<h3>Entries from January 2013.</h3>
+ <div class="entry">
+ <div class="title">
+ <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>
+ </div>
+ <div class="date">
+ 19th January 2013
+ </div>
+ <div class="body">
+ <p>This Christmas my trusty old laptop died. It died quietly and
+suddenly in bed. With a quiet whimper, it went completely quiet and
+black. The power button was no longer able to turn it on. It was a
+IBM Thinkpad X41, and the best laptop I ever had. Better than both
+Thinkpads X30, X31, X40, X60, X61 and X61S. Far better than the
+Compaq I had before that. Now I need to find a replacement. To keep
+going during Christmas, I moved the one year old SSD disk to my old
+X40 where it fitted (only one I had left that could use it), but it is
+not a durable solution.
+
+<p>My laptop needs are fairly modest. This is my wishlist from when I
+got a new one more than 10 years ago. It still holds true.:)</p>
+
+<ul>
+
+<li>Lightweight (around 1 kg) and small volume (preferably smaller
+ than A4).</li>
+<li>Robust, it will be in my backpack every day.</li>
+<li>Three button mouse and a mouse pin instead of touch pad.</li>
+<li>Long battery life time. Preferable a week.</li>
+<li>Internal WIFI network card.</li>
+<li>Internal Twisted Pair network card.</li>
+<li>Some USB slots (2-3 is plenty)</li>
+<li>Good keyboard - similar to the Thinkpad.</li>
+<li>Video resolution at least 1024x768, with size around 12" (A4 paper
+size).</li>
+<li>Hardware supported by Debian Stable, ie the default kernel and
+ X.org packages.</li>
+<li>Quiet, preferably fan free (or at least not using the fan most of
+ the time).
+
+</ul>
+
+<p>You will notice that there are no RAM and CPU requirements in the
+list. The reason is simply that the specifications on laptops the
+last 10-15 years have been sufficient for my needs, and I have to look
+at other features to choose my laptop. But are there still made as
+robust laptops as my X41? The Thinkpad X60/X61 proved to be less
+robust, and Thinkpads seem to be heading in the wrong direction since
+Lenovo took over. But I've been told that X220 and X1 Carbon might
+still be useful.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps I should rethink my needs, and look for a pad with an
+external keyboard? I'll have to check the
+<ahref="http://www.linux-laptop.net/">Linux Laptops site</a> for
+well-supported laptops, or perhaps just buy one preinstalled from one
+of the vendors listed on the <ahref="http://linuxpreloaded.com/">Linux
+Pre-loaded site</a>.</p>
+
+ </div>
+ <div class="tags">
+
+
+ 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>.
+
+
+ </div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="padding"></div>
+
+ <div class="entry">
+ <div class="title">
+ <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>
+ </div>
+ <div class="date">
+ 18th January 2013
+ </div>
+ <div class="body">
+ <p>Some times I try to figure out which Iceweasel browser plugin to
+install to get support for a given MIME type. Thanks to
+<a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MozillaTeam/Plugins">specifications
+done by Ubuntu</a> and Mozilla, it is possible to do this in Debian.
+Unfortunately, not very many packages provide the needed meta
+information, Anyway, here is a small script to look up all browser
+plugin packages announcing ther MIME support using this specification:</p>
+
+<pre>
+#!/usr/bin/python
+import sys
+import apt
+def pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
+ cache = apt.Cache()
+ cache.open(None)
+ thepkgs = []
+ for pkg in cache:
+ version = pkg.candidate
+ if version is None:
+ version = pkg.installed
+ if version is None:
+ continue
+ record = version.record
+ if not record.has_key('Npp-MimeType'):
+ continue
+ mime_types = record['Npp-MimeType'].split(',')
+ for t in mime_types:
+ t = t.rstrip().strip()
+ if t == mimetype:
+ thepkgs.append(pkg.name)
+ return thepkgs
+mimetype = "audio/ogg"
+if 1 < len(sys.argv):
+ mimetype = sys.argv[1]
+print "Browser plugin packages supporting %s:" % mimetype
+for pkg in pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
+ print " %s" %pkg
+</pre>
+
+<p>It can be used like this to look up a given MIME type:</p>
+
+<pre>
+% ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype
+Browser plugin packages supporting audio/ogg:
+ gecko-mediaplayer
+% ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype application/x-shockwave-flash
+Browser plugin packages supporting application/x-shockwave-flash:
+ browser-plugin-gnash
+%
+</pre>
+
+<p>In Ubuntu this mechanism is combined with support in the browser
+itself to query for plugins and propose to install the needed
+packages. It would be great if Debian supported such feature too. Is
+anyone working on adding it?</p>
+
+<p><strong>Update 2013-01-18 14:20</strong>: The Debian BTS
+request for icweasel support for this feature is
+<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/484010">#484010</a> from 2008 (and
+<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/698426">#698426</a> from today). Lack
+of manpower and wish for a different design is the reason thus feature
+is not yet in iceweasel from Debian.</p>
+
+ </div>
+ <div class="tags">
+
+
+ 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>.
