blog/tags/debian/index.html

   1 <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
   2           "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
   3 <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" dir="ltr">
   4   <head>
   5     <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" />
   6     <title>Petter Reinholdtsen: Entries Tagged debian</title>
   7     <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="screen" href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/style.css" />
   8     <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="screen" href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/vim.css" />
   9     <link rel="alternate" title="RSS Feed" href="debian.rss" type="application/rss+xml" />
  10   </head>
  11   <body>
  12     <div class="title">
  13  <h1>
  14      <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/">Petter Reinholdtsen</a>
  15
  16  </h1>
  17
  18 </div>
  19
  20
  21     <h3>Entries tagged "debian".</h3>
  22
  23     <div class="entry">
  24       <div class="title">
  25         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/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>
  26       </div>
  27       <div class="date">
  28         25th June 2013
  29       </div>
  30       <div class="body">
  31         <p>It annoys me when the computer fail to do automatically what it is
  32 perfectly capable of, and I have to do it manually to get things
  33 working.  One such task is to find out what firmware packages are
  34 needed to get the hardware on my computer working.  Most often this
  35 affect the wifi card, but some times it even affect the RAID
  36 controller or the ethernet card.  Today I pushed version 0.4 of the
  37 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">Isenkram package</a>
  38 including a new script isenkram-autoinstall-firmware handling the
  39 process of asking all the loaded kernel modules what firmware files
  40 they want, find debian packages providing these files and install the
  41 debian packages.  Here is a test run on my laptop:</p>
  42
  43 <p><pre>
  44 # isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
  45 info: kernel drivers requested extra firmware: ipw2200-bss.fw ipw2200-ibss.fw ipw2200-sniffer.fw
  46 info: fetching http://http.debian.net/debian/dists/squeeze/Contents-i386.gz
  47 info: locating packages with the requested firmware files
  48 info: Updating APT sources after adding non-free APT source
  49 info: trying to install firmware-ipw2x00
  50 firmware-ipw2x00
  51 firmware-ipw2x00
  52 Preconfiguring packages ...
  53 Selecting previously deselected package firmware-ipw2x00.
  54 (Reading database ... 259727 files and directories currently installed.)
  55 Unpacking firmware-ipw2x00 (from .../firmware-ipw2x00_0.28+squeeze1_all.deb) ...
  56 Setting up firmware-ipw2x00 (0.28+squeeze1) ...
  57 #
  58 </pre></p>
  59
  60 <p>When all the requested firmware is present, a simple message is
  61 printed instead:</p>
  62
  63 <p><pre>
  64 # isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
  65 info: did not find any firmware files requested by loaded kernel modules.  exiting
  66 #
  67 </pre></p>
  68
  69 <p>It could use some polish, but it is already working well and saving
  70 me some time when setting up new machines. :)</p>
  71
  72 <p>So, how does it work?  It look at the set of currently loaded
  73 kernel modules, and look up each one of them using modinfo, to find
  74 the firmware files listed in the module meta-information.  Next, it
  75 download the Contents file from a nearby APT mirror, and search for
  76 the firmware files in this file to locate the package with the
  77 requested firmware file.  If the package is in the non-free section, a
  78 non-free APT source is added and the package is installed using
  79 <tt>apt-get install</tt>.  The end result is a slightly better working
  80 machine.</p>
  81
  82 <p>I hope someone find time to implement a more polished version of
  83 this script as part of the hw-detect debian-installer module, to
  84 finally fix <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/655507">BTS report
  85 #655507</a>.  There really is no need to insert USB sticks with
  86 firmware during a PXE install when the packages already are available
  87 from the nearby Debian mirror.</p>
  88
  89       </div>
  90       <div class="tags">
  91
  92
  93         Tags: <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>.
  94
  95
  96       </div>
  97     </div>
  98     <div class="padding"></div>
  99
 100     <div class="entry">
 101       <div class="title">
 102         <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>
 103       </div>
 104       <div class="date">
 105         11th June 2013
 106       </div>
 107       <div class="body">
 108         <p>When installing RedHat, Fedora, Debian and Ubuntu on some machines,
 109 the screen just turn black when Linux boot, either during installation
 110 or on first boot from the hard disk.  I've seen it once in a while the
 111 last few years, but only recently understood the cause.  I've seen it
 112 on HP laptops, and on my latest acquaintance the Packard Bell laptop.
 113 The reason seem to be in the wiring of some laptops.  The system to
 114 control the screen background light is inverted, so when Linux try to
 115 turn the brightness fully on, it end up turning it off instead.  I do
 116 not know which Linux drivers are affected, but this post is about the
 117 i915 driver used by the
 118 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Packard Bell
 119 EasyNote LV</a>, Thinkpad X40 and many other laptops.</p>
 120
 121 <p>The problem can be worked around two ways.  Either by adding
 122 i915.invert_brightness=1 as a kernel option, or by adding a file in
 123 /etc/modprobe.d/ to tell modprobe to add the invert_brightness=1
 124 option when it load the i915 kernel module.  On Debian and Ubuntu, it
 125 can be done by running these commands as root:</p>
 126
 127 <pre>
 128 echo options i915 invert_brightness=1 | tee /etc/modprobe.d/i915.conf
 129 update-initramfs -u -k all
 130 </pre>
 131
 132 <p>Since March 2012 there is
 133 <a href="http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=4dca20efb1a9c2efefc28ad2867e5d6c3f5e1955">a
 134 mechanism in the Linux kernel</a> to tell the i915 driver which
 135 hardware have this problem, and get the driver to invert the
 136 brightness setting automatically.  To use it, one need to add a row in
 137 <a href="http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c">the
 138 intel_quirks array</a> in the driver source
 139 <tt>drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c</tt> (look for "<tt>static
 140 struct intel_quirk intel_quirks</tt>"), specifying the PCI device
 141 number (vendor number 8086 is assumed) and subdevice vendor and device
 142 number.</p>
 143
 144 <p>My Packard Bell EasyNote LV got this output from <tt>lspci
 145 -vvnn</tt> for the video card in question:</p>
 146
 147 <p><pre>
 148 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation \
 149     3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller [8086:0156] \
 150     (rev 09) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
 151  Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device [1025:0688]
 152  Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- \
 153     ParErr- Stepping- SE RR- FastB2B- DisINTx+
 154  Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- \
 155     <TAbort- <MAbort->SERR- <PERR- INTx-
 156  Latency: 0
 157  Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 42
 158  Region 0: Memory at c2000000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4M]
 159  Region 2: Memory at b0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
 160  Region 4: I/O ports at 4000 [size=64]
 161  Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled]
 162  Capabilities: <access denied>
 163  Kernel driver in use: i915
 164 </pre></p>
 165
 166 <p>The resulting intel_quirks entry would then look like this:</p>
 167
 168 <p><pre>
 169 struct intel_quirk intel_quirks[] = {
 170        ...
 171         /* Packard Bell EasyNote LV11HC needs invert brightness quirk */
 172         { 0x0156, 0x1025, 0x0688, quirk_invert_brightness },
 173        ...
 174 }
 175 </pre></p>
 176
 177 <p>According to the kernel module instructions (as seen using
 178 <tt>modinfo i915</tt>), information about hardware needing the
 179 invert_brightness flag should be sent to the
 180 <a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/dri-devel">dri-devel
 181 (at) lists.freedesktop.org</a> mailing list to reach the kernel
 182 developers.  But my email about the laptop sent 2013-06-03 have not
 183 yet shown up in
 184 <a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/dri-devel/2013-June/thread.html">the
 185 web archive for the mailing list</a>, so I suspect they do not accept
 186 emails from non-subscribers.  Because of this, I sent my patch also to
 187 the Debian bug tracking system instead as
 188 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/710938">BTS report #710938</a>, to make
 189 sure the patch is not lost.</p>
 190
 191 <p>Unfortunately, it is not enough to fix the kernel to get Laptops
 192 with this problem working properly with Linux.  If you use Gnome, your
 193 worries should be over at this point.  But if you use KDE, there is
 194 something in KDE ignoring the invert_brightness setting and turning on
 195 the screen during login.  I've reported it to Debian as
 196 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/711237">BTS report #711237</a>, and
 197 have no idea yet how to figure out exactly what subsystem is doing
 198 this.  Perhaps you can help?  Perhaps you know what the Gnome
 199 developers did to handle this, and this can give a clue to the KDE
 200 developers?  Or you know where in KDE the screen brightness is changed
 201 during login?  If so, please update the BTS report (or get in touch if
 202 you do not know how to update BTS).</p>
 203
 204       </div>
 205       <div class="tags">
 206
 207
 208         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
 209
 210
 211       </div>
 212     </div>
 213     <div class="padding"></div>
 214
 215     <div class="entry">
 216       <div class="title">
 217         <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>
 218       </div>
 219       <div class="date">
 220         27th May 2013
 221       </div>
 222       <div class="body">
 223         <p>Two days ago, I asked
 224 <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
 225 I could install Linux on a Packard Bell EasyNote LV computer
 226 preinstalled with Windows 8</a>.  I found a solution, but am horrified
 227 with the obstacles put in the way of Linux users on a laptop with UEFI
 228 and Windows 8.</p>
 229
 230 <p>I never found out if the cause of my problems were the use of UEFI
 231 secure booting or fast boot.  I suspect fast boot was the problem,
 232 causing the firmware to boot directly from HD without considering any
 233 key presses and alternative devices, but do not know UEFI settings
 234 enough to tell.</p>
 235
 236 <p>There is no way to install Linux on the machine in question without
 237 opening the box and disconnecting the hard drive!  This is as far as I
 238 can tell, the only way to get access to the firmware setup menu
 239 without accepting the Windows 8 license agreement.  I am told (and
 240 found description on how to) that it is possible to configure the
 241 firmware setup once booted into Windows 8.  But as I believe the terms
 242 of that agreement are completely unacceptable, accepting the license
 243 was never an alternative.  I do not enter agreements I do not intend
 244 to follow.</p>
 245
 246 <p>I feared I had to return the laptops and ask for a refund, and
 247 waste many hours on this, but luckily there was a way to get it to
 248 work.  But I would not recommend it to anyone planning to run Linux on
 249 it, and I have become sceptical to Windows 8 certified laptops.  Is
 250 this the way Linux will be forced out of the market place, by making
 251 it close to impossible for "normal" users to install Linux without
 252 accepting the Microsoft Windows license terms?  Or at least not
 253 without risking to loose the warranty?</p>
 254
 255 <p>I've updated the
 256 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Linux Laptop
 257 wiki page for Packard Bell EasyNote LV</a>, to ensure the next person
 258 do not have to struggle as much as I did to get Linux into the
 259 machine.</p>
 260
 261 <p>Thanks to Bob Rosbag, Florian Weimer, Philipp Kern, Ben Hutching,
 262 Michael Tokarev and others for feedback and ideas.</p>
 263
 264       </div>
 265       <div class="tags">
 266
 267
 268         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
 269
 270
 271       </div>
 272     </div>
 273     <div class="padding"></div>
 274
 275     <div class="entry">
 276       <div class="title">
 277         <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>
 278       </div>
 279       <div class="date">
 280         25th May 2013
 281       </div>
 282       <div class="body">
 283         <p>I've run into quite a problem the last few days.  I bought three
 284 new laptops for my parents and a few others.  I bought Packard Bell
 285 Easynote LV to run Kubuntu on and use as their home computer.  But I
 286 am completely unable to figure out how to install Linux on it.  The
 287 computer is preinstalled with Windows 8, and I suspect it uses UEFI
 288 instead of a BIOS to boot.</p>
 289
 290 <p>The problem is that I am unable to get it to PXE boot, and unable
 291 to get it to boot the Linux installer from my USB stick.  I have yet
 292 to try the DVD install, and still hope it will work.  when I turn on
 293 the computer, there is no information on what buttons to press to get
 294 the normal boot menu.  I expect to get some boot menu to select PXE or
 295 USB stick booting.  When booting, it first ask for the language to
 296 use, then for some regional settings, and finally if I will accept the
 297 Windows 8 terms of use.  As these terms are completely unacceptable to
 298 me, I have no other choice but to turn off the computer and try again
 299 to get it to boot the Linux installer.</p>
 300
 301 <p>I have gathered my findings so far on a Linlap page about the
 302 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Packard Bell
 303 EasyNote LV</a> model.  If you have any idea how to get Linux
 304 installed on this machine, please get in touch or update that wiki
 305 page.  If I can't find a way to install Linux, I will have to return
 306 the laptop to the seller and find another machine for my parents.</p>
 307
 308 <p>I wonder, is this the way Linux will be forced out of the market
 309 using UEFI and "secure boot" by making it impossible to install Linux
 310 on new Laptops?</p>
 311
 312       </div>
 313       <div class="tags">
 314
 315
 316         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
 317
 318
 319       </div>
 320     </div>
 321     <div class="padding"></div>
 322
 323     <div class="entry">
 324       <div class="title">
 325         <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>
 326       </div>
 327       <div class="date">
 328         17th May 2013
 329       </div>
 330       <div class="body">
 331         <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> is
 332 an operating system based on Debian intended for use in schools.  It
 333 contain a turn-key solution for the computer network provided to
 334 pupils in the primary schools.  It provide both the central server,
 335 network boot servers and desktop environments with heaps of
 336 educational software.  The project was founded almost 12 years ago,
 337 2001-07-02.  If you want to support the project, which is in need for
 338 cash to fund developer gatherings and other project related activity,
 339 <a href="http://www.linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">please
 340 donate some money</a>.
 341
 342 <p>A topic that come up again and again on the Debian Edu mailing
 343 lists and elsewhere, is the question on how to transform a Debian or
 344 Ubuntu installation into a Debian Edu installation.  It isn't very
 345 hard, and last week I wrote a script to replicate the steps done by
 346 the Debian Edu installer.</p>
 347
 348 <p>The script,
 349 <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/>
 350 in the debian-edu-config package, will go through these six steps and
 351 transform an existing Debian Wheezy or Ubuntu (untested) installation
 352 into a Debian Edu Workstation:</p>
 353
 354 <ol>
 355
 356 <li>Add skolelinux related APT sources.</li>
 357 <li>Create /etc/debian-edu/config with the wanted configuration.</li>
 358 <li>Install debian-edu-install to load preseeding values and pull in
 359     our configuration.</li>
 360 <li>Preseed debconf database with profile setup in
 361     /etc/debian-edu/config, and run tasksel to install packages
 362     according to the profile specified in the config above,
 363     overriding some of the Debian automation machinery.</li>
 364 <li>Run debian-edu-cfengine-D installation to configure everything
 365     that could not be done using preseeding.</li>
 366 <li>Ask for a reboot to enable all the configuration changes.</li>
 367
 368 </ol>
 369
 370 <p>There are some steps in the Debian Edu installation that can not be
 371 replicated like this.  Disk partitioning and LVM setup, for example.
 372 So this script just assume there is enough disk space to install all
 373 the needed packages.</p>
 374
 375 <p>The script was created to help a Debian Edu student working on
 376 setting up <a href="http://www.raspberrypi.org">Raspberry Pi</a> as a
 377 Debian Edu client, and using it he can take the existing
 378 <a href="http://www.raspbian.org/FrontPage‎">Raspbian</a> installation and
 379 transform it into a fully functioning Debian Edu Workstation (or
 380 Roaming Workstation, or whatever :).</p>
 381
 382 <p>The default setting in the script is to create a KDE Workstation.
 383 If a LXDE based Roaming workstation is wanted instead, modify the
 384 PROFILE and DESKTOP values at the top to look like this instead:</p>
 385
 386 <p><pre>
 387 PROFILE="Roaming-Workstation"
 388 DESKTOP="lxde"
 389 </pre></p>
 390
 391 <p>The script could even become useful to set up Debian Edu servers in
 392 the cloud, by starting with a virtual Debian installation at some
 393 virtual hosting service and setting up all the services on first
 394 boot.</p>
 395
 396       </div>
 397       <div class="tags">
 398
 399
 400         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>.
 401
 402
 403       </div>
 404     </div>
 405     <div class="padding"></div>
 406
 407     <div class="entry">
 408       <div class="title">
 409         <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>
 410       </div>
 411       <div class="date">
 412         11th May 2013
 413       </div>
 414       <div class="body">
 415         <P>In January,
 416 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_IRC_channel_for_LEGO_designers_using_Debian.html">I
 417 announced a</a> new <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">IRC
 418 channel #debian-lego</a>, for those of us in the Debian and Linux
 419 community interested in <a href="http://www.lego.com/">LEGO</a>, the
 420 marvellous construction system from Denmark.  We also created
 421 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">a wiki page</a> to have
 422 a place to take notes and write down our plans and hopes.  And several
 423 people showed up to help.  I was very happy to see the effect of my
 424 call.  Since the small start, we have a debtags tag
 425 <a href="http://debtags.debian.net/search/bytag?wl=hardware::hobby:lego">hardware::hobby:lego</a>
 426 tag for LEGO related packages, and now count 10 packages related to
 427 LEGO and <a href="http://mindstorms.lego.com/">Mindstorms</a>:</p>
 428
 429 <p><table>
 430 <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>
 431 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/leocad">leocad</a></td><td>virtual brick CAD software</td></tr>
 432 <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>
 433 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/lnpd">lnpd</a></td><td>daemon for LNP communication with BrickOS</td></tr>
 434 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/nbc">nbc</a></td><td>compiler for LEGO Mindstorms NXT bricks</td></tr>
 435 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/nqc">nqc</a></td><td>Not Quite C compiler for LEGO Mindstorms RCX</td></tr>
 436 <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>
 437 <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>
 438 <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>
 439 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/t2n">t2n</a></td><td>simple command-line tool for Lego NXT</td></tr>
 440 </table></p>
 441
 442 <p>Some of these are available in Wheezy, and all but one are
 443 currently available in Jessie/testing.  leocad is so far only
 444 available in experimental.</p>
 445
 446 <p>If you care about LEGO in Debian, please join us on IRC and help
 447 adding the rest of the great free software tools available on Linux
 448 for LEGO designers.</p>
 449
 450       </div>
 451       <div class="tags">
 452
 453
 454         Tags: <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>.
 455
 456
 457       </div>
 458     </div>
 459     <div class="padding"></div>
 460
 461     <div class="entry">
 462       <div class="title">
 463         <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>
 464       </div>
 465       <div class="date">
 466          5th May 2013
 467       </div>
 468       <div class="body">
 469         <p>When I woke up this morning, I was very happy to see that the
 470 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2013/20130504">release announcement
 471 for Debian Wheezy</a> was waiting in my mail box.  This is a great
 472 Debian release, and I expect to move my machines at home over to it fairly
 473 soon.</p>
 474
 475 <p>The new debian release contain heaps of new stuff, and one program
 476 in particular make me very happy to see included.  The
 477 <a href="http://scratch.mit.edu/">Scratch</a> program, made famous by
 478 the <a href="http://www.code.org/">Teach kids code</a> movement, is
 479 included for the first time.  Alongside similar programs like
 480 <a href="http://edu.kde.org/kturtle/">kturtle</a> and
 481 <a href="http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/Turtle_Art">turtleart</a>,
 482 it allow for visual programming where syntax errors can not happen,
 483 and a friendly programming environment for learning to control the
 484 computer.  Scratch will also be included in the next release of Debian
 485 Edu.</a>
 486
 487 <p>And now that Wheezy is wrapped up, we can wrap up the next Debian
 488 Edu/Skolelinux release too.  The
 489 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/2013/04/msg00132.html">first
 490 alpha release</a> went out last week, and the next should soon
 491 follow.<p>
 492
 493       </div>
 494       <div class="tags">
 495
 496
 497         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>.
 498
 499
 500       </div>
 501     </div>
 502     <div class="padding"></div>
 503
 504     <div class="entry">
 505       <div class="title">
 506         <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>
 507       </div>
 508       <div class="date">
 509          3rd April 2013
 510       </div>
 511       <div class="body">
 512         <p>Today the <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">Isenkram
 513 package</a> finally made it into the archive, after lingering in NEW
 514 for many months.  I uploaded it to the Debian experimental suite
 515 2013-01-27, and today it was accepted into the archive.</p>
 516
 517 <p>Isenkram is a system for suggesting to users what packages to
 518 install to work with a pluggable hardware device.  The suggestion pop
 519 up when the device is plugged in.  For example if a Lego Mindstorm NXT
 520 is inserted, it will suggest to install the program needed to program
 521 the NXT controller.  Give it a go, and report bugs and suggestions to
 522 BTS. :)</p>
 523
 524       </div>
 525       <div class="tags">
 526
 527
 528         Tags: <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>.
 529
 530
 531       </div>
 532     </div>
 533     <div class="padding"></div>
 534
 535     <div class="entry">
 536       <div class="title">
 537         <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>
 538       </div>
 539       <div class="date">
 540          2nd February 2013
 541       </div>
 542       <div class="body">
 543         <p>My
 544 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_backport_bitcoin_qt_version_0_7_2_2_to_Debian_Squeeze.html">last
 545 bitcoin related blog post</a> mentioned that the new
 546 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin package</a> for
 547 Debian was waiting in NEW.  It was accepted by the Debian ftp-masters
 548 2013-01-19, and have been available in unstable since then.  It was
 549 automatically copied to Ubuntu, and is available in their Raring
 550 version too.</p>
 551
 552 <p>But there is a strange problem with the build that block this new
 553 version from being available on the i386 and kfreebsd-i386
 554 architectures.  For some strange reason, the autobuilders in Debian
 555 for these architectures fail to run the test suite on these
 556 architectures (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/672524">BTS #672524</a>).
 557 We are so far unable to reproduce it when building it manually, and
 558 no-one have been able to propose a fix.  If you got an idea what is
 559 failing, please let us know via the BTS.</p>
 560
 561 <p>One feature that is annoying me with of the bitcoin client, because
 562 I often run low on disk space, is the fact that the client will exit
 563 if it run short on space (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/696715">BTS
 564 #696715</a>).  So make sure you have enough disk space when you run
 565 it. :)</p>
 566
 567 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
 568 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
 569 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
 570
 571       </div>
 572       <div class="tags">
 573
 574
 575         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>.
 576
 577
 578       </div>
 579     </div>
 580     <div class="padding"></div>
 581
 582     <div class="entry">
 583       <div class="title">
 584         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">Welcome to the world, Isenkram!</a>
 585       </div>
 586       <div class="date">
 587         22nd January 2013
 588       </div>
 589       <div class="body">
 590         <p>Yesterday, I
 591 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_prototype_ready_making_hardware_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">asked
 592 for testers</a> for my prototype for making Debian better at handling
 593 pluggable hardware devices, which I
 594 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">set
 595 out to create</a> earlier this month.  Several valuable testers showed
 596 up, and caused me to really want to to open up the development to more
 597 people.  But before I did this, I want to come up with a sensible name
 598 for this project.  Today I finally decided on a new name, and I have
 599 renamed the project from hw-support-handler to this new name.  In the
 600 process, I moved the source to git and made it available as a
 601 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/isenkram.git">collab-maint</a>
 602 repository in Debian.  The new name?  It is <strong>Isenkram</strong>.
 603 To fetch and build the latest version of the source, use</p>
 604
 605 <pre>
 606 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/collab-maint/isenkram.git
 607 cd isenkram && git-buildpackage -us -uc
 608 </pre>
 609
 610 <p>I have not yet adjusted all files to use the new name yet.  If you
 611 want to hack on the source or improve the package, please go ahead.
 612 But please talk to me first on IRC or via email before you do major
 613 changes, to make sure we do not step on each others toes. :)</p>
 614
 615 <p>If you wonder what 'isenkram' is, it is a Norwegian word for iron
 616 stuff, typically meaning tools, nails, screws, etc.  Typical hardware
 617 stuff, in other words.  I've been told it is the Norwegian variant of
 618 the German word eisenkram, for those that are familiar with that
 619 word.</p>
 620
 621 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-26</strong>: Added -us -us to build
 622 instructions, to avoid confusing people with an error from the signing
 623 process.</p>
 624
 625 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-27</strong>: Switch to HTTP URL for the git
 626 clone argument to avoid the need for authentication.</p>
 627
 628       </div>
 629       <div class="tags">
 630
 631
 632         Tags: <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>.
 633
 634
 635       </div>
 636     </div>
 637     <div class="padding"></div>
 638
 639     <div class="entry">
 640       <div class="title">
 641         <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>
 642       </div>
 643       <div class="date">
 644         21st January 2013
 645       </div>
 646       <div class="body">
 647         <p>Early this month I set out to try to
 648 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">improve
 649 the Debian support for pluggable hardware devices</a>.  Now my
 650 prototype is working, and it is ready for a larger audience.  To test
 651 it, fetch the
 652 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">source
 653 from the Debian Edu subversion repository</a>, build and install the
 654 package.  You might have to log out and in again activate the
 655 autostart script.</p>
 656
 657 <p>The design is simple:</p>
 658
 659 <ul>
 660
 661 <li>Add desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ causing a program
 662 hw-support-handlerd to start when the user log in.</li>
 663
 664 <li>This program listen for kernel events about new hardware (directly
 665 from the kernel like udev does), not using HAL dbus events as I
 666 initially did.</li>
 667
 668 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware modalias in
 669 the APT database, a database
 670 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=markup">available
 671 via HTTP</a> and a database available as part of the package.</li>
 672
 673 <li>If a package is mapped to the hardware in question, the package
 674 isn't installed yet and this is the first time the hardware was
 675 plugged in, show a desktop notification suggesting to install the
 676 package or packages.</li>
 677
 678 <li>If the user click on the 'install package now' button, ask
 679 aptdaemon via the PackageKit API to install the requrired package.</li>
 680
 681 <li>aptdaemon ask for root password or sudo password, and install the
 682 package while showing progress information in a window.</li>
 683
 684 </ul>
 685
 686 <p>I still need to come up with a better name for the system.  Here
 687 are some screen shots showing the prototype in action.  First the
 688 notification, then the password request, and finally the request to
 689 approve all the dependencies.  Sorry for the Norwegian Bokmål GUI.</p>
 690
 691 <p><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-1-notification.png">
 692 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-2-password.png">
 693 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-3-dependencies.png">
 694 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-4-installing.png">
 695 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-5-installing-details.png" width="70%"></p>
 696
 697 <p>The prototype still need to be improved with longer timeouts, but
 698 is already useful.  The database of hardware to package mappings also
 699 need more work.  It is currently compatible with the Ubuntu way of
 700 storing such information in the package control file, but could be
 701 changed to use other formats instead or in addition to the current
 702 method.  I've dropped the use of discover for this mapping, as the
 703 modalias approach is more flexible and easier to use on Linux as long
 704 as the Linux kernel expose its modalias strings directly.</p>
 705
 706 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-21 16:50</strong>: Due to popular demand,
 707 here is the command required to check out and build the source: Use
 708 '<tt>svn checkout
 709 svn://svn.debian.org/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/; cd
 710 hw-support-handler; debuild</tt>'.  If you lack debuild, install the
 711 devscripts package.</p>
 712
 713 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-23 12:00</strong>: The project is now
 714 renamed to Isenkram and the source moved from the Debian Edu
 715 subversion repository to a Debian collab-maint git repository.  See
 716 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">build
 717 instructions</a> for details.</p>
 718
 719       </div>
 720       <div class="tags">
 721
 722
 723         Tags: <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>.
 724
 725
 726       </div>
 727     </div>
 728     <div class="padding"></div>
 729
 730     <div class="entry">
 731       <div class="title">
 732         <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>
 733       </div>
 734       <div class="date">
 735         19th January 2013
 736       </div>
 737       <div class="body">
 738         <p>This Christmas my trusty old laptop died.  It died quietly and
 739 suddenly in bed.  With a quiet whimper, it went completely quiet and
 740 black.  The power button was no longer able to turn it on.  It was a
 741 IBM Thinkpad X41, and the best laptop I ever had.  Better than both
 742 Thinkpads X30, X31, X40, X60, X61 and X61S.  Far better than the
 743 Compaq I had before that.  Now I need to find a replacement.  To keep
 744 going during Christmas, I moved the one year old SSD disk to my old
 745 X40 where it fitted (only one I had left that could use it), but it is
 746 not a durable solution.
 747
 748 <p>My laptop needs are fairly modest.  This is my wishlist from when I
 749 got a new one more than 10 years ago.  It still holds true.:)</p>
 750
 751 <ul>
 752
 753 <li>Lightweight (around 1 kg) and small volume (preferably smaller
 754   than A4).</li>
 755 <li>Robust, it will be in my backpack every day.</li>
 756 <li>Three button mouse and a mouse pin instead of touch pad.</li>
 757 <li>Long battery life time.  Preferable a week.</li>
 758 <li>Internal WIFI network card.</li>
 759 <li>Internal Twisted Pair network card.</li>
 760 <li>Some USB slots (2-3 is plenty)</li>
 761 <li>Good keyboard - similar to the Thinkpad.</li>
 762 <li>Video resolution at least 1024x768, with size around 12" (A4 paper
 763 size).</li>
 764 <li>Hardware supported by Debian Stable, ie the default kernel and
 765   X.org packages.</li>
 766 <li>Quiet, preferably fan free (or at least not using the fan most of
 767   the time).
