blog/tags/debian/index.html

   1 <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
   2           "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
   3 <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" dir="ltr">
   4   <head>
   5     <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" />
   6     <title>Petter Reinholdtsen: Entries Tagged debian</title>
   7     <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="screen" href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/style.css" />
   8     <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="screen" href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/vim.css" />
   9     <link rel="alternate" title="RSS Feed" href="debian.rss" type="application/rss+xml" />
  10   </head>
  11   <body>
  12     <div class="title">
  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/Easier_recipe_to_observe_the_cell_phones_around_you.html">Easier recipe to observe the cell phones around you</a>
  26       </div>
  27       <div class="date">
  28         24th September 2017
  29       </div>
  30       <div class="body">
  31         <p>A little more than a month ago I wrote
  32 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Simpler_recipe_on_how_to_make_a_simple__7_IMSI_Catcher_using_Debian.html">how
  33 to observe the SIM card ID (aka IMSI number) of mobile phones talking
  34 to nearby mobile phone base stations using Debian GNU/Linux and a
  35 cheap USB software defined radio</a>, and thus being able to pinpoint
  36 the location of people and equipment (like cars and trains) with an
  37 accuracy of a few kilometer.  Since then we have worked to make the
  38 procedure even simpler, and it is now possible to do this without any
  39 manual frequency tuning and without building your own packages.</p>
  40
  41 <p>The <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/gr-gsm">gr-gsm</a>
  42 package is now included in Debian testing and unstable, and the
  43 IMSI-catcher code no longer require root access to fetch and decode
  44 the GSM data collected using gr-gsm.</p>
  45
  46 <p>Here is an updated recipe, using packages built by Debian and a git
  47 clone of two python scripts:</p>
  48
  49 <ol>
  50
  51 <li>Start with a Debian machine running the Buster version (aka
  52   testing).</li>
  53
  54 <li>Run '<tt>apt install gr-gsm python-numpy python-scipy
  55   python-scapy</tt>' as root to install required packages.</li>
  56
  57 <li>Fetch the code decoding GSM packages using '<tt>git clone
  58   github.com/Oros42/IMSI-catcher.git</tt>'.</li>
  59
  60 <li>Insert USB software defined radio supported by GNU Radio.</li>
  61
  62 <li>Enter the IMSI-catcher directory and run '<tt>python
  63   scan-and-livemon</tt>' to locate the frequency of nearby base
  64   stations and start listening for GSM packages on one of them.</li>
  65
  66 <li>Enter the IMSI-catcher directory and run '<tt>python
  67   simple_IMSI-catcher.py</tt>' to display the collected information.</li>
  68
  69 </ol>
  70
  71 <p>Note, due to a bug somewhere the scan-and-livemon program (actually
  72 <a href="https://github.com/ptrkrysik/gr-gsm/issues/336">its underlying
  73 program grgsm_scanner</a>) do not work with the HackRF radio.  It do
  74 work with RTL 8232 and other similar USB radio receivers you can get
  75 very cheaply
  76 (<a href="https://www.ebay.com/sch/items/?_nkw=rtl+2832">for example
  77 from ebay</a>), so for now the solution is to scan using the RTL radio
  78 and only use HackRF for fetching GSM data.</p>
  79
  80 <p>As far as I can tell, a cell phone only show up on one of the
  81 frequencies at the time, so if you are going to track and count every
  82 cell phone around you, you need to listen to all the frequencies used.
  83 To listen to several frequencies, use the --numrecv argument to
  84 scan-and-livemon to use several receivers.  Further, I am not sure if
  85 phones using 3G or 4G will show as talking GSM to base stations, so
  86 this approach might not see all phones around you.  I typically see
  87 0-400 IMSI numbers an hour when looking around where I live.</p>
  88
  89 <p>I've tried to run the scanner on a
  90 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/RaspberryPi">Raspberry Pi 2 and 3
  91 running Debian Buster</a>, but the grgsm_livemon_headless process seem
  92 to be too CPU intensive to keep up.  When GNU Radio print 'O' to
  93 stdout, I am told there it is caused by a buffer overflow between the
  94 radio and GNU Radio, caused by the program being unable to read the
  95 GSM data fast enough.  If you see a stream of 'O's from the terminal
  96 where you started scan-and-livemon, you need a give the process more
  97 CPU power.  Perhaps someone are able to optimize the code to a point
  98 where it become possible to set up RPi3 based GSM sniffers?  I tried
  99 using Raspbian instead of Debian, but there seem to be something wrong
 100 with GNU Radio on raspbian, causing glibc to abort().</p>
 101
 102       </div>
 103       <div class="tags">
 104
 105
 106         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
 107
 108
 109       </div>
 110     </div>
 111     <div class="padding"></div>
 112
 113     <div class="entry">
 114       <div class="title">
 115         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Simpler_recipe_on_how_to_make_a_simple__7_IMSI_Catcher_using_Debian.html">Simpler recipe on how to make a simple $7 IMSI Catcher using Debian</a>
 116       </div>
 117       <div class="date">
 118          9th August 2017
 119       </div>
 120       <div class="body">
 121         <p>On friday, I came across an interesting article in the Norwegian
 122 web based ICT news magazine digi.no on
 123 <a href="https://www.digi.no/artikler/sikkerhetsforsker-lagde-enkel-imsi-catcher-for-60-kroner-na-kan-mobiler-kartlegges-av-alle/398588">how
 124 to collect the IMSI numbers of nearby cell phones</a> using the cheap
 125 DVB-T software defined radios.  The article refered to instructions
 126 and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjwgNd_as30">a recipe by
 127 Keld Norman on Youtube on how to make a simple $7 IMSI Catcher</a>, and I decided to test them out.</p>
 128
 129 <p>The instructions said to use Ubuntu, install pip using apt (to
 130 bypass apt), use pip to install pybombs (to bypass both apt and pip),
 131 and the ask pybombs to fetch and build everything you need from
 132 scratch.  I wanted to see if I could do the same on the most recent
 133 Debian packages, but this did not work because pybombs tried to build
 134 stuff that no longer build with the most recent openssl library or
 135 some other version skew problem.  While trying to get this recipe
 136 working, I learned that the apt->pip->pybombs route was a long detour,
 137 and the only piece of software dependency missing in Debian was the
 138 gr-gsm package.  I also found out that the lead upstream developer of
 139 gr-gsm (the name stand for GNU Radio GSM) project already had a set of
 140 Debian packages provided in an Ubuntu PPA repository.  All I needed to
 141 do was to dget the Debian source package and built it.</p>
 142
 143 <p>The IMSI collector is a python script listening for packages on the
 144 loopback network device and printing to the terminal some specific GSM
 145 packages with IMSI numbers in them.  The code is fairly short and easy
 146 to understand.  The reason this work is because gr-gsm include a tool
 147 to read GSM data from a software defined radio like a DVB-T USB stick
 148 and other software defined radios, decode them and inject them into a
 149 network device on your Linux machine (using the loopback device by
 150 default).  This proved to work just fine, and I've been testing the
 151 collector for a few days now.</p>
 152
 153 <p>The updated and simpler recipe is thus to</p>
 154
 155 <ol>
 156
 157 <li>start with a Debian machine running Stretch or newer,</li>
 158
 159 <li>build and install the gr-gsm package available from
 160 <a href="http://ppa.launchpad.net/ptrkrysik/gr-gsm/ubuntu/pool/main/g/gr-gsm/">http://ppa.launchpad.net/ptrkrysik/gr-gsm/ubuntu/pool/main/g/gr-gsm/</a>,</li>
 161
 162 <li>clone the git repostory from <a href="https://github.com/Oros42/IMSI-catcher">https://github.com/Oros42/IMSI-catcher</a>,</li>
 163
 164 <li>run grgsm_livemon and adjust the frequency until the terminal
 165 where it was started is filled with a stream of text (meaning you
 166 found a GSM station).</li>
 167
 168 <li>go into the IMSI-catcher directory and run 'sudo python simple_IMSI-catcher.py' to extract the IMSI numbers.</li>
 169
 170 </ol>
 171
 172 <p>To make it even easier in the future to get this sniffer up and
 173 running, I decided to package
 174 <a href="https://github.com/ptrkrysik/gr-gsm/">the gr-gsm project</a>
 175 for Debian (<a href="https://bugs.debian.org/871055">WNPP
 176 #871055</a>), and the package was uploaded into the NEW queue today.
 177 Luckily the gnuradio maintainer has promised to help me, as I do not
 178 know much about gnuradio stuff yet.</p>
 179
 180 <p>I doubt this "IMSI cacher" is anywhere near as powerfull as
 181 commercial tools like
 182 <a href="https://www.thespyphone.com/portable-imsi-imei-catcher/">The
 183 Spy Phone Portable IMSI / IMEI Catcher</a> or the
 184 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stingray_phone_tracker">Harris
 185 Stingray</a>, but I hope the existance of cheap alternatives can make
 186 more people realise how their whereabouts when carrying a cell phone
 187 is easily tracked.  Seeing the data flow on the screen, realizing that
 188 I live close to a police station and knowing that the police is also
 189 wearing cell phones, I wonder how hard it would be for criminals to
 190 track the position of the police officers to discover when there are
 191 police near by, or for foreign military forces to track the location
 192 of the Norwegian military forces, or for anyone to track the location
 193 of government officials...</p>
 194
 195 <p>It is worth noting that the data reported by the IMSI-catcher
 196 script mentioned above is only a fraction of the data broadcasted on
 197 the GSM network.  It will only collect one frequency at the time,
 198 while a typical phone will be using several frequencies, and not all
 199 phones will be using the frequencies tracked by the grgsm_livemod
 200 program.  Also, there is a lot of radio chatter being ignored by the
 201 simple_IMSI-catcher script, which would be collected by extending the
 202 parser code.  I wonder if gr-gsm can be set up to listen to more than
 203 one frequency?</p>
 204
 205       </div>
 206       <div class="tags">
 207
 208
 209         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
 210
 211
 212       </div>
 213     </div>
 214     <div class="padding"></div>
 215
 216     <div class="entry">
 217       <div class="title">
 218         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Norwegian_Bokm_l_edition_of_Debian_Administrator_s_Handbook_is_now_available.html">Norwegian Bokmål edition of Debian Administrator's Handbook is now available</a>
 219       </div>
 220       <div class="date">
 221         25th July 2017
 222       </div>
 223       <div class="body">
 224         <p align="center"><img align="center" src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2017-07-25-debian-handbook-nb-testprint.png"/></p>
 225
 226 <p>I finally received a copy of the Norwegian Bokmål edition of
 227 "<a href="https://debian-handbook.info/">The Debian Administrator's
 228 Handbook</a>".  This test copy arrived in the mail a few days ago, and
 229 I am very happy to hold the result in my hand.   We spent around one and a half year translating it. This paperbook edition
 230 <a href="https://debian-handbook.info/get/#norwegian">is available
 231 from lulu.com</a>.  If you buy it quickly, you save 25% on the list
 232 price.  The book is also available for download in electronic form as
 233 PDF, EPUB and Mobipocket, as can be
 234 <a href="https://debian-handbook.info/browse/nb-NO/stable/">read online
 235 as a web page</a>.</p>
 236
 237 <p>This is the second book I publish (the first was the book
 238 "<a href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a>" by Lawrence Lessig
 239 in
 240 <a href="http://www.lulu.com/shop/lawrence-lessig/free-culture/paperback/product-22440520.html">English</a>,
 241 <a href="http://www.lulu.com/shop/lawrence-lessig/culture-libre/paperback/product-22645082.html">French</a>
 242 and
 243 <a href="http://www.lulu.com/shop/lawrence-lessig/fri-kultur/paperback/product-22441576.html">Norwegian
 244 Bokmål</a>), and I am very excited to finally wrap up this
 245 project.  I hope
 246 "<a href="http://www.lulu.com/shop/rapha%C3%ABl-hertzog-and-roland-mas/h%C3%A5ndbok-for-debian-administratoren/paperback/product-23262290.html">Håndbok
 247 for Debian-administratoren</a>" will be well received.</p>
 248
 249       </div>
 250       <div class="tags">
 251
 252
 253         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian-handbook">debian-handbook</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
 254
 255
 256       </div>
 257     </div>
 258     <div class="padding"></div>
 259
 260     <div class="entry">
 261       <div class="title">
 262         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/N_r_nynorskoversettelsen_svikter_til_eksamen___.html">Når nynorskoversettelsen svikter til eksamen...</a>
 263       </div>
 264       <div class="date">
 265          3rd June 2017
 266       </div>
 267       <div class="body">
 268         <p><a href="http://www.aftenposten.no/norge/Krever-at-elever-ma-fa-annullert-eksamen-etter-rot-med-oppgavetekster-622459b.html">Aftenposten
 269 melder i dag</a> om feil i eksamensoppgavene for eksamen i politikk og
 270 menneskerettigheter, der teksten i bokmåls og nynorskutgaven ikke var
 271 like.  Oppgaveteksten er gjengitt i artikkelen, og jeg ble nysgjerring
 272 på om den fri oversetterløsningen
 273 <a href="https://www.apertium.org/">Apertium</a> ville gjort en bedre
 274 jobb enn Utdanningsdirektoratet.  Det kan se slik ut.</p>
 275
 276 <p>Her er bokmålsoppgaven fra eksamenen:</p>
 277
 278 <blockquote>
 279 <p>Drøft utfordringene knyttet til nasjonalstatenes og andre aktørers
 280 rolle og muligheter til å håndtere internasjonale utfordringer, som
 281 for eksempel flykningekrisen.</p>
 282
 283 <p>Vedlegge er eksempler på tekster som kan gi relevante perspektiver
 284 på temaet:</p>
 285 <ol>
 286 <li>Flykningeregnskapet 2016, UNHCR og IDMC
 287 <li>«Grenseløst Europa for fall» A-Magasinet, 26. november 2015
 288 </ol>
 289
 290 </blockquote>
 291
 292 <p>Dette oversetter Apertium slik:</p>
 293
 294 <blockquote>
 295 <p>Drøft utfordringane knytte til nasjonalstatane sine og rolla til
 296 andre aktørar og høve til å handtera internasjonale utfordringar, som
 297 til dømes *flykningekrisen.</p>
 298
 299 <p>Vedleggja er døme på tekster som kan gje relevante perspektiv på
 300 temaet:</p>
 301
 302 <ol>
 303 <li>*Flykningeregnskapet 2016, *UNHCR og *IDMC</li>
 304 <li>«*Grenseløst Europa for fall» A-Magasinet, 26. november 2015</li>
 305 </ol>
 306
 307 </blockquote>
 308
 309 <p>Ord som ikke ble forstått er markert med stjerne (*), og trenger
 310 ekstra språksjekk.  Men ingen ord er forsvunnet, slik det var i
 311 oppgaven elevene fikk presentert på eksamen.  Jeg mistenker dog at
 312 "andre aktørers rolle og muligheter til ..." burde vært oversatt til
 313 "rolla til andre aktørar og deira høve til ..." eller noe slikt, men
 314 det er kanskje flisespikking.  Det understreker vel bare at det alltid
 315 trengs korrekturlesning etter automatisk oversettelse.</p>
 316
 317       </div>
 318       <div class="tags">
 319
 320
 321         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stavekontroll">stavekontroll</a>.
 322
 323
 324       </div>
 325     </div>
 326     <div class="padding"></div>
 327
 328     <div class="entry">
 329       <div class="title">
 330         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Detecting_NFS_hangs_on_Linux_without_hanging_yourself___.html">Detecting NFS hangs on Linux without hanging yourself...</a>
 331       </div>
 332       <div class="date">
 333          9th March 2017
 334       </div>
 335       <div class="body">
 336         <p>Over the years, administrating thousand of NFS mounting linux
 337 computers at the time, I often needed a way to detect if the machine
 338 was experiencing NFS hang.  If you try to use <tt>df</tt> or look at a
 339 file or directory affected by the hang, the process (and possibly the
 340 shell) will hang too.  So you want to be able to detect this without
 341 risking the detection process getting stuck too.  It has not been
 342 obvious how to do this.  When the hang has lasted a while, it is
 343 possible to find messages like these in dmesg:</p>
 344
 345 <p><blockquote>
 346 nfs: server nfsserver not responding, still trying
 347 <br>nfs: server nfsserver OK
 348 </blockquote></p>
 349
 350 <p>It is hard to know if the hang is still going on, and it is hard to
 351 be sure looking in dmesg is going to work.  If there are lots of other
 352 messages in dmesg the lines might have rotated out of site before they
 353 are noticed.</p>
 354
 355 <p>While reading through the nfs client implementation in linux kernel
 356 code, I came across some statistics that seem to give a way to detect
 357 it.  The om_timeouts sunrpc value in the kernel will increase every
 358 time the above log entry is inserted into dmesg.  And after digging a
 359 bit further, I discovered that this value show up in
 360 /proc/self/mountstats on Linux.</p>
 361
 362 <p>The mountstats content seem to be shared between files using the
 363 same file system context, so it is enough to check one of the
 364 mountstats files to get the state of the mount point for the machine.
 365 I assume this will not show lazy umounted NFS points, nor NFS mount
 366 points in a different process context (ie with a different filesystem
 367 view), but that does not worry me.</p>
 368
 369 <p>The content for a NFS mount point look similar to this:</p>
 370
 371 <p><blockquote><pre>
 372 [...]
 373 device /dev/mapper/Debian-var mounted on /var with fstype ext3
 374 device nfsserver:/mnt/nfsserver/home0 mounted on /mnt/nfsserver/home0 with fstype nfs statvers=1.1
 375         opts:   rw,vers=3,rsize=65536,wsize=65536,namlen=255,acregmin=3,acregmax=60,acdirmin=30,acdirmax=60,soft,nolock,proto=tcp,timeo=600,retrans=2,sec=sys,mountaddr=129.240.3.145,mountvers=3,mountport=4048,mountproto=udp,local_lock=all
 376         age:    7863311
 377         caps:   caps=0x3fe7,wtmult=4096,dtsize=8192,bsize=0,namlen=255
 378         sec:    flavor=1,pseudoflavor=1
 379         events: 61063112 732346265 1028140 35486205 16220064 8162542 761447191 71714012 37189 3891185 45561809 110486139 4850138 420353 15449177 296502 52736725 13523379 0 52182 9016896 1231 0 0 0 0 0
 380         bytes:  166253035039 219519120027 0 0 40783504807 185466229638 11677877 45561809
 381         RPC iostats version: 1.0  p/v: 100003/3 (nfs)
 382         xprt:   tcp 925 1 6810 0 0 111505412 111480497 109 2672418560317 0 248 53869103 22481820
 383         per-op statistics
 384                 NULL: 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
 385              GETATTR: 61063106 61063108 0 9621383060 6839064400 453650 77291321 78926132
 386              SETATTR: 463469 463470 0 92005440 66739536 63787 603235 687943
 387               LOOKUP: 17021657 17021657 0 3354097764 4013442928 57216 35125459 35566511
 388               ACCESS: 14281703 14290009 5 2318400592 1713803640 1709282 4865144 7130140
 389             READLINK: 125 125 0 20472 18620 0 1112 1118
 390                 READ: 4214236 4214237 0 715608524 41328653212 89884 22622768 22806693
 391                WRITE: 8479010 8494376 22 187695798568 1356087148 178264904 51506907 231671771
 392               CREATE: 171708 171708 0 38084748 46702272 873 1041833 1050398
 393                MKDIR: 3680 3680 0 773980 993920 26 23990 24245
 394              SYMLINK: 903 903 0 233428 245488 6 5865 5917
 395                MKNOD: 80 80 0 20148 21760 0 299 304
 396               REMOVE: 429921 429921 0 79796004 61908192 3313 2710416 2741636
 397                RMDIR: 3367 3367 0 645112 484848 22 5782 6002
 398               RENAME: 466201 466201 0 130026184 121212260 7075 5935207 5961288
 399                 LINK: 289155 289155 0 72775556 67083960 2199 2565060 2585579
 400              READDIR: 2933237 2933237 0 516506204 13973833412 10385 3190199 3297917
 401          READDIRPLUS: 1652839 1652839 0 298640972 6895997744 84735 14307895 14448937
 402               FSSTAT: 6144 6144 0 1010516 1032192 51 9654 10022
 403               FSINFO: 2 2 0 232 328 0 1 1
 404             PATHCONF: 1 1 0 116 140 0 0 0
 405               COMMIT: 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
 406
 407 device binfmt_misc mounted on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc with fstype binfmt_misc
 408 [...]
 409 </pre></blockquote></p>
 410
 411 <p>The key number to look at is the third number in the per-op list.
 412 It is the number of NFS timeouts experiences per file system
 413 operation.  Here 22 write timeouts and 5 access timeouts.  If these
 414 numbers are increasing, I believe the machine is experiencing NFS
 415 hang.  Unfortunately the timeout value do not start to increase right
 416 away.  The NFS operations need to time out first, and this can take a
 417 while.  The exact timeout value depend on the setup.  For example the
 418 defaults for TCP and UDP mount points are quite different, and the
 419 timeout value is affected by the soft, hard, timeo and retrans NFS
 420 mount options.</p>
 421
 422 <p>The only way I have been able to get working on Debian and RedHat
 423 Enterprise Linux for getting the timeout count is to peek in /proc/.
 424 But according to
 425 <ahref="http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E19253-01/816-4555/netmonitor-12/index.html">Solaris
 426 10 System Administration Guide: Network Services</a>, the 'nfsstat -c'
 427 command can be used to get these timeout values.  But this do not work
 428 on Linux, as far as I can tell.  I
 429 <ahref="http://bugs.debian.org/857043">asked Debian about this</a>,
 430 but have not seen any replies yet.</p>
 431
 432 <p>Is there a better way to figure out if a Linux NFS client is
 433 experiencing NFS hangs?  Is there a way to detect which processes are
 434 affected?  Is there a way to get the NFS mount going quickly once the
 435 network problem causing the NFS hang has been cleared?  I would very
 436 much welcome some clues, as we regularly run into NFS hangs.</p>
 437
 438       </div>
 439       <div class="tags">
 440
 441
 442         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sysadmin">sysadmin</a>.
 443
 444
 445       </div>
 446     </div>
 447     <div class="padding"></div>
 448
 449     <div class="entry">
 450       <div class="title">
 451         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Norwegian_Bokm_l_translation_of_The_Debian_Administrator_s_Handbook_complete__proofreading_in_progress.html">Norwegian Bokmål translation of The Debian Administrator's Handbook complete, proofreading in progress</a>
 452       </div>
 453       <div class="date">
 454          3rd March 2017
 455       </div>
 456       <div class="body">
 457         <p>For almost a year now, we have been working on making a Norwegian
 458 Bokmål edition of <a href="https://debian-handbook.info/">The Debian
 459 Administrator's Handbook</a>.  Now, thanks to the tireless effort of
 460 Ole-Erik, Ingrid and Andreas, the initial translation is complete, and
 461 we are working on the proof reading to ensure consistent language and
 462 use of correct computer science terms.  The plan is to make the book
 463 available on paper, as well as in electronic form.  For that to
 464 happen, the proof reading must be completed and all the figures need
 465 to be translated.  If you want to help out, get in touch.</p>
 466
 467 <p><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-handbook/debian-handbook-nb-NO.pdf">A
 468
 469 fresh PDF edition</a> in A4 format (the final book will have smaller
 470 pages) of the book created every morning is available for
 471 proofreading.  If you find any errors, please
 472 <a href="https://hosted.weblate.org/projects/debian-handbook/">visit
 473 Weblate and correct the error</a>.  The
 474 <a href="http://l.github.io/debian-handbook/stat/nb-NO/index.html">state
 475 of the translation including figures</a> is a useful source for those
 476 provide Norwegian bokmål screen shots and figures.</p>
 477
 478       </div>
 479       <div class="tags">
 480
 481
 482         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian-handbook">debian-handbook</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
 483
 484
 485       </div>
 486     </div>
 487     <div class="padding"></div>
 488
 489     <div class="entry">
 490       <div class="title">
 491         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Unlimited_randomness_with_the_ChaosKey_.html">Unlimited randomness with the ChaosKey?</a>
 492       </div>
 493       <div class="date">
 494          1st March 2017
 495       </div>
 496       <div class="body">
 497         <p>A few days ago I ordered a small batch of
 498 <a href="http://altusmetrum.org/ChaosKey/">the ChaosKey</a>, a small
 499 USB dongle for generating entropy created by Bdale Garbee and Keith
 500 Packard.  Yesterday it arrived, and I am very happy to report that it
 501 work great!  According to its designers, to get it to work out of the
 502 box, you need the Linux kernel version 4.1 or later.  I tested on a
 503 Debian Stretch machine (kernel version 4.9), and there it worked just
 504 fine, increasing the available entropy very quickly.  I wrote a small
 505 test oneliner to test.  It first print the current entropy level,
 506 drain /dev/random, and then print the entropy level for five seconds.
 507 Here is the situation without the ChaosKey inserted:</p>
 508
 509 <blockquote><pre>
 510 % cat /proc/sys/kernel/random/entropy_avail; \
 511   dd bs=1M if=/dev/random of=/dev/null count=1; \
 512   for n in $(seq 1 5); do \
 513      cat /proc/sys/kernel/random/entropy_avail; \
 514      sleep 1; \
 515   done
 516 300
 517 0+1 oppføringer inn
 518 0+1 oppføringer ut
 519 28 byte kopiert, 0,000264565 s, 106 kB/s
 520 4
 521 8
 522 12
 523 17
 524 21
 525 %
 526 </pre></blockquote>
 527
 528 <p>The entropy level increases by 3-4 every second.  In such case any
 529 application requiring random bits (like a HTTPS enabled web server)
 530 will halt and wait for more entrpy.  And here is the situation with
 531 the ChaosKey inserted:</p>
 532
 533 <blockquote><pre>
 534 % cat /proc/sys/kernel/random/entropy_avail; \
 535   dd bs=1M if=/dev/random of=/dev/null count=1; \
 536   for n in $(seq 1 5); do \
 537      cat /proc/sys/kernel/random/entropy_avail; \
 538      sleep 1; \
 539   done
 540 1079
 541 0+1 oppføringer inn
 542 0+1 oppføringer ut
 543 104 byte kopiert, 0,000487647 s, 213 kB/s
 544 433
 545 1028
 546 1031
 547 1035
 548 1038
 549 %
 550 </pre></blockquote>
 551
 552 <p>Quite the difference. :) I bought a few more than I need, in case
 553 someone want to buy one here in Norway. :)</p>
 554
 555 <p>Update: The dongle was presented at Debconf last year.  You might
 556 find <a href="https://debconf16.debconf.org/talks/94/">the talk
 557 recording illuminating</a>.  It explains exactly what the source of
 558 randomness is, if you are unable to spot it from the schema drawing
 559 available from the ChaosKey web site linked at the start of this blog
 560 post.</p>
 561
 562       </div>
 563       <div class="tags">
 564
 565
 566         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
 567
 568
 569       </div>
 570     </div>
 571     <div class="padding"></div>
 572
 573     <div class="entry">
 574       <div class="title">
 575         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Where_did_that_package_go___mdash__geolocated_IP_traceroute.html">Where did that package go? &mdash; geolocated IP traceroute</a>
 576       </div>
 577       <div class="date">
 578          9th January 2017
 579       </div>
 580       <div class="body">
 581         <p>Did you ever wonder where the web trafic really flow to reach the
 582 web servers, and who own the network equipment it is flowing through?
 583 It is possible to get a glimpse of this from using traceroute, but it
 584 is hard to find all the details.  Many years ago, I wrote a system to
 585 map the Norwegian Internet (trying to figure out if our plans for a
 586 network game service would get low enough latency, and who we needed
 587 to talk to about setting up game servers close to the users.  Back
 588 then I used traceroute output from many locations (I asked my friends
 589 to run a script and send me their traceroute output) to create the
 590 graph and the map.  The output from traceroute typically look like
 591 this:
 592
 593 <p><pre>
 594 traceroute to www.stortinget.no (85.88.67.10), 30 hops max, 60 byte packets
 595  1  uio-gw10.uio.no (129.240.202.1)  0.447 ms  0.486 ms  0.621 ms
 596  2  uio-gw8.uio.no (129.240.24.229)  0.467 ms  0.578 ms  0.675 ms
 597  3  oslo-gw1.uninett.no (128.39.65.17)  0.385 ms  0.373 ms  0.358 ms
 598  4  te3-1-2.br1.fn3.as2116.net (193.156.90.3)  1.174 ms  1.172 ms  1.153 ms
 599  5  he16-1-1.cr1.san110.as2116.net (195.0.244.234)  2.627 ms he16-1-1.cr2.oslosda310.as2116.net (195.0.244.48)  3.172 ms he16-1-1.cr1.san110.as2116.net (195.0.244.234)  2.857 ms
 600  6  ae1.ar8.oslosda310.as2116.net (195.0.242.39)  0.662 ms  0.637 ms ae0.ar8.oslosda310.as2116.net (195.0.242.23)  0.622 ms
 601  7  89.191.10.146 (89.191.10.146)  0.931 ms  0.917 ms  0.955 ms
 602  8  * * *
 603  9  * * *
 604 [...]
 605 </pre></p>
 606
 607 <p>This show the DNS names and IP addresses of (at least some of the)
 608 network equipment involved in getting the data traffic from me to the
 609 www.stortinget.no server, and how long it took in milliseconds for a
 610 package to reach the equipment and return to me.  Three packages are
 611 sent, and some times the packages do not follow the same path.  This
 612 is shown for hop 5, where three different IP addresses replied to the
 613 traceroute request.</p>
 614
 615 <p>There are many ways to measure trace routes.  Other good traceroute
 616 implementations I use are traceroute (using ICMP packages) mtr (can do
 617 both ICMP, UDP and TCP) and scapy (python library with ICMP, UDP, TCP
 618 traceroute and a lot of other capabilities).  All of them are easily
 619 available in <a href="https://www.debian.org/">Debian</a>.</p>
 620
 621 <p>This time around, I wanted to know the geographic location of
 622 different route points, to visualize how visiting a web page spread
 623 information about the visit to a lot of servers around the globe.  The
 624 background is that a web site today often will ask the browser to get
 625 from many servers the parts (for example HTML, JSON, fonts,
 626 JavaScript, CSS, video) required to display the content.  This will
 627 leak information about the visit to those controlling these servers
 628 and anyone able to peek at the data traffic passing by (like your ISP,
 629 the ISPs backbone provider, FRA, GCHQ, NSA and others).</p>
 630
 631 <p>Lets pick an example, the Norwegian parliament web site
 632 www.stortinget.no.  It is read daily by all members of parliament and
 633 their staff, as well as political journalists, activits and many other
 634 citizens of Norway.  A visit to the www.stortinget.no web site will
 635 ask your browser to contact 8 other servers: ajax.googleapis.com,
 636 insights.hotjar.com, script.hotjar.com, static.hotjar.com,
 637 stats.g.doubleclick.net, www.google-analytics.com,
 638 www.googletagmanager.com and www.netigate.se.  I extracted this by
 639 asking <a href="http://phantomjs.org/">PhantomJS</a> to visit the
 640 Stortinget web page and tell me all the URLs PhantomJS downloaded to
 641 render the page (in HAR format using
 642 <a href="https://github.com/ariya/phantomjs/blob/master/examples/netsniff.js">their
 643 netsniff example</a>.  I am very grateful to Gorm for showing me how
 644 to do this).  My goal is to visualize network traces to all IP
 645 addresses behind these DNS names, do show where visitors personal
 646 information is spread when visiting the page.</p>
 647
 648 <p align="center"><a href="www.stortinget.no-geoip.kml"><img
 649 src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2017-01-09-www.stortinget.no-geoip-small.png" alt="map of combined traces for URLs used by www.stortinget.no using GeoIP"/></a></p>
 650
 651 <p>When I had a look around for options, I could not find any good
 652 free software tools to do this, and decided I needed my own traceroute
 653 wrapper outputting KML based on locations looked up using GeoIP.  KML
 654 is easy to work with and easy to generate, and understood by several
 655 of the GIS tools I have available.  I got good help from by NUUG
 656 colleague Anders Einar with this, and the result can be seen in
 657 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/kmltraceroute">my
 658 kmltraceroute git repository</a>.  Unfortunately, the quality of the
 659 free GeoIP databases I could find (and the for-pay databases my
 660 friends had access to) is not up to the task.  The IP addresses of
 661 central Internet infrastructure would typically be placed near the
 662 controlling companies main office, and not where the router is really
 663 located, as you can see from <a href="www.stortinget.no-geoip.kml">the
 664 KML file I created</a> using the GeoLite City dataset from MaxMind.
 665
 666 <p align="center"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2017-01-09-www.stortinget.no-scapy.svg"><img
 667 src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2017-01-09-www.stortinget.no-scapy-small.png" alt="scapy traceroute graph for URLs used by www.stortinget.no"/></a></p>
 668
 669 <p>I also had a look at the visual traceroute graph created by
 670 <a href="http://www.secdev.org/projects/scapy/">the scrapy project</a>,
 671 showing IP network ownership (aka AS owner) for the IP address in
 672 question.
 673 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2017-01-09-www.stortinget.no-scapy.svg">The
 674 graph display a lot of useful information about the traceroute in SVG
 675 format</a>, and give a good indication on who control the network
 676 equipment involved, but it do not include geolocation.  This graph
 677 make it possible to see the information is made available at least for
 678 UNINETT, Catchcom, Stortinget, Nordunet, Google, Amazon, Telia, Level
 679 3 Communications and NetDNA.</p>
 680
 681 <p align="center"><a href="https://geotraceroute.com/index.php?node=4&host=www.stortinget.no"><img
 682 src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2017-01-09-www.stortinget.no-geotraceroute-small.png" alt="example geotraceroute view for www.stortinget.no"/></a></p>
 683
 684 <p>In the process, I came across the
 685 <a href="https://geotraceroute.com/">web service GeoTraceroute</a> by
 686 Salim Gasmi.  Its methology of combining guesses based on DNS names,
 687 various location databases and finally use latecy times to rule out
 688 candidate locations seemed to do a very good job of guessing correct
 689 geolocation.  But it could only do one trace at the time, did not have
 690 a sensor in Norway and did not make the geolocations easily available
 691 for postprocessing.  So I contacted the developer and asked if he
 692 would be willing to share the code (he refused until he had time to
 693 clean it up), but he was interested in providing the geolocations in a
 694 machine readable format, and willing to set up a sensor in Norway.  So
 695 since yesterday, it is possible to run traces from Norway in this
 696 service thanks to a sensor node set up by
 697 <a href="https://www.nuug.no/">the NUUG assosiation</a>, and get the
 698 trace in KML format for further processing.</p>
 699
 700 <p align="center"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2017-01-09-www.stortinget.no-geotraceroute-kml-join.kml"><img
 701 src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2017-01-09-www.stortinget.no-geotraceroute-kml-join.png" alt="map of combined traces for URLs used by www.stortinget.no using geotraceroute"/></a></p>
 702
 703 <p>Here we can see a lot of trafic passes Sweden on its way to
 704 Denmark, Germany, Holland and Ireland.  Plenty of places where the
 705 Snowden confirmations verified the traffic is read by various actors
 706 without your best interest as their top priority.</p>
 707
 708 <p>Combining KML files is trivial using a text editor, so I could loop
 709 over all the hosts behind the urls imported by www.stortinget.no and
 710 ask for the KML file from GeoTraceroute, and create a combined KML
 711 file with all the traces (unfortunately only one of the IP addresses
 712 behind the DNS name is traced this time.  To get them all, one would
 713 have to request traces using IP number instead of DNS names from
 714 GeoTraceroute).  That might be the next step in this project.</p>
 715
 716 <p>Armed with these tools, I find it a lot easier to figure out where
 717 the IP traffic moves and who control the boxes involved in moving it.
 718 And every time the link crosses for example the Swedish border, we can
 719 be sure Swedish Signal Intelligence (FRA) is listening, as GCHQ do in
 720 Britain and NSA in USA and cables around the globe.  (Hm, what should
 721 we tell them? :) Keep that in mind if you ever send anything
 722 unencrypted over the Internet.</p>
 723
 724 <p>PS: KML files are drawn using
 725 <a href="http://ivanrublev.me/kml/">the KML viewer from Ivan
 726 Rublev<a/>, as it was less cluttered than the local Linux application
 727 Marble.  There are heaps of other options too.</p>
 728
 729 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
 730 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
 731 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
 732
 733       </div>
 734       <div class="tags">
 735
 736
 737         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kart">kart</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stortinget">stortinget</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
 738
 739
 740       </div>
 741     </div>
 742     <div class="padding"></div>
 743
 744     <div class="entry">
 745       <div class="title">
 746         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Appstream_just_learned_how_to_map_hardware_to_packages_too_.html">Appstream just learned how to map hardware to packages too!</a>
 747       </div>
 748       <div class="date">
 749         23rd December 2016
 750       </div>
 751       <div class="body">
 752         <p>I received a very nice Christmas present today.  As my regular
 753 readers probably know, I have been working on the
 754 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">the Isenkram
 755 system</a> for many years.  The goal of the Isenkram system is to make
 756 it easier for users to figure out what to install to get a given piece
 757 of hardware to work in Debian, and a key part of this system is a way
 758 to map hardware to packages.  Isenkram have its own mapping database,
 759 and also uses data provided by each package using the AppStream
 760 metadata format.  And today,
 761 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/appstream">AppStream</a> in
 762 Debian learned to look up hardware the same way Isenkram is doing it,
 763 ie using fnmatch():</p>
 764
 765 <p><pre>
 766 % appstreamcli what-provides modalias \
 767   usb:v1130p0202d0100dc00dsc00dp00ic03isc00ip00in00
 768 Identifier: pymissile [generic]
 769 Name: pymissile
 770 Summary: Control original Striker USB Missile Launcher
 771 Package: pymissile
 772 % appstreamcli what-provides modalias usb:v0694p0002d0000
 773 Identifier: libnxt [generic]
 774 Name: libnxt
 775 Summary: utility library for talking to the LEGO Mindstorms NXT brick
 776 Package: libnxt
 777 ---
 778 Identifier: t2n [generic]
 779 Name: t2n
 780 Summary: Simple command-line tool for Lego NXT
 781 Package: t2n
 782 ---
 783 Identifier: python-nxt [generic]
 784 Name: python-nxt
 785 Summary: Python driver/interface/wrapper for the Lego Mindstorms NXT robot
 786 Package: python-nxt
 787 ---
 788 Identifier: nbc [generic]
 789 Name: nbc
 790 Summary: C compiler for LEGO Mindstorms NXT bricks
 791 Package: nbc
 792 %
 793 </pre></p>
 794
 795 <p>A similar query can be done using the combined AppStream and
 796 Isenkram databases using the isenkram-lookup tool:</p>
 797
 798 <p><pre>
 799 % isenkram-lookup usb:v1130p0202d0100dc00dsc00dp00ic03isc00ip00in00
 800 pymissile
 801 % isenkram-lookup usb:v0694p0002d0000
 802 libnxt
 803 nbc
 804 python-nxt
 805 t2n
 806 %
 807 </pre></p>
 808
 809 <p>You can find modalias values relevant for your machine using
 810 <tt>cat $(find /sys/devices/ -name modalias)</tt>.
 811
 812 <p>If you want to make this system a success and help Debian users
 813 make the most of the hardware they have, please
 814 help<a href="https://wiki.debian.org/AppStream/Guidelines">add
 815 AppStream metadata for your package following the guidelines</a>
 816 documented in the wiki.  So far only 11 packages provide such
 817 information, among the several hundred hardware specific packages in
 818 Debian. The Isenkram database on the other hand contain 101 packages,
 819 mostly related to USB dongles.  Most of the packages with hardware
 820 mapping in AppStream are LEGO Mindstorms related, because I have, as
 821 part of my involvement in
 822 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">the Debian LEGO
 823 team</a> given priority to making sure LEGO users get proposed the
 824 complete set of packages in Debian for that particular hardware.  The
 825 team also got a nice Christmas present today.  The
 826 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/nxt-firmware">nxt-firmware
 827 package</a> made it into Debian.  With this package in place, it is
 828 now possible to use the LEGO Mindstorms NXT unit with only free
 829 software, as the nxt-firmware package contain the source and firmware
 830 binaries for the NXT brick.</p>
 831
 832 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
 833 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
 834 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
 835
 836       </div>
 837       <div class="tags">
 838
 839
 840         Tags: <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>.
 841
 842
 843       </div>
 844     </div>
 845     <div class="padding"></div>
 846
 847     <div class="entry">
 848       <div class="title">
 849         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Isenkram_updated_with_a_lot_more_hardware_package_mappings.html">Isenkram updated with a lot more hardware-package mappings</a>
 850       </div>
 851       <div class="date">
 852         20th December 2016
 853       </div>
 854       <div class="body">
 855         <p><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">The Isenkram
 856 system</a> I wrote two years ago to make it easier in Debian to find
 857 and install packages to get your hardware dongles to work, is still
 858 going strong.  It is a system to look up the hardware present on or
 859 connected to the current system, and map the hardware to Debian
 860 packages.  It can either be done using the tools in isenkram-cli or
 861 using the user space daemon in the isenkram package.  The latter will
 862 notify you, when inserting new hardware, about what packages to
 863 install to get the dongle working.  It will even provide a button to
 864 click on to ask packagekit to install the packages.</p>
 865
 866 <p>Here is an command line example from my Thinkpad laptop:</p>
 867
 868 <p><pre>
 869 % isenkram-lookup
 870 bluez
 871 cheese
 872 ethtool
 873 fprintd
 874 fprintd-demo
 875 gkrellm-thinkbat
 876 hdapsd
 877 libpam-fprintd
 878 pidgin-blinklight
 879 thinkfan
 880 tlp
 881 tp-smapi-dkms
 882 tp-smapi-source
 883 tpb
 884 %
 885 </pre></p>
 886
 887 <p>It can also list the firware package providing firmware requested
 888 by the load kernel modules, which in my case is an empty list because
 889 I have all the firmware my machine need:
 890
 891 <p><pre>
 892 % /usr/sbin/isenkram-autoinstall-firmware -l
 893 info: did not find any firmware files requested by loaded kernel modules.  exiting
 894 %
 895 </pre></p>
 896
 897 <p>The last few days I had a look at several of the around 250
 898 packages in Debian with udev rules.  These seem like good candidates
 899 to install when a given hardware dongle is inserted, and I found
 900 several that should be proposed by isenkram.  I have not had time to
 901 check all of them, but am happy to report that now there are 97
 902 packages packages mapped to hardware by Isenkram.  11 of these
 903 packages provide hardware mapping using AppStream, while the rest are
 904 listed in the modaliases file provided in isenkram.</p>
 905
 906 <p>These are the packages with hardware mappings at the moment.  The
 907 <strong>marked packages</strong> are also announcing their hardware
 908 support using AppStream, for everyone to use:</p>
 909
 910 <p>air-quality-sensor, alsa-firmware-loaders, argyll,
 911 <strong>array-info</strong>, avarice, avrdude, b43-fwcutter,
 912 bit-babbler, bluez, bluez-firmware, <strong>brltty</strong>,
 913 <strong>broadcom-sta-dkms</strong>, calibre, cgminer, cheese, colord,
 914 <strong>colorhug-client</strong>, dahdi-firmware-nonfree, dahdi-linux,
 915 dfu-util, dolphin-emu, ekeyd, ethtool, firmware-ipw2x00, fprintd,
 916 fprintd-demo, <strong>galileo</strong>, gkrellm-thinkbat, gphoto2,
 917 gpsbabel, gpsbabel-gui, gpsman, gpstrans, gqrx-sdr, gr-fcdproplus,
 918 gr-osmosdr, gtkpod, hackrf, hdapsd, hdmi2usb-udev, hpijs-ppds, hplip,
 919 ipw3945-source, ipw3945d, kde-config-tablet, kinect-audio-setup,
 920 <strong>libnxt</strong>, libpam-fprintd, <strong>lomoco</strong>,
 921 madwimax, minidisc-utils, mkgmap, msi-keyboard, mtkbabel,
 922 <strong>nbc</strong>, <strong>nqc</strong>, nut-hal-drivers, ola,
 923 open-vm-toolbox, open-vm-tools, openambit, pcgminer, pcmciautils,
 924 pcscd, pidgin-blinklight, printer-driver-splix,
 925 <strong>pymissile</strong>, python-nxt, qlandkartegt,
 926 qlandkartegt-garmin, rosegarden, rt2x00-source, sispmctl,
 927 soapysdr-module-hackrf, solaar, squeak-plugins-scratch, sunxi-tools,
 928 <strong>t2n</strong>, thinkfan, thinkfinger-tools, tlp, tp-smapi-dkms,
 929 tp-smapi-source, tpb, tucnak, uhd-host, usbmuxd, viking,
 930 virtualbox-ose-guest-x11, w1retap, xawtv, xserver-xorg-input-vmmouse,
 931 xserver-xorg-input-wacom, xserver-xorg-video-qxl,
 932 xserver-xorg-video-vmware, yubikey-personalization and
 933 zd1211-firmware</p>
 934
 935 <p>If you know of other packages, please let me know with a wishlist
 936 bug report against the isenkram-cli package, and ask the package
 937 maintainer to
 938 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/AppStream/Guidelines">add AppStream
 939 metadata according to the guidelines</a> to provide the information
 940 for everyone.  In time, I hope to get rid of the isenkram specific
 941 hardware mapping and depend exclusively on AppStream.</p>
 942
 943 <p>Note, the AppStream metadata for broadcom-sta-dkms is matching too
 944 much hardware, and suggest that the package with with any ethernet
 945 card.  See <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/838735">bug #838735</a> for
 946 the details.  I hope the maintainer find time to address it soon.  In
 947 the mean time I provide an override in isenkram.</p>
 948
 949       </div>
 950       <div class="tags">
 951
 952
 953         Tags: <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>.
 954
 955
 956       </div>
 957     </div>
 958     <div class="padding"></div>
 959
 960     <div class="entry">
 961       <div class="title">
 962         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Oolite__a_life_in_space_as_vagabond_and_mercenary___nice_free_software.html">Oolite, a life in space as vagabond and mercenary - nice free software</a>
 963       </div>
 964       <div class="date">
 965         11th December 2016
 966       </div>
 967       <div class="body">
 968         <p align="center"><img width="70%" src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-12-11-nice-oolite.png"/></p>
 969
 970 <p>In my early years, I played
 971 <a href="http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Classic_Elite">the epic game
 972 Elite</a> on my PC.  I spent many months trading and fighting in
 973 space, and reached the 'elite' fighting status before I moved on.  The
 974 original Elite game was available on Commodore 64 and the IBM PC
 975 edition I played had a 64 KB executable.  I am still impressed today
 976 that the authors managed to squeeze both a 3D engine and details about
 977 more than 2000 planet systems across 7 galaxies into a binary so
 978 small.</p>
 979
 980 <p>I have known about <a href="http://www.oolite.org/">the free
 981 software game Oolite inspired by Elite</a> for a while, but did not
 982 really have time to test it properly until a few days ago.  It was
 983 great to discover that my old knowledge about trading routes were
 984 still valid.  But my fighting and flying abilities were gone, so I had
 985 to retrain to be able to dock on a space station.  And I am still not
 986 able to make much resistance when I am attacked by pirates, so I
 987 bougth and mounted the most powerful laser in the rear to be able to
 988 put up at least some resistance while fleeing for my life. :)</p>
 989
 990 <p>When playing Elite in the late eighties, I had to discover
 991 everything on my own, and I had long lists of prices seen on different
 992 planets to be able to decide where to trade what.  This time I had the
 993 advantages of the
 994 <a href="http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Main_Page">Elite wiki</a>,
 995 where information about each planet is easily available with common
 996 price ranges and suggested trading routes.  This improved my ability
 997 to earn money and I have been able to earn enough to buy a lot of
 998 useful equipent in a few days.  I believe I originally played for
 999 months before I could get a docking computer, while now I could get it
1000 after less then a week.</p>
1001
1002 <p>If you like science fiction and dreamed of a life as a vagabond in
1003 space, you should try out Oolite.  It is available for Linux, MacOSX
1004 and Windows, and is included in Debian and derivatives since 2011.</p>
1005
1006 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1007 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1008 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
1009
1010       </div>
1011       <div class="tags">
1012
1013
1014         Tags: <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>.
1015
1016
1017       </div>
1018     </div>
1019     <div class="padding"></div>
1020
1021     <div class="entry">
1022       <div class="title">
1023         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Quicker_Debian_installations_using_eatmydata.html">Quicker Debian installations using eatmydata</a>
1024       </div>
1025       <div class="date">
1026         25th November 2016
1027       </div>
1028       <div class="body">
1029         <p>Two years ago, I did some experiments with eatmydata and the Debian
1030 installation system, observing how using
1031 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Speeding_up_the_Debian_installer_using_eatmydata_and_dpkg_divert.html">eatmydata
1032 could speed up the installation</a> quite a bit.  My testing measured
1033 speedup around 20-40 percent for Debian Edu, where we install around
1034 1000 packages from within the installer.  The eatmydata package
1035 provide a way to disable/delay file system flushing.  This is a bit
1036 risky in the general case, as files that should be stored on disk will
1037 stay only in memory a bit longer than expected, causing problems if a
1038 machine crashes at an inconvenient time.  But for an installation, if
1039 the machine crashes during installation the process is normally
1040 restarted, and avoiding disk operations as much as possible to speed
1041 up the process make perfect sense.
1042
1043 <p>I added code in the Debian Edu specific installation code to enable
1044 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/libeatmydata">eatmydata</a>,
1045 but did not have time to push it any further.  But a few months ago I
1046 picked it up again and worked with the libeatmydata package maintainer
1047 Mattia Rizzolo to make it easier for everyone to get this installation
1048 speedup in Debian.  Thanks to our cooperation There is now an
1049 eatmydata-udeb package in Debian testing and unstable, and simply
1050 enabling/installing it in debian-installer (d-i) is enough to get the
1051 quicker installations.  It can be enabled using preseeding.  The
1052 following untested kernel argument should do the trick:</p>
1053
1054 <blockquote><pre>
1055 preseed/early_command="anna-install eatmydata-udeb"
1056 </pre></blockquote>
1057
1058 <p>This should ask d-i to install the package inside the d-i
1059 environment early in the installation sequence.  Having it installed
1060 in d-i in turn will make sure the relevant scripts are called just
1061 after debootstrap filled /target/ with the freshly installed Debian
1062 system to configure apt to run dpkg with eatmydata.  This is enough to
1063 speed up the installation process.  There is a proposal to
1064 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/841153">extend the idea a bit further
1065 by using /etc/ld.so.preload instead of apt.conf</a>, but I have not
1066 tested its impact.</p>
1067
1068
1069       </div>
1070       <div class="tags">
1071
1072
1073         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>.
1074
1075
1076       </div>
1077     </div>
1078     <div class="padding"></div>
1079
1080     <div class="entry">
1081       <div class="title">
1082         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Oversette_bokm_l_til_nynorsk__enklere_enn_du_tror_takket_v_re_Apertium.html">Oversette bokmål til nynorsk, enklere enn du tror takket være Apertium</a>
1083       </div>
1084       <div class="date">
1085         24th November 2016
1086       </div>
1087       <div class="body">
1088         <p>I Norge er det mange som trenger å skrive både bokmål og nynorsk.
1089 Eksamensoppgaver, offentlige brev og nyheter er eksempler på tekster
1090 der det er krav om skriftspråk.  I tillegg til alle skoleoppgavene som
1091 elever over det ganske land skal levere inn hvert år.  Det mange ikke
1092 vet er at selv om de kommersielle alternativene
1093 <a href="https://translate.google.com/">Google Translate</a> og
1094 <a href="https://www.bing.com/translator/">Bing Translator</a> ikke kan
1095 bidra med å oversette mellom bokmål og nynorsk, så finnes det et
1096 utmerket fri programvarealternativ som kan.  Oversetterverktøyet
1097 Apertium har støtte for en rekke språkkombinasjoner, og takket være
1098 den utrettelige innsatsen til blant annet Kevin Brubeck Unhammer, kan
1099 en bruke webtjenesten til å fylle inn en tekst på bokmål eller
1100 nynorsk, og få den automatoversatt til det andre skriftspråket.
1101 Resultatet er ikke perfekt, men et svært godt utgangspunkt.  Av og til
1102 er resultatet så bra at det kan benyttes uten endringer.  Jeg vet
1103 f.eks. at store deler av Joomla ble oversatt til nynorsk ved hjelp
1104 Apertium.  Høres det ut som noe du kan ha bruk for?  Besøk i så fall
1105 <a href="https://www.apertium.org/">Apertium.org</a> og fyll inn
1106 teksten din i webskjemaet der.
1107
1108 <p>Hvis du trenger maskinell tilgang til den bakenforliggende
1109 teknologien kan du enten installere pakken
1110 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/apertium-nno-nob">apertium-nno-nob</a>
1111 på en Debian-maskin eller bruke web-API-et tilgjengelig fra
1112 api.apertium.org.  Se
1113 <a href="http://wiki.apertium.org/wiki/Apertium-apy">API-dokumentasjonen</a>
1114 for detaljer om web-API-et.  Her kan du se hvordan resultatet blir for
1115 denne teksten som ble skrevet på bokmål over maskinoversatt til
1116 nynorsk.</p>
1117
1118 <hr/>
1119
1120 <p>I Noreg er det mange som treng å skriva både bokmål og nynorsk.
1121 Eksamensoppgåver, offentlege brev og nyhende er døme på tekster der
1122 det er krav om skriftspråk.  I tillegg til alle skuleoppgåvene som
1123 elevar over det ganske land skal levera inn kvart år.  Det mange ikkje
1124 veit er at sjølv om dei kommersielle alternativa
1125 <a href="https://translate.google.com/">Google *Translate</a> og
1126 <a href="https://www.bing.com/translator/">Bing *Translator</a> ikkje
1127 kan bidra med å omsetja mellom bokmål og nynorsk, så finst det eit
1128 utmerka fri programvarealternativ som kan.  Omsetjarverktøyet
1129 *Apertium har støtte for ei rekkje språkkombinasjonar, og takka vera
1130 den utrøyttelege innsatsen til blant anna Kevin Brubeck Unhammer, kan
1131 ein bruka *webtjenesten til å fylla inn ei tekst på bokmål eller
1132 nynorsk, og få den *automatoversatt til det andre skriftspråket.
1133 Resultatet er ikkje perfekt, men eit svært godt utgangspunkt.  Av og
1134 til er resultatet så bra at det kan nyttast utan endringar.  Eg veit
1135 t.d. at store delar av *Joomla vart omsett til nynorsk ved hjelp
1136 *Apertium.  Høyrast det ut som noko du kan ha bruk for?  Besøk i så
1137 fall <a href="https://www.apertium.org/">*Apertium.org</a> og fyll inn
1138 teksta di i *webskjemaet der.
1139
1140 <p>Viss du treng *maskinell tilgjenge til den *bakenforliggende
1141 teknologien kan du anten installera pakken
1142 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/apertium-nno-nob">*apertium-*nno-*nob</a>
1143 på ein *Debian-maskin eller bruka *web-*API-eit tilgjengeleg frå
1144 *api.*apertium.org.  Sjå
1145 <a href="http://wiki.apertium.org/wiki/Apertium-apy">*API-dokumentasjonen</a>
1146 for detaljar om *web-*API-eit.  Her kan du sjå korleis resultatet vert
1147 for denne teksta som vart skreva på bokmål over *maskinoversatt til
1148 nynorsk.</p>
1149
1150       </div>
1151       <div class="tags">
1152
1153
1154         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stavekontroll">stavekontroll</a>.
1155
1156
1157       </div>
1158     </div>
1159     <div class="padding"></div>
1160
1161     <div class="entry">
1162       <div class="title">
1163         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Coz_profiler_for_multi_threaded_software_is_now_in_Debian.html">Coz profiler for multi-threaded software is now in Debian</a>
1164       </div>
1165       <div class="date">
1166         13th November 2016
1167       </div>
1168       <div class="body">
1169         <p><a href="http://coz-profiler.org/">The Coz profiler</a>, a nice
1170 profiler able to run benchmarking experiments on the instrumented
1171 multi-threaded program, finally
1172 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/coz-profiler">made it into
1173 Debian unstable yesterday</A>.  Lluís Vilanova and I have spent many
1174 months since
1175 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Coz_can_help_you_find_bottlenecks_in_multi_threaded_software___nice_free_software.html">I
1176 blogged about the coz tool</a> in August working with upstream to make
1177 it suitable for Debian.  There are still issues with clang
1178 compatibility, inline assembly only working x86 and minimized
1179 JavaScript libraries.</p>
1180
1181 <p>To test it, install 'coz-profiler' using apt and run it like this:</p>
1182
1183 <p><blockquote>
1184 <tt>coz run --- /path/to/binary-with-debug-info</tt>
1185 </blockquote></p>
1186
1187 <p>This will produce a profile.coz file in the current working
1188 directory with the profiling information.  This is then given to a
1189 JavaScript application provided in the package and available from
1190 <a href="http://plasma-umass.github.io/coz/">a project web page</a>.
1191 To start the local copy, invoke it in a browser like this:</p>
1192
1193 <p><blockquote>
1194 <tt>sensible-browser /usr/share/coz-profiler/viewer/index.htm</tt>
1195 </blockquote></p>
1196
1197 <p>See the project home page and the
1198 <a href="https://www.usenix.org/publications/login/summer2016/curtsinger">USENIX
1199 ;login: article on Coz</a> for more information on how it is
1200 working.</p>
1201
1202       </div>
1203       <div class="tags">
1204
1205
1206         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1207
1208
1209       </div>
1210     </div>
1211     <div class="padding"></div>
1212
1213     <div class="entry">
1214       <div class="title">
1215         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/My_own_self_balancing_Lego_Segway.html">My own self balancing Lego Segway</a>
1216       </div>
1217       <div class="date">
1218          4th November 2016
1219       </div>
1220       <div class="body">
1221         <p>A while back I received a Gyro sensor for the NXT
1222 <a href="mindstorms.lego.com">Mindstorms</a> controller as a birthday
1223 present.  It had been on my wishlist for a while, because I wanted to
1224 build a Segway like balancing lego robot.  I had already built
1225 <a href="http://www.nxtprograms.com/NXT2/segway/">a simple balancing
1226 robot</a> with the kids, using the light/color sensor included in the
1227 NXT kit as the balance sensor, but it was not working very well.  It
1228 could balance for a while, but was very sensitive to the light
1229 condition in the room and the reflective properties of the surface and
1230 would fall over after a short while.  I wanted something more robust,
1231 and had
1232 <a href="https://www.hitechnic.com/cgi-bin/commerce.cgi?preadd=action&key=NGY1044">the
1233 gyro sensor from HiTechnic</a> I believed would solve it on my
1234 wishlist for some years before it suddenly showed up as a gift from my
1235 loved ones. :)</p>
1236
1237 <p>Unfortunately I have not had time to sit down and play with it
1238 since then.  But that changed some days ago, when I was searching for
1239 lego segway information and came across a recipe from HiTechnic for
1240 building
1241 <a href="http://www.hitechnic.com/blog/gyro-sensor/htway/">the
1242 HTWay</a>, a segway like balancing robot.  Build instructions and
1243 <a href="https://www.hitechnic.com/upload/786-HTWayC.nxc">source
1244 code</a> was included, so it was just a question of putting it all
1245 together.  And thanks to the great work of many Debian developers, the
1246 compiler needed to build the source for the NXT is already included in
1247 Debian, so I was read to go in less than an hour.  The resulting robot
1248 do not look very impressive in its simplicity:</p>
1249
1250 <p align="center"><img width="70%" src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-11-04-lego-htway-robot.jpeg"></p>
1251
1252 <p>Because I lack the infrared sensor used to control the robot in the
1253 design from HiTechnic, I had to comment out the last task
1254 (taskControl).  I simply placed /* and */ around it get the program
1255 working without that sensor present.  Now it balances just fine until
1256 the battery status run low:</p>
1257
1258 <p align="center"><video width="70%" controls="true">
1259    <source src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-11-04-lego-htway-balancing.ogv" type="video/ogg">
1260 </video></p>
1261
1262 <p>Now we would like to teach it how to follow a line and take remote
1263 control instructions using the included Bluetooth receiver in the NXT.</p>
1264
1265 <p>If you, like me, love LEGO and want to make sure we find the tools
1266 they need to work with LEGO in Debian and all our derivative
1267 distributions like Ubuntu, check out
1268 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">the LEGO designers
1269 project page</a> and join the Debian LEGO team.  Personally I own a
1270 RCX and NXT controller (no EV3), and would like to make sure the
1271 Debian tools needed to program the systems I own work as they
1272 should.</p>
1273
1274       </div>
1275       <div class="tags">
1276
1277
1278         Tags: <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>.
1279
1280
1281       </div>
1282     </div>
1283     <div class="padding"></div>
1284
1285     <div class="entry">
1286       <div class="title">
1287         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Experience_and_updated_recipe_for_using_the_Signal_app_without_a_mobile_phone.html">Experience and updated recipe for using the Signal app without a mobile phone</a>
1288       </div>
1289       <div class="date">
1290         10th October 2016
1291       </div>
1292       <div class="body">
1293         <p>In July
1294 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_use_the_Signal_app_if_you_only_have_a_land_line__ie_no_mobile_phone_.html">I
1295 wrote how to get the Signal Chrome/Chromium app working</a> without
1296 the ability to receive SMS messages (aka without a cell phone).  It is
1297 time to share some experiences and provide an updated setup.</p>
1298
1299 <p>The Signal app have worked fine for several months now, and I use
1300 it regularly to chat with my loved ones.  I had a major snag at the
1301 end of my summer vacation, when the the app completely forgot my
1302 setup, identity and keys.  The reason behind this major mess was
1303 running out of disk space.  To avoid that ever happening again I have
1304 started storing everything in <tt>userdata/</tt> in git, to be able to
1305 roll back to an earlier version if the files are wiped by mistake.  I
1306 had to use it once after introducing the git backup.  When rolling
1307 back to an earlier version, one need to use the 'reset session' option
1308 in Signal to get going, and notify the people you talk with about the
1309 problem.  I assume there is some sequence number tracking in the
1310 protocol to detect rollback attacks.  The git repository is rather big
1311 (674 MiB so far), but I have not tried to figure out if some of the
1312 content can be added to a .gitignore file due to lack of spare
1313 time.</p>
1314
1315 <p>I've also hit the 90 days timeout blocking, and noticed that this
1316 make it impossible to send messages using Signal.  I could still
1317 receive them, but had to patch the code with a new timestamp to send.
1318 I believe the timeout is added by the developers to force people to
1319 upgrade to the latest version of the app, even when there is no
1320 protocol changes, to reduce the version skew among the user base and
1321 thus try to keep the number of support requests down.</p>
1322
1323 <p>Since my original recipe, the Signal source code changed slightly,
1324 making the old patch fail to apply cleanly.  Below is an updated
1325 patch, including the shell wrapper I use to start Signal.  The
1326 original version required a new user to locate the JavaScript console
1327 and call a function from there.  I got help from a friend with more
1328 JavaScript knowledge than me to modify the code to provide a GUI
1329 button instead.  This mean that to get started you just need to run
1330 the wrapper and click the 'Register without mobile phone' to get going
1331 now.  I've also modified the timeout code to always set it to 90 days
1332 in the future, to avoid having to patch the code regularly.</p>
1333
1334 <p>So, the updated recipe for Debian Jessie:</p>
1335
1336 <ol>
1337
1338 <li>First, install required packages to get the source code and the
1339 browser you need.  Signal only work with Chrome/Chromium, as far as I
1340 know, so you need to install it.
1341
1342 <pre>
1343 apt install git tor chromium
1344 git clone https://github.com/WhisperSystems/Signal-Desktop.git
1345 </pre></li>
1346
1347 <li>Modify the source code using command listed in the the patch
1348 block below.</li>
1349
1350 <li>Start Signal using the run-signal-app wrapper (for example using
1351 <tt>`pwd`/run-signal-app</tt>).
