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  13  <h1>
  14      <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/">Petter Reinholdtsen</a>
  15
  16  </h1>
  17
  18 </div>
  19
  20
  21     <h3>Entries tagged "debian".</h3>
  22
  23     <div class="entry">
  24       <div class="title">
  25         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Freedombox_on_Dreamplug__Raspberry_Pi_and_virtual_x86_machine.html">Freedombox on Dreamplug, Raspberry Pi and virtual x86 machine</a>
  26       </div>
  27       <div class="date">
  28         14th March 2014
  29       </div>
  30       <div class="body">
  31         <p>The <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">Freedombox
  32 project</a> is working on providing the software and hardware for
  33 making it easy for non-technical people to host their data and
  34 communication at home, and being able to communicate with their
  35 friends and family encrypted and away from prying eyes.  It has been
  36 going on for a while, and is slowly progressing towards a new test
  37 release (0.2).</p>
  38
  39 <p>And what day could be better than the Pi day to announce that the
  40 new version will provide "hard drive" / SD card / USB stick images for
  41 Dreamplug, Raspberry Pi and VirtualBox (or any other virtualization
  42 system), and can also be installed using a Debian installer preseed
  43 file.  The Debian based Freedombox is now based on Debian Jessie,
  44 where most of the needed packages used are already present.  Only one,
  45 the freedombox-setup package, is missing.  To try to build your own
  46 boot image to test the current status, fetch the freedom-maker scripts
  47 and build using
  48 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/vmdebootstrap">vmdebootstrap</a>
  49 with a user with sudo access to become root:
  50
  51 <pre>
  52 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/freedombox/freedom-maker.git \
  53   freedom-maker
  54 sudo apt-get install git vmdebootstrap mercurial python-docutils \
  55   mktorrent extlinux virtualbox qemu-user-static binfmt-support \
  56   u-boot-tools
  57 make -C freedom-maker dreamplug-image raspberry-image virtualbox-image
  58 </pre>
  59
  60 <p>Root access is needed to run debootstrap and mount loopback
  61 devices.  See the README for more details on the build. If you do not
  62 want all three images, trim the make line.  But note that thanks to <a
  63 href="https://bugs.debian.org/741407">a race condition in
  64 vmdebootstrap</a>, the build might fail without the patch to the
  65 kpartx call.</p>
  66
  67 <p>If you instead want to install using a Debian CD and the preseed
  68 method, boot a Debian Wheezy ISO and use this boot argument to load
  69 the preseed values:</p>
  70
  71 <pre>
  72 url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat</a>
  73 </pre>
  74
  75 <p>But note that due to <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/740673">a
  76 recently introduced bug in apt in Jessie</a>, the installer will
  77 currently hang while setting up APT sources.  Killing the
  78 '<tt>apt-cdrom ident</tt>' process when it hang a few times during the
  79 installation will get the installation going.  This affect all
  80 installations in Jessie, and I expect it will be fixed soon.</p>
  81
  82 Give it a go and let us know how it goes on the mailing list, and help
  83 us get the new release published. :) Please join us on
  84 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC (#freedombox on
  85 irc.debian.org)</a> and
  86 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
  87 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
  88
  89       </div>
  90       <div class="tags">
  91
  92
  93         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
  94
  95
  96       </div>
  97     </div>
  98     <div class="padding"></div>
  99
 100     <div class="entry">
 101       <div class="title">
 102         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_home_and_release_1_0_for_netgroup_and_innetgr__aka_ng_utils_.html">New home and release 1.0 for netgroup and innetgr (aka ng-utils)</a>
 103       </div>
 104       <div class="date">
 105         22nd February 2014
 106       </div>
 107       <div class="body">
 108         <p>Many years ago, I wrote a GPL licensed version of the netgroup and
 109 innetgr tools, because I needed them in
 110 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a>.  I called the project
 111 ng-utils, and it has served me well.  I placed the project under the
 112 <a href="http://www.hungry.com/">Hungry Programmer</a> umbrella, and it was maintained in our CVS
 113 repository.  But many years ago, the CVS repository was dropped (lost,
 114 not migrated to new hardware, not sure), and the project have lacked a
 115 proper home since then.</p>
 116
 117 <p>Last summer, I had a look at the package and made a new release
 118 fixing a irritating crash bug, but was unable to store the changes in
 119 a proper source control system.  I applied for a project on
 120 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/">Alioth</a>, but did not have time
 121 to follow up on it.  Until today. :)</p>
 122
 123 <p>After many hours of cleaning and migration, the ng-utils project
 124 now have a new home, and a git repository with the highlight of the
 125 history of the project.  I published all release tarballs and imported
 126 them into the git repository.  As the project is really stable and not
 127 expected to gain new features any time soon, I decided to make a new
 128 release and call it 1.0.  Visit the new project home on
 129 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/ng-utils/">https://alioth.debian.org/projects/ng-utils/</a>
 130 if you want to check it out.  The new version is also uploaded into
 131 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/n/ng-utils.html">Debian Unstable</a>.</p>
 132
 133       </div>
 134       <div class="tags">
 135
 136
 137         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
 138
 139
 140       </div>
 141     </div>
 142     <div class="padding"></div>
 143
 144     <div class="entry">
 145       <div class="title">
 146         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_sysvinit_from_experimental_in_Debian_Hurd.html">Testing sysvinit from experimental in Debian Hurd</a>
 147       </div>
 148       <div class="date">
 149          3rd February 2014
 150       </div>
 151       <div class="body">
 152         <p>A few days ago I decided to try to help the Hurd people to get
 153 their changes into sysvinit, to allow them to use the normal sysvinit
 154 boot system instead of their old one.  This follow up on the
 155 <a href="https://teythoon.cryptobitch.de//categories/gsoc.html">great
 156 Google Summer of Code work</a> done last summer by Justus Winter to
 157 get Debian on Hurd working more like Debian on Linux.  To get started,
 158 I downloaded a prebuilt hard disk image from
 159 <a href="http://ftp.debian-ports.org/debian-cd/hurd-i386/current/debian-hurd.img.tar.gz">http://ftp.debian-ports.org/debian-cd/hurd-i386/current/debian-hurd.img.tar.gz</a>,
 160 and started it using virt-manager.</p>
 161
 162 <p>The first think I had to do after logging in (root without any
 163 password) was to get the network operational.  I followed
 164 <a href="https://www.debian.org/ports/hurd/hurd-install">the
 165 instructions on the Debian GNU/Hurd ports page</a> and ran these
 166 commands as root to get the machine to accept a IP address from the
 167 kvm internal DHCP server:</p>
 168
 169 <p><blockquote><pre>
 170 settrans -fgap /dev/netdde /hurd/netdde
 171 kill $(ps -ef|awk '/[p]finet/ { print $2}')
 172 kill $(ps -ef|awk '/[d]evnode/ { print $2}')
 173 dhclient /dev/eth0
 174 </pre></blockquote></p>
 175
 176 <p>After this, the machine had internet connectivity, and I could
 177 upgrade it and install the sysvinit packages from experimental and
 178 enable it as the default boot system in Hurd.</p>
 179
 180 <p>But before I did that, I set a password on the root user, as ssh is
 181 running on the machine it for ssh login to work a password need to be
 182 set.  Also, note that a bug somewhere in openssh on Hurd block
 183 compression from working.  Remember to turn that off on the client
 184 side.</p>
 185
 186 <p>Run these commands as root to upgrade and test the new sysvinit
 187 stuff:</p>
 188
 189 <p><blockquote><pre>
 190 cat > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/experimental.list &lt;&lt;EOF
 191 deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ experimental main
 192 EOF
 193 apt-get update
 194 apt-get dist-upgrade
 195 apt-get install -t experimental initscripts sysv-rc sysvinit \
 196     sysvinit-core sysvinit-utils
 197 update-alternatives --config runsystem
 198 </pre></blockquote></p>
 199
 200 <p>To reboot after switching boot system, you have to use
 201 <tt>reboot-hurd</tt> instead of just <tt>reboot</tt>, as there is not
 202 yet a sysvinit process able to receive the signals from the normal
 203 'reboot' command.  After switching to sysvinit as the boot system,
 204 upgrading every package and rebooting, the network come up with DHCP
 205 after boot as it should, and the settrans/pkill hack mentioned at the
 206 start is no longer needed.  But for some strange reason, there are no
 207 longer any login prompt in the virtual console, so I logged in using
 208 ssh instead.
 209
 210 <p>Note that there are some race conditions in Hurd making the boot
 211 fail some times.  No idea what the cause is, but hope the Hurd porters
 212 figure it out.  At least Justus said on IRC (#debian-hurd on
 213 irc.debian.org) that they are aware of the problem.  A way to reduce
 214 the impact is to upgrade to the Hurd packages built by Justus by
 215 adding this repository to the machine:</p>
 216
 217 <p><blockquote><pre>
 218 cat > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/hurd-ci.list &lt;&lt;EOF
 219 deb http://darnassus.sceen.net/~teythoon/hurd-ci/ sid main
 220 EOF
 221 </pre></blockquote></p>
 222
 223 <p>At the moment the prebuilt virtual machine get some packages from
 224 http://ftp.debian-ports.org/debian, because some of the packages in
 225 unstable do not yet include the required patches that are lingering in
 226 BTS.  This is the completely list of "unofficial" packages installed:</p>
 227
 228 <p><blockquote><pre>
 229 # aptitude search '?narrow(?version(CURRENT),?origin(Debian Ports))'
 230 i   emacs                   - GNU Emacs editor (metapackage)
 231 i   gdb                     - GNU Debugger
 232 i   hurd-recommended        - Miscellaneous translators
 233 i   isc-dhcp-client         - ISC DHCP client
 234 i   isc-dhcp-common         - common files used by all the isc-dhcp* packages
 235 i   libc-bin                - Embedded GNU C Library: Binaries
 236 i   libc-dev-bin            - Embedded GNU C Library: Development binaries
 237 i   libc0.3                 - Embedded GNU C Library: Shared libraries
 238 i A libc0.3-dbg             - Embedded GNU C Library: detached debugging symbols
 239 i   libc0.3-dev             - Embedded GNU C Library: Development Libraries and Hea
 240 i   multiarch-support       - Transitional package to ensure multiarch compatibilit
 241 i A x11-common              - X Window System (X.Org) infrastructure
 242 i   xorg                    - X.Org X Window System
 243 i A xserver-xorg            - X.Org X server
 244 i A xserver-xorg-input-all  - X.Org X server -- input driver metapackage
 245 #
 246 </pre></blockquote></p>
 247
 248 <p>All in all, testing hurd has been an interesting experience. :)
 249 X.org did not work out of the box and I never took the time to follow
 250 the porters instructions to fix it.  This time I was interested in the
 251 command line stuff.<p>
 252
 253       </div>
 254       <div class="tags">
 255
 256
 257         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
 258
 259
 260       </div>
 261     </div>
 262     <div class="padding"></div>
 263
 264     <div class="entry">
 265       <div class="title">
 266         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_chrpath_release_0_16.html">New chrpath release 0.16</a>
 267       </div>
 268       <div class="date">
 269         14th January 2014
 270       </div>
 271       <div class="body">
 272         <p><a href="http://www.coverity.com/">Coverity</a> is a nice tool to
 273 find problems in C, C++ and Java code using static source code
 274 analysis.  It can detect a lot of different problems, and is very
 275 useful to find memory and locking bugs in the error handling part of
 276 the source.  The company behind it provide
 277 <a href="https://scan.coverity.com/">check of free software projects as
 278 a community service</a>, and many hundred free software projects are
 279 already checked.  A few days ago I decided to have a closer look at
 280 the Coverity system, and discovered that the
 281 <a href="http://www.gnu.org/software/gnash/">gnash</a> and
 282 <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/ipmitool/">ipmitool</a>
 283 projects I am involved with was already registered.  But these are
 284 fairly big, and I would also like to have a small and easy project to
 285 check, and decided to <a href="http://scan.coverity.com/projects/1179">request
 286 checking of the chrpath project</a>.  It was
 287 added to the checker and discovered seven potential defects.  Six of
 288 these were real, mostly resource "leak" when the program detected an
 289 error.  Nothing serious, as the resources would be released a fraction
 290 of a second later when the program exited because of the error, but it
 291 is nice to do it right in case the source of the program some time in
 292 the future end up in a library.  Having fixed all defects and added
 293 <a href="https://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/chrpath-devel">a
 294 mailing list for the chrpath developers</a>, I decided it was time to
 295 publish a new release.  These are the release notes:</p>
 296
 297 <p>New in 0.16 released 2014-01-14:</p>
 298
 299 <ul>
 300
 301   <li>Fixed all minor bugs discovered by Coverity.</li>
 302   <li>Updated config.sub and config.guess from the GNU project.</li>
 303   <li>Mention new project mailing list in the documentation.</li>
 304
 305 </ul>
 306
 307 <p>You can
 308 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/frs/?group_id=31052">download the
 309 new version 0.16 from alioth</a>.  Please let us know via the Alioth
 310 project if something is wrong with the new release.  The test suite
 311 did not discover any old errors, so if you find a new one, please also
 312 include a test suite check.</p>
 313
 314       </div>
 315       <div class="tags">
 316
 317
 318         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/chrpath">chrpath</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
 319
 320
 321       </div>
 322     </div>
 323     <div class="padding"></div>
 324
 325     <div class="entry">
 326       <div class="title">
 327         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_chrpath_release_0_15.html">New chrpath release 0.15</a>
 328       </div>
 329       <div class="date">
 330         24th November 2013
 331       </div>
 332       <div class="body">
 333         <p>After many years break from the package and a vain hope that
 334 development would be continued by someone else, I finally pulled my
 335 acts together this morning and wrapped up a new release of chrpath,
 336 the command line tool to modify the rpath and runpath of already
 337 compiled ELF programs.  The update was triggered by the persistence of
 338 Isha Vishnoi at IBM, which needed a new config.guess file to get
 339 support for the ppc64le architecture (powerpc 64-bit Little Endian) he
 340 is working on.  I checked the
 341 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/chrpath">Debian</a>,
 342 <a href="https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/chrpath">Ubuntu</a> and
 343 <a href="https://admin.fedoraproject.org/pkgdb/acls/name/chrpath">Fedora</a>
 344 packages for interesting patches (failed to find the source from
 345 OpenSUSE and Mandriva packages), and found quite a few nice fixes.
 346 These are the release notes:</p>
 347
 348 <p>New in 0.15 released 2013-11-24:</p>
 349
 350 <ul>
 351
 352   <li>Updated config.sub and config.guess from the GNU project to work
 353    with newer architectures.  Thanks to isha vishnoi for the heads
 354    up.</li>
 355
 356   <li>Updated README with current URLs.</li>
 357
 358   <li>Added byteswap fix found in Ubuntu, credited Jeremy Kerr and
 359    Matthias Klose.</li>
 360
 361   <li>Added missing help for -k|--keepgoing option, using patch by
 362    Petr Machata found in Fedora.</li>
 363
 364   <li>Rewrite removal of RPATH/RUNPATH to make sure the entry in
 365    .dynamic is a NULL terminated string.  Based on patch found in
 366    Fedora credited Axel Thimm and Christian Krause.</li>
 367
 368 </ul>
 369
 370 <p>You can
 371 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/frs/?group_id=31052">download the
 372 new version 0.15 from alioth</a>.  Please let us know via the Alioth
 373 project if something is wrong with the new release.  The test suite
 374 did not discover any old errors, so if you find a new one, please also
 375 include a testsuite check.</p>
 376
 377       </div>
 378       <div class="tags">
 379
 380
 381         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/chrpath">chrpath</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
 382
 383
 384       </div>
 385     </div>
 386     <div class="padding"></div>
 387
 388     <div class="entry">
 389       <div class="title">
 390         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_init_d_boot_script_example_for_rsyslog.html">Debian init.d boot script example for rsyslog</a>
 391       </div>
 392       <div class="date">
 393          2nd November 2013
 394       </div>
 395       <div class="body">
 396         <p>If one of the points of switching to a new init system in Debian is
 397 <a href="http://thomas.goirand.fr/blog/?p=147">to get rid of huge
 398 init.d scripts</a>, I doubt we need to switch away from sysvinit and
 399 init.d scripts at all.  Here is an example init.d script, ie a rewrite
 400 of /etc/init.d/rsyslog:</p>
 401
 402 <p><pre>
 403 #!/lib/init/init-d-script
 404 ### BEGIN INIT INFO
 405 # Provides:          rsyslog
 406 # Required-Start:    $remote_fs $time
 407 # Required-Stop:     umountnfs $time
 408 # X-Stop-After:      sendsigs
 409 # Default-Start:     2 3 4 5
 410 # Default-Stop:      0 1 6
 411 # Short-Description: enhanced syslogd
 412 # Description:       Rsyslog is an enhanced multi-threaded syslogd.
 413 #                    It is quite compatible to stock sysklogd and can be
 414 #                    used as a drop-in replacement.
 415 ### END INIT INFO
 416 DESC="enhanced syslogd"
 417 DAEMON=/usr/sbin/rsyslogd
 418 </pre></p>
 419
 420 <p>Pretty minimalistic to me... For the record, the original sysv-rc
 421 script was 137 lines, and the above is just 15 lines, most of it meta
 422 info/comments.</p>
 423
 424 <p>How to do this, you ask?  Well, one create a new script
 425 /lib/init/init-d-script looking something like this:
 426
 427 <p><pre>
 428 #!/bin/sh
 429
 430 # Define LSB log_* functions.
 431 # Depend on lsb-base (>= 3.2-14) to ensure that this file is present
 432 # and status_of_proc is working.
 433 . /lib/lsb/init-functions
 434
 435 #
 436 # Function that starts the daemon/service
 437
 438 #
 439 do_start()
 440 {
 441         # Return
 442         #   0 if daemon has been started
 443         #   1 if daemon was already running
 444         #   2 if daemon could not be started
 445         start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $DAEMON --test > /dev/null \
 446                 || return 1
 447         start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $DAEMON -- \
 448                 $DAEMON_ARGS \
 449                 || return 2
 450         # Add code here, if necessary, that waits for the process to be ready
 451         # to handle requests from services started subsequently which depend
 452         # on this one.  As a last resort, sleep for some time.
 453 }
 454
 455 #
 456 # Function that stops the daemon/service
 457 #
 458 do_stop()
 459 {
 460         # Return
 461         #   0 if daemon has been stopped
 462         #   1 if daemon was already stopped
 463         #   2 if daemon could not be stopped
 464         #   other if a failure occurred
 465         start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --retry=TERM/30/KILL/5 --pidfile $PIDFILE --name $NAME
 466         RETVAL="$?"
 467         [ "$RETVAL" = 2 ] && return 2
 468         # Wait for children to finish too if this is a daemon that forks
 469         # and if the daemon is only ever run from this initscript.
 470         # If the above conditions are not satisfied then add some other code
 471         # that waits for the process to drop all resources that could be
 472         # needed by services started subsequently.  A last resort is to
 473         # sleep for some time.
 474         start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --oknodo --retry=0/30/KILL/5 --exec $DAEMON
 475         [ "$?" = 2 ] && return 2
 476         # Many daemons don't delete their pidfiles when they exit.
 477         rm -f $PIDFILE
 478         return "$RETVAL"
 479 }
 480
 481 #
 482 # Function that sends a SIGHUP to the daemon/service
 483 #
 484 do_reload() {
 485         #
 486         # If the daemon can reload its configuration without
 487         # restarting (for example, when it is sent a SIGHUP),
 488         # then implement that here.
 489         #
 490         start-stop-daemon --stop --signal 1 --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --name $NAME
 491         return 0
 492 }
 493
 494 SCRIPTNAME=$1
 495 scriptbasename="$(basename $1)"
 496 echo "SN: $scriptbasename"
 497 if [ "$scriptbasename" != "init-d-library" ] ; then
 498     script="$1"
 499     shift
 500     . $script
 501 else
 502     exit 0
 503 fi
 504
 505 NAME=$(basename $DAEMON)
 506 PIDFILE=/var/run/$NAME.pid
 507
 508 # Exit if the package is not installed
 509 #[ -x "$DAEMON" ] || exit 0
 510
 511 # Read configuration variable file if it is present
 512 [ -r /etc/default/$NAME ] && . /etc/default/$NAME
 513
 514 # Load the VERBOSE setting and other rcS variables
 515 . /lib/init/vars.sh
 516
 517 case "$1" in
 518   start)
 519         [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_daemon_msg "Starting $DESC" "$NAME"
 520         do_start
 521         case "$?" in
 522                 0|1) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 0 ;;
 523                 2) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 1 ;;
 524         esac
 525         ;;
 526   stop)
 527         [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_daemon_msg "Stopping $DESC" "$NAME"
 528         do_stop
 529         case "$?" in
 530                 0|1) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 0 ;;
 531                 2) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 1 ;;
 532         esac
 533         ;;
 534   status)
 535         status_of_proc "$DAEMON" "$NAME" && exit 0 || exit $?
 536         ;;
 537   #reload|force-reload)
 538         #
 539         # If do_reload() is not implemented then leave this commented out
 540         # and leave 'force-reload' as an alias for 'restart'.
 541         #
 542         #log_daemon_msg "Reloading $DESC" "$NAME"
 543         #do_reload
 544         #log_end_msg $?
 545         #;;
 546   restart|force-reload)
 547         #
 548         # If the "reload" option is implemented then remove the
 549         # 'force-reload' alias
 550         #
 551         log_daemon_msg "Restarting $DESC" "$NAME"
 552         do_stop
 553         case "$?" in
 554           0|1)
 555                 do_start
 556                 case "$?" in
 557                         0) log_end_msg 0 ;;
 558                         1) log_end_msg 1 ;; # Old process is still running
 559                         *) log_end_msg 1 ;; # Failed to start
 560                 esac
 561                 ;;
 562           *)
 563                 # Failed to stop
 564                 log_end_msg 1
 565                 ;;
 566         esac
 567         ;;
 568   *)
 569         echo "Usage: $SCRIPTNAME {start|stop|status|restart|force-reload}" >&2
 570         exit 3
 571         ;;
 572 esac
 573
 574 :
 575 </pre></p>
 576
 577 <p>It is based on /etc/init.d/skeleton, and could be improved quite a
 578 lot.  I did not really polish the approach, so it might not always
 579 work out of the box, but you get the idea.  I did not try very hard to
 580 optimize it nor make it more robust either.</p>
 581
 582 <p>A better argument for switching init system in Debian than reducing
 583 the size of init scripts (which is a good thing to do anyway), is to
 584 get boot system that is able to handle the kernel events sensibly and
 585 robustly, and do not depend on the boot to run sequentially.  The boot
 586 and the kernel have not behaved sequentially in years.</p>
 587
 588       </div>
 589       <div class="tags">
 590
 591
 592         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
 593
 594
 595       </div>
 596     </div>
 597     <div class="padding"></div>
 598
 599     <div class="entry">
 600       <div class="title">
 601         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Browser_plugin_for_SPICE__spice_xpi__uploaded_to_Debian.html">Browser plugin for SPICE (spice-xpi) uploaded to Debian</a>
 602       </div>
 603       <div class="date">
 604          1st November 2013
 605       </div>
 606       <div class="body">
 607         <p><a href="http://www.spice-space.org/">The SPICE protocol</a> for
 608 remote display access is the preferred solution with oVirt and RedHat
 609 Enterprise Virtualization, and I was sad to discover the other day
 610 that the browser plugin needed to use these systems seamlessly was
 611 missing in Debian.  The <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/668284">request
 612 for a package</a> was from 2012-04-10 with no progress since
 613 2013-04-01, so I decided to wrap up a package based on the great work
 614 from Cajus Pollmeier and put it in a collab-maint maintained git
 615 repository to get a package I could use.  I would very much like
 616 others to help me maintain the package (or just take over, I do not
 617 mind), but as no-one had volunteered so far, I just uploaded it to
 618 NEW.  I hope it will be available in Debian in a few days.</p>
 619
 620 <p>The source is now available from
 621 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/spice-xpi.git;a=summary">http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/spice-xpi.git;a=summary</a>.</p>
 622
 623       </div>
 624       <div class="tags">
 625
 626
 627         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
 628
 629
 630       </div>
 631     </div>
 632     <div class="padding"></div>
 633
 634     <div class="entry">
 635       <div class="title">
 636         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Teaching_vmdebootstrap_to_create_Raspberry_Pi_SD_card_images.html">Teaching vmdebootstrap to create Raspberry Pi SD card images</a>
 637       </div>
 638       <div class="date">
 639         27th October 2013
 640       </div>
 641       <div class="body">
 642         <p>The
 643 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/v/vmdebootstrap.html">vmdebootstrap</a>
 644 program is a a very nice system to create virtual machine images.  It
 645 create a image file, add a partition table, mount it and run
 646 debootstrap in the mounted directory to create a Debian system on a
 647 stick.  Yesterday, I decided to try to teach it how to make images for
 648 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/RaspberryPi">Raspberry Pi</a>, as part
 649 of a plan to simplify the build system for
 650 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">the FreedomBox
 651 project</a>.  The FreedomBox project already uses vmdebootstrap for
 652 the virtualbox images, but its current build system made multistrap
 653 based system for Dreamplug images, and it is lacking support for
 654 Raspberry Pi.</p>
 655
 656 <p>Armed with the knowledge on how to build "foreign" (aka non-native
 657 architecture) chroots for Raspberry Pi, I dived into the vmdebootstrap
 658 code and adjusted it to be able to build armel images on my amd64
 659 Debian laptop.  I ended up giving vmdebootstrap five new options,
 660 allowing me to replicate the image creation process I use to make
 661 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Raspberry_Pi_based_batman_adv_Mesh_network_node.html">Debian
 662 Jessie based mesh node images for the Raspberry Pi</a>.  First, the
 663 <tt>--foreign /path/to/binfm_handler</tt> option tell vmdebootstrap to
 664 call debootstrap with --foreign and to copy the handler into the
 665 generated chroot before running the second stage.  This allow
 666 vmdebootstrap to create armel images on an amd64 host.  Next I added
 667 two new options <tt>--bootsize size</tt> and <tt>--boottype
 668 fstype</tt> to teach it to create a separate /boot/ partition with the
 669 given file system type, allowing me to create an image with a vfat
 670 partition for the /boot/ stuff.  I also added a <tt>--variant
 671 variant</tt> option to allow me to create smaller images without the
 672 Debian base system packages installed.  Finally, I added an option
 673 <tt>--no-extlinux</tt> to tell vmdebootstrap to not install extlinux
 674 as a boot loader.  It is not needed on the Raspberry Pi and probably
 675 most other non-x86 architectures.  The changes were accepted by the
 676 upstream author of vmdebootstrap yesterday and today, and is now
 677 available from
 678 <a href="http://git.liw.fi/cgi-bin/cgit/cgit.cgi/vmdebootstrap/">the
 679 upstream project page</a>.</p>
 680
 681 <p>To use it to build a Raspberry Pi image using Debian Jessie, first
 682 create a small script (the customize script) to add the non-free
 683 binary blob needed to boot the Raspberry Pi and the APT source
 684 list:</p>
 685
 686 <p><pre>
 687 #!/bin/sh
 688 set -e # Exit on first error
 689 rootdir="$1"
 690 cd "$rootdir"
 691 cat &lt;&lt;EOF > etc/apt/sources.list
 692 deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ jessie main contrib non-free
 693 EOF
 694 # Install non-free binary blob needed to boot Raspberry Pi.  This
 695 # install a kernel somewhere too.
 696 wget https://raw.github.com/Hexxeh/rpi-update/master/rpi-update \
 697     -O $rootdir/usr/bin/rpi-update
 698 chmod a+x $rootdir/usr/bin/rpi-update
 699 mkdir -p $rootdir/lib/modules
 700 touch $rootdir/boot/start.elf
 701 chroot $rootdir rpi-update
 702 </pre></p>
 703
 704 <p>Next, fetch the latest vmdebootstrap script and call it like this
 705 to build the image:</p>
 706
 707 <pre>
 708 sudo ./vmdebootstrap \
 709     --variant minbase \
 710     --arch armel \
 711     --distribution jessie \
 712     --mirror http://http.debian.net/debian \
 713     --image test.img \
 714     --size 600M \
 715     --bootsize 64M \
 716     --boottype vfat \
 717     --log-level debug \
 718     --verbose \
 719     --no-kernel \
 720     --no-extlinux \
 721     --root-password raspberry \
 722     --hostname raspberrypi \
 723     --foreign /usr/bin/qemu-arm-static \
 724     --customize `pwd`/customize \
 725     --package netbase \
 726     --package git-core \
 727     --package binutils \
 728     --package ca-certificates \
 729     --package wget \
 730     --package kmod
 731 </pre></p>
 732
 733 <p>The list of packages being installed are the ones needed by
 734 rpi-update to make the image bootable on the Raspberry Pi, with the
 735 exception of netbase, which is needed by debootstrap to find
 736 /etc/hosts with the minbase variant.  I really wish there was a way to
 737 set up an Raspberry Pi using only packages in the Debian archive, but
 738 that is not possible as far as I know, because it boots from the GPU
 739 using a non-free binary blob.</p>
 740
 741 <p>The build host need debootstrap, kpartx and qemu-user-static and
 742 probably a few others installed.  I have not checked the complete
 743 build dependency list.</p>
 744
 745 <p>The resulting image will not use the hardware floating point unit
 746 on the Raspberry PI, because the armel architecture in Debian is not
 747 optimized for that use.  So the images created will be a bit slower
 748 than <a href="http://www.raspbian.org/">Raspbian</a> based images.</p>
 749
 750       </div>
 751       <div class="tags">
 752
 753
 754         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network</a>.
 755
 756
 757       </div>
 758     </div>
 759     <div class="padding"></div>
 760
 761     <div class="entry">
 762       <div class="title">
 763         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Good_causes__Debian_Outreach_Program_for_Women__EFF_documenting_the_spying_and_Open_access_in_Norway.html">Good causes: Debian Outreach Program for Women, EFF documenting the spying and Open access in Norway</a>
 764       </div>
 765       <div class="date">
 766         15th October 2013
 767       </div>
 768       <div class="body">
 769         <p>The last few days I came across a few good causes that should get
 770 wider attention.  I recommend signing and donating to each one of
 771 these. :)</p>
 772
 773 <p>Via <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2013/18/">Debian
 774 Project News for 2013-10-14</a> I came across the Outreach Program for
 775 Women program which is a Google Summer of Code like initiative to get
 776 more women involved in free software.  One debian sponsor has offered
 777 to match <a href="http://debian.ch/opw2013">any donation done to Debian
 778 earmarked</a> for this initiative.  I donated a few minutes ago, and
 779 hope you will to. :)</p>
 780
 781 <p>And the Electronic Frontier Foundation just announced plans to
 782 create <a href="https://supporters.eff.org/donate/nsa-videos">video
 783 documentaries about the excessive spying</a> on every Internet user that
 784 take place these days, and their need to fund the work.  I've already
 785 donated.  Are you next?</p>
 786
 787 <p>For my Norwegian audience, the organisation Studentenes og
 788 Akademikernes Internasjonale Hjelpefond is collecting signatures for a
 789 statement under the heading
 790 <a href="http://saih.no/Bloggers_United/">Bloggers United for Open
 791 Access</a> for those of us asking for more focus on open access in the
 792 Norwegian government.  So far 499 signatures.  I hope you will sign it
 793 too.</p>
 794
 795       </div>
 796       <div class="tags">
 797
 798
 799         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
 800
 801
 802       </div>
 803     </div>
 804     <div class="padding"></div>
 805
 806     <div class="entry">
 807       <div class="title">
 808         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Videos_about_the_Freedombox_project___for_inspiration_and_learning.html">Videos about the Freedombox project - for inspiration and learning</a>
 809       </div>
 810       <div class="date">
 811         27th September 2013
 812       </div>
 813       <div class="body">
 814         <p>The <a href="http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/">Freedombox
 815 project</a> have been going on for a while, and have presented the
 816 vision, ideas and solution several places.  Here is a little
 817 collection of videos of talks and presentation of the project.</p>
 818
 819 <ul>
 820
 821 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukvUz5taxvA">FreedomBox -
 822 2,5 minute marketing film</a> (Youtube)</li>
 823
 824 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzW25QTVWsE">Eben Moglen
 825 discusses the Freedombox on CBS news 2011</a> (Youtube)</li>
 826
 827 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ae8SZbxfE0g">Eben Moglen -
 828 Freedom in the Cloud - Software Freedom, Privacy and and Security for
 829 Web 2.0 and Cloud computing at ISOC-NY Public Meeting 2010</a>
 830 (Youtube)</li>
 831
 832 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNaIji_3xBE">Fosdem 2011
 833 Keynote by Eben Moglen presenting the Freedombox</a> (Youtube)</li>
 834
 835 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bDDUyJSQ9s">Presentation of
 836 the Freedombox by James Vasile at Elevate in Gratz 2011</a> (Youtube)</li>
 837
 838 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQTmnk27g9s"> Freedombox -
 839 Discovery, Identity, and Trust by Nick Daly at Freedombox Hackfest New
 840 York City in 2012</a> (Youtube)</li>
 841
 842 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkbSB4Ba7Ck">Introduction
 843 to the Freedombox at Freedombox Hackfest New York City in 2012</a>
 844 (Youtube)</li>
 845
 846 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-P2Jaeg0aQ">Freedom, Out
 847 of the Box! by Bdale Garbee at linux.conf.au Ballarat, 2012</a> (Youtube) </li>
 848
 849 <li><a href="https://archive.fosdem.org/2013/schedule/event/freedombox/">Freedombox
 850 1.0 by Eben Moglen and Bdale Garbee at Fosdem 2013</a> (FOSDEM) </li>
 851
 852 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1LpYX2zVYg">What is the
 853 FreedomBox today by Bdale Garbee at Debconf13 in Vaumarcus
 854 2013</a> (Youtube)</li>
 855
 856 </ul>
 857
 858 <p>A larger list is available from
 859 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/TalksAndPresentations">the
 860 Freedombox Wiki</a>.</p>
 861
 862 <p>On other news, I am happy to report that Freedombox based on Debian
 863 Jessie is coming along quite well, and soon both Owncloud and using
 864 Tor should be available for testers of the Freedombox solution. :) In
 865 a few weeks I hope everything needed to test it is included in Debian.
