<channel>
<title>Petter Reinholdtsen - Entries from June 2013</title>
<description>Entries from June 2013</description>
- <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/</link>
+ <link>https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/</link>
+ <item>
+ <title>Automatically locate and install required firmware packages on Debian (Isenkram 0.4)</title>
+ <link>https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatically_locate_and_install_required_firmware_packages_on_Debian__Isenkram_0_4_.html</link>
+ <guid isPermaLink="true">https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatically_locate_and_install_required_firmware_packages_on_Debian__Isenkram_0_4_.html</guid>
+ <pubDate>Tue, 25 Jun 2013 11:50:00 +0200</pubDate>
+ <description><p>It annoys me when the computer fail to do automatically what it is
+perfectly capable of, and I have to do it manually to get things
+working. One such task is to find out what firmware packages are
+needed to get the hardware on my computer working. Most often this
+affect the wifi card, but some times it even affect the RAID
+controller or the ethernet card. Today I pushed version 0.4 of the
+<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">Isenkram package</a>
+including a new script isenkram-autoinstall-firmware handling the
+process of asking all the loaded kernel modules what firmware files
+they want, find debian packages providing these files and install the
+debian packages. Here is a test run on my laptop:</p>
+
+<p><pre>
+# isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
+info: kernel drivers requested extra firmware: ipw2200-bss.fw ipw2200-ibss.fw ipw2200-sniffer.fw
+info: fetching http://http.debian.net/debian/dists/squeeze/Contents-i386.gz
+info: locating packages with the requested firmware files
+info: Updating APT sources after adding non-free APT source
+info: trying to install firmware-ipw2x00
+firmware-ipw2x00
+firmware-ipw2x00
+Preconfiguring packages ...
+Selecting previously deselected package firmware-ipw2x00.
+(Reading database ... 259727 files and directories currently installed.)
+Unpacking firmware-ipw2x00 (from .../firmware-ipw2x00_0.28+squeeze1_all.deb) ...
+Setting up firmware-ipw2x00 (0.28+squeeze1) ...
+#
+</pre></p>
+
+<p>When all the requested firmware is present, a simple message is
+printed instead:</p>
+
+<p><pre>
+# isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
+info: did not find any firmware files requested by loaded kernel modules. exiting
+#
+</pre></p>
+
+<p>It could use some polish, but it is already working well and saving
+me some time when setting up new machines. :)</p>
+
+<p>So, how does it work? It look at the set of currently loaded
+kernel modules, and look up each one of them using modinfo, to find
+the firmware files listed in the module meta-information. Next, it
+download the Contents file from a nearby APT mirror, and search for
+the firmware files in this file to locate the package with the
+requested firmware file. If the package is in the non-free section, a
+non-free APT source is added and the package is installed using
+<tt>apt-get install</tt>. The end result is a slightly better working
+machine.</p>
+
+<p>I hope someone find time to implement a more polished version of
+this script as part of the hw-detect debian-installer module, to
+finally fix <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/655507">BTS report
+#655507</a>. There really is no need to insert USB sticks with
+firmware during a PXE install when the packages already are available
+from the nearby Debian mirror.</p>
+</description>
+ </item>
+
+ <item>
+ <title>The value of a good distro wide test suite...</title>
+ <link>https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_value_of_a_good_distro_wide_test_suite___.html</link>
+ <guid isPermaLink="true">https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_value_of_a_good_distro_wide_test_suite___.html</guid>
+ <pubDate>Sat, 22 Jun 2013 07:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
+ <description><p>In the <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
+Skolelinux</a> project, we include a post-installation test suite,
+which check that services are running, working, and return the
+expected results. It runs automatically just after the first boot on
+test installations (using test ISOs), but not on production
+installations (using non-test ISOs). It test that the LDAP service is
+operating, Kerberos is responding, DNS is replying, file systems are
+online resizable, etc, etc. And it check that the PXE service is
+configured, which is the topic of this post.</p>
+
+<p>The last week I've fixed the DVD and USB stick ISOs for our Debian
+Edu Wheezy release. These ISOs are supposed to be able to install a
+complete system without any Internet connection, but for that to
+happen all the needed packages need to be on them. Thanks to our test
+suite, I discovered that we had forgotten to adjust our PXE setup to
+cope with the new names and paths used by the netboot d-i packages.
