- <div class="entry">
- <div class="title"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">Lets make hardware dongles easier to use in Debian</a></div>
- <div class="date"> 9th January 2013</div>
- <div class="body"><p>One thing that annoys me with Debian and Linux distributions in
-general, is that there is a great package management system with the
-ability to automatically install software packages by downloading them
-from the distribution mirrors, but no way to get it to automatically
-install the packages I need to use the hardware I plug into my
-machine. Even if the package to use it is easily available from the
-Linux distribution. When I plug in a LEGO Mindstorms NXT, it could
-suggest to automatically install the python-nxt, nbc and t2n packages
-I need to talk to it. When I plug in a Yubikey, it could propose the
-yubikey-personalization package. The information required to do this
-is available, but no-one have pulled all the pieces together.</p>
-
-<p>Some years ago, I proposed to
-<a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg01206.html">use
-the discover subsystem to implement this</a>. The idea is fairly
-simple:
-
-<ul>
-
-<li>Add a desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ pointing to a program
- starting when a user log in.</li>
-
-<li>Set this program up to listen for kernel events emitted when new
- hardware is inserted into the computer.</li>
-
-<li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware ID in a
- database mapping to packages, and take note of any non-installed
- packages.</li>
-
-<li>Show a message to the user proposing to install the discovered
- package, and make it easy to install it.</li>
-
-</ul>
-
-<p>I am not sure what the best way to implement this is, but my
-initial idea was to use dbus events to discover new hardware, the
-discover database to find packages and
-<a href="http://www.packagekit.org/">PackageKit</a> to install
-packages.</p>
-
-<p>Yesterday, I found time to try to implement this idea, and the
-draft package is now checked into
-<a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
-Debian Edu subversion repository</a>. In the process, I updated the
-<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover-data.html">discover-data</a>
-package to map the USB ids of LEGO Mindstorms and Yubikey devices to
-the relevant packages in Debian, and uploaded a new version
-2.2013.01.09 to unstable. I also discovered that the current
-<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover.html">discover</a>
-package in Debian no longer discovered any USB devices, because
-/proc/bus/usb/devices is no longer present. I ported it to use
-libusb as a fall back option to get it working. The fixed package
-version 2.1.2-6 is now in experimental (didn't upload it to unstable
-because of the freeze).</p>
-
-<p>With this prototype in place, I can insert my Yubikey, and get this
-desktop notification to show up (only once, the first time it is
-inserted):</p>
-
-<p align="center"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-09-hw-autoinstall.png"></p>
-
-<p>For this prototype to be really useful, some way to automatically
-install the proposed packages by pressing the "Please install
-program(s)" button should to be implemented.</p>
-
-<p>If this idea seem useful to you, and you want to help make it
-happen, please help me update the discover-data database with mappings
-from hardware to Debian packages. Check if 'discover-pkginstall -l'
-list the package you would like to have installed when a given
-hardware device is inserted into your computer, and report bugs using
-reportbug if it isn't. Or, if you know of a better way to provide
-such mapping, please let me know.</p>
-
-<p>This prototype need more work, and there are several questions that
-should be considered before it is ready for production use. Is dbus
-the correct way to detect new hardware? At the moment I look for HAL
-dbus events on the system bus, because that is the events I could see
-on my Debian Squeeze KDE desktop. Are there better events to use?
-How should the user be notified? Is the desktop notification
-mechanism the best option, or should the background daemon raise a
-popup instead? How should packages be installed? When should they
-not be installed?</p>
-
-<p>If you want to help getting such feature implemented in Debian,
-please send me an email. :)</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>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
-
-
- </div>
- </div>
- <div class="padding"></div>
-
- <div class="entry">
- <div class="title"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_IRC_channel_for_LEGO_designers_using_Debian.html">New IRC channel for LEGO designers using Debian</a></div>
- <div class="date"> 2nd January 2013</div>
- <div class="body"><p>During Christmas, I have worked a bit on the Debian support for
-<a href="http://mindstorms.lego.com/en-us/Default.aspx">LEGO Mindstorm
-NXT</a>. My son and I have played a bit with my NXT set, and I
-discovered I had to build all the tools myself because none were
-already in Debian Squeeze. If Debian support for LEGO is something
-you care about, please join me on the IRC channel
-<a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">#debian-lego</a> (server
-irc.debian.org). There is a lot that could be done to improve the
-Debian support for LEGO designers. For example both CAD software
-and Mindstorm compilers are missing. :)</p>
-
-<p>Update 2012-01-03: A
-<a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">project page</a>
-including links to Lego related packages is now available.</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>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot</a>.
-
-
- </div>
- </div>
- <div class="padding"></div>
-
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