-<p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
-activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
-<b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
-</description>
- </item>
-
- <item>
- <title>Is the desktop recommending your program for opening its files?</title>
- <link>https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Is_the_desktop_recommending_your_program_for_opening_its_files_.html</link>
- <guid isPermaLink="true">https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Is_the_desktop_recommending_your_program_for_opening_its_files_.html</guid>
- <pubDate>Sun, 29 Jan 2023 11:00:00 +0100</pubDate>
- <description><p>Linux desktop systems
-<a href="https://specifications.freedesktop.org/basedir-spec/basedir-spec-latest.html">have
-standardized</a> how programs present themselves to the desktop
-system. If a package include a .desktop file in
-/usr/share/applications/, Gnome, KDE, LXDE, Xfce and the other desktop
-environments will pick up the file and use its content to generate the
-menu of available programs in the system. A lesser known fact is that
-a package can also explain to the desktop system how to recognize the
-files created by the program in question, and use it to open these
-files on request, for example via a GUI file browser.</p>
-
-<p>A while back I ran into a package that did not tell the desktop
-system how to recognize its files and was not used to open its files
-in the file browser and fixed it. In the process I wrote a simple
-debian/tests/ script to ensure the setup keep working. It might be
-useful for other packages too, to ensure any future version of the
-package keep handling its own files.</p>
-
-<p>For this to work the file format need a useful MIME type that can
-be used to identify the format. If the file format do not yet have a
-MIME type, it should define one and preferably also
-<a href="https://www.iana.org/assignments/media-types/media-types.xhtml">register
-it with IANA</a> to ensure the MIME type string is reserved.</p>
-
-<p>The script uses the <tt>xdg-mime</tt> program from xdg-utils to
-query the database of standardized package information and ensure it
-return sensible values. It also need the location of an example file
-for xdg-mime to guess the format of.</p>
-
-<pre>
-#!/bin/sh
-#
-# Author: Petter Reinholdtsen
-# License: GPL v2 or later at your choice.
-#
-# Validate the MIME setup, making sure motor types have
-# application/vnd.openmotor+yaml associated with them and is connected
-# to the openmotor desktop file.
-
-retval=0
-
-mimetype="application/vnd.openmotor+yaml"
-testfile="test/data/real/o3100/motor.ric"
-mydesktopfile="openmotor.desktop"
-
-filemime="$(xdg-mime query filetype "$testfile")"
-
-if [ "$mimetype" != "$filemime" ] ; then
- retval=1
- echo "error: xdg-mime claim motor file MIME type is $filemine, not $mimetype"
-else
- echo "success: xdg-mime report correct mime type $mimetype for motor file"
-fi
-
-desktop=$(xdg-mime query default "$mimetype")
-
-if [ "$mydesktopfile" != "$desktop" ]; then
- retval=1
- echo "error: xdg-mime claim motor file should be handled by $desktop, not $mydesktopfile"
-else
- echo "success: xdg-mime agree motor file should be handled by $mydesktopfile"
-fi
-
-exit $retval
-</pre>
-
-<p>It is a simple way to ensure your users are not very surprised when
-they try to open one of your file formats in their file browser.</p>
-
-<p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
-activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
-<b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
-</description>
- </item>
-
- <item>
- <title>Opensnitch, the application level interactive firewall, heading into the Debian archive</title>
- <link>https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Opensnitch__the_application_level_interactive_firewall__heading_into_the_Debian_archive.html</link>
- <guid isPermaLink="true">https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Opensnitch__the_application_level_interactive_firewall__heading_into_the_Debian_archive.html</guid>
- <pubDate>Sun, 22 Jan 2023 23:55:00 +0100</pubDate>
- <description><p>While reading a
-<a href="https://sneak.berlin/20230115/macos-scans-your-local-files-now/">blog
-post claiming MacOS X recently started scanning local files and
-reporting information about them to Apple</a>, even on a machine where
-all such callback features had been disabled, I came across a
-description of the Little Snitch application for MacOS X. It seemed
-like a very nice tool to have in the tool box, and I decided to see if
-something similar was available for Linux.</p>
-
-<p>It did not take long to find
-<a href="https://github.com/evilsocket/opensnitch">the OpenSnitch
-package</a>, which has been in development since 2017, and now is in
-version 1.5.0. It has had a
-<a href="https://bugs.debian.org/909567">request for Debian
-packaging</a> since 2018, but no-one completed the job so far. Just
-for fun, I decided to see if I could help, and I was very happy to
-discover that
-<a href="https://github.com/evilsocket/opensnitch/issues/304">upstream
-want a Debian package too</a>.</p>
-
-<p>After struggling a bit with getting the program to run, figuring
-out building Go programs (and a little failed detour to look at eBPF
-builds too - help needed), I am very happy to report that I am
-sponsoring upstream to maintain the package in Debian, and it has
-since this morning been waiting in NEW for the ftpmasters to have a
-look. Perhaps it can get into the archive in time for the Bookworm
-release?</p>
-
-<p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
-activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
-<b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
-</description>
- </item>
-
- <item>
- <title>LinuxCNC MQTT publisher component</title>
- <link>https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LinuxCNC_MQTT_publisher_component.html</link>
- <guid isPermaLink="true">https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LinuxCNC_MQTT_publisher_component.html</guid>
- <pubDate>Sun, 8 Jan 2023 19:30:00 +0100</pubDate>
- <description><p>I watched <a href="https://yewtu.be/watch?v=jmKUV3aNLjk">a 2015
-video from Andreas Schiffler</a> the other day, where he set up
-<a href="https://linuxcnc.org/">LinuxCNC</a> to send status
-information to the MQTT broker IBM Bluemix. As I also use MQTT for
-graphing, it occured to me that a generic MQTT LinuxCNC component
-would be useful and I set out to implement it. Today I got the first
-draft limping along and submitted as
-<a href="https://github.com/LinuxCNC/linuxcnc/pull/2253">a patch to the
-LinuxCNC project</a>.</p>
-
-<p>The simple part was setting up the MQTT publishing code in Python.
-I already have set up other parts submitting data to my Mosquito MQTT
-broker, so I could reuse that code. Writing a LinuxCNC component in
-Python as new to me, but using existing examples in the code
-repository and the extensive documentation, this was fairly straight
-forward. The hardest part was creating a automated test for the
-component to ensure it was working. Testing it in a simulated
-LinuxCNC machine proved very useful, as I discovered features I needed
-that I had not thought of yet, and adjusted the code quite a bit to
-make it easier to test without a operational MQTT broker
-available.</p>
-
-<p>The draft is ready and working, but I am unsure which LinuxCNC HAL
-pins I should collect and publish by default (in other words, the
-default set of information pieces published), and how to get the
-machine name from the LinuxCNC INI file. The latter is a minor
-detail, but I expect it would be useful in a setup with several
-machines available. I am hoping for feedback from the experienced
-LinuxCNC developers and users, to make the component even better
-before it can go into the mainland LinuxCNC code base.</p>
-
-<p>Since I started on the MQTT component, I came across
-<a href="https://yewtu.be/watch?v=Bqa2grG0XtA">another video from Kent
-VanderVelden</a> where he combine LinuxCNC with a set of screen glasses
-controlled by a Raspberry Pi, and it occured to me that it would
-be useful for such use cases if LinuxCNC also provided a REST API for
-querying its status. I hope to start on such component once the MQTT
-component is working well.</p>
-