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1 <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
2 <rss version='2.0' xmlns:lj='http://www.livejournal.org/rss/lj/1.0/'>
3 <channel>
4 <title>Petter Reinholdtsen - Entries tagged debian</title>
5 <description>Entries tagged debian</description>
6 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/</link>
7
8
9 <item>
10 <title>A Debian package for SMTP via Tor (aka SMTorP) using exim4</title>
11 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Debian_package_for_SMTP_via_Tor__aka_SMTorP__using_exim4.html</link>
12 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Debian_package_for_SMTP_via_Tor__aka_SMTorP__using_exim4.html</guid>
13 <pubDate>Mon, 10 Nov 2014 13:40:00 +0100</pubDate>
14 <description>&lt;p&gt;The right to communicate with your friends and family in private,
15 without anyone snooping, is a right every citicen have in a liberal
16 democracy. But this right is under serious attack these days.&lt;/p&gt;
17
18 &lt;p&gt;A while back it occurred to me that one way to make the dragnet
19 surveillance conducted by NSA, GCHQ, FRA and others (and confirmed by
20 the whisleblower Snowden) more expensive for Internet email,
21 is to deliver all email using SMTP via Tor. Such SMTP option would be
22 a nice addition to the FreedomBox project if we could send email
23 between FreedomBox machines without leaking metadata about the emails
24 to the people peeking on the wire. I
25 &lt;a href=&quot;http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/freedombox-discuss/2014-October/006493.html&quot;&gt;proposed
26 this on the FreedomBox project mailing list in October&lt;/a&gt; and got a
27 lot of useful feedback and suggestions. It also became obvious to me
28 that this was not a novel idea, as the same idea was tested and
29 documented by Johannes Berg as early as 2006, and both
30 &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/pagekite/Mailpile/wiki/SMTorP&quot;&gt;the
31 Mailpile&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://dee.su/cables&quot;&gt;the Cables&lt;/a&gt; systems
32 propose a similar method / protocol to pass emails between users.&lt;/p&gt;
33
34 &lt;p&gt;To implement such system one need to set up a Tor hidden service
35 providing the SMTP protocol on port 25, and use email addresses
36 looking like username@hidden-service-name.onion. With such addresses
37 the connections to port 25 on hidden-service-name.onion using Tor will
38 go to the correct SMTP server. To do this, one need to configure the
39 Tor daemon to provide the hidden service and the mail server to accept
40 emails for this .onion domain. To learn more about Exim configuration
41 in Debian and test the design provided by Johannes Berg in his FAQ, I
42 set out yesterday to create a Debian package for making it trivial to
43 set up such SMTP over Tor service based on Debian. Getting it to work
44 were fairly easy, and
45 &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/exim4-smtorp&quot;&gt;the
46 source code for the Debian package&lt;/a&gt; is available from github. I
47 plan to move it into Debian if further testing prove this to be a
48 useful approach.&lt;/p&gt;
49
50 &lt;p&gt;If you want to test this, set up a blank Debian machine without any
51 mail system installed (or run &lt;tt&gt;apt-get purge exim4-config&lt;/tt&gt; to
52 get rid of exim4). Install tor, clone the git repository mentioned
53 above, build the deb and install it on the machine. Next, run
54 &lt;tt&gt;/usr/lib/exim4-smtorp/setup-exim-hidden-service&lt;/tt&gt; and follow
55 the instructions to get the service up and running. Restart tor and
56 exim when it is done, and test mail delivery using swaks like
57 this:&lt;/p&gt;
58
59 &lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
60 torsocks swaks --server dutlqrrmjhtfa3vp.onion \
61 --to fbx@dutlqrrmjhtfa3vp.onion
62 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
63
64 &lt;p&gt;This will test the SMTP delivery using tor. Replace the email
65 address with your own address to test your server. :)&lt;/p&gt;
66
67 &lt;p&gt;The setup procedure is still to complex, and I hope it can be made
68 easier and more automatic. Especially the tor setup need more work.
69 Also, the package include a tor-smtp tool written in C, but its task
70 should probably be rewritten in some script language to make the deb
71 architecture independent. It would probably also make the code easier
72 to review. The tor-smtp tool currently need to listen on a socket for
73 exim to talk to it and is started using xinetd. It would be better if
74 no daemon and no socket is needed. I suspect it is possible to get
75 exim to run a command line tool for delivery instead of talking to a
76 socket, and hope to figure out how in a future version of this
77 system.&lt;/p&gt;
78
79 &lt;p&gt;Until I wipe my test machine, I can be reached using the
80 &lt;tt&gt;fbx@dutlqrrmjhtfa3vp.onion&lt;/tt&gt; mail address, deliverable over
81 SMTorP. :)&lt;/p&gt;
82 </description>
83 </item>
84
85 <item>
86 <title>listadmin, the quick way to moderate mailman lists - nice free software</title>
87 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/listadmin__the_quick_way_to_moderate_mailman_lists___nice_free_software.html</link>
88 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/listadmin__the_quick_way_to_moderate_mailman_lists___nice_free_software.html</guid>
89 <pubDate>Wed, 22 Oct 2014 20:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
90 <description>&lt;p&gt;If you ever had to moderate a mailman list, like the ones on
91 alioth.debian.org, you know the web interface is fairly slow to
92 operate. First you visit one web page, enter the moderation password
93 and get a new page shown with a list of all the messages to moderate
94 and various options for each email address. This take a while for
95 every list you moderate, and you need to do it regularly to do a good
96 job as a list moderator. But there is a quick alternative,
97 &lt;a href=&quot;http://heim.ifi.uio.no/kjetilho/hacks/#listadmin&quot;&gt;the
98 listadmin program&lt;/a&gt;. It allow you to check lists for new messages
99 to moderate in a fraction of a second. Here is a test run on two
100 lists I recently took over:&lt;/p&gt;
101
102 &lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
103 % time listadmin xiph
104 fetching data for pkg-xiph-commits@lists.alioth.debian.org ... nothing in queue
105 fetching data for pkg-xiph-maint@lists.alioth.debian.org ... nothing in queue
106
107 real 0m1.709s
108 user 0m0.232s
109 sys 0m0.012s
110 %
111 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
112
113 &lt;p&gt;In 1.7 seconds I had checked two mailing lists and confirmed that
114 there are no message in the moderation queue. Every morning I
115 currently moderate 68 mailman lists, and it normally take around two
116 minutes. When I took over the two pkg-xiph lists above a few days
117 ago, there were 400 emails waiting in the moderator queue. It took me
118 less than 15 minutes to process them all using the listadmin
119 program.&lt;/p&gt;
120
121 &lt;p&gt;If you install
122 &lt;a href=&quot;https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/listadmin&quot;&gt;the listadmin
123 package&lt;/a&gt; from Debian and create a file &lt;tt&gt;~/.listadmin.ini&lt;/tt&gt;
124 with content like this, the moderation task is a breeze:&lt;/p&gt;
125
126 &lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
127 username username@example.org
128 spamlevel 23
129 default discard
130 discard_if_reason &quot;Posting restricted to members only. Remove us from your mail list.&quot;
131
132 password secret
133 adminurl https://{domain}/mailman/admindb/{list}
134 mailman-list@lists.example.com
135
136 password hidden
137 other-list@otherserver.example.org
138 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
139
140 &lt;p&gt;There are other options to set as well. Check the manual page to
141 learn the details.&lt;/p&gt;
142
143 &lt;p&gt;If you are forced to moderate lists on a mailman installation where
144 the SSL certificate is self signed or not properly signed by a
145 generally accepted signing authority, you can set a environment
146 variable when calling listadmin to disable SSL verification:&lt;/p&gt;
147
148 &lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
149 PERL_LWP_SSL_VERIFY_HOSTNAME=0 listadmin
150 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
151
152 &lt;p&gt;If you want to moderate a subset of the lists you take care of, you
153 can provide an argument to the listadmin script like I do in the
154 initial screen dump (the xiph argument). Using an argument, only
155 lists matching the argument string will be processed. This make it
156 quick to accept messages if you notice the moderation request in your
157 email.&lt;/p&gt;
158
159 &lt;p&gt;Without the listadmin program, I would never be the moderator of 68
160 mailing lists, as I simply do not have time to spend on that if the
161 process was any slower. The listadmin program have saved me hours of
162 time I could spend elsewhere over the years. It truly is nice free
163 software.&lt;/p&gt;
164
165 &lt;p&gt;As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
166 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
167 &lt;b&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&amp;label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog&quot;&gt;15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
168
169 &lt;p&gt;Update 2014-10-27: Added missing &#39;username&#39; statement in
170 configuration example. Also, I&#39;ve been told that the
171 PERL_LWP_SSL_VERIFY_HOSTNAME=0 setting do not work for everyone. Not
172 sure why.&lt;/p&gt;
173 </description>
174 </item>
175
176 <item>
177 <title>Debian Jessie, PXE and automatic firmware installation</title>
178 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Jessie__PXE_and_automatic_firmware_installation.html</link>
179 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Jessie__PXE_and_automatic_firmware_installation.html</guid>
180 <pubDate>Fri, 17 Oct 2014 14:10:00 +0200</pubDate>
181 <description>&lt;p&gt;When PXE installing laptops with Debian, I often run into the
182 problem that the WiFi card require some firmware to work properly.
183 And it has been a pain to fix this using preseeding in Debian.
184 Normally something more is needed. But thanks to
185 &lt;a href=&quot;https://packages.qa.debian.org/i/isenkram.html&quot;&gt;my isenkram
186 package&lt;/a&gt; and its recent tasksel extension, it has now become easy
187 to do this using simple preseeding.&lt;/p&gt;
188
189 &lt;p&gt;The isenkram-cli package provide tasksel tasks which will install
190 firmware for the hardware found in the machine (actually, requested by
191 the kernel modules for the hardware). (It can also install user space
192 programs supporting the hardware detected, but that is not the focus
193 of this story.)&lt;/p&gt;
194
195 &lt;p&gt;To get this working in the default installation, two preeseding
196 values are needed. First, the isenkram-cli package must be installed
197 into the target chroot (aka the hard drive) before tasksel is executed
198 in the pkgsel step of the debian-installer system. This is done by
199 preseeding the base-installer/includes debconf value to include the
200 isenkram-cli package. The package name is next passed to debootstrap
201 for installation. With the isenkram-cli package in place, tasksel
202 will automatically use the isenkram tasks to detect hardware specific
203 packages for the machine being installed and install them, because
204 isenkram-cli contain tasksel tasks.&lt;/p&gt;
205
206 &lt;p&gt;Second, one need to enable the non-free APT repository, because
207 most firmware unfortunately is non-free. This is done by preseeding
208 the apt-mirror-setup step. This is unfortunate, but for a lot of
209 hardware it is the only option in Debian.&lt;/p&gt;
210
211 &lt;p&gt;The end result is two lines needed in your preseeding file to get
212 firmware installed automatically by the installer:&lt;/p&gt;
213
214 &lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
215 base-installer base-installer/includes string isenkram-cli
216 apt-mirror-setup apt-setup/non-free boolean true
217 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
218
219 &lt;p&gt;The current version of isenkram-cli in testing/jessie will install
220 both firmware and user space packages when using this method. It also
221 do not work well, so use version 0.15 or later. Installing both
222 firmware and user space packages might give you a bit more than you
223 want, so I decided to split the tasksel task in two, one for firmware
224 and one for user space programs. The firmware task is enabled by
225 default, while the one for user space programs is not. This split is
226 implemented in the package currently in unstable.&lt;/p&gt;
227
228 &lt;p&gt;If you decide to give this a go, please let me know (via email) how
229 this recipe work for you. :)&lt;/p&gt;
230
231 &lt;p&gt;So, I bet you are wondering, how can this work. First and
232 foremost, it work because tasksel is modular, and driven by whatever
233 files it find in /usr/lib/tasksel/ and /usr/share/tasksel/. So the
234 isenkram-cli package place two files for tasksel to find. First there
235 is the task description file (/usr/share/tasksel/descs/isenkram.desc):&lt;/p&gt;
236
237 &lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
238 Task: isenkram-packages
239 Section: hardware
240 Description: Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)
241 Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific packages are
242 proposed.
243 Test-new-install: show show
244 Relevance: 8
245 Packages: for-current-hardware
246
247 Task: isenkram-firmware
248 Section: hardware
249 Description: Hardware specific firmware packages (autodetected by isenkram)
250 Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific firmware
251 packages are proposed.
252 Test-new-install: mark show
253 Relevance: 8
254 Packages: for-current-hardware-firmware
255 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
256
257 &lt;p&gt;The key parts are Test-new-install which indicate how the task
258 should be handled and the Packages line referencing to a script in
259 /usr/lib/tasksel/packages/. The scripts use other scripts to get a
260 list of packages to install. The for-current-hardware-firmware script
261 look like this to list relevant firmware for the machine:
262
263 &lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
264 #!/bin/sh
265 #
266 PATH=/usr/sbin:$PATH
267 export PATH
268 isenkram-autoinstall-firmware -l
269 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
270
271 &lt;p&gt;With those two pieces in place, the firmware is installed by
272 tasksel during the normal d-i run. :)&lt;/p&gt;
273
274 &lt;p&gt;If you want to test what tasksel will install when isenkram-cli is
275 installed, run &lt;tt&gt;DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical tasksel --test
276 --new-install&lt;/tt&gt; to get the list of packages that tasksel would
277 install.&lt;/p&gt;
278
279 &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/&quot;&gt;Debian Edu&lt;/a&gt; will be
280 pilots in testing this feature, as isenkram is used there now to
281 install firmware, replacing the earlier scripts.&lt;/p&gt;
282 </description>
283 </item>
284
285 <item>
286 <title>Ubuntu used to show the bread prizes at ICA Storo</title>
287 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Ubuntu_used_to_show_the_bread_prizes_at_ICA_Storo.html</link>
288 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Ubuntu_used_to_show_the_bread_prizes_at_ICA_Storo.html</guid>
289 <pubDate>Sat, 4 Oct 2014 15:20:00 +0200</pubDate>
290 <description>&lt;p&gt;Today I came across an unexpected Ubuntu boot screen. Above the
291 bread shelf on the ICA shop at Storo in Oslo, the grub menu of Ubuntu
292 with Linux kernel 3.2.0-23 (ie probably version 12.04 LTS) was stuck
293 on a screen normally showing the bread types and prizes:&lt;/p&gt;
294
295 &lt;p align=&quot;center&quot;&gt;&lt;img width=&quot;70%&quot; src=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2014-10-04-ubuntu-ica-storo-crop.jpeg&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
296
297 &lt;p&gt;If it had booted as it was supposed to, I would never had known
298 about this hidden Linux installation. It is interesting what
299 &lt;a href=&quot;http://revealingerrors.com/&quot;&gt;errors can reveal&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
300 </description>
301 </item>
302
303 <item>
304 <title>New lsdvd release version 0.17 is ready</title>
305 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_lsdvd_release_version_0_17_is_ready.html</link>
306 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_lsdvd_release_version_0_17_is_ready.html</guid>
307 <pubDate>Sat, 4 Oct 2014 08:40:00 +0200</pubDate>
308 <description>&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/&quot;&gt;lsdvd project&lt;/a&gt;
309 got a new set of developers a few weeks ago, after the original
310 developer decided to step down and pass the project to fresh blood.
311 This project is now maintained by Petter Reinholdtsen and Steve
312 Dibb.&lt;/p&gt;
313
314 &lt;p&gt;I just wrapped up
315 &lt;a href=&quot;https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/mailman/message/32896061/&quot;&gt;a
316 new lsdvd release&lt;/a&gt;, available in git or from
317 &lt;a href=&quot;https://sourceforge.net/projects/lsdvd/files/lsdvd/&quot;&gt;the
318 download page&lt;/a&gt;. This is the changelog dated 2014-10-03 for version
319 0.17.&lt;/p&gt;
320
321 &lt;ul&gt;
322
323 &lt;li&gt;Ignore &#39;phantom&#39; audio, subtitle tracks&lt;/li&gt;
324 &lt;li&gt;Check for garbage in the program chains, which indicate that a track is
325 non-existant, to work around additional copy protection&lt;/li&gt;
326 &lt;li&gt;Fix displaying content type for audio tracks, subtitles&lt;/li&gt;
327 &lt;li&gt;Fix pallete display of first entry&lt;/li&gt;
328 &lt;li&gt;Fix include orders&lt;/li&gt;
329 &lt;li&gt;Ignore read errors in titles that would not be displayed anyway&lt;/li&gt;
330 &lt;li&gt;Fix the chapter count&lt;/li&gt;
331 &lt;li&gt;Make sure the array size and the array limit used when initialising
332 the palette size is the same.&lt;/li&gt;
333 &lt;li&gt;Fix array printing.&lt;/li&gt;
334 &lt;li&gt;Correct subsecond calculations.&lt;/li&gt;
335 &lt;li&gt;Add sector information to the output format.&lt;/li&gt;
336 &lt;li&gt;Clean up code to be closer to ANSI C and compile without warnings
337 with more GCC compiler warnings.&lt;/li&gt;
338
339 &lt;/ul&gt;
340
341 &lt;p&gt;This change bring together patches for lsdvd in use in various
342 Linux and Unix distributions, as well as patches submitted to the
343 project the last nine years. Please check it out. :)&lt;/p&gt;
344 </description>
345 </item>
346
347 <item>
348 <title>How to test Debian Edu Jessie despite some fatal problems with the installer</title>
349 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_test_Debian_Edu_Jessie_despite_some_fatal_problems_with_the_installer.html</link>
350 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_test_Debian_Edu_Jessie_despite_some_fatal_problems_with_the_installer.html</guid>
351 <pubDate>Fri, 26 Sep 2014 12:20:00 +0200</pubDate>
352 <description>&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.skolelinux.org/&quot;&gt;Debian Edu / Skolelinux
353 project&lt;/a&gt; provide a Linux solution for schools, including a
354 powerful desktop with education software, a central server providing
355 web pages, user database, user home directories, central login and PXE
356 boot of both clients without disk and the installation to install Debian
357 Edu on machines with disk (and a few other services perhaps to small
358 to mention here). We in the Debian Edu team are currently working on
359 the Jessie based version, trying to get everything in shape before the
360 freeze, to avoid having to maintain our own package repository in the
361 future. The
362 &lt;a href=&quot;https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Status/Jessie&quot;&gt;current
363 status&lt;/a&gt; can be seen on the Debian wiki, and there is still heaps of
364 work left. Some fatal problems block testing, breaking the installer,
365 but it is possible to work around these to get anyway. Here is a
366 recipe on how to get the installation limping along.&lt;/p&gt;
367
368 &lt;p&gt;First, download the test ISO via
369 &lt;a href=&quot;ftp://ftp.skolelinux.no/cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-1.iso&quot;&gt;ftp&lt;/a&gt;,
370 &lt;a href=&quot;http://ftp.skolelinux.no/cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-1.iso&quot;&gt;http&lt;/a&gt;
371 or rsync (use
372 ftp.skolelinux.org::cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-1.iso).
373 The ISO build was broken on Tuesday, so we do not get a new ISO every
374 12 hours or so, but thankfully the ISO we already got we are able to
375 install with some tweaking.&lt;/p&gt;
376
377 &lt;p&gt;When you get to the Debian Edu profile question, go to tty2
378 (use Alt-Ctrl-F2), run&lt;/p&gt;
379
380 &lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
381 nano /usr/bin/edu-eatmydata-install
382 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
383
384 &lt;p&gt;and add &#39;exit 0&#39; as the second line, disabling the eatmydata
385 optimization. Return to the installation, select the profile you want
386 and continue. Without this change, exim4-config will fail to install
387 due to a known bug in eatmydata.&lt;/p&gt;
388
389 &lt;p&gt;When you get the grub question at the end, answer /dev/sda (or if
390 this do not work, figure out what your correct value would be. All my
391 test machines need /dev/sda, so I have no advice if it do not fit
392 your need.&lt;/p&gt;
393
394 &lt;p&gt;If you installed a profile including a graphical desktop, log in as
395 root after the initial boot from hard drive, and install the
396 education-desktop-XXX metapackage. XXX can be kde, gnome, lxde, xfce
397 or mate. If you want several desktop options, install more than one
398 metapackage. Once this is done, reboot and you should have a working
399 graphical login screen. This workaround should no longer be needed
400 once the education-tasks package version 1.801 enter testing in two
401 days.&lt;/p&gt;
402
403 &lt;p&gt;I believe the ISO build will start working on two days when the new
404 tasksel package enter testing and Steve McIntyre get a chance to
405 update the debian-cd git repository. The eatmydata, grub and desktop
406 issues are already fixed in unstable and testing, and should show up
407 on the ISO as soon as the ISO build start working again. Well the
408 eatmydata optimization is really just disabled. The proper fix
409 require an upload by the eatmydata maintainer applying the patch
410 provided in bug &lt;a href=&quot;https://bugs.debian.org/702711&quot;&gt;#702711&lt;/a&gt;.
411 The rest have proper fixes in unstable.&lt;/p&gt;
412
413 &lt;p&gt;I hope this get you going with the installation testing, as we are
414 quickly running out of time trying to get our Jessie based
415 installation ready before the distribution freeze in a month.&lt;/p&gt;
416 </description>
417 </item>
418
419 <item>
420 <title>Suddenly I am the new upstream of the lsdvd command line tool</title>
421 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Suddenly_I_am_the_new_upstream_of_the_lsdvd_command_line_tool.html</link>
422 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Suddenly_I_am_the_new_upstream_of_the_lsdvd_command_line_tool.html</guid>
423 <pubDate>Thu, 25 Sep 2014 11:20:00 +0200</pubDate>
424 <description>&lt;p&gt;I use the &lt;a href=&quot;https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/&quot;&gt;lsdvd tool&lt;/a&gt;
425 to handle my fairly large DVD collection. It is a nice command line
426 tool to get details about a DVD, like title, tracks, track length,
427 etc, in XML, Perl or human readable format. But lsdvd have not seen
428 any new development since 2006 and had a few irritating bugs affecting
429 its use with some DVDs. Upstream seemed to be dead, and in January I
430 sent a small probe asking for a version control repository for the
431 project, without any reply. But I use it regularly and would like to
432 get &lt;a href=&quot;https://packages.qa.debian.org/lsdvd&quot;&gt;an updated version
433 into Debian&lt;/a&gt;. So two weeks ago I tried harder to get in touch with
434 the project admin, and after getting a reply from him explaining that
435 he was no longer interested in the project, I asked if I could take
436 over. And yesterday, I became project admin.&lt;/p&gt;
437
438 &lt;p&gt;I&#39;ve been in touch with a Gentoo developer and the Debian
439 maintainer interested in joining forces to maintain the upstream
440 project, and I hope we can get a new release out fairly quickly,
441 collecting the patches spread around on the internet into on place.
442 I&#39;ve added the relevant Debian patches to the freshly created git
443 repository, and expect the Gentoo patches to make it too. If you got
444 a DVD collection and care about command line tools, check out
445 &lt;a href=&quot;https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/git/ci/master/tree/&quot;&gt;the git source&lt;/a&gt; and join
446 &lt;a href=&quot;https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/mailman/&quot;&gt;the project mailing
447 list&lt;/a&gt;. :)&lt;/p&gt;
448 </description>
449 </item>
450
451 <item>
452 <title>Speeding up the Debian installer using eatmydata and dpkg-divert</title>
453 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Speeding_up_the_Debian_installer_using_eatmydata_and_dpkg_divert.html</link>
454 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Speeding_up_the_Debian_installer_using_eatmydata_and_dpkg_divert.html</guid>
455 <pubDate>Tue, 16 Sep 2014 14:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
456 <description>&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.debian.org/&quot;&gt;Debian&lt;/a&gt; installer could be
457 a lot quicker. When we install more than 2000 packages in
458 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.skolelinux.org/&quot;&gt;Skolelinux / Debian Edu&lt;/a&gt; using
459 tasksel in the installer, unpacking the binary packages take forever.
460 A part of the slow I/O issue was discussed in
461 &lt;a href=&quot;https://bugs.debian.org/613428&quot;&gt;bug #613428&lt;/a&gt; about too
462 much file system sync-ing done by dpkg, which is the package
463 responsible for unpacking the binary packages. Other parts (like code
464 executed by postinst scripts) might also sync to disk during
465 installation. All this sync-ing to disk do not really make sense to
466 me. If the machine crash half-way through, I start over, I do not try
467 to salvage the half installed system. So the failure sync-ing is
468 supposed to protect against, hardware or system crash, is not really
469 relevant while the installer is running.&lt;/p&gt;
470
471 &lt;p&gt;A few days ago, I thought of a way to get rid of all the file
472 system sync()-ing in a fairly non-intrusive way, without the need to
473 change the code in several packages. The idea is not new, but I have
474 not heard anyone propose the approach using dpkg-divert before. It
475 depend on the small and clever package
476 &lt;a href=&quot;https://packages.qa.debian.org/eatmydata&quot;&gt;eatmydata&lt;/a&gt;, which
477 uses LD_PRELOAD to replace the system functions for syncing data to
478 disk with functions doing nothing, thus allowing programs to live
479 dangerous while speeding up disk I/O significantly. Instead of
480 modifying the implementation of dpkg, apt and tasksel (which are the
481 packages responsible for selecting, fetching and installing packages),
482 it occurred to me that we could just divert the programs away, replace
483 them with a simple shell wrapper calling
484 &quot;eatmydata&amp;nbsp;$program&amp;nbsp;$@&quot;, to get the same effect.
485 Two days ago I decided to test the idea, and wrapped up a simple
486 implementation for the Debian Edu udeb.&lt;/p&gt;
487
488 &lt;p&gt;The effect was stunning. In my first test it reduced the running
489 time of the pkgsel step (installing tasks) from 64 to less than 44
490 minutes (20 minutes shaved off the installation) on an old Dell
491 Latitude D505 machine. I am not quite sure what the optimised time
492 would have been, as I messed up the testing a bit, causing the debconf
493 priority to get low enough for two questions to pop up during
494 installation. As soon as I saw the questions I moved the installation
495 along, but do not know how long the question were holding up the
496 installation. I did some more measurements using Debian Edu Jessie,
497 and got these results. The time measured is the time stamp in
498 /var/log/syslog between the &quot;pkgsel: starting tasksel&quot; and the
499 &quot;pkgsel: finishing up&quot; lines, if you want to do the same measurement
500 yourself. In Debian Edu, the tasksel dialog do not show up, and the
501 timing thus do not depend on how quickly the user handle the tasksel
502 dialog.&lt;/p&gt;
503
504 &lt;p&gt;&lt;table&gt;
505
506 &lt;tr&gt;
507 &lt;th&gt;Machine/setup&lt;/th&gt;
508 &lt;th&gt;Original tasksel&lt;/th&gt;
509 &lt;th&gt;Optimised tasksel&lt;/th&gt;
510 &lt;th&gt;Reduction&lt;/th&gt;
511 &lt;/tr&gt;
512
513 &lt;tr&gt;
514 &lt;td&gt;Latitude D505 Main+LTSP LXDE&lt;/td&gt;
515 &lt;td&gt;64 min (07:46-08:50)&lt;/td&gt;
516 &lt;td&gt;&lt;44 min (11:27-12:11)&lt;/td&gt;
517 &lt;td&gt;&gt;20 min 18%&lt;/td&gt;
518 &lt;/tr&gt;
519
520 &lt;tr&gt;
521 &lt;td&gt;Latitude D505 Roaming LXDE&lt;/td&gt;
522 &lt;td&gt;57 min (08:48-09:45)&lt;/td&gt;
523 &lt;td&gt;34 min (07:43-08:17)&lt;/td&gt;
524 &lt;td&gt;23 min 40%&lt;/td&gt;
525 &lt;/tr&gt;
526
527 &lt;tr&gt;
528 &lt;td&gt;Latitude D505 Minimal&lt;/td&gt;
529 &lt;td&gt;22 min (10:37-10:59)&lt;/td&gt;
530 &lt;td&gt;11 min (11:16-11:27)&lt;/td&gt;
531 &lt;td&gt;11 min 50%&lt;/td&gt;
532 &lt;/tr&gt;
533
534 &lt;tr&gt;
535 &lt;td&gt;Thinkpad X200 Minimal&lt;/td&gt;
536 &lt;td&gt;6 min (08:19-08:25)&lt;/td&gt;
537 &lt;td&gt;4 min (08:04-08:08)&lt;/td&gt;
538 &lt;td&gt;2 min 33%&lt;/td&gt;
539 &lt;/tr&gt;
540
541 &lt;tr&gt;
542 &lt;td&gt;Thinkpad X200 Roaming KDE&lt;/td&gt;
543 &lt;td&gt;19 min (09:21-09:40)&lt;/td&gt;
544 &lt;td&gt;15 min (10:25-10:40)&lt;/td&gt;
545 &lt;td&gt;4 min 21%&lt;/td&gt;
546 &lt;/tr&gt;
547
548 &lt;/table&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
549
550 &lt;p&gt;The test is done using a netinst ISO on a USB stick, so some of the
551 time is spent downloading packages. The connection to the Internet
552 was 100Mbit/s during testing, so downloading should not be a
553 significant factor in the measurement. Download typically took a few
554 seconds to a few minutes, depending on the amount of packages being
555 installed.&lt;/p&gt;
556
557 &lt;p&gt;The speedup is implemented by using two hooks in
558 &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/&quot;&gt;Debian
559 Installer&lt;/a&gt;, the pre-pkgsel.d hook to set up the diverts, and the
560 finish-install.d hook to remove the divert at the end of the
561 installation. I picked the pre-pkgsel.d hook instead of the
562 post-base-installer.d hook because I test using an ISO without the
563 eatmydata package included, and the post-base-installer.d hook in
564 Debian Edu can only operate on packages included in the ISO. The
565 negative effect of this is that I am unable to activate this
566 optimization for the kernel installation step in d-i. If the code is
567 moved to the post-base-installer.d hook, the speedup would be larger
568 for the entire installation.&lt;/p&gt;
569
570 &lt;p&gt;I&#39;ve implemented this in the
571 &lt;a href=&quot;https://packages.qa.debian.org/debian-edu-install&quot;&gt;debian-edu-install&lt;/a&gt;
572 git repository, and plan to provide the optimization as part of the
573 Debian Edu installation. If you want to test this yourself, you can
574 create two files in the installer (or in an udeb). One shell script
575 need do go into /usr/lib/pre-pkgsel.d/, with content like this:&lt;/p&gt;
576
577 &lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
578 #!/bin/sh
579 set -e
580 . /usr/share/debconf/confmodule
581 info() {
582 logger -t my-pkgsel &quot;info: $*&quot;
583 }
584 error() {
585 logger -t my-pkgsel &quot;error: $*&quot;
586 }
587 override_install() {
588 apt-install eatmydata || true
589 if [ -x /target/usr/bin/eatmydata ] ; then
590 for bin in dpkg apt-get aptitude tasksel ; do
591 file=/usr/bin/$bin
592 # Test that the file exist and have not been diverted already.
593 if [ -f /target$file ] ; then
594 info &quot;diverting $file using eatmydata&quot;
595 printf &quot;#!/bin/sh\neatmydata $bin.distrib \&quot;\$@\&quot;\n&quot; \
596 &gt; /target$file.edu
597 chmod 755 /target$file.edu
598 in-target dpkg-divert --package debian-edu-config \
599 --rename --quiet --add $file
600 ln -sf ./$bin.edu /target$file
601 else
602 error &quot;unable to divert $file, as it is missing.&quot;
603 fi
604 done
605 else
606 error &quot;unable to find /usr/bin/eatmydata after installing the eatmydata pacage&quot;
607 fi
608 }
609
610 override_install
611 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
612
613 &lt;p&gt;To clean up, another shell script should go into
614 /usr/lib/finish-install.d/ with code like this:
615
616 &lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
617 #! /bin/sh -e
618 . /usr/share/debconf/confmodule
619 error() {
620 logger -t my-finish-install &quot;error: $@&quot;
621 }
622 remove_install_override() {
623 for bin in dpkg apt-get aptitude tasksel ; do
624 file=/usr/bin/$bin
625 if [ -x /target$file.edu ] ; then
626 rm /target$file
627 in-target dpkg-divert --package debian-edu-config \
628 --rename --quiet --remove $file
629 rm /target$file.edu
630 else
631 error &quot;Missing divert for $file.&quot;
632 fi
633 done
634 sync # Flush file buffers before continuing
635 }
636
637 remove_install_override
638 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
639
640 &lt;p&gt;In Debian Edu, I placed both code fragments in a separate script
641 edu-eatmydata-install and call it from the pre-pkgsel.d and
642 finish-install.d scripts.&lt;/p&gt;
643
644 &lt;p&gt;By now you might ask if this change should get into the normal
645 Debian installer too? I suspect it should, but am not sure the
646 current debian-installer coordinators find it useful enough. It also
647 depend on the side effects of the change. I&#39;m not aware of any, but I
648 guess we will see if the change is safe after some more testing.
649 Perhaps there is some package in Debian depending on sync() and
650 fsync() having effect? Perhaps it should go into its own udeb, to
651 allow those of us wanting to enable it to do so without affecting
652 everyone.&lt;/p&gt;
653
654 &lt;p&gt;Update 2014-09-24: Since a few days ago, enabling this optimization
655 will break installation of all programs using gnutls because of
656 &lt;a href=&quot;https://bugs.debian.org/702711&quot;&gt;bug #702711&lt;/a&gt;. An updated
657 eatmydata package in Debian will solve it.&lt;/p&gt;
658
659 &lt;p&gt;Update 2014-10-17: The bug mentioned above is fixed in testing and
660 the optimization work again. And I have discovered that the
661 dpkg-divert trick is not really needed and implemented a slightly
662 simpler approach as part of the debian-edu-install package. See
663 tools/edu-eatmydata-install in the source package.&lt;/p&gt;
664
665 &lt;p&gt;Update 2014-11-11: Unfortunately, a new
666 &lt;a href=&quot;http://bugs.debian.org/765738&quot;&gt;bug #765738&lt;/a&gt; in eatmydata only
667 triggering on i386 made it into testing, and broke this installation
668 optimization again. If &lt;a href=&quot;http://bugs.debian.org/768893&quot;&gt;unblock
669 request 768893&lt;/a&gt; is accepted, it should be working again.&lt;/p&gt;
670 </description>
671 </item>
672
673 <item>
674 <title>Good bye subkeys.pgp.net, welcome pool.sks-keyservers.net</title>
675 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Good_bye_subkeys_pgp_net__welcome_pool_sks_keyservers_net.html</link>
676 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Good_bye_subkeys_pgp_net__welcome_pool_sks_keyservers_net.html</guid>
677 <pubDate>Wed, 10 Sep 2014 13:10:00 +0200</pubDate>
678 <description>&lt;p&gt;Yesterday, I had the pleasure of attending a talk with the
679 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nuug.no/&quot;&gt;Norwegian Unix User Group&lt;/a&gt; about
680 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20140909-sks-keyservers/&quot;&gt;the
681 OpenPGP keyserver pool sks-keyservers.net&lt;/a&gt;, and was very happy to
682 learn that there is a large set of publicly available key servers to
683 use when looking for peoples public key. So far I have used
684 subkeys.pgp.net, and some times wwwkeys.nl.pgp.net when the former
685 were misbehaving, but those days are ended. The servers I have used
686 up until yesterday have been slow and some times unavailable. I hope
687 those problems are gone now.&lt;/p&gt;
688
689 &lt;p&gt;Behind the round robin DNS entry of the
690 &lt;a href=&quot;https://sks-keyservers.net/&quot;&gt;sks-keyservers.net&lt;/a&gt; service
691 there is a pool of more than 100 keyservers which are checked every
692 day to ensure they are well connected and up to date. It must be
693 better than what I have used so far. :)&lt;/p&gt;
694
695 &lt;p&gt;Yesterdays speaker told me that the service is the default
696 keyserver provided by the default configuration in GnuPG, but this do
697 not seem to be used in Debian. Perhaps it should?&lt;/p&gt;
698
699 &lt;p&gt;Anyway, I&#39;ve updated my ~/.gnupg/options file to now include this
700 line:&lt;/p&gt;
701
702 &lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
703 keyserver pool.sks-keyservers.net
704 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
705
706 &lt;p&gt;With GnuPG version 2 one can also locate the keyserver using SRV
707 entries in DNS. Just for fun, I did just that at work, so now every
708 user of GnuPG at the University of Oslo should find a OpenGPG
709 keyserver automatically should their need it:&lt;/p&gt;
710
711 &lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
712 % host -t srv _pgpkey-http._tcp.uio.no
713 _pgpkey-http._tcp.uio.no has SRV record 0 100 11371 pool.sks-keyservers.net.
714 %
715 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
716
717 &lt;p&gt;Now if only
718 &lt;a href=&quot;http://ietfreport.isoc.org/idref/draft-shaw-openpgp-hkp/&quot;&gt;the
719 HKP lookup protocol&lt;/a&gt; supported finding signature paths, I would be
720 very happy. It can look up a given key or search for a user ID, but I
721 normally do not want that, but to find a trust path from my key to
722 another key. Given a user ID or key ID, I would like to find (and
723 download) the keys representing a signature path from my key to the
724 key in question, to be able to get a trust path between the two keys.
725 This is as far as I can tell not possible today. Perhaps something
726 for a future version of the protocol?&lt;/p&gt;
727 </description>
728 </item>
729
730 <item>
731 <title>From English wiki to translated PDF and epub via Docbook</title>
732 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/From_English_wiki_to_translated_PDF_and_epub_via_Docbook.html</link>
733 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/From_English_wiki_to_translated_PDF_and_epub_via_Docbook.html</guid>
734 <pubDate>Tue, 17 Jun 2014 11:30:00 +0200</pubDate>
735 <description>&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.skolelinux.org/&quot;&gt;Debian Edu / Skolelinux
736 project&lt;/a&gt; provide an instruction manual for teachers, system
737 administrators and other users that contain useful tips for setting up
738 and maintaining a Debian Edu installation. This text is about how the
739 text processing of this manual is handled in the project.&lt;/p&gt;
740
741 &lt;p&gt;One goal of the project is to provide information in the native
742 language of its users, and for this we need to handle translations.
743 But we also want to make sure each language contain the same
744 information, so for this we need a good way to keep the translations
745 in sync. And we want it to be easy for our users to improve the
746 documentation, avoiding the need to learn special formats or tools to
747 contribute, and the obvious way to do this is to make it possible to
748 edit the documentation using a web browser. We also want it to be
749 easy for translators to keep the translation up to date, and give them
750 help in figuring out what need to be translated. Here is the list of
751 tools and the process we have found trying to reach all these
752 goals.&lt;/p&gt;
753
754 &lt;p&gt;We maintain the authoritative source of our manual in the
755 &lt;a href=&quot;https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/&quot;&gt;Debian
756 wiki&lt;/a&gt;, as several wiki pages written in English. It consist of one
757 front page with references to the different chapters, several pages
758 for each chapter, and finally one &quot;collection page&quot; gluing all the
759 chapters together into one large web page (aka
760 &lt;a href=&quot;https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/AllInOne&quot;&gt;the
761 AllInOne page&lt;/a&gt;). The AllInOne page is the one used for further
762 processing and translations. Thanks to the fact that the
763 &lt;a href=&quot;http://moinmo.in/&quot;&gt;MoinMoin&lt;/a&gt; installation on
764 wiki.debian.org support exporting pages in
765 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.docbook.org/&quot;&gt;the Docbook format&lt;/a&gt;, we can fetch
766 the list of pages to export using the raw version of the AllInOne
767 page, loop over each of them to generate a Docbook XML version of the
768 manual. This process also download images and transform image
769 references to use the locally downloaded images. The generated
770 Docbook XML files are slightly broken, so some post-processing is done
771 using the &lt;tt&gt;documentation/scripts/get_manual&lt;/tt&gt; program, and the
772 result is a nice Docbook XML file (debian-edu-wheezy-manual.xml) and
773 a handfull of images. The XML file can now be used to generate PDF, HTML
774 and epub versions of the English manual. This is the basic step of
775 our process, making PDF (using dblatex), HTML (using xsltproc) and
776 epub (using dbtoepub) version from Docbook XML, and the resulting files
777 are placed in the debian-edu-doc-en binary package.&lt;/p&gt;
778
779 &lt;p&gt;But English documentation is not enough for us. We want translated
780 documentation too, and we want to make it easy for translators to
781 track the English original. For this we use the
782 &lt;a href=&quot;http://packages.qa.debian.org/p/poxml.html&quot;&gt;poxml&lt;/a&gt; package,
783 which allow us to transform the English Docbook XML file into a
784 translation file (a .pot file), usable with the normal gettext based
785 translation tools used by those translating free software. The pot
786 file is used to create and maintain translation files (several .po
787 files), which the translations update with the native language
788 translations of all titles, paragraphs and blocks of text in the
789 original. The next step is combining the original English Docbook XML
790 and the translation file (say debian-edu-wheezy-manual.nb.po), to
791 create a translated Docbook XML file (in this case
792 debian-edu-wheezy-manual.nb.xml). This translated (or partly
793 translated, if the translation is not complete) Docbook XML file can
794 then be used like the original to create a PDF, HTML and epub version
795 of the documentation.&lt;/p&gt;
796
797 &lt;p&gt;The translators use different tools to edit the .po files. We
798 recommend using
799 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.kde.org/applications/development/lokalize/&quot;&gt;lokalize&lt;/a&gt;,
800 while some use emacs and vi, others can use web based editors like
801 &lt;a href=&quot;http://pootle.translatehouse.org/&quot;&gt;Poodle&lt;/a&gt; or
802 &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.transifex.com/&quot;&gt;Transifex&lt;/a&gt;. All we care about
803 is where the .po file end up, in our git repository. Updated
804 translations can either be committed directly to git, or submitted as
805 &lt;a href=&quot;https://bugs.debian.org/src:debian-edu-doc&quot;&gt;bug reports
806 against the debian-edu-doc package&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
807
808 &lt;p&gt;One challenge is images, which both might need to be translated (if
809 they show translated user applications), and are needed in different
810 formats when creating PDF and HTML versions (epub is a HTML version in
811 this regard). For this we transform the original PNG images to the
812 needed density and format during build, and have a way to provide
813 translated images by storing translated versions in
814 images/$LANGUAGECODE/. I am a bit unsure about the details here. The
815 package maintainers know more.&lt;/p&gt;
816
817 &lt;p&gt;If you wonder what the result look like, we provide
818 &lt;a href=&quot;http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/&quot;&gt;the content
819 of the documentation packages on the web&lt;/a&gt;. See for example the
820 &lt;a href=&quot;http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/it/debian-edu-wheezy-manual.pdf&quot;&gt;Italian
821 PDF version&lt;/a&gt; or the
822 &lt;a href=&quot;http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/de/debian-edu-wheezy-manual.html&quot;&gt;German
823 HTML version&lt;/a&gt;. We do not yet build the epub version by default,
824 but perhaps it will be done in the future.&lt;/p&gt;
825
826 &lt;p&gt;To learn more, check out
827 &lt;a href=&quot;http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/debian-edu-doc.html&quot;&gt;the
828 debian-edu-doc package&lt;/a&gt;,
829 &lt;a href=&quot;https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/&quot;&gt;the
830 manual on the wiki&lt;/a&gt; and
831 &lt;a href=&quot;https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/Translations&quot;&gt;the
832 translation instructions&lt;/a&gt; in the manual.&lt;/p&gt;
833 </description>
834 </item>
835
836 <item>
837 <title>Install hardware dependent packages using tasksel (Isenkram 0.7)</title>
838 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Install_hardware_dependent_packages_using_tasksel__Isenkram_0_7_.html</link>
839 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Install_hardware_dependent_packages_using_tasksel__Isenkram_0_7_.html</guid>
840 <pubDate>Wed, 23 Apr 2014 14:50:00 +0200</pubDate>
841 <description>&lt;p&gt;It would be nice if it was easier in Debian to get all the hardware
842 related packages relevant for the computer installed automatically.
843 So I implemented one, using
844 &lt;a href=&quot;http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram&quot;&gt;my Isenkram
845 package&lt;/a&gt;. To use it, install the tasksel and isenkram packages and
846 run tasksel as user root. You should be presented with a new option,
847 &quot;Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)&quot;. When you
848 select it, tasksel will install the packages isenkram claim is fit for
849 the current hardware, hot pluggable or not.&lt;p&gt;
850
851 &lt;p&gt;The implementation is in two files, one is the tasksel menu entry
852 description, and the other is the script used to extract the list of
853 packages to install. The first part is in
854 &lt;tt&gt;/usr/share/tasksel/descs/isenkram.desc&lt;/tt&gt; and look like
855 this:&lt;/p&gt;
856
857 &lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
858 Task: isenkram
859 Section: hardware
860 Description: Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)
861 Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific packages are
862 proposed.