1352
1353 <li>Click on the 'Register without mobile phone', will in a phone
1354 number you can receive calls to the next minute, receive the
1355 verification code and enter it into the form field and press
1356 'Register'.  Note, the phone number you use will be user Signal
1357 username, ie the way others can find you on Signal.</li>
1358
1359 <li>You can now use Signal to contact others.  Note, new contacts do
1360 not show up in the contact list until you restart Signal, and there is
1361 no way to assign names to Contacts.  There is also no way to create or
1362 update chat groups.  I suspect this is because the web app do not have
1363 a associated contact database.</li>
1364
1365 </ol>
1366
1367 <p>I am still a bit uneasy about using Signal, because of the way its
1368 main author moxie0 reject federation and accept dependencies to major
1369 corporations like Google (part of the code is fetched from Google) and
1370 Amazon (the central coordination point is owned by Amazon).  See for
1371 example
1372 <a href="https://github.com/LibreSignal/LibreSignal/issues/37">the
1373 LibreSignal issue tracker</a> for a thread documenting the authors
1374 view on these issues.  But the network effect is strong in this case,
1375 and several of the people I want to communicate with already use
1376 Signal.  Perhaps we can all move to <a href="https://ring.cx/">Ring</a>
1377 once it <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/830265">work on my
1378 laptop</a>?  It already work on Windows and Android, and is included
1379 in <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/ring">Debian</a> and
1380 <a href="https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ring">Ubuntu</a>, but not
1381 working on Debian Stable.</p>
1382
1383 <p>Anyway, this is the patch I apply to the Signal code to get it
1384 working.  It switch to the production servers, disable to timeout,
1385 make registration easier and add the shell wrapper:</p>
1386
1387 <pre>
1388 cd Signal-Desktop; cat &lt;&lt;EOF | patch -p1
1389 diff --git a/js/background.js b/js/background.js
1390 index 24b4c1d..579345f 100644
1391 --- a/js/background.js
1392 +++ b/js/background.js
1393 @@ -33,9 +33,9 @@
1394          });
1395      });
1396
1397 -    var SERVER_URL = 'https://textsecure-service-staging.whispersystems.org';
1398 +    var SERVER_URL = 'https://textsecure-service-ca.whispersystems.org';
1399      var SERVER_PORTS = [80, 4433, 8443];
1400 -    var ATTACHMENT_SERVER_URL = 'https://whispersystems-textsecure-attachments-staging.s3.amazonaws.com';
1401 +    var ATTACHMENT_SERVER_URL = 'https://whispersystems-textsecure-attachments.s3.amazonaws.com';
1402      var messageReceiver;
1403      window.getSocketStatus = function() {
1404          if (messageReceiver) {
1405 diff --git a/js/expire.js b/js/expire.js
1406 index 639aeae..beb91c3 100644
1407 --- a/js/expire.js
1408 +++ b/js/expire.js
1409 @@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
1410  ;(function() {
1411      'use strict';
1412 -    var BUILD_EXPIRATION = 0;
1413 +    var BUILD_EXPIRATION = Date.now() + (90 * 24 * 60 * 60 * 1000);
1414
1415      window.extension = window.extension || {};
1416
1417 diff --git a/js/views/install_view.js b/js/views/install_view.js
1418 index 7816f4f..1d6233b 100644
1419 --- a/js/views/install_view.js
1420 +++ b/js/views/install_view.js
1421 @@ -38,7 +38,8 @@
1422              return {
1423                  'click .step1': this.selectStep.bind(this, 1),
1424                  'click .step2': this.selectStep.bind(this, 2),
1425 -                'click .step3': this.selectStep.bind(this, 3)
1426 +                'click .step3': this.selectStep.bind(this, 3),
1427 +                'click .callreg': function() { extension.install('standalone') },
1428              };
1429          },
1430          clearQR: function() {
1431 diff --git a/options.html b/options.html
1432 index dc0f28e..8d709f6 100644
1433 --- a/options.html
1434 +++ b/options.html
1435 @@ -14,7 +14,10 @@
1436          &lt;div class='nav'>
1437            &lt;h1>{{ installWelcome }}&lt;/h1>
1438            &lt;p>{{ installTagline }}&lt;/p>
1439 -          &lt;div> &lt;a class='button step2'>{{ installGetStartedButton }}&lt;/a> &lt;/div>
1440 +          &lt;div> &lt;a class='button step2'>{{ installGetStartedButton }}&lt;/a>
1441 +           &lt;br> &lt;a class="button callreg">Register without mobile phone&lt;/a>
1442 +
1443 +         &lt;/div>
1444            &lt;span class='dot step1 selected'>&lt;/span>
1445            &lt;span class='dot step2'>&lt;/span>
1446            &lt;span class='dot step3'>&lt;/span>
1447 --- /dev/null   2016-10-07 09:55:13.730181472 +0200
1448 +++ b/run-signal-app   2016-10-10 08:54:09.434172391 +0200
1449 @@ -0,0 +1,12 @@
1450 +#!/bin/sh
1451 +set -e
1452 +cd $(dirname $0)
1453 +mkdir -p userdata
1454 +userdata="`pwd`/userdata"
1455 +if [ -d "$userdata" ] && [ ! -d "$userdata/.git" ] ; then
1456 +    (cd $userdata && git init)
1457 +fi
1458 +(cd $userdata && git add . && git commit -m "Current status." || true)
1459 +exec chromium \
1460 +  --proxy-server="socks://localhost:9050" \
1461 +  --user-data-dir=$userdata --load-and-launch-app=`pwd`
1462 EOF
1463 chmod a+rx run-signal-app
1464 </pre>
1465
1466 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1467 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1468 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
1469
1470       </div>
1471       <div class="tags">
1472
1473
1474         Tags: <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>.
1475
1476
1477       </div>
1478     </div>
1479     <div class="padding"></div>
1480
1481     <div class="entry">
1482       <div class="title">
1483         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Isenkram__Appstream_and_udev_make_life_as_a_LEGO_builder_easier.html">Isenkram, Appstream and udev make life as a LEGO builder easier</a>
1484       </div>
1485       <div class="date">
1486          7th October 2016
1487       </div>
1488       <div class="body">
1489         <p><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">The Isenkram
1490 system</a> provide a practical and easy way to figure out which
1491 packages support the hardware in a given machine.  The command line
1492 tool <tt>isenkram-lookup</tt> and the tasksel options provide a
1493 convenient way to list and install packages relevant for the current
1494 hardware during system installation, both user space packages and
1495 firmware packages. The GUI background daemon on the other hand provide
1496 a pop-up proposing to install packages when a new dongle is inserted
1497 while using the computer.  For example, if you plug in a smart card
1498 reader, the system will ask if you want to install <tt>pcscd</tt> if
1499 that package isn't already installed, and if you plug in a USB video
1500 camera the system will ask if you want to install <tt>cheese</tt> if
1501 cheese is currently missing.  This already work just fine.</p>
1502
1503 <p>But Isenkram depend on a database mapping from hardware IDs to
1504 package names.  When I started no such database existed in Debian, so
1505 I made my own data set and included it with the isenkram package and
1506 made isenkram fetch the latest version of this database from git using
1507 http.  This way the isenkram users would get updated package proposals
1508 as soon as I learned more about hardware related packages.</p>
1509
1510 <p>The hardware is identified using modalias strings.  The modalias
1511 design is from the Linux kernel where most hardware descriptors are
1512 made available as a strings that can be matched using filename style
1513 globbing.  It handle USB, PCI, DMI and a lot of other hardware related
1514 identifiers.</p>
1515
1516 <p>The downside to the Isenkram specific database is that there is no
1517 information about relevant distribution / Debian version, making
1518 isenkram propose obsolete packages too.  But along came AppStream, a
1519 cross distribution mechanism to store and collect metadata about
1520 software packages.  When I heard about the proposal, I contacted the
1521 people involved and suggested to add a hardware matching rule using
1522 modalias strings in the specification, to be able to use AppStream for
1523 mapping hardware to packages.  This idea was accepted and AppStream is
1524 now a great way for a package to announce the hardware it support in a
1525 distribution neutral way.  I wrote
1526 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_appstream_with_isenkram_to_install_hardware_related_packages_in_Debian.html">a
1527 recipe on how to add such meta-information</a> in a blog post last
1528 December.  If you have a hardware related package in Debian, please
1529 announce the relevant hardware IDs using AppStream.</p>
1530
1531 <p>In Debian, almost all packages that can talk to a LEGO Mindestorms
1532 RCX or NXT unit, announce this support using AppStream.  The effect is
1533 that when you insert such LEGO robot controller into your Debian
1534 machine, Isenkram will propose to install the packages needed to get
1535 it working.  The intention is that this should allow the local user to
1536 start programming his robot controller right away without having to
1537 guess what packages to use or which permissions to fix.</p>
1538
1539 <p>But when I sat down with my son the other day to program our NXT
1540 unit using his Debian Stretch computer, I discovered something
1541 annoying.  The local console user (ie my son) did not get access to
1542 the USB device for programming the unit.  This used to work, but no
1543 longer in Jessie and Stretch.  After some investigation and asking
1544 around on #debian-devel, I discovered that this was because udev had
1545 changed the mechanism used to grant access to local devices.  The
1546 ConsoleKit mechanism from <tt>/lib/udev/rules.d/70-udev-acl.rules</tt>
1547 no longer applied, because LDAP users no longer was added to the
1548 plugdev group during login.  Michael Biebl told me that this method
1549 was obsolete and the new method used ACLs instead.  This was good
1550 news, as the plugdev mechanism is a mess when using a remote user
1551 directory like LDAP.  Using ACLs would make sure a user lost device
1552 access when she logged out, even if the user left behind a background
1553 process which would retain the plugdev membership with the ConsoleKit
1554 setup.  Armed with this knowledge I moved on to fix the access problem
1555 for the LEGO Mindstorms related packages.</p>
1556
1557 <p>The new system uses a udev tag, 'uaccess'.  It can either be
1558 applied directly for a device, or is applied in
1559 /lib/udev/rules.d/70-uaccess.rules for classes of devices.  As the
1560 LEGO Mindstorms udev rules did not have a class, I decided to add the
1561 tag directly in the udev rules files included in the packages.  Here
1562 is one example.  For the nqc C compiler for the RCX, the
1563 <tt>/lib/udev/rules.d/60-nqc.rules</tt> file now look like this:
1564
1565 <p><pre>
1566 SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ACTION=="add", ATTR{idVendor}=="0694", ATTR{idProduct}=="0001", \
1567     SYMLINK+="rcx-%k", TAG+="uaccess"
1568 </pre></p>
1569
1570 <p>The key part is the 'TAG+="uaccess"' at the end.  I suspect all
1571 packages using plugdev in their /lib/udev/rules.d/ files should be
1572 changed to use this tag (either directly or indirectly via
1573 <tt>70-uaccess.rules</tt>).  Perhaps a lintian check should be created
1574 to detect this?</p>
1575
1576 <p>I've been unable to find good documentation on the uaccess feature.
1577 It is unclear to me if the uaccess tag is an internal implementation
1578 detail like the udev-acl tag used by
1579 <tt>/lib/udev/rules.d/70-udev-acl.rules</tt>.  If it is, I guess the
1580 indirect method is the preferred way.  Michael
1581 <a href="https://github.com/systemd/systemd/issues/4288">asked for more
1582 documentation from the systemd project</a> and I hope it will make
1583 this clearer.  For now I use the generic classes when they exist and
1584 is already handled by <tt>70-uaccess.rules</tt>, and add the tag
1585 directly if no such class exist.</p>
1586
1587 <p>To learn more about the isenkram system, please check out
1588 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram/">my
1589 blog posts tagged isenkram</a>.</p>
1590
1591 <p>To help out making life for LEGO constructors in Debian easier,
1592 please join us on our IRC channel
1593 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">#debian-lego</a> and join
1594 the <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/debian-lego/">Debian
1595 LEGO team</a> in the Alioth project we created yesterday.  A mailing
1596 list is not yet created, but we are working on it. :)</p>
1597
1598 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1599 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1600 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
1601
1602       </div>
1603       <div class="tags">
1604
1605
1606         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
1607
1608
1609       </div>
1610     </div>
1611     <div class="padding"></div>
1612
1613     <div class="entry">
1614       <div class="title">
1615         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_draft_Norwegian_Bokm_l_edition_of_The_Debian_Administrator_s_Handbook_now_public.html">First draft Norwegian Bokmål edition of The Debian Administrator's Handbook now public</a>
1616       </div>
1617       <div class="date">
1618         30th August 2016
1619       </div>
1620       <div class="body">
1621         <p>In April we
1622 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_a_Norwegian_Bokm_l_edition_of_The_Debian_Administrator_s_Handbook.html">started
1623 to work</a> on a Norwegian Bokmål edition of the "open access" book on
1624 how to set up and administrate a Debian system.  Today I am happy to
1625 report that the first draft is now publicly available.  You can find
1626 it on <a href="https://debian-handbook.info/get/">get the Debian
1627 Administrator's Handbook page</a> (under Other languages).  The first
1628 eight chapters have a first draft translation, and we are working on
1629 proofreading the content.  If you want to help out, please start
1630 contributing using
1631 <a href="https://hosted.weblate.org/projects/debian-handbook/">the
1632 hosted weblate project page</a>, and get in touch using
1633 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/debian-handbook-translators">the
1634 translators mailing list</a>.  Please also check out
1635 <a href="https://debian-handbook.info/contribute/">the instructions for
1636 contributors</a>.  A good way to contribute is to proofread the text
1637 and update weblate if you find errors.</p>
1638
1639 <p>Our goal is still to make the Norwegian book available on paper as well as
1640 electronic form.</p>
1641
1642       </div>
1643       <div class="tags">
1644
1645
1646         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian-handbook">debian-handbook</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1647
1648
1649       </div>
1650     </div>
1651     <div class="padding"></div>
1652
1653     <div class="entry">
1654       <div class="title">
1655         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Coz_can_help_you_find_bottlenecks_in_multi_threaded_software___nice_free_software.html">Coz can help you find bottlenecks in multi-threaded software - nice free software</a>
1656       </div>
1657       <div class="date">
1658         11th August 2016
1659       </div>
1660       <div class="body">
1661         <p>This summer, I read a great article
1662 "<a href="https://www.usenix.org/publications/login/summer2016/curtsinger">coz:
1663 This Is the Profiler You're Looking For</a>" in USENIX ;login: about
1664 how to profile multi-threaded programs.  It presented a system for
1665 profiling software by running experiences in the running program,
1666 testing how run time performance is affected by "speeding up" parts of
1667 the code to various degrees compared to a normal run.  It does this by
1668 slowing down parallel threads while the "faster up" code is running
1669 and measure how this affect processing time.  The processing time is
1670 measured using probes inserted into the code, either using progress
1671 counters (COZ_PROGRESS) or as latency meters (COZ_BEGIN/COZ_END).  It
1672 can also measure unmodified code by measuring complete the program
1673 runtime and running the program several times instead.</p>
1674
1675 <p>The project and presentation was so inspiring that I would like to
1676 get the system into Debian.  I
1677 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=830708">created
1678 a WNPP request for it</a> and contacted upstream to try to make the
1679 system ready for Debian by sending patches.  The build process need to
1680 be changed a bit to avoid running 'git clone' to get dependencies, and
1681 to include the JavaScript web page used to visualize the collected
1682 profiling information included in the source package.
1683 But I expect that should work out fairly soon.</p>
1684
1685 <p>The way the system work is fairly simple.  To run an coz experiment
1686 on a binary with debug symbols available, start the program like this:
1687
1688 <p><blockquote><pre>
1689 coz run --- program-to-run
1690 </pre></blockquote></p>
1691
1692 <p>This will create a text file profile.coz with the instrumentation
1693 information.  To show what part of the code affect the performance
1694 most, use a web browser and either point it to
1695 <a href="http://plasma-umass.github.io/coz/">http://plasma-umass.github.io/coz/</a>
1696 or use the copy from git (in the gh-pages branch).  Check out this web
1697 site to have a look at several example profiling runs and get an idea what the end result from the profile runs look like.  To make the
1698 profiling more useful you include &lt;coz.h&gt; and insert the
1699 COZ_PROGRESS or COZ_BEGIN and COZ_END at appropriate places in the
1700 code, rebuild and run the profiler.  This allow coz to do more
1701 targeted experiments.</p>
1702
1703 <p>A video published by ACM
1704 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jE0V-p1odPg">presenting the
1705 Coz profiler</a> is available from Youtube.  There is also a paper
1706 from the 25th Symposium on Operating Systems Principles available
1707 titled
1708 <a href="https://www.usenix.org/conference/atc16/technical-sessions/presentation/curtsinger">Coz:
1709 finding code that counts with causal profiling</a>.</p>
1710
1711 <p><a href="https://github.com/plasma-umass/coz">The source code</a>
1712 for Coz is available from github.  It will only build with clang
1713 because it uses a
1714 <a href="https://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=55606">C++
1715 feature missing in GCC</a>, but I've submitted
1716 <a href="https://github.com/plasma-umass/coz/pull/67">a patch to solve
1717 it</a> and hope it will be included in the upstream source soon.</p>
1718
1719 <p>Please get in touch if you, like me, would like to see this piece
1720 of software in Debian.  I would very much like some help with the
1721 packaging effort, as I lack the in depth knowledge on how to package
1722 C++ libraries.</p>
1723
1724       </div>
1725       <div class="tags">
1726
1727
1728         Tags: <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>.
1729
1730
1731       </div>
1732     </div>
1733     <div class="padding"></div>
1734
1735     <div class="entry">
1736       <div class="title">
1737         <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>
1738       </div>
1739       <div class="date">
1740          7th July 2016
1741       </div>
1742       <div class="body">
1743         <p>Yesterday, I tried to unlock a HTC Desire HD phone, and it proved
1744 to be a slight challenge.  Here is the recipe if I ever need to do it
1745 again.  It all started by me wanting to try the recipe to set up
1746 <a href="https://blog.torproject.org/blog/mission-impossible-hardening-android-security-and-privacy">an
1747 hardened Android installation</a> from the Tor project blog on a
1748 device I had access to.  It is a old mobile phone with a broken
1749 microphone The initial idea had been to just
1750 <a href="http://wiki.cyanogenmod.org/w/Install_CM_for_ace">install
1751 CyanogenMod on it</a>, but did not quite find time to start on it
1752 until a few days ago.</p>
1753
1754 <p>The unlock process is supposed to be simple: (1) Boot into the boot
1755 loader (press volume down and power at the same time), (2) select
1756 'fastboot' before (3) connecting the device via USB to a Linux
1757 machine, (4) request the device identifier token by running 'fastboot
1758 oem get_identifier_token', (5) request the device unlocking key using
1759 the <a href="http://www.htcdev.com/bootloader/">HTC developer web
1760 site</a> and unlock the phone using the key file emailed to you.</p>
1761
1762 <p>Unfortunately, this only work fi you have hboot version 2.00.0029
1763 or newer, and the device I was working on had 2.00.0027.  This
1764 apparently can be easily fixed by downloading a Windows program and
1765 running it on your Windows machine, if you accept the terms Microsoft
1766 require you to accept to use Windows - which I do not.  So I had to
1767 come up with a different approach.  I got a lot of help from AndyCap
1768 on #nuug, and would not have been able to get this working without
1769 him.</p>
1770
1771 <p>First I needed to extract the hboot firmware from
1772 <a href="http://www.htcdev.com/ruu/PD9810000_Ace_Sense30_S_hboot_2.00.0029.exe">the
1773 windows binary for HTC Desire HD</a> downloaded as 'the RUU' from HTC.
1774 For this there is is <a href="https://github.com/kmdm/unruu/">a github
1775 project named unruu</a> using libunshield.  The unshield tool did not
1776 recognise the file format, but unruu worked and extracted rom.zip,
1777 containing the new hboot firmware and a text file describing which
1778 devices it would work for.</p>
1779
1780 <p>Next, I needed to get the new firmware into the device.  For this I
1781 followed some instructions
1782 <a href="http://www.htc1guru.com/2013/09/new-ruu-zips-posted/">available
1783 from HTC1Guru.com</a>, and ran these commands as root on a Linux
1784 machine with Debian testing:</p>
1785
1786 <p><pre>
1787 adb reboot-bootloader
1788 fastboot oem rebootRUU
1789 fastboot flash zip rom.zip
1790 fastboot flash zip rom.zip
1791 fastboot reboot
1792 </pre></p>
1793
1794 <p>The flash command apparently need to be done twice to take effect,
1795 as the first is just preparations and the second one do the flashing.
1796 The adb command is just to get to the boot loader menu, so turning the
1797 device on while holding volume down and the power button should work
1798 too.</p>
1799
1800 <p>With the new hboot version in place I could start following the
1801 instructions on the HTC developer web site.  I got the device token
1802 like this:</p>
1803
1804 <p><pre>
1805 fastboot oem get_identifier_token 2>&1 | sed 's/(bootloader) //'
1806 </pre>
1807
1808 <p>And once I got the unlock code via email, I could use it like
1809 this:</p>
1810
1811 <p><pre>
1812 fastboot flash unlocktoken Unlock_code.bin
1813 </pre></p>
1814
1815 <p>And with that final step in place, the phone was unlocked and I
1816 could start stuffing the software of my own choosing into the device.
1817 So far I only inserted a replacement recovery image to wipe the phone
1818 before I start.  We will see what happen next.  Perhaps I should
1819 install <a href="https://www.debian.org/">Debian</a> on it. :)</p>
1820
1821       </div>
1822       <div class="tags">
1823
1824
1825         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>.
1826
1827
1828       </div>
1829     </div>
1830     <div class="padding"></div>
1831
1832     <div class="entry">
1833       <div class="title">
1834         <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>
1835       </div>
1836       <div class="date">
1837          3rd July 2016
1838       </div>
1839       <div class="body">
1840         <p>For a while now, I have wanted to test
1841 <a href="https://whispersystems.org/">the Signal app</a>, as it is
1842 said to provide end to end encrypted communication and several of my
1843 friends and family are already using it.  As I by choice do not own a
1844 mobile phone, this proved to be harder than expected.  And I wanted to
1845 have the source of the client and know that it was the code used on my
1846 machine.  But yesterday I managed to get it working.  I used the
1847 Github source, compared it to the source in
1848 <a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/signal-private-messenger/bikioccmkafdpakkkcpdbppfkghcmihk?hl=en-US">the
1849 Signal Chrome app</a> available from the Chrome web store, applied
1850 patches to use the production Signal servers, started the app and
1851 asked for the hidden "register without a smart phone" form.  Here is
1852 the recipe how I did it.</p>
1853
1854 <p>First, I fetched the Signal desktop source from Github, using
1855
1856 <pre>
1857 git clone https://github.com/WhisperSystems/Signal-Desktop.git
1858 </pre>
1859
1860 <p>Next, I patched the source to use the production servers, to be
1861 able to talk to other Signal users:</p>
1862
1863 <pre>
1864 cat &lt;&lt;EOF | patch -p0
1865 diff -ur ./js/background.js userdata/Default/Extensions/bikioccmkafdpakkkcpdbppfkghcmihk/0.15.0_0/js/background.js
1866 --- ./js/background.js  2016-06-29 13:43:15.630344628 +0200
1867 +++ userdata/Default/Extensions/bikioccmkafdpakkkcpdbppfkghcmihk/0.15.0_0/js/background.js    2016-06-29 14:06:29.530300934 +0200
1868 @@ -47,8 +47,8 @@
1869          });
1870      });
1871
1872 -    var SERVER_URL = 'https://textsecure-service-staging.whispersystems.org';
1873 -    var ATTACHMENT_SERVER_URL = 'https://whispersystems-textsecure-attachments-staging.s3.amazonaws.com';
1874 +    var SERVER_URL = 'https://textsecure-service-ca.whispersystems.org:4433';
1875 +    var ATTACHMENT_SERVER_URL = 'https://whispersystems-textsecure-attachments.s3.amazonaws.com';
1876      var messageReceiver;
1877      window.getSocketStatus = function() {
1878          if (messageReceiver) {
1879 diff -ur ./js/expire.js userdata/Default/Extensions/bikioccmkafdpakkkcpdbppfkghcmihk/0.15.0_0/js/expire.js
1880 --- ./js/expire.js      2016-06-29 13:43:15.630344628 +0200
1881 +++ userdata/Default/Extensions/bikioccmkafdpakkkcpdbppfkghcmihk/0.15.0_0/js/expire.js2016-06-29 14:06:29.530300934 +0200
1882 @@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
1883  ;(function() {
1884      'use strict';
1885 -    var BUILD_EXPIRATION = 0;
1886 +    var BUILD_EXPIRATION = 1474492690000;
1887
1888      window.extension = window.extension || {};
1889
1890 EOF
1891 </pre>
1892
1893 <p>The first part is changing the servers, and the second is updating
1894 an expiration timestamp.  This timestamp need to be updated regularly.
1895 It is set 90 days in the future by the build process (Gruntfile.js).
1896 The value is seconds since 1970 times 1000, as far as I can tell.</p>
1897
1898 <p>Based on a tip and good help from the #nuug IRC channel, I wrote a
1899 script to launch Signal in Chromium.</p>
1900
1901 <pre>
1902 #!/bin/sh
1903 cd $(dirname $0)
1904 mkdir -p userdata
1905 exec chromium \
1906   --proxy-server="socks://localhost:9050" \
1907   --user-data-dir=`pwd`/userdata --load-and-launch-app=`pwd`
1908 </pre>
1909
1910 <p> The script start the app and configure Chromium to use the Tor
1911 SOCKS5 proxy to make sure those controlling the Signal servers (today
1912 Amazon and Whisper Systems) as well as those listening on the lines
1913 will have a harder time location my laptop based on the Signal
1914 connections if they use source IP address.</p>
1915
1916 <p>When the script starts, one need to follow the instructions under
1917 "Standalone Registration" in the CONTRIBUTING.md file in the git
1918 repository.  I right clicked on the Signal window to get up the
1919 Chromium debugging tool, visited the 'Console' tab and wrote
1920 'extension.install("standalone")' on the console prompt to get the
1921 registration form.  Then I entered by land line phone number and
1922 pressed 'Call'.  5 seconds later the phone rang and a robot voice
1923 repeated the verification code three times.  After entering the number
1924 into the verification code field in the form, I could start using
1925 Signal from my laptop.
1926
1927 <p>As far as I can tell, The Signal app will leak who is talking to
1928 whom and thus who know who to those controlling the central server,
1929 but such leakage is hard to avoid with a centrally controlled server
1930 setup.  It is something to keep in mind when using Signal - the
1931 content of your chats are harder to intercept, but the meta data
1932 exposing your contact network is available to people you do not know.
1933 So better than many options, but not great.  And sadly the usage is
1934 connected to my land line, thus allowing those controlling the server
1935 to associate it to my home and person.  I would prefer it if only
1936 those I knew could tell who I was on Signal.  There are options
1937 avoiding such information leakage, but most of my friends are not
1938 using them, so I am stuck with Signal for now.</p>
1939
1940 <p><strong>Update 2017-01-10</strong>: There is an updated blog post
1941 on this topic in
1942 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Experience_and_updated_recipe_for_using_the_Signal_app_without_a_mobile_phone.html">Experience
1943 and updated recipe for using the Signal app without a mobile
1944 phone</a>.</p>
1945
1946       </div>
1947       <div class="tags">
1948
1949
1950         Tags: <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>.
1951
1952
1953       </div>
1954     </div>
1955     <div class="padding"></div>
1956
1957     <div class="entry">
1958       <div class="title">
1959         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_new__best__multimedia_player_in_Debian_.html">The new "best" multimedia player in Debian?</a>
1960       </div>
1961       <div class="date">
1962          6th June 2016
1963       </div>
1964       <div class="body">
1965         <p>When I set out a few weeks ago to figure out
1966 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_the_best_multimedia_player_in_Debian_.html">which
1967 multimedia player in Debian claimed to support most file formats /
1968 MIME types</a>, I was a bit surprised how varied the sets of MIME types
1969 the various players claimed support for.  The range was from 55 to 130
1970 MIME types.  I suspect most media formats are supported by all
1971 players, but this is not really reflected in the MimeTypes values in
1972 their desktop files.  There are probably also some bogus MIME types
1973 listed, but it is hard to identify which one this is.</p>
1974
1975 <p>Anyway, in the mean time I got in touch with upstream for some of
1976 the players suggesting to add more MIME types to their desktop files,
1977 and decided to spend some time myself improving the situation for my
1978 favorite media player VLC.  The fixes for VLC entered Debian unstable
1979 yesterday. The complete list of MIME types can be seen on the
1980 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianMultimedia/PlayerSupport">Multimedia
1981 player MIME type support status</a> Debian wiki page.</p>
1982
1983 <p>The new "best" multimedia player in Debian?  It is VLC, followed by
1984 totem, parole, kplayer, gnome-mpv, mpv, smplayer, mplayer-gui and
1985 kmplayer.  I am sure some of the other players desktop files support
1986 several of the formats currently listed as working only with vlc,
1987 toten and parole.</p>
1988
1989 <p>A sad observation is that only 14 MIME types are listed as
1990 supported by all the tested multimedia players in Debian in their
1991 desktop files: audio/mpeg, audio/vnd.rn-realaudio, audio/x-mpegurl,
1992 audio/x-ms-wma, audio/x-scpls, audio/x-wav, video/mp4, video/mpeg,
1993 video/quicktime, video/vnd.rn-realvideo, video/x-matroska,
1994 video/x-ms-asf, video/x-ms-wmv and video/x-msvideo.  Personally I find
1995 it sad that video/ogg and video/webm is not supported by all the media
1996 players in Debian.  As far as I can tell, all of them can handle both
1997 formats.</p>
1998
1999       </div>
2000       <div class="tags">
2001
2002
2003         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>.
2004
2005
2006       </div>
2007     </div>
2008     <div class="padding"></div>
2009
2010     <div class="entry">
2011       <div class="title">
2012         <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>
2013       </div>
2014       <div class="date">
2015          5th June 2016
2016       </div>
2017       <div class="body">
2018         <p>Many years ago, when koffice was fresh and with few users, I
2019 decided to test its presentation tool when making the slides for a
2020 talk I was giving for NUUG on Japhar, a free Java virtual machine.  I
2021 wrote the first draft of the slides, saved the result and went to bed
2022 the day before I would give the talk.  The next day I took a plane to
2023 the location where the meeting should take place, and on the plane I
2024 started up koffice again to polish the talk a bit, only to discover
2025 that kpresenter refused to load its own data file.  I cursed a bit and
2026 started making the slides again from memory, to have something to
2027 present when I arrived.  I tested that the saved files could be
2028 loaded, and the day seemed to be rescued.  I continued to polish the
2029 slides until I suddenly discovered that the saved file could no longer
2030 be loaded into kpresenter.  In the end I had to rewrite the slides
2031 three times, condensing the content until the talk became shorter and
2032 shorter.  After the talk I was able to pinpoint the problem &ndash;
2033 kpresenter wrote inline images in a way itself could not understand.
2034 Eventually that bug was fixed and kpresenter ended up being a great
2035 program to make slides.  The point I'm trying to make is that we
2036 expect a program to be able to load its own data files, and it is
2037 embarrassing to its developers if it can't.</p>
2038
2039 <p>Did you ever experience a program failing to load its own data
2040 files from the desktop file browser?  It is not a uncommon problem.  A
2041 while back I discovered that the screencast recorder
2042 gtk-recordmydesktop would save an Ogg Theora video file the KDE file
2043 browser would refuse to open.  No video player claimed to understand
2044 such file.  I tracked down the cause being <tt>file --mime-type</tt>
2045 returning the application/ogg MIME type, which no video player I had
2046 installed listed as a MIME type they would understand.  I asked for
2047 <a href="http://bugs.gw.com/view.php?id=382">file to change its
2048 behavour</a> and use the MIME type video/ogg instead.  I also asked
2049 several video players to add video/ogg to their desktop files, to give
2050 the file browser an idea what to do about Ogg Theora files.  After a
2051 while, the desktop file browsers in Debian started to handle the
2052 output from gtk-recordmydesktop properly.</p>
2053
2054 <p>But history repeats itself.  A few days ago I tested the music
2055 system Rosegarden again, and I discovered that the KDE and xfce file
2056 browsers did not know what to do with the Rosegarden project files
2057 (*.rg).  I've reported <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/825993">the
2058 rosegarden problem to BTS</a> and a fix is commited to git and will be
2059 included in the next upload.  To increase the chance of me remembering
2060 how to fix the problem next time some program fail to load its files
2061 from the file browser, here are some notes on how to fix it.</p>
2062
2063 <p>The file browsers in Debian in general operates on MIME types.
2064 There are two sources for the MIME type of a given file.  The output from
2065 <tt>file --mime-type</tt> mentioned above, and the content of the
2066 shared MIME type registry (under /usr/share/mime/).  The file MIME
2067 type is mapped to programs supporting the MIME type, and this
2068 information is collected from
2069 <a href="https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/desktop-entry-spec/">the
2070 desktop files</a> available in /usr/share/applications/.  If there is
2071 one desktop file claiming support for the MIME type of the file, it is
2072 activated when asking to open a given file.  If there are more, one
2073 can normally select which one to use by right-clicking on the file and
2074 selecting the wanted one using 'Open with' or similar.  In general
2075 this work well.  But it depend on each program picking a good MIME
2076 type (preferably
2077 <a href="http://www.iana.org/assignments/media-types/media-types.xhtml">a
2078 MIME type registered with IANA</a>), file and/or the shared MIME
2079 registry recognizing the file and the desktop file to list the MIME
2080 type in its list of supported MIME types.</p>
2081
2082 <p>The <tt>/usr/share/mime/packages/rosegarden.xml</tt> entry for
2083 <a href="http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/shared-mime-info-spec">the
2084 Shared MIME database</a> look like this:</p>
2085
2086 <p><blockquote><pre>
2087 &lt;?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?&gt;
2088 &lt;mime-info xmlns="http://www.freedesktop.org/standards/shared-mime-info"&gt;
2089   &lt;mime-type type="audio/x-rosegarden"&gt;
2090     &lt;sub-class-of type="application/x-gzip"/&gt;
2091     &lt;comment&gt;Rosegarden project file&lt;/comment&gt;
2092     &lt;glob pattern="*.rg"/&gt;
2093   &lt;/mime-type&gt;
2094 &lt;/mime-info&gt;
2095 </pre></blockquote></p>
2096
2097 <p>This states that audio/x-rosegarden is a kind of application/x-gzip
2098 (it is a gzipped XML file).  Note, it is much better to use an
2099 official MIME type registered with IANA than it is to make up ones own
2100 unofficial ones like the x-rosegarden type used by rosegarden.</p>
2101
2102 <p>The desktop file of the rosegarden program failed to list
2103 audio/x-rosegarden in its list of supported MIME types, causing the
2104 file browsers to have no idea what to do with *.rg files:</p>
2105
2106 <p><blockquote><pre>
2107 % grep Mime /usr/share/applications/rosegarden.desktop
2108 MimeType=audio/x-rosegarden-composition;audio/x-rosegarden-device;audio/x-rosegarden-project;audio/x-rosegarden-template;audio/midi;
2109 X-KDE-NativeMimeType=audio/x-rosegarden-composition
2110 %
2111 </pre></blockquote></p>
2112
2113 <p>The fix was to add "audio/x-rosegarden;" at the end of the
2114 MimeType= line.</p>
2115
2116 <p>If you run into a file which fail to open the correct program when
2117 selected from the file browser, please check out the output from
2118 <tt>file --mime-type</tt> for the file, ensure the file ending and
2119 MIME type is registered somewhere under /usr/share/mime/ and check
2120 that some desktop file under /usr/share/applications/ is claiming
2121 support for this MIME type.  If not, please report a bug to have it
2122 fixed. :)</p>
2123
2124       </div>
2125       <div class="tags">
2126
2127
2128         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2129
2130
2131       </div>
2132     </div>
2133     <div class="padding"></div>
2134
2135     <div class="entry">
2136       <div class="title">
2137         <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>
2138       </div>
2139       <div class="date">
2140         25th May 2016
2141       </div>
2142       <div class="body">
2143         <p><a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/isenkram">The isenkram
2144 system</a> is a user-focused solution in Debian for handling hardware
2145 related packages.  The idea is to have a database of mappings between
2146 hardware and packages, and pop up a dialog suggesting for the user to
2147 install the packages to use a given hardware dongle.  Some use cases
2148 are when you insert a Yubikey, it proposes to install the software
2149 needed to control it; when you insert a braille reader list it
2150 proposes to install the packages needed to send text to the reader;
2151 and when you insert a ColorHug screen calibrator it suggests to
2152 install the driver for it.  The system work well, and even have a few
2153 command line tools to install firmware packages and packages for the
2154 hardware already in the machine (as opposed to hotpluggable hardware).</p>
2155
2156 <p>The system was initially written using aptdaemon, because I found
2157 good documentation and example code on how to use it.  But aptdaemon
2158 is going away and is generally being replaced by
2159 <a href="http://www.freedesktop.org/software/PackageKit/">PackageKit</a>,
2160 so Isenkram needed a rewrite.  And today, thanks to the great patch
2161 from my college Sunil Mohan Adapa in the FreedomBox project, the
2162 rewrite finally took place.  I've just uploaded a new version of
2163 Isenkram into Debian Unstable with the patch included, and the default
2164 for the background daemon is now to use PackageKit.  To check it out,
2165 install the <tt>isenkram</tt> package and insert some hardware dongle
2166 and see if it is recognised.</p>
2167
2168 <p>If you want to know what kind of packages isenkram would propose for
2169 the machine it is running on, you can check out the isenkram-lookup
2170 program.  This is what it look like on a Thinkpad X230:</p>
2171
2172 <p><blockquote><pre>
2173 % isenkram-lookup
2174 bluez
2175 cheese
2176 fprintd
2177 fprintd-demo
2178 gkrellm-thinkbat
2179 hdapsd
2180 libpam-fprintd
2181 pidgin-blinklight
2182 thinkfan
2183 tleds
2184 tp-smapi-dkms
2185 tp-smapi-source
2186 tpb
2187 %p
2188 </pre></blockquote></p>
2189
2190 <p>The hardware mappings come from several places.  The preferred way
2191 is for packages to announce their hardware support using
2192 <a href="https://www.freedesktop.org/software/appstream/docs/">the
2193 cross distribution appstream system</a>.
2194 See
2195 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram/">previous
2196 blog posts about isenkram</a> to learn how to do that.</p>
2197
2198       </div>
2199       <div class="tags">
2200
2201
2202         Tags: <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>.
2203
2204
2205       </div>
2206     </div>
2207     <div class="padding"></div>
2208
2209     <div class="entry">
2210       <div class="title">
2211         <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>
2212       </div>
2213       <div class="date">
2214         23rd May 2016
2215       </div>
2216       <div class="body">
2217         <p>Yesterday I updated the
2218 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">battery-stats
2219 package in Debian</a> with a few patches sent to me by skilled and
2220 enterprising users.  There were some nice user and visible changes.
2221 First of all, both desktop menu entries now work.  A design flaw in
2222 one of the script made the history graph fail to show up (its PNG was
2223 dumped in ~/.xsession-errors) if no controlling TTY was available.
2224 The script worked when called from the command line, but not when
2225 called from the desktop menu.  I changed this to look for a DISPLAY
2226 variable or a TTY before deciding where to draw the graph, and now the
2227 graph window pop up as expected.</p>
2228
2229 <p>The next new feature is a discharge rate estimator in one of the
2230 graphs (the one showing the last few hours).  New is also the user of
2231 colours showing charging in blue and discharge in red.  The percentages
2232 of this graph is relative to last full charge, not battery design
2233 capacity.</p>
2234
2235 <p align="center"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-05-23-battery-stats-rate.png"/></p>
2236
2237 <p>The other graph show the entire history of the collected battery
2238 statistics, comparing it to the design capacity of the battery to
2239 visualise how the battery life time get shorter over time.  The red
2240 line in this graph is what the previous graph considers 100 percent:
2241
2242 <p align="center"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-05-23-battery-stats-history.png"/></p>
2243
2244 <p>In this graph you can see that I only charge the battery to 80
2245 percent of last full capacity, and how the capacity of the battery is
2246 shrinking. :(</p>
2247
2248 <p>The last new feature is in the collector, which now will handle
2249 more hardware models.  On some hardware, Linux power supply
2250 information is stored in /sys/class/power_supply/ACAD/, while the
2251 collector previously only looked in /sys/class/power_supply/AC/.  Now
2252 both are checked to figure if there is power connected to the
2253 machine.</p>
2254
2255 <p>If you are interested in how your laptop battery is doing, please
2256 check out the
2257 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">battery-stats</a>
2258 in Debian unstable, or rebuild it on Jessie to get it working on
2259 Debian stable. :) The upstream source is available from <a
2260 href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/battery-stats">github</a>.
2261 Patches are very welcome.</p>
2262
2263 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
2264 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
2265 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
2266
2267       </div>
2268       <div class="tags">
2269
2270
2271         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2272
2273
2274       </div>
2275     </div>
2276     <div class="padding"></div>
2277
2278     <div class="entry">
2279       <div class="title">
2280         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_now_with_ZFS_on_Linux_included.html">Debian now with ZFS on Linux included</a>
2281       </div>
2282       <div class="date">
2283         12th May 2016
2284       </div>
2285       <div class="body">
2286         <p>Today, after many years of hard work from many people,
2287 <a href="http://zfsonlinux.org/">ZFS for Linux</a> finally entered
2288 Debian.  The package status can be seen on
2289 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/zfs-linux">the package tracker
2290 for zfs-linux</a>.  and
2291 <a href="https://qa.debian.org/developer.php?login=pkg-zfsonlinux-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
2292 team status page</a>. If you want to help out, please join us.
2293 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=pkg-zfsonlinux/zfs.git">The
2294 source code</a> is available via git on Alioth.  It would also be
2295 great if you could help out with
2296 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/dkms">the dkms package</a>, as
2297 it is an important piece of the puzzle to get ZFS working.</p>
2298
2299       </div>
2300       <div class="tags">
2301
2302
2303         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2304
2305
2306       </div>
2307     </div>
2308     <div class="padding"></div>
2309
2310     <div class="entry">
2311       <div class="title">
2312         <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>
2313       </div>
2314       <div class="date">
2315          8th May 2016
2316       </div>
2317       <div class="body">
2318         <p><strong>Where I set out to figure out which multimedia player in
2319 Debian claim support for most file formats.</strong></p>
2320
2321 <p>A few years ago, I had a look at the media support for Browser
2322 plugins in Debian, to get an idea which plugins to include in Debian
2323 Edu.  I created a script to extract the set of supported MIME types
2324 for each plugin, and used this to find out which multimedia browser
2325 plugin supported most file formats / media types.
2326 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">The
2327 result</a> can still be seen on the Debian wiki, even though it have
2328 not been updated for a while.  But browser plugins are less relevant
2329 these days, so I thought it was time to look at standalone
2330 players.</p>
2331
2332 <p>A few days ago I was tired of VLC not being listed as a viable
2333 player when I wanted to play videos from the Norwegian National
2334 Broadcasting Company, and decided to investigate why.  The cause is a
2335 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/822245">missing MIME type in the VLC
2336 desktop file</a>.  In the process I wrote a script to compare the set
2337 of MIME types announced in the desktop file and the browser plugin,
2338 only to discover that there is quite a large difference between the
2339 two for VLC.  This discovery made me dig up the script I used to
2340 compare browser plugins, and adjust it to compare desktop files
2341 instead, to try to figure out which multimedia player in Debian
2342 support most file formats.</p>
2343
2344 <p>The result can be seen on the Debian Wiki, as
2345 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianMultimedia/PlayerSupport">a
2346 table listing all MIME types supported by one of the packages included
2347 in the table</a>, with the package supporting most MIME types being
2348 listed first in the table.</p>
2349
2350 </p>The best multimedia player in Debian?  It is totem, followed by
2351 parole, kplayer, mpv, vlc, smplayer mplayer-gui gnome-mpv and
2352 kmplayer.  Time for the other players to update their announced MIME
2353 support?</p>
2354
2355       </div>
2356       <div class="tags">
2357
2358
2359         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>.
2360
2361
2362       </div>
2363     </div>
2364     <div class="padding"></div>
2365
2366     <div class="entry">
2367       <div class="title">
2368         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Pyra___handheld_computer_with_Debian_preinstalled.html">The Pyra - handheld computer with Debian preinstalled</a>
2369       </div>
2370       <div class="date">
2371          4th May 2016
2372       </div>
2373       <div class="body">
2374         A friend of mine made me aware of
2375 <a href="https://pyra-handheld.com/boards/pages/pyra/">The Pyra</a>, a
2376 handheld computer which will be delivered with Debian preinstalled.  I
2377 would love to get one of those for my birthday. :)</p>
2378
2379 <p>The machine is a complete ARM-based PC with micro HDMI, SATA, USB
2380 plugs and many others connectors, and include a full keyboard and a 5"
2381 LCD touch screen.  The 6000mAh battery is claimed to provide a whole
2382 day of battery life time, but I have not seen any independent tests
2383 confirming this.  The vendor is still collecting preorders, and the
2384 last I heard last night was that 22 more orders were needed before
2385 production started.</p>
2386
2387 <p>As far as I know, this is the first handheld preinstalled with
2388 Debian.  Please let me know if you know of any others.  Is it the
2389 first computer being sold with Debian preinstalled?</p>
2390
2391       </div>
2392       <div class="tags">
2393
2394
2395         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2396
2397
2398       </div>
2399     </div>
2400     <div class="padding"></div>
2401
2402     <div class="entry">
2403       <div class="title">
2404         <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>
2405       </div>
2406       <div class="date">
2407         10th April 2016
2408       </div>
2409       <div class="body">
2410         <p>During this weekends
2411 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/news/Oslo__Takk_for_feilfiksingsfesten.shtml">bug
2412 squashing party and developer gathering</a>, we decided to do our part
2413 to make sure there are good books about Debian available in Norwegian
2414 Bokmål, and got in touch with the people behind the
2415 <a href="http://debian-handbook.info/">Debian Administrator's Handbook
2416 project</a> to get started.  If you want to help out, please start
2417 contributing using
2418 <a href="https://hosted.weblate.org/projects/debian-handbook/">the
2419 hosted weblate project page</a>, and get in touch using
2420 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/debian-handbook-translators">the
2421 translators mailing list</a>.  Please also check out
2422 <a href="https://debian-handbook.info/contribute/">the instructions for
2423 contributors</a>.</p>
2424
2425 <p>The book is already available on paper in English, French and
2426 Japanese, and our goal is to get it available on paper in Norwegian
2427 Bokmål too.  In addition to the paper edition, there are also EPUB and
2428 Mobi versions available.  And there are incomplete translations
2429 available for many more languages.</p>
2430
2431       </div>
2432       <div class="tags">
2433
2434
2435         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian-handbook">debian-handbook</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2436
2437
2438       </div>
2439     </div>
2440     <div class="padding"></div>
2441
2442     <div class="entry">
2443       <div class="title">
2444         <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>
2445       </div>
2446       <div class="date">
2447          7th April 2016
2448       </div>
2449       <div class="body">
2450         <p>Just for fun I had a look at the popcon number of ZFS related
2451 packages in Debian, and was quite surprised with what I found.  I use
2452 ZFS myself at home, but did not really expect many others to do so.
2453 But I might be wrong.</p>
2454
2455 <p>According to
2456 <a href="https://qa.debian.org/popcon.php?package=spl-linux">the popcon
2457 results for spl-linux</a>, there are 1019 Debian installations, or
2458 0.53% of the population, with the package installed.  As far as I know
2459 the only use of the spl-linux package is as a support library for ZFS
2460 on Linux, so I use it here as proxy for measuring the number of ZFS
2461 installation on Linux in Debian.  In the kFreeBSD variant of Debian
2462 the ZFS feature is already available, and there
2463 <a href="https://qa.debian.org/popcon.php?package=zfsutils">the popcon
2464 results for zfsutils</a> show 1625 Debian installations or 0.84% of
2465 the population.  So I guess I am not alone in using ZFS on Debian.</p>
2466
2467 <p>But even though the Debian project leader Lucas Nussbaum
2468 <a href="https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2015/04/msg00006.html">announced
2469 in April 2015</a> that the legal obstacles blocking ZFS on Debian were
2470 cleared, the package is still not in Debian.  The package is again in
2471 the NEW queue.  Several uploads have been rejected so far because the
2472 debian/copyright file was incomplete or wrong, but there is no reason
2473 to give up.  The current status can be seen on
2474 <a href="https://qa.debian.org/developer.php?login=pkg-zfsonlinux-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
2475 team status page</a>, and
2476 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=pkg-zfsonlinux/zfs.git">the
2477 source code</a> is available on Alioth.</p>
2478
2479 <p>As I want ZFS to be included in next version of Debian to make sure
2480 my home server can function in the future using only official Debian
2481 packages, and the current blocker is to get the debian/copyright file
2482 accepted by the FTP masters in Debian, I decided a while back to try
2483 to help out the team.  This was the background for my blog post about
2484 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Creating__updating_and_checking_debian_copyright_semi_automatically.html">creating,
2485 updating and checking debian/copyright semi-automatically</a>, and I
2486 used the techniques I explored there to try to find any errors in the
2487 copyright file.  It is not very easy to check every one of the around
2488 2000 files in the source package, but I hope we this time got it
2489 right.  If you want to help out, check out the git source and try to
2490 find missing entries in the debian/copyright file.</p>
2491
2492       </div>
2493       <div class="tags">
2494
2495
2496         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2497
2498
2499       </div>
2500     </div>
2501     <div class="padding"></div>
2502
2503     <div class="entry">
2504       <div class="title">
2505         <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>
2506       </div>
2507       <div class="date">
2508         23rd March 2016
2509       </div>
2510       <div class="body">
2511         <p>Since this morning, the battery-stats package in Debian include an
2512 extended collector that will collect the complete battery history for
2513 later processing and graphing.  The original collector store the
2514 battery level as percentage of last full level, while the new
2515 collector also record battery vendor, model, serial number, design
2516 full level, last full level and current battery level.  This make it
2517 possible to predict the lifetime of the battery as well as visualise
2518 the energy flow when the battery is charging or discharging.</p>
2519
2520 <p>The new tools are available in <tt>/usr/share/battery-stats/</tt>
2521 in the version 0.5.1 package in unstable.  Get the new battery level graph
2522 and lifetime prediction by running:
2523
2524 <p><pre>
2525 /usr/share/battery-stats/battery-stats-graph /var/log/battery-stats.csv
2526 </pre></p>
2527
2528 <p>Or select the 'Battery Level Graph' from your application menu.</p>
2529
2530 <p>The flow in/out of the battery can be seen by running (no menu
2531 entry yet):</p>
2532
2533 <p><pre>
2534 /usr/share/battery-stats/battery-stats-graph-flow
2535 </pre></p>
2536
2537 <p>I'm not quite happy with the way the data is visualised, at least
2538 when there are few data points.  The graphs look a bit better with a
2539 few years of data.</p>
2540
2541 <p>A while back one important feature I use in the battery stats
2542 collector broke in Debian.  The scripts in
2543 <tt>/usr/lib/pm-utils/power.d/</tt> were no longer executed.  I
2544 suspect it happened when Jessie started using systemd, but I do not
2545 know.  The issue is reported as
2546 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/818649">bug #818649</a> against
2547 pm-utils.  I managed to work around it by adding an udev rule to call
2548 the collector script every time the power connector is connected and
2549 disconnected.  With this fix in place it was finally time to make a
2550 new release of the package, and get it into Debian.</p>
2551
2552 <p>If you are interested in how your laptop battery is doing, please
2553 check out the
2554 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">battery-stats</a>
2555 in Debian unstable, or rebuild it on Jessie to get it working on
2556 Debian stable. :) The upstream source is available from
2557 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/battery-stats">github</a>.
2558 As always, patches are very welcome.</p>
2559
2560       </div>
2561       <div class="tags">
2562
2563
2564         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2565
2566
2567       </div>
2568     </div>
2569     <div class="padding"></div>
2570
2571     <div class="entry">
2572       <div class="title">
2573         <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>
2574       </div>
2575       <div class="date">
2576         15th March 2016
2577       </div>
2578       <div class="body">
2579         <p>Back in September, I blogged about
2580 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_life_and_death_of_a_laptop_battery.html">the
2581 system I wrote to collect statistics about my laptop battery</a>, and
2582 how it showed the decay and death of this battery (now replaced).  I
2583 created a simple deb package to handle the collection and graphing,
2584 but did not want to upload it to Debian as there were already
2585 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">a battery-stats
2586 package in Debian</a> that should do the same thing, and I did not see
2587 a point of uploading a competing package when battery-stats could be
2588 fixed instead.  I reported a few bugs about its non-function, and
2589 hoped someone would step in and fix it.  But no-one did.</p>
2590
2591 <p>I got tired of waiting a few days ago, and took matters in my own
2592 hands.  The end result is that I am now the new upstream developer of
2593 battery stats (<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/battery-stats">available from github</a>) and part of the team maintaining
2594 battery-stats in Debian, and the package in Debian unstable is finally
2595 able to collect battery status using the <tt>/sys/class/power_supply/</tt>
2596 information provided by the Linux kernel.  If you install the
2597 battery-stats package from unstable now, you will be able to get a
2598 graph of the current battery fill level, to get some idea about the
2599 status of the battery.  The source package build and work just fine in
2600 Debian testing and stable (and probably oldstable too, but I have not
2601 tested).  The default graph you get for that system look like this:</p>
2602
2603 <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>
2604
2605 <p>My plans for the future is to merge my old scripts into the
2606 battery-stats package, as my old scripts collected a lot more details
2607 about the battery.  The scripts are merged into the upstream
2608 battery-stats git repository already, but I am not convinced they work
2609 yet, as I changed a lot of paths along the way.  Will have to test a
2610 bit more before I make a new release.</p>
2611
2612 <p>I will also consider changing the file format slightly, as I
2613 suspect the way I combine several values into one field might make it
2614 impossible to know the type of the value when using it for processing
2615 and graphing.</p>
2616
2617 <p>If you would like I would like to keep an close eye on your laptop
2618 battery, check out the battery-stats package in
2619 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">Debian</a> and
2620 on
2621 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/battery-stats">github</a>.
2622 I would love some help to improve the system further.</p>
2623
2624       </div>
2625       <div class="tags">
2626
2627
2628         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2629
2630
2631       </div>
2632     </div>
2633     <div class="padding"></div>
2634
2635     <div class="entry">
2636       <div class="title">
2637         <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>
2638       </div>
2639       <div class="date">
2640         19th February 2016
2641       </div>
2642       <div class="body">
2643         <p>Making packages for Debian requires quite a lot of attention to
2644 details.  And one of the details is the content of the
2645 debian/copyright file, which should list all relevant licenses used by
2646 the code in the package in question, preferably in
2647 <a href="https://www.debian.org/doc/packaging-manuals/copyright-format/1.0/">machine
2648 readable DEP5 format</a>.</p>
2649
2650 <p>For large packages with lots of contributors it is hard to write
2651 and update this file manually, and if you get some detail wrong, the
2652 package is normally rejected by the ftpmasters.  So getting it right
2653 the first time around get the package into Debian faster, and save
2654 both you and the ftpmasters some work..  Today, while trying to figure
2655 out what was wrong with
2656 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=686447">the
2657 zfsonlinux copyright file</a>, I decided to spend some time on
2658 figuring out the options for doing this job automatically, or at least
2659 semi-automatically.</p>
2660
2661 <p>Lucikly, there are at least two tools available for generating the
2662 file based on the code in the source package,
2663 <tt><a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/debmake">debmake</a></tt>
2664 and <tt><a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/cme">cme</a></tt>.  I'm
2665 not sure which one of them came first, but both seem to be able to
2666 create a sensible draft file.  As far as I can tell, none of them can
2667 be trusted to get the result just right, so the content need to be
2668 polished a bit before the file is OK to upload.  I found the debmake
2669 option in
2670 <a href="http://goofying-with-debian.blogspot.com/2014/07/debmake-checking-source-against-dep-5.html">a
2671 blog posts from 2014</a>.
2672
2673 <p>To generate using debmake, use the -cc option:
2674
2675 <p><pre>
2676 debmake -cc > debian/copyright
2677 </pre></p>
2678
2679 <p>Note there are some problems with python and non-ASCII names, so
2680 this might not be the best option.</p>
2681
2682 <p>The cme option is based on a config parsing library, and I found
2683 this approach in
2684 <a href="https://ddumont.wordpress.com/2015/04/05/improving-creation-of-debian-copyright-file/">a
2685 blog post from 2015</a>.  To generate using cme, use the 'update
2686 dpkg-copyright' option:
2687
2688 <p><pre>
2689 cme update dpkg-copyright
2690 </pre></p>
2691
2692 <p>This will create or update debian/copyright.  The cme tool seem to
2693 handle UTF-8 names better than debmake.</p>
2694
2695 <p>When the copyright file is created, I would also like some help to
2696 check if the file is correct.  For this I found two good options,
2697 <tt>debmake -k</tt> and <tt>license-reconcile</tt>.  The former seem
2698 to focus on license types and file matching, and is able to detect
2699 ineffective blocks in the copyright file.  The latter reports missing
2700 copyright holders and years, but was confused by inconsistent license
2701 names (like CDDL vs. CDDL-1.0).  I suspect it is good to use both and
2702 fix all issues reported by them before uploading.  But I do not know
2703 if the tools and the ftpmasters agree on what is important to fix in a
2704 copyright file, so the package might still be rejected.</p>
2705
2706 <p>The devscripts tool <tt>licensecheck</tt> deserve mentioning.  It
2707 will read through the source and try to find all copyright statements.
2708 It is not comparing the result to the content of debian/copyright, but
2709 can be useful when verifying the content of the copyright file.</p>
2710
2711 <p>Are you aware of better tools in Debian to create and update
2712 debian/copyright file.  Please let me know, or blog about it on
2713 planet.debian.org.</p>
2714
2715 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
2716 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
2717 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
2718
2719 <p><strong>Update 2016-02-20</strong>: I got a tip from Mike Gabriel
2720 on how to use licensecheck and cdbs to create a draft copyright file
2721
2722 <p><pre>
2723 licensecheck --copyright -r `find * -type f` | \
2724   /usr/lib/cdbs/licensecheck2dep5 > debian/copyright.auto
2725 </pre></p>
2726
2727 <p>He mentioned that he normally check the generated file into the
2728 version control system to make it easier to discover license and
2729 copyright changes in the upstream source.  I will try to do the same
2730 with my packages in the future.</p>
2731
2732 <p><strong>Update 2016-02-21</strong>: The cme author recommended
2733 against using -quiet for new users, so I removed it from the proposed
2734 command line.</p>
2735
2736       </div>
2737       <div class="tags">
2738
2739
2740         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2741
2742
2743       </div>
2744     </div>
2745     <div class="padding"></div>
2746
2747     <div class="entry">
2748       <div class="title">
2749         <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>
2750       </div>
2751       <div class="date">
2752          4th February 2016
2753       </div>
2754       <div class="body">
2755         <p>The <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DEP-11">appstream system</a>
2756 is taking shape in Debian, and one provided feature is a very
2757 convenient way to tell you which package to install to make a given
2758 firmware file available when the kernel is looking for it.  This can
2759 be done using apt-file too, but that is for someone else to blog
2760 about. :)</p>
2761
2762 <p>Here is a small recipe to find the package with a given firmware
2763 file, in this example I am looking for ctfw-3.2.3.0.bin, randomly
2764 picked from the set of firmware announced using appstream in Debian
2765 unstable.  In general you would be looking for the firmware requested
2766 by the kernel during kernel module loading.  To find the package
2767 providing the example file, do like this:</p>
2768
2769 <blockquote><pre>
2770 % apt install appstream
2771 [...]
2772 % apt update
2773 [...]
2774 % appstreamcli what-provides firmware:runtime ctfw-3.2.3.0.bin | \
2775   awk '/Package:/ {print $2}'
2776 firmware-qlogic
2777 %
2778 </pre></blockquote>
2779
2780 <p>See <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/AppStream/Guidelines">the
2781 appstream wiki</a> page to learn how to embed the package metadata in
2782 a way appstream can use.</p>
2783
2784 <p>This same approach can be used to find any package supporting a
2785 given MIME type.  This is very useful when you get a file you do not
2786 know how to handle.  First find the mime type using <tt>file
2787 --mime-type</tt>, and next look up the package providing support for
2788 it.  Lets say you got an SVG file.  Its MIME type is image/svg+xml,
2789 and you can find all packages handling this type like this:</p>
2790
2791 <blockquote><pre>
2792 % apt install appstream
2793 [...]
2794 % apt update
2795 [...]
2796 % appstreamcli what-provides mimetype image/svg+xml | \
2797   awk '/Package:/ {print $2}'
2798 bkchem
2799 phototonic
2800 inkscape
2801 shutter
2802 tetzle
2803 geeqie
2804 xia
2805 pinta
2806 gthumb
2807 karbon
2808 comix
2809 mirage
2810 viewnior
2811 postr
2812 ristretto
2813 kolourpaint4
2814 eog
2815 eom
2816 gimagereader
2817 midori
2818 %
2819 </pre></blockquote>
2820
2821 <p>I believe the MIME types are fetched from the desktop file for
2822 packages providing appstream metadata.</p>
2823
2824       </div>
2825       <div class="tags">
2826
2827
2828         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2829
2830
2831       </div>
2832     </div>
2833     <div class="padding"></div>
2834
2835     <div class="entry">
2836       <div class="title">
2837         <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>
2838       </div>
2839       <div class="date">
2840         24th January 2016
2841       </div>
2842       <div class="body">
2843         <p>Most people seem not to realise that every time they walk around
2844 with the computerised radio beacon known as a mobile phone their
2845 position is tracked by the phone company and often stored for a long
2846 time (like every time a SMS is received or sent).  And if their
2847 computerised radio beacon is capable of running programs (often called
2848 mobile apps) downloaded from the Internet, these programs are often
2849 also capable of tracking their location (if the app requested access
2850 during installation).  And when these programs send out information to
2851 central collection points, the location is often included, unless
2852 extra care is taken to not send the location.  The provided
2853 information is used by several entities, for good and bad (what is
2854 good and bad, depend on your point of view).  What is certain, is that
2855 the private sphere and the right to free movement is challenged and
2856 perhaps even eradicated for those announcing their location this way,
2857 when they share their whereabouts with private and public
2858 entities.</p>
2859
2860 <p align="center"><img width="70%" src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-01-24-nice-creepy-desktop-window.png"></p>
2861
2862 <p>The phone company logs provide a register of locations to check out
2863 when one want to figure out what the tracked person was doing.  It is
2864 unavailable for most of us, but provided to selected government
2865 officials, company staff, those illegally buying information from
2866 unfaithful servants and crackers stealing the information.  But the
2867 public information can be collected and analysed, and a free software
2868 tool to do so is called
2869 <a href="http://www.geocreepy.com/">Creepy or Cree.py</a>.  I
2870 discovered it when I read
2871 <a href="http://www.aftenposten.no/kultur/Slik-kan-du-bli-overvaket-pa-Twitter-og-Instagram-uten-a-ane-det-7787884.html">an
2872 article about Creepy</a> in the Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten i
2873 November 2014, and decided to check if it was available in Debian.
2874 The python program was in Debian, but
2875 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/creepy">the version in
2876 Debian</a> was completely broken and practically unmaintained.  I
2877 uploaded a new version which did not work quite right, but did not
2878 have time to fix it then.  This Christmas I decided to finally try to
2879 get Creepy operational in Debian.  Now a fixed version is available in
2880 Debian unstable and testing, and almost all Debian specific patches
2881 are now included
2882 <a href="https://github.com/jkakavas/creepy">upstream</a>.</p>
2883
2884 <p>The Creepy program visualises geolocation information fetched from
2885 Twitter, Instagram, Flickr and Google+, and allow one to get a
2886 complete picture of every social media message posted recently in a
2887 given area, or track the movement of a given individual across all
2888 these services.  Earlier it was possible to use the search API of at
2889 least some of these services without identifying oneself, but these
2890 days it is impossible.  This mean that to use Creepy, you need to
2891 configure it to log in as yourself on these services, and provide
2892 information to them about your search interests.  This should be taken
2893 into account when using Creepy, as it will also share information
2894 about yourself with the services.</p>
2895
2896 <p>The picture above show the twitter messages sent from (or at least
2897 geotagged with a position from) the city centre of Oslo, the capital
2898 of Norway.  One useful way to use Creepy is to first look at
2899 information tagged with an area of interest, and next look at all the
2900 information provided by one or more individuals who was in the area.
