will work with Linux.  Every year for the last few
7336 years the university have organised shared bid of a few thousand
7337 computers, and this year HP won the bid.  Two different desktops and
7338 five different laptops are on the list this year.  We in the UNIX
7339 group want to know which one of these computers work well with RHEL
7340 and Ubuntu, the two Linux distributions we currently handle at the
7341 university.</p>
7342
7343 <p>My test method is simple, and I share it here to get feedback and
7344 perhaps inspire others to test hardware as well.  To test, I PXE
7345 install the OS version of choice, and log in as my normal user and run
7346 a few applications and plug in selected pieces of hardware.  When
7347 something fail, I make a note about this in the test matrix and move
7348 on.  If I have some spare time I try to report the bug to the OS
7349 vendor, but as I only have the machines for a short time, I rarely
7350 have the time to do this for all the problems I find.</p>
7351
7352 <p>Anyway, to get to the point of this post.  Here is the simple tests
7353 I perform on a new model.</p>
7354
7355 <ul>
7356
7357 <li>Is PXE installation working?  I'm testing with RHEL6, Ubuntu Lucid
7358 and Ubuntu Maverik at the moment.  If I feel like it, I also test with
7359 RHEL5 and Debian Edu/Squeeze.</li>
7360
7361 <li>Is X.org working?  If the graphical login screen show up after
7362 installation, X.org is working.</li>
7363
7364 <li>Is hardware accelerated OpenGL working?  Running glxgears (in
7365 package mesa-utils on Ubuntu) and writing down the frames per second
7366 reported by the program.</li>
7367
7368 <li>Is sound working?  With Gnome and KDE, a sound is played when
7369 logging in, and if I can hear this the test is successful.  If there
7370 are several audio exits on the machine, I try them all and check if
7371 the Gnome/KDE audio mixer can control where to send the sound.  I
7372 normally test this by playing
7373 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20101012-chef/ ">a HTML5
7374 video</a> in Firefox/Iceweasel.</li>
7375
7376 <li>Is the USB subsystem working?  I test this by plugging in a USB
7377 memory stick and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
7378
7379 <li>Is the CD/DVD player working?  I test this by inserting any CD/DVD
7380 I have lying around, and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
7381
7382 <li>Is any built in camera working?  Test using cheese, and see if a
7383 picture from the v4l device show up.</li>
7384
7385 <li>Is bluetooth working?  Use the Gnome/KDE browsing tool to see if
7386 any bluetooth devices are discovered.  In my office, I normally see a
7387 few.</li>
7388
7389 <li>For laptops, is the SD or Compaq Flash reader working.  I have
7390 memory modules lying around, and stick them in and see if Gnome/KDE
7391 notice this.</li>
7392
7393 <li>For laptops, is suspend/hibernate working?  I'm testing if the
7394 special button work, and if the laptop continue to work after
7395 resume.</li>
7396
7397 <li>For laptops, is the extra buttons working, like audio level,
7398 adjusting background light, switching on/off external video output,
7399 switching on/off wifi, bluetooth, etc?  The set of buttons differ from
7400 laptop to laptop, so I just write down which are working and which are
7401 not.</li>
7402
7403 <li>Some laptops have smart card readers, finger print readers,
7404 acceleration sensors etc.  I rarely test these, as I do not know how
7405 to quickly test if they are working or not, so I only document their
7406 existence.</li>
7407
7408 </ul>
7409
7410 <p>By now I suspect you are really curious what the test results are
7411 for the HP machines I am testing.  I'm not done yet, so I will report
7412 the test results later.  For now I can report that HP 8100 Elite work
7413 fine, and hibernation fail with HP EliteBook 8440p on Ubuntu Lucid,
7414 and audio fail on RHEL6.  Ubuntu Maverik worked with 8440p.  As you
7415 can see, I have most machines left to test.  One interesting
7416 observation is that Ubuntu Lucid has almost twice the frame rate than
7417 RHEL6 with glxgears.  No idea why.</p>
7418
7419       </div>
7420       <div class="tags">
7421
7422
7423         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
7424
7425
7426       </div>
7427     </div>
7428     <div class="padding"></div>
7429
7430     <div class="entry">
7431       <div class="title">
7432         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Some_thoughts_on_BitCoins.html">Some thoughts on BitCoins</a>
7433       </div>
7434       <div class="date">
7435         11th December 2010
7436       </div>
7437       <div class="body">
7438         <p>As I continue to explore
7439 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>, I've starting to wonder
7440 what properties the system have, and how it will be affected by laws
7441 and regulations here in Norway.  Here are some random notes.</p>
7442
7443 <p>One interesting thing to note is that since the transactions are
7444 verified using a peer to peer network, all details about a transaction
7445 is known to everyone.  This means that if a BitCoin address has been
7446 published like I did with mine in my initial post about BitCoin, it is
7447 possible for everyone to see how many BitCoins have been transfered to
7448 that address.  There is even a web service to look at the details for
7449 all transactions.  There I can see that my address
7450 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a>
7451 have received 16.06 Bitcoin, the
7452 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3">1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3</a>
7453 address of Simon Phipps have received 181.97 BitCoin and the address
7454 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt">1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt</A>
7455 of EFF have received 2447.38 BitCoins so far.  Thank you to each and
7456 every one of you that donated bitcoins to support my activity. The
7457 fact that anyone can see how much money was transfered to a given
7458 address make it more obvious why the BitCoin community recommend to
7459 generate and hand out a new address for each transaction.  I'm told
7460 there is no way to track which addresses belong to a given person or
7461 organisation without the person or organisation revealing it
7462 themselves, as Simon, EFF and I have done.</p>
7463
7464 <p>In Norway, and in most other countries, there are laws and
7465 regulations limiting how much money one can transfer across the border
7466 without declaring it.  There are money laundering, tax and accounting
7467 laws and regulations I would expect to apply to the use of BitCoin.
7468 If the Skolelinux foundation
7469 (<a href="http://linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">SLX
7470 Debian Labs</a>) were to accept donations in BitCoin in addition to
7471 normal bank transfers like EFF is doing, how should this be accounted?
7472 Given that it is impossible to know if money can cross the border or
7473 not, should everything or nothing be declared?  What exchange rate
7474 should be used when calculating taxes?  Would receivers have to pay
7475 income tax if the foundation were to pay Skolelinux contributors in
7476 BitCoin?  I have no idea, but it would be interesting to know.</p>
7477
7478 <p>For a currency to be useful and successful, it must be trusted and
7479 accepted by a lot of users.  It must be possible to get easy access to
7480 the currency (as a wage or using currency exchanges), and it must be
7481 easy to spend it.  At the moment BitCoin seem fairly easy to get
7482 access to, but there are very few places to spend it.  I am not really
7483 a regular user of any of the vendor types currently accepting BitCoin,
7484 so I wonder when my kind of shop would start accepting BitCoins.  I
7485 would like to buy electronics, travels and subway tickets, not herbs
7486 and books. :) The currency is young, and this will improve over time
7487 if it become popular, but I suspect regular banks will start to lobby
7488 to get BitCoin declared illegal if it become popular.  I'm sure they
7489 will claim it is helping fund terrorism and money laundering (which
7490 probably would be true, as is any currency in existence), but I
7491 believe the problems should be solved elsewhere and not by blaming
7492 currencies.</p>
7493
7494 <p>The process of creating new BitCoins is called mining, and it is
7495 CPU intensive process that depend on a bit of luck as well (as one is
7496 competing against all the other miners currently spending CPU cycles
7497 to see which one get the next lump of cash).  The "winner" get 50
7498 BitCoin when this happen.  Yesterday I came across the obvious way to
7499 join forces to increase ones changes of getting at least some coins,
7500 by coordinating the work on mining BitCoins across several machines
7501 and people, and sharing the result if one is lucky and get the 50
7502 BitCoins.  Check out
7503 <a href="http://www.bluishcoder.co.nz/bitcoin-pool/">BitCoin Pool</a>
7504 if this sounds interesting.  I have not had time to try to set up a
7505 machine to participate there yet, but have seen that running on ones
7506 own for a few days have not yield any BitCoins througth mining
7507 yet.</p>
7508
7509 <p>Update 2010-12-15: Found an <a
7510 href="http://inertia.posterous.com/reply-to-the-underground-economist-why-bitcoi">interesting
7511 criticism</a> of bitcoin.  Not quite sure how valid it is, but thought
7512 it was interesting to read.  The arguments presented seem to be
7513 equally valid for gold, which was used as a currency for many years.</p>
7514
7515       </div>
7516       <div class="tags">
7517
7518
7519         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
7520
7521
7522       </div>
7523     </div>
7524     <div class="padding"></div>
7525
7526     <div class="entry">
7527       <div class="title">
7528         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Now_accepting_bitcoins___anonymous_and_distributed_p2p_crypto_money.html">Now accepting bitcoins - anonymous and distributed p2p crypto-money</a>
7529       </div>
7530       <div class="date">
7531         10th December 2010
7532       </div>
7533       <div class="body">
7534         <p>With this weeks lawless
7535 <a href="http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/06/wikileaks/index.html">governmental
7536 attacks</a> on Wikileak and
7537 <a href="http://www.salon.com/technology/dan_gillmor/2010/12/06/war_on_speech">free
7538 speech</a>, it has become obvious that PayPal, visa and mastercard can
7539 not be trusted to handle money transactions.
7540 A blog post from
7541 <a href="http://webmink.com/2010/12/06/now-accepting-bitcoin/">Simon
7542 Phipps on bitcoin</a> reminded me about a project that a friend of
7543 mine mentioned earlier.  I decided to follow Simon's example, and get
7544 involved with <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>.  I got
7545 some help from my friend to get it all running, and he even handed me
7546 some bitcoins to get started.  I even donated a few bitcoins to Simon
7547 for helping me remember BitCoin.</p>
7548
7549 <p>So, what is bitcoins, you probably wonder?  It is a digital
7550 crypto-currency, decentralised and handled using peer-to-peer
7551 networks.  It allows anonymous transactions and prohibits central
7552 control over the transactions, making it impossible for governments
7553 and companies alike to block donations and other transactions.  The
7554 source is free software, and while the key dependency wxWidgets 2.9
7555 for the graphical user interface is missing in Debian, the command
7556 line client builds just fine.  Hopefully Jonas
7557 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/578157">will get the package into
7558 Debian</a> soon.</p>
7559
7560 <p>Bitcoins can be converted to other currencies, like USD and EUR.
7561 There are <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/trade">companies accepting
7562 bitcoins</a> when selling services and goods, and there are even
7563 currency "stock" markets where the exchange rate is decided.  There
7564 are not many users so far, but the concept seems promising.  If you
7565 want to get started and lack a friend with any bitcoins to spare,
7566 you can even get
7567 <a href="https://freebitcoins.appspot.com/">some for free</a> (0.05
7568 bitcoin at the time of writing).  Use
7569 <a href="http://www.bitcoinwatch.com/">BitcoinWatch</a> to keep an eye
7570 on the current exchange rates.</p>
7571
7572 <p>As an experiment, I have decided to set up bitcoind on one of my
7573 machines.  If you want to support my activity, please send Bitcoin
7574 donations to the address
7575 <b>15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</b>.  Thank you!</p>
7576
7577       </div>
7578       <div class="tags">
7579
7580
7581         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
7582
7583
7584       </div>
7585     </div>
7586     <div class="padding"></div>
7587
7588     <div class="entry">
7589       <div class="title">
7590         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_isn_t_Debian_Edu_using_VLC_.html">Why isn't Debian Edu using VLC?</a>
7591       </div>
7592       <div class="date">
7593         27th November 2010
7594       </div>
7595       <div class="body">
7596         <p>In the latest issue of Linux Journal, the readers choices were
7597 presented, and the winner among the multimedia player were VLC.
7598 Personally, I like VLC, and it is my player of choice when I first try
7599 to play a video file or stream.  Only if VLC fail will I drag out
7600 gmplayer to see if it can do better.  The reason is mostly the failure
7601 model and trust.  When VLC fail, it normally pop up a error message
7602 reporting the problem.  When mplayer fail, it normally segfault or
7603 just hangs.  The latter failure mode drain my trust in the program.<p>
7604
7605 <p>But even if VLC is my player of choice, we have choosen to use
7606 mplayer in <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
7607 Edu/Skolelinux</a>.  The reason is simple.  We need a good browser
7608 plugin to play web videos seamlessly, and the VLC browser plugin is
7609 not very good.  For example, it lack in-line control buttons, so there
7610 is no way for the user to pause the video.  Also, when I
7611 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">last
7612 tested the browser plugins</a> available in Debian, the VLC plugin
7613 failed on several video pages where mplayer based plugins worked.  If
7614 the browser plugin for VLC was as good as the gecko-mediaplayer
7615 package (which uses mplayer), we would switch.</P>
7616
7617 <p>While VLC is a good player, its user interface is slightly
7618 annoying.  The most annoying feature is its inconsistent use of
7619 keyboard shortcuts.  When the player is in full screen mode, its
7620 shortcuts are different from when it is playing the video in a window.
7621 For example, space only work as pause when in full screen mode.  I
7622 wish it had consisten shortcuts and that space also would work when in
7623 window mode.  Another nice shortcut in gmplayer is [enter] to restart
7624 the current video.  It is very nice when playing short videos from the
7625 web and want to restart it when new people arrive to have a look at
7626 what is going on.</p>
7627
7628       </div>
7629       <div class="tags">
7630
7631
7632         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
7633
7634
7635       </div>
7636     </div>
7637     <div class="padding"></div>
7638
7639     <div class="entry">
7640       <div class="title">
7641         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lenny__Squeeze_upgrades_of_the_Gnome_and_KDE_desktop__now_with_apt_get_autoremove.html">Lenny->Squeeze upgrades of the Gnome and KDE desktop, now with apt-get autoremove</a>
7642       </div>
7643       <div class="date">
7644         22nd November 2010
7645       </div>
7646       <div class="body">
7647         <p>Michael Biebl suggested to me on IRC, that I changed my automated
7648 upgrade testing of the
7649 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
7650 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a> to do <tt>apt-get autoremove</tt> when using apt-get.