863 Test-new-install: mark show
864 Relevance: 8
865 Packages: for-current-hardware
866 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
867
868 &lt;p&gt;The second part is in
869 &lt;tt&gt;/usr/lib/tasksel/packages/for-current-hardware&lt;/tt&gt; and look like
870 this:&lt;/p&gt;
871
872 &lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
873 #!/bin/sh
874 #
875 (
876 isenkram-lookup
877 isenkram-autoinstall-firmware -l
878 ) | sort -u
879 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
880
881 &lt;p&gt;All in all, a very short and simple implementation making it
882 trivial to install the hardware dependent package we all may want to
883 have installed on our machines. I&#39;ve not been able to find a way to
884 get tasksel to tell you exactly which packages it plan to install
885 before doing the installation. So if you are curious or careful,
886 check the output from the isenkram-* command line tools first.&lt;/p&gt;
887
888 &lt;p&gt;The information about which packages are handling which hardware is
889 fetched either from the isenkram package itself in
890 /usr/share/isenkram/, from git.debian.org or from the APT package
891 database (using the Modaliases header). The APT package database
892 parsing have caused a nasty resource leak in the isenkram daemon (bugs
893 &lt;a href=&quot;http://bugs.debian.org/719837&quot;&gt;#719837&lt;/a&gt; and
894 &lt;a href=&quot;http://bugs.debian.org/730704&quot;&gt;#730704&lt;/a&gt;). The cause is in
895 the python-apt code (bug
896 &lt;a href=&quot;http://bugs.debian.org/745487&quot;&gt;#745487&lt;/a&gt;), but using a
897 workaround I was able to get rid of the file descriptor leak and
898 reduce the memory leak from ~30 MiB per hardware detection down to
899 around 2 MiB per hardware detection. It should make the desktop
900 daemon a lot more useful. The fix is in version 0.7 uploaded to
901 unstable today.&lt;/p&gt;
902
903 &lt;p&gt;I believe the current way of mapping hardware to packages in
904 Isenkram is is a good draft, but in the future I expect isenkram to
905 use the AppStream data source for this. A proposal for getting proper
906 AppStream support into Debian is floating around as
907 &lt;a href=&quot;https://wiki.debian.org/DEP-11&quot;&gt;DEP-11&lt;/a&gt;, and
908 &lt;a href=&quot;https://wiki.debian.org/SummerOfCode2014/Projects#SummerOfCode2014.2FProjects.2FAppStreamDEP11Implementation.AppStream.2FDEP-11_for_the_Debian_Archive&quot;&gt;GSoC
909 project&lt;/a&gt; will take place this summer to improve the situation. I
910 look forward to seeing the result, and welcome patches for isenkram to
911 start using the information when it is ready.&lt;/p&gt;
912
913 &lt;p&gt;If you want your package to map to some specific hardware, either
914 add a &quot;Xb-Modaliases&quot; header to your control file like I did in
915 &lt;a href=&quot;http://packages.qa.debian.org/pymissile&quot;&gt;the pymissile
916 package&lt;/a&gt; or submit a bug report with the details to the isenkram
917 package. See also
918 &lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram/&quot;&gt;all my
919 blog posts tagged isenkram&lt;/a&gt; for details on the notation. I expect
920 the information will be migrated to AppStream eventually, but for the
921 moment I got no better place to store it.&lt;/p&gt;
922 </description>
923 </item>
924
925 <item>
926 <title>FreedomBox milestone - all packages now in Debian Sid</title>
927 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/FreedomBox_milestone___all_packages_now_in_Debian_Sid.html</link>
928 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/FreedomBox_milestone___all_packages_now_in_Debian_Sid.html</guid>
929 <pubDate>Tue, 15 Apr 2014 22:10:00 +0200</pubDate>
930 <description>&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox&quot;&gt;Freedombox
931 project&lt;/a&gt; is working on providing the software and hardware to make
932 it easy for non-technical people to host their data and communication
933 at home, and being able to communicate with their friends and family
934 encrypted and away from prying eyes. It is still going strong, and
935 today a major mile stone was reached.&lt;/p&gt;
936
937 &lt;p&gt;Today, the last of the packages currently used by the project to
938 created the system images were accepted into Debian Unstable. It was
939 the freedombox-setup package, which is used to configure the images
940 during build and on the first boot. Now all one need to get going is
941 the build code from the freedom-maker git repository and packages from
942 Debian. And once the freedombox-setup package enter testing, we can
943 build everything directly from Debian. :)&lt;/p&gt;
944
945 &lt;p&gt;Some key packages used by Freedombox are
946 &lt;a href=&quot;http://packages.qa.debian.org/freedombox-setup&quot;&gt;freedombox-setup&lt;/a&gt;,
947 &lt;a href=&quot;http://packages.qa.debian.org/plinth&quot;&gt;plinth&lt;/a&gt;,
948 &lt;a href=&quot;http://packages.qa.debian.org/pagekite&quot;&gt;pagekite&lt;/a&gt;,
949 &lt;a href=&quot;http://packages.qa.debian.org/tor&quot;&gt;tor&lt;/a&gt;,
950 &lt;a href=&quot;http://packages.qa.debian.org/privoxy&quot;&gt;privoxy&lt;/a&gt;,
951 &lt;a href=&quot;http://packages.qa.debian.org/owncloud&quot;&gt;owncloud&lt;/a&gt; and
952 &lt;a href=&quot;http://packages.qa.debian.org/dnsmasq&quot;&gt;dnsmasq&lt;/a&gt;. There
953 are plans to integrate more packages into the setup. User
954 documentation is maintained on the Debian wiki. Please
955 &lt;a href=&quot;https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/Manual/Jessie&quot;&gt;check out
956 the manual&lt;/a&gt; and help us improve it.&lt;/p&gt;
957
958 &lt;p&gt;To test for yourself and create boot images with the FreedomBox
959 setup, run this on a Debian machine using a user with sudo rights to
960 become root:&lt;/p&gt;
961
962 &lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
963 sudo apt-get install git vmdebootstrap mercurial python-docutils \
964 mktorrent extlinux virtualbox qemu-user-static binfmt-support \
965 u-boot-tools
966 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/freedombox/freedom-maker.git \
967 freedom-maker
968 make -C freedom-maker dreamplug-image raspberry-image virtualbox-image
969 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
970
971 &lt;p&gt;Root access is needed to run debootstrap and mount loopback
972 devices. See the README in the freedom-maker git repo for more
973 details on the build. If you do not want all three images, trim the
974 make line. Note that the virtualbox-image target is not really
975 virtualbox specific. It create a x86 image usable in kvm, qemu,
976 vmware and any other x86 virtual machine environment. You might need
977 the version of vmdebootstrap in Jessie to get the build working, as it
978 include fixes for a race condition with kpartx.&lt;/p&gt;
979
980 &lt;p&gt;If you instead want to install using a Debian CD and the preseed
981 method, boot a Debian Wheezy ISO and use this boot argument to load
982 the preseed values:&lt;/p&gt;
983
984 &lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
985 url=&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat&quot;&gt;http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat&lt;/a&gt;
986 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
987
988 &lt;p&gt;I have not tested it myself the last few weeks, so I do not know if
989 it still work.&lt;/p&gt;
990
991 &lt;p&gt;If you wonder how to help, one task you could look at is using
992 systemd as the boot system. It will become the default for Linux in
993 Jessie, so we need to make sure it is usable on the Freedombox. I did
994 a simple test a few weeks ago, and noticed dnsmasq failed to start
995 during boot when using systemd. I suspect there are other problems
996 too. :) To detect problems, there is a test suite included, which can
997 be run from the plinth web interface.&lt;/p&gt;
998
999 &lt;p&gt;Give it a go and let us know how it goes on the mailing list, and help
1000 us get the new release published. :) Please join us on
1001 &lt;a href=&quot;irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox&quot;&gt;IRC (#freedombox on
1002 irc.debian.org)&lt;/a&gt; and
1003 &lt;a href=&quot;http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss&quot;&gt;the
1004 mailing list&lt;/a&gt; if you want to help make this vision come true.&lt;/p&gt;
1005 </description>
1006 </item>
1007
1008 <item>
1009 <title>S3QL, a locally mounted cloud file system - nice free software</title>
1010 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/S3QL__a_locally_mounted_cloud_file_system___nice_free_software.html</link>
1011 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/S3QL__a_locally_mounted_cloud_file_system___nice_free_software.html</guid>
1012 <pubDate>Wed, 9 Apr 2014 11:30:00 +0200</pubDate>
1013 <description>&lt;p&gt;For a while now, I have been looking for a sensible offsite backup
1014 solution for use at home. My requirements are simple, it must be
1015 cheap and locally encrypted (in other words, I keep the encryption
1016 keys, the storage provider do not have access to my private files).
1017 One idea me and my friends had many years ago, before the cloud
1018 storage providers showed up, was to use Google mail as storage,
1019 writing a Linux block device storing blocks as emails in the mail
1020 service provided by Google, and thus get heaps of free space. On top
1021 of this one can add encryption, RAID and volume management to have
1022 lots of (fairly slow, I admit that) cheap and encrypted storage. But
1023 I never found time to implement such system. But the last few weeks I
1024 have looked at a system called
1025 &lt;a href=&quot;https://bitbucket.org/nikratio/s3ql/&quot;&gt;S3QL&lt;/a&gt;, a locally
1026 mounted network backed file system with the features I need.&lt;/p&gt;
1027
1028 &lt;p&gt;S3QL is a fuse file system with a local cache and cloud storage,
1029 handling several different storage providers, any with Amazon S3,
1030 Google Drive or OpenStack API. There are heaps of such storage
1031 providers. S3QL can also use a local directory as storage, which
1032 combined with sshfs allow for file storage on any ssh server. S3QL
1033 include support for encryption, compression, de-duplication, snapshots
1034 and immutable file systems, allowing me to mount the remote storage as
1035 a local mount point, look at and use the files as if they were local,
1036 while the content is stored in the cloud as well. This allow me to
1037 have a backup that should survive fire. The file system can not be
1038 shared between several machines at the same time, as only one can
1039 mount it at the time, but any machine with the encryption key and
1040 access to the storage service can mount it if it is unmounted.&lt;/p&gt;
1041
1042 &lt;p&gt;It is simple to use. I&#39;m using it on Debian Wheezy, where the
1043 package is included already. So to get started, run &lt;tt&gt;apt-get
1044 install s3ql&lt;/tt&gt;. Next, pick a storage provider. I ended up picking
1045 Greenqloud, after reading their nice recipe on
1046 &lt;a href=&quot;https://greenqloud.zendesk.com/entries/44611757-How-To-Use-S3QL-to-mount-a-StorageQloud-bucket-on-Debian-Wheezy&quot;&gt;how
1047 to use S3QL with their Amazon S3 service&lt;/a&gt;, because I trust the laws
1048 in Iceland more than those in USA when it come to keeping my personal
1049 data safe and private, and thus would rather spend money on a company
1050 in Iceland. Another nice recipe is available from the article
1051 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.admin-magazine.com/HPC/Articles/HPC-Cloud-Storage&quot;&gt;S3QL
1052 Filesystem for HPC Storage&lt;/a&gt; by Jeff Layton in the HPC section of
1053 Admin magazine. When the provider is picked, figure out how to get
1054 the API key needed to connect to the storage API. With Greencloud,
1055 the key did not show up until I had added payment details to my
1056 account.&lt;/p&gt;
1057
1058 &lt;p&gt;Armed with the API access details, it is time to create the file
1059 system. First, create a new bucket in the cloud. This bucket is the
1060 file system storage area. I picked a bucket name reflecting the
1061 machine that was going to store data there, but any name will do.
1062 I&#39;ll refer to it as &lt;tt&gt;bucket-name&lt;/tt&gt; below. In addition, one need
1063 the API login and password, and a locally created password. Store it
1064 all in ~root/.s3ql/authinfo2 like this:
1065
1066 &lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
1067 [s3c]
1068 storage-url: s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name
1069 backend-login: API-login
1070 backend-password: API-password
1071 fs-passphrase: local-password
1072 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
1073
1074 &lt;p&gt;I create my local passphrase using &lt;tt&gt;pwget 50&lt;/tt&gt; or similar,
1075 but any sensible way to create a fairly random password should do it.
1076 Armed with these details, it is now time to run mkfs, entering the API
1077 details and password to create it:&lt;/p&gt;
1078
1079 &lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
1080 # mkdir -m 700 /var/lib/s3ql-cache
1081 # mkfs.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
1082 --ssl s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name
1083 Enter backend login:
1084 Enter backend password:
1085 Before using S3QL, make sure to read the user&#39;s guide, especially
1086 the &#39;Important Rules to Avoid Loosing Data&#39; section.
1087 Enter encryption password:
1088 Confirm encryption password:
1089 Generating random encryption key...
1090 Creating metadata tables...
1091 Dumping metadata...
1092 ..objects..
1093 ..blocks..
1094 ..inodes..
1095 ..inode_blocks..
1096 ..symlink_targets..
1097 ..names..
1098 ..contents..
1099 ..ext_attributes..
1100 Compressing and uploading metadata...
1101 Wrote 0.00 MB of compressed metadata.
1102 # &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
1103
1104 &lt;p&gt;The next step is mounting the file system to make the storage available.
1105
1106 &lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
1107 # mount.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
1108 --ssl --allow-root s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name /s3ql
1109 Using 4 upload threads.
1110 Downloading and decompressing metadata...
1111 Reading metadata...
1112 ..objects..
1113 ..blocks..
1114 ..inodes..
1115 ..inode_blocks..
1116 ..symlink_targets..
1117 ..names..
1118 ..contents..
1119 ..ext_attributes..
1120 Mounting filesystem...
1121 # df -h /s3ql
1122 Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
1123 s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name 1.0T 0 1.0T 0% /s3ql
1124 #
1125 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
1126
1127 &lt;p&gt;The file system is now ready for use. I use rsync to store my
1128 backups in it, and as the metadata used by rsync is downloaded at
1129 mount time, no network traffic (and storage cost) is triggered by
1130 running rsync. To unmount, one should not use the normal umount
1131 command, as this will not flush the cache to the cloud storage, but
1132 instead running the umount.s3ql command like this:
1133
1134 &lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
1135 # umount.s3ql /s3ql
1136 #
1137 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
1138
1139 &lt;p&gt;There is a fsck command available to check the file system and
1140 correct any problems detected. This can be used if the local server
1141 crashes while the file system is mounted, to reset the &quot;already
1142 mounted&quot; flag. This is what it look like when processing a working
1143 file system:&lt;/p&gt;
1144
1145 &lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
1146 # fsck.s3ql --force --ssl s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name
1147 Using cached metadata.
1148 File system seems clean, checking anyway.
1149 Checking DB integrity...
1150 Creating temporary extra indices...
1151 Checking lost+found...
1152 Checking cached objects...
1153 Checking names (refcounts)...
1154 Checking contents (names)...
1155 Checking contents (inodes)...
1156 Checking contents (parent inodes)...
1157 Checking objects (reference counts)...
1158 Checking objects (backend)...
1159 ..processed 5000 objects so far..
1160 ..processed 10000 objects so far..
1161 ..processed 15000 objects so far..
1162 Checking objects (sizes)...
1163 Checking blocks (referenced objects)...
1164 Checking blocks (refcounts)...
1165 Checking inode-block mapping (blocks)...
1166 Checking inode-block mapping (inodes)...
1167 Checking inodes (refcounts)...
1168 Checking inodes (sizes)...
1169 Checking extended attributes (names)...
1170 Checking extended attributes (inodes)...
1171 Checking symlinks (inodes)...
1172 Checking directory reachability...
1173 Checking unix conventions...
1174 Checking referential integrity...
1175 Dropping temporary indices...
1176 Backing up old metadata...
1177 Dumping metadata...
1178 ..objects..
1179 ..blocks..
1180 ..inodes..
1181 ..inode_blocks..
1182 ..symlink_targets..
1183 ..names..
1184 ..contents..
1185 ..ext_attributes..
1186 Compressing and uploading metadata...
1187 Wrote 0.89 MB of compressed metadata.
1188 #
1189 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
1190
1191 &lt;p&gt;Thanks to the cache, working on files that fit in the cache is very
1192 quick, about the same speed as local file access. Uploading large
1193 amount of data is to me limited by the bandwidth out of and into my
1194 house. Uploading 685 MiB with a 100 MiB cache gave me 305 kiB/s,
1195 which is very close to my upload speed, and downloading the same
1196 Debian installation ISO gave me 610 kiB/s, close to my download speed.
1197 Both were measured using &lt;tt&gt;dd&lt;/tt&gt;. So for me, the bottleneck is my
1198 network, not the file system code. I do not know what a good cache
1199 size would be, but suspect that the cache should e larger than your
1200 working set.&lt;/p&gt;
1201
1202 &lt;p&gt;I mentioned that only one machine can mount the file system at the
1203 time. If another machine try, it is told that the file system is
1204 busy:&lt;/p&gt;
1205
1206 &lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
1207 # mount.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
1208 --ssl --allow-root s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name /s3ql
1209 Using 8 upload threads.
1210 Backend reports that fs is still mounted elsewhere, aborting.
1211 #
1212 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
1213
1214 &lt;p&gt;The file content is uploaded when the cache is full, while the
1215 metadata is uploaded once every 24 hour by default. To ensure the
1216 file system content is flushed to the cloud, one can either umount the
1217 file system, or ask S3QL to flush the cache and metadata using
1218 s3qlctrl:
1219
1220 &lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
1221 # s3qlctrl upload-meta /s3ql
1222 # s3qlctrl flushcache /s3ql
1223 #
1224 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
1225
1226 &lt;p&gt;If you are curious about how much space your data uses in the
1227 cloud, and how much compression and deduplication cut down on the
1228 storage usage, you can use s3qlstat on the mounted file system to get
1229 a report:&lt;/p&gt;
1230
1231 &lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
1232 # s3qlstat /s3ql
1233 Directory entries: 9141
1234 Inodes: 9143
1235 Data blocks: 8851
1236 Total data size: 22049.38 MB
1237 After de-duplication: 21955.46 MB (99.57% of total)
1238 After compression: 21877.28 MB (99.22% of total, 99.64% of de-duplicated)
1239 Database size: 2.39 MB (uncompressed)
1240 (some values do not take into account not-yet-uploaded dirty blocks in cache)
1241 #
1242 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
1243
1244 &lt;p&gt;I mentioned earlier that there are several possible suppliers of
1245 storage. I did not try to locate them all, but am aware of at least
1246 &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.greenqloud.com/&quot;&gt;Greenqloud&lt;/a&gt;,
1247 &lt;a href=&quot;http://drive.google.com/&quot;&gt;Google Drive&lt;/a&gt;,
1248 &lt;a href=&quot;http://aws.amazon.com/s3/&quot;&gt;Amazon S3 web serivces&lt;/a&gt;,
1249 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.rackspace.com/&quot;&gt;Rackspace&lt;/a&gt; and
1250 &lt;a href=&quot;http://crowncloud.net/&quot;&gt;Crowncloud&lt;/A&gt;. The latter even
1251 accept payment in Bitcoin. Pick one that suit your need. Some of
1252 them provide several GiB of free storage, but the prize models are
1253 quite different and you will have to figure out what suits you
1254 best.&lt;/p&gt;
1255
1256 &lt;p&gt;While researching this blog post, I had a look at research papers
1257 and posters discussing the S3QL file system. There are several, which
1258 told me that the file system is getting a critical check by the
1259 science community and increased my confidence in using it. One nice
1260 poster is titled
1261 &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.lanl.gov/orgs/adtsc/publications/science_highlights_2013/docs/pg68_69.pdf&quot;&gt;An
1262 Innovative Parallel Cloud Storage System using OpenStack’s SwiftObject
1263 Store and Transformative Parallel I/O Approach&lt;/a&gt;&quot; by Hsing-Bung
1264 Chen, Benjamin McClelland, David Sherrill, Alfred Torrez, Parks Fields
1265 and Pamela Smith. Please have a look.&lt;/p&gt;
1266
1267 &lt;p&gt;Given my problems with different file systems earlier, I decided to
1268 check out the mounted S3QL file system to see if it would be usable as
1269 a home directory (in other word, that it provided POSIX semantics when
1270 it come to locking and umask handling etc). Running
1271 &lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_if_a_file_system_can_be_used_for_home_directories___.html&quot;&gt;my
1272 test code to check file system semantics&lt;/a&gt;, I was happy to discover that
1273 no error was found. So the file system can be used for home
1274 directories, if one chooses to do so.&lt;/p&gt;
1275
1276 &lt;p&gt;If you do not want a locally file system, and want something that
1277 work without the Linux fuse file system, I would like to mention the
1278 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.tarsnap.com/&quot;&gt;Tarsnap service&lt;/a&gt;, which also
1279 provide locally encrypted backup using a command line client. It have
1280 a nicer access control system, where one can split out read and write
1281 access, allowing some systems to write to the backup and others to
1282 only read from it.&lt;/p&gt;
1283
1284 &lt;p&gt;As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1285 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1286 &lt;b&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&amp;label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog&quot;&gt;15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
1287 </description>
1288 </item>
1289
1290 <item>
1291 <title>Freedombox on Dreamplug, Raspberry Pi and virtual x86 machine</title>
1292 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Freedombox_on_Dreamplug__Raspberry_Pi_and_virtual_x86_machine.html</link>
1293 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Freedombox_on_Dreamplug__Raspberry_Pi_and_virtual_x86_machine.html</guid>
1294 <pubDate>Fri, 14 Mar 2014 11:00:00 +0100</pubDate>
1295 <description>&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox&quot;&gt;Freedombox
1296 project&lt;/a&gt; is working on providing the software and hardware for
1297 making it easy for non-technical people to host their data and
1298 communication at home, and being able to communicate with their
1299 friends and family encrypted and away from prying eyes. It has been
1300 going on for a while, and is slowly progressing towards a new test
1301 release (0.2).&lt;/p&gt;
1302
1303 &lt;p&gt;And what day could be better than the Pi day to announce that the
1304 new version will provide &quot;hard drive&quot; / SD card / USB stick images for
1305 Dreamplug, Raspberry Pi and VirtualBox (or any other virtualization
1306 system), and can also be installed using a Debian installer preseed
1307 file. The Debian based Freedombox is now based on Debian Jessie,
1308 where most of the needed packages used are already present. Only one,
1309 the freedombox-setup package, is missing. To try to build your own
1310 boot image to test the current status, fetch the freedom-maker scripts
1311 and build using
1312 &lt;a href=&quot;http://packages.qa.debian.org/vmdebootstrap&quot;&gt;vmdebootstrap&lt;/a&gt;
1313 with a user with sudo access to become root:
1314
1315 &lt;pre&gt;
1316 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/freedombox/freedom-maker.git \
1317 freedom-maker
1318 sudo apt-get install git vmdebootstrap mercurial python-docutils \
1319 mktorrent extlinux virtualbox qemu-user-static binfmt-support \
1320 u-boot-tools
1321 make -C freedom-maker dreamplug-image raspberry-image virtualbox-image
1322 &lt;/pre&gt;
1323
1324 &lt;p&gt;Root access is needed to run debootstrap and mount loopback
1325 devices. See the README for more details on the build. If you do not
1326 want all three images, trim the make line. But note that thanks to &lt;a
1327 href=&quot;https://bugs.debian.org/741407&quot;&gt;a race condition in
1328 vmdebootstrap&lt;/a&gt;, the build might fail without the patch to the
1329 kpartx call.&lt;/p&gt;
1330
1331 &lt;p&gt;If you instead want to install using a Debian CD and the preseed
1332 method, boot a Debian Wheezy ISO and use this boot argument to load
1333 the preseed values:&lt;/p&gt;
1334
1335 &lt;pre&gt;
1336 url=&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat&quot;&gt;http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat&lt;/a&gt;
1337 &lt;/pre&gt;
1338
1339 &lt;p&gt;But note that due to &lt;a href=&quot;https://bugs.debian.org/740673&quot;&gt;a
1340 recently introduced bug in apt in Jessie&lt;/a&gt;, the installer will
1341 currently hang while setting up APT sources. Killing the
1342 &#39;&lt;tt&gt;apt-cdrom ident&lt;/tt&gt;&#39; process when it hang a few times during the
1343 installation will get the installation going. This affect all
1344 installations in Jessie, and I expect it will be fixed soon.&lt;/p&gt;
1345
1346 &lt;p&gt;Give it a go and let us know how it goes on the mailing list, and help
1347 us get the new release published. :) Please join us on
1348 &lt;a href=&quot;irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox&quot;&gt;IRC (#freedombox on
1349 irc.debian.org)&lt;/a&gt; and
1350 &lt;a href=&quot;http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss&quot;&gt;the
1351 mailing list&lt;/a&gt; if you want to help make this vision come true.&lt;/p&gt;
1352 </description>
1353 </item>
1354
1355 <item>
1356 <title>New home and release 1.0 for netgroup and innetgr (aka ng-utils)</title>
1357 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_home_and_release_1_0_for_netgroup_and_innetgr__aka_ng_utils_.html</link>
1358 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_home_and_release_1_0_for_netgroup_and_innetgr__aka_ng_utils_.html</guid>
1359 <pubDate>Sat, 22 Feb 2014 21:45:00 +0100</pubDate>
1360 <description>&lt;p&gt;Many years ago, I wrote a GPL licensed version of the netgroup and
1361 innetgr tools, because I needed them in
1362 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.skolelinux.org/&quot;&gt;Skolelinux&lt;/a&gt;. I called the project
1363 ng-utils, and it has served me well. I placed the project under the
1364 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hungry.com/&quot;&gt;Hungry Programmer&lt;/a&gt; umbrella, and it was maintained in our CVS
1365 repository. But many years ago, the CVS repository was dropped (lost,
1366 not migrated to new hardware, not sure), and the project have lacked a
1367 proper home since then.&lt;/p&gt;
1368
1369 &lt;p&gt;Last summer, I had a look at the package and made a new release
1370 fixing a irritating crash bug, but was unable to store the changes in
1371 a proper source control system. I applied for a project on
1372 &lt;a href=&quot;https://alioth.debian.org/&quot;&gt;Alioth&lt;/a&gt;, but did not have time
1373 to follow up on it. Until today. :)&lt;/p&gt;
1374
1375 &lt;p&gt;After many hours of cleaning and migration, the ng-utils project
1376 now have a new home, and a git repository with the highlight of the
1377 history of the project. I published all release tarballs and imported
1378 them into the git repository. As the project is really stable and not
1379 expected to gain new features any time soon, I decided to make a new
1380 release and call it 1.0. Visit the new project home on
1381 &lt;a href=&quot;https://alioth.debian.org/projects/ng-utils/&quot;&gt;https://alioth.debian.org/projects/ng-utils/&lt;/a&gt;
1382 if you want to check it out. The new version is also uploaded into
1383 &lt;a href=&quot;http://packages.qa.debian.org/n/ng-utils.html&quot;&gt;Debian Unstable&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
1384 </description>
1385 </item>
1386
1387 <item>
1388 <title>Testing sysvinit from experimental in Debian Hurd</title>
1389 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_sysvinit_from_experimental_in_Debian_Hurd.html</link>
1390 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_sysvinit_from_experimental_in_Debian_Hurd.html</guid>
1391 <pubDate>Mon, 3 Feb 2014 13:40:00 +0100</pubDate>
1392 <description>&lt;p&gt;A few days ago I decided to try to help the Hurd people to get
1393 their changes into sysvinit, to allow them to use the normal sysvinit
1394 boot system instead of their old one. This follow up on the
1395 &lt;a href=&quot;https://teythoon.cryptobitch.de//categories/gsoc.html&quot;&gt;great
1396 Google Summer of Code work&lt;/a&gt; done last summer by Justus Winter to
1397 get Debian on Hurd working more like Debian on Linux. To get started,
1398 I downloaded a prebuilt hard disk image from
1399 &lt;a href=&quot;http://ftp.debian-ports.org/debian-cd/hurd-i386/current/debian-hurd.img.tar.gz&quot;&gt;http://ftp.debian-ports.org/debian-cd/hurd-i386/current/debian-hurd.img.tar.gz&lt;/a&gt;,
1400 and started it using virt-manager.&lt;/p&gt;
1401
1402 &lt;p&gt;The first think I had to do after logging in (root without any
1403 password) was to get the network operational. I followed
1404 &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.debian.org/ports/hurd/hurd-install&quot;&gt;the
1405 instructions on the Debian GNU/Hurd ports page&lt;/a&gt; and ran these
1406 commands as root to get the machine to accept a IP address from the
1407 kvm internal DHCP server:&lt;/p&gt;
1408
1409 &lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
1410 settrans -fgap /dev/netdde /hurd/netdde
1411 kill $(ps -ef|awk &#39;/[p]finet/ { print $2}&#39;)
1412 kill $(ps -ef|awk &#39;/[d]evnode/ { print $2}&#39;)
1413 dhclient /dev/eth0
1414 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
1415
1416 &lt;p&gt;After this, the machine had internet connectivity, and I could
1417 upgrade it and install the sysvinit packages from experimental and
1418 enable it as the default boot system in Hurd.&lt;/p&gt;
1419
1420 &lt;p&gt;But before I did that, I set a password on the root user, as ssh is
1421 running on the machine it for ssh login to work a password need to be
1422 set. Also, note that a bug somewhere in openssh on Hurd block
1423 compression from working. Remember to turn that off on the client
1424 side.&lt;/p&gt;
1425
1426 &lt;p&gt;Run these commands as root to upgrade and test the new sysvinit
1427 stuff:&lt;/p&gt;
1428
1429 &lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
1430 cat &gt; /etc/apt/sources.list.d/experimental.list &amp;lt;&amp;lt;EOF
1431 deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ experimental main
1432 EOF
1433 apt-get update
1434 apt-get dist-upgrade
1435 apt-get install -t experimental initscripts sysv-rc sysvinit \
1436 sysvinit-core sysvinit-utils
1437 update-alternatives --config runsystem
1438 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
1439
1440 &lt;p&gt;To reboot after switching boot system, you have to use
1441 &lt;tt&gt;reboot-hurd&lt;/tt&gt; instead of just &lt;tt&gt;reboot&lt;/tt&gt;, as there is not
1442 yet a sysvinit process able to receive the signals from the normal
1443 &#39;reboot&#39; command. After switching to sysvinit as the boot system,
1444 upgrading every package and rebooting, the network come up with DHCP
1445 after boot as it should, and the settrans/pkill hack mentioned at the
1446 start is no longer needed. But for some strange reason, there are no
1447 longer any login prompt in the virtual console, so I logged in using
1448 ssh instead.
1449
1450 &lt;p&gt;Note that there are some race conditions in Hurd making the boot
1451 fail some times. No idea what the cause is, but hope the Hurd porters
1452 figure it out. At least Justus said on IRC (#debian-hurd on
1453 irc.debian.org) that they are aware of the problem. A way to reduce
1454 the impact is to upgrade to the Hurd packages built by Justus by
1455 adding this repository to the machine:&lt;/p&gt;
1456
1457 &lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
1458 cat &gt; /etc/apt/sources.list.d/hurd-ci.list &amp;lt;&amp;lt;EOF
1459 deb http://darnassus.sceen.net/~teythoon/hurd-ci/ sid main
1460 EOF
1461 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
1462
1463 &lt;p&gt;At the moment the prebuilt virtual machine get some packages from
1464 http://ftp.debian-ports.org/debian, because some of the packages in
1465 unstable do not yet include the required patches that are lingering in
1466 BTS. This is the completely list of &quot;unofficial&quot; packages installed:&lt;/p&gt;
1467
1468 &lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
1469 # aptitude search &#39;?narrow(?version(CURRENT),?origin(Debian Ports))&#39;
1470 i emacs - GNU Emacs editor (metapackage)
1471 i gdb - GNU Debugger
1472 i hurd-recommended - Miscellaneous translators
1473 i isc-dhcp-client - ISC DHCP client
1474 i isc-dhcp-common - common files used by all the isc-dhcp* packages
1475 i libc-bin - Embedded GNU C Library: Binaries
1476 i libc-dev-bin - Embedded GNU C Library: Development binaries
1477 i libc0.3 - Embedded GNU C Library: Shared libraries
1478 i A libc0.3-dbg - Embedded GNU C Library: detached debugging symbols
1479 i libc0.3-dev - Embedded GNU C Library: Development Libraries and Hea
1480 i multiarch-support - Transitional package to ensure multiarch compatibilit
1481 i A x11-common - X Window System (X.Org) infrastructure
1482 i xorg - X.Org X Window System
1483 i A xserver-xorg - X.Org X server
1484 i A xserver-xorg-input-all - X.Org X server -- input driver metapackage
1485 #
1486 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
1487
1488 &lt;p&gt;All in all, testing hurd has been an interesting experience. :)
1489 X.org did not work out of the box and I never took the time to follow
1490 the porters instructions to fix it. This time I was interested in the
1491 command line stuff.&lt;p&gt;
1492 </description>
1493 </item>
1494
1495 <item>
1496 <title>New chrpath release 0.16</title>
1497 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_chrpath_release_0_16.html</link>
1498 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_chrpath_release_0_16.html</guid>
1499 <pubDate>Tue, 14 Jan 2014 11:00:00 +0100</pubDate>
1500 <description>&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.coverity.com/&quot;&gt;Coverity&lt;/a&gt; is a nice tool to
1501 find problems in C, C++ and Java code using static source code
1502 analysis. It can detect a lot of different problems, and is very
1503 useful to find memory and locking bugs in the error handling part of
1504 the source. The company behind it provide
1505 &lt;a href=&quot;https://scan.coverity.com/&quot;&gt;check of free software projects as
1506 a community service&lt;/a&gt;, and many hundred free software projects are
1507 already checked. A few days ago I decided to have a closer look at
1508 the Coverity system, and discovered that the
1509 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.gnu.org/software/gnash/&quot;&gt;gnash&lt;/a&gt; and
1510 &lt;a href=&quot;http://sourceforge.net/projects/ipmitool/&quot;&gt;ipmitool&lt;/a&gt;
1511 projects I am involved with was already registered. But these are
1512 fairly big, and I would also like to have a small and easy project to
1513 check, and decided to &lt;a href=&quot;http://scan.coverity.com/projects/1179&quot;&gt;request
1514 checking of the chrpath project&lt;/a&gt;. It was
1515 added to the checker and discovered seven potential defects. Six of
1516 these were real, mostly resource &quot;leak&quot; when the program detected an
1517 error. Nothing serious, as the resources would be released a fraction
1518 of a second later when the program exited because of the error, but it
1519 is nice to do it right in case the source of the program some time in
1520 the future end up in a library. Having fixed all defects and added
1521 &lt;a href=&quot;https://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/chrpath-devel&quot;&gt;a
1522 mailing list for the chrpath developers&lt;/a&gt;, I decided it was time to
1523 publish a new release. These are the release notes:&lt;/p&gt;
1524
1525 &lt;p&gt;New in 0.16 released 2014-01-14:&lt;/p&gt;
1526
1527 &lt;ul&gt;
1528
1529 &lt;li&gt;Fixed all minor bugs discovered by Coverity.&lt;/li&gt;
1530 &lt;li&gt;Updated config.sub and config.guess from the GNU project.&lt;/li&gt;
1531 &lt;li&gt;Mention new project mailing list in the documentation.&lt;/li&gt;
1532
1533 &lt;/ul&gt;
1534
1535 &lt;p&gt;You can
1536 &lt;a href=&quot;https://alioth.debian.org/frs/?group_id=31052&quot;&gt;download the
1537 new version 0.16 from alioth&lt;/a&gt;. Please let us know via the Alioth
1538 project if something is wrong with the new release. The test suite
1539 did not discover any old errors, so if you find a new one, please also
1540 include a test suite check.&lt;/p&gt;
1541 </description>
1542 </item>
1543
1544 <item>
1545 <title>New chrpath release 0.15</title>
1546 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_chrpath_release_0_15.html</link>
1547 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_chrpath_release_0_15.html</guid>
1548 <pubDate>Sun, 24 Nov 2013 09:30:00 +0100</pubDate>
1549 <description>&lt;p&gt;After many years break from the package and a vain hope that
1550 development would be continued by someone else, I finally pulled my
1551 acts together this morning and wrapped up a new release of chrpath,
1552 the command line tool to modify the rpath and runpath of already
1553 compiled ELF programs. The update was triggered by the persistence of
1554 Isha Vishnoi at IBM, which needed a new config.guess file to get
1555 support for the ppc64le architecture (powerpc 64-bit Little Endian) he
1556 is working on. I checked the
1557 &lt;a href=&quot;http://packages.qa.debian.org/chrpath&quot;&gt;Debian&lt;/a&gt;,
1558 &lt;a href=&quot;https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/chrpath&quot;&gt;Ubuntu&lt;/a&gt; and
1559 &lt;a href=&quot;https://admin.fedoraproject.org/pkgdb/acls/name/chrpath&quot;&gt;Fedora&lt;/a&gt;
1560 packages for interesting patches (failed to find the source from
1561 OpenSUSE and Mandriva packages), and found quite a few nice fixes.
1562 These are the release notes:&lt;/p&gt;
1563
1564 &lt;p&gt;New in 0.15 released 2013-11-24:&lt;/p&gt;
1565
1566 &lt;ul&gt;
1567
1568 &lt;li&gt;Updated config.sub and config.guess from the GNU project to work
1569 with newer architectures. Thanks to isha vishnoi for the heads
1570 up.&lt;/li&gt;
1571
1572 &lt;li&gt;Updated README with current URLs.&lt;/li&gt;
1573
1574 &lt;li&gt;Added byteswap fix found in Ubuntu, credited Jeremy Kerr and
1575 Matthias Klose.&lt;/li&gt;
1576
1577 &lt;li&gt;Added missing help for -k|--keepgoing option, using patch by
1578 Petr Machata found in Fedora.&lt;/li&gt;
1579
1580 &lt;li&gt;Rewrite removal of RPATH/RUNPATH to make sure the entry in
1581 .dynamic is a NULL terminated string. Based on patch found in
1582 Fedora credited Axel Thimm and Christian Krause.&lt;/li&gt;
1583
1584 &lt;/ul&gt;
1585
1586 &lt;p&gt;You can
1587 &lt;a href=&quot;https://alioth.debian.org/frs/?group_id=31052&quot;&gt;download the
1588 new version 0.15 from alioth&lt;/a&gt;. Please let us know via the Alioth
1589 project if something is wrong with the new release. The test suite
1590 did not discover any old errors, so if you find a new one, please also
1591 include a testsuite check.&lt;/p&gt;
1592 </description>
1593 </item>
1594
1595 <item>
1596 <title>Debian init.d boot script example for rsyslog</title>
1597 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_init_d_boot_script_example_for_rsyslog.html</link>
1598 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_init_d_boot_script_example_for_rsyslog.html</guid>
1599 <pubDate>Sat, 2 Nov 2013 22:40:00 +0100</pubDate>
1600 <description>&lt;p&gt;If one of the points of switching to a new init system in Debian is
1601 &lt;a href=&quot;http://thomas.goirand.fr/blog/?p=147&quot;&gt;to get rid of huge
1602 init.d scripts&lt;/a&gt;, I doubt we need to switch away from sysvinit and
1603 init.d scripts at all. Here is an example init.d script, ie a rewrite
1604 of /etc/init.d/rsyslog:&lt;/p&gt;
1605
1606 &lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
1607 #!/lib/init/init-d-script
1608 ### BEGIN INIT INFO
1609 # Provides: rsyslog
1610 # Required-Start: $remote_fs $time
1611 # Required-Stop: umountnfs $time
1612 # X-Stop-After: sendsigs
1613 # Default-Start: 2 3 4 5
1614 # Default-Stop: 0 1 6
1615 # Short-Description: enhanced syslogd
1616 # Description: Rsyslog is an enhanced multi-threaded syslogd.
1617 # It is quite compatible to stock sysklogd and can be
1618 # used as a drop-in replacement.
1619 ### END INIT INFO
1620 DESC=&quot;enhanced syslogd&quot;
1621 DAEMON=/usr/sbin/rsyslogd
1622 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
1623
1624 &lt;p&gt;Pretty minimalistic to me... For the record, the original sysv-rc
1625 script was 137 lines, and the above is just 15 lines, most of it meta
1626 info/comments.&lt;/p&gt;
1627
1628 &lt;p&gt;How to do this, you ask? Well, one create a new script
1629 /lib/init/init-d-script looking something like this:
1630
1631 &lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
1632 #!/bin/sh
1633
1634 # Define LSB log_* functions.
1635 # Depend on lsb-base (&gt;= 3.2-14) to ensure that this file is present
1636 # and status_of_proc is working.
1637 . /lib/lsb/init-functions
1638
1639 #
1640 # Function that starts the daemon/service
1641
1642 #
1643 do_start()
1644 {
1645 # Return
1646 # 0 if daemon has been started
1647 # 1 if daemon was already running
1648 # 2 if daemon could not be started
1649 start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $DAEMON --test &gt; /dev/null \
1650 || return 1
1651 start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $DAEMON -- \
1652 $DAEMON_ARGS \
1653 || return 2
1654 # Add code here, if necessary, that waits for the process to be ready
1655 # to handle requests from services started subsequently which depend
1656 # on this one. As a last resort, sleep for some time.
1657 }
1658
1659 #
1660 # Function that stops the daemon/service
1661 #
1662 do_stop()
1663 {
1664 # Return
1665 # 0 if daemon has been stopped
1666 # 1 if daemon was already stopped
1667 # 2 if daemon could not be stopped
1668 # other if a failure occurred
1669 start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --retry=TERM/30/KILL/5 --pidfile $PIDFILE --name $NAME
1670 RETVAL=&quot;$?&quot;
1671 [ &quot;$RETVAL&quot; = 2 ] &amp;&amp; return 2
1672 # Wait for children to finish too if this is a daemon that forks
1673 # and if the daemon is only ever run from this initscript.
1674 # If the above conditions are not satisfied then add some other code
1675 # that waits for the process to drop all resources that could be
1676 # needed by services started subsequently. A last resort is to
1677 # sleep for some time.
1678 start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --oknodo --retry=0/30/KILL/5 --exec $DAEMON
1679 [ &quot;$?&quot; = 2 ] &amp;&amp; return 2
1680 # Many daemons don&#39;t delete their pidfiles when they exit.
1681 rm -f $PIDFILE
1682 return &quot;$RETVAL&quot;
1683 }
1684
1685 #
1686 # Function that sends a SIGHUP to the daemon/service
1687 #
1688 do_reload() {
1689 #
1690 # If the daemon can reload its configuration without
1691 # restarting (for example, when it is sent a SIGHUP),
1692 # then implement that here.
1693 #
1694 start-stop-daemon --stop --signal 1 --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --name $NAME
1695 return 0
1696 }
1697
1698 SCRIPTNAME=$1
1699 scriptbasename=&quot;$(basename $1)&quot;
1700 echo &quot;SN: $scriptbasename&quot;
1701 if [ &quot;$scriptbasename&quot; != &quot;init-d-library&quot; ] ; then
1702 script=&quot;$1&quot;
1703 shift
1704 . $script
1705 else
1706 exit 0
1707 fi
1708
1709 NAME=$(basename $DAEMON)
1710 PIDFILE=/var/run/$NAME.pid
1711
1712 # Exit if the package is not installed
1713 #[ -x &quot;$DAEMON&quot; ] || exit 0
1714
1715 # Read configuration variable file if it is present
1716 [ -r /etc/default/$NAME ] &amp;&amp; . /etc/default/$NAME
1717
1718 # Load the VERBOSE setting and other rcS variables
1719 . /lib/init/vars.sh
1720
1721 case &quot;$1&quot; in
1722 start)
1723 [ &quot;$VERBOSE&quot; != no ] &amp;&amp; log_daemon_msg &quot;Starting $DESC&quot; &quot;$NAME&quot;
1724 do_start
1725 case &quot;$?&quot; in
1726 0|1) [ &quot;$VERBOSE&quot; != no ] &amp;&amp; log_end_msg 0 ;;
1727 2) [ &quot;$VERBOSE&quot; != no ] &amp;&amp; log_end_msg 1 ;;
1728 esac
1729 ;;
1730 stop)
1731 [ &quot;$VERBOSE&quot; != no ] &amp;&amp; log_daemon_msg &quot;Stopping $DESC&quot; &quot;$NAME&quot;
1732 do_stop
1733 case &quot;$?&quot; in
1734 0|1) [ &quot;$VERBOSE&quot; != no ] &amp;&amp; log_end_msg 0 ;;
1735 2) [ &quot;$VERBOSE&quot; != no ] &amp;&amp; log_end_msg 1 ;;
1736 esac
1737 ;;
1738 status)
1739 status_of_proc &quot;$DAEMON&quot; &quot;$NAME&quot; &amp;&amp; exit 0 || exit $?
1740 ;;
1741 #reload|force-reload)
1742 #
1743 # If do_reload() is not implemented then leave this commented out
1744 # and leave &#39;force-reload&#39; as an alias for &#39;restart&#39;.
1745 #
1746 #log_daemon_msg &quot;Reloading $DESC&quot; &quot;$NAME&quot;
1747 #do_reload
1748 #log_end_msg $?
1749 #;;
1750 restart|force-reload)
1751 #
1752 # If the &quot;reload&quot; option is implemented then remove the
1753 # &#39;force-reload&#39; alias
1754 #
1755 log_daemon_msg &quot;Restarting $DESC&quot; &quot;$NAME&quot;
1756 do_stop
1757 case &quot;$?&quot; in
1758 0|1)
1759 do_start
1760 case &quot;$?&quot; in
1761 0) log_end_msg 0 ;;
1762 1) log_end_msg 1 ;; # Old process is still running
1763 *) log_end_msg 1 ;; # Failed to start
1764 esac
1765 ;;
1766 *)
1767 # Failed to stop
1768 log_end_msg 1
1769 ;;
1770 esac
1771 ;;
1772 *)
1773 echo &quot;Usage: $SCRIPTNAME {start|stop|status|restart|force-reload}&quot; &gt;&amp;2
1774 exit 3
1775 ;;
1776 esac
1777
1778 :
1779 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
1780
1781 &lt;p&gt;It is based on /etc/init.d/skeleton, and could be improved quite a
1782 lot. I did not really polish the approach, so it might not always
1783 work out of the box, but you get the idea. I did not try very hard to
1784 optimize it nor make it more robust either.&lt;/p&gt;
1785
1786 &lt;p&gt;A better argument for switching init system in Debian than reducing
1787 the size of init scripts (which is a good thing to do anyway), is to
1788 get boot system that is able to handle the kernel events sensibly and
1789 robustly, and do not depend on the boot to run sequentially. The boot
1790 and the kernel have not behaved sequentially in years.&lt;/p&gt;
1791 </description>
1792 </item>
1793
1794 <item>
1795 <title>Browser plugin for SPICE (spice-xpi) uploaded to Debian</title>
1796 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Browser_plugin_for_SPICE__spice_xpi__uploaded_to_Debian.html</link>
1797 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Browser_plugin_for_SPICE__spice_xpi__uploaded_to_Debian.html</guid>
1798 <pubDate>Fri, 1 Nov 2013 11:00:00 +0100</pubDate>
1799 <description>&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.spice-space.org/&quot;&gt;The SPICE protocol&lt;/a&gt; for
1800 remote display access is the preferred solution with oVirt and RedHat
1801 Enterprise Virtualization, and I was sad to discover the other day
1802 that the browser plugin needed to use these systems seamlessly was
1803 missing in Debian. The &lt;a href=&quot;http://bugs.debian.org/668284&quot;&gt;request
1804 for a package&lt;/a&gt; was from 2012-04-10 with no progress since
1805 2013-04-01, so I decided to wrap up a package based on the great work
1806 from Cajus Pollmeier and put it in a collab-maint maintained git
1807 repository to get a package I could use. I would very much like
1808 others to help me maintain the package (or just take over, I do not
1809 mind), but as no-one had volunteered so far, I just uploaded it to
1810 NEW. I hope it will be available in Debian in a few days.&lt;/p&gt;
1811
1812 &lt;p&gt;The source is now available from
1813 &lt;a href=&quot;http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/spice-xpi.git;a=summary&quot;&gt;http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/spice-xpi.git;a=summary&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
1814 </description>
1815 </item>
1816
1817 <item>
1818 <title>Teaching vmdebootstrap to create Raspberry Pi SD card images</title>
1819 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Teaching_vmdebootstrap_to_create_Raspberry_Pi_SD_card_images.html</link>
1820 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Teaching_vmdebootstrap_to_create_Raspberry_Pi_SD_card_images.html</guid>
1821 <pubDate>Sun, 27 Oct 2013 17:00:00 +0100</pubDate>
1822 <description>&lt;p&gt;The
1823 &lt;a href=&quot;http://packages.qa.debian.org/v/vmdebootstrap.html&quot;&gt;vmdebootstrap&lt;/a&gt;
1824 program is a a very nice system to create virtual machine images. It
1825 create a image file, add a partition table, mount it and run
1826 debootstrap in the mounted directory to create a Debian system on a
1827 stick. Yesterday, I decided to try to teach it how to make images for
1828 &lt;a href=&quot;https://wiki.debian.org/RaspberryPi&quot;&gt;Raspberry Pi&lt;/a&gt;, as part
1829 of a plan to simplify the build system for
1830 &lt;a href=&quot;https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox&quot;&gt;the FreedomBox
1831 project&lt;/a&gt;. The FreedomBox project already uses vmdebootstrap for
1832 the virtualbox images, but its current build system made multistrap
1833 based system for Dreamplug images, and it is lacking support for
1834 Raspberry Pi.&lt;/p&gt;
1835
1836 &lt;p&gt;Armed with the knowledge on how to build &quot;foreign&quot; (aka non-native
1837 architecture) chroots for Raspberry Pi, I dived into the vmdebootstrap
1838 code and adjusted it to be able to build armel images on my amd64
1839 Debian laptop. I ended up giving vmdebootstrap five new options,
1840 allowing me to replicate the image creation process I use to make
1841 &lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Raspberry_Pi_based_batman_adv_Mesh_network_node.html&quot;&gt;Debian
1842 Jessie based mesh node images for the Raspberry Pi&lt;/a&gt;. First, the
1843 &lt;tt&gt;--foreign /path/to/binfm_handler&lt;/tt&gt; option tell vmdebootstrap to
1844 call debootstrap with --foreign and to copy the handler into the
1845 generated chroot before running the second stage. This allow
1846 vmdebootstrap to create armel images on an amd64 host. Next I added
1847 two new options &lt;tt&gt;--bootsize size&lt;/tt&gt; and &lt;tt&gt;--boottype
1848 fstype&lt;/tt&gt; to teach it to create a separate /boot/ partition with the
1849 given file system type, allowing me to create an image with a vfat
1850 partition for the /boot/ stuff. I also added a &lt;tt&gt;--variant
1851 variant&lt;/tt&gt; option to allow me to create smaller images without the
1852 Debian base system packages installed. Finally, I added an option
1853 &lt;tt&gt;--no-extlinux&lt;/tt&gt; to tell vmdebootstrap to not install extlinux
1854 as a boot loader. It is not needed on the Raspberry Pi and probably
1855 most other non-x86 architectures. The changes were accepted by the
1856 upstream author of vmdebootstrap yesterday and today, and is now
1857 available from
1858 &lt;a href=&quot;http://git.liw.fi/cgi-bin/cgit/cgit.cgi/vmdebootstrap/&quot;&gt;the
1859 upstream project page&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
1860
1861 &lt;p&gt;To use it to build a Raspberry Pi image using Debian Jessie, first
1862 create a small script (the customize script) to add the non-free
1863 binary blob needed to boot the Raspberry Pi and the APT source
1864 list:&lt;/p&gt;
1865
1866 &lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
1867 #!/bin/sh
1868 set -e # Exit on first error
1869 rootdir=&quot;$1&quot;
1870 cd &quot;$rootdir&quot;
1871 cat &amp;lt;&amp;lt;EOF &gt; etc/apt/sources.list
1872 deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ jessie main contrib non-free
1873 EOF
1874 # Install non-free binary blob needed to boot Raspberry Pi. This
1875 # install a kernel somewhere too.
