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  13  <h1>
  14      <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/">Petter Reinholdtsen</a>
  15
  16  </h1>
  17
  18 </div>
  19
  20
  21     <h3>Entries tagged "debian".</h3>
  22
  23     <div class="entry">
  24       <div class="title">
  25         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Debian_package_for_SMTP_via_Tor__aka_SMTorP__using_exim4.html">A Debian package for SMTP via Tor (aka SMTorP) using exim4</a>
  26       </div>
  27       <div class="date">
  28         10th November 2014
  29       </div>
  30       <div class="body">
  31         <p>The right to communicate with your friends and family in private,
  32 without anyone snooping, is a right every citicen have in a liberal
  33 democracy.  But this right is under serious attack these days.</p>
  34
  35 <p>A while back it occurred to me that one way to make the dragnet
  36 surveillance conducted by NSA, GCHQ, FRA and others (and confirmed by
  37 the whisleblower Snowden) more expensive for Internet email,
  38 is to deliver all email using SMTP via Tor.  Such SMTP option would be
  39 a nice addition to the FreedomBox project if we could send email
  40 between FreedomBox machines without leaking metadata about the emails
  41 to the people peeking on the wire.  I
  42 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/freedombox-discuss/2014-October/006493.html">proposed
  43 this on the FreedomBox project mailing list in October</a> and got a
  44 lot of useful feedback and suggestions.  It also became obvious to me
  45 that this was not a novel idea, as the same idea was tested and
  46 documented by Johannes Berg as early as 2006, and both
  47 <a href="https://github.com/pagekite/Mailpile/wiki/SMTorP">the
  48 Mailpile</a> and <a href="http://dee.su/cables">the Cables</a> systems
  49 propose a similar method / protocol to pass emails between users.</p>
  50
  51 <p>To implement such system one need to set up a Tor hidden service
  52 providing the SMTP protocol on port 25, and use email addresses
  53 looking like username@hidden-service-name.onion.  With such addresses
  54 the connections to port 25 on hidden-service-name.onion using Tor will
  55 go to the correct SMTP server.  To do this, one need to configure the
  56 Tor daemon to provide the hidden service and the mail server to accept
  57 emails for this .onion domain.  To learn more about Exim configuration
  58 in Debian and test the design provided by Johannes Berg in his FAQ, I
  59 set out yesterday to create a Debian package for making it trivial to
  60 set up such SMTP over Tor service based on Debian.  Getting it to work
  61 were fairly easy, and
  62 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/exim4-smtorp">the
  63 source code for the Debian package</a> is available from github.  I
  64 plan to move it into Debian if further testing prove this to be a
  65 useful approach.</p>
  66
  67 <p>If you want to test this, set up a blank Debian machine without any
  68 mail system installed (or run <tt>apt-get purge exim4-config</tt> to
  69 get rid of exim4).  Install tor, clone the git repository mentioned
  70 above, build the deb and install it on the machine.  Next, run
  71 <tt>/usr/lib/exim4-smtorp/setup-exim-hidden-service</tt> and follow
  72 the instructions to get the service up and running.  Restart tor and
  73 exim when it is done, and test mail delivery using swaks like
  74 this:</p>
  75
  76 <p><blockquote><pre>
  77 torsocks swaks --server dutlqrrmjhtfa3vp.onion \
  78   --to fbx@dutlqrrmjhtfa3vp.onion
  79 </pre></blockquote></p>
  80
  81 <p>This will test the SMTP delivery using tor.  Replace the email
  82 address with your own address to test your server. :)</p>
  83
  84 <p>The setup procedure is still to complex, and I hope it can be made
  85 easier and more automatic.  Especially the tor setup need more work.
  86 Also, the package include a tor-smtp tool written in C, but its task
  87 should probably be rewritten in some script language to make the deb
  88 architecture independent.  It would probably also make the code easier
  89 to review.  The tor-smtp tool currently need to listen on a socket for
  90 exim to talk to it and is started using xinetd.  It would be better if
  91 no daemon and no socket is needed.  I suspect it is possible to get
  92 exim to run a command line tool for delivery instead of talking to a
  93 socket, and hope to figure out how in a future version of this
  94 system.</p>
  95
  96 <p>Until I wipe my test machine, I can be reached using the
  97 <tt>fbx@dutlqrrmjhtfa3vp.onion</tt> mail address, deliverable over
  98 SMTorP. :)</p>
  99
 100       </div>
 101       <div class="tags">
 102
 103
 104         Tags: <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>.
 105
 106
 107       </div>
 108     </div>
 109     <div class="padding"></div>
 110
 111     <div class="entry">
 112       <div class="title">
 113         <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>
 114       </div>
 115       <div class="date">
 116         22nd October 2014
 117       </div>
 118       <div class="body">
 119         <p>If you ever had to moderate a mailman list, like the ones on
 120 alioth.debian.org, you know the web interface is fairly slow to
 121 operate.  First you visit one web page, enter the moderation password
 122 and get a new page shown with a list of all the messages to moderate
 123 and various options for each email address.  This take a while for
 124 every list you moderate, and you need to do it regularly to do a good
 125 job as a list moderator.  But there is a quick alternative,
 126 <a href="http://heim.ifi.uio.no/kjetilho/hacks/#listadmin">the
 127 listadmin program</a>.  It allow you to check lists for new messages
 128 to moderate in a fraction of a second.  Here is a test run on two
 129 lists I recently took over:</p>
 130
 131 <p><blockquote><pre>
 132 % time listadmin xiph
 133 fetching data for pkg-xiph-commits@lists.alioth.debian.org ... nothing in queue
 134 fetching data for pkg-xiph-maint@lists.alioth.debian.org ... nothing in queue
 135
 136 real    0m1.709s
 137 user    0m0.232s
 138 sys     0m0.012s
 139 %
 140 </pre></blockquote></p>
 141
 142 <p>In 1.7 seconds I had checked two mailing lists and confirmed that
 143 there are no message in the moderation queue.  Every morning I
 144 currently moderate 68 mailman lists, and it normally take around two
 145 minutes.  When I took over the two pkg-xiph lists above a few days
 146 ago, there were 400 emails waiting in the moderator queue.  It took me
 147 less than 15 minutes to process them all using the listadmin
 148 program.</p>
 149
 150 <p>If you install
 151 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/listadmin">the listadmin
 152 package</a> from Debian and create a file <tt>~/.listadmin.ini</tt>
 153 with content like this, the moderation task is a breeze:</p>
 154
 155 <p><blockquote><pre>
 156 username username@example.org
 157 spamlevel 23
 158 default discard
 159 discard_if_reason "Posting restricted to members only. Remove us from your mail list."
 160
 161 password secret
 162 adminurl https://{domain}/mailman/admindb/{list}
 163 mailman-list@lists.example.com
 164
 165 password hidden
 166 other-list@otherserver.example.org
 167 </pre></blockquote></p>
 168
 169 <p>There are other options to set as well.  Check the manual page to
 170 learn the details.</p>
 171
 172 <p>If you are forced to moderate lists on a mailman installation where
 173 the SSL certificate is self signed or not properly signed by a
 174 generally accepted signing authority, you can set a environment
 175 variable when calling listadmin to disable SSL verification:</p>
 176
 177 <p><blockquote><pre>
 178 PERL_LWP_SSL_VERIFY_HOSTNAME=0 listadmin
 179 </pre></blockquote></p>
 180
 181 <p>If you want to moderate a subset of the lists you take care of, you
 182 can provide an argument to the listadmin script like I do in the
 183 initial screen dump (the xiph argument).  Using an argument, only
 184 lists matching the argument string will be processed.  This make it
 185 quick to accept messages if you notice the moderation request in your
 186 email.</p>
 187
 188 <p>Without the listadmin program, I would never be the moderator of 68
 189 mailing lists, as I simply do not have time to spend on that if the
 190 process was any slower. The listadmin program have saved me hours of
 191 time I could spend elsewhere over the years.  It truly is nice free
 192 software.</p>
 193
 194 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
 195 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
 196 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
 197
 198 <p>Update 2014-10-27: Added missing 'username' statement in
 199 configuration example.  Also, I've been told that the
 200 PERL_LWP_SSL_VERIFY_HOSTNAME=0 setting do not work for everyone.  Not
 201 sure why.</p>
 202
 203       </div>
 204       <div class="tags">
 205
 206
 207         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
 208
 209
 210       </div>
 211     </div>
 212     <div class="padding"></div>
 213
 214     <div class="entry">
 215       <div class="title">
 216         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Jessie__PXE_and_automatic_firmware_installation.html">Debian Jessie, PXE and automatic firmware installation</a>
 217       </div>
 218       <div class="date">
 219         17th October 2014
 220       </div>
 221       <div class="body">
 222         <p>When PXE installing laptops with Debian, I often run into the
 223 problem that the WiFi card require some firmware to work properly.
 224 And it has been a pain to fix this using preseeding in Debian.
 225 Normally something more is needed.  But thanks to
 226 <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/i/isenkram.html">my isenkram
 227 package</a> and its recent tasksel extension, it has now become easy
 228 to do this using simple preseeding.</p>
 229
 230 <p>The isenkram-cli package provide tasksel tasks which will install
 231 firmware for the hardware found in the machine (actually, requested by
 232 the kernel modules for the hardware).  (It can also install user space
 233 programs supporting the hardware detected, but that is not the focus
 234 of this story.)</p>
 235
 236 <p>To get this working in the default installation, two preeseding
 237 values are needed.  First, the isenkram-cli package must be installed
 238 into the target chroot (aka the hard drive) before tasksel is executed
 239 in the pkgsel step of the debian-installer system.  This is done by
 240 preseeding the base-installer/includes debconf value to include the
 241 isenkram-cli package.  The package name is next passed to debootstrap
 242 for installation.  With the isenkram-cli package in place, tasksel
 243 will automatically use the isenkram tasks to detect hardware specific
 244 packages for the machine being installed and install them, because
 245 isenkram-cli contain tasksel tasks.</p>
 246
 247 <p>Second, one need to enable the non-free APT repository, because
 248 most firmware unfortunately is non-free.  This is done by preseeding
 249 the apt-mirror-setup step.  This is unfortunate, but for a lot of
 250 hardware it is the only option in Debian.</p>
 251
 252 <p>The end result is two lines needed in your preseeding file to get
 253 firmware installed automatically by the installer:</p>
 254
 255 <p><blockquote><pre>
 256 base-installer base-installer/includes string isenkram-cli
 257 apt-mirror-setup apt-setup/non-free boolean true
 258 </pre></blockquote></p>
 259
 260 <p>The current version of isenkram-cli in testing/jessie will install
 261 both firmware and user space packages when using this method.  It also
 262 do not work well, so use version 0.15 or later.  Installing both
 263 firmware and user space packages might give you a bit more than you
 264 want, so I decided to split the tasksel task in two, one for firmware
 265 and one for user space programs.  The firmware task is enabled by
 266 default, while the one for user space programs is not.  This split is
 267 implemented in the package currently in unstable.</p>
 268
 269 <p>If you decide to give this a go, please let me know (via email) how
 270 this recipe work for you. :)</p>
 271
 272 <p>So, I bet you are wondering, how can this work.  First and
 273 foremost, it work because tasksel is modular, and driven by whatever
 274 files it find in /usr/lib/tasksel/ and /usr/share/tasksel/.  So the
 275 isenkram-cli package place two files for tasksel to find.  First there
 276 is the task description file (/usr/share/tasksel/descs/isenkram.desc):</p>
 277
 278 <p><blockquote><pre>
 279 Task: isenkram-packages
 280 Section: hardware
 281 Description: Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)
 282  Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific packages are
 283  proposed.
 284 Test-new-install: show show
 285 Relevance: 8
 286 Packages: for-current-hardware
 287
 288 Task: isenkram-firmware
 289 Section: hardware
 290 Description: Hardware specific firmware packages (autodetected by isenkram)
 291  Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific firmware
 292  packages are proposed.
 293 Test-new-install: mark show
 294 Relevance: 8
 295 Packages: for-current-hardware-firmware
 296 </pre></blockquote></p>
 297
 298 <p>The key parts are Test-new-install which indicate how the task
 299 should be handled and the Packages line referencing to a script in
 300 /usr/lib/tasksel/packages/.  The scripts use other scripts to get a
 301 list of packages to install.  The for-current-hardware-firmware script
 302 look like this to list relevant firmware for the machine:
 303
 304 <p><blockquote><pre>
 305 #!/bin/sh
 306 #
 307 PATH=/usr/sbin:$PATH
 308 export PATH
 309 isenkram-autoinstall-firmware -l
 310 </pre></blockquote></p>
 311
 312 <p>With those two pieces in place, the firmware is installed by
 313 tasksel during the normal d-i run. :)</p>
 314
 315 <p>If you want to test what tasksel will install when isenkram-cli is
 316 installed, run <tt>DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical tasksel --test
 317 --new-install</tt> to get the list of packages that tasksel would
 318 install.</p>
 319
 320 <p><a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/">Debian Edu</a> will be
 321 pilots in testing this feature, as isenkram is used there now to
 322 install firmware, replacing the earlier scripts.</p>
 323
 324       </div>
 325       <div class="tags">
 326
 327
 328         Tags: <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>.
 329
 330
 331       </div>
 332     </div>
 333     <div class="padding"></div>
 334
 335     <div class="entry">
 336       <div class="title">
 337         <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>
 338       </div>
 339       <div class="date">
 340          4th October 2014
 341       </div>
 342       <div class="body">
 343         <p>Today I came across an unexpected Ubuntu boot screen.  Above the
 344 bread shelf on the ICA shop at Storo in Oslo, the grub menu of Ubuntu
 345 with Linux kernel 3.2.0-23 (ie probably version 12.04 LTS) was stuck
 346 on a screen normally showing the bread types and prizes:</p>
 347
 348 <p align="center"><img width="70%" src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2014-10-04-ubuntu-ica-storo-crop.jpeg"></p>
 349
 350 <p>If it had booted as it was supposed to, I would never had known
 351 about this hidden Linux installation.  It is interesting what
 352 <a href="http://revealingerrors.com/">errors can reveal</a>.</p>
 353
 354       </div>
 355       <div class="tags">
 356
 357
 358         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
 359
 360
 361       </div>
 362     </div>
 363     <div class="padding"></div>
 364
 365     <div class="entry">
 366       <div class="title">
 367         <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>
 368       </div>
 369       <div class="date">
 370          4th October 2014
 371       </div>
 372       <div class="body">
 373         <p>The <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/">lsdvd project</a>
 374 got a new set of developers a few weeks ago, after the original
 375 developer decided to step down and pass the project to fresh blood.
 376 This project is now maintained by Petter Reinholdtsen and Steve
 377 Dibb.</p>
 378
 379 <p>I just wrapped up
 380 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/mailman/message/32896061/">a
 381 new lsdvd release</a>, available in git or from
 382 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/projects/lsdvd/files/lsdvd/">the
 383 download page</a>.  This is the changelog dated 2014-10-03 for version
 384 0.17.</p>
 385
 386 <ul>
 387
 388  <li>Ignore 'phantom' audio, subtitle tracks</li>
 389  <li>Check for garbage in the program chains, which indicate that a track is
 390    non-existant, to work around additional copy protection</li>
 391  <li>Fix displaying content type for audio tracks, subtitles</li>
 392  <li>Fix pallete display of first entry</li>
 393  <li>Fix include orders</li>
 394  <li>Ignore read errors in titles that would not be displayed anyway</li>
 395  <li>Fix the chapter count</li>
 396  <li>Make sure the array size and the array limit used when initialising
 397    the palette size is the same.</li>
 398  <li>Fix array printing.</li>
 399  <li>Correct subsecond calculations.</li>
 400  <li>Add sector information to the output format.</li>
 401  <li>Clean up code to be closer to ANSI C and compile without warnings
 402    with more GCC compiler warnings.</li>
 403
 404 </ul>
 405
 406 <p>This change bring together patches for lsdvd in use in various
 407 Linux and Unix distributions, as well as patches submitted to the
 408 project the last nine years.  Please check it out. :)</p>
 409
 410       </div>
 411       <div class="tags">
 412
 413
 414         Tags: <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>.
 415
 416
 417       </div>
 418     </div>
 419     <div class="padding"></div>
 420
 421     <div class="entry">
 422       <div class="title">
 423         <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>
 424       </div>
 425       <div class="date">
 426         26th September 2014
 427       </div>
 428       <div class="body">
 429         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
 430 project</a> provide a Linux solution for schools, including a
 431 powerful desktop with education software, a central server providing
 432 web pages, user database, user home directories, central login and PXE
 433 boot of both  clients without disk and the installation to install Debian
 434 Edu on machines with disk (and a few other services perhaps to small
 435 to mention here).  We in the Debian Edu team are currently working on
 436 the Jessie based version, trying to get everything in shape before the
 437 freeze, to avoid having to maintain our own package repository in the
 438 future.  The
 439 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Status/Jessie">current
 440 status</a> can be seen on the Debian wiki, and there is still heaps of
 441 work left.  Some fatal problems block testing, breaking the installer,
 442 but it is possible to work around these to get anyway.  Here is a
 443 recipe on how to get the installation limping along.</p>
 444
 445 <p>First, download the test ISO via
 446 <a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.no/cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-1.iso">ftp</a>,
 447 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.no/cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-1.iso">http</a>
 448 or rsync (use
 449 ftp.skolelinux.org::cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-1.iso).
 450 The ISO build was broken on Tuesday, so we do not get a new ISO every
 451 12 hours or so, but thankfully the ISO we already got we are able to
 452 install with some tweaking.</p>
 453
 454 <p>When you get to the Debian Edu profile question, go to tty2
 455 (use Alt-Ctrl-F2), run</p>
 456
 457 <p><blockquote><pre>
 458 nano /usr/bin/edu-eatmydata-install
 459 </pre></blockquote></p>
 460
 461 <p>and add 'exit 0' as the second line, disabling the eatmydata
 462 optimization.  Return to the installation, select the profile you want
 463 and continue.  Without this change, exim4-config will fail to install
 464 due to a known bug in eatmydata.</p>
 465
 466 <p>When you get the grub question at the end, answer /dev/sda (or if
 467 this do not work, figure out what your correct value would be.  All my
 468 test machines need /dev/sda, so I have no advice if it do not fit
 469 your need.</p>
 470
 471 <p>If you installed a profile including a graphical desktop, log in as
 472 root after the initial boot from hard drive, and install the
 473 education-desktop-XXX metapackage.  XXX can be kde, gnome, lxde, xfce
 474 or mate.  If you want several desktop options, install more than one
 475 metapackage.  Once this is done, reboot and you should have a working
 476 graphical login screen.  This workaround should no longer be needed
 477 once the education-tasks package version 1.801 enter testing in two
 478 days.</p>
 479
 480 <p>I believe the ISO build will start working on two days when the new
 481 tasksel package enter testing and Steve McIntyre get a chance to
 482 update the debian-cd git repository.  The eatmydata, grub and desktop
 483 issues are already fixed in unstable and testing, and should show up
 484 on the ISO as soon as the ISO build start working again.  Well the
 485 eatmydata optimization is really just disabled.  The proper fix
 486 require an upload by the eatmydata maintainer applying the patch
 487 provided in bug <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/702711">#702711</a>.
 488 The rest have proper fixes in unstable.</p>
 489
 490 <p>I hope this get you going with the installation testing, as we are
 491 quickly running out of time trying to get our Jessie based
 492 installation ready before the distribution freeze in a month.</p>
 493
 494       </div>
 495       <div class="tags">
 496
 497
 498         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>.
 499
 500
 501       </div>
 502     </div>
 503     <div class="padding"></div>
 504
 505     <div class="entry">
 506       <div class="title">
 507         <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>
 508       </div>
 509       <div class="date">
 510         25th September 2014
 511       </div>
 512       <div class="body">
 513         <p>I use the <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/">lsdvd tool</a>
 514 to handle my fairly large DVD collection.  It is a nice command line
 515 tool to get details about a DVD, like title, tracks, track length,
 516 etc, in XML, Perl or human readable format.  But lsdvd have not seen
 517 any new development since 2006 and had a few irritating bugs affecting
 518 its use with some DVDs.  Upstream seemed to be dead, and in January I
 519 sent a small probe asking for a version control repository for the
 520 project, without any reply.  But I use it regularly and would like to
 521 get <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/lsdvd">an updated version
 522 into Debian</a>.  So two weeks ago I tried harder to get in touch with
 523 the project admin, and after getting a reply from him explaining that
 524 he was no longer interested in the project, I asked if I could take
 525 over.  And yesterday, I became project admin.</p>
 526
 527 <p>I've been in touch with a Gentoo developer and the Debian
 528 maintainer interested in joining forces to maintain the upstream
 529 project, and I hope we can get a new release out fairly quickly,
 530 collecting the patches spread around on the internet into on place.
 531 I've added the relevant Debian patches to the freshly created git
 532 repository, and expect the Gentoo patches to make it too.  If you got
 533 a DVD collection and care about command line tools, check out
 534 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/git/ci/master/tree/">the git source</a> and join
 535 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/mailman/">the project mailing
 536 list</a>. :)</p>
 537
 538       </div>
 539       <div class="tags">
 540
 541
 542         Tags: <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>.
 543
 544
 545       </div>
 546     </div>
 547     <div class="padding"></div>
 548
 549     <div class="entry">
 550       <div class="title">
 551         <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>
 552       </div>
 553       <div class="date">
 554         16th September 2014
 555       </div>
 556       <div class="body">
 557         <p>The <a href="https://www.debian.org/">Debian</a> installer could be
 558 a lot quicker.  When we install more than 2000 packages in
 559 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux / Debian Edu</a> using
 560 tasksel in the installer, unpacking the binary packages take forever.
 561 A part of the slow I/O issue was discussed in
 562 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/613428">bug #613428</a> about too
 563 much file system sync-ing done by dpkg, which is the package
 564 responsible for unpacking the binary packages.  Other parts (like code
 565 executed by postinst scripts) might also sync to disk during
 566 installation.  All this sync-ing to disk do not really make sense to
 567 me.  If the machine crash half-way through, I start over, I do not try
 568 to salvage the half installed system.  So the failure sync-ing is
 569 supposed to protect against, hardware or system crash, is not really
 570 relevant while the installer is running.</p>
 571
 572 <p>A few days ago, I thought of a way to get rid of all the file
 573 system sync()-ing in a fairly non-intrusive way, without the need to
 574 change the code in several packages.  The idea is not new, but I have
 575 not heard anyone propose the approach using dpkg-divert before.  It
 576 depend on the small and clever package
 577 <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/eatmydata">eatmydata</a>, which
 578 uses LD_PRELOAD to replace the system functions for syncing data to
 579 disk with functions doing nothing, thus allowing programs to live
 580 dangerous while speeding up disk I/O significantly.  Instead of
 581 modifying the implementation of dpkg, apt and tasksel (which are the
 582 packages responsible for selecting, fetching and installing packages),
 583 it occurred to me that we could just divert the programs away, replace
 584 them with a simple shell wrapper calling
 585 "eatmydata&nbsp;$program&nbsp;$@", to get the same effect.
 586 Two days ago I decided to test the idea, and wrapped up a simple
 587 implementation for the Debian Edu udeb.</p>
 588
 589 <p>The effect was stunning.  In my first test it reduced the running
 590 time of the pkgsel step (installing tasks) from 64 to less than 44
 591 minutes (20 minutes shaved off the installation) on an old Dell
 592 Latitude D505 machine.  I am not quite sure what the optimised time
 593 would have been, as I messed up the testing a bit, causing the debconf
 594 priority to get low enough for two questions to pop up during
 595 installation.  As soon as I saw the questions I moved the installation
 596 along, but do not know how long the question were holding up the
 597 installation.  I did some more measurements using Debian Edu Jessie,
 598 and got these results.  The time measured is the time stamp in
 599 /var/log/syslog between the "pkgsel: starting tasksel" and the
 600 "pkgsel: finishing up" lines, if you want to do the same measurement
 601 yourself.  In Debian Edu, the tasksel dialog do not show up, and the
 602 timing thus do not depend on how quickly the user handle the tasksel
 603 dialog.</p>
 604
 605 <p><table>
 606
 607 <tr>
 608 <th>Machine/setup</th>
 609 <th>Original tasksel</th>
 610 <th>Optimised tasksel</th>
 611 <th>Reduction</th>
 612 </tr>
 613
 614 <tr>
 615 <td>Latitude D505 Main+LTSP LXDE</td>
 616 <td>64 min (07:46-08:50)</td>
 617 <td><44 min (11:27-12:11)</td>
 618 <td>>20 min 18%</td>
 619 </tr>
 620
 621 <tr>
 622 <td>Latitude D505 Roaming LXDE</td>
 623 <td>57 min (08:48-09:45)</td>
 624 <td>34 min (07:43-08:17)</td>
 625 <td>23 min 40%</td>
 626 </tr>
 627
 628 <tr>
 629 <td>Latitude D505 Minimal</td>
 630 <td>22 min (10:37-10:59)</td>
 631 <td>11 min (11:16-11:27)</td>
 632 <td>11 min 50%</td>
 633 </tr>
 634
 635 <tr>
 636 <td>Thinkpad X200 Minimal</td>
 637 <td>6 min (08:19-08:25)</td>
 638 <td>4 min (08:04-08:08)</td>
 639 <td>2 min 33%</td>
 640 </tr>
 641
 642 <tr>
 643 <td>Thinkpad X200 Roaming KDE</td>
 644 <td>19 min (09:21-09:40)</td>
 645 <td>15 min (10:25-10:40)</td>
 646 <td>4 min 21%</td>
 647 </tr>
 648
 649 </table></p>
 650
 651 <p>The test is done using a netinst ISO on a USB stick, so some of the
 652 time is spent downloading packages.  The connection to the Internet
 653 was 100Mbit/s during testing, so downloading should not be a
 654 significant factor in the measurement.  Download typically took a few
 655 seconds to a few minutes, depending on the amount of packages being
 656 installed.</p>
 657
 658 <p>The speedup is implemented by using two hooks in
 659 <a href="https://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/">Debian
 660 Installer</a>, the pre-pkgsel.d hook to set up the diverts, and the
 661 finish-install.d hook to remove the divert at the end of the
 662 installation.  I picked the pre-pkgsel.d hook instead of the
 663 post-base-installer.d hook because I test using an ISO without the
 664 eatmydata package included, and the post-base-installer.d hook in
 665 Debian Edu can only operate on packages included in the ISO.  The
 666 negative effect of this is that I am unable to activate this
 667 optimization for the kernel installation step in d-i.  If the code is
 668 moved to the post-base-installer.d hook, the speedup would be larger
 669 for the entire installation.</p>
 670
 671 <p>I've implemented this in the
 672 <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/debian-edu-install">debian-edu-install</a>
 673 git repository, and plan to provide the optimization as part of the
 674 Debian Edu installation.  If you want to test this yourself, you can
 675 create two files in the installer (or in an udeb).  One shell script
 676 need do go into /usr/lib/pre-pkgsel.d/, with content like this:</p>
 677
 678 <p><blockquote><pre>
 679 #!/bin/sh
 680 set -e
 681 . /usr/share/debconf/confmodule
 682 info() {
 683     logger -t my-pkgsel "info: $*"
 684 }
 685 error() {
 686     logger -t my-pkgsel "error: $*"
 687 }
 688 override_install() {
 689     apt-install eatmydata || true
 690     if [ -x /target/usr/bin/eatmydata ] ; then
 691         for bin in dpkg apt-get aptitude tasksel ; do
 692             file=/usr/bin/$bin
 693             # Test that the file exist and have not been diverted already.
 694             if [ -f /target$file ] ; then
 695                 info "diverting $file using eatmydata"
 696                 printf "#!/bin/sh\neatmydata $bin.distrib \"\$@\"\n" \
 697                     > /target$file.edu
 698                 chmod 755 /target$file.edu
 699                 in-target dpkg-divert --package debian-edu-config \
 700                     --rename --quiet --add $file
 701                 ln -sf ./$bin.edu /target$file
 702             else
 703                 error "unable to divert $file, as it is missing."
 704             fi
 705         done
 706     else
 707         error "unable to find /usr/bin/eatmydata after installing the eatmydata pacage"
 708     fi
 709 }
 710
 711 override_install
 712 </pre></blockquote></p>
 713
 714 <p>To clean up, another shell script should go into
 715 /usr/lib/finish-install.d/ with code like this:
 716
 717 <p><blockquote><pre>
 718 #! /bin/sh -e
 719 . /usr/share/debconf/confmodule
 720 error() {
 721     logger -t my-finish-install "error: $@"
 722 }
 723 remove_install_override() {
 724     for bin in dpkg apt-get aptitude tasksel ; do
 725         file=/usr/bin/$bin
 726         if [ -x /target$file.edu ] ; then
 727             rm /target$file
 728             in-target dpkg-divert --package debian-edu-config \
 729                 --rename --quiet --remove $file
 730             rm /target$file.edu
 731         else
 732             error "Missing divert for $file."
 733         fi
 734     done
 735     sync # Flush file buffers before continuing
 736 }
 737
 738 remove_install_override
 739 </pre></blockquote></p>
 740
 741 <p>In Debian Edu, I placed both code fragments in a separate script
 742 edu-eatmydata-install and call it from the pre-pkgsel.d and
 743 finish-install.d scripts.</p>
 744
 745 <p>By now you might ask if this change should get into the normal
 746 Debian installer too?  I suspect it should, but am not sure the
 747 current debian-installer coordinators find it useful enough.  It also
 748 depend on the side effects of the change.  I'm not aware of any, but I
 749 guess we will see if the change is safe after some more testing.
 750 Perhaps there is some package in Debian depending on sync() and
 751 fsync() having effect?  Perhaps it should go into its own udeb, to
 752 allow those of us wanting to enable it to do so without affecting
 753 everyone.</p>
 754
 755 <p>Update 2014-09-24: Since a few days ago, enabling this optimization
 756 will break installation of all programs using gnutls because of
 757 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/702711">bug #702711</a>.  An updated
 758 eatmydata package in Debian will solve it.</p>
 759
 760 <p>Update 2014-10-17: The bug mentioned above is fixed in testing and
 761 the optimization work again.  And I have discovered that the
 762 dpkg-divert trick is not really needed and implemented a slightly
 763 simpler approach as part of the debian-edu-install package.  See
 764 tools/edu-eatmydata-install in the source package.</p>
 765
 766 <p>Update 2014-11-11: Unfortunately, a new
 767 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org765738">bug #765738</a> in eatmydata only
 768 triggering on i386 made it into testing, and broke this installation
 769 optimization again.  If <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/768893">unblock
 770 request 768893</a> is accepted, it should be working again.</p>
 771
 772       </div>
 773       <div class="tags">
 774
 775
 776         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>.
 777
 778
 779       </div>
 780     </div>
 781     <div class="padding"></div>
 782
 783     <div class="entry">
 784       <div class="title">
 785         <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>
 786       </div>
 787       <div class="date">
 788         10th September 2014
 789       </div>
 790       <div class="body">
 791         <p>Yesterday, I had the pleasure of attending a talk with the
 792 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">Norwegian Unix User Group</a> about
 793 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20140909-sks-keyservers/">the
 794 OpenPGP keyserver pool sks-keyservers.net</a>, and was very happy to
 795 learn that there is a large set of publicly available key servers to
 796 use when looking for peoples public key.  So far I have used
 797 subkeys.pgp.net, and some times wwwkeys.nl.pgp.net when the former
 798 were misbehaving, but those days are ended.  The servers I have used
 799 up until yesterday have been slow and some times unavailable.  I hope
 800 those problems are gone now.</p>
 801
 802 <p>Behind the round robin DNS entry of the
 803 <a href="https://sks-keyservers.net/">sks-keyservers.net</a> service
 804 there is a pool of more than 100 keyservers which are checked every
 805 day to ensure they are well connected and up to date.  It must be
 806 better than what I have used so far. :)</p>
 807
 808 <p>Yesterdays speaker told me that the service is the default
 809 keyserver provided by the default configuration in GnuPG, but this do
 810 not seem to be used in Debian.  Perhaps it should?</p>
 811
 812 <p>Anyway, I've updated my ~/.gnupg/options file to now include this
 813 line:</p>
 814
 815 <p><blockquote><pre>
 816 keyserver pool.sks-keyservers.net
 817 </pre></blockquote></p>
 818
 819 <p>With GnuPG version 2 one can also locate the keyserver using SRV
 820 entries in DNS.  Just for fun, I did just that at work, so now every
 821 user of GnuPG at the University of Oslo should find a OpenGPG
 822 keyserver automatically should their need it:</p>
 823
 824 <p><blockquote><pre>
 825 % host -t srv _pgpkey-http._tcp.uio.no
 826 _pgpkey-http._tcp.uio.no has SRV record 0 100 11371 pool.sks-keyservers.net.
 827 %
 828 </pre></blockquote></p>
 829
 830 <p>Now if only
 831 <a href="http://ietfreport.isoc.org/idref/draft-shaw-openpgp-hkp/">the
 832 HKP lookup protocol</a> supported finding signature paths, I would be
 833 very happy.  It can look up a given key or search for a user ID, but I
 834 normally do not want that, but to find a trust path from my key to
 835 another key.  Given a user ID or key ID, I would like to find (and
 836 download) the keys representing a signature path from my key to the
 837 key in question, to be able to get a trust path between the two keys.
 838 This is as far as I can tell not possible today.  Perhaps something
 839 for a future version of the protocol?</p>
 840
 841       </div>
 842       <div class="tags">
 843
 844
 845         Tags: <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>.
 846
 847
 848       </div>
 849     </div>
 850     <div class="padding"></div>
 851
 852     <div class="entry">
 853       <div class="title">
 854         <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>
 855       </div>
 856       <div class="date">
 857         17th June 2014
 858       </div>
 859       <div class="body">
 860         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
 861 project</a> provide an instruction manual for teachers, system
 862 administrators and other users that contain useful tips for setting up
 863 and maintaining a Debian Edu installation.  This text is about how the
 864 text processing of this manual is handled in the project.</p>
 865
 866 <p>One goal of the project is to provide information in the native
 867 language of its users, and for this we need to handle translations.
 868 But we also want to make sure each language contain the same
 869 information, so for this we need a good way to keep the translations
 870 in sync.  And we want it to be easy for our users to improve the
 871 documentation, avoiding the need to learn special formats or tools to
 872 contribute, and the obvious way to do this is to make it possible to
 873 edit the documentation using a web browser.  We also want it to be
 874 easy for translators to keep the translation up to date, and give them
 875 help in figuring out what need to be translated. Here is the list of
 876 tools and the process we have found trying to reach all these
 877 goals.</p>
 878
 879 <p>We maintain the authoritative source of our manual in the
 880 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/">Debian
 881 wiki</a>, as several wiki pages written in English.  It consist of one
 882 front page with references to the different chapters, several pages
 883 for each chapter, and finally one "collection page" gluing all the
 884 chapters together into one large web page (aka
 885 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/AllInOne">the
 886 AllInOne page</a>).  The AllInOne page is the one used for further
 887 processing and translations.  Thanks to the fact that the
 888 <a href="http://moinmo.in/">MoinMoin</a> installation on
 889 wiki.debian.org support exporting pages in
 890 <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">the Docbook format</a>, we can fetch
 891 the list of pages to export using the raw version of the AllInOne
 892 page, loop over each of them to generate a Docbook XML version of the
 893 manual.  This process also download images and transform image
 894 references to use the locally downloaded images.  The generated
 895 Docbook XML files are slightly broken, so some post-processing is done
 896 using the <tt>documentation/scripts/get_manual</tt> program, and the
 897 result is a nice Docbook XML file (debian-edu-wheezy-manual.xml) and
 898 a handfull of images.  The XML file can now be used to generate PDF, HTML
 899 and epub versions of the English manual.  This is the basic step of
 900 our process, making PDF (using dblatex), HTML (using xsltproc) and
 901 epub (using dbtoepub) version from Docbook XML, and the resulting files
 902 are placed in the debian-edu-doc-en binary package.</p>
 903
 904 <p>But English documentation is not enough for us.  We want translated
 905 documentation too, and we want to make it easy for translators to
 906 track the English original.  For this we use the
 907 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/p/poxml.html">poxml</a> package,
 908 which allow us to transform the English Docbook XML file into a
 909 translation file (a .pot file), usable with the normal gettext based
 910 translation tools used by those translating free software.  The pot
 911 file is used to create and maintain translation files (several .po
 912 files), which the translations update with the native language
 913 translations of all titles, paragraphs and blocks of text in the
 914 original.  The next step is combining the original English Docbook XML
 915 and the translation file (say debian-edu-wheezy-manual.nb.po), to
 916 create a translated Docbook XML file (in this case
 917 debian-edu-wheezy-manual.nb.xml).  This translated (or partly
 918 translated, if the translation is not complete) Docbook XML file can
 919 then be used like the original to create a PDF, HTML and epub version
 920 of the documentation.</p>
 921
 922 <p>The translators use different tools to edit the .po files.  We
 923 recommend using
 924 <a href="http://www.kde.org/applications/development/lokalize/">lokalize</a>,
 925 while some use emacs and vi, others can use web based editors like
 926 <a href="http://pootle.translatehouse.org/">Poodle</a> or
 927 <a href="https://www.transifex.com/">Transifex</a>.  All we care about
 928 is where the .po file end up, in our git repository.  Updated
 929 translations can either be committed directly to git, or submitted as
 930 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/src:debian-edu-doc">bug reports
 931 against the debian-edu-doc package</a>.</p>
 932
 933 <p>One challenge is images, which both might need to be translated (if
 934 they show translated user applications), and are needed in different
 935 formats when creating PDF and HTML versions (epub is a HTML version in
 936 this regard).  For this we transform the original PNG images to the
 937 needed density and format during build, and have a way to provide
 938 translated images by storing translated versions in
 939 images/$LANGUAGECODE/.  I am a bit unsure about the details here.  The
 940 package maintainers know more.</p>
 941
 942 <p>If you wonder what the result look like, we provide
 943 <a href="http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/">the content
 944 of the documentation packages on the web</a>.  See for example the
 945 <a href="http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/it/debian-edu-wheezy-manual.pdf">Italian
 946 PDF version</a> or the
 947 <a href="http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/de/debian-edu-wheezy-manual.html">German
 948 HTML version</a>.  We do not yet build the epub version by default,
 949 but perhaps it will be done in the future.</p>
 950
 951 <p>To learn more, check out
 952 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/debian-edu-doc.html">the
 953 debian-edu-doc package</a>,
 954 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/">the
 955 manual on the wiki</a> and
 956 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/Translations">the
 957 translation instructions</a> in the manual.</p>
 958
 959       </div>
 960       <div class="tags">
 961
 962
 963         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>.
 964
 965
 966       </div>
 967     </div>
 968     <div class="padding"></div>
 969
 970     <div class="entry">
 971       <div class="title">
 972         <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>
 973       </div>
 974       <div class="date">
 975         23rd April 2014
 976       </div>
 977       <div class="body">
 978         <p>It would be nice if it was easier in Debian to get all the hardware
 979 related packages relevant for the computer installed automatically.
 980 So I implemented one, using
 981 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">my Isenkram
 982 package</a>.  To use it, install the tasksel and isenkram packages and
 983 run tasksel as user root.  You should be presented with a new option,
 984 "Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)".  When you
 985 select it, tasksel will install the packages isenkram claim is fit for
 986 the current hardware, hot pluggable or not.<p>
 987
 988 <p>The implementation is in two files, one is the tasksel menu entry
 989 description, and the other is the script used to extract the list of
 990 packages to install.  The first part is in
 991 <tt>/usr/share/tasksel/descs/isenkram.desc</tt> and look like
 992 this:</p>
 993
 994 <p><blockquote><pre>
 995 Task: isenkram
 996 Section: hardware
 997 Description: Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)
 998  Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific packages are
 999  proposed.
1000 Test-new-install: mark show
1001 Relevance: 8
1002 Packages: for-current-hardware
1003 </pre></blockquote></p>
1004
1005 <p>The second part is in
1006 <tt>/usr/lib/tasksel/packages/for-current-hardware</tt> and look like
1007 this:</p>
1008
1009 <p><blockquote><pre>
1010 #!/bin/sh
1011 #
1012 (
1013     isenkram-lookup
1014     isenkram-autoinstall-firmware -l
1015 ) | sort -u
1016 </pre></blockquote></p>
1017
1018 <p>All in all, a very short and simple implementation making it
1019 trivial to install the hardware dependent package we all may want to
1020 have installed on our machines.  I've not been able to find a way to
1021 get tasksel to tell you exactly which packages it plan to install
1022 before doing the installation.  So if you are curious or careful,
1023 check the output from the isenkram-* command line tools first.</p>
1024
1025 <p>The information about which packages are handling which hardware is
1026 fetched either from the isenkram package itself in
1027 /usr/share/isenkram/, from git.debian.org or from the APT package
1028 database (using the Modaliases header).  The APT package database
1029 parsing have caused a nasty resource leak in the isenkram daemon (bugs
1030 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/719837">#719837</a> and
1031 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/730704">#730704</a>).  The cause is in
1032 the python-apt code (bug
1033 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/745487">#745487</a>), but using a
1034 workaround I was able to get rid of the file descriptor leak and
1035 reduce the memory leak from ~30 MiB per hardware detection down to
1036 around 2 MiB per hardware detection.  It should make the desktop
1037 daemon a lot more useful.  The fix is in version 0.7 uploaded to
1038 unstable today.</p>
1039
1040 <p>I believe the current way of mapping hardware to packages in
1041 Isenkram is is a good draft, but in the future I expect isenkram to
1042 use the AppStream data source for this.  A proposal for getting proper
1043 AppStream support into Debian is floating around as
1044 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DEP-11">DEP-11</a>, and
1045 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/SummerOfCode2014/Projects#SummerOfCode2014.2FProjects.2FAppStreamDEP11Implementation.AppStream.2FDEP-11_for_the_Debian_Archive">GSoC
1046 project</a> will take place this summer to improve the situation.  I
1047 look forward to seeing the result, and welcome patches for isenkram to
1048 start using the information when it is ready.</p>
1049
1050 <p>If you want your package to map to some specific hardware, either
1051 add a "Xb-Modaliases" header to your control file like I did in
1052 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pymissile">the pymissile
1053 package</a> or submit a bug report with the details to the isenkram
1054 package.  See also
1055 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram/">all my
1056 blog posts tagged isenkram</a> for details on the notation.  I expect
1057 the information will be migrated to AppStream eventually, but for the
1058 moment I got no better place to store it.</p>
1059
1060       </div>
1061       <div class="tags">
1062
1063
1064         Tags: <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>.
1065
1066
1067       </div>
1068     </div>
1069     <div class="padding"></div>
1070
1071     <div class="entry">
1072       <div class="title">
1073         <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>
1074       </div>
1075       <div class="date">
1076         15th April 2014
1077       </div>
1078       <div class="body">
1079         <p>The <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">Freedombox
1080 project</a> is working on providing the software and hardware to make
1081 it easy for non-technical people to host their data and communication
1082 at home, and being able to communicate with their friends and family
1083 encrypted and away from prying eyes.  It is still going strong, and
1084 today a major mile stone was reached.</p>
1085
1086 <p>Today, the last of the packages currently used by the project to
1087 created the system images were accepted into Debian Unstable.  It was
1088 the freedombox-setup package, which is used to configure the images
1089 during build and on the first boot.  Now all one need to get going is
1090 the build code from the freedom-maker git repository and packages from
1091 Debian.  And once the freedombox-setup package enter testing, we can
1092 build everything directly from Debian. :)</p>
1093
1094 <p>Some key packages used by Freedombox are
1095 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/freedombox-setup">freedombox-setup</a>,
1096 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/plinth">plinth</a>,
1097 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pagekite">pagekite</a>,
1098 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/tor">tor</a>,
1099 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/privoxy">privoxy</a>,
1100 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/owncloud">owncloud</a> and
1101 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/dnsmasq">dnsmasq</a>.  There
1102 are plans to integrate more packages into the setup.  User
1103 documentation is maintained on the Debian wiki.  Please
1104 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/Manual/Jessie">check out
1105 the manual</a> and help us improve it.</p>
1106
1107 <p>To test for yourself and create boot images with the FreedomBox
1108 setup, run this on a Debian machine using a user with sudo rights to
1109 become root:</p>
1110
1111 <p><pre>
1112 sudo apt-get install git vmdebootstrap mercurial python-docutils \
1113   mktorrent extlinux virtualbox qemu-user-static binfmt-support \
1114   u-boot-tools
1115 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/freedombox/freedom-maker.git \
1116   freedom-maker
1117 make -C freedom-maker dreamplug-image raspberry-image virtualbox-image
1118 </pre></p>
1119
1120 <p>Root access is needed to run debootstrap and mount loopback
1121 devices.  See the README in the freedom-maker git repo for more
1122 details on the build.  If you do not want all three images, trim the
1123 make line.  Note that the virtualbox-image target is not really
1124 virtualbox specific.  It create a x86 image usable in kvm, qemu,
1125 vmware and any other x86 virtual machine environment.  You might need
1126 the version of vmdebootstrap in Jessie to get the build working, as it
1127 include fixes for a race condition with kpartx.</p>
1128
1129 <p>If you instead want to install using a Debian CD and the preseed
1130 method, boot a Debian Wheezy ISO and use this boot argument to load
1131 the preseed values:</p>
1132
1133 <p><pre>
1134 url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat</a>
1135 </pre></p>
1136
1137 <p>I have not tested it myself the last few weeks, so I do not know if
1138 it still work.</p>
1139
1140 <p>If you wonder how to help, one task you could look at is using
1141 systemd as the boot system.  It will become the default for Linux in
1142 Jessie, so we need to make sure it is usable on the Freedombox.  I did
1143 a simple test a few weeks ago, and noticed dnsmasq failed to start
1144 during boot when using systemd.  I suspect there are other problems
1145 too. :) To detect problems, there is a test suite included, which can
1146 be run from the plinth web interface.</p>
1147
1148 <p>Give it a go and let us know how it goes on the mailing list, and help
1149 us get the new release published. :) Please join us on
1150 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC (#freedombox on
1151 irc.debian.org)</a> and
1152 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
1153 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
1154
1155       </div>
1156       <div class="tags">
1157
1158
1159         Tags: <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>.
1160
1161
1162       </div>
1163     </div>
1164     <div class="padding"></div>
1165
1166     <div class="entry">
1167       <div class="title">
1168         <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>
1169       </div>
1170       <div class="date">
1171          9th April 2014
1172       </div>
1173       <div class="body">
1174         <p>For a while now, I have been looking for a sensible offsite backup
1175 solution for use at home.  My requirements are simple, it must be
1176 cheap and locally encrypted (in other words, I keep the encryption
1177 keys, the storage provider do not have access to my private files).
