<link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/</link>
+ <item>
+ <title>Teaching vmdebootstrap to create Raspberry Pi SD card images</title>
+ <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Teaching_vmdebootstrap_to_create_Raspberry_Pi_SD_card_images.html</link>
+ <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Teaching_vmdebootstrap_to_create_Raspberry_Pi_SD_card_images.html</guid>
+ <pubDate>Sun, 27 Oct 2013 17:00:00 +0100</pubDate>
+ <description><p>The
+<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/v/vmdebootstrap.html">vmdebootstrap</a>
+program is a a very nice system to create virtual machine images. It
+create a image file, add a partition table, mount it and run
+debootstrap in the mounted directory to create a Debian system on a
+stick. Yesterday, I decided to try to teach it how to make images for
+<a href="https://wiki.debian.org/RaspberryPi">Raspberry Pi</a>, as part
+of a plan to simplify the build system for
+<a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">the FreedomBox
+project</a>. The FreedomBox project already uses vmdebootstrap for
+the virtualbox images, but its current build system made multistrap
+based system for Dreamplug images, and it is lacking support for
+Raspberry Pi.</p>
+
+<p>Armed with the knowledge on how to build "foreign" (aka non-native
+architecture) chroots for Raspberry Pi, I dived into the vmdebootstrap
+code and adjusted it to be able to build armel images on my amd64
+Debian laptop. I ended up giving vmdebootstrap five new options,
+allowing me to replicate the image creation process I use to make
+<a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Raspberry_Pi_based_batman_adv_Mesh_network_node.html">Debian
+Jessie based mesh node images for the Raspberry Pi</a>. First, the
+<tt>--foreign /path/to/binfm_handler</tt> option tell vmdebootstrap to
+call debootstrap with --foreign and to copy the handler into the
+generated chroot before running the second stage. This allow
+vmdebootstrap to create armel images on an amd64 host. Next I added
+two new options <tt>--bootsize size</tt> and <tt>--boottype
+fstype</tt> to teach it to create a separate /boot/ partition with the
+given file system type, allowing me to create an image with a vfat
+partition for the /boot/ stuff. I also added a <tt>--variant
+variant</tt> option to allow me to create smaller images without the
+Debian base system packages installed. Finally, I added an option
+<tt>--no-extlinux</tt> to tell vmdebootstrap to not install extlinux
+as a boot loader. It is not needed on the Raspberry Pi and probably
+most other non-x86 architectures. The changes were accepted by the
+upstream author of vmdebootstrap yesterday and today, and is now
+available from
+<a href="http://git.liw.fi/cgi-bin/cgit/cgit.cgi/vmdebootstrap/">the
+upstream project page</a>.</p>
+
+<p>To use it to build a Raspberry Pi image using Debian Jessie, first
+create a small script (the customize script) to add the non-free
+binary blob needed to boot the Raspberry Pi and the APT source
+list:</p>
+
+<p><pre>
+#!/bin/sh
+set -e # Exit on first error
+rootdir="$1"
+cd "$rootdir"
+cat &lt;&lt;EOF > etc/apt/sources.list
+deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ jessie main contrib non-free
+EOF
+# Install non-free binary blob needed to boot Raspberry Pi. This
+# install a kernel somewhere too.
