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.
+ +X-Git-Url: http://pere.pagekite.me/gitweb/homepage.git/blobdiff_plain/845e48b779f1c18164815cad7ed5ffa0d9b55229..e42f5b1dad855a6ee4fe4dec43b101f4d02a5f2b:/blog/archive/2010/06/index.html diff --git a/blog/archive/2010/06/index.html b/blog/archive/2010/06/index.html index 03cde42c75..740b3d90f7 100644 --- a/blog/archive/2010/06/index.html +++ b/blog/archive/2010/06/index.html @@ -59,7 +59,7 @@ but I am pretty sure that waiting for each other is not it.
- Tags: debian, debian edu, english. + Tags: bootsystem, debian, debian edu, english. @@ -148,6 +148,848 @@ collector. +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.
+ +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.
+ +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 lønte seg med Microsoft eller en åpen plattform. Vi fant ut at +Microsoft egentlig var totalt sett bedre egnet. Det var store +driftskostnader med Skolelinux, blant annet på grunn av +desentraliserte servere. Det var komplisert, så vi gikk vekk fra det +og bruker nå bare Windows.
En rask +sjekk mot den norske brukerlista i Skolelinuxprosjektet forteller +at Steinkjers forsøk foregikk fram til 2004/2005, og at Røysing skole +i Steinkjer skal ha vært svært fornøyd med Skolelinux men at kommunen +overkjørte skolen og krevde at de gikk over til Windows. Et søk på +nettet sendte meg til +Dagens +IT nr. 18 2005 hvor en kan lese på side 18:
+ ++ +Inge Tømmerås ved Røysing skole i Steinkjer kjører ennå +Microsoft, men forteller at kompetanseutfordringen med Skolelinux ikke +var så stor.  Jeg syntes Skolelinux var utrolig lett å drifte uten +forkunnskaper. Men man må jo selvsagt ha tilgang på ekstern kompetanse +til installasjoner og maskinvarefeil, sier Tømmerås.
Som systemarkitekten bak Skolelinux, kan jeg bare riste på hodet +over påstanden 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 på nettverks- og tjenerløsningen som brukes på +Universitetet i Tromsø og Oslo, der jeg jobber med utvikling av +driftstjenester. Dette er det heldigvis noen som har fått med seg, og +jeg er glad for å kunne sitere fra en kommentar på den overnevnte +artikkelen. Min venn og gamle kollega Sturle Sunde forteller der: + +
++ +I Flora kommune køyrer vi Skulelinux på skular med alt frå 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 står der gjer skulane mindre +avhengige av eksterne linjer som er trege eller dyre. Dei minste +skulane har ikkje eigen tenar. à bruke sentral tenar er heller ikkje +noko problem. Småskulane klarar seg fint med 1 mbit-linje til ein +sentral tenar eller tenaren på ein større skule.
+ +Det beste med Skulelinux er halvtjukke klientar. Dei treng ikkje +harddisk og brukar minimalt med ressursar på tenaren fordi dei køyrer +programma lokalt. Eit klasserom med 30 sju-åtte år gamle maskiner har +mykje meir CPU og RAM totalt enn nokon moderne tenar til under +millionen. Det trengst to kommandoar på den sentrale tenaren for å +oppdatere alle klientane, både tynne og halvtjukke. Vi har ingen +problem med diskar som ryk heller, som var eit problem før fordi +elevane sat og sparka i maskinene. Og dei krev lite bandbreidde i +nettet, so det er fullt mogleg å køyre slike på småskular med trege +linjer mot tenaren på ein større 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, heimekontorløysing og +administrasjon av brukarar.
+ +No skal det seiast at vi ikkje køyrer rein Skulelinux ut av +boksen. Vi har gjort ein del tilpassingar mot noko Novell-greier som +var der frå før, og som har komplisert installasjonen vår. Etter at +oppsettet var gjort har løysinga 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 bør skylde på Skolelinux-løsningen for sine 5 år gamle +minner.
+ +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.
