X-Git-Url: http://pere.pagekite.me/gitweb/homepage.git/blobdiff_plain/9c472ae020e66baaf6daaf23c06bb0308a065a0e..3dcbf72b993aeaaff8ace4ad02e21378cbfe8874:/blog/index.html diff --git a/blog/index.html b/blog/index.html index 199bd4bc72..8fc1c5bb8c 100644 --- a/blog/index.html +++ b/blog/index.html @@ -20,56 +20,62 @@
-
New chrpath release 0.15
-
24th November 2013
-

After many years break from the package and a vain hope that -development would be continued by someone else, I finally pulled my -acts together this morning and wrapped up a new release of chrpath, -the command line tool to modify the rpath and runpath of already -compiled ELF programs. The update was triggered by the persistence of -Isha Vishnoi at IBM, which needed a new config.guess file to get -support for the ppc64le architecture (powerpc 64-bit Little Endian) he -is working on. I checked the -Debian, -Ubuntu and -Fedora -packages for interesting patches (failed to find the source from -OpenSUSE and Mandriva packages), and found quite a few nice fixes. -These are the release notes:

- -

New in 0.15 released 2013-11-24:

- - - -

You can -download the -new version 0.15 from alioth. Please let us know via the Alioth -project if something is wrong with the new release. The test suite -did not discover any old errors, so if you find a new one, please also -include a testsuite check.

+ +
10th September 2014
+

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of attending a talk with the +Norwegian Unix User Group about +the +OpenPGP keyserver pool sks-keyservers.net, and was very happy to +learn that there is a large set of publicly available key servers to +use when looking for peoples public key. So far I have used +subkeys.pgp.net, and some times wwwkeys.nl.pgp.net when the former +were misbehaving, but those days are ended. The servers I have used +up until yesterday have been slow and some times unavailable. I hope +those problems are gone now.

+ +

Behind the round robin DNS entry of the +sks-keyservers.net service +there is a pool of more than 100 keyservers which are checked every +day to ensure they are well connected and up to date. It must be +better than what I have used so far. :)

+ +

Yesterdays speaker told me that the service is the default +keyserver provided by the default configuration in GnuPG, but this do +not seem to be used in Debian. Perhaps it should?

+ +

Anyway, I've updated my ~/.gnupg/options file to now include this +line:

+ +

+keyserver pool.sks-keyservers.net
+

+ +

With GnuPG version 2 one can also locate the keyserver using SRV +entries in DNS. Just for fun, I did just that at work, so now every +user of GnuPG at the University of Oslo should find a OpenGPG +keyserver automatically should their need it:

+ +

+% host -t srv _pgpkey-http._tcp.uio.no
+_pgpkey-http._tcp.uio.no has SRV record 0 100 11371 pool.sks-keyservers.net.
+%
+

+ +

Now if only +the +HKP lookup protocol supported finding signature paths, I would be +very happy. It can look up a given key or search for a user ID, but I +normally do not want that, but to find a trust path from my key to +another key. Given a user ID or key ID, I would like to find (and +download) the keys representing a signature path from my key to the +key in question, to be able to get a trust path between the two keys. +This is as far as I can tell not possible today. Perhaps something +for a future version of the protocol?

@@ -77,64 +83,116 @@ include a testsuite check.

- -
22nd November 2013
-

I fjor sommer lagde jeg en -offentlig -tilgjengelig SQL-database over offentlig anbud basert på skraping -av HTML-data fra Doffin. Den har stått og gått siden da, og har nå -ca. 28000 oppføringer. Jeg oppdaget da jeg tittet innom at noen -oppføringer var ikke blitt med, antagelig på grunn av at de fikk -tildelt sekvensnummer i Doffin en godt stund før de ble publisert, -slik at min nettsideskraper som fortsatte skrapingen der den slapp -sist ikke fikk dem med seg. Jeg har fikset litt slik at skraperen nå -ser litt tilbake i tid for å se om den har gått glipp av noen -oppføringer, og har skrapet på nytt fra midten av september 2013 og -fremover. Det bør dermed bli en mer komplett database for kommende -måneder. Hvis jeg får tid skal jeg forsøke å skrape "glemte" data fra -før midten av september 2013, men tør ikke garantere at det blir -prioritert med det første.

- -

Men målet med denne bloggposten er å vise hvordan denne -Doffin-databasen kan brukes og integreres med en RSS-leser, slik at en -kan la datamaskinen holde et øye med Doffin-annonseringer etter -nøkkelord. En kan lage sitt eget søk ved å besøke -API-et -hos Scraperwiki, velge format rss2 og så legge inn noe ala dette i -"query in SQL":

- -

-select title, scrapedurl as link, abstract as description,
-       publishdate as pubDate from 'swdata'
-   where abstract like '%linux%' or title like '%linux%'
-   order by seq desc limit 20
-

- -

Dette vil søke opp alle anbud med ordet linux i oppsummering eller -tittel. En kan lage mer avanserte søk hvis en ønsker det. URL-en som -dukker opp nederst på siden kan en så gi til sin RSS-leser (jeg bruker -akregator selv), og så automatisk få beskjed hvis det dukker opp anbud -med det aktuelle nøkkelordet i teksten. Merk at kapasiteten og -ytelsen hos Scraperwiki er begrenset, så ikke be RSS-leseren hente ned -oftere enn en gang hver dag.

- -

Du lurer kanskje på hva slags informasjon en kan få ut fra denne -databasen. Her er to RSS-kilder, med søkeordet -"linux", -søkeordet -"fri -programvare" -og søkeordet -"odf". -Det er bare å søke på det en er interessert i. Kopier gjerne -datasettet og sett opp din egen tjeneste hvis du vil gjøre mer -avanserte søk. SQLite-filen med Doffin-oppføringer kan lastes med fra -Scraperwiki for de som vil grave dypere.

+ +
25th August 2014
+

Two years later, I am still not sure if it is legal here in Norway +to use or publish a video in H.264 or MPEG4 format edited by the +commercially licensed video editors, without limiting the use to +create "personal" or "non-commercial" videos or get a license +agreement with MPEG LA. If one +want to publish and broadcast video in a non-personal or commercial +setting, it might be that those tools can not be used, or that video +format can not be used, without breaking their copyright license. I +am not sure. +Back +then, I found that the copyright license terms for Adobe Premiere +and Apple Final Cut Pro both specified that one could not use the +program to produce anything else without a patent license from MPEG +LA. The issue is not limited to those two products, though. Other +much used products like those from Avid and Sorenson Media have terms +of use are similar to those from Adobe and Apple. The complicating +factor making me unsure if those terms have effect in Norway or not is +that the patents in question are not valid in Norway, but copyright +licenses are.

