X-Git-Url: http://pere.pagekite.me/gitweb/homepage.git/blobdiff_plain/2b90197f037d6c4372fd9df9b61c8f8e74630cea..ba7c0d679f76b718672964dfa4c748f7167247cf:/blog/archive/2014/04/index.html diff --git a/blog/archive/2014/04/index.html b/blog/archive/2014/04/index.html index 77cc69bf0f..91edac51a3 100644 --- a/blog/archive/2014/04/index.html +++ b/blog/archive/2014/04/index.html @@ -21,6 +21,358 @@

Entries from April 2014.

+
+
+ Half the Coverity issues in Gnash fixed in the next release +
+
+ 29th April 2014 +
+
+

I've been following the Gnash +project for quite a while now. It is a free software +implementation of Adobe Flash, both a standalone player and a browser +plugin. Gnash implement support for the AVM1 format (and not the +newer AVM2 format - see +Lightspark for that one), +allowing several flash based sites to work. Thanks to the friendly +developers at Youtube, it also work with Youtube videos, because the +Javascript code at Youtube detect Gnash and serve a AVM1 player to +those users. :) Would be great if someone found time to implement AVM2 +support, but it has not happened yet. If you install both Lightspark +and Gnash, Lightspark will invoke Gnash if it find a AVM1 flash file, +so you can get both handled as free software. Unfortunately, +Lightspark so far only implement a small subset of AVM2, and many +sites do not work yet.

+ +

A few months ago, I started looking at +Coverity, the static source +checker used to find heaps and heaps of bugs in free software (thanks +to the donation of a scanning service to free software projects by the +company developing this non-free code checker), and Gnash was one of +the projects I decided to check out. Coverity is able to find lock +errors, memory errors, dead code and more. A few days ago they even +extended it to also be able to find the heartbleed bug in OpenSSL. +There are heaps of checks being done on the instrumented code, and the +amount of bogus warnings is quite low compared to the other static +code checkers I have tested over the years.

+ +

Since a few weeks ago, I've been working with the other Gnash +developers squashing bugs discovered by Coverity. I was quite happy +today when I checked the current status and saw that of the 777 issues +detected so far, 374 are marked as fixed. This make me confident that +the next Gnash release will be more stable and more dependable than +the previous one. Most of the reported issues were and are in the +test suite, but it also found a few in the rest of the code.

+ +

If you want to help out, you find us on +the +gnash-dev mailing list and on +the #gnash channel on +irc.freenode.net IRC server.

+ +
+
+ + + Tags: english, multimedia, video, web. + + +
+
+
+ +
+
+ Install hardware dependent packages using tasksel (Isenkram 0.7) +
+
+ 23rd April 2014 +
+
+

It would be nice if it was easier in Debian to get all the hardware +related packages relevant for the computer installed automatically. +So I implemented one, using +my Isenkram +package. To use it, install the tasksel and isenkram packages and +run tasksel as user root. You should be presented with a new option, +"Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)". When you +select it, tasksel will install the packages isenkram claim is fit for +the current hardware, hot pluggable or not.

+ +

The implementation is in two files, one is the tasksel menu entry +description, and the other is the script used to extract the list of +packages to install. The first part is in +/usr/share/tasksel/descs/isenkram.desc and look like +this:

+ +

+Task: isenkram
+Section: hardware
+Description: Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)
+ Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific packages are
+ proposed.
+Test-new-install: mark show
+Relevance: 8
+Packages: for-current-hardware
+

+ +

The second part is in +/usr/lib/tasksel/packages/for-current-hardware and look like +this:

+ +

+#!/bin/sh
+#
+(
+    isenkram-lookup
+    isenkram-autoinstall-firmware -l
+) | sort -u
+

+ +

All in all, a very short and simple implementation making it +trivial to install the hardware dependent package we all may want to +have installed on our machines. I've not been able to find a way to +get tasksel to tell you exactly which packages it plan to install +before doing the installation. So if you are curious or careful, +check the output from the isenkram-* command line tools first.

+ +

The information about which packages are handling which hardware is +fetched either from the isenkram package itself in +/usr/share/isenkram/, from git.debian.org or from the APT package +database (using the Modaliases header). The APT package database +parsing have caused a nasty resource leak in the isenkram daemon (bugs +#719837 and +#730704). The cause is in +the python-apt code (bug +#745487), but using a +workaround I was able to get rid of the file descriptor leak and +reduce the memory leak from ~30 MiB per hardware detection down to +around 2 MiB per hardware detection. It should make the desktop +daemon a lot more useful. The fix is in version 0.7 uploaded to +unstable today.

+ +

I believe the current way of mapping hardware to packages in +Isenkram is is a good draft, but in the future I expect isenkram to +use the AppStream data source for this. A proposal for getting proper +AppStream support into Debian is floating around as +DEP-11, and +GSoC +project will take place this summer to improve the situation. I +look forward to seeing the result, and welcome patches for isenkram to +start using the information when it is ready.

+ +

If you want your package to map to some specific hardware, either +add a "Xb-Modaliases" header to your control file like I did in +the pymissile +package or submit a bug report with the details to the isenkram +package. See also +all my +blog posts tagged isenkram for details on the notation. I expect +the information will be migrated to AppStream eventually, but for the +moment I got no better place to store it.

+ +
+
+ + + Tags: debian, english, isenkram. + + +
+
+
+ +
+
+ FreedomBox milestone - all packages now in Debian Sid +
+
+ 15th April 2014 +
+
+

The Freedombox +project is working on providing the software and hardware to make +it easy for non-technical people to host their data and communication +at home, and being able to communicate with their friends and family +encrypted and away from prying eyes. It is still going strong, and +today a major mile stone was reached.