+wget https://raw.github.com/Hexxeh/rpi-update/master/rpi-update \
+ -O $rootdir/usr/bin/rpi-update
+chmod a+x $rootdir/usr/bin/rpi-update
+mkdir -p $rootdir/lib/modules
+touch $rootdir/boot/start.elf
+chroot $rootdir rpi-update
+</pre></p>
+
+<p>Next, fetch the latest vmdebootstrap script and call it like this
+to build the image:</p>
+
+<pre>
+sudo ./vmdebootstrap \
+ --variant minbase \
+ --arch armel \
+ --distribution jessie \
+ --mirror http://http.debian.net/debian \
+ --image test.img \
+ --size 600M \
+ --bootsize 64M \
+ --boottype vfat \
+ --log-level debug \
+ --verbose \
+ --no-kernel \
+ --no-extlinux \
+ --root-password raspberry \
+ --hostname raspberrypi \
+ --foreign /usr/bin/qemu-arm-static \
+ --customize `pwd`/customize \
+ --package netbase \
+ --package git-core \
+ --package binutils \
+ --package ca-certificates \
+ --package wget \
+ --package kmod
+</pre></p>
+
+<p>The list of packages being installed are the ones needed by
+rpi-update to make the image bootable on the Raspberry Pi, with the
+exception of netbase, which is needed by debootstrap to find
+/etc/hosts with the minbase variant. I really wish there was a way to
+set up an Raspberry Pi using only packages in the Debian archive, but
+that is not possible as far as I know, because it boots from the GPU
+using a non-free binary blob.</p>
+
+<p>The build host need debootstrap, kpartx and qemu-user-static and
+probably a few others installed. I have not checked the complete
+build dependency list.</p>
+
+<p>The resulting image will not use the hardware floating point unit
+on the Raspberry PI, because the armel architecture in Debian is not
+optimized for that use. So the images created will be a bit slower
+than <a href="http://www.raspbian.org/">Raspbian</a> based images.</p>
+</description>
+ </item>
+
<item>
<title>Det er jo makta som er mest sårbar ved massiv overvåkning av Internett</title>
<link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Det_er_jo_makta_som_er_mest_s_rbar_ved_massiv_overv_kning_av_Internett.html</link>
<p>For å ta et lite eksempel: Stortingets nettsted,
<a href="http://www.stortinget.no/">www.stortinget.no</a> (og
forsåvidt også
-<a href=">http://data.stortinget.no/">data.stortinget.no</a>),
+<a href="http://data.stortinget.no/">data.stortinget.no</a>),
inneholder informasjon om det som foregår på Stortinget, og jeg antar
de største brukerne av informasjonen der er representanter og
rådgivere på Stortinget. Intet overraskende med det. Det som derimot
Analytics</a>, hvilket gjør at enhver som besøker nettsidene der også
rapporterer om besøket via Internett-linjer som passerer Sverige,
England og videre til USA. Det betyr at informasjon om ethvert besøk
-på stortingets nettsider kan snappes opp av Svensk, britisk og USAs
+på stortingets nettsider kan snappes opp av svensk, britisk og USAs
etterretningsvesen. De kan dermed holde et øye med hvilke
Stortingssaker stortingsrepresentantene synes er interessante å sjekke
ut, og hvilke sider rådgivere og andre på stortinget synes er
-interessant å besøke. Stortingets bruk av Google Analytics gjør det
-dermed enkelt for utenlands etteretning å spore representantenes
-aktivitet og interesse. Hvis noen av representantene bruker Google
-Mail eller noen andre tjenestene som krever innlogging, så vil det
-være enda enklere å finne ut nøyaktig hvilke personer som bruker
-hvilke nettlesere og dermed knytte informasjonen opp til
-enkeltpersoner på Stortinget.</p>
+interessant å besøke, når de gjør det og hvilke andre representanter
+som sjekker de samme sidene omtrent samtidig. Stortingets bruk av
+Google Analytics gjør det dermed enkelt for utenlands etteretning å
+spore representantenes aktivitet og interesse. Hvis noen av
+representantene bruker Google Mail eller noen andre tjenestene som
+krever innlogging, så vil det være enda enklere å finne ut nøyaktig
+hvilke personer som bruker hvilke nettlesere og dermed knytte
+informasjonen opp til enkeltpersoner på Stortinget.</p>
<p>Og jo flere nettsteder som bruker Google Analytics, jo bedre
oversikt over stortingsrepresentantenes lesevaner og interesse blir
<pubDate>Mon, 21 Oct 2013 11:40:00 +0200</pubDate>
<description><p>The last few days I have been experimenting with
<a href="http://www.open-mesh.org/projects/batman-adv/wiki">the
-batman-adv mech technology</a>. I want to gain some experience to see
+batman-adv mesh technology</a>. I want to gain some experience to see
if it will fit <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">the
Freedombox project</a>, and together with my neighbors try to build a
mesh network around the park where I live. Batman-adv is a layer 2
projects / homepage.git / blobdiff