1178 One idea me and my friends had many years ago, before the cloud
1179 storage providers showed up, was to use Google mail as storage,
1180 writing a Linux block device storing blocks as emails in the mail
1181 service provided by Google, and thus get heaps of free space.  On top
1182 of this one can add encryption, RAID and volume management to have
1183 lots of (fairly slow, I admit that) cheap and encrypted storage.  But
1184 I never found time to implement such system.  But the last few weeks I
1185 have looked at a system called
1186 <a href="https://bitbucket.org/nikratio/s3ql/">S3QL</a>, a locally
1187 mounted network backed file system with the features I need.</p>
1188
1189 <p>S3QL is a fuse file system with a local cache and cloud storage,
1190 handling several different storage providers, any with Amazon S3,
1191 Google Drive or OpenStack API.  There are heaps of such storage
1192 providers.  S3QL can also use a local directory as storage, which
1193 combined with sshfs allow for file storage on any ssh server.  S3QL
1194 include support for encryption, compression, de-duplication, snapshots
1195 and immutable file systems, allowing me to mount the remote storage as
1196 a local mount point, look at and use the files as if they were local,
1197 while the content is stored in the cloud as well.  This allow me to
1198 have a backup that should survive fire.  The file system can not be
1199 shared between several machines at the same time, as only one can
1200 mount it at the time, but any machine with the encryption key and
1201 access to the storage service can mount it if it is unmounted.</p>
1202
1203 <p>It is simple to use.  I'm using it on Debian Wheezy, where the
1204 package is included already.  So to get started, run <tt>apt-get
1205 install s3ql</tt>.  Next, pick a storage provider.  I ended up picking
1206 Greenqloud, after reading their nice recipe on
1207 <a href="https://greenqloud.zendesk.com/entries/44611757-How-To-Use-S3QL-to-mount-a-StorageQloud-bucket-on-Debian-Wheezy">how
1208 to use S3QL with their Amazon S3 service</a>, because I trust the laws
1209 in Iceland more than those in USA when it come to keeping my personal
1210 data safe and private, and thus would rather spend money on a company
1211 in Iceland.  Another nice recipe is available from the article
1212 <a href="http://www.admin-magazine.com/HPC/Articles/HPC-Cloud-Storage">S3QL
1213 Filesystem for HPC Storage</a> by Jeff Layton in the HPC section of
1214 Admin magazine.  When the provider is picked, figure out how to get
1215 the API key needed to connect to the storage API.  With Greencloud,
1216 the key did not show up until I had added payment details to my
1217 account.</p>
1218
1219 <p>Armed with the API access details, it is time to create the file
1220 system.  First, create a new bucket in the cloud.  This bucket is the
1221 file system storage area.  I picked a bucket name reflecting the
1222 machine that was going to store data there, but any name will do.
1223 I'll refer to it as <tt>bucket-name</tt> below.  In addition, one need
1224 the API login and password, and a locally created password.  Store it
1225 all in ~root/.s3ql/authinfo2 like this:
1226
1227 <p><blockquote><pre>
1228 [s3c]
1229 storage-url: s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name
1230 backend-login: API-login
1231 backend-password: API-password
1232 fs-passphrase: local-password
1233 </pre></blockquote></p>
1234
1235 <p>I create my local passphrase using <tt>pwget 50</tt> or similar,
1236 but any sensible way to create a fairly random password should do it.
1237 Armed with these details, it is now time to run mkfs, entering the API
1238 details and password to create it:</p>
1239
1240 <p><blockquote><pre>
1241 # mkdir -m 700 /var/lib/s3ql-cache
1242 # mkfs.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
1243   --ssl s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name
1244 Enter backend login:
1245 Enter backend password:
1246 Before using S3QL, make sure to read the user's guide, especially
1247 the 'Important Rules to Avoid Loosing Data' section.
1248 Enter encryption password:
1249 Confirm encryption password:
1250 Generating random encryption key...
1251 Creating metadata tables...
1252 Dumping metadata...
1253 ..objects..
1254 ..blocks..
1255 ..inodes..
1256 ..inode_blocks..
1257 ..symlink_targets..
1258 ..names..
1259 ..contents..
1260 ..ext_attributes..
1261 Compressing and uploading metadata...
1262 Wrote 0.00 MB of compressed metadata.
1263 # </pre></blockquote></p>
1264
1265 <p>The next step is mounting the file system to make the storage available.
1266
1267 <p><blockquote><pre>
1268 # mount.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
1269   --ssl --allow-root s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name /s3ql
1270 Using 4 upload threads.
1271 Downloading and decompressing metadata...
1272 Reading metadata...
1273 ..objects..
1274 ..blocks..
1275 ..inodes..
1276 ..inode_blocks..
1277 ..symlink_targets..
1278 ..names..
1279 ..contents..
1280 ..ext_attributes..
1281 Mounting filesystem...
1282 # df -h /s3ql
1283 Filesystem                              Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
1284 s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name  1.0T     0  1.0T   0% /s3ql
1285 #
1286 </pre></blockquote></p>
1287
1288 <p>The file system is now ready for use.  I use rsync to store my
1289 backups in it, and as the metadata used by rsync is downloaded at
1290 mount time, no network traffic (and storage cost) is triggered by
1291 running rsync.  To unmount, one should not use the normal umount
1292 command, as this will not flush the cache to the cloud storage, but
1293 instead running the umount.s3ql command like this:
1294
1295 <p><blockquote><pre>
1296 # umount.s3ql /s3ql
1297 #
1298 </pre></blockquote></p>
1299
1300 <p>There is a fsck command available to check the file system and
1301 correct any problems detected.  This can be used if the local server
1302 crashes while the file system is mounted, to reset the "already
1303 mounted" flag.  This is what it look like when processing a working
1304 file system:</p>
1305
1306 <p><blockquote><pre>
1307 # fsck.s3ql --force --ssl s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name
1308 Using cached metadata.
1309 File system seems clean, checking anyway.
1310 Checking DB integrity...
1311 Creating temporary extra indices...
1312 Checking lost+found...
1313 Checking cached objects...
1314 Checking names (refcounts)...
1315 Checking contents (names)...
1316 Checking contents (inodes)...
1317 Checking contents (parent inodes)...
1318 Checking objects (reference counts)...
1319 Checking objects (backend)...
1320 ..processed 5000 objects so far..
1321 ..processed 10000 objects so far..
1322 ..processed 15000 objects so far..
1323 Checking objects (sizes)...
1324 Checking blocks (referenced objects)...
1325 Checking blocks (refcounts)...
1326 Checking inode-block mapping (blocks)...
1327 Checking inode-block mapping (inodes)...
1328 Checking inodes (refcounts)...
1329 Checking inodes (sizes)...
1330 Checking extended attributes (names)...
1331 Checking extended attributes (inodes)...
1332 Checking symlinks (inodes)...
1333 Checking directory reachability...
1334 Checking unix conventions...
1335 Checking referential integrity...
1336 Dropping temporary indices...
1337 Backing up old metadata...
1338 Dumping metadata...
1339 ..objects..
1340 ..blocks..
1341 ..inodes..
1342 ..inode_blocks..
1343 ..symlink_targets..
1344 ..names..
1345 ..contents..
1346 ..ext_attributes..
1347 Compressing and uploading metadata...
1348 Wrote 0.89 MB of compressed metadata.
1349 #
1350 </pre></blockquote></p>
1351
1352 <p>Thanks to the cache, working on files that fit in the cache is very
1353 quick, about the same speed as local file access.  Uploading large
1354 amount of data is to me limited by the bandwidth out of and into my
1355 house.  Uploading 685 MiB with a 100 MiB cache gave me 305 kiB/s,
1356 which is very close to my upload speed, and downloading the same
1357 Debian installation ISO gave me 610 kiB/s, close to my download speed.
1358 Both were measured using <tt>dd</tt>.  So for me, the bottleneck is my
1359 network, not the file system code.  I do not know what a good cache
1360 size would be, but suspect that the cache should e larger than your
1361 working set.</p>
1362
1363 <p>I mentioned that only one machine can mount the file system at the
1364 time.  If another machine try, it is told that the file system is
1365 busy:</p>
1366
1367 <p><blockquote><pre>
1368 # mount.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
1369   --ssl --allow-root s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name /s3ql
1370 Using 8 upload threads.
1371 Backend reports that fs is still mounted elsewhere, aborting.
1372 #
1373 </pre></blockquote></p>
1374
1375 <p>The file content is uploaded when the cache is full, while the
1376 metadata is uploaded once every 24 hour by default.  To ensure the
1377 file system content is flushed to the cloud, one can either umount the
1378 file system, or ask S3QL to flush the cache and metadata using
1379 s3qlctrl:
1380
1381 <p><blockquote><pre>
1382 # s3qlctrl upload-meta /s3ql
1383 # s3qlctrl flushcache /s3ql
1384 #
1385 </pre></blockquote></p>
1386
1387 <p>If you are curious about how much space your data uses in the
1388 cloud, and how much compression and deduplication cut down on the
1389 storage usage, you can use s3qlstat on the mounted file system to get
1390 a report:</p>
1391
1392 <p><blockquote><pre>
1393 # s3qlstat /s3ql
1394 Directory entries:    9141
1395 Inodes:               9143
1396 Data blocks:          8851
1397 Total data size:      22049.38 MB
1398 After de-duplication: 21955.46 MB (99.57% of total)
1399 After compression:    21877.28 MB (99.22% of total, 99.64% of de-duplicated)
1400 Database size:        2.39 MB (uncompressed)
1401 (some values do not take into account not-yet-uploaded dirty blocks in cache)
1402 #
1403 </pre></blockquote></p>
1404
1405 <p>I mentioned earlier that there are several possible suppliers of
1406 storage.  I did not try to locate them all, but am aware of at least
1407 <a href="https://www.greenqloud.com/">Greenqloud</a>,
1408 <a href="http://drive.google.com/">Google Drive</a>,
1409 <a href="http://aws.amazon.com/s3/">Amazon S3 web serivces</a>,
1410 <a href="http://www.rackspace.com/">Rackspace</a> and
1411 <a href="http://crowncloud.net/">Crowncloud</A>.  The latter even
1412 accept payment in Bitcoin.  Pick one that suit your need.  Some of
1413 them provide several GiB of free storage, but the prize models are
1414 quite different and you will have to figure out what suits you
1415 best.</p>
1416
1417 <p>While researching this blog post, I had a look at research papers
1418 and posters discussing the S3QL file system.  There are several, which
1419 told me that the file system is getting a critical check by the
1420 science community and increased my confidence in using it.  One nice
1421 poster is titled
1422 "<a href="http://www.lanl.gov/orgs/adtsc/publications/science_highlights_2013/docs/pg68_69.pdf">An
1423 Innovative Parallel Cloud Storage System using OpenStack’s SwiftObject
1424 Store and Transformative Parallel I/O Approach</a>" by Hsing-Bung
1425 Chen, Benjamin McClelland, David Sherrill, Alfred Torrez, Parks Fields
1426 and Pamela Smith.  Please  have a look.</p>
1427
1428 <p>Given my problems with different file systems earlier, I decided to
1429 check out the mounted S3QL file system to see if it would be usable as
1430 a home directory (in other word, that it provided POSIX semantics when
1431 it come to locking and umask handling etc).  Running
1432 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_if_a_file_system_can_be_used_for_home_directories___.html">my
1433 test code to check file system semantics</a>, I was happy to discover that
1434 no error was found.  So the file system can be used for home
1435 directories, if one chooses to do so.</p>
1436
1437 <p>If you do not want a locally file system, and want something that
1438 work without the Linux fuse file system, I would like to mention the
1439 <a href="http://www.tarsnap.com/">Tarsnap service</a>, which also
1440 provide locally encrypted backup using a command line client.  It have
1441 a nicer access control system, where one can split out read and write
1442 access, allowing some systems to write to the backup and others to
1443 only read from it.</p>
1444
1445 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1446 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1447 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
1448
1449       </div>
1450       <div class="tags">
1451
1452
1453         Tags: <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>.
1454
1455
1456       </div>
1457     </div>
1458     <div class="padding"></div>
1459
1460     <div class="entry">
1461       <div class="title">
1462         <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>
1463       </div>
1464       <div class="date">
1465         14th March 2014
1466       </div>
1467       <div class="body">
1468         <p>The <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">Freedombox
1469 project</a> is working on providing the software and hardware for
1470 making it easy for non-technical people to host their data and
1471 communication at home, and being able to communicate with their
1472 friends and family encrypted and away from prying eyes.  It has been
1473 going on for a while, and is slowly progressing towards a new test
1474 release (0.2).</p>
1475
1476 <p>And what day could be better than the Pi day to announce that the
1477 new version will provide "hard drive" / SD card / USB stick images for
1478 Dreamplug, Raspberry Pi and VirtualBox (or any other virtualization
1479 system), and can also be installed using a Debian installer preseed
1480 file.  The Debian based Freedombox is now based on Debian Jessie,
1481 where most of the needed packages used are already present.  Only one,
1482 the freedombox-setup package, is missing.  To try to build your own
1483 boot image to test the current status, fetch the freedom-maker scripts
1484 and build using
1485 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/vmdebootstrap">vmdebootstrap</a>
1486 with a user with sudo access to become root:
1487
1488 <pre>
1489 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/freedombox/freedom-maker.git \
1490   freedom-maker
1491 sudo apt-get install git vmdebootstrap mercurial python-docutils \
1492   mktorrent extlinux virtualbox qemu-user-static binfmt-support \
1493   u-boot-tools
1494 make -C freedom-maker dreamplug-image raspberry-image virtualbox-image
1495 </pre>
1496
1497 <p>Root access is needed to run debootstrap and mount loopback
1498 devices.  See the README for more details on the build. If you do not
1499 want all three images, trim the make line.  But note that thanks to <a
1500 href="https://bugs.debian.org/741407">a race condition in
1501 vmdebootstrap</a>, the build might fail without the patch to the
1502 kpartx call.</p>
1503
1504 <p>If you instead want to install using a Debian CD and the preseed
1505 method, boot a Debian Wheezy ISO and use this boot argument to load
1506 the preseed values:</p>
1507
1508 <pre>
1509 url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat</a>
1510 </pre>
1511
1512 <p>But note that due to <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/740673">a
1513 recently introduced bug in apt in Jessie</a>, the installer will
1514 currently hang while setting up APT sources.  Killing the
1515 '<tt>apt-cdrom ident</tt>' process when it hang a few times during the
1516 installation will get the installation going.  This affect all
1517 installations in Jessie, and I expect it will be fixed soon.</p>
1518
1519 <p>Give it a go and let us know how it goes on the mailing list, and help
1520 us get the new release published. :) Please join us on
1521 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC (#freedombox on
1522 irc.debian.org)</a> and
1523 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
1524 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
1525
1526       </div>
1527       <div class="tags">
1528
1529
1530         Tags: <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>.
1531
1532
1533       </div>
1534     </div>
1535     <div class="padding"></div>
1536
1537     <div class="entry">
1538       <div class="title">
1539         <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>
1540       </div>
1541       <div class="date">
1542         22nd February 2014
1543       </div>
1544       <div class="body">
1545         <p>Many years ago, I wrote a GPL licensed version of the netgroup and
1546 innetgr tools, because I needed them in
1547 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a>.  I called the project
1548 ng-utils, and it has served me well.  I placed the project under the
1549 <a href="http://www.hungry.com/">Hungry Programmer</a> umbrella, and it was maintained in our CVS
1550 repository.  But many years ago, the CVS repository was dropped (lost,
1551 not migrated to new hardware, not sure), and the project have lacked a
1552 proper home since then.</p>
1553
1554 <p>Last summer, I had a look at the package and made a new release
1555 fixing a irritating crash bug, but was unable to store the changes in
1556 a proper source control system.  I applied for a project on
1557 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/">Alioth</a>, but did not have time
1558 to follow up on it.  Until today. :)</p>
1559
1560 <p>After many hours of cleaning and migration, the ng-utils project
1561 now have a new home, and a git repository with the highlight of the
1562 history of the project.  I published all release tarballs and imported
1563 them into the git repository.  As the project is really stable and not
1564 expected to gain new features any time soon, I decided to make a new
1565 release and call it 1.0.  Visit the new project home on
1566 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/ng-utils/">https://alioth.debian.org/projects/ng-utils/</a>
1567 if you want to check it out.  The new version is also uploaded into
1568 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/n/ng-utils.html">Debian Unstable</a>.</p>
1569
1570       </div>
1571       <div class="tags">
1572
1573
1574         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1575
1576
1577       </div>
1578     </div>
1579     <div class="padding"></div>
1580
1581     <div class="entry">
1582       <div class="title">
1583         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_sysvinit_from_experimental_in_Debian_Hurd.html">Testing sysvinit from experimental in Debian Hurd</a>
1584       </div>
1585       <div class="date">
1586          3rd February 2014
1587       </div>
1588       <div class="body">
1589         <p>A few days ago I decided to try to help the Hurd people to get
1590 their changes into sysvinit, to allow them to use the normal sysvinit
1591 boot system instead of their old one.  This follow up on the
1592 <a href="https://teythoon.cryptobitch.de//categories/gsoc.html">great
1593 Google Summer of Code work</a> done last summer by Justus Winter to
1594 get Debian on Hurd working more like Debian on Linux.  To get started,
1595 I downloaded a prebuilt hard disk image from
1596 <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>,
1597 and started it using virt-manager.</p>
1598
1599 <p>The first think I had to do after logging in (root without any
1600 password) was to get the network operational.  I followed
1601 <a href="https://www.debian.org/ports/hurd/hurd-install">the
1602 instructions on the Debian GNU/Hurd ports page</a> and ran these
1603 commands as root to get the machine to accept a IP address from the
1604 kvm internal DHCP server:</p>
1605
1606 <p><blockquote><pre>
1607 settrans -fgap /dev/netdde /hurd/netdde
1608 kill $(ps -ef|awk '/[p]finet/ { print $2}')
1609 kill $(ps -ef|awk '/[d]evnode/ { print $2}')
1610 dhclient /dev/eth0
1611 </pre></blockquote></p>
1612
1613 <p>After this, the machine had internet connectivity, and I could
1614 upgrade it and install the sysvinit packages from experimental and
1615 enable it as the default boot system in Hurd.</p>
1616
1617 <p>But before I did that, I set a password on the root user, as ssh is
1618 running on the machine it for ssh login to work a password need to be
1619 set.  Also, note that a bug somewhere in openssh on Hurd block
1620 compression from working.  Remember to turn that off on the client
1621 side.</p>
1622
1623 <p>Run these commands as root to upgrade and test the new sysvinit
1624 stuff:</p>
1625
1626 <p><blockquote><pre>
1627 cat > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/experimental.list &lt;&lt;EOF
1628 deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ experimental main
1629 EOF
1630 apt-get update
1631 apt-get dist-upgrade
1632 apt-get install -t experimental initscripts sysv-rc sysvinit \
1633     sysvinit-core sysvinit-utils
1634 update-alternatives --config runsystem
1635 </pre></blockquote></p>
1636
1637 <p>To reboot after switching boot system, you have to use
1638 <tt>reboot-hurd</tt> instead of just <tt>reboot</tt>, as there is not
1639 yet a sysvinit process able to receive the signals from the normal
1640 'reboot' command.  After switching to sysvinit as the boot system,
1641 upgrading every package and rebooting, the network come up with DHCP
1642 after boot as it should, and the settrans/pkill hack mentioned at the
1643 start is no longer needed.  But for some strange reason, there are no
1644 longer any login prompt in the virtual console, so I logged in using
1645 ssh instead.
1646
1647 <p>Note that there are some race conditions in Hurd making the boot
1648 fail some times.  No idea what the cause is, but hope the Hurd porters
1649 figure it out.  At least Justus said on IRC (#debian-hurd on
1650 irc.debian.org) that they are aware of the problem.  A way to reduce
1651 the impact is to upgrade to the Hurd packages built by Justus by
1652 adding this repository to the machine:</p>
1653
1654 <p><blockquote><pre>
1655 cat > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/hurd-ci.list &lt;&lt;EOF
1656 deb http://darnassus.sceen.net/~teythoon/hurd-ci/ sid main
1657 EOF
1658 </pre></blockquote></p>
1659
1660 <p>At the moment the prebuilt virtual machine get some packages from
1661 http://ftp.debian-ports.org/debian, because some of the packages in
1662 unstable do not yet include the required patches that are lingering in
1663 BTS.  This is the completely list of "unofficial" packages installed:</p>
1664
1665 <p><blockquote><pre>
1666 # aptitude search '?narrow(?version(CURRENT),?origin(Debian Ports))'
1667 i   emacs                   - GNU Emacs editor (metapackage)
1668 i   gdb                     - GNU Debugger
1669 i   hurd-recommended        - Miscellaneous translators
1670 i   isc-dhcp-client         - ISC DHCP client
1671 i   isc-dhcp-common         - common files used by all the isc-dhcp* packages
1672 i   libc-bin                - Embedded GNU C Library: Binaries
1673 i   libc-dev-bin            - Embedded GNU C Library: Development binaries
1674 i   libc0.3                 - Embedded GNU C Library: Shared libraries
1675 i A libc0.3-dbg             - Embedded GNU C Library: detached debugging symbols
1676 i   libc0.3-dev             - Embedded GNU C Library: Development Libraries and Hea
1677 i   multiarch-support       - Transitional package to ensure multiarch compatibilit
1678 i A x11-common              - X Window System (X.Org) infrastructure
1679 i   xorg                    - X.Org X Window System
1680 i A xserver-xorg            - X.Org X server
1681 i A xserver-xorg-input-all  - X.Org X server -- input driver metapackage
1682 #
1683 </pre></blockquote></p>
1684
1685 <p>All in all, testing hurd has been an interesting experience. :)
1686 X.org did not work out of the box and I never took the time to follow
1687 the porters instructions to fix it.  This time I was interested in the
1688 command line stuff.<p>
1689
1690       </div>
1691       <div class="tags">
1692
1693
1694         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>.
1695
1696
1697       </div>
1698     </div>
1699     <div class="padding"></div>
1700
1701     <div class="entry">
1702       <div class="title">
1703         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_chrpath_release_0_16.html">New chrpath release 0.16</a>
1704       </div>
1705       <div class="date">
1706         14th January 2014
1707       </div>
1708       <div class="body">
1709         <p><a href="http://www.coverity.com/">Coverity</a> is a nice tool to
1710 find problems in C, C++ and Java code using static source code
1711 analysis.  It can detect a lot of different problems, and is very
1712 useful to find memory and locking bugs in the error handling part of
1713 the source.  The company behind it provide
1714 <a href="https://scan.coverity.com/">check of free software projects as
1715 a community service</a>, and many hundred free software projects are
1716 already checked.  A few days ago I decided to have a closer look at
1717 the Coverity system, and discovered that the
1718 <a href="http://www.gnu.org/software/gnash/">gnash</a> and
1719 <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/ipmitool/">ipmitool</a>
1720 projects I am involved with was already registered.  But these are
1721 fairly big, and I would also like to have a small and easy project to
1722 check, and decided to <a href="http://scan.coverity.com/projects/1179">request
1723 checking of the chrpath project</a>.  It was
1724 added to the checker and discovered seven potential defects.  Six of
1725 these were real, mostly resource "leak" when the program detected an
1726 error.  Nothing serious, as the resources would be released a fraction
1727 of a second later when the program exited because of the error, but it
1728 is nice to do it right in case the source of the program some time in
1729 the future end up in a library.  Having fixed all defects and added
1730 <a href="https://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/chrpath-devel">a
1731 mailing list for the chrpath developers</a>, I decided it was time to
1732 publish a new release.  These are the release notes:</p>
1733
1734 <p>New in 0.16 released 2014-01-14:</p>
1735
1736 <ul>
1737
1738   <li>Fixed all minor bugs discovered by Coverity.</li>
1739   <li>Updated config.sub and config.guess from the GNU project.</li>
1740   <li>Mention new project mailing list in the documentation.</li>
1741
1742 </ul>
1743
1744 <p>You can
1745 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/frs/?group_id=31052">download the
1746 new version 0.16 from alioth</a>.  Please let us know via the Alioth
1747 project if something is wrong with the new release.  The test suite
1748 did not discover any old errors, so if you find a new one, please also
1749 include a test suite check.</p>
1750
1751       </div>
1752       <div class="tags">
1753
1754
1755         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>.
1756
1757
1758       </div>
1759     </div>
1760     <div class="padding"></div>
1761
1762     <div class="entry">
1763       <div class="title">
1764         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_chrpath_release_0_15.html">New chrpath release 0.15</a>
1765       </div>
1766       <div class="date">
1767         24th November 2013
1768       </div>
1769       <div class="body">
1770         <p>After many years break from the package and a vain hope that
1771 development would be continued by someone else, I finally pulled my
1772 acts together this morning and wrapped up a new release of chrpath,
1773 the command line tool to modify the rpath and runpath of already
1774 compiled ELF programs.  The update was triggered by the persistence of
1775 Isha Vishnoi at IBM, which needed a new config.guess file to get
1776 support for the ppc64le architecture (powerpc 64-bit Little Endian) he
1777 is working on.  I checked the
1778 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/chrpath">Debian</a>,
1779 <a href="https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/chrpath">Ubuntu</a> and
1780 <a href="https://admin.fedoraproject.org/pkgdb/acls/name/chrpath">Fedora</a>
1781 packages for interesting patches (failed to find the source from
1782 OpenSUSE and Mandriva packages), and found quite a few nice fixes.
1783 These are the release notes:</p>
1784
1785 <p>New in 0.15 released 2013-11-24:</p>
1786
1787 <ul>
1788
1789   <li>Updated config.sub and config.guess from the GNU project to work
1790    with newer architectures.  Thanks to isha vishnoi for the heads
1791    up.</li>
1792
1793   <li>Updated README with current URLs.</li>
1794
1795   <li>Added byteswap fix found in Ubuntu, credited Jeremy Kerr and
1796    Matthias Klose.</li>
1797
1798   <li>Added missing help for -k|--keepgoing option, using patch by
1799    Petr Machata found in Fedora.</li>
1800
1801   <li>Rewrite removal of RPATH/RUNPATH to make sure the entry in
1802    .dynamic is a NULL terminated string.  Based on patch found in
1803    Fedora credited Axel Thimm and Christian Krause.</li>
1804
1805 </ul>
1806
1807 <p>You can
1808 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/frs/?group_id=31052">download the
1809 new version 0.15 from alioth</a>.  Please let us know via the Alioth
1810 project if something is wrong with the new release.  The test suite
1811 did not discover any old errors, so if you find a new one, please also
1812 include a testsuite check.</p>
1813
1814       </div>
1815       <div class="tags">
1816
1817
1818         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>.
1819
1820
1821       </div>
1822     </div>
1823     <div class="padding"></div>
1824
1825     <div class="entry">
1826       <div class="title">
1827         <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>
1828       </div>
1829       <div class="date">
1830          2nd November 2013
1831       </div>
1832       <div class="body">
1833         <p>If one of the points of switching to a new init system in Debian is
1834 <a href="http://thomas.goirand.fr/blog/?p=147">to get rid of huge
1835 init.d scripts</a>, I doubt we need to switch away from sysvinit and
1836 init.d scripts at all.  Here is an example init.d script, ie a rewrite
1837 of /etc/init.d/rsyslog:</p>
1838
1839 <p><pre>
1840 #!/lib/init/init-d-script
1841 ### BEGIN INIT INFO
1842 # Provides:          rsyslog
1843 # Required-Start:    $remote_fs $time
1844 # Required-Stop:     umountnfs $time
1845 # X-Stop-After:      sendsigs
1846 # Default-Start:     2 3 4 5
1847 # Default-Stop:      0 1 6
1848 # Short-Description: enhanced syslogd
1849 # Description:       Rsyslog is an enhanced multi-threaded syslogd.
1850 #                    It is quite compatible to stock sysklogd and can be
1851 #                    used as a drop-in replacement.
1852 ### END INIT INFO
1853 DESC="enhanced syslogd"
1854 DAEMON=/usr/sbin/rsyslogd
1855 </pre></p>
1856
1857 <p>Pretty minimalistic to me... For the record, the original sysv-rc
1858 script was 137 lines, and the above is just 15 lines, most of it meta
1859 info/comments.</p>
1860
1861 <p>How to do this, you ask?  Well, one create a new script
1862 /lib/init/init-d-script looking something like this:
1863
1864 <p><pre>
1865 #!/bin/sh
1866
1867 # Define LSB log_* functions.
1868 # Depend on lsb-base (>= 3.2-14) to ensure that this file is present
1869 # and status_of_proc is working.
1870 . /lib/lsb/init-functions
1871
1872 #
1873 # Function that starts the daemon/service
1874
1875 #
1876 do_start()
1877 {
1878         # Return
1879         #   0 if daemon has been started
1880         #   1 if daemon was already running
1881         #   2 if daemon could not be started
1882         start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $DAEMON --test > /dev/null \
1883                 || return 1
1884         start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $DAEMON -- \
1885                 $DAEMON_ARGS \
1886                 || return 2
1887         # Add code here, if necessary, that waits for the process to be ready
1888         # to handle requests from services started subsequently which depend
1889         # on this one.  As a last resort, sleep for some time.
1890 }
1891
1892 #
1893 # Function that stops the daemon/service
1894 #
1895 do_stop()
1896 {
1897         # Return
1898         #   0 if daemon has been stopped
1899         #   1 if daemon was already stopped
1900         #   2 if daemon could not be stopped
1901         #   other if a failure occurred
1902         start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --retry=TERM/30/KILL/5 --pidfile $PIDFILE --name $NAME
1903         RETVAL="$?"
1904         [ "$RETVAL" = 2 ] && return 2
1905         # Wait for children to finish too if this is a daemon that forks
1906         # and if the daemon is only ever run from this initscript.
1907         # If the above conditions are not satisfied then add some other code
1908         # that waits for the process to drop all resources that could be
1909         # needed by services started subsequently.  A last resort is to
1910         # sleep for some time.
1911         start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --oknodo --retry=0/30/KILL/5 --exec $DAEMON
1912         [ "$?" = 2 ] && return 2
1913         # Many daemons don't delete their pidfiles when they exit.
1914         rm -f $PIDFILE
1915         return "$RETVAL"
1916 }
1917
1918 #
1919 # Function that sends a SIGHUP to the daemon/service
1920 #
1921 do_reload() {
1922         #
1923         # If the daemon can reload its configuration without
1924         # restarting (for example, when it is sent a SIGHUP),
1925         # then implement that here.
1926         #
1927         start-stop-daemon --stop --signal 1 --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --name $NAME
1928         return 0
1929 }
1930
1931 SCRIPTNAME=$1
1932 scriptbasename="$(basename $1)"
1933 echo "SN: $scriptbasename"
1934 if [ "$scriptbasename" != "init-d-library" ] ; then
1935     script="$1"
1936     shift
1937     . $script
1938 else
1939     exit 0
1940 fi
1941
1942 NAME=$(basename $DAEMON)
1943 PIDFILE=/var/run/$NAME.pid
1944
1945 # Exit if the package is not installed
1946 #[ -x "$DAEMON" ] || exit 0
1947
1948 # Read configuration variable file if it is present
1949 [ -r /etc/default/$NAME ] && . /etc/default/$NAME
1950
1951 # Load the VERBOSE setting and other rcS variables
1952 . /lib/init/vars.sh
1953
1954 case "$1" in
1955   start)
1956         [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_daemon_msg "Starting $DESC" "$NAME"
1957         do_start
1958         case "$?" in
1959                 0|1) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 0 ;;
1960                 2) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 1 ;;
1961         esac
1962         ;;
1963   stop)
1964         [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_daemon_msg "Stopping $DESC" "$NAME"
1965         do_stop
1966         case "$?" in
1967                 0|1) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 0 ;;
1968                 2) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 1 ;;
1969         esac
1970         ;;
1971   status)
1972         status_of_proc "$DAEMON" "$NAME" && exit 0 || exit $?
1973         ;;
1974   #reload|force-reload)
1975         #
1976         # If do_reload() is not implemented then leave this commented out
1977         # and leave 'force-reload' as an alias for 'restart'.
1978         #
1979         #log_daemon_msg "Reloading $DESC" "$NAME"
1980         #do_reload
1981         #log_end_msg $?
1982         #;;
1983   restart|force-reload)
1984         #
1985         # If the "reload" option is implemented then remove the
1986         # 'force-reload' alias
1987         #
1988         log_daemon_msg "Restarting $DESC" "$NAME"
1989         do_stop
1990         case "$?" in
1991           0|1)
1992                 do_start
1993                 case "$?" in
1994                         0) log_end_msg 0 ;;
1995                         1) log_end_msg 1 ;; # Old process is still running
1996                         *) log_end_msg 1 ;; # Failed to start
1997                 esac
1998                 ;;
1999           *)
2000                 # Failed to stop
2001                 log_end_msg 1
2002                 ;;
2003         esac
2004         ;;
2005   *)
2006         echo "Usage: $SCRIPTNAME {start|stop|status|restart|force-reload}" >&2
2007         exit 3
2008         ;;
2009 esac
2010
2011 :
2012 </pre></p>
2013
2014 <p>It is based on /etc/init.d/skeleton, and could be improved quite a
2015 lot.  I did not really polish the approach, so it might not always
2016 work out of the box, but you get the idea.  I did not try very hard to
2017 optimize it nor make it more robust either.</p>
2018
2019 <p>A better argument for switching init system in Debian than reducing
2020 the size of init scripts (which is a good thing to do anyway), is to
2021 get boot system that is able to handle the kernel events sensibly and
2022 robustly, and do not depend on the boot to run sequentially.  The boot
2023 and the kernel have not behaved sequentially in years.</p>
2024
2025       </div>
2026       <div class="tags">
2027
2028
2029         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>.
2030
2031
2032       </div>
2033     </div>
2034     <div class="padding"></div>
2035
2036     <div class="entry">
2037       <div class="title">
2038         <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>
2039       </div>
2040       <div class="date">
2041          1st November 2013
2042       </div>
2043       <div class="body">
2044         <p><a href="http://www.spice-space.org/">The SPICE protocol</a> for
2045 remote display access is the preferred solution with oVirt and RedHat
2046 Enterprise Virtualization, and I was sad to discover the other day
2047 that the browser plugin needed to use these systems seamlessly was
2048 missing in Debian.  The <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/668284">request
2049 for a package</a> was from 2012-04-10 with no progress since
2050 2013-04-01, so I decided to wrap up a package based on the great work
2051 from Cajus Pollmeier and put it in a collab-maint maintained git
2052 repository to get a package I could use.  I would very much like
2053 others to help me maintain the package (or just take over, I do not
2054 mind), but as no-one had volunteered so far, I just uploaded it to
2055 NEW.  I hope it will be available in Debian in a few days.</p>
2056
2057 <p>The source is now available from
2058 <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>
2059
2060       </div>
2061       <div class="tags">
2062
2063
2064         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2065
2066
2067       </div>
2068     </div>
2069     <div class="padding"></div>
2070
2071     <div class="entry">
2072       <div class="title">
2073         <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>
2074       </div>
2075       <div class="date">
2076         27th October 2013
2077       </div>
2078       <div class="body">
2079         <p>The
2080 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/v/vmdebootstrap.html">vmdebootstrap</a>
2081 program is a a very nice system to create virtual machine images.  It
2082 create a image file, add a partition table, mount it and run
2083 debootstrap in the mounted directory to create a Debian system on a
2084 stick.  Yesterday, I decided to try to teach it how to make images for
2085 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/RaspberryPi">Raspberry Pi</a>, as part
2086 of a plan to simplify the build system for
2087 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">the FreedomBox
2088 project</a>.  The FreedomBox project already uses vmdebootstrap for
2089 the virtualbox images, but its current build system made multistrap
2090 based system for Dreamplug images, and it is lacking support for
2091 Raspberry Pi.</p>
2092
2093 <p>Armed with the knowledge on how to build "foreign" (aka non-native
2094 architecture) chroots for Raspberry Pi, I dived into the vmdebootstrap
2095 code and adjusted it to be able to build armel images on my amd64
2096 Debian laptop.  I ended up giving vmdebootstrap five new options,
2097 allowing me to replicate the image creation process I use to make
2098 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Raspberry_Pi_based_batman_adv_Mesh_network_node.html">Debian
2099 Jessie based mesh node images for the Raspberry Pi</a>.  First, the
2100 <tt>--foreign /path/to/binfm_handler</tt> option tell vmdebootstrap to
2101 call debootstrap with --foreign and to copy the handler into the
2102 generated chroot before running the second stage.  This allow
2103 vmdebootstrap to create armel images on an amd64 host.  Next I added
2104 two new options <tt>--bootsize size</tt> and <tt>--boottype
2105 fstype</tt> to teach it to create a separate /boot/ partition with the
2106 given file system type, allowing me to create an image with a vfat
2107 partition for the /boot/ stuff.  I also added a <tt>--variant
2108 variant</tt> option to allow me to create smaller images without the
2109 Debian base system packages installed.  Finally, I added an option
2110 <tt>--no-extlinux</tt> to tell vmdebootstrap to not install extlinux
2111 as a boot loader.  It is not needed on the Raspberry Pi and probably
2112 most other non-x86 architectures.  The changes were accepted by the
2113 upstream author of vmdebootstrap yesterday and today, and is now
2114 available from
2115 <a href="http://git.liw.fi/cgi-bin/cgit/cgit.cgi/vmdebootstrap/">the
2116 upstream project page</a>.</p>
2117
2118 <p>To use it to build a Raspberry Pi image using Debian Jessie, first
2119 create a small script (the customize script) to add the non-free
2120 binary blob needed to boot the Raspberry Pi and the APT source
2121 list:</p>
2122
2123 <p><pre>
2124 #!/bin/sh
2125 set -e # Exit on first error
2126 rootdir="$1"
2127 cd "$rootdir"
2128 cat &lt;&lt;EOF > etc/apt/sources.list
2129 deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ jessie main contrib non-free
2130 EOF
2131 # Install non-free binary blob needed to boot Raspberry Pi.  This
2132 # install a kernel somewhere too.