 768
 769 </ul>
 770
 771 <p>You will notice that there are no RAM and CPU requirements in the
 772 list.  The reason is simply that the specifications on laptops the
 773 last 10-15 years have been sufficient for my needs, and I have to look
 774 at other features to choose my laptop.  But are there still made as
 775 robust laptops as my X41?  The Thinkpad X60/X61 proved to be less
 776 robust, and Thinkpads seem to be heading in the wrong direction since
 777 Lenovo took over.  But I've been told that X220 and X1 Carbon might
 778 still be useful.</p>
 779
 780 <p>Perhaps I should rethink my needs, and look for a pad with an
 781 external keyboard?  I'll have to check the
 782 <a href="http://www.linux-laptop.net/">Linux Laptops site</a> for
 783 well-supported laptops, or perhaps just buy one preinstalled from one
 784 of the vendors listed on the <a href="http://linuxpreloaded.com/">Linux
 785 Pre-loaded site</a>.</p>
 786
 787       </div>
 788       <div class="tags">
 789
 790
 791         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
 792
 793
 794       </div>
 795     </div>
 796     <div class="padding"></div>
 797
 798     <div class="entry">
 799       <div class="title">
 800         <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>
 801       </div>
 802       <div class="date">
 803         18th January 2013
 804       </div>
 805       <div class="body">
 806         <p>Some times I try to figure out which Iceweasel browser plugin to
 807 install to get support for a given MIME type.  Thanks to
 808 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MozillaTeam/Plugins">specifications
 809 done by Ubuntu</a> and Mozilla, it is possible to do this in Debian.
 810 Unfortunately, not very many packages provide the needed meta
 811 information, Anyway, here is a small script to look up all browser
 812 plugin packages announcing ther MIME support using this specification:</p>
 813
 814 <pre>
 815 #!/usr/bin/python
 816 import sys
 817 import apt
 818 def pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
 819     cache = apt.Cache()
 820     cache.open(None)
 821     thepkgs = []
 822     for pkg in cache:
 823         version = pkg.candidate
 824         if version is None:
 825             version = pkg.installed
 826         if version is None:
 827             continue
 828         record = version.record
 829         if not record.has_key('Npp-MimeType'):
 830             continue
 831         mime_types = record['Npp-MimeType'].split(',')
 832         for t in mime_types:
 833             t = t.rstrip().strip()
 834             if t == mimetype:
 835                 thepkgs.append(pkg.name)
 836     return thepkgs
 837 mimetype = "audio/ogg"
 838 if 1 < len(sys.argv):
 839     mimetype = sys.argv[1]
 840 print "Browser plugin packages supporting %s:" % mimetype
 841 for pkg in pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
 842     print "  %s" %pkg
 843 </pre>
 844
 845 <p>It can be used like this to look up a given MIME type:</p>
 846
 847 <pre>
 848 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype
 849 Browser plugin packages supporting audio/ogg:
 850   gecko-mediaplayer
 851 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype application/x-shockwave-flash
 852 Browser plugin packages supporting application/x-shockwave-flash:
 853   browser-plugin-gnash
 854 %
 855 </pre>
 856
 857 <p>In Ubuntu this mechanism is combined with support in the browser
 858 itself to query for plugins and propose to install the needed
 859 packages.  It would be great if Debian supported such feature too.  Is
 860 anyone working on adding it?</p>
 861
 862 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-18 14:20</strong>: The Debian BTS
 863 request for icweasel support for this feature is
 864 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/484010">#484010</a> from 2008 (and
 865 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/698426">#698426</a> from today).  Lack
 866 of manpower and wish for a different design is the reason thus feature
 867 is not yet in iceweasel from Debian.</p>
 868
 869       </div>
 870       <div class="tags">
 871
 872
 873         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
 874
 875
 876       </div>
 877     </div>
 878     <div class="padding"></div>
 879
 880     <div class="entry">
 881       <div class="title">
 882         <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>
 883       </div>
 884       <div class="date">
 885         16th January 2013
 886       </div>
 887       <div class="body">
 888         <p>The <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/AppStreamDebianProposal">DEP-11
 889 proposal to add AppStream information to the Debian archive</a>, is a
 890 proposal to make it possible for a Desktop application to propose to
 891 the user some package to install to gain support for a given MIME
 892 type, font, library etc. that is currently missing.  With such
 893 mechanism in place, it would be possible for the desktop to
 894 automatically propose and install leocad if some LDraw file is
 895 downloaded by the browser.</p>
 896
 897 <p>To get some idea about the current content of the archive, I decided
 898 to write a simple program to extract all .desktop files from the
 899 Debian archive and look up the claimed MIME support there.  The result
 900 can be found on the
 901 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/pub/AppStreamTest">Skolelinux FTP
 902 site</a>.  Using the collected information, it become possible to
 903 answer the question in the title.  Here are the 20 most supported MIME
 904 types in Debian stable (Squeeze), testing (Wheezy) and unstable (Sid).
 905 The complete list is available from the link above.</p>
 906
 907 <p><strong>Debian Stable:</strong></p>
 908
 909 <pre>
 910   count MIME type
 911   ----- -----------------------
 912      32 text/plain
 913      30 audio/mpeg
 914      29 image/png
 915      28 image/jpeg
 916      27 application/ogg
 917      26 audio/x-mp3
 918      25 image/tiff
 919      25 image/gif
 920      22 image/bmp
 921      22 audio/x-wav
 922      20 audio/x-flac
 923      19 audio/x-mpegurl
 924      18 video/x-ms-asf
 925      18 audio/x-musepack
 926      18 audio/x-mpeg
 927      18 application/x-ogg
 928      17 video/mpeg
 929      17 audio/x-scpls
 930      17 audio/ogg
 931      16 video/x-ms-wmv
 932 </pre>
 933
 934 <p><strong>Debian Testing:</strong></p>
 935
 936 <pre>
 937   count MIME type
 938   ----- -----------------------
 939      33 text/plain
 940      32 image/png
 941      32 image/jpeg
 942      29 audio/mpeg
 943      27 image/gif
 944      26 image/tiff
 945      26 application/ogg
 946      25 audio/x-mp3
 947      22 image/bmp
 948      21 audio/x-wav
 949      19 audio/x-mpegurl
 950      19 audio/x-mpeg
 951      18 video/mpeg
 952      18 audio/x-scpls
 953      18 audio/x-flac
 954      18 application/x-ogg
 955      17 video/x-ms-asf
 956      17 text/html
 957      17 audio/x-musepack
 958      16 image/x-xbitmap
 959 </pre>
 960
 961 <p><strong>Debian Unstable:</strong></p>
 962
 963 <pre>
 964   count MIME type
 965   ----- -----------------------
 966      31 text/plain
 967      31 image/png
 968      31 image/jpeg
 969      29 audio/mpeg
 970      28 application/ogg
 971      27 image/gif
 972      26 image/tiff
 973      26 audio/x-mp3
 974      23 audio/x-wav
 975      22 image/bmp
 976      21 audio/x-flac
 977      20 audio/x-mpegurl
 978      19 audio/x-mpeg
 979      18 video/x-ms-asf
 980      18 video/mpeg
 981      18 audio/x-scpls
 982      18 application/x-ogg
 983      17 audio/x-musepack
 984      16 video/x-ms-wmv
 985      16 video/x-msvideo
 986 </pre>
 987
 988 <p>I am told that PackageKit can provide an API to access the kind of
 989 information mentioned in DEP-11.  I have not yet had time to look at
 990 it, but hope the PackageKit people in Debian are on top of these
 991 issues.</p>
 992
 993 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-16 13:35</strong>: Updated numbers after
 994 discovering a typo in my script.</p>
 995
 996       </div>
 997       <div class="tags">
 998
 999
1000         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1001
1002
1003       </div>
1004     </div>
1005     <div class="padding"></div>
1006
1007     <div class="entry">
1008       <div class="title">
1009         <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>
1010       </div>
1011       <div class="date">
1012         15th January 2013
1013       </div>
1014       <div class="body">
1015         <p>Yesterday, I wrote about the
1016 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Modalias_strings___a_practical_way_to_map__stuff__to_hardware.html">modalias
1017 values provided by the Linux kernel</a> following my hope for
1018 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">better
1019 dongle support in Debian</a>.  Using this knowledge, I have tested how
1020 modalias values attached to package names can be used to map packages
1021 to hardware.  This allow the system to look up and suggest relevant
1022 packages when I plug in some new hardware into my machine, and replace
1023 discover and discover-data as the database used to map hardware to
1024 packages.</p>
1025
1026 <p>I create a modaliases file with entries like the following,
1027 containing package name, kernel module name (if relevant, otherwise
1028 the package name) and globs matching the relevant hardware
1029 modalias.</p>
1030
1031 <p><blockquote>
1032 Package: package-name
1033 <br>Modaliases: module(modaliasglob, modaliasglob, modaliasglob)</p>
1034 </blockquote></p>
1035
1036 <p>It is fairly trivial to write code to find the relevant packages
1037 for a given modalias value using this file.</p>
1038
1039 <p>An entry like this would suggest the video and picture application
1040 cheese for many USB web cameras (interface bus class 0E01):</p>
1041
1042 <p><blockquote>
1043 Package: cheese
1044 <br>Modaliases: cheese(usb:v*p*d*dc*dsc*dp*ic0Eisc01ip*)</p>
1045 </blockquote></p>
1046
1047 <p>An entry like this would suggest the pcmciautils package when a
1048 CardBus bridge (bus class 0607) PCI device is present:</p>
1049
1050 <p><blockquote>
1051 Package: pcmciautils
1052 <br>Modaliases: pcmciautils(pci:v*d*sv*sd*bc06sc07i*)
1053 </blockquote></p>
1054
1055 <p>An entry like this would suggest the package colorhug-client when
1056 plugging in a ColorHug with USB IDs 04D8:F8DA:</p>
1057
1058 <p><blockquote>
1059 Package: colorhug-client
1060 <br>Modaliases: colorhug-client(usb:v04D8pF8DAd*)</p>
1061 </blockquote></p>
1062
1063 <p>I believe the format is compatible with the format of the Packages
1064 file in the Debian archive.  Ubuntu already uses their Packages file
1065 to store their mappings from packages to hardware.</p>
1066
1067 <p>By adding a XB-Modaliases: header in debian/control, any .deb can
1068 announce the hardware it support in a way my prototype understand.
1069 This allow those publishing packages in an APT source outside the
1070 Debian archive as well as those backporting packages to make sure the
1071 hardware mapping are included in the package meta information.  I've
1072 tested such header in the pymissile package, and its modalias mapping
1073 is working as it should with my prototype.  It even made it to Ubuntu
1074 Raring.</p>
1075
1076 <p>To test if it was possible to look up supported hardware using only
1077 the shell tools available in the Debian installer, I wrote a shell
1078 implementation of the lookup code.  The idea is to create files for
1079 each modalias and let the shell do the matching.  Please check out and
1080 try the
1081 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/hw-support-lookup?view=co">hw-support-lookup</a>
1082 shell script.  It run without any extra dependencies and fetch the
1083 hardware mappings from the Debian archive and the subversion
1084 repository where I currently work on my prototype.</p>
1085
1086 <p>When I use it on a machine with a yubikey inserted, it suggest to
1087 install yubikey-personalization:</p>
1088
1089 <p><blockquote>
1090 % ./hw-support-lookup
1091 <br>yubikey-personalization
1092 <br>%
1093 </blockquote></p>
1094
1095 <p>When I run it on my Thinkpad X40 with a PCMCIA/CardBus slot, it
1096 propose to install the pcmciautils package:</p>
1097
1098 <p><blockquote>
1099 % ./hw-support-lookup
1100 <br>pcmciautils
1101 <br>%
1102 </blockquote></p>
1103
1104 <p>If you know of any hardware-package mapping that should be added to
1105 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=co">my
1106 database</a>, please tell me about it.</p>
1107
1108 <p>It could be possible to generate several of the mappings between
1109 packages and hardware.  One source would be to look at packages with
1110 kernel modules, ie packages with *.ko files in /lib/modules/, and
1111 extract their modalias information.  Another would be to look at
1112 packages with udev rules, ie packages with files in
1113 /lib/udev/rules.d/, and extract their vendor/model information to
1114 generate a modalias matching rule.  I have not tested any of these to
1115 see if it work.</p>
1116
1117 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
1118 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
1119 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
1120 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel</a>.</p>
1121
1122       </div>
1123       <div class="tags">
1124
1125
1126         Tags: <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>.
1127
1128
1129       </div>
1130     </div>
1131     <div class="padding"></div>
1132
1133     <div class="entry">
1134       <div class="title">
1135         <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>
1136       </div>
1137       <div class="date">
1138         14th January 2013
1139       </div>
1140       <div class="body">
1141         <p>While looking into how to look up Debian packages based on hardware
1142 information, to find the packages that support a given piece of
1143 hardware, I refreshed my memory regarding modalias values, and decided
1144 to document the details.  Here are my findings so far, also available
1145 in
1146 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
1147 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>:
1148
1149 <p><strong>Modalias decoded</strong></p>
1150
1151 <p>This document try to explain what the different types of modalias
1152 values stands for.  It is in part based on information from
1153 &lt;URL: <a href="https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias">https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias</a> &gt;,
1154 &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;,
1155 &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
1156 &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;.
1157
1158 <p>The modalias entries for a given Linux machine can be found using
1159 this shell script:</p>
1160
1161 <pre>
1162 find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u
1163 </pre>
1164
1165 <p>The supported modalias globs for a given kernel module can be found
1166 using modinfo:</p>
1167
1168 <pre>
1169 % /sbin/modinfo psmouse | grep alias:
1170 alias:          serio:ty05pr*id*ex*
1171 alias:          serio:ty01pr*id*ex*
1172 %
1173 </pre>
1174
1175 <p><strong>PCI subtype</strong></p>
1176
1177 <p>A typical PCI entry can look like this.  This is an Intel Host
1178 Bridge memory controller:</p>
1179
1180 <p><blockquote>
1181 pci:v00008086d00002770sv00001028sd000001ADbc06sc00i00
1182 </blockquote></p>
1183
1184 <p>This represent these values:</p>
1185
1186 <pre>
1187  v   00008086  (vendor)
1188  d   00002770  (device)
1189  sv  00001028  (subvendor)
1190  sd  000001AD  (subdevice)
1191  bc  06        (bus class)
1192  sc  00        (bus subclass)
1193  i   00        (interface)
1194 </pre>
1195
1196 <p>The vendor/device values are the same values outputted from 'lspci
1197 -n' as 8086:2770.  The bus class/subclass is also shown by lspci as
1198 0600.  The 0600 class is a host bridge.  Other useful bus values are
1199 0300 (VGA compatible card) and 0200 (Ethernet controller).</p>
1200
1201 <p>Not sure how to figure out the interface value, nor what it
1202 means.</p>
1203
1204 <p><strong>USB subtype</strong></p>
1205
1206 <p>Some typical USB entries can look like this.  This is an internal
1207 USB hub in a laptop:</p>
1208
1209 <p><blockquote>
1210 usb:v1D6Bp0001d0206dc09dsc00dp00ic09isc00ip00
1211 </blockquote></p>
1212
1213 <p>Here is the values included in this alias:</p>
1214
1215 <pre>
1216  v    1D6B  (device vendor)
1217  p    0001  (device product)
1218  d    0206  (bcddevice)
1219  dc     09  (device class)
1220  dsc    00  (device subclass)
1221  dp     00  (device protocol)
1222  ic     09  (interface class)
1223  isc    00  (interface subclass)
1224  ip     00  (interface protocol)
1225 </pre>
1226
1227 <p>The 0900 device class/subclass means hub.  Some times the relevant
1228 class is in the interface class section.  For a simple USB web camera,
1229 these alias entries show up:</p>
1230
1231 <p><blockquote>
1232 usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc01ip00
1233 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc02ip00
1234 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc01ip00
1235 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc02ip00
1236 </blockquote></p>
1237
1238 <p>Interface class 0E01 is video control, 0E02 is video streaming (aka
1239 camera), 0101 is audio control device and 0102 is audio streaming (aka
1240 microphone).  Thus this is a camera with microphone included.</p>
1241
1242 <p><strong>ACPI subtype</strong></p>
1243
1244 <p>The ACPI type is used for several non-PCI/USB stuff.  This is an IR
1245 receiver in a Thinkpad X40:</p>
1246
1247 <p><blockquote>
1248 acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
1249 </blockquote></p>
1250
1251 <p>The values between the colons are IDs.</p>
1252
1253 <p><strong>DMI subtype</strong></p>
1254
1255 <p>The DMI table contain lots of information about the computer case
1256 and model.  This is an entry for a IBM Thinkpad X40, fetched from
1257 /sys/devices/virtual/dmi/id/modalias:</p>
1258
1259 <p><blockquote>
1260 dmi:bvnIBM:bvr1UETB6WW(1.66):bd06/15/2005:svnIBM:pn2371H4G:pvrThinkPadX40:rvnIBM:rn2371H4G:rvrNotAvailable:cvnIBM:ct10:cvrNotAvailable:
1261 </blockquote></p>
1262
1263 <p>The values present are</p>
1264
1265 <pre>
1266  bvn  IBM            (BIOS vendor)
1267  bvr  1UETB6WW(1.66) (BIOS version)
1268  bd   06/15/2005     (BIOS date)
1269  svn  IBM            (system vendor)
1270  pn   2371H4G        (product name)
1271  pvr  ThinkPadX40    (product version)
1272  rvn  IBM            (board vendor)
1273  rn   2371H4G        (board name)
1274  rvr  NotAvailable   (board version)
1275  cvn  IBM            (chassis vendor)
1276  ct   10             (chassis type)
1277  cvr  NotAvailable   (chassis version)
1278 </pre>
1279
1280 <p>The chassis type 10 is Notebook.  Other interesting values can be
1281 found in the dmidecode source:</p>
1282
1283 <pre>
1284   3 Desktop
1285   4 Low Profile Desktop
1286   5 Pizza Box
1287   6 Mini Tower
1288   7 Tower
1289   8 Portable
1290   9 Laptop
1291  10 Notebook
1292  11 Hand Held
1293  12 Docking Station
1294  13 All In One
1295  14 Sub Notebook
1296  15 Space-saving
1297  16 Lunch Box
1298  17 Main Server Chassis
1299  18 Expansion Chassis
1300  19 Sub Chassis
1301  20 Bus Expansion Chassis
1302  21 Peripheral Chassis
1303  22 RAID Chassis
1304  23 Rack Mount Chassis
1305  24 Sealed-case PC
1306  25 Multi-system
1307  26 CompactPCI
1308  27 AdvancedTCA
1309  28 Blade
1310  29 Blade Enclosing
1311 </pre>
1312
1313 <p>The chassis type values are not always accurately set in the DMI
1314 table.  For example my home server is a tower, but the DMI modalias
1315 claim it is a desktop.</p>
1316
1317 <p><strong>SerIO subtype</strong></p>
1318
1319 <p>This type is used for PS/2 mouse plugs.  One example is from my
1320 test machine:</p>
1321
1322 <p><blockquote>
1323 serio:ty01pr00id00ex00
1324 </blockquote></p>
1325
1326 <p>The values present are</p>
1327
1328 <pre>
1329   ty  01  (type)
1330   pr  00  (prototype)
1331   id  00  (id)
1332   ex  00  (extra)
1333 </pre>
1334
1335 <p>This type is supported by the psmouse driver.  I am not sure what
1336 the valid values are.</p>
1337
1338 <p><strong>Other subtypes</strong></p>
1339
1340 <p>There are heaps of other modalias subtypes according to
1341 file2alias.c.  There is the rest of the list from that source: amba,
1342 ap, bcma, ccw, css, eisa, hid, i2c, ieee1394, input, ipack, isapnp,
1343 mdio, of, parisc, pcmcia, platform, scsi, sdio, spi, ssb, vio, virtio,
1344 vmbus, x86cpu and zorro.  I did not spend time documenting all of
1345 these, as they do not seem relevant for my intended use with mapping
1346 hardware to packages when new stuff is inserted during run time.</p>
1347
1348 <p><strong>Looking up kernel modules using modalias values</strong></p>
1349
1350 <p>To check which kernel modules provide support for a given modalias,
1351 one can use the following shell script:</p>
1352
1353 <pre>
1354   for id in $(find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u); do \
1355     echo "$id" ; \
1356     /sbin/modprobe --show-depends "$id"|sed 's/^/  /' ; \
1357   done
1358 </pre>
1359
1360 <p>The output can look like this (only the first few entries as the
1361 list is very long on my test machine):</p>
1362
1363 <pre>
1364   acpi:ACPI0003:
1365     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/acpi/ac.ko
1366   acpi:device:
1367   FATAL: Module acpi:device: not found.
1368   acpi:IBM0068:
1369     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/char/nvram.ko
1370     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/leds/led-class.ko
1371     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/rfkill/rfkill.ko
1372     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/platform/x86/thinkpad_acpi.ko
1373   acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
1374     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/lib/crc-ccitt.ko
1375     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/irda/irda.ko
1376     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/net/irda/nsc-ircc.ko
1377   [...]
1378 </pre>
1379
1380 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
1381 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
1382 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
1383 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel</a>.</p>
1384
1385 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-15:</strong> Rewrite "cat $(find ...)" to
1386 "find ... -print0 | xargs -0 cat" to make sure it handle directories
1387 in /sys/ with space in them.</p>
1388
1389       </div>
1390       <div class="tags">
1391
1392
1393         Tags: <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>.
1394
1395
1396       </div>
1397     </div>
1398     <div class="padding"></div>
1399
1400     <div class="entry">
1401       <div class="title">
1402         <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>
1403       </div>
1404       <div class="date">
1405         10th January 2013
1406       </div>
1407       <div class="body">
1408         <p>As part of my investigation on how to improve the support in Debian
1409 for hardware dongles, I dug up my old Mark and Spencer USB Rocket
1410 Launcher and updated the Debian package
1411 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pymissile">pymissile</a> to make
1412 sure udev will fix the device permissions when it is plugged in.  I
1413 also added a "Modaliases" header to test it in the Debian archive and
1414 hopefully make the package be proposed by jockey in Ubuntu when a user
1415 plug in his rocket launcher.  In the process I moved the source to a
1416 git repository under collab-maint, to make it easier for any DD to
1417 contribute.  <a href="http://code.google.com/p/pymissile/">Upstream</a>
1418 is not very active, but the software still work for me even after five
1419 years of relative silence.  The new git repository is not listed in
1420 the uploaded package yet, because I want to test the other changes a
1421 bit more before I upload the new version.  If you want to check out
1422 the new version with a .desktop file included, visit the
1423 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/pymissile.git">gitweb
1424 view</a> or use "<tt>git clone
1425 git://anonscm.debian.org/collab-maint/pymissile.git</tt>".</p>
1426
1427       </div>
1428       <div class="tags">
1429
1430
1431         Tags: <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>.
1432
1433
1434       </div>
1435     </div>
1436     <div class="padding"></div>
1437
1438     <div class="entry">
1439       <div class="title">
1440         <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>
1441       </div>
1442       <div class="date">
1443          9th January 2013
1444       </div>
1445       <div class="body">
1446         <p>One thing that annoys me with Debian and Linux distributions in
1447 general, is that there is a great package management system with the
1448 ability to automatically install software packages by downloading them
1449 from the distribution mirrors, but no way to get it to automatically
1450 install the packages I need to use the hardware I plug into my
1451 machine.  Even if the package to use it is easily available from the
1452 Linux distribution.  When I plug in a LEGO Mindstorms NXT, it could
1453 suggest to automatically install the python-nxt, nbc and t2n packages
1454 I need to talk to it.  When I plug in a Yubikey, it could propose the
1455 yubikey-personalization package.  The information required to do this
1456 is available, but no-one have pulled all the pieces together.</p>
1457
1458 <p>Some years ago, I proposed to
1459 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg01206.html">use
1460 the discover subsystem to implement this</a>.  The idea is fairly
1461 simple:
1462
1463 <ul>
1464
1465 <li>Add a desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ pointing to a program
1466   starting when a user log in.</li>
1467
1468 <li>Set this program up to listen for kernel events emitted when new
1469   hardware is inserted into the computer.</li>
1470
1471 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware ID in a
1472   database mapping to packages, and take note of any non-installed
1473   packages.</li>
1474
1475 <li>Show a message to the user proposing to install the discovered
1476   package, and make it easy to install it.</li>
1477
1478 </ul>
1479
1480 <p>I am not sure what the best way to implement this is, but my
1481 initial idea was to use dbus events to discover new hardware, the
1482 discover database to find packages and
1483 <a href="http://www.packagekit.org/">PackageKit</a> to install
1484 packages.</p>
1485
1486 <p>Yesterday, I found time to try to implement this idea, and the
1487 draft package is now checked into
1488 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
1489 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>.  In the process, I updated the
1490 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover-data.html">discover-data</a>
1491 package to map the USB ids of LEGO Mindstorms and Yubikey devices to
1492 the relevant packages in Debian, and uploaded a new version
1493 2.2013.01.09 to unstable.  I also discovered that the current
1494 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover.html">discover</a>
1495 package in Debian no longer discovered any USB devices, because
1496 /proc/bus/usb/devices is no longer present.  I ported it to use
1497 libusb as a fall back option to get it working.  The fixed package
1498 version 2.1.2-6 is now in experimental (didn't upload it to unstable
1499 because of the freeze).</p>
1500
1501 <p>With this prototype in place, I can insert my Yubikey, and get this
1502 desktop notification to show up (only once, the first time it is
1503 inserted):</p>
1504
1505 <p align="center"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-09-hw-autoinstall.png"></p>
1506
1507 <p>For this prototype to be really useful, some way to automatically
1508 install the proposed packages by pressing the "Please install
1509 program(s)" button should to be implemented.</p>
1510
1511 <p>If this idea seem useful to you, and you want to help make it
1512 happen, please help me update the discover-data database with mappings
1513 from hardware to Debian packages.  Check if 'discover-pkginstall -l'
1514 list the package you would like to have installed when a given
1515 hardware device is inserted into your computer, and report bugs using
1516 reportbug if it isn't.  Or, if you know of a better way to provide
1517 such mapping, please let me know.</p>
1518
1519 <p>This prototype need more work, and there are several questions that
1520 should be considered before it is ready for production use.  Is dbus
1521 the correct way to detect new hardware?  At the moment I look for HAL
1522 dbus events on the system bus, because that is the events I could see
1523 on my Debian Squeeze KDE desktop.  Are there better events to use?
1524 How should the user be notified?  Is the desktop notification
1525 mechanism the best option, or should the background daemon raise a
1526 popup instead?  How should packages be installed?  When should they
1527 not be installed?</p>
1528
1529 <p>If you want to help getting such feature implemented in Debian,
1530 please send me an email. :)</p>
1531
1532       </div>
1533       <div class="tags">
1534
1535
1536         Tags: <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>.
1537
1538
1539       </div>
1540     </div>
1541     <div class="padding"></div>
1542
1543     <div class="entry">
1544       <div class="title">
1545         <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>
1546       </div>
1547       <div class="date">
1548          2nd January 2013
1549       </div>
1550       <div class="body">
1551         <p>During Christmas, I have worked a bit on the Debian support for
1552 <a href="http://mindstorms.lego.com/en-us/Default.aspx">LEGO Mindstorm
1553 NXT</a>.  My son and I have played a bit with my NXT set, and I
1554 discovered I had to build all the tools myself because none were
1555 already in Debian Squeeze.  If Debian support for LEGO is something
1556 you care about, please join me on the IRC channel
1557 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">#debian-lego</a> (server
1558 irc.debian.org).  There is a lot that could be done to improve the
1559 Debian support for LEGO designers.  For example both CAD software
1560 and Mindstorm compilers are missing. :)</p>
1561
1562 <p>Update 2012-01-03: A
1563 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">project page</a>
1564 including links to Lego related packages is now available.</p>
1565
1566       </div>
1567       <div class="tags">
1568
1569
1570         Tags: <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>.
1571
1572
1573       </div>
1574     </div>
1575     <div class="padding"></div>
1576
1577     <div class="entry">
1578       <div class="title">
1579         <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>
1580       </div>
1581       <div class="date">
1582         25th December 2012
1583       </div>
1584       <div class="body">
1585         <p>Let me start by wishing you all marry Christmas and a happy new
1586 year!  I hope next year will prove to be a good year.</p>
1587
1588 <p><a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">Bitcoin</a>, the digital
1589 decentralised "currency" that allow people to transfer bitcoins
1590 between each other with minimal overhead, is a very interesting
1591 experiment.  And as I wrote a few days ago, the bitcoin situation in
1592 <a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</a> is about to improve a bit.
