Petter Reinholdtsen

PÃ¥ vegne av vanvitting mange, Aftenposten!

Sat, 6 Mar 2010 21:15:00 +0100

Aftenposten -melder pÃ¥ forsiden av webavisen sin at de tror Erling Fossen -provoserer nordledinger med sine uttalelser pÃ¥ -fotballtinget. Jeg er utflyttet nordlending, og mÃ¥ innrÃ¸mme at jeg -ikke kjennet sÃ¥ mye som et snev av provokasjon fra denne litt morsomme -uttalelsen til Hr. Fossen. Lurer pÃ¥ om Aftenposten har noen kilder -utenom redaksjonen for sin pÃ¥stand om at nordledinger er provosert av -Hr. Fossen. MÃ¥ innrÃ¸mme at jeg tviler pÃ¥ det.

- -

Det hele bringer tankene tilbake til Sture Hansen i Hallo i Uken.

The last few days I have done some upgrade testing in Debian, to +see if the upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze will go smoothly. A few bugs +have been discovered and reported in the process +(#585410 in nagios3-cgi, +#584879 already fixed in +enscript and #584861 in +kdebase-workspace-data), and to get a more regular testing going on, I +am working on a script to automate the test.

+ +

The idea is to create a Lenny chroot and use tasksel to install a +Gnome or KDE desktop installation inside the chroot before upgrading +it. To ensure no services are started in the chroot, a policy-rc.d +script is inserted. To make sure tasksel believe it is to install a +desktop on a laptop, the tasksel tests are replaced in the chroot +(only acceptable because this is a throw-away chroot).

+ +

A naive upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze using aptitude dist-upgrade +currently always fail because udev refuses to upgrade with the kernel +in Lenny, so to avoid that problem the file /etc/udev/kernel-upgrade +is created. The bug report +#566000 make me suspect +this problem do not trigger in a chroot, but I touch the file anyway +to make sure the upgrade go well. Testing on virtual and real +hardware have failed me because of udev so far, and creating this file +do the trick in such settings anyway. This is a +known +issue and the current udev behaviour is intended by the udev +maintainer because he lack the resources to rewrite udev to keep +working with old kernels or something like that. I really wish the +udev upstream would keep udev backwards compatible, to avoid such +upgrade problem, but given that they fail to do so, I guess +documenting the way out of this mess is the best option we got for +Debian Squeeze.

+ +

Anyway, back to the task at hand, testing upgrades. This test +script, which I call upgrade-test for now, is doing the +trick:

+ +

+#!/bin/sh
+set -ex
+
+if [ "$1" ] ; then
+    desktop=$1
+else
+    desktop=gnome
+fi
+
+from=lenny
+to=squeeze
+
+exec < /dev/null
+unset LANG
+mirror=http://ftp.skolelinux.org/debian
+tmpdir=chroot-$from-upgrade-$to-$desktop
+fuser -mv .
+debootstrap $from $tmpdir $mirror
+chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
+cat > $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d <<EOF
+#!/bin/sh
+exit 101
+EOF
+chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d
+exit_cleanup() {
+    umount $tmpdir/proc
+}
+mount -t proc proc $tmpdir/proc
+# Make sure proc is unmounted also on failure
+trap exit_cleanup EXIT INT
+
+chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y install debconf-utils
+
+# Make sure tasksel autoselection trigger.  It need the test scripts
+# to return the correct answers.
+echo tasksel tasksel/desktop multiselect $desktop | \
+    chroot $tmpdir debconf-set-selections
+
+# Include the desktop and laptop task
+for test in desktop laptop ; do
+    echo > $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test <<EOF
+#!/bin/sh
+exit 2
+EOF
+    chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test
+done
+
+DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
+DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical
+export DEBIAN_FRONTEND DEBIAN_PRIORITY
+chroot $tmpdir tasksel --new-install
+
+echo deb $mirror $to main > $tmpdir/etc/apt/sources.list
+chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
+touch $tmpdir/etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
+chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y dist-upgrade
+fuser -mv
+

+ +

I suspect it would be useful to test upgrades with both apt-get and +with aptitude, but I have not had time to look at how they behave +differently so far. I hope to get a cron job running to do the test +regularly and post the result on the web. The Gnome upgrade currently +work, while the KDE upgrade fail because of the bug in +kdebase-workspace-data