+ +

These are the terms for Avid Artist Suite, according to their +published +end user +license +text (converted to lower case text for easier reading):

+ +

+

18.2. MPEG-4. MPEG-4 technology may be included with the +software. MPEG LA, L.L.C. requires this notice:

+ +

This product is licensed under the MPEG-4 visual patent portfolio +license for the personal and non-commercial use of a consumer for (i) +encoding video in compliance with the MPEG-4 visual standard (“MPEG-4 +video”) and/or (ii) decoding MPEG-4 video that was encoded by a +consumer engaged in a personal and non-commercial activity and/or was +obtained from a video provider licensed by MPEG LA to provide MPEG-4 +video. No license is granted or shall be implied for any other +use. Additional information including that relating to promotional, +internal and commercial uses and licensing may be obtained from MPEG +LA, LLC. See http://www.mpegla.com. This product is licensed under +the MPEG-4 systems patent portfolio license for encoding in compliance +with the MPEG-4 systems standard, except that an additional license +and payment of royalties are necessary for encoding in connection with +(i) data stored or replicated in physical media which is paid for on a +title by title basis and/or (ii) data which is paid for on a title by +title basis and is transmitted to an end user for permanent storage +and/or use, such additional license may be obtained from MPEG LA, +LLC. See http://www.mpegla.com for additional details.

+ +

18.3. H.264/AVC. H.264/AVC technology may be included with the +software. MPEG LA, L.L.C. requires this notice:

+ +

This product is licensed under the AVC patent portfolio license for +the personal use of a consumer or other uses in which it does not +receive remuneration to (i) encode video in compliance with the AVC +standard (“AVC video”) and/or (ii) decode AVC video that was encoded +by a consumer engaged in a personal activity and/or was obtained from +a video provider licensed to provide AVC video. No license is granted +or shall be implied for any other use. Additional information may be +obtained from MPEG LA, L.L.C. See http://www.mpegla.com.

+

+ +

Note the requirement that the videos created can only be used for +personal or non-commercial purposes.

+ +

The Sorenson Media software have +similar terms:

+ +

+ +

With respect to a license from Sorenson pertaining to MPEG-4 Video +Decoders and/or Encoders: Any such product is licensed under the +MPEG-4 visual patent portfolio license for the personal and +non-commercial use of a consumer for (i) encoding video in compliance +with the MPEG-4 visual standard (“MPEG-4 video”) and/or (ii) decoding +MPEG-4 video that was encoded by a consumer engaged in a personal and +non-commercial activity and/or was obtained from a video provider +licensed by MPEG LA to provide MPEG-4 video. No license is granted or +shall be implied for any other use. Additional information including +that relating to promotional, internal and commercial uses and +licensing may be obtained from MPEG LA, LLC. See +http://www.mpegla.com.

+ +

With respect to a license from Sorenson pertaining to MPEG-4 +Consumer Recorded Data Encoder, MPEG-4 Systems Internet Data Encoder, +MPEG-4 Mobile Data Encoder, and/or MPEG-4 Unique Use Encoder: Any such +product is licensed under the MPEG-4 systems patent portfolio license +for encoding in compliance with the MPEG-4 systems standard, except +that an additional license and payment of royalties are necessary for +encoding in connection with (i) data stored or replicated in physical +media which is paid for on a title by title basis and/or (ii) data +which is paid for on a title by title basis and is transmitted to an +end user for permanent storage and/or use. Such additional license may +be obtained from MPEG LA, LLC. See http://www.mpegla.com for +additional details.

+ +

+ +

Some free software like +Handbrake and +FFMPEG uses GPL/LGPL licenses and do +not have any such terms included, so for those, there is no +requirement to limit the use to personal and non-commercial.

@@ -142,56 +200,167 @@ Scraperwiki for de som vil grave dypere.

- -
21st November 2013
-

Drones, flying robots, are getting more and more popular. The most -know ones are the killer drones used by some government to murder -people they do not like without giving them the chance of a fair -trial, but the technology have many good uses too, from mapping and -forest maintenance to photography and search and rescue. I am sure it -is just a question of time before "bad drones" are in the hands of -private enterprises and not only state criminals but petty criminals -too. The drone technology is very useful and very dangerous. To have -some control over the use of drones, I agree with Daniel Suarez in his -TED talk -"The kill -decision shouldn't belong to a robot", where he suggested this -little gem to keep the good while limiting the bad use of drones:

- -
- -

Each robot and drone should have a cryptographically signed -I.D. burned in at the factory that can be used to track its movement -through public spaces. We have license plates on cars, tail numbers on -aircraft. This is no different. And every citizen should be able to -download an app that shows the population of drones and autonomous -vehicles moving through public spaces around them, both right now and -historically. And civic leaders should deploy sensors and civic drones -to detect rogue drones, and instead of sending killer drones of their -own up to shoot them down, they should notify humans to their -presence. And in certain very high-security areas, perhaps civic -drones would snare them and drag them off to a bomb disposal facility.

- -

But notice, this is more an immune system than a weapons system. It -would allow us to avail ourselves of the use of autonomous vehicles -and drones while still preserving our open, civil society.

- -
- -

The key is that every citizen should be able to read the -radio beacons sent from the drones in the area, to be able to check -both the government and others use of drones. For such control to be -effective, everyone must be able to do it. What should such beacon -contain? At least formal owner, purpose, contact information and GPS -location. Probably also the origin and target position of the current -flight. And perhaps some registration number to be able to look up -the drone in a central database tracking their movement. Robots -should not have privacy. It is people who need privacy.

+ +
3rd August 2014
+

Lenge siden jeg har hatt tid til å publisere lenker til skriverier +jeg har hatt glede og nytte av av å lese. Her er en liten norsk +lenkesamling.