2133 wget https://raw.github.com/Hexxeh/rpi-update/master/rpi-update \
2134     -O $rootdir/usr/bin/rpi-update
2135 chmod a+x $rootdir/usr/bin/rpi-update
2136 mkdir -p $rootdir/lib/modules
2137 touch $rootdir/boot/start.elf
2138 chroot $rootdir rpi-update
2139 </pre></p>
2140
2141 <p>Next, fetch the latest vmdebootstrap script and call it like this
2142 to build the image:</p>
2143
2144 <pre>
2145 sudo ./vmdebootstrap \
2146     --variant minbase \
2147     --arch armel \
2148     --distribution jessie \
2149     --mirror http://http.debian.net/debian \
2150     --image test.img \
2151     --size 600M \
2152     --bootsize 64M \
2153     --boottype vfat \
2154     --log-level debug \
2155     --verbose \
2156     --no-kernel \
2157     --no-extlinux \
2158     --root-password raspberry \
2159     --hostname raspberrypi \
2160     --foreign /usr/bin/qemu-arm-static \
2161     --customize `pwd`/customize \
2162     --package netbase \
2163     --package git-core \
2164     --package binutils \
2165     --package ca-certificates \
2166     --package wget \
2167     --package kmod
2168 </pre></p>
2169
2170 <p>The list of packages being installed are the ones needed by
2171 rpi-update to make the image bootable on the Raspberry Pi, with the
2172 exception of netbase, which is needed by debootstrap to find
2173 /etc/hosts with the minbase variant.  I really wish there was a way to
2174 set up an Raspberry Pi using only packages in the Debian archive, but
2175 that is not possible as far as I know, because it boots from the GPU
2176 using a non-free binary blob.</p>
2177
2178 <p>The build host need debootstrap, kpartx and qemu-user-static and
2179 probably a few others installed.  I have not checked the complete
2180 build dependency list.</p>
2181
2182 <p>The resulting image will not use the hardware floating point unit
2183 on the Raspberry PI, because the armel architecture in Debian is not
2184 optimized for that use.  So the images created will be a bit slower
2185 than <a href="http://www.raspbian.org/">Raspbian</a> based images.</p>
2186
2187       </div>
2188       <div class="tags">
2189
2190
2191         Tags: <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>.
2192
2193
2194       </div>
2195     </div>
2196     <div class="padding"></div>
2197
2198     <div class="entry">
2199       <div class="title">
2200         <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>
2201       </div>
2202       <div class="date">
2203         15th October 2013
2204       </div>
2205       <div class="body">
2206         <p>The last few days I came across a few good causes that should get
2207 wider attention.  I recommend signing and donating to each one of
2208 these. :)</p>
2209
2210 <p>Via <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2013/18/">Debian
2211 Project News for 2013-10-14</a> I came across the Outreach Program for
2212 Women program which is a Google Summer of Code like initiative to get
2213 more women involved in free software.  One debian sponsor has offered
2214 to match <a href="http://debian.ch/opw2013">any donation done to Debian
2215 earmarked</a> for this initiative.  I donated a few minutes ago, and
2216 hope you will to. :)</p>
2217
2218 <p>And the Electronic Frontier Foundation just announced plans to
2219 create <a href="https://supporters.eff.org/donate/nsa-videos">video
2220 documentaries about the excessive spying</a> on every Internet user that
2221 take place these days, and their need to fund the work.  I've already
2222 donated.  Are you next?</p>
2223
2224 <p>For my Norwegian audience, the organisation Studentenes og
2225 Akademikernes Internasjonale Hjelpefond is collecting signatures for a
2226 statement under the heading
2227 <a href="http://saih.no/Bloggers_United/">Bloggers United for Open
2228 Access</a> for those of us asking for more focus on open access in the
2229 Norwegian government.  So far 499 signatures.  I hope you will sign it
2230 too.</p>
2231
2232       </div>
2233       <div class="tags">
2234
2235
2236         Tags: <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>.
2237
2238
2239       </div>
2240     </div>
2241     <div class="padding"></div>
2242
2243     <div class="entry">
2244       <div class="title">
2245         <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>
2246       </div>
2247       <div class="date">
2248         27th September 2013
2249       </div>
2250       <div class="body">
2251         <p>The <a href="http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/">Freedombox
2252 project</a> have been going on for a while, and have presented the
2253 vision, ideas and solution several places.  Here is a little
2254 collection of videos of talks and presentation of the project.</p>
2255
2256 <ul>
2257
2258 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukvUz5taxvA">FreedomBox -
2259 2,5 minute marketing film</a> (Youtube)</li>
2260
2261 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzW25QTVWsE">Eben Moglen
2262 discusses the Freedombox on CBS news 2011</a> (Youtube)</li>
2263
2264 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ae8SZbxfE0g">Eben Moglen -
2265 Freedom in the Cloud - Software Freedom, Privacy and and Security for
2266 Web 2.0 and Cloud computing at ISOC-NY Public Meeting 2010</a>
2267 (Youtube)</li>
2268
2269 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNaIji_3xBE">Fosdem 2011
2270 Keynote by Eben Moglen presenting the Freedombox</a> (Youtube)</li>
2271
2272 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bDDUyJSQ9s">Presentation of
2273 the Freedombox by James Vasile at Elevate in Gratz 2011</a> (Youtube)</li>
2274
2275 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQTmnk27g9s"> Freedombox -
2276 Discovery, Identity, and Trust by Nick Daly at Freedombox Hackfest New
2277 York City in 2012</a> (Youtube)</li>
2278
2279 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkbSB4Ba7Ck">Introduction
2280 to the Freedombox at Freedombox Hackfest New York City in 2012</a>
2281 (Youtube)</li>
2282
2283 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-P2Jaeg0aQ">Freedom, Out
2284 of the Box! by Bdale Garbee at linux.conf.au Ballarat, 2012</a> (Youtube) </li>
2285
2286 <li><a href="https://archive.fosdem.org/2013/schedule/event/freedombox/">Freedombox
2287 1.0 by Eben Moglen and Bdale Garbee at Fosdem 2013</a> (FOSDEM) </li>
2288
2289 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1LpYX2zVYg">What is the
2290 FreedomBox today by Bdale Garbee at Debconf13 in Vaumarcus
2291 2013</a> (Youtube)</li>
2292
2293 </ul>
2294
2295 <p>A larger list is available from
2296 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/TalksAndPresentations">the
2297 Freedombox Wiki</a>.</p>
2298
2299 <p>On other news, I am happy to report that Freedombox based on Debian
2300 Jessie is coming along quite well, and soon both Owncloud and using
2301 Tor should be available for testers of the Freedombox solution. :) In
2302 a few weeks I hope everything needed to test it is included in Debian.
2303 The withsqlite package is already in Debian, and the plinth package is
2304 pending in NEW.  The third and vital part of that puzzle is the
2305 metapackage/setup framework, which is still pending an upload.  Join
2306 us on <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC
2307 (#freedombox on irc.debian.org)</a> and
2308 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
2309 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
2310
2311       </div>
2312       <div class="tags">
2313
2314
2315         Tags: <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>.
2316
2317
2318       </div>
2319     </div>
2320     <div class="padding"></div>
2321
2322     <div class="entry">
2323       <div class="title">
2324         <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>
2325       </div>
2326       <div class="date">
2327         10th September 2013
2328       </div>
2329       <div class="body">
2330         <p>I was introduced to the
2331 <a href="http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/">Freedombox project</a>
2332 in 2010, when Eben Moglen presented his vision about serving the need
2333 of non-technical people to keep their personal information private and
2334 within the legal protection of their own homes.  The idea is to give
2335 people back the power over their network and machines, and return
2336 Internet back to its intended peer-to-peer architecture.  Instead of
2337 depending on a central service, the Freedombox will give everyone
2338 control over their own basic infrastructure.</p>
2339
2340 <p>I've intended to join the effort since then, but other tasks have
2341 taken priority.  But this summers nasty news about the misuse of trust
2342 and privilege exercised by the "western" intelligence gathering
2343 communities increased my eagerness to contribute to a point where I
2344 actually started working on the project a while back.</p>
2345
2346 <p>The <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/freedombox/">initial
2347 Debian initiative</a> based on the vision from Eben Moglen, is to
2348 create a simple and cheap Debian based appliance that anyone can hook
2349 up in their home and get access to secure and private services and
2350 communication.  The initial deployment platform have been the
2351 <a href="http://www.globalscaletechnologies.com/t-dreamplugdetails.aspx">Dreamplug</a>,
2352 which is a piece of hardware I do not own.  So to be able to test what
2353 the current Freedombox setup look like, I had to come up with a way to install
2354 it on some hardware I do have access to.  I have rewritten the
2355 <a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/freedom-maker">freedom-maker</a>
2356 image build framework to use .deb packages instead of only copying
2357 setup into the boot images, and thanks to this rewrite I am able to
2358 set up any machine supported by Debian Wheezy as a Freedombox, using
2359 the previously mentioned deb (and a few support debs for packages
2360 missing in Debian).</p>
2361
2362 <p>The current Freedombox setup consist of a set of bootstrapping
2363 scripts
2364 (<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/freedombox-setup">freedombox-setup</a>),
2365 and a administrative web interface
2366 (<a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/Plinth">plinth</a> + exmachina +
2367 withsqlite), as well as a privacy enhancing proxy based on
2368 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/privoxy">privoxy</a>
2369 (freedombox-privoxy).  There is also a web/javascript based XMPP
2370 client (<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/jwchat">jwchat</a>)
2371 trying (unsuccessfully so far) to talk to the XMPP server
2372 (<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/ejabberd">ejabberd</a>).  The
2373 web interface is pluggable, and the goal is to use it to enable OpenID
2374 services, mesh network connectivity, use of TOR, etc, etc.  Not much of
2375 this is really working yet, see
2376 <a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/freedombox-todos/blob/master/TODO">the
2377 project TODO</a> for links to GIT repositories.  Most of the code is
2378 on github at the moment.  The HTTP proxy is operational out of the
2379 box, and the admin web interface can be used to add/remove plinth
2380 users.  I've not been able to do anything else with it so far, but
2381 know there are several branches spread around github and other places
2382 with lots of half baked features.</p>
2383
2384 <p>Anyway, if you want to have a look at the current state, the
2385 following recipes should work to give you a test machine to poke
2386 at.</p>
2387
2388 <p><strong>Debian Wheezy amd64</strong></p>
2389
2390 <ol>
2391
2392 <li>Fetch normal Debian Wheezy installation ISO.</li>
2393 <li>Boot from it, either as CD or USB stick.</li>
2394 <li><p>Press [tab] on the boot prompt and add this as a boot argument
2395 to the Debian installer:<p>
2396 <pre>url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-wheezy.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-wheezy.dat</a></pre></li>
2397
2398 <li>Answer the few language/region/password questions and pick disk to
2399 install on.</li>
2400
2401 <li>When the installation is finished and the machine have rebooted a
2402 few times, your Freedombox is ready for testing.</li>
2403
2404 </ol>
2405
2406 <p><strong>Raspberry Pi Raspbian</strong></p>
2407
2408 <ol>
2409
2410 <li>Fetch a Raspbian SD card image, create SD card.</li>
2411 <li>Boot from SD card, extend file system to fill the card completely.</li>
2412 <li><p>Log in and add this to /etc/sources.list:</p>
2413 <pre>
2414 deb <a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox</a> wheezy main
2415 </pre></li>
2416 <li><p>Run this as root:</p>
2417 <pre>
2418 wget -O - http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/BE1A583D.asc | \
2419    apt-key add -
2420 apt-get update
2421 apt-get install freedombox-setup
2422 /usr/lib/freedombox/setup
2423 </pre></li>
2424 <li>Reboot into your freshly created Freedombox.</li>
2425
2426 </ol>
2427
2428 <p>You can test it on other architectures too, but because the
2429 freedombox-privoxy package is binary, it will only work as intended on
2430 the architectures where I have had time to build the binary and put it
2431 in my APT repository.  But do not let this stop you.  It is only a
2432 short "<tt>apt-get source -b freedombox-privoxy</tt>" away. :)</p>
2433
2434 <p>Note that by default Freedombox is a DHCP server on the
2435 192.168.1.0/24 subnet, so if this is your subnet be careful and turn
2436 off the DHCP server by running "<tt>update-rc.d isc-dhcp-server
2437 disable</tt>" as root.</p>
2438
2439 <p>Please let me know if this works for you, or if you have any
2440 problems.  We gather on the IRC channel
2441 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">#freedombox</a> on
2442 irc.debian.org and the
2443 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">project
2444 mailing list</a>.</p>
2445
2446 <p>Once you get your freedombox operational, you can visit
2447 <tt>http://your-host-name:8001/</tt> to see the state of the plint
2448 welcome screen (dead end - do not be surprised if you are unable to
2449 get past it), and next visit <tt>http://your-host-name:8001/help/</tt>
2450 to look at the rest of plinth.  The default user is 'admin' and the
2451 default password is 'secret'.</p>
2452
2453       </div>
2454       <div class="tags">
2455
2456
2457         Tags: <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>.
2458
2459
2460       </div>
2461     </div>
2462     <div class="padding"></div>
2463
2464     <div class="entry">
2465       <div class="title">
2466         <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>
2467       </div>
2468       <div class="date">
2469         18th August 2013
2470       </div>
2471       <div class="body">
2472         <p>Earlier, I reported about
2473 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_fix_a_Thinkpad_X230_with_a_broken_180_GB_SSD_disk.html">my
2474 problems using an Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB disk</a>.  Friday I was
2475 told by IBM that the original disk should be thrown away.  And as
2476 there no longer was a problem if I bricked the firmware, I decided
2477 today to try to install Intel firmware to replace the Lenovo firmware
2478 currently on the disk.</p>
2479
2480 <p>I searched the Intel site for firmware, and found
2481 <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>
2482 (aka Intel SATA Solid-State Drive Firmware Update Tool) which
2483 according to the site should contain the latest firmware for SSD
2484 disks.  I inserted the broken disk in one of my spare laptops and
2485 booted the ISO from a USB stick.  The disk was recognized, but the
2486 program claimed the newest firmware already were installed and refused
2487 to insert any Intel firmware.  So no change, and the disk is still
2488 unable to handle write load. :( I guess the only way to get them
2489 working would be if Lenovo releases new firmware.  No idea how likely
2490 that is.  Anyway, just blogging about this test for completeness.  I
2491 got a working Samsung disk, and see no point in spending more time on
2492 the broken disks.</p>
2493
2494       </div>
2495       <div class="tags">
2496
2497
2498         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2499
2500
2501       </div>
2502     </div>
2503     <div class="padding"></div>
2504
2505     <div class="entry">
2506       <div class="title">
2507         <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>
2508       </div>
2509       <div class="date">
2510         17th July 2013
2511       </div>
2512       <div class="body">
2513         <p>Today I switched to
2514 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">my
2515 new laptop</a>.  I've previously written about the problems I had with
2516 my new Thinkpad X230, which was delivered with an
2517 <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
2518 GB Intel SSD disk with Lenovo firmware</a> that did not handle
2519 sustained writes.  My hardware supplier have been very forthcoming in
2520 trying to find a solution, and after first trying with another
2521 identical 180 GB disks they decided to send me a 256 GB Samsung SSD
2522 disk instead to fix it once and for all.  The Samsung disk survived
2523 the installation of Debian with encrypted disks (filling the disk with
2524 random data during installation killed the first two), and I thus
2525 decided to trust it with my data.  I have installed it as a Debian Edu
2526 Wheezy roaming workstation hooked up with my Debian Edu Squeeze main
2527 server at home using Kerberos and LDAP, and will use it as my work
2528 station from now on.</p>
2529
2530 <p>As this is a solid state disk with no moving parts, I believe the
2531 Debian Wheezy default installation need to be tuned a bit to increase
2532 performance and increase life time of the disk.  The Linux kernel and
2533 user space applications do not yet adjust automatically to such
2534 environment.  To make it easier for my self, I created a draft Debian
2535 package <tt>ssd-setup</tt> to handle this tuning.  The
2536 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/ssd-setup.git">source
2537 for the ssd-setup package</a> is available from collab-maint, and it
2538 is set up to adjust the setup of the machine by just installing the
2539 package.  If there is any non-SSD disk in the machine, the package
2540 will refuse to install, as I did not try to write any logic to sort
2541 file systems in SSD and non-SSD file systems.</p>
2542
2543 <p>I consider the package a draft, as I am a bit unsure how to best
2544 set up Debian Wheezy with an SSD.  It is adjusted to my use case,
2545 where I set up the machine with one large encrypted partition (in
2546 addition to /boot), put LVM on top of this and set up partitions on
2547 top of this again.  See the README file in the package source for the
2548 references I used to pick the settings.  At the moment these
2549 parameters are tuned:</p>
2550
2551 <ul>
2552
2553 <li>Set up cryptsetup to pass TRIM commands to the physical disk
2554     (adding discard to /etc/crypttab)</li>
2555
2556 <li>Set up LVM to pass on TRIM commands to the underlying device (in
2557     this case a cryptsetup partition) by changing issue_discards from
2558     0 to 1 in /etc/lvm/lvm.conf.</li>
2559
2560 <li>Set relatime as a file system option for ext3 and ext4 file
2561     systems.</li>
2562
2563 <li>Tell swap to use TRIM commands by adding 'discard' to
2564     /etc/fstab.</li>
2565
2566 <li>Change I/O scheduler from cfq to deadline using a udev rule.</li>
2567
2568 <li>Run fstrim on every ext3 and ext4 file system every night (from
2569     cron.daily).</li>
2570
2571 <li>Adjust sysctl values vm.swappiness to 1 and vm.vfs_cache_pressure
2572     to 50 to reduce the kernel eagerness to swap out processes.</li>
2573
2574 </ul>
2575
2576 <p>During installation, I cancelled the part where the installer fill
2577 the disk with random data, as this would kill the SSD performance for
2578 little gain.  My goal with the encrypted file system is to ensure
2579 those stealing my laptop end up with a brick and not a working
2580 computer.  I have no hope in keeping the really resourceful people
2581 from getting the data on the disk (see
2582 <a href="http://xkcd.com/538/">XKCD #538</a> for an explanation why).
2583 Thus I concluded that adding the discard option to crypttab is the
2584 right thing to do.</p>
2585
2586 <p>I considered using the noop I/O scheduler, as several recommended
2587 it for SSD, but others recommended deadline and a benchmark I found
2588 indicated that deadline might be better for interactive use.</p>
2589
2590 <p>I also considered using the 'discard' file system option for ext3
2591 and ext4, but read that it would give a performance hit ever time a
2592 file is removed, and thought it best to that that slowdown once a day
2593 instead of during my work.</p>
2594
2595 <p>My package do not set up tmpfs on /var/run, /var/lock and /tmp, as
2596 this is already done by Debian Edu.</p>
2597
2598 <p>I have not yet started on the user space tuning.  I expect
2599 iceweasel need some tuning, and perhaps other applications too, but
2600 have not yet had time to investigate those parts.</p>
2601
2602 <p>The package should work on Ubuntu too, but I have not yet tested it
2603 there.</p>
2604
2605 <p>As for the answer to the question in the title of this blog post,
2606 as far as I know, the only solution I know about is to replace the
2607 disk.  It might be possible to flash it with Intel firmware instead of
2608 the Lenovo firmware.  But I have not tried and did not want to do so
2609 without approval from Lenovo as I wanted to keep the warranty on the
2610 disk until a solution was found and they wanted the broken disks
2611 back.</p>
2612
2613       </div>
2614       <div class="tags">
2615
2616
2617         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2618
2619
2620       </div>
2621     </div>
2622     <div class="padding"></div>
2623
2624     <div class="entry">
2625       <div class="title">
2626         <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>
2627       </div>
2628       <div class="date">
2629         10th July 2013
2630       </div>
2631       <div class="body">
2632         <p>A few days ago, I wrote about
2633 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">the
2634 problems I experienced with my new X230 and its SSD disk</a>, which
2635 was dying during installation because it is unable to cope with
2636 sustained write.  My supplier is in contact with
2637 <a href="http://www.lenovo.com/">Lenovo</a>, and they wanted to send a
2638 replacement disk to try to fix the problem.  They decided to send an
2639 identical model, so my hopes for a permanent fix was slim.</p>
2640
2641 <p>Anyway, today I got the replacement disk and tried to install
2642 Debian Edu Wheezy with encrypted disk on it.  The new disk have the
2643 same firmware version as the original.  This time my hope raised
2644 slightly as the installation progressed, as the original disk used to
2645 die after 4-7% of the disk was written to, while this time it kept
2646 going past 10%, 20%, 40% and even past 50%.  But around 60%, the disk
2647 died again and I was back on square one.  I still do not have a new
2648 laptop with a disk I can trust.  I can not live with a disk that might
2649 lock up when I download a new
2650 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> ISO or
2651 other large files.  I look forward to hearing from my supplier with
2652 the next proposal from Lenovo.</p>
2653
2654 <p>The original disk is marked Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB,
2655 11S0C38722Z1ZNME35X1TR, ISN: CVCV321407HB180EGN, SA: G57560302, FW:
2656 LF1i, 29MAY2013, PBA: G39779-300, LBA 351,651,888, LI P/N: 0C38722,
2657 Pb-free 2LI, LC P/N: 16-200366, WWN: 55CD2E40002756C4, Model:
2658 SSDSC2BW180A3L 2.5" 6Gb/s SATA SSD 180G 5V 1A, ASM P/N 0C38732, FRU
2659 P/N 45N8295, P0C38732.</p>
2660
2661 <p>The replacement disk is marked Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB,
2662 11S0C38722Z1ZNDE34N0L0, ISN: CVCV315306RK180EGN, SA: G57560-302, FW:
2663 LF1i, 22APR2013, PBA: G39779-300, LBA 351,651,888, LI P/N: 0C38722,
2664 Pb-free 2LI, LC P/N: 16-200366, WWN: 55CD2E40000AB69E, Model:
2665 SSDSC2BW180A3L 2.5" 6Gb/s SATA SSD 180G 5V 1A, ASM P/N 0C38732, FRU
2666 P/N 45N8295, P0C38732.</p>
2667
2668 <p>The only difference is in the first number (serial number?), ISN,
2669 SA, date and WNPP values.  Mentioning all the details here in case
2670 someone is able to use the information to find a way to identify the
2671 failing disk among working ones (if any such working disk actually
2672 exist).</p>
2673
2674       </div>
2675       <div class="tags">
2676
2677
2678         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2679
2680
2681       </div>
2682     </div>
2683     <div class="padding"></div>
2684
2685     <div class="entry">
2686       <div class="title">
2687         <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>
2688       </div>
2689       <div class="date">
2690          9th July 2013
2691       </div>
2692       <div class="body">
2693         <p>The upcoming Saturday, 2013-07-13, we are organising a combined
2694 Debian Edu developer gathering and Debian and Ubuntu bug squashing
2695 party in Oslo.  It is organised by <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">the
2696 member assosiation NUUG</a> and
2697 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">the Debian Edu / Skolelinux
2698 project</a> together with <a href="http://bitraf.no/">the hack space
2699 Bitraf</a>.</p>
2700
2701 <p>It starts 10:00 and continue until late evening.  Everyone is
2702 welcome, and there is no fee to participate.  There is on the other
2703 hand limited space, and only room for 30 people.  Please put your name
2704 on <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/BSP/2013/07/13/no/Oslo">the event
2705 wiki page</a> if you plan to join us.</p>
2706
2707       </div>
2708       <div class="tags">
2709
2710
2711         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>.
2712
2713
2714       </div>
2715     </div>
2716     <div class="padding"></div>
2717
2718     <div class="entry">
2719       <div class="title">
2720         <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>
2721       </div>
2722       <div class="date">
2723          5th July 2013
2724       </div>
2725       <div class="body">
2726         <p>Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a
2727 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thank_you_Thinkpad_X41__for_your_long_and_trustworthy_service.html">replacement
2728 for my trusty old Thinkpad X41</a>.  Unfortunately I did not have much
2729 time to spend on it, and it took a while to find a model I believe
2730 will do the job, but two days ago the replacement finally arrived.  I
2731 ended up picking a
2732 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_x230">Thinkpad X230</a>
2733 with SSD disk (NZDAJMN).  I first test installed Debian Edu Wheezy as
2734 a roaming workstation, and it seemed to work flawlessly.  But my
2735 second installation with encrypted disk was not as successful.  More
2736 on that below.</p>
2737
2738 <p>I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most
2739 important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never
2740 listed in the feature list.  But I did get good help from the search
2741 feature at <a href="http://www.prisjakt.no/">Prisjakt</a>, which
2742 allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other
2743 requirements.  A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks according
2744 to that search interface, so I had to drop specifying the number of
2745 disks from my search parameters.  I also asked around among friends to
2746 get their impression on keyboards and robustness.</p>
2747
2748 <p>So the new laptop arrived, and it is quite a lot wider than the
2749 X41.  I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is
2750 significantly wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my
2751 hand a lot more to reach the edges.  But the key response is fairly
2752 good and the individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope
2753 I will get used to it.  My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really
2754 needed a new laptop now. :)</p>
2755
2756 <p>Turning off the touch pad was simple.  All it took was a quick
2757 visit to the BIOS during boot it disable it.</p>
2758
2759 <p>But there is a fatal problem with the laptop.  The 180 GB SSD disk
2760 lock up during load.  And this happen when installing Debian Wheezy
2761 with encrypted disk, while the disk is being filled with random data.
2762 I also tested to install Ubuntu Raring, and it happen there too if I
2763 reenable the code to fill the disk with random data (it is disabled by
2764 default in Ubuntu).  And the bug with is already known.  It was
2765 reported to Debian as <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/691427">BTS
2766 report #691427 2012-10-25</a> (journal commit I/O error on brand-new
2767 Thinkpad T430s ext4 on lvm on SSD).  It is also reported to the Linux
2768 kernel developers as
2769 <a href="https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=51861">Kernel bugzilla
2770 report #51861 2012-12-20</a> (Intel SSD 520 stops working under load
2771 (SSDSC2BW180A3L in Lenovo ThinkPad T430s)). It is also reported on the
2772 Lenovo forums, both for
2773 <a href="http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/T400-T500-and-newer-T-series/T430s-Intel-SSD-520-180GB-issue/m-p/1070549">T430
2774 2012-11-10</a> and for
2775 <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
2776 03-20-2013</a>.  The problem do not only affect installation.  The
2777 reports state that the disk lock up during use if many writes are done
2778 on the disk, so it is much no use to work around the installation
2779 problem and end up with a computer that can lock up at any moment.
2780 There is even a
2781 <a href="https://git.efficios.com/?p=test-ssd.git">small C program
2782 available</a> that will lock up the hard drive after running a few
2783 minutes by writing to a file.</p>
2784
2785 <p>I've contacted my supplier and asked how to handle this, and after
2786 contacting PCHELP Norway (request 01D1FDP) which handle support
2787 requests for Lenovo, his first suggestion was to upgrade the disk
2788 firmware.  Unfortunately there is no newer firmware available from
2789 Lenovo, as my disk already have the most recent one (version LF1i).  I
2790 hope to hear more from him today and hope the problem can be
2791 fixed. :)</p>
2792
2793       </div>
2794       <div class="tags">
2795
2796
2797         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2798
2799
2800       </div>
2801     </div>
2802     <div class="padding"></div>
2803
2804     <div class="entry">
2805       <div class="title">
2806         <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>
2807       </div>
2808       <div class="date">
2809          4th July 2013
2810       </div>
2811       <div class="body">
2812         <p>Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a replacement for my
2813 trusty old Thinkpad X41.  Unfortunately I did not have much time to
2814 spend on it, but today the replacement finally arrived.  I ended up
2815 picking a <a href="http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_x230">Thinkpad
2816 X230</a> with SSD disk (NZDAJMN).  I first test installed Debian Edu
2817 Wheezy as a roaming workstation, and it worked flawlessly.  As I write
2818 this, it is installing what I hope will be a more final installation,
2819 with a encrypted hard drive to ensure any dope head stealing it end up
2820 with an expencive door stop.</p>
2821
2822 <p>I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most
2823 important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never
2824 listed in the feature list.  But I did get good help from the search
2825 feature at <ahref="http://www.prisjakt.no/">Prisjakt</a>, which
2826 allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other
2827 requirements.  A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks, so I had
2828 to drop number of disks from my search parameters.</p>
2829
2830 <p>I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is significantly
2831 wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my hand a lot more
2832 to reach the edges.  But the key response is fairly good and the
2833 individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope I will get
2834 used to it.  My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really needed a
2835 new laptop now. :)</p>
2836
2837 <p>I look forward to figuring out how to turn off the touch pad.</p>
2838
2839       </div>
2840       <div class="tags">
2841
2842
2843         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2844
2845
2846       </div>
2847     </div>
2848     <div class="padding"></div>
2849
2850     <div class="entry">
2851       <div class="title">
2852         <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>
2853       </div>
2854       <div class="date">
2855         25th June 2013
2856       </div>
2857       <div class="body">
2858         <p>It annoys me when the computer fail to do automatically what it is
2859 perfectly capable of, and I have to do it manually to get things
2860 working.  One such task is to find out what firmware packages are
2861 needed to get the hardware on my computer working.  Most often this
2862 affect the wifi card, but some times it even affect the RAID
2863 controller or the ethernet card.  Today I pushed version 0.4 of the
2864 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">Isenkram package</a>
2865 including a new script isenkram-autoinstall-firmware handling the
2866 process of asking all the loaded kernel modules what firmware files
2867 they want, find debian packages providing these files and install the
2868 debian packages.  Here is a test run on my laptop:</p>
2869
2870 <p><pre>
2871 # isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
2872 info: kernel drivers requested extra firmware: ipw2200-bss.fw ipw2200-ibss.fw ipw2200-sniffer.fw
2873 info: fetching http://http.debian.net/debian/dists/squeeze/Contents-i386.gz
2874 info: locating packages with the requested firmware files
2875 info: Updating APT sources after adding non-free APT source
2876 info: trying to install firmware-ipw2x00
2877 firmware-ipw2x00
2878 firmware-ipw2x00
2879 Preconfiguring packages ...
2880 Selecting previously deselected package firmware-ipw2x00.
2881 (Reading database ... 259727 files and directories currently installed.)
2882 Unpacking firmware-ipw2x00 (from .../firmware-ipw2x00_0.28+squeeze1_all.deb) ...
2883 Setting up firmware-ipw2x00 (0.28+squeeze1) ...
2884 #
2885 </pre></p>
2886
2887 <p>When all the requested firmware is present, a simple message is
2888 printed instead:</p>
2889
2890 <p><pre>
2891 # isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
2892 info: did not find any firmware files requested by loaded kernel modules.  exiting
2893 #
2894 </pre></p>
2895
2896 <p>It could use some polish, but it is already working well and saving
2897 me some time when setting up new machines. :)</p>
2898
2899 <p>So, how does it work?  It look at the set of currently loaded
2900 kernel modules, and look up each one of them using modinfo, to find
2901 the firmware files listed in the module meta-information.  Next, it
2902 download the Contents file from a nearby APT mirror, and search for
2903 the firmware files in this file to locate the package with the
2904 requested firmware file.  If the package is in the non-free section, a
2905 non-free APT source is added and the package is installed using
2906 <tt>apt-get install</tt>.  The end result is a slightly better working
2907 machine.</p>
2908
2909 <p>I hope someone find time to implement a more polished version of
2910 this script as part of the hw-detect debian-installer module, to
2911 finally fix <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/655507">BTS report
2912 #655507</a>.  There really is no need to insert USB sticks with
2913 firmware during a PXE install when the packages already are available
2914 from the nearby Debian mirror.</p>
2915
2916       </div>
2917       <div class="tags">
2918
2919
2920         Tags: <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>.
2921
2922
2923       </div>
2924     </div>
2925     <div class="padding"></div>
2926
2927     <div class="entry">
2928       <div class="title">
2929         <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>
2930       </div>
2931       <div class="date">
2932         11th June 2013
2933       </div>
2934       <div class="body">
2935         <p>When installing RedHat, Fedora, Debian and Ubuntu on some machines,
2936 the screen just turn black when Linux boot, either during installation
2937 or on first boot from the hard disk.  I've seen it once in a while the
2938 last few years, but only recently understood the cause.  I've seen it
2939 on HP laptops, and on my latest acquaintance the Packard Bell laptop.
2940 The reason seem to be in the wiring of some laptops.  The system to
2941 control the screen background light is inverted, so when Linux try to
2942 turn the brightness fully on, it end up turning it off instead.  I do
2943 not know which Linux drivers are affected, but this post is about the
2944 i915 driver used by the
2945 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Packard Bell
2946 EasyNote LV</a>, Thinkpad X40 and many other laptops.</p>
2947
2948 <p>The problem can be worked around two ways.  Either by adding
2949 i915.invert_brightness=1 as a kernel option, or by adding a file in
2950 /etc/modprobe.d/ to tell modprobe to add the invert_brightness=1
2951 option when it load the i915 kernel module.  On Debian and Ubuntu, it
2952 can be done by running these commands as root:</p>
2953
2954 <pre>
2955 echo options i915 invert_brightness=1 | tee /etc/modprobe.d/i915.conf
2956 update-initramfs -u -k all
2957 </pre>
2958
2959 <p>Since March 2012 there is
2960 <a href="http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=4dca20efb1a9c2efefc28ad2867e5d6c3f5e1955">a
2961 mechanism in the Linux kernel</a> to tell the i915 driver which
2962 hardware have this problem, and get the driver to invert the
2963 brightness setting automatically.  To use it, one need to add a row in
2964 <a href="http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c">the
2965 intel_quirks array</a> in the driver source
2966 <tt>drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c</tt> (look for "<tt>static
2967 struct intel_quirk intel_quirks</tt>"), specifying the PCI device
2968 number (vendor number 8086 is assumed) and subdevice vendor and device
2969 number.</p>
2970
2971 <p>My Packard Bell EasyNote LV got this output from <tt>lspci
2972 -vvnn</tt> for the video card in question:</p>
2973
2974 <p><pre>
2975 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation \
2976     3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller [8086:0156] \
2977     (rev 09) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
2978  Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device [1025:0688]
2979  Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- \
2980     ParErr- Stepping- SE RR- FastB2B- DisINTx+
2981  Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- \
2982     <TAbort- <MAbort->SERR- <PERR- INTx-
2983  Latency: 0
2984  Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 42
2985  Region 0: Memory at c2000000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4M]
2986  Region 2: Memory at b0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
2987  Region 4: I/O ports at 4000 [size=64]
2988  Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled]
2989  Capabilities: <access denied>
2990  Kernel driver in use: i915
2991 </pre></p>
2992
2993 <p>The resulting intel_quirks entry would then look like this:</p>
2994
2995 <p><pre>
2996 struct intel_quirk intel_quirks[] = {
2997        ...
2998         /* Packard Bell EasyNote LV11HC needs invert brightness quirk */
2999         { 0x0156, 0x1025, 0x0688, quirk_invert_brightness },
3000        ...
3001 }
3002 </pre></p>
3003
3004 <p>According to the kernel module instructions (as seen using
3005 <tt>modinfo i915</tt>), information about hardware needing the
3006 invert_brightness flag should be sent to the
3007 <a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/dri-devel">dri-devel
3008 (at) lists.freedesktop.org</a> mailing list to reach the kernel
3009 developers.  But my email about the laptop sent 2013-06-03 have not
3010 yet shown up in
3011 <a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/dri-devel/2013-June/thread.html">the
3012 web archive for the mailing list</a>, so I suspect they do not accept
3013 emails from non-subscribers.  Because of this, I sent my patch also to
3014 the Debian bug tracking system instead as
3015 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/710938">BTS report #710938</a>, to make
3016 sure the patch is not lost.</p>
3017
3018 <p>Unfortunately, it is not enough to fix the kernel to get Laptops
3019 with this problem working properly with Linux.  If you use Gnome, your
3020 worries should be over at this point.  But if you use KDE, there is
3021 something in KDE ignoring the invert_brightness setting and turning on
3022 the screen during login.  I've reported it to Debian as
3023 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/711237">BTS report #711237</a>, and
3024 have no idea yet how to figure out exactly what subsystem is doing
3025 this.  Perhaps you can help?  Perhaps you know what the Gnome
3026 developers did to handle this, and this can give a clue to the KDE
3027 developers?  Or you know where in KDE the screen brightness is changed
3028 during login?  If so, please update the BTS report (or get in touch if
3029 you do not know how to update BTS).</p>
3030
3031 <p>Update 2013-07-19: The correct fix for this machine seem to be
3032 acpi_backlight=vendor, to disable ACPI backlight support completely,
3033 as the ACPI information on the machine is trash and it is better to
3034 leave it to the intel video driver to control the screen
3035 backlight.</p>
3036
3037       </div>
3038       <div class="tags">
3039
3040
3041         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3042
3043
3044       </div>
3045     </div>
3046     <div class="padding"></div>
3047
3048     <div class="entry">
3049       <div class="title">
3050         <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>
3051       </div>
3052       <div class="date">
3053         27th May 2013
3054       </div>
3055       <div class="body">
3056         <p>Two days ago, I asked
3057 <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
3058 I could install Linux on a Packard Bell EasyNote LV computer
3059 preinstalled with Windows 8</a>.  I found a solution, but am horrified
3060 with the obstacles put in the way of Linux users on a laptop with UEFI
3061 and Windows 8.</p>
3062
3063 <p>I never found out if the cause of my problems were the use of UEFI
3064 secure booting or fast boot.  I suspect fast boot was the problem,
3065 causing the firmware to boot directly from HD without considering any
3066 key presses and alternative devices, but do not know UEFI settings
3067 enough to tell.</p>
3068
3069 <p>There is no way to install Linux on the machine in question without
3070 opening the box and disconnecting the hard drive!  This is as far as I
3071 can tell, the only way to get access to the firmware setup menu
3072 without accepting the Windows 8 license agreement.  I am told (and
3073 found description on how to) that it is possible to configure the
3074 firmware setup once booted into Windows 8.  But as I believe the terms
3075 of that agreement are completely unacceptable, accepting the license
3076 was never an alternative.  I do not enter agreements I do not intend
3077 to follow.</p>
3078
3079 <p>I feared I had to return the laptops and ask for a refund, and
3080 waste many hours on this, but luckily there was a way to get it to
3081 work.  But I would not recommend it to anyone planning to run Linux on
3082 it, and I have become sceptical to Windows 8 certified laptops.  Is
3083 this the way Linux will be forced out of the market place, by making
3084 it close to impossible for "normal" users to install Linux without
3085 accepting the Microsoft Windows license terms?  Or at least not
3086 without risking to loose the warranty?</p>
3087
3088 <p>I've updated the
3089 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Linux Laptop
3090 wiki page for Packard Bell EasyNote LV</a>, to ensure the next person
3091 do not have to struggle as much as I did to get Linux into the
3092 machine.</p>
3093
3094 <p>Thanks to Bob Rosbag, Florian Weimer, Philipp Kern, Ben Hutching,
3095 Michael Tokarev and others for feedback and ideas.</p>
3096
3097       </div>
3098       <div class="tags">
3099
3100
3101         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3102
3103
3104       </div>
3105     </div>
3106     <div class="padding"></div>
3107
3108     <div class="entry">
3109       <div class="title">
3110         <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>
3111       </div>
3112       <div class="date">
3113         25th May 2013
3114       </div>
3115       <div class="body">
3116         <p>I've run into quite a problem the last few days.  I bought three
3117 new laptops for my parents and a few others.  I bought Packard Bell
3118 Easynote LV to run Kubuntu on and use as their home computer.  But I
3119 am completely unable to figure out how to install Linux on it.  The
3120 computer is preinstalled with Windows 8, and I suspect it uses UEFI
3121 instead of a BIOS to boot.</p>
3122
3123 <p>The problem is that I am unable to get it to PXE boot, and unable
3124 to get it to boot the Linux installer from my USB stick.  I have yet
3125 to try the DVD install, and still hope it will work.  when I turn on
3126 the computer, there is no information on what buttons to press to get
3127 the normal boot menu.  I expect to get some boot menu to select PXE or
3128 USB stick booting.  When booting, it first ask for the language to
3129 use, then for some regional settings, and finally if I will accept the
3130 Windows 8 terms of use.  As these terms are completely unacceptable to
3131 me, I have no other choice but to turn off the computer and try again
3132 to get it to boot the Linux installer.</p>
3133
3134 <p>I have gathered my findings so far on a Linlap page about the
3135 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Packard Bell
3136 EasyNote LV</a> model.  If you have any idea how to get Linux
3137 installed on this machine, please get in touch or update that wiki
3138 page.  If I can't find a way to install Linux, I will have to return
3139 the laptop to the seller and find another machine for my parents.</p>
3140
3141 <p>I wonder, is this the way Linux will be forced out of the market
3142 using UEFI and "secure boot" by making it impossible to install Linux
3143 on new Laptops?</p>
3144
3145       </div>
3146       <div class="tags">
3147
3148
3149         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3150
3151
3152       </div>
3153     </div>
3154     <div class="padding"></div>
3155
3156     <div class="entry">
3157       <div class="title">
3158         <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>
3159       </div>
3160       <div class="date">
3161         17th May 2013
3162       </div>
3163       <div class="body">
3164         <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> is
3165 an operating system based on Debian intended for use in schools.  It
3166 contain a turn-key solution for the computer network provided to
3167 pupils in the primary schools.  It provide both the central server,
3168 network boot servers and desktop environments with heaps of
3169 educational software.  The project was founded almost 12 years ago,
3170 2001-07-02.  If you want to support the project, which is in need for
3171 cash to fund developer gatherings and other project related activity,
3172 <a href="http://www.linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">please
3173 donate some money</a>.
3174
3175 <p>A topic that come up again and again on the Debian Edu mailing
3176 lists and elsewhere, is the question on how to transform a Debian or
3177 Ubuntu installation into a Debian Edu installation.  It isn't very
3178 hard, and last week I wrote a script to replicate the steps done by
3179 the Debian Edu installer.</p>
3180
3181 <p>The script,
3182 <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/>
3183 in the debian-edu-config package, will go through these six steps and
3184 transform an existing Debian Wheezy or Ubuntu (untested) installation
3185 into a Debian Edu Workstation:</p>
3186
3187 <ol>
3188
3189 <li>Add skolelinux related APT sources.</li>
3190 <li>Create /etc/debian-edu/config with the wanted configuration.</li>
3191 <li>Install debian-edu-install to load preseeding values and pull in
3192     our configuration.</li>
3193 <li>Preseed debconf database with profile setup in
3194     /etc/debian-edu/config, and run tasksel to install packages
3195     according to the profile specified in the config above,
3196     overriding some of the Debian automation machinery.</li>
3197 <li>Run debian-edu-cfengine-D installation to configure everything
3198     that could not be done using preseeding.</li>
3199 <li>Ask for a reboot to enable all the configuration changes.</li>
3200
3201 </ol>
3202
3203 <p>There are some steps in the Debian Edu installation that can not be
3204 replicated like this.  Disk partitioning and LVM setup, for example.
3205 So this script just assume there is enough disk space to install all
3206 the needed packages.</p>
3207
3208 <p>The script was created to help a Debian Edu student working on
3209 setting up <a href="http://www.raspberrypi.org">Raspberry Pi</a> as a
3210 Debian Edu client, and using it he can take the existing
3211 <a href="http://www.raspbian.org/FrontPage‎">Raspbian</a> installation and
3212 transform it into a fully functioning Debian Edu Workstation (or
3213 Roaming Workstation, or whatever :).</p>
3214
3215 <p>The default setting in the script is to create a KDE Workstation.
3216 If a LXDE based Roaming workstation is wanted instead, modify the
3217 PROFILE and DESKTOP values at the top to look like this instead:</p>
3218
3219 <p><pre>
3220 PROFILE="Roaming-Workstation"
3221 DESKTOP="lxde"
3222 </pre></p>
3223
3224 <p>The script could even become useful to set up Debian Edu servers in
3225 the cloud, by starting with a virtual Debian installation at some
3226 virtual hosting service and setting up all the services on first
3227 boot.</p>
3228
3229       </div>
3230       <div class="tags">
3231
3232
3233         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>.