+ +

I am not quite sure what kind of extract from the huge upgrade logs +(KDE 167 KiB, Gnome 516 KiB) it make sense to include in this blog +post, so I will refrain from trying. I can report that for Gnome, +aptitude report 760 packages upgraded, 448 newly installed, 129 to +remove and 1 not upgraded and 1024MB need to be downloaded while for +KDE the same numbers are 702 packages upgraded, 507 newly installed, +193 to remove and 0 not upgraded and 1117MB need to be downloaded

+ +

I am very happy to notice that the Gnome desktop + laptop upgrade +is able to migrate to dependency based boot sequencing and parallel +booting without a hitch. Was unsure if there were still bugs with +packages failing to clean up their obsolete init.d script during +upgrades, and no such problem seem to affect the Gnome desktop+laptop +packages.

After 6 years of waiting, the Xreset.d feature is implemented

Sat, 6 Mar 2010 18:15:00 +0100

6 years ago, as part of the Debian Edu development I am involved -in, I asked for a hook in the kdm and gdm setup to run scripts as root -when the user log out. A bug was submitted against the xfree86-common -package in 2004 (#230422), -and revisited every time Debian Edu was working on a new release. -Today, this finally paid off.

- -

The framework for this feature was today commited to the git -repositry for the xorg package, and the git repository for xdm has -been updated to use this framework. Next on my agenda is to make sure -kdm and gdm also add code to use this framework.

- -

In Debian Edu, we want to ability to run commands as root when the -user log out, to get rid of runaway processes and do general cleanup -after a user. With this framework in place, we finally can do that in -a generic way that work with all display managers using this -framework. My goal is to get all display managers in Debian use it, -similar to how they use the Xsession.d framework today.

Det er merkelig hvordan myter om Skolelinux overlever. En slik +myte er at Skolelinux ikke kan sentraldriftes og ha sentralt plasserte +tjenermaskiner. I siste Computerworld Norge er +IT-sjef +Viggo Billdal i Steinkjer intervjuet, og forteller uten +blygsel:

+ +

Vi hadde Skolelinux, men det har vi sluttet med. Vi testet +om det lÃ¸nte seg med Microsoft eller en Ã¥pen plattform. Vi fant ut at +Microsoft egentlig var totalt sett bedre egnet. Det var store +driftskostnader med Skolelinux, blant annet pÃ¥ grunn av +desentraliserte servere. Det var komplisert, sÃ¥ vi gikk vekk fra det +og bruker nÃ¥ bare Windows.

+ +

En rask +sjekk mot den norske brukerlista i Skolelinuxprosjektet forteller +at Steinkjers forsÃ¸k foregikk fram til 2004/2005, og at RÃ¸ysing skole +i Steinkjer skal ha vÃ¦rt svÃ¦rt fornÃ¸yd med Skolelinux men at kommunen +overkjÃ¸rte skolen og krevde at de gikk over til Windows. Et sÃ¸k pÃ¥ +nettet sendte meg til +Dagens +IT nr. 18 2005 hvor en kan lese pÃ¥ side 18:

+ +

Inge TÃ¸mmerÃ¥s ved RÃ¸ysing skole i Steinkjer kjÃ¸rer ennÃ¥ +Microsoft, men forteller at kompetanseutfordringen med Skolelinux ikke +var sÃ¥ stor. Â Jeg syntes Skolelinux var utrolig lett Ã¥ drifte uten +forkunnskaper. Men man mÃ¥ jo selvsagt ha tilgang pÃ¥ ekstern kompetanse +til installasjoner og maskinvarefeil, sier TÃ¸mmerÃ¥s.