 866 The withsqlite package is already in Debian, and the plinth package is
 867 pending in NEW.  The third and vital part of that puzzle is the
 868 metapackage/setup framework, which is still pending an upload.  Join
 869 us on <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC
 870 (#freedombox on irc.debian.org)</a> and
 871 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
 872 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
 873
 874       </div>
 875       <div class="tags">
 876
 877
 878         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
 879
 880
 881       </div>
 882     </div>
 883     <div class="padding"></div>
 884
 885     <div class="entry">
 886       <div class="title">
 887         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Recipe_to_test_the_Freedombox_project_on_amd64_or_Raspberry_Pi.html">Recipe to test the Freedombox project on amd64 or Raspberry Pi</a>
 888       </div>
 889       <div class="date">
 890         10th September 2013
 891       </div>
 892       <div class="body">
 893         <p>I was introduced to the
 894 <a href="http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/">Freedombox project</a>
 895 in 2010, when Eben Moglen presented his vision about serving the need
 896 of non-technical people to keep their personal information private and
 897 within the legal protection of their own homes.  The idea is to give
 898 people back the power over their network and machines, and return
 899 Internet back to its intended peer-to-peer architecture.  Instead of
 900 depending on a central service, the Freedombox will give everyone
 901 control over their own basic infrastructure.</p>
 902
 903 <p>I've intended to join the effort since then, but other tasks have
 904 taken priority.  But this summers nasty news about the misuse of trust
 905 and privilege exercised by the "western" intelligence gathering
 906 communities increased my eagerness to contribute to a point where I
 907 actually started working on the project a while back.</p>
 908
 909 <p>The <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/freedombox/">initial
 910 Debian initiative</a> based on the vision from Eben Moglen, is to
 911 create a simple and cheap Debian based appliance that anyone can hook
 912 up in their home and get access to secure and private services and
 913 communication.  The initial deployment platform have been the
 914 <a href="http://www.globalscaletechnologies.com/t-dreamplugdetails.aspx">Dreamplug</a>,
 915 which is a piece of hardware I do not own.  So to be able to test what
 916 the current Freedombox setup look like, I had to come up with a way to install
 917 it on some hardware I do have access to.  I have rewritten the
 918 <a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/freedom-maker">freedom-maker</a>
 919 image build framework to use .deb packages instead of only copying
 920 setup into the boot images, and thanks to this rewrite I am able to
 921 set up any machine supported by Debian Wheezy as a Freedombox, using
 922 the previously mentioned deb (and a few support debs for packages
 923 missing in Debian).</p>
 924
 925 <p>The current Freedombox setup consist of a set of bootstrapping
 926 scripts
 927 (<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/freedombox-setup">freedombox-setup</a>),
 928 and a administrative web interface
 929 (<a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/Plinth">plinth</a> + exmachina +
 930 withsqlite), as well as a privacy enhancing proxy based on
 931 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/privoxy">privoxy</a>
 932 (freedombox-privoxy).  There is also a web/javascript based XMPP
 933 client (<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/jwchat">jwchat</a>)
 934 trying (unsuccessfully so far) to talk to the XMPP server
 935 (<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/ejabberd">ejabberd</a>).  The
 936 web interface is pluggable, and the goal is to use it to enable OpenID
 937 services, mesh network connectivity, use of TOR, etc, etc.  Not much of
 938 this is really working yet, see
 939 <a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/freedombox-todos/blob/master/TODO">the
 940 project TODO</a> for links to GIT repositories.  Most of the code is
 941 on github at the moment.  The HTTP proxy is operational out of the
 942 box, and the admin web interface can be used to add/remove plinth
 943 users.  I've not been able to do anything else with it so far, but
 944 know there are several branches spread around github and other places
 945 with lots of half baked features.</p>
 946
 947 <p>Anyway, if you want to have a look at the current state, the
 948 following recipes should work to give you a test machine to poke
 949 at.</p>
 950
 951 <p><strong>Debian Wheezy amd64</strong></p>
 952
 953 <ol>
 954
 955 <li>Fetch normal Debian Wheezy installation ISO.</li>
 956 <li>Boot from it, either as CD or USB stick.</li>
 957 <li><p>Press [tab] on the boot prompt and add this as a boot argument
 958 to the Debian installer:<p>
 959 <pre>url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-wheezy.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-wheezy.dat</a></pre></li>
 960
 961 <li>Answer the few language/region/password questions and pick disk to
 962 install on.</li>
 963
 964 <li>When the installation is finished and the machine have rebooted a
 965 few times, your Freedombox is ready for testing.</li>
 966
 967 </ol>
 968
 969 <p><strong>Raspberry Pi Raspbian</strong></p>
 970
 971 <ol>
 972
 973 <li>Fetch a Raspbian SD card image, create SD card.</li>
 974 <li>Boot from SD card, extend file system to fill the card completely.</li>
 975 <li><p>Log in and add this to /etc/sources.list:</p>
 976 <pre>
 977 deb <a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox</a> wheezy main
 978 </pre></li>
 979 <li><p>Run this as root:</p>
 980 <pre>
 981 wget -O - http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/BE1A583D.asc | \
 982    apt-key add -
 983 apt-get update
 984 apt-get install freedombox-setup
 985 /usr/lib/freedombox/setup
 986 </pre></li>
 987 <li>Reboot into your freshly created Freedombox.</li>
 988
 989 </ol>
 990
 991 <p>You can test it on other architectures too, but because the
 992 freedombox-privoxy package is binary, it will only work as intended on
 993 the architectures where I have had time to build the binary and put it
 994 in my APT repository.  But do not let this stop you.  It is only a
 995 short "<tt>apt-get source -b freedombox-privoxy</tt>" away. :)</p>
 996
 997 <p>Note that by default Freedombox is a DHCP server on the
 998 192.168.1.0/24 subnet, so if this is your subnet be careful and turn
 999 off the DHCP server by running "<tt>update-rc.d isc-dhcp-server
1000 disable</tt>" as root.</p>
1001
1002 <p>Please let me know if this works for you, or if you have any
1003 problems.  We gather on the IRC channel
1004 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">#freedombox</a> on
1005 irc.debian.org and the
1006 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">project
1007 mailing list</a>.</p>
1008
1009 <p>Once you get your freedombox operational, you can visit
1010 <tt>http://your-host-name:8001/</tt> to see the state of the plint
1011 welcome screen (dead end - do not be surprised if you are unable to
1012 get past it), and next visit <tt>http://your-host-name:8001/help/</tt>
1013 to look at the rest of plinth.  The default user is 'admin' and the
1014 default password is 'secret'.</p>
1015
1016       </div>
1017       <div class="tags">
1018
1019
1020         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
1021
1022
1023       </div>
1024     </div>
1025     <div class="padding"></div>
1026
1027     <div class="entry">
1028       <div class="title">
1029         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Intel_180_SSD_disk_with_Lenovo_firmware_can_not_use_Intel_firmware.html">Intel 180 SSD disk with Lenovo firmware can not use Intel firmware</a>
1030       </div>
1031       <div class="date">
1032         18th August 2013
1033       </div>
1034       <div class="body">
1035         <p>Earlier, I reported about
1036 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_fix_a_Thinkpad_X230_with_a_broken_180_GB_SSD_disk.html">my
1037 problems using an Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB disk</a>.  Friday I was
1038 told by IBM that the original disk should be thrown away.  And as
1039 there no longer was a problem if I bricked the firmware, I decided
1040 today to try to install Intel firmware to replace the Lenovo firmware
1041 currently on the disk.</p>
1042
1043 <p>I searched the Intel site for firmware, and found
1044 <a href="https://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&ProdId=3472&DwnldID=18363&ProductFamily=Solid-State+Drives+and+Caching&ProductLine=Intel%c2%ae+High+Performance+Solid-State+Drive&ProductProduct=Intel%c2%ae+SSD+520+Series+(180GB%2c+2.5in+SATA+6Gb%2fs%2c+25nm%2c+MLC)&lang=eng">issdfut_2.0.4.iso</a>
1045 (aka Intel SATA Solid-State Drive Firmware Update Tool) which
1046 according to the site should contain the latest firmware for SSD
1047 disks.  I inserted the broken disk in one of my spare laptops and
1048 booted the ISO from a USB stick.  The disk was recognized, but the
1049 program claimed the newest firmware already were installed and refused
1050 to insert any Intel firmware.  So no change, and the disk is still
1051 unable to handle write load. :( I guess the only way to get them
1052 working would be if Lenovo releases new firmware.  No idea how likely
1053 that is.  Anyway, just blogging about this test for completeness.  I
1054 got a working Samsung disk, and see no point in spending more time on
1055 the broken disks.</p>
1056
1057       </div>
1058       <div class="tags">
1059
1060
1061         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1062
1063
1064       </div>
1065     </div>
1066     <div class="padding"></div>
1067
1068     <div class="entry">
1069       <div class="title">
1070         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_fix_a_Thinkpad_X230_with_a_broken_180_GB_SSD_disk.html">How to fix a Thinkpad X230 with a broken 180 GB SSD disk</a>
1071       </div>
1072       <div class="date">
1073         17th July 2013
1074       </div>
1075       <div class="body">
1076         <p>Today I switched to
1077 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">my
1078 new laptop</a>.  I've previously written about the problems I had with
1079 my new Thinkpad X230, which was delivered with an
1080 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Intel_SSD_520_Series_180_GB_with_Lenovo_firmware_still_lock_up_from_sustained_writes.html">180
1081 GB Intel SSD disk with Lenovo firmware</a> that did not handle
1082 sustained writes.  My hardware supplier have been very forthcoming in
1083 trying to find a solution, and after first trying with another
1084 identical 180 GB disks they decided to send me a 256 GB Samsung SSD
1085 disk instead to fix it once and for all.  The Samsung disk survived
1086 the installation of Debian with encrypted disks (filling the disk with
1087 random data during installation killed the first two), and I thus
1088 decided to trust it with my data.  I have installed it as a Debian Edu
1089 Wheezy roaming workstation hooked up with my Debian Edu Squeeze main
1090 server at home using Kerberos and LDAP, and will use it as my work
1091 station from now on.</p>
1092
1093 <p>As this is a solid state disk with no moving parts, I believe the
1094 Debian Wheezy default installation need to be tuned a bit to increase
1095 performance and increase life time of the disk.  The Linux kernel and
1096 user space applications do not yet adjust automatically to such
1097 environment.  To make it easier for my self, I created a draft Debian
1098 package <tt>ssd-setup</tt> to handle this tuning.  The
1099 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/ssd-setup.git">source
1100 for the ssd-setup package</a> is available from collab-maint, and it
1101 is set up to adjust the setup of the machine by just installing the
1102 package.  If there is any non-SSD disk in the machine, the package
1103 will refuse to install, as I did not try to write any logic to sort
1104 file systems in SSD and non-SSD file systems.</p>
1105
1106 <p>I consider the package a draft, as I am a bit unsure how to best
1107 set up Debian Wheezy with an SSD.  It is adjusted to my use case,
1108 where I set up the machine with one large encrypted partition (in
1109 addition to /boot), put LVM on top of this and set up partitions on
1110 top of this again.  See the README file in the package source for the
1111 references I used to pick the settings.  At the moment these
1112 parameters are tuned:</p>
1113
1114 <ul>
1115
1116 <li>Set up cryptsetup to pass TRIM commands to the physical disk
1117     (adding discard to /etc/crypttab)</li>
1118
1119 <li>Set up LVM to pass on TRIM commands to the underlying device (in
1120     this case a cryptsetup partition) by changing issue_discards from
1121     0 to 1 in /etc/lvm/lvm.conf.</li>
1122
1123 <li>Set relatime as a file system option for ext3 and ext4 file
1124     systems.</li>
1125
1126 <li>Tell swap to use TRIM commands by adding 'discard' to
1127     /etc/fstab.</li>
1128
1129 <li>Change I/O scheduler from cfq to deadline using a udev rule.</li>
1130
1131 <li>Run fstrim on every ext3 and ext4 file system every night (from
1132     cron.daily).</li>
1133
1134 <li>Adjust sysctl values vm.swappiness to 1 and vm.vfs_cache_pressure
1135     to 50 to reduce the kernel eagerness to swap out processes.</li>
1136
1137 </ul>
1138
1139 <p>During installation, I cancelled the part where the installer fill
1140 the disk with random data, as this would kill the SSD performance for
1141 little gain.  My goal with the encrypted file system is to ensure
1142 those stealing my laptop end up with a brick and not a working
1143 computer.  I have no hope in keeping the really resourceful people
1144 from getting the data on the disk (see
1145 <a href="http://xkcd.com/538/">XKCD #538</a> for an explanation why).
1146 Thus I concluded that adding the discard option to crypttab is the
1147 right thing to do.</p>
1148
1149 <p>I considered using the noop I/O scheduler, as several recommended
1150 it for SSD, but others recommended deadline and a benchmark I found
1151 indicated that deadline might be better for interactive use.</p>
1152
1153 <p>I also considered using the 'discard' file system option for ext3
1154 and ext4, but read that it would give a performance hit ever time a
1155 file is removed, and thought it best to that that slowdown once a day
1156 instead of during my work.</p>
1157
1158 <p>My package do not set up tmpfs on /var/run, /var/lock and /tmp, as
1159 this is already done by Debian Edu.</p>
1160
1161 <p>I have not yet started on the user space tuning.  I expect
1162 iceweasel need some tuning, and perhaps other applications too, but
1163 have not yet had time to investigate those parts.</p>
1164
1165 <p>The package should work on Ubuntu too, but I have not yet tested it
1166 there.</p>
1167
1168 <p>As for the answer to the question in the title of this blog post,
1169 as far as I know, the only solution I know about is to replace the
1170 disk.  It might be possible to flash it with Intel firmware instead of
1171 the Lenovo firmware.  But I have not tried and did not want to do so
1172 without approval from Lenovo as I wanted to keep the warranty on the
1173 disk until a solution was found and they wanted the broken disks
1174 back.</p>
1175
1176       </div>
1177       <div class="tags">
1178
1179
1180         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1181
1182
1183       </div>
1184     </div>
1185     <div class="padding"></div>
1186
1187     <div class="entry">
1188       <div class="title">
1189         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Intel_SSD_520_Series_180_GB_with_Lenovo_firmware_still_lock_up_from_sustained_writes.html">Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB with Lenovo firmware still lock up from sustained writes</a>
1190       </div>
1191       <div class="date">
1192         10th July 2013
1193       </div>
1194       <div class="body">
1195         <p>A few days ago, I wrote about
1196 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">the
1197 problems I experienced with my new X230 and its SSD disk</a>, which
1198 was dying during installation because it is unable to cope with
1199 sustained write.  My supplier is in contact with
1200 <a href="http://www.lenovo.com/">Lenovo</a>, and they wanted to send a
1201 replacement disk to try to fix the problem.  They decided to send an
1202 identical model, so my hopes for a permanent fix was slim.</p>
1203
1204 <p>Anyway, today I got the replacement disk and tried to install
1205 Debian Edu Wheezy with encrypted disk on it.  The new disk have the
1206 same firmware version as the original.  This time my hope raised
1207 slightly as the installation progressed, as the original disk used to
1208 die after 4-7% of the disk was written to, while this time it kept
1209 going past 10%, 20%, 40% and even past 50%.  But around 60%, the disk
1210 died again and I was back on square one.  I still do not have a new
1211 laptop with a disk I can trust.  I can not live with a disk that might
1212 lock up when I download a new
1213 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> ISO or
1214 other large files.  I look forward to hearing from my supplier with
1215 the next proposal from Lenovo.</p>
1216
1217 <p>The original disk is marked Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB,
1218 11S0C38722Z1ZNME35X1TR, ISN: CVCV321407HB180EGN, SA: G57560302, FW:
1219 LF1i, 29MAY2013, PBA: G39779-300, LBA 351,651,888, LI P/N: 0C38722,
1220 Pb-free 2LI, LC P/N: 16-200366, WWN: 55CD2E40002756C4, Model:
1221 SSDSC2BW180A3L 2.5" 6Gb/s SATA SSD 180G 5V 1A, ASM P/N 0C38732, FRU
1222 P/N 45N8295, P0C38732.</p>
1223
1224 <p>The replacement disk is marked Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB,
1225 11S0C38722Z1ZNDE34N0L0, ISN: CVCV315306RK180EGN, SA: G57560-302, FW:
1226 LF1i, 22APR2013, PBA: G39779-300, LBA 351,651,888, LI P/N: 0C38722,
1227 Pb-free 2LI, LC P/N: 16-200366, WWN: 55CD2E40000AB69E, Model:
1228 SSDSC2BW180A3L 2.5" 6Gb/s SATA SSD 180G 5V 1A, ASM P/N 0C38732, FRU
1229 P/N 45N8295, P0C38732.</p>
1230
1231 <p>The only difference is in the first number (serial number?), ISN,
1232 SA, date and WNPP values.  Mentioning all the details here in case
1233 someone is able to use the information to find a way to identify the
1234 failing disk among working ones (if any such working disk actually
1235 exist).</p>
1236
1237       </div>
1238       <div class="tags">
1239
1240
1241         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1242
1243
1244       </div>
1245     </div>
1246     <div class="padding"></div>
1247
1248     <div class="entry">
1249       <div class="title">
1250         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/July_13th__Debian_Ubuntu_BSP_and_Skolelinux_Debian_Edu_developer_gathering_in_Oslo.html">July 13th: Debian/Ubuntu BSP and Skolelinux/Debian Edu developer gathering in Oslo</a>
1251       </div>
1252       <div class="date">
1253          9th July 2013
1254       </div>
1255       <div class="body">
1256         <p>The upcoming Saturday, 2013-07-13, we are organising a combined
1257 Debian Edu developer gathering and Debian and Ubuntu bug squashing
1258 party in Oslo.  It is organised by <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">the
1259 member assosiation NUUG</a> and
1260 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">the Debian Edu / Skolelinux
1261 project</a> together with <a href="http://bitraf.no/">the hack space
1262 Bitraf</a>.</p>
1263
1264 <p>It starts 10:00 and continue until late evening.  Everyone is
1265 welcome, and there is no fee to participate.  There is on the other
1266 hand limited space, and only room for 30 people.  Please put your name
1267 on <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/BSP/2013/07/13/no/Oslo">the event
1268 wiki page</a> if you plan to join us.</p>
1269
1270       </div>
1271       <div class="tags">
1272
1273
1274         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
1275
1276
1277       </div>
1278     </div>
1279     <div class="padding"></div>
1280
1281     <div class="entry">
1282       <div class="title">
1283         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">The Thinkpad is dead, long live the Thinkpad X230?</a>
1284       </div>
1285       <div class="date">
1286          5th July 2013
1287       </div>
1288       <div class="body">
1289         <p>Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a
1290 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thank_you_Thinkpad_X41__for_your_long_and_trustworthy_service.html">replacement
1291 for my trusty old Thinkpad X41</a>.  Unfortunately I did not have much
1292 time to spend on it, and it took a while to find a model I believe
1293 will do the job, but two days ago the replacement finally arrived.  I
1294 ended up picking a
1295 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_x230">Thinkpad X230</a>
1296 with SSD disk (NZDAJMN).  I first test installed Debian Edu Wheezy as
1297 a roaming workstation, and it seemed to work flawlessly.  But my
1298 second installation with encrypted disk was not as successful.  More
1299 on that below.</p>
1300
1301 <p>I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most
1302 important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never
1303 listed in the feature list.  But I did get good help from the search
1304 feature at <a href="http://www.prisjakt.no/">Prisjakt</a>, which
1305 allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other
1306 requirements.  A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks according
1307 to that search interface, so I had to drop specifying the number of
1308 disks from my search parameters.  I also asked around among friends to
1309 get their impression on keyboards and robustness.</p>
1310
1311 <p>So the new laptop arrived, and it is quite a lot wider than the
1312 X41.  I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is
1313 significantly wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my
1314 hand a lot more to reach the edges.  But the key response is fairly
1315 good and the individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope
1316 I will get used to it.  My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really
1317 needed a new laptop now. :)</p>
1318
1319 <p>Turning off the touch pad was simple.  All it took was a quick
1320 visit to the BIOS during boot it disable it.</p>
1321
1322 <p>But there is a fatal problem with the laptop.  The 180 GB SSD disk
1323 lock up during load.  And this happen when installing Debian Wheezy
1324 with encrypted disk, while the disk is being filled with random data.
1325 I also tested to install Ubuntu Raring, and it happen there too if I
1326 reenable the code to fill the disk with random data (it is disabled by
1327 default in Ubuntu).  And the bug with is already known.  It was
1328 reported to Debian as <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/691427">BTS
1329 report #691427 2012-10-25</a> (journal commit I/O error on brand-new
1330 Thinkpad T430s ext4 on lvm on SSD).  It is also reported to the Linux
1331 kernel developers as
1332 <a href="https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=51861">Kernel bugzilla
1333 report #51861 2012-12-20</a> (Intel SSD 520 stops working under load
1334 (SSDSC2BW180A3L in Lenovo ThinkPad T430s)). It is also reported on the
1335 Lenovo forums, both for
1336 <a href="http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/T400-T500-and-newer-T-series/T430s-Intel-SSD-520-180GB-issue/m-p/1070549">T430
1337 2012-11-10</a> and for
1338 <a href="http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/X-Series-ThinkPad-Laptops/x230-SATA-errors-with-180GB-Intel-520-SSD-under-heavy-write-load/m-p/1068147">X230
1339 03-20-2013</a>.  The problem do not only affect installation.  The
1340 reports state that the disk lock up during use if many writes are done
1341 on the disk, so it is much no use to work around the installation
1342 problem and end up with a computer that can lock up at any moment.
1343 There is even a
1344 <a href="https://git.efficios.com/?p=test-ssd.git">small C program
1345 available</a> that will lock up the hard drive after running a few
1346 minutes by writing to a file.</p>
1347
1348 <p>I've contacted my supplier and asked how to handle this, and after
1349 contacting PCHELP Norway (request 01D1FDP) which handle support
1350 requests for Lenovo, his first suggestion was to upgrade the disk
1351 firmware.  Unfortunately there is no newer firmware available from
1352 Lenovo, as my disk already have the most recent one (version LF1i).  I
1353 hope to hear more from him today and hope the problem can be
1354 fixed. :)</p>
1355
1356       </div>
1357       <div class="tags">
1358
1359
1360         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1361
1362
1363       </div>
1364     </div>
1365     <div class="padding"></div>
1366
1367     <div class="entry">
1368       <div class="title">
1369         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230.html">The Thinkpad is dead, long live the Thinkpad X230</a>
1370       </div>
1371       <div class="date">
1372          4th July 2013
1373       </div>
1374       <div class="body">
1375         <p>Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a replacement for my
1376 trusty old Thinkpad X41.  Unfortunately I did not have much time to
1377 spend on it, but today the replacement finally arrived.  I ended up
1378 picking a <a href="http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_x230">Thinkpad
1379 X230</a> with SSD disk (NZDAJMN).  I first test installed Debian Edu
1380 Wheezy as a roaming workstation, and it worked flawlessly.  As I write
1381 this, it is installing what I hope will be a more final installation,
1382 with a encrypted hard drive to ensure any dope head stealing it end up
1383 with an expencive door stop.</p>
1384
1385 <p>I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most
1386 important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never
1387 listed in the feature list.  But I did get good help from the search
1388 feature at <ahref="http://www.prisjakt.no/">Prisjakt</a>, which
1389 allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other
1390 requirements.  A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks, so I had
1391 to drop number of disks from my search parameters.</p>
1392
1393 <p>I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is significantly
1394 wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my hand a lot more
1395 to reach the edges.  But the key response is fairly good and the
1396 individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope I will get
1397 used to it.  My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really needed a
1398 new laptop now. :)</p>
1399
1400 <p>I look forward to figuring out how to turn off the touch pad.</p>
1401
1402       </div>
1403       <div class="tags">
1404
1405
1406         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1407
1408
1409       </div>
1410     </div>
1411     <div class="padding"></div>
1412
1413     <div class="entry">
1414       <div class="title">
1415         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatically_locate_and_install_required_firmware_packages_on_Debian__Isenkram_0_4_.html">Automatically locate and install required firmware packages on Debian (Isenkram 0.4)</a>
1416       </div>
1417       <div class="date">
1418         25th June 2013
1419       </div>
1420       <div class="body">
1421         <p>It annoys me when the computer fail to do automatically what it is
1422 perfectly capable of, and I have to do it manually to get things
1423 working.  One such task is to find out what firmware packages are
1424 needed to get the hardware on my computer working.  Most often this
1425 affect the wifi card, but some times it even affect the RAID
1426 controller or the ethernet card.  Today I pushed version 0.4 of the
1427 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">Isenkram package</a>
1428 including a new script isenkram-autoinstall-firmware handling the
1429 process of asking all the loaded kernel modules what firmware files
1430 they want, find debian packages providing these files and install the
1431 debian packages.  Here is a test run on my laptop:</p>
1432
1433 <p><pre>
1434 # isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
1435 info: kernel drivers requested extra firmware: ipw2200-bss.fw ipw2200-ibss.fw ipw2200-sniffer.fw
1436 info: fetching http://http.debian.net/debian/dists/squeeze/Contents-i386.gz
1437 info: locating packages with the requested firmware files
1438 info: Updating APT sources after adding non-free APT source
1439 info: trying to install firmware-ipw2x00
1440 firmware-ipw2x00
1441 firmware-ipw2x00
1442 Preconfiguring packages ...
1443 Selecting previously deselected package firmware-ipw2x00.
1444 (Reading database ... 259727 files and directories currently installed.)
1445 Unpacking firmware-ipw2x00 (from .../firmware-ipw2x00_0.28+squeeze1_all.deb) ...
1446 Setting up firmware-ipw2x00 (0.28+squeeze1) ...
1447 #
1448 </pre></p>
1449
1450 <p>When all the requested firmware is present, a simple message is
1451 printed instead:</p>
1452
1453 <p><pre>
1454 # isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
1455 info: did not find any firmware files requested by loaded kernel modules.  exiting
1456 #
1457 </pre></p>
1458
1459 <p>It could use some polish, but it is already working well and saving
1460 me some time when setting up new machines. :)</p>
1461
1462 <p>So, how does it work?  It look at the set of currently loaded
1463 kernel modules, and look up each one of them using modinfo, to find
1464 the firmware files listed in the module meta-information.  Next, it
1465 download the Contents file from a nearby APT mirror, and search for
1466 the firmware files in this file to locate the package with the
1467 requested firmware file.  If the package is in the non-free section, a
1468 non-free APT source is added and the package is installed using
1469 <tt>apt-get install</tt>.  The end result is a slightly better working
1470 machine.</p>
1471
1472 <p>I hope someone find time to implement a more polished version of
1473 this script as part of the hw-detect debian-installer module, to
1474 finally fix <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/655507">BTS report
1475 #655507</a>.  There really is no need to insert USB sticks with
1476 firmware during a PXE install when the packages already are available
1477 from the nearby Debian mirror.</p>
1478
1479       </div>
1480       <div class="tags">
1481
1482
1483         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
1484
1485
1486       </div>
1487     </div>
1488     <div class="padding"></div>
1489
1490     <div class="entry">
1491       <div class="title">
1492         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Fixing_the_Linux_black_screen_of_death_on_machines_with_Intel_HD_video.html">Fixing the Linux black screen of death on machines with Intel HD video</a>
1493       </div>
1494       <div class="date">
1495         11th June 2013
1496       </div>
1497       <div class="body">
1498         <p>When installing RedHat, Fedora, Debian and Ubuntu on some machines,
1499 the screen just turn black when Linux boot, either during installation
1500 or on first boot from the hard disk.  I've seen it once in a while the
1501 last few years, but only recently understood the cause.  I've seen it
1502 on HP laptops, and on my latest acquaintance the Packard Bell laptop.
1503 The reason seem to be in the wiring of some laptops.  The system to
1504 control the screen background light is inverted, so when Linux try to
1505 turn the brightness fully on, it end up turning it off instead.  I do
1506 not know which Linux drivers are affected, but this post is about the
1507 i915 driver used by the
1508 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Packard Bell
1509 EasyNote LV</a>, Thinkpad X40 and many other laptops.</p>
1510
1511 <p>The problem can be worked around two ways.  Either by adding
1512 i915.invert_brightness=1 as a kernel option, or by adding a file in
1513 /etc/modprobe.d/ to tell modprobe to add the invert_brightness=1
1514 option when it load the i915 kernel module.  On Debian and Ubuntu, it
1515 can be done by running these commands as root:</p>
1516
1517 <pre>
1518 echo options i915 invert_brightness=1 | tee /etc/modprobe.d/i915.conf
1519 update-initramfs -u -k all
1520 </pre>
1521
1522 <p>Since March 2012 there is
1523 <a href="http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=4dca20efb1a9c2efefc28ad2867e5d6c3f5e1955">a
1524 mechanism in the Linux kernel</a> to tell the i915 driver which
1525 hardware have this problem, and get the driver to invert the
1526 brightness setting automatically.  To use it, one need to add a row in
1527 <a href="http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c">the
1528 intel_quirks array</a> in the driver source
1529 <tt>drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c</tt> (look for "<tt>static
1530 struct intel_quirk intel_quirks</tt>"), specifying the PCI device
1531 number (vendor number 8086 is assumed) and subdevice vendor and device
1532 number.</p>
1533
1534 <p>My Packard Bell EasyNote LV got this output from <tt>lspci
1535 -vvnn</tt> for the video card in question:</p>
1536
1537 <p><pre>
1538 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation \
1539     3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller [8086:0156] \
1540     (rev 09) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
1541  Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device [1025:0688]
1542  Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- \
1543     ParErr- Stepping- SE RR- FastB2B- DisINTx+
1544  Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- \
1545     <TAbort- <MAbort->SERR- <PERR- INTx-
1546  Latency: 0
1547  Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 42
1548  Region 0: Memory at c2000000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4M]
1549  Region 2: Memory at b0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
1550  Region 4: I/O ports at 4000 [size=64]
1551  Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled]
1552  Capabilities: <access denied>
1553  Kernel driver in use: i915
1554 </pre></p>
1555
1556 <p>The resulting intel_quirks entry would then look like this:</p>
1557
1558 <p><pre>
1559 struct intel_quirk intel_quirks[] = {
1560        ...
1561         /* Packard Bell EasyNote LV11HC needs invert brightness quirk */
1562         { 0x0156, 0x1025, 0x0688, quirk_invert_brightness },
1563        ...
1564 }
1565 </pre></p>
1566
1567 <p>According to the kernel module instructions (as seen using
1568 <tt>modinfo i915</tt>), information about hardware needing the
1569 invert_brightness flag should be sent to the
1570 <a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/dri-devel">dri-devel
1571 (at) lists.freedesktop.org</a> mailing list to reach the kernel
1572 developers.  But my email about the laptop sent 2013-06-03 have not
1573 yet shown up in
1574 <a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/dri-devel/2013-June/thread.html">the
1575 web archive for the mailing list</a>, so I suspect they do not accept
1576 emails from non-subscribers.  Because of this, I sent my patch also to
1577 the Debian bug tracking system instead as
1578 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/710938">BTS report #710938</a>, to make
1579 sure the patch is not lost.</p>
1580
1581 <p>Unfortunately, it is not enough to fix the kernel to get Laptops
1582 with this problem working properly with Linux.  If you use Gnome, your
1583 worries should be over at this point.  But if you use KDE, there is
1584 something in KDE ignoring the invert_brightness setting and turning on
1585 the screen during login.  I've reported it to Debian as
1586 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/711237">BTS report #711237</a>, and
1587 have no idea yet how to figure out exactly what subsystem is doing
1588 this.  Perhaps you can help?  Perhaps you know what the Gnome
1589 developers did to handle this, and this can give a clue to the KDE
1590 developers?  Or you know where in KDE the screen brightness is changed
1591 during login?  If so, please update the BTS report (or get in touch if
1592 you do not know how to update BTS).</p>
1593
1594 <p>Update 2013-07-19: The correct fix for this machine seem to be
1595 acpi_backlight=vendor, to disable ACPI backlight support completely,
1596 as the ACPI information on the machine is trash and it is better to
1597 leave it to the intel video driver to control the screen
1598 backlight.</p>
1599
1600       </div>
1601       <div class="tags">
1602
1603
1604         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1605
1606
1607       </div>
1608     </div>
1609     <div class="padding"></div>
1610
1611     <div class="entry">
1612       <div class="title">
1613         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_install_Linux_on_a_Packard_Bell_Easynote_LV_preinstalled_with_Windows_8.html">How to install Linux on a Packard Bell Easynote LV preinstalled with Windows 8</a>
1614       </div>
1615       <div class="date">
1616         27th May 2013
1617       </div>
1618       <div class="body">
1619         <p>Two days ago, I asked
1620 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_can_I_install_Linux_on_a_Packard_Bell_Easynote_LV_preinstalled_with_Windows_8_.html">how
1621 I could install Linux on a Packard Bell EasyNote LV computer
1622 preinstalled with Windows 8</a>.  I found a solution, but am horrified
1623 with the obstacles put in the way of Linux users on a laptop with UEFI
1624 and Windows 8.</p>
1625
1626 <p>I never found out if the cause of my problems were the use of UEFI
1627 secure booting or fast boot.  I suspect fast boot was the problem,
1628 causing the firmware to boot directly from HD without considering any
1629 key presses and alternative devices, but do not know UEFI settings
1630 enough to tell.</p>
1631
1632 <p>There is no way to install Linux on the machine in question without
1633 opening the box and disconnecting the hard drive!  This is as far as I
1634 can tell, the only way to get access to the firmware setup menu
1635 without accepting the Windows 8 license agreement.  I am told (and
1636 found description on how to) that it is possible to configure the
1637 firmware setup once booted into Windows 8.  But as I believe the terms
1638 of that agreement are completely unacceptable, accepting the license
1639 was never an alternative.  I do not enter agreements I do not intend
1640 to follow.</p>
1641
1642 <p>I feared I had to return the laptops and ask for a refund, and
1643 waste many hours on this, but luckily there was a way to get it to
1644 work.  But I would not recommend it to anyone planning to run Linux on
1645 it, and I have become sceptical to Windows 8 certified laptops.  Is
1646 this the way Linux will be forced out of the market place, by making
1647 it close to impossible for "normal" users to install Linux without
1648 accepting the Microsoft Windows license terms?  Or at least not
1649 without risking to loose the warranty?</p>
1650
1651 <p>I've updated the
1652 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Linux Laptop
1653 wiki page for Packard Bell EasyNote LV</a>, to ensure the next person
1654 do not have to struggle as much as I did to get Linux into the
1655 machine.</p>
1656
1657 <p>Thanks to Bob Rosbag, Florian Weimer, Philipp Kern, Ben Hutching,
1658 Michael Tokarev and others for feedback and ideas.</p>
1659
1660       </div>
1661       <div class="tags">
1662
1663
1664         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1665
1666
1667       </div>
1668     </div>
1669     <div class="padding"></div>
1670
1671     <div class="entry">
1672       <div class="title">
1673         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_can_I_install_Linux_on_a_Packard_Bell_Easynote_LV_preinstalled_with_Windows_8_.html">How can I install Linux on a Packard Bell Easynote LV preinstalled with Windows 8?</a>
1674       </div>
1675       <div class="date">
1676         25th May 2013
1677       </div>
1678       <div class="body">
1679         <p>I've run into quite a problem the last few days.  I bought three
1680 new laptops for my parents and a few others.  I bought Packard Bell
1681 Easynote LV to run Kubuntu on and use as their home computer.  But I
1682 am completely unable to figure out how to install Linux on it.  The
1683 computer is preinstalled with Windows 8, and I suspect it uses UEFI
1684 instead of a BIOS to boot.</p>
1685
1686 <p>The problem is that I am unable to get it to PXE boot, and unable
1687 to get it to boot the Linux installer from my USB stick.  I have yet
1688 to try the DVD install, and still hope it will work.  when I turn on
1689 the computer, there is no information on what buttons to press to get
1690 the normal boot menu.  I expect to get some boot menu to select PXE or
1691 USB stick booting.  When booting, it first ask for the language to
1692 use, then for some regional settings, and finally if I will accept the
1693 Windows 8 terms of use.  As these terms are completely unacceptable to
1694 me, I have no other choice but to turn off the computer and try again
1695 to get it to boot the Linux installer.</p>
1696
1697 <p>I have gathered my findings so far on a Linlap page about the
1698 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Packard Bell
1699 EasyNote LV</a> model.  If you have any idea how to get Linux
1700 installed on this machine, please get in touch or update that wiki
1701 page.  If I can't find a way to install Linux, I will have to return
1702 the laptop to the seller and find another machine for my parents.</p>
1703
1704 <p>I wonder, is this the way Linux will be forced out of the market
1705 using UEFI and "secure boot" by making it impossible to install Linux
1706 on new Laptops?</p>
1707
1708       </div>
1709       <div class="tags">
1710
1711
1712         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1713
1714
1715       </div>
1716     </div>
1717     <div class="padding"></div>
1718
1719     <div class="entry">
1720       <div class="title">
1721         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_transform_a_Debian_based_system_to_a_Debian_Edu_installation.html">How to transform a Debian based system to a Debian Edu installation</a>
1722       </div>
1723       <div class="date">
1724         17th May 2013
1725       </div>
1726       <div class="body">
1727         <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> is
1728 an operating system based on Debian intended for use in schools.  It
1729 contain a turn-key solution for the computer network provided to
1730 pupils in the primary schools.  It provide both the central server,
1731 network boot servers and desktop environments with heaps of
1732 educational software.  The project was founded almost 12 years ago,
1733 2001-07-02.  If you want to support the project, which is in need for
1734 cash to fund developer gatherings and other project related activity,
1735 <a href="http://www.linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">please
1736 donate some money</a>.
1737
1738 <p>A topic that come up again and again on the Debian Edu mailing
1739 lists and elsewhere, is the question on how to transform a Debian or
1740 Ubuntu installation into a Debian Edu installation.  It isn't very
1741 hard, and last week I wrote a script to replicate the steps done by
1742 the Debian Edu installer.</p>
1743
1744 <p>The script,
1745 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/branches/wheezy/debian-edu-config/share/debian-edu-config/tools/debian-edu-bless?view=markup">debian-edu-bless<a/>
1746 in the debian-edu-config package, will go through these six steps and
1747 transform an existing Debian Wheezy or Ubuntu (untested) installation
1748 into a Debian Edu Workstation:</p>
1749
1750 <ol>
1751
1752 <li>Add skolelinux related APT sources.</li>
1753 <li>Create /etc/debian-edu/config with the wanted configuration.</li>
1754 <li>Install debian-edu-install to load preseeding values and pull in
1755     our configuration.</li>
1756 <li>Preseed debconf database with profile setup in
1757     /etc/debian-edu/config, and run tasksel to install packages
1758     according to the profile specified in the config above,
1759     overriding some of the Debian automation machinery.</li>
1760 <li>Run debian-edu-cfengine-D installation to configure everything
1761     that could not be done using preseeding.</li>
1762 <li>Ask for a reboot to enable all the configuration changes.</li>
1763
1764 </ol>
1765
1766 <p>There are some steps in the Debian Edu installation that can not be
1767 replicated like this.  Disk partitioning and LVM setup, for example.
1768 So this script just assume there is enough disk space to install all
1769 the needed packages.</p>
1770
1771 <p>The script was created to help a Debian Edu student working on
1772 setting up <a href="http://www.raspberrypi.org">Raspberry Pi</a> as a
1773 Debian Edu client, and using it he can take the existing
1774 <a href="http://www.raspbian.org/FrontPage‎">Raspbian</a> installation and
1775 transform it into a fully functioning Debian Edu Workstation (or
1776 Roaming Workstation, or whatever :).</p>
1777
1778 <p>The default setting in the script is to create a KDE Workstation.