1593 The <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">new debian source
1594 package</a> (version 0.7.2-2) was uploaded yesterday, and is waiting
1595 in <a href="http://ftp-master.debian.org/new.html">the NEW queue</A>
1596 for one of the ftpmasters to approve the new bitcoin-qt package
1597 name.</p>
1598
1599 <p>And thanks to the great work of Jonas and the rest of the bitcoin
1600 team in Debian, you can easily test the package in Debian Squeeze
1601 using the following steps to get a set of working packages:</p>
1602
1603 <blockquote><pre>
1604 git clone git://git.debian.org/git/collab-maint/bitcoin
1605 cd bitcoin
1606 DEB_MAINTAINER_MODE=1 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp fakeroot debian/rules clean
1607 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp git-buildpackage --git-ignore-new
1608 </pre></blockquote>
1609
1610 <p>You might have to install some build dependencies as well.  The
1611 list of commands should give you two packages, bitcoind and
1612 bitcoin-qt, ready for use in a Squeeze environment.  Note that the
1613 client will download the complete set of bitcoin "blocks", which need
1614 around 5.6 GiB of data on my machine at the moment.  Make sure your
1615 ~/.bitcoin/ directory have lots of spare room if you want to download
1616 all the blocks.  The client will warn if the disk is getting full, so
1617 there is not really a problem if you got too little room, but you will
1618 not be able to get all the features out of the client.</p>
1619
1620 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1621 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1622 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
1623
1624       </div>
1625       <div class="tags">
1626
1627
1628         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>.
1629
1630
1631       </div>
1632     </div>
1633     <div class="padding"></div>
1634
1635     <div class="entry">
1636       <div class="title">
1637         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_word_on_bitcoin_support_in_Debian.html">A word on bitcoin support in Debian</a>
1638       </div>
1639       <div class="date">
1640         21st December 2012
1641       </div>
1642       <div class="body">
1643         <p>It has been a while since I wrote about
1644 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">bitcoin</a>, the decentralised
1645 peer-to-peer based crypto-currency, and the reason is simply that I
1646 have been busy elsewhere.  But two days ago, I started looking at the
1647 state of <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin in
1648 Debian</a> again to try to recover my old bitcoin wallet.  The package
1649 is now maintained by a
1650 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/pkg-bitcoin/">team of
1651 people</a>, and the grunt work had already been done by this team.  We
1652 owe a huge thank you to all these team members. :)
1653 But I was sad to discover that the bitcoin client is missing in
1654 Wheezy.  It is only available in Sid (and an outdated client from
1655 backports).  The client had several RC bugs registered in BTS blocking
1656 it from entering testing.  To try to help the team and improve the
1657 situation, I spent some time providing patches and triaging the bug
1658 reports.  I also had a look at the bitcoin package available from Matt
1659 Corallo in a
1660 <a href="https://launchpad.net/~bitcoin/+archive/bitcoin">PPA for
1661 Ubuntu</a>, and moved the useful pieces from that version into the
1662 Debian package.</p>
1663
1664 <p>After checking with the main package maintainer Jonas Smedegaard on
1665 IRC, I pushed several patches into the collab-maint git repository to
1666 improve the package.  It now contains fixes for the RC issues (not from
1667 me, but fixed by Scott Howard), build rules for a Qt GUI client
1668 package, konqueror support for the bitcoin: URI and bash completion
1669 setup.  As I work on Debian Squeeze, I also created
1670 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-bitcoin-devel/Week-of-Mon-20121217/000041.html">a
1671 patch to backport</a> the latest version.  Jonas is going to look at
1672 it and try to integrate it into the git repository before uploading a
1673 new version to unstable.
1674
1675 <p>I would very much like bitcoin to succeed, to get rid of the
1676 centralized control currently exercised in the monetary system.  I
1677 find it completely unacceptable that the USA government is collecting
1678 transaction data for almost all international money transfers (most are done in USD and transaction logs shipped to the spooks), and
1679 that the major credit card companies can block legal money
1680 transactions to Wikileaks.  But for bitcoin to succeed, more people
1681 need to use bitcoins, and more people need to accept bitcoins when
1682 they sell products and services.  Improving the bitcoin support in
1683 Debian is a small step in the right direction, but not enough.
1684 Unfortunately the user experience when browsing the web and wanting to
1685 pay with bitcoin is still not very good.  The bitcoin: URI is a step
1686 in the right direction, but need to work in most or every browser in
1687 use.  Also the bitcoin-qt client is too heavy to fire up to do a
1688 quick transaction.  I believe there are other clients available, but
1689 have not tested them.</p>
1690
1691 <p>My
1692 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Now_accepting_bitcoins___anonymous_and_distributed_p2p_crypto_money.html">experiment
1693 with bitcoins</a> showed that at least some of my readers use bitcoin.
1694 I received 20.15 BTC so far on the address I provided in my blog two
1695 years ago, as can be
1696 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">seen
1697 on the blockexplorer service</a>.  Thank you everyone for your
1698 donation.  The blockexplorer service demonstrates quite well that
1699 bitcoin is not quite anonymous and untracked. :) I wonder if the
1700 number of users have gone up since then.  If you use bitcoin and want
1701 to show your support of my activity, please send Bitcoin donations to
1702 the same address as last time,
1703 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
1704
1705       </div>
1706       <div class="tags">
1707
1708
1709         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>.
1710
1711
1712       </div>
1713     </div>
1714     <div class="padding"></div>
1715
1716     <div class="entry">
1717       <div class="title">
1718         <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>
1719       </div>
1720       <div class="date">
1721          7th September 2012
1722       </div>
1723       <div class="body">
1724         <p>As I
1725 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">mentioned
1726 this summer</a>, I have created a Computer Science song book a few
1727 years ago, and today I finally found time to create a public
1728 <a href="https://gitorious.org/pere-cs-songbook/pere-cs-songbook">Gitorious
1729 repository for the project</a>.</p>
1730
1731 <p>If you want to help out, please clone the source and submit patches
1732 to the HTML version.  To generate the PDF and PostScript version,
1733 please use prince XML, or let me know about a useful free software
1734 processor capable of creating a good looking PDF from the HTML.</p>
1735
1736 <p>Want to sing?  You can still find the song book in HTML, PDF and
1737 PostScript formats at
1738 <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's Computer
1739 Science Songbook</a>.</p>
1740
1741       </div>
1742       <div class="tags">
1743
1744
1745         Tags: <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>.
1746
1747
1748       </div>
1749     </div>
1750     <div class="padding"></div>
1751
1752     <div class="entry">
1753       <div class="title">
1754         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gratulerer_med_19__rsdagen__Debian_.html">Gratulerer med 19-årsdagen, Debian!</a>
1755       </div>
1756       <div class="date">
1757         16th August 2012
1758       </div>
1759       <div class="body">
1760         <p>I dag fyller
1761 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120813">Debian-prosjektet 19
1762 år</a>.  Jeg har fulgt det de siste 12 årene, og er veldig glad for å kunne
1763 si gratulerer med dagen, Debian!</p>
1764
1765       </div>
1766       <div class="tags">
1767
1768
1769         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>.
1770
1771
1772       </div>
1773     </div>
1774     <div class="padding"></div>
1775
1776     <div class="entry">
1777       <div class="title">
1778         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">Song book for Computer Scientists</a>
1779       </div>
1780       <div class="date">
1781         24th June 2012
1782       </div>
1783       <div class="body">
1784         <p>Many years ago, while studying Computer Science at the
1785 <a href="http://www.uit.no/">University of Tromsø</a>, I started
1786 collecting computer related songs for use at parties.  The original
1787 version was written in LaTeX, but a few years ago I got help from
1788 Håkon W. Lie, one of the inventors of W3C CSS, to convert it to HTML
1789 while keeping the ability to create a nice book in PDF format.  I have
1790 not had time to maintain the book for a while now, and guess I should
1791 put it up on some public version control repository where others can
1792 help me extend and update the book.  If anyone is volunteering to help
1793 me with this, send me an email.  Also let me know if there are songs
1794 missing in my book.</p>
1795
1796 <p>I have not mentioned the book on my blog so far, and it occured to
1797 me today that I really should let all my readers share the joys of
1798 singing out load about programming, computers and computer networks.
1799 Especially now that <a href="http://debconf12.debconf.org/">Debconf
1800 12</a> is about to start (and I am not going).  Want to sing?  Check
1801 out <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's
1802 Computer Science Songbook</a>.
1803
1804       </div>
1805       <div class="tags">
1806
1807
1808         Tags: <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>.
1809
1810
1811       </div>
1812     </div>
1813     <div class="padding"></div>
1814
1815     <div class="entry">
1816       <div class="title">
1817         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatically_upgrading_server_firmware_on_Dell_PowerEdge.html">Automatically upgrading server firmware on Dell PowerEdge</a>
1818       </div>
1819       <div class="date">
1820         21st November 2011
1821       </div>
1822       <div class="body">
1823         <p>At work we have heaps of servers.  I believe the total count is
1824 around 1000 at the moment.  To be able to get help from the vendors
1825 when something go wrong, we want to keep the firmware on the servers
1826 up to date.  If the firmware isn't the latest and greatest, the
1827 vendors typically refuse to start debugging any problems until the
1828 firmware is upgraded.  So before every reboot, we want to upgrade the
1829 firmware, and we would really like everyone handling servers at the
1830 university to do this themselves when they plan to reboot a machine.
1831 For that to happen we at the unix server admin group need to provide
1832 the tools to do so.</p>
1833
1834 <p>To make firmware upgrading easier, I am working on a script to
1835 fetch and install the latest firmware for the servers we got.  Most of
1836 our hardware are from Dell and HP, so I have focused on these servers
1837 so far.  This blog post is about the Dell part.</P>
1838
1839 <p>On the Dell FTP site I was lucky enough to find
1840 <a href="ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz">an XML file</a>
1841 with firmware information for all 11th generation servers, listing
1842 which firmware should be used on a given model and where on the FTP
1843 site I can find it.  Using a simple perl XML parser I can then
1844 download the shell scripts Dell provides to do firmware upgrades from
1845 within Linux and reboot when all the firmware is primed and ready to
1846 be activated on the first reboot.</p>
1847
1848 <p>This is the Dell related fragment of the perl code I am working on.
1849 Are there anyone working on similar tools for firmware upgrading all
1850 servers at a site?  Please get in touch and lets share resources.</p>
1851
1852 <p><pre>
1853 #!/usr/bin/perl
1854 use strict;
1855 use warnings;
1856 use File::Temp qw(tempdir);
1857 BEGIN {
1858     # Install needed RHEL packages if missing
1859     my %rhelmodules = (
1860         'XML::Simple' => 'perl-XML-Simple',
1861         );
1862     for my $module (keys %rhelmodules) {
1863         eval "use $module;";
1864         if ($@) {
1865             my $pkg = $rhelmodules{$module};
1866             system("yum install -y $pkg");
1867             eval "use $module;";
1868         }
1869     }
1870 }
1871 my $errorsto = 'pere@hungry.com';
1872
1873 upgrade_dell();
1874
1875 exit 0;
1876
1877 sub run_firmware_script {
1878     my ($opts, $script) = @_;
1879     unless ($script) {
1880         print STDERR "fail: missing script name\n";
1881         exit 1
1882     }
1883     print STDERR "Running $script\n\n";
1884
1885     if (0 == system("sh $script $opts")) { # FIXME correct exit code handling
1886         print STDERR "success: firmware script ran succcessfully\n";
1887     } else {
1888         print STDERR "fail: firmware script returned error\n";
1889     }
1890 }
1891
1892 sub run_firmware_scripts {
1893     my ($opts, @dirs) = @_;
1894     # Run firmware packages
1895     for my $dir (@dirs) {
1896         print STDERR "info: Running scripts in $dir\n";
1897         opendir(my $dh, $dir) or die "Unable to open directory $dir: $!";
1898         while (my $s = readdir $dh) {
1899             next if $s =~ m/^\.\.?/;
1900             run_firmware_script($opts, "$dir/$s");
1901         }
1902         closedir $dh;
1903     }
1904 }
1905
1906 sub download {
1907     my $url = shift;
1908     print STDERR "info: Downloading $url\n";
1909     system("wget --quiet \"$url\"");
1910 }
1911
1912 sub upgrade_dell {
1913     my @dirs;
1914     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
1915     chomp $product;
1916
1917     if ($product =~ m/PowerEdge/) {
1918
1919         # on RHEL, these pacakges are needed by the firwmare upgrade scripts
1920         system('yum install -y compat-libstdc++-33.i686 libstdc++.i686 libxml2.i686 procmail');
1921
1922         my $tmpdir = tempdir(
1923             CLEANUP => 1
1924             );
1925         chdir($tmpdir);
1926         fetch_dell_fw('catalog/Catalog.xml.gz');
1927         system('gunzip Catalog.xml.gz');
1928         my @paths = fetch_dell_fw_list('Catalog.xml');
1929         # -q is quiet, disabling interactivity and reducing console output
1930         my $fwopts = "-q";
1931         if (@paths) {
1932             for my $url (@paths) {
1933                 fetch_dell_fw($url);
1934             }
1935             run_firmware_scripts($fwopts, $tmpdir);
1936         } else {
1937             print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
1938             print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
1939         }
1940         chdir('/');
1941     } else {
1942         print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
1943         print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
1944     }
1945 }
1946
1947 sub fetch_dell_fw {
1948     my $path = shift;
1949     my $url = "ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/$path";
1950     download($url);
1951 }
1952
1953 # Using ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz, figure out which
1954 # firmware packages to download from Dell.  Only work for Linux
1955 # machines and 11th generation Dell servers.
1956 sub fetch_dell_fw_list {
1957     my $filename = shift;
1958
1959     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
1960     chomp $product;
1961     my ($mybrand, $mymodel) = split(/\s+/, $product);
1962
1963     print STDERR "Finding firmware bundles for $mybrand $mymodel\n";
1964
1965     my $xml = XMLin($filename);
1966     my @paths;
1967     for my $bundle (@{$xml->{SoftwareBundle}}) {
1968         my $brand = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Display}->{content};
1969         my $model = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Model}->{Display}->{content};
1970         my $oscode;
1971         if ("ARRAY" eq ref $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}) {
1972             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}[0]->{osCode};
1973         } else {
1974             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}->{osCode};
1975         }
1976         if ($mybrand eq $brand && $mymodel eq $model && "LIN" eq $oscode)
1977         {
1978             @paths = map { $_->{path} } @{$bundle->{Contents}->{Package}};
1979         }
1980     }
1981     for my $component (@{$xml->{SoftwareComponent}}) {
1982         my $componenttype = $component->{ComponentType}->{value};
1983
1984         # Drop application packages, only firmware and BIOS
1985         next if 'APAC' eq $componenttype;
1986
1987         my $cpath = $component->{path};
1988         for my $path (@paths) {
1989             if ($cpath =~ m%/$path$%) {
1990                 push(@paths, $cpath);
1991             }
1992         }
1993     }
1994     return @paths;
1995 }
1996 </pre>
1997
1998 <p>The code is only tested on RedHat Enterprise Linux, but I suspect
1999 it could work on other platforms with some tweaking.  Anyone know a
2000 index like Catalog.xml is available from HP for HP servers?  At the
2001 moment I maintain a similar list manually and it is quickly getting
2002 outdated.</p>
2003
2004       </div>
2005       <div class="tags">
2006
2007
2008         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2009
2010
2011       </div>
2012     </div>
2013     <div class="padding"></div>
2014
2015     <div class="entry">
2016       <div class="title">
2017         <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>
2018       </div>
2019       <div class="date">
2020          4th August 2011
2021       </div>
2022       <div class="body">
2023         <p>Wouter Verhelst have some
2024 <a href="http://grep.be/blog/en/retorts/pere_kubuntu_boot">interesting
2025 comments and opinions</a> on my blog post on
2026 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_should_start_from__etc_rcS_d__in_Debian____almost_nothing.html">the
2027 need to clean up /etc/rcS.d/ in Debian</a> and my blog post about
2028 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_missing_in_the_Debian_desktop__or_why_my_parents_use_Kubuntu.html">the
2029 default KDE desktop in Debian</a>.  I only have time to address one
2030 small piece of his comment now, and though it best to address the
2031 misunderstanding he bring forward:</p>
2032
2033 <p><blockquote>
2034 Currently, a system admin has four options: [...] boot to a
2035 single-user system (by adding 'single' to the kernel command line;
2036 this runs rcS and rc1 scripts)
2037 </blockquote></p>
2038
2039 <p>This make me believe Wouter believe booting into single user mode
2040 and booting into runlevel 1 is the same.  I am not surprised he
2041 believe this, because it would make sense and is a quite sensible
2042 thing to believe.  But because the boot in Debian is slightly broken,
2043 runlevel 1 do not work properly and it isn't the same as single user
2044 mode.  I'll try to explain what is actually happing, but it is a bit
2045 hard to explain.</p>
2046
2047 <p>Single user mode is defined like this in /etc/inittab:
2048 "<tt>~~:S:wait:/sbin/sulogin</tt>".  This means the only thing that is
2049 executed in single user mode is sulogin.  Single user mode is a boot
2050 state "between" the runlevels, and when booting into single user mode,
2051 only the scripts in /etc/rcS.d/ are executed before the init process
2052 enters the single user state.  When switching to runlevel 1, the state
2053 is in fact not ending in runlevel 1, but it passes through runlevel 1
2054 and end up in the single user mode (see /etc/rc1.d/S03single, which
2055 runs "init -t1 S" to switch to single user mode at the end of runlevel
2056 1.  It is confusing that the 'S' (single user) init mode is not the
2057 mode enabled by /etc/rcS.d/ (which is more like the initial boot
2058 mode).</p>
2059
2060 <p>This summary might make it clearer.  When booting for the first
2061 time into single user mode, the following commands are executed:
2062 "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc S; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  When booting into
2063 runlevel 1, the following commands are executed: "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc
2064 S; /etc/init.d/rc 1; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  A problem show up when
2065 trying to continue after visiting single user mode.  Not all services
2066 are started again as they should, causing the machine to end up in an
2067 unpredicatble state.  This is why Debian admins recommend rebooting
2068 after visiting single user mode.</p>
2069
2070 <p>A similar problem with runlevel 1 is caused by the amount of
2071 scripts executed from /etc/rcS.d/.  When switching from say runlevel 2
2072 to runlevel 1, the services started from /etc/rcS.d/ are not properly
2073 stopped when passing through the scripts in /etc/rc1.d/, and not
2074 started again when switching away from runlevel 1 to the runlevels
2075 2-5.  I believe the problem is best fixed by moving all the scripts
2076 out of /etc/rcS.d/ that are not <strong>required</strong> to get a
2077 functioning single user mode during boot.</p>
2078
2079 <p>I have spent several years investigating the Debian boot system,
2080 and discovered this problem a few years ago.  I suspect it originates
2081 from when sysvinit was introduced into Debian, a long time ago.</p>
2082
2083       </div>
2084       <div class="tags">
2085
2086
2087         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>.
2088
2089
2090       </div>
2091     </div>
2092     <div class="padding"></div>
2093
2094     <div class="entry">
2095       <div class="title">
2096         <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>
2097       </div>
2098       <div class="date">
2099         30th July 2011
2100       </div>
2101       <div class="body">
2102         <p>In the Debian boot system, several packages include scripts that
2103 are started from /etc/rcS.d/.  In fact, there is a bite more of them
2104 than make sense, and this causes a few problems.  What kind of
2105 problems, you might ask.  There are at least two problems.  The first
2106 is that it is not possible to recover a machine after switching to
2107 runlevel 1.  One need to actually reboot to get the machine back to
2108 the expected state.  The other is that single user boot will sometimes
2109 run into problems because some of the subsystems are activated before
2110 the root login is presented, causing problems when trying to recover a
2111 machine from a problem in that subsystem.  A minor additional point is
2112 that moving more scripts out of rcS.d/ and into the other rc#.d/
2113 directories will increase the amount of scripts that can run in
2114 parallel during boot, and thus decrease the boot time.</p>
2115
2116 <p>So, which scripts should start from rcS.d/.  In short, only the
2117 scripts that _have_ to execute before the root login prompt is
2118 presented during a single user boot should go there.  Everything else
2119 should go into the numeric runlevels.  This means things like
2120 lm-sensors, fuse and x11-common should not run from rcS.d, but from
2121 the numeric runlevels.  Today in Debian, there are around 115 init.d
2122 scripts that are started from rcS.d/, and most of them should be moved
2123 out.  Do your package have one of them?  Please help us make single
2124 user and runlevel 1 better by moving it.</p>
2125
2126 <p>Scripts setting up the screen, keyboard, system partitions
2127 etc. should still be started from rcS.d/, but there is for example no
2128 need to have the network enabled before the single user login prompt
2129 is presented.</p>
2130
2131 <p>As always, things are not so easy to fix as they sound.  To keep
2132 Debian systems working while scripts migrate and during upgrades, the
2133 scripts need to be moved from rcS.d/ to rc2.d/ in reverse dependency
2134 order, ie the scripts that nothing in rcS.d/ depend on can be moved,
2135 and the next ones can only be moved when their dependencies have been
2136 moved first.  This migration must be done sequentially while we ensure
2137 that the package system upgrade packages in the right order to keep
2138 the system state correct.  This will require some coordination when it
2139 comes to network related packages, but most of the packages with
2140 scripts that should migrate do not have anything in rcS.d/ depending
2141 on them.  Some packages have already been updated, like the sudo
2142 package, while others are still left to do.  I wish I had time to work
2143 on this myself, but real live constrains make it unlikely that I will
2144 find time to push this forward.</p>
2145
2146       </div>
2147       <div class="tags">
2148
2149
2150         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>.
2151
2152
2153       </div>
2154     </div>
2155     <div class="padding"></div>
2156
2157     <div class="entry">
2158       <div class="title">
2159         <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>
2160       </div>
2161       <div class="date">
2162         29th July 2011
2163       </div>
2164       <div class="body">
2165         <p>While at Debconf11, I have several times during discussions
2166 mentioned the issues I believe should be improved in Debian for its
2167 desktop to be useful for more people.  The use case for this is my
2168 parents, which are currently running Kubuntu which solve the
2169 issues.</p>
2170
2171 <p>I suspect these four missing features are not very hard to
2172 implement.  After all, they are present in Ubuntu, so if we wanted to
2173 do this in Debian we would have a source.</p>
2174
2175 <ol>
2176
2177 <li><strong>Simple GUI based upgrade of packages.</strong> When there
2178 are new packages available for upgrades, a icon in the KDE status bar
2179 indicate this, and clicking on it will activate the simple upgrade
2180 tool to handle it.  I have no problem guiding both of my parents
2181 through the process over the phone.  If a kernel reboot is required,
2182 this too is indicated by the status bars and the upgrade tool.  Last
2183 time I checked, nothing with the same features was working in KDE in
2184 Debian.</li>
2185
2186 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing Firefox browser
2187 plugins.</strong> When the browser encounter a MIME type it do not
2188 currently have a handler for, it will ask the user if the system
2189 should search for a package that would add support for this MIME type,
2190 and if the user say yes, the APT sources will be searched for packages
2191 advertising the MIME type in their control file (visible in the
2192 Packages file in the APT archive).  If one or more packages are found,
2193 it is a simple click of the mouse to add support for the missing mime
2194 type.  If the package require the user to accept some non-free
2195 license, this is explained to the user.  The entire process make it
2196 more clear to the user why something do not work in the browser, and
2197 make the chances higher for the user to blame the web page authors and
2198 not the browser for any missing features.</li>
2199
2200 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing multimedia codec/format
2201 handlers.</strong> When the media players encounter a format or codec
2202 it is not supporting, a dialog pop up asking the user if the system
2203 should search for a package that would add support for it.  This
2204 happen with things like MP3, Windows Media or H.264.  The selection
2205 and installation procedure is very similar to the Firefox browser
2206 plugin handling.  This is as far as I know implemented using a
2207 gstreamer hook.  The end result is that the user easily get access to
2208 the codecs that are present from the APT archives available, while
2209 explaining more on why a given format is unsupported by Ubuntu.</li>
2210
2211 <li><strong>Better browser handling of some MIME types.</strong> When
2212 displaying a text/plain file in my Debian browser, it will propose to
2213 start emacs to show it.  If I remember correctly, when doing the same
2214 in Kunbutu it show the file as a text file in the browser.  At least I
2215 know Opera will show text files within the browser.  I much prefer the
2216 latter behaviour.</li>
2217
2218 </ol>
2219
2220 <p>There are other nice features as well, like the simplified suite
2221 upgrader, but given that I am the one mostly doing the dist-upgrade,
2222 it do not matter much.</p>
2223
2224 <p>I really hope we could get these features in place for the next
2225 Debian release.  It would require the coordinated effort of several
2226 maintainers, but would make the end user experience a lot better.</p>
2227
2228       </div>
2229       <div class="tags">
2230
2231
2232         Tags: <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>.
2233
2234
2235       </div>
2236     </div>
2237     <div class="padding"></div>
2238
2239     <div class="entry">
2240       <div class="title">
2241         <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>
2242       </div>
2243       <div class="date">
2244         26th July 2011
2245       </div>
2246       <div class="body">
2247         <p>The Norwegian <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</A>
2248 site is build on Debian/Squeeze, and this platform was chosen because
2249 I am most familiar with Debian (being a Debian Developer for around 10
2250 years) because it is the latest stable Debian release which should get
2251 security support for a few years.</p>
2252
2253 <p>The web service is written in Perl, and depend on some perl modules
2254 that are missing in Debian at the moment.  It would be great if these
2255 modules were added to the Debian archive, allowing anyone to set up
2256 their own <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com">FixMyStreet</a> clone
2257 in their own country using only Debian packages.  The list of modules
2258 missing in Debian/Squeeze isn't very long, and I hope the perl group
2259 will find time to package the 12 modules Catalyst::Plugin::SmartURI,
2260 Catalyst::Plugin::Unicode::Encoding, Catalyst::View::TT, Devel::Hide,
2261 Sort::Key, Statistics::Distributions, Template::Plugin::Comma,
2262 Template::Plugin::DateTime::Format, Term::Size::Any, Term::Size::Perl,
2263 URI::SmartURI and Web::Scraper to make the maintenance of FixMyStreet
2264 easier in the future.</p>
2265
2266 <p>Thanks to the great tools in Debian, getting the missing modules
2267 installed on my server was a simple call to 'cpan2deb Module::Name'
2268 and 'dpkg -i' to install the resulting package.  But this leave me
2269 with the responsibility of tracking security problems, which I really
2270 do not have time for.</p>
2271
2272       </div>
2273       <div class="tags">
2274
2275
2276         Tags: <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>.
2277
2278
2279       </div>
2280     </div>
2281     <div class="padding"></div>
2282
2283     <div class="entry">
2284       <div class="title">
2285         <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>
2286       </div>
2287       <div class="date">
2288          3rd April 2011
2289       </div>
2290       <div class="body">
2291         <p>Here is a small update for my English readers.  Most of my blog
2292 posts have been in Norwegian the last few weeks, so here is a short
2293 update in English.</p>
2294
2295 <p>The kids still keep me too busy to get much free software work
2296 done, but I did manage to organise a project to get a Norwegian port
2297 of the British service
2298 <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com/">FixMyStreet</a> up and running,
2299 and it has been running for a month now.  The entire project has been
2300 organised by me and two others.  Around Christmas we gathered sponsors
2301 to fund the development work.  In January I drafted a contract with
2302 <a href="http://www.mysociety.org/">mySociety</a> on what to develop,
2303 and in February the development took place.  Most of it involved
2304 converting the source to use GPS coordinates instead of British
2305 easting/northing, and the resulting code should be a lot easier to get
2306 running in any country by now.  The Norwegian
2307 <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</a> is using
2308 <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/">OpenStreetmap</a> as the map
2309 source and the source for administrative borders in Norway, and
2310 support for this had to be added/fixed.</p>
2311
2312 <p>The Norwegian version went live March 3th, and we spent the weekend
2313 polishing the system before we announced it March 7th.  The system is
2314 running on a KVM instance of Debian/Squeeze, and has seen almost 3000
2315 problem reports in a few weeks.  Soon we hope to announce the Android
2316 and iPhone versions making it even easier to report problems with the
2317 public infrastructure.</p>
2318
2319 <p>Perhaps something to consider for those of you in countries without
2320 such service?</p>
2321
2322       </div>
2323       <div class="tags">
2324
2325
2326         Tags: <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>.
2327
2328
2329       </div>
2330     </div>
2331     <div class="padding"></div>
2332
2333     <div class="entry">
2334       <div class="title">
2335         <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>
2336       </div>
2337       <div class="date">
2338         28th January 2011
2339       </div>
2340       <div class="body">
2341         <p>The last few days I have looked at ways to track open security
2342 issues here at my work with the University of Oslo.  My idea is that
2343 it should be possible to use the information about security issues
2344 available on the Internet, and check our locally
2345 maintained/distributed software against this information.  It should
2346 allow us to verify that no known security issues are forgotten.  The
2347 CVE database listing vulnerabilities seem like a great central point,
2348 and by using the package lists from Debian mapped to CVEs provided by
2349 the testing security team, I believed it should be possible to figure
2350 out which security holes were present in our free software
2351 collection.</p>
2352
2353 <p>After reading up on the topic, it became obvious that the first
2354 building block is to be able to name software packages in a unique and
2355 consistent way across data sources.  I considered several ways to do
2356 this, for example coming up with my own naming scheme like using URLs
2357 to project home pages or URLs to the Freshmeat entries, or using some
2358 existing naming scheme.  And it seem like I am not the first one to
2359 come across this problem, as MITRE already proposed and implemented a
2360 solution.  Enter the <a href="http://cpe.mitre.org/index.html">Common
2361 Platform Enumeration</a> dictionary, a vocabulary for referring to
2362 software, hardware and other platform components.  The CPE ids are
2363 mapped to CVEs in the <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/">National
2364 Vulnerability Database</a>, allowing me to look up know security
2365 issues for any CPE name.  With this in place, all I need to do is to
2366 locate the CPE id for the software packages we use at the university.
