New post about noark.

[homepage.git] / blog / index.rss

diff --git a/blog/index.rss b/blog/index.rss
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--- a/blog/index.rss
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@@ -6,6 +6,254 @@
                 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/</link>
                 <atom:link href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/index.rss" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" />
        
                 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/</link>
                 <atom:link href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/index.rss" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" />
        

+       <item>
+               <title>Detecting NFS hangs on Linux without hanging yourself...</title>
+               <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Detecting_NFS_hangs_on_Linux_without_hanging_yourself___.html</link>
+               <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Detecting_NFS_hangs_on_Linux_without_hanging_yourself___.html</guid>
+                <pubDate>Thu, 9 Mar 2017 15:20:00 +0100</pubDate>
+               <description>&lt;p&gt;Over the years, administrating thousand of NFS mounting linux
+computers at the time, I often needed a way to detect if the machine
+was experiencing NFS hang.  If you try to use &lt;tt&gt;df&lt;/tt&gt; or look at a
+file or directory affected by the hang, the process (and possibly the
+shell) will hang too.  So you want to be able to detect this without
+risking the detection process getting stuck too.  It has not been
+obvious how to do this.  When the hang has lasted a while, it is
+possible to find messages like these in dmesg:&lt;/p&gt;
+
+&lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;
+nfs: server nfsserver not responding, still trying
+&lt;br&gt;nfs: server nfsserver OK
+&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
+  
+&lt;p&gt;It is hard to know if the hang is still going on, and it is hard to
+be sure looking in dmesg is going to work.  If there are lots of other
+messages in dmesg the lines might have rotated out of site before they
+are noticed.&lt;/p&gt;
+
+&lt;p&gt;While reading through the nfs client implementation in linux kernel
+code, I came across some statistics that seem to give a way to detect
+it.  The om_timeouts sunrpc value in the kernel will increase every
+time the above log entry is inserted into dmesg.  And after digging a
+bit further, I discovered that this value show up in
+/proc/self/mountstats on Linux.&lt;/p&gt;
+
+&lt;p&gt;The mountstats content seem to be shared between files using the
+same file system context, so it is enough to check one of the
+mountstats files to get the state of the mount point for the machine.
+I assume this will not show lazy umounted NFS points, nor NFS mount
+points in a different process context (ie with a different filesystem
+view), but that does not worry me.&lt;/p&gt;
+
+&lt;p&gt;The content for a NFS mount point look similar to this:&lt;/p&gt;
+
+&lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
+[...]
+device /dev/mapper/Debian-var mounted on /var with fstype ext3
+device nfsserver:/mnt/nfsserver/home0 mounted on /mnt/nfsserver/home0 with fstype nfs statvers=1.1
+        opts:   rw,vers=3,rsize=65536,wsize=65536,namlen=255,acregmin=3,acregmax=60,acdirmin=30,acdirmax=60,soft,nolock,proto=tcp,timeo=600,retrans=2,sec=sys,mountaddr=129.240.3.145,mountvers=3,mountport=4048,mountproto=udp,local_lock=all
+        age:    7863311
+        caps:   caps=0x3fe7,wtmult=4096,dtsize=8192,bsize=0,namlen=255
+        sec:    flavor=1,pseudoflavor=1
+        events: 61063112 732346265 1028140 35486205 16220064 8162542 761447191 71714012 37189 3891185 45561809 110486139 4850138 420353 15449177 296502 52736725 13523379 0 52182 9016896 1231 0 0 0 0 0 
+        bytes:  166253035039 219519120027 0 0 40783504807 185466229638 11677877 45561809 
+        RPC iostats version: 1.0  p/v: 100003/3 (nfs)
+        xprt:   tcp 925 1 6810 0 0 111505412 111480497 109 2672418560317 0 248 53869103 22481820
+        per-op statistics