3234
3235
3236       </div>
3237     </div>
3238     <div class="padding"></div>
3239
3240     <div class="entry">
3241       <div class="title">
3242         <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>
3243       </div>
3244       <div class="date">
3245         11th May 2013
3246       </div>
3247       <div class="body">
3248         <P>In January,
3249 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_IRC_channel_for_LEGO_designers_using_Debian.html">I
3250 announced a</a> new <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">IRC
3251 channel #debian-lego</a>, for those of us in the Debian and Linux
3252 community interested in <a href="http://www.lego.com/">LEGO</a>, the
3253 marvellous construction system from Denmark.  We also created
3254 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">a wiki page</a> to have
3255 a place to take notes and write down our plans and hopes.  And several
3256 people showed up to help.  I was very happy to see the effect of my
3257 call.  Since the small start, we have a debtags tag
3258 <a href="http://debtags.debian.net/search/bytag?wl=hardware::hobby:lego">hardware::hobby:lego</a>
3259 tag for LEGO related packages, and now count 10 packages related to
3260 LEGO and <a href="http://mindstorms.lego.com/">Mindstorms</a>:</p>
3261
3262 <p><table>
3263 <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>
3264 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/leocad">leocad</a></td><td>virtual brick CAD software</td></tr>
3265 <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>
3266 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/lnpd">lnpd</a></td><td>daemon for LNP communication with BrickOS</td></tr>
3267 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/nbc">nbc</a></td><td>compiler for LEGO Mindstorms NXT bricks</td></tr>
3268 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/nqc">nqc</a></td><td>Not Quite C compiler for LEGO Mindstorms RCX</td></tr>
3269 <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>
3270 <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>
3271 <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>
3272 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/t2n">t2n</a></td><td>simple command-line tool for Lego NXT</td></tr>
3273 </table></p>
3274
3275 <p>Some of these are available in Wheezy, and all but one are
3276 currently available in Jessie/testing.  leocad is so far only
3277 available in experimental.</p>
3278
3279 <p>If you care about LEGO in Debian, please join us on IRC and help
3280 adding the rest of the great free software tools available on Linux
3281 for LEGO designers.</p>
3282
3283       </div>
3284       <div class="tags">
3285
3286
3287         Tags: <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>.
3288
3289
3290       </div>
3291     </div>
3292     <div class="padding"></div>
3293
3294     <div class="entry">
3295       <div class="title">
3296         <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>
3297       </div>
3298       <div class="date">
3299          5th May 2013
3300       </div>
3301       <div class="body">
3302         <p>When I woke up this morning, I was very happy to see that the
3303 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2013/20130504">release announcement
3304 for Debian Wheezy</a> was waiting in my mail box.  This is a great
3305 Debian release, and I expect to move my machines at home over to it fairly
3306 soon.</p>
3307
3308 <p>The new debian release contain heaps of new stuff, and one program
3309 in particular make me very happy to see included.  The
3310 <a href="http://scratch.mit.edu/">Scratch</a> program, made famous by
3311 the <a href="http://www.code.org/">Teach kids code</a> movement, is
3312 included for the first time.  Alongside similar programs like
3313 <a href="http://edu.kde.org/kturtle/">kturtle</a> and
3314 <a href="http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/Turtle_Art">turtleart</a>,
3315 it allow for visual programming where syntax errors can not happen,
3316 and a friendly programming environment for learning to control the
3317 computer.  Scratch will also be included in the next release of Debian
3318 Edu.</a>
3319
3320 <p>And now that Wheezy is wrapped up, we can wrap up the next Debian
3321 Edu/Skolelinux release too.  The
3322 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/2013/04/msg00132.html">first
3323 alpha release</a> went out last week, and the next should soon
3324 follow.<p>
3325
3326       </div>
3327       <div class="tags">
3328
3329
3330         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>.
3331
3332
3333       </div>
3334     </div>
3335     <div class="padding"></div>
3336
3337     <div class="entry">
3338       <div class="title">
3339         <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>
3340       </div>
3341       <div class="date">
3342          3rd April 2013
3343       </div>
3344       <div class="body">
3345         <p>Today the <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">Isenkram
3346 package</a> finally made it into the archive, after lingering in NEW
3347 for many months.  I uploaded it to the Debian experimental suite
3348 2013-01-27, and today it was accepted into the archive.</p>
3349
3350 <p>Isenkram is a system for suggesting to users what packages to
3351 install to work with a pluggable hardware device.  The suggestion pop
3352 up when the device is plugged in.  For example if a Lego Mindstorm NXT
3353 is inserted, it will suggest to install the program needed to program
3354 the NXT controller.  Give it a go, and report bugs and suggestions to
3355 BTS. :)</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/isenkram">isenkram</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/Bitcoin_GUI_now_available_from_Debian_unstable__and_Ubuntu_raring_.html">Bitcoin GUI now available from Debian/unstable (and Ubuntu/raring)</a>
3371       </div>
3372       <div class="date">
3373          2nd February 2013
3374       </div>
3375       <div class="body">
3376         <p>My
3377 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_backport_bitcoin_qt_version_0_7_2_2_to_Debian_Squeeze.html">last
3378 bitcoin related blog post</a> mentioned that the new
3379 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin package</a> for
3380 Debian was waiting in NEW.  It was accepted by the Debian ftp-masters
3381 2013-01-19, and have been available in unstable since then.  It was
3382 automatically copied to Ubuntu, and is available in their Raring
3383 version too.</p>
3384
3385 <p>But there is a strange problem with the build that block this new
3386 version from being available on the i386 and kfreebsd-i386
3387 architectures.  For some strange reason, the autobuilders in Debian
3388 for these architectures fail to run the test suite on these
3389 architectures (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/672524">BTS #672524</a>).
3390 We are so far unable to reproduce it when building it manually, and
3391 no-one have been able to propose a fix.  If you got an idea what is
3392 failing, please let us know via the BTS.</p>
3393
3394 <p>One feature that is annoying me with of the bitcoin client, because
3395 I often run low on disk space, is the fact that the client will exit
3396 if it run short on space (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/696715">BTS
3397 #696715</a>).  So make sure you have enough disk space when you run
3398 it. :)</p>
3399
3400 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
3401 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
3402 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
3403
3404       </div>
3405       <div class="tags">
3406
3407
3408         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>.
3409
3410
3411       </div>
3412     </div>
3413     <div class="padding"></div>
3414
3415     <div class="entry">
3416       <div class="title">
3417         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">Welcome to the world, Isenkram!</a>
3418       </div>
3419       <div class="date">
3420         22nd January 2013
3421       </div>
3422       <div class="body">
3423         <p>Yesterday, I
3424 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_prototype_ready_making_hardware_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">asked
3425 for testers</a> for my prototype for making Debian better at handling
3426 pluggable hardware devices, which I
3427 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">set
3428 out to create</a> earlier this month.  Several valuable testers showed
3429 up, and caused me to really want to to open up the development to more
3430 people.  But before I did this, I want to come up with a sensible name
3431 for this project.  Today I finally decided on a new name, and I have
3432 renamed the project from hw-support-handler to this new name.  In the
3433 process, I moved the source to git and made it available as a
3434 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/isenkram.git">collab-maint</a>
3435 repository in Debian.  The new name?  It is <strong>Isenkram</strong>.
3436 To fetch and build the latest version of the source, use</p>
3437
3438 <pre>
3439 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/collab-maint/isenkram.git
3440 cd isenkram && git-buildpackage -us -uc
3441 </pre>
3442
3443 <p>I have not yet adjusted all files to use the new name yet.  If you
3444 want to hack on the source or improve the package, please go ahead.
3445 But please talk to me first on IRC or via email before you do major
3446 changes, to make sure we do not step on each others toes. :)</p>
3447
3448 <p>If you wonder what 'isenkram' is, it is a Norwegian word for iron
3449 stuff, typically meaning tools, nails, screws, etc.  Typical hardware
3450 stuff, in other words.  I've been told it is the Norwegian variant of
3451 the German word eisenkram, for those that are familiar with that
3452 word.</p>
3453
3454 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-26</strong>: Added -us -us to build
3455 instructions, to avoid confusing people with an error from the signing
3456 process.</p>
3457
3458 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-27</strong>: Switch to HTTP URL for the git
3459 clone argument to avoid the need for authentication.</p>
3460
3461       </div>
3462       <div class="tags">
3463
3464
3465         Tags: <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>.
3466
3467
3468       </div>
3469     </div>
3470     <div class="padding"></div>
3471
3472     <div class="entry">
3473       <div class="title">
3474         <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>
3475       </div>
3476       <div class="date">
3477         21st January 2013
3478       </div>
3479       <div class="body">
3480         <p>Early this month I set out to try to
3481 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">improve
3482 the Debian support for pluggable hardware devices</a>.  Now my
3483 prototype is working, and it is ready for a larger audience.  To test
3484 it, fetch the
3485 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">source
3486 from the Debian Edu subversion repository</a>, build and install the
3487 package.  You might have to log out and in again activate the
3488 autostart script.</p>
3489
3490 <p>The design is simple:</p>
3491
3492 <ul>
3493
3494 <li>Add desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ causing a program
3495 hw-support-handlerd to start when the user log in.</li>
3496
3497 <li>This program listen for kernel events about new hardware (directly
3498 from the kernel like udev does), not using HAL dbus events as I
3499 initially did.</li>
3500
3501 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware modalias in
3502 the APT database, a database
3503 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=markup">available
3504 via HTTP</a> and a database available as part of the package.</li>
3505
3506 <li>If a package is mapped to the hardware in question, the package
3507 isn't installed yet and this is the first time the hardware was
3508 plugged in, show a desktop notification suggesting to install the
3509 package or packages.</li>
3510
3511 <li>If the user click on the 'install package now' button, ask
3512 aptdaemon via the PackageKit API to install the requrired package.</li>
3513
3514 <li>aptdaemon ask for root password or sudo password, and install the
3515 package while showing progress information in a window.</li>
3516
3517 </ul>
3518
3519 <p>I still need to come up with a better name for the system.  Here
3520 are some screen shots showing the prototype in action.  First the
3521 notification, then the password request, and finally the request to
3522 approve all the dependencies.  Sorry for the Norwegian Bokmål GUI.</p>
3523
3524 <p><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-1-notification.png">
3525 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-2-password.png">
3526 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-3-dependencies.png">
3527 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-4-installing.png">
3528 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-5-installing-details.png" width="70%"></p>
3529
3530 <p>The prototype still need to be improved with longer timeouts, but
3531 is already useful.  The database of hardware to package mappings also
3532 need more work.  It is currently compatible with the Ubuntu way of
3533 storing such information in the package control file, but could be
3534 changed to use other formats instead or in addition to the current
3535 method.  I've dropped the use of discover for this mapping, as the
3536 modalias approach is more flexible and easier to use on Linux as long
3537 as the Linux kernel expose its modalias strings directly.</p>
3538
3539 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-21 16:50</strong>: Due to popular demand,
3540 here is the command required to check out and build the source: Use
3541 '<tt>svn checkout
3542 svn://svn.debian.org/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/; cd
3543 hw-support-handler; debuild</tt>'.  If you lack debuild, install the
3544 devscripts package.</p>
3545
3546 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-23 12:00</strong>: The project is now
3547 renamed to Isenkram and the source moved from the Debian Edu
3548 subversion repository to a Debian collab-maint git repository.  See
3549 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">build
3550 instructions</a> for details.</p>
3551
3552       </div>
3553       <div class="tags">
3554
3555
3556         Tags: <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>.
3557
3558
3559       </div>
3560     </div>
3561     <div class="padding"></div>
3562
3563     <div class="entry">
3564       <div class="title">
3565         <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>
3566       </div>
3567       <div class="date">
3568         19th January 2013
3569       </div>
3570       <div class="body">
3571         <p>This Christmas my trusty old laptop died.  It died quietly and
3572 suddenly in bed.  With a quiet whimper, it went completely quiet and
3573 black.  The power button was no longer able to turn it on.  It was a
3574 IBM Thinkpad X41, and the best laptop I ever had.  Better than both
3575 Thinkpads X30, X31, X40, X60, X61 and X61S.  Far better than the
3576 Compaq I had before that.  Now I need to find a replacement.  To keep
3577 going during Christmas, I moved the one year old SSD disk to my old
3578 X40 where it fitted (only one I had left that could use it), but it is
3579 not a durable solution.
3580
3581 <p>My laptop needs are fairly modest.  This is my wishlist from when I
3582 got a new one more than 10 years ago.  It still holds true.:)</p>
3583
3584 <ul>
3585
3586 <li>Lightweight (around 1 kg) and small volume (preferably smaller
3587   than A4).</li>
3588 <li>Robust, it will be in my backpack every day.</li>
3589 <li>Three button mouse and a mouse pin instead of touch pad.</li>
3590 <li>Long battery life time.  Preferable a week.</li>
3591 <li>Internal WIFI network card.</li>
3592 <li>Internal Twisted Pair network card.</li>
3593 <li>Some USB slots (2-3 is plenty)</li>
3594 <li>Good keyboard - similar to the Thinkpad.</li>
3595 <li>Video resolution at least 1024x768, with size around 12" (A4 paper
3596 size).</li>
3597 <li>Hardware supported by Debian Stable, ie the default kernel and
3598   X.org packages.</li>
3599 <li>Quiet, preferably fan free (or at least not using the fan most of
3600   the time).
3601
3602 </ul>
3603
3604 <p>You will notice that there are no RAM and CPU requirements in the
3605 list.  The reason is simply that the specifications on laptops the
3606 last 10-15 years have been sufficient for my needs, and I have to look
3607 at other features to choose my laptop.  But are there still made as
3608 robust laptops as my X41?  The Thinkpad X60/X61 proved to be less
3609 robust, and Thinkpads seem to be heading in the wrong direction since
3610 Lenovo took over.  But I've been told that X220 and X1 Carbon might
3611 still be useful.</p>
3612
3613 <p>Perhaps I should rethink my needs, and look for a pad with an
3614 external keyboard?  I'll have to check the
3615 <a href="http://www.linux-laptop.net/">Linux Laptops site</a> for
3616 well-supported laptops, or perhaps just buy one preinstalled from one
3617 of the vendors listed on the <a href="http://linuxpreloaded.com/">Linux
3618 Pre-loaded site</a>.</p>
3619
3620       </div>
3621       <div class="tags">
3622
3623
3624         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3625
3626
3627       </div>
3628     </div>
3629     <div class="padding"></div>
3630
3631     <div class="entry">
3632       <div class="title">
3633         <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>
3634       </div>
3635       <div class="date">
3636         18th January 2013
3637       </div>
3638       <div class="body">
3639         <p>Some times I try to figure out which Iceweasel browser plugin to
3640 install to get support for a given MIME type.  Thanks to
3641 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MozillaTeam/Plugins">specifications
3642 done by Ubuntu</a> and Mozilla, it is possible to do this in Debian.
3643 Unfortunately, not very many packages provide the needed meta
3644 information, Anyway, here is a small script to look up all browser
3645 plugin packages announcing ther MIME support using this specification:</p>
3646
3647 <pre>
3648 #!/usr/bin/python
3649 import sys
3650 import apt
3651 def pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
3652     cache = apt.Cache()
3653     cache.open(None)
3654     thepkgs = []
3655     for pkg in cache:
3656         version = pkg.candidate
3657         if version is None:
3658             version = pkg.installed
3659         if version is None:
3660             continue
3661         record = version.record
3662         if not record.has_key('Npp-MimeType'):
3663             continue
3664         mime_types = record['Npp-MimeType'].split(',')
3665         for t in mime_types:
3666             t = t.rstrip().strip()
3667             if t == mimetype:
3668                 thepkgs.append(pkg.name)
3669     return thepkgs
3670 mimetype = "audio/ogg"
3671 if 1 < len(sys.argv):
3672     mimetype = sys.argv[1]
3673 print "Browser plugin packages supporting %s:" % mimetype
3674 for pkg in pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
3675     print "  %s" %pkg
3676 </pre>
3677
3678 <p>It can be used like this to look up a given MIME type:</p>
3679
3680 <pre>
3681 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype
3682 Browser plugin packages supporting audio/ogg:
3683   gecko-mediaplayer
3684 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype application/x-shockwave-flash
3685 Browser plugin packages supporting application/x-shockwave-flash:
3686   browser-plugin-gnash
3687 %
3688 </pre>
3689
3690 <p>In Ubuntu this mechanism is combined with support in the browser
3691 itself to query for plugins and propose to install the needed
3692 packages.  It would be great if Debian supported such feature too.  Is
3693 anyone working on adding it?</p>
3694
3695 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-18 14:20</strong>: The Debian BTS
3696 request for icweasel support for this feature is
3697 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/484010">#484010</a> from 2008 (and
3698 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/698426">#698426</a> from today).  Lack
3699 of manpower and wish for a different design is the reason thus feature
3700 is not yet in iceweasel from Debian.</p>
3701
3702       </div>
3703       <div class="tags">
3704
3705
3706         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3707
3708
3709       </div>
3710     </div>
3711     <div class="padding"></div>
3712
3713     <div class="entry">
3714       <div class="title">
3715         <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>
3716       </div>
3717       <div class="date">
3718         16th January 2013
3719       </div>
3720       <div class="body">
3721         <p>The <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/AppStreamDebianProposal">DEP-11
3722 proposal to add AppStream information to the Debian archive</a>, is a
3723 proposal to make it possible for a Desktop application to propose to
3724 the user some package to install to gain support for a given MIME
3725 type, font, library etc. that is currently missing.  With such
3726 mechanism in place, it would be possible for the desktop to
3727 automatically propose and install leocad if some LDraw file is
3728 downloaded by the browser.</p>
3729
3730 <p>To get some idea about the current content of the archive, I decided
3731 to write a simple program to extract all .desktop files from the
3732 Debian archive and look up the claimed MIME support there.  The result
3733 can be found on the
3734 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/pub/AppStreamTest">Skolelinux FTP
3735 site</a>.  Using the collected information, it become possible to
3736 answer the question in the title.  Here are the 20 most supported MIME
3737 types in Debian stable (Squeeze), testing (Wheezy) and unstable (Sid).
3738 The complete list is available from the link above.</p>
3739
3740 <p><strong>Debian Stable:</strong></p>
3741
3742 <pre>
3743   count MIME type
3744   ----- -----------------------
3745      32 text/plain
3746      30 audio/mpeg
3747      29 image/png
3748      28 image/jpeg
3749      27 application/ogg
3750      26 audio/x-mp3
3751      25 image/tiff
3752      25 image/gif
3753      22 image/bmp
3754      22 audio/x-wav
3755      20 audio/x-flac
3756      19 audio/x-mpegurl
3757      18 video/x-ms-asf
3758      18 audio/x-musepack
3759      18 audio/x-mpeg
3760      18 application/x-ogg
3761      17 video/mpeg
3762      17 audio/x-scpls
3763      17 audio/ogg
3764      16 video/x-ms-wmv
3765 </pre>
3766
3767 <p><strong>Debian Testing:</strong></p>
3768
3769 <pre>
3770   count MIME type
3771   ----- -----------------------
3772      33 text/plain
3773      32 image/png
3774      32 image/jpeg
3775      29 audio/mpeg
3776      27 image/gif
3777      26 image/tiff
3778      26 application/ogg
3779      25 audio/x-mp3
3780      22 image/bmp
3781      21 audio/x-wav
3782      19 audio/x-mpegurl
3783      19 audio/x-mpeg
3784      18 video/mpeg
3785      18 audio/x-scpls
3786      18 audio/x-flac
3787      18 application/x-ogg
3788      17 video/x-ms-asf
3789      17 text/html
3790      17 audio/x-musepack
3791      16 image/x-xbitmap
3792 </pre>
3793
3794 <p><strong>Debian Unstable:</strong></p>
3795
3796 <pre>
3797   count MIME type
3798   ----- -----------------------
3799      31 text/plain
3800      31 image/png
3801      31 image/jpeg
3802      29 audio/mpeg
3803      28 application/ogg
3804      27 image/gif
3805      26 image/tiff
3806      26 audio/x-mp3
3807      23 audio/x-wav
3808      22 image/bmp
3809      21 audio/x-flac
3810      20 audio/x-mpegurl
3811      19 audio/x-mpeg
3812      18 video/x-ms-asf
3813      18 video/mpeg
3814      18 audio/x-scpls
3815      18 application/x-ogg
3816      17 audio/x-musepack
3817      16 video/x-ms-wmv
3818      16 video/x-msvideo
3819 </pre>
3820
3821 <p>I am told that PackageKit can provide an API to access the kind of
3822 information mentioned in DEP-11.  I have not yet had time to look at
3823 it, but hope the PackageKit people in Debian are on top of these
3824 issues.</p>
3825
3826 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-16 13:35</strong>: Updated numbers after
3827 discovering a typo in my script.</p>
3828
3829       </div>
3830       <div class="tags">
3831
3832
3833         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3834
3835
3836       </div>
3837     </div>
3838     <div class="padding"></div>
3839
3840     <div class="entry">
3841       <div class="title">
3842         <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>
3843       </div>
3844       <div class="date">
3845         15th January 2013
3846       </div>
3847       <div class="body">
3848         <p>Yesterday, I wrote about the
3849 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Modalias_strings___a_practical_way_to_map__stuff__to_hardware.html">modalias
3850 values provided by the Linux kernel</a> following my hope for
3851 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">better
3852 dongle support in Debian</a>.  Using this knowledge, I have tested how
3853 modalias values attached to package names can be used to map packages
3854 to hardware.  This allow the system to look up and suggest relevant
3855 packages when I plug in some new hardware into my machine, and replace
3856 discover and discover-data as the database used to map hardware to
3857 packages.</p>
3858
3859 <p>I create a modaliases file with entries like the following,
3860 containing package name, kernel module name (if relevant, otherwise
3861 the package name) and globs matching the relevant hardware
3862 modalias.</p>
3863
3864 <p><blockquote>
3865 Package: package-name
3866 <br>Modaliases: module(modaliasglob, modaliasglob, modaliasglob)</p>
3867 </blockquote></p>
3868
3869 <p>It is fairly trivial to write code to find the relevant packages
3870 for a given modalias value using this file.</p>
3871
3872 <p>An entry like this would suggest the video and picture application
3873 cheese for many USB web cameras (interface bus class 0E01):</p>
3874
3875 <p><blockquote>
3876 Package: cheese
3877 <br>Modaliases: cheese(usb:v*p*d*dc*dsc*dp*ic0Eisc01ip*)</p>
3878 </blockquote></p>
3879
3880 <p>An entry like this would suggest the pcmciautils package when a
3881 CardBus bridge (bus class 0607) PCI device is present:</p>
3882
3883 <p><blockquote>
3884 Package: pcmciautils
3885 <br>Modaliases: pcmciautils(pci:v*d*sv*sd*bc06sc07i*)
3886 </blockquote></p>
3887
3888 <p>An entry like this would suggest the package colorhug-client when
3889 plugging in a ColorHug with USB IDs 04D8:F8DA:</p>
3890
3891 <p><blockquote>
3892 Package: colorhug-client
3893 <br>Modaliases: colorhug-client(usb:v04D8pF8DAd*)</p>
3894 </blockquote></p>
3895
3896 <p>I believe the format is compatible with the format of the Packages
3897 file in the Debian archive.  Ubuntu already uses their Packages file
3898 to store their mappings from packages to hardware.</p>
3899
3900 <p>By adding a XB-Modaliases: header in debian/control, any .deb can
3901 announce the hardware it support in a way my prototype understand.
3902 This allow those publishing packages in an APT source outside the
3903 Debian archive as well as those backporting packages to make sure the
3904 hardware mapping are included in the package meta information.  I've
3905 tested such header in the pymissile package, and its modalias mapping
3906 is working as it should with my prototype.  It even made it to Ubuntu
3907 Raring.</p>
3908
3909 <p>To test if it was possible to look up supported hardware using only
3910 the shell tools available in the Debian installer, I wrote a shell
3911 implementation of the lookup code.  The idea is to create files for
3912 each modalias and let the shell do the matching.  Please check out and
3913 try the
3914 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/hw-support-lookup?view=co">hw-support-lookup</a>
3915 shell script.  It run without any extra dependencies and fetch the
3916 hardware mappings from the Debian archive and the subversion
3917 repository where I currently work on my prototype.</p>
3918
3919 <p>When I use it on a machine with a yubikey inserted, it suggest to
3920 install yubikey-personalization:</p>
3921
3922 <p><blockquote>
3923 % ./hw-support-lookup
3924 <br>yubikey-personalization
3925 <br>%
3926 </blockquote></p>
3927
3928 <p>When I run it on my Thinkpad X40 with a PCMCIA/CardBus slot, it
3929 propose to install the pcmciautils package:</p>
3930
3931 <p><blockquote>
3932 % ./hw-support-lookup
3933 <br>pcmciautils
3934 <br>%
3935 </blockquote></p>
3936
3937 <p>If you know of any hardware-package mapping that should be added to
3938 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=co">my
3939 database</a>, please tell me about it.</p>
3940
3941 <p>It could be possible to generate several of the mappings between
3942 packages and hardware.  One source would be to look at packages with
3943 kernel modules, ie packages with *.ko files in /lib/modules/, and
3944 extract their modalias information.  Another would be to look at
3945 packages with udev rules, ie packages with files in
3946 /lib/udev/rules.d/, and extract their vendor/model information to
3947 generate a modalias matching rule.  I have not tested any of these to
3948 see if it work.</p>
3949
3950 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
3951 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
3952 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
3953 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel</a>.</p>
3954
3955       </div>
3956       <div class="tags">
3957
3958
3959         Tags: <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>.
3960
3961
3962       </div>
3963     </div>
3964     <div class="padding"></div>
3965
3966     <div class="entry">
3967       <div class="title">
3968         <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>
3969       </div>
3970       <div class="date">
3971         14th January 2013
3972       </div>
3973       <div class="body">
3974         <p>While looking into how to look up Debian packages based on hardware
3975 information, to find the packages that support a given piece of
3976 hardware, I refreshed my memory regarding modalias values, and decided
3977 to document the details.  Here are my findings so far, also available
3978 in
3979 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
3980 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>:
3981
3982 <p><strong>Modalias decoded</strong></p>
3983
3984 <p>This document try to explain what the different types of modalias
3985 values stands for.  It is in part based on information from
3986 &lt;URL: <a href="https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias">https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias</a> &gt;,
3987 &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;,
3988 &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
3989 &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;.
3990
3991 <p>The modalias entries for a given Linux machine can be found using
3992 this shell script:</p>
3993
3994 <pre>
3995 find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u
3996 </pre>
3997
3998 <p>The supported modalias globs for a given kernel module can be found
3999 using modinfo:</p>
4000
4001 <pre>
4002 % /sbin/modinfo psmouse | grep alias:
4003 alias:          serio:ty05pr*id*ex*
4004 alias:          serio:ty01pr*id*ex*
4005 %
4006 </pre>
4007
4008 <p><strong>PCI subtype</strong></p>
4009
4010 <p>A typical PCI entry can look like this.  This is an Intel Host
4011 Bridge memory controller:</p>
4012
4013 <p><blockquote>
4014 pci:v00008086d00002770sv00001028sd000001ADbc06sc00i00
4015 </blockquote></p>
4016
4017 <p>This represent these values:</p>
4018
4019 <pre>
4020  v   00008086  (vendor)
4021  d   00002770  (device)
4022  sv  00001028  (subvendor)
4023  sd  000001AD  (subdevice)
4024  bc  06        (bus class)
4025  sc  00        (bus subclass)
4026  i   00        (interface)
4027 </pre>
4028
4029 <p>The vendor/device values are the same values outputted from 'lspci
4030 -n' as 8086:2770.  The bus class/subclass is also shown by lspci as
4031 0600.  The 0600 class is a host bridge.  Other useful bus values are
4032 0300 (VGA compatible card) and 0200 (Ethernet controller).</p>
4033
4034 <p>Not sure how to figure out the interface value, nor what it
4035 means.</p>
4036
4037 <p><strong>USB subtype</strong></p>
4038
4039 <p>Some typical USB entries can look like this.  This is an internal
4040 USB hub in a laptop:</p>
4041
4042 <p><blockquote>
4043 usb:v1D6Bp0001d0206dc09dsc00dp00ic09isc00ip00
4044 </blockquote></p>
4045
4046 <p>Here is the values included in this alias:</p>
4047
4048 <pre>
4049  v    1D6B  (device vendor)
4050  p    0001  (device product)
4051  d    0206  (bcddevice)
4052  dc     09  (device class)
4053  dsc    00  (device subclass)
4054  dp     00  (device protocol)
4055  ic     09  (interface class)
4056  isc    00  (interface subclass)
4057  ip     00  (interface protocol)
4058 </pre>
4059
4060 <p>The 0900 device class/subclass means hub.  Some times the relevant
4061 class is in the interface class section.  For a simple USB web camera,
4062 these alias entries show up:</p>
4063
4064 <p><blockquote>
4065 usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc01ip00
4066 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc02ip00
4067 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc01ip00
4068 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc02ip00
4069 </blockquote></p>
4070
4071 <p>Interface class 0E01 is video control, 0E02 is video streaming (aka
4072 camera), 0101 is audio control device and 0102 is audio streaming (aka
4073 microphone).  Thus this is a camera with microphone included.</p>
4074
4075 <p><strong>ACPI subtype</strong></p>
4076
4077 <p>The ACPI type is used for several non-PCI/USB stuff.  This is an IR
4078 receiver in a Thinkpad X40:</p>
4079
4080 <p><blockquote>
4081 acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
4082 </blockquote></p>
4083
4084 <p>The values between the colons are IDs.</p>
4085
4086 <p><strong>DMI subtype</strong></p>
4087
4088 <p>The DMI table contain lots of information about the computer case
4089 and model.  This is an entry for a IBM Thinkpad X40, fetched from
4090 /sys/devices/virtual/dmi/id/modalias:</p>
4091
4092 <p><blockquote>
4093 dmi:bvnIBM:bvr1UETB6WW(1.66):bd06/15/2005:svnIBM:pn2371H4G:pvrThinkPadX40:rvnIBM:rn2371H4G:rvrNotAvailable:cvnIBM:ct10:cvrNotAvailable:
4094 </blockquote></p>
4095
4096 <p>The values present are</p>
4097
4098 <pre>
4099  bvn  IBM            (BIOS vendor)
4100  bvr  1UETB6WW(1.66) (BIOS version)
4101  bd   06/15/2005     (BIOS date)
4102  svn  IBM            (system vendor)
4103  pn   2371H4G        (product name)
4104  pvr  ThinkPadX40    (product version)
4105  rvn  IBM            (board vendor)
4106  rn   2371H4G        (board name)
4107  rvr  NotAvailable   (board version)
4108  cvn  IBM            (chassis vendor)
4109  ct   10             (chassis type)
4110  cvr  NotAvailable   (chassis version)
4111 </pre>
4112
4113 <p>The chassis type 10 is Notebook.  Other interesting values can be
4114 found in the dmidecode source:</p>
4115
4116 <pre>
4117   3 Desktop
4118   4 Low Profile Desktop
4119   5 Pizza Box
4120   6 Mini Tower
4121   7 Tower
4122   8 Portable
4123   9 Laptop
4124  10 Notebook
4125  11 Hand Held
4126  12 Docking Station
4127  13 All In One
4128  14 Sub Notebook
4129  15 Space-saving
4130  16 Lunch Box
4131  17 Main Server Chassis
4132  18 Expansion Chassis
4133  19 Sub Chassis
4134  20 Bus Expansion Chassis
4135  21 Peripheral Chassis
4136  22 RAID Chassis
4137  23 Rack Mount Chassis
4138  24 Sealed-case PC
4139  25 Multi-system
4140  26 CompactPCI
4141  27 AdvancedTCA
4142  28 Blade
4143  29 Blade Enclosing
4144 </pre>
4145
4146 <p>The chassis type values are not always accurately set in the DMI
4147 table.  For example my home server is a tower, but the DMI modalias
4148 claim it is a desktop.</p>
4149
4150 <p><strong>SerIO subtype</strong></p>
4151
4152 <p>This type is used for PS/2 mouse plugs.  One example is from my
4153 test machine:</p>
4154
4155 <p><blockquote>
4156 serio:ty01pr00id00ex00
4157 </blockquote></p>
4158
4159 <p>The values present are</p>
4160
4161 <pre>
4162   ty  01  (type)
4163   pr  00  (prototype)
4164   id  00  (id)
4165   ex  00  (extra)
4166 </pre>
4167
4168 <p>This type is supported by the psmouse driver.  I am not sure what
4169 the valid values are.</p>
4170
4171 <p><strong>Other subtypes</strong></p>
4172
4173 <p>There are heaps of other modalias subtypes according to
4174 file2alias.c.  There is the rest of the list from that source: amba,
4175 ap, bcma, ccw, css, eisa, hid, i2c, ieee1394, input, ipack, isapnp,
4176 mdio, of, parisc, pcmcia, platform, scsi, sdio, spi, ssb, vio, virtio,
4177 vmbus, x86cpu and zorro.  I did not spend time documenting all of
4178 these, as they do not seem relevant for my intended use with mapping
4179 hardware to packages when new stuff is inserted during run time.</p>
4180
4181 <p><strong>Looking up kernel modules using modalias values</strong></p>
4182
4183 <p>To check which kernel modules provide support for a given modalias,
4184 one can use the following shell script:</p>
4185
4186 <pre>
4187   for id in $(find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u); do \
4188     echo "$id" ; \
4189     /sbin/modprobe --show-depends "$id"|sed 's/^/  /' ; \
4190   done
4191 </pre>
4192
4193 <p>The output can look like this (only the first few entries as the
4194 list is very long on my test machine):</p>
4195
4196 <pre>
4197   acpi:ACPI0003:
4198     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/acpi/ac.ko
4199   acpi:device:
4200   FATAL: Module acpi:device: not found.
4201   acpi:IBM0068:
4202     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/char/nvram.ko
4203     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/leds/led-class.ko
4204     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/rfkill/rfkill.ko
4205     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/platform/x86/thinkpad_acpi.ko
4206   acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
4207     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/lib/crc-ccitt.ko
4208     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/irda/irda.ko
4209     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/net/irda/nsc-ircc.ko
4210   [...]
4211 </pre>
4212
4213 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
4214 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
4215 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
4216 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel</a>.</p>
4217
4218 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-15:</strong> Rewrite "cat $(find ...)" to
4219 "find ... -print0 | xargs -0 cat" to make sure it handle directories
4220 in /sys/ with space in them.</p>
4221
4222       </div>
4223       <div class="tags">
4224
4225
4226         Tags: <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>.
4227
4228
4229       </div>
4230     </div>
4231     <div class="padding"></div>
4232
4233     <div class="entry">
4234       <div class="title">
4235         <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>
4236       </div>
4237       <div class="date">
4238         10th January 2013
4239       </div>
4240       <div class="body">
4241         <p>As part of my investigation on how to improve the support in Debian
4242 for hardware dongles, I dug up my old Mark and Spencer USB Rocket
4243 Launcher and updated the Debian package
4244 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pymissile">pymissile</a> to make
4245 sure udev will fix the device permissions when it is plugged in.  I
4246 also added a "Modaliases" header to test it in the Debian archive and
4247 hopefully make the package be proposed by jockey in Ubuntu when a user
4248 plug in his rocket launcher.  In the process I moved the source to a
4249 git repository under collab-maint, to make it easier for any DD to
4250 contribute.  <a href="http://code.google.com/p/pymissile/">Upstream</a>
4251 is not very active, but the software still work for me even after five
4252 years of relative silence.  The new git repository is not listed in
4253 the uploaded package yet, because I want to test the other changes a
4254 bit more before I upload the new version.  If you want to check out
4255 the new version with a .desktop file included, visit the
4256 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/pymissile.git">gitweb
4257 view</a> or use "<tt>git clone
4258 git://anonscm.debian.org/collab-maint/pymissile.git</tt>".</p>
4259
4260       </div>
4261       <div class="tags">
4262
4263
4264         Tags: <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>.
4265
4266
4267       </div>
4268     </div>
4269     <div class="padding"></div>
4270
4271     <div class="entry">
4272       <div class="title">
4273         <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>
4274       </div>
4275       <div class="date">
4276          9th January 2013
4277       </div>
4278       <div class="body">
4279         <p>One thing that annoys me with Debian and Linux distributions in
4280 general, is that there is a great package management system with the
4281 ability to automatically install software packages by downloading them
4282 from the distribution mirrors, but no way to get it to automatically
4283 install the packages I need to use the hardware I plug into my
4284 machine.  Even if the package to use it is easily available from the
4285 Linux distribution.  When I plug in a LEGO Mindstorms NXT, it could
4286 suggest to automatically install the python-nxt, nbc and t2n packages
4287 I need to talk to it.  When I plug in a Yubikey, it could propose the
4288 yubikey-personalization package.  The information required to do this
4289 is available, but no-one have pulled all the pieces together.</p>
4290
4291 <p>Some years ago, I proposed to
4292 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg01206.html">use
4293 the discover subsystem to implement this</a>.  The idea is fairly
4294 simple:
4295
4296 <ul>
4297
4298 <li>Add a desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ pointing to a program
4299   starting when a user log in.</li>
4300
4301 <li>Set this program up to listen for kernel events emitted when new
4302   hardware is inserted into the computer.</li>
4303
4304 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware ID in a
4305   database mapping to packages, and take note of any non-installed
4306   packages.</li>
4307
4308 <li>Show a message to the user proposing to install the discovered
4309   package, and make it easy to install it.</li>
4310
4311 </ul>
4312
4313 <p>I am not sure what the best way to implement this is, but my
4314 initial idea was to use dbus events to discover new hardware, the
4315 discover database to find packages and
4316 <a href="http://www.packagekit.org/">PackageKit</a> to install
4317 packages.</p>
4318
4319 <p>Yesterday, I found time to try to implement this idea, and the
4320 draft package is now checked into
4321 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
4322 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>.  In the process, I updated the
4323 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover-data.html">discover-data</a>
4324 package to map the USB ids of LEGO Mindstorms and Yubikey devices to
4325 the relevant packages in Debian, and uploaded a new version
4326 2.2013.01.09 to unstable.  I also discovered that the current
4327 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover.html">discover</a>
4328 package in Debian no longer discovered any USB devices, because
4329 /proc/bus/usb/devices is no longer present.  I ported it to use
4330 libusb as a fall back option to get it working.  The fixed package
4331 version 2.1.2-6 is now in experimental (didn't upload it to unstable
4332 because of the freeze).</p>
4333
4334 <p>With this prototype in place, I can insert my Yubikey, and get this
4335 desktop notification to show up (only once, the first time it is
4336 inserted):</p>
4337
4338 <p align="center"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-09-hw-autoinstall.png"></p>
4339
4340 <p>For this prototype to be really useful, some way to automatically
4341 install the proposed packages by pressing the "Please install
4342 program(s)" button should to be implemented.</p>
4343
4344 <p>If this idea seem useful to you, and you want to help make it
4345 happen, please help me update the discover-data database with mappings
4346 from hardware to Debian packages.  Check if 'discover-pkginstall -l'
4347 list the package you would like to have installed when a given
4348 hardware device is inserted into your computer, and report bugs using
4349 reportbug if it isn't.  Or, if you know of a better way to provide
4350 such mapping, please let me know.</p>
4351
4352 <p>This prototype need more work, and there are several questions that
4353 should be considered before it is ready for production use.  Is dbus
4354 the correct way to detect new hardware?  At the moment I look for HAL
4355 dbus events on the system bus, because that is the events I could see
4356 on my Debian Squeeze KDE desktop.  Are there better events to use?
4357 How should the user be notified?  Is the desktop notification
4358 mechanism the best option, or should the background daemon raise a
4359 popup instead?  How should packages be installed?  When should they
4360 not be installed?</p>
4361
4362 <p>If you want to help getting such feature implemented in Debian,
4363 please send me an email. :)</p>
4364
4365       </div>
4366       <div class="tags">
4367
4368
4369         Tags: <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>.
4370
4371
4372       </div>
4373     </div>
4374     <div class="padding"></div>
4375
4376     <div class="entry">
4377       <div class="title">
4378         <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>
4379       </div>
4380       <div class="date">
4381          2nd January 2013
4382       </div>
4383       <div class="body">
4384         <p>During Christmas, I have worked a bit on the Debian support for
4385 <a href="http://mindstorms.lego.com/en-us/Default.aspx">LEGO Mindstorm
4386 NXT</a>.  My son and I have played a bit with my NXT set, and I
4387 discovered I had to build all the tools myself because none were
4388 already in Debian Squeeze.  If Debian support for LEGO is something
4389 you care about, please join me on the IRC channel
4390 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">#debian-lego</a> (server
4391 irc.debian.org).  There is a lot that could be done to improve the
4392 Debian support for LEGO designers.  For example both CAD software
4393 and Mindstorm compilers are missing. :)</p>
4394
4395 <p>Update 2012-01-03: A
4396 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">project page</a>
4397 including links to Lego related packages is now available.</p>
4398
4399       </div>
4400       <div class="tags">
4401
4402
4403         Tags: <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>.
4404
4405
4406       </div>
4407     </div>
4408     <div class="padding"></div>
4409
4410     <div class="entry">
4411       <div class="title">
4412         <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>
4413       </div>
4414       <div class="date">
4415         25th December 2012
4416       </div>
4417       <div class="body">
4418         <p>Let me start by wishing you all marry Christmas and a happy new
4419 year!  I hope next year will prove to be a good year.</p>
4420
4421 <p><a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">Bitcoin</a>, the digital
4422 decentralised "currency" that allow people to transfer bitcoins
4423 between each other with minimal overhead, is a very interesting
4424 experiment.  And as I wrote a few days ago, the bitcoin situation in
4425 <a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</a> is about to improve a bit.
4426 The <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">new debian source
4427 package</a> (version 0.7.2-2) was uploaded yesterday, and is waiting
4428 in <a href="http://ftp-master.debian.org/new.html">the NEW queue</A>
4429 for one of the ftpmasters to approve the new bitcoin-qt package
4430 name.</p>
4431
4432 <p>And thanks to the great work of Jonas and the rest of the bitcoin
4433 team in Debian, you can easily test the package in Debian Squeeze
4434 using the following steps to get a set of working packages:</p>
4435
4436 <blockquote><pre>
4437 git clone git://git.debian.org/git/collab-maint/bitcoin
4438 cd bitcoin
4439 DEB_MAINTAINER_MODE=1 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp fakeroot debian/rules clean
4440 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp git-buildpackage --git-ignore-new
4441 </pre></blockquote>
4442
4443 <p>You might have to install some build dependencies as well.  The
4444 list of commands should give you two packages, bitcoind and
4445 bitcoin-qt, ready for use in a Squeeze environment.  Note that the
4446 client will download the complete set of bitcoin "blocks", which need
4447 around 5.6 GiB of data on my machine at the moment.  Make sure your
4448 ~/.bitcoin/ directory have lots of spare room if you want to download
4449 all the blocks.  The client will warn if the disk is getting full, so
4450 there is not really a problem if you got too little room, but you will
4451 not be able to get all the features out of the client.</p>
4452
4453 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
4454 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
4455 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
4456
4457       </div>
4458       <div class="tags">
4459
4460
4461         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>.
4462
4463
4464       </div>
4465     </div>
4466     <div class="padding"></div>
4467
4468     <div class="entry">
4469       <div class="title">
4470         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_word_on_bitcoin_support_in_Debian.html">A word on bitcoin support in Debian</a>
4471       </div>
4472       <div class="date">
4473         21st December 2012
4474       </div>
4475       <div class="body">
4476         <p>It has been a while since I wrote about
4477 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">bitcoin</a>, the decentralised
4478 peer-to-peer based crypto-currency, and the reason is simply that I
4479 have been busy elsewhere.  But two days ago, I started looking at the
4480 state of <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin in
4481 Debian</a> again to try to recover my old bitcoin wallet.  The package
4482 is now maintained by a
4483 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/pkg-bitcoin/">team of
4484 people</a>, and the grunt work had already been done by this team.  We
4485 owe a huge thank you to all these team members. :)
4486 But I was sad to discover that the bitcoin client is missing in
4487 Wheezy.  It is only available in Sid (and an outdated client from
4488 backports).  The client had several RC bugs registered in BTS blocking
4489 it from entering testing.  To try to help the team and improve the
4490 situation, I spent some time providing patches and triaging the bug
4491 reports.  I also had a look at the bitcoin package available from Matt
4492 Corallo in a
4493 <a href="https://launchpad.net/~bitcoin/+archive/bitcoin">PPA for
4494 Ubuntu</a>, and moved the useful pieces from that version into the
4495 Debian package.</p>
4496
4497 <p>After checking with the main package maintainer Jonas Smedegaard on
4498 IRC, I pushed several patches into the collab-maint git repository to
4499 improve the package.  It now contains fixes for the RC issues (not from
4500 me, but fixed by Scott Howard), build rules for a Qt GUI client
4501 package, konqueror support for the bitcoin: URI and bash completion
4502 setup.  As I work on Debian Squeeze, I also created
4503 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-bitcoin-devel/Week-of-Mon-20121217/000041.html">a
4504 patch to backport</a> the latest version.  Jonas is going to look at
4505 it and try to integrate it into the git repository before uploading a
4506 new version to unstable.
