+ <div class="entry">
+ <div class="title"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_fix_a_Thinkpad_X230_with_a_broken_180_GB_SSD_disk.html">How to fix a Thinkpad X230 with a broken 180 GB SSD disk</a></div>
+ <div class="date">17th July 2013</div>
+ <div class="body"><p>Today I switched to
+<a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">my
+new laptop</a>. I've previously written about the problems I had with
+my new Thinkpad X230, which was delivered with an
+<a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Intel_SSD_520_Series_180_GB_with_Lenovo_firmware_still_lock_up_from_sustained_writes.html">180
+GB Intel SSD disk with Lenovo firmware</a> that did not handle
+sustained writes. My hardware supplier have been very forthcoming in
+trying to find a solution, and after first trying with another
+identical 180 GB disks they decided to send me a 256 GB Samsung SSD
+disk instead to fix it once and for all. The Samsung disk survived
+the installation of Debian with encrypted disks (filling the disk with
+random data during installation killed the first two), and I thus
+decided to trust it with my data. I have installed it as a Debian Edu
+Wheezy roaming workstation hooked up with my Debian Edu Squeeze main
+server at home using Kerberos and LDAP, and will use it as my work
+station from now on.</p>
+
+<p>As this is a solid state disk with no moving parts, I believe the
+Debian Wheezy default installation need to be tuned a bit to increase
+performance and increase life time of the disk. The Linux kernel and
+user space applications do not yet adjust automatically to such
+environment. To make it easier for my self, I created a draft Debian
+package <tt>ssd-setup</tt> to handle this tuning. The
+<a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/ssd-setup.git">source
+for the ssd-setup package</a> is available from collab-maint, and it
+is set up to adjust the setup of the machine by just installing the
+package. If there is any non-SSD disk in the machine, the package
+will refuse to install, as I did not try to write any logic to sort
+file systems in SSD and non-SSD file systems.</p>
+
+<p>I consider the package a draft, as I am a bit unsure how to best
+set up Debian Wheezy with an SSD. It is adjusted to my use case,
+where I set up the machine with one large encrypted partition (in
+addition to /boot), put LVM on top of this and set up partitions on
+top of this again. See the README file in the package source for the
+references I used to pick the settings. At the moment these
+parameters are tuned:</p>
+
+<ul>
+
+<li>Set up cryptsetup to pass TRIM commands to the physical disk
+ (adding discard to /etc/crypttab)</li>
+
+<li>Set up LVM to pass on TRIM commands to the underlying device (in
+ this case a cryptsetup partition) by changing issue_discards from
+ 0 to 1 in /etc/lvm/lvm.conf.</li>
+
+<li>Set relatime as a file system option for ext3 and ext4 file
+ systems.</li>
+
+<li>Tell swap to use TRIM commands by adding 'discard' to
+ /etc/fstab.</li>
+
+<li>Change I/O scheduler from cfq to deadline using a udev rule.</li>
+
+<li>Run fstrim on every ext3 and ext4 file system every night (from
+ cron.daily).</li>
+
+<li>Adjust sysctl values vm.swappiness to 1 and vm.vfs_cache_pressure
+ to 50 to reduce the kernel eagerness to swap out processes.</li>
+
+</ul>
+
+<p>During installation, I cancelled the part where the installer fill
+the disk with random data, as this would kill the SSD performance for
+little gain. My goal with the encrypted file system is to ensure
+those stealing my laptop end up with a brick and not a working
+computer. I have no hope in keeping the really resourceful people
+from getting the data on the disk (see
+<a href="http://xkcd.com/538/">XKCD #538</a> for an explanation why).