+                NULL: 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
+             GETATTR: 61063106 61063108 0 9621383060 6839064400 453650 77291321 78926132
+             SETATTR: 463469 463470 0 92005440 66739536 63787 603235 687943
+              LOOKUP: 17021657 17021657 0 3354097764 4013442928 57216 35125459 35566511
+              ACCESS: 14281703 14290009 5 2318400592 1713803640 1709282 4865144 7130140
+            READLINK: 125 125 0 20472 18620 0 1112 1118
+                READ: 4214236 4214237 0 715608524 41328653212 89884 22622768 22806693
+               WRITE: 8479010 8494376 22 187695798568 1356087148 178264904 51506907 231671771
+              CREATE: 171708 171708 0 38084748 46702272 873 1041833 1050398
+               MKDIR: 3680 3680 0 773980 993920 26 23990 24245
+             SYMLINK: 903 903 0 233428 245488 6 5865 5917
+               MKNOD: 80 80 0 20148 21760 0 299 304
+              REMOVE: 429921 429921 0 79796004 61908192 3313 2710416 2741636
+               RMDIR: 3367 3367 0 645112 484848 22 5782 6002
+              RENAME: 466201 466201 0 130026184 121212260 7075 5935207 5961288
+                LINK: 289155 289155 0 72775556 67083960 2199 2565060 2585579
+             READDIR: 2933237 2933237 0 516506204 13973833412 10385 3190199 3297917
+         READDIRPLUS: 1652839 1652839 0 298640972 6895997744 84735 14307895 14448937
+              FSSTAT: 6144 6144 0 1010516 1032192 51 9654 10022
+              FSINFO: 2 2 0 232 328 0 1 1
+            PATHCONF: 1 1 0 116 140 0 0 0
+              COMMIT: 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
+
+device binfmt_misc mounted on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc with fstype binfmt_misc
+[...]
+&lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
+
+&lt;p&gt;The key number to look at is the third number in the per-op list.
+It is the number of NFS timeouts experiences per file system
+operation.  Here 22 write timeouts and 5 access timeouts.  If these
+numbers are increasing, I believe the machine is experiencing NFS
+hang.  Unfortunately the timeout value do not start to increase right
+away.  The NFS operations need to time out first, and this can take a
+while.  The exact timeout value depend on the setup.  For example the
+defaults for TCP and UDP mount points are quite different, and the
+timeout value is affected by the soft, hard, timeo and retrans NFS
+mount options.&lt;/p&gt;
+
+&lt;p&gt;The only way I have been able to get working on Debian and RedHat
+Enterprise Linux for getting the timeout count is to peek in /proc/.
+But according to
+&lt;ahref=&quot;http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E19253-01/816-4555/netmonitor-12/index.html&quot;&gt;Solaris
+10 System Administration Guide: Network Services&lt;/a&gt;, the &#39;nfsstat -c&#39;
+command can be used to get these timeout values.  But this do not work
+on Linux, as far as I can tell.  I
+&lt;ahref=&quot;http://bugs.debian.org/857043&quot;&gt;asked Debian about this&lt;/a&gt;,
+but have not seen any replies yet.&lt;/p&gt;
+
+&lt;p&gt;Is there a better way to figure out if a Linux NFS client is
+experiencing NFS hangs?  Is there a way to detect which processes are
+affected?  Is there a way to get the NFS mount going quickly once the
+network problem causing the NFS hang has been cleared?  I would very
+much welcome some clues, as we regularly run into NFS hangs.&lt;/p&gt;
+</description>
+       </item>
+       
+       <item>
+               <title>How does it feel to be wiretapped, when you should be doing the wiretapping...</title>
+               <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_does_it_feel_to_be_wiretapped__when_you_should_be_doing_the_wiretapping___.html</link>
+               <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_does_it_feel_to_be_wiretapped__when_you_should_be_doing_the_wiretapping___.html</guid>
+                <pubDate>Wed, 8 Mar 2017 11:50:00 +0100</pubDate>
+               <description>&lt;p&gt;So the new president in the United States of America claim to be
+surprised to discover that he was wiretapped during the election
+before he was elected president.  He even claim this must be illegal.