2901 I tested it by checking out which celebrity provide their location in
2902 twitter messages by checkout out who sent twitter messages near a
2903 Norwegian TV station, and next could track their position over time,
2904 making it possible to locate their home and work place, among other
2905 things.  A similar technique have been
2906 <a href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/maxseddon/does-this-soldiers-instagram-account-prove-russia-is-covertl">used
2907 to locate Russian soldiers in Ukraine</a>, and it is both a powerful
2908 tool to discover lying governments, and a useful tool to help people
2909 understand the value of the private information they provide to the
2910 public.</p>
2911
2912 <p>The package is not trivial to backport to Debian Stable/Jessie, as
2913 it depend on several python modules currently missing in Jessie (at
2914 least python-instagram, python-flickrapi and
2915 python-requests-toolbelt).</p>
2916
2917 <p>(I have uploaded
2918 <a href="https://screenshots.debian.net/package/creepy">the image to
2919 screenshots.debian.net</a> and licensed it under the same terms as the
2920 Creepy program in Debian.)</p>
2921
2922       </div>
2923       <div class="tags">
2924
2925
2926         Tags: <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>.
2927
2928
2929       </div>
2930     </div>
2931     <div class="padding"></div>
2932
2933     <div class="entry">
2934       <div class="title">
2935         <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>
2936       </div>
2937       <div class="date">
2938         15th January 2016
2939       </div>
2940       <div class="body">
2941         <p>During his DebConf15 keynote, Jacob Appelbaum
2942 <a href="https://summit.debconf.org/debconf15/meeting/331/what-is-to-be-done/">observed
2943 that those listening on the Internet lines would have good reason to
2944 believe a computer have a given security hole</a> if it download a
2945 security fix from a Debian mirror.  This is a good reason to always
2946 use encrypted connections to the Debian mirror, to make sure those
2947 listening do not know which IP address to attack.  In August, Richard
2948 Hartmann observed that encryption was not enough, when it was possible
2949 to interfere download size to security patches or the fact that
2950 download took place shortly after a security fix was released, and
2951 <a href="http://richardhartmann.de/blog/posts/2015/08/24-Tor-enabled_Debian_mirror/">proposed
2952 to always use Tor to download packages from the Debian mirror</a>.  He
2953 was not the first to propose this, as the
2954 <tt><a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/apt-transport-tor">apt-transport-tor</a></tt>
2955 package by Tim Retout already existed to make it easy to convince apt
2956 to use <a href="https://www.torproject.org/">Tor</a>, but I was not
2957 aware of that package when I read the blog post from Richard.</p>
2958
2959 <p>Richard discussed the idea with Peter Palfrader, one of the Debian
2960 sysadmins, and he set up a Tor hidden service on one of the central
2961 Debian mirrors using the address vwakviie2ienjx6t.onion, thus making
2962 it possible to download packages directly between two tor nodes,
2963 making sure the network traffic always were encrypted.</p>
2964
2965 <p>Here is a short recipe for enabling this on your machine, by
2966 installing <tt>apt-transport-tor</tt> and replacing http and https
2967 urls with tor+http and tor+https, and using the hidden service instead
2968 of the official Debian mirror site.  I recommend installing
2969 <tt>etckeeper</tt> before you start to have a history of the changes
2970 done in /etc/.</p>
2971
2972 <blockquote><pre>
2973 apt install apt-transport-tor
2974 sed -i 's% http://ftp.debian.org/% tor+http://vwakviie2ienjx6t.onion/%' /etc/apt/sources.list
2975 sed -i 's% http% tor+http%' /etc/apt/sources.list
2976 </pre></blockquote>
2977
2978 <p>If you have more sources listed in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/, run
2979 the sed commands for these too.  The sed command is assuming your are
2980 using the ftp.debian.org Debian mirror.  Adjust the command (or just
2981 edit the file manually) to match your mirror.</p>
2982
2983 <p>This work in Debian Jessie and later.  Note that tools like
2984 <tt>apt-file</tt> only recently started using the apt transport
2985 system, and do not work with these tor+http URLs.  For
2986 <tt>apt-file</tt> you need the version currently in experimental,
2987 which need a recent apt version currently only in unstable.  So if you
2988 need a working <tt>apt-file</tt>, this is not for you.</p>
2989
2990 <p>Another advantage from this change is that your machine will start
2991 using Tor regularly and at fairly random intervals (every time you
2992 update the package lists or upgrade or install a new package), thus
2993 masking other Tor traffic done from the same machine.  Using Tor will
2994 become normal for the machine in question.</p>
2995
2996 <p>On <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">Freedombox</a>, APT
2997 is set up by default to use <tt>apt-transport-tor</tt> when Tor is
2998 enabled.  It would be great if it was the default on any Debian
2999 system.</p>
3000
3001       </div>
3002       <div class="tags">
3003
3004
3005         Tags: <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>.
3006
3007
3008       </div>
3009     </div>
3010     <div class="padding"></div>
3011
3012     <div class="entry">
3013       <div class="title">
3014         <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>
3015       </div>
3016       <div class="date">
3017         23rd December 2015
3018       </div>
3019       <div class="body">
3020         <p>When I was a kid, we used to collect "car numbers", as we used to
3021 call the car license plate numbers in those days.  I would write the
3022 numbers down in my little book and compare notes with the other kids
3023 to see how many region codes we had seen and if we had seen some
3024 exotic or special region codes and numbers.  It was a fun game to pass
3025 time, as we kids have plenty of it.</p>
3026
3027 <p>A few days I came across
3028 <a href="https://github.com/openalpr/openalpr">the OpenALPR
3029 project</a>, a free software project to automatically discover and
3030 report license plates in images and video streams, and provide the
3031 "car numbers" in a machine readable format.  I've been looking for
3032 such system for a while now, because I believe it is a bad idea that the
3033 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_number_plate_recognition">automatic
3034 number plate recognition</a> tool only is available in the hands of
3035 the powerful, and want it to be available also for the powerless to
3036 even the score when it comes to surveillance and sousveillance.  I
3037 discovered the developer
3038 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/747509">wanted to get the tool into
3039 Debian</a>, and as I too wanted it to be in Debian, I volunteered to
3040 help him get it into shape to get the package uploaded into the Debian
3041 archive.</p>
3042
3043 <p>Today we finally managed to get the package into shape and uploaded
3044 it into Debian, where it currently
3045 <a href="https://ftp-master.debian.org//new/openalpr_2.2.1-1.html">waits
3046 in the NEW queue</a> for review by the Debian ftpmasters.</p>
3047
3048 <p>I guess you are wondering why on earth such tool would be useful
3049 for the common folks, ie those not running a large government
3050 surveillance system?  Well, I plan to put it in a computer on my bike
3051 and in my car, tracking the cars nearby and allowing me to be notified
3052 when number plates on my watch list are discovered.  Another use case
3053 was suggested by a friend of mine, who wanted to set it up at his home
3054 to open the car port automatically when it discovered the plate on his
3055 car.  When I mentioned it perhaps was a bit foolhardy to allow anyone
3056 capable of placing his license plate number of a piece of cardboard to
3057 open his car port, men replied that it was always unlocked anyway.  I
3058 guess for such use case it make sense.  I am sure there are other use
3059 cases too, for those with imagination and a vision.</p>
3060
3061 <p>If you want to build your own version of the Debian package, check
3062 out the upstream git source and symlink ./distros/debian to ./debian/
3063 before running "debuild" to build the source.  Or wait a bit until the
3064 package show up in unstable.</p>
3065
3066       </div>
3067       <div class="tags">
3068
3069
3070         Tags: <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>.
3071
3072
3073       </div>
3074     </div>
3075     <div class="padding"></div>
3076
3077     <div class="entry">
3078       <div class="title">
3079         <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>
3080       </div>
3081       <div class="date">
3082         20th December 2015
3083       </div>
3084       <div class="body">
3085         <p>Around three years ago, I created
3086 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">the isenkram
3087 system</a> to get a more practical solution in Debian for handing
3088 hardware related packages.  A GUI system in the isenkram package will
3089 present a pop-up dialog when some hardware dongle supported by
3090 relevant packages in Debian is inserted into the machine.  The same
3091 lookup mechanism to detect packages is available as command line
3092 tools in the isenkram-cli package.  In addition to mapping hardware,
3093 it will also map kernel firmware files to packages and make it easy to
3094 install needed firmware packages automatically.  The key for this
3095 system to work is a good way to map hardware to packages, in other
3096 words, allow packages to announce what hardware they will work
3097 with.</p>
3098
3099 <p>I started by providing data files in the isenkram source, and
3100 adding code to download the latest version of these data files at run
3101 time, to ensure every user had the most up to date mapping available.
3102 I also added support for storing the mapping in the Packages file in
3103 the apt repositories, but did not push this approach because while I
3104 was trying to figure out how to best store hardware/package mappings,
3105 <a href="http://www.freedesktop.org/software/appstream/docs/">the
3106 appstream system</a> was announced.  I got in touch and suggested to
3107 add the hardware mapping into that data set to be able to use
3108 appstream as a data source, and this was accepted at least for the
3109 Debian version of appstream.</p>
3110
3111 <p>A few days ago using appstream in Debian for this became possible,
3112 and today I uploaded a new version 0.20 of isenkram adding support for
3113 appstream as a data source for mapping hardware to packages.  The only
3114 package so far using appstream to announce its hardware support is my
3115 pymissile package.  I got help from Matthias Klumpp with figuring out
3116 how do add the required
3117 <a href="https://appstream.debian.org/html/sid/main/metainfo/pymissile.html">metadata
3118 in pymissile</a>.  I added a file debian/pymissile.metainfo.xml with
3119 this content:</p>
3120
3121 <blockquote><pre>
3122 &lt;?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?&gt;
3123 &lt;component&gt;
3124   &lt;id&gt;pymissile&lt;/id&gt;
3125   &lt;metadata_license&gt;MIT&lt;/metadata_license&gt;
3126   &lt;name&gt;pymissile&lt;/name&gt;
3127   &lt;summary&gt;Control original Striker USB Missile Launcher&lt;/summary&gt;
3128   &lt;description&gt;
3129     &lt;p&gt;
3130       Pymissile provides a curses interface to control an original
3131       Marks and Spencer / Striker USB Missile Launcher, as well as a
3132       motion control script to allow a webcamera to control the
3133       launcher.
3134     &lt;/p&gt;
3135   &lt;/description&gt;
3136   &lt;provides&gt;
3137     &lt;modalias&gt;usb:v1130p0202d*&lt;/modalias&gt;
3138   &lt;/provides&gt;
3139 &lt;/component&gt;
3140 </pre></blockquote>
3141
3142 <p>The key for isenkram is the component/provides/modalias value,
3143 which is a glob style match rule for hardware specific strings
3144 (modalias strings) provided by the Linux kernel.  In this case, it
3145 will map to all USB devices with vendor code 1130 and product code
3146 0202.</p>
3147
3148 <p>Note, it is important that the license of all the metadata files
3149 are compatible to have permissions to aggregate them into archive wide
3150 appstream files.  Matthias suggested to use MIT or BSD licenses for
3151 these files.  A challenge is figuring out a good id for the data, as
3152 it is supposed to be globally unique and shared across distributions
3153 (in other words, best to coordinate with upstream what to use).  But
3154 it can be changed later or, so we went with the package name as
3155 upstream for this project is dormant.</p>
3156
3157 <p>To get the metadata file installed in the correct location for the
3158 mirror update scripts to pick it up and include its content the
3159 appstream data source, the file must be installed in the binary
3160 package under /usr/share/appdata/.  I did this by adding the following
3161 line to debian/pymissile.install:</p>
3162
3163 <blockquote><pre>
3164 debian/pymissile.metainfo.xml usr/share/appdata
3165 </pre></blockquote>
3166
3167 <p>With that in place, the command line tool isenkram-lookup will list
3168 all packages useful on the current computer automatically, and the GUI
3169 pop-up handler will propose to install the package not already
3170 installed if a hardware dongle is inserted into the machine in
3171 question.</p>
3172
3173 <p>Details of the modalias field in appstream is available from the
3174 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DEP-11">DEP-11</a> proposal.</p>
3175
3176 <p>To locate the modalias values of all hardware present in a machine,
3177 try running this command on the command line:</p>
3178
3179 <blockquote><pre>
3180 cat $(find /sys/devices/|grep modalias)
3181 </pre></blockquote>
3182
3183 <p>To learn more about the isenkram system, please check out
3184 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram/">my
3185 blog posts tagged isenkram</a>.</p>
3186
3187       </div>
3188       <div class="tags">
3189
3190
3191         Tags: <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>.
3192
3193
3194       </div>
3195     </div>
3196     <div class="padding"></div>
3197
3198     <div class="entry">
3199       <div class="title">
3200         <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>
3201       </div>
3202       <div class="date">
3203         30th November 2015
3204       </div>
3205       <div class="body">
3206         <p>A blog post from my fellow Debian developer Paul Wise titled
3207 "<a href="http://bonedaddy.net/pabs3/log/2015/11/27/sfc-supporter/">The
3208 GPL is not magic pixie dust</a>" explain the importance of making sure
3209 the <a href="http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html">GPL</a> is enforced.
3210 I quote the blog post from Paul in full here with his permission:<p>
3211
3212 <blockquote>
3213
3214 <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>
3215
3216 <blockquote>
3217 The GPL is not magic pixie dust. It does not work by itself.<br/>
3218
3219 The first step is to choose a
3220 <a href="https://copyleft.org/">copyleft</a> license for your
3221 code.<br/>
3222
3223 The next step is, when someone fails to follow that copyleft license,
3224 <b>it must be enforced</b><br/>
3225
3226 and its a simple fact of our modern society that such type of
3227 work<br/>
3228
3229 is incredibly expensive to do and incredibly difficult to do.
3230 </blockquote>
3231
3232 <p><small>-- <a href="http://ebb.org/bkuhn/">Bradley Kuhn</a>, in
3233 <a href="http://faif.us/" title="Free as in Freedom">FaiF</a>
3234 <a href="http://faif.us/cast/2015/nov/24/0x57/">episode
3235 0x57</a></small></p>
3236
3237 <p>As the Debian Website
3238 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/794116">used</a>
3239 <a href="https://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/webwml/webwml/english/intro/free.wml?r1=1.24&amp;r2=1.25">to</a>
3240 imply, public domain and permissively licensed software can lead to
3241 the production of more proprietary software as people discover useful
3242 software, extend it and or incorporate it into their hardware or
3243 software products.  Copyleft licenses such as the GNU GPL were created
3244 to close off this avenue to the production of proprietary software but
3245 such licenses are not enough.  With the ongoing adoption of Free
3246 Software by individuals and groups, inevitably the community's
3247 expectations of license compliance are violated, usually out of
3248 ignorance of the way Free Software works, but not always.  As Karen
3249 and Bradley explained in <a href="http://faif.us/" title="Free as in
3250 Freedom">FaiF</a>
3251 <a href="http://faif.us/cast/2015/nov/24/0x57/">episode 0x57</a>,
3252 copyleft is nothing if no-one is willing and able to stand up in court
3253 to protect it.  The reality of today's world is that legal
3254 representation is expensive, difficult and time consuming.  With
3255 <a href="http://gpl-violations.org/">gpl-violations.org</a> in hiatus
3256 <a href="http://gpl-violations.org/news/20151027-homepage-recovers/">until</a>
3257 some time in 2016, the <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/">Software
3258 Freedom Conservancy</a> (a tax-exempt charity) is the major defender
3259 of the Linux project, Debian and other groups against GPL violations.
3260 In March the SFC supported a
3261 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/news/2015/mar/05/vmware-lawsuit/">lawsuit
3262 by Christoph Hellwig</a> against VMware for refusing to
3263 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/linux-compliance/vmware-lawsuit-faq.html">comply
3264 with the GPL</a> in relation to their use of parts of the Linux
3265 kernel.  Since then two of their sponsors pulled corporate funding and
3266 conferences
3267 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2015/nov/24/faif-carols-fundraiser/">blocked
3268 or cancelled their talks</a>.  As a result they have decided to rely
3269 less on corporate funding and more on the broad community of
3270 individuals who support Free Software and copyleft.  So the SFC has
3271 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/news/2015/nov/23/2015fundraiser/">launched</a>
3272 a <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/">campaign</a> to create
3273 a community of folks who stand up for copyleft and the GPL by
3274 supporting their work on promoting and supporting copyleft and Free
3275 Software.</p>
3276
3277 <p>If you support Free Software,
3278 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2015/nov/26/like-what-I-do/">like</a>
3279 what the SFC do, agree with their
3280 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/linux-compliance/principles.html">compliance
3281 principles</a>, are happy about their
3282 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/">successes</a> in 2015,
3283 work on a project that is an SFC
3284 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/members/current/">member</a> and or
3285 just want to stand up for copyleft, please join
3286 <a href="https://identi.ca/cwebber/image/JQGPA4qbTyyp3-MY8QpvuA">Christopher
3287 Allan Webber</a>,
3288 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2015/nov/24/faif-carols-fundraiser/">Carol
3289 Smith</a>,
3290 <a href="http://www.jonobacon.org/2015/11/25/supporting-software-freedom-conservancy/">Jono
3291 Bacon</a>, myself and
3292 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/sponsors/#supporters">others</a> in
3293 becoming a
3294 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/">supporter</a>.  For the
3295 next week your donation will be
3296 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/news/2015/nov/27/black-friday/">matched</a>
3297 by an anonymous donor.  Please also consider asking your employer to
3298 match your donation or become a sponsor of SFC.  Don't forget to
3299 spread the word about your support for SFC via email, your blog and or
3300 social media accounts.</p>
3301
3302 </blockquote>
3303
3304 <p>I agree with Paul on this topic and just signed up as a Supporter
3305 of Software Freedom Conservancy myself.  Perhaps you should be a
3306 supporter too?</p>
3307
3308       </div>
3309       <div class="tags">
3310
3311
3312         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>.
3313
3314
3315       </div>
3316     </div>
3317     <div class="padding"></div>
3318
3319     <div class="entry">
3320       <div class="title">
3321         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/PGP_key_transition_statement_for_key_EE4E02F9.html">PGP key transition statement for key EE4E02F9</a>
3322       </div>
3323       <div class="date">
3324         17th November 2015
3325       </div>
3326       <div class="body">
3327         <p>I've needed a new OpenPGP key for a while, but have not had time to
3328 set it up properly.  I wanted to generate it offline and have it
3329 available on <a href="http://shop.kernelconcepts.de/#openpgp">a OpenPGP
3330 smart card</a> for daily use, and learning how to do it and finding
3331 time to sit down with an offline machine almost took forever.  But
3332 finally I've been able to complete the process, and have now moved
3333 from my old GPG key to a new GPG key.  See
3334 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2015-11-17-new-gpg-key-transition.txt">the
3335 full transition statement, signed with both my old and new key</a> for
3336 the details.  This is my new key:</p>
3337
3338 <pre>
3339 pub   3936R/<a href="http://pgp.cs.uu.nl/stats/111D6B29EE4E02F9.html">111D6B29EE4E02F9</a> 2015-11-03 [expires: 2019-11-14]
3340       Key fingerprint = 3AC7 B2E3 ACA5 DF87 78F1  D827 111D 6B29 EE4E 02F9
3341 uid                  Petter Reinholdtsen &lt;pere@hungry.com&gt;
3342 uid                  Petter Reinholdtsen &lt;pere@debian.org&gt;
3343 sub   4096R/87BAFB0E 2015-11-03 [expires: 2019-11-02]
3344 sub   4096R/F91E6DE9 2015-11-03 [expires: 2019-11-02]
3345 sub   4096R/A0439BAB 2015-11-03 [expires: 2019-11-02]
3346 </pre>
3347
3348 <p>The key can be downloaded from the OpenPGP key servers, signed by
3349 my old key.</p>
3350
3351 <p>If you signed my old key
3352 (<a href="http://pgp.cs.uu.nl/stats/DB4CCC4B2A30D729.html">DB4CCC4B2A30D729</a>),
3353 I'd very much appreciate a signature on my new key, details and
3354 instructions in the transition statement. I m happy to reciprocate if
3355 you have a similarly signed transition statement to present.</p>
3356
3357       </div>
3358       <div class="tags">
3359
3360
3361         Tags: <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>.
3362
3363
3364       </div>
3365     </div>
3366     <div class="padding"></div>
3367
3368     <div class="entry">
3369       <div class="title">
3370         <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>
3371       </div>
3372       <div class="date">
3373         24th September 2015
3374       </div>
3375       <div class="body">
3376         <p>When I get a new laptop, the battery life time at the start is OK.
3377 But this do not last.  The last few laptops gave me a feeling that
3378 within a year, the life time is just a fraction of what it used to be,
3379 and it slowly become painful to use the laptop without power connected
3380 all the time.  Because of this, when I got a new Thinkpad X230 laptop
3381 about two years ago, I decided to monitor its battery state to have
3382 more hard facts when the battery started to fail.</p>
3383
3384 <img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2015-09-24-laptop-battery-graph.png"/>
3385
3386 <p>First I tried to find a sensible Debian package to record the
3387 battery status, assuming that this must be a problem already handled
3388 by someone else.  I found
3389 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">battery-stats</a>,
3390 which collects statistics from the battery, but it was completely
3391 broken.  I sent a few suggestions to the maintainer, but decided to
3392 write my own collector as a shell script while I waited for feedback
3393 from him.  Via
3394 <a href="http://www.ifweassume.com/2013/08/the-de-evolution-of-my-laptop-battery.html">a
3395 blog post about the battery development on a MacBook Air</a> I also
3396 discovered
3397 <a href="https://github.com/jradavenport/batlog.git">batlog</a>, not
3398 available in Debian.</p>
3399
3400 <p>I started my collector 2013-07-15, and it has been collecting
3401 battery stats ever since. Now my
3402 /var/log/hjemmenett-battery-status.log file contain around 115,000
3403 measurements, from the time the battery was working great until now,
3404 when it is unable to charge above 7% of original capacity.  My
3405 collector shell script is quite simple and look like this:</p>
3406
3407 <pre>
3408 #!/bin/sh
3409 # Inspired by
3410 # http://www.ifweassume.com/2013/08/the-de-evolution-of-my-laptop-battery.html
3411 # See also
3412 # http://blog.sleeplessbeastie.eu/2013/01/02/debian-how-to-monitor-battery-capacity/
3413 logfile=/var/log/hjemmenett-battery-status.log
3414
3415 files="manufacturer model_name technology serial_number \
3416     energy_full energy_full_design energy_now cycle_count status"
3417
3418 if [ ! -e "$logfile" ] ; then
3419     (
3420         printf "timestamp,"
3421         for f in $files; do
3422             printf "%s," $f
3423         done
3424         echo
3425     ) > "$logfile"
3426 fi
3427
3428 log_battery() {
3429     # Print complete message in one echo call, to avoid race condition
3430     # when several log processes run in parallel.
3431     msg=$(printf "%s," $(date +%s); \
3432         for f in $files; do \
3433             printf "%s," $(cat $f); \
3434         done)
3435     echo "$msg"
3436 }
3437
3438 cd /sys/class/power_supply
3439
3440 for bat in BAT*; do
3441     (cd $bat && log_battery >> "$logfile")
3442 done
3443 </pre>
3444
3445 <p>The script is called when the power management system detect a
3446 change in the power status (power plug in or out), and when going into
3447 and out of hibernation and suspend.  In addition, it collect a value
3448 every 10 minutes.  This make it possible for me know when the battery
3449 is discharging, charging and how the maximum charge change over time.
3450 The code for the Debian package
3451 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/battery-status">is now
3452 available on github</a>.</p>
3453
3454 <p>The collected log file look like this:</p>
3455
3456 <pre>
3457 timestamp,manufacturer,model_name,technology,serial_number,energy_full,energy_full_design,energy_now,cycle_count,status,
3458 1376591133,LGC,45N1025,Li-ion,974,62800000,62160000,39050000,0,Discharging,
3459 [...]
3460 1443090528,LGC,45N1025,Li-ion,974,4900000,62160000,4900000,0,Full,
3461 1443090601,LGC,45N1025,Li-ion,974,4900000,62160000,4900000,0,Full,
3462 </pre>
3463
3464 <p>I wrote a small script to create a graph of the charge development
3465 over time.  This graph depicted above show the slow death of my laptop
3466 battery.</p>
3467
3468 <p>But why is this happening?  Why are my laptop batteries always
3469 dying in a year or two, while the batteries of space probes and
3470 satellites keep working year after year.  If we are to believe
3471 <a href="http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/how_to_prolong_lithium_based_batteries">Battery
3472 University</a>, the cause is me charging the battery whenever I have a
3473 chance, and the fix is to not charge the Lithium-ion batteries to 100%
3474 all the time, but to stay below 90% of full charge most of the time.
3475 I've been told that the Tesla electric cars
3476 <a href="http://my.teslamotors.com/de_CH/forum/forums/battery-charge-limit">limit
3477 the charge of their batteries to 80%</a>, with the option to charge to
3478 100% when preparing for a longer trip (not that I would want a car
3479 like Tesla where rights to privacy is abandoned, but that is another
3480 story), which I guess is the option we should have for laptops on
3481 Linux too.</p>
3482
3483 <p>Is there a good and generic way with Linux to tell the battery to
3484 stop charging at 80%, unless requested to charge to 100% once in
3485 preparation for a longer trip?  I found
3486 <a href="http://askubuntu.com/questions/34452/how-can-i-limit-battery-charging-to-80-capacity">one
3487 recipe on askubuntu for Ubuntu to limit charging on Thinkpad to
3488 80%</a>, but could not get it to work (kernel module refused to
3489 load).</p>
3490
3491 <p>I wonder why the battery capacity was reported to be more than 100%
3492 at the start.  I also wonder why the "full capacity" increases some
3493 times, and if it is possible to repeat the process to get the battery
3494 back to design capacity.  And I wonder if the discharge and charge
3495 speed change over time, or if this stay the same.  I did not yet try
3496 to write a tool to calculate the derivative values of the battery
3497 level, but suspect some interesting insights might be learned from
3498 those.</p>
3499
3500 <p>Update 2015-09-24: I got a tip to install the packages
3501 acpi-call-dkms and tlp (unfortunately missing in Debian stable)
3502 packages instead of the tp-smapi-dkms package I had tried to use
3503 initially, and use 'tlp setcharge 40 80' to change when charging start
3504 and stop.  I've done so now, but expect my existing battery is toast
3505 and need to be replaced.  The proposal is unfortunately Thinkpad
3506 specific.</p>
3507
3508       </div>
3509       <div class="tags">
3510
3511
3512         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3513
3514
3515       </div>
3516     </div>
3517     <div class="padding"></div>
3518
3519     <div class="entry">
3520       <div class="title">
3521         <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>
3522       </div>
3523       <div class="date">
3524          5th July 2015
3525       </div>
3526       <div class="body">
3527         <p>Several people contacted me after my previous blog post about my
3528 need for a new laptop, and provided very useful feedback.  I wish to
3529 thank every one of these.  Several pointed me to the possibility of
3530 fixing my X230, and I am already in the process of getting Lenovo to
3531 do so thanks to the on site, next day support contract covering the
3532 machine.  But the battery is almost useless (I expect to replace it
3533 with a non-official battery) and I do not expect the machine to live
3534 for many more years, so it is time to plan its replacement.  If I did
3535 not have a support contract, it was suggested to find replacement parts
3536 using <a href="http://www.francecrans.com/">FrancEcrans</a>, but it
3537 might present a language barrier as I do not understand French.</p>
3538
3539 <p>One tip I got was to use the
3540 <a href="https://skinflint.co.uk/?cat=nb">Skinflint</a> web service to
3541 compare laptop models.  It seem to have more models available than
3542 prisjakt.no.  Another tip I got from someone I know have similar
3543 keyboard preferences was that the HP EliteBook 840 keyboard is not
3544 very good, and this matches my experience with earlier EliteBook
3545 keyboards I tested.  Because of this, I will not consider it any further.
3546
3547 <p>When I wrote my blog post, I was not aware of Thinkpad X250, the
3548 newest Thinkpad X model.  The keyboard reintroduces mouse buttons
3549 (which is missing from the X240), and is working fairly well with
3550 Debian Sid/Unstable according to
3551 <a href="http://www.corsac.net/X250/">Corsac.net</a>.  The reports I
3552 got on the keyboard quality are not consistent.  Some say the keyboard
3553 is good, others say it is ok, while others say it is not very good.
3554 Those with experience from X41 and and X60 agree that the X250
3555 keyboard is not as good as those trusty old laptops, and suggest I
3556 keep and fix my X230 instead of upgrading, or get a used X230 to
3557 replace it.  I'm also told that the X250 lack leds for caps lock, disk
3558 activity and battery status, which is very convenient on my X230.  I'm
3559 also told that the CPU fan is running very often, making it a bit
3560 noisy.  In any case, the X250 do not work out of the box with Debian
3561 Stable/Jessie, one of my requirements.</p>
3562
3563 <p>I have also gotten a few vendor proposals, one was
3564 <a href="http://pro-star.com">Pro-Star</a>, another was
3565 <a href="http://shop.gluglug.org.uk/product/libreboot-x200/">Libreboot</a>.
3566 The latter look very attractive to me.</p>
3567
3568 <p>Again, thank you all for the very useful feedback.  It help a lot
3569 as I keep looking for a replacement.</p>
3570
3571 <p>Update 2015-07-06: I was recommended to check out the
3572 <a href="">lapstore.de</a> web shop for used laptops.  They got several
3573 different
3574 <a href="http://www.lapstore.de/f.php/shop/lapstore/f/411/lang/x/kw/Lenovo_ThinkPad_X_Serie/">old
3575 thinkpad X models</a>, and provide one year warranty.</p>
3576
3577       </div>
3578       <div class="tags">
3579
3580
3581         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3582
3583
3584       </div>
3585     </div>
3586     <div class="padding"></div>
3587
3588     <div class="entry">
3589       <div class="title">
3590         <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>
3591       </div>
3592       <div class="date">
3593          3rd July 2015
3594       </div>
3595       <div class="body">
3596         <p>My primary work horse laptop is failing, and will need a
3597 replacement soon.  The left 5 cm of the screen on my Thinkpad X230
3598 started flickering yesterday, and I suspect the cause is a broken
3599 cable, as changing the angle of the screen some times get rid of the
3600 flickering.</p>
3601
3602 <p>My requirements have not really changed since I bought it, and is
3603 still as
3604 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thank_you_Thinkpad_X41__for_your_long_and_trustworthy_service.html">I
3605 described them in 2013</a>.  The last time I bought a laptop, I had
3606 good help from
3607 <a href="http://www.prisjakt.no/category.php?k=353">prisjakt.no</a>
3608 where I could select at least a few of the requirements (mouse pin,
3609 wifi, weight) and go through the rest manually.  Three button mouse
3610 and a good keyboard is not available as an option, and all the three
3611 laptop models proposed today (Thinkpad X240, HP EliteBook 820 G1 and
3612 G2) lack three mouse buttons).  It is also unclear to me how good the
3613 keyboard on the HP EliteBooks are.  I hope Lenovo have not messed up
3614 the keyboard, even if the quality and robustness in the X series have
3615 deteriorated since X41.</p>
3616
3617 <p>I wonder how I can find a sensible laptop when none of the options
3618 seem sensible to me?  Are there better services around to search the
3619 set of available laptops for features?  Please send me an email if you
3620 have suggestions.</p>
3621
3622 <p>Update 2015-07-23: I got a suggestion to check out the FSF
3623 <a href="http://www.fsf.org/resources/hw/endorsement/respects-your-freedom">list
3624 of endorsed hardware</a>, which is useful background information.</p>
3625
3626       </div>
3627       <div class="tags">
3628
3629
3630         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3631
3632
3633       </div>
3634     </div>
3635     <div class="padding"></div>
3636
3637     <div class="entry">
3638       <div class="title">
3639         <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>
3640       </div>
3641       <div class="date">
3642         22nd November 2014
3643       </div>
3644       <div class="body">
3645         <p>By now, it is well known that Debian Jessie will not be using
3646 sysvinit as its boot system by default.  But how can one keep using
3647 sysvinit in Jessie?  It is fairly easy, and here are a few recipes,
3648 courtesy of
3649 <a href="http://www.vitavonni.de/blog/201410/2014102101-avoiding-systemd.html">Erich
3650 Schubert</a> and
3651 <a href="http://smcv.pseudorandom.co.uk/2014/still_universal/">Simon
3652 McVittie</a>.
3653
3654 <p>If you already are using Wheezy and want to upgrade to Jessie and
3655 keep sysvinit as your boot system, create a file
3656 <tt>/etc/apt/preferences.d/use-sysvinit</tt> with this content before
3657 you upgrade:</p>
3658
3659 <p><blockquote><pre>
3660 Package: systemd-sysv
3661 Pin: release o=Debian
3662 Pin-Priority: -1
3663 </pre></blockquote><p>
3664
3665 <p>This file content will tell apt and aptitude to not consider
3666 installing systemd-sysv as part of any installation and upgrade
3667 solution when resolving dependencies, and thus tell it to avoid
3668 systemd as a default boot system.  The end result should be that the
3669 upgraded system keep using sysvinit.</p>
3670
3671 <p>If you are installing Jessie for the first time, there is no way to
3672 get sysvinit installed by default (debootstrap used by
3673 debian-installer have no option for this), but one can tell the
3674 installer to switch to sysvinit before the first boot.  Either by
3675 using a kernel argument to the installer, or by adding a line to the
3676 preseed file used.  First, the kernel command line argument:
3677
3678 <p><blockquote><pre>
3679 preseed/late_command="in-target apt-get install --purge -y sysvinit-core"
3680 </pre></blockquote><p>
3681
3682 <p>Next, the line to use in a preseed file:</p>
3683
3684 <p><blockquote><pre>
3685 d-i preseed/late_command string in-target apt-get install -y sysvinit-core
3686 </pre></blockquote><p>
3687
3688 <p>One can of course also do this after the first boot by installing
3689 the sysvinit-core package.</p>
3690
3691 <p>I recommend only using sysvinit if you really need it, as the
3692 sysvinit boot sequence in Debian have several hardware specific bugs
3693 on Linux caused by the fact that it is unpredictable when hardware
3694 devices show up during boot.  But on the other hand, the new default
3695 boot system still have a few rough edges I hope will be fixed before
3696 Jessie is released.</p>
3697
3698 <p>Update 2014-11-26: Inspired by
3699 <ahref="https://www.mirbsd.org/permalinks/wlog-10-tg_e20141125-tg.htm#e20141125-tg_wlog-10-tg">a
3700 blog post by Torsten Glaser</a>, added --purge to the preseed
3701 line.</p>
3702
3703       </div>
3704       <div class="tags">
3705
3706
3707         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>.
3708
3709
3710       </div>
3711     </div>
3712     <div class="padding"></div>
3713
3714     <div class="entry">
3715       <div class="title">
3716         <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>
3717       </div>
3718       <div class="date">
3719         10th November 2014
3720       </div>
3721       <div class="body">
3722         <p>The right to communicate with your friends and family in private,
3723 without anyone snooping, is a right every citicen have in a liberal
3724 democracy.  But this right is under serious attack these days.</p>
3725
3726 <p>A while back it occurred to me that one way to make the dragnet
3727 surveillance conducted by NSA, GCHQ, FRA and others (and confirmed by
3728 the whisleblower Snowden) more expensive for Internet email,
3729 is to deliver all email using SMTP via Tor.  Such SMTP option would be
3730 a nice addition to the FreedomBox project if we could send email
3731 between FreedomBox machines without leaking metadata about the emails
3732 to the people peeking on the wire.  I
3733 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/freedombox-discuss/2014-October/006493.html">proposed
3734 this on the FreedomBox project mailing list in October</a> and got a
3735 lot of useful feedback and suggestions.  It also became obvious to me
3736 that this was not a novel idea, as the same idea was tested and
3737 documented by Johannes Berg as early as 2006, and both
3738 <a href="https://github.com/pagekite/Mailpile/wiki/SMTorP">the
3739 Mailpile</a> and <a href="http://dee.su/cables">the Cables</a> systems
3740 propose a similar method / protocol to pass emails between users.</p>
3741
3742 <p>To implement such system one need to set up a Tor hidden service
3743 providing the SMTP protocol on port 25, and use email addresses
3744 looking like username@hidden-service-name.onion.  With such addresses
3745 the connections to port 25 on hidden-service-name.onion using Tor will
3746 go to the correct SMTP server.  To do this, one need to configure the
3747 Tor daemon to provide the hidden service and the mail server to accept
3748 emails for this .onion domain.  To learn more about Exim configuration
3749 in Debian and test the design provided by Johannes Berg in his FAQ, I
3750 set out yesterday to create a Debian package for making it trivial to
3751 set up such SMTP over Tor service based on Debian.  Getting it to work
3752 were fairly easy, and
3753 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/exim4-smtorp">the
3754 source code for the Debian package</a> is available from github.  I
3755 plan to move it into Debian if further testing prove this to be a
3756 useful approach.</p>
3757
3758 <p>If you want to test this, set up a blank Debian machine without any
3759 mail system installed (or run <tt>apt-get purge exim4-config</tt> to
3760 get rid of exim4).  Install tor, clone the git repository mentioned
3761 above, build the deb and install it on the machine.  Next, run
3762 <tt>/usr/lib/exim4-smtorp/setup-exim-hidden-service</tt> and follow
3763 the instructions to get the service up and running.  Restart tor and
3764 exim when it is done, and test mail delivery using swaks like
3765 this:</p>
3766
3767 <p><blockquote><pre>
3768 torsocks swaks --server dutlqrrmjhtfa3vp.onion \
3769   --to fbx@dutlqrrmjhtfa3vp.onion
3770 </pre></blockquote></p>
3771
3772 <p>This will test the SMTP delivery using tor.  Replace the email
3773 address with your own address to test your server. :)</p>
3774
3775 <p>The setup procedure is still to complex, and I hope it can be made
3776 easier and more automatic.  Especially the tor setup need more work.
3777 Also, the package include a tor-smtp tool written in C, but its task
3778 should probably be rewritten in some script language to make the deb
3779 architecture independent.  It would probably also make the code easier
3780 to review.  The tor-smtp tool currently need to listen on a socket for
3781 exim to talk to it and is started using xinetd.  It would be better if
3782 no daemon and no socket is needed.  I suspect it is possible to get
3783 exim to run a command line tool for delivery instead of talking to a
3784 socket, and hope to figure out how in a future version of this
3785 system.</p>
3786
3787 <p>Until I wipe my test machine, I can be reached using the
3788 <tt>fbx@dutlqrrmjhtfa3vp.onion</tt> mail address, deliverable over
3789 SMTorP. :)</p>
3790
3791       </div>
3792       <div class="tags">
3793
3794
3795         Tags: <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>.
3796
3797
3798       </div>
3799     </div>
3800     <div class="padding"></div>
3801
3802     <div class="entry">
3803       <div class="title">
3804         <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>
3805       </div>
3806       <div class="date">
3807         22nd October 2014
3808       </div>
3809       <div class="body">
3810         <p>If you ever had to moderate a mailman list, like the ones on
3811 alioth.debian.org, you know the web interface is fairly slow to
3812 operate.  First you visit one web page, enter the moderation password
3813 and get a new page shown with a list of all the messages to moderate
3814 and various options for each email address.  This take a while for
3815 every list you moderate, and you need to do it regularly to do a good
3816 job as a list moderator.  But there is a quick alternative,
3817 <a href="http://heim.ifi.uio.no/kjetilho/hacks/#listadmin">the
3818 listadmin program</a>.  It allow you to check lists for new messages
3819 to moderate in a fraction of a second.  Here is a test run on two
3820 lists I recently took over:</p>
3821
3822 <p><blockquote><pre>
3823 % time listadmin xiph
3824 fetching data for pkg-xiph-commits@lists.alioth.debian.org ... nothing in queue
3825 fetching data for pkg-xiph-maint@lists.alioth.debian.org ... nothing in queue
3826
3827 real    0m1.709s
3828 user    0m0.232s
3829 sys     0m0.012s
3830 %
3831 </pre></blockquote></p>
3832
3833 <p>In 1.7 seconds I had checked two mailing lists and confirmed that
3834 there are no message in the moderation queue.  Every morning I
3835 currently moderate 68 mailman lists, and it normally take around two
3836 minutes.  When I took over the two pkg-xiph lists above a few days
3837 ago, there were 400 emails waiting in the moderator queue.  It took me
3838 less than 15 minutes to process them all using the listadmin
3839 program.</p>
3840
3841 <p>If you install
3842 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/listadmin">the listadmin
3843 package</a> from Debian and create a file <tt>~/.listadmin.ini</tt>
3844 with content like this, the moderation task is a breeze:</p>
3845
3846 <p><blockquote><pre>
3847 username username@example.org
3848 spamlevel 23
3849 default discard
3850 discard_if_reason "Posting restricted to members only. Remove us from your mail list."
3851
3852 password secret
3853 adminurl https://{domain}/mailman/admindb/{list}
3854 mailman-list@lists.example.com
3855
3856 password hidden
3857 other-list@otherserver.example.org
3858 </pre></blockquote></p>
3859
3860 <p>There are other options to set as well.  Check the manual page to
3861 learn the details.</p>
3862
3863 <p>If you are forced to moderate lists on a mailman installation where
3864 the SSL certificate is self signed or not properly signed by a
3865 generally accepted signing authority, you can set a environment
3866 variable when calling listadmin to disable SSL verification:</p>
3867
3868 <p><blockquote><pre>
3869 PERL_LWP_SSL_VERIFY_HOSTNAME=0 listadmin
3870 </pre></blockquote></p>
3871
3872 <p>If you want to moderate a subset of the lists you take care of, you
3873 can provide an argument to the listadmin script like I do in the
3874 initial screen dump (the xiph argument).  Using an argument, only
3875 lists matching the argument string will be processed.  This make it
3876 quick to accept messages if you notice the moderation request in your
3877 email.</p>
3878
3879 <p>Without the listadmin program, I would never be the moderator of 68
3880 mailing lists, as I simply do not have time to spend on that if the
3881 process was any slower. The listadmin program have saved me hours of
3882 time I could spend elsewhere over the years.  It truly is nice free
3883 software.</p>
3884
3885 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
3886 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
3887 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
3888
3889 <p>Update 2014-10-27: Added missing 'username' statement in
3890 configuration example.  Also, I've been told that the
3891 PERL_LWP_SSL_VERIFY_HOSTNAME=0 setting do not work for everyone.  Not
3892 sure why.</p>
3893
3894       </div>
3895       <div class="tags">
3896
3897
3898         Tags: <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>.
3899
3900
3901       </div>
3902     </div>
3903     <div class="padding"></div>
3904
3905     <div class="entry">
3906       <div class="title">
3907         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Jessie__PXE_and_automatic_firmware_installation.html">Debian Jessie, PXE and automatic firmware installation</a>
3908       </div>
3909       <div class="date">
3910         17th October 2014
3911       </div>
3912       <div class="body">
3913         <p>When PXE installing laptops with Debian, I often run into the
3914 problem that the WiFi card require some firmware to work properly.
3915 And it has been a pain to fix this using preseeding in Debian.
3916 Normally something more is needed.  But thanks to
3917 <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/i/isenkram.html">my isenkram
3918 package</a> and its recent tasksel extension, it has now become easy
3919 to do this using simple preseeding.</p>
3920
3921 <p>The isenkram-cli package provide tasksel tasks which will install
3922 firmware for the hardware found in the machine (actually, requested by
3923 the kernel modules for the hardware).  (It can also install user space
3924 programs supporting the hardware detected, but that is not the focus
3925 of this story.)</p>
3926
3927 <p>To get this working in the default installation, two preeseding
3928 values are needed.  First, the isenkram-cli package must be installed
3929 into the target chroot (aka the hard drive) before tasksel is executed
3930 in the pkgsel step of the debian-installer system.  This is done by
3931 preseeding the base-installer/includes debconf value to include the
3932 isenkram-cli package.  The package name is next passed to debootstrap
3933 for installation.  With the isenkram-cli package in place, tasksel
3934 will automatically use the isenkram tasks to detect hardware specific
3935 packages for the machine being installed and install them, because
3936 isenkram-cli contain tasksel tasks.</p>
3937
3938 <p>Second, one need to enable the non-free APT repository, because
3939 most firmware unfortunately is non-free.  This is done by preseeding
3940 the apt-mirror-setup step.  This is unfortunate, but for a lot of
3941 hardware it is the only option in Debian.</p>
3942
3943 <p>The end result is two lines needed in your preseeding file to get
3944 firmware installed automatically by the installer:</p>
3945
3946 <p><blockquote><pre>
3947 base-installer base-installer/includes string isenkram-cli
3948 apt-mirror-setup apt-setup/non-free boolean true
3949 </pre></blockquote></p>
3950
3951 <p>The current version of isenkram-cli in testing/jessie will install
3952 both firmware and user space packages when using this method.  It also
3953 do not work well, so use version 0.15 or later.  Installing both
3954 firmware and user space packages might give you a bit more than you
3955 want, so I decided to split the tasksel task in two, one for firmware
3956 and one for user space programs.  The firmware task is enabled by
3957 default, while the one for user space programs is not.  This split is
3958 implemented in the package currently in unstable.</p>
3959
3960 <p>If you decide to give this a go, please let me know (via email) how
3961 this recipe work for you. :)</p>
3962
3963 <p>So, I bet you are wondering, how can this work.  First and
3964 foremost, it work because tasksel is modular, and driven by whatever
3965 files it find in /usr/lib/tasksel/ and /usr/share/tasksel/.  So the
3966 isenkram-cli package place two files for tasksel to find.  First there
3967 is the task description file (/usr/share/tasksel/descs/isenkram.desc):</p>
3968
3969 <p><blockquote><pre>
3970 Task: isenkram-packages
3971 Section: hardware
3972 Description: Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)
3973  Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific packages are
3974  proposed.
3975 Test-new-install: show show
3976 Relevance: 8
3977 Packages: for-current-hardware
3978
3979 Task: isenkram-firmware
3980 Section: hardware
3981 Description: Hardware specific firmware packages (autodetected by isenkram)
3982  Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific firmware
3983  packages are proposed.
3984 Test-new-install: mark show
3985 Relevance: 8
3986 Packages: for-current-hardware-firmware
3987 </pre></blockquote></p>
3988
3989 <p>The key parts are Test-new-install which indicate how the task
3990 should be handled and the Packages line referencing to a script in
3991 /usr/lib/tasksel/packages/.  The scripts use other scripts to get a
3992 list of packages to install.  The for-current-hardware-firmware script
3993 look like this to list relevant firmware for the machine:
3994
3995 <p><blockquote><pre>
3996 #!/bin/sh
3997 #
3998 PATH=/usr/sbin:$PATH
3999 export PATH
4000 isenkram-autoinstall-firmware -l
4001 </pre></blockquote></p>
4002
4003 <p>With those two pieces in place, the firmware is installed by
4004 tasksel during the normal d-i run. :)</p>
4005
4006 <p>If you want to test what tasksel will install when isenkram-cli is
4007 installed, run <tt>DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical tasksel --test
4008 --new-install</tt> to get the list of packages that tasksel would
4009 install.</p>
4010
4011 <p><a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/">Debian Edu</a> will be
4012 pilots in testing this feature, as isenkram is used there now to
4013 install firmware, replacing the earlier scripts.</p>
4014
4015       </div>
4016       <div class="tags">
4017
4018
4019         Tags: <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>.
4020
4021
4022       </div>
4023     </div>
4024     <div class="padding"></div>
4025
4026     <div class="entry">
4027       <div class="title">
4028         <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>
4029       </div>
4030       <div class="date">
4031          4th October 2014
4032       </div>
4033       <div class="body">
4034         <p>Today I came across an unexpected Ubuntu boot screen.  Above the
4035 bread shelf on the ICA shop at Storo in Oslo, the grub menu of Ubuntu
4036 with Linux kernel 3.2.0-23 (ie probably version 12.04 LTS) was stuck
4037 on a screen normally showing the bread types and prizes:</p>
4038
4039 <p align="center"><img width="70%" src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2014-10-04-ubuntu-ica-storo-crop.jpeg"></p>
4040
4041 <p>If it had booted as it was supposed to, I would never had known
4042 about this hidden Linux installation.  It is interesting what
4043 <a href="http://revealingerrors.com/">errors can reveal</a>.</p>
4044
4045       </div>
4046       <div class="tags">
4047
4048
4049         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
4050
4051
4052       </div>
4053     </div>
4054     <div class="padding"></div>
4055
4056     <div class="entry">
4057       <div class="title">
4058         <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>
4059       </div>
4060       <div class="date">
4061          4th October 2014
4062       </div>
4063       <div class="body">
4064         <p>The <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/">lsdvd project</a>
4065 got a new set of developers a few weeks ago, after the original
4066 developer decided to step down and pass the project to fresh blood.
4067 This project is now maintained by Petter Reinholdtsen and Steve
4068 Dibb.</p>
4069
4070 <p>I just wrapped up
4071 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/mailman/message/32896061/">a
4072 new lsdvd release</a>, available in git or from
4073 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/projects/lsdvd/files/lsdvd/">the
4074 download page</a>.  This is the changelog dated 2014-10-03 for version
4075 0.17.</p>
4076
4077 <ul>
4078
4079  <li>Ignore 'phantom' audio, subtitle tracks</li>
4080  <li>Check for garbage in the program chains, which indicate that a track is
4081    non-existant, to work around additional copy protection</li>
4082  <li>Fix displaying content type for audio tracks, subtitles</li>
4083  <li>Fix pallete display of first entry</li>
4084  <li>Fix include orders</li>
4085  <li>Ignore read errors in titles that would not be displayed anyway</li>
4086  <li>Fix the chapter count</li>
4087  <li>Make sure the array size and the array limit used when initialising
4088    the palette size is the same.</li>
4089  <li>Fix array printing.</li>
4090  <li>Correct subsecond calculations.</li>
4091  <li>Add sector information to the output format.</li>
4092  <li>Clean up code to be closer to ANSI C and compile without warnings
4093    with more GCC compiler warnings.</li>
4094
4095 </ul>
4096
4097 <p>This change bring together patches for lsdvd in use in various
4098 Linux and Unix distributions, as well as patches submitted to the
4099 project the last nine years.  Please check it out. :)</p>
4100
4101       </div>
4102       <div class="tags">
4103
4104
4105         Tags: <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>.
4106
4107
4108       </div>
4109     </div>
4110     <div class="padding"></div>
4111
4112     <div class="entry">
4113       <div class="title">
4114         <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>
4115       </div>
4116       <div class="date">
4117         26th September 2014
4118       </div>
4119       <div class="body">
4120         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
4121 project</a> provide a Linux solution for schools, including a
4122 powerful desktop with education software, a central server providing
4123 web pages, user database, user home directories, central login and PXE
4124 boot of both  clients without disk and the installation to install Debian
4125 Edu on machines with disk (and a few other services perhaps to small
4126 to mention here).  We in the Debian Edu team are currently working on
4127 the Jessie based version, trying to get everything in shape before the
4128 freeze, to avoid having to maintain our own package repository in the
4129 future.  The
4130 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Status/Jessie">current
4131 status</a> can be seen on the Debian wiki, and there is still heaps of
4132 work left.  Some fatal problems block testing, breaking the installer,
4133 but it is possible to work around these to get anyway.  Here is a
4134 recipe on how to get the installation limping along.</p>
4135
4136 <p>First, download the test ISO via
4137 <a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.no/cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-1.iso">ftp</a>,
4138 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.no/cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-1.iso">http</a>
4139 or rsync (use
4140 ftp.skolelinux.org::cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-1.iso).
4141 The ISO build was broken on Tuesday, so we do not get a new ISO every
4142 12 hours or so, but thankfully the ISO we already got we are able to
4143 install with some tweaking.</p>
4144
4145 <p>When you get to the Debian Edu profile question, go to tty2
4146 (use Alt-Ctrl-F2), run</p>
4147
4148 <p><blockquote><pre>
4149 nano /usr/bin/edu-eatmydata-install
4150 </pre></blockquote></p>
4151
4152 <p>and add 'exit 0' as the second line, disabling the eatmydata
4153 optimization.  Return to the installation, select the profile you want
4154 and continue.  Without this change, exim4-config will fail to install
4155 due to a known bug in eatmydata.</p>
4156
4157 <p>When you get the grub question at the end, answer /dev/sda (or if
4158 this do not work, figure out what your correct value would be.  All my
4159 test machines need /dev/sda, so I have no advice if it do not fit
4160 your need.</p>
4161
4162 <p>If you installed a profile including a graphical desktop, log in as
4163 root after the initial boot from hard drive, and install the
4164 education-desktop-XXX metapackage.  XXX can be kde, gnome, lxde, xfce
4165 or mate.  If you want several desktop options, install more than one
4166 metapackage.  Once this is done, reboot and you should have a working
4167 graphical login screen.  This workaround should no longer be needed
4168 once the education-tasks package version 1.801 enter testing in two
4169 days.</p>
4170
4171 <p>I believe the ISO build will start working on two days when the new
4172 tasksel package enter testing and Steve McIntyre get a chance to
4173 update the debian-cd git repository.  The eatmydata, grub and desktop
4174 issues are already fixed in unstable and testing, and should show up
4175 on the ISO as soon as the ISO build start working again.  Well the
4176 eatmydata optimization is really just disabled.  The proper fix
4177 require an upload by the eatmydata maintainer applying the patch
4178 provided in bug <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/702711">#702711</a>.
4179 The rest have proper fixes in unstable.</p>
4180
4181 <p>I hope this get you going with the installation testing, as we are
4182 quickly running out of time trying to get our Jessie based
4183 installation ready before the distribution freeze in a month.</p>
4184
4185       </div>
4186       <div class="tags">
4187
4188
4189         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>.
4190
4191
4192       </div>
4193     </div>
4194     <div class="padding"></div>
4195
4196     <div class="entry">
4197       <div class="title">
4198         <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>
4199       </div>
4200       <div class="date">
4201         25th September 2014
4202       </div>
4203       <div class="body">
4204         <p>I use the <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/">lsdvd tool</a>
4205 to handle my fairly large DVD collection.  It is a nice command line
4206 tool to get details about a DVD, like title, tracks, track length,
4207 etc, in XML, Perl or human readable format.  But lsdvd have not seen
4208 any new development since 2006 and had a few irritating bugs affecting
4209 its use with some DVDs.  Upstream seemed to be dead, and in January I
4210 sent a small probe asking for a version control repository for the
4211 project, without any reply.  But I use it regularly and would like to
4212 get <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/lsdvd">an updated version
4213 into Debian</a>.  So two weeks ago I tried harder to get in touch with
4214 the project admin, and after getting a reply from him explaining that
4215 he was no longer interested in the project, I asked if I could take
4216 over.  And yesterday, I became project admin.</p>
4217
4218 <p>I've been in touch with a Gentoo developer and the Debian
4219 maintainer interested in joining forces to maintain the upstream
4220 project, and I hope we can get a new release out fairly quickly,
4221 collecting the patches spread around on the internet into on place.
4222 I've added the relevant Debian patches to the freshly created git
4223 repository, and expect the Gentoo patches to make it too.  If you got
4224 a DVD collection and care about command line tools, check out
4225 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/git/ci/master/tree/">the git source</a> and join
4226 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/mailman/">the project mailing
4227 list</a>. :)</p>
4228
4229       </div>
4230       <div class="tags">
4231
4232
4233         Tags: <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>.
4234
4235
4236       </div>
4237     </div>
4238     <div class="padding"></div>
4239
4240     <div class="entry">
4241       <div class="title">
4242         <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>
4243       </div>
4244       <div class="date">
4245         16th September 2014
4246       </div>
4247       <div class="body">
4248         <p>The <a href="https://www.debian.org/">Debian</a> installer could be
4249 a lot quicker.  When we install more than 2000 packages in
4250 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux / Debian Edu</a> using
4251 tasksel in the installer, unpacking the binary packages take forever.
4252 A part of the slow I/O issue was discussed in
4253 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/613428">bug #613428</a> about too
4254 much file system sync-ing done by dpkg, which is the package
4255 responsible for unpacking the binary packages.  Other parts (like code
4256 executed by postinst scripts) might also sync to disk during
4257 installation.  All this sync-ing to disk do not really make sense to
4258 me.  If the machine crash half-way through, I start over, I do not try
4259 to salvage the half installed system.  So the failure sync-ing is
4260 supposed to protect against, hardware or system crash, is not really
4261 relevant while the installer is running.</p>
4262
4263 <p>A few days ago, I thought of a way to get rid of all the file
4264 system sync()-ing in a fairly non-intrusive way, without the need to
4265 change the code in several packages.  The idea is not new, but I have
4266 not heard anyone propose the approach using dpkg-divert before.  It
4267 depend on the small and clever package
4268 <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/eatmydata">eatmydata</a>, which
4269 uses LD_PRELOAD to replace the system functions for syncing data to
4270 disk with functions doing nothing, thus allowing programs to live
4271 dangerous while speeding up disk I/O significantly.  Instead of
4272 modifying the implementation of dpkg, apt and tasksel (which are the
4273 packages responsible for selecting, fetching and installing packages),
4274 it occurred to me that we could just divert the programs away, replace
4275 them with a simple shell wrapper calling
4276 "eatmydata&nbsp;$program&nbsp;$@", to get the same effect.
4277 Two days ago I decided to test the idea, and wrapped up a simple
4278 implementation for the Debian Edu udeb.</p>
4279
4280 <p>The effect was stunning.  In my first test it reduced the running
4281 time of the pkgsel step (installing tasks) from 64 to less than 44
4282 minutes (20 minutes shaved off the installation) on an old Dell
4283 Latitude D505 machine.  I am not quite sure what the optimised time
4284 would have been, as I messed up the testing a bit, causing the debconf
4285 priority to get low enough for two questions to pop up during
4286 installation.  As soon as I saw the questions I moved the installation
4287 along, but do not know how long the question were holding up the
4288 installation.  I did some more measurements using Debian Edu Jessie,
4289 and got these results.  The time measured is the time stamp in
4290 /var/log/syslog between the "pkgsel: starting tasksel" and the
4291 "pkgsel: finishing up" lines, if you want to do the same measurement
4292 yourself.  In Debian Edu, the tasksel dialog do not show up, and the
4293 timing thus do not depend on how quickly the user handle the tasksel
4294 dialog.</p>
4295
4296 <p><table>
4297
4298 <tr>
4299 <th>Machine/setup</th>
4300 <th>Original tasksel</th>
4301 <th>Optimised tasksel</th>
4302 <th>Reduction</th>
4303 </tr>
4304
4305 <tr>
4306 <td>Latitude D505 Main+LTSP LXDE</td>
4307 <td>64 min (07:46-08:50)</td>
4308 <td><44 min (11:27-12:11)</td>
4309 <td>>20 min 18%</td>
4310 </tr>
4311
4312 <tr>
4313 <td>Latitude D505 Roaming LXDE</td>
4314 <td>57 min (08:48-09:45)</td>
4315 <td>34 min (07:43-08:17)</td>
4316 <td>23 min 40%</td>
4317 </tr>
4318
4319 <tr>
4320 <td>Latitude D505 Minimal</td>
4321 <td>22 min (10:37-10:59)</td>
4322 <td>11 min (11:16-11:27)</td>
4323 <td>11 min 50%</td>
4324 </tr>
4325
4326 <tr>
4327 <td>Thinkpad X200 Minimal</td>
4328 <td>6 min (08:19-08:25)</td>
4329 <td>4 min (08:04-08:08)</td>
4330 <td>2 min 33%</td>
4331 </tr>
4332
4333 <tr>
4334 <td>Thinkpad X200 Roaming KDE</td>
4335 <td>19 min (09:21-09:40)</td>
4336 <td>15 min (10:25-10:40)</td>
4337 <td>4 min 21%</td>
4338 </tr>
4339
4340 </table></p>
4341
4342 <p>The test is done using a netinst ISO on a USB stick, so some of the
4343 time is spent downloading packages.  The connection to the Internet
4344 was 100Mbit/s during testing, so downloading should not be a
4345 significant factor in the measurement.  Download typically took a few
4346 seconds to a few minutes, depending on the amount of packages being
4347 installed.</p>
4348
4349 <p>The speedup is implemented by using two hooks in
4350 <a href="https://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/">Debian
4351 Installer</a>, the pre-pkgsel.d hook to set up the diverts, and the
4352 finish-install.d hook to remove the divert at the end of the
4353 installation.  I picked the pre-pkgsel.d hook instead of the
4354 post-base-installer.d hook because I test using an ISO without the
4355 eatmydata package included, and the post-base-installer.d hook in
4356 Debian Edu can only operate on packages included in the ISO.  The
4357 negative effect of this is that I am unable to activate this
4358 optimization for the kernel installation step in d-i.  If the code is
4359 moved to the post-base-installer.d hook, the speedup would be larger
4360 for the entire installation.</p>
4361
4362 <p>I've implemented this in the
4363 <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/debian-edu-install">debian-edu-install</a>
4364 git repository, and plan to provide the optimization as part of the
4365 Debian Edu installation.  If you want to test this yourself, you can
4366 create two files in the installer (or in an udeb).  One shell script
4367 need do go into /usr/lib/pre-pkgsel.d/, with content like this:</p>
4368
4369 <p><blockquote><pre>
4370 #!/bin/sh
4371 set -e
4372 . /usr/share/debconf/confmodule
4373 info() {
4374     logger -t my-pkgsel "info: $*"
4375 }
4376 error() {
4377     logger -t my-pkgsel "error: $*"
4378 }
4379 override_install() {
4380     apt-install eatmydata || true
4381     if [ -x /target/usr/bin/eatmydata ] ; then
4382         for bin in dpkg apt-get aptitude tasksel ; do
4383             file=/usr/bin/$bin
4384             # Test that the file exist and have not been diverted already.
4385             if [ -f /target$file ] ; then
4386                 info "diverting $file using eatmydata"
4387                 printf "#!/bin/sh\neatmydata $bin.distrib \"\$@\"\n" \
4388                     > /target$file.edu
4389                 chmod 755 /target$file.edu
4390                 in-target dpkg-divert --package debian-edu-config \
4391                     --rename --quiet --add $file
4392                 ln -sf ./$bin.edu /target$file
4393             else
4394                 error "unable to divert $file, as it is missing."
4395             fi
4396         done
4397     else
4398         error "unable to find /usr/bin/eatmydata after installing the eatmydata pacage"
4399     fi
4400 }
4401
4402 override_install
4403 </pre></blockquote></p>
4404
4405 <p>To clean up, another shell script should go into
4406 /usr/lib/finish-install.d/ with code like this:
4407
4408 <p><blockquote><pre>
4409 #! /bin/sh -e
4410 . /usr/share/debconf/confmodule
4411 error() {
4412     logger -t my-finish-install "error: $@"
4413 }
4414 remove_install_override() {
4415     for bin in dpkg apt-get aptitude tasksel ; do
4416         file=/usr/bin/$bin
4417         if [ -x /target$file.edu ] ; then
4418             rm /target$file
4419             in-target dpkg-divert --package debian-edu-config \
4420                 --rename --quiet --remove $file
4421             rm /target$file.edu
4422         else
4423             error "Missing divert for $file."