+ +

    + +
  • Sjøslag +om fiskemilliardene (NRK Ytring 2014-03-03) - litt om hvordan de +norske felles matressurser røves fra felleskapet.
  • + +
  • Matkrisen +kan komme til Norge (Aftenposten 2014-4-01) - hvordan miljøendringene vil gjøre matproduksjonen i Norge mer sÃ¥rbar.
  • + +
  • Norge +trenger kornlager (NRK Ytring 2014-06-07) Chr. Anton Smedshaug +forteller litt om Norges sÃ¥rbare matsituasjon etter at Staten solgte +Norges kornlager.
  • + +
  • PST +vil overvÃ¥ke datatastaturer (NRK 2014-03-04) - PST ønsker retten +til Ã¥ bryte seg inn pÃ¥ private PC-er og legge inn spionprogrammer. +Hvilket nok vil gjøre Linux mer populært, men gjør at en i enda mindre +grad enn i dag kan stole pÃ¥ datamaskiner - neppe en god ide for +samfunnet totalt sett.
  • + +
  • «Ruter +fremstÃ¥r som et pøbelvelde» (OsloBy 2014-03-05) - et eksempel pÃ¥ +hvordan kollektivtransportselskapet i Oslo hÃ¥ndterer sine kunder.
  • + +
  • Clear +Channel nektet Ã¥ vise Greenpeace-reklame i Oslo (Dagbladet +2014-03-05) - forteller litt om hvordan hvilke budskap som nÃ¥r ut i +det offentlige rom kontrolleres i Norge.
  • + +
  • Svarte +ikke pÃ¥ kritikken (Dagbladet 2014-03-06) - innlegg fra Norsk +presseforbund der de nok en gang tar opp det forkastelige i at +politiet nÃ¥ har full tilgang til Ã¥ bedrive telefonkontroll av +advokater.
  • + +
  • «Putin +spiller poker, ikke sjakk. I sjakk har man regler.» (Aftenposten +2014-03-08) - sjakklegenden Kasparov forklarer litt om hvordan han ser +at Russlands politikk fungerer, blant annet i lys av started av +Ukraina-krisen.
  • + +
  • I +seng med fienden (Aftenposten 2014-03-10) - kronikk fra Eirik +H. Vinje om hvordan menn og kvinner settes opp mot hverandre i det +offentlige ordskiftet, kanskje pÃ¥ sviktende grunnlag.
  • + +
  • Fritt +frem for skulk (Aftenposten 2014-03-14) - skildring av hvordan +norske elever i dag ikke lenger har rimelig krav om oppmøte pÃ¥ +skolen.
  • + +
  • «Datalagringsdirektiv» +avslørte abort, sykdom og vÃ¥penkjøp (Aftenposten 2014-03-14) - om +hvordan forskere har dokumentert hvordan innsamling av metadata om +telefoni og Internett-bruk kan være svært avslørende.
  • + +
  • Konsentrasjonssvikt +pÃ¥ pensum (Dagbladet 2014-03-14) - Kommentar om hvordan (feil) +bruk IKT i skolen kan ødelegge mer enn det bidrar til læring.
  • + +
  • Reservasjonsrettsstaten +(blogg fra Doremus 2014-02-09) - morsom beskrivelse om hvordan +regjeringens forslag til reservasjonsrett for leger kan utvides til Ã¥ +gjelde alles samvittighet.
  • + +
  • Autoritær +gjøkunge (Aftenposten 2014-03-25) - Kronikk av Bjørn Stærk om +snurpenots-overvÃ¥kningen som varsleren Snowden dokumenterte.
  • + +
  • Leveransekrise +i Offentlig sektor – mener Mike Bracken, Executive Director of Digital +in the Cabinet Office (blogg fra Friprog-senteret 2014-03-26).
  • + +
  • Norge +mÃ¥ stanse avlyttingen (Dagbladet 2014-03-26) - leserinnlegg fra +Felix Horne der han ber om at Norge gjør en innsats for Ã¥ fÃ¥ slutt pÃ¥ +overvÃ¥kning av innbyggerne som gjøres i Norge av Etiopiske +myndigheter.
  • + +
  • Demokrati +er ingen naturlig styreform (Aftenposten 2014-04-01) - kronikk av +Stein Ringen om hvordan demokrati som styreform gÃ¥r tapt nÃ¥r +innbyggerne tar det for gitt.
  • + +
  • Ytringsansvar +ere Enhver tilladte! (NRK Ytring 2014-04-01) - innspill fra Trygve +Svensson og Helge Svare om at hver enkelt av oss har et ansvar for Ã¥ +ytre oss i den offentlige debatten.
  • + +
  • Jeg +er ingen god samfunnsborger (Aftenposten 2014-04-16), kronikk av +Simen Tveitereid om alternative mÃ¥ter Ã¥ motiveres i samfunnet, uten Ã¥ +hige etter mer penger og flere ting.
  • + +
  • DLD-dommen: +Avgjørelsen fÃ¥r umiddelbar virkning (Aftenposten 2014-04-10) - +kronikk av Høyres Michael Tetzschner, en partiutbryter i DLD-saken som +stemte nei til DLD i Stortinget i 2011.
  • + +
  • Datalagringsdirektivets +endelikt (blogg fra John Wessel-Aas 2014-04-11) - oppsummering +av hvordan direktivet ble funnet ugyldig i EU-domstolen.
  • + +
  • Kronikk: +Kapitulasjonspresidenten (VG 2014-04-22) - kronikk av Einar +Kr. Steffenak om hvordan Stortingspresidenten og regjeringen viser sin +prinsippløshet i møte med Kina.
  • + +
  • Innerst +inne er alle nordmenn (Aftenposten 2014-04-27) - kronikk fra Bjørn +Stærk om hvordan vi i Vesten i stor grad baserer oss pÃ¥ en fantasi om +at alle i verden bærer pÃ¥ en drøm om Ã¥ bli som oss.
  • + +
  • Det +italienske senatet gav seg selv 134 milliarder euro i sluttpakke +(Aftenposten 2014-06-19) - forsker Simen Gaure forteller hvordan +løgner og fantasi fra nettkilder i stor grad blir akseptert som +sannhet - antagelig ogsÃ¥ av deg og meg.
  • + +
  • Et +forsvar for brÃ¥kmakerne (Dagbladet 2014-05-30) - kronikk av Dag +Øystein Nome som beskriver hvordan dagens skole ikke fungerer sÃ¥ godt +for mange elever.
  • + +
  • Betalte +med slitt seddel - havnet i arresten (Osloby 2014-06-25)) - +dokumentasjon av Oslopolitiets angrep pÃ¥ vÃ¥r alles rett til Ã¥ ferdes +uten elektronisk sporing. Jeg bruker kontanter i sÃ¥ stor grad som +mulig da banken ikke har noe med hvor jeg er og hva jeg kjøper. Vi +som gjør dette risikerer som beskrevet overgrep som frihetsberøvelse +og registrering og lagring av fingeravtrykk og bilde i politiets +database over mistenkte.
  • + +
  • Fredsprisen +til Snowden (Aftenposten 2014-06-28) - leder som forklarer hvorfor +varsleren Snowden bør fÃ¥ fredsprisen.
  • + +
  • Strategi +for politistaten (Dagbladet 2014-08-01) - leder som advarer om +sterke krefter som bruker terrortrusselen til Ã¥ lirke Norge nærmere Ã¥ +bli en politistat.
  • + +
  • Vi +mÃ¥ tenke nytt om narkotika (NRK Ytring 2014-08-03) - Mark Lewis +forklarer hvorfor legalisering og offentlig kontroll av +narkotikamarkedet er mye bedre enn Ã¥ overlate det til kriminelle.
  • + + +

@@ -199,26 +368,94 @@ should not have privacy. It is people who need privacy.