+Well, doh, if it is one thing the confirmations from Snowden
+documented, it is that the entire population in USA is wiretapped, one
+way or another.  Of course the president candidates were wiretapped,
+alongside the senators, judges and the rest of the people in USA.&lt;/p&gt;
+
+&lt;p&gt;Next, the Federal Bureau of Investigation ask the Department of
+Justice to go public rejecting the claims that Donald Trump was
+wiretapped illegally.  I fail to see the relevance, given that I am
+sure the surveillance industry in USA believe they have all the legal
+backing they need to conduct mass surveillance on the entire
+world.&lt;/p&gt;
+
+&lt;p&gt;There is even the director of the FBI stating that he never saw an
+order requesting wiretapping of Donald Trump.  That is not very
+surprising, given how the FISA court work, with all its activity being
+secret.  Perhaps he only heard about it?&lt;/p&gt;
+
+&lt;p&gt;What I find most sad in this story is how Norwegian journalists
+present it.  In a news reports the other day in the radio from the
+Norwegian National broadcasting Company (NRK), I heard the journalist
+claim that &#39;the FBI denies any wiretapping&#39;, while the reality is that
+&#39;the FBI denies any illegal wiretapping&#39;.  There is a fundamental and
+important difference, and it make me sad that the journalists are
+unable to grasp it.&lt;/p&gt;
+
+&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update 2017-03-13:&lt;/strong&gt; Look like
+&lt;a href=&quot;https://theintercept.com/2017/03/13/rand-paul-is-right-nsa-routinely-monitors-americans-communications-without-warrants/&quot;&gt;The
+Intercept report that US Senator Rand Paul confirm what I state above&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
+</description>
+       </item>
+       
+       <item>
+               <title>Norwegian Bokmål translation of The Debian Administrator&#39;s Handbook complete, proofreading in progress</title>
+               <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Norwegian_Bokm_l_translation_of_The_Debian_Administrator_s_Handbook_complete__proofreading_in_progress.html</link>
+               <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Norwegian_Bokm_l_translation_of_The_Debian_Administrator_s_Handbook_complete__proofreading_in_progress.html</guid>
+                <pubDate>Fri, 3 Mar 2017 14:50:00 +0100</pubDate>
+               <description>&lt;p&gt;For almost a year now, we have been working on making a Norwegian
+Bokmål edition of &lt;a href=&quot;https://debian-handbook.info/&quot;&gt;The Debian
+Administrator&#39;s Handbook&lt;/a&gt;.  Now, thanks to the tireless effort of
+Ole-Erik, Ingrid and Andreas, the initial translation is complete, and
+we are working on the proof reading to ensure consistent language and
+use of correct computer science terms.  The plan is to make the book
+available on paper, as well as in electronic form.  For that to
+happen, the proof reading must be completed and all the figures need
+to be translated.  If you want to help out, get in touch.&lt;/p&gt;
+
+&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-handbook/debian-handbook-nb-NO.pdf&quot;&gt;A
+
+fresh PDF edition&lt;/a&gt; in A4 format (the final book will have smaller
+pages) of the book created every morning is available for
+proofreading.  If you find any errors, please
+&lt;a href=&quot;https://hosted.weblate.org/projects/debian-handbook/&quot;&gt;visit
+Weblate and correct the error&lt;/a&gt;.  The
+&lt;a href=&quot;http://l.github.io/debian-handbook/stat/nb-NO/index.html&quot;&gt;state
+of the translation including figures&lt;/a&gt; is a useful source for those
+provide Norwegian bokmål screen shots and figures.&lt;/p&gt;
+</description>
+       </item>
+       
+       <item>
+               <title>Unlimited randomness with the ChaosKey?</title>
+               <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Unlimited_randomness_with_the_ChaosKey_.html</link>
+               <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Unlimited_randomness_with_the_ChaosKey_.html</guid>
+                <pubDate>Wed, 1 Mar 2017 20:50:00 +0100</pubDate>
+               <description>&lt;p&gt;A few days ago I ordered a small batch of
+&lt;a href=&quot;http://altusmetrum.org/ChaosKey/&quot;&gt;the ChaosKey&lt;/a&gt;, a small
+USB dongle for generating entropy created by Bdale Garbee and Keith
+Packard.  Yesterday it arrived, and I am very happy to report that it
+work great!  According to its designers, to get it to work out of the
+box, you need the Linux kernel version 4.1 or later.  I tested on a
+Debian Stretch machine (kernel version 4.9), and there it worked just
+fine, increasing the available entropy very quickly.  I wrote a small
+test oneliner to test.  It first print the current entropy level,
+drain /dev/random, and then print the entropy level for five seconds.