7651 This seem like a very good idea, so I adjusted by test scripts and
7652 can now present the updated result from today:</p>
7653
7654 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
7655
7656 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
7657
7658 <blockquote><p>
7659   apache2.2-bin
7660   aptdaemon
7661   baobab
7662   binfmt-support
7663   browser-plugin-gnash
7664   cheese-common
7665   cli-common
7666   cups-pk-helper
7667   dmz-cursor-theme
7668   empathy
7669   empathy-common
7670   freedesktop-sound-theme
7671   freeglut3
7672   gconf-defaults-service
7673   gdm-themes
7674   gedit-plugins
7675   geoclue
7676   geoclue-hostip
7677   geoclue-localnet
7678   geoclue-manual
7679   geoclue-yahoo
7680   gnash
7681   gnash-common
7682   gnome
7683   gnome-backgrounds
7684   gnome-cards-data
7685   gnome-codec-install
7686   gnome-core
7687   gnome-desktop-environment
7688   gnome-disk-utility
7689   gnome-screenshot
7690   gnome-search-tool
7691   gnome-session-canberra
7692   gnome-system-log
7693   gnome-themes-extras
7694   gnome-themes-more
7695   gnome-user-share
7696   gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
7697   gstreamer0.10-tools
7698   gtk2-engines
7699   gtk2-engines-pixbuf
7700   gtk2-engines-smooth
7701   hamster-applet
7702   libapache2-mod-dnssd
7703   libapr1
7704   libaprutil1
7705   libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3
7706   libaprutil1-ldap
7707   libart2.0-cil
7708   libboost-date-time1.42.0
7709   libboost-python1.42.0
7710   libboost-thread1.42.0
7711   libchamplain-0.4-0
7712   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0
7713   libcheese-gtk18
7714   libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
7715   libcryptui0
7716   libdiscid0
7717   libelf1
7718   libepc-1.0-2
7719   libepc-common
7720   libepc-ui-1.0-2
7721   libfreerdp-plugins-standard
7722   libfreerdp0
7723   libgconf2.0-cil
7724   libgdata-common
7725   libgdata7
7726   libgdu-gtk0
7727   libgee2
7728   libgeoclue0
7729   libgexiv2-0
7730   libgif4
7731   libglade2.0-cil
7732   libglib2.0-cil
7733   libgmime2.4-cil
7734   libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
7735   libgnome2.24-cil
7736   libgnomepanel2.24-cil
7737   libgpod-common
7738   libgpod4
7739   libgtk2.0-cil
7740   libgtkglext1
7741   libgtksourceview2.0-common
7742   libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
7743   libmono-addins0.2-cil
7744   libmono-cairo2.0-cil
7745   libmono-corlib2.0-cil
7746   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil
7747   libmono-posix2.0-cil
7748   libmono-security2.0-cil
7749   libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
7750   libmono-system2.0-cil
7751   libmtp8
7752   libmusicbrainz3-6
7753   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil
7754   libndesk-dbus1.0-cil
7755   libopal3.6.8
7756   libpolkit-gtk-1-0
7757   libpt2.6.7
7758   libpython2.6
7759   librpm1
7760   librpmio1
7761   libsdl1.2debian
7762   libsrtp0
7763   libssh-4
7764   libtelepathy-farsight0
7765   libtelepathy-glib0
7766   libtidy-0.99-0
7767   media-player-info
7768   mesa-utils
7769   mono-2.0-gac
7770   mono-gac
7771   mono-runtime
7772   nautilus-sendto
7773   nautilus-sendto-empathy
7774   p7zip-full
7775   pkg-config
7776   python-aptdaemon
7777   python-aptdaemon-gtk
7778   python-axiom
7779   python-beautifulsoup
7780   python-bugbuddy
7781   python-clientform
7782   python-coherence
7783   python-configobj
7784   python-crypto
7785   python-cupshelpers
7786   python-elementtree
7787   python-epsilon
7788   python-evolution
7789   python-feedparser
7790   python-gdata
7791   python-gdbm
7792   python-gst0.10
7793   python-gtkglext1
7794   python-gtksourceview2
7795   python-httplib2
7796   python-louie
7797   python-mako
7798   python-markupsafe
7799   python-mechanize
7800   python-nevow
7801   python-notify
7802   python-opengl
7803   python-openssl
7804   python-pam
7805   python-pkg-resources
7806   python-pyasn1
7807   python-pysqlite2
7808   python-rdflib
7809   python-serial
7810   python-tagpy
7811   python-twisted-bin
7812   python-twisted-conch
7813   python-twisted-core
7814   python-twisted-web
7815   python-utidylib
7816   python-webkit
7817   python-xdg
7818   python-zope.interface
7819   remmina
7820   remmina-plugin-data
7821   remmina-plugin-rdp
7822   remmina-plugin-vnc
7823   rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
7824   rhythmbox-plugins
7825   rpm-common
7826   rpm2cpio
7827   seahorse-plugins
7828   shotwell
7829   software-center
7830   system-config-printer-udev
7831   telepathy-gabble
7832   telepathy-mission-control-5
7833   telepathy-salut
7834   tomboy
7835   totem
7836   totem-coherence
7837   totem-mozilla
7838   totem-plugins
7839   transmission-common
7840   xdg-user-dirs
7841   xdg-user-dirs-gtk
7842   xserver-xephyr
7843 </p></blockquote>
7844
7845 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
7846
7847 <blockquote><p>
7848   cheese
7849   ekiga
7850   eog
7851   epiphany-extensions
7852   evolution-exchange
7853   fast-user-switch-applet
7854   file-roller
7855   gcalctool
7856   gconf-editor
7857   gdm
7858   gedit
7859   gedit-common
7860   gnome-games
7861   gnome-games-data
7862   gnome-nettool
7863   gnome-system-tools
7864   gnome-themes
7865   gnuchess
7866   gucharmap
7867   guile-1.8-libs
7868   libavahi-ui0
7869   libdmx1
7870   libgalago3
7871   libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
7872   libgtksourceview2.0-0
7873   liblircclient0
7874   libsdl1.2debian-alsa
7875   libspeexdsp1
7876   libsvga1
7877   rhythmbox
7878   seahorse
7879   sound-juicer
7880   system-config-printer
7881   totem-common
7882   transmission-gtk
7883   vinagre
7884   vino
7885 </p></blockquote>
7886
7887 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
7888
7889 <blockquote><p>
7890   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
7891 </p></blockquote>
7892
7893 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
7894
7895 <blockquote><p>
7896 [nothing]
7897 </p></blockquote>
7898
7899 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
7900
7901 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
7902
7903 <blockquote><p>
7904   ksmserver
7905 </p></blockquote>
7906
7907 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
7908
7909 <blockquote><p>
7910   kwin
7911   network-manager-kde
7912 </p></blockquote>
7913
7914 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
7915
7916 <blockquote><p>
7917   arts
7918   dolphin
7919   freespacenotifier
7920   google-gadgets-gst
7921   google-gadgets-xul
7922   kappfinder
7923   kcalc
7924   kcharselect
7925   kde-core
7926   kde-plasma-desktop
7927   kde-standard
7928   kde-window-manager
7929   kdeartwork
7930   kdeartwork-emoticons
7931   kdeartwork-style
7932   kdeartwork-theme-icon
7933   kdebase
7934   kdebase-apps
7935   kdebase-workspace
7936   kdebase-workspace-bin
7937   kdebase-workspace-data
7938   kdeeject
7939   kdelibs
7940   kdeplasma-addons
7941   kdeutils
7942   kdewallpapers
7943   kdf
7944   kfloppy
7945   kgpg
7946   khelpcenter4
7947   kinfocenter
7948   konq-plugins-l10n
7949   konqueror-nsplugins
7950   kscreensaver
7951   kscreensaver-xsavers
7952   ktimer
7953   kwrite
7954   libgle3
7955   libkde4-ruby1.8
7956   libkonq5
7957   libkonq5-templates
7958   libnetpbm10
7959   libplasma-ruby
7960   libplasma-ruby1.8
7961   libqt4-ruby1.8
7962   marble-data
7963   marble-plugins
7964   netpbm
7965   nuvola-icon-theme
7966   plasma-dataengines-workspace
7967   plasma-desktop
7968   plasma-desktopthemes-artwork
7969   plasma-runners-addons
7970   plasma-scriptengine-googlegadgets
7971   plasma-scriptengine-python
7972   plasma-scriptengine-qedje
7973   plasma-scriptengine-ruby
7974   plasma-scriptengine-webkit
7975   plasma-scriptengines
7976   plasma-wallpapers-addons
7977   plasma-widget-folderview
7978   plasma-widget-networkmanagement
7979   ruby
7980   sweeper
7981   update-notifier-kde
7982   xscreensaver-data-extra
7983   xscreensaver-gl
7984   xscreensaver-gl-extra
7985   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
7986 </p></blockquote>
7987
7988 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
7989
7990 <blockquote><p>
7991   ark
7992   google-gadgets-common
7993   google-gadgets-qt
7994   htdig
7995   kate
7996   kdebase-bin
7997   kdebase-data
7998   kdepasswd
7999   kfind
8000   klipper
8001   konq-plugins
8002   konqueror
8003   ksysguard
8004   ksysguardd
8005   libarchive1
8006   libcln6
8007   libeet1
8008   libeina-svn-06
8009   libggadget-1.0-0b
8010   libggadget-qt-1.0-0b
8011   libgps19
8012   libkdecorations4
8013   libkephal4
8014   libkonq4
8015   libkonqsidebarplugin4a
8016   libkscreensaver5
8017   libksgrd4
8018   libksignalplotter4
8019   libkunitconversion4
8020   libkwineffects1a
8021   libmarblewidget4
8022   libntrack-qt4-1
8023   libntrack0
8024   libplasma-geolocation-interface4
8025   libplasmaclock4a
8026   libplasmagenericshell4
8027   libprocesscore4a
8028   libprocessui4a
8029   libqalculate5
8030   libqedje0a
8031   libqtruby4shared2
8032   libqzion0a
8033   libruby1.8
8034   libscim8c2a
8035   libsmokekdecore4-3
8036   libsmokekdeui4-3
8037   libsmokekfile3
8038   libsmokekhtml3
8039   libsmokekio3
8040   libsmokeknewstuff2-3
8041   libsmokeknewstuff3-3
8042   libsmokekparts3
8043   libsmokektexteditor3
8044   libsmokekutils3
8045   libsmokenepomuk3
8046   libsmokephonon3
8047   libsmokeplasma3
8048   libsmokeqtcore4-3
8049   libsmokeqtdbus4-3
8050   libsmokeqtgui4-3
8051   libsmokeqtnetwork4-3
8052   libsmokeqtopengl4-3
8053   libsmokeqtscript4-3
8054   libsmokeqtsql4-3
8055   libsmokeqtsvg4-3
8056   libsmokeqttest4-3
8057   libsmokeqtuitools4-3
8058   libsmokeqtwebkit4-3
8059   libsmokeqtxml4-3
8060   libsmokesolid3
8061   libsmokesoprano3
8062   libtaskmanager4a
8063   libtidy-0.99-0
8064   libweather-ion4a
8065   libxklavier16
8066   libxxf86misc1
8067   okteta
8068   oxygencursors
8069   plasma-dataengines-addons
8070   plasma-scriptengine-superkaramba
8071   plasma-widget-lancelot
8072   plasma-widgets-addons
8073   plasma-widgets-workspace
8074   polkit-kde-1
8075   ruby1.8
8076   systemsettings
8077   update-notifier-common
8078 </p></blockquote>
8079
8080 <p>Running apt-get autoremove made the results using apt-get and
8081 aptitude a bit more similar, but there are still quite a lott of
8082 differences.  I have no idea what packages should be installed after
8083 the upgrade, but hope those that do can have a look.</p>
8084
8085       </div>
8086       <div class="tags">
8087
8088
8089         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
8090
8091
8092       </div>
8093     </div>
8094     <div class="padding"></div>
8095
8096     <div class="entry">
8097       <div class="title">
8098         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Migrating_Xen_virtual_machines_using_LVM_to_KVM_using_disk_images.html">Migrating Xen virtual machines using LVM to KVM using disk images</a>
8099       </div>
8100       <div class="date">
8101         22nd November 2010
8102       </div>
8103       <div class="body">
8104         <p>Most of the computers in use by the
8105 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux project</a>
8106 are virtual machines.  And they have been Xen machines running on a
8107 fairly old IBM eserver xseries 345 machine, and we wanted to migrate
8108 them to KVM on a newer Dell PowerEdge 2950 host machine.  This was a
8109 bit harder that it could have been, because we set up the Xen virtual
8110 machines to get the virtual partitions from LVM, which as far as I
8111 know is not supported by KVM.  So to migrate, we had to convert
8112 several LVM logical volumes to partitions on a virtual disk file.</p>
8113
8114 <p>I found
8115 <a href="http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM">a
8116 nice recipe</a> to do this, and wrote the following script to do the
8117 migration.  It uses qemu-img from the qemu package to make the disk
8118 image, parted to partition it, losetup and kpartx to present the disk
8119 image partions as devices, and dd to copy the data.  I NFS mounted the
8120 new servers storage area on the old server to do the migration.</p>
8121
8122 <pre>
8123 #!/bin/sh
8124
8125 # Based on
8126 # http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM
8127
8128 set -e
8129 set -x
8130
8131 if [ -z "$1" ] ; then
8132     echo "Usage: $0 &lt;hostname&gt;"
8133     exit 1
8134 else
8135     host="$1"
8136 fi
8137
8138 if [ ! -e /dev/vg_data/$host-disk ] ; then
8139     echo "error: unable to find LVM volume for $host"
8140     exit 1
8141 fi
8142
8143 # Partitions need to be a bit bigger than the LVM LVs.  not sure why.
8144 disksize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-disk | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
8145 swapsize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-swap | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
8146 totalsize=$(( ( $disksize + $swapsize ) ))
8147
8148 img=$host.img
8149 #dd if=/dev/zero of=$img bs=1M count=$(( $disksize + $swapsize ))
8150 qemu-img create $img ${totalsize}MMaking room on the Debian Edu/Sqeeze DVD
8151
8152 parted $img mklabel msdos
8153 parted $img mkpart primary linux-swap 0 $disksize
8154 parted $img mkpart primary ext2 $disksize $totalsize
8155 parted $img set 1 boot on
8156
8157 modprobe dm-mod
8158 losetup /dev/loop0 $img
8159 kpartx -a /dev/loop0
8160
8161 dd if=/dev/vg_data/$host-disk of=/dev/mapper/loop0p1 bs=1M
8162 fsck.ext3 -f /dev/mapper/loop0p1 || true
8163 mkswap /dev/mapper/loop0p2
8164
8165 kpartx -d /dev/loop0
8166 losetup -d /dev/loop0
8167 </pre>
8168
8169 <p>The script is perhaps so simple that it is not copyrightable, but
8170 if it is, it is licenced using GPL v2 or later at your discretion.</p>
8171
8172 <p>After doing this, I booted a Debian CD in rescue mode in KVM with
8173 the new disk image attached, installed grub-pc and linux-image-686 and
8174 set up grub to boot from the disk image.  After this, the KVM machines
8175 seem to work just fine.</p>
8176
8177       </div>
8178       <div class="tags">
8179
8180
8181         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
8182
8183
8184       </div>
8185     </div>
8186     <div class="padding"></div>
8187
8188     <div class="entry">
8189       <div class="title">
8190         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lenny__Squeeze_upgrades__apt_vs_aptitude_with_the_Gnome_and_KDE_desktop.html">Lenny->Squeeze upgrades, apt vs aptitude with the Gnome and KDE desktop</a>
8191       </div>
8192       <div class="date">
8193         20th November 2010
8194       </div>
8195       <div class="body">
8196         <p>I'm still running upgrade testing of the
8197 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
8198 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a>, but have not had time to spend on reporting the
8199 status.  Here is a short update based on a test I ran 20101118.</p>
8200
8201 <p>I still do not know what a correct migration should look like, so I
8202 report any differences between apt and aptitude and hope someone else
8203 can see if anything should be changed.</p>
8204
8205 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
8206
8207 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
8208
8209 <blockquote><p>
8210   apache2.2-bin aptdaemon at-spi baobab binfmt-support
8211   browser-plugin-gnash cheese-common cli-common cpp-4.3 cups-pk-helper
8212   dmz-cursor-theme empathy empathy-common finger
8213   freedesktop-sound-theme freeglut3 gconf-defaults-service gdm-themes
8214   gedit-plugins geoclue geoclue-hostip geoclue-localnet geoclue-manual
8215   geoclue-yahoo gnash gnash-common gnome gnome-backgrounds
8216   gnome-cards-data gnome-codec-install gnome-core
8217   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-disk-utility gnome-screenshot
8218   gnome-search-tool gnome-session-canberra gnome-spell
8219   gnome-system-log gnome-themes-extras gnome-themes-more
8220   gnome-user-share gs-common gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
8221   gstreamer0.10-tools gtk2-engines gtk2-engines-pixbuf
8222   gtk2-engines-smooth hal-info hamster-applet libapache2-mod-dnssd
8223   libapr1 libaprutil1 libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3 libaprutil1-ldap
8224   libart2.0-cil libatspi1.0-0 libboost-date-time1.42.0
8225   libboost-python1.42.0 libboost-thread1.42.0 libchamplain-0.4-0
8226   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0 libcheese-gtk18 libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
8227   libcryptui0 libcupsys2 libdiscid0 libeel2-data libelf1 libepc-1.0-2
8228   libepc-common libepc-ui-1.0-2 libfreerdp-plugins-standard
8229   libfreerdp0 libgail-common libgconf2.0-cil libgdata-common libgdata7
8230   libgdl-1-common libgdu-gtk0 libgee2 libgeoclue0 libgexiv2-0 libgif4
8231   libglade2.0-cil libglib2.0-cil libgmime2.4-cil libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
8232   libgnome2.24-cil libgnomepanel2.24-cil libgnomeprint2.2-data
8233   libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod-common libgpod4
8234   libgtk2.0-cil libgtkglext1 libgtksourceview-common
8235   libgtksourceview2.0-common libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
8236   libmono-addins0.2-cil libmono-cairo2.0-cil libmono-corlib2.0-cil
8237   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil libmono-posix2.0-cil
8238   libmono-security2.0-cil libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
8239   libmono-system2.0-cil libmtp8 libmusicbrainz3-6
8240   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil libndesk-dbus1.0-cil libopal3.6.8
8241   libpolkit-gtk-1-0 libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
8242   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libpt2.6.7 libpython2.6 librpm1 librpmio1
8243   libsdl1.2debian libservlet2.4-java libsrtp0 libssh-4
8244   libtelepathy-farsight0 libtelepathy-glib0 libtidy-0.99-0
8245   libxalan2-java libxerces2-java media-player-info mesa-utils
8246   mono-2.0-gac mono-gac mono-runtime nautilus-sendto
8247   nautilus-sendto-empathy openoffice.org-writer2latex
8248   openssl-blacklist p7zip p7zip-full pkg-config python-4suite-xml
8249   python-aptdaemon python-aptdaemon-gtk python-axiom
8250   python-beautifulsoup python-bugbuddy python-clientform
8251   python-coherence python-configobj python-crypto python-cupshelpers
8252   python-cupsutils python-eggtrayicon python-elementtree
8253   python-epsilon python-evolution python-feedparser python-gdata
8254   python-gdbm python-gst0.10 python-gtkglext1 python-gtkmozembed
8255   python-gtksourceview2 python-httplib2 python-louie python-mako
8256   python-markupsafe python-mechanize python-nevow python-notify
8257   python-opengl python-openssl python-pam python-pkg-resources
8258   python-pyasn1 python-pysqlite2 python-rdflib python-serial
8259   python-tagpy python-twisted-bin python-twisted-conch
8260   python-twisted-core python-twisted-web python-utidylib python-webkit
8261   python-xdg python-zope.interface remmina remmina-plugin-data
8262   remmina-plugin-rdp remmina-plugin-vnc rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
8263   rhythmbox-plugins rpm-common rpm2cpio seahorse-plugins shotwell
8264   software-center svgalibg1 system-config-printer-udev
8265   telepathy-gabble telepathy-mission-control-5 telepathy-salut tomboy
8266   totem totem-coherence totem-mozilla totem-plugins
8267   transmission-common xdg-user-dirs xdg-user-dirs-gtk xserver-xephyr
8268   zip
8269 </p></blockquote>
8270
8271 Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude
8272
8273 <blockquote><p>
8274   arj bluez-utils cheese dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop ekiga eog
8275   epiphany-extensions epiphany-gecko evolution-exchange
8276   fast-user-switch-applet file-roller gcalctool gconf-editor gdm gedit
8277   gedit-common gnome-app-install gnome-games gnome-games-data
8278   gnome-nettool gnome-system-tools gnome-themes gnome-utils
8279   gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager gnuchess gucharmap
8280   guile-1.8-libs hal libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5
8281   libavahi-ui0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7
8282   libcucul0 libcurl3 libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdmx1 libdvdread3
8283   libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1
8284   libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3 libfaad0 libgadu3
8285   libgalago3 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
8286   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
