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[homepage.git] / blog / archive / 2013 / 01 / 01.rss

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                 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/</link>
 
        
+       <item>
+               <title>First prototype ready making hardware easier to use in Debian</title>
+               <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_prototype_ready_making_hardware_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html</link>        
+               <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_prototype_ready_making_hardware_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html</guid>
+                <pubDate>Mon, 21 Jan 2013 12:00:00 +0100</pubDate>
+               <description>&lt;p&gt;Early this month I set out to try to
+&lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html&quot;&gt;improve
+the Debian support for pluggable hardware devices&lt;/a&gt;.  Now my
+prototype is working, and it is ready for a larger audience.  To test
+it, fetch the
+&lt;a href=&quot;http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/&quot;&gt;source
+from the Debian Edu subversion repository&lt;/a&gt;, build and install the
+package.  You might have to log out and in again activate the
+autostart script.&lt;/p&gt;
+
+&lt;p&gt;The design is simple:&lt;/p&gt;
+
+&lt;ul&gt;
+
+&lt;li&gt;Add desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ causing a program
+hw-support-handlerd to start when the user log in.&lt;/li&gt;
+
+&lt;li&gt;This program listen for kernel events about new hardware (directly
+from the kernel like udev does), not using HAL dbus events as I
+initially did.&lt;/li&gt;
+
+&lt;li&gt;When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware modalias in
+the APT database, a database
+&lt;a href=&quot;http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=markup&quot;&gt;available
+via HTTP&lt;/a&gt; and a database available as part of the package.&lt;/li&gt;
+
+&lt;li&gt;If a package is mapped to the hardware in question, the package
+isn&#39;t installed yet and this is the first time the hardware was
+plugged in, show a desktop notification suggesting to install the
+package or packages.&lt;/li&gt;
+
+&lt;li&gt;If the user click on the &#39;install package now&#39; button, ask
+aptdaemon via the PackageKit API to install the requrired package.&lt;/li&gt;
+
+&lt;li&gt;aptdaemon ask for root password or sudo password, and install the
+package while showing progress information in a window.&lt;/li&gt;
+
+&lt;/ul&gt;
+
+&lt;p&gt;I still need to come up with a better name for the system.  Here
+are some screen shots showing the prototype in action.  First the
+notification, then the password request, and finally the request to
+approve all the dependencies.  Sorry for the Norwegian Bokmål GUI.&lt;/p&gt;
+
+&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-1-notification.png&quot;&gt;
+&lt;br&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-2-password.png&quot;&gt;
+&lt;br&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-3-dependencies.png&quot;&gt;
+&lt;br&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-4-installing.png&quot;&gt;
+&lt;br&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-5-installing-details.png&quot; width=&quot;70%&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
+
+&lt;p&gt;The prototype still need to be improved with longer timeouts, but
+is already useful.  The database of hardware to package mappings also
+need more work.  It is currently compatible with the Ubuntu way of
+storing such information in the package control file, but could be
+changed to use other formats instead or in addition to the current
+method.  I&#39;ve dropped the use of discover for this mapping, as the
+modalias approach is more flexible and easier to use on Linux as long
+as the Linux kernel expose its modalias strings directly.&lt;/p&gt;
+</description>
+       </item>
+       
        <item>
                <title>Thank you Thinkpad X41, for your long and trustworthy service</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thank_you_Thinkpad_X41__for_your_long_and_trustworthy_service.html</link>