1779 If a LXDE based Roaming workstation is wanted instead, modify the
1780 PROFILE and DESKTOP values at the top to look like this instead:</p>
1781
1782 <p><pre>
1783 PROFILE="Roaming-Workstation"
1784 DESKTOP="lxde"
1785 </pre></p>
1786
1787 <p>The script could even become useful to set up Debian Edu servers in
1788 the cloud, by starting with a virtual Debian installation at some
1789 virtual hosting service and setting up all the services on first
1790 boot.</p>
1791
1792       </div>
1793       <div class="tags">
1794
1795
1796         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1797
1798
1799       </div>
1800     </div>
1801     <div class="padding"></div>
1802
1803     <div class="entry">
1804       <div class="title">
1805         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian__the_Linux_distribution_of_choice_for_LEGO_designers_.html">Debian, the Linux distribution of choice for LEGO designers?</a>
1806       </div>
1807       <div class="date">
1808         11th May 2013
1809       </div>
1810       <div class="body">
1811         <P>In January,
1812 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_IRC_channel_for_LEGO_designers_using_Debian.html">I
1813 announced a</a> new <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">IRC
1814 channel #debian-lego</a>, for those of us in the Debian and Linux
1815 community interested in <a href="http://www.lego.com/">LEGO</a>, the
1816 marvellous construction system from Denmark.  We also created
1817 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">a wiki page</a> to have
1818 a place to take notes and write down our plans and hopes.  And several
1819 people showed up to help.  I was very happy to see the effect of my
1820 call.  Since the small start, we have a debtags tag
1821 <a href="http://debtags.debian.net/search/bytag?wl=hardware::hobby:lego">hardware::hobby:lego</a>
1822 tag for LEGO related packages, and now count 10 packages related to
1823 LEGO and <a href="http://mindstorms.lego.com/">Mindstorms</a>:</p>
1824
1825 <p><table>
1826 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/brickos">brickos</a></td><td>alternative OS for LEGO Mindstorms RCX. Supports development in C/C++</td></tr>
1827 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/leocad">leocad</a></td><td>virtual brick CAD software</td></tr>
1828 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/libnxt">libnxt</a></td><td>utility library for talking to the LEGO Mindstorms NX</td></tr>
1829 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/lnpd">lnpd</a></td><td>daemon for LNP communication with BrickOS</td></tr>
1830 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/nbc">nbc</a></td><td>compiler for LEGO Mindstorms NXT bricks</td></tr>
1831 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/nqc">nqc</a></td><td>Not Quite C compiler for LEGO Mindstorms RCX</td></tr>
1832 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/python-nxt">python-nxt</a></td><td>python driver/interface/wrapper for the Lego Mindstorms NXT robot</td></tr>
1833 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/python-nxt-filer">python-nxt-filer</a></td><td>simple GUI to manage files on a LEGO Mindstorms NXT</td></tr>
1834 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/scratch">scratch</a></td><td>easy to use programming environment for ages 8 and up</td></tr>
1835 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/t2n">t2n</a></td><td>simple command-line tool for Lego NXT</td></tr>
1836 </table></p>
1837
1838 <p>Some of these are available in Wheezy, and all but one are
1839 currently available in Jessie/testing.  leocad is so far only
1840 available in experimental.</p>
1841
1842 <p>If you care about LEGO in Debian, please join us on IRC and help
1843 adding the rest of the great free software tools available on Linux
1844 for LEGO designers.</p>
1845
1846       </div>
1847       <div class="tags">
1848
1849
1850         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot</a>.
1851
1852
1853       </div>
1854     </div>
1855     <div class="padding"></div>
1856
1857     <div class="entry">
1858       <div class="title">
1859         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Wheezy_is_out___and_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_should_soon_follow___newinwheezy.html">Debian Wheezy is out - and Debian Edu / Skolelinux should soon follow! #newinwheezy</a>
1860       </div>
1861       <div class="date">
1862          5th May 2013
1863       </div>
1864       <div class="body">
1865         <p>When I woke up this morning, I was very happy to see that the
1866 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2013/20130504">release announcement
1867 for Debian Wheezy</a> was waiting in my mail box.  This is a great
1868 Debian release, and I expect to move my machines at home over to it fairly
1869 soon.</p>
1870
1871 <p>The new debian release contain heaps of new stuff, and one program
1872 in particular make me very happy to see included.  The
1873 <a href="http://scratch.mit.edu/">Scratch</a> program, made famous by
1874 the <a href="http://www.code.org/">Teach kids code</a> movement, is
1875 included for the first time.  Alongside similar programs like
1876 <a href="http://edu.kde.org/kturtle/">kturtle</a> and
1877 <a href="http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/Turtle_Art">turtleart</a>,
1878 it allow for visual programming where syntax errors can not happen,
1879 and a friendly programming environment for learning to control the
1880 computer.  Scratch will also be included in the next release of Debian
1881 Edu.</a>
1882
1883 <p>And now that Wheezy is wrapped up, we can wrap up the next Debian
1884 Edu/Skolelinux release too.  The
1885 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/2013/04/msg00132.html">first
1886 alpha release</a> went out last week, and the next should soon
1887 follow.<p>
1888
1889       </div>
1890       <div class="tags">
1891
1892
1893         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1894
1895
1896       </div>
1897     </div>
1898     <div class="padding"></div>
1899
1900     <div class="entry">
1901       <div class="title">
1902         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Isenkram_0_2_finally_in_the_Debian_archive.html">Isenkram 0.2 finally in the Debian archive</a>
1903       </div>
1904       <div class="date">
1905          3rd April 2013
1906       </div>
1907       <div class="body">
1908         <p>Today the <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">Isenkram
1909 package</a> finally made it into the archive, after lingering in NEW
1910 for many months.  I uploaded it to the Debian experimental suite
1911 2013-01-27, and today it was accepted into the archive.</p>
1912
1913 <p>Isenkram is a system for suggesting to users what packages to
1914 install to work with a pluggable hardware device.  The suggestion pop
1915 up when the device is plugged in.  For example if a Lego Mindstorm NXT
1916 is inserted, it will suggest to install the program needed to program
1917 the NXT controller.  Give it a go, and report bugs and suggestions to
1918 BTS. :)</p>
1919
1920       </div>
1921       <div class="tags">
1922
1923
1924         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
1925
1926
1927       </div>
1928     </div>
1929     <div class="padding"></div>
1930
1931     <div class="entry">
1932       <div class="title">
1933         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Bitcoin_GUI_now_available_from_Debian_unstable__and_Ubuntu_raring_.html">Bitcoin GUI now available from Debian/unstable (and Ubuntu/raring)</a>
1934       </div>
1935       <div class="date">
1936          2nd February 2013
1937       </div>
1938       <div class="body">
1939         <p>My
1940 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_backport_bitcoin_qt_version_0_7_2_2_to_Debian_Squeeze.html">last
1941 bitcoin related blog post</a> mentioned that the new
1942 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin package</a> for
1943 Debian was waiting in NEW.  It was accepted by the Debian ftp-masters
1944 2013-01-19, and have been available in unstable since then.  It was
1945 automatically copied to Ubuntu, and is available in their Raring
1946 version too.</p>
1947
1948 <p>But there is a strange problem with the build that block this new
1949 version from being available on the i386 and kfreebsd-i386
1950 architectures.  For some strange reason, the autobuilders in Debian
1951 for these architectures fail to run the test suite on these
1952 architectures (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/672524">BTS #672524</a>).
1953 We are so far unable to reproduce it when building it manually, and
1954 no-one have been able to propose a fix.  If you got an idea what is
1955 failing, please let us know via the BTS.</p>
1956
1957 <p>One feature that is annoying me with of the bitcoin client, because
1958 I often run low on disk space, is the fact that the client will exit
1959 if it run short on space (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/696715">BTS
1960 #696715</a>).  So make sure you have enough disk space when you run
1961 it. :)</p>
1962
1963 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1964 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1965 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
1966
1967       </div>
1968       <div class="tags">
1969
1970
1971         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1972
1973
1974       </div>
1975     </div>
1976     <div class="padding"></div>
1977
1978     <div class="entry">
1979       <div class="title">
1980         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">Welcome to the world, Isenkram!</a>
1981       </div>
1982       <div class="date">
1983         22nd January 2013
1984       </div>
1985       <div class="body">
1986         <p>Yesterday, I
1987 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_prototype_ready_making_hardware_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">asked
1988 for testers</a> for my prototype for making Debian better at handling
1989 pluggable hardware devices, which I
1990 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">set
1991 out to create</a> earlier this month.  Several valuable testers showed
1992 up, and caused me to really want to to open up the development to more
1993 people.  But before I did this, I want to come up with a sensible name
1994 for this project.  Today I finally decided on a new name, and I have
1995 renamed the project from hw-support-handler to this new name.  In the
1996 process, I moved the source to git and made it available as a
1997 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/isenkram.git">collab-maint</a>
1998 repository in Debian.  The new name?  It is <strong>Isenkram</strong>.
1999 To fetch and build the latest version of the source, use</p>
2000
2001 <pre>
2002 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/collab-maint/isenkram.git
2003 cd isenkram && git-buildpackage -us -uc
2004 </pre>
2005
2006 <p>I have not yet adjusted all files to use the new name yet.  If you
2007 want to hack on the source or improve the package, please go ahead.
2008 But please talk to me first on IRC or via email before you do major
2009 changes, to make sure we do not step on each others toes. :)</p>
2010
2011 <p>If you wonder what 'isenkram' is, it is a Norwegian word for iron
2012 stuff, typically meaning tools, nails, screws, etc.  Typical hardware
2013 stuff, in other words.  I've been told it is the Norwegian variant of
2014 the German word eisenkram, for those that are familiar with that
2015 word.</p>
2016
2017 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-26</strong>: Added -us -us to build
2018 instructions, to avoid confusing people with an error from the signing
2019 process.</p>
2020
2021 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-27</strong>: Switch to HTTP URL for the git
2022 clone argument to avoid the need for authentication.</p>
2023
2024       </div>
2025       <div class="tags">
2026
2027
2028         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
2029
2030
2031       </div>
2032     </div>
2033     <div class="padding"></div>
2034
2035     <div class="entry">
2036       <div class="title">
2037         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_prototype_ready_making_hardware_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">First prototype ready making hardware easier to use in Debian</a>
2038       </div>
2039       <div class="date">
2040         21st January 2013
2041       </div>
2042       <div class="body">
2043         <p>Early this month I set out to try to
2044 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">improve
2045 the Debian support for pluggable hardware devices</a>.  Now my
2046 prototype is working, and it is ready for a larger audience.  To test
2047 it, fetch the
2048 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">source
2049 from the Debian Edu subversion repository</a>, build and install the
2050 package.  You might have to log out and in again activate the
2051 autostart script.</p>
2052
2053 <p>The design is simple:</p>
2054
2055 <ul>
2056
2057 <li>Add desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ causing a program
2058 hw-support-handlerd to start when the user log in.</li>
2059
2060 <li>This program listen for kernel events about new hardware (directly
2061 from the kernel like udev does), not using HAL dbus events as I
2062 initially did.</li>
2063
2064 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware modalias in
2065 the APT database, a database
2066 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=markup">available
2067 via HTTP</a> and a database available as part of the package.</li>
2068
2069 <li>If a package is mapped to the hardware in question, the package
2070 isn't installed yet and this is the first time the hardware was
2071 plugged in, show a desktop notification suggesting to install the
2072 package or packages.</li>
2073
2074 <li>If the user click on the 'install package now' button, ask
2075 aptdaemon via the PackageKit API to install the requrired package.</li>
2076
2077 <li>aptdaemon ask for root password or sudo password, and install the
2078 package while showing progress information in a window.</li>
2079
2080 </ul>
2081
2082 <p>I still need to come up with a better name for the system.  Here
2083 are some screen shots showing the prototype in action.  First the
2084 notification, then the password request, and finally the request to
2085 approve all the dependencies.  Sorry for the Norwegian Bokmål GUI.</p>
2086
2087 <p><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-1-notification.png">
2088 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-2-password.png">
2089 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-3-dependencies.png">
2090 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-4-installing.png">
2091 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-5-installing-details.png" width="70%"></p>
2092
2093 <p>The prototype still need to be improved with longer timeouts, but
2094 is already useful.  The database of hardware to package mappings also
2095 need more work.  It is currently compatible with the Ubuntu way of
2096 storing such information in the package control file, but could be
2097 changed to use other formats instead or in addition to the current
2098 method.  I've dropped the use of discover for this mapping, as the
2099 modalias approach is more flexible and easier to use on Linux as long
2100 as the Linux kernel expose its modalias strings directly.</p>
2101
2102 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-21 16:50</strong>: Due to popular demand,
2103 here is the command required to check out and build the source: Use
2104 '<tt>svn checkout
2105 svn://svn.debian.org/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/; cd
2106 hw-support-handler; debuild</tt>'.  If you lack debuild, install the
2107 devscripts package.</p>
2108
2109 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-23 12:00</strong>: The project is now
2110 renamed to Isenkram and the source moved from the Debian Edu
2111 subversion repository to a Debian collab-maint git repository.  See
2112 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">build
2113 instructions</a> for details.</p>
2114
2115       </div>
2116       <div class="tags">
2117
2118
2119         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
2120
2121
2122       </div>
2123     </div>
2124     <div class="padding"></div>
2125
2126     <div class="entry">
2127       <div class="title">
2128         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thank_you_Thinkpad_X41__for_your_long_and_trustworthy_service.html">Thank you Thinkpad X41, for your long and trustworthy service</a>
2129       </div>
2130       <div class="date">
2131         19th January 2013
2132       </div>
2133       <div class="body">
2134         <p>This Christmas my trusty old laptop died.  It died quietly and
2135 suddenly in bed.  With a quiet whimper, it went completely quiet and
2136 black.  The power button was no longer able to turn it on.  It was a
2137 IBM Thinkpad X41, and the best laptop I ever had.  Better than both
2138 Thinkpads X30, X31, X40, X60, X61 and X61S.  Far better than the
2139 Compaq I had before that.  Now I need to find a replacement.  To keep
2140 going during Christmas, I moved the one year old SSD disk to my old
2141 X40 where it fitted (only one I had left that could use it), but it is
2142 not a durable solution.
2143
2144 <p>My laptop needs are fairly modest.  This is my wishlist from when I
2145 got a new one more than 10 years ago.  It still holds true.:)</p>
2146
2147 <ul>
2148
2149 <li>Lightweight (around 1 kg) and small volume (preferably smaller
2150   than A4).</li>
2151 <li>Robust, it will be in my backpack every day.</li>
2152 <li>Three button mouse and a mouse pin instead of touch pad.</li>
2153 <li>Long battery life time.  Preferable a week.</li>
2154 <li>Internal WIFI network card.</li>
2155 <li>Internal Twisted Pair network card.</li>
2156 <li>Some USB slots (2-3 is plenty)</li>
2157 <li>Good keyboard - similar to the Thinkpad.</li>
2158 <li>Video resolution at least 1024x768, with size around 12" (A4 paper
2159 size).</li>
2160 <li>Hardware supported by Debian Stable, ie the default kernel and
2161   X.org packages.</li>
2162 <li>Quiet, preferably fan free (or at least not using the fan most of
2163   the time).
2164
2165 </ul>
2166
2167 <p>You will notice that there are no RAM and CPU requirements in the
2168 list.  The reason is simply that the specifications on laptops the
2169 last 10-15 years have been sufficient for my needs, and I have to look
2170 at other features to choose my laptop.  But are there still made as
2171 robust laptops as my X41?  The Thinkpad X60/X61 proved to be less
2172 robust, and Thinkpads seem to be heading in the wrong direction since
2173 Lenovo took over.  But I've been told that X220 and X1 Carbon might
2174 still be useful.</p>
2175
2176 <p>Perhaps I should rethink my needs, and look for a pad with an
2177 external keyboard?  I'll have to check the
2178 <a href="http://www.linux-laptop.net/">Linux Laptops site</a> for
2179 well-supported laptops, or perhaps just buy one preinstalled from one
2180 of the vendors listed on the <a href="http://linuxpreloaded.com/">Linux
2181 Pre-loaded site</a>.</p>
2182
2183       </div>
2184       <div class="tags">
2185
2186
2187         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2188
2189
2190       </div>
2191     </div>
2192     <div class="padding"></div>
2193
2194     <div class="entry">
2195       <div class="title">
2196         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_find_a_browser_plugin_supporting_a_given_MIME_type.html">How to find a browser plugin supporting a given MIME type</a>
2197       </div>
2198       <div class="date">
2199         18th January 2013
2200       </div>
2201       <div class="body">
2202         <p>Some times I try to figure out which Iceweasel browser plugin to
2203 install to get support for a given MIME type.  Thanks to
2204 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MozillaTeam/Plugins">specifications
2205 done by Ubuntu</a> and Mozilla, it is possible to do this in Debian.
2206 Unfortunately, not very many packages provide the needed meta
2207 information, Anyway, here is a small script to look up all browser
2208 plugin packages announcing ther MIME support using this specification:</p>
2209
2210 <pre>
2211 #!/usr/bin/python
2212 import sys
2213 import apt
2214 def pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
2215     cache = apt.Cache()
2216     cache.open(None)
2217     thepkgs = []
2218     for pkg in cache:
2219         version = pkg.candidate
2220         if version is None:
2221             version = pkg.installed
2222         if version is None:
2223             continue
2224         record = version.record
2225         if not record.has_key('Npp-MimeType'):
2226             continue
2227         mime_types = record['Npp-MimeType'].split(',')
2228         for t in mime_types:
2229             t = t.rstrip().strip()
2230             if t == mimetype:
2231                 thepkgs.append(pkg.name)
2232     return thepkgs
2233 mimetype = "audio/ogg"
2234 if 1 < len(sys.argv):
2235     mimetype = sys.argv[1]
2236 print "Browser plugin packages supporting %s:" % mimetype
2237 for pkg in pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
2238     print "  %s" %pkg
2239 </pre>
2240
2241 <p>It can be used like this to look up a given MIME type:</p>
2242
2243 <pre>
2244 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype
2245 Browser plugin packages supporting audio/ogg:
2246   gecko-mediaplayer
2247 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype application/x-shockwave-flash
2248 Browser plugin packages supporting application/x-shockwave-flash:
2249   browser-plugin-gnash
2250 %
2251 </pre>
2252
2253 <p>In Ubuntu this mechanism is combined with support in the browser
2254 itself to query for plugins and propose to install the needed
2255 packages.  It would be great if Debian supported such feature too.  Is
2256 anyone working on adding it?</p>
2257
2258 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-18 14:20</strong>: The Debian BTS
2259 request for icweasel support for this feature is
2260 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/484010">#484010</a> from 2008 (and
2261 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/698426">#698426</a> from today).  Lack
2262 of manpower and wish for a different design is the reason thus feature
2263 is not yet in iceweasel from Debian.</p>
2264
2265       </div>
2266       <div class="tags">
2267
2268
2269         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2270
2271
2272       </div>
2273     </div>
2274     <div class="padding"></div>
2275
2276     <div class="entry">
2277       <div class="title">
2278         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_the_most_supported_MIME_type_in_Debian_.html">What is the most supported MIME type in Debian?</a>
2279       </div>
2280       <div class="date">
2281         16th January 2013
2282       </div>
2283       <div class="body">
2284         <p>The <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/AppStreamDebianProposal">DEP-11
2285 proposal to add AppStream information to the Debian archive</a>, is a
2286 proposal to make it possible for a Desktop application to propose to
2287 the user some package to install to gain support for a given MIME
2288 type, font, library etc. that is currently missing.  With such
2289 mechanism in place, it would be possible for the desktop to
2290 automatically propose and install leocad if some LDraw file is
2291 downloaded by the browser.</p>
2292
2293 <p>To get some idea about the current content of the archive, I decided
2294 to write a simple program to extract all .desktop files from the
2295 Debian archive and look up the claimed MIME support there.  The result
2296 can be found on the
2297 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/pub/AppStreamTest">Skolelinux FTP
2298 site</a>.  Using the collected information, it become possible to
2299 answer the question in the title.  Here are the 20 most supported MIME
2300 types in Debian stable (Squeeze), testing (Wheezy) and unstable (Sid).
2301 The complete list is available from the link above.</p>
2302
2303 <p><strong>Debian Stable:</strong></p>
2304
2305 <pre>
2306   count MIME type
2307   ----- -----------------------
2308      32 text/plain
2309      30 audio/mpeg
2310      29 image/png
2311      28 image/jpeg
2312      27 application/ogg
2313      26 audio/x-mp3
2314      25 image/tiff
2315      25 image/gif
2316      22 image/bmp
2317      22 audio/x-wav
2318      20 audio/x-flac
2319      19 audio/x-mpegurl
2320      18 video/x-ms-asf
2321      18 audio/x-musepack
2322      18 audio/x-mpeg
2323      18 application/x-ogg
2324      17 video/mpeg
2325      17 audio/x-scpls
2326      17 audio/ogg
2327      16 video/x-ms-wmv
2328 </pre>
2329
2330 <p><strong>Debian Testing:</strong></p>
2331
2332 <pre>
2333   count MIME type
2334   ----- -----------------------
2335      33 text/plain
2336      32 image/png
2337      32 image/jpeg
2338      29 audio/mpeg
2339      27 image/gif
2340      26 image/tiff
2341      26 application/ogg
2342      25 audio/x-mp3
2343      22 image/bmp
2344      21 audio/x-wav
2345      19 audio/x-mpegurl
2346      19 audio/x-mpeg
2347      18 video/mpeg
2348      18 audio/x-scpls
2349      18 audio/x-flac
2350      18 application/x-ogg
2351      17 video/x-ms-asf
2352      17 text/html
2353      17 audio/x-musepack
2354      16 image/x-xbitmap
2355 </pre>
2356
2357 <p><strong>Debian Unstable:</strong></p>
2358
2359 <pre>
2360   count MIME type
2361   ----- -----------------------
2362      31 text/plain
2363      31 image/png
2364      31 image/jpeg
2365      29 audio/mpeg
2366      28 application/ogg
2367      27 image/gif
2368      26 image/tiff
2369      26 audio/x-mp3
2370      23 audio/x-wav
2371      22 image/bmp
2372      21 audio/x-flac
2373      20 audio/x-mpegurl
2374      19 audio/x-mpeg
2375      18 video/x-ms-asf
2376      18 video/mpeg
2377      18 audio/x-scpls
2378      18 application/x-ogg
2379      17 audio/x-musepack
2380      16 video/x-ms-wmv
2381      16 video/x-msvideo
2382 </pre>
2383
2384 <p>I am told that PackageKit can provide an API to access the kind of
2385 information mentioned in DEP-11.  I have not yet had time to look at
2386 it, but hope the PackageKit people in Debian are on top of these
2387 issues.</p>
2388
2389 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-16 13:35</strong>: Updated numbers after
2390 discovering a typo in my script.</p>
2391
2392       </div>
2393       <div class="tags">
2394
2395
2396         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2397
2398
2399       </div>
2400     </div>
2401     <div class="padding"></div>
2402
2403     <div class="entry">
2404       <div class="title">
2405         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_modalias_info_to_find_packages_handling_my_hardware.html">Using modalias info to find packages handling my hardware</a>
2406       </div>
2407       <div class="date">
2408         15th January 2013
2409       </div>
2410       <div class="body">
2411         <p>Yesterday, I wrote about the
2412 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Modalias_strings___a_practical_way_to_map__stuff__to_hardware.html">modalias
2413 values provided by the Linux kernel</a> following my hope for
2414 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">better
2415 dongle support in Debian</a>.  Using this knowledge, I have tested how
2416 modalias values attached to package names can be used to map packages
2417 to hardware.  This allow the system to look up and suggest relevant
2418 packages when I plug in some new hardware into my machine, and replace
2419 discover and discover-data as the database used to map hardware to
2420 packages.</p>
2421
2422 <p>I create a modaliases file with entries like the following,
2423 containing package name, kernel module name (if relevant, otherwise
2424 the package name) and globs matching the relevant hardware
2425 modalias.</p>
2426
2427 <p><blockquote>
2428 Package: package-name
2429 <br>Modaliases: module(modaliasglob, modaliasglob, modaliasglob)</p>
2430 </blockquote></p>
2431
2432 <p>It is fairly trivial to write code to find the relevant packages
2433 for a given modalias value using this file.</p>
2434
2435 <p>An entry like this would suggest the video and picture application
2436 cheese for many USB web cameras (interface bus class 0E01):</p>
2437
2438 <p><blockquote>
2439 Package: cheese
2440 <br>Modaliases: cheese(usb:v*p*d*dc*dsc*dp*ic0Eisc01ip*)</p>
2441 </blockquote></p>
2442
2443 <p>An entry like this would suggest the pcmciautils package when a
2444 CardBus bridge (bus class 0607) PCI device is present:</p>
2445
2446 <p><blockquote>
2447 Package: pcmciautils
2448 <br>Modaliases: pcmciautils(pci:v*d*sv*sd*bc06sc07i*)
2449 </blockquote></p>
2450
2451 <p>An entry like this would suggest the package colorhug-client when
2452 plugging in a ColorHug with USB IDs 04D8:F8DA:</p>
2453
2454 <p><blockquote>
2455 Package: colorhug-client
2456 <br>Modaliases: colorhug-client(usb:v04D8pF8DAd*)</p>
2457 </blockquote></p>
2458
2459 <p>I believe the format is compatible with the format of the Packages
2460 file in the Debian archive.  Ubuntu already uses their Packages file
2461 to store their mappings from packages to hardware.</p>
2462
2463 <p>By adding a XB-Modaliases: header in debian/control, any .deb can
2464 announce the hardware it support in a way my prototype understand.
2465 This allow those publishing packages in an APT source outside the
2466 Debian archive as well as those backporting packages to make sure the
2467 hardware mapping are included in the package meta information.  I've
2468 tested such header in the pymissile package, and its modalias mapping
2469 is working as it should with my prototype.  It even made it to Ubuntu
2470 Raring.</p>
2471
2472 <p>To test if it was possible to look up supported hardware using only
2473 the shell tools available in the Debian installer, I wrote a shell
2474 implementation of the lookup code.  The idea is to create files for
2475 each modalias and let the shell do the matching.  Please check out and
2476 try the
2477 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/hw-support-lookup?view=co">hw-support-lookup</a>
2478 shell script.  It run without any extra dependencies and fetch the
2479 hardware mappings from the Debian archive and the subversion
2480 repository where I currently work on my prototype.</p>
2481
2482 <p>When I use it on a machine with a yubikey inserted, it suggest to
2483 install yubikey-personalization:</p>
2484
2485 <p><blockquote>
2486 % ./hw-support-lookup
2487 <br>yubikey-personalization
2488 <br>%
2489 </blockquote></p>
2490
2491 <p>When I run it on my Thinkpad X40 with a PCMCIA/CardBus slot, it
2492 propose to install the pcmciautils package:</p>
2493
2494 <p><blockquote>
2495 % ./hw-support-lookup
2496 <br>pcmciautils
2497 <br>%
2498 </blockquote></p>
2499
2500 <p>If you know of any hardware-package mapping that should be added to
2501 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=co">my
2502 database</a>, please tell me about it.</p>
2503
2504 <p>It could be possible to generate several of the mappings between
2505 packages and hardware.  One source would be to look at packages with
2506 kernel modules, ie packages with *.ko files in /lib/modules/, and
2507 extract their modalias information.  Another would be to look at
2508 packages with udev rules, ie packages with files in
2509 /lib/udev/rules.d/, and extract their vendor/model information to
2510 generate a modalias matching rule.  I have not tested any of these to
2511 see if it work.</p>
2512
2513 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
2514 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
2515 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
2516 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel</a>.</p>
2517
2518       </div>
2519       <div class="tags">
2520
2521
2522         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
2523
2524
2525       </div>
2526     </div>
2527     <div class="padding"></div>
2528
2529     <div class="entry">
2530       <div class="title">
2531         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Modalias_strings___a_practical_way_to_map__stuff__to_hardware.html">Modalias strings - a practical way to map "stuff" to hardware</a>
2532       </div>
2533       <div class="date">
2534         14th January 2013
2535       </div>
2536       <div class="body">
2537         <p>While looking into how to look up Debian packages based on hardware
2538 information, to find the packages that support a given piece of
2539 hardware, I refreshed my memory regarding modalias values, and decided
2540 to document the details.  Here are my findings so far, also available
2541 in
2542 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
2543 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>:
2544
2545 <p><strong>Modalias decoded</strong></p>
2546
2547 <p>This document try to explain what the different types of modalias
2548 values stands for.  It is in part based on information from
2549 &lt;URL: <a href="https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias">https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias</a> &gt;,
2550 &lt;URL: <a href="http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/26132/how-to-assign-usb-driver-to-device">http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/26132/how-to-assign-usb-driver-to-device</a> &gt;,
2551 &lt;URL: <a href="http://code.metager.de/source/history/linux/stable/scripts/mod/file2alias.c">http://code.metager.de/source/history/linux/stable/scripts/mod/file2alias.c</a> &gt; and
2552 &lt;URL: <a href="http://cvs.savannah.gnu.org/viewvc/dmidecode/dmidecode.c?root=dmidecode&view=markup">http://cvs.savannah.gnu.org/viewvc/dmidecode/dmidecode.c?root=dmidecode&view=markup</a> &gt;.
2553
2554 <p>The modalias entries for a given Linux machine can be found using
2555 this shell script:</p>
2556
2557 <pre>
2558 find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u
2559 </pre>
2560
2561 <p>The supported modalias globs for a given kernel module can be found
2562 using modinfo:</p>
2563
2564 <pre>
2565 % /sbin/modinfo psmouse | grep alias:
2566 alias:          serio:ty05pr*id*ex*
2567 alias:          serio:ty01pr*id*ex*
2568 %
2569 </pre>
2570
2571 <p><strong>PCI subtype</strong></p>
2572
2573 <p>A typical PCI entry can look like this.  This is an Intel Host
2574 Bridge memory controller:</p>
2575
2576 <p><blockquote>
2577 pci:v00008086d00002770sv00001028sd000001ADbc06sc00i00
2578 </blockquote></p>
2579
2580 <p>This represent these values:</p>
2581
2582 <pre>
2583  v   00008086  (vendor)
2584  d   00002770  (device)
2585  sv  00001028  (subvendor)
2586  sd  000001AD  (subdevice)
2587  bc  06        (bus class)
2588  sc  00        (bus subclass)
2589  i   00        (interface)
2590 </pre>
2591
2592 <p>The vendor/device values are the same values outputted from 'lspci
2593 -n' as 8086:2770.  The bus class/subclass is also shown by lspci as
2594 0600.  The 0600 class is a host bridge.  Other useful bus values are
2595 0300 (VGA compatible card) and 0200 (Ethernet controller).</p>
2596
2597 <p>Not sure how to figure out the interface value, nor what it
2598 means.</p>
2599
2600 <p><strong>USB subtype</strong></p>
2601
2602 <p>Some typical USB entries can look like this.  This is an internal
2603 USB hub in a laptop:</p>
2604
2605 <p><blockquote>
2606 usb:v1D6Bp0001d0206dc09dsc00dp00ic09isc00ip00
2607 </blockquote></p>
2608
2609 <p>Here is the values included in this alias:</p>
2610
2611 <pre>
2612  v    1D6B  (device vendor)
2613  p    0001  (device product)
2614  d    0206  (bcddevice)
2615  dc     09  (device class)
2616  dsc    00  (device subclass)
2617  dp     00  (device protocol)
2618  ic     09  (interface class)
2619  isc    00  (interface subclass)
2620  ip     00  (interface protocol)
2621 </pre>
2622
2623 <p>The 0900 device class/subclass means hub.  Some times the relevant
2624 class is in the interface class section.  For a simple USB web camera,
2625 these alias entries show up:</p>
2626
2627 <p><blockquote>
2628 usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc01ip00
2629 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc02ip00
2630 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc01ip00
2631 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc02ip00
2632 </blockquote></p>
2633
2634 <p>Interface class 0E01 is video control, 0E02 is video streaming (aka
2635 camera), 0101 is audio control device and 0102 is audio streaming (aka
2636 microphone).  Thus this is a camera with microphone included.</p>
2637
2638 <p><strong>ACPI subtype</strong></p>
2639
2640 <p>The ACPI type is used for several non-PCI/USB stuff.  This is an IR
2641 receiver in a Thinkpad X40:</p>
2642
2643 <p><blockquote>
2644 acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
2645 </blockquote></p>
2646
2647 <p>The values between the colons are IDs.</p>
2648
2649 <p><strong>DMI subtype</strong></p>
2650
2651 <p>The DMI table contain lots of information about the computer case
2652 and model.  This is an entry for a IBM Thinkpad X40, fetched from
2653 /sys/devices/virtual/dmi/id/modalias:</p>
2654
2655 <p><blockquote>
2656 dmi:bvnIBM:bvr1UETB6WW(1.66):bd06/15/2005:svnIBM:pn2371H4G:pvrThinkPadX40:rvnIBM:rn2371H4G:rvrNotAvailable:cvnIBM:ct10:cvrNotAvailable:
2657 </blockquote></p>
2658
2659 <p>The values present are</p>
2660
2661 <pre>
2662  bvn  IBM            (BIOS vendor)
2663  bvr  1UETB6WW(1.66) (BIOS version)
2664  bd   06/15/2005     (BIOS date)
2665  svn  IBM            (system vendor)
2666  pn   2371H4G        (product name)
2667  pvr  ThinkPadX40    (product version)
2668  rvn  IBM            (board vendor)
2669  rn   2371H4G        (board name)
2670  rvr  NotAvailable   (board version)
2671  cvn  IBM            (chassis vendor)
2672  ct   10             (chassis type)
2673  cvr  NotAvailable   (chassis version)
2674 </pre>
2675
2676 <p>The chassis type 10 is Notebook.  Other interesting values can be
2677 found in the dmidecode source:</p>
2678
2679 <pre>
2680   3 Desktop
2681   4 Low Profile Desktop
2682   5 Pizza Box
2683   6 Mini Tower
2684   7 Tower
2685   8 Portable
2686   9 Laptop
2687  10 Notebook
2688  11 Hand Held
2689  12 Docking Station
2690  13 All In One
2691  14 Sub Notebook
2692  15 Space-saving
2693  16 Lunch Box
2694  17 Main Server Chassis
2695  18 Expansion Chassis
2696  19 Sub Chassis
2697  20 Bus Expansion Chassis
2698  21 Peripheral Chassis
2699  22 RAID Chassis
2700  23 Rack Mount Chassis
2701  24 Sealed-case PC
2702  25 Multi-system
2703  26 CompactPCI
2704  27 AdvancedTCA
2705  28 Blade
2706  29 Blade Enclosing
2707 </pre>
2708
2709 <p>The chassis type values are not always accurately set in the DMI
2710 table.  For example my home server is a tower, but the DMI modalias
2711 claim it is a desktop.</p>
2712
2713 <p><strong>SerIO subtype</strong></p>
2714
2715 <p>This type is used for PS/2 mouse plugs.  One example is from my
2716 test machine:</p>
2717
2718 <p><blockquote>
2719 serio:ty01pr00id00ex00
2720 </blockquote></p>
2721
2722 <p>The values present are</p>
2723
2724 <pre>
2725   ty  01  (type)
2726   pr  00  (prototype)
2727   id  00  (id)
2728   ex  00  (extra)
2729 </pre>
2730
2731 <p>This type is supported by the psmouse driver.  I am not sure what
2732 the valid values are.</p>
2733
2734 <p><strong>Other subtypes</strong></p>
2735
2736 <p>There are heaps of other modalias subtypes according to
2737 file2alias.c.  There is the rest of the list from that source: amba,
2738 ap, bcma, ccw, css, eisa, hid, i2c, ieee1394, input, ipack, isapnp,
2739 mdio, of, parisc, pcmcia, platform, scsi, sdio, spi, ssb, vio, virtio,
2740 vmbus, x86cpu and zorro.  I did not spend time documenting all of
2741 these, as they do not seem relevant for my intended use with mapping
2742 hardware to packages when new stuff is inserted during run time.</p>
2743
2744 <p><strong>Looking up kernel modules using modalias values</strong></p>
2745
2746 <p>To check which kernel modules provide support for a given modalias,
2747 one can use the following shell script:</p>
2748
2749 <pre>
2750   for id in $(find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u); do \
2751     echo "$id" ; \
2752     /sbin/modprobe --show-depends "$id"|sed 's/^/  /' ; \
2753   done
2754 </pre>
2755
2756 <p>The output can look like this (only the first few entries as the
2757 list is very long on my test machine):</p>
2758
2759 <pre>
2760   acpi:ACPI0003:
2761     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/acpi/ac.ko
2762   acpi:device:
2763   FATAL: Module acpi:device: not found.
2764   acpi:IBM0068:
2765     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/char/nvram.ko
2766     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/leds/led-class.ko
2767     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/rfkill/rfkill.ko
2768     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/platform/x86/thinkpad_acpi.ko
2769   acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
2770     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/lib/crc-ccitt.ko
2771     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/irda/irda.ko
2772     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/net/irda/nsc-ircc.ko
2773   [...]
2774 </pre>
2775
2776 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
2777 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
2778 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
2779 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel</a>.</p>
2780
2781 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-15:</strong> Rewrite "cat $(find ...)" to
2782 "find ... -print0 | xargs -0 cat" to make sure it handle directories
2783 in /sys/ with space in them.</p>
2784
2785       </div>
2786       <div class="tags">
2787
2788
2789         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
2790
2791
2792       </div>
2793     </div>
2794     <div class="padding"></div>
2795
2796     <div class="entry">
2797       <div class="title">
2798         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Moved_the_pymissile_Debian_packaging_to_collab_maint.html">Moved the pymissile Debian packaging to collab-maint</a>
2799       </div>
2800       <div class="date">
2801         10th January 2013
2802       </div>
2803       <div class="body">
2804         <p>As part of my investigation on how to improve the support in Debian
2805 for hardware dongles, I dug up my old Mark and Spencer USB Rocket
2806 Launcher and updated the Debian package
2807 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pymissile">pymissile</a> to make
2808 sure udev will fix the device permissions when it is plugged in.  I
2809 also added a "Modaliases" header to test it in the Debian archive and
2810 hopefully make the package be proposed by jockey in Ubuntu when a user
2811 plug in his rocket launcher.  In the process I moved the source to a
2812 git repository under collab-maint, to make it easier for any DD to
2813 contribute.  <a href="http://code.google.com/p/pymissile/">Upstream</a>
2814 is not very active, but the software still work for me even after five
2815 years of relative silence.  The new git repository is not listed in
2816 the uploaded package yet, because I want to test the other changes a
2817 bit more before I upload the new version.  If you want to check out
2818 the new version with a .desktop file included, visit the
2819 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/pymissile.git">gitweb
2820 view</a> or use "<tt>git clone
2821 git://anonscm.debian.org/collab-maint/pymissile.git</tt>".</p>
2822
2823       </div>
2824       <div class="tags">
2825
2826
2827         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot</a>.