- -
13th November 2013
-

Today NUUG and Hackeriet announced -our -plans to join forces and create a wireless community network in -Oslo. The workshop to help people get started will take place -Thursday 2013-11-28, but we already are collecting the geolocation of -people joining forces to make this happen. We have -9 -locations plotted on the map, but we will need more before we have -a connected mesh spread across Oslo. If this sound interesting to -you, please join us at the workshop. If you are too impatient to wait -15 days, please join us on the IRC channel -#nuug on irc.freenode.net -right away. :)

+ +
31st July 2014
+

The complete and free “out of the box” software solution for +schools, Debian Edu / +Skolelinux, is used quite a lot in Germany, and one of the people +involved is Bernd Zeitzen, who show up on the project mailing lists +from time to time with interesting questions and tips on how to adjust +the setup. I managed to interview him this summer.

+ +

Who are you, and how do you spend your days?

+ +

My name is Bernd Zeitzen and I'm married with Hedda, a self +employed physiotherapist. My former profession is tool maker, but I +haven't worked for 30 years in this job. 30 years ago I started to +support my wife and become her officeworker and a few years later the +administrator for a small computer network, today based on Ubuntu +Server (Samba, OpenVPN). For her daily work she has to use Windows +Desktops because the software she needs to organize her business only +works with Windows . :-(

+ +

In 1988 we started with one PC and DOS, then I learned to use +Windows 98, 2000, XP, …, 8, Ubuntu, MacOSX. Today we are running a +Linux server with 6 Windows clients and 10 persons (teacher of +children with special needs, speech therapist, occupational therapist, +psychologist and officeworkers) using our Samba shares via OpenVPN to +work with the documentations of our patients.

+ +

How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu +project?

+ +

Two years ago a friend of mine asked me, if I want to get a job in +his school (Gymnasium +Harsewinkel). They started with Skolelinux / Debian Edu and they +were looking for people to give support to the teachers using the +software and the network and teaching the pupils increasing their +computer skills in optional lessons. I'm spending 4-6 hours a week +with this job.

+ +

What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux / Debian +Edu?

+ +

The independence.

+ +

First: Every person is allowed to use, share and develop the +software. Even if you are poor, you are allowed to use the software +included in Skolelinux/Debian Edu and all the other Free Software.

+ +

Second: The software runs on old machines and this gives us the +possibility to recycle computers, weeded out from offices. The +servers and desktops are running for more than two years and they are +working reliable.

+ +

We have two servers (one tjener and one terminal server), 45 +workstations in three classrooms and seven laptops as a mobile +solution for all classrooms. These machines are all booting from the +terminal server. In the moment we are installing 30 laptops as mobile +workstations. Then the pupils have the possibility to work with these +machines in their classrooms. Internet access is realized by a WLAN +router, connected to the schools network. This is all done without a +dedicated system administrator or a computer science teacher.

+ +

What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian +Edu?

+ +

Teachers and pupils are Windows users. <Irony on> And Linux +isn't cool. It's software for freaks using the command line. <Irony +off> They don't realize the stability of the system.

+ +

Which free software do you use daily?

+ +

Firefox, Thunderbird, LibreOffice, Ubuntu Server 12.04 (Samba, +Apache, MySQL, Joomla!, … and Skolelinux / Debian Edu)

+ +

Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to +get schools to use free software?

+ +

In Germany we have the situation: every school is free to decide +which software they want to use. This decision is influenced by +teachers who learned to use Windows and MS Office. They buy a PC with +Windows preinstalled and an additional testing version of MS +Office. They don't know about the possibility to use Free Software +instead. Another problem are the publisher of school books. They +develop their software, added to the school books, for Windows.

@@ -226,131 +463,39 @@ right away. :)

- -
10th November 2013
-

Continuing my research into mesh networking, I was recommended to -use TP-Link 3040 and 3600 access points as mesh nodes, and the pair I -bought arrived on Friday. Here are my notes on how to set up the -MR3040 as a mesh node using -OpenWrt.

- -

I started by following the instructions on the OpenWRT wiki for -TL-MR3040, -and downloaded -the -recommended firmware image -(openwrt-ar71xx-generic-tl-mr3040-v2-squashfs-factory.bin) and -uploaded it into the original web interface. The flashing went fine, -and the machine was available via telnet on the ethernet port. After -logging in and setting the root password, ssh was available and I -could start to set it up as a batman-adv mesh node.

- -

I started off by reading the instructions from -Wireless -Africa, which had quite a lot of useful information, but -eventually I followed the recipe from the Open Mesh wiki for -using -batman-adv on OpenWrt. A small snag was the fact that the -opkg install kmod-batman-adv command did not work as it -should. The batman-adv kernel module would fail to load because its -dependency crc16 was not already loaded. I -reported the bug to -the openwrt project and hope it will be fixed soon. But the problem -only seem to affect initial testing of batman-adv, as configuration -seem to work when booting from scratch.