4507
4508 <p>I would very much like bitcoin to succeed, to get rid of the
4509 centralized control currently exercised in the monetary system.  I
4510 find it completely unacceptable that the USA government is collecting
4511 transaction data for almost all international money transfers (most are done in USD and transaction logs shipped to the spooks), and
4512 that the major credit card companies can block legal money
4513 transactions to Wikileaks.  But for bitcoin to succeed, more people
4514 need to use bitcoins, and more people need to accept bitcoins when
4515 they sell products and services.  Improving the bitcoin support in
4516 Debian is a small step in the right direction, but not enough.
4517 Unfortunately the user experience when browsing the web and wanting to
4518 pay with bitcoin is still not very good.  The bitcoin: URI is a step
4519 in the right direction, but need to work in most or every browser in
4520 use.  Also the bitcoin-qt client is too heavy to fire up to do a
4521 quick transaction.  I believe there are other clients available, but
4522 have not tested them.</p>
4523
4524 <p>My
4525 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Now_accepting_bitcoins___anonymous_and_distributed_p2p_crypto_money.html">experiment
4526 with bitcoins</a> showed that at least some of my readers use bitcoin.
4527 I received 20.15 BTC so far on the address I provided in my blog two
4528 years ago, as can be
4529 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">seen
4530 on the blockexplorer service</a>.  Thank you everyone for your
4531 donation.  The blockexplorer service demonstrates quite well that
4532 bitcoin is not quite anonymous and untracked. :) I wonder if the
4533 number of users have gone up since then.  If you use bitcoin and want
4534 to show your support of my activity, please send Bitcoin donations to
4535 the same address as last time,
4536 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
4537
4538       </div>
4539       <div class="tags">
4540
4541
4542         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>.
4543
4544
4545       </div>
4546     </div>
4547     <div class="padding"></div>
4548
4549     <div class="entry">
4550       <div class="title">
4551         <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>
4552       </div>
4553       <div class="date">
4554          7th September 2012
4555       </div>
4556       <div class="body">
4557         <p>As I
4558 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">mentioned
4559 this summer</a>, I have created a Computer Science song book a few
4560 years ago, and today I finally found time to create a public
4561 <a href="https://gitorious.org/pere-cs-songbook/pere-cs-songbook">Gitorious
4562 repository for the project</a>.</p>
4563
4564 <p>If you want to help out, please clone the source and submit patches
4565 to the HTML version.  To generate the PDF and PostScript version,
4566 please use prince XML, or let me know about a useful free software
4567 processor capable of creating a good looking PDF from the HTML.</p>
4568
4569 <p>Want to sing?  You can still find the song book in HTML, PDF and
4570 PostScript formats at
4571 <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's Computer
4572 Science Songbook</a>.</p>
4573
4574       </div>
4575       <div class="tags">
4576
4577
4578         Tags: <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>.
4579
4580
4581       </div>
4582     </div>
4583     <div class="padding"></div>
4584
4585     <div class="entry">
4586       <div class="title">
4587         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gratulerer_med_19__rsdagen__Debian_.html">Gratulerer med 19-årsdagen, Debian!</a>
4588       </div>
4589       <div class="date">
4590         16th August 2012
4591       </div>
4592       <div class="body">
4593         <p>I dag fyller
4594 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120813">Debian-prosjektet 19
4595 år</a>.  Jeg har fulgt det de siste 12 årene, og er veldig glad for å kunne
4596 si gratulerer med dagen, Debian!</p>
4597
4598       </div>
4599       <div class="tags">
4600
4601
4602         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>.
4603
4604
4605       </div>
4606     </div>
4607     <div class="padding"></div>
4608
4609     <div class="entry">
4610       <div class="title">
4611         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">Song book for Computer Scientists</a>
4612       </div>
4613       <div class="date">
4614         24th June 2012
4615       </div>
4616       <div class="body">
4617         <p>Many years ago, while studying Computer Science at the
4618 <a href="http://www.uit.no/">University of Tromsø</a>, I started
4619 collecting computer related songs for use at parties.  The original
4620 version was written in LaTeX, but a few years ago I got help from
4621 Håkon W. Lie, one of the inventors of W3C CSS, to convert it to HTML
4622 while keeping the ability to create a nice book in PDF format.  I have
4623 not had time to maintain the book for a while now, and guess I should
4624 put it up on some public version control repository where others can
4625 help me extend and update the book.  If anyone is volunteering to help
4626 me with this, send me an email.  Also let me know if there are songs
4627 missing in my book.</p>
4628
4629 <p>I have not mentioned the book on my blog so far, and it occured to
4630 me today that I really should let all my readers share the joys of
4631 singing out load about programming, computers and computer networks.
4632 Especially now that <a href="http://debconf12.debconf.org/">Debconf
4633 12</a> is about to start (and I am not going).  Want to sing?  Check
4634 out <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's
4635 Computer Science Songbook</a>.
4636
4637       </div>
4638       <div class="tags">
4639
4640
4641         Tags: <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>.
4642
4643
4644       </div>
4645     </div>
4646     <div class="padding"></div>
4647
4648     <div class="entry">
4649       <div class="title">
4650         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatically_upgrading_server_firmware_on_Dell_PowerEdge.html">Automatically upgrading server firmware on Dell PowerEdge</a>
4651       </div>
4652       <div class="date">
4653         21st November 2011
4654       </div>
4655       <div class="body">
4656         <p>At work we have heaps of servers.  I believe the total count is
4657 around 1000 at the moment.  To be able to get help from the vendors
4658 when something go wrong, we want to keep the firmware on the servers
4659 up to date.  If the firmware isn't the latest and greatest, the
4660 vendors typically refuse to start debugging any problems until the
4661 firmware is upgraded.  So before every reboot, we want to upgrade the
4662 firmware, and we would really like everyone handling servers at the
4663 university to do this themselves when they plan to reboot a machine.
4664 For that to happen we at the unix server admin group need to provide
4665 the tools to do so.</p>
4666
4667 <p>To make firmware upgrading easier, I am working on a script to
4668 fetch and install the latest firmware for the servers we got.  Most of
4669 our hardware are from Dell and HP, so I have focused on these servers
4670 so far.  This blog post is about the Dell part.</P>
4671
4672 <p>On the Dell FTP site I was lucky enough to find
4673 <a href="ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz">an XML file</a>
4674 with firmware information for all 11th generation servers, listing
4675 which firmware should be used on a given model and where on the FTP
4676 site I can find it.  Using a simple perl XML parser I can then
4677 download the shell scripts Dell provides to do firmware upgrades from
4678 within Linux and reboot when all the firmware is primed and ready to
4679 be activated on the first reboot.</p>
4680
4681 <p>This is the Dell related fragment of the perl code I am working on.
4682 Are there anyone working on similar tools for firmware upgrading all
4683 servers at a site?  Please get in touch and lets share resources.</p>
4684
4685 <p><pre>
4686 #!/usr/bin/perl
4687 use strict;
4688 use warnings;
4689 use File::Temp qw(tempdir);
4690 BEGIN {
4691     # Install needed RHEL packages if missing
4692     my %rhelmodules = (
4693         'XML::Simple' => 'perl-XML-Simple',
4694         );
4695     for my $module (keys %rhelmodules) {
4696         eval "use $module;";
4697         if ($@) {
4698             my $pkg = $rhelmodules{$module};
4699             system("yum install -y $pkg");
4700             eval "use $module;";
4701         }
4702     }
4703 }
4704 my $errorsto = 'pere@hungry.com';
4705
4706 upgrade_dell();
4707
4708 exit 0;
4709
4710 sub run_firmware_script {
4711     my ($opts, $script) = @_;
4712     unless ($script) {
4713         print STDERR "fail: missing script name\n";
4714         exit 1
4715     }
4716     print STDERR "Running $script\n\n";
4717
4718     if (0 == system("sh $script $opts")) { # FIXME correct exit code handling
4719         print STDERR "success: firmware script ran succcessfully\n";
4720     } else {
4721         print STDERR "fail: firmware script returned error\n";
4722     }
4723 }
4724
4725 sub run_firmware_scripts {
4726     my ($opts, @dirs) = @_;
4727     # Run firmware packages
4728     for my $dir (@dirs) {
4729         print STDERR "info: Running scripts in $dir\n";
4730         opendir(my $dh, $dir) or die "Unable to open directory $dir: $!";
4731         while (my $s = readdir $dh) {
4732             next if $s =~ m/^\.\.?/;
4733             run_firmware_script($opts, "$dir/$s");
4734         }
4735         closedir $dh;
4736     }
4737 }
4738
4739 sub download {
4740     my $url = shift;
4741     print STDERR "info: Downloading $url\n";
4742     system("wget --quiet \"$url\"");
4743 }
4744
4745 sub upgrade_dell {
4746     my @dirs;
4747     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
4748     chomp $product;
4749
4750     if ($product =~ m/PowerEdge/) {
4751
4752         # on RHEL, these pacakges are needed by the firwmare upgrade scripts
4753         system('yum install -y compat-libstdc++-33.i686 libstdc++.i686 libxml2.i686 procmail');
4754
4755         my $tmpdir = tempdir(
4756             CLEANUP => 1
4757             );
4758         chdir($tmpdir);
4759         fetch_dell_fw('catalog/Catalog.xml.gz');
4760         system('gunzip Catalog.xml.gz');
4761         my @paths = fetch_dell_fw_list('Catalog.xml');
4762         # -q is quiet, disabling interactivity and reducing console output
4763         my $fwopts = "-q";
4764         if (@paths) {
4765             for my $url (@paths) {
4766                 fetch_dell_fw($url);
4767             }
4768             run_firmware_scripts($fwopts, $tmpdir);
4769         } else {
4770             print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
4771             print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
4772         }
4773         chdir('/');
4774     } else {
4775         print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
4776         print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
4777     }
4778 }
4779
4780 sub fetch_dell_fw {
4781     my $path = shift;
4782     my $url = "ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/$path";
4783     download($url);
4784 }
4785
4786 # Using ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz, figure out which
4787 # firmware packages to download from Dell.  Only work for Linux
4788 # machines and 11th generation Dell servers.
4789 sub fetch_dell_fw_list {
4790     my $filename = shift;
4791
4792     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
4793     chomp $product;
4794     my ($mybrand, $mymodel) = split(/\s+/, $product);
4795
4796     print STDERR "Finding firmware bundles for $mybrand $mymodel\n";
4797
4798     my $xml = XMLin($filename);
4799     my @paths;
4800     for my $bundle (@{$xml->{SoftwareBundle}}) {
4801         my $brand = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Display}->{content};
4802         my $model = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Model}->{Display}->{content};
4803         my $oscode;
4804         if ("ARRAY" eq ref $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}) {
4805             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}[0]->{osCode};
4806         } else {
4807             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}->{osCode};
4808         }
4809         if ($mybrand eq $brand && $mymodel eq $model && "LIN" eq $oscode)
4810         {
4811             @paths = map { $_->{path} } @{$bundle->{Contents}->{Package}};
4812         }
4813     }
4814     for my $component (@{$xml->{SoftwareComponent}}) {
4815         my $componenttype = $component->{ComponentType}->{value};
4816
4817         # Drop application packages, only firmware and BIOS
4818         next if 'APAC' eq $componenttype;
4819
4820         my $cpath = $component->{path};
4821         for my $path (@paths) {
4822             if ($cpath =~ m%/$path$%) {
4823                 push(@paths, $cpath);
4824             }
4825         }
4826     }
4827     return @paths;
4828 }
4829 </pre>
4830
4831 <p>The code is only tested on RedHat Enterprise Linux, but I suspect
4832 it could work on other platforms with some tweaking.  Anyone know a
4833 index like Catalog.xml is available from HP for HP servers?  At the
4834 moment I maintain a similar list manually and it is quickly getting
4835 outdated.</p>
4836
4837       </div>
4838       <div class="tags">
4839
4840
4841         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
4842
4843
4844       </div>
4845     </div>
4846     <div class="padding"></div>
4847
4848     <div class="entry">
4849       <div class="title">
4850         <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>
4851       </div>
4852       <div class="date">
4853          4th August 2011
4854       </div>
4855       <div class="body">
4856         <p>Wouter Verhelst have some
4857 <a href="http://grep.be/blog/en/retorts/pere_kubuntu_boot">interesting
4858 comments and opinions</a> on my blog post on
4859 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_should_start_from__etc_rcS_d__in_Debian____almost_nothing.html">the
4860 need to clean up /etc/rcS.d/ in Debian</a> and my blog post about
4861 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_missing_in_the_Debian_desktop__or_why_my_parents_use_Kubuntu.html">the
4862 default KDE desktop in Debian</a>.  I only have time to address one
4863 small piece of his comment now, and though it best to address the
4864 misunderstanding he bring forward:</p>
4865
4866 <p><blockquote>
4867 Currently, a system admin has four options: [...] boot to a
4868 single-user system (by adding 'single' to the kernel command line;
4869 this runs rcS and rc1 scripts)
4870 </blockquote></p>
4871
4872 <p>This make me believe Wouter believe booting into single user mode
4873 and booting into runlevel 1 is the same.  I am not surprised he
4874 believe this, because it would make sense and is a quite sensible
4875 thing to believe.  But because the boot in Debian is slightly broken,
4876 runlevel 1 do not work properly and it isn't the same as single user
4877 mode.  I'll try to explain what is actually happing, but it is a bit
4878 hard to explain.</p>
4879
4880 <p>Single user mode is defined like this in /etc/inittab:
4881 "<tt>~~:S:wait:/sbin/sulogin</tt>".  This means the only thing that is
4882 executed in single user mode is sulogin.  Single user mode is a boot
4883 state "between" the runlevels, and when booting into single user mode,
4884 only the scripts in /etc/rcS.d/ are executed before the init process
4885 enters the single user state.  When switching to runlevel 1, the state
4886 is in fact not ending in runlevel 1, but it passes through runlevel 1
4887 and end up in the single user mode (see /etc/rc1.d/S03single, which
4888 runs "init -t1 S" to switch to single user mode at the end of runlevel
4889 1.  It is confusing that the 'S' (single user) init mode is not the
4890 mode enabled by /etc/rcS.d/ (which is more like the initial boot
4891 mode).</p>
4892
4893 <p>This summary might make it clearer.  When booting for the first
4894 time into single user mode, the following commands are executed:
4895 "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc S; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  When booting into
4896 runlevel 1, the following commands are executed: "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc
4897 S; /etc/init.d/rc 1; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  A problem show up when
4898 trying to continue after visiting single user mode.  Not all services
4899 are started again as they should, causing the machine to end up in an
4900 unpredicatble state.  This is why Debian admins recommend rebooting
4901 after visiting single user mode.</p>
4902
4903 <p>A similar problem with runlevel 1 is caused by the amount of
4904 scripts executed from /etc/rcS.d/.  When switching from say runlevel 2
4905 to runlevel 1, the services started from /etc/rcS.d/ are not properly
4906 stopped when passing through the scripts in /etc/rc1.d/, and not
4907 started again when switching away from runlevel 1 to the runlevels
4908 2-5.  I believe the problem is best fixed by moving all the scripts
4909 out of /etc/rcS.d/ that are not <strong>required</strong> to get a
4910 functioning single user mode during boot.</p>
4911
4912 <p>I have spent several years investigating the Debian boot system,
4913 and discovered this problem a few years ago.  I suspect it originates
4914 from when sysvinit was introduced into Debian, a long time ago.</p>
4915
4916       </div>
4917       <div class="tags">
4918
4919
4920         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>.
4921
4922
4923       </div>
4924     </div>
4925     <div class="padding"></div>
4926
4927     <div class="entry">
4928       <div class="title">
4929         <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>
4930       </div>
4931       <div class="date">
4932         30th July 2011
4933       </div>
4934       <div class="body">
4935         <p>In the Debian boot system, several packages include scripts that
4936 are started from /etc/rcS.d/.  In fact, there is a bite more of them
4937 than make sense, and this causes a few problems.  What kind of
4938 problems, you might ask.  There are at least two problems.  The first
4939 is that it is not possible to recover a machine after switching to
4940 runlevel 1.  One need to actually reboot to get the machine back to
4941 the expected state.  The other is that single user boot will sometimes
4942 run into problems because some of the subsystems are activated before
4943 the root login is presented, causing problems when trying to recover a
4944 machine from a problem in that subsystem.  A minor additional point is
4945 that moving more scripts out of rcS.d/ and into the other rc#.d/
4946 directories will increase the amount of scripts that can run in
4947 parallel during boot, and thus decrease the boot time.</p>
4948
4949 <p>So, which scripts should start from rcS.d/.  In short, only the
4950 scripts that _have_ to execute before the root login prompt is
4951 presented during a single user boot should go there.  Everything else
4952 should go into the numeric runlevels.  This means things like
4953 lm-sensors, fuse and x11-common should not run from rcS.d, but from
4954 the numeric runlevels.  Today in Debian, there are around 115 init.d
4955 scripts that are started from rcS.d/, and most of them should be moved
4956 out.  Do your package have one of them?  Please help us make single
4957 user and runlevel 1 better by moving it.</p>
4958
4959 <p>Scripts setting up the screen, keyboard, system partitions
4960 etc. should still be started from rcS.d/, but there is for example no
4961 need to have the network enabled before the single user login prompt
4962 is presented.</p>
4963
4964 <p>As always, things are not so easy to fix as they sound.  To keep
4965 Debian systems working while scripts migrate and during upgrades, the
4966 scripts need to be moved from rcS.d/ to rc2.d/ in reverse dependency
4967 order, ie the scripts that nothing in rcS.d/ depend on can be moved,
4968 and the next ones can only be moved when their dependencies have been
4969 moved first.  This migration must be done sequentially while we ensure
4970 that the package system upgrade packages in the right order to keep
4971 the system state correct.  This will require some coordination when it
4972 comes to network related packages, but most of the packages with
4973 scripts that should migrate do not have anything in rcS.d/ depending
4974 on them.  Some packages have already been updated, like the sudo
4975 package, while others are still left to do.  I wish I had time to work
4976 on this myself, but real live constrains make it unlikely that I will
4977 find time to push this forward.</p>
4978
4979       </div>
4980       <div class="tags">
4981
4982
4983         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>.
4984
4985
4986       </div>
4987     </div>
4988     <div class="padding"></div>
4989
4990     <div class="entry">
4991       <div class="title">
4992         <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>
4993       </div>
4994       <div class="date">
4995         29th July 2011
4996       </div>
4997       <div class="body">
4998         <p>While at Debconf11, I have several times during discussions
4999 mentioned the issues I believe should be improved in Debian for its
5000 desktop to be useful for more people.  The use case for this is my
5001 parents, which are currently running Kubuntu which solve the
5002 issues.</p>
5003
5004 <p>I suspect these four missing features are not very hard to
5005 implement.  After all, they are present in Ubuntu, so if we wanted to
5006 do this in Debian we would have a source.</p>
5007
5008 <ol>
5009
5010 <li><strong>Simple GUI based upgrade of packages.</strong> When there
5011 are new packages available for upgrades, a icon in the KDE status bar
5012 indicate this, and clicking on it will activate the simple upgrade
5013 tool to handle it.  I have no problem guiding both of my parents
5014 through the process over the phone.  If a kernel reboot is required,
5015 this too is indicated by the status bars and the upgrade tool.  Last
5016 time I checked, nothing with the same features was working in KDE in
5017 Debian.</li>
5018
5019 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing Firefox browser
5020 plugins.</strong> When the browser encounter a MIME type it do not
5021 currently have a handler for, it will ask the user if the system
5022 should search for a package that would add support for this MIME type,
5023 and if the user say yes, the APT sources will be searched for packages
5024 advertising the MIME type in their control file (visible in the
5025 Packages file in the APT archive).  If one or more packages are found,
5026 it is a simple click of the mouse to add support for the missing mime
5027 type.  If the package require the user to accept some non-free
5028 license, this is explained to the user.  The entire process make it
5029 more clear to the user why something do not work in the browser, and
5030 make the chances higher for the user to blame the web page authors and
5031 not the browser for any missing features.</li>
5032
5033 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing multimedia codec/format
5034 handlers.</strong> When the media players encounter a format or codec
5035 it is not supporting, a dialog pop up asking the user if the system
5036 should search for a package that would add support for it.  This
5037 happen with things like MP3, Windows Media or H.264.  The selection
5038 and installation procedure is very similar to the Firefox browser
5039 plugin handling.  This is as far as I know implemented using a
5040 gstreamer hook.  The end result is that the user easily get access to
5041 the codecs that are present from the APT archives available, while
5042 explaining more on why a given format is unsupported by Ubuntu.</li>
5043
5044 <li><strong>Better browser handling of some MIME types.</strong> When
5045 displaying a text/plain file in my Debian browser, it will propose to
5046 start emacs to show it.  If I remember correctly, when doing the same
5047 in Kunbutu it show the file as a text file in the browser.  At least I
5048 know Opera will show text files within the browser.  I much prefer the
5049 latter behaviour.</li>
5050
5051 </ol>
5052
5053 <p>There are other nice features as well, like the simplified suite
5054 upgrader, but given that I am the one mostly doing the dist-upgrade,
5055 it do not matter much.</p>
5056
5057 <p>I really hope we could get these features in place for the next
5058 Debian release.  It would require the coordinated effort of several
5059 maintainers, but would make the end user experience a lot better.</p>
5060
5061       </div>
5062       <div class="tags">
5063
5064
5065         Tags: <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>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
5066
5067
5068       </div>
5069     </div>
5070     <div class="padding"></div>
5071
5072     <div class="entry">
5073       <div class="title">
5074         <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>
5075       </div>
5076       <div class="date">
5077         26th July 2011
5078       </div>
5079       <div class="body">
5080         <p>The Norwegian <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</A>
5081 site is build on Debian/Squeeze, and this platform was chosen because
5082 I am most familiar with Debian (being a Debian Developer for around 10
5083 years) because it is the latest stable Debian release which should get
5084 security support for a few years.</p>
5085
5086 <p>The web service is written in Perl, and depend on some perl modules
5087 that are missing in Debian at the moment.  It would be great if these
5088 modules were added to the Debian archive, allowing anyone to set up
5089 their own <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com">FixMyStreet</a> clone
5090 in their own country using only Debian packages.  The list of modules
5091 missing in Debian/Squeeze isn't very long, and I hope the perl group
5092 will find time to package the 12 modules Catalyst::Plugin::SmartURI,
5093 Catalyst::Plugin::Unicode::Encoding, Catalyst::View::TT, Devel::Hide,
5094 Sort::Key, Statistics::Distributions, Template::Plugin::Comma,
5095 Template::Plugin::DateTime::Format, Term::Size::Any, Term::Size::Perl,
5096 URI::SmartURI and Web::Scraper to make the maintenance of FixMyStreet
5097 easier in the future.</p>
5098
5099 <p>Thanks to the great tools in Debian, getting the missing modules
5100 installed on my server was a simple call to 'cpan2deb Module::Name'
5101 and 'dpkg -i' to install the resulting package.  But this leave me
5102 with the responsibility of tracking security problems, which I really
5103 do not have time for.</p>
5104
5105       </div>
5106       <div class="tags">
5107
5108
5109         Tags: <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>.
5110
5111
5112       </div>
5113     </div>
5114     <div class="padding"></div>
5115
5116     <div class="entry">
5117       <div class="title">
5118         <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>
5119       </div>
5120       <div class="date">
5121          3rd April 2011
5122       </div>
5123       <div class="body">
5124         <p>Here is a small update for my English readers.  Most of my blog
5125 posts have been in Norwegian the last few weeks, so here is a short
5126 update in English.</p>
5127
5128 <p>The kids still keep me too busy to get much free software work
5129 done, but I did manage to organise a project to get a Norwegian port
5130 of the British service
5131 <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com/">FixMyStreet</a> up and running,
5132 and it has been running for a month now.  The entire project has been
5133 organised by me and two others.  Around Christmas we gathered sponsors
5134 to fund the development work.  In January I drafted a contract with
5135 <a href="http://www.mysociety.org/">mySociety</a> on what to develop,
5136 and in February the development took place.  Most of it involved
5137 converting the source to use GPS coordinates instead of British
5138 easting/northing, and the resulting code should be a lot easier to get
5139 running in any country by now.  The Norwegian
5140 <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</a> is using
5141 <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/">OpenStreetmap</a> as the map
5142 source and the source for administrative borders in Norway, and
5143 support for this had to be added/fixed.</p>
5144
5145 <p>The Norwegian version went live March 3th, and we spent the weekend
5146 polishing the system before we announced it March 7th.  The system is
5147 running on a KVM instance of Debian/Squeeze, and has seen almost 3000
5148 problem reports in a few weeks.  Soon we hope to announce the Android
5149 and iPhone versions making it even easier to report problems with the
5150 public infrastructure.</p>
5151
5152 <p>Perhaps something to consider for those of you in countries without
5153 such service?</p>
5154
5155       </div>
5156       <div class="tags">
5157
5158
5159         Tags: <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>.
5160
5161
5162       </div>
5163     </div>
5164     <div class="padding"></div>
5165
5166     <div class="entry">
5167       <div class="title">
5168         <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>
5169       </div>
5170       <div class="date">
5171         28th January 2011
5172       </div>
5173       <div class="body">
5174         <p>The last few days I have looked at ways to track open security
5175 issues here at my work with the University of Oslo.  My idea is that
5176 it should be possible to use the information about security issues
5177 available on the Internet, and check our locally
5178 maintained/distributed software against this information.  It should
5179 allow us to verify that no known security issues are forgotten.  The
5180 CVE database listing vulnerabilities seem like a great central point,
5181 and by using the package lists from Debian mapped to CVEs provided by
5182 the testing security team, I believed it should be possible to figure
5183 out which security holes were present in our free software
5184 collection.</p>
5185
5186 <p>After reading up on the topic, it became obvious that the first
5187 building block is to be able to name software packages in a unique and
5188 consistent way across data sources.  I considered several ways to do
5189 this, for example coming up with my own naming scheme like using URLs
5190 to project home pages or URLs to the Freshmeat entries, or using some
5191 existing naming scheme.  And it seem like I am not the first one to
5192 come across this problem, as MITRE already proposed and implemented a
5193 solution.  Enter the <a href="http://cpe.mitre.org/index.html">Common
5194 Platform Enumeration</a> dictionary, a vocabulary for referring to
5195 software, hardware and other platform components.  The CPE ids are
5196 mapped to CVEs in the <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/">National
5197 Vulnerability Database</a>, allowing me to look up know security
5198 issues for any CPE name.  With this in place, all I need to do is to
5199 locate the CPE id for the software packages we use at the university.
5200 This is fairly trivial (I google for 'cve cpe $package' and check the
5201 NVD entry if a CVE for the package exist).</p>
5202
5203 <p>To give you an example.  The GNU gzip source package have the CPE
5204 name cpe:/a:gnu:gzip.  If the old version 1.3.3 was the package to
5205 check out, one could look up
5206 <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
5207 in NVD</a> and get a list of 6 security holes with public CVE entries.
5208 The most recent one is
5209 <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/view/vuln/detail?vulnId=CVE-2010-0001">CVE-2010-0001</a>,
5210 and at the bottom of the NVD page for this vulnerability the complete
5211 list of affected versions is provided.</p>
5212
5213 <p>The NVD database of CVEs is also available as a XML dump, allowing
5214 for offline processing of issues.  Using this dump, I've written a
5215 small script taking a list of CPEs as input and list all CVEs
5216 affecting the packages represented by these CPEs.  One give it CPEs
5217 with version numbers as specified above and get a list of open
5218 security issues out.</p>
5219
5220 <p>Of course for this approach to be useful, the quality of the NVD
5221 information need to be high.  For that to happen, I believe as many as
5222 possible need to use and contribute to the NVD database.  I notice
5223 RHEL is providing
5224 <a href="https://www.redhat.com/security/data/metrics/rhsamapcpe.txt">a
5225 map from CVE to CPE</a>, indicating that they are using the CPE
5226 information.  I'm not aware of Debian and Ubuntu doing the same.</p>
5227
5228 <p>To get an idea about the quality for free software, I spent some
5229 time making it possible to compare the CVE database from Debian with
5230 the CVE database in NVD.  The result look fairly good, but there are
5231 some inconsistencies in NVD (same software package having several
5232 CPEs), and some inaccuracies (NVD not mentioning buggy packages that
5233 Debian believe are affected by a CVE).  Hope to find time to improve
5234 the quality of NVD, but that require being able to get in touch with
5235 someone maintaining it.  So far my three emails with questions and
5236 corrections have not seen any reply, but I hope contact can be
5237 established soon.</p>
5238
5239 <p>An interesting application for CPEs is cross platform package
5240 mapping.  It would be useful to know which packages in for example
5241 RHEL, OpenSuSe and Mandriva are missing from Debian and Ubuntu, and
5242 this would be trivial if all linux distributions provided CPE entries
5243 for their packages.</p>
5244
5245       </div>
5246       <div class="tags">
5247
5248
5249         Tags: <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>.
5250
5251
5252       </div>
5253     </div>
5254     <div class="padding"></div>
5255
5256     <div class="entry">
5257       <div class="title">
5258         <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>
5259       </div>
5260       <div class="date">
5261         23rd January 2011
5262       </div>
5263       <div class="body">
5264         <p>In the
5265 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/discover-data">discover-data</a>
5266 package in Debian, there is a script to report useful information
5267 about the running hardware for use when people report missing
5268 information.  One part of this script that I find very useful when
5269 debugging hardware problems, is the part mapping loaded kernel module
5270 to the PCI device it claims.  It allow me to quickly see if the kernel
5271 module I expect is driving the hardware I am struggling with.  To see
5272 the output, make sure discover-data is installed and run
5273 <tt>/usr/share/bug/discover-data 3>&1</tt>.  The relevant output on
5274 one of my machines like this:</p>
5275
5276 <pre>
5277 loaded modules:
5278 10de:03eb i2c_nforce2
5279 10de:03f1 ohci_hcd
5280 10de:03f2 ehci_hcd
5281 10de:03f0 snd_hda_intel
5282 10de:03ec pata_amd
5283 10de:03f6 sata_nv
5284 1022:1103 k8temp
5285 109e:036e bttv
5286 109e:0878 snd_bt87x
5287 11ab:4364 sky2
5288 </pre>
5289
5290 <p>The code in question look like this, slightly modified for
5291 readability and to drop the output to file descriptor 3:</p>
5292
5293 <pre>
5294 if [ -d /sys/bus/pci/devices/ ] ; then
5295     echo loaded pci modules:
5296     (
5297         cd /sys/bus/pci/devices/
5298         for address in * ; do
5299             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
5300                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
5301                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
5302                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
5303                     id=`lspci -n -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $3}'`
5304                     echo "$id $module"
5305                 fi
5306             fi
5307         done
5308     )
5309     echo
5310 fi
5311 </pre>
5312
5313 <p>Similar code could be used to extract USB device module
5314 mappings:</p>
5315
5316 <pre>
5317 if [ -d /sys/bus/usb/devices/ ] ; then
5318     echo loaded usb modules:
5319     (
5320         cd /sys/bus/usb/devices/
5321         for address in * ; do
5322             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
5323                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
5324                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
5325                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
5326                     id=$(lsusb -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $6}')
5327                     if [ "$id" ] ; then
5328                         echo "$id $module"
5329                     fi
5330                 fi
5331             fi
5332         done
5333     )
5334     echo
5335 fi
5336 </pre>
5337
5338 <p>This might perhaps be something to include in other tools as
5339 well.</p>
5340
5341       </div>
5342       <div class="tags">
5343
5344
5345         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5346
5347
5348       </div>
5349     </div>
5350     <div class="padding"></div>
5351
5352     <div class="entry">
5353       <div class="title">
5354         <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>
5355       </div>
5356       <div class="date">
5357         22nd December 2010
5358       </div>
5359       <div class="body">
5360         <p>The last few days I have spent at work here at the <a
5361 href="http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo</a> testing if the new
5362 batch of computers will work with Linux.  Every year for the last few
5363 years the university have organised shared bid of a few thousand
5364 computers, and this year HP won the bid.  Two different desktops and
5365 five different laptops are on the list this year.  We in the UNIX
5366 group want to know which one of these computers work well with RHEL
5367 and Ubuntu, the two Linux distributions we currently handle at the
5368 university.</p>
5369
5370 <p>My test method is simple, and I share it here to get feedback and
5371 perhaps inspire others to test hardware as well.  To test, I PXE
5372 install the OS version of choice, and log in as my normal user and run
5373 a few applications and plug in selected pieces of hardware.  When
5374 something fail, I make a note about this in the test matrix and move
5375 on.  If I have some spare time I try to report the bug to the OS
5376 vendor, but as I only have the machines for a short time, I rarely
5377 have the time to do this for all the problems I find.</p>
5378
5379 <p>Anyway, to get to the point of this post.  Here is the simple tests
5380 I perform on a new model.</p>
5381
5382 <ul>
5383
5384 <li>Is PXE installation working?  I'm testing with RHEL6, Ubuntu Lucid
5385 and Ubuntu Maverik at the moment.  If I feel like it, I also test with
5386 RHEL5 and Debian Edu/Squeeze.</li>
5387
5388 <li>Is X.org working?  If the graphical login screen show up after
5389 installation, X.org is working.</li>
5390
5391 <li>Is hardware accelerated OpenGL working?  Running glxgears (in
5392 package mesa-utils on Ubuntu) and writing down the frames per second
5393 reported by the program.</li>
5394
5395 <li>Is sound working?  With Gnome and KDE, a sound is played when
5396 logging in, and if I can hear this the test is successful.  If there
5397 are several audio exits on the machine, I try them all and check if
5398 the Gnome/KDE audio mixer can control where to send the sound.  I
5399 normally test this by playing
5400 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20101012-chef/ ">a HTML5
5401 video</a> in Firefox/Iceweasel.</li>
5402
5403 <li>Is the USB subsystem working?  I test this by plugging in a USB
5404 memory stick and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
5405
5406 <li>Is the CD/DVD player working?  I test this by inserting any CD/DVD
5407 I have lying around, and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
5408
5409 <li>Is any built in camera working?  Test using cheese, and see if a
5410 picture from the v4l device show up.</li>
5411
5412 <li>Is bluetooth working?  Use the Gnome/KDE browsing tool to see if
5413 any bluetooth devices are discovered.  In my office, I normally see a
5414 few.</li>
5415
5416 <li>For laptops, is the SD or Compaq Flash reader working.  I have
5417 memory modules lying around, and stick them in and see if Gnome/KDE
5418 notice this.</li>
5419
5420 <li>For laptops, is suspend/hibernate working?  I'm testing if the
5421 special button work, and if the laptop continue to work after
5422 resume.</li>
5423
5424 <li>For laptops, is the extra buttons working, like audio level,
5425 adjusting background light, switching on/off external video output,
5426 switching on/off wifi, bluetooth, etc?  The set of buttons differ from
5427 laptop to laptop, so I just write down which are working and which are
5428 not.</li>
5429
5430 <li>Some laptops have smart card readers, finger print readers,
5431 acceleration sensors etc.  I rarely test these, as I do not know how
5432 to quickly test if they are working or not, so I only document their
5433 existence.</li>
5434
5435 </ul>
5436
5437 <p>By now I suspect you are really curious what the test results are
5438 for the HP machines I am testing.  I'm not done yet, so I will report
5439 the test results later.  For now I can report that HP 8100 Elite work
5440 fine, and hibernation fail with HP EliteBook 8440p on Ubuntu Lucid,
5441 and audio fail on RHEL6.  Ubuntu Maverik worked with 8440p.  As you
5442 can see, I have most machines left to test.  One interesting
5443 observation is that Ubuntu Lucid has almost twice the frame rate than
5444 RHEL6 with glxgears.  No idea why.</p>
5445
5446       </div>
5447       <div class="tags">
5448
5449
5450         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>.
5451
5452
5453       </div>
5454     </div>
5455     <div class="padding"></div>
5456
5457     <div class="entry">
5458       <div class="title">
5459         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Some_thoughts_on_BitCoins.html">Some thoughts on BitCoins</a>
5460       </div>
5461       <div class="date">
5462         11th December 2010
5463       </div>
5464       <div class="body">
5465         <p>As I continue to explore
5466 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>, I've starting to wonder
5467 what properties the system have, and how it will be affected by laws
5468 and regulations here in Norway.  Here are some random notes.</p>
5469
5470 <p>One interesting thing to note is that since the transactions are
5471 verified using a peer to peer network, all details about a transaction
5472 is known to everyone.  This means that if a BitCoin address has been
5473 published like I did with mine in my initial post about BitCoin, it is
5474 possible for everyone to see how many BitCoins have been transfered to
5475 that address.  There is even a web service to look at the details for
5476 all transactions.  There I can see that my address
5477 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a>
5478 have received 16.06 Bitcoin, the
5479 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3">1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3</a>
5480 address of Simon Phipps have received 181.97 BitCoin and the address
5481 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt">1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt</A>
5482 of EFF have received 2447.38 BitCoins so far.  Thank you to each and
5483 every one of you that donated bitcoins to support my activity. The
5484 fact that anyone can see how much money was transfered to a given
5485 address make it more obvious why the BitCoin community recommend to
5486 generate and hand out a new address for each transaction.  I'm told
5487 there is no way to track which addresses belong to a given person or
5488 organisation without the person or organisation revealing it
5489 themselves, as Simon, EFF and I have done.</p>
5490
5491 <p>In Norway, and in most other countries, there are laws and
5492 regulations limiting how much money one can transfer across the border
5493 without declaring it.  There are money laundering, tax and accounting
5494 laws and regulations I would expect to apply to the use of BitCoin.
5495 If the Skolelinux foundation
5496 (<a href="http://linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">SLX
5497 Debian Labs</a>) were to accept donations in BitCoin in addition to
5498 normal bank transfers like EFF is doing, how should this be accounted?
5499 Given that it is impossible to know if money can cross the border or
5500 not, should everything or nothing be declared?  What exchange rate
5501 should be used when calculating taxes?  Would receivers have to pay
5502 income tax if the foundation were to pay Skolelinux contributors in
5503 BitCoin?  I have no idea, but it would be interesting to know.</p>
5504
5505 <p>For a currency to be useful and successful, it must be trusted and
5506 accepted by a lot of users.  It must be possible to get easy access to
5507 the currency (as a wage or using currency exchanges), and it must be
5508 easy to spend it.  At the moment BitCoin seem fairly easy to get
5509 access to, but there are very few places to spend it.  I am not really
5510 a regular user of any of the vendor types currently accepting BitCoin,
5511 so I wonder when my kind of shop would start accepting BitCoins.  I
5512 would like to buy electronics, travels and subway tickets, not herbs
5513 and books. :) The currency is young, and this will improve over time
5514 if it become popular, but I suspect regular banks will start to lobby
5515 to get BitCoin declared illegal if it become popular.  I'm sure they
5516 will claim it is helping fund terrorism and money laundering (which
5517 probably would be true, as is any currency in existence), but I
5518 believe the problems should be solved elsewhere and not by blaming
5519 currencies.</p>
5520
5521 <p>The process of creating new BitCoins is called mining, and it is
5522 CPU intensive process that depend on a bit of luck as well (as one is
5523 competing against all the other miners currently spending CPU cycles
5524 to see which one get the next lump of cash).  The "winner" get 50
5525 BitCoin when this happen.  Yesterday I came across the obvious way to
5526 join forces to increase ones changes of getting at least some coins,
5527 by coordinating the work on mining BitCoins across several machines
5528 and people, and sharing the result if one is lucky and get the 50
5529 BitCoins.  Check out
5530 <a href="http://www.bluishcoder.co.nz/bitcoin-pool/">BitCoin Pool</a>
5531 if this sounds interesting.  I have not had time to try to set up a
5532 machine to participate there yet, but have seen that running on ones
5533 own for a few days have not yield any BitCoins througth mining
5534 yet.</p>
5535
5536 <p>Update 2010-12-15: Found an <a
5537 href="http://inertia.posterous.com/reply-to-the-underground-economist-why-bitcoi">interesting
5538 criticism</a> of bitcoin.  Not quite sure how valid it is, but thought
5539 it was interesting to read.  The arguments presented seem to be
5540 equally valid for gold, which was used as a currency for many years.</p>
5541
5542       </div>
5543       <div class="tags">
5544
5545
5546         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>.
5547
5548
5549       </div>
5550     </div>
5551     <div class="padding"></div>
5552
5553     <div class="entry">
5554       <div class="title">
5555         <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>
5556       </div>
5557       <div class="date">
5558         10th December 2010
5559       </div>
5560       <div class="body">
5561         <p>With this weeks lawless
5562 <a href="http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/06/wikileaks/index.html">governmental
5563 attacks</a> on Wikileak and
5564 <a href="http://www.salon.com/technology/dan_gillmor/2010/12/06/war_on_speech">free
5565 speech</a>, it has become obvious that PayPal, visa and mastercard can
5566 not be trusted to handle money transactions.
5567 A blog post from
5568 <a href="http://webmink.com/2010/12/06/now-accepting-bitcoin/">Simon
5569 Phipps on bitcoin</a> reminded me about a project that a friend of
5570 mine mentioned earlier.  I decided to follow Simon's example, and get
5571 involved with <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>.  I got
5572 some help from my friend to get it all running, and he even handed me
5573 some bitcoins to get started.  I even donated a few bitcoins to Simon
5574 for helping me remember BitCoin.</p>
5575
5576 <p>So, what is bitcoins, you probably wonder?  It is a digital
5577 crypto-currency, decentralised and handled using peer-to-peer
5578 networks.  It allows anonymous transactions and prohibits central
5579 control over the transactions, making it impossible for governments
5580 and companies alike to block donations and other transactions.  The
5581 source is free software, and while the key dependency wxWidgets 2.9
5582 for the graphical user interface is missing in Debian, the command
5583 line client builds just fine.  Hopefully Jonas
5584 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/578157">will get the package into
5585 Debian</a> soon.</p>
5586
5587 <p>Bitcoins can be converted to other currencies, like USD and EUR.
5588 There are <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/trade">companies accepting
5589 bitcoins</a> when selling services and goods, and there are even
5590 currency "stock" markets where the exchange rate is decided.  There
5591 are not many users so far, but the concept seems promising.  If you
5592 want to get started and lack a friend with any bitcoins to spare,
5593 you can even get
5594 <a href="https://freebitcoins.appspot.com/">some for free</a> (0.05
5595 bitcoin at the time of writing).  Use
5596 <a href="http://www.bitcoinwatch.com/">BitcoinWatch</a> to keep an eye
5597 on the current exchange rates.</p>
5598
5599 <p>As an experiment, I have decided to set up bitcoind on one of my
5600 machines.  If you want to support my activity, please send Bitcoin
5601 donations to the address
5602 <b>15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</b>.  Thank you!</p>
5603
5604       </div>
5605       <div class="tags">
5606
5607
5608         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>.