+Here is the situation without the ChaosKey inserted:&lt;/p&gt;
+
+&lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
+% cat /proc/sys/kernel/random/entropy_avail; \
+  dd bs=1M if=/dev/random of=/dev/null count=1; \
+  for n in $(seq 1 5); do \
+     cat /proc/sys/kernel/random/entropy_avail; \
+     sleep 1; \
+  done
+300
+0+1 oppføringer inn
+0+1 oppføringer ut
+28 byte kopiert, 0,000264565 s, 106 kB/s
+4
+8
+12
+17
+21
+%
+&lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
+
+&lt;p&gt;The entropy level increases by 3-4 every second.  In such case any
+application requiring random bits (like a HTTPS enabled web server)
+will halt and wait for more entrpy.  And here is the situation with
+the ChaosKey inserted:&lt;/p&gt;
+
+&lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
+% cat /proc/sys/kernel/random/entropy_avail; \
+  dd bs=1M if=/dev/random of=/dev/null count=1; \
+  for n in $(seq 1 5); do \
+     cat /proc/sys/kernel/random/entropy_avail; \
+     sleep 1; \
+  done
+1079
+0+1 oppføringer inn
+0+1 oppføringer ut
+104 byte kopiert, 0,000487647 s, 213 kB/s
+433
+1028
+1031
+1035
+1038
+%
+&lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
+
+&lt;p&gt;Quite the difference. :) I bought a few more than I need, in case
+someone want to buy one here in Norway. :)&lt;/p&gt;
+
+&lt;p&gt;Update: The dongle was presented at Debconf last year.  You might
+find &lt;a href=&quot;https://debconf16.debconf.org/talks/94/&quot;&gt;the talk
+recording illuminating&lt;/a&gt;.  It explains exactly what the source of
+randomness is, if you are unable to spot it from the schema drawing
+available from the ChaosKey web site linked at the start of this blog
+post.&lt;/p&gt;
+</description>
+       </item>
+       

        <item>
                <title>Detect OOXML files with undefined behaviour?</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Detect_OOXML_files_with_undefined_behaviour_.html</link>
        <item>
                <title>Detect OOXML files with undefined behaviour?</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Detect_OOXML_files_with_undefined_behaviour_.html</link>


@@ -414,319 +662,6 @@ unencrypted over the Internet.&lt;/p&gt;
 Rublev&lt;a/&gt;, as it was less cluttered than the local Linux application
 Marble.  There are heaps of other options too.&lt;/p&gt;
 
 Rublev&lt;a/&gt;, as it was less cluttered than the local Linux application
 Marble.  There are heaps of other options too.&lt;/p&gt;
 

-&lt;p&gt;As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
-activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
-&lt;b&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&amp;label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog&quot;&gt;15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
-</description>
-       </item>
-       
-       <item>
-               <title>Introducing ical-archiver to split out old iCalendar entries</title>
-               <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Introducing_ical_archiver_to_split_out_old_iCalendar_entries.html</link>
-               <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Introducing_ical_archiver_to_split_out_old_iCalendar_entries.html</guid>
-                <pubDate>Wed, 4 Jan 2017 12:20:00 +0100</pubDate>
-               <description>&lt;p&gt;Do you have a large &lt;a href=&quot;https://icalendar.org/&quot;&gt;iCalendar&lt;/a&gt;
-file with lots of old entries, and would like to archive them to save
-space and resources?  At least those of us using KOrganizer know that
-turning on and off an event set become slower and slower the more
-entries are in the set.  While working on migrating our calendars to a
-&lt;a href=&quot;http://radicale.org/&quot;&gt;Radicale CalDAV server&lt;/a&gt; on our
-&lt;a href=&quot;https://freedomboxfoundation.org/&quot;&gt;Freedombox server&lt;/a/&gt;, my
-loved one wondered if I could find a way to split up the calendar file