+ +

Som systemarkitekten bak Skolelinux, kan jeg bare riste pÃ¥ hodet +over pÃ¥standen om at Skolelinux krever desentraliserte tjenere. +Skolelinux-arkitekturen er laget for sentralisert drift og plassering +av tjenerne lokalt eller sentralt alt etter behov og nettkapasitet. +Den er modellert pÃ¥ nettverks- og tjenerlÃ¸sningen som brukes pÃ¥ +Universitetet i TromsÃ¸ og Oslo, der jeg jobber med utvikling av +driftstjenester. Dette er det heldigvis noen som har fÃ¥tt med seg, og +jeg er glad for Ã¥ kunne sitere fra en kommentar pÃ¥ den overnevnte +artikkelen. Min venn og gamle kollega Sturle Sunde forteller der: + +

+
I Flora kommune kÃ¸yrer vi Skulelinux pÃ¥ skular med alt frÃ¥ 15 til +meir enn 500 elevar. Dei store skulane har eigen tenar, for det er +mest praktisk. Eg, som er driftsansvarleg for heile nettet, ser +sjeldan dei tenarane fysisk, men at dei stÃ¥r der gjer skulane mindre +avhengige av eksterne linjer som er trege eller dyre. Dei minste +skulane har ikkje eigen tenar. Ã bruke sentral tenar er heller ikkje +noko problem. SmÃ¥skulane klarar seg fint med 1 mbit-linje til ein +sentral tenar eller tenaren pÃ¥ ein stÃ¸rre skule.
+ +
Det beste med Skulelinux er halvtjukke klientar. Dei treng ikkje +harddisk og brukar minimalt med ressursar pÃ¥ tenaren fordi dei kÃ¸yrer +programma lokalt. Eit klasserom med 30 sju-Ã¥tte Ã¥r gamle maskiner har +mykje meir CPU og RAM totalt enn nokon moderne tenar til under +millionen. Det trengst to kommandoar pÃ¥ den sentrale tenaren for Ã¥ +oppdatere alle klientane, bÃ¥de tynne og halvtjukke. Vi har ingen +problem med diskar som ryk heller, som var eit problem fÃ¸r fordi +elevane sat og sparka i maskinene. Og dei krev lite bandbreidde i +nettet, so det er fullt mogleg Ã¥ kÃ¸yre slike pÃ¥ smÃ¥skular med trege +linjer mot tenaren pÃ¥ ein stÃ¸rre skule.
+ +
Flora kommune har nesten 800 Linux-maskiner i sitt skulenett, og +ein person som tek seg av drift av heile nettet, inkludert tenarar, +klientar, operativsystem, programvare, heimekontorlÃ¸ysing og +administrasjon av brukarar.
+ +
No skal det seiast at vi ikkje kÃ¸yrer rein Skulelinux ut av +boksen. Vi har gjort ein del tilpassingar mot noko Novell-greier som +var der frÃ¥ fÃ¸r, og som har komplisert installasjonen vÃ¥r. Etter at +oppsettet var gjort har lÃ¸ysinga vore stabil og kravd minimalt med +arbeid.
+

+ +

Jeg vet at Narvik, Harstad og Oslo er kommuner der Skolelinux +sentraldriftes med sentrale tjenere. Det forteller meg at Steinkjers +IT-sjef neppe bÃ¸r skylde pÃ¥ Skolelinux-lÃ¸sningen for sine 5 Ã¥r gamle +minner.

Digitale bÃ¸ker uten digitale restriksjonsmekanismer (DRM) bÃ¸r fÃ¥ mva-fritak

Wed, 3 Mar 2010 19:00:00 +0100

Den norske bokbransjen har -bedt om at -digitale bÃ¸ker mÃ¥ fÃ¥ mva-fritak slik papirbÃ¸ker har det, og -finansdepartementet -har sagt nei. Det er et interessant spÃ¸rsmÃ¥l om digitale bÃ¸ker -bÃ¸r ha mva-fritak eller ikke, og svaret er ikke sÃ¥ enkelt som et ja -eller nei. -Enkelte -medlemmer av bokbransjen truer med Ã¥ droppe den planlagte -lanseringen av norske digitale bÃ¸ker med digitale restriksjonsmekanismer -(DRM) som de har snakket om Ã¥ gjennomfÃ¸re nÃ¥ i vÃ¥r, og det mÃ¥ de -gjerne gjÃ¸re for min del.