5609
5610
5611       </div>
5612     </div>
5613     <div class="padding"></div>
5614
5615     <div class="entry">
5616       <div class="title">
5617         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_isn_t_Debian_Edu_using_VLC_.html">Why isn't Debian Edu using VLC?</a>
5618       </div>
5619       <div class="date">
5620         27th November 2010
5621       </div>
5622       <div class="body">
5623         <p>In the latest issue of Linux Journal, the readers choices were
5624 presented, and the winner among the multimedia player were VLC.
5625 Personally, I like VLC, and it is my player of choice when I first try
5626 to play a video file or stream.  Only if VLC fail will I drag out
5627 gmplayer to see if it can do better.  The reason is mostly the failure
5628 model and trust.  When VLC fail, it normally pop up a error message
5629 reporting the problem.  When mplayer fail, it normally segfault or
5630 just hangs.  The latter failure mode drain my trust in the program.<p>
5631
5632 <p>But even if VLC is my player of choice, we have choosen to use
5633 mplayer in <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
5634 Edu/Skolelinux</a>.  The reason is simple.  We need a good browser
5635 plugin to play web videos seamlessly, and the VLC browser plugin is
5636 not very good.  For example, it lack in-line control buttons, so there
5637 is no way for the user to pause the video.  Also, when I
5638 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">last
5639 tested the browser plugins</a> available in Debian, the VLC plugin
5640 failed on several video pages where mplayer based plugins worked.  If
5641 the browser plugin for VLC was as good as the gecko-mediaplayer
5642 package (which uses mplayer), we would switch.</P>
5643
5644 <p>While VLC is a good player, its user interface is slightly
5645 annoying.  The most annoying feature is its inconsistent use of
5646 keyboard shortcuts.  When the player is in full screen mode, its
5647 shortcuts are different from when it is playing the video in a window.
5648 For example, space only work as pause when in full screen mode.  I
5649 wish it had consisten shortcuts and that space also would work when in
5650 window mode.  Another nice shortcut in gmplayer is [enter] to restart
5651 the current video.  It is very nice when playing short videos from the
5652 web and want to restart it when new people arrive to have a look at
5653 what is going on.</p>
5654
5655       </div>
5656       <div class="tags">
5657
5658
5659         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>.
5660
5661
5662       </div>
5663     </div>
5664     <div class="padding"></div>
5665
5666     <div class="entry">
5667       <div class="title">
5668         <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>
5669       </div>
5670       <div class="date">
5671         22nd November 2010
5672       </div>
5673       <div class="body">
5674         <p>Michael Biebl suggested to me on IRC, that I changed my automated
5675 upgrade testing of the
5676 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
5677 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a> to do <tt>apt-get autoremove</tt> when using apt-get.
5678 This seem like a very good idea, so I adjusted by test scripts and
5679 can now present the updated result from today:</p>
5680
5681 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
5682
5683 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
5684
5685 <blockquote><p>
5686   apache2.2-bin
5687   aptdaemon
5688   baobab
5689   binfmt-support
5690   browser-plugin-gnash
5691   cheese-common
5692   cli-common
5693   cups-pk-helper
5694   dmz-cursor-theme
5695   empathy
5696   empathy-common
5697   freedesktop-sound-theme
5698   freeglut3
5699   gconf-defaults-service
5700   gdm-themes
5701   gedit-plugins
5702   geoclue
5703   geoclue-hostip
5704   geoclue-localnet
5705   geoclue-manual
5706   geoclue-yahoo
5707   gnash
5708   gnash-common
5709   gnome
5710   gnome-backgrounds
5711   gnome-cards-data
5712   gnome-codec-install
5713   gnome-core
5714   gnome-desktop-environment
5715   gnome-disk-utility
5716   gnome-screenshot
5717   gnome-search-tool
5718   gnome-session-canberra
5719   gnome-system-log
5720   gnome-themes-extras
5721   gnome-themes-more
5722   gnome-user-share
5723   gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
5724   gstreamer0.10-tools
5725   gtk2-engines
5726   gtk2-engines-pixbuf
5727   gtk2-engines-smooth
5728   hamster-applet
5729   libapache2-mod-dnssd
5730   libapr1
5731   libaprutil1
5732   libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3
5733   libaprutil1-ldap
5734   libart2.0-cil
5735   libboost-date-time1.42.0
5736   libboost-python1.42.0
5737   libboost-thread1.42.0
5738   libchamplain-0.4-0
5739   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0
5740   libcheese-gtk18
5741   libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
5742   libcryptui0
5743   libdiscid0
5744   libelf1
5745   libepc-1.0-2
5746   libepc-common
5747   libepc-ui-1.0-2
5748   libfreerdp-plugins-standard
5749   libfreerdp0
5750   libgconf2.0-cil
5751   libgdata-common
5752   libgdata7
5753   libgdu-gtk0
5754   libgee2
5755   libgeoclue0
5756   libgexiv2-0
5757   libgif4
5758   libglade2.0-cil
5759   libglib2.0-cil
5760   libgmime2.4-cil
5761   libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
5762   libgnome2.24-cil
5763   libgnomepanel2.24-cil
5764   libgpod-common
5765   libgpod4
5766   libgtk2.0-cil
5767   libgtkglext1
5768   libgtksourceview2.0-common
5769   libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
5770   libmono-addins0.2-cil
5771   libmono-cairo2.0-cil
5772   libmono-corlib2.0-cil
5773   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil
5774   libmono-posix2.0-cil
5775   libmono-security2.0-cil
5776   libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
5777   libmono-system2.0-cil
5778   libmtp8
5779   libmusicbrainz3-6
5780   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil
5781   libndesk-dbus1.0-cil
5782   libopal3.6.8
5783   libpolkit-gtk-1-0
5784   libpt2.6.7
5785   libpython2.6
5786   librpm1
5787   librpmio1
5788   libsdl1.2debian
5789   libsrtp0
5790   libssh-4
5791   libtelepathy-farsight0
5792   libtelepathy-glib0
5793   libtidy-0.99-0
5794   media-player-info
5795   mesa-utils
5796   mono-2.0-gac
5797   mono-gac
5798   mono-runtime
5799   nautilus-sendto
5800   nautilus-sendto-empathy
5801   p7zip-full
5802   pkg-config
5803   python-aptdaemon
5804   python-aptdaemon-gtk
5805   python-axiom
5806   python-beautifulsoup
5807   python-bugbuddy
5808   python-clientform
5809   python-coherence
5810   python-configobj
5811   python-crypto
5812   python-cupshelpers
5813   python-elementtree
5814   python-epsilon
5815   python-evolution
5816   python-feedparser
5817   python-gdata
5818   python-gdbm
5819   python-gst0.10
5820   python-gtkglext1
5821   python-gtksourceview2
5822   python-httplib2
5823   python-louie
5824   python-mako
5825   python-markupsafe
5826   python-mechanize
5827   python-nevow
5828   python-notify
5829   python-opengl
5830   python-openssl
5831   python-pam
5832   python-pkg-resources
5833   python-pyasn1
5834   python-pysqlite2
5835   python-rdflib
5836   python-serial
5837   python-tagpy
5838   python-twisted-bin
5839   python-twisted-conch
5840   python-twisted-core
5841   python-twisted-web
5842   python-utidylib
5843   python-webkit
5844   python-xdg
5845   python-zope.interface
5846   remmina
5847   remmina-plugin-data
5848   remmina-plugin-rdp
5849   remmina-plugin-vnc
5850   rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
5851   rhythmbox-plugins
5852   rpm-common
5853   rpm2cpio
5854   seahorse-plugins
5855   shotwell
5856   software-center
5857   system-config-printer-udev
5858   telepathy-gabble
5859   telepathy-mission-control-5
5860   telepathy-salut
5861   tomboy
5862   totem
5863   totem-coherence
5864   totem-mozilla
5865   totem-plugins
5866   transmission-common
5867   xdg-user-dirs
5868   xdg-user-dirs-gtk
5869   xserver-xephyr
5870 </p></blockquote>
5871
5872 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
5873
5874 <blockquote><p>
5875   cheese
5876   ekiga
5877   eog
5878   epiphany-extensions
5879   evolution-exchange
5880   fast-user-switch-applet
5881   file-roller
5882   gcalctool
5883   gconf-editor
5884   gdm
5885   gedit
5886   gedit-common
5887   gnome-games
5888   gnome-games-data
5889   gnome-nettool
5890   gnome-system-tools
5891   gnome-themes
5892   gnuchess
5893   gucharmap
5894   guile-1.8-libs
5895   libavahi-ui0
5896   libdmx1
5897   libgalago3
5898   libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
5899   libgtksourceview2.0-0
5900   liblircclient0
5901   libsdl1.2debian-alsa
5902   libspeexdsp1
5903   libsvga1
5904   rhythmbox
5905   seahorse
5906   sound-juicer
5907   system-config-printer
5908   totem-common
5909   transmission-gtk
5910   vinagre
5911   vino
5912 </p></blockquote>
5913
5914 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
5915
5916 <blockquote><p>
5917   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
5918 </p></blockquote>
5919
5920 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
5921
5922 <blockquote><p>
5923 [nothing]
5924 </p></blockquote>
5925
5926 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
5927
5928 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
5929
5930 <blockquote><p>
5931   ksmserver
5932 </p></blockquote>
5933
5934 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
5935
5936 <blockquote><p>
5937   kwin
5938   network-manager-kde
5939 </p></blockquote>
5940
5941 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
5942
5943 <blockquote><p>
5944   arts
5945   dolphin
5946   freespacenotifier
5947   google-gadgets-gst
5948   google-gadgets-xul
5949   kappfinder
5950   kcalc
5951   kcharselect
5952   kde-core
5953   kde-plasma-desktop
5954   kde-standard
5955   kde-window-manager
5956   kdeartwork
5957   kdeartwork-emoticons
5958   kdeartwork-style
5959   kdeartwork-theme-icon
5960   kdebase
5961   kdebase-apps
5962   kdebase-workspace
5963   kdebase-workspace-bin
5964   kdebase-workspace-data
5965   kdeeject
5966   kdelibs
5967   kdeplasma-addons
5968   kdeutils
5969   kdewallpapers
5970   kdf
5971   kfloppy
5972   kgpg
5973   khelpcenter4
5974   kinfocenter
5975   konq-plugins-l10n
5976   konqueror-nsplugins
5977   kscreensaver
5978   kscreensaver-xsavers
5979   ktimer
5980   kwrite
5981   libgle3
5982   libkde4-ruby1.8
5983   libkonq5
5984   libkonq5-templates
5985   libnetpbm10
5986   libplasma-ruby
5987   libplasma-ruby1.8
5988   libqt4-ruby1.8
5989   marble-data
5990   marble-plugins
5991   netpbm
5992   nuvola-icon-theme
5993   plasma-dataengines-workspace
5994   plasma-desktop
5995   plasma-desktopthemes-artwork
5996   plasma-runners-addons
5997   plasma-scriptengine-googlegadgets
5998   plasma-scriptengine-python
5999   plasma-scriptengine-qedje
6000   plasma-scriptengine-ruby
6001   plasma-scriptengine-webkit
6002   plasma-scriptengines
6003   plasma-wallpapers-addons
6004   plasma-widget-folderview
6005   plasma-widget-networkmanagement
6006   ruby
6007   sweeper
6008   update-notifier-kde
6009   xscreensaver-data-extra
6010   xscreensaver-gl
6011   xscreensaver-gl-extra
6012   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
6013 </p></blockquote>
6014
6015 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
6016
6017 <blockquote><p>
6018   ark
6019   google-gadgets-common
6020   google-gadgets-qt
6021   htdig
6022   kate
6023   kdebase-bin
6024   kdebase-data
6025   kdepasswd
6026   kfind
6027   klipper
6028   konq-plugins
6029   konqueror
6030   ksysguard
6031   ksysguardd
6032   libarchive1
6033   libcln6
6034   libeet1
6035   libeina-svn-06
6036   libggadget-1.0-0b
6037   libggadget-qt-1.0-0b
6038   libgps19
6039   libkdecorations4
6040   libkephal4
6041   libkonq4
6042   libkonqsidebarplugin4a
6043   libkscreensaver5
6044   libksgrd4
6045   libksignalplotter4
6046   libkunitconversion4
6047   libkwineffects1a
6048   libmarblewidget4
6049   libntrack-qt4-1
6050   libntrack0
6051   libplasma-geolocation-interface4
6052   libplasmaclock4a
6053   libplasmagenericshell4
6054   libprocesscore4a
6055   libprocessui4a
6056   libqalculate5
6057   libqedje0a
6058   libqtruby4shared2
6059   libqzion0a
6060   libruby1.8
6061   libscim8c2a
6062   libsmokekdecore4-3
6063   libsmokekdeui4-3
6064   libsmokekfile3
6065   libsmokekhtml3
6066   libsmokekio3
6067   libsmokeknewstuff2-3
6068   libsmokeknewstuff3-3
6069   libsmokekparts3
6070   libsmokektexteditor3
6071   libsmokekutils3
6072   libsmokenepomuk3
6073   libsmokephonon3
6074   libsmokeplasma3
6075   libsmokeqtcore4-3
6076   libsmokeqtdbus4-3
6077   libsmokeqtgui4-3
6078   libsmokeqtnetwork4-3
6079   libsmokeqtopengl4-3
6080   libsmokeqtscript4-3
6081   libsmokeqtsql4-3
6082   libsmokeqtsvg4-3
6083   libsmokeqttest4-3
6084   libsmokeqtuitools4-3
6085   libsmokeqtwebkit4-3
6086   libsmokeqtxml4-3
6087   libsmokesolid3
6088   libsmokesoprano3
6089   libtaskmanager4a
6090   libtidy-0.99-0
6091   libweather-ion4a
6092   libxklavier16
6093   libxxf86misc1
6094   okteta
6095   oxygencursors
6096   plasma-dataengines-addons
6097   plasma-scriptengine-superkaramba
6098   plasma-widget-lancelot
6099   plasma-widgets-addons
6100   plasma-widgets-workspace
6101   polkit-kde-1
6102   ruby1.8
6103   systemsettings
6104   update-notifier-common
6105 </p></blockquote>
6106
6107 <p>Running apt-get autoremove made the results using apt-get and
6108 aptitude a bit more similar, but there are still quite a lott of
6109 differences.  I have no idea what packages should be installed after
6110 the upgrade, but hope those that do can have a look.</p>
6111
6112       </div>
6113       <div class="tags">
6114
6115
6116         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>.
6117
6118
6119       </div>
6120     </div>
6121     <div class="padding"></div>
6122
6123     <div class="entry">
6124       <div class="title">
6125         <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>
6126       </div>
6127       <div class="date">
6128         22nd November 2010
6129       </div>
6130       <div class="body">
6131         <p>Most of the computers in use by the
6132 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux project</a>
6133 are virtual machines.  And they have been Xen machines running on a
6134 fairly old IBM eserver xseries 345 machine, and we wanted to migrate
6135 them to KVM on a newer Dell PowerEdge 2950 host machine.  This was a
6136 bit harder that it could have been, because we set up the Xen virtual
6137 machines to get the virtual partitions from LVM, which as far as I
6138 know is not supported by KVM.  So to migrate, we had to convert
6139 several LVM logical volumes to partitions on a virtual disk file.</p>
6140
6141 <p>I found
6142 <a href="http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM">a
6143 nice recipe</a> to do this, and wrote the following script to do the
6144 migration.  It uses qemu-img from the qemu package to make the disk
6145 image, parted to partition it, losetup and kpartx to present the disk
6146 image partions as devices, and dd to copy the data.  I NFS mounted the
6147 new servers storage area on the old server to do the migration.</p>
6148
6149 <pre>
6150 #!/bin/sh
6151
6152 # Based on
6153 # http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM
6154
6155 set -e
6156 set -x
6157
6158 if [ -z "$1" ] ; then
6159     echo "Usage: $0 &lt;hostname&gt;"
6160     exit 1
6161 else
6162     host="$1"
6163 fi
6164
6165 if [ ! -e /dev/vg_data/$host-disk ] ; then
6166     echo "error: unable to find LVM volume for $host"
6167     exit 1
6168 fi
6169
6170 # Partitions need to be a bit bigger than the LVM LVs.  not sure why.
6171 disksize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-disk | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
6172 swapsize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-swap | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
6173 totalsize=$(( ( $disksize + $swapsize ) ))
6174
6175 img=$host.img
6176 #dd if=/dev/zero of=$img bs=1M count=$(( $disksize + $swapsize ))
6177 qemu-img create $img ${totalsize}MMaking room on the Debian Edu/Sqeeze DVD
6178
6179 parted $img mklabel msdos
6180 parted $img mkpart primary linux-swap 0 $disksize
6181 parted $img mkpart primary ext2 $disksize $totalsize
6182 parted $img set 1 boot on
6183
6184 modprobe dm-mod
6185 losetup /dev/loop0 $img
6186 kpartx -a /dev/loop0
6187
6188 dd if=/dev/vg_data/$host-disk of=/dev/mapper/loop0p1 bs=1M
6189 fsck.ext3 -f /dev/mapper/loop0p1 || true
6190 mkswap /dev/mapper/loop0p2
6191
6192 kpartx -d /dev/loop0
6193 losetup -d /dev/loop0
6194 </pre>
6195
6196 <p>The script is perhaps so simple that it is not copyrightable, but
6197 if it is, it is licenced using GPL v2 or later at your discretion.</p>
6198
6199 <p>After doing this, I booted a Debian CD in rescue mode in KVM with
6200 the new disk image attached, installed grub-pc and linux-image-686 and
6201 set up grub to boot from the disk image.  After this, the KVM machines
6202 seem to work just fine.</p>
6203
6204       </div>
6205       <div class="tags">
6206
6207
6208         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>.
6209
6210
6211       </div>
6212     </div>
6213     <div class="padding"></div>
6214
6215     <div class="entry">
6216       <div class="title">
6217         <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>
6218       </div>
6219       <div class="date">
6220         20th November 2010
6221       </div>
6222       <div class="body">
6223         <p>I'm still running upgrade testing of the
6224 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
6225 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a>, but have not had time to spend on reporting the
6226 status.  Here is a short update based on a test I ran 20101118.</p>
6227
6228 <p>I still do not know what a correct migration should look like, so I
6229 report any differences between apt and aptitude and hope someone else
6230 can see if anything should be changed.</p>
6231
6232 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
6233
6234 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
6235
6236 <blockquote><p>
6237   apache2.2-bin aptdaemon at-spi baobab binfmt-support
6238   browser-plugin-gnash cheese-common cli-common cpp-4.3 cups-pk-helper
6239   dmz-cursor-theme empathy empathy-common finger
6240   freedesktop-sound-theme freeglut3 gconf-defaults-service gdm-themes
6241   gedit-plugins geoclue geoclue-hostip geoclue-localnet geoclue-manual
6242   geoclue-yahoo gnash gnash-common gnome gnome-backgrounds
6243   gnome-cards-data gnome-codec-install gnome-core
6244   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-disk-utility gnome-screenshot
6245   gnome-search-tool gnome-session-canberra gnome-spell
6246   gnome-system-log gnome-themes-extras gnome-themes-more
6247   gnome-user-share gs-common gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
6248   gstreamer0.10-tools gtk2-engines gtk2-engines-pixbuf
6249   gtk2-engines-smooth hal-info hamster-applet libapache2-mod-dnssd
6250   libapr1 libaprutil1 libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3 libaprutil1-ldap
6251   libart2.0-cil libatspi1.0-0 libboost-date-time1.42.0
6252   libboost-python1.42.0 libboost-thread1.42.0 libchamplain-0.4-0
6253   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0 libcheese-gtk18 libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
6254   libcryptui0 libcupsys2 libdiscid0 libeel2-data libelf1 libepc-1.0-2
6255   libepc-common libepc-ui-1.0-2 libfreerdp-plugins-standard
6256   libfreerdp0 libgail-common libgconf2.0-cil libgdata-common libgdata7
6257   libgdl-1-common libgdu-gtk0 libgee2 libgeoclue0 libgexiv2-0 libgif4
6258   libglade2.0-cil libglib2.0-cil libgmime2.4-cil libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
6259   libgnome2.24-cil libgnomepanel2.24-cil libgnomeprint2.2-data
6260   libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod-common libgpod4
6261   libgtk2.0-cil libgtkglext1 libgtksourceview-common
6262   libgtksourceview2.0-common libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
6263   libmono-addins0.2-cil libmono-cairo2.0-cil libmono-corlib2.0-cil
6264   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil libmono-posix2.0-cil
6265   libmono-security2.0-cil libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
6266   libmono-system2.0-cil libmtp8 libmusicbrainz3-6
6267   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil libndesk-dbus1.0-cil libopal3.6.8
6268   libpolkit-gtk-1-0 libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
6269   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libpt2.6.7 libpython2.6 librpm1 librpmio1
6270   libsdl1.2debian libservlet2.4-java libsrtp0 libssh-4
6271   libtelepathy-farsight0 libtelepathy-glib0 libtidy-0.99-0
6272   libxalan2-java libxerces2-java media-player-info mesa-utils
6273   mono-2.0-gac mono-gac mono-runtime nautilus-sendto
6274   nautilus-sendto-empathy openoffice.org-writer2latex
6275   openssl-blacklist p7zip p7zip-full pkg-config python-4suite-xml
6276   python-aptdaemon python-aptdaemon-gtk python-axiom
6277   python-beautifulsoup python-bugbuddy python-clientform
6278   python-coherence python-configobj python-crypto python-cupshelpers
6279   python-cupsutils python-eggtrayicon python-elementtree
6280   python-epsilon python-evolution python-feedparser python-gdata
6281   python-gdbm python-gst0.10 python-gtkglext1 python-gtkmozembed
6282   python-gtksourceview2 python-httplib2 python-louie python-mako
6283   python-markupsafe python-mechanize python-nevow python-notify
6284   python-opengl python-openssl python-pam python-pkg-resources
6285   python-pyasn1 python-pysqlite2 python-rdflib python-serial
6286   python-tagpy python-twisted-bin python-twisted-conch
6287   python-twisted-core python-twisted-web python-utidylib python-webkit
6288   python-xdg python-zope.interface remmina remmina-plugin-data
6289   remmina-plugin-rdp remmina-plugin-vnc rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
6290   rhythmbox-plugins rpm-common rpm2cpio seahorse-plugins shotwell
6291   software-center svgalibg1 system-config-printer-udev
6292   telepathy-gabble telepathy-mission-control-5 telepathy-salut tomboy
6293   totem totem-coherence totem-mozilla totem-plugins
6294   transmission-common xdg-user-dirs xdg-user-dirs-gtk xserver-xephyr
6295   zip
6296 </p></blockquote>
6297
6298 Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude
6299
6300 <blockquote><p>
6301   arj bluez-utils cheese dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop ekiga eog
6302   epiphany-extensions epiphany-gecko evolution-exchange
6303   fast-user-switch-applet file-roller gcalctool gconf-editor gdm gedit
6304   gedit-common gnome-app-install gnome-games gnome-games-data
6305   gnome-nettool gnome-system-tools gnome-themes gnome-utils
6306   gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager gnuchess gucharmap
6307   guile-1.8-libs hal libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5
6308   libavahi-ui0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7
6309   libcucul0 libcurl3 libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdmx1 libdvdread3
6310   libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1
6311   libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3 libfaad0 libgadu3
6312   libgalago3 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
6313   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
6314   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
6315   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
6316   libgtkhtml2-0 libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgtksourceview2.0-0
6317   libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
6318   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libkpathsea4 liblircclient0 libltdl3 liblwres50
6319   libmagick++10 libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmozjs1d libmpfr1ldbl libmtp7
6320   libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0
6321   libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpisock9
6322   libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8
6323   libsdl1.2debian-alsa libsensors3 libsexy2 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
6324   libspeexdsp1 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libsvga1
6325   libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0
6326   libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12
6327   libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common rhythmbox seahorse
6328   sound-juicer swfdec-gnome system-config-printer totem-common
6329   totem-gstreamer transmission-gtk vinagre vino w3c-dtd-xhtml wodim
6330 </p></blockquote>
6331
6332 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
6333
6334 <blockquote><p>
6335   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
6336 </p></blockquote>
6337
6338 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
6339
6340 <blockquote><p>
6341 [nothing]
6342 </p></blockquote>
6343
6344 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
6345
6346 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
6347
6348 <blockquote><p>
6349   autopoint bomber bovo cantor cantor-backend-kalgebra cpp-4.3 dcoprss
6350   edict espeak espeak-data eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
6351   ghostscript-x git gnome-audio gnugo granatier gs-common
6352   gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio indi kaddressbook-plugins kalgebra
6353   kalzium-data kanjidic kapman kate-plugins kblocks kbreakout kbstate
6354   kde-icons-mono kdeaccessibility kdeaddons-kfile-plugins
6355   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
6356   kdeedu kdeedu-data kdeedu-kvtml-data kdegames kdegames-card-data
6357   kdegames-mahjongg-data kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc
6358   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
6359   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdessh kdetoys kdewebdev
6360   kdiamond kdnssd kfilereplace kfourinline kgeography-data kigo
6361   killbots kiriki klettres-data kmoon kmrml knewsticker-scripts
6362   kollision kpf krosspython ksirk ksmserver ksquares kstars-data
6363   ksudoku kubrick kweather libasound2-plugins libboost-python1.42.0
6364   libcfitsio3 libconvert-binhex-perl libcrypt-ssleay-perl libdb4.6++
6365   libdjvulibre-text libdotconf1.0 liberror-perl libespeak1
6366   libfinance-quote-perl libgail-common libgsl0ldbl libhtml-parser-perl
6367   libhtml-tableextract-perl libhtml-tagset-perl libhtml-tree-perl
6368   libio-stringy-perl libkdeedu4 libkdegames5 libkiten4 libkpathsea5
6369   libkrossui4 libmailtools-perl libmime-tools-perl
6370   libnews-nntpclient-perl libopenbabel3 libportaudio2 libpulse-browse0
6371   libservlet2.4-java libspeechd2 libtiff-tools libtimedate-perl
6372   libunistring0 liburi-perl libwww-perl libxalan2-java libxerces2-java
6373   lirc luatex marble networkstatus noatun-plugins
6374   openoffice.org-writer2latex palapeli palapeli-data parley
6375   parley-data poster psutils pulseaudio pulseaudio-esound-compat
6376   pulseaudio-module-x11 pulseaudio-utils quanta-data rocs rsync
6377   speech-dispatcher step svgalibg1 texlive-binaries texlive-luatex
6378   ttf-sazanami-gothic
6379 </p></blockquote>
6380
6381 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
6382
6383 <blockquote><p>
6384   amor artsbuilder atlantik atlantikdesigner blinken bluez-utils cvs
6385   dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop imlib-base imlib11 kalzium kanagram kandy
6386   kasteroids katomic kbackgammon kbattleship kblackbox kbounce kbruch
6387   kcron kdat kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data kdeprint kdict kdvi kedit
6388   keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs kgeography kghostview
6389   kgoldrunner khangman khexedit kiconedit kig kimagemapeditor
6390   kitchensync kiten kjumpingcube klatin klettres klickety klines
6391   klinkstatus kmag kmahjongg kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmines
6392   kmousetool kmouth kmplot knetwalk kodo kolf kommander konquest kooka
6393   kpager kpat kpdf kpercentage kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler krec
6394   kregexpeditor kreversi ksame ksayit kshisen ksig ksim ksirc ksirtet
6395   ksmiletris ksnake ksokoban kspaceduel kstars ksvg ksysv kteatime
6396   ktip ktnef ktouch ktron kttsd ktuberling kturtle ktux kuickshow
6397   kverbos kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kwordquiz
6398   kworldclock kxsldbg libakode2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
6399   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
6400   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2
6401   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0
6402   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
6403   libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0 libicu38
6404   libiec61883-0 libindex0 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
6405   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1 libkdeedu3
6406   libkdegames1 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
6407   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
6408   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick10
6409   libmimelib1c2a libmodplug0c2 libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libmpfr1ldbl
6410   libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9 libpoppler-glib3
6411   libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 librss1 libsensors3
6412   libsmbios2 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90
6413   libtalloc1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 lskat
6414   mpeglib network-manager-kde noatun pmount tex-common texlive-base
6415   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended tidy
6416   ttf-dustin ttf-kochi-gothic ttf-sjfonts
6417 </p></blockquote>
6418
6419 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
6420
6421 <blockquote><p>
6422   dolphin kde-core kde-plasma-desktop kde-standard kde-window-manager
6423   kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-apps kdebase-workspace
6424   kdebase-workspace-bin kdebase-workspace-data kdeutils kscreensaver
6425   kscreensaver-xsavers libgle3 libkonq5 libkonq5-templates libnetpbm10
6426   netpbm plasma-widget-folderview plasma-widget-networkmanagement
6427   xscreensaver-data-extra xscreensaver-gl xscreensaver-gl-extra
6428   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
6429 </p></blockquote>
6430
6431 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
6432
6433 <blockquote><p>
6434   kdebase-bin konq-plugins konqueror
6435 </p></blockquote>
6436
6437       </div>
6438       <div class="tags">
6439
6440
6441         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>.
6442
6443
6444       </div>
6445     </div>
6446     <div class="padding"></div>
6447
6448     <div class="entry">
6449       <div class="title">
6450         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gnash_buildbot_slave_and_Debian_kfreebsd.html">Gnash buildbot slave and Debian kfreebsd</a>
6451       </div>
6452       <div class="date">
6453         20th November 2010
6454       </div>
6455       <div class="body">
6456         <p>Answering
6457 <a href="http://www.listware.net/201011/gnash-dev/67431-gnash-dev-buildbot-looking-for-slaves.html">the
6458 call from the Gnash project</a> for
6459 <a href="http://www.gnashdev.org:8010">buildbot</a> slaves to test the
6460 current source, I have set up a virtual KVM machine on the Debian
6461 Edu/Skolelinux virtualization host to test the git source on
6462 Debian/Squeeze.  I hope this can help the developers in getting new
6463 releases out more often.</p>
6464
6465 <p>As the developers want less main-stream build platforms tested to,
6466 I have considered setting up a <a
6467 href="http://www.debian.org/ports/kfreebsd-gnu/">Debian/kfreebsd</a>
6468 machine as well.  I have also considered using the kfreebsd
6469 architecture in Debian as a file server in NUUG to get access to the 5
6470 TB zfs volume we currently use to store DV video.  Because of this, I
6471 finally got around to do a test installation of Debian/Squeeze with
6472 kfreebsd.  Installation went fairly smooth, thought I noticed some
6473 visual glitches in the cdebconf dialogs (black cursor left on the
6474 screen at random locations).  Have not gotten very far with the
6475 testing.  Noticed cfdisk did not work, but fdisk did so it was not a
6476 fatal problem.  Have to spend some more time on it to see if it is
6477 useful as a file server for NUUG.  Will try to find time to set up a
6478 gnash buildbot slave on the Debian Edu/Skolelinux this weekend.</p>
6479
6480       </div>
6481       <div class="tags">
6482
6483
6484         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>.
6485
6486
6487       </div>
6488     </div>
6489     <div class="padding"></div>
6490
6491     <div class="entry">
6492       <div class="title">
6493         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_in_3D.html">Debian in 3D</a>
6494       </div>
6495       <div class="date">
6496          9th November 2010
6497       </div>
6498       <div class="body">
6499         <p><img src="http://thingiverse-production.s3.amazonaws.com/renders/23/e0/c4/f9/2b/debswagtdose_preview_medium.jpg"></p>
6500
6501 <p>3D printing is just great.  I just came across this Debian logo in
6502 3D linked in from
6503 <a href="http://blog.thingiverse.com/2010/11/09/participatory-branding/">the
6504 thingiverse blog</a>.</p>
6505
6506       </div>
6507       <div class="tags">
6508
6509
6510         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>.
6511
6512
6513       </div>
6514     </div>
6515     <div class="padding"></div>
6516
6517     <div class="entry">
6518       <div class="title">
6519         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Software_updates_2010_10_24.html">Software updates 2010-10-24</a>
6520       </div>
6521       <div class="date">
6522         24th October 2010
6523       </div>
6524       <div class="body">
6525         <p>Some updates.</p>
6526
6527 <p>My <a href="http://pledgebank.com/gnash-avm2">gnash pledge</a> to
6528 raise money for the project is going well.  The lower limit of 10
6529 signers was reached in 24 hours, and so far 13 people have signed it.
6530 More signers and more funding is most welcome, and I am really curious
6531 how far we can get before the time limit of December 24 is reached.
6532 :)</p>
6533
6534 <p>On the #gnash IRC channel on irc.freenode.net, I was just tipped
6535 about what appear to be a great code coverage tool capable of
6536 generating code coverage stats without any changes to the source code.
6537 It is called
6538 <a href="http://simonkagstrom.github.com/kcov/index.html">kcov</a>,
6539 and can be used using <tt>kcov &lt;directory&gt; &lt;binary&gt;</tt>.
6540 It is missing in Debian, but the git source built just fine in Squeeze
6541 after I installed libelf-dev, libdwarf-dev, pkg-config and
6542 libglib2.0-dev.  Failed to build in Lenny, but suspect that is
6543 solvable.  I hope kcov make it into Debian soon.</p>
6544
6545 <p>Finally found time to wrap up the release notes for <a
6546 href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2010/10/msg00002.html">a
6547 new alpha release of Debian Edu</a>, and just published the second
6548 alpha test release of the Squeeze based Debian Edu /
6549 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a>
6550 release.  Give it a try if you need a complete linux solution for your
6551 school, including central infrastructure server, workstations, thin
6552 client servers and diskless workstations.  A nice touch added
6553 yesterday is RDP support on the thin client servers, for windows
6554 clients to get a Linux desktop on request.</p>
6555
6556       </div>
6557       <div class="tags">
6558
6559
6560         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>.
6561
6562
6563       </div>
6564     </div>
6565     <div class="padding"></div>
6566
6567     <div class="entry">
6568       <div class="title">
6569         <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>
6570       </div>
6571       <div class="date">
6572          4th September 2010
6573       </div>
6574       <div class="body">
6575         <p>In the <a href="http://popcon.debian.org/unknown/by_vote">Debian
6576 popularity-contest numbers</a>, the adobe-flashplugin package the
6577 second most popular used package that is missing in Debian.  The sixth
6578 most popular is flashplayer-mozilla.  This is a clear indication that
6579 working flash is important for Debian users.  Around 10 percent of the
6580 users submitting data to popcon.debian.org have this package
6581 installed.</p>
6582
6583 <p>In the report written by Lars Risan in August 2008
6584 («<a href="http://wiki.skolelinux.no/Dokumentasjon/Rapporter?action=AttachFile&do=view&target=Skolelinux_i_bruk_rapport_1.0.pdf">Skolelinux
6585 i bruk – Rapport for Hurum kommune, Universitetet i Agder og
6586 stiftelsen SLX Debian Labs</a>»), one of the most important problems
6587 schools experienced with <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
6588 Edu/Skolelinux</a> was the lack of working Flash.  A lot of educational
6589 web sites require Flash to work, and lacking working Flash support in
6590 the web browser and the problems with installing it was perceived as a
6591 good reason to stay with Windows.</p>
6592
6593 <p>I once saw a funny and sad comment in a web forum, where Linux was
6594 said to be the retarded cousin that did not really understand
6595 everything you told him but could work fairly well.  This was a
6596 comment regarding the problems Linux have with proprietary formats and
6597 non-standard web pages, and is sad because it exposes a fairly common
6598 understanding of whose fault it is if web pages that only work in for
6599 example Internet Explorer 6 fail to work on Firefox, and funny because
6600 it explain very well how annoying it is for users when Linux
6601 distributions do not work with the documents they receive or the web
6602 pages they want to visit.</p>
6603
6604 <p>This is part of the reason why I believe it is important for Debian
6605 and Debian Edu to have a well working Flash implementation in the
6606 distribution, to get at least popular sites as Youtube and Google
6607 Video to working out of the box.  For Squeeze, Debian have the chance
6608 to include the latest version of Gnash that will make this happen, as
6609 the new release 0.8.8 was published a few weeks ago and is resting in
6610 unstable.  The new version work with more sites that version 0.8.7.
6611 The Gnash maintainers have asked for a freeze exception, but the
6612 release team have not had time to reply to it yet.  I hope they agree
6613 with me that Flash is important for the Debian desktop users, and thus
6614 accept the new package into Squeeze.</p>
6615
6616       </div>
6617       <div class="tags">
6618
6619
6620         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>.
6621
6622
6623       </div>
6624     </div>
6625     <div class="padding"></div>
6626
6627     <div class="entry">
6628       <div class="title">
6629         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Circular_package_dependencies_harms_apt_recovery.html">Circular package dependencies harms apt recovery</a>
6630       </div>
6631       <div class="date">
6632         27th July 2010
6633       </div>
6634       <div class="body">
6635         <p>I discovered this while doing
6636 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">automated
6637 testing of upgrades from Debian Lenny to Squeeze</a>.  A few packages
6638 in Debian still got circular dependencies, and it is often claimed
6639 that apt and aptitude should be able to handle this just fine, but
6640 some times these dependency loops causes apt to fail.</p>
6641
6642 <p>An example is from todays
6643 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing//test-20100727-lenny-squeeze-kde-aptitude.txt">upgrade
6644 of KDE using aptitude</a>.  In it, a bug in kdebase-workspace-data
6645 causes perl-modules to fail to upgrade.  The cause is simple.  If a
6646 package fail to unpack, then only part of packages with the circular
6647 dependency might end up being unpacked when unpacking aborts, and the
6648 ones already unpacked will fail to configure in the recovery phase
6649 because its dependencies are unavailable.</p>
6650
6651 <p>In this log, the problem manifest itself with this error:</p>
6652
6653 <blockquote><pre>
6654 dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of perl-modules:
6655  perl-modules depends on perl (>= 5.10.1-1); however:
6656   Version of perl on system is 5.10.0-19lenny2.
6657 dpkg: error processing perl-modules (--configure):
6658  dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
6659 </pre></blockquote>
6660
6661 <p>The perl/perl-modules circular dependency is already
6662 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/527917">reported as a bug</a>, and will
6663 hopefully be solved as soon as possible, but it is not the only one,
6664 and each one of these loops in the dependency tree can cause similar
6665 failures.  Of course, they only occur when there are bugs in other
6666 packages causing the unpacking to fail, but it is rather nasty when
6667 the failure of one package causes the problem to become worse because
6668 of dependency loops.</p>
6669
6670 <p>Thanks to
6671 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/06/msg00116.html">the
6672 tireless effort by Bill Allombert</a>, the number of circular
6673 dependencies
6674 <a href="http://debian.semistable.com/debgraph.out.html">left in Debian
6675 is dropping</a>, and perhaps it will reach zero one day. :)</p>
6676
6677 <p>Todays testing also exposed a bug in
6678 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590605">update-notifier</a> and
6679 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590604">different behaviour</a> between
6680 apt-get and aptitude, the latter possibly caused by some circular
6681 dependency.  Reported both to BTS to try to get someone to look at
6682 it.</p>
6683
6684       </div>
6685       <div class="tags">
6686
6687
6688         Tags: <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>.
6689
6690
6691       </div>
6692     </div>
6693     <div class="padding"></div>
6694
6695     <div class="entry">
6696       <div class="title">
6697         <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>
6698       </div>
6699       <div class="date">
6700         17th July 2010
6701       </div>
6702       <div class="body">
6703         <p>This is a
6704 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">followup</a>
6705 on my
6706 <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
6707 work</a> on
6708 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">merging
6709 all</a> the computer related LDAP objects in Debian Edu.</p>
6710
6711 <p>As a step to try to see if it possible to merge the DNS and DHCP
6712 LDAP objects, I have had a look at how the packages pdns-backend-ldap
6713 and dhcp3-server-ldap in Debian use the LDAP server.  The two
6714 implementations are quite different in how they use LDAP.</p>
6715
6716 To get this information, I started slapd with debugging enabled and
6717 dumped the debug output to a file to get the LDAP searches performed
6718 on a Debian Edu main-server.  Here is a summary.
6719
6720 <p><strong>powerdns</strong></p>
6721
6722 <a href="http://www.linuxnetworks.de/doc/index.php/PowerDNS_LDAP_Backend">Clues
6723 on how to</a> set up PowerDNS to use a LDAP backend is available on
6724 the web.
6725
6726 <p>PowerDNS have two modes of operation using LDAP as its backend.
