X-Git-Url: http://pere.pagekite.me/gitweb/homepage.git/blobdiff_plain/2303a53e3000b721cc73c3bfe81b6d2911b51a35..5dd63715ebae322e26b87a6a488a11da2e899ac3:/blog/index.html diff --git a/blog/index.html b/blog/index.html index 8b7c219658..f76abb4915 100644 --- a/blog/index.html +++ b/blog/index.html @@ -19,6 +19,154 @@ +
+
The Pyra - handheld computer with Debian preinstalled
+
4th May 2016
+
A friend of mine made me aware of +The Pyra, a +handheld computer which will be delivered with Debian preinstalled. I +would love to get one of those for my birthday. :)

+ +

The machine is a complete ARM-based PC with micro HDMI, SATA, USB +plugs and many others connectors, and include a full keyboard and a 5" +LCD touch screen. The 6000mAh battery is claimed to provide a whole +day of battery life time, but I have not seen any independent tests +confirming this. The vendor is still collecting preorders, and the +last I heard last night was that 22 more orders were needed before +production started.

+ +

As far as I know, this is the first handheld preinstalled with +Debian. Please let me know if you know of any others. Is it the +first computer being sold with Debian preinstalled?

+
+
+ + + Tags: debian, english. + + +
+
+
+ +
+
NUUG contests Norwegian police DNS seizure of popcorn-time.no
+
18th April 2016
+

It is days like today I am really happy to be a member of +the Norwegian Unix User group, a +member association for those of us believing in free software, open +standards and unix-like operating systems. NUUG announced today it +will +try +to bring the seizure of the DNS domain popcorn-time.no as +unlawful, to stand up for the principle that writing about a +controversial topic is not infringing copyrights, and censuring web +pages by hijacking DNS domain should be decided by the courts, not the +police. The DNS domain was seized by the Norwegian National Authority +for Investigation and Prosecution of Economic and Environmental Crime +a month ago. I hope this bring more paying members to NUUG to give +the association the financial muscle needed to bring this case as far +as it must go to stop this kind of DNS hijacking.

+
+
+ + + Tags: english, nuug, offentlig innsyn, opphavsrett. + + +
+
+
+ +
+
Ny utgave (v2.2) av den frie norske stavekontrollen gitt ut
+
15th April 2016
+

I dag tok jeg mot til meg og pakket sammen en ny versjon av den +frie norske stavekontrollen, ca. tre og et halvt år etter forrige +gang. Resultatet kan lastes ned fra +no.speling.org-prosjeksiden, både +som kildekodepakke og som "pack"-fil som kanskje fortsatt kan brukes +av OpenOffice.org/LibreOffice. Byggesystemet trenger oppussing, men i +denne omgang hadde jeg bare tid til å fikse byggefeil forårsaket av +endringer i GNU grep. De øvrige endringene var gjort tidligere i +påvente av en ny utgave.

+ +

Her er det som er nytt (fra NEWS-fila i +kildekodepakken):

+ +

Release 2.2 (2016-04-15)

+ + +
+
+ + + Tags: debian edu, norsk, stavekontroll. + + +
+
+
+ +
+
I.F. Stone - an inspiration for us all
+
13th April 2016
+

I first got to know I.F. Stone when I came across an article by Jon +Schwarz on The Intercept +about +his extraordinary contribution to investigative journalism in +USA. The article is about a new documentary in two parts +(part one is 12 minutes and +part two is 30 minutes), and +I found both truly fascinating. It is amazing what he was able to +find by digging up public sources and government papers. He +documented lots of government abuse and cover ups, and I find +his weekly news letters +inspiring to read even today.

+ +

+All governments are run by liars and nothing they say should be believed. +
- I. F. Stone +

+ +

His starting point was that reporters should not assume governments +and corporations are telling the truth, but verify all their claims as +much as possible. I wonder how many Norwegian reporters can be said +to follow the principles of I. F. Stone. They are definitely in short +supply. If you, like me half a year ago, have never heard of him, +check him out.

+
+
+ + + Tags: english, offentlig innsyn. + + +
+
+
+
A French paperback edition of the book Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig is now available
12th April 2016
@@ -823,362 +971,6 @@ As always, patches are very welcome.

-
-
UsingQR - "Electronic" paper invoices using JSON and QR codes
-
19th March 2016
-

Back in 2013 I proposed -a -way to make paper and PDF invoices easier to process electronically by -adding a QR code with the key information about the invoice. I -suggested using vCard field definition, to get some standard format -for name and address, but any format would work. I did not do -anything about the proposal, but hoped someone one day would make -something like it. It would make it possible to efficiently send -machine readable invoices directly between seller and buyer.