+ +Veldig glad for å oppdage via +Slashdot +at folk i Finland har forstått at åpne trådløsnett er et samfunnsgode. +Jeg ser på åpne trådløsnett som et fellesgode på linje med retten til +ferdsel i utmark og retten til å bevege seg i strandsonen. Jeg har +glede av åpne trådløsnett når jeg finner dem, og deler gladelig nett +med andre så lenge de ikke forstyrrer min bruk av eget nett. +Nettkapasiteten er sjelden en begrensning ved normal browsing og enkel +SSH-innlogging (som er min vanligste nettbruk), og nett kan brukes til +så mye positivt og nyttig (som nyhetslesing, sjekke været, kontakte +slekt og venner, holde seg oppdatert om politiske saker, kontakte +organisasjoner og politikere, etc), at det for meg er helt urimelig å +blokkere dette for alle som ikke gjør en flue fortred. De som mener +at potensialet for misbruk er grunn nok til å hindre all den positive +og lovlydige bruken av et åpent trådløsnett har jeg dermed ingen +forståelse for. En kan ikke eksistensen av forbrytere styre hvordan +samfunnet skal organiseres. Da får en et kontrollsamfunn de færreste +ønsker å leve i, og det at vi har et samfunn i Norge der tilliten til +hverandre er høy gjør at samfunnet fungerer ganske godt. Det bør vi +anstrenge oss for å beholde.
+ +My +testing +of Debian upgrades from Lenny to Squeeze continues, and I've +finally made the upgrade logs available from +http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/. +I am now testing dist-upgrade of Gnome and KDE in a chroot using both +apt and aptitude, and found their differences interesting. This time +I will only focus on their removal plans.
+ +After installing a Gnome desktop and the laptop task, apt-get wants +to remove 72 packages when dist-upgrading from Lenny to Squeeze. The +surprising part is that it want to remove xorg and all +xserver-xorg-video* drivers. Clearly not a good choice, but I am not +sure why. When asking aptitude to do the same, it want to remove 129 +packages, but most of them are library packages I suspect are no +longer needed. Both of them want to remove bluetooth packages, which +I do not know. Perhaps these bluetooth packages are obsolete?
+ +For KDE, apt-get want to remove 82 packages, among them kdebase +which seem like a bad idea and xorg the same way as with Gnome. Asking +aptitude for the same, it wants to remove 192 packages, none which are +too surprising.
+ +I guess the removal of xorg during upgrades should be investigated +and avoided, and perhaps others as well. Here are the complete list +of planned removals. The complete logs is available from the URL +above. Note if you want to repeat these tests, that the upgrade test +for kde+apt-get hung in the tasksel setup because of dpkg asking +conffile questions. No idea why. I worked around it by using +'echo >> /proc/pidofdpkg/fd/0' to tell dpkg to +continue.
+ +apt-get gnome 72
+
bluez-gnome cupsddk-drivers deskbar-applet gnome
+ gnome-desktop-environment gnome-network-admin gtkhtml3.14
+ iceweasel-gnome-support libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libgdl-1-0
+ libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libmetacity0 libslab0 libxcb-xlib0
+ nautilus-cd-burner python-gnome2-desktop python-gnome2-extras
+ serpentine swfdec-mozilla update-manager xorg xserver-xorg
+ xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
+ xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
+ xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
+ xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
+ xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
+ xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
+ xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
+ xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
+ xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
+ xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
+ xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
+ xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
+ xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
+ xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
+ xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
+ xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
+ xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
+ xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
+ xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
+ xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
+ xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
+ xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9
+ xulrunner-1.9-gnome-support
aptitude gnome 129
+
+
bluez-gnome bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers dhcdbd
+ djvulibre-desktop finger gnome-app-install gnome-mount
+ gnome-network-admin gnome-spell gnome-vfs-obexftp
+ gnome-volume-manager gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs gtkhtml3.14 libao2
+ libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
+ libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcupsys2 libcurl3 libdatrie0
+ libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20
+ libeel2-data libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libfaad0 libgail-common
+ libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libgdl-1-0 libgdl-1-common
+ libggz2 libggzcore9 libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0
+ libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libgnomeprint2.2-0
+ libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgnomeprintui2.2-common
+ libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
+ libgtksourceview-common libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6
+ libhesiod0 libicu38 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 libmagick++10
+ libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmetacity0 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off
+ libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2
+ libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10
+ libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libraw1394-8
+ libsensors3 libslab0 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8 libssh2-1
+ libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10
+ libtrackerclient0 libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0
+ libxerces2-java libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6
+ libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common nautilus-cd-burner
+ openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
+ python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gnome2-desktop
+ python-gnome2-extras python-gtkhtml2 python-gtkmozembed
+ python-numeric python-sexy serpentine svgalibg1 swfdec-gnome
+ swfdec-mozilla totem-gstreamer update-manager wodim
+ xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
+ xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
+ zip
apt-get kde 82
+
+
cupsddk-drivers karm kaudiocreator kcoloredit kcontrol kde kde-core
+ kdeaddons kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-bin kdebase-bin-kde3
+ kdebase-kio-plugins kdesktop kdeutils khelpcenter kicker
+ kicker-applets knewsticker kolourpaint konq-plugins konqueror korn
+ kpersonalizer kscreensaver ksplash libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libkiten1
+ libxcb-xlib0 quanta superkaramba texlive-base-bin xorg xserver-xorg
+ xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
+ xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
+ xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
+ xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
+ xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
+ xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
+ xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
+ xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
+ xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
+ xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
+ xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
+ xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
+ xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
+ xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
+ xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
+ xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
+ xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
+ xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
+ xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
+ xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
+ xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
+ xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9
aptitude kde 192
+
bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers cvs dcoprss dhcdbd
+ djvulibre-desktop dosfstools eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
+ ghostscript-x imlib-base imlib11 indi kandy karm kasteroids
+ kaudiocreator kbackgammon kbstate kcoloredit kcontrol kcron kdat
+ kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
+ kdebase-bin-kde3 kdebase-kio-plugins kdeedu-data
+ kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data
+ kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
+ kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdeprint kdesktop kdessh
+ kdict kdnssd kdvi kedit keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs
+ kghostview khelpcenter khexedit kiconedit kitchensync klatin
+ klickety kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmoon kmrml kodo kolourpaint
+ kooka korn kpager kpdf kpercentage kpf kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler
+ krec kregexpeditor ksayit ksim ksirc ksirtet ksmiletris ksmserver
+ ksnake ksokoban ksplash ksvg ksysv ktip ktnef kuickshow kverbos
+ kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kworldclock
+ kxsldbg libakode2 libao2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
+ libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
+ libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
+ libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0 libdatrie0
+ libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
+ libgail-common libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0
+ libicu38 libiec61883-0 libindex0 libiw29 libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1
+ libkdeedu3 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkiten1 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
+ libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
+ libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 libmagick10 libmimelib1c2a
+ libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9
+ libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 libsmbios2
+ libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libtalloc1 libtiff-tools
+ libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0 libxerces2-java
+ libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 mpeglib networkstatus
+ openoffice.org-writer2latex pmount poster psutils quanta quanta-data
+ superkaramba svgalibg1 tex-common texlive-base texlive-base-bin
+ texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended
+ xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
+ xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
+ xulrunner-1.9
For those of us caring about document exchange and +interoperability, OfficeShots +is a great service. It is to ODF documents what +BrowserShots is for web +pages.
+ +A while back, I was contacted by Knut Yrvin at the part of Nokia +that used to be Trolltech, who wanted to help the OfficeShots project +and wondered if the University of Oslo where I work would be +interested in supporting the project. I helped him to navigate his +request to the right people at work, and his request was answered with +a spot in the machine room with power and network connected, and Knut +arranged funding for a machine to fill the spot. The machine is +administrated by the OfficeShots people, so I do not have daily +contact with its progress, and thus from time to time check back to +see how the project is doing.
+ +Today I had a look, and was happy to see that the Dell box in our +machine room now is the host for several virtual machines running as +OfficeShots factories, and the project is able to render ODF documents +in 17 different document processing implementation on Linux and +Windows. This is great.
+ +Dagbladet +melder at Vinmonopolet med bakgrunn i vekterstreiken som pågår i +Norge for tiden, har bestemt seg for med vitende og vilje å bryte +sentralbanklovens paragraf 14 ved å nekte folk å betale med +kontanter, og at flere butikker planlegger å følge deres eksempel. +Jeg synes det er hårreisende hvis de slipper unna med et slikt +soleklart lovbrudd, og lurer på hva slags muligheter jeg vil ha hvis +jeg blir nektet å handle med kontanter. Jeg handler i hovedsak med +kontanter selv, da jeg anser det som en borgerrett å kunne handle +anonymt uten at det blir registrert. For meg er det et angrep på mitt +personvern å nekte å ta imot kontant betaling.
+ +Paragrafen +i sentralbankloven lyder:
+ +++ +§ 14. Tvungent betalingsmiddel
+ +Bankens sedler og mynter er tvungent betalingsmiddel i Norge. Ingen +er pliktig til i én betaling å ta imot mer enn femogtyve mynter av +hver enhet.
+ +Sterkt skadde sedler og mynter er ikke tvungent +betalingsmiddel. Banken gir nærmere forskrifter om erstatning for +bortkomne, brente eller skadde sedler og mynter.
+ +Selv om en avtale inneholder klausul om betaling av en +pengeforpliktelse i gullverdi, kan skyldneren frigjøre seg med tvungne +betalingsmidler uten hensyn til denne klausul.