-she had in KOrganizer, and I set out to write a tool.  I spent a few
-days writing and polishing the system, and it is now ready for general
-consumption.  The
-&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/ical-archiver&quot;&gt;code for
-ical-archiver&lt;/a&gt; is publicly available from a git repository on
-github.  The system is written in Python and depend on
-&lt;a href=&quot;http://eventable.github.io/vobject/&quot;&gt;the vobject Python
-module&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
-
-&lt;p&gt;To use it, locate the iCalendar file you want to operate on and
-give it as an argument to the ical-archiver script.  This will
-generate a set of new files, one file per component type per year for
-all components expiring more than two years in the past.  The vevent,
-vtodo and vjournal entries are handled by the script.  The remaining
-entries are stored in a &#39;remaining&#39; file.&lt;/p&gt;
-
-&lt;p&gt;This is what a test run can look like:
-
-&lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
-% ical-archiver t/2004-2016.ics 
-Found 3612 vevents
-Found 6 vtodos
-Found 2 vjournals
-Writing t/2004-2016.ics-subset-vevent-2004.ics
-Writing t/2004-2016.ics-subset-vevent-2005.ics
-Writing t/2004-2016.ics-subset-vevent-2006.ics
-Writing t/2004-2016.ics-subset-vevent-2007.ics
-Writing t/2004-2016.ics-subset-vevent-2008.ics
-Writing t/2004-2016.ics-subset-vevent-2009.ics
-Writing t/2004-2016.ics-subset-vevent-2010.ics
-Writing t/2004-2016.ics-subset-vevent-2011.ics
-Writing t/2004-2016.ics-subset-vevent-2012.ics
-Writing t/2004-2016.ics-subset-vevent-2013.ics
-Writing t/2004-2016.ics-subset-vevent-2014.ics
-Writing t/2004-2016.ics-subset-vjournal-2007.ics
-Writing t/2004-2016.ics-subset-vjournal-2011.ics
-Writing t/2004-2016.ics-subset-vtodo-2012.ics
-Writing t/2004-2016.ics-remaining.ics
-%
-&lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
-
-&lt;p&gt;As you can see, the original file is untouched and new files are
-written with names derived from the original file.  If you are happy
-with their content, the *-remaining.ics file can replace the original
-the the others can be archived or imported as historical calendar
-collections.&lt;/p&gt;
-
-&lt;p&gt;The script should probably be improved a bit.  The error handling
-when discovering broken entries is not good, and I am not sure yet if
-it make sense to split different entry types into separate files or
-not.  The program is thus likely to change.  If you find it
-interesting, please get in touch. :)&lt;/p&gt;
-
-&lt;p&gt;As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
-activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
-&lt;b&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&amp;label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog&quot;&gt;15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
-</description>
-       </item>
-       
-       <item>
-               <title>Appstream just learned how to map hardware to packages too!</title>
-               <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Appstream_just_learned_how_to_map_hardware_to_packages_too_.html</link>
-               <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Appstream_just_learned_how_to_map_hardware_to_packages_too_.html</guid>
-                <pubDate>Fri, 23 Dec 2016 10:30:00 +0100</pubDate>
-               <description>&lt;p&gt;I received a very nice Christmas present today.  As my regular
-readers probably know, I have been working on the
-&lt;a href=&quot;http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram&quot;&gt;the Isenkram
-system&lt;/a&gt; for many years.  The goal of the Isenkram system is to make
-it easier for users to figure out what to install to get a given piece
-of hardware to work in Debian, and a key part of this system is a way
-to map hardware to packages.  Isenkram have its own mapping database,
-and also uses data provided by each package using the AppStream
-metadata format.  And today,