2367 This is fairly trivial (I google for 'cve cpe $package' and check the
2368 NVD entry if a CVE for the package exist).</p>
2369
2370 <p>To give you an example.  The GNU gzip source package have the CPE
2371 name cpe:/a:gnu:gzip.  If the old version 1.3.3 was the package to
2372 check out, one could look up
2373 <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
2374 in NVD</a> and get a list of 6 security holes with public CVE entries.
2375 The most recent one is
2376 <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/view/vuln/detail?vulnId=CVE-2010-0001">CVE-2010-0001</a>,
2377 and at the bottom of the NVD page for this vulnerability the complete
2378 list of affected versions is provided.</p>
2379
2380 <p>The NVD database of CVEs is also available as a XML dump, allowing
2381 for offline processing of issues.  Using this dump, I've written a
2382 small script taking a list of CPEs as input and list all CVEs
2383 affecting the packages represented by these CPEs.  One give it CPEs
2384 with version numbers as specified above and get a list of open
2385 security issues out.</p>
2386
2387 <p>Of course for this approach to be useful, the quality of the NVD
2388 information need to be high.  For that to happen, I believe as many as
2389 possible need to use and contribute to the NVD database.  I notice
2390 RHEL is providing
2391 <a href="https://www.redhat.com/security/data/metrics/rhsamapcpe.txt">a
2392 map from CVE to CPE</a>, indicating that they are using the CPE
2393 information.  I'm not aware of Debian and Ubuntu doing the same.</p>
2394
2395 <p>To get an idea about the quality for free software, I spent some
2396 time making it possible to compare the CVE database from Debian with
2397 the CVE database in NVD.  The result look fairly good, but there are
2398 some inconsistencies in NVD (same software package having several
2399 CPEs), and some inaccuracies (NVD not mentioning buggy packages that
2400 Debian believe are affected by a CVE).  Hope to find time to improve
2401 the quality of NVD, but that require being able to get in touch with
2402 someone maintaining it.  So far my three emails with questions and
2403 corrections have not seen any reply, but I hope contact can be
2404 established soon.</p>
2405
2406 <p>An interesting application for CPEs is cross platform package
2407 mapping.  It would be useful to know which packages in for example
2408 RHEL, OpenSuSe and Mandriva are missing from Debian and Ubuntu, and
2409 this would be trivial if all linux distributions provided CPE entries
2410 for their packages.</p>
2411
2412       </div>
2413       <div class="tags">
2414
2415
2416         Tags: <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>.
2417
2418
2419       </div>
2420     </div>
2421     <div class="padding"></div>
2422
2423     <div class="entry">
2424       <div class="title">
2425         <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>
2426       </div>
2427       <div class="date">
2428         23rd January 2011
2429       </div>
2430       <div class="body">
2431         <p>In the
2432 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/discover-data">discover-data</a>
2433 package in Debian, there is a script to report useful information
2434 about the running hardware for use when people report missing
2435 information.  One part of this script that I find very useful when
2436 debugging hardware problems, is the part mapping loaded kernel module
2437 to the PCI device it claims.  It allow me to quickly see if the kernel
2438 module I expect is driving the hardware I am struggling with.  To see
2439 the output, make sure discover-data is installed and run
2440 <tt>/usr/share/bug/discover-data 3>&1</tt>.  The relevant output on
2441 one of my machines like this:</p>
2442
2443 <pre>
2444 loaded modules:
2445 10de:03eb i2c_nforce2
2446 10de:03f1 ohci_hcd
2447 10de:03f2 ehci_hcd
2448 10de:03f0 snd_hda_intel
2449 10de:03ec pata_amd
2450 10de:03f6 sata_nv
2451 1022:1103 k8temp
2452 109e:036e bttv
2453 109e:0878 snd_bt87x
2454 11ab:4364 sky2
2455 </pre>
2456
2457 <p>The code in question look like this, slightly modified for
2458 readability and to drop the output to file descriptor 3:</p>
2459
2460 <pre>
2461 if [ -d /sys/bus/pci/devices/ ] ; then
2462     echo loaded pci modules:
2463     (
2464         cd /sys/bus/pci/devices/
2465         for address in * ; do
2466             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
2467                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
2468                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
2469                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
2470                     id=`lspci -n -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $3}'`
2471                     echo "$id $module"
2472                 fi
2473             fi
2474         done
2475     )
2476     echo
2477 fi
2478 </pre>
2479
2480 <p>Similar code could be used to extract USB device module
2481 mappings:</p>
2482
2483 <pre>
2484 if [ -d /sys/bus/usb/devices/ ] ; then
2485     echo loaded usb modules:
2486     (
2487         cd /sys/bus/usb/devices/
2488         for address in * ; do
2489             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
2490                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
2491                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
2492                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
2493                     id=$(lsusb -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $6}')
2494                     if [ "$id" ] ; then
2495                         echo "$id $module"
2496                     fi
2497                 fi
2498             fi
2499         done
2500     )
2501     echo
2502 fi
2503 </pre>
2504
2505 <p>This might perhaps be something to include in other tools as
2506 well.</p>
2507
2508       </div>
2509       <div class="tags">
2510
2511
2512         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2513
2514
2515       </div>
2516     </div>
2517     <div class="padding"></div>
2518
2519     <div class="entry">
2520       <div class="title">
2521         <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>
2522       </div>
2523       <div class="date">
2524         22nd December 2010
2525       </div>
2526       <div class="body">
2527         <p>The last few days I have spent at work here at the <a
2528 href="http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo</a> testing if the new
2529 batch of computers will work with Linux.  Every year for the last few
2530 years the university have organised shared bid of a few thousand
2531 computers, and this year HP won the bid.  Two different desktops and
2532 five different laptops are on the list this year.  We in the UNIX
2533 group want to know which one of these computers work well with RHEL
2534 and Ubuntu, the two Linux distributions we currently handle at the
2535 university.</p>
2536
2537 <p>My test method is simple, and I share it here to get feedback and
2538 perhaps inspire others to test hardware as well.  To test, I PXE
2539 install the OS version of choice, and log in as my normal user and run
2540 a few applications and plug in selected pieces of hardware.  When
2541 something fail, I make a note about this in the test matrix and move
2542 on.  If I have some spare time I try to report the bug to the OS
2543 vendor, but as I only have the machines for a short time, I rarely
2544 have the time to do this for all the problems I find.</p>
2545
2546 <p>Anyway, to get to the point of this post.  Here is the simple tests
2547 I perform on a new model.</p>
2548
2549 <ul>
2550
2551 <li>Is PXE installation working?  I'm testing with RHEL6, Ubuntu Lucid
2552 and Ubuntu Maverik at the moment.  If I feel like it, I also test with
2553 RHEL5 and Debian Edu/Squeeze.</li>
2554
2555 <li>Is X.org working?  If the graphical login screen show up after
2556 installation, X.org is working.</li>
2557
2558 <li>Is hardware accelerated OpenGL working?  Running glxgears (in
2559 package mesa-utils on Ubuntu) and writing down the frames per second
2560 reported by the program.</li>
2561
2562 <li>Is sound working?  With Gnome and KDE, a sound is played when
2563 logging in, and if I can hear this the test is successful.  If there
2564 are several audio exits on the machine, I try them all and check if
2565 the Gnome/KDE audio mixer can control where to send the sound.  I
2566 normally test this by playing
2567 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20101012-chef/ ">a HTML5
2568 video</a> in Firefox/Iceweasel.</li>
2569
2570 <li>Is the USB subsystem working?  I test this by plugging in a USB
2571 memory stick and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
2572
2573 <li>Is the CD/DVD player working?  I test this by inserting any CD/DVD
2574 I have lying around, and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
2575
2576 <li>Is any built in camera working?  Test using cheese, and see if a
2577 picture from the v4l device show up.</li>
2578
2579 <li>Is bluetooth working?  Use the Gnome/KDE browsing tool to see if
2580 any bluetooth devices are discovered.  In my office, I normally see a
2581 few.</li>
2582
2583 <li>For laptops, is the SD or Compaq Flash reader working.  I have
2584 memory modules lying around, and stick them in and see if Gnome/KDE
2585 notice this.</li>
2586
2587 <li>For laptops, is suspend/hibernate working?  I'm testing if the
2588 special button work, and if the laptop continue to work after
2589 resume.</li>
2590
2591 <li>For laptops, is the extra buttons working, like audio level,
2592 adjusting background light, switching on/off external video output,
2593 switching on/off wifi, bluetooth, etc?  The set of buttons differ from
2594 laptop to laptop, so I just write down which are working and which are
2595 not.</li>
2596
2597 <li>Some laptops have smart card readers, finger print readers,
2598 acceleration sensors etc.  I rarely test these, as I do not know how
2599 to quickly test if they are working or not, so I only document their
2600 existence.</li>
2601
2602 </ul>
2603
2604 <p>By now I suspect you are really curious what the test results are
2605 for the HP machines I am testing.  I'm not done yet, so I will report
2606 the test results later.  For now I can report that HP 8100 Elite work
2607 fine, and hibernation fail with HP EliteBook 8440p on Ubuntu Lucid,
2608 and audio fail on RHEL6.  Ubuntu Maverik worked with 8440p.  As you
2609 can see, I have most machines left to test.  One interesting
2610 observation is that Ubuntu Lucid has almost twice the frame rate than
2611 RHEL6 with glxgears.  No idea why.</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/debian edu">debian edu</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/Some_thoughts_on_BitCoins.html">Some thoughts on BitCoins</a>
2627       </div>
2628       <div class="date">
2629         11th December 2010
2630       </div>
2631       <div class="body">
2632         <p>As I continue to explore
2633 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>, I've starting to wonder
2634 what properties the system have, and how it will be affected by laws
2635 and regulations here in Norway.  Here are some random notes.</p>
2636
2637 <p>One interesting thing to note is that since the transactions are
2638 verified using a peer to peer network, all details about a transaction
2639 is known to everyone.  This means that if a BitCoin address has been
2640 published like I did with mine in my initial post about BitCoin, it is
2641 possible for everyone to see how many BitCoins have been transfered to
2642 that address.  There is even a web service to look at the details for
2643 all transactions.  There I can see that my address
2644 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a>
2645 have received 16.06 Bitcoin, the
2646 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3">1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3</a>
2647 address of Simon Phipps have received 181.97 BitCoin and the address
2648 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt">1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt</A>
2649 of EFF have received 2447.38 BitCoins so far.  Thank you to each and
2650 every one of you that donated bitcoins to support my activity. The
2651 fact that anyone can see how much money was transfered to a given
2652 address make it more obvious why the BitCoin community recommend to
2653 generate and hand out a new address for each transaction.  I'm told
2654 there is no way to track which addresses belong to a given person or
2655 organisation without the person or organisation revealing it
2656 themselves, as Simon, EFF and I have done.</p>
2657
2658 <p>In Norway, and in most other countries, there are laws and
2659 regulations limiting how much money one can transfer across the border
2660 without declaring it.  There are money laundering, tax and accounting
2661 laws and regulations I would expect to apply to the use of BitCoin.
2662 If the Skolelinux foundation
2663 (<a href="http://linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">SLX
2664 Debian Labs</a>) were to accept donations in BitCoin in addition to
2665 normal bank transfers like EFF is doing, how should this be accounted?
2666 Given that it is impossible to know if money can cross the border or
2667 not, should everything or nothing be declared?  What exchange rate
2668 should be used when calculating taxes?  Would receivers have to pay
2669 income tax if the foundation were to pay Skolelinux contributors in
2670 BitCoin?  I have no idea, but it would be interesting to know.</p>
2671
2672 <p>For a currency to be useful and successful, it must be trusted and
2673 accepted by a lot of users.  It must be possible to get easy access to
2674 the currency (as a wage or using currency exchanges), and it must be
2675 easy to spend it.  At the moment BitCoin seem fairly easy to get
2676 access to, but there are very few places to spend it.  I am not really
2677 a regular user of any of the vendor types currently accepting BitCoin,
2678 so I wonder when my kind of shop would start accepting BitCoins.  I
2679 would like to buy electronics, travels and subway tickets, not herbs
2680 and books. :) The currency is young, and this will improve over time
2681 if it become popular, but I suspect regular banks will start to lobby
2682 to get BitCoin declared illegal if it become popular.  I'm sure they
2683 will claim it is helping fund terrorism and money laundering (which
2684 probably would be true, as is any currency in existence), but I
2685 believe the problems should be solved elsewhere and not by blaming
2686 currencies.</p>
2687
2688 <p>The process of creating new BitCoins is called mining, and it is
2689 CPU intensive process that depend on a bit of luck as well (as one is
2690 competing against all the other miners currently spending CPU cycles
2691 to see which one get the next lump of cash).  The "winner" get 50
2692 BitCoin when this happen.  Yesterday I came across the obvious way to
2693 join forces to increase ones changes of getting at least some coins,
2694 by coordinating the work on mining BitCoins across several machines
2695 and people, and sharing the result if one is lucky and get the 50
2696 BitCoins.  Check out
2697 <a href="http://www.bluishcoder.co.nz/bitcoin-pool/">BitCoin Pool</a>
2698 if this sounds interesting.  I have not had time to try to set up a
2699 machine to participate there yet, but have seen that running on ones
2700 own for a few days have not yield any BitCoins througth mining
2701 yet.</p>
2702
2703 <p>Update 2010-12-15: Found an <a
2704 href="http://inertia.posterous.com/reply-to-the-underground-economist-why-bitcoi">interesting
2705 criticism</a> of bitcoin.  Not quite sure how valid it is, but thought
2706 it was interesting to read.  The arguments presented seem to be
2707 equally valid for gold, which was used as a currency for many years.</p>
2708
2709       </div>
2710       <div class="tags">
2711
2712
2713         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>.
2714
2715
2716       </div>
2717     </div>
2718     <div class="padding"></div>
2719
2720     <div class="entry">
2721       <div class="title">
2722         <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>
2723       </div>
2724       <div class="date">
2725         10th December 2010
2726       </div>
2727       <div class="body">
2728         <p>With this weeks lawless
2729 <a href="http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/06/wikileaks/index.html">governmental
2730 attacks</a> on Wikileak and
2731 <a href="http://www.salon.com/technology/dan_gillmor/2010/12/06/war_on_speech">free
2732 speech</a>, it has become obvious that PayPal, visa and mastercard can
2733 not be trusted to handle money transactions.
2734 A blog post from
2735 <a href="http://webmink.com/2010/12/06/now-accepting-bitcoin/">Simon
2736 Phipps on bitcoin</a> reminded me about a project that a friend of
2737 mine mentioned earlier.  I decided to follow Simon's example, and get
2738 involved with <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>.  I got
2739 some help from my friend to get it all running, and he even handed me
2740 some bitcoins to get started.  I even donated a few bitcoins to Simon
2741 for helping me remember BitCoin.</p>
2742
2743 <p>So, what is bitcoins, you probably wonder?  It is a digital
2744 crypto-currency, decentralised and handled using peer-to-peer
2745 networks.  It allows anonymous transactions and prohibits central
2746 control over the transactions, making it impossible for governments
2747 and companies alike to block donations and other transactions.  The
2748 source is free software, and while the key dependency wxWidgets 2.9
2749 for the graphical user interface is missing in Debian, the command
2750 line client builds just fine.  Hopefully Jonas
2751 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/578157">will get the package into
2752 Debian</a> soon.</p>
2753
2754 <p>Bitcoins can be converted to other currencies, like USD and EUR.
2755 There are <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/trade">companies accepting
2756 bitcoins</a> when selling services and goods, and there are even
2757 currency "stock" markets where the exchange rate is decided.  There
2758 are not many users so far, but the concept seems promising.  If you
2759 want to get started and lack a friend with any bitcoins to spare,
2760 you can even get
2761 <a href="https://freebitcoins.appspot.com/">some for free</a> (0.05
2762 bitcoin at the time of writing).  Use
2763 <a href="http://www.bitcoinwatch.com/">BitcoinWatch</a> to keep an eye
2764 on the current exchange rates.</p>
2765
2766 <p>As an experiment, I have decided to set up bitcoind on one of my
2767 machines.  If you want to support my activity, please send Bitcoin
2768 donations to the address
2769 <b>15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</b>.  Thank you!</p>
2770
2771       </div>
2772       <div class="tags">
2773
2774
2775         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>.
2776
2777
2778       </div>
2779     </div>
2780     <div class="padding"></div>
2781
2782     <div class="entry">
2783       <div class="title">
2784         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_isn_t_Debian_Edu_using_VLC_.html">Why isn't Debian Edu using VLC?</a>
2785       </div>
2786       <div class="date">
2787         27th November 2010
2788       </div>
2789       <div class="body">
2790         <p>In the latest issue of Linux Journal, the readers choices were
2791 presented, and the winner among the multimedia player were VLC.
2792 Personally, I like VLC, and it is my player of choice when I first try
2793 to play a video file or stream.  Only if VLC fail will I drag out
2794 gmplayer to see if it can do better.  The reason is mostly the failure
2795 model and trust.  When VLC fail, it normally pop up a error message
2796 reporting the problem.  When mplayer fail, it normally segfault or
2797 just hangs.  The latter failure mode drain my trust in the program.<p>
2798
2799 <p>But even if VLC is my player of choice, we have choosen to use
2800 mplayer in <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
2801 Edu/Skolelinux</a>.  The reason is simple.  We need a good browser
2802 plugin to play web videos seamlessly, and the VLC browser plugin is
2803 not very good.  For example, it lack in-line control buttons, so there
2804 is no way for the user to pause the video.  Also, when I
2805 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">last
2806 tested the browser plugins</a> available in Debian, the VLC plugin
2807 failed on several video pages where mplayer based plugins worked.  If
2808 the browser plugin for VLC was as good as the gecko-mediaplayer
2809 package (which uses mplayer), we would switch.</P>
2810
2811 <p>While VLC is a good player, its user interface is slightly
2812 annoying.  The most annoying feature is its inconsistent use of
2813 keyboard shortcuts.  When the player is in full screen mode, its
2814 shortcuts are different from when it is playing the video in a window.
2815 For example, space only work as pause when in full screen mode.  I
2816 wish it had consisten shortcuts and that space also would work when in
2817 window mode.  Another nice shortcut in gmplayer is [enter] to restart
2818 the current video.  It is very nice when playing short videos from the
2819 web and want to restart it when new people arrive to have a look at
2820 what is going on.</p>
2821
2822       </div>
2823       <div class="tags">
2824
2825
2826         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>.
2827
2828
2829       </div>
2830     </div>
2831     <div class="padding"></div>
2832
2833     <div class="entry">
2834       <div class="title">
2835         <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>
2836       </div>
2837       <div class="date">
2838         22nd November 2010
2839       </div>
2840       <div class="body">
2841         <p>Michael Biebl suggested to me on IRC, that I changed my automated
2842 upgrade testing of the
2843 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
2844 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a> to do <tt>apt-get autoremove</tt> when using apt-get.
2845 This seem like a very good idea, so I adjusted by test scripts and
2846 can now present the updated result from today:</p>
2847
2848 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
2849
2850 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
2851
2852 <blockquote><p>
2853   apache2.2-bin
2854   aptdaemon
2855   baobab
2856   binfmt-support
2857   browser-plugin-gnash
2858   cheese-common
2859   cli-common
2860   cups-pk-helper
2861   dmz-cursor-theme
2862   empathy
2863   empathy-common
2864   freedesktop-sound-theme
2865   freeglut3
2866   gconf-defaults-service
2867   gdm-themes
2868   gedit-plugins
2869   geoclue
2870   geoclue-hostip
2871   geoclue-localnet
2872   geoclue-manual
2873   geoclue-yahoo
2874   gnash
2875   gnash-common
2876   gnome
2877   gnome-backgrounds
2878   gnome-cards-data
2879   gnome-codec-install
2880   gnome-core
2881   gnome-desktop-environment
2882   gnome-disk-utility
2883   gnome-screenshot
2884   gnome-search-tool
2885   gnome-session-canberra
2886   gnome-system-log
2887   gnome-themes-extras
2888   gnome-themes-more
2889   gnome-user-share
2890   gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
2891   gstreamer0.10-tools
2892   gtk2-engines
2893   gtk2-engines-pixbuf
2894   gtk2-engines-smooth
2895   hamster-applet
2896   libapache2-mod-dnssd
2897   libapr1
2898   libaprutil1
2899   libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3
2900   libaprutil1-ldap
2901   libart2.0-cil
2902   libboost-date-time1.42.0
2903   libboost-python1.42.0
2904   libboost-thread1.42.0
2905   libchamplain-0.4-0
2906   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0
2907   libcheese-gtk18
2908   libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
2909   libcryptui0
2910   libdiscid0
2911   libelf1
2912   libepc-1.0-2
2913   libepc-common
2914   libepc-ui-1.0-2
2915   libfreerdp-plugins-standard
2916   libfreerdp0
2917   libgconf2.0-cil
2918   libgdata-common
2919   libgdata7
2920   libgdu-gtk0
2921   libgee2
2922   libgeoclue0
2923   libgexiv2-0
2924   libgif4
2925   libglade2.0-cil
2926   libglib2.0-cil
2927   libgmime2.4-cil
2928   libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
2929   libgnome2.24-cil
2930   libgnomepanel2.24-cil
2931   libgpod-common
2932   libgpod4
2933   libgtk2.0-cil
2934   libgtkglext1
2935   libgtksourceview2.0-common
2936   libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
2937   libmono-addins0.2-cil
2938   libmono-cairo2.0-cil
2939   libmono-corlib2.0-cil
2940   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil
2941   libmono-posix2.0-cil
2942   libmono-security2.0-cil
2943   libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
2944   libmono-system2.0-cil
2945   libmtp8
2946   libmusicbrainz3-6
2947   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil
2948   libndesk-dbus1.0-cil
2949   libopal3.6.8
2950   libpolkit-gtk-1-0
2951   libpt2.6.7
2952   libpython2.6
2953   librpm1
2954   librpmio1
2955   libsdl1.2debian
2956   libsrtp0
2957   libssh-4
2958   libtelepathy-farsight0
2959   libtelepathy-glib0
2960   libtidy-0.99-0
2961   media-player-info
2962   mesa-utils
2963   mono-2.0-gac
2964   mono-gac
2965   mono-runtime
2966   nautilus-sendto
2967   nautilus-sendto-empathy
2968   p7zip-full
2969   pkg-config
2970   python-aptdaemon
2971   python-aptdaemon-gtk
2972   python-axiom
2973   python-beautifulsoup
2974   python-bugbuddy
2975   python-clientform
2976   python-coherence
2977   python-configobj
2978   python-crypto
2979   python-cupshelpers
2980   python-elementtree
2981   python-epsilon
2982   python-evolution
2983   python-feedparser
2984   python-gdata
2985   python-gdbm
2986   python-gst0.10
2987   python-gtkglext1
2988   python-gtksourceview2
2989   python-httplib2
2990   python-louie
2991   python-mako
2992   python-markupsafe
2993   python-mechanize
2994   python-nevow
2995   python-notify
2996   python-opengl
2997   python-openssl
2998   python-pam
2999   python-pkg-resources
3000   python-pyasn1
3001   python-pysqlite2
3002   python-rdflib
3003   python-serial
3004   python-tagpy
3005   python-twisted-bin
3006   python-twisted-conch
3007   python-twisted-core
3008   python-twisted-web
3009   python-utidylib
3010   python-webkit
3011   python-xdg
3012   python-zope.interface
3013   remmina
3014   remmina-plugin-data
3015   remmina-plugin-rdp
3016   remmina-plugin-vnc
3017   rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
3018   rhythmbox-plugins
3019   rpm-common
3020   rpm2cpio
3021   seahorse-plugins
3022   shotwell
3023   software-center
3024   system-config-printer-udev
3025   telepathy-gabble
3026   telepathy-mission-control-5
3027   telepathy-salut
3028   tomboy
3029   totem
3030   totem-coherence
3031   totem-mozilla
3032   totem-plugins
3033   transmission-common
3034   xdg-user-dirs
3035   xdg-user-dirs-gtk
3036   xserver-xephyr
3037 </p></blockquote>
3038
3039 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
3040
3041 <blockquote><p>
3042   cheese
3043   ekiga
3044   eog
3045   epiphany-extensions
3046   evolution-exchange
3047   fast-user-switch-applet
3048   file-roller
3049   gcalctool
3050   gconf-editor
3051   gdm
3052   gedit
3053   gedit-common
3054   gnome-games
3055   gnome-games-data
3056   gnome-nettool
3057   gnome-system-tools
3058   gnome-themes
3059   gnuchess
3060   gucharmap
3061   guile-1.8-libs
3062   libavahi-ui0
3063   libdmx1
3064   libgalago3
3065   libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
3066   libgtksourceview2.0-0
3067   liblircclient0
3068   libsdl1.2debian-alsa
3069   libspeexdsp1
3070   libsvga1
3071   rhythmbox
3072   seahorse
3073   sound-juicer
3074   system-config-printer
3075   totem-common
3076   transmission-gtk
3077   vinagre
3078   vino
3079 </p></blockquote>
3080
3081 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
3082
3083 <blockquote><p>
3084   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
3085 </p></blockquote>
3086
3087 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
3088
3089 <blockquote><p>
3090 [nothing]
3091 </p></blockquote>
3092
3093 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
3094
3095 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
3096
3097 <blockquote><p>
3098   ksmserver
3099 </p></blockquote>
3100
3101 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
3102
3103 <blockquote><p>
3104   kwin
3105   network-manager-kde
3106 </p></blockquote>
3107
3108 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
3109
3110 <blockquote><p>
3111   arts
3112   dolphin
3113   freespacenotifier
3114   google-gadgets-gst
3115   google-gadgets-xul
3116   kappfinder
3117   kcalc
3118   kcharselect
3119   kde-core
3120   kde-plasma-desktop
3121   kde-standard
3122   kde-window-manager
3123   kdeartwork
3124   kdeartwork-emoticons
3125   kdeartwork-style
3126   kdeartwork-theme-icon
3127   kdebase
3128   kdebase-apps
3129   kdebase-workspace
3130   kdebase-workspace-bin
3131   kdebase-workspace-data
3132   kdeeject
3133   kdelibs
3134   kdeplasma-addons
3135   kdeutils
3136   kdewallpapers
3137   kdf
3138   kfloppy
3139   kgpg
3140   khelpcenter4
3141   kinfocenter
3142   konq-plugins-l10n
3143   konqueror-nsplugins
3144   kscreensaver
3145   kscreensaver-xsavers
3146   ktimer
3147   kwrite
3148   libgle3
3149   libkde4-ruby1.8
3150   libkonq5
3151   libkonq5-templates
3152   libnetpbm10
3153   libplasma-ruby
3154   libplasma-ruby1.8
3155   libqt4-ruby1.8
3156   marble-data
3157   marble-plugins
3158   netpbm
3159   nuvola-icon-theme
3160   plasma-dataengines-workspace
3161   plasma-desktop
3162   plasma-desktopthemes-artwork
3163   plasma-runners-addons
3164   plasma-scriptengine-googlegadgets
3165   plasma-scriptengine-python
3166   plasma-scriptengine-qedje
3167   plasma-scriptengine-ruby
3168   plasma-scriptengine-webkit
3169   plasma-scriptengines
3170   plasma-wallpapers-addons
3171   plasma-widget-folderview
3172   plasma-widget-networkmanagement
3173   ruby
3174   sweeper
3175   update-notifier-kde
3176   xscreensaver-data-extra
3177   xscreensaver-gl
3178   xscreensaver-gl-extra
3179   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
3180 </p></blockquote>
3181
3182 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
3183
3184 <blockquote><p>
3185   ark
3186   google-gadgets-common
3187   google-gadgets-qt
3188   htdig
3189   kate
3190   kdebase-bin
3191   kdebase-data
3192   kdepasswd
3193   kfind
3194   klipper
3195   konq-plugins
3196   konqueror
3197   ksysguard
3198   ksysguardd
3199   libarchive1
3200   libcln6
3201   libeet1
3202   libeina-svn-06
3203   libggadget-1.0-0b
3204   libggadget-qt-1.0-0b
3205   libgps19
3206   libkdecorations4
3207   libkephal4
3208   libkonq4
3209   libkonqsidebarplugin4a
3210   libkscreensaver5
3211   libksgrd4
3212   libksignalplotter4
3213   libkunitconversion4
3214   libkwineffects1a
3215   libmarblewidget4
3216   libntrack-qt4-1
3217   libntrack0
3218   libplasma-geolocation-interface4
3219   libplasmaclock4a
3220   libplasmagenericshell4
3221   libprocesscore4a
3222   libprocessui4a
3223   libqalculate5
3224   libqedje0a
3225   libqtruby4shared2
3226   libqzion0a
3227   libruby1.8
3228   libscim8c2a
3229   libsmokekdecore4-3
3230   libsmokekdeui4-3
3231   libsmokekfile3
3232   libsmokekhtml3
3233   libsmokekio3
3234   libsmokeknewstuff2-3
3235   libsmokeknewstuff3-3
3236   libsmokekparts3
3237   libsmokektexteditor3
3238   libsmokekutils3
3239   libsmokenepomuk3
3240   libsmokephonon3
3241   libsmokeplasma3
3242   libsmokeqtcore4-3
3243   libsmokeqtdbus4-3
3244   libsmokeqtgui4-3
3245   libsmokeqtnetwork4-3
3246   libsmokeqtopengl4-3
3247   libsmokeqtscript4-3
3248   libsmokeqtsql4-3
3249   libsmokeqtsvg4-3
3250   libsmokeqttest4-3
3251   libsmokeqtuitools4-3
3252   libsmokeqtwebkit4-3
3253   libsmokeqtxml4-3
3254   libsmokesolid3
3255   libsmokesoprano3
3256   libtaskmanager4a
3257   libtidy-0.99-0
3258   libweather-ion4a
3259   libxklavier16
3260   libxxf86misc1
3261   okteta
3262   oxygencursors
3263   plasma-dataengines-addons
3264   plasma-scriptengine-superkaramba
3265   plasma-widget-lancelot
3266   plasma-widgets-addons
3267   plasma-widgets-workspace
3268   polkit-kde-1
3269   ruby1.8
3270   systemsettings
3271   update-notifier-common
3272 </p></blockquote>
3273
3274 <p>Running apt-get autoremove made the results using apt-get and
3275 aptitude a bit more similar, but there are still quite a lott of
3276 differences.  I have no idea what packages should be installed after
3277 the upgrade, but hope those that do can have a look.</p>
3278
3279       </div>
3280       <div class="tags">
3281
3282
3283         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>.