+
Det er med bakgrunn i denne lovet ikke tillatt å nekte å ta imot +kontakt betaling. Det er en lov jeg har sans for, og som jeg mener må +håndheves strengt.
+ +A few times I have had the need to simulate the way tasksel +installs packages during the normal debian-installer run. Until now, +I have ended up letting tasksel do the work, with the annoying problem +of not getting any feedback at all when something fails (like a +conffile question from dpkg or a download that fails), using code like +this: + +
+ +This would invoke tasksel, let its automatic task selection pick the +tasks to install, and continue to install the requested tasks without +any output what so ever. + +Recently I revisited this problem while working on the automatic +package upgrade testing, because tasksel would some times hang without +any useful feedback, and I want to see what is going on when it +happen. Then it occured to me, I can parse the output from tasksel +when asked to run in test mode, and use that aptitude command line +printed by tasksel then to simulate the tasksel run. I ended up using +code like this: + ++export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive +tasksel --new-install +
+ ++export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive +cmd="$(in_target tasksel -t --new-install | sed 's/debconf-apt-progress -- //')" +$cmd +
The content of $cmd is typically something like "aptitude -q +--without-recommends -o APT::Install-Recommends=no -y install +~t^desktop$ ~t^gnome-desktop$ ~t^laptop$ ~pstandard ~prequired +~pimportant", which will install the gnome desktop task, the +laptop task and all packages with priority standard , required and +important, just like tasksel would have done it during +installation.
+ +A better approach is probably to extend tasksel to be able to +install packages without using debconf-apt-progress, for use cases +like this.
+ +A while back, I +complained +about the fact that it is not possible with the provided schemas +for storing DNS and DHCP information in LDAP to combine the two sets +of information into one LDAP object representing a computer.
+ +In the mean time, I discovered that a simple fix would be to make +the dhcpHost object class auxiliary, to allow it to be combined with +the dNSDomain object class, and thus forming one object for one +computer when storing both DHCP and DNS information in LDAP.
+ +If I understand this correctly, it is not safe to do this change +without also changing the assigned number for the object class, and I +do not know enough about LDAP schema design to do that properly for +Debian Edu.
+ +Anyway, for future reference, this is how I believe we could change +the +DHCP +schema to solve at least part of the problem with the LDAP schemas +available today from IETF.
+ ++--- dhcp.schema (revision 65192) ++++ dhcp.schema (working copy) +@@ -376,7 +376,7 @@ + objectclass ( 2.16.840.1.113719.1.203.6.6 + NAME 'dhcpHost' + DESC 'This represents information about a particular client' +- SUP top ++ SUP top AUXILIARY + MUST cn + MAY (dhcpLeaseDN $ dhcpHWAddress $ dhcpOptionsDN $ dhcpStatements $ dhcpComments $ dhcpOption) + X-NDS_CONTAINMENT ('dhcpService' 'dhcpSubnet' 'dhcpGroup') ) ++ +
I very much welcome clues on how to do this properly for Debian +Edu/Squeeze. We provide the DHCP schema in our debian-edu-config +package, and should thus be free to rewrite it as we see fit.
+ +If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu, +please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.
+ +The last few days I have been looking into the status of the LDAP +directory in Debian Edu, and in the process I started to miss a GUI +tool to browse the LDAP tree. The only one I was able to find in +Debian/Squeeze and Lenny is +LUMA, which has proved to +be a great tool to get a overview of the current LDAP directory +populated by default in Skolelinux. Thanks to it, I have been able to +find empty and obsolete subtrees, misplaced objects and duplicate +objects. It will be installed by default in Debian/Squeeze. If you +are working with LDAP, give it a go. :)
+ +I did notice one problem with it I have not had time to report to +the BTS yet. There is no .desktop file in the package, so the tool do +not show up in the Gnome and KDE menus, but only deep down in in the +Debian submenu in KDE. I hope that can be fixed before Squeeze is +released.
+ +I have not yet been able to get it to modify the tree yet. I would +like to move objects and remove subtrees directly in the GUI, but have +not found a way to do that with LUMA yet. So in the mean time, I use +ldapvi for that.
+ +If you have tips on other GUI tools for LDAP that might be useful +in Debian Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.
+ +Update 2010-06-29: Ross Reedstrom tipped us about the +gq package as a +useful GUI alternative. It seem like a good tool, but is unmaintained +in Debian and got a RC bug keeping it out of Squeeze. Unless that +changes, it will not be an option for Debian Edu based on Squeeze.
+ +