2828
2829
2830       </div>
2831     </div>
2832     <div class="padding"></div>
2833
2834     <div class="entry">
2835       <div class="title">
2836         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">Lets make hardware dongles easier to use in Debian</a>
2837       </div>
2838       <div class="date">
2839          9th January 2013
2840       </div>
2841       <div class="body">
2842         <p>One thing that annoys me with Debian and Linux distributions in
2843 general, is that there is a great package management system with the
2844 ability to automatically install software packages by downloading them
2845 from the distribution mirrors, but no way to get it to automatically
2846 install the packages I need to use the hardware I plug into my
2847 machine.  Even if the package to use it is easily available from the
2848 Linux distribution.  When I plug in a LEGO Mindstorms NXT, it could
2849 suggest to automatically install the python-nxt, nbc and t2n packages
2850 I need to talk to it.  When I plug in a Yubikey, it could propose the
2851 yubikey-personalization package.  The information required to do this
2852 is available, but no-one have pulled all the pieces together.</p>
2853
2854 <p>Some years ago, I proposed to
2855 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg01206.html">use
2856 the discover subsystem to implement this</a>.  The idea is fairly
2857 simple:
2858
2859 <ul>
2860
2861 <li>Add a desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ pointing to a program
2862   starting when a user log in.</li>
2863
2864 <li>Set this program up to listen for kernel events emitted when new
2865   hardware is inserted into the computer.</li>
2866
2867 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware ID in a
2868   database mapping to packages, and take note of any non-installed
2869   packages.</li>
2870
2871 <li>Show a message to the user proposing to install the discovered
2872   package, and make it easy to install it.</li>
2873
2874 </ul>
2875
2876 <p>I am not sure what the best way to implement this is, but my
2877 initial idea was to use dbus events to discover new hardware, the
2878 discover database to find packages and
2879 <a href="http://www.packagekit.org/">PackageKit</a> to install
2880 packages.</p>
2881
2882 <p>Yesterday, I found time to try to implement this idea, and the
2883 draft package is now checked into
2884 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
2885 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>.  In the process, I updated the
2886 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover-data.html">discover-data</a>
2887 package to map the USB ids of LEGO Mindstorms and Yubikey devices to
2888 the relevant packages in Debian, and uploaded a new version
2889 2.2013.01.09 to unstable.  I also discovered that the current
2890 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover.html">discover</a>
2891 package in Debian no longer discovered any USB devices, because
2892 /proc/bus/usb/devices is no longer present.  I ported it to use
2893 libusb as a fall back option to get it working.  The fixed package
2894 version 2.1.2-6 is now in experimental (didn't upload it to unstable
2895 because of the freeze).</p>
2896
2897 <p>With this prototype in place, I can insert my Yubikey, and get this
2898 desktop notification to show up (only once, the first time it is
2899 inserted):</p>
2900
2901 <p align="center"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-09-hw-autoinstall.png"></p>
2902
2903 <p>For this prototype to be really useful, some way to automatically
2904 install the proposed packages by pressing the "Please install
2905 program(s)" button should to be implemented.</p>
2906
2907 <p>If this idea seem useful to you, and you want to help make it
2908 happen, please help me update the discover-data database with mappings
2909 from hardware to Debian packages.  Check if 'discover-pkginstall -l'
2910 list the package you would like to have installed when a given
2911 hardware device is inserted into your computer, and report bugs using
2912 reportbug if it isn't.  Or, if you know of a better way to provide
2913 such mapping, please let me know.</p>
2914
2915 <p>This prototype need more work, and there are several questions that
2916 should be considered before it is ready for production use.  Is dbus
2917 the correct way to detect new hardware?  At the moment I look for HAL
2918 dbus events on the system bus, because that is the events I could see
2919 on my Debian Squeeze KDE desktop.  Are there better events to use?
2920 How should the user be notified?  Is the desktop notification
2921 mechanism the best option, or should the background daemon raise a
2922 popup instead?  How should packages be installed?  When should they
2923 not be installed?</p>
2924
2925 <p>If you want to help getting such feature implemented in Debian,
2926 please send me an email. :)</p>
2927
2928       </div>
2929       <div class="tags">
2930
2931
2932         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
2933
2934
2935       </div>
2936     </div>
2937     <div class="padding"></div>
2938
2939     <div class="entry">
2940       <div class="title">
2941         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_IRC_channel_for_LEGO_designers_using_Debian.html">New IRC channel for LEGO designers using Debian</a>
2942       </div>
2943       <div class="date">
2944          2nd January 2013
2945       </div>
2946       <div class="body">
2947         <p>During Christmas, I have worked a bit on the Debian support for
2948 <a href="http://mindstorms.lego.com/en-us/Default.aspx">LEGO Mindstorm
2949 NXT</a>.  My son and I have played a bit with my NXT set, and I
2950 discovered I had to build all the tools myself because none were
2951 already in Debian Squeeze.  If Debian support for LEGO is something
2952 you care about, please join me on the IRC channel
2953 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">#debian-lego</a> (server
2954 irc.debian.org).  There is a lot that could be done to improve the
2955 Debian support for LEGO designers.  For example both CAD software
2956 and Mindstorm compilers are missing. :)</p>
2957
2958 <p>Update 2012-01-03: A
2959 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">project page</a>
2960 including links to Lego related packages is now available.</p>
2961
2962       </div>
2963       <div class="tags">
2964
2965
2966         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot</a>.
2967
2968
2969       </div>
2970     </div>
2971     <div class="padding"></div>
2972
2973     <div class="entry">
2974       <div class="title">
2975         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_backport_bitcoin_qt_version_0_7_2_2_to_Debian_Squeeze.html">How to backport bitcoin-qt version 0.7.2-2 to Debian Squeeze</a>
2976       </div>
2977       <div class="date">
2978         25th December 2012
2979       </div>
2980       <div class="body">
2981         <p>Let me start by wishing you all marry Christmas and a happy new
2982 year!  I hope next year will prove to be a good year.</p>
2983
2984 <p><a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">Bitcoin</a>, the digital
2985 decentralised "currency" that allow people to transfer bitcoins
2986 between each other with minimal overhead, is a very interesting
2987 experiment.  And as I wrote a few days ago, the bitcoin situation in
2988 <a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</a> is about to improve a bit.
2989 The <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">new debian source
2990 package</a> (version 0.7.2-2) was uploaded yesterday, and is waiting
2991 in <a href="http://ftp-master.debian.org/new.html">the NEW queue</A>
2992 for one of the ftpmasters to approve the new bitcoin-qt package
2993 name.</p>
2994
2995 <p>And thanks to the great work of Jonas and the rest of the bitcoin
2996 team in Debian, you can easily test the package in Debian Squeeze
2997 using the following steps to get a set of working packages:</p>
2998
2999 <blockquote><pre>
3000 git clone git://git.debian.org/git/collab-maint/bitcoin
3001 cd bitcoin
3002 DEB_MAINTAINER_MODE=1 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp fakeroot debian/rules clean
3003 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp git-buildpackage --git-ignore-new
3004 </pre></blockquote>
3005
3006 <p>You might have to install some build dependencies as well.  The
3007 list of commands should give you two packages, bitcoind and
3008 bitcoin-qt, ready for use in a Squeeze environment.  Note that the
3009 client will download the complete set of bitcoin "blocks", which need
3010 around 5.6 GiB of data on my machine at the moment.  Make sure your
3011 ~/.bitcoin/ directory have lots of spare room if you want to download
3012 all the blocks.  The client will warn if the disk is getting full, so
3013 there is not really a problem if you got too little room, but you will
3014 not be able to get all the features out of the client.</p>
3015
3016 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
3017 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
3018 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
3019
3020       </div>
3021       <div class="tags">
3022
3023
3024         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3025
3026
3027       </div>
3028     </div>
3029     <div class="padding"></div>
3030
3031     <div class="entry">
3032       <div class="title">
3033         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_word_on_bitcoin_support_in_Debian.html">A word on bitcoin support in Debian</a>
3034       </div>
3035       <div class="date">
3036         21st December 2012
3037       </div>
3038       <div class="body">
3039         <p>It has been a while since I wrote about
3040 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">bitcoin</a>, the decentralised
3041 peer-to-peer based crypto-currency, and the reason is simply that I
3042 have been busy elsewhere.  But two days ago, I started looking at the
3043 state of <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin in
3044 Debian</a> again to try to recover my old bitcoin wallet.  The package
3045 is now maintained by a
3046 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/pkg-bitcoin/">team of
3047 people</a>, and the grunt work had already been done by this team.  We
3048 owe a huge thank you to all these team members. :)
3049 But I was sad to discover that the bitcoin client is missing in
3050 Wheezy.  It is only available in Sid (and an outdated client from
3051 backports).  The client had several RC bugs registered in BTS blocking
3052 it from entering testing.  To try to help the team and improve the
3053 situation, I spent some time providing patches and triaging the bug
3054 reports.  I also had a look at the bitcoin package available from Matt
3055 Corallo in a
3056 <a href="https://launchpad.net/~bitcoin/+archive/bitcoin">PPA for
3057 Ubuntu</a>, and moved the useful pieces from that version into the
3058 Debian package.</p>
3059
3060 <p>After checking with the main package maintainer Jonas Smedegaard on
3061 IRC, I pushed several patches into the collab-maint git repository to
3062 improve the package.  It now contains fixes for the RC issues (not from
3063 me, but fixed by Scott Howard), build rules for a Qt GUI client
3064 package, konqueror support for the bitcoin: URI and bash completion
3065 setup.  As I work on Debian Squeeze, I also created
3066 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-bitcoin-devel/Week-of-Mon-20121217/000041.html">a
3067 patch to backport</a> the latest version.  Jonas is going to look at
3068 it and try to integrate it into the git repository before uploading a
3069 new version to unstable.
3070
3071 <p>I would very much like bitcoin to succeed, to get rid of the
3072 centralized control currently exercised in the monetary system.  I
3073 find it completely unacceptable that the USA government is collecting
3074 transaction data for almost all international money transfers (most are done in USD and transaction logs shipped to the spooks), and
3075 that the major credit card companies can block legal money
3076 transactions to Wikileaks.  But for bitcoin to succeed, more people
3077 need to use bitcoins, and more people need to accept bitcoins when
3078 they sell products and services.  Improving the bitcoin support in
3079 Debian is a small step in the right direction, but not enough.
3080 Unfortunately the user experience when browsing the web and wanting to
3081 pay with bitcoin is still not very good.  The bitcoin: URI is a step
3082 in the right direction, but need to work in most or every browser in
3083 use.  Also the bitcoin-qt client is too heavy to fire up to do a
3084 quick transaction.  I believe there are other clients available, but
3085 have not tested them.</p>
3086
3087 <p>My
3088 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Now_accepting_bitcoins___anonymous_and_distributed_p2p_crypto_money.html">experiment
3089 with bitcoins</a> showed that at least some of my readers use bitcoin.
3090 I received 20.15 BTC so far on the address I provided in my blog two
3091 years ago, as can be
3092 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">seen
3093 on the blockexplorer service</a>.  Thank you everyone for your
3094 donation.  The blockexplorer service demonstrates quite well that
3095 bitcoin is not quite anonymous and untracked. :) I wonder if the
3096 number of users have gone up since then.  If you use bitcoin and want
3097 to show your support of my activity, please send Bitcoin donations to
3098 the same address as last time,
3099 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
3100
3101       </div>
3102       <div class="tags">
3103
3104
3105         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3106
3107
3108       </div>
3109     </div>
3110     <div class="padding"></div>
3111
3112     <div class="entry">
3113       <div class="title">
3114         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Git_repository_for_song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">Git repository for song book for Computer Scientists</a>
3115       </div>
3116       <div class="date">
3117          7th September 2012
3118       </div>
3119       <div class="body">
3120         <p>As I
3121 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">mentioned
3122 this summer</a>, I have created a Computer Science song book a few
3123 years ago, and today I finally found time to create a public
3124 <a href="https://gitorious.org/pere-cs-songbook/pere-cs-songbook">Gitorious
3125 repository for the project</a>.</p>
3126
3127 <p>If you want to help out, please clone the source and submit patches
3128 to the HTML version.  To generate the PDF and PostScript version,
3129 please use prince XML, or let me know about a useful free software
3130 processor capable of creating a good looking PDF from the HTML.</p>
3131
3132 <p>Want to sing?  You can still find the song book in HTML, PDF and
3133 PostScript formats at
3134 <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's Computer
3135 Science Songbook</a>.</p>
3136
3137       </div>
3138       <div class="tags">
3139
3140
3141         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>.
3142
3143
3144       </div>
3145     </div>
3146     <div class="padding"></div>
3147
3148     <div class="entry">
3149       <div class="title">
3150         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gratulerer_med_19__rsdagen__Debian_.html">Gratulerer med 19-årsdagen, Debian!</a>
3151       </div>
3152       <div class="date">
3153         16th August 2012
3154       </div>
3155       <div class="body">
3156         <p>I dag fyller
3157 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120813">Debian-prosjektet 19
3158 år</a>.  Jeg har fulgt det de siste 12 årene, og er veldig glad for å kunne
3159 si gratulerer med dagen, Debian!</p>
3160
3161       </div>
3162       <div class="tags">
3163
3164
3165         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk</a>.
3166
3167
3168       </div>
3169     </div>
3170     <div class="padding"></div>
3171
3172     <div class="entry">
3173       <div class="title">
3174         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">Song book for Computer Scientists</a>
3175       </div>
3176       <div class="date">
3177         24th June 2012
3178       </div>
3179       <div class="body">
3180         <p>Many years ago, while studying Computer Science at the
3181 <a href="http://www.uit.no/">University of Tromsø</a>, I started
3182 collecting computer related songs for use at parties.  The original
3183 version was written in LaTeX, but a few years ago I got help from
3184 Håkon W. Lie, one of the inventors of W3C CSS, to convert it to HTML
3185 while keeping the ability to create a nice book in PDF format.  I have
3186 not had time to maintain the book for a while now, and guess I should
3187 put it up on some public version control repository where others can
3188 help me extend and update the book.  If anyone is volunteering to help
3189 me with this, send me an email.  Also let me know if there are songs
3190 missing in my book.</p>
3191
3192 <p>I have not mentioned the book on my blog so far, and it occured to
3193 me today that I really should let all my readers share the joys of
3194 singing out load about programming, computers and computer networks.
3195 Especially now that <a href="http://debconf12.debconf.org/">Debconf
3196 12</a> is about to start (and I am not going).  Want to sing?  Check
3197 out <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's
3198 Computer Science Songbook</a>.
3199
3200       </div>
3201       <div class="tags">
3202
3203
3204         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>.
3205
3206
3207       </div>
3208     </div>
3209     <div class="padding"></div>
3210
3211     <div class="entry">
3212       <div class="title">
3213         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatically_upgrading_server_firmware_on_Dell_PowerEdge.html">Automatically upgrading server firmware on Dell PowerEdge</a>
3214       </div>
3215       <div class="date">
3216         21st November 2011
3217       </div>
3218       <div class="body">
3219         <p>At work we have heaps of servers.  I believe the total count is
3220 around 1000 at the moment.  To be able to get help from the vendors
3221 when something go wrong, we want to keep the firmware on the servers
3222 up to date.  If the firmware isn't the latest and greatest, the
3223 vendors typically refuse to start debugging any problems until the
3224 firmware is upgraded.  So before every reboot, we want to upgrade the
3225 firmware, and we would really like everyone handling servers at the
3226 university to do this themselves when they plan to reboot a machine.
3227 For that to happen we at the unix server admin group need to provide
3228 the tools to do so.</p>
3229
3230 <p>To make firmware upgrading easier, I am working on a script to
3231 fetch and install the latest firmware for the servers we got.  Most of
3232 our hardware are from Dell and HP, so I have focused on these servers
3233 so far.  This blog post is about the Dell part.</P>
3234
3235 <p>On the Dell FTP site I was lucky enough to find
3236 <a href="ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz">an XML file</a>
3237 with firmware information for all 11th generation servers, listing
3238 which firmware should be used on a given model and where on the FTP
3239 site I can find it.  Using a simple perl XML parser I can then
3240 download the shell scripts Dell provides to do firmware upgrades from
3241 within Linux and reboot when all the firmware is primed and ready to
3242 be activated on the first reboot.</p>
3243
3244 <p>This is the Dell related fragment of the perl code I am working on.
3245 Are there anyone working on similar tools for firmware upgrading all
3246 servers at a site?  Please get in touch and lets share resources.</p>
3247
3248 <p><pre>
3249 #!/usr/bin/perl
3250 use strict;
3251 use warnings;
3252 use File::Temp qw(tempdir);
3253 BEGIN {
3254     # Install needed RHEL packages if missing
3255     my %rhelmodules = (
3256         'XML::Simple' => 'perl-XML-Simple',
3257         );
3258     for my $module (keys %rhelmodules) {
3259         eval "use $module;";
3260         if ($@) {
3261             my $pkg = $rhelmodules{$module};
3262             system("yum install -y $pkg");
3263             eval "use $module;";
3264         }
3265     }
3266 }
3267 my $errorsto = 'pere@hungry.com';
3268
3269 upgrade_dell();
3270
3271 exit 0;
3272
3273 sub run_firmware_script {
3274     my ($opts, $script) = @_;
3275     unless ($script) {
3276         print STDERR "fail: missing script name\n";
3277         exit 1
3278     }
3279     print STDERR "Running $script\n\n";
3280
3281     if (0 == system("sh $script $opts")) { # FIXME correct exit code handling
3282         print STDERR "success: firmware script ran succcessfully\n";
3283     } else {
3284         print STDERR "fail: firmware script returned error\n";
3285     }
3286 }
3287
3288 sub run_firmware_scripts {
3289     my ($opts, @dirs) = @_;
3290     # Run firmware packages
3291     for my $dir (@dirs) {
3292         print STDERR "info: Running scripts in $dir\n";
3293         opendir(my $dh, $dir) or die "Unable to open directory $dir: $!";
3294         while (my $s = readdir $dh) {
3295             next if $s =~ m/^\.\.?/;
3296             run_firmware_script($opts, "$dir/$s");
3297         }
3298         closedir $dh;
3299     }
3300 }
3301
3302 sub download {
3303     my $url = shift;
3304     print STDERR "info: Downloading $url\n";
3305     system("wget --quiet \"$url\"");
3306 }
3307
3308 sub upgrade_dell {
3309     my @dirs;
3310     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
3311     chomp $product;
3312
3313     if ($product =~ m/PowerEdge/) {
3314
3315         # on RHEL, these pacakges are needed by the firwmare upgrade scripts
3316         system('yum install -y compat-libstdc++-33.i686 libstdc++.i686 libxml2.i686 procmail');
3317
3318         my $tmpdir = tempdir(
3319             CLEANUP => 1
3320             );
3321         chdir($tmpdir);
3322         fetch_dell_fw('catalog/Catalog.xml.gz');
3323         system('gunzip Catalog.xml.gz');
3324         my @paths = fetch_dell_fw_list('Catalog.xml');
3325         # -q is quiet, disabling interactivity and reducing console output
3326         my $fwopts = "-q";
3327         if (@paths) {
3328             for my $url (@paths) {
3329                 fetch_dell_fw($url);
3330             }
3331             run_firmware_scripts($fwopts, $tmpdir);
3332         } else {
3333             print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
3334             print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
3335         }
3336         chdir('/');
3337     } else {
3338         print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
3339         print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
3340     }
3341 }
3342
3343 sub fetch_dell_fw {
3344     my $path = shift;
3345     my $url = "ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/$path";
3346     download($url);
3347 }
3348
3349 # Using ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz, figure out which
3350 # firmware packages to download from Dell.  Only work for Linux
3351 # machines and 11th generation Dell servers.
3352 sub fetch_dell_fw_list {
3353     my $filename = shift;
3354
3355     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
3356     chomp $product;
3357     my ($mybrand, $mymodel) = split(/\s+/, $product);
3358
3359     print STDERR "Finding firmware bundles for $mybrand $mymodel\n";
3360
3361     my $xml = XMLin($filename);
3362     my @paths;
3363     for my $bundle (@{$xml->{SoftwareBundle}}) {
3364         my $brand = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Display}->{content};
3365         my $model = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Model}->{Display}->{content};
3366         my $oscode;
3367         if ("ARRAY" eq ref $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}) {
3368             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}[0]->{osCode};
3369         } else {
3370             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}->{osCode};
3371         }
3372         if ($mybrand eq $brand && $mymodel eq $model && "LIN" eq $oscode)
3373         {
3374             @paths = map { $_->{path} } @{$bundle->{Contents}->{Package}};
3375         }
3376     }
3377     for my $component (@{$xml->{SoftwareComponent}}) {
3378         my $componenttype = $component->{ComponentType}->{value};
3379
3380         # Drop application packages, only firmware and BIOS
3381         next if 'APAC' eq $componenttype;
3382
3383         my $cpath = $component->{path};
3384         for my $path (@paths) {
3385             if ($cpath =~ m%/$path$%) {
3386                 push(@paths, $cpath);
3387             }
3388         }
3389     }
3390     return @paths;
3391 }
3392 </pre>
3393
3394 <p>The code is only tested on RedHat Enterprise Linux, but I suspect
3395 it could work on other platforms with some tweaking.  Anyone know a
3396 index like Catalog.xml is available from HP for HP servers?  At the
3397 moment I maintain a similar list manually and it is quickly getting
3398 outdated.</p>
3399
3400       </div>
3401       <div class="tags">
3402
3403
3404         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3405
3406
3407       </div>
3408     </div>
3409     <div class="padding"></div>
3410
3411     <div class="entry">
3412       <div class="title">
3413         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_is_booting_into_runlevel_1_different_from_single_user_boots_.html">How is booting into runlevel 1 different from single user boots?</a>
3414       </div>
3415       <div class="date">
3416          4th August 2011
3417       </div>
3418       <div class="body">
3419         <p>Wouter Verhelst have some
3420 <a href="http://grep.be/blog/en/retorts/pere_kubuntu_boot">interesting
3421 comments and opinions</a> on my blog post on
3422 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_should_start_from__etc_rcS_d__in_Debian____almost_nothing.html">the
3423 need to clean up /etc/rcS.d/ in Debian</a> and my blog post about
3424 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_missing_in_the_Debian_desktop__or_why_my_parents_use_Kubuntu.html">the
3425 default KDE desktop in Debian</a>.  I only have time to address one
3426 small piece of his comment now, and though it best to address the
3427 misunderstanding he bring forward:</p>
3428
3429 <p><blockquote>
3430 Currently, a system admin has four options: [...] boot to a
3431 single-user system (by adding 'single' to the kernel command line;
3432 this runs rcS and rc1 scripts)
3433 </blockquote></p>
3434
3435 <p>This make me believe Wouter believe booting into single user mode
3436 and booting into runlevel 1 is the same.  I am not surprised he
3437 believe this, because it would make sense and is a quite sensible
3438 thing to believe.  But because the boot in Debian is slightly broken,
3439 runlevel 1 do not work properly and it isn't the same as single user
3440 mode.  I'll try to explain what is actually happing, but it is a bit
3441 hard to explain.</p>
3442
3443 <p>Single user mode is defined like this in /etc/inittab:
3444 "<tt>~~:S:wait:/sbin/sulogin</tt>".  This means the only thing that is
3445 executed in single user mode is sulogin.  Single user mode is a boot
3446 state "between" the runlevels, and when booting into single user mode,
3447 only the scripts in /etc/rcS.d/ are executed before the init process
3448 enters the single user state.  When switching to runlevel 1, the state
3449 is in fact not ending in runlevel 1, but it passes through runlevel 1
3450 and end up in the single user mode (see /etc/rc1.d/S03single, which
3451 runs "init -t1 S" to switch to single user mode at the end of runlevel
3452 1.  It is confusing that the 'S' (single user) init mode is not the
3453 mode enabled by /etc/rcS.d/ (which is more like the initial boot
3454 mode).</p>
3455
3456 <p>This summary might make it clearer.  When booting for the first
3457 time into single user mode, the following commands are executed:
3458 "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc S; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  When booting into
3459 runlevel 1, the following commands are executed: "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc
3460 S; /etc/init.d/rc 1; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  A problem show up when
3461 trying to continue after visiting single user mode.  Not all services
3462 are started again as they should, causing the machine to end up in an
3463 unpredicatble state.  This is why Debian admins recommend rebooting
3464 after visiting single user mode.</p>
3465
3466 <p>A similar problem with runlevel 1 is caused by the amount of
3467 scripts executed from /etc/rcS.d/.  When switching from say runlevel 2
3468 to runlevel 1, the services started from /etc/rcS.d/ are not properly
3469 stopped when passing through the scripts in /etc/rc1.d/, and not
3470 started again when switching away from runlevel 1 to the runlevels
3471 2-5.  I believe the problem is best fixed by moving all the scripts
3472 out of /etc/rcS.d/ that are not <strong>required</strong> to get a
3473 functioning single user mode during boot.</p>
3474
3475 <p>I have spent several years investigating the Debian boot system,
3476 and discovered this problem a few years ago.  I suspect it originates
3477 from when sysvinit was introduced into Debian, a long time ago.</p>
3478
3479       </div>
3480       <div class="tags">
3481
3482
3483         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3484
3485
3486       </div>
3487     </div>
3488     <div class="padding"></div>
3489
3490     <div class="entry">
3491       <div class="title">
3492         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_should_start_from__etc_rcS_d__in_Debian____almost_nothing.html">What should start from /etc/rcS.d/ in Debian? - almost nothing</a>
3493       </div>
3494       <div class="date">
3495         30th July 2011
3496       </div>
3497       <div class="body">
3498         <p>In the Debian boot system, several packages include scripts that
3499 are started from /etc/rcS.d/.  In fact, there is a bite more of them
3500 than make sense, and this causes a few problems.  What kind of
3501 problems, you might ask.  There are at least two problems.  The first
3502 is that it is not possible to recover a machine after switching to
3503 runlevel 1.  One need to actually reboot to get the machine back to
3504 the expected state.  The other is that single user boot will sometimes
3505 run into problems because some of the subsystems are activated before
3506 the root login is presented, causing problems when trying to recover a
3507 machine from a problem in that subsystem.  A minor additional point is
3508 that moving more scripts out of rcS.d/ and into the other rc#.d/
3509 directories will increase the amount of scripts that can run in
3510 parallel during boot, and thus decrease the boot time.</p>
3511
3512 <p>So, which scripts should start from rcS.d/.  In short, only the
3513 scripts that _have_ to execute before the root login prompt is
3514 presented during a single user boot should go there.  Everything else
3515 should go into the numeric runlevels.  This means things like
3516 lm-sensors, fuse and x11-common should not run from rcS.d, but from
3517 the numeric runlevels.  Today in Debian, there are around 115 init.d
3518 scripts that are started from rcS.d/, and most of them should be moved
3519 out.  Do your package have one of them?  Please help us make single
3520 user and runlevel 1 better by moving it.</p>
3521
3522 <p>Scripts setting up the screen, keyboard, system partitions
3523 etc. should still be started from rcS.d/, but there is for example no
3524 need to have the network enabled before the single user login prompt
3525 is presented.</p>
3526
3527 <p>As always, things are not so easy to fix as they sound.  To keep
3528 Debian systems working while scripts migrate and during upgrades, the
3529 scripts need to be moved from rcS.d/ to rc2.d/ in reverse dependency
3530 order, ie the scripts that nothing in rcS.d/ depend on can be moved,
3531 and the next ones can only be moved when their dependencies have been
3532 moved first.  This migration must be done sequentially while we ensure
3533 that the package system upgrade packages in the right order to keep
3534 the system state correct.  This will require some coordination when it
3535 comes to network related packages, but most of the packages with
3536 scripts that should migrate do not have anything in rcS.d/ depending
3537 on them.  Some packages have already been updated, like the sudo
3538 package, while others are still left to do.  I wish I had time to work
3539 on this myself, but real live constrains make it unlikely that I will
3540 find time to push this forward.</p>
3541
3542       </div>
3543       <div class="tags">
3544
3545
3546         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3547
3548
3549       </div>
3550     </div>
3551     <div class="padding"></div>
3552
3553     <div class="entry">
3554       <div class="title">
3555         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_missing_in_the_Debian_desktop__or_why_my_parents_use_Kubuntu.html">What is missing in the Debian desktop, or why my parents use Kubuntu</a>
3556       </div>
3557       <div class="date">
3558         29th July 2011
3559       </div>
3560       <div class="body">
3561         <p>While at Debconf11, I have several times during discussions
3562 mentioned the issues I believe should be improved in Debian for its
3563 desktop to be useful for more people.  The use case for this is my
3564 parents, which are currently running Kubuntu which solve the
3565 issues.</p>
3566
3567 <p>I suspect these four missing features are not very hard to
3568 implement.  After all, they are present in Ubuntu, so if we wanted to
3569 do this in Debian we would have a source.</p>
3570
3571 <ol>
3572
3573 <li><strong>Simple GUI based upgrade of packages.</strong> When there
3574 are new packages available for upgrades, a icon in the KDE status bar
3575 indicate this, and clicking on it will activate the simple upgrade
3576 tool to handle it.  I have no problem guiding both of my parents
3577 through the process over the phone.  If a kernel reboot is required,
3578 this too is indicated by the status bars and the upgrade tool.  Last
3579 time I checked, nothing with the same features was working in KDE in
3580 Debian.</li>
3581
3582 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing Firefox browser
3583 plugins.</strong> When the browser encounter a MIME type it do not
3584 currently have a handler for, it will ask the user if the system
3585 should search for a package that would add support for this MIME type,
3586 and if the user say yes, the APT sources will be searched for packages
3587 advertising the MIME type in their control file (visible in the
3588 Packages file in the APT archive).  If one or more packages are found,
3589 it is a simple click of the mouse to add support for the missing mime
3590 type.  If the package require the user to accept some non-free
3591 license, this is explained to the user.  The entire process make it
3592 more clear to the user why something do not work in the browser, and
3593 make the chances higher for the user to blame the web page authors and
3594 not the browser for any missing features.</li>
3595
3596 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing multimedia codec/format
3597 handlers.</strong> When the media players encounter a format or codec
3598 it is not supporting, a dialog pop up asking the user if the system
3599 should search for a package that would add support for it.  This
3600 happen with things like MP3, Windows Media or H.264.  The selection
3601 and installation procedure is very similar to the Firefox browser
3602 plugin handling.  This is as far as I know implemented using a
3603 gstreamer hook.  The end result is that the user easily get access to
3604 the codecs that are present from the APT archives available, while
3605 explaining more on why a given format is unsupported by Ubuntu.</li>
3606
3607 <li><strong>Better browser handling of some MIME types.</strong> When
3608 displaying a text/plain file in my Debian browser, it will propose to
3609 start emacs to show it.  If I remember correctly, when doing the same
3610 in Kunbutu it show the file as a text file in the browser.  At least I
3611 know Opera will show text files within the browser.  I much prefer the
3612 latter behaviour.</li>
3613
3614 </ol>
3615
3616 <p>There are other nice features as well, like the simplified suite
3617 upgrader, but given that I am the one mostly doing the dist-upgrade,
3618 it do not matter much.</p>
3619
3620 <p>I really hope we could get these features in place for the next
3621 Debian release.  It would require the coordinated effort of several
3622 maintainers, but would make the end user experience a lot better.</p>
3623
3624       </div>
3625       <div class="tags">
3626
3627
3628         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
3629
3630
3631       </div>
3632     </div>
3633     <div class="padding"></div>
3634
3635     <div class="entry">
3636       <div class="title">
3637         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Perl_modules_used_by_FixMyStreet_which_are_missing_in_Debian_Squeeze.html">Perl modules used by FixMyStreet which are missing in Debian/Squeeze</a>
3638       </div>
3639       <div class="date">
3640         26th July 2011
3641       </div>
3642       <div class="body">
3643         <p>The Norwegian <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</A>
3644 site is build on Debian/Squeeze, and this platform was chosen because
3645 I am most familiar with Debian (being a Debian Developer for around 10
3646 years) because it is the latest stable Debian release which should get
3647 security support for a few years.</p>
3648
3649 <p>The web service is written in Perl, and depend on some perl modules
3650 that are missing in Debian at the moment.  It would be great if these
3651 modules were added to the Debian archive, allowing anyone to set up
3652 their own <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com">FixMyStreet</a> clone
3653 in their own country using only Debian packages.  The list of modules
3654 missing in Debian/Squeeze isn't very long, and I hope the perl group
3655 will find time to package the 12 modules Catalyst::Plugin::SmartURI,
3656 Catalyst::Plugin::Unicode::Encoding, Catalyst::View::TT, Devel::Hide,
3657 Sort::Key, Statistics::Distributions, Template::Plugin::Comma,
3658 Template::Plugin::DateTime::Format, Term::Size::Any, Term::Size::Perl,
3659 URI::SmartURI and Web::Scraper to make the maintenance of FixMyStreet
3660 easier in the future.</p>
3661
3662 <p>Thanks to the great tools in Debian, getting the missing modules
3663 installed on my server was a simple call to 'cpan2deb Module::Name'
3664 and 'dpkg -i' to install the resulting package.  But this leave me
3665 with the responsibility of tracking security problems, which I really
3666 do not have time for.</p>
3667
3668       </div>
3669       <div class="tags">
3670
3671
3672         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami</a>.
3673
3674
3675       </div>
3676     </div>
3677     <div class="padding"></div>
3678
3679     <div class="entry">
3680       <div class="title">
3681         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Norwegian_FixMyStreet_have_kept_me_busy_the_last_few_weeks.html">A Norwegian FixMyStreet have kept me busy the last few weeks</a>
3682       </div>
3683       <div class="date">
3684          3rd April 2011
3685       </div>
3686       <div class="body">
3687         <p>Here is a small update for my English readers.  Most of my blog
3688 posts have been in Norwegian the last few weeks, so here is a short
3689 update in English.</p>
3690
3691 <p>The kids still keep me too busy to get much free software work
3692 done, but I did manage to organise a project to get a Norwegian port
3693 of the British service
3694 <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com/">FixMyStreet</a> up and running,
3695 and it has been running for a month now.  The entire project has been
3696 organised by me and two others.  Around Christmas we gathered sponsors
3697 to fund the development work.  In January I drafted a contract with
3698 <a href="http://www.mysociety.org/">mySociety</a> on what to develop,
3699 and in February the development took place.  Most of it involved
3700 converting the source to use GPS coordinates instead of British
3701 easting/northing, and the resulting code should be a lot easier to get
3702 running in any country by now.  The Norwegian
3703 <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</a> is using
3704 <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/">OpenStreetmap</a> as the map
3705 source and the source for administrative borders in Norway, and
3706 support for this had to be added/fixed.</p>
3707
3708 <p>The Norwegian version went live March 3th, and we spent the weekend
3709 polishing the system before we announced it March 7th.  The system is
3710 running on a KVM instance of Debian/Squeeze, and has seen almost 3000
3711 problem reports in a few weeks.  Soon we hope to announce the Android
3712 and iPhone versions making it even easier to report problems with the
3713 public infrastructure.</p>
3714
3715 <p>Perhaps something to consider for those of you in countries without
3716 such service?</p>
3717
3718       </div>
3719       <div class="tags">
3720
3721
3722         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kart">kart</a>.
3723
3724
3725       </div>
3726     </div>
3727     <div class="padding"></div>
3728
3729     <div class="entry">
3730       <div class="title">
3731         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_NVD_and_CPE_to_track_CVEs_in_locally_maintained_software.html">Using NVD and CPE to track CVEs in locally maintained software</a>
3732       </div>
3733       <div class="date">
3734         28th January 2011
3735       </div>
3736       <div class="body">
3737         <p>The last few days I have looked at ways to track open security
3738 issues here at my work with the University of Oslo.  My idea is that
3739 it should be possible to use the information about security issues
3740 available on the Internet, and check our locally
3741 maintained/distributed software against this information.  It should
3742 allow us to verify that no known security issues are forgotten.  The
3743 CVE database listing vulnerabilities seem like a great central point,
3744 and by using the package lists from Debian mapped to CVEs provided by
3745 the testing security team, I believed it should be possible to figure
3746 out which security holes were present in our free software
3747 collection.</p>
3748
3749 <p>After reading up on the topic, it became obvious that the first
3750 building block is to be able to name software packages in a unique and
3751 consistent way across data sources.  I considered several ways to do
3752 this, for example coming up with my own naming scheme like using URLs
3753 to project home pages or URLs to the Freshmeat entries, or using some
3754 existing naming scheme.  And it seem like I am not the first one to
3755 come across this problem, as MITRE already proposed and implemented a
3756 solution.  Enter the <a href="http://cpe.mitre.org/index.html">Common
3757 Platform Enumeration</a> dictionary, a vocabulary for referring to
3758 software, hardware and other platform components.  The CPE ids are
3759 mapped to CVEs in the <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/">National
3760 Vulnerability Database</a>, allowing me to look up know security
3761 issues for any CPE name.  With this in place, all I need to do is to
3762 locate the CPE id for the software packages we use at the university.