8287   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
8288   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
8289   libgtkhtml2-0 libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgtksourceview2.0-0
8290   libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
8291   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libkpathsea4 liblircclient0 libltdl3 liblwres50
8292   libmagick++10 libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmozjs1d libmpfr1ldbl libmtp7
8293   libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0
8294   libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpisock9
8295   libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8
8296   libsdl1.2debian-alsa libsensors3 libsexy2 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
8297   libspeexdsp1 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libsvga1
8298   libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0
8299   libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12
8300   libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common rhythmbox seahorse
8301   sound-juicer swfdec-gnome system-config-printer totem-common
8302   totem-gstreamer transmission-gtk vinagre vino w3c-dtd-xhtml wodim
8303 </p></blockquote>
8304
8305 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
8306
8307 <blockquote><p>
8308   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
8309 </p></blockquote>
8310
8311 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
8312
8313 <blockquote><p>
8314 [nothing]
8315 </p></blockquote>
8316
8317 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
8318
8319 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
8320
8321 <blockquote><p>
8322   autopoint bomber bovo cantor cantor-backend-kalgebra cpp-4.3 dcoprss
8323   edict espeak espeak-data eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
8324   ghostscript-x git gnome-audio gnugo granatier gs-common
8325   gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio indi kaddressbook-plugins kalgebra
8326   kalzium-data kanjidic kapman kate-plugins kblocks kbreakout kbstate
8327   kde-icons-mono kdeaccessibility kdeaddons-kfile-plugins
8328   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
8329   kdeedu kdeedu-data kdeedu-kvtml-data kdegames kdegames-card-data
8330   kdegames-mahjongg-data kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc
8331   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
8332   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdessh kdetoys kdewebdev
8333   kdiamond kdnssd kfilereplace kfourinline kgeography-data kigo
8334   killbots kiriki klettres-data kmoon kmrml knewsticker-scripts
8335   kollision kpf krosspython ksirk ksmserver ksquares kstars-data
8336   ksudoku kubrick kweather libasound2-plugins libboost-python1.42.0
8337   libcfitsio3 libconvert-binhex-perl libcrypt-ssleay-perl libdb4.6++
8338   libdjvulibre-text libdotconf1.0 liberror-perl libespeak1
8339   libfinance-quote-perl libgail-common libgsl0ldbl libhtml-parser-perl
8340   libhtml-tableextract-perl libhtml-tagset-perl libhtml-tree-perl
8341   libio-stringy-perl libkdeedu4 libkdegames5 libkiten4 libkpathsea5
8342   libkrossui4 libmailtools-perl libmime-tools-perl
8343   libnews-nntpclient-perl libopenbabel3 libportaudio2 libpulse-browse0
8344   libservlet2.4-java libspeechd2 libtiff-tools libtimedate-perl
8345   libunistring0 liburi-perl libwww-perl libxalan2-java libxerces2-java
8346   lirc luatex marble networkstatus noatun-plugins
8347   openoffice.org-writer2latex palapeli palapeli-data parley
8348   parley-data poster psutils pulseaudio pulseaudio-esound-compat
8349   pulseaudio-module-x11 pulseaudio-utils quanta-data rocs rsync
8350   speech-dispatcher step svgalibg1 texlive-binaries texlive-luatex
8351   ttf-sazanami-gothic
8352 </p></blockquote>
8353
8354 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
8355
8356 <blockquote><p>
8357   amor artsbuilder atlantik atlantikdesigner blinken bluez-utils cvs
8358   dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop imlib-base imlib11 kalzium kanagram kandy
8359   kasteroids katomic kbackgammon kbattleship kblackbox kbounce kbruch
8360   kcron kdat kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data kdeprint kdict kdvi kedit
8361   keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs kgeography kghostview
8362   kgoldrunner khangman khexedit kiconedit kig kimagemapeditor
8363   kitchensync kiten kjumpingcube klatin klettres klickety klines
8364   klinkstatus kmag kmahjongg kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmines
8365   kmousetool kmouth kmplot knetwalk kodo kolf kommander konquest kooka
8366   kpager kpat kpdf kpercentage kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler krec
8367   kregexpeditor kreversi ksame ksayit kshisen ksig ksim ksirc ksirtet
8368   ksmiletris ksnake ksokoban kspaceduel kstars ksvg ksysv kteatime
8369   ktip ktnef ktouch ktron kttsd ktuberling kturtle ktux kuickshow
8370   kverbos kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kwordquiz
8371   kworldclock kxsldbg libakode2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
8372   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
8373   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2
8374   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0
8375   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
8376   libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0 libicu38
8377   libiec61883-0 libindex0 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
8378   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1 libkdeedu3
8379   libkdegames1 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
8380   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
8381   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick10
8382   libmimelib1c2a libmodplug0c2 libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libmpfr1ldbl
8383   libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9 libpoppler-glib3
8384   libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 librss1 libsensors3
8385   libsmbios2 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90
8386   libtalloc1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 lskat
8387   mpeglib network-manager-kde noatun pmount tex-common texlive-base
8388   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended tidy
8389   ttf-dustin ttf-kochi-gothic ttf-sjfonts
8390 </p></blockquote>
8391
8392 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
8393
8394 <blockquote><p>
8395   dolphin kde-core kde-plasma-desktop kde-standard kde-window-manager
8396   kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-apps kdebase-workspace
8397   kdebase-workspace-bin kdebase-workspace-data kdeutils kscreensaver
8398   kscreensaver-xsavers libgle3 libkonq5 libkonq5-templates libnetpbm10
8399   netpbm plasma-widget-folderview plasma-widget-networkmanagement
8400   xscreensaver-data-extra xscreensaver-gl xscreensaver-gl-extra
8401   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
8402 </p></blockquote>
8403
8404 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
8405
8406 <blockquote><p>
8407   kdebase-bin konq-plugins konqueror
8408 </p></blockquote>
8409
8410       </div>
8411       <div class="tags">
8412
8413
8414         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
8415
8416
8417       </div>
8418     </div>
8419     <div class="padding"></div>
8420
8421     <div class="entry">
8422       <div class="title">
8423         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gnash_buildbot_slave_and_Debian_kfreebsd.html">Gnash buildbot slave and Debian kfreebsd</a>
8424       </div>
8425       <div class="date">
8426         20th November 2010
8427       </div>
8428       <div class="body">
8429         <p>Answering
8430 <a href="http://www.listware.net/201011/gnash-dev/67431-gnash-dev-buildbot-looking-for-slaves.html">the
8431 call from the Gnash project</a> for
8432 <a href="http://www.gnashdev.org:8010">buildbot</a> slaves to test the
8433 current source, I have set up a virtual KVM machine on the Debian
8434 Edu/Skolelinux virtualization host to test the git source on
8435 Debian/Squeeze.  I hope this can help the developers in getting new
8436 releases out more often.</p>
8437
8438 <p>As the developers want less main-stream build platforms tested to,
8439 I have considered setting up a <a
8440 href="http://www.debian.org/ports/kfreebsd-gnu/">Debian/kfreebsd</a>
8441 machine as well.  I have also considered using the kfreebsd
8442 architecture in Debian as a file server in NUUG to get access to the 5
8443 TB zfs volume we currently use to store DV video.  Because of this, I
8444 finally got around to do a test installation of Debian/Squeeze with
8445 kfreebsd.  Installation went fairly smooth, thought I noticed some
8446 visual glitches in the cdebconf dialogs (black cursor left on the
8447 screen at random locations).  Have not gotten very far with the
8448 testing.  Noticed cfdisk did not work, but fdisk did so it was not a
8449 fatal problem.  Have to spend some more time on it to see if it is
8450 useful as a file server for NUUG.  Will try to find time to set up a
8451 gnash buildbot slave on the Debian Edu/Skolelinux this weekend.</p>
8452
8453       </div>
8454       <div class="tags">
8455
8456
8457         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
8458
8459
8460       </div>
8461     </div>
8462     <div class="padding"></div>
8463
8464     <div class="entry">
8465       <div class="title">
8466         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_in_3D.html">Debian in 3D</a>
8467       </div>
8468       <div class="date">
8469          9th November 2010
8470       </div>
8471       <div class="body">
8472         <p><img src="http://thingiverse-production.s3.amazonaws.com/renders/23/e0/c4/f9/2b/debswagtdose_preview_medium.jpg"></p>
8473
8474 <p>3D printing is just great.  I just came across this Debian logo in
8475 3D linked in from
8476 <a href="http://blog.thingiverse.com/2010/11/09/participatory-branding/">the
8477 thingiverse blog</a>.</p>
8478
8479       </div>
8480       <div class="tags">
8481
8482
8483         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
8484
8485
8486       </div>
8487     </div>
8488     <div class="padding"></div>
8489
8490     <div class="entry">
8491       <div class="title">
8492         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Software_updates_2010_10_24.html">Software updates 2010-10-24</a>
8493       </div>
8494       <div class="date">
8495         24th October 2010
8496       </div>
8497       <div class="body">
8498         <p>Some updates.</p>
8499
8500 <p>My <a href="http://pledgebank.com/gnash-avm2">gnash pledge</a> to
8501 raise money for the project is going well.  The lower limit of 10
8502 signers was reached in 24 hours, and so far 13 people have signed it.
8503 More signers and more funding is most welcome, and I am really curious
8504 how far we can get before the time limit of December 24 is reached.
8505 :)</p>
8506
8507 <p>On the #gnash IRC channel on irc.freenode.net, I was just tipped
8508 about what appear to be a great code coverage tool capable of
8509 generating code coverage stats without any changes to the source code.
8510 It is called
8511 <a href="http://simonkagstrom.github.com/kcov/index.html">kcov</a>,
8512 and can be used using <tt>kcov &lt;directory&gt; &lt;binary&gt;</tt>.
8513 It is missing in Debian, but the git source built just fine in Squeeze
8514 after I installed libelf-dev, libdwarf-dev, pkg-config and
8515 libglib2.0-dev.  Failed to build in Lenny, but suspect that is
8516 solvable.  I hope kcov make it into Debian soon.</p>
8517
8518 <p>Finally found time to wrap up the release notes for <a
8519 href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2010/10/msg00002.html">a
8520 new alpha release of Debian Edu</a>, and just published the second
8521 alpha test release of the Squeeze based Debian Edu /
8522 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a>
8523 release.  Give it a try if you need a complete linux solution for your
8524 school, including central infrastructure server, workstations, thin
8525 client servers and diskless workstations.  A nice touch added
8526 yesterday is RDP support on the thin client servers, for windows
8527 clients to get a Linux desktop on request.</p>
8528
8529       </div>
8530       <div class="tags">
8531
8532
8533         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>.
8534
8535
8536       </div>
8537     </div>
8538     <div class="padding"></div>
8539
8540     <div class="entry">
8541       <div class="title">
8542         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Some_notes_on_Flash_in_Debian_and_Debian_Edu.html">Some notes on Flash in Debian and Debian Edu</a>
8543       </div>
8544       <div class="date">
8545          4th September 2010
8546       </div>
8547       <div class="body">
8548         <p>In the <a href="http://popcon.debian.org/unknown/by_vote">Debian
8549 popularity-contest numbers</a>, the adobe-flashplugin package the
8550 second most popular used package that is missing in Debian.  The sixth
8551 most popular is flashplayer-mozilla.  This is a clear indication that
8552 working flash is important for Debian users.  Around 10 percent of the
8553 users submitting data to popcon.debian.org have this package
8554 installed.</p>
8555
8556 <p>In the report written by Lars Risan in August 2008
8557 («<a href="http://wiki.skolelinux.no/Dokumentasjon/Rapporter?action=AttachFile&do=view&target=Skolelinux_i_bruk_rapport_1.0.pdf">Skolelinux
8558 i bruk – Rapport for Hurum kommune, Universitetet i Agder og
8559 stiftelsen SLX Debian Labs</a>»), one of the most important problems
8560 schools experienced with <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
8561 Edu/Skolelinux</a> was the lack of working Flash.  A lot of educational
8562 web sites require Flash to work, and lacking working Flash support in
8563 the web browser and the problems with installing it was perceived as a
8564 good reason to stay with Windows.</p>
8565
8566 <p>I once saw a funny and sad comment in a web forum, where Linux was
8567 said to be the retarded cousin that did not really understand
8568 everything you told him but could work fairly well.  This was a
8569 comment regarding the problems Linux have with proprietary formats and
8570 non-standard web pages, and is sad because it exposes a fairly common
8571 understanding of whose fault it is if web pages that only work in for
8572 example Internet Explorer 6 fail to work on Firefox, and funny because
8573 it explain very well how annoying it is for users when Linux
8574 distributions do not work with the documents they receive or the web
8575 pages they want to visit.</p>
8576
8577 <p>This is part of the reason why I believe it is important for Debian
8578 and Debian Edu to have a well working Flash implementation in the
8579 distribution, to get at least popular sites as Youtube and Google
8580 Video to working out of the box.  For Squeeze, Debian have the chance
8581 to include the latest version of Gnash that will make this happen, as
8582 the new release 0.8.8 was published a few weeks ago and is resting in
8583 unstable.  The new version work with more sites that version 0.8.7.
8584 The Gnash maintainers have asked for a freeze exception, but the
8585 release team have not had time to reply to it yet.  I hope they agree
8586 with me that Flash is important for the Debian desktop users, and thus
8587 accept the new package into Squeeze.</p>
8588
8589       </div>
8590       <div class="tags">
8591
8592
8593         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
8594
8595
8596       </div>
8597     </div>
8598     <div class="padding"></div>
8599
8600     <div class="entry">
8601       <div class="title">
8602         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Circular_package_dependencies_harms_apt_recovery.html">Circular package dependencies harms apt recovery</a>
8603       </div>
8604       <div class="date">
8605         27th July 2010
8606       </div>
8607       <div class="body">
8608         <p>I discovered this while doing
8609 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">automated
8610 testing of upgrades from Debian Lenny to Squeeze</a>.  A few packages
8611 in Debian still got circular dependencies, and it is often claimed
8612 that apt and aptitude should be able to handle this just fine, but
8613 some times these dependency loops causes apt to fail.</p>
8614
8615 <p>An example is from todays
8616 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing//test-20100727-lenny-squeeze-kde-aptitude.txt">upgrade
8617 of KDE using aptitude</a>.  In it, a bug in kdebase-workspace-data
8618 causes perl-modules to fail to upgrade.  The cause is simple.  If a
8619 package fail to unpack, then only part of packages with the circular
8620 dependency might end up being unpacked when unpacking aborts, and the
8621 ones already unpacked will fail to configure in the recovery phase
8622 because its dependencies are unavailable.</p>
8623
8624 <p>In this log, the problem manifest itself with this error:</p>
8625
8626 <blockquote><pre>
8627 dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of perl-modules:
8628  perl-modules depends on perl (>= 5.10.1-1); however:
8629   Version of perl on system is 5.10.0-19lenny2.
8630 dpkg: error processing perl-modules (--configure):
8631  dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
8632 </pre></blockquote>
8633
8634 <p>The perl/perl-modules circular dependency is already
8635 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/527917">reported as a bug</a>, and will
8636 hopefully be solved as soon as possible, but it is not the only one,
8637 and each one of these loops in the dependency tree can cause similar
8638 failures.  Of course, they only occur when there are bugs in other
8639 packages causing the unpacking to fail, but it is rather nasty when
8640 the failure of one package causes the problem to become worse because
8641 of dependency loops.</p>
8642
8643 <p>Thanks to
8644 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/06/msg00116.html">the
8645 tireless effort by Bill Allombert</a>, the number of circular
8646 dependencies
8647 <a href="http://debian.semistable.com/debgraph.out.html">left in Debian
8648 is dropping</a>, and perhaps it will reach zero one day. :)</p>
8649
8650 <p>Todays testing also exposed a bug in
8651 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590605">update-notifier</a> and
8652 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590604">different behaviour</a> between
8653 apt-get and aptitude, the latter possibly caused by some circular
8654 dependency.  Reported both to BTS to try to get someone to look at
8655 it.</p>
8656
8657       </div>
8658       <div class="tags">
8659
8660
8661         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
8662
8663
8664       </div>
8665     </div>
8666     <div class="padding"></div>
8667
8668     <div class="entry">
8669       <div class="title">
8670         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_are_they_searching_for___PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_in_LDAP.html">What are they searching for - PowerDNS and ISC DHCP in LDAP</a>
8671       </div>
8672       <div class="date">
8673         17th July 2010
8674       </div>
8675       <div class="body">
8676         <p>This is a
8677 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">followup</a>
8678 on my
8679 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Idea_for_a_change_to_LDAP_schemas_allowing_DNS_and_DHCP_info_to_be_combined_into_one_object.html">previous
8680 work</a> on
8681 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">merging
8682 all</a> the computer related LDAP objects in Debian Edu.</p>
8683
8684 <p>As a step to try to see if it possible to merge the DNS and DHCP
8685 LDAP objects, I have had a look at how the packages pdns-backend-ldap
8686 and dhcp3-server-ldap in Debian use the LDAP server.  The two
8687 implementations are quite different in how they use LDAP.</p>
8688
8689 To get this information, I started slapd with debugging enabled and
8690 dumped the debug output to a file to get the LDAP searches performed
8691 on a Debian Edu main-server.  Here is a summary.
8692
8693 <p><strong>powerdns</strong></p>
8694
8695 <a href="http://www.linuxnetworks.de/doc/index.php/PowerDNS_LDAP_Backend">Clues
8696 on how to</a> set up PowerDNS to use a LDAP backend is available on
8697 the web.
8698
8699 <p>PowerDNS have two modes of operation using LDAP as its backend.