3284
3285
3286       </div>
3287     </div>
3288     <div class="padding"></div>
3289
3290     <div class="entry">
3291       <div class="title">
3292         <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>
3293       </div>
3294       <div class="date">
3295         22nd November 2010
3296       </div>
3297       <div class="body">
3298         <p>Most of the computers in use by the
3299 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux project</a>
3300 are virtual machines.  And they have been Xen machines running on a
3301 fairly old IBM eserver xseries 345 machine, and we wanted to migrate
3302 them to KVM on a newer Dell PowerEdge 2950 host machine.  This was a
3303 bit harder that it could have been, because we set up the Xen virtual
3304 machines to get the virtual partitions from LVM, which as far as I
3305 know is not supported by KVM.  So to migrate, we had to convert
3306 several LVM logical volumes to partitions on a virtual disk file.</p>
3307
3308 <p>I found
3309 <a href="http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM">a
3310 nice recipe</a> to do this, and wrote the following script to do the
3311 migration.  It uses qemu-img from the qemu package to make the disk
3312 image, parted to partition it, losetup and kpartx to present the disk
3313 image partions as devices, and dd to copy the data.  I NFS mounted the
3314 new servers storage area on the old server to do the migration.</p>
3315
3316 <pre>
3317 #!/bin/sh
3318
3319 # Based on
3320 # http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM
3321
3322 set -e
3323 set -x
3324
3325 if [ -z "$1" ] ; then
3326     echo "Usage: $0 &lt;hostname&gt;"
3327     exit 1
3328 else
3329     host="$1"
3330 fi
3331
3332 if [ ! -e /dev/vg_data/$host-disk ] ; then
3333     echo "error: unable to find LVM volume for $host"
3334     exit 1
3335 fi
3336
3337 # Partitions need to be a bit bigger than the LVM LVs.  not sure why.
3338 disksize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-disk | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
3339 swapsize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-swap | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
3340 totalsize=$(( ( $disksize + $swapsize ) ))
3341
3342 img=$host.img
3343 #dd if=/dev/zero of=$img bs=1M count=$(( $disksize + $swapsize ))
3344 qemu-img create $img ${totalsize}MMaking room on the Debian Edu/Sqeeze DVD
3345
3346 parted $img mklabel msdos
3347 parted $img mkpart primary linux-swap 0 $disksize
3348 parted $img mkpart primary ext2 $disksize $totalsize
3349 parted $img set 1 boot on
3350
3351 modprobe dm-mod
3352 losetup /dev/loop0 $img
3353 kpartx -a /dev/loop0
3354
3355 dd if=/dev/vg_data/$host-disk of=/dev/mapper/loop0p1 bs=1M
3356 fsck.ext3 -f /dev/mapper/loop0p1 || true
3357 mkswap /dev/mapper/loop0p2
3358
3359 kpartx -d /dev/loop0
3360 losetup -d /dev/loop0
3361 </pre>
3362
3363 <p>The script is perhaps so simple that it is not copyrightable, but
3364 if it is, it is licenced using GPL v2 or later at your discretion.</p>
3365
3366 <p>After doing this, I booted a Debian CD in rescue mode in KVM with
3367 the new disk image attached, installed grub-pc and linux-image-686 and
3368 set up grub to boot from the disk image.  After this, the KVM machines
3369 seem to work just fine.</p>
3370
3371       </div>
3372       <div class="tags">
3373
3374
3375         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>.
3376
3377
3378       </div>
3379     </div>
3380     <div class="padding"></div>
3381
3382     <div class="entry">
3383       <div class="title">
3384         <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>
3385       </div>
3386       <div class="date">
3387         20th November 2010
3388       </div>
3389       <div class="body">
3390         <p>I'm still running upgrade testing of the
3391 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
3392 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a>, but have not had time to spend on reporting the
3393 status.  Here is a short update based on a test I ran 20101118.</p>
3394
3395 <p>I still do not know what a correct migration should look like, so I
3396 report any differences between apt and aptitude and hope someone else
3397 can see if anything should be changed.</p>
3398
3399 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
3400
3401 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
3402
3403 <blockquote><p>
3404   apache2.2-bin aptdaemon at-spi baobab binfmt-support
3405   browser-plugin-gnash cheese-common cli-common cpp-4.3 cups-pk-helper
3406   dmz-cursor-theme empathy empathy-common finger
3407   freedesktop-sound-theme freeglut3 gconf-defaults-service gdm-themes
3408   gedit-plugins geoclue geoclue-hostip geoclue-localnet geoclue-manual
3409   geoclue-yahoo gnash gnash-common gnome gnome-backgrounds
3410   gnome-cards-data gnome-codec-install gnome-core
3411   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-disk-utility gnome-screenshot
3412   gnome-search-tool gnome-session-canberra gnome-spell
3413   gnome-system-log gnome-themes-extras gnome-themes-more
3414   gnome-user-share gs-common gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
3415   gstreamer0.10-tools gtk2-engines gtk2-engines-pixbuf
3416   gtk2-engines-smooth hal-info hamster-applet libapache2-mod-dnssd
3417   libapr1 libaprutil1 libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3 libaprutil1-ldap
3418   libart2.0-cil libatspi1.0-0 libboost-date-time1.42.0
3419   libboost-python1.42.0 libboost-thread1.42.0 libchamplain-0.4-0
3420   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0 libcheese-gtk18 libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
3421   libcryptui0 libcupsys2 libdiscid0 libeel2-data libelf1 libepc-1.0-2
3422   libepc-common libepc-ui-1.0-2 libfreerdp-plugins-standard
3423   libfreerdp0 libgail-common libgconf2.0-cil libgdata-common libgdata7
3424   libgdl-1-common libgdu-gtk0 libgee2 libgeoclue0 libgexiv2-0 libgif4
3425   libglade2.0-cil libglib2.0-cil libgmime2.4-cil libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
3426   libgnome2.24-cil libgnomepanel2.24-cil libgnomeprint2.2-data
3427   libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod-common libgpod4
3428   libgtk2.0-cil libgtkglext1 libgtksourceview-common
3429   libgtksourceview2.0-common libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
3430   libmono-addins0.2-cil libmono-cairo2.0-cil libmono-corlib2.0-cil
3431   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil libmono-posix2.0-cil
3432   libmono-security2.0-cil libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
3433   libmono-system2.0-cil libmtp8 libmusicbrainz3-6
3434   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil libndesk-dbus1.0-cil libopal3.6.8
3435   libpolkit-gtk-1-0 libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
3436   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libpt2.6.7 libpython2.6 librpm1 librpmio1
3437   libsdl1.2debian libservlet2.4-java libsrtp0 libssh-4
3438   libtelepathy-farsight0 libtelepathy-glib0 libtidy-0.99-0
3439   libxalan2-java libxerces2-java media-player-info mesa-utils
3440   mono-2.0-gac mono-gac mono-runtime nautilus-sendto
3441   nautilus-sendto-empathy openoffice.org-writer2latex
3442   openssl-blacklist p7zip p7zip-full pkg-config python-4suite-xml
3443   python-aptdaemon python-aptdaemon-gtk python-axiom
3444   python-beautifulsoup python-bugbuddy python-clientform
3445   python-coherence python-configobj python-crypto python-cupshelpers
3446   python-cupsutils python-eggtrayicon python-elementtree
3447   python-epsilon python-evolution python-feedparser python-gdata
3448   python-gdbm python-gst0.10 python-gtkglext1 python-gtkmozembed
3449   python-gtksourceview2 python-httplib2 python-louie python-mako
3450   python-markupsafe python-mechanize python-nevow python-notify
3451   python-opengl python-openssl python-pam python-pkg-resources
3452   python-pyasn1 python-pysqlite2 python-rdflib python-serial
3453   python-tagpy python-twisted-bin python-twisted-conch
3454   python-twisted-core python-twisted-web python-utidylib python-webkit
3455   python-xdg python-zope.interface remmina remmina-plugin-data
3456   remmina-plugin-rdp remmina-plugin-vnc rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
3457   rhythmbox-plugins rpm-common rpm2cpio seahorse-plugins shotwell
3458   software-center svgalibg1 system-config-printer-udev
3459   telepathy-gabble telepathy-mission-control-5 telepathy-salut tomboy
3460   totem totem-coherence totem-mozilla totem-plugins
3461   transmission-common xdg-user-dirs xdg-user-dirs-gtk xserver-xephyr
3462   zip
3463 </p></blockquote>
3464
3465 Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude
3466
3467 <blockquote><p>
3468   arj bluez-utils cheese dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop ekiga eog
3469   epiphany-extensions epiphany-gecko evolution-exchange
3470   fast-user-switch-applet file-roller gcalctool gconf-editor gdm gedit
3471   gedit-common gnome-app-install gnome-games gnome-games-data
3472   gnome-nettool gnome-system-tools gnome-themes gnome-utils
3473   gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager gnuchess gucharmap
3474   guile-1.8-libs hal libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5
3475   libavahi-ui0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7
3476   libcucul0 libcurl3 libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdmx1 libdvdread3
3477   libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1
3478   libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3 libfaad0 libgadu3
3479   libgalago3 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
3480   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
3481   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
3482   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
3483   libgtkhtml2-0 libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgtksourceview2.0-0
3484   libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
3485   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libkpathsea4 liblircclient0 libltdl3 liblwres50
3486   libmagick++10 libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmozjs1d libmpfr1ldbl libmtp7
3487   libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0
3488   libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpisock9
3489   libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8
3490   libsdl1.2debian-alsa libsensors3 libsexy2 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
3491   libspeexdsp1 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libsvga1
3492   libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0
3493   libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12
3494   libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common rhythmbox seahorse
3495   sound-juicer swfdec-gnome system-config-printer totem-common
3496   totem-gstreamer transmission-gtk vinagre vino w3c-dtd-xhtml wodim
3497 </p></blockquote>
3498
3499 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
3500
3501 <blockquote><p>
3502   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
3503 </p></blockquote>
3504
3505 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
3506
3507 <blockquote><p>
3508 [nothing]
3509 </p></blockquote>
3510
3511 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
3512
3513 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
3514
3515 <blockquote><p>
3516   autopoint bomber bovo cantor cantor-backend-kalgebra cpp-4.3 dcoprss
3517   edict espeak espeak-data eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
3518   ghostscript-x git gnome-audio gnugo granatier gs-common
3519   gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio indi kaddressbook-plugins kalgebra
3520   kalzium-data kanjidic kapman kate-plugins kblocks kbreakout kbstate
3521   kde-icons-mono kdeaccessibility kdeaddons-kfile-plugins
3522   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
3523   kdeedu kdeedu-data kdeedu-kvtml-data kdegames kdegames-card-data
3524   kdegames-mahjongg-data kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc
3525   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
3526   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdessh kdetoys kdewebdev
3527   kdiamond kdnssd kfilereplace kfourinline kgeography-data kigo
3528   killbots kiriki klettres-data kmoon kmrml knewsticker-scripts
3529   kollision kpf krosspython ksirk ksmserver ksquares kstars-data
3530   ksudoku kubrick kweather libasound2-plugins libboost-python1.42.0
3531   libcfitsio3 libconvert-binhex-perl libcrypt-ssleay-perl libdb4.6++
3532   libdjvulibre-text libdotconf1.0 liberror-perl libespeak1
3533   libfinance-quote-perl libgail-common libgsl0ldbl libhtml-parser-perl
3534   libhtml-tableextract-perl libhtml-tagset-perl libhtml-tree-perl
3535   libio-stringy-perl libkdeedu4 libkdegames5 libkiten4 libkpathsea5
3536   libkrossui4 libmailtools-perl libmime-tools-perl
3537   libnews-nntpclient-perl libopenbabel3 libportaudio2 libpulse-browse0
3538   libservlet2.4-java libspeechd2 libtiff-tools libtimedate-perl
3539   libunistring0 liburi-perl libwww-perl libxalan2-java libxerces2-java
3540   lirc luatex marble networkstatus noatun-plugins
3541   openoffice.org-writer2latex palapeli palapeli-data parley
3542   parley-data poster psutils pulseaudio pulseaudio-esound-compat
3543   pulseaudio-module-x11 pulseaudio-utils quanta-data rocs rsync
3544   speech-dispatcher step svgalibg1 texlive-binaries texlive-luatex
3545   ttf-sazanami-gothic
3546 </p></blockquote>
3547
3548 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
3549
3550 <blockquote><p>
3551   amor artsbuilder atlantik atlantikdesigner blinken bluez-utils cvs
3552   dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop imlib-base imlib11 kalzium kanagram kandy
3553   kasteroids katomic kbackgammon kbattleship kblackbox kbounce kbruch
3554   kcron kdat kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data kdeprint kdict kdvi kedit
3555   keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs kgeography kghostview
3556   kgoldrunner khangman khexedit kiconedit kig kimagemapeditor
3557   kitchensync kiten kjumpingcube klatin klettres klickety klines
3558   klinkstatus kmag kmahjongg kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmines
3559   kmousetool kmouth kmplot knetwalk kodo kolf kommander konquest kooka
3560   kpager kpat kpdf kpercentage kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler krec
3561   kregexpeditor kreversi ksame ksayit kshisen ksig ksim ksirc ksirtet
3562   ksmiletris ksnake ksokoban kspaceduel kstars ksvg ksysv kteatime
3563   ktip ktnef ktouch ktron kttsd ktuberling kturtle ktux kuickshow
3564   kverbos kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kwordquiz
3565   kworldclock kxsldbg libakode2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
3566   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
3567   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2
3568   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0
3569   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
3570   libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0 libicu38
3571   libiec61883-0 libindex0 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
3572   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1 libkdeedu3
3573   libkdegames1 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
3574   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
3575   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick10
3576   libmimelib1c2a libmodplug0c2 libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libmpfr1ldbl
3577   libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9 libpoppler-glib3
3578   libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 librss1 libsensors3
3579   libsmbios2 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90
3580   libtalloc1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 lskat
3581   mpeglib network-manager-kde noatun pmount tex-common texlive-base
3582   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended tidy
3583   ttf-dustin ttf-kochi-gothic ttf-sjfonts
3584 </p></blockquote>
3585
3586 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
3587
3588 <blockquote><p>
3589   dolphin kde-core kde-plasma-desktop kde-standard kde-window-manager
3590   kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-apps kdebase-workspace
3591   kdebase-workspace-bin kdebase-workspace-data kdeutils kscreensaver
3592   kscreensaver-xsavers libgle3 libkonq5 libkonq5-templates libnetpbm10
3593   netpbm plasma-widget-folderview plasma-widget-networkmanagement
3594   xscreensaver-data-extra xscreensaver-gl xscreensaver-gl-extra
3595   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
3596 </p></blockquote>
3597
3598 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
3599
3600 <blockquote><p>
3601   kdebase-bin konq-plugins konqueror
3602 </p></blockquote>
3603
3604       </div>
3605       <div class="tags">
3606
3607
3608         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>.
3609
3610
3611       </div>
3612     </div>
3613     <div class="padding"></div>
3614
3615     <div class="entry">
3616       <div class="title">
3617         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gnash_buildbot_slave_and_Debian_kfreebsd.html">Gnash buildbot slave and Debian kfreebsd</a>
3618       </div>
3619       <div class="date">
3620         20th November 2010
3621       </div>
3622       <div class="body">
3623         <p>Answering
3624 <a href="http://www.listware.net/201011/gnash-dev/67431-gnash-dev-buildbot-looking-for-slaves.html">the
3625 call from the Gnash project</a> for
3626 <a href="http://www.gnashdev.org:8010">buildbot</a> slaves to test the
3627 current source, I have set up a virtual KVM machine on the Debian
3628 Edu/Skolelinux virtualization host to test the git source on
3629 Debian/Squeeze.  I hope this can help the developers in getting new
3630 releases out more often.</p>
3631
3632 <p>As the developers want less main-stream build platforms tested to,
3633 I have considered setting up a <a
3634 href="http://www.debian.org/ports/kfreebsd-gnu/">Debian/kfreebsd</a>
3635 machine as well.  I have also considered using the kfreebsd
3636 architecture in Debian as a file server in NUUG to get access to the 5
3637 TB zfs volume we currently use to store DV video.  Because of this, I
3638 finally got around to do a test installation of Debian/Squeeze with
3639 kfreebsd.  Installation went fairly smooth, thought I noticed some
3640 visual glitches in the cdebconf dialogs (black cursor left on the
3641 screen at random locations).  Have not gotten very far with the
3642 testing.  Noticed cfdisk did not work, but fdisk did so it was not a
3643 fatal problem.  Have to spend some more time on it to see if it is
3644 useful as a file server for NUUG.  Will try to find time to set up a
3645 gnash buildbot slave on the Debian Edu/Skolelinux this weekend.</p>
3646
3647       </div>
3648       <div class="tags">
3649
3650
3651         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>.
3652
3653
3654       </div>
3655     </div>
3656     <div class="padding"></div>
3657
3658     <div class="entry">
3659       <div class="title">
3660         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_in_3D.html">Debian in 3D</a>
3661       </div>
3662       <div class="date">
3663          9th November 2010
3664       </div>
3665       <div class="body">
3666         <p><img src="http://thingiverse-production.s3.amazonaws.com/renders/23/e0/c4/f9/2b/debswagtdose_preview_medium.jpg"></p>
3667
3668 <p>3D printing is just great.  I just came across this Debian logo in
3669 3D linked in from
3670 <a href="http://blog.thingiverse.com/2010/11/09/participatory-branding/">the
3671 thingiverse blog</a>.</p>
3672
3673       </div>
3674       <div class="tags">
3675
3676
3677         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>.
3678
3679
3680       </div>
3681     </div>
3682     <div class="padding"></div>
3683
3684     <div class="entry">
3685       <div class="title">
3686         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Software_updates_2010_10_24.html">Software updates 2010-10-24</a>
3687       </div>
3688       <div class="date">
3689         24th October 2010
3690       </div>
3691       <div class="body">
3692         <p>Some updates.</p>
3693
3694 <p>My <a href="http://pledgebank.com/gnash-avm2">gnash pledge</a> to
3695 raise money for the project is going well.  The lower limit of 10
3696 signers was reached in 24 hours, and so far 13 people have signed it.
3697 More signers and more funding is most welcome, and I am really curious
3698 how far we can get before the time limit of December 24 is reached.
3699 :)</p>
3700
3701 <p>On the #gnash IRC channel on irc.freenode.net, I was just tipped
3702 about what appear to be a great code coverage tool capable of
3703 generating code coverage stats without any changes to the source code.
3704 It is called
3705 <a href="http://simonkagstrom.github.com/kcov/index.html">kcov</a>,
3706 and can be used using <tt>kcov &lt;directory&gt; &lt;binary&gt;</tt>.
3707 It is missing in Debian, but the git source built just fine in Squeeze
3708 after I installed libelf-dev, libdwarf-dev, pkg-config and
3709 libglib2.0-dev.  Failed to build in Lenny, but suspect that is
3710 solvable.  I hope kcov make it into Debian soon.</p>
3711
3712 <p>Finally found time to wrap up the release notes for <a
3713 href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2010/10/msg00002.html">a
3714 new alpha release of Debian Edu</a>, and just published the second
3715 alpha test release of the Squeeze based Debian Edu /
3716 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a>
3717 release.  Give it a try if you need a complete linux solution for your
3718 school, including central infrastructure server, workstations, thin
3719 client servers and diskless workstations.  A nice touch added
3720 yesterday is RDP support on the thin client servers, for windows
3721 clients to get a Linux desktop on request.</p>
3722
3723       </div>
3724       <div class="tags">
3725
3726
3727         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>.
3728
3729
3730       </div>
3731     </div>
3732     <div class="padding"></div>
3733
3734     <div class="entry">
3735       <div class="title">
3736         <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>
3737       </div>
3738       <div class="date">
3739          4th September 2010
3740       </div>
3741       <div class="body">
3742         <p>In the <a href="http://popcon.debian.org/unknown/by_vote">Debian
3743 popularity-contest numbers</a>, the adobe-flashplugin package the
3744 second most popular used package that is missing in Debian.  The sixth
3745 most popular is flashplayer-mozilla.  This is a clear indication that
3746 working flash is important for Debian users.  Around 10 percent of the
3747 users submitting data to popcon.debian.org have this package
3748 installed.</p>
3749
3750 <p>In the report written by Lars Risan in August 2008
3751 («<a href="http://wiki.skolelinux.no/Dokumentasjon/Rapporter?action=AttachFile&do=view&target=Skolelinux_i_bruk_rapport_1.0.pdf">Skolelinux
3752 i bruk – Rapport for Hurum kommune, Universitetet i Agder og
3753 stiftelsen SLX Debian Labs</a>»), one of the most important problems
3754 schools experienced with <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
3755 Edu/Skolelinux</a> was the lack of working Flash.  A lot of educational
3756 web sites require Flash to work, and lacking working Flash support in
3757 the web browser and the problems with installing it was perceived as a
3758 good reason to stay with Windows.</p>
3759
3760 <p>I once saw a funny and sad comment in a web forum, where Linux was
3761 said to be the retarded cousin that did not really understand
3762 everything you told him but could work fairly well.  This was a
3763 comment regarding the problems Linux have with proprietary formats and
3764 non-standard web pages, and is sad because it exposes a fairly common
3765 understanding of whose fault it is if web pages that only work in for
3766 example Internet Explorer 6 fail to work on Firefox, and funny because
3767 it explain very well how annoying it is for users when Linux
3768 distributions do not work with the documents they receive or the web
3769 pages they want to visit.</p>
3770
3771 <p>This is part of the reason why I believe it is important for Debian
3772 and Debian Edu to have a well working Flash implementation in the
3773 distribution, to get at least popular sites as Youtube and Google
3774 Video to working out of the box.  For Squeeze, Debian have the chance
3775 to include the latest version of Gnash that will make this happen, as
3776 the new release 0.8.8 was published a few weeks ago and is resting in
3777 unstable.  The new version work with more sites that version 0.8.7.
3778 The Gnash maintainers have asked for a freeze exception, but the
3779 release team have not had time to reply to it yet.  I hope they agree
3780 with me that Flash is important for the Debian desktop users, and thus
3781 accept the new package into Squeeze.</p>
3782
3783       </div>
3784       <div class="tags">
3785
3786
3787         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>.
3788
3789
3790       </div>
3791     </div>
3792     <div class="padding"></div>
3793
3794     <div class="entry">
3795       <div class="title">
3796         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Circular_package_dependencies_harms_apt_recovery.html">Circular package dependencies harms apt recovery</a>
3797       </div>
3798       <div class="date">
3799         27th July 2010
3800       </div>
3801       <div class="body">
3802         <p>I discovered this while doing
3803 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">automated
3804 testing of upgrades from Debian Lenny to Squeeze</a>.  A few packages
3805 in Debian still got circular dependencies, and it is often claimed
3806 that apt and aptitude should be able to handle this just fine, but
3807 some times these dependency loops causes apt to fail.</p>
3808
3809 <p>An example is from todays
3810 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing//test-20100727-lenny-squeeze-kde-aptitude.txt">upgrade
3811 of KDE using aptitude</a>.  In it, a bug in kdebase-workspace-data
3812 causes perl-modules to fail to upgrade.  The cause is simple.  If a
3813 package fail to unpack, then only part of packages with the circular
3814 dependency might end up being unpacked when unpacking aborts, and the
3815 ones already unpacked will fail to configure in the recovery phase
3816 because its dependencies are unavailable.</p>
3817
3818 <p>In this log, the problem manifest itself with this error:</p>
3819
3820 <blockquote><pre>
3821 dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of perl-modules:
3822  perl-modules depends on perl (>= 5.10.1-1); however:
3823   Version of perl on system is 5.10.0-19lenny2.
3824 dpkg: error processing perl-modules (--configure):
3825  dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
3826 </pre></blockquote>
3827
3828 <p>The perl/perl-modules circular dependency is already
3829 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/527917">reported as a bug</a>, and will
3830 hopefully be solved as soon as possible, but it is not the only one,
3831 and each one of these loops in the dependency tree can cause similar
3832 failures.  Of course, they only occur when there are bugs in other
3833 packages causing the unpacking to fail, but it is rather nasty when
3834 the failure of one package causes the problem to become worse because
3835 of dependency loops.</p>
3836
3837 <p>Thanks to
3838 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/06/msg00116.html">the
3839 tireless effort by Bill Allombert</a>, the number of circular
3840 dependencies
3841 <a href="http://debian.semistable.com/debgraph.out.html">left in Debian
3842 is dropping</a>, and perhaps it will reach zero one day. :)</p>
3843
3844 <p>Todays testing also exposed a bug in
3845 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590605">update-notifier</a> and
3846 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590604">different behaviour</a> between
3847 apt-get and aptitude, the latter possibly caused by some circular
3848 dependency.  Reported both to BTS to try to get someone to look at
3849 it.</p>
3850
3851       </div>
3852       <div class="tags">
3853
3854
3855         Tags: <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>.
3856
3857
3858       </div>
3859     </div>
3860     <div class="padding"></div>
3861
3862     <div class="entry">
3863       <div class="title">
3864         <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>
3865       </div>
3866       <div class="date">
3867         17th July 2010
3868       </div>
3869       <div class="body">
3870         <p>This is a
3871 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">followup</a>
3872 on my
3873 <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
3874 work</a> on
3875 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">merging
3876 all</a> the computer related LDAP objects in Debian Edu.</p>
3877
3878 <p>As a step to try to see if it possible to merge the DNS and DHCP
3879 LDAP objects, I have had a look at how the packages pdns-backend-ldap
3880 and dhcp3-server-ldap in Debian use the LDAP server.  The two
3881 implementations are quite different in how they use LDAP.</p>
3882
3883 To get this information, I started slapd with debugging enabled and
3884 dumped the debug output to a file to get the LDAP searches performed
3885 on a Debian Edu main-server.  Here is a summary.
3886
3887 <p><strong>powerdns</strong></p>
3888
3889 <a href="http://www.linuxnetworks.de/doc/index.php/PowerDNS_LDAP_Backend">Clues
3890 on how to</a> set up PowerDNS to use a LDAP backend is available on
3891 the web.
3892
3893 <p>PowerDNS have two modes of operation using LDAP as its backend.