+
+
+ </div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="padding"></div>
+
+ <div class="entry">
+ <div class="title">
+ <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>
+ </div>
+ <div class="date">
+ 16th January 2013
+ </div>
+ <div class="body">
+ <p>The <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/AppStreamDebianProposal">DEP-11
+proposal to add AppStream information to the Debian archive</a>, is a
+proposal to make it possible for a Desktop application to propose to
+the user some package to install to gain support for a given MIME
+type, font, library etc. that is currently missing. With such
+mechanism in place, it would be possible for the desktop to
+automatically propose and install leocad if some LDraw file is
+downloaded by the browser.</p>
+
+<p>To get some idea about the current content of the archive, I decided
+to write a simple program to extract all .desktop files from the
+Debian archive and look up the claimed MIME support there. The result
+can be found on the
+<a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/pub/AppStreamTest">Skolelinux FTP
+site</a>. Using the collected information, it become possible to
+answer the question in the title. Here are the 20 most supported MIME
+types in Debian stable (Squeeze), testing (Wheezy) and unstable (Sid).
+The complete list is available from the link above.</p>
+
+<p><strong>Debian Stable:</strong></p>
+
+<pre>
+ count MIME type
+ ----- -----------------------
+ 32 text/plain
+ 30 audio/mpeg
+ 29 image/png
+ 28 image/jpeg
+ 27 application/ogg
+ 26 audio/x-mp3
+ 25 image/tiff
+ 25 image/gif
+ 22 image/bmp
+ 22 audio/x-wav
+ 20 audio/x-flac
+ 19 audio/x-mpegurl
+ 18 video/x-ms-asf
+ 18 audio/x-musepack
+ 18 audio/x-mpeg
+ 18 application/x-ogg
+ 17 video/mpeg
+ 17 audio/x-scpls
+ 17 audio/ogg
+ 16 video/x-ms-wmv
+</pre>
+
+<p><strong>Debian Testing:</strong></p>
+
+<pre>
+ count MIME type
+ ----- -----------------------
+ 33 text/plain
+ 32 image/png
+ 32 image/jpeg
+ 29 audio/mpeg
+ 27 image/gif
+ 26 image/tiff
+ 26 application/ogg
+ 25 audio/x-mp3
+ 22 image/bmp
+ 21 audio/x-wav
+ 19 audio/x-mpegurl
+ 19 audio/x-mpeg
+ 18 video/mpeg
+ 18 audio/x-scpls
+ 18 audio/x-flac
+ 18 application/x-ogg
+ 17 video/x-ms-asf
+ 17 text/html
+ 17 audio/x-musepack
+ 16 image/x-xbitmap
+</pre>
+
+<p><strong>Debian Unstable:</strong></p>
+
+<pre>
+ count MIME type
+ ----- -----------------------
+ 31 text/plain
+ 31 image/png
+ 31 image/jpeg
+ 29 audio/mpeg
+ 28 application/ogg
+ 27 image/gif
+ 26 image/tiff
+ 26 audio/x-mp3
+ 23 audio/x-wav
+ 22 image/bmp
+ 21 audio/x-flac
+ 20 audio/x-mpegurl
+ 19 audio/x-mpeg
+ 18 video/x-ms-asf
+ 18 video/mpeg
+ 18 audio/x-scpls
+ 18 application/x-ogg
+ 17 audio/x-musepack
+ 16 video/x-ms-wmv
+ 16 video/x-msvideo
+</pre>
+
+<p>I am told that PackageKit can provide an API to access the kind of
+information mentioned in DEP-11. I have not yet had time to look at
+it, but hope the PackageKit people in Debian are on top of these
+issues.</p>
+
+<p><strong>Update 2013-01-16 13:35</strong>: Updated numbers after
+discovering a typo in my script.</p>
+
+ </div>
+ <div class="tags">
+
+
+ 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>.
+
+
+ </div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="padding"></div>
+
<div class="entry">
<div class="title">
<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>
this shell script:</p>
<pre>
-cat $(find /sys -name modalias) | sort -u
+find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u
</pre>
<p>The supported modalias globs for a given kernel module can be found
one can use the following shell script:</p>
<pre>
- for id in $(cat $(find /sys -name modalias)|sort -u); do \
+ for id in $(find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u); do \
echo "$id" ; \
/sbin/modprobe --show-depends "$id"|sed 's/^/ /' ; \
done
machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
<a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel</a>.</p>
+<p><strong>Update 2013-01-15:</strong> Rewrite "cat $(find ...)" to
+"find ... -print0 | xargs -0 cat" to make sure it handle directories
+in /sys/ with space in them.</p>
+
</div>
<div class="tags">
<li>2013
<ul>
-<li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/01/">January (6)</a></li>
+<li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/01/">January (9)</a></li>
</ul></li>
<li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bsa">bsa (2)</a></li>
- <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian (64)</a></li>
+ <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian (67)</a></li>
<li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu (118)</a></li>
<li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/drivstoffpriser">drivstoffpriser (4)</a></li>
- <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english (170)</a></li>
+ <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english (173)</a></li>
<li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami (21)</a></li>
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