8700 One "strict" mode where the forward and reverse DNS lookups are done
8701 using the same LDAP objects, and a "tree" mode where the forward and
8702 reverse entries are in two different subtrees in LDAP with a structure
8703 based on the DNS names, as in tjener.intern and
8704 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa.</p>
8705
8706 <p>In tree mode, the server is set up to use a LDAP subtree as its
8707 base, and uses a "base" scoped search for the DNS name by adding
8708 "dc=tjener,dc=intern," to the base with a filter for
8709 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" for the forward entry and
8710 "dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa," with a filter for
8711 "(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)" for the reverse entry.  For
8712 forward entries, it is looking for attributes named dnsttl, arecord,
8713 nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord,
8714 txtrecord, rprecord, afsdbrecord, keyrecord, aaaarecord, locrecord,
8715 srvrecord, naptrrecord, kxrecord, certrecord, dsrecord, sshfprecord,
8716 ipseckeyrecord, rrsigrecord, nsecrecord, dnskeyrecord, dhcidrecord,
8717 spfrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entries it is looking for
8718 the attributes dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord,
8719 ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord,
8720 locrecord, srvrecord, naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  The equivalent
8721 ldapsearch commands could look like this:</p>
8722
8723 <blockquote><pre>
8724 ldapsearch -h ldap \
8725   -b dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
8726   -s base -x '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
8727   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
8728   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
8729   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
8730   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
8731
8732 ldapsearch -h ldap \
8733   -b dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
8734   -s base -x '(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)'
8735   dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord soarecord ptrrecord \
8736   hinforecord mxrecord txtrecord rprecord aaaarecord locrecord \
8737   srvrecord naptrrecord modifytimestamp
8738 </pre></blockquote>
8739
8740 <p>In Debian Edu/Lenny, the PowerDNS tree mode is used with
8741 ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no as the base, and these are two
8742 example LDAP objects used there.  In addition to these objects, the
8743 parent objects all th way up to ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
8744 also exist.</p>
8745
8746 <blockquote><pre>
8747 dn: dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
8748 objectclass: top
8749 objectclass: dnsdomain
8750 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
8751 dc: tjener
8752 arecord: 10.0.2.2
8753 associateddomain: tjener.intern
8754
8755 dn: dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
8756 objectclass: top
8757 objectclass: dnsdomain2
8758 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
8759 dc: 2
8760 ptrrecord: tjener.intern
8761 associateddomain: 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa
8762 </pre></blockquote>
8763
8764 <p>In strict mode, the server behaves differently.  When looking for
8765 forward DNS entries, it is doing a "subtree" scoped search with the
8766 same base as in the tree mode for a object with filter
8767 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" and requests the attributes dnsttl,
8768 arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord,
8769 mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord, locrecord, srvrecord,
8770 naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entires it also do a
8771 subtree scoped search but this time the filter is "(arecord=10.0.2.2)"
8772 and the requested attributes are associateddomain, dnsttl and
8773 modifytimestamp.  In short, in strict mode the objects with ptrrecord
8774 go away, and the arecord attribute in the forward object is used
8775 instead.</p>
8776
8777 <p>The forward and reverse searches can be simulated using ldapsearch
8778 like this:</p>
8779
8780 <blockquote><pre>
8781 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
8782   '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
8783   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
8784   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
8785   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
8786   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
8787
8788 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
8789   '(arecord=10.0.2.2)' associateddomain dnsttl modifytimestamp
8790 </pre></blockquote>
8791
8792 <p>In addition to the forward and reverse searches , there is also a
8793 search for SOA records, which behave similar to the forward and
8794 reverse lookups.</p>
8795
8796 <p>A thing to note with the PowerDNS behaviour is that it do not
8797 specify any objectclass names, and instead look for the attributes it
8798 need to generate a DNS reply.  This make it able to work with any
8799 objectclass that provide the needed attributes.</p>
8800
8801 <p>The attributes are normally provided in the cosine (RFC 1274) and
8802 dnsdomain2 schemas.  The latter is used for reverse entries like
8803 ptrrecord and recent DNS additions like aaaarecord and srvrecord.</p>
8804
8805 <p>In Debian Edu, we have created DNS objects using the object classes
8806 dcobject (for dc), dnsdomain or dnsdomain2 (structural, for the DNS
8807 attributes) and domainrelatedobject (for associatedDomain).  The use
8808 of structural object classes make it impossible to combine these
8809 classes with the object classes used by DHCP.</p>
8810
8811 <p>There are other schemas that could be used too, for example the
8812 dnszone structural object class used by Gosa and bind-sdb for the DNS
8813 attributes combined with the domainrelatedobject object class, but in
8814 this case some unused attributes would have to be included as well
8815 (zonename and relativedomainname).</p>
8816
8817 <p>My proposal for Debian Edu would be to switch PowerDNS to strict
8818 mode and not use any of the existing objectclasses (dnsdomain,
8819 dnsdomain2 and dnszone) when one want to combine the DNS information
8820 with DHCP information, and instead create a auxiliary object class
8821 defined something like this (using the attributes defined for
8822 dnsdomain and dnsdomain2 or dnszone):</p>
8823
8824 <blockquote><pre>
8825 objectclass ( some-oid NAME 'dnsDomainAux'
8826     SUP top
8827     AUXILIARY
8828     MAY ( ARecord $ MDRecord $ MXRecord $ NSRecord $ SOARecord $ CNAMERecord $
8829           DNSTTL $ DNSClass $ PTRRecord $ HINFORecord $ MINFORecord $
8830           TXTRecord $ SIGRecord $ KEYRecord $ AAAARecord $ LOCRecord $
8831           NXTRecord $ SRVRecord $ NAPTRRecord $ KXRecord $ CERTRecord $
8832           A6Record $ DNAMERecord
8833     ))
8834 </pre></blockquote>
8835
8836 <p>This will allow any object to become a DNS entry when combined with
8837 the domainrelatedobject object class, and allow any entity to include
8838 all the attributes PowerDNS wants.  I've sent an email to the PowerDNS
8839 developers asking for their view on this schema and if they are
8840 interested in providing such schema with PowerDNS, and I hope my
8841 message will be accepted into their mailing list soon.</p>
8842
8843 <p><strong>ISC dhcp</strong></p>
8844
8845 <p>The DHCP server searches for specific objectclass and requests all
8846 the object attributes, and then uses the attributes it want.  This
8847 make it harder to figure out exactly what attributes are used, but
8848 thanks to the working example in Debian Edu I can at least get an idea
8849 what is needed without having to read the source code.</p>
8850
8851 <p>In the DHCP server configuration, the LDAP base to use and the
8852 search filter to use to locate the correct dhcpServer entity is
8853 stored.  These are the relevant entries from
8854 /etc/dhcp3/dhcpd.conf:</p>
8855
8856 <blockquote><pre>
8857 ldap-base-dn "dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no";
8858 ldap-dhcp-server-cn "dhcp";
8859 </pre></blockquote>
8860
8861 <p>The DHCP server uses this information to nest all the DHCP
8862 configuration it need.  The cn "dhcp" is located using the given LDAP
8863 base and the filter "(&(objectClass=dhcpServer)(cn=dhcp))".  The
8864 search result is this entry:</p>
8865
8866 <blockquote><pre>
8867 dn: cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
8868 cn: dhcp
8869 objectClass: top
8870 objectClass: dhcpServer
8871 dhcpServiceDN: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
8872 </pre></blockquote>
8873
8874 <p>The content of the dhcpServiceDN attribute is next used to locate the
8875 subtree with DHCP configuration.  The DHCP configuration subtree base
8876 is located using a base scope search with base "cn=DHCP
8877 Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" and filter
8878 "(&(objectClass=dhcpService)(|(dhcpPrimaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)(dhcpSecondaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)))".
8879 The search result is this entry:</p>
8880
8881 <blockquote><pre>
8882 dn: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
8883 cn: DHCP Config
8884 objectClass: top
8885 objectClass: dhcpService
8886 objectClass: dhcpOptions
8887 dhcpPrimaryDN: cn=dhcp, dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
8888 dhcpStatements: ddns-update-style none
8889 dhcpStatements: authoritative
8890 dhcpOption: smtp-server code 69 = array of ip-address
8891 dhcpOption: www-server code 72 = array of ip-address
8892 dhcpOption: wpad-url code 252 = text
8893 </pre></blockquote>
8894
8895 <p>Next, the entire subtree is processed, one level at the time.  When
8896 all the DHCP configuration is loaded, it is ready to receive requests.
8897 The subtree in Debian Edu contain objects with object classes
8898 top/dhcpService/dhcpOptions, top/dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions,
8899 top/dhcpSubnet, top/dhcpGroup and top/dhcpHost.  These provide options
8900 and information about netmasks, dynamic range etc.  Leaving out the
8901 details here because it is not relevant for the focus of my
8902 investigation, which is to see if it is possible to merge dns and dhcp
8903 related computer objects.</p>
8904
8905 <p>When a DHCP request come in, LDAP is searched for the MAC address
8906 of the client (00:00:00:00:00:00 in this example), using a subtree
8907 scoped search with "cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" as
8908 the base and "(&(objectClass=dhcpHost)(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet
8909 00:00:00:00:00:00))" as the filter.  This is what a host object look
8910 like:</p>
8911
8912 <blockquote><pre>
8913 dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
8914 cn: hostname
8915 objectClass: top
8916 objectClass: dhcpHost
8917 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
8918 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname
8919 </pre></blockquote>
8920
8921 <p>There is less flexiblity in the way LDAP searches are done here.
8922 The object classes need to have fixed names, and the configuration
8923 need to be stored in a fairly specific LDAP structure.  On the
8924 positive side, the invidiual dhcpHost entires can be anywhere without
8925 the DN pointed to by the dhcpServer entries.  The latter should make
8926 it possible to group all host entries in a subtree next to the
8927 configuration entries, and this subtree can also be shared with the
8928 DNS server if the schema proposed above is combined with the dhcpHost
8929 structural object class.
8930
8931 <p><strong>Conclusion</strong></p>
8932
8933 <p>The PowerDNS implementation seem to be very flexible when it come
8934 to which LDAP schemas to use.  While its "tree" mode is rigid when it
8935 come to the the LDAP structure, the "strict" mode is very flexible,
8936 allowing DNS objects to be stored anywhere under the base cn specified
8937 in the configuration.</p>
8938
8939 <p>The DHCP implementation on the other hand is very inflexible, both
8940 regarding which LDAP schemas to use and which LDAP structure to use.
8941 I guess one could implement ones own schema, as long as the
8942 objectclasses and attributes have the names used, but this do not
8943 really help when the DHCP subtree need to have a fairly fixed
8944 structure.</p>
8945
8946 <p>Based on the observed behaviour, I suspect a LDAP structure like
8947 this might work for Debian Edu:</p>
8948
8949 <blockquote><pre>
8950 ou=services
8951   cn=machine-info (dhcpService) - dhcpServiceDN points here
8952     cn=dhcp (dhcpServer)
8953     cn=dhcp-internal (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
8954       cn=10.0.2.0 (dhcpSubnet)
8955         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
8956     cn=dhcp-thinclients (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
8957       cn=192.168.0.0 (dhcpSubnet)
8958         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
8959     ou=machines - PowerDNS base points here
8960       cn=hostname (dhcpHost/domainrelatedobject/dnsDomainAux)
8961 </pre></blockquote>
8962
8963 <P>This is not tested yet.  If the DHCP server require the dhcpHost
8964 entries to be in the dhcpGroup subtrees, the entries can be stored
8965 there instead of a common machines subtree, and the PowerDNS base
8966 would have to be moved one level up to the machine-info subtree.</p>
8967
8968 <p>The combined object under the machines subtree would look something
8969 like this:</p>
8970
8971 <blockquote><pre>
8972 dn: dc=hostname,ou=machines,cn=machine-info,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
8973 dc: hostname
8974 objectClass: top
8975 objectClass: dhcpHost
8976 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
8977 objectclass: dnsDomainAux
8978 associateddomain: hostname.intern
8979 arecord: 10.11.12.13
8980 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
8981 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname.intern
8982 </pre></blockquote>
8983
8984 </p>One could even add the LTSP configuration associated with a given
8985 machine, as long as the required attributes are available in a
8986 auxiliary object class.</p>
8987
8988       </div>
8989       <div class="tags">
8990
8991
8992         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
8993
8994
8995       </div>
8996     </div>
8997     <div class="padding"></div>
8998
8999     <div class="entry">
9000       <div class="title">
9001         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">Combining PowerDNS and ISC DHCP LDAP objects</a>
9002       </div>
9003       <div class="date">
9004         14th July 2010
9005       </div>
9006       <div class="body">
9007         <p>For a while now, I have wanted to find a way to change the DNS and
9008 DHCP services in Debian Edu to use the same LDAP objects for a given
9009 computer, to avoid the possibility of having a inconsistent state for
9010 a computer in LDAP (as in DHCP but no DNS entry or the other way
9011 around) and make it easier to add computers to LDAP.</p>
9012
9013 <p>I've looked at how powerdns and dhcpd is using LDAP, and using this
9014 information finally found a solution that seem to work.</p>
9015
9016 <p>The old setup required three LDAP objects for a given computer.
9017 One forward DNS entry, one reverse DNS entry and one DHCP entry.  If
9018 we switch powerdns to use its strict LDAP method (ldap-method=strict
9019 in pdns-debian-edu.conf), the forward and reverse DNS entries are
9020 merged into one while making it impossible to transfer the reverse map
9021 to a slave DNS server.</p>
9022
9023 <p>If we also replace the object class used to get the DNS related
9024 attributes to one allowing these attributes to be combined with the
9025 dhcphost object class, we can merge the DNS and DHCP entries into one.
9026 I've written such object class in the dnsdomainaux.schema file (need
9027 proper OIDs, but that is a minor issue), and tested the setup.  It
9028 seem to work.</p>
9029
9030 <p>With this test setup in place, we can get away with one LDAP object
9031 for both DNS and DHCP, and even the LTSP configuration I suggested in
9032 an earlier email.  The combined LDAP object will look something like
9033 this:</p>
9034
9035 <blockquote><pre>
9036   dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
9037   cn: hostname
9038   objectClass: dhcphost
9039   objectclass: domainrelatedobject
9040   objectclass: dnsdomainaux
9041   associateddomain: hostname.intern
9042   arecord: 10.11.12.13
9043   dhcphwaddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
9044   dhcpstatements: fixed-address hostname
9045   ldapconfigsound: Y
9046 </pre></blockquote>
9047
9048 <p>The DNS server uses the associateddomain and arecord entries, while
9049 the DHCP server uses the dhcphwaddress and dhcpstatements entries
9050 before asking DNS to resolve the fixed-adddress.  LTSP will use
9051 dhcphwaddress or associateddomain and the ldapconfig* attributes.</p>
9052
9053 <p>I am not yet sure if I can get the DHCP server to look for its
9054 dhcphost in a different location, to allow us to put the objects
9055 outside the "DHCP Config" subtree, but hope to figure out a way to do
9056 that.  If I can't figure out a way to do that, we can still get rid of
9057 the hosts subtree and move all its content into the DHCP Config tree
9058 (which probably should be renamed to be more related to the new
9059 content.  I suspect cn=dnsdhcp,ou=services or something like that
9060 might be a good place to put it.</p>
9061
9062 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
9063 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
9064
9065       </div>
9066       <div class="tags">
9067
9068
9069         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
9070
9071
9072       </div>
9073     </div>
9074     <div class="padding"></div>
9075
9076     <div class="entry">
9077       <div class="title">
9078         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Idea_for_storing_LTSP_configuration_in_LDAP.html">Idea for storing LTSP configuration in LDAP</a>
9079       </div>
9080       <div class="date">
9081         11th July 2010
9082       </div>
9083       <div class="body">
9084         <p>Vagrant mentioned on IRC today that ltsp_config now support
9085 sourcing files from /usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ on the thin
9086 clients, and that this can be used to fetch configuration from LDAP if
9087 Debian Edu choose to store configuration there.</p>
9088
9089 <p>Armed with this information, I got inspired and wrote a test module
9090 to get configuration from LDAP.  The idea is to look up the MAC
9091 address of the client in LDAP, and look for attributes on the form
9092 ltspconfigsetting=value, and use this to export SETTING=value to the
9093 LTSP clients.</p>
9094
9095 <p>The goal is to be able to store the LTSP configuration attributes
9096 in a "computer" LDAP object used by both DNS and DHCP, and thus
9097 allowing us to store all information about a computer in one place.</p>
9098
9099 <p>This is a untested draft implementation, and I welcome feedback on
9100 this approach.  A real LDAP schema for the ltspClientAux objectclass
9101 need to be written.  Comments, suggestions, etc?</p>
9102
9103 <blockquote><pre>
9104 # Store in /opt/ltsp/$arch/usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ldap-config
9105 #
9106 # Fetch LTSP client settings from LDAP based on MAC address
9107 #
9108 # Uses ethernet address as stored in the dhcpHost objectclass using
9109 # the dhcpHWAddress attribute or ethernet address stored in the
9110 # ieee802Device objectclass with the macAddress attribute.
9111 #
9112 # This module is written to be schema agnostic, and only depend on the
9113 # existence of attribute names.
9114 #
9115 # The LTSP configuration variables are saved directly using a
9116 # ltspConfig prefix and uppercasing the rest of the attribute name.
9117 # To set the SERVER variable, set the ltspConfigServer attribute.
9118 #
9119 # Some LDAP schema should be created with all the relevant
9120 # configuration settings.  Something like this should work:
9121 #
9122 # objectclass ( 1.1.2.2 NAME 'ltspClientAux'
9123 #     SUP top
9124 #     AUXILIARY
9125 #     MAY ( ltspConfigServer $ ltsConfigSound $ ... )
9126
9127 LDAPSERVER=$(debian-edu-ldapserver)
9128 if [ "$LDAPSERVER" ] ; then
9129     LDAPBASE=$(debian-edu-ldapserver -b)
9130     for MAC in $(LANG=C ifconfig |grep -i hwaddr| awk '{print $5}'|sort -u) ; do
9131         filter="(|(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet $MAC)(macAddress=$MAC))"
9132         ldapsearch -h "$LDAPSERVER" -b "$LDAPBASE" -v -x "$filter" | \
9133             grep '^ltspConfig' | while read attr value ; do
9134             # Remove prefix and convert to upper case
9135             attr=$(echo $attr | sed 's/^ltspConfig//i' | tr a-z A-Z)
9136             # bass value on to clients
9137             eval "$attr=$value; export $attr"
9138         done
9139     done
9140 fi
9141 </pre></blockquote>
9142
9143 <p>I'm not sure this shell construction will work, because I suspect
9144 the while block might end up in a subshell causing the variables set
9145 there to not show up in ltsp-config, but if that is the case I am sure
9146 the code can be restructured to make sure the variables are passed on.