6727 One "strict" mode where the forward and reverse DNS lookups are done
6728 using the same LDAP objects, and a "tree" mode where the forward and
6729 reverse entries are in two different subtrees in LDAP with a structure
6730 based on the DNS names, as in tjener.intern and
6731 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa.</p>
6732
6733 <p>In tree mode, the server is set up to use a LDAP subtree as its
6734 base, and uses a "base" scoped search for the DNS name by adding
6735 "dc=tjener,dc=intern," to the base with a filter for
6736 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" for the forward entry and
6737 "dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa," with a filter for
6738 "(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)" for the reverse entry.  For
6739 forward entries, it is looking for attributes named dnsttl, arecord,
6740 nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord,
6741 txtrecord, rprecord, afsdbrecord, keyrecord, aaaarecord, locrecord,
6742 srvrecord, naptrrecord, kxrecord, certrecord, dsrecord, sshfprecord,
6743 ipseckeyrecord, rrsigrecord, nsecrecord, dnskeyrecord, dhcidrecord,
6744 spfrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entries it is looking for
6745 the attributes dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord,
6746 ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord,
6747 locrecord, srvrecord, naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  The equivalent
6748 ldapsearch commands could look like this:</p>
6749
6750 <blockquote><pre>
6751 ldapsearch -h ldap \
6752   -b dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
6753   -s base -x '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
6754   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
6755   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
6756   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
6757   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
6758
6759 ldapsearch -h ldap \
6760   -b dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
6761   -s base -x '(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)'
6762   dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord soarecord ptrrecord \
6763   hinforecord mxrecord txtrecord rprecord aaaarecord locrecord \
6764   srvrecord naptrrecord modifytimestamp
6765 </pre></blockquote>
6766
6767 <p>In Debian Edu/Lenny, the PowerDNS tree mode is used with
6768 ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no as the base, and these are two
6769 example LDAP objects used there.  In addition to these objects, the
6770 parent objects all th way up to ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
6771 also exist.</p>
6772
6773 <blockquote><pre>
6774 dn: dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
6775 objectclass: top
6776 objectclass: dnsdomain
6777 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
6778 dc: tjener
6779 arecord: 10.0.2.2
6780 associateddomain: tjener.intern
6781
6782 dn: dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
6783 objectclass: top
6784 objectclass: dnsdomain2
6785 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
6786 dc: 2
6787 ptrrecord: tjener.intern
6788 associateddomain: 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa
6789 </pre></blockquote>
6790
6791 <p>In strict mode, the server behaves differently.  When looking for
6792 forward DNS entries, it is doing a "subtree" scoped search with the
6793 same base as in the tree mode for a object with filter
6794 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" and requests the attributes dnsttl,
6795 arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord,
6796 mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord, locrecord, srvrecord,
6797 naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entires it also do a
6798 subtree scoped search but this time the filter is "(arecord=10.0.2.2)"
6799 and the requested attributes are associateddomain, dnsttl and
6800 modifytimestamp.  In short, in strict mode the objects with ptrrecord
6801 go away, and the arecord attribute in the forward object is used
6802 instead.</p>
6803
6804 <p>The forward and reverse searches can be simulated using ldapsearch
6805 like this:</p>
6806
6807 <blockquote><pre>
6808 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
6809   '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
6810   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
6811   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
6812   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
6813   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
6814
6815 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
6816   '(arecord=10.0.2.2)' associateddomain dnsttl modifytimestamp
6817 </pre></blockquote>
6818
6819 <p>In addition to the forward and reverse searches , there is also a
6820 search for SOA records, which behave similar to the forward and
6821 reverse lookups.</p>
6822
6823 <p>A thing to note with the PowerDNS behaviour is that it do not
6824 specify any objectclass names, and instead look for the attributes it
6825 need to generate a DNS reply.  This make it able to work with any
6826 objectclass that provide the needed attributes.</p>
6827
6828 <p>The attributes are normally provided in the cosine (RFC 1274) and
6829 dnsdomain2 schemas.  The latter is used for reverse entries like
6830 ptrrecord and recent DNS additions like aaaarecord and srvrecord.</p>
6831
6832 <p>In Debian Edu, we have created DNS objects using the object classes
6833 dcobject (for dc), dnsdomain or dnsdomain2 (structural, for the DNS
6834 attributes) and domainrelatedobject (for associatedDomain).  The use
6835 of structural object classes make it impossible to combine these
6836 classes with the object classes used by DHCP.</p>
6837
6838 <p>There are other schemas that could be used too, for example the
6839 dnszone structural object class used by Gosa and bind-sdb for the DNS
6840 attributes combined with the domainrelatedobject object class, but in
6841 this case some unused attributes would have to be included as well
6842 (zonename and relativedomainname).</p>
6843
6844 <p>My proposal for Debian Edu would be to switch PowerDNS to strict
6845 mode and not use any of the existing objectclasses (dnsdomain,
6846 dnsdomain2 and dnszone) when one want to combine the DNS information
6847 with DHCP information, and instead create a auxiliary object class
6848 defined something like this (using the attributes defined for
6849 dnsdomain and dnsdomain2 or dnszone):</p>
6850
6851 <blockquote><pre>
6852 objectclass ( some-oid NAME 'dnsDomainAux'
6853     SUP top
6854     AUXILIARY
6855     MAY ( ARecord $ MDRecord $ MXRecord $ NSRecord $ SOARecord $ CNAMERecord $
6856           DNSTTL $ DNSClass $ PTRRecord $ HINFORecord $ MINFORecord $
6857           TXTRecord $ SIGRecord $ KEYRecord $ AAAARecord $ LOCRecord $
6858           NXTRecord $ SRVRecord $ NAPTRRecord $ KXRecord $ CERTRecord $
6859           A6Record $ DNAMERecord
6860     ))
6861 </pre></blockquote>
6862
6863 <p>This will allow any object to become a DNS entry when combined with
6864 the domainrelatedobject object class, and allow any entity to include
6865 all the attributes PowerDNS wants.  I've sent an email to the PowerDNS
6866 developers asking for their view on this schema and if they are
6867 interested in providing such schema with PowerDNS, and I hope my
6868 message will be accepted into their mailing list soon.</p>
6869
6870 <p><strong>ISC dhcp</strong></p>
6871
6872 <p>The DHCP server searches for specific objectclass and requests all
6873 the object attributes, and then uses the attributes it want.  This
6874 make it harder to figure out exactly what attributes are used, but
6875 thanks to the working example in Debian Edu I can at least get an idea
6876 what is needed without having to read the source code.</p>
6877
6878 <p>In the DHCP server configuration, the LDAP base to use and the
6879 search filter to use to locate the correct dhcpServer entity is
6880 stored.  These are the relevant entries from
6881 /etc/dhcp3/dhcpd.conf:</p>
6882
6883 <blockquote><pre>
6884 ldap-base-dn "dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no";
6885 ldap-dhcp-server-cn "dhcp";
6886 </pre></blockquote>
6887
6888 <p>The DHCP server uses this information to nest all the DHCP
6889 configuration it need.  The cn "dhcp" is located using the given LDAP
6890 base and the filter "(&(objectClass=dhcpServer)(cn=dhcp))".  The
6891 search result is this entry:</p>
6892
6893 <blockquote><pre>
6894 dn: cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
6895 cn: dhcp
6896 objectClass: top
6897 objectClass: dhcpServer
6898 dhcpServiceDN: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
6899 </pre></blockquote>
6900
6901 <p>The content of the dhcpServiceDN attribute is next used to locate the
6902 subtree with DHCP configuration.  The DHCP configuration subtree base
6903 is located using a base scope search with base "cn=DHCP
6904 Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" and filter
6905 "(&(objectClass=dhcpService)(|(dhcpPrimaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)(dhcpSecondaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)))".
6906 The search result is this entry:</p>
6907
6908 <blockquote><pre>
6909 dn: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
6910 cn: DHCP Config
6911 objectClass: top
6912 objectClass: dhcpService
6913 objectClass: dhcpOptions
6914 dhcpPrimaryDN: cn=dhcp, dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
6915 dhcpStatements: ddns-update-style none
6916 dhcpStatements: authoritative
6917 dhcpOption: smtp-server code 69 = array of ip-address
6918 dhcpOption: www-server code 72 = array of ip-address
6919 dhcpOption: wpad-url code 252 = text
6920 </pre></blockquote>
6921
6922 <p>Next, the entire subtree is processed, one level at the time.  When
6923 all the DHCP configuration is loaded, it is ready to receive requests.
6924 The subtree in Debian Edu contain objects with object classes
6925 top/dhcpService/dhcpOptions, top/dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions,
6926 top/dhcpSubnet, top/dhcpGroup and top/dhcpHost.  These provide options
6927 and information about netmasks, dynamic range etc.  Leaving out the
6928 details here because it is not relevant for the focus of my
6929 investigation, which is to see if it is possible to merge dns and dhcp
6930 related computer objects.</p>
6931
6932 <p>When a DHCP request come in, LDAP is searched for the MAC address
6933 of the client (00:00:00:00:00:00 in this example), using a subtree
6934 scoped search with "cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" as
6935 the base and "(&(objectClass=dhcpHost)(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet
6936 00:00:00:00:00:00))" as the filter.  This is what a host object look
6937 like:</p>
6938
6939 <blockquote><pre>
6940 dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
6941 cn: hostname
6942 objectClass: top
6943 objectClass: dhcpHost
6944 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
6945 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname
6946 </pre></blockquote>
6947
6948 <p>There is less flexiblity in the way LDAP searches are done here.
6949 The object classes need to have fixed names, and the configuration
6950 need to be stored in a fairly specific LDAP structure.  On the
6951 positive side, the invidiual dhcpHost entires can be anywhere without
6952 the DN pointed to by the dhcpServer entries.  The latter should make
6953 it possible to group all host entries in a subtree next to the
6954 configuration entries, and this subtree can also be shared with the
6955 DNS server if the schema proposed above is combined with the dhcpHost
6956 structural object class.
6957
6958 <p><strong>Conclusion</strong></p>
6959
6960 <p>The PowerDNS implementation seem to be very flexible when it come
6961 to which LDAP schemas to use.  While its "tree" mode is rigid when it
6962 come to the the LDAP structure, the "strict" mode is very flexible,
6963 allowing DNS objects to be stored anywhere under the base cn specified
6964 in the configuration.</p>
6965
6966 <p>The DHCP implementation on the other hand is very inflexible, both
6967 regarding which LDAP schemas to use and which LDAP structure to use.
6968 I guess one could implement ones own schema, as long as the
6969 objectclasses and attributes have the names used, but this do not
6970 really help when the DHCP subtree need to have a fairly fixed
6971 structure.</p>
6972
6973 <p>Based on the observed behaviour, I suspect a LDAP structure like
6974 this might work for Debian Edu:</p>
6975
6976 <blockquote><pre>
6977 ou=services
6978   cn=machine-info (dhcpService) - dhcpServiceDN points here
6979     cn=dhcp (dhcpServer)
6980     cn=dhcp-internal (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
6981       cn=10.0.2.0 (dhcpSubnet)
6982         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
6983     cn=dhcp-thinclients (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
6984       cn=192.168.0.0 (dhcpSubnet)
6985         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
6986     ou=machines - PowerDNS base points here
6987       cn=hostname (dhcpHost/domainrelatedobject/dnsDomainAux)
6988 </pre></blockquote>
6989
6990 <P>This is not tested yet.  If the DHCP server require the dhcpHost
6991 entries to be in the dhcpGroup subtrees, the entries can be stored
6992 there instead of a common machines subtree, and the PowerDNS base
6993 would have to be moved one level up to the machine-info subtree.</p>
6994
6995 <p>The combined object under the machines subtree would look something
6996 like this:</p>
6997
6998 <blockquote><pre>
6999 dn: dc=hostname,ou=machines,cn=machine-info,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
7000 dc: hostname
7001 objectClass: top
7002 objectClass: dhcpHost
7003 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
7004 objectclass: dnsDomainAux
7005 associateddomain: hostname.intern
7006 arecord: 10.11.12.13
7007 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
7008 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname.intern
7009 </pre></blockquote>
7010
7011 </p>One could even add the LTSP configuration associated with a given
7012 machine, as long as the required attributes are available in a
7013 auxiliary object class.</p>
7014
7015       </div>
7016       <div class="tags">
7017
7018
7019         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>.
7020
7021
7022       </div>
7023     </div>
7024     <div class="padding"></div>
7025
7026     <div class="entry">
7027       <div class="title">
7028         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">Combining PowerDNS and ISC DHCP LDAP objects</a>
7029       </div>
7030       <div class="date">
7031         14th July 2010
7032       </div>
7033       <div class="body">
7034         <p>For a while now, I have wanted to find a way to change the DNS and
7035 DHCP services in Debian Edu to use the same LDAP objects for a given
7036 computer, to avoid the possibility of having a inconsistent state for
7037 a computer in LDAP (as in DHCP but no DNS entry or the other way
7038 around) and make it easier to add computers to LDAP.</p>
7039
7040 <p>I've looked at how powerdns and dhcpd is using LDAP, and using this
7041 information finally found a solution that seem to work.</p>
7042
7043 <p>The old setup required three LDAP objects for a given computer.
7044 One forward DNS entry, one reverse DNS entry and one DHCP entry.  If
7045 we switch powerdns to use its strict LDAP method (ldap-method=strict
7046 in pdns-debian-edu.conf), the forward and reverse DNS entries are
7047 merged into one while making it impossible to transfer the reverse map
7048 to a slave DNS server.</p>
7049
7050 <p>If we also replace the object class used to get the DNS related
7051 attributes to one allowing these attributes to be combined with the
7052 dhcphost object class, we can merge the DNS and DHCP entries into one.
7053 I've written such object class in the dnsdomainaux.schema file (need
7054 proper OIDs, but that is a minor issue), and tested the setup.  It
7055 seem to work.</p>
7056
7057 <p>With this test setup in place, we can get away with one LDAP object
7058 for both DNS and DHCP, and even the LTSP configuration I suggested in
7059 an earlier email.  The combined LDAP object will look something like
7060 this:</p>
7061
7062 <blockquote><pre>
7063   dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
7064   cn: hostname
7065   objectClass: dhcphost
7066   objectclass: domainrelatedobject
7067   objectclass: dnsdomainaux
7068   associateddomain: hostname.intern
7069   arecord: 10.11.12.13
7070   dhcphwaddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
7071   dhcpstatements: fixed-address hostname
7072   ldapconfigsound: Y
7073 </pre></blockquote>
7074
7075 <p>The DNS server uses the associateddomain and arecord entries, while
7076 the DHCP server uses the dhcphwaddress and dhcpstatements entries
7077 before asking DNS to resolve the fixed-adddress.  LTSP will use
7078 dhcphwaddress or associateddomain and the ldapconfig* attributes.</p>
7079
7080 <p>I am not yet sure if I can get the DHCP server to look for its
7081 dhcphost in a different location, to allow us to put the objects
7082 outside the "DHCP Config" subtree, but hope to figure out a way to do
7083 that.  If I can't figure out a way to do that, we can still get rid of
7084 the hosts subtree and move all its content into the DHCP Config tree
7085 (which probably should be renamed to be more related to the new
7086 content.  I suspect cn=dnsdhcp,ou=services or something like that
7087 might be a good place to put it.</p>
7088
7089 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
7090 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
7091
7092       </div>
7093       <div class="tags">
7094
7095
7096         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>.
7097
7098
7099       </div>
7100     </div>
7101     <div class="padding"></div>
7102
7103     <div class="entry">
7104       <div class="title">
7105         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Idea_for_storing_LTSP_configuration_in_LDAP.html">Idea for storing LTSP configuration in LDAP</a>
7106       </div>
7107       <div class="date">
7108         11th July 2010
7109       </div>
7110       <div class="body">
7111         <p>Vagrant mentioned on IRC today that ltsp_config now support
7112 sourcing files from /usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ on the thin
7113 clients, and that this can be used to fetch configuration from LDAP if
7114 Debian Edu choose to store configuration there.</p>
7115
7116 <p>Armed with this information, I got inspired and wrote a test module
7117 to get configuration from LDAP.  The idea is to look up the MAC
7118 address of the client in LDAP, and look for attributes on the form
7119 ltspconfigsetting=value, and use this to export SETTING=value to the
7120 LTSP clients.</p>
7121
7122 <p>The goal is to be able to store the LTSP configuration attributes
7123 in a "computer" LDAP object used by both DNS and DHCP, and thus
7124 allowing us to store all information about a computer in one place.</p>
7125
7126 <p>This is a untested draft implementation, and I welcome feedback on
7127 this approach.  A real LDAP schema for the ltspClientAux objectclass
7128 need to be written.  Comments, suggestions, etc?</p>
7129
7130 <blockquote><pre>
7131 # Store in /opt/ltsp/$arch/usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ldap-config
7132 #
7133 # Fetch LTSP client settings from LDAP based on MAC address
7134 #
7135 # Uses ethernet address as stored in the dhcpHost objectclass using
7136 # the dhcpHWAddress attribute or ethernet address stored in the
7137 # ieee802Device objectclass with the macAddress attribute.
7138 #
7139 # This module is written to be schema agnostic, and only depend on the
7140 # existence of attribute names.
7141 #
7142 # The LTSP configuration variables are saved directly using a
7143 # ltspConfig prefix and uppercasing the rest of the attribute name.
7144 # To set the SERVER variable, set the ltspConfigServer attribute.
7145 #
7146 # Some LDAP schema should be created with all the relevant
7147 # configuration settings.  Something like this should work:
7148 #
7149 # objectclass ( 1.1.2.2 NAME 'ltspClientAux'
7150 #     SUP top
7151 #     AUXILIARY
7152 #     MAY ( ltspConfigServer $ ltsConfigSound $ ... )
7153
7154 LDAPSERVER=$(debian-edu-ldapserver)
7155 if [ "$LDAPSERVER" ] ; then
7156     LDAPBASE=$(debian-edu-ldapserver -b)
7157     for MAC in $(LANG=C ifconfig |grep -i hwaddr| awk '{print $5}'|sort -u) ; do
7158         filter="(|(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet $MAC)(macAddress=$MAC))"
7159         ldapsearch -h "$LDAPSERVER" -b "$LDAPBASE" -v -x "$filter" | \
7160             grep '^ltspConfig' | while read attr value ; do
7161             # Remove prefix and convert to upper case
7162             attr=$(echo $attr | sed 's/^ltspConfig//i' | tr a-z A-Z)
7163             # bass value on to clients
7164             eval "$attr=$value; export $attr"
7165         done
7166     done
7167 fi
7168 </pre></blockquote>
7169
7170 <p>I'm not sure this shell construction will work, because I suspect
7171 the while block might end up in a subshell causing the variables set
7172 there to not show up in ltsp-config, but if that is the case I am sure
7173 the code can be restructured to make sure the variables are passed on.
7174 I expect that can be solved with some testing. :)</p>
7175
7176 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
7177 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
7178
7179 <p>Update 2010-07-17: I am aware of another effort to store LTSP
7180 configuration in LDAP that was created around year 2000 by
7181 <a href="http://www.pcxperience.com/thinclient/documentation/ldap.html">PC
7182 Xperience, Inc., 2000</a>.  I found its
7183 <a href="http://people.redhat.com/alikins/ltsp/ldap/">files</a> on a
7184 personal home page over at redhat.com.</p>
7185
7186       </div>
7187       <div class="tags">
7188
7189
7190         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/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>.
7191
7192
7193       </div>
7194     </div>
7195     <div class="padding"></div>
7196
7197     <div class="entry">
7198       <div class="title">
7199         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/jXplorer__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">jXplorer, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
7200       </div>
7201       <div class="date">
7202          9th July 2010
7203       </div>
7204       <div class="body">
7205         <p>Since
7206 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">my
7207 last post</a> about available LDAP tools in Debian, I was told about a
7208 LDAP GUI that is even better than luma.  The java application
7209 <a href="http://jxplorer.org/">jXplorer</a> is claimed to be capable of
7210 moving LDAP objects and subtrees using drag-and-drop, and can
7211 authenticate using Kerberos.  I have only tested the Kerberos
7212 authentication, but do not have a LDAP setup allowing me to rewrite
7213 LDAP with my test user yet.  It is
7214 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/j/jxplorer.html">available in
7215 Debian</a> testing and unstable at the moment.  The only problem I
7216 have with it is how it handle errors.  If something go wrong, its
7217 non-intuitive behaviour require me to go through some query work list
7218 and remove the failing query.  Nothing big, but very annoying.</p>
7219
7220       </div>
7221       <div class="tags">
7222
7223
7224         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>.
7225
7226
7227       </div>
7228     </div>
7229     <div class="padding"></div>
7230
7231     <div class="entry">
7232       <div class="title">
7233         <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>
7234       </div>
7235       <div class="date">
7236          3rd July 2010
7237       </div>
7238       <div class="body">
7239         <p>Here is a short update on my <a
7240 href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">my
7241 Debian Lenny->Squeeze upgrade testing</a>.  Here is a summary of the
7242 difference for Gnome when it is upgraded by apt-get and aptitude.  I'm
7243 not reporting the status for KDE, because the upgrade crashes when
7244 aptitude try because of missing conflicts
7245 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> and
7246 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585716">#585716</a>).</p>
7247
7248 <p>At the end of the upgrade test script, dpkg -l is executed to get a
7249 complete list of the installed packages.  Based on this I see these
7250 differences when I did a test run today.  As usual, I do not really
7251 know what the correct set of packages would be, but thought it best to
7252 publish the difference.</p>
7253
7254 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
7255
7256 <blockquote><p>
7257   at-spi cpp-4.3 finger gnome-spell gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
7258   libatspi1.0-0 libcupsys2 libeel2-data libgail-common libgdl-1-common
7259   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin
7260   libgtksourceview-common libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
7261   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libservlet2.4-java libxalan2-java
7262   libxerces2-java openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
7263   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gtkhtml2
7264   python-gtkmozembed svgalibg1 xserver-xephyr zip
7265 </p></blockquote>
7266
7267 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
7268
7269 <blockquote><p>
7270   bluez-utils dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop epiphany-gecko
7271   gnome-app-install gnome-mount gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager
7272   libao2 libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libbind9-50
7273   libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcurl3
7274   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9
7275   libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3
7276   libfaad0 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
7277   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
7278   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
7279   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
7280   libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50
7281   libisccfg50 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick++10
7282   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4
7283   libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5
7284   libparted1.8-10 libpisock9 libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3
7285   libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8 libsensors3 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
7286   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1
7287   libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0 libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj
7288   libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3
7289   mysql-common swfdec-gnome totem-gstreamer wodim
7290 </p></blockquote>
7291
7292 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
7293
7294 <blockquote><p>
7295   gnome gnome-desktop-environment hamster-applet python-gnomeapplet
7296   python-gnomekeyring python-wnck rhythmbox-plugins xorg
7297   xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
7298   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
7299   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-video-all
7300   xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark xserver-xorg-video-ati
7301   xserver-xorg-video-chips xserver-xorg-video-cirrus
7302   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
7303   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
7304   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-mach64
7305   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
7306   xserver-xorg-video-nouveau xserver-xorg-video-nv
7307   xserver-xorg-video-r128 xserver-xorg-video-radeon
7308   xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd xserver-xorg-video-rendition
7309   xserver-xorg-video-s3 xserver-xorg-video-s3virge
7310   xserver-xorg-video-savage xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion
7311   xserver-xorg-video-sis xserver-xorg-video-sisusb
7312   xserver-xorg-video-tdfx xserver-xorg-video-tga
7313   xserver-xorg-video-trident xserver-xorg-video-tseng
7314   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vmware
7315   xserver-xorg-video-voodoo
7316 </p></blockquote>
7317
7318 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
7319
7320 <blockquote><p>
7321   deskbar-applet xserver-xorg xserver-xorg-core
7322   xserver-xorg-input-wacom xserver-xorg-video-intel
7323   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome
7324 </p></blockquote>
7325
7326 <p>I was told on IRC that the xorg-xserver package was
7327 <a href="http://git.debian.org/?p=pkg-xorg/xserver/xorg-server.git;a=commit;h=9c8080d06c457932d3bfec021c69ac000aa60120">changed
7328 in git</a> today to try to get apt-get to not remove xorg completely.
7329 No idea when it hits Squeeze, but when it does I hope it will reduce
7330 the difference somewhat.
7331
7332       </div>
7333       <div class="tags">
7334
7335
7336         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>.
7337
7338
7339       </div>
7340     </div>
7341     <div class="padding"></div>
7342
7343     <div class="entry">
7344       <div class="title">
7345         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">LUMA, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
7346       </div>
7347       <div class="date">
7348         28th June 2010
7349       </div>
7350       <div class="body">
7351         <p>The last few days I have been looking into the status of the LDAP
7352 directory in Debian Edu, and in the process I started to miss a GUI
7353 tool to browse the LDAP tree.  The only one I was able to find in
7354 Debian/Squeeze and Lenny is
7355 <a href="http://luma.sourceforge.net/">LUMA</a>, which has proved to
7356 be a great tool to get a overview of the current LDAP directory
7357 populated by default in Skolelinux.  Thanks to it, I have been able to
7358 find empty and obsolete subtrees, misplaced objects and duplicate
7359 objects.  It will be installed by default in Debian/Squeeze.  If you
7360 are working with LDAP, give it a go. :)</p>
7361
7362 <p>I did notice one problem with it I have not had time to report to
7363 the BTS yet.  There is no .desktop file in the package, so the tool do
7364 not show up in the Gnome and KDE menus, but only deep down in in the
7365 Debian submenu in KDE.  I hope that can be fixed before Squeeze is
7366 released.</p>
7367
7368 <p>I have not yet been able to get it to modify the tree yet.  I would
7369 like to move objects and remove subtrees directly in the GUI, but have
7370 not found a way to do that with LUMA yet.  So in the mean time, I use
7371 <a href="http://www.lichteblau.com/ldapvi/">ldapvi</a> for that.</p>
7372
7373 <p>If you have tips on other GUI tools for LDAP that might be useful
7374 in Debian Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
7375
7376 <p>Update 2010-06-29: Ross Reedstrom tipped us about the
7377 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/g/gq.html">gq</a> package as a
7378 useful GUI alternative.  It seem like a good tool, but is unmaintained
7379 in Debian and got a RC bug keeping it out of Squeeze.  Unless that
7380 changes, it will not be an option for Debian Edu based on Squeeze.</p>
7381
7382       </div>
7383       <div class="tags">
7384
7385
7386         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>.
7387
7388
7389       </div>
7390     </div>
7391     <div class="padding"></div>
7392
7393     <div class="entry">
7394       <div class="title">
7395         <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>
7396       </div>
7397       <div class="date">
7398         24th June 2010
7399       </div>
7400       <div class="body">
7401         <p>A while back, I
7402 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">complained
7403 about the fact</a> that it is not possible with the provided schemas
7404 for storing DNS and DHCP information in LDAP to combine the two sets
7405 of information into one LDAP object representing a computer.</p>
7406
7407 <p>In the mean time, I discovered that a simple fix would be to make
7408 the dhcpHost object class auxiliary, to allow it to be combined with
7409 the dNSDomain object class, and thus forming one object for one
7410 computer when storing both DHCP and DNS information in LDAP.</p>
7411
7412 <p>If I understand this correctly, it is not safe to do this change
7413 without also changing the assigned number for the object class, and I
7414 do not know enough about LDAP schema design to do that properly for
7415 Debian Edu.</p>
7416
7417 <p>Anyway, for future reference, this is how I believe we could change
7418 the
7419 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-dhc-ldap-schema-00">DHCP
7420 schema</a> to solve at least part of the problem with the LDAP schemas
7421 available today from IETF.</p>
7422
7423 <pre>
7424 --- dhcp.schema    (revision 65192)
7425 +++ dhcp.schema    (working copy)
7426 @@ -376,7 +376,7 @@
7427  objectclass ( 2.16.840.1.113719.1.203.6.6
7428         NAME 'dhcpHost'
7429         DESC 'This represents information about a particular client'
7430 -       SUP top
7431 +       SUP top AUXILIARY
7432         MUST cn
7433         MAY  (dhcpLeaseDN $ dhcpHWAddress $ dhcpOptionsDN $ dhcpStatements $ dhcpComments $ dhcpOption)
7434         X-NDS_CONTAINMENT ('dhcpService' 'dhcpSubnet' 'dhcpGroup') )
7435 </pre>
7436
7437 <p>I very much welcome clues on how to do this properly for Debian
7438 Edu/Squeeze.  We provide the DHCP schema in our debian-edu-config
7439 package, and should thus be free to rewrite it as we see fit.</p>
7440
7441 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
7442 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
7443
7444       </div>
7445       <div class="tags">
7446
7447
7448         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>.
7449
7450
7451       </div>
7452     </div>
7453     <div class="padding"></div>
7454
7455     <div class="entry">
7456       <div class="title">
7457         <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>
7458       </div>
7459       <div class="date">
7460         16th June 2010
7461       </div>
7462       <div class="body">
7463         <p>A few times I have had the need to simulate the way tasksel
7464 installs packages during the normal debian-installer run.  Until now,
7465 I have ended up letting tasksel do the work, with the annoying problem
7466 of not getting any feedback at all when something fails (like a
7467 conffile question from dpkg or a download that fails), using code like
7468 this:
7469
7470 <blockquote><pre>
7471 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
7472 tasksel --new-install
7473 </pre></blockquote>
7474
7475 This would invoke tasksel, let its automatic task selection pick the
7476 tasks to install, and continue to install the requested tasks without
7477 any output what so ever.
7478
7479 Recently I revisited this problem while working on the automatic
7480 package upgrade testing, because tasksel would some times hang without
7481 any useful feedback, and I want to see what is going on when it
7482 happen.  Then it occured to me, I can parse the output from tasksel
7483 when asked to run in test mode, and use that aptitude command line
7484 printed by tasksel then to simulate the tasksel run.  I ended up using
7485 code like this:
7486
7487 <blockquote><pre>
7488 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
7489 cmd="$(in_target tasksel -t --new-install | sed 's/debconf-apt-progress -- //')"
7490 $cmd
7491 </pre></blockquote>
7492
7493 <p>The content of $cmd is typically something like "<tt>aptitude -q
7494 --without-recommends -o APT::Install-Recommends=no -y install
7495 ~t^desktop$ ~t^gnome-desktop$ ~t^laptop$ ~pstandard ~prequired
7496 ~pimportant</tt>", which will install the gnome desktop task, the
7497 laptop task and all packages with priority standard , required and
7498 important, just like tasksel would have done it during
7499 installation.</p>
7500
7501 <p>A better approach is probably to extend tasksel to be able to
7502 install packages without using debconf-apt-progress, for use cases
7503 like this.</p>
7504
7505       </div>
7506       <div class="tags">
7507
7508
7509         Tags: <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>.
7510
7511
7512       </div>
7513     </div>
7514     <div class="padding"></div>
7515
7516     <div class="entry">
7517       <div class="title">
7518         <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>
7519       </div>
7520       <div class="date">
7521         13th June 2010
7522       </div>
7523       <div class="body">
7524         <p>My
7525 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">testing
7526 of Debian upgrades</a> from Lenny to Squeeze continues, and I've
7527 finally made the upgrade logs available from
7528 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/</a>.
7529 I am now testing dist-upgrade of Gnome and KDE in a chroot using both
7530 apt and aptitude, and found their differences interesting.  This time
7531 I will only focus on their removal plans.</p>
7532
7533 <p>After installing a Gnome desktop and the laptop task, apt-get wants
7534 to remove 72 packages when dist-upgrading from Lenny to Squeeze.  The
7535 surprising part is that it want to remove xorg and all
7536 xserver-xorg-video* drivers.  Clearly not a good choice, but I am not
7537 sure why.  When asking aptitude to do the same, it want to remove 129
7538 packages, but most of them are library packages I suspect are no
7539 longer needed.  Both of them want to remove bluetooth packages, which
7540 I do not know.  Perhaps these bluetooth packages are obsolete?</p>
7541
7542 <p>For KDE, apt-get want to remove 82 packages, among them kdebase
7543 which seem like a bad idea and xorg the same way as with Gnome. Asking
7544 aptitude for the same, it wants to remove 192 packages, none which are
7545 too surprising.</p>
7546
7547 <p>I guess the removal of xorg during upgrades should be investigated
7548 and avoided, and perhaps others as well.  Here are the complete list
7549 of planned removals.  The complete logs is available from the URL
7550 above.  Note if you want to repeat these tests, that the upgrade test
7551 for kde+apt-get hung in the tasksel setup because of dpkg asking
7552 conffile questions.  No idea why.  I worked around it by using
7553 '<tt>echo >> /proc/<em>pidofdpkg</em>/fd/0</tt>' to tell dpkg to
7554 continue.</p>
7555
7556 <p><b>apt-get gnome 72</b>
7557 <br>bluez-gnome cupsddk-drivers deskbar-applet gnome
7558   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-network-admin gtkhtml3.14
7559   iceweasel-gnome-support libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libgdl-1-0
7560   libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libmetacity0 libslab0 libxcb-xlib0
7561   nautilus-cd-burner python-gnome2-desktop python-gnome2-extras
7562   serpentine swfdec-mozilla update-manager xorg xserver-xorg
7563   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
7564   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
7565   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
7566   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
7567   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
7568   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
7569   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
7570   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
7571   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
7572   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
7573   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
7574   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
7575   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
7576   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
7577   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
7578   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
7579   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
7580   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
7581   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
7582   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
7583   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
7584   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9
7585   xulrunner-1.9-gnome-support</p>
7586
7587 <p><b>aptitude gnome 129</b>
7588
7589 <br>bluez-gnome bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers dhcdbd
7590   djvulibre-desktop finger gnome-app-install gnome-mount
7591   gnome-network-admin gnome-spell gnome-vfs-obexftp
7592   gnome-volume-manager gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs gtkhtml3.14 libao2
7593   libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
7594   libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcupsys2 libcurl3 libdatrie0
7595   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20
7596   libeel2-data libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libfaad0 libgail-common
7597   libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libgdl-1-0 libgdl-1-common
7598   libggz2 libggzcore9 libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0
7599   libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libgnomeprint2.2-0
7600   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgnomeprintui2.2-common
7601   libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
7602   libgtksourceview-common libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6
7603   libhesiod0 libicu38 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 libmagick++10
7604   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmetacity0 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off
7605   libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2
7606   libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10
7607   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libraw1394-8
7608   libsensors3 libslab0 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8 libssh2-1
7609   libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10
7610   libtrackerclient0 libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0
7611   libxerces2-java libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6
7612   libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common nautilus-cd-burner
7613   openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
7614   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gnome2-desktop
7615   python-gnome2-extras python-gtkhtml2 python-gtkmozembed
7616   python-numeric python-sexy serpentine svgalibg1 swfdec-gnome
7617   swfdec-mozilla totem-gstreamer update-manager wodim
7618   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
7619   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
7620   zip</p>
7621
7622 <p><b>apt-get kde 82</b>
7623
7624 <br>cupsddk-drivers karm kaudiocreator kcoloredit kcontrol kde kde-core
7625   kdeaddons kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-bin kdebase-bin-kde3
7626   kdebase-kio-plugins kdesktop kdeutils khelpcenter kicker
7627   kicker-applets knewsticker kolourpaint konq-plugins konqueror korn
7628   kpersonalizer kscreensaver ksplash libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libkiten1
7629   libxcb-xlib0 quanta superkaramba texlive-base-bin xorg xserver-xorg
7630   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
7631   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
7632   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
7633   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
7634   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
7635   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
7636   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
7637   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
7638   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
7639   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
7640   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
7641   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
7642   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
7643   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
7644   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
7645   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
7646   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
7647   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
7648   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
7649   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
7650   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
7651   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9</p>
7652
7653 <p><b>aptitude kde 192</b>
7654 <br>bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers cvs dcoprss dhcdbd
7655   djvulibre-desktop dosfstools eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
7656   ghostscript-x imlib-base imlib11 indi kandy karm kasteroids
7657   kaudiocreator kbackgammon kbstate kcoloredit kcontrol kcron kdat
7658   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
7659   kdebase-bin-kde3 kdebase-kio-plugins kdeedu-data
7660   kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data
7661   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
7662   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdeprint kdesktop kdessh
7663   kdict kdnssd kdvi kedit keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs
7664   kghostview khelpcenter khexedit kiconedit kitchensync klatin
7665   klickety kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmoon kmrml kodo kolourpaint
7666   kooka korn kpager kpdf kpercentage kpf kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler
7667   krec kregexpeditor ksayit ksim ksirc ksirtet ksmiletris ksmserver
7668   ksnake ksokoban ksplash ksvg ksysv ktip ktnef kuickshow kverbos
7669   kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kworldclock
7670   kxsldbg libakode2 libao2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
7671   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
7672   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
7673   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0 libdatrie0
7674   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
7675   libgail-common libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0
7676   libicu38 libiec61883-0 libindex0 libiw29 libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1
7677   libkdeedu3 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkiten1 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
7678   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
7679   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 libmagick10 libmimelib1c2a
7680   libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9
7681   libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 libsmbios2
7682   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libtalloc1 libtiff-tools
7683   libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0 libxerces2-java
7684   libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 mpeglib networkstatus
7685   openoffice.org-writer2latex pmount poster psutils quanta quanta-data
7686   superkaramba svgalibg1 tex-common texlive-base texlive-base-bin
7687   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended
7688   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
7689   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
7690   xulrunner-1.9</p>
7691
7692
7693       </div>
7694       <div class="tags">
7695
7696
7697         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>.
7698
7699
7700       </div>
7701     </div>
7702     <div class="padding"></div>
7703
7704     <div class="entry">
7705       <div class="title">
7706         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">Automatic upgrade testing from Lenny to Squeeze</a>
7707       </div>
7708       <div class="date">
7709         11th June 2010
7710       </div>
7711       <div class="body">
7712         <p>The last few days I have done some upgrade testing in Debian, to
7713 see if the upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze will go smoothly.  A few bugs
7714 have been discovered and reported in the process
7715 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585410">#585410</a> in nagios3-cgi,
7716 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584879">#584879</a> already fixed in
7717 enscript and <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> in
7718 kdebase-workspace-data), and to get a more regular testing going on, I
7719 am working on a script to automate the test.</p>
7720
7721 <p>The idea is to create a Lenny chroot and use tasksel to install a
7722 Gnome or KDE desktop installation inside the chroot before upgrading
7723 it.  To ensure no services are started in the chroot, a policy-rc.d
7724 script is inserted.  To make sure tasksel believe it is to install a
7725 desktop on a laptop, the tasksel tests are replaced in the chroot
7726 (only acceptable because this is a throw-away chroot).</p>
7727
7728 <p>A naive upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze using aptitude dist-upgrade
7729 currently always fail because udev refuses to upgrade with the kernel
7730 in Lenny, so to avoid that problem the file /etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
7731 is created.  The bug report
7732 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/566000">#566000</a> make me suspect
7733 this problem do not trigger in a chroot, but I touch the file anyway
7734 to make sure the upgrade go well.  Testing on virtual and real
7735 hardware have failed me because of udev so far, and creating this file
7736 do the trick in such settings anyway.  This is a
7737 <a href="http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/debian-26/failed-dist-upgrade-due-to-udev-config_sysfs_deprecated-nonsense-804130/">known
7738 issue</a> and the current udev behaviour is intended by the udev
7739 maintainer because he lack the resources to rewrite udev to keep
7740 working with old kernels or something like that.  I really wish the
7741 udev upstream would keep udev backwards compatible, to avoid such
7742 upgrade problem, but given that they fail to do so, I guess
7743 documenting the way out of this mess is the best option we got for
7744 Debian Squeeze.</p>
7745
7746 <p>Anyway, back to the task at hand, testing upgrades.  This test
7747 script, which I call <tt>upgrade-test</tt> for now, is doing the
7748 trick:</p>
7749
7750 <blockquote><pre>
7751 #!/bin/sh
7752 set -ex
7753
7754 if [ "$1" ] ; then
7755     desktop=$1
7756 else
7757     desktop=gnome
7758 fi
7759
7760 from=lenny
7761 to=squeeze
7762
7763 exec &lt; /dev/null
7764 unset LANG
7765 mirror=http://ftp.skolelinux.org/debian
7766 tmpdir=chroot-$from-upgrade-$to-$desktop
7767 fuser -mv .
7768 debootstrap $from $tmpdir $mirror
7769 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
7770 cat > $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d &lt;&lt;EOF
7771 #!/bin/sh
7772 exit 101
7773 EOF
7774 chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d
7775 exit_cleanup() {
7776     umount $tmpdir/proc
7777 }
7778 mount -t proc proc $tmpdir/proc
7779 # Make sure proc is unmounted also on failure
7780 trap exit_cleanup EXIT INT
7781
7782 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y install debconf-utils
7783
7784 # Make sure tasksel autoselection trigger.  It need the test scripts
7785 # to return the correct answers.
7786 echo tasksel tasksel/desktop multiselect $desktop | \
7787     chroot $tmpdir debconf-set-selections
7788
7789 # Include the desktop and laptop task
7790 for test in desktop laptop ; do
7791     echo > $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test &lt;&lt;EOF
7792 #!/bin/sh
7793 exit 2
7794 EOF
7795     chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test
7796 done
7797
7798 DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
7799 DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical
7800 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND DEBIAN_PRIORITY
7801 chroot $tmpdir tasksel --new-install
7802
7803 echo deb $mirror $to main > $tmpdir/etc/apt/sources.list
7804 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
7805 touch $tmpdir/etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
7806 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y dist-upgrade
7807 fuser -mv
7808 </pre></blockquote>
7809
7810 <p>I suspect it would be useful to test upgrades with both apt-get and
7811 with aptitude, but I have not had time to look at how they behave
7812 differently so far.  I hope to get a cron job running to do the test
7813 regularly and post the result on the web.  The Gnome upgrade currently
7814 work, while the KDE upgrade fail because of the bug in
7815 kdebase-workspace-data</p>
7816
7817 <p>I am not quite sure what kind of extract from the huge upgrade logs
7818 (KDE 167 KiB, Gnome 516 KiB) it make sense to include in this blog
7819 post, so I will refrain from trying.  I can report that for Gnome,
7820 aptitude report 760 packages upgraded, 448 newly installed, 129 to
7821 remove and 1 not upgraded and 1024MB need to be downloaded while for
7822 KDE the same numbers are 702 packages upgraded, 507 newly installed,
7823 193 to remove and 0 not upgraded and 1117MB need to be downloaded</p>
7824
7825 <p>I am very happy to notice that the Gnome desktop + laptop upgrade
7826 is able to migrate to dependency based boot sequencing and parallel
7827 booting without a hitch.  Was unsure if there were still bugs with
7828 packages failing to clean up their obsolete init.d script during
7829 upgrades, and no such problem seem to affect the Gnome desktop+laptop
7830 packages.</p>
7831
7832       </div>
7833       <div class="tags">
7834
7835
7836         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>.
7837
7838
7839       </div>
7840     </div>
7841     <div class="padding"></div>
7842
7843     <div class="entry">
7844       <div class="title">
7845         <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>
7846       </div>
7847       <div class="date">
7848          6th June 2010
7849       </div>
7850       <div class="body">
7851         <p>If Debian is to migrate to upstart on Linux, I expect some init.d
7852 scripts to migrate (some of) their operations to upstart job while
7853 keeping the init.d for hurd and kfreebsd.  The packages with such
7854 needs will need a way to get their init.d scripts to behave
7855 differently when used with sysvinit and with upstart.  Because of
7856 this, I had a look at the environment variables set when a init.d
7857 script is running under upstart, and when it is not.</p>
7858
7859 <p>With upstart, I notice these environment variables are set when a
7860 script is started from rcS.d/ (ignoring some irrelevant ones like
7861 COLUMNS):</p>
7862
7863 <blockquote><pre>
7864 DEFAULT_RUNLEVEL=2
7865 previous=N
7866 PREVLEVEL=
7867 RUNLEVEL=
7868 runlevel=S
7869 UPSTART_EVENTS=startup
7870 UPSTART_INSTANCE=
7871 UPSTART_JOB=rc-sysinit
7872 </pre></blockquote>
7873
7874 <p>With sysvinit, these environment variables are set for the same
7875 script.</p>
7876
7877 <blockquote><pre>
7878 INIT_VERSION=sysvinit-2.88
7879 previous=N
7880 PREVLEVEL=N
7881 RUNLEVEL=S
7882 runlevel=S
7883 </pre></blockquote>
7884
7885 <p>The RUNLEVEL and PREVLEVEL environment variables passed on from
7886 sysvinit are not set by upstart.  Not sure if it is intentional or not
7887 to not be compatible with sysvinit in this regard.</p>
7888
7889 <p>For scripts needing to behave differently when upstart is used,
7890 looking for the UPSTART_JOB environment variable seem to be a good
7891 choice.</p>
7892
7893       </div>
7894       <div class="tags">
7895
7896
7897         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>.
7898
7899
7900       </div>
7901     </div>
7902     <div class="padding"></div>
7903
7904     <div class="entry">
7905       <div class="title">
7906         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_manual_for_standards_wars___.html">A manual for standards wars...</a>
7907       </div>
7908       <div class="date">
7909          6th June 2010
7910       </div>
7911       <div class="body">
7912         <p>Via the
7913 <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/robweir/antic-atom/~3/QzU4RgoAGMg/weekly-links-10.html">blog
7914 of Rob Weir</a> I came across the very interesting essay named
7915 <a href="http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/shapiro/wars.pdf">The Art of
7916 Standards Wars</a> (PDF 25 pages).  I recommend it for everyone
7917 following the standards wars of today.</p>
7918
7919       </div>
7920       <div class="tags">
7921
7922
7923         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>.