3763 This is fairly trivial (I google for 'cve cpe $package' and check the
3764 NVD entry if a CVE for the package exist).</p>
3765
3766 <p>To give you an example.  The GNU gzip source package have the CPE
3767 name cpe:/a:gnu:gzip.  If the old version 1.3.3 was the package to
3768 check out, one could look up
3769 <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/view/vuln/search?cpe=cpe%3A%2Fa%3Agnu%3Agzip:1.3.3">cpe:/a:gnu:gzip:1.3.3
3770 in NVD</a> and get a list of 6 security holes with public CVE entries.
3771 The most recent one is
3772 <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/view/vuln/detail?vulnId=CVE-2010-0001">CVE-2010-0001</a>,
3773 and at the bottom of the NVD page for this vulnerability the complete
3774 list of affected versions is provided.</p>
3775
3776 <p>The NVD database of CVEs is also available as a XML dump, allowing
3777 for offline processing of issues.  Using this dump, I've written a
3778 small script taking a list of CPEs as input and list all CVEs
3779 affecting the packages represented by these CPEs.  One give it CPEs
3780 with version numbers as specified above and get a list of open
3781 security issues out.</p>
3782
3783 <p>Of course for this approach to be useful, the quality of the NVD
3784 information need to be high.  For that to happen, I believe as many as
3785 possible need to use and contribute to the NVD database.  I notice
3786 RHEL is providing
3787 <a href="https://www.redhat.com/security/data/metrics/rhsamapcpe.txt">a
3788 map from CVE to CPE</a>, indicating that they are using the CPE
3789 information.  I'm not aware of Debian and Ubuntu doing the same.</p>
3790
3791 <p>To get an idea about the quality for free software, I spent some
3792 time making it possible to compare the CVE database from Debian with
3793 the CVE database in NVD.  The result look fairly good, but there are
3794 some inconsistencies in NVD (same software package having several
3795 CPEs), and some inaccuracies (NVD not mentioning buggy packages that
3796 Debian believe are affected by a CVE).  Hope to find time to improve
3797 the quality of NVD, but that require being able to get in touch with
3798 someone maintaining it.  So far my three emails with questions and
3799 corrections have not seen any reply, but I hope contact can be
3800 established soon.</p>
3801
3802 <p>An interesting application for CPEs is cross platform package
3803 mapping.  It would be useful to know which packages in for example
3804 RHEL, OpenSuSe and Mandriva are missing from Debian and Ubuntu, and
3805 this would be trivial if all linux distributions provided CPE entries
3806 for their packages.</p>
3807
3808       </div>
3809       <div class="tags">
3810
3811
3812         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
3813
3814
3815       </div>
3816     </div>
3817     <div class="padding"></div>
3818
3819     <div class="entry">
3820       <div class="title">
3821         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Which_module_is_loaded_for_a_given_PCI_and_USB_device_.html">Which module is loaded for a given PCI and USB device?</a>
3822       </div>
3823       <div class="date">
3824         23rd January 2011
3825       </div>
3826       <div class="body">
3827         <p>In the
3828 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/discover-data">discover-data</a>
3829 package in Debian, there is a script to report useful information
3830 about the running hardware for use when people report missing
3831 information.  One part of this script that I find very useful when
3832 debugging hardware problems, is the part mapping loaded kernel module
3833 to the PCI device it claims.  It allow me to quickly see if the kernel
3834 module I expect is driving the hardware I am struggling with.  To see
3835 the output, make sure discover-data is installed and run
3836 <tt>/usr/share/bug/discover-data 3>&1</tt>.  The relevant output on
3837 one of my machines like this:</p>
3838
3839 <pre>
3840 loaded modules:
3841 10de:03eb i2c_nforce2
3842 10de:03f1 ohci_hcd
3843 10de:03f2 ehci_hcd
3844 10de:03f0 snd_hda_intel
3845 10de:03ec pata_amd
3846 10de:03f6 sata_nv
3847 1022:1103 k8temp
3848 109e:036e bttv
3849 109e:0878 snd_bt87x
3850 11ab:4364 sky2
3851 </pre>
3852
3853 <p>The code in question look like this, slightly modified for
3854 readability and to drop the output to file descriptor 3:</p>
3855
3856 <pre>
3857 if [ -d /sys/bus/pci/devices/ ] ; then
3858     echo loaded pci modules:
3859     (
3860         cd /sys/bus/pci/devices/
3861         for address in * ; do
3862             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
3863                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
3864                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
3865                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
3866                     id=`lspci -n -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $3}'`
3867                     echo "$id $module"
3868                 fi
3869             fi
3870         done
3871     )
3872     echo
3873 fi
3874 </pre>
3875
3876 <p>Similar code could be used to extract USB device module
3877 mappings:</p>
3878
3879 <pre>
3880 if [ -d /sys/bus/usb/devices/ ] ; then
3881     echo loaded usb modules:
3882     (
3883         cd /sys/bus/usb/devices/
3884         for address in * ; do
3885             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
3886                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
3887                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
3888                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
3889                     id=$(lsusb -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $6}')
3890                     if [ "$id" ] ; then
3891                         echo "$id $module"
3892                     fi
3893                 fi
3894             fi
3895         done
3896     )
3897     echo
3898 fi
3899 </pre>
3900
3901 <p>This might perhaps be something to include in other tools as
3902 well.</p>
3903
3904       </div>
3905       <div class="tags">
3906
3907
3908         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3909
3910
3911       </div>
3912     </div>
3913     <div class="padding"></div>
3914
3915     <div class="entry">
3916       <div class="title">
3917         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_test_if_a_laptop_is_working_with_Linux.html">How to test if a laptop is working with Linux</a>
3918       </div>
3919       <div class="date">
3920         22nd December 2010
3921       </div>
3922       <div class="body">
3923         <p>The last few days I have spent at work here at the <a
3924 href="http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo</a> testing if the new
3925 batch of computers will work with Linux.  Every year for the last few
3926 years the university have organised shared bid of a few thousand
3927 computers, and this year HP won the bid.  Two different desktops and
3928 five different laptops are on the list this year.  We in the UNIX
3929 group want to know which one of these computers work well with RHEL
3930 and Ubuntu, the two Linux distributions we currently handle at the
3931 university.</p>
3932
3933 <p>My test method is simple, and I share it here to get feedback and
3934 perhaps inspire others to test hardware as well.  To test, I PXE
3935 install the OS version of choice, and log in as my normal user and run
3936 a few applications and plug in selected pieces of hardware.  When
3937 something fail, I make a note about this in the test matrix and move
3938 on.  If I have some spare time I try to report the bug to the OS
3939 vendor, but as I only have the machines for a short time, I rarely
3940 have the time to do this for all the problems I find.</p>
3941
3942 <p>Anyway, to get to the point of this post.  Here is the simple tests
3943 I perform on a new model.</p>
3944
3945 <ul>
3946
3947 <li>Is PXE installation working?  I'm testing with RHEL6, Ubuntu Lucid
3948 and Ubuntu Maverik at the moment.  If I feel like it, I also test with
3949 RHEL5 and Debian Edu/Squeeze.</li>
3950
3951 <li>Is X.org working?  If the graphical login screen show up after
3952 installation, X.org is working.</li>
3953
3954 <li>Is hardware accelerated OpenGL working?  Running glxgears (in
3955 package mesa-utils on Ubuntu) and writing down the frames per second
3956 reported by the program.</li>
3957
3958 <li>Is sound working?  With Gnome and KDE, a sound is played when
3959 logging in, and if I can hear this the test is successful.  If there
3960 are several audio exits on the machine, I try them all and check if
3961 the Gnome/KDE audio mixer can control where to send the sound.  I
3962 normally test this by playing
3963 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20101012-chef/ ">a HTML5
3964 video</a> in Firefox/Iceweasel.</li>
3965
3966 <li>Is the USB subsystem working?  I test this by plugging in a USB
3967 memory stick and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
3968
3969 <li>Is the CD/DVD player working?  I test this by inserting any CD/DVD
3970 I have lying around, and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
3971
3972 <li>Is any built in camera working?  Test using cheese, and see if a
3973 picture from the v4l device show up.</li>
3974
3975 <li>Is bluetooth working?  Use the Gnome/KDE browsing tool to see if
3976 any bluetooth devices are discovered.  In my office, I normally see a
3977 few.</li>
3978
3979 <li>For laptops, is the SD or Compaq Flash reader working.  I have
3980 memory modules lying around, and stick them in and see if Gnome/KDE
3981 notice this.</li>
3982
3983 <li>For laptops, is suspend/hibernate working?  I'm testing if the
3984 special button work, and if the laptop continue to work after
3985 resume.</li>
3986
3987 <li>For laptops, is the extra buttons working, like audio level,
3988 adjusting background light, switching on/off external video output,
3989 switching on/off wifi, bluetooth, etc?  The set of buttons differ from
3990 laptop to laptop, so I just write down which are working and which are
3991 not.</li>
3992
3993 <li>Some laptops have smart card readers, finger print readers,
3994 acceleration sensors etc.  I rarely test these, as I do not know how
3995 to quickly test if they are working or not, so I only document their
3996 existence.</li>
3997
3998 </ul>
3999
4000 <p>By now I suspect you are really curious what the test results are
4001 for the HP machines I am testing.  I'm not done yet, so I will report
4002 the test results later.  For now I can report that HP 8100 Elite work
4003 fine, and hibernation fail with HP EliteBook 8440p on Ubuntu Lucid,
4004 and audio fail on RHEL6.  Ubuntu Maverik worked with 8440p.  As you
4005 can see, I have most machines left to test.  One interesting
4006 observation is that Ubuntu Lucid has almost twice the frame rate than
4007 RHEL6 with glxgears.  No idea why.</p>
4008
4009       </div>
4010       <div class="tags">
4011
4012
4013         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
4014
4015
4016       </div>
4017     </div>
4018     <div class="padding"></div>
4019
4020     <div class="entry">
4021       <div class="title">
4022         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Some_thoughts_on_BitCoins.html">Some thoughts on BitCoins</a>
4023       </div>
4024       <div class="date">
4025         11th December 2010
4026       </div>
4027       <div class="body">
4028         <p>As I continue to explore
4029 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>, I've starting to wonder
4030 what properties the system have, and how it will be affected by laws
4031 and regulations here in Norway.  Here are some random notes.</p>
4032
4033 <p>One interesting thing to note is that since the transactions are
4034 verified using a peer to peer network, all details about a transaction
4035 is known to everyone.  This means that if a BitCoin address has been
4036 published like I did with mine in my initial post about BitCoin, it is
4037 possible for everyone to see how many BitCoins have been transfered to
4038 that address.  There is even a web service to look at the details for
4039 all transactions.  There I can see that my address
4040 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a>
4041 have received 16.06 Bitcoin, the
4042 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3">1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3</a>
4043 address of Simon Phipps have received 181.97 BitCoin and the address
4044 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt">1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt</A>
4045 of EFF have received 2447.38 BitCoins so far.  Thank you to each and
4046 every one of you that donated bitcoins to support my activity. The
4047 fact that anyone can see how much money was transfered to a given
4048 address make it more obvious why the BitCoin community recommend to
4049 generate and hand out a new address for each transaction.  I'm told
4050 there is no way to track which addresses belong to a given person or
4051 organisation without the person or organisation revealing it
4052 themselves, as Simon, EFF and I have done.</p>
4053
4054 <p>In Norway, and in most other countries, there are laws and
4055 regulations limiting how much money one can transfer across the border
4056 without declaring it.  There are money laundering, tax and accounting
4057 laws and regulations I would expect to apply to the use of BitCoin.
4058 If the Skolelinux foundation
4059 (<a href="http://linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">SLX
4060 Debian Labs</a>) were to accept donations in BitCoin in addition to
4061 normal bank transfers like EFF is doing, how should this be accounted?
4062 Given that it is impossible to know if money can cross the border or
4063 not, should everything or nothing be declared?  What exchange rate
4064 should be used when calculating taxes?  Would receivers have to pay
4065 income tax if the foundation were to pay Skolelinux contributors in
4066 BitCoin?  I have no idea, but it would be interesting to know.</p>
4067
4068 <p>For a currency to be useful and successful, it must be trusted and
4069 accepted by a lot of users.  It must be possible to get easy access to
4070 the currency (as a wage or using currency exchanges), and it must be
4071 easy to spend it.  At the moment BitCoin seem fairly easy to get
4072 access to, but there are very few places to spend it.  I am not really
4073 a regular user of any of the vendor types currently accepting BitCoin,
4074 so I wonder when my kind of shop would start accepting BitCoins.  I
4075 would like to buy electronics, travels and subway tickets, not herbs
4076 and books. :) The currency is young, and this will improve over time
4077 if it become popular, but I suspect regular banks will start to lobby
4078 to get BitCoin declared illegal if it become popular.  I'm sure they
4079 will claim it is helping fund terrorism and money laundering (which
4080 probably would be true, as is any currency in existence), but I
4081 believe the problems should be solved elsewhere and not by blaming
4082 currencies.</p>
4083
4084 <p>The process of creating new BitCoins is called mining, and it is
4085 CPU intensive process that depend on a bit of luck as well (as one is
4086 competing against all the other miners currently spending CPU cycles
4087 to see which one get the next lump of cash).  The "winner" get 50
4088 BitCoin when this happen.  Yesterday I came across the obvious way to
4089 join forces to increase ones changes of getting at least some coins,
4090 by coordinating the work on mining BitCoins across several machines
4091 and people, and sharing the result if one is lucky and get the 50
4092 BitCoins.  Check out
4093 <a href="http://www.bluishcoder.co.nz/bitcoin-pool/">BitCoin Pool</a>
4094 if this sounds interesting.  I have not had time to try to set up a
4095 machine to participate there yet, but have seen that running on ones
4096 own for a few days have not yield any BitCoins througth mining
4097 yet.</p>
4098
4099 <p>Update 2010-12-15: Found an <a
4100 href="http://inertia.posterous.com/reply-to-the-underground-economist-why-bitcoi">interesting
4101 criticism</a> of bitcoin.  Not quite sure how valid it is, but thought
4102 it was interesting to read.  The arguments presented seem to be
4103 equally valid for gold, which was used as a currency for many years.</p>
4104
4105       </div>
4106       <div class="tags">
4107
4108
4109         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
4110
4111
4112       </div>
4113     </div>
4114     <div class="padding"></div>
4115
4116     <div class="entry">
4117       <div class="title">
4118         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Now_accepting_bitcoins___anonymous_and_distributed_p2p_crypto_money.html">Now accepting bitcoins - anonymous and distributed p2p crypto-money</a>
4119       </div>
4120       <div class="date">
4121         10th December 2010
4122       </div>
4123       <div class="body">
4124         <p>With this weeks lawless
4125 <a href="http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/06/wikileaks/index.html">governmental
4126 attacks</a> on Wikileak and
4127 <a href="http://www.salon.com/technology/dan_gillmor/2010/12/06/war_on_speech">free
4128 speech</a>, it has become obvious that PayPal, visa and mastercard can
4129 not be trusted to handle money transactions.
4130 A blog post from
4131 <a href="http://webmink.com/2010/12/06/now-accepting-bitcoin/">Simon
4132 Phipps on bitcoin</a> reminded me about a project that a friend of
4133 mine mentioned earlier.  I decided to follow Simon's example, and get
4134 involved with <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>.  I got
4135 some help from my friend to get it all running, and he even handed me
4136 some bitcoins to get started.  I even donated a few bitcoins to Simon
4137 for helping me remember BitCoin.</p>
4138
4139 <p>So, what is bitcoins, you probably wonder?  It is a digital
4140 crypto-currency, decentralised and handled using peer-to-peer
4141 networks.  It allows anonymous transactions and prohibits central
4142 control over the transactions, making it impossible for governments
4143 and companies alike to block donations and other transactions.  The
4144 source is free software, and while the key dependency wxWidgets 2.9
4145 for the graphical user interface is missing in Debian, the command
4146 line client builds just fine.  Hopefully Jonas
4147 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/578157">will get the package into
4148 Debian</a> soon.</p>
4149
4150 <p>Bitcoins can be converted to other currencies, like USD and EUR.
4151 There are <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/trade">companies accepting
4152 bitcoins</a> when selling services and goods, and there are even
4153 currency "stock" markets where the exchange rate is decided.  There
4154 are not many users so far, but the concept seems promising.  If you
4155 want to get started and lack a friend with any bitcoins to spare,
4156 you can even get
4157 <a href="https://freebitcoins.appspot.com/">some for free</a> (0.05
4158 bitcoin at the time of writing).  Use
4159 <a href="http://www.bitcoinwatch.com/">BitcoinWatch</a> to keep an eye
4160 on the current exchange rates.</p>
4161
4162 <p>As an experiment, I have decided to set up bitcoind on one of my
4163 machines.  If you want to support my activity, please send Bitcoin
4164 donations to the address
4165 <b>15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</b>.  Thank you!</p>
4166
4167       </div>
4168       <div class="tags">
4169
4170
4171         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
4172
4173
4174       </div>
4175     </div>
4176     <div class="padding"></div>
4177
4178     <div class="entry">
4179       <div class="title">
4180         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_isn_t_Debian_Edu_using_VLC_.html">Why isn't Debian Edu using VLC?</a>
4181       </div>
4182       <div class="date">
4183         27th November 2010
4184       </div>
4185       <div class="body">
4186         <p>In the latest issue of Linux Journal, the readers choices were
4187 presented, and the winner among the multimedia player were VLC.
4188 Personally, I like VLC, and it is my player of choice when I first try
4189 to play a video file or stream.  Only if VLC fail will I drag out
4190 gmplayer to see if it can do better.  The reason is mostly the failure
4191 model and trust.  When VLC fail, it normally pop up a error message
4192 reporting the problem.  When mplayer fail, it normally segfault or
4193 just hangs.  The latter failure mode drain my trust in the program.<p>
4194
4195 <p>But even if VLC is my player of choice, we have choosen to use
4196 mplayer in <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
4197 Edu/Skolelinux</a>.  The reason is simple.  We need a good browser
4198 plugin to play web videos seamlessly, and the VLC browser plugin is
4199 not very good.  For example, it lack in-line control buttons, so there
4200 is no way for the user to pause the video.  Also, when I
4201 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">last
4202 tested the browser plugins</a> available in Debian, the VLC plugin
4203 failed on several video pages where mplayer based plugins worked.  If
4204 the browser plugin for VLC was as good as the gecko-mediaplayer
4205 package (which uses mplayer), we would switch.</P>
4206
4207 <p>While VLC is a good player, its user interface is slightly
4208 annoying.  The most annoying feature is its inconsistent use of
4209 keyboard shortcuts.  When the player is in full screen mode, its
4210 shortcuts are different from when it is playing the video in a window.
4211 For example, space only work as pause when in full screen mode.  I
4212 wish it had consisten shortcuts and that space also would work when in
4213 window mode.  Another nice shortcut in gmplayer is [enter] to restart
4214 the current video.  It is very nice when playing short videos from the
4215 web and want to restart it when new people arrive to have a look at
4216 what is going on.</p>
4217
4218       </div>
4219       <div class="tags">
4220
4221
4222         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
4223
4224
4225       </div>
4226     </div>
4227     <div class="padding"></div>
4228
4229     <div class="entry">
4230       <div class="title">
4231         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lenny__Squeeze_upgrades_of_the_Gnome_and_KDE_desktop__now_with_apt_get_autoremove.html">Lenny->Squeeze upgrades of the Gnome and KDE desktop, now with apt-get autoremove</a>
4232       </div>
4233       <div class="date">
4234         22nd November 2010
4235       </div>
4236       <div class="body">
4237         <p>Michael Biebl suggested to me on IRC, that I changed my automated
4238 upgrade testing of the
4239 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
4240 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a> to do <tt>apt-get autoremove</tt> when using apt-get.
4241 This seem like a very good idea, so I adjusted by test scripts and
4242 can now present the updated result from today:</p>
4243
4244 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
4245
4246 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
4247
4248 <blockquote><p>
4249   apache2.2-bin
4250   aptdaemon
4251   baobab
4252   binfmt-support
4253   browser-plugin-gnash
4254   cheese-common
4255   cli-common
4256   cups-pk-helper
4257   dmz-cursor-theme
4258   empathy
4259   empathy-common
4260   freedesktop-sound-theme
4261   freeglut3
4262   gconf-defaults-service
4263   gdm-themes
4264   gedit-plugins
4265   geoclue
4266   geoclue-hostip
4267   geoclue-localnet
4268   geoclue-manual
4269   geoclue-yahoo
4270   gnash
4271   gnash-common
4272   gnome
4273   gnome-backgrounds
4274   gnome-cards-data
4275   gnome-codec-install
4276   gnome-core
4277   gnome-desktop-environment
4278   gnome-disk-utility
4279   gnome-screenshot
4280   gnome-search-tool
4281   gnome-session-canberra
4282   gnome-system-log
4283   gnome-themes-extras
4284   gnome-themes-more
4285   gnome-user-share
4286   gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
4287   gstreamer0.10-tools
4288   gtk2-engines
4289   gtk2-engines-pixbuf
4290   gtk2-engines-smooth
4291   hamster-applet
4292   libapache2-mod-dnssd
4293   libapr1
4294   libaprutil1
4295   libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3
4296   libaprutil1-ldap
4297   libart2.0-cil
4298   libboost-date-time1.42.0
4299   libboost-python1.42.0
4300   libboost-thread1.42.0
4301   libchamplain-0.4-0
4302   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0
4303   libcheese-gtk18
4304   libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
4305   libcryptui0
4306   libdiscid0
4307   libelf1
4308   libepc-1.0-2
4309   libepc-common
4310   libepc-ui-1.0-2
4311   libfreerdp-plugins-standard
4312   libfreerdp0
4313   libgconf2.0-cil
4314   libgdata-common
4315   libgdata7
4316   libgdu-gtk0
4317   libgee2
4318   libgeoclue0
4319   libgexiv2-0
4320   libgif4
4321   libglade2.0-cil
4322   libglib2.0-cil
4323   libgmime2.4-cil
4324   libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
4325   libgnome2.24-cil
4326   libgnomepanel2.24-cil
4327   libgpod-common
4328   libgpod4
4329   libgtk2.0-cil
4330   libgtkglext1
4331   libgtksourceview2.0-common
4332   libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
4333   libmono-addins0.2-cil
4334   libmono-cairo2.0-cil
4335   libmono-corlib2.0-cil
4336   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil
4337   libmono-posix2.0-cil
4338   libmono-security2.0-cil
4339   libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
4340   libmono-system2.0-cil
4341   libmtp8
4342   libmusicbrainz3-6
4343   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil
4344   libndesk-dbus1.0-cil
4345   libopal3.6.8
4346   libpolkit-gtk-1-0
4347   libpt2.6.7
4348   libpython2.6
4349   librpm1
4350   librpmio1
4351   libsdl1.2debian
4352   libsrtp0
4353   libssh-4
4354   libtelepathy-farsight0
4355   libtelepathy-glib0
4356   libtidy-0.99-0
4357   media-player-info
4358   mesa-utils
4359   mono-2.0-gac
4360   mono-gac
4361   mono-runtime
4362   nautilus-sendto
4363   nautilus-sendto-empathy
4364   p7zip-full
4365   pkg-config
4366   python-aptdaemon
4367   python-aptdaemon-gtk
4368   python-axiom
4369   python-beautifulsoup
4370   python-bugbuddy
4371   python-clientform
4372   python-coherence
4373   python-configobj
4374   python-crypto
4375   python-cupshelpers
4376   python-elementtree
4377   python-epsilon
4378   python-evolution
4379   python-feedparser
4380   python-gdata
4381   python-gdbm
4382   python-gst0.10
4383   python-gtkglext1
4384   python-gtksourceview2
4385   python-httplib2
4386   python-louie
4387   python-mako
4388   python-markupsafe
4389   python-mechanize
4390   python-nevow
4391   python-notify
4392   python-opengl
4393   python-openssl
4394   python-pam
4395   python-pkg-resources
4396   python-pyasn1
4397   python-pysqlite2
4398   python-rdflib
4399   python-serial
4400   python-tagpy
4401   python-twisted-bin
4402   python-twisted-conch
4403   python-twisted-core
4404   python-twisted-web
4405   python-utidylib
4406   python-webkit
4407   python-xdg
4408   python-zope.interface
4409   remmina
4410   remmina-plugin-data
4411   remmina-plugin-rdp
4412   remmina-plugin-vnc
4413   rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
4414   rhythmbox-plugins
4415   rpm-common
4416   rpm2cpio
4417   seahorse-plugins
4418   shotwell
4419   software-center
4420   system-config-printer-udev
4421   telepathy-gabble
4422   telepathy-mission-control-5
4423   telepathy-salut
4424   tomboy
4425   totem
4426   totem-coherence
4427   totem-mozilla
4428   totem-plugins
4429   transmission-common
4430   xdg-user-dirs
4431   xdg-user-dirs-gtk
4432   xserver-xephyr
4433 </p></blockquote>
4434
4435 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
4436
4437 <blockquote><p>
4438   cheese
4439   ekiga
4440   eog
4441   epiphany-extensions
4442   evolution-exchange
4443   fast-user-switch-applet
4444   file-roller
4445   gcalctool
4446   gconf-editor
4447   gdm
4448   gedit
4449   gedit-common
4450   gnome-games
4451   gnome-games-data
4452   gnome-nettool
4453   gnome-system-tools
4454   gnome-themes
4455   gnuchess
4456   gucharmap
4457   guile-1.8-libs
4458   libavahi-ui0
4459   libdmx1
4460   libgalago3
4461   libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
4462   libgtksourceview2.0-0
4463   liblircclient0
4464   libsdl1.2debian-alsa
4465   libspeexdsp1
4466   libsvga1
4467   rhythmbox
4468   seahorse
4469   sound-juicer
4470   system-config-printer
4471   totem-common
4472   transmission-gtk
4473   vinagre
4474   vino
4475 </p></blockquote>
4476
4477 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
4478
4479 <blockquote><p>
4480   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
4481 </p></blockquote>
4482
4483 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
4484
4485 <blockquote><p>
4486 [nothing]
4487 </p></blockquote>
4488
4489 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
4490
4491 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
4492
4493 <blockquote><p>
4494   ksmserver
4495 </p></blockquote>
4496
4497 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
4498
4499 <blockquote><p>
4500   kwin
4501   network-manager-kde
4502 </p></blockquote>
4503
4504 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
4505
4506 <blockquote><p>
4507   arts
4508   dolphin
4509   freespacenotifier
4510   google-gadgets-gst
4511   google-gadgets-xul
4512   kappfinder
4513   kcalc
4514   kcharselect
4515   kde-core
4516   kde-plasma-desktop
4517   kde-standard
4518   kde-window-manager
4519   kdeartwork
4520   kdeartwork-emoticons
4521   kdeartwork-style
4522   kdeartwork-theme-icon
4523   kdebase
4524   kdebase-apps
4525   kdebase-workspace
4526   kdebase-workspace-bin
4527   kdebase-workspace-data
4528   kdeeject
4529   kdelibs
4530   kdeplasma-addons
4531   kdeutils
4532   kdewallpapers
4533   kdf
4534   kfloppy
4535   kgpg
4536   khelpcenter4
4537   kinfocenter
4538   konq-plugins-l10n
4539   konqueror-nsplugins
4540   kscreensaver
4541   kscreensaver-xsavers
4542   ktimer
4543   kwrite
4544   libgle3
4545   libkde4-ruby1.8
4546   libkonq5
4547   libkonq5-templates
4548   libnetpbm10
4549   libplasma-ruby
4550   libplasma-ruby1.8
4551   libqt4-ruby1.8
4552   marble-data
4553   marble-plugins
4554   netpbm
4555   nuvola-icon-theme
4556   plasma-dataengines-workspace
4557   plasma-desktop
4558   plasma-desktopthemes-artwork
4559   plasma-runners-addons
4560   plasma-scriptengine-googlegadgets
4561   plasma-scriptengine-python
4562   plasma-scriptengine-qedje
4563   plasma-scriptengine-ruby
4564   plasma-scriptengine-webkit
4565   plasma-scriptengines
4566   plasma-wallpapers-addons
4567   plasma-widget-folderview
4568   plasma-widget-networkmanagement
4569   ruby
4570   sweeper
4571   update-notifier-kde
4572   xscreensaver-data-extra
4573   xscreensaver-gl
4574   xscreensaver-gl-extra
4575   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
4576 </p></blockquote>
4577
4578 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
4579
4580 <blockquote><p>
4581   ark
4582   google-gadgets-common
4583   google-gadgets-qt
4584   htdig
4585   kate
4586   kdebase-bin
4587   kdebase-data
4588   kdepasswd
4589   kfind
4590   klipper
4591   konq-plugins
4592   konqueror
4593   ksysguard
4594   ksysguardd
4595   libarchive1
4596   libcln6
4597   libeet1
4598   libeina-svn-06
4599   libggadget-1.0-0b
4600   libggadget-qt-1.0-0b
4601   libgps19
4602   libkdecorations4
4603   libkephal4
4604   libkonq4
4605   libkonqsidebarplugin4a
4606   libkscreensaver5
4607   libksgrd4
4608   libksignalplotter4
4609   libkunitconversion4
4610   libkwineffects1a
4611   libmarblewidget4
4612   libntrack-qt4-1
4613   libntrack0
4614   libplasma-geolocation-interface4
4615   libplasmaclock4a
4616   libplasmagenericshell4
4617   libprocesscore4a
4618   libprocessui4a
4619   libqalculate5
4620   libqedje0a
4621   libqtruby4shared2
4622   libqzion0a
4623   libruby1.8
4624   libscim8c2a
4625   libsmokekdecore4-3
4626   libsmokekdeui4-3
4627   libsmokekfile3
4628   libsmokekhtml3
4629   libsmokekio3
4630   libsmokeknewstuff2-3
4631   libsmokeknewstuff3-3
4632   libsmokekparts3
4633   libsmokektexteditor3
4634   libsmokekutils3
4635   libsmokenepomuk3
4636   libsmokephonon3
4637   libsmokeplasma3
4638   libsmokeqtcore4-3
4639   libsmokeqtdbus4-3
4640   libsmokeqtgui4-3
4641   libsmokeqtnetwork4-3
4642   libsmokeqtopengl4-3
4643   libsmokeqtscript4-3
4644   libsmokeqtsql4-3
4645   libsmokeqtsvg4-3
4646   libsmokeqttest4-3
4647   libsmokeqtuitools4-3
4648   libsmokeqtwebkit4-3
4649   libsmokeqtxml4-3
4650   libsmokesolid3
4651   libsmokesoprano3
4652   libtaskmanager4a
4653   libtidy-0.99-0
4654   libweather-ion4a
4655   libxklavier16
4656   libxxf86misc1
4657   okteta
4658   oxygencursors
4659   plasma-dataengines-addons
4660   plasma-scriptengine-superkaramba
4661   plasma-widget-lancelot
4662   plasma-widgets-addons
4663   plasma-widgets-workspace
4664   polkit-kde-1
4665   ruby1.8
4666   systemsettings
4667   update-notifier-common
4668 </p></blockquote>
4669
4670 <p>Running apt-get autoremove made the results using apt-get and
4671 aptitude a bit more similar, but there are still quite a lott of
4672 differences.  I have no idea what packages should be installed after
4673 the upgrade, but hope those that do can have a look.</p>
4674
4675       </div>
4676       <div class="tags">
4677
4678
4679         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
4680
4681
4682       </div>
4683     </div>
4684     <div class="padding"></div>
4685
4686     <div class="entry">
4687       <div class="title">
4688         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Migrating_Xen_virtual_machines_using_LVM_to_KVM_using_disk_images.html">Migrating Xen virtual machines using LVM to KVM using disk images</a>
4689       </div>
4690       <div class="date">
4691         22nd November 2010
4692       </div>
4693       <div class="body">
4694         <p>Most of the computers in use by the
4695 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux project</a>
4696 are virtual machines.  And they have been Xen machines running on a
4697 fairly old IBM eserver xseries 345 machine, and we wanted to migrate
4698 them to KVM on a newer Dell PowerEdge 2950 host machine.  This was a
4699 bit harder that it could have been, because we set up the Xen virtual
4700 machines to get the virtual partitions from LVM, which as far as I
4701 know is not supported by KVM.  So to migrate, we had to convert
4702 several LVM logical volumes to partitions on a virtual disk file.</p>
4703
4704 <p>I found
4705 <a href="http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM">a
4706 nice recipe</a> to do this, and wrote the following script to do the
4707 migration.  It uses qemu-img from the qemu package to make the disk
4708 image, parted to partition it, losetup and kpartx to present the disk
4709 image partions as devices, and dd to copy the data.  I NFS mounted the
4710 new servers storage area on the old server to do the migration.</p>
4711
4712 <pre>
4713 #!/bin/sh
4714
4715 # Based on
4716 # http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM
4717
4718 set -e
4719 set -x
4720
4721 if [ -z "$1" ] ; then
4722     echo "Usage: $0 &lt;hostname&gt;"
4723     exit 1
4724 else
4725     host="$1"
4726 fi
4727
4728 if [ ! -e /dev/vg_data/$host-disk ] ; then
4729     echo "error: unable to find LVM volume for $host"
4730     exit 1
4731 fi
4732
4733 # Partitions need to be a bit bigger than the LVM LVs.  not sure why.