- -

PapirbÃ¸ker har mva-fritak pga. at de fremmer kultur- og -kunnskapsspredning. Digitale bÃ¸ker uten digitale -restriksjonsmekanismer (DRM) fremmer kultur- og kunnskapsspredning, -mens digitale bÃ¸ker med DRM hindrer kultur og kunnskapsspredning. -Digitale bÃ¸ker uten DRM bÃ¸r fÃ¥ mva-fritak da det er salg av bÃ¸ker pÃ¥ -lik linje med salg av papirbÃ¸ker, mens digitale bÃ¸ker med DRM ikke bÃ¸r -fÃ¥ det da det er utleie av bÃ¸ker og ikke salg.

- -

Jeg foretrekker Ã¥ kjÃ¸pe bÃ¸ker, og velger dermed Ã¥ la vÃ¦re Ã¥ bruke -DRM-belastede digitale bÃ¸ker. Vet ikke helt hva jeg ville vÃ¦re villig -til Ã¥ betale for Ã¥ leie en bok, men tror ikke det er mange kronene. -Heldigvis er det mye bÃ¸ker tilgjengelig uten slike restriksjoner, og -de som vil ha tak i engelske bÃ¸ker kan laste ned bÃ¸ker som er -tilgjengelig uten bruksbegresninger fra The -Internet Archive. Der er det pr. i dag 1 889 313 bÃ¸ker -tilgjengelig. De er tilgjengelig i flere formater. BesÃ¸k -oversikten over tekster -der for Ã¥ se hva de har. +

If Debian is to migrate to upstart on Linux, I expect some init.d +scripts to migrate (some of) their operations to upstart job while +keeping the init.d for hurd and kfreebsd. The packages with such +needs will need a way to get their init.d scripts to behave +differently when used with sysvinit and with upstart. Because of +this, I had a look at the environment variables set when a init.d +script is running under upstart, and when it is not.

+ +

With upstart, I notice these environment variables are set when a +script is started from rcS.d/ (ignoring some irrelevant ones like +COLUMNS):

+ +

+DEFAULT_RUNLEVEL=2
+previous=N
+PREVLEVEL=
+RUNLEVEL=
+runlevel=S
+UPSTART_EVENTS=startup
+UPSTART_INSTANCE=
+UPSTART_JOB=rc-sysinit
+

+ +

With sysvinit, these environment variables are set for the same +script.

+ +

+INIT_VERSION=sysvinit-2.88
+previous=N
+PREVLEVEL=N
+RUNLEVEL=S
+runlevel=S
+

+ +

The RUNLEVEL and PREVLEVEL environment variables passed on from +sysvinit are not set by upstart. Not sure if it is intentional or not +to not be compatible with sysvinit in this regard.

+ +

For scripts needing to behave differently when upstart is used, +looking for the UPSTART_JOB environment variable seem to be a good +choice.

Debian Edu / Skolelinux based on Lenny released, work continues

Thu, 11 Feb 2010 17:15:00 +0100

On Tuesday, the Debian/Lenny based version of -Skolelinux was finally -shipped. This was a major leap forward for the project, and I am very -pleased that we finally got the release wrapped up. Work on the first -point release starts imediately, as we plan to get that one out a -month after the major release, to include all fixes for bugs we found -and fixed too late in the release process to include last Tuesday.

- -

Perhaps it even is time for some partying?

- -

After this first point release, my plan is to focus again on the -next major release, based on Squeeze. We will try to get as many of -the fixes we need into the official Debian packages before the freeze, -and have just a few weeks or months to make it happen.

Via the +blog +of Rob Weir I came across the very interesting essay named +The Art of +Standards Wars (PDF 25 pages). I recommend it for everyone +following the standards wars of today.

Danmark gÃ¥r for ODF?

Fri, 29 Jan 2010 12:00:00 +0100

Ble nettopp gjort oppmerksom pÃ¥ en -nyhet fra Version2 -fra Danmark, der det hevdes at Folketinget har vedtatt at ODF skal -brukes som dokumentutvekslingsformat i Staten.

- -

Hyggelig lesning, spesielt hvis det viser seg at de av vedtatt -kravlisten for hva som skal aksepteres som referert i kommentarfeltet -til artikkelen og -en -annen artikkel i samme nett-avis. Liker spesielt godt denne:

- -

Det skal demonstreres, at standarden i sin helhed kan -implementeres af alle direkte i sin helhed pÃ¥ flere -platforme.