4424         fi
4425     done
4426     sync # Flush file buffers before continuing
4427 }
4428
4429 remove_install_override
4430 </pre></blockquote></p>
4431
4432 <p>In Debian Edu, I placed both code fragments in a separate script
4433 edu-eatmydata-install and call it from the pre-pkgsel.d and
4434 finish-install.d scripts.</p>
4435
4436 <p>By now you might ask if this change should get into the normal
4437 Debian installer too?  I suspect it should, but am not sure the
4438 current debian-installer coordinators find it useful enough.  It also
4439 depend on the side effects of the change.  I'm not aware of any, but I
4440 guess we will see if the change is safe after some more testing.
4441 Perhaps there is some package in Debian depending on sync() and
4442 fsync() having effect?  Perhaps it should go into its own udeb, to
4443 allow those of us wanting to enable it to do so without affecting
4444 everyone.</p>
4445
4446 <p>Update 2014-09-24: Since a few days ago, enabling this optimization
4447 will break installation of all programs using gnutls because of
4448 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/702711">bug #702711</a>.  An updated
4449 eatmydata package in Debian will solve it.</p>
4450
4451 <p>Update 2014-10-17: The bug mentioned above is fixed in testing and
4452 the optimization work again.  And I have discovered that the
4453 dpkg-divert trick is not really needed and implemented a slightly
4454 simpler approach as part of the debian-edu-install package.  See
4455 tools/edu-eatmydata-install in the source package.</p>
4456
4457 <p>Update 2014-11-11: Unfortunately, a new
4458 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/765738">bug #765738</a> in eatmydata only
4459 triggering on i386 made it into testing, and broke this installation
4460 optimization again.  If <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/768893">unblock
4461 request 768893</a> is accepted, it should be working again.</p>
4462
4463       </div>
4464       <div class="tags">
4465
4466
4467         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>.
4468
4469
4470       </div>
4471     </div>
4472     <div class="padding"></div>
4473
4474     <div class="entry">
4475       <div class="title">
4476         <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>
4477       </div>
4478       <div class="date">
4479         10th September 2014
4480       </div>
4481       <div class="body">
4482         <p>Yesterday, I had the pleasure of attending a talk with the
4483 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">Norwegian Unix User Group</a> about
4484 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20140909-sks-keyservers/">the
4485 OpenPGP keyserver pool sks-keyservers.net</a>, and was very happy to
4486 learn that there is a large set of publicly available key servers to
4487 use when looking for peoples public key.  So far I have used
4488 subkeys.pgp.net, and some times wwwkeys.nl.pgp.net when the former
4489 were misbehaving, but those days are ended.  The servers I have used
4490 up until yesterday have been slow and some times unavailable.  I hope
4491 those problems are gone now.</p>
4492
4493 <p>Behind the round robin DNS entry of the
4494 <a href="https://sks-keyservers.net/">sks-keyservers.net</a> service
4495 there is a pool of more than 100 keyservers which are checked every
4496 day to ensure they are well connected and up to date.  It must be
4497 better than what I have used so far. :)</p>
4498
4499 <p>Yesterdays speaker told me that the service is the default
4500 keyserver provided by the default configuration in GnuPG, but this do
4501 not seem to be used in Debian.  Perhaps it should?</p>
4502
4503 <p>Anyway, I've updated my ~/.gnupg/options file to now include this
4504 line:</p>
4505
4506 <p><blockquote><pre>
4507 keyserver pool.sks-keyservers.net
4508 </pre></blockquote></p>
4509
4510 <p>With GnuPG version 2 one can also locate the keyserver using SRV
4511 entries in DNS.  Just for fun, I did just that at work, so now every
4512 user of GnuPG at the University of Oslo should find a OpenGPG
4513 keyserver automatically should their need it:</p>
4514
4515 <p><blockquote><pre>
4516 % host -t srv _pgpkey-http._tcp.uio.no
4517 _pgpkey-http._tcp.uio.no has SRV record 0 100 11371 pool.sks-keyservers.net.
4518 %
4519 </pre></blockquote></p>
4520
4521 <p>Now if only
4522 <a href="http://ietfreport.isoc.org/idref/draft-shaw-openpgp-hkp/">the
4523 HKP lookup protocol</a> supported finding signature paths, I would be
4524 very happy.  It can look up a given key or search for a user ID, but I
4525 normally do not want that, but to find a trust path from my key to
4526 another key.  Given a user ID or key ID, I would like to find (and
4527 download) the keys representing a signature path from my key to the
4528 key in question, to be able to get a trust path between the two keys.
4529 This is as far as I can tell not possible today.  Perhaps something
4530 for a future version of the protocol?</p>
4531
4532       </div>
4533       <div class="tags">
4534
4535
4536         Tags: <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>.
4537
4538
4539       </div>
4540     </div>
4541     <div class="padding"></div>
4542
4543     <div class="entry">
4544       <div class="title">
4545         <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>
4546       </div>
4547       <div class="date">
4548         17th June 2014
4549       </div>
4550       <div class="body">
4551         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
4552 project</a> provide an instruction manual for teachers, system
4553 administrators and other users that contain useful tips for setting up
4554 and maintaining a Debian Edu installation.  This text is about how the
4555 text processing of this manual is handled in the project.</p>
4556
4557 <p>One goal of the project is to provide information in the native
4558 language of its users, and for this we need to handle translations.
4559 But we also want to make sure each language contain the same
4560 information, so for this we need a good way to keep the translations
4561 in sync.  And we want it to be easy for our users to improve the
4562 documentation, avoiding the need to learn special formats or tools to
4563 contribute, and the obvious way to do this is to make it possible to
4564 edit the documentation using a web browser.  We also want it to be
4565 easy for translators to keep the translation up to date, and give them
4566 help in figuring out what need to be translated. Here is the list of
4567 tools and the process we have found trying to reach all these
4568 goals.</p>
4569
4570 <p>We maintain the authoritative source of our manual in the
4571 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/">Debian
4572 wiki</a>, as several wiki pages written in English.  It consist of one
4573 front page with references to the different chapters, several pages
4574 for each chapter, and finally one "collection page" gluing all the
4575 chapters together into one large web page (aka
4576 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/AllInOne">the
4577 AllInOne page</a>).  The AllInOne page is the one used for further
4578 processing and translations.  Thanks to the fact that the
4579 <a href="http://moinmo.in/">MoinMoin</a> installation on
4580 wiki.debian.org support exporting pages in
4581 <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">the Docbook format</a>, we can fetch
4582 the list of pages to export using the raw version of the AllInOne
4583 page, loop over each of them to generate a Docbook XML version of the
4584 manual.  This process also download images and transform image
4585 references to use the locally downloaded images.  The generated
4586 Docbook XML files are slightly broken, so some post-processing is done
4587 using the <tt>documentation/scripts/get_manual</tt> program, and the
4588 result is a nice Docbook XML file (debian-edu-wheezy-manual.xml) and
4589 a handfull of images.  The XML file can now be used to generate PDF, HTML
4590 and epub versions of the English manual.  This is the basic step of
4591 our process, making PDF (using dblatex), HTML (using xsltproc) and
4592 epub (using dbtoepub) version from Docbook XML, and the resulting files
4593 are placed in the debian-edu-doc-en binary package.</p>
4594
4595 <p>But English documentation is not enough for us.  We want translated
4596 documentation too, and we want to make it easy for translators to
4597 track the English original.  For this we use the
4598 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/p/poxml.html">poxml</a> package,
4599 which allow us to transform the English Docbook XML file into a
4600 translation file (a .pot file), usable with the normal gettext based
4601 translation tools used by those translating free software.  The pot
4602 file is used to create and maintain translation files (several .po
4603 files), which the translations update with the native language
4604 translations of all titles, paragraphs and blocks of text in the
4605 original.  The next step is combining the original English Docbook XML
4606 and the translation file (say debian-edu-wheezy-manual.nb.po), to
4607 create a translated Docbook XML file (in this case
4608 debian-edu-wheezy-manual.nb.xml).  This translated (or partly
4609 translated, if the translation is not complete) Docbook XML file can
4610 then be used like the original to create a PDF, HTML and epub version
4611 of the documentation.</p>
4612
4613 <p>The translators use different tools to edit the .po files.  We
4614 recommend using
4615 <a href="http://www.kde.org/applications/development/lokalize/">lokalize</a>,
4616 while some use emacs and vi, others can use web based editors like
4617 <a href="http://pootle.translatehouse.org/">Poodle</a> or
4618 <a href="https://www.transifex.com/">Transifex</a>.  All we care about
4619 is where the .po file end up, in our git repository.  Updated
4620 translations can either be committed directly to git, or submitted as
4621 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/src:debian-edu-doc">bug reports
4622 against the debian-edu-doc package</a>.</p>
4623
4624 <p>One challenge is images, which both might need to be translated (if
4625 they show translated user applications), and are needed in different
4626 formats when creating PDF and HTML versions (epub is a HTML version in
4627 this regard).  For this we transform the original PNG images to the
4628 needed density and format during build, and have a way to provide
4629 translated images by storing translated versions in
4630 images/$LANGUAGECODE/.  I am a bit unsure about the details here.  The
4631 package maintainers know more.</p>
4632
4633 <p>If you wonder what the result look like, we provide
4634 <a href="http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/">the content
4635 of the documentation packages on the web</a>.  See for example the
4636 <a href="http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/it/debian-edu-wheezy-manual.pdf">Italian
4637 PDF version</a> or the
4638 <a href="http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/de/debian-edu-wheezy-manual.html">German
4639 HTML version</a>.  We do not yet build the epub version by default,
4640 but perhaps it will be done in the future.</p>
4641
4642 <p>To learn more, check out
4643 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/debian-edu-doc.html">the
4644 debian-edu-doc package</a>,
4645 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/">the
4646 manual on the wiki</a> and
4647 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/Translations">the
4648 translation instructions</a> in the manual.</p>
4649
4650       </div>
4651       <div class="tags">
4652
4653
4654         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>.
4655
4656
4657       </div>
4658     </div>
4659     <div class="padding"></div>
4660
4661     <div class="entry">
4662       <div class="title">
4663         <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>
4664       </div>
4665       <div class="date">
4666         23rd April 2014
4667       </div>
4668       <div class="body">
4669         <p>It would be nice if it was easier in Debian to get all the hardware
4670 related packages relevant for the computer installed automatically.
4671 So I implemented one, using
4672 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">my Isenkram
4673 package</a>.  To use it, install the tasksel and isenkram packages and
4674 run tasksel as user root.  You should be presented with a new option,
4675 "Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)".  When you
4676 select it, tasksel will install the packages isenkram claim is fit for
4677 the current hardware, hot pluggable or not.<p>
4678
4679 <p>The implementation is in two files, one is the tasksel menu entry
4680 description, and the other is the script used to extract the list of
4681 packages to install.  The first part is in
4682 <tt>/usr/share/tasksel/descs/isenkram.desc</tt> and look like
4683 this:</p>
4684
4685 <p><blockquote><pre>
4686 Task: isenkram
4687 Section: hardware
4688 Description: Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)
4689  Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific packages are
4690  proposed.
4691 Test-new-install: mark show
4692 Relevance: 8
4693 Packages: for-current-hardware
4694 </pre></blockquote></p>
4695
4696 <p>The second part is in
4697 <tt>/usr/lib/tasksel/packages/for-current-hardware</tt> and look like
4698 this:</p>
4699
4700 <p><blockquote><pre>
4701 #!/bin/sh
4702 #
4703 (
4704     isenkram-lookup
4705     isenkram-autoinstall-firmware -l
4706 ) | sort -u
4707 </pre></blockquote></p>
4708
4709 <p>All in all, a very short and simple implementation making it
4710 trivial to install the hardware dependent package we all may want to
4711 have installed on our machines.  I've not been able to find a way to
4712 get tasksel to tell you exactly which packages it plan to install
4713 before doing the installation.  So if you are curious or careful,
4714 check the output from the isenkram-* command line tools first.</p>
4715
4716 <p>The information about which packages are handling which hardware is
4717 fetched either from the isenkram package itself in
4718 /usr/share/isenkram/, from git.debian.org or from the APT package
4719 database (using the Modaliases header).  The APT package database
4720 parsing have caused a nasty resource leak in the isenkram daemon (bugs
4721 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/719837">#719837</a> and
4722 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/730704">#730704</a>).  The cause is in
4723 the python-apt code (bug
4724 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/745487">#745487</a>), but using a
4725 workaround I was able to get rid of the file descriptor leak and
4726 reduce the memory leak from ~30 MiB per hardware detection down to
4727 around 2 MiB per hardware detection.  It should make the desktop
4728 daemon a lot more useful.  The fix is in version 0.7 uploaded to
4729 unstable today.</p>
4730
4731 <p>I believe the current way of mapping hardware to packages in
4732 Isenkram is is a good draft, but in the future I expect isenkram to
4733 use the AppStream data source for this.  A proposal for getting proper
4734 AppStream support into Debian is floating around as
4735 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DEP-11">DEP-11</a>, and
4736 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/SummerOfCode2014/Projects#SummerOfCode2014.2FProjects.2FAppStreamDEP11Implementation.AppStream.2FDEP-11_for_the_Debian_Archive">GSoC
4737 project</a> will take place this summer to improve the situation.  I
4738 look forward to seeing the result, and welcome patches for isenkram to
4739 start using the information when it is ready.</p>
4740
4741 <p>If you want your package to map to some specific hardware, either
4742 add a "Xb-Modaliases" header to your control file like I did in
4743 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pymissile">the pymissile
4744 package</a> or submit a bug report with the details to the isenkram
4745 package.  See also
4746 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram/">all my
4747 blog posts tagged isenkram</a> for details on the notation.  I expect
4748 the information will be migrated to AppStream eventually, but for the
4749 moment I got no better place to store it.</p>
4750
4751       </div>
4752       <div class="tags">
4753
4754
4755         Tags: <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>.
4756
4757
4758       </div>
4759     </div>
4760     <div class="padding"></div>
4761
4762     <div class="entry">
4763       <div class="title">
4764         <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>
4765       </div>
4766       <div class="date">
4767         15th April 2014
4768       </div>
4769       <div class="body">
4770         <p>The <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">Freedombox
4771 project</a> is working on providing the software and hardware to make
4772 it easy for non-technical people to host their data and communication
4773 at home, and being able to communicate with their friends and family
4774 encrypted and away from prying eyes.  It is still going strong, and
4775 today a major mile stone was reached.</p>
4776
4777 <p>Today, the last of the packages currently used by the project to
4778 created the system images were accepted into Debian Unstable.  It was
4779 the freedombox-setup package, which is used to configure the images
4780 during build and on the first boot.  Now all one need to get going is
4781 the build code from the freedom-maker git repository and packages from
4782 Debian.  And once the freedombox-setup package enter testing, we can
4783 build everything directly from Debian. :)</p>
4784
4785 <p>Some key packages used by Freedombox are
4786 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/freedombox-setup">freedombox-setup</a>,
4787 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/plinth">plinth</a>,
4788 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pagekite">pagekite</a>,
4789 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/tor">tor</a>,
4790 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/privoxy">privoxy</a>,
4791 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/owncloud">owncloud</a> and
4792 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/dnsmasq">dnsmasq</a>.  There
4793 are plans to integrate more packages into the setup.  User
4794 documentation is maintained on the Debian wiki.  Please
4795 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/Manual/Jessie">check out
4796 the manual</a> and help us improve it.</p>
4797
4798 <p>To test for yourself and create boot images with the FreedomBox
4799 setup, run this on a Debian machine using a user with sudo rights to
4800 become root:</p>
4801
4802 <p><pre>
4803 sudo apt-get install git vmdebootstrap mercurial python-docutils \
4804   mktorrent extlinux virtualbox qemu-user-static binfmt-support \
4805   u-boot-tools
4806 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/freedombox/freedom-maker.git \
4807   freedom-maker
4808 make -C freedom-maker dreamplug-image raspberry-image virtualbox-image
4809 </pre></p>
4810
4811 <p>Root access is needed to run debootstrap and mount loopback
4812 devices.  See the README in the freedom-maker git repo for more
4813 details on the build.  If you do not want all three images, trim the
4814 make line.  Note that the virtualbox-image target is not really
4815 virtualbox specific.  It create a x86 image usable in kvm, qemu,
4816 vmware and any other x86 virtual machine environment.  You might need
4817 the version of vmdebootstrap in Jessie to get the build working, as it
4818 include fixes for a race condition with kpartx.</p>
4819
4820 <p>If you instead want to install using a Debian CD and the preseed
4821 method, boot a Debian Wheezy ISO and use this boot argument to load
4822 the preseed values:</p>
4823
4824 <p><pre>
4825 url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat</a>
4826 </pre></p>
4827
4828 <p>I have not tested it myself the last few weeks, so I do not know if
4829 it still work.</p>
4830
4831 <p>If you wonder how to help, one task you could look at is using
4832 systemd as the boot system.  It will become the default for Linux in
4833 Jessie, so we need to make sure it is usable on the Freedombox.  I did
4834 a simple test a few weeks ago, and noticed dnsmasq failed to start
4835 during boot when using systemd.  I suspect there are other problems
4836 too. :) To detect problems, there is a test suite included, which can
4837 be run from the plinth web interface.</p>
4838
4839 <p>Give it a go and let us know how it goes on the mailing list, and help
4840 us get the new release published. :) Please join us on
4841 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC (#freedombox on
4842 irc.debian.org)</a> and
4843 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
4844 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
4845
4846       </div>
4847       <div class="tags">
4848
4849
4850         Tags: <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>.
4851
4852
4853       </div>
4854     </div>
4855     <div class="padding"></div>
4856
4857     <div class="entry">
4858       <div class="title">
4859         <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>
4860       </div>
4861       <div class="date">
4862          9th April 2014
4863       </div>
4864       <div class="body">
4865         <p>For a while now, I have been looking for a sensible offsite backup
4866 solution for use at home.  My requirements are simple, it must be
4867 cheap and locally encrypted (in other words, I keep the encryption
4868 keys, the storage provider do not have access to my private files).
4869 One idea me and my friends had many years ago, before the cloud
4870 storage providers showed up, was to use Google mail as storage,
4871 writing a Linux block device storing blocks as emails in the mail
4872 service provided by Google, and thus get heaps of free space.  On top
4873 of this one can add encryption, RAID and volume management to have
4874 lots of (fairly slow, I admit that) cheap and encrypted storage.  But
4875 I never found time to implement such system.  But the last few weeks I
4876 have looked at a system called
4877 <a href="https://bitbucket.org/nikratio/s3ql/">S3QL</a>, a locally
4878 mounted network backed file system with the features I need.</p>
4879
4880 <p>S3QL is a fuse file system with a local cache and cloud storage,
4881 handling several different storage providers, any with Amazon S3,
4882 Google Drive or OpenStack API.  There are heaps of such storage
4883 providers.  S3QL can also use a local directory as storage, which
4884 combined with sshfs allow for file storage on any ssh server.  S3QL
4885 include support for encryption, compression, de-duplication, snapshots
4886 and immutable file systems, allowing me to mount the remote storage as
4887 a local mount point, look at and use the files as if they were local,
4888 while the content is stored in the cloud as well.  This allow me to
4889 have a backup that should survive fire.  The file system can not be
4890 shared between several machines at the same time, as only one can
4891 mount it at the time, but any machine with the encryption key and
4892 access to the storage service can mount it if it is unmounted.</p>
4893
4894 <p>It is simple to use.  I'm using it on Debian Wheezy, where the
4895 package is included already.  So to get started, run <tt>apt-get
4896 install s3ql</tt>.  Next, pick a storage provider.  I ended up picking
4897 Greenqloud, after reading their nice recipe on
4898 <a href="https://greenqloud.zendesk.com/entries/44611757-How-To-Use-S3QL-to-mount-a-StorageQloud-bucket-on-Debian-Wheezy">how
4899 to use S3QL with their Amazon S3 service</a>, because I trust the laws
4900 in Iceland more than those in USA when it come to keeping my personal
4901 data safe and private, and thus would rather spend money on a company
4902 in Iceland.  Another nice recipe is available from the article
4903 <a href="http://www.admin-magazine.com/HPC/Articles/HPC-Cloud-Storage">S3QL
4904 Filesystem for HPC Storage</a> by Jeff Layton in the HPC section of
4905 Admin magazine.  When the provider is picked, figure out how to get
4906 the API key needed to connect to the storage API.  With Greencloud,
4907 the key did not show up until I had added payment details to my
4908 account.</p>
4909
4910 <p>Armed with the API access details, it is time to create the file
4911 system.  First, create a new bucket in the cloud.  This bucket is the
4912 file system storage area.  I picked a bucket name reflecting the
4913 machine that was going to store data there, but any name will do.
4914 I'll refer to it as <tt>bucket-name</tt> below.  In addition, one need
4915 the API login and password, and a locally created password.  Store it
4916 all in ~root/.s3ql/authinfo2 like this:
4917
4918 <p><blockquote><pre>
4919 [s3c]
4920 storage-url: s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name
4921 backend-login: API-login
4922 backend-password: API-password
4923 fs-passphrase: local-password
4924 </pre></blockquote></p>
4925
4926 <p>I create my local passphrase using <tt>pwget 50</tt> or similar,
4927 but any sensible way to create a fairly random password should do it.
4928 Armed with these details, it is now time to run mkfs, entering the API
4929 details and password to create it:</p>
4930
4931 <p><blockquote><pre>
4932 # mkdir -m 700 /var/lib/s3ql-cache
4933 # mkfs.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
4934   --ssl s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name
4935 Enter backend login:
4936 Enter backend password:
4937 Before using S3QL, make sure to read the user's guide, especially
4938 the 'Important Rules to Avoid Loosing Data' section.
4939 Enter encryption password:
4940 Confirm encryption password:
4941 Generating random encryption key...
4942 Creating metadata tables...
4943 Dumping metadata...
4944 ..objects..
4945 ..blocks..
4946 ..inodes..
4947 ..inode_blocks..
4948 ..symlink_targets..
4949 ..names..
4950 ..contents..
4951 ..ext_attributes..
4952 Compressing and uploading metadata...
4953 Wrote 0.00 MB of compressed metadata.
4954 # </pre></blockquote></p>
4955
4956 <p>The next step is mounting the file system to make the storage available.
4957
4958 <p><blockquote><pre>
4959 # mount.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
4960   --ssl --allow-root s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name /s3ql
4961 Using 4 upload threads.
4962 Downloading and decompressing metadata...
4963 Reading metadata...
4964 ..objects..
4965 ..blocks..
4966 ..inodes..
4967 ..inode_blocks..
4968 ..symlink_targets..
4969 ..names..
4970 ..contents..
4971 ..ext_attributes..
4972 Mounting filesystem...
4973 # df -h /s3ql
4974 Filesystem                              Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
4975 s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name  1.0T     0  1.0T   0% /s3ql
4976 #
4977 </pre></blockquote></p>
4978
4979 <p>The file system is now ready for use.  I use rsync to store my
4980 backups in it, and as the metadata used by rsync is downloaded at
4981 mount time, no network traffic (and storage cost) is triggered by
4982 running rsync.  To unmount, one should not use the normal umount
4983 command, as this will not flush the cache to the cloud storage, but
4984 instead running the umount.s3ql command like this:
4985
4986 <p><blockquote><pre>
4987 # umount.s3ql /s3ql
4988 #
4989 </pre></blockquote></p>
4990
4991 <p>There is a fsck command available to check the file system and
4992 correct any problems detected.  This can be used if the local server
4993 crashes while the file system is mounted, to reset the "already
4994 mounted" flag.  This is what it look like when processing a working
4995 file system:</p>
4996
4997 <p><blockquote><pre>
4998 # fsck.s3ql --force --ssl s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name
4999 Using cached metadata.
5000 File system seems clean, checking anyway.
5001 Checking DB integrity...
5002 Creating temporary extra indices...
5003 Checking lost+found...
5004 Checking cached objects...
5005 Checking names (refcounts)...
5006 Checking contents (names)...
5007 Checking contents (inodes)...
5008 Checking contents (parent inodes)...
5009 Checking objects (reference counts)...
5010 Checking objects (backend)...
5011 ..processed 5000 objects so far..
5012 ..processed 10000 objects so far..
5013 ..processed 15000 objects so far..
5014 Checking objects (sizes)...
5015 Checking blocks (referenced objects)...
5016 Checking blocks (refcounts)...
5017 Checking inode-block mapping (blocks)...
5018 Checking inode-block mapping (inodes)...
5019 Checking inodes (refcounts)...
5020 Checking inodes (sizes)...
5021 Checking extended attributes (names)...
5022 Checking extended attributes (inodes)...
5023 Checking symlinks (inodes)...
5024 Checking directory reachability...
5025 Checking unix conventions...
5026 Checking referential integrity...
5027 Dropping temporary indices...
5028 Backing up old metadata...
5029 Dumping metadata...
5030 ..objects..
5031 ..blocks..
5032 ..inodes..
5033 ..inode_blocks..
5034 ..symlink_targets..
5035 ..names..
5036 ..contents..
5037 ..ext_attributes..
5038 Compressing and uploading metadata...
5039 Wrote 0.89 MB of compressed metadata.
5040 #
5041 </pre></blockquote></p>
5042
5043 <p>Thanks to the cache, working on files that fit in the cache is very
5044 quick, about the same speed as local file access.  Uploading large
5045 amount of data is to me limited by the bandwidth out of and into my
5046 house.  Uploading 685 MiB with a 100 MiB cache gave me 305 kiB/s,
5047 which is very close to my upload speed, and downloading the same
5048 Debian installation ISO gave me 610 kiB/s, close to my download speed.
5049 Both were measured using <tt>dd</tt>.  So for me, the bottleneck is my
5050 network, not the file system code.  I do not know what a good cache
5051 size would be, but suspect that the cache should e larger than your
5052 working set.</p>
5053
5054 <p>I mentioned that only one machine can mount the file system at the
5055 time.  If another machine try, it is told that the file system is
5056 busy:</p>
5057
5058 <p><blockquote><pre>
5059 # mount.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
5060   --ssl --allow-root s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name /s3ql
5061 Using 8 upload threads.
5062 Backend reports that fs is still mounted elsewhere, aborting.
5063 #
5064 </pre></blockquote></p>
5065
5066 <p>The file content is uploaded when the cache is full, while the
5067 metadata is uploaded once every 24 hour by default.  To ensure the
5068 file system content is flushed to the cloud, one can either umount the
5069 file system, or ask S3QL to flush the cache and metadata using
5070 s3qlctrl:
5071
5072 <p><blockquote><pre>
5073 # s3qlctrl upload-meta /s3ql
5074 # s3qlctrl flushcache /s3ql
5075 #
5076 </pre></blockquote></p>
5077
5078 <p>If you are curious about how much space your data uses in the
5079 cloud, and how much compression and deduplication cut down on the
5080 storage usage, you can use s3qlstat on the mounted file system to get
5081 a report:</p>
5082
5083 <p><blockquote><pre>
5084 # s3qlstat /s3ql
5085 Directory entries:    9141
5086 Inodes:               9143
5087 Data blocks:          8851
5088 Total data size:      22049.38 MB
5089 After de-duplication: 21955.46 MB (99.57% of total)
5090 After compression:    21877.28 MB (99.22% of total, 99.64% of de-duplicated)
5091 Database size:        2.39 MB (uncompressed)
5092 (some values do not take into account not-yet-uploaded dirty blocks in cache)
5093 #
5094 </pre></blockquote></p>
5095
5096 <p>I mentioned earlier that there are several possible suppliers of
5097 storage.  I did not try to locate them all, but am aware of at least
5098 <a href="https://www.greenqloud.com/">Greenqloud</a>,
5099 <a href="http://drive.google.com/">Google Drive</a>,
5100 <a href="http://aws.amazon.com/s3/">Amazon S3 web serivces</a>,
5101 <a href="http://www.rackspace.com/">Rackspace</a> and
5102 <a href="http://crowncloud.net/">Crowncloud</A>.  The latter even
5103 accept payment in Bitcoin.  Pick one that suit your need.  Some of
5104 them provide several GiB of free storage, but the prize models are
5105 quite different and you will have to figure out what suits you
5106 best.</p>
5107
5108 <p>While researching this blog post, I had a look at research papers
5109 and posters discussing the S3QL file system.  There are several, which
5110 told me that the file system is getting a critical check by the
5111 science community and increased my confidence in using it.  One nice
5112 poster is titled
5113 "<a href="http://www.lanl.gov/orgs/adtsc/publications/science_highlights_2013/docs/pg68_69.pdf">An
5114 Innovative Parallel Cloud Storage System using OpenStack’s SwiftObject
5115 Store and Transformative Parallel I/O Approach</a>" by Hsing-Bung
5116 Chen, Benjamin McClelland, David Sherrill, Alfred Torrez, Parks Fields
5117 and Pamela Smith.  Please  have a look.</p>
5118
5119 <p>Given my problems with different file systems earlier, I decided to
5120 check out the mounted S3QL file system to see if it would be usable as
5121 a home directory (in other word, that it provided POSIX semantics when
5122 it come to locking and umask handling etc).  Running
5123 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_if_a_file_system_can_be_used_for_home_directories___.html">my
5124 test code to check file system semantics</a>, I was happy to discover that
5125 no error was found.  So the file system can be used for home
5126 directories, if one chooses to do so.</p>
5127
5128 <p>If you do not want a locally file system, and want something that
5129 work without the Linux fuse file system, I would like to mention the
5130 <a href="http://www.tarsnap.com/">Tarsnap service</a>, which also
5131 provide locally encrypted backup using a command line client.  It have
5132 a nicer access control system, where one can split out read and write
5133 access, allowing some systems to write to the backup and others to
5134 only read from it.</p>
5135
5136 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
5137 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
5138 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
5139
5140       </div>
5141       <div class="tags">
5142
5143
5144         Tags: <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>.
5145
5146
5147       </div>
5148     </div>
5149     <div class="padding"></div>
5150
5151     <div class="entry">
5152       <div class="title">
5153         <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>
5154       </div>
5155       <div class="date">
5156         14th March 2014
5157       </div>
5158       <div class="body">
5159         <p>The <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">Freedombox
5160 project</a> is working on providing the software and hardware for
5161 making it easy for non-technical people to host their data and
5162 communication at home, and being able to communicate with their
5163 friends and family encrypted and away from prying eyes.  It has been
5164 going on for a while, and is slowly progressing towards a new test
5165 release (0.2).</p>
5166
5167 <p>And what day could be better than the Pi day to announce that the
5168 new version will provide "hard drive" / SD card / USB stick images for
5169 Dreamplug, Raspberry Pi and VirtualBox (or any other virtualization
5170 system), and can also be installed using a Debian installer preseed
5171 file.  The Debian based Freedombox is now based on Debian Jessie,
5172 where most of the needed packages used are already present.  Only one,
5173 the freedombox-setup package, is missing.  To try to build your own
5174 boot image to test the current status, fetch the freedom-maker scripts
5175 and build using
5176 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/vmdebootstrap">vmdebootstrap</a>
5177 with a user with sudo access to become root:
5178
5179 <pre>
5180 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/freedombox/freedom-maker.git \
5181   freedom-maker
5182 sudo apt-get install git vmdebootstrap mercurial python-docutils \
5183   mktorrent extlinux virtualbox qemu-user-static binfmt-support \
5184   u-boot-tools
5185 make -C freedom-maker dreamplug-image raspberry-image virtualbox-image
5186 </pre>
5187
5188 <p>Root access is needed to run debootstrap and mount loopback
5189 devices.  See the README for more details on the build. If you do not
5190 want all three images, trim the make line.  But note that thanks to <a
5191 href="https://bugs.debian.org/741407">a race condition in
5192 vmdebootstrap</a>, the build might fail without the patch to the
5193 kpartx call.</p>
5194
5195 <p>If you instead want to install using a Debian CD and the preseed
5196 method, boot a Debian Wheezy ISO and use this boot argument to load
5197 the preseed values:</p>
5198
5199 <pre>
5200 url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat</a>
5201 </pre>
5202
5203 <p>But note that due to <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/740673">a
5204 recently introduced bug in apt in Jessie</a>, the installer will
5205 currently hang while setting up APT sources.  Killing the
5206 '<tt>apt-cdrom ident</tt>' process when it hang a few times during the
5207 installation will get the installation going.  This affect all
5208 installations in Jessie, and I expect it will be fixed soon.</p>
5209
5210 <p>Give it a go and let us know how it goes on the mailing list, and help
5211 us get the new release published. :) Please join us on
5212 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC (#freedombox on
5213 irc.debian.org)</a> and
5214 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
5215 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
5216
5217       </div>
5218       <div class="tags">
5219
5220
5221         Tags: <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>.
5222
5223
5224       </div>
5225     </div>
5226     <div class="padding"></div>
5227
5228     <div class="entry">
5229       <div class="title">
5230         <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>
5231       </div>
5232       <div class="date">
5233         22nd February 2014
5234       </div>
5235       <div class="body">
5236         <p>Many years ago, I wrote a GPL licensed version of the netgroup and
5237 innetgr tools, because I needed them in
5238 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a>.  I called the project
5239 ng-utils, and it has served me well.  I placed the project under the
5240 <a href="http://www.hungry.com/">Hungry Programmer</a> umbrella, and it was maintained in our CVS
5241 repository.  But many years ago, the CVS repository was dropped (lost,
5242 not migrated to new hardware, not sure), and the project have lacked a
5243 proper home since then.</p>
5244
5245 <p>Last summer, I had a look at the package and made a new release
5246 fixing a irritating crash bug, but was unable to store the changes in
5247 a proper source control system.  I applied for a project on
5248 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/">Alioth</a>, but did not have time
5249 to follow up on it.  Until today. :)</p>
5250
5251 <p>After many hours of cleaning and migration, the ng-utils project
5252 now have a new home, and a git repository with the highlight of the
5253 history of the project.  I published all release tarballs and imported
5254 them into the git repository.  As the project is really stable and not
5255 expected to gain new features any time soon, I decided to make a new
5256 release and call it 1.0.  Visit the new project home on
5257 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/ng-utils/">https://alioth.debian.org/projects/ng-utils/</a>
5258 if you want to check it out.  The new version is also uploaded into
5259 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/n/ng-utils.html">Debian Unstable</a>.</p>
5260
5261       </div>
5262       <div class="tags">
5263
5264
5265         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5266
5267
5268       </div>
5269     </div>
5270     <div class="padding"></div>
5271
5272     <div class="entry">
5273       <div class="title">
5274         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_sysvinit_from_experimental_in_Debian_Hurd.html">Testing sysvinit from experimental in Debian Hurd</a>
5275       </div>
5276       <div class="date">
5277          3rd February 2014
5278       </div>
5279       <div class="body">
5280         <p>A few days ago I decided to try to help the Hurd people to get
5281 their changes into sysvinit, to allow them to use the normal sysvinit
5282 boot system instead of their old one.  This follow up on the
5283 <a href="https://teythoon.cryptobitch.de//categories/gsoc.html">great
5284 Google Summer of Code work</a> done last summer by Justus Winter to
5285 get Debian on Hurd working more like Debian on Linux.  To get started,
5286 I downloaded a prebuilt hard disk image from
5287 <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>,
5288 and started it using virt-manager.</p>
5289
5290 <p>The first think I had to do after logging in (root without any
5291 password) was to get the network operational.  I followed
5292 <a href="https://www.debian.org/ports/hurd/hurd-install">the
5293 instructions on the Debian GNU/Hurd ports page</a> and ran these
5294 commands as root to get the machine to accept a IP address from the
5295 kvm internal DHCP server:</p>
5296
5297 <p><blockquote><pre>
5298 settrans -fgap /dev/netdde /hurd/netdde
5299 kill $(ps -ef|awk '/[p]finet/ { print $2}')
5300 kill $(ps -ef|awk '/[d]evnode/ { print $2}')
5301 dhclient /dev/eth0
5302 </pre></blockquote></p>
5303
5304 <p>After this, the machine had internet connectivity, and I could
5305 upgrade it and install the sysvinit packages from experimental and
5306 enable it as the default boot system in Hurd.</p>
5307
5308 <p>But before I did that, I set a password on the root user, as ssh is
5309 running on the machine it for ssh login to work a password need to be
5310 set.  Also, note that a bug somewhere in openssh on Hurd block
5311 compression from working.  Remember to turn that off on the client
5312 side.</p>
5313
5314 <p>Run these commands as root to upgrade and test the new sysvinit
5315 stuff:</p>
5316
5317 <p><blockquote><pre>
5318 cat > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/experimental.list &lt;&lt;EOF
5319 deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ experimental main
5320 EOF
5321 apt-get update
5322 apt-get dist-upgrade
5323 apt-get install -t experimental initscripts sysv-rc sysvinit \
5324     sysvinit-core sysvinit-utils
5325 update-alternatives --config runsystem
5326 </pre></blockquote></p>
5327
5328 <p>To reboot after switching boot system, you have to use
5329 <tt>reboot-hurd</tt> instead of just <tt>reboot</tt>, as there is not
5330 yet a sysvinit process able to receive the signals from the normal
5331 'reboot' command.  After switching to sysvinit as the boot system,
5332 upgrading every package and rebooting, the network come up with DHCP
5333 after boot as it should, and the settrans/pkill hack mentioned at the
5334 start is no longer needed.  But for some strange reason, there are no
5335 longer any login prompt in the virtual console, so I logged in using
5336 ssh instead.
5337
5338 <p>Note that there are some race conditions in Hurd making the boot
5339 fail some times.  No idea what the cause is, but hope the Hurd porters
5340 figure it out.  At least Justus said on IRC (#debian-hurd on
5341 irc.debian.org) that they are aware of the problem.  A way to reduce
5342 the impact is to upgrade to the Hurd packages built by Justus by
5343 adding this repository to the machine:</p>
5344
5345 <p><blockquote><pre>
5346 cat > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/hurd-ci.list &lt;&lt;EOF
5347 deb http://darnassus.sceen.net/~teythoon/hurd-ci/ sid main
5348 EOF
5349 </pre></blockquote></p>
5350
5351 <p>At the moment the prebuilt virtual machine get some packages from
5352 http://ftp.debian-ports.org/debian, because some of the packages in
5353 unstable do not yet include the required patches that are lingering in
5354 BTS.  This is the completely list of "unofficial" packages installed:</p>
5355
5356 <p><blockquote><pre>
5357 # aptitude search '?narrow(?version(CURRENT),?origin(Debian Ports))'
5358 i   emacs                   - GNU Emacs editor (metapackage)
5359 i   gdb                     - GNU Debugger
5360 i   hurd-recommended        - Miscellaneous translators
5361 i   isc-dhcp-client         - ISC DHCP client
5362 i   isc-dhcp-common         - common files used by all the isc-dhcp* packages
5363 i   libc-bin                - Embedded GNU C Library: Binaries
5364 i   libc-dev-bin            - Embedded GNU C Library: Development binaries
5365 i   libc0.3                 - Embedded GNU C Library: Shared libraries
5366 i A libc0.3-dbg             - Embedded GNU C Library: detached debugging symbols
5367 i   libc0.3-dev             - Embedded GNU C Library: Development Libraries and Hea
5368 i   multiarch-support       - Transitional package to ensure multiarch compatibilit
5369 i A x11-common              - X Window System (X.Org) infrastructure
5370 i   xorg                    - X.Org X Window System
5371 i A xserver-xorg            - X.Org X server
5372 i A xserver-xorg-input-all  - X.Org X server -- input driver metapackage
5373 #
5374 </pre></blockquote></p>
5375
5376 <p>All in all, testing hurd has been an interesting experience. :)
5377 X.org did not work out of the box and I never took the time to follow
5378 the porters instructions to fix it.  This time I was interested in the
5379 command line stuff.<p>
5380
5381       </div>
5382       <div class="tags">
5383
5384
5385         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>.
5386
5387
5388       </div>
5389     </div>
5390     <div class="padding"></div>
5391
5392     <div class="entry">
5393       <div class="title">
5394         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_chrpath_release_0_16.html">New chrpath release 0.16</a>
5395       </div>
5396       <div class="date">
5397         14th January 2014
5398       </div>
5399       <div class="body">
5400         <p><a href="http://www.coverity.com/">Coverity</a> is a nice tool to
5401 find problems in C, C++ and Java code using static source code
5402 analysis.  It can detect a lot of different problems, and is very
5403 useful to find memory and locking bugs in the error handling part of
5404 the source.  The company behind it provide
5405 <a href="https://scan.coverity.com/">check of free software projects as
5406 a community service</a>, and many hundred free software projects are
5407 already checked.  A few days ago I decided to have a closer look at
5408 the Coverity system, and discovered that the
5409 <a href="http://www.gnu.org/software/gnash/">gnash</a> and
5410 <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/ipmitool/">ipmitool</a>
5411 projects I am involved with was already registered.  But these are
5412 fairly big, and I would also like to have a small and easy project to
5413 check, and decided to <a href="http://scan.coverity.com/projects/1179">request
5414 checking of the chrpath project</a>.  It was
5415 added to the checker and discovered seven potential defects.  Six of
5416 these were real, mostly resource "leak" when the program detected an
5417 error.  Nothing serious, as the resources would be released a fraction
5418 of a second later when the program exited because of the error, but it
5419 is nice to do it right in case the source of the program some time in
5420 the future end up in a library.  Having fixed all defects and added
5421 <a href="https://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/chrpath-devel">a
5422 mailing list for the chrpath developers</a>, I decided it was time to
5423 publish a new release.  These are the release notes:</p>
5424
5425 <p>New in 0.16 released 2014-01-14:</p>
5426
5427 <ul>
5428
5429   <li>Fixed all minor bugs discovered by Coverity.</li>
5430   <li>Updated config.sub and config.guess from the GNU project.</li>
5431   <li>Mention new project mailing list in the documentation.</li>
5432
5433 </ul>
5434
5435 <p>You can
5436 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/frs/?group_id=31052">download the
5437 new version 0.16 from alioth</a>.  Please let us know via the Alioth
5438 project if something is wrong with the new release.  The test suite
5439 did not discover any old errors, so if you find a new one, please also
5440 include a test suite check.</p>
5441
5442       </div>
5443       <div class="tags">
5444
5445
5446         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>.
5447
5448
5449       </div>
5450     </div>
5451     <div class="padding"></div>
5452
5453     <div class="entry">
5454       <div class="title">
5455         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_chrpath_release_0_15.html">New chrpath release 0.15</a>
5456       </div>
5457       <div class="date">
5458         24th November 2013
5459       </div>
5460       <div class="body">
5461         <p>After many years break from the package and a vain hope that
5462 development would be continued by someone else, I finally pulled my
5463 acts together this morning and wrapped up a new release of chrpath,
5464 the command line tool to modify the rpath and runpath of already
5465 compiled ELF programs.  The update was triggered by the persistence of
5466 Isha Vishnoi at IBM, which needed a new config.guess file to get
5467 support for the ppc64le architecture (powerpc 64-bit Little Endian) he
5468 is working on.  I checked the
5469 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/chrpath">Debian</a>,
5470 <a href="https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/chrpath">Ubuntu</a> and
5471 <a href="https://admin.fedoraproject.org/pkgdb/acls/name/chrpath">Fedora</a>
5472 packages for interesting patches (failed to find the source from
5473 OpenSUSE and Mandriva packages), and found quite a few nice fixes.
5474 These are the release notes:</p>
5475
5476 <p>New in 0.15 released 2013-11-24:</p>
5477
5478 <ul>
5479
5480   <li>Updated config.sub and config.guess from the GNU project to work
5481    with newer architectures.  Thanks to isha vishnoi for the heads
5482    up.</li>
5483
5484   <li>Updated README with current URLs.</li>
5485
5486   <li>Added byteswap fix found in Ubuntu, credited Jeremy Kerr and
5487    Matthias Klose.</li>
5488
5489   <li>Added missing help for -k|--keepgoing option, using patch by
5490    Petr Machata found in Fedora.</li>
5491
5492   <li>Rewrite removal of RPATH/RUNPATH to make sure the entry in
5493    .dynamic is a NULL terminated string.  Based on patch found in
5494    Fedora credited Axel Thimm and Christian Krause.</li>
5495
5496 </ul>
5497
5498 <p>You can
5499 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/frs/?group_id=31052">download the
5500 new version 0.15 from alioth</a>.  Please let us know via the Alioth
5501 project if something is wrong with the new release.  The test suite
5502 did not discover any old errors, so if you find a new one, please also
5503 include a testsuite check.</p>
5504
5505       </div>
5506       <div class="tags">
5507
5508
5509         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>.
5510
5511
5512       </div>
5513     </div>
5514     <div class="padding"></div>
5515
5516     <div class="entry">
5517       <div class="title">
5518         <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>
5519       </div>
5520       <div class="date">
5521          2nd November 2013
5522       </div>
5523       <div class="body">
5524         <p>If one of the points of switching to a new init system in Debian is
5525 <a href="http://thomas.goirand.fr/blog/?p=147">to get rid of huge
5526 init.d scripts</a>, I doubt we need to switch away from sysvinit and
5527 init.d scripts at all.  Here is an example init.d script, ie a rewrite
5528 of /etc/init.d/rsyslog:</p>
5529
5530 <p><pre>
5531 #!/lib/init/init-d-script
5532 ### BEGIN INIT INFO
5533 # Provides:          rsyslog
5534 # Required-Start:    $remote_fs $time
5535 # Required-Stop:     umountnfs $time
5536 # X-Stop-After:      sendsigs
5537 # Default-Start:     2 3 4 5
5538 # Default-Stop:      0 1 6
5539 # Short-Description: enhanced syslogd
5540 # Description:       Rsyslog is an enhanced multi-threaded syslogd.
5541 #                    It is quite compatible to stock sysklogd and can be
5542 #                    used as a drop-in replacement.
5543 ### END INIT INFO
5544 DESC="enhanced syslogd"
5545 DAEMON=/usr/sbin/rsyslogd
5546 </pre></p>
5547
5548 <p>Pretty minimalistic to me... For the record, the original sysv-rc
5549 script was 137 lines, and the above is just 15 lines, most of it meta
5550 info/comments.</p>
5551
5552 <p>How to do this, you ask?  Well, one create a new script
5553 /lib/init/init-d-script looking something like this:
5554
5555 <p><pre>
5556 #!/bin/sh
5557
5558 # Define LSB log_* functions.
5559 # Depend on lsb-base (>= 3.2-14) to ensure that this file is present
5560 # and status_of_proc is working.
5561 . /lib/lsb/init-functions
5562
5563 #
5564 # Function that starts the daemon/service
5565
5566 #
5567 do_start()
5568 {
5569         # Return
5570         #   0 if daemon has been started
5571         #   1 if daemon was already running
5572         #   2 if daemon could not be started
5573         start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $DAEMON --test > /dev/null \
5574                 || return 1
5575         start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $DAEMON -- \
5576                 $DAEMON_ARGS \
5577                 || return 2
5578         # Add code here, if necessary, that waits for the process to be ready
5579         # to handle requests from services started subsequently which depend
5580         # on this one.  As a last resort, sleep for some time.
5581 }
5582
5583 #
5584 # Function that stops the daemon/service
5585 #
5586 do_stop()
5587 {
5588         # Return
5589         #   0 if daemon has been stopped
5590         #   1 if daemon was already stopped
5591         #   2 if daemon could not be stopped
5592         #   other if a failure occurred
5593         start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --retry=TERM/30/KILL/5 --pidfile $PIDFILE --name $NAME
5594         RETVAL="$?"
5595         [ "$RETVAL" = 2 ] && return 2
5596         # Wait for children to finish too if this is a daemon that forks
5597         # and if the daemon is only ever run from this initscript.
5598         # If the above conditions are not satisfied then add some other code
5599         # that waits for the process to drop all resources that could be
5600         # needed by services started subsequently.  A last resort is to
5601         # sleep for some time.
5602         start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --oknodo --retry=0/30/KILL/5 --exec $DAEMON
5603         [ "$?" = 2 ] && return 2
5604         # Many daemons don't delete their pidfiles when they exit.
5605         rm -f $PIDFILE
5606         return "$RETVAL"
5607 }
5608
5609 #
5610 # Function that sends a SIGHUP to the daemon/service
5611 #
5612 do_reload() {
5613         #
5614         # If the daemon can reload its configuration without
5615         # restarting (for example, when it is sent a SIGHUP),
5616         # then implement that here.
5617         #
5618         start-stop-daemon --stop --signal 1 --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --name $NAME
5619         return 0
5620 }
5621
5622 SCRIPTNAME=$1
5623 scriptbasename="$(basename $1)"
5624 echo "SN: $scriptbasename"
5625 if [ "$scriptbasename" != "init-d-library" ] ; then
5626     script="$1"
5627     shift
5628     . $script
5629 else
5630     exit 0
5631 fi
5632
5633 NAME=$(basename $DAEMON)
5634 PIDFILE=/var/run/$NAME.pid
5635
5636 # Exit if the package is not installed
5637 #[ -x "$DAEMON" ] || exit 0
5638
5639 # Read configuration variable file if it is present
5640 [ -r /etc/default/$NAME ] && . /etc/default/$NAME
5641
5642 # Load the VERBOSE setting and other rcS variables
5643 . /lib/init/vars.sh
5644
5645 case "$1" in
5646   start)
5647         [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_daemon_msg "Starting $DESC" "$NAME"
5648         do_start
5649         case "$?" in
5650                 0|1) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 0 ;;
5651                 2) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 1 ;;
5652         esac
5653         ;;
5654   stop)
5655         [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_daemon_msg "Stopping $DESC" "$NAME"
5656         do_stop
5657         case "$?" in
5658                 0|1) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 0 ;;
5659                 2) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 1 ;;
5660         esac
5661         ;;
5662   status)
5663         status_of_proc "$DAEMON" "$NAME" && exit 0 || exit $?
5664         ;;
5665   #reload|force-reload)
5666         #
5667         # If do_reload() is not implemented then leave this commented out
5668         # and leave 'force-reload' as an alias for 'restart'.
5669         #
5670         #log_daemon_msg "Reloading $DESC" "$NAME"
5671         #do_reload
5672         #log_end_msg $?
5673         #;;
5674   restart|force-reload)
5675         #
5676         # If the "reload" option is implemented then remove the
5677         # 'force-reload' alias
5678         #
5679         log_daemon_msg "Restarting $DESC" "$NAME"
5680         do_stop
5681         case "$?" in
5682           0|1)
5683                 do_start
5684                 case "$?" in
5685                         0) log_end_msg 0 ;;
5686                         1) log_end_msg 1 ;; # Old process is still running
5687                         *) log_end_msg 1 ;; # Failed to start
5688                 esac
5689                 ;;
5690           *)
5691                 # Failed to stop
5692                 log_end_msg 1
5693                 ;;
5694         esac
5695         ;;
5696   *)
5697         echo "Usage: $SCRIPTNAME {start|stop|status|restart|force-reload}" >&2
5698         exit 3
5699         ;;
5700 esac
5701
5702 :
5703 </pre></p>
5704
5705 <p>It is based on /etc/init.d/skeleton, and could be improved quite a
5706 lot.  I did not really polish the approach, so it might not always
5707 work out of the box, but you get the idea.  I did not try very hard to
5708 optimize it nor make it more robust either.</p>
5709
5710 <p>A better argument for switching init system in Debian than reducing
5711 the size of init scripts (which is a good thing to do anyway), is to
5712 get boot system that is able to handle the kernel events sensibly and
5713 robustly, and do not depend on the boot to run sequentially.  The boot
5714 and the kernel have not behaved sequentially in years.</p>
5715
5716       </div>
5717       <div class="tags">
5718
5719
5720         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>.
5721
5722
5723       </div>
5724     </div>
5725     <div class="padding"></div>
5726
5727     <div class="entry">
5728       <div class="title">
5729         <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>
5730       </div>
5731       <div class="date">
5732          1st November 2013
5733       </div>
5734       <div class="body">
5735         <p><a href="http://www.spice-space.org/">The SPICE protocol</a> for
5736 remote display access is the preferred solution with oVirt and RedHat
5737 Enterprise Virtualization, and I was sad to discover the other day
5738 that the browser plugin needed to use these systems seamlessly was
5739 missing in Debian.  The <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/668284">request
5740 for a package</a> was from 2012-04-10 with no progress since
5741 2013-04-01, so I decided to wrap up a package based on the great work
5742 from Cajus Pollmeier and put it in a collab-maint maintained git
5743 repository to get a package I could use.  I would very much like
5744 others to help me maintain the package (or just take over, I do not
5745 mind), but as no-one had volunteered so far, I just uploaded it to
5746 NEW.  I hope it will be available in Debian in a few days.</p>
5747
5748 <p>The source is now available from
5749 <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>
5750
5751       </div>
5752       <div class="tags">
5753
5754
5755         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5756
5757
5758       </div>
5759     </div>
5760     <div class="padding"></div>
5761
5762     <div class="entry">
5763       <div class="title">
5764         <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>
5765       </div>
5766       <div class="date">
5767         27th October 2013
5768       </div>
5769       <div class="body">
5770         <p>The
5771 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/v/vmdebootstrap.html">vmdebootstrap</a>
5772 program is a a very nice system to create virtual machine images.  It
5773 create a image file, add a partition table, mount it and run
5774 debootstrap in the mounted directory to create a Debian system on a
5775 stick.  Yesterday, I decided to try to teach it how to make images for
5776 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/RaspberryPi">Raspberry Pi</a>, as part
5777 of a plan to simplify the build system for
5778 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">the FreedomBox
5779 project</a>.  The FreedomBox project already uses vmdebootstrap for
5780 the virtualbox images, but its current build system made multistrap
5781 based system for Dreamplug images, and it is lacking support for
5782 Raspberry Pi.</p>
5783
5784 <p>Armed with the knowledge on how to build "foreign" (aka non-native
5785 architecture) chroots for Raspberry Pi, I dived into the vmdebootstrap
5786 code and adjusted it to be able to build armel images on my amd64
5787 Debian laptop.  I ended up giving vmdebootstrap five new options,
5788 allowing me to replicate the image creation process I use to make
5789 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Raspberry_Pi_based_batman_adv_Mesh_network_node.html">Debian
5790 Jessie based mesh node images for the Raspberry Pi</a>.  First, the
5791 <tt>--foreign /path/to/binfm_handler</tt> option tell vmdebootstrap to
5792 call debootstrap with --foreign and to copy the handler into the
5793 generated chroot before running the second stage.  This allow
5794 vmdebootstrap to create armel images on an amd64 host.  Next I added
5795 two new options <tt>--bootsize size</tt> and <tt>--boottype
5796 fstype</tt> to teach it to create a separate /boot/ partition with the
5797 given file system type, allowing me to create an image with a vfat
5798 partition for the /boot/ stuff.  I also added a <tt>--variant
5799 variant</tt> option to allow me to create smaller images without the
5800 Debian base system packages installed.  Finally, I added an option
5801 <tt>--no-extlinux</tt> to tell vmdebootstrap to not install extlinux
5802 as a boot loader.  It is not needed on the Raspberry Pi and probably
5803 most other non-x86 architectures.  The changes were accepted by the
5804 upstream author of vmdebootstrap yesterday and today, and is now
5805 available from
5806 <a href="http://git.liw.fi/cgi-bin/cgit/cgit.cgi/vmdebootstrap/">the
5807 upstream project page</a>.</p>
5808
5809 <p>To use it to build a Raspberry Pi image using Debian Jessie, first
5810 create a small script (the customize script) to add the non-free
5811 binary blob needed to boot the Raspberry Pi and the APT source
5812 list:</p>
5813
5814 <p><pre>
5815 #!/bin/sh
5816 set -e # Exit on first error
5817 rootdir="$1"
5818 cd "$rootdir"
5819 cat &lt;&lt;EOF > etc/apt/sources.list
5820 deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ jessie main contrib non-free
5821 EOF
5822 # Install non-free binary blob needed to boot Raspberry Pi.  This
5823 # install a kernel somewhere too.
5824 wget https://raw.github.com/Hexxeh/rpi-update/master/rpi-update \
5825     -O $rootdir/usr/bin/rpi-update
5826 chmod a+x $rootdir/usr/bin/rpi-update
5827 mkdir -p $rootdir/lib/modules
5828 touch $rootdir/boot/start.elf
5829 chroot $rootdir rpi-update
5830 </pre></p>
5831
5832 <p>Next, fetch the latest vmdebootstrap script and call it like this
5833 to build the image:</p>
5834
5835 <pre>
5836 sudo ./vmdebootstrap \
5837     --variant minbase \
5838     --arch armel \
5839     --distribution jessie \
5840     --mirror http://http.debian.net/debian \
5841     --image test.img \
5842     --size 600M \
5843     --bootsize 64M \
5844     --boottype vfat \
5845     --log-level debug \
5846     --verbose \
5847     --no-kernel \
5848     --no-extlinux \
5849     --root-password raspberry \
5850     --hostname raspberrypi \
5851     --foreign /usr/bin/qemu-arm-static \
5852     --customize `pwd`/customize \
5853     --package netbase \
5854     --package git-core \
5855     --package binutils \
5856     --package ca-certificates \
5857     --package wget \
5858     --package kmod
5859 </pre></p>
5860
5861 <p>The list of packages being installed are the ones needed by
5862 rpi-update to make the image bootable on the Raspberry Pi, with the
5863 exception of netbase, which is needed by debootstrap to find
5864 /etc/hosts with the minbase variant.  I really wish there was a way to
5865 set up an Raspberry Pi using only packages in the Debian archive, but
5866 that is not possible as far as I know, because it boots from the GPU
5867 using a non-free binary blob.</p>
5868
5869 <p>The build host need debootstrap, kpartx and qemu-user-static and
5870 probably a few others installed.  I have not checked the complete
5871 build dependency list.</p>
5872
5873 <p>The resulting image will not use the hardware floating point unit
5874 on the Raspberry PI, because the armel architecture in Debian is not
5875 optimized for that use.  So the images created will be a bit slower
5876 than <a href="http://www.raspbian.org/">Raspbian</a> based images.</p>
5877
5878       </div>
5879       <div class="tags">
5880
5881
5882         Tags: <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>.
5883
5884
5885       </div>
5886     </div>
5887     <div class="padding"></div>
5888
5889     <div class="entry">
5890       <div class="title">
5891         <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>
5892       </div>
5893       <div class="date">
5894         15th October 2013
5895       </div>
5896       <div class="body">
5897         <p>The last few days I came across a few good causes that should get
5898 wider attention.  I recommend signing and donating to each one of
5899 these. :)</p>
5900
5901 <p>Via <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2013/18/">Debian
5902 Project News for 2013-10-14</a> I came across the Outreach Program for
5903 Women program which is a Google Summer of Code like initiative to get
5904 more women involved in free software.  One debian sponsor has offered
5905 to match <a href="http://debian.ch/opw2013">any donation done to Debian
5906 earmarked</a> for this initiative.  I donated a few minutes ago, and
5907 hope you will to. :)</p>
5908
5909 <p>And the Electronic Frontier Foundation just announced plans to
5910 create <a href="https://supporters.eff.org/donate/nsa-videos">video
5911 documentaries about the excessive spying</a> on every Internet user that
5912 take place these days, and their need to fund the work.  I've already
5913 donated.  Are you next?</p>
5914
5915 <p>For my Norwegian audience, the organisation Studentenes og
5916 Akademikernes Internasjonale Hjelpefond is collecting signatures for a
5917 statement under the heading
5918 <a href="http://saih.no/Bloggers_United/">Bloggers United for Open
5919 Access</a> for those of us asking for more focus on open access in the
5920 Norwegian government.  So far 499 signatures.  I hope you will sign it
5921 too.</p>
5922
5923       </div>
5924       <div class="tags">
5925
5926
5927         Tags: <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>.
5928
5929
5930       </div>
5931     </div>
5932     <div class="padding"></div>
5933
5934     <div class="entry">
5935       <div class="title">
5936         <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>
5937       </div>
5938       <div class="date">
5939         27th September 2013
5940       </div>
5941       <div class="body">
5942         <p>The <a href="http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/">Freedombox
5943 project</a> have been going on for a while, and have presented the
5944 vision, ideas and solution several places.  Here is a little
5945 collection of videos of talks and presentation of the project.</p>
5946
5947 <ul>
5948
5949 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukvUz5taxvA">FreedomBox -
5950 2,5 minute marketing film</a> (Youtube)</li>
5951
5952 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzW25QTVWsE">Eben Moglen
5953 discusses the Freedombox on CBS news 2011</a> (Youtube)</li>
5954
5955 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ae8SZbxfE0g">Eben Moglen -
5956 Freedom in the Cloud - Software Freedom, Privacy and and Security for
5957 Web 2.0 and Cloud computing at ISOC-NY Public Meeting 2010</a>
5958 (Youtube)</li>
5959
5960 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNaIji_3xBE">Fosdem 2011
5961 Keynote by Eben Moglen presenting the Freedombox</a> (Youtube)</li>
5962
5963 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bDDUyJSQ9s">Presentation of
5964 the Freedombox by James Vasile at Elevate in Gratz 2011</a> (Youtube)</li>
5965
5966 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQTmnk27g9s"> Freedombox -
5967 Discovery, Identity, and Trust by Nick Daly at Freedombox Hackfest New
5968 York City in 2012</a> (Youtube)</li>
5969
5970 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkbSB4Ba7Ck">Introduction
5971 to the Freedombox at Freedombox Hackfest New York City in 2012</a>
5972 (Youtube)</li>
5973
5974 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-P2Jaeg0aQ">Freedom, Out
5975 of the Box! by Bdale Garbee at linux.conf.au Ballarat, 2012</a> (Youtube) </li>
5976
5977 <li><a href="https://archive.fosdem.org/2013/schedule/event/freedombox/">Freedombox
5978 1.0 by Eben Moglen and Bdale Garbee at Fosdem 2013</a> (FOSDEM) </li>
5979
5980 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1LpYX2zVYg">What is the
5981 FreedomBox today by Bdale Garbee at Debconf13 in Vaumarcus
5982 2013</a> (Youtube)</li>
5983
5984 </ul>
5985
5986 <p>A larger list is available from
5987 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/TalksAndPresentations">the
5988 Freedombox Wiki</a>.</p>
5989
5990 <p>On other news, I am happy to report that Freedombox based on Debian
5991 Jessie is coming along quite well, and soon both Owncloud and using
5992 Tor should be available for testers of the Freedombox solution. :) In
5993 a few weeks I hope everything needed to test it is included in Debian.