4734 disksize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-disk | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
4735 swapsize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-swap | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
4736 totalsize=$(( ( $disksize + $swapsize ) ))
4737
4738 img=$host.img
4739 #dd if=/dev/zero of=$img bs=1M count=$(( $disksize + $swapsize ))
4740 qemu-img create $img ${totalsize}MMaking room on the Debian Edu/Sqeeze DVD
4741
4742 parted $img mklabel msdos
4743 parted $img mkpart primary linux-swap 0 $disksize
4744 parted $img mkpart primary ext2 $disksize $totalsize
4745 parted $img set 1 boot on
4746
4747 modprobe dm-mod
4748 losetup /dev/loop0 $img
4749 kpartx -a /dev/loop0
4750
4751 dd if=/dev/vg_data/$host-disk of=/dev/mapper/loop0p1 bs=1M
4752 fsck.ext3 -f /dev/mapper/loop0p1 || true
4753 mkswap /dev/mapper/loop0p2
4754
4755 kpartx -d /dev/loop0
4756 losetup -d /dev/loop0
4757 </pre>
4758
4759 <p>The script is perhaps so simple that it is not copyrightable, but
4760 if it is, it is licenced using GPL v2 or later at your discretion.</p>
4761
4762 <p>After doing this, I booted a Debian CD in rescue mode in KVM with
4763 the new disk image attached, installed grub-pc and linux-image-686 and
4764 set up grub to boot from the disk image.  After this, the KVM machines
4765 seem to work just fine.</p>
4766
4767       </div>
4768       <div class="tags">
4769
4770
4771         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
4772
4773
4774       </div>
4775     </div>
4776     <div class="padding"></div>
4777
4778     <div class="entry">
4779       <div class="title">
4780         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lenny__Squeeze_upgrades__apt_vs_aptitude_with_the_Gnome_and_KDE_desktop.html">Lenny->Squeeze upgrades, apt vs aptitude with the Gnome and KDE desktop</a>
4781       </div>
4782       <div class="date">
4783         20th November 2010
4784       </div>
4785       <div class="body">
4786         <p>I'm still running upgrade testing of the
4787 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
4788 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a>, but have not had time to spend on reporting the
4789 status.  Here is a short update based on a test I ran 20101118.</p>
4790
4791 <p>I still do not know what a correct migration should look like, so I
4792 report any differences between apt and aptitude and hope someone else
4793 can see if anything should be changed.</p>
4794
4795 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
4796
4797 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
4798
4799 <blockquote><p>
4800   apache2.2-bin aptdaemon at-spi baobab binfmt-support
4801   browser-plugin-gnash cheese-common cli-common cpp-4.3 cups-pk-helper
4802   dmz-cursor-theme empathy empathy-common finger
4803   freedesktop-sound-theme freeglut3 gconf-defaults-service gdm-themes
4804   gedit-plugins geoclue geoclue-hostip geoclue-localnet geoclue-manual
4805   geoclue-yahoo gnash gnash-common gnome gnome-backgrounds
4806   gnome-cards-data gnome-codec-install gnome-core
4807   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-disk-utility gnome-screenshot
4808   gnome-search-tool gnome-session-canberra gnome-spell
4809   gnome-system-log gnome-themes-extras gnome-themes-more
4810   gnome-user-share gs-common gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
4811   gstreamer0.10-tools gtk2-engines gtk2-engines-pixbuf
4812   gtk2-engines-smooth hal-info hamster-applet libapache2-mod-dnssd
4813   libapr1 libaprutil1 libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3 libaprutil1-ldap
4814   libart2.0-cil libatspi1.0-0 libboost-date-time1.42.0
4815   libboost-python1.42.0 libboost-thread1.42.0 libchamplain-0.4-0
4816   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0 libcheese-gtk18 libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
4817   libcryptui0 libcupsys2 libdiscid0 libeel2-data libelf1 libepc-1.0-2
4818   libepc-common libepc-ui-1.0-2 libfreerdp-plugins-standard
4819   libfreerdp0 libgail-common libgconf2.0-cil libgdata-common libgdata7
4820   libgdl-1-common libgdu-gtk0 libgee2 libgeoclue0 libgexiv2-0 libgif4
4821   libglade2.0-cil libglib2.0-cil libgmime2.4-cil libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
4822   libgnome2.24-cil libgnomepanel2.24-cil libgnomeprint2.2-data
4823   libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod-common libgpod4
4824   libgtk2.0-cil libgtkglext1 libgtksourceview-common
4825   libgtksourceview2.0-common libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
4826   libmono-addins0.2-cil libmono-cairo2.0-cil libmono-corlib2.0-cil
4827   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil libmono-posix2.0-cil
4828   libmono-security2.0-cil libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
4829   libmono-system2.0-cil libmtp8 libmusicbrainz3-6
4830   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil libndesk-dbus1.0-cil libopal3.6.8
4831   libpolkit-gtk-1-0 libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
4832   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libpt2.6.7 libpython2.6 librpm1 librpmio1
4833   libsdl1.2debian libservlet2.4-java libsrtp0 libssh-4
4834   libtelepathy-farsight0 libtelepathy-glib0 libtidy-0.99-0
4835   libxalan2-java libxerces2-java media-player-info mesa-utils
4836   mono-2.0-gac mono-gac mono-runtime nautilus-sendto
4837   nautilus-sendto-empathy openoffice.org-writer2latex
4838   openssl-blacklist p7zip p7zip-full pkg-config python-4suite-xml
4839   python-aptdaemon python-aptdaemon-gtk python-axiom
4840   python-beautifulsoup python-bugbuddy python-clientform
4841   python-coherence python-configobj python-crypto python-cupshelpers
4842   python-cupsutils python-eggtrayicon python-elementtree
4843   python-epsilon python-evolution python-feedparser python-gdata
4844   python-gdbm python-gst0.10 python-gtkglext1 python-gtkmozembed
4845   python-gtksourceview2 python-httplib2 python-louie python-mako
4846   python-markupsafe python-mechanize python-nevow python-notify
4847   python-opengl python-openssl python-pam python-pkg-resources
4848   python-pyasn1 python-pysqlite2 python-rdflib python-serial
4849   python-tagpy python-twisted-bin python-twisted-conch
4850   python-twisted-core python-twisted-web python-utidylib python-webkit
4851   python-xdg python-zope.interface remmina remmina-plugin-data
4852   remmina-plugin-rdp remmina-plugin-vnc rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
4853   rhythmbox-plugins rpm-common rpm2cpio seahorse-plugins shotwell
4854   software-center svgalibg1 system-config-printer-udev
4855   telepathy-gabble telepathy-mission-control-5 telepathy-salut tomboy
4856   totem totem-coherence totem-mozilla totem-plugins
4857   transmission-common xdg-user-dirs xdg-user-dirs-gtk xserver-xephyr
4858   zip
4859 </p></blockquote>
4860
4861 Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude
4862
4863 <blockquote><p>
4864   arj bluez-utils cheese dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop ekiga eog
4865   epiphany-extensions epiphany-gecko evolution-exchange
4866   fast-user-switch-applet file-roller gcalctool gconf-editor gdm gedit
4867   gedit-common gnome-app-install gnome-games gnome-games-data
4868   gnome-nettool gnome-system-tools gnome-themes gnome-utils
4869   gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager gnuchess gucharmap
4870   guile-1.8-libs hal libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5
4871   libavahi-ui0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7
4872   libcucul0 libcurl3 libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdmx1 libdvdread3
4873   libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1
4874   libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3 libfaad0 libgadu3
4875   libgalago3 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
4876   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
4877   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
4878   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
4879   libgtkhtml2-0 libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgtksourceview2.0-0
4880   libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
4881   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libkpathsea4 liblircclient0 libltdl3 liblwres50
4882   libmagick++10 libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmozjs1d libmpfr1ldbl libmtp7
4883   libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0
4884   libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpisock9
4885   libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8
4886   libsdl1.2debian-alsa libsensors3 libsexy2 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
4887   libspeexdsp1 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libsvga1
4888   libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0
4889   libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12
4890   libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common rhythmbox seahorse
4891   sound-juicer swfdec-gnome system-config-printer totem-common
4892   totem-gstreamer transmission-gtk vinagre vino w3c-dtd-xhtml wodim
4893 </p></blockquote>
4894
4895 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
4896
4897 <blockquote><p>
4898   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
4899 </p></blockquote>
4900
4901 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
4902
4903 <blockquote><p>
4904 [nothing]
4905 </p></blockquote>
4906
4907 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
4908
4909 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
4910
4911 <blockquote><p>
4912   autopoint bomber bovo cantor cantor-backend-kalgebra cpp-4.3 dcoprss
4913   edict espeak espeak-data eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
4914   ghostscript-x git gnome-audio gnugo granatier gs-common
4915   gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio indi kaddressbook-plugins kalgebra
4916   kalzium-data kanjidic kapman kate-plugins kblocks kbreakout kbstate
4917   kde-icons-mono kdeaccessibility kdeaddons-kfile-plugins
4918   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
4919   kdeedu kdeedu-data kdeedu-kvtml-data kdegames kdegames-card-data
4920   kdegames-mahjongg-data kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc
4921   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
4922   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdessh kdetoys kdewebdev
4923   kdiamond kdnssd kfilereplace kfourinline kgeography-data kigo
4924   killbots kiriki klettres-data kmoon kmrml knewsticker-scripts
4925   kollision kpf krosspython ksirk ksmserver ksquares kstars-data
4926   ksudoku kubrick kweather libasound2-plugins libboost-python1.42.0
4927   libcfitsio3 libconvert-binhex-perl libcrypt-ssleay-perl libdb4.6++
4928   libdjvulibre-text libdotconf1.0 liberror-perl libespeak1
4929   libfinance-quote-perl libgail-common libgsl0ldbl libhtml-parser-perl
4930   libhtml-tableextract-perl libhtml-tagset-perl libhtml-tree-perl
4931   libio-stringy-perl libkdeedu4 libkdegames5 libkiten4 libkpathsea5
4932   libkrossui4 libmailtools-perl libmime-tools-perl
4933   libnews-nntpclient-perl libopenbabel3 libportaudio2 libpulse-browse0
4934   libservlet2.4-java libspeechd2 libtiff-tools libtimedate-perl
4935   libunistring0 liburi-perl libwww-perl libxalan2-java libxerces2-java
4936   lirc luatex marble networkstatus noatun-plugins
4937   openoffice.org-writer2latex palapeli palapeli-data parley
4938   parley-data poster psutils pulseaudio pulseaudio-esound-compat
4939   pulseaudio-module-x11 pulseaudio-utils quanta-data rocs rsync
4940   speech-dispatcher step svgalibg1 texlive-binaries texlive-luatex
4941   ttf-sazanami-gothic
4942 </p></blockquote>
4943
4944 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
4945
4946 <blockquote><p>
4947   amor artsbuilder atlantik atlantikdesigner blinken bluez-utils cvs
4948   dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop imlib-base imlib11 kalzium kanagram kandy
4949   kasteroids katomic kbackgammon kbattleship kblackbox kbounce kbruch
4950   kcron kdat kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data kdeprint kdict kdvi kedit
4951   keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs kgeography kghostview
4952   kgoldrunner khangman khexedit kiconedit kig kimagemapeditor
4953   kitchensync kiten kjumpingcube klatin klettres klickety klines
4954   klinkstatus kmag kmahjongg kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmines
4955   kmousetool kmouth kmplot knetwalk kodo kolf kommander konquest kooka
4956   kpager kpat kpdf kpercentage kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler krec
4957   kregexpeditor kreversi ksame ksayit kshisen ksig ksim ksirc ksirtet
4958   ksmiletris ksnake ksokoban kspaceduel kstars ksvg ksysv kteatime
4959   ktip ktnef ktouch ktron kttsd ktuberling kturtle ktux kuickshow
4960   kverbos kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kwordquiz
4961   kworldclock kxsldbg libakode2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
4962   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
4963   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2
4964   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0
4965   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
4966   libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0 libicu38
4967   libiec61883-0 libindex0 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
4968   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1 libkdeedu3
4969   libkdegames1 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
4970   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
4971   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick10
4972   libmimelib1c2a libmodplug0c2 libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libmpfr1ldbl
4973   libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9 libpoppler-glib3
4974   libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 librss1 libsensors3
4975   libsmbios2 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90
4976   libtalloc1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 lskat
4977   mpeglib network-manager-kde noatun pmount tex-common texlive-base
4978   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended tidy
4979   ttf-dustin ttf-kochi-gothic ttf-sjfonts
4980 </p></blockquote>
4981
4982 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
4983
4984 <blockquote><p>
4985   dolphin kde-core kde-plasma-desktop kde-standard kde-window-manager
4986   kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-apps kdebase-workspace
4987   kdebase-workspace-bin kdebase-workspace-data kdeutils kscreensaver
4988   kscreensaver-xsavers libgle3 libkonq5 libkonq5-templates libnetpbm10
4989   netpbm plasma-widget-folderview plasma-widget-networkmanagement
4990   xscreensaver-data-extra xscreensaver-gl xscreensaver-gl-extra
4991   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
4992 </p></blockquote>
4993
4994 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
4995
4996 <blockquote><p>
4997   kdebase-bin konq-plugins konqueror
4998 </p></blockquote>
4999
5000       </div>
5001       <div class="tags">
5002
5003
5004         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5005
5006
5007       </div>
5008     </div>
5009     <div class="padding"></div>
5010
5011     <div class="entry">
5012       <div class="title">
5013         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gnash_buildbot_slave_and_Debian_kfreebsd.html">Gnash buildbot slave and Debian kfreebsd</a>
5014       </div>
5015       <div class="date">
5016         20th November 2010
5017       </div>
5018       <div class="body">
5019         <p>Answering
5020 <a href="http://www.listware.net/201011/gnash-dev/67431-gnash-dev-buildbot-looking-for-slaves.html">the
5021 call from the Gnash project</a> for
5022 <a href="http://www.gnashdev.org:8010">buildbot</a> slaves to test the
5023 current source, I have set up a virtual KVM machine on the Debian
5024 Edu/Skolelinux virtualization host to test the git source on
5025 Debian/Squeeze.  I hope this can help the developers in getting new
5026 releases out more often.</p>
5027
5028 <p>As the developers want less main-stream build platforms tested to,
5029 I have considered setting up a <a
5030 href="http://www.debian.org/ports/kfreebsd-gnu/">Debian/kfreebsd</a>
5031 machine as well.  I have also considered using the kfreebsd
5032 architecture in Debian as a file server in NUUG to get access to the 5
5033 TB zfs volume we currently use to store DV video.  Because of this, I
5034 finally got around to do a test installation of Debian/Squeeze with
5035 kfreebsd.  Installation went fairly smooth, thought I noticed some
5036 visual glitches in the cdebconf dialogs (black cursor left on the
5037 screen at random locations).  Have not gotten very far with the
5038 testing.  Noticed cfdisk did not work, but fdisk did so it was not a
5039 fatal problem.  Have to spend some more time on it to see if it is
5040 useful as a file server for NUUG.  Will try to find time to set up a
5041 gnash buildbot slave on the Debian Edu/Skolelinux this weekend.</p>
5042
5043       </div>
5044       <div class="tags">
5045
5046
5047         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
5048
5049
5050       </div>
5051     </div>
5052     <div class="padding"></div>
5053
5054     <div class="entry">
5055       <div class="title">
5056         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_in_3D.html">Debian in 3D</a>
5057       </div>
5058       <div class="date">
5059          9th November 2010
5060       </div>
5061       <div class="body">
5062         <p><img src="http://thingiverse-production.s3.amazonaws.com/renders/23/e0/c4/f9/2b/debswagtdose_preview_medium.jpg"></p>
5063
5064 <p>3D printing is just great.  I just came across this Debian logo in
5065 3D linked in from
5066 <a href="http://blog.thingiverse.com/2010/11/09/participatory-branding/">the
5067 thingiverse blog</a>.</p>
5068
5069       </div>
5070       <div class="tags">
5071
5072
5073         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5074
5075
5076       </div>
5077     </div>
5078     <div class="padding"></div>
5079
5080     <div class="entry">
5081       <div class="title">
5082         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Software_updates_2010_10_24.html">Software updates 2010-10-24</a>
5083       </div>
5084       <div class="date">
5085         24th October 2010
5086       </div>
5087       <div class="body">
5088         <p>Some updates.</p>
5089
5090 <p>My <a href="http://pledgebank.com/gnash-avm2">gnash pledge</a> to
5091 raise money for the project is going well.  The lower limit of 10
5092 signers was reached in 24 hours, and so far 13 people have signed it.
5093 More signers and more funding is most welcome, and I am really curious
5094 how far we can get before the time limit of December 24 is reached.
5095 :)</p>
5096
5097 <p>On the #gnash IRC channel on irc.freenode.net, I was just tipped
5098 about what appear to be a great code coverage tool capable of
5099 generating code coverage stats without any changes to the source code.
5100 It is called
5101 <a href="http://simonkagstrom.github.com/kcov/index.html">kcov</a>,
5102 and can be used using <tt>kcov &lt;directory&gt; &lt;binary&gt;</tt>.
5103 It is missing in Debian, but the git source built just fine in Squeeze
5104 after I installed libelf-dev, libdwarf-dev, pkg-config and
5105 libglib2.0-dev.  Failed to build in Lenny, but suspect that is
5106 solvable.  I hope kcov make it into Debian soon.</p>
5107
5108 <p>Finally found time to wrap up the release notes for <a
5109 href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2010/10/msg00002.html">a
5110 new alpha release of Debian Edu</a>, and just published the second
5111 alpha test release of the Squeeze based Debian Edu /
5112 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a>
5113 release.  Give it a try if you need a complete linux solution for your
5114 school, including central infrastructure server, workstations, thin
5115 client servers and diskless workstations.  A nice touch added
5116 yesterday is RDP support on the thin client servers, for windows
5117 clients to get a Linux desktop on request.</p>
5118
5119       </div>
5120       <div class="tags">
5121
5122
5123         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>.
5124
5125
5126       </div>
5127     </div>
5128     <div class="padding"></div>
5129
5130     <div class="entry">
5131       <div class="title">
5132         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Some_notes_on_Flash_in_Debian_and_Debian_Edu.html">Some notes on Flash in Debian and Debian Edu</a>
5133       </div>
5134       <div class="date">
5135          4th September 2010
5136       </div>
5137       <div class="body">
5138         <p>In the <a href="http://popcon.debian.org/unknown/by_vote">Debian
5139 popularity-contest numbers</a>, the adobe-flashplugin package the
5140 second most popular used package that is missing in Debian.  The sixth
5141 most popular is flashplayer-mozilla.  This is a clear indication that
5142 working flash is important for Debian users.  Around 10 percent of the
5143 users submitting data to popcon.debian.org have this package
5144 installed.</p>
5145
5146 <p>In the report written by Lars Risan in August 2008
5147 («<a href="http://wiki.skolelinux.no/Dokumentasjon/Rapporter?action=AttachFile&do=view&target=Skolelinux_i_bruk_rapport_1.0.pdf">Skolelinux
5148 i bruk – Rapport for Hurum kommune, Universitetet i Agder og
5149 stiftelsen SLX Debian Labs</a>»), one of the most important problems
5150 schools experienced with <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
5151 Edu/Skolelinux</a> was the lack of working Flash.  A lot of educational
5152 web sites require Flash to work, and lacking working Flash support in
5153 the web browser and the problems with installing it was perceived as a
5154 good reason to stay with Windows.</p>
5155
5156 <p>I once saw a funny and sad comment in a web forum, where Linux was
5157 said to be the retarded cousin that did not really understand
5158 everything you told him but could work fairly well.  This was a
5159 comment regarding the problems Linux have with proprietary formats and
5160 non-standard web pages, and is sad because it exposes a fairly common
5161 understanding of whose fault it is if web pages that only work in for
5162 example Internet Explorer 6 fail to work on Firefox, and funny because
5163 it explain very well how annoying it is for users when Linux
5164 distributions do not work with the documents they receive or the web
5165 pages they want to visit.</p>
5166
5167 <p>This is part of the reason why I believe it is important for Debian
5168 and Debian Edu to have a well working Flash implementation in the
5169 distribution, to get at least popular sites as Youtube and Google
5170 Video to working out of the box.  For Squeeze, Debian have the chance
5171 to include the latest version of Gnash that will make this happen, as
5172 the new release 0.8.8 was published a few weeks ago and is resting in
5173 unstable.  The new version work with more sites that version 0.8.7.
5174 The Gnash maintainers have asked for a freeze exception, but the
5175 release team have not had time to reply to it yet.  I hope they agree
5176 with me that Flash is important for the Debian desktop users, and thus
5177 accept the new package into Squeeze.</p>
5178
5179       </div>
5180       <div class="tags">
5181
5182
5183         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
5184
5185
5186       </div>
5187     </div>
5188     <div class="padding"></div>
5189
5190     <div class="entry">
5191       <div class="title">
5192         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Circular_package_dependencies_harms_apt_recovery.html">Circular package dependencies harms apt recovery</a>
5193       </div>
5194       <div class="date">
5195         27th July 2010
5196       </div>
5197       <div class="body">
5198         <p>I discovered this while doing
5199 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">automated
5200 testing of upgrades from Debian Lenny to Squeeze</a>.  A few packages
5201 in Debian still got circular dependencies, and it is often claimed
5202 that apt and aptitude should be able to handle this just fine, but
5203 some times these dependency loops causes apt to fail.</p>
5204
5205 <p>An example is from todays
5206 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing//test-20100727-lenny-squeeze-kde-aptitude.txt">upgrade
5207 of KDE using aptitude</a>.  In it, a bug in kdebase-workspace-data
5208 causes perl-modules to fail to upgrade.  The cause is simple.  If a
5209 package fail to unpack, then only part of packages with the circular
5210 dependency might end up being unpacked when unpacking aborts, and the
5211 ones already unpacked will fail to configure in the recovery phase
5212 because its dependencies are unavailable.</p>
5213
5214 <p>In this log, the problem manifest itself with this error:</p>
5215
5216 <blockquote><pre>
5217 dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of perl-modules:
5218  perl-modules depends on perl (>= 5.10.1-1); however:
5219   Version of perl on system is 5.10.0-19lenny2.
5220 dpkg: error processing perl-modules (--configure):
5221  dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
5222 </pre></blockquote>
5223
5224 <p>The perl/perl-modules circular dependency is already
5225 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/527917">reported as a bug</a>, and will
5226 hopefully be solved as soon as possible, but it is not the only one,
5227 and each one of these loops in the dependency tree can cause similar
5228 failures.  Of course, they only occur when there are bugs in other
5229 packages causing the unpacking to fail, but it is rather nasty when
5230 the failure of one package causes the problem to become worse because
5231 of dependency loops.</p>
5232
5233 <p>Thanks to
5234 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/06/msg00116.html">the
5235 tireless effort by Bill Allombert</a>, the number of circular
5236 dependencies
5237 <a href="http://debian.semistable.com/debgraph.out.html">left in Debian
5238 is dropping</a>, and perhaps it will reach zero one day. :)</p>
5239
5240 <p>Todays testing also exposed a bug in
5241 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590605">update-notifier</a> and
5242 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590604">different behaviour</a> between
5243 apt-get and aptitude, the latter possibly caused by some circular
5244 dependency.  Reported both to BTS to try to get someone to look at
5245 it.</p>
5246
5247       </div>
5248       <div class="tags">
5249
5250
5251         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
5252
5253
5254       </div>
5255     </div>
5256     <div class="padding"></div>
5257
5258     <div class="entry">
5259       <div class="title">
5260         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_are_they_searching_for___PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_in_LDAP.html">What are they searching for - PowerDNS and ISC DHCP in LDAP</a>
5261       </div>
5262       <div class="date">
5263         17th July 2010
5264       </div>
5265       <div class="body">
5266         <p>This is a
5267 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">followup</a>
5268 on my
5269 <a href="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">previous
5270 work</a> on
5271 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">merging
5272 all</a> the computer related LDAP objects in Debian Edu.</p>
5273
5274 <p>As a step to try to see if it possible to merge the DNS and DHCP
5275 LDAP objects, I have had a look at how the packages pdns-backend-ldap
5276 and dhcp3-server-ldap in Debian use the LDAP server.  The two
5277 implementations are quite different in how they use LDAP.</p>
5278
5279 To get this information, I started slapd with debugging enabled and
5280 dumped the debug output to a file to get the LDAP searches performed
5281 on a Debian Edu main-server.  Here is a summary.
5282
5283 <p><strong>powerdns</strong></p>
5284
5285 <a href="http://www.linuxnetworks.de/doc/index.php/PowerDNS_LDAP_Backend">Clues
5286 on how to</a> set up PowerDNS to use a LDAP backend is available on
5287 the web.
5288
5289 <p>PowerDNS have two modes of operation using LDAP as its backend.
5290 One "strict" mode where the forward and reverse DNS lookups are done
5291 using the same LDAP objects, and a "tree" mode where the forward and
5292 reverse entries are in two different subtrees in LDAP with a structure
5293 based on the DNS names, as in tjener.intern and
5294 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa.</p>
5295
5296 <p>In tree mode, the server is set up to use a LDAP subtree as its
5297 base, and uses a "base" scoped search for the DNS name by adding
5298 "dc=tjener,dc=intern," to the base with a filter for
5299 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" for the forward entry and
5300 "dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa," with a filter for
5301 "(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)" for the reverse entry.  For
5302 forward entries, it is looking for attributes named dnsttl, arecord,
5303 nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord,
5304 txtrecord, rprecord, afsdbrecord, keyrecord, aaaarecord, locrecord,
5305 srvrecord, naptrrecord, kxrecord, certrecord, dsrecord, sshfprecord,
5306 ipseckeyrecord, rrsigrecord, nsecrecord, dnskeyrecord, dhcidrecord,
5307 spfrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entries it is looking for
5308 the attributes dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord,
5309 ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord,
5310 locrecord, srvrecord, naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  The equivalent
5311 ldapsearch commands could look like this:</p>
5312
5313 <blockquote><pre>
5314 ldapsearch -h ldap \
5315   -b dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
5316   -s base -x '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
5317   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
5318   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
5319   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
5320   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
5321
5322 ldapsearch -h ldap \
5323   -b dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
5324   -s base -x '(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)'
5325   dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord soarecord ptrrecord \
5326   hinforecord mxrecord txtrecord rprecord aaaarecord locrecord \
5327   srvrecord naptrrecord modifytimestamp
5328 </pre></blockquote>
5329
5330 <p>In Debian Edu/Lenny, the PowerDNS tree mode is used with
5331 ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no as the base, and these are two
5332 example LDAP objects used there.  In addition to these objects, the
5333 parent objects all th way up to ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
5334 also exist.</p>
5335
5336 <blockquote><pre>
5337 dn: dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
5338 objectclass: top
5339 objectclass: dnsdomain
5340 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
5341 dc: tjener
5342 arecord: 10.0.2.2
5343 associateddomain: tjener.intern
5344
5345 dn: dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
5346 objectclass: top
5347 objectclass: dnsdomain2
5348 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
5349 dc: 2
5350 ptrrecord: tjener.intern
5351 associateddomain: 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa
5352 </pre></blockquote>
5353
5354 <p>In strict mode, the server behaves differently.  When looking for
5355 forward DNS entries, it is doing a "subtree" scoped search with the
5356 same base as in the tree mode for a object with filter
5357 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" and requests the attributes dnsttl,
5358 arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord,
5359 mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord, locrecord, srvrecord,
5360 naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entires it also do a
5361 subtree scoped search but this time the filter is "(arecord=10.0.2.2)"
5362 and the requested attributes are associateddomain, dnsttl and
5363 modifytimestamp.  In short, in strict mode the objects with ptrrecord
5364 go away, and the arecord attribute in the forward object is used
5365 instead.</p>
5366
5367 <p>The forward and reverse searches can be simulated using ldapsearch
5368 like this:</p>
5369
5370 <blockquote><pre>
5371 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
5372   '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
5373   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
5374   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
5375   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
5376   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
5377
5378 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
5379   '(arecord=10.0.2.2)' associateddomain dnsttl modifytimestamp
5380 </pre></blockquote>
5381
5382 <p>In addition to the forward and reverse searches , there is also a
5383 search for SOA records, which behave similar to the forward and
5384 reverse lookups.</p>
5385
5386 <p>A thing to note with the PowerDNS behaviour is that it do not
5387 specify any objectclass names, and instead look for the attributes it
5388 need to generate a DNS reply.  This make it able to work with any
5389 objectclass that provide the needed attributes.</p>
5390
5391 <p>The attributes are normally provided in the cosine (RFC 1274) and
5392 dnsdomain2 schemas.  The latter is used for reverse entries like
5393 ptrrecord and recent DNS additions like aaaarecord and srvrecord.</p>
5394
5395 <p>In Debian Edu, we have created DNS objects using the object classes
5396 dcobject (for dc), dnsdomain or dnsdomain2 (structural, for the DNS
5397 attributes) and domainrelatedobject (for associatedDomain).  The use
5398 of structural object classes make it impossible to combine these
5399 classes with the object classes used by DHCP.</p>
5400
5401 <p>There are other schemas that could be used too, for example the
5402 dnszone structural object class used by Gosa and bind-sdb for the DNS
5403 attributes combined with the domainrelatedobject object class, but in
5404 this case some unused attributes would have to be included as well
5405 (zonename and relativedomainname).</p>
5406
5407 <p>My proposal for Debian Edu would be to switch PowerDNS to strict
5408 mode and not use any of the existing objectclasses (dnsdomain,
5409 dnsdomain2 and dnszone) when one want to combine the DNS information
5410 with DHCP information, and instead create a auxiliary object class
5411 defined something like this (using the attributes defined for
5412 dnsdomain and dnsdomain2 or dnszone):</p>
5413
5414 <blockquote><pre>
5415 objectclass ( some-oid NAME 'dnsDomainAux'
5416     SUP top
5417     AUXILIARY
5418     MAY ( ARecord $ MDRecord $ MXRecord $ NSRecord $ SOARecord $ CNAMERecord $
5419           DNSTTL $ DNSClass $ PTRRecord $ HINFORecord $ MINFORecord $
5420           TXTRecord $ SIGRecord $ KEYRecord $ AAAARecord $ LOCRecord $
5421           NXTRecord $ SRVRecord $ NAPTRRecord $ KXRecord $ CERTRecord $
5422           A6Record $ DNAMERecord
5423     ))
5424 </pre></blockquote>
5425
5426 <p>This will allow any object to become a DNS entry when combined with
5427 the domainrelatedobject object class, and allow any entity to include
5428 all the attributes PowerDNS wants.  I've sent an email to the PowerDNS
5429 developers asking for their view on this schema and if they are
5430 interested in providing such schema with PowerDNS, and I hope my
5431 message will be accepted into their mailing list soon.</p>
5432
5433 <p><strong>ISC dhcp</strong></p>
5434
5435 <p>The DHCP server searches for specific objectclass and requests all
5436 the object attributes, and then uses the attributes it want.  This
5437 make it harder to figure out exactly what attributes are used, but
5438 thanks to the working example in Debian Edu I can at least get an idea
5439 what is needed without having to read the source code.</p>
5440
5441 <p>In the DHCP server configuration, the LDAP base to use and the
5442 search filter to use to locate the correct dhcpServer entity is
5443 stored.  These are the relevant entries from
5444 /etc/dhcp3/dhcpd.conf:</p>
5445
5446 <blockquote><pre>
5447 ldap-base-dn "dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no";
5448 ldap-dhcp-server-cn "dhcp";
5449 </pre></blockquote>
5450
5451 <p>The DHCP server uses this information to nest all the DHCP
5452 configuration it need.  The cn "dhcp" is located using the given LDAP
5453 base and the filter "(&(objectClass=dhcpServer)(cn=dhcp))".  The
5454 search result is this entry:</p>
5455
5456 <blockquote><pre>
5457 dn: cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
5458 cn: dhcp
5459 objectClass: top
5460 objectClass: dhcpServer
5461 dhcpServiceDN: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
5462 </pre></blockquote>
5463
5464 <p>The content of the dhcpServiceDN attribute is next used to locate the
5465 subtree with DHCP configuration.  The DHCP configuration subtree base
5466 is located using a base scope search with base "cn=DHCP
5467 Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" and filter
5468 "(&(objectClass=dhcpService)(|(dhcpPrimaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)(dhcpSecondaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)))".
5469 The search result is this entry:</p>
5470
5471 <blockquote><pre>
5472 dn: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
5473 cn: DHCP Config
5474 objectClass: top
5475 objectClass: dhcpService
5476 objectClass: dhcpOptions
5477 dhcpPrimaryDN: cn=dhcp, dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
5478 dhcpStatements: ddns-update-style none
5479 dhcpStatements: authoritative
5480 dhcpOption: smtp-server code 69 = array of ip-address
5481 dhcpOption: www-server code 72 = array of ip-address
5482 dhcpOption: wpad-url code 252 = text
5483 </pre></blockquote>
5484
5485 <p>Next, the entire subtree is processed, one level at the time.  When
5486 all the DHCP configuration is loaded, it is ready to receive requests.
5487 The subtree in Debian Edu contain objects with object classes
5488 top/dhcpService/dhcpOptions, top/dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions,
5489 top/dhcpSubnet, top/dhcpGroup and top/dhcpHost.  These provide options
5490 and information about netmasks, dynamic range etc.  Leaving out the
5491 details here because it is not relevant for the focus of my
5492 investigation, which is to see if it is possible to merge dns and dhcp
5493 related computer objects.</p>
5494
5495 <p>When a DHCP request come in, LDAP is searched for the MAC address
5496 of the client (00:00:00:00:00:00 in this example), using a subtree
5497 scoped search with "cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" as
5498 the base and "(&(objectClass=dhcpHost)(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet
5499 00:00:00:00:00:00))" as the filter.  This is what a host object look
5500 like:</p>
5501
5502 <blockquote><pre>
5503 dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
5504 cn: hostname
5505 objectClass: top
5506 objectClass: dhcpHost
5507 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
5508 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname
5509 </pre></blockquote>
5510
5511 <p>There is less flexiblity in the way LDAP searches are done here.
5512 The object classes need to have fixed names, and the configuration
5513 need to be stored in a fairly specific LDAP structure.  On the
5514 positive side, the invidiual dhcpHost entires can be anywhere without
5515 the DN pointed to by the dhcpServer entries.  The latter should make
5516 it possible to group all host entries in a subtree next to the
5517 configuration entries, and this subtree can also be shared with the
5518 DNS server if the schema proposed above is combined with the dhcpHost
5519 structural object class.
5520
5521 <p><strong>Conclusion</strong></p>
5522
5523 <p>The PowerDNS implementation seem to be very flexible when it come
5524 to which LDAP schemas to use.  While its "tree" mode is rigid when it
5525 come to the the LDAP structure, the "strict" mode is very flexible,
5526 allowing DNS objects to be stored anywhere under the base cn specified
5527 in the configuration.</p>
5528
5529 <p>The DHCP implementation on the other hand is very inflexible, both
5530 regarding which LDAP schemas to use and which LDAP structure to use.
5531 I guess one could implement ones own schema, as long as the
5532 objectclasses and attributes have the names used, but this do not
5533 really help when the DHCP subtree need to have a fairly fixed
5534 structure.</p>
5535
5536 <p>Based on the observed behaviour, I suspect a LDAP structure like
5537 this might work for Debian Edu:</p>
5538
5539 <blockquote><pre>
5540 ou=services
5541   cn=machine-info (dhcpService) - dhcpServiceDN points here
5542     cn=dhcp (dhcpServer)
5543     cn=dhcp-internal (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
5544       cn=10.0.2.0 (dhcpSubnet)
5545         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
5546     cn=dhcp-thinclients (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
5547       cn=192.168.0.0 (dhcpSubnet)
5548         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
5549     ou=machines - PowerDNS base points here
5550       cn=hostname (dhcpHost/domainrelatedobject/dnsDomainAux)
5551 </pre></blockquote>
5552
5553 <P>This is not tested yet.  If the DHCP server require the dhcpHost
5554 entries to be in the dhcpGroup subtrees, the entries can be stored
5555 there instead of a common machines subtree, and the PowerDNS base
5556 would have to be moved one level up to the machine-info subtree.</p>
5557
5558 <p>The combined object under the machines subtree would look something
5559 like this:</p>
5560
5561 <blockquote><pre>
5562 dn: dc=hostname,ou=machines,cn=machine-info,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
5563 dc: hostname
5564 objectClass: top
5565 objectClass: dhcpHost
5566 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
5567 objectclass: dnsDomainAux
5568 associateddomain: hostname.intern
5569 arecord: 10.11.12.13
5570 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
5571 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname.intern
5572 </pre></blockquote>
5573
5574 </p>One could even add the LTSP configuration associated with a given
5575 machine, as long as the required attributes are available in a
5576 auxiliary object class.</p>
5577
5578       </div>
5579       <div class="tags">
5580
5581
5582         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
5583
5584
5585       </div>
5586     </div>
5587     <div class="padding"></div>
5588
5589     <div class="entry">
5590       <div class="title">
5591         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">Combining PowerDNS and ISC DHCP LDAP objects</a>
5592       </div>
5593       <div class="date">
5594         14th July 2010
5595       </div>
5596       <div class="body">
5597         <p>For a while now, I have wanted to find a way to change the DNS and
5598 DHCP services in Debian Edu to use the same LDAP objects for a given
5599 computer, to avoid the possibility of having a inconsistent state for
5600 a computer in LDAP (as in DHCP but no DNS entry or the other way
5601 around) and make it easier to add computers to LDAP.</p>
5602
5603 <p>I've looked at how powerdns and dhcpd is using LDAP, and using this
5604 information finally found a solution that seem to work.</p>
5605
5606 <p>The old setup required three LDAP objects for a given computer.
5607 One forward DNS entry, one reverse DNS entry and one DHCP entry.  If
5608 we switch powerdns to use its strict LDAP method (ldap-method=strict
5609 in pdns-debian-edu.conf), the forward and reverse DNS entries are
5610 merged into one while making it impossible to transfer the reverse map
5611 to a slave DNS server.</p>
5612
5613 <p>If we also replace the object class used to get the DNS related
5614 attributes to one allowing these attributes to be combined with the
5615 dhcphost object class, we can merge the DNS and DHCP entries into one.
5616 I've written such object class in the dnsdomainaux.schema file (need
5617 proper OIDs, but that is a minor issue), and tested the setup.  It
5618 seem to work.</p>
5619
5620 <p>With this test setup in place, we can get away with one LDAP object
5621 for both DNS and DHCP, and even the LTSP configuration I suggested in
5622 an earlier email.  The combined LDAP object will look something like
5623 this:</p>
5624
5625 <blockquote><pre>
5626   dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
5627   cn: hostname
5628   objectClass: dhcphost
5629   objectclass: domainrelatedobject
5630   objectclass: dnsdomainaux
5631   associateddomain: hostname.intern
5632   arecord: 10.11.12.13
5633   dhcphwaddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
5634   dhcpstatements: fixed-address hostname
5635   ldapconfigsound: Y
5636 </pre></blockquote>
5637
5638 <p>The DNS server uses the associateddomain and arecord entries, while
5639 the DHCP server uses the dhcphwaddress and dhcpstatements entries
5640 before asking DNS to resolve the fixed-adddress.  LTSP will use
5641 dhcphwaddress or associateddomain and the ldapconfig* attributes.</p>
5642
5643 <p>I am not yet sure if I can get the DHCP server to look for its
5644 dhcphost in a different location, to allow us to put the objects
5645 outside the "DHCP Config" subtree, but hope to figure out a way to do
5646 that.  If I can't figure out a way to do that, we can still get rid of
5647 the hosts subtree and move all its content into the DHCP Config tree
5648 (which probably should be renamed to be more related to the new
5649 content.  I suspect cn=dnsdhcp,ou=services or something like that
5650 might be a good place to put it.</p>
5651
5652 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
5653 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
5654
5655       </div>
5656       <div class="tags">
5657
5658
5659         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
5660
5661
5662       </div>
5663     </div>
5664     <div class="padding"></div>
5665
5666     <div class="entry">
5667       <div class="title">
5668         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Idea_for_storing_LTSP_configuration_in_LDAP.html">Idea for storing LTSP configuration in LDAP</a>
5669       </div>
5670       <div class="date">
5671         11th July 2010
5672       </div>
5673       <div class="body">
5674         <p>Vagrant mentioned on IRC today that ltsp_config now support
5675 sourcing files from /usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ on the thin
5676 clients, and that this can be used to fetch configuration from LDAP if
5677 Debian Edu choose to store configuration there.</p>
5678
5679 <p>Armed with this information, I got inspired and wrote a test module
5680 to get configuration from LDAP.  The idea is to look up the MAC
5681 address of the client in LDAP, and look for attributes on the form
5682 ltspconfigsetting=value, and use this to export SETTING=value to the
5683 LTSP clients.</p>
5684
5685 <p>The goal is to be able to store the LTSP configuration attributes
5686 in a "computer" LDAP object used by both DNS and DHCP, and thus
5687 allowing us to store all information about a computer in one place.</p>
5688
5689 <p>This is a untested draft implementation, and I welcome feedback on
5690 this approach.  A real LDAP schema for the ltspClientAux objectclass
5691 need to be written.  Comments, suggestions, etc?</p>
5692
5693 <blockquote><pre>
5694 # Store in /opt/ltsp/$arch/usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ldap-config
5695 #
5696 # Fetch LTSP client settings from LDAP based on MAC address
5697 #
5698 # Uses ethernet address as stored in the dhcpHost objectclass using
5699 # the dhcpHWAddress attribute or ethernet address stored in the
5700 # ieee802Device objectclass with the macAddress attribute.