- -

The setup is done using files in /etc/config/. I did not bridge -the Ethernet and mesh interfaces this time, to be able to hook up the -box on my local network and log into it for configuration updates. -The following files were changed and look like this after modifying -them:

- -

/etc/config/network

- -
-
-config interface 'loopback'
-        option ifname 'lo'
-        option proto 'static'
-        option ipaddr '127.0.0.1'
-        option netmask '255.0.0.0'
-
-config globals 'globals'
-        option ula_prefix 'fdbf:4c12:3fed::/48'
-
-config interface 'lan'
-        option ifname 'eth0'
-        option type 'bridge'
-        option proto 'dhcp'
-        option ipaddr '192.168.1.1'
-        option netmask '255.255.255.0'
-        option hostname 'tl-mr3040'
-        option ip6assign '60'
-
-config interface 'mesh'
-        option ifname 'adhoc0'
-        option mtu '1528'
-        option proto 'batadv'
-        option mesh 'bat0'
-
- -

/etc/config/wireless

-
-
-config wifi-device 'radio0'
-        option type 'mac80211'
-        option channel '11'
-        option hwmode '11ng'
-        option path 'platform/ar933x_wmac'
-        option htmode 'HT20'
-        list ht_capab 'SHORT-GI-20'
-        list ht_capab 'SHORT-GI-40'
-        list ht_capab 'RX-STBC1'
-        list ht_capab 'DSSS_CCK-40'
-        option disabled '0'
-
-config wifi-iface 'wmesh'
-        option device 'radio0'
-        option ifname 'adhoc0'
-        option network 'mesh'
-        option encryption 'none'
-        option mode 'adhoc'
-        option bssid '02:BA:00:00:00:01'
-        option ssid 'meshfx@hackeriet'
-
-

/etc/config/batman-adv

-
-
-config 'mesh' 'bat0'
-        option interfaces 'adhoc0'
-        option 'aggregated_ogms'
-        option 'ap_isolation'
-        option 'bonding'
-        option 'fragmentation'
-        option 'gw_bandwidth'
-        option 'gw_mode'
-        option 'gw_sel_class'
-        option 'log_level'
-        option 'orig_interval'
-        option 'vis_mode'
-        option 'bridge_loop_avoidance'
-        option 'distributed_arp_table'
-        option 'network_coding'
-        option 'hop_penalty'
-
-# yet another batX instance
-# config 'mesh' 'bat5'
-#       option 'interfaces' 'second_mesh'
-
- -

The mesh node is now operational. I have yet to test its range, -but I hope it is good. I have not yet tested the TP-Link 3600 box -still wrapped up in plastic.

+ +
23rd July 2014
+

This summer I finally had time to continue working on the Norwegian +docbook version of the 2004 book +Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig, +to get a Norwegian text explaining the problems with todays copyright +law. Yesterday, I finally completed translated the book text. There +are still some foot/end notes left to translate, the colophon page +need to be rewritten, and a few words and phrases still need to be +translated, but the Norwegian text is ready for the first proof +reading. :) More spell checking is needed, and several illustrations +need to be cleaned up. The work stopped up because I had to give +priority to other projects the last year, and the progress graph of +the translation show this very well:

+ +

+ +

If you want to read the result, check out the +github +project pages and the +PDF, +EPUB +and HTML version available in the +archive +directory.

+ +

Please report typos, bugs and improvements to the github project if +you find any.

@@ -358,204 +503,111 @@ still wrapped up in plastic.

- -
2nd November 2013
-

If one of the points of switching to a new init system in Debian is -to get rid of huge -init.d scripts, I doubt we need to switch away from sysvinit and -init.d scripts at all. Here is an example init.d script, ie a rewrite -of /etc/init.d/rsyslog:

- -

-#!/lib/init/init-d-script
-### BEGIN INIT INFO
-# Provides:          rsyslog
-# Required-Start:    $remote_fs $time
-# Required-Stop:     umountnfs $time
-# X-Stop-After:      sendsigs
-# Default-Start:     2 3 4 5
-# Default-Stop:      0 1 6
-# Short-Description: enhanced syslogd
-# Description:       Rsyslog is an enhanced multi-threaded syslogd.
-#                    It is quite compatible to stock sysklogd and can be 
-#                    used as a drop-in replacement.
-### END INIT INFO
-DESC="enhanced syslogd"
-DAEMON=/usr/sbin/rsyslogd
-

- -

Pretty minimalistic to me... For the record, the original sysv-rc -script was 137 lines, and the above is just 15 lines, most of it meta -info/comments.

- -

How to do this, you ask? Well, one create a new script -/lib/init/init-d-script looking something like this: - -

-#!/bin/sh
-
-# Define LSB log_* functions.
-# Depend on lsb-base (>= 3.2-14) to ensure that this file is present
-# and status_of_proc is working.
-. /lib/lsb/init-functions
-
-#
-# Function that starts the daemon/service
-
-#
-do_start()
-{
-	# Return
-	#   0 if daemon has been started
-	#   1 if daemon was already running
-	#   2 if daemon could not be started
-	start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $DAEMON --test > /dev/null \
-		|| return 1
-	start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $DAEMON -- \
-		$DAEMON_ARGS \
-		|| return 2
-	# Add code here, if necessary, that waits for the process to be ready
-	# to handle requests from services started subsequently which depend
-	# on this one.  As a last resort, sleep for some time.
-}
-
-#
-# Function that stops the daemon/service
-#
-do_stop()
-{
-	# Return
-	#   0 if daemon has been stopped
-	#   1 if daemon was already stopped
-	#   2 if daemon could not be stopped
-	#   other if a failure occurred
-	start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --retry=TERM/30/KILL/5 --pidfile $PIDFILE --name $NAME
-	RETVAL="$?"
-	[ "$RETVAL" = 2 ] && return 2
-	# Wait for children to finish too if this is a daemon that forks
-	# and if the daemon is only ever run from this initscript.
-	# If the above conditions are not satisfied then add some other code
-	# that waits for the process to drop all resources that could be
-	# needed by services started subsequently.  A last resort is to
-	# sleep for some time.
-	start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --oknodo --retry=0/30/KILL/5 --exec $DAEMON
-	[ "$?" = 2 ] && return 2
-	# Many daemons don't delete their pidfiles when they exit.
-	rm -f $PIDFILE
-	return "$RETVAL"
-}
-
-#
-# Function that sends a SIGHUP to the daemon/service
-#
-do_reload() {
-	#
-	# If the daemon can reload its configuration without
-	# restarting (for example, when it is sent a SIGHUP),
-	# then implement that here.
-	#
-	start-stop-daemon --stop --signal 1 --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --name $NAME
-	return 0
-}
-
-SCRIPTNAME=$1
-scriptbasename="$(basename $1)"
-echo "SN: $scriptbasename"
-if [ "$scriptbasename" != "init-d-library" ] ; then
-    script="$1"
-    shift
-    . $script
-else
-    exit 0
-fi
-
-NAME=$(basename $DAEMON)
-PIDFILE=/var/run/$NAME.pid
-
-# Exit if the package is not installed
-#[ -x "$DAEMON" ] || exit 0
-
-# Read configuration variable file if it is present
-[ -r /etc/default/$NAME ] && . /etc/default/$NAME
-
-# Load the VERBOSE setting and other rcS variables
-. /lib/init/vars.sh
-
-case "$1" in
-  start)
-	[ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_daemon_msg "Starting $DESC" "$NAME"
-	do_start
-	case "$?" in
-		0|1) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 0 ;;
-		2) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 1 ;;
-	esac
-	;;
-  stop)
-	[ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_daemon_msg "Stopping $DESC" "$NAME"
-	do_stop
-	case "$?" in
-		0|1) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 0 ;;
-		2) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 1 ;;
-	esac
-	;;
-  status)
-	status_of_proc "$DAEMON" "$NAME" && exit 0 || exit $?
-	;;
-  #reload|force-reload)
-	#
-	# If do_reload() is not implemented then leave this commented out
-	# and leave 'force-reload' as an alias for 'restart'.
-	#
-	#log_daemon_msg "Reloading $DESC" "$NAME"
-	#do_reload
-	#log_end_msg $?
-	#;;
-  restart|force-reload)
-	#
-	# If the "reload" option is implemented then remove the
-	# 'force-reload' alias
-	#
-	log_daemon_msg "Restarting $DESC" "$NAME"
-	do_stop
-	case "$?" in
-	  0|1)
-		do_start
-		case "$?" in
-			0) log_end_msg 0 ;;
-			1) log_end_msg 1 ;; # Old process is still running
-			*) log_end_msg 1 ;; # Failed to start
-		esac
-		;;
-	  *)
-		# Failed to stop
-		log_end_msg 1
-		;;
-	esac
-	;;
-  *)
-	echo "Usage: $SCRIPTNAME {start|stop|status|restart|force-reload}" >&2
-	exit 3
-	;;
-esac
-
-:
-