9147 I expect that can be solved with some testing. :)</p>
9148
9149 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
9150 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
9151
9152 <p>Update 2010-07-17: I am aware of another effort to store LTSP
9153 configuration in LDAP that was created around year 2000 by
9154 <a href="http://www.pcxperience.com/thinclient/documentation/ldap.html">PC
9155 Xperience, Inc., 2000</a>.  I found its
9156 <a href="http://people.redhat.com/alikins/ltsp/ldap/">files</a> on a
9157 personal home page over at redhat.com.</p>
9158
9159       </div>
9160       <div class="tags">
9161
9162
9163         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
9164
9165
9166       </div>
9167     </div>
9168     <div class="padding"></div>
9169
9170     <div class="entry">
9171       <div class="title">
9172         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/jXplorer__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">jXplorer, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
9173       </div>
9174       <div class="date">
9175          9th July 2010
9176       </div>
9177       <div class="body">
9178         <p>Since
9179 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">my
9180 last post</a> about available LDAP tools in Debian, I was told about a
9181 LDAP GUI that is even better than luma.  The java application
9182 <a href="http://jxplorer.org/">jXplorer</a> is claimed to be capable of
9183 moving LDAP objects and subtrees using drag-and-drop, and can
9184 authenticate using Kerberos.  I have only tested the Kerberos
9185 authentication, but do not have a LDAP setup allowing me to rewrite
9186 LDAP with my test user yet.  It is
9187 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/j/jxplorer.html">available in
9188 Debian</a> testing and unstable at the moment.  The only problem I
9189 have with it is how it handle errors.  If something go wrong, its
9190 non-intuitive behaviour require me to go through some query work list
9191 and remove the failing query.  Nothing big, but very annoying.</p>
9192
9193       </div>
9194       <div class="tags">
9195
9196
9197         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
9198
9199
9200       </div>
9201     </div>
9202     <div class="padding"></div>
9203
9204     <div class="entry">
9205       <div class="title">
9206         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lenny__Squeeze_upgrades__apt_vs_aptitude_with_the_Gnome_desktop.html">Lenny->Squeeze upgrades, apt vs aptitude with the Gnome desktop</a>
9207       </div>
9208       <div class="date">
9209          3rd July 2010
9210       </div>
9211       <div class="body">
9212         <p>Here is a short update on my <a
9213 href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">my
9214 Debian Lenny->Squeeze upgrade testing</a>.  Here is a summary of the
9215 difference for Gnome when it is upgraded by apt-get and aptitude.  I'm
9216 not reporting the status for KDE, because the upgrade crashes when
9217 aptitude try because of missing conflicts
9218 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> and
9219 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585716">#585716</a>).</p>
9220
9221 <p>At the end of the upgrade test script, dpkg -l is executed to get a
9222 complete list of the installed packages.  Based on this I see these
9223 differences when I did a test run today.  As usual, I do not really
9224 know what the correct set of packages would be, but thought it best to
9225 publish the difference.</p>
9226
9227 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
9228
9229 <blockquote><p>
9230   at-spi cpp-4.3 finger gnome-spell gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
9231   libatspi1.0-0 libcupsys2 libeel2-data libgail-common libgdl-1-common
9232   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin
9233   libgtksourceview-common libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
9234   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libservlet2.4-java libxalan2-java
9235   libxerces2-java openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
9236   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gtkhtml2
9237   python-gtkmozembed svgalibg1 xserver-xephyr zip
9238 </p></blockquote>
9239
9240 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
9241
9242 <blockquote><p>
9243   bluez-utils dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop epiphany-gecko
9244   gnome-app-install gnome-mount gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager
9245   libao2 libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libbind9-50
9246   libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcurl3
9247   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9
9248   libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3
9249   libfaad0 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
9250   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
9251   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
9252   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
9253   libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50
9254   libisccfg50 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick++10
9255   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4
9256   libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5
9257   libparted1.8-10 libpisock9 libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3
9258   libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8 libsensors3 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
9259   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1
9260   libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0 libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj
9261   libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3
9262   mysql-common swfdec-gnome totem-gstreamer wodim
9263 </p></blockquote>
9264
9265 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
9266
9267 <blockquote><p>
9268   gnome gnome-desktop-environment hamster-applet python-gnomeapplet
9269   python-gnomekeyring python-wnck rhythmbox-plugins xorg
9270   xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
9271   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
9272   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-video-all
9273   xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark xserver-xorg-video-ati
9274   xserver-xorg-video-chips xserver-xorg-video-cirrus
9275   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
9276   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
9277   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-mach64
9278   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
9279   xserver-xorg-video-nouveau xserver-xorg-video-nv
9280   xserver-xorg-video-r128 xserver-xorg-video-radeon
9281   xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd xserver-xorg-video-rendition
9282   xserver-xorg-video-s3 xserver-xorg-video-s3virge
9283   xserver-xorg-video-savage xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion
9284   xserver-xorg-video-sis xserver-xorg-video-sisusb
9285   xserver-xorg-video-tdfx xserver-xorg-video-tga
9286   xserver-xorg-video-trident xserver-xorg-video-tseng
9287   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vmware
9288   xserver-xorg-video-voodoo
9289 </p></blockquote>
9290
9291 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
9292
9293 <blockquote><p>
9294   deskbar-applet xserver-xorg xserver-xorg-core
9295   xserver-xorg-input-wacom xserver-xorg-video-intel
9296   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome
9297 </p></blockquote>
9298
9299 <p>I was told on IRC that the xorg-xserver package was
9300 <a href="http://git.debian.org/?p=pkg-xorg/xserver/xorg-server.git;a=commit;h=9c8080d06c457932d3bfec021c69ac000aa60120">changed
9301 in git</a> today to try to get apt-get to not remove xorg completely.
9302 No idea when it hits Squeeze, but when it does I hope it will reduce
9303 the difference somewhat.
9304
9305       </div>
9306       <div class="tags">
9307
9308
9309         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
9310
9311
9312       </div>
9313     </div>
9314     <div class="padding"></div>
9315
9316     <div class="entry">
9317       <div class="title">
9318         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">LUMA, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
9319       </div>
9320       <div class="date">
9321         28th June 2010
9322       </div>
9323       <div class="body">
9324         <p>The last few days I have been looking into the status of the LDAP
9325 directory in Debian Edu, and in the process I started to miss a GUI
9326 tool to browse the LDAP tree.  The only one I was able to find in
9327 Debian/Squeeze and Lenny is
9328 <a href="http://luma.sourceforge.net/">LUMA</a>, which has proved to
9329 be a great tool to get a overview of the current LDAP directory
9330 populated by default in Skolelinux.  Thanks to it, I have been able to
9331 find empty and obsolete subtrees, misplaced objects and duplicate
9332 objects.  It will be installed by default in Debian/Squeeze.  If you
9333 are working with LDAP, give it a go. :)</p>
9334
9335 <p>I did notice one problem with it I have not had time to report to
9336 the BTS yet.  There is no .desktop file in the package, so the tool do
9337 not show up in the Gnome and KDE menus, but only deep down in in the
9338 Debian submenu in KDE.  I hope that can be fixed before Squeeze is
9339 released.</p>
9340
9341 <p>I have not yet been able to get it to modify the tree yet.  I would
9342 like to move objects and remove subtrees directly in the GUI, but have
9343 not found a way to do that with LUMA yet.  So in the mean time, I use
9344 <a href="http://www.lichteblau.com/ldapvi/">ldapvi</a> for that.</p>
9345
9346 <p>If you have tips on other GUI tools for LDAP that might be useful
9347 in Debian Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
9348
9349 <p>Update 2010-06-29: Ross Reedstrom tipped us about the
9350 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/g/gq.html">gq</a> package as a
9351 useful GUI alternative.  It seem like a good tool, but is unmaintained
9352 in Debian and got a RC bug keeping it out of Squeeze.  Unless that
9353 changes, it will not be an option for Debian Edu based on Squeeze.</p>
9354
9355       </div>
9356       <div class="tags">
9357
9358
9359         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
9360
9361
9362       </div>
9363     </div>
9364     <div class="padding"></div>
9365
9366     <div class="entry">
9367       <div class="title">
9368         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Idea_for_a_change_to_LDAP_schemas_allowing_DNS_and_DHCP_info_to_be_combined_into_one_object.html">Idea for a change to LDAP schemas allowing DNS and DHCP info to be combined into one object</a>
9369       </div>
9370       <div class="date">
9371         24th June 2010
9372       </div>
9373       <div class="body">
9374         <p>A while back, I
9375 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">complained
9376 about the fact</a> that it is not possible with the provided schemas
9377 for storing DNS and DHCP information in LDAP to combine the two sets
9378 of information into one LDAP object representing a computer.</p>
9379
9380 <p>In the mean time, I discovered that a simple fix would be to make
9381 the dhcpHost object class auxiliary, to allow it to be combined with
9382 the dNSDomain object class, and thus forming one object for one
9383 computer when storing both DHCP and DNS information in LDAP.</p>
9384
9385 <p>If I understand this correctly, it is not safe to do this change
9386 without also changing the assigned number for the object class, and I
9387 do not know enough about LDAP schema design to do that properly for
9388 Debian Edu.</p>
9389
9390 <p>Anyway, for future reference, this is how I believe we could change
9391 the
9392 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-dhc-ldap-schema-00">DHCP
9393 schema</a> to solve at least part of the problem with the LDAP schemas
9394 available today from IETF.</p>
9395
9396 <pre>
9397 --- dhcp.schema    (revision 65192)
9398 +++ dhcp.schema    (working copy)
9399 @@ -376,7 +376,7 @@
9400  objectclass ( 2.16.840.1.113719.1.203.6.6
9401         NAME 'dhcpHost'
9402         DESC 'This represents information about a particular client'
9403 -       SUP top
9404 +       SUP top AUXILIARY
9405         MUST cn
9406         MAY  (dhcpLeaseDN $ dhcpHWAddress $ dhcpOptionsDN $ dhcpStatements $ dhcpComments $ dhcpOption)
9407         X-NDS_CONTAINMENT ('dhcpService' 'dhcpSubnet' 'dhcpGroup') )
9408 </pre>
9409
9410 <p>I very much welcome clues on how to do this properly for Debian
9411 Edu/Squeeze.  We provide the DHCP schema in our debian-edu-config
9412 package, and should thus be free to rewrite it as we see fit.</p>
9413
9414 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
9415 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
9416
9417       </div>
9418       <div class="tags">
9419
9420
9421         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
9422
9423
9424       </div>
9425     </div>
9426     <div class="padding"></div>
9427
9428     <div class="entry">
9429       <div class="title">
9430         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Calling_tasksel_like_the_installer__while_still_getting_useful_output.html">Calling tasksel like the installer, while still getting useful output</a>
9431       </div>
9432       <div class="date">
9433         16th June 2010
9434       </div>
9435       <div class="body">
9436         <p>A few times I have had the need to simulate the way tasksel
9437 installs packages during the normal debian-installer run.  Until now,
9438 I have ended up letting tasksel do the work, with the annoying problem
9439 of not getting any feedback at all when something fails (like a
9440 conffile question from dpkg or a download that fails), using code like
9441 this:
9442
9443 <blockquote><pre>
9444 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
9445 tasksel --new-install
9446 </pre></blockquote>
9447
9448 This would invoke tasksel, let its automatic task selection pick the
9449 tasks to install, and continue to install the requested tasks without
9450 any output what so ever.
9451
9452 Recently I revisited this problem while working on the automatic
9453 package upgrade testing, because tasksel would some times hang without
9454 any useful feedback, and I want to see what is going on when it
9455 happen.  Then it occured to me, I can parse the output from tasksel
9456 when asked to run in test mode, and use that aptitude command line
9457 printed by tasksel then to simulate the tasksel run.  I ended up using
9458 code like this:
9459
9460 <blockquote><pre>
9461 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
9462 cmd="$(in_target tasksel -t --new-install | sed 's/debconf-apt-progress -- //')"
9463 $cmd
9464 </pre></blockquote>
9465
9466 <p>The content of $cmd is typically something like "<tt>aptitude -q
9467 --without-recommends -o APT::Install-Recommends=no -y install
9468 ~t^desktop$ ~t^gnome-desktop$ ~t^laptop$ ~pstandard ~prequired
9469 ~pimportant</tt>", which will install the gnome desktop task, the
9470 laptop task and all packages with priority standard , required and
9471 important, just like tasksel would have done it during
9472 installation.</p>
9473
9474 <p>A better approach is probably to extend tasksel to be able to
9475 install packages without using debconf-apt-progress, for use cases
9476 like this.</p>
9477
9478       </div>
9479       <div class="tags">
9480
9481
9482         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
9483
9484
9485       </div>
9486     </div>
9487     <div class="padding"></div>
9488
9489     <div class="entry">
9490       <div class="title">
9491         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lenny__Squeeze_upgrades__removals_by_apt_and_aptitude.html">Lenny->Squeeze upgrades, removals by apt and aptitude</a>
9492       </div>
9493       <div class="date">
9494         13th June 2010
9495       </div>
9496       <div class="body">
9497         <p>My
9498 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">testing
9499 of Debian upgrades</a> from Lenny to Squeeze continues, and I've
9500 finally made the upgrade logs available from
9501 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/</a>.
9502 I am now testing dist-upgrade of Gnome and KDE in a chroot using both
9503 apt and aptitude, and found their differences interesting.  This time
9504 I will only focus on their removal plans.</p>
9505
9506 <p>After installing a Gnome desktop and the laptop task, apt-get wants
9507 to remove 72 packages when dist-upgrading from Lenny to Squeeze.  The
9508 surprising part is that it want to remove xorg and all
9509 xserver-xorg-video* drivers.  Clearly not a good choice, but I am not
9510 sure why.  When asking aptitude to do the same, it want to remove 129
9511 packages, but most of them are library packages I suspect are no
9512 longer needed.  Both of them want to remove bluetooth packages, which
9513 I do not know.  Perhaps these bluetooth packages are obsolete?</p>
9514
9515 <p>For KDE, apt-get want to remove 82 packages, among them kdebase
9516 which seem like a bad idea and xorg the same way as with Gnome. Asking
9517 aptitude for the same, it wants to remove 192 packages, none which are
9518 too surprising.</p>
9519
9520 <p>I guess the removal of xorg during upgrades should be investigated
9521 and avoided, and perhaps others as well.  Here are the complete list
9522 of planned removals.  The complete logs is available from the URL
9523 above.  Note if you want to repeat these tests, that the upgrade test
9524 for kde+apt-get hung in the tasksel setup because of dpkg asking
9525 conffile questions.  No idea why.  I worked around it by using
9526 '<tt>echo >> /proc/<em>pidofdpkg</em>/fd/0</tt>' to tell dpkg to
9527 continue.</p>
9528
9529 <p><b>apt-get gnome 72</b>
9530 <br>bluez-gnome cupsddk-drivers deskbar-applet gnome
9531   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-network-admin gtkhtml3.14
9532   iceweasel-gnome-support libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libgdl-1-0
9533   libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libmetacity0 libslab0 libxcb-xlib0
9534   nautilus-cd-burner python-gnome2-desktop python-gnome2-extras
9535   serpentine swfdec-mozilla update-manager xorg xserver-xorg
9536   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
9537   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
9538   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
9539   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
9540   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
9541   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
9542   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
9543   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
9544   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
9545   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
9546   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
9547   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
9548   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
9549   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
9550   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
9551   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
9552   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
9553   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
9554   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
9555   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
9556   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
9557   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9
9558   xulrunner-1.9-gnome-support</p>
9559
9560 <p><b>aptitude gnome 129</b>
9561
9562 <br>bluez-gnome bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers dhcdbd
9563   djvulibre-desktop finger gnome-app-install gnome-mount
9564   gnome-network-admin gnome-spell gnome-vfs-obexftp
9565   gnome-volume-manager gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs gtkhtml3.14 libao2
9566   libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
9567   libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcupsys2 libcurl3 libdatrie0
9568   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20
9569   libeel2-data libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libfaad0 libgail-common
9570   libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libgdl-1-0 libgdl-1-common
9571   libggz2 libggzcore9 libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0
9572   libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libgnomeprint2.2-0
9573   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgnomeprintui2.2-common
9574   libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
9575   libgtksourceview-common libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6
9576   libhesiod0 libicu38 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 libmagick++10
9577   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmetacity0 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off
9578   libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2
9579   libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10
9580   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libraw1394-8
9581   libsensors3 libslab0 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8 libssh2-1
9582   libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10
9583   libtrackerclient0 libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0
9584   libxerces2-java libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6
9585   libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common nautilus-cd-burner
9586   openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
9587   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gnome2-desktop
9588   python-gnome2-extras python-gtkhtml2 python-gtkmozembed
9589   python-numeric python-sexy serpentine svgalibg1 swfdec-gnome
9590   swfdec-mozilla totem-gstreamer update-manager wodim
9591   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
9592   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
9593   zip</p>
9594
9595 <p><b>apt-get kde 82</b>
9596
9597 <br>cupsddk-drivers karm kaudiocreator kcoloredit kcontrol kde kde-core
9598   kdeaddons kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-bin kdebase-bin-kde3
9599   kdebase-kio-plugins kdesktop kdeutils khelpcenter kicker
9600   kicker-applets knewsticker kolourpaint konq-plugins konqueror korn
9601   kpersonalizer kscreensaver ksplash libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libkiten1
9602   libxcb-xlib0 quanta superkaramba texlive-base-bin xorg xserver-xorg
9603   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
9604   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
9605   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
9606   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
9607   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
9608   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
9609   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
9610   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
9611   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
9612   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
9613   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
9614   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
9615   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
9616   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
9617   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
9618   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
9619   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
9620   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
9621   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
9622   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
9623   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
9624   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9</p>
9625
9626 <p><b>aptitude kde 192</b>
9627 <br>bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers cvs dcoprss dhcdbd
9628   djvulibre-desktop dosfstools eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
9629   ghostscript-x imlib-base imlib11 indi kandy karm kasteroids
9630   kaudiocreator kbackgammon kbstate kcoloredit kcontrol kcron kdat
9631   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
9632   kdebase-bin-kde3 kdebase-kio-plugins kdeedu-data
9633   kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data
9634   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
9635   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdeprint kdesktop kdessh
9636   kdict kdnssd kdvi kedit keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs
9637   kghostview khelpcenter khexedit kiconedit kitchensync klatin
9638   klickety kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmoon kmrml kodo kolourpaint
9639   kooka korn kpager kpdf kpercentage kpf kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler
9640   krec kregexpeditor ksayit ksim ksirc ksirtet ksmiletris ksmserver
9641   ksnake ksokoban ksplash ksvg ksysv ktip ktnef kuickshow kverbos
9642   kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kworldclock
9643   kxsldbg libakode2 libao2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
9644   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
9645   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
9646   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0 libdatrie0
9647   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
9648   libgail-common libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0
9649   libicu38 libiec61883-0 libindex0 libiw29 libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1
9650   libkdeedu3 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkiten1 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
9651   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
9652   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 libmagick10 libmimelib1c2a
9653   libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9
9654   libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 libsmbios2
9655   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libtalloc1 libtiff-tools
9656   libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0 libxerces2-java
9657   libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 mpeglib networkstatus
9658   openoffice.org-writer2latex pmount poster psutils quanta quanta-data
9659   superkaramba svgalibg1 tex-common texlive-base texlive-base-bin
9660   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended
9661   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
9662   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
9663   xulrunner-1.9</p>
9664
9665
9666       </div>
9667       <div class="tags">
9668
9669
9670         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
9671
9672
9673       </div>
9674     </div>
9675     <div class="padding"></div>
9676
9677     <div class="entry">
9678       <div class="title">
9679         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">Automatic upgrade testing from Lenny to Squeeze</a>
9680       </div>
9681       <div class="date">
9682         11th June 2010
9683       </div>
9684       <div class="body">
9685         <p>The last few days I have done some upgrade testing in Debian, to
9686 see if the upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze will go smoothly.  A few bugs
9687 have been discovered and reported in the process
9688 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585410">#585410</a> in nagios3-cgi,
9689 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584879">#584879</a> already fixed in
9690 enscript and <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> in
9691 kdebase-workspace-data), and to get a more regular testing going on, I
9692 am working on a script to automate the test.</p>
9693
9694 <p>The idea is to create a Lenny chroot and use tasksel to install a
9695 Gnome or KDE desktop installation inside the chroot before upgrading
9696 it.  To ensure no services are started in the chroot, a policy-rc.d
9697 script is inserted.  To make sure tasksel believe it is to install a
9698 desktop on a laptop, the tasksel tests are replaced in the chroot
9699 (only acceptable because this is a throw-away chroot).</p>
9700
9701 <p>A naive upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze using aptitude dist-upgrade
9702 currently always fail because udev refuses to upgrade with the kernel
9703 in Lenny, so to avoid that problem the file /etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
9704 is created.  The bug report
9705 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/566000">#566000</a> make me suspect
9706 this problem do not trigger in a chroot, but I touch the file anyway
9707 to make sure the upgrade go well.  Testing on virtual and real
9708 hardware have failed me because of udev so far, and creating this file
9709 do the trick in such settings anyway.  This is a
9710 <a href="http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/debian-26/failed-dist-upgrade-due-to-udev-config_sysfs_deprecated-nonsense-804130/">known
9711 issue</a> and the current udev behaviour is intended by the udev
9712 maintainer because he lack the resources to rewrite udev to keep
9713 working with old kernels or something like that.  I really wish the
9714 udev upstream would keep udev backwards compatible, to avoid such
9715 upgrade problem, but given that they fail to do so, I guess
9716 documenting the way out of this mess is the best option we got for
9717 Debian Squeeze.</p>
9718
9719 <p>Anyway, back to the task at hand, testing upgrades.  This test
9720 script, which I call <tt>upgrade-test</tt> for now, is doing the
9721 trick:</p>
9722
9723 <blockquote><pre>
9724 #!/bin/sh
9725 set -ex
9726
9727 if [ "$1" ] ; then
9728     desktop=$1
9729 else
9730     desktop=gnome
9731 fi
9732
9733 from=lenny
9734 to=squeeze
9735
9736 exec &lt; /dev/null
9737 unset LANG
9738 mirror=http://ftp.skolelinux.org/debian
9739 tmpdir=chroot-$from-upgrade-$to-$desktop
9740 fuser -mv .