- -

This was the background when I came across a proposal and -specification from the web based accounting and invoicing supplier -Visma in Sweden called -UsingQR. Their PDF invoices contain -a QR code with the key information of the invoice in JSON format. -This is the typical content of a QR code following the UsingQR -specification (based on a real world example, some numbers replaced to -get a more bogus entry). I've reformatted the JSON to make it easier -to read. Normally this is all on one long line:

- -

-{
- "vh":500.00,
- "vm":0,
- "vl":0,
- "uqr":1,
- "tp":1,
- "nme":"Din Leverandør",
- "cc":"NO",
- "cid":"997912345 MVA",
- "iref":"12300001",
- "idt":"20151022",
- "ddt":"20151105",
- "due":2500.0000,
- "cur":"NOK",
- "pt":"BBAN",
- "acc":"17202612345",
- "bc":"BIENNOK1",
- "adr":"0313 OSLO"
-}
-

- -

The interpretation of the fields can be found in the -format -specification (revision 2 from june 2014). The format seem to -have most of the information needed to handle accounting and payment -of invoices, at least the fields I have needed so far here in -Norway.

- -

Unfortunately, the site and document do not mention anything about -the patent, trademark and copyright status of the format and the -specification. Because of this, I asked the people behind it back in -November to clarify. Ann-Christine Savlid (ann-christine.savlid (at) -visma.com) replied that Visma had not applied for patent or trademark -protection for this format, and that there were no copyright based -usage limitations for the format. I urged her to make sure this was -explicitly written on the web pages and in the specification, but -unfortunately this has not happened yet. So I guess if there is -submarine patents, hidden trademarks or a will to sue for copyright -infringements, those starting to use the UsingQR format might be at -risk, but if this happen there is some legal defense in the fact that -the people behind the format claimed it was safe to do so. At least -with patents, there is always -a -chance of getting sued...

- -

I also asked if they planned to maintain the format in an -independent standard organization to give others more confidence that -they would participate in the standardization process on equal terms -with Visma, but they had no immediate plans for this. Their plan was -to work with banks to try to get more users of the format, and -evaluate the way forward if the format proved to be popular. I hope -they conclude that using an open standard organisation like -IETF is the correct place to -maintain such specification.

- -

Update 2016-03-20: Via Twitter I became aware of -some comments -about this blog post that had several useful links and references to -similar systems. In the Czech republic, the Czech Banking Association -standard #26, with short name SPAYD, uses QR codes with payment -information. More information is available from the Wikipedia page on -Short -Payment Descriptor. And in Germany, there is a system named -BezahlCode, -(specification -v1.8 2013-12-05 available as PDF), which uses QR codes with -URL-like formatting using "bank:" as the URI schema/protocol to -provide the payment information. There is also the -ZUGFeRD -file format that perhaps could be transfered using QR codes, but I am -not sure if it is done already. Last, in Bolivia there are reports -that tax information since november 2014 need to be printed in QR -format on invoices. I have not been able to track down a -specification for this format, because of my limited language skill -sets.

-
-
- - - Tags: english, standard. - - -
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Making battery measurements a little easier in Debian
-
15th March 2016
-

Back in September, I blogged about -the -system I wrote to collect statistics about my laptop battery, and -how it showed the decay and death of this battery (now replaced). I -created a simple deb package to handle the collection and graphing, -but did not want to upload it to Debian as there were already -a battery-stats -package in Debian that should do the same thing, and I did not see -a point of uploading a competing package when battery-stats could be -fixed instead. I reported a few bugs about its non-function, and -hoped someone would step in and fix it. But no-one did.

- -

I got tired of waiting a few days ago, and took matters in my own -hands. The end result is that I am now the new upstream developer of -battery stats (available from github) and part of the team maintaining -battery-stats in Debian, and the package in Debian unstable is finally -able to collect battery status using the /sys/class/power_supply/ -information provided by the Linux kernel. If you install the -battery-stats package from unstable now, you will be able to get a -graph of the current battery fill level, to get some idea about the -status of the battery. The source package build and work just fine in -Debian testing and stable (and probably oldstable too, but I have not -tested). The default graph you get for that system look like this:

- -

- -

My plans for the future is to merge my old scripts into the -battery-stats package, as my old scripts collected a lot more details -about the battery. The scripts are merged into the upstream -battery-stats git repository already, but I am not convinced they work -yet, as I changed a lot of paths along the way. Will have to test a -bit more before I make a new release.

- -

I will also consider changing the file format slightly, as I -suspect the way I combine several values into one field might make it -impossible to know the type of the value when using it for processing -and graphing.

- -

If you would like I would like to keep an close eye on your laptop -battery, check out the battery-stats package in -Debian and -on -github. -I would love some help to improve the system further.