1876 wget https://raw.github.com/Hexxeh/rpi-update/master/rpi-update \
1877 -O $rootdir/usr/bin/rpi-update
1878 chmod a+x $rootdir/usr/bin/rpi-update
1879 mkdir -p $rootdir/lib/modules
1880 touch $rootdir/boot/start.elf
1881 chroot $rootdir rpi-update
1882 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
1883
1884 &lt;p&gt;Next, fetch the latest vmdebootstrap script and call it like this
1885 to build the image:&lt;/p&gt;
1886
1887 &lt;pre&gt;
1888 sudo ./vmdebootstrap \
1889 --variant minbase \
1890 --arch armel \
1891 --distribution jessie \
1892 --mirror http://http.debian.net/debian \
1893 --image test.img \
1894 --size 600M \
1895 --bootsize 64M \
1896 --boottype vfat \
1897 --log-level debug \
1898 --verbose \
1899 --no-kernel \
1900 --no-extlinux \
1901 --root-password raspberry \
1902 --hostname raspberrypi \
1903 --foreign /usr/bin/qemu-arm-static \
1904 --customize `pwd`/customize \
1905 --package netbase \
1906 --package git-core \
1907 --package binutils \
1908 --package ca-certificates \
1909 --package wget \
1910 --package kmod
1911 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
1912
1913 &lt;p&gt;The list of packages being installed are the ones needed by
1914 rpi-update to make the image bootable on the Raspberry Pi, with the
1915 exception of netbase, which is needed by debootstrap to find
1916 /etc/hosts with the minbase variant. I really wish there was a way to
1917 set up an Raspberry Pi using only packages in the Debian archive, but
1918 that is not possible as far as I know, because it boots from the GPU
1919 using a non-free binary blob.&lt;/p&gt;
1920
1921 &lt;p&gt;The build host need debootstrap, kpartx and qemu-user-static and
1922 probably a few others installed. I have not checked the complete
1923 build dependency list.&lt;/p&gt;
1924
1925 &lt;p&gt;The resulting image will not use the hardware floating point unit
1926 on the Raspberry PI, because the armel architecture in Debian is not
1927 optimized for that use. So the images created will be a bit slower
1928 than &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.raspbian.org/&quot;&gt;Raspbian&lt;/a&gt; based images.&lt;/p&gt;
1929 </description>
1930 </item>
1931
1932 <item>
1933 <title>Good causes: Debian Outreach Program for Women, EFF documenting the spying and Open access in Norway</title>
1934 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Good_causes__Debian_Outreach_Program_for_Women__EFF_documenting_the_spying_and_Open_access_in_Norway.html</link>
1935 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Good_causes__Debian_Outreach_Program_for_Women__EFF_documenting_the_spying_and_Open_access_in_Norway.html</guid>
1936 <pubDate>Tue, 15 Oct 2013 21:30:00 +0200</pubDate>
1937 <description>&lt;p&gt;The last few days I came across a few good causes that should get
1938 wider attention. I recommend signing and donating to each one of
1939 these. :)&lt;/p&gt;
1940
1941 &lt;p&gt;Via &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2013/18/&quot;&gt;Debian
1942 Project News for 2013-10-14&lt;/a&gt; I came across the Outreach Program for
1943 Women program which is a Google Summer of Code like initiative to get
1944 more women involved in free software. One debian sponsor has offered
1945 to match &lt;a href=&quot;http://debian.ch/opw2013&quot;&gt;any donation done to Debian
1946 earmarked&lt;/a&gt; for this initiative. I donated a few minutes ago, and
1947 hope you will to. :)&lt;/p&gt;
1948
1949 &lt;p&gt;And the Electronic Frontier Foundation just announced plans to
1950 create &lt;a href=&quot;https://supporters.eff.org/donate/nsa-videos&quot;&gt;video
1951 documentaries about the excessive spying&lt;/a&gt; on every Internet user that
1952 take place these days, and their need to fund the work. I&#39;ve already
1953 donated. Are you next?&lt;/p&gt;
1954
1955 &lt;p&gt;For my Norwegian audience, the organisation Studentenes og
1956 Akademikernes Internasjonale Hjelpefond is collecting signatures for a
1957 statement under the heading
1958 &lt;a href=&quot;http://saih.no/Bloggers_United/&quot;&gt;Bloggers United for Open
1959 Access&lt;/a&gt; for those of us asking for more focus on open access in the
1960 Norwegian government. So far 499 signatures. I hope you will sign it
1961 too.&lt;/p&gt;
1962 </description>
1963 </item>
1964
1965 <item>
1966 <title>Videos about the Freedombox project - for inspiration and learning</title>
1967 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Videos_about_the_Freedombox_project___for_inspiration_and_learning.html</link>
1968 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Videos_about_the_Freedombox_project___for_inspiration_and_learning.html</guid>
1969 <pubDate>Fri, 27 Sep 2013 14:10:00 +0200</pubDate>
1970 <description>&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/&quot;&gt;Freedombox
1971 project&lt;/a&gt; have been going on for a while, and have presented the
1972 vision, ideas and solution several places. Here is a little
1973 collection of videos of talks and presentation of the project.&lt;/p&gt;
1974
1975 &lt;ul&gt;
1976
1977 &lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukvUz5taxvA&quot;&gt;FreedomBox -
1978 2,5 minute marketing film&lt;/a&gt; (Youtube)&lt;/li&gt;
1979
1980 &lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzW25QTVWsE&quot;&gt;Eben Moglen
1981 discusses the Freedombox on CBS news 2011&lt;/a&gt; (Youtube)&lt;/li&gt;
1982
1983 &lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ae8SZbxfE0g&quot;&gt;Eben Moglen -
1984 Freedom in the Cloud - Software Freedom, Privacy and and Security for
1985 Web 2.0 and Cloud computing at ISOC-NY Public Meeting 2010&lt;/a&gt;
1986 (Youtube)&lt;/li&gt;
1987
1988 &lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNaIji_3xBE&quot;&gt;Fosdem 2011
1989 Keynote by Eben Moglen presenting the Freedombox&lt;/a&gt; (Youtube)&lt;/li&gt;
1990
1991 &lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bDDUyJSQ9s&quot;&gt;Presentation of
1992 the Freedombox by James Vasile at Elevate in Gratz 2011&lt;/a&gt; (Youtube)&lt;/li&gt;
1993
1994 &lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQTmnk27g9s&quot;&gt; Freedombox -
1995 Discovery, Identity, and Trust by Nick Daly at Freedombox Hackfest New
1996 York City in 2012&lt;/a&gt; (Youtube)&lt;/li&gt;
1997
1998 &lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkbSB4Ba7Ck&quot;&gt;Introduction
1999 to the Freedombox at Freedombox Hackfest New York City in 2012&lt;/a&gt;
2000 (Youtube)&lt;/li&gt;
2001
2002 &lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-P2Jaeg0aQ&quot;&gt;Freedom, Out
2003 of the Box! by Bdale Garbee at linux.conf.au Ballarat, 2012&lt;/a&gt; (Youtube) &lt;/li&gt;
2004
2005 &lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://archive.fosdem.org/2013/schedule/event/freedombox/&quot;&gt;Freedombox
2006 1.0 by Eben Moglen and Bdale Garbee at Fosdem 2013&lt;/a&gt; (FOSDEM) &lt;/li&gt;
2007
2008 &lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1LpYX2zVYg&quot;&gt;What is the
2009 FreedomBox today by Bdale Garbee at Debconf13 in Vaumarcus
2010 2013&lt;/a&gt; (Youtube)&lt;/li&gt;
2011
2012 &lt;/ul&gt;
2013
2014 &lt;p&gt;A larger list is available from
2015 &lt;a href=&quot;https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/TalksAndPresentations&quot;&gt;the
2016 Freedombox Wiki&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
2017
2018 &lt;p&gt;On other news, I am happy to report that Freedombox based on Debian
2019 Jessie is coming along quite well, and soon both Owncloud and using
2020 Tor should be available for testers of the Freedombox solution. :) In
2021 a few weeks I hope everything needed to test it is included in Debian.
2022 The withsqlite package is already in Debian, and the plinth package is
2023 pending in NEW. The third and vital part of that puzzle is the
2024 metapackage/setup framework, which is still pending an upload. Join
2025 us on &lt;a href=&quot;irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox&quot;&gt;IRC
2026 (#freedombox on irc.debian.org)&lt;/a&gt; and
2027 &lt;a href=&quot;http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss&quot;&gt;the
2028 mailing list&lt;/a&gt; if you want to help make this vision come true.&lt;/p&gt;
2029 </description>
2030 </item>
2031
2032 <item>
2033 <title>Recipe to test the Freedombox project on amd64 or Raspberry Pi</title>
2034 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Recipe_to_test_the_Freedombox_project_on_amd64_or_Raspberry_Pi.html</link>
2035 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Recipe_to_test_the_Freedombox_project_on_amd64_or_Raspberry_Pi.html</guid>
2036 <pubDate>Tue, 10 Sep 2013 14:20:00 +0200</pubDate>
2037 <description>&lt;p&gt;I was introduced to the
2038 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/&quot;&gt;Freedombox project&lt;/a&gt;
2039 in 2010, when Eben Moglen presented his vision about serving the need
2040 of non-technical people to keep their personal information private and
2041 within the legal protection of their own homes. The idea is to give
2042 people back the power over their network and machines, and return
2043 Internet back to its intended peer-to-peer architecture. Instead of
2044 depending on a central service, the Freedombox will give everyone
2045 control over their own basic infrastructure.&lt;/p&gt;
2046
2047 &lt;p&gt;I&#39;ve intended to join the effort since then, but other tasks have
2048 taken priority. But this summers nasty news about the misuse of trust
2049 and privilege exercised by the &quot;western&quot; intelligence gathering
2050 communities increased my eagerness to contribute to a point where I
2051 actually started working on the project a while back.&lt;/p&gt;
2052
2053 &lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;https://alioth.debian.org/projects/freedombox/&quot;&gt;initial
2054 Debian initiative&lt;/a&gt; based on the vision from Eben Moglen, is to
2055 create a simple and cheap Debian based appliance that anyone can hook
2056 up in their home and get access to secure and private services and
2057 communication. The initial deployment platform have been the
2058 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.globalscaletechnologies.com/t-dreamplugdetails.aspx&quot;&gt;Dreamplug&lt;/a&gt;,
2059 which is a piece of hardware I do not own. So to be able to test what
2060 the current Freedombox setup look like, I had to come up with a way to install
2061 it on some hardware I do have access to. I have rewritten the
2062 &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/NickDaly/freedom-maker&quot;&gt;freedom-maker&lt;/a&gt;
2063 image build framework to use .deb packages instead of only copying
2064 setup into the boot images, and thanks to this rewrite I am able to
2065 set up any machine supported by Debian Wheezy as a Freedombox, using
2066 the previously mentioned deb (and a few support debs for packages
2067 missing in Debian).&lt;/p&gt;
2068
2069 &lt;p&gt;The current Freedombox setup consist of a set of bootstrapping
2070 scripts
2071 (&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/freedombox-setup&quot;&gt;freedombox-setup&lt;/a&gt;),
2072 and a administrative web interface
2073 (&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/NickDaly/Plinth&quot;&gt;plinth&lt;/a&gt; + exmachina +
2074 withsqlite), as well as a privacy enhancing proxy based on
2075 &lt;a href=&quot;http://packages.qa.debian.org/privoxy&quot;&gt;privoxy&lt;/a&gt;
2076 (freedombox-privoxy). There is also a web/javascript based XMPP
2077 client (&lt;a href=&quot;http://packages.qa.debian.org/jwchat&quot;&gt;jwchat&lt;/a&gt;)
2078 trying (unsuccessfully so far) to talk to the XMPP server
2079 (&lt;a href=&quot;http://packages.qa.debian.org/ejabberd&quot;&gt;ejabberd&lt;/a&gt;). The
2080 web interface is pluggable, and the goal is to use it to enable OpenID
2081 services, mesh network connectivity, use of TOR, etc, etc. Not much of
2082 this is really working yet, see
2083 &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/NickDaly/freedombox-todos/blob/master/TODO&quot;&gt;the
2084 project TODO&lt;/a&gt; for links to GIT repositories. Most of the code is
2085 on github at the moment. The HTTP proxy is operational out of the
2086 box, and the admin web interface can be used to add/remove plinth
2087 users. I&#39;ve not been able to do anything else with it so far, but
2088 know there are several branches spread around github and other places
2089 with lots of half baked features.&lt;/p&gt;
2090
2091 &lt;p&gt;Anyway, if you want to have a look at the current state, the
2092 following recipes should work to give you a test machine to poke
2093 at.&lt;/p&gt;
2094
2095 &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Debian Wheezy amd64&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
2096
2097 &lt;ol&gt;
2098
2099 &lt;li&gt;Fetch normal Debian Wheezy installation ISO.&lt;/li&gt;
2100 &lt;li&gt;Boot from it, either as CD or USB stick.&lt;/li&gt;
2101 &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Press [tab] on the boot prompt and add this as a boot argument
2102 to the Debian installer:&lt;p&gt;
2103 &lt;pre&gt;url=&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-wheezy.dat&quot;&gt;http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-wheezy.dat&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
2104
2105 &lt;li&gt;Answer the few language/region/password questions and pick disk to
2106 install on.&lt;/li&gt;
2107
2108 &lt;li&gt;When the installation is finished and the machine have rebooted a
2109 few times, your Freedombox is ready for testing.&lt;/li&gt;
2110
2111 &lt;/ol&gt;
2112
2113 &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Raspberry Pi Raspbian&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
2114
2115 &lt;ol&gt;
2116
2117 &lt;li&gt;Fetch a Raspbian SD card image, create SD card.&lt;/li&gt;
2118 &lt;li&gt;Boot from SD card, extend file system to fill the card completely.&lt;/li&gt;
2119 &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Log in and add this to /etc/sources.list:&lt;/p&gt;
2120 &lt;pre&gt;
2121 deb &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/&quot;&gt;http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox&lt;/a&gt; wheezy main
2122 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
2123 &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Run this as root:&lt;/p&gt;
2124 &lt;pre&gt;
2125 wget -O - http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/BE1A583D.asc | \
2126 apt-key add -
2127 apt-get update
2128 apt-get install freedombox-setup
2129 /usr/lib/freedombox/setup
2130 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
2131 &lt;li&gt;Reboot into your freshly created Freedombox.&lt;/li&gt;
2132
2133 &lt;/ol&gt;
2134
2135 &lt;p&gt;You can test it on other architectures too, but because the
2136 freedombox-privoxy package is binary, it will only work as intended on
2137 the architectures where I have had time to build the binary and put it
2138 in my APT repository. But do not let this stop you. It is only a
2139 short &quot;&lt;tt&gt;apt-get source -b freedombox-privoxy&lt;/tt&gt;&quot; away. :)&lt;/p&gt;
2140
2141 &lt;p&gt;Note that by default Freedombox is a DHCP server on the
2142 192.168.1.0/24 subnet, so if this is your subnet be careful and turn
2143 off the DHCP server by running &quot;&lt;tt&gt;update-rc.d isc-dhcp-server
2144 disable&lt;/tt&gt;&quot; as root.&lt;/p&gt;
2145
2146 &lt;p&gt;Please let me know if this works for you, or if you have any
2147 problems. We gather on the IRC channel
2148 &lt;a href=&quot;irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox&quot;&gt;#freedombox&lt;/a&gt; on
2149 irc.debian.org and the
2150 &lt;a href=&quot;http://lists.alioth.debian.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss&quot;&gt;project
2151 mailing list&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
2152
2153 &lt;p&gt;Once you get your freedombox operational, you can visit
2154 &lt;tt&gt;http://your-host-name:8001/&lt;/tt&gt; to see the state of the plint
2155 welcome screen (dead end - do not be surprised if you are unable to
2156 get past it), and next visit &lt;tt&gt;http://your-host-name:8001/help/&lt;/tt&gt;
2157 to look at the rest of plinth. The default user is &#39;admin&#39; and the
2158 default password is &#39;secret&#39;.&lt;/p&gt;
2159 </description>
2160 </item>
2161
2162 <item>
2163 <title>Intel 180 SSD disk with Lenovo firmware can not use Intel firmware</title>
2164 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Intel_180_SSD_disk_with_Lenovo_firmware_can_not_use_Intel_firmware.html</link>
2165 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Intel_180_SSD_disk_with_Lenovo_firmware_can_not_use_Intel_firmware.html</guid>
2166 <pubDate>Sun, 18 Aug 2013 14:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
2167 <description>&lt;p&gt;Earlier, I reported about
2168 &lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_fix_a_Thinkpad_X230_with_a_broken_180_GB_SSD_disk.html&quot;&gt;my
2169 problems using an Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB disk&lt;/a&gt;. Friday I was
2170 told by IBM that the original disk should be thrown away. And as
2171 there no longer was a problem if I bricked the firmware, I decided
2172 today to try to install Intel firmware to replace the Lenovo firmware
2173 currently on the disk.&lt;/p&gt;
2174
2175 &lt;p&gt;I searched the Intel site for firmware, and found
2176 &lt;a href=&quot;https://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&amp;ProdId=3472&amp;DwnldID=18363&amp;ProductFamily=Solid-State+Drives+and+Caching&amp;ProductLine=Intel%c2%ae+High+Performance+Solid-State+Drive&amp;ProductProduct=Intel%c2%ae+SSD+520+Series+(180GB%2c+2.5in+SATA+6Gb%2fs%2c+25nm%2c+MLC)&amp;lang=eng&quot;&gt;issdfut_2.0.4.iso&lt;/a&gt;
2177 (aka Intel SATA Solid-State Drive Firmware Update Tool) which
2178 according to the site should contain the latest firmware for SSD
2179 disks. I inserted the broken disk in one of my spare laptops and
2180 booted the ISO from a USB stick. The disk was recognized, but the
2181 program claimed the newest firmware already were installed and refused
2182 to insert any Intel firmware. So no change, and the disk is still
2183 unable to handle write load. :( I guess the only way to get them
2184 working would be if Lenovo releases new firmware. No idea how likely
2185 that is. Anyway, just blogging about this test for completeness. I
2186 got a working Samsung disk, and see no point in spending more time on
2187 the broken disks.&lt;/p&gt;
2188 </description>
2189 </item>
2190
2191 <item>
2192 <title>How to fix a Thinkpad X230 with a broken 180 GB SSD disk</title>
2193 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_fix_a_Thinkpad_X230_with_a_broken_180_GB_SSD_disk.html</link>
2194 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_fix_a_Thinkpad_X230_with_a_broken_180_GB_SSD_disk.html</guid>
2195 <pubDate>Wed, 17 Jul 2013 23:50:00 +0200</pubDate>
2196 <description>&lt;p&gt;Today I switched to
2197 &lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html&quot;&gt;my
2198 new laptop&lt;/a&gt;. I&#39;ve previously written about the problems I had with
2199 my new Thinkpad X230, which was delivered with an
2200 &lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Intel_SSD_520_Series_180_GB_with_Lenovo_firmware_still_lock_up_from_sustained_writes.html&quot;&gt;180
2201 GB Intel SSD disk with Lenovo firmware&lt;/a&gt; that did not handle
2202 sustained writes. My hardware supplier have been very forthcoming in
2203 trying to find a solution, and after first trying with another
2204 identical 180 GB disks they decided to send me a 256 GB Samsung SSD
2205 disk instead to fix it once and for all. The Samsung disk survived
2206 the installation of Debian with encrypted disks (filling the disk with
2207 random data during installation killed the first two), and I thus
2208 decided to trust it with my data. I have installed it as a Debian Edu
2209 Wheezy roaming workstation hooked up with my Debian Edu Squeeze main
2210 server at home using Kerberos and LDAP, and will use it as my work
2211 station from now on.&lt;/p&gt;
2212
2213 &lt;p&gt;As this is a solid state disk with no moving parts, I believe the
2214 Debian Wheezy default installation need to be tuned a bit to increase
2215 performance and increase life time of the disk. The Linux kernel and
2216 user space applications do not yet adjust automatically to such
2217 environment. To make it easier for my self, I created a draft Debian
2218 package &lt;tt&gt;ssd-setup&lt;/tt&gt; to handle this tuning. The
2219 &lt;a href=&quot;http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/ssd-setup.git&quot;&gt;source
2220 for the ssd-setup package&lt;/a&gt; is available from collab-maint, and it
2221 is set up to adjust the setup of the machine by just installing the
2222 package. If there is any non-SSD disk in the machine, the package
2223 will refuse to install, as I did not try to write any logic to sort
2224 file systems in SSD and non-SSD file systems.&lt;/p&gt;
2225
2226 &lt;p&gt;I consider the package a draft, as I am a bit unsure how to best
2227 set up Debian Wheezy with an SSD. It is adjusted to my use case,
2228 where I set up the machine with one large encrypted partition (in
2229 addition to /boot), put LVM on top of this and set up partitions on
2230 top of this again. See the README file in the package source for the
2231 references I used to pick the settings. At the moment these
2232 parameters are tuned:&lt;/p&gt;
2233
2234 &lt;ul&gt;
2235
2236 &lt;li&gt;Set up cryptsetup to pass TRIM commands to the physical disk
2237 (adding discard to /etc/crypttab)&lt;/li&gt;
2238
2239 &lt;li&gt;Set up LVM to pass on TRIM commands to the underlying device (in
2240 this case a cryptsetup partition) by changing issue_discards from
2241 0 to 1 in /etc/lvm/lvm.conf.&lt;/li&gt;
2242
2243 &lt;li&gt;Set relatime as a file system option for ext3 and ext4 file
2244 systems.&lt;/li&gt;
2245
2246 &lt;li&gt;Tell swap to use TRIM commands by adding &#39;discard&#39; to
2247 /etc/fstab.&lt;/li&gt;
2248
2249 &lt;li&gt;Change I/O scheduler from cfq to deadline using a udev rule.&lt;/li&gt;
2250
2251 &lt;li&gt;Run fstrim on every ext3 and ext4 file system every night (from
2252 cron.daily).&lt;/li&gt;
2253
2254 &lt;li&gt;Adjust sysctl values vm.swappiness to 1 and vm.vfs_cache_pressure
2255 to 50 to reduce the kernel eagerness to swap out processes.&lt;/li&gt;
2256
2257 &lt;/ul&gt;
2258
2259 &lt;p&gt;During installation, I cancelled the part where the installer fill
2260 the disk with random data, as this would kill the SSD performance for
2261 little gain. My goal with the encrypted file system is to ensure
2262 those stealing my laptop end up with a brick and not a working
2263 computer. I have no hope in keeping the really resourceful people
2264 from getting the data on the disk (see
2265 &lt;a href=&quot;http://xkcd.com/538/&quot;&gt;XKCD #538&lt;/a&gt; for an explanation why).
2266 Thus I concluded that adding the discard option to crypttab is the
2267 right thing to do.&lt;/p&gt;
2268
2269 &lt;p&gt;I considered using the noop I/O scheduler, as several recommended
2270 it for SSD, but others recommended deadline and a benchmark I found
2271 indicated that deadline might be better for interactive use.&lt;/p&gt;
2272
2273 &lt;p&gt;I also considered using the &#39;discard&#39; file system option for ext3
2274 and ext4, but read that it would give a performance hit ever time a
2275 file is removed, and thought it best to that that slowdown once a day
2276 instead of during my work.&lt;/p&gt;
2277
2278 &lt;p&gt;My package do not set up tmpfs on /var/run, /var/lock and /tmp, as
2279 this is already done by Debian Edu.&lt;/p&gt;
2280
2281 &lt;p&gt;I have not yet started on the user space tuning. I expect
2282 iceweasel need some tuning, and perhaps other applications too, but
2283 have not yet had time to investigate those parts.&lt;/p&gt;
2284
2285 &lt;p&gt;The package should work on Ubuntu too, but I have not yet tested it
2286 there.&lt;/p&gt;
2287
2288 &lt;p&gt;As for the answer to the question in the title of this blog post,
2289 as far as I know, the only solution I know about is to replace the
2290 disk. It might be possible to flash it with Intel firmware instead of
2291 the Lenovo firmware. But I have not tried and did not want to do so
2292 without approval from Lenovo as I wanted to keep the warranty on the
2293 disk until a solution was found and they wanted the broken disks
2294 back.&lt;/p&gt;
2295 </description>
2296 </item>
2297
2298 <item>
2299 <title>Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB with Lenovo firmware still lock up from sustained writes</title>
2300 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Intel_SSD_520_Series_180_GB_with_Lenovo_firmware_still_lock_up_from_sustained_writes.html</link>
2301 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Intel_SSD_520_Series_180_GB_with_Lenovo_firmware_still_lock_up_from_sustained_writes.html</guid>
2302 <pubDate>Wed, 10 Jul 2013 13:30:00 +0200</pubDate>
2303 <description>&lt;p&gt;A few days ago, I wrote about
2304 &lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html&quot;&gt;the
2305 problems I experienced with my new X230 and its SSD disk&lt;/a&gt;, which
2306 was dying during installation because it is unable to cope with
2307 sustained write. My supplier is in contact with
2308 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.lenovo.com/&quot;&gt;Lenovo&lt;/a&gt;, and they wanted to send a
2309 replacement disk to try to fix the problem. They decided to send an
2310 identical model, so my hopes for a permanent fix was slim.&lt;/p&gt;
2311
2312 &lt;p&gt;Anyway, today I got the replacement disk and tried to install
2313 Debian Edu Wheezy with encrypted disk on it. The new disk have the
2314 same firmware version as the original. This time my hope raised
2315 slightly as the installation progressed, as the original disk used to
2316 die after 4-7% of the disk was written to, while this time it kept
2317 going past 10%, 20%, 40% and even past 50%. But around 60%, the disk
2318 died again and I was back on square one. I still do not have a new
2319 laptop with a disk I can trust. I can not live with a disk that might
2320 lock up when I download a new
2321 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.skolelinux.org/&quot;&gt;Debian Edu / Skolelinux&lt;/a&gt; ISO or
2322 other large files. I look forward to hearing from my supplier with
2323 the next proposal from Lenovo.&lt;/p&gt;
2324
2325 &lt;p&gt;The original disk is marked Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB,
2326 11S0C38722Z1ZNME35X1TR, ISN: CVCV321407HB180EGN, SA: G57560302, FW:
2327 LF1i, 29MAY2013, PBA: G39779-300, LBA 351,651,888, LI P/N: 0C38722,
2328 Pb-free 2LI, LC P/N: 16-200366, WWN: 55CD2E40002756C4, Model:
2329 SSDSC2BW180A3L 2.5&quot; 6Gb/s SATA SSD 180G 5V 1A, ASM P/N 0C38732, FRU
2330 P/N 45N8295, P0C38732.&lt;/p&gt;
2331
2332 &lt;p&gt;The replacement disk is marked Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB,
2333 11S0C38722Z1ZNDE34N0L0, ISN: CVCV315306RK180EGN, SA: G57560-302, FW:
2334 LF1i, 22APR2013, PBA: G39779-300, LBA 351,651,888, LI P/N: 0C38722,
2335 Pb-free 2LI, LC P/N: 16-200366, WWN: 55CD2E40000AB69E, Model:
2336 SSDSC2BW180A3L 2.5&quot; 6Gb/s SATA SSD 180G 5V 1A, ASM P/N 0C38732, FRU
2337 P/N 45N8295, P0C38732.&lt;/p&gt;
2338
2339 &lt;p&gt;The only difference is in the first number (serial number?), ISN,
2340 SA, date and WNPP values. Mentioning all the details here in case
2341 someone is able to use the information to find a way to identify the
2342 failing disk among working ones (if any such working disk actually
2343 exist).&lt;/p&gt;
2344 </description>
2345 </item>
2346
2347 <item>
2348 <title>July 13th: Debian/Ubuntu BSP and Skolelinux/Debian Edu developer gathering in Oslo</title>
2349 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/July_13th__Debian_Ubuntu_BSP_and_Skolelinux_Debian_Edu_developer_gathering_in_Oslo.html</link>
2350 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/July_13th__Debian_Ubuntu_BSP_and_Skolelinux_Debian_Edu_developer_gathering_in_Oslo.html</guid>
2351 <pubDate>Tue, 9 Jul 2013 10:40:00 +0200</pubDate>
2352 <description>&lt;p&gt;The upcoming Saturday, 2013-07-13, we are organising a combined
2353 Debian Edu developer gathering and Debian and Ubuntu bug squashing
2354 party in Oslo. It is organised by &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nuug.no/&quot;&gt;the
2355 member assosiation NUUG&lt;/a&gt; and
2356 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.skolelinux.org/&quot;&gt;the Debian Edu / Skolelinux
2357 project&lt;/a&gt; together with &lt;a href=&quot;http://bitraf.no/&quot;&gt;the hack space
2358 Bitraf&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
2359
2360 &lt;p&gt;It starts 10:00 and continue until late evening. Everyone is
2361 welcome, and there is no fee to participate. There is on the other
2362 hand limited space, and only room for 30 people. Please put your name
2363 on &lt;a href=&quot;http://wiki.debian.org/BSP/2013/07/13/no/Oslo&quot;&gt;the event
2364 wiki page&lt;/a&gt; if you plan to join us.&lt;/p&gt;
2365 </description>
2366 </item>
2367
2368 <item>
2369 <title>The Thinkpad is dead, long live the Thinkpad X230?</title>
2370 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html</link>
2371 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html</guid>
2372 <pubDate>Fri, 5 Jul 2013 08:30:00 +0200</pubDate>
2373 <description>&lt;p&gt;Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a
2374 &lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thank_you_Thinkpad_X41__for_your_long_and_trustworthy_service.html&quot;&gt;replacement
2375 for my trusty old Thinkpad X41&lt;/a&gt;. Unfortunately I did not have much
2376 time to spend on it, and it took a while to find a model I believe
2377 will do the job, but two days ago the replacement finally arrived. I
2378 ended up picking a
2379 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_x230&quot;&gt;Thinkpad X230&lt;/a&gt;
2380 with SSD disk (NZDAJMN). I first test installed Debian Edu Wheezy as
2381 a roaming workstation, and it seemed to work flawlessly. But my
2382 second installation with encrypted disk was not as successful. More
2383 on that below.&lt;/p&gt;
2384
2385 &lt;p&gt;I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most
2386 important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never
2387 listed in the feature list. But I did get good help from the search
2388 feature at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.prisjakt.no/&quot;&gt;Prisjakt&lt;/a&gt;, which
2389 allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other
2390 requirements. A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks according
2391 to that search interface, so I had to drop specifying the number of
2392 disks from my search parameters. I also asked around among friends to
2393 get their impression on keyboards and robustness.&lt;/p&gt;
2394
2395 &lt;p&gt;So the new laptop arrived, and it is quite a lot wider than the
2396 X41. I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is
2397 significantly wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my
2398 hand a lot more to reach the edges. But the key response is fairly
2399 good and the individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope
2400 I will get used to it. My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really
2401 needed a new laptop now. :)&lt;/p&gt;
2402
2403 &lt;p&gt;Turning off the touch pad was simple. All it took was a quick
2404 visit to the BIOS during boot it disable it.&lt;/p&gt;
2405
2406 &lt;p&gt;But there is a fatal problem with the laptop. The 180 GB SSD disk
2407 lock up during load. And this happen when installing Debian Wheezy
2408 with encrypted disk, while the disk is being filled with random data.
2409 I also tested to install Ubuntu Raring, and it happen there too if I
2410 reenable the code to fill the disk with random data (it is disabled by
2411 default in Ubuntu). And the bug with is already known. It was
2412 reported to Debian as &lt;a href=&quot;http://bugs.debian.org/691427&quot;&gt;BTS
2413 report #691427 2012-10-25&lt;/a&gt; (journal commit I/O error on brand-new
2414 Thinkpad T430s ext4 on lvm on SSD). It is also reported to the Linux
2415 kernel developers as
2416 &lt;a href=&quot;https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=51861&quot;&gt;Kernel bugzilla
2417 report #51861 2012-12-20&lt;/a&gt; (Intel SSD 520 stops working under load
2418 (SSDSC2BW180A3L in Lenovo ThinkPad T430s)). It is also reported on the
2419 Lenovo forums, both for
2420 &lt;a href=&quot;http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/T400-T500-and-newer-T-series/T430s-Intel-SSD-520-180GB-issue/m-p/1070549&quot;&gt;T430
2421 2012-11-10&lt;/a&gt; and for
2422 &lt;a href=&quot;http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/X-Series-ThinkPad-Laptops/x230-SATA-errors-with-180GB-Intel-520-SSD-under-heavy-write-load/m-p/1068147&quot;&gt;X230
2423 03-20-2013&lt;/a&gt;. The problem do not only affect installation. The
2424 reports state that the disk lock up during use if many writes are done
2425 on the disk, so it is much no use to work around the installation
2426 problem and end up with a computer that can lock up at any moment.
2427 There is even a
2428 &lt;a href=&quot;https://git.efficios.com/?p=test-ssd.git&quot;&gt;small C program
2429 available&lt;/a&gt; that will lock up the hard drive after running a few
2430 minutes by writing to a file.&lt;/p&gt;
2431
2432 &lt;p&gt;I&#39;ve contacted my supplier and asked how to handle this, and after
2433 contacting PCHELP Norway (request 01D1FDP) which handle support
2434 requests for Lenovo, his first suggestion was to upgrade the disk
2435 firmware. Unfortunately there is no newer firmware available from
2436 Lenovo, as my disk already have the most recent one (version LF1i). I
2437 hope to hear more from him today and hope the problem can be
2438 fixed. :)&lt;/p&gt;
2439 </description>
2440 </item>
2441
2442 <item>
2443 <title>The Thinkpad is dead, long live the Thinkpad X230</title>
2444 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230.html</link>
2445 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230.html</guid>
2446 <pubDate>Thu, 4 Jul 2013 09:20:00 +0200</pubDate>
2447 <description>&lt;p&gt;Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a replacement for my
2448 trusty old Thinkpad X41. Unfortunately I did not have much time to
2449 spend on it, but today the replacement finally arrived. I ended up
2450 picking a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_x230&quot;&gt;Thinkpad
2451 X230&lt;/a&gt; with SSD disk (NZDAJMN). I first test installed Debian Edu
2452 Wheezy as a roaming workstation, and it worked flawlessly. As I write
2453 this, it is installing what I hope will be a more final installation,
2454 with a encrypted hard drive to ensure any dope head stealing it end up
2455 with an expencive door stop.&lt;/p&gt;
2456
2457 &lt;p&gt;I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most
2458 important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never
2459 listed in the feature list. But I did get good help from the search
2460 feature at &lt;ahref=&quot;http://www.prisjakt.no/&quot;&gt;Prisjakt&lt;/a&gt;, which
2461 allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other
2462 requirements. A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks, so I had
2463 to drop number of disks from my search parameters.&lt;/p&gt;
2464
2465 &lt;p&gt;I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is significantly
2466 wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my hand a lot more
2467 to reach the edges. But the key response is fairly good and the
2468 individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope I will get
2469 used to it. My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really needed a
2470 new laptop now. :)&lt;/p&gt;
2471
2472 &lt;p&gt;I look forward to figuring out how to turn off the touch pad.&lt;/p&gt;
2473 </description>
2474 </item>
2475
2476 <item>
2477 <title>Automatically locate and install required firmware packages on Debian (Isenkram 0.4)</title>
2478 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatically_locate_and_install_required_firmware_packages_on_Debian__Isenkram_0_4_.html</link>
2479 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatically_locate_and_install_required_firmware_packages_on_Debian__Isenkram_0_4_.html</guid>
2480 <pubDate>Tue, 25 Jun 2013 11:50:00 +0200</pubDate>
2481 <description>&lt;p&gt;It annoys me when the computer fail to do automatically what it is
2482 perfectly capable of, and I have to do it manually to get things
2483 working. One such task is to find out what firmware packages are
2484 needed to get the hardware on my computer working. Most often this
2485 affect the wifi card, but some times it even affect the RAID
2486 controller or the ethernet card. Today I pushed version 0.4 of the
2487 &lt;a href=&quot;http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram&quot;&gt;Isenkram package&lt;/a&gt;
2488 including a new script isenkram-autoinstall-firmware handling the
2489 process of asking all the loaded kernel modules what firmware files
2490 they want, find debian packages providing these files and install the
2491 debian packages. Here is a test run on my laptop:&lt;/p&gt;
2492
2493 &lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
2494 # isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
2495 info: kernel drivers requested extra firmware: ipw2200-bss.fw ipw2200-ibss.fw ipw2200-sniffer.fw
2496 info: fetching http://http.debian.net/debian/dists/squeeze/Contents-i386.gz
2497 info: locating packages with the requested firmware files
2498 info: Updating APT sources after adding non-free APT source
2499 info: trying to install firmware-ipw2x00
2500 firmware-ipw2x00
2501 firmware-ipw2x00
2502 Preconfiguring packages ...
2503 Selecting previously deselected package firmware-ipw2x00.
2504 (Reading database ... 259727 files and directories currently installed.)
2505 Unpacking firmware-ipw2x00 (from .../firmware-ipw2x00_0.28+squeeze1_all.deb) ...
2506 Setting up firmware-ipw2x00 (0.28+squeeze1) ...
2507 #
2508 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
2509
2510 &lt;p&gt;When all the requested firmware is present, a simple message is
2511 printed instead:&lt;/p&gt;
2512
2513 &lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
2514 # isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
2515 info: did not find any firmware files requested by loaded kernel modules. exiting
2516 #
2517 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
2518
2519 &lt;p&gt;It could use some polish, but it is already working well and saving
2520 me some time when setting up new machines. :)&lt;/p&gt;
2521
2522 &lt;p&gt;So, how does it work? It look at the set of currently loaded
2523 kernel modules, and look up each one of them using modinfo, to find
2524 the firmware files listed in the module meta-information. Next, it
2525 download the Contents file from a nearby APT mirror, and search for
2526 the firmware files in this file to locate the package with the
2527 requested firmware file. If the package is in the non-free section, a
2528 non-free APT source is added and the package is installed using
2529 &lt;tt&gt;apt-get install&lt;/tt&gt;. The end result is a slightly better working
2530 machine.&lt;/p&gt;
2531
2532 &lt;p&gt;I hope someone find time to implement a more polished version of
2533 this script as part of the hw-detect debian-installer module, to
2534 finally fix &lt;a href=&quot;http://bugs.debian.org/655507&quot;&gt;BTS report
2535 #655507&lt;/a&gt;. There really is no need to insert USB sticks with
2536 firmware during a PXE install when the packages already are available
2537 from the nearby Debian mirror.&lt;/p&gt;
2538 </description>
2539 </item>
2540
2541 <item>
2542 <title>Fixing the Linux black screen of death on machines with Intel HD video</title>
2543 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Fixing_the_Linux_black_screen_of_death_on_machines_with_Intel_HD_video.html</link>
2544 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Fixing_the_Linux_black_screen_of_death_on_machines_with_Intel_HD_video.html</guid>
2545 <pubDate>Tue, 11 Jun 2013 11:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
2546 <description>&lt;p&gt;When installing RedHat, Fedora, Debian and Ubuntu on some machines,
2547 the screen just turn black when Linux boot, either during installation
2548 or on first boot from the hard disk. I&#39;ve seen it once in a while the
2549 last few years, but only recently understood the cause. I&#39;ve seen it
2550 on HP laptops, and on my latest acquaintance the Packard Bell laptop.
2551 The reason seem to be in the wiring of some laptops. The system to
2552 control the screen background light is inverted, so when Linux try to
2553 turn the brightness fully on, it end up turning it off instead. I do
2554 not know which Linux drivers are affected, but this post is about the
2555 i915 driver used by the
2556 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv&quot;&gt;Packard Bell
2557 EasyNote LV&lt;/a&gt;, Thinkpad X40 and many other laptops.&lt;/p&gt;
2558
2559 &lt;p&gt;The problem can be worked around two ways. Either by adding
2560 i915.invert_brightness=1 as a kernel option, or by adding a file in
2561 /etc/modprobe.d/ to tell modprobe to add the invert_brightness=1
2562 option when it load the i915 kernel module. On Debian and Ubuntu, it
2563 can be done by running these commands as root:&lt;/p&gt;
2564
2565 &lt;pre&gt;
2566 echo options i915 invert_brightness=1 | tee /etc/modprobe.d/i915.conf
2567 update-initramfs -u -k all
2568 &lt;/pre&gt;
2569
2570 &lt;p&gt;Since March 2012 there is
2571 &lt;a href=&quot;http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=4dca20efb1a9c2efefc28ad2867e5d6c3f5e1955&quot;&gt;a
2572 mechanism in the Linux kernel&lt;/a&gt; to tell the i915 driver which
2573 hardware have this problem, and get the driver to invert the
2574 brightness setting automatically. To use it, one need to add a row in
2575 &lt;a href=&quot;http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c&quot;&gt;the
2576 intel_quirks array&lt;/a&gt; in the driver source
2577 &lt;tt&gt;drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c&lt;/tt&gt; (look for &quot;&lt;tt&gt;static
2578 struct intel_quirk intel_quirks&lt;/tt&gt;&quot;), specifying the PCI device
2579 number (vendor number 8086 is assumed) and subdevice vendor and device
2580 number.&lt;/p&gt;
2581
2582 &lt;p&gt;My Packard Bell EasyNote LV got this output from &lt;tt&gt;lspci
2583 -vvnn&lt;/tt&gt; for the video card in question:&lt;/p&gt;
2584
2585 &lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
2586 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation \
2587 3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller [8086:0156] \
2588 (rev 09) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
2589 Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device [1025:0688]
2590 Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- \
2591 ParErr- Stepping- SE RR- FastB2B- DisINTx+
2592 Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=fast &gt;TAbort- \
2593 &lt;TAbort- &lt;MAbort-&gt;SERR- &lt;PERR- INTx-
2594 Latency: 0
2595 Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 42
2596 Region 0: Memory at c2000000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4M]
2597 Region 2: Memory at b0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
2598 Region 4: I/O ports at 4000 [size=64]
2599 Expansion ROM at &lt;unassigned&gt; [disabled]
2600 Capabilities: &lt;access denied&gt;
2601 Kernel driver in use: i915
2602 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
2603
2604 &lt;p&gt;The resulting intel_quirks entry would then look like this:&lt;/p&gt;
2605
2606 &lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
2607 struct intel_quirk intel_quirks[] = {
2608 ...
2609 /* Packard Bell EasyNote LV11HC needs invert brightness quirk */
2610 { 0x0156, 0x1025, 0x0688, quirk_invert_brightness },
2611 ...
2612 }
2613 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
2614
2615 &lt;p&gt;According to the kernel module instructions (as seen using
2616 &lt;tt&gt;modinfo i915&lt;/tt&gt;), information about hardware needing the
2617 invert_brightness flag should be sent to the
2618 &lt;a href=&quot;http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/dri-devel&quot;&gt;dri-devel
2619 (at) lists.freedesktop.org&lt;/a&gt; mailing list to reach the kernel
2620 developers. But my email about the laptop sent 2013-06-03 have not
2621 yet shown up in
2622 &lt;a href=&quot;http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/dri-devel/2013-June/thread.html&quot;&gt;the
2623 web archive for the mailing list&lt;/a&gt;, so I suspect they do not accept
2624 emails from non-subscribers. Because of this, I sent my patch also to
2625 the Debian bug tracking system instead as
2626 &lt;a href=&quot;http://bugs.debian.org/710938&quot;&gt;BTS report #710938&lt;/a&gt;, to make
2627 sure the patch is not lost.&lt;/p&gt;
2628
2629 &lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, it is not enough to fix the kernel to get Laptops
2630 with this problem working properly with Linux. If you use Gnome, your
2631 worries should be over at this point. But if you use KDE, there is
2632 something in KDE ignoring the invert_brightness setting and turning on
2633 the screen during login. I&#39;ve reported it to Debian as
2634 &lt;a href=&quot;http://bugs.debian.org/711237&quot;&gt;BTS report #711237&lt;/a&gt;, and
2635 have no idea yet how to figure out exactly what subsystem is doing
2636 this. Perhaps you can help? Perhaps you know what the Gnome
2637 developers did to handle this, and this can give a clue to the KDE
2638 developers? Or you know where in KDE the screen brightness is changed
2639 during login? If so, please update the BTS report (or get in touch if
2640 you do not know how to update BTS).&lt;/p&gt;
2641
2642 &lt;p&gt;Update 2013-07-19: The correct fix for this machine seem to be
2643 acpi_backlight=vendor, to disable ACPI backlight support completely,
2644 as the ACPI information on the machine is trash and it is better to
2645 leave it to the intel video driver to control the screen
2646 backlight.&lt;/p&gt;
2647 </description>
2648 </item>
2649
2650 <item>
2651 <title>How to install Linux on a Packard Bell Easynote LV preinstalled with Windows 8</title>
2652 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_install_Linux_on_a_Packard_Bell_Easynote_LV_preinstalled_with_Windows_8.html</link>
2653 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_install_Linux_on_a_Packard_Bell_Easynote_LV_preinstalled_with_Windows_8.html</guid>
2654 <pubDate>Mon, 27 May 2013 15:20:00 +0200</pubDate>
2655 <description>&lt;p&gt;Two days ago, I asked
2656 &lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_can_I_install_Linux_on_a_Packard_Bell_Easynote_LV_preinstalled_with_Windows_8_.html&quot;&gt;how
2657 I could install Linux on a Packard Bell EasyNote LV computer
2658 preinstalled with Windows 8&lt;/a&gt;. I found a solution, but am horrified
2659 with the obstacles put in the way of Linux users on a laptop with UEFI
2660 and Windows 8.&lt;/p&gt;
2661
2662 &lt;p&gt;I never found out if the cause of my problems were the use of UEFI
2663 secure booting or fast boot. I suspect fast boot was the problem,
2664 causing the firmware to boot directly from HD without considering any
2665 key presses and alternative devices, but do not know UEFI settings
2666 enough to tell.&lt;/p&gt;
2667
2668 &lt;p&gt;There is no way to install Linux on the machine in question without
2669 opening the box and disconnecting the hard drive! This is as far as I
2670 can tell, the only way to get access to the firmware setup menu
2671 without accepting the Windows 8 license agreement. I am told (and
2672 found description on how to) that it is possible to configure the
2673 firmware setup once booted into Windows 8. But as I believe the terms
2674 of that agreement are completely unacceptable, accepting the license
2675 was never an alternative. I do not enter agreements I do not intend
2676 to follow.&lt;/p&gt;
2677
2678 &lt;p&gt;I feared I had to return the laptops and ask for a refund, and
2679 waste many hours on this, but luckily there was a way to get it to
2680 work. But I would not recommend it to anyone planning to run Linux on
2681 it, and I have become sceptical to Windows 8 certified laptops. Is
2682 this the way Linux will be forced out of the market place, by making
2683 it close to impossible for &quot;normal&quot; users to install Linux without
2684 accepting the Microsoft Windows license terms? Or at least not
2685 without risking to loose the warranty?&lt;/p&gt;
2686
2687 &lt;p&gt;I&#39;ve updated the
2688 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv&quot;&gt;Linux Laptop
2689 wiki page for Packard Bell EasyNote LV&lt;/a&gt;, to ensure the next person
2690 do not have to struggle as much as I did to get Linux into the
2691 machine.&lt;/p&gt;
2692
2693 &lt;p&gt;Thanks to Bob Rosbag, Florian Weimer, Philipp Kern, Ben Hutching,
2694 Michael Tokarev and others for feedback and ideas.&lt;/p&gt;
2695 </description>
2696 </item>
2697
2698 <item>
2699 <title>How can I install Linux on a Packard Bell Easynote LV preinstalled with Windows 8?</title>
2700 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_can_I_install_Linux_on_a_Packard_Bell_Easynote_LV_preinstalled_with_Windows_8_.html</link>
2701 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_can_I_install_Linux_on_a_Packard_Bell_Easynote_LV_preinstalled_with_Windows_8_.html</guid>
2702 <pubDate>Sat, 25 May 2013 18:20:00 +0200</pubDate>
2703 <description>&lt;p&gt;I&#39;ve run into quite a problem the last few days. I bought three
2704 new laptops for my parents and a few others. I bought Packard Bell
2705 Easynote LV to run Kubuntu on and use as their home computer. But I
2706 am completely unable to figure out how to install Linux on it. The
2707 computer is preinstalled with Windows 8, and I suspect it uses UEFI
2708 instead of a BIOS to boot.&lt;/p&gt;
2709
2710 &lt;p&gt;The problem is that I am unable to get it to PXE boot, and unable
2711 to get it to boot the Linux installer from my USB stick. I have yet
2712 to try the DVD install, and still hope it will work. when I turn on
2713 the computer, there is no information on what buttons to press to get
2714 the normal boot menu. I expect to get some boot menu to select PXE or
2715 USB stick booting. When booting, it first ask for the language to
2716 use, then for some regional settings, and finally if I will accept the
2717 Windows 8 terms of use. As these terms are completely unacceptable to
2718 me, I have no other choice but to turn off the computer and try again
2719 to get it to boot the Linux installer.&lt;/p&gt;
2720
2721 &lt;p&gt;I have gathered my findings so far on a Linlap page about the
2722 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv&quot;&gt;Packard Bell
2723 EasyNote LV&lt;/a&gt; model. If you have any idea how to get Linux
2724 installed on this machine, please get in touch or update that wiki
2725 page. If I can&#39;t find a way to install Linux, I will have to return
2726 the laptop to the seller and find another machine for my parents.&lt;/p&gt;
2727
2728 &lt;p&gt;I wonder, is this the way Linux will be forced out of the market
2729 using UEFI and &quot;secure boot&quot; by making it impossible to install Linux
2730 on new Laptops?&lt;/p&gt;
2731 </description>
2732 </item>
2733
2734 <item>
2735 <title>How to transform a Debian based system to a Debian Edu installation</title>
2736 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_transform_a_Debian_based_system_to_a_Debian_Edu_installation.html</link>
2737 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_transform_a_Debian_based_system_to_a_Debian_Edu_installation.html</guid>
2738 <pubDate>Fri, 17 May 2013 11:50:00 +0200</pubDate>
2739 <description>&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.skolelinux.org/&quot;&gt;Debian Edu / Skolelinux&lt;/a&gt; is
2740 an operating system based on Debian intended for use in schools. It
2741 contain a turn-key solution for the computer network provided to
2742 pupils in the primary schools. It provide both the central server,
2743 network boot servers and desktop environments with heaps of
2744 educational software. The project was founded almost 12 years ago,
2745 2001-07-02. If you want to support the project, which is in need for
2746 cash to fund developer gatherings and other project related activity,
2747 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html&quot;&gt;please
2748 donate some money&lt;/a&gt;.