5994 The withsqlite package is already in Debian, and the plinth package is
5995 pending in NEW.  The third and vital part of that puzzle is the
5996 metapackage/setup framework, which is still pending an upload.  Join
5997 us on <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC
5998 (#freedombox on irc.debian.org)</a> and
5999 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
6000 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
6001
6002       </div>
6003       <div class="tags">
6004
6005
6006         Tags: <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>.
6007
6008
6009       </div>
6010     </div>
6011     <div class="padding"></div>
6012
6013     <div class="entry">
6014       <div class="title">
6015         <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>
6016       </div>
6017       <div class="date">
6018         10th September 2013
6019       </div>
6020       <div class="body">
6021         <p>I was introduced to the
6022 <a href="http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/">Freedombox project</a>
6023 in 2010, when Eben Moglen presented his vision about serving the need
6024 of non-technical people to keep their personal information private and
6025 within the legal protection of their own homes.  The idea is to give
6026 people back the power over their network and machines, and return
6027 Internet back to its intended peer-to-peer architecture.  Instead of
6028 depending on a central service, the Freedombox will give everyone
6029 control over their own basic infrastructure.</p>
6030
6031 <p>I've intended to join the effort since then, but other tasks have
6032 taken priority.  But this summers nasty news about the misuse of trust
6033 and privilege exercised by the "western" intelligence gathering
6034 communities increased my eagerness to contribute to a point where I
6035 actually started working on the project a while back.</p>
6036
6037 <p>The <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/freedombox/">initial
6038 Debian initiative</a> based on the vision from Eben Moglen, is to
6039 create a simple and cheap Debian based appliance that anyone can hook
6040 up in their home and get access to secure and private services and
6041 communication.  The initial deployment platform have been the
6042 <a href="http://www.globalscaletechnologies.com/t-dreamplugdetails.aspx">Dreamplug</a>,
6043 which is a piece of hardware I do not own.  So to be able to test what
6044 the current Freedombox setup look like, I had to come up with a way to install
6045 it on some hardware I do have access to.  I have rewritten the
6046 <a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/freedom-maker">freedom-maker</a>
6047 image build framework to use .deb packages instead of only copying
6048 setup into the boot images, and thanks to this rewrite I am able to
6049 set up any machine supported by Debian Wheezy as a Freedombox, using
6050 the previously mentioned deb (and a few support debs for packages
6051 missing in Debian).</p>
6052
6053 <p>The current Freedombox setup consist of a set of bootstrapping
6054 scripts
6055 (<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/freedombox-setup">freedombox-setup</a>),
6056 and a administrative web interface
6057 (<a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/Plinth">plinth</a> + exmachina +
6058 withsqlite), as well as a privacy enhancing proxy based on
6059 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/privoxy">privoxy</a>
6060 (freedombox-privoxy).  There is also a web/javascript based XMPP
6061 client (<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/jwchat">jwchat</a>)
6062 trying (unsuccessfully so far) to talk to the XMPP server
6063 (<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/ejabberd">ejabberd</a>).  The
6064 web interface is pluggable, and the goal is to use it to enable OpenID
6065 services, mesh network connectivity, use of TOR, etc, etc.  Not much of
6066 this is really working yet, see
6067 <a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/freedombox-todos/blob/master/TODO">the
6068 project TODO</a> for links to GIT repositories.  Most of the code is
6069 on github at the moment.  The HTTP proxy is operational out of the
6070 box, and the admin web interface can be used to add/remove plinth
6071 users.  I've not been able to do anything else with it so far, but
6072 know there are several branches spread around github and other places
6073 with lots of half baked features.</p>
6074
6075 <p>Anyway, if you want to have a look at the current state, the
6076 following recipes should work to give you a test machine to poke
6077 at.</p>
6078
6079 <p><strong>Debian Wheezy amd64</strong></p>
6080
6081 <ol>
6082
6083 <li>Fetch normal Debian Wheezy installation ISO.</li>
6084 <li>Boot from it, either as CD or USB stick.</li>
6085 <li><p>Press [tab] on the boot prompt and add this as a boot argument
6086 to the Debian installer:<p>
6087 <pre>url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-wheezy.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-wheezy.dat</a></pre></li>
6088
6089 <li>Answer the few language/region/password questions and pick disk to
6090 install on.</li>
6091
6092 <li>When the installation is finished and the machine have rebooted a
6093 few times, your Freedombox is ready for testing.</li>
6094
6095 </ol>
6096
6097 <p><strong>Raspberry Pi Raspbian</strong></p>
6098
6099 <ol>
6100
6101 <li>Fetch a Raspbian SD card image, create SD card.</li>
6102 <li>Boot from SD card, extend file system to fill the card completely.</li>
6103 <li><p>Log in and add this to /etc/sources.list:</p>
6104 <pre>
6105 deb <a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox</a> wheezy main
6106 </pre></li>
6107 <li><p>Run this as root:</p>
6108 <pre>
6109 wget -O - http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/BE1A583D.asc | \
6110    apt-key add -
6111 apt-get update
6112 apt-get install freedombox-setup
6113 /usr/lib/freedombox/setup
6114 </pre></li>
6115 <li>Reboot into your freshly created Freedombox.</li>
6116
6117 </ol>
6118
6119 <p>You can test it on other architectures too, but because the
6120 freedombox-privoxy package is binary, it will only work as intended on
6121 the architectures where I have had time to build the binary and put it
6122 in my APT repository.  But do not let this stop you.  It is only a
6123 short "<tt>apt-get source -b freedombox-privoxy</tt>" away. :)</p>
6124
6125 <p>Note that by default Freedombox is a DHCP server on the
6126 192.168.1.0/24 subnet, so if this is your subnet be careful and turn
6127 off the DHCP server by running "<tt>update-rc.d isc-dhcp-server
6128 disable</tt>" as root.</p>
6129
6130 <p>Please let me know if this works for you, or if you have any
6131 problems.  We gather on the IRC channel
6132 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">#freedombox</a> on
6133 irc.debian.org and the
6134 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">project
6135 mailing list</a>.</p>
6136
6137 <p>Once you get your freedombox operational, you can visit
6138 <tt>http://your-host-name:8001/</tt> to see the state of the plint
6139 welcome screen (dead end - do not be surprised if you are unable to
6140 get past it), and next visit <tt>http://your-host-name:8001/help/</tt>
6141 to look at the rest of plinth.  The default user is 'admin' and the
6142 default password is 'secret'.</p>
6143
6144       </div>
6145       <div class="tags">
6146
6147
6148         Tags: <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>.
6149
6150
6151       </div>
6152     </div>
6153     <div class="padding"></div>
6154
6155     <div class="entry">
6156       <div class="title">
6157         <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>
6158       </div>
6159       <div class="date">
6160         18th August 2013
6161       </div>
6162       <div class="body">
6163         <p>Earlier, I reported about
6164 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_fix_a_Thinkpad_X230_with_a_broken_180_GB_SSD_disk.html">my
6165 problems using an Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB disk</a>.  Friday I was
6166 told by IBM that the original disk should be thrown away.  And as
6167 there no longer was a problem if I bricked the firmware, I decided
6168 today to try to install Intel firmware to replace the Lenovo firmware
6169 currently on the disk.</p>
6170
6171 <p>I searched the Intel site for firmware, and found
6172 <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>
6173 (aka Intel SATA Solid-State Drive Firmware Update Tool) which
6174 according to the site should contain the latest firmware for SSD
6175 disks.  I inserted the broken disk in one of my spare laptops and
6176 booted the ISO from a USB stick.  The disk was recognized, but the
6177 program claimed the newest firmware already were installed and refused
6178 to insert any Intel firmware.  So no change, and the disk is still
6179 unable to handle write load. :( I guess the only way to get them
6180 working would be if Lenovo releases new firmware.  No idea how likely
6181 that is.  Anyway, just blogging about this test for completeness.  I
6182 got a working Samsung disk, and see no point in spending more time on
6183 the broken disks.</p>
6184
6185       </div>
6186       <div class="tags">
6187
6188
6189         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
6190
6191
6192       </div>
6193     </div>
6194     <div class="padding"></div>
6195
6196     <div class="entry">
6197       <div class="title">
6198         <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>
6199       </div>
6200       <div class="date">
6201         17th July 2013
6202       </div>
6203       <div class="body">
6204         <p>Today I switched to
6205 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">my
6206 new laptop</a>.  I've previously written about the problems I had with
6207 my new Thinkpad X230, which was delivered with an
6208 <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
6209 GB Intel SSD disk with Lenovo firmware</a> that did not handle
6210 sustained writes.  My hardware supplier have been very forthcoming in
6211 trying to find a solution, and after first trying with another
6212 identical 180 GB disks they decided to send me a 256 GB Samsung SSD
6213 disk instead to fix it once and for all.  The Samsung disk survived
6214 the installation of Debian with encrypted disks (filling the disk with
6215 random data during installation killed the first two), and I thus
6216 decided to trust it with my data.  I have installed it as a Debian Edu
6217 Wheezy roaming workstation hooked up with my Debian Edu Squeeze main
6218 server at home using Kerberos and LDAP, and will use it as my work
6219 station from now on.</p>
6220
6221 <p>As this is a solid state disk with no moving parts, I believe the
6222 Debian Wheezy default installation need to be tuned a bit to increase
6223 performance and increase life time of the disk.  The Linux kernel and
6224 user space applications do not yet adjust automatically to such
6225 environment.  To make it easier for my self, I created a draft Debian
6226 package <tt>ssd-setup</tt> to handle this tuning.  The
6227 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/ssd-setup.git">source
6228 for the ssd-setup package</a> is available from collab-maint, and it
6229 is set up to adjust the setup of the machine by just installing the
6230 package.  If there is any non-SSD disk in the machine, the package
6231 will refuse to install, as I did not try to write any logic to sort
6232 file systems in SSD and non-SSD file systems.</p>
6233
6234 <p>I consider the package a draft, as I am a bit unsure how to best
6235 set up Debian Wheezy with an SSD.  It is adjusted to my use case,
6236 where I set up the machine with one large encrypted partition (in
6237 addition to /boot), put LVM on top of this and set up partitions on
6238 top of this again.  See the README file in the package source for the
6239 references I used to pick the settings.  At the moment these
6240 parameters are tuned:</p>
6241
6242 <ul>
6243
6244 <li>Set up cryptsetup to pass TRIM commands to the physical disk
6245     (adding discard to /etc/crypttab)</li>
6246
6247 <li>Set up LVM to pass on TRIM commands to the underlying device (in
6248     this case a cryptsetup partition) by changing issue_discards from
6249     0 to 1 in /etc/lvm/lvm.conf.</li>
6250
6251 <li>Set relatime as a file system option for ext3 and ext4 file
6252     systems.</li>
6253
6254 <li>Tell swap to use TRIM commands by adding 'discard' to
6255     /etc/fstab.</li>
6256
6257 <li>Change I/O scheduler from cfq to deadline using a udev rule.</li>
6258
6259 <li>Run fstrim on every ext3 and ext4 file system every night (from
6260     cron.daily).</li>
6261
6262 <li>Adjust sysctl values vm.swappiness to 1 and vm.vfs_cache_pressure
6263     to 50 to reduce the kernel eagerness to swap out processes.</li>
6264
6265 </ul>
6266
6267 <p>During installation, I cancelled the part where the installer fill
6268 the disk with random data, as this would kill the SSD performance for
6269 little gain.  My goal with the encrypted file system is to ensure
6270 those stealing my laptop end up with a brick and not a working
6271 computer.  I have no hope in keeping the really resourceful people
6272 from getting the data on the disk (see
6273 <a href="http://xkcd.com/538/">XKCD #538</a> for an explanation why).
6274 Thus I concluded that adding the discard option to crypttab is the
6275 right thing to do.</p>
6276
6277 <p>I considered using the noop I/O scheduler, as several recommended
6278 it for SSD, but others recommended deadline and a benchmark I found
6279 indicated that deadline might be better for interactive use.</p>
6280
6281 <p>I also considered using the 'discard' file system option for ext3
6282 and ext4, but read that it would give a performance hit ever time a
6283 file is removed, and thought it best to that that slowdown once a day
6284 instead of during my work.</p>
6285
6286 <p>My package do not set up tmpfs on /var/run, /var/lock and /tmp, as
6287 this is already done by Debian Edu.</p>
6288
6289 <p>I have not yet started on the user space tuning.  I expect
6290 iceweasel need some tuning, and perhaps other applications too, but
6291 have not yet had time to investigate those parts.</p>
6292
6293 <p>The package should work on Ubuntu too, but I have not yet tested it
6294 there.</p>
6295
6296 <p>As for the answer to the question in the title of this blog post,
6297 as far as I know, the only solution I know about is to replace the
6298 disk.  It might be possible to flash it with Intel firmware instead of
6299 the Lenovo firmware.  But I have not tried and did not want to do so
6300 without approval from Lenovo as I wanted to keep the warranty on the
6301 disk until a solution was found and they wanted the broken disks
6302 back.</p>
6303
6304       </div>
6305       <div class="tags">
6306
6307
6308         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
6309
6310
6311       </div>
6312     </div>
6313     <div class="padding"></div>
6314
6315     <div class="entry">
6316       <div class="title">
6317         <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>
6318       </div>
6319       <div class="date">
6320         10th July 2013
6321       </div>
6322       <div class="body">
6323         <p>A few days ago, I wrote about
6324 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">the
6325 problems I experienced with my new X230 and its SSD disk</a>, which
6326 was dying during installation because it is unable to cope with
6327 sustained write.  My supplier is in contact with
6328 <a href="http://www.lenovo.com/">Lenovo</a>, and they wanted to send a
6329 replacement disk to try to fix the problem.  They decided to send an
6330 identical model, so my hopes for a permanent fix was slim.</p>
6331
6332 <p>Anyway, today I got the replacement disk and tried to install
6333 Debian Edu Wheezy with encrypted disk on it.  The new disk have the
6334 same firmware version as the original.  This time my hope raised
6335 slightly as the installation progressed, as the original disk used to
6336 die after 4-7% of the disk was written to, while this time it kept
6337 going past 10%, 20%, 40% and even past 50%.  But around 60%, the disk
6338 died again and I was back on square one.  I still do not have a new
6339 laptop with a disk I can trust.  I can not live with a disk that might
6340 lock up when I download a new
6341 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> ISO or
6342 other large files.  I look forward to hearing from my supplier with
6343 the next proposal from Lenovo.</p>
6344
6345 <p>The original disk is marked Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB,
6346 11S0C38722Z1ZNME35X1TR, ISN: CVCV321407HB180EGN, SA: G57560302, FW:
6347 LF1i, 29MAY2013, PBA: G39779-300, LBA 351,651,888, LI P/N: 0C38722,
6348 Pb-free 2LI, LC P/N: 16-200366, WWN: 55CD2E40002756C4, Model:
6349 SSDSC2BW180A3L 2.5" 6Gb/s SATA SSD 180G 5V 1A, ASM P/N 0C38732, FRU
6350 P/N 45N8295, P0C38732.</p>
6351
6352 <p>The replacement disk is marked Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB,
6353 11S0C38722Z1ZNDE34N0L0, ISN: CVCV315306RK180EGN, SA: G57560-302, FW:
6354 LF1i, 22APR2013, PBA: G39779-300, LBA 351,651,888, LI P/N: 0C38722,
6355 Pb-free 2LI, LC P/N: 16-200366, WWN: 55CD2E40000AB69E, Model:
6356 SSDSC2BW180A3L 2.5" 6Gb/s SATA SSD 180G 5V 1A, ASM P/N 0C38732, FRU
6357 P/N 45N8295, P0C38732.</p>
6358
6359 <p>The only difference is in the first number (serial number?), ISN,
6360 SA, date and WNPP values.  Mentioning all the details here in case
6361 someone is able to use the information to find a way to identify the
6362 failing disk among working ones (if any such working disk actually
6363 exist).</p>
6364
6365       </div>
6366       <div class="tags">
6367
6368
6369         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
6370
6371
6372       </div>
6373     </div>
6374     <div class="padding"></div>
6375
6376     <div class="entry">
6377       <div class="title">
6378         <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>
6379       </div>
6380       <div class="date">
6381          9th July 2013
6382       </div>
6383       <div class="body">
6384         <p>The upcoming Saturday, 2013-07-13, we are organising a combined
6385 Debian Edu developer gathering and Debian and Ubuntu bug squashing
6386 party in Oslo.  It is organised by <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">the
6387 member assosiation NUUG</a> and
6388 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">the Debian Edu / Skolelinux
6389 project</a> together with <a href="http://bitraf.no/">the hack space
6390 Bitraf</a>.</p>
6391
6392 <p>It starts 10:00 and continue until late evening.  Everyone is
6393 welcome, and there is no fee to participate.  There is on the other
6394 hand limited space, and only room for 30 people.  Please put your name
6395 on <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/BSP/2013/07/13/no/Oslo">the event
6396 wiki page</a> if you plan to join us.</p>
6397
6398       </div>
6399       <div class="tags">
6400
6401
6402         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>.
6403
6404
6405       </div>
6406     </div>
6407     <div class="padding"></div>
6408
6409     <div class="entry">
6410       <div class="title">
6411         <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>
6412       </div>
6413       <div class="date">
6414          5th July 2013
6415       </div>
6416       <div class="body">
6417         <p>Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a
6418 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thank_you_Thinkpad_X41__for_your_long_and_trustworthy_service.html">replacement
6419 for my trusty old Thinkpad X41</a>.  Unfortunately I did not have much
6420 time to spend on it, and it took a while to find a model I believe
6421 will do the job, but two days ago the replacement finally arrived.  I
6422 ended up picking a
6423 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_x230">Thinkpad X230</a>
6424 with SSD disk (NZDAJMN).  I first test installed Debian Edu Wheezy as
6425 a roaming workstation, and it seemed to work flawlessly.  But my
6426 second installation with encrypted disk was not as successful.  More
6427 on that below.</p>
6428
6429 <p>I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most
6430 important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never
6431 listed in the feature list.  But I did get good help from the search
6432 feature at <a href="http://www.prisjakt.no/">Prisjakt</a>, which
6433 allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other
6434 requirements.  A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks according
6435 to that search interface, so I had to drop specifying the number of
6436 disks from my search parameters.  I also asked around among friends to
6437 get their impression on keyboards and robustness.</p>
6438
6439 <p>So the new laptop arrived, and it is quite a lot wider than the
6440 X41.  I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is
6441 significantly wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my
6442 hand a lot more to reach the edges.  But the key response is fairly
6443 good and the individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope
6444 I will get used to it.  My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really
6445 needed a new laptop now. :)</p>
6446
6447 <p>Turning off the touch pad was simple.  All it took was a quick
6448 visit to the BIOS during boot it disable it.</p>
6449
6450 <p>But there is a fatal problem with the laptop.  The 180 GB SSD disk
6451 lock up during load.  And this happen when installing Debian Wheezy
6452 with encrypted disk, while the disk is being filled with random data.
6453 I also tested to install Ubuntu Raring, and it happen there too if I
6454 reenable the code to fill the disk with random data (it is disabled by
6455 default in Ubuntu).  And the bug with is already known.  It was
6456 reported to Debian as <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/691427">BTS
6457 report #691427 2012-10-25</a> (journal commit I/O error on brand-new
6458 Thinkpad T430s ext4 on lvm on SSD).  It is also reported to the Linux
6459 kernel developers as
6460 <a href="https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=51861">Kernel bugzilla
6461 report #51861 2012-12-20</a> (Intel SSD 520 stops working under load
6462 (SSDSC2BW180A3L in Lenovo ThinkPad T430s)). It is also reported on the
6463 Lenovo forums, both for
6464 <a href="http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/T400-T500-and-newer-T-series/T430s-Intel-SSD-520-180GB-issue/m-p/1070549">T430
6465 2012-11-10</a> and for
6466 <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
6467 03-20-2013</a>.  The problem do not only affect installation.  The
6468 reports state that the disk lock up during use if many writes are done
6469 on the disk, so it is much no use to work around the installation
6470 problem and end up with a computer that can lock up at any moment.
6471 There is even a
6472 <a href="https://git.efficios.com/?p=test-ssd.git">small C program
6473 available</a> that will lock up the hard drive after running a few
6474 minutes by writing to a file.</p>
6475
6476 <p>I've contacted my supplier and asked how to handle this, and after
6477 contacting PCHELP Norway (request 01D1FDP) which handle support
6478 requests for Lenovo, his first suggestion was to upgrade the disk
6479 firmware.  Unfortunately there is no newer firmware available from
6480 Lenovo, as my disk already have the most recent one (version LF1i).  I
6481 hope to hear more from him today and hope the problem can be
6482 fixed. :)</p>
6483
6484       </div>
6485       <div class="tags">
6486
6487
6488         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
6489
6490
6491       </div>
6492     </div>
6493     <div class="padding"></div>
6494
6495     <div class="entry">
6496       <div class="title">
6497         <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>
6498       </div>
6499       <div class="date">
6500          4th July 2013
6501       </div>
6502       <div class="body">
6503         <p>Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a replacement for my
6504 trusty old Thinkpad X41.  Unfortunately I did not have much time to
6505 spend on it, but today the replacement finally arrived.  I ended up
6506 picking a <a href="http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_x230">Thinkpad
6507 X230</a> with SSD disk (NZDAJMN).  I first test installed Debian Edu
6508 Wheezy as a roaming workstation, and it worked flawlessly.  As I write
6509 this, it is installing what I hope will be a more final installation,
6510 with a encrypted hard drive to ensure any dope head stealing it end up
6511 with an expencive door stop.</p>
6512
6513 <p>I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most
6514 important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never
6515 listed in the feature list.  But I did get good help from the search
6516 feature at <ahref="http://www.prisjakt.no/">Prisjakt</a>, which
6517 allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other
6518 requirements.  A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks, so I had
6519 to drop number of disks from my search parameters.</p>
6520
6521 <p>I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is significantly
6522 wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my hand a lot more
6523 to reach the edges.  But the key response is fairly good and the
6524 individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope I will get
6525 used to it.  My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really needed a
6526 new laptop now. :)</p>
6527
6528 <p>I look forward to figuring out how to turn off the touch pad.</p>
6529
6530       </div>
6531       <div class="tags">
6532
6533
6534         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
6535
6536
6537       </div>
6538     </div>
6539     <div class="padding"></div>
6540
6541     <div class="entry">
6542       <div class="title">
6543         <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>
6544       </div>
6545       <div class="date">
6546         25th June 2013
6547       </div>
6548       <div class="body">
6549         <p>It annoys me when the computer fail to do automatically what it is
6550 perfectly capable of, and I have to do it manually to get things
6551 working.  One such task is to find out what firmware packages are
6552 needed to get the hardware on my computer working.  Most often this
6553 affect the wifi card, but some times it even affect the RAID
6554 controller or the ethernet card.  Today I pushed version 0.4 of the
6555 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">Isenkram package</a>
6556 including a new script isenkram-autoinstall-firmware handling the
6557 process of asking all the loaded kernel modules what firmware files
6558 they want, find debian packages providing these files and install the
6559 debian packages.  Here is a test run on my laptop:</p>
6560
6561 <p><pre>
6562 # isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
6563 info: kernel drivers requested extra firmware: ipw2200-bss.fw ipw2200-ibss.fw ipw2200-sniffer.fw
6564 info: fetching http://http.debian.net/debian/dists/squeeze/Contents-i386.gz
6565 info: locating packages with the requested firmware files
6566 info: Updating APT sources after adding non-free APT source
6567 info: trying to install firmware-ipw2x00
6568 firmware-ipw2x00
6569 firmware-ipw2x00
6570 Preconfiguring packages ...
6571 Selecting previously deselected package firmware-ipw2x00.
6572 (Reading database ... 259727 files and directories currently installed.)
6573 Unpacking firmware-ipw2x00 (from .../firmware-ipw2x00_0.28+squeeze1_all.deb) ...
6574 Setting up firmware-ipw2x00 (0.28+squeeze1) ...
6575 #
6576 </pre></p>
6577
6578 <p>When all the requested firmware is present, a simple message is
6579 printed instead:</p>
6580
6581 <p><pre>
6582 # isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
6583 info: did not find any firmware files requested by loaded kernel modules.  exiting
6584 #
6585 </pre></p>
6586
6587 <p>It could use some polish, but it is already working well and saving
6588 me some time when setting up new machines. :)</p>
6589
6590 <p>So, how does it work?  It look at the set of currently loaded
6591 kernel modules, and look up each one of them using modinfo, to find
6592 the firmware files listed in the module meta-information.  Next, it
6593 download the Contents file from a nearby APT mirror, and search for
6594 the firmware files in this file to locate the package with the
6595 requested firmware file.  If the package is in the non-free section, a
6596 non-free APT source is added and the package is installed using
6597 <tt>apt-get install</tt>.  The end result is a slightly better working
6598 machine.</p>
6599
6600 <p>I hope someone find time to implement a more polished version of
6601 this script as part of the hw-detect debian-installer module, to
6602 finally fix <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/655507">BTS report
6603 #655507</a>.  There really is no need to insert USB sticks with
6604 firmware during a PXE install when the packages already are available
6605 from the nearby Debian mirror.</p>
6606
6607       </div>
6608       <div class="tags">
6609
6610
6611         Tags: <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>.
6612
6613
6614       </div>
6615     </div>
6616     <div class="padding"></div>
6617
6618     <div class="entry">
6619       <div class="title">
6620         <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>
6621       </div>
6622       <div class="date">
6623         11th June 2013
6624       </div>
6625       <div class="body">
6626         <p>When installing RedHat, Fedora, Debian and Ubuntu on some machines,
6627 the screen just turn black when Linux boot, either during installation
6628 or on first boot from the hard disk.  I've seen it once in a while the
6629 last few years, but only recently understood the cause.  I've seen it
6630 on HP laptops, and on my latest acquaintance the Packard Bell laptop.
6631 The reason seem to be in the wiring of some laptops.  The system to
6632 control the screen background light is inverted, so when Linux try to
6633 turn the brightness fully on, it end up turning it off instead.  I do
6634 not know which Linux drivers are affected, but this post is about the
6635 i915 driver used by the
6636 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Packard Bell
6637 EasyNote LV</a>, Thinkpad X40 and many other laptops.</p>
6638
6639 <p>The problem can be worked around two ways.  Either by adding
6640 i915.invert_brightness=1 as a kernel option, or by adding a file in
6641 /etc/modprobe.d/ to tell modprobe to add the invert_brightness=1
6642 option when it load the i915 kernel module.  On Debian and Ubuntu, it
6643 can be done by running these commands as root:</p>
6644
6645 <pre>
6646 echo options i915 invert_brightness=1 | tee /etc/modprobe.d/i915.conf
6647 update-initramfs -u -k all
6648 </pre>
6649
6650 <p>Since March 2012 there is
6651 <a href="http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=4dca20efb1a9c2efefc28ad2867e5d6c3f5e1955">a
6652 mechanism in the Linux kernel</a> to tell the i915 driver which
6653 hardware have this problem, and get the driver to invert the
6654 brightness setting automatically.  To use it, one need to add a row in
6655 <a href="http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c">the
6656 intel_quirks array</a> in the driver source
6657 <tt>drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c</tt> (look for "<tt>static
6658 struct intel_quirk intel_quirks</tt>"), specifying the PCI device
6659 number (vendor number 8086 is assumed) and subdevice vendor and device
6660 number.</p>
6661
6662 <p>My Packard Bell EasyNote LV got this output from <tt>lspci
6663 -vvnn</tt> for the video card in question:</p>
6664
6665 <p><pre>
6666 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation \
6667     3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller [8086:0156] \
6668     (rev 09) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
6669  Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device [1025:0688]
6670  Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- \
6671     ParErr- Stepping- SE RR- FastB2B- DisINTx+
6672  Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- \
6673     <TAbort- <MAbort->SERR- <PERR- INTx-
6674  Latency: 0
6675  Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 42
6676  Region 0: Memory at c2000000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4M]
6677  Region 2: Memory at b0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
6678  Region 4: I/O ports at 4000 [size=64]
6679  Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled]
6680  Capabilities: <access denied>
6681  Kernel driver in use: i915
6682 </pre></p>
6683
6684 <p>The resulting intel_quirks entry would then look like this:</p>
6685
6686 <p><pre>
6687 struct intel_quirk intel_quirks[] = {
6688        ...
6689         /* Packard Bell EasyNote LV11HC needs invert brightness quirk */
6690         { 0x0156, 0x1025, 0x0688, quirk_invert_brightness },
6691        ...
6692 }
6693 </pre></p>
6694
6695 <p>According to the kernel module instructions (as seen using
6696 <tt>modinfo i915</tt>), information about hardware needing the
6697 invert_brightness flag should be sent to the
6698 <a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/dri-devel">dri-devel
6699 (at) lists.freedesktop.org</a> mailing list to reach the kernel
6700 developers.  But my email about the laptop sent 2013-06-03 have not
6701 yet shown up in
6702 <a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/dri-devel/2013-June/thread.html">the
6703 web archive for the mailing list</a>, so I suspect they do not accept
6704 emails from non-subscribers.  Because of this, I sent my patch also to
6705 the Debian bug tracking system instead as
6706 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/710938">BTS report #710938</a>, to make
6707 sure the patch is not lost.</p>
6708
6709 <p>Unfortunately, it is not enough to fix the kernel to get Laptops
6710 with this problem working properly with Linux.  If you use Gnome, your
6711 worries should be over at this point.  But if you use KDE, there is
6712 something in KDE ignoring the invert_brightness setting and turning on
6713 the screen during login.  I've reported it to Debian as
6714 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/711237">BTS report #711237</a>, and
6715 have no idea yet how to figure out exactly what subsystem is doing
6716 this.  Perhaps you can help?  Perhaps you know what the Gnome
6717 developers did to handle this, and this can give a clue to the KDE
6718 developers?  Or you know where in KDE the screen brightness is changed
6719 during login?  If so, please update the BTS report (or get in touch if
6720 you do not know how to update BTS).</p>
6721
6722 <p>Update 2013-07-19: The correct fix for this machine seem to be
6723 acpi_backlight=vendor, to disable ACPI backlight support completely,
6724 as the ACPI information on the machine is trash and it is better to
6725 leave it to the intel video driver to control the screen
6726 backlight.</p>
6727
6728       </div>
6729       <div class="tags">
6730
6731
6732         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
6733
6734
6735       </div>
6736     </div>
6737     <div class="padding"></div>
6738
6739     <div class="entry">
6740       <div class="title">
6741         <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>
6742       </div>
6743       <div class="date">
6744         27th May 2013
6745       </div>
6746       <div class="body">
6747         <p>Two days ago, I asked
6748 <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
6749 I could install Linux on a Packard Bell EasyNote LV computer
6750 preinstalled with Windows 8</a>.  I found a solution, but am horrified
6751 with the obstacles put in the way of Linux users on a laptop with UEFI
6752 and Windows 8.</p>
6753
6754 <p>I never found out if the cause of my problems were the use of UEFI
6755 secure booting or fast boot.  I suspect fast boot was the problem,
6756 causing the firmware to boot directly from HD without considering any
6757 key presses and alternative devices, but do not know UEFI settings
6758 enough to tell.</p>
6759
6760 <p>There is no way to install Linux on the machine in question without
6761 opening the box and disconnecting the hard drive!  This is as far as I
6762 can tell, the only way to get access to the firmware setup menu
6763 without accepting the Windows 8 license agreement.  I am told (and
6764 found description on how to) that it is possible to configure the
6765 firmware setup once booted into Windows 8.  But as I believe the terms
6766 of that agreement are completely unacceptable, accepting the license
6767 was never an alternative.  I do not enter agreements I do not intend
6768 to follow.</p>
6769
6770 <p>I feared I had to return the laptops and ask for a refund, and
6771 waste many hours on this, but luckily there was a way to get it to
6772 work.  But I would not recommend it to anyone planning to run Linux on
6773 it, and I have become sceptical to Windows 8 certified laptops.  Is
6774 this the way Linux will be forced out of the market place, by making
6775 it close to impossible for "normal" users to install Linux without
6776 accepting the Microsoft Windows license terms?  Or at least not
6777 without risking to loose the warranty?</p>
6778
6779 <p>I've updated the
6780 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Linux Laptop
6781 wiki page for Packard Bell EasyNote LV</a>, to ensure the next person
6782 do not have to struggle as much as I did to get Linux into the
6783 machine.</p>
6784
6785 <p>Thanks to Bob Rosbag, Florian Weimer, Philipp Kern, Ben Hutching,
6786 Michael Tokarev and others for feedback and ideas.</p>
6787
6788       </div>
6789       <div class="tags">
6790
6791
6792         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
6793
6794
6795       </div>
6796     </div>
6797     <div class="padding"></div>
6798
6799     <div class="entry">
6800       <div class="title">
6801         <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>
6802       </div>
6803       <div class="date">
6804         25th May 2013
6805       </div>
6806       <div class="body">
6807         <p>I've run into quite a problem the last few days.  I bought three
6808 new laptops for my parents and a few others.  I bought Packard Bell
6809 Easynote LV to run Kubuntu on and use as their home computer.  But I
6810 am completely unable to figure out how to install Linux on it.  The
6811 computer is preinstalled with Windows 8, and I suspect it uses UEFI
6812 instead of a BIOS to boot.</p>
6813
6814 <p>The problem is that I am unable to get it to PXE boot, and unable
6815 to get it to boot the Linux installer from my USB stick.  I have yet
6816 to try the DVD install, and still hope it will work.  when I turn on
6817 the computer, there is no information on what buttons to press to get
6818 the normal boot menu.  I expect to get some boot menu to select PXE or
6819 USB stick booting.  When booting, it first ask for the language to
6820 use, then for some regional settings, and finally if I will accept the
6821 Windows 8 terms of use.  As these terms are completely unacceptable to
6822 me, I have no other choice but to turn off the computer and try again
6823 to get it to boot the Linux installer.</p>
6824
6825 <p>I have gathered my findings so far on a Linlap page about the
6826 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Packard Bell
6827 EasyNote LV</a> model.  If you have any idea how to get Linux
6828 installed on this machine, please get in touch or update that wiki
6829 page.  If I can't find a way to install Linux, I will have to return
6830 the laptop to the seller and find another machine for my parents.</p>
6831
6832 <p>I wonder, is this the way Linux will be forced out of the market
6833 using UEFI and "secure boot" by making it impossible to install Linux
6834 on new Laptops?</p>
6835
6836       </div>
6837       <div class="tags">
6838
6839
6840         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
6841
6842
6843       </div>
6844     </div>
6845     <div class="padding"></div>
6846
6847     <div class="entry">
6848       <div class="title">
6849         <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>
6850       </div>
6851       <div class="date">
6852         17th May 2013
6853       </div>
6854       <div class="body">
6855         <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> is
6856 an operating system based on Debian intended for use in schools.  It
6857 contain a turn-key solution for the computer network provided to
6858 pupils in the primary schools.  It provide both the central server,
6859 network boot servers and desktop environments with heaps of
6860 educational software.  The project was founded almost 12 years ago,
6861 2001-07-02.  If you want to support the project, which is in need for
6862 cash to fund developer gatherings and other project related activity,
6863 <a href="http://www.linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">please
6864 donate some money</a>.
6865
6866 <p>A topic that come up again and again on the Debian Edu mailing
6867 lists and elsewhere, is the question on how to transform a Debian or
6868 Ubuntu installation into a Debian Edu installation.  It isn't very
6869 hard, and last week I wrote a script to replicate the steps done by
6870 the Debian Edu installer.</p>
6871
6872 <p>The script,
6873 <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/>
6874 in the debian-edu-config package, will go through these six steps and
6875 transform an existing Debian Wheezy or Ubuntu (untested) installation
6876 into a Debian Edu Workstation:</p>
6877
6878 <ol>
6879
6880 <li>Add skolelinux related APT sources.</li>
6881 <li>Create /etc/debian-edu/config with the wanted configuration.</li>
6882 <li>Install debian-edu-install to load preseeding values and pull in
6883     our configuration.</li>
6884 <li>Preseed debconf database with profile setup in
6885     /etc/debian-edu/config, and run tasksel to install packages
6886     according to the profile specified in the config above,
6887     overriding some of the Debian automation machinery.</li>
6888 <li>Run debian-edu-cfengine-D installation to configure everything
6889     that could not be done using preseeding.</li>
6890 <li>Ask for a reboot to enable all the configuration changes.</li>
6891
6892 </ol>
6893
6894 <p>There are some steps in the Debian Edu installation that can not be
6895 replicated like this.  Disk partitioning and LVM setup, for example.
6896 So this script just assume there is enough disk space to install all
6897 the needed packages.</p>
6898
6899 <p>The script was created to help a Debian Edu student working on
6900 setting up <a href="http://www.raspberrypi.org">Raspberry Pi</a> as a
6901 Debian Edu client, and using it he can take the existing
6902 <a href="http://www.raspbian.org/FrontPage‎">Raspbian</a> installation and
6903 transform it into a fully functioning Debian Edu Workstation (or
6904 Roaming Workstation, or whatever :).</p>
6905
6906 <p>The default setting in the script is to create a KDE Workstation.
6907 If a LXDE based Roaming workstation is wanted instead, modify the
6908 PROFILE and DESKTOP values at the top to look like this instead:</p>
6909
6910 <p><pre>
6911 PROFILE="Roaming-Workstation"
6912 DESKTOP="lxde"
6913 </pre></p>
6914
6915 <p>The script could even become useful to set up Debian Edu servers in
6916 the cloud, by starting with a virtual Debian installation at some
6917 virtual hosting service and setting up all the services on first
6918 boot.</p>
6919
6920       </div>
6921       <div class="tags">
6922
6923
6924         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>.
6925
6926
6927       </div>
6928     </div>
6929     <div class="padding"></div>
6930
6931     <div class="entry">
6932       <div class="title">
6933         <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>
6934       </div>
6935       <div class="date">
6936         11th May 2013
6937       </div>
6938       <div class="body">
6939         <P>In January,
6940 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_IRC_channel_for_LEGO_designers_using_Debian.html">I
6941 announced a</a> new <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">IRC
6942 channel #debian-lego</a>, for those of us in the Debian and Linux
6943 community interested in <a href="http://www.lego.com/">LEGO</a>, the
6944 marvellous construction system from Denmark.  We also created
6945 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">a wiki page</a> to have
6946 a place to take notes and write down our plans and hopes.  And several
6947 people showed up to help.  I was very happy to see the effect of my
6948 call.  Since the small start, we have a debtags tag
6949 <a href="http://debtags.debian.net/search/bytag?wl=hardware::hobby:lego">hardware::hobby:lego</a>
6950 tag for LEGO related packages, and now count 10 packages related to
6951 LEGO and <a href="http://mindstorms.lego.com/">Mindstorms</a>:</p>
6952
6953 <p><table>
6954 <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>
6955 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/leocad">leocad</a></td><td>virtual brick CAD software</td></tr>
6956 <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>
6957 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/lnpd">lnpd</a></td><td>daemon for LNP communication with BrickOS</td></tr>
6958 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/nbc">nbc</a></td><td>compiler for LEGO Mindstorms NXT bricks</td></tr>
6959 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/nqc">nqc</a></td><td>Not Quite C compiler for LEGO Mindstorms RCX</td></tr>
6960 <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>
6961 <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>
6962 <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>
6963 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/t2n">t2n</a></td><td>simple command-line tool for Lego NXT</td></tr>
6964 </table></p>
6965
6966 <p>Some of these are available in Wheezy, and all but one are
6967 currently available in Jessie/testing.  leocad is so far only
6968 available in experimental.</p>
6969
6970 <p>If you care about LEGO in Debian, please join us on IRC and help
6971 adding the rest of the great free software tools available on Linux
6972 for LEGO designers.</p>
6973
6974       </div>
6975       <div class="tags">
6976
6977
6978         Tags: <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>.
6979
6980
6981       </div>
6982     </div>
6983     <div class="padding"></div>
6984
6985     <div class="entry">
6986       <div class="title">
6987         <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>
6988       </div>
6989       <div class="date">
6990          5th May 2013
6991       </div>
6992       <div class="body">
6993         <p>When I woke up this morning, I was very happy to see that the
6994 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2013/20130504">release announcement
6995 for Debian Wheezy</a> was waiting in my mail box.  This is a great
6996 Debian release, and I expect to move my machines at home over to it fairly
6997 soon.</p>
6998
6999 <p>The new debian release contain heaps of new stuff, and one program
7000 in particular make me very happy to see included.  The
7001 <a href="http://scratch.mit.edu/">Scratch</a> program, made famous by
7002 the <a href="http://www.code.org/">Teach kids code</a> movement, is
7003 included for the first time.  Alongside similar programs like
7004 <a href="http://edu.kde.org/kturtle/">kturtle</a> and
7005 <a href="http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/Turtle_Art">turtleart</a>,
7006 it allow for visual programming where syntax errors can not happen,
7007 and a friendly programming environment for learning to control the
7008 computer.  Scratch will also be included in the next release of Debian
7009 Edu.</a>
7010
7011 <p>And now that Wheezy is wrapped up, we can wrap up the next Debian
7012 Edu/Skolelinux release too.  The
7013 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/2013/04/msg00132.html">first
7014 alpha release</a> went out last week, and the next should soon
7015 follow.<p>
7016
7017       </div>
7018       <div class="tags">
7019
7020
7021         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>.
7022
7023
7024       </div>
7025     </div>
7026     <div class="padding"></div>
7027
7028     <div class="entry">
7029       <div class="title">
7030         <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>
7031       </div>
7032       <div class="date">
7033          3rd April 2013
7034       </div>
7035       <div class="body">
7036         <p>Today the <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">Isenkram
7037 package</a> finally made it into the archive, after lingering in NEW
7038 for many months.  I uploaded it to the Debian experimental suite
7039 2013-01-27, and today it was accepted into the archive.</p>
7040
7041 <p>Isenkram is a system for suggesting to users what packages to
7042 install to work with a pluggable hardware device.  The suggestion pop
7043 up when the device is plugged in.  For example if a Lego Mindstorm NXT
7044 is inserted, it will suggest to install the program needed to program
7045 the NXT controller.  Give it a go, and report bugs and suggestions to
7046 BTS. :)</p>
7047
7048       </div>
7049       <div class="tags">
7050
7051
7052         Tags: <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>.
7053
7054
7055       </div>
7056     </div>
7057     <div class="padding"></div>
7058
7059     <div class="entry">
7060       <div class="title">
7061         <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>
7062       </div>
7063       <div class="date">
7064          2nd February 2013
7065       </div>
7066       <div class="body">
7067         <p>My
7068 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_backport_bitcoin_qt_version_0_7_2_2_to_Debian_Squeeze.html">last
7069 bitcoin related blog post</a> mentioned that the new
7070 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin package</a> for
7071 Debian was waiting in NEW.  It was accepted by the Debian ftp-masters
7072 2013-01-19, and have been available in unstable since then.  It was
7073 automatically copied to Ubuntu, and is available in their Raring
7074 version too.</p>
7075
7076 <p>But there is a strange problem with the build that block this new
7077 version from being available on the i386 and kfreebsd-i386
7078 architectures.  For some strange reason, the autobuilders in Debian
7079 for these architectures fail to run the test suite on these
7080 architectures (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/672524">BTS #672524</a>).
7081 We are so far unable to reproduce it when building it manually, and
7082 no-one have been able to propose a fix.  If you got an idea what is
7083 failing, please let us know via the BTS.</p>
7084
7085 <p>One feature that is annoying me with of the bitcoin client, because
7086 I often run low on disk space, is the fact that the client will exit
7087 if it run short on space (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/696715">BTS
7088 #696715</a>).  So make sure you have enough disk space when you run
7089 it. :)</p>
7090
7091 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
7092 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
7093 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
7094
7095       </div>
7096       <div class="tags">
7097
7098
7099         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>.
7100
7101
7102       </div>
7103     </div>
7104     <div class="padding"></div>
7105
7106     <div class="entry">
7107       <div class="title">
7108         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">Welcome to the world, Isenkram!</a>
7109       </div>
7110       <div class="date">
7111         22nd January 2013
7112       </div>
7113       <div class="body">
7114         <p>Yesterday, I
7115 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_prototype_ready_making_hardware_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">asked
7116 for testers</a> for my prototype for making Debian better at handling
7117 pluggable hardware devices, which I
7118 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">set
7119 out to create</a> earlier this month.  Several valuable testers showed
7120 up, and caused me to really want to to open up the development to more
7121 people.  But before I did this, I want to come up with a sensible name
7122 for this project.  Today I finally decided on a new name, and I have
7123 renamed the project from hw-support-handler to this new name.  In the
7124 process, I moved the source to git and made it available as a
7125 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/isenkram.git">collab-maint</a>
7126 repository in Debian.  The new name?  It is <strong>Isenkram</strong>.
7127 To fetch and build the latest version of the source, use</p>
7128
7129 <pre>
7130 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/collab-maint/isenkram.git
7131 cd isenkram && git-buildpackage -us -uc
7132 </pre>
7133
7134 <p>I have not yet adjusted all files to use the new name yet.  If you
7135 want to hack on the source or improve the package, please go ahead.
7136 But please talk to me first on IRC or via email before you do major
7137 changes, to make sure we do not step on each others toes. :)</p>
7138
7139 <p>If you wonder what 'isenkram' is, it is a Norwegian word for iron
7140 stuff, typically meaning tools, nails, screws, etc.  Typical hardware
7141 stuff, in other words.  I've been told it is the Norwegian variant of
7142 the German word eisenkram, for those that are familiar with that
7143 word.</p>
7144
7145 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-26</strong>: Added -us -us to build
7146 instructions, to avoid confusing people with an error from the signing
7147 process.</p>
7148
7149 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-27</strong>: Switch to HTTP URL for the git
7150 clone argument to avoid the need for authentication.</p>
7151
7152       </div>
7153       <div class="tags">
7154
7155
7156         Tags: <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>.
7157
7158
7159       </div>
7160     </div>
7161     <div class="padding"></div>
7162
7163     <div class="entry">
7164       <div class="title">
7165         <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>
7166       </div>
7167       <div class="date">
7168         21st January 2013
7169       </div>
7170       <div class="body">
7171         <p>Early this month I set out to try to
7172 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">improve
7173 the Debian support for pluggable hardware devices</a>.  Now my
7174 prototype is working, and it is ready for a larger audience.  To test
7175 it, fetch the
7176 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">source
7177 from the Debian Edu subversion repository</a>, build and install the
7178 package.  You might have to log out and in again activate the
7179 autostart script.</p>
7180
7181 <p>The design is simple:</p>
7182
7183 <ul>
7184
7185 <li>Add desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ causing a program
7186 hw-support-handlerd to start when the user log in.</li>
7187
7188 <li>This program listen for kernel events about new hardware (directly
7189 from the kernel like udev does), not using HAL dbus events as I
7190 initially did.</li>
7191
7192 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware modalias in
7193 the APT database, a database
7194 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=markup">available
7195 via HTTP</a> and a database available as part of the package.</li>
7196
7197 <li>If a package is mapped to the hardware in question, the package
7198 isn't installed yet and this is the first time the hardware was
7199 plugged in, show a desktop notification suggesting to install the
7200 package or packages.</li>
7201
7202 <li>If the user click on the 'install package now' button, ask
7203 aptdaemon via the PackageKit API to install the requrired package.</li>
7204
7205 <li>aptdaemon ask for root password or sudo password, and install the
7206 package while showing progress information in a window.</li>
7207
7208 </ul>
7209
7210 <p>I still need to come up with a better name for the system.  Here
7211 are some screen shots showing the prototype in action.  First the
7212 notification, then the password request, and finally the request to
7213 approve all the dependencies.  Sorry for the Norwegian Bokmål GUI.</p>
7214
7215 <p><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-1-notification.png">
7216 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-2-password.png">
7217 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-3-dependencies.png">
7218 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-4-installing.png">
7219 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-5-installing-details.png" width="70%"></p>
7220
7221 <p>The prototype still need to be improved with longer timeouts, but
7222 is already useful.  The database of hardware to package mappings also
7223 need more work.  It is currently compatible with the Ubuntu way of
7224 storing such information in the package control file, but could be
7225 changed to use other formats instead or in addition to the current
7226 method.  I've dropped the use of discover for this mapping, as the
7227 modalias approach is more flexible and easier to use on Linux as long
7228 as the Linux kernel expose its modalias strings directly.</p>
7229
7230 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-21 16:50</strong>: Due to popular demand,
7231 here is the command required to check out and build the source: Use
7232 '<tt>svn checkout
7233 svn://svn.debian.org/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/; cd
7234 hw-support-handler; debuild</tt>'.  If you lack debuild, install the
7235 devscripts package.</p>
7236
7237 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-23 12:00</strong>: The project is now
7238 renamed to Isenkram and the source moved from the Debian Edu
7239 subversion repository to a Debian collab-maint git repository.  See
7240 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">build
7241 instructions</a> for details.</p>
7242
7243       </div>
7244       <div class="tags">
7245
7246
7247         Tags: <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>.
7248
7249
7250       </div>
7251     </div>
7252     <div class="padding"></div>
7253
7254     <div class="entry">
7255       <div class="title">
7256         <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>
7257       </div>
7258       <div class="date">
7259         19th January 2013
7260       </div>
7261       <div class="body">
7262         <p>This Christmas my trusty old laptop died.  It died quietly and
7263 suddenly in bed.  With a quiet whimper, it went completely quiet and
7264 black.  The power button was no longer able to turn it on.  It was a
7265 IBM Thinkpad X41, and the best laptop I ever had.  Better than both
7266 Thinkpads X30, X31, X40, X60, X61 and X61S.  Far better than the
7267 Compaq I had before that.  Now I need to find a replacement.  To keep
7268 going during Christmas, I moved the one year old SSD disk to my old
7269 X40 where it fitted (only one I had left that could use it), but it is
7270 not a durable solution.
7271
7272 <p>My laptop needs are fairly modest.  This is my wishlist from when I
7273 got a new one more than 10 years ago.  It still holds true.:)</p>
7274
7275 <ul>
7276
7277 <li>Lightweight (around 1 kg) and small volume (preferably smaller
7278   than A4).</li>
7279 <li>Robust, it will be in my backpack every day.</li>
7280 <li>Three button mouse and a mouse pin instead of touch pad.</li>
7281 <li>Long battery life time.  Preferable a week.</li>
7282 <li>Internal WIFI network card.</li>
7283 <li>Internal Twisted Pair network card.</li>
7284 <li>Some USB slots (2-3 is plenty)</li>
7285 <li>Good keyboard - similar to the Thinkpad.</li>
7286 <li>Video resolution at least 1024x768, with size around 12" (A4 paper
7287 size).</li>
7288 <li>Hardware supported by Debian Stable, ie the default kernel and
7289   X.org packages.</li>
7290 <li>Quiet, preferably fan free (or at least not using the fan most of
7291   the time).
7292
7293 </ul>
7294
7295 <p>You will notice that there are no RAM and CPU requirements in the
7296 list.  The reason is simply that the specifications on laptops the
7297 last 10-15 years have been sufficient for my needs, and I have to look
7298 at other features to choose my laptop.  But are there still made as
7299 robust laptops as my X41?  The Thinkpad X60/X61 proved to be less
7300 robust, and Thinkpads seem to be heading in the wrong direction since
7301 Lenovo took over.  But I've been told that X220 and X1 Carbon might
7302 still be useful.</p>
7303
7304 <p>Perhaps I should rethink my needs, and look for a pad with an
7305 external keyboard?  I'll have to check the
7306 <a href="http://www.linux-laptop.net/">Linux Laptops site</a> for
7307 well-supported laptops, or perhaps just buy one preinstalled from one
7308 of the vendors listed on the <a href="http://linuxpreloaded.com/">Linux
7309 Pre-loaded site</a>.</p>
7310
7311       </div>
7312       <div class="tags">
7313
7314
7315         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
7316
7317
7318       </div>
7319     </div>
7320     <div class="padding"></div>
7321
7322     <div class="entry">
7323       <div class="title">
7324         <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>
7325       </div>
7326       <div class="date">
7327         18th January 2013
7328       </div>
7329       <div class="body">
7330         <p>Some times I try to figure out which Iceweasel browser plugin to
7331 install to get support for a given MIME type.  Thanks to
7332 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MozillaTeam/Plugins">specifications
7333 done by Ubuntu</a> and Mozilla, it is possible to do this in Debian.
7334 Unfortunately, not very many packages provide the needed meta
7335 information, Anyway, here is a small script to look up all browser
7336 plugin packages announcing ther MIME support using this specification:</p>
7337
7338 <pre>
7339 #!/usr/bin/python
7340 import sys
7341 import apt
7342 def pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
7343     cache = apt.Cache()
7344     cache.open(None)
7345     thepkgs = []
7346     for pkg in cache:
7347         version = pkg.candidate
7348         if version is None:
7349             version = pkg.installed
7350         if version is None:
7351             continue
7352         record = version.record
7353         if not record.has_key('Npp-MimeType'):
7354             continue
7355         mime_types = record['Npp-MimeType'].split(',')
7356         for t in mime_types:
7357             t = t.rstrip().strip()
7358             if t == mimetype:
7359                 thepkgs.append(pkg.name)
7360     return thepkgs
7361 mimetype = "audio/ogg"
7362 if 1 < len(sys.argv):
7363     mimetype = sys.argv[1]
7364 print "Browser plugin packages supporting %s:" % mimetype
7365 for pkg in pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
7366     print "  %s" %pkg
7367 </pre>
7368
7369 <p>It can be used like this to look up a given MIME type:</p>
7370
7371 <pre>
7372 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype
7373 Browser plugin packages supporting audio/ogg:
7374   gecko-mediaplayer
7375 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype application/x-shockwave-flash
7376 Browser plugin packages supporting application/x-shockwave-flash:
7377   browser-plugin-gnash
7378 %
7379 </pre>
7380
7381 <p>In Ubuntu this mechanism is combined with support in the browser
7382 itself to query for plugins and propose to install the needed
7383 packages.  It would be great if Debian supported such feature too.  Is
7384 anyone working on adding it?</p>
7385
7386 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-18 14:20</strong>: The Debian BTS
7387 request for icweasel support for this feature is
7388 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/484010">#484010</a> from 2008 (and
7389 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/698426">#698426</a> from today).  Lack
7390 of manpower and wish for a different design is the reason thus feature
7391 is not yet in iceweasel from Debian.</p>
7392
7393       </div>
7394       <div class="tags">
7395
7396
7397         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
7398
7399
7400       </div>
7401     </div>
7402     <div class="padding"></div>
7403
7404     <div class="entry">
7405       <div class="title">
7406         <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>
7407       </div>
7408       <div class="date">
7409         16th January 2013
7410       </div>
7411       <div class="body">
7412         <p>The <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/AppStreamDebianProposal">DEP-11
7413 proposal to add AppStream information to the Debian archive</a>, is a
7414 proposal to make it possible for a Desktop application to propose to
7415 the user some package to install to gain support for a given MIME
7416 type, font, library etc. that is currently missing.  With such
7417 mechanism in place, it would be possible for the desktop to
7418 automatically propose and install leocad if some LDraw file is
7419 downloaded by the browser.</p>
7420
7421 <p>To get some idea about the current content of the archive, I decided
7422 to write a simple program to extract all .desktop files from the
7423 Debian archive and look up the claimed MIME support there.  The result
7424 can be found on the
7425 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/pub/AppStreamTest">Skolelinux FTP
7426 site</a>.  Using the collected information, it become possible to
7427 answer the question in the title.  Here are the 20 most supported MIME
7428 types in Debian stable (Squeeze), testing (Wheezy) and unstable (Sid).
7429 The complete list is available from the link above.</p>
7430
7431 <p><strong>Debian Stable:</strong></p>
7432
7433 <pre>
7434   count MIME type
7435   ----- -----------------------
7436      32 text/plain
7437      30 audio/mpeg
7438      29 image/png
7439      28 image/jpeg
7440      27 application/ogg
7441      26 audio/x-mp3
7442      25 image/tiff
7443      25 image/gif
7444      22 image/bmp
7445      22 audio/x-wav
7446      20 audio/x-flac
7447      19 audio/x-mpegurl
7448      18 video/x-ms-asf
7449      18 audio/x-musepack
7450      18 audio/x-mpeg
7451      18 application/x-ogg
7452      17 video/mpeg
7453      17 audio/x-scpls
7454      17 audio/ogg
7455      16 video/x-ms-wmv
7456 </pre>
7457
7458 <p><strong>Debian Testing:</strong></p>
7459
7460 <pre>
7461   count MIME type
7462   ----- -----------------------
7463      33 text/plain
7464      32 image/png
7465      32 image/jpeg
7466      29 audio/mpeg
7467      27 image/gif
7468      26 image/tiff
7469      26 application/ogg
7470      25 audio/x-mp3
7471      22 image/bmp
7472      21 audio/x-wav
7473      19 audio/x-mpegurl
7474      19 audio/x-mpeg
7475      18 video/mpeg
7476      18 audio/x-scpls
7477      18 audio/x-flac
7478      18 application/x-ogg
7479      17 video/x-ms-asf
7480      17 text/html
7481      17 audio/x-musepack
7482      16 image/x-xbitmap
7483 </pre>
7484
7485 <p><strong>Debian Unstable:</strong></p>
7486
7487 <pre>
7488   count MIME type
7489   ----- -----------------------
7490      31 text/plain
7491      31 image/png
7492      31 image/jpeg
7493      29 audio/mpeg
7494      28 application/ogg
7495      27 image/gif
7496      26 image/tiff
7497      26 audio/x-mp3
7498      23 audio/x-wav
7499      22 image/bmp
7500      21 audio/x-flac
7501      20 audio/x-mpegurl
7502      19 audio/x-mpeg
7503      18 video/x-ms-asf
7504      18 video/mpeg
7505      18 audio/x-scpls
7506      18 application/x-ogg
7507      17 audio/x-musepack
7508      16 video/x-ms-wmv
7509      16 video/x-msvideo
7510 </pre>
7511
7512 <p>I am told that PackageKit can provide an API to access the kind of
7513 information mentioned in DEP-11.  I have not yet had time to look at
7514 it, but hope the PackageKit people in Debian are on top of these
7515 issues.</p>
7516
7517 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-16 13:35</strong>: Updated numbers after
7518 discovering a typo in my script.</p>
7519
7520       </div>
7521       <div class="tags">
7522
7523
7524         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
7525
7526
7527       </div>
7528     </div>
7529     <div class="padding"></div>
7530
7531     <div class="entry">
7532       <div class="title">
7533         <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>
7534       </div>
7535       <div class="date">
7536         15th January 2013
7537       </div>
7538       <div class="body">
7539         <p>Yesterday, I wrote about the
7540 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Modalias_strings___a_practical_way_to_map__stuff__to_hardware.html">modalias
7541 values provided by the Linux kernel</a> following my hope for
7542 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">better
7543 dongle support in Debian</a>.  Using this knowledge, I have tested how
7544 modalias values attached to package names can be used to map packages
7545 to hardware.  This allow the system to look up and suggest relevant
7546 packages when I plug in some new hardware into my machine, and replace
7547 discover and discover-data as the database used to map hardware to
7548 packages.</p>
7549
7550 <p>I create a modaliases file with entries like the following,
7551 containing package name, kernel module name (if relevant, otherwise
7552 the package name) and globs matching the relevant hardware
7553 modalias.</p>
7554
7555 <p><blockquote>
7556 Package: package-name
7557 <br>Modaliases: module(modaliasglob, modaliasglob, modaliasglob)</p>
7558 </blockquote></p>
7559
7560 <p>It is fairly trivial to write code to find the relevant packages
7561 for a given modalias value using this file.</p>
7562
7563 <p>An entry like this would suggest the video and picture application
7564 cheese for many USB web cameras (interface bus class 0E01):</p>
7565
7566 <p><blockquote>
7567 Package: cheese
7568 <br>Modaliases: cheese(usb:v*p*d*dc*dsc*dp*ic0Eisc01ip*)</p>
7569 </blockquote></p>
7570
7571 <p>An entry like this would suggest the pcmciautils package when a
7572 CardBus bridge (bus class 0607) PCI device is present:</p>
7573
7574 <p><blockquote>
7575 Package: pcmciautils
7576 <br>Modaliases: pcmciautils(pci:v*d*sv*sd*bc06sc07i*)
7577 </blockquote></p>
7578
7579 <p>An entry like this would suggest the package colorhug-client when
7580 plugging in a ColorHug with USB IDs 04D8:F8DA:</p>
7581
7582 <p><blockquote>
7583 Package: colorhug-client
7584 <br>Modaliases: colorhug-client(usb:v04D8pF8DAd*)</p>
7585 </blockquote></p>
7586
7587 <p>I believe the format is compatible with the format of the Packages
7588 file in the Debian archive.  Ubuntu already uses their Packages file
7589 to store their mappings from packages to hardware.</p>
7590
7591 <p>By adding a XB-Modaliases: header in debian/control, any .deb can
7592 announce the hardware it support in a way my prototype understand.
7593 This allow those publishing packages in an APT source outside the
7594 Debian archive as well as those backporting packages to make sure the
7595 hardware mapping are included in the package meta information.  I've
7596 tested such header in the pymissile package, and its modalias mapping
7597 is working as it should with my prototype.  It even made it to Ubuntu
7598 Raring.</p>
7599
7600 <p>To test if it was possible to look up supported hardware using only
7601 the shell tools available in the Debian installer, I wrote a shell
7602 implementation of the lookup code.  The idea is to create files for
7603 each modalias and let the shell do the matching.  Please check out and
7604 try the
7605 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/hw-support-lookup?view=co">hw-support-lookup</a>
7606 shell script.  It run without any extra dependencies and fetch the
7607 hardware mappings from the Debian archive and the subversion
7608 repository where I currently work on my prototype.</p>
7609
7610 <p>When I use it on a machine with a yubikey inserted, it suggest to
7611 install yubikey-personalization:</p>
7612
7613 <p><blockquote>
7614 % ./hw-support-lookup
7615 <br>yubikey-personalization
7616 <br>%
7617 </blockquote></p>
7618
7619 <p>When I run it on my Thinkpad X40 with a PCMCIA/CardBus slot, it
7620 propose to install the pcmciautils package:</p>
7621
7622 <p><blockquote>
7623 % ./hw-support-lookup
7624 <br>pcmciautils
7625 <br>%
7626 </blockquote></p>
7627
7628 <p>If you know of any hardware-package mapping that should be added to
7629 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=co">my
7630 database</a>, please tell me about it.</p>
7631
7632 <p>It could be possible to generate several of the mappings between
7633 packages and hardware.  One source would be to look at packages with
7634 kernel modules, ie packages with *.ko files in /lib/modules/, and
7635 extract their modalias information.  Another would be to look at
7636 packages with udev rules, ie packages with files in
7637 /lib/udev/rules.d/, and extract their vendor/model information to
7638 generate a modalias matching rule.  I have not tested any of these to
7639 see if it work.</p>
7640
7641 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
7642 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
7643 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
7644 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel</a>.</p>
7645
7646       </div>
7647       <div class="tags">
7648
7649
7650         Tags: <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>.
7651
7652
7653       </div>
7654     </div>
7655     <div class="padding"></div>
7656
7657     <div class="entry">
7658       <div class="title">
7659         <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>
7660       </div>
7661       <div class="date">
7662         14th January 2013
7663       </div>
7664       <div class="body">
7665         <p>While looking into how to look up Debian packages based on hardware
7666 information, to find the packages that support a given piece of
7667 hardware, I refreshed my memory regarding modalias values, and decided
7668 to document the details.  Here are my findings so far, also available
7669 in
7670 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
7671 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>:
7672
7673 <p><strong>Modalias decoded</strong></p>
7674
7675 <p>This document try to explain what the different types of modalias
7676 values stands for.  It is in part based on information from
7677 &lt;URL: <a href="https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias">https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias</a> &gt;,
7678 &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;,
7679 &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
7680 &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;.