+Thus I concluded that adding the discard option to crypttab is the
+right thing to do.</p>
+
+<p>I considered using the noop I/O scheduler, as several recommended
+it for SSD, but others recommended deadline and a benchmark I found
+indicated that deadline might be better for interactive use.</p>
+
+<p>I also considered using the 'discard' file system option for ext3
+and ext4, but read that it would give a performance hit ever time a
+file is removed, and thought it best to that that slowdown once a day
+instead of during my work.</p>
+
+<p>My package do not set up tmpfs on /var/run, /var/lock and /tmp, as
+this is already done by Debian Edu.</p>
+
+<p>I have not yet started on the user space tuning. I expect
+iceweasel need some tuning, and perhaps other applications too, but
+have not yet had time to investigate those parts.</p>
+
+<p>The package should work on Ubuntu too, but I have not yet tested it
+there.</p>
+
+<p>As for the answer to the question in the title of this blog post,
+as far as I know, the only solution I know about is to replace the
+disk. It might be possible to flash it with Intel firmware instead of
+the Lenovo firmware. But I have not tried and did not want to do so
+without approval from Lenovo as I wanted to keep the warranty on the
+disk until a solution was found and they wanted the broken disks
+back.</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/Intel_SSD_520_Series_180_GB_with_Lenovo_firmware_still_lock_up_from_sustained_writes.html">Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB with Lenovo firmware still lock up from sustained writes</a></div>
+ <div class="date">10th July 2013</div>
+ <div class="body"><p>A few days ago, I wrote about
+<a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">the
+problems I experienced with my new X230 and its SSD disk</a>, which
+was dying during installation because it is unable to cope with
+sustained write. My supplier is in contact with
+<a href="http://www.lenovo.com/">Lenovo</a>, and they wanted to send a
+replacement disk to try to fix the problem. They decided to send an
+identical model, so my hopes for a permanent fix was slim.</p>
+
+<p>Anyway, today I got the replacement disk and tried to install
+Debian Edu Wheezy with encrypted disk on it. The new disk have the
+same firmware version as the original. This time my hope raised
+slightly as the installation progressed, as the original disk used to
+die after 4-7% of the disk was written to, while this time it kept
+going past 10%, 20%, 40% and even past 50%. But around 60%, the disk
+died again and I was back on square one. I still do not have a new
+laptop with a disk I can trust. I can not live with a disk that might
+lock up when I download a new
+<a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> ISO or
+other large files. I look forward to hearing from my supplier with
+the next proposal from Lenovo.</p>
+
+<p>The original disk is marked Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB,
+11S0C38722Z1ZNME35X1TR, ISN: CVCV321407HB180EGN, SA: G57560302, FW:
+LF1i, 29MAY2013, PBA: G39779-300, LBA 351,651,888, LI P/N: 0C38722,
+Pb-free 2LI, LC P/N: 16-200366, WWN: 55CD2E40002756C4, Model:
+SSDSC2BW180A3L 2.5" 6Gb/s SATA SSD 180G 5V 1A, ASM P/N 0C38732, FRU
+P/N 45N8295, P0C38732.</p>
+
+<p>The replacement disk is marked Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB,
+11S0C38722Z1ZNDE34N0L0, ISN: CVCV315306RK180EGN, SA: G57560-302, FW:
+LF1i, 22APR2013, PBA: G39779-300, LBA 351,651,888, LI P/N: 0C38722,
+Pb-free 2LI, LC P/N: 16-200366, WWN: 55CD2E40000AB69E, Model:
+SSDSC2BW180A3L 2.5" 6Gb/s SATA SSD 180G 5V 1A, ASM P/N 0C38732, FRU
+P/N 45N8295, P0C38732.</p>
+
+<p>The only difference is in the first number (serial number?), ISN,
+SA, date and WNPP values. Mentioning all the details here in case
+someone is able to use the information to find a way to identify the
+failing disk among working ones (if any such working disk actually
+exist).</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/July_13th__Debian_Ubuntu_BSP_and_Skolelinux_Debian_Edu_developer_gathering_in_Oslo.html">July 13th: Debian/Ubuntu BSP and Skolelinux/Debian Edu developer gathering in Oslo</a></div>
<div class="date"> 9th July 2013</div>
<p>It starts 10:00 and continue until late evening. Everyone is
welcome, and there is no fee to participate. There is on the other
hand limited space, and only room for 30 people. Please put your name
-on <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/BSP/2013/07/13/no/Oslo">the even
+on <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/BSP/2013/07/13/no/Oslo">the event
wiki page</a> if you plan to join us.</p>
</div>
<div class="tags">
</div>
<div class="padding"></div>
- <div class="entry">
- <div class="title"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Fixing_the_Linux_black_screen_of_death_on_machines_with_Intel_HD_video.html">Fixing the Linux black screen of death on machines with Intel HD video</a></div>
- <div class="date">11th June 2013</div>
- <div class="body"><p>When installing RedHat, Fedora, Debian and Ubuntu on some machines,
-the screen just turn black when Linux boot, either during installation
-or on first boot from the hard disk. I've seen it once in a while the
-last few years, but only recently understood the cause. I've seen it
-on HP laptops, and on my latest acquaintance the Packard Bell laptop.