2749
2750 &lt;p&gt;A topic that come up again and again on the Debian Edu mailing
2751 lists and elsewhere, is the question on how to transform a Debian or
2752 Ubuntu installation into a Debian Edu installation. It isn&#39;t very
2753 hard, and last week I wrote a script to replicate the steps done by
2754 the Debian Edu installer.&lt;/p&gt;
2755
2756 &lt;p&gt;The script,
2757 &lt;a href=&quot;http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/branches/wheezy/debian-edu-config/share/debian-edu-config/tools/debian-edu-bless?view=markup&quot;&gt;debian-edu-bless&lt;a/&gt;
2758 in the debian-edu-config package, will go through these six steps and
2759 transform an existing Debian Wheezy or Ubuntu (untested) installation
2760 into a Debian Edu Workstation:&lt;/p&gt;
2761
2762 &lt;ol&gt;
2763
2764 &lt;li&gt;Add skolelinux related APT sources.&lt;/li&gt;
2765 &lt;li&gt;Create /etc/debian-edu/config with the wanted configuration.&lt;/li&gt;
2766 &lt;li&gt;Install debian-edu-install to load preseeding values and pull in
2767 our configuration.&lt;/li&gt;
2768 &lt;li&gt;Preseed debconf database with profile setup in
2769 /etc/debian-edu/config, and run tasksel to install packages
2770 according to the profile specified in the config above,
2771 overriding some of the Debian automation machinery.&lt;/li&gt;
2772 &lt;li&gt;Run debian-edu-cfengine-D installation to configure everything
2773 that could not be done using preseeding.&lt;/li&gt;
2774 &lt;li&gt;Ask for a reboot to enable all the configuration changes.&lt;/li&gt;
2775
2776 &lt;/ol&gt;
2777
2778 &lt;p&gt;There are some steps in the Debian Edu installation that can not be
2779 replicated like this. Disk partitioning and LVM setup, for example.
2780 So this script just assume there is enough disk space to install all
2781 the needed packages.&lt;/p&gt;
2782
2783 &lt;p&gt;The script was created to help a Debian Edu student working on
2784 setting up &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.raspberrypi.org&quot;&gt;Raspberry Pi&lt;/a&gt; as a
2785 Debian Edu client, and using it he can take the existing
2786 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.raspbian.org/FrontPage‎&quot;&gt;Raspbian&lt;/a&gt; installation and
2787 transform it into a fully functioning Debian Edu Workstation (or
2788 Roaming Workstation, or whatever :).&lt;/p&gt;
2789
2790 &lt;p&gt;The default setting in the script is to create a KDE Workstation.
2791 If a LXDE based Roaming workstation is wanted instead, modify the
2792 PROFILE and DESKTOP values at the top to look like this instead:&lt;/p&gt;
2793
2794 &lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
2795 PROFILE=&quot;Roaming-Workstation&quot;
2796 DESKTOP=&quot;lxde&quot;
2797 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
2798
2799 &lt;p&gt;The script could even become useful to set up Debian Edu servers in
2800 the cloud, by starting with a virtual Debian installation at some
2801 virtual hosting service and setting up all the services on first
2802 boot.&lt;/p&gt;
2803 </description>
2804 </item>
2805
2806 <item>
2807 <title>Debian, the Linux distribution of choice for LEGO designers?</title>
2808 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian__the_Linux_distribution_of_choice_for_LEGO_designers_.html</link>
2809 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian__the_Linux_distribution_of_choice_for_LEGO_designers_.html</guid>
2810 <pubDate>Sat, 11 May 2013 20:30:00 +0200</pubDate>
2811 <description>&lt;P&gt;In January,
2812 &lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_IRC_channel_for_LEGO_designers_using_Debian.html&quot;&gt;I
2813 announced a&lt;/a&gt; new &lt;a href=&quot;irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego&quot;&gt;IRC
2814 channel #debian-lego&lt;/a&gt;, for those of us in the Debian and Linux
2815 community interested in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.lego.com/&quot;&gt;LEGO&lt;/a&gt;, the
2816 marvellous construction system from Denmark. We also created
2817 &lt;a href=&quot;http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners&quot;&gt;a wiki page&lt;/a&gt; to have
2818 a place to take notes and write down our plans and hopes. And several
2819 people showed up to help. I was very happy to see the effect of my
2820 call. Since the small start, we have a debtags tag
2821 &lt;a href=&quot;http://debtags.debian.net/search/bytag?wl=hardware::hobby:lego&quot;&gt;hardware::hobby:lego&lt;/a&gt;
2822 tag for LEGO related packages, and now count 10 packages related to
2823 LEGO and &lt;a href=&quot;http://mindstorms.lego.com/&quot;&gt;Mindstorms&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;
2824
2825 &lt;p&gt;&lt;table&gt;
2826 &lt;tr&gt;&lt;td&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://packages.qa.debian.org/brickos&quot;&gt;brickos&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td&gt;alternative OS for LEGO Mindstorms RCX. Supports development in C/C++&lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;
2827 &lt;tr&gt;&lt;td&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://packages.qa.debian.org/leocad&quot;&gt;leocad&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td&gt;virtual brick CAD software&lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;
2828 &lt;tr&gt;&lt;td&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://packages.qa.debian.org/libnxt&quot;&gt;libnxt&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td&gt;utility library for talking to the LEGO Mindstorms NX&lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;
2829 &lt;tr&gt;&lt;td&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://packages.qa.debian.org/lnpd&quot;&gt;lnpd&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td&gt;daemon for LNP communication with BrickOS&lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;
2830 &lt;tr&gt;&lt;td&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://packages.qa.debian.org/nbc&quot;&gt;nbc&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td&gt;compiler for LEGO Mindstorms NXT bricks&lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;
2831 &lt;tr&gt;&lt;td&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://packages.qa.debian.org/nqc&quot;&gt;nqc&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td&gt;Not Quite C compiler for LEGO Mindstorms RCX&lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;
2832 &lt;tr&gt;&lt;td&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://packages.qa.debian.org/python-nxt&quot;&gt;python-nxt&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td&gt;python driver/interface/wrapper for the Lego Mindstorms NXT robot&lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;
2833 &lt;tr&gt;&lt;td&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://packages.qa.debian.org/python-nxt-filer&quot;&gt;python-nxt-filer&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td&gt;simple GUI to manage files on a LEGO Mindstorms NXT&lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;
2834 &lt;tr&gt;&lt;td&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://packages.qa.debian.org/scratch&quot;&gt;scratch&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td&gt;easy to use programming environment for ages 8 and up&lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;
2835 &lt;tr&gt;&lt;td&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://packages.qa.debian.org/t2n&quot;&gt;t2n&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td&gt;simple command-line tool for Lego NXT&lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;
2836 &lt;/table&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
2837
2838 &lt;p&gt;Some of these are available in Wheezy, and all but one are
2839 currently available in Jessie/testing. leocad is so far only
2840 available in experimental.&lt;/p&gt;
2841
2842 &lt;p&gt;If you care about LEGO in Debian, please join us on IRC and help
2843 adding the rest of the great free software tools available on Linux
2844 for LEGO designers.&lt;/p&gt;
2845 </description>
2846 </item>
2847
2848 <item>
2849 <title>Debian Wheezy is out - and Debian Edu / Skolelinux should soon follow! #newinwheezy</title>
2850 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Wheezy_is_out___and_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_should_soon_follow___newinwheezy.html</link>
2851 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Wheezy_is_out___and_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_should_soon_follow___newinwheezy.html</guid>
2852 <pubDate>Sun, 5 May 2013 07:40:00 +0200</pubDate>
2853 <description>&lt;p&gt;When I woke up this morning, I was very happy to see that the
2854 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.debian.org/News/2013/20130504&quot;&gt;release announcement
2855 for Debian Wheezy&lt;/a&gt; was waiting in my mail box. This is a great
2856 Debian release, and I expect to move my machines at home over to it fairly
2857 soon.&lt;/p&gt;
2858
2859 &lt;p&gt;The new debian release contain heaps of new stuff, and one program
2860 in particular make me very happy to see included. The
2861 &lt;a href=&quot;http://scratch.mit.edu/&quot;&gt;Scratch&lt;/a&gt; program, made famous by
2862 the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.code.org/&quot;&gt;Teach kids code&lt;/a&gt; movement, is
2863 included for the first time. Alongside similar programs like
2864 &lt;a href=&quot;http://edu.kde.org/kturtle/&quot;&gt;kturtle&lt;/a&gt; and
2865 &lt;a href=&quot;http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/Turtle_Art&quot;&gt;turtleart&lt;/a&gt;,
2866 it allow for visual programming where syntax errors can not happen,
2867 and a friendly programming environment for learning to control the
2868 computer. Scratch will also be included in the next release of Debian
2869 Edu.&lt;/a&gt;
2870
2871 &lt;p&gt;And now that Wheezy is wrapped up, we can wrap up the next Debian
2872 Edu/Skolelinux release too. The
2873 &lt;a href=&quot;http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/2013/04/msg00132.html&quot;&gt;first
2874 alpha release&lt;/a&gt; went out last week, and the next should soon
2875 follow.&lt;p&gt;
2876 </description>
2877 </item>
2878
2879 <item>
2880 <title>Isenkram 0.2 finally in the Debian archive</title>
2881 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Isenkram_0_2_finally_in_the_Debian_archive.html</link>
2882 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Isenkram_0_2_finally_in_the_Debian_archive.html</guid>
2883 <pubDate>Wed, 3 Apr 2013 23:40:00 +0200</pubDate>
2884 <description>&lt;p&gt;Today the &lt;a href=&quot;http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram&quot;&gt;Isenkram
2885 package&lt;/a&gt; finally made it into the archive, after lingering in NEW
2886 for many months. I uploaded it to the Debian experimental suite
2887 2013-01-27, and today it was accepted into the archive.&lt;/p&gt;
2888
2889 &lt;p&gt;Isenkram is a system for suggesting to users what packages to
2890 install to work with a pluggable hardware device. The suggestion pop
2891 up when the device is plugged in. For example if a Lego Mindstorm NXT
2892 is inserted, it will suggest to install the program needed to program
2893 the NXT controller. Give it a go, and report bugs and suggestions to
2894 BTS. :)&lt;/p&gt;
2895 </description>
2896 </item>
2897
2898 <item>
2899 <title>Bitcoin GUI now available from Debian/unstable (and Ubuntu/raring)</title>
2900 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Bitcoin_GUI_now_available_from_Debian_unstable__and_Ubuntu_raring_.html</link>
2901 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Bitcoin_GUI_now_available_from_Debian_unstable__and_Ubuntu_raring_.html</guid>
2902 <pubDate>Sat, 2 Feb 2013 09:00:00 +0100</pubDate>
2903 <description>&lt;p&gt;My
2904 &lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_backport_bitcoin_qt_version_0_7_2_2_to_Debian_Squeeze.html&quot;&gt;last
2905 bitcoin related blog post&lt;/a&gt; mentioned that the new
2906 &lt;a href=&quot;http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin&quot;&gt;bitcoin package&lt;/a&gt; for
2907 Debian was waiting in NEW. It was accepted by the Debian ftp-masters
2908 2013-01-19, and have been available in unstable since then. It was
2909 automatically copied to Ubuntu, and is available in their Raring
2910 version too.&lt;/p&gt;
2911
2912 &lt;p&gt;But there is a strange problem with the build that block this new
2913 version from being available on the i386 and kfreebsd-i386
2914 architectures. For some strange reason, the autobuilders in Debian
2915 for these architectures fail to run the test suite on these
2916 architectures (&lt;a href=&quot;http://bugs.debian.org/672524&quot;&gt;BTS #672524&lt;/a&gt;).
2917 We are so far unable to reproduce it when building it manually, and
2918 no-one have been able to propose a fix. If you got an idea what is
2919 failing, please let us know via the BTS.&lt;/p&gt;
2920
2921 &lt;p&gt;One feature that is annoying me with of the bitcoin client, because
2922 I often run low on disk space, is the fact that the client will exit
2923 if it run short on space (&lt;a href=&quot;http://bugs.debian.org/696715&quot;&gt;BTS
2924 #696715&lt;/a&gt;). So make sure you have enough disk space when you run
2925 it. :)&lt;/p&gt;
2926
2927 &lt;p&gt;As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
2928 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
2929 &lt;b&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&amp;label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog&quot;&gt;15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
2930 </description>
2931 </item>
2932
2933 <item>
2934 <title>Welcome to the world, Isenkram!</title>
2935 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html</link>
2936 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html</guid>
2937 <pubDate>Tue, 22 Jan 2013 22:00:00 +0100</pubDate>
2938 <description>&lt;p&gt;Yesterday, I
2939 &lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_prototype_ready_making_hardware_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html&quot;&gt;asked
2940 for testers&lt;/a&gt; for my prototype for making Debian better at handling
2941 pluggable hardware devices, which I
2942 &lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html&quot;&gt;set
2943 out to create&lt;/a&gt; earlier this month. Several valuable testers showed
2944 up, and caused me to really want to to open up the development to more
2945 people. But before I did this, I want to come up with a sensible name
2946 for this project. Today I finally decided on a new name, and I have
2947 renamed the project from hw-support-handler to this new name. In the
2948 process, I moved the source to git and made it available as a
2949 &lt;a href=&quot;http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/isenkram.git&quot;&gt;collab-maint&lt;/a&gt;
2950 repository in Debian. The new name? It is &lt;strong&gt;Isenkram&lt;/strong&gt;.
2951 To fetch and build the latest version of the source, use&lt;/p&gt;
2952
2953 &lt;pre&gt;
2954 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/collab-maint/isenkram.git
2955 cd isenkram &amp;&amp; git-buildpackage -us -uc
2956 &lt;/pre&gt;
2957
2958 &lt;p&gt;I have not yet adjusted all files to use the new name yet. If you
2959 want to hack on the source or improve the package, please go ahead.
2960 But please talk to me first on IRC or via email before you do major
2961 changes, to make sure we do not step on each others toes. :)&lt;/p&gt;
2962
2963 &lt;p&gt;If you wonder what &#39;isenkram&#39; is, it is a Norwegian word for iron
2964 stuff, typically meaning tools, nails, screws, etc. Typical hardware
2965 stuff, in other words. I&#39;ve been told it is the Norwegian variant of
2966 the German word eisenkram, for those that are familiar with that
2967 word.&lt;/p&gt;
2968
2969 &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update 2013-01-26&lt;/strong&gt;: Added -us -us to build
2970 instructions, to avoid confusing people with an error from the signing
2971 process.&lt;/p&gt;
2972
2973 &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update 2013-01-27&lt;/strong&gt;: Switch to HTTP URL for the git
2974 clone argument to avoid the need for authentication.&lt;/p&gt;
2975 </description>
2976 </item>
2977
2978 <item>
2979 <title>First prototype ready making hardware easier to use in Debian</title>
2980 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_prototype_ready_making_hardware_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html</link>
2981 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_prototype_ready_making_hardware_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html</guid>
2982 <pubDate>Mon, 21 Jan 2013 12:00:00 +0100</pubDate>
2983 <description>&lt;p&gt;Early this month I set out to try to
2984 &lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html&quot;&gt;improve
2985 the Debian support for pluggable hardware devices&lt;/a&gt;. Now my
2986 prototype is working, and it is ready for a larger audience. To test
2987 it, fetch the
2988 &lt;a href=&quot;http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/&quot;&gt;source
2989 from the Debian Edu subversion repository&lt;/a&gt;, build and install the
2990 package. You might have to log out and in again activate the
2991 autostart script.&lt;/p&gt;
2992
2993 &lt;p&gt;The design is simple:&lt;/p&gt;
2994
2995 &lt;ul&gt;
2996
2997 &lt;li&gt;Add desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ causing a program
2998 hw-support-handlerd to start when the user log in.&lt;/li&gt;
2999
3000 &lt;li&gt;This program listen for kernel events about new hardware (directly
3001 from the kernel like udev does), not using HAL dbus events as I
3002 initially did.&lt;/li&gt;
3003
3004 &lt;li&gt;When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware modalias in
3005 the APT database, a database
3006 &lt;a href=&quot;http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=markup&quot;&gt;available
3007 via HTTP&lt;/a&gt; and a database available as part of the package.&lt;/li&gt;
3008
3009 &lt;li&gt;If a package is mapped to the hardware in question, the package
3010 isn&#39;t installed yet and this is the first time the hardware was
3011 plugged in, show a desktop notification suggesting to install the
3012 package or packages.&lt;/li&gt;
3013
3014 &lt;li&gt;If the user click on the &#39;install package now&#39; button, ask
3015 aptdaemon via the PackageKit API to install the requrired package.&lt;/li&gt;
3016
3017 &lt;li&gt;aptdaemon ask for root password or sudo password, and install the
3018 package while showing progress information in a window.&lt;/li&gt;
3019
3020 &lt;/ul&gt;
3021
3022 &lt;p&gt;I still need to come up with a better name for the system. Here
3023 are some screen shots showing the prototype in action. First the
3024 notification, then the password request, and finally the request to
3025 approve all the dependencies. Sorry for the Norwegian Bokmål GUI.&lt;/p&gt;
3026
3027 &lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-1-notification.png&quot;&gt;
3028 &lt;br&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-2-password.png&quot;&gt;
3029 &lt;br&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-3-dependencies.png&quot;&gt;
3030 &lt;br&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-4-installing.png&quot;&gt;
3031 &lt;br&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-5-installing-details.png&quot; width=&quot;70%&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
3032
3033 &lt;p&gt;The prototype still need to be improved with longer timeouts, but
3034 is already useful. The database of hardware to package mappings also
3035 need more work. It is currently compatible with the Ubuntu way of
3036 storing such information in the package control file, but could be
3037 changed to use other formats instead or in addition to the current
3038 method. I&#39;ve dropped the use of discover for this mapping, as the
3039 modalias approach is more flexible and easier to use on Linux as long
3040 as the Linux kernel expose its modalias strings directly.&lt;/p&gt;
3041
3042 &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update 2013-01-21 16:50&lt;/strong&gt;: Due to popular demand,
3043 here is the command required to check out and build the source: Use
3044 &#39;&lt;tt&gt;svn checkout
3045 svn://svn.debian.org/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/; cd
3046 hw-support-handler; debuild&lt;/tt&gt;&#39;. If you lack debuild, install the
3047 devscripts package.&lt;/p&gt;
3048
3049 &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update 2013-01-23 12:00&lt;/strong&gt;: The project is now
3050 renamed to Isenkram and the source moved from the Debian Edu
3051 subversion repository to a Debian collab-maint git repository. See
3052 &lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html&quot;&gt;build
3053 instructions&lt;/a&gt; for details.&lt;/p&gt;
3054 </description>
3055 </item>
3056
3057 <item>
3058 <title>Thank you Thinkpad X41, for your long and trustworthy service</title>
3059 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thank_you_Thinkpad_X41__for_your_long_and_trustworthy_service.html</link>
3060 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thank_you_Thinkpad_X41__for_your_long_and_trustworthy_service.html</guid>
3061 <pubDate>Sat, 19 Jan 2013 09:20:00 +0100</pubDate>
3062 <description>&lt;p&gt;This Christmas my trusty old laptop died. It died quietly and
3063 suddenly in bed. With a quiet whimper, it went completely quiet and
3064 black. The power button was no longer able to turn it on. It was a
3065 IBM Thinkpad X41, and the best laptop I ever had. Better than both
3066 Thinkpads X30, X31, X40, X60, X61 and X61S. Far better than the
3067 Compaq I had before that. Now I need to find a replacement. To keep
3068 going during Christmas, I moved the one year old SSD disk to my old
3069 X40 where it fitted (only one I had left that could use it), but it is
3070 not a durable solution.
3071
3072 &lt;p&gt;My laptop needs are fairly modest. This is my wishlist from when I
3073 got a new one more than 10 years ago. It still holds true.:)&lt;/p&gt;
3074
3075 &lt;ul&gt;
3076
3077 &lt;li&gt;Lightweight (around 1 kg) and small volume (preferably smaller
3078 than A4).&lt;/li&gt;
3079 &lt;li&gt;Robust, it will be in my backpack every day.&lt;/li&gt;
3080 &lt;li&gt;Three button mouse and a mouse pin instead of touch pad.&lt;/li&gt;
3081 &lt;li&gt;Long battery life time. Preferable a week.&lt;/li&gt;
3082 &lt;li&gt;Internal WIFI network card.&lt;/li&gt;
3083 &lt;li&gt;Internal Twisted Pair network card.&lt;/li&gt;
3084 &lt;li&gt;Some USB slots (2-3 is plenty)&lt;/li&gt;
3085 &lt;li&gt;Good keyboard - similar to the Thinkpad.&lt;/li&gt;
3086 &lt;li&gt;Video resolution at least 1024x768, with size around 12&quot; (A4 paper
3087 size).&lt;/li&gt;
3088 &lt;li&gt;Hardware supported by Debian Stable, ie the default kernel and
3089 X.org packages.&lt;/li&gt;
3090 &lt;li&gt;Quiet, preferably fan free (or at least not using the fan most of
3091 the time).
3092
3093 &lt;/ul&gt;
3094
3095 &lt;p&gt;You will notice that there are no RAM and CPU requirements in the
3096 list. The reason is simply that the specifications on laptops the
3097 last 10-15 years have been sufficient for my needs, and I have to look
3098 at other features to choose my laptop. But are there still made as
3099 robust laptops as my X41? The Thinkpad X60/X61 proved to be less
3100 robust, and Thinkpads seem to be heading in the wrong direction since
3101 Lenovo took over. But I&#39;ve been told that X220 and X1 Carbon might
3102 still be useful.&lt;/p&gt;
3103
3104 &lt;p&gt;Perhaps I should rethink my needs, and look for a pad with an
3105 external keyboard? I&#39;ll have to check the
3106 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.linux-laptop.net/&quot;&gt;Linux Laptops site&lt;/a&gt; for
3107 well-supported laptops, or perhaps just buy one preinstalled from one
3108 of the vendors listed on the &lt;a href=&quot;http://linuxpreloaded.com/&quot;&gt;Linux
3109 Pre-loaded site&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
3110 </description>
3111 </item>
3112
3113 <item>
3114 <title>How to find a browser plugin supporting a given MIME type</title>
3115 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_find_a_browser_plugin_supporting_a_given_MIME_type.html</link>
3116 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_find_a_browser_plugin_supporting_a_given_MIME_type.html</guid>
3117 <pubDate>Fri, 18 Jan 2013 10:40:00 +0100</pubDate>
3118 <description>&lt;p&gt;Some times I try to figure out which Iceweasel browser plugin to
3119 install to get support for a given MIME type. Thanks to
3120 &lt;a href=&quot;https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MozillaTeam/Plugins&quot;&gt;specifications
3121 done by Ubuntu&lt;/a&gt; and Mozilla, it is possible to do this in Debian.
3122 Unfortunately, not very many packages provide the needed meta
3123 information, Anyway, here is a small script to look up all browser
3124 plugin packages announcing ther MIME support using this specification:&lt;/p&gt;
3125
3126 &lt;pre&gt;
3127 #!/usr/bin/python
3128 import sys
3129 import apt
3130 def pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
3131 cache = apt.Cache()
3132 cache.open(None)
3133 thepkgs = []
3134 for pkg in cache:
3135 version = pkg.candidate
3136 if version is None:
3137 version = pkg.installed
3138 if version is None:
3139 continue
3140 record = version.record
3141 if not record.has_key(&#39;Npp-MimeType&#39;):
3142 continue
3143 mime_types = record[&#39;Npp-MimeType&#39;].split(&#39;,&#39;)
3144 for t in mime_types:
3145 t = t.rstrip().strip()
3146 if t == mimetype:
3147 thepkgs.append(pkg.name)
3148 return thepkgs
3149 mimetype = &quot;audio/ogg&quot;
3150 if 1 &lt; len(sys.argv):
3151 mimetype = sys.argv[1]
3152 print &quot;Browser plugin packages supporting %s:&quot; % mimetype
3153 for pkg in pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
3154 print &quot; %s&quot; %pkg
3155 &lt;/pre&gt;
3156
3157 &lt;p&gt;It can be used like this to look up a given MIME type:&lt;/p&gt;
3158
3159 &lt;pre&gt;
3160 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype
3161 Browser plugin packages supporting audio/ogg:
3162 gecko-mediaplayer
3163 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype application/x-shockwave-flash
3164 Browser plugin packages supporting application/x-shockwave-flash:
3165 browser-plugin-gnash
3166 %
3167 &lt;/pre&gt;
3168
3169 &lt;p&gt;In Ubuntu this mechanism is combined with support in the browser
3170 itself to query for plugins and propose to install the needed
3171 packages. It would be great if Debian supported such feature too. Is
3172 anyone working on adding it?&lt;/p&gt;
3173
3174 &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update 2013-01-18 14:20&lt;/strong&gt;: The Debian BTS
3175 request for icweasel support for this feature is
3176 &lt;a href=&quot;http://bugs.debian.org/484010&quot;&gt;#484010&lt;/a&gt; from 2008 (and
3177 &lt;a href=&quot;http://bugs.debian.org/698426&quot;&gt;#698426&lt;/a&gt; from today). Lack
3178 of manpower and wish for a different design is the reason thus feature
3179 is not yet in iceweasel from Debian.&lt;/p&gt;
3180 </description>
3181 </item>
3182
3183 <item>
3184 <title>What is the most supported MIME type in Debian?</title>
3185 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_the_most_supported_MIME_type_in_Debian_.html</link>
3186 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_the_most_supported_MIME_type_in_Debian_.html</guid>
3187 <pubDate>Wed, 16 Jan 2013 10:10:00 +0100</pubDate>
3188 <description>&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://wiki.debian.org/AppStreamDebianProposal&quot;&gt;DEP-11
3189 proposal to add AppStream information to the Debian archive&lt;/a&gt;, is a
3190 proposal to make it possible for a Desktop application to propose to
3191 the user some package to install to gain support for a given MIME
3192 type, font, library etc. that is currently missing. With such
3193 mechanism in place, it would be possible for the desktop to
3194 automatically propose and install leocad if some LDraw file is
3195 downloaded by the browser.&lt;/p&gt;
3196
3197 &lt;p&gt;To get some idea about the current content of the archive, I decided
3198 to write a simple program to extract all .desktop files from the
3199 Debian archive and look up the claimed MIME support there. The result
3200 can be found on the
3201 &lt;a href=&quot;http://ftp.skolelinux.org/pub/AppStreamTest&quot;&gt;Skolelinux FTP
3202 site&lt;/a&gt;. Using the collected information, it become possible to
3203 answer the question in the title. Here are the 20 most supported MIME
3204 types in Debian stable (Squeeze), testing (Wheezy) and unstable (Sid).
3205 The complete list is available from the link above.&lt;/p&gt;
3206
3207 &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Debian Stable:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
3208
3209 &lt;pre&gt;
3210 count MIME type
3211 ----- -----------------------
3212 32 text/plain
3213 30 audio/mpeg
3214 29 image/png
3215 28 image/jpeg
3216 27 application/ogg
3217 26 audio/x-mp3
3218 25 image/tiff
3219 25 image/gif
3220 22 image/bmp
3221 22 audio/x-wav
3222 20 audio/x-flac
3223 19 audio/x-mpegurl
3224 18 video/x-ms-asf
3225 18 audio/x-musepack
3226 18 audio/x-mpeg
3227 18 application/x-ogg
3228 17 video/mpeg
3229 17 audio/x-scpls
3230 17 audio/ogg
3231 16 video/x-ms-wmv
3232 &lt;/pre&gt;
3233
3234 &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Debian Testing:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
3235
3236 &lt;pre&gt;
3237 count MIME type
3238 ----- -----------------------
3239 33 text/plain
3240 32 image/png
3241 32 image/jpeg
3242 29 audio/mpeg
3243 27 image/gif
3244 26 image/tiff
3245 26 application/ogg
3246 25 audio/x-mp3
3247 22 image/bmp
3248 21 audio/x-wav
3249 19 audio/x-mpegurl
3250 19 audio/x-mpeg
3251 18 video/mpeg
3252 18 audio/x-scpls
3253 18 audio/x-flac
3254 18 application/x-ogg
3255 17 video/x-ms-asf
3256 17 text/html
3257 17 audio/x-musepack
3258 16 image/x-xbitmap
3259 &lt;/pre&gt;
3260
3261 &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Debian Unstable:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
3262
3263 &lt;pre&gt;
3264 count MIME type
3265 ----- -----------------------
3266 31 text/plain
3267 31 image/png
3268 31 image/jpeg
3269 29 audio/mpeg
3270 28 application/ogg
3271 27 image/gif
3272 26 image/tiff
3273 26 audio/x-mp3
3274 23 audio/x-wav
3275 22 image/bmp
3276 21 audio/x-flac
3277 20 audio/x-mpegurl
3278 19 audio/x-mpeg
3279 18 video/x-ms-asf
3280 18 video/mpeg
3281 18 audio/x-scpls
3282 18 application/x-ogg
3283 17 audio/x-musepack
3284 16 video/x-ms-wmv
3285 16 video/x-msvideo
3286 &lt;/pre&gt;
3287
3288 &lt;p&gt;I am told that PackageKit can provide an API to access the kind of
3289 information mentioned in DEP-11. I have not yet had time to look at
3290 it, but hope the PackageKit people in Debian are on top of these
3291 issues.&lt;/p&gt;
3292
3293 &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update 2013-01-16 13:35&lt;/strong&gt;: Updated numbers after
3294 discovering a typo in my script.&lt;/p&gt;
3295 </description>
3296 </item>
3297
3298 <item>
3299 <title>Using modalias info to find packages handling my hardware</title>
3300 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_modalias_info_to_find_packages_handling_my_hardware.html</link>
3301 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_modalias_info_to_find_packages_handling_my_hardware.html</guid>
3302 <pubDate>Tue, 15 Jan 2013 08:00:00 +0100</pubDate>
3303 <description>&lt;p&gt;Yesterday, I wrote about the
3304 &lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Modalias_strings___a_practical_way_to_map__stuff__to_hardware.html&quot;&gt;modalias
3305 values provided by the Linux kernel&lt;/a&gt; following my hope for
3306 &lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html&quot;&gt;better
3307 dongle support in Debian&lt;/a&gt;. Using this knowledge, I have tested how
3308 modalias values attached to package names can be used to map packages
3309 to hardware. This allow the system to look up and suggest relevant
3310 packages when I plug in some new hardware into my machine, and replace
3311 discover and discover-data as the database used to map hardware to
3312 packages.&lt;/p&gt;
3313
3314 &lt;p&gt;I create a modaliases file with entries like the following,
3315 containing package name, kernel module name (if relevant, otherwise
3316 the package name) and globs matching the relevant hardware
3317 modalias.&lt;/p&gt;
3318
3319 &lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;
3320 Package: package-name
3321 &lt;br&gt;Modaliases: module(modaliasglob, modaliasglob, modaliasglob)&lt;/p&gt;
3322 &lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
3323
3324 &lt;p&gt;It is fairly trivial to write code to find the relevant packages
3325 for a given modalias value using this file.&lt;/p&gt;
3326
3327 &lt;p&gt;An entry like this would suggest the video and picture application
3328 cheese for many USB web cameras (interface bus class 0E01):&lt;/p&gt;
3329
3330 &lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;
3331 Package: cheese
3332 &lt;br&gt;Modaliases: cheese(usb:v*p*d*dc*dsc*dp*ic0Eisc01ip*)&lt;/p&gt;
3333 &lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
3334
3335 &lt;p&gt;An entry like this would suggest the pcmciautils package when a
3336 CardBus bridge (bus class 0607) PCI device is present:&lt;/p&gt;
3337
3338 &lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;
3339 Package: pcmciautils
3340 &lt;br&gt;Modaliases: pcmciautils(pci:v*d*sv*sd*bc06sc07i*)
3341 &lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
3342
3343 &lt;p&gt;An entry like this would suggest the package colorhug-client when
3344 plugging in a ColorHug with USB IDs 04D8:F8DA:&lt;/p&gt;
3345
3346 &lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;
3347 Package: colorhug-client
3348 &lt;br&gt;Modaliases: colorhug-client(usb:v04D8pF8DAd*)&lt;/p&gt;
3349 &lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
3350
3351 &lt;p&gt;I believe the format is compatible with the format of the Packages
3352 file in the Debian archive. Ubuntu already uses their Packages file
3353 to store their mappings from packages to hardware.&lt;/p&gt;
3354
3355 &lt;p&gt;By adding a XB-Modaliases: header in debian/control, any .deb can
3356 announce the hardware it support in a way my prototype understand.
3357 This allow those publishing packages in an APT source outside the
3358 Debian archive as well as those backporting packages to make sure the
3359 hardware mapping are included in the package meta information. I&#39;ve
3360 tested such header in the pymissile package, and its modalias mapping
3361 is working as it should with my prototype. It even made it to Ubuntu
3362 Raring.&lt;/p&gt;
3363
3364 &lt;p&gt;To test if it was possible to look up supported hardware using only
3365 the shell tools available in the Debian installer, I wrote a shell
3366 implementation of the lookup code. The idea is to create files for
3367 each modalias and let the shell do the matching. Please check out and
3368 try the
3369 &lt;a href=&quot;http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/hw-support-lookup?view=co&quot;&gt;hw-support-lookup&lt;/a&gt;
3370 shell script. It run without any extra dependencies and fetch the
3371 hardware mappings from the Debian archive and the subversion
3372 repository where I currently work on my prototype.&lt;/p&gt;
3373
3374 &lt;p&gt;When I use it on a machine with a yubikey inserted, it suggest to
3375 install yubikey-personalization:&lt;/p&gt;
3376
3377 &lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;
3378 % ./hw-support-lookup
3379 &lt;br&gt;yubikey-personalization
3380 &lt;br&gt;%
3381 &lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
3382
3383 &lt;p&gt;When I run it on my Thinkpad X40 with a PCMCIA/CardBus slot, it
3384 propose to install the pcmciautils package:&lt;/p&gt;
3385
3386 &lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;
3387 % ./hw-support-lookup
3388 &lt;br&gt;pcmciautils
3389 &lt;br&gt;%
3390 &lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
3391
3392 &lt;p&gt;If you know of any hardware-package mapping that should be added to
3393 &lt;a href=&quot;http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=co&quot;&gt;my
3394 database&lt;/a&gt;, please tell me about it.&lt;/p&gt;
3395
3396 &lt;p&gt;It could be possible to generate several of the mappings between
3397 packages and hardware. One source would be to look at packages with
3398 kernel modules, ie packages with *.ko files in /lib/modules/, and
3399 extract their modalias information. Another would be to look at
3400 packages with udev rules, ie packages with files in
3401 /lib/udev/rules.d/, and extract their vendor/model information to
3402 generate a modalias matching rule. I have not tested any of these to
3403 see if it work.&lt;/p&gt;
3404
3405 &lt;p&gt;If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
3406 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
3407 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
3408 &lt;a href=&quot;irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel&quot;&gt;#debian-devel&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
3409 </description>
3410 </item>
3411
3412 <item>
3413 <title>Modalias strings - a practical way to map &quot;stuff&quot; to hardware</title>
3414 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Modalias_strings___a_practical_way_to_map__stuff__to_hardware.html</link>
3415 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Modalias_strings___a_practical_way_to_map__stuff__to_hardware.html</guid>
3416 <pubDate>Mon, 14 Jan 2013 11:20:00 +0100</pubDate>
3417 <description>&lt;p&gt;While looking into how to look up Debian packages based on hardware
3418 information, to find the packages that support a given piece of
3419 hardware, I refreshed my memory regarding modalias values, and decided
3420 to document the details. Here are my findings so far, also available
3421 in
3422 &lt;a href=&quot;http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/&quot;&gt;the
3423 Debian Edu subversion repository&lt;/a&gt;:
3424
3425 &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Modalias decoded&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
3426
3427 &lt;p&gt;This document try to explain what the different types of modalias
3428 values stands for. It is in part based on information from
3429 &amp;lt;URL: &lt;a href=&quot;https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias&quot;&gt;https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias&lt;/a&gt; &amp;gt;,
3430 &amp;lt;URL: &lt;a href=&quot;http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/26132/how-to-assign-usb-driver-to-device&quot;&gt;http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/26132/how-to-assign-usb-driver-to-device&lt;/a&gt; &amp;gt;,
3431 &amp;lt;URL: &lt;a href=&quot;http://code.metager.de/source/history/linux/stable/scripts/mod/file2alias.c&quot;&gt;http://code.metager.de/source/history/linux/stable/scripts/mod/file2alias.c&lt;/a&gt; &amp;gt; and
3432 &amp;lt;URL: &lt;a href=&quot;http://cvs.savannah.gnu.org/viewvc/dmidecode/dmidecode.c?root=dmidecode&amp;view=markup&quot;&gt;http://cvs.savannah.gnu.org/viewvc/dmidecode/dmidecode.c?root=dmidecode&amp;view=markup&lt;/a&gt; &amp;gt;.
3433
3434 &lt;p&gt;The modalias entries for a given Linux machine can be found using
3435 this shell script:&lt;/p&gt;
3436
3437 &lt;pre&gt;
3438 find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u
3439 &lt;/pre&gt;
3440
3441 &lt;p&gt;The supported modalias globs for a given kernel module can be found
3442 using modinfo:&lt;/p&gt;
3443
3444 &lt;pre&gt;
3445 % /sbin/modinfo psmouse | grep alias:
3446 alias: serio:ty05pr*id*ex*
3447 alias: serio:ty01pr*id*ex*
3448 %
3449 &lt;/pre&gt;
3450
3451 &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;PCI subtype&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
3452
3453 &lt;p&gt;A typical PCI entry can look like this. This is an Intel Host
3454 Bridge memory controller:&lt;/p&gt;
3455
3456 &lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;
3457 pci:v00008086d00002770sv00001028sd000001ADbc06sc00i00
3458 &lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
3459
3460 &lt;p&gt;This represent these values:&lt;/p&gt;
3461
3462 &lt;pre&gt;
3463 v 00008086 (vendor)
3464 d 00002770 (device)
3465 sv 00001028 (subvendor)
3466 sd 000001AD (subdevice)
3467 bc 06 (bus class)
3468 sc 00 (bus subclass)
3469 i 00 (interface)
3470 &lt;/pre&gt;
3471
3472 &lt;p&gt;The vendor/device values are the same values outputted from &#39;lspci
3473 -n&#39; as 8086:2770. The bus class/subclass is also shown by lspci as
3474 0600. The 0600 class is a host bridge. Other useful bus values are
3475 0300 (VGA compatible card) and 0200 (Ethernet controller).&lt;/p&gt;
3476
3477 &lt;p&gt;Not sure how to figure out the interface value, nor what it
3478 means.&lt;/p&gt;
3479
3480 &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;USB subtype&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
3481
3482 &lt;p&gt;Some typical USB entries can look like this. This is an internal
3483 USB hub in a laptop:&lt;/p&gt;
3484
3485 &lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;
3486 usb:v1D6Bp0001d0206dc09dsc00dp00ic09isc00ip00
3487 &lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
3488
3489 &lt;p&gt;Here is the values included in this alias:&lt;/p&gt;
3490
3491 &lt;pre&gt;
3492 v 1D6B (device vendor)
3493 p 0001 (device product)
3494 d 0206 (bcddevice)
3495 dc 09 (device class)
3496 dsc 00 (device subclass)
3497 dp 00 (device protocol)
3498 ic 09 (interface class)
3499 isc 00 (interface subclass)
3500 ip 00 (interface protocol)
3501 &lt;/pre&gt;
3502
3503 &lt;p&gt;The 0900 device class/subclass means hub. Some times the relevant
3504 class is in the interface class section. For a simple USB web camera,
3505 these alias entries show up:&lt;/p&gt;
3506
3507 &lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;
3508 usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc01ip00
3509 &lt;br&gt;usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc02ip00
3510 &lt;br&gt;usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc01ip00
3511 &lt;br&gt;usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc02ip00
3512 &lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
3513
3514 &lt;p&gt;Interface class 0E01 is video control, 0E02 is video streaming (aka
3515 camera), 0101 is audio control device and 0102 is audio streaming (aka
3516 microphone). Thus this is a camera with microphone included.&lt;/p&gt;
3517
3518 &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;ACPI subtype&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
3519
3520 &lt;p&gt;The ACPI type is used for several non-PCI/USB stuff. This is an IR
3521 receiver in a Thinkpad X40:&lt;/p&gt;
3522
3523 &lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;
3524 acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
3525 &lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
3526
3527 &lt;p&gt;The values between the colons are IDs.&lt;/p&gt;
3528
3529 &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;DMI subtype&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
3530
3531 &lt;p&gt;The DMI table contain lots of information about the computer case
3532 and model. This is an entry for a IBM Thinkpad X40, fetched from
3533 /sys/devices/virtual/dmi/id/modalias:&lt;/p&gt;
3534
3535 &lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;
3536 dmi:bvnIBM:bvr1UETB6WW(1.66):bd06/15/2005:svnIBM:pn2371H4G:pvrThinkPadX40:rvnIBM:rn2371H4G:rvrNotAvailable:cvnIBM:ct10:cvrNotAvailable:
3537 &lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
3538
3539 &lt;p&gt;The values present are&lt;/p&gt;
3540
3541 &lt;pre&gt;
3542 bvn IBM (BIOS vendor)
3543 bvr 1UETB6WW(1.66) (BIOS version)
3544 bd 06/15/2005 (BIOS date)
3545 svn IBM (system vendor)
3546 pn 2371H4G (product name)
3547 pvr ThinkPadX40 (product version)
3548 rvn IBM (board vendor)
3549 rn 2371H4G (board name)
3550 rvr NotAvailable (board version)
3551 cvn IBM (chassis vendor)
3552 ct 10 (chassis type)
3553 cvr NotAvailable (chassis version)
3554 &lt;/pre&gt;
3555
3556 &lt;p&gt;The chassis type 10 is Notebook. Other interesting values can be
3557 found in the dmidecode source:&lt;/p&gt;
3558
3559 &lt;pre&gt;
3560 3 Desktop
3561 4 Low Profile Desktop
3562 5 Pizza Box
3563 6 Mini Tower
3564 7 Tower
3565 8 Portable
3566 9 Laptop
3567 10 Notebook
3568 11 Hand Held
3569 12 Docking Station
3570 13 All In One
3571 14 Sub Notebook
3572 15 Space-saving
3573 16 Lunch Box
3574 17 Main Server Chassis
3575 18 Expansion Chassis
3576 19 Sub Chassis
3577 20 Bus Expansion Chassis
3578 21 Peripheral Chassis
3579 22 RAID Chassis
3580 23 Rack Mount Chassis
3581 24 Sealed-case PC
3582 25 Multi-system
3583 26 CompactPCI
3584 27 AdvancedTCA
3585 28 Blade
3586 29 Blade Enclosing
3587 &lt;/pre&gt;
3588
3589 &lt;p&gt;The chassis type values are not always accurately set in the DMI
3590 table. For example my home server is a tower, but the DMI modalias
3591 claim it is a desktop.&lt;/p&gt;
3592
3593 &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;SerIO subtype&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
3594
3595 &lt;p&gt;This type is used for PS/2 mouse plugs. One example is from my
3596 test machine:&lt;/p&gt;
3597
3598 &lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;
3599 serio:ty01pr00id00ex00
3600 &lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
3601
3602 &lt;p&gt;The values present are&lt;/p&gt;
3603
3604 &lt;pre&gt;
3605 ty 01 (type)
3606 pr 00 (prototype)
3607 id 00 (id)
3608 ex 00 (extra)
3609 &lt;/pre&gt;
3610
3611 &lt;p&gt;This type is supported by the psmouse driver. I am not sure what
3612 the valid values are.&lt;/p&gt;
3613
3614 &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Other subtypes&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
3615
3616 &lt;p&gt;There are heaps of other modalias subtypes according to
3617 file2alias.c. There is the rest of the list from that source: amba,
3618 ap, bcma, ccw, css, eisa, hid, i2c, ieee1394, input, ipack, isapnp,
3619 mdio, of, parisc, pcmcia, platform, scsi, sdio, spi, ssb, vio, virtio,
3620 vmbus, x86cpu and zorro. I did not spend time documenting all of
3621 these, as they do not seem relevant for my intended use with mapping
3622 hardware to packages when new stuff is inserted during run time.&lt;/p&gt;
3623
3624 &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Looking up kernel modules using modalias values&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
3625
3626 &lt;p&gt;To check which kernel modules provide support for a given modalias,
3627 one can use the following shell script:&lt;/p&gt;
3628
3629 &lt;pre&gt;
3630 for id in $(find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u); do \
3631 echo &quot;$id&quot; ; \
3632 /sbin/modprobe --show-depends &quot;$id&quot;|sed &#39;s/^/ /&#39; ; \
3633 done
3634 &lt;/pre&gt;
3635
3636 &lt;p&gt;The output can look like this (only the first few entries as the
3637 list is very long on my test machine):&lt;/p&gt;
3638
3639 &lt;pre&gt;
3640 acpi:ACPI0003:
3641 insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/acpi/ac.ko
3642 acpi:device:
3643 FATAL: Module acpi:device: not found.
3644 acpi:IBM0068:
3645 insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/char/nvram.ko
3646 insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/leds/led-class.ko
3647 insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/rfkill/rfkill.ko
3648 insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/platform/x86/thinkpad_acpi.ko
3649 acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
3650 insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/lib/crc-ccitt.ko
3651 insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/irda/irda.ko
3652 insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/net/irda/nsc-ircc.ko
3653 [...]
