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4 <title>Petter Reinholdtsen - Entries from May
2016</title>
5 <description>Entries from May
2016</description>
6 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/
</link>
10 <title>Discharge rate estimate in new battery statistics collector for Debian
</title>
11 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Discharge_rate_estimate_in_new_battery_statistics_collector_for_Debian.html
</link>
12 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Discharge_rate_estimate_in_new_battery_statistics_collector_for_Debian.html
</guid>
13 <pubDate>Mon,
23 May
2016 09:
35:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
14 <description><p
>Yesterday I updated the
15 <a href=
"https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats
">battery-stats
16 package in Debian
</a
> with a few patches sent to me by skilled and
17 enterprising users. There were some nice user and visible changes.
18 First of all, both desktop menu entries now work. A design flaw in
19 one of the script made the history graph fail to show up (its PNG was
20 dumped in ~/.xsession-errors) if no controlling TTY was available.
21 The script worked when called from the command line, but not when
22 called from the desktop menu. I changed this to look for a DISPLAY
23 variable or a TTY before deciding where to draw the graph, and now the
24 graph window pop up as expected.
</p
>
26 <p
>The next new feature is a discharge rate estimator in one of the
27 graphs (the one showing the last few hours). New is also the user of
28 colours showing charging in blue and discharge in red. The percentages
29 of this graph is relative to last full charge, not battery design
32 <p align=
"center
"><img src=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/
2016-
05-
23-battery-stats-rate.png
"/
></p
>
34 <p
>The other graph show the entire history of the collected battery
35 statistics, comparing it to the design capacity of the battery to
36 visualise how the battery life time get shorter over time. The red
37 line in this graph is what the previous graph considers
100 percent:
39 <p align=
"center
"><img src=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/
2016-
05-
23-battery-stats-history.png
"/
></p
>
41 <p
>In this graph you can see that I only charge the battery to
80
42 percent of last full capacity, and how the capacity of the battery is
43 shrinking. :(
</p
>
45 <p
>The last new feature is in the collector, which now will handle
46 more hardware models. On some hardware, Linux power supply
47 information is stored in /sys/class/power_supply/ACAD/, while the
48 collector previously only looked in /sys/class/power_supply/AC/. Now
49 both are checked to figure if there is power connected to the
52 <p
>If you are interested in how your laptop battery is doing, please
54 <a href=
"https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats
">battery-stats
</a
>
55 in Debian unstable, or rebuild it on Jessie to get it working on
56 Debian stable. :) The upstream source is available from
<a
57 href=
"https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/battery-stats
">github
</a
>.
58 Patches are very welcome.
</p
>
60 <p
>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
61 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
62 <b
><a href=
"bitcoin:
15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
</a
></b
>.
</p
>
67 <title>French edition of Lawrence Lessigs book Cultura Libre on Amazon and Barnes
& Noble
</title>
68 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/French_edition_of_Lawrence_Lessigs_book_Cultura_Libre_on_Amazon_and_Barnes___Noble.html
</link>
69 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/French_edition_of_Lawrence_Lessigs_book_Cultura_Libre_on_Amazon_and_Barnes___Noble.html
</guid>
70 <pubDate>Sat,
21 May
2016 10:
50:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
71 <description><p
>A few weeks ago the French paperback edition of Lawrence Lessigs
72 2004 book Cultura Libre was published. Today I noticed that the book
73 is now available from book stores. You can now buy it from
74 <a href=
"http://www.amazon.com/Culture-Libre-French-Lawrence-Lessig/dp/
8269018260">Amazon
</a
>
76 <a href=
"http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/culture-libre-lawrence-lessig/
1123776705">Barnes
77 & Noble
</a
> ($?) and as always from
78 <a href=
"http://www.lulu.com/shop/lawrence-lessig/culture-libre/paperback/product-
22645082.html
">Lulu.com
</a
>
79 ($
19.99). The revenue is donated to the Creative Commons project. If
80 you buy from Lulu.com, they currently get $
10.59, while if you buy
81 from one of the book stores most of the revenue go to the book store
82 and the Creative Commons project get much (not sure how much
85 <p
>I was a bit surprised to discover that there is a kindle edition
86 sold by Amazon Digital Services LLC on Amazon. Not quite sure how
87 that edition was created, but if you want to download a electronic
88 edition (PDF, EPUB, Mobi) generated from the same files used to create
89 the paperback edition, they are
90 <a href=
"https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig
">available
91 from github
</a
>.