+When Internet connectivity was available, the installer fall back to
+using wget to fetch d-i boot images, but when offline it require
+working packages to get it working. And the packages changed name
+from debian-installer-6.0-netboot-$arch to
+debian-installer-7.0-netboot-$arch, we no longer pulled in the
+packages during installation. Without our test suite, I suspect we
+would never have discovered this before release. Now it is fixed
+right after we got the ISOs operational.</p>
+
+<p>Another by-product of the test suite is that we can ask system
+administrators with problems getting Debian Edu to work, to run the
+test suite using <tt>/usr/sbin/debian-edu-test-install</tt> and see if
+any errors are detected. This usually pinpoint the subsystem causing
+the problem.</p>
+
+<p>If you want to help us help kids learn how to share and create,
+please join us on
+<a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-edu">#debian-edu on
+irc.debian.org</a> and the
+<a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/">debian-edu@</a> mailing
+list.</p>
+</description>
+ </item>
+
<item>
<title>Debian Edu interview: Victor Nițu</title>
- <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Victor_Ni_u.html</link>
- <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Victor_Ni_u.html</guid>
+ <link>https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Victor_Ni_u.html</link>
+ <guid isPermaLink="true">https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Victor_Ni_u.html</guid>
<pubDate>Mon, 17 Jun 2013 10:50:00 +0200</pubDate>
<description><p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and
Skolelinux</a> distribution have users and contributors all around the
<item>
<title>Debian Edu interview: Jonathan Carter</title>
- <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Jonathan_Carter.html</link>
- <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Jonathan_Carter.html</guid>
+ <link>https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Jonathan_Carter.html</link>
+ <guid isPermaLink="true">https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Jonathan_Carter.html</guid>
<pubDate>Wed, 12 Jun 2013 09:50:00 +0200</pubDate>
<description><p>There is a certain cross-over between the
<a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
<item>
<title>Fixing the Linux black screen of death on machines with Intel HD video</title>
- <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Fixing_the_Linux_black_screen_of_death_on_machines_with_Intel_HD_video.html</link>
- <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Fixing_the_Linux_black_screen_of_death_on_machines_with_Intel_HD_video.html</guid>
+ <link>https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Fixing_the_Linux_black_screen_of_death_on_machines_with_Intel_HD_video.html</link>
+ <guid isPermaLink="true">https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Fixing_the_Linux_black_screen_of_death_on_machines_with_Intel_HD_video.html</guid>
<pubDate>Tue, 11 Jun 2013 11:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
<description><p>When installing RedHat, Fedora, Debian and Ubuntu on some machines,
the screen just turn black when Linux boot, either during installation
developers? Or you know where in KDE the screen brightness is changed
during login? If so, please update the BTS report (or get in touch if
you do not know how to update BTS).</p>
+
+<p>Update 2013-07-19: The correct fix for this machine seem to be
+acpi_backlight=vendor, to disable ACPI backlight support completely,
+as the ACPI information on the machine is trash and it is better to
+leave it to the intel video driver to control the screen
+backlight.</p>
</description>
</item>
<item>
<title>Third alpha release of Debian Edu / Skolelinux based on Debian Wheezy</title>
- <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Third_alpha_release_of_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_based_on_Debian_Wheezy.html</link>
- <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Third_alpha_release_of_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_based_on_Debian_Wheezy.html</guid>
+ <link>https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Third_alpha_release_of_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_based_on_Debian_Wheezy.html</link>
+ <guid isPermaLink="true">https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Third_alpha_release_of_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_based_on_Debian_Wheezy.html</guid>
<pubDate>Mon, 10 Jun 2013 22:50:00 +0200</pubDate>
<description><p>The third wheezy based alpha release of Debian Edu was wrapped up
today. This is the release announcement:</p>
<item>
<title>Is there a PHP expert in the building? Debian Edu need help!</title>
- <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Is_there_a_PHP_expert_in_the_building___Debian_Edu_need_help_.html</link>
- <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Is_there_a_PHP_expert_in_the_building___Debian_Edu_need_help_.html</guid>
+ <link>https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Is_there_a_PHP_expert_in_the_building___Debian_Edu_need_help_.html</link>
+ <guid isPermaLink="true">https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Is_there_a_PHP_expert_in_the_building___Debian_Edu_need_help_.html</guid>
<pubDate>Wed, 5 Jun 2013 17:50:00 +0200</pubDate>
<description><p>Here is a call for help from the Debian Edu / Skolelinux project.
We have two problems blocking the release of the Wheezy version we
<item>
<title>Debian Edu interview: Cédric Boutillier</title>
- <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__C_dric_Boutillier.html</link>
- <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__C_dric_Boutillier.html</guid>
+ <link>https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__C_dric_Boutillier.html</link>
+ <guid isPermaLink="true">https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__C_dric_Boutillier.html</guid>
<pubDate>Tue, 4 Jun 2013 10:30:00 +0200</pubDate>
<description><p>It has been a while since my last English
<a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
<item>
<title>Åpent møte på onsdag om bruken av Microsoft Exchange ved Universitetet i Oslo</title>
- <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/_pent_m_te_p__onsdag_om_bruken_av_Microsoft_Exchange_ved_Universitetet_i_Oslo.html</link>
- <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/_pent_m_te_p__onsdag_om_bruken_av_Microsoft_Exchange_ved_Universitetet_i_Oslo.html</guid>
+ <link>https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/_pent_m_te_p__onsdag_om_bruken_av_Microsoft_Exchange_ved_Universitetet_i_Oslo.html</link>
+ <guid isPermaLink="true">https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/_pent_m_te_p__onsdag_om_bruken_av_Microsoft_Exchange_ved_Universitetet_i_Oslo.html</guid>
<pubDate>Mon, 3 Jun 2013 14:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
<description><p>Jeg jobber til daglig ved <a href="http://www.uio.no/">Universitetet
i Oslo</a>, en institusjon som lenge har vektlagt verdien av åpne
<item>
<title>Educational applications included in Debian Edu / Skolelinux (the screenshot collection :-)</title>
- <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Educational_applications_included_in_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux__the_screenshot_collection____.html</link>
- <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Educational_applications_included_in_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux__the_screenshot_collection____.html</guid>
+ <link>https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Educational_applications_included_in_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux__the_screenshot_collection____.html</link>
+ <guid isPermaLink="true">https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Educational_applications_included_in_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux__the_screenshot_collection____.html</guid>
<pubDate>Sat, 1 Jun 2013 23:50:00 +0200</pubDate>
<description><p>Included in <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
Skolelinux</a>, there are quite a lot of educational software.
projects / homepage.git / blobdiff