3654 &lt;/pre&gt;
3655
3656 &lt;p&gt;If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
3657 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
3658 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
3659 &lt;a href=&quot;irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel&quot;&gt;#debian-devel&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
3660
3661 &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Update 2013-01-15:&lt;/strong&gt; Rewrite &quot;cat $(find ...)&quot; to
3662 &quot;find ... -print0 | xargs -0 cat&quot; to make sure it handle directories
3663 in /sys/ with space in them.&lt;/p&gt;
3664 </description>
3665 </item>
3666
3667 <item>
3668 <title>Moved the pymissile Debian packaging to collab-maint</title>
3669 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Moved_the_pymissile_Debian_packaging_to_collab_maint.html</link>
3670 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Moved_the_pymissile_Debian_packaging_to_collab_maint.html</guid>
3671 <pubDate>Thu, 10 Jan 2013 20:40:00 +0100</pubDate>
3672 <description>&lt;p&gt;As part of my investigation on how to improve the support in Debian
3673 for hardware dongles, I dug up my old Mark and Spencer USB Rocket
3674 Launcher and updated the Debian package
3675 &lt;a href=&quot;http://packages.qa.debian.org/pymissile&quot;&gt;pymissile&lt;/a&gt; to make
3676 sure udev will fix the device permissions when it is plugged in. I
3677 also added a &quot;Modaliases&quot; header to test it in the Debian archive and
3678 hopefully make the package be proposed by jockey in Ubuntu when a user
3679 plug in his rocket launcher. In the process I moved the source to a
3680 git repository under collab-maint, to make it easier for any DD to
3681 contribute. &lt;a href=&quot;http://code.google.com/p/pymissile/&quot;&gt;Upstream&lt;/a&gt;
3682 is not very active, but the software still work for me even after five
3683 years of relative silence. The new git repository is not listed in
3684 the uploaded package yet, because I want to test the other changes a
3685 bit more before I upload the new version. If you want to check out
3686 the new version with a .desktop file included, visit the
3687 &lt;a href=&quot;http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/pymissile.git&quot;&gt;gitweb
3688 view&lt;/a&gt; or use &quot;&lt;tt&gt;git clone
3689 git://anonscm.debian.org/collab-maint/pymissile.git&lt;/tt&gt;&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;
3690 </description>
3691 </item>
3692
3693 <item>
3694 <title>Lets make hardware dongles easier to use in Debian</title>
3695 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html</link>
3696 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html</guid>
3697 <pubDate>Wed, 9 Jan 2013 15:40:00 +0100</pubDate>
3698 <description>&lt;p&gt;One thing that annoys me with Debian and Linux distributions in
3699 general, is that there is a great package management system with the
3700 ability to automatically install software packages by downloading them
3701 from the distribution mirrors, but no way to get it to automatically
3702 install the packages I need to use the hardware I plug into my
3703 machine. Even if the package to use it is easily available from the
3704 Linux distribution. When I plug in a LEGO Mindstorms NXT, it could
3705 suggest to automatically install the python-nxt, nbc and t2n packages
3706 I need to talk to it. When I plug in a Yubikey, it could propose the
3707 yubikey-personalization package. The information required to do this
3708 is available, but no-one have pulled all the pieces together.&lt;/p&gt;
3709
3710 &lt;p&gt;Some years ago, I proposed to
3711 &lt;a href=&quot;http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg01206.html&quot;&gt;use
3712 the discover subsystem to implement this&lt;/a&gt;. The idea is fairly
3713 simple:
3714
3715 &lt;ul&gt;
3716
3717 &lt;li&gt;Add a desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ pointing to a program
3718 starting when a user log in.&lt;/li&gt;
3719
3720 &lt;li&gt;Set this program up to listen for kernel events emitted when new
3721 hardware is inserted into the computer.&lt;/li&gt;
3722
3723 &lt;li&gt;When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware ID in a
3724 database mapping to packages, and take note of any non-installed
3725 packages.&lt;/li&gt;
3726
3727 &lt;li&gt;Show a message to the user proposing to install the discovered
3728 package, and make it easy to install it.&lt;/li&gt;
3729
3730 &lt;/ul&gt;
3731
3732 &lt;p&gt;I am not sure what the best way to implement this is, but my
3733 initial idea was to use dbus events to discover new hardware, the
3734 discover database to find packages and
3735 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.packagekit.org/&quot;&gt;PackageKit&lt;/a&gt; to install
3736 packages.&lt;/p&gt;
3737
3738 &lt;p&gt;Yesterday, I found time to try to implement this idea, and the
3739 draft package is now checked into
3740 &lt;a href=&quot;http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/&quot;&gt;the
3741 Debian Edu subversion repository&lt;/a&gt;. In the process, I updated the
3742 &lt;a href=&quot;http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover-data.html&quot;&gt;discover-data&lt;/a&gt;
3743 package to map the USB ids of LEGO Mindstorms and Yubikey devices to
3744 the relevant packages in Debian, and uploaded a new version
3745 2.2013.01.09 to unstable. I also discovered that the current
3746 &lt;a href=&quot;http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover.html&quot;&gt;discover&lt;/a&gt;
3747 package in Debian no longer discovered any USB devices, because
3748 /proc/bus/usb/devices is no longer present. I ported it to use
3749 libusb as a fall back option to get it working. The fixed package
3750 version 2.1.2-6 is now in experimental (didn&#39;t upload it to unstable
3751 because of the freeze).&lt;/p&gt;
3752
3753 &lt;p&gt;With this prototype in place, I can insert my Yubikey, and get this
3754 desktop notification to show up (only once, the first time it is
3755 inserted):&lt;/p&gt;
3756
3757 &lt;p align=&quot;center&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-09-hw-autoinstall.png&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
3758
3759 &lt;p&gt;For this prototype to be really useful, some way to automatically
3760 install the proposed packages by pressing the &quot;Please install
3761 program(s)&quot; button should to be implemented.&lt;/p&gt;
3762
3763 &lt;p&gt;If this idea seem useful to you, and you want to help make it
3764 happen, please help me update the discover-data database with mappings
3765 from hardware to Debian packages. Check if &#39;discover-pkginstall -l&#39;
3766 list the package you would like to have installed when a given
3767 hardware device is inserted into your computer, and report bugs using
3768 reportbug if it isn&#39;t. Or, if you know of a better way to provide
3769 such mapping, please let me know.&lt;/p&gt;
3770
3771 &lt;p&gt;This prototype need more work, and there are several questions that
3772 should be considered before it is ready for production use. Is dbus
3773 the correct way to detect new hardware? At the moment I look for HAL
3774 dbus events on the system bus, because that is the events I could see
3775 on my Debian Squeeze KDE desktop. Are there better events to use?
3776 How should the user be notified? Is the desktop notification
3777 mechanism the best option, or should the background daemon raise a
3778 popup instead? How should packages be installed? When should they
3779 not be installed?&lt;/p&gt;
3780
3781 &lt;p&gt;If you want to help getting such feature implemented in Debian,
3782 please send me an email. :)&lt;/p&gt;
3783 </description>
3784 </item>
3785
3786 <item>
3787 <title>New IRC channel for LEGO designers using Debian</title>
3788 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_IRC_channel_for_LEGO_designers_using_Debian.html</link>
3789 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_IRC_channel_for_LEGO_designers_using_Debian.html</guid>
3790 <pubDate>Wed, 2 Jan 2013 15:40:00 +0100</pubDate>
3791 <description>&lt;p&gt;During Christmas, I have worked a bit on the Debian support for
3792 &lt;a href=&quot;http://mindstorms.lego.com/en-us/Default.aspx&quot;&gt;LEGO Mindstorm
3793 NXT&lt;/a&gt;. My son and I have played a bit with my NXT set, and I
3794 discovered I had to build all the tools myself because none were
3795 already in Debian Squeeze. If Debian support for LEGO is something
3796 you care about, please join me on the IRC channel
3797 &lt;a href=&quot;irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego&quot;&gt;#debian-lego&lt;/a&gt; (server
3798 irc.debian.org). There is a lot that could be done to improve the
3799 Debian support for LEGO designers. For example both CAD software
3800 and Mindstorm compilers are missing. :)&lt;/p&gt;
3801
3802 &lt;p&gt;Update 2012-01-03: A
3803 &lt;a href=&quot;http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners&quot;&gt;project page&lt;/a&gt;
3804 including links to Lego related packages is now available.&lt;/p&gt;
3805 </description>
3806 </item>
3807
3808 <item>
3809 <title>How to backport bitcoin-qt version 0.7.2-2 to Debian Squeeze</title>
3810 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_backport_bitcoin_qt_version_0_7_2_2_to_Debian_Squeeze.html</link>
3811 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_backport_bitcoin_qt_version_0_7_2_2_to_Debian_Squeeze.html</guid>
3812 <pubDate>Tue, 25 Dec 2012 20:50:00 +0100</pubDate>
3813 <description>&lt;p&gt;Let me start by wishing you all marry Christmas and a happy new
3814 year! I hope next year will prove to be a good year.&lt;/p&gt;
3815
3816 &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.bitcoin.org/&quot;&gt;Bitcoin&lt;/a&gt;, the digital
3817 decentralised &quot;currency&quot; that allow people to transfer bitcoins
3818 between each other with minimal overhead, is a very interesting
3819 experiment. And as I wrote a few days ago, the bitcoin situation in
3820 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.debian.org/&quot;&gt;Debian&lt;/a&gt; is about to improve a bit.
3821 The &lt;a href=&quot;http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin&quot;&gt;new debian source
3822 package&lt;/a&gt; (version 0.7.2-2) was uploaded yesterday, and is waiting
3823 in &lt;a href=&quot;http://ftp-master.debian.org/new.html&quot;&gt;the NEW queue&lt;/A&gt;
3824 for one of the ftpmasters to approve the new bitcoin-qt package
3825 name.&lt;/p&gt;
3826
3827 &lt;p&gt;And thanks to the great work of Jonas and the rest of the bitcoin
3828 team in Debian, you can easily test the package in Debian Squeeze
3829 using the following steps to get a set of working packages:&lt;/p&gt;
3830
3831 &lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
3832 git clone git://git.debian.org/git/collab-maint/bitcoin
3833 cd bitcoin
3834 DEB_MAINTAINER_MODE=1 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp fakeroot debian/rules clean
3835 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp git-buildpackage --git-ignore-new
3836 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
3837
3838 &lt;p&gt;You might have to install some build dependencies as well. The
3839 list of commands should give you two packages, bitcoind and
3840 bitcoin-qt, ready for use in a Squeeze environment. Note that the
3841 client will download the complete set of bitcoin &quot;blocks&quot;, which need
3842 around 5.6 GiB of data on my machine at the moment. Make sure your
3843 ~/.bitcoin/ directory have lots of spare room if you want to download
3844 all the blocks. The client will warn if the disk is getting full, so
3845 there is not really a problem if you got too little room, but you will
3846 not be able to get all the features out of the client.&lt;/p&gt;
3847
3848 &lt;p&gt;As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
3849 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
3850 &lt;b&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&amp;label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog&quot;&gt;15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
3851 </description>
3852 </item>
3853
3854 <item>
3855 <title>A word on bitcoin support in Debian</title>
3856 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_word_on_bitcoin_support_in_Debian.html</link>
3857 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_word_on_bitcoin_support_in_Debian.html</guid>
3858 <pubDate>Fri, 21 Dec 2012 23:59:00 +0100</pubDate>
3859 <description>&lt;p&gt;It has been a while since I wrote about
3860 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.bitcoin.org/&quot;&gt;bitcoin&lt;/a&gt;, the decentralised
3861 peer-to-peer based crypto-currency, and the reason is simply that I
3862 have been busy elsewhere. But two days ago, I started looking at the
3863 state of &lt;a href=&quot;http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin&quot;&gt;bitcoin in
3864 Debian&lt;/a&gt; again to try to recover my old bitcoin wallet. The package
3865 is now maintained by a
3866 &lt;a href=&quot;https://alioth.debian.org/projects/pkg-bitcoin/&quot;&gt;team of
3867 people&lt;/a&gt;, and the grunt work had already been done by this team. We
3868 owe a huge thank you to all these team members. :)
3869 But I was sad to discover that the bitcoin client is missing in
3870 Wheezy. It is only available in Sid (and an outdated client from
3871 backports). The client had several RC bugs registered in BTS blocking
3872 it from entering testing. To try to help the team and improve the
3873 situation, I spent some time providing patches and triaging the bug
3874 reports. I also had a look at the bitcoin package available from Matt
3875 Corallo in a
3876 &lt;a href=&quot;https://launchpad.net/~bitcoin/+archive/bitcoin&quot;&gt;PPA for
3877 Ubuntu&lt;/a&gt;, and moved the useful pieces from that version into the
3878 Debian package.&lt;/p&gt;
3879
3880 &lt;p&gt;After checking with the main package maintainer Jonas Smedegaard on
3881 IRC, I pushed several patches into the collab-maint git repository to
3882 improve the package. It now contains fixes for the RC issues (not from
3883 me, but fixed by Scott Howard), build rules for a Qt GUI client
3884 package, konqueror support for the bitcoin: URI and bash completion
3885 setup. As I work on Debian Squeeze, I also created
3886 &lt;a href=&quot;http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-bitcoin-devel/Week-of-Mon-20121217/000041.html&quot;&gt;a
3887 patch to backport&lt;/a&gt; the latest version. Jonas is going to look at
3888 it and try to integrate it into the git repository before uploading a
3889 new version to unstable.
3890
3891 &lt;p&gt;I would very much like bitcoin to succeed, to get rid of the
3892 centralized control currently exercised in the monetary system. I
3893 find it completely unacceptable that the USA government is collecting
3894 transaction data for almost all international money transfers (most are done in USD and transaction logs shipped to the spooks), and
3895 that the major credit card companies can block legal money
3896 transactions to Wikileaks. But for bitcoin to succeed, more people
3897 need to use bitcoins, and more people need to accept bitcoins when
3898 they sell products and services. Improving the bitcoin support in
3899 Debian is a small step in the right direction, but not enough.
3900 Unfortunately the user experience when browsing the web and wanting to
3901 pay with bitcoin is still not very good. The bitcoin: URI is a step
3902 in the right direction, but need to work in most or every browser in
3903 use. Also the bitcoin-qt client is too heavy to fire up to do a
3904 quick transaction. I believe there are other clients available, but
3905 have not tested them.&lt;/p&gt;
3906
3907 &lt;p&gt;My
3908 &lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Now_accepting_bitcoins___anonymous_and_distributed_p2p_crypto_money.html&quot;&gt;experiment
3909 with bitcoins&lt;/a&gt; showed that at least some of my readers use bitcoin.
3910 I received 20.15 BTC so far on the address I provided in my blog two
3911 years ago, as can be
3912 &lt;a href=&quot;http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&quot;&gt;seen
3913 on the blockexplorer service&lt;/a&gt;. Thank you everyone for your
3914 donation. The blockexplorer service demonstrates quite well that
3915 bitcoin is not quite anonymous and untracked. :) I wonder if the
3916 number of users have gone up since then. If you use bitcoin and want
3917 to show your support of my activity, please send Bitcoin donations to
3918 the same address as last time,
3919 &lt;b&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&amp;label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog&quot;&gt;15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
3920 </description>
3921 </item>
3922
3923 <item>
3924 <title>Git repository for song book for Computer Scientists</title>
3925 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Git_repository_for_song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html</link>
3926 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Git_repository_for_song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html</guid>
3927 <pubDate>Fri, 7 Sep 2012 13:50:00 +0200</pubDate>
3928 <description>&lt;p&gt;As I
3929 &lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html&quot;&gt;mentioned
3930 this summer&lt;/a&gt;, I have created a Computer Science song book a few
3931 years ago, and today I finally found time to create a public
3932 &lt;a href=&quot;https://gitorious.org/pere-cs-songbook/pere-cs-songbook&quot;&gt;Gitorious
3933 repository for the project&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
3934
3935 &lt;p&gt;If you want to help out, please clone the source and submit patches
3936 to the HTML version. To generate the PDF and PostScript version,
3937 please use prince XML, or let me know about a useful free software
3938 processor capable of creating a good looking PDF from the HTML.&lt;/p&gt;
3939
3940 &lt;p&gt;Want to sing? You can still find the song book in HTML, PDF and
3941 PostScript formats at
3942 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/&quot;&gt;Petter&#39;s Computer
3943 Science Songbook&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
3944 </description>
3945 </item>
3946
3947 <item>
3948 <title>Gratulerer med 19-årsdagen, Debian!</title>
3949 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gratulerer_med_19__rsdagen__Debian_.html</link>
3950 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gratulerer_med_19__rsdagen__Debian_.html</guid>
3951 <pubDate>Thu, 16 Aug 2012 11:20:00 +0200</pubDate>
3952 <description>&lt;p&gt;I dag fyller
3953 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120813&quot;&gt;Debian-prosjektet 19
3954 år&lt;/a&gt;. Jeg har fulgt det de siste 12 årene, og er veldig glad for å kunne
3955 si gratulerer med dagen, Debian!&lt;/p&gt;
3956 </description>
3957 </item>
3958
3959 <item>
3960 <title>Song book for Computer Scientists</title>
3961 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html</link>
3962 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html</guid>
3963 <pubDate>Sun, 24 Jun 2012 13:30:00 +0200</pubDate>
3964 <description>&lt;p&gt;Many years ago, while studying Computer Science at the
3965 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.uit.no/&quot;&gt;University of Tromsø&lt;/a&gt;, I started
3966 collecting computer related songs for use at parties. The original
3967 version was written in LaTeX, but a few years ago I got help from
3968 Håkon W. Lie, one of the inventors of W3C CSS, to convert it to HTML
3969 while keeping the ability to create a nice book in PDF format. I have
3970 not had time to maintain the book for a while now, and guess I should
3971 put it up on some public version control repository where others can
3972 help me extend and update the book. If anyone is volunteering to help
3973 me with this, send me an email. Also let me know if there are songs
3974 missing in my book.&lt;/p&gt;
3975
3976 &lt;p&gt;I have not mentioned the book on my blog so far, and it occured to
3977 me today that I really should let all my readers share the joys of
3978 singing out load about programming, computers and computer networks.
3979 Especially now that &lt;a href=&quot;http://debconf12.debconf.org/&quot;&gt;Debconf
3980 12&lt;/a&gt; is about to start (and I am not going). Want to sing? Check
3981 out &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/&quot;&gt;Petter&#39;s
3982 Computer Science Songbook&lt;/a&gt;.
3983 </description>
3984 </item>
3985
3986 <item>
3987 <title>Automatically upgrading server firmware on Dell PowerEdge</title>
3988 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatically_upgrading_server_firmware_on_Dell_PowerEdge.html</link>
3989 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatically_upgrading_server_firmware_on_Dell_PowerEdge.html</guid>
3990 <pubDate>Mon, 21 Nov 2011 12:00:00 +0100</pubDate>
3991 <description>&lt;p&gt;At work we have heaps of servers. I believe the total count is
3992 around 1000 at the moment. To be able to get help from the vendors
3993 when something go wrong, we want to keep the firmware on the servers
3994 up to date. If the firmware isn&#39;t the latest and greatest, the
3995 vendors typically refuse to start debugging any problems until the
3996 firmware is upgraded. So before every reboot, we want to upgrade the
3997 firmware, and we would really like everyone handling servers at the
3998 university to do this themselves when they plan to reboot a machine.
3999 For that to happen we at the unix server admin group need to provide
4000 the tools to do so.&lt;/p&gt;
4001
4002 &lt;p&gt;To make firmware upgrading easier, I am working on a script to
4003 fetch and install the latest firmware for the servers we got. Most of
4004 our hardware are from Dell and HP, so I have focused on these servers
4005 so far. This blog post is about the Dell part.&lt;/P&gt;
4006
4007 &lt;p&gt;On the Dell FTP site I was lucky enough to find
4008 &lt;a href=&quot;ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz&quot;&gt;an XML file&lt;/a&gt;
4009 with firmware information for all 11th generation servers, listing
4010 which firmware should be used on a given model and where on the FTP
4011 site I can find it. Using a simple perl XML parser I can then
4012 download the shell scripts Dell provides to do firmware upgrades from
4013 within Linux and reboot when all the firmware is primed and ready to
4014 be activated on the first reboot.&lt;/p&gt;
4015
4016 &lt;p&gt;This is the Dell related fragment of the perl code I am working on.
4017 Are there anyone working on similar tools for firmware upgrading all
4018 servers at a site? Please get in touch and lets share resources.&lt;/p&gt;
4019
4020 &lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
4021 #!/usr/bin/perl
4022 use strict;
4023 use warnings;
4024 use File::Temp qw(tempdir);
4025 BEGIN {
4026 # Install needed RHEL packages if missing
4027 my %rhelmodules = (
4028 &#39;XML::Simple&#39; =&gt; &#39;perl-XML-Simple&#39;,
4029 );
4030 for my $module (keys %rhelmodules) {
4031 eval &quot;use $module;&quot;;
4032 if ($@) {
4033 my $pkg = $rhelmodules{$module};
4034 system(&quot;yum install -y $pkg&quot;);
4035 eval &quot;use $module;&quot;;
4036 }
4037 }
4038 }
4039 my $errorsto = &#39;pere@hungry.com&#39;;
4040
4041 upgrade_dell();
4042
4043 exit 0;
4044
4045 sub run_firmware_script {
4046 my ($opts, $script) = @_;
4047 unless ($script) {
4048 print STDERR &quot;fail: missing script name\n&quot;;
4049 exit 1
4050 }
4051 print STDERR &quot;Running $script\n\n&quot;;
4052
4053 if (0 == system(&quot;sh $script $opts&quot;)) { # FIXME correct exit code handling
4054 print STDERR &quot;success: firmware script ran succcessfully\n&quot;;
4055 } else {
4056 print STDERR &quot;fail: firmware script returned error\n&quot;;
4057 }
4058 }
4059
4060 sub run_firmware_scripts {
4061 my ($opts, @dirs) = @_;
4062 # Run firmware packages
4063 for my $dir (@dirs) {
4064 print STDERR &quot;info: Running scripts in $dir\n&quot;;
4065 opendir(my $dh, $dir) or die &quot;Unable to open directory $dir: $!&quot;;
4066 while (my $s = readdir $dh) {
4067 next if $s =~ m/^\.\.?/;
4068 run_firmware_script($opts, &quot;$dir/$s&quot;);
4069 }
4070 closedir $dh;
4071 }
4072 }
4073
4074 sub download {
4075 my $url = shift;
4076 print STDERR &quot;info: Downloading $url\n&quot;;
4077 system(&quot;wget --quiet \&quot;$url\&quot;&quot;);
4078 }
4079
4080 sub upgrade_dell {
4081 my @dirs;
4082 my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
4083 chomp $product;
4084
4085 if ($product =~ m/PowerEdge/) {
4086
4087 # on RHEL, these pacakges are needed by the firwmare upgrade scripts
4088 system(&#39;yum install -y compat-libstdc++-33.i686 libstdc++.i686 libxml2.i686 procmail&#39;);
4089
4090 my $tmpdir = tempdir(
4091 CLEANUP =&gt; 1
4092 );
4093 chdir($tmpdir);
4094 fetch_dell_fw(&#39;catalog/Catalog.xml.gz&#39;);
4095 system(&#39;gunzip Catalog.xml.gz&#39;);
4096 my @paths = fetch_dell_fw_list(&#39;Catalog.xml&#39;);
4097 # -q is quiet, disabling interactivity and reducing console output
4098 my $fwopts = &quot;-q&quot;;
4099 if (@paths) {
4100 for my $url (@paths) {
4101 fetch_dell_fw($url);
4102 }
4103 run_firmware_scripts($fwopts, $tmpdir);
4104 } else {
4105 print STDERR &quot;error: Unsupported Dell model &#39;$product&#39;.\n&quot;;
4106 print STDERR &quot;error: Please report to $errorsto.\n&quot;;
4107 }
4108 chdir(&#39;/&#39;);
4109 } else {
4110 print STDERR &quot;error: Unsupported Dell model &#39;$product&#39;.\n&quot;;
4111 print STDERR &quot;error: Please report to $errorsto.\n&quot;;
4112 }
4113 }
4114
4115 sub fetch_dell_fw {
4116 my $path = shift;
4117 my $url = &quot;ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/$path&quot;;
4118 download($url);
4119 }
4120
4121 # Using ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz, figure out which
4122 # firmware packages to download from Dell. Only work for Linux
4123 # machines and 11th generation Dell servers.
4124 sub fetch_dell_fw_list {
4125 my $filename = shift;
4126
4127 my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
4128 chomp $product;
4129 my ($mybrand, $mymodel) = split(/\s+/, $product);
4130
4131 print STDERR &quot;Finding firmware bundles for $mybrand $mymodel\n&quot;;
4132
4133 my $xml = XMLin($filename);
4134 my @paths;
4135 for my $bundle (@{$xml-&gt;{SoftwareBundle}}) {
4136 my $brand = $bundle-&gt;{TargetSystems}-&gt;{Brand}-&gt;{Display}-&gt;{content};
4137 my $model = $bundle-&gt;{TargetSystems}-&gt;{Brand}-&gt;{Model}-&gt;{Display}-&gt;{content};
4138 my $oscode;
4139 if (&quot;ARRAY&quot; eq ref $bundle-&gt;{TargetOSes}-&gt;{OperatingSystem}) {
4140 $oscode = $bundle-&gt;{TargetOSes}-&gt;{OperatingSystem}[0]-&gt;{osCode};
4141 } else {
4142 $oscode = $bundle-&gt;{TargetOSes}-&gt;{OperatingSystem}-&gt;{osCode};
4143 }
4144 if ($mybrand eq $brand &amp;&amp; $mymodel eq $model &amp;&amp; &quot;LIN&quot; eq $oscode)
4145 {
4146 @paths = map { $_-&gt;{path} } @{$bundle-&gt;{Contents}-&gt;{Package}};
4147 }
4148 }
4149 for my $component (@{$xml-&gt;{SoftwareComponent}}) {
4150 my $componenttype = $component-&gt;{ComponentType}-&gt;{value};
4151
4152 # Drop application packages, only firmware and BIOS
4153 next if &#39;APAC&#39; eq $componenttype;
4154
4155 my $cpath = $component-&gt;{path};
4156 for my $path (@paths) {
4157 if ($cpath =~ m%/$path$%) {
4158 push(@paths, $cpath);
4159 }
4160 }
4161 }
4162 return @paths;
4163 }
4164 &lt;/pre&gt;
4165
4166 &lt;p&gt;The code is only tested on RedHat Enterprise Linux, but I suspect
4167 it could work on other platforms with some tweaking. Anyone know a
4168 index like Catalog.xml is available from HP for HP servers? At the
4169 moment I maintain a similar list manually and it is quickly getting
4170 outdated.&lt;/p&gt;
4171 </description>
4172 </item>
4173
4174 <item>
4175 <title>How is booting into runlevel 1 different from single user boots?</title>
4176 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_is_booting_into_runlevel_1_different_from_single_user_boots_.html</link>
4177 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_is_booting_into_runlevel_1_different_from_single_user_boots_.html</guid>
4178 <pubDate>Thu, 4 Aug 2011 12:40:00 +0200</pubDate>
4179 <description>&lt;p&gt;Wouter Verhelst have some
4180 &lt;a href=&quot;http://grep.be/blog/en/retorts/pere_kubuntu_boot&quot;&gt;interesting
4181 comments and opinions&lt;/a&gt; on my blog post on
4182 &lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_should_start_from__etc_rcS_d__in_Debian____almost_nothing.html&quot;&gt;the
4183 need to clean up /etc/rcS.d/ in Debian&lt;/a&gt; and my blog post about
4184 &lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_missing_in_the_Debian_desktop__or_why_my_parents_use_Kubuntu.html&quot;&gt;the
4185 default KDE desktop in Debian&lt;/a&gt;. I only have time to address one
4186 small piece of his comment now, and though it best to address the
4187 misunderstanding he bring forward:&lt;/p&gt;
4188
4189 &lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;
4190 Currently, a system admin has four options: [...] boot to a
4191 single-user system (by adding &#39;single&#39; to the kernel command line;
4192 this runs rcS and rc1 scripts)
4193 &lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
4194
4195 &lt;p&gt;This make me believe Wouter believe booting into single user mode
4196 and booting into runlevel 1 is the same. I am not surprised he
4197 believe this, because it would make sense and is a quite sensible
4198 thing to believe. But because the boot in Debian is slightly broken,
4199 runlevel 1 do not work properly and it isn&#39;t the same as single user
4200 mode. I&#39;ll try to explain what is actually happing, but it is a bit
4201 hard to explain.&lt;/p&gt;
4202
4203 &lt;p&gt;Single user mode is defined like this in /etc/inittab:
4204 &quot;&lt;tt&gt;~~:S:wait:/sbin/sulogin&lt;/tt&gt;&quot;. This means the only thing that is
4205 executed in single user mode is sulogin. Single user mode is a boot
4206 state &quot;between&quot; the runlevels, and when booting into single user mode,
4207 only the scripts in /etc/rcS.d/ are executed before the init process
4208 enters the single user state. When switching to runlevel 1, the state
4209 is in fact not ending in runlevel 1, but it passes through runlevel 1
4210 and end up in the single user mode (see /etc/rc1.d/S03single, which
4211 runs &quot;init -t1 S&quot; to switch to single user mode at the end of runlevel
4212 1. It is confusing that the &#39;S&#39; (single user) init mode is not the
4213 mode enabled by /etc/rcS.d/ (which is more like the initial boot
4214 mode).&lt;/p&gt;
4215
4216 &lt;p&gt;This summary might make it clearer. When booting for the first
4217 time into single user mode, the following commands are executed:
4218 &quot;&lt;tt&gt;/etc/init.d/rc S; /sbin/sulogin&lt;/tt&gt;&quot;. When booting into
4219 runlevel 1, the following commands are executed: &quot;&lt;tt&gt;/etc/init.d/rc
4220 S; /etc/init.d/rc 1; /sbin/sulogin&lt;/tt&gt;&quot;. A problem show up when
4221 trying to continue after visiting single user mode. Not all services
4222 are started again as they should, causing the machine to end up in an
4223 unpredicatble state. This is why Debian admins recommend rebooting
4224 after visiting single user mode.&lt;/p&gt;
4225
4226 &lt;p&gt;A similar problem with runlevel 1 is caused by the amount of
4227 scripts executed from /etc/rcS.d/. When switching from say runlevel 2
4228 to runlevel 1, the services started from /etc/rcS.d/ are not properly
4229 stopped when passing through the scripts in /etc/rc1.d/, and not
4230 started again when switching away from runlevel 1 to the runlevels
4231 2-5. I believe the problem is best fixed by moving all the scripts
4232 out of /etc/rcS.d/ that are not &lt;strong&gt;required&lt;/strong&gt; to get a
4233 functioning single user mode during boot.&lt;/p&gt;
4234
4235 &lt;p&gt;I have spent several years investigating the Debian boot system,
4236 and discovered this problem a few years ago. I suspect it originates
4237 from when sysvinit was introduced into Debian, a long time ago.&lt;/p&gt;
4238 </description>
4239 </item>
4240
4241 <item>
4242 <title>What should start from /etc/rcS.d/ in Debian? - almost nothing</title>
4243 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_should_start_from__etc_rcS_d__in_Debian____almost_nothing.html</link>
4244 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_should_start_from__etc_rcS_d__in_Debian____almost_nothing.html</guid>
4245 <pubDate>Sat, 30 Jul 2011 14:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
4246 <description>&lt;p&gt;In the Debian boot system, several packages include scripts that
4247 are started from /etc/rcS.d/. In fact, there is a bite more of them
4248 than make sense, and this causes a few problems. What kind of
4249 problems, you might ask. There are at least two problems. The first
4250 is that it is not possible to recover a machine after switching to
4251 runlevel 1. One need to actually reboot to get the machine back to
4252 the expected state. The other is that single user boot will sometimes
4253 run into problems because some of the subsystems are activated before
4254 the root login is presented, causing problems when trying to recover a
4255 machine from a problem in that subsystem. A minor additional point is
4256 that moving more scripts out of rcS.d/ and into the other rc#.d/
4257 directories will increase the amount of scripts that can run in
4258 parallel during boot, and thus decrease the boot time.&lt;/p&gt;
4259
4260 &lt;p&gt;So, which scripts should start from rcS.d/. In short, only the
4261 scripts that _have_ to execute before the root login prompt is
4262 presented during a single user boot should go there. Everything else
4263 should go into the numeric runlevels. This means things like
4264 lm-sensors, fuse and x11-common should not run from rcS.d, but from
4265 the numeric runlevels. Today in Debian, there are around 115 init.d
4266 scripts that are started from rcS.d/, and most of them should be moved
4267 out. Do your package have one of them? Please help us make single
4268 user and runlevel 1 better by moving it.&lt;/p&gt;
4269
4270 &lt;p&gt;Scripts setting up the screen, keyboard, system partitions
4271 etc. should still be started from rcS.d/, but there is for example no
4272 need to have the network enabled before the single user login prompt
4273 is presented.&lt;/p&gt;
4274
4275 &lt;p&gt;As always, things are not so easy to fix as they sound. To keep
4276 Debian systems working while scripts migrate and during upgrades, the
4277 scripts need to be moved from rcS.d/ to rc2.d/ in reverse dependency
4278 order, ie the scripts that nothing in rcS.d/ depend on can be moved,
4279 and the next ones can only be moved when their dependencies have been
4280 moved first. This migration must be done sequentially while we ensure
4281 that the package system upgrade packages in the right order to keep
4282 the system state correct. This will require some coordination when it
4283 comes to network related packages, but most of the packages with
4284 scripts that should migrate do not have anything in rcS.d/ depending
4285 on them. Some packages have already been updated, like the sudo
4286 package, while others are still left to do. I wish I had time to work
4287 on this myself, but real live constrains make it unlikely that I will
4288 find time to push this forward.&lt;/p&gt;
4289 </description>
4290 </item>
4291
4292 <item>
4293 <title>What is missing in the Debian desktop, or why my parents use Kubuntu</title>
4294 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_missing_in_the_Debian_desktop__or_why_my_parents_use_Kubuntu.html</link>
4295 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_missing_in_the_Debian_desktop__or_why_my_parents_use_Kubuntu.html</guid>
4296 <pubDate>Fri, 29 Jul 2011 08:10:00 +0200</pubDate>
4297 <description>&lt;p&gt;While at Debconf11, I have several times during discussions
4298 mentioned the issues I believe should be improved in Debian for its
4299 desktop to be useful for more people. The use case for this is my
4300 parents, which are currently running Kubuntu which solve the
4301 issues.&lt;/p&gt;
4302
4303 &lt;p&gt;I suspect these four missing features are not very hard to
4304 implement. After all, they are present in Ubuntu, so if we wanted to
4305 do this in Debian we would have a source.&lt;/p&gt;
4306
4307 &lt;ol&gt;
4308
4309 &lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Simple GUI based upgrade of packages.&lt;/strong&gt; When there
4310 are new packages available for upgrades, a icon in the KDE status bar
4311 indicate this, and clicking on it will activate the simple upgrade
4312 tool to handle it. I have no problem guiding both of my parents
4313 through the process over the phone. If a kernel reboot is required,
4314 this too is indicated by the status bars and the upgrade tool. Last
4315 time I checked, nothing with the same features was working in KDE in
4316 Debian.&lt;/li&gt;
4317
4318 &lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Simple handling of missing Firefox browser
4319 plugins.&lt;/strong&gt; When the browser encounter a MIME type it do not
4320 currently have a handler for, it will ask the user if the system
4321 should search for a package that would add support for this MIME type,
4322 and if the user say yes, the APT sources will be searched for packages
4323 advertising the MIME type in their control file (visible in the
4324 Packages file in the APT archive). If one or more packages are found,
4325 it is a simple click of the mouse to add support for the missing mime
4326 type. If the package require the user to accept some non-free
4327 license, this is explained to the user. The entire process make it
4328 more clear to the user why something do not work in the browser, and
4329 make the chances higher for the user to blame the web page authors and
4330 not the browser for any missing features.&lt;/li&gt;
4331
4332 &lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Simple handling of missing multimedia codec/format
4333 handlers.&lt;/strong&gt; When the media players encounter a format or codec
4334 it is not supporting, a dialog pop up asking the user if the system
4335 should search for a package that would add support for it. This
4336 happen with things like MP3, Windows Media or H.264. The selection
4337 and installation procedure is very similar to the Firefox browser
4338 plugin handling. This is as far as I know implemented using a
4339 gstreamer hook. The end result is that the user easily get access to
4340 the codecs that are present from the APT archives available, while
4341 explaining more on why a given format is unsupported by Ubuntu.&lt;/li&gt;
4342
4343 &lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Better browser handling of some MIME types.&lt;/strong&gt; When
4344 displaying a text/plain file in my Debian browser, it will propose to
4345 start emacs to show it. If I remember correctly, when doing the same
4346 in Kunbutu it show the file as a text file in the browser. At least I
4347 know Opera will show text files within the browser. I much prefer the
4348 latter behaviour.&lt;/li&gt;
4349
4350 &lt;/ol&gt;
4351
4352 &lt;p&gt;There are other nice features as well, like the simplified suite
4353 upgrader, but given that I am the one mostly doing the dist-upgrade,
4354 it do not matter much.&lt;/p&gt;
4355
4356 &lt;p&gt;I really hope we could get these features in place for the next
4357 Debian release. It would require the coordinated effort of several
4358 maintainers, but would make the end user experience a lot better.&lt;/p&gt;
4359 </description>
4360 </item>
4361
4362 <item>
4363 <title>Perl modules used by FixMyStreet which are missing in Debian/Squeeze</title>
4364 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Perl_modules_used_by_FixMyStreet_which_are_missing_in_Debian_Squeeze.html</link>
4365 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Perl_modules_used_by_FixMyStreet_which_are_missing_in_Debian_Squeeze.html</guid>
4366 <pubDate>Tue, 26 Jul 2011 12:25:00 +0200</pubDate>
4367 <description>&lt;p&gt;The Norwegian &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fiksgatami.no/&quot;&gt;FiksGataMi&lt;/A&gt;
4368 site is build on Debian/Squeeze, and this platform was chosen because
4369 I am most familiar with Debian (being a Debian Developer for around 10
4370 years) because it is the latest stable Debian release which should get
4371 security support for a few years.&lt;/p&gt;
4372
4373 &lt;p&gt;The web service is written in Perl, and depend on some perl modules
4374 that are missing in Debian at the moment. It would be great if these
4375 modules were added to the Debian archive, allowing anyone to set up
4376 their own &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fixmystreet.com&quot;&gt;FixMyStreet&lt;/a&gt; clone
4377 in their own country using only Debian packages. The list of modules
4378 missing in Debian/Squeeze isn&#39;t very long, and I hope the perl group
4379 will find time to package the 12 modules Catalyst::Plugin::SmartURI,
4380 Catalyst::Plugin::Unicode::Encoding, Catalyst::View::TT, Devel::Hide,
4381 Sort::Key, Statistics::Distributions, Template::Plugin::Comma,
4382 Template::Plugin::DateTime::Format, Term::Size::Any, Term::Size::Perl,
4383 URI::SmartURI and Web::Scraper to make the maintenance of FixMyStreet
4384 easier in the future.&lt;/p&gt;
4385
4386 &lt;p&gt;Thanks to the great tools in Debian, getting the missing modules
4387 installed on my server was a simple call to &#39;cpan2deb Module::Name&#39;
4388 and &#39;dpkg -i&#39; to install the resulting package. But this leave me
4389 with the responsibility of tracking security problems, which I really
4390 do not have time for.&lt;/p&gt;
4391 </description>
4392 </item>
4393
4394 <item>
4395 <title>A Norwegian FixMyStreet have kept me busy the last few weeks</title>
4396 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Norwegian_FixMyStreet_have_kept_me_busy_the_last_few_weeks.html</link>
4397 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Norwegian_FixMyStreet_have_kept_me_busy_the_last_few_weeks.html</guid>
4398 <pubDate>Sun, 3 Apr 2011 22:50:00 +0200</pubDate>
4399 <description>&lt;p&gt;Here is a small update for my English readers. Most of my blog
4400 posts have been in Norwegian the last few weeks, so here is a short
4401 update in English.&lt;/p&gt;
4402
4403 &lt;p&gt;The kids still keep me too busy to get much free software work
4404 done, but I did manage to organise a project to get a Norwegian port
4405 of the British service
4406 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fixmystreet.com/&quot;&gt;FixMyStreet&lt;/a&gt; up and running,
4407 and it has been running for a month now. The entire project has been
4408 organised by me and two others. Around Christmas we gathered sponsors
4409 to fund the development work. In January I drafted a contract with
4410 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mysociety.org/&quot;&gt;mySociety&lt;/a&gt; on what to develop,
4411 and in February the development took place. Most of it involved
4412 converting the source to use GPS coordinates instead of British
4413 easting/northing, and the resulting code should be a lot easier to get
4414 running in any country by now. The Norwegian
4415 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fiksgatami.no/&quot;&gt;FiksGataMi&lt;/a&gt; is using
4416 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.openstreetmap.org/&quot;&gt;OpenStreetmap&lt;/a&gt; as the map
4417 source and the source for administrative borders in Norway, and
4418 support for this had to be added/fixed.&lt;/p&gt;
4419
4420 &lt;p&gt;The Norwegian version went live March 3th, and we spent the weekend
4421 polishing the system before we announced it March 7th. The system is
4422 running on a KVM instance of Debian/Squeeze, and has seen almost 3000
4423 problem reports in a few weeks. Soon we hope to announce the Android
4424 and iPhone versions making it even easier to report problems with the
4425 public infrastructure.&lt;/p&gt;
4426
4427 &lt;p&gt;Perhaps something to consider for those of you in countries without
4428 such service?&lt;/p&gt;
4429 </description>
4430 </item>
4431
4432 <item>
4433 <title>Using NVD and CPE to track CVEs in locally maintained software</title>
4434 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_NVD_and_CPE_to_track_CVEs_in_locally_maintained_software.html</link>
4435 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_NVD_and_CPE_to_track_CVEs_in_locally_maintained_software.html</guid>
4436 <pubDate>Fri, 28 Jan 2011 15:40:00 +0100</pubDate>
4437 <description>&lt;p&gt;The last few days I have looked at ways to track open security
4438 issues here at my work with the University of Oslo. My idea is that
4439 it should be possible to use the information about security issues
4440 available on the Internet, and check our locally
4441 maintained/distributed software against this information. It should
4442 allow us to verify that no known security issues are forgotten. The
4443 CVE database listing vulnerabilities seem like a great central point,
4444 and by using the package lists from Debian mapped to CVEs provided by
4445 the testing security team, I believed it should be possible to figure
4446 out which security holes were present in our free software
4447 collection.&lt;/p&gt;
4448
4449 &lt;p&gt;After reading up on the topic, it became obvious that the first
4450 building block is to be able to name software packages in a unique and
4451 consistent way across data sources. I considered several ways to do
4452 this, for example coming up with my own naming scheme like using URLs
4453 to project home pages or URLs to the Freshmeat entries, or using some
4454 existing naming scheme. And it seem like I am not the first one to
4455 come across this problem, as MITRE already proposed and implemented a
4456 solution. Enter the &lt;a href=&quot;http://cpe.mitre.org/index.html&quot;&gt;Common
4457 Platform Enumeration&lt;/a&gt; dictionary, a vocabulary for referring to
4458 software, hardware and other platform components. The CPE ids are
4459 mapped to CVEs in the &lt;a href=&quot;http://web.nvd.nist.gov/&quot;&gt;National
4460 Vulnerability Database&lt;/a&gt;, allowing me to look up know security
4461 issues for any CPE name. With this in place, all I need to do is to
4462 locate the CPE id for the software packages we use at the university.
4463 This is fairly trivial (I google for &#39;cve cpe $package&#39; and check the
4464 NVD entry if a CVE for the package exist).&lt;/p&gt;
4465
4466 &lt;p&gt;To give you an example. The GNU gzip source package have the CPE
4467 name cpe:/a:gnu:gzip. If the old version 1.3.3 was the package to
4468 check out, one could look up
4469 &lt;a href=&quot;http://web.nvd.nist.gov/view/vuln/search?cpe=cpe%3A%2Fa%3Agnu%3Agzip:1.3.3&quot;&gt;cpe:/a:gnu:gzip:1.3.3
4470 in NVD&lt;/a&gt; and get a list of 6 security holes with public CVE entries.
4471 The most recent one is
4472 &lt;a href=&quot;http://web.nvd.nist.gov/view/vuln/detail?vulnId=CVE-2010-0001&quot;&gt;CVE-2010-0001&lt;/a&gt;,
4473 and at the bottom of the NVD page for this vulnerability the complete
4474 list of affected versions is provided.&lt;/p&gt;
4475
4476 &lt;p&gt;The NVD database of CVEs is also available as a XML dump, allowing
4477 for offline processing of issues. Using this dump, I&#39;ve written a
4478 small script taking a list of CPEs as input and list all CVEs
4479 affecting the packages represented by these CPEs. One give it CPEs
4480 with version numbers as specified above and get a list of open
4481 security issues out.&lt;/p&gt;
4482
4483 &lt;p&gt;Of course for this approach to be useful, the quality of the NVD
4484 information need to be high. For that to happen, I believe as many as
4485 possible need to use and contribute to the NVD database. I notice
4486 RHEL is providing
4487 &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.redhat.com/security/data/metrics/rhsamapcpe.txt&quot;&gt;a
4488 map from CVE to CPE&lt;/a&gt;, indicating that they are using the CPE
4489 information. I&#39;m not aware of Debian and Ubuntu doing the same.&lt;/p&gt;
4490
4491 &lt;p&gt;To get an idea about the quality for free software, I spent some
4492 time making it possible to compare the CVE database from Debian with
4493 the CVE database in NVD. The result look fairly good, but there are
4494 some inconsistencies in NVD (same software package having several
4495 CPEs), and some inaccuracies (NVD not mentioning buggy packages that
4496 Debian believe are affected by a CVE). Hope to find time to improve
4497 the quality of NVD, but that require being able to get in touch with
4498 someone maintaining it. So far my three emails with questions and
4499 corrections have not seen any reply, but I hope contact can be
4500 established soon.&lt;/p&gt;
4501
4502 &lt;p&gt;An interesting application for CPEs is cross platform package
4503 mapping. It would be useful to know which packages in for example
4504 RHEL, OpenSuSe and Mandriva are missing from Debian and Ubuntu, and
4505 this would be trivial if all linux distributions provided CPE entries
4506 for their packages.&lt;/p&gt;
4507 </description>
4508 </item>
4509
4510 <item>
4511 <title>Which module is loaded for a given PCI and USB device?</title>
4512 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Which_module_is_loaded_for_a_given_PCI_and_USB_device_.html</link>
4513 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Which_module_is_loaded_for_a_given_PCI_and_USB_device_.html</guid>
4514 <pubDate>Sun, 23 Jan 2011 00:20:00 +0100</pubDate>
4515 <description>&lt;p&gt;In the
4516 &lt;a href=&quot;http://packages.qa.debian.org/discover-data&quot;&gt;discover-data&lt;/a&gt;
4517 package in Debian, there is a script to report useful information
4518 about the running hardware for use when people report missing
4519 information. One part of this script that I find very useful when
4520 debugging hardware problems, is the part mapping loaded kernel module
4521 to the PCI device it claims. It allow me to quickly see if the kernel
4522 module I expect is driving the hardware I am struggling with. To see
4523 the output, make sure discover-data is installed and run
4524 &lt;tt&gt;/usr/share/bug/discover-data 3&gt;&amp;1&lt;/tt&gt;. The relevant output on
4525 one of my machines like this:&lt;/p&gt;
4526
4527 &lt;pre&gt;
4528 loaded modules:
4529 10de:03eb i2c_nforce2
4530 10de:03f1 ohci_hcd
4531 10de:03f2 ehci_hcd
4532 10de:03f0 snd_hda_intel
4533 10de:03ec pata_amd
4534 10de:03f6 sata_nv
4535 1022:1103 k8temp
4536 109e:036e bttv
4537 109e:0878 snd_bt87x
4538 11ab:4364 sky2
4539 &lt;/pre&gt;
4540
4541 &lt;p&gt;The code in question look like this, slightly modified for
4542 readability and to drop the output to file descriptor 3:&lt;/p&gt;
4543
4544 &lt;pre&gt;
4545 if [ -d /sys/bus/pci/devices/ ] ; then
4546 echo loaded pci modules:
4547 (
4548 cd /sys/bus/pci/devices/
4549 for address in * ; do
4550 if [ -d &quot;$address/driver/module&quot; ] ; then
4551 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
4552 if grep -q &quot;^$module &quot; /proc/modules ; then
4553 address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
4554 id=`lspci -n -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk &#39;{print $3}&#39;`
4555 echo &quot;$id $module&quot;
4556 fi
4557 fi
4558 done
4559 )
4560 echo
4561 fi
4562 &lt;/pre&gt;
4563
4564 &lt;p&gt;Similar code could be used to extract USB device module
4565 mappings:&lt;/p&gt;
4566
4567 &lt;pre&gt;
4568 if [ -d /sys/bus/usb/devices/ ] ; then
4569 echo loaded usb modules:
4570 (
4571 cd /sys/bus/usb/devices/
4572 for address in * ; do
4573 if [ -d &quot;$address/driver/module&quot; ] ; then
4574 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
4575 if grep -q &quot;^$module &quot; /proc/modules ; then
4576 address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
4577 id=$(lsusb -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk &#39;{print $6}&#39;)
4578 if [ &quot;$id&quot; ] ; then
4579 echo &quot;$id $module&quot;
4580 fi
4581 fi
4582 fi
4583 done
4584 )
4585 echo
4586 fi
4587 &lt;/pre&gt;
4588
4589 &lt;p&gt;This might perhaps be something to include in other tools as
4590 well.&lt;/p&gt;
4591 </description>
4592 </item>
4593
4594 <item>
4595 <title>How to test if a laptop is working with Linux</title>
4596 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_test_if_a_laptop_is_working_with_Linux.html</link>
4597 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_test_if_a_laptop_is_working_with_Linux.html</guid>
4598 <pubDate>Wed, 22 Dec 2010 14:55:00 +0100</pubDate>
4599 <description>&lt;p&gt;The last few days I have spent at work here at the &lt;a
4600 href=&quot;http://www.uio.no/&quot;&gt;University of Oslo&lt;/a&gt; testing if the new
4601 batch of computers will work with Linux. Every year for the last few
4602 years the university have organised shared bid of a few thousand
4603 computers, and this year HP won the bid. Two different desktops and
4604 five different laptops are on the list this year. We in the UNIX
4605 group want to know which one of these computers work well with RHEL
4606 and Ubuntu, the two Linux distributions we currently handle at the
4607 university.&lt;/p&gt;
4608
4609 &lt;p&gt;My test method is simple, and I share it here to get feedback and
4610 perhaps inspire others to test hardware as well. To test, I PXE
4611 install the OS version of choice, and log in as my normal user and run
4612 a few applications and plug in selected pieces of hardware. When
4613 something fail, I make a note about this in the test matrix and move
4614 on. If I have some spare time I try to report the bug to the OS
4615 vendor, but as I only have the machines for a short time, I rarely
4616 have the time to do this for all the problems I find.&lt;/p&gt;
4617
4618 &lt;p&gt;Anyway, to get to the point of this post. Here is the simple tests
4619 I perform on a new model.&lt;/p&gt;
4620
4621 &lt;ul&gt;
4622
4623 &lt;li&gt;Is PXE installation working? I&#39;m testing with RHEL6, Ubuntu Lucid
4624 and Ubuntu Maverik at the moment. If I feel like it, I also test with
4625 RHEL5 and Debian Edu/Squeeze.&lt;/li&gt;
4626
4627 &lt;li&gt;Is X.org working? If the graphical login screen show up after
4628 installation, X.org is working.&lt;/li&gt;
4629
4630 &lt;li&gt;Is hardware accelerated OpenGL working? Running glxgears (in
4631 package mesa-utils on Ubuntu) and writing down the frames per second
4632 reported by the program.&lt;/li&gt;
4633
4634 &lt;li&gt;Is sound working? With Gnome and KDE, a sound is played when
4635 logging in, and if I can hear this the test is successful. If there
4636 are several audio exits on the machine, I try them all and check if
4637 the Gnome/KDE audio mixer can control where to send the sound. I
4638 normally test this by playing
4639 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20101012-chef/ &quot;&gt;a HTML5
4640 video&lt;/a&gt; in Firefox/Iceweasel.&lt;/li&gt;
4641
4642 &lt;li&gt;Is the USB subsystem working? I test this by plugging in a USB
4643 memory stick and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.&lt;/li&gt;
4644
4645 &lt;li&gt;Is the CD/DVD player working? I test this by inserting any CD/DVD
4646 I have lying around, and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.&lt;/li&gt;
4647
4648 &lt;li&gt;Is any built in camera working? Test using cheese, and see if a
4649 picture from the v4l device show up.&lt;/li&gt;
4650
4651 &lt;li&gt;Is bluetooth working? Use the Gnome/KDE browsing tool to see if
4652 any bluetooth devices are discovered. In my office, I normally see a
4653 few.&lt;/li&gt;
4654
4655 &lt;li&gt;For laptops, is the SD or Compaq Flash reader working. I have
4656 memory modules lying around, and stick them in and see if Gnome/KDE
4657 notice this.&lt;/li&gt;
4658
4659 &lt;li&gt;For laptops, is suspend/hibernate working? I&#39;m testing if the
4660 special button work, and if the laptop continue to work after
4661 resume.&lt;/li&gt;
4662
4663 &lt;li&gt;For laptops, is the extra buttons working, like audio level,
4664 adjusting background light, switching on/off external video output,
4665 switching on/off wifi, bluetooth, etc? The set of buttons differ from
4666 laptop to laptop, so I just write down which are working and which are
4667 not.&lt;/li&gt;
4668
4669 &lt;li&gt;Some laptops have smart card readers, finger print readers,
4670 acceleration sensors etc. I rarely test these, as I do not know how
4671 to quickly test if they are working or not, so I only document their
4672 existence.&lt;/li&gt;
4673
4674 &lt;/ul&gt;
4675
4676 &lt;p&gt;By now I suspect you are really curious what the test results are
4677 for the HP machines I am testing. I&#39;m not done yet, so I will report
4678 the test results later. For now I can report that HP 8100 Elite work
4679 fine, and hibernation fail with HP EliteBook 8440p on Ubuntu Lucid,
4680 and audio fail on RHEL6. Ubuntu Maverik worked with 8440p. As you
4681 can see, I have most machines left to test. One interesting
4682 observation is that Ubuntu Lucid has almost twice the frame rate than
4683 RHEL6 with glxgears. No idea why.&lt;/p&gt;
4684 </description>
4685 </item>
4686
4687 <item>
4688 <title>Some thoughts on BitCoins</title>
4689 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Some_thoughts_on_BitCoins.html</link>
4690 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Some_thoughts_on_BitCoins.html</guid>
4691 <pubDate>Sat, 11 Dec 2010 15:10:00 +0100</pubDate>
4692 <description>&lt;p&gt;As I continue to explore
4693 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.bitcoin.org/&quot;&gt;BitCoin&lt;/a&gt;, I&#39;ve starting to wonder
4694 what properties the system have, and how it will be affected by laws
4695 and regulations here in Norway. Here are some random notes.&lt;/p&gt;
4696
4697 &lt;p&gt;One interesting thing to note is that since the transactions are
4698 verified using a peer to peer network, all details about a transaction
4699 is known to everyone. This means that if a BitCoin address has been
4700 published like I did with mine in my initial post about BitCoin, it is
4701 possible for everyone to see how many BitCoins have been transfered to
4702 that address. There is even a web service to look at the details for
4703 all transactions. There I can see that my address
4704 &lt;a href=&quot;http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&quot;&gt;15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&lt;/a&gt;
4705 have received 16.06 Bitcoin, the
4706 &lt;a href=&quot;http://blockexplorer.com/address/1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3&quot;&gt;1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3&lt;/a&gt;
4707 address of Simon Phipps have received 181.97 BitCoin and the address
4708 &lt;a href=&quot;http://blockexplorer.com/address/1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt&quot;&gt;1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt&lt;/A&gt;
4709 of EFF have received 2447.38 BitCoins so far. Thank you to each and
4710 every one of you that donated bitcoins to support my activity. The
4711 fact that anyone can see how much money was transfered to a given
4712 address make it more obvious why the BitCoin community recommend to
4713 generate and hand out a new address for each transaction. I&#39;m told
4714 there is no way to track which addresses belong to a given person or
4715 organisation without the person or organisation revealing it
4716 themselves, as Simon, EFF and I have done.&lt;/p&gt;
4717
4718 &lt;p&gt;In Norway, and in most other countries, there are laws and
4719 regulations limiting how much money one can transfer across the border
4720 without declaring it. There are money laundering, tax and accounting
4721 laws and regulations I would expect to apply to the use of BitCoin.