-The reason seem to be in the wiring of some laptops. The system to
-control the screen background light is inverted, so when Linux try to
-turn the brightness fully on, it end up turning it off instead. I do
-not know which Linux drivers are affected, but this post is about the
-i915 driver used by the
-<a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Packard Bell
-EasyNote LV</a>, Thinkpad X40 and many other laptops.</p>
-
-<p>The problem can be worked around two ways. Either by adding
-i915.invert_brightness=1 as a kernel option, or by adding a file in
-/etc/modprobe.d/ to tell modprobe to add the invert_brightness=1
-option when it load the i915 kernel module. On Debian and Ubuntu, it
-can be done by running these commands as root:</p>
-
-<pre>
-echo options i915 invert_brightness=1 | tee /etc/modprobe.d/i915.conf
-update-initramfs -u -k all
-</pre>
-
-<p>Since March 2012 there is
-<a href="http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=4dca20efb1a9c2efefc28ad2867e5d6c3f5e1955">a
-mechanism in the Linux kernel</a> to tell the i915 driver which
-hardware have this problem, and get the driver to invert the
-brightness setting automatically. To use it, one need to add a row in
-<a href="http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c">the
-intel_quirks array</a> in the driver source
-<tt>drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c</tt> (look for "<tt>static
-struct intel_quirk intel_quirks</tt>"), specifying the PCI device
-number (vendor number 8086 is assumed) and subdevice vendor and device
-number.</p>
-
-<p>My Packard Bell EasyNote LV got this output from <tt>lspci
--vvnn</tt> for the video card in question:</p>
-
-<p><pre>
-00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation \
- 3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller [8086:0156] \
- (rev 09) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
- Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device [1025:0688]
- Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- \
- ParErr- Stepping- SE RR- FastB2B- DisINTx+
- Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- \
- <TAbort- <MAbort->SERR- <PERR- INTx-
- Latency: 0
- Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 42
- Region 0: Memory at c2000000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4M]
- Region 2: Memory at b0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
- Region 4: I/O ports at 4000 [size=64]
- Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled]
- Capabilities: <access denied>
- Kernel driver in use: i915
-</pre></p>
-
-<p>The resulting intel_quirks entry would then look like this:</p>
-
-<p><pre>
-struct intel_quirk intel_quirks[] = {
- ...
- /* Packard Bell EasyNote LV11HC needs invert brightness quirk */
- { 0x0156, 0x1025, 0x0688, quirk_invert_brightness },
- ...
-}
-</pre></p>
-
-<p>According to the kernel module instructions (as seen using
-<tt>modinfo i915</tt>), information about hardware needing the
-invert_brightness flag should be sent to the
-<a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/dri-devel">dri-devel
-(at) lists.freedesktop.org</a> mailing list to reach the kernel
-developers. But my email about the laptop sent 2013-06-03 have not
-yet shown up in
-<a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/dri-devel/2013-June/thread.html">the
-web archive for the mailing list</a>, so I suspect they do not accept
-emails from non-subscribers. Because of this, I sent my patch also to
-the Debian bug tracking system instead as
-<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/710938">BTS report #710938</a>, to make
-sure the patch is not lost.</p>
-
-<p>Unfortunately, it is not enough to fix the kernel to get Laptops
-with this problem working properly with Linux. If you use Gnome, your
-worries should be over at this point. But if you use KDE, there is
-something in KDE ignoring the invert_brightness setting and turning on
-the screen during login. I've reported it to Debian as
-<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/711237">BTS report #711237</a>, and
-have no idea yet how to figure out exactly what subsystem is doing
-this. Perhaps you can help? Perhaps you know what the Gnome
-developers did to handle this, and this can give a clue to the KDE
-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>
-</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/Third_alpha_release_of_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_based_on_Debian_Wheezy.html">Third alpha release of Debian Edu / Skolelinux based on Debian Wheezy</a></div>
- <div class="date">10th June 2013</div>
- <div class="body"><p>The third wheezy based alpha release of Debian Edu was wrapped up
-today. This is the release announcement:</p>
-
-<p><strong>New features for Debian Edu 7.0.0 alpha2 released
-2013-06-10</strong></p>
-
-<p>This is the release notes for for Debian Edu / Skolelinux 7.0.0 edu
-alpha2, based on Debian with codename "Wheezy".</p>
-
-<p><strong>About Debian Edu and Skolelinux</strong></p>
-
-<p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu, also known as
-Skolelinux</a>, is a Linux distribution based on Debian providing an
-out-of-the box environment of a completely configured school
-network. Immediately after installation a school server running all
-services needed for a school network is set up just waiting for users
-and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable Web-UI. A netbooting
-environment is prepared using PXE, so after initial installation of
-the main server from CD, DVD or USB stick all other machines can be
-installed via the network. The provided school server provides LDAP
-database and Kerberos authentication service, centralized home
-directories, DHCP server, web proxy and many other services. The
-desktop contains
-<a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Educational_applications_included_in_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux__the_screenshot_collection____.html">more
-than 60 educational software packages</a> and more are available from
-the Debian archive, and schools can choose between KDE, Gnome, LXDE
-and Xfce desktop environment.</p>
-
-<p>This is the third test release based on Debian Wheezy. Basically
-this is an updated and slightly improved version compared to the
-Squeeze release.</p>
-
-<p><strong>Software updates</strong></p>
-
-<ul>
-
-<li>Iceweasel was updated from 10 to 17. (DSA 2699-1)
-<li>Updated libxv (DSA-2674), libxvmc (DSA-2675), libxfixes (DSA-2676), libxrender (DSA-2677), mesa (DSA-2678), xserver-xorg-video-openchrome (DSA-2679), libxt (DSA-2680), libxcursor (DSA-2681), libxext (DSA-2682), libxi (DSA-2683), libxrandr (DSA-2684), libxp (DSA-2685), libxcb (DSA-2686), libfs (DSA-2687), libxres (DSA-2688), libxtst (DSA-2689), libxxf86dga (DSA-2690), libxinerama (DSA-2691), libxxf86vm (DSA-2692), libx11 (DSA-2693), chromium-browser (DSA-2695), gnutls26 (DSA-2697), wireshark (DSA-2700), krb5 (DSA-2701), telepathy-gabble (DSA-2702) and subversion (DSA-2703).