3894 One "strict" mode where the forward and reverse DNS lookups are done
3895 using the same LDAP objects, and a "tree" mode where the forward and
3896 reverse entries are in two different subtrees in LDAP with a structure
3897 based on the DNS names, as in tjener.intern and
3898 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa.</p>
3899
3900 <p>In tree mode, the server is set up to use a LDAP subtree as its
3901 base, and uses a "base" scoped search for the DNS name by adding
3902 "dc=tjener,dc=intern," to the base with a filter for
3903 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" for the forward entry and
3904 "dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa," with a filter for
3905 "(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)" for the reverse entry.  For
3906 forward entries, it is looking for attributes named dnsttl, arecord,
3907 nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord,
3908 txtrecord, rprecord, afsdbrecord, keyrecord, aaaarecord, locrecord,
3909 srvrecord, naptrrecord, kxrecord, certrecord, dsrecord, sshfprecord,
3910 ipseckeyrecord, rrsigrecord, nsecrecord, dnskeyrecord, dhcidrecord,
3911 spfrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entries it is looking for
3912 the attributes dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord,
3913 ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord,
3914 locrecord, srvrecord, naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  The equivalent
3915 ldapsearch commands could look like this:</p>
3916
3917 <blockquote><pre>
3918 ldapsearch -h ldap \
3919   -b dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
3920   -s base -x '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
3921   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
3922   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
3923   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
3924   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
3925
3926 ldapsearch -h ldap \
3927   -b dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
3928   -s base -x '(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)'
3929   dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord soarecord ptrrecord \
3930   hinforecord mxrecord txtrecord rprecord aaaarecord locrecord \
3931   srvrecord naptrrecord modifytimestamp
3932 </pre></blockquote>
3933
3934 <p>In Debian Edu/Lenny, the PowerDNS tree mode is used with
3935 ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no as the base, and these are two
3936 example LDAP objects used there.  In addition to these objects, the
3937 parent objects all th way up to ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
3938 also exist.</p>
3939
3940 <blockquote><pre>
3941 dn: dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
3942 objectclass: top
3943 objectclass: dnsdomain
3944 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
3945 dc: tjener
3946 arecord: 10.0.2.2
3947 associateddomain: tjener.intern
3948
3949 dn: dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
3950 objectclass: top
3951 objectclass: dnsdomain2
3952 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
3953 dc: 2
3954 ptrrecord: tjener.intern
3955 associateddomain: 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa
3956 </pre></blockquote>
3957
3958 <p>In strict mode, the server behaves differently.  When looking for
3959 forward DNS entries, it is doing a "subtree" scoped search with the
3960 same base as in the tree mode for a object with filter
3961 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" and requests the attributes dnsttl,
3962 arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord,
3963 mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord, locrecord, srvrecord,
3964 naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entires it also do a
3965 subtree scoped search but this time the filter is "(arecord=10.0.2.2)"
3966 and the requested attributes are associateddomain, dnsttl and
3967 modifytimestamp.  In short, in strict mode the objects with ptrrecord
3968 go away, and the arecord attribute in the forward object is used
3969 instead.</p>
3970
3971 <p>The forward and reverse searches can be simulated using ldapsearch
3972 like this:</p>
3973
3974 <blockquote><pre>
3975 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
3976   '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
3977   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
3978   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
3979   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
3980   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
3981
3982 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
3983   '(arecord=10.0.2.2)' associateddomain dnsttl modifytimestamp
3984 </pre></blockquote>
3985
3986 <p>In addition to the forward and reverse searches , there is also a
3987 search for SOA records, which behave similar to the forward and
3988 reverse lookups.</p>
3989
3990 <p>A thing to note with the PowerDNS behaviour is that it do not
3991 specify any objectclass names, and instead look for the attributes it
3992 need to generate a DNS reply.  This make it able to work with any
3993 objectclass that provide the needed attributes.</p>
3994
3995 <p>The attributes are normally provided in the cosine (RFC 1274) and
3996 dnsdomain2 schemas.  The latter is used for reverse entries like
3997 ptrrecord and recent DNS additions like aaaarecord and srvrecord.</p>
3998
3999 <p>In Debian Edu, we have created DNS objects using the object classes
4000 dcobject (for dc), dnsdomain or dnsdomain2 (structural, for the DNS
4001 attributes) and domainrelatedobject (for associatedDomain).  The use
4002 of structural object classes make it impossible to combine these
4003 classes with the object classes used by DHCP.</p>
4004
4005 <p>There are other schemas that could be used too, for example the
4006 dnszone structural object class used by Gosa and bind-sdb for the DNS
4007 attributes combined with the domainrelatedobject object class, but in
4008 this case some unused attributes would have to be included as well
4009 (zonename and relativedomainname).</p>
4010
4011 <p>My proposal for Debian Edu would be to switch PowerDNS to strict
4012 mode and not use any of the existing objectclasses (dnsdomain,
4013 dnsdomain2 and dnszone) when one want to combine the DNS information
4014 with DHCP information, and instead create a auxiliary object class
4015 defined something like this (using the attributes defined for
4016 dnsdomain and dnsdomain2 or dnszone):</p>
4017
4018 <blockquote><pre>
4019 objectclass ( some-oid NAME 'dnsDomainAux'
4020     SUP top
4021     AUXILIARY
4022     MAY ( ARecord $ MDRecord $ MXRecord $ NSRecord $ SOARecord $ CNAMERecord $
4023           DNSTTL $ DNSClass $ PTRRecord $ HINFORecord $ MINFORecord $
4024           TXTRecord $ SIGRecord $ KEYRecord $ AAAARecord $ LOCRecord $
4025           NXTRecord $ SRVRecord $ NAPTRRecord $ KXRecord $ CERTRecord $
4026           A6Record $ DNAMERecord
4027     ))
4028 </pre></blockquote>
4029
4030 <p>This will allow any object to become a DNS entry when combined with
4031 the domainrelatedobject object class, and allow any entity to include
4032 all the attributes PowerDNS wants.  I've sent an email to the PowerDNS
4033 developers asking for their view on this schema and if they are
4034 interested in providing such schema with PowerDNS, and I hope my
4035 message will be accepted into their mailing list soon.</p>
4036
4037 <p><strong>ISC dhcp</strong></p>
4038
4039 <p>The DHCP server searches for specific objectclass and requests all
4040 the object attributes, and then uses the attributes it want.  This
4041 make it harder to figure out exactly what attributes are used, but
4042 thanks to the working example in Debian Edu I can at least get an idea
4043 what is needed without having to read the source code.</p>
4044
4045 <p>In the DHCP server configuration, the LDAP base to use and the
4046 search filter to use to locate the correct dhcpServer entity is
4047 stored.  These are the relevant entries from
4048 /etc/dhcp3/dhcpd.conf:</p>
4049
4050 <blockquote><pre>
4051 ldap-base-dn "dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no";
4052 ldap-dhcp-server-cn "dhcp";
4053 </pre></blockquote>
4054
4055 <p>The DHCP server uses this information to nest all the DHCP
4056 configuration it need.  The cn "dhcp" is located using the given LDAP
4057 base and the filter "(&(objectClass=dhcpServer)(cn=dhcp))".  The
4058 search result is this entry:</p>
4059
4060 <blockquote><pre>
4061 dn: cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
4062 cn: dhcp
4063 objectClass: top
4064 objectClass: dhcpServer
4065 dhcpServiceDN: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
4066 </pre></blockquote>
4067
4068 <p>The content of the dhcpServiceDN attribute is next used to locate the
4069 subtree with DHCP configuration.  The DHCP configuration subtree base
4070 is located using a base scope search with base "cn=DHCP
4071 Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" and filter
4072 "(&(objectClass=dhcpService)(|(dhcpPrimaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)(dhcpSecondaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)))".
4073 The search result is this entry:</p>
4074
4075 <blockquote><pre>
4076 dn: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
4077 cn: DHCP Config
4078 objectClass: top
4079 objectClass: dhcpService
4080 objectClass: dhcpOptions
4081 dhcpPrimaryDN: cn=dhcp, dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
4082 dhcpStatements: ddns-update-style none
4083 dhcpStatements: authoritative
4084 dhcpOption: smtp-server code 69 = array of ip-address
4085 dhcpOption: www-server code 72 = array of ip-address
4086 dhcpOption: wpad-url code 252 = text
4087 </pre></blockquote>
4088
4089 <p>Next, the entire subtree is processed, one level at the time.  When
4090 all the DHCP configuration is loaded, it is ready to receive requests.
4091 The subtree in Debian Edu contain objects with object classes
4092 top/dhcpService/dhcpOptions, top/dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions,
4093 top/dhcpSubnet, top/dhcpGroup and top/dhcpHost.  These provide options
4094 and information about netmasks, dynamic range etc.  Leaving out the
4095 details here because it is not relevant for the focus of my
4096 investigation, which is to see if it is possible to merge dns and dhcp
4097 related computer objects.</p>
4098
4099 <p>When a DHCP request come in, LDAP is searched for the MAC address
4100 of the client (00:00:00:00:00:00 in this example), using a subtree
4101 scoped search with "cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" as
4102 the base and "(&(objectClass=dhcpHost)(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet
4103 00:00:00:00:00:00))" as the filter.  This is what a host object look
4104 like:</p>
4105
4106 <blockquote><pre>
4107 dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
4108 cn: hostname
4109 objectClass: top
4110 objectClass: dhcpHost
4111 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
4112 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname
4113 </pre></blockquote>
4114
4115 <p>There is less flexiblity in the way LDAP searches are done here.
4116 The object classes need to have fixed names, and the configuration
4117 need to be stored in a fairly specific LDAP structure.  On the
4118 positive side, the invidiual dhcpHost entires can be anywhere without
4119 the DN pointed to by the dhcpServer entries.  The latter should make
4120 it possible to group all host entries in a subtree next to the
4121 configuration entries, and this subtree can also be shared with the
4122 DNS server if the schema proposed above is combined with the dhcpHost
4123 structural object class.
4124
4125 <p><strong>Conclusion</strong></p>
4126
4127 <p>The PowerDNS implementation seem to be very flexible when it come
4128 to which LDAP schemas to use.  While its "tree" mode is rigid when it
4129 come to the the LDAP structure, the "strict" mode is very flexible,
4130 allowing DNS objects to be stored anywhere under the base cn specified
4131 in the configuration.</p>
4132
4133 <p>The DHCP implementation on the other hand is very inflexible, both
4134 regarding which LDAP schemas to use and which LDAP structure to use.
4135 I guess one could implement ones own schema, as long as the
4136 objectclasses and attributes have the names used, but this do not
4137 really help when the DHCP subtree need to have a fairly fixed
4138 structure.</p>
4139
4140 <p>Based on the observed behaviour, I suspect a LDAP structure like
4141 this might work for Debian Edu:</p>
4142
4143 <blockquote><pre>
4144 ou=services
4145   cn=machine-info (dhcpService) - dhcpServiceDN points here
4146     cn=dhcp (dhcpServer)
4147     cn=dhcp-internal (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
4148       cn=10.0.2.0 (dhcpSubnet)
4149         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
4150     cn=dhcp-thinclients (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
4151       cn=192.168.0.0 (dhcpSubnet)
4152         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
4153     ou=machines - PowerDNS base points here
4154       cn=hostname (dhcpHost/domainrelatedobject/dnsDomainAux)
4155 </pre></blockquote>
4156
4157 <P>This is not tested yet.  If the DHCP server require the dhcpHost
4158 entries to be in the dhcpGroup subtrees, the entries can be stored
4159 there instead of a common machines subtree, and the PowerDNS base
4160 would have to be moved one level up to the machine-info subtree.</p>
4161
4162 <p>The combined object under the machines subtree would look something
4163 like this:</p>
4164
4165 <blockquote><pre>
4166 dn: dc=hostname,ou=machines,cn=machine-info,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
4167 dc: hostname
4168 objectClass: top
4169 objectClass: dhcpHost
4170 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
4171 objectclass: dnsDomainAux
4172 associateddomain: hostname.intern
4173 arecord: 10.11.12.13
4174 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
4175 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname.intern
4176 </pre></blockquote>
4177
4178 </p>One could even add the LTSP configuration associated with a given
4179 machine, as long as the required attributes are available in a
4180 auxiliary object class.</p>
4181
4182       </div>
4183       <div class="tags">
4184
4185
4186         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>.
4187
4188
4189       </div>
4190     </div>
4191     <div class="padding"></div>
4192
4193     <div class="entry">
4194       <div class="title">
4195         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">Combining PowerDNS and ISC DHCP LDAP objects</a>
4196       </div>
4197       <div class="date">
4198         14th July 2010
4199       </div>
4200       <div class="body">
4201         <p>For a while now, I have wanted to find a way to change the DNS and
4202 DHCP services in Debian Edu to use the same LDAP objects for a given
4203 computer, to avoid the possibility of having a inconsistent state for
4204 a computer in LDAP (as in DHCP but no DNS entry or the other way
4205 around) and make it easier to add computers to LDAP.</p>
4206
4207 <p>I've looked at how powerdns and dhcpd is using LDAP, and using this
4208 information finally found a solution that seem to work.</p>
4209
4210 <p>The old setup required three LDAP objects for a given computer.
4211 One forward DNS entry, one reverse DNS entry and one DHCP entry.  If
4212 we switch powerdns to use its strict LDAP method (ldap-method=strict
4213 in pdns-debian-edu.conf), the forward and reverse DNS entries are
4214 merged into one while making it impossible to transfer the reverse map
4215 to a slave DNS server.</p>
4216
4217 <p>If we also replace the object class used to get the DNS related
4218 attributes to one allowing these attributes to be combined with the
4219 dhcphost object class, we can merge the DNS and DHCP entries into one.
4220 I've written such object class in the dnsdomainaux.schema file (need
4221 proper OIDs, but that is a minor issue), and tested the setup.  It
4222 seem to work.</p>
4223
4224 <p>With this test setup in place, we can get away with one LDAP object
4225 for both DNS and DHCP, and even the LTSP configuration I suggested in
4226 an earlier email.  The combined LDAP object will look something like
4227 this:</p>
4228
4229 <blockquote><pre>
4230   dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
4231   cn: hostname
4232   objectClass: dhcphost
4233   objectclass: domainrelatedobject
4234   objectclass: dnsdomainaux
4235   associateddomain: hostname.intern
4236   arecord: 10.11.12.13
4237   dhcphwaddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
4238   dhcpstatements: fixed-address hostname
4239   ldapconfigsound: Y
4240 </pre></blockquote>
4241
4242 <p>The DNS server uses the associateddomain and arecord entries, while
4243 the DHCP server uses the dhcphwaddress and dhcpstatements entries
4244 before asking DNS to resolve the fixed-adddress.  LTSP will use
4245 dhcphwaddress or associateddomain and the ldapconfig* attributes.</p>
4246
4247 <p>I am not yet sure if I can get the DHCP server to look for its
4248 dhcphost in a different location, to allow us to put the objects
4249 outside the "DHCP Config" subtree, but hope to figure out a way to do
4250 that.  If I can't figure out a way to do that, we can still get rid of
4251 the hosts subtree and move all its content into the DHCP Config tree
4252 (which probably should be renamed to be more related to the new
4253 content.  I suspect cn=dnsdhcp,ou=services or something like that
4254 might be a good place to put it.</p>
4255
4256 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
4257 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
4258
4259       </div>
4260       <div class="tags">
4261
4262
4263         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>.
4264
4265
4266       </div>
4267     </div>
4268     <div class="padding"></div>
4269
4270     <div class="entry">
4271       <div class="title">
4272         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Idea_for_storing_LTSP_configuration_in_LDAP.html">Idea for storing LTSP configuration in LDAP</a>
4273       </div>
4274       <div class="date">
4275         11th July 2010
4276       </div>
4277       <div class="body">
4278         <p>Vagrant mentioned on IRC today that ltsp_config now support
4279 sourcing files from /usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ on the thin
4280 clients, and that this can be used to fetch configuration from LDAP if
4281 Debian Edu choose to store configuration there.</p>
4282
4283 <p>Armed with this information, I got inspired and wrote a test module
4284 to get configuration from LDAP.  The idea is to look up the MAC
4285 address of the client in LDAP, and look for attributes on the form
4286 ltspconfigsetting=value, and use this to export SETTING=value to the
4287 LTSP clients.</p>
4288
4289 <p>The goal is to be able to store the LTSP configuration attributes
4290 in a "computer" LDAP object used by both DNS and DHCP, and thus
4291 allowing us to store all information about a computer in one place.</p>
4292
4293 <p>This is a untested draft implementation, and I welcome feedback on
4294 this approach.  A real LDAP schema for the ltspClientAux objectclass
4295 need to be written.  Comments, suggestions, etc?</p>
4296
4297 <blockquote><pre>
4298 # Store in /opt/ltsp/$arch/usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ldap-config
4299 #
4300 # Fetch LTSP client settings from LDAP based on MAC address
4301 #
4302 # Uses ethernet address as stored in the dhcpHost objectclass using
4303 # the dhcpHWAddress attribute or ethernet address stored in the
4304 # ieee802Device objectclass with the macAddress attribute.
4305 #
4306 # This module is written to be schema agnostic, and only depend on the
4307 # existence of attribute names.
4308 #
4309 # The LTSP configuration variables are saved directly using a
4310 # ltspConfig prefix and uppercasing the rest of the attribute name.
4311 # To set the SERVER variable, set the ltspConfigServer attribute.
4312 #
4313 # Some LDAP schema should be created with all the relevant
4314 # configuration settings.  Something like this should work:
4315 #
4316 # objectclass ( 1.1.2.2 NAME 'ltspClientAux'
4317 #     SUP top
4318 #     AUXILIARY
4319 #     MAY ( ltspConfigServer $ ltsConfigSound $ ... )
4320
4321 LDAPSERVER=$(debian-edu-ldapserver)
4322 if [ "$LDAPSERVER" ] ; then
4323     LDAPBASE=$(debian-edu-ldapserver -b)
4324     for MAC in $(LANG=C ifconfig |grep -i hwaddr| awk '{print $5}'|sort -u) ; do
4325         filter="(|(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet $MAC)(macAddress=$MAC))"
4326         ldapsearch -h "$LDAPSERVER" -b "$LDAPBASE" -v -x "$filter" | \
4327             grep '^ltspConfig' | while read attr value ; do
4328             # Remove prefix and convert to upper case
4329             attr=$(echo $attr | sed 's/^ltspConfig//i' | tr a-z A-Z)
4330             # bass value on to clients
4331             eval "$attr=$value; export $attr"
4332         done
4333     done
4334 fi
4335 </pre></blockquote>
4336
4337 <p>I'm not sure this shell construction will work, because I suspect
4338 the while block might end up in a subshell causing the variables set
4339 there to not show up in ltsp-config, but if that is the case I am sure
4340 the code can be restructured to make sure the variables are passed on.
4341 I expect that can be solved with some testing. :)</p>
4342
4343 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
4344 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
4345
4346 <p>Update 2010-07-17: I am aware of another effort to store LTSP
4347 configuration in LDAP that was created around year 2000 by
4348 <a href="http://www.pcxperience.com/thinclient/documentation/ldap.html">PC
4349 Xperience, Inc., 2000</a>.  I found its
4350 <a href="http://people.redhat.com/alikins/ltsp/ldap/">files</a> on a
4351 personal home page over at redhat.com.</p>
4352
4353       </div>
4354       <div class="tags">
4355
4356
4357         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>.
4358
4359
4360       </div>
4361     </div>
4362     <div class="padding"></div>
4363
4364     <div class="entry">
4365       <div class="title">
4366         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/jXplorer__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">jXplorer, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
4367       </div>
4368       <div class="date">
4369          9th July 2010
4370       </div>
4371       <div class="body">
4372         <p>Since
4373 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">my
4374 last post</a> about available LDAP tools in Debian, I was told about a
4375 LDAP GUI that is even better than luma.  The java application
4376 <a href="http://jxplorer.org/">jXplorer</a> is claimed to be capable of
4377 moving LDAP objects and subtrees using drag-and-drop, and can
4378 authenticate using Kerberos.  I have only tested the Kerberos
4379 authentication, but do not have a LDAP setup allowing me to rewrite
4380 LDAP with my test user yet.  It is
4381 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/j/jxplorer.html">available in
4382 Debian</a> testing and unstable at the moment.  The only problem I
4383 have with it is how it handle errors.  If something go wrong, its
4384 non-intuitive behaviour require me to go through some query work list
4385 and remove the failing query.  Nothing big, but very annoying.</p>
4386
4387       </div>
4388       <div class="tags">
4389
4390
4391         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>.
4392
4393
4394       </div>
4395     </div>
4396     <div class="padding"></div>
4397
4398     <div class="entry">
4399       <div class="title">
4400         <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>
4401       </div>
4402       <div class="date">
4403          3rd July 2010
4404       </div>
4405       <div class="body">
4406         <p>Here is a short update on my <a
4407 href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">my
4408 Debian Lenny->Squeeze upgrade testing</a>.  Here is a summary of the
4409 difference for Gnome when it is upgraded by apt-get and aptitude.  I'm
4410 not reporting the status for KDE, because the upgrade crashes when
4411 aptitude try because of missing conflicts
4412 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> and
4413 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585716">#585716</a>).</p>
4414
4415 <p>At the end of the upgrade test script, dpkg -l is executed to get a
4416 complete list of the installed packages.  Based on this I see these
4417 differences when I did a test run today.  As usual, I do not really
4418 know what the correct set of packages would be, but thought it best to
4419 publish the difference.</p>
4420
4421 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
4422
4423 <blockquote><p>
4424   at-spi cpp-4.3 finger gnome-spell gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
4425   libatspi1.0-0 libcupsys2 libeel2-data libgail-common libgdl-1-common
4426   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin
4427   libgtksourceview-common libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
4428   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libservlet2.4-java libxalan2-java
4429   libxerces2-java openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
4430   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gtkhtml2
4431   python-gtkmozembed svgalibg1 xserver-xephyr zip
4432 </p></blockquote>
4433
4434 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
4435
4436 <blockquote><p>
4437   bluez-utils dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop epiphany-gecko
4438   gnome-app-install gnome-mount gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager
4439   libao2 libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libbind9-50
4440   libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcurl3
4441   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9
4442   libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3
4443   libfaad0 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
4444   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
4445   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
4446   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
4447   libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50
4448   libisccfg50 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick++10
4449   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4
4450   libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5
4451   libparted1.8-10 libpisock9 libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3
4452   libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8 libsensors3 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
4453   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1
4454   libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0 libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj
4455   libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3
4456   mysql-common swfdec-gnome totem-gstreamer wodim
4457 </p></blockquote>
4458
4459 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
4460
4461 <blockquote><p>
4462   gnome gnome-desktop-environment hamster-applet python-gnomeapplet
4463   python-gnomekeyring python-wnck rhythmbox-plugins xorg
4464   xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
4465   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
4466   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-video-all
4467   xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark xserver-xorg-video-ati
4468   xserver-xorg-video-chips xserver-xorg-video-cirrus
4469   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
4470   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
4471   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-mach64
4472   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
4473   xserver-xorg-video-nouveau xserver-xorg-video-nv
4474   xserver-xorg-video-r128 xserver-xorg-video-radeon
4475   xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd xserver-xorg-video-rendition
4476   xserver-xorg-video-s3 xserver-xorg-video-s3virge
4477   xserver-xorg-video-savage xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion
4478   xserver-xorg-video-sis xserver-xorg-video-sisusb
4479   xserver-xorg-video-tdfx xserver-xorg-video-tga
4480   xserver-xorg-video-trident xserver-xorg-video-tseng
4481   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vmware
4482   xserver-xorg-video-voodoo
4483 </p></blockquote>
4484
4485 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
4486
4487 <blockquote><p>
4488   deskbar-applet xserver-xorg xserver-xorg-core
4489   xserver-xorg-input-wacom xserver-xorg-video-intel
4490   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome
4491 </p></blockquote>
4492
4493 <p>I was told on IRC that the xorg-xserver package was
4494 <a href="http://git.debian.org/?p=pkg-xorg/xserver/xorg-server.git;a=commit;h=9c8080d06c457932d3bfec021c69ac000aa60120">changed
4495 in git</a> today to try to get apt-get to not remove xorg completely.
4496 No idea when it hits Squeeze, but when it does I hope it will reduce
4497 the difference somewhat.
4498
4499       </div>
4500       <div class="tags">
4501
4502
4503         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>.
4504
4505
4506       </div>
4507     </div>
4508     <div class="padding"></div>
4509
4510     <div class="entry">
4511       <div class="title">
4512         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">LUMA, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
4513       </div>
4514       <div class="date">
4515         28th June 2010
4516       </div>
4517       <div class="body">
4518         <p>The last few days I have been looking into the status of the LDAP
4519 directory in Debian Edu, and in the process I started to miss a GUI
4520 tool to browse the LDAP tree.  The only one I was able to find in
4521 Debian/Squeeze and Lenny is
4522 <a href="http://luma.sourceforge.net/">LUMA</a>, which has proved to
4523 be a great tool to get a overview of the current LDAP directory
4524 populated by default in Skolelinux.  Thanks to it, I have been able to
4525 find empty and obsolete subtrees, misplaced objects and duplicate
4526 objects.  It will be installed by default in Debian/Squeeze.  If you
4527 are working with LDAP, give it a go. :)</p>
4528
4529 <p>I did notice one problem with it I have not had time to report to
4530 the BTS yet.  There is no .desktop file in the package, so the tool do
4531 not show up in the Gnome and KDE menus, but only deep down in in the
4532 Debian submenu in KDE.  I hope that can be fixed before Squeeze is
4533 released.</p>
4534
4535 <p>I have not yet been able to get it to modify the tree yet.  I would
4536 like to move objects and remove subtrees directly in the GUI, but have
4537 not found a way to do that with LUMA yet.  So in the mean time, I use
4538 <a href="http://www.lichteblau.com/ldapvi/">ldapvi</a> for that.</p>
4539
4540 <p>If you have tips on other GUI tools for LDAP that might be useful
4541 in Debian Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
4542
4543 <p>Update 2010-06-29: Ross Reedstrom tipped us about the
4544 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/g/gq.html">gq</a> package as a
4545 useful GUI alternative.  It seem like a good tool, but is unmaintained
4546 in Debian and got a RC bug keeping it out of Squeeze.  Unless that
4547 changes, it will not be an option for Debian Edu based on Squeeze.</p>
4548
4549       </div>
4550       <div class="tags">
4551
4552
4553         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>.
4554
4555
4556       </div>
4557     </div>
4558     <div class="padding"></div>
4559
4560     <div class="entry">
4561       <div class="title">
4562         <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>
4563       </div>
4564       <div class="date">
4565         24th June 2010
4566       </div>
4567       <div class="body">
4568         <p>A while back, I
4569 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">complained
4570 about the fact</a> that it is not possible with the provided schemas
4571 for storing DNS and DHCP information in LDAP to combine the two sets
4572 of information into one LDAP object representing a computer.</p>
4573
4574 <p>In the mean time, I discovered that a simple fix would be to make
4575 the dhcpHost object class auxiliary, to allow it to be combined with
4576 the dNSDomain object class, and thus forming one object for one
4577 computer when storing both DHCP and DNS information in LDAP.</p>
4578
4579 <p>If I understand this correctly, it is not safe to do this change
4580 without also changing the assigned number for the object class, and I
4581 do not know enough about LDAP schema design to do that properly for
4582 Debian Edu.</p>
4583
4584 <p>Anyway, for future reference, this is how I believe we could change
4585 the
4586 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-dhc-ldap-schema-00">DHCP
4587 schema</a> to solve at least part of the problem with the LDAP schemas
4588 available today from IETF.</p>
4589
4590 <pre>
4591 --- dhcp.schema    (revision 65192)
4592 +++ dhcp.schema    (working copy)
4593 @@ -376,7 +376,7 @@
4594  objectclass ( 2.16.840.1.113719.1.203.6.6
4595         NAME 'dhcpHost'
4596         DESC 'This represents information about a particular client'
4597 -       SUP top
4598 +       SUP top AUXILIARY
4599         MUST cn
4600         MAY  (dhcpLeaseDN $ dhcpHWAddress $ dhcpOptionsDN $ dhcpStatements $ dhcpComments $ dhcpOption)
4601         X-NDS_CONTAINMENT ('dhcpService' 'dhcpSubnet' 'dhcpGroup') )
4602 </pre>
4603
4604 <p>I very much welcome clues on how to do this properly for Debian
4605 Edu/Squeeze.  We provide the DHCP schema in our debian-edu-config
4606 package, and should thus be free to rewrite it as we see fit.</p>
4607
4608 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
4609 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
4610
4611       </div>
4612       <div class="tags">
4613
4614
4615         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>.
4616
4617
4618       </div>
4619     </div>
4620     <div class="padding"></div>
4621
4622     <div class="entry">
4623       <div class="title">
4624         <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>
4625       </div>
4626       <div class="date">
4627         16th June 2010
4628       </div>
4629       <div class="body">
4630         <p>A few times I have had the need to simulate the way tasksel
4631 installs packages during the normal debian-installer run.  Until now,
4632 I have ended up letting tasksel do the work, with the annoying problem
4633 of not getting any feedback at all when something fails (like a
4634 conffile question from dpkg or a download that fails), using code like
4635 this:
4636
4637 <blockquote><pre>
4638 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
4639 tasksel --new-install
4640 </pre></blockquote>
4641
4642 This would invoke tasksel, let its automatic task selection pick the
4643 tasks to install, and continue to install the requested tasks without
4644 any output what so ever.
4645
4646 Recently I revisited this problem while working on the automatic
4647 package upgrade testing, because tasksel would some times hang without
4648 any useful feedback, and I want to see what is going on when it
4649 happen.  Then it occured to me, I can parse the output from tasksel
4650 when asked to run in test mode, and use that aptitude command line
4651 printed by tasksel then to simulate the tasksel run.  I ended up using
4652 code like this:
4653
4654 <blockquote><pre>
4655 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
4656 cmd="$(in_target tasksel -t --new-install | sed 's/debconf-apt-progress -- //')"
4657 $cmd
4658 </pre></blockquote>
4659
4660 <p>The content of $cmd is typically something like "<tt>aptitude -q
4661 --without-recommends -o APT::Install-Recommends=no -y install
4662 ~t^desktop$ ~t^gnome-desktop$ ~t^laptop$ ~pstandard ~prequired
4663 ~pimportant</tt>", which will install the gnome desktop task, the
4664 laptop task and all packages with priority standard , required and
4665 important, just like tasksel would have done it during
4666 installation.</p>
4667
4668 <p>A better approach is probably to extend tasksel to be able to
4669 install packages without using debconf-apt-progress, for use cases
4670 like this.</p>
4671
4672       </div>
4673       <div class="tags">
4674
4675
4676         Tags: <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>.
4677
4678
4679       </div>
4680     </div>
4681     <div class="padding"></div>
4682
4683     <div class="entry">
4684       <div class="title">
4685         <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>
4686       </div>
4687       <div class="date">
4688         13th June 2010
4689       </div>
4690       <div class="body">
4691         <p>My
4692 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">testing
4693 of Debian upgrades</a> from Lenny to Squeeze continues, and I've
4694 finally made the upgrade logs available from
4695 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/</a>.