4722 If the Skolelinux foundation
4723 (&lt;a href=&quot;http://linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html&quot;&gt;SLX
4724 Debian Labs&lt;/a&gt;) were to accept donations in BitCoin in addition to
4725 normal bank transfers like EFF is doing, how should this be accounted?
4726 Given that it is impossible to know if money can cross the border or
4727 not, should everything or nothing be declared? What exchange rate
4728 should be used when calculating taxes? Would receivers have to pay
4729 income tax if the foundation were to pay Skolelinux contributors in
4730 BitCoin? I have no idea, but it would be interesting to know.&lt;/p&gt;
4731
4732 &lt;p&gt;For a currency to be useful and successful, it must be trusted and
4733 accepted by a lot of users. It must be possible to get easy access to
4734 the currency (as a wage or using currency exchanges), and it must be
4735 easy to spend it. At the moment BitCoin seem fairly easy to get
4736 access to, but there are very few places to spend it. I am not really
4737 a regular user of any of the vendor types currently accepting BitCoin,
4738 so I wonder when my kind of shop would start accepting BitCoins. I
4739 would like to buy electronics, travels and subway tickets, not herbs
4740 and books. :) The currency is young, and this will improve over time
4741 if it become popular, but I suspect regular banks will start to lobby
4742 to get BitCoin declared illegal if it become popular. I&#39;m sure they
4743 will claim it is helping fund terrorism and money laundering (which
4744 probably would be true, as is any currency in existence), but I
4745 believe the problems should be solved elsewhere and not by blaming
4746 currencies.&lt;/p&gt;
4747
4748 &lt;p&gt;The process of creating new BitCoins is called mining, and it is
4749 CPU intensive process that depend on a bit of luck as well (as one is
4750 competing against all the other miners currently spending CPU cycles
4751 to see which one get the next lump of cash). The &quot;winner&quot; get 50
4752 BitCoin when this happen. Yesterday I came across the obvious way to
4753 join forces to increase ones changes of getting at least some coins,
4754 by coordinating the work on mining BitCoins across several machines
4755 and people, and sharing the result if one is lucky and get the 50
4756 BitCoins. Check out
4757 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.bluishcoder.co.nz/bitcoin-pool/&quot;&gt;BitCoin Pool&lt;/a&gt;
4758 if this sounds interesting. I have not had time to try to set up a
4759 machine to participate there yet, but have seen that running on ones
4760 own for a few days have not yield any BitCoins througth mining
4761 yet.&lt;/p&gt;
4762
4763 &lt;p&gt;Update 2010-12-15: Found an &lt;a
4764 href=&quot;http://inertia.posterous.com/reply-to-the-underground-economist-why-bitcoi&quot;&gt;interesting
4765 criticism&lt;/a&gt; of bitcoin. Not quite sure how valid it is, but thought
4766 it was interesting to read. The arguments presented seem to be
4767 equally valid for gold, which was used as a currency for many years.&lt;/p&gt;
4768 </description>
4769 </item>
4770
4771 <item>
4772 <title>Now accepting bitcoins - anonymous and distributed p2p crypto-money</title>
4773 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Now_accepting_bitcoins___anonymous_and_distributed_p2p_crypto_money.html</link>
4774 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Now_accepting_bitcoins___anonymous_and_distributed_p2p_crypto_money.html</guid>
4775 <pubDate>Fri, 10 Dec 2010 08:20:00 +0100</pubDate>
4776 <description>&lt;p&gt;With this weeks lawless
4777 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/06/wikileaks/index.html&quot;&gt;governmental
4778 attacks&lt;/a&gt; on Wikileak and
4779 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.salon.com/technology/dan_gillmor/2010/12/06/war_on_speech&quot;&gt;free
4780 speech&lt;/a&gt;, it has become obvious that PayPal, visa and mastercard can
4781 not be trusted to handle money transactions.
4782 A blog post from
4783 &lt;a href=&quot;http://webmink.com/2010/12/06/now-accepting-bitcoin/&quot;&gt;Simon
4784 Phipps on bitcoin&lt;/a&gt; reminded me about a project that a friend of
4785 mine mentioned earlier. I decided to follow Simon&#39;s example, and get
4786 involved with &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.bitcoin.org/&quot;&gt;BitCoin&lt;/a&gt;. I got
4787 some help from my friend to get it all running, and he even handed me
4788 some bitcoins to get started. I even donated a few bitcoins to Simon
4789 for helping me remember BitCoin.&lt;/p&gt;
4790
4791 &lt;p&gt;So, what is bitcoins, you probably wonder? It is a digital
4792 crypto-currency, decentralised and handled using peer-to-peer
4793 networks. It allows anonymous transactions and prohibits central
4794 control over the transactions, making it impossible for governments
4795 and companies alike to block donations and other transactions. The
4796 source is free software, and while the key dependency wxWidgets 2.9
4797 for the graphical user interface is missing in Debian, the command
4798 line client builds just fine. Hopefully Jonas
4799 &lt;a href=&quot;http://bugs.debian.org/578157&quot;&gt;will get the package into
4800 Debian&lt;/a&gt; soon.&lt;/p&gt;
4801
4802 &lt;p&gt;Bitcoins can be converted to other currencies, like USD and EUR.
4803 There are &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.bitcoin.org/trade&quot;&gt;companies accepting
4804 bitcoins&lt;/a&gt; when selling services and goods, and there are even
4805 currency &quot;stock&quot; markets where the exchange rate is decided. There
4806 are not many users so far, but the concept seems promising. If you
4807 want to get started and lack a friend with any bitcoins to spare,
4808 you can even get
4809 &lt;a href=&quot;https://freebitcoins.appspot.com/&quot;&gt;some for free&lt;/a&gt; (0.05
4810 bitcoin at the time of writing). Use
4811 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.bitcoinwatch.com/&quot;&gt;BitcoinWatch&lt;/a&gt; to keep an eye
4812 on the current exchange rates.&lt;/p&gt;
4813
4814 &lt;p&gt;As an experiment, I have decided to set up bitcoind on one of my
4815 machines. If you want to support my activity, please send Bitcoin
4816 donations to the address
4817 &lt;b&gt;15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&lt;/b&gt;. Thank you!&lt;/p&gt;
4818 </description>
4819 </item>
4820
4821 <item>
4822 <title>Why isn&#39;t Debian Edu using VLC?</title>
4823 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_isn_t_Debian_Edu_using_VLC_.html</link>
4824 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_isn_t_Debian_Edu_using_VLC_.html</guid>
4825 <pubDate>Sat, 27 Nov 2010 11:30:00 +0100</pubDate>
4826 <description>&lt;p&gt;In the latest issue of Linux Journal, the readers choices were
4827 presented, and the winner among the multimedia player were VLC.
4828 Personally, I like VLC, and it is my player of choice when I first try
4829 to play a video file or stream. Only if VLC fail will I drag out
4830 gmplayer to see if it can do better. The reason is mostly the failure
4831 model and trust. When VLC fail, it normally pop up a error message
4832 reporting the problem. When mplayer fail, it normally segfault or
4833 just hangs. The latter failure mode drain my trust in the program.&lt;p&gt;
4834
4835 &lt;p&gt;But even if VLC is my player of choice, we have choosen to use
4836 mplayer in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.skolelinux.org/&quot;&gt;Debian
4837 Edu/Skolelinux&lt;/a&gt;. The reason is simple. We need a good browser
4838 plugin to play web videos seamlessly, and the VLC browser plugin is
4839 not very good. For example, it lack in-line control buttons, so there
4840 is no way for the user to pause the video. Also, when I
4841 &lt;a href=&quot;http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia&quot;&gt;last
4842 tested the browser plugins&lt;/a&gt; available in Debian, the VLC plugin
4843 failed on several video pages where mplayer based plugins worked. If
4844 the browser plugin for VLC was as good as the gecko-mediaplayer
4845 package (which uses mplayer), we would switch.&lt;/P&gt;
4846
4847 &lt;p&gt;While VLC is a good player, its user interface is slightly
4848 annoying. The most annoying feature is its inconsistent use of
4849 keyboard shortcuts. When the player is in full screen mode, its
4850 shortcuts are different from when it is playing the video in a window.
4851 For example, space only work as pause when in full screen mode. I
4852 wish it had consisten shortcuts and that space also would work when in
4853 window mode. Another nice shortcut in gmplayer is [enter] to restart
4854 the current video. It is very nice when playing short videos from the
4855 web and want to restart it when new people arrive to have a look at
4856 what is going on.&lt;/p&gt;
4857 </description>
4858 </item>
4859
4860 <item>
4861 <title>Lenny-&gt;Squeeze upgrades of the Gnome and KDE desktop, now with apt-get autoremove</title>
4862 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lenny__Squeeze_upgrades_of_the_Gnome_and_KDE_desktop__now_with_apt_get_autoremove.html</link>
4863 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lenny__Squeeze_upgrades_of_the_Gnome_and_KDE_desktop__now_with_apt_get_autoremove.html</guid>
4864 <pubDate>Mon, 22 Nov 2010 14:15:00 +0100</pubDate>
4865 <description>&lt;p&gt;Michael Biebl suggested to me on IRC, that I changed my automated
4866 upgrade testing of the
4867 &lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/&quot;&gt;Lenny
4868 Gnome and KDE Desktop&lt;/a&gt; to do &lt;tt&gt;apt-get autoremove&lt;/tt&gt; when using apt-get.
4869 This seem like a very good idea, so I adjusted by test scripts and
4870 can now present the updated result from today:&lt;/p&gt;
4871
4872 &lt;p&gt;This is for Gnome:&lt;/p&gt;
4873
4874 &lt;p&gt;Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude&lt;/p&gt;
4875
4876 &lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;p&gt;
4877 apache2.2-bin
4878 aptdaemon
4879 baobab
4880 binfmt-support
4881 browser-plugin-gnash
4882 cheese-common
4883 cli-common
4884 cups-pk-helper
4885 dmz-cursor-theme
4886 empathy
4887 empathy-common
4888 freedesktop-sound-theme
4889 freeglut3
4890 gconf-defaults-service
4891 gdm-themes
4892 gedit-plugins
4893 geoclue
4894 geoclue-hostip
4895 geoclue-localnet
4896 geoclue-manual
4897 geoclue-yahoo
4898 gnash
4899 gnash-common
4900 gnome
4901 gnome-backgrounds
4902 gnome-cards-data
4903 gnome-codec-install
4904 gnome-core
4905 gnome-desktop-environment
4906 gnome-disk-utility
4907 gnome-screenshot
4908 gnome-search-tool
4909 gnome-session-canberra
4910 gnome-system-log
4911 gnome-themes-extras
4912 gnome-themes-more
4913 gnome-user-share
4914 gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
4915 gstreamer0.10-tools
4916 gtk2-engines
4917 gtk2-engines-pixbuf
4918 gtk2-engines-smooth
4919 hamster-applet
4920 libapache2-mod-dnssd
4921 libapr1
4922 libaprutil1
4923 libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3
4924 libaprutil1-ldap
4925 libart2.0-cil
4926 libboost-date-time1.42.0
4927 libboost-python1.42.0
4928 libboost-thread1.42.0
4929 libchamplain-0.4-0
4930 libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0
4931 libcheese-gtk18
4932 libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
4933 libcryptui0
4934 libdiscid0
4935 libelf1
4936 libepc-1.0-2
4937 libepc-common
4938 libepc-ui-1.0-2
4939 libfreerdp-plugins-standard
4940 libfreerdp0
4941 libgconf2.0-cil
4942 libgdata-common
4943 libgdata7
4944 libgdu-gtk0
4945 libgee2
4946 libgeoclue0
4947 libgexiv2-0
4948 libgif4
4949 libglade2.0-cil
4950 libglib2.0-cil
4951 libgmime2.4-cil
4952 libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
4953 libgnome2.24-cil
4954 libgnomepanel2.24-cil
4955 libgpod-common
4956 libgpod4
4957 libgtk2.0-cil
4958 libgtkglext1
4959 libgtksourceview2.0-common
4960 libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
4961 libmono-addins0.2-cil
4962 libmono-cairo2.0-cil
4963 libmono-corlib2.0-cil
4964 libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil
4965 libmono-posix2.0-cil
4966 libmono-security2.0-cil
4967 libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
4968 libmono-system2.0-cil
4969 libmtp8
4970 libmusicbrainz3-6
4971 libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil
4972 libndesk-dbus1.0-cil
4973 libopal3.6.8
4974 libpolkit-gtk-1-0
4975 libpt2.6.7
4976 libpython2.6
4977 librpm1
4978 librpmio1
4979 libsdl1.2debian
4980 libsrtp0
4981 libssh-4
4982 libtelepathy-farsight0
4983 libtelepathy-glib0
4984 libtidy-0.99-0
4985 media-player-info
4986 mesa-utils
4987 mono-2.0-gac
4988 mono-gac
4989 mono-runtime
4990 nautilus-sendto
4991 nautilus-sendto-empathy
4992 p7zip-full
4993 pkg-config
4994 python-aptdaemon
4995 python-aptdaemon-gtk
4996 python-axiom
4997 python-beautifulsoup
4998 python-bugbuddy
4999 python-clientform
5000 python-coherence
5001 python-configobj
5002 python-crypto
5003 python-cupshelpers
5004 python-elementtree
5005 python-epsilon
5006 python-evolution
5007 python-feedparser
5008 python-gdata
5009 python-gdbm
5010 python-gst0.10
5011 python-gtkglext1
5012 python-gtksourceview2
5013 python-httplib2
5014 python-louie
5015 python-mako
5016 python-markupsafe
5017 python-mechanize
5018 python-nevow
5019 python-notify
5020 python-opengl
5021 python-openssl
5022 python-pam
5023 python-pkg-resources
5024 python-pyasn1
5025 python-pysqlite2
5026 python-rdflib
5027 python-serial
5028 python-tagpy
5029 python-twisted-bin
5030 python-twisted-conch
5031 python-twisted-core
5032 python-twisted-web
5033 python-utidylib
5034 python-webkit
5035 python-xdg
5036 python-zope.interface
5037 remmina
5038 remmina-plugin-data
5039 remmina-plugin-rdp
5040 remmina-plugin-vnc
5041 rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
5042 rhythmbox-plugins
5043 rpm-common
5044 rpm2cpio
5045 seahorse-plugins
5046 shotwell
5047 software-center
5048 system-config-printer-udev
5049 telepathy-gabble
5050 telepathy-mission-control-5
5051 telepathy-salut
5052 tomboy
5053 totem
5054 totem-coherence
5055 totem-mozilla
5056 totem-plugins
5057 transmission-common
5058 xdg-user-dirs
5059 xdg-user-dirs-gtk
5060 xserver-xephyr
5061 &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
5062
5063 &lt;p&gt;Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude&lt;/p&gt;
5064
5065 &lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;p&gt;
5066 cheese
5067 ekiga
5068 eog
5069 epiphany-extensions
5070 evolution-exchange
5071 fast-user-switch-applet
5072 file-roller
5073 gcalctool
5074 gconf-editor
5075 gdm
5076 gedit
5077 gedit-common
5078 gnome-games
5079 gnome-games-data
5080 gnome-nettool
5081 gnome-system-tools
5082 gnome-themes
5083 gnuchess
5084 gucharmap
5085 guile-1.8-libs
5086 libavahi-ui0
5087 libdmx1
5088 libgalago3
5089 libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
5090 libgtksourceview2.0-0
5091 liblircclient0
5092 libsdl1.2debian-alsa
5093 libspeexdsp1
5094 libsvga1
5095 rhythmbox
5096 seahorse
5097 sound-juicer
5098 system-config-printer
5099 totem-common
5100 transmission-gtk
5101 vinagre
5102 vino
5103 &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
5104
5105 &lt;p&gt;Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get&lt;/p&gt;
5106
5107 &lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;p&gt;
5108 gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
5109 &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
5110
5111 &lt;p&gt;Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get&lt;/p&gt;
5112
5113 &lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;p&gt;
5114 [nothing]
5115 &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
5116
5117 &lt;p&gt;This is for KDE:&lt;/p&gt;
5118
5119 &lt;p&gt;Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude&lt;/p&gt;
5120
5121 &lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;p&gt;
5122 ksmserver
5123 &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
5124
5125 &lt;p&gt;Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude&lt;/p&gt;
5126
5127 &lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;p&gt;
5128 kwin
5129 network-manager-kde
5130 &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
5131
5132 &lt;p&gt;Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get&lt;/p&gt;
5133
5134 &lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;p&gt;
5135 arts
5136 dolphin
5137 freespacenotifier
5138 google-gadgets-gst
5139 google-gadgets-xul
5140 kappfinder
5141 kcalc
5142 kcharselect
5143 kde-core
5144 kde-plasma-desktop
5145 kde-standard
5146 kde-window-manager
5147 kdeartwork
5148 kdeartwork-emoticons
5149 kdeartwork-style
5150 kdeartwork-theme-icon
5151 kdebase
5152 kdebase-apps
5153 kdebase-workspace
5154 kdebase-workspace-bin
5155 kdebase-workspace-data
5156 kdeeject
5157 kdelibs
5158 kdeplasma-addons
5159 kdeutils
5160 kdewallpapers
5161 kdf
5162 kfloppy
5163 kgpg
5164 khelpcenter4
5165 kinfocenter
5166 konq-plugins-l10n
5167 konqueror-nsplugins
5168 kscreensaver
5169 kscreensaver-xsavers
5170 ktimer
5171 kwrite
5172 libgle3
5173 libkde4-ruby1.8
5174 libkonq5
5175 libkonq5-templates
5176 libnetpbm10
5177 libplasma-ruby
5178 libplasma-ruby1.8
5179 libqt4-ruby1.8
5180 marble-data
5181 marble-plugins
5182 netpbm
5183 nuvola-icon-theme
5184 plasma-dataengines-workspace
5185 plasma-desktop
5186 plasma-desktopthemes-artwork
5187 plasma-runners-addons
5188 plasma-scriptengine-googlegadgets
5189 plasma-scriptengine-python
5190 plasma-scriptengine-qedje
5191 plasma-scriptengine-ruby
5192 plasma-scriptengine-webkit
5193 plasma-scriptengines
5194 plasma-wallpapers-addons
5195 plasma-widget-folderview
5196 plasma-widget-networkmanagement
5197 ruby
5198 sweeper
5199 update-notifier-kde
5200 xscreensaver-data-extra
5201 xscreensaver-gl
5202 xscreensaver-gl-extra
5203 xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
5204 &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
5205
5206 &lt;p&gt;Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get&lt;/p&gt;
5207
5208 &lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;p&gt;
5209 ark
5210 google-gadgets-common
5211 google-gadgets-qt
5212 htdig
5213 kate
5214 kdebase-bin
5215 kdebase-data
5216 kdepasswd
5217 kfind
5218 klipper
5219 konq-plugins
5220 konqueror
5221 ksysguard
5222 ksysguardd
5223 libarchive1
5224 libcln6
5225 libeet1
5226 libeina-svn-06
5227 libggadget-1.0-0b
5228 libggadget-qt-1.0-0b
5229 libgps19
5230 libkdecorations4
5231 libkephal4
5232 libkonq4
5233 libkonqsidebarplugin4a
5234 libkscreensaver5
5235 libksgrd4
5236 libksignalplotter4
5237 libkunitconversion4
5238 libkwineffects1a
5239 libmarblewidget4
5240 libntrack-qt4-1
5241 libntrack0
5242 libplasma-geolocation-interface4
5243 libplasmaclock4a
5244 libplasmagenericshell4
5245 libprocesscore4a
5246 libprocessui4a
5247 libqalculate5
5248 libqedje0a
5249 libqtruby4shared2
5250 libqzion0a
5251 libruby1.8
5252 libscim8c2a
5253 libsmokekdecore4-3
5254 libsmokekdeui4-3
5255 libsmokekfile3
5256 libsmokekhtml3
5257 libsmokekio3
5258 libsmokeknewstuff2-3
5259 libsmokeknewstuff3-3
5260 libsmokekparts3
5261 libsmokektexteditor3
5262 libsmokekutils3
5263 libsmokenepomuk3
5264 libsmokephonon3
5265 libsmokeplasma3
5266 libsmokeqtcore4-3
5267 libsmokeqtdbus4-3
5268 libsmokeqtgui4-3
5269 libsmokeqtnetwork4-3
5270 libsmokeqtopengl4-3
5271 libsmokeqtscript4-3
5272 libsmokeqtsql4-3
5273 libsmokeqtsvg4-3
5274 libsmokeqttest4-3
5275 libsmokeqtuitools4-3
5276 libsmokeqtwebkit4-3
5277 libsmokeqtxml4-3
5278 libsmokesolid3
5279 libsmokesoprano3
5280 libtaskmanager4a
5281 libtidy-0.99-0
5282 libweather-ion4a
5283 libxklavier16
5284 libxxf86misc1
5285 okteta
5286 oxygencursors
5287 plasma-dataengines-addons
5288 plasma-scriptengine-superkaramba
5289 plasma-widget-lancelot
5290 plasma-widgets-addons
5291 plasma-widgets-workspace
5292 polkit-kde-1
5293 ruby1.8
5294 systemsettings
5295 update-notifier-common
5296 &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
5297
5298 &lt;p&gt;Running apt-get autoremove made the results using apt-get and
5299 aptitude a bit more similar, but there are still quite a lott of
5300 differences. I have no idea what packages should be installed after
5301 the upgrade, but hope those that do can have a look.&lt;/p&gt;
5302 </description>
5303 </item>
5304
5305 <item>
5306 <title>Migrating Xen virtual machines using LVM to KVM using disk images</title>
5307 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Migrating_Xen_virtual_machines_using_LVM_to_KVM_using_disk_images.html</link>
5308 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Migrating_Xen_virtual_machines_using_LVM_to_KVM_using_disk_images.html</guid>
5309 <pubDate>Mon, 22 Nov 2010 11:20:00 +0100</pubDate>
5310 <description>&lt;p&gt;Most of the computers in use by the
5311 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.skolelinux.org/&quot;&gt;Debian Edu/Skolelinux project&lt;/a&gt;
5312 are virtual machines. And they have been Xen machines running on a
5313 fairly old IBM eserver xseries 345 machine, and we wanted to migrate
5314 them to KVM on a newer Dell PowerEdge 2950 host machine. This was a
5315 bit harder that it could have been, because we set up the Xen virtual
5316 machines to get the virtual partitions from LVM, which as far as I
5317 know is not supported by KVM. So to migrate, we had to convert
5318 several LVM logical volumes to partitions on a virtual disk file.&lt;/p&gt;
5319
5320 &lt;p&gt;I found
5321 &lt;a href=&quot;http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM&quot;&gt;a
5322 nice recipe&lt;/a&gt; to do this, and wrote the following script to do the
5323 migration. It uses qemu-img from the qemu package to make the disk
5324 image, parted to partition it, losetup and kpartx to present the disk
5325 image partions as devices, and dd to copy the data. I NFS mounted the
5326 new servers storage area on the old server to do the migration.&lt;/p&gt;
5327
5328 &lt;pre&gt;
5329 #!/bin/sh
5330
5331 # Based on
5332 # http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM
5333
5334 set -e
5335 set -x
5336
5337 if [ -z &quot;$1&quot; ] ; then
5338 echo &quot;Usage: $0 &amp;lt;hostname&amp;gt;&quot;
5339 exit 1
5340 else
5341 host=&quot;$1&quot;
5342 fi
5343
5344 if [ ! -e /dev/vg_data/$host-disk ] ; then
5345 echo &quot;error: unable to find LVM volume for $host&quot;
5346 exit 1
5347 fi
5348
5349 # Partitions need to be a bit bigger than the LVM LVs. not sure why.
5350 disksize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-disk | awk &#39;{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }&#39;)
5351 swapsize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-swap | awk &#39;{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }&#39;)
5352 totalsize=$(( ( $disksize + $swapsize ) ))
5353
5354 img=$host.img
5355 #dd if=/dev/zero of=$img bs=1M count=$(( $disksize + $swapsize ))
5356 qemu-img create $img ${totalsize}MMaking room on the Debian Edu/Sqeeze DVD
5357
5358 parted $img mklabel msdos
5359 parted $img mkpart primary linux-swap 0 $disksize
5360 parted $img mkpart primary ext2 $disksize $totalsize
5361 parted $img set 1 boot on
5362
5363 modprobe dm-mod
5364 losetup /dev/loop0 $img
5365 kpartx -a /dev/loop0
5366
5367 dd if=/dev/vg_data/$host-disk of=/dev/mapper/loop0p1 bs=1M
5368 fsck.ext3 -f /dev/mapper/loop0p1 || true
5369 mkswap /dev/mapper/loop0p2
5370
5371 kpartx -d /dev/loop0
5372 losetup -d /dev/loop0
5373 &lt;/pre&gt;
5374
5375 &lt;p&gt;The script is perhaps so simple that it is not copyrightable, but
5376 if it is, it is licenced using GPL v2 or later at your discretion.&lt;/p&gt;
5377
5378 &lt;p&gt;After doing this, I booted a Debian CD in rescue mode in KVM with
5379 the new disk image attached, installed grub-pc and linux-image-686 and
5380 set up grub to boot from the disk image. After this, the KVM machines
5381 seem to work just fine.&lt;/p&gt;
5382 </description>
5383 </item>
5384
5385 <item>
5386 <title>Lenny-&gt;Squeeze upgrades, apt vs aptitude with the Gnome and KDE desktop</title>
5387 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lenny__Squeeze_upgrades__apt_vs_aptitude_with_the_Gnome_and_KDE_desktop.html</link>
5388 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lenny__Squeeze_upgrades__apt_vs_aptitude_with_the_Gnome_and_KDE_desktop.html</guid>
5389 <pubDate>Sat, 20 Nov 2010 22:50:00 +0100</pubDate>
5390 <description>&lt;p&gt;I&#39;m still running upgrade testing of the
5391 &lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/&quot;&gt;Lenny
5392 Gnome and KDE Desktop&lt;/a&gt;, but have not had time to spend on reporting the
5393 status. Here is a short update based on a test I ran 20101118.&lt;/p&gt;
5394
5395 &lt;p&gt;I still do not know what a correct migration should look like, so I
5396 report any differences between apt and aptitude and hope someone else
5397 can see if anything should be changed.&lt;/p&gt;
5398
5399 &lt;p&gt;This is for Gnome:&lt;/p&gt;
5400
5401 &lt;p&gt;Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude&lt;/p&gt;
5402
5403 &lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;p&gt;
5404 apache2.2-bin aptdaemon at-spi baobab binfmt-support
5405 browser-plugin-gnash cheese-common cli-common cpp-4.3 cups-pk-helper
5406 dmz-cursor-theme empathy empathy-common finger
5407 freedesktop-sound-theme freeglut3 gconf-defaults-service gdm-themes
5408 gedit-plugins geoclue geoclue-hostip geoclue-localnet geoclue-manual
5409 geoclue-yahoo gnash gnash-common gnome gnome-backgrounds
5410 gnome-cards-data gnome-codec-install gnome-core
5411 gnome-desktop-environment gnome-disk-utility gnome-screenshot
5412 gnome-search-tool gnome-session-canberra gnome-spell
5413 gnome-system-log gnome-themes-extras gnome-themes-more
5414 gnome-user-share gs-common gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
5415 gstreamer0.10-tools gtk2-engines gtk2-engines-pixbuf
5416 gtk2-engines-smooth hal-info hamster-applet libapache2-mod-dnssd
5417 libapr1 libaprutil1 libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3 libaprutil1-ldap
5418 libart2.0-cil libatspi1.0-0 libboost-date-time1.42.0
5419 libboost-python1.42.0 libboost-thread1.42.0 libchamplain-0.4-0
5420 libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0 libcheese-gtk18 libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
5421 libcryptui0 libcupsys2 libdiscid0 libeel2-data libelf1 libepc-1.0-2
5422 libepc-common libepc-ui-1.0-2 libfreerdp-plugins-standard
5423 libfreerdp0 libgail-common libgconf2.0-cil libgdata-common libgdata7
5424 libgdl-1-common libgdu-gtk0 libgee2 libgeoclue0 libgexiv2-0 libgif4
5425 libglade2.0-cil libglib2.0-cil libgmime2.4-cil libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
5426 libgnome2.24-cil libgnomepanel2.24-cil libgnomeprint2.2-data
5427 libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod-common libgpod4
5428 libgtk2.0-cil libgtkglext1 libgtksourceview-common
5429 libgtksourceview2.0-common libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
5430 libmono-addins0.2-cil libmono-cairo2.0-cil libmono-corlib2.0-cil
5431 libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil libmono-posix2.0-cil
5432 libmono-security2.0-cil libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
5433 libmono-system2.0-cil libmtp8 libmusicbrainz3-6
5434 libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil libndesk-dbus1.0-cil libopal3.6.8
5435 libpolkit-gtk-1-0 libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
5436 libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libpt2.6.7 libpython2.6 librpm1 librpmio1
5437 libsdl1.2debian libservlet2.4-java libsrtp0 libssh-4
5438 libtelepathy-farsight0 libtelepathy-glib0 libtidy-0.99-0
5439 libxalan2-java libxerces2-java media-player-info mesa-utils
5440 mono-2.0-gac mono-gac mono-runtime nautilus-sendto
5441 nautilus-sendto-empathy openoffice.org-writer2latex
5442 openssl-blacklist p7zip p7zip-full pkg-config python-4suite-xml
5443 python-aptdaemon python-aptdaemon-gtk python-axiom
5444 python-beautifulsoup python-bugbuddy python-clientform
5445 python-coherence python-configobj python-crypto python-cupshelpers
5446 python-cupsutils python-eggtrayicon python-elementtree
5447 python-epsilon python-evolution python-feedparser python-gdata
5448 python-gdbm python-gst0.10 python-gtkglext1 python-gtkmozembed
5449 python-gtksourceview2 python-httplib2 python-louie python-mako
5450 python-markupsafe python-mechanize python-nevow python-notify
5451 python-opengl python-openssl python-pam python-pkg-resources
5452 python-pyasn1 python-pysqlite2 python-rdflib python-serial
5453 python-tagpy python-twisted-bin python-twisted-conch
5454 python-twisted-core python-twisted-web python-utidylib python-webkit
5455 python-xdg python-zope.interface remmina remmina-plugin-data
5456 remmina-plugin-rdp remmina-plugin-vnc rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
5457 rhythmbox-plugins rpm-common rpm2cpio seahorse-plugins shotwell
5458 software-center svgalibg1 system-config-printer-udev
5459 telepathy-gabble telepathy-mission-control-5 telepathy-salut tomboy
5460 totem totem-coherence totem-mozilla totem-plugins
5461 transmission-common xdg-user-dirs xdg-user-dirs-gtk xserver-xephyr
5462 zip
5463 &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
5464
5465 Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude
5466
5467 &lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;p&gt;
5468 arj bluez-utils cheese dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop ekiga eog
5469 epiphany-extensions epiphany-gecko evolution-exchange
5470 fast-user-switch-applet file-roller gcalctool gconf-editor gdm gedit
5471 gedit-common gnome-app-install gnome-games gnome-games-data
5472 gnome-nettool gnome-system-tools gnome-themes gnome-utils
5473 gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager gnuchess gucharmap
5474 guile-1.8-libs hal libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5
5475 libavahi-ui0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7
5476 libcucul0 libcurl3 libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdmx1 libdvdread3
5477 libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1
5478 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3 libfaad0 libgadu3
5479 libgalago3 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
5480 libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
5481 libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
5482 libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
5483 libgtkhtml2-0 libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgtksourceview2.0-0
5484 libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
5485 libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libkpathsea4 liblircclient0 libltdl3 liblwres50
5486 libmagick++10 libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmozjs1d libmpfr1ldbl libmtp7
5487 libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0
5488 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpisock9
5489 libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8
5490 libsdl1.2debian-alsa libsensors3 libsexy2 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
5491 libspeexdsp1 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libsvga1
5492 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0
5493 libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12
5494 libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common rhythmbox seahorse
5495 sound-juicer swfdec-gnome system-config-printer totem-common
5496 totem-gstreamer transmission-gtk vinagre vino w3c-dtd-xhtml wodim
5497 &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
5498
5499 &lt;p&gt;Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get&lt;/p&gt;
5500
5501 &lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;p&gt;
5502 gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
5503 &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
5504
5505 &lt;p&gt;Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get&lt;/p&gt;
5506
5507 &lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;p&gt;
5508 [nothing]
5509 &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
5510
5511 &lt;p&gt;This is for KDE:&lt;/p&gt;
5512
5513 &lt;p&gt;Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude&lt;/p&gt;
5514
5515 &lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;p&gt;
5516 autopoint bomber bovo cantor cantor-backend-kalgebra cpp-4.3 dcoprss
5517 edict espeak espeak-data eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
5518 ghostscript-x git gnome-audio gnugo granatier gs-common
5519 gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio indi kaddressbook-plugins kalgebra
5520 kalzium-data kanjidic kapman kate-plugins kblocks kbreakout kbstate
5521 kde-icons-mono kdeaccessibility kdeaddons-kfile-plugins
5522 kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
5523 kdeedu kdeedu-data kdeedu-kvtml-data kdegames kdegames-card-data
5524 kdegames-mahjongg-data kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc
5525 kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
5526 kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdessh kdetoys kdewebdev
5527 kdiamond kdnssd kfilereplace kfourinline kgeography-data kigo
5528 killbots kiriki klettres-data kmoon kmrml knewsticker-scripts
5529 kollision kpf krosspython ksirk ksmserver ksquares kstars-data
5530 ksudoku kubrick kweather libasound2-plugins libboost-python1.42.0
5531 libcfitsio3 libconvert-binhex-perl libcrypt-ssleay-perl libdb4.6++
5532 libdjvulibre-text libdotconf1.0 liberror-perl libespeak1
5533 libfinance-quote-perl libgail-common libgsl0ldbl libhtml-parser-perl
5534 libhtml-tableextract-perl libhtml-tagset-perl libhtml-tree-perl
5535 libio-stringy-perl libkdeedu4 libkdegames5 libkiten4 libkpathsea5
5536 libkrossui4 libmailtools-perl libmime-tools-perl
5537 libnews-nntpclient-perl libopenbabel3 libportaudio2 libpulse-browse0
5538 libservlet2.4-java libspeechd2 libtiff-tools libtimedate-perl
5539 libunistring0 liburi-perl libwww-perl libxalan2-java libxerces2-java
5540 lirc luatex marble networkstatus noatun-plugins
5541 openoffice.org-writer2latex palapeli palapeli-data parley
5542 parley-data poster psutils pulseaudio pulseaudio-esound-compat
5543 pulseaudio-module-x11 pulseaudio-utils quanta-data rocs rsync
5544 speech-dispatcher step svgalibg1 texlive-binaries texlive-luatex
5545 ttf-sazanami-gothic
5546 &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
5547
5548 &lt;p&gt;Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude&lt;/p&gt;
5549
5550 &lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;p&gt;
5551 amor artsbuilder atlantik atlantikdesigner blinken bluez-utils cvs
5552 dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop imlib-base imlib11 kalzium kanagram kandy
5553 kasteroids katomic kbackgammon kbattleship kblackbox kbounce kbruch
5554 kcron kdat kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data kdeprint kdict kdvi kedit
5555 keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs kgeography kghostview
5556 kgoldrunner khangman khexedit kiconedit kig kimagemapeditor
5557 kitchensync kiten kjumpingcube klatin klettres klickety klines
5558 klinkstatus kmag kmahjongg kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmines
5559 kmousetool kmouth kmplot knetwalk kodo kolf kommander konquest kooka
5560 kpager kpat kpdf kpercentage kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler krec
5561 kregexpeditor kreversi ksame ksayit kshisen ksig ksim ksirc ksirtet
5562 ksmiletris ksnake ksokoban kspaceduel kstars ksvg ksysv kteatime
5563 ktip ktnef ktouch ktron kttsd ktuberling kturtle ktux kuickshow
5564 kverbos kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kwordquiz
5565 kworldclock kxsldbg libakode2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
5566 libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
5567 libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2
5568 libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0
5569 libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
5570 libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0 libicu38
5571 libiec61883-0 libindex0 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
5572 libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1 libkdeedu3
5573 libkdegames1 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
5574 libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
5575 libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick10
5576 libmimelib1c2a libmodplug0c2 libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libmpfr1ldbl
5577 libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9 libpoppler-glib3
5578 libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 librss1 libsensors3
5579 libsmbios2 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90
5580 libtalloc1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 lskat
5581 mpeglib network-manager-kde noatun pmount tex-common texlive-base
5582 texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended tidy
5583 ttf-dustin ttf-kochi-gothic ttf-sjfonts
5584 &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
5585
5586 &lt;p&gt;Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get&lt;/p&gt;
5587
5588 &lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;p&gt;
5589 dolphin kde-core kde-plasma-desktop kde-standard kde-window-manager
5590 kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-apps kdebase-workspace
5591 kdebase-workspace-bin kdebase-workspace-data kdeutils kscreensaver
5592 kscreensaver-xsavers libgle3 libkonq5 libkonq5-templates libnetpbm10
5593 netpbm plasma-widget-folderview plasma-widget-networkmanagement
5594 xscreensaver-data-extra xscreensaver-gl xscreensaver-gl-extra
5595 xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
5596 &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
5597
5598 &lt;p&gt;Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get&lt;/p&gt;
5599
5600 &lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;p&gt;
5601 kdebase-bin konq-plugins konqueror
5602 &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
5603 </description>
5604 </item>
5605
5606 <item>
5607 <title>Gnash buildbot slave and Debian kfreebsd</title>
5608 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gnash_buildbot_slave_and_Debian_kfreebsd.html</link>
5609 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gnash_buildbot_slave_and_Debian_kfreebsd.html</guid>
5610 <pubDate>Sat, 20 Nov 2010 07:20:00 +0100</pubDate>
5611 <description>&lt;p&gt;Answering
5612 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.listware.net/201011/gnash-dev/67431-gnash-dev-buildbot-looking-for-slaves.html&quot;&gt;the
5613 call from the Gnash project&lt;/a&gt; for
5614 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.gnashdev.org:8010&quot;&gt;buildbot&lt;/a&gt; slaves to test the
5615 current source, I have set up a virtual KVM machine on the Debian
5616 Edu/Skolelinux virtualization host to test the git source on
5617 Debian/Squeeze. I hope this can help the developers in getting new
5618 releases out more often.&lt;/p&gt;
5619
5620 &lt;p&gt;As the developers want less main-stream build platforms tested to,
5621 I have considered setting up a &lt;a
5622 href=&quot;http://www.debian.org/ports/kfreebsd-gnu/&quot;&gt;Debian/kfreebsd&lt;/a&gt;
5623 machine as well. I have also considered using the kfreebsd
5624 architecture in Debian as a file server in NUUG to get access to the 5
5625 TB zfs volume we currently use to store DV video. Because of this, I
5626 finally got around to do a test installation of Debian/Squeeze with
5627 kfreebsd. Installation went fairly smooth, thought I noticed some
5628 visual glitches in the cdebconf dialogs (black cursor left on the
5629 screen at random locations). Have not gotten very far with the
5630 testing. Noticed cfdisk did not work, but fdisk did so it was not a
5631 fatal problem. Have to spend some more time on it to see if it is
5632 useful as a file server for NUUG. Will try to find time to set up a
5633 gnash buildbot slave on the Debian Edu/Skolelinux this weekend.&lt;/p&gt;
5634 </description>
5635 </item>
5636
5637 <item>
5638 <title>Debian in 3D</title>
5639 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_in_3D.html</link>
5640 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_in_3D.html</guid>
5641 <pubDate>Tue, 9 Nov 2010 16:10:00 +0100</pubDate>
5642 <description>&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;http://thingiverse-production.s3.amazonaws.com/renders/23/e0/c4/f9/2b/debswagtdose_preview_medium.jpg&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
5643
5644 &lt;p&gt;3D printing is just great. I just came across this Debian logo in
5645 3D linked in from
5646 &lt;a href=&quot;http://blog.thingiverse.com/2010/11/09/participatory-branding/&quot;&gt;the
5647 thingiverse blog&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
5648 </description>
5649 </item>
5650
5651 <item>
5652 <title>Software updates 2010-10-24</title>
5653 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Software_updates_2010_10_24.html</link>
5654 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Software_updates_2010_10_24.html</guid>
5655 <pubDate>Sun, 24 Oct 2010 22:45:00 +0200</pubDate>
5656 <description>&lt;p&gt;Some updates.&lt;/p&gt;
5657
5658 &lt;p&gt;My &lt;a href=&quot;http://pledgebank.com/gnash-avm2&quot;&gt;gnash pledge&lt;/a&gt; to
5659 raise money for the project is going well. The lower limit of 10
5660 signers was reached in 24 hours, and so far 13 people have signed it.
5661 More signers and more funding is most welcome, and I am really curious
5662 how far we can get before the time limit of December 24 is reached.
5663 :)&lt;/p&gt;
5664
5665 &lt;p&gt;On the #gnash IRC channel on irc.freenode.net, I was just tipped
5666 about what appear to be a great code coverage tool capable of
5667 generating code coverage stats without any changes to the source code.
5668 It is called
5669 &lt;a href=&quot;http://simonkagstrom.github.com/kcov/index.html&quot;&gt;kcov&lt;/a&gt;,
5670 and can be used using &lt;tt&gt;kcov &amp;lt;directory&amp;gt; &amp;lt;binary&amp;gt;&lt;/tt&gt;.
5671 It is missing in Debian, but the git source built just fine in Squeeze
5672 after I installed libelf-dev, libdwarf-dev, pkg-config and
5673 libglib2.0-dev. Failed to build in Lenny, but suspect that is
5674 solvable. I hope kcov make it into Debian soon.&lt;/p&gt;
5675
5676 &lt;p&gt;Finally found time to wrap up the release notes for &lt;a
5677 href=&quot;http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2010/10/msg00002.html&quot;&gt;a
5678 new alpha release of Debian Edu&lt;/a&gt;, and just published the second
5679 alpha test release of the Squeeze based Debian Edu /
5680 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.skolelinux.org/&quot;&gt;Skolelinux&lt;/a&gt;
5681 release. Give it a try if you need a complete linux solution for your
5682 school, including central infrastructure server, workstations, thin
5683 client servers and diskless workstations. A nice touch added
5684 yesterday is RDP support on the thin client servers, for windows
5685 clients to get a Linux desktop on request.&lt;/p&gt;
5686 </description>
5687 </item>
5688
5689 <item>
5690 <title>Some notes on Flash in Debian and Debian Edu</title>
5691 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Some_notes_on_Flash_in_Debian_and_Debian_Edu.html</link>
5692 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Some_notes_on_Flash_in_Debian_and_Debian_Edu.html</guid>
5693 <pubDate>Sat, 4 Sep 2010 10:10:00 +0200</pubDate>
5694 <description>&lt;p&gt;In the &lt;a href=&quot;http://popcon.debian.org/unknown/by_vote&quot;&gt;Debian
5695 popularity-contest numbers&lt;/a&gt;, the adobe-flashplugin package the
5696 second most popular used package that is missing in Debian. The sixth
5697 most popular is flashplayer-mozilla. This is a clear indication that
5698 working flash is important for Debian users. Around 10 percent of the
5699 users submitting data to popcon.debian.org have this package
5700 installed.&lt;/p&gt;
5701
5702 &lt;p&gt;In the report written by Lars Risan in August 2008
5703&lt;a href=&quot;http://wiki.skolelinux.no/Dokumentasjon/Rapporter?action=AttachFile&amp;do=view&amp;target=Skolelinux_i_bruk_rapport_1.0.pdf&quot;&gt;Skolelinux
5704 i bruk – Rapport for Hurum kommune, Universitetet i Agder og
5705 stiftelsen SLX Debian Labs&lt;/a&gt;»), one of the most important problems
5706 schools experienced with &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.skolelinux.org/&quot;&gt;Debian
5707 Edu/Skolelinux&lt;/a&gt; was the lack of working Flash. A lot of educational
5708 web sites require Flash to work, and lacking working Flash support in
5709 the web browser and the problems with installing it was perceived as a
5710 good reason to stay with Windows.&lt;/p&gt;
5711
5712 &lt;p&gt;I once saw a funny and sad comment in a web forum, where Linux was
5713 said to be the retarded cousin that did not really understand
5714 everything you told him but could work fairly well. This was a
5715 comment regarding the problems Linux have with proprietary formats and
5716 non-standard web pages, and is sad because it exposes a fairly common
5717 understanding of whose fault it is if web pages that only work in for
5718 example Internet Explorer 6 fail to work on Firefox, and funny because
5719 it explain very well how annoying it is for users when Linux
5720 distributions do not work with the documents they receive or the web
5721 pages they want to visit.&lt;/p&gt;
5722
5723 &lt;p&gt;This is part of the reason why I believe it is important for Debian
5724 and Debian Edu to have a well working Flash implementation in the
5725 distribution, to get at least popular sites as Youtube and Google
5726 Video to working out of the box. For Squeeze, Debian have the chance
5727 to include the latest version of Gnash that will make this happen, as
5728 the new release 0.8.8 was published a few weeks ago and is resting in
5729 unstable. The new version work with more sites that version 0.8.7.