- -

It is based on /etc/init.d/skeleton, and could be improved quite a -lot. I did not really polish the approach, so it might not always -work out of the box, but you get the idea. I did not try very hard to -optimize it nor make it more robust either.

- -

A better argument for switching init system in Debian than reducing -the size of init scripts (which is a good thing to do anyway), is to -get boot system that is able to handle the kernel events sensibly and -robustly, and do not depend on the boot to run sequentially. The boot -and the kernel have not behaved sequentially in years.

+ +
17th June 2014
+

The Debian Edu / Skolelinux +project provide an instruction manual for teachers, system +administrators and other users that contain useful tips for setting up +and maintaining a Debian Edu installation. This text is about how the +text processing of this manual is handled in the project.

+ +

One goal of the project is to provide information in the native +language of its users, and for this we need to handle translations. +But we also want to make sure each language contain the same +information, so for this we need a good way to keep the translations +in sync. And we want it to be easy for our users to improve the +documentation, avoiding the need to learn special formats or tools to +contribute, and the obvious way to do this is to make it possible to +edit the documentation using a web browser. We also want it to be +easy for translators to keep the translation up to date, and give them +help in figuring out what need to be translated. Here is the list of +tools and the process we have found trying to reach all these +goals.

+ +

We maintain the authoritative source of our manual in the +Debian +wiki, as several wiki pages written in English. It consist of one +front page with references to the different chapters, several pages +for each chapter, and finally one "collection page" gluing all the +chapters together into one large web page (aka +the +AllInOne page). The AllInOne page is the one used for further +processing and translations. Thanks to the fact that the +MoinMoin installation on +wiki.debian.org support exporting pages in +the Docbook format, we can fetch +the list of pages to export using the raw version of the AllInOne +page, loop over each of them to generate a Docbook XML version of the +manual. This process also download images and transform image +references to use the locally downloaded images. The generated +Docbook XML files are slightly broken, so some post-processing is done +using the documentation/scripts/get_manual program, and the +result is a nice Docbook XML file (debian-edu-wheezy-manual.xml) and +a handfull of images. The XML file can now be used to generate PDF, HTML +and epub versions of the English manual. This is the basic step of +our process, making PDF (using dblatex), HTML (using xsltproc) and +epub (using dbtoepub) version from Docbook XML, and the resulting files +are placed in the debian-edu-doc-en binary package.

+ +

But English documentation is not enough for us. We want translated +documentation too, and we want to make it easy for translators to +track the English original. For this we use the +poxml package, +which allow us to transform the English Docbook XML file into a +translation file (a .pot file), usable with the normal gettext based +translation tools used by those translating free software. The pot +file is used to create and maintain translation files (several .po +files), which the translations update with the native language +translations of all titles, paragraphs and blocks of text in the +original. The next step is combining the original English Docbook XML +and the translation file (say debian-edu-wheezy-manual.nb.po), to +create a translated Docbook XML file (in this case +debian-edu-wheezy-manual.nb.xml). This translated (or partly +translated, if the translation is not complete) Docbook XML file can +then be used like the original to create a PDF, HTML and epub version +of the documentation.

+ +

The translators use different tools to edit the .po files. We +recommend using +lokalize, +while some use emacs and vi, others can use web based editors like +Poodle or +Transifex. All we care about +is where the .po file end up, in our git repository. Updated +translations can either be committed directly to git, or submitted as +bug reports +against the debian-edu-doc package.

+ +

One challenge is images, which both might need to be translated (if +they show translated user applications), and are needed in different +formats when creating PDF and HTML versions (epub is a HTML version in +this regard). For this we transform the original PNG images to the +needed density and format during build, and have a way to provide +translated images by storing translated versions in +images/$LANGUAGECODE/. I am a bit unsure about the details here. The +package maintainers know more.

+ +

If you wonder what the result look like, we provide +the content +of the documentation packages on the web. See for example the +Italian +PDF version or the +German +HTML version. We do not yet build the epub version by default, +but perhaps it will be done in the future.

+ +

To learn more, check out +the +debian-edu-doc package, +the +manual on the wiki and +the +translation instructions in the manual.

@@ -563,28 +615,57 @@ and the kernel have not behaved sequentially in years.

- -
1st November 2013
-

The SPICE protocol for -remote display access is the preferred solution with oVirt and RedHat -Enterprise Virtualization, and I was sad to discover the other day -that the browser plugin needed to use these systems seamlessly was -missing in Debian. The request -for a package was from 2012-04-10 with no progress since -2013-04-01, so I decided to wrap up a package based on the great work -from Cajus Pollmeier and put it in a collab-maint maintained git -repository to get a package I could use. I would very much like -others to help me maintain the package (or just take over, I do not -mind), but as no-one had volunteered so far, I just uploaded it to -NEW. I hope it will be available in Debian in a few days.

- -

The source is now available from -http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/spice-xpi.git;a=summary.