-&lt;a href=&quot;https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/appstream&quot;&gt;AppStream&lt;/a&gt; in
-Debian learned to look up hardware the same way Isenkram is doing it,
-ie using fnmatch():&lt;/p&gt;
-
-&lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
-% appstreamcli what-provides modalias \
-  usb:v1130p0202d0100dc00dsc00dp00ic03isc00ip00in00
-Identifier: pymissile [generic]
-Name: pymissile
-Summary: Control original Striker USB Missile Launcher
-Package: pymissile
-% appstreamcli what-provides modalias usb:v0694p0002d0000
-Identifier: libnxt [generic]
-Name: libnxt
-Summary: utility library for talking to the LEGO Mindstorms NXT brick
-Package: libnxt
----
-Identifier: t2n [generic]
-Name: t2n
-Summary: Simple command-line tool for Lego NXT
-Package: t2n
----
-Identifier: python-nxt [generic]
-Name: python-nxt
-Summary: Python driver/interface/wrapper for the Lego Mindstorms NXT robot
-Package: python-nxt
----
-Identifier: nbc [generic]
-Name: nbc
-Summary: C compiler for LEGO Mindstorms NXT bricks
-Package: nbc
-%
-&lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
-
-&lt;p&gt;A similar query can be done using the combined AppStream and
-Isenkram databases using the isenkram-lookup tool:&lt;/p&gt;
-
-&lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
-% isenkram-lookup usb:v1130p0202d0100dc00dsc00dp00ic03isc00ip00in00
-pymissile
-% isenkram-lookup usb:v0694p0002d0000
-libnxt
-nbc
-python-nxt
-t2n
-%
-&lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
-
-&lt;p&gt;You can find modalias values relevant for your machine using
-&lt;tt&gt;cat $(find /sys/devices/ -name modalias)&lt;/tt&gt;.
-
-&lt;p&gt;If you want to make this system a success and help Debian users
-make the most of the hardware they have, please
-help&lt;a href=&quot;https://wiki.debian.org/AppStream/Guidelines&quot;&gt;add
-AppStream metadata for your package following the guidelines&lt;/a&gt;
-documented in the wiki.  So far only 11 packages provide such
-information, among the several hundred hardware specific packages in
-Debian. The Isenkram database on the other hand contain 101 packages,
-mostly related to USB dongles.  Most of the packages with hardware
-mapping in AppStream are LEGO Mindstorms related, because I have, as
-part of my involvement in
-&lt;a href=&quot;https://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners&quot;&gt;the Debian LEGO
-team&lt;/a&gt; given priority to making sure LEGO users get proposed the
-complete set of packages in Debian for that particular hardware.  The
-team also got a nice Christmas present today.  The
-&lt;a href=&quot;https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/nxt-firmware&quot;&gt;nxt-firmware
-package&lt;/a&gt; made it into Debian.  With this package in place, it is
-now possible to use the LEGO Mindstorms NXT unit with only free
-software, as the nxt-firmware package contain the source and firmware
-binaries for the NXT brick.&lt;/p&gt;
-
-&lt;p&gt;As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
-activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
-&lt;b&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&amp;label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog&quot;&gt;15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
-</description>
-       </item>
-       
-       <item>
-               <title>Isenkram updated with a lot more hardware-package mappings</title>
-               <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Isenkram_updated_with_a_lot_more_hardware_package_mappings.html</link>
-               <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Isenkram_updated_with_a_lot_more_hardware_package_mappings.html</guid>
-                <pubDate>Tue, 20 Dec 2016 11:55:00 +0100</pubDate>
-               <description>&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram&quot;&gt;The Isenkram
-system&lt;/a&gt; I wrote two years ago to make it easier in Debian to find
-and install packages to get your hardware dongles to work, is still