7681
7682 <p>The modalias entries for a given Linux machine can be found using
7683 this shell script:</p>
7684
7685 <pre>
7686 find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u
7687 </pre>
7688
7689 <p>The supported modalias globs for a given kernel module can be found
7690 using modinfo:</p>
7691
7692 <pre>
7693 % /sbin/modinfo psmouse | grep alias:
7694 alias:          serio:ty05pr*id*ex*
7695 alias:          serio:ty01pr*id*ex*
7696 %
7697 </pre>
7698
7699 <p><strong>PCI subtype</strong></p>
7700
7701 <p>A typical PCI entry can look like this.  This is an Intel Host
7702 Bridge memory controller:</p>
7703
7704 <p><blockquote>
7705 pci:v00008086d00002770sv00001028sd000001ADbc06sc00i00
7706 </blockquote></p>
7707
7708 <p>This represent these values:</p>
7709
7710 <pre>
7711  v   00008086  (vendor)
7712  d   00002770  (device)
7713  sv  00001028  (subvendor)
7714  sd  000001AD  (subdevice)
7715  bc  06        (bus class)
7716  sc  00        (bus subclass)
7717  i   00        (interface)
7718 </pre>
7719
7720 <p>The vendor/device values are the same values outputted from 'lspci
7721 -n' as 8086:2770.  The bus class/subclass is also shown by lspci as
7722 0600.  The 0600 class is a host bridge.  Other useful bus values are
7723 0300 (VGA compatible card) and 0200 (Ethernet controller).</p>
7724
7725 <p>Not sure how to figure out the interface value, nor what it
7726 means.</p>
7727
7728 <p><strong>USB subtype</strong></p>
7729
7730 <p>Some typical USB entries can look like this.  This is an internal
7731 USB hub in a laptop:</p>
7732
7733 <p><blockquote>
7734 usb:v1D6Bp0001d0206dc09dsc00dp00ic09isc00ip00
7735 </blockquote></p>
7736
7737 <p>Here is the values included in this alias:</p>
7738
7739 <pre>
7740  v    1D6B  (device vendor)
7741  p    0001  (device product)
7742  d    0206  (bcddevice)
7743  dc     09  (device class)
7744  dsc    00  (device subclass)
7745  dp     00  (device protocol)
7746  ic     09  (interface class)
7747  isc    00  (interface subclass)
7748  ip     00  (interface protocol)
7749 </pre>
7750
7751 <p>The 0900 device class/subclass means hub.  Some times the relevant
7752 class is in the interface class section.  For a simple USB web camera,
7753 these alias entries show up:</p>
7754
7755 <p><blockquote>
7756 usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc01ip00
7757 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc02ip00
7758 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc01ip00
7759 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc02ip00
7760 </blockquote></p>
7761
7762 <p>Interface class 0E01 is video control, 0E02 is video streaming (aka
7763 camera), 0101 is audio control device and 0102 is audio streaming (aka
7764 microphone).  Thus this is a camera with microphone included.</p>
7765
7766 <p><strong>ACPI subtype</strong></p>
7767
7768 <p>The ACPI type is used for several non-PCI/USB stuff.  This is an IR
7769 receiver in a Thinkpad X40:</p>
7770
7771 <p><blockquote>
7772 acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
7773 </blockquote></p>
7774
7775 <p>The values between the colons are IDs.</p>
7776
7777 <p><strong>DMI subtype</strong></p>
7778
7779 <p>The DMI table contain lots of information about the computer case
7780 and model.  This is an entry for a IBM Thinkpad X40, fetched from
7781 /sys/devices/virtual/dmi/id/modalias:</p>
7782
7783 <p><blockquote>
7784 dmi:bvnIBM:bvr1UETB6WW(1.66):bd06/15/2005:svnIBM:pn2371H4G:pvrThinkPadX40:rvnIBM:rn2371H4G:rvrNotAvailable:cvnIBM:ct10:cvrNotAvailable:
7785 </blockquote></p>
7786
7787 <p>The values present are</p>
7788
7789 <pre>
7790  bvn  IBM            (BIOS vendor)
7791  bvr  1UETB6WW(1.66) (BIOS version)
7792  bd   06/15/2005     (BIOS date)
7793  svn  IBM            (system vendor)
7794  pn   2371H4G        (product name)
7795  pvr  ThinkPadX40    (product version)
7796  rvn  IBM            (board vendor)
7797  rn   2371H4G        (board name)
7798  rvr  NotAvailable   (board version)
7799  cvn  IBM            (chassis vendor)
7800  ct   10             (chassis type)
7801  cvr  NotAvailable   (chassis version)
7802 </pre>
7803
7804 <p>The chassis type 10 is Notebook.  Other interesting values can be
7805 found in the dmidecode source:</p>
7806
7807 <pre>
7808   3 Desktop
7809   4 Low Profile Desktop
7810   5 Pizza Box
7811   6 Mini Tower
7812   7 Tower
7813   8 Portable
7814   9 Laptop
7815  10 Notebook
7816  11 Hand Held
7817  12 Docking Station
7818  13 All In One
7819  14 Sub Notebook
7820  15 Space-saving
7821  16 Lunch Box
7822  17 Main Server Chassis
7823  18 Expansion Chassis
7824  19 Sub Chassis
7825  20 Bus Expansion Chassis
7826  21 Peripheral Chassis
7827  22 RAID Chassis
7828  23 Rack Mount Chassis
7829  24 Sealed-case PC
7830  25 Multi-system
7831  26 CompactPCI
7832  27 AdvancedTCA
7833  28 Blade
7834  29 Blade Enclosing
7835 </pre>
7836
7837 <p>The chassis type values are not always accurately set in the DMI
7838 table.  For example my home server is a tower, but the DMI modalias
7839 claim it is a desktop.</p>
7840
7841 <p><strong>SerIO subtype</strong></p>
7842
7843 <p>This type is used for PS/2 mouse plugs.  One example is from my
7844 test machine:</p>
7845
7846 <p><blockquote>
7847 serio:ty01pr00id00ex00
7848 </blockquote></p>
7849
7850 <p>The values present are</p>
7851
7852 <pre>
7853   ty  01  (type)
7854   pr  00  (prototype)
7855   id  00  (id)
7856   ex  00  (extra)
7857 </pre>
7858
7859 <p>This type is supported by the psmouse driver.  I am not sure what
7860 the valid values are.</p>
7861
7862 <p><strong>Other subtypes</strong></p>
7863
7864 <p>There are heaps of other modalias subtypes according to
7865 file2alias.c.  There is the rest of the list from that source: amba,
7866 ap, bcma, ccw, css, eisa, hid, i2c, ieee1394, input, ipack, isapnp,
7867 mdio, of, parisc, pcmcia, platform, scsi, sdio, spi, ssb, vio, virtio,
7868 vmbus, x86cpu and zorro.  I did not spend time documenting all of
7869 these, as they do not seem relevant for my intended use with mapping
7870 hardware to packages when new stuff is inserted during run time.</p>
7871
7872 <p><strong>Looking up kernel modules using modalias values</strong></p>
7873
7874 <p>To check which kernel modules provide support for a given modalias,
7875 one can use the following shell script:</p>
7876
7877 <pre>
7878   for id in $(find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u); do \
7879     echo "$id" ; \
7880     /sbin/modprobe --show-depends "$id"|sed 's/^/  /' ; \
7881   done
7882 </pre>
7883
7884 <p>The output can look like this (only the first few entries as the
7885 list is very long on my test machine):</p>
7886
7887 <pre>
7888   acpi:ACPI0003:
7889     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/acpi/ac.ko
7890   acpi:device:
7891   FATAL: Module acpi:device: not found.
7892   acpi:IBM0068:
7893     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/char/nvram.ko
7894     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/leds/led-class.ko
7895     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/rfkill/rfkill.ko
7896     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/platform/x86/thinkpad_acpi.ko
7897   acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
7898     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/lib/crc-ccitt.ko
7899     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/irda/irda.ko
7900     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/net/irda/nsc-ircc.ko
7901   [...]
7902 </pre>
7903
7904 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
7905 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
7906 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
7907 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel</a>.</p>
7908
7909 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-15:</strong> Rewrite "cat $(find ...)" to
7910 "find ... -print0 | xargs -0 cat" to make sure it handle directories
7911 in /sys/ with space in them.</p>
7912
7913       </div>
7914       <div class="tags">
7915
7916
7917         Tags: <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>.
7918
7919
7920       </div>
7921     </div>
7922     <div class="padding"></div>
7923
7924     <div class="entry">
7925       <div class="title">
7926         <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>
7927       </div>
7928       <div class="date">
7929         10th January 2013
7930       </div>
7931       <div class="body">
7932         <p>As part of my investigation on how to improve the support in Debian
7933 for hardware dongles, I dug up my old Mark and Spencer USB Rocket
7934 Launcher and updated the Debian package
7935 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pymissile">pymissile</a> to make
7936 sure udev will fix the device permissions when it is plugged in.  I
7937 also added a "Modaliases" header to test it in the Debian archive and
7938 hopefully make the package be proposed by jockey in Ubuntu when a user
7939 plug in his rocket launcher.  In the process I moved the source to a
7940 git repository under collab-maint, to make it easier for any DD to
7941 contribute.  <a href="http://code.google.com/p/pymissile/">Upstream</a>
7942 is not very active, but the software still work for me even after five
7943 years of relative silence.  The new git repository is not listed in
7944 the uploaded package yet, because I want to test the other changes a
7945 bit more before I upload the new version.  If you want to check out
7946 the new version with a .desktop file included, visit the
7947 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/pymissile.git">gitweb
7948 view</a> or use "<tt>git clone
7949 git://anonscm.debian.org/collab-maint/pymissile.git</tt>".</p>
7950
7951       </div>
7952       <div class="tags">
7953
7954
7955         Tags: <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>.
7956
7957
7958       </div>
7959     </div>
7960     <div class="padding"></div>
7961
7962     <div class="entry">
7963       <div class="title">
7964         <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>
7965       </div>
7966       <div class="date">
7967          9th January 2013
7968       </div>
7969       <div class="body">
7970         <p>One thing that annoys me with Debian and Linux distributions in
7971 general, is that there is a great package management system with the
7972 ability to automatically install software packages by downloading them
7973 from the distribution mirrors, but no way to get it to automatically
7974 install the packages I need to use the hardware I plug into my
7975 machine.  Even if the package to use it is easily available from the
7976 Linux distribution.  When I plug in a LEGO Mindstorms NXT, it could
7977 suggest to automatically install the python-nxt, nbc and t2n packages
7978 I need to talk to it.  When I plug in a Yubikey, it could propose the
7979 yubikey-personalization package.  The information required to do this
7980 is available, but no-one have pulled all the pieces together.</p>
7981
7982 <p>Some years ago, I proposed to
7983 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg01206.html">use
7984 the discover subsystem to implement this</a>.  The idea is fairly
7985 simple:
7986
7987 <ul>
7988
7989 <li>Add a desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ pointing to a program
7990   starting when a user log in.</li>
7991
7992 <li>Set this program up to listen for kernel events emitted when new
7993   hardware is inserted into the computer.</li>
7994
7995 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware ID in a
7996   database mapping to packages, and take note of any non-installed
7997   packages.</li>
7998
7999 <li>Show a message to the user proposing to install the discovered
8000   package, and make it easy to install it.</li>
8001
8002 </ul>
8003
8004 <p>I am not sure what the best way to implement this is, but my
8005 initial idea was to use dbus events to discover new hardware, the
8006 discover database to find packages and
8007 <a href="http://www.packagekit.org/">PackageKit</a> to install
8008 packages.</p>
8009
8010 <p>Yesterday, I found time to try to implement this idea, and the
8011 draft package is now checked into
8012 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
8013 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>.  In the process, I updated the
8014 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover-data.html">discover-data</a>
8015 package to map the USB ids of LEGO Mindstorms and Yubikey devices to
8016 the relevant packages in Debian, and uploaded a new version
8017 2.2013.01.09 to unstable.  I also discovered that the current
8018 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover.html">discover</a>
8019 package in Debian no longer discovered any USB devices, because
8020 /proc/bus/usb/devices is no longer present.  I ported it to use
8021 libusb as a fall back option to get it working.  The fixed package
8022 version 2.1.2-6 is now in experimental (didn't upload it to unstable
8023 because of the freeze).</p>
8024
8025 <p>With this prototype in place, I can insert my Yubikey, and get this
8026 desktop notification to show up (only once, the first time it is
8027 inserted):</p>
8028
8029 <p align="center"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-09-hw-autoinstall.png"></p>
8030
8031 <p>For this prototype to be really useful, some way to automatically
8032 install the proposed packages by pressing the "Please install
8033 program(s)" button should to be implemented.</p>
8034
8035 <p>If this idea seem useful to you, and you want to help make it
8036 happen, please help me update the discover-data database with mappings
8037 from hardware to Debian packages.  Check if 'discover-pkginstall -l'
8038 list the package you would like to have installed when a given
8039 hardware device is inserted into your computer, and report bugs using
8040 reportbug if it isn't.  Or, if you know of a better way to provide
8041 such mapping, please let me know.</p>
8042
8043 <p>This prototype need more work, and there are several questions that
8044 should be considered before it is ready for production use.  Is dbus
8045 the correct way to detect new hardware?  At the moment I look for HAL
8046 dbus events on the system bus, because that is the events I could see
8047 on my Debian Squeeze KDE desktop.  Are there better events to use?
8048 How should the user be notified?  Is the desktop notification
8049 mechanism the best option, or should the background daemon raise a
8050 popup instead?  How should packages be installed?  When should they
8051 not be installed?</p>
8052
8053 <p>If you want to help getting such feature implemented in Debian,
8054 please send me an email. :)</p>
8055
8056       </div>
8057       <div class="tags">
8058
8059
8060         Tags: <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>.
8061
8062
8063       </div>
8064     </div>
8065     <div class="padding"></div>
8066
8067     <div class="entry">
8068       <div class="title">
8069         <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>
8070       </div>
8071       <div class="date">
8072          2nd January 2013
8073       </div>
8074       <div class="body">
8075         <p>During Christmas, I have worked a bit on the Debian support for
8076 <a href="http://mindstorms.lego.com/en-us/Default.aspx">LEGO Mindstorm
8077 NXT</a>.  My son and I have played a bit with my NXT set, and I
8078 discovered I had to build all the tools myself because none were
8079 already in Debian Squeeze.  If Debian support for LEGO is something
8080 you care about, please join me on the IRC channel
8081 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">#debian-lego</a> (server
8082 irc.debian.org).  There is a lot that could be done to improve the
8083 Debian support for LEGO designers.  For example both CAD software
8084 and Mindstorm compilers are missing. :)</p>
8085
8086 <p>Update 2012-01-03: A
8087 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">project page</a>
8088 including links to Lego related packages is now available.</p>
8089
8090       </div>
8091       <div class="tags">
8092
8093
8094         Tags: <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>.
8095
8096
8097       </div>
8098     </div>
8099     <div class="padding"></div>
8100
8101     <div class="entry">
8102       <div class="title">
8103         <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>
8104       </div>
8105       <div class="date">
8106         25th December 2012
8107       </div>
8108       <div class="body">
8109         <p>Let me start by wishing you all marry Christmas and a happy new
8110 year!  I hope next year will prove to be a good year.</p>
8111
8112 <p><a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">Bitcoin</a>, the digital
8113 decentralised "currency" that allow people to transfer bitcoins
8114 between each other with minimal overhead, is a very interesting
8115 experiment.  And as I wrote a few days ago, the bitcoin situation in
8116 <a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</a> is about to improve a bit.
8117 The <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">new debian source
8118 package</a> (version 0.7.2-2) was uploaded yesterday, and is waiting
8119 in <a href="http://ftp-master.debian.org/new.html">the NEW queue</A>
8120 for one of the ftpmasters to approve the new bitcoin-qt package
8121 name.</p>
8122
8123 <p>And thanks to the great work of Jonas and the rest of the bitcoin
8124 team in Debian, you can easily test the package in Debian Squeeze
8125 using the following steps to get a set of working packages:</p>
8126
8127 <blockquote><pre>
8128 git clone git://git.debian.org/git/collab-maint/bitcoin
8129 cd bitcoin
8130 DEB_MAINTAINER_MODE=1 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp fakeroot debian/rules clean
8131 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp git-buildpackage --git-ignore-new
8132 </pre></blockquote>
8133
8134 <p>You might have to install some build dependencies as well.  The
8135 list of commands should give you two packages, bitcoind and
8136 bitcoin-qt, ready for use in a Squeeze environment.  Note that the
8137 client will download the complete set of bitcoin "blocks", which need
8138 around 5.6 GiB of data on my machine at the moment.  Make sure your
8139 ~/.bitcoin/ directory have lots of spare room if you want to download
8140 all the blocks.  The client will warn if the disk is getting full, so
8141 there is not really a problem if you got too little room, but you will
8142 not be able to get all the features out of the client.</p>
8143
8144 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
8145 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
8146 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
8147
8148       </div>
8149       <div class="tags">
8150
8151
8152         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>.
8153
8154
8155       </div>
8156     </div>
8157     <div class="padding"></div>
8158
8159     <div class="entry">
8160       <div class="title">
8161         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_word_on_bitcoin_support_in_Debian.html">A word on bitcoin support in Debian</a>
8162       </div>
8163       <div class="date">
8164         21st December 2012
8165       </div>
8166       <div class="body">
8167         <p>It has been a while since I wrote about
8168 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">bitcoin</a>, the decentralised
8169 peer-to-peer based crypto-currency, and the reason is simply that I
8170 have been busy elsewhere.  But two days ago, I started looking at the
8171 state of <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin in
8172 Debian</a> again to try to recover my old bitcoin wallet.  The package
8173 is now maintained by a
8174 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/pkg-bitcoin/">team of
8175 people</a>, and the grunt work had already been done by this team.  We
8176 owe a huge thank you to all these team members. :)
8177 But I was sad to discover that the bitcoin client is missing in
8178 Wheezy.  It is only available in Sid (and an outdated client from
8179 backports).  The client had several RC bugs registered in BTS blocking
8180 it from entering testing.  To try to help the team and improve the
8181 situation, I spent some time providing patches and triaging the bug
8182 reports.  I also had a look at the bitcoin package available from Matt
8183 Corallo in a
8184 <a href="https://launchpad.net/~bitcoin/+archive/bitcoin">PPA for
8185 Ubuntu</a>, and moved the useful pieces from that version into the
8186 Debian package.</p>
8187
8188 <p>After checking with the main package maintainer Jonas Smedegaard on
8189 IRC, I pushed several patches into the collab-maint git repository to
8190 improve the package.  It now contains fixes for the RC issues (not from
8191 me, but fixed by Scott Howard), build rules for a Qt GUI client
8192 package, konqueror support for the bitcoin: URI and bash completion
8193 setup.  As I work on Debian Squeeze, I also created
8194 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-bitcoin-devel/Week-of-Mon-20121217/000041.html">a
8195 patch to backport</a> the latest version.  Jonas is going to look at
8196 it and try to integrate it into the git repository before uploading a
8197 new version to unstable.
8198
8199 <p>I would very much like bitcoin to succeed, to get rid of the
8200 centralized control currently exercised in the monetary system.  I
8201 find it completely unacceptable that the USA government is collecting
8202 transaction data for almost all international money transfers (most are done in USD and transaction logs shipped to the spooks), and
8203 that the major credit card companies can block legal money
8204 transactions to Wikileaks.  But for bitcoin to succeed, more people
8205 need to use bitcoins, and more people need to accept bitcoins when
8206 they sell products and services.  Improving the bitcoin support in
8207 Debian is a small step in the right direction, but not enough.
8208 Unfortunately the user experience when browsing the web and wanting to
8209 pay with bitcoin is still not very good.  The bitcoin: URI is a step
8210 in the right direction, but need to work in most or every browser in
8211 use.  Also the bitcoin-qt client is too heavy to fire up to do a
8212 quick transaction.  I believe there are other clients available, but
8213 have not tested them.</p>
8214
8215 <p>My
8216 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Now_accepting_bitcoins___anonymous_and_distributed_p2p_crypto_money.html">experiment
8217 with bitcoins</a> showed that at least some of my readers use bitcoin.
8218 I received 20.15 BTC so far on the address I provided in my blog two
8219 years ago, as can be
8220 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">seen
8221 on the blockexplorer service</a>.  Thank you everyone for your
8222 donation.  The blockexplorer service demonstrates quite well that
8223 bitcoin is not quite anonymous and untracked. :) I wonder if the
8224 number of users have gone up since then.  If you use bitcoin and want
8225 to show your support of my activity, please send Bitcoin donations to
8226 the same address as last time,
8227 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
8228
8229       </div>
8230       <div class="tags">
8231
8232
8233         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>.
8234
8235
8236       </div>
8237     </div>
8238     <div class="padding"></div>
8239
8240     <div class="entry">
8241       <div class="title">
8242         <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>
8243       </div>
8244       <div class="date">
8245          7th September 2012
8246       </div>
8247       <div class="body">
8248         <p>As I
8249 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">mentioned
8250 this summer</a>, I have created a Computer Science song book a few
8251 years ago, and today I finally found time to create a public
8252 <a href="https://gitorious.org/pere-cs-songbook/pere-cs-songbook">Gitorious
8253 repository for the project</a>.</p>
8254
8255 <p>If you want to help out, please clone the source and submit patches
8256 to the HTML version.  To generate the PDF and PostScript version,
8257 please use prince XML, or let me know about a useful free software
8258 processor capable of creating a good looking PDF from the HTML.</p>
8259
8260 <p>Want to sing?  You can still find the song book in HTML, PDF and
8261 PostScript formats at
8262 <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's Computer
8263 Science Songbook</a>.</p>
8264
8265       </div>
8266       <div class="tags">
8267
8268
8269         Tags: <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>.
8270
8271
8272       </div>
8273     </div>
8274     <div class="padding"></div>
8275
8276     <div class="entry">
8277       <div class="title">
8278         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gratulerer_med_19__rsdagen__Debian_.html">Gratulerer med 19-årsdagen, Debian!</a>
8279       </div>
8280       <div class="date">
8281         16th August 2012
8282       </div>
8283       <div class="body">
8284         <p>I dag fyller
8285 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120813">Debian-prosjektet 19
8286 år</a>.  Jeg har fulgt det de siste 12 årene, og er veldig glad for å kunne
8287 si gratulerer med dagen, Debian!</p>
8288
8289       </div>
8290       <div class="tags">
8291
8292
8293         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>.
8294
8295
8296       </div>
8297     </div>
8298     <div class="padding"></div>
8299
8300     <div class="entry">
8301       <div class="title">
8302         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">Song book for Computer Scientists</a>
8303       </div>
8304       <div class="date">
8305         24th June 2012
8306       </div>
8307       <div class="body">
8308         <p>Many years ago, while studying Computer Science at the
8309 <a href="http://www.uit.no/">University of Tromsø</a>, I started
8310 collecting computer related songs for use at parties.  The original
8311 version was written in LaTeX, but a few years ago I got help from
8312 Håkon W. Lie, one of the inventors of W3C CSS, to convert it to HTML
8313 while keeping the ability to create a nice book in PDF format.  I have
8314 not had time to maintain the book for a while now, and guess I should
8315 put it up on some public version control repository where others can
8316 help me extend and update the book.  If anyone is volunteering to help
8317 me with this, send me an email.  Also let me know if there are songs
8318 missing in my book.</p>
8319
8320 <p>I have not mentioned the book on my blog so far, and it occured to
8321 me today that I really should let all my readers share the joys of
8322 singing out load about programming, computers and computer networks.
8323 Especially now that <a href="http://debconf12.debconf.org/">Debconf
8324 12</a> is about to start (and I am not going).  Want to sing?  Check
8325 out <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's
8326 Computer Science Songbook</a>.
8327
8328       </div>
8329       <div class="tags">
8330
8331
8332         Tags: <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>.
8333
8334
8335       </div>
8336     </div>
8337     <div class="padding"></div>
8338
8339     <div class="entry">
8340       <div class="title">
8341         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatically_upgrading_server_firmware_on_Dell_PowerEdge.html">Automatically upgrading server firmware on Dell PowerEdge</a>
8342       </div>
8343       <div class="date">
8344         21st November 2011
8345       </div>
8346       <div class="body">
8347         <p>At work we have heaps of servers.  I believe the total count is
8348 around 1000 at the moment.  To be able to get help from the vendors
8349 when something go wrong, we want to keep the firmware on the servers
8350 up to date.  If the firmware isn't the latest and greatest, the
8351 vendors typically refuse to start debugging any problems until the
8352 firmware is upgraded.  So before every reboot, we want to upgrade the
8353 firmware, and we would really like everyone handling servers at the
8354 university to do this themselves when they plan to reboot a machine.
8355 For that to happen we at the unix server admin group need to provide
8356 the tools to do so.</p>
8357
8358 <p>To make firmware upgrading easier, I am working on a script to
8359 fetch and install the latest firmware for the servers we got.  Most of
8360 our hardware are from Dell and HP, so I have focused on these servers
8361 so far.  This blog post is about the Dell part.</P>
8362
8363 <p>On the Dell FTP site I was lucky enough to find
8364 <a href="ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz">an XML file</a>
8365 with firmware information for all 11th generation servers, listing
8366 which firmware should be used on a given model and where on the FTP
8367 site I can find it.  Using a simple perl XML parser I can then
8368 download the shell scripts Dell provides to do firmware upgrades from
8369 within Linux and reboot when all the firmware is primed and ready to
8370 be activated on the first reboot.</p>
8371
8372 <p>This is the Dell related fragment of the perl code I am working on.
8373 Are there anyone working on similar tools for firmware upgrading all
8374 servers at a site?  Please get in touch and lets share resources.</p>
8375
8376 <p><pre>
8377 #!/usr/bin/perl
8378 use strict;
8379 use warnings;
8380 use File::Temp qw(tempdir);
8381 BEGIN {
8382     # Install needed RHEL packages if missing
8383     my %rhelmodules = (
8384         'XML::Simple' => 'perl-XML-Simple',
8385         );
8386     for my $module (keys %rhelmodules) {
8387         eval "use $module;";
8388         if ($@) {
8389             my $pkg = $rhelmodules{$module};
8390             system("yum install -y $pkg");
8391             eval "use $module;";
8392         }
8393     }
8394 }
8395 my $errorsto = 'pere@hungry.com';
8396
8397 upgrade_dell();
8398
8399 exit 0;
8400
8401 sub run_firmware_script {
8402     my ($opts, $script) = @_;
8403     unless ($script) {
8404         print STDERR "fail: missing script name\n";
8405         exit 1
8406     }
8407     print STDERR "Running $script\n\n";
8408
8409     if (0 == system("sh $script $opts")) { # FIXME correct exit code handling
8410         print STDERR "success: firmware script ran succcessfully\n";
8411     } else {
8412         print STDERR "fail: firmware script returned error\n";
8413     }
8414 }
8415
8416 sub run_firmware_scripts {
8417     my ($opts, @dirs) = @_;
8418     # Run firmware packages
8419     for my $dir (@dirs) {
8420         print STDERR "info: Running scripts in $dir\n";
8421         opendir(my $dh, $dir) or die "Unable to open directory $dir: $!";
8422         while (my $s = readdir $dh) {
8423             next if $s =~ m/^\.\.?/;
8424             run_firmware_script($opts, "$dir/$s");
8425         }
8426         closedir $dh;
8427     }
8428 }
8429
8430 sub download {
8431     my $url = shift;
8432     print STDERR "info: Downloading $url\n";
8433     system("wget --quiet \"$url\"");
8434 }
8435
8436 sub upgrade_dell {
8437     my @dirs;
8438     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
8439     chomp $product;
8440
8441     if ($product =~ m/PowerEdge/) {
8442
8443         # on RHEL, these pacakges are needed by the firwmare upgrade scripts
8444         system('yum install -y compat-libstdc++-33.i686 libstdc++.i686 libxml2.i686 procmail');
8445
8446         my $tmpdir = tempdir(
8447             CLEANUP => 1
8448             );
8449         chdir($tmpdir);
8450         fetch_dell_fw('catalog/Catalog.xml.gz');
8451         system('gunzip Catalog.xml.gz');
8452         my @paths = fetch_dell_fw_list('Catalog.xml');
8453         # -q is quiet, disabling interactivity and reducing console output
8454         my $fwopts = "-q";
8455         if (@paths) {
8456             for my $url (@paths) {
8457                 fetch_dell_fw($url);
8458             }
8459             run_firmware_scripts($fwopts, $tmpdir);
8460         } else {
8461             print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
8462             print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
8463         }
8464         chdir('/');
8465     } else {
8466         print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
8467         print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
8468     }
8469 }
8470
8471 sub fetch_dell_fw {
8472     my $path = shift;
8473     my $url = "ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/$path";
8474     download($url);
8475 }
8476
8477 # Using ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz, figure out which
8478 # firmware packages to download from Dell.  Only work for Linux
8479 # machines and 11th generation Dell servers.
8480 sub fetch_dell_fw_list {
8481     my $filename = shift;
8482
8483     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
8484     chomp $product;
8485     my ($mybrand, $mymodel) = split(/\s+/, $product);
8486
8487     print STDERR "Finding firmware bundles for $mybrand $mymodel\n";
8488
8489     my $xml = XMLin($filename);
8490     my @paths;
8491     for my $bundle (@{$xml->{SoftwareBundle}}) {
8492         my $brand = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Display}->{content};
8493         my $model = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Model}->{Display}->{content};
8494         my $oscode;
8495         if ("ARRAY" eq ref $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}) {
8496             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}[0]->{osCode};
8497         } else {
8498             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}->{osCode};
8499         }
8500         if ($mybrand eq $brand && $mymodel eq $model && "LIN" eq $oscode)
8501         {
8502             @paths = map { $_->{path} } @{$bundle->{Contents}->{Package}};
8503         }
8504     }
8505     for my $component (@{$xml->{SoftwareComponent}}) {
8506         my $componenttype = $component->{ComponentType}->{value};
8507
8508         # Drop application packages, only firmware and BIOS
8509         next if 'APAC' eq $componenttype;
8510
8511         my $cpath = $component->{path};
8512         for my $path (@paths) {
8513             if ($cpath =~ m%/$path$%) {
8514                 push(@paths, $cpath);
8515             }
8516         }
8517     }
8518     return @paths;
8519 }
8520 </pre>
8521
8522 <p>The code is only tested on RedHat Enterprise Linux, but I suspect
8523 it could work on other platforms with some tweaking.  Anyone know a
8524 index like Catalog.xml is available from HP for HP servers?  At the
8525 moment I maintain a similar list manually and it is quickly getting
8526 outdated.</p>
8527
8528       </div>
8529       <div class="tags">
8530
8531
8532         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
8533
8534
8535       </div>
8536     </div>
8537     <div class="padding"></div>
8538
8539     <div class="entry">
8540       <div class="title">
8541         <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>
8542       </div>
8543       <div class="date">
8544          4th August 2011
8545       </div>
8546       <div class="body">
8547         <p>Wouter Verhelst have some
8548 <a href="http://grep.be/blog/en/retorts/pere_kubuntu_boot">interesting
8549 comments and opinions</a> on my blog post on
8550 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_should_start_from__etc_rcS_d__in_Debian____almost_nothing.html">the
8551 need to clean up /etc/rcS.d/ in Debian</a> and my blog post about
8552 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_missing_in_the_Debian_desktop__or_why_my_parents_use_Kubuntu.html">the
8553 default KDE desktop in Debian</a>.  I only have time to address one
8554 small piece of his comment now, and though it best to address the
8555 misunderstanding he bring forward:</p>
8556
8557 <p><blockquote>
8558 Currently, a system admin has four options: [...] boot to a
8559 single-user system (by adding 'single' to the kernel command line;
8560 this runs rcS and rc1 scripts)
8561 </blockquote></p>
8562
8563 <p>This make me believe Wouter believe booting into single user mode
8564 and booting into runlevel 1 is the same.  I am not surprised he
8565 believe this, because it would make sense and is a quite sensible
8566 thing to believe.  But because the boot in Debian is slightly broken,
8567 runlevel 1 do not work properly and it isn't the same as single user
8568 mode.  I'll try to explain what is actually happing, but it is a bit
8569 hard to explain.</p>
8570
8571 <p>Single user mode is defined like this in /etc/inittab:
8572 "<tt>~~:S:wait:/sbin/sulogin</tt>".  This means the only thing that is
8573 executed in single user mode is sulogin.  Single user mode is a boot
8574 state "between" the runlevels, and when booting into single user mode,
8575 only the scripts in /etc/rcS.d/ are executed before the init process
8576 enters the single user state.  When switching to runlevel 1, the state
8577 is in fact not ending in runlevel 1, but it passes through runlevel 1
8578 and end up in the single user mode (see /etc/rc1.d/S03single, which
8579 runs "init -t1 S" to switch to single user mode at the end of runlevel
8580 1.  It is confusing that the 'S' (single user) init mode is not the
8581 mode enabled by /etc/rcS.d/ (which is more like the initial boot
8582 mode).</p>
8583
8584 <p>This summary might make it clearer.  When booting for the first
8585 time into single user mode, the following commands are executed:
8586 "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc S; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  When booting into
8587 runlevel 1, the following commands are executed: "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc
8588 S; /etc/init.d/rc 1; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  A problem show up when
8589 trying to continue after visiting single user mode.  Not all services
8590 are started again as they should, causing the machine to end up in an
8591 unpredicatble state.  This is why Debian admins recommend rebooting
8592 after visiting single user mode.</p>
8593
8594 <p>A similar problem with runlevel 1 is caused by the amount of
8595 scripts executed from /etc/rcS.d/.  When switching from say runlevel 2
8596 to runlevel 1, the services started from /etc/rcS.d/ are not properly
8597 stopped when passing through the scripts in /etc/rc1.d/, and not
8598 started again when switching away from runlevel 1 to the runlevels
8599 2-5.  I believe the problem is best fixed by moving all the scripts
8600 out of /etc/rcS.d/ that are not <strong>required</strong> to get a
8601 functioning single user mode during boot.</p>
8602
8603 <p>I have spent several years investigating the Debian boot system,
8604 and discovered this problem a few years ago.  I suspect it originates
8605 from when sysvinit was introduced into Debian, a long time ago.</p>
8606
8607       </div>
8608       <div class="tags">
8609
8610
8611         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>.
8612
8613
8614       </div>
8615     </div>
8616     <div class="padding"></div>
8617
8618     <div class="entry">
8619       <div class="title">
8620         <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>
8621       </div>
8622       <div class="date">
8623         30th July 2011
8624       </div>
8625       <div class="body">
8626         <p>In the Debian boot system, several packages include scripts that
8627 are started from /etc/rcS.d/.  In fact, there is a bite more of them
8628 than make sense, and this causes a few problems.  What kind of
8629 problems, you might ask.  There are at least two problems.  The first
8630 is that it is not possible to recover a machine after switching to
8631 runlevel 1.  One need to actually reboot to get the machine back to
8632 the expected state.  The other is that single user boot will sometimes
8633 run into problems because some of the subsystems are activated before
8634 the root login is presented, causing problems when trying to recover a
8635 machine from a problem in that subsystem.  A minor additional point is
8636 that moving more scripts out of rcS.d/ and into the other rc#.d/
8637 directories will increase the amount of scripts that can run in
8638 parallel during boot, and thus decrease the boot time.</p>
8639
8640 <p>So, which scripts should start from rcS.d/.  In short, only the
8641 scripts that _have_ to execute before the root login prompt is
8642 presented during a single user boot should go there.  Everything else
8643 should go into the numeric runlevels.  This means things like
8644 lm-sensors, fuse and x11-common should not run from rcS.d, but from
8645 the numeric runlevels.  Today in Debian, there are around 115 init.d
8646 scripts that are started from rcS.d/, and most of them should be moved
8647 out.  Do your package have one of them?  Please help us make single
8648 user and runlevel 1 better by moving it.</p>
8649
8650 <p>Scripts setting up the screen, keyboard, system partitions
8651 etc. should still be started from rcS.d/, but there is for example no
8652 need to have the network enabled before the single user login prompt
8653 is presented.</p>
8654
8655 <p>As always, things are not so easy to fix as they sound.  To keep
8656 Debian systems working while scripts migrate and during upgrades, the
8657 scripts need to be moved from rcS.d/ to rc2.d/ in reverse dependency
8658 order, ie the scripts that nothing in rcS.d/ depend on can be moved,
8659 and the next ones can only be moved when their dependencies have been
8660 moved first.  This migration must be done sequentially while we ensure
8661 that the package system upgrade packages in the right order to keep
8662 the system state correct.  This will require some coordination when it
8663 comes to network related packages, but most of the packages with
8664 scripts that should migrate do not have anything in rcS.d/ depending
8665 on them.  Some packages have already been updated, like the sudo
8666 package, while others are still left to do.  I wish I had time to work
8667 on this myself, but real live constrains make it unlikely that I will
8668 find time to push this forward.</p>
8669
8670       </div>
8671       <div class="tags">
8672
8673
8674         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>.
8675
8676
8677       </div>
8678     </div>
8679     <div class="padding"></div>
8680
8681     <div class="entry">
8682       <div class="title">
8683         <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>
8684       </div>
8685       <div class="date">
8686         29th July 2011
8687       </div>
8688       <div class="body">
8689         <p>While at Debconf11, I have several times during discussions
8690 mentioned the issues I believe should be improved in Debian for its
8691 desktop to be useful for more people.  The use case for this is my
8692 parents, which are currently running Kubuntu which solve the
8693 issues.</p>
8694
8695 <p>I suspect these four missing features are not very hard to
8696 implement.  After all, they are present in Ubuntu, so if we wanted to
8697 do this in Debian we would have a source.</p>
8698
8699 <ol>
8700
8701 <li><strong>Simple GUI based upgrade of packages.</strong> When there
8702 are new packages available for upgrades, a icon in the KDE status bar
8703 indicate this, and clicking on it will activate the simple upgrade
8704 tool to handle it.  I have no problem guiding both of my parents
8705 through the process over the phone.  If a kernel reboot is required,
8706 this too is indicated by the status bars and the upgrade tool.  Last
8707 time I checked, nothing with the same features was working in KDE in
8708 Debian.</li>
8709
8710 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing Firefox browser
8711 plugins.</strong> When the browser encounter a MIME type it do not
8712 currently have a handler for, it will ask the user if the system
8713 should search for a package that would add support for this MIME type,
8714 and if the user say yes, the APT sources will be searched for packages
8715 advertising the MIME type in their control file (visible in the
8716 Packages file in the APT archive).  If one or more packages are found,
8717 it is a simple click of the mouse to add support for the missing mime
8718 type.  If the package require the user to accept some non-free
8719 license, this is explained to the user.  The entire process make it
8720 more clear to the user why something do not work in the browser, and
8721 make the chances higher for the user to blame the web page authors and
8722 not the browser for any missing features.</li>
8723
8724 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing multimedia codec/format
8725 handlers.</strong> When the media players encounter a format or codec
8726 it is not supporting, a dialog pop up asking the user if the system
8727 should search for a package that would add support for it.  This
8728 happen with things like MP3, Windows Media or H.264.  The selection
8729 and installation procedure is very similar to the Firefox browser
8730 plugin handling.  This is as far as I know implemented using a
8731 gstreamer hook.  The end result is that the user easily get access to
8732 the codecs that are present from the APT archives available, while
8733 explaining more on why a given format is unsupported by Ubuntu.</li>
8734
8735 <li><strong>Better browser handling of some MIME types.</strong> When
8736 displaying a text/plain file in my Debian browser, it will propose to
8737 start emacs to show it.  If I remember correctly, when doing the same
8738 in Kunbutu it show the file as a text file in the browser.  At least I
8739 know Opera will show text files within the browser.  I much prefer the
8740 latter behaviour.</li>
8741
8742 </ol>
8743
8744 <p>There are other nice features as well, like the simplified suite
8745 upgrader, but given that I am the one mostly doing the dist-upgrade,
8746 it do not matter much.</p>
8747
8748 <p>I really hope we could get these features in place for the next
8749 Debian release.  It would require the coordinated effort of several
8750 maintainers, but would make the end user experience a lot better.</p>
8751
8752       </div>
8753       <div class="tags">
8754
8755
8756         Tags: <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>.
8757
8758
8759       </div>
8760     </div>
8761     <div class="padding"></div>
8762
8763     <div class="entry">
8764       <div class="title">
8765         <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>
8766       </div>
8767       <div class="date">
8768         26th July 2011
8769       </div>
8770       <div class="body">
8771         <p>The Norwegian <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</A>
8772 site is build on Debian/Squeeze, and this platform was chosen because
8773 I am most familiar with Debian (being a Debian Developer for around 10
8774 years) because it is the latest stable Debian release which should get
8775 security support for a few years.</p>
8776
8777 <p>The web service is written in Perl, and depend on some perl modules
8778 that are missing in Debian at the moment.  It would be great if these
8779 modules were added to the Debian archive, allowing anyone to set up
8780 their own <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com">FixMyStreet</a> clone
8781 in their own country using only Debian packages.  The list of modules
8782 missing in Debian/Squeeze isn't very long, and I hope the perl group
8783 will find time to package the 12 modules Catalyst::Plugin::SmartURI,
8784 Catalyst::Plugin::Unicode::Encoding, Catalyst::View::TT, Devel::Hide,
8785 Sort::Key, Statistics::Distributions, Template::Plugin::Comma,
8786 Template::Plugin::DateTime::Format, Term::Size::Any, Term::Size::Perl,
8787 URI::SmartURI and Web::Scraper to make the maintenance of FixMyStreet
8788 easier in the future.</p>
8789
8790 <p>Thanks to the great tools in Debian, getting the missing modules
8791 installed on my server was a simple call to 'cpan2deb Module::Name'
8792 and 'dpkg -i' to install the resulting package.  But this leave me
8793 with the responsibility of tracking security problems, which I really
8794 do not have time for.</p>
8795
8796       </div>
8797       <div class="tags">
8798
8799
8800         Tags: <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>.
8801
8802
8803       </div>
8804     </div>
8805     <div class="padding"></div>
8806
8807     <div class="entry">
8808       <div class="title">
8809         <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>
8810       </div>
8811       <div class="date">
8812          3rd April 2011
8813       </div>
8814       <div class="body">
8815         <p>Here is a small update for my English readers.  Most of my blog
8816 posts have been in Norwegian the last few weeks, so here is a short
8817 update in English.</p>
8818
8819 <p>The kids still keep me too busy to get much free software work
8820 done, but I did manage to organise a project to get a Norwegian port
8821 of the British service
8822 <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com/">FixMyStreet</a> up and running,
8823 and it has been running for a month now.  The entire project has been
8824 organised by me and two others.  Around Christmas we gathered sponsors
8825 to fund the development work.  In January I drafted a contract with
8826 <a href="http://www.mysociety.org/">mySociety</a> on what to develop,
8827 and in February the development took place.  Most of it involved
8828 converting the source to use GPS coordinates instead of British
8829 easting/northing, and the resulting code should be a lot easier to get
8830 running in any country by now.  The Norwegian
8831 <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</a> is using
8832 <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/">OpenStreetmap</a> as the map
8833 source and the source for administrative borders in Norway, and
8834 support for this had to be added/fixed.</p>
8835
8836 <p>The Norwegian version went live March 3th, and we spent the weekend
8837 polishing the system before we announced it March 7th.  The system is
8838 running on a KVM instance of Debian/Squeeze, and has seen almost 3000
8839 problem reports in a few weeks.  Soon we hope to announce the Android
8840 and iPhone versions making it even easier to report problems with the
8841 public infrastructure.</p>
8842
8843 <p>Perhaps something to consider for those of you in countries without
8844 such service?</p>
8845
8846       </div>
8847       <div class="tags">
8848
8849
8850         Tags: <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>.
8851
8852
8853       </div>
8854     </div>
8855     <div class="padding"></div>
8856
8857     <div class="entry">
8858       <div class="title">
8859         <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>
8860       </div>
8861       <div class="date">
8862         28th January 2011
8863       </div>
8864       <div class="body">
8865         <p>The last few days I have looked at ways to track open security
8866 issues here at my work with the University of Oslo.  My idea is that
8867 it should be possible to use the information about security issues
8868 available on the Internet, and check our locally
8869 maintained/distributed software against this information.  It should
8870 allow us to verify that no known security issues are forgotten.  The
8871 CVE database listing vulnerabilities seem like a great central point,
8872 and by using the package lists from Debian mapped to CVEs provided by
8873 the testing security team, I believed it should be possible to figure
8874 out which security holes were present in our free software
8875 collection.</p>
8876
8877 <p>After reading up on the topic, it became obvious that the first
8878 building block is to be able to name software packages in a unique and
8879 consistent way across data sources.  I considered several ways to do
8880 this, for example coming up with my own naming scheme like using URLs
8881 to project home pages or URLs to the Freshmeat entries, or using some
8882 existing naming scheme.  And it seem like I am not the first one to
8883 come across this problem, as MITRE already proposed and implemented a
8884 solution.  Enter the <a href="http://cpe.mitre.org/index.html">Common
8885 Platform Enumeration</a> dictionary, a vocabulary for referring to
8886 software, hardware and other platform components.  The CPE ids are
8887 mapped to CVEs in the <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/">National
8888 Vulnerability Database</a>, allowing me to look up know security
8889 issues for any CPE name.  With this in place, all I need to do is to
8890 locate the CPE id for the software packages we use at the university.
8891 This is fairly trivial (I google for 'cve cpe $package' and check the
8892 NVD entry if a CVE for the package exist).</p>
8893
8894 <p>To give you an example.  The GNU gzip source package have the CPE
8895 name cpe:/a:gnu:gzip.  If the old version 1.3.3 was the package to
8896 check out, one could look up
8897 <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
8898 in NVD</a> and get a list of 6 security holes with public CVE entries.
8899 The most recent one is
8900 <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/view/vuln/detail?vulnId=CVE-2010-0001">CVE-2010-0001</a>,
8901 and at the bottom of the NVD page for this vulnerability the complete
8902 list of affected versions is provided.</p>
8903
8904 <p>The NVD database of CVEs is also available as a XML dump, allowing
8905 for offline processing of issues.  Using this dump, I've written a
8906 small script taking a list of CPEs as input and list all CVEs
8907 affecting the packages represented by these CPEs.  One give it CPEs
8908 with version numbers as specified above and get a list of open
8909 security issues out.</p>
8910
8911 <p>Of course for this approach to be useful, the quality of the NVD
8912 information need to be high.  For that to happen, I believe as many as
8913 possible need to use and contribute to the NVD database.  I notice
8914 RHEL is providing
8915 <a href="https://www.redhat.com/security/data/metrics/rhsamapcpe.txt">a
8916 map from CVE to CPE</a>, indicating that they are using the CPE
8917 information.  I'm not aware of Debian and Ubuntu doing the same.</p>
8918
8919 <p>To get an idea about the quality for free software, I spent some
8920 time making it possible to compare the CVE database from Debian with
8921 the CVE database in NVD.  The result look fairly good, but there are
8922 some inconsistencies in NVD (same software package having several
8923 CPEs), and some inaccuracies (NVD not mentioning buggy packages that
8924 Debian believe are affected by a CVE).  Hope to find time to improve
8925 the quality of NVD, but that require being able to get in touch with
8926 someone maintaining it.  So far my three emails with questions and
8927 corrections have not seen any reply, but I hope contact can be
8928 established soon.</p>
8929
8930 <p>An interesting application for CPEs is cross platform package
8931 mapping.  It would be useful to know which packages in for example
8932 RHEL, OpenSuSe and Mandriva are missing from Debian and Ubuntu, and
8933 this would be trivial if all linux distributions provided CPE entries
8934 for their packages.</p>
8935
8936       </div>
8937       <div class="tags">
8938
8939
8940         Tags: <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>.
8941
8942
8943       </div>
8944     </div>
8945     <div class="padding"></div>
8946
8947     <div class="entry">
8948       <div class="title">
8949         <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>
8950       </div>
8951       <div class="date">
8952         23rd January 2011
8953       </div>
8954       <div class="body">
8955         <p>In the
8956 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/discover-data">discover-data</a>
8957 package in Debian, there is a script to report useful information
8958 about the running hardware for use when people report missing
8959 information.  One part of this script that I find very useful when
8960 debugging hardware problems, is the part mapping loaded kernel module
8961 to the PCI device it claims.  It allow me to quickly see if the kernel
8962 module I expect is driving the hardware I am struggling with.  To see
8963 the output, make sure discover-data is installed and run
8964 <tt>/usr/share/bug/discover-data 3>&1</tt>.  The relevant output on
8965 one of my machines like this:</p>
8966
8967 <pre>
8968 loaded modules:
8969 10de:03eb i2c_nforce2
8970 10de:03f1 ohci_hcd
8971 10de:03f2 ehci_hcd
8972 10de:03f0 snd_hda_intel
8973 10de:03ec pata_amd
8974 10de:03f6 sata_nv
8975 1022:1103 k8temp
8976 109e:036e bttv
8977 109e:0878 snd_bt87x
8978 11ab:4364 sky2
8979 </pre>
8980
8981 <p>The code in question look like this, slightly modified for
8982 readability and to drop the output to file descriptor 3:</p>
8983
8984 <pre>
8985 if [ -d /sys/bus/pci/devices/ ] ; then
8986     echo loaded pci modules:
8987     (
8988         cd /sys/bus/pci/devices/
8989         for address in * ; do
8990             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
8991                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
8992                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
8993                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
8994                     id=`lspci -n -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $3}'`
8995                     echo "$id $module"
8996                 fi
8997             fi
8998         done
8999     )
9000     echo
9001 fi
9002 </pre>
9003
9004 <p>Similar code could be used to extract USB device module
9005 mappings:</p>
9006
9007 <pre>
9008 if [ -d /sys/bus/usb/devices/ ] ; then
9009     echo loaded usb modules:
9010     (
9011         cd /sys/bus/usb/devices/
9012         for address in * ; do
9013             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
9014                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
9015                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
9016                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
9017                     id=$(lsusb -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $6}')
9018                     if [ "$id" ] ; then
9019                         echo "$id $module"
9020                     fi
9021                 fi
9022             fi
9023         done
9024     )
9025     echo
9026 fi
9027 </pre>
9028
9029 <p>This might perhaps be something to include in other tools as
9030 well.</p>
9031
9032       </div>
9033       <div class="tags">
9034
9035
9036         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
9037
9038
9039       </div>
9040     </div>
9041     <div class="padding"></div>
9042
9043     <div class="entry">
9044       <div class="title">
9045         <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>
9046       </div>
9047       <div class="date">
9048         22nd December 2010
9049       </div>
9050       <div class="body">
9051         <p>The last few days I have spent at work here at the <a
9052 href="http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo</a> testing if the new
9053 batch of computers will work with Linux.  Every year for the last few
9054 years the university have organised shared bid of a few thousand
9055 computers, and this year HP won the bid.  Two different desktops and
9056 five different laptops are on the list this year.  We in the UNIX
9057 group want to know which one of these computers work well with RHEL
9058 and Ubuntu, the two Linux distributions we currently handle at the
9059 university.</p>
9060
9061 <p>My test method is simple, and I share it here to get feedback and
9062 perhaps inspire others to test hardware as well.  To test, I PXE
9063 install the OS version of choice, and log in as my normal user and run
9064 a few applications and plug in selected pieces of hardware.  When
9065 something fail, I make a note about this in the test matrix and move
9066 on.  If I have some spare time I try to report the bug to the OS
9067 vendor, but as I only have the machines for a short time, I rarely
9068 have the time to do this for all the problems I find.</p>
9069
9070 <p>Anyway, to get to the point of this post.  Here is the simple tests
9071 I perform on a new model.</p>
9072
9073 <ul>
9074
9075 <li>Is PXE installation working?  I'm testing with RHEL6, Ubuntu Lucid
9076 and Ubuntu Maverik at the moment.  If I feel like it, I also test with
9077 RHEL5 and Debian Edu/Squeeze.</li>
9078
9079 <li>Is X.org working?  If the graphical login screen show up after
9080 installation, X.org is working.</li>
9081
9082 <li>Is hardware accelerated OpenGL working?  Running glxgears (in
9083 package mesa-utils on Ubuntu) and writing down the frames per second
9084 reported by the program.</li>
9085
9086 <li>Is sound working?  With Gnome and KDE, a sound is played when
9087 logging in, and if I can hear this the test is successful.  If there
9088 are several audio exits on the machine, I try them all and check if
9089 the Gnome/KDE audio mixer can control where to send the sound.  I
9090 normally test this by playing
9091 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20101012-chef/ ">a HTML5
9092 video</a> in Firefox/Iceweasel.</li>
9093
9094 <li>Is the USB subsystem working?  I test this by plugging in a USB
9095 memory stick and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
9096
9097 <li>Is the CD/DVD player working?  I test this by inserting any CD/DVD
9098 I have lying around, and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
9099
9100 <li>Is any built in camera working?  Test using cheese, and see if a
9101 picture from the v4l device show up.</li>
9102
9103 <li>Is bluetooth working?  Use the Gnome/KDE browsing tool to see if
9104 any bluetooth devices are discovered.  In my office, I normally see a
9105 few.</li>
9106
9107 <li>For laptops, is the SD or Compaq Flash reader working.  I have
9108 memory modules lying around, and stick them in and see if Gnome/KDE
9109 notice this.</li>
9110
9111 <li>For laptops, is suspend/hibernate working?  I'm testing if the
9112 special button work, and if the laptop continue to work after
9113 resume.</li>
9114
9115 <li>For laptops, is the extra buttons working, like audio level,
9116 adjusting background light, switching on/off external video output,
9117 switching on/off wifi, bluetooth, etc?  The set of buttons differ from
9118 laptop to laptop, so I just write down which are working and which are
9119 not.</li>
9120
9121 <li>Some laptops have smart card readers, finger print readers,
9122 acceleration sensors etc.  I rarely test these, as I do not know how
9123 to quickly test if they are working or not, so I only document their
9124 existence.</li>
9125
9126 </ul>
9127
9128 <p>By now I suspect you are really curious what the test results are
9129 for the HP machines I am testing.  I'm not done yet, so I will report
9130 the test results later.  For now I can report that HP 8100 Elite work
9131 fine, and hibernation fail with HP EliteBook 8440p on Ubuntu Lucid,
9132 and audio fail on RHEL6.  Ubuntu Maverik worked with 8440p.  As you
9133 can see, I have most machines left to test.  One interesting
9134 observation is that Ubuntu Lucid has almost twice the frame rate than
9135 RHEL6 with glxgears.  No idea why.</p>
9136
9137       </div>
9138       <div class="tags">
9139
9140
9141         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>.
9142
9143
9144       </div>
9145     </div>
9146     <div class="padding"></div>
9147
9148     <div class="entry">
9149       <div class="title">
9150         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Some_thoughts_on_BitCoins.html">Some thoughts on BitCoins</a>
9151       </div>
9152       <div class="date">
9153         11th December 2010
9154       </div>
9155       <div class="body">
9156         <p>As I continue to explore
9157 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>, I've starting to wonder
9158 what properties the system have, and how it will be affected by laws
9159 and regulations here in Norway.  Here are some random notes.</p>
9160
9161 <p>One interesting thing to note is that since the transactions are
9162 verified using a peer to peer network, all details about a transaction
9163 is known to everyone.  This means that if a BitCoin address has been
9164 published like I did with mine in my initial post about BitCoin, it is
9165 possible for everyone to see how many BitCoins have been transfered to
9166 that address.  There is even a web service to look at the details for
9167 all transactions.  There I can see that my address
9168 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a>
9169 have received 16.06 Bitcoin, the
9170 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3">1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3</a>
9171 address of Simon Phipps have received 181.97 BitCoin and the address
9172 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt">1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt</A>
9173 of EFF have received 2447.38 BitCoins so far.  Thank you to each and
9174 every one of you that donated bitcoins to support my activity. The
9175 fact that anyone can see how much money was transfered to a given
9176 address make it more obvious why the BitCoin community recommend to
9177 generate and hand out a new address for each transaction.  I'm told
9178 there is no way to track which addresses belong to a given person or
9179 organisation without the person or organisation revealing it
9180 themselves, as Simon, EFF and I have done.</p>
9181
9182 <p>In Norway, and in most other countries, there are laws and
9183 regulations limiting how much money one can transfer across the border
9184 without declaring it.  There are money laundering, tax and accounting
9185 laws and regulations I would expect to apply to the use of BitCoin.
9186 If the Skolelinux foundation
9187 (<a href="http://linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">SLX
9188 Debian Labs</a>) were to accept donations in BitCoin in addition to
9189 normal bank transfers like EFF is doing, how should this be accounted?
9190 Given that it is impossible to know if money can cross the border or
9191 not, should everything or nothing be declared?  What exchange rate
9192 should be used when calculating taxes?  Would receivers have to pay
9193 income tax if the foundation were to pay Skolelinux contributors in
9194 BitCoin?  I have no idea, but it would be interesting to know.</p>
9195
9196 <p>For a currency to be useful and successful, it must be trusted and
9197 accepted by a lot of users.  It must be possible to get easy access to
9198 the currency (as a wage or using currency exchanges), and it must be
9199 easy to spend it.  At the moment BitCoin seem fairly easy to get
9200 access to, but there are very few places to spend it.  I am not really
9201 a regular user of any of the vendor types currently accepting BitCoin,
9202 so I wonder when my kind of shop would start accepting BitCoins.  I
9203 would like to buy electronics, travels and subway tickets, not herbs
9204 and books. :) The currency is young, and this will improve over time
9205 if it become popular, but I suspect regular banks will start to lobby
9206 to get BitCoin declared illegal if it become popular.  I'm sure they
9207 will claim it is helping fund terrorism and money laundering (which
9208 probably would be true, as is any currency in existence), but I
9209 believe the problems should be solved elsewhere and not by blaming
9210 currencies.</p>
9211
9212 <p>The process of creating new BitCoins is called mining, and it is
9213 CPU intensive process that depend on a bit of luck as well (as one is
9214 competing against all the other miners currently spending CPU cycles
9215 to see which one get the next lump of cash).  The "winner" get 50
9216 BitCoin when this happen.  Yesterday I came across the obvious way to
9217 join forces to increase ones changes of getting at least some coins,
9218 by coordinating the work on mining BitCoins across several machines
9219 and people, and sharing the result if one is lucky and get the 50
9220 BitCoins.  Check out
9221 <a href="http://www.bluishcoder.co.nz/bitcoin-pool/">BitCoin Pool</a>
9222 if this sounds interesting.  I have not had time to try to set up a
9223 machine to participate there yet, but have seen that running on ones
9224 own for a few days have not yield any BitCoins througth mining
9225 yet.</p>
9226
9227 <p>Update 2010-12-15: Found an <a
9228 href="http://inertia.posterous.com/reply-to-the-underground-economist-why-bitcoi">interesting
9229 criticism</a> of bitcoin.  Not quite sure how valid it is, but thought
9230 it was interesting to read.  The arguments presented seem to be
9231 equally valid for gold, which was used as a currency for many years.</p>
9232
9233       </div>
9234       <div class="tags">
9235
9236
9237         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>.
9238
9239
9240       </div>
9241     </div>
9242     <div class="padding"></div>
9243
9244     <div class="entry">
9245       <div class="title">
9246         <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>
9247       </div>
9248       <div class="date">
9249         10th December 2010
9250       </div>
9251       <div class="body">
9252         <p>With this weeks lawless
9253 <a href="http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/06/wikileaks/index.html">governmental
9254 attacks</a> on Wikileak and
9255 <a href="http://www.salon.com/technology/dan_gillmor/2010/12/06/war_on_speech">free
9256 speech</a>, it has become obvious that PayPal, visa and mastercard can
9257 not be trusted to handle money transactions.
9258 A blog post from
9259 <a href="http://webmink.com/2010/12/06/now-accepting-bitcoin/">Simon
9260 Phipps on bitcoin</a> reminded me about a project that a friend of
9261 mine mentioned earlier.  I decided to follow Simon's example, and get
9262 involved with <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>.  I got
9263 some help from my friend to get it all running, and he even handed me
9264 some bitcoins to get started.  I even donated a few bitcoins to Simon
9265 for helping me remember BitCoin.</p>
9266
9267 <p>So, what is bitcoins, you probably wonder?  It is a digital
9268 crypto-currency, decentralised and handled using peer-to-peer
9269 networks.  It allows anonymous transactions and prohibits central
9270 control over the transactions, making it impossible for governments
9271 and companies alike to block donations and other transactions.  The
9272 source is free software, and while the key dependency wxWidgets 2.9
9273 for the graphical user interface is missing in Debian, the command
9274 line client builds just fine.  Hopefully Jonas
9275 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/578157">will get the package into
9276 Debian</a> soon.</p>
9277
9278 <p>Bitcoins can be converted to other currencies, like USD and EUR.
9279 There are <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/trade">companies accepting
9280 bitcoins</a> when selling services and goods, and there are even
9281 currency "stock" markets where the exchange rate is decided.  There
9282 are not many users so far, but the concept seems promising.  If you
9283 want to get started and lack a friend with any bitcoins to spare,
9284 you can even get
9285 <a href="https://freebitcoins.appspot.com/">some for free</a> (0.05
9286 bitcoin at the time of writing).  Use
9287 <a href="http://www.bitcoinwatch.com/">BitcoinWatch</a> to keep an eye
9288 on the current exchange rates.</p>
9289
9290 <p>As an experiment, I have decided to set up bitcoind on one of my
9291 machines.  If you want to support my activity, please send Bitcoin
9292 donations to the address
9293 <b>15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</b>.  Thank you!</p>
9294
9295       </div>
9296       <div class="tags">
9297
9298
9299         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>.
9300
9301
9302       </div>
9303     </div>
9304     <div class="padding"></div>
9305
9306     <div class="entry">
9307       <div class="title">
9308         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_isn_t_Debian_Edu_using_VLC_.html">Why isn't Debian Edu using VLC?</a>
9309       </div>
9310       <div class="date">
9311         27th November 2010
9312       </div>
9313       <div class="body">
9314         <p>In the latest issue of Linux Journal, the readers choices were
9315 presented, and the winner among the multimedia player were VLC.
9316 Personally, I like VLC, and it is my player of choice when I first try
9317 to play a video file or stream.  Only if VLC fail will I drag out
9318 gmplayer to see if it can do better.  The reason is mostly the failure
9319 model and trust.  When VLC fail, it normally pop up a error message
9320 reporting the problem.  When mplayer fail, it normally segfault or
9321 just hangs.  The latter failure mode drain my trust in the program.<p>
9322
9323 <p>But even if VLC is my player of choice, we have choosen to use
9324 mplayer in <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
9325 Edu/Skolelinux</a>.  The reason is simple.  We need a good browser
9326 plugin to play web videos seamlessly, and the VLC browser plugin is
9327 not very good.  For example, it lack in-line control buttons, so there
9328 is no way for the user to pause the video.  Also, when I
9329 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">last
9330 tested the browser plugins</a> available in Debian, the VLC plugin
9331 failed on several video pages where mplayer based plugins worked.  If
9332 the browser plugin for VLC was as good as the gecko-mediaplayer
9333 package (which uses mplayer), we would switch.</P>
9334
9335 <p>While VLC is a good player, its user interface is slightly
9336 annoying.  The most annoying feature is its inconsistent use of
9337 keyboard shortcuts.  When the player is in full screen mode, its
9338 shortcuts are different from when it is playing the video in a window.
9339 For example, space only work as pause when in full screen mode.  I
9340 wish it had consisten shortcuts and that space also would work when in
9341 window mode.  Another nice shortcut in gmplayer is [enter] to restart
9342 the current video.  It is very nice when playing short videos from the
9343 web and want to restart it when new people arrive to have a look at
9344 what is going on.</p>
9345
9346       </div>
9347       <div class="tags">
9348
9349
9350         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>.
9351
9352
9353       </div>
9354     </div>
9355     <div class="padding"></div>
9356
9357     <div class="entry">
9358       <div class="title">
9359         <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>
9360       </div>
9361       <div class="date">
9362         22nd November 2010
9363       </div>
9364       <div class="body">
9365         <p>Michael Biebl suggested to me on IRC, that I changed my automated
9366 upgrade testing of the
9367 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
9368 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a> to do <tt>apt-get autoremove</tt> when using apt-get.