- -

Noe slikt burde vÃ¦re et krav ogsÃ¥ i Norge.

When using sitesummary at a site to track machines, it is possible +to get a list of the machine types in use thanks to the DMI +information extracted from each machine. The script to do so is +included in the sitesummary package, and here is example output from +the Skolelinux build servers:

+ +

+maintainer:~# /usr/lib/sitesummary/hardware-model-summary
+  vendor                    count
+  Dell Computer Corporation     1
+    PowerEdge 1750              1
+  IBM                           1
+    eserver xSeries 345 -[8670M1X]-     1
+  Intel                         2
+  [no-dmi-info]                 3
+maintainer:~#
+

+ +

The quality of the report depend on the quality of the DMI tables +provided in each machine. Here there are Intel machines without model +information listed with Intel as vendor and mo model, and virtual Xen +machines listed as [no-dmi-info]. One can add -l as a command line +option to list the individual machines.

+ +

A larger list is +available from the the +city of Narvik, which uses Skolelinux on all their shools and also +provide the basic sitesummary report publicly. In their report there +are ~1400 machines. I know they use both Ubuntu and Skolelinux on +their machines, and as sitesummary is available in both distributions, +it is trivial to get all of them to report to the same central +collector.

Automatic Munin and Nagios configuration

Wed, 27 Jan 2010 15:15:00 +0100

One of the new features in the next Debian/Lenny based release of -Debian Edu/Skolelinux, which is scheduled for release in the next few -days, is automatic configuration of the service monitoring system -Nagios. The previous release had automatic configuration of trend -analysis using Munin, and this Lenny based release take that a step -further.

- -

When installing a Debian Edu Main-server, it is automatically -configured as a Munin and Nagios server. In addition, it is -configured to be a server for the -SiteSummary -system I have written for use in Debian Edu. The SiteSummary -system is inspired by a system used by the University of Oslo where I -work. In short, the system provide a centralised collector of -information about the computers on the network, and a client on each -computer submitting information to this collector. This allow for -automatic information on which packages are installed on each machine, -which kernel the machines are using, what kind of configuration the -packages got etc. This also allow us to automatically generate Munin -and Nagios configuration.

- -

All computers reporting to the sitesummary collector with the -munin-node package installed is automatically enabled as a Munin -client and graphs from the statistics collected from that machine show -up automatically on http://www/munin/ on the Main-server.

- -

All non-laptop computers reporting to the sitesummary collector are -automatically monitored for network presence (ping and any network -services detected). In addition, all computers (also laptops) with -the nagios-nrpe-server package installed and configured the way -sitesummary would configure it, are monitored for full disks, software -raid status, swap free and other checks that need to run locally on -the machine.

- -

The result is that the administrator on a school using Debian Edu -based on Lenny will be able to check the health of his installation -with one look at the Nagios settings, without having to spend any time -keeping the Nagios configuration up-to-date.

- -

The only configuration one need to do to get Nagios up and running -is to set the password used to get access via HTTP. The system -administrator need to run "htpasswd /etc/nagios3/htpasswd.users -nagiosadmin" to create a nagiosadmin user and set a password for -it to be able to log into the Nagios web pages. After that, -everything is taken care of.

Det stÃ¥r dÃ¥rlig til med toget nÃ¥r en finner pÃ¥ Ã¥ la det +kappkjÃ¸re +med sykkel... Jeg tror det trengs strukturendringer for Ã¥ fÃ¥ +fikset pÃ¥ togproblemene i Norge.

+ +

Mon tro hva toglinje mellom Narvik og TromsÃ¸ ville hatt slags +effekt pÃ¥ omrÃ¥det der?

Sikkerhet, teater, og hvordan gjÃ¸re verden sikrere

Wed, 30 Dec 2009 16:35:00 +0100

Via Slashdot fant jeg en -nydelig -kommentar fra Bruce Schneier som ble publisert hos CNN i gÃ¥r. Den -forklarer forbilledlig hvorfor sikkerhetsteater og innfÃ¸ring av -totalitÃ¦re politistatmetoder ikke er lÃ¸sningen for Ã¥ gjÃ¸re verden -sikrere. Anbefales pÃ¥ det varmeste.