-<li>Switched xrdp on thin client servers to use tightvncserver instead of xvnc4.
-<li>Now install software oscilloscope xoscope by default.
-<li>Now install music tools gtick, lingot and pianobooster by default.
-
-</ul>
-
-<p><strong>Other changes</strong></p>
-
-<ul>
-
-<li>The subnet-change script is now able to change all files needing a change on the main-server when changing the IP network used.
-<li>Updated translation of the installation.
-<li>New Romanian translation.
-<li>Fix security problem causing root and first user password to no longer show up in /var/cache/debconf/templates.dat.
-<li>Fix roaming workstation setup (Closed in libpam-mklocaluser/0.8, libpam-mklocaluser/0.8~deb7u1: #706753: libpam-mklocaluser: Fail to create local user during first login).
-<li>Made roaming workstation setup more robust in non-Debian Edu environments.
-<li>New script debian-edu-bless to transform a Debian installation to a Debian Edu profile.
-<li>Adjust Iceweasel setup to improve performance when $HOME is on NFS.
-<li>More testsuite tests.
-<li>Make automatic proxy configuration more robust.
-<li>Adjust GOsa² GUI configuration.
-
-<li>Update thin client and diskless workstation setup to work with
-LTSP in Wheezy.</li>
-
-<li>Diskless workstations now run out of the box -- no need to set
-them up with GOsa².</li>
-
-<li>Update IMAP server setup. </li>
-
-<li>Fix login into Skolelinux Backup Tool (Closed in
-slbackup-php/0.4.4-1: #700257: slbackup-php: Fails to submit correctly
-entered password). </li>
-
-</ul>
-
-<p><strong>Known issues</strong></p>
-
-<ul>
-
-<li>DVD binary and source images are not yet ready.</li>
-
-<li>No mass import of user account data in GOsa (ldif or csv)
-available yet (Open in gosa/2.7.4-4: #698840: gosa-plugin-ldapmanager:
-missing import feature).</li>
-
-<li>Missing artwork for the KDE desktop (and probably a few others). </li>
-
-<li>KDE Debian submenu lacks icons (Closed: #502192: menu-xdg: invents
-own icon names instead of using existing). This will remain
-unfixed.</li>
-
-</ul>
-
-<p><strong>Where to get it</strong></p>
-
-<p>To download the multiarch netinstall CD release you can use</p>
-
-<ul>
-
-<li><a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.0+edu0~a2-CD.iso">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.0+edu0~a2-CD.iso</a></li>
-
-<li><a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.0+edu0~a2-CD.iso">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.0+edu0~a2-CD.iso</a></li>
-
-<li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.0+edu0~a2-CD.iso .</li>
-
-</ul>
-
-<p>The MD5SUM of this image is: 27bbcace407743382f3c42c08dbe8178
-<br>The SHA1SUM of this image is: e35f7d7908566cd3075375b3721fa10ee420d419</p>
-
-<p><strong>How to report bugs</strong></p>
-
-<p><a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs</a>
-</div>
- <div class="tags">
-
-
- Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
-
-
- </div>
- </div>
- <div class="padding"></div>
-
<p style="text-align: right;"><a href="index.rss"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/xml.gif" alt="RSS feed" width="36" height="14" /></a></p>
<div id="sidebar">
<li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/06/">June (10)</a></li>
-<li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/07/">July (4)</a></li>
+<li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/07/">July (6)</a></li>
</ul></li>
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+ <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian (83)</a></li>
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+ <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english (209)</a></li>
<li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami (21)</a></li>
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