-
-
- - - Tags: debian, english. - - -
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- -
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Creating, updating and checking debian/copyright semi-automatically
-
19th February 2016
-

Making packages for Debian requires quite a lot of attention to -details. And one of the details is the content of the -debian/copyright file, which should list all relevant licenses used by -the code in the package in question, preferably in -machine -readable DEP5 format.

- -

For large packages with lots of contributors it is hard to write -and update this file manually, and if you get some detail wrong, the -package is normally rejected by the ftpmasters. So getting it right -the first time around get the package into Debian faster, and save -both you and the ftpmasters some work.. Today, while trying to figure -out what was wrong with -the -zfsonlinux copyright file, I decided to spend some time on -figuring out the options for doing this job automatically, or at least -semi-automatically.

- -

Lucikly, there are at least two tools available for generating the -file based on the code in the source package, -debmake -and cme. I'm -not sure which one of them came first, but both seem to be able to -create a sensible draft file. As far as I can tell, none of them can -be trusted to get the result just right, so the content need to be -polished a bit before the file is OK to upload. I found the debmake -option in -a -blog posts from 2014. - -

To generate using debmake, use the -cc option: - -

-debmake -cc > debian/copyright
-

- -

Note there are some problems with python and non-ASCII names, so -this might not be the best option.

- -

The cme option is based on a config parsing library, and I found -this approach in -a -blog post from 2015. To generate using cme, use the 'update -dpkg-copyright' option: - -

-cme update dpkg-copyright
-

- -

This will create or update debian/copyright. The cme tool seem to -handle UTF-8 names better than debmake.

- -

When the copyright file is created, I would also like some help to -check if the file is correct. For this I found two good options, -debmake -k and license-reconcile. The former seem -to focus on license types and file matching, and is able to detect -ineffective blocks in the copyright file. The latter reports missing -copyright holders and years, but was confused by inconsistent license -names (like CDDL vs. CDDL-1.0). I suspect it is good to use both and -fix all issues reported by them before uploading. But I do not know -if the tools and the ftpmasters agree on what is important to fix in a -copyright file, so the package might still be rejected.

- -

The devscripts tool licensecheck deserve mentioning. It -will read through the source and try to find all copyright statements. -It is not comparing the result to the content of debian/copyright, but -can be useful when verifying the content of the copyright file.

- -

Are you aware of better tools in Debian to create and update -debian/copyright file. Please let me know, or blog about it on -planet.debian.org.

- -

As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my -activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address -15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b.

- -

Update 2016-02-20: I got a tip from Mike Gabriel -on how to use licensecheck and cdbs to create a draft copyright file - -

-licensecheck --copyright -r `find * -type f` | \
-  /usr/lib/cdbs/licensecheck2dep5 > debian/copyright.auto
-

- -

He mentioned that he normally check the generated file into the -version control system to make it easier to discover license and -copyright changes in the upstream source. I will try to do the same -with my packages in the future.

- -

Update 2016-02-21: The cme author recommended -against using -quiet for new users, so I removed it from the proposed -command line.

-
-
- - - Tags: debian, english. - - -
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- -
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Using appstream in Debian to locate packages with firmware and mime type support
-
4th February 2016
-

The appstream system -is taking shape in Debian, and one provided feature is a very -convenient way to tell you which package to install to make a given -firmware file available when the kernel is looking for it. This can -be done using apt-file too, but that is for someone else to blog -about. :)

- -

Here is a small recipe to find the package with a given firmware -file, in this example I am looking for ctfw-3.2.3.0.bin, randomly -picked from the set of firmware announced using appstream in Debian -unstable. In general you would be looking for the firmware requested -by the kernel during kernel module loading. To find the package -providing the example file, do like this:

- -
-% apt install appstream
-[...]
-% apt update
-[...]
-% appstreamcli what-provides firmware:runtime ctfw-3.2.3.0.bin | \
-  awk '/Package:/ {print $2}'
-firmware-qlogic
-%
-
- -

See the -appstream wiki page to learn how to embed the package metadata in -a way appstream can use.

- -

This same approach can be used to find any package supporting a -given MIME type. This is very useful when you get a file you do not -know how to handle. First find the mime type using file ---mime-type, and next look up the package providing support for -it. Lets say you got an SVG file. Its MIME type is image/svg+xml, -and you can find all packages handling this type like this:

- -
-% apt install appstream
-[...]
-% apt update
-[...]
-% appstreamcli what-provides mimetype image/svg+xml | \
-  awk '/Package:/ {print $2}'
-bkchem
-phototonic
-inkscape
-shutter
-tetzle
-geeqie
-xia
-pinta
-gthumb
-karbon
-comix
-mirage
-viewnior
-postr
-ristretto
-kolourpaint4
-eog
-eom
-gimagereader
-midori
-%
-
- -

I believe the MIME types are fetched from the desktop file for -packages providing appstream metadata.

-
-
- - - Tags: debian, english. - - -
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