- -

Oppdatering: Kom over -nok -en kommentar om den manglende effekten av dagens sikkerhetsteater -pÃ¥ flyplassene.

It is strange to watch how a bug in Debian causing KDM to fail to +start at boot when an NVidia video card is used is handled. The +problem seem to be that the nvidia X.org driver uses a long time to +initialize, and this duration is longer than kdm is configured to +wait.

+ +

I came across two bugs related to this issue, +#583312 initially filed +against initscripts and passed on to nvidia-glx when it became obvious +that the nvidia drivers were involved, and +#524751 initially filed against +kdm and passed on to src:nvidia-graphics-drivers for unknown reasons.

+ +

To me, it seem that no-one is interested in actually solving the +problem nvidia video card owners experience and make sure the Debian +distribution work out of the box for these users. The nvidia driver +maintainers expect kdm to be set up to wait longer, while kdm expect +the nvidia driver maintainers to fix the driver to start faster, and +while they wait for each other I guess the users end up switching to a +distribution that work for them. I have no idea what the solution is, +but I am pretty sure that waiting for each other is not it.

+ +

I wonder why we end up handling bugs this way.

Opphavet til Skolelinux-prosjektet

Thu, 17 Dec 2009 10:50:00 +0100

De fÃ¦rreste er klar over at Skolelinux-prosjektet kom som et resultat -av en avgjÃ¸relse pÃ¥ Ã¥rsmÃ¸tet i -NUUG i 2000-06-29, der HÃ¥kon Wium -Lie, da varamedlem i styret, tok pÃ¥ seg oppdraget om Ã¥ starte et -initiativ kalt "Teach the Teacher", som skulle vÃ¦re et initiativ for -Ã¥ fÃ¥ fri programvare og unix-lignende operativsystemer inn i Skolen. -Tanken var at en mÃ¥tte starte med lÃ¦rerne for at ungene skulle fÃ¥ -mulighet til Ã¥ mÃ¸te en bedre IT-hverdag. Jeg var tilstede pÃ¥ -mÃ¸tet, og hadde sans for ideen, men intet skjedde. PÃ¥ vÃ¥rparten -2001 ble det arrangert en demonstrasjon i anledning at First Tuesday -hadde invitert Microsoft til et mÃ¸te for Ã¥ fortelle om fremtidens -Internet. Dette provoserte endel av oss, og EFN og NUUG tok initiativ -til Ã¥ arrangere -en -demonstrasjon utenfor lokalene 2001-05-21. Blant de som sto bak -demonstrasjonen var Vidar Bakke fra NUUG og HÃ¥kon W. Lie fra EFN. -Etter demonstrasjonen arrangerte HÃ¥kon en fest hjemme hos seg der alle -som hadde vÃ¦rt aktive i demonstrasjonsplanlegging og gjennomfÃ¸ringen -deltok. FÃ¸r festen var jeg blitt lei av Ã¥ vente pÃ¥ at HÃ¥kon skulle ta -initiativ til "Teach the Teacher", og for Ã¥ forsÃ¸ke Ã¥ fÃ¥ litt fremgang -besteme jeg meg for Ã¥ benytte anledningen hos HÃ¥kon til Ã¥ snakke om -behovet for Ã¥ hjelpe skolene i gang med bedre datasystemer bestÃ¥ende -av fri programvare og unix-lignende operativsystemer. Flere var -interessert, og Knut Yrvin tenkte pÃ¥ ideen. Han -ropte -sammen til et stiftelsesmÃ¸te i prosjektet i sin arbeidsgivers -Objectwares lokaler ved UllevÃ¥l stadion 2001-07-02, og jeg ble med. -Resten er historie. :)

A few days ago, parallel booting was enabled in Debian/testing. +The feature seem to hold up pretty well, but three fairly serious +issues are known and should be solved: + +

The wicd package seen to +break NFS mounting and +network setup when +parallel booting is enabled. No idea why, but the wicd maintainer +seem to be on the case.
The nvidia X driver seem to +have a race condition +triggered more easily when parallel booting is in effect. The +maintainer is on the case.
The sysv-rc package fail to properly enable dependency based boot +sequencing (the shutdown is broken) when old file-rc users +try to switch back to +sysv-rc. One way to solve it would be for file-rc to create +/etc/init.d/.legacy-bootordering, and another is to try to make +sysv-rc more robust. Will investigate some more and probably upload a +workaround in sysv-rc to help those trying to move from file-rc to +sysv-rc get a working shutdown.