5701 #
5702 # This module is written to be schema agnostic, and only depend on the
5703 # existence of attribute names.
5704 #
5705 # The LTSP configuration variables are saved directly using a
5706 # ltspConfig prefix and uppercasing the rest of the attribute name.
5707 # To set the SERVER variable, set the ltspConfigServer attribute.
5708 #
5709 # Some LDAP schema should be created with all the relevant
5710 # configuration settings.  Something like this should work:
5711 #
5712 # objectclass ( 1.1.2.2 NAME 'ltspClientAux'
5713 #     SUP top
5714 #     AUXILIARY
5715 #     MAY ( ltspConfigServer $ ltsConfigSound $ ... )
5716
5717 LDAPSERVER=$(debian-edu-ldapserver)
5718 if [ "$LDAPSERVER" ] ; then
5719     LDAPBASE=$(debian-edu-ldapserver -b)
5720     for MAC in $(LANG=C ifconfig |grep -i hwaddr| awk '{print $5}'|sort -u) ; do
5721         filter="(|(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet $MAC)(macAddress=$MAC))"
5722         ldapsearch -h "$LDAPSERVER" -b "$LDAPBASE" -v -x "$filter" | \
5723             grep '^ltspConfig' | while read attr value ; do
5724             # Remove prefix and convert to upper case
5725             attr=$(echo $attr | sed 's/^ltspConfig//i' | tr a-z A-Z)
5726             # bass value on to clients
5727             eval "$attr=$value; export $attr"
5728         done
5729     done
5730 fi
5731 </pre></blockquote>
5732
5733 <p>I'm not sure this shell construction will work, because I suspect
5734 the while block might end up in a subshell causing the variables set
5735 there to not show up in ltsp-config, but if that is the case I am sure
5736 the code can be restructured to make sure the variables are passed on.
5737 I expect that can be solved with some testing. :)</p>
5738
5739 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
5740 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
5741
5742 <p>Update 2010-07-17: I am aware of another effort to store LTSP
5743 configuration in LDAP that was created around year 2000 by
5744 <a href="http://www.pcxperience.com/thinclient/documentation/ldap.html">PC
5745 Xperience, Inc., 2000</a>.  I found its
5746 <a href="http://people.redhat.com/alikins/ltsp/ldap/">files</a> on a
5747 personal home page over at redhat.com.</p>
5748
5749       </div>
5750       <div class="tags">
5751
5752
5753         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
5754
5755
5756       </div>
5757     </div>
5758     <div class="padding"></div>
5759
5760     <div class="entry">
5761       <div class="title">
5762         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/jXplorer__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">jXplorer, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
5763       </div>
5764       <div class="date">
5765          9th July 2010
5766       </div>
5767       <div class="body">
5768         <p>Since
5769 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">my
5770 last post</a> about available LDAP tools in Debian, I was told about a
5771 LDAP GUI that is even better than luma.  The java application
5772 <a href="http://jxplorer.org/">jXplorer</a> is claimed to be capable of
5773 moving LDAP objects and subtrees using drag-and-drop, and can
5774 authenticate using Kerberos.  I have only tested the Kerberos
5775 authentication, but do not have a LDAP setup allowing me to rewrite
5776 LDAP with my test user yet.  It is
5777 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/j/jxplorer.html">available in
5778 Debian</a> testing and unstable at the moment.  The only problem I
5779 have with it is how it handle errors.  If something go wrong, its
5780 non-intuitive behaviour require me to go through some query work list
5781 and remove the failing query.  Nothing big, but very annoying.</p>
5782
5783       </div>
5784       <div class="tags">
5785
5786
5787         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
5788
5789
5790       </div>
5791     </div>
5792     <div class="padding"></div>
5793
5794     <div class="entry">
5795       <div class="title">
5796         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lenny__Squeeze_upgrades__apt_vs_aptitude_with_the_Gnome_desktop.html">Lenny->Squeeze upgrades, apt vs aptitude with the Gnome desktop</a>
5797       </div>
5798       <div class="date">
5799          3rd July 2010
5800       </div>
5801       <div class="body">
5802         <p>Here is a short update on my <a
5803 href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">my
5804 Debian Lenny->Squeeze upgrade testing</a>.  Here is a summary of the
5805 difference for Gnome when it is upgraded by apt-get and aptitude.  I'm
5806 not reporting the status for KDE, because the upgrade crashes when
5807 aptitude try because of missing conflicts
5808 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> and
5809 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585716">#585716</a>).</p>
5810
5811 <p>At the end of the upgrade test script, dpkg -l is executed to get a
5812 complete list of the installed packages.  Based on this I see these
5813 differences when I did a test run today.  As usual, I do not really
5814 know what the correct set of packages would be, but thought it best to
5815 publish the difference.</p>
5816
5817 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
5818
5819 <blockquote><p>
5820   at-spi cpp-4.3 finger gnome-spell gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
5821   libatspi1.0-0 libcupsys2 libeel2-data libgail-common libgdl-1-common
5822   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin
5823   libgtksourceview-common libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
5824   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libservlet2.4-java libxalan2-java
5825   libxerces2-java openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
5826   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gtkhtml2
5827   python-gtkmozembed svgalibg1 xserver-xephyr zip
5828 </p></blockquote>
5829
5830 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
5831
5832 <blockquote><p>
5833   bluez-utils dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop epiphany-gecko
5834   gnome-app-install gnome-mount gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager
5835   libao2 libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libbind9-50
5836   libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcurl3
5837   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9
5838   libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3
5839   libfaad0 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
5840   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
5841   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
5842   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
5843   libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50
5844   libisccfg50 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick++10
5845   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4
5846   libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5
5847   libparted1.8-10 libpisock9 libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3
5848   libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8 libsensors3 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
5849   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1
5850   libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0 libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj
5851   libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3
5852   mysql-common swfdec-gnome totem-gstreamer wodim
5853 </p></blockquote>
5854
5855 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
5856
5857 <blockquote><p>
5858   gnome gnome-desktop-environment hamster-applet python-gnomeapplet
5859   python-gnomekeyring python-wnck rhythmbox-plugins xorg
5860   xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
5861   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
5862   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-video-all
5863   xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark xserver-xorg-video-ati
5864   xserver-xorg-video-chips xserver-xorg-video-cirrus
5865   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
5866   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
5867   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-mach64
5868   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
5869   xserver-xorg-video-nouveau xserver-xorg-video-nv
5870   xserver-xorg-video-r128 xserver-xorg-video-radeon
5871   xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd xserver-xorg-video-rendition
5872   xserver-xorg-video-s3 xserver-xorg-video-s3virge
5873   xserver-xorg-video-savage xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion
5874   xserver-xorg-video-sis xserver-xorg-video-sisusb
5875   xserver-xorg-video-tdfx xserver-xorg-video-tga
5876   xserver-xorg-video-trident xserver-xorg-video-tseng
5877   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vmware
5878   xserver-xorg-video-voodoo
5879 </p></blockquote>
5880
5881 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
5882
5883 <blockquote><p>
5884   deskbar-applet xserver-xorg xserver-xorg-core
5885   xserver-xorg-input-wacom xserver-xorg-video-intel
5886   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome
5887 </p></blockquote>
5888
5889 <p>I was told on IRC that the xorg-xserver package was
5890 <a href="http://git.debian.org/?p=pkg-xorg/xserver/xorg-server.git;a=commit;h=9c8080d06c457932d3bfec021c69ac000aa60120">changed
5891 in git</a> today to try to get apt-get to not remove xorg completely.
5892 No idea when it hits Squeeze, but when it does I hope it will reduce
5893 the difference somewhat.
5894
5895       </div>
5896       <div class="tags">
5897
5898
5899         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5900
5901
5902       </div>
5903     </div>
5904     <div class="padding"></div>
5905
5906     <div class="entry">
5907       <div class="title">
5908         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">LUMA, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
5909       </div>
5910       <div class="date">
5911         28th June 2010
5912       </div>
5913       <div class="body">
5914         <p>The last few days I have been looking into the status of the LDAP
5915 directory in Debian Edu, and in the process I started to miss a GUI
5916 tool to browse the LDAP tree.  The only one I was able to find in
5917 Debian/Squeeze and Lenny is
5918 <a href="http://luma.sourceforge.net/">LUMA</a>, which has proved to
5919 be a great tool to get a overview of the current LDAP directory
5920 populated by default in Skolelinux.  Thanks to it, I have been able to
5921 find empty and obsolete subtrees, misplaced objects and duplicate
5922 objects.  It will be installed by default in Debian/Squeeze.  If you
5923 are working with LDAP, give it a go. :)</p>
5924
5925 <p>I did notice one problem with it I have not had time to report to
5926 the BTS yet.  There is no .desktop file in the package, so the tool do
5927 not show up in the Gnome and KDE menus, but only deep down in in the
5928 Debian submenu in KDE.  I hope that can be fixed before Squeeze is
5929 released.</p>
5930
5931 <p>I have not yet been able to get it to modify the tree yet.  I would
5932 like to move objects and remove subtrees directly in the GUI, but have
5933 not found a way to do that with LUMA yet.  So in the mean time, I use
5934 <a href="http://www.lichteblau.com/ldapvi/">ldapvi</a> for that.</p>
5935
5936 <p>If you have tips on other GUI tools for LDAP that might be useful
5937 in Debian Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
5938
5939 <p>Update 2010-06-29: Ross Reedstrom tipped us about the
5940 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/g/gq.html">gq</a> package as a
5941 useful GUI alternative.  It seem like a good tool, but is unmaintained
5942 in Debian and got a RC bug keeping it out of Squeeze.  Unless that
5943 changes, it will not be an option for Debian Edu based on Squeeze.</p>
5944
5945       </div>
5946       <div class="tags">
5947
5948
5949         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
5950
5951
5952       </div>
5953     </div>
5954     <div class="padding"></div>
5955
5956     <div class="entry">
5957       <div class="title">
5958         <a href="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">Idea for a change to LDAP schemas allowing DNS and DHCP info to be combined into one object</a>
5959       </div>
5960       <div class="date">
5961         24th June 2010
5962       </div>
5963       <div class="body">
5964         <p>A while back, I
5965 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">complained
5966 about the fact</a> that it is not possible with the provided schemas
5967 for storing DNS and DHCP information in LDAP to combine the two sets
5968 of information into one LDAP object representing a computer.</p>
5969
5970 <p>In the mean time, I discovered that a simple fix would be to make
5971 the dhcpHost object class auxiliary, to allow it to be combined with
5972 the dNSDomain object class, and thus forming one object for one
5973 computer when storing both DHCP and DNS information in LDAP.</p>
5974
5975 <p>If I understand this correctly, it is not safe to do this change
5976 without also changing the assigned number for the object class, and I
5977 do not know enough about LDAP schema design to do that properly for
5978 Debian Edu.</p>
5979
5980 <p>Anyway, for future reference, this is how I believe we could change
5981 the
5982 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-dhc-ldap-schema-00">DHCP
5983 schema</a> to solve at least part of the problem with the LDAP schemas
5984 available today from IETF.</p>
5985
5986 <pre>
5987 --- dhcp.schema    (revision 65192)
5988 +++ dhcp.schema    (working copy)
5989 @@ -376,7 +376,7 @@
5990  objectclass ( 2.16.840.1.113719.1.203.6.6
5991         NAME 'dhcpHost'
5992         DESC 'This represents information about a particular client'
5993 -       SUP top
5994 +       SUP top AUXILIARY
5995         MUST cn
5996         MAY  (dhcpLeaseDN $ dhcpHWAddress $ dhcpOptionsDN $ dhcpStatements $ dhcpComments $ dhcpOption)
5997         X-NDS_CONTAINMENT ('dhcpService' 'dhcpSubnet' 'dhcpGroup') )
5998 </pre>
5999
6000 <p>I very much welcome clues on how to do this properly for Debian
6001 Edu/Squeeze.  We provide the DHCP schema in our debian-edu-config
6002 package, and should thus be free to rewrite it as we see fit.</p>
6003
6004 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
6005 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
6006
6007       </div>
6008       <div class="tags">
6009
6010
6011         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
6012
6013
6014       </div>
6015     </div>
6016     <div class="padding"></div>
6017
6018     <div class="entry">
6019       <div class="title">
6020         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Calling_tasksel_like_the_installer__while_still_getting_useful_output.html">Calling tasksel like the installer, while still getting useful output</a>
6021       </div>
6022       <div class="date">
6023         16th June 2010
6024       </div>
6025       <div class="body">
6026         <p>A few times I have had the need to simulate the way tasksel
6027 installs packages during the normal debian-installer run.  Until now,
6028 I have ended up letting tasksel do the work, with the annoying problem
6029 of not getting any feedback at all when something fails (like a
6030 conffile question from dpkg or a download that fails), using code like
6031 this:
6032
6033 <blockquote><pre>
6034 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
6035 tasksel --new-install
6036 </pre></blockquote>
6037
6038 This would invoke tasksel, let its automatic task selection pick the
6039 tasks to install, and continue to install the requested tasks without
6040 any output what so ever.
6041
6042 Recently I revisited this problem while working on the automatic
6043 package upgrade testing, because tasksel would some times hang without
6044 any useful feedback, and I want to see what is going on when it
6045 happen.  Then it occured to me, I can parse the output from tasksel
6046 when asked to run in test mode, and use that aptitude command line
6047 printed by tasksel then to simulate the tasksel run.  I ended up using
6048 code like this:
6049
6050 <blockquote><pre>
6051 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
6052 cmd="$(in_target tasksel -t --new-install | sed 's/debconf-apt-progress -- //')"
6053 $cmd
6054 </pre></blockquote>
6055
6056 <p>The content of $cmd is typically something like "<tt>aptitude -q
6057 --without-recommends -o APT::Install-Recommends=no -y install
6058 ~t^desktop$ ~t^gnome-desktop$ ~t^laptop$ ~pstandard ~prequired
6059 ~pimportant</tt>", which will install the gnome desktop task, the
6060 laptop task and all packages with priority standard , required and
6061 important, just like tasksel would have done it during
6062 installation.</p>
6063
6064 <p>A better approach is probably to extend tasksel to be able to
6065 install packages without using debconf-apt-progress, for use cases
6066 like this.</p>
6067
6068       </div>
6069       <div class="tags">
6070
6071
6072         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
6073
6074
6075       </div>
6076     </div>
6077     <div class="padding"></div>
6078
6079     <div class="entry">
6080       <div class="title">
6081         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lenny__Squeeze_upgrades__removals_by_apt_and_aptitude.html">Lenny->Squeeze upgrades, removals by apt and aptitude</a>
6082       </div>
6083       <div class="date">
6084         13th June 2010
6085       </div>
6086       <div class="body">
6087         <p>My
6088 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">testing
6089 of Debian upgrades</a> from Lenny to Squeeze continues, and I've
6090 finally made the upgrade logs available from
6091 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/</a>.
6092 I am now testing dist-upgrade of Gnome and KDE in a chroot using both
6093 apt and aptitude, and found their differences interesting.  This time
6094 I will only focus on their removal plans.</p>
6095
6096 <p>After installing a Gnome desktop and the laptop task, apt-get wants
6097 to remove 72 packages when dist-upgrading from Lenny to Squeeze.  The
6098 surprising part is that it want to remove xorg and all
6099 xserver-xorg-video* drivers.  Clearly not a good choice, but I am not
6100 sure why.  When asking aptitude to do the same, it want to remove 129
6101 packages, but most of them are library packages I suspect are no
6102 longer needed.  Both of them want to remove bluetooth packages, which
6103 I do not know.  Perhaps these bluetooth packages are obsolete?</p>
6104
6105 <p>For KDE, apt-get want to remove 82 packages, among them kdebase
6106 which seem like a bad idea and xorg the same way as with Gnome. Asking
6107 aptitude for the same, it wants to remove 192 packages, none which are
6108 too surprising.</p>
6109
6110 <p>I guess the removal of xorg during upgrades should be investigated
6111 and avoided, and perhaps others as well.  Here are the complete list
6112 of planned removals.  The complete logs is available from the URL
6113 above.  Note if you want to repeat these tests, that the upgrade test
6114 for kde+apt-get hung in the tasksel setup because of dpkg asking
6115 conffile questions.  No idea why.  I worked around it by using
6116 '<tt>echo >> /proc/<em>pidofdpkg</em>/fd/0</tt>' to tell dpkg to
6117 continue.</p>
6118
6119 <p><b>apt-get gnome 72</b>
6120 <br>bluez-gnome cupsddk-drivers deskbar-applet gnome
6121   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-network-admin gtkhtml3.14
6122   iceweasel-gnome-support libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libgdl-1-0
6123   libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libmetacity0 libslab0 libxcb-xlib0
6124   nautilus-cd-burner python-gnome2-desktop python-gnome2-extras
6125   serpentine swfdec-mozilla update-manager xorg xserver-xorg
6126   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
6127   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
6128   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
6129   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
6130   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
6131   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
6132   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
6133   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
6134   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
6135   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
6136   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
6137   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
6138   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
6139   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
6140   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
6141   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
6142   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
6143   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
6144   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
6145   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
6146   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
6147   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9
6148   xulrunner-1.9-gnome-support</p>
6149
6150 <p><b>aptitude gnome 129</b>
6151
6152 <br>bluez-gnome bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers dhcdbd
6153   djvulibre-desktop finger gnome-app-install gnome-mount
6154   gnome-network-admin gnome-spell gnome-vfs-obexftp
6155   gnome-volume-manager gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs gtkhtml3.14 libao2
6156   libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
6157   libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcupsys2 libcurl3 libdatrie0
6158   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20
6159   libeel2-data libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libfaad0 libgail-common
6160   libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libgdl-1-0 libgdl-1-common
6161   libggz2 libggzcore9 libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0
6162   libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libgnomeprint2.2-0
6163   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgnomeprintui2.2-common
6164   libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
6165   libgtksourceview-common libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6
6166   libhesiod0 libicu38 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 libmagick++10
6167   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmetacity0 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off
6168   libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2
6169   libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10
6170   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libraw1394-8
6171   libsensors3 libslab0 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8 libssh2-1
6172   libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10
6173   libtrackerclient0 libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0
6174   libxerces2-java libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6
6175   libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common nautilus-cd-burner
6176   openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
6177   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gnome2-desktop
6178   python-gnome2-extras python-gtkhtml2 python-gtkmozembed
6179   python-numeric python-sexy serpentine svgalibg1 swfdec-gnome
6180   swfdec-mozilla totem-gstreamer update-manager wodim
6181   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
6182   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
6183   zip</p>
6184
6185 <p><b>apt-get kde 82</b>
6186
6187 <br>cupsddk-drivers karm kaudiocreator kcoloredit kcontrol kde kde-core
6188   kdeaddons kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-bin kdebase-bin-kde3
6189   kdebase-kio-plugins kdesktop kdeutils khelpcenter kicker
6190   kicker-applets knewsticker kolourpaint konq-plugins konqueror korn
6191   kpersonalizer kscreensaver ksplash libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libkiten1
6192   libxcb-xlib0 quanta superkaramba texlive-base-bin xorg xserver-xorg
6193   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
6194   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
6195   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
6196   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
6197   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
6198   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
6199   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
6200   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
6201   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
6202   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
6203   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
6204   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
6205   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
6206   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
6207   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
6208   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
6209   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
6210   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
6211   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
6212   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
6213   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
6214   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9</p>
6215
6216 <p><b>aptitude kde 192</b>
6217 <br>bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers cvs dcoprss dhcdbd
6218   djvulibre-desktop dosfstools eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
6219   ghostscript-x imlib-base imlib11 indi kandy karm kasteroids
6220   kaudiocreator kbackgammon kbstate kcoloredit kcontrol kcron kdat
6221   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
6222   kdebase-bin-kde3 kdebase-kio-plugins kdeedu-data
6223   kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data
6224   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
6225   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdeprint kdesktop kdessh
6226   kdict kdnssd kdvi kedit keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs
6227   kghostview khelpcenter khexedit kiconedit kitchensync klatin
6228   klickety kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmoon kmrml kodo kolourpaint
6229   kooka korn kpager kpdf kpercentage kpf kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler
6230   krec kregexpeditor ksayit ksim ksirc ksirtet ksmiletris ksmserver
6231   ksnake ksokoban ksplash ksvg ksysv ktip ktnef kuickshow kverbos
6232   kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kworldclock
6233   kxsldbg libakode2 libao2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
6234   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
6235   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
6236   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0 libdatrie0
6237   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
6238   libgail-common libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0
6239   libicu38 libiec61883-0 libindex0 libiw29 libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1
6240   libkdeedu3 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkiten1 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
6241   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
6242   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 libmagick10 libmimelib1c2a
6243   libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9
6244   libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 libsmbios2
6245   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libtalloc1 libtiff-tools
6246   libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0 libxerces2-java
6247   libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 mpeglib networkstatus
6248   openoffice.org-writer2latex pmount poster psutils quanta quanta-data
6249   superkaramba svgalibg1 tex-common texlive-base texlive-base-bin
6250   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended
6251   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
6252   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
6253   xulrunner-1.9</p>
6254
6255
6256       </div>
6257       <div class="tags">
6258
6259
6260         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
6261
6262
6263       </div>
6264     </div>
6265     <div class="padding"></div>
6266
6267     <div class="entry">
6268       <div class="title">
6269         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">Automatic upgrade testing from Lenny to Squeeze</a>
6270       </div>
6271       <div class="date">
6272         11th June 2010
6273       </div>
6274       <div class="body">
6275         <p>The last few days I have done some upgrade testing in Debian, to
6276 see if the upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze will go smoothly.  A few bugs
6277 have been discovered and reported in the process
6278 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585410">#585410</a> in nagios3-cgi,
6279 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584879">#584879</a> already fixed in
6280 enscript and <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> in
6281 kdebase-workspace-data), and to get a more regular testing going on, I
6282 am working on a script to automate the test.</p>
6283
6284 <p>The idea is to create a Lenny chroot and use tasksel to install a
6285 Gnome or KDE desktop installation inside the chroot before upgrading
6286 it.  To ensure no services are started in the chroot, a policy-rc.d
6287 script is inserted.  To make sure tasksel believe it is to install a
6288 desktop on a laptop, the tasksel tests are replaced in the chroot
6289 (only acceptable because this is a throw-away chroot).</p>
6290
6291 <p>A naive upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze using aptitude dist-upgrade
6292 currently always fail because udev refuses to upgrade with the kernel
6293 in Lenny, so to avoid that problem the file /etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
6294 is created.  The bug report
6295 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/566000">#566000</a> make me suspect
6296 this problem do not trigger in a chroot, but I touch the file anyway
6297 to make sure the upgrade go well.  Testing on virtual and real
6298 hardware have failed me because of udev so far, and creating this file
6299 do the trick in such settings anyway.  This is a
6300 <a href="http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/debian-26/failed-dist-upgrade-due-to-udev-config_sysfs_deprecated-nonsense-804130/">known
6301 issue</a> and the current udev behaviour is intended by the udev
6302 maintainer because he lack the resources to rewrite udev to keep
6303 working with old kernels or something like that.  I really wish the
6304 udev upstream would keep udev backwards compatible, to avoid such
6305 upgrade problem, but given that they fail to do so, I guess
6306 documenting the way out of this mess is the best option we got for
6307 Debian Squeeze.</p>
6308
6309 <p>Anyway, back to the task at hand, testing upgrades.  This test
6310 script, which I call <tt>upgrade-test</tt> for now, is doing the
6311 trick:</p>
6312
6313 <blockquote><pre>
6314 #!/bin/sh
6315 set -ex
6316
6317 if [ "$1" ] ; then
6318     desktop=$1
6319 else
6320     desktop=gnome
6321 fi
6322
6323 from=lenny
6324 to=squeeze
6325
6326 exec &lt; /dev/null
6327 unset LANG
6328 mirror=http://ftp.skolelinux.org/debian
6329 tmpdir=chroot-$from-upgrade-$to-$desktop
6330 fuser -mv .
6331 debootstrap $from $tmpdir $mirror
6332 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
6333 cat > $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d &lt;&lt;EOF
6334 #!/bin/sh
6335 exit 101
6336 EOF
6337 chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d
6338 exit_cleanup() {
6339     umount $tmpdir/proc
6340 }
6341 mount -t proc proc $tmpdir/proc
6342 # Make sure proc is unmounted also on failure
6343 trap exit_cleanup EXIT INT
6344
6345 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y install debconf-utils
6346
6347 # Make sure tasksel autoselection trigger.  It need the test scripts
6348 # to return the correct answers.
6349 echo tasksel tasksel/desktop multiselect $desktop | \
6350     chroot $tmpdir debconf-set-selections
6351
6352 # Include the desktop and laptop task
6353 for test in desktop laptop ; do
6354     echo > $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test &lt;&lt;EOF
6355 #!/bin/sh
6356 exit 2
6357 EOF
6358     chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test
6359 done
6360
6361 DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
6362 DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical
6363 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND DEBIAN_PRIORITY
6364 chroot $tmpdir tasksel --new-install
6365
6366 echo deb $mirror $to main > $tmpdir/etc/apt/sources.list
6367 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
6368 touch $tmpdir/etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
6369 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y dist-upgrade
6370 fuser -mv
6371 </pre></blockquote>
6372
6373 <p>I suspect it would be useful to test upgrades with both apt-get and
6374 with aptitude, but I have not had time to look at how they behave
6375 differently so far.  I hope to get a cron job running to do the test
6376 regularly and post the result on the web.  The Gnome upgrade currently
6377 work, while the KDE upgrade fail because of the bug in
6378 kdebase-workspace-data</p>
6379
6380 <p>I am not quite sure what kind of extract from the huge upgrade logs
6381 (KDE 167 KiB, Gnome 516 KiB) it make sense to include in this blog
6382 post, so I will refrain from trying.  I can report that for Gnome,
6383 aptitude report 760 packages upgraded, 448 newly installed, 129 to
6384 remove and 1 not upgraded and 1024MB need to be downloaded while for
6385 KDE the same numbers are 702 packages upgraded, 507 newly installed,
6386 193 to remove and 0 not upgraded and 1117MB need to be downloaded</p>
6387
6388 <p>I am very happy to notice that the Gnome desktop + laptop upgrade
6389 is able to migrate to dependency based boot sequencing and parallel
6390 booting without a hitch.  Was unsure if there were still bugs with
6391 packages failing to clean up their obsolete init.d script during
6392 upgrades, and no such problem seem to affect the Gnome desktop+laptop
6393 packages.</p>
6394
6395       </div>
6396       <div class="tags">
6397
6398
6399         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
6400
6401
6402       </div>
6403     </div>
6404     <div class="padding"></div>
6405
6406     <div class="entry">
6407       <div class="title">
6408         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Upstart_or_sysvinit___as_init_d_scripts_see_it.html">Upstart or sysvinit - as init.d scripts see it</a>
6409       </div>
6410       <div class="date">
6411          6th June 2010
6412       </div>
6413       <div class="body">
6414         <p>If Debian is to migrate to upstart on Linux, I expect some init.d
6415 scripts to migrate (some of) their operations to upstart job while
6416 keeping the init.d for hurd and kfreebsd.  The packages with such
6417 needs will need a way to get their init.d scripts to behave
6418 differently when used with sysvinit and with upstart.  Because of
6419 this, I had a look at the environment variables set when a init.d
6420 script is running under upstart, and when it is not.</p>
6421
6422 <p>With upstart, I notice these environment variables are set when a
6423 script is started from rcS.d/ (ignoring some irrelevant ones like
6424 COLUMNS):</p>
6425
6426 <blockquote><pre>
6427 DEFAULT_RUNLEVEL=2
6428 previous=N
6429 PREVLEVEL=
6430 RUNLEVEL=
6431 runlevel=S
6432 UPSTART_EVENTS=startup
6433 UPSTART_INSTANCE=
6434 UPSTART_JOB=rc-sysinit
6435 </pre></blockquote>
6436
6437 <p>With sysvinit, these environment variables are set for the same
6438 script.</p>
6439
6440 <blockquote><pre>
6441 INIT_VERSION=sysvinit-2.88
6442 previous=N
6443 PREVLEVEL=N
6444 RUNLEVEL=S
6445 runlevel=S
6446 </pre></blockquote>
6447
6448 <p>The RUNLEVEL and PREVLEVEL environment variables passed on from
6449 sysvinit are not set by upstart.  Not sure if it is intentional or not
6450 to not be compatible with sysvinit in this regard.</p>
6451
6452 <p>For scripts needing to behave differently when upstart is used,
6453 looking for the UPSTART_JOB environment variable seem to be a good
6454 choice.</p>
6455
6456       </div>
6457       <div class="tags">
6458
6459
6460         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
6461
6462
6463       </div>
6464     </div>
6465     <div class="padding"></div>
6466
6467     <div class="entry">
6468       <div class="title">
6469         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_manual_for_standards_wars___.html">A manual for standards wars...</a>
6470       </div>
6471       <div class="date">
6472          6th June 2010
6473       </div>
6474       <div class="body">
6475         <p>Via the
6476 <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/robweir/antic-atom/~3/QzU4RgoAGMg/weekly-links-10.html">blog
6477 of Rob Weir</a> I came across the very interesting essay named
6478 <a href="http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/shapiro/wars.pdf">The Art of
6479 Standards Wars</a> (PDF 25 pages).  I recommend it for everyone
6480 following the standards wars of today.</p>
6481
6482       </div>
6483       <div class="tags">
6484
6485
6486         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard</a>.
6487
6488
6489       </div>
6490     </div>
6491     <div class="padding"></div>
6492
6493     <div class="entry">
6494       <div class="title">
6495         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Sitesummary_tip__Listing_computer_hardware_models_used_at_site.html">Sitesummary tip: Listing computer hardware models used at site</a>
6496       </div>
6497       <div class="date">
6498          3rd June 2010
6499       </div>
6500       <div class="body">
6501         <p>When using sitesummary at a site to track machines, it is possible
6502 to get a list of the machine types in use thanks to the DMI
6503 information extracted from each machine.  The script to do so is
6504 included in the sitesummary package, and here is example output from
6505 the Skolelinux build servers:</p>
6506
6507 <blockquote><pre>
6508 maintainer:~# /usr/lib/sitesummary/hardware-model-summary
6509   vendor                    count
6510   Dell Computer Corporation     1
6511     PowerEdge 1750              1
6512   IBM                           1
6513     eserver xSeries 345 -[8670M1X]-     1
6514   Intel                         2
6515   [no-dmi-info]                 3
6516 maintainer:~#
6517 </pre></blockquote>
6518
6519 <p>The quality of the report depend on the quality of the DMI tables
6520 provided in each machine.  Here there are Intel machines without model
6521 information listed with Intel as vendor and no model, and virtual Xen
6522 machines listed as [no-dmi-info].  One can add -l as a command line
6523 option to list the individual machines.</p>
6524
6525 <p>A larger list is
6526 <a href="http://narvikskolen.no/sitesummary/">available from the the
6527 city of Narvik</a>, which uses Skolelinux on all their shools and also
6528 provide the basic sitesummary report publicly.  In their report there
6529 are ~1400 machines. I know they use both Ubuntu and Skolelinux on
6530 their machines, and as sitesummary is available in both distributions,
6531 it is trivial to get all of them to report to the same central
6532 collector.</p>
6533
6534       </div>
6535       <div class="tags">
6536
6537
6538         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary</a>.
6539
6540
6541       </div>
6542     </div>
6543     <div class="padding"></div>
6544
6545     <div class="entry">
6546       <div class="title">
6547         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/KDM_fail_at_boot_with_NVidia_cards___and_no_one_try_to_fix_it_.html">KDM fail at boot with NVidia cards - and no one try to fix it?</a>
6548       </div>
6549       <div class="date">
6550          1st June 2010
6551       </div>
6552       <div class="body">
6553         <p>It is strange to watch how a bug in Debian causing KDM to fail to
6554 start at boot when an NVidia video card is used is handled.  The
6555 problem seem to be that the nvidia X.org driver uses a long time to
6556 initialize, and this duration is longer than kdm is configured to
6557 wait.</p>
6558
6559 <p>I came across two bugs related to this issue,
6560 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">#583312</a> initially filed
6561 against initscripts and passed on to nvidia-glx when it became obvious
6562 that the nvidia drivers were involved, and
6563 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/524751">#524751</a> initially filed against
6564 kdm and passed on to src:nvidia-graphics-drivers for unknown reasons.</p>
6565
6566 <p>To me, it seem that no-one is interested in actually solving the
6567 problem nvidia video card owners experience and make sure the Debian
6568 distribution work out of the box for these users.  The nvidia driver
6569 maintainers expect kdm to be set up to wait longer, while kdm expect
6570 the nvidia driver maintainers to fix the driver to start faster, and
6571 while they wait for each other I guess the users end up switching to a
6572 distribution that work for them.  I have no idea what the solution is,
6573 but I am pretty sure that waiting for each other is not it.</p>
6574
6575 <p>I wonder why we end up handling bugs this way.</p>
6576
6577       </div>
6578       <div class="tags">
6579
6580
6581         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
6582
6583
6584       </div>
6585     </div>
6586     <div class="padding"></div>
6587
6588     <div class="entry">
6589       <div class="title">
6590         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Parallellized_boot_seem_to_hold_up_well_in_Debian_testing.html">Parallellized boot seem to hold up well in Debian/testing</a>
6591       </div>
6592       <div class="date">
6593         27th May 2010
6594       </div>
6595       <div class="body">
6596         <p>A few days ago, parallel booting was enabled in Debian/testing.
6597 The feature seem to hold up pretty well, but three fairly serious
6598 issues are known and should be solved:
6599
6600 <p><ul>
6601
6602 <li>The wicd package seen to
6603 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/508289">break NFS mounting</a> and
6604 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/581586">network setup</a> when
6605 parallel booting is enabled.  No idea why, but the wicd maintainer
6606 seem to be on the case.</li>
6607
6608 <li>The nvidia X driver seem to
6609 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">have a race condition</a>
6610 triggered more easily when parallel booting is in effect.  The
6611 maintainer is on the case.</li>
6612
6613 <li>The sysv-rc package fail to properly enable dependency based boot
6614 sequencing (the shutdown is broken) when old file-rc users
6615 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/575080">try to switch back</a> to
6616 sysv-rc.  One way to solve it would be for file-rc to create
6617 /etc/init.d/.legacy-bootordering, and another is to try to make
6618 sysv-rc more robust.  Will investigate some more and probably upload a
6619 workaround in sysv-rc to help those trying to move from file-rc to
6620 sysv-rc get a working shutdown.</li>
6621
6622 </ul></p>
6623
6624 <p>All in all not many surprising issues, and all of them seem
6625 solvable before Squeeze is released.  In addition to these there are
6626 some packages with bugs in their dependencies and run level settings,
6627 which I expect will be fixed in a reasonable time span.</p>
6628
6629 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
6630 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
6631 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
6632 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
6633
6634 <p>Update: Correct bug number to file-rc issue.</p>
6635
6636       </div>
6637       <div class="tags">
6638
6639
6640         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
6641
6642
6643       </div>
6644     </div>
6645     <div class="padding"></div>
6646
6647     <div class="entry">
6648       <div class="title">
6649         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/More_flexible_firmware_handling_in_debian_installer.html">More flexible firmware handling in debian-installer</a>
6650       </div>
6651       <div class="date">
6652         22nd May 2010
6653       </div>
6654       <div class="body">
6655         <p>After a long break from debian-installer development, I finally
6656 found time today to return to the project.  Having to spend less time
6657 working dependency based boot in debian, as it is almost complete now,
6658 definitely helped freeing some time.</p>
6659
6660 <p>A while back, I ran into a problem while working on Debian Edu.  We
6661 include some firmware packages on the Debian Edu CDs, those needed to
6662 get disk and network controllers working.  Without having these
6663 firmware packages available during installation, it is impossible to
6664 install Debian Edu on the given machine, and because our target group
6665 are non-technical people, asking them to provide firmware packages on
6666 an external medium is a support pain.  Initially, I expected it to be
6667 enough to include the firmware packages on the CD to get
6668 debian-installer to find and use them.  This proved to be wrong.
6669 Next, I hoped it was enough to symlink the relevant firmware packages
6670 to some useful location on the CD (tried /cdrom/ and
6671 /cdrom/firmware/).  This also proved to not work, and at this point I
6672 found time to look at the debian-installer code to figure out what was
6673 going to work.</p>
6674
6675 <p>The firmware loading code is in the hw-detect package, and a closer
6676 look revealed that it would only look for firmware packages outside
6677 the installation media, so the CD was never checked for firmware
6678 packages.  It would only check USB sticks, floppies and other
6679 "external" media devices.  Today I changed it to also look in the
6680 /cdrom/firmware/ directory on the mounted CD or DVD, which should
6681 solve the problem I ran into with Debian edu.  I also changed it to
6682 look in /firmware/, to make sure the installer also find firmware
6683 provided in the initrd when booting the installer via PXE, to allow us
6684 to provide the same feature in the PXE setup included in Debian
6685 Edu.</p>
6686
6687 <p>To make sure firmware deb packages with a license questions are not
6688 activated without asking if the license is accepted, I extended
6689 hw-detect to look for preinst scripts in the firmware packages, and
6690 run these before activating the firmware during installation.  The
6691 license question is asked using debconf in the preinst, so this should
6692 solve the issue for the firmware packages I have looked at so far.</p>
6693
6694 <p>If you want to discuss the details of these features, please
6695 contact us on debian-boot@lists.debian.org.</p>
6696
6697       </div>
6698       <div class="tags">
6699
6700
6701         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
6702
6703
6704       </div>
6705     </div>
6706     <div class="padding"></div>
6707
6708     <div class="entry">
6709       <div class="title">
6710         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Parallellized_boot_is_now_the_default_in_Debian_unstable.html">Parallellized boot is now the default in Debian/unstable</a>
6711       </div>
6712       <div class="date">
6713         14th May 2010
6714       </div>
6715       <div class="body">
6716         <p>Since this evening, parallel booting is the default in
6717 Debian/unstable for machines using dependency based boot sequencing.
6718 Apparently the testing of concurrent booting has been wider than
6719 expected, if I am to believe the
6720 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
6721 on debian-devel@</a>, and I concluded a few days ago to move forward
6722 with the feature this weekend, to give us some time to detect any
6723 remaining problems before Squeeze is frozen.  If serious problems are
6724 detected, it is simple to change the default back to sequential boot.