+ +
16th June 2014
+

Jeg har fortsatt behov for å kunne laste ned innslag fra NRKs +nettsted av og til for å se senere når jeg ikke er på nett, men +min +oppskrift fra 2011 sluttet å fungere da NRK byttet +avspillermetode. I dag fikk jeg endelig lett etter oppdatert løsning, +og jeg er veldig glad for å fortelle at den enkleste måten å laste ned +innslag er å bruke siste versjon 2014.06.07 av +youtube-dl. Støtten i +youtube-dl kom +inn for 23 dager siden og +versjonen i +Debian fungerer fint også som backport til Debian Wheezy. Det er +et lite problem, det håndterer kun URLer med små bokstaver, men hvis +en har en URL med store bokstaver kan en bare gjøre alle store om til +små bokstaver for å få youtube-dl til å laste ned. Rapporterte +nettopp +problemet til +utviklerne, og antar de får fikset det snart.

+ +

Dermed er alt klart til å laste ned dokumentarene om +USAs +hemmelige avlytting og +Selskapene +bak USAs avlytting, i tillegg til +intervjuet +med Edward Snowden gjort av den tyske tv-kanalen ARD. Anbefaler +alle å se disse, sammen med +foredraget +til Jacob Appelbaum på siste CCC-konferanse, for å forstå mer om +hvordan overvåkningen av borgerne brer om seg.

+ +

Takk til gode venner på foreningen NUUGs IRC-kanal +#nuug på irc.freenode.net +for tipsene som fikk meg i mål.

+ +

Oppdatering 2014-06-17: Etter at jeg publiserte +denne, ble jeg tipset om bloggposten +"Downloading +HD content from tv.nrk.no" av Ingvar Hagelund, som har alternativ +implementasjon og tips for å lage mkv-fil med undertekstene inkludert. +Kanskje den passer bedre for deg? I tillegg ble feilen i youtube-dl +ble fikset litt senere ut på dagen i går, samt at youtube-dl fikk +støtte for å laste ned undertitler. Takk til Anders Einar Hilden for +god innsats og youtube-dl-utviklerne for rask respons.

- Tags: debian, english. + Tags: multimedia, norsk, video, web.
@@ -592,120 +673,59 @@ NEW. I hope it will be available in Debian in a few days.

- -
27th October 2013
-

The -vmdebootstrap -program is a a very nice system to create virtual machine images. It -create a image file, add a partition table, mount it and run -debootstrap in the mounted directory to create a Debian system on a -stick. Yesterday, I decided to try to teach it how to make images for -Raspberry Pi, as part -of a plan to simplify the build system for -the FreedomBox -project. The FreedomBox project already uses vmdebootstrap for -the virtualbox images, but its current build system made multistrap -based system for Dreamplug images, and it is lacking support for -Raspberry Pi.

- -

Armed with the knowledge on how to build "foreign" (aka non-native -architecture) chroots for Raspberry Pi, I dived into the vmdebootstrap -code and adjusted it to be able to build armel images on my amd64 -Debian laptop. I ended up giving vmdebootstrap five new options, -allowing me to replicate the image creation process I use to make -Debian -Jessie based mesh node images for the Raspberry Pi. First, the ---foreign /path/to/binfm_handler option tell vmdebootstrap to -call debootstrap with --foreign and to copy the handler into the -generated chroot before running the second stage. This allow -vmdebootstrap to create armel images on an amd64 host. Next I added -two new options --bootsize size and --boottype -fstype to teach it to create a separate /boot/ partition with the -given file system type, allowing me to create an image with a vfat -partition for the /boot/ stuff. I also added a --variant -variant option to allow me to create smaller images without the -Debian base system packages installed. Finally, I added an option ---no-extlinux to tell vmdebootstrap to not install extlinux -as a boot loader. It is not needed on the Raspberry Pi and probably -most other non-x86 architectures. The changes were accepted by the -upstream author of vmdebootstrap yesterday and today, and is now -available from -the -upstream project page.

- -

To use it to build a Raspberry Pi image using Debian Jessie, first -create a small script (the customize script) to add the non-free -binary blob needed to boot the Raspberry Pi and the APT source -list:

- -

-#!/bin/sh
-set -e # Exit on first error
-rootdir="$1"
-cd "$rootdir"
-cat <<EOF > etc/apt/sources.list
-deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ jessie main contrib non-free
-EOF
-# Install non-free binary blob needed to boot Raspberry Pi.  This
-# install a kernel somewhere too.
-wget https://raw.github.com/Hexxeh/rpi-update/master/rpi-update \
-    -O $rootdir/usr/bin/rpi-update
-chmod a+x $rootdir/usr/bin/rpi-update
-mkdir -p $rootdir/lib/modules
-touch $rootdir/boot/start.elf
-chroot $rootdir rpi-update
-

- -

Next, fetch the latest vmdebootstrap script and call it like this -to build the image:

- -
-sudo ./vmdebootstrap \
-    --variant minbase \
-    --arch armel \
-    --distribution jessie \
-    --mirror http://http.debian.net/debian \
-    --image test.img \
-    --size 600M \
-    --bootsize 64M \
-    --boottype vfat \
-    --log-level debug \
-    --verbose \
-    --no-kernel \
-    --no-extlinux \
-    --root-password raspberry \
-    --hostname raspberrypi \
-    --foreign /usr/bin/qemu-arm-static \
-    --customize `pwd`/customize \
-    --package netbase \
-    --package git-core \
-    --package binutils \
-    --package ca-certificates \
-    --package wget \
-    --package kmod
-

- -

The list of packages being installed are the ones needed by -rpi-update to make the image bootable on the Raspberry Pi, with the -exception of netbase, which is needed by debootstrap to find -/etc/hosts with the minbase variant. I really wish there was a way to -set up an Raspberry Pi using only packages in the Debian archive, but -that is not possible as far as I know, because it boots from the GPU -using a non-free binary blob.

- -

The build host need debootstrap, kpartx and qemu-user-static and -probably a few others installed. I have not checked the complete -build dependency list.

- -

The resulting image will not use the hardware floating point unit -on the Raspberry PI, because the armel architecture in Debian is not -optimized for that use. So the images created will be a bit slower -than Raspbian based images.

+ +
29th May 2014
+

Dear lazyweb. I'm planning to set up a small Raspberry Pi computer +in my car, connected to +a +small screen next to the rear mirror. I plan to hook it up with a +GPS and a USB wifi card too. The idea is to get my own +"Carputer". But I +wonder if someone already created a good free software solution for +such car computer.