9741 debootstrap $from $tmpdir $mirror
9742 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
9743 cat > $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d &lt;&lt;EOF
9744 #!/bin/sh
9745 exit 101
9746 EOF
9747 chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d
9748 exit_cleanup() {
9749     umount $tmpdir/proc
9750 }
9751 mount -t proc proc $tmpdir/proc
9752 # Make sure proc is unmounted also on failure
9753 trap exit_cleanup EXIT INT
9754
9755 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y install debconf-utils
9756
9757 # Make sure tasksel autoselection trigger.  It need the test scripts
9758 # to return the correct answers.
9759 echo tasksel tasksel/desktop multiselect $desktop | \
9760     chroot $tmpdir debconf-set-selections
9761
9762 # Include the desktop and laptop task
9763 for test in desktop laptop ; do
9764     echo > $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test &lt;&lt;EOF
9765 #!/bin/sh
9766 exit 2
9767 EOF
9768     chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test
9769 done
9770
9771 DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
9772 DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical
9773 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND DEBIAN_PRIORITY
9774 chroot $tmpdir tasksel --new-install
9775
9776 echo deb $mirror $to main > $tmpdir/etc/apt/sources.list
9777 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
9778 touch $tmpdir/etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
9779 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y dist-upgrade
9780 fuser -mv
9781 </pre></blockquote>
9782
9783 <p>I suspect it would be useful to test upgrades with both apt-get and
9784 with aptitude, but I have not had time to look at how they behave
9785 differently so far.  I hope to get a cron job running to do the test
9786 regularly and post the result on the web.  The Gnome upgrade currently
9787 work, while the KDE upgrade fail because of the bug in
9788 kdebase-workspace-data</p>
9789
9790 <p>I am not quite sure what kind of extract from the huge upgrade logs
9791 (KDE 167 KiB, Gnome 516 KiB) it make sense to include in this blog
9792 post, so I will refrain from trying.  I can report that for Gnome,
9793 aptitude report 760 packages upgraded, 448 newly installed, 129 to
9794 remove and 1 not upgraded and 1024MB need to be downloaded while for
9795 KDE the same numbers are 702 packages upgraded, 507 newly installed,
9796 193 to remove and 0 not upgraded and 1117MB need to be downloaded</p>
9797
9798 <p>I am very happy to notice that the Gnome desktop + laptop upgrade
9799 is able to migrate to dependency based boot sequencing and parallel
9800 booting without a hitch.  Was unsure if there were still bugs with
9801 packages failing to clean up their obsolete init.d script during
9802 upgrades, and no such problem seem to affect the Gnome desktop+laptop
9803 packages.</p>
9804
9805       </div>
9806       <div class="tags">
9807
9808
9809         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
9810
9811
9812       </div>
9813     </div>
9814     <div class="padding"></div>
9815
9816     <div class="entry">
9817       <div class="title">
9818         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Upstart_or_sysvinit___as_init_d_scripts_see_it.html">Upstart or sysvinit - as init.d scripts see it</a>
9819       </div>
9820       <div class="date">
9821          6th June 2010
9822       </div>
9823       <div class="body">
9824         <p>If Debian is to migrate to upstart on Linux, I expect some init.d
9825 scripts to migrate (some of) their operations to upstart job while
9826 keeping the init.d for hurd and kfreebsd.  The packages with such
9827 needs will need a way to get their init.d scripts to behave
9828 differently when used with sysvinit and with upstart.  Because of
9829 this, I had a look at the environment variables set when a init.d
9830 script is running under upstart, and when it is not.</p>
9831
9832 <p>With upstart, I notice these environment variables are set when a
9833 script is started from rcS.d/ (ignoring some irrelevant ones like
9834 COLUMNS):</p>
9835
9836 <blockquote><pre>
9837 DEFAULT_RUNLEVEL=2
9838 previous=N
9839 PREVLEVEL=
9840 RUNLEVEL=
9841 runlevel=S
9842 UPSTART_EVENTS=startup
9843 UPSTART_INSTANCE=
9844 UPSTART_JOB=rc-sysinit
9845 </pre></blockquote>
9846
9847 <p>With sysvinit, these environment variables are set for the same
9848 script.</p>
9849
9850 <blockquote><pre>
9851 INIT_VERSION=sysvinit-2.88
9852 previous=N
9853 PREVLEVEL=N
9854 RUNLEVEL=S
9855 runlevel=S
9856 </pre></blockquote>
9857
9858 <p>The RUNLEVEL and PREVLEVEL environment variables passed on from
9859 sysvinit are not set by upstart.  Not sure if it is intentional or not
9860 to not be compatible with sysvinit in this regard.</p>
9861
9862 <p>For scripts needing to behave differently when upstart is used,
9863 looking for the UPSTART_JOB environment variable seem to be a good
9864 choice.</p>
9865
9866       </div>
9867       <div class="tags">
9868
9869
9870         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
9871
9872
9873       </div>
9874     </div>
9875     <div class="padding"></div>
9876
9877     <div class="entry">
9878       <div class="title">
9879         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_manual_for_standards_wars___.html">A manual for standards wars...</a>
9880       </div>
9881       <div class="date">
9882          6th June 2010
9883       </div>
9884       <div class="body">
9885         <p>Via the
9886 <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/robweir/antic-atom/~3/QzU4RgoAGMg/weekly-links-10.html">blog
9887 of Rob Weir</a> I came across the very interesting essay named
9888 <a href="http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/shapiro/wars.pdf">The Art of
9889 Standards Wars</a> (PDF 25 pages).  I recommend it for everyone
9890 following the standards wars of today.</p>
9891
9892       </div>
9893       <div class="tags">
9894
9895
9896         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard</a>.
9897
9898
9899       </div>
9900     </div>
9901     <div class="padding"></div>
9902
9903     <div class="entry">
9904       <div class="title">
9905         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Sitesummary_tip__Listing_computer_hardware_models_used_at_site.html">Sitesummary tip: Listing computer hardware models used at site</a>
9906       </div>
9907       <div class="date">
9908          3rd June 2010
9909       </div>
9910       <div class="body">
9911         <p>When using sitesummary at a site to track machines, it is possible
9912 to get a list of the machine types in use thanks to the DMI
9913 information extracted from each machine.  The script to do so is
9914 included in the sitesummary package, and here is example output from
9915 the Skolelinux build servers:</p>
9916
9917 <blockquote><pre>
9918 maintainer:~# /usr/lib/sitesummary/hardware-model-summary
9919   vendor                    count
9920   Dell Computer Corporation     1
9921     PowerEdge 1750              1
9922   IBM                           1
9923     eserver xSeries 345 -[8670M1X]-     1
9924   Intel                         2
9925   [no-dmi-info]                 3
9926 maintainer:~#
9927 </pre></blockquote>
9928
9929 <p>The quality of the report depend on the quality of the DMI tables
9930 provided in each machine.  Here there are Intel machines without model
9931 information listed with Intel as vendor and no model, and virtual Xen
9932 machines listed as [no-dmi-info].  One can add -l as a command line
9933 option to list the individual machines.</p>
9934
9935 <p>A larger list is
9936 <a href="http://narvikskolen.no/sitesummary/">available from the the
9937 city of Narvik</a>, which uses Skolelinux on all their shools and also
9938 provide the basic sitesummary report publicly.  In their report there
9939 are ~1400 machines. I know they use both Ubuntu and Skolelinux on
9940 their machines, and as sitesummary is available in both distributions,
9941 it is trivial to get all of them to report to the same central
9942 collector.</p>
9943
9944       </div>
9945       <div class="tags">
9946
9947
9948         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary</a>.
9949
9950
9951       </div>
9952     </div>
9953     <div class="padding"></div>
9954
9955     <div class="entry">
9956       <div class="title">
9957         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/KDM_fail_at_boot_with_NVidia_cards___and_no_one_try_to_fix_it_.html">KDM fail at boot with NVidia cards - and no one try to fix it?</a>
9958       </div>
9959       <div class="date">
9960          1st June 2010
9961       </div>
9962       <div class="body">
9963         <p>It is strange to watch how a bug in Debian causing KDM to fail to
9964 start at boot when an NVidia video card is used is handled.  The
9965 problem seem to be that the nvidia X.org driver uses a long time to
9966 initialize, and this duration is longer than kdm is configured to
9967 wait.</p>
9968
9969 <p>I came across two bugs related to this issue,
9970 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">#583312</a> initially filed
9971 against initscripts and passed on to nvidia-glx when it became obvious
9972 that the nvidia drivers were involved, and
9973 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/524751">#524751</a> initially filed against
9974 kdm and passed on to src:nvidia-graphics-drivers for unknown reasons.</p>
9975
9976 <p>To me, it seem that no-one is interested in actually solving the
9977 problem nvidia video card owners experience and make sure the Debian
9978 distribution work out of the box for these users.  The nvidia driver
9979 maintainers expect kdm to be set up to wait longer, while kdm expect
9980 the nvidia driver maintainers to fix the driver to start faster, and
9981 while they wait for each other I guess the users end up switching to a
9982 distribution that work for them.  I have no idea what the solution is,
9983 but I am pretty sure that waiting for each other is not it.</p>
9984
9985 <p>I wonder why we end up handling bugs this way.</p>
9986
9987       </div>
9988       <div class="tags">
9989
9990
9991         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
9992
9993
9994       </div>
9995     </div>
9996     <div class="padding"></div>
9997
9998     <div class="entry">
9999       <div class="title">
10000         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Parallellized_boot_seem_to_hold_up_well_in_Debian_testing.html">Parallellized boot seem to hold up well in Debian/testing</a>
10001       </div>
10002       <div class="date">
10003         27th May 2010
10004       </div>
10005       <div class="body">
10006         <p>A few days ago, parallel booting was enabled in Debian/testing.
10007 The feature seem to hold up pretty well, but three fairly serious
10008 issues are known and should be solved:
10009
10010 <p><ul>
10011
10012 <li>The wicd package seen to
10013 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/508289">break NFS mounting</a> and
10014 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/581586">network setup</a> when
10015 parallel booting is enabled.  No idea why, but the wicd maintainer
10016 seem to be on the case.</li>
10017
10018 <li>The nvidia X driver seem to
10019 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">have a race condition</a>
10020 triggered more easily when parallel booting is in effect.  The
10021 maintainer is on the case.</li>
10022
10023 <li>The sysv-rc package fail to properly enable dependency based boot
10024 sequencing (the shutdown is broken) when old file-rc users
10025 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/575080">try to switch back</a> to
10026 sysv-rc.  One way to solve it would be for file-rc to create
10027 /etc/init.d/.legacy-bootordering, and another is to try to make
10028 sysv-rc more robust.  Will investigate some more and probably upload a
10029 workaround in sysv-rc to help those trying to move from file-rc to
10030 sysv-rc get a working shutdown.</li>
10031
10032 </ul></p>
10033
10034 <p>All in all not many surprising issues, and all of them seem
10035 solvable before Squeeze is released.  In addition to these there are
10036 some packages with bugs in their dependencies and run level settings,
10037 which I expect will be fixed in a reasonable time span.</p>
10038
10039 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
10040 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
10041 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
10042 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
10043
10044 <p>Update: Correct bug number to file-rc issue.</p>
10045
10046       </div>
10047       <div class="tags">
10048
10049
10050         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
10051
10052
10053       </div>
10054     </div>
10055     <div class="padding"></div>
10056
10057     <div class="entry">
10058       <div class="title">
10059         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/More_flexible_firmware_handling_in_debian_installer.html">More flexible firmware handling in debian-installer</a>
10060       </div>
10061       <div class="date">
10062         22nd May 2010
10063       </div>
10064       <div class="body">
10065         <p>After a long break from debian-installer development, I finally
10066 found time today to return to the project.  Having to spend less time
10067 working dependency based boot in debian, as it is almost complete now,
10068 definitely helped freeing some time.</p>
10069
10070 <p>A while back, I ran into a problem while working on Debian Edu.  We
10071 include some firmware packages on the Debian Edu CDs, those needed to
10072 get disk and network controllers working.  Without having these
10073 firmware packages available during installation, it is impossible to
10074 install Debian Edu on the given machine, and because our target group
10075 are non-technical people, asking them to provide firmware packages on
10076 an external medium is a support pain.  Initially, I expected it to be
10077 enough to include the firmware packages on the CD to get
10078 debian-installer to find and use them.  This proved to be wrong.
10079 Next, I hoped it was enough to symlink the relevant firmware packages
10080 to some useful location on the CD (tried /cdrom/ and
10081 /cdrom/firmware/).  This also proved to not work, and at this point I
10082 found time to look at the debian-installer code to figure out what was
10083 going to work.</p>
10084
10085 <p>The firmware loading code is in the hw-detect package, and a closer
10086 look revealed that it would only look for firmware packages outside
10087 the installation media, so the CD was never checked for firmware
10088 packages.  It would only check USB sticks, floppies and other
10089 "external" media devices.  Today I changed it to also look in the
10090 /cdrom/firmware/ directory on the mounted CD or DVD, which should
10091 solve the problem I ran into with Debian edu.  I also changed it to
10092 look in /firmware/, to make sure the installer also find firmware
10093 provided in the initrd when booting the installer via PXE, to allow us
10094 to provide the same feature in the PXE setup included in Debian
10095 Edu.</p>
10096
10097 <p>To make sure firmware deb packages with a license questions are not
10098 activated without asking if the license is accepted, I extended
10099 hw-detect to look for preinst scripts in the firmware packages, and
10100 run these before activating the firmware during installation.  The
10101 license question is asked using debconf in the preinst, so this should
10102 solve the issue for the firmware packages I have looked at so far.</p>
10103
10104 <p>If you want to discuss the details of these features, please
10105 contact us on debian-boot@lists.debian.org.</p>
10106
10107       </div>
10108       <div class="tags">
10109
10110
10111         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
10112
10113
10114       </div>
10115     </div>
10116     <div class="padding"></div>
10117
10118     <div class="entry">
10119       <div class="title">
10120         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Parallellized_boot_is_now_the_default_in_Debian_unstable.html">Parallellized boot is now the default in Debian/unstable</a>
10121       </div>
10122       <div class="date">
10123         14th May 2010
10124       </div>
10125       <div class="body">
10126         <p>Since this evening, parallel booting is the default in
10127 Debian/unstable for machines using dependency based boot sequencing.
10128 Apparently the testing of concurrent booting has been wider than
10129 expected, if I am to believe the
10130 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
10131 on debian-devel@</a>, and I concluded a few days ago to move forward
10132 with the feature this weekend, to give us some time to detect any
10133 remaining problems before Squeeze is frozen.  If serious problems are
10134 detected, it is simple to change the default back to sequential boot.
10135 The upload of the new sysvinit package also activate a new upstream
10136 version.</p>
10137
10138 More information about
10139 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
10140 based boot sequencing</a> is available from the Debian wiki.  It is
10141 currently possible to disable parallel booting when one run into
10142 problems caused by it, by adding this line to /etc/default/rcS:</p>
10143
10144 <blockquote><pre>
10145 CONCURRENCY=none
10146 </pre></blockquote>
10147
10148 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
10149 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
10150 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
10151 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
10152
10153       </div>
10154       <div class="tags">
10155
10156
10157         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
10158
10159
10160       </div>
10161     </div>
10162     <div class="padding"></div>
10163
10164     <div class="entry">
10165       <div class="title">
10166         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Sitesummary_tip__Listing_MAC_address_of_all_clients.html">Sitesummary tip: Listing MAC address of all clients</a>
10167       </div>
10168       <div class="date">
10169         14th May 2010
10170       </div>
10171       <div class="body">
10172         <p>In the recent Debian Edu versions, the
10173 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/SiteSummary">sitesummary
10174 system</a> is used to keep track of the machines in the school
10175 network.  Each machine will automatically report its status to the
10176 central server after boot and once per night.  The network setup is
10177 also reported, and using this information it is possible to get the
10178 MAC address of all network interfaces in the machines.  This is useful
10179 to update the DHCP configuration.</p>
10180
10181 <p>To give some idea how to use sitesummary, here is a one-liner to
10182 ist all MAC addresses of all machines reporting to sitesummary.  Run
10183 this on the collector host:</p>
10184
10185 <blockquote><pre>
10186 perl -MSiteSummary -e 'for_all_hosts(sub { print join(" ", get_macaddresses(shift)), "\n"; });'
10187 </pre></blockquote>
10188
10189 <p>This will list all MAC addresses assosiated with all machine, one
10190 line per machine and with space between the MAC addresses.</p>
10191
10192 <p>To allow system administrators easier job at adding static DHCP
10193 addresses for hosts, it would be possible to extend this to fetch
10194 machine information from sitesummary and update the DHCP and DNS
10195 tables in LDAP using this information.  Such tool is unfortunately not
10196 written yet.</p>
10197
10198       </div>
10199       <div class="tags">
10200
10201
10202         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary</a>.