</p
>
96 <title>I want the courts to be involved before the police can hijack a news site DNS domain (#domstolkontroll)
</title>
97 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/I_want_the_courts_to_be_involved_before_the_police_can_hijack_a_news_site_DNS_domain___domstolkontroll_.html
</link>
98 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/I_want_the_courts_to_be_involved_before_the_police_can_hijack_a_news_site_DNS_domain___domstolkontroll_.html
</guid>
99 <pubDate>Thu,
19 May
2016 14:
00:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
100 <description><p
>I just donated to the
101 <a href=
"http://www.nuug.no/dns-beslag-donasjon.shtml
">NUUG defence
102 "fond
"</a
> to fund the effort in Norway to get the seizure of the news
103 site popcorn-time.no tested in court. I hope everyone that agree with
104 me will do the same.
</p
>
106 <p
>Would you be worried if you knew the police in your country could
107 hijack DNS domains of news sites covering free software system without
108 talking to a judge first? I am. What if the free software system
109 combined search engine lookups, bittorrent downloads and video playout
110 and was called Popcorn Time? Would that affect your view? It still
111 make me worried.
</p
>
113 <p
>In March
2016, the Norwegian police seized (as in forced NORID to
114 change the IP address pointed to by it to one controlled by the
115 police) the DNS domain popcorn-time.no, without any supervision from
116 the courts. I did not know about the web site back then, and assumed
117 the courts had been involved, and was very surprised when I discovered
118 that the police had hijacked the DNS domain without asking a judge for
119 permission first. I was even more surprised when I had a look at
120 <a href=
"https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://popcorn-time.no
">the web
121 site content on the Internet Archive
</A
>, and only found news coverage
122 about Popcorn Time, not any material published without the right
123 holders permissions.
</p
>
125 <p
>The seizure was widely covered in the Norwegian press (see for
126 example
<a href=
"http://www.hegnar.no/Nyheter/Naeringsliv/
2016/
03/Popcorn-time.no-beslaglagt-av-OEkokrim
">Hegnar Online
</a
> and
127 <a href=
"http://itavisen.no/
2016/
03/
08/okokrim-har-beslaglagt-popcorn-time-no/
">ITavisen
<a/
>
129 <a href=
"http://www.nrk.no/kultur/okokrim-gar-til-aksjon-mot-popcorn-time-
1.12842452">NRK
</a
>),
130 at first due to the press release sent out by Økokrim, but then based
132 <a href=
"http://blogg.torvund.net/
2016/
03/
09/okokrims-beslag-i-domenet-popcorn-time-no/
">protests
133 from the law professor Olav Torvund
</a
> and
134 <a href=
"http://www.klassekampen.no/article/
20160311/ARTICLE/
160319995">lawyer
135 Jon Wessel-Aas
</a
>. It even got some
136 <a href=
"https://torrentfreak.com/norwegian-authorities-sued-over-popcorn-time-domain-seizure-
160418/
">coverage
137 on TorrentFreak
</a
>.
</p
>
140 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/NUUG_contests_Norwegian_police_DNS_seizure_of_popcorn_time_no.html
">
141 wrote about the case a month ago
</a
>, when the
142 <a href=
"http://www.nuug.no/
">Norwegian Unix User Group
</a
> (NUUG),
143 where I am an active member, decided to ask the courts to test this seizure.
144 The request was denied, but NUUG and its co-requestor EFN have not
145 given up, and now they are rallying for support to get the seizure
146 legally challenged. They accept both bank and Bitcoin transfer for
147 those that want to support the request.
</p
>
149 <p
>If you as me believe news sites about free software should not be
150 censored, even if the free software have both legal and illegal
151 applications, and that DNS hijacking should be tested by the courts, I
152 suggest you
<a href=
"http://www.nuug.no/dns-beslag-donasjon.shtml
">show
153 your support by donating to NUUG
</a
>.