7924
7925
7926       </div>
7927     </div>
7928     <div class="padding"></div>
7929
7930     <div class="entry">
7931       <div class="title">
7932         <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>
7933       </div>
7934       <div class="date">
7935          3rd June 2010
7936       </div>
7937       <div class="body">
7938         <p>When using sitesummary at a site to track machines, it is possible
7939 to get a list of the machine types in use thanks to the DMI
7940 information extracted from each machine.  The script to do so is
7941 included in the sitesummary package, and here is example output from
7942 the Skolelinux build servers:</p>
7943
7944 <blockquote><pre>
7945 maintainer:~# /usr/lib/sitesummary/hardware-model-summary
7946   vendor                    count
7947   Dell Computer Corporation     1
7948     PowerEdge 1750              1
7949   IBM                           1
7950     eserver xSeries 345 -[8670M1X]-     1
7951   Intel                         2
7952   [no-dmi-info]                 3
7953 maintainer:~#
7954 </pre></blockquote>
7955
7956 <p>The quality of the report depend on the quality of the DMI tables
7957 provided in each machine.  Here there are Intel machines without model
7958 information listed with Intel as vendor and no model, and virtual Xen
7959 machines listed as [no-dmi-info].  One can add -l as a command line
7960 option to list the individual machines.</p>
7961
7962 <p>A larger list is
7963 <a href="http://narvikskolen.no/sitesummary/">available from the the
7964 city of Narvik</a>, which uses Skolelinux on all their shools and also
7965 provide the basic sitesummary report publicly.  In their report there
7966 are ~1400 machines. I know they use both Ubuntu and Skolelinux on
7967 their machines, and as sitesummary is available in both distributions,
7968 it is trivial to get all of them to report to the same central
7969 collector.</p>
7970
7971       </div>
7972       <div class="tags">
7973
7974
7975         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>.
7976
7977
7978       </div>
7979     </div>
7980     <div class="padding"></div>
7981
7982     <div class="entry">
7983       <div class="title">
7984         <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>
7985       </div>
7986       <div class="date">
7987          1st June 2010
7988       </div>
7989       <div class="body">
7990         <p>It is strange to watch how a bug in Debian causing KDM to fail to
7991 start at boot when an NVidia video card is used is handled.  The
7992 problem seem to be that the nvidia X.org driver uses a long time to
7993 initialize, and this duration is longer than kdm is configured to
7994 wait.</p>
7995
7996 <p>I came across two bugs related to this issue,
7997 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">#583312</a> initially filed
7998 against initscripts and passed on to nvidia-glx when it became obvious
7999 that the nvidia drivers were involved, and
8000 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/524751">#524751</a> initially filed against
8001 kdm and passed on to src:nvidia-graphics-drivers for unknown reasons.</p>
8002
8003 <p>To me, it seem that no-one is interested in actually solving the
8004 problem nvidia video card owners experience and make sure the Debian
8005 distribution work out of the box for these users.  The nvidia driver
8006 maintainers expect kdm to be set up to wait longer, while kdm expect
8007 the nvidia driver maintainers to fix the driver to start faster, and
8008 while they wait for each other I guess the users end up switching to a
8009 distribution that work for them.  I have no idea what the solution is,
8010 but I am pretty sure that waiting for each other is not it.</p>
8011
8012 <p>I wonder why we end up handling bugs this way.</p>
8013
8014       </div>
8015       <div class="tags">
8016
8017
8018         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>.
8019
8020
8021       </div>
8022     </div>
8023     <div class="padding"></div>
8024
8025     <div class="entry">
8026       <div class="title">
8027         <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>
8028       </div>
8029       <div class="date">
8030         27th May 2010
8031       </div>
8032       <div class="body">
8033         <p>A few days ago, parallel booting was enabled in Debian/testing.
8034 The feature seem to hold up pretty well, but three fairly serious
8035 issues are known and should be solved:
8036
8037 <p><ul>
8038
8039 <li>The wicd package seen to
8040 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/508289">break NFS mounting</a> and
8041 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/581586">network setup</a> when
8042 parallel booting is enabled.  No idea why, but the wicd maintainer
8043 seem to be on the case.</li>
8044
8045 <li>The nvidia X driver seem to
8046 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">have a race condition</a>
8047 triggered more easily when parallel booting is in effect.  The
8048 maintainer is on the case.</li>
8049
8050 <li>The sysv-rc package fail to properly enable dependency based boot
8051 sequencing (the shutdown is broken) when old file-rc users
8052 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/575080">try to switch back</a> to
8053 sysv-rc.  One way to solve it would be for file-rc to create
8054 /etc/init.d/.legacy-bootordering, and another is to try to make
8055 sysv-rc more robust.  Will investigate some more and probably upload a
8056 workaround in sysv-rc to help those trying to move from file-rc to
8057 sysv-rc get a working shutdown.</li>
8058
8059 </ul></p>
8060
8061 <p>All in all not many surprising issues, and all of them seem
8062 solvable before Squeeze is released.  In addition to these there are
8063 some packages with bugs in their dependencies and run level settings,
8064 which I expect will be fixed in a reasonable time span.</p>
8065
8066 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
8067 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
8068 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
8069 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
8070
8071 <p>Update: Correct bug number to file-rc issue.</p>
8072
8073       </div>
8074       <div class="tags">
8075
8076
8077         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>.
8078
8079
8080       </div>
8081     </div>
8082     <div class="padding"></div>
8083
8084     <div class="entry">
8085       <div class="title">
8086         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/More_flexible_firmware_handling_in_debian_installer.html">More flexible firmware handling in debian-installer</a>
8087       </div>
8088       <div class="date">
8089         22nd May 2010
8090       </div>
8091       <div class="body">
8092         <p>After a long break from debian-installer development, I finally
8093 found time today to return to the project.  Having to spend less time
8094 working dependency based boot in debian, as it is almost complete now,
8095 definitely helped freeing some time.</p>
8096
8097 <p>A while back, I ran into a problem while working on Debian Edu.  We
8098 include some firmware packages on the Debian Edu CDs, those needed to
8099 get disk and network controllers working.  Without having these
8100 firmware packages available during installation, it is impossible to
8101 install Debian Edu on the given machine, and because our target group
8102 are non-technical people, asking them to provide firmware packages on
8103 an external medium is a support pain.  Initially, I expected it to be
8104 enough to include the firmware packages on the CD to get
8105 debian-installer to find and use them.  This proved to be wrong.
8106 Next, I hoped it was enough to symlink the relevant firmware packages
8107 to some useful location on the CD (tried /cdrom/ and
8108 /cdrom/firmware/).  This also proved to not work, and at this point I
8109 found time to look at the debian-installer code to figure out what was
8110 going to work.</p>
8111
8112 <p>The firmware loading code is in the hw-detect package, and a closer
8113 look revealed that it would only look for firmware packages outside
8114 the installation media, so the CD was never checked for firmware
8115 packages.  It would only check USB sticks, floppies and other
8116 "external" media devices.  Today I changed it to also look in the
8117 /cdrom/firmware/ directory on the mounted CD or DVD, which should
8118 solve the problem I ran into with Debian edu.  I also changed it to
8119 look in /firmware/, to make sure the installer also find firmware
8120 provided in the initrd when booting the installer via PXE, to allow us
8121 to provide the same feature in the PXE setup included in Debian
8122 Edu.</p>
8123
8124 <p>To make sure firmware deb packages with a license questions are not
8125 activated without asking if the license is accepted, I extended
8126 hw-detect to look for preinst scripts in the firmware packages, and
8127 run these before activating the firmware during installation.  The
8128 license question is asked using debconf in the preinst, so this should
8129 solve the issue for the firmware packages I have looked at so far.</p>
8130
8131 <p>If you want to discuss the details of these features, please
8132 contact us on debian-boot@lists.debian.org.</p>
8133
8134       </div>
8135       <div class="tags">
8136
8137
8138         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>.
8139
8140
8141       </div>
8142     </div>
8143     <div class="padding"></div>
8144
8145     <div class="entry">
8146       <div class="title">
8147         <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>
8148       </div>
8149       <div class="date">
8150         14th May 2010
8151       </div>
8152       <div class="body">
8153         <p>Since this evening, parallel booting is the default in
8154 Debian/unstable for machines using dependency based boot sequencing.
8155 Apparently the testing of concurrent booting has been wider than
8156 expected, if I am to believe the
8157 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
8158 on debian-devel@</a>, and I concluded a few days ago to move forward
8159 with the feature this weekend, to give us some time to detect any
8160 remaining problems before Squeeze is frozen.  If serious problems are
8161 detected, it is simple to change the default back to sequential boot.
8162 The upload of the new sysvinit package also activate a new upstream
8163 version.</p>
8164
8165 More information about
8166 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
8167 based boot sequencing</a> is available from the Debian wiki.  It is
8168 currently possible to disable parallel booting when one run into
8169 problems caused by it, by adding this line to /etc/default/rcS:</p>
8170
8171 <blockquote><pre>
8172 CONCURRENCY=none
8173 </pre></blockquote>
8174
8175 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
8176 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
8177 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
8178 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
8179
8180       </div>
8181       <div class="tags">
8182
8183
8184         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>.
8185
8186
8187       </div>
8188     </div>
8189     <div class="padding"></div>
8190
8191     <div class="entry">
8192       <div class="title">
8193         <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>
8194       </div>
8195       <div class="date">
8196         14th May 2010
8197       </div>
8198       <div class="body">
8199         <p>In the recent Debian Edu versions, the
8200 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/SiteSummary">sitesummary
8201 system</a> is used to keep track of the machines in the school
8202 network.  Each machine will automatically report its status to the
8203 central server after boot and once per night.  The network setup is
8204 also reported, and using this information it is possible to get the
8205 MAC address of all network interfaces in the machines.  This is useful
8206 to update the DHCP configuration.</p>
8207
8208 <p>To give some idea how to use sitesummary, here is a one-liner to
8209 ist all MAC addresses of all machines reporting to sitesummary.  Run
8210 this on the collector host:</p>
8211
8212 <blockquote><pre>
8213 perl -MSiteSummary -e 'for_all_hosts(sub { print join(" ", get_macaddresses(shift)), "\n"; });'
8214 </pre></blockquote>
8215
8216 <p>This will list all MAC addresses assosiated with all machine, one
8217 line per machine and with space between the MAC addresses.</p>
8218
8219 <p>To allow system administrators easier job at adding static DHCP
8220 addresses for hosts, it would be possible to extend this to fetch
8221 machine information from sitesummary and update the DHCP and DNS
8222 tables in LDAP using this information.  Such tool is unfortunately not
8223 written yet.</p>
8224
8225       </div>
8226       <div class="tags">
8227
8228
8229         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>.
8230
8231
8232       </div>
8233     </div>
8234     <div class="padding"></div>
8235
8236     <div class="entry">
8237       <div class="title">
8238         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/systemd__an_interesting_alternative_to_upstart.html">systemd, an interesting alternative to upstart</a>
8239       </div>
8240       <div class="date">
8241         13th May 2010
8242       </div>
8243       <div class="body">
8244         <p>The last few days a new boot system called
8245 <a href="http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd">systemd</a>
8246 has been
8247 <a href="http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/systemd.html">introduced</a>
8248
8249 to the free software world.  I have not yet had time to play around
8250 with it, but it seem to be a very interesting alternative to
8251 <a href="http://upstart.ubuntu.com/">upstart</a>, and might prove to be
8252 a good alternative for Debian when we are able to switch to an event
8253 based boot system.  Tollef is
8254 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/580814">in the process</a> of getting
8255 systemd into Debian, and I look forward to seeing how well it work.  I
8256 like the fact that systemd handles init.d scripts with dependency
8257 information natively, allowing them to run in parallel where upstart
8258 at the moment do not.</p>
8259
8260 <p>Unfortunately do systemd have the same problem as upstart regarding
8261 platform support.  It only work on recent Linux kernels, and also need
8262 some new kernel features enabled to function properly.  This means
8263 kFreeBSD and Hurd ports of Debian will need a port or a different boot
8264 system.  Not sure how that will be handled if systemd proves to be the
8265 way forward.</p>
8266
8267 <p>In the mean time, based on the
8268 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
8269 on debian-devel@</a> regarding parallel booting in Debian, I have
8270 decided to enable full parallel booting as the default in Debian as
8271 soon as possible (probably this weekend or early next week), to see if
8272 there are any remaining serious bugs in the init.d dependencies.  A
8273 new version of the sysvinit package implementing this change is
8274 already in experimental.  If all go well, Squeeze will be released
8275 with parallel booting enabled by default.</p>
8276
8277       </div>
8278       <div class="tags">
8279
8280
8281         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>.
8282
8283
8284       </div>
8285     </div>
8286     <div class="padding"></div>
8287
8288     <div class="entry">
8289       <div class="title">
8290         <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>
8291       </div>
8292       <div class="date">
8293          6th May 2010
8294       </div>
8295       <div class="body">
8296         <p>These days, the init.d script dependencies in Squeeze are quite
8297 complete, so complete that it is actually possible to run all the
8298 init.d scripts in parallell based on these dependencies.  If you want
8299 to test your Squeeze system, make sure
8300 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
8301 based boot sequencing</a> is enabled, and add this line to
8302 /etc/default/rcS:</p>
8303
8304 <blockquote><pre>
8305 CONCURRENCY=makefile
8306 </pre></blockquote>
8307
8308 <p>That is it.  It will cause sysv-rc to use the startpar tool to run
8309 scripts in parallel using the dependency information stored in
8310 /etc/init.d/.depend.boot, /etc/init.d/.depend.start and
8311 /etc/init.d/.depend.stop to order the scripts.  Startpar is configured
8312 to try to start the kdm and gdm scripts as early as possible, and will
8313 start the facilities required by kdm or gdm as early as possible to
8314 make this happen.</p>
8315
8316 <p>Give it a try, and see if you like the result.  If some services
8317 fail to start properly, it is most likely because they have incomplete
8318 init.d script dependencies in their startup script (or some of their
8319 dependent scripts have incomplete dependencies).  Report bugs and get
8320 the package maintainers to fix it. :)</p>
8321
8322 <p>Running scripts in parallel could be the default in Debian when we
8323 manage to get the init.d script dependencies complete and correct.  I
8324 expect we will get there in Squeeze+1, if we get manage to test and
8325 fix the remaining issues.</p>
8326
8327 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
8328 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
8329 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
8330 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
8331
8332       </div>
8333       <div class="tags">
8334
8335
8336         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>.
8337
8338
8339       </div>
8340     </div>
8341     <div class="padding"></div>
8342
8343     <div class="entry">
8344       <div class="title">
8345         <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>
8346       </div>
8347       <div class="date">
8348         27th July 2009
8349       </div>
8350       <div class="body">
8351         <p>Since this evening, with the upload of sysvinit version 2.87dsf-2,
8352 and the upload of insserv version 1.12.0-10 yesterday, Debian unstable
8353 have been migrated to using dependency based boot sequencing.  This
8354 conclude work me and others have been doing for the last three days.
8355 It feels great to see this finally part of the default Debian
8356 installation.  Now we just need to weed out the last few problems that
8357 are bound to show up, to get everything ready for Squeeze.</p>
8358
8359 <p>The next step is migrating /sbin/init from sysvinit to upstart, and
8360 fixing the more fundamental problem of handing the event based
8361 non-predictable kernel in the early boot.</p>
8362
8363       </div>
8364       <div class="tags">
8365
8366
8367         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>.
8368
8369
8370       </div>
8371     </div>
8372     <div class="padding"></div>
8373
8374     <div class="entry">
8375       <div class="title">
8376         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Taking_over_sysvinit_development.html">Taking over sysvinit development</a>
8377       </div>
8378       <div class="date">
8379         22nd July 2009
8380       </div>
8381       <div class="body">
8382         <p>After several years of frustration with the lack of activity from
8383 the existing sysvinit upstream developer, I decided a few weeks ago to
8384 take over the package and become the new upstream.  The number of
8385 patches to track for the Debian package was becoming a burden, and the
8386 lack of synchronization between the distribution made it hard to keep
8387 the package up to date.</p>
8388
8389 <p>On the new sysvinit team is the SuSe maintainer Dr. Werner Fink,
8390 and my Debian co-maintainer Kel Modderman.  About 10 days ago, I made
8391 a new upstream tarball with version number 2.87dsf (for Debian, SuSe
8392 and Fedora), based on the patches currently in use in these
8393 distributions.  We Debian maintainers plan to move to this tarball as
8394 the new upstream as soon as we find time to do the merge.  Since the
8395 new tarball was created, we agreed with Werner at SuSe to make a new
8396 upstream project at <a href="http://savannah.nongnu.org/">Savannah</a>, and continue
8397 development there.  The project is registered and currently waiting
8398 for approval by the Savannah administrators, and as soon as it is
8399 approved, we will import the old versions from svn and continue
8400 working on the future release.</p>
8401
8402 <p>It is a bit ironic that this is done now, when some of the involved
8403 distributions are moving to upstart as a syvinit replacement.</p>
8404
8405       </div>
8406       <div class="tags">
8407
8408
8409         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>.
8410
8411
8412       </div>
8413     </div>
8414     <div class="padding"></div>
8415
8416     <div class="entry">
8417       <div class="title">
8418         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_boots_quicker_and_quicker.html">Debian boots quicker and quicker</a>
8419       </div>
8420       <div class="date">
8421         24th June 2009
8422       </div>
8423       <div class="body">
8424         <p>I spent Monday and tuesday this week in London with a lot of the
8425 people involved in the boot system on Debian and Ubuntu, to see if we
8426 could find more ways to speed up the boot system.  This was an Ubuntu
8427 funded
8428 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FoundationsTeam/BootPerformance/DebianUbuntuSprint">developer
8429 gathering</a>. It was quite productive.  We also discussed the future
8430 of boot systems, and ways to handle the increasing number of boot
8431 issues introduced by the Linux kernel becoming more and more
8432 asynchronous and event base.  The Ubuntu approach using udev and
8433 upstart might be a good way forward.  Time will show.</p>
8434
8435 <p>Anyway, there are a few ways at the moment to speed up the boot
8436 process in Debian.  All of these should be applied to get a quick
8437 boot:</p>
8438
8439 <ul>
8440
8441 <li>Use dash as /bin/sh.</li>
8442
8443 <li>Disable the init.d/hwclock*.sh scripts and make sure the hardware
8444    clock is in UTC.</li>
8445
8446 <li>Install and activate the insserv package to enable
8447    <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
8448    based boot sequencing</a>, and enable concurrent booting.</li>
8449
8450 </ul>
8451
8452 These points are based on the Google summer of code work done by
8453 <a href="http://initscripts-ng.alioth.debian.org/soc2006-bootsystem/">Carlos
8454 Villegas</a>.
8455
8456 <p>Support for makefile-style concurrency during boot was uploaded to
8457 unstable yesterday.  When we tested it, we were able to cut 6 seconds
8458 from the boot sequence.  It depend on very correct dependency
8459 declaration in all init.d scripts, so I expect us to find edge cases
8460 where the dependences in some scripts are slightly wrong when we start
8461 using this.</p>
8462
8463 <p>On our IRC channel for this effort, #pkg-sysvinit, a new idea was
8464 introduced by Raphael Geissert today, one that could affect the
8465 startup speed as well.  Instead of starting some scripts concurrently
8466 from rcS.d/ and another set of scripts from rc2.d/, it would be
8467 possible to run a of them in the same process.  A quick way to test
8468 this would be to enable insserv and run 'mv /etc/rc2.d/S* /etc/rcS.d/;
8469 insserv'.  Will need to test if that work. :)</p>
8470
8471       </div>
8472       <div class="tags">
8473
8474
8475         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>.
8476
8477
8478       </div>
8479     </div>
8480     <div class="padding"></div>
8481
8482     <div class="entry">
8483       <div class="title">
8484         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/BSAs_p_stander_om_piratkopiering_m_ter_motstand.html">BSAs påstander om piratkopiering møter motstand</a>
8485       </div>
8486       <div class="date">
8487         17th May 2009
8488       </div>
8489       <div class="body">
8490         <p>Hvert år de siste årene har BSA, lobbyfronten til de store
8491 programvareselskapene som Microsoft og Apple, publisert en rapport der
8492 de gjetter på hvor mye piratkopiering påfører i tapte inntekter i
8493 ulike land rundt om i verden.  Resultatene er tendensiøse.  For noen
8494 dager siden kom
8495 <a href="http://global.bsa.org/globalpiracy2008/studies/globalpiracy2008.pdf">siste
8496 rapport</a>, og det er flere kritiske kommentarer publisert de siste
8497 dagene.  Et spesielt interessant kommentar fra Sverige,
8498 <a href="http://www.idg.se/2.1085/1.229795/bsa-hoftade-sverigesiffror">BSA
8499 höftade Sverigesiffror</a>, oppsummeres slik:</p>
8500
8501 <blockquote>
8502 I sin senaste rapport slår BSA fast att 25 procent av all mjukvara i
8503 Sverige är piratkopierad. Det utan att ha pratat med ett enda svenskt
8504 företag. "Man bör nog kanske inte se de här siffrorna som helt
8505 exakta", säger BSAs Sverigechef John Hugosson.
8506 </blockquote>
8507
8508 <p>Mon tro om de er like metodiske når de gjetter på andelen piratkopiering i Norge?  To andre kommentarer er <a
8509 href="http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/comment/2242134/bsa-piracy-figures-shot-reality">BSA
8510 piracy figures need a shot of reality</a> og <a
8511 href="http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/3958/125/">Does The WIPO
8512 Copyright Treaty Work?</a></p>
8513
8514 <p>Fant lenkene via <a
8515 href="http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/05/17/1632242">oppslag
8516 på Slashdot</a>.</p>
8517
8518       </div>
8519       <div class="tags">
8520
8521
8522         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>.
8523
8524
8525       </div>
8526     </div>
8527     <div class="padding"></div>
8528
8529     <div class="entry">
8530       <div class="title">
8531         <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>
8532       </div>
8533       <div class="date">
8534          7th May 2009
8535       </div>
8536       <div class="body">
8537         <p>Kom over
8538 <a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10216873-16.html">interessante
8539 tall</a> fra IDG om utviklingen av linuxservermarkedet.  Fikk meg til
8540 å tenke på antall tjenermaskiner ved Universitetet i Oslo der jeg
8541 jobber til daglig.  En rask opptelling forteller meg at vi har 490
8542 (61%) fysiske unix-tjener (mest linux men også noen solaris) og 196
8543 (25%) windowstjenere, samt 112 (14%) virtuelle unix-tjenere.  Med den
8544 bakgrunnskunnskapen kan jeg godt tro at IDG er inne på noe.</p>
8545
8546       </div>
8547       <div class="tags">
8548
8549
8550         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>.
8551
8552
8553       </div>
8554     </div>
8555     <div class="padding"></div>
8556
8557     <div class="entry">
8558       <div class="title">
8559         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Kryptert_harddisk___naturligvis.html">Kryptert harddisk - naturligvis</a>
8560       </div>
8561       <div class="date">
8562          2nd May 2009
8563       </div>
8564       <div class="body">
8565         <p><a href="http://www.dagensit.no/trender/article1658676.ece">Dagens
8566 IT melder</a> at Intel hevder at det er dyrt å miste en datamaskin,
8567 når en tar tap av arbeidstid, fortrolige dokumenter,
8568 personopplysninger og alt annet det innebærer.  Det er ingen tvil om
8569 at det er en kostbar affære å miste sin datamaskin, og det er årsaken
8570 til at jeg har kryptert harddisken på både kontormaskinen og min
8571 bærbare.  Begge inneholder personopplysninger jeg ikke ønsker skal
8572 komme på avveie, den første informasjon relatert til jobben min ved
8573 Universitetet i Oslo, og den andre relatert til blant annet
8574 foreningsarbeide.  Kryptering av diskene gjør at det er lite
8575 sannsynlig at dophoder som kan finne på å rappe maskinene får noe ut
8576 av dem.  Maskinene låses automatisk etter noen minutter uten bruk,
8577 og en reboot vil gjøre at de ber om passord før de vil starte opp.
8578 Jeg bruker Debian på begge maskinene, og installasjonssystemet der
8579 gjør det trivielt å sette opp krypterte disker.  Jeg har LVM på toppen
8580 av krypterte partisjoner, slik at alt av datapartisjoner er kryptert.
8581 Jeg anbefaler alle å kryptere diskene på sine bærbare.  Kostnaden når
8582 det er gjort slik jeg gjør det er minimale, og gevinstene er
8583 betydelige.  En bør dog passe på passordet.  Hvis det går tapt, må
8584 maskinen reinstalleres og alt er tapt.</p>
8585
8586 <p>Krypteringen vil ikke stoppe kompetente angripere som f.eks. kjøler
8587 ned minnebrikkene før maskinen rebootes med programvare for å hente ut
8588 krypteringsnøklene.  Kostnaden med å forsvare seg mot slike angripere
8589 er for min del høyere enn gevinsten.  Jeg tror oddsene for at
8590 f.eks. etteretningsorganisasjoner har glede av å titte på mine
8591 maskiner er minimale, og ulempene jeg ville oppnå ved å forsøke å
8592 gjøre det vanskeligere for angripere med kompetanse og ressurser er
8593 betydelige.</p>
8594
8595       </div>
8596       <div class="tags">
8597
8598
8599         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>.
8600
8601
8602       </div>
8603     </div>
8604     <div class="padding"></div>
8605
8606     <div class="entry">
8607       <div class="title">
8608         <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>
8609       </div>
8610       <div class="date">
8611          2nd May 2009
8612       </div>
8613       <div class="body">
8614         <p>There are two software projects that have had huge influence on the
8615 quality of free software, and I wanted to mention both in case someone
8616 do not yet know them.</p>
8617
8618 <p>The first one is <a href="http://valgrind.org/">valgrind</a>, a
8619 tool to detect and expose errors in the memory handling of programs.
8620 It is easy to use, all one need to do is to run 'valgrind program',
8621 and it will report any problems on stdout.  It is even better if the
8622 program include debug information.  With debug information, it is able
8623 to report the source file name and line number where the problem
8624 occurs.  It can report things like 'reading past memory block in file
8625 X line N, the memory block was allocated in file Y, line M', and
8626 'using uninitialised value in control logic'.  This tool has made it
8627 trivial to investigate reproducible crash bugs in programs, and have
8628 reduced the number of this kind of bugs in free software a lot.
8629
8630 <p>The second one is
8631 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coverity">Coverity</a> which is
8632 a source code checker.  It is able to process the source of a program
8633 and find problems in the logic without running the program.  It
8634 started out as the Stanford Checker and became well known when it was
8635 used to find bugs in the Linux kernel.  It is now a commercial tool
8636 and the company behind it is running
8637 <a href="http://www.scan.coverity.com/">a community service</a> for the
8638 free software community, where a lot of free software projects get
8639 their source checked for free.  Several thousand defects have been
8640 found and fixed so far.  It can find errors like 'lock L taken in file
8641 X line N is never released if exiting in line M', or 'the code in file
8642 Y lines O to P can never be executed'.  The projects included in the
8643 community service project have managed to get rid of a lot of
8644 reliability problems thanks to Coverity.</p>
8645
8646 <p>I believe tools like this, that are able to automatically find
8647 errors in the source, are vital to improve the quality of software and
8648 make sure we can get rid of the crashing and failing software we are
8649 surrounded by today.</p>
8650
8651       </div>
8652       <div class="tags">
8653
8654
8655         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
8656
8657
8658       </div>
8659     </div>
8660     <div class="padding"></div>
8661
8662     <div class="entry">
8663       <div class="title">
8664         <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>
8665       </div>
8666       <div class="date">
8667         28th April 2009
8668       </div>
8669       <div class="body">
8670         <p>Julien Blache
8671 <a href="http://blog.technologeek.org/2009/04/12/214">claim that no
8672 patch is better than a useless patch</a>.  I completely disagree, as a
8673 patch allow one to discuss a concrete and proposed solution, and also
8674 prove that the issue at hand is important enough for someone to spent
8675 time on fixing it.  No patch do not provide any of these positive
8676 properties.</p>
8677
8678       </div>
8679       <div class="tags">
8680
8681
8682         Tags: <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>.
8683
8684
8685       </div>
8686     </div>
8687     <div class="padding"></div>
8688
8689     <div class="entry">
8690       <div class="title">
8691         <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>
8692       </div>
8693       <div class="date">
8694         30th March 2009
8695       </div>
8696       <div class="body">
8697         <p>Where I work at the University of Oslo, one decision stand out as a
8698 very good one to form a long lived computer infrastructure.  It is the
8699 simple one, lost by many in todays computer industry: Standardize on
8700 open network protocols and open exchange/storage formats, not applications.
8701 Applications come and go, while protocols and files tend to stay, and
8702 thus one want to make it easy to change application and vendor, while
8703 avoiding conversion costs and locking users to a specific platform or
8704 application.</p>
8705
8706 <p>This approach make it possible to replace the client applications
8707 independently of the server applications.  One can even allow users to
8708 use several different applications as long as they handle the selected
8709 protocol and format.  In the normal case, only one client application
8710 is recommended and users only get help if they choose to use this
8711 application, but those that want to deviate from the easy path are not
8712 blocked from doing so.</p>
8713
8714 <p>It also allow us to replace the server side without forcing the
8715 users to replace their applications, and thus allow us to select the
8716 best server implementation at any moment, when scale and resouce
8717 requirements change.</p>
8718
8719 <p>I strongly recommend standardizing - on open network protocols and
8720 open formats, but I would never recommend standardizing on a single
8721 application that do not use open network protocol or open formats.</p>
8722
8723       </div>
8724       <div class="tags">
8725
8726
8727         Tags: <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>.
8728
8729
8730       </div>
8731     </div>
8732     <div class="padding"></div>
8733
8734     <div class="entry">
8735       <div class="title">
8736         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Returning_from_Skolelinux_developer_gathering.html">Returning from Skolelinux developer gathering</a>
8737       </div>
8738       <div class="date">
8739         29th March 2009
8740       </div>
8741       <div class="body">
8742         <p>I'm sitting on the train going home from this weekends Debian
8743 Edu/Skolelinux development gathering.  I got a bit done tuning the
8744 desktop, and looked into the dynamic service location protocol
8745 implementation avahi.  It look like it could be useful for us.  Almost
8746 30 people participated, and I believe it was a great environment to
8747 get to know the Skolelinux system.  Walter Bender, involved in the
8748 development of the Sugar educational platform, presented his stuff and
8749 also helped me improve my OLPC installation.  He also showed me that
8750 his Turtle Art application can be used in standalone mode, and we
8751 agreed that I would help getting it packaged for Debian.  As a
8752 standalone application it would be great for Debian Edu.  We also
8753 tried to get the video conferencing working with two OLPCs, but that
8754 proved to be too hard for us.  The application seem to need more work
8755 before it is ready for me.  I look forward to getting home and relax
8756 now. :)</p>
8757
8758       </div>
8759       <div class="tags">
8760
8761
8762         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>.
8763
8764
8765       </div>
8766     </div>
8767     <div class="padding"></div>
8768
8769     <div class="entry">
8770       <div class="title">
8771         <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>
8772       </div>
8773       <div class="date">
8774         29th March 2009
8775       </div>
8776       <div class="body">
8777         <p>The state of standardized LDAP schemas on Linux is far from
8778 optimal.  There is RFC 2307 documenting one way to store NIS maps in
8779 LDAP, and a modified version of this normally called RFC 2307bis, with
8780 some modifications to be compatible with Active Directory.  The RFC
8781 specification handle the content of a lot of system databases, but do
8782 not handle DNS zones and DHCP configuration.</p>
8783
8784 <p>In <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux</a>,
8785 we would like to store information about users, SMB clients/hosts,
8786 filegroups, netgroups (users and hosts), DHCP and DNS configuration,
8787 and LTSP configuration in LDAP.  These objects have a lot in common,
8788 but with the current LDAP schemas it is not possible to have one
8789 object per entity.  For example, one need to have at least three LDAP
8790 objects for a given computer, one with the SMB related stuff, one with
8791 DNS information and another with DHCP information.  The schemas
8792 provided for DNS and DHCP are impossible to combine into one LDAP
8793 object.  In addition, it is impossible to implement quick queries for
8794 netgroup membership, because of the way NIS triples are implemented.
8795 It just do not scale.  I believe it is time for a few RFC
8796 specifications to cleam up this mess.</p>
8797
8798 <p>I would like to have one LDAP object representing each computer in
8799 the network, and this object can then keep the SMB (ie host key), DHCP
8800 (mac address/name) and DNS (name/IP address) settings in one place.
8801 It need to be efficently stored to make sure it scale well.</p>
8802
8803 <p>I would also like to have a quick way to map from a user or
8804 computer and to the net group this user or computer is a member.</p>
8805
8806 <p>Active Directory have done a better job than unix heads like myself
8807 in this regard, and the unix side need to catch up.  Time to start a
8808 new IETF work group?</p>
8809
8810       </div>
8811       <div class="tags">
8812
8813
8814         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>.
8815
8816
8817       </div>
8818     </div>
8819     <div class="padding"></div>
8820
8821     <div class="entry">
8822       <div class="title">
8823         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Endelig_er_Debian_Lenny_gitt_ut.html">Endelig er Debian Lenny gitt ut</a>
8824       </div>
8825       <div class="date">
8826         15th February 2009
8827       </div>
8828       <div class="body">
8829         <p>Endelig er <a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</a>
8830 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2009/20090214">Lenny</a> gitt ut.
8831 Et langt steg videre for Debian-prosjektet, og en rekke nye
8832 programpakker blir nå tilgjengelig for de av oss som bruker den
8833 stabile utgaven av Debian.  Neste steg er nå å få
8834 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a> /
8835 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/">Debian Edu</a> ferdig
8836 oppdatert for den nye utgaven, slik at en oppdatert versjon kan
8837 slippes løs på skolene.  Takk til alle debian-utviklerne som har
8838 gjort dette mulig.  Endelig er f.eks. fungerende avhengighetsstyrt
8839 bootsekvens tilgjengelig i stabil utgave, vha pakken
8840 <tt>insserv</tt>.</p>
8841
8842       </div>
8843       <div class="tags">
8844
8845
8846         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>.
8847
8848
8849       </div>
8850     </div>
8851     <div class="padding"></div>
8852
8853     <div class="entry">
8854       <div class="title">
8855         <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>
8856       </div>
8857       <div class="date">
8858          7th December 2008
8859       </div>
8860       <div class="body">
8861         <p>This weekend we had a small developer gathering for Debian Edu in
8862 Oslo.  Most of Saturday was used for the general assemly for the
8863 member organization, but the rest of the weekend I used to tune the
8864 LTSP installation.  LTSP now work out of the box on the 10-network.
8865 Acer Aspire One proved to be a very nice thin client, with both
8866 screen, mouse and keybard in a small box.  Was working on getting the
8867 diskless workstation setup configured out of the box, but did not
8868 finish it before the weekend was up.</p>
8869
8870 <p>Did not find time to look at the 4 VGA cards in one box we got from
8871 the Brazilian group, so that will have to wait for the next
8872 development gathering.  Would love to have the Debian Edu installer
8873 automatically detect and configure a multiseat setup when it find one
8874 of these cards.</p>
8875
8876       </div>
8877       <div class="tags">
8878
8879
8880         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>.
8881
8882
8883       </div>
8884     </div>
8885     <div class="padding"></div>
8886
8887     <div class="entry">
8888       <div class="title">
8889         <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>
8890       </div>
8891       <div class="date">
8892         25th November 2008
8893       </div>
8894       <div class="body">
8895         <p>Recently I have spent some time evaluating the multimedia browser
8896 plugins available in Debian Lenny, to see which one we should use by
8897 default in Debian Edu.  We need an embedded video playing plugin with
8898 control buttons to pause or stop the video, and capable of streaming
8899 all the multimedia content available on the web.  The test results and
8900 notes are available on
8901 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">the
8902 Debian wiki</a>.  I was surprised how few of the plugins are able to
8903 fill this need.  My personal video player favorite, VLC, has a really
8904 bad plugin which fail on a lot of the test pages.  A lot of the MIME
8905 types I would expect to work with any free software player (like
8906 video/ogg), just do not work.  And simple formats like the
8907 audio/x-mplegurl format (m3u playlists), just isn't supported by the
8908 totem and vlc plugins.  I hope the situation will improve soon.  No
8909 wonder sites use the proprietary Adobe flash to play video.</p>
8910
8911 <p>For Lenny, we seem to end up with the mplayer plugin.  It seem to
8912 be the only one fitting our needs. :/</p>
8913
8914       </div>
8915       <div class="tags">
8916
8917
8918         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>.
8919
8920
8921       </div>
8922     </div>
8923     <div class="padding"></div>
8924
8925     <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>
8926     <div id="sidebar">
8927
8928
8929
8930 <h2>Archive</h2>
8931 <ul>
8932
8933 <li>2014
8934 <ul>
8935
8936 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/01/">January (2)</a></li>
8937
8938 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/02/">February (3)</a></li>
8939
8940 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/03/">March (8)</a></li>
8941
8942 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/04/">April (7)</a></li>
8943
8944 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/05/">May (1)</a></li>
8945
8946 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/06/">June (2)</a></li>
8947
8948 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/07/">July (2)</a></li>
8949
8950 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/08/">August (2)</a></li>
8951
8952 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/09/">September (5)</a></li>
8953
8954 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/10/">October (6)</a></li>
8955
8956 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/11/">November (1)</a></li>
8957
8958 </ul></li>
8959
8960 <li>2013
8961 <ul>
8962
8963 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/01/">January (11)</a></li>
8964
8965 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/02/">February (9)</a></li>
8966
8967 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/03/">March (9)</a></li>
8968
8969 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/04/">April (6)</a></li>
8970
8971 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/05/">May (9)</a></li>
8972
8973 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/06/">June (10)</a></li>
8974
8975 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/07/">July (7)</a></li>
8976
8977 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/08/">August (3)</a></li>
8978
8979 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/09/">September (5)</a></li>
8980
8981 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/10/">October (7)</a></li>
8982
8983 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/11/">November (9)</a></li>
8984
8985 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/12/">December (3)</a></li>
8986
8987 </ul></li>
8988
8989 <li>2012
8990 <ul>
8991
8992 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/01/">January (7)</a></li>
8993
8994 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/02/">February (10)</a></li>
8995
8996 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/03/">March (17)</a></li>
8997
8998 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/04/">April (12)</a></li>
8999
9000 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/05/">May (12)</a></li>
9001
9002 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/06/">June (20)</a></li>
9003
9004 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/07/">July (17)</a></li>
9005
9006 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/08/">August (6)</a></li>
9007
9008 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/09/">September (9)</a></li>
9009
9010 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/10/">October (17)</a></li>
9011
9012 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/11/">November (10)</a></li>
9013
9014 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/12/">December (7)</a></li>
9015
9016 </ul></li>
9017
9018 <li>2011
9019 <ul>
9020
9021 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/01/">January (16)</a></li>
9022
9023 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/02/">February (6)</a></li>
9024
9025 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/03/">March (6)</a></li>
9026
9027 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/04/">April (7)</a></li>
9028
9029 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/05/">May (3)</a></li>
9030
9031 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/06/">June (2)</a></li>
9032
9033 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/07/">July (7)</a></li>
9034
9035 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/08/">August (6)</a></li>
9036
9037 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/09/">September (4)</a></li>
9038
9039 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/10/">October (2)</a></li>
9040
9041 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/11/">November (3)</a></li>
9042
9043 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/12/">December (1)</a></li>
9044
9045 </ul></li>
9046
9047 <li>2010
9048 <ul>
9049
9050 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/01/">January (2)</a></li>
9051
9052 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/02/">February (1)</a></li>
9053
9054 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/03/">March (3)</a></li>
9055
9056 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/04/">April (3)</a></li>
9057
9058 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/05/">May (9)</a></li>
9059
9060 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/06/">June (14)</a></li>
9061
9062 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/07/">July (12)</a></li>
9063
9064 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/08/">August (13)</a></li>
9065
9066 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/09/">September (7)</a></li>
9067
9068 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/10/">October (9)</a></li>
9069
9070 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/11/">November (13)</a></li>
9071
9072 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/12/">December (12)</a></li>
9073
9074 </ul></li>
9075
9076 <li>2009
9077 <ul>
9078
9079 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/01/">January (8)</a></li>
9080
9081 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/02/">February (8)</a></li>
9082
9083 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/03/">March (12)</a></li>
9084
9085 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/04/">April (10)</a></li>
9086
9087 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/05/">May (9)</a></li>
9088
9089 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/06/">June (3)</a></li>
9090
9091 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/07/">July (4)</a></li>
9092
9093 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/08/">August (3)</a></li>
9094
9095 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/09/">September (1)</a></li>
9096
9097 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/10/">October (2)</a></li>
9098
9099 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/11/">November (3)</a></li>
9100
9101 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/12/">December (3)</a></li>
9102
9103 </ul></li>
9104
9105 <li>2008
9106 <ul>
9107
9108 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/11/">November (5)</a></li>
9109
9110 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/12/">December (7)</a></li>
9111
9112 </ul></li>
9113
9114 </ul>
9115
9116
9117
9118 <h2>Tags</h2>
9119 <ul>
9120
9121  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer (13)</a></li>
9122
9123  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/amiga">amiga (1)</a></li>
9124
9125  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/aros">aros (1)</a></li>
9126
9127  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bankid">bankid (4)</a></li>
9128
9129  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin (8)</a></li>
9130
9131  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem (14)</a></li>
9132
9133  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bsa">bsa (2)</a></li>
9134
9135  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/chrpath">chrpath (2)</a></li>
9136
9137  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian (108)</a></li>
9138
9139  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu (151)</a></li>
9140
9141  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/digistan">digistan (10)</a></li>
9142
9143  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/dld">dld (15)</a></li>
9144
9145  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook (12)</a></li>
9146
9147  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/drivstoffpriser">drivstoffpriser (4)</a></li>
9148
9149  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english (262)</a></li>
9150
9151  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami (21)</a></li>
9152
9153  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fildeling">fildeling (12)</a></li>
9154
9155  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture (13)</a></li>
9156
9157  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox (9)</a></li>
9158
9159  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen (11)</a></li>
9160
9161  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju (41)</a></li>
9162
9163  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram (10)</a></li>
9164
9165  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kart">kart (19)</a></li>
9166
9167  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap (9)</a></li>
9168
9169  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lenker">lenker (8)</a></li>
9170
9171  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lsdvd">lsdvd (2)</a></li>
9172
9173  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ltsp">ltsp (1)</a></li>
9174
9175  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network (8)</a></li>
9176
9177  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia (31)</a></li>
9178
9179  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk (248)</a></li>
9180
9181  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug (163)</a></li>
9182
9183  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/offentlig innsyn">offentlig innsyn (11)</a></li>
9184
9185  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/open311">open311 (2)</a></li>
9186
9187  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett (48)</a></li>
9188
9189  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern (76)</a></li>
9190
9191  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/raid">raid (1)</a></li>
9192
9193  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reactos">reactos (1)</a></li>
9194
9195  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reprap">reprap (11)</a></li>
9196
9197  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rfid">rfid (3)</a></li>
9198
9199  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot (9)</a></li>
9200
9201  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rss">rss (1)</a></li>
9202
9203  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ruter">ruter (4)</a></li>
9204
9205  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/scraperwiki">scraperwiki (2)</a></li>
9206
9207  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet (41)</a></li>
9208
9209  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary (4)</a></li>
9210
9211  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/skepsis">skepsis (4)</a></li>
9212
9213  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard (45)</a></li>
9214
9215  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stavekontroll">stavekontroll (3)</a></li>
9216
9217  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stortinget">stortinget (9)</a></li>
9218
9219  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance (27)</a></li>
9220
9221  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sysadmin">sysadmin (2)</a></li>
9222
9223  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/valg">valg (8)</a></li>
9224
9225  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video (44)</a></li>
9226
9227  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/vitenskap">vitenskap (4)</a></li>
9228
9229  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web (33)</a></li>
9230
9231 </ul>
9232
9233
9234     </div>
9235     <p style="text-align: right">
9236  Created by <a href="http://steve.org.uk/Software/chronicle">Chronicle v4.6</a>
9237 </p>
9238
9239   </body>
9240 </html>