+ +

All in all not many surprising issues, and all of them seem +solvable before Squeeze is released. In addition to these there are +some packages with bugs in their dependencies and run level settings, +which I expect will be fixed in a reasonable time span.

+ +

If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to +the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at +the +list of usertagged bugs related to this.

+ +

Update: Correct bug number to file-rc issue.

FÃ¸rste NUUG-fordrag sendt pÃ¥ TV

Tue, 8 Dec 2009 12:00:00 +0100

Endelig har NUUG klart Ã¥ fÃ¥ kringkastet ut et av sine fordrag pÃ¥ -TV. Foredraget om -utskriftslÃ¸sningen -Biforst var fÃ¸rst ute, pga. at det var det nyeste foredraget som -var holdt pÃ¥ norsk, og dermed slapp vi Ã¥ finne ut av hvordan -teksting av video skulle gjÃ¸res.

- -

NUUG har vÃ¦rt involvert i -Frikanalen en stund nÃ¥, for Ã¥ -forsÃ¸ke Ã¥ fÃ¥ ut budskapet vÃ¥rt ogsÃ¥ pÃ¥ TV, og dette fÃ¸rste foredraget -er en sped start pÃ¥ det vi har planlagt.

- -

NUUGs fÃ¸rste foredrag sendes ut via frikanelen pÃ¥ digitalt -bakkenett, og alle abonnenter av riks-TV skal dermed ha mulighet til Ã¥ -ta inn sendingen. SlÃ¥ pÃ¥ TVen 5/12 16:05 (for sent), 12/12 14:00, -19/12 16:00, 24/12 15:37 eller 26/12 16:11 i Ã¥r, sÃ¥ skal du fÃ¥ se -meg, Tollef og alle andre de som deltok pÃ¥ mÃ¸tet pÃ¥ TV.

After a long break from debian-installer development, I finally +found time today to return to the project. Having to spend less time +working dependency based boot in debian, as it is almost complete now, +definitely helped freeing some time.

+ +

A while back, I ran into a problem while working on Debian Edu. We +include some firmware packages on the Debian Edu CDs, those needed to +get disk and network controllers working. Without having these +firmware packages available during installation, it is impossible to +install Debian Edu on the given machine, and because our target group +are non-technical people, asking them to provide firmware packages on +an external medium is a support pain. Initially, I expected it to be +enough to include the firmware packages on the CD to get +debian-installer to find and use them. This proved to be wrong. +Next, I hoped it was enough to symlink the relevant firmware packages +to some useful location on the CD (tried /cdrom/ and +/cdrom/firmware/). This also proved to not work, and at this point I +found time to look at the debian-installer code to figure out what was +going to work.

+ +

The firmware loading code is in the hw-detect package, and a closer +look revealed that it would only look for firmware packages outside +the installation media, so the CD was never checked for firmware +packages. It would only check USB sticks, floppies and other +"external" media devices. Today I changed it to also look in the +/cdrom/firmware/ directory on the mounted CD or DVD, which should +solve the problem I ran into with Debian edu. I also changed it to +look in /firmware/, to make sure the installer also find firmware +provided in the initrd when booting the installer via PXE, to allow us +to provide the same feature in the PXE setup included in Debian +Edu.

+ +

To make sure firmware deb packages with a license questions are not +activated without asking if the license is accepted, I extended +hw-detect to look for preinst scripts in the firmware packages, and +run these before activating the firmware during installation. The +license question is asked using debconf in the preinst, so this should +solve the issue for the firmware packages I have looked at so far.

+ +

If you want to discuss the details of these features, please +contact us on debian-boot@lists.debian.org.

Kartverket "frigjÃ¸r" data men er fortsatt ikke interessante

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 10:10:00 +0100

Dagens -kartnyhet -er at kartverket gir ikke-kommersiell tilgang til -en WMS-tjeneste der en til privat bruk kan hente ut bilder av -kartutsnitt sÃ¥ lenge disse ikke lagres lokalt, brukes i begrenset -opplÃ¸sning og ikke skader kartverket og rettighetshavernes omdÃ¸mme og -interesse.