</a
>
158 <title>Debian now with ZFS on Linux included
</title>
159 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_now_with_ZFS_on_Linux_included.html
</link>
160 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_now_with_ZFS_on_Linux_included.html
</guid>
161 <pubDate>Thu,
12 May
2016 07:
30:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
162 <description><p
>Today, after many years of hard work from many people,
163 <a href=
"http://zfsonlinux.org/
">ZFS for Linux
</a
> finally entered
164 Debian. The package status can be seen on
165 <a href=
"https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/zfs-linux
">the package tracker
166 for zfs-linux
</a
>. and
167 <a href=
"https://qa.debian.org/developer.php?login=pkg-zfsonlinux-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org
">the
168 team status page
</a
>. If you want to help out, please join us.
169 <a href=
"http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=pkg-zfsonlinux/zfs.git
">The
170 source code
</a
> is available via git on Alioth. It would also be
171 great if you could help out with
172 <a href=
"https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/dkms
">the dkms package
</a
>, as
173 it is an important piece of the puzzle to get ZFS working.
</p
>
178 <title>What is the best multimedia player in Debian?
</title>
179 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_the_best_multimedia_player_in_Debian_.html
</link>
180 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_the_best_multimedia_player_in_Debian_.html
</guid>
181 <pubDate>Sun,
8 May
2016 09:
40:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
182 <description><p
><strong
>Where I set out to figure out which multimedia player in
183 Debian claim support for most file formats.
</strong
></p
>
185 <p
>A few years ago, I had a look at the media support for Browser
186 plugins in Debian, to get an idea which plugins to include in Debian
187 Edu. I created a script to extract the set of supported MIME types
188 for each plugin, and used this to find out which multimedia browser
189 plugin supported most file formats / media types.
190 <a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia
">The
191 result
</a
> can still be seen on the Debian wiki, even though it have
192 not been updated for a while. But browser plugins are less relevant
193 these days, so I thought it was time to look at standalone
196 <p
>A few days ago I was tired of VLC not being listed as a viable
197 player when I wanted to play videos from the Norwegian National
198 Broadcasting Company, and decided to investigate why. The cause is a
199 <a href=
"https://bugs.debian.org/
822245">missing MIME type in the VLC
200 desktop file
</a
>. In the process I wrote a script to compare the set
201 of MIME types announced in the desktop file and the browser plugin,
202 only to discover that there is quite a large difference between the
203 two for VLC. This discovery made me dig up the script I used to
204 compare browser plugins, and adjust it to compare desktop files
205 instead, to try to figure out which multimedia player in Debian
206 support most file formats.
</p
>
208 <p
>The result can be seen on the Debian Wiki, as
209 <a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/DebianMultimedia/PlayerSupport
">a
210 table listing all MIME types supported by one of the packages included
211 in the table
</a
>, with the package supporting most MIME types being
212 listed first in the table.
</p
>
214 </p
>The best multimedia player in Debian? It is totem, followed by
215 parole, kplayer, mpv, vlc, smplayer mplayer-gui gnome-mpv and
216 kmplayer. Time for the other players to update their announced MIME
222 <title>The Pyra - handheld computer with Debian preinstalled
</title>
223 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Pyra___handheld_computer_with_Debian_preinstalled.html
</link>
224 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Pyra___handheld_computer_with_Debian_preinstalled.html
</guid>
225 <pubDate>Wed,
4 May
2016 10:
00:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
226 <description>A friend of mine made me aware of
227 <a href=
"https://pyra-handheld.com/boards/pages/pyra/
">The Pyra
</a
>, a
228 handheld computer which will be delivered with Debian preinstalled. I
229 would love to get one of those for my birthday. :)
</p
>
231 <p
>The machine is a complete ARM-based PC with micro HDMI, SATA, USB
232 plugs and many others connectors, and include a full keyboard and a
5"
233 LCD touch screen. The
6000mAh battery is claimed to provide a whole
234 day of battery life time, but I have not seen any independent tests
235 confirming this. The vendor is still collecting preorders, and the
236 last I heard last night was that
22 more orders were needed before
237 production started.
</p
>
239 <p
>As far as I know, this is the first handheld preinstalled with
240 Debian. Please let me know if you know of any others. Is it the
241 first computer being sold with Debian preinstalled?
</p
>