6725 The upload of the new sysvinit package also activate a new upstream
6726 version.</p>
6727
6728 More information about
6729 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
6730 based boot sequencing</a> is available from the Debian wiki.  It is
6731 currently possible to disable parallel booting when one run into
6732 problems caused by it, by adding this line to /etc/default/rcS:</p>
6733
6734 <blockquote><pre>
6735 CONCURRENCY=none
6736 </pre></blockquote>
6737
6738 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
6739 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
6740 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
6741 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
6742
6743       </div>
6744       <div class="tags">
6745
6746
6747         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
6748
6749
6750       </div>
6751     </div>
6752     <div class="padding"></div>
6753
6754     <div class="entry">
6755       <div class="title">
6756         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Sitesummary_tip__Listing_MAC_address_of_all_clients.html">Sitesummary tip: Listing MAC address of all clients</a>
6757       </div>
6758       <div class="date">
6759         14th May 2010
6760       </div>
6761       <div class="body">
6762         <p>In the recent Debian Edu versions, the
6763 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/SiteSummary">sitesummary
6764 system</a> is used to keep track of the machines in the school
6765 network.  Each machine will automatically report its status to the
6766 central server after boot and once per night.  The network setup is
6767 also reported, and using this information it is possible to get the
6768 MAC address of all network interfaces in the machines.  This is useful
6769 to update the DHCP configuration.</p>
6770
6771 <p>To give some idea how to use sitesummary, here is a one-liner to
6772 ist all MAC addresses of all machines reporting to sitesummary.  Run
6773 this on the collector host:</p>
6774
6775 <blockquote><pre>
6776 perl -MSiteSummary -e 'for_all_hosts(sub { print join(" ", get_macaddresses(shift)), "\n"; });'
6777 </pre></blockquote>
6778
6779 <p>This will list all MAC addresses assosiated with all machine, one
6780 line per machine and with space between the MAC addresses.</p>
6781
6782 <p>To allow system administrators easier job at adding static DHCP
6783 addresses for hosts, it would be possible to extend this to fetch
6784 machine information from sitesummary and update the DHCP and DNS
6785 tables in LDAP using this information.  Such tool is unfortunately not
6786 written yet.</p>
6787
6788       </div>
6789       <div class="tags">
6790
6791
6792         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary</a>.
6793
6794
6795       </div>
6796     </div>
6797     <div class="padding"></div>
6798
6799     <div class="entry">
6800       <div class="title">
6801         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/systemd__an_interesting_alternative_to_upstart.html">systemd, an interesting alternative to upstart</a>
6802       </div>
6803       <div class="date">
6804         13th May 2010
6805       </div>
6806       <div class="body">
6807         <p>The last few days a new boot system called
6808 <a href="http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd">systemd</a>
6809 has been
6810 <a href="http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/systemd.html">introduced</a>
6811
6812 to the free software world.  I have not yet had time to play around
6813 with it, but it seem to be a very interesting alternative to
6814 <a href="http://upstart.ubuntu.com/">upstart</a>, and might prove to be
6815 a good alternative for Debian when we are able to switch to an event
6816 based boot system.  Tollef is
6817 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/580814">in the process</a> of getting
6818 systemd into Debian, and I look forward to seeing how well it work.  I
6819 like the fact that systemd handles init.d scripts with dependency
6820 information natively, allowing them to run in parallel where upstart
6821 at the moment do not.</p>
6822
6823 <p>Unfortunately do systemd have the same problem as upstart regarding
6824 platform support.  It only work on recent Linux kernels, and also need
6825 some new kernel features enabled to function properly.  This means
6826 kFreeBSD and Hurd ports of Debian will need a port or a different boot
6827 system.  Not sure how that will be handled if systemd proves to be the
6828 way forward.</p>
6829
6830 <p>In the mean time, based on the
6831 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
6832 on debian-devel@</a> regarding parallel booting in Debian, I have
6833 decided to enable full parallel booting as the default in Debian as
6834 soon as possible (probably this weekend or early next week), to see if
6835 there are any remaining serious bugs in the init.d dependencies.  A
6836 new version of the sysvinit package implementing this change is
6837 already in experimental.  If all go well, Squeeze will be released
6838 with parallel booting enabled by default.</p>
6839
6840       </div>
6841       <div class="tags">
6842
6843
6844         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
6845
6846
6847       </div>
6848     </div>
6849     <div class="padding"></div>
6850
6851     <div class="entry">
6852       <div class="title">
6853         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Parallellizing_the_boot_in_Debian_Squeeze___ready_for_wider_testing.html">Parallellizing the boot in Debian Squeeze - ready for wider testing</a>
6854       </div>
6855       <div class="date">
6856          6th May 2010
6857       </div>
6858       <div class="body">
6859         <p>These days, the init.d script dependencies in Squeeze are quite
6860 complete, so complete that it is actually possible to run all the
6861 init.d scripts in parallell based on these dependencies.  If you want
6862 to test your Squeeze system, make sure
6863 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
6864 based boot sequencing</a> is enabled, and add this line to
6865 /etc/default/rcS:</p>
6866
6867 <blockquote><pre>
6868 CONCURRENCY=makefile
6869 </pre></blockquote>
6870
6871 <p>That is it.  It will cause sysv-rc to use the startpar tool to run
6872 scripts in parallel using the dependency information stored in
6873 /etc/init.d/.depend.boot, /etc/init.d/.depend.start and
6874 /etc/init.d/.depend.stop to order the scripts.  Startpar is configured
6875 to try to start the kdm and gdm scripts as early as possible, and will
6876 start the facilities required by kdm or gdm as early as possible to
6877 make this happen.</p>
6878
6879 <p>Give it a try, and see if you like the result.  If some services
6880 fail to start properly, it is most likely because they have incomplete
6881 init.d script dependencies in their startup script (or some of their
6882 dependent scripts have incomplete dependencies).  Report bugs and get
6883 the package maintainers to fix it. :)</p>
6884
6885 <p>Running scripts in parallel could be the default in Debian when we
6886 manage to get the init.d script dependencies complete and correct.  I
6887 expect we will get there in Squeeze+1, if we get manage to test and
6888 fix the remaining issues.</p>
6889
6890 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
6891 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
6892 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
6893 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
6894
6895       </div>
6896       <div class="tags">
6897
6898
6899         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
6900
6901
6902       </div>
6903     </div>
6904     <div class="padding"></div>
6905
6906     <div class="entry">
6907       <div class="title">
6908         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_has_switched_to_dependency_based_boot_sequencing.html">Debian has switched to dependency based boot sequencing</a>
6909       </div>
6910       <div class="date">
6911         27th July 2009
6912       </div>
6913       <div class="body">
6914         <p>Since this evening, with the upload of sysvinit version 2.87dsf-2,
6915 and the upload of insserv version 1.12.0-10 yesterday, Debian unstable
6916 have been migrated to using dependency based boot sequencing.  This
6917 conclude work me and others have been doing for the last three days.
6918 It feels great to see this finally part of the default Debian
6919 installation.  Now we just need to weed out the last few problems that
6920 are bound to show up, to get everything ready for Squeeze.</p>
6921
6922 <p>The next step is migrating /sbin/init from sysvinit to upstart, and
6923 fixing the more fundamental problem of handing the event based
6924 non-predictable kernel in the early boot.</p>
6925
6926       </div>
6927       <div class="tags">
6928
6929
6930         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
6931
6932
6933       </div>
6934     </div>
6935     <div class="padding"></div>
6936
6937     <div class="entry">
6938       <div class="title">
6939         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Taking_over_sysvinit_development.html">Taking over sysvinit development</a>
6940       </div>
6941       <div class="date">
6942         22nd July 2009
6943       </div>
6944       <div class="body">
6945         <p>After several years of frustration with the lack of activity from
6946 the existing sysvinit upstream developer, I decided a few weeks ago to
6947 take over the package and become the new upstream.  The number of
6948 patches to track for the Debian package was becoming a burden, and the
6949 lack of synchronization between the distribution made it hard to keep
6950 the package up to date.</p>
6951
6952 <p>On the new sysvinit team is the SuSe maintainer Dr. Werner Fink,
6953 and my Debian co-maintainer Kel Modderman.  About 10 days ago, I made
6954 a new upstream tarball with version number 2.87dsf (for Debian, SuSe
6955 and Fedora), based on the patches currently in use in these
6956 distributions.  We Debian maintainers plan to move to this tarball as
6957 the new upstream as soon as we find time to do the merge.  Since the
6958 new tarball was created, we agreed with Werner at SuSe to make a new
6959 upstream project at <a href="http://savannah.nongnu.org/">Savannah</a>, and continue
6960 development there.  The project is registered and currently waiting
6961 for approval by the Savannah administrators, and as soon as it is
6962 approved, we will import the old versions from svn and continue
6963 working on the future release.</p>
6964
6965 <p>It is a bit ironic that this is done now, when some of the involved
6966 distributions are moving to upstart as a syvinit replacement.</p>
6967
6968       </div>
6969       <div class="tags">
6970
6971
6972         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
6973
6974
6975       </div>
6976     </div>
6977     <div class="padding"></div>
6978
6979     <div class="entry">
6980       <div class="title">
6981         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_boots_quicker_and_quicker.html">Debian boots quicker and quicker</a>
6982       </div>
6983       <div class="date">
6984         24th June 2009
6985       </div>
6986       <div class="body">
6987         <p>I spent Monday and tuesday this week in London with a lot of the
6988 people involved in the boot system on Debian and Ubuntu, to see if we
6989 could find more ways to speed up the boot system.  This was an Ubuntu
6990 funded
6991 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FoundationsTeam/BootPerformance/DebianUbuntuSprint">developer
6992 gathering</a>. It was quite productive.  We also discussed the future
6993 of boot systems, and ways to handle the increasing number of boot
6994 issues introduced by the Linux kernel becoming more and more
6995 asynchronous and event base.  The Ubuntu approach using udev and
6996 upstart might be a good way forward.  Time will show.</p>
6997
6998 <p>Anyway, there are a few ways at the moment to speed up the boot
6999 process in Debian.  All of these should be applied to get a quick
7000 boot:</p>
7001
7002 <ul>
7003
7004 <li>Use dash as /bin/sh.</li>
7005
7006 <li>Disable the init.d/hwclock*.sh scripts and make sure the hardware
7007    clock is in UTC.</li>
7008
7009 <li>Install and activate the insserv package to enable
7010    <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
7011    based boot sequencing</a>, and enable concurrent booting.</li>
7012
7013 </ul>
7014
7015 These points are based on the Google summer of code work done by
7016 <a href="http://initscripts-ng.alioth.debian.org/soc2006-bootsystem/">Carlos
7017 Villegas</a>.
7018
7019 <p>Support for makefile-style concurrency during boot was uploaded to
7020 unstable yesterday.  When we tested it, we were able to cut 6 seconds
7021 from the boot sequence.  It depend on very correct dependency
7022 declaration in all init.d scripts, so I expect us to find edge cases
7023 where the dependences in some scripts are slightly wrong when we start
7024 using this.</p>
7025
7026 <p>On our IRC channel for this effort, #pkg-sysvinit, a new idea was
7027 introduced by Raphael Geissert today, one that could affect the
7028 startup speed as well.  Instead of starting some scripts concurrently
7029 from rcS.d/ and another set of scripts from rc2.d/, it would be
7030 possible to run a of them in the same process.  A quick way to test
7031 this would be to enable insserv and run 'mv /etc/rc2.d/S* /etc/rcS.d/;
7032 insserv'.  Will need to test if that work. :)</p>
7033
7034       </div>
7035       <div class="tags">
7036
7037
7038         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
7039
7040
7041       </div>
7042     </div>
7043     <div class="padding"></div>
7044
7045     <div class="entry">
7046       <div class="title">
7047         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/BSAs_p_stander_om_piratkopiering_m_ter_motstand.html">BSAs påstander om piratkopiering møter motstand</a>
7048       </div>
7049       <div class="date">
7050         17th May 2009
7051       </div>
7052       <div class="body">
7053         <p>Hvert år de siste årene har BSA, lobbyfronten til de store
7054 programvareselskapene som Microsoft og Apple, publisert en rapport der
7055 de gjetter på hvor mye piratkopiering påfører i tapte inntekter i
7056 ulike land rundt om i verden.  Resultatene er tendensiøse.  For noen
7057 dager siden kom
7058 <a href="http://global.bsa.org/globalpiracy2008/studies/globalpiracy2008.pdf">siste
7059 rapport</a>, og det er flere kritiske kommentarer publisert de siste
7060 dagene.  Et spesielt interessant kommentar fra Sverige,
7061 <a href="http://www.idg.se/2.1085/1.229795/bsa-hoftade-sverigesiffror">BSA
7062 höftade Sverigesiffror</a>, oppsummeres slik:</p>
7063
7064 <blockquote>
7065 I sin senaste rapport slår BSA fast att 25 procent av all mjukvara i
7066 Sverige är piratkopierad. Det utan att ha pratat med ett enda svenskt
7067 företag. "Man bör nog kanske inte se de här siffrorna som helt
7068 exakta", säger BSAs Sverigechef John Hugosson.
7069 </blockquote>
7070
7071 <p>Mon tro om de er like metodiske når de gjetter på andelen piratkopiering i Norge?  To andre kommentarer er <a
7072 href="http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/comment/2242134/bsa-piracy-figures-shot-reality">BSA
7073 piracy figures need a shot of reality</a> og <a
7074 href="http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/3958/125/">Does The WIPO
7075 Copyright Treaty Work?</a></p>
7076
7077 <p>Fant lenkene via <a
7078 href="http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/05/17/1632242">oppslag
7079 på Slashdot</a>.</p>
7080
7081       </div>
7082       <div class="tags">
7083
7084
7085         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bsa">bsa</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fildeling">fildeling</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>.
7086
7087
7088       </div>
7089     </div>
7090     <div class="padding"></div>
7091
7092     <div class="entry">
7093       <div class="title">
7094         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/IDG_mener_linux_i_servermarkedet_vil_vokse_med_21__i_2009.html">IDG mener linux i servermarkedet vil vokse med 21% i 2009</a>
7095       </div>
7096       <div class="date">
7097          7th May 2009
7098       </div>
7099       <div class="body">
7100         <p>Kom over
7101 <a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10216873-16.html">interessante
7102 tall</a> fra IDG om utviklingen av linuxservermarkedet.  Fikk meg til
7103 å tenke på antall tjenermaskiner ved Universitetet i Oslo der jeg
7104 jobber til daglig.  En rask opptelling forteller meg at vi har 490
7105 (61%) fysiske unix-tjener (mest linux men også noen solaris) og 196
7106 (25%) windowstjenere, samt 112 (14%) virtuelle unix-tjenere.  Med den
7107 bakgrunnskunnskapen kan jeg godt tro at IDG er inne på noe.</p>
7108
7109       </div>
7110       <div class="tags">
7111
7112
7113         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
7114
7115
7116       </div>
7117     </div>
7118     <div class="padding"></div>
7119
7120     <div class="entry">
7121       <div class="title">
7122         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Kryptert_harddisk___naturligvis.html">Kryptert harddisk - naturligvis</a>
7123       </div>
7124       <div class="date">
7125          2nd May 2009
7126       </div>
7127       <div class="body">
7128         <p><a href="http://www.dagensit.no/trender/article1658676.ece">Dagens
7129 IT melder</a> at Intel hevder at det er dyrt å miste en datamaskin,
7130 når en tar tap av arbeidstid, fortrolige dokumenter,
7131 personopplysninger og alt annet det innebærer.  Det er ingen tvil om
7132 at det er en kostbar affære å miste sin datamaskin, og det er årsaken
7133 til at jeg har kryptert harddisken på både kontormaskinen og min
7134 bærbare.  Begge inneholder personopplysninger jeg ikke ønsker skal
7135 komme på avveie, den første informasjon relatert til jobben min ved
7136 Universitetet i Oslo, og den andre relatert til blant annet
7137 foreningsarbeide.  Kryptering av diskene gjør at det er lite
7138 sannsynlig at dophoder som kan finne på å rappe maskinene får noe ut
7139 av dem.  Maskinene låses automatisk etter noen minutter uten bruk,
7140 og en reboot vil gjøre at de ber om passord før de vil starte opp.
7141 Jeg bruker Debian på begge maskinene, og installasjonssystemet der
7142 gjør det trivielt å sette opp krypterte disker.  Jeg har LVM på toppen
7143 av krypterte partisjoner, slik at alt av datapartisjoner er kryptert.
7144 Jeg anbefaler alle å kryptere diskene på sine bærbare.  Kostnaden når
7145 det er gjort slik jeg gjør det er minimale, og gevinstene er
7146 betydelige.  En bør dog passe på passordet.  Hvis det går tapt, må
7147 maskinen reinstalleres og alt er tapt.</p>
7148
7149 <p>Krypteringen vil ikke stoppe kompetente angripere som f.eks. kjøler
7150 ned minnebrikkene før maskinen rebootes med programvare for å hente ut
7151 krypteringsnøklene.  Kostnaden med å forsvare seg mot slike angripere
7152 er for min del høyere enn gevinsten.  Jeg tror oddsene for at
7153 f.eks. etteretningsorganisasjoner har glede av å titte på mine
7154 maskiner er minimale, og ulempene jeg ville oppnå ved å forsøke å
7155 gjøre det vanskeligere for angripere med kompetanse og ressurser er
7156 betydelige.</p>
7157
7158       </div>
7159       <div class="tags">
7160
7161
7162         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
7163
7164
7165       </div>
7166     </div>
7167     <div class="padding"></div>
7168
7169     <div class="entry">
7170       <div class="title">
7171         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Two_projects_that_have_improved_the_quality_of_free_software_a_lot.html">Two projects that have improved the quality of free software a lot</a>
7172       </div>
7173       <div class="date">
7174          2nd May 2009
7175       </div>
7176       <div class="body">
7177         <p>There are two software projects that have had huge influence on the
7178 quality of free software, and I wanted to mention both in case someone
7179 do not yet know them.</p>
7180
7181 <p>The first one is <a href="http://valgrind.org/">valgrind</a>, a
7182 tool to detect and expose errors in the memory handling of programs.
7183 It is easy to use, all one need to do is to run 'valgrind program',
7184 and it will report any problems on stdout.  It is even better if the
7185 program include debug information.  With debug information, it is able
7186 to report the source file name and line number where the problem
7187 occurs.  It can report things like 'reading past memory block in file
7188 X line N, the memory block was allocated in file Y, line M', and
7189 'using uninitialised value in control logic'.  This tool has made it
7190 trivial to investigate reproducible crash bugs in programs, and have
7191 reduced the number of this kind of bugs in free software a lot.
7192
7193 <p>The second one is
7194 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coverity">Coverity</a> which is
7195 a source code checker.  It is able to process the source of a program
7196 and find problems in the logic without running the program.  It
7197 started out as the Stanford Checker and became well known when it was
7198 used to find bugs in the Linux kernel.  It is now a commercial tool
7199 and the company behind it is running
7200 <a href="http://www.scan.coverity.com/">a community service</a> for the
7201 free software community, where a lot of free software projects get
7202 their source checked for free.  Several thousand defects have been
7203 found and fixed so far.  It can find errors like 'lock L taken in file
7204 X line N is never released if exiting in line M', or 'the code in file
7205 Y lines O to P can never be executed'.  The projects included in the
7206 community service project have managed to get rid of a lot of
7207 reliability problems thanks to Coverity.</p>
7208
7209 <p>I believe tools like this, that are able to automatically find
7210 errors in the source, are vital to improve the quality of software and
7211 make sure we can get rid of the crashing and failing software we are
7212 surrounded by today.</p>
7213
7214       </div>
7215       <div class="tags">
7216
7217
7218         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
7219
7220
7221       </div>
7222     </div>
7223     <div class="padding"></div>
7224
7225     <div class="entry">
7226       <div class="title">
7227         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/No_patch_is_not_better_than_a_useless_patch.html">No patch is not better than a useless patch</a>
7228       </div>
7229       <div class="date">
7230         28th April 2009
7231       </div>
7232       <div class="body">
7233         <p>Julien Blache
7234 <a href="http://blog.technologeek.org/2009/04/12/214">claim that no
7235 patch is better than a useless patch</a>.  I completely disagree, as a
7236 patch allow one to discuss a concrete and proposed solution, and also
7237 prove that the issue at hand is important enough for someone to spent
7238 time on fixing it.  No patch do not provide any of these positive
7239 properties.</p>
7240
7241       </div>
7242       <div class="tags">
7243
7244
7245         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
7246
7247
7248       </div>
7249     </div>
7250     <div class="padding"></div>
7251
7252     <div class="entry">
7253       <div class="title">
7254         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Standardize_on_protocols_and_formats__not_vendors_and_applications.html">Standardize on protocols and formats, not vendors and applications</a>
7255       </div>
7256       <div class="date">
7257         30th March 2009
7258       </div>
7259       <div class="body">
7260         <p>Where I work at the University of Oslo, one decision stand out as a
7261 very good one to form a long lived computer infrastructure.  It is the
7262 simple one, lost by many in todays computer industry: Standardize on
7263 open network protocols and open exchange/storage formats, not applications.
7264 Applications come and go, while protocols and files tend to stay, and
7265 thus one want to make it easy to change application and vendor, while
7266 avoiding conversion costs and locking users to a specific platform or
7267 application.</p>
7268
7269 <p>This approach make it possible to replace the client applications
7270 independently of the server applications.  One can even allow users to
7271 use several different applications as long as they handle the selected
7272 protocol and format.  In the normal case, only one client application
7273 is recommended and users only get help if they choose to use this
7274 application, but those that want to deviate from the easy path are not
7275 blocked from doing so.</p>
7276
7277 <p>It also allow us to replace the server side without forcing the
7278 users to replace their applications, and thus allow us to select the
7279 best server implementation at any moment, when scale and resouce
7280 requirements change.</p>
7281
7282 <p>I strongly recommend standardizing - on open network protocols and
7283 open formats, but I would never recommend standardizing on a single
7284 application that do not use open network protocol or open formats.</p>
7285
7286       </div>
7287       <div class="tags">
7288
7289
7290         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard</a>.
7291
7292
7293       </div>
7294     </div>
7295     <div class="padding"></div>
7296
7297     <div class="entry">
7298       <div class="title">
7299         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Returning_from_Skolelinux_developer_gathering.html">Returning from Skolelinux developer gathering</a>
7300       </div>
7301       <div class="date">
7302         29th March 2009
7303       </div>
7304       <div class="body">
7305         <p>I'm sitting on the train going home from this weekends Debian
7306 Edu/Skolelinux development gathering.  I got a bit done tuning the
7307 desktop, and looked into the dynamic service location protocol
7308 implementation avahi.  It look like it could be useful for us.  Almost
7309 30 people participated, and I believe it was a great environment to
7310 get to know the Skolelinux system.  Walter Bender, involved in the
7311 development of the Sugar educational platform, presented his stuff and
7312 also helped me improve my OLPC installation.  He also showed me that
7313 his Turtle Art application can be used in standalone mode, and we
7314 agreed that I would help getting it packaged for Debian.  As a
7315 standalone application it would be great for Debian Edu.  We also
7316 tried to get the video conferencing working with two OLPCs, but that
7317 proved to be too hard for us.  The application seem to need more work
7318 before it is ready for me.  I look forward to getting home and relax
7319 now. :)</p>
7320
7321       </div>
7322       <div class="tags">
7323
7324
7325         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
7326
7327
7328       </div>
7329     </div>
7330     <div class="padding"></div>
7331
7332     <div class="entry">
7333       <div class="title">
7334         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">Time for new  LDAP schemas replacing RFC 2307?</a>
7335       </div>
7336       <div class="date">
7337         29th March 2009
7338       </div>
7339       <div class="body">
7340         <p>The state of standardized LDAP schemas on Linux is far from
7341 optimal.  There is RFC 2307 documenting one way to store NIS maps in
7342 LDAP, and a modified version of this normally called RFC 2307bis, with
7343 some modifications to be compatible with Active Directory.  The RFC
7344 specification handle the content of a lot of system databases, but do
7345 not handle DNS zones and DHCP configuration.</p>
7346
7347 <p>In <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux</a>,
7348 we would like to store information about users, SMB clients/hosts,
7349 filegroups, netgroups (users and hosts), DHCP and DNS configuration,
7350 and LTSP configuration in LDAP.  These objects have a lot in common,
7351 but with the current LDAP schemas it is not possible to have one
7352 object per entity.  For example, one need to have at least three LDAP
7353 objects for a given computer, one with the SMB related stuff, one with
7354 DNS information and another with DHCP information.  The schemas
7355 provided for DNS and DHCP are impossible to combine into one LDAP
7356 object.  In addition, it is impossible to implement quick queries for
7357 netgroup membership, because of the way NIS triples are implemented.
7358 It just do not scale.  I believe it is time for a few RFC
7359 specifications to cleam up this mess.</p>
7360
7361 <p>I would like to have one LDAP object representing each computer in
7362 the network, and this object can then keep the SMB (ie host key), DHCP
7363 (mac address/name) and DNS (name/IP address) settings in one place.
7364 It need to be efficently stored to make sure it scale well.</p>
7365
7366 <p>I would also like to have a quick way to map from a user or
7367 computer and to the net group this user or computer is a member.</p>
7368
7369 <p>Active Directory have done a better job than unix heads like myself
7370 in this regard, and the unix side need to catch up.  Time to start a
7371 new IETF work group?</p>
7372
7373       </div>
7374       <div class="tags">
7375
7376
7377         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
7378
7379
7380       </div>
7381     </div>
7382     <div class="padding"></div>
7383
7384     <div class="entry">
7385       <div class="title">
7386         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Endelig_er_Debian_Lenny_gitt_ut.html">Endelig er Debian Lenny gitt ut</a>
7387       </div>
7388       <div class="date">
7389         15th February 2009
7390       </div>
7391       <div class="body">
7392         <p>Endelig er <a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</a>
7393 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2009/20090214">Lenny</a> gitt ut.
7394 Et langt steg videre for Debian-prosjektet, og en rekke nye
7395 programpakker blir nå tilgjengelig for de av oss som bruker den
7396 stabile utgaven av Debian.  Neste steg er nå å få
7397 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a> /
7398 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/">Debian Edu</a> ferdig
7399 oppdatert for den nye utgaven, slik at en oppdatert versjon kan
7400 slippes løs på skolene.  Takk til alle debian-utviklerne som har
7401 gjort dette mulig.  Endelig er f.eks. fungerende avhengighetsstyrt
7402 bootsekvens tilgjengelig i stabil utgave, vha pakken
7403 <tt>insserv</tt>.</p>
7404
7405       </div>
7406       <div class="tags">
7407
7408
7409         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk</a>.
7410
7411
7412       </div>
7413     </div>
7414     <div class="padding"></div>
7415
7416     <div class="entry">
7417       <div class="title">
7418         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Devcamp_brought_us_closer_to_the_Lenny_based_Debian_Edu_release.html">Devcamp brought us closer to the Lenny based Debian Edu release</a>
7419       </div>
7420       <div class="date">
7421          7th December 2008
7422       </div>
7423       <div class="body">
7424         <p>This weekend we had a small developer gathering for Debian Edu in
7425 Oslo.  Most of Saturday was used for the general assemly for the
7426 member organization, but the rest of the weekend I used to tune the
7427 LTSP installation.  LTSP now work out of the box on the 10-network.
7428 Acer Aspire One proved to be a very nice thin client, with both
7429 screen, mouse and keybard in a small box.  Was working on getting the
7430 diskless workstation setup configured out of the box, but did not
7431 finish it before the weekend was up.</p>
7432
7433 <p>Did not find time to look at the 4 VGA cards in one box we got from
7434 the Brazilian group, so that will have to wait for the next
7435 development gathering.  Would love to have the Debian Edu installer
7436 automatically detect and configure a multiseat setup when it find one
7437 of these cards.</p>
7438
7439       </div>
7440       <div class="tags">
7441
7442
7443         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ltsp">ltsp</a>.
7444
7445
7446       </div>
7447     </div>
7448     <div class="padding"></div>
7449
7450     <div class="entry">
7451       <div class="title">
7452         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_sorry_state_of_multimedia_browser_plugins_in_Debian.html">The sorry state of multimedia browser plugins in Debian</a>
7453       </div>
7454       <div class="date">
7455         25th November 2008
7456       </div>
7457       <div class="body">
7458         <p>Recently I have spent some time evaluating the multimedia browser
7459 plugins available in Debian Lenny, to see which one we should use by
7460 default in Debian Edu.  We need an embedded video playing plugin with
7461 control buttons to pause or stop the video, and capable of streaming
7462 all the multimedia content available on the web.  The test results and
7463 notes are available on
7464 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">the
7465 Debian wiki</a>.  I was surprised how few of the plugins are able to
7466 fill this need.  My personal video player favorite, VLC, has a really
7467 bad plugin which fail on a lot of the test pages.  A lot of the MIME
7468 types I would expect to work with any free software player (like
7469 video/ogg), just do not work.  And simple formats like the
7470 audio/x-mplegurl format (m3u playlists), just isn't supported by the
7471 totem and vlc plugins.  I hope the situation will improve soon.  No
7472 wonder sites use the proprietary Adobe flash to play video.</p>
7473
7474 <p>For Lenny, we seem to end up with the mplayer plugin.  It seem to
7475 be the only one fitting our needs. :/</p>
7476
7477       </div>
7478       <div class="tags">
7479
7480
7481         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
7482
7483
7484       </div>
7485     </div>
7486     <div class="padding"></div>
7487
7488     <p style="text-align: right;"><a href="debian.rss"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/xml.gif" alt="RSS Feed" width="36" height="14" /></a></p>
7489     <div id="sidebar">
7490
7491
7492
7493 <h2>Archive</h2>
7494 <ul>
7495
7496 <li>2014
7497 <ul>
7498
7499 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/01/">January (2)</a></li>
7500
7501 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/02/">February (3)</a></li>
7502
7503 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/03/">March (5)</a></li>
7504
7505 </ul></li>
7506
7507 <li>2013
7508 <ul>
7509
7510 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/01/">January (11)</a></li>
7511
7512 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/02/">February (9)</a></li>
7513
7514 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/03/">March (9)</a></li>
7515
7516 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/04/">April (6)</a></li>
7517
7518 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/05/">May (9)</a></li>
7519
7520 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/06/">June (10)</a></li>
7521
7522 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/07/">July (7)</a></li>
7523
7524 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/08/">August (3)</a></li>
7525
7526 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/09/">September (5)</a></li>
7527
7528 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/10/">October (7)</a></li>
7529
7530 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/11/">November (9)</a></li>
7531
7532 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/12/">December (3)</a></li>
7533
7534 </ul></li>
7535
7536 <li>2012
7537 <ul>
7538
7539 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/01/">January (7)</a></li>
7540
7541 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/02/">February (10)</a></li>
7542
7543 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/03/">March (17)</a></li>
7544
7545 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/04/">April (12)</a></li>
7546
7547 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/05/">May (12)</a></li>
7548
7549 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/06/">June (20)</a></li>
7550
7551 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/07/">July (17)</a></li>
7552
7553 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/08/">August (6)</a></li>
7554
7555 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/09/">September (9)</a></li>
7556
7557 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/10/">October (17)</a></li>
7558
7559 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/11/">November (10)</a></li>
7560
7561 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/12/">December (7)</a></li>
7562
7563 </ul></li>
7564
7565 <li>2011
7566 <ul>
7567
7568 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/01/">January (16)</a></li>
7569
7570 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/02/">February (6)</a></li>
7571
7572 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/03/">March (6)</a></li>
7573
7574 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/04/">April (7)</a></li>
7575
7576 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/05/">May (3)</a></li>
7577
7578 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/06/">June (2)</a></li>
7579
7580 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/07/">July (7)</a></li>
7581
7582 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/08/">August (6)</a></li>
7583
7584 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/09/">September (4)</a></li>
7585
7586 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/10/">October (2)</a></li>
7587
7588 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/11/">November (3)</a></li>
7589
7590 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/12/">December (1)</a></li>
7591
7592 </ul></li>
7593
7594 <li>2010
7595 <ul>
7596
7597 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/01/">January (2)</a></li>
7598
7599 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/02/">February (1)</a></li>
7600
7601 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/03/">March (3)</a></li>
7602
7603 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/04/">April (3)</a></li>
7604
7605 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/05/">May (9)</a></li>
7606
7607 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/06/">June (14)</a></li>
7608
7609 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/07/">July (12)</a></li>
7610
7611 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/08/">August (13)</a></li>
7612
7613 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/09/">September (7)</a></li>
7614
7615 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/10/">October (9)</a></li>
7616
7617 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/11/">November (13)</a></li>
7618
7619 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/12/">December (12)</a></li>
7620
7621 </ul></li>
7622
7623 <li>2009
7624 <ul>
7625
7626 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/01/">January (8)</a></li>
7627
7628 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/02/">February (8)</a></li>
7629
7630 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/03/">March (12)</a></li>
7631
7632 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/04/">April (10)</a></li>
7633
7634 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/05/">May (9)</a></li>
7635
7636 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/06/">June (3)</a></li>
7637
7638 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/07/">July (4)</a></li>
7639
7640 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/08/">August (3)</a></li>
7641
7642 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/09/">September (1)</a></li>
7643
7644 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/10/">October (2)</a></li>
7645
7646 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/11/">November (3)</a></li>
7647
7648 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/12/">December (3)</a></li>
7649
7650 </ul></li>
7651
7652 <li>2008
7653 <ul>
7654
7655 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/11/">November (5)</a></li>
7656
7657 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/12/">December (7)</a></li>
7658
7659 </ul></li>
7660
7661 </ul>
7662
7663
7664
7665 <h2>Tags</h2>
7666 <ul>
7667
7668  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer (13)</a></li>
7669
7670  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/amiga">amiga (1)</a></li>
7671
7672  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/aros">aros (1)</a></li>
7673
7674  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bankid">bankid (4)</a></li>
7675
7676  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin (8)</a></li>
7677
7678  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem (14)</a></li>
7679
7680  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bsa">bsa (2)</a></li>
7681
7682  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/chrpath">chrpath (2)</a></li>
7683
7684  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian (95)</a></li>
7685
7686  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu (145)</a></li>
7687
7688  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/digistan">digistan (10)</a></li>
7689
7690  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook (10)</a></li>
7691
7692  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/drivstoffpriser">drivstoffpriser (4)</a></li>
7693
7694  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english (239)</a></li>
7695
7696  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami (21)</a></li>
7697
7698  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fildeling">fildeling (12)</a></li>
7699
7700  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture (12)</a></li>
7701
7702  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox (6)</a></li>
7703
7704  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen (11)</a></li>
7705
7706  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju (39)</a></li>
7707
7708  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram (7)</a></li>
7709
7710  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kart">kart (18)</a></li>
7711
7712  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap (9)</a></li>
7713
7714  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lenker">lenker (7)</a></li>
7715
7716  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ltsp">ltsp (1)</a></li>
7717
7718  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network (7)</a></li>
7719
7720  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia (26)</a></li>
7721
7722  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk (242)</a></li>
7723
7724  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug (162)</a></li>
7725
7726  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/offentlig innsyn">offentlig innsyn (11)</a></li>
7727
7728  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/open311">open311 (2)</a></li>
7729
7730  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett (46)</a></li>
7731
7732  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern (69)</a></li>
7733
7734  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/raid">raid (1)</a></li>
7735
7736  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reprap">reprap (11)</a></li>
7737
7738  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rfid">rfid (2)</a></li>
7739
7740  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot (9)</a></li>
7741
7742  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rss">rss (1)</a></li>
7743
7744  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ruter">ruter (4)</a></li>
7745
7746  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/scraperwiki">scraperwiki (2)</a></li>
7747
7748  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet (35)</a></li>
7749
7750  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary (4)</a></li>
7751
7752  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/skepsis">skepsis (4)</a></li>
7753
7754  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard (44)</a></li>
7755
7756  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stavekontroll">stavekontroll (3)</a></li>
7757
7758  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stortinget">stortinget (9)</a></li>
7759
7760  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance (22)</a></li>
7761
7762  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sysadmin">sysadmin (1)</a></li>
7763
7764  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/valg">valg (8)</a></li>
7765
7766  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video (40)</a></li>
7767
7768  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/vitenskap">vitenskap (4)</a></li>
7769
7770  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web (29)</a></li>
7771
7772 </ul>
7773
7774
7775     </div>
7776     <p style="text-align: right">
7777  Created by <a href="http://steve.org.uk/Software/chronicle">Chronicle v4.6</a>
7778 </p>
7779
7780   </body>
7781 </html>