4696 I am now testing dist-upgrade of Gnome and KDE in a chroot using both
4697 apt and aptitude, and found their differences interesting.  This time
4698 I will only focus on their removal plans.</p>
4699
4700 <p>After installing a Gnome desktop and the laptop task, apt-get wants
4701 to remove 72 packages when dist-upgrading from Lenny to Squeeze.  The
4702 surprising part is that it want to remove xorg and all
4703 xserver-xorg-video* drivers.  Clearly not a good choice, but I am not
4704 sure why.  When asking aptitude to do the same, it want to remove 129
4705 packages, but most of them are library packages I suspect are no
4706 longer needed.  Both of them want to remove bluetooth packages, which
4707 I do not know.  Perhaps these bluetooth packages are obsolete?</p>
4708
4709 <p>For KDE, apt-get want to remove 82 packages, among them kdebase
4710 which seem like a bad idea and xorg the same way as with Gnome. Asking
4711 aptitude for the same, it wants to remove 192 packages, none which are
4712 too surprising.</p>
4713
4714 <p>I guess the removal of xorg during upgrades should be investigated
4715 and avoided, and perhaps others as well.  Here are the complete list
4716 of planned removals.  The complete logs is available from the URL
4717 above.  Note if you want to repeat these tests, that the upgrade test
4718 for kde+apt-get hung in the tasksel setup because of dpkg asking
4719 conffile questions.  No idea why.  I worked around it by using
4720 '<tt>echo >> /proc/<em>pidofdpkg</em>/fd/0</tt>' to tell dpkg to
4721 continue.</p>
4722
4723 <p><b>apt-get gnome 72</b>
4724 <br>bluez-gnome cupsddk-drivers deskbar-applet gnome
4725   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-network-admin gtkhtml3.14
4726   iceweasel-gnome-support libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libgdl-1-0
4727   libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libmetacity0 libslab0 libxcb-xlib0
4728   nautilus-cd-burner python-gnome2-desktop python-gnome2-extras
4729   serpentine swfdec-mozilla update-manager xorg xserver-xorg
4730   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
4731   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
4732   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
4733   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
4734   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
4735   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
4736   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
4737   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
4738   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
4739   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
4740   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
4741   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
4742   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
4743   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
4744   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
4745   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
4746   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
4747   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
4748   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
4749   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
4750   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
4751   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9
4752   xulrunner-1.9-gnome-support</p>
4753
4754 <p><b>aptitude gnome 129</b>
4755
4756 <br>bluez-gnome bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers dhcdbd
4757   djvulibre-desktop finger gnome-app-install gnome-mount
4758   gnome-network-admin gnome-spell gnome-vfs-obexftp
4759   gnome-volume-manager gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs gtkhtml3.14 libao2
4760   libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
4761   libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcupsys2 libcurl3 libdatrie0
4762   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20
4763   libeel2-data libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libfaad0 libgail-common
4764   libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libgdl-1-0 libgdl-1-common
4765   libggz2 libggzcore9 libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0
4766   libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libgnomeprint2.2-0
4767   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgnomeprintui2.2-common
4768   libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
4769   libgtksourceview-common libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6
4770   libhesiod0 libicu38 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 libmagick++10
4771   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmetacity0 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off
4772   libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2
4773   libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10
4774   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libraw1394-8
4775   libsensors3 libslab0 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8 libssh2-1
4776   libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10
4777   libtrackerclient0 libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0
4778   libxerces2-java libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6
4779   libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common nautilus-cd-burner
4780   openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
4781   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gnome2-desktop
4782   python-gnome2-extras python-gtkhtml2 python-gtkmozembed
4783   python-numeric python-sexy serpentine svgalibg1 swfdec-gnome
4784   swfdec-mozilla totem-gstreamer update-manager wodim
4785   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
4786   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
4787   zip</p>
4788
4789 <p><b>apt-get kde 82</b>
4790
4791 <br>cupsddk-drivers karm kaudiocreator kcoloredit kcontrol kde kde-core
4792   kdeaddons kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-bin kdebase-bin-kde3
4793   kdebase-kio-plugins kdesktop kdeutils khelpcenter kicker
4794   kicker-applets knewsticker kolourpaint konq-plugins konqueror korn
4795   kpersonalizer kscreensaver ksplash libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libkiten1
4796   libxcb-xlib0 quanta superkaramba texlive-base-bin xorg xserver-xorg
4797   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
4798   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
4799   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
4800   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
4801   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
4802   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
4803   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
4804   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
4805   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
4806   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
4807   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
4808   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
4809   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
4810   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
4811   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
4812   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
4813   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
4814   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
4815   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
4816   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
4817   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
4818   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9</p>
4819
4820 <p><b>aptitude kde 192</b>
4821 <br>bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers cvs dcoprss dhcdbd
4822   djvulibre-desktop dosfstools eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
4823   ghostscript-x imlib-base imlib11 indi kandy karm kasteroids
4824   kaudiocreator kbackgammon kbstate kcoloredit kcontrol kcron kdat
4825   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
4826   kdebase-bin-kde3 kdebase-kio-plugins kdeedu-data
4827   kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data
4828   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
4829   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdeprint kdesktop kdessh
4830   kdict kdnssd kdvi kedit keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs
4831   kghostview khelpcenter khexedit kiconedit kitchensync klatin
4832   klickety kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmoon kmrml kodo kolourpaint
4833   kooka korn kpager kpdf kpercentage kpf kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler
4834   krec kregexpeditor ksayit ksim ksirc ksirtet ksmiletris ksmserver
4835   ksnake ksokoban ksplash ksvg ksysv ktip ktnef kuickshow kverbos
4836   kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kworldclock
4837   kxsldbg libakode2 libao2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
4838   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
4839   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
4840   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0 libdatrie0
4841   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
4842   libgail-common libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0
4843   libicu38 libiec61883-0 libindex0 libiw29 libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1
4844   libkdeedu3 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkiten1 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
4845   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
4846   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 libmagick10 libmimelib1c2a
4847   libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9
4848   libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 libsmbios2
4849   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libtalloc1 libtiff-tools
4850   libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0 libxerces2-java
4851   libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 mpeglib networkstatus
4852   openoffice.org-writer2latex pmount poster psutils quanta quanta-data
4853   superkaramba svgalibg1 tex-common texlive-base texlive-base-bin
4854   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended
4855   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
4856   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
4857   xulrunner-1.9</p>
4858
4859
4860       </div>
4861       <div class="tags">
4862
4863
4864         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>.
4865
4866
4867       </div>
4868     </div>
4869     <div class="padding"></div>
4870
4871     <div class="entry">
4872       <div class="title">
4873         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">Automatic upgrade testing from Lenny to Squeeze</a>
4874       </div>
4875       <div class="date">
4876         11th June 2010
4877       </div>
4878       <div class="body">
4879         <p>The last few days I have done some upgrade testing in Debian, to
4880 see if the upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze will go smoothly.  A few bugs
4881 have been discovered and reported in the process
4882 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585410">#585410</a> in nagios3-cgi,
4883 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584879">#584879</a> already fixed in
4884 enscript and <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> in
4885 kdebase-workspace-data), and to get a more regular testing going on, I
4886 am working on a script to automate the test.</p>
4887
4888 <p>The idea is to create a Lenny chroot and use tasksel to install a
4889 Gnome or KDE desktop installation inside the chroot before upgrading
4890 it.  To ensure no services are started in the chroot, a policy-rc.d
4891 script is inserted.  To make sure tasksel believe it is to install a
4892 desktop on a laptop, the tasksel tests are replaced in the chroot
4893 (only acceptable because this is a throw-away chroot).</p>
4894
4895 <p>A naive upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze using aptitude dist-upgrade
4896 currently always fail because udev refuses to upgrade with the kernel
4897 in Lenny, so to avoid that problem the file /etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
4898 is created.  The bug report
4899 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/566000">#566000</a> make me suspect
4900 this problem do not trigger in a chroot, but I touch the file anyway
4901 to make sure the upgrade go well.  Testing on virtual and real
4902 hardware have failed me because of udev so far, and creating this file
4903 do the trick in such settings anyway.  This is a
4904 <a href="http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/debian-26/failed-dist-upgrade-due-to-udev-config_sysfs_deprecated-nonsense-804130/">known
4905 issue</a> and the current udev behaviour is intended by the udev
4906 maintainer because he lack the resources to rewrite udev to keep
4907 working with old kernels or something like that.  I really wish the
4908 udev upstream would keep udev backwards compatible, to avoid such
4909 upgrade problem, but given that they fail to do so, I guess
4910 documenting the way out of this mess is the best option we got for
4911 Debian Squeeze.</p>
4912
4913 <p>Anyway, back to the task at hand, testing upgrades.  This test
4914 script, which I call <tt>upgrade-test</tt> for now, is doing the
4915 trick:</p>
4916
4917 <blockquote><pre>
4918 #!/bin/sh
4919 set -ex
4920
4921 if [ "$1" ] ; then
4922     desktop=$1
4923 else
4924     desktop=gnome
4925 fi
4926
4927 from=lenny
4928 to=squeeze
4929
4930 exec &lt; /dev/null
4931 unset LANG
4932 mirror=http://ftp.skolelinux.org/debian
4933 tmpdir=chroot-$from-upgrade-$to-$desktop
4934 fuser -mv .
4935 debootstrap $from $tmpdir $mirror
4936 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
4937 cat > $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d &lt;&lt;EOF
4938 #!/bin/sh
4939 exit 101
4940 EOF
4941 chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d
4942 exit_cleanup() {
4943     umount $tmpdir/proc
4944 }
4945 mount -t proc proc $tmpdir/proc
4946 # Make sure proc is unmounted also on failure
4947 trap exit_cleanup EXIT INT
4948
4949 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y install debconf-utils
4950
4951 # Make sure tasksel autoselection trigger.  It need the test scripts
4952 # to return the correct answers.
4953 echo tasksel tasksel/desktop multiselect $desktop | \
4954     chroot $tmpdir debconf-set-selections
4955
4956 # Include the desktop and laptop task
4957 for test in desktop laptop ; do
4958     echo > $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test &lt;&lt;EOF
4959 #!/bin/sh
4960 exit 2
4961 EOF
4962     chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test
4963 done
4964
4965 DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
4966 DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical
4967 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND DEBIAN_PRIORITY
4968 chroot $tmpdir tasksel --new-install
4969
4970 echo deb $mirror $to main > $tmpdir/etc/apt/sources.list
4971 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
4972 touch $tmpdir/etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
4973 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y dist-upgrade
4974 fuser -mv
4975 </pre></blockquote>
4976
4977 <p>I suspect it would be useful to test upgrades with both apt-get and
4978 with aptitude, but I have not had time to look at how they behave
4979 differently so far.  I hope to get a cron job running to do the test
4980 regularly and post the result on the web.  The Gnome upgrade currently
4981 work, while the KDE upgrade fail because of the bug in
4982 kdebase-workspace-data</p>
4983
4984 <p>I am not quite sure what kind of extract from the huge upgrade logs
4985 (KDE 167 KiB, Gnome 516 KiB) it make sense to include in this blog
4986 post, so I will refrain from trying.  I can report that for Gnome,
4987 aptitude report 760 packages upgraded, 448 newly installed, 129 to
4988 remove and 1 not upgraded and 1024MB need to be downloaded while for
4989 KDE the same numbers are 702 packages upgraded, 507 newly installed,
4990 193 to remove and 0 not upgraded and 1117MB need to be downloaded</p>
4991
4992 <p>I am very happy to notice that the Gnome desktop + laptop upgrade
4993 is able to migrate to dependency based boot sequencing and parallel
4994 booting without a hitch.  Was unsure if there were still bugs with
4995 packages failing to clean up their obsolete init.d script during
4996 upgrades, and no such problem seem to affect the Gnome desktop+laptop
4997 packages.</p>
4998
4999       </div>
5000       <div class="tags">
5001
5002
5003         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>.
5004
5005
5006       </div>
5007     </div>
5008     <div class="padding"></div>
5009
5010     <div class="entry">
5011       <div class="title">
5012         <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>
5013       </div>
5014       <div class="date">
5015          6th June 2010
5016       </div>
5017       <div class="body">
5018         <p>If Debian is to migrate to upstart on Linux, I expect some init.d
5019 scripts to migrate (some of) their operations to upstart job while
5020 keeping the init.d for hurd and kfreebsd.  The packages with such
5021 needs will need a way to get their init.d scripts to behave
5022 differently when used with sysvinit and with upstart.  Because of
5023 this, I had a look at the environment variables set when a init.d
5024 script is running under upstart, and when it is not.</p>
5025
5026 <p>With upstart, I notice these environment variables are set when a
5027 script is started from rcS.d/ (ignoring some irrelevant ones like
5028 COLUMNS):</p>
5029
5030 <blockquote><pre>
5031 DEFAULT_RUNLEVEL=2
5032 previous=N
5033 PREVLEVEL=
5034 RUNLEVEL=
5035 runlevel=S
5036 UPSTART_EVENTS=startup
5037 UPSTART_INSTANCE=
5038 UPSTART_JOB=rc-sysinit
5039 </pre></blockquote>
5040
5041 <p>With sysvinit, these environment variables are set for the same
5042 script.</p>
5043
5044 <blockquote><pre>
5045 INIT_VERSION=sysvinit-2.88
5046 previous=N
5047 PREVLEVEL=N
5048 RUNLEVEL=S
5049 runlevel=S
5050 </pre></blockquote>
5051
5052 <p>The RUNLEVEL and PREVLEVEL environment variables passed on from
5053 sysvinit are not set by upstart.  Not sure if it is intentional or not
5054 to not be compatible with sysvinit in this regard.</p>
5055
5056 <p>For scripts needing to behave differently when upstart is used,
5057 looking for the UPSTART_JOB environment variable seem to be a good
5058 choice.</p>
5059
5060       </div>
5061       <div class="tags">
5062
5063
5064         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>.
5065
5066
5067       </div>
5068     </div>
5069     <div class="padding"></div>
5070
5071     <div class="entry">
5072       <div class="title">
5073         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_manual_for_standards_wars___.html">A manual for standards wars...</a>
5074       </div>
5075       <div class="date">
5076          6th June 2010
5077       </div>
5078       <div class="body">
5079         <p>Via the
5080 <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/robweir/antic-atom/~3/QzU4RgoAGMg/weekly-links-10.html">blog
5081 of Rob Weir</a> I came across the very interesting essay named
5082 <a href="http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/shapiro/wars.pdf">The Art of
5083 Standards Wars</a> (PDF 25 pages).  I recommend it for everyone
5084 following the standards wars of today.</p>
5085
5086       </div>
5087       <div class="tags">
5088
5089
5090         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>.
5091
5092
5093       </div>
5094     </div>
5095     <div class="padding"></div>
5096
5097     <div class="entry">
5098       <div class="title">
5099         <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>
5100       </div>
5101       <div class="date">
5102          3rd June 2010
5103       </div>
5104       <div class="body">
5105         <p>When using sitesummary at a site to track machines, it is possible
5106 to get a list of the machine types in use thanks to the DMI
5107 information extracted from each machine.  The script to do so is
5108 included in the sitesummary package, and here is example output from
5109 the Skolelinux build servers:</p>
5110
5111 <blockquote><pre>
5112 maintainer:~# /usr/lib/sitesummary/hardware-model-summary
5113   vendor                    count
5114   Dell Computer Corporation     1
5115     PowerEdge 1750              1
5116   IBM                           1
5117     eserver xSeries 345 -[8670M1X]-     1
5118   Intel                         2
5119   [no-dmi-info]                 3
5120 maintainer:~#
5121 </pre></blockquote>
5122
5123 <p>The quality of the report depend on the quality of the DMI tables
5124 provided in each machine.  Here there are Intel machines without model
5125 information listed with Intel as vendor and no model, and virtual Xen
5126 machines listed as [no-dmi-info].  One can add -l as a command line
5127 option to list the individual machines.</p>
5128
5129 <p>A larger list is
5130 <a href="http://narvikskolen.no/sitesummary/">available from the the
5131 city of Narvik</a>, which uses Skolelinux on all their shools and also
5132 provide the basic sitesummary report publicly.  In their report there
5133 are ~1400 machines. I know they use both Ubuntu and Skolelinux on
5134 their machines, and as sitesummary is available in both distributions,
5135 it is trivial to get all of them to report to the same central
5136 collector.</p>
5137
5138       </div>
5139       <div class="tags">
5140
5141
5142         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>.
5143
5144
5145       </div>
5146     </div>
5147     <div class="padding"></div>
5148
5149     <div class="entry">
5150       <div class="title">
5151         <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>
5152       </div>
5153       <div class="date">
5154          1st June 2010
5155       </div>
5156       <div class="body">
5157         <p>It is strange to watch how a bug in Debian causing KDM to fail to
5158 start at boot when an NVidia video card is used is handled.  The
5159 problem seem to be that the nvidia X.org driver uses a long time to
5160 initialize, and this duration is longer than kdm is configured to
5161 wait.</p>
5162
5163 <p>I came across two bugs related to this issue,
5164 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">#583312</a> initially filed
5165 against initscripts and passed on to nvidia-glx when it became obvious
5166 that the nvidia drivers were involved, and
5167 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/524751">#524751</a> initially filed against
5168 kdm and passed on to src:nvidia-graphics-drivers for unknown reasons.</p>
5169
5170 <p>To me, it seem that no-one is interested in actually solving the
5171 problem nvidia video card owners experience and make sure the Debian
5172 distribution work out of the box for these users.  The nvidia driver
5173 maintainers expect kdm to be set up to wait longer, while kdm expect
5174 the nvidia driver maintainers to fix the driver to start faster, and
5175 while they wait for each other I guess the users end up switching to a
5176 distribution that work for them.  I have no idea what the solution is,
5177 but I am pretty sure that waiting for each other is not it.</p>
5178
5179 <p>I wonder why we end up handling bugs this way.</p>
5180
5181       </div>
5182       <div class="tags">
5183
5184
5185         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>.
5186
5187
5188       </div>
5189     </div>
5190     <div class="padding"></div>
5191
5192     <div class="entry">
5193       <div class="title">
5194         <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>
5195       </div>
5196       <div class="date">
5197         27th May 2010
5198       </div>
5199       <div class="body">
5200         <p>A few days ago, parallel booting was enabled in Debian/testing.
5201 The feature seem to hold up pretty well, but three fairly serious
5202 issues are known and should be solved:
5203
5204 <p><ul>
5205
5206 <li>The wicd package seen to
5207 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/508289">break NFS mounting</a> and
5208 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/581586">network setup</a> when
5209 parallel booting is enabled.  No idea why, but the wicd maintainer
5210 seem to be on the case.</li>
5211
5212 <li>The nvidia X driver seem to
5213 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">have a race condition</a>
5214 triggered more easily when parallel booting is in effect.  The
5215 maintainer is on the case.</li>
5216
5217 <li>The sysv-rc package fail to properly enable dependency based boot
5218 sequencing (the shutdown is broken) when old file-rc users
5219 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/575080">try to switch back</a> to
5220 sysv-rc.  One way to solve it would be for file-rc to create
5221 /etc/init.d/.legacy-bootordering, and another is to try to make
5222 sysv-rc more robust.  Will investigate some more and probably upload a
5223 workaround in sysv-rc to help those trying to move from file-rc to
5224 sysv-rc get a working shutdown.</li>
5225
5226 </ul></p>
5227
5228 <p>All in all not many surprising issues, and all of them seem
5229 solvable before Squeeze is released.  In addition to these there are
5230 some packages with bugs in their dependencies and run level settings,
5231 which I expect will be fixed in a reasonable time span.</p>
5232
5233 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
5234 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
5235 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
5236 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
5237
5238 <p>Update: Correct bug number to file-rc issue.</p>
5239
5240       </div>
5241       <div class="tags">
5242
5243
5244         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>.
5245
5246
5247       </div>
5248     </div>
5249     <div class="padding"></div>
5250
5251     <div class="entry">
5252       <div class="title">
5253         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/More_flexible_firmware_handling_in_debian_installer.html">More flexible firmware handling in debian-installer</a>
5254       </div>
5255       <div class="date">
5256         22nd May 2010
5257       </div>
5258       <div class="body">
5259         <p>After a long break from debian-installer development, I finally
5260 found time today to return to the project.  Having to spend less time
5261 working dependency based boot in debian, as it is almost complete now,
5262 definitely helped freeing some time.</p>
5263
5264 <p>A while back, I ran into a problem while working on Debian Edu.  We
5265 include some firmware packages on the Debian Edu CDs, those needed to
5266 get disk and network controllers working.  Without having these
5267 firmware packages available during installation, it is impossible to
5268 install Debian Edu on the given machine, and because our target group
5269 are non-technical people, asking them to provide firmware packages on
5270 an external medium is a support pain.  Initially, I expected it to be
5271 enough to include the firmware packages on the CD to get
5272 debian-installer to find and use them.  This proved to be wrong.
5273 Next, I hoped it was enough to symlink the relevant firmware packages
5274 to some useful location on the CD (tried /cdrom/ and
5275 /cdrom/firmware/).  This also proved to not work, and at this point I
5276 found time to look at the debian-installer code to figure out what was
5277 going to work.</p>
5278
5279 <p>The firmware loading code is in the hw-detect package, and a closer
5280 look revealed that it would only look for firmware packages outside
5281 the installation media, so the CD was never checked for firmware
5282 packages.  It would only check USB sticks, floppies and other
5283 "external" media devices.  Today I changed it to also look in the
5284 /cdrom/firmware/ directory on the mounted CD or DVD, which should
5285 solve the problem I ran into with Debian edu.  I also changed it to
5286 look in /firmware/, to make sure the installer also find firmware
5287 provided in the initrd when booting the installer via PXE, to allow us
5288 to provide the same feature in the PXE setup included in Debian
5289 Edu.</p>
5290
5291 <p>To make sure firmware deb packages with a license questions are not
5292 activated without asking if the license is accepted, I extended
5293 hw-detect to look for preinst scripts in the firmware packages, and
5294 run these before activating the firmware during installation.  The
5295 license question is asked using debconf in the preinst, so this should
5296 solve the issue for the firmware packages I have looked at so far.</p>
5297
5298 <p>If you want to discuss the details of these features, please
5299 contact us on debian-boot@lists.debian.org.</p>
5300
5301       </div>
5302       <div class="tags">
5303
5304
5305         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>.
5306
5307
5308       </div>
5309     </div>
5310     <div class="padding"></div>
5311
5312     <div class="entry">
5313       <div class="title">
5314         <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>
5315       </div>
5316       <div class="date">
5317         14th May 2010
5318       </div>
5319       <div class="body">
5320         <p>Since this evening, parallel booting is the default in
5321 Debian/unstable for machines using dependency based boot sequencing.
5322 Apparently the testing of concurrent booting has been wider than
5323 expected, if I am to believe the
5324 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
5325 on debian-devel@</a>, and I concluded a few days ago to move forward
5326 with the feature this weekend, to give us some time to detect any
5327 remaining problems before Squeeze is frozen.  If serious problems are
5328 detected, it is simple to change the default back to sequential boot.
5329 The upload of the new sysvinit package also activate a new upstream
5330 version.</p>
5331
5332 More information about
5333 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
5334 based boot sequencing</a> is available from the Debian wiki.  It is
5335 currently possible to disable parallel booting when one run into
5336 problems caused by it, by adding this line to /etc/default/rcS:</p>
5337
5338 <blockquote><pre>
5339 CONCURRENCY=none
5340 </pre></blockquote>
5341
5342 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
5343 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
5344 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
5345 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
5346
5347       </div>
5348       <div class="tags">
5349
5350
5351         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>.
5352
5353
5354       </div>
5355     </div>
5356     <div class="padding"></div>
5357
5358     <div class="entry">
5359       <div class="title">
5360         <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>
5361       </div>
5362       <div class="date">
5363         14th May 2010
5364       </div>
5365       <div class="body">
5366         <p>In the recent Debian Edu versions, the
5367 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/SiteSummary">sitesummary
5368 system</a> is used to keep track of the machines in the school
5369 network.  Each machine will automatically report its status to the
5370 central server after boot and once per night.  The network setup is
5371 also reported, and using this information it is possible to get the
5372 MAC address of all network interfaces in the machines.  This is useful
5373 to update the DHCP configuration.</p>
5374
5375 <p>To give some idea how to use sitesummary, here is a one-liner to
5376 ist all MAC addresses of all machines reporting to sitesummary.  Run
5377 this on the collector host:</p>
5378
5379 <blockquote><pre>
5380 perl -MSiteSummary -e 'for_all_hosts(sub { print join(" ", get_macaddresses(shift)), "\n"; });'
5381 </pre></blockquote>
5382
5383 <p>This will list all MAC addresses assosiated with all machine, one
5384 line per machine and with space between the MAC addresses.</p>
5385
5386 <p>To allow system administrators easier job at adding static DHCP
5387 addresses for hosts, it would be possible to extend this to fetch
5388 machine information from sitesummary and update the DHCP and DNS
5389 tables in LDAP using this information.  Such tool is unfortunately not
5390 written yet.</p>
5391
5392       </div>
5393       <div class="tags">
5394
5395
5396         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>.
5397
5398
5399       </div>
5400     </div>
5401     <div class="padding"></div>
5402
5403     <div class="entry">
5404       <div class="title">
5405         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/systemd__an_interesting_alternative_to_upstart.html">systemd, an interesting alternative to upstart</a>
5406       </div>
5407       <div class="date">
5408         13th May 2010
5409       </div>
5410       <div class="body">
5411         <p>The last few days a new boot system called
5412 <a href="http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd">systemd</a>
5413 has been
5414 <a href="http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/systemd.html">introduced</a>
5415
5416 to the free software world.  I have not yet had time to play around
5417 with it, but it seem to be a very interesting alternative to
5418 <a href="http://upstart.ubuntu.com/">upstart</a>, and might prove to be
5419 a good alternative for Debian when we are able to switch to an event
5420 based boot system.  Tollef is
5421 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/580814">in the process</a> of getting
5422 systemd into Debian, and I look forward to seeing how well it work.  I
5423 like the fact that systemd handles init.d scripts with dependency
5424 information natively, allowing them to run in parallel where upstart
5425 at the moment do not.</p>
5426
5427 <p>Unfortunately do systemd have the same problem as upstart regarding
5428 platform support.  It only work on recent Linux kernels, and also need
5429 some new kernel features enabled to function properly.  This means
5430 kFreeBSD and Hurd ports of Debian will need a port or a different boot
5431 system.  Not sure how that will be handled if systemd proves to be the
5432 way forward.</p>
5433
5434 <p>In the mean time, based on the
5435 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
5436 on debian-devel@</a> regarding parallel booting in Debian, I have
5437 decided to enable full parallel booting as the default in Debian as
5438 soon as possible (probably this weekend or early next week), to see if
5439 there are any remaining serious bugs in the init.d dependencies.  A
5440 new version of the sysvinit package implementing this change is
5441 already in experimental.  If all go well, Squeeze will be released
5442 with parallel booting enabled by default.</p>
5443
5444       </div>
5445       <div class="tags">
5446
5447
5448         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>.
5449
5450
5451       </div>
5452     </div>
5453     <div class="padding"></div>
5454
5455     <div class="entry">
5456       <div class="title">
5457         <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>
5458       </div>
5459       <div class="date">
5460          6th May 2010
5461       </div>
5462       <div class="body">
5463         <p>These days, the init.d script dependencies in Squeeze are quite
5464 complete, so complete that it is actually possible to run all the
5465 init.d scripts in parallell based on these dependencies.  If you want
5466 to test your Squeeze system, make sure
5467 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
5468 based boot sequencing</a> is enabled, and add this line to
5469 /etc/default/rcS:</p>
5470
5471 <blockquote><pre>
5472 CONCURRENCY=makefile
5473 </pre></blockquote>
5474
5475 <p>That is it.  It will cause sysv-rc to use the startpar tool to run
5476 scripts in parallel using the dependency information stored in
5477 /etc/init.d/.depend.boot, /etc/init.d/.depend.start and
5478 /etc/init.d/.depend.stop to order the scripts.  Startpar is configured
5479 to try to start the kdm and gdm scripts as early as possible, and will
5480 start the facilities required by kdm or gdm as early as possible to
5481 make this happen.</p>
5482
5483 <p>Give it a try, and see if you like the result.  If some services
5484 fail to start properly, it is most likely because they have incomplete
5485 init.d script dependencies in their startup script (or some of their
5486 dependent scripts have incomplete dependencies).  Report bugs and get
5487 the package maintainers to fix it. :)</p>
5488
5489 <p>Running scripts in parallel could be the default in Debian when we
5490 manage to get the init.d script dependencies complete and correct.  I
5491 expect we will get there in Squeeze+1, if we get manage to test and
5492 fix the remaining issues.</p>
5493
5494 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
5495 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
5496 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
5497 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
5498
5499       </div>
5500       <div class="tags">
5501
5502
5503         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>.