9369 This seem like a very good idea, so I adjusted by test scripts and
9370 can now present the updated result from today:</p>
9371
9372 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
9373
9374 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
9375
9376 <blockquote><p>
9377   apache2.2-bin
9378   aptdaemon
9379   baobab
9380   binfmt-support
9381   browser-plugin-gnash
9382   cheese-common
9383   cli-common
9384   cups-pk-helper
9385   dmz-cursor-theme
9386   empathy
9387   empathy-common
9388   freedesktop-sound-theme
9389   freeglut3
9390   gconf-defaults-service
9391   gdm-themes
9392   gedit-plugins
9393   geoclue
9394   geoclue-hostip
9395   geoclue-localnet
9396   geoclue-manual
9397   geoclue-yahoo
9398   gnash
9399   gnash-common
9400   gnome
9401   gnome-backgrounds
9402   gnome-cards-data
9403   gnome-codec-install
9404   gnome-core
9405   gnome-desktop-environment
9406   gnome-disk-utility
9407   gnome-screenshot
9408   gnome-search-tool
9409   gnome-session-canberra
9410   gnome-system-log
9411   gnome-themes-extras
9412   gnome-themes-more
9413   gnome-user-share
9414   gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
9415   gstreamer0.10-tools
9416   gtk2-engines
9417   gtk2-engines-pixbuf
9418   gtk2-engines-smooth
9419   hamster-applet
9420   libapache2-mod-dnssd
9421   libapr1
9422   libaprutil1
9423   libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3
9424   libaprutil1-ldap
9425   libart2.0-cil
9426   libboost-date-time1.42.0
9427   libboost-python1.42.0
9428   libboost-thread1.42.0
9429   libchamplain-0.4-0
9430   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0
9431   libcheese-gtk18
9432   libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
9433   libcryptui0
9434   libdiscid0
9435   libelf1
9436   libepc-1.0-2
9437   libepc-common
9438   libepc-ui-1.0-2
9439   libfreerdp-plugins-standard
9440   libfreerdp0
9441   libgconf2.0-cil
9442   libgdata-common
9443   libgdata7
9444   libgdu-gtk0
9445   libgee2
9446   libgeoclue0
9447   libgexiv2-0
9448   libgif4
9449   libglade2.0-cil
9450   libglib2.0-cil
9451   libgmime2.4-cil
9452   libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
9453   libgnome2.24-cil
9454   libgnomepanel2.24-cil
9455   libgpod-common
9456   libgpod4
9457   libgtk2.0-cil
9458   libgtkglext1
9459   libgtksourceview2.0-common
9460   libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
9461   libmono-addins0.2-cil
9462   libmono-cairo2.0-cil
9463   libmono-corlib2.0-cil
9464   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil
9465   libmono-posix2.0-cil
9466   libmono-security2.0-cil
9467   libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
9468   libmono-system2.0-cil
9469   libmtp8
9470   libmusicbrainz3-6
9471   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil
9472   libndesk-dbus1.0-cil
9473   libopal3.6.8
9474   libpolkit-gtk-1-0
9475   libpt2.6.7
9476   libpython2.6
9477   librpm1
9478   librpmio1
9479   libsdl1.2debian
9480   libsrtp0
9481   libssh-4
9482   libtelepathy-farsight0
9483   libtelepathy-glib0
9484   libtidy-0.99-0
9485   media-player-info
9486   mesa-utils
9487   mono-2.0-gac
9488   mono-gac
9489   mono-runtime
9490   nautilus-sendto
9491   nautilus-sendto-empathy
9492   p7zip-full
9493   pkg-config
9494   python-aptdaemon
9495   python-aptdaemon-gtk
9496   python-axiom
9497   python-beautifulsoup
9498   python-bugbuddy
9499   python-clientform
9500   python-coherence
9501   python-configobj
9502   python-crypto
9503   python-cupshelpers
9504   python-elementtree
9505   python-epsilon
9506   python-evolution
9507   python-feedparser
9508   python-gdata
9509   python-gdbm
9510   python-gst0.10
9511   python-gtkglext1
9512   python-gtksourceview2
9513   python-httplib2
9514   python-louie
9515   python-mako
9516   python-markupsafe
9517   python-mechanize
9518   python-nevow
9519   python-notify
9520   python-opengl
9521   python-openssl
9522   python-pam
9523   python-pkg-resources
9524   python-pyasn1
9525   python-pysqlite2
9526   python-rdflib
9527   python-serial
9528   python-tagpy
9529   python-twisted-bin
9530   python-twisted-conch
9531   python-twisted-core
9532   python-twisted-web
9533   python-utidylib
9534   python-webkit
9535   python-xdg
9536   python-zope.interface
9537   remmina
9538   remmina-plugin-data
9539   remmina-plugin-rdp
9540   remmina-plugin-vnc
9541   rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
9542   rhythmbox-plugins
9543   rpm-common
9544   rpm2cpio
9545   seahorse-plugins
9546   shotwell
9547   software-center
9548   system-config-printer-udev
9549   telepathy-gabble
9550   telepathy-mission-control-5
9551   telepathy-salut
9552   tomboy
9553   totem
9554   totem-coherence
9555   totem-mozilla
9556   totem-plugins
9557   transmission-common
9558   xdg-user-dirs
9559   xdg-user-dirs-gtk
9560   xserver-xephyr
9561 </p></blockquote>
9562
9563 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
9564
9565 <blockquote><p>
9566   cheese
9567   ekiga
9568   eog
9569   epiphany-extensions
9570   evolution-exchange
9571   fast-user-switch-applet
9572   file-roller
9573   gcalctool
9574   gconf-editor
9575   gdm
9576   gedit
9577   gedit-common
9578   gnome-games
9579   gnome-games-data
9580   gnome-nettool
9581   gnome-system-tools
9582   gnome-themes
9583   gnuchess
9584   gucharmap
9585   guile-1.8-libs
9586   libavahi-ui0
9587   libdmx1
9588   libgalago3
9589   libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
9590   libgtksourceview2.0-0
9591   liblircclient0
9592   libsdl1.2debian-alsa
9593   libspeexdsp1
9594   libsvga1
9595   rhythmbox
9596   seahorse
9597   sound-juicer
9598   system-config-printer
9599   totem-common
9600   transmission-gtk
9601   vinagre
9602   vino
9603 </p></blockquote>
9604
9605 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
9606
9607 <blockquote><p>
9608   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
9609 </p></blockquote>
9610
9611 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
9612
9613 <blockquote><p>
9614 [nothing]
9615 </p></blockquote>
9616
9617 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
9618
9619 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
9620
9621 <blockquote><p>
9622   ksmserver
9623 </p></blockquote>
9624
9625 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
9626
9627 <blockquote><p>
9628   kwin
9629   network-manager-kde
9630 </p></blockquote>
9631
9632 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
9633
9634 <blockquote><p>
9635   arts
9636   dolphin
9637   freespacenotifier
9638   google-gadgets-gst
9639   google-gadgets-xul
9640   kappfinder
9641   kcalc
9642   kcharselect
9643   kde-core
9644   kde-plasma-desktop
9645   kde-standard
9646   kde-window-manager
9647   kdeartwork
9648   kdeartwork-emoticons
9649   kdeartwork-style
9650   kdeartwork-theme-icon
9651   kdebase
9652   kdebase-apps
9653   kdebase-workspace
9654   kdebase-workspace-bin
9655   kdebase-workspace-data
9656   kdeeject
9657   kdelibs
9658   kdeplasma-addons
9659   kdeutils
9660   kdewallpapers
9661   kdf
9662   kfloppy
9663   kgpg
9664   khelpcenter4
9665   kinfocenter
9666   konq-plugins-l10n
9667   konqueror-nsplugins
9668   kscreensaver
9669   kscreensaver-xsavers
9670   ktimer
9671   kwrite
9672   libgle3
9673   libkde4-ruby1.8
9674   libkonq5
9675   libkonq5-templates
9676   libnetpbm10
9677   libplasma-ruby
9678   libplasma-ruby1.8
9679   libqt4-ruby1.8
9680   marble-data
9681   marble-plugins
9682   netpbm
9683   nuvola-icon-theme
9684   plasma-dataengines-workspace
9685   plasma-desktop
9686   plasma-desktopthemes-artwork
9687   plasma-runners-addons
9688   plasma-scriptengine-googlegadgets
9689   plasma-scriptengine-python
9690   plasma-scriptengine-qedje
9691   plasma-scriptengine-ruby
9692   plasma-scriptengine-webkit
9693   plasma-scriptengines
9694   plasma-wallpapers-addons
9695   plasma-widget-folderview
9696   plasma-widget-networkmanagement
9697   ruby
9698   sweeper
9699   update-notifier-kde
9700   xscreensaver-data-extra
9701   xscreensaver-gl
9702   xscreensaver-gl-extra
9703   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
9704 </p></blockquote>
9705
9706 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
9707
9708 <blockquote><p>
9709   ark
9710   google-gadgets-common
9711   google-gadgets-qt
9712   htdig
9713   kate
9714   kdebase-bin
9715   kdebase-data
9716   kdepasswd
9717   kfind
9718   klipper
9719   konq-plugins
9720   konqueror
9721   ksysguard
9722   ksysguardd
9723   libarchive1
9724   libcln6
9725   libeet1
9726   libeina-svn-06
9727   libggadget-1.0-0b
9728   libggadget-qt-1.0-0b
9729   libgps19
9730   libkdecorations4
9731   libkephal4
9732   libkonq4
9733   libkonqsidebarplugin4a
9734   libkscreensaver5
9735   libksgrd4
9736   libksignalplotter4
9737   libkunitconversion4
9738   libkwineffects1a
9739   libmarblewidget4
9740   libntrack-qt4-1
9741   libntrack0
9742   libplasma-geolocation-interface4
9743   libplasmaclock4a
9744   libplasmagenericshell4
9745   libprocesscore4a
9746   libprocessui4a
9747   libqalculate5
9748   libqedje0a
9749   libqtruby4shared2
9750   libqzion0a
9751   libruby1.8
9752   libscim8c2a
9753   libsmokekdecore4-3
9754   libsmokekdeui4-3
9755   libsmokekfile3
9756   libsmokekhtml3
9757   libsmokekio3
9758   libsmokeknewstuff2-3
9759   libsmokeknewstuff3-3
9760   libsmokekparts3
9761   libsmokektexteditor3
9762   libsmokekutils3
9763   libsmokenepomuk3
9764   libsmokephonon3
9765   libsmokeplasma3
9766   libsmokeqtcore4-3
9767   libsmokeqtdbus4-3
9768   libsmokeqtgui4-3
9769   libsmokeqtnetwork4-3
9770   libsmokeqtopengl4-3
9771   libsmokeqtscript4-3
9772   libsmokeqtsql4-3
9773   libsmokeqtsvg4-3
9774   libsmokeqttest4-3
9775   libsmokeqtuitools4-3
9776   libsmokeqtwebkit4-3
9777   libsmokeqtxml4-3
9778   libsmokesolid3
9779   libsmokesoprano3
9780   libtaskmanager4a
9781   libtidy-0.99-0
9782   libweather-ion4a
9783   libxklavier16
9784   libxxf86misc1
9785   okteta
9786   oxygencursors
9787   plasma-dataengines-addons
9788   plasma-scriptengine-superkaramba
9789   plasma-widget-lancelot
9790   plasma-widgets-addons
9791   plasma-widgets-workspace
9792   polkit-kde-1
9793   ruby1.8
9794   systemsettings
9795   update-notifier-common
9796 </p></blockquote>
9797
9798 <p>Running apt-get autoremove made the results using apt-get and
9799 aptitude a bit more similar, but there are still quite a lott of
9800 differences.  I have no idea what packages should be installed after
9801 the upgrade, but hope those that do can have a look.</p>
9802
9803       </div>
9804       <div class="tags">
9805
9806
9807         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>.
9808
9809
9810       </div>
9811     </div>
9812     <div class="padding"></div>
9813
9814     <div class="entry">
9815       <div class="title">
9816         <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>
9817       </div>
9818       <div class="date">
9819         22nd November 2010
9820       </div>
9821       <div class="body">
9822         <p>Most of the computers in use by the
9823 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux project</a>
9824 are virtual machines.  And they have been Xen machines running on a
9825 fairly old IBM eserver xseries 345 machine, and we wanted to migrate
9826 them to KVM on a newer Dell PowerEdge 2950 host machine.  This was a
9827 bit harder that it could have been, because we set up the Xen virtual
9828 machines to get the virtual partitions from LVM, which as far as I
9829 know is not supported by KVM.  So to migrate, we had to convert
9830 several LVM logical volumes to partitions on a virtual disk file.</p>
9831
9832 <p>I found
9833 <a href="http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM">a
9834 nice recipe</a> to do this, and wrote the following script to do the
9835 migration.  It uses qemu-img from the qemu package to make the disk
9836 image, parted to partition it, losetup and kpartx to present the disk
9837 image partions as devices, and dd to copy the data.  I NFS mounted the
9838 new servers storage area on the old server to do the migration.</p>
9839
9840 <pre>
9841 #!/bin/sh
9842
9843 # Based on
9844 # http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM
9845
9846 set -e
9847 set -x
9848
9849 if [ -z "$1" ] ; then
9850     echo "Usage: $0 &lt;hostname&gt;"
9851     exit 1
9852 else
9853     host="$1"
9854 fi
9855
9856 if [ ! -e /dev/vg_data/$host-disk ] ; then
9857     echo "error: unable to find LVM volume for $host"
9858     exit 1
9859 fi
9860
9861 # Partitions need to be a bit bigger than the LVM LVs.  not sure why.
9862 disksize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-disk | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
9863 swapsize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-swap | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
9864 totalsize=$(( ( $disksize + $swapsize ) ))
9865
9866 img=$host.img
9867 #dd if=/dev/zero of=$img bs=1M count=$(( $disksize + $swapsize ))
9868 qemu-img create $img ${totalsize}MMaking room on the Debian Edu/Sqeeze DVD
9869
9870 parted $img mklabel msdos
9871 parted $img mkpart primary linux-swap 0 $disksize
9872 parted $img mkpart primary ext2 $disksize $totalsize
9873 parted $img set 1 boot on
9874
9875 modprobe dm-mod
9876 losetup /dev/loop0 $img
9877 kpartx -a /dev/loop0
9878
9879 dd if=/dev/vg_data/$host-disk of=/dev/mapper/loop0p1 bs=1M
9880 fsck.ext3 -f /dev/mapper/loop0p1 || true
9881 mkswap /dev/mapper/loop0p2
9882
9883 kpartx -d /dev/loop0
9884 losetup -d /dev/loop0
9885 </pre>
9886
9887 <p>The script is perhaps so simple that it is not copyrightable, but
9888 if it is, it is licenced using GPL v2 or later at your discretion.</p>
9889
9890 <p>After doing this, I booted a Debian CD in rescue mode in KVM with
9891 the new disk image attached, installed grub-pc and linux-image-686 and
9892 set up grub to boot from the disk image.  After this, the KVM machines
9893 seem to work just fine.</p>
9894
9895       </div>
9896       <div class="tags">
9897
9898
9899         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>.
9900
9901
9902       </div>
9903     </div>
9904     <div class="padding"></div>
9905
9906     <div class="entry">
9907       <div class="title">
9908         <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>
9909       </div>
9910       <div class="date">
9911         20th November 2010
9912       </div>
9913       <div class="body">
9914         <p>I'm still running upgrade testing of the
9915 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
9916 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a>, but have not had time to spend on reporting the
9917 status.  Here is a short update based on a test I ran 20101118.</p>
9918
9919 <p>I still do not know what a correct migration should look like, so I
9920 report any differences between apt and aptitude and hope someone else
9921 can see if anything should be changed.</p>
9922
9923 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
9924
9925 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
9926
9927 <blockquote><p>
9928   apache2.2-bin aptdaemon at-spi baobab binfmt-support
9929   browser-plugin-gnash cheese-common cli-common cpp-4.3 cups-pk-helper
9930   dmz-cursor-theme empathy empathy-common finger
9931   freedesktop-sound-theme freeglut3 gconf-defaults-service gdm-themes
9932   gedit-plugins geoclue geoclue-hostip geoclue-localnet geoclue-manual
9933   geoclue-yahoo gnash gnash-common gnome gnome-backgrounds
9934   gnome-cards-data gnome-codec-install gnome-core
9935   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-disk-utility gnome-screenshot
9936   gnome-search-tool gnome-session-canberra gnome-spell
9937   gnome-system-log gnome-themes-extras gnome-themes-more
9938   gnome-user-share gs-common gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
9939   gstreamer0.10-tools gtk2-engines gtk2-engines-pixbuf
9940   gtk2-engines-smooth hal-info hamster-applet libapache2-mod-dnssd
9941   libapr1 libaprutil1 libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3 libaprutil1-ldap
9942   libart2.0-cil libatspi1.0-0 libboost-date-time1.42.0
9943   libboost-python1.42.0 libboost-thread1.42.0 libchamplain-0.4-0
9944   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0 libcheese-gtk18 libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
9945   libcryptui0 libcupsys2 libdiscid0 libeel2-data libelf1 libepc-1.0-2
9946   libepc-common libepc-ui-1.0-2 libfreerdp-plugins-standard
9947   libfreerdp0 libgail-common libgconf2.0-cil libgdata-common libgdata7
9948   libgdl-1-common libgdu-gtk0 libgee2 libgeoclue0 libgexiv2-0 libgif4
9949   libglade2.0-cil libglib2.0-cil libgmime2.4-cil libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
9950   libgnome2.24-cil libgnomepanel2.24-cil libgnomeprint2.2-data
9951   libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod-common libgpod4
9952   libgtk2.0-cil libgtkglext1 libgtksourceview-common
9953   libgtksourceview2.0-common libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
9954   libmono-addins0.2-cil libmono-cairo2.0-cil libmono-corlib2.0-cil
9955   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil libmono-posix2.0-cil
9956   libmono-security2.0-cil libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
9957   libmono-system2.0-cil libmtp8 libmusicbrainz3-6
9958   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil libndesk-dbus1.0-cil libopal3.6.8
9959   libpolkit-gtk-1-0 libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
9960   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libpt2.6.7 libpython2.6 librpm1 librpmio1
9961   libsdl1.2debian libservlet2.4-java libsrtp0 libssh-4
9962   libtelepathy-farsight0 libtelepathy-glib0 libtidy-0.99-0
9963   libxalan2-java libxerces2-java media-player-info mesa-utils
9964   mono-2.0-gac mono-gac mono-runtime nautilus-sendto
9965   nautilus-sendto-empathy openoffice.org-writer2latex
9966   openssl-blacklist p7zip p7zip-full pkg-config python-4suite-xml
9967   python-aptdaemon python-aptdaemon-gtk python-axiom
9968   python-beautifulsoup python-bugbuddy python-clientform
9969   python-coherence python-configobj python-crypto python-cupshelpers
9970   python-cupsutils python-eggtrayicon python-elementtree
9971   python-epsilon python-evolution python-feedparser python-gdata
9972   python-gdbm python-gst0.10 python-gtkglext1 python-gtkmozembed
9973   python-gtksourceview2 python-httplib2 python-louie python-mako
9974   python-markupsafe python-mechanize python-nevow python-notify
9975   python-opengl python-openssl python-pam python-pkg-resources
9976   python-pyasn1 python-pysqlite2 python-rdflib python-serial
9977   python-tagpy python-twisted-bin python-twisted-conch
9978   python-twisted-core python-twisted-web python-utidylib python-webkit
9979   python-xdg python-zope.interface remmina remmina-plugin-data
9980   remmina-plugin-rdp remmina-plugin-vnc rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
9981   rhythmbox-plugins rpm-common rpm2cpio seahorse-plugins shotwell
9982   software-center svgalibg1 system-config-printer-udev
9983   telepathy-gabble telepathy-mission-control-5 telepathy-salut tomboy
9984   totem totem-coherence totem-mozilla totem-plugins
9985   transmission-common xdg-user-dirs xdg-user-dirs-gtk xserver-xephyr
9986   zip
9987 </p></blockquote>
9988
9989 Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude
9990
9991 <blockquote><p>
9992   arj bluez-utils cheese dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop ekiga eog
9993   epiphany-extensions epiphany-gecko evolution-exchange
9994   fast-user-switch-applet file-roller gcalctool gconf-editor gdm gedit
9995   gedit-common gnome-app-install gnome-games gnome-games-data
9996   gnome-nettool gnome-system-tools gnome-themes gnome-utils
9997   gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager gnuchess gucharmap
9998   guile-1.8-libs hal libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5
9999   libavahi-ui0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7
10000   libcucul0 libcurl3 libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdmx1 libdvdread3
10001   libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1
10002   libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3 libfaad0 libgadu3
10003   libgalago3 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
10004   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
10005   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
10006   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
10007   libgtkhtml2-0 libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgtksourceview2.0-0
10008   libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
10009   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libkpathsea4 liblircclient0 libltdl3 liblwres50
10010   libmagick++10 libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmozjs1d libmpfr1ldbl libmtp7
10011   libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0
10012   libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpisock9
10013   libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8
10014   libsdl1.2debian-alsa libsensors3 libsexy2 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
10015   libspeexdsp1 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libsvga1
10016   libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0
10017   libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12
10018   libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common rhythmbox seahorse
10019   sound-juicer swfdec-gnome system-config-printer totem-common
10020   totem-gstreamer transmission-gtk vinagre vino w3c-dtd-xhtml wodim
10021 </p></blockquote>
10022
10023 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
10024
10025 <blockquote><p>
10026   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
10027 </p></blockquote>
10028
10029 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
10030
10031 <blockquote><p>
10032 [nothing]
10033 </p></blockquote>
10034
10035 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
10036
10037 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
10038
10039 <blockquote><p>
10040   autopoint bomber bovo cantor cantor-backend-kalgebra cpp-4.3 dcoprss
10041   edict espeak espeak-data eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
10042   ghostscript-x git gnome-audio gnugo granatier gs-common
10043   gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio indi kaddressbook-plugins kalgebra
10044   kalzium-data kanjidic kapman kate-plugins kblocks kbreakout kbstate
10045   kde-icons-mono kdeaccessibility kdeaddons-kfile-plugins
10046   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
10047   kdeedu kdeedu-data kdeedu-kvtml-data kdegames kdegames-card-data
10048   kdegames-mahjongg-data kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc
10049   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
10050   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdessh kdetoys kdewebdev
10051   kdiamond kdnssd kfilereplace kfourinline kgeography-data kigo
10052   killbots kiriki klettres-data kmoon kmrml knewsticker-scripts
10053   kollision kpf krosspython ksirk ksmserver ksquares kstars-data
10054   ksudoku kubrick kweather libasound2-plugins libboost-python1.42.0
10055   libcfitsio3 libconvert-binhex-perl libcrypt-ssleay-perl libdb4.6++
10056   libdjvulibre-text libdotconf1.0 liberror-perl libespeak1
10057   libfinance-quote-perl libgail-common libgsl0ldbl libhtml-parser-perl
10058   libhtml-tableextract-perl libhtml-tagset-perl libhtml-tree-perl
10059   libio-stringy-perl libkdeedu4 libkdegames5 libkiten4 libkpathsea5
10060   libkrossui4 libmailtools-perl libmime-tools-perl
10061   libnews-nntpclient-perl libopenbabel3 libportaudio2 libpulse-browse0
10062   libservlet2.4-java libspeechd2 libtiff-tools libtimedate-perl
10063   libunistring0 liburi-perl libwww-perl libxalan2-java libxerces2-java
10064   lirc luatex marble networkstatus noatun-plugins
10065   openoffice.org-writer2latex palapeli palapeli-data parley
10066   parley-data poster psutils pulseaudio pulseaudio-esound-compat
10067   pulseaudio-module-x11 pulseaudio-utils quanta-data rocs rsync
10068   speech-dispatcher step svgalibg1 texlive-binaries texlive-luatex
10069   ttf-sazanami-gothic
10070 </p></blockquote>
10071
10072 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
10073
10074 <blockquote><p>
10075   amor artsbuilder atlantik atlantikdesigner blinken bluez-utils cvs
10076   dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop imlib-base imlib11 kalzium kanagram kandy
10077   kasteroids katomic kbackgammon kbattleship kblackbox kbounce kbruch
10078   kcron kdat kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data kdeprint kdict kdvi kedit
10079   keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs kgeography kghostview
10080   kgoldrunner khangman khexedit kiconedit kig kimagemapeditor
10081   kitchensync kiten kjumpingcube klatin klettres klickety klines
10082   klinkstatus kmag kmahjongg kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmines
10083   kmousetool kmouth kmplot knetwalk kodo kolf kommander konquest kooka
10084   kpager kpat kpdf kpercentage kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler krec
10085   kregexpeditor kreversi ksame ksayit kshisen ksig ksim ksirc ksirtet
10086   ksmiletris ksnake ksokoban kspaceduel kstars ksvg ksysv kteatime
10087   ktip ktnef ktouch ktron kttsd ktuberling kturtle ktux kuickshow
10088   kverbos kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kwordquiz
10089   kworldclock kxsldbg libakode2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
10090   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
10091   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2
10092   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0
10093   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
10094   libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0 libicu38
10095   libiec61883-0 libindex0 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
10096   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1 libkdeedu3
10097   libkdegames1 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
10098   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
10099   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick10
10100   libmimelib1c2a libmodplug0c2 libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libmpfr1ldbl
10101   libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9 libpoppler-glib3
10102   libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 librss1 libsensors3
10103   libsmbios2 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90
10104   libtalloc1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 lskat
10105   mpeglib network-manager-kde noatun pmount tex-common texlive-base
10106   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended tidy
10107   ttf-dustin ttf-kochi-gothic ttf-sjfonts
10108 </p></blockquote>
10109
10110 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
10111
10112 <blockquote><p>
10113   dolphin kde-core kde-plasma-desktop kde-standard kde-window-manager
10114   kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-apps kdebase-workspace
10115   kdebase-workspace-bin kdebase-workspace-data kdeutils kscreensaver
10116   kscreensaver-xsavers libgle3 libkonq5 libkonq5-templates libnetpbm10
10117   netpbm plasma-widget-folderview plasma-widget-networkmanagement
10118   xscreensaver-data-extra xscreensaver-gl xscreensaver-gl-extra
10119   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
10120 </p></blockquote>
10121
10122 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
10123
10124 <blockquote><p>
10125   kdebase-bin konq-plugins konqueror
10126 </p></blockquote>
10127
10128       </div>
10129       <div class="tags">
10130
10131
10132         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>.
10133
10134
10135       </div>
10136     </div>
10137     <div class="padding"></div>
10138
10139     <div class="entry">
10140       <div class="title">
10141         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gnash_buildbot_slave_and_Debian_kfreebsd.html">Gnash buildbot slave and Debian kfreebsd</a>
10142       </div>
10143       <div class="date">
10144         20th November 2010
10145       </div>
10146       <div class="body">
10147         <p>Answering
10148 <a href="http://www.listware.net/201011/gnash-dev/67431-gnash-dev-buildbot-looking-for-slaves.html">the
10149 call from the Gnash project</a> for
10150 <a href="http://www.gnashdev.org:8010">buildbot</a> slaves to test the
10151 current source, I have set up a virtual KVM machine on the Debian
10152 Edu/Skolelinux virtualization host to test the git source on
10153 Debian/Squeeze.  I hope this can help the developers in getting new
10154 releases out more often.</p>
10155
10156 <p>As the developers want less main-stream build platforms tested to,
10157 I have considered setting up a <a
10158 href="http://www.debian.org/ports/kfreebsd-gnu/">Debian/kfreebsd</a>
10159 machine as well.  I have also considered using the kfreebsd
10160 architecture in Debian as a file server in NUUG to get access to the 5
10161 TB zfs volume we currently use to store DV video.  Because of this, I
10162 finally got around to do a test installation of Debian/Squeeze with
10163 kfreebsd.  Installation went fairly smooth, thought I noticed some
10164 visual glitches in the cdebconf dialogs (black cursor left on the
10165 screen at random locations).  Have not gotten very far with the
10166 testing.  Noticed cfdisk did not work, but fdisk did so it was not a
10167 fatal problem.  Have to spend some more time on it to see if it is
10168 useful as a file server for NUUG.  Will try to find time to set up a
10169 gnash buildbot slave on the Debian Edu/Skolelinux this weekend.</p>
10170
10171       </div>
10172       <div class="tags">
10173
10174
10175         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>.
10176
10177
10178       </div>
10179     </div>
10180     <div class="padding"></div>
10181
10182     <div class="entry">
10183       <div class="title">
10184         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_in_3D.html">Debian in 3D</a>
10185       </div>
10186       <div class="date">
10187          9th November 2010
10188       </div>
10189       <div class="body">
10190         <p><img src="http://thingiverse-production.s3.amazonaws.com/renders/23/e0/c4/f9/2b/debswagtdose_preview_medium.jpg"></p>
10191
10192 <p>3D printing is just great.  I just came across this Debian logo in
10193 3D linked in from
10194 <a href="http://blog.thingiverse.com/2010/11/09/participatory-branding/">the
10195 thingiverse blog</a>.</p>
10196
10197       </div>
10198       <div class="tags">
10199
10200
10201         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>.
10202
10203
10204       </div>
10205     </div>
10206     <div class="padding"></div>
10207
10208     <div class="entry">
10209       <div class="title">
10210         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Software_updates_2010_10_24.html">Software updates 2010-10-24</a>
10211       </div>
10212       <div class="date">
10213         24th October 2010
10214       </div>
10215       <div class="body">
10216         <p>Some updates.</p>
10217
10218 <p>My <a href="http://pledgebank.com/gnash-avm2">gnash pledge</a> to
10219 raise money for the project is going well.  The lower limit of 10
10220 signers was reached in 24 hours, and so far 13 people have signed it.
10221 More signers and more funding is most welcome, and I am really curious
10222 how far we can get before the time limit of December 24 is reached.
10223 :)</p>
10224
10225 <p>On the #gnash IRC channel on irc.freenode.net, I was just tipped
10226 about what appear to be a great code coverage tool capable of
10227 generating code coverage stats without any changes to the source code.
10228 It is called
10229 <a href="http://simonkagstrom.github.com/kcov/index.html">kcov</a>,
10230 and can be used using <tt>kcov &lt;directory&gt; &lt;binary&gt;</tt>.
10231 It is missing in Debian, but the git source built just fine in Squeeze
10232 after I installed libelf-dev, libdwarf-dev, pkg-config and
10233 libglib2.0-dev.  Failed to build in Lenny, but suspect that is
10234 solvable.  I hope kcov make it into Debian soon.</p>
10235
10236 <p>Finally found time to wrap up the release notes for <a
10237 href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2010/10/msg00002.html">a
10238 new alpha release of Debian Edu</a>, and just published the second
10239 alpha test release of the Squeeze based Debian Edu /
10240 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a>
10241 release.  Give it a try if you need a complete linux solution for your
10242 school, including central infrastructure server, workstations, thin
10243 client servers and diskless workstations.  A nice touch added
10244 yesterday is RDP support on the thin client servers, for windows
10245 clients to get a Linux desktop on request.</p>
10246
10247       </div>
10248       <div class="tags">
10249
10250
10251         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>.
10252
10253
10254       </div>
10255     </div>
10256     <div class="padding"></div>
10257
10258     <div class="entry">
10259       <div class="title">
10260         <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>
10261       </div>
10262       <div class="date">
10263          4th September 2010
10264       </div>
10265       <div class="body">
10266         <p>In the <a href="http://popcon.debian.org/unknown/by_vote">Debian
10267 popularity-contest numbers</a>, the adobe-flashplugin package the
10268 second most popular used package that is missing in Debian.  The sixth
10269 most popular is flashplayer-mozilla.  This is a clear indication that
10270 working flash is important for Debian users.  Around 10 percent of the
10271 users submitting data to popcon.debian.org have this package
10272 installed.</p>
10273
10274 <p>In the report written by Lars Risan in August 2008
10275 («<a href="http://wiki.skolelinux.no/Dokumentasjon/Rapporter?action=AttachFile&do=view&target=Skolelinux_i_bruk_rapport_1.0.pdf">Skolelinux
10276 i bruk – Rapport for Hurum kommune, Universitetet i Agder og
10277 stiftelsen SLX Debian Labs</a>»), one of the most important problems
10278 schools experienced with <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
10279 Edu/Skolelinux</a> was the lack of working Flash.  A lot of educational
10280 web sites require Flash to work, and lacking working Flash support in
10281 the web browser and the problems with installing it was perceived as a
10282 good reason to stay with Windows.</p>
10283
10284 <p>I once saw a funny and sad comment in a web forum, where Linux was
10285 said to be the retarded cousin that did not really understand
10286 everything you told him but could work fairly well.  This was a
10287 comment regarding the problems Linux have with proprietary formats and
10288 non-standard web pages, and is sad because it exposes a fairly common
10289 understanding of whose fault it is if web pages that only work in for
10290 example Internet Explorer 6 fail to work on Firefox, and funny because
10291 it explain very well how annoying it is for users when Linux
10292 distributions do not work with the documents they receive or the web
10293 pages they want to visit.</p>
10294
10295 <p>This is part of the reason why I believe it is important for Debian
10296 and Debian Edu to have a well working Flash implementation in the
10297 distribution, to get at least popular sites as Youtube and Google
10298 Video to working out of the box.  For Squeeze, Debian have the chance
10299 to include the latest version of Gnash that will make this happen, as
10300 the new release 0.8.8 was published a few weeks ago and is resting in
10301 unstable.  The new version work with more sites that version 0.8.7.
10302 The Gnash maintainers have asked for a freeze exception, but the
10303 release team have not had time to reply to it yet.  I hope they agree
10304 with me that Flash is important for the Debian desktop users, and thus
10305 accept the new package into Squeeze.</p>
10306
10307       </div>
10308       <div class="tags">
10309
10310
10311         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>.
10312
10313
10314       </div>
10315     </div>
10316     <div class="padding"></div>
10317
10318     <div class="entry">
10319       <div class="title">
10320         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Circular_package_dependencies_harms_apt_recovery.html">Circular package dependencies harms apt recovery</a>
10321       </div>
10322       <div class="date">
10323         27th July 2010
10324       </div>
10325       <div class="body">
10326         <p>I discovered this while doing
10327 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">automated
10328 testing of upgrades from Debian Lenny to Squeeze</a>.  A few packages
10329 in Debian still got circular dependencies, and it is often claimed
10330 that apt and aptitude should be able to handle this just fine, but
10331 some times these dependency loops causes apt to fail.</p>
10332
10333 <p>An example is from todays
10334 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing//test-20100727-lenny-squeeze-kde-aptitude.txt">upgrade
10335 of KDE using aptitude</a>.  In it, a bug in kdebase-workspace-data
10336 causes perl-modules to fail to upgrade.  The cause is simple.  If a
10337 package fail to unpack, then only part of packages with the circular
10338 dependency might end up being unpacked when unpacking aborts, and the
10339 ones already unpacked will fail to configure in the recovery phase
10340 because its dependencies are unavailable.</p>
10341
10342 <p>In this log, the problem manifest itself with this error:</p>
10343
10344 <blockquote><pre>
10345 dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of perl-modules:
10346  perl-modules depends on perl (>= 5.10.1-1); however:
10347   Version of perl on system is 5.10.0-19lenny2.
10348 dpkg: error processing perl-modules (--configure):
10349  dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
10350 </pre></blockquote>
10351
10352 <p>The perl/perl-modules circular dependency is already
10353 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/527917">reported as a bug</a>, and will
10354 hopefully be solved as soon as possible, but it is not the only one,
10355 and each one of these loops in the dependency tree can cause similar
10356 failures.  Of course, they only occur when there are bugs in other
10357 packages causing the unpacking to fail, but it is rather nasty when
10358 the failure of one package causes the problem to become worse because
10359 of dependency loops.</p>
10360
10361 <p>Thanks to
10362 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/06/msg00116.html">the
10363 tireless effort by Bill Allombert</a>, the number of circular
10364 dependencies
10365 <a href="http://debian.semistable.com/debgraph.out.html">left in Debian
10366 is dropping</a>, and perhaps it will reach zero one day. :)</p>
10367
10368 <p>Todays testing also exposed a bug in
10369 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590605">update-notifier</a> and
10370 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590604">different behaviour</a> between
10371 apt-get and aptitude, the latter possibly caused by some circular
10372 dependency.  Reported both to BTS to try to get someone to look at
10373 it.</p>
10374
10375       </div>
10376       <div class="tags">
10377
10378
10379         Tags: <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>.
10380
10381
10382       </div>
10383     </div>
10384     <div class="padding"></div>
10385
10386     <div class="entry">
10387       <div class="title">
10388         <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>
10389       </div>
10390       <div class="date">
10391         17th July 2010
10392       </div>
10393       <div class="body">
10394         <p>This is a
10395 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">followup</a>
10396 on my
10397 <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
10398 work</a> on
10399 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">merging
10400 all</a> the computer related LDAP objects in Debian Edu.</p>
10401
10402 <p>As a step to try to see if it possible to merge the DNS and DHCP
10403 LDAP objects, I have had a look at how the packages pdns-backend-ldap
10404 and dhcp3-server-ldap in Debian use the LDAP server.  The two
10405 implementations are quite different in how they use LDAP.</p>
10406
10407 To get this information, I started slapd with debugging enabled and
10408 dumped the debug output to a file to get the LDAP searches performed
10409 on a Debian Edu main-server.  Here is a summary.
10410
10411 <p><strong>powerdns</strong></p>
10412
10413 <a href="http://www.linuxnetworks.de/doc/index.php/PowerDNS_LDAP_Backend">Clues
10414 on how to</a> set up PowerDNS to use a LDAP backend is available on
10415 the web.
10416
10417 <p>PowerDNS have two modes of operation using LDAP as its backend.
10418 One "strict" mode where the forward and reverse DNS lookups are done
10419 using the same LDAP objects, and a "tree" mode where the forward and
10420 reverse entries are in two different subtrees in LDAP with a structure
10421 based on the DNS names, as in tjener.intern and
10422 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa.</p>
10423
10424 <p>In tree mode, the server is set up to use a LDAP subtree as its
10425 base, and uses a "base" scoped search for the DNS name by adding
10426 "dc=tjener,dc=intern," to the base with a filter for
10427 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" for the forward entry and
10428 "dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa," with a filter for
10429 "(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)" for the reverse entry.  For
10430 forward entries, it is looking for attributes named dnsttl, arecord,
10431 nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord,
10432 txtrecord, rprecord, afsdbrecord, keyrecord, aaaarecord, locrecord,
10433 srvrecord, naptrrecord, kxrecord, certrecord, dsrecord, sshfprecord,
10434 ipseckeyrecord, rrsigrecord, nsecrecord, dnskeyrecord, dhcidrecord,
10435 spfrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entries it is looking for
10436 the attributes dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord,
10437 ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord,
10438 locrecord, srvrecord, naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  The equivalent
10439 ldapsearch commands could look like this:</p>
10440
10441 <blockquote><pre>
10442 ldapsearch -h ldap \
10443   -b dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
10444   -s base -x '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
10445   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
10446   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
10447   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
10448   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
10449
10450 ldapsearch -h ldap \
10451   -b dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
10452   -s base -x '(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)'
10453   dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord soarecord ptrrecord \
10454   hinforecord mxrecord txtrecord rprecord aaaarecord locrecord \
10455   srvrecord naptrrecord modifytimestamp
10456 </pre></blockquote>
10457
10458 <p>In Debian Edu/Lenny, the PowerDNS tree mode is used with
10459 ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no as the base, and these are two
10460 example LDAP objects used there.  In addition to these objects, the
10461 parent objects all th way up to ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
10462 also exist.</p>
10463
10464 <blockquote><pre>
10465 dn: dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
10466 objectclass: top
10467 objectclass: dnsdomain
10468 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
10469 dc: tjener
10470 arecord: 10.0.2.2
10471 associateddomain: tjener.intern
10472
10473 dn: dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
10474 objectclass: top
10475 objectclass: dnsdomain2
10476 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
10477 dc: 2
10478 ptrrecord: tjener.intern
10479 associateddomain: 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa
10480 </pre></blockquote>
10481
10482 <p>In strict mode, the server behaves differently.  When looking for
10483 forward DNS entries, it is doing a "subtree" scoped search with the
10484 same base as in the tree mode for a object with filter
10485 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" and requests the attributes dnsttl,
10486 arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord,
10487 mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord, locrecord, srvrecord,
10488 naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entires it also do a
10489 subtree scoped search but this time the filter is "(arecord=10.0.2.2)"
10490 and the requested attributes are associateddomain, dnsttl and
10491 modifytimestamp.  In short, in strict mode the objects with ptrrecord
10492 go away, and the arecord attribute in the forward object is used
10493 instead.</p>
10494
10495 <p>The forward and reverse searches can be simulated using ldapsearch
10496 like this:</p>
10497
10498 <blockquote><pre>
10499 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
10500   '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
10501   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
10502   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
10503   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
10504   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
10505
10506 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
10507   '(arecord=10.0.2.2)' associateddomain dnsttl modifytimestamp
10508 </pre></blockquote>
10509
10510 <p>In addition to the forward and reverse searches , there is also a
10511 search for SOA records, which behave similar to the forward and
10512 reverse lookups.</p>
10513
10514 <p>A thing to note with the PowerDNS behaviour is that it do not
10515 specify any objectclass names, and instead look for the attributes it
10516 need to generate a DNS reply.  This make it able to work with any
10517 objectclass that provide the needed attributes.</p>
10518
10519 <p>The attributes are normally provided in the cosine (RFC 1274) and
10520 dnsdomain2 schemas.  The latter is used for reverse entries like
10521 ptrrecord and recent DNS additions like aaaarecord and srvrecord.</p>
10522
10523 <p>In Debian Edu, we have created DNS objects using the object classes
10524 dcobject (for dc), dnsdomain or dnsdomain2 (structural, for the DNS
10525 attributes) and domainrelatedobject (for associatedDomain).  The use
10526 of structural object classes make it impossible to combine these
10527 classes with the object classes used by DHCP.</p>
10528
10529 <p>There are other schemas that could be used too, for example the
10530 dnszone structural object class used by Gosa and bind-sdb for the DNS
10531 attributes combined with the domainrelatedobject object class, but in
10532 this case some unused attributes would have to be included as well
10533 (zonename and relativedomainname).</p>
10534
10535 <p>My proposal for Debian Edu would be to switch PowerDNS to strict
10536 mode and not use any of the existing objectclasses (dnsdomain,
10537 dnsdomain2 and dnszone) when one want to combine the DNS information
10538 with DHCP information, and instead create a auxiliary object class
10539 defined something like this (using the attributes defined for
10540 dnsdomain and dnsdomain2 or dnszone):</p>
10541
10542 <blockquote><pre>
10543 objectclass ( some-oid NAME 'dnsDomainAux'
10544     SUP top
10545     AUXILIARY
10546     MAY ( ARecord $ MDRecord $ MXRecord $ NSRecord $ SOARecord $ CNAMERecord $
10547           DNSTTL $ DNSClass $ PTRRecord $ HINFORecord $ MINFORecord $
10548           TXTRecord $ SIGRecord $ KEYRecord $ AAAARecord $ LOCRecord $
10549           NXTRecord $ SRVRecord $ NAPTRRecord $ KXRecord $ CERTRecord $
10550           A6Record $ DNAMERecord
10551     ))
10552 </pre></blockquote>
10553
10554 <p>This will allow any object to become a DNS entry when combined with
10555 the domainrelatedobject object class, and allow any entity to include
10556 all the attributes PowerDNS wants.  I've sent an email to the PowerDNS
10557 developers asking for their view on this schema and if they are
10558 interested in providing such schema with PowerDNS, and I hope my
10559 message will be accepted into their mailing list soon.</p>
10560
10561 <p><strong>ISC dhcp</strong></p>
10562
10563 <p>The DHCP server searches for specific objectclass and requests all
10564 the object attributes, and then uses the attributes it want.  This
10565 make it harder to figure out exactly what attributes are used, but
10566 thanks to the working example in Debian Edu I can at least get an idea
10567 what is needed without having to read the source code.</p>
10568
10569 <p>In the DHCP server configuration, the LDAP base to use and the
10570 search filter to use to locate the correct dhcpServer entity is
10571 stored.  These are the relevant entries from
10572 /etc/dhcp3/dhcpd.conf:</p>
10573
10574 <blockquote><pre>
10575 ldap-base-dn "dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no";
10576 ldap-dhcp-server-cn "dhcp";
10577 </pre></blockquote>
10578
10579 <p>The DHCP server uses this information to nest all the DHCP
10580 configuration it need.  The cn "dhcp" is located using the given LDAP
10581 base and the filter "(&(objectClass=dhcpServer)(cn=dhcp))".  The
10582 search result is this entry:</p>
10583
10584 <blockquote><pre>
10585 dn: cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
10586 cn: dhcp
10587 objectClass: top
10588 objectClass: dhcpServer
10589 dhcpServiceDN: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
10590 </pre></blockquote>
10591
10592 <p>The content of the dhcpServiceDN attribute is next used to locate the
10593 subtree with DHCP configuration.  The DHCP configuration subtree base
10594 is located using a base scope search with base "cn=DHCP
10595 Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" and filter
10596 "(&(objectClass=dhcpService)(|(dhcpPrimaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)(dhcpSecondaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)))".
10597 The search result is this entry:</p>
10598
10599 <blockquote><pre>
10600 dn: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
10601 cn: DHCP Config
10602 objectClass: top
10603 objectClass: dhcpService
10604 objectClass: dhcpOptions
10605 dhcpPrimaryDN: cn=dhcp, dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
10606 dhcpStatements: ddns-update-style none
10607 dhcpStatements: authoritative
10608 dhcpOption: smtp-server code 69 = array of ip-address
10609 dhcpOption: www-server code 72 = array of ip-address
10610 dhcpOption: wpad-url code 252 = text
10611 </pre></blockquote>
10612
10613 <p>Next, the entire subtree is processed, one level at the time.  When
10614 all the DHCP configuration is loaded, it is ready to receive requests.
10615 The subtree in Debian Edu contain objects with object classes
10616 top/dhcpService/dhcpOptions, top/dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions,
10617 top/dhcpSubnet, top/dhcpGroup and top/dhcpHost.  These provide options
10618 and information about netmasks, dynamic range etc.  Leaving out the
10619 details here because it is not relevant for the focus of my
10620 investigation, which is to see if it is possible to merge dns and dhcp
10621 related computer objects.</p>
10622
10623 <p>When a DHCP request come in, LDAP is searched for the MAC address
10624 of the client (00:00:00:00:00:00 in this example), using a subtree
10625 scoped search with "cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" as
10626 the base and "(&(objectClass=dhcpHost)(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet
10627 00:00:00:00:00:00))" as the filter.  This is what a host object look
10628 like:</p>
10629
10630 <blockquote><pre>
10631 dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
10632 cn: hostname
10633 objectClass: top
10634 objectClass: dhcpHost
10635 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
10636 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname
10637 </pre></blockquote>
10638
10639 <p>There is less flexiblity in the way LDAP searches are done here.
10640 The object classes need to have fixed names, and the configuration
10641 need to be stored in a fairly specific LDAP structure.  On the
10642 positive side, the invidiual dhcpHost entires can be anywhere without
10643 the DN pointed to by the dhcpServer entries.  The latter should make
10644 it possible to group all host entries in a subtree next to the
10645 configuration entries, and this subtree can also be shared with the
10646 DNS server if the schema proposed above is combined with the dhcpHost
10647 structural object class.
10648
10649 <p><strong>Conclusion</strong></p>
10650
10651 <p>The PowerDNS implementation seem to be very flexible when it come
10652 to which LDAP schemas to use.  While its "tree" mode is rigid when it
10653 come to the the LDAP structure, the "strict" mode is very flexible,
10654 allowing DNS objects to be stored anywhere under the base cn specified
10655 in the configuration.</p>
10656
10657 <p>The DHCP implementation on the other hand is very inflexible, both
10658 regarding which LDAP schemas to use and which LDAP structure to use.
10659 I guess one could implement ones own schema, as long as the
10660 objectclasses and attributes have the names used, but this do not
10661 really help when the DHCP subtree need to have a fairly fixed
10662 structure.</p>
10663
10664 <p>Based on the observed behaviour, I suspect a LDAP structure like
10665 this might work for Debian Edu:</p>
10666
10667 <blockquote><pre>
10668 ou=services
10669   cn=machine-info (dhcpService) - dhcpServiceDN points here
10670     cn=dhcp (dhcpServer)
10671     cn=dhcp-internal (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
10672       cn=10.0.2.0 (dhcpSubnet)
10673         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
10674     cn=dhcp-thinclients (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
10675       cn=192.168.0.0 (dhcpSubnet)
10676         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
10677     ou=machines - PowerDNS base points here
10678       cn=hostname (dhcpHost/domainrelatedobject/dnsDomainAux)
10679 </pre></blockquote>
10680
10681 <P>This is not tested yet.  If the DHCP server require the dhcpHost
10682 entries to be in the dhcpGroup subtrees, the entries can be stored
10683 there instead of a common machines subtree, and the PowerDNS base
10684 would have to be moved one level up to the machine-info subtree.</p>
10685
10686 <p>The combined object under the machines subtree would look something
10687 like this:</p>
10688
10689 <blockquote><pre>
10690 dn: dc=hostname,ou=machines,cn=machine-info,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
10691 dc: hostname
10692 objectClass: top
10693 objectClass: dhcpHost
10694 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
10695 objectclass: dnsDomainAux
10696 associateddomain: hostname.intern
10697 arecord: 10.11.12.13
10698 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
10699 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname.intern
10700 </pre></blockquote>
10701
10702 </p>One could even add the LTSP configuration associated with a given
10703 machine, as long as the required attributes are available in a
10704 auxiliary object class.</p>
10705
10706       </div>
10707       <div class="tags">
10708
10709
10710         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>.
10711
10712
10713       </div>
10714     </div>
10715     <div class="padding"></div>
10716
10717     <div class="entry">
10718       <div class="title">
10719         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">Combining PowerDNS and ISC DHCP LDAP objects</a>
10720       </div>
10721       <div class="date">
10722         14th July 2010
10723       </div>
10724       <div class="body">
10725         <p>For a while now, I have wanted to find a way to change the DNS and
10726 DHCP services in Debian Edu to use the same LDAP objects for a given
10727 computer, to avoid the possibility of having a inconsistent state for
10728 a computer in LDAP (as in DHCP but no DNS entry or the other way
10729 around) and make it easier to add computers to LDAP.</p>
10730
10731 <p>I've looked at how powerdns and dhcpd is using LDAP, and using this
10732 information finally found a solution that seem to work.</p>
10733
10734 <p>The old setup required three LDAP objects for a given computer.
10735 One forward DNS entry, one reverse DNS entry and one DHCP entry.  If
10736 we switch powerdns to use its strict LDAP method (ldap-method=strict
10737 in pdns-debian-edu.conf), the forward and reverse DNS entries are
10738 merged into one while making it impossible to transfer the reverse map
10739 to a slave DNS server.</p>
10740
10741 <p>If we also replace the object class used to get the DNS related
10742 attributes to one allowing these attributes to be combined with the
10743 dhcphost object class, we can merge the DNS and DHCP entries into one.
10744 I've written such object class in the dnsdomainaux.schema file (need
10745 proper OIDs, but that is a minor issue), and tested the setup.  It
10746 seem to work.</p>
10747
10748 <p>With this test setup in place, we can get away with one LDAP object
10749 for both DNS and DHCP, and even the LTSP configuration I suggested in
10750 an earlier email.  The combined LDAP object will look something like
10751 this:</p>
10752
10753 <blockquote><pre>
10754   dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
10755   cn: hostname
10756   objectClass: dhcphost
10757   objectclass: domainrelatedobject
10758   objectclass: dnsdomainaux
10759   associateddomain: hostname.intern
10760   arecord: 10.11.12.13
10761   dhcphwaddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
10762   dhcpstatements: fixed-address hostname
10763   ldapconfigsound: Y
10764 </pre></blockquote>
10765
10766 <p>The DNS server uses the associateddomain and arecord entries, while
10767 the DHCP server uses the dhcphwaddress and dhcpstatements entries
10768 before asking DNS to resolve the fixed-adddress.  LTSP will use
10769 dhcphwaddress or associateddomain and the ldapconfig* attributes.</p>
10770
10771 <p>I am not yet sure if I can get the DHCP server to look for its
10772 dhcphost in a different location, to allow us to put the objects
10773 outside the "DHCP Config" subtree, but hope to figure out a way to do
10774 that.  If I can't figure out a way to do that, we can still get rid of
10775 the hosts subtree and move all its content into the DHCP Config tree
10776 (which probably should be renamed to be more related to the new
10777 content.  I suspect cn=dnsdhcp,ou=services or something like that
10778 might be a good place to put it.</p>
10779
10780 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
10781 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</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/Idea_for_storing_LTSP_configuration_in_LDAP.html">Idea for storing LTSP configuration in LDAP</a>
10797       </div>
10798       <div class="date">
10799         11th July 2010
10800       </div>
10801       <div class="body">
10802         <p>Vagrant mentioned on IRC today that ltsp_config now support
10803 sourcing files from /usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ on the thin
10804 clients, and that this can be used to fetch configuration from LDAP if
10805 Debian Edu choose to store configuration there.</p>
10806
10807 <p>Armed with this information, I got inspired and wrote a test module
10808 to get configuration from LDAP.  The idea is to look up the MAC
10809 address of the client in LDAP, and look for attributes on the form
10810 ltspconfigsetting=value, and use this to export SETTING=value to the
10811 LTSP clients.</p>
10812
10813 <p>The goal is to be able to store the LTSP configuration attributes
10814 in a "computer" LDAP object used by both DNS and DHCP, and thus
10815 allowing us to store all information about a computer in one place.</p>
10816
10817 <p>This is a untested draft implementation, and I welcome feedback on
10818 this approach.  A real LDAP schema for the ltspClientAux objectclass
10819 need to be written.  Comments, suggestions, etc?</p>
10820
10821 <blockquote><pre>
10822 # Store in /opt/ltsp/$arch/usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ldap-config
10823 #
10824 # Fetch LTSP client settings from LDAP based on MAC address
10825 #
10826 # Uses ethernet address as stored in the dhcpHost objectclass using
10827 # the dhcpHWAddress attribute or ethernet address stored in the
10828 # ieee802Device objectclass with the macAddress attribute.
10829 #
10830 # This module is written to be schema agnostic, and only depend on the
10831 # existence of attribute names.
10832 #
10833 # The LTSP configuration variables are saved directly using a
10834 # ltspConfig prefix and uppercasing the rest of the attribute name.
10835 # To set the SERVER variable, set the ltspConfigServer attribute.
10836 #
10837 # Some LDAP schema should be created with all the relevant
10838 # configuration settings.  Something like this should work:
10839 #
10840 # objectclass ( 1.1.2.2 NAME 'ltspClientAux'
10841 #     SUP top
10842 #     AUXILIARY
10843 #     MAY ( ltspConfigServer $ ltsConfigSound $ ... )
10844
10845 LDAPSERVER=$(debian-edu-ldapserver)
10846 if [ "$LDAPSERVER" ] ; then
10847     LDAPBASE=$(debian-edu-ldapserver -b)
10848     for MAC in $(LANG=C ifconfig |grep -i hwaddr| awk '{print $5}'|sort -u) ; do
10849         filter="(|(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet $MAC)(macAddress=$MAC))"
10850         ldapsearch -h "$LDAPSERVER" -b "$LDAPBASE" -v -x "$filter" | \
10851             grep '^ltspConfig' | while read attr value ; do
10852             # Remove prefix and convert to upper case
10853             attr=$(echo $attr | sed 's/^ltspConfig//i' | tr a-z A-Z)
10854             # bass value on to clients
10855             eval "$attr=$value; export $attr"
10856         done
10857     done
10858 fi
10859 </pre></blockquote>
10860
10861 <p>I'm not sure this shell construction will work, because I suspect
10862 the while block might end up in a subshell causing the variables set
10863 there to not show up in ltsp-config, but if that is the case I am sure
10864 the code can be restructured to make sure the variables are passed on.
10865 I expect that can be solved with some testing. :)</p>
10866
10867 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
10868 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
10869
10870 <p>Update 2010-07-17: I am aware of another effort to store LTSP
10871 configuration in LDAP that was created around year 2000 by
10872 <a href="http://www.pcxperience.com/thinclient/documentation/ldap.html">PC
10873 Xperience, Inc., 2000</a>.  I found its
10874 <a href="http://people.redhat.com/alikins/ltsp/ldap/">files</a> on a
10875 personal home page over at redhat.com.</p>
10876
10877       </div>
10878       <div class="tags">
10879
10880
10881         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>.
10882
10883
10884       </div>
10885     </div>
10886     <div class="padding"></div>
10887
10888     <div class="entry">
10889       <div class="title">
10890         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/jXplorer__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">jXplorer, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
10891       </div>
10892       <div class="date">
10893          9th July 2010
10894       </div>
10895       <div class="body">
10896         <p>Since
10897 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">my
10898 last post</a> about available LDAP tools in Debian, I was told about a
10899 LDAP GUI that is even better than luma.  The java application
10900 <a href="http://jxplorer.org/">jXplorer</a> is claimed to be capable of
10901 moving LDAP objects and subtrees using drag-and-drop, and can
10902 authenticate using Kerberos.  I have only tested the Kerberos
10903 authentication, but do not have a LDAP setup allowing me to rewrite
10904 LDAP with my test user yet.  It is
10905 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/j/jxplorer.html">available in
10906 Debian</a> testing and unstable at the moment.  The only problem I
10907 have with it is how it handle errors.  If something go wrong, its
10908 non-intuitive behaviour require me to go through some query work list
10909 and remove the failing query.  Nothing big, but very annoying.</p>
10910
10911       </div>
10912       <div class="tags">
10913
10914
10915         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>.
10916
10917
10918       </div>
10919     </div>
10920     <div class="padding"></div>
10921
10922     <div class="entry">
10923       <div class="title">
10924         <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>
10925       </div>
10926       <div class="date">
10927          3rd July 2010
10928       </div>
10929       <div class="body">
10930         <p>Here is a short update on my <a
10931 href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">my
10932 Debian Lenny->Squeeze upgrade testing</a>.  Here is a summary of the
10933 difference for Gnome when it is upgraded by apt-get and aptitude.  I'm
10934 not reporting the status for KDE, because the upgrade crashes when
10935 aptitude try because of missing conflicts
10936 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> and
10937 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585716">#585716</a>).</p>
10938
10939 <p>At the end of the upgrade test script, dpkg -l is executed to get a
10940 complete list of the installed packages.  Based on this I see these
10941 differences when I did a test run today.  As usual, I do not really
10942 know what the correct set of packages would be, but thought it best to
10943 publish the difference.</p>
10944
10945 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
10946
10947 <blockquote><p>
10948   at-spi cpp-4.3 finger gnome-spell gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
10949   libatspi1.0-0 libcupsys2 libeel2-data libgail-common libgdl-1-common
10950   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin
10951   libgtksourceview-common libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
10952   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libservlet2.4-java libxalan2-java
10953   libxerces2-java openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
10954   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gtkhtml2
10955   python-gtkmozembed svgalibg1 xserver-xephyr zip
10956 </p></blockquote>
10957
10958 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
10959
10960 <blockquote><p>
10961   bluez-utils dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop epiphany-gecko
10962   gnome-app-install gnome-mount gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager
10963   libao2 libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libbind9-50
10964   libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcurl3
10965   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9
10966   libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3
10967   libfaad0 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
10968   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
10969   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
10970   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
10971   libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50
10972   libisccfg50 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick++10
10973   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4
10974   libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5
10975   libparted1.8-10 libpisock9 libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3
10976   libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8 libsensors3 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
10977   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1
10978   libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0 libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj
10979   libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3
10980   mysql-common swfdec-gnome totem-gstreamer wodim
10981 </p></blockquote>
10982
10983 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
10984
10985 <blockquote><p>
10986   gnome gnome-desktop-environment hamster-applet python-gnomeapplet
10987   python-gnomekeyring python-wnck rhythmbox-plugins xorg
10988   xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
10989   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
10990   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-video-all
10991   xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark xserver-xorg-video-ati
10992   xserver-xorg-video-chips xserver-xorg-video-cirrus
10993   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
10994   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
10995   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-mach64
10996   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
10997   xserver-xorg-video-nouveau xserver-xorg-video-nv
10998   xserver-xorg-video-r128 xserver-xorg-video-radeon
10999   xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd xserver-xorg-video-rendition
11000   xserver-xorg-video-s3 xserver-xorg-video-s3virge
11001   xserver-xorg-video-savage xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion
11002   xserver-xorg-video-sis xserver-xorg-video-sisusb
11003   xserver-xorg-video-tdfx xserver-xorg-video-tga
11004   xserver-xorg-video-trident xserver-xorg-video-tseng
11005   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vmware
11006   xserver-xorg-video-voodoo
11007 </p></blockquote>
11008
11009 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
11010
11011 <blockquote><p>
11012   deskbar-applet xserver-xorg xserver-xorg-core
11013   xserver-xorg-input-wacom xserver-xorg-video-intel
11014   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome
11015 </p></blockquote>
11016
11017 <p>I was told on IRC that the xorg-xserver package was
11018 <a href="http://git.debian.org/?p=pkg-xorg/xserver/xorg-server.git;a=commit;h=9c8080d06c457932d3bfec021c69ac000aa60120">changed
11019 in git</a> today to try to get apt-get to not remove xorg completely.
11020 No idea when it hits Squeeze, but when it does I hope it will reduce
11021 the difference somewhat.
11022
11023       </div>
11024       <div class="tags">
11025
11026
11027         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>.
11028
11029
11030       </div>
11031     </div>
11032     <div class="padding"></div>
11033
11034     <div class="entry">
11035       <div class="title">
11036         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">LUMA, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
11037       </div>
11038       <div class="date">
11039         28th June 2010
11040       </div>
11041       <div class="body">
11042         <p>The last few days I have been looking into the status of the LDAP
11043 directory in Debian Edu, and in the process I started to miss a GUI
11044 tool to browse the LDAP tree.  The only one I was able to find in
11045 Debian/Squeeze and Lenny is
11046 <a href="http://luma.sourceforge.net/">LUMA</a>, which has proved to
11047 be a great tool to get a overview of the current LDAP directory
11048 populated by default in Skolelinux.  Thanks to it, I have been able to
11049 find empty and obsolete subtrees, misplaced objects and duplicate
11050 objects.  It will be installed by default in Debian/Squeeze.  If you
11051 are working with LDAP, give it a go. :)</p>
11052
11053 <p>I did notice one problem with it I have not had time to report to
11054 the BTS yet.  There is no .desktop file in the package, so the tool do
11055 not show up in the Gnome and KDE menus, but only deep down in in the
11056 Debian submenu in KDE.  I hope that can be fixed before Squeeze is
11057 released.</p>
11058
11059 <p>I have not yet been able to get it to modify the tree yet.  I would
11060 like to move objects and remove subtrees directly in the GUI, but have
11061 not found a way to do that with LUMA yet.  So in the mean time, I use
11062 <a href="http://www.lichteblau.com/ldapvi/">ldapvi</a> for that.</p>
11063
11064 <p>If you have tips on other GUI tools for LDAP that might be useful
11065 in Debian Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
11066
11067 <p>Update 2010-06-29: Ross Reedstrom tipped us about the
11068 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/g/gq.html">gq</a> package as a
11069 useful GUI alternative.  It seem like a good tool, but is unmaintained
11070 in Debian and got a RC bug keeping it out of Squeeze.  Unless that
11071 changes, it will not be an option for Debian Edu based on Squeeze.</p>
11072
11073       </div>
11074       <div class="tags">
11075
11076
11077         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>.
11078
11079
11080       </div>
11081     </div>
11082     <div class="padding"></div>
11083
11084     <div class="entry">
11085       <div class="title">
11086         <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>
11087       </div>
11088       <div class="date">
11089         24th June 2010
11090       </div>
11091       <div class="body">
11092         <p>A while back, I
11093 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">complained
11094 about the fact</a> that it is not possible with the provided schemas
11095 for storing DNS and DHCP information in LDAP to combine the two sets
11096 of information into one LDAP object representing a computer.</p>
11097
11098 <p>In the mean time, I discovered that a simple fix would be to make
11099 the dhcpHost object class auxiliary, to allow it to be combined with
11100 the dNSDomain object class, and thus forming one object for one
11101 computer when storing both DHCP and DNS information in LDAP.</p>
11102
11103 <p>If I understand this correctly, it is not safe to do this change
11104 without also changing the assigned number for the object class, and I
11105 do not know enough about LDAP schema design to do that properly for
11106 Debian Edu.</p>
11107
11108 <p>Anyway, for future reference, this is how I believe we could change
11109 the
11110 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-dhc-ldap-schema-00">DHCP
11111 schema</a> to solve at least part of the problem with the LDAP schemas
11112 available today from IETF.</p>
11113
11114 <pre>
11115 --- dhcp.schema    (revision 65192)
11116 +++ dhcp.schema    (working copy)
11117 @@ -376,7 +376,7 @@
11118  objectclass ( 2.16.840.1.113719.1.203.6.6
11119         NAME 'dhcpHost'
11120         DESC 'This represents information about a particular client'
11121 -       SUP top
11122 +       SUP top AUXILIARY
11123         MUST cn
11124         MAY  (dhcpLeaseDN $ dhcpHWAddress $ dhcpOptionsDN $ dhcpStatements $ dhcpComments $ dhcpOption)
11125         X-NDS_CONTAINMENT ('dhcpService' 'dhcpSubnet' 'dhcpGroup') )
11126 </pre>
11127
11128 <p>I very much welcome clues on how to do this properly for Debian
11129 Edu/Squeeze.  We provide the DHCP schema in our debian-edu-config
11130 package, and should thus be free to rewrite it as we see fit.</p>
11131
11132 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
11133 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
11134
11135       </div>
11136       <div class="tags">
11137
11138
11139         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>.