5730 The Gnash maintainers have asked for a freeze exception, but the
5731 release team have not had time to reply to it yet. I hope they agree
5732 with me that Flash is important for the Debian desktop users, and thus
5733 accept the new package into Squeeze.&lt;/p&gt;
5734 </description>
5735 </item>
5736
5737 <item>
5738 <title>Circular package dependencies harms apt recovery</title>
5739 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Circular_package_dependencies_harms_apt_recovery.html</link>
5740 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Circular_package_dependencies_harms_apt_recovery.html</guid>
5741 <pubDate>Tue, 27 Jul 2010 23:50:00 +0200</pubDate>
5742 <description>&lt;p&gt;I discovered this while doing
5743 &lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html&quot;&gt;automated
5744 testing of upgrades from Debian Lenny to Squeeze&lt;/a&gt;. A few packages
5745 in Debian still got circular dependencies, and it is often claimed
5746 that apt and aptitude should be able to handle this just fine, but
5747 some times these dependency loops causes apt to fail.&lt;/p&gt;
5748
5749 &lt;p&gt;An example is from todays
5750 &lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing//test-20100727-lenny-squeeze-kde-aptitude.txt&quot;&gt;upgrade
5751 of KDE using aptitude&lt;/a&gt;. In it, a bug in kdebase-workspace-data
5752 causes perl-modules to fail to upgrade. The cause is simple. If a
5753 package fail to unpack, then only part of packages with the circular
5754 dependency might end up being unpacked when unpacking aborts, and the
5755 ones already unpacked will fail to configure in the recovery phase
5756 because its dependencies are unavailable.&lt;/p&gt;
5757
5758 &lt;p&gt;In this log, the problem manifest itself with this error:&lt;/p&gt;
5759
5760 &lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
5761 dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of perl-modules:
5762 perl-modules depends on perl (&gt;= 5.10.1-1); however:
5763 Version of perl on system is 5.10.0-19lenny2.
5764 dpkg: error processing perl-modules (--configure):
5765 dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
5766 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
5767
5768 &lt;p&gt;The perl/perl-modules circular dependency is already
5769 &lt;a href=&quot;http://bugs.debian.org/527917&quot;&gt;reported as a bug&lt;/a&gt;, and will
5770 hopefully be solved as soon as possible, but it is not the only one,
5771 and each one of these loops in the dependency tree can cause similar
5772 failures. Of course, they only occur when there are bugs in other
5773 packages causing the unpacking to fail, but it is rather nasty when
5774 the failure of one package causes the problem to become worse because
5775 of dependency loops.&lt;/p&gt;
5776
5777 &lt;p&gt;Thanks to
5778 &lt;a href=&quot;http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/06/msg00116.html&quot;&gt;the
5779 tireless effort by Bill Allombert&lt;/a&gt;, the number of circular
5780 dependencies
5781 &lt;a href=&quot;http://debian.semistable.com/debgraph.out.html&quot;&gt;left in Debian
5782 is dropping&lt;/a&gt;, and perhaps it will reach zero one day. :)&lt;/p&gt;
5783
5784 &lt;p&gt;Todays testing also exposed a bug in
5785 &lt;a href=&quot;http://bugs.debian.org/590605&quot;&gt;update-notifier&lt;/a&gt; and
5786 &lt;a href=&quot;http://bugs.debian.org/590604&quot;&gt;different behaviour&lt;/a&gt; between
5787 apt-get and aptitude, the latter possibly caused by some circular
5788 dependency. Reported both to BTS to try to get someone to look at
5789 it.&lt;/p&gt;
5790 </description>
5791 </item>
5792
5793 <item>
5794 <title>What are they searching for - PowerDNS and ISC DHCP in LDAP</title>
5795 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_are_they_searching_for___PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_in_LDAP.html</link>
5796 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_are_they_searching_for___PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_in_LDAP.html</guid>
5797 <pubDate>Sat, 17 Jul 2010 21:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
5798 <description>&lt;p&gt;This is a
5799 &lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html&quot;&gt;followup&lt;/a&gt;
5800 on my
5801 &lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Idea_for_a_change_to_LDAP_schemas_allowing_DNS_and_DHCP_info_to_be_combined_into_one_object.html&quot;&gt;previous
5802 work&lt;/a&gt; on
5803 &lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html&quot;&gt;merging
5804 all&lt;/a&gt; the computer related LDAP objects in Debian Edu.&lt;/p&gt;
5805
5806 &lt;p&gt;As a step to try to see if it possible to merge the DNS and DHCP
5807 LDAP objects, I have had a look at how the packages pdns-backend-ldap
5808 and dhcp3-server-ldap in Debian use the LDAP server. The two
5809 implementations are quite different in how they use LDAP.&lt;/p&gt;
5810
5811 To get this information, I started slapd with debugging enabled and
5812 dumped the debug output to a file to get the LDAP searches performed
5813 on a Debian Edu main-server. Here is a summary.
5814
5815 &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;powerdns&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
5816
5817 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.linuxnetworks.de/doc/index.php/PowerDNS_LDAP_Backend&quot;&gt;Clues
5818 on how to&lt;/a&gt; set up PowerDNS to use a LDAP backend is available on
5819 the web.
5820
5821 &lt;p&gt;PowerDNS have two modes of operation using LDAP as its backend.
5822 One &quot;strict&quot; mode where the forward and reverse DNS lookups are done
5823 using the same LDAP objects, and a &quot;tree&quot; mode where the forward and
5824 reverse entries are in two different subtrees in LDAP with a structure
5825 based on the DNS names, as in tjener.intern and
5826 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa.&lt;/p&gt;
5827
5828 &lt;p&gt;In tree mode, the server is set up to use a LDAP subtree as its
5829 base, and uses a &quot;base&quot; scoped search for the DNS name by adding
5830 &quot;dc=tjener,dc=intern,&quot; to the base with a filter for
5831 &quot;(associateddomain=tjener.intern)&quot; for the forward entry and
5832 &quot;dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,&quot; with a filter for
5833 &quot;(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)&quot; for the reverse entry. For
5834 forward entries, it is looking for attributes named dnsttl, arecord,
5835 nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord,
5836 txtrecord, rprecord, afsdbrecord, keyrecord, aaaarecord, locrecord,
5837 srvrecord, naptrrecord, kxrecord, certrecord, dsrecord, sshfprecord,
5838 ipseckeyrecord, rrsigrecord, nsecrecord, dnskeyrecord, dhcidrecord,
5839 spfrecord and modifytimestamp. For reverse entries it is looking for
5840 the attributes dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord,
5841 ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord,
5842 locrecord, srvrecord, naptrrecord and modifytimestamp. The equivalent
5843 ldapsearch commands could look like this:&lt;/p&gt;
5844
5845 &lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
5846 ldapsearch -h ldap \
5847 -b dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
5848 -s base -x &#39;(associateddomain=tjener.intern)&#39; dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
5849 cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
5850 rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
5851 nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
5852 rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
5853
5854 ldapsearch -h ldap \
5855 -b dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
5856 -s base -x &#39;(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)&#39;
5857 dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord soarecord ptrrecord \
5858 hinforecord mxrecord txtrecord rprecord aaaarecord locrecord \
5859 srvrecord naptrrecord modifytimestamp
5860 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
5861
5862 &lt;p&gt;In Debian Edu/Lenny, the PowerDNS tree mode is used with
5863 ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no as the base, and these are two
5864 example LDAP objects used there. In addition to these objects, the
5865 parent objects all th way up to ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
5866 also exist.&lt;/p&gt;
5867
5868 &lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
5869 dn: dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
5870 objectclass: top
5871 objectclass: dnsdomain
5872 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
5873 dc: tjener
5874 arecord: 10.0.2.2
5875 associateddomain: tjener.intern
5876
5877 dn: dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
5878 objectclass: top
5879 objectclass: dnsdomain2
5880 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
5881 dc: 2
5882 ptrrecord: tjener.intern
5883 associateddomain: 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa
5884 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
5885
5886 &lt;p&gt;In strict mode, the server behaves differently. When looking for
5887 forward DNS entries, it is doing a &quot;subtree&quot; scoped search with the
5888 same base as in the tree mode for a object with filter
5889 &quot;(associateddomain=tjener.intern)&quot; and requests the attributes dnsttl,
5890 arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord,
5891 mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord, locrecord, srvrecord,
5892 naptrrecord and modifytimestamp. For reverse entires it also do a
5893 subtree scoped search but this time the filter is &quot;(arecord=10.0.2.2)&quot;
5894 and the requested attributes are associateddomain, dnsttl and
5895 modifytimestamp. In short, in strict mode the objects with ptrrecord
5896 go away, and the arecord attribute in the forward object is used
5897 instead.&lt;/p&gt;
5898
5899 &lt;p&gt;The forward and reverse searches can be simulated using ldapsearch
5900 like this:&lt;/p&gt;
5901
5902 &lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
5903 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
5904 &#39;(associateddomain=tjener.intern)&#39; dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
5905 cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
5906 rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
5907 nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
5908 rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
5909
5910 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
5911 &#39;(arecord=10.0.2.2)&#39; associateddomain dnsttl modifytimestamp
5912 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
5913
5914 &lt;p&gt;In addition to the forward and reverse searches , there is also a
5915 search for SOA records, which behave similar to the forward and
5916 reverse lookups.&lt;/p&gt;
5917
5918 &lt;p&gt;A thing to note with the PowerDNS behaviour is that it do not
5919 specify any objectclass names, and instead look for the attributes it
5920 need to generate a DNS reply. This make it able to work with any
5921 objectclass that provide the needed attributes.&lt;/p&gt;
5922
5923 &lt;p&gt;The attributes are normally provided in the cosine (RFC 1274) and
5924 dnsdomain2 schemas. The latter is used for reverse entries like
5925 ptrrecord and recent DNS additions like aaaarecord and srvrecord.&lt;/p&gt;
5926
5927 &lt;p&gt;In Debian Edu, we have created DNS objects using the object classes
5928 dcobject (for dc), dnsdomain or dnsdomain2 (structural, for the DNS
5929 attributes) and domainrelatedobject (for associatedDomain). The use
5930 of structural object classes make it impossible to combine these
5931 classes with the object classes used by DHCP.&lt;/p&gt;
5932
5933 &lt;p&gt;There are other schemas that could be used too, for example the
5934 dnszone structural object class used by Gosa and bind-sdb for the DNS
5935 attributes combined with the domainrelatedobject object class, but in
5936 this case some unused attributes would have to be included as well
5937 (zonename and relativedomainname).&lt;/p&gt;
5938
5939 &lt;p&gt;My proposal for Debian Edu would be to switch PowerDNS to strict
5940 mode and not use any of the existing objectclasses (dnsdomain,
5941 dnsdomain2 and dnszone) when one want to combine the DNS information
5942 with DHCP information, and instead create a auxiliary object class
5943 defined something like this (using the attributes defined for
5944 dnsdomain and dnsdomain2 or dnszone):&lt;/p&gt;
5945
5946 &lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
5947 objectclass ( some-oid NAME &#39;dnsDomainAux&#39;
5948 SUP top
5949 AUXILIARY
5950 MAY ( ARecord $ MDRecord $ MXRecord $ NSRecord $ SOARecord $ CNAMERecord $
5951 DNSTTL $ DNSClass $ PTRRecord $ HINFORecord $ MINFORecord $
5952 TXTRecord $ SIGRecord $ KEYRecord $ AAAARecord $ LOCRecord $
5953 NXTRecord $ SRVRecord $ NAPTRRecord $ KXRecord $ CERTRecord $
5954 A6Record $ DNAMERecord
5955 ))
5956 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
5957
5958 &lt;p&gt;This will allow any object to become a DNS entry when combined with
5959 the domainrelatedobject object class, and allow any entity to include
5960 all the attributes PowerDNS wants. I&#39;ve sent an email to the PowerDNS
5961 developers asking for their view on this schema and if they are
5962 interested in providing such schema with PowerDNS, and I hope my
5963 message will be accepted into their mailing list soon.&lt;/p&gt;
5964
5965 &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;ISC dhcp&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
5966
5967 &lt;p&gt;The DHCP server searches for specific objectclass and requests all
5968 the object attributes, and then uses the attributes it want. This
5969 make it harder to figure out exactly what attributes are used, but
5970 thanks to the working example in Debian Edu I can at least get an idea
5971 what is needed without having to read the source code.&lt;/p&gt;
5972
5973 &lt;p&gt;In the DHCP server configuration, the LDAP base to use and the
5974 search filter to use to locate the correct dhcpServer entity is
5975 stored. These are the relevant entries from
5976 /etc/dhcp3/dhcpd.conf:&lt;/p&gt;
5977
5978 &lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
5979 ldap-base-dn &quot;dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no&quot;;
5980 ldap-dhcp-server-cn &quot;dhcp&quot;;
5981 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
5982
5983 &lt;p&gt;The DHCP server uses this information to nest all the DHCP
5984 configuration it need. The cn &quot;dhcp&quot; is located using the given LDAP
5985 base and the filter &quot;(&amp;(objectClass=dhcpServer)(cn=dhcp))&quot;. The
5986 search result is this entry:&lt;/p&gt;
5987
5988 &lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
5989 dn: cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
5990 cn: dhcp
5991 objectClass: top
5992 objectClass: dhcpServer
5993 dhcpServiceDN: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
5994 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
5995
5996 &lt;p&gt;The content of the dhcpServiceDN attribute is next used to locate the
5997 subtree with DHCP configuration. The DHCP configuration subtree base
5998 is located using a base scope search with base &quot;cn=DHCP
5999 Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no&quot; and filter
6000 &quot;(&amp;(objectClass=dhcpService)(|(dhcpPrimaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)(dhcpSecondaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)))&quot;.
6001 The search result is this entry:&lt;/p&gt;
6002
6003 &lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
6004 dn: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
6005 cn: DHCP Config
6006 objectClass: top
6007 objectClass: dhcpService
6008 objectClass: dhcpOptions
6009 dhcpPrimaryDN: cn=dhcp, dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
6010 dhcpStatements: ddns-update-style none
6011 dhcpStatements: authoritative
6012 dhcpOption: smtp-server code 69 = array of ip-address
6013 dhcpOption: www-server code 72 = array of ip-address
6014 dhcpOption: wpad-url code 252 = text
6015 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
6016
6017 &lt;p&gt;Next, the entire subtree is processed, one level at the time. When
6018 all the DHCP configuration is loaded, it is ready to receive requests.
6019 The subtree in Debian Edu contain objects with object classes
6020 top/dhcpService/dhcpOptions, top/dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions,
6021 top/dhcpSubnet, top/dhcpGroup and top/dhcpHost. These provide options
6022 and information about netmasks, dynamic range etc. Leaving out the
6023 details here because it is not relevant for the focus of my
6024 investigation, which is to see if it is possible to merge dns and dhcp
6025 related computer objects.&lt;/p&gt;
6026
6027 &lt;p&gt;When a DHCP request come in, LDAP is searched for the MAC address
6028 of the client (00:00:00:00:00:00 in this example), using a subtree
6029 scoped search with &quot;cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no&quot; as
6030 the base and &quot;(&amp;(objectClass=dhcpHost)(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet
6031 00:00:00:00:00:00))&quot; as the filter. This is what a host object look
6032 like:&lt;/p&gt;
6033
6034 &lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
6035 dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
6036 cn: hostname
6037 objectClass: top
6038 objectClass: dhcpHost
6039 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
6040 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname
6041 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
6042
6043 &lt;p&gt;There is less flexiblity in the way LDAP searches are done here.
6044 The object classes need to have fixed names, and the configuration
6045 need to be stored in a fairly specific LDAP structure. On the
6046 positive side, the invidiual dhcpHost entires can be anywhere without
6047 the DN pointed to by the dhcpServer entries. The latter should make
6048 it possible to group all host entries in a subtree next to the
6049 configuration entries, and this subtree can also be shared with the
6050 DNS server if the schema proposed above is combined with the dhcpHost
6051 structural object class.
6052
6053 &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Conclusion&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
6054
6055 &lt;p&gt;The PowerDNS implementation seem to be very flexible when it come
6056 to which LDAP schemas to use. While its &quot;tree&quot; mode is rigid when it
6057 come to the the LDAP structure, the &quot;strict&quot; mode is very flexible,
6058 allowing DNS objects to be stored anywhere under the base cn specified
6059 in the configuration.&lt;/p&gt;
6060
6061 &lt;p&gt;The DHCP implementation on the other hand is very inflexible, both
6062 regarding which LDAP schemas to use and which LDAP structure to use.
6063 I guess one could implement ones own schema, as long as the
6064 objectclasses and attributes have the names used, but this do not
6065 really help when the DHCP subtree need to have a fairly fixed
6066 structure.&lt;/p&gt;
6067
6068 &lt;p&gt;Based on the observed behaviour, I suspect a LDAP structure like
6069 this might work for Debian Edu:&lt;/p&gt;
6070
6071 &lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
6072 ou=services
6073 cn=machine-info (dhcpService) - dhcpServiceDN points here
6074 cn=dhcp (dhcpServer)
6075 cn=dhcp-internal (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
6076 cn=10.0.2.0 (dhcpSubnet)
6077 cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
6078 cn=dhcp-thinclients (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
6079 cn=192.168.0.0 (dhcpSubnet)
6080 cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
6081 ou=machines - PowerDNS base points here
6082 cn=hostname (dhcpHost/domainrelatedobject/dnsDomainAux)
6083 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
6084
6085 &lt;P&gt;This is not tested yet. If the DHCP server require the dhcpHost
6086 entries to be in the dhcpGroup subtrees, the entries can be stored
6087 there instead of a common machines subtree, and the PowerDNS base
6088 would have to be moved one level up to the machine-info subtree.&lt;/p&gt;
6089
6090 &lt;p&gt;The combined object under the machines subtree would look something
6091 like this:&lt;/p&gt;
6092
6093 &lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
6094 dn: dc=hostname,ou=machines,cn=machine-info,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
6095 dc: hostname
6096 objectClass: top
6097 objectClass: dhcpHost
6098 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
6099 objectclass: dnsDomainAux
6100 associateddomain: hostname.intern
6101 arecord: 10.11.12.13
6102 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
6103 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname.intern
6104 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
6105
6106 &lt;/p&gt;One could even add the LTSP configuration associated with a given
6107 machine, as long as the required attributes are available in a
6108 auxiliary object class.&lt;/p&gt;
6109 </description>
6110 </item>
6111
6112 <item>
6113 <title>Combining PowerDNS and ISC DHCP LDAP objects</title>
6114 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html</link>
6115 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html</guid>
6116 <pubDate>Wed, 14 Jul 2010 23:45:00 +0200</pubDate>
6117 <description>&lt;p&gt;For a while now, I have wanted to find a way to change the DNS and
6118 DHCP services in Debian Edu to use the same LDAP objects for a given
6119 computer, to avoid the possibility of having a inconsistent state for
6120 a computer in LDAP (as in DHCP but no DNS entry or the other way
6121 around) and make it easier to add computers to LDAP.&lt;/p&gt;
6122
6123 &lt;p&gt;I&#39;ve looked at how powerdns and dhcpd is using LDAP, and using this
6124 information finally found a solution that seem to work.&lt;/p&gt;
6125
6126 &lt;p&gt;The old setup required three LDAP objects for a given computer.
6127 One forward DNS entry, one reverse DNS entry and one DHCP entry. If
6128 we switch powerdns to use its strict LDAP method (ldap-method=strict
6129 in pdns-debian-edu.conf), the forward and reverse DNS entries are
6130 merged into one while making it impossible to transfer the reverse map
6131 to a slave DNS server.&lt;/p&gt;
6132
6133 &lt;p&gt;If we also replace the object class used to get the DNS related
6134 attributes to one allowing these attributes to be combined with the
6135 dhcphost object class, we can merge the DNS and DHCP entries into one.
6136 I&#39;ve written such object class in the dnsdomainaux.schema file (need
6137 proper OIDs, but that is a minor issue), and tested the setup. It
6138 seem to work.&lt;/p&gt;
6139
6140 &lt;p&gt;With this test setup in place, we can get away with one LDAP object
6141 for both DNS and DHCP, and even the LTSP configuration I suggested in
6142 an earlier email. The combined LDAP object will look something like
6143 this:&lt;/p&gt;
6144
6145 &lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
6146 dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
6147 cn: hostname
6148 objectClass: dhcphost
6149 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
6150 objectclass: dnsdomainaux
6151 associateddomain: hostname.intern
6152 arecord: 10.11.12.13
6153 dhcphwaddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
6154 dhcpstatements: fixed-address hostname
6155 ldapconfigsound: Y
6156 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
6157
6158 &lt;p&gt;The DNS server uses the associateddomain and arecord entries, while
6159 the DHCP server uses the dhcphwaddress and dhcpstatements entries
6160 before asking DNS to resolve the fixed-adddress. LTSP will use
6161 dhcphwaddress or associateddomain and the ldapconfig* attributes.&lt;/p&gt;
6162
6163 &lt;p&gt;I am not yet sure if I can get the DHCP server to look for its
6164 dhcphost in a different location, to allow us to put the objects
6165 outside the &quot;DHCP Config&quot; subtree, but hope to figure out a way to do
6166 that. If I can&#39;t figure out a way to do that, we can still get rid of
6167 the hosts subtree and move all its content into the DHCP Config tree
6168 (which probably should be renamed to be more related to the new
6169 content. I suspect cn=dnsdhcp,ou=services or something like that
6170 might be a good place to put it.&lt;/p&gt;
6171
6172 &lt;p&gt;If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
6173 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.&lt;/p&gt;
6174 </description>
6175 </item>
6176
6177 <item>
6178 <title>Idea for storing LTSP configuration in LDAP</title>
6179 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Idea_for_storing_LTSP_configuration_in_LDAP.html</link>
6180 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Idea_for_storing_LTSP_configuration_in_LDAP.html</guid>
6181 <pubDate>Sun, 11 Jul 2010 22:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
6182 <description>&lt;p&gt;Vagrant mentioned on IRC today that ltsp_config now support
6183 sourcing files from /usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ on the thin
6184 clients, and that this can be used to fetch configuration from LDAP if
6185 Debian Edu choose to store configuration there.&lt;/p&gt;
6186
6187 &lt;p&gt;Armed with this information, I got inspired and wrote a test module
6188 to get configuration from LDAP. The idea is to look up the MAC
6189 address of the client in LDAP, and look for attributes on the form
6190 ltspconfigsetting=value, and use this to export SETTING=value to the
6191 LTSP clients.&lt;/p&gt;
6192
6193 &lt;p&gt;The goal is to be able to store the LTSP configuration attributes
6194 in a &quot;computer&quot; LDAP object used by both DNS and DHCP, and thus
6195 allowing us to store all information about a computer in one place.&lt;/p&gt;
6196
6197 &lt;p&gt;This is a untested draft implementation, and I welcome feedback on
6198 this approach. A real LDAP schema for the ltspClientAux objectclass
6199 need to be written. Comments, suggestions, etc?&lt;/p&gt;
6200
6201 &lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
6202 # Store in /opt/ltsp/$arch/usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ldap-config
6203 #
6204 # Fetch LTSP client settings from LDAP based on MAC address
6205 #
6206 # Uses ethernet address as stored in the dhcpHost objectclass using
6207 # the dhcpHWAddress attribute or ethernet address stored in the
6208 # ieee802Device objectclass with the macAddress attribute.
6209 #
6210 # This module is written to be schema agnostic, and only depend on the
6211 # existence of attribute names.
6212 #
6213 # The LTSP configuration variables are saved directly using a
6214 # ltspConfig prefix and uppercasing the rest of the attribute name.
6215 # To set the SERVER variable, set the ltspConfigServer attribute.
6216 #
6217 # Some LDAP schema should be created with all the relevant
6218 # configuration settings. Something like this should work:
6219 #
6220 # objectclass ( 1.1.2.2 NAME &#39;ltspClientAux&#39;
6221 # SUP top
6222 # AUXILIARY
6223 # MAY ( ltspConfigServer $ ltsConfigSound $ ... )
6224
6225 LDAPSERVER=$(debian-edu-ldapserver)
6226 if [ &quot;$LDAPSERVER&quot; ] ; then
6227 LDAPBASE=$(debian-edu-ldapserver -b)
6228 for MAC in $(LANG=C ifconfig |grep -i hwaddr| awk &#39;{print $5}&#39;|sort -u) ; do
6229 filter=&quot;(|(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet $MAC)(macAddress=$MAC))&quot;
6230 ldapsearch -h &quot;$LDAPSERVER&quot; -b &quot;$LDAPBASE&quot; -v -x &quot;$filter&quot; | \
6231 grep &#39;^ltspConfig&#39; | while read attr value ; do
6232 # Remove prefix and convert to upper case
6233 attr=$(echo $attr | sed &#39;s/^ltspConfig//i&#39; | tr a-z A-Z)
6234 # bass value on to clients
6235 eval &quot;$attr=$value; export $attr&quot;
6236 done
6237 done
6238 fi
6239 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
6240
6241 &lt;p&gt;I&#39;m not sure this shell construction will work, because I suspect
6242 the while block might end up in a subshell causing the variables set
6243 there to not show up in ltsp-config, but if that is the case I am sure
6244 the code can be restructured to make sure the variables are passed on.
6245 I expect that can be solved with some testing. :)&lt;/p&gt;
6246
6247 &lt;p&gt;If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
6248 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.&lt;/p&gt;
6249
6250 &lt;p&gt;Update 2010-07-17: I am aware of another effort to store LTSP
6251 configuration in LDAP that was created around year 2000 by
6252 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.pcxperience.com/thinclient/documentation/ldap.html&quot;&gt;PC
6253 Xperience, Inc., 2000&lt;/a&gt;. I found its
6254 &lt;a href=&quot;http://people.redhat.com/alikins/ltsp/ldap/&quot;&gt;files&lt;/a&gt; on a
6255 personal home page over at redhat.com.&lt;/p&gt;
6256 </description>
6257 </item>
6258
6259 <item>
6260 <title>jXplorer, a very nice LDAP GUI</title>
6261 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/jXplorer__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html</link>
6262 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/jXplorer__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html</guid>
6263 <pubDate>Fri, 9 Jul 2010 12:55:00 +0200</pubDate>
6264 <description>&lt;p&gt;Since
6265 &lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html&quot;&gt;my
6266 last post&lt;/a&gt; about available LDAP tools in Debian, I was told about a
6267 LDAP GUI that is even better than luma. The java application
6268 &lt;a href=&quot;http://jxplorer.org/&quot;&gt;jXplorer&lt;/a&gt; is claimed to be capable of
6269 moving LDAP objects and subtrees using drag-and-drop, and can
6270 authenticate using Kerberos. I have only tested the Kerberos
6271 authentication, but do not have a LDAP setup allowing me to rewrite
6272 LDAP with my test user yet. It is
6273 &lt;a href=&quot;http://packages.qa.debian.org/j/jxplorer.html&quot;&gt;available in
6274 Debian&lt;/a&gt; testing and unstable at the moment. The only problem I
6275 have with it is how it handle errors. If something go wrong, its
6276 non-intuitive behaviour require me to go through some query work list
6277 and remove the failing query. Nothing big, but very annoying.&lt;/p&gt;
6278 </description>
6279 </item>
6280
6281 <item>
6282 <title>Lenny-&gt;Squeeze upgrades, apt vs aptitude with the Gnome desktop</title>
6283 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lenny__Squeeze_upgrades__apt_vs_aptitude_with_the_Gnome_desktop.html</link>
6284 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lenny__Squeeze_upgrades__apt_vs_aptitude_with_the_Gnome_desktop.html</guid>
6285 <pubDate>Sat, 3 Jul 2010 23:55:00 +0200</pubDate>
6286 <description>&lt;p&gt;Here is a short update on my &lt;a
6287 href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/&quot;&gt;my
6288 Debian Lenny-&gt;Squeeze upgrade testing&lt;/a&gt;. Here is a summary of the
6289 difference for Gnome when it is upgraded by apt-get and aptitude. I&#39;m
6290 not reporting the status for KDE, because the upgrade crashes when
6291 aptitude try because of missing conflicts
6292 (&lt;a href=&quot;http://bugs.debian.org/584861&quot;&gt;#584861&lt;/a&gt; and
6293 &lt;a href=&quot;http://bugs.debian.org/585716&quot;&gt;#585716&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;
6294
6295 &lt;p&gt;At the end of the upgrade test script, dpkg -l is executed to get a
6296 complete list of the installed packages. Based on this I see these
6297 differences when I did a test run today. As usual, I do not really
6298 know what the correct set of packages would be, but thought it best to
6299 publish the difference.&lt;/p&gt;
6300
6301 &lt;p&gt;Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude&lt;/p&gt;
6302
6303 &lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;p&gt;
6304 at-spi cpp-4.3 finger gnome-spell gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
6305 libatspi1.0-0 libcupsys2 libeel2-data libgail-common libgdl-1-common
6306 libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin
6307 libgtksourceview-common libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
6308 libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libservlet2.4-java libxalan2-java
6309 libxerces2-java openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
6310 python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gtkhtml2
6311 python-gtkmozembed svgalibg1 xserver-xephyr zip
6312 &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
6313
6314 &lt;p&gt;Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude&lt;/p&gt;
6315
6316 &lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;p&gt;
6317 bluez-utils dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop epiphany-gecko
6318 gnome-app-install gnome-mount gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager
6319 libao2 libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libbind9-50
6320 libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcurl3
6321 libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9
6322 libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3
6323 libfaad0 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
6324 libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
6325 libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
6326 libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
6327 libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50
6328 libisccfg50 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick++10
6329 libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4
6330 libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5
6331 libparted1.8-10 libpisock9 libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3
6332 libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8 libsensors3 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
6333 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1
6334 libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0 libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj
6335 libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3
6336 mysql-common swfdec-gnome totem-gstreamer wodim
6337 &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
6338
6339 &lt;p&gt;Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get&lt;/p&gt;
6340
6341 &lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;p&gt;
6342 gnome gnome-desktop-environment hamster-applet python-gnomeapplet
6343 python-gnomekeyring python-wnck rhythmbox-plugins xorg
6344 xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
6345 xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
6346 xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-video-all
6347 xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark xserver-xorg-video-ati
6348 xserver-xorg-video-chips xserver-xorg-video-cirrus
6349 xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
6350 xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
6351 xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-mach64
6352 xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
6353 xserver-xorg-video-nouveau xserver-xorg-video-nv
6354 xserver-xorg-video-r128 xserver-xorg-video-radeon
6355 xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd xserver-xorg-video-rendition
6356 xserver-xorg-video-s3 xserver-xorg-video-s3virge
6357 xserver-xorg-video-savage xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion
6358 xserver-xorg-video-sis xserver-xorg-video-sisusb
6359 xserver-xorg-video-tdfx xserver-xorg-video-tga
6360 xserver-xorg-video-trident xserver-xorg-video-tseng
6361 xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vmware
6362 xserver-xorg-video-voodoo
6363 &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
6364
6365 &lt;p&gt;Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get&lt;/p&gt;
6366
6367 &lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;p&gt;
6368 deskbar-applet xserver-xorg xserver-xorg-core
6369 xserver-xorg-input-wacom xserver-xorg-video-intel
6370 xserver-xorg-video-openchrome
6371 &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
6372
6373 &lt;p&gt;I was told on IRC that the xorg-xserver package was
6374 &lt;a href=&quot;http://git.debian.org/?p=pkg-xorg/xserver/xorg-server.git;a=commit;h=9c8080d06c457932d3bfec021c69ac000aa60120&quot;&gt;changed
6375 in git&lt;/a&gt; today to try to get apt-get to not remove xorg completely.
6376 No idea when it hits Squeeze, but when it does I hope it will reduce
6377 the difference somewhat.
6378 </description>
6379 </item>
6380
6381 <item>
6382 <title>LUMA, a very nice LDAP GUI</title>
6383 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html</link>
6384 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html</guid>
6385 <pubDate>Mon, 28 Jun 2010 00:30:00 +0200</pubDate>
6386 <description>&lt;p&gt;The last few days I have been looking into the status of the LDAP
6387 directory in Debian Edu, and in the process I started to miss a GUI
6388 tool to browse the LDAP tree. The only one I was able to find in
6389 Debian/Squeeze and Lenny is
6390 &lt;a href=&quot;http://luma.sourceforge.net/&quot;&gt;LUMA&lt;/a&gt;, which has proved to
6391 be a great tool to get a overview of the current LDAP directory
6392 populated by default in Skolelinux. Thanks to it, I have been able to
6393 find empty and obsolete subtrees, misplaced objects and duplicate
6394 objects. It will be installed by default in Debian/Squeeze. If you
6395 are working with LDAP, give it a go. :)&lt;/p&gt;
6396
6397 &lt;p&gt;I did notice one problem with it I have not had time to report to
6398 the BTS yet. There is no .desktop file in the package, so the tool do
6399 not show up in the Gnome and KDE menus, but only deep down in in the
6400 Debian submenu in KDE. I hope that can be fixed before Squeeze is
6401 released.&lt;/p&gt;
6402
6403 &lt;p&gt;I have not yet been able to get it to modify the tree yet. I would
6404 like to move objects and remove subtrees directly in the GUI, but have
6405 not found a way to do that with LUMA yet. So in the mean time, I use
6406 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.lichteblau.com/ldapvi/&quot;&gt;ldapvi&lt;/a&gt; for that.&lt;/p&gt;
6407
6408 &lt;p&gt;If you have tips on other GUI tools for LDAP that might be useful
6409 in Debian Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.&lt;/p&gt;
6410
6411 &lt;p&gt;Update 2010-06-29: Ross Reedstrom tipped us about the
6412 &lt;a href=&quot;http://packages.qa.debian.org/g/gq.html&quot;&gt;gq&lt;/a&gt; package as a
6413 useful GUI alternative. It seem like a good tool, but is unmaintained
6414 in Debian and got a RC bug keeping it out of Squeeze. Unless that
6415 changes, it will not be an option for Debian Edu based on Squeeze.&lt;/p&gt;
6416 </description>
6417 </item>
6418
6419 <item>
6420 <title>Idea for a change to LDAP schemas allowing DNS and DHCP info to be combined into one object</title>
6421 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Idea_for_a_change_to_LDAP_schemas_allowing_DNS_and_DHCP_info_to_be_combined_into_one_object.html</link>
6422 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Idea_for_a_change_to_LDAP_schemas_allowing_DNS_and_DHCP_info_to_be_combined_into_one_object.html</guid>
6423 <pubDate>Thu, 24 Jun 2010 00:35:00 +0200</pubDate>
6424 <description>&lt;p&gt;A while back, I
6425 &lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html&quot;&gt;complained
6426 about the fact&lt;/a&gt; that it is not possible with the provided schemas
6427 for storing DNS and DHCP information in LDAP to combine the two sets
6428 of information into one LDAP object representing a computer.&lt;/p&gt;
6429
6430 &lt;p&gt;In the mean time, I discovered that a simple fix would be to make
6431 the dhcpHost object class auxiliary, to allow it to be combined with
6432 the dNSDomain object class, and thus forming one object for one
6433 computer when storing both DHCP and DNS information in LDAP.&lt;/p&gt;
6434
6435 &lt;p&gt;If I understand this correctly, it is not safe to do this change
6436 without also changing the assigned number for the object class, and I
6437 do not know enough about LDAP schema design to do that properly for
6438 Debian Edu.&lt;/p&gt;
6439
6440 &lt;p&gt;Anyway, for future reference, this is how I believe we could change
6441 the
6442 &lt;a href=&quot;http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-dhc-ldap-schema-00&quot;&gt;DHCP
6443 schema&lt;/a&gt; to solve at least part of the problem with the LDAP schemas
6444 available today from IETF.&lt;/p&gt;
6445
6446 &lt;pre&gt;
6447 --- dhcp.schema (revision 65192)
6448 +++ dhcp.schema (working copy)
6449 @@ -376,7 +376,7 @@
6450 objectclass ( 2.16.840.1.113719.1.203.6.6
6451 NAME &#39;dhcpHost&#39;
6452 DESC &#39;This represents information about a particular client&#39;
6453 - SUP top
6454 + SUP top AUXILIARY
6455 MUST cn
6456 MAY (dhcpLeaseDN $ dhcpHWAddress $ dhcpOptionsDN $ dhcpStatements $ dhcpComments $ dhcpOption)
6457 X-NDS_CONTAINMENT (&#39;dhcpService&#39; &#39;dhcpSubnet&#39; &#39;dhcpGroup&#39;) )
6458 &lt;/pre&gt;
6459
6460 &lt;p&gt;I very much welcome clues on how to do this properly for Debian
6461 Edu/Squeeze. We provide the DHCP schema in our debian-edu-config
6462 package, and should thus be free to rewrite it as we see fit.&lt;/p&gt;
6463
6464 &lt;p&gt;If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
6465 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.&lt;/p&gt;
6466 </description>
6467 </item>
6468
6469 <item>
6470 <title>Calling tasksel like the installer, while still getting useful output</title>
6471 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Calling_tasksel_like_the_installer__while_still_getting_useful_output.html</link>
6472 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Calling_tasksel_like_the_installer__while_still_getting_useful_output.html</guid>
6473 <pubDate>Wed, 16 Jun 2010 14:55:00 +0200</pubDate>
6474 <description>&lt;p&gt;A few times I have had the need to simulate the way tasksel
6475 installs packages during the normal debian-installer run. Until now,
6476 I have ended up letting tasksel do the work, with the annoying problem
6477 of not getting any feedback at all when something fails (like a
6478 conffile question from dpkg or a download that fails), using code like
6479 this:
6480
6481 &lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
6482 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
6483 tasksel --new-install
6484 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
6485
6486 This would invoke tasksel, let its automatic task selection pick the
6487 tasks to install, and continue to install the requested tasks without
6488 any output what so ever.
6489
6490 Recently I revisited this problem while working on the automatic
6491 package upgrade testing, because tasksel would some times hang without
6492 any useful feedback, and I want to see what is going on when it
6493 happen. Then it occured to me, I can parse the output from tasksel
6494 when asked to run in test mode, and use that aptitude command line
6495 printed by tasksel then to simulate the tasksel run. I ended up using
6496 code like this:
6497
6498 &lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
6499 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
6500 cmd=&quot;$(in_target tasksel -t --new-install | sed &#39;s/debconf-apt-progress -- //&#39;)&quot;
6501 $cmd
6502 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
6503
6504 &lt;p&gt;The content of $cmd is typically something like &quot;&lt;tt&gt;aptitude -q
6505 --without-recommends -o APT::Install-Recommends=no -y install
6506 ~t^desktop$ ~t^gnome-desktop$ ~t^laptop$ ~pstandard ~prequired
6507 ~pimportant&lt;/tt&gt;&quot;, which will install the gnome desktop task, the
6508 laptop task and all packages with priority standard , required and
6509 important, just like tasksel would have done it during
6510 installation.&lt;/p&gt;
6511
6512 &lt;p&gt;A better approach is probably to extend tasksel to be able to
6513 install packages without using debconf-apt-progress, for use cases
6514 like this.&lt;/p&gt;
6515 </description>
6516 </item>
6517
6518 <item>
6519 <title>Lenny-&gt;Squeeze upgrades, removals by apt and aptitude</title>
6520 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lenny__Squeeze_upgrades__removals_by_apt_and_aptitude.html</link>
6521 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lenny__Squeeze_upgrades__removals_by_apt_and_aptitude.html</guid>
6522 <pubDate>Sun, 13 Jun 2010 09:05:00 +0200</pubDate>
6523 <description>&lt;p&gt;My
6524 &lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html&quot;&gt;testing
6525 of Debian upgrades&lt;/a&gt; from Lenny to Squeeze continues, and I&#39;ve
6526 finally made the upgrade logs available from
6527 &lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/&quot;&gt;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/&lt;/a&gt;.
6528 I am now testing dist-upgrade of Gnome and KDE in a chroot using both
6529 apt and aptitude, and found their differences interesting. This time
6530 I will only focus on their removal plans.&lt;/p&gt;
6531
6532 &lt;p&gt;After installing a Gnome desktop and the laptop task, apt-get wants
6533 to remove 72 packages when dist-upgrading from Lenny to Squeeze. The
6534 surprising part is that it want to remove xorg and all
6535 xserver-xorg-video* drivers. Clearly not a good choice, but I am not
6536 sure why. When asking aptitude to do the same, it want to remove 129
6537 packages, but most of them are library packages I suspect are no
6538 longer needed. Both of them want to remove bluetooth packages, which
6539 I do not know. Perhaps these bluetooth packages are obsolete?&lt;/p&gt;
6540
6541 &lt;p&gt;For KDE, apt-get want to remove 82 packages, among them kdebase
6542 which seem like a bad idea and xorg the same way as with Gnome. Asking
6543 aptitude for the same, it wants to remove 192 packages, none which are
6544 too surprising.&lt;/p&gt;
6545
6546 &lt;p&gt;I guess the removal of xorg during upgrades should be investigated
6547 and avoided, and perhaps others as well. Here are the complete list
6548 of planned removals. The complete logs is available from the URL
6549 above. Note if you want to repeat these tests, that the upgrade test
6550 for kde+apt-get hung in the tasksel setup because of dpkg asking
6551 conffile questions. No idea why. I worked around it by using
6552 &#39;&lt;tt&gt;echo &gt;&gt; /proc/&lt;em&gt;pidofdpkg&lt;/em&gt;/fd/0&lt;/tt&gt;&#39; to tell dpkg to
6553 continue.&lt;/p&gt;
6554
6555 &lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;apt-get gnome 72&lt;/b&gt;
6556 &lt;br&gt;bluez-gnome cupsddk-drivers deskbar-applet gnome
6557 gnome-desktop-environment gnome-network-admin gtkhtml3.14
6558 iceweasel-gnome-support libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libgdl-1-0
6559 libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libmetacity0 libslab0 libxcb-xlib0
6560 nautilus-cd-burner python-gnome2-desktop python-gnome2-extras
6561 serpentine swfdec-mozilla update-manager xorg xserver-xorg
6562 xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
6563 xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
6564 xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
6565 xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
6566 xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
6567 xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
6568 xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
6569 xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
6570 xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
6571 xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
6572 xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
6573 xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
6574 xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
6575 xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
6576 xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
6577 xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
6578 xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
6579 xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
6580 xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
6581 xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
6582 xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
6583 xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9
6584 xulrunner-1.9-gnome-support&lt;/p&gt;
6585
6586 &lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;aptitude gnome 129&lt;/b&gt;
6587
6588 &lt;br&gt;bluez-gnome bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers dhcdbd
6589 djvulibre-desktop finger gnome-app-install gnome-mount
6590 gnome-network-admin gnome-spell gnome-vfs-obexftp
6591 gnome-volume-manager gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs gtkhtml3.14 libao2
6592 libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
6593 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcupsys2 libcurl3 libdatrie0
6594 libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20
6595 libeel2-data libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libfaad0 libgail-common
6596 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libgdl-1-0 libgdl-1-common
6597 libggz2 libggzcore9 libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0
6598 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libgnomeprint2.2-0
6599 libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgnomeprintui2.2-common
6600 libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
6601 libgtksourceview-common libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6
6602 libhesiod0 libicu38 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 libmagick++10
6603 libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmetacity0 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off
6604 libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2
6605 libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10
6606 libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libraw1394-8
6607 libsensors3 libslab0 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8 libssh2-1
6608 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10
6609 libtrackerclient0 libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0
6610 libxerces2-java libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6
6611 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common nautilus-cd-burner
6612 openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
6613 python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gnome2-desktop
6614 python-gnome2-extras python-gtkhtml2 python-gtkmozembed
6615 python-numeric python-sexy serpentine svgalibg1 swfdec-gnome
6616 swfdec-mozilla totem-gstreamer update-manager wodim
6617 xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
6618 xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
6619 zip&lt;/p&gt;
6620
6621 &lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;apt-get kde 82&lt;/b&gt;
6622
6623 &lt;br&gt;cupsddk-drivers karm kaudiocreator kcoloredit kcontrol kde kde-core
6624 kdeaddons kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-bin kdebase-bin-kde3
6625 kdebase-kio-plugins kdesktop kdeutils khelpcenter kicker
6626 kicker-applets knewsticker kolourpaint konq-plugins konqueror korn
6627 kpersonalizer kscreensaver ksplash libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libkiten1
6628 libxcb-xlib0 quanta superkaramba texlive-base-bin xorg xserver-xorg
6629 xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
6630 xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
6631 xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
6632 xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
6633 xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
6634 xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
6635 xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
6636 xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
6637 xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
6638 xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
6639 xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
6640 xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
6641 xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
6642 xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
6643 xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
6644 xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
6645 xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
6646 xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
6647 xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
6648 xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
6649 xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
6650 xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9&lt;/p&gt;
6651
6652 &lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;aptitude kde 192&lt;/b&gt;
6653 &lt;br&gt;bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers cvs dcoprss dhcdbd
6654 djvulibre-desktop dosfstools eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
6655 ghostscript-x imlib-base imlib11 indi kandy karm kasteroids
6656 kaudiocreator kbackgammon kbstate kcoloredit kcontrol kcron kdat
6657 kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
6658 kdebase-bin-kde3 kdebase-kio-plugins kdeedu-data
6659 kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data
6660 kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
6661 kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdeprint kdesktop kdessh
6662 kdict kdnssd kdvi kedit keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs
6663 kghostview khelpcenter khexedit kiconedit kitchensync klatin
6664 klickety kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmoon kmrml kodo kolourpaint
6665 kooka korn kpager kpdf kpercentage kpf kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler
6666 krec kregexpeditor ksayit ksim ksirc ksirtet ksmiletris ksmserver
6667 ksnake ksokoban ksplash ksvg ksysv ktip ktnef kuickshow kverbos
6668 kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kworldclock
6669 kxsldbg libakode2 libao2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
6670 libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
6671 libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
6672 libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0 libdatrie0
6673 libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
6674 libgail-common libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0
6675 libicu38 libiec61883-0 libindex0 libiw29 libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1
6676 libkdeedu3 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkiten1 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
6677 libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
6678 libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 libmagick10 libmimelib1c2a
6679 libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9
6680 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 libsmbios2
6681 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libtalloc1 libtiff-tools
6682 libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0 libxerces2-java
6683 libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 mpeglib networkstatus
6684 openoffice.org-writer2latex pmount poster psutils quanta quanta-data
6685 superkaramba svgalibg1 tex-common texlive-base texlive-base-bin
6686 texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended
6687 xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
6688 xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
6689 xulrunner-1.9&lt;/p&gt;
6690
6691 </description>
6692 </item>
6693
6694 <item>
6695 <title>Automatic upgrade testing from Lenny to Squeeze</title>
6696 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html</link>
6697 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html</guid>
6698 <pubDate>Fri, 11 Jun 2010 22:50:00 +0200</pubDate>
6699 <description>&lt;p&gt;The last few days I have done some upgrade testing in Debian, to
6700 see if the upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze will go smoothly. A few bugs
6701 have been discovered and reported in the process
6702 (&lt;a href=&quot;http://bugs.debian.org/585410&quot;&gt;#585410&lt;/a&gt; in nagios3-cgi,
6703 &lt;a href=&quot;http://bugs.debian.org/584879&quot;&gt;#584879&lt;/a&gt; already fixed in
6704 enscript and &lt;a href=&quot;http://bugs.debian.org/584861&quot;&gt;#584861&lt;/a&gt; in
6705 kdebase-workspace-data), and to get a more regular testing going on, I
6706 am working on a script to automate the test.&lt;/p&gt;
6707
6708 &lt;p&gt;The idea is to create a Lenny chroot and use tasksel to install a
6709 Gnome or KDE desktop installation inside the chroot before upgrading
6710 it. To ensure no services are started in the chroot, a policy-rc.d
6711 script is inserted. To make sure tasksel believe it is to install a
6712 desktop on a laptop, the tasksel tests are replaced in the chroot
6713 (only acceptable because this is a throw-away chroot).&lt;/p&gt;
6714
6715 &lt;p&gt;A naive upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze using aptitude dist-upgrade
6716 currently always fail because udev refuses to upgrade with the kernel
6717 in Lenny, so to avoid that problem the file /etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
6718 is created. The bug report
6719 &lt;a href=&quot;http://bugs.debian.org/566000&quot;&gt;#566000&lt;/a&gt; make me suspect
6720 this problem do not trigger in a chroot, but I touch the file anyway
6721 to make sure the upgrade go well. Testing on virtual and real
6722 hardware have failed me because of udev so far, and creating this file
6723 do the trick in such settings anyway. This is a
6724 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/debian-26/failed-dist-upgrade-due-to-udev-config_sysfs_deprecated-nonsense-804130/&quot;&gt;known
6725 issue&lt;/a&gt; and the current udev behaviour is intended by the udev
6726 maintainer because he lack the resources to rewrite udev to keep
6727 working with old kernels or something like that. I really wish the
6728 udev upstream would keep udev backwards compatible, to avoid such
6729 upgrade problem, but given that they fail to do so, I guess
6730 documenting the way out of this mess is the best option we got for
6731 Debian Squeeze.&lt;/p&gt;
6732
6733 &lt;p&gt;Anyway, back to the task at hand, testing upgrades. This test
6734 script, which I call &lt;tt&gt;upgrade-test&lt;/tt&gt; for now, is doing the
6735 trick:&lt;/p&gt;
6736
6737 &lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
6738 #!/bin/sh
6739 set -ex
6740
6741 if [ &quot;$1&quot; ] ; then
6742 desktop=$1
6743 else
6744 desktop=gnome
6745 fi
6746
6747 from=lenny
6748 to=squeeze
6749
6750 exec &amp;lt; /dev/null
6751 unset LANG
6752 mirror=http://ftp.skolelinux.org/debian
6753 tmpdir=chroot-$from-upgrade-$to-$desktop
6754 fuser -mv .