-going strong.  It is a system to look up the hardware present on or
-connected to the current system, and map the hardware to Debian
-packages.  It can either be done using the tools in isenkram-cli or
-using the user space daemon in the isenkram package.  The latter will
-notify you, when inserting new hardware, about what packages to
-install to get the dongle working.  It will even provide a button to
-click on to ask packagekit to install the packages.&lt;/p&gt;
-
-&lt;p&gt;Here is an command line example from my Thinkpad laptop:&lt;/p&gt;
-
-&lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
-% isenkram-lookup  
-bluez
-cheese
-ethtool
-fprintd
-fprintd-demo
-gkrellm-thinkbat
-hdapsd
-libpam-fprintd
-pidgin-blinklight
-thinkfan
-tlp
-tp-smapi-dkms
-tp-smapi-source
-tpb
-%
-&lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
-
-&lt;p&gt;It can also list the firware package providing firmware requested
-by the load kernel modules, which in my case is an empty list because
-I have all the firmware my machine need:
-
-&lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
-% /usr/sbin/isenkram-autoinstall-firmware -l
-info: did not find any firmware files requested by loaded kernel modules.  exiting
-%
-&lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
-
-&lt;p&gt;The last few days I had a look at several of the around 250
-packages in Debian with udev rules.  These seem like good candidates
-to install when a given hardware dongle is inserted, and I found
-several that should be proposed by isenkram.  I have not had time to
-check all of them, but am happy to report that now there are 97
-packages packages mapped to hardware by Isenkram.  11 of these
-packages provide hardware mapping using AppStream, while the rest are
-listed in the modaliases file provided in isenkram.&lt;/p&gt;
-
-&lt;p&gt;These are the packages with hardware mappings at the moment.  The
-&lt;strong&gt;marked packages&lt;/strong&gt; are also announcing their hardware
-support using AppStream, for everyone to use:&lt;/p&gt;
-
-&lt;p&gt;air-quality-sensor, alsa-firmware-loaders, argyll,
-&lt;strong&gt;array-info&lt;/strong&gt;, avarice, avrdude, b43-fwcutter,
-bit-babbler, bluez, bluez-firmware, &lt;strong&gt;brltty&lt;/strong&gt;,
-&lt;strong&gt;broadcom-sta-dkms&lt;/strong&gt;, calibre, cgminer, cheese, colord,
-&lt;strong&gt;colorhug-client&lt;/strong&gt;, dahdi-firmware-nonfree, dahdi-linux,
-dfu-util, dolphin-emu, ekeyd, ethtool, firmware-ipw2x00, fprintd,
-fprintd-demo, &lt;strong&gt;galileo&lt;/strong&gt;, gkrellm-thinkbat, gphoto2,
-gpsbabel, gpsbabel-gui, gpsman, gpstrans, gqrx-sdr, gr-fcdproplus,
-gr-osmosdr, gtkpod, hackrf, hdapsd, hdmi2usb-udev, hpijs-ppds, hplip,
-ipw3945-source, ipw3945d, kde-config-tablet, kinect-audio-setup,
-&lt;strong&gt;libnxt&lt;/strong&gt;, libpam-fprintd, &lt;strong&gt;lomoco&lt;/strong&gt;,
-madwimax, minidisc-utils, mkgmap, msi-keyboard, mtkbabel,
-&lt;strong&gt;nbc&lt;/strong&gt;, &lt;strong&gt;nqc&lt;/strong&gt;, nut-hal-drivers, ola,
-open-vm-toolbox, open-vm-tools, openambit, pcgminer, pcmciautils,
-pcscd, pidgin-blinklight, printer-driver-splix,
-&lt;strong&gt;pymissile&lt;/strong&gt;, python-nxt, qlandkartegt,
-qlandkartegt-garmin, rosegarden, rt2x00-source, sispmctl,
-soapysdr-module-hackrf, solaar, squeak-plugins-scratch, sunxi-tools,
-&lt;strong&gt;t2n&lt;/strong&gt;, thinkfan, thinkfinger-tools, tlp, tp-smapi-dkms,
-tp-smapi-source, tpb, tucnak, uhd-host, usbmuxd, viking,
-virtualbox-ose-guest-x11, w1retap, xawtv, xserver-xorg-input-vmmouse,
-xserver-xorg-input-wacom, xserver-xorg-video-qxl,
-xserver-xorg-video-vmware, yubikey-personalization and
-zd1211-firmware&lt;/p&gt;
-
-&lt;p&gt;If you know of other packages, please let me know with a wishlist
-bug report against the isenkram-cli package, and ask the package
-maintainer to
-&lt;a href=&quot;https://wiki.debian.org/AppStream/Guidelines&quot;&gt;add AppStream