11140
11141
11142       </div>
11143     </div>
11144     <div class="padding"></div>
11145
11146     <div class="entry">
11147       <div class="title">
11148         <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>
11149       </div>
11150       <div class="date">
11151         16th June 2010
11152       </div>
11153       <div class="body">
11154         <p>A few times I have had the need to simulate the way tasksel
11155 installs packages during the normal debian-installer run.  Until now,
11156 I have ended up letting tasksel do the work, with the annoying problem
11157 of not getting any feedback at all when something fails (like a
11158 conffile question from dpkg or a download that fails), using code like
11159 this:
11160
11161 <blockquote><pre>
11162 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
11163 tasksel --new-install
11164 </pre></blockquote>
11165
11166 This would invoke tasksel, let its automatic task selection pick the
11167 tasks to install, and continue to install the requested tasks without
11168 any output what so ever.
11169
11170 Recently I revisited this problem while working on the automatic
11171 package upgrade testing, because tasksel would some times hang without
11172 any useful feedback, and I want to see what is going on when it
11173 happen.  Then it occured to me, I can parse the output from tasksel
11174 when asked to run in test mode, and use that aptitude command line
11175 printed by tasksel then to simulate the tasksel run.  I ended up using
11176 code like this:
11177
11178 <blockquote><pre>
11179 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
11180 cmd="$(in_target tasksel -t --new-install | sed 's/debconf-apt-progress -- //')"
11181 $cmd
11182 </pre></blockquote>
11183
11184 <p>The content of $cmd is typically something like "<tt>aptitude -q
11185 --without-recommends -o APT::Install-Recommends=no -y install
11186 ~t^desktop$ ~t^gnome-desktop$ ~t^laptop$ ~pstandard ~prequired
11187 ~pimportant</tt>", which will install the gnome desktop task, the
11188 laptop task and all packages with priority standard , required and
11189 important, just like tasksel would have done it during
11190 installation.</p>
11191
11192 <p>A better approach is probably to extend tasksel to be able to
11193 install packages without using debconf-apt-progress, for use cases
11194 like this.</p>
11195
11196       </div>
11197       <div class="tags">
11198
11199
11200         Tags: <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>.
11201
11202
11203       </div>
11204     </div>
11205     <div class="padding"></div>
11206
11207     <div class="entry">
11208       <div class="title">
11209         <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>
11210       </div>
11211       <div class="date">
11212         13th June 2010
11213       </div>
11214       <div class="body">
11215         <p>My
11216 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">testing
11217 of Debian upgrades</a> from Lenny to Squeeze continues, and I've
11218 finally made the upgrade logs available from
11219 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/</a>.
11220 I am now testing dist-upgrade of Gnome and KDE in a chroot using both
11221 apt and aptitude, and found their differences interesting.  This time
11222 I will only focus on their removal plans.</p>
11223
11224 <p>After installing a Gnome desktop and the laptop task, apt-get wants
11225 to remove 72 packages when dist-upgrading from Lenny to Squeeze.  The
11226 surprising part is that it want to remove xorg and all
11227 xserver-xorg-video* drivers.  Clearly not a good choice, but I am not
11228 sure why.  When asking aptitude to do the same, it want to remove 129
11229 packages, but most of them are library packages I suspect are no
11230 longer needed.  Both of them want to remove bluetooth packages, which
11231 I do not know.  Perhaps these bluetooth packages are obsolete?</p>
11232
11233 <p>For KDE, apt-get want to remove 82 packages, among them kdebase
11234 which seem like a bad idea and xorg the same way as with Gnome. Asking
11235 aptitude for the same, it wants to remove 192 packages, none which are
11236 too surprising.</p>
11237
11238 <p>I guess the removal of xorg during upgrades should be investigated
11239 and avoided, and perhaps others as well.  Here are the complete list
11240 of planned removals.  The complete logs is available from the URL
11241 above.  Note if you want to repeat these tests, that the upgrade test
11242 for kde+apt-get hung in the tasksel setup because of dpkg asking
11243 conffile questions.  No idea why.  I worked around it by using
11244 '<tt>echo >> /proc/<em>pidofdpkg</em>/fd/0</tt>' to tell dpkg to
11245 continue.</p>
11246
11247 <p><b>apt-get gnome 72</b>
11248 <br>bluez-gnome cupsddk-drivers deskbar-applet gnome
11249   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-network-admin gtkhtml3.14
11250   iceweasel-gnome-support libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libgdl-1-0
11251   libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libmetacity0 libslab0 libxcb-xlib0
11252   nautilus-cd-burner python-gnome2-desktop python-gnome2-extras
11253   serpentine swfdec-mozilla update-manager xorg xserver-xorg
11254   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
11255   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
11256   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
11257   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
11258   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
11259   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
11260   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
11261   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
11262   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
11263   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
11264   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
11265   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
11266   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
11267   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
11268   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
11269   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
11270   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
11271   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
11272   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
11273   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
11274   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
11275   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9
11276   xulrunner-1.9-gnome-support</p>
11277
11278 <p><b>aptitude gnome 129</b>
11279
11280 <br>bluez-gnome bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers dhcdbd
11281   djvulibre-desktop finger gnome-app-install gnome-mount
11282   gnome-network-admin gnome-spell gnome-vfs-obexftp
11283   gnome-volume-manager gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs gtkhtml3.14 libao2
11284   libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
11285   libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcupsys2 libcurl3 libdatrie0
11286   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20
11287   libeel2-data libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libfaad0 libgail-common
11288   libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libgdl-1-0 libgdl-1-common
11289   libggz2 libggzcore9 libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0
11290   libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libgnomeprint2.2-0
11291   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgnomeprintui2.2-common
11292   libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
11293   libgtksourceview-common libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6
11294   libhesiod0 libicu38 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 libmagick++10
11295   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmetacity0 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off
11296   libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2
11297   libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10
11298   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libraw1394-8
11299   libsensors3 libslab0 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8 libssh2-1
11300   libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10
11301   libtrackerclient0 libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0
11302   libxerces2-java libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6
11303   libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common nautilus-cd-burner
11304   openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
11305   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gnome2-desktop
11306   python-gnome2-extras python-gtkhtml2 python-gtkmozembed
11307   python-numeric python-sexy serpentine svgalibg1 swfdec-gnome
11308   swfdec-mozilla totem-gstreamer update-manager wodim
11309   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
11310   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
11311   zip</p>
11312
11313 <p><b>apt-get kde 82</b>
11314
11315 <br>cupsddk-drivers karm kaudiocreator kcoloredit kcontrol kde kde-core
11316   kdeaddons kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-bin kdebase-bin-kde3
11317   kdebase-kio-plugins kdesktop kdeutils khelpcenter kicker
11318   kicker-applets knewsticker kolourpaint konq-plugins konqueror korn
11319   kpersonalizer kscreensaver ksplash libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libkiten1
11320   libxcb-xlib0 quanta superkaramba texlive-base-bin xorg xserver-xorg
11321   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
11322   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
11323   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
11324   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
11325   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
11326   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
11327   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
11328   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
11329   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
11330   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
11331   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
11332   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
11333   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
11334   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
11335   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
11336   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
11337   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
11338   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
11339   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
11340   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
11341   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
11342   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9</p>
11343
11344 <p><b>aptitude kde 192</b>
11345 <br>bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers cvs dcoprss dhcdbd
11346   djvulibre-desktop dosfstools eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
11347   ghostscript-x imlib-base imlib11 indi kandy karm kasteroids
11348   kaudiocreator kbackgammon kbstate kcoloredit kcontrol kcron kdat
11349   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
11350   kdebase-bin-kde3 kdebase-kio-plugins kdeedu-data
11351   kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data
11352   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
11353   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdeprint kdesktop kdessh
11354   kdict kdnssd kdvi kedit keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs
11355   kghostview khelpcenter khexedit kiconedit kitchensync klatin
11356   klickety kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmoon kmrml kodo kolourpaint
11357   kooka korn kpager kpdf kpercentage kpf kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler
11358   krec kregexpeditor ksayit ksim ksirc ksirtet ksmiletris ksmserver
11359   ksnake ksokoban ksplash ksvg ksysv ktip ktnef kuickshow kverbos
11360   kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kworldclock
11361   kxsldbg libakode2 libao2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
11362   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
11363   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
11364   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0 libdatrie0
11365   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
11366   libgail-common libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0
11367   libicu38 libiec61883-0 libindex0 libiw29 libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1
11368   libkdeedu3 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkiten1 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
11369   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
11370   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 libmagick10 libmimelib1c2a
11371   libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9
11372   libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 libsmbios2
11373   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libtalloc1 libtiff-tools
11374   libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0 libxerces2-java
11375   libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 mpeglib networkstatus
11376   openoffice.org-writer2latex pmount poster psutils quanta quanta-data
11377   superkaramba svgalibg1 tex-common texlive-base texlive-base-bin
11378   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended
11379   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
11380   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
11381   xulrunner-1.9</p>
11382
11383
11384       </div>
11385       <div class="tags">
11386
11387
11388         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>.
11389
11390
11391       </div>
11392     </div>
11393     <div class="padding"></div>
11394
11395     <div class="entry">
11396       <div class="title">
11397         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">Automatic upgrade testing from Lenny to Squeeze</a>
11398       </div>
11399       <div class="date">
11400         11th June 2010
11401       </div>
11402       <div class="body">
11403         <p>The last few days I have done some upgrade testing in Debian, to
11404 see if the upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze will go smoothly.  A few bugs
11405 have been discovered and reported in the process
11406 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585410">#585410</a> in nagios3-cgi,
11407 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584879">#584879</a> already fixed in
11408 enscript and <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> in
11409 kdebase-workspace-data), and to get a more regular testing going on, I
11410 am working on a script to automate the test.</p>
11411
11412 <p>The idea is to create a Lenny chroot and use tasksel to install a
11413 Gnome or KDE desktop installation inside the chroot before upgrading
11414 it.  To ensure no services are started in the chroot, a policy-rc.d
11415 script is inserted.  To make sure tasksel believe it is to install a
11416 desktop on a laptop, the tasksel tests are replaced in the chroot
11417 (only acceptable because this is a throw-away chroot).</p>
11418
11419 <p>A naive upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze using aptitude dist-upgrade
11420 currently always fail because udev refuses to upgrade with the kernel
11421 in Lenny, so to avoid that problem the file /etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
11422 is created.  The bug report
11423 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/566000">#566000</a> make me suspect
11424 this problem do not trigger in a chroot, but I touch the file anyway
11425 to make sure the upgrade go well.  Testing on virtual and real
11426 hardware have failed me because of udev so far, and creating this file
11427 do the trick in such settings anyway.  This is a
11428 <a href="http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/debian-26/failed-dist-upgrade-due-to-udev-config_sysfs_deprecated-nonsense-804130/">known
11429 issue</a> and the current udev behaviour is intended by the udev
11430 maintainer because he lack the resources to rewrite udev to keep
11431 working with old kernels or something like that.  I really wish the
11432 udev upstream would keep udev backwards compatible, to avoid such
11433 upgrade problem, but given that they fail to do so, I guess
11434 documenting the way out of this mess is the best option we got for
11435 Debian Squeeze.</p>
11436
11437 <p>Anyway, back to the task at hand, testing upgrades.  This test
11438 script, which I call <tt>upgrade-test</tt> for now, is doing the
11439 trick:</p>
11440
11441 <blockquote><pre>
11442 #!/bin/sh
11443 set -ex
11444
11445 if [ "$1" ] ; then
11446     desktop=$1
11447 else
11448     desktop=gnome
11449 fi
11450
11451 from=lenny
11452 to=squeeze
11453
11454 exec &lt; /dev/null
11455 unset LANG
11456 mirror=http://ftp.skolelinux.org/debian
11457 tmpdir=chroot-$from-upgrade-$to-$desktop
11458 fuser -mv .
11459 debootstrap $from $tmpdir $mirror
11460 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
11461 cat > $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d &lt;&lt;EOF
11462 #!/bin/sh
11463 exit 101
11464 EOF
11465 chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d
11466 exit_cleanup() {
11467     umount $tmpdir/proc
11468 }
11469 mount -t proc proc $tmpdir/proc
11470 # Make sure proc is unmounted also on failure
11471 trap exit_cleanup EXIT INT
11472
11473 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y install debconf-utils
11474
11475 # Make sure tasksel autoselection trigger.  It need the test scripts
11476 # to return the correct answers.
11477 echo tasksel tasksel/desktop multiselect $desktop | \
11478     chroot $tmpdir debconf-set-selections
11479
11480 # Include the desktop and laptop task
11481 for test in desktop laptop ; do
11482     echo > $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test &lt;&lt;EOF
11483 #!/bin/sh
11484 exit 2
11485 EOF
11486     chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test
11487 done
11488
11489 DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
11490 DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical
11491 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND DEBIAN_PRIORITY
11492 chroot $tmpdir tasksel --new-install
11493
11494 echo deb $mirror $to main > $tmpdir/etc/apt/sources.list
11495 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
11496 touch $tmpdir/etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
11497 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y dist-upgrade
11498 fuser -mv
11499 </pre></blockquote>
11500
11501 <p>I suspect it would be useful to test upgrades with both apt-get and
11502 with aptitude, but I have not had time to look at how they behave
11503 differently so far.  I hope to get a cron job running to do the test
11504 regularly and post the result on the web.  The Gnome upgrade currently
11505 work, while the KDE upgrade fail because of the bug in
11506 kdebase-workspace-data</p>
11507
11508 <p>I am not quite sure what kind of extract from the huge upgrade logs
11509 (KDE 167 KiB, Gnome 516 KiB) it make sense to include in this blog
11510 post, so I will refrain from trying.  I can report that for Gnome,
11511 aptitude report 760 packages upgraded, 448 newly installed, 129 to
11512 remove and 1 not upgraded and 1024MB need to be downloaded while for
11513 KDE the same numbers are 702 packages upgraded, 507 newly installed,
11514 193 to remove and 0 not upgraded and 1117MB need to be downloaded</p>
11515
11516 <p>I am very happy to notice that the Gnome desktop + laptop upgrade
11517 is able to migrate to dependency based boot sequencing and parallel
11518 booting without a hitch.  Was unsure if there were still bugs with
11519 packages failing to clean up their obsolete init.d script during
11520 upgrades, and no such problem seem to affect the Gnome desktop+laptop
11521 packages.</p>
11522
11523       </div>
11524       <div class="tags">
11525
11526
11527         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>.
11528
11529
11530       </div>
11531     </div>
11532     <div class="padding"></div>
11533
11534     <div class="entry">
11535       <div class="title">
11536         <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>
11537       </div>
11538       <div class="date">
11539          6th June 2010
11540       </div>
11541       <div class="body">
11542         <p>If Debian is to migrate to upstart on Linux, I expect some init.d
11543 scripts to migrate (some of) their operations to upstart job while
11544 keeping the init.d for hurd and kfreebsd.  The packages with such
11545 needs will need a way to get their init.d scripts to behave
11546 differently when used with sysvinit and with upstart.  Because of
11547 this, I had a look at the environment variables set when a init.d
11548 script is running under upstart, and when it is not.</p>
11549
11550 <p>With upstart, I notice these environment variables are set when a
11551 script is started from rcS.d/ (ignoring some irrelevant ones like
11552 COLUMNS):</p>
11553
11554 <blockquote><pre>
11555 DEFAULT_RUNLEVEL=2
11556 previous=N
11557 PREVLEVEL=
11558 RUNLEVEL=
11559 runlevel=S
11560 UPSTART_EVENTS=startup
11561 UPSTART_INSTANCE=
11562 UPSTART_JOB=rc-sysinit
11563 </pre></blockquote>
11564
11565 <p>With sysvinit, these environment variables are set for the same
11566 script.</p>
11567
11568 <blockquote><pre>
11569 INIT_VERSION=sysvinit-2.88
11570 previous=N
11571 PREVLEVEL=N
11572 RUNLEVEL=S
11573 runlevel=S
11574 </pre></blockquote>
11575
11576 <p>The RUNLEVEL and PREVLEVEL environment variables passed on from
11577 sysvinit are not set by upstart.  Not sure if it is intentional or not
11578 to not be compatible with sysvinit in this regard.</p>
11579
11580 <p>For scripts needing to behave differently when upstart is used,
11581 looking for the UPSTART_JOB environment variable seem to be a good
11582 choice.</p>
11583
11584       </div>
11585       <div class="tags">
11586
11587
11588         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>.
11589
11590
11591       </div>
11592     </div>
11593     <div class="padding"></div>
11594
11595     <div class="entry">
11596       <div class="title">
11597         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_manual_for_standards_wars___.html">A manual for standards wars...</a>
11598       </div>
11599       <div class="date">
11600          6th June 2010
11601       </div>
11602       <div class="body">
11603         <p>Via the
11604 <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/robweir/antic-atom/~3/QzU4RgoAGMg/weekly-links-10.html">blog
11605 of Rob Weir</a> I came across the very interesting essay named
11606 <a href="http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/shapiro/wars.pdf">The Art of
11607 Standards Wars</a> (PDF 25 pages).  I recommend it for everyone
11608 following the standards wars of today.</p>
11609
11610       </div>
11611       <div class="tags">
11612
11613
11614         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>.
11615
11616
11617       </div>
11618     </div>
11619     <div class="padding"></div>
11620
11621     <div class="entry">
11622       <div class="title">
11623         <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>
11624       </div>
11625       <div class="date">
11626          3rd June 2010
11627       </div>
11628       <div class="body">
11629         <p>When using sitesummary at a site to track machines, it is possible
11630 to get a list of the machine types in use thanks to the DMI
11631 information extracted from each machine.  The script to do so is
11632 included in the sitesummary package, and here is example output from
11633 the Skolelinux build servers:</p>
11634
11635 <blockquote><pre>
11636 maintainer:~# /usr/lib/sitesummary/hardware-model-summary
11637   vendor                    count
11638   Dell Computer Corporation     1
11639     PowerEdge 1750              1
11640   IBM                           1
11641     eserver xSeries 345 -[8670M1X]-     1
11642   Intel                         2
11643   [no-dmi-info]                 3
11644 maintainer:~#
11645 </pre></blockquote>
11646
11647 <p>The quality of the report depend on the quality of the DMI tables
11648 provided in each machine.  Here there are Intel machines without model
11649 information listed with Intel as vendor and no model, and virtual Xen
11650 machines listed as [no-dmi-info].  One can add -l as a command line
11651 option to list the individual machines.</p>
11652
11653 <p>A larger list is
11654 <a href="http://narvikskolen.no/sitesummary/">available from the the
11655 city of Narvik</a>, which uses Skolelinux on all their shools and also
11656 provide the basic sitesummary report publicly.  In their report there
11657 are ~1400 machines. I know they use both Ubuntu and Skolelinux on
11658 their machines, and as sitesummary is available in both distributions,
11659 it is trivial to get all of them to report to the same central
11660 collector.</p>
11661
11662       </div>
11663       <div class="tags">
11664
11665
11666         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>.
11667
11668
11669       </div>
11670     </div>
11671     <div class="padding"></div>
11672
11673     <div class="entry">
11674       <div class="title">
11675         <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>
11676       </div>
11677       <div class="date">
11678          1st June 2010
11679       </div>
11680       <div class="body">
11681         <p>It is strange to watch how a bug in Debian causing KDM to fail to
11682 start at boot when an NVidia video card is used is handled.  The
11683 problem seem to be that the nvidia X.org driver uses a long time to
11684 initialize, and this duration is longer than kdm is configured to
11685 wait.</p>
11686
11687 <p>I came across two bugs related to this issue,
11688 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">#583312</a> initially filed
11689 against initscripts and passed on to nvidia-glx when it became obvious
11690 that the nvidia drivers were involved, and
11691 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/524751">#524751</a> initially filed against
11692 kdm and passed on to src:nvidia-graphics-drivers for unknown reasons.</p>
11693
11694 <p>To me, it seem that no-one is interested in actually solving the
11695 problem nvidia video card owners experience and make sure the Debian
11696 distribution work out of the box for these users.  The nvidia driver
11697 maintainers expect kdm to be set up to wait longer, while kdm expect
11698 the nvidia driver maintainers to fix the driver to start faster, and
11699 while they wait for each other I guess the users end up switching to a
11700 distribution that work for them.  I have no idea what the solution is,
11701 but I am pretty sure that waiting for each other is not it.</p>
11702
11703 <p>I wonder why we end up handling bugs this way.</p>
11704
11705       </div>
11706       <div class="tags">
11707
11708
11709         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>.
11710
11711
11712       </div>
11713     </div>
11714     <div class="padding"></div>
11715
11716     <div class="entry">
11717       <div class="title">
11718         <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>
11719       </div>
11720       <div class="date">
11721         27th May 2010
11722       </div>
11723       <div class="body">
11724         <p>A few days ago, parallel booting was enabled in Debian/testing.
11725 The feature seem to hold up pretty well, but three fairly serious
11726 issues are known and should be solved:
11727
11728 <p><ul>
11729
11730 <li>The wicd package seen to
11731 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/508289">break NFS mounting</a> and
11732 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/581586">network setup</a> when
11733 parallel booting is enabled.  No idea why, but the wicd maintainer
11734 seem to be on the case.</li>
11735
11736 <li>The nvidia X driver seem to
11737 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">have a race condition</a>
11738 triggered more easily when parallel booting is in effect.  The
11739 maintainer is on the case.</li>
11740
11741 <li>The sysv-rc package fail to properly enable dependency based boot
11742 sequencing (the shutdown is broken) when old file-rc users
11743 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/575080">try to switch back</a> to
11744 sysv-rc.  One way to solve it would be for file-rc to create
11745 /etc/init.d/.legacy-bootordering, and another is to try to make
11746 sysv-rc more robust.  Will investigate some more and probably upload a
11747 workaround in sysv-rc to help those trying to move from file-rc to
11748 sysv-rc get a working shutdown.</li>
11749
11750 </ul></p>
11751
11752 <p>All in all not many surprising issues, and all of them seem
11753 solvable before Squeeze is released.  In addition to these there are
11754 some packages with bugs in their dependencies and run level settings,
11755 which I expect will be fixed in a reasonable time span.</p>
11756
11757 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
11758 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
11759 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
11760 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
11761
11762 <p>Update: Correct bug number to file-rc issue.</p>
11763
11764       </div>
11765       <div class="tags">
11766
11767
11768         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>.
11769
11770
11771       </div>
11772     </div>
11773     <div class="padding"></div>
11774
11775     <div class="entry">
11776       <div class="title">
11777         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/More_flexible_firmware_handling_in_debian_installer.html">More flexible firmware handling in debian-installer</a>
11778       </div>
11779       <div class="date">
11780         22nd May 2010
11781       </div>
11782       <div class="body">
11783         <p>After a long break from debian-installer development, I finally
11784 found time today to return to the project.  Having to spend less time
11785 working dependency based boot in debian, as it is almost complete now,
11786 definitely helped freeing some time.</p>
11787
11788 <p>A while back, I ran into a problem while working on Debian Edu.  We
11789 include some firmware packages on the Debian Edu CDs, those needed to
11790 get disk and network controllers working.  Without having these
11791 firmware packages available during installation, it is impossible to
11792 install Debian Edu on the given machine, and because our target group
11793 are non-technical people, asking them to provide firmware packages on
11794 an external medium is a support pain.  Initially, I expected it to be
11795 enough to include the firmware packages on the CD to get
11796 debian-installer to find and use them.  This proved to be wrong.
11797 Next, I hoped it was enough to symlink the relevant firmware packages
11798 to some useful location on the CD (tried /cdrom/ and
11799 /cdrom/firmware/).  This also proved to not work, and at this point I
11800 found time to look at the debian-installer code to figure out what was
11801 going to work.</p>
11802
11803 <p>The firmware loading code is in the hw-detect package, and a closer
11804 look revealed that it would only look for firmware packages outside
11805 the installation media, so the CD was never checked for firmware
11806 packages.  It would only check USB sticks, floppies and other
11807 "external" media devices.  Today I changed it to also look in the
11808 /cdrom/firmware/ directory on the mounted CD or DVD, which should
11809 solve the problem I ran into with Debian edu.  I also changed it to
11810 look in /firmware/, to make sure the installer also find firmware
11811 provided in the initrd when booting the installer via PXE, to allow us
11812 to provide the same feature in the PXE setup included in Debian
11813 Edu.</p>
11814
11815 <p>To make sure firmware deb packages with a license questions are not
11816 activated without asking if the license is accepted, I extended
11817 hw-detect to look for preinst scripts in the firmware packages, and
11818 run these before activating the firmware during installation.  The
11819 license question is asked using debconf in the preinst, so this should
11820 solve the issue for the firmware packages I have looked at so far.</p>
11821
11822 <p>If you want to discuss the details of these features, please
11823 contact us on debian-boot@lists.debian.org.</p>
11824
11825       </div>
11826       <div class="tags">
11827
11828
11829         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>.
11830
11831
11832       </div>
11833     </div>
11834     <div class="padding"></div>
11835
11836     <div class="entry">
11837       <div class="title">
11838         <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>
11839       </div>
11840       <div class="date">
11841         14th May 2010
11842       </div>
11843       <div class="body">
11844         <p>Since this evening, parallel booting is the default in
11845 Debian/unstable for machines using dependency based boot sequencing.
11846 Apparently the testing of concurrent booting has been wider than
11847 expected, if I am to believe the
11848 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
11849 on debian-devel@</a>, and I concluded a few days ago to move forward
11850 with the feature this weekend, to give us some time to detect any
11851 remaining problems before Squeeze is frozen.  If serious problems are
11852 detected, it is simple to change the default back to sequential boot.
11853 The upload of the new sysvinit package also activate a new upstream
11854 version.</p>
11855
11856 More information about
11857 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
11858 based boot sequencing</a> is available from the Debian wiki.  It is
11859 currently possible to disable parallel booting when one run into
11860 problems caused by it, by adding this line to /etc/default/rcS:</p>
11861
11862 <blockquote><pre>
11863 CONCURRENCY=none
11864 </pre></blockquote>
11865
11866 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
11867 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
11868 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
11869 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
11870
11871       </div>
11872       <div class="tags">
11873
11874
11875         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>.
11876
11877
11878       </div>
11879     </div>
11880     <div class="padding"></div>
11881
11882     <div class="entry">
11883       <div class="title">
11884         <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>
11885       </div>
11886       <div class="date">
11887         14th May 2010
11888       </div>
11889       <div class="body">
11890         <p>In the recent Debian Edu versions, the
11891 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/SiteSummary">sitesummary
11892 system</a> is used to keep track of the machines in the school
11893 network.  Each machine will automatically report its status to the
11894 central server after boot and once per night.  The network setup is
11895 also reported, and using this information it is possible to get the
11896 MAC address of all network interfaces in the machines.  This is useful
11897 to update the DHCP configuration.</p>
11898
11899 <p>To give some idea how to use sitesummary, here is a one-liner to
11900 ist all MAC addresses of all machines reporting to sitesummary.  Run
11901 this on the collector host:</p>
11902
11903 <blockquote><pre>
11904 perl -MSiteSummary -e 'for_all_hosts(sub { print join(" ", get_macaddresses(shift)), "\n"; });'
11905 </pre></blockquote>
11906
11907 <p>This will list all MAC addresses assosiated with all machine, one
11908 line per machine and with space between the MAC addresses.</p>
11909
11910 <p>To allow system administrators easier job at adding static DHCP
11911 addresses for hosts, it would be possible to extend this to fetch
11912 machine information from sitesummary and update the DHCP and DNS
11913 tables in LDAP using this information.  Such tool is unfortunately not
11914 written yet.</p>
11915
11916       </div>
11917       <div class="tags">
11918
11919
11920         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>.
11921
11922
11923       </div>
11924     </div>
11925     <div class="padding"></div>
11926
11927     <div class="entry">
11928       <div class="title">
11929         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/systemd__an_interesting_alternative_to_upstart.html">systemd, an interesting alternative to upstart</a>
11930       </div>
11931       <div class="date">
11932         13th May 2010
11933       </div>
11934       <div class="body">
11935         <p>The last few days a new boot system called
11936 <a href="http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd">systemd</a>
11937 has been
11938 <a href="http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/systemd.html">introduced</a>
11939
11940 to the free software world.  I have not yet had time to play around
11941 with it, but it seem to be a very interesting alternative to
11942 <a href="http://upstart.ubuntu.com/">upstart</a>, and might prove to be
11943 a good alternative for Debian when we are able to switch to an event
11944 based boot system.  Tollef is
11945 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/580814">in the process</a> of getting
11946 systemd into Debian, and I look forward to seeing how well it work.  I
11947 like the fact that systemd handles init.d scripts with dependency
11948 information natively, allowing them to run in parallel where upstart
11949 at the moment do not.</p>
11950
11951 <p>Unfortunately do systemd have the same problem as upstart regarding
11952 platform support.  It only work on recent Linux kernels, and also need
11953 some new kernel features enabled to function properly.  This means
11954 kFreeBSD and Hurd ports of Debian will need a port or a different boot
11955 system.  Not sure how that will be handled if systemd proves to be the
11956 way forward.</p>
11957
11958 <p>In the mean time, based on the
11959 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
11960 on debian-devel@</a> regarding parallel booting in Debian, I have
11961 decided to enable full parallel booting as the default in Debian as
11962 soon as possible (probably this weekend or early next week), to see if
11963 there are any remaining serious bugs in the init.d dependencies.  A
11964 new version of the sysvinit package implementing this change is
11965 already in experimental.  If all go well, Squeeze will be released
11966 with parallel booting enabled by default.</p>
11967
11968       </div>
11969       <div class="tags">
11970
11971
11972         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>.
11973
11974
11975       </div>
11976     </div>
11977     <div class="padding"></div>
11978
11979     <div class="entry">
11980       <div class="title">
11981         <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>
11982       </div>
11983       <div class="date">
11984          6th May 2010
11985       </div>
11986       <div class="body">
11987         <p>These days, the init.d script dependencies in Squeeze are quite
11988 complete, so complete that it is actually possible to run all the
11989 init.d scripts in parallell based on these dependencies.  If you want
11990 to test your Squeeze system, make sure
11991 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
11992 based boot sequencing</a> is enabled, and add this line to
11993 /etc/default/rcS:</p>
11994
11995 <blockquote><pre>
11996 CONCURRENCY=makefile
11997 </pre></blockquote>
11998
11999 <p>That is it.  It will cause sysv-rc to use the startpar tool to run
12000 scripts in parallel using the dependency information stored in
12001 /etc/init.d/.depend.boot, /etc/init.d/.depend.start and
12002 /etc/init.d/.depend.stop to order the scripts.  Startpar is configured
12003 to try to start the kdm and gdm scripts as early as possible, and will
12004 start the facilities required by kdm or gdm as early as possible to
12005 make this happen.</p>
12006
12007 <p>Give it a try, and see if you like the result.  If some services
12008 fail to start properly, it is most likely because they have incomplete
12009 init.d script dependencies in their startup script (or some of their
12010 dependent scripts have incomplete dependencies).  Report bugs and get
12011 the package maintainers to fix it. :)</p>
12012
12013 <p>Running scripts in parallel could be the default in Debian when we
12014 manage to get the init.d script dependencies complete and correct.  I
12015 expect we will get there in Squeeze+1, if we get manage to test and
12016 fix the remaining issues.</p>
12017
12018 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
12019 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
12020 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
12021 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
12022
12023       </div>
12024       <div class="tags">
12025
12026
12027         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>.
12028
12029
12030       </div>
12031     </div>
12032     <div class="padding"></div>
12033
12034     <div class="entry">
12035       <div class="title">
12036         <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>
12037       </div>
12038       <div class="date">
12039         27th July 2009
12040       </div>
12041       <div class="body">
12042         <p>Since this evening, with the upload of sysvinit version 2.87dsf-2,
12043 and the upload of insserv version 1.12.0-10 yesterday, Debian unstable
12044 have been migrated to using dependency based boot sequencing.  This
12045 conclude work me and others have been doing for the last three days.
12046 It feels great to see this finally part of the default Debian
12047 installation.  Now we just need to weed out the last few problems that
12048 are bound to show up, to get everything ready for Squeeze.</p>
12049
12050 <p>The next step is migrating /sbin/init from sysvinit to upstart, and
12051 fixing the more fundamental problem of handing the event based
12052 non-predictable kernel in the early boot.</p>
12053
12054       </div>
12055       <div class="tags">
12056
12057
12058         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>.
12059
12060
12061       </div>
12062     </div>
12063     <div class="padding"></div>
12064
12065     <div class="entry">
12066       <div class="title">
12067         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Taking_over_sysvinit_development.html">Taking over sysvinit development</a>
12068       </div>
12069       <div class="date">
12070         22nd July 2009
12071       </div>
12072       <div class="body">
12073         <p>After several years of frustration with the lack of activity from
12074 the existing sysvinit upstream developer, I decided a few weeks ago to
12075 take over the package and become the new upstream.  The number of
12076 patches to track for the Debian package was becoming a burden, and the
12077 lack of synchronization between the distribution made it hard to keep
12078 the package up to date.</p>
12079
12080 <p>On the new sysvinit team is the SuSe maintainer Dr. Werner Fink,
12081 and my Debian co-maintainer Kel Modderman.  About 10 days ago, I made
12082 a new upstream tarball with version number 2.87dsf (for Debian, SuSe
12083 and Fedora), based on the patches currently in use in these
12084 distributions.  We Debian maintainers plan to move to this tarball as
12085 the new upstream as soon as we find time to do the merge.  Since the
12086 new tarball was created, we agreed with Werner at SuSe to make a new
12087 upstream project at <a href="http://savannah.nongnu.org/">Savannah</a>, and continue
12088 development there.  The project is registered and currently waiting
12089 for approval by the Savannah administrators, and as soon as it is
12090 approved, we will import the old versions from svn and continue
12091 working on the future release.</p>
12092
12093 <p>It is a bit ironic that this is done now, when some of the involved
12094 distributions are moving to upstart as a syvinit replacement.</p>
12095
12096       </div>
12097       <div class="tags">
12098
12099
12100         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>.
12101
12102
12103       </div>
12104     </div>
12105     <div class="padding"></div>
12106
12107     <div class="entry">
12108       <div class="title">
12109         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_boots_quicker_and_quicker.html">Debian boots quicker and quicker</a>
12110       </div>
12111       <div class="date">
12112         24th June 2009
12113       </div>
12114       <div class="body">
12115         <p>I spent Monday and tuesday this week in London with a lot of the
12116 people involved in the boot system on Debian and Ubuntu, to see if we
12117 could find more ways to speed up the boot system.  This was an Ubuntu
12118 funded
12119 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FoundationsTeam/BootPerformance/DebianUbuntuSprint">developer
12120 gathering</a>. It was quite productive.  We also discussed the future
12121 of boot systems, and ways to handle the increasing number of boot
12122 issues introduced by the Linux kernel becoming more and more
12123 asynchronous and event base.  The Ubuntu approach using udev and
12124 upstart might be a good way forward.  Time will show.</p>
12125
12126 <p>Anyway, there are a few ways at the moment to speed up the boot
12127 process in Debian.  All of these should be applied to get a quick
12128 boot:</p>
12129
12130 <ul>
12131
12132 <li>Use dash as /bin/sh.</li>
12133
12134 <li>Disable the init.d/hwclock*.sh scripts and make sure the hardware
12135    clock is in UTC.</li>
12136
12137 <li>Install and activate the insserv package to enable
12138    <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
12139    based boot sequencing</a>, and enable concurrent booting.</li>
12140
12141 </ul>
12142
12143 These points are based on the Google summer of code work done by
12144 <a href="http://initscripts-ng.alioth.debian.org/soc2006-bootsystem/">Carlos
12145 Villegas</a>.
12146
12147 <p>Support for makefile-style concurrency during boot was uploaded to
12148 unstable yesterday.  When we tested it, we were able to cut 6 seconds
12149 from the boot sequence.  It depend on very correct dependency
12150 declaration in all init.d scripts, so I expect us to find edge cases
12151 where the dependences in some scripts are slightly wrong when we start
12152 using this.</p>
12153
12154 <p>On our IRC channel for this effort, #pkg-sysvinit, a new idea was
12155 introduced by Raphael Geissert today, one that could affect the
12156 startup speed as well.  Instead of starting some scripts concurrently
12157 from rcS.d/ and another set of scripts from rc2.d/, it would be
12158 possible to run a of them in the same process.  A quick way to test
12159 this would be to enable insserv and run 'mv /etc/rc2.d/S* /etc/rcS.d/;
12160 insserv'.  Will need to test if that work. :)</p>
12161
12162       </div>
12163       <div class="tags">
12164
12165
12166         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>.
12167
12168
12169       </div>
12170     </div>
12171     <div class="padding"></div>
12172
12173     <div class="entry">
12174       <div class="title">
12175         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/BSAs_p_stander_om_piratkopiering_m_ter_motstand.html">BSAs påstander om piratkopiering møter motstand</a>
12176       </div>
12177       <div class="date">
12178         17th May 2009
12179       </div>
12180       <div class="body">
12181         <p>Hvert år de siste årene har BSA, lobbyfronten til de store
12182 programvareselskapene som Microsoft og Apple, publisert en rapport der
12183 de gjetter på hvor mye piratkopiering påfører i tapte inntekter i
12184 ulike land rundt om i verden.  Resultatene er tendensiøse.  For noen
12185 dager siden kom
12186 <a href="http://global.bsa.org/globalpiracy2008/studies/globalpiracy2008.pdf">siste
12187 rapport</a>, og det er flere kritiske kommentarer publisert de siste
12188 dagene.  Et spesielt interessant kommentar fra Sverige,
12189 <a href="http://www.idg.se/2.1085/1.229795/bsa-hoftade-sverigesiffror">BSA
12190 höftade Sverigesiffror</a>, oppsummeres slik:</p>
12191
12192 <blockquote>
12193 I sin senaste rapport slår BSA fast att 25 procent av all mjukvara i
12194 Sverige är piratkopierad. Det utan att ha pratat med ett enda svenskt
12195 företag. "Man bör nog kanske inte se de här siffrorna som helt
12196 exakta", säger BSAs Sverigechef John Hugosson.
12197 </blockquote>
12198
12199 <p>Mon tro om de er like metodiske når de gjetter på andelen piratkopiering i Norge?  To andre kommentarer er <a
12200 href="http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/comment/2242134/bsa-piracy-figures-shot-reality">BSA
12201 piracy figures need a shot of reality</a> og <a
12202 href="http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/3958/125/">Does The WIPO
12203 Copyright Treaty Work?</a></p>
12204
12205 <p>Fant lenkene via <a
12206 href="http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/05/17/1632242">oppslag
12207 på Slashdot</a>.</p>
12208
12209       </div>
12210       <div class="tags">
12211
12212
12213         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>.
12214
12215
12216       </div>
12217     </div>
12218     <div class="padding"></div>
12219
12220     <div class="entry">
12221       <div class="title">
12222         <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>
12223       </div>
12224       <div class="date">
12225          7th May 2009
12226       </div>
12227       <div class="body">
12228         <p>Kom over
12229 <a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10216873-16.html">interessante
12230 tall</a> fra IDG om utviklingen av linuxservermarkedet.  Fikk meg til
12231 å tenke på antall tjenermaskiner ved Universitetet i Oslo der jeg
12232 jobber til daglig.  En rask opptelling forteller meg at vi har 490
12233 (61%) fysiske unix-tjener (mest linux men også noen solaris) og 196
12234 (25%) windowstjenere, samt 112 (14%) virtuelle unix-tjenere.  Med den
12235 bakgrunnskunnskapen kan jeg godt tro at IDG er inne på noe.</p>
12236
12237       </div>
12238       <div class="tags">
12239
12240
12241         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>.
12242
12243
12244       </div>
12245     </div>
12246     <div class="padding"></div>
12247
12248     <div class="entry">
12249       <div class="title">
12250         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Kryptert_harddisk___naturligvis.html">Kryptert harddisk - naturligvis</a>
12251       </div>
12252       <div class="date">
12253          2nd May 2009
12254       </div>
12255       <div class="body">
12256         <p><a href="http://www.dagensit.no/trender/article1658676.ece">Dagens
12257 IT melder</a> at Intel hevder at det er dyrt å miste en datamaskin,
12258 når en tar tap av arbeidstid, fortrolige dokumenter,
12259 personopplysninger og alt annet det innebærer.  Det er ingen tvil om
12260 at det er en kostbar affære å miste sin datamaskin, og det er årsaken
12261 til at jeg har kryptert harddisken på både kontormaskinen og min
12262 bærbare.  Begge inneholder personopplysninger jeg ikke ønsker skal
12263 komme på avveie, den første informasjon relatert til jobben min ved
12264 Universitetet i Oslo, og den andre relatert til blant annet
12265 foreningsarbeide.  Kryptering av diskene gjør at det er lite
12266 sannsynlig at dophoder som kan finne på å rappe maskinene får noe ut
12267 av dem.  Maskinene låses automatisk etter noen minutter uten bruk,
12268 og en reboot vil gjøre at de ber om passord før de vil starte opp.
12269 Jeg bruker Debian på begge maskinene, og installasjonssystemet der
12270 gjør det trivielt å sette opp krypterte disker.  Jeg har LVM på toppen
12271 av krypterte partisjoner, slik at alt av datapartisjoner er kryptert.
12272 Jeg anbefaler alle å kryptere diskene på sine bærbare.  Kostnaden når
12273 det er gjort slik jeg gjør det er minimale, og gevinstene er
12274 betydelige.  En bør dog passe på passordet.  Hvis det går tapt, må
12275 maskinen reinstalleres og alt er tapt.</p>
12276
12277 <p>Krypteringen vil ikke stoppe kompetente angripere som f.eks. kjøler
12278 ned minnebrikkene før maskinen rebootes med programvare for å hente ut
12279 krypteringsnøklene.  Kostnaden med å forsvare seg mot slike angripere
12280 er for min del høyere enn gevinsten.  Jeg tror oddsene for at
12281 f.eks. etteretningsorganisasjoner har glede av å titte på mine
12282 maskiner er minimale, og ulempene jeg ville oppnå ved å forsøke å
12283 gjøre det vanskeligere for angripere med kompetanse og ressurser er
12284 betydelige.</p>
12285
12286       </div>
12287       <div class="tags">
12288
12289
12290         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>.
12291
12292
12293       </div>
12294     </div>
12295     <div class="padding"></div>
12296
12297     <div class="entry">
12298       <div class="title">
12299         <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>
12300       </div>
12301       <div class="date">
12302          2nd May 2009
12303       </div>
12304       <div class="body">
12305         <p>There are two software projects that have had huge influence on the
12306 quality of free software, and I wanted to mention both in case someone
12307 do not yet know them.</p>
12308
12309 <p>The first one is <a href="http://valgrind.org/">valgrind</a>, a
12310 tool to detect and expose errors in the memory handling of programs.
12311 It is easy to use, all one need to do is to run 'valgrind program',
12312 and it will report any problems on stdout.  It is even better if the
12313 program include debug information.  With debug information, it is able
12314 to report the source file name and line number where the problem
12315 occurs.  It can report things like 'reading past memory block in file
12316 X line N, the memory block was allocated in file Y, line M', and
12317 'using uninitialised value in control logic'.  This tool has made it
12318 trivial to investigate reproducible crash bugs in programs, and have
12319 reduced the number of this kind of bugs in free software a lot.
12320
12321 <p>The second one is
12322 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coverity">Coverity</a> which is
12323 a source code checker.  It is able to process the source of a program
12324 and find problems in the logic without running the program.  It
12325 started out as the Stanford Checker and became well known when it was
12326 used to find bugs in the Linux kernel.  It is now a commercial tool
12327 and the company behind it is running
12328 <a href="http://www.scan.coverity.com/">a community service</a> for the
12329 free software community, where a lot of free software projects get
12330 their source checked for free.  Several thousand defects have been
12331 found and fixed so far.  It can find errors like 'lock L taken in file
12332 X line N is never released if exiting in line M', or 'the code in file
12333 Y lines O to P can never be executed'.  The projects included in the
12334 community service project have managed to get rid of a lot of
12335 reliability problems thanks to Coverity.</p>
12336
12337 <p>I believe tools like this, that are able to automatically find
12338 errors in the source, are vital to improve the quality of software and
12339 make sure we can get rid of the crashing and failing software we are
12340 surrounded by today.</p>
12341
12342       </div>
12343       <div class="tags">
12344
12345
12346         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
12347
12348
12349       </div>
12350     </div>
12351     <div class="padding"></div>
12352
12353     <div class="entry">
12354       <div class="title">
12355         <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>
12356       </div>
12357       <div class="date">
12358         28th April 2009
12359       </div>
12360       <div class="body">
12361         <p>Julien Blache
12362 <a href="http://blog.technologeek.org/2009/04/12/214">claim that no
12363 patch is better than a useless patch</a>.  I completely disagree, as a
12364 patch allow one to discuss a concrete and proposed solution, and also
12365 prove that the issue at hand is important enough for someone to spent
12366 time on fixing it.  No patch do not provide any of these positive
12367 properties.</p>
12368
12369       </div>
12370       <div class="tags">
12371
12372
12373         Tags: <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>.
12374
12375
12376       </div>
12377     </div>
12378     <div class="padding"></div>
12379
12380     <div class="entry">
12381       <div class="title">
12382         <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>
12383       </div>
12384       <div class="date">
12385         30th March 2009
12386       </div>
12387       <div class="body">
12388         <p>Where I work at the University of Oslo, one decision stand out as a
12389 very good one to form a long lived computer infrastructure.  It is the
12390 simple one, lost by many in todays computer industry: Standardize on
12391 open network protocols and open exchange/storage formats, not applications.
12392 Applications come and go, while protocols and files tend to stay, and
12393 thus one want to make it easy to change application and vendor, while
12394 avoiding conversion costs and locking users to a specific platform or
12395 application.</p>
12396
12397 <p>This approach make it possible to replace the client applications
12398 independently of the server applications.  One can even allow users to
12399 use several different applications as long as they handle the selected
12400 protocol and format.  In the normal case, only one client application
12401 is recommended and users only get help if they choose to use this
12402 application, but those that want to deviate from the easy path are not
12403 blocked from doing so.</p>
12404
12405 <p>It also allow us to replace the server side without forcing the
12406 users to replace their applications, and thus allow us to select the
12407 best server implementation at any moment, when scale and resouce
12408 requirements change.</p>
12409
12410 <p>I strongly recommend standardizing - on open network protocols and
12411 open formats, but I would never recommend standardizing on a single
12412 application that do not use open network protocol or open formats.</p>
12413
12414       </div>
12415       <div class="tags">
12416
12417
12418         Tags: <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>.
12419
12420
12421       </div>
12422     </div>
12423     <div class="padding"></div>
12424
12425     <div class="entry">
12426       <div class="title">
12427         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Returning_from_Skolelinux_developer_gathering.html">Returning from Skolelinux developer gathering</a>
12428       </div>
12429       <div class="date">
12430         29th March 2009
12431       </div>
12432       <div class="body">
12433         <p>I'm sitting on the train going home from this weekends Debian
12434 Edu/Skolelinux development gathering.  I got a bit done tuning the
12435 desktop, and looked into the dynamic service location protocol
12436 implementation avahi.  It look like it could be useful for us.  Almost
12437 30 people participated, and I believe it was a great environment to
12438 get to know the Skolelinux system.  Walter Bender, involved in the
12439 development of the Sugar educational platform, presented his stuff and
12440 also helped me improve my OLPC installation.  He also showed me that
12441 his Turtle Art application can be used in standalone mode, and we
12442 agreed that I would help getting it packaged for Debian.  As a
12443 standalone application it would be great for Debian Edu.  We also
12444 tried to get the video conferencing working with two OLPCs, but that
12445 proved to be too hard for us.  The application seem to need more work
12446 before it is ready for me.  I look forward to getting home and relax
12447 now. :)</p>
12448
12449       </div>
12450       <div class="tags">
12451
12452
12453         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>.
12454
12455
12456       </div>
12457     </div>
12458     <div class="padding"></div>
12459
12460     <div class="entry">
12461       <div class="title">
12462         <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>
12463       </div>
12464       <div class="date">
12465         29th March 2009
12466       </div>
12467       <div class="body">
12468         <p>The state of standardized LDAP schemas on Linux is far from
12469 optimal.  There is RFC 2307 documenting one way to store NIS maps in
12470 LDAP, and a modified version of this normally called RFC 2307bis, with
12471 some modifications to be compatible with Active Directory.  The RFC
12472 specification handle the content of a lot of system databases, but do
12473 not handle DNS zones and DHCP configuration.</p>
12474
12475 <p>In <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux</a>,
12476 we would like to store information about users, SMB clients/hosts,
12477 filegroups, netgroups (users and hosts), DHCP and DNS configuration,
12478 and LTSP configuration in LDAP.  These objects have a lot in common,
12479 but with the current LDAP schemas it is not possible to have one
12480 object per entity.  For example, one need to have at least three LDAP
12481 objects for a given computer, one with the SMB related stuff, one with
12482 DNS information and another with DHCP information.  The schemas
12483 provided for DNS and DHCP are impossible to combine into one LDAP
12484 object.  In addition, it is impossible to implement quick queries for
12485 netgroup membership, because of the way NIS triples are implemented.
12486 It just do not scale.  I believe it is time for a few RFC
12487 specifications to cleam up this mess.</p>
12488
12489 <p>I would like to have one LDAP object representing each computer in
12490 the network, and this object can then keep the SMB (ie host key), DHCP
12491 (mac address/name) and DNS (name/IP address) settings in one place.
12492 It need to be efficently stored to make sure it scale well.</p>
12493
12494 <p>I would also like to have a quick way to map from a user or
12495 computer and to the net group this user or computer is a member.</p>
12496
12497 <p>Active Directory have done a better job than unix heads like myself
12498 in this regard, and the unix side need to catch up.  Time to start a
12499 new IETF work group?</p>
12500
12501       </div>
12502       <div class="tags">
12503
12504
12505         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>.
12506
12507
12508       </div>
12509     </div>
12510     <div class="padding"></div>
12511
12512     <div class="entry">
12513       <div class="title">
12514         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Endelig_er_Debian_Lenny_gitt_ut.html">Endelig er Debian Lenny gitt ut</a>
12515       </div>
12516       <div class="date">
12517         15th February 2009
12518       </div>
12519       <div class="body">
12520         <p>Endelig er <a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</a>
12521 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2009/20090214">Lenny</a> gitt ut.
12522 Et langt steg videre for Debian-prosjektet, og en rekke nye
12523 programpakker blir nå tilgjengelig for de av oss som bruker den
12524 stabile utgaven av Debian.  Neste steg er nå å få
12525 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a> /
12526 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/">Debian Edu</a> ferdig
12527 oppdatert for den nye utgaven, slik at en oppdatert versjon kan
12528 slippes løs på skolene.  Takk til alle debian-utviklerne som har
12529 gjort dette mulig.  Endelig er f.eks. fungerende avhengighetsstyrt
12530 bootsekvens tilgjengelig i stabil utgave, vha pakken
12531 <tt>insserv</tt>.</p>
12532
12533       </div>
12534       <div class="tags">
12535
12536
12537         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>.
12538
12539
12540       </div>
12541     </div>
12542     <div class="padding"></div>
12543
12544     <div class="entry">
12545       <div class="title">
12546         <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>
12547       </div>
12548       <div class="date">
12549          7th December 2008
12550       </div>
12551       <div class="body">
12552         <p>This weekend we had a small developer gathering for Debian Edu in
12553 Oslo.  Most of Saturday was used for the general assemly for the
12554 member organization, but the rest of the weekend I used to tune the
12555 LTSP installation.  LTSP now work out of the box on the 10-network.
12556 Acer Aspire One proved to be a very nice thin client, with both
12557 screen, mouse and keybard in a small box.  Was working on getting the
12558 diskless workstation setup configured out of the box, but did not
12559 finish it before the weekend was up.</p>
12560
12561 <p>Did not find time to look at the 4 VGA cards in one box we got from
12562 the Brazilian group, so that will have to wait for the next
12563 development gathering.  Would love to have the Debian Edu installer
12564 automatically detect and configure a multiseat setup when it find one
12565 of these cards.</p>
12566
12567       </div>
12568       <div class="tags">
12569
12570
12571         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>.
12572
12573
12574       </div>
12575     </div>
12576     <div class="padding"></div>
12577
12578     <div class="entry">
12579       <div class="title">
12580         <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>
12581       </div>
12582       <div class="date">
12583         25th November 2008
12584       </div>
12585       <div class="body">
12586         <p>Recently I have spent some time evaluating the multimedia browser
12587 plugins available in Debian Lenny, to see which one we should use by
12588 default in Debian Edu.  We need an embedded video playing plugin with
12589 control buttons to pause or stop the video, and capable of streaming
12590 all the multimedia content available on the web.  The test results and
12591 notes are available on
12592 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">the
12593 Debian wiki</a>.  I was surprised how few of the plugins are able to
12594 fill this need.  My personal video player favorite, VLC, has a really
12595 bad plugin which fail on a lot of the test pages.  A lot of the MIME
12596 types I would expect to work with any free software player (like
12597 video/ogg), just do not work.  And simple formats like the
12598 audio/x-mplegurl format (m3u playlists), just isn't supported by the
12599 totem and vlc plugins.  I hope the situation will improve soon.  No
12600 wonder sites use the proprietary Adobe flash to play video.</p>
12601
12602 <p>For Lenny, we seem to end up with the mplayer plugin.  It seem to
12603 be the only one fitting our needs. :/</p>
12604
12605       </div>
12606       <div class="tags">
12607
12608
12609         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>.
12610
12611
12612       </div>
12613     </div>
12614     <div class="padding"></div>
12615
12616     <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>
12617     <div id="sidebar">
12618
12619
12620
12621 <h2>Archive</h2>
12622 <ul>
12623
12624 <li>2017
12625 <ul>
12626
12627 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2017/01/">January (4)</a></li>
12628
12629 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2017/02/">February (3)</a></li>
12630
12631 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2017/03/">March (5)</a></li>
12632
12633 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2017/04/">April (2)</a></li>
12634
12635 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2017/06/">June (5)</a></li>
12636
12637 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2017/07/">July (1)</a></li>
12638
12639 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2017/08/">August (1)</a></li>
12640
12641 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2017/09/">September (2)</a></li>
12642
12643 </ul></li>
12644
12645 <li>2016
12646 <ul>
12647
12648 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/01/">January (3)</a></li>
12649
12650 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/02/">February (2)</a></li>
12651
12652 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/03/">March (3)</a></li>
12653
12654 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/04/">April (8)</a></li>
12655
12656 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/05/">May (8)</a></li>
12657
12658 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/06/">June (2)</a></li>
12659
12660 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/07/">July (2)</a></li>
12661
12662 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/08/">August (5)</a></li>
12663
12664 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/09/">September (2)</a></li>
12665
12666 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/10/">October (3)</a></li>
12667
12668 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/11/">November (8)</a></li>
12669
12670 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/12/">December (5)</a></li>
12671
12672 </ul></li>
12673
12674 <li>2015
12675 <ul>
12676
12677 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/01/">January (7)</a></li>
12678
12679 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/02/">February (6)</a></li>
12680
12681 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/03/">March (1)</a></li>
12682
12683 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/04/">April (4)</a></li>
12684
12685 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/05/">May (3)</a></li>
12686
12687 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/06/">June (4)</a></li>
12688
12689 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/07/">July (6)</a></li>
12690
12691 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/08/">August (2)</a></li>
12692
12693 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/09/">September (2)</a></li>
12694
12695 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/10/">October (9)</a></li>
12696
12697 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/11/">November (6)</a></li>
12698
12699 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/12/">December (3)</a></li>
12700
12701 </ul></li>
12702
12703 <li>2014
12704 <ul>
12705
12706 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/01/">January (2)</a></li>
12707
12708 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/02/">February (3)</a></li>
12709
12710 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/03/">March (8)</a></li>
12711
12712 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/04/">April (7)</a></li>
12713
12714 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/05/">May (1)</a></li>
12715
12716 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/06/">June (2)</a></li>
12717
12718 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/07/">July (2)</a></li>
12719
12720 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/08/">August (2)</a></li>
12721
12722 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/09/">September (5)</a></li>
12723
12724 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/10/">October (6)</a></li>
12725
12726 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/11/">November (3)</a></li>
12727
12728 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/12/">December (5)</a></li>
12729
12730 </ul></li>
12731
12732 <li>2013
12733 <ul>
12734
12735 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/01/">January (11)</a></li>
12736
12737 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/02/">February (9)</a></li>
12738
12739 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/03/">March (9)</a></li>
12740
12741 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/04/">April (6)</a></li>
12742
12743 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/05/">May (9)</a></li>
12744
12745 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/06/">June (10)</a></li>
12746
12747 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/07/">July (7)</a></li>
12748
12749 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/08/">August (3)</a></li>
12750
12751 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/09/">September (5)</a></li>
12752
12753 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/10/">October (7)</a></li>
12754
12755 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/11/">November (9)</a></li>
12756
12757 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/12/">December (3)</a></li>
12758
12759 </ul></li>
12760
12761 <li>2012
12762 <ul>
12763
12764 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/01/">January (7)</a></li>
12765
12766 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/02/">February (10)</a></li>
12767
12768 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/03/">March (17)</a></li>
12769
12770 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/04/">April (12)</a></li>
12771
12772 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/05/">May (12)</a></li>
12773
12774 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/06/">June (20)</a></li>
12775
12776 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/07/">July (17)</a></li>
12777
12778 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/08/">August (6)</a></li>
12779
12780 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/09/">September (9)</a></li>
12781
12782 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/10/">October (17)</a></li>
12783
12784 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/11/">November (10)</a></li>
12785
12786 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/12/">December (7)</a></li>
12787
12788 </ul></li>
12789
12790 <li>2011
12791 <ul>
12792
12793 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/01/">January (16)</a></li>
12794
12795 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/02/">February (6)</a></li>
12796
12797 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/03/">March (6)</a></li>
12798
12799 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/04/">April (7)</a></li>
12800
12801 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/05/">May (3)</a></li>
12802
12803 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/06/">June (2)</a></li>
12804
12805 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/07/">July (7)</a></li>
12806
12807 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/08/">August (6)</a></li>
12808
12809 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/09/">September (4)</a></li>
12810
12811 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/10/">October (2)</a></li>
12812
12813 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/11/">November (3)</a></li>
12814
12815 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/12/">December (1)</a></li>
12816
12817 </ul></li>
12818
12819 <li>2010
12820 <ul>
12821
12822 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/01/">January (2)</a></li>
12823
12824 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/02/">February (1)</a></li>
12825
12826 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/03/">March (3)</a></li>
12827
12828 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/04/">April (3)</a></li>
12829
12830 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/05/">May (9)</a></li>
12831
12832 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/06/">June (14)</a></li>
12833
12834 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/07/">July (12)</a></li>
12835
12836 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/08/">August (13)</a></li>
12837
12838 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/09/">September (7)</a></li>
12839
12840 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/10/">October (9)</a></li>
12841
12842 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/11/">November (13)</a></li>
12843
12844 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/12/">December (12)</a></li>
12845
12846 </ul></li>
12847
12848 <li>2009
12849 <ul>
12850
12851 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/01/">January (8)</a></li>
12852
12853 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/02/">February (8)</a></li>
12854
12855 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/03/">March (12)</a></li>
12856
12857 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/04/">April (10)</a></li>
12858
12859 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/05/">May (9)</a></li>
12860
12861 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/06/">June (3)</a></li>
12862
12863 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/07/">July (4)</a></li>
12864
12865 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/08/">August (3)</a></li>
12866
12867 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/09/">September (1)</a></li>
12868
12869 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/10/">October (2)</a></li>
12870
12871 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/11/">November (3)</a></li>
12872
12873 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/12/">December (3)</a></li>
12874
12875 </ul></li>
12876
12877 <li>2008
12878 <ul>
12879
12880 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/11/">November (5)</a></li>
12881
12882 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/12/">December (7)</a></li>
12883
12884 </ul></li>
12885
12886 </ul>
12887
12888
12889
12890 <h2>Tags</h2>
12891 <ul>
12892
12893  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer (13)</a></li>
12894
12895  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/amiga">amiga (1)</a></li>
12896
12897  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/aros">aros (1)</a></li>
12898
12899  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bankid">bankid (4)</a></li>
12900
12901  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin (9)</a></li>
12902
12903  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem (16)</a></li>
12904
12905  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bsa">bsa (2)</a></li>
12906
12907  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/chrpath">chrpath (2)</a></li>
12908
12909  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian (152)</a></li>
12910
12911  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu (158)</a></li>
12912
12913  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian-handbook">debian-handbook (4)</a></li>
12914
12915  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/digistan">digistan (10)</a></li>
12916
12917  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/dld">dld (17)</a></li>
12918
12919  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook (24)</a></li>
12920
12921  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/drivstoffpriser">drivstoffpriser (4)</a></li>
12922
12923  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english (352)</a></li>
12924
12925  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami (23)</a></li>
12926
12927  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fildeling">fildeling (12)</a></li>
12928
12929  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture (30)</a></li>
12930
12931  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox (9)</a></li>
12932
12933  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen (18)</a></li>
12934
12935  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/h264">h264 (20)</a></li>
12936
12937  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju (42)</a></li>
12938
12939  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram (15)</a></li>
12940
12941  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kart">kart (20)</a></li>
12942
12943  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap (9)</a></li>
12944
12945  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lenker">lenker (8)</a></li>
12946
12947  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lsdvd">lsdvd (2)</a></li>
12948
12949  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ltsp">ltsp (1)</a></li>
12950
12951  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network (8)</a></li>
12952
12953  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia (39)</a></li>
12954
12955  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nice free software">nice free software (9)</a></li>
12956
12957  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk (292)</a></li>
12958
12959  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug (189)</a></li>
12960
12961  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/offentlig innsyn">offentlig innsyn (33)</a></li>
12962
12963  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/open311">open311 (2)</a></li>
12964
12965  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett (64)</a></li>
12966
12967  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern (103)</a></li>
12968
12969  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/raid">raid (1)</a></li>
12970
12971  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reactos">reactos (1)</a></li>
12972
12973  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reprap">reprap (11)</a></li>
12974
12975  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rfid">rfid (3)</a></li>
12976
12977  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot (10)</a></li>
12978
12979  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rss">rss (1)</a></li>
12980
12981  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ruter">ruter (5)</a></li>
12982
12983  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/scraperwiki">scraperwiki (2)</a></li>
12984
12985  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet (53)</a></li>
12986
12987  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary (4)</a></li>
12988
12989  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/skepsis">skepsis (5)</a></li>
12990
12991  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard (55)</a></li>
12992
12993  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stavekontroll">stavekontroll (6)</a></li>
12994
12995  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stortinget">stortinget (12)</a></li>
12996
12997  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance (51)</a></li>
12998
12999  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sysadmin">sysadmin (3)</a></li>
13000
13001  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/usenix">usenix (2)</a></li>
13002
13003  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/valg">valg (9)</a></li>
13004
13005  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video (59)</a></li>
13006
13007  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/vitenskap">vitenskap (4)</a></li>
13008
13009  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web (40)</a></li>
13010
13011 </ul>
13012
13013
13014     </div>
13015     <p style="text-align: right">
13016  Created by <a href="http://steve.org.uk/Software/chronicle">Chronicle v4.6</a>
13017 </p>
13018
13019   </body>
13020 </html>