+ +

Today, the last of the packages currently used by the project to +created the system images were accepted into Debian Unstable. It was +the freedombox-setup package, which is used to configure the images +during build and on the first boot. Now all one need to get going is +the build code from the freedom-maker git repository and packages from +Debian. And once the freedombox-setup package enter testing, we can +build everything directly from Debian. :)

+ +

Some key packages used by Freedombox are +freedombox-setup, +plinth, +pagekite, +tor, +privoxy, +owncloud and +dnsmasq. There +are plans to integrate more packages into the setup. User +documentation is maintained on the Debian wiki. Please +check out +the manual and help us improve it.

+ +

To test for yourself and create boot images with the FreedomBox +setup, run this on a Debian machine using a user with sudo rights to +become root:

+ +

+sudo apt-get install git vmdebootstrap mercurial python-docutils \
+  mktorrent extlinux virtualbox qemu-user-static binfmt-support \
+  u-boot-tools
+git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/freedombox/freedom-maker.git \
+  freedom-maker
+make -C freedom-maker dreamplug-image raspberry-image virtualbox-image
+

+ +

Root access is needed to run debootstrap and mount loopback +devices. See the README in the freedom-maker git repo for more +details on the build. If you do not want all three images, trim the +make line. Note that the virtualbox-image target is not really +virtualbox specific. It create a x86 image usable in kvm, qemu, +vmware and any other x86 virtual machine environment. You might need +the version of vmdebootstrap in Jessie to get the build working, as it +include fixes for a race condition with kpartx.

+ +

If you instead want to install using a Debian CD and the preseed +method, boot a Debian Wheezy ISO and use this boot argument to load +the preseed values:

+ +

+url=http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat
+

+ +

I have not tested it myself the last few weeks, so I do not know if +it still work.

+ +

If you wonder how to help, one task you could look at is using +systemd as the boot system. It will become the default for Linux in +Jessie, so we need to make sure it is usable on the Freedombox. I did +a simple test a few weeks ago, and noticed dnsmasq failed to start +during boot when using systemd. I suspect there are other problems +too. :) To detect problems, there is a test suite included, which can +be run from the plinth web interface.

+ +

Give it a go and let us know how it goes on the mailing list, and help +us get the new release published. :) Please join us on +IRC (#freedombox on +irc.debian.org) and +the +mailing list if you want to help make this vision come true.

+ +
+
+ + + Tags: debian, english, freedombox, sikkerhet, surveillance, web. + + +
+
+
+ +
+
+ Språkkoder for POSIX locale i Norge +
+
+ 11th April 2014 +
+
+

For 12 år siden, skrev jeg et lite notat om +bruk av språkkoder +i Norge. Jeg ble nettopp minnet på dette da jeg fikk spørsmål om +notatet fortsatt var aktuelt, og tenkte det var greit å repetere hva +som fortsatt gjelder. Det jeg skrev da er fortsatt like aktuelt.

+ +

Når en velger språk i programmer på unix, så velger en blant mange +språkkoder. For språk i Norge anbefales følgende språkkoder (anbefalt +locale i parantes):

+ +

+
nb (nb_NO)
Bokmål i Norge
+
nn (nn_NO)
Nynorsk i Norge
+
se (se_NO)
Nordsamisk i Norge
+

+ +

Alle programmer som bruker andre koder bør endres.

+ +

Språkkoden bør brukes når .po-filer navngis og installeres. Dette +er ikke det samme som locale-koden. For Norsk Bokmål, så bør filene +være navngitt nb.po, mens locale (LANG) bør være nb_NO.

+ +

Hvis vi ikke får standardisert de kodene i alle programmene med +norske oversettelser, så er det umulig å gi LANG-variablen ett innhold +som fungerer for alle programmer.

+ +

Språkkodene er de offisielle kodene fra ISO 639, og bruken av dem i +forbindelse med POSIX localer er standardisert i RFC 3066 og ISO +15897. Denne anbefalingen er i tråd med de angitte standardene.

+ +

Følgende koder er eller har vært i bruk som locale-verdier for +"norske" språk. Disse bør unngås, og erstattes når de oppdages:

+ +

+ + + + + + + + +
norwegian-> nb_NO
bokmål -> nb_NO
bokmal -> nb_NO
nynorsk -> nn_NO
no -> nb_NO
no_NO -> nb_NO
no_NY -> nn_NO
sme_NO -> se_NO

+ +

Merk at når det gjelder de samiske språkene, at se_NO i praksis +henviser til nordsamisk i Norge, mens f.eks. smj_NO henviser til +lulesamisk. Dette notatet er dog ikke ment å gi råd rundt samiske +språkkoder, der gjør +Divvun-prosjektet en bedre +jobb.

+ +

Referanser:

+ +
+
+ + + Tags: norsk. + + +
+
+
+
S3QL, a locally mounted cloud file system - nice free software @@ -137,7 +489,7 @@ Reading metadata... ..contents.. ..ext_attributes.. Mounting filesystem... -# df -h /mnt +# df -h /s3ql Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name 1.0T 0 1.0T 0% /s3ql # @@ -269,7 +621,7 @@ storage. I did not try to locate them all, but am aware of at least Crowncloud. The latter even accept payment in Bitcoin. Pick one that suit your need. Some of them provide several GiB of free storage, but the prize models are -quire different and you will have to figure out what suit you +quite different and you will have to figure out what suits you best.

While researching this blog post, I had a look at research papers @@ -401,7 +753,7 @@ de ord.

- Tags: norsk, personvern, sikkerhet, surveillance. + Tags: dld, norsk, personvern, sikkerhet, surveillance.
@@ -485,6 +837,31 @@ image.

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