10203
10204
10205       </div>
10206     </div>
10207     <div class="padding"></div>
10208
10209     <div class="entry">
10210       <div class="title">
10211         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/systemd__an_interesting_alternative_to_upstart.html">systemd, an interesting alternative to upstart</a>
10212       </div>
10213       <div class="date">
10214         13th May 2010
10215       </div>
10216       <div class="body">
10217         <p>The last few days a new boot system called
10218 <a href="http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd">systemd</a>
10219 has been
10220 <a href="http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/systemd.html">introduced</a>
10221
10222 to the free software world.  I have not yet had time to play around
10223 with it, but it seem to be a very interesting alternative to
10224 <a href="http://upstart.ubuntu.com/">upstart</a>, and might prove to be
10225 a good alternative for Debian when we are able to switch to an event
10226 based boot system.  Tollef is
10227 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/580814">in the process</a> of getting
10228 systemd into Debian, and I look forward to seeing how well it work.  I
10229 like the fact that systemd handles init.d scripts with dependency
10230 information natively, allowing them to run in parallel where upstart
10231 at the moment do not.</p>
10232
10233 <p>Unfortunately do systemd have the same problem as upstart regarding
10234 platform support.  It only work on recent Linux kernels, and also need
10235 some new kernel features enabled to function properly.  This means
10236 kFreeBSD and Hurd ports of Debian will need a port or a different boot
10237 system.  Not sure how that will be handled if systemd proves to be the
10238 way forward.</p>
10239
10240 <p>In the mean time, based on the
10241 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
10242 on debian-devel@</a> regarding parallel booting in Debian, I have
10243 decided to enable full parallel booting as the default in Debian as
10244 soon as possible (probably this weekend or early next week), to see if
10245 there are any remaining serious bugs in the init.d dependencies.  A
10246 new version of the sysvinit package implementing this change is
10247 already in experimental.  If all go well, Squeeze will be released
10248 with parallel booting enabled by default.</p>
10249
10250       </div>
10251       <div class="tags">
10252
10253
10254         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
10255
10256
10257       </div>
10258     </div>
10259     <div class="padding"></div>
10260
10261     <div class="entry">
10262       <div class="title">
10263         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Parallellizing_the_boot_in_Debian_Squeeze___ready_for_wider_testing.html">Parallellizing the boot in Debian Squeeze - ready for wider testing</a>
10264       </div>
10265       <div class="date">
10266          6th May 2010
10267       </div>
10268       <div class="body">
10269         <p>These days, the init.d script dependencies in Squeeze are quite
10270 complete, so complete that it is actually possible to run all the
10271 init.d scripts in parallell based on these dependencies.  If you want
10272 to test your Squeeze system, make sure
10273 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
10274 based boot sequencing</a> is enabled, and add this line to
10275 /etc/default/rcS:</p>
10276
10277 <blockquote><pre>
10278 CONCURRENCY=makefile
10279 </pre></blockquote>
10280
10281 <p>That is it.  It will cause sysv-rc to use the startpar tool to run
10282 scripts in parallel using the dependency information stored in
10283 /etc/init.d/.depend.boot, /etc/init.d/.depend.start and
10284 /etc/init.d/.depend.stop to order the scripts.  Startpar is configured
10285 to try to start the kdm and gdm scripts as early as possible, and will
10286 start the facilities required by kdm or gdm as early as possible to
10287 make this happen.</p>
10288
10289 <p>Give it a try, and see if you like the result.  If some services
10290 fail to start properly, it is most likely because they have incomplete
10291 init.d script dependencies in their startup script (or some of their
10292 dependent scripts have incomplete dependencies).  Report bugs and get
10293 the package maintainers to fix it. :)</p>
10294
10295 <p>Running scripts in parallel could be the default in Debian when we
10296 manage to get the init.d script dependencies complete and correct.  I
10297 expect we will get there in Squeeze+1, if we get manage to test and
10298 fix the remaining issues.</p>
10299
10300 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
10301 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
10302 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
10303 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
10304
10305       </div>
10306       <div class="tags">
10307
10308
10309         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
10310
10311
10312       </div>
10313     </div>
10314     <div class="padding"></div>
10315
10316     <div class="entry">
10317       <div class="title">
10318         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_has_switched_to_dependency_based_boot_sequencing.html">Debian has switched to dependency based boot sequencing</a>
10319       </div>
10320       <div class="date">
10321         27th July 2009
10322       </div>
10323       <div class="body">
10324         <p>Since this evening, with the upload of sysvinit version 2.87dsf-2,
10325 and the upload of insserv version 1.12.0-10 yesterday, Debian unstable
10326 have been migrated to using dependency based boot sequencing.  This
10327 conclude work me and others have been doing for the last three days.
10328 It feels great to see this finally part of the default Debian
10329 installation.  Now we just need to weed out the last few problems that
10330 are bound to show up, to get everything ready for Squeeze.</p>
10331
10332 <p>The next step is migrating /sbin/init from sysvinit to upstart, and
10333 fixing the more fundamental problem of handing the event based
10334 non-predictable kernel in the early boot.</p>
10335
10336       </div>
10337       <div class="tags">
10338
10339
10340         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
10341
10342
10343       </div>
10344     </div>
10345     <div class="padding"></div>
10346
10347     <div class="entry">
10348       <div class="title">
10349         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Taking_over_sysvinit_development.html">Taking over sysvinit development</a>
10350       </div>
10351       <div class="date">
10352         22nd July 2009
10353       </div>
10354       <div class="body">
10355         <p>After several years of frustration with the lack of activity from
10356 the existing sysvinit upstream developer, I decided a few weeks ago to
10357 take over the package and become the new upstream.  The number of
10358 patches to track for the Debian package was becoming a burden, and the
10359 lack of synchronization between the distribution made it hard to keep
10360 the package up to date.</p>
10361
10362 <p>On the new sysvinit team is the SuSe maintainer Dr. Werner Fink,
10363 and my Debian co-maintainer Kel Modderman.  About 10 days ago, I made
10364 a new upstream tarball with version number 2.87dsf (for Debian, SuSe
10365 and Fedora), based on the patches currently in use in these
10366 distributions.  We Debian maintainers plan to move to this tarball as
10367 the new upstream as soon as we find time to do the merge.  Since the
10368 new tarball was created, we agreed with Werner at SuSe to make a new
10369 upstream project at <a href="http://savannah.nongnu.org/">Savannah</a>, and continue
10370 development there.  The project is registered and currently waiting
10371 for approval by the Savannah administrators, and as soon as it is
10372 approved, we will import the old versions from svn and continue
10373 working on the future release.</p>
10374
10375 <p>It is a bit ironic that this is done now, when some of the involved
10376 distributions are moving to upstart as a syvinit replacement.</p>
10377
10378       </div>
10379       <div class="tags">
10380
10381
10382         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
10383
10384
10385       </div>
10386     </div>
10387     <div class="padding"></div>
10388
10389     <div class="entry">
10390       <div class="title">
10391         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_boots_quicker_and_quicker.html">Debian boots quicker and quicker</a>
10392       </div>
10393       <div class="date">
10394         24th June 2009
10395       </div>
10396       <div class="body">
10397         <p>I spent Monday and tuesday this week in London with a lot of the
10398 people involved in the boot system on Debian and Ubuntu, to see if we
10399 could find more ways to speed up the boot system.  This was an Ubuntu
10400 funded
10401 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FoundationsTeam/BootPerformance/DebianUbuntuSprint">developer
10402 gathering</a>. It was quite productive.  We also discussed the future
10403 of boot systems, and ways to handle the increasing number of boot
10404 issues introduced by the Linux kernel becoming more and more
10405 asynchronous and event base.  The Ubuntu approach using udev and
10406 upstart might be a good way forward.  Time will show.</p>
10407
10408 <p>Anyway, there are a few ways at the moment to speed up the boot
10409 process in Debian.  All of these should be applied to get a quick
10410 boot:</p>
10411
10412 <ul>
10413
10414 <li>Use dash as /bin/sh.</li>
10415
10416 <li>Disable the init.d/hwclock*.sh scripts and make sure the hardware
10417    clock is in UTC.</li>
10418
10419 <li>Install and activate the insserv package to enable
10420    <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
10421    based boot sequencing</a>, and enable concurrent booting.</li>
10422
10423 </ul>
10424
10425 These points are based on the Google summer of code work done by
10426 <a href="http://initscripts-ng.alioth.debian.org/soc2006-bootsystem/">Carlos
10427 Villegas</a>.
10428
10429 <p>Support for makefile-style concurrency during boot was uploaded to
10430 unstable yesterday.  When we tested it, we were able to cut 6 seconds
10431 from the boot sequence.  It depend on very correct dependency
10432 declaration in all init.d scripts, so I expect us to find edge cases
10433 where the dependences in some scripts are slightly wrong when we start
10434 using this.</p>
10435
10436 <p>On our IRC channel for this effort, #pkg-sysvinit, a new idea was
10437 introduced by Raphael Geissert today, one that could affect the
10438 startup speed as well.  Instead of starting some scripts concurrently
10439 from rcS.d/ and another set of scripts from rc2.d/, it would be
10440 possible to run a of them in the same process.  A quick way to test
10441 this would be to enable insserv and run 'mv /etc/rc2.d/S* /etc/rcS.d/;
10442 insserv'.  Will need to test if that work. :)</p>
10443
10444       </div>
10445       <div class="tags">
10446
10447
10448         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
10449
10450
10451       </div>
10452     </div>
10453     <div class="padding"></div>
10454
10455     <div class="entry">
10456       <div class="title">
10457         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/BSAs_p_stander_om_piratkopiering_m_ter_motstand.html">BSAs påstander om piratkopiering møter motstand</a>
10458       </div>
10459       <div class="date">
10460         17th May 2009
10461       </div>
10462       <div class="body">
10463         <p>Hvert år de siste årene har BSA, lobbyfronten til de store
10464 programvareselskapene som Microsoft og Apple, publisert en rapport der
10465 de gjetter på hvor mye piratkopiering påfører i tapte inntekter i
10466 ulike land rundt om i verden.  Resultatene er tendensiøse.  For noen
10467 dager siden kom
10468 <a href="http://global.bsa.org/globalpiracy2008/studies/globalpiracy2008.pdf">siste
10469 rapport</a>, og det er flere kritiske kommentarer publisert de siste
10470 dagene.  Et spesielt interessant kommentar fra Sverige,
10471 <a href="http://www.idg.se/2.1085/1.229795/bsa-hoftade-sverigesiffror">BSA
10472 höftade Sverigesiffror</a>, oppsummeres slik:</p>
10473
10474 <blockquote>
10475 I sin senaste rapport slår BSA fast att 25 procent av all mjukvara i
10476 Sverige är piratkopierad. Det utan att ha pratat med ett enda svenskt
10477 företag. "Man bör nog kanske inte se de här siffrorna som helt
10478 exakta", säger BSAs Sverigechef John Hugosson.
10479 </blockquote>
10480
10481 <p>Mon tro om de er like metodiske når de gjetter på andelen piratkopiering i Norge?  To andre kommentarer er <a
10482 href="http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/comment/2242134/bsa-piracy-figures-shot-reality">BSA
10483 piracy figures need a shot of reality</a> og <a
10484 href="http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/3958/125/">Does The WIPO
10485 Copyright Treaty Work?</a></p>
10486
10487 <p>Fant lenkene via <a
10488 href="http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/05/17/1632242">oppslag
10489 på Slashdot</a>.</p>
10490
10491       </div>
10492       <div class="tags">
10493
10494
10495         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bsa">bsa</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fildeling">fildeling</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>.
10496
10497
10498       </div>
10499     </div>
10500     <div class="padding"></div>
10501
10502     <div class="entry">
10503       <div class="title">
10504         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/IDG_mener_linux_i_servermarkedet_vil_vokse_med_21__i_2009.html">IDG mener linux i servermarkedet vil vokse med 21% i 2009</a>
10505       </div>
10506       <div class="date">
10507          7th May 2009
10508       </div>
10509       <div class="body">
10510         <p>Kom over
10511 <a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10216873-16.html">interessante
10512 tall</a> fra IDG om utviklingen av linuxservermarkedet.  Fikk meg til
10513 å tenke på antall tjenermaskiner ved Universitetet i Oslo der jeg
10514 jobber til daglig.  En rask opptelling forteller meg at vi har 490
10515 (61%) fysiske unix-tjener (mest linux men også noen solaris) og 196
10516 (25%) windowstjenere, samt 112 (14%) virtuelle unix-tjenere.  Med den
10517 bakgrunnskunnskapen kan jeg godt tro at IDG er inne på noe.</p>
10518
10519       </div>
10520       <div class="tags">
10521
10522
10523         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
10524
10525
10526       </div>
10527     </div>
10528     <div class="padding"></div>
10529
10530     <div class="entry">
10531       <div class="title">
10532         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Kryptert_harddisk___naturligvis.html">Kryptert harddisk - naturligvis</a>
10533       </div>
10534       <div class="date">
10535          2nd May 2009
10536       </div>
10537       <div class="body">
10538         <p><a href="http://www.dagensit.no/trender/article1658676.ece">Dagens
10539 IT melder</a> at Intel hevder at det er dyrt å miste en datamaskin,
10540 når en tar tap av arbeidstid, fortrolige dokumenter,
10541 personopplysninger og alt annet det innebærer.  Det er ingen tvil om
10542 at det er en kostbar affære å miste sin datamaskin, og det er årsaken
10543 til at jeg har kryptert harddisken på både kontormaskinen og min
10544 bærbare.  Begge inneholder personopplysninger jeg ikke ønsker skal
10545 komme på avveie, den første informasjon relatert til jobben min ved
10546 Universitetet i Oslo, og den andre relatert til blant annet
10547 foreningsarbeide.  Kryptering av diskene gjør at det er lite
10548 sannsynlig at dophoder som kan finne på å rappe maskinene får noe ut
10549 av dem.  Maskinene låses automatisk etter noen minutter uten bruk,
10550 og en reboot vil gjøre at de ber om passord før de vil starte opp.
10551 Jeg bruker Debian på begge maskinene, og installasjonssystemet der
10552 gjør det trivielt å sette opp krypterte disker.  Jeg har LVM på toppen
10553 av krypterte partisjoner, slik at alt av datapartisjoner er kryptert.
10554 Jeg anbefaler alle å kryptere diskene på sine bærbare.  Kostnaden når
10555 det er gjort slik jeg gjør det er minimale, og gevinstene er
10556 betydelige.  En bør dog passe på passordet.  Hvis det går tapt, må
10557 maskinen reinstalleres og alt er tapt.</p>
10558
10559 <p>Krypteringen vil ikke stoppe kompetente angripere som f.eks. kjøler
10560 ned minnebrikkene før maskinen rebootes med programvare for å hente ut
10561 krypteringsnøklene.  Kostnaden med å forsvare seg mot slike angripere
10562 er for min del høyere enn gevinsten.  Jeg tror oddsene for at
10563 f.eks. etteretningsorganisasjoner har glede av å titte på mine
10564 maskiner er minimale, og ulempene jeg ville oppnå ved å forsøke å
10565 gjøre det vanskeligere for angripere med kompetanse og ressurser er
10566 betydelige.</p>
10567
10568       </div>
10569       <div class="tags">
10570
10571
10572         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
10573
10574
10575       </div>
10576     </div>
10577     <div class="padding"></div>
10578
10579     <div class="entry">
10580       <div class="title">
10581         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Two_projects_that_have_improved_the_quality_of_free_software_a_lot.html">Two projects that have improved the quality of free software a lot</a>
10582       </div>
10583       <div class="date">
10584          2nd May 2009
10585       </div>
10586       <div class="body">
10587         <p>There are two software projects that have had huge influence on the
10588 quality of free software, and I wanted to mention both in case someone
10589 do not yet know them.</p>
10590
10591 <p>The first one is <a href="http://valgrind.org/">valgrind</a>, a
10592 tool to detect and expose errors in the memory handling of programs.
10593 It is easy to use, all one need to do is to run 'valgrind program',
10594 and it will report any problems on stdout.  It is even better if the
10595 program include debug information.  With debug information, it is able
10596 to report the source file name and line number where the problem
10597 occurs.  It can report things like 'reading past memory block in file
10598 X line N, the memory block was allocated in file Y, line M', and
10599 'using uninitialised value in control logic'.  This tool has made it
10600 trivial to investigate reproducible crash bugs in programs, and have
10601 reduced the number of this kind of bugs in free software a lot.
10602
10603 <p>The second one is
10604 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coverity">Coverity</a> which is
10605 a source code checker.  It is able to process the source of a program
10606 and find problems in the logic without running the program.  It
10607 started out as the Stanford Checker and became well known when it was
10608 used to find bugs in the Linux kernel.  It is now a commercial tool
10609 and the company behind it is running
10610 <a href="http://www.scan.coverity.com/">a community service</a> for the
10611 free software community, where a lot of free software projects get
10612 their source checked for free.  Several thousand defects have been
10613 found and fixed so far.  It can find errors like 'lock L taken in file
10614 X line N is never released if exiting in line M', or 'the code in file
10615 Y lines O to P can never be executed'.  The projects included in the
10616 community service project have managed to get rid of a lot of
10617 reliability problems thanks to Coverity.</p>
10618
10619 <p>I believe tools like this, that are able to automatically find
10620 errors in the source, are vital to improve the quality of software and
10621 make sure we can get rid of the crashing and failing software we are
10622 surrounded by today.</p>
10623
10624       </div>
10625       <div class="tags">
10626
10627
10628         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
10629
10630
10631       </div>
10632     </div>
10633     <div class="padding"></div>
10634
10635     <div class="entry">
10636       <div class="title">
10637         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/No_patch_is_not_better_than_a_useless_patch.html">No patch is not better than a useless patch</a>
10638       </div>
10639       <div class="date">
10640         28th April 2009
10641       </div>
10642       <div class="body">
10643         <p>Julien Blache
10644 <a href="http://blog.technologeek.org/2009/04/12/214">claim that no
10645 patch is better than a useless patch</a>.  I completely disagree, as a
10646 patch allow one to discuss a concrete and proposed solution, and also
10647 prove that the issue at hand is important enough for someone to spent
10648 time on fixing it.  No patch do not provide any of these positive
10649 properties.</p>
10650
10651       </div>
10652       <div class="tags">
10653
10654
10655         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
10656
10657
10658       </div>
10659     </div>
10660     <div class="padding"></div>
10661
10662     <div class="entry">
10663       <div class="title">
10664         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Standardize_on_protocols_and_formats__not_vendors_and_applications.html">Standardize on protocols and formats, not vendors and applications</a>
10665       </div>
10666       <div class="date">
10667         30th March 2009
10668       </div>
10669       <div class="body">
10670         <p>Where I work at the University of Oslo, one decision stand out as a
10671 very good one to form a long lived computer infrastructure.  It is the
10672 simple one, lost by many in todays computer industry: Standardize on
10673 open network protocols and open exchange/storage formats, not applications.