- -

I gÃ¥r publiserte Ivan Sanchez -kaketesten -som et forslag til en (av forhÃ¥pentligvis flere) mÃ¥ter Ã¥ teste om kart -eller kartdata er fritt tilgjengelige pÃ¥. Testen er enkel, og sier -enkelt (oversatt av meg): Et sett med geodata, eller en kart, er kun -fritt tilgjengelig hvis noen kan gi deg en kake med det kartet pÃ¥ -toppen, som en gave. Kartverkets publisering av kart feiler sÃ¥ vidt -jeg kan se denne testen fullstendig. En kan slik jeg leser vilkÃ¥rene -ikke be en konditor om Ã¥ lage en kake (brudd pÃ¥ kravet om -ikke-kommersiell bruk) med kartverkets kart.

- -

De som vil lage karttjenester basert pÃ¥ denne nye tjenesten fra -kartverket vil gjÃ¸re det pÃ¥ kartverkets nÃ¥de og med sterke bindinger -og begresninger. Det blir dermed helt uinteressant for meg. Jeg vil -nok fortsette Ã¥ bruke data fra -OpenStreetmap.org, der jeg -har kontrollen med tilgang til kartdataene, og kan endre pÃ¥ de -underliggende dataene som jeg Ã¸nsker.

- -

Som et eksempel, sÃ¥ trenger vi til en norsk -FixMyStreet-installasjon -tilgang til vektorutgaven av kommunegrensene. Denne nye karttjenesten -er ubrukelig til dette.

For en stund tilbake kjÃ¸pte jeg en magnetkortleser for Ã¥ kunne +titte pÃ¥ hva som er skrevet inn pÃ¥ magnetstripene til ulike kort. Har +ikke hatt tid til Ã¥ analysere mange kort sÃ¥ langt, men tenkte jeg +skulle dele innholdet pÃ¥ to kort med mine lesere.

+ +

For noen dager siden tok jeg flyet til Harstad og Hurtigruten til +Bergen. Flytoget fra Oslo S til flyplassen ga meg en billett med +magnetstripe. PÃ¥trykket finner jeg fÃ¸lgende informasjon:

+ +

+Flytoget Airport Express Train
+
+Fra - Til        : Oslo Sentralstasjon
+Kategori         : Voksen
+Pris             : Nok 170,00
+Herav mva. 8,00% : NOK 12,59
+Betaling         : Kontant
+Til - Fra        : Oslo Lufthavn
+Utstedt:         : 08.05.10
+Gyldig Fra-Til   : 08.05.10-07.11.10
+Billetttype      : Enkeltbillett
+
+102-1015-100508-48382-01-08
+

+ +

PÃ¥ selve magnetstripen er innholdet +;E?+900120011=23250996541068112619257138248441708433322932704083389389062603279671261502492655?. +Aner ikke hva innholdet representerer, og det er lite overlapp mellom +det jeg ser trykket pÃ¥ billetten og det jeg ser av tegn i +magnetstripen. HÃ¥per det betyr at de bruker kryptografiske metoder +for Ã¥ gjÃ¸re det vanskelig Ã¥ forfalske billetter.

+ +

Den andre billetten er fra Hurtigruten, der jeg mistenker at +strekkoden pÃ¥ fronten er mer brukt enn magnetstripen (det var i hvert +fall den biten vi stakk inn i dÃ¸rlÃ¥sen).

+ +

PÃ¥trykket forsiden er fÃ¸lgende:

+ +

+Romnummer 727
+Hurtigruten
+Midnatsol
+Reinholdtsen
+Petter
+Bookingno: SAX69   0742193
+Harstad-Bergen
+Dep: 09.05.2010 Arr: 12.05.2010
+Lugar fra RisÃ¸yhamn
+Kost: FRO=4
+

+ +

PÃ¥ selve magnetstripen er innholdet +;1316010007421930=00000000000000000000?+E?. Heller ikke her +ser jeg mye korrespondanse mellom pÃ¥trykk og magnetstripe.