-metadata according to the guidelines&lt;/a&gt; to provide the information
-for everyone.  In time, I hope to get rid of the isenkram specific
-hardware mapping and depend exclusively on AppStream.&lt;/p&gt;
-
-&lt;p&gt;Note, the AppStream metadata for broadcom-sta-dkms is matching too
-much hardware, and suggest that the package with with any ethernet
-card.  See &lt;a href=&quot;http://bugs.debian.org/838735&quot;&gt;bug #838735&lt;/a&gt; for
-the details.  I hope the maintainer find time to address it soon.  In
-the mean time I provide an override in isenkram.&lt;/p&gt;
-</description>
-       </item>
-       
-       <item>
-               <title>Oolite, a life in space as vagabond and mercenary - nice free software</title>
-               <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Oolite__a_life_in_space_as_vagabond_and_mercenary___nice_free_software.html</link>
-               <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Oolite__a_life_in_space_as_vagabond_and_mercenary___nice_free_software.html</guid>
-                <pubDate>Sun, 11 Dec 2016 11:40:00 +0100</pubDate>
-               <description>&lt;p align=&quot;center&quot;&gt;&lt;img width=&quot;70%&quot; src=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-12-11-nice-oolite.png&quot;/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
-
-&lt;p&gt;In my early years, I played
-&lt;a href=&quot;http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Classic_Elite&quot;&gt;the epic game
-Elite&lt;/a&gt; on my PC.  I spent many months trading and fighting in
-space, and reached the &#39;elite&#39; fighting status before I moved on.  The
-original Elite game was available on Commodore 64 and the IBM PC
-edition I played had a 64 KB executable.  I am still impressed today
-that the authors managed to squeeze both a 3D engine and details about
-more than 2000 planet systems across 7 galaxies into a binary so
-small.&lt;/p&gt;
-
-&lt;p&gt;I have known about &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.oolite.org/&quot;&gt;the free
-software game Oolite inspired by Elite&lt;/a&gt; for a while, but did not
-really have time to test it properly until a few days ago.  It was
-great to discover that my old knowledge about trading routes were
-still valid.  But my fighting and flying abilities were gone, so I had
-to retrain to be able to dock on a space station.  And I am still not
-able to make much resistance when I am attacked by pirates, so I
-bougth and mounted the most powerful laser in the rear to be able to
-put up at least some resistance while fleeing for my life. :)&lt;/p&gt;
-
-&lt;p&gt;When playing Elite in the late eighties, I had to discover
-everything on my own, and I had long lists of prices seen on different
-planets to be able to decide where to trade what.  This time I had the
-advantages of the
-&lt;a href=&quot;http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Main_Page&quot;&gt;Elite wiki&lt;/a&gt;,
-where information about each planet is easily available with common
-price ranges and suggested trading routes.  This improved my ability
-to earn money and I have been able to earn enough to buy a lot of
-useful equipent in a few days.  I believe I originally played for
-months before I could get a docking computer, while now I could get it
-after less then a week.&lt;/p&gt;
-
-&lt;p&gt;If you like science fiction and dreamed of a life as a vagabond in
-space, you should try out Oolite.  It is available for Linux, MacOSX
-and Windows, and is included in Debian and derivatives since 2011.&lt;/p&gt;
-

 &lt;p&gt;As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
 &lt;b&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&amp;label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog&quot;&gt;15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
 &lt;b&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&amp;label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog&quot;&gt;15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;