+ +

This is my current wish list for such system:

+ +
    + +
  • Work on Raspberry Pi.
  • + +
  • Show current speed limit based on location, and warn if going too + fast (for example using color codes yellow and red on the screen, + or make a sound). This could be done either using either data from + Openstreetmap or OCR + info gathered from a dashboard camera.
  • + +
  • Track automatic toll road passes and their cost, show total spent + and make it possible to calculate toll costs for planned + route.
  • + +
  • Collect GPX tracks for use with OpenStreetMap.
  • + +
  • Automatically detect and use any wireless connection to connect + to home server. Try IP over DNS + (iodine) or ICMP + (Hans) if direct + connection do not work.
  • + +
  • Set up mesh network to talk to other cars with the same system, + or some standard car mesh protocol.
  • + +
  • Warn when approaching speed cameras and speed camera ranges + (speed calculated between two cameras).
  • + +
  • Suport dashboard/front facing camera to discover speed limits and + run OCR to track registration number of passing cars.
  • + +
+ +

If you know of any free software car computer system supporting +some or all of these features, please let me know.

@@ -713,51 +733,54 @@ than Raspbian based images.

- -
26th October 2013
-

De siste måneders eksponering av -den -totale overvåkningen som foregår i den vestlige verden dokumenterer -hvor sårbare vi er. Men det slår meg at de som er mest sårbare -for dette, myndighetspersoner på alle nivåer, neppe har innsett at de -selv er de mest interessante personene å lage profiler på, for å kunne -påvirke dem.

- -

For å ta et lite eksempel: Stortingets nettsted, -www.stortinget.no (og -forsåvidt også -data.stortinget.no), -inneholder informasjon om det som foregår på Stortinget, og jeg antar -de største brukerne av informasjonen der er representanter og -rådgivere på Stortinget. Intet overraskende med det. Det som derimot -er mer skjult er at Stortingets nettsted bruker -Google -Analytics, hvilket gjør at enhver som besøker nettsidene der også -rapporterer om besøket via Internett-linjer som passerer Sverige, -England og videre til USA. Det betyr at informasjon om ethvert besøk -på stortingets nettsider kan snappes opp av svensk, britisk og USAs -etterretningsvesen. De kan dermed holde et øye med hvilke -Stortingssaker stortingsrepresentantene synes er interessante å sjekke -ut, og hvilke sider rådgivere og andre på stortinget synes er -interessant å besøke, når de gjør det og hvilke andre representanter -som sjekker de samme sidene omtrent samtidig. Stortingets bruk av -Google Analytics gjør det dermed enkelt for utenlands etteretning å -spore representantenes aktivitet og interesse. Hvis noen av -representantene bruker Google Mail eller noen andre tjenestene som -krever innlogging, så vil det være enda enklere å finne ut nøyaktig -hvilke personer som bruker hvilke nettlesere og dermed knytte -informasjonen opp til enkeltpersoner på Stortinget.

- -

Og jo flere nettsteder som bruker Google Analytics, jo bedre -oversikt over stortingsrepresentantenes lesevaner og interesse blir -tilgjengelig for svensk, britisk og USAs etterretning. Hva de kan -bruke den informasjonen til overlater jeg til leseren å undres -over.

+ +
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.

@@ -765,93 +788,94 @@ over.

- -
21st October 2013
-

The last few days I have been experimenting with -the -batman-adv mesh technology. I want to gain some experience to see -if it will fit the -Freedombox project, and together with my neighbors try to build a -mesh network around the park where I live. Batman-adv is a layer 2 -mesh system ("ethernet" in other words), where the mesh network appear -as if all the mesh clients are connected to the same switch.

- -

My hardware of choice was the Linksys WRT54GL routers I had lying -around, but I've been unable to get them working with batman-adv. So -instead, I started playing with a -Raspberry Pi, and tried to -get it working as a mesh node. My idea is to use it to create a mesh -node which function as a switch port, where everything connected to -the Raspberry Pi ethernet plug is connected (bridged) to the mesh -network. This allow me to hook a wifi base station like the Linksys -WRT54GL to the mesh by plugging it into a Raspberry Pi, and allow -non-mesh clients to hook up to the mesh. This in turn is useful for -Android phones using the Serval -Project voip client, allowing every one around the playground to -phone and message each other for free. The reason is that Android -phones do not see ad-hoc wifi networks (they are filtered away from -the GUI view), and can not join the mesh without being rooted. But if -they are connected using a normal wifi base station, they can talk to -every client on the local network.

- -

To get this working, I've created a debian package -meshfx-node -and a script -build-rpi-mesh-node -to create the Raspberry Pi boot image. I'm using Debian Jessie (and -not Raspbian), to get more control over the packages available. -Unfortunately a huge binary blob need to be inserted into the boot -image to get it booting, but I'll ignore that for now. Also, as -Debian lack support for the CPU features available in the Raspberry -Pi, the system do not use the hardware floating point unit. I hope -the routing performance isn't affected by the lack of hardware FPU -support.

- -

To create an image, run the following with a sudo enabled user -after inserting the target SD card into the build machine:

- -

-% wget -O build-rpi-mesh-node \
-    https://raw.github.com/petterreinholdtsen/meshfx-node/master/build-rpi-mesh-node
-% sudo bash -x ./build-rpi-mesh-node > build.log 2>&1
-% dd if=/root/rpi/rpi_basic_jessie_$(date +%Y%m%d).img of=/dev/mmcblk0 bs=1M
-%
-

- -

Booting with the resulting SD card on a Raspberry PI with a USB -wifi card inserted should give you a mesh node. At least it does for -me with a the wifi card I am using. The default mesh settings are the -ones used by the Oslo mesh project at Hackeriet, as I mentioned in -an -earlier blog post about this mesh testing.

- -

The mesh node was not horribly expensive either. I bought -everything over the counter in shops nearby. If I had ordered online -from the lowest bidder, the price should be significantly lower:

- -

- - - - - - - - -
SupplierModelNOK
TeknikkmagasinetRaspberry Pi model B349.90
TeknikkmagasinetRaspberry Pi type B case99.90
LefdalJensen Air:Link 25150295.-
Clas OhlsonKingston 16 GB SD card199.-
Total cost943.80

- -

Now my mesh network at home consist of one laptop in the basement -connected to my production network, one Raspberry Pi node on the 1th -floor that can be seen by my neighbor across the park, and one -play-node I use to develop the image building script. And some times -I hook up my work horse laptop to the mesh to test it. I look forward -to figuring out what kind of latency the batman-adv setup will give, -and how much packet loss we will experience around the park. :)

+ +
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.

@@ -866,6 +890,29 @@ and how much packet loss we will experience around the park. :)

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