10674 Applications come and go, while protocols and files tend to stay, and
10675 thus one want to make it easy to change application and vendor, while
10676 avoiding conversion costs and locking users to a specific platform or
10677 application.</p>
10678
10679 <p>This approach make it possible to replace the client applications
10680 independently of the server applications.  One can even allow users to
10681 use several different applications as long as they handle the selected
10682 protocol and format.  In the normal case, only one client application
10683 is recommended and users only get help if they choose to use this
10684 application, but those that want to deviate from the easy path are not
10685 blocked from doing so.</p>
10686
10687 <p>It also allow us to replace the server side without forcing the
10688 users to replace their applications, and thus allow us to select the
10689 best server implementation at any moment, when scale and resouce
10690 requirements change.</p>
10691
10692 <p>I strongly recommend standardizing - on open network protocols and
10693 open formats, but I would never recommend standardizing on a single
10694 application that do not use open network protocol or open formats.</p>
10695
10696       </div>
10697       <div class="tags">
10698
10699
10700         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard</a>.
10701
10702
10703       </div>
10704     </div>
10705     <div class="padding"></div>
10706
10707     <div class="entry">
10708       <div class="title">
10709         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Returning_from_Skolelinux_developer_gathering.html">Returning from Skolelinux developer gathering</a>
10710       </div>
10711       <div class="date">
10712         29th March 2009
10713       </div>
10714       <div class="body">
10715         <p>I'm sitting on the train going home from this weekends Debian
10716 Edu/Skolelinux development gathering.  I got a bit done tuning the
10717 desktop, and looked into the dynamic service location protocol
10718 implementation avahi.  It look like it could be useful for us.  Almost
10719 30 people participated, and I believe it was a great environment to
10720 get to know the Skolelinux system.  Walter Bender, involved in the
10721 development of the Sugar educational platform, presented his stuff and
10722 also helped me improve my OLPC installation.  He also showed me that
10723 his Turtle Art application can be used in standalone mode, and we
10724 agreed that I would help getting it packaged for Debian.  As a
10725 standalone application it would be great for Debian Edu.  We also
10726 tried to get the video conferencing working with two OLPCs, but that
10727 proved to be too hard for us.  The application seem to need more work
10728 before it is ready for me.  I look forward to getting home and relax
10729 now. :)</p>
10730
10731       </div>
10732       <div class="tags">
10733
10734
10735         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
10736
10737
10738       </div>
10739     </div>
10740     <div class="padding"></div>
10741
10742     <div class="entry">
10743       <div class="title">
10744         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">Time for new  LDAP schemas replacing RFC 2307?</a>
10745       </div>
10746       <div class="date">
10747         29th March 2009
10748       </div>
10749       <div class="body">
10750         <p>The state of standardized LDAP schemas on Linux is far from
10751 optimal.  There is RFC 2307 documenting one way to store NIS maps in
10752 LDAP, and a modified version of this normally called RFC 2307bis, with
10753 some modifications to be compatible with Active Directory.  The RFC
10754 specification handle the content of a lot of system databases, but do
10755 not handle DNS zones and DHCP configuration.</p>
10756
10757 <p>In <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux</a>,
10758 we would like to store information about users, SMB clients/hosts,
10759 filegroups, netgroups (users and hosts), DHCP and DNS configuration,
10760 and LTSP configuration in LDAP.  These objects have a lot in common,
10761 but with the current LDAP schemas it is not possible to have one
10762 object per entity.  For example, one need to have at least three LDAP
10763 objects for a given computer, one with the SMB related stuff, one with
10764 DNS information and another with DHCP information.  The schemas
10765 provided for DNS and DHCP are impossible to combine into one LDAP
10766 object.  In addition, it is impossible to implement quick queries for
10767 netgroup membership, because of the way NIS triples are implemented.
10768 It just do not scale.  I believe it is time for a few RFC
10769 specifications to cleam up this mess.</p>
10770
10771 <p>I would like to have one LDAP object representing each computer in
10772 the network, and this object can then keep the SMB (ie host key), DHCP
10773 (mac address/name) and DNS (name/IP address) settings in one place.
10774 It need to be efficently stored to make sure it scale well.</p>
10775
10776 <p>I would also like to have a quick way to map from a user or
10777 computer and to the net group this user or computer is a member.</p>
10778
10779 <p>Active Directory have done a better job than unix heads like myself
10780 in this regard, and the unix side need to catch up.  Time to start a
10781 new IETF work group?</p>
10782
10783       </div>
10784       <div class="tags">
10785
10786
10787         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
10788
10789
10790       </div>
10791     </div>
10792     <div class="padding"></div>
10793
10794     <div class="entry">
10795       <div class="title">
10796         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Endelig_er_Debian_Lenny_gitt_ut.html">Endelig er Debian Lenny gitt ut</a>
10797       </div>
10798       <div class="date">
10799         15th February 2009
10800       </div>
10801       <div class="body">
10802         <p>Endelig er <a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</a>
10803 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2009/20090214">Lenny</a> gitt ut.
10804 Et langt steg videre for Debian-prosjektet, og en rekke nye
10805 programpakker blir nå tilgjengelig for de av oss som bruker den
10806 stabile utgaven av Debian.  Neste steg er nå å få
10807 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a> /
10808 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/">Debian Edu</a> ferdig
10809 oppdatert for den nye utgaven, slik at en oppdatert versjon kan
10810 slippes løs på skolene.  Takk til alle debian-utviklerne som har
10811 gjort dette mulig.  Endelig er f.eks. fungerende avhengighetsstyrt
10812 bootsekvens tilgjengelig i stabil utgave, vha pakken
10813 <tt>insserv</tt>.</p>
10814
10815       </div>
10816       <div class="tags">
10817
10818
10819         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk</a>.
10820
10821
10822       </div>
10823     </div>
10824     <div class="padding"></div>
10825
10826     <div class="entry">
10827       <div class="title">
10828         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Devcamp_brought_us_closer_to_the_Lenny_based_Debian_Edu_release.html">Devcamp brought us closer to the Lenny based Debian Edu release</a>
10829       </div>
10830       <div class="date">
10831          7th December 2008
10832       </div>
10833       <div class="body">
10834         <p>This weekend we had a small developer gathering for Debian Edu in
10835 Oslo.  Most of Saturday was used for the general assemly for the
10836 member organization, but the rest of the weekend I used to tune the
10837 LTSP installation.  LTSP now work out of the box on the 10-network.
10838 Acer Aspire One proved to be a very nice thin client, with both
10839 screen, mouse and keybard in a small box.  Was working on getting the
10840 diskless workstation setup configured out of the box, but did not
10841 finish it before the weekend was up.</p>
10842
10843 <p>Did not find time to look at the 4 VGA cards in one box we got from
10844 the Brazilian group, so that will have to wait for the next
10845 development gathering.  Would love to have the Debian Edu installer
10846 automatically detect and configure a multiseat setup when it find one
10847 of these cards.</p>
10848
10849       </div>
10850       <div class="tags">
10851
10852
10853         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ltsp">ltsp</a>.
10854
10855
10856       </div>
10857     </div>
10858     <div class="padding"></div>
10859
10860     <div class="entry">
10861       <div class="title">
10862         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_sorry_state_of_multimedia_browser_plugins_in_Debian.html">The sorry state of multimedia browser plugins in Debian</a>
10863       </div>
10864       <div class="date">
10865         25th November 2008
10866       </div>
10867       <div class="body">
10868         <p>Recently I have spent some time evaluating the multimedia browser
10869 plugins available in Debian Lenny, to see which one we should use by
10870 default in Debian Edu.  We need an embedded video playing plugin with
10871 control buttons to pause or stop the video, and capable of streaming
10872 all the multimedia content available on the web.  The test results and
10873 notes are available on
10874 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">the
10875 Debian wiki</a>.  I was surprised how few of the plugins are able to
10876 fill this need.  My personal video player favorite, VLC, has a really
10877 bad plugin which fail on a lot of the test pages.  A lot of the MIME
10878 types I would expect to work with any free software player (like
10879 video/ogg), just do not work.  And simple formats like the
10880 audio/x-mplegurl format (m3u playlists), just isn't supported by the
10881 totem and vlc plugins.  I hope the situation will improve soon.  No
10882 wonder sites use the proprietary Adobe flash to play video.</p>
10883
10884 <p>For Lenny, we seem to end up with the mplayer plugin.  It seem to
10885 be the only one fitting our needs. :/</p>
10886
10887       </div>
10888       <div class="tags">
10889
10890
10891         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
10892
10893
10894       </div>
10895     </div>
10896     <div class="padding"></div>
10897
10898     <p style="text-align: right;"><a href="debian.rss"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/xml.gif" alt="RSS Feed" width="36" height="14" /></a></p>
10899     <div id="sidebar">
10900
10901
10902
10903 <h2>Archive</h2>
10904 <ul>
10905
10906 <li>2016
10907 <ul>
10908
10909 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/01/">January (3)</a></li>
10910
10911 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/02/">February (2)</a></li>
10912
10913 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/03/">March (3)</a></li>
10914
10915 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/04/">April (8)</a></li>
10916
10917 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/05/">May (8)</a></li>
10918
10919 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/06/">June (2)</a></li>
10920
10921 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/07/">July (2)</a></li>
10922
10923 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/08/">August (2)</a></li>
10924
10925 </ul></li>
10926
10927 <li>2015
10928 <ul>
10929
10930 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/01/">January (7)</a></li>
10931
10932 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/02/">February (6)</a></li>
10933
10934 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/03/">March (1)</a></li>
10935
10936 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/04/">April (4)</a></li>
10937
10938 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/05/">May (3)</a></li>
10939
10940 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/06/">June (4)</a></li>
10941
10942 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/07/">July (6)</a></li>
10943
10944 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/08/">August (2)</a></li>
10945
10946 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/09/">September (2)</a></li>
10947
10948 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/10/">October (9)</a></li>
10949
10950 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/11/">November (6)</a></li>
10951
10952 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/12/">December (3)</a></li>
10953
10954 </ul></li>
10955
10956 <li>2014
10957 <ul>
10958
10959 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/01/">January (2)</a></li>
10960
10961 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/02/">February (3)</a></li>
10962
10963 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/03/">March (8)</a></li>
10964
10965 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/04/">April (7)</a></li>
10966
10967 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/05/">May (1)</a></li>
10968
10969 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/06/">June (2)</a></li>
10970
10971 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/07/">July (2)</a></li>
10972
10973 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/08/">August (2)</a></li>
10974
10975 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/09/">September (5)</a></li>
10976
10977 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/10/">October (6)</a></li>
10978
10979 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/11/">November (3)</a></li>
10980
10981 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/12/">December (5)</a></li>
10982
10983 </ul></li>
10984
10985 <li>2013
10986 <ul>
10987
10988 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/01/">January (11)</a></li>
10989
10990 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/02/">February (9)</a></li>
10991
10992 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/03/">March (9)</a></li>
10993
10994 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/04/">April (6)</a></li>
10995
10996 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/05/">May (9)</a></li>
10997
10998 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/06/">June (10)</a></li>
10999
11000 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/07/">July (7)</a></li>
11001
11002 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/08/">August (3)</a></li>
11003
11004 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/09/">September (5)</a></li>
11005
11006 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/10/">October (7)</a></li>
11007
11008 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/11/">November (9)</a></li>
11009
11010 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/12/">December (3)</a></li>
11011
11012 </ul></li>
11013
11014 <li>2012
11015 <ul>
11016
11017 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/01/">January (7)</a></li>
11018
11019 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/02/">February (10)</a></li>
11020
11021 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/03/">March (17)</a></li>
11022
11023 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/04/">April (12)</a></li>
11024
11025 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/05/">May (12)</a></li>
11026
11027 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/06/">June (20)</a></li>
11028
11029 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/07/">July (17)</a></li>
11030
11031 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/08/">August (6)</a></li>
11032
11033 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/09/">September (9)</a></li>
11034
11035 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/10/">October (17)</a></li>
11036
11037 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/11/">November (10)</a></li>
11038
11039 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/12/">December (7)</a></li>
11040
11041 </ul></li>
11042
11043 <li>2011
11044 <ul>
11045
11046 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/01/">January (16)</a></li>
11047
11048 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/02/">February (6)</a></li>
11049
11050 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/03/">March (6)</a></li>
11051
11052 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/04/">April (7)</a></li>
11053
11054 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/05/">May (3)</a></li>
11055
11056 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/06/">June (2)</a></li>
11057
11058 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/07/">July (7)</a></li>
11059
11060 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/08/">August (6)</a></li>
11061
11062 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/09/">September (4)</a></li>
11063
11064 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/10/">October (2)</a></li>
11065
11066 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/11/">November (3)</a></li>
11067
11068 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/12/">December (1)</a></li>
11069
11070 </ul></li>
11071
11072 <li>2010
11073 <ul>
11074
11075 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/01/">January (2)</a></li>
11076
11077 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/02/">February (1)</a></li>
11078
11079 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/03/">March (3)</a></li>
11080
11081 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/04/">April (3)</a></li>
11082
11083 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/05/">May (9)</a></li>
11084
11085 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/06/">June (14)</a></li>
11086
11087 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/07/">July (12)</a></li>
11088
11089 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/08/">August (13)</a></li>
11090
11091 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/09/">September (7)</a></li>
11092
11093 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/10/">October (9)</a></li>
11094
11095 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/11/">November (13)</a></li>
11096
11097 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/12/">December (12)</a></li>
11098
11099 </ul></li>
11100
11101 <li>2009
11102 <ul>
11103
11104 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/01/">January (8)</a></li>
11105
11106 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/02/">February (8)</a></li>
11107
11108 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/03/">March (12)</a></li>
11109
11110 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/04/">April (10)</a></li>
11111
11112 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/05/">May (9)</a></li>
11113
11114 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/06/">June (3)</a></li>
11115
11116 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/07/">July (4)</a></li>
11117
11118 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/08/">August (3)</a></li>
11119
11120 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/09/">September (1)</a></li>
11121
11122 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/10/">October (2)</a></li>
11123
11124 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/11/">November (3)</a></li>
11125
11126 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/12/">December (3)</a></li>
11127
11128 </ul></li>
11129
11130 <li>2008
11131 <ul>
11132
11133 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/11/">November (5)</a></li>
11134
11135 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/12/">December (7)</a></li>
11136
11137 </ul></li>
11138
11139 </ul>
11140
11141
11142
11143 <h2>Tags</h2>
11144 <ul>
11145
11146  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer (13)</a></li>
11147
11148  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/amiga">amiga (1)</a></li>
11149
11150  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/aros">aros (1)</a></li>
11151
11152  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bankid">bankid (4)</a></li>
11153
11154  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin (9)</a></li>
11155
11156  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem (16)</a></li>
11157
11158  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bsa">bsa (2)</a></li>
11159
11160  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/chrpath">chrpath (2)</a></li>
11161
11162  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian (133)</a></li>
11163
11164  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu (157)</a></li>
11165
11166  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/digistan">digistan (10)</a></li>
11167
11168  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/dld">dld (15)</a></li>
11169
11170  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook (22)</a></li>
11171
11172  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/drivstoffpriser">drivstoffpriser (4)</a></li>
11173
11174  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english (324)</a></li>
11175
11176  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami (23)</a></li>
11177
11178  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fildeling">fildeling (12)</a></li>
11179
11180  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture (27)</a></li>
11181
11182  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox (9)</a></li>
11183
11184  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen (18)</a></li>
11185
11186  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/h264">h264 (20)</a></li>
11187
11188  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju (42)</a></li>
11189
11190  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram (12)</a></li>
11191
11192  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kart">kart (19)</a></li>
11193
11194  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap (9)</a></li>
11195
11196  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lenker">lenker (8)</a></li>
11197
11198  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lsdvd">lsdvd (2)</a></li>
11199
11200  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ltsp">ltsp (1)</a></li>
11201
11202  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network (8)</a></li>
11203
11204  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia (39)</a></li>
11205
11206  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nice free software">nice free software (7)</a></li>
11207
11208  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk (276)</a></li>
11209
11210  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug (182)</a></li>
11211
11212  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/offentlig innsyn">offentlig innsyn (26)</a></li>
11213
11214  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/open311">open311 (2)</a></li>
11215
11216  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett (61)</a></li>
11217
11218  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern (92)</a></li>
11219
11220  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/raid">raid (1)</a></li>
11221
11222  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reactos">reactos (1)</a></li>
11223
11224  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reprap">reprap (11)</a></li>
11225
11226  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rfid">rfid (3)</a></li>
11227
11228  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot (9)</a></li>
11229
11230  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rss">rss (1)</a></li>
11231
11232  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ruter">ruter (4)</a></li>
11233
11234  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/scraperwiki">scraperwiki (2)</a></li>
11235
11236  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet (48)</a></li>
11237
11238  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary (4)</a></li>
11239
11240  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/skepsis">skepsis (5)</a></li>
11241
11242  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard (49)</a></li>
11243
11244  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stavekontroll">stavekontroll (4)</a></li>
11245
11246  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stortinget">stortinget (10)</a></li>
11247
11248  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance (37)</a></li>
11249
11250  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sysadmin">sysadmin (2)</a></li>
11251
11252  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/usenix">usenix (2)</a></li>
11253
11254  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/valg">valg (8)</a></li>
11255
11256  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video (59)</a></li>
11257
11258  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/vitenskap">vitenskap (4)</a></li>
11259
11260  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web (38)</a></li>
11261
11262 </ul>
11263
11264
11265     </div>
11266     <p style="text-align: right">
11267  Created by <a href="http://steve.org.uk/Software/chronicle">Chronicle v4.6</a>
11268 </p>
11269
11270   </body>
11271 </html>