5504
5505
5506       </div>
5507     </div>
5508     <div class="padding"></div>
5509
5510     <div class="entry">
5511       <div class="title">
5512         <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>
5513       </div>
5514       <div class="date">
5515         27th July 2009
5516       </div>
5517       <div class="body">
5518         <p>Since this evening, with the upload of sysvinit version 2.87dsf-2,
5519 and the upload of insserv version 1.12.0-10 yesterday, Debian unstable
5520 have been migrated to using dependency based boot sequencing.  This
5521 conclude work me and others have been doing for the last three days.
5522 It feels great to see this finally part of the default Debian
5523 installation.  Now we just need to weed out the last few problems that
5524 are bound to show up, to get everything ready for Squeeze.</p>
5525
5526 <p>The next step is migrating /sbin/init from sysvinit to upstart, and
5527 fixing the more fundamental problem of handing the event based
5528 non-predictable kernel in the early boot.</p>
5529
5530       </div>
5531       <div class="tags">
5532
5533
5534         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>.
5535
5536
5537       </div>
5538     </div>
5539     <div class="padding"></div>
5540
5541     <div class="entry">
5542       <div class="title">
5543         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Taking_over_sysvinit_development.html">Taking over sysvinit development</a>
5544       </div>
5545       <div class="date">
5546         22nd July 2009
5547       </div>
5548       <div class="body">
5549         <p>After several years of frustration with the lack of activity from
5550 the existing sysvinit upstream developer, I decided a few weeks ago to
5551 take over the package and become the new upstream.  The number of
5552 patches to track for the Debian package was becoming a burden, and the
5553 lack of synchronization between the distribution made it hard to keep
5554 the package up to date.</p>
5555
5556 <p>On the new sysvinit team is the SuSe maintainer Dr. Werner Fink,
5557 and my Debian co-maintainer Kel Modderman.  About 10 days ago, I made
5558 a new upstream tarball with version number 2.87dsf (for Debian, SuSe
5559 and Fedora), based on the patches currently in use in these
5560 distributions.  We Debian maintainers plan to move to this tarball as
5561 the new upstream as soon as we find time to do the merge.  Since the
5562 new tarball was created, we agreed with Werner at SuSe to make a new
5563 upstream project at <a href="http://savannah.nongnu.org/">Savannah</a>, and continue
5564 development there.  The project is registered and currently waiting
5565 for approval by the Savannah administrators, and as soon as it is
5566 approved, we will import the old versions from svn and continue
5567 working on the future release.</p>
5568
5569 <p>It is a bit ironic that this is done now, when some of the involved
5570 distributions are moving to upstart as a syvinit replacement.</p>
5571
5572       </div>
5573       <div class="tags">
5574
5575
5576         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>.
5577
5578
5579       </div>
5580     </div>
5581     <div class="padding"></div>
5582
5583     <div class="entry">
5584       <div class="title">
5585         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_boots_quicker_and_quicker.html">Debian boots quicker and quicker</a>
5586       </div>
5587       <div class="date">
5588         24th June 2009
5589       </div>
5590       <div class="body">
5591         <p>I spent Monday and tuesday this week in London with a lot of the
5592 people involved in the boot system on Debian and Ubuntu, to see if we
5593 could find more ways to speed up the boot system.  This was an Ubuntu
5594 funded
5595 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FoundationsTeam/BootPerformance/DebianUbuntuSprint">developer
5596 gathering</a>. It was quite productive.  We also discussed the future
5597 of boot systems, and ways to handle the increasing number of boot
5598 issues introduced by the Linux kernel becoming more and more
5599 asynchronous and event base.  The Ubuntu approach using udev and
5600 upstart might be a good way forward.  Time will show.</p>
5601
5602 <p>Anyway, there are a few ways at the moment to speed up the boot
5603 process in Debian.  All of these should be applied to get a quick
5604 boot:</p>
5605
5606 <ul>
5607
5608 <li>Use dash as /bin/sh.</li>
5609
5610 <li>Disable the init.d/hwclock*.sh scripts and make sure the hardware
5611    clock is in UTC.</li>
5612
5613 <li>Install and activate the insserv package to enable
5614    <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
5615    based boot sequencing</a>, and enable concurrent booting.</li>
5616
5617 </ul>
5618
5619 These points are based on the Google summer of code work done by
5620 <a href="http://initscripts-ng.alioth.debian.org/soc2006-bootsystem/">Carlos
5621 Villegas</a>.
5622
5623 <p>Support for makefile-style concurrency during boot was uploaded to
5624 unstable yesterday.  When we tested it, we were able to cut 6 seconds
5625 from the boot sequence.  It depend on very correct dependency
5626 declaration in all init.d scripts, so I expect us to find edge cases
5627 where the dependences in some scripts are slightly wrong when we start
5628 using this.</p>
5629
5630 <p>On our IRC channel for this effort, #pkg-sysvinit, a new idea was
5631 introduced by Raphael Geissert today, one that could affect the
5632 startup speed as well.  Instead of starting some scripts concurrently
5633 from rcS.d/ and another set of scripts from rc2.d/, it would be
5634 possible to run a of them in the same process.  A quick way to test
5635 this would be to enable insserv and run 'mv /etc/rc2.d/S* /etc/rcS.d/;
5636 insserv'.  Will need to test if that work. :)</p>
5637
5638       </div>
5639       <div class="tags">
5640
5641
5642         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>.
5643
5644
5645       </div>
5646     </div>
5647     <div class="padding"></div>
5648
5649     <div class="entry">
5650       <div class="title">
5651         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/BSAs_p_stander_om_piratkopiering_m_ter_motstand.html">BSAs påstander om piratkopiering møter motstand</a>
5652       </div>
5653       <div class="date">
5654         17th May 2009
5655       </div>
5656       <div class="body">
5657         <p>Hvert år de siste årene har BSA, lobbyfronten til de store
5658 programvareselskapene som Microsoft og Apple, publisert en rapport der
5659 de gjetter på hvor mye piratkopiering påfører i tapte inntekter i
5660 ulike land rundt om i verden.  Resultatene er tendensiøse.  For noen
5661 dager siden kom
5662 <a href="http://global.bsa.org/globalpiracy2008/studies/globalpiracy2008.pdf">siste
5663 rapport</a>, og det er flere kritiske kommentarer publisert de siste
5664 dagene.  Et spesielt interessant kommentar fra Sverige,
5665 <a href="http://www.idg.se/2.1085/1.229795/bsa-hoftade-sverigesiffror">BSA
5666 höftade Sverigesiffror</a>, oppsummeres slik:</p>
5667
5668 <blockquote>
5669 I sin senaste rapport slår BSA fast att 25 procent av all mjukvara i
5670 Sverige är piratkopierad. Det utan att ha pratat med ett enda svenskt
5671 företag. "Man bör nog kanske inte se de här siffrorna som helt
5672 exakta", säger BSAs Sverigechef John Hugosson.
5673 </blockquote>
5674
5675 <p>Mon tro om de er like metodiske når de gjetter på andelen piratkopiering i Norge?  To andre kommentarer er <a
5676 href="http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/comment/2242134/bsa-piracy-figures-shot-reality">BSA
5677 piracy figures need a shot of reality</a> og <a
5678 href="http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/3958/125/">Does The WIPO
5679 Copyright Treaty Work?</a></p>
5680
5681 <p>Fant lenkene via <a
5682 href="http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/05/17/1632242">oppslag
5683 på Slashdot</a>.</p>
5684
5685       </div>
5686       <div class="tags">
5687
5688
5689         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>.
5690
5691
5692       </div>
5693     </div>
5694     <div class="padding"></div>
5695
5696     <div class="entry">
5697       <div class="title">
5698         <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>
5699       </div>
5700       <div class="date">
5701          7th May 2009
5702       </div>
5703       <div class="body">
5704         <p>Kom over
5705 <a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10216873-16.html">interessante
5706 tall</a> fra IDG om utviklingen av linuxservermarkedet.  Fikk meg til
5707 å tenke på antall tjenermaskiner ved Universitetet i Oslo der jeg
5708 jobber til daglig.  En rask opptelling forteller meg at vi har 490
5709 (61%) fysiske unix-tjener (mest linux men også noen solaris) og 196
5710 (25%) windowstjenere, samt 112 (14%) virtuelle unix-tjenere.  Med den
5711 bakgrunnskunnskapen kan jeg godt tro at IDG er inne på noe.</p>
5712
5713       </div>
5714       <div class="tags">
5715
5716
5717         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>.
5718
5719
5720       </div>
5721     </div>
5722     <div class="padding"></div>
5723
5724     <div class="entry">
5725       <div class="title">
5726         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Kryptert_harddisk___naturligvis.html">Kryptert harddisk - naturligvis</a>
5727       </div>
5728       <div class="date">
5729          2nd May 2009
5730       </div>
5731       <div class="body">
5732         <p><a href="http://www.dagensit.no/trender/article1658676.ece">Dagens
5733 IT melder</a> at Intel hevder at det er dyrt å miste en datamaskin,
5734 når en tar tap av arbeidstid, fortrolige dokumenter,
5735 personopplysninger og alt annet det innebærer.  Det er ingen tvil om
5736 at det er en kostbar affære å miste sin datamaskin, og det er årsaken
5737 til at jeg har kryptert harddisken på både kontormaskinen og min
5738 bærbare.  Begge inneholder personopplysninger jeg ikke ønsker skal
5739 komme på avveie, den første informasjon relatert til jobben min ved
5740 Universitetet i Oslo, og den andre relatert til blant annet
5741 foreningsarbeide.  Kryptering av diskene gjør at det er lite
5742 sannsynlig at dophoder som kan finne på å rappe maskinene får noe ut
5743 av dem.  Maskinene låses automatisk etter noen minutter uten bruk,
5744 og en reboot vil gjøre at de ber om passord før de vil starte opp.
5745 Jeg bruker Debian på begge maskinene, og installasjonssystemet der
5746 gjør det trivielt å sette opp krypterte disker.  Jeg har LVM på toppen
5747 av krypterte partisjoner, slik at alt av datapartisjoner er kryptert.
5748 Jeg anbefaler alle å kryptere diskene på sine bærbare.  Kostnaden når
5749 det er gjort slik jeg gjør det er minimale, og gevinstene er
5750 betydelige.  En bør dog passe på passordet.  Hvis det går tapt, må
5751 maskinen reinstalleres og alt er tapt.</p>
5752
5753 <p>Krypteringen vil ikke stoppe kompetente angripere som f.eks. kjøler
5754 ned minnebrikkene før maskinen rebootes med programvare for å hente ut
5755 krypteringsnøklene.  Kostnaden med å forsvare seg mot slike angripere
5756 er for min del høyere enn gevinsten.  Jeg tror oddsene for at
5757 f.eks. etteretningsorganisasjoner har glede av å titte på mine
5758 maskiner er minimale, og ulempene jeg ville oppnå ved å forsøke å
5759 gjøre det vanskeligere for angripere med kompetanse og ressurser er
5760 betydelige.</p>
5761
5762       </div>
5763       <div class="tags">
5764
5765
5766         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>.
5767
5768
5769       </div>
5770     </div>
5771     <div class="padding"></div>
5772
5773     <div class="entry">
5774       <div class="title">
5775         <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>
5776       </div>
5777       <div class="date">
5778          2nd May 2009
5779       </div>
5780       <div class="body">
5781         <p>There are two software projects that have had huge influence on the
5782 quality of free software, and I wanted to mention both in case someone
5783 do not yet know them.</p>
5784
5785 <p>The first one is <a href="http://valgrind.org/">valgrind</a>, a
5786 tool to detect and expose errors in the memory handling of programs.
5787 It is easy to use, all one need to do is to run 'valgrind program',
5788 and it will report any problems on stdout.  It is even better if the
5789 program include debug information.  With debug information, it is able
5790 to report the source file name and line number where the problem
5791 occurs.  It can report things like 'reading past memory block in file
5792 X line N, the memory block was allocated in file Y, line M', and
5793 'using uninitialised value in control logic'.  This tool has made it
5794 trivial to investigate reproducible crash bugs in programs, and have
5795 reduced the number of this kind of bugs in free software a lot.
5796
5797 <p>The second one is
5798 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coverity">Coverity</a> which is
5799 a source code checker.  It is able to process the source of a program
5800 and find problems in the logic without running the program.  It
5801 started out as the Stanford Checker and became well known when it was
5802 used to find bugs in the Linux kernel.  It is now a commercial tool
5803 and the company behind it is running
5804 <a href="http://www.scan.coverity.com/">a community service</a> for the
5805 free software community, where a lot of free software projects get
5806 their source checked for free.  Several thousand defects have been
5807 found and fixed so far.  It can find errors like 'lock L taken in file
5808 X line N is never released if exiting in line M', or 'the code in file
5809 Y lines O to P can never be executed'.  The projects included in the
5810 community service project have managed to get rid of a lot of
5811 reliability problems thanks to Coverity.</p>
5812
5813 <p>I believe tools like this, that are able to automatically find
5814 errors in the source, are vital to improve the quality of software and
5815 make sure we can get rid of the crashing and failing software we are
5816 surrounded by today.</p>
5817
5818       </div>
5819       <div class="tags">
5820
5821
5822         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5823
5824
5825       </div>
5826     </div>
5827     <div class="padding"></div>
5828
5829     <div class="entry">
5830       <div class="title">
5831         <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>
5832       </div>
5833       <div class="date">
5834         28th April 2009
5835       </div>
5836       <div class="body">
5837         <p>Julien Blache
5838 <a href="http://blog.technologeek.org/2009/04/12/214">claim that no
5839 patch is better than a useless patch</a>.  I completely disagree, as a
5840 patch allow one to discuss a concrete and proposed solution, and also
5841 prove that the issue at hand is important enough for someone to spent
5842 time on fixing it.  No patch do not provide any of these positive
5843 properties.</p>
5844
5845       </div>
5846       <div class="tags">
5847
5848
5849         Tags: <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>.
5850
5851
5852       </div>
5853     </div>
5854     <div class="padding"></div>
5855
5856     <div class="entry">
5857       <div class="title">
5858         <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>
5859       </div>
5860       <div class="date">
5861         30th March 2009
5862       </div>
5863       <div class="body">
5864         <p>Where I work at the University of Oslo, one decision stand out as a
5865 very good one to form a long lived computer infrastructure.  It is the
5866 simple one, lost by many in todays computer industry: Standardize on
5867 open network protocols and open exchange/storage formats, not applications.
5868 Applications come and go, while protocols and files tend to stay, and
5869 thus one want to make it easy to change application and vendor, while
5870 avoiding conversion costs and locking users to a specific platform or
5871 application.</p>
5872
5873 <p>This approach make it possible to replace the client applications
5874 independently of the server applications.  One can even allow users to
5875 use several different applications as long as they handle the selected
5876 protocol and format.  In the normal case, only one client application
5877 is recommended and users only get help if they choose to use this
5878 application, but those that want to deviate from the easy path are not
5879 blocked from doing so.</p>
5880
5881 <p>It also allow us to replace the server side without forcing the
5882 users to replace their applications, and thus allow us to select the
5883 best server implementation at any moment, when scale and resouce
5884 requirements change.</p>
5885
5886 <p>I strongly recommend standardizing - on open network protocols and
5887 open formats, but I would never recommend standardizing on a single
5888 application that do not use open network protocol or open formats.</p>
5889
5890       </div>
5891       <div class="tags">
5892
5893
5894         Tags: <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>.
5895
5896
5897       </div>
5898     </div>
5899     <div class="padding"></div>
5900
5901     <div class="entry">
5902       <div class="title">
5903         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Returning_from_Skolelinux_developer_gathering.html">Returning from Skolelinux developer gathering</a>
5904       </div>
5905       <div class="date">
5906         29th March 2009
5907       </div>
5908       <div class="body">
5909         <p>I'm sitting on the train going home from this weekends Debian
5910 Edu/Skolelinux development gathering.  I got a bit done tuning the
5911 desktop, and looked into the dynamic service location protocol
5912 implementation avahi.  It look like it could be useful for us.  Almost
5913 30 people participated, and I believe it was a great environment to
5914 get to know the Skolelinux system.  Walter Bender, involved in the
5915 development of the Sugar educational platform, presented his stuff and
5916 also helped me improve my OLPC installation.  He also showed me that
5917 his Turtle Art application can be used in standalone mode, and we
5918 agreed that I would help getting it packaged for Debian.  As a
5919 standalone application it would be great for Debian Edu.  We also
5920 tried to get the video conferencing working with two OLPCs, but that
5921 proved to be too hard for us.  The application seem to need more work
5922 before it is ready for me.  I look forward to getting home and relax
5923 now. :)</p>
5924
5925       </div>
5926       <div class="tags">
5927
5928
5929         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>.
5930
5931
5932       </div>
5933     </div>
5934     <div class="padding"></div>
5935
5936     <div class="entry">
5937       <div class="title">
5938         <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>
5939       </div>
5940       <div class="date">
5941         29th March 2009
5942       </div>
5943       <div class="body">
5944         <p>The state of standardized LDAP schemas on Linux is far from
5945 optimal.  There is RFC 2307 documenting one way to store NIS maps in
5946 LDAP, and a modified version of this normally called RFC 2307bis, with
5947 some modifications to be compatible with Active Directory.  The RFC
5948 specification handle the content of a lot of system databases, but do
5949 not handle DNS zones and DHCP configuration.</p>
5950
5951 <p>In <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux</a>,
5952 we would like to store information about users, SMB clients/hosts,
5953 filegroups, netgroups (users and hosts), DHCP and DNS configuration,
5954 and LTSP configuration in LDAP.  These objects have a lot in common,
5955 but with the current LDAP schemas it is not possible to have one
5956 object per entity.  For example, one need to have at least three LDAP
5957 objects for a given computer, one with the SMB related stuff, one with
5958 DNS information and another with DHCP information.  The schemas
5959 provided for DNS and DHCP are impossible to combine into one LDAP
5960 object.  In addition, it is impossible to implement quick queries for
5961 netgroup membership, because of the way NIS triples are implemented.
5962 It just do not scale.  I believe it is time for a few RFC
5963 specifications to cleam up this mess.</p>
5964
5965 <p>I would like to have one LDAP object representing each computer in
5966 the network, and this object can then keep the SMB (ie host key), DHCP
5967 (mac address/name) and DNS (name/IP address) settings in one place.
5968 It need to be efficently stored to make sure it scale well.</p>
5969
5970 <p>I would also like to have a quick way to map from a user or
5971 computer and to the net group this user or computer is a member.</p>
5972
5973 <p>Active Directory have done a better job than unix heads like myself
5974 in this regard, and the unix side need to catch up.  Time to start a
5975 new IETF work group?</p>
5976
5977       </div>
5978       <div class="tags">
5979
5980
5981         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>.
5982
5983
5984       </div>
5985     </div>
5986     <div class="padding"></div>
5987
5988     <div class="entry">
5989       <div class="title">
5990         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Endelig_er_Debian_Lenny_gitt_ut.html">Endelig er Debian Lenny gitt ut</a>
5991       </div>
5992       <div class="date">
5993         15th February 2009
5994       </div>
5995       <div class="body">
5996         <p>Endelig er <a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</a>
5997 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2009/20090214">Lenny</a> gitt ut.
5998 Et langt steg videre for Debian-prosjektet, og en rekke nye
5999 programpakker blir nå tilgjengelig for de av oss som bruker den
6000 stabile utgaven av Debian.  Neste steg er nå å få
6001 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a> /
6002 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/">Debian Edu</a> ferdig
6003 oppdatert for den nye utgaven, slik at en oppdatert versjon kan
6004 slippes løs på skolene.  Takk til alle debian-utviklerne som har
6005 gjort dette mulig.  Endelig er f.eks. fungerende avhengighetsstyrt
6006 bootsekvens tilgjengelig i stabil utgave, vha pakken
6007 <tt>insserv</tt>.</p>
6008
6009       </div>
6010       <div class="tags">
6011
6012
6013         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>.
6014
6015
6016       </div>
6017     </div>
6018     <div class="padding"></div>
6019
6020     <div class="entry">
6021       <div class="title">
6022         <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>
6023       </div>
6024       <div class="date">
6025          7th December 2008
6026       </div>
6027       <div class="body">
6028         <p>This weekend we had a small developer gathering for Debian Edu in
6029 Oslo.  Most of Saturday was used for the general assemly for the
6030 member organization, but the rest of the weekend I used to tune the
6031 LTSP installation.  LTSP now work out of the box on the 10-network.
6032 Acer Aspire One proved to be a very nice thin client, with both
6033 screen, mouse and keybard in a small box.  Was working on getting the
6034 diskless workstation setup configured out of the box, but did not
6035 finish it before the weekend was up.</p>
6036
6037 <p>Did not find time to look at the 4 VGA cards in one box we got from
6038 the Brazilian group, so that will have to wait for the next
6039 development gathering.  Would love to have the Debian Edu installer
6040 automatically detect and configure a multiseat setup when it find one
6041 of these cards.</p>
6042
6043       </div>
6044       <div class="tags">
6045
6046
6047         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>.
6048
6049
6050       </div>
6051     </div>
6052     <div class="padding"></div>
6053
6054     <div class="entry">
6055       <div class="title">
6056         <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>
6057       </div>
6058       <div class="date">
6059         25th November 2008
6060       </div>
6061       <div class="body">
6062         <p>Recently I have spent some time evaluating the multimedia browser
6063 plugins available in Debian Lenny, to see which one we should use by
6064 default in Debian Edu.  We need an embedded video playing plugin with
6065 control buttons to pause or stop the video, and capable of streaming
6066 all the multimedia content available on the web.  The test results and
6067 notes are available on
6068 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">the
6069 Debian wiki</a>.  I was surprised how few of the plugins are able to
6070 fill this need.  My personal video player favorite, VLC, has a really
6071 bad plugin which fail on a lot of the test pages.  A lot of the MIME
6072 types I would expect to work with any free software player (like
6073 video/ogg), just do not work.  And simple formats like the
6074 audio/x-mplegurl format (m3u playlists), just isn't supported by the
6075 totem and vlc plugins.  I hope the situation will improve soon.  No
6076 wonder sites use the proprietary Adobe flash to play video.</p>
6077
6078 <p>For Lenny, we seem to end up with the mplayer plugin.  It seem to
6079 be the only one fitting our needs. :/</p>
6080
6081       </div>
6082       <div class="tags">
6083
6084
6085         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>.
6086
6087
6088       </div>
6089     </div>
6090     <div class="padding"></div>
6091
6092     <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>
6093     <div id="sidebar">
6094
6095
6096
6097 <h2>Archive</h2>
6098 <ul>
6099
6100 <li>2013
6101 <ul>
6102
6103 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/01/">January (11)</a></li>
6104
6105 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/02/">February (9)</a></li>
6106
6107 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/03/">March (9)</a></li>
6108
6109 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/04/">April (6)</a></li>
6110
6111 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/05/">May (9)</a></li>
6112
6113 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/06/">June (10)</a></li>
6114
6115 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/07/">July (1)</a></li>
6116
6117 </ul></li>
6118
6119 <li>2012
6120 <ul>
6121
6122 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/01/">January (7)</a></li>
6123
6124 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/02/">February (10)</a></li>
6125
6126 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/03/">March (17)</a></li>
6127
6128 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/04/">April (12)</a></li>
6129
6130 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/05/">May (12)</a></li>
6131
6132 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/06/">June (20)</a></li>
6133
6134 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/07/">July (17)</a></li>
6135
6136 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/08/">August (6)</a></li>
6137
6138 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/09/">September (9)</a></li>
6139
6140 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/10/">October (17)</a></li>
6141
6142 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/11/">November (10)</a></li>
6143
6144 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/12/">December (7)</a></li>
6145
6146 </ul></li>
6147
6148 <li>2011
6149 <ul>
6150
6151 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/01/">January (16)</a></li>
6152
6153 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/02/">February (6)</a></li>
6154
6155 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/03/">March (6)</a></li>
6156
6157 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/04/">April (7)</a></li>
6158
6159 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/05/">May (3)</a></li>
6160
6161 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/06/">June (2)</a></li>
6162
6163 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/07/">July (7)</a></li>
6164
6165 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/08/">August (6)</a></li>
6166
6167 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/09/">September (4)</a></li>
6168
6169 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/10/">October (2)</a></li>
6170
6171 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/11/">November (3)</a></li>
6172
6173 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/12/">December (1)</a></li>
6174
6175 </ul></li>
6176
6177 <li>2010
6178 <ul>
6179
6180 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/01/">January (2)</a></li>
6181
6182 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/02/">February (1)</a></li>
6183
6184 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/03/">March (3)</a></li>
6185
6186 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/04/">April (3)</a></li>
6187
6188 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/05/">May (9)</a></li>
6189
6190 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/06/">June (14)</a></li>
6191
6192 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/07/">July (12)</a></li>
6193
6194 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/08/">August (13)</a></li>
6195
6196 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/09/">September (7)</a></li>
6197
6198 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/10/">October (9)</a></li>
6199
6200 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/11/">November (13)</a></li>
6201
6202 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/12/">December (12)</a></li>
6203
6204 </ul></li>
6205
6206 <li>2009
6207 <ul>
6208
6209 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/01/">January (8)</a></li>
6210
6211 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/02/">February (8)</a></li>
6212
6213 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/03/">March (12)</a></li>
6214
6215 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/04/">April (10)</a></li>
6216
6217 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/05/">May (9)</a></li>
6218
6219 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/06/">June (3)</a></li>
6220
6221 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/07/">July (4)</a></li>
6222
6223 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/08/">August (3)</a></li>
6224
6225 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/09/">September (1)</a></li>
6226
6227 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/10/">October (2)</a></li>
6228
6229 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/11/">November (3)</a></li>
6230
6231 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/12/">December (3)</a></li>
6232
6233 </ul></li>
6234
6235 <li>2008
6236 <ul>
6237
6238 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/11/">November (5)</a></li>
6239
6240 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/12/">December (7)</a></li>
6241
6242 </ul></li>
6243
6244 </ul>
6245
6246
6247
6248 <h2>Tags</h2>
6249 <ul>
6250
6251  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer (13)</a></li>
6252
6253  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/amiga">amiga (1)</a></li>
6254
6255  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/aros">aros (1)</a></li>
6256
6257  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bankid">bankid (4)</a></li>
6258
6259  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin (7)</a></li>
6260
6261  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem (12)</a></li>
6262
6263  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bsa">bsa (2)</a></li>
6264
6265  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian (78)</a></li>
6266
6267  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu (136)</a></li>
6268
6269  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/digistan">digistan (10)</a></li>
6270
6271  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook (9)</a></li>
6272
6273  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/drivstoffpriser">drivstoffpriser (4)</a></li>
6274
6275  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english (204)</a></li>
6276
6277  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami (21)</a></li>
6278
6279  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fildeling">fildeling (12)</a></li>
6280
6281  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture (11)</a></li>
6282
6283  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen (11)</a></li>
6284
6285  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju (37)</a></li>
6286
6287  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram (7)</a></li>
6288
6289  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kart">kart (18)</a></li>
6290
6291  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap (8)</a></li>
6292
6293  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lenker">lenker (6)</a></li>
6294
6295  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ltsp">ltsp (1)</a></li>
6296
6297  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia (25)</a></li>
6298
6299  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk (234)</a></li>
6300
6301  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug (152)</a></li>
6302
6303  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/offentlig innsyn">offentlig innsyn (8)</a></li>
6304
6305  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/open311">open311 (2)</a></li>
6306
6307  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett (44)</a></li>
6308
6309  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern (65)</a></li>
6310
6311  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/raid">raid (1)</a></li>
6312
6313  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reprap">reprap (11)</a></li>
6314
6315  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rfid">rfid (2)</a></li>
6316
6317  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot (7)</a></li>
6318
6319  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rss">rss (1)</a></li>
6320
6321  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ruter">ruter (4)</a></li>
6322
6323  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/scraperwiki">scraperwiki (2)</a></li>
6324
6325  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet (29)</a></li>
6326
6327  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary (4)</a></li>
6328
6329  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/skepsis">skepsis (4)</a></li>
6330
6331  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard (43)</a></li>
6332
6333  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stavekontroll">stavekontroll (3)</a></li>
6334
6335  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stortinget">stortinget (7)</a></li>
6336
6337  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance (15)</a></li>
6338
6339  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sysadmin">sysadmin (1)</a></li>
6340
6341  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/valg">valg (7)</a></li>
6342
6343  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video (38)</a></li>
6344
6345  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/vitenskap">vitenskap (4)</a></li>
6346
6347  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web (26)</a></li>
6348
6349 </ul>
6350
6351
6352     </div>
6353     <p style="text-align: right">
6354  Created by <a href="http://steve.org.uk/Software/chronicle">Chronicle v4.6</a>
6355 </p>
6356
6357   </body>
6358 </html>