6755 debootstrap $from $tmpdir $mirror
6756 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
6757 cat &gt; $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d &amp;lt;&amp;lt;EOF
6758 #!/bin/sh
6759 exit 101
6760 EOF
6761 chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d
6762 exit_cleanup() {
6763 umount $tmpdir/proc
6764 }
6765 mount -t proc proc $tmpdir/proc
6766 # Make sure proc is unmounted also on failure
6767 trap exit_cleanup EXIT INT
6768
6769 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y install debconf-utils
6770
6771 # Make sure tasksel autoselection trigger. It need the test scripts
6772 # to return the correct answers.
6773 echo tasksel tasksel/desktop multiselect $desktop | \
6774 chroot $tmpdir debconf-set-selections
6775
6776 # Include the desktop and laptop task
6777 for test in desktop laptop ; do
6778 echo &gt; $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test &amp;lt;&amp;lt;EOF
6779 #!/bin/sh
6780 exit 2
6781 EOF
6782 chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test
6783 done
6784
6785 DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
6786 DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical
6787 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND DEBIAN_PRIORITY
6788 chroot $tmpdir tasksel --new-install
6789
6790 echo deb $mirror $to main &gt; $tmpdir/etc/apt/sources.list
6791 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
6792 touch $tmpdir/etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
6793 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y dist-upgrade
6794 fuser -mv
6795 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
6796
6797 &lt;p&gt;I suspect it would be useful to test upgrades with both apt-get and
6798 with aptitude, but I have not had time to look at how they behave
6799 differently so far. I hope to get a cron job running to do the test
6800 regularly and post the result on the web. The Gnome upgrade currently
6801 work, while the KDE upgrade fail because of the bug in
6802 kdebase-workspace-data&lt;/p&gt;
6803
6804 &lt;p&gt;I am not quite sure what kind of extract from the huge upgrade logs
6805 (KDE 167 KiB, Gnome 516 KiB) it make sense to include in this blog
6806 post, so I will refrain from trying. I can report that for Gnome,
6807 aptitude report 760 packages upgraded, 448 newly installed, 129 to
6808 remove and 1 not upgraded and 1024MB need to be downloaded while for
6809 KDE the same numbers are 702 packages upgraded, 507 newly installed,
6810 193 to remove and 0 not upgraded and 1117MB need to be downloaded&lt;/p&gt;
6811
6812 &lt;p&gt;I am very happy to notice that the Gnome desktop + laptop upgrade
6813 is able to migrate to dependency based boot sequencing and parallel
6814 booting without a hitch. Was unsure if there were still bugs with
6815 packages failing to clean up their obsolete init.d script during
6816 upgrades, and no such problem seem to affect the Gnome desktop+laptop
6817 packages.&lt;/p&gt;
6818 </description>
6819 </item>
6820
6821 <item>
6822 <title>Upstart or sysvinit - as init.d scripts see it</title>
6823 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Upstart_or_sysvinit___as_init_d_scripts_see_it.html</link>
6824 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Upstart_or_sysvinit___as_init_d_scripts_see_it.html</guid>
6825 <pubDate>Sun, 6 Jun 2010 23:55:00 +0200</pubDate>
6826 <description>&lt;p&gt;If Debian is to migrate to upstart on Linux, I expect some init.d
6827 scripts to migrate (some of) their operations to upstart job while
6828 keeping the init.d for hurd and kfreebsd. The packages with such
6829 needs will need a way to get their init.d scripts to behave
6830 differently when used with sysvinit and with upstart. Because of
6831 this, I had a look at the environment variables set when a init.d
6832 script is running under upstart, and when it is not.&lt;/p&gt;
6833
6834 &lt;p&gt;With upstart, I notice these environment variables are set when a
6835 script is started from rcS.d/ (ignoring some irrelevant ones like
6836 COLUMNS):&lt;/p&gt;
6837
6838 &lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
6839 DEFAULT_RUNLEVEL=2
6840 previous=N
6841 PREVLEVEL=
6842 RUNLEVEL=
6843 runlevel=S
6844 UPSTART_EVENTS=startup
6845 UPSTART_INSTANCE=
6846 UPSTART_JOB=rc-sysinit
6847 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
6848
6849 &lt;p&gt;With sysvinit, these environment variables are set for the same
6850 script.&lt;/p&gt;
6851
6852 &lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
6853 INIT_VERSION=sysvinit-2.88
6854 previous=N
6855 PREVLEVEL=N
6856 RUNLEVEL=S
6857 runlevel=S
6858 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
6859
6860 &lt;p&gt;The RUNLEVEL and PREVLEVEL environment variables passed on from
6861 sysvinit are not set by upstart. Not sure if it is intentional or not
6862 to not be compatible with sysvinit in this regard.&lt;/p&gt;
6863
6864 &lt;p&gt;For scripts needing to behave differently when upstart is used,
6865 looking for the UPSTART_JOB environment variable seem to be a good
6866 choice.&lt;/p&gt;
6867 </description>
6868 </item>
6869
6870 <item>
6871 <title>A manual for standards wars...</title>
6872 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_manual_for_standards_wars___.html</link>
6873 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_manual_for_standards_wars___.html</guid>
6874 <pubDate>Sun, 6 Jun 2010 14:15:00 +0200</pubDate>
6875 <description>&lt;p&gt;Via the
6876 &lt;a href=&quot;http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/robweir/antic-atom/~3/QzU4RgoAGMg/weekly-links-10.html&quot;&gt;blog
6877 of Rob Weir&lt;/a&gt; I came across the very interesting essay named
6878 &lt;a href=&quot;http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/shapiro/wars.pdf&quot;&gt;The Art of
6879 Standards Wars&lt;/a&gt; (PDF 25 pages). I recommend it for everyone
6880 following the standards wars of today.&lt;/p&gt;
6881 </description>
6882 </item>
6883
6884 <item>
6885 <title>Sitesummary tip: Listing computer hardware models used at site</title>
6886 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Sitesummary_tip__Listing_computer_hardware_models_used_at_site.html</link>
6887 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Sitesummary_tip__Listing_computer_hardware_models_used_at_site.html</guid>
6888 <pubDate>Thu, 3 Jun 2010 12:05:00 +0200</pubDate>
6889 <description>&lt;p&gt;When using sitesummary at a site to track machines, it is possible
6890 to get a list of the machine types in use thanks to the DMI
6891 information extracted from each machine. The script to do so is
6892 included in the sitesummary package, and here is example output from
6893 the Skolelinux build servers:&lt;/p&gt;
6894
6895 &lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
6896 maintainer:~# /usr/lib/sitesummary/hardware-model-summary
6897 vendor count
6898 Dell Computer Corporation 1
6899 PowerEdge 1750 1
6900 IBM 1
6901 eserver xSeries 345 -[8670M1X]- 1
6902 Intel 2
6903 [no-dmi-info] 3
6904 maintainer:~#
6905 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
6906
6907 &lt;p&gt;The quality of the report depend on the quality of the DMI tables
6908 provided in each machine. Here there are Intel machines without model
6909 information listed with Intel as vendor and no model, and virtual Xen
6910 machines listed as [no-dmi-info]. One can add -l as a command line
6911 option to list the individual machines.&lt;/p&gt;
6912
6913 &lt;p&gt;A larger list is
6914 &lt;a href=&quot;http://narvikskolen.no/sitesummary/&quot;&gt;available from the the
6915 city of Narvik&lt;/a&gt;, which uses Skolelinux on all their shools and also
6916 provide the basic sitesummary report publicly. In their report there
6917 are ~1400 machines. I know they use both Ubuntu and Skolelinux on
6918 their machines, and as sitesummary is available in both distributions,
6919 it is trivial to get all of them to report to the same central
6920 collector.&lt;/p&gt;
6921 </description>
6922 </item>
6923
6924 <item>
6925 <title>KDM fail at boot with NVidia cards - and no one try to fix it?</title>
6926 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/KDM_fail_at_boot_with_NVidia_cards___and_no_one_try_to_fix_it_.html</link>
6927 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/KDM_fail_at_boot_with_NVidia_cards___and_no_one_try_to_fix_it_.html</guid>
6928 <pubDate>Tue, 1 Jun 2010 17:05:00 +0200</pubDate>
6929 <description>&lt;p&gt;It is strange to watch how a bug in Debian causing KDM to fail to
6930 start at boot when an NVidia video card is used is handled. The
6931 problem seem to be that the nvidia X.org driver uses a long time to
6932 initialize, and this duration is longer than kdm is configured to
6933 wait.&lt;/p&gt;
6934
6935 &lt;p&gt;I came across two bugs related to this issue,
6936 &lt;a href=&quot;http://bugs.debian.org/583312&quot;&gt;#583312&lt;/a&gt; initially filed
6937 against initscripts and passed on to nvidia-glx when it became obvious
6938 that the nvidia drivers were involved, and
6939 &lt;a href=&quot;http://bugs.debian.org/524751&quot;&gt;#524751&lt;/a&gt; initially filed against
6940 kdm and passed on to src:nvidia-graphics-drivers for unknown reasons.&lt;/p&gt;
6941
6942 &lt;p&gt;To me, it seem that no-one is interested in actually solving the
6943 problem nvidia video card owners experience and make sure the Debian
6944 distribution work out of the box for these users. The nvidia driver
6945 maintainers expect kdm to be set up to wait longer, while kdm expect
6946 the nvidia driver maintainers to fix the driver to start faster, and
6947 while they wait for each other I guess the users end up switching to a
6948 distribution that work for them. I have no idea what the solution is,
6949 but I am pretty sure that waiting for each other is not it.&lt;/p&gt;
6950
6951 &lt;p&gt;I wonder why we end up handling bugs this way.&lt;/p&gt;
6952 </description>
6953 </item>
6954
6955 <item>
6956 <title>Parallellized boot seem to hold up well in Debian/testing</title>
6957 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Parallellized_boot_seem_to_hold_up_well_in_Debian_testing.html</link>
6958 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Parallellized_boot_seem_to_hold_up_well_in_Debian_testing.html</guid>
6959 <pubDate>Thu, 27 May 2010 23:55:00 +0200</pubDate>
6960 <description>&lt;p&gt;A few days ago, parallel booting was enabled in Debian/testing.
6961 The feature seem to hold up pretty well, but three fairly serious
6962 issues are known and should be solved:
6963
6964 &lt;p&gt;&lt;ul&gt;
6965
6966 &lt;li&gt;The wicd package seen to
6967 &lt;a href=&quot;http://bugs.debian.org/508289&quot;&gt;break NFS mounting&lt;/a&gt; and
6968 &lt;a href=&quot;http://bugs.debian.org/581586&quot;&gt;network setup&lt;/a&gt; when
6969 parallel booting is enabled. No idea why, but the wicd maintainer
6970 seem to be on the case.&lt;/li&gt;
6971
6972 &lt;li&gt;The nvidia X driver seem to
6973 &lt;a href=&quot;http://bugs.debian.org/583312&quot;&gt;have a race condition&lt;/a&gt;
6974 triggered more easily when parallel booting is in effect. The
6975 maintainer is on the case.&lt;/li&gt;
6976
6977 &lt;li&gt;The sysv-rc package fail to properly enable dependency based boot
6978 sequencing (the shutdown is broken) when old file-rc users
6979 &lt;a href=&quot;http://bugs.debian.org/575080&quot;&gt;try to switch back&lt;/a&gt; to
6980 sysv-rc. One way to solve it would be for file-rc to create
6981 /etc/init.d/.legacy-bootordering, and another is to try to make
6982 sysv-rc more robust. Will investigate some more and probably upload a
6983 workaround in sysv-rc to help those trying to move from file-rc to
6984 sysv-rc get a working shutdown.&lt;/li&gt;
6985
6986 &lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
6987
6988 &lt;p&gt;All in all not many surprising issues, and all of them seem
6989 solvable before Squeeze is released. In addition to these there are
6990 some packages with bugs in their dependencies and run level settings,
6991 which I expect will be fixed in a reasonable time span.&lt;/p&gt;
6992
6993 &lt;p&gt;If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
6994 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
6995 &lt;a href=&quot;http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org&quot;&gt;the
6996 list of usertagged bugs related to this&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
6997
6998 &lt;p&gt;Update: Correct bug number to file-rc issue.&lt;/p&gt;
6999 </description>
7000 </item>
7001
7002 <item>
7003 <title>More flexible firmware handling in debian-installer</title>
7004 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/More_flexible_firmware_handling_in_debian_installer.html</link>
7005 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/More_flexible_firmware_handling_in_debian_installer.html</guid>
7006 <pubDate>Sat, 22 May 2010 21:30:00 +0200</pubDate>
7007 <description>&lt;p&gt;After a long break from debian-installer development, I finally
7008 found time today to return to the project. Having to spend less time
7009 working dependency based boot in debian, as it is almost complete now,
7010 definitely helped freeing some time.&lt;/p&gt;
7011
7012 &lt;p&gt;A while back, I ran into a problem while working on Debian Edu. We
7013 include some firmware packages on the Debian Edu CDs, those needed to
7014 get disk and network controllers working. Without having these
7015 firmware packages available during installation, it is impossible to
7016 install Debian Edu on the given machine, and because our target group
7017 are non-technical people, asking them to provide firmware packages on
7018 an external medium is a support pain. Initially, I expected it to be
7019 enough to include the firmware packages on the CD to get
7020 debian-installer to find and use them. This proved to be wrong.
7021 Next, I hoped it was enough to symlink the relevant firmware packages
7022 to some useful location on the CD (tried /cdrom/ and
7023 /cdrom/firmware/). This also proved to not work, and at this point I
7024 found time to look at the debian-installer code to figure out what was
7025 going to work.&lt;/p&gt;
7026
7027 &lt;p&gt;The firmware loading code is in the hw-detect package, and a closer
7028 look revealed that it would only look for firmware packages outside
7029 the installation media, so the CD was never checked for firmware
7030 packages. It would only check USB sticks, floppies and other
7031 &quot;external&quot; media devices. Today I changed it to also look in the
7032 /cdrom/firmware/ directory on the mounted CD or DVD, which should
7033 solve the problem I ran into with Debian edu. I also changed it to
7034 look in /firmware/, to make sure the installer also find firmware
7035 provided in the initrd when booting the installer via PXE, to allow us
7036 to provide the same feature in the PXE setup included in Debian
7037 Edu.&lt;/p&gt;
7038
7039 &lt;p&gt;To make sure firmware deb packages with a license questions are not
7040 activated without asking if the license is accepted, I extended
7041 hw-detect to look for preinst scripts in the firmware packages, and
7042 run these before activating the firmware during installation. The
7043 license question is asked using debconf in the preinst, so this should
7044 solve the issue for the firmware packages I have looked at so far.&lt;/p&gt;
7045
7046 &lt;p&gt;If you want to discuss the details of these features, please
7047 contact us on debian-boot@lists.debian.org.&lt;/p&gt;
7048 </description>
7049 </item>
7050
7051 <item>
7052 <title>Parallellized boot is now the default in Debian/unstable</title>
7053 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Parallellized_boot_is_now_the_default_in_Debian_unstable.html</link>
7054 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Parallellized_boot_is_now_the_default_in_Debian_unstable.html</guid>
7055 <pubDate>Fri, 14 May 2010 22:40:00 +0200</pubDate>
7056 <description>&lt;p&gt;Since this evening, parallel booting is the default in
7057 Debian/unstable for machines using dependency based boot sequencing.
7058 Apparently the testing of concurrent booting has been wider than
7059 expected, if I am to believe the
7060 &lt;a href=&quot;http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html&quot;&gt;input
7061 on debian-devel@&lt;/a&gt;, and I concluded a few days ago to move forward
7062 with the feature this weekend, to give us some time to detect any
7063 remaining problems before Squeeze is frozen. If serious problems are
7064 detected, it is simple to change the default back to sequential boot.
7065 The upload of the new sysvinit package also activate a new upstream
7066 version.&lt;/p&gt;
7067
7068 More information about
7069 &lt;a href=&quot;http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot&quot;&gt;dependency
7070 based boot sequencing&lt;/a&gt; is available from the Debian wiki. It is
7071 currently possible to disable parallel booting when one run into
7072 problems caused by it, by adding this line to /etc/default/rcS:&lt;/p&gt;
7073
7074 &lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
7075 CONCURRENCY=none
7076 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
7077
7078 &lt;p&gt;If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
7079 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
7080 &lt;a href=&quot;http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org&quot;&gt;the
7081 list of usertagged bugs related to this&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
7082 </description>
7083 </item>
7084
7085 <item>
7086 <title>Sitesummary tip: Listing MAC address of all clients</title>
7087 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Sitesummary_tip__Listing_MAC_address_of_all_clients.html</link>
7088 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Sitesummary_tip__Listing_MAC_address_of_all_clients.html</guid>
7089 <pubDate>Fri, 14 May 2010 21:10:00 +0200</pubDate>
7090 <description>&lt;p&gt;In the recent Debian Edu versions, the
7091 &lt;a href=&quot;http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/SiteSummary&quot;&gt;sitesummary
7092 system&lt;/a&gt; is used to keep track of the machines in the school
7093 network. Each machine will automatically report its status to the
7094 central server after boot and once per night. The network setup is
7095 also reported, and using this information it is possible to get the
7096 MAC address of all network interfaces in the machines. This is useful
7097 to update the DHCP configuration.&lt;/p&gt;
7098
7099 &lt;p&gt;To give some idea how to use sitesummary, here is a one-liner to
7100 ist all MAC addresses of all machines reporting to sitesummary. Run
7101 this on the collector host:&lt;/p&gt;
7102
7103 &lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
7104 perl -MSiteSummary -e &#39;for_all_hosts(sub { print join(&quot; &quot;, get_macaddresses(shift)), &quot;\n&quot;; });&#39;
7105 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
7106
7107 &lt;p&gt;This will list all MAC addresses assosiated with all machine, one
7108 line per machine and with space between the MAC addresses.&lt;/p&gt;
7109
7110 &lt;p&gt;To allow system administrators easier job at adding static DHCP
7111 addresses for hosts, it would be possible to extend this to fetch
7112 machine information from sitesummary and update the DHCP and DNS
7113 tables in LDAP using this information. Such tool is unfortunately not
7114 written yet.&lt;/p&gt;
7115 </description>
7116 </item>
7117
7118 <item>
7119 <title>systemd, an interesting alternative to upstart</title>
7120 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/systemd__an_interesting_alternative_to_upstart.html</link>
7121 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/systemd__an_interesting_alternative_to_upstart.html</guid>
7122 <pubDate>Thu, 13 May 2010 22:20:00 +0200</pubDate>
7123 <description>&lt;p&gt;The last few days a new boot system called
7124 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd&quot;&gt;systemd&lt;/a&gt;
7125 has been
7126 &lt;a href=&quot;http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/systemd.html&quot;&gt;introduced&lt;/a&gt;
7127
7128 to the free software world. I have not yet had time to play around
7129 with it, but it seem to be a very interesting alternative to
7130 &lt;a href=&quot;http://upstart.ubuntu.com/&quot;&gt;upstart&lt;/a&gt;, and might prove to be
7131 a good alternative for Debian when we are able to switch to an event
7132 based boot system. Tollef is
7133 &lt;a href=&quot;http://bugs.debian.org/580814&quot;&gt;in the process&lt;/a&gt; of getting
7134 systemd into Debian, and I look forward to seeing how well it work. I
7135 like the fact that systemd handles init.d scripts with dependency
7136 information natively, allowing them to run in parallel where upstart
7137 at the moment do not.&lt;/p&gt;
7138
7139 &lt;p&gt;Unfortunately do systemd have the same problem as upstart regarding
7140 platform support. It only work on recent Linux kernels, and also need
7141 some new kernel features enabled to function properly. This means
7142 kFreeBSD and Hurd ports of Debian will need a port or a different boot
7143 system. Not sure how that will be handled if systemd proves to be the
7144 way forward.&lt;/p&gt;
7145
7146 &lt;p&gt;In the mean time, based on the
7147 &lt;a href=&quot;http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html&quot;&gt;input
7148 on debian-devel@&lt;/a&gt; regarding parallel booting in Debian, I have
7149 decided to enable full parallel booting as the default in Debian as
7150 soon as possible (probably this weekend or early next week), to see if
7151 there are any remaining serious bugs in the init.d dependencies. A
7152 new version of the sysvinit package implementing this change is
7153 already in experimental. If all go well, Squeeze will be released
7154 with parallel booting enabled by default.&lt;/p&gt;
7155 </description>
7156 </item>
7157
7158 <item>
7159 <title>Parallellizing the boot in Debian Squeeze - ready for wider testing</title>
7160 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Parallellizing_the_boot_in_Debian_Squeeze___ready_for_wider_testing.html</link>
7161 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Parallellizing_the_boot_in_Debian_Squeeze___ready_for_wider_testing.html</guid>
7162 <pubDate>Thu, 6 May 2010 23:25:00 +0200</pubDate>
7163 <description>&lt;p&gt;These days, the init.d script dependencies in Squeeze are quite
7164 complete, so complete that it is actually possible to run all the
7165 init.d scripts in parallell based on these dependencies. If you want
7166 to test your Squeeze system, make sure
7167 &lt;a href=&quot;http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot&quot;&gt;dependency
7168 based boot sequencing&lt;/a&gt; is enabled, and add this line to
7169 /etc/default/rcS:&lt;/p&gt;
7170
7171 &lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
7172 CONCURRENCY=makefile
7173 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
7174
7175 &lt;p&gt;That is it. It will cause sysv-rc to use the startpar tool to run
7176 scripts in parallel using the dependency information stored in
7177 /etc/init.d/.depend.boot, /etc/init.d/.depend.start and
7178 /etc/init.d/.depend.stop to order the scripts. Startpar is configured
7179 to try to start the kdm and gdm scripts as early as possible, and will
7180 start the facilities required by kdm or gdm as early as possible to
7181 make this happen.&lt;/p&gt;
7182
7183 &lt;p&gt;Give it a try, and see if you like the result. If some services
7184 fail to start properly, it is most likely because they have incomplete
7185 init.d script dependencies in their startup script (or some of their
7186 dependent scripts have incomplete dependencies). Report bugs and get
7187 the package maintainers to fix it. :)&lt;/p&gt;
7188
7189 &lt;p&gt;Running scripts in parallel could be the default in Debian when we
7190 manage to get the init.d script dependencies complete and correct. I
7191 expect we will get there in Squeeze+1, if we get manage to test and
7192 fix the remaining issues.&lt;/p&gt;
7193
7194 &lt;p&gt;If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
7195 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
7196 &lt;a href=&quot;http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org&quot;&gt;the
7197 list of usertagged bugs related to this&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
7198 </description>
7199 </item>
7200
7201 <item>
7202 <title>Debian has switched to dependency based boot sequencing</title>
7203 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_has_switched_to_dependency_based_boot_sequencing.html</link>
7204 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_has_switched_to_dependency_based_boot_sequencing.html</guid>
7205 <pubDate>Mon, 27 Jul 2009 23:50:00 +0200</pubDate>
7206 <description>&lt;p&gt;Since this evening, with the upload of sysvinit version 2.87dsf-2,
7207 and the upload of insserv version 1.12.0-10 yesterday, Debian unstable
7208 have been migrated to using dependency based boot sequencing. This
7209 conclude work me and others have been doing for the last three days.
7210 It feels great to see this finally part of the default Debian
7211 installation. Now we just need to weed out the last few problems that
7212 are bound to show up, to get everything ready for Squeeze.&lt;/p&gt;
7213
7214 &lt;p&gt;The next step is migrating /sbin/init from sysvinit to upstart, and
7215 fixing the more fundamental problem of handing the event based
7216 non-predictable kernel in the early boot.&lt;/p&gt;
7217 </description>
7218 </item>
7219
7220 <item>
7221 <title>Taking over sysvinit development</title>
7222 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Taking_over_sysvinit_development.html</link>
7223 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Taking_over_sysvinit_development.html</guid>
7224 <pubDate>Wed, 22 Jul 2009 23:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
7225 <description>&lt;p&gt;After several years of frustration with the lack of activity from
7226 the existing sysvinit upstream developer, I decided a few weeks ago to
7227 take over the package and become the new upstream. The number of
7228 patches to track for the Debian package was becoming a burden, and the
7229 lack of synchronization between the distribution made it hard to keep
7230 the package up to date.&lt;/p&gt;
7231
7232 &lt;p&gt;On the new sysvinit team is the SuSe maintainer Dr. Werner Fink,
7233 and my Debian co-maintainer Kel Modderman. About 10 days ago, I made
7234 a new upstream tarball with version number 2.87dsf (for Debian, SuSe
7235 and Fedora), based on the patches currently in use in these
7236 distributions. We Debian maintainers plan to move to this tarball as
7237 the new upstream as soon as we find time to do the merge. Since the
7238 new tarball was created, we agreed with Werner at SuSe to make a new
7239 upstream project at &lt;a href=&quot;http://savannah.nongnu.org/&quot;&gt;Savannah&lt;/a&gt;, and continue
7240 development there. The project is registered and currently waiting
7241 for approval by the Savannah administrators, and as soon as it is
7242 approved, we will import the old versions from svn and continue
7243 working on the future release.&lt;/p&gt;
7244
7245 &lt;p&gt;It is a bit ironic that this is done now, when some of the involved
7246 distributions are moving to upstart as a syvinit replacement.&lt;/p&gt;
7247 </description>
7248 </item>
7249
7250 <item>
7251 <title>Debian boots quicker and quicker</title>
7252 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_boots_quicker_and_quicker.html</link>
7253 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_boots_quicker_and_quicker.html</guid>
7254 <pubDate>Wed, 24 Jun 2009 21:40:00 +0200</pubDate>
7255 <description>&lt;p&gt;I spent Monday and tuesday this week in London with a lot of the
7256 people involved in the boot system on Debian and Ubuntu, to see if we
7257 could find more ways to speed up the boot system. This was an Ubuntu
7258 funded
7259 &lt;a href=&quot;https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FoundationsTeam/BootPerformance/DebianUbuntuSprint&quot;&gt;developer
7260 gathering&lt;/a&gt;. It was quite productive. We also discussed the future
7261 of boot systems, and ways to handle the increasing number of boot
7262 issues introduced by the Linux kernel becoming more and more
7263 asynchronous and event base. The Ubuntu approach using udev and
7264 upstart might be a good way forward. Time will show.&lt;/p&gt;
7265
7266 &lt;p&gt;Anyway, there are a few ways at the moment to speed up the boot
7267 process in Debian. All of these should be applied to get a quick
7268 boot:&lt;/p&gt;
7269
7270 &lt;ul&gt;
7271
7272 &lt;li&gt;Use dash as /bin/sh.&lt;/li&gt;
7273
7274 &lt;li&gt;Disable the init.d/hwclock*.sh scripts and make sure the hardware
7275 clock is in UTC.&lt;/li&gt;
7276
7277 &lt;li&gt;Install and activate the insserv package to enable
7278 &lt;a href=&quot;http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot&quot;&gt;dependency
7279 based boot sequencing&lt;/a&gt;, and enable concurrent booting.&lt;/li&gt;
7280
7281 &lt;/ul&gt;
7282
7283 These points are based on the Google summer of code work done by
7284 &lt;a href=&quot;http://initscripts-ng.alioth.debian.org/soc2006-bootsystem/&quot;&gt;Carlos
7285 Villegas&lt;/a&gt;.
7286
7287 &lt;p&gt;Support for makefile-style concurrency during boot was uploaded to
7288 unstable yesterday. When we tested it, we were able to cut 6 seconds
7289 from the boot sequence. It depend on very correct dependency
7290 declaration in all init.d scripts, so I expect us to find edge cases
7291 where the dependences in some scripts are slightly wrong when we start
7292 using this.&lt;/p&gt;
7293
7294 &lt;p&gt;On our IRC channel for this effort, #pkg-sysvinit, a new idea was
7295 introduced by Raphael Geissert today, one that could affect the
7296 startup speed as well. Instead of starting some scripts concurrently
7297 from rcS.d/ and another set of scripts from rc2.d/, it would be
7298 possible to run a of them in the same process. A quick way to test
7299 this would be to enable insserv and run &#39;mv /etc/rc2.d/S* /etc/rcS.d/;
7300 insserv&#39;. Will need to test if that work. :)&lt;/p&gt;
7301 </description>
7302 </item>
7303
7304 <item>
7305 <title>BSAs påstander om piratkopiering møter motstand</title>
7306 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/BSAs_p_stander_om_piratkopiering_m_ter_motstand.html</link>
7307 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/BSAs_p_stander_om_piratkopiering_m_ter_motstand.html</guid>
7308 <pubDate>Sun, 17 May 2009 23:05:00 +0200</pubDate>
7309 <description>&lt;p&gt;Hvert år de siste årene har BSA, lobbyfronten til de store
7310 programvareselskapene som Microsoft og Apple, publisert en rapport der
7311 de gjetter på hvor mye piratkopiering påfører i tapte inntekter i
7312 ulike land rundt om i verden. Resultatene er tendensiøse. For noen
7313 dager siden kom
7314 &lt;a href=&quot;http://global.bsa.org/globalpiracy2008/studies/globalpiracy2008.pdf&quot;&gt;siste
7315 rapport&lt;/a&gt;, og det er flere kritiske kommentarer publisert de siste
7316 dagene. Et spesielt interessant kommentar fra Sverige,
7317 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.idg.se/2.1085/1.229795/bsa-hoftade-sverigesiffror&quot;&gt;BSA
7318 höftade Sverigesiffror&lt;/a&gt;, oppsummeres slik:&lt;/p&gt;
7319
7320 &lt;blockquote&gt;
7321 I sin senaste rapport slår BSA fast att 25 procent av all mjukvara i
7322 Sverige är piratkopierad. Det utan att ha pratat med ett enda svenskt
7323 företag. &quot;Man bör nog kanske inte se de här siffrorna som helt
7324 exakta&quot;, säger BSAs Sverigechef John Hugosson.
7325 &lt;/blockquote&gt;
7326
7327 &lt;p&gt;Mon tro om de er like metodiske når de gjetter på andelen piratkopiering i Norge? To andre kommentarer er &lt;a
7328 href=&quot;http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/comment/2242134/bsa-piracy-figures-shot-reality&quot;&gt;BSA
7329 piracy figures need a shot of reality&lt;/a&gt; og &lt;a
7330 href=&quot;http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/3958/125/&quot;&gt;Does The WIPO
7331 Copyright Treaty Work?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
7332
7333 &lt;p&gt;Fant lenkene via &lt;a
7334 href=&quot;http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/05/17/1632242&quot;&gt;oppslag
7335 på Slashdot&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
7336 </description>
7337 </item>
7338
7339 <item>
7340 <title>IDG mener linux i servermarkedet vil vokse med 21% i 2009</title>
7341 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/IDG_mener_linux_i_servermarkedet_vil_vokse_med_21__i_2009.html</link>
7342 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/IDG_mener_linux_i_servermarkedet_vil_vokse_med_21__i_2009.html</guid>
7343 <pubDate>Thu, 7 May 2009 22:30:00 +0200</pubDate>
7344 <description>&lt;p&gt;Kom over
7345 &lt;a href=&quot;http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10216873-16.html&quot;&gt;interessante
7346 tall&lt;/a&gt; fra IDG om utviklingen av linuxservermarkedet. Fikk meg til
7347 å tenke på antall tjenermaskiner ved Universitetet i Oslo der jeg
7348 jobber til daglig. En rask opptelling forteller meg at vi har 490
7349 (61%) fysiske unix-tjener (mest linux men også noen solaris) og 196
7350 (25%) windowstjenere, samt 112 (14%) virtuelle unix-tjenere. Med den
7351 bakgrunnskunnskapen kan jeg godt tro at IDG er inne på noe.&lt;/p&gt;
7352 </description>
7353 </item>
7354
7355 <item>
7356 <title>Kryptert harddisk - naturligvis</title>
7357 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Kryptert_harddisk___naturligvis.html</link>
7358 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Kryptert_harddisk___naturligvis.html</guid>
7359 <pubDate>Sat, 2 May 2009 15:30:00 +0200</pubDate>
7360 <description>&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.dagensit.no/trender/article1658676.ece&quot;&gt;Dagens
7361 IT melder&lt;/a&gt; at Intel hevder at det er dyrt å miste en datamaskin,
7362 når en tar tap av arbeidstid, fortrolige dokumenter,
7363 personopplysninger og alt annet det innebærer. Det er ingen tvil om
7364 at det er en kostbar affære å miste sin datamaskin, og det er årsaken
7365 til at jeg har kryptert harddisken på både kontormaskinen og min
7366 bærbare. Begge inneholder personopplysninger jeg ikke ønsker skal
7367 komme på avveie, den første informasjon relatert til jobben min ved
7368 Universitetet i Oslo, og den andre relatert til blant annet
7369 foreningsarbeide. Kryptering av diskene gjør at det er lite
7370 sannsynlig at dophoder som kan finne på å rappe maskinene får noe ut
7371 av dem. Maskinene låses automatisk etter noen minutter uten bruk,
7372 og en reboot vil gjøre at de ber om passord før de vil starte opp.
7373 Jeg bruker Debian på begge maskinene, og installasjonssystemet der
7374 gjør det trivielt å sette opp krypterte disker. Jeg har LVM på toppen
7375 av krypterte partisjoner, slik at alt av datapartisjoner er kryptert.
7376 Jeg anbefaler alle å kryptere diskene på sine bærbare. Kostnaden når
7377 det er gjort slik jeg gjør det er minimale, og gevinstene er
7378 betydelige. En bør dog passe på passordet. Hvis det går tapt, må
7379 maskinen reinstalleres og alt er tapt.&lt;/p&gt;
7380
7381 &lt;p&gt;Krypteringen vil ikke stoppe kompetente angripere som f.eks. kjøler
7382 ned minnebrikkene før maskinen rebootes med programvare for å hente ut
7383 krypteringsnøklene. Kostnaden med å forsvare seg mot slike angripere
7384 er for min del høyere enn gevinsten. Jeg tror oddsene for at
7385 f.eks. etteretningsorganisasjoner har glede av å titte på mine
7386 maskiner er minimale, og ulempene jeg ville oppnå ved å forsøke å
7387 gjøre det vanskeligere for angripere med kompetanse og ressurser er
7388 betydelige.&lt;/p&gt;
7389 </description>
7390 </item>
7391
7392 <item>
7393 <title>Two projects that have improved the quality of free software a lot</title>
7394 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Two_projects_that_have_improved_the_quality_of_free_software_a_lot.html</link>
7395 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Two_projects_that_have_improved_the_quality_of_free_software_a_lot.html</guid>
7396 <pubDate>Sat, 2 May 2009 15:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
7397 <description>&lt;p&gt;There are two software projects that have had huge influence on the
7398 quality of free software, and I wanted to mention both in case someone
7399 do not yet know them.&lt;/p&gt;
7400
7401 &lt;p&gt;The first one is &lt;a href=&quot;http://valgrind.org/&quot;&gt;valgrind&lt;/a&gt;, a
7402 tool to detect and expose errors in the memory handling of programs.
7403 It is easy to use, all one need to do is to run &#39;valgrind program&#39;,
7404 and it will report any problems on stdout. It is even better if the
7405 program include debug information. With debug information, it is able
7406 to report the source file name and line number where the problem
7407 occurs. It can report things like &#39;reading past memory block in file
7408 X line N, the memory block was allocated in file Y, line M&#39;, and
7409 &#39;using uninitialised value in control logic&#39;. This tool has made it
7410 trivial to investigate reproducible crash bugs in programs, and have
7411 reduced the number of this kind of bugs in free software a lot.
7412
7413 &lt;p&gt;The second one is
7414 &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coverity&quot;&gt;Coverity&lt;/a&gt; which is
7415 a source code checker. It is able to process the source of a program
7416 and find problems in the logic without running the program. It
7417 started out as the Stanford Checker and became well known when it was
7418 used to find bugs in the Linux kernel. It is now a commercial tool
7419 and the company behind it is running
7420 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.scan.coverity.com/&quot;&gt;a community service&lt;/a&gt; for the
7421 free software community, where a lot of free software projects get
7422 their source checked for free. Several thousand defects have been
7423 found and fixed so far. It can find errors like &#39;lock L taken in file
7424 X line N is never released if exiting in line M&#39;, or &#39;the code in file
7425 Y lines O to P can never be executed&#39;. The projects included in the
7426 community service project have managed to get rid of a lot of
7427 reliability problems thanks to Coverity.&lt;/p&gt;
7428
7429 &lt;p&gt;I believe tools like this, that are able to automatically find
7430 errors in the source, are vital to improve the quality of software and
7431 make sure we can get rid of the crashing and failing software we are
7432 surrounded by today.&lt;/p&gt;
7433 </description>
7434 </item>
7435
7436 <item>
7437 <title>No patch is not better than a useless patch</title>
7438 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/No_patch_is_not_better_than_a_useless_patch.html</link>
7439 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/No_patch_is_not_better_than_a_useless_patch.html</guid>
7440 <pubDate>Tue, 28 Apr 2009 09:30:00 +0200</pubDate>
7441 <description>&lt;p&gt;Julien Blache
7442 &lt;a href=&quot;http://blog.technologeek.org/2009/04/12/214&quot;&gt;claim that no
7443 patch is better than a useless patch&lt;/a&gt;. I completely disagree, as a
7444 patch allow one to discuss a concrete and proposed solution, and also
7445 prove that the issue at hand is important enough for someone to spent
7446 time on fixing it. No patch do not provide any of these positive
7447 properties.&lt;/p&gt;
7448 </description>
7449 </item>
7450
7451 <item>
7452 <title>Standardize on protocols and formats, not vendors and applications</title>
7453 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Standardize_on_protocols_and_formats__not_vendors_and_applications.html</link>
7454 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Standardize_on_protocols_and_formats__not_vendors_and_applications.html</guid>
7455 <pubDate>Mon, 30 Mar 2009 11:50:00 +0200</pubDate>
7456 <description>&lt;p&gt;Where I work at the University of Oslo, one decision stand out as a
7457 very good one to form a long lived computer infrastructure. It is the
7458 simple one, lost by many in todays computer industry: Standardize on
7459 open network protocols and open exchange/storage formats, not applications.
7460 Applications come and go, while protocols and files tend to stay, and
7461 thus one want to make it easy to change application and vendor, while
7462 avoiding conversion costs and locking users to a specific platform or
7463 application.&lt;/p&gt;
7464
7465 &lt;p&gt;This approach make it possible to replace the client applications
7466 independently of the server applications. One can even allow users to
7467 use several different applications as long as they handle the selected
7468 protocol and format. In the normal case, only one client application
7469 is recommended and users only get help if they choose to use this
7470 application, but those that want to deviate from the easy path are not
7471 blocked from doing so.&lt;/p&gt;
7472
7473 &lt;p&gt;It also allow us to replace the server side without forcing the
7474 users to replace their applications, and thus allow us to select the
7475 best server implementation at any moment, when scale and resouce
7476 requirements change.&lt;/p&gt;
7477
7478 &lt;p&gt;I strongly recommend standardizing - on open network protocols and
7479 open formats, but I would never recommend standardizing on a single
7480 application that do not use open network protocol or open formats.&lt;/p&gt;
7481 </description>
7482 </item>
7483
7484 <item>
7485 <title>Returning from Skolelinux developer gathering</title>
7486 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Returning_from_Skolelinux_developer_gathering.html</link>
7487 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Returning_from_Skolelinux_developer_gathering.html</guid>
7488 <pubDate>Sun, 29 Mar 2009 21:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
7489 <description>&lt;p&gt;I&#39;m sitting on the train going home from this weekends Debian
7490 Edu/Skolelinux development gathering. I got a bit done tuning the
7491 desktop, and looked into the dynamic service location protocol
7492 implementation avahi. It look like it could be useful for us. Almost
7493 30 people participated, and I believe it was a great environment to
7494 get to know the Skolelinux system. Walter Bender, involved in the
7495 development of the Sugar educational platform, presented his stuff and
7496 also helped me improve my OLPC installation. He also showed me that
7497 his Turtle Art application can be used in standalone mode, and we
7498 agreed that I would help getting it packaged for Debian. As a
7499 standalone application it would be great for Debian Edu. We also
7500 tried to get the video conferencing working with two OLPCs, but that
7501 proved to be too hard for us. The application seem to need more work
7502 before it is ready for me. I look forward to getting home and relax
7503 now. :)&lt;/p&gt;
7504 </description>
7505 </item>
7506
7507 <item>
7508 <title>Time for new LDAP schemas replacing RFC 2307?</title>
7509 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html</link>
7510 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html</guid>
7511 <pubDate>Sun, 29 Mar 2009 20:30:00 +0200</pubDate>
7512 <description>&lt;p&gt;The state of standardized LDAP schemas on Linux is far from
7513 optimal. There is RFC 2307 documenting one way to store NIS maps in
7514 LDAP, and a modified version of this normally called RFC 2307bis, with
7515 some modifications to be compatible with Active Directory. The RFC
7516 specification handle the content of a lot of system databases, but do
7517 not handle DNS zones and DHCP configuration.&lt;/p&gt;
7518
7519 &lt;p&gt;In &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.skolelinux.org/&quot;&gt;Debian Edu/Skolelinux&lt;/a&gt;,
7520 we would like to store information about users, SMB clients/hosts,
7521 filegroups, netgroups (users and hosts), DHCP and DNS configuration,
7522 and LTSP configuration in LDAP. These objects have a lot in common,
7523 but with the current LDAP schemas it is not possible to have one
7524 object per entity. For example, one need to have at least three LDAP
7525 objects for a given computer, one with the SMB related stuff, one with
7526 DNS information and another with DHCP information. The schemas
7527 provided for DNS and DHCP are impossible to combine into one LDAP
7528 object. In addition, it is impossible to implement quick queries for
7529 netgroup membership, because of the way NIS triples are implemented.
7530 It just do not scale. I believe it is time for a few RFC
7531 specifications to cleam up this mess.&lt;/p&gt;
7532
7533 &lt;p&gt;I would like to have one LDAP object representing each computer in
7534 the network, and this object can then keep the SMB (ie host key), DHCP
7535 (mac address/name) and DNS (name/IP address) settings in one place.
7536 It need to be efficently stored to make sure it scale well.&lt;/p&gt;
7537
7538 &lt;p&gt;I would also like to have a quick way to map from a user or
7539 computer and to the net group this user or computer is a member.&lt;/p&gt;
7540
7541 &lt;p&gt;Active Directory have done a better job than unix heads like myself
7542 in this regard, and the unix side need to catch up. Time to start a
7543 new IETF work group?&lt;/p&gt;
7544 </description>
7545 </item>
7546
7547 <item>
7548 <title>Endelig er Debian Lenny gitt ut</title>
7549 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Endelig_er_Debian_Lenny_gitt_ut.html</link>
7550 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Endelig_er_Debian_Lenny_gitt_ut.html</guid>
7551 <pubDate>Sun, 15 Feb 2009 11:50:00 +0100</pubDate>
7552 <description>&lt;p&gt;Endelig er &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.debian.org/&quot;&gt;Debian&lt;/a&gt;
7553 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.debian.org/News/2009/20090214&quot;&gt;Lenny&lt;/a&gt; gitt ut.
7554 Et langt steg videre for Debian-prosjektet, og en rekke nye
7555 programpakker blir nå tilgjengelig for de av oss som bruker den
7556 stabile utgaven av Debian. Neste steg er nå å få
7557 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.skolelinux.org/&quot;&gt;Skolelinux&lt;/a&gt; /
7558 &lt;a href=&quot;http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/&quot;&gt;Debian Edu&lt;/a&gt; ferdig
7559 oppdatert for den nye utgaven, slik at en oppdatert versjon kan
7560 slippes løs på skolene. Takk til alle debian-utviklerne som har
7561 gjort dette mulig. Endelig er f.eks. fungerende avhengighetsstyrt
7562 bootsekvens tilgjengelig i stabil utgave, vha pakken
7563 &lt;tt&gt;insserv&lt;/tt&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
7564 </description>
7565 </item>
7566
7567 <item>
7568 <title>Devcamp brought us closer to the Lenny based Debian Edu release</title>
7569 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Devcamp_brought_us_closer_to_the_Lenny_based_Debian_Edu_release.html</link>
7570 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Devcamp_brought_us_closer_to_the_Lenny_based_Debian_Edu_release.html</guid>
7571 <pubDate>Sun, 7 Dec 2008 12:00:00 +0100</pubDate>
7572 <description>&lt;p&gt;This weekend we had a small developer gathering for Debian Edu in
7573 Oslo. Most of Saturday was used for the general assemly for the
7574 member organization, but the rest of the weekend I used to tune the
7575 LTSP installation. LTSP now work out of the box on the 10-network.
7576 Acer Aspire One proved to be a very nice thin client, with both
7577 screen, mouse and keybard in a small box. Was working on getting the
7578 diskless workstation setup configured out of the box, but did not
7579 finish it before the weekend was up.&lt;/p&gt;
7580
7581 &lt;p&gt;Did not find time to look at the 4 VGA cards in one box we got from
7582 the Brazilian group, so that will have to wait for the next
7583 development gathering. Would love to have the Debian Edu installer
7584 automatically detect and configure a multiseat setup when it find one
7585 of these cards.&lt;/p&gt;
7586 </description>
7587 </item>
7588
7589 <item>
7590 <title>The sorry state of multimedia browser plugins in Debian</title>
7591 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_sorry_state_of_multimedia_browser_plugins_in_Debian.html</link>
7592 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_sorry_state_of_multimedia_browser_plugins_in_Debian.html</guid>
7593 <pubDate>Tue, 25 Nov 2008 00:10:00 +0100</pubDate>
7594 <description>&lt;p&gt;Recently I have spent some time evaluating the multimedia browser
7595 plugins available in Debian Lenny, to see which one we should use by
7596 default in Debian Edu. We need an embedded video playing plugin with
7597 control buttons to pause or stop the video, and capable of streaming
7598 all the multimedia content available on the web. The test results and
7599 notes are available on
7600 &lt;a href=&quot;http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia&quot;&gt;the
7601 Debian wiki&lt;/a&gt;. I was surprised how few of the plugins are able to
7602 fill this need. My personal video player favorite, VLC, has a really
7603 bad plugin which fail on a lot of the test pages. A lot of the MIME
7604 types I would expect to work with any free software player (like
7605 video/ogg), just do not work. And simple formats like the
7606 audio/x-mplegurl format (m3u playlists), just isn&#39;t supported by the
7607 totem and vlc plugins. I hope the situation will improve soon. No
7608 wonder sites use the proprietary Adobe flash to play video.&lt;/p&gt;
7609
7610 &lt;p&gt;For Lenny, we seem to end up with the mplayer plugin. It seem to
7611 be the only one fitting our needs. :/&lt;/p&gt;
7612 </description>
7613 </item>
7